Baker Mayfield & Alex Caruso, MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred, Scottie Scheffler Dominates The Open + Mt Rushmore Of Best Bad Movies

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.

From producer Jordan Peele, the movie Hymn asks the question: Would you sell your soul for greatness?

What are you willing to sacrifice?

Activate my hymn on September 19th.

Do you want what I have?

What if I say no?

I ain't the killer, but don't push me.

Experience fear like never before.

It's time for me to show you exactly who I am.

Canon, directed by Justin Tipping.

Only in theater, September 19th, read it R.

On today's part in my take, we have two great interviews.

We have our good friends Alex Caruso and Baker Mayfield together.

That is something we do chill week now.

It's a chill week tradition.

We get an NBA player and a NFL quarterback.

Last year we did Josh Allen and

our good friend Blake Griffin, who is officially five-time Blake of the Year.

This year it's Alex Caruso and Baker Mayfield.

We also have MLB commissioner Rob Manfred.

So that's our second commissioner, PFT.

We've almost got them all.

Two down.

Goodell, balls in your court, bro.

Tell, we got to get Bettman, and then he's got no choice to complete it.

We're going to do the Mount Rushmore of bad movies, which will surely be contentious.

We also are going to talk about...

Good bad movies.

Good bad movies.

Good bad movies.

These bad movies.

Bad movies that are good.

It's already contentious.

It's the best worst movies.

It's the Mount Rushmore bad movies.

What did I say?

The best, worst movies?

Yeah, but Mount Rushmore bad movies implies that they're good because they're on the Mount Rushmore bad movies.

Bad movies that are good.

Bad movies that are good.

Okay.

Bad movies was the text that was sent.

I'm ready for it either way.

I'm ready for it.

This is going to be the most contentious movie.

It will be.

I'm ready for it.

I think we're all on the same page.

Mount Rushmore implies good.

Best bad movies.

Yeah.

Mount Rushmore implies good.

Hank, read the text.

Best bad movies.

Best bad movies.

All right, perfect.

We're ready to go.

Yep, ready.

We're going to talk open championship.

We got who's back of the week.

Hey, everybody, it's Vibs, and this is my PSA to remind you that golf season is officially here.

Whether you end up in the fairway or in the woods, fire up your round this spring with the official shot of golf.

Fireball Cinnamon Whiskey.

Slip a couple minis in your bag for you and the boys so that no matter how you hit them, you're still having a killer day out on the course.

Ignite the fairways with Fireball Cinnamon Whiskey.

Okay, let's go.

Welcome to Part of My Take presented by DraftKings.

Download the DraftKings app and use code TAKE.

That's code TAKE for all customers who enter the NFL Best Ball 15 million

millionaire contest to get a bonus ticket and get a shot at being crowned one of two millionaires only on DraftKings.

Today is Monday, July 21st, and Scotty Schaeffler is the fucking man.

He is the man.

Before we get into golf, though, I should say this out loud.

This is our last Monday show without football.

Oh.

Until February.

We got football next week?

We got the Hall of Fame game.

On Sunday night?

No, I'm saying it's the last Monday show that's not in a football week.

When is the Hall of Fame?

There is football next Thursday.

Got it.

Got it.

Got it.

This is the last full week of no football

on the show.

Until February.

Got it.

Got it.

Pretty fucking cool.

Oh, Hank.

Hank.

Jump in the gun a little bit.

I thought it was the last Monday.

Next Monday, you're still not going to talk about football.

Hank's right on that.

I thought you meant the last Monday show we don't talk football.

But jump in the gun.

But Hank,

Hank hates it when we say that football's back.

It's not.

You hate it.

It won't be back next Monday either.

Chucky's fucked up.

He's right on that.

But we will next week

have football, which we will not talk about for more than maybe three minutes because they don't even play the second stringers in the week.

Yes, third strings, yeah.

Yeah, third stringer.

Scotty Scheffler's the man.

He is the man.

He

absolutely dominated the Open Championship,

won minus 17.

Port Rush did not show up.

That was also the wind.

Yeah.

Those courses, from the little I know about Lynx golf

in the UK or Northern Ireland or Ireland, you pretty much need the wind.

Otherwise, it's not as tough of a course.

Maybe some harder rain, some big fat rain.

But there was not that much to see from Port Rush.

The only cool thing that the course did this week was it unearthed a second ball when Rory hit that one shot.

Pretty crazy.

So I was watching that live.

Dead ball.

I thought he had fucked up and picked up his ball.

I was like, why did he just do that?

And also, holy shit, Rory just hit a shot that I hit a million times when I golf.

And then that just shows how good Rory is that he knew right away that wasn't his ball.

Of course, he flushed it, but that was cool.

It was awful.

That ball had been there forever.

Yeah, I want to know what the marking on that ball was.

I want to know what the procedures.

Like, do they have people before these tournaments that go through all the weeds,

all the fescue, and they just pull out old balls?

That thing was buried.

It was buried.

It was, I'd say, maybe four, three, four inches underground.

Yeah.

Like, the earth has evolved since that ball plugged in there.

But when he he picked it up, I was just like, Holy shit, what is he doing right now?

Do you have that same feeling, Hank?

I thought that was his shot for sure.

Me too.

Yeah, I was like, Oh, he just mishit it, and now he's gonna be penalized.

Nope, second ball.

It's kind of like when uh, it happens, you know, at Wrigley when a second ball pops out of the IV.

Yeah, when you hit one into the IV, and there's two balls

time capsule in there.

Yeah, it's fun.

Now, Rory should also feel bad because Rory has unleashed Scotty Scheffler on the world by encouraging him to change his putter like two years ago.

So, I looked up some of the stats.

Scotty Scheffler, before he changed the putter, he was like 170th on the PGA tour in strokes gained putting.

He's awesome at putting.

This week, he was number one.

Yeah.

He was the best.

And since changing to the new putter, he's hovered like top 20.

Yeah.

So, Rory, you fucked everything up, buddy.

He also, I mean, we said this after the Masters when Rory was saying, we were like, hey, this might unleash Scotty.

And it has unleashed Scotty.

It's the year of Scotty wins his second major of the year.

It's also crazy to put in perspective that February 13th, 2022, I bring up that date.

Why?

That was Scotty Scheffler's first PGA tour win.

That's just three and a half years ago.

That's not like,

I think it's, we've had this conversation before.

Scotty Scheffler, how good he is, and also how much older and like dignified he looks to his age.

Is he like 29 still?

I think he's 29.

He turns 30 on the Sunday of the U.S.

Open next year.

It's the only major that he hasn't won yet.

It feels like he's been around forever because he's been so dominant in these three and a half years.

But yeah,

his first win on tour was three and a half years ago.

And

he's, yeah, he has 17 wins.

He's been awesome.

He's been awesome.

It was the exact same number of days between his first major win and his fourth major win as it took Tiger Woods between his first major win and his fourth major win.

So I'm happy you brought that up because I wanted to talk about this because Scotty was so good at the open that we had nothing to talk about.

So naturally it became Scotty versus Tiger.

Is he Tiger?

And then that stat came out that it was the exact same amount of days.

It was, yeah, 1,000, what was it, 1,719 days, I believe, was in between the third and earth, the first and the fourth.

Yep.

It also was the exact same, I think, number of starts

for him and Rory in terms of their fourth major win.

And then Rory had like 30 more starts to get his fifth.

But the only reason I wanted to bring this up is because it did become Scotty vs.

Tiger.

And yes, that is a crazy stat that it took him.

Yeah, 1,197 days between their first major and their fourth major.

Tiger Woods then won the next two majors that he played in.

And Tiger Woods, at that point, got the Tiger Slam.

Yeah, those were the next two to get the Tiger Slam.

So that was

his fifth major was to get the PGA championship, and then his sixth major was to get the Masters.

And they were literally the next two starts.

So I'm not saying that Scotty can't be Tiger, but we got to pump the brakes on Scotty as Tiger because I saw also there was a bunch of stats going around where they picked like a three-year window.

It's basically Scotty's last three and a half years in Tiger

2002 to 2005, which is just, that's erasing his slam.

Right.

And I went and looked.

And again, this is, I love Scotty Scheffler.

I hope he is Tiger because that would be awesome for golf.

But it also is a good reminder of like, I think people need to remember how awesome Tiger Woods was.

So, Tiger Woods, so Scotty has 134 PGA starts.

He's won 17 times.

He has four majors.

Tiger, in his first 134 PGA starts, had 32 wins and eight majors.

So almost double on both, just showing how crazy is.

Tiger also, in his first 250 PGA starts, won 71 times and he finished top three 115 times, almost half the time.

He was top three.

And he had more major wins 14 than he had missed cuts 13.

that's his first 250 starts uh also tiger woods we mentioned the slam tiger had uh a 27 start stretch in 99 and 20 in 2000 27 starts how many tournaments did he win hank 27.

these are pga tour events 27 starts how many did he win the tournament

16.

that's insane including four majors think about that for a second he literally would just win 65% of the time that they would have a PGA tour event for that year.

You can do all these advanced stats.

I go off one, and that's the Chipotle quotient.

And that's what percentages of Chipotle's could Tiger Woods walk into and be able to eat a meal without being recognized?

It was probably like 0%.

0%.

Scotty Scheffler is batting 50% in his own city.

That's true.

Right now.

That's true.

Another crazy Tiger stat because there's so many of them.

And again, love Scotty.

Scotty won, so this is his 10th 10th consecutive tournament win when holding the outright 54-hole lead.

Basically, if he's winning the first three days, he's going to win the tournament.

How many times do you think Tiger Woods did it?

30.

Consecutive.

20.

37.

Jesus.

37 consecutive times.

Tiger Woods had the 54-hole lead and won the tournament.

And then

another crazy one:

Tiger Woods won five PGA tour events in a row

three separate times.

That's crazy.

Five in a row, three separate times.

Yeah, you're right.

The only thing that you can talk about when it becomes a lopside victory is like, is this man Tiger Woods?

It's off the fair to Scott.

Every young NBA player that's coming up, the only thing we can think to say, like, is this guy Michael Jordan's son?

Right.

Because he was really good.

Like, when you watch a guy dominated golf, you're like, is this the same as we felt with Tiger Woods?

It's not going to be the same.

Tiger Woods was just unreal.

And I think Scotty has to stay ranked number one in the world for the the next 10 years.

Yeah.

To equal Tigers' reign, right?

And obviously Scotty doesn't care about this because it's not, he seems like maybe the most grounded, well-adjusted athlete ever.

The quote he gave before the tournament, he obviously people took it different ways where he's like, you know, I win a major and I'm happy for a couple minutes.

He kind of cleaned it up or explained it better today where he's just like, look, it's, this is, I love golf.

Like, reaching this pinnacle is incredible.

But if it, if everything in my life was defined by golf, well then maybe it would be tiger woods yeah but like that's that's he's very like it's actually incredible for an athlete to be able to say that like i'm really really good and i love winning and i love competing but i have more in life that gives me fulfillment and fills my heart and that also really has to suck for everyone who scotty's going against the guy because he's basically like yeah he's like yeah the winning the another major is awesome but you know what's even better having a family being a well-rounded human being.

Yeah, Tiger was never really a well-rounded human being.

I don't think that anybody said, like, when he was dominant, that this guy, he really got it all.

Yeah.

Scotty, though, I didn't take it when he was saying, like, yeah, my family, all that stuff.

I didn't take it to mean that he doesn't love golf.

Neither did I.

I think he's a fucking psycho

who loves golf.

Correct.

But he's even more of a psycho who loves his family.

And also understands that if...

Golf is the only thing that defines you, there's, yeah, he's on an incredible streak right now, but there will be a streak where he's not on an incredible streak.

And if golf is the only thing that defines you, then you just become a depressed person and you have no meaning in your life.

And it's pretty good that he's got the wherewithal to be like, I have meaning.

I find meaning in a lot of different places.

All right, so Tiger Woods against Scotty Scheffler, match play,

18 at Augusta, both in their primes.

Tiger.

Tiger minus 180.

Dude, Tiger used to, and Scotty's getting close to this, but I remember.

Tiger did it all with Krabs, too.

Yeah.

Pretty impressive.

Yeah.

I remember this because Scotty, I think, what was he before this tournament?

Was he like plus 350?

Plus 400.

Plus 400?

He was plus 450.

There were many tournaments where Tiger, it was even money.

And it was just like, it was Tiger versus the field, was the bet you were making.

And yeah, I think it's also what we do in all sports because we want the thing that we thought we'd never see again to be.

something we're seeing again where we say oh watching tiger in his prime was an insane almost religious experience.

We want that to happen again.

And Scotty might get there because he's starting off in a way that like if he stacks up another, if he duplicates these next three and a half years the same as these last three and a half years,

he

still wouldn't be as dominant as Tiger, but it would be pretty damn close.

You know what the difference is?

With Scotty, when he's winning this tournament, we kind of, we want there to be drama at the end.

Well, that's good.

We don't know, but I think it was totally different.

I think with Scotty, it's like you want there to be drama in the final round.

After it's kind of a boring final round, Scotty just keeps making par putts when you think he might slip up, and he ends up winning the whole thing.

We're like, it would have been nice if it was closer at the end.

With Tiger Woods, when you were watching Tiger, you were tuning in specifically to watch Tiger beat the fuck out of everybody.

You got more excited the more lopsided that the fight got.

Scotty hasn't gotten to that place yet.

No.

I don't know if that he will.

I don't know if he will either, but he's awesome.

And it's very cool to see him be as dominant as he's been.

I think it could turn into like a Jordan LeBron thing, too, where Scotty could just play more and get better stats.

Yeah.

But people will always be like, it's just not Tiger.

We should also say that, I mean, Scotty probably is playing against tougher opponents.

Yeah, definitely.

Because the Tiger effect.

All people inspired by Tiger.

Correct.

Are here.

And so

that absolutely should be stated.

And again,

this is 0% slight on Scotty because I love him.

It's just the Tiger, we just need to remember every now and then how incredible Tiger was.

Yeah.

And just how insane that stretch.

I mean, again,

what did I say?

Was it 27 starts and he won 16 of them?

Yeah, it's pretty incredible.

That's insane.

27-star stretch where he won 16 tournaments, including four majors.

That's so stupid.

I do think all the perspective stuff helps Scotty when it comes to his bounce back stats.

Yeah.

Did you see the stat that they put out where it's like if he hits a bogey 36% of the time the next hole, he's going to make a birdie.

Yeah.

And just wipe that out.

Yeah, yeah.

There was, it was like.

And the tour average is, I think, 13%, and he does it over a third of the time.

Because there was that stretch today when I was watching where it was, I think he was up eight early and eight strokes, and then it was,

I was like, I walked back to the TV and it was like four.

Yeah.

He said, oh, shit, this could be something.

And then he just corrected it right.

And then he had like two long par putts, like 10, 15 footers that he made, and it was, it was just over.

It was also shout out to Godderup.

Yes.

He's like a European genius.

He's great in Scotland, great in Northern Ireland.

Probably might be listening to part of my take right now.

Confirmed AWL.

Shout out, Oklahoma.

Big year for Oklahoma.

Yeah.

So Chris Godderup, who we'll definitely have to have on at some point,

before,

so what?

Nine days ago, 10 days ago, his career earnings was $2,700,000.

And then this past 10 days, he won $2,700,000.

That rocks.

So he just doubled his career earnings.

What are taxes like when you went over in the UK?

I feel like you just don't have to pay him.

Yeah, you just leave town.

That's just not real.

It's not real.

Just don't go back.

Yeah, that's just not real.

Also,

I would say that Scotty is starting to get a little bit of the tiger, like you can't beat Tiger on Sunday when he's up.

Obviously, I talked about the 10 consecutive.

That was his 10th consecutive.

The How Tongue Lee, who he played with.

I like that guy yeah he said

he said admitted he could be playing for second he said i'm actually quite looking forward to it four shots behind kind of like play for second especially play with the world number one i just try to play my best out there and hopefully make something happen yeah that was before the round yeah he's like yeah i'm just out there just gonna try to and i think he i think he asked scotty for like tips and he was like can we can we like play together when i come to the pga tour and he he looked like he was having a great time out there yeah he did he was like smiling laughing he knew that he wasn't gonna beat scotty no one was gonna beat Scotty.

Do we think

the other two things I had was, I feel like the broadcast was trying to will Rory a little bit.

Oh, yeah.

Too.

The fans.

Oh, yeah.

Just a little bit.

Yeah.

A little bit.

Scotty was demolished.

This scene on 18 on Saturday.

They were acting like he was Sunday and he was winning.

It was one of the greatest scenes I've ever seen in sports.

It was a little much.

Yeah.

Also, Bryson might have figured out Lynx golf.

He did.

He actually figured it out before the opening round, and then he forgot it during the opening round, but then he figured it out again.

For the last three rounds.

yeah.

The stinger that he hit like in the practice round that topped out at, I think it was like 30 feet in the air, hit it like 190 miles an hour.

That was a six shot, but has he figured out Lynx golf

Thursday would have begged to differ because, yeah, what was his he shot a 78, and then he followed up with a 65, 68, 64.

Pretty good.

Yeah, so he could have been in the mix if he hadn't shot that 78.

Uh, I have a question for you guys: is Bennett Scheffler the most well-known baby currently?

