Hour 1: I'm Just Glad Mark Cuban Loves Talking (feat. Pablo Torre)

All right, Smirnoff.

Official vodka of the NFL, the world's number one vodka.

Here's the deal: game day is everything.

The noise, the rituals, the passion, the dip, the wings, the dip again.

Smirnoff belongs in that mix because if you're tailgating or hosting or just sitting there checking your fantasy lineup every 30 seconds, you need Smirnoff.

Otherwise, it's not a real game day.

They've been doing this since 1864, which is.

I don't even want to do the math.

A long time.

They're award-winning.

They make cocktails super easy and they're all about bringing fans together.

So yeah, we do game days.

That's their thing.

And if you're over 21, you should too.

Grab a bottle of Smirnoff at your local retailer and head to Smirnoff.com to find recipes of delicious cocktails perfect for game day.

Please drink responsibly.

Smirnoff, number 21 vodka.

Distilled from grain, 40% alcohol by volume.

The Smirnoff Company, New York, New York.

Please do not share with anyone under legal drinking age.

Now is a good time to remember where tequila's story truly began.

In 1795, Cuervo invented tequila.

Cuervo.

What are you doing here?

Cuervo.

Anytime someone says Cuervo, I show up.

Well, I do know that to be true, but even during ad reads, like, Cuervo.

I think it could lay out, especially for one of our great partners.

Sweet, delicious Cuervo.

Since then, Cuervo has stayed true to its roots.

The same family, the same land, the same passion.

Cuervo.

So, enjoy the tequila that started it all.

Cuervo.

Cuervo.

The tequila that invented tequila.

Brooksimoquevo.com, please drink responsibly.

Cuervo.

You're a guy who just wants to look nice.

The kind of nice where you might get a nice compliment on the niceness of your nice new outfit.

Good thing Men's Warehouse has everything from polos to jeans and yes, suits, plus a team to help you find the perfect fit to make sure you look nice.

Nice.

Love the way you look.

Men's Warehouse.

This is the Dan Labatar Show with the Stu Gats Podcast.

No, you can't do that.

You can't do that if he doesn't have big news.

You can't do that if he's just doing first take with Mark Cuban.

You can't, no.

That only happens with big news.

Apparently, you weren't listening an hour and 15 minutes in because I heard some pretty good stuff there.

There was not news there.

There was not.

Is he still donating?

Even after he hates the guy?

All right, we'll find out in a second.

I'm finally reading.

I'm finally reading some criticism of Pablo Torre.

This is from Jay Mariotti's Substack.

Any investigation of Steve Ballmer should center on one dude, Pablo Torre.

And then the sub-headline is, once again, Torrey is in a mess as he asks us to find out on his podcast.

The NBA vetted and approved Ballmer's deal with aspiration, which suggests he's wrong in suggesting the owner was crooked.

What is Jay Mariotti's problem with you?

So, hello.

Chris, thanks for listening to some of the episodes.

I really appreciate that sincerely.

Is Jay Mariatti?

I haven't read this yet.

Is Jay Mariotti still blaming me for the cancellation of Around the Horn?

Okay, so is there that?

Is my question number one.

Number two, for anyone who's wondering who is Jay Mariatti, that's a fair question.

You should Google Jay Mariatti sometime and maybe just throw in the word stock just as a matter of just general guidance.

You might want to see what he had been up to at some some point.

The third thing,

I love, so the Cuban thing is, I hate when Dan cuts to the core of me because yes, me and Mark Cuban did some first take

allegedly about my journalism.

Really, it was arguing.

I love it though, because I want people to give me arguments so I can try and defend the work because I frankly want to make sure I'm not missing anything.

And I've been asking everybody, what are your criticisms?

What are your arguments?

And the Clippers, we've seen what those are.

They don't have any.

Media Day did not have those leaks.

Typically, you get some good leaks from like media, you know, sources of the team.

We haven't really had those either.

And Jay Mariotti's here now.

And so I just feel like, I don't know, maybe the story's over now.

Maybe when you get to the Mariotti line, the story's actually over because I don't think he knows what he's talking about.

He's blaming you.

He is blaming you.

Tori has done this on my former program around the horn the second espn show he allowed to fade off the air and it's time his editors at the athletic tell him he's leading the majors in strikeouts so a couple of cleanups there um i did not allow high noon to get canceled i uh was canceled i feel like it's okay for a cancellation to be involuntary the second espn show he allowed

to fade off the air I want to apologize to Tony Realey for losing for doing the thing in Titanic that Jack and Rose did.

I let him go.

I took the

door we were floating on and I let him go.

I allowed around the horn to go away.

What was the other thing he did?

Why is he blaming you?

I don't know.

Why don't you know?

When you come on, what do you mean you don't know?

When you come on and say, is he blaming me again for around the horn?

