Hour 1: Dan's Nine-Day Late World Series Coverage

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Speaker 7 This is the Dan Labatar Show with the Stew Gats Podcast.

Speaker 1 Guys, we got Bill's Bucks this coming football weekend. Thank you.

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Speaker 2 I was in Los Angeles most of last week, and so I didn't actually get to talk about that World Series as much as I would have liked to.

Speaker 2 So I just want to ask you guys two questions based on that epic historic World Series.

Speaker 2 One, did you guys know that as Clayton Kershaw warmed up in the bullpen and the game was decided, he didn't know as it ended that it was over?

Speaker 2 He thought he was coming in to pitch because he did not know that they were ahead. He did not know that the World Series was over.

Speaker 2 Clayton Kershaw descended into full-blown senility by the end of his career. It's not just that he was bad at pitching.
He didn't, you're surprised by this. You had not heard heard this?

Speaker 8 Yeah, why would anyone not be surprised hearing that?

Speaker 2 I was also surprised. He just didn't, he didn't, it didn't register for him that they had won the World Series.

Speaker 2 But the other question I wanted to ask you guys, because we mentioned last week that that series just in extra innings had more memorable moments than your average World Series.

Speaker 2 The thing I wanted to ask you guys is

Speaker 2 how haunting, and I want you guys to think about this for a second,

Speaker 2 how haunting do you believe all of that will be going into the future for Alejandro Kirk?

Speaker 2 The fact that you're coming up in that situation, first and third, it's the situation every kid dreams about at the beginning of sports. I get to come up in game seven at home.

Speaker 2 Canada wants to win something meaningful when Canada doesn't win anything meaningful ever. You're knocking off the giant.
You have in front of you, first and third, one out,

Speaker 2 but you're shaped like no baseball player today is shaped.

Speaker 2 You're not much of a runner, and you ground into a double play on a broken bat, hitting the ball in the one spot that you can't hit it where they're going to turn a quick double play.

Speaker 2 And you go from all of your dreams

Speaker 2 to this is going to haunt you for a while. I imagine that this is the kind of thing that makes you not sleep for many nights if you care about sports, care about.

Speaker 2 That guy's great.

Speaker 2 That guy's great. He was great in the postseason, but

Speaker 2 all of it dies. Vladimir Guerrero's on base.
They've gotten the game to the part of the lineup that the Blue Jays trust the most. And then at the end of the game...

Speaker 2 I imagine that he has trouble sleep, that he's still not sleeping correctly because of how all of that ended for him.

Speaker 8 We have examples of pitchers who never really recover from that moment. Are there examples of good hitters who never recover from that moment?

Speaker 2 I'm trying to remember a moment like that for a hitter, right?

Speaker 2 There's a Metzit bat of some sort. I think it was Beltran who just took a third strike to end the season.
And you can't take a third strike to end the season.

Speaker 1 It's the Cardinals.

Speaker 2 You have to swing the bat.

Speaker 2 But I, off the top of my head, I cannot remember quite that kind of haunting where you go from, you're going into that batter's box thinking, this is is all my dreams come true.

Speaker 2 I'm getting the opportunity that everybody wants for my country, for my team, for my teammates.

Speaker 2 I've got the ability to slay the giant here at home and end the most epic World Series maybe since Joe Carter did it 30 years ago for Toronto by hitting a walk-off home run. But that was a game six.

Speaker 2 That wasn't, that's not game seven, end of the game, runners on first and third. All you need is a fly ball to tie the game, but instead you become something that's an eternal horrific at-bat

Speaker 2 where people will not forget that you failed in the spot that all the kids dream about.

Speaker 3 The shame of it for Kirk is he had been so special through the entire postseason and even in the World Series.

Speaker 3 Remember, he's the guy who gave them the lead in game three with a home run and was so effective offensively for them, taken out in the 12th inning of that 18-inning marathon.

