Diamondbacks Zac Gallen & Merrill Kelly, Joey Chestnut, NBA Free Agency, Hot Seat/Cool Throne Plus Our Annual Dingers Only Fantasy Draft

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On today's part of my take, it is time we have Dingers-only draft.

Max still hasn't done his punishment, but we're doing our Dingers-only league for the 2025 MLB season.

We have Brandon, we have Steven, we have Zach, we have Jerry

drafting our teams.

We also have a great interview with Diamondbacks pitchers Meryl Kelly and Zach Gallin in studio.

We are also going to talk to the greatest athlete of all time, Joey Chestnut, before his big return to Nathan's hot dog eating competition on Coney Island on July 4th.

And we're going to recap some NBA stuff.

We're going to talk some NFL trades.

We've got Hot C Cool Throne.

We're going to get right back to the show.

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All right, back to part of my take.

Okay, let's go.

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Today is Wednesday, July 1st.

And boys, I know it's vacation week, but we got to talk some NBA.

We have a big show.

We have a big baseball show.

Dingers Only is back.

Two great interviews.

But NBA free agency has started, and it's a dud.

I'm going to say it right now.

It's a dud.

What, you weren't thrilled with like a couple of minder pieces moving here and there and then Miles Turner being the big, the big implication?

Actually, the biggest news of free agency was that Dame is getting waived and stretched.

They're stretching and waving Dame.

So I guess he's technically a free agent right now.

Ironically, stretching would have prevented this entire thing for Dame to begin with.

Exactly.

Exactly.

But I guess Dame might get to go to whatever team he wanted to go to a couple years ago.

So that's good for him.

Yeah,

it's just been not as exciting as it has been in years past because the new cba a lot of people are saying that cgj mccollum our good friend uh ruined free agency i would say he probably did a good job in making the league uh more parody in the league and teams being able to to get good quicker and not having super teams but listen a lot of nba fans love the off-season drama i have a i have a a take pfd i'd like to throw at you because we know adam silver uh listens to everything and we can easily bully him and we'll talk about who's the winners and losers and dame and all that stuff and LeBron James.

All right, two-part take.

One,

they got to get rid of the apron

word.

I'm so sick of it.

It makes it.

Listen, I read, I basically Googled explain the second apron to me as a five-year-old.

I found a bunch of posts.

I read an article.

I watched a video.

I think I fully understand it, except for the fact that they keep calling it the first apron, the second apron.

If they just called it jail and prison, I think it would make a lot more sense because because that's really what it is.

The second apron is prison.

They basically, but for people who don't understand what they've done with the, with the, with the salary cap, is they used to have all these like rules where if you go over the salary cap, your owner has to just pay extra money.

And these guys are really rich and it doesn't matter.

Now they've made it.

If you go over the second apron, you lose future draft picks.

You lose ability to trade cash.

You lose ability to mid-level exception signs.

So they restrict you.

They put you in prison.

If they tell you, if a team is going going into prison in free agency I understand it a lot easier than the second apron I think instead of jail and prison it should be jail and hell fine I was saying

and it's very confusing that they use the word apron and it's like teams getting under the second apron like it's kind of sexual it makes it makes me think that we're we're getting busy now it's i don't know if it's sexual i i never thought of it as sexual that might be a bonk i thought getting under somebody's apron yeah i thought of it more as like you're just wearing an apron in the in the kitchen and you're getting splashed with oil i want to get under the apron i want to see what's underneath there that wear two aprons pft like oh they got they're getting under the second one

if you get under the first apron that's okay that's like first date if you get under the second apron now we're talking like we're moving in but but what you just but what you just explained it's jail and prison makes sense because then you could say your team got out of prison well jail and hell i like jail and hell but you but but prison is more than jail it is yeah that's true so it's like first apron second apron, prison and jail.

I mean, I also thought like you just do like a fire, you're in the fire storm or, you know, a volcano eruption.

I don't care.

They just need to get rid of the apron, especially because it's hurting guys like my good friend PFD, who's like getting rock hard every time he sees the word apron.

First guy ever.

Dude, I like that.

It's like you and Conofieri.

No, no, no.

It's getting getting under the apron is what gets me going.

I don't care if there's two aprons, but if I'm getting under two aprons, then I'm grinding, man.

I'm bumping.

But either way, do you like my idea?

Jail and prison.

Explain it to us better.

No, I do like the idea.

Just jail and prison.

You did it one time.

You conflated the two because jail and prison are so close.

Like, they're so similar.

That's why I'm thinking jail is first one and hell is the second one.

Yeah.

Wait, what do you mean I conflated the two?

You switched them up one of the times when you explained it because it's confusing because they're so similar.

No, prison's always the second apron.

Or maybe it's the alligator alligator Alcatraz's second apron.

That's fine that's fine too um so that's the first one fix that adam silver change the name i don't care just make it so that it's relatable to us i don't give a fuck about this apron first apron second apron you sound you're basically making a bunch of people walk around and sound like nerds when they say it when they go on like well

yeah the war yeah with boners the war yeah they're incels they're nerds who can't get their boners touched well the warriors need to get under the second apron No, the Warriors have to get out of prison.

Okay?

That's the problem.

That's it.

And you're making America hard.

Yeah, you're making America hard.

All right, here's the other one.

Because

I miss the days of just chaos.

I don't think this should happen every year, but I think it should happen randomly.

It could happen during the season.

It's essentially

video game rules.

And Adam Silver just says for the next hour, salary caps off.

Okay.

It's when you go to the menu in your video games and you turn off salary caps.

You could do any trade ever.

And you have to get it signed.

Like you have to get your players signed in that window.

And so everyone would just go crazy.

Like, all right, the Nuggets are going to sign Jokic to $1 billion 10 years.

Salary caps off for the, but, but it actually has to be signed.

The legal document has to be signed and you have no idea when it's coming.

So you basically have an hour to scramble, try to get a hold of your, of your players, try to get a hold of free agents, everything.

get the deal done and then he's like boom salary caps back on and then it would be great because like four years from now you're like, oh, shit,

why is KCP making like $400 million?

Oh, that's because he was the only guy they could reach during the salary caps off window.

I like that idea.

I also like the idea of designating one guy, maybe per roster, every two or three years, who is allowed to just, his individual salary does not count towards a cap.

Yeah.

You have one guy that's immune to the cap.

Yeah.

I mean, SGA, we should talk about that.

That's

a spicy meatball.

Congrats.

Congrats.

Fleeced.

He fleeced the thunder.

Four years, $285 million.

What is that?

$71.25.

Is that right?

$71.25 million per year?

Someone did the math because it obviously escalates.

I think it's in his final year of the contract, he'll be making over $1 million per game.

So, and

he's still not the highest paid player.

Jason Tatum still has that, but

SGA, pretty nice.

Hank, I have a question for you.

Yes, Yes, PFT.

With the dame stretching and waving, did the thought cross your mind, what if we did that with Tatum?

No.

Didn't you damn waves?

No.

Dame's so much older.

Yeah, but you didn't even think about it.

Even though in the gym, Tatum's already grinding.

What if you stretched him?

No.

Dames walked.

Not waved him.

No, no, not waved them.

Just stretched them.

No.

You don't even know how to do that.

We don't need to do that.

We're talking like probably eight to 10-year difference.

Okay.

Somebody did the math.

They said SGA is going to make $106,000 per free throw next season.

That's awesome.

That's pretty good.

Good for him.

So I'm looking at the calendar right now.

It is Bobby Benilla Day.

Does that mean that Dame also gets paid on Bobby Benilla Day?

I don't know.

I think he gets, so I think

he gets all the money, and then the cap, like the stretching part of it is the next five years, the Bucs have a count against their cap like 20 million dollars or whatever it is so that's the stretching part and then they waived him i also don't know can you guys explain to me chris hayn's i that guy's weird so i i he's maybe related he's maybe married to someone who's related to yannis he's also like best friends with dame so the bucks he was the bucks insider But then there's the story that he said that Giannis was upset that Dame was stretched and waived.

And then Shams had a story that Giannis essentially recruited Miles Turner, and Miles Turner wouldn't have been able to be recruited if it weren't for Dame getting stretched and waived.

I don't really understand the situation.

I think Giannis probably, I probably am going to agree with Shams here and say that Giannis wanted Miles Turner and was okay with the stretching and waving.

But the whole thing, and he also got caught,

he did, he tried to act really quick during free agency.

I think it was maybe James Harden.

He did,

no, wait, who was it?

Oh, yeah, I think it was was James Harden.

He did AI.

No, no, it was someone who changed to the Clippers.

He did AI

for them in New Jersey, and it spelled the name of the town wrong.

It was Dallas.

That's what it was.

It was Dorian Finney Smith, and he said, or whoever went to Dallas, and it was like D-A-L-L-I-E-S because it was AI.

So he's a weirdo.

Yeah, I think that Giannis just kind of had to tell him that I'm sad that Dame is leaving because he doesn't want to be like, I'm so pumped that he's not going to be on the team anymore.

Yeah, you know, like, there's no harm in just him saying, like, I'm bummed out that he's gone.

I think he's probably pumped to have Miles Turner.

I think he's probably very excited that the Bucs are going to try to remain competitive somehow.

Should we talk about LeBron?

Yeah, but one last thing about the Bucs, though, that does suck for the Pacers because this is the reality of having Howell Burton get injured where you can't just run back the team that was in game seven of the finals.

And the Bucs and Pacers hate each other.

So that was kind of a double whammy for Pacers fans to have Miles Turner go to the Bucs.

But yeah, we should talk about LeBron.

I have a question for you.

Yeah.

Is LeBron scaring free agents away from Los Angeles?

They don't really have any moves because they've paid everyone a ton of, they paid Luca, LeBron, and Bronnie, I think, like $90 million.

I heard someone add them all.

He added Bronny.

I was like, that's a great move.

I

think, and this is, okay, so we're not experts in the NBA.

So I'm just going to throw this out there.

I think LeBron thinks he still runs the league and he doesn't run the league anymore.

I think that's what's happening right now.

I think

he did the whole old LeBron of like, I'm taking the money.

And listen, no problem with him taking the money.

He's LeBron James.

He deserves the money.

He shouldn't, I'm not going to sit here and be like, take less money.

I mean,

if you want to maybe win a ring and have flexibility, you should take less money.

But that's not.

Never look at another man's pockets.

I think the statement where he was like, I'm going to be monitoring the situation, he was expecting every team to be like, oh, shit, LeBron, we could trade for LeBron.

And everyone's like,

why would we want to trade for a one-year retirement toward $53 million for a guy who is going to basically like hijack our entire franchise?

So I don't think he has the power that he used to have.

I like to say that people are scared of the Lakers because of LeBron, just because it puts more blame directly on LeBron rather than saying like he's out of his depth right now.

I think the reality is that the Lakers didn't really have a whole lot of options.

They might try to go after Eaton.

He's the one like big that's still out there that could potentially sign with them.

But he did when he signed his

contract, he said like, I'm doing this because I know it's a challenge, but I want the Lakers to remain competitive and build for the future as I'm also on the team.

And when I saw that statement, I thought, like, I don't know what LeBron's trying to get out of this, but he surely he must know that it's going to be impossible to build for the future and win now when he's taking that big contract and getting his maximum value.

Correct?

Correct.

Well, that's true.

He might just be dumb.

Well, that could be the case.

I think he also is just setting it up, being like, I made it clear I wanted you to build the contender.

He's Tim Robinson.

We're all trying to find the guy who did this, who made it so we couldn't sign any players

because they can't sign any players, but he made it clear he wanted them to sign players.

So when they don't sign players, he'd be be like, wasn't I clear?

I said I wanted you to sign, I wanted you to make a championship team for me.

I just heard Dave McMinniman say on ESPN that he expects the Lakers might get involved with another team that signs a big,

thus making their starting center expendable, and then move that person to the Lakers.

So any center in the league right now that's currently on a team is on the table per Dave McMinniman.

Yeah, Wendy had the report.

He was like, yeah, everyone was shocked by this.

They were like, yeah, we don't don't want to trade for LeBron.

There's no takers right now.

Because obviously, it instantly becomes the Cavs.

And everyone talks about the Cavs.

I feel like the Cavs have kind of moved on from that.

Why would they,

they had the one seed.

I know they got injured and they got bounced in the second round, but why would you want to do that with LeBron again?

I don't know.

He has $50 million.

He doesn't have the pull that he wants.

If it was 30, not 50, then it's a lot different.

Yeah, right.

That's where he's just selfish.

Right.

All right, winners.

I have the Nuggets as a winner.

Feels like they finally got bench depth, got a real backup center, and that was a good Michael Porter Jr.

trade where they got someone who's half the money and then able to actually get some depth.

They got Bruce Brown back, which was nice.

I also have the Rockets.

The Rockets might be my pick.

I know that you don't win championships July 1st.

The Rockets are going to be really good.

I'm a big,

I think the Rockets are going to be awesome.

They basically

have three centers now, and they added Kevin Durant.

And I'm a Rockets believer.

I love what Bruce Brown did, by the way, when he left in free agency.

After telling the Nuggets, like, I'm not going to go anywhere in free agency during the parade, and then waking up the next day and be like, oh, yeah, I can make, what was it, like, $30 million more?

$40 or something.

$40 somewhere else.

Yeah.

You know what?

I'm actually going to go, but I'm going to be thinking about the Nuggets the whole time.

I'll come back as soon as these checks stop coming in.

It's a great move.

I really appreciate what Bruce Brown did.

And he's going to be really good again because he's going to play with Jokic.

He basically took a sabbatical where he's like, I'm going to make the maximum amount of money.

I'm probably not going to enjoy playing basketball the same way.

And then I'll just come back and it will be awesome.

Yeah.

No, it was a good move.

Why do you like the Rockets so much, KD?

KD,

their depth with like their center depth.

They have three big, they got Clint Capella back, obviously Stephen Adams, Shingoon.

Like they're going to, Stephen Adams can just,

they can just basically rest everyone all year.

I, I think KD is going to be, I think KD's got a little fuck you going, Tor, coming.

I, I don't know.

I think he's got a fuck you, Tor, coming.

It does feel like a let-im-know season.

Yeah, I, I,

I'm just feeling it in my bones.

I think he's got one more of those in him, and I think this might be the year.

And I think the more I thought about it, I know we talked about his legacy and all that stuff.

The Rockets is perfect for him, where it was a really good team last year, the two seed, and now he can be the old guy who brought the young kids along.

I think this might be a KD legacy year.

I think he might win it all and then be like, now this one counts.

Is Chris Paul?

He's a free agent, right?

Yeah.

So he's still out there.

Played 82 games last year.

82 games, as healthy as he's ever been.

I do think that KD's got a lot left in the tank for sure.

But I really like what the Nuggets did.

I think that the Nuggets, Cam Johnson, that's good.

Michael Porter Jr., he's been a great player, but his back is just fucked up right now.

You You can't really count on him.

So I like Cam Johnson, whose brother's name is Puff.

Did you know that?

No, that's great.

His name is

Puff Johnson.

Well, we don't know.

True.

It's out.

We do know.

Four out of five.

We do know.

Do you think there's any chance that on four out of five charges, they're like not guilty, but maybe on that one?

Yeah.

Maybe on that one he is.

Maybe.

I also, the Hawks have done a great job.

The Hawks are going to be good.

They've got, I mean, it goes back to the draft with the pick that they got from the Pelicans.

I feel like the Hawks are doing some things.

It's all vibe check for me, too.

I don't know, like the Celtic.

Hank, you lost Luke Cornette.

You've gotten,

you did get out of prison, but you were in prison.

Yeah, no,

it's a sad, it's a sad state of affairs.

Yeah, that's it.

It's just the championship team is gone.

Drew's gone.

Horford isn't gone yet, but he's gone.

Porzinga's gone.

You got Luca Garza, though.

Big 10 beast.

How is that even news?

I don't want to be mean, but like because

he doesn't play.

But

I think it's news because how is that news?

It's like he's not.

Did you hear all the reports?

It was like, yeah, they've inquired about Luca Garza the last two years.

And like, they were looking at, by the way, at breaking moves.

Oh, no.

I don't like this.

Halftime injury update.

Red Panda fell before getting started, left court clutching her left wrist.

Oh, no.

Please be okay.

Oh, my God.

Not the Red Panda.

Does she have an offseason, do you think?

No, fuck no, dude.

Come on.

Halftime of what?

Probably

the Champions Cup, the cup classic, whatever the WNBA does.

The World Cup of Clubs.

Yeah, yeah.

No, no, no.

The Champions Cup for the WNBA.

Oh, okay.

Got it.

Yeah.

They have one of those, too.

Yeah, yeah.

Caitlin Carstock playing in it.

The Commissioner's Cup.

Commissioner's Cup.

But I think it's...

Is it the Commissioner's Cup in the WNBA?

Zach, can you look that up for us, please?

It is.

It is.

It's still the Commissioner's Cup.

Damn, they copy everything.

They want to be us so bad.

Wait, are the courts different?

He's giving us the thumbs up.

He's giving the thumbs up.

What'd you say?

Did they make the corpse different?

I don't think so, though.

It doesn't look different on the...

No offense.

Wait, what'd you say?

I said Zach looks like a thumb on the video feed.

Yeah, he doesn't have a video feed.

I can't see his face.

Yeah, he's not working with the best Wi-Fi.

Zach, what's going on there, dude?

My bad, guys.

If I look like a thumb, that's on me.

If the Wi-Fi's coming out, I tried to get as close to the router as I could, but

I didn't want you guys to get any background noise, so I was trying to stay on a different side of the house.

What's behind you?

Like a little office.

No, but what's on the wall?

Oh, my.

My mom makes these picture frames that are like, so it's beechwood and a picture frame, and then they're like put together.

I'd like one of those.

I can get you one of those if you'd like to admit.

Yeah, I would like one of those for the studio.

I like that.

What's that?

We got another one over there.

oh

rascal flats action on the wall there okay

that's a rascal flats melt great stuff i like that you're you're using a laptop right in front of another bigger tv or a bigger computer that's right behind you yeah uh this that stationary we already had the one lighting issue i want to make sure we are mobile for you guys you need you need you need the frames for for for rivals yeah

also yes i need all the frames i can get all right i have a a couple other nba notes i wanted to throw at you guys i'm gonna going to throw a potential trade at you.

I want to tell you, you guys say yes or no.

If I offered you, you have the one pick in the draft.

If I offered you the fourth, fifth, and 10th pick, would you trade?

For the first overall pick?

Yeah.

Fourth, fifth, and tenth.

It's pretty good.

Deep draft next year.

Deep draft.

I have no idea if it is or not.

I'm just saying that.

Yes, yes.

Okay, great.

All right.

So the Bulls should have Anthony Edwards on their team.

That's perfect.

Okay.

All right.

Because the Bulls have officially completed the trade.

They have the, from the 2020 draft, they now have the fourth, fifth, fifth, and tenth pick in terms of players from that draft because they have Patrick Williams, they drafted fourth.

They got Okoro from the Cavs who was drafted fifth, and they have Jalen Smith, who was drafted 10th.

So kind of stacking the 2020 draft, boys.

That's pretty good, yeah.

The Bulls are incapable of trading for picks.

They actually don't know how to do it.

They traded all their good players, Zach Levine, DeMar DeRosan, Alex Caruso, Lonzo Ball.

The only pick they got back was their own pick.

That's it.

And that was just out of spite just to get their own pick back.

Yeah.

They don't know.

They actually, I don't think that they have their defense.

They haven't read that they can do that.

In their defense, it's a lot harder to trade for nobody, to be like, hey, we're going to get nobody back.

But it's a good strategy when it's a good pick, when you get picks.

It is the correct strategy.

It is the correct strategy to do, for sure.

But if you're very, if you're a stupid person, it's hard to conceptualize a player that doesn't exist yet.

Yeah, but I do appreciate that they

listen, they're going to be bad again, and they're run by incompetent losers and owned by incompetent stooges.

But if you can stack multiple picks from one draft class, I always will kind of buy in because I'll be like, dude, we had three, three of the top 10 picks one year.

Like, that's got to be good.

They probably played McDonald's all-American games together, went to the same camps, familiar with each other.

Yeah.

It's got to be good.

All right.

I like what the Bucs are doing outside of Miles Turner because they now have 66% of the Garys in the NBA.

Okay.

Kind of like that.

I really do think that if they, if Giannis wants a trade or the Bucs season goes sideways, they have to do everything possible to try to get Gary Payton the second on the team.

And imagine if the Bucs could basically sell tickets being like, we have 100% of the Garys in the NBA.

Yeah, so there are, I'm guessing, three Gary's.

There's three Garys.

There's three Gary.

They already had one and they added another, which is significant in Gary news.

Like

if you add the second,

it's basically playing monopoly.

They have two-thirds of an entire property now.

They just got to get the last Gary and they can charge everyone a ton of rent.

You want to hear something crazy?

Yeah.

The Lakers have 100% of the LeBrons in the NBA right now.

That's true.

That's true.

Corner of the market.

They don't have 100% of the Lucas.

The Celtics have half of that share.

What if the Lakers could get a really good player in a trade, but they had to give up.

Like, obviously, you had to trade probably Dalton Connect.

And then the other team was like, we need Bronnie or it's a no-go.

Yeah, I think they would

have to do it, right?

Would you trade your own son away?

you'd have to trade him you'd have to trade him and you

knowing lebron he'd probably make it like a viral moment where he goes up to him in the middle of a game and does the well he probably didn't get to that part in godfather 2 yet but he someone would tell him hey you got to go kiss him like he's fredo and let him send him on his way what the lakers should do to see if lebron is actually committed they should tell him we have to trade your son because we're getting this great player and then once lebron agrees to it, then they say that was a test.

You get to keep your child.

Very King Solomon?

King Solomon.

King Solomon, yeah.

King Solomon.

Yeah.

See if he's willing to sacrifice his own child for the betterment of the team.

See if he's the true king.

Yeah.

And if he, and if he won't do it, then you know he's not the true king to begin with.

Yeah.

And you rebuild.

Yep.

I like that.

Make it a whole decision.

Make it like a deal or no deal.

Put Bronnie in a suitcase.

Yeah.

Just strove out.

All right.

And then the last thing, Duncan Robinson, our friend, recurring guest, made a ton of money going to the Pistons.

I like that.