Yeah, every Sunday.

I would say it's like

Riley Curry status.

Yeah, he had his moment when he fell, which was very cute.

Riley was like Tiger, and now Bennett is like Scotty.

Yeah.

But yeah, he's everywhere.

The fall was very funny, holding the trophy.

It seems like he's gotten used to holding championship trophies.

It's literally every Sunday.

He's really good at it.

He's better than Colin Morkow at holding championship trophies.

I mean, that's got to be like...

20 years from now, you just have a collage of all the trophies he held.

Yeah.

Pretty fucking cool as a baby.

I also like how, right after these rounds are done, right after he wins the championships, his wife just hands him the baby, like, baby, you're on baby duty right now.

Yeah.

I wonder if we should try to get Bennett on.

I wonder if Bennett is getting bored of it.

We can ask Scotty next time he comes on.

Is Bennett, is he bored of all these trophies?

Well, does Bennett have the perspective?

Does he love his family more than he loves championship trophies?

What if Bennett, what if Bennett was like secretly boss baby and he was coaching Scotty and we just didn't know?

whispering yeah what if he's the mastermind behind all of this yeah I don't know is Bennett I'm not ruling it out is Bennett that has nothing to do with the fact that I watched boss baby four times this weekend with my kids is Bennett further ahead right now than Charlie Woods was I uh the same age I how old is Charlie Woods

was he 18 17 Charlie Woods is 16 he was born in 2009 yeah no Bennett's way ahead because Tiger 2009 is when Tiger started to I think that was Navy SEAL's tiger when did he come back uh

also the craziest thing about Tiger Woods that people forget is he was by far the best golfer in the world.

And he just decided, I'm going to change my entire swing.

And be a Navy SEAL.

And be a Navy SEAL.

And then he was great with his new swing.

Yeah.

Oh, shit.

Charlie Woods has only seen one major victory from his dad.

So Bennett's

him.

Bennett's got two, right?

Or does he have three?

I think he has two.

I think he's like one years old.

So he doubled it up today.

That's right, yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yes, because 2009 was, I think, when it all started to, I think that was the Thanksgiving.

Yeah.

All kind of went bad.

It would be funny if history just repeated itself and Scotty was just tigered that way, too.

He was just really, really good at hiding it.

I don't, because when the Tiger stuff happened, I don't think anybody, it was a massive story, but I don't think anyone was like, oh my gosh, this doesn't seem like Tiger Woods that I know.

Oh, I can see Tiger being a psycho and going down that road.

Oh, I disagree.

I remember being shocked.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Because he was like the perfect advertiser, like, you know, the, the,

on every single commercial, had the family, had the supermodel wife.

That was shocking.

That was shocking.

It was definitely.

I think we've, I think, because we learned everything after, we, we kind of misremember.

But I remember being like, what the fuck?

But I think Scotty would be more.

I remember thinking that it was like, oh, he just got an offender bender.

Like, no big deal.

That's how they

got him.

Yeah.

And then when you slowly figure it it out, you're like, oh, shit.

It's way worse than that.

Also, we should, we did a bad job.

I'll take my hand up here.

Phil Mickelson should have won Take of the Year because his tweet from March, here's a hot take.

Does Scotty win in 2025 before the Ryder Cup?

I don't think so.

Also, that's Phil saying that Phil just is saying Ryder Cup because he can't say Europe's going to win.

Yeah.

So he really wanted to say, does Scotty win at all in 2025?

No.

Yeah.

But he had to have a little pride.

He was like, hopefully, Keegan will give me a call and I'll play well enough that I'll somehow make a team.

I'm so excited for the Ryder Coat.

It's going to be awesome.

So excited.

You're not Hank?

I'm excited.

I'm excited.

I'm excited.

It's going to be a war.

Okay.

He might be in trouble.

But it's going to be back against the wall.

So if it was Captain Hank, if you were the consigliary to Keegan Bradley, what do you tell them?

I trust Keegan.

That's what I'm excited about.

No, but what do you tell him?

Trust yourself.

Trust yourself.

Use the crowd.

Get hot.

But in terms of the selections.

Oh, I don't know about that.

Max Homo.

Yeah.

Yes, absolutely.

For sure.

Why did you think about that?

I didn't.

You thought about that for a half second.

I was thinking as Keegan, but I trust Keegan.

Keegan's going to do the right thing.

Got her up?

This website says we have a 54.8% chance of winning.

Got her up?

Well, we do have to always remember that it's being played when you played in the home country almost always wins, and there's going to be 20,000 Stew finders

and Frank Flemings going nuts.

What were those brothers at the Yankees game?

The Copo Bianco?

Yeah.

You got to get the Copo Bianco brothers out there.

With golf gloves?

Yeah, with golf gloves.

Trying to grab balls.

Here's a crazy stat.

If you bet Scottie Scheffler to win every single week starting this year, $100, how much would you be up?

$10,000.

No, $185.

Wow.

Because he lost a bunch and he's always my favorite.

Well,

nothing will make you feel like a bigger genius than betting on Scotty Scheffler to win a major champion.

I know.

And then hitting it.

Like, I feel like the biggest,

like, I've figured out Las Vegas.

Yeah,

it's mine.

I saw Scotty Scheffler plus 450 on Wednesday, and I was like, yeah, that seems pretty good.

Yeah, why not?

Why not?

Take a taste.

Turns out I really know gambling.

Yeah, you do.

It's a great bet.

It's that simple.

Okay, where do we want to go next?

Because I have two stories that I don't fully understand that maybe we can figure out as a team.

I think one of them might be my who's back of the week.

Is that WNBA?

No.

Oh, the NFLP guy?

Okay, yeah.

That one don't fully understand.

So we'll go do that.

WNBA don't fully understand.

And they had their all-star game.

Yep.

They wore shirts that

said, pay us what you owe us.

And then it's just a war online of they're losing...

$40 million a year, but also they're not.

And I never understand any of the math behind it because this is like classic owner shit where they'll, you know, if you talk to an MLB owner, they'll be like, yeah, I'm losing money every single fucking day.

I don't know.

I think they probably should get paid more, but I also don't know anything about how any of the financials work.

The economics behind it.

Correct.

I do know that they're expanding as a league.

Yeah.

I know that the CBA was ratified like a year ago.

Okay.

But that didn't take into account the Caitlin Clark factor.

So the league's going to be growing.

TV rights are going to be growing.

Merchandise.

Merchandise is going to be.

It feels like they're making a lot more money.

You know what they should do?

There should be like a week, one week a year, and this can go across all sports, where all the jersey sales, 100% of that money goes to the player whose jersey it is.

Yeah.

Be like, okay, if you move the needle, we're going to give you a week.

See what your fans do.

I like that.

And then the fans can wear their, I sponsored this player.

I also just go off gut.

Like,

does this number make sense?

Do you guys have off the top of your head what the each team's salary cap is in the WNBA?

If you have a guess.

Like, per year?

Per year.

Six figures.

No, it's not six figures.

I'm going to go with 5 million.

1.5 million.

That's close to six figures.

That's $500,000 off.

It's six figures away from being six figures.

Yeah.

I feel like that should be like 3 million.

I don't know.

That sounds like a good deal.

I'm just going off gut.

Like,

I happen to agree with the shirt because I went gut check, $1.5 million feels too low.

It does feel like we've been talking about them more

in the past 18 months.

Caitlin Clark effect.

Caitlin Clark effect, to the point where

if you were to ask me what the average salary was, I would not obviously guess that it was as low as it is.

Yeah.

So maybe they'll figure that out.

I know that teams are, you're paying, what, 250 mil for an expansion franchise now?

Yep.

So

they're not paying $250 million for something that's going to lose the money.

You'd think.

Generally, that's what rich people do: they buy stuff that's expensive because they're going to make even more money off of it.

Yeah.

It was also.

NFL teams or sports teams, NFL, NBA, Major League Baseball, they'll never tell you exactly what the cost of their operations are.

Yeah.

You're never going to get that.

They will lie.

They'll cry poor, and they'll use that to try to suppress salaries.

So I don't know.

Yeah, sure, give them a raise.

$3 million sounds good.

It just has gone boiled down to a quote-tweet war.

Yeah.

Who can quote-tweet

the picture of them saying, pay us what you owe us with more facts that I might believe in the moment, and then I'll be like, well, let me look into this a little bit more.

It feels like the league's on the up and up, and they could probably adjust it.

I did see Kelsey Plum take a little shot at Caitlin Clark.

Yeah, that was...

That was Mean Girl shit.

It seemed that Team Caitlin Clark.

What do you mean?

Oh, Mean Girl with the pods.

Yeah, yeah.

She said Team Caitlin Clark, they did not seem to pay much attention during the meeting when they were talking about the shirts that they were wearing.

No, she said they didn't attend.

Oh, she said not to be a tattletale, but

they weren't very present, which I think meant they were distracted during the meeting that they were at.

No, so the story, I read into it more.

I think they invited Team Clark 10 minutes before, and they didn't come because they got invited 10 minutes before.

But they also wore the shirts.

So who cares?

Yeah, they ended up wearing the shirt.

Why are you telling them about it?

Play the clips.

It was a very tattletale.

They didn't want to be a tattletale.

It was mean girl.

And then who's that?

Ionescu?

Ionescu?

Sabrina.

She, she, she came correct.

She was like, why would you fucking say that?

Yeah, like, you idiot.

Kelsey Plum.

That was a very powerful moment.

We didn't, at least as players, we didn't know that that was going to happen.

So I think it was kind of like a genuine surprise.

But the t-shirt,

just United Front, was determined this morning that we had a meeting for.

And,

you know,

not to tattletale, but zero members of Team Clark were very present for that.

They weren't.

They didn't go.

But no, we were just.

We had a very.

That really needed to be mentioned.

I'm trying to make a situation light, okay?

No.

Good job taking the era.

Big time.

That's also such a knowing now that it was they invited him 10 minutes before.

That's a setup.

You set him up.

I kind of respect them being, just outwardly being like, I fucking hate Caitlin Clark.

That's like, there's no pettiness about it.

No, but she's not.

She should say that.

That's the only way that you would say something is because you.

But then she tried to be like, oh, I'm trying to make a light situation.

Like, just own it.

And it's very funny because you're saying,

pay us what you owe us.

And then also taking a shot at Caitlin Clark.

We wouldn't even be having this discussion if it wasn't for Caitlin Clark.

So it was Team Clark.

So it was like

there were two different all-star teams.

Correct.

And Caitlin Clark had one team.

She's saying zero members of Team Caitlin Clark.

Not there.

Not like Caitlin Clark and her managerial team are like her marketing representatives.

Correct.

And they were also invited 10 minutes before.

Yeah.

So they didn't come to a meeting that they got the pity invite.

This is a lot of drama about a t-shirt.

It's just so funny because it's like a unified moment, and then you

got to be the mean girl.

I definitely took that as Caitlin Clark's management team.

No, I did not.

Team Clark is the other officer.

Yep, that makes that one sense.

That makes a lot more sense and a lot less petty.

Like the Shack O'G's.

It would be like none of the.

Because they were obviously on the other side.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Shack OG's, Shack O'G's.

Shout out to Shack O'G's.

Okay.

What else happened?

Well, we could talk a little baseball.

Yeah.

Baseball.

Baseball.

We're getting close to the trade deadline.

Hank, the Cubs beat the Red Sox two out of three.

Yep.

I went to the two games they lost.

Oh, pure bad luck.

Bad luck.

Brewers caught the Cubs in the Central.

I have a bad.

I have a...

Max, you can tell me if this is stupid.

You're a baseball guy.

I have a bad feeling.

I have a bad premonition.

The Cubs are very good.

They are the best record in the NL tied with the Brewers.

Also, the Dodgers kind of low-key stink, maybe?

Nah, like...

They are right now.

Yeah, but they don't stink.

They weren't going to lose a game this year.

They're losing games right now.

Would you feel good about a team knowing you need pitching at the trade deadline and then the GM saying we have a good enough team team to be an electric team that's playing deep in October.

To do that, we have to stay healthy.

We have to do the little things.

We know we have the talent.

We don't have to get lucky.

We just have to play really, really well.

Would that make you a little concerned?

Yeah.

Our GM is saying the exact same thing, and we just signed a 40-year-old reliever who was basically retired.

Yeah.

Setting the table.

Setting the table for being like, we're probably not,

we're going to do one thing, but we're not going to do the thing that you think we're going to do.

Isn't this guy like a three-time Philly?

Yes.

Like he's been on and off.

He's the third time that he'll be on the Phillies.

Who is it?

David Robertson.

He's 40.

He's 40.

He's a free agent.

He was a free agent.

He did like a showcase in Rhode Island, and the Phillies signed him.

But I think he was pretty good last year.

He's 40, and he hasn't pitched all year.

I'm 40.

He's 40s yet.

But like the diamonds.

It's so funny that you said that.

I'm 40 of the swords.

I was really fucking good when I did the pitching challenge that you're going to do eventually.

Did I say that?

Did I say that on here?

Did I say that privately?

No, you haven't got anything.

No one knows what you're talking about.

No one knows what you're talking about.

about.

You're never doing that.

I've reached out to a couple of teams.

Dates aren't working out.

Dates aren't working out.

I'm still working on it.

Okay.

But yeah, no, that's funny you have that quote because I'm pretty sure RGM has the exact same quote about our lineup.

It's like, this is a lineup that can win in October.

Yeah, and you know what they're doing.

They're just setting you up.

So they're just like, hey,

I know everyone's talking about this.

We're not going to do as much as you think.

But isn't it kind of true, though?

Yeah.

It could be true that if your team's good, why try to mess anything up?

Because we have four starters right now.

Yeah, that's pretty good reason.

Yeah.

And you need five.

Yeah.

I mean, we'll get one back, but still, you probably need another one.

Yeah.

I don't know.

Bullpen games.

Bullpen games.

Bullpen games.

Just throw all the bullpen.

Everything you got.

Did you have fun?

Yeah.

Wrigley Bleachers Friday afternoon.

The best.

Did you take your top off?

Did not take the top off.

Why?

I I don't know.

I should have.

You should have.

Did you have a beer bat?

Did have a beer bat.

Fearsnake?

Did not win the 50s-50 the other night.

Max, did you ever check the 50-50 of the one that you tried to parade in your face?

I knew you wouldn't.

Didn't look at it.

I had no idea.

I just

tried to.

Max went to a Cubs game was like three weeks ago and tweeted and was like, I'm probably going to win this.

And then I texted him and I was like, hey, check the ticket.

I'm pretty sure that's like a three-week 50-50.

That's bullshit.

And he was so mad.

It is bullshit.

I've been banging the drum about this.

It's bullshit what they've done.

I would love to know the amount of winners that don't

accept the prize.

That has to be why they do it.

I think they have your information, so they might reach out to you.

How do they have my information?

That's your credit card.

Is that true?

Is that how that works?

I think so.

Then you get an email to it.

Just load it into your account.

I have no idea.

I literally have no idea.

I remember I took

it.

waiting for the setting.

I was like waiting for the seventh inning.

I was like, when are they going to announce this?

When are they going to announce this?

And then I got the tech.

So you were like, you're not getting that till Sunday.

And I was like, I don't give a fuck by Sunday.

You should show up just randomly and be like, I'm here for my 50-50.

I lost my ticket.

You think I could check?

Yeah, you can see past winnings.

All right, I'll get back to you.

All right.

Well, actually, you know, Max, we have one other thing.

The Eagles Super Bowl rings.

Should we talk about them?

Sick.

I wanted.

I really, really, really wanted to come in here and make a case for the wings flapping out to be fucking

lame and stupid and like what happened to the good old days with the Super Bowl ring.

But every time they pop out, I'm like, damn, that's cool.

It's pretty sick.

You can't do anything about it.

It looks a little bit like a mustache.

It's just...

But it's cool.

Mustaches are also cool.

Listen, I would say...

See that growth, though, Max?

I literally wanted to come in here and try to fight you over this.

And I was like, but then I kept on watching it.

And I was like, I can't say anything because I think that's really cool that they did that.

I think making fun of a team for having a lame Super Bowl ring is, that's even too big of a loser move for me to do.

Yeah, but I wanted to.

It's so stupid.

You're wanted.

Super Bowl Ring sucks.

I wanted to.

I have a take.

I have a negative take about it.

Okay.

I feel like this should be an in-season thing.

In a game?

Isn't there like a pre-game thing that you get?

That's the banner night.

Oh.

I feel like you should get them that day.

Well, then, you have to get the best.

But then they have the guys that are on different teams.

Yeah.

Like, NBA does that.

But

I think that's what I was thinking.

Actually, MLB, I believe, does it as well.

Yeah, I think they do.

I think there's something about like it's just another game to get to get excited.

Banner night.

I know.

Banner night.

Banner night.

Cowboys.

Are we under?

How many days away are we?

Can we get a countdown?

Can we get a

run?

We should get a

seven weeks.

Zach, we need a clock in this studio, and we'll name it the Ryan Rossillo clock and we're going to count down till kickoff of week one.

Okay, we can do that.

And then as soon as week one kicks off, I want a new countdown for week one of 2026.

Yes, sir.

I'm so excited.

So excited.

Football's back.

Same.