Speaker 3 So not given the opportunity to turn out to be the hero in that game that could have given them a 3-0 series lead.

Speaker 3 Instead, he comes up in this spot after catching a grueling season nearly every single game and being one of the best defensive catchers in baseball, hitting the crap out of the ball all postseason long, and then hits it right into the spot where Mookie Beck can make that.

Speaker 1 It must, it's going to keep him up forever.

Speaker 3 And you wonder if it almost like it almost impacts his swing path moving forward. Like, I never want to hit the ball on the ground for the rest of my life.

Speaker 2 I really do think it's an uncommon kind of haunting because I just, off the top of my head, I can't remember a situation like that where you go from all your dreams come true to your season is over in an instant and you've disappointed not just your teammates, your country at the end of that series.

Speaker 2 When the thing about this, I don't know how the rest of you deal with disappointment, but one of the ways to deal with disappointment is to place your expectations in a reasonable place.

Speaker 2 When he's entering that batter's box, his expectations are through the roof on what it is can be accomplished there. And the one thing that you can't do is the thing that he did.

Speaker 2 It's the only thing. You could strike out on three pitches, and it's not that.

Speaker 3 Again, that's the shame, right? Because his...

Speaker 3 I would think his fan base will be forgiving of that moment considering what it is that he did to get them there and the fact that Yamamoto came in and mowed down everybody.

Speaker 1 Well, and there were also so many other chances.

Speaker 8 Yes, that game

Speaker 8 that they should have won. Right, right.

Speaker 3 That's the thing. He's not the only one who came up short.
He's just the one who ended it. It's Bieber who gives up the home run in the previous at-bat.

Speaker 8 Or having a base runner on the force out at home. Like, you know, I would put him in front.

Speaker 2 No, but no,

Speaker 2 the punctuation is where it is that you go from all of your dreams to the worst nightmares.

Speaker 2 Something I had happen to me during football, this continues to happen to me in a way that's surprising.

Speaker 2 It is legitimately surprising what washes over me.

Speaker 2 I'm listening really briefly to Carolina Saints yesterday.

Speaker 2 Carolina's in the mix now.

Speaker 2 Their season was over every time they won, but now they're back in the mix.

Speaker 1 I don't lose that one. I don't understand your approach to the Carolina Panthers.
You wrote them off after a win, but now after a bad home loss to the Saints, they're in the mix.

Speaker 2 In the mix, yes. Well, now I'm just, I'm trying to be at this trough where everyone is eating, trying actively to be provocative for the sake of provocation.

Speaker 2 But the thing that swept over me, that keeps sweeping over me, is I feel bad for Chris Myers because he's the one who has to broadcast that game. And I'm like, he's done too many of these.

Speaker 2 He needs to be promoted to something that's not this game.

Speaker 2 That him having to be forced to watch that game he's been doing too many years of that game as a local product here in south florida went to shamanade high school he deserves put it on the poll at lebotard show juju does chris myers after all these years deserve to be promoted from that hell that is carolina saints is chris myers nfc spiro didas he always gets stuck with that game that that one spiro got stuck with browns jets

Speaker 1 hey he's what are we doing he deserved to to be in Houston for Jets.

Speaker 9 I feel like they're trolling us. Since we had him on, he's not getting any of his.

Speaker 1 He hasn't had a single AFC South assignment since he revealed he's in a group chat that says AFC South boys.

Speaker 8 Boy, that chat must be dormant.

Speaker 2 That Jets game, I did not know. Have you guys seen Will McDonald IV has the Roman numeral 4 on the back of a jersey? I've never seen it before.
Have you guys seen the Roman numeral four?

Speaker 1 For the Texans, Will Fuller.

Speaker 1 Oh, yeah.

Speaker 8 Did that guy steal money from the Dolphins?

Speaker 2 He did. One season of.

Speaker 4 My bad.

Speaker 3 For a second there, I was like, his jersey number is a Roman.