Also, crazy because I didn't know, but he is the leader in Heat franchise history for three-pointers made and by like a large margin, which is something that kind of shocked me a little, but also makes sense with how the NBA has gone with the three-pointers.

But did you guys know that offhand?

Not offhand.

If you had asked me, I probably would have guessed

James Jones, Mike Baylor.

I'll tell you this.

You can't guess number two.

You can't guess number two, which is just as shocking because obviously I've revealed that Duncan Robinson is one.

Tyler Hero?

Yeah.

I didn't guess it.

Tyler Hero.

Number two.

Yeah.

It's crazy.

Edonis Haslam, just out of sheer longevity.

Adonis has him not

on the list.

Yeah, Dwayne Wade all the way down at number nine.

But shout out Duncan Robinson.

He has

200 more threes than the second most threes in heat history.

So record's about to be Dames.

Yeah, it might be Dames.

Well, no, because Dame, no chance Dame plays enough games.

He'd have to make like

maybe if he made 600 threes for two years.

What if he's just so happy to finally be in Miami?

It's like, what if Dame was right that he just needed Florida to unlock his best potential?

He goes down there, just buries threes all day.

That'd be, that could happen.

Hey, Max, did the Sixers do anything?

No, they lost Yabu and then signed Tyrese Maxie's friend.

Oh, okay.

Well, that's cool.

Where'd Yabu go?

I forgot to

the Knicks.

Huh?

Oh.

Oh, you mean John Staley's Knicks?

Yep.

Memes?

She's a good coach.

She is a good coach.

Good coach.

She is a good coach.

Philly.

Trendon Watford was the guy who we signed, by the way.

I forgot his name.

Do you like what the Knicks did, memes, outside of maybe hiring Don Staley?

Yeah, the Knicks are broke, so they got Jordan Clarkson and Yabu on vet minimums.

Okay.

He's the best player, though.

Yeah, Yabu's good.

Jordan Clarkson, there was a clip of Mike Breen roasting him during the game, but I'm sure it'll be fine.

So

you're going to get Mike Brown as your coach, right?

Yeah, Mike Brown's going to be the guy.

Is he officially?

He's the only guy coming back for a second interview.

Oh, okay.

Yeah.

I guess Rick Brunson, too, is still in the running, right?

Yeah.

And Dawn.

And Don.

All right, should we talk a little NFL?

We had a trade.

The Steelers got, they traded Minka Fitzpatrick to the Dolphins for Jalen Ramsey.

They also got John Hu Smith, which I think was a separate trade, correct?

Yeah, I think it was.

The reporting on all of this was a little weird because I don't know how you guys experienced this trade.

I experienced it through our good friend Jersey Jerry, who will be on Dingers Only with us.

He texted me Super Bowl on

and was like, I can't believe this trade.

And then the reporting came out that, so I think Jerry thought they just got Jalen Ramsey.

Yeah, because the way it came out, it was just, well, it wasn't even that, Big Cat.

The way I found out about it was through Adam Schefter.

I have notifications on because I need to know what's going on.

So I saw his post about a trade.

It said, Jalen Ramsey has been traded from the Miami Dolphins to, and then it was the dot, dot, dot.

It cut off right there.

I think that Schefter knows exactly how many characters to use to make people actually click through and look at his tweet instead of just looking at the notification.

I think that he's that good.

So I saw that.

I clicked on that.

And then they didn't say what they gave up for it.

They didn't say anything about the details of the trade.

It just looked like the Steelers were getting Patrick or Jalen Ramsey.

And then it did come out.

Yeah, it was actually John U.

Smith was, I believe, it was in the same trade.

Okay.

It was.

It makes sense.

It was.

Yeah.

Steelers got Ramsey, John Hoo Smith, and

they swapped a 2027 seventh rounder for a 2027 fifth rounder.

So they ended up with a fifth round pick in

Pittsburgh, and Miami ended up with a seventh-round pick.

Got it.

Because

if you believe some of the things coming out of the Steelers at the end of last year,

there was belief that possibly Minkin Fitzpatrick was the guy who...

Remember, there was that, there was a weird press conference.

It was either, I think it was Cam Hayward.

I think TJ Watts said something as well, where they're like, it's hard when 10 guys are doing one thing and one guy's doing another.

And that some people thought might have been Minkin Fitzpatrick.

So maybe that, maybe that's an addition right there, just getting him back to the Dolphins.

I don't know.

I thought it was TJ saying that he's the one guy doing the right thing, and 10 other guys are all collectively doing the wrong thing.

But yeah, Minka is a fine safety, but he does freelance from time to time.

Ramsey is still a really, really good cornerback.

They have Ramsey and Joey Porter Jr.

So I think it's all in all, it's good for the Steelers.

It feels like this is the Steelers' all-in season, right?

Jonu Smith is also like that, he was a really good, he's been a really good tight end

the last couple years.

So that, that part for their offense, I feel like is significant.

Is he Pittsburgh, though?

I don't know if he's gonna have to worry about that.

I don't know if he's a Pittsburgh tight end.

You got to always worry about that.

Because they got Pat Freiermuth, Pittsburgh tight end.

He's a guy that you could easily mistake for Heath Miller.

And then you got big ass Washington.

I'm mostly concerned that Darnell Washington isn't going to be playing as much because whenever he steps on the field, you just look at him and be like, holy shit, who the fuck is that guy?

How is he not the best player in the NFL?

Yeah, I mean, you like

Darnell Washington and DK Metcalf lining up on the same side will be like what Bain did to Heinz Field.

Like,

it will just completely tilt.

But yeah, I don't know if Darnell Washington can catch the ball.

That's the only problem.

But I do like when he gets on the field.

I like the John Hoo Smith.

He was good last year.

He was good.

He started to come on.

Was it the end of two years ago?

And then last year, last year he was very good, I feel like.

He was really good.

And then two years ago, I think he started to pop a little as well.

He had a big season.

And then the Dolphins replaced him by getting Darren Waller from the New York Giants.

Darren Waller was retired.

And so I think they swapped like a sixth and a seventh round pick with the Giants to get a retired guy that was still on their payroll to come down to Miami and play.

Yeah, just don't make him fullback.

That's the only thing because that clip came out that he basically retired when the Giants made him be fullback in Buffalo for like three consecutive plays.

He's like, what the fuck am I doing here?

The big story, though, is PFT, we're officially in football month.

There is a football game being played this month.

I know it's preseason, but that's really, it just starts to get the.

I was walking.

I went on a hike with my kids today, and

I'm not ashamed to admit that I started daydreaming about like the first NFL Sunday, and I was like, this is going to be awesome.

I'm so excited.

We're pretty much here.

We're pretty much here.

Like July is, it's great at the start.

We got, you know, the 4th of July.

That whole week feels like just a vacation for America.

And then, you know, it's hot outside.

Still going to be, we're going to be tan from how tan we are right now.

We're still going to have that same pantone on our skin once football season kicks off.

Once we get actual live football played, yeah, it's the Hall of Fame game, but we're going to see all the guys.

They're going to be wearing the jerseys.

We're going to see the coaches.

It's going to be great, and we're pretty much there.

So congratulations.

It's going to be great.

Should we do Hot Seat Cool Throne?

And then we can get to all of our interviews and dingers only.

Yep.

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Okay.

Hot seat cool turn, Hank.

My hot seat is Malik Beasley.

Oh, yeah.

He is under investigation for

basically

what would you call it?

Gambling on games.

Gambling on games.

Not insider trading, but like.

What was the hard part of that?

It's not insider trading.

It's called Gambling on Games.

Gambling on Games.

Gambling on Games, Player Props.

The videos that came out after the investigation came out were very bad, to say the least.

I don't know if it's one of those things where if you could do this for any player, I feel like it's not, obviously.

But the videos that came out were absurdly obvious that he was...

probably gambling on games.

There was one where he took the ball the full length of the court with like three and a half, four seconds left to cover the spread, and he was the only one out there trying.

And you could see like the relief hit his face when he got to the other end.

There was the other one where

he had also tweeted at Anthony Edwards to hit, what was it, like six threes tonight in a game?

There was that one.

And then there was another one where he was playing defense where his controller just unplugged.

Yep.

And yeah, blew by.

I think it was Halliburton blew by him.

And he didn't move a single one of his feet.

Both feet remained firmly planted in the ground.

I don't think you could do that with every player in the NBA.

And not only that, but I'm sure you guys saw there was like, you know,

the gambling circles, like people know, and shit gets out there.

And there were tweets from like January where it's like, if you're investigating Terry Rozier, like investigate Malik Beasley.

He's the one.

And a lot of that stuff where he is still innocent, but there's a lot of stuff.

He also got proven innocent.

Yes,

they should say that.

So it's like, this might not be, you know, it might not be guilty.

And the same thing happened with Terry Rozier.

The allegations came out.

There was videos and it was like, he was clearly gambling.

So this could all not be true, but

would you rather?

I'm going to let him have to stay in court.

Yeah, same.

Would you rather be accused of betting on your own personal unders when you didn't actually bet on your own personal unders?

And then being validated?

And they're like, it turns out you just suck.

Or would you rather get investigated And you did bet on them and you made a ton of money betting on them and they found out that you were gambling.

Yeah.

I mean, listen.

There's something you can make that much.

When you look at free agency,

like the greatest lottery ticket you can have.

Obviously, you have to be an NBA player, but it's like they get paid so much money.

There's no way you can make enough money gambling that it is worth doing that.

It is kind of a compliment to be like, you're good enough that you can control the outcome of these things.

You know,

like if you told me.

yeah if you told me like hey we're gonna play five-on-five basketball at the barsville chicago uh like office and we're gonna we're gonna put lines out there and i had and like

i wouldn't be good enough to be able to affect the game you know

yeah

the total point spread i i agree i could maybe i could not make a shot i could bet yeah you could bet your unders and just not make a shot but other than that like you can't it's it's basically a compliment malik beasley you're an impactful impactful player if you're proven guilty.

On the other hand, I feel bad for NBA players.

Sure, they make all this money in free agency, get, you know, any woman they want, but at the end of the day, they don't get to sit on their couch and hit a four-leg parlay on an NBA game like I do.

Facts.

And they'll never have that joy.

That makes me sad.

Facts.

Yeah, he's not going to get signed now.

That kind of sucks that he was a free agent.

Yeah, crazy story.

How pissed do you think hockey players are right now?

You got to move your free freely agency

if you're hockey.

You can't go head-to-head.

What was Luke Cornett's deal?

Dude, he's a fine player, but what was his deal?

I don't know.

I think he got 40.

He got 40 million guaranteed?

Yeah, four for 40, I think.

He's getting paid Connor McDavid in the money.

Yeah.

Yeah, I mean, Sam Bennett's Sam Bennett's contract, it was like, this was a guy who was the most important player on the team.

He was eight years, $8 million.

Oh, man.

Yeah, by the way, the Panthers are just going to be good again.

They got everyone.

Biz might be right about the state income tax.

I also love, I'm assuming NBA players are the same way, but like, and this is more like we were just with the Chicklis guys last week, but, and, like, I love hearing them talk just strictly money when they talk about other players.

Like, oh, how much that guy get?

Like, how much he make?

Like, they just talk strictly in like how much they made in their career.

Also, like, when it's all public, it's very funny.

Whitney told us a hilarious story about how when he was like two years out from retiring and he talked to his financial advisor and his financial advisor was like, all right, so like when you retire, like you'll get a job.

And he was like, what do you mean?

He was like, I wasn't planning on that.

Which is very funny.

The Knights got better, too.

Yeah, they did.

But the Panthers brought everyone back, didn't they?

Yeah.

It's fucking crazy.

Team Dinners, man.

I'm going to talk about the, Zach, talk about the Panthers for 20 seconds while I turn on the light in this room because I realize that it's just pitch black in here.

Yeah, the sun's going down.

So I did say the Panthers did bring all the boys back.

They repeated that the whole game's come back.

Do you guys think they're going to be this dominant again?

It's going to be that much fun to watch or what do we think?

I like that.

Good question.

Great question.

Zach, they all go to team dinner every night.

You can't get in the way of that.

I think unless this...

Aiden Queen.

Unless this aid into their Dairy Queen budget, I think that we're looking at another championship for the Florida Panthers.

Hey, congratulations.

It's July 1st.

Congratulations to the Florida Panthers on winning the 2026 Lord Stanley's Cup.

Hank, I think team dinners can be attributed.

We eat dinner together a punch.

I know.

I didn't realize it until all the post-game interviews.

I was like, yeah, this team, team dinners.

It's going to force some team that absolutely hates each other to try to do this, and it's going to be so awkward.

Because

team dinners work in theory if you like everyone, but if they, if, if you have a team that doesn't like each other, it's going to tear them apart.

All right, your cool throne?

Uh, my cool throne is WNBA pettiness.

Yeah.

Caitlin Clark was voted number one

all-star team by the fans, number nine by our fellow players.

I have some takes.

Lifty, do you have a take?

Uh, on the the Caitlin Clark situation?

Yeah, I have a take.

I think that it is

good for the league.

Okay.

Because we're talking about the league right now.

Okay, I agree.

I'm going to piggyback on your take.

Tag me in.

First, this is about this year.

Caitlin Clark has missed almost half the games.

So,

I mean,

I know that she's incredible, and I think she's one of the best players.

And she's also like the WNBA just expanded.

They're bringing back Detroit, Cleveland, and then what's the other one?

Nashville.

Nashville got a franchise.

The Caitlin Clark defenders are such losers now.

Like what do we care?

She's the most popular player.

What should her like rivals do?

Should they just be like, oh, we love you, Caitlin.

Thank you so much.

We want to kiss your feet and like and hope you do just, of course they don't like her.

She's better than them.

And she's more popular.

Like, of course they're petty about it.

i think that's good for sports they're trying to hurt her though but the hurting part i agree that's too far but like this is like to be like this is bullshit i can't believe they don't like her i can believe they don't like her she gets all the attention they're jealous who cares that's good for sports caitlin clark will have a longer career better career make more money she's gonna win in the long run It doesn't have to be like a World War III every single time.

There's a slight on Caitlin Clark.

It just, it loses all of the

like oomph for me when you're just, when the Caitlin Clark defenders are crying about her constantly.

When have we ever cared about the breakdown of all-star vote percentages in the WNBA?

Right.

Has that ever happened?

We do care now.

Right.

So, yeah,

is she worthy of a higher percentage?

Probably, yeah, but she also has been hurt.

And it's also good that the league hates her this much because it pisses everyone off and it gets more people talking about the WNBA.

And then she's going to go out there with with a chip on her shoulder, and she's going to be great, shove it in their faces, and prove to them that she's better.

And that's going to be great for the league, too.

Not only that, but what is like one of the

number one complaints we see online about sports, specifically the NBA, specifically basketball, is, well, all these guys don't hate each other like they used to.

They used to hate each other.

They used to, like, the Pistons and Bulls hate each other.

The Pistons and Celtics hate each other.

MJ hated Isaiah.

All this stuff.

Like, hate was, was what fueled the league.

And now you have that back in the WNBA and you're going to complain about it?

Like, who cares?

Her peers don't like her because she is more popular than them.

That's just a fact.

And she can just be better and win championships and shove it in their face.

Like, I just don't, I would not be offended if I was a

Caitlin Clark fan, I would not be going to my pitchforks because she was voted ninth in a season when she's played half the games.

Okay, counterpoint though, isn't it also a sign of the growing league league that we have this many Caitlin Clark fans that get this pissed off because of received slights, right?

This is like the Caitlin Clark defenders that have to show up and stick up for their person.

I think it's all good.

I think what we're going to see, though, is we're going to see like Caitlin Clark is going to go in a little tear.

She's going to be great.

The Fever are eventually going to win a championship.

She's going to get some players from teams that maybe used to hate her.

Can Star Clark win the big one, though?

That's a good question.

So when she gets

clotheslined going through the lane, that's when I'm like, yeah, Caitlin Clark defenders.

That's when you need to rally the troops and go after her.

On a fucking vote?

Like, Tyrese Halliburton was voted most overrated, and then he went to the finals.

Who cares?

You know, I need to see the athletic poll of the WNBA for most overrated player in the league.

What do you think the result would be?

I don't know, but I just, there are 90%, 95% Caitlin Clark.

Clark.

There are definitely pitchfork moments for Caitlin Clark that are like, yeah, you have to defend her.

A vote that essentially, it basically should have just been a poll to every WNBA player, do you like Caitlin Clark?

Yes or no?

And they would have voted no because they don't because she gets all the attention and she's good for the league and she outshines everyone, even if she's only playing half the games.

The injury aspect is actually a valid point.

That's a good point

if you're going to go just by a sports breakdown of it.

But yeah,

the difference between the fan vote and the player vote was crazy.

It was crazy to see.

But again,

let's not burn out all of our

emotion

on defending Caitlin Clark right now.

There's going to be

playoffs.

Listen, you got to rest up for the playoffs.

Okay.

She also, if she was not in the all-star game, I'd be like, pitchforks, do it.

She's the captain of the all-star team.

This was totally irrelevant.

It was a completely irrelevant vote that just doesn't matter.

Right.

I don't even get mad at the hard fouls because I also like Sophie Cunningham coming to her defense and like knocking people out.

That's also good for the league.

Yeah, agree.

Well, that is.

Yeah.

Did you see Sophie Cunningham take a shot at Detroit?

That was a little weird.

What'd you say?

She was just like, players don't want, like, why didn't you make up Miami?

Players don't want to play in Detroit.

It was like, okay, I don't know.

Detroit, like, Detroit's kind of, Detroit's kind of back in terms of sports.

And now we're in

Haas mode.

That's going to be on a quote card right before they play against Detroit a playoff series at some point.

Yeah.

Also, the other team was Philly, and those teams aren't coming until 2030.

Okay.

So, yeah.

Oh, Philly's the other team, not National.

She said National.

She's like, why didn't you pull in National?

Why didn't you?

She's basically like, why don't you put them in party cities?

I don't know.

I get it.

Detroit love their sports.

How successful do you think a WNBA franchise would be in Miami?

Probably not that.

They can barely get out of bed to watch their Stanley Cup champion Panthers.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure Detroit won three WNBA championships, right?

Can you fact-check that?

Like three or four?

Weren't they a dynasty?

What was that?

Wasn't Bill Lambert the coach?

Am I making all of this up?

I think Bill Lambert was.

They were.

Lisa Leslie.

Yeah.

No.

But Bill Lambert, I remember the NBA when they would do the all-star game and it would be like the WNBA player

with the NBA team.

So there's history there.

There's big history there.

Detroit's back.

Scoobel.

Did you guys watch Scoobel on Sunday night?

Yeah, it was the lights out.

What a fucking hoss.

Detroit's shocked.

What a

three-time WNBA champions.

There you go.

I know my WNBA history.

203, 206, 208.

No one's ever said it like that.

206, 203?

Why did you say that?

All right, PFT, what's your hot seat?

Cool, throwing.

My hot seat is Shador Sanders.

Yes.

So

the quarterback room in Cleveland right now is Joe Flacco.

Can you pick it?

Dylan Gabriel Shador.

And everyone's kind of looking for Joe Flacco to take on some sort of mentorship position, some sort of leadership role for the young guys.

I think Joe Flacco is more concerned about just winning a starting job and keeping his career going.

But lucky for Shadur Sanders, he found a mentor in Cleveland that's taking him, quote, under his wing.

Do you know who that person is?

I do.

It is Deshaun Watson.

Deshaun Watson has stepped up to show the young guy the ropes.

That's a bad phrase.

I should not have used that phrase.

He's taken him under his wing to kind of, you know, introduce him to the NFL and what it's like to be a pro, show him the meaning of being a true professional.

So shout out to Shadur.

Got a good mentor there.

Good luck.

Mm-hmm.

Good luck.

I don't know if this is like a contractual obligation where they're like, hey, Deshaun, I know you're not really playing right now, but if you could kind of hang out with the young guys and lead by example.

You think this is maybe a situation like who saved who?

Like an old person getting a pet?

Yeah, it could be.

Who saved who here?

It could be.

Like that, that type of responsibility might be good for Deshaun.

Also, if Shador is literally under his wing all the time, then he's not not going to be getting jacked off in massage parlors because the beds aren't wide enough.

So that's good.

Well,

Shador.

But the bed's not wide enough for two at Deshaun.

Shador

could go skiing.

He could, yeah.

Shador could be.

Shador could be the lucky Pierre in between Deshaun Watson and Joe Flacco just going to town.

Joe, I'll tell you this.

I've shaken Joe Flacco's hand.

I would not want a hand job from him.

That guy's got fucking monster hands.

No,

he's meant to beat off in cold weather.

That's why the Steelers, that's why the Steelers and the Ravens wanted him out of college.

If Joe Flacco gives you a hand job, you'd just be like, whoops, I broke it.

Yeah.

This guy's got hands that could jack off a Clevelander.

We got to tell Joe that we had this conversation when we see him maybe in Tahoe.

I mean, shake his hand.

Shake his hand.

Tell me if...

If that could make you come.

The answer is.

I'll rush more of people you would least like to get your hand job from

he's andre the giant greg abbott

uh no not greg abbott jason pierre paul

who's greg abbott the pitcher

no that's the politician isn't it

oh jim abbott jim abbott yeah

also greg abbott

as well

well he's probably got some strong arms yeah the guy that indian dude with the with the um like hundred-year fingernails,

yep, yeah, the ones that curl around.

That would suck.

That would really suck.

All right, your cool throw.

My cool throw is the U.S.

men's national team, the lads.

Boys, we're in the semifinals now of the CONCACAF Gold Cup.

Hank is locked in.

I know you watched that PK shootout against Costa Rica.

The good news is we got a goalie now, and his name is Freeze.

He's the ice wall.

That plays.

Yeah, the goalie's name is Freeze, and he was awesome in PKs.

He was a beast.

What I didn't realize, though, is once we got rid of Greg, because we were a Greg Out podcast.

We got Greg fired.

There's another burr halter.

His son is on the team, but his son is on the team because I think he just made the team, not through nepotism.

But he also missed a penalty kick.

He Baggio'd a penalty kick top left and skied it.

So I don't know.

Maybe we might be all Berhalters out now.

Was Greg there?

Greg was in the stands, like upper deck.

They had him sitting like in the 400 row, and he was watching his son take the penalty kick, and they got the whole reaction.

Tough, tough moment for a dad and a family to watch at the same time.