And I didn't know he had been blaming you until reading this.

uh why is he blaming you for around the horn i'm just glad he said it

i might be the reason why i've never i've i've never talked to jay um i i assume jay is thrilled um one of my favorite things about jay mariatti's twitter account which i have just looked up here is that he inserts manually a photo of himself like posing

for everyone and i i i don't even care to make fun of him for the engagement on his tweets because that's its own.

I hate when people do that.

To me, it's just sad.

Ignore the numbers.

Just look at the photos.

He picked a good one for this one.

He's like him in front of like a duck pond.

I like that.

No, you say that that's the good part of the bio.

The best part of the bio to me is that he writes in ESPN ratings king.

Yes.

Yes, that's right.

You didn't know that, Dan?

I did not know that.

Did you know that, by the way, did you know?

This is also news to the editors at the athletic that they're my editors

because they, of course, are not.

They are, if anything, horrified to hear that.

God bless our partners, but they're not editing these things.

He just doesn't know.

I mean, look,

if I can,

do we want to talk about how Jay Mariotti was the ratings king at ESPN, or do we not talk about the thing that ESPN.com reported, which Jay Mariotti has misinterpreted into something that I am kind of like baffled by in a real way, but I can go either direction on that.

No, let's just talk about what you did this morning with Mark Cuban because he has entrenched himself on this in a way that leaves him, I think, largely alone.

Where are his supporters, first of all, before you tell us what it is that you and Mark Cuban did on the latest episode of Pablo Torrey Finds Out?

Where are Mark Cuban's supporters?

Yeah, who else?

Who else is publicly against you when you keep throwing facts at people that are vigorously reported?

I thought all of these people scattered.

I thought there were a lot of people and it confused me at the beginning and it suggested that people just hate the media because a whole lot of people sided with ballmer at the beginning and i was really confused by it but since then you've done so much reporting that i've seen no one but mark cubin still standing and now jay mariotti yeah i was gonna say i think it's clippers pr it's mark cubin and jay mariotti um to give you a sense of what's going on here oh and and in fairness a lot of like people with uh

kawhi leonard or james harden avatars on twitter It's generally that.

That's the dojo that I walk into ready to fight every day.

And it's a bummer at this point.

But in all sincerity, like the reason I wanted to have Cuban on the show was because I think it's really important, especially now, for journalists who do this sort of work to defend their work, to be able to defend their work.

It's just key to how you...

make sure that people are hearing about your work.

But then it's also, I think, only fair to the people that you're investigating or reporting on.

And so in this case, like Mark Cuban coming into the studio, into our dojo, as he called it, a dungeon, which is fair, that's windowless and small, but full of,

yeah, journalism.

And in this case, two people yelling at each other.

I'm so grateful he did that because we got to have what I would say is the most generously proportioned conversation about a complicated topic in which he got to say everything and anything he wanted.

And so that is what I wanted to make sure people heard is that this is the best that people got.

And so it was.

What did he say that you found interesting?

What did he say that was different from what it is that he said before?

I look, I asked him, I think, the fundamental question in all of this, which I will ask everybody.

And I ask truly,

NBA, Clippers, Ballmer,

everybody.

Why was this deal never announced?

And Mark Cuban provided a theory I had not heard before, which is simply that they had just announced a Red Sox deal at the end of March, and they didn't want to step on that deal.

And then I guess they never got around to announcing the Kawhi Leonard deal.

They made plenty of other announcements, Pablo, but they just kept omitting Kawhi.

For some reason,

it's hard for me to just

objectively, of course, describe what he's arguing because I argued against it in the episode so

lengthily, but it's just fucking insane.

I'm sorry, it's just insane.

insane.

You signed Leo DiCaprio, Robert Daddy Jr., Mike, you signed Drake, and you're like, look who we got.

You spend more than four times all those A-listers combined on Kawhi and you never announce it.

And then you forget, apparently.

You forget to announce it is basically what happens.

The business changes and blah, it's just like you had months.

You had months and you never did it.

What's in it for Mark

to just refuse to give an inch here?

I mean, we know how difficult it is in these trying times for any man to admit when they are wrong publicly.

But why does he simply refuse to make?

We're not talking about grand logic leaps here.

Like, he is asking for you to acknowledge something that doesn't make any sense when you present him the evidence, but he just holds firm there, refusing to give an inch.

What's at play here?

He keeps trying to lead the audience on, saying, listen, this is good for the Mavs.

I could just turn around and say, no, it's not good for the Mavs because there are a lot of people out there on the internet theorizing that allegedly this is happening all over the league and you don't want any people poking around.

This is what it makes me wonder.

The initial yawn on this from people is like, oh, I hope nobody comes snooping around here because there are all sorts of suspicious things that rich people do to compete when you try to curtail their richness.

I'm asking Pablo to do something that

Mark apparently refuses to do, which is connect the dots here.

Explain to me why Mark Cuban is so

entrenched in his position.

Should I do this, though?

I should.

Time to throw away all journalistic credibility and get reckless.

Here is something we like to call reckless speculation.

You're good.

This is not journalism.

This is not muckraking.

This is Pablo being asked for his opinion.