Speaker 1 That's wild.

Speaker 9 I get it now in the name. Yeah, that's more common.

Speaker 2 Did he have four sacks yesterday? Did Will McDonald have four sacks in

Speaker 2 that Browns Jets game?

Speaker 2 Did you guys watch any of that? Because I'm going to give the static.

Speaker 1 He was on red zone.

Speaker 2 I mean,

Speaker 2 the Jets had two consecutive kicks returned for touchdowns. That's as good as the Jets have felt in how many years.
Those two kick returns for touchdowns.

Speaker 2 Justin Fields going three for six for five yards with an interception and watching everything that was happening in that game.

Speaker 2 The total in that game was lower than all the other totals yesterday, and they went over it fairly quickly because they got the Jets actually, quiet as it's kept, you'd have no reason to know this.

Speaker 2 Their special teams have been very good this year. It's the only thing about the Jets that have been any good.
But

Speaker 2 nobody thinks that the Browns of Dylan, Dylan Gabriel's not the answer there, correct? Like

Speaker 2 we're aware that that's not a solution to anybody's problem.

Speaker 1 I don't know if they're aware.

Speaker 9 I mean, we're still tracking towards a means plan, if you remember. They go to Dylan early, and then they're going to eventually get to Shaddur by a means plan.

Speaker 8 Yeah, I mean, I would have thought that that is the plan, but it seems like they hate Shadur Sanders.

Speaker 2 And it seems like he's not ready. But when you guys are watching any portion of Brown's Jets,

Speaker 2 are you made sad by what it is you're doing with your life?

Speaker 1 I am so happy that I'm not doing that with my life anymore. Honestly, I've come out on the other side, like, so happy.

Speaker 2 You're Tim Robbins. You're Andy Dufrane from Shawshank Redemption.

Speaker 1 I can't believe this isn't my life anymore.

Speaker 1 Do you understand? Like, that was my life for 20 years.

Speaker 8 So that game. It doesn't wake, like, you don't miss it at all?

Speaker 1 No, I certainly don't miss that either. There weren't really any good times.

Speaker 9 I thought you're a Bucs guy now. You're not stressing that loss yesterday.

Speaker 1 I am stressing a little bit. I mean, they're still so hurt.
How do you come out of a bi week more injured?

Speaker 8 But do you, like, will games be going on? And I understand that you got red zone on, whatever. You don't take out your phone and follow what your former favorite team is doing?

Speaker 1 No, first year I was keeping an eye on it a little bit more, and the Deshaun thing was a national storyline, so you had to follow it. Now it's just like they barely exist.
Wow.

Speaker 8 Good for you. Clean break.

Speaker 1 Thank you. Means a lot to me.
Now, if they drafted Cam Ward, I would have been back in. I would have.

Speaker 1 That was our one opportunity. Wow.
But thank God. So now I'm watching great Titans football, mind you.

Speaker 2 I'm curious

Speaker 2 as I say this question what the answer is, because it's not something I've considered before. How many more bad teams are there in the league that you know are bad than teams you know are good?

Speaker 2 Teams that you trust to be good

Speaker 2 going forward. Who is at the moment the it are the Chiefs the betting favorite?

Speaker 1 Who's the betting favorite? Yeah, wait, we talked about that. And then the Rams.
Yeah, it's the Chiefs and then Rams. And then Steve Martin.

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Speaker 1 Don Lebatard. For weeks, months even, during the regular season, I wondered aloud what Kevin Stenlin did.

Speaker 1 And then about three weeks ago, it hit me. Stugats.
He gives him one of these and he gives them one of those.

Speaker 7 This is the Don Lebatar Show with the Stugats.

Speaker 8 Do we know the Ravens are good?

Speaker 2 Well, their schedule, the next three games, are going to make it so they are good. Look at their schedule.
Ravens are backjacking.