These days, every business leader is under pressure to save money, but you can't crush the competition just by cutting costs.

To win, you need to spend smarter and move faster.

You need Brex.

Brex is the intelligent finance platform that breaks the trade-off between control and speed with smart corporate cards, high-yield banking, and AI-powered expense management.

Join the 30,000 companies, including Barstool Sports, that spend smarter and move faster with Brex.

Learn more.

Brex.com slash grow.

I've heard or injured Justin Herbert because he's wearing red contact lenses.

Pretty crazy looking.

His eyes are red.

Wasn't that

a drug guy.

Didn't they have those like in like 08, I want to say Nike did the max line or whatever it was?

It's been a big thing.

I've seen it pop off and pop off.

Like it's for

some sort of like sports initiative back in the 2000s, but then it became a thing that goth kids were wearing in like the 20 teens.

I just have a memory of just

Kyle Vandenbosch.

That's the red eyes that pop in my head right now.

So these, these were instead of the visor, right?

He said he didn't like to wear the visor anymore because he has to wipe it off.

Right.

So now he's just wearing prescription red contacts.

That's supposed to make the light look better.

I don't know.

Hurt or injured, though.

It sounds, it sounds bad.

It sounds soft.

If you're wearing red contact lenses to try to be more intimidating.

Yeah.

Like he could just wear normal contacts.

It'd be great for memes.

Yeah.

Shane, hurt or injured, Justin Herbert, your quarterback, wearing red contact lenses.

Hmm.

Hurt?

I feel like that's less bad than injured.

Are you worried at all about this?

Not at all.

Okay.

Jared Verse was like the first guy to do it, and he had a pretty good year last year.

Don't you think maybe

it would be nice if Najee Harris had taken eye protection a little bit more seriously?

I do, yeah.

What is the latest with Najee Harris?

He's on the pup list, I think.

No, he's not a non-free ball injury.

And

the Chargers didn't see his injury before he reported to camp, which was like two weeks after the injury happened.

So he just called them and said, like, mine is not that bad.

Yeah, and then the doctors would like send information.

What do you think?

What do you think?

Wait, when was

training camps start?

Last Monday.

But they had a report of football's back.

So back.

So back.

So back.

What do you think Harbaugh's reaction to the red contact lenses was?

He might have.

He probably wants some.

He probably puts them on.

Just to be like, I need to be in the same wavelength.

Can I get a pair?

Yeah.

I would love to hear him get explained what it does.

I would love to hear him get explained what happened to Najee Harris.

Yeah.

It's like, what do you mean?

The firework?

You put your eye on a firework?

Firework problem?

You addicted to fireworks?

Why did he put it in his eye?

What do you mean he doesn't have an eye?

Why were you at a firework party?

And what about that guy in Fresno?

What was his deal?

Wait, there's another Najee Harris?

Which warning you did we sign?

Oh,

he's got to be very disappointed in Najee Harris.

He does.

Shane, any more comments about Justin Herbert's eyes?

Is this the year that the contact lenses unlock something for him and he takes a bigger step?

I hope so.

Okay.

I do.

What's the successful year?

Playoff win?

We need a playoff win.

We need one bad.

But last year we had the easiest schedule in the league, and this year it's pretty difficult.

Shit.

Shit.

But year two.

Jalen Rieger is like a wide receiver three right now.

He's good.

He was drafted super high.

He was super high.

Some are saying before Justin Jefferson.

Did you guys didn't you guys get a tight end, though?

Tyler Conklin.

Yeah, he'll be pretty good.

Okay, you still got Puna Ford?

No,

I wish Puna would be awesome right now.

All right, thank you, Shane.

That was our Chargers minute, as well as our McDonald's snack wrap.

Hurt or injured, brought back an old segment.

Uh, okay, should we do Who's Back of the Week?

Yeah, when they get to our contentious Mount Rushmore, the big thing for us here.

Let's get it done.

On paper, it's easy.

Win and advance.

With the truth,

it's harder than the road they drive on.

12 drivers remain, hoping to match dreams

with destiny and claim a cup filled with history.

The NASCAR Cup Series playoffs brought to you by Xfinity at the Charlotte Roval Sunday at 3 p.m.

Eastern on USA.

Hey, Hank, who's back of the week?

Well, who's back of the week is Max Holloway.

Oh, yeah, our UFC UFC minute.

Yeah, much anticipated UFC fight.

Max Holloway, Dustin Poirier, three-peat, third-time fighting.

Max Holloway, who I was pulling for, I predicted in our preview last week.

Dustin Poirier was

that was his last fight.

You were going against him?

I like Max Holloway.

He became good friends with Max Holloway at Pear Olympics.

Yeah, that's right.

No, me and Max Howell.

When Dustin Poirier was in the bathroom.

Became good friends in Verdansk.

Wait, what?

You played Call of Duty with him?

Yeah.

When?

Back in the day.

A couple times.

Wow.

Hooligans, dude.

Oh, okay.

The hooligans.

Sold over four shirts.

I was second highest jersey seller.

How many?

Four.

I think one was seven.

Who's one?

I forget.

Milfunner.

But no, it was a good fight.

He thought he was going to knock him out in the first round, and then he just kind of dominated from there.

But Dustin Poirier, is he the.

You're our UFC expert.

You can answer this.

Is he the most beloved, uh, one of the most beloved UFC fighters of all time?

Because I feel like it was out like tons of praise.

And he, I don't know if, did he ever win a title?

People are going to be pissed about this.

Quite possibly.

I know that he was one of those guys that fought literally.

He literally did have he never, he was never scared of a fight.

He fought everyone.

Like, yeah, he was a lightweight champion.

He did win the BMF belt, too, right?

I believe so.

But

he fought everyone.

Let's see.

Doesn't break.

People are going to be very upset.

He's being in the lightweight division.

Former interim UFC lightweight champion.

There we go.

Also challenged three times for the UFC lightweight championship and twice for the BMF title.

Okay.

What's his legacy, Hank?

Fought everyone.

Fought everyone.

Badass.

Never backed down.

Never scared of a fight.

I also, with fighters in retirement

like i never believe it wow no he's i mean because they because because then they you know they they get arrested they get healthy and they're like i could i could do one more fight i can make you know a nice payday doing another fight yeah they take eight months off and they're like i feel amazing yeah because i haven't gotten hit in the face in a while

he uh he fought for the ufc lightweight championship a lot

and lost a few of them, but he's he did fight everyone.

I think he fought Connor like three times

and Max Holloway three times.

I think even Khabib lost to Khabib.

He would never turn down a fight.

Who's the best undercard, Hank?

I'm over main card guy.

Yeah.

Okay.

Same.

Yeah.

You stay just the main card.

Yeah.

Like true UFC fans, but I understand.

Yeah.

Shout out to Dustin Poirier.

I watched the whole card as well.

Oh, Max.

What the fuck?

What a UFC guy.

What the fuck?

We need a UFC guy.

I got one segment.

I watched the fight.

I was just saying.

I was just saying.

I watched it.

What did you think?

All my bets lost.

That's basically the first thing.

That's a great recap.

That's a good idea.

That's a terrible recap.

That was great.

I liked it.

I texted Jack Mac CFB.

Give me your plays.

And three out of four lost.

And that's basically what I got.

Oh, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.

It's Kelsey Plum over here.

Why are you taking a shot at Jack Mac?

I was just telling you.

I was just telling you.

Tell me that was unnecessary.

What did you say?

Why did you text me?

He's Kelsey Plum.

Did you text me?

I should have texted Kika.

I should have texted him.

Is Kelsey Plump?

Did you play something?

It's K-E-L-C-E.

Yeah.

Kelsey Plum.

I also feel like

I don't watch a lot of UFC fight.

I feel like they should attack more.

You're the shoot-the-puck guy of UFC.

I was just watching all the fights, watching my bets,

and my guys were losing, so I needed them to get a K-O for the fight.

And I just kept being like, all right, now attack, attack.

And then they just keep playing defense and never attack.

I'm like, it's the only way you can win this fight is if you attack.

Go attack.

You should be a corner guy.

Yeah.

Punch small.

You gotta punch him.

You gotta punch him.

Yes,

I don't get it.

That's my UFC take.

Zach, are you a sneaky UFC guy?

I'm not a sneaky UFC guy.

I watched it because I just don't have the knowledge.

Wait, but did you watch the whole card?

I did not.

I just see the clips on Twitter.

Oh, okay.

All right.

So not a UFC guy, no.

Not at all.

Because there is a big, I feel like Venn diagram of like gamers.

Yeah.

yeah ufc memes are you ufc guy memes is an everything guy uh sometimes i mean it's like uh once every three weeks what did you think about this fight uh

it was okay yeah pretty good recap yeah it was it was just okay did your best hit

no i'm taking a break

oh oh oh okay

also there should be more chaos yeah yeah definitely no too much defense there's too much defense yeah i want i want more they should be standing up and just throwing things.

Throwing.

Yeah, yeah.

It would be a much better sport.

Like boxing?

You got bigger gloves.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

I'm dumb.

There should be corners, actual corners, not this octagon circle shit.

For a second, I was like, yeah, Hank's on to something.

You might have found something.

I was like, that could be it.

I actually like when a guy gets choked out.

Something about it.

No, I want more things on the ground.

Primal.

There wasn't a lot of groundwork going on this week.

My favorite is when somebody refuses to tap out and then gets choked out.

Yeah, yeah.

They get their arm broken.

Yeah, yeah.

They're like, I'm just not going to tap.

Jesus didn't tap.

Neither will I.

I love UFC more than anyone, but it's very violent.

Put it on a quote card.

That's our UFC guy.

You can't be our UFC guy and say that.

It's very violent.

Hank wants less punching.

Me and Hank couldn't be on opposite sides of the spectrum of this shit.

I think you might have to be our UFC guy, Max.

No, no, no, no, no, no.

I like Hank doing it because, I mean, last week his preview was, or his recap was just the commercial.

That was also probably the one time I will ever.

Like, I was just with the boys, and then.

That is a great thing.

And when I say with the boys, I'm saying by myself.

But like three or four times a year, I'll just, like, Saturday night, just be like, yeah, I'm going to fucking buy this.

It'd be awesome.

Well, it's also, this is the time of year.

You're drunk with your boys watching UFC.

Yeah, because you just do, yeah, you just lock it.

It's the time of the year where the

kids die hard.

Yeah.

Throwing knives at each other.

Yeah,

my mom's not going to like that video.

Did she see it?

She will now.

Yeah, she's going to hear this.

Was that or was that real?

One video?

Mama Delente, your son was throwing a large butcher's knife to his friends.

I've actually played that game before.

It's so fun.

It's so fun.

I don't care anymore.

And everyone, the people were mad.

The only thing I was worried about is if your button pushing finger got hurt, you'd be be in a problem.

The best would be if it just landed on his foot.

Yeah.

Hurt his foot.

No, I can't do dingers only.

Yeah.

No, but that is a fun game.

Great game.

Great game.

Because the worst that's really going to happen is you.

Wow.

There's definitely some really bad things.

What's the worst thing that could happen playing catch the knife?

You should do it with a gun.

No, that's what I'm saying.

It could be like people, like, guns are way worse.

Yeah, true.

For that game, maybe not.

No, wrong.

Bad thing.

We should play some bad thing.

If it was unloaded.

We should play a couple rounds.

We should put one bullet in it.

One bullet?

Yeah.

A single bullet.

We should play a couple rounds.

That's the other thing.

I don't think you can post it anywhere.

What?

That game.

A knife toss?

Yeah, for people who don't know.

I think, like, Twitter.

He literally was just throwing a knife.

It's Chef Donnie.

Chef Donnie is an adrenaline.

Chef Donnie is the one who originated the game.

I think he pretty much landed.

I actually have to ask him where.

Is it a cooking thing?

Because I did play it in college, so I don't know if it's a and he went to Wisconsin too, but I think it's probably a cooking thing.

I think that's like a chef thing.

Tom Lay said he had also played it in college.

I had never played it before Chef Donny recommended that I play it.

But for people who don't know, Chef Donny, he I'm pretty sure he like jumped out of an airplane, landed in his apartment, then started playing the Knife.

Yeah, we've talked about him recently because he's the one who bought a parachute off of Facebook Marketplace.

Yeah,

is that the one he used?

Yes.

That's the

video of him parachuting yesterday.

That's the parachute that he uses.

He bought off of still alive.

Still alive.

Biggest junk science guy, maybe, in this world.

He has like astronaut underwear.

I love it.

Oh, Stephen Che just sent us a dingers-only update.

We got

Brandon in first with 34.

Jersey Jerry with 31.

I'm at 28 with Hank, tied for third.

Zach, 24.

People were saying your team wasn't good.

PFT, 19.

Max with 18.

Stephen Che with 13.

Who cares?

I mean, doesn't mean anything.

No, that's true.

That's right.

Well, Stephen Che will do the punishment quickly.

Expeditiously.

PFT.

My who's back of the week is labor strife

in professional sports.

So not only the WNBA, but I don't really understand everything that happened in the last two weeks with the NFL and the NFLPA, but Lloyd Howell was the head of the NFLPA.

Then he resigned last week.

And then all these stories are coming out about finding how he was expensing trips to like strip clubs on the NFLPA's dime.

And then

that's fine.

And like, you, what better place to conduct business than a strip club?

That's the guys can't have any fun anymore.

Exactly.

And there was also a report that the NFLPA executive committee took a vote when they were electing Lloyd Howe.

And I think he only got one vote from the executive committee.

But then they go to all the player reps and get their real votes that count.

And they didn't tell them that, hey, nobody on the executive committee likes this guy and apparently the well the criticism of him i think is that he was too close to the ownership group because he did some part-time work for one of the uh i forget what firm it was he's a consultant a consulting firm that was then given rights to purchase nfl teams so then he could potentially be not only the head of the nflpa but also an owner yes of an nfl team and he didn't tell anybody he also uh who's the guy before him uh tomorrow smith to more Smith.

He wore the hats.

Yeah, the hat.

So, first of all, shout out our friends Pablo Torre and Mike Florio because I'm pretty sure

them as a tag team forced this.

So I'm giving them all credit.

But essentially, it was one of Mike Florio's favorite topics.

It was the Lamar Jackson collusion.

And they found that the teams did basically after Deshaun Watson, all the teams were like, hey, let's not do that anymore.

Let's not do the five-year guaranteed contracts.

Yeah.

And the NFLPA, what's this guy named?

Lloyd Howell?

Lloyd Howell.

Yeah.

Terrible name, by the way.

He shouldn't have been elected just on that.

He, so the NFLPA found out that they colluded and

had the basically collusion, and Lloyd Howell buried it and didn't rub it in their face and use it as a bargaining chip.

And I think that's where he started to get into this trouble because anyone who's doing their job in his job would be like, hey, you guys colluded against my players.

I'm ahead of the players.

Yeah.

Instead, he was basically being like, I'll scratch your back, you scratch mine.

I'm going to pretend this didn't happen.

When we go to the negotiating table, you guys got to do me a solid.

Yeah, he made that settlement confidential.

Correct.

So nobody was allowed to read it until Pablo Torre and Florio got their hands on it.

Then everything blew up from there.

The Pablo Torre and Mike Florio as a duo for the

NFL.

I mean, Roger Goodell's got to be a little worried.

They're like

the truffle dogs, but for legal documents.

I was going to say Woodward and Bernstein, but that's a better conclusion.

They're just two dogs going into the woods, and they come back with thousands of pages of legal documents that no one in the world wants to read other than Pablo Torrey and Mike Florio, and then they distill it into a podcast that dumb people like us can understand.

If you get away from it.

I bet you Torrey doesn't even.

I think Florio might be the only person when it comes to legal documents.

There's definitely.

Tori's probably like, hey, Mike, let's do this together.

Here's a thousand pages of legal documents.

Let me know.

There's definitely been at least one time where Florio has texted Pablo Tori and been like, holy shit, I found a bombshell.

And Pablo Tori's like, okay, cool, cool, cool.

Yeah.

Emphasizes this.

Florio.

We got to do a podcast about their relationship.

If you get a phone call from Florio or Pablo Tori, just hang on.

Oh, man.

Instantly.

Throw your phone in the lake.

It's already too late if they called you.

So scary.

Yeah, we need to.

Maybe someone can make an AI of them as truffle dogs.

just finding shh just tons of legal documents it's uh it's an interesting story i guess the parts that i can understand are interesting and then and then uh jc tredder he was like the next up to be the head of the nflpa yeah he just resigned today yeah so he said he made like a statement about it like affecting his family or something my guess is that jc treader might have been caught up in some of the same same stuff that how was doing that's another pelt on the wall for tori and florio yeah so i don't know who wants to be head of the NFL PA?

I did call Florio on the way in tonight because I was like, hey, can you explain this to me?

Like, I'm like four.

Yeah.

And he did start talking like he was talking to a four girl.

It hurt my feelings a little bit, but it also started to make sense.

He was like, all right, so a guy's got a job.

And he was getting paid dollars for his job to then spend to buy candy.

And then we kept on getting, we kept on finding, when I was talking to Mike on the phone, we kept on getting to the same point.

And he's like, and then he went to the strip club and charged it to the NFL PM.

Like, but why is that bad?