So I think Mark Cuba is genuinely an internet-brained true poster.

And I say that as an internet-brained true poster myself.

I think he just is super, super online.

He loves it.

I mean, look, that's the generous interpretation, which is he just loves to argue about this.

And even when I pointed out that he had written 17,000 plus words or whatever it was on Twitter about this, he then comes back and says, a lot of that was chat GPT.

So I'm like, all right, so okay, I mean, whatever.

Mileage varies on how much work he's putting into the Twitter thing, but nonetheless, he's super into it.

The other part, which I raise in the episode, which I find very interesting, is more in the, I would like Mark to connect these dots for me, which is that something that he never told me that I, and I hate to step on sort of like the finale of the episode, but something that I establish is that I did not realize that Clipper's co-owner Dennis Wong, who was Steve Ballmer's college classmate, his best friend, it's been described to me, the guy who put in money into Aspiration, despite all these disclosures, having never put money in before in December of 2022, that guy who's been talked about ad nauseum.

I didn't realize that Dennis Wong lives in Dallas now.

And in the episode, we basically play a series of things, clips, that Mark Cuban is in, in which they are done at these institutions, the Dallas Museum of Art, for instance, the George W.

Bush Presidential Center, both in Dallas.

We reference the fact that he owns this pickleball team, the Dallas Flash.

We do these sort of references because at the end, what I end up asking him is whether he knows that Dennis Wong lives in Dallas and whether he knows that Dennis Wong is also heavily involved with all of those organizations I just name-checked for you in the last minute.

Dallas Museum of Art, he's on the board, George W.

Bush Executive Center leadership thing.

He's on the advisory council.

He is

an owner, Dennis Wong is, of a major league pickleball team that plays Mark's team, as well as the fact that they're on the board of governors together, have been for a half dozen years until Mark sold his majority stake in the team.

So I asked him that, and Mark said he laughed.

He laughed at all of it.

And so look, you could take that as he's genuinely ignorant of the other NBA owner who's not a MABS owner who's in his city that is involved with these same organizations.

Or you could see something else.

I am merely Dan asking a question.

Hey, it's Tony from the Dan Lebitart show, and I got to tell you something that makes me feel a lot safer with my wife and kid at home.

It's simply safe.

Most security systems only react after a break-in.

And that's too late, if you want to be honest.

Real security stops crime before it even starts.

I just watched a video that was absolutely terrifying.

An arson is trying to light a family home on fire.

And you know what?

SimplySafe stopped it before anybody got hurt.

Their AI-powered camera spotted the threat, alerted the monitoring agent, and the intruder got confronted while still outside the house.

That's what I call real security, pre-security, not post-security.

I trust SimplySafe with my home, my family, and everything I care about.

No hidden fees, no long-term contracts.

And they've been named one of the best home security systems by U.S.

News for five years running.

Right now, Levitard Show listeners can get 50% off a Simply Safe system at simply safe.com slash DLB.

That's simply safe.com slash DLB.

Try it risk-free with their 60-day money-back guarantee and see why I trust them so much.

There's no safe like Simply Safe.

Every October, my pets get just as excited as the rest of the family.

Which sounds cute until you realize that means I need costumes that actually fit.

Toys that don't fall apart instantly.

And treats they won't just sniff and walk away from.

Luckily, Chewie has it all.

Fast delivery, great deals, everything in one place.

Dopey's happy, Izzy's happy.

I look like I know what I'm doing.

They've got food, treats, toys, even flea meds, all shipped to my door in a day or two.

And if I have questions like which flea treatment's best, or if my dogs can actually pull off a taco costume, someone at Chewie's there 24-7.

Plus, With 100% satisfaction guarantee, I can return anything within a year.

Finding costumes for bigger dogs is usually impossible, but Chewy has sizes for everyone.

This Halloween, make your pets be part of the celebration.

Shop costumes, toys, and treats with Chewy.

Go to chewpanions.chewy.com slash Lebitard Show to get $20 off your first order.

That's chewpannions.chewy.com slash Lebitard Show to get $20 off your first order.

Chewpannions.chewy.com slash Lebitard Show.

Hey, audience, I got a special treat for you because I want to talk to you about Miller Light, but I want to talk to you about Miller Light with my good friend Rose.

Hey, Rose.

Hi, everybody.

When we hang out, and we hang out often, we're friends.

I consider us friends.

Yeah, me too.

We're often toasting the good times.

And what am I toasting with?

With Miller Light.

That's right, Miller Light.

Whether you're hanging out with your dear friend Rose or at game day, it just hits different when you got a Miller Light in your hand.

From jaw-dropping touchdowns to fantasy heartbreaks, it's a beer that has been there for every moment.

50 years of great taste, simple ingredients, and that iconic golden color that you can spot across.

the room.

And it's just not the color of the beer, which is brilliant.

That beautiful white can.

How beautiful is that?

Is that you doing the sound of a can opening?

Is that your favorite sound?

Oh, no.

It is a horsey.

A horsey?