Speaker 2 Look at what their schedule is the next three games because that was the tough one. Yesterday was the tough one in Minnesota.
I think they've got Cincinnati, Cleveland, and the Jets next.

Speaker 2 I think those are their next three games.

Speaker 1 I'm starting to get a little pissed off at how much J.J. McCarthy is confusing me.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 I don't know why you'd believe in J.J. McCarthy.
He started four games.

Speaker 1 Because he's had like two electric quarters where I'm like, I see it.

Speaker 2 I see it. What do you see?

Speaker 1 I see it.

Speaker 2 No, no, this is the thing about that league that, look, Davis Mills has six wins. in his career.
Three of them are against the Jags.

Speaker 2 The Jags think Davis Mills is Patrick Mahomes. Put it on the poll at Lebatard Show.
Do the Jags think that Davis Mills is Patrick Mahomes?

Speaker 3 Is that why Tony was so in on Davis Mills? He just watches so much Jaguar football that he thinks Davis Mills is Dan Turtle.

Speaker 1 He's in on every quarter.

Speaker 3 Yeah, but that one specifically.

Speaker 2 No, because Colt McCoy will always give you that game once in a while. Like, we can do this.
What's the commercial for backups? Is it progressive? I've thought Trubisky's in these commercials.

Speaker 1 Taste the taste of whiteness.

Speaker 2 Bridgewater is in these commercials. I've thought that their agents,

Speaker 2 that they should have more dignity than this, that Trubisky and Bridgewater shouldn't take that money to be backup orderers because someone screws up a fast food order.

Speaker 9 I want to see the email back and forth between the quarterback and his agent because it gets pitched.

Speaker 3 He goes, I'm not doing that.

Speaker 9 I don't want to be a backup. And then they get the number.

Speaker 1 And he's like, all right, I'll do it.

Speaker 2 I think Gardner Minshew turned that down and should have taken it. Like he's the personality type who should take it.

Speaker 2 I I also enjoy from those commercials, and they've been doing this since Brian Arakpo was doing it. Saying their name.

Speaker 2 They have to name their name because otherwise you wouldn't know it was Trubisky or you wouldn't know it.

Speaker 1 Hey, Mr. Trubisky, get over here.
Hey, Case Keenum.

Speaker 1 I mean, they did the same thing with Baker Mayfield. Yeah.

Speaker 8 Despite having started one and five, the Ravens are a massive favorite to win the AFC North.

Speaker 2 Did I have their schedule right over the next three games where they're going to have a five-game win? Brown Jets Bengals.

Speaker 1 Steelers also piss me off. I don't like watching them.
Someone weird team.

Speaker 9 They're not good.

Speaker 1 When did Aaron Rodgers become a huge scaredy cat? Guy hates Connect. He's old.

Speaker 1 He's just flinching and running away and throwing balls in the dirt. The guy hates getting hit, and he's extra pissy this year.

Speaker 2 I don't like him. Did he just quietly stop doing McAfee? Because you say he's extra pissy, but I don't see him making any more headlines.
Did he?

Speaker 1 He's pissy at his teammates.

Speaker 1 No one can stare down a teammate and make them feel like shit more with their face than Aaron Rodgers.

Speaker 8 Marino was the best at that. Oh, Marino was so good.

Speaker 9 Aaron needs some stubble. I don't like clean-shaven Aaron.

Speaker 2 Brady was pretty good at that, too. Brady was pretty good at showing everybody everyone else's imperfections.

Speaker 1 Also, what's going on? Chargers, why the yellow pants? You're going out of your way to make this hard?

Speaker 4 Ravens, too. Screw you, Ravens.

Speaker 1 Weird. You're playing the Vikings, and you're like, hey, let's dust off the purple pants here.
Yeah, it was weird.

Speaker 2 Let me explore something with you when Mike Ryan says huge scaredy cat Aaron Rodgers.