Yeah.

So

that seems good.

My takeaway from that is: fuck you to the strip club for not making the billing ambiguous.

Yeah.

Like the payments on a strip club, if you go to the ATM, if you use a credit, it should always say things like payment corp.

Correct.

It should be the most ambivalent thing ever.

Correct.

Correct.

But yeah.

It's also kind of crazy.

It just shows

you can have all the money in the world and still just want to be like, I'm an expensive strip club.

Because I'm pretty sure this guy, Lloyd Howell, gets paid like $3.5 million a year.

You can fucking go to the strip club.

You can afford it, dude.

I did read one report that made it seem like he got taken to the strip club on his own, spent like eight hours at the strip club, and then left at like 6 a.m.

on his own.

Yeah.

So might not have been with the boys.

Might not.

Might have just been a solo venture.

That's a British name.

do you think he came yeah yeah he had to have eight hours eight hours but then but he's probably doing but that's a long time because do you think he's a freak if he came halfway through and stayed and he's also a freak if it took him eight hours to come

so where did Lloyd these are the questions we have I think he's just doing boots on the ground like putting himself into Sean Watson's shoes as he's doing the investigation that'd be great if Pablo Torrey and Florio got Lloyd Howell on

Pablo finds out and like, you know, stuck it to him about all this, like, you didn't stick up for the players.

And then they tagged us in and we're like, we got some pervert questions for you, sir.

Yeah.

We just got a couple questions.

So you were on the main floor, then you went to the champagne room.

Mm-hmm.

Then you, did you go to the VIP room or did you stay in the champagne room?

Yeah.

Then was there another room that they took you in, the super secret VIP?

Was there any at any point did any of the strippers say, I never do this stuff?

Yeah, is that why you came?

Yeah.

How much glitter was on your penis when you got home?

How long was the shower when you got home?

Oh, Lloyd Howell, you're welcome to come on the show.

We will not ask you at all about hiding the collusion of Lamar Jackson.

We will only keep it to the strip club, and we want to find out how much of a pervert you are.

Not judging.

Judgment-free pervert talk.

Because I think a little bit of pervert is.

Oh, absolutely.

But eight hours is a long time at a strip club.

Yeah, that's what got Florio's hackles up.

That's a long time.

Italian like that can smell a pervert.

That's not...

I mean,

was it in Atlanta?

There was one in Atlanta, Magic City, and there was one in Florida.

So I'm not familiar with Tootsie's Cabaret.

So I'm not familiar with Magic City.

If it is an 11-type club.

It is.

Magic City is popping.

Oh, then eight hours is okay.

And they've got great food.

That's the Lou Williams.

Yeah, that's right.

That's right.

Okay.

Good Who's Back?

My Who's Back is Cold Play.

Oh, why?

They're doing a tour.

That's awesome.

Yeah.

I bet their tour is really good.

Really good.

I bet it's getting a lot of pub on social media.

A lot of pub.

A lot of people talking about Cold Play.

Yeah, that's so cool.

Good for you.

Had a predatory tour.

La Vita Vita.

Vita La Vida.

Vita La Vita.

Uh-huh.

I was going to say La Vida.

Viva La Vida.

Viva La Vida?

Yeah.

I kind of like Cold Play.

Cold Play fucking rocks.

I know.

People were kind of shitting up Cold Play.

This guy,

the Kiss Cam,

quite something.

Quite something.

And now I think it's been reported to a point where we can actually talk about it and not get in trouble.

I think he resigned.

He released a statement.

Yeah, he released a statement.

Well, there were some fake statements, too, being released.

Was the one when he was blaming Cold Play?

I think that was fake.

That was fake.

Yeah.

When he came out as a Cold Play fan?

No, he said like.

Oh, they got a private moment.

Yeah, like it was unfair of Coldplay to put that up.

I think that was.

Even though when you sign, I'm pretty sure when you buy a ticket to any sporting event, like the terms and conditions are

fake.

Also, just.

I mean, I guess this is a learning experience that if you're on the Kiss Cam in a situation that you don't want to go viral, maybe don't drop to the ground and try to crawl out of the room.

Yeah, maybe try to play it off.

But his thought was that people at the show would recognize him because he's a CEO.

And then I thought, like, was I supposed to know who this guy was?

What's the name of the company?

Astronomer.

Yeah, that sounds like a fake company.

Yeah.

So, um, also, every I wanted the Cubs to do it this weekend.

Every sporting stadium should be just do a cold play cam for the next few weeks.

Yeah, who's they were running it up?

Yeah, they were running it up.

Uh, yeah, I mean, I also stay woke.

I feel like Cold Play might have set this whole thing up because we're talking about Cold Play.

Online, Cold Play is getting talked about more than they've ever been talked about.

So much.

Wouldn't you agree?

Well, I mean, it was a stadium tour.

Coldplay, Cold Play.

Cold Play rocks.

I also would argue it's good for Astronomer.

The company?

Well, it was also their head of HR.

Have you ever heard of Astronomer, though?

Before this?

Now everyone knows.

I still don't know what they do.

Yeah, what do they do?

Also, the Phillies did it.

Yeah.

Philly Fanatic.

the Fanatic.

Yeah, dude, the Ms.

Fanatic's got a dumper.

Look at that thing.

I'm more of a Mrs.

Met guy myself.

Also,

I shouldn't have done Coldplay first.

I should have done my second Who's Back first because if we're talking about misappropriation of funds, boys, we might have our own.

We might actually have to have Pablo Torrey and Mike Florio

investigate something for us because I was alerted to something.

I think you guys were tagged in this as well.

At least you were PFT.

Our good friend and fantasy manager, Jerry O'Connell, went on Andy Cohen's show this past week with his lovely wife, Rebecca Romaine.

All due respect.

And there was a bombshell dropped.

After 18 years of marriage, a long-time couple made a surprise admission about how they manage their finances.

We keep our money completely separate.

Romaine, 52.

They didn't have to put in her age.

Confessed during an interview with Andy Cohen on Sirius XM.

She's only 52?

Yeah.

Wow.

So Jerry,

he could be paying for the whole league.

Oh.

Driveway.

He's throwing us a song and dance about how he only could pay for a third of the league.

Yeah, and he's saying a lot of things about how he has to explain things to his

misappropriation of funds.

No, it's more...

I'm disappointed.

Like, he's taking us for a ride.

Yeah.

How many times do you think he's going to the strip club with the two-thirds of the payments we're paying?

This is bad, Jerry.

This means we might need someone as oversight.

This is bad.

Oh, yeah.

Florio being the oversight would be good.

Florio would not let Jerry do anything.

Drop a contract, have him locked in.

Non-compete clauses.

I guess we'll find out how much he wants to manage our team when he decides how much he wants to pay for our team.

Price just went up.

Price just went up.

Talk your way into that.

I hope you got the headline you wanted, Jerry.

I do.

I actually kind of hope, like, Jerry walked out of that interview and looked at his wife.

He was like, why'd you fucking say that?

The boys are part of my take are going to know that I could pay for more than just a third of the fantasy team.

It was a great excuse that he had.

I bought it.

Yeah.

I could also see a world where Jerry told her to say that on the interview.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Just to, you know, drum him up a little bit, get his name buzzed on page six.

I also could see a world where

Rebecca Romaine, all due respect, maybe has access to Jerry's finances, but he doesn't have access to hers.

Yes.

I think that could very well be the truth of the matter.

I want to know what the event was that made her say, Jerry, we need to have separate finances.

Probably fantasy football.

Probably fantasy football.

Yeah, actually, I'm going to come all the way around.

Jerry, you're vindicated because you just love the game so much.

That's why he had to separate the finances.

Okay, Zach, who's back of the week?

My Who's Back of the Week this week is the Pittsburgh Pirates because on Saturday, the Pittsburgh Pirates had a

they celebrated Mac Miller in the stadium.

So they had some nice chalk drawings out front.

They did a message wall where fans could write some positive messages.

They also did

a collaborative bobblehead with the family, in design with the family, and sold some merchandise to help go towards the Mac Miller Fund, which does help lower privileged children in the area.

I thought it was an all-time move.

Pittsburgh guy, the pirates celebrated him.

Look at a great day.

Yeah, very cool.

There was like a line down

across the bridge, I think.

Yeah, it was like the whole city showed up.

It was fantastic.

Very cool.

And the Pirates' ownership still needs to be taken to task for being bad owners.

But this is a cool move.

Wow, it was packed.

Good who's back.

Should we do our Mount Rushmore?

Before we get to the next one, Max is ready to fight already.

Max is pretty mad about this.

Okay.

All right.

Let's do a couple ads and we'll get to Mount Rushmore.

Sick of juggling a million apps just to catch your favorite team on Sunday with NFL Sunday ticket and YouTube TV.

You don't have to.

Now you can watch every game every Sunday with features that make your NFL viewing experience even better.

Want to watch multiple matchups?

Use multi-view to watch up to four games at once into fantasy.

Track your team in real time with Fantasy View.

Miss the play.

Key Plays lets you jump into the biggest moments so you're always caught up.

New users can score NFL Sunday ticket for eight payments, $34.50 a month.

Sign up today at youtube.com slash pardon my tate to get started.

New users pay $276 or 8 non-cancelable payments of $34.50 a month first charged at purchase.

Availability varies.

With NFL Sunday Ticket for out-of-market games and YouTube TV, Base Plan for local and national national games base plan require device and content restrictions apply terms and embargoes apply exclude digital only games commercial use excluded no refunds we're all if you thought goldenly breaded mcdonald's chicken couldn't get more golden thank golder because new sweet and smoky special edition gold sauce is here made for your chicken favorites i participated in mcdonald's for a limited time okay mount rush more time uh we're doing best bad movies and there's been some pre-fights when max is just He's pre-mad.

He's ready to go.

I don't say that.

I was sitting up in my office and I heard you yelling.

That's not true.

That is true.

I didn't even talk to you.

Are you yelling in the kitchen?

Well, that's just my normal volume.

It felt.

There was nobody else in the.

PFD and Hank weren't even in the kitchen.

It was me and memes just talking about.

Well, there were some.

I'm always talking with your hands.

I'm always talking with my hands.

Are you Italian?

Yeah.

Well, there were some pics that I told me, even even memes, I was like, no, that's a good movie.

We can't.

Are we doing any guidelines?

Are we just going, are we going to go, say, a movie, and then we're going to debate what is going on?

That's a bad movie.

I think that what is a bad movie is going to be up for debate, but it can probably stay on there if you think it's a bad movie.

I think the tone's going to be set with the first picture.

Yeah, but

we have the first pick.

I love a lot of bad movies.

Are we going off like critic score on Rotten Tomato?

That's what I'm saying.

That's one point.

I will be pulling up the Rotten Tomato of every single movie.

I love that.

I'm having integrity with this because

it's movies that I know are bad, but I enjoy watching.

We're going integrity.

I'm down to go integrity.

Yeah, I'm down to go integrity too.

Okay.

Because we had some picks that

for some reason are.

And they have to be bad on both.

They have to be bad on the tomatoes.

Oh, I don't know about that.

Yes.

Well, that's the best bad movie.

It's a bad movie judged by critics.

Listen, I think the ultimate judge is going to be the fans that vote on the Mount Rushmore.

But there are awesome awesome movies that have like especially comedy movies yeah that are loved by everyone

but there's still bad like there's there's no that doesn't that's not a bad movie like a bad critic and they have to be bad on both but max and people will see that and be like that's not a bad movie i'm not going to vote for that list

ah

i don't know sounds like you don't trust the awful that's a decent point i mean there's some yeah but people are going to see like their favorite movies and pick their favorite movies no because then they're putting their favorite movie in a bad category

But I don't see it as a bad movie where I'm like saying, like, this is a, because it's the best bad movie.

It's a movie I like.

It's a bad movie that you're going to watch, even though you know it's bad.

If I was with someone who is

like a professor, they'd be like, this is a terrible movie.

But with me and the boys, like, this is a fucking awesome movie.

I'm going to give an example that we talked about

that we just couldn't put on the list because it's not true.

But Tineapple Express is technically a bad movie.

No, that is not.

It's good.

I think that's good action.

It's a good comedy.

That's what I'm saying.

Like, that is technically.

But that's where it's on our system.

There are some bad comedies that are so bad that they're kind of good.

Correct.

That's a different category from Pineapple Express.

Okay.

Which might not be going to win an Oscar for Best Picture,

but it's a good comedy.

I agree.

But that is what I'm talking about.

The reviews for Pineapple Express are not.

That's not where I thought you were going.

But you have to admit, if you put Pineapple Express on this Mount Rushmore, people would see that and be like, that's a good picture.

That's a terrible picture.

I didn't think about it like that.

Okay.

All right, good.

We're all pre-mad.

No, actually, I think we might.

And there will be some ones that we'll have to debate.

All right.

So who's up first?

You guys are.

Also, Memes considers himself a connoisseur of bad movies.

I'm passing him the ball.

I'm not even.

Wow.

We're going all memes.

He said he only watches bad movies.

You are Kelsey Plump.

What?

Passing the blame.

Memes sent a terrifying image of Kelsey Plump.

Face match.

With with Kelsey.

Hank, you got the ball.

Oh, shit.

This is Hank's list?

It's Hank's list.

It's our list.

We generated the list together, but we did.

Yeah, we talked about it.

I mean, it is a tone setter.

Probably not a draft you really want, the 1-1.

But our first pick is going to be Conair.

I feel like that's a good movie.

Great, awesome movie.

It's a really, but you think about the plot of the movie.

It's bad.

Give me back that bonet.

Yeah.

That's a 68%

58%

Cameron Pope.

Tomato Meter.

This is.

That's a good movie.

But it's bad.

But

that's way higher than anything I had.

Yes, way higher than what I had.

I had everything way lower.

There's so many better Nick Cage movies, too.

Yeah.

I'm from out.

I have some.

Well, yeah, there's better Nick Cage movies, but.

No, there's bad, like, that's a good Nick Cage movie.

These, these, this movie rocks.

This is a good movie.

There shouldn't be a popcorn on any of these.

This is a good movie.

What are we talking about?

All of ours are in the 20s, by the way.

We looked up our critic score, and we're.

Nothing touches 50.

No.

Most of the people are in the 30s.

Yeah.

20s and 30s is where we're living as well.

But it's okay.

If you guys want to go that route, you can go back.

Yeah, yeah.

All right.

We'll go with our first pick.

We're just talking about him, Kangaroo Jack.

I told you, memes.

I'm happy that

memes and I were battling over this, and he was like, it'll be there in the fourth.

It'll be there there in the fourth.

No.

I'm happy that you guys were before us, and we never.

I would have been devastated if we lost.

We thought about going to all Jerry O'Connell movies.

I mean, Kangaroo Jack is a bad movie, but it's fucking good.

I like it.

9%.

It's such a hilarious movie-like premise.

When we have Jerry on at the end of the summer to do our fantasy, we got a DVD commentary.

Yeah, not only DVD commentary, but be like, what, when you got pitched this,

like, what went through your head head right away?

Well, the movie isn't even about a talking kangaroo.

That's like one minute out of the movie that they decided to make the entire trailer, and then people went to go see it.

They're like, what the fuck?

This kangaroo's not talking the whole movie?

He looks hot.

He does look hot in that.

We should do a movie review of Kangaroo Jack.

Yeah, which you're oh, at Barcelona Camp.

Yes.

Oh.

Oh, if we got one of those inflatable TV.

Oh, yes.

We should do it.

Yes.

That would be great.

That would be great.

Okay.

Me.

You guys have two picks.

All right.

First pick.

I think Hank's going to take this.

Yep.

You don't mess with the Zohan.

Ooh.

It's on the list.

Phenomenal movie.

One of my favorite movies.

It's

so bad.

It is so bad.

It is the dumbest, most ridiculous movie that's maybe ever been made.

But it's great.

And then we'll go Scary Movie Two.

Jerry O'Connell.

That's a good movie.

What do we do here, Zach?

Do you like four?

I like four.

Scary movie.

Two is a 13% compared to 60% of Conair, by the way.

50%.

What do you mean?

Conair is a good movie.

It is.

What do you mean?

Yeah.

It's a good movie.

Your comedy.

This is Zach.

This is Zach's pick because Zach loved this, and I completely 100% back him up because I think it's a great pick, but he's like, I love this movie.

60% is also D-minus.

But

Conair is like actually good.

Like, I actually, if you told me Conair won an Oscar, I'd be like, yeah, that makes sense.

It's a fucking awesome movie.

Great cast.

All right, rip it, Zach.

You love this movie.

I love this movie.

I love that you love this movie.

We would like to take Paul Blart Malkoff.

Yes.

I like that.

I like that.

I like that.

I like that pick.

Zach, when we were in our pre-show meeting, he was just like, What about Paul Blart?

And I was like, Fuck yes, dude.

That's a bad movie.

I say, but it's fucking good.

It's so good.

I say peanut Blart and Jelly all the time.

It's so good.

All right, what do you got next?

Shawshank?

We are going to go with The Rocks San Andreas.

Good pick, Hank.

Terrible, terrible movie.

Blockbuster, lot going on.

Nothing good.

And then we'll go Adam Sandler.

There's two Adam Sandler movies I think memes would agree that fall in this category of

they're bad.