All right, we'll stop doing that.

And here's a kicker.

Miller Light is just 96 calories, 3.2 carbs per 12 ounces.

The original white beer since 1975.

That's right.

And still hitting different five decades later.

You're so good at this, Rose.

I know.

So whatever your game day looks like, remember, Miller time is always a good time.

Look at us.

We're a great tag team.

Time five again.

Can you do that beer sound one more time?

And the horse sound one more time?

I regret asking you about that one, but the Miller Light sound is good.

Miller Light, great taste, 96 calories.

Go to millerlight.com/slash shan to find delivery options near you where you can pick up some Miller Light pretty much anywhere they sell beer.

It's Miller.

Time.

Celebrate responsive.

Blee.

Miller Brewing Company, Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Tin.

96 calories and 3.2 carbs per 12 ounce.

On sess.

No, it says.

Oh, sess.

Don Lebatard.

Pablo leads all of podcasting in in reading while smiling.

If you listen to ESPN Daily, he sounds like he's having the time of his life.

Stugats.

Coming up next, I'm going to tell you the Savannah bananas that changes.

How do you know I'm in bananas?

How do you know I'm smiling?

That's how I find my vocal range.

Sometimes I just say Savannah bananas.

Savannah bananas.

Yeah.

This is the Don Lebatar show with the Stugats.

Did you have like a timeline in your head as to like when there may be discipline in this?

And then I guess like another question is, is there like a smoking gun that's still out there that you're trying to find?

Because as someone who's not as invested, obviously, as you, it feels like the longer this goes, the less likely there will be consequences for all of this.

So, so that is actually something that came up in this ESPN.com article that Jay Mariotti turned into some, whatever the opposite of a smoking gun is.

You guys can workshop that.

What is the opposite of a smoking gun?

I don't know.

Cool pistol.

I don't know.

A cool.

No, that is

another gun.

A rock?

Right.

It's a freezing bulletproof vest.

The freezing bulletproof vest that Mark Cuban saw in that dot-com article, or sorry, that Jay Mariotti saw in that dot-com article, is something that I think Mark Cuban is also rooting for, which is that this investigation in that article, it was speculated for the first time I had seen, might not be done until after the 2026 NBA playoffs.

And so you're right, Billy, like the whole thing here, the whole game, which I keep on trying to say, why is it weird that Adam Silver said that he had never heard of aspiration before.

And then after I tweeted out the documentation for the $300 million contract, he then says to front office sports, oh, I misspoke in a way that is completely, completely incoherent as an excuse when you watch back the initial video.

There was no wiggle room there for misspeaking, by the way.

So then when this eastpan.com article comes out, the one thing that it establishes is that the NBA had in fact vetted the $300 million deal.

Not the Kawhi Leonard $28 million deal, but the larger Clippers thing.

And my only real takeaway from just that bit of news, which I kind of already reported because I found the documentation, but nonetheless, let's go with it.

The only bit of news there is that, oh, the NBA did, in fact, expressly approve this.

So why did Adam say that he had never heard of it?

Maybe, again, he genuinely was ignorant of it, or maybe, connecting dots here potentially, there was some other motive.

And if the motive that everybody in the league is telling me is that they don't want to punish this to the degree that your reporting is suggesting, then there are lots of just, yes, freezing bulletproof vests and smoke screens and whatever else to just get in the way of actual punishment.

So is there a smoking gun that I am searching for?

There are about a dozen that are out there.

You know, I just don't, I just not ready to report those.

It just kind of feels like, yeah, from the outside, if they wanted this to be punished, they could have done so already.

And they're just slow playing this.

And if the investigation is not going to start until after the season's even even complete the hope is i guess that you know the public forgets about it or just doesn't care as much and then they can just kind of sweep it under the rug well so the investigation is

underway but the completion of it is what the article said may not be done until after the postseason is conveniently done um the other big part which is a bit and adam said this by the way nbc they had their big announcement about the nba deal um adam was asked about this he said that there is quote no contemplation that the all-star game would be moved because the all-star game is of course at the intuit dome um this coming uh february and so there's no contemplation that they're going to move it and so look there's it you don't have to be uh colombo to see why the nba wouldn't want to derail the biggest party of the year as well as the richest owner in the league as well as the commissioner of the league but what i'm simply telling you is that that's how towering the implications of the story are all of those things are ostensibly on the table, unless the NBA, in their fake justice system, says actually none of it's even on the table.

Put it on the poll, please, at Lebetard Show.

Is a young person required to come up with a more modern detective reference than Colombo?

The reason that I say that is because, and this is charming about my parents, the last three Saturdays they have texted me, are you watching Colombo?

Because evidently there's some sort of marathon on Saturday nights.

Do we not have a more more modern detective than Colombo that we can be referencing there?

Because I don't know.

You know, I'd go Sherlock Holmes.

That's obviously not younger.

What are the modern detectives that everyone understands here should be modern detective three?

And also, Pablo, do you consider yourself a muckraker?