Speaker 2 And I'm not going to disagree with you, but Aaron Rodgers is of an age that to me, if you told me right now, hey, you know who hates getting hit? Nick Folk.

Speaker 2 Nick Folk hates the way that he's getting better. Once you're over 40, once you're around 40 years old, it seems like a terrible job to be being hit by 330-pound people.

Speaker 1 I understand. I don't want, it's not my job, but it's also something that he's been doing for 20 years.
And now it's just like a super odd time to be all of a sudden like, I'm over.

Speaker 1 If you don't want to get hit, don't play the game.

Speaker 1 There are so many plays, and I'm watching Aaron Rodgers in the pocket now this season where I'm like, that dude is old. It's also the Achilles thing, and it's natural.

Speaker 1 Like, guys don't excel at this age for a reason. There was only one, and we were having an honest debate as to whether or not he cloned himself last week.
Like, he is that much of an outlier.

Speaker 1 But there are so many times in the pocket where I'm like, Aaron Rodgers and Green Bay would get out of that nine times out of ten.

Speaker 1 And now he's just giving himself over to sacks or throwing balls in the dirt or getting rid of it as quickly as he can because the dude just does not want to get touched at.

Speaker 8 They're five and four. It feels like they have no chance of making the playoffs.

Speaker 1 Right? But then next week, they'll put together a completely-I mean, they just beat the Colts. They just beat the Colts.
They're a confusing team. They piss me off, not as much as J.J.

Speaker 1 McCarthy does, but they're getting up there.

Speaker 2 They only beat the Colts, though, because the Colts turned the ball over six times.

Speaker 3 Well, the Browns beat the Dolphins 31-6, and then the Dolphins beat the Bills 30-13. So they beat them doesn't really seem to mean anything in this league.

Speaker 1 How old is Stafford?

Speaker 2 What is the age on Matthew Stafford? 38.

Speaker 2 Who doesn't seem to be shying away from contact? And you can certainly make the argument. I mean, the stat I gave earlier is an insanity.

Speaker 2 To play six games and throw 20 touchdown passes against zero interceptions is a level of perfection and mastery we haven't seen in the sport before, as Jeremy mentioned.

Speaker 2 But for him to be 38, I can make the argument, could I not, that Stafford is having his best season ever?

Speaker 1 I think you can make an argument that you probably trust him more than any quarterback. He's not the best, all right? I trust my team to be great with Patrick Mahomes.

Speaker 1 I trust him to be great with Josh Allen, but there are elements to their game which also make them special.

Speaker 1 They have a higher ceiling because they'll make unbelievable things happen, but they'll do the occasional like heat check, feel themselves crazy thing.

Speaker 1 Matthew Stafford, in terms of trustworthiness, I trust him more than anybody. I know that he's not going to do anything crazy in a game.

Speaker 9 I want to play the game worst over 500 team and best under 500 team. There's only one team in this game.
There's only one team in the entire NFL that's five and five. 500?

Speaker 1 Panthers.

Speaker 9 So we're going to eliminate them from this game. They're just in the mix.

Speaker 2 Their season is done, but they're in the mix. All right.

Speaker 9 So there's only, for me, there's two nominees for worst above 500 team, and it's Steelers Jags. They're both 5-4.

Speaker 1 There's no other.

Speaker 9 All the other teams, maybe Bears would be the next where they're 6-3, but we actually kind of buy in that.

Speaker 3 I'll throw the Bills in there.

Speaker 1 Really? Yeah.

Speaker 9 They're not in the

Speaker 1 Steelers conversation. Saz, you're doing the Sugats, Andy Reed, Patrick Mahomes, but what are you doing?

Speaker 8 I don't don't know if you saw the game yesterday. Bowls 130-13.
That window is closed. That's not a good team.

Speaker 1 It has to be for the best under 500 team.

Speaker 9 I don't think we're going to do better than Ravens.

Speaker 1 No, we're not going to do it.