But

listen, I think Greg Burhalter,

way better human being than a soccer coach.

Yeah.

Totally agree.

So he was in the stance for that.

So that means that we beat Costa Rica.

We're playing Guatemala in the semifinals tonight.

Tonight, Hank.

Lock the fuck in.

Two teams.

Who are the other two teams?

Mexico and some team that's going to lose to Mexico.

So we're going to, what's going to happen, is this your first COCACAF Gold Cup, Hank?

What's going to happen is...

Not by, not like, not willingly.

You're not consenting to this?

No, no, no.

Let me break it down for you, Hank.

Here's how the CONCACAF Gold Cup works.

All right.

The U.S.

is going to play against Mexico in the finals.

We're going to beat Mexico in the finals, and we're all going to be like, U.S.

soccer's back.

We're good.

And then we're going to blow it again in the next tournament that we play.

We're automatically in the World Cup.

Who cares?

Agreed.

It's the pageantry and the spectacle of the Gold Cup, Hank.

Got it.

And Saudi Arabia is in this?

So, yeah, they're

a famed CONCACAF member.

I think Qatar was in it last time, too.

Yeah, We just let anyone in it.

Just have a lot of time.

The bag's big enough.

Yeah.

Yeah.

All right.

My hot seat.

I also had Shadur Sanders.

I'll pivot.

It's myself.

We're not doing a Fire Fest this week.

Reminder, we don't have a show Friday on 4th of July.

This is an extra long show.

So if you have to work Friday, save dingers only for yourself.

We have two great interviews coming up.

Zach Gallen and Meryl Kelly in studio and then Joey Chestnut.

So extra long show.

And then we'll be back three times a week, obviously, on Monday.

But my Fire Fest, or sorry my hot seat is me i went to dinner with my wife last night and um

there was a couple fans uh there was like a table of young kids that that were like asked me for a picture and i was like oh that's cool and then there was this table with with this guy with this big beard uh and older and i and he like was like what's up love your podcast like oh that's sick and i mentioned my wife i was like look at me like

we're doing the the young kids we're doing the old guys and she's like that guy is the exact same age as you and i had like the moment where i was like

he totally is

because he had a beard i was just like and i i had one of those moments where it's like oh yeah i forgot i'm 40.

like he he was he looked exactly the same age that's crazy like i got the old guys i got the young guys so you know

yeah we are old we're old we're old um yeah like i'll see like another guy came he had like two little kids and he was like big fan i was like oh man like look at this i'm getting getting the older generation like wait those kids are the exact same age as my kids fuck what the hell um

yeah go ahead anybody older than Hank is is old yeah that's the way to look at it yeah and then my cool throne is uh uh dudes dudes named Ryan because this happened this happened a few days ago I think it happened last week but I uh they ESPN had an article about it did you guys see the uh the Ryan Ryan's day out uh in Colorado it was pretty fucking awesome so the Rockies have three Ryans on the roster I think they actually have a fourth who's on IL.

And there's a group of Ryans who just like do meetups around the country.

And they tried to break the record for most Ryans at a baseball game.

There was like 500 Ryans out in the Bleachers.

And then Ryan McMahon on the Rockies hit a home run for him.

And it was just like such a dude's rock moment where they just have, they have, they just basically go around.

They did a St.

Ryan's Day in Boston.

They did another, another random Ryans outing.

They just get all the Ryans and they all just meet up.

I like that.

That is very cool.

Do you think that you said the Rockies have four Ryans?

They have three currently on the roster.

One is on the

IL.

Do you think if two of the other Ryans go on the IL, they'll send Tom Hanks there to pull the last one out and save him?

They have to.

No, they'll send Ryan Day.

They'll send Ryan Day out there.

But yeah, it was, I mean, I don't know.

It's pretty cool.

Like,

world's kind of a cynical place these people are just hanging out and they actually have

when you go you have to show your id to confirm that you're a ryan by the way our guy rascillo not invited it has to be r-y-a-n

uh

and uh they also have like rightly so they have like a notary public guy there who can legally change your name to ryan if you want to join oh if you wanted if you want to just be part of the festivities yeah that's i i like that but also

there should should be somebody that

there should be somebody that monitors the Ryans to make sure that they all go by Ryan, yeah, because Ryan is probably a pretty commonly skipped first name for people that just go by their middle name.

That's true.

They had a so they had a St.

Ryan's Day in Boston, they had a Ryan Rodeo in Austin, they had an all-Ryans game show in San Diego, they just party with just Ryans,

it's fucking awesome.

I like that, yeah.

Um, all right, Zach, finish us off before we get to our interviews.

I do have a cool throne for you guys this week.

My cool throne is.

Hot seat?

Oh, we can go hot seat first.

Yep, we can do that.

So my hot seat this week is recently, gentlemen, we all played Dungeons and Dragons.

It did come out in the last couple of days.

I did see that in the moment while we were playing together,

I did not realize just how indecisive I may have been in some of the decisions going back and watching the game film.

And I would like to say, Hank, I do want to apologize for contributing to messing up your birthday.

That's all guys.

not your fault.

I didn't know

just how bad some of that went.

And I just want you to know, Hank, I'm sorry, and I hope it was a great birthday after that, man.

It was a great birthday, and I don't want you to worry about it for a second.

It was funny.

And I do have a hot seat as well.

Erno Hot Seattle.

I did think Big How was paying you to do that at one point, but that's not.

Hank was so mad at me.

There was no hand-to-hand transactions on that.

That was just a misstep.

Zach, in terms of watching the YouTube and seeing how the uh the costume shopping went for dungeons and dragons any any decisions you would have made a little bit differently there are you happy the way things turned out most of them i you guys didn't have full costumes that's 100 on me it i dropped the ball it's okay we listen we play dungeon and dragons by the way thank you for everyone who listens to that episode shout out tim woods we play it twice a year uh around our vacations And so you'll have another chance.

Sometime in February, you'll have another chance.

On the costumes?

yes on the costumes it would be i would love a redemption costume if that if that's okay with you can we keep the time limit no no no no no the time limit starts tomorrow yeah

same costume shop right is that cool yes i think i think we we stick to he gets an hour he's got to get it done in an hour he's got to get it done in an hour i think we also should next dungeon and dragons we should get one of those sand timers for zach

yes yes that's great we walk in we we get an hour sand timer and once it starts, that's it.

But also in the game, too, when we make him make a decision, he's just flip it and just be like, all right, Zach, here we go.

I'm going to become hyper-aware of time, I promise, gentlemen.

No, I don't want you to change.

I don't want you to change.

Okay,

that too.

I can work on that.

PFT, you bounced out for a second.

Zach decided that he was going to work on being more decisive, then I told him, don't change, and he's going to also work on that.

Okay, which one are you going going to work on first

the decisiveness i'm going to i'm going to lock that in for you guys no but i don't want you to i don't want you to change your right no i got that wrong i got that wrong uh the timing stuff uh

yes

yes that was a that was a brain fart yeah no that was good that was good

which one are you gonna work on first yes okay uh your cool throne i do have a cool throne for you guys uh my cool throne this week goes out to uh the gentleman at uh optic texas they defeated the Vancouver Surge or CDO.

They are Call of Duty World Champions in Call of Duty Black Ops 6.

Shout out to those guys.

Mercuries,

first ever in history, back-to-back champions.

I'm not even an Optic guy, but you can't deny greatness.

That's so awesome.

Mercules coming up.

They did some roster cuts earlier in the season.

Another one doing too good.

Kenny got dropped.

They picked up Mercules, did some shifting around.

He wins MVP.

Shout out to the young guy.

Everybody just frying.

It was fantastic.

Huck, Shopsy, Dashie, all the boys.

Congratulations.

Mercules.

Back to back.

Never been done.

Is Mercules next?

He's the new goat?

He's good.

I wouldn't say new goat.

He's got a

long way to go, but he was a great contributor to the team.

Jack, didn't he get dropped from the Stallions?

It is a little bit of a redemption.

Yes.

Wait.

Great ball knowledge there, Hank.

Fantastic.

Taking him off the street?

He's getting dropped and picked up, but now he's with the boys.

Now he's with the hitters.

Hex picked him up.

Daddy Hex said, look, come over to the green wall.

We're We're going to show you how to do it right.

And they might be doing the next thing.

Wait, Mercules, that, like, to merc someone is to kill him.

So that's an incredible nickname, right?

Oh, it's an awesome matchup.

Hercules, Merc, Mercules, fantastic.

It's 10.

Okay.

Yeah.

That's that's a great nickname.

Wait, Zach, did you watch it live?

I didn't.

I wasn't able to catch all of it, but I've watched all the clips since then, yes.

Okay.

Zach, I got a question for you.

In this Call of Duty tournament, are all the players looking relatively famous?

This is Champs.

This is a Super Bowl PFT.

Let's just call it a tournament.

Let's just call it a regular tournament.

Okay, all right.

World Championship, are all the players in really good shape?

Mentally or physically?

Physically.

Like, are there any big boys that are playing?

I mean, yeah, there's some big boys at the desk.

Hank is like, yeah, for sure.

Because in my day, that's how you identify a gamer usually had a little heft to him.

And from what I've been seeing with the advent of,

you know, speed and ADHD medication, it feels like all the guys are like real thin.

And I would like to see some of the bigger boys coming back.

I don't think, I think the heftiness isn't going anywhere anytime soon, but maybe some of these guys maybe dial back on the Riddlin a little bit, you know, maybe get some more carbs in them.

They're all short, they're all little guys.

That's pretty clear.

They're all like posture's not the best, but those fast twitch muscles, immaculate.

Is there a tall, fat guy that we could call Kendrick Merkins?

That'd be good.

Not on Optic, but I can find you the tallest fat guy they got in the CDL right now.

Okay.

Oh, PFT, I had a short king staff for you.

Fuck.

That's weird because I'm not that short, actually.

No, you're not, but I had a stat for you, and I saw it, and I was like, oh, I'm going to save this.

Fuck.

I don't think I have it.

Oh, no, I have it.

Here it is.

Jose El Tuve, 242 career home runs.

Every other player listed 5, 6, or shorter since integration, 241 home runs.

So he's lapped the crew.

He's literally the pound for pound greatest.

He stands head and shoulders above the crew.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Everyone else combined.

241.

He had 242.

Good for him.

Pretty sick.

Okay.

Let's get to our interviews.

Meryl Kelly, Zach Gallin, Joey Chestnut, and then our Dingers-only draft, which I'll just say it,

never our best work, but still.

It was actually way better than last year's.

Yeah, we called some of the players, too.

Yeah, we got some of the players on the phone.

And also last year,

We drafted a lot more players that had already been taken.

And we drafted a lot more players that were already injured, like on the disabled list.

Right.

So I'd say, like, in terms of getting it right for the most part, I'd say we hit like 80%.

Yeah.

And also Zach realizing his decisiveness might be an issue.

We did tape this last week before he realized that.

Might still be an issue in this draft.

And as of right now, we're all live.

So all the teams are live.

I've been watching my guys being pissed off every time they hit a home run, being like, save it, save it.

Yep.

But it's officially live and we'll update it every single week.

Okay, let's get to the interviews.

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Okay, here they are.

Zach Gallin and Meryl Kelly.

Okay, we now welcome on two very special guests from the Arizona Diamondbacks.

It's Zach Gallin, Meryl Kelly,

best friends.

Let's start there.

I was reading that you guys are best friends.

Are you both saying saying that the other one's your best friend?

Yeah, sure.

I would say so.

Meryl said that a lot faster than you, Zach.

Well, I didn't want to talk over them.

Okay, yeah, yeah.

That's best friend.

That's a best friend trait.

You don't want to talk over it.

Are we talking best friends on the team or best friends in life?

Let's talk best friends in life.

Oh.

I mean, I feel like we both have circles outside of baseball who can't trump, but on the team for sure.

Best friends on the team.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

We've been together longest.

We've both been here since 2019.

So it's been a long time.

Okay.

So if we played the newlywed game right now, you guys would be really good at it?

That's a good question.

That's a good question.

Good question.

If it was the baseball, like a baseball version of that, I think we'd be all right.

Or golf?

Or golf?

What's

Meryl's favorite pitch, Zach?

Change it.

Okay.

What's Zach's favorite pitch?

Kerbal.

Okay.

Is that right?

Sounds like you guys are good so far.

What's Zach's favorite movie?

Ooh, Zach's favorite movie.

Yeah, that one would probably stump me.

I don't even know if I know the answer to my favorite movie.

That's perfect.

You guys are in sync.

Oh, there you go.

Meryl, who's the guy that absolutely owns Zach?

In the league?

Yeah.

I don't know.

If you get this, it would be impressive, actually.

Oh, so someone we're not thinking of.

I'll give you a hint.

They're not active.

That's the thing.

They're not.

Are they retired?

Some guy on the Savannah Bananas?

I might hang him up if that was the case.

I don't know if they're retired, but they're just not in the majors anymore.

Got it.

We used to play him a lot.

In division?

Yeah.

Charlie Blackman?

No.

Who is it?

Rymel Tapia.

And what was the reason?

I should have known that.

Rymel Tapia,

I think last time I faced him was 2023, maybe

in Milwaukee.

And I swear to you, I think it was like he's hitting 600 off me.

Like 12 for like 20, like whatever that math comes out to be 10 for 19 and i'm like oh at least i never gave up a home run to him gave up a home run to him that day

but what what is that guy killed us right is it in your is it in your head or is it something he's just figured out i think it's just something that he does like he just 10 for 18 with a home run and two rbis and 19 plate appearances yeah it's gallant that's pretty damn good and if you do the ai the ai overview says rhyme eltapia has had considerable success against zach gallon in the considerable

Considerable is an understatement, I think, if you ask me.

I'm like, here comes this fucking game.

All right, so who owns Merrill?

I would imagine if you looked up his numbers against the Diamondbacks in general, they'd probably play really good.

Who owns Meryl?

We were just talking about this.

Fuck.

We were just talking about this.

Someone who's still in the big league.

I know.

We just played him, too, right?

You can guess the team.

The team should be pretty obvious.

You just said it.

You're like, I don't understand.

I'm drawing a blank.

No, you're thinking of the guy that

I think

shouldn't beat me that does all the time.

Oh, who's that?

But the guy who owns me is different than that guy.

Wait,

who should it?

Who's the first one?

That's better.

Now you're going to let me put this guy on blast.

Yeah, yeah.

Who is he?

Yeah, yeah.

Jacob Stallings.

Okay.

That's right.

Stallings.

I don't know who.

I can't think of it.

He's been in the league for a while.

And so when he gets you, you're like, this is the one.

Oh my gosh, damn it.

This guy got me again.

Every single time I watch him, I'm like, there's no way this guy's getting hit off me.

And every single time he does, he'll drop one in for a two RBI blooper over the second baseman's head.

Knock me out of the game sometimes.

Yeah, all right.

So who's who's the answer to who owned you?

I can't think of who it is.

LA

Freddy?

Mookie?

Close.

Freddy probably does too, but Muncie.

Muncie.

Muncie.

I wouldn't guess.

We went on a family vacation with my wife's family, and her uncle's pretty funny.

He puts together like these gift bags for everybody, but in there, there's like a dark joke for everyone, right?

Like, and he literally hand-typed a letter from Max Muncie to me and the Dodgers thanking me for my services against the Dodgers.

But I think Muncie's probably hitting, I would guess, 500 off me, something like that.

Okay.

And Meryl, what's what barstall sports employee has the most unhealthy obsession with zach

that's a good question do you know zach

yeah

i'm not the one to ask about that there's there's a few teammates that would get this right i don't know that he would know this yeah okay so

but there's a handful of guys that would right off the bat would be like i know exactly who you're talking about who's that guy that'd be rico yeah so so this is a real topic we have to talk about because zach i i obviously was busting your balls when we were walking in being like oh i'd love to see in a cubs uniform

I won't push any rumors, but you are in a contract year, so it's got to be like, it's got to be in your head a little bit.

Do you think if Scott Boris walks in and is like, hey, Zach, we're ready to get a new contract, but this guy, Rico, he's bringing us down.

And teams are going to see this relationship and they're going to be like, you know what?

The price went down.

I mean, you have to cut him loose because he does.

It is bad for you how much he rides for you.

And he turtles when you have a bad game.

Does he, really?

Yes.

That was the big.

Well,

I respect that at least.

I mean, he's so ride or die.

He's so ride or die.

I don't think that's true.

You know, he would kill.

He would literally murder you for NATO's.

So you don't mean anything in the grand scheme of it.

In the grand scheme of it, yeah.

This is a good point.

And I never thought that I would be over NATO, so I'm fine with that.

Okay.

So I don't think he actually rides as hard for you as you think that he does.

I think that this season he's kind of gotten off.

Oh, he's definitely gotten off.

Yeah.

Because I'm probably losing him money this year.

So we're being frank about it.

Well, first start of the year, March 27th, happy gallon day to all who celebrate.

That's what he posted.

Then your next start, happy gallon day to all who celebrate.

Your next start, happy gallon day to all who celebrate.

He hasn't done that since April 7th.

Oh, no.

Well, I haven't pitched good since April 7th.

So that's probably why.

He's probably like, I'm losing money every time this guy's out here.

No more happy gallon day.

But to be fair,

he was at least riding.

For whatever it was.

Yeah, it was a long time.

And we love Rico.

Yeah, we got a busted ball.

But I think it was the NLCS where i think game one where you got touched up a little yeah

and then he he went silent and then he when you guys won game three he went after max and it was like dude where were you game one he he does that he goes silent on twitter when things go don't go his way and then game seven yeah good too yeah are you guys i mean that did max even that come up game seven i mean he that was an all-time meltdown he looked ridiculous you guys i've heard you talk about meryl uh because you grew up a little bit in the area but like the max was just convinced that the bank was gonna win that series.

He was like, they can't go and win two at the bank.

There's no way.

Because we're pitching against the crowd.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That is how he thinks.

I think it actually would have been easier to pitch against the crowd, if we're being honest.

Some guys that are yelling at us, we bring him down into the box and see how it goes.

I don't know, dude.

He was the Matt Stairs of the CAA baseball hochtra.

So he could probably take one off you guys.

Maybe we should make that happen.

We should make that happen.

Bring you, Eric Sim out, and we'll make a whole thing out of it.

he does have to pitch against uh against a college lineup at some point yeah because he lost our fantasy baseball league last year uh do you have any advice for him uh pitcher to pitcher how should he approach that lineup what lineup are you facing who are you facing uh we don't know yet because max keeps putting the uh punishment off it was supposed to be it was supposed to be tennessee and then we had a couple

and then we had a couple rainouts and then i broke my foot on an whatever we don't have to get into how i broke my foot he broke his foot being drunk just walking just walking home that sounds a little intentional.

That sounds like you're trying to get out.

No, I mean,

maybe.

Do you have any pitching background?

None.

No.

We got a radar gun out.

I think I was topping out at like 62 at the moment.

That might actually be good for you.

I know that's below the hit.

That's what Scoobel said.

If you threw like 85, I'd be like, they would like

85.

Yeah, PFT did it against UIC baseball.

Only give up, what, two earned runs?

Yeah, earned runs, Asterix.

I balked a lot.

Yeah.

I had like four balls.

How many innings?

Two innings.

Two innings, okay.

Struck a guy out.

Big cat threw out the strike out at first.

I dropped the third strike, but still threw him out at first.

So it's like we both got a strike out.

Yeah, yeah.

Which is the stupidest rule in baseball of all time.

I love it.

I love it.

It's so stupid.

Really?

You think that's the.

You swing at a pitch.

That's that bad.

That that is, yes, that bad.

And then just because the ball like bounced away, you get to go to first base.

Yeah.

You got to, you got to catch it.

Like a participation trophy, is what I call it.

I don't Think about it.

Like I literally made you swing at a pitch that didn't even make it to the plate.

It was that bad and you get to run to first base.

It still counts as a K though for you.

Yeah.

If we get them, yeah.

Yeah.

So you could get, think about it this way.

You could get unlimited K's in a game.

That is a game.

Think about it the positive way.

I've made that joke.

We get him out there before.

I'm like, you just wanted me to get another strikeout, right?

That's why we missed that one.

Four punches in it.

Yeah.

When you guys, like, so, Zach,

when did you have your 13th strikeout game against the Yankees?

Was it last year?

No.

This year.

It was this year.

Yeah.

In April.

Did you?

That was probably right after that guy stopped.

Right before that guy stopped tweeting.

Yeah, Rico.

Do you know when you have it like that on a given day?

Or how fast during the game are you like, oh, shit, it's different today?

Yes and no.

I mean, there's been games where I've,

I go back, there was a game against the Dodgers where

in the bullpen, I felt like shit.

I'm like, well, let's just see what's going to happen today.

And then wound up punching out like 12 or 13 that day.

So like, you don't don't really know until the game's going on.

And in that Yankees game, I didn't know that I had 13 K's.

Like, stuff was just moving how I wanted it to.

They were swinging to pitches that I wanted them to.

So it kind of worked out.

But I'd say, like, probably by the third inning, you're like, okay, like, everything's kind of working how I want it to.

Like, you've been through the lineup like one time.

You're like, all right, I got a pretty good idea of what's going on.

Do you think the rec specs help you?

Because you do look like a nerd and like guys don't take you as seriously.

It's like opposite intimidation.

Yeah, right.

No way can this nerd strike me out.

Yeah, that's probably how I was going to.

I was going to say the long hair.

Yeah, the long hair.

Yeah.

It's

the astigmatism.

That's what I'm chogging it up to.

Yeah.

Yeah, maybe it's a reverse kind of intimidation thing.

Yeah.

Have you guys noticed the stitches on the ball being any different this year?

I just talked about this the other day.

The drag.

You seen that?

Yeah.

I mean, the drag set for you.

Well, you guys have to say you don't notice it.

Considering that

I've noticed it.

Yeah, I honestly haven't noticed it, to be honest.

I've given up some far home runs this year, so I must be using different balls.

They must just have the ones specifically for when I'm pitching and the other low-drag ones.

I mean, I will say the last couple years, I mean, I'll get balls back that are exit Vila like 73 miles an hour, and the whole half of it is just dented.

Like, the whole half is just lopsided when you get it back.

And balls that aren't even, like, scorched, it'll be like a little jam shot pop-up, and I'll get it back, and the whole half will just be like cut off.

The other thing I'm interested in with like how they prepare the balls is the mud that gets put on them.