I'm not sure I know the definition even formally of muckraker.

Billy, can you find me the definition of muckraker, please?

Do you consider yourself, Pablo?

Is that a, would that be a term of endearment?

I think I'm a mark raker i guess um i am i i'm a muck and a mark raker um muck raker is a compliment what what

i thought that was pretty good i thought that was pretty good just changing you know two letters um i think that muck raker is a compliment i think that look i think it started with upon sinclair i think when he was investigating like the meat factories uh of whatever like days of yore um pack that track check that for me as well please where muckraker started up

and and Days of Yore, which is the more high-falute of the sounds than Upton Sinclair.

I'm referencing Upton Sinclair's The Jungle, I believe.

You know, there's that.

Yeah, man, I rake some muck.

What of it?

What is the rake muck?

What is the definition, Billy?

It's someone who searches out and publicly exposes real or apparent misconduct of a prominent individual or business.

There you go.

I mean, he's a muckraker.

He is referring to the jungle from 1906.

Upton Sinclair, Days of Yore.

Is Benoit Blanc a good modern detective?

Hey, you know what?

Knives Out.

I would watch.

Knives Out is sort of a franchise where I will watch a Zillion sequels to that.

Is that

Daniel Craig's character in that?

Okay.

So

can we play the Stat of the Day music here?

Because I've got an NFL stat of the day.

That do we have an NFL stat of the day?

I've got a different stat of the day.

I don't want to do an NFL stat of the day, but I need an NFL stat of the day.

Start of the day, start of the day.

It is yes, start of the day.

Start of the day, start of the day.

It is yes, start of the day.

Stat of the day is presented by Amazon Prime Video.

Thursday night football is back.

Pittsburgh Steelers take on the Cincinnati Bengals.

Coverage begins 7 p.m.

Eastern, Thursday on Prime Video.

Dan, it turns out you may have been right about the historically bad Dolphins defense.

According to at Lord reebs on twitter

the dolphins have allowed opponents to score on a league high 60 percent of their possessions this season that is the highest rate for a team through six weeks of a season in the 2000s

That is a good NFL stat.

I have a good Pablo Torre finds out stat, which is that today's episode of Pablo Torrey Finds Out is one minute longer than the 2021 Bob Odenkirk action film Nobody.

Because Pablo takes a minute to get going and now you've got Mark Cuban there and they're just arguing the entire time and he's asking us, as he just did, to listen.

Monk?

How about Monk?

I was going to say Monk.

Monk is such a good one.

I watched all the Monk episodes recently, Pablo.

I also, there was a Monk movie.

I don't know if you saw it very sad.

Whoa, whoa, whoa, wait.

There's a Monk.

Wait, is Tony Shaloum?

Is he.

He's still with us.

Yeah, he's got a new show about Bread.

Yeah, Travels Show on CNN.

He's got a bread show?

Yeah, where Travels

has bread.

Yeah.

I'm in.

Why is it sad, though?

Why was the Monk movie sad?

I mean,

you want me to spoil anything for you?

He's depressed.

I mean, obviously, we know he lost his wife a long time ago.

Now his, you know, spoiler alert, possible ex-wife's daughter that she had at the end of the last season that we found out about.

She's moved on and she's doing bigger and better things.

He's no longer detecting, if you will so he's dealing with some bad thoughts he sees some windows he might want to jump out of it's a whole like depressing theme throughout the entire episode but they bring him back for one final case also another good detective Hercule Poirot I think that Pablo might have the best of the references when he's saying Colombo we don't have a best none of those those are all better references they're all they're more modern references Death on the Nile they're more modern references but do you think that they are more associated with detectory than Colombo Colombo and Sherlock Holmes, which are the established standards in this realm?

I mean, Monk is the standard now for, I think, an entire generation.

Let's put on the poll at Lebetard Show, most famous detective, and put the four or five of them up there that you want to put up there.

In the interim, let's play a clip from Pablo Torre finds out.

And this is just a snippet of, again, an episode longer than the 2021 action vehicle of Bob Odenkirk.

Nobody.

They argued for 90 minutes.

And in it,

that point you're making, making, Mike, about Jalen Brunson, about Dirk Nowitzki, about what other examples might there be that Pablo can sniff around, this comes up between them and they continue, I assume, to argue.

So the question is, and this is truly like not my reporting, but the conspiracy out there, Reddit, our buddy Bill Simmons.

Yes, when Dirk had that documentary and Cuban's company bought it, and I would.

Is this documentary?

Uh-huh.

So the theory here is that Magnolia Pictures,

my company, they only have photos.

That's right.

Circumvented the cap by, you know, overpaying to distribute a documentary about Dirk.

How he spent like Iron Man level money on the Dirk doc.

Here's $48 million for your diet.

Like, who knows what he spent, but how much do you think we paid?

Well, what we did was we checked with the producers of the film.

And to your credit, they poured cold water on the whole conspiracy.

The head of the production company told us that your company did a $100,000 deal for U.S.

distribution rights.