Speaker 2 Well, if

Speaker 2 Joe Burrow were to come back, all of a sudden you would have Stugats arguing that no one would want to play them in the Super Bowl. He has them as last year's best team, even though they didn't.

Speaker 9 It's Vikings or Ravens for under 500 team who we have to do.

Speaker 2 you guys stop with the vikings they've got a quarterback problem

Speaker 2 i don't know they're not bad i see it but i also don't like them the stuff the vikings have a quarterback problem okay

Speaker 2 because you're sitting here buying on j mccarthy when you're willing to buy on any quarterback who can go 17 for 27 in a game as most of them can i'm not buying but i also don't want to let this opportunity slip through my fingers i'm just at the furniture store staring at it do the Cowboys get any conversation in their under 500?

Speaker 2 No, their defense is just horrific. Yeah, it is.

Speaker 3 How about the Dolphins? I mean, come on, one and O. 1-0 since they fired the game's over.

Speaker 1 Stop defense.

Speaker 8 Dolphins, three backup playoffs.

Speaker 1 Really good? Okay.

Speaker 2 The Dolphins, though,

Speaker 2 getting back to what I was originally saying earlier in the show, in terms of surprising results this season, because the Dolphins have now had two of these games where they put up six points, okay?

Speaker 2 They did it against the Ravens. They did it against the Browns.

Speaker 2 Then they go out there against the Bills, and they drag the Bills. Drag the Bills in a game that was never close.

Speaker 2 You were expecting the entire time for the Bills to do something just because they can be scary offensively, and they've got an MVP at quarterback.

Speaker 2 But in terms of surprising results this season, can it be an eight-point?

Speaker 2 an eight-point dog at home? Is that the most surprising? Can it be the most surprising result of the season? Or is Cleveland Green Bay going to be that?

Speaker 8 No, I think that's the most surprising start, a surprising game.

Speaker 8 And I'm just wondering, like, Sean McDermott's got to be the first coach ever to lose a game when the other team called a timeout before the first play, right? Like, that's the first time ever.

Speaker 2 Yeah, that's probably the first time that that's ever happened, yes, because I've never seen a timeout called before. Any time has come off the clock.

Speaker 1 You realize that?

Speaker 9 And the timeout is just a chef's kick.

Speaker 2 Okay, but do you realize that McDaniel could have called that timeout on Friday or Saturday, and it felt the same as what there was no time off the clock?

Speaker 1 I'm pretty sure I saw Randy Shannon do that six times.

Speaker 8 The Dolphins had no timeouts remaining with nine minutes left in the first half.

Speaker 8 Sean McDermott's got to be the first coach to ever lose to a team that had no timeouts remaining with nine minutes left in the first half, right?

Speaker 2 Can I ask the rest of you? Windows closed down. If you were Joey Bosa and you had a cast on your arm and your defense stinks and everyone's injured, but you're out there with a cast on your arm.

Speaker 2 And A-Chan, who can be tough to tackle and broke a lot of tackles yesterday, if you look at the sidelines and your coach, who looks dumber when he's wearing glasses, just yelling at you, wrap him up.

Speaker 2 And you can't even give him the middle finger because you got a cast on you. You've got his hand, I don't believe, was free.
I believe the cast was over the entirety of his hand, was it not?

Speaker 1 Sounds like it makes it difficult to wrap up.

Speaker 2 It would seem like,

Speaker 2 what good is your coach doing in that spot when a tackle is being broken and you feel bad enough and you look at your sideline and your coach is telling you, wrap him up as if you're not a professional football player who knows that he's supposed to wrap him up.

Speaker 8 Well, but what's McDermott supposed to say in that spot? Like, he's yelling, wrap it up to everybody else, but Bosa's involved.

Speaker 8 It's like, wrap it it up, no, except for you, Bosa, because you're wearing a cast and it's really hard for you to wrap it up. But everybody else, wrap it up.