He's going to take the other one that we should have taken in the first one.

That's my boy.

I thought we were saying we were going to take it in the first.

Good pick, Hank.

Yeah, that's good.

Where do we go from here?

There's a couple pivots.

There's a couple pivots.

Anything sticking out to you right now?

I mean, so we went.

Where did we go?

Kind of heavy comedy.

I mean, I have my.

The problem is, I have a, I have a list of bad movies that probably no one has seen because it's like all action.

Like I'm heavy in the Jean-Claude Van Damme world.

Heavy.

Should we do one of those?

If you don't think it's too niche, we can rip it.

I mean, I

alright, I'll do it.

Bloodsport.

Bloodsport's a bad movie.

It's the acting is so fucking funny, but it's such a good movie.

I really enjoyed it.

Yeah, we did a watch of COVID.

It is,

and also, the best part about Blood Sport is it's a the guy completely fabricated the entire story.

Yeah, he just made it all up.

But like, some of the action shots are so funny, the slow-mo.

Sean Claude, let's just say, not the best actor,

really good at action,

really good at kicking, but he's not exactly the best actor.

But yeah, Bloodsport.

All right.

I feel good about that, Zach.

I mean, it's one of my favorite movies.

And I know that, like, if you had, if you put it in front of a critic, they'd just be like, what am I watching right now?

Got to to say true to ourselves.

Okay.

You guys are up.

Number three, this is probably one of my favorite movies of all time.

What do you think?

Yeah, you got to pick your movie.

I'm going Not Another Teen Movie.

Ooh.

I love that movie.

It's so funny.

That movie sucks.

Memes quotes this movie all the time.

Like thinking I know all of the quotes of Not Another Teen movie.

Like he, it's his, it's like legitimately his favorite movie.

He's a spoof movie guy, which which basically are like cinematic memes in a way.

Like all that.

Just watching it for memes.

Okay.

And then the last one for bad, good movie, do you want to go this one or that one?

This one.

Fourth and final,

we'll go with Norbit.

Ooh, God.

Ooh.

Never saw Norbit.

Oh, it's so bad.

It's so bad.

It's so, so bad.

I had a friend in college that used to watch it once a month,

and I would literally yell at him every single time it was on.

But

I would watch Norbit.

Zach,

what are we thinking?

Talk to me, buddy.

Three or five?

I was leaning towards those.

Which one did you like more?

Norbit's nine.

Five could play, but also five could be a terrible pick.

It goes one way or the other.

Oh, man.

What do you think?

I don't know.

I don't know what to do.

We're stuck.

You got to go with your gut.

I want you to go with your gut, Zach.

Okay, so bad that it's good?

No, it's best bad movies.

Best bad movie?

We're going to go with the B movie.

There we go.

Okay.

Okay.

Is it too good of a movie?

No, it's a bad movie.

No, it's a bad movie.

It's a bad movie.

It's about a bee who falls in love with a woman.

It also was like Jerry Seinfeld's big thing that was like Jerry Seinfeld's back.

I honestly just assume any animated movie that I've ever heard of has like a 98% movie.

No, B-movie.

I've never seen B-movie.

No, it's bad.

You'll like that.

I've seen it.

It's bad.

49% and 53% audience score is bad.

Especially for every animated movie.

And Jerry Seinfeld.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

No, that's bad.

I like it.

That's bad.

But it's so bad.

It's good.

Yeah, right.

I'd watch it again.

I'm actually going to watch it with my kids.

I'll do that.

All right.

We got the last pick.

We're going to go romantic comedy.

I still don't understand how this only has 10% Raw and Tomatoes.

Couples Retreat.

Okay.

That's a good one.

That's a good one.

This will be interesting.

I don't know how people are going to vote.

Kyr is definitely the best of those movies.

It is.

In terms of.

I don't know.

So Norbit's pretty good.

No, no, I'm saying the best.

I know, I know.

I know.

Like, real.

Well, that's why having the first pick

was kind of hard.

We didn't know exactly where to go.

Well, Well, so here's let's.

I was thinking of what me and PFT were talking about were like movies that are always on TV that aren't great, but you're still like, oh, this is, I'll watch this.

Right.

So there was a couple that

I had that like I thought would be too contentious, but like when you looked up at the critic score, they were really bad.

Tommy Boy is really bad.

We talked about it.

But I was like, Tommy Boy is so well classic.

I know it is, but it's like.

Yeah.

It's bad.

But all Adam Sandler movies are bad, but some of them are good.

Some of them are just bad.

Yeah, I do.

The Zohan and That's My Boy are the perfect bad, good Adam Sanders.

I told memes that we couldn't do Water Boy because it's too

good.

We had,

yeah, like Water Boy was on our list.

Tommy Boy also has 90% JoJo popcorn meter, which, like, the answer you could have done is Black Sheep.

Black Sheep.

Look up Black Sheep.

That was just Tommy Boy 2, and it wasn't as good.

Another one, because we were like, we got into a rabbit hole.

We were like, all right, let's just list some movies that might not be critically acclaimed.

Mighty Ducks got like a 27%.

I said Mighty Ducks, but like, that's just too good of a movie.

We had, uh, we also had Kangaroo Jack, we had Commando on our list, okay, Schwarzenegger.

Yep, uh, probably that's the pinnacle of, of, like, bad Arnold movies, yeah, but it's awesome.

Yeah, yeah, I'll just rip my, um, I'll rip my uh Jean-Claude Van Den, damn Steven Seagal action movies.

I had Bloodsport, Hard Target, uh, Cobra with Sly Stallone, uh, Hard to Kill, Out for Justice, Best of the Best 1 and 2, Best of the Best 2 is incredible.

But they're all Lionheart.

What about double team?

Time Cop.

Double team.

It's Van Dam and Dennis Rodman.

Yeah.

That's a good one.

Yeah.

Face Off.

Face Off.

We talked about that.

But that's also kind of a good movie.

Anaconda?

Under Siege, I looked up, and it actually has a really good rating.

Does it?

Unrotted Tomatoes.

Under Siege 2, probably.

Under Siege 2.

I would guess that's probably 20.

Yeah.

Under Siege, what was Under Siege?

Yeah, 83%.

That's unreal.

I know.

I was shocked.

With Joe Dirt.

Yep.

I now pronounce you Chuck and Lee.

Joe Larry.

Joe Dirt is a mess.

Yeah, Joe Dirt's a really

solid movie.

Yeah.

No, Chuck and Larry.

Dirty Work.

You guys ever seen that Dirty Work?

So fucking funny.

So funny.

What about Euro Trip?

Euro Trip.

What about Super Troopers?

God, Super Troopers.

That was a great movie, though.

Beer Fest.

Beer Fest and Euro Trip.

I didn't want to go too good movies back to back.

We did that with Semi-Pro.

We said said Semi-Pro.

We had it on our list.

And out of integrity, we were like, that's too good of a movie.

No.

Blades of Glory probably would have been good.

No, Blades of Glory is great.

You didn't fumble, Zach.

Stop.

Zach just texted me on the side saying I fumbled.

No, you're good.

I should have gone with B-movie.

We don't know how sidebar, but yeah, I did.

We were thinking about going Shark Nado.

Yeah, Blades of Glory is great reviews.

Shark Nado, but Shark Nado was

almost made to be so bad.

Yeah, it was almost like too meta.

Yeah.

So you did fine.

That B-movie was a movie that Jerry Seinfeld did legitimate press for and like went on Larry King and was a big deal shark Nado was meant to just be bad on because we could do a whole other thing like made for TV movies the uh

the the Drew Peterson uh you know why they call me Big Daddy Rob Lowe one of my favorite movies but it was made for TV two for the money

Two for the Money.

I don't know if I've seen Two for the Money.

The Stu Finner story?

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

With Matthew McConaughey, I have.

The Accountant?

The Accountant?

Oh, The Accountant's a good movie.

Yeah, that is a good movie.

There's a part of me that thinks, like, if a movie gets a sequel,

then it doesn't deserve to be on the list.

No B Movie 2.

Piranha?

I don't believe so.

No.

Another Jerry O'Connell movie?

Bench Warmers?

Yep.

Good movie.

Good movie.

Dude, Azure Lowe.

Yep.

I said Undercover Brother.

I looked it up.

It has phenomenal reviews.

Night of the Roxbury?

Bad.

No, that's a classic.

It was kind of fun to see.

Yeah, I mean, it was.

Comedies are tough, yeah.

I was saying to PFT as we were doing this, if we really wanted to get people fired up, we should do

worst good movies.

Ooh.

Movies that are

known as being great, that we fucking

have a great one.

Yeah, we should do that.

Yeah.

Yeah.

They'll get very angry.

The Nick Cages I would have gone were Gone in 60 Seconds and Dance Rider.

Yeah.

Gone in 60 Seconds is like a great movie.

Yeah.

We thought about Fast and Furious, but we didn't know which one of the entire anthology would have been the best, bad movie of those.

Maybe Tokyo Drift.

But National Treasure is a good movie.

Yeah, no, it is.

That again, though, like Fast and because

there's so many of something, then they can't be that bad.

The Fast Six, that's the one you're looking for.

It's also hard because there's good movies.

Like, I was actually, I threw on, for honorable mentions, like, Rocky Four, which is an unbelievable movie.

But, like,

obviously, when you watch that movie, part of you is saying, like, Sly Sloan is not the best actor.

I thought you were talking about Rocky 5.

Rocky 5.

Rocky 5 is bad.

Rocky 5 is bad.

Correct.

Rocky 4 is a good bad.

I honestly think the right answer for this would be Rocky Balboa.

The movie Rocky Balboa.

It's a bad movie.

No, Rocky V probably is the answer.

Again, I love Rocky 4.

It's one of my favorite movies, but it's like Sly Sloan's not a great actor.

Rocky 4 is an awesome.

I know, but when you watch it sober,

disagree.

Sly Sloan has some funny parts where you're like, what is he doing?

I think what this draft has showed us is that we just, we love bad movies.

Yeah.

Yeah, I love all these movies.

Cars 2.

Cars 2 sucks.

Would snakes have a great day.

Paul Newman died.

Paul Newman died, and they had to change.

Snakes on Plane would have been a great movie.

They changed everything.

Snakes on a plane.

Anaconda.

Yeah, we said Anaconda.

Oh, yeah.

Snakes on a Plane would have been a great.

Snakes on and mom.

Do you know what's a shocker?

Because I was like, we made our list, and then I was like, let me just look up what the biggest difference is on

Boondock Saints got killed.

Yeah.

I didn't know that.

A lot of those comedies are like Euro Trip.

Yeah.

Boondock Saints is 26% on the critic score, but 91%.

Yeah.

I mean, it's a good movie.

Yeah, Euro trip.

Euro trip is a good one.

That's kind of what I'm thinking of.

What's the.

If it has

the popcorn next to the popcorn, then it then it's a good movie i also don't understand rotten tomatoes what's the is it road trip

yeah that's a good one too like a good bad movie without a paddle they went to austin austin massachusetts yeah freddy got fingered freddy got fingered tom green's that bad freddy got fingered sucks that movie is fucking horrible i like because i like that guy in road trip i i like tried to watch that one night and i was like this is legitimately the worst movie I've ever seen.

Max Cornaki?

This is impossible to judge.

I have no idea.

It really is.

I have no.

Who would you vote for?

PFT kind of fucked me up with the.

You fucked him up before this.

No, before this, when you were like, will people be like, why is that in the bad movie category?

That's a good movie.

I'm not voting for that.

That's where I feel like Conair might screw you.

It might.

I have no idea.

I have no idea.

Me and Memes literally, like, we picked.

Because that's why I pivoted to Zohan because I love That's My Boy.

That's my boy.

That's my boy's bad.

But that's my boy's sad.

That's so bad.

I was so excited for that movie, and I still like to re-watch it, but it was awesome.

I rewatched that movie all the time.

I was disappointed when I first moved.

I had that movie when it was coming out.

I was like, it's going to be the greatest movie of all time.

It is.

I just thought of a big miss that we had

for being football guys.

Oh, draft head.

Draft A,

shit.

80 for Brady.

Draft for Brady.

80 for Brady.

80 for Brady would have been a good one for you, Hank.

Or what was the Kurt Warner one?

Oh,

fuck the Kurt Warner.

Oh, that movie was good.

I like that movie.

American Underdog story.

I watched that on a plane.

I was like, you know what?

I'm inspired.

That's who I was on Rotten Tomatoes.

Any guesses?

I'm looking at American Underdog first.

American Under.

Look at those ratings.

Whoa, 75.

75 and 98.

Damn.

A draft ticket is 60%.

Oh, yeah.

It's too good.

Yeah, yeah, it's too good.

All right, good, good.

We stay true.

We stay true.

We stay true.

Yeah.

I don't really know what I was saying there.

Okay, good Mount Rushmore, boys.

Also, anyone who has ideas for Mount Rushmore's tweet at memes.

Yeah, tweeted memes.

Pardon my memes.

Best one gets Madden code.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Best one gets

memes.

Best one gets a free DVD of Kangaroo Jack.

Send it to a signal.

Signed by Jerry.

Signed by Jerry.

I hope he has like a whole closet full.

He probably bought them all.

That would be awesome.

Okay, let's get to our interviews.

We got Baker Mayfield and Alex Crusoe together.

Very, very fun.

And then we have MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred.

Cracker Barrel is home to all the more country anytime.

That means buttermilk pancakes whenever you want them, homemade classics like chicken and dumplings, and a country store full of fun finds.

Swing by and visit Cracker Barrel today.

Man, I'll tell you what.

When you're hungry out there, you start acting like a rookie quarterback in his first game, making bad decisions, messing up the basics, being all out of sorts.

That's where Snickers comes in, man.

That thing is packed.

Roasted peanuts, nugget, caramel, milk chocolate.

It's like the MVP of candy bars.

And when you bite into it, boom, it sorts you out, gets your head back in the game of life, satisfying your hunger.

Remember this: Snickers handles your hunger so you can handle everything else.

Snickers satisfies, man.

That's a winning play.

And now here's Alex, Alex Caruso, and Baker Mayfield.

Okay, we now welcome on two very special guests.

It's a combo, a little cross-sport combo.

We did this last year, Chill Week.

This year, it is Alex Caruso, Baker Mayfield, two friends of ours.

Thank you for joining us, boys.

The first question is an easy one.

Baker, would you say alex has one ring two rings or one and a half rings or zero or zero no you have one you officially officially one is the one is the lowest the baseline one's the lowest yeah he's got two hell yeah bubble two is two hell yeah count the bubble i count the bubble yeah i don't know i think it's one and a half now get to the lebron question let's see

yeah all right all right so alex you win the championship you made it these are the two mandatory questions i received two mandatory questions you win the championship you make the comment after that you now have officially have a real ring.

What was going through your head in that moment?

Was it us?

You were part of the conglomerate of people I was talking to.

Don't give them that.

Yeah, it was a little bit of y'all.

Yeah.

And were you surprised that people took that seriously?

Yeah, dude.

They got so pissed.

I was like, all right, guys.

Let me have a little fun.

It was bullshit.

We were addressing the internet.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I tweeted too.

I was like, I had already had three Mickelobes.

We were a couple champagne shots.

We were riding.

We were getting to the top of the roller coaster.

Like, I was saying saying whatever I thought was, was good at the moment.

Yeah.

Congratulations.

Yeah, congratulations for real.

Yeah.

Was it harder than you thought it would be in the finals?

Yeah, I would say yes.

But also, I knew it was going to be like Indiana, we knew how fast they're going to play.

And like they were sneaky, aggressive defensively through the playoffs, and nobody was really talking about it.

But

they were really physical.

They played exactly how we played.

Fast on offense, physical on defense, trying to get a bunch of people in double digits.

Yeah.

I'm happy you guys are together because we're interviewing you guys together because baker i was thinking about this and a question i was going to ask you you thrive off of people doubting you but i feel like no one doubts you anymore like you you got the new contract you had a pro bowl year you were awesome this year you're tough as shit just running over people making awesome plays No one is like Baker Mayfield isn't a really good quarterback.

Everyone knows you're a really good quarterback.

So

are you, oh, okay.

It's always a cuff.

Yeah.

How do we

how do you stay motivated?

Do you go and search and be like, I got to find who's hating so I can get a little chip on my shoulder?

No, I don't.

I don't look for it anymore.

Okay.

I had enough 49ers fans yesterday talking shit to me.

So we are out west, huh?

Yeah, we're up for you.

We're in Niner country at this point, so I'm good.

But do you feel, maybe it's, maybe it's that they just keep switching offensive coordinators for you?

They keep getting head coaching jobs, man.

Yeah.

I don't know if, I don't know if I smell or they just keep leaving me.

That's a compliment to you.

You're helping the promotion.

Yeah.

Was there a small part of you, though?

And we interviewed Liam Cohen at the Combine.

Great dude.

Was there a small part of you, though, that when he did the Duval, you're like, all right, now.

I crushed him.

Yeah, get him.

Crushed him.

Crushed him.

What are you doing?

Stop trying to be the cool guy.

Just do your job.

Be a head coach.

Be a figure.

That's a culture, bro.

I don't know if they want that culture.

Yeah, that was a good thing.