For how many years?

10.

So yeah.

I'm just look, I'm not here to like say, gotcha.

I'm just here to finally say, I'm not sure if you're not going to be able to do that.

I appreciate you looking.

You know what?

And I thank you.

I thank you for just dispelling all the nonsense.

I called

it.

And so, just to confirm, did the Mavericks circumvent the salary cap with Dirk Novitsky in 2014?

No.

Very good.

Do you think the Knicks may have circumvented the cap and taking Jalen Brunson from your Mavericks?

I don't know.

A different answer.

Yeah, I don't know.

Okay.

I just think there was a lot of play there.

Yeah.

Do you think the Knicks should be worried about an upcoming episode of Mark Cuban Finds Out?

You know, that's behind me.

You know, more power to JB, more power to everything.

Was I happy that they only got dinged for a second-round pick?

No.

No, it should have been far worse, but it is what it is.

What do you make, Pablo, of the no and then the I don't know?

I'm just glad Mark Cubman loves talking.

Genuinely.

Like, what other part owner of an NBA team is just going to sit there and just riff on stuff?

And even if you believe the riffs or don't, all I want is people to go on the record saying, here is what I am telling you happened, and then I can continue to report it.

So we tried to do some reporting on the Dirk stuff.

And to his credit, the production team said they were paid nothing close to what was alleged.

So that's useful data.

The Brunson thing,

you know,

I think Mark is more animated about that than me, it sounds like.

Pablo, the one thing I couldn't understand from Cuban on his side of things here is it seems like he's incapable of making any sort of logical conclusions or even considering like the humanity side of this.

Steve Ballmer, a rich guy, can make a miscalculation.

For that matter, considering sources, right?

Like every time you bring up the seven sources who might confirm something, he just sort of dismisses that as, well, they're just people who have their own thing.

Why do you think it is that Cuban is having such a hard time sort of processing just the human elements behind this story?

I find it frustrating too.

I think there's most generously, it's just a lot to keep up with.

Maybe it's just hard to keep track of all of the sources and the documents.

Less generously, I think it's because it's wildly inconvenient when you're saying, this is how I would have done it.

And seven people, and then over time, nine people are saying,

this is how it happened.

And so, look, the whole point of journalism, not to be

on a high horse, is that it's not good enough to hypothesize.

You need to talk to people, primary sources, who in this case were interviewed by the federal government, who over time are telling you with increasing clarity, here are documents, fact check them, here are facts, check them, go to the clippers, see what they push back on.

No one corrects anything.

The documents turn out to be true.

The guys that they pointed to in terms of the actual fraud of the business get arrested and plead guilty to wire fraud.

Like, it's just funny that a lot of what is being reverse engineered is from like the documentation around the Department of Justice's own investigation.

Key people in that investigation, key sources, are my sources.

And without saying more, because I need to protect their identity, I just look forward to the day when those sources may in fact feel comfortable enough to speak on the record with their names and their faces and their voices, because for the time being, the reason they're not has to do with the fact that we we are not talking about just like, in truth, like fun, random sports debate.

We're talking about one of the richest men, 10 richest men in the world, being at the center of their accusations.

So that's why they're not doing it.

Plus, the fact that there's an ongoing series of federal probes.

Like, anyway, that's what I think.

I also believe, though, that if you don't believe the sources, that's okay.

Believe the documents.

And apparently, mileage varies on that, too.

Put it on the poll, please, at Lebatard Show.

Will you listen to a podcast that promises, quote, an ongoing series of federal probes, end quote.

Pablo Torrey finds out is the podcast.

It is excellent, and he continues to chase this story because, as Jay Mary,

Jay Mariotti says, I tell him to chase people.

Thank you for chasing people, Pablo.

Continue to chase people.

Thank you for being my boss, and thank you for the money.

And we have another investigation, a different investigation coming Thursday that I think is going to make people mad

is it Jay Mariotti dyes his hair because I have concluded mine

see you later Pablo thank you and I appreciate it

what does Zin give you not just smoke-free nicotine satisfaction but real freedom freedom to do what you love and choose your rewards With Zin Rewards, you can redeem points for premium tech, outdoor gear, and gift cards to your favorite retailers.

Find your Zen and keep keep finding rewards that fit your lifestyle at zen.com slash rewards.

Warning, this product contains nicotine.

Nicotine is an addictive chemical.

Howdy folks, it's Mike Ryan.

Super excited to talk to you about the official ticketing partner of the Dan Lebatard show.

They've been a good partner of ours and I couldn't be prouder of it because folks, you know, I really use Game Time.

I practice what I preach here, people, because the Game Time app gives the advantage back to fans.

It's a hack for unlocking amazing tickets, especially when it comes to the National Football League.

It is hard to get some really prime NFL tickets, and GameTime makes it so incredibly easy because the interface is beautiful and easy to understand.

And the Game Time Guarantee means that you can trust that you'll be getting 100% authentic tickets on time and at the best price.

Plus, fees are always included.