Speaker 2 What do you suppose? Jeremy, would you do me the favor, please? I don't think that a cast should be around the fingers, but

Speaker 2 I don't know what part of Bosa was hurt that made him wear a cast that now has me imagining that the cast was also wrapping up his fingers because

Speaker 2 they do in medicine, but maybe he had a finger wrist problem. I don't remember.

Speaker 2 I remember, like, I'm watching this, and I'm like, Bosa couldn't, you need your hands to be able to wrap somebody up. Like, you get.

Speaker 8 Yeah, my favorite's when they make it, the club.

Speaker 1 Yeah, it's a club.

Speaker 8 That's a club. No fingers.
Okay, so let's just get something straight.

Speaker 8 You're allowed to punch players during a game, and you're allowed to actually play the game with a club, which for all intents and purposes is a weapon.

Speaker 8 If you have a club and you're swinging at people,

Speaker 8 that's a foreign object.

Speaker 8 That's how Owen hart used it yep he's got a club and he's allowed to swing it at people where were you on lex luger and the illegal forearm i didn't like it you know he had the plate i didn't like it it was it was all that was a point of contention for me as a kid how is that allowed he's got a metal plate in his arm

Speaker 6 this show is sponsored by better help so these days are just getting shorter right it's dark at like 4 30 five o'clock now and i swear it's messing with me and that's when it hits you this time of year can be tough for a lot of people and look we all get busy sports work family but it's still important to check in with the people you love text friends call your mom hit up that one buddy you haven't seen since last season you never know who might really need to hear from you better help's all about that too reaching out connecting talking it out their therapists are licensed trained and matched to you based on what you need they've been doing this for over 12 years helped over 5 million people and they've got a 4.9 rating from over 1.7 million reviews Reach out, check in, you'll probably end up asking yourself, why didn't I do this sooner?

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Speaker 1 When I think about the holidays, I think about the little moments with my dog, Roma, the ones that make the season feel special. Put little elf ears on her.
You know the deal.

Speaker 1 Take some selfies, post it for people that have probably seen it too much. I love my dog.
That's what I'm trying to get at.

Speaker 1 That's why I'm joining Chewy Claws, who's out here making pets' wishes come true. From November 4th through December 24th, you can share your pet's wish at chewy.com slash chewy claws.

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Plus, your wish means Chewie will donate five meals to pets in need.

Speaker 1 Folks, the leaves are turning. The weather's getting a little chillier.
That means the football games are more important. That means football time should be Miller time.

Speaker 1 Game day hits different with a Miller light in your hand. From jaw-dropping touchdowns to fantasy heartbreaks, my fantasy season's over already, but you know what makes that better? Miller time!

Speaker 1 It's the beer that's been there for every moment. 50 years of great taste, simple ingredients, and that iconic golden color you can spot from across the room.
And here's the kicker.

Speaker 1 It's just 96 calories, 3.2 carbs per 12 ounces. The original light beer since 1975 and still hitting different five decades later.

Speaker 1 So, whatever your game day looks like, remember Miller time is always a good time. Miller Light Grape Taste, 96 calories.
Go to MillerLite.com/slash Dan to find delivery options near you.

Speaker 1 Or you can pick up Miller Light pretty much anywhere they sell beer. It's Miller time.
Celebrate responsibly. Miller Brewing Company, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, 96 calories and 3.2 carbs per 12 ounces.

Speaker 1 Don Lebatard.

Speaker 8 John, can you rate my Al Pacino from that billiard scene in Carlito's Way if I do it for you? I think it's pretty good.

Speaker 1 Yeah, okay. Stugats.

Speaker 8 You think you're big time?

Speaker 8 You're going to die.

Speaker 1 Big time.

Speaker 12 That is

Speaker 12 on my infamous scale of one to ten.

Speaker 12 That's a 7.6.

Speaker 1 Solid. Good job.