That probably felt good in the moment where you're like, yeah, you left me, but now you have to deal with like the head coach spotlight.

Yeah.

I mean,

he's a great coordinator.

I'm interested to see how it goes.

Yeah.

We still talk all the time, but

he's a great coach.

So we'll see how it goes as the head coach.

Dealing with me as a head coach is just,

regardless of sport, seems like the job isn't worth it.

Yeah.

I have to talk to the media every single day.

No, thank you.

Yeah.

Every word that you say, there's a magnifying glass on it.

People find something wrong no matter what you put out there.

It takes a guy that probably does not give a fuck to be a head coach and be successful at it without reading into it.

The last season, though, very impressive season.

Unfortunate final game for you guys.

Sorry about Jaden Daniels and the Commanders.

It was awesome for me.

Did you?

There we go.

There's some doubt.

Yeah.

There's some doubt for you.

Fuel my fire.

Yeah.

Absolutely.

When the commanders got the ball back at the end of the game, we were like, fuck, they're not giving us this back.

Yeah.

I mean, at that point, you could kind of feel the momentum out of it.

We just offensively didn't play good enough.

And it was one of those days.

Like, we were averaging, I think,

damn near 30 points a game, and we didn't even come close to that.

Just too many mistakes.

But we got a lot of the boys back, all 11 starters, and then some on offense.

And so it made some additions.

I'm excited, though.

Yeah.

Do you look at last season?

Is that, I know it sucks the way that it ended, but do you look at it like that was a successful year?

I mean, no.

I mean, the goal is always Super Bowl or nothing.

It was, I mean, you check off the boxes on your way to try and get to the Super Bowl, division, playoffs, but then after that, if you don't do anything in the playoffs, it really doesn't matter.

Yeah.

All right.

So combo question.

You guys both kind of play the game the same way.

Scrappy, undersized.

What, white guys?

White guys.

Are there any

collar?

Jim Roberts.

Jim remember, you guys said you want to date your daughter.

Yeah.

Are there ever times, though, like Baker, when you run someone, when you're like, I'm going to just run someone over?

Or Alex, when you, I think there was the moment in the NBA Finals when you were literally trying to swim on the floor to get a loose ball.

Do you ever have a moment where you're like, maybe that was a little too try-hard?

Like, maybe I should just dial it back a little.

I think y'all asked me this before the finals.

You remember we had a conversation?

You're like, do you know you're try-hard?

I was like, yeah, I know I do for sure.

Yeah.

I mean, yeah, look at me.

I'm not built to be in the NFL.

Yeah, we can't be cool.

I'm supposed to try hard.

Yeah, we can't be cool, dude.

If you're cool, it's not going to work.

Cool for me is a losing.

Yeah.

So keep trying extra hard.

Does anyone ever say anything after, like, being like, hey, that was a little much?

They chill out.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Maybe on chill week, but yeah, you know what's funny about that?

They did that when I was a young player in the league.

Like whenever I was like on two-way and like just getting into the league because like I have like eight minutes to prove myself and it's like some 10-year vet who's like, you know, it's the third quarter.

They're up 20 and they're like, all right, guy, what are we doing?

I'm like, hey, I don't have any money right now.

I'm not in the league.

Like, this is, this is what I'm going to do.

Yeah.

When TJ McConnell was out there and you, you're watching him play.

Ultimate tryhard, TJ.

You're like dude did that make you think about yourself like wow is this what i look like yeah yeah no i i me and tj i think i told y'all the origin we were on the same summer league team in philly so we had like a nice kind of similar path coming in and we text each other every year when like you do something like you go into a game not supposed to play well and then you just kill all off of effort and you text them be like dude that was that was sick can you imagine how fundamentally sound that summer league team was yeah

honestly not yet great great handshake line after the game yeah eye contact

But TJ McConnell, like in the finals, they're...

Imagine a summer league team slapping the floor.

But the way he plays, it does fuck guys up because he gives, like, I know you can't give 110% technically, but he does.

Like, he would just, like, if he's just jumping every inbound pass 90 feet from the basket, it messes you up.

Yeah, you got to make up for the, like we said, the white guy's lack of athleticism.

But like, you guys do that.

And Baker, you do that too, where it's like most quarterbacks will slide.

And it's like, no, I'm going to fucking run this guy.

I'm going to run through his face.

Do you have to run through someone's face to like kind of wake up in a game?

Do you have to get hit first?

Sometimes, yeah.

Yeah.

It's got to feel good.

It feels real nice.

And I mean real nice Clark.

Real nice.

Yeah.

Yeah, till the next day.

You'll deal with that on a Monday, though.

Yeah.

I think I told you this last time we interviewed you, but the first, I think it was your first game, maybe second in Tampa Bay, maybe against the Vikings.

Yeah.

You ran through some guy's face and then your entire sideline like jumped up.

And from that moment, I was like, I think these guys are in love with Baker Mayfield.

And I was bricked up.

Yeah.

Do you ever get just like a little rush of blood?

Like, you hit somebody, you're like, whoa, a little, little rush of blood below the belt.

Mine never hurt anybody.

It was a little uptuck.

Yeah.

So in the finals this year, game one, you go out.

Could you tell that the logo wasn't on the court?

No, I didn't even remember that that was a thing.

I'm not going to lie.

Bothered us.

Because

being on the court, you don't like the TV when you look at it.

It's different than being out there.

They do need to bring that back, though.

They do, it's it's so good.

The big, the big one in the middle of the court, yeah.

And congratulations, by the way.

I think game seven, like a good amount of people watch.

So, you guys, hell yeah, because I know you guys care a lot about the ratings.

Yeah, that's how we get paid.

So, yeah, that's important.

Baker, you got to be like, when you see ratings worse, do you even, do you just, you got to laugh at it?

Because they always do the like top 100-watched sporting events, and it's like 99 are football, and then one is like the Olympics.

And it's just like football's king.

It is.

Around the world.

I mean, they just keep expanding.

I know.

Took Christmas.

I mean, it's oh, they took Christmas.

No, no, no.

Christmas is Roger Goodell's now.

Yeah, I don't know if you knew that.

Christmas is.

We're the Grinch.

Yeah.

We'll just wait till all-star break.

Yeah.

Christmas is theirs now.

How sweet was the championship parade?

Oh, bro,

it was so sick.

It was so sick.

I drank way too much naturally.

I think I was asleep by 3.

PM?

Yeah.

That's awesome.

Oh, that's fantastic.

She was taking, she was, she's in the back.

She was taking care of me.

It was

short-lived.

Yeah.

I slept from like 3 to 11, woke up for like 30 minutes and slept from like 11 to 8.

Yeah, actually, one of my questions was, how are you alive right now?

Because you went, won an NBA title, bachelor party this past weekend, and now top.

Got in the Sunday sauna Monday night.

Yeah.

And then flew here Tuesday evening.

How are you alive?

A lot of water.

A lot of water.

Shout out body armor.

Yeah.

Shout out body armor.

A lot of water.

A lot of of water.

The parade had to be nuts, though.

The parade's sick, dude.

The parade was so sick.

Yeah.

What time do you wake up on the morning of the parade day?

When do you crack the first drink?

I think I took my first shot of tequila at

8.

We had to be at the facility at 8.15 to get on buses.

I took one of one of my buddies who stayed back.

He's like, oh, that's what we're on.

I said, that's what we're on.

Yeah.

That's got to be cool seeing fans out there just as drunk as you are.

I don't even know if they were, to be honest.

I remember everything that happened, but like the details of what the people were feeling it was all play it was all player one main character that was all i had yeah baker i've seen a lot of baker mayfield jerseys out here in tahoe on the course waiting to see you play a lot of like throwback ones too a lot of oklahoma baker mayfield jerseys when you see somebody that's wearing like an old jersey like a college mayfield jersey are you like hell yeah that's a real fan like i appreciate the effort sometimes yes You can tell based on the interaction.

Sometimes it's somebody trying to be cool, grab a retro jersey.

Yeah.

it's the try-hards, you know?

Yeah,

but I can relate to them at the same time.

You see yourself with them.

I think as a fan, when you're figuring out which jersey to put on, you're like, well, I might seem to, I'm going to wear like an obscure one from way back in the day.

So we see

them a real fan.

Yeah.

Try to catch the eye.

I do love it, though.

It's fun.

If I told you guys you have one thing that is like very much in common, what would you think I was about to say?

What's that?

White.

No.

Anything you have very much in common?

We both played Texas high school football.

Okay.

That's true.

I was going to say Mike Evans.

Yeah.

Oh, I was going to say that earlier when we was talking about the team on Mike.

Mike.

So let's just talk about how awesome Mike Evans is.

Unbelievable.

I mean, did you feel a little bad about getting the thousand yards with the Saints in that whole situation?

I hate the Saints.

Absolutely not.

No.

But if, I mean, we had already, we were making the playoffs.

Situation where you take a knee, go to the playoffs, but we decided to throw it on first and 10.

Yeah.

just to get Mike the thousand yards.

And like that reaction in the stadium,

we'll try hard.

But he is the best.

We always like, we'll have moments in the NFL season where we're like, hey, we're just going to randomly on a Monday, just be like, hey, everyone needs to just respect Mike Evans more because he's so good and he's been so good for so long.

And he's not flashy, so like he goes under the radar a lot.

But I think now

the tide's starting to turn for him.

People are realizing his Hall of Fame resume.

Yeah.

First time I met Mike Evans, I played against him in AAU at Texas AM in the rec center, and he was dunking on everybody.

That was the origin of Mike Evans, and then we both ended up at AM, and I was like, oh, okay, it makes sense now.

He still wears like the old Nike elite socks, like his old basketball sweatshirts, long gym shorts, like down.

I mean, it's Mike.

Alvison Paul, that's what that is.

Yeah.

Also hard.

Players respect him.

The opposing teams respect him so much, the Saints were like, yeah, you can go ahead and have this record on this catch.

That was very cool of them.

Yeah, I'm sure that was their mindset.

Nice people.

Since we have you guys here, with the NBA NFL debate, always happens.

Do you guys think you could play each other's sport?

I suck at basketball, so no.

Okay.

There's a select few from each that I think could cross over.

Give me a couple names.

Like for mine, that could go.

Yeah, and then you give me a couple NFL guys.

Braun could have.

Anthony Edwards could.

I'm trying to think of like.

Straymond.

Lou Dort could.

Lou Dort.

Yeah, fat ass.

Straymond could probably play O-line.

You just have to put on weight.

Yeah.

Great screen setter.

Yeah.

You You know, smart.

Athletes.

I think one of the Thompson, the Thompson.

Oh, they're freaks.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That kind of athlete, you find a spot on the team.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You'd find a spot on the team.

Yeah.

What about you, Baker?

Have you played with guys who you've seen hoop and you're like, holy shit.

I mean, Mike's one of them.

Yeah.

There's a couple of receivers.

Saquon.

There's a couple of receivers that are supposed to be really good.

I can imagine, like, if I don't know if AJ Brown has a shot or not.

Yeah.

But that's a big man.

Yeah.

I know there's some like O-linemen that were really athletic and like they struggle to keep the weight on

between the D-lime and Miles Garrett.

Jokic.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Miles Garrett.

I mean, I've seen him.

I've played basketball with him.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But this is actually minutes.

You can get minutes.

This is a perfect answer because this has always been the answer where they have the debate and it's like, there's probably like five guys from each side.

I don't know if they would have, I don't know if they would have enough finesse.

to be able to play basketball.

Yeah, that's the thing with like to

for a football player to come to basketball, you have to play both ways.

And like for the guys that are like, I could play in them.

There's the guys that are like dunking shooting threes.

It's like, well,

you got to guard and you got to be able to remember like what the hell is going on and doing this.

It's like, it gets a little tricky.

And then you talk about the basketball guys going to football.

It's like, you're going to get hit in your mouth a lot.

Yeah.

Like

you see you think that's you think that's like, oh yeah, I could handle that until it happens.

And you're like,

I don't know if I like that so much.

Yeah, that's true.

There's an element of toughness that

I think some guys could pick, like DK Metcalf.

I think he could probably also make the switch to NBA.

That's what I'm saying.

There's certain athletes that could just find minutes in the NBA because

there's guys in a league that can't shoot or can't do stuff, but they can rebound the hell out of the ball and they're like dunk and put it.

You can play 12 minutes in NBA if you're a good enough athlete.

Who's a better golfer between you two?

That's a good question.

How good are your golf?

Probably.

Alex?

Yeah.

I'm like an 11 handicap.

I'm a little better than 11.

Yeah.

This guy's probably what?

How much?

Six?

Five.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I'm probably.

No, no, no.

That's probably it.

One summer I got down to like a 2-7, but that was just a crazy month.

We're not there right now.

I haven't played golf this summer.

I'm still pissed that the Bulls traded you and also got no picks because they don't get picks for anything.

But

we have a golf simulator in our office, and Alex did it a couple times.

We were literally working and he would just be hitting shots.

Oh, that's all.

It's like, it's right there.

Yeah.

And we could have taken all the credit when you one day win this tournament.

It could have.

We could have started like a little sponsorship or something.

Yeah.

Or like a YouTube vlog, like building up to it.

Give us a cut.

Maybe post-career.

Yeah.

Oh, you want to cut?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Just give us a little

bit.

10%.

Yeah.

It doesn't have to be 10.

Baker, maybe you give us a cut for your new contract when you sign another one.

You think so?

You think you got a little cut?

Well, allegedly they have.

So

I got to believe them.

I don't know if they've ever lied to me.

Yeah, maybe whoever runs the main account at Barcelona Sports should get a cut because of the doubting.

Yeah.

So I don't know if you guys ever see headlines, but when the main account puts it out, a lot of times me and Big Cat get shit for that.

Yeah.

Because it's like they fuck you guys.

Yeah.

We'll take it.

That's our job to be a shield.

Yeah, get a text and be like, what is this?

I'm like, dude, I don't know.

They're just trying to get numbers.

What do you want me to do?

Impeachment.

Yeah.

I didn't say it.

I retweeted it.

Whatever.

I liked it.

I laughed at it.

I dared the guy to tweet it out.

You put the line

in your header.

It's like all retweets are not.

Yeah, endorsements or something.

Yeah, mine mine are.

Yeah.

Mine are 100%.

Baker, it's just whenever if he loses a game, they just play you dancing from the Oklahoma video.

That makes sense.

That sounds right.

Yeah.

By the way, is there anything as you went to a school that went from Big 12 to SEC?

Baker, you just went Big 12 to SEC.

Do you want to give him any tips?

Because it's not going great for Oklahoma football right now.

It's not great for the fellas.

Yeah, I don't know how to, because we went in, we had Johnny right away.

So that was like,

you know, that was kind of a nice crutch to fall on.

We haven't haven't been very not to that level since so

better cruise better get some uh some some good guys into the team the difference like from what i can see is o-line d-line the d-line sec is just bunch of naps like man childs yeah and then o-line oklahoma hadn't had a they're all fast as good of an o-line as we used to have yeah you do have a dude this year though john matir he's awesome he's one of the boys i tried to get him to go to wisconsin like i had phone conversations and it was just

so I was going up against you.

So I outrecrited you?

Did you bring in J.J.

Watt?

I brought in JJ Watt.

I didn't do that.

Okay.

Didn't he walk on?

Well, JJ?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Oh, okay.

So you've been playing NCA football in real life.

It's tough to be, it was tough to be like, oh, what's happened at Oklahoma in like the past 15 years?

They have all these Heismans and also his OC went from Washington State.

So I'm rooting for him no matter what.

I told him that after.

I was like, dude, I'm not going to be like a loser here and be like, oh, fuck you.

You didn't pick my school.

I want him to.

He's awesome.

He's sick.

He's got some shit in his neck, too.

Yeah.

He's kind of like a little, I like him.

He's a little mini baker.

I like him.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I also appreciate the fact that you said that you hate the Saints earlier.

I like it when athletes admit that they hate other teams like Rivalry.

Do you have like a list of teams that you absolutely hate?

Texas.

Yeah.

You guys both hate Texas.

I should have said that.

That was a great one.

Yeah.

There we go.

Yeah.

Texas, horns down.

Losers.

A bunch of losers.

That felt real.

Yeah, you really did.

That's from childhood.

That's not adult hate.

Texas fans and Cowboys fans are very similar.

Yeah.

A lot of them are the same fans.

Illusional.

They're the same people.

Yeah.

They really are.

Hey, what about Coach Doug?

We're going to get another.

Yeah, we'll be back.

Yeah, I can't.

We'll be back.

Yeah.

Playing some college ball for sure.

We're going to start an online dynasty league.

I got time.

I should.

Oh, maybe we should link up.

We should do that.

You probably kick my ass, but I'm bad bad at the, I mean,

40 now.

I suck at people.

You play Heisman, right?

Yeah, I play Heismanism.

It's hard.

It's not easy.

But you also got a staff.

And I also spam plays.

Yeah, you do.

You do.

Baker, do you ever spam plays in real life?

I don't know what you mean.

Like, you just find one play that works and you just keep

over and over, and then the AI doesn't pick up on it.

And then everyone in the chat says you're a loser.

Cheap play.

Cheap play.

Fuck you, big pet, you piece of shit.

Does that ever happen to you?

In like a two-minute drill, yeah.