So what you see is what you pay.

You get zone deals, favorites, panoramic seat views, the low price guarantee, and GameTime's unparalleled ticket coverage.

Take the guesswork out of buying NFL tickets with Game Time.

Download the Game Time app, create an account, and use code DAN for $20 off your first purchase.

Terms apply.

Again, create an account and redeem code DAN for $20 off.

Swipe, tap, ticket, go.

Download the GameTime app today.

This show is sponsored by BetterHelp.

October 10th was World Mental Health Day.

BetterHelp used that day to put a spotlight on the real heroes, the therapists, the ones who show up, listen, and help you figure your life out.

Because every session isn't just talk.

It's a moment that matters.

Like learning to be patient with your kids, fixing a relationship, or finally shutting off your brain at 2 a.m.

Now, I love my friends, don't get me wrong, but they're not therapists.

My group chat, total chaos.

Sometimes you need someone who knows what they're doing.

That's where BetterHelp comes in.

Over the last 12 years, they've helped more than 5 million people connect with over 30,000 licensed therapists around the world.

It's the biggest online therapy platform out there, with a 4.9 rating from over 1.7 million reviews.

Here's the thing: life's hard on and off the field.

Talking to someone trained to help can make all the difference.

World Mental Health Day has passed, but we're still celebrating the therapists who've helped millions of people take a step forward.

If you're ready to find the right therapist for you, BetterHelp can help you start that journey.

All listeners get 10% off their first month at betterhelp.com/slash D-L-B.

That's BetterHelp, H-E-L-P.com/slash D-L-B.

Don Lebatard.

We didn't get to your guys's Against the Spread.

You're right.

You're right.

You're right.

I don't have an Against the Spread

because I wasn't prepared for this segment.

You have actively played defense against me today in a way that has rarely been this undercutting.

Stugats.

Defense wins championships, baby.

That's show business.

This is the Don Lebatar show with the Stugats.

We will get to Tony here in

a segment.

We are not going to do that here now because there's a limited amount of time here.

And I wanted to talk about a couple of things from yesterday.

Not the two plays that I wanted to talk about from the football game because that B.

John Robinson run.

doesn't make any physical sense that he would be able to break that last tackle while staying in bounds.

His lower body must be stronger than anyone's in the leagues

because that didn't make physical physics sense to me that he did not go out of bounds given that there was a defender with an angle on him and the sideline there.

And also that Drake London play at the end of the first half was just magic.

It was just great.

But before I get to either of those plays from last night's action, I do want to talk about the baseball.

And I want to talk about the baseball, not...

Blake Snell division, even though Blake Snell, what he's been doing over the last six starts is something I have not seen from a pitcher before.

Not Oral Hirschheiser, not anybody over the last six six starts.

It's a soft spot, yeah, for former Rays, I think.

I do have a soft spot for former Rays, but also Blake Snell is the best left-hander I've seen since Clayton Kershaw, who's not named Scoobel.

So the thing that I wanted to talk about, though, from the Milwaukee game and what it takes to try to beat Blake Snell is a double play that has never happened in baseball and is funny.

And I'm going to try and explain to the audio audience because I heard Mike trying to come in here today and just understand what the play was based on verbal description because verbal description makes it hard to describe what is a play that has no precedent in the history of American baseball, which has more history than any sport we have.

I'm going to try and explain this in just audio.

Billy's going to delight in this play because he's already wanting to make a mess of my explanations.

I said, Billy, I see you.

Billy, I see you lean up.

He doesn't need to do anything to do that.

Billy, I've seen you lean in your chair i just i there's there's ways of describing it with words and there's ways it's described on the scorecard and it could have played out differently on a scorecard to show how unique of a play it was the fact that it ends up being on the scorecard numerically the way it's represented I'm positive that there have been multiple instances where a game has been scored a double play with those identical numbers.

Go ahead.

What do you mean?

Go ahead and explain what it is that you.

Numerically?

Yes.

Well, numerically, you would go the person who receives the ball to the person who throws the ball to the person who answers.

I haven't heard any numbers yet from you.

I've just heard...

You explain the point.

It would go up probably 862 or 852, depending on who received it, who got it.

862 and then unassisted.

862, then the unassisted.

Now, had it gone 8625,

I'm sure that that is not a common double play because of the fact that at the end of the play, spoiler alert, the catcher decided to run down and touch third base.

Well, that's what makes it a good thing.

So it would make it seem like it could have just been a typical pop fly that was then thrown, cut off, and then there was a second out made at home plate on a player tagging, which is not uncommon.

You want to try and explain this to the audience with words?

I just did with numbers.

Instead of numbers, well, I'm just the words, and that's why I'm saying the numbers don't do it justice.

The numbers never lie.

I don't know the numbers.

I know you're 6'43.

One, that's all I know.

Pitcher.

Two.

Catcher.

Three.

First base.

Stop me when you want me to stop.

I want you to stop.

It's like astrology.

I'm just never going to take it in.