So, do you have like a specific way that you guys like to have your balls handled?

We actually give our bullpen catchers a lot of shit for this because they're the ones in charge of rubbing our balls up.

Yeah.

Some days they don't rub their balls that good.

Yeah, and some days they're a little dry.

Yeah, so we tell them to get a little bit more moisture on the balls.

Yeah, that's a little bit better.

I like that, yeah.

Yeah, if you pull one out and it's a little chalky, it's like a come on, come on, man.

Yeah, take some more time rubbing those balls, please.

What that mouth dude,

Wait, so Meryl,

I think you're the only pitcher to pitch in the World Series and the Korean World Series.

Is that correct?

I think I saw that somewhere.

That's crazy.

That's wild.

Yeah, that was fun.

What was it like pitching in Korea?

Awesome.

Like, is it just the same game?

Like, is it the talent level?

Pretty much.

Yeah, the talent level is getting there.

When I was there, it was still to be desired a little bit.

Like, there were guys that could play in the big leagues all the way to guys that probably wouldn't even sniff the field on my junior college team.

Really?

And anywhere in between that.

The game pretty much is the same, right?

Once you get in between the white lines, it's the same.

There's a smoke break after the fifth inning.

They do a fifth inning break rather than a seventh inning break

because obviously Koreans just pound cigarettes.

So the fifth inning break is funny.

All the starters will come off and they'll go pound their cigarette and all the bench guys and the relievers will go out in the field and stretch and run around and warm up and stuff.

And then we'll come back out and resume the game.

That's yeah.

And you were on the Wyverns, right?

Yeah.

Do you know what is a Wyvern?

It's It's like a mythical dragon.

Yeah, it's the best way to describe it, I think.

We play Dungeon and Dragons a couple times a year.

A couple times a year?

Yeah, yeah.

Whenever you're feeling frisky, we do it on the show, yeah.

Okay.

And our dungeon master, Tim Woods, is obsessed with Wyverns.

He thinks that the Wyvern is actually the purest form of the dragon.

Something to do with the wings and the legs.

You think he's an SK fan or what?

Maybe.

Maybe we need to get him an SK jersey.

Get him some.

I don't think they make him anymore.

They sold.

It's a different team now.

So when you're playing in Korea and you're going up against a guy that you said probably wouldn't even play junior college ball, do you have to lock yourself in more when you're facing that guy?

Because you're like,

I can't let up a hit to this guy that sucks.

Honestly, I just try to throw right down the middle and want them to hit it.

Because they're pesky over there.

They'll just foul shit off until they die.

So I would rather just, here's a first-pitch fastball.

If you hit it the best you can, it might make it to the outfielder.

And otherwise, it's going to just bloop into somebody's glove.

So I'm just going to give you a first-pitch heater and hopefully move on yeah then focus back on the guys that face action

yeah basically yeah yeah I do you do you guys miss batting were you still no no batting was the best no batting was

so horse

no but home runs like by a pitcher was so cool so cool yeah it was the only time that

the pitcher hitting was good was they'd come up with like bases loaded one out and like a big spot and you're like oh thank god i can either get a strike out here or a double play unless you're facing like the couple of guys that could hit but for the most part like my dad used to get he would be like swing the bat i'm like dad they don't pay me any more or less if i'm getting hit

i remember you and all i can do is get hurt i remember i remember you and bum got into it that one day at bp yeah because that's his argument like they don't pay me to hit and you know mad bum was a good hitter he liked to hit homer so he like really took pride in it So the fact that he said that like really offended.

He got mad at you?

Yeah, he got mad.

He's like, no, they literally do pay you to hit.

This is when they were like negotiating between the DH DH or no DH, whatever they were doing.

And I just was like,

all you can do out there is get hurt.

Like, I just saw the total downside of it.

And I was a decent hitter.

I could bunt.

Like, I was fine.

It was just more of like, this seems like an occupational hazard.

And you did.

You ended up breaking your arm.

Yeah.

And then I had a hairline fracture in my elbow.

Wait, from bunting?

Yeah.

From taking BP in the cage.

Like, one of the first weeks in spring training, I was just like, oh, this doesn't feel right.

They couldn't figure out what it was.

And then finally got MRI.

And they were like, you have a tiny hairline fracture in your elbow.

Yeah, so you're never going to take PP again.

I haven't.

Oh, I took it that year because we were hitting, but like, I had to be like, I had to bunt the first two months of that season because they didn't want me to swing.

It was like a, yeah, it was a whole thing.

Wait, was hitting sucked?

Was Baumgartner like, was he actually pissed?

Because that's a guy you don't want to have pissed at you.

I'm not sure.

I think he was like, I think he was like 60-40.

I think he was trying to give me like the young guy, like rookie, like kind of hazing type of deal, but also was like, I want to keep hitting.

Yeah.

He was upset.

He loved it.

What is the rookie hazing in Major League Baseball?

I feel like it's just like wear a weird costume.

Nowadays.

Yeah, nowadays it's nothing really.

Yeah.

Damn.

How society's gone, it's like.

It's gone.

Yeah, you can't really do that much anymore.

Like the last probably thing is like have bring beers on the bus, would you say?

Yeah.

Oh, man, that's real.

Every once in a while.

Yeah, exactly.

Every once in a while, somebody might get up there and sing.

We might, you know, have somebody get up there and tell their life story and sing.

But even there's a couple guys that don't really like that either.

So it doesn't really much,

there's not really much of that that goes on anymore, at least in our organization.

That's the only organization I've been with.

So I can't speak for other teams.

I don't know what they do.

As far as we go, there's not really much.

You should just have Rico come on the road with you and be like, the hazing is you have to stay in a room with him.

He sleep talks.

He like screams in his sleep.

Night terror.

Yeah, yes, night terror.

I've seen some of that from Survivor.

That would be awesome.

I'm just like, you're with Rico.

What are the night terrors?

He screams.

So he sleeps with the lights on he screams in the middle of the night and he plays show tunes on his speakerphone yeah it's not real there's no way

that's how he sleeps every night he falls asleep the show tunes the show tunes yeah the rent soundtrack i had to share a room with him for a couple nights and i i couldn't believe any

soundtrack is so random yeah no i didn't have a sleep mask on or anything it was just like this is this can't be real

dog like people raw dog flights you were just raw dogging sleep i was raw dog and rico yeah i had to raw dog

and and trying to fall asleep in that environment is uh miserable it's challenging.

It's like you can't believe that this is a real human being.

No wonder he's fucking crazy.

And I love him, but he's nuts because he stays up all night screaming and listening to show tunes.

Does Rico know the Rent

soundtrack by heart?

Probably.

I don't know.

It's probably absorbed into his brain.

Yeah, right?

Like, what is it, Osmosis?

Yeah.

He probably, like, if he went to see Rent and

the lead got sick, he could jump on and just be like, I got this.

I got it.

I'm good.

I got it.

I'll handle it.

Merrill, in Korea, did you ever get to see the bunting derby?

I was a part of it.

You were a part of it.

To me,

there's some YouTube out there somewhere.

I don't know.

MLB needs to incorporate the Bunt Derby into the All-Star game.

Do you think so?

You think that'll draw a crowd?

I love watching it.

Yeah.

So what was that like?

What did they have you do doing that?

It was cool because I flew my brother over.

My brother came over for the all-star game, so he's the one actually threw to me.

But yeah, they just have these three targets set up, one to the left side, one down the first base side, and then one right in the middle.

And you just, yeah, just like it sounds.

You just bunt and you try to to get it in the target as much as you can.

How'd you do?

Uh, I did all right.

I didn't win.

My brother was a little amped up, was firing him in there a little bit, a little too hard.

He was a little excited, and then we do it, and then we watch the next guys come up, and like, they're literally just like lobbing these balls in there, and these guys are just like softly tapping and placing them in there.

I'm like,

we didn't uh, we didn't talk strategy before that.

They got to bring that to Major League Baseball.

It used to be in A Derby in the AAA all-star game, they would do it in 18.

I was in it, Really?

And I was like, this is like...

Yeah, it was.

To your point, like, the BP was coming in too fast.

I'm like, you can't stop this.

No, it doesn't.

Yeah.

I mean, I just think it would be the most electric thing to gamble on.

Yeah, I could see that.

I could definitely see that.

Very cool.

Because then you're trying to look up stats of like, all right, is this guy actually a good bunter in like the games?

Yeah.

You take that into the bunting derby.

Yeah.

Every time you make contact, like I'm watching to see where the ball is going to land, you have a good like five, six second rush of adrenaline watching on TV, be like, oh, that's going to fuck.

It'd be great.

Yeah.

um how much of your guys success as uh pitchers do you owe to Dan Heron and is it all

what are you laughing though no I was just

I was surprised it took this long to get it yeah I mean

we give it we give we give him all this all the credit um you tell me if that's wrong but he is a genius yeah I talk to Dan a lot um what does he do actually because I actually don't like in real honesty I don't think he does anything he puts together he writes up all of our scouting reports.

Okay, so all the starting pitcher scouting reports, Dan, is the one behind it.

About the other lineup.

Yes.

And he's really good at that.

Yeah.

That's pretty sick.

He's an awesome dude.

He's the best.

Yeah.

He puts good reports together.

Sometimes too good.

What does that mean?

Like, there's so much information on there that, like, yeah.

I'm like, Dan, how did you, how did you find this number?

Like, and then I got to go look at it and be like, damn, he found, I don't know how he found that number.

Does he come out like every now and then and like actually like talk to you guys about pitching?

Because I know he still lives in California.

So he was just in

Colorado.

Colorado.

Yeah.

Does he give you like tips?

Because Dan's career is like fascinating because he basically he was such a stud and then obviously got hurt with his back, but then continued to

be in the MLB for a really long time.

Yeah, where he basically pitched two different ways.

So he kind of knows everything about pitching, it would seem like.

Yeah, the cool thing about Dan is that he always is like,

he never wants to bring, like, make it about him.

He's like, I'm not going to talk about what I did.

But if you got questions, he's got, he'll try and answer them, which I think is cool because people who play a long time could be like, you know, me, me, me.

I did this.

I did that.

And it's like, he's like, do your thing.

If you need questions, I'll answer questions if you want me to.

Yeah.

That's why we give him a lot of credit.

All the credit.

Because we know it makes him uncomfortable.

He's not that type of credit.

He's not that type of guy at all.

So we like to really give him a lot of credit.

A lot of credit.

So much credit.

You guys should give him a lot of credit just to make him uncomfortable.

We do.

We do give him a lot of credit.

Like, you wouldn't be here without Dan Harrison.

Right now.

Yeah, he gave you so much credit.

I haven't said it in a while.

I love you, man.

Just want to say thank you for all you've done for me.

He'll get uncomfortable.

Yeah, he'll definitely get uncomfortable.

Ask him how his pug's doing, too.

I'll say he's got a cool pug.

Merrow.

R.I.P.

Bernie, right?

Yeah.

And the PMT boys give you so much credit.

So much credit.

He's going to hate listening to this because he just gets so.

He doesn't want to.

He doesn't want any of it.

He does not.

He doesn't want any of it.

He stays in the shadows.

Meryl, I can't.

He'll expect.

Because I told him we were coming.

So he's like, I know something's going to come out of this.

Well, I asked him, I was like, hey, if you got any good questions for Meryl or Zach, let me know.

They're coming in.

And he just hearted the message.

I was like, thanks, Dan.

Fucking thanks for nothing.

He was looking out.

If I was a starting pitcher, you wouldn't give me a full report, but he didn't give me shit.

No, good for him.

See, I respect all things.

I've gone on other podcasts where

they've been like, we know you eat this for breakfast.

And I'm like, who is your source?

Like, who are you talking to?

Yeah.

You call your dad.

It's a dad.

The source was actually kind of like out of the blue.

I was like, wow,

there was actually.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Wait, Mary, what does he eat for breakfast?

Yeah.

I saw him at Kith the other day in

Toronto eating French toast.

Oh, that's kind of heavy.

Yeah, I got a French.

Yeah.

What do you eat for breakfast?

No, that, like,

Most of the time, it's like either French toast.

I like chicken and waffles or eggs Benedict.

Most of the time a French toast is kind of crazy, so that is worth the question.

Being like, what do you have to do?

No, I wouldn't say French toast.

No, I wouldn't every day.

Most of the time is Eggs Benedict.

That's what I go with.

That's my go-to.

Like, I start every day with French toast.

Yeah, that is a crazy move.

Admittedly, I'm not even breakfast.

If you want to pitch in the big leagues, eat a breakfast.

Yeah.

Just eat like a eggs Benedict, though, is the theme, though.

That's my favorite, too.

Do you eat differently on days that you start?

Not really.

Like, I try to keep it the same,

which is not the same every day.

Like, just eat breakfast, you know, go about my day.

Like,

just try to keep your body off balance a little bit.

Yeah, keep it on its toes.

Like, make sure we're...

Do you lose track of what day of the week it is?

Yes.

Yeah, absolutely.

All the time.

I would imagine that would be something that would be different about baseball players.

Yeah.

I mean, we're in our third city in a week and a half, third time zone in a week and a half.

Yeah.

Every week.

You don't know.

Yeah.

You don't know what days.

You know what day you're pitching, and then after that, it's like, I don't know.

You kind of know by like what time the game is.

You're like, all right, it's a day game.

It's probably Sunday or Wednesday or Thursday.

Anything else?

And, you know, it ends in what we know it ends in Y.

Like, yeah.

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Okay, let's get back to Zach Gallen and Meryl Kelly.

What's your favorite day of like the five-day, you know, like starting and then the, like, what's the day?

Because I would, I always, this is very sad and pathetic that, like, I'm not motivated, but I always daydream of being a pitcher the day after I had a start because I feel like that would rock.

Just being like walking around the dugout being like, all right, boys, I took care of business yesterday.

Up to you.

That's if you took care of business.

Yeah, if you took care of business.

Yeah.

Well, in my dream, I'm always taking care of business.

Yeah, they call those Dig Me Days.

Okay.

Spa days.

You're Spa days.

Oh, like, look at me.

Like, Dig Me Day.

I was like, I got to Pro Ball.

I'm like,

what is that?

And they explain it to me.

But does if it's got to feel good, right?

Even if you're not trying to look for it, like being like, I had a gem or I pitched great deep into the game.

And then the next day, you just kind of could chill.

Yeah, there's definitely something to be said knowing that you just pitched really well and walking into the stadium the next day, knowing that there's absolutely zero way that you're going to contribute to that game.

Right.

Other than cheering on the boys and, you know, doing whatever in the dugout, like there's no way that i'm gonna enter the field of play today yeah yeah that's got to be great just say like a little mini vacation that you're on yeah do you guys get butterflies when you have to pitch

yeah

i would say so not as much as when i was younger but it's they're they're still there because yeah it's more like an anxious like let's go let's play like the game sometimes i'm like i wish this game would start so you must love

five days do you like pitch clock or no oh no

yes and as a as a fan watching the game yes.

When I'm pitching in the game, there's times that I would love for the game to slow down a little bit.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Like sometimes you're out there and you're just like, this, it's five seconds already.

Yeah.

Like, what are we doing?

Like, you just turned around and it's three seconds you have to throw the ball.

But to your point, you're watching the game and it's over in two hours and 30 minutes.

You're in touch with

the greatest dimension of all to you.

Yeah.

Pretty nuts.

I thought I was going to hate it, but I don't mind it.

How do we feel about the robot umps?

A tough question for, I feel like, for us to answer because we haven't experienced them yet.

The guys in AAA have done the whole ABS system and they've seen what it does.

I like the idea of the challenge system a lot better.

I think it kind of brings everything together.

It's like, because in my opinion,

the pitches that are missed throughout the game, right?

Like, if you miss a pitch in the first inning, like, is that really going to make a difference in the ninth?

But I go back to the World Series, that strike three that Moreno got called out on that was this far off the plate.

You know, if he taps his head right there to ball four, he's going to first and the game changes in a big way.

So I think the ABS, I think, is a little bit much.

I don't know how you make that consistent over 30 stadiums.

Yeah.

But I like the idea of the challenge system.

Yeah.

Yeah.

What about pitching on short rest?

You guys both done it?

Is it brutal?

I don't know if I've ever done it.

I don't know if I've ever done it.

Yeah.

I don't think, man, I don't think I've ever done it.

Because that's one of those things where, from a fan's perspective, I'm like, yeah, why not just go pitch on short rest?

Like, just fucking suck it up, dude.

Yeah,

just blow your arm I would do it I could take a short rest take a couple antine flams and just run out there well when does your arms start to feel good again is it really does it take the full four days off uh probably depends on the guy yeah you in theory you probably could like most guys could probably pitch on short rest like one day but over a period of the season like the compounding factor it would be like a problem i think but yeah you could do it like i mean you see guys do it in the playoffs all the time yeah you get the adrenaline boost like

it works out.

But probably not the safest way to go about.

Yeah.

How sore are you after a game?

Let's say you go eight innings.

How sore are you when you wake up the next day?

Pretty sore for the most part.

If it's except like if we're in Colorado, you're like extra sore just from like the elevation and the lack of oxygen, all that stuff.

So you get super sore.

I would say I get sore on day two for me.

That's when I'm like, like day one, I'm like, all right, like my body's sore.

Like I feel like I pitched eight innings, but like, my arm is sore on day two, like, trying to play catch and move.

And, you know, you get that delayed onset or whatever.

Yeah, or something called Doms to delayed onset muscle soreness.

Yeah, I wouldn't know about that.

Yeah.

Where's your least favorite place to pitch?

Not Colorado, not taking out Colorado because that's an easy answer, obviously in division for you guys.

But what's it maybe it's like time of day too, shadows or whatever, but what's the place you're like, man, this sucks?

Really, when the wind's blown out.

Yeah, that's, yeah.

That one is not fair yeah we were just talking before the the the game you guys played against the cubs this year where it's i think it was 16 runs in an inning and a half where it's just you guys aren't even are you like what do you what's even your strategy in that try to keep it on the ground yeah throw some sinks throw a sinker for the first time sinkers and change up some cutters and try to get them to hit it on the ground yeah yeah it's not good for me because the for me i i induce pop-ups flyballs like whatever so i'm like

this is tough everything's going yeah is there another one though that you're like oh this is a tough place to pitch or it's like so bad.

Because of the.

Yeah.

Well, I got another one.

I'm going to do a two-part.

Is it because of the team that you face in that stadium, or is it the stadium itself?

Like, this place just sucks pitching.

Give me both.

For me, I love pitching in the LA stadium, but I get absolutely shellacked there.

So I don't like pitching there because the Dodgers just light me up.

Yeah, the lineup's not fun to pitch against.

Yeah.

But the atmosphere is probably my favorite place to play in the league.

They're either there or Petco.

Yeah.

Cincinnati's tough.

Yep.

That's what I was going to say.

Cincinnati's pretty brutal.

The ball flies out there.

The ball flies in the mound.

I know they're supposed to have regulations on how high the mound is, but whatever they're doing, they're cheating for sure.

What do you mean?

It's way lower.

That mound is so flat.

Oh, shit.

You have to look into that.

Look in there.

That's crazy.

Like, our mound at home feels like a mountain compared to Cincinnati.

And you can notice right away when you stand on it.

You can notice it from the dugout.

You're like, that's a flat.

That mound is flat.

Why would they do that?

My guess is.

Their pitchers are like, this sucks.

I have to pitch it all the time.

Well, if you think about it, they could then try to acquire the

pitchers that pitch best on that type of mound, like sinker ballers or whatever it is that works on that mound.

Yeah.

They'd be like, all right, we're going to stick with these guys because it benefits them.

But this really works out.

That's crazy.

What's the highest mount?

I don't know.

I feel like ours is pretty big.

Ours is pretty big.

I feel like, is San Francisco kind of high?

San Francisco.

I didn't even think of it.

Miami's high.

I think Miami's high.

High mound.

Yeah.

Yeah, because it is supposed to be all the same, right?

Yeah.

Yeah.

You would think.

But

I don't know that there's a rule on the angle of the slope.

It just has to be whatever it is.

10 inches high.

But I don't know that it says like, okay, well, then where you land has to be four inches high.

I don't know if there's a rule with that.

You're right.

10 inches.

I didn't know that.

Did you know that off the top of your your head or

throw that out?

Yeah, but they can make it 10 inches and then just have it be like 10 inches across.

Instead of, yeah, right.

So you guys have been operating with this thing the whole time?

Hell yeah.

No idea.

Yeah.

We got Max back there.

I noticed you didn't say the bank.

What about the bank?

Not a tough place to play.

Yeah.

It's definitely...

I mean, it's that.

Those games in the playoffs were the most hostile sporting event that I've ever been a part of, hands down, for sure.

But I don't know.

It also makes it fun for us.

Feed off it.

Like COVID, one of the reasons why playing in COVID sucks so much is because it was silent.

It's like you could pump in the crowd noise and you see cardboard cutouts in the stands and it's just quiet.

Like

for us, baseball is fun with fans.

That's one of the reasons why we play.

When it's that loud, it's like white noise.

You don't really hear it at that point.

As opposed to like, I played in New Orleans where there was like 30 people at each game and you'd hear that like one idiot like in the corner being like boss

and you're like that's way worse than just like 45,000 people just screaming the whole time.

Because whether they're screaming for you against you, at least it's like, it brings energy.

Yeah.

It's fun.

What was it like, Beryl, being called the worst pitcher in the league by your own coach?

He actually said that?

Yeah, he said, I'm not going to lie to you.

I said, he said, since the all-star break, you are the worst statistical starting pitcher in

the big leagues.

You should have reversed it.

You've been like, well, you're the worst coach for putting me out there in five days.

Like, you more odd.

And then my ass would have for sure been in the bullpen.

I was trying to avoid the bullpen at all costs.

I literally went to Asia to avoid the bullpen.

I wasn't even going to try to do it here.

Wait, you didn't like the bullpen that much?

I mean, that's yes and no.

My role in Tampa was like what's called the swing man.

Like I was a long relief.

And then if somebody got hurt, I would start.

And then when that guy came back, it didn't matter how good I did.

I could be the best starter for six straight starts in the rotation.

But if that guy came back,

I was the guy that went back to the bullpen.

That'd be frustrating.