I didn't realize that's, that's, yeah.

I didn't realize I was going up against AI, but yeah.

Yeah.

We spam in the NBA.

Oh, yeah.

If it works, I'll yell at the bench, run it again out loud.

Yeah.

What's your dip?

Like, what's your, what's the play that you've spammed, and you're like, it just, they can't stop it.

Like, we run one play where it's just like a flat ball stream where you put the worst defender in it and Shay has the ball.

And it's like, if we're like, if our off, if we haven't got a good shot in a while, it's like, all right, let's give the MVP the ball.

Yeah.

Get this like slip screen out of the way.

And you put the bad defender in.

And if they, if they fuck it up, I'm just like, hey, let's run it again.

Yeah.

And eventually they'll change it.

Now we can get back to our real offense.

Yeah.

That's kind of sucked to be hunted in the NBA.

Like some of those guys, they just get picked on.

I was that guy when we first started and then I transitioned into the guy that got taken out of the action.

Right.

And so now it's like, you better, you better have some nuts if you're going to be called into it.

Like you better just stand up and put your chest.

You got to, what do we say, run some run through someone's face.

Yeah.

Equivalent of that in the NBA.

If they call you into the ball screen, you better foul the shit out of them you better do something good because if not you're gonna get put right back into

your defense stays up because you're like i'm not going back to being the guy that got harmed for sure we're not going back there that's about nobody likes being embarrassed in front of 18 000 people no can't be the weakest lang no no and everybody in the arena knows well majority of them know oh that guy's not good that's why they're putting him into the like put him into let let lebron let shea let whoever it is go with that guy yeah yeah nobody likes that feeling speaker how awesome is bucky irving he's the man His name is also very fun to say.

It is.

Great name.

Come on, football name.

Come on, Bucky.

He's a Chicago guy, too.

Yeah, yeah.

He's fucking a beast.

He is.

I mean, he's full of energy all the time.

He's all ball, though.

Mm-hmm.

Doesn't do anything else.

He's just, and he's 22.

Yeah.

It's wild.

When'd you know he was a dog?

Like, this is a guy that we can lean on.

I mean, talking to him, you could tell his mindset he was.

But then, like, in practice, when we're not going full to the ground until a game, like, you couldn't tell how many people are going to really make miss.

Like, some people would get in front of them, but like, in a game, they're not touching him.

So, I mean, it was hard to tell until our first game.

Yeah.

I wonder what that feels like as a running back to where it's just like me and you distance away.

It's like, oh, you're not going to touch me.

Yeah.

Good luck.

Yeah, that's probably a basic feeling.

That's probably the sick feeling.

I mean, it's got to be similar in the NBA where you're like, get one-on-one.

I don't know that feeling.

Yeah, you don't know that feeling.

I don't know that feeling.

But some guys will.

Some guys really like, oh, I'm about to cross this team.

Yeah.

Have you ever called like ISO?

Like, everybody back up.

I got this guy.

Yeah.

One, very, very limited.

Yeah.

Very few times.

Did it work out?

Once or twice.

Usually it happens like when the best players don't play.

And so it's like, I know I'm going to get a bunch of shots this game.

So all of a sudden, your confidence and your imagination gets a little.

And then you tell them to run it again.

Yeah, yeah.

And then I so, like, hey, it's me.

That's the best part.

If I'm the guy, if I'm playing point guard that game, like we played against the Suns late in the year, I had a great game.

I had like 20-something points, a bunch of assists.

And

we had a couple plays where I was like, I vividly remember, I was like, come screen for me.

I'm about to go do something.

And then I scored.

I was like, that's the best feeling ever.

Yeah.

What's it like to be on a heat check?

I can't shoot a basketball, so I don't know.

Yeah, no,

that's a fun feeling where you just like, every time you let it go, you feel like it's going to go in.

You got to have that feeling, though.

Yeah, when you're ripping it,

you know exactly where the ball is going to go on time.

That's probably the same thing.

Yeah.

It's more like, for me, it's more like visually, like seeing the field extremely quick and clear,

Anticipate.

Yeah.

And then at that point,

the arm takes over, but like it's more the mental aspect of it.

Are there weeks where the prep, like when you get on the field on Sunday, you're like, oh shit, I'm like really ready to go because I know exactly what they're doing and I have all the answers.

Yeah.

That's got to feel incredible.

That one, that one feels incredible.

Yeah.

There's been a few times, like every time we played Cincinnati when I was in Cleveland, I felt like, all right, I'm about to have 300 yards at least.

Yeah.

It's a great feeling.

Bengals a lot.

It was good.

It was good.

Yeah.

All right.

I I know you guys got to run in a second.

Now in theaters, Spinal Tap is back.

Time to make some noise.

With Christopher Guest, Michael McKeon, Rob Reiner, and Harry Scheer.

We're still short of drama.

Why?

He sneezed himself into oblivious spinal tap 2.

The end continues.

Now in theaters everywhere.

And I'm giving my last question to Zach, who's a massive...

I was wondering if you were going to get an appearance.

He's a massive Bucs fan.

Not a big intercourse guy.

yeah uh

he's

didn't see that but saw the clip saw the clip where he said he wasn't

uh

he we've we we speed run

ran uh his interaction with you baker earlier and he ended up inviting himself on your boat okay he also that's sick that's didn't go great yeah

you want to go do karate in the garage yeah karate in the garage yeah you karate guy i could be you got room for activities in there

so much room we can run that.

Okay.

All right, so Zach, the floor is yours.

Oh, Big, how are we doing today, my man?

Fantastic.

Great to see you guys.

Want to say I appreciate everything you do for the city of Tampa.

It's so awesome seeing you out there on the field.

Just a quick quick question.

Are there any outside of football, any passion products or hobbies you would look forward to spending more time on later in life?

Ooh.

Deep question.

Honestly, it's the golf game.

The golf game?

Yeah, I would love to see how low I can get my handicap, but right now, not exactly the time for it.

Fair enough.

I love that answer.

Golf great sports, super frustrating.

And then if you're cool, one more.

Is there like a

comfort meal after game or pre-game that you dive into?

That's like your 1-1 of like, you know, this is just going to hit just right?

Ooh.

Post-game?

You just said no.

No more questions.

Out.

Time for one more.

No.

Pre-game, no.

It always depends on the time of the game.

After the game, a lot of carbs.

Carbon?

A lot of carbs, yeah.

Love that.

Because it's just like, you don't.

I'll have breakfast.

Say we're playing at one o'clock.

I'll have breakfast.

Pretty standard.

And then then I won't eat until 6 p.m.

So it's mac and cheese.

Yeah.

Mac and cheese, chicken tenders, wings, whatever it is.

Yeah.

Zach,

Hip Or, do you have a follow-up question?

I mean, you were talking in fast forward right now.

Oh, my bad.

I can still.

You're good.

No, no, no.

I can hear it.

Is there a so concentrated?

So, Heisman Trova, we keep that in.

Man cave, mantle, at the house, different spot.

Bacher Pad, where are we keeping that?

Bacher Pad?

He's very

good.

Second apartment.

Oh, I bacon.

Man cave.

Yeah, man cave.

Man cave?

Yeah.

Sweet.

You got a secret apartment that people don't know about?

Where's your bachelor pad?

When are we going to kick it?

So Zach is a recent hire at Barstool.

He's electric.

So why are you a Tampa fan?

So I'm from Lakeland, Florida, which is like Central Florida.

And the Bucks have just, my whole life, been a Bucs fan.

Yeah.

So he

got to, he moved to Chicago.

This is actually the first time he's been west of the Mississippi.

So we're, we're, Zach is experiencing the new model.

Yeah.

But he, when he moved to Chicago, his apartment was right across from McDonald's, and he gained 18 pounds in the first three weeks.

Uh, tell him what you ate for dinner every night.

This is this is what you should do after the game, both of you guys.

I was, I was with you, bigger, I'm carb loading, just like you, comfort, carbs.

It wasn't too bad.

Just uh, a lot of protein, too.

All right, double cheeseburger, you get two patties, a lot of protein.

I appreciate that, Alex.

Uh, just uh, two double cheeseburgers, no pickle, a little onion, uh, two large fries, and like 10 to 20 nuggets.

Nothing crazy.

Nothing crazy.

He just continued to go.

Yeah, he throws

it.

He always does the nuggets.

That's his McDonald's order.

Just carbohydrate.

We're on the same both two carbload and guys.

And dessert?

You and ice cream?

Yeah.

You have a top flavor?

Like cookies and cream, bro.

Great pool, SG.

Bluebell, yes.

Got nose cream.

Bluebell.

I like Ben and Jerry's.

Makes sense.

Maybe rip a pint or two of that.

Maybe just through the two pints.

Did you get an apple pie i'm not uh no not apple pie to be dominant do they take do they take open like walk-ons for the nathan's hot dog eating competition

well no we actually did that earlier this week yeah not not a great hot dog he's not exactly he likes to enjoy his meal that's a sport thing i'm more of like a pleasure guy got you

no time for anyone no no no yeah i got you well okay one one question what's your favorite west of the mississippi so what's your favorite aspect of lake tahoe being here for a couple days uh the mountains look unreal like it doesn't feel like we're it's like a foreign world that we're in.

Like, we're just dropping.

It's not like elevation like this or any kind of.

Not at all.

And like, there hasn't been a cloud in the sky whatsoever.

We're just on a different map.

This isn't, this isn't the earth.

This is something I've never seen.

This place is not like most out here.

It's a little paradise.

It's cooped up.

It's wild.

What about yourself?

Do you have anything in Tahoe that you enjoy?

Golf.

Free golf.

Golf as well?

Yeah, free golf.

I like that.

Free golf.

Golf's nice.

All right.

Good job, Zach.

Great job, Zach.

Good job.

All right, Baker, Alex, thank you, boys.

We appreciate you coming on.

This is a lot of fun.

And good luck this week.

Good job.

Appreciate it, guys.

Yeah,

hey guys, it's Rhea from Chicks in the Office.

Abercrombie denim is everything right now.

Denim should feel like this: confident, easy, like your butt has never looked better.

If you didn't know, Abercrombie's Curve Love denim went viral in 2019 for eliminating waist gap, and it's still a game changer.

Between that and their classic fits with a straighter line from waist to hip, the perfect denim does exist.

Shop Abercrombie denim in the app, online, and in store.

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.

One bars are the perfect protein bar to get you through your busy day, whether you need a quick pick-me-up between meetings or you need some fuel to power you through your next workout.

One also has other delicious flavors like birthday cake, maple glazed donut, and blueberry cobbler.

Find all one bars at a retailer near you or on amazon.com.

And now for something completely different.

Okay, we now welcome on a very, very, very special guest.

It is Major League Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred.

Thank you so much, Mr.

Commissioner.

What would you prefer to be called?

Mr.

Commissioner, Rob, Bob, Baba?

Rob would be just fine.

Okay.

Well, I appreciate you coming on.

We're trying to collect all the commissioners.

Anytime a commissioner is offered to us, we're like, we have to do it because obviously we're big sports guys and it's very important.

Let's start with, though, congratulations for an incredible all-star game.

I would say MLB is the last sport that has an all-star game that matters, and the swing off was great.

Are you using the swing-off maybe in the future in maybe some regular season stuff?

And how would you assess the whole all-star game?

Well, let me start with the all-star game.

The entire four days was fantastic for us.

It really was.

You know, we had a great home run derby, really exciting.

Great attendance at Playball Park, which, you know, gives people that don't get into the stadium an opportunity to participate in the weekend.

And, you know, the game, although they got out 6-0, turned out to be a great game.

And I loved the swing off.

I thought it was really exciting.

It It was crazy in the ballpark.

Really, really exciting.

Having said that, you know, I don't think people need to worry about home run derbies at the end of regular season games, at least not for right now.

I mean, it's not something we're talking about.

You know, we went to it.

The All-Star game is, you know, different, obviously, than a regular season game.

It gives us the ability to let the managers.

use all the players during the nine innings.

You know, you hate to have guys come all the way to the all-star game and then not play.

And, you know, frankly, for the fans, it's a really exciting way to end the game.

Yeah, it was.

And the swing-off was incredible.

But when I was watching the swing-off, I couldn't help but think: what if the home run derby was built like the swing-off, where we go back to the format where you get a set amount of swings as opposed to the timing?

Have you given any thought to changing the format of the home run derby?

Yeah,

we will regroup with the SPN and talk about the format of the home run derby.

It's one of those things that,

you know, because it's an exhibition,

you can, it's easier to change the rules.

You know, there's a variety of considerations there.

You know, it's so fast now.

We wanted to make it faster, but it's so fast now.

There's some complaints that people can't even see the home run,

you know, because the next one's coming so quickly.

You know, look,

I don't think people appreciate how exhausting it is for the players to take that many swings that fast.

So it's something we will talk about.

I did think that the home run derby was a lot of fun to watch.

I think maybe the biggest reason, there were rumors going into the home run derby that maybe older guys like Christian Yelich were going to play.

And America does not want to see that.

So that was a great decision by getting the young guys.

And we don't need Christian Yelich in the home run derby.

I think we should just make it a rule, like 30, under 30 years old, home run derby only because we want to really.

It's young stars.

You know, it's a showcase.

You know, I can't tell you the exact number now.

I had it in my head and I've kind of lost it.

But, you know, a lot of the guys, young guys that were in that, they're so motivated.

You know, it's a million-dollar prize.

I mean, significant, you know, when you're making many millions in a year, it's not quite so important.

But I do think you get from the young guys, they get excited to do it.

It's an opportunity for them to get real exposure.

You know, the prize is worth it, you know, significant to them.

So I take your point about the young guys.

And look, in general, our game is so young right now.

You know, I mean, the guys are coming into the big leagues they're making a uh an impact really a lot faster than it used to happen yeah uh i don't know if you could fix this i've heard you talk about it where you guys had a strategy with your media where you had a place where everyone went to go watch mlb and then you realized hey we got to go where the people are and we're going to let the clips be out there more um is there any way we can work on uh games getting blacked out in certain areas because i know there's a lot of fans that struggle with that and it's like i just want to watch the game i feel like I pay, you know, to be able to watch every game.

I want to be able to watch the Cubs when I'm not in Chicago, but I also want to be able to watch it on my phone when I'm in Chicago.

So

is there a fix for that?

Yeah, look, I mean, remember, there's.

Fans talk about blackouts number one are at the top of my list in terms of things we need to deal with.

And there's really, conceptually, three kinds of blackouts, right?

You know, there's an club has an exclusive territory.

They have an exclusive deal with usually a regional sports network.

And for some reason, in an outlying territory, that regional sports network isn't on every cable provider.

That one's a tough one for us, right?

I mean, because there's a contract in place, there's exclusivity hard to deal with.

The second kind

that

people talk about is that just that a lot of RSNs don't have full distribution, even in the core market anymore.

And again, that's something we can work on.

We're working hard on it to make sure we've taken over five clubs and for those clubs, tried to make sure that as many cable providers as possible have distribution.

And then, of course,

the last one

is

national exclusivity.

And

we have a lot of national partners right now, right?

We obviously the big one, Fox and TNT,

TBS, but in addition, Apple

that has some exclusivity.

And we are going to make an effort when we redo our national deals to be a little more streamlined, fewer places that have games so that fans can find them more easily.

I appreciate that because it really is as simple as like, everyone just wants to be able to watch with the, without jumping through a ton of hoops.

You know, the game is the most important part.

Britch and listen.

and look the ideal and i you know i got to be completely clear about this we don't get there till 2028 because that's when our national deals are up but ideally where you would like to be is if you have a digital home for baseball you can go there and buy what you want to buy in market out of market however many games you want to buy and if it's not there it's on one or two maybe national outlets that most people have right you know that that's that's where you'd like to get, ideally.

I think, yeah, that would be a great place to end up at.

Right now, we're after the all-star game.

We saw the use of the robot umps.

I know that you grade out the umpires.

Major League Baseball gives grades to the umpires depending on their performance.

How would you grade the robot that called balls and strikes during the all-star game?

Yeah, you know,

I'm big on AVS.

You know, I mean, I call it the automated strike zone system because, you know, we're still going to have a human umpire behind the plate doing his thing.

but look the technology is awesome calling our umpires do a great job but look calling balls and strikes is tough for any human being and i do think that the challenge system um

is you know kind of consistent with the idea of instant replay play give us a chance to use technology to get it right in high leverage situations I do think that in 15, 20 years, we're going to be looking back and saying, I can't believe that we had human beings with their eyeballs trying to determine like a span of inches on guys throwing 100 miles per hour.

Yeah, it is a hard job.

I mean, it is a really hard job.

Will you at least give us, if you go all the way to robots, will you have the ability for the robots to eject managers and pitchers?

Oh, yeah.

I mean, look, one of our principal considerations, really, you know, I know you're being funny, but the fact

is we really do want to

maintain the role of the home plate umpire as the guy that manages the game.

You know, you saw it.

He's got an earpiece in his ear.

It doesn't look very different than the regular game.

And we think that's important.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I know that there's a CBA coming up.

You guys are in discussions, the owners and the union, talking about what the

next iteration of baseball from the financial aspect is going to look like.

A lot of people have talked about the salary cap floor in exchange for the salary cap.