You don't ever do any scorekeeping?

You've never done baseball scorekeeping?

I'm a grown man who has sex.

You never got the shirt that says four plus six plus three equals two.

So you don't know, if I ask you the shortstop, what is the shortstop numerically?

You don't know the number?

I assume that's a six because there's a six four three.

Yes.

And you know.

So the shortstop's six, second baseman's the four, and the three is the first base.

That's all I got.

Okay, so the third baseman, you want to try the third baseman?

Nope.

Okay.

It's a five.

It's one number actually.

So this is the play.

The bases are loaded, and a shot is hit towards center field.

And you've heard me say that I can't believe the number of outfielders in baseball who are regularly stealing home runs.

This is something that I'm watching happen in baseball more than I've ever seen it happen.

It happens every week.

It's a really weird thing to watch when it used to be an incredibly special play.

But Sam Fralick, Sal Fralick, excuse me, is headed toward the wall.

And as he jumps up at the wall, which is very far from first, second, third base, very far from home plate, it's going to be very hard if you're a base runner to see what's happened here because he jumps up at the wall, the wall over the wall, the ball hits his glove, and it looks, unless you're close to it, it looks like he bobbles it and then catches it after it's hit his glove.

But as he's out there, it also hits the wall.

So now it is no longer able to be caught because once it hits the wall, it is now not capable of being an out in his glove.

Correct.

It's got to be an out on one of the bases.

But you can't see that from first, second, or third base.

So what all these runners have to do is go back to the bag and tag up and then go so they eliminate all the force outs.

But they don't know this.

They just, they think that this person may have caught the ball on the bobble.

They're confused.

And now the Dodger baserunners in a 0-0 game, in a game where the Brewers know they're not scoring on Blake Snell.

There will be no scoring on Blake Snell in this game.

They're doing everything they can to stop the Dodgers from scoring a run, and they somehow do it because the base runners, professional base runners, very good.

The Dodgers are very good at the specifics of baseball.

They don't know what to do with, I can't see what just happened out there.

And I didn't see and I don't see that this is a live ball because the ball has hit the wall.

It looks like Fralick has caught the ball.

That's the part that's crazy is all of the runners stay still for just a moment.

And for him to not just keep the concentration to catch this ball, but to keep the concentration.

to catch the ball off of the wall when you can later see the confusion on his own face about what's happened because i'm not sure he even realized that the ball hit off of the wall when he caught it he's just trying to throw it in as fast as he can to the cutoff man a perfect throw which then allows that cutoff man to make a perfect throw home to the catcher to get what is not a play that needs to be tagged but a force out at home.

That's crazy.

That is this close.

A force out at home when that ball was at the the wall doesn't make any sense.

No, you got to treat that as a sack fly if you're a base runner.

And in all essence, you need to go back to the base, wait until at least a second attempt to catch that ball so you can tag up and score.

So at the very least, there'll probably be a force play a second if you went out.

Roy was walking us through what he would have done differently this morning and how none of that should have happened.

Yeah, it was bad base running.

Agreed, but agreed.

That is not up for dispute, but I understand why the base running was bad, at least in part, because of the confusion at the wall.

But the idea that they then get another out at third base, that they got the outs at home and at third when the ball was going to be a home run.

Like he kept, the first thing Freylick did is that would have been a home run if he had not had his glove above the wall.

Now he brings it back.

It hits the wall.

And what should have been a home run?

How frustrated are you if you're this hitter?

What should have been a playoff home run is forever a double play.

Like that.

And by the way, a grounded into a double play, technically.

No, I have a bone to pick with that situation.

That is not a grounded into double play.

It's how it scores.

It scored it that way.

You cannot score grounded into double play on a ball that's hit 400 feet in the air.

It would be a fielder's choice.

Ground into a double play.

No, it's not a fielder's choice because it ended up being a double play.

No one got safe at first.

Right.

Put it on the poll, please, at Lebetard Show.

Is there any way possible to ground ground into a double play on a ball you've hit 400 feet over the fence?

Because there's not.

And yet I just saw it.

It happened.

No, in front of your own eyes.

No, there's not a way.

No, there is not a way to ground into a double play on a ball hit 400 feet over the fence.

And ground into a double play in which the catcher runs to third base about 20 seconds after the ball was hit.

The next thing you're going to tell me is that Cam Ward threw a game-winning interception for a touchdown.

Now is a good time to remember where Tequila's story truly began.

In 1795, Cuervo invented tequila.

Cuervo.

What are you doing here?

Cuervo.

Anytime someone says Cuervo, I show up.

Well, I do know that to be true, but even during ad reads, like Cuervo, I think you could lay out, especially for one of our great partners.

Sweet, delicious Cuervo.

Since then, Cuervo has stayed true to its roots.

The same family, the same land, the same passion.

Cuervo.

So, enjoy the tequila that started it all.

Cuervo.

Cuervo.

The tequila that invented tequila.

Proximo, cuervo.com.

Please drink responsibly.

Cuervo.