And and I just I hated it

yeah it wasn't fun that that nine game stretch was probably the lowest point of my career

I couldn't get past if I made it to the fifth inning it was a miracle so how did you get out of that

um honestly my back was against just against the wall I didn't really have a choice it was like I tried some different mechanical stuff and I just I started doing like a Felix Hernandez turn and just started letting the ball absolutely fly and

it worked stuff Stuff started ticking up, the VLO ticked up, stuff started moving again.

And then, once I got a couple games after that under my belt, then the confidence started coming back.

And after that, it kind of just took off.

Pulpin pitchers, that's got to be just a complete mind fuck.

Not being able to prepare like the same way every single time, not knowing if you're going to get into the game.

How do you manage that?

I understand it sucks, and that's why you, you know, you're like, fuck it, I'll go pitch in Korea.

I hate it.

But, like, what's that?

What's that like day to day?

I mean, one of the reasons I like starting is what you said.

Like, I know what day I am pitching.

I know what days I have to do, but that's how my brain works.

Some guys don't like that.

Some guys can't handle knowing when they're pitching.

Some guys, they work way better in the bullpen because it's just they turn their brain off.

And then once the phone rings and their name calls, then they turn it back on.

Yeah, it's a different mentality just because you're never

unless for me, I was a long guy.

If I threw three innings or four innings in a game, I knew the next couple of days I was down.

But for normal bullpen guys, like they're pretty much on call every single day.

So the thought thought of not being able to turn your brain off is different than, like I said, that day one.

It's like, I know 100% I'm not getting in the game.

For those guys, they never have that feeling.

And

I didn't enjoy that.

Who's the best hitter on your team?

You got some all-stars coming up.

Yeah.

You got to get some guys in the all-star game.

Yeah, I think for, I mean, for sure, my guess would be Kattelle.

I think Kattell's leading

second base voting right now.

Corbin's probably up there too.

Gino.

Gino.

and then Perdomo, and even Naylor.

Sneaky like Naylor's having a good year.

Have a really good year.

Eight-something OPS.

300.

Yeah, so I mean,

our offense is so good.

It's like,

it's honestly incredible.

Yeah.

Dude, that's been our strength.

If you guys, in my opinion, our best overall hitter is probably, in my mind, got to be Cattell.

Yeah.

Yeah.

He's an absolute switch hitter, hits for power, hits for average.

Does he talk to his bat?

Was that that clip?

Yeah.

Yeah, it was.

He He does talk to his bat, right?

What does he say to his bat?

I couldn't tell you.

It's in Spanish.

Is he like, well, tell me this.

Is he angry at his bat or is he like happy with it?

I think in that clip, he was probably angry with his bat.

Yeah.

I think he was telling him to pick it up.

He was talking to his bat.

I can't remember when it was.

There was a clip.

I got a clip of him sitting there talking to him.

He was like having a full conversation with his bat.

Did the bat talk to him?

Marty's selecting.

I don't know.

I just, but I saw it and I was just like, oh, shit.

Seems like the bat did something here.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Marty's funny.

Marty's got all kinds of stuff going on.

Yeah.

I read that you guys had a was it officially a players-only meeting?

Yeah.

Yeah.

What happens in a players-only meeting?

Well, for starters, it's players-only.

Well, pretend we're players.

Yeah, I'm right.

We're in here.

It's just us.

Yeah, we struck out UIC.

Yeah, yeah.

You struck out USC?

UIC.

Oh, they said UCI.

USC, yeah.

I don't talk in the meeting.

I'm not a very vocal leader.

I'm just like.

Oh, you snitch?

Yeah, I'm a snitch.

I just dry snitch.

I run right

now.

He's got his recording out on the back.

He's got his phone.

It's more of just like, it's try to, it's basically try to nip whatever's going on in the bud.

Like, right, if anybody's got something to say, say it now.

If, if you got...

Something against, you know, if you don't like what a teammate's doing, if you don't like what the manager's doing, if you don't like how, whatever you don't like or whatever you think is going on at that time, it's just just a

it's a just a come to Jesus meeting and try to figure it out most of the time it

doesn't always work you know it's like a

it's kind of a thing that we just feel like I feel like

it gets to the point where you feel like you have to do something right right somebody needs to say something because it's just gotten to the point where it's just that bad

but yeah it's just kind of like air it out.

If you got something to say, say it.

Pick your stuff, pick your shit up, and let's go.

All right.

Very important question.

If Dan Heron was in town,

he would not be running that meeting.

Would you invite him to the players-only meeting?

No.

What if he was like, please, guys?

He wouldn't.

He would never run a meeting.

He would not want to be running that meeting.

If he was just like, please, guys, I want to feel like a player again for one second.

Probably not.

Okay, okay.

I can imagine, like, maybe 10% of the time, a player's only meeting works really well.

And the other 90%, it just turns into just an argument.

Yeah.

Honestly, not.

Because the player's only meeting happens, and it's like, all right, the a veteran calls the meeting, and then it's like, that veteran who calls it talks.

And then there's probably like two or three other veterans that talk.

And then it always the question is, if any young guys want to say anything, get up and say something.

And then no one's going to say it.

Yeah, no one's going to say it.

It's like, unless it's Perdomo.

Yeah.

Like, so it's one of those things of just like, all right, let's talk about this, I guess.

I don't know.

But it's not a.

Yeah, it's a weird thing.

It is a weird thing.

Zach, is it true when you were five years old, you refused to play t-ball so that you could play Little League?

Yeah, I didn't want to play T-ball.

So you're just like, I'm not doing this?

Well, I just thought it was like, okay, well, because, okay, so my brother's a few years older than me.

So I kind of knew the lay of the land of how it worked.

And I was like, every game ends in a tie.

Everyone gets like a dollar at the snap.

I'm like, that sounds terrible.

And my dad coached the seven, eight, nine-year-old team.

So I was like, why would I go play T-ball when I could go play real baseball?

That's so funny.

That was you at five.

Yeah, that's like, it fits perfectly.

I'm like, I want to know part of it.

That's so funny.

I'm not a baby.

Exactly.

Even though I was like this tall and like the grass was taller than me in Whitefield, it was, yeah.

Did your brother play baseball, like continue playing baseball?

Yeah, my brother played all the way up until college,

through college, and then just was, he was a good player, he was just undersized.

So like, just, he was,

if Dustin Pajori would have came a few years earlier, maybe he would have had

a little different career.

That's good.

Yeah, the undersized guy wasn't getting any love then.

Yeah.

So you're five years old and you start playing with seven-year-olds?

Yeah, seven, eight, nine.

How were you?

Like, you were facing off against nine-year-olds as a five-year-old.

Yeah, I didn't get a hit the first, like, when I was five.

Like, I didn't get a hit.

Like, I was just up there.

The entire year.

The entire year.

And the funny part is.

All the nine-year-olds are saying there's no way I'm doing a fucking hit.

Look at this guy.

Like, there's no chance.

I would have drilled you.

If you were like a five-year-old and I'm nine.

So, like, who is this fucking girl?

Exactly.

Yeah, I'm just gonna drill this kid yeah I had to wear like a I think they I forget if it was like five and six or whatever you had to wear like a vest like if you got hit with a ball like because like you could stop your heart or whatever yeah wear that with like the face mask like batting helmet it was a it was tough but I never got a hit so I'd come back to the dugout and be like upset like cry like because I want to be good so I get to six and I struck out at six and like the first at bat I came back and my dad was like no more fucking crying like we're not doing that shit anymore and I was like all right and then I got a hit, and I was like, all right, all is well.

It's good.

So, yeah, but yeah, he was like, we're not doing that shit anymore.

Danier needs to include that in your write-ups.

Like, hey, no more fucking crying.

I can see your dad saying that too.

He didn't actually curse, but he was like, we're not doing that anymore.

Like, that was five-year-old stuff.

This is six-year-old.

This is big, this is bigly exciting.

See, I could have seen him.

I could have seen him cussing at you.

I could have seen him.

Yeah, but it was good.

And yeah, they made my dad draft me like in the town draft.

My dad was like, let me just give him a uniform, put him, I'm going to put him in right field.

Like he's going to play like once every other game.

Yeah.

And the commissioner was our next door neighbor.

He was like, uh-uh.

He's like, you got to draft him.

My dad's like, I got to draft a five-year-old.

And my dad gives my brother credit.

He's like, listen, he's like, take him with, you got to take him in like the third round or whatever.

He's like, take him in the third round.

He's like, because next year you're going to have to take him in the first round.

He's like, so if you take him the third this year, you'll get your first round pick next year too.

Yeah.

So my brother GM'd it, and it worked out.

Yeah, that's incredible.

Yeah, I love that.

I think that's fair to GM in Little League.

Yeah, I think that's fair to make your dad draft you.

Like, yeah, yeah, if you want him to play at five, if you don't want to play t-ball, you got to do what you got to do.

This five-year-old is not going to be somebody else's problem, you have to take them.

You have to take them, yeah, it's your problem.

Imagine if I get drafted by if I got drafted by somebody else, like somebody else's dad was like, No, no, no, I won't.

I want the five-year-old.

Give me the five-year-old, yeah.

Um, well, this has been awesome, guys.

I got one last question: RowbackQuestion, R-H-O-B-A-C-K.com.

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I pitch this to every pitcher, but

Ephesus.

Come on.

Just once.

Honestly, what's so I think about just like the one position players go out there and pitch.

Yeah.

And they get everybody out.

Sometimes when I'm like getting hit.

Kiki Hernandez is the best pitcher in the league.

Maybe I should just throw an Ephesus up there.

It would screw him up.

You know, they would be like, what the hell was that?

Maybe I'll mix a palm ball in there from time to time.

Yeah, you actually have one that's like a real pitch.

I would be throwing like a just

rookie of the year.

Oh, yeah, rookie of the year.

Yeah, just floated in.

Do you guys get pissed when someone pimps a home run?

No.

Not so much anymore.

Yeah.

You just got to pimp a strikeout back.

Yeah.

If it's directed like at you, like there's some sort of stares at you.

Yeah, something like that.

But like, if you want to do a cart reel like around third base, like whatever, like, cool.

Like, it's just the game now, it is what it is.

Yeah, it kind of goes back to the rookie stuff.

Like, that stuff is acceptable now.

It's not like, oh, you watched it for a half a second too long.

Now, I'm going to drill the next guy in the head.

Like, that just doesn't happen anymore.

Yeah, you sound upset about that, though.

I'd be upset about that.

Yeah, I mean, I don't love it, but I mean, what are you going to do?

You know, don't give up the home run.

Don't give up the home run.

Have you guys been kicked out of games before?

I've gotten tossed twice.

What'd you do?

Yelled at them, and both of them are the same way.

It was a check swing.

Happened this year.

Check swing, no call, walk.

I forgot you got tossed this year.

Check swing, and it was like a

blatant swing.

And it was Lad's Diaz.

Check swings, by the way, we agree.

The umps are just guessing.

Yeah, and

they're not paying attention.

They're not paying attention.

There's no total guess.

Because this swing was like almost, if he hit it, it would have been a double.

Yeah.

So

no call.

Last Diaz at first base and no call.

Next pitch, walk him.

And I think I got taken out of the game after that.

And I just turned around and told him it was.

And the two times I've gotten thrown out in my career actually are funny.

It's because I've been leaving the game.

So it's like, all right, cool, buddy.

Like, I'm literally fucking walking to the clubhouse right now and you're going to toss me.

It's like, what does that do?

You should just make that your thing.

That's the good thing about being a pitcher.

Yeah.

You're out and you're like, oh, I'm just going to get tossed.

You should make that your thing.

Every time you get pulled from kids, you should just yell at the umpire for no reason.

Start chirping at them.

Did you get fined for the last one?

I don't know.

Honestly, I have no idea.

I think it comes out of the check.

I think it's only, I think it's like 500 bucks, something like that.

Yeah, there's been times on check spangs I've seen the umpire like they're just like looking in the stands and it's like, yeah, they're not

the games.

Some of the calls they miss, it's like, dude, I don't know how you didn't see that.

It was right in front of you.

You have one job in that moment.

You're supposed to be looking right at it and you missed it.

By the way, I didn't mention this, but Meryl, do you know that you're the only Meryl in MLB history?

Which is kind of crazy.

I didn't.

I feel like 100 years ago, there had to be Meryls just walking everywhere.

Yeah, right.

You know?

And you're actually, Zach, you're the only second Zach spelled Z-A-C.

There was one before me yeah there was hold on I'll find it that's crazy yeah we got a we got a Zach of our own that's Z A C here really yeah see I thought Z A C was just like very uncommon that is but um there's more people now that I've with Z A C do people think that your name is Zach Allen a lot

uh

what's funny about that is that there was the the guy that plays for the Broncos now yeah Zach Allen

My dad's watching a game back when he's the Cardinals and he's like Zach Allen with the sack and my dad was like huh?

Like Like, is he playing football now?

Like, not realizing that there was another play.

Like, so a little bit of a confusion there.

Zach Curtis, who debuted for the Diamondbacks in 2016.

Yeah,

he hasn't been in the league.

His last appearance was in 2018.

When I was in AA, there was a bench clearing brawl that I think he was involved in at one point in time.

Zach on Zach crime?

I was not.

I was on, yeah, but I think there was something that happened where the bench is cleared for some reason.

I do remember that name.

Yeah, you got called up from like high A.

I remember Zach.

Yeah.

Do you guys have a move ready to go if somebody charges at you?

No.

You got to throw the glove, I think.

Yeah, that's the disorientation a little bit.

Yeah, it's really.

Or just try to get the ball back as fast as possible and act like I'm going to throw it to them.

We gave Cal Raleigh the tip that what catchers should start doing is just

throw your leg out there and trip them.

Because if you get tripped and you fall on your face, you're not.

You're not killing your legs.

You're so embarrassed.

Yeah, it's over.

You just kick their foot.

It's over.

You just tell your catchers to do that.

Yeah, just stick your foot out.

Yeah, right.

you ever seen

you guys ever seen the video of the guy like judo kicking the catcher in the chest before he ran up yes yes yeah that was pretty gnarly that's it have you guys been charged before no no yeah i mean most of the time i try to fucked him up most of the time i try to hit somebody i miss honestly that's like the worst thing

it's way harder than it's way harder

than it looks yeah like intentionally trying to hit somebody it's the it's just a terrible part of the game.

Yeah.

The only thing you can't do is just run.

If you run, then it's bad.

You have to just, the what the infillers tell you is like, just give us enough time to get there.

Right.

So you kind of like hold them off.

So you got to throw the glove to like stun him a little bit and then just, you know, if you want to get a punch in, throw the Rosenbag out of them.

Yeah, yeah, Rosenbag, pick up some dirt, throw it in their eyes.

Gladiator's going to be like, just try not to get hurt, I think.

Yeah, basically, don't get hurt.

I think the move is.

Like, what's his name?

Granky

broken collarbones.

That's right.

You do like a little sidestep to the left, and then you swing after he runs a little bit past you.

And then by that time, the shortstop should be there.

Yeah.

So it's around the first baseball.

I can see Naylor in and just like

I can see Jay Naylor getting over there and tackling somebody for us for sure.

Yeah, all right.

Well, thanks so much, boys.

We appreciate it.

It was awesome having you guys here, and best of luck rest of the season.

Appreciate you guys.

Yeah, it's fun.

Cool.

Before we get to Joey Chestnut, it's brought to you by great friends at Netflix.

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And now, here's our great friend, Joey Chestnut.

Okay, we now welcome on a very special guest, recurring guest, the greatest athlete of all time, which we have said for many years on this show, it is Joey Chestnut ahead of his return to the Nathan's hot dog eating contest on 4th of July, Coney Island.

Joey is back.

So let's start with that, Joey.

How good does it feel to be back?

And are we feeling like this is, hey, this is going to be a special one?

You got to prove, hey, whatever happened last year, there's an asterisk there.

The king is back.

Oh, yeah, it feels really good.

It's last year, things didn't go as I wanted, but we worked it out.

And yeah, I'm hungry this is this is what I love doing it's fourth of July hot dogs competition yeah how did it feel last year not being a part of Nathan's did did it you feel like an absence did it feel unusual for you it was very it was weird

watching the guys eat and like I yeah I told people I didn't watch but I watched and then I then I went off to do my own little event but yeah so yeah it was weird watching them and like oh man I could it's uh it's just it that's what that's life sometimes sometimes you're you're, you're on the wrong side.

When you were watching it last year, did that make you hungrier?

Uh, yeah, well, it made it easy.

So last year I was at a military base, Fort Bliss in Texas, eating against some soldiers where they were awesome.

And it was the group of five versus me.

I ended up almost

beating what Pat did in five minutes.

Wow.

It made, it, it, it was, yeah, it was, uh, it motivates you to see people

when you're not there.

I have a question that you probably get a lot, but I'm genuinely curious how you break this down.

How much further can you push yourself?

How much further is within the realm of human possibility to go when it comes to eating hot dogs?

Because every year I see you eat, and I'm like, well, he'll never beat that.

That's insane.

How do you, how do you approach that?

Yeah, the last record, 76 in 10 minutes, is a tough record to beat.

It's going to be a hard one.

Totally perfect conditions.

Not too hot, not too windy.

If it's windy, the hot dogs get cold.

But if we have enough warmth, like 78 degrees, 75,

and then

if it's kind of dry outside,

the buns get stale.

So you need to have like fast buns, warm dogs, and not too hot.

Because, dude, I'm getting older.

I'm a little bit fat.

So

once I start sweating,

really hard,

I'm in trouble.

I like that the the wind comes into play, like an under in football, where it's like, oh, they're not going to be able to pass the ball today.

The wind

is going to really dry out the buns, and we're going to have problems, and they're going to get cold.

Yeah, the wind, it affects everybody has special their water temperature that they like for drinking water, for dunking.

This year, I'm thinking...

I did that event with Netflix last year when that was a no-dunking event.

And I learned that towards the end of the contest, it's actually a little bit easier to not dunk.

There's less movement involved.

So, so I'm trying to plan it out.

So, I'll make the switch.

Sometimes I slow down bad when I'm dunking.

Yeah, so you're tinkering.

I like that.

So, what, like, you know, how marathon runners, they'll, you know, a couple weeks before, they'll try to run 20 miles.

What is the lead up?

Like, what is there a lead up where a week before or two weeks before you're pushing yourself as hard as you can to see where you're at?

Or have you done that yet?

Oh, yeah.

Every fifth or sixth day, I'm doing practices, and so

I'm in the cycle, I call it.

Before every practice, there's a cleanse.

After every practice, there's a recovery period where it's super high fiber food, trying to get back to normal.

And then there's one day of normal eating, then there's the cleanse again, then another practice.

Last two practices,

this is

go time.

It's close to breaking records.

So it's,

I would have let one,

I don't need to to break the record necessarily in the last two practices, but

it would help.

But

there's been years where I smashed the record in my last practice and then didn't get the record in the finals.

But

we'll see.

I'm feeling good.

So, can you describe your ideal setup?

Like, if you were to plan the weather for a day or two leading up to the event and the event itself, what are the perfect conditions for slamming hot dogs?

Oh, perfect conditions.

75 degrees, a little bit of cloud cover,

not completely, but sunny.

And then

not windy

and not too humid.

A little humidity is good.

But

because if it's too dry, the buns get stale real fast.

And then,

yeah.

Maybe rains the night before, like a golf course, like soften the air up a little bit?

A little bit.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Soften the air up.

So you were talking about your training regimen.

what's the most that you've ever eaten in training like outside of competition oh outside so what

oh for yeah for the fourth of july contest i want to say it was geez i think i think i hit up to 82 in practice one time and that that was just perfect eating in well that's eating indoors fresh perfect hot dogs and that's just not realistic uh when uh

Fourth of July, everything's cooked ahead of time, everything's sitting for a little bit,

And you got those outdoor conditions.

I've learned to actually, I've been eating outside in Indiana, so it's hot right now.

Yeah.

And

last practice, I was sweating so bad.

Numbers went down a lot.

But I'm hoping I can.

Yeah,

I'll be all right.

All right.

So we have this debate in football.

Kurt Warner always says that football should be played in a dome in perfect conditions.

Do you think that hot dogs eating should be an outdoor sport, or do you think it should go to dome and we should be playing this in a dome?

I think it's

well, when there's history involved in Coney Island,

it's got to keep it outside.

But I think for a lot of other events, like I did the Netflix event, that was indoors.

They wanted a record.

So they made fresh hot dogs and

really fresh hot dogs indoors.

We smashed, I did 83 that day.

And they're a little bit smaller than on the 4th of July.

So they're a different record.

But indoors, you're seeing some massive numbers.

So when you get there on

the 4th of July,

are you even thinking about anyone else?

Are you just going against yourself?

Because

it's crazy how much further you are than everyone else in terms of the hot dog eating.

And the winner last year had 58.

I don't think, I mean,

I don't think you've had a 4th of July where you've been under 60, right?

So are you, or maybe like 10 years ago, 12 years ago, but are you, are you even thinking about the competition?

Or you're just like, it's me versus myself?

Yeah, it's, I think, I think that's the best.

Anybody in this kind of,

yeah, in this kind of competition, you need, you need to just really, you're going against yourself.

If you worry about other people,

you're not focusing on your training, your numbers that you've hit, the things.

If I'm worried about what anybody else is doing, it's taking away from what I'm doing.

So

I'm really just trying to go back to good practices, and yeah, I'm not, if, if I, if I've, if I'm doing, if I'm doing okay, I should blow everybody else away.

Are you in your prime right now for eating?

Oh, fuck.

I mean, there's different primes.

There's uh, like my physical prime, shit, that was probably, that was, that was like 35.

Uh, I was, I was a beast.

I could get away with doing less practice.

I, I, uh, I could recover quickly.

My body was just an animal, but, but, and I know my body so much better now.

It's ridiculous.

I make a choice.

All right, if I'm breaking my diet, I know when I'm gaining weight, I know what it takes to lose weight.

And I also know how to train muscles in my throat to make them stronger so I can just keep swallowing the meat.

Yeah.

It's like sports science at this point.

Yeah.

I hate to ask the question, but is retirement on the horizon anywhere for you right now?

I don't know.

Retirement would be death.

I'm doing this thing until the wheels fall off, baby.

Actually, yeah, no, if you retire from eating, you do die.

Yeah,

there's either either I'm or somebody knocks me off.

And if they knock me off once, they'll have to do it again because I'm going to come back.

But,

you know, it's,

I, to be the man, you got to beat the man.