Is that something that you feel is going to happen in the next CBA?

Look, you know, I

spent most of my career in collective bargaining.

And one thing I've learned is making predictions in advance

is usually

not accurate in terms of how it turns out and really not helpful to the process.

I will tell you this.

We have a ton of fans.

that feel in a lot of markets who feel like, you know, their team that they're passionate about doesn't have a fair opportunity to compete and at the end of the day we sell competition and we need to be listening to those fans yeah so another another thing that bothers us from our point of view and and and when we do the show we try to stick up for fans is there anything that you can do when you have ownership And I'm not going to name specific ones, but they're not specifically trying to put out a winner year in and year out.

Like it's clear clear that they're not trying to compete for championships.

I think it's such a disservice to a city and a fan base when that is happening.

And I don't know what the fix is.

And it might be just an impossible question, but it feels like there's got to be something there, or maybe get them out and get someone in there who wants to spend the money to try to put out a winner.

Yeah, you know,

let me say it this way:

I think it

is usually a mistake to focus on the owner when it appears that

the owner isn't trying, okay, it is usually a product of the system in which you're working.

And I do believe that it's incumbent on us and the union for the sake of our fans to create a system where the incentives to always appear like you're doing the most possible for your fans to compete is a really important goal for both of us, everybody involved in the game.

Yeah, I think that you do have conflicting interests sometimes because you've got the reality is that in baseball, you don't have to spend money to make money if you own a team, right?

Over the course of the years, the value of your team, it's going to go up if history has taught us anything.

It's a very sound investment that you're making.

You don't necessarily have to put the payroll out there to have a winning product to be successful as a businessman from the ownership perspective.

So, Big Cat and I have actually tossed around a couple ideas of what could happen.

Maybe you have three years in a row.

Maybe let's go.

Five years.

Five years in a row.

You finish in last place in the division.

The owners then have to sit in the cheap seats with the fans for the entire season and get to deal with them face to face.

Well,

let me say this.

Let me go backwards.

It's important to really, particularly when you get into a bargaining year, you know, that people understand what's really going on in the sport.

Okay.

With respect to franchise values, and

this is a fact

and it's a surprising fact.

The slowest growth in franchise values of the four major professional sports over the last decade has been baseball okay

and that is in large part due to the perception of a lot of fans that you're talking about where they feel their team doesn't have a fair opportunity to compete i think that um when you see a situation where um the fans feel you know gee he's not spending he's not spending usually this is the thinking that goes on um you know i'm making money

on my operations year in and year out.

Pick a number.

I'm making 20 million bucks, right?

So the owner goes to his analytics guy and says, you know, look, I can put another $20 million into payroll.

And the analytics guy tells him, look, the expectation is with $20 million more in payroll, you're going to win two more games because you're, and that's it, because you're still going to be $150 million less than the big boys.

That's the conundrum that those owners find themselves in.

They don't have the capacity to spend, to get close enough, to make themselves more competitive.

And we need to fix that for the benefit of the fans in those markets.

But some of those owners just don't even try.

They'll be like, oh, you could tell me I could get 10 more wins and I won't even, you know, I'm just going to go and put my product out there and make my money.

That's where I get frustrated when it feels like those owners aren't really actually putting the full effort out there.

Yeah, you know,

I can't tell you

that it doesn't look like that

sometimes.

I can tell you it is the very rare circumstance where an owner doesn't want to win.

I mean, the fact of the matter is people don't buy these

for business, you know, just because of the business or to make money.

They buy it because they want to compete.

They want to deliver their community a winner.

And, you know, we need to get them within a structure where they have a better opportunity to do that in all of our markets.

Maybe a test when you're thinking of becoming an owner, a ball knowers test.

How many home runs does Barry Bonds have?

Yeah.

You know, give them a standardized test.

If they don't know the sport, they don't get the team.

Just have them throw.

Just have them pay.

Like, just say, hey, here, throw me this ball.

Yeah.

I just want to see what it looks like.

Watch the form.

Look, I don't want to defend my guys endlessly.

I will tell you this.

The level of baseball knowledge knowledge among our ownership group is unbelievably high.

Yeah, but can they throw?

Can they throw?

Yeah, well, that's a different issue.

Well, there we go.

Maybe that's what we got to do.

Look, I can't throw.

So, you know, what do you want me to tell you?

We got some dumb, we love dumb ideas.

So we're just going to throw a couple at you.

You could just say no, but, you know, some of them might be interesting to you.

Have you ever thought about the ceremonial first pitch counting?

No.

What do you think about that?

Well, usually when I think about ceremonial first pitches,

I have to say, I think I'm like a lot of prudent first pitch throwers.

Y'all just don't want to embarrass yourself.

Right.

Right.

But think about it like 50 Cent or the president or Beyonce.

They are pitching to a live batter and the first pitch counts.

What do you think?

I have to tell you, the only one on that list of three that you listed, President Trump has assured me on more than one occasion, he can throw a hell of a first pitch.

The other two, you're on your own.

Okay, okay.

I mean, George Bush had maybe the most iconic first pitch of all time.

That should have counted as a strike.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

President Bush was actually a player in college and is a pretty darn good athlete.

Yeah.

So we're curious when we actually do have one more dumb idea for you.

I have a couple more.

Okay.

The bases.

Have you thought about making them even bigger?

Well,

that's interesting.

I have to tell you,

that the bigger base idea of all of those rule changes, like I got the clock.

I understood why we were doing that from the very beginning.

The shift thing, I got that too.

You know, get people where they're supposed to be and, you know, you're going to get a little more offense.

I really like the bigger base thing.

I'm like, what?

My guys came to me with that.

I'm like, what the hell are you guys thinking about?

But, you know, in some ways, it's been the most exciting change in terms of making the running game such a significant part of the sport again.

Yeah, I was right there with you.

And then somebody just explained to me, PFT, they're bigger.

And then I was like, oh, okay, I get it.

Yeah, that's a great idea.

Yeah, they are.

Yeah, and you know, you think about it, they're not, I mean, the difference in size is not so much, but man, it has really made a difference in terms of the way the game's played.

Okay, another dumb idea.

This might be where you start looking at the guys behind the camera and you're like, why did you set me up with this interview?

Just hear me out, though.

No bad ideas.

Can we be in the trust tree?

No bad ideas.

100%.

Okay.

You've got, I will not be overly critical.

How about background?

Okay, perfect.

Steroid Month.

Oh.

Just one month where we.

Hey, yeah.

Listen, you said it, though.

You said we're the trusty.

I understand.

You know, look, let me say this.

I understand

that people like to see home runs.

And, you know, because of my professional experience, I understand that steroids work.

I'm a hard no.

How about that?

Yeah.

Okay, that's fair.

That's fair.

Fair enough.

All right, that's fair.

What if steroid month was October?

Yeah, that's true.

I mean, now we're talking about ratings.

All right, what

back to back to real questions.

What's going on with the balls?

I don't understand.

So

I don't buy into all the theories of like they're super juice this year, but it does feel like there is a difference year to year.

Is that something you guys are actively trying to figure out?

Yeah, so let's be clear about this year.

The only complaint that's been made about the ball this year is that it has more drag, which actually makes it harder to hit home runs, which kind of doesn't make a whole hell of a lot of sense when you look at who's leading in the American league, particularly those two, right?

I mean, a lot of home runs being hit.

So, but here's the problem: our ball is handmade.

You know, I've been, you go to Costa Rica, they're made in a factory.

They are literally hand-sewn, right?

It's leather, all natural materials, hand-sewn.

Year to year,

there will be variation with a handmade product.

They're just, it's like human, you know, the human condition, right?

Can't be perfect.

And, you know, we test them extensively.

We have a range within which they fall every single year.

And we've actually gone through a process where we've tightened those ranges and taken more control actually by investing in Rawlings and making sure there's no changes in the process to minimize the differences year to year.

Will that issue ever go away?

When you work in the game as long as I have, you know there are certain issues that are never going away.

You are always going to hear about the baseball, no matter what we do.

Yeah, no, that's true.

That's absolutely true.

That the baseballs will always be a story.

I'm curious: whenever we talk to a commissioner, you are the second commissioner on part of my take.

I always want to know what does a commissioner do on a day-to-day basis?

Like,

how much of your time is spent putting out fires versus meeting with rights holders versus talking to ownership like a normal day at the office for a commission so i i think of about my job kind of two silos right on the silo that i think of as the governance side that's regular communication with ownership uh franchise transfers disciplinary matters, collective bargaining.

That's it literally breaks down.

That's about half the time.

And then the other half of the time is what you would expect from somebody that runs, you know, central business is a six billion dollar business.

It's, you know, media rights, licensing problems, just the everyday running of a business that generates that kind of revenue.

Do you have time to watch all the games?

Do you, do you watch

every day?

I watch a lot of baseball.

You know,

I grew up a Yankee fan.

I watch a lot of Yankee games still.

I try to balance that off by equal time with the Mets because I live in New York, but most nights I'm flipping between Yankee or Met and the extra innings package to follow what's going on in the rest of the league.

We have a co-worker who's not going to like the fact that you said that you watch more Yankees than Mets.

Yeah.

He has dubbed you Rob Manfraud.

Do you have any comments on that?

Yeah, you know, that's a clever play on words.

Frank the Tank, listen, you should do a walk with Frank the Tank.

We can get that set up.

It would be an electric, electric interview.

are you familiar with frank the tank yeah you know look yes i i am i am um you know i actually i and i honestly i'm i'm getting old i sat behind

um

right behind home plate at city field right in back of two of your colleagues okay who were big Mets fans, and I can't remember who it was.

It might have been Frank and Stu, which is like,

if you can sit behind them, then you're good.

Like, you've passed the test.

Can I tell you something?

So here's the thing.

I'm a beer drinker you know i try to do it not necessarily sitting in a ballpark for obvious reasons i'm telling you these two guys put together a collection of empty cups that was really i mean it was impressive

yeah frank frank maybe if it was like yeah frank is on that good

you know we did we chatted back and forth and you know the the whole thing and i can tell you who i was with i just can't remember the two guys names but it would they were impressive.

The biggest complaint that Frank has had is that he says that you don't love baseball.

Do you love baseball?

Can I tell you something?

When you spend, you know, I started working on baseball first as an outside lawyer for 10 years and then working here.

Since 1988, I have done one thing in my professional career, and that's worked in baseball.

And, you know, some days are good.

Some days are great.

Other days are really, really hard.

And if you don't love this game, you don't want to do this.

are you still romantic about baseball absolutely

absolutely i'll tell you you know um there were a couple of things um at the all-star game that you know kind of you do get almost emotional about you know i was down on the field before the game and i was watching joe tore who's worked with me for years and years back in uniform as a coach went over and chatted with joe and he said a couple of things about what he was thinking that i have to tell you just really stirring i mean it it just makes you feel great about the game and how important the game is.

And the Hank Aaron moment, that was another one.

That was great.

Unbelievable.

Absolutely, absolutely unbelievable.

You know, and for me,

you know, I've known, I knew Hank and his wife, Billy, for a long time.

He and Commissioner Seely were very close.

And, you know, so I'd see him frequently at special events.

To me, the most emotional part of that was watching Billy during that.

She's a great woman, and it was a great tribute and just really emotional to see how she reacted to it.

Yeah.

I got a real question about, you know, the Frank, we're joking with the man fraud thing, but although he does call you that all the time, but how do you

kind of compartmentalize and deal with that where you're getting booed or people are blaming you for everything?

Because I think it is one of those things with the commissioners of all four sports leagues where there's, yeah, some things you can disagree with, but at the end of the day, their job isn't really to be liked and they get killed a lot.

And that's kind of part of what you sign up for.

Can you like, does it, does it affect you?

Look, anybody, truthfully, anybody who tells you it doesn't bother them, they're probably not telling you the truth.

Nobody likes to get booed.

I'll tell you a funny story.

So my

seven-year-old grandson went to the draft.

He sat right in the front row.

And there was two funny things about that.

You know, when you come out and you see this little kid that you love dearly, you know, he's clapping his hands off.

The booze don't matter you quite as much.

But, you know, he came in the next morning and I was sitting having a cup of coffee and he said to me, you know, Papa, there was no booze last night.

I said, George, you got to be boo deaf if you didn't hear them.

That's a good grandson.

He loves

grandson.

But look, you know, it's part of the job.

You know, you understand that, you know, people want to express themselves and you try not to pay too much attention to it.

You have to be thick-skinned and accept it for what it is.

Is that something that you guys are going to be talking about in the next CBA in regards to the draft?

The idea that it's not always the best player or the player that most teams have at the top of their draft board that will get drafted in the top positions, you know, because of how you get slotted in with how much money you're expected to sign for.

It feels a little bit disjointed from every other draft that we've seen where it's, you know, you take the best player with the top pick.

Yeah, I think

that there are aspects of our draft that have gotten away from a really, really simple but important concept.

The team that was the worst last year

should get the best player in the draft.

And there should be nothing that interferes with that correlation, right?

So, you know, if hard slots are what it takes to make that happen, that's what we ought to do.

The lottery thing, I'm not sure that it really affects behavior of teams in any meaningful way.

And, you know, sometimes you get into these situations where the team that was the worst is picking further down in the draft than they ought to be.

I'm a believer, you know, every 30 picks, a team should have a pick

unless they've traded it somehow, and that the worst team should get the first pick.

Yeah.

All right.

This has been great.

Thank you so much, Rob.

I got one last question.

It's the Roback Question, RHO, BACK.com, promo code take.

20% off your first purchase.

Q-zips, polos, hoodies, joggers, shorts, roback.com, promo code take.

So, so awesome having you on.

You know, you're always welcome to come back.

My last question is,

do you think the 50-50 raffles at each stadium are rigged and how the hell can I win it?

I don't think they're rigged and I got nothing for you on that one.

Oh, come on.

All right, what about this?

Can we get some gold cards?

Listen, here's the thing.

Oh, gold cards, you got to earn.

All right.

Gold cards you got to earn.

Yep.

All right.

Listen, guys, it was fun to be with you.

I'm glad I had a chance to do it.

We'll do it again, I'm sure.

All right.

Thanks so much.

Sounds good.

Appreciate it.

Take care.

All right.

See ya.

Okay.

Good show, boys.

We got anything else?

Good welcome.

Football's back.

I'm just so happy.

Football's back.

Hank, football's back.

Say it back.

Football's back.

Say it back.

Football.

It is.

I just want to say it.

Just say it.

It's not.

You don't even like football.

It is.

It's disgusting.

It is sad that we're like,

this is the best it gets for you.

Like, this is the best hank we got.

What is true?

That means

you're happy with your personal life right now.

Yeah,

you have golf, and it's summer.

And then as soon as when we get our happiest,

you are like,

that's good, though.

It can't all be, it's like cycles.

You can't all be on the same cycle.

It'd be nice to have everyone be excited about football.

I was super excited about football for like six years.

Who's your college team going to be this year?

I don't know.

UNC.

Yeah, UNC.

Yeah, oh, UNC.

You should do a tour of all of the

dude.

I need an update of every UNC game from you.

Done.

Not that you have to watch them.

Done.

Sorry, Washington, you're out.

Yeah.

It was fun while it lasted.

Oh, isn't ACC Media Week this week?

Might be.

Does Jordan get her own booth?

She has to.

Yeah.

Has she reached out about the takes?

Anyone?

So a lot of people were reaching out.

Appreciate everyone who won an award.

Did RG3 ever say anything about it?

I did not see anything from RG3.

Mel Kuyper was fired up.

What?

He posted on his story.

He said, thanks for the award.

No shit.

Yeah.

He has an Instagram?

Mm-hmm.

Wow, good for Mel.

Jerry says football's back.

Jerry just downloaded all his fantasy apps right now.

Breaking news, football's back.

Oh, football's so back then.

Football's so back.

Okay.

Oh,

hear that click.

Let's talk about something else for a second.

Pug, how was your weekend?

Pug, how was your weekend?

Did you tap in?

I tapped in once.

Where did you tap in?

What was the number you gave it?

Three.

Fuck, 99.

Damn it.

What are you doing, dude?

He's the big ass looking in.

He's stuck in numbers.

I said, what's the number?

91, Pug.

That's fucked up memes.

He had headphones on, too.

Yeah, he did have the headphones on.

I was getting ready to answer the question.

That's what he does.

He gets you off guard, and then you don't know what that is.

That

They take your number, and then I take yours.

60.

It's a chain reaction.

91 put.

I told him I was playing offense for him.

Need more?

I'll go 21.

What's your other number, memes?

I got a bunch of them.

Six.

77.

Six.

All right, I'll do six.

26.

What do you got, Shane?

What happened?

18.

Shane?

Oh, DMC took your number.

I said 60.

Oh, yeah.

Wait, no one took 21.

Oh, did Max take 21?

Yeah.

Oh.

What the fuck, Max?

John B, dude.

It's a chain reaction.

LT, Jeff.

We just can't let memes ever win with three.

That's the thing.

It's like, if three ever comes up, which it never will, it has to be someone else.

Memes, if you win with 99, I think we all agree it's bullshit.

Oh!

looks like 89 to me.

Oh my god, that's back-to-back times.

Should have picked 89.

Should have picked 89, bro.

Love you guys.

Sorry, memes.