And I'm not going to, I'm not going to walk away.

Yeah.

Well, this is, I don't think I've ever asked you this, but is there one record or competition that you did that you can think of and be like, I would never do that again because it was so disgusting?

Oh, fuck.

There was,

I did crab cakes in Delaware and

this casino.

They did us dirty.

They had them all sitting out there.

And they were,

as soon as we got on stage, it was,

you could smell fish.

And people got sick during the contest.

I got sick right after the contest.

It was the closest I've ever been to getting disqualified.

And

it turned me off to the food for like two years.

So it's weird because it was the grossest contest.

but now that now that I'm eating crab cakes again, I was like, all right, I really want to make a crab cake record.

So I want it now.

Yeah.

How many did you eat that day?

Oh, I did 39 and Sonia Thomas.

This was like my first year in eating and competitive eating 20 years ago.

Yeah, so I did 39.

I think she did 42 or 41.

Oh, wow.

There's nothing worse than

eating, knowing you're going to get sick and not winning.

It's just painful.

What about you have you ate 141 hard-boiled eggs in eight minutes one time?

That had to be gross.

No, it was actually really good.

I like hard-boiled eggs.

It was perfect weather.

Dude, so it was, it was weird.

So, like, this, this weather, like, it was perfect for this food.

So, they were like, we were in Kentucky, and it had this downpour.

It was like raining on us, and all the hard-boiled eggs were like slippery, and like,

they were sliding down.

It was like,

and, and it was like, oh, yeah, and then I smelled like sulfur for two days.

Oh, God.

Is there a record that you've attempted or a competition that you've done where the aftermath of it is especially bad?

Like, I'm talking about, you know, the toilet situation afterwards.

Is there one that was so gross that you're like, I'm not doing that again?

There's a couple that

I know going in, they're going to be rough.

Like, anything with Bratwurst, Bratwurst,

man, they add extra fat in there, and it's, it's running through you.

It's, you're not in control.

It's,

There's accidents bound to happen.

It slides right out.

What about a food that you've never competed with that you would like to try?

I want to go to Alaska, eat king crab.

Yeah.

They have the big, big-ass legs, and they cut them in half with a saw, like a circular saw.

So I'd be rad to

get it like a...

Thousand dollar rack of a thousand dollar bill at a restaurant.

They should put you on the deadliest catch.

Like as a punishment, you have to go on one of the guys' ships, and then you eat the crab as they bring it in.

So you deduct from their total points on the season.

Yeah.

That would rock.

So if you win on 4th of July, that would be your 17th title, which is incredible.

Will it be the most gratifying one because of the one-year ban last year?

Or is there one that you look back at and you're like, no, this one was the one that I always think about?

Like, that was special.

Oh, man, they're all special in weird ways.

Like, it doesn't have to be records or just just different parts of my life.

Like,

the year I had the protester.

I was there.

I was competing.

Yeah.

Oh,

that was your year.

Yeah, I got covered in the world.

Yeah, I had multiple years of protesters.

Yeah.

Yeah.

The first one was rat.

That was a long-ass time ago.

Yeah.

It was like 10.

It was almost 10 years ago.

Yeah.

They got you with paint.

Yeah, they got me with paint.

And

I was next to the guy who

I can't remember who he was.

He's like kind of a hippie guy.

He only ate one dog.

He was like, he said he was going.

yeah he said he was going back in time to this the first cone island uh hot dog eating competition he was going to want eat one single dog yeah yeah he's definitely a hippie yeah yeah that was wild yeah that one was crazy but yeah there's there's some special ones like

there's oh they're the first time i beat kobiachi or or even the next time we're the overtime year so it's it's weird like

This is my 20th year going.

So

there's a lot of weird memories, a lot of history.

It's awesome.

I mean, 20 years, 17, hopefully getting 17 this year is going to be

special.

I'm excited.

It didn't feel like the 4th of July without you in it.

I'll say that.

I think we said it on the show, but it did not feel like

I kind of canceled 4th of July in my mind last year.

The 4th of July is always going to go on.

And I was eating hot dogs somewhere, but it is good to be back on Coney Island.

And thank you so much.

You guys are awesome.

Yeah.

So a couple of last questions.

People don't know this, but how quickly after you finish the contest are you drinking beer?

Because you go out that night.

A little bit late, yeah.

Usually my goal is to try to make it out

right after fireworks.

Sometimes I get out of the hotel room and I'm, oh, yeah, fireworks are still on.

It's a good recovery.

It depends on the year.

Some years, if it's super hot, then

I'm not even doing anything, but it takes a long recover.

But yeah, right around 10 p.m., I'm on a liquid diet.

And

things are,

trying, I'm trying to get there.

How many beers do you drink after eating 70 hot dogs?

I don't think we should say this.

No, you can say it.

I mean, I don't even have it.

That's not going to make it.

I ended up time traveling.

There was one time where I woke up and I was like,

I think I'm in the green room for today's show.

That's incredible.

There are a few haters out there of the entire sport of competitive eating.

I don't like to give them the time of day.

I don't like to give them any mental energy of mine.

But do you have a case that you can make to any of the haters out there that might have in the past not watched the Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest?

Do you have a case that you can make to be like, hey, this is actually a competitive environment?

It's athletics.

This is sports.

And we're pushing our body to the fullest limit?

Yeah, it's really easy to be negative.

I can't think of offhand of anybody I've had a conversation with, but it's been a a while.

But yeah, there's people who are always going to be negative.

They're going to say, I remember there's people who used to say golf wasn't a real sport.

And there's people who just knocked and knocked and knocked WNBA for years and years.

And now it's people eventually

eat their words.

And

while I'm still eating.

Yeah.

All right.

My last question is the Roback question.

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So

we were texting.

I was going to try to get you up here for the first day that we opened our ice cream machine.

So we have a full soft-serve ice cream machine in the office.

We're still going to do it.

Man versus machine.

How many ice creams do you think you can eat?

Do you think you could put the machine out of business

with the amount of ice cream you can eat?

I want to try.

Like some ice cream machines, it comes out super frozen and hard.

Some of it's a little bit more clean.

Not ours.

Not ours.

We're soupy.

soupy we're soupy oh a little bit soup oh oh soup and cream i like it uh yeah i i i would i'm thinking

close close to two gallons worth

it'd be it'd be enough like so i did an ice cream contest and after the contest i was like shivering because i was so like it was like everything was cold so i i think close to two gallons would be uh in about eight minutes it'd be close to the yeah okay maybe that's what we'll do we'll fill the machine up with two gallons and be like have at it I mean, it would be awesome if you broke the machine.

Like, this is John Henry.

This is the story of John Henry against the

steam-powered driller.

You can do this.

I wonder if it's does it slow down?

Yeah.

If I hit the

machine starts shaking?

Yeah.

That's when you know you've got it.

Yeah.

You've got a beat.

Oh, man.

Well, Joey, we're so pumped to have you back.

Want to say a number you're going for?

I mean, are you going for the record?

Are we going to get a record?

I'm trying to hit that record.

77 would be perfect.

The last

anything above 70 is really, really, really tough.

But yeah,

if it's good conditions,

I'll be feeling good.

Is there like a minute mark where we should look for you to be at a specific number to make 77 possible?

Oh, man, should I say it?

Yeah, if I'm at 50 hot dogs

in five minutes,

that's almost a lock.

That means I have five minutes left.

All I have to do is average just over five hot dogs a minute, five and a half hot dogs a minute, and then I'm there.

Is 100 possible?

Will we live to see 100 hot dogs?

Probably not by me.

But yeah,

I think competition.

I'm a little bummed out.

There's nobody pushing me.

That's the best way for me to get 77.

Like last year when I did the contest against Kobayashi,

I didn't know what he's capable of.

So I was willing to really just go all out, uh, no holding back, and not worried about like on the fourth of July, I'm a little bit worried.

Like, if I, if I have a bad burp, it might look like a barf.

So, so, especially towards the end, so I have to be really careful

to make sure

I don't have those burps.

Yep.

So, so it's oh, seven, yeah, 100, 100 be up there.

I like the most I've ever, like, even eating after the 10 minutes, the most I've ever gone up to is 90.

Okay, we're gonna push ourselves.

You, you eat after the 10 minutes?

Like, you're not full yet?

No, you have to.

So I do the 10-minute practice, then I take a breather, and then I start eating.

I try to convince myself, all right, let's eat

like you did in the beginning.

And then so you have to practice eating fast while you're full.

So then you convince yourself that you can do it again.

You're beat.

You're a monster.

Yeah.

You're an absolute.

I'm so glad that you're back on the 4th of July at Nathan's.

We're all going to be rooting for you.

Yeah.

Let's set some records.

Yes.

Greatest athlete of all time.

Greatest athlete of all time.

We'll be saying on 4th of July.

Thank you.

All right.

Thanks so much, Joey.

Thanks, Joey.

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And now, here's Dingers Only.

Okay, it's time.

Dingers Only League, third year in a row.

For anyone who's not familiar with this, we do this, so this is the third year.

Dingers Only, it's our fantasy baseball draft that we do halfway through the season.

And the only stat is home runs.

That's it.

Every team has to draft a nine positions, every position on the field, obviously DH instead of pitcher.

And home runs is it.

Whoever has most home runs wins, whoever has the least home runs loses, and has to get six outs against a college baseball team like PFT did, like Max did.

Oh, wow.

Oh, attempted to do.

Attempted to do.

Did you get there?

Attempted to do twice, and then there was an unfortunate accident that prohibited that up until baseball season.

Whose fault was the accident?

Mine.

Hand up accountability.

Why don't you explain to people what happened?

Actually, no, I was overserved.

Oh, so bartender saw an issue.

I don't have to shout out the exact.

That's also on you because you should just be able to drink more.

I was overserved.

There's no such thing as me being overserved.

You also could have not drank anything because you were in training for the baseball.

Yeah, well, whatever, Brandon.

Oh, fuck.

By the way, Prandtl.

I don't know why I said it like that.

Brandon was in it last year.

He's in it again.

Jerry was in it last year.

He's in it again.

Zach is a new entry, and Stephen Che is a new entry, who was a commissioner last year.

Are we worried at all about Stephen Che being the commissioner and also participating?

Yeah, I am.

I'd just like to say I am.

I would, you know what?

I'm going to match.

Yeah, because really I'm not, but if he wins somehow,

I'm going to be very, very concerned.

Would anyone like to double the concern?

I'll sign off on that.

All right, so we got Max.

I'll match.

I'll match Jerry's double.

Okay, so I trust Stephen.

I'll say it.

If Stephen wins, I'm going to be going like this.

Remember we trusted you, by the way.

So, Max, are you going to do this ever?

Yeah, we're going to do that.

Because it kind of ruins dingers only.

No, we're going to.

Like, imagine that you're in a fantasy football league, and the person who finishes in last, they don't do their punishment for your friend's fantasy football league until after the draft for next season.

What do you think should happen to that person?

I'm willing to take last pick, although that'll make things more confusing.

No, and also it's a snake draft.

Yeah.

So you kind of just gave yourself an extra.

I guess we're a terrible.

Are you going to do it?

Yes.

How are you going to do it?

What steps have you taken recently to advance ourselves into doing this?

Where are you going to put it?

what do you mean what

where do you want it probably out on youtube we'll probably we'll probably film it record it and put it is that what they call it butthole

when when do we start talking about butts

when is this happening it's happening it maybe after grit week okay

so maybe maybe two months from now that's what you're that's what you're telling the awls well yeah the awls are upset i think they have every right to be

right rightfully so and they have every right to be But we had two dates set, two dates got rained out, and then I broke my foot, and then the college baseball season started.

And teams aren't going to do that in the middle of the season.

So it's not like I just didn't try for a year.

There was an ample amount of trying.

There was a lot of trying.

I think you should have to do four innings.

Three.

I think you should double it.

Three.

You've waited the whole year.

This is a negotiation test.

Shake it's three.

Shake his three.

No deal.

Four.

Two.

No, he's going backwards.

Two.

Get three.

Get three.

Two college baseball and then two

softball.

Women's softball.

Two innings.

But that will make it so hard to plan.

Two innings.

Two.

One and one.

Okay.

How about three, plus,

you have to wear one?

What?

You got to get beamed.

With what?

A baseball by a pitcher.

All of us.

What?

If all of us get to throw one at you.

No deal.

Why?

We can't throw that hard.

All?

Yeah.

Yeah.

No deal.

Not at the same time.

One.

Four.

One.

The winner of.

No, that's a.

The winner of this.

I know, because then that would just be buying myself more time.

Yeah, yeah.

I think three inches.

You have to think about getting hit by a punch for the next year.

Three innings, two.

One.

Two people.

One.

Three innings, one.

None of us can throw hard.

I try.

It's not.

If I went through this entire year and was like,

and just didn't do a single thing about it, I would be more.

Well, this year, 2025.

Yes, the teams were playing.

Like this year.

Yeah.

You tried this year.

Three innings.

One guy, one of us gets to bean you, but it has, like, they get multiple pitches till they hit you.

Five pitches.

You can't duck it, though.

It should be ducked.

You got to stand in the box.

You can't, like, jump around and shit.

No, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, that's fine.

Okay, all right.

All right, everyone good with that?

Good deal.

All right.

So three innings.

You're going to pitch three innings.

Okay.

All right, good.

All right.

Good negotiation.

Should we get to the draft?

Anyone got a question about the rules?

Zach, you got a question about the rules?

Stephen, you got a question about the rules?

We discussed outfield.

As long as they've played that position, left field, center field, right field, at least 10 games, we're good.

And they can be in that position.

You do get a drop, right?

You get one drop if your player is accused of

pedophilia.

That's the what's his name rule?

Wander Franco.

Wander Franco.

Wandercoco.

I had Wanda Franco.

I had to drop him.

You had to take a stand for what's right.

But you also get an injury, right?

You get one injury drop.

One injury slash pedophilia, but you have to specify if you're dropping the person for injury or for pedophilia.

Okay.

But it's only one injury.

So if you drop someone and then another guy gets injured, you can't.

And if another guy gets pedophilia.

It's also one pedophilia.

Those are separate.

Yeah, you have to keep the second pedophile.

Okay.

Right.

Exactly.

So if you drive two pedophiles, you're out of luck.

You just hope that they don't get caught.

Okay.

Well, you do hope they get caught eventually.

I hope they get caught.

After the season.

You don't want them to just not ever get caught.

You just don't want them to get caught while they're on your team.

Where is Wanda Franco these days?

I think he...

In jail?

I think he went home.

Did he do a DUI recently?

I think he did something else.

I think he added something onto his charge.

He just went home.

Tampa.

No, that wasn't what I was talking about.

That's not where it is.

He's in court.

I mean, the smartest thing he could do is to get another charge.

and then everyone's like, Wanda Franco, isn't that the guy that got

it?

Yeah, DUI guy.

Wanda Franco.

He's from the Dominican Republic.

I think he went.

Oh, yeah.

Prosecutors seek five-year prison term for Franco.

At least he blew above.

Oh, that was 42 minutes ago.

Man, he's really

he's in court literally right now.

Okay.

Hey.

He's currently on Major League Baseball's restricted list after initially being placed on administrative leave.

Okay.

So he's restricted.

But for the record, I dropped him before MLB acted.

That's true.

You were the first person to speak out.

Credit to me.

Did you hear about Juan DeFranco?

At least he blew above 0.18 this time.

That's the jokes that would happen if you got a DUI.

All right.

We ready to go?

Let's do it, boys.

Let's get some juice in here for the Dingers-only League.

All right.

Jerry, you have the first pick in the Dingers-only League draft, and we're going around

the horn here.

Snake draft.

So Stephen will have the eighth and the ninth pick, and then coming back around.

Yes, sir.

Okay.

All right.

My first pick,

tough one, but looking at the at-bats right now, blows everybody else out the water without at-bats.

I'm going Shohei Otani.

Okay.

D.H.

Why did you say that was a tough one?

I like that.

Well, because

Judge, you know, judge is there, too.

Best player in baseball.

Someone in the

nice.

I wanted to pick my guy, Judge.

I'm going to cross off the street.

I'm going to say Jerry.

I'm going to get you for a few minutes, and then I'm going to stop.

You blew that first pick.

Just absolutely blew it up.

You blew that first pick.

How?

People are going to be studying this draft for years to come, and they're going to look at your first.

That's like Darko Milichik going in.

He's got

26 home runs.

Good.

Good for you.

Is that the Otani draft?

Yeah.

What position does he play?

DH.

Okay.

Yeah.

Interesting.

Positional value.

Zach.

I think that's pretty good positional value, to be honest with you.

Okay.

I would like to take Aaron Judge as my first pick in this draft.

Okay.

Is that a bad pick?

No, it's a great pick.

That's an awesome.

Great pick.

Great fucking pick.

So I have him as a right fielder.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay.

Because he plays right field.

That would be where he plays.

Okay.

So

I am going to,

once again, I was rewarded with nothing.

I won Dingers-only in a route last year.

What?

That's how all of our winning means nothing.

Max, shut the fuck up.

I am simply talking.

Okay, go ahead.

A member of my team, I got in the eighth round last year.

I'm getting him in the first round this year.

Don't.

I am doing it.

Why wouldn't I do it?

I'll have to do it.

I have to do it.

I'll trade with you.

He's so far above everybody else's position.

I wanted to call him.

You can't call him.

I had him last year.

I had him the year before.

I know, but I had him last year.

I'll make a trade for you.

How are you going to trade?

When we come back around, I'll let you pick in front of me.

I don't think that we can take his whole second-round pick.

Steven?

Make him skip his second-round pick.

Trades are allowed in drafts.

Well, trades are allowed in.

So I get your first-round pick and your second-round pick?

No, no, you get to jump in front of me.

I'll let you jump in front of me the two times, two times in a row that it comes back around.

So you move up twice.

Yeah, but I won't be able to get anybody this good.

I can't.

Why?

Why do you get to just play the guy?

Three times, I'll let you.

I'll just give you my second round pick.

Not even a pick swap, just give it to you for this guy.

For this guy?

What are you guys doing?

How come you have to do that?

That's a pretty good deal.

That's a pretty good deal from PFT.

I'll give you my second round pick.

My second round picks up.

All right, fine.

Just take him.

Just take him.

Kyle Raleigh, Kevin.

Fuck.

It's stupid.

I couldn't not take him.

No, he's 1-1.

Yeah.

No, I am a little worried he's hit too many home runs so far.

It's going to be tough to keep the pace up.

Correct.

What are you doing?

Ask him to be on your team.

All right.

He's probably at the ballpark or something already.

It's probably pooping.

It's big.

Might be pooping.

If he doesn't pick up for Brandon, then he's back on.

This is your phone.

He's back on the waiver wire.

This is your phone.

He's back in your pick.

He's back on on the waiver wire.

He's not answering.

He's back on the waiver wire.

No, because that's your phone.

Fuck.

Kyle Raleigh.

Catcher.

All right.

He's got 31 home runs.

I know.

That was the 1-1 pick.

The second best catcher had up.

Second best catcher at 17.

Yeah, he's a catcher.

There's Logan.

Logan O'Hope is good, too.

All right, last year.

I'll take my guy, Kyle Schwarber, then.

Oh, damn.

D.H.

Rant.

Left field.

Yeah.

What'd you off for?

Wait, because I was going to pick him.

Schwerber's played more than 10 games left field.

He definitely wasn't coming back to you.

No, no, no, no.

left field on

how many games has Kyle Schroer played left field?

Max?

He's played left field a bunch.

That's why I did a little squirrel like I think you would prefer him at DH.

You think so?

I don't know, Max.

I think for sure.

There's so many left fielders.

There's so many DH?

They're about the same.

Okay.

PFT, you're up.

Okay, so I guess he's my DH.

I got to take my guy.

I got to take James Wood, Mr.

National, left field, hitter of the highest pop flies you've ever seen.

James Wood, 22 years old.

Love that.

Future face of this league.

Good pick.

That's beautiful.

Jay Woody.

I will be taking.

This is where it gets really boring for the listeners.

I know.

You know what?

You know what?

Yeah.

What?

I will be taking PCA.

Yep.

It's a good pick.

It's a good pick.

It's a great pick.

Inside the park runs count too.

It's a great pick.

Who's that guy, Max?

MVP.

And Peter Armstrong.

Steven was going to take him.

I was.

I was

a good pick.

It's a good pick.

Center field of good positional value.

Yep.

Yep.

All right, I'm going to go

positional value.

I'm up in the air.

I guess I will go

with Eugeno Suarez of the Arizona Diamondbacks.

Third base.

He's got 25 pairs.

He's not even close to how you say his name.

How do you pronounce it, Brandon?

Eugenio?

A Eugenio.

Okay.

That was way off.

A.

Eugenio,

Suarez.

That's my pick.

25 dongs.

19 to second place.

So that's good positional value.

It's a lot of dongs.

Nice.

Did he say he's third base?

He's third base.

Okay, Steven, you have two.

Eugenio.

I am going

with

New York Met, Pete Alonso.

Okay.

Polar Bear.

First.

You get home run derby home run.

No, I think it did.

I think we said it counts as one home run.

If you win?

Yeah, you counts as one home run if you win.

Oh, sick.

Okay.

I think we did make that rule.

Very dumb rule.

And then I am also going positional value.

I'm going Loganojopi.

Great pick, Steven.

That's great.

Great pick.

Great pick.

You guys are picking well right now.

Yeah.

A lot of good picks.

All right.

My next pick, we won last year.

We were doing this Tele Blue thing at the Cubs game.

We were there during BP,

and I watched this guy legitimately hit 15 straight home runs during BP, and I was like, Big hat, who the fuck is that guy?

His name, Sayak Suzuki.

Sayakat.

Pat Sayjak?

Say yeah.

Sayakin in town.

Wiz Khalifa.

Left field.

Say yeah, Suzuki.

So you can do left field or DH.

You choose left field?

I choose left field.

Okay.

Good pick.

I'm just going going to say I'm going to say good pick for every cub.

Yeah.

You've said good pick for every player, just about.

I think your pick was bad.

You wanted my pick tremendously.

Very badly.

We'll still talk.

Zach, how do you think this is going so far?

I could make a post.

I think I'm ready for my pick.

That's going great.

That's going all right.

All right.

A couple of missteps, but I am going to make my second pick with shortstop from the Cincinnati Reds, Allie De La Cruz.

Good pick.

Jamaica fucker.

That's a great pick.

That's a fun pick.

You got to do that.

You got two fun guys.

Knox's team is fun right now.

I wanted them so bad.

That's fine.

I'm going to go with

Mr.

National World Series champion Juan Soto.

Good pick.

Right field.

Right field pick.

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

I will go with.

I need him.

I'll do Kyle Tucker.

Right field.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

You say good pick.

That's a damn good pick.

Hopefully, they resigned him.

I will take a right fielder as well.

He's way down the board as far as home run lists, but this is a future list.

Ronald Acuna Jr.

Ooh, that's a good value.

Good pick, Brandon.

Good value, Brandon.

Yep, all his home runs are ahead of him.

Zach.

Zach.

I would like to go with El Salvador Perez.

Ah, what position is he?

He's a catcher.

Run on catcher.

catcher.

He has not caught this year.

Oh, boy.

Wow, Max.

Oh, boy.

He hit you with that one.

I'm pretty sure that most of it.

Check that, but I'm pretty sure they switch him to DH this year.

Wow.

He got you on that one.

Shane?

He did.

All right.

You're back up.

So he's DH?

Are you picked?

Did you get any stats on that, Shane?

According to Shane, he said he's caught 40 times.

Oh.

Oh.

Okay.

Okay, I might be wrong.

Yeah, he is one of the most little bit of a.

I know.

I remember there was a story.

That should be a fourth inning

for that mistake.

There was a story that he hadn't caught at all this year.

If he wasn't going to catch it all for a year, didn't we talk about it on PMT that he that he switched it?

All right, no.

Salvador Perez?

No.

Okay, I'm sorry.

I'm sorry.

He was on the Seam Head Express.

He's a great player.

Okay.

Jerry.

Yes, I will go with

first baseman

Spencer Torkelson.

Yep, the Tigers.

The Tigers,

good yak gauntlet time.

No, bad Yak gauntlet time.

Okay, and you have another pick.

Oh, okay, perfect.

I will go with.

I surprised you.

I have DH and I have first base.

Next up, I will take

shortstop Francisco Linda.

Good pick.

It's a good pick.

Really good pick.

Thank you, guys.

Thank you.

Really fucking good pick,

How do we feel about taking Mets?

It's the worst, it's the worst podcast we do ever year.

How do we feel about taking Mets knowing that Frank the Tank is going to scream about how much they suck for the entire season?

Won't do it.

Will not.

I might just take Pets.

Will not do it.

Okay.

Who's up?

Zach.

I would like Brandon Lowe, second base.

Lau.

Brandon Lau.

Correction.

Okay.

First, second baseman off the board.

Good pick.

How do you feel about that pick sack?

It's a good pick.

Feel decent about it.

I'm sorry about the Salvador Press thing.

Oh, good man.

I appreciate all the information.

It's huge.

All the information.

Someone took Junior Caminaro.

No.

Shit.

Yes, Brandon.

I'm working on two guys.

Oh, yeah.

That's Marvel.

That's so hot.

You going to skiing?

I've got to keep my Mr.

Mistake boys together.

He was also on the team last year.

He's going to get hot again.

D.H.

Brent Rooker.

Ooh,

nice.

A little early for him, but I want him.

And

that feels like a reach.

He hit 38 home runs last year, Hank.

We're in 2025, man.

He said it felt like reach.

He said, I'm a ball knower.

I'm going to take

center fielder Brian Buxton.

Okay.

Byron Buxton, sorry.

Buxty.

I'm going to go with

a friend of PMT, Atlanta Brave, first baseman.

Good pick.

Matt Olson.

I feel great about that pick.

That's a great one.

I feel really great about that pick.

That's good pick, PFT.

Good guy.

First team all good guy, too.

Shout out to everyone who's listening right now.

You're trudging through.

Voted least likely likely to be pedophile amongst his peers in the athletic.

We are putting Joey Chestnut and Zach Gallen and Meryl Kelly in this show, so it's not.

You know what I'm saying?

Yeah.

This wasn't a total loss of a show, even though don't listening to us just say names over and over.

I don't think I saved Matt Olson's number.

Big Cat, can you call him real quick?

Yeah, I just want to tell him because when I got a chance to talk to him in Milwaukee, I said, I'm looking at you for dingers only.

I'm going to say, made a case.

I'm going to say I got your coach on the line.

Okay.

Like they do in the drafts.

Yeah.

Okay, hold on one sec.

We're 0 for 1 on these.

Is he playing right now?

It is pretty close to game time.

Yeah, it is.

Also, I don't think I've ever called him.

He's got three hours.

Hex.

Playing the Mets.

Yeah,

I don't think he's going to have his phone.

Matt, big cat from the Dingers-only League.

I'm gonna put you on right now with

the manager that drafted you.

Hey, Matt Olson, this is PFT Commenter.

I just took you in the Dingers-only draft.

I want to say we're excited to have you as part of the program.

Let's give him hell this year, buddy.

Hey, it means a lot.

Happy to be a part of this program.

And part of being a part of the program is you get unlimited ice cream at the office whenever you want to stop in.

I'll send you a card.

I did notice that it worked for somebody recently.

Yep.

Yeah.

Kyle Raleigh.

There you go, Kyle Raleigh.

So anytime you want, 24-7, you're in Chicago.

Let us know and you get the ice cream machine.

Can we move it to the clubhouse for a series?

No, absolutely not.

I'm here to hot cream team that we can't do that.

But you do get access to it on site here at Parcel Sports.

Okay.

Sounds like a deal.

All right.

Glad to have you part of the program.

Give them hell.

All right.

Thanks, Coach.

Thanks, Matt.

God bless.

That was nice.

See you, Matt.

Thanks.

That was a nice moment.

Dingers only.

By the way, Steven has a lot of phone numbers of baseball players, so he will have to call anyone who drafts with this guy.

That's fair.

Okay.

Great pick.

Max?

That's your name?

I'm going to go with

second baseman Cattell Marte.

Good one.

Is that how you pronounce his name, Brandon?

Good one.

It's a really good pick.

Yeah, sure.

Really good pick.

All right, I'm going to go with the guy.

He missed a lot at at the beginning of the year, but he's back now.

I think he's going to make a going to tear to end the year.

We're going right fielder, Mike Trout.

Oh, I know.

Okay.

I was just looking up his stuff.

All right.

Stephen, would you like to call?

I knew that was coming.

That's why I said that.

Yeah, I mean, I can call him.

Yeah, give him a call.

Oh,

so

I like the wedding.

You don't have to call him.

Oh, okay, no.

I thought I had an outstanding text to him.

I do not.

So, yeah.

An outstanding text.

What do you think he's doing right now?

You think he's reading like Eagles?

Is he playing?

He's been playing.

He's playing.

Yeah, he came back recently.

He's got 12 homers.

I'm sure that'll continue.

All right, here we go.

You got to tell him he's live or he's on air.

Yep.

Is he going to pick up, you think?

I don't know.

We've talked on the phone a couple times.

There's a lot of pressure on you.

I'd love to be a fly on the wall.

I mean, we've

got the fence.

I knew Mike Trout was going to get picked, and I knew Stephen would have to call.

Please don't answer.

Please don't answer.

Probably not.

Hmm.

Your call has been.

Alright, take a picture of Hank and send him a text saying Hank just drafts you and dingers only.

Let us know if he gets back to you.

Okay.

Alright.

I'm disoriented now.

Let's go with.

Corbin Carroll is injured, so I'm not going to go with him.

I'm going to go with right fielder, L.A.

Dodger, Teoscar Hernandez.

The Oscar.

That's not really how you say his name, Steven.

Teoscar Hernandez?

That's not it.

How is it?

It's the Oscar Hernandez.

The Oscar Hernandez.

And this whole draft was leading up to me picking the Oscar Hernandez.

You're a real fucking asshole.

All right, you have another one.

I share his

birthday birthday with my son.

Oh, great.

Wow.

I'm sure he's so excited about that.

Who do you share a birthday with, Steven?

Elmo.

Yep.

Perpetually three and a half years old.

I'm going shortstop.

Spanish for the Mo.

Shortstop, Dansb.

Swanson.

Okay.

Okay, good pick.

Good flow.

Good pick.

Thanks.

All right, this might be a reach, probably, but I'm going to go first baseman, local kids, South South Shore, cohasset, mass.

He is a New York Yankee that goes by the name of Ben Rice.

Okay, okay.

Sure, you have the name right?

We say local kid, you meant

to you specifically, yes, yes.

Yeah, what position is he?

First base,

Southie, Coho.

Donnie's Donnie's Donnie's Southeast

Southeast

in Boston.

He's a skipper.

He's wicked strong.

Clipper, skipper?

I I forget what their mascot was in high school.

Okay, you're up.

I am going to go with

outfielder,

specifically right fielder, Fernando Tatis Jr.

Okay.

Oh, good pick.

Bam fine pick.

A lot of aura.

Yep.

I'm going for aura on this one.

So much aura.

Yeah, that's a good pick.

All right.

You're up.

Skipper T.

Really glad this guy fell to me.

Colorado Rocky.

First Rocky.

Positional value, Hunter Goodman.

Catcher.

Playing at altitude.

All right.

I'm going to play a little defense on myself here.

Let's see.

Are any of these guys hurt?

I don't think so.

Quite possibly.

Yeah, I'd say it's a high probability.

Definitely.

Definitely some hurt guys.

You're trying to get my pick before I get my pick.

You have the pick before me.

What value would it be to me?

What if I lose my time on the clock?

You're running the clock.

Your call has been cold.

All right, I'm taking friend of the program, Christian Yelich.

That made sense.

Is he right field?

Left field.

Left field.

Okay.

So I'm going to take a risky pick here.

This guy is hurt.

I think he's coming back within a week.

Two weeks, three weeks.

I don't know.

Whenever he's coming back, yeah, I'm doing it, Max.

God damn it.

I thought no one was.

Of course I'm doing it.

I was looking at you like you should do it.

You had plenty of time to do it.

I know, I know, I understand.

I think I'm getting great value if he gets back healthy.

Bryce Harper, a first baseman.

Oh, that's great value, Brandon.

Great value.

You really love Philly, huh?

Great value.

That's my first Philly.

Yeah.

I do.

It's important, Philly.

Great value.

Unlike Jackson.

Feeling okay if it's possible still on the board, I would like to go with

Junior Camanero from the Tampa Bay, third base.

Oh, they just cut him.

That's terrible.

We're confirmed.

Okay, well, I'm not going to go with him.

He's fine.

He's fucking fine.

Okay, I'm going with him.

Zach, how would you feel pitching against the

team, a college team?

Headgear or no headgear?

You could have a net in front of you if you wanted.

I don't know if I can keep it strike, so I might hit him with the ball.

I wouldn't want to do that.

Yeah, yeah.

I don't throw too fast, but I wouldn't want to hit anybody.

Okay, but you could do it.

You're worried about them.

I'm not too nice on the mound.

Yeah, I don't want anybody with a ball.

All right, Jerry, you're up.

Okay, I'm going to go with.

He's on my squad last year, I believe.

Yes, he was.

Third base, Jose Ramirez.

Okay.

It's a damn fine pick.

Good pick.

Thank you so much.

And I believe I have another pick, correct?

Mm-hmm.

Ooh.

I will go center field

O'Neill Cruz.

Good pick.

Damn, good pick.

Good one.

Thanks, guys.

Fun player.

Great.

That's an aura pick, too.

Yeah, it is.

That's a great pick.

I had him on my board.

I had him on my board as well.

I think he was on my board.

Everyone had him on the board.

Okay.

We're about to get to the portion where we start picking guys who have already been picked.

Yep, yeah.

And super hurt guys.

Uh-huh.

Super hurt guys.

Just like really hurt guys.

Super hurt guys.

Some guys that might not be alive.

Okay.

You're up.

Is it uh possible to go Byron Buxton, center field?

Oh, he's not perfect timing.

I picked him two rounds ago.

Oh, that's terrible.

My bad.

Sorry.

Okay.

Terrible.

I'll go Trent Grisham.

Okay.

Okay.

Has a good pick.

What's position?

What position is that?

Trent Grisham.

He's a center fielder.

Okay.

Back-to-back center fielders.

It's about that time.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

You better believe it.

Yep.

It is about that time, Brandon.

Let me call this guy.

Oh,

yep, all right.

You got him?

Whose number does Brandon have?

Mississippi State guy.

Alright.

Uh-uh.

Uh-huh.

Let me just.

Okay.

Let's call him right now.

Sorry, guys.

Oh, you got this?

I had to look it up.

Who's he calling?

Who do we think he's calling?

I'm calling my guy.

Who do we think he's calling?

Oh, is this

not Stowers?

Shit.

Oh, no.

Is it Oriole?

Mississippi State?

Checking Bobby Witt Jr.

Shortstop.

Doesn't have that many home runs yet, but he's going to get hot.

He will get hot.

BW.

Bobby Witt Jr.

takes BW.

He'll be going to get hot.

All right, I'll go.

Wait, let me make sure he's not.

Shortstop.

I'll go third baseman, Manny Machado.

Okay.

Aura.

Fun to watch.

Big time Aura.

All the pod racing.

Big time aura.

Potheads.

All right.

PFT.

All right.

I'm going to go center fielder for the Milwaukee Brewers, Jackson Jackson Churio.

Oh, nice pick.

Fun name to say, too.

Chip Chip.

Nice Churio.

Nice pick.

Nice pick.

I have a guy that I'm struggling with position.

Okay.

Raphael Devers is the pick that I would like to make.

He struggles with

listed as a DH.

How many games has he.

Oh, he's clarified before.

Shanger said all of them.

He's been a DH.

All of them has been a DH.

That was the thing, right?

All of them?

Okay, fine.

I'll keep him at DH.

That's fine.

Wait, he's listed as third base in baseball?

In his own words, he said, I am a third baseman, right, Hank?

Yeah, but he hasn't played third.

But he said

per the rules of the

game, I just said I'm fine with keeping him at third base.

Are you fine with keeping a third base?

A DH?

Yeah.

It should be up to him.

Would you think he'd want a DH or do you think he'd rather get a baseball?

Yeah, you might have a cold house cancer on your head.

That's fine.

That's tough.

All right.

Similar to Mike Trout,

this guy missed a big chunk of this season.

I think he made his return on, he's had six at-bats this year, but he hits bombs.

He's going to hit a lot of bombs.

No, he's had 19 at-bats, zero home runs.

Okay.

Gian Carlos Stanton.

All right.

Oh.

Battling back from double elbow tonight is.

I didn't even know he played baseball still.

What position is he?

DH.

We'll probably say healthy.

Does he go by Mike now?

No.

No.

It's been eight years.

That's him, though, yeah.

Alright.

You looked him up and it still says Mike Stanton?

No, my memory reference bank.

Your memory reference bank.

Your brain?

Yeah.

Alright, it's on me.

Is anybody?

Yeah, no, it's memory reference bank.

Let's go center field.

Nope.

Let's go.

Andy Pages.

That's a reach.

Big time reach.

Really bad pick.

Is he hurt?

No.

I'm just making fun.

Just a reach.

Back to back.

Alright, let's go.

Center fields off the board.

Right field's also off the board.

I love my squad right now.

I do too.

Let's go.

Third base.

Isaac Parides.

Isak.

Isak?

Hopefully he doesn't suck.

Cub for life.

He was on the Cubs last year.

Oh, hell yeah.

Alright, I'm going to keep...

I'm going for just sex appeal.

I'm just going for a lineup that pops off the lineup card.

I'm going to go Mookie Batts shortstop.

He's had some injuries.

I was just looking at him.

He's

nine home runs this year.

He lost a lot of a toe injury,

but he's back.

He's playing.

I was looking it up because I was about to maybe take him, but then I looked at it and I was like, oh, maybe it's because he didn't hit home runs when he lost all his weight.

He only hit one home run this last month.

He's had a toe and he's battling, but he's, again, like, these are all big-time players that are going to have to contribute going down the stretch and live up to their names.

Yeah.

I'm also going to go with the best.

I mean, Mookie, Mike Stanton, Mike Trout.

That's a power.

Yeah,

you just interrupted Max.

It's okay.

I'm also going to go for a Vibes guy.

Again, I'm struggling with his position, but I'm available at both of his positions right now.

I will be going with Vladdie Jr.

Okay.

Team of COM?

I think he is on the Blue Jays.

I believe he's a first baseman now.

Not a third baseman anymore.

How many home runs does he have?

Not as many as

you would think.

He has 10.

But, you know, you got to go for talent at this.

That's a fact.

Yeah, you got to go for upside.

You're drafting for upside right now.

100%.

I'm going to go with a saber metric pick.

I got deep into the math on this.

Ideally, you want your players to get as many opportunities to hit home runs as possible, yes?

Why not take a guy that hits leadoff?

Shortstop C.J.

Abrams.

He's going to get like four more at bats than some of your guys' clowns.

That's good savor metrics.

Why would you say clowns?

Because you guys got a bunch of clowns on your team.

That's kind of mean.

He's right.

It's true.

I will go with shortstop

Jeremy Pena

from the Houston Astros.

Pena.

Spanish for pineapple.

Seven of eight teams right now have a shortstop.

It's a big swinger.

Oh, that was a mistake, then.

I'm going to wish I knew that where you could wait on, but just no idea.

I'm going to go.

Whoever doesn't have a short stop, don't.

I have a pick'em.

That's me.

Yeah.

No, I got Bobby.

Left fielder.

Okay.

Has anybody picked Taylor Ward?

No.

Then I'm picking Taylor Ward.

Who does he play for?

The Angels.

No, that's a bad pick.

Taylor Ward.

That is generic player number 45.

Shit, can I change my pick?

This is just called Dingers only, right?

We're just hitting Dingers.

I'm not worried about sex appeal.

I'm not worried about Taylor Ward.

I'm drafting player first name, last name.

If you met a girl named Taylor Ward, she's hot as fuck.

Yeah, if she's a chick.

Yeah.

How do you know mine isn't a chick?

That's a good point.

Can I switch my pick if the person picks up?

Yes.

No.

If the person picks up, he's going to get his next pick.

No, what are you talking about?

If he's shortstop, everyone else has a shortstop.

Who are you throwing back?

I would have rather had Gunner Henderson just because I could root for him instead of Jeremy Pena.

Oh.

Can I just do that?

You have to call him.

I'm actually fine.

Yes, pick up.

I'm actually fine with that.

I mean, everyone has a shortstop.

I know.

But I just wanted to see him pick up.

All right, fine, fine, fine.

If he picks up, otherwise I'm keeping

Jeremy Pena.

And whoever doesn't have a shortstop, just pick Gunner Henderson whenever you want.

Gunner hasn't responded to me since I asked him to go on his battle.

What, since you what?

You guys made me ask him that.

Fuck, he's not going to pick up.

Damn it.

Alright, I guess I got Jeremy Pena.

He's a fine player.

Yeah, I know.

I just wanted to root for Gunner Henderson.

I was stupid.

I don't know why I did that.

He's only hit eight home runs, so I didn't see him on the board.

Hey, this is Gunnar.

Fuck.

Oh, that's a strong message.

Alright, Jeremy Pena.

Be a hero.

Hey, it's me, Gunnar Henderson.

But you already knew that.

He's going to be so mad when he finds out he didn't get drafted.

Well, one person

still.

Who still needs a shortstop?

Does anybody know?

Okay.

Don't draft him right now, but

you know what?

If you draft Gunner, I'll trade you, Jeremy Pena.

Can I think about it?

Yeah.

Awesome.

All right.

All right.

What'd you decide?

I'm going next, right?

Yeah, but what'd you decide about the trade?

Oh, right now?

Yeah.

Oh, uh.

You feel good about Pena this year?

I mean, he's got 11 brothers.

He obviously doesn't feel good about him, Zach.

No, it's literally, I do feel good about him.

I just would rather have Gunnar Henderson, but it's fine.

You don't have to.

Is it cool if I keep.

Can we think about mid-season, maybe a swap?

Can we table it till now and I go Gunner Toonde?

The deal is now officially off the table.

Okay, that's fine.

Okay.

All right, we won't trade then.

All right, go ahead.

Make your pick.

I got you.

Sorry about that.

I'm going going to go with.

Has Ezekiel Tover been taken?

Nope.

I would like to take Ezekiel Tover.

Okay.

What position is that, young man?

Short stop.

Wait.

You son of a man.

You're not taking cards.

And you also taking his shirts off when you didn't need to.

Everyone else already.

We just had this conversation.

It's three home runs.

Three home runs.

Why are you taking him?

I was just trying to keep track of who was taken and who wasn't taken.

I know he was on the non-taken board.

Ezekiel sounds like a strong name.

I was really going off first name.

I thought you were friends with this.

No, I don't have too many guys.

I don't know too many guys in MLB, but I feel like

he might be a stick later in the season.

Terrible pick.

That's fair.

Yeah.

Okay.

Jerry, you're up.

All right.

I need a second baseman.

I will go.

Ooh, okay.

I will go with

Jackson Holiday.

You bitch, motherfucker.

Yeah, I'll go with him.

I like him.

It's a good pick.

Good pick.

Good pick.

Great pick.

Great pick.

And then

this is going to be a reach because I don't think this guy has zero home runs this year.

Okay.

He plays left field.

Oh, a right.

Left fielder with zero home runs is hard to do.

Jordan Alvarez.

Oh, that's pretty.

Is he hurt?

Yeah.

He is hurt.

He is returning sometime in the next two months.

Month and a half.

Yeah.

Good.

Okay.

That's good.

He hits home runs.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Astros, Jordan Alvarez, no progress.

I'm pretty sure they count the cracker.

I think I drafted him last year right when he went on the sort of like a 60-day DL.

Yeah.

He's a great player when he plays.

Well, he's coming.

He's returning, though, they said.

Yeah, that's what they said last year.

What was the last update?

No progress.

We'll see.

I read a different report.

We'll see.

Yeah, we'll see.

I mean, listen, if he is.

We don't know.

Nobody knows.

Yeah.

I know he was supposed to.

I think he was a setback.

Yeah, we'll see.

Yeah, but we're good.

Well, no progress means no bad progress either.

True.

All right.

Back up, Zach.

All right, would it be possible to

take Brent Rooker or has Brent Rooker been drafted yet?

He's been on my team for about 45 minutes.

That's fair.

I missed that one on the lineup.

That's why it won't happen against our Brandon.

Ezekiel.

Won't do that again.

He's just picking guys that no one would have drafted.

Ian Happ of the Cubs.

He's available.

Yes.

Great pick.

Very much so.

I'll take Ian.

That's a great pick.

It's red hot right now.

Two home runs on Friday.

Which, if you're listening to this right now, was like two weeks ago.

Yeah.

Center fielder of the Seattle Mariners.

Julio Rodriguez.

Ooh, good one.

Has 10 home runs, but is averaging 29 over the last three years.

J-Rod.

Good one.

Good one.

All right, I'll take Michael Bush, first baseman.

Okay.

I'm going to go with Matt Chapman, third baseman, Giants.

Good pick, PFT.

Good picking.

Good pick, PFT.

Has anyone taken Riley Green, left fielder for the Tigers yet?

That's a hot-sounding name.

Yeah, Riley Green Tiger.

That chick has got

chances.

Like, really shiny.

Super shiny lip level.

PFT, who did just take third piece?

I took Matt Chapman.

Okay, thanks.

I feel like this person's been taken from the Colorado Rockies catcher, Hunter Goodman.

Yep, he has been.

Yeah, wild.

I got him a long time ago.

It felt like that was true.

Yeah.

Good intuition.

How does he play into this team?

Really good intuition.

Your aura team, Hank.

He didn't.

He just was high up on the board, which is why he had been taken already.

All right.

Oh, man.

This is tough now.

All right.

I'm going to go just because I loved his walk-up song

in 2016.

Javi Baez.

Nice.

I'm in love with that.

He's back.

He's back.

What's his position?

He's a center fielder for the Tigers.

Good pick.

Oh, he got traded for PCA, right?

Yeah.

Correct.

I am going with.

It's great being around Steven because his baseball knowledge literally started this year.

I am going with.

what's his favorite left field, New York Mets, Brandon Nimmo.

Okay.

Frank's going to be mad about that one.

And then

I will go with a designated hitter.

I believe that's his position.

Let me double check.

We should give Frank a team and

have it be all Mets.

He just gets all the Mets.

This is going to be analytics picks, by Good pick.

Analytics pick.

Short porch in Right Field.

Jazz Chisholm, second base.

That's just a real solid pick.

Good value.

That was a real solid pick.

I will be taking catcher,

not to be confused with actor Will Smith.

Which one are you taking?

The catcher, not the actor.

Okay.

The actor also hits.

So I'm up.

only taking it, right?

I gotta pick a DH here.

Actually, my favorite part of this dingers-only draft is when they do the team that we didn't draft.

Yeah, that we should have.

Shane, are you working on that?

Or memes?

It's memes.

Shane just tried to talk.

I don't know if you have a mic anywhere near.

I can.

Okay, do it right now.

Okay, so I'm up, and

I am going to be taking

Has anybody took Wilmer Flores yet?

I have not heard his name.

No, no.

The designated hitter Wilmer Flores.

You sure he's still in the league?

He's hit 11 home runs this year.

Yeah.

And the 11 is red, which I think means.

Good.

Good.

Also, fun fact about him, Wilmer Flores bio.

He is the brother of Wilmer Flores.

I'll be goddamn.

Wow.

So there are two Wilmer Flores's.

That's sick.

Which one did you take?

I took Wilmer Flores.

Cool.

Has anyone taken Mr.

October Tommy Edmund?

I have not.

Dodger?

Okay, yeah.

He's good.

I'm going to take him.

Great pick.

Mr.

October.

I have an issue.

By the way, this, by the way, just so we're all clear, the official first day of this league is July 2nd, Wednesday, July 2nd.

So these home runs don't count this day.

No home runs count for the next eight days.

Last year, y'all did the same thing, and then you started a text message saying, should we just start now?

No.

Are we going to do that again?

No.

Just depends on how many home runs you're going to do.

Is that?

Yes.

Yeah.

I think last year it was like, should we just start today?

Should we just start today?

No, whatever.

Okay.

It doesn't really matter.

I have a guy who I

would like to vote yes if you'd like to start today.

What's today?

Today.

Today, today?

Or today when it comes out?

Today, tomorrow.

Today.

Today, today.

This day.

This 23rd.

No, it should start July 2nd.

Okay.

Whenever Bryce Harper gets picked.

What position is your guy?

Second baseman.

Okay.

Tell me about that.

Who'd you say?

Mr.

October.

Yes.

I have have a problem.

I have a guy that has almost assuredly been picked, but I haven't heard him be picked, and I haven't scratched him off.

So I'm going to ask, and he's definitely been picked.

So just tell me he's been picked.

Okay.

Who's got Jose El Tuve?

He's not been picked.

He's not been picked.

I'd like to pick Jose El Tuve, second baseman for the

Houston.

Not as good as Tommy Edmond.

He has way more home runs.

Than Tommy Edmond?

Yeah.

Are you sure about that?

No, because Tommy Edmonds is not even on my second base list.

How many home runs does Jose El Tuve have?

12.

Tommy Edmond has 10.

Not way more.

Few more.

Yeah.

Has anyone drafted a Ben Rice from the New York team?

How is he doing this?

I got my list swapped.

It was my fault.

Kid, local kid.

Yandy Diaz.

Taken.

Also been taking.

Jose El Tuve still been playing all second base.

He's been playing left field.

It said second base on the thing that I Google.

Yeah, but he's been playing left field.

I think he's enough second base that he should be a second baseman still.

Correct, Shane.

I'm looking.

All right, can you all look?

Okay.

All right.

Okay.

We're good?

Yeah.

That's why I was more upset at myself because I didn't see him on my second baseman list.

Vinny Pascantino.

Who's that?

First base.

Royals.

That is correct.

Yep.

Pick them.

That's who we're picking.

All

Jerry.

Perfect.

I will do.

I need a catcher.

This is the last round.

Or not this big

round.

I need a catcher.

Yeah, fuck it.

Let's go with.

Let's go with Wells.

God damn it.

Austin Wells.

God damn it.

He wasn't going to make it to you, Hank.

Austin Wells.

Let's go with him.

Fucking damn it.

Catcher.

Okay, now I need a.

Oh, oh.

My field there.

Yeah, right field there.

Okay, I will go

man.

I don't know much about this guy.

But a name sounds like he hits home runs.

And I remember a couple post-seasons ago, he was heading home runs.

Nick

Castellanos.

Yeah, he's had a good year.

And his power numbers have been a little bit down.

Alright.

I'll go with him.

My right field there.

Perfect.

Zach, you need a DH.

Is Saya Suzuki available?

No.

No, not.

You're just looking at my draft.

I think it was a second-round pick.

Was he a second-round pick?

Third or fourth, yeah.

Second pick.

Tenth overall.

Solid pick.

Tenth overall.

Great value.

I mean, that would have been an awesome pick if you had gotten it.

I'll go to Jonathan Arada.

Okay.

Okay.

Doesn't it hit her 10 Bay Dove rays?

Okay.

Just the Rays now.

10 Bay Rays.

Yep.

Brandon needs a third baseman.

Eight years ago.

Eight?

Maybe more.

Another injury guy coming back.

Jordan Westberg.

Baltimore Orioles, third base.

Where'd he go to school?

Mississippi motherfucking state.

All right.

I'm going to take

an

injured player, but he's got a lot of pop.

He's got 10 home runs in.

How many at-bats?

200 at bats.

Shea Langliers

of the A's.

He should be back.

I just Googled it.

He should be back in the next week or two.

Yeah.

So Jackson Holiday, we've ruled him as a shortstop.

No, someone already picked him.

I picked him.

Oh, he picked a second baseman, right?

Yeah.

You need a second baseman.

I need a second baseman, yep.

So I will be going with

at second base

Ozzy Albius.

That's a good pick.

Atlanta Brave.

Good pick.

That's a good pick.

That's a good pick.

Thanks.

Mostly because it's a name I recognize.

Yep.

Yeah.

So that's my.

I guess this is the injured round here where someone takes someone who is going to be off of injury soon.

I will be taking third baseman, Alex Bregman.

Good pick.

Great pick.

Great pick.

Would you like to call him, Chase?

Damn, I should have done that.

Bregman?

Yeah.

No, please don't answer.

He'd be likely to pick up.

We'll see.

Every article about Ozzy Obes is about how bad the current slump that he has.

He has been awful.

But he's going to be better.

He should be better.

He only has six home runs.

No outstanding tasks.

He's going to hit 25.

I think getting drafted on this team is the spark that he needs.

I think he's betting 100 for June.

All right, I'm going to go

recurring guest, friend of the program, catcher for the Seattle Mariners,

Cal Raleigh.

Great pick.

Great pick.

Thank you.

Oh, Bregman's calling back.

Oh, there we go.

Nice.

Hand it to Max.

Tell him we're doing the June.

Alex, what's up, buddy?

Yeah, we are doing.

You are on pardon my take right now.

I'm going to pass you to Max.

You've just been drafted in the Dingers Only League.

What is that?

Hey, Alex,

pleasure to speak with you right now.

I just want you to know that you have been drafted by Team Max to the Dingers-only League and Part of My Take.

Do you accept?

I don't even know what that is.

All right.

All right.

That's cool.

I don't know what it is.

It is a fantasy baseball league between the members of Part of My Take plus a few more, and it's just a fantasy baseball league, homers-only.

How's your health?

You feeling good?

Feeling good, bro.

You'll be back soon.

I love that.

Love that.

Thanks for joining my team.

Have a good one.

I don't know if he did join your team.

I don't think he accepted it.

You're too nervous, Max.

I was nervous.

You couldn't wait to get off the phone.

I was nervous.

I was nervous.

Sham, dude.

Maybe send him a follow-up text, Chay, and be like, sorry for Max.

He's a loser.

I thought like that was pretty.

I thought that went pretty smooth.

You were too blue then.

I saw that went pretty smoothly.

Zach, what do you think?

I thought it was deep.

On our first interaction with somebody, I feel like it went pretty decent.

I was pretty, yeah.

I don't know why.

Hey, clean that up.

There's something about a phone call that's matter of fact.

Max, look at it.

Clean that up.

I don't want Bregman to hate us.

What?

Yeah.

Your thumb is completely blocked in your face.

Okay.

All right, Stephen.

Bregman's been drafted.

Wait, who did you take?

Wait, who'd you take it?

What are you doing?

Fuck.

I thought we were going to move on.

Has anyone taken August?

Historical error?

Augustin Ramirez

of the Miami Marlins?

No.

All right, I'll take him.

Good pick.

Great pick, Hank.

I had him on my board.

He's actually better than Cal Rowley.

Steven,

last pick.

Mr.

Irrelevant.

Mr.

Irrelevant.

I'm just checking to make sure this guy is healthy.

He's got an absolutely dynamite name.

Oh.

Yep.

He's hitting like 150.

This could be anybody.

He might be.

Second baseman.

Arizona Diamondbacks.

Tim Tawa.

Dynamite.

That's a dynamite name, too.

Dynamite.

Tim Tawa?

Yeah.

Okay.

I feel like we left a lot of people.

Wait, who's your pick?

Yeah.

Augustine Ramirez.

I don't want to say third base.

We left a couple guys.

Well, Corbin Carroll.

Corbin Carroll's out there.

But he's hurt.

How hurt, though?

I don't know.

You think he's getting an MRI, but he has 20 home runs.

I think I drafted all guys from the National League.

How is that possible?

Yeah.

Entirely national league?

Everybody on my team is in the national league.

Corbin Carroll is a big miss.

Big miss.

Big mess.

They think someone

stash him.

Well, you can't stash him.

We don't have any.

Oh, you're saying he's stash him, just eat his non-home runs.

That's all.

So it's a race to see whose right fielder gets hurt first.

Yeah.

Memes, who do we miss?

Anybody take Freddie Freeman?

Nope, nope.

Yeah, first base.

Soderstrom is a really good hitter, too.

Okay.

Who else?

Want me to go down the list right now?

Yeah, yeah.

Sean Murphy, catcher.

Okay.

Braves.

Tommy Edmond.

Nope.

Nope.

Got him.

Yes.

That feels good.

Sean Murphy might not be the best hitting catcher on that team.

That feels really good, knowing that I got a pick that the baseball guys knew.

Daniel Schneeman,

the Guardians for second base, Zach Netto for shortstop, yeah, Austin Riley, third base.

Okay, it's had a bad year, uh, Tyler Soderstrom, centerfield, Joe Adell,

and then right field, Corbin Carroll.

Okay, I think we did pretty good, yeah.

I think that was a good draft, boys.

I love my team, my team pops off.

I love my team, yeah.

Hanks, you said something early of like

if you posted this lineup card, you know.

Yeah, that you wanted like a star power, and that's what I kind of went for.

Read your team real quick.

Uh, Eugenio

Ehu Denio Suarez, nailed it.

Sia Suzuki, Mike Trout, Ben Rice,

Drew and Carlos Stanton, Mookie Betts, Hobby Baez, Jazz Chisholm, Augustin Ramirez.

Everyone say their name.

So you want to say it all of our name?

I'm Brandon.

No, I mean,

I actually think if you put my line up

next to Hank, I think mine pops with the word Chester guy.

I think mine pops better.

No, I think it pops more as well.

Are you doing a pop-off?

Yeah, yeah, let's pop off.

Let's pop off.

All right, pop off with him.

Hank, you listen to this.

Tell me, guy for guy.

James Wood, Juan Soto, Matt Olston, Matt Olson, Hunter Goodman, Jackson Churio, C.J.

Abrams, Matt Chapman, Wilmer Flores, Ozzie Alves.

Yeah, no, there's no.

The arrow there.

The end of the arrow.

I'm popping so harder.

No, I'm popping harder.

I'm popping harder.

Zero on a pop-up one.

Yeah, let's.

You pop up.

You pop first, and then I pop.

Cal Riley.

Let's pop has to eat the pop.

Cal Riley pops.

Ronald Lacuna.

Yeah.

Pops.

Bryce Harper.

Yeah.

Pops.

Julio Rodriguez.

Bobby Witt Jr.

Jose El Tuve.

Pops.

Yep.

Now I go Brett Rooker, Taylor Ward, Jordan Westbrook.

I didn't pop.

Taylor Ward, Pops.

Bryce.

So can I pop?

I mean, Mike Santa.

I'm popping better than that.

I'm bad.

Will Smith.

Nah.

Nah.

Vladdy Jr.

Pops.

Marte.

Bregman.

Pops.

Ellie.

Bregman done pops.

Pops.

Bregman pops.

Breggman Pops.

Bregman Pops.

Ellie De La Cruz, Riley Green, PCA, Tatis, Devers.

All right, that's a good pop.

Pretty good.

That's a good pop.

You're my pop?

There's a lot of pop in there.

All right,

start, I'll just throw this Shay Langlier's, whatever.

Michael Bush is good.

Tommy Edmond,

Gunnar Henderson.

Pop.

Oh, wait, did you make that trade?

No.

Oh, wait.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Fuck.

Jeremy Pena, Manny Machado, Christian Yelich,

Kyle Tucker, Kyle Schwarber, Pops.

Byron Buxton.

All right.

Decent pop.

I mean, I have two.

I have the Kyles.

Guys, I think this is

the Kyles.

Kyle Schwarber and Kyle Tucker.

This is going to be the most competitive year of Dingers only ever.

You want to pop, Jerry?

I'll pop a little bit.

Pop it off.

First base, Spencer Torkelson.

Okay.

Wow.

G.H., Otani.

Okay.

Shortstop.

Shortstop, Lindor.

Center field, O'Neill Cruz.

Pop.

Third base, Jose Ramirez.

Pop.

Second base, Jackson Holiday.

I could pop.

Left tail.

Jordan Alvarez.

Pop.

Well, he's dead.

I don't think he's going to play for the rest of the year.

The pop was actually.

The name is Pop, though.

So the name is.

The name is Pop.

Name is Pop.

The name is Pop.

Catcher also.

Pop is Labram.

Okay.

And right fielder, Castellanos.

That's Pop.

Yeah, Pop.

What do you got, Steve?

Say, Lo Pop.

Catcher, Logan O'Hoppy.

Sick name.

Your definition for a sick name.

Logan O'Hopy?

It's just names.

It's really weird.

Oh, it's a cool name.

Pete Alonzo, first base.

Second base.

Met Pops.

Yeah, I hate it.

Tim Tawa.

That's a cool name.

How could that be the coolest?

Tim Tawa.

Shortstop, Dansby Swanson.

Swag.

Oh, God.

Third base, Ice.

Isak Paredes.

Isak Paredes?

No pop.

Left field, Brandon Nimmo.

This is the least amount of pop.

Can we agree that this team?

Well, we haven't heard that yet.

Center field, Andy Pajes.

Okay, no pop.

Stages.

Right field,

the Oscar Hernandez.

Incredible amount of non-defense.

You know who sex appeal is.

You don't know 90% of your team.

No, I nine.

No, yeah, absolutely.

Do.

Petalonzo, Logano Hoppi, and the Oscar.

And Dansby, I know all those guys.

If you were to make

a team logo for your squad, it would just be beige.

It would be beigeing berets.

Toby Anderson.

Zach, end this with a pop.

Aaron Judge.

Pop.

Pop.

Salvador Perez.

Pop.

Brandon Lowe.

Pop.

Wow.

Junior Camaniro?

Trent Grisham.

Okay.

Ezekiel Tover.

Pop.

Ian Hap.

Pop.

Pop.

Vinny

Pascantino.

Pascantino.

I think if you had said it right with the Italian hands, it pops.

Vinny Pascatino.

Pascantino.

Yeah, yeah.

Gotcha.

And Jonathan Arrada.

Why didn't you take Gunner Henderson?

It was a mix-up.

Memes, and Shane, do you have any grades?

Which team pops the hardest?

Give Max an A.

Let's go.

Give Brandon an A.

Yeah, Brandon's really good.

Well, you can say I was really good.

Max is really good, too.

All right, thanks.

I like Big Cat and PFTs.

Yeah, you do.

Wow, Hank, you're not going to pop.

No.

Hank's was good.

No, it wasn't.

You don't mean that.

Who's bad?

That's a better question.

Unfortunately, my man Zach had

a tough time.

A lot of ball left.

A lot of ball left.

A lot of ball left.

We also last year picked pitcher tiebreaker.

Yeah, we're not doing that.

We're not doing that.

Oh, it was just tiebreaker.

It was strikeouts.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

We could do that, I guess.

Okay.

Tiebreaker.

Let's go.

Same one through eight.

Okay.

And it's strikeouts.

It's just strikeouts.

Most strikeouts.

Purely tiebreaker for last place.

Correct.

And last year we just spoke up.

So.

Paul Skeens.

Give me Garrett Crochet.

Extra pick.

What are we doing?

We just spoke up.

Cy Young?

Just take it.

Oh, give me Scoobel.

What?

Wait, all right, fine.

Go in order.

I'll take that.

I don't know his name.

Who?

It's the Asian.

Wait, no, it should be going back.

Shohio Otani.

Otani?

No, no.

Not the last pick.

No, it's the.

I did.

Yeah.

We wrote it.

Okay.

All right.

Paul Skins.

Wait, what is this?

What are we talking about?

Strikeout breaks.

That's not going to happen.

It's not going to happen.

Paul Skins for me.

Good pick.

Hank?

Yeah.

Sorry, I'm looking for any pitcher that's hit a home run this year.

No, no, it's not strikeout.

Pitchers can hit any more games.

It's only in the event of a game.

How long would he have searched for that?

They're all DHs, Hank.

Oh, man.

Otani would be a great pick.

All right, I'll give me Scoobel.

Good pick.

Nice, good pick.

It's a great pick.

Crochet.

Brandon was the one.

Actually, no, give me Zach Wheeler.

Zach Wheeler.

McKinsey Gore.

Why can't I get this for

strikeouts?

Where are the strikeouts?

Oh, let me see.

Let me see.

Let me see.

Let me see.

Crochet.

Chris Sale.

Hurt.

Thank you.

What?

Didn't he hurt?

He got hurt the other night?

Logan Webb.

Hunter Brown.

I don't know who that is.

I think we fucked up, too, because so many names got thrown around, so Crochet is still not picked.

Crochet's picked.

Max picked.

No, I didn't.

No, he was not.

We both picked up.

There's so many names thrown around.

Take crochet,

Zach.

I'll take crochet.

There you go.

We got Chris Sale, fractured rib cage.

Yeah.

That stinks.

He got it doing a diving play with two outs and a ninth of a shutout.

I just wanted a fill.

And that's not going to matter.

Unless it does matter.

Good.

You got a pick there, Jerry.

I can't find him.

The Asian guy on the Dodgers.

Yamamoto?

Yamamoto.

That's the name, right?

Schneel.

Yep, yep.

Take him.

There's definitely like five Asian guys

for the picture.

I'm pretty sure he's talking about Yamamoto.

He's a pitcher.

They have another guy that just got hurt, right?

Sasaki.

No, I'm not thinking of that guy.

He's talking about Yamamoto, right?

The guy with the most strikeouts.

Yoshi Noble.

Yep, him.

It's like the...

Whatever.

That's like the one team

that you can't.

You can't say Asian guy.

Are they just filled with Asian players?

Yeah.

I don't know.

I don't watch baseball.

Yeah.

All right.

Good job, boys.

All right.

That was a great draft.

I think this is

Guy for Guy, the best draft yet.

Yeah, except for the game.

It's going to be a slugfest in the league this year.

It's going to be

scenes.

Who do we think does the pitching challenge first the loser of this year or max loser of this year i think zach's gonna do before max does yeah you are saying zach's gonna lose i was making a joke ezekiel he's going to lose

we haven't even gotten to the second yet

all right okay that was our show reminder no show friday numbers three uh no show friday for the fourth of july 99.

we'll be back on sunday night for a show on monday and then it's chill week.

You got one there, memes.

Did you get any in there, memes?

Yeah, one for one for four.

Yeah.

Wait.

No, I got it.

No, I know before.

Yeah.

Out of the four we just did.

Oh, okay.

Yeah.

I'm going to go with 59.

Oh, oh.

That's not going to hit.

Okay.

That's a

terrible number, memes.

I'll take 11.

What did you guess last, memes?

Last nine.

21.

All right, I'll do 21.

Fuck is wrong with you, 59.

27.

Come on, 27.

71.

Seven meeting to fucking take 71.

Love you guys.