Speaker 1 Good job.

Speaker 1 That's a Sue nominee right there. Good.

Speaker 7 This is the Don Lebatar show with the Stugats.

Speaker 2 It is too bad that Greg Cody is not here with us today, not just because the Homer Dolphins were celebrating,

Speaker 2 his homerific dolphins were celebrating in the locker room as if they had won the Super Bowl.

Speaker 9 And he was bragging on the Greg Cody show that came out this morning that he had the Dolphins with the spread yesterday, shockingly.

Speaker 2 Yeah,

Speaker 2 he always picks the Dolphins to keep it close.

Speaker 1 To lose, but covered. Right.

Speaker 2 Well, he also had them, though, having a winning season, as I recall.

Speaker 1 15th best team.

Speaker 3 Well, they're about to win three in a row. I mean, if you go ahead and look at this schedule.

Speaker 9 Now, they might lose the Commanders, and then they might win three in a row.

Speaker 3 The Commanders have lost five straight games, and they have Marcus Mariota, of course, right there. And then they have a bye week, and then the Saints with Tyler Shuck, and then the Jets.

Speaker 3 They're going to go into Monday night football at the Pittsburgh Steelers with a chance to get to 500.

Speaker 2 How many more bad teams are there in the NFL than good teams? How many more teams are there that you know are bad than?

Speaker 1 Bad or good? Put them in either campaign.

Speaker 2 No, because we just talked about the Ravens and the Dolphins schedule, and all of those teams are bad.

Speaker 2 Like everybody, the next month of games for the Ravens and the Dolphins, they're playing bad teams, and the Dolphins are a bad team.

Speaker 1 I think there are more good teams than bad teams.

Speaker 2 No.

Speaker 1 You know who else pisses me off? Atlanta. Who are you?

Speaker 9 That's a bad team. Yeah.
They're not going in the good bucket. I won't sit for that.

Speaker 8 I got 10 bad teams.

Speaker 1 I mean, they almost won at New England last week.

Speaker 2 They should have. Yeah, but almost winning.

Speaker 1 I'm doing Bucs, Patriots, good.

Speaker 2 Teams you know are bad and teams you know are good. And I think there are a good many more bad teams.

Speaker 2 For example, I know that the Carolina Panthers, whose season is done, even though they're in the mix, I know they're a bad team. I know the Carolina Panthers are a bad team.

Speaker 2 I mean, they won at Lambeau. Yeah, so did Cleveland.

Speaker 1 No, Cleveland won in Cleveland. Did they? Yes.

Speaker 2 Oh, I thought that game was in Green Bay for some reason.

Speaker 2 Regardless, winning in Lambeau or not winning in Lambeau, I'm not sure Green Bay is a good team, even though they could be undefeated if not for their losses against bad teams.

Speaker 1 They could beat the Super Bowl champions today.

Speaker 2 I'm not positive Green Bay is a good team because of what their losses are, not what their wins are. Yeah, they're strange.

Speaker 1 They're going to have like one of the better wins in the season if they beat the Eagles.

Speaker 2 They've got the worst tie.

Speaker 1 Worst tie.

Speaker 1 Worst home loss to Carolina. And then they lost to Cleveland.

Speaker 8 They have one of the best wins of the season, too, though. That first game against Detroit.

Speaker 1 They killed them. It's a very strange team.

Speaker 2 It's interesting that you've checked out on the Browns, and yet you made that correction on me on where that Green Bay game was played, even though you're not paying attention to the Browns at all.

Speaker 1 Dan, I care about being accurate. I'm not a man that's just going to stick to his guns.
Chris, I had like $400 on that game.

Speaker 2 Chris Cody, do me the favor, please, of getting your narcissist father, who I wish was here to.

Speaker 9 I was labeling my good and bad teams, but yeah, I'll get that for you.

Speaker 2 If not for his trick-knee, your father would be here because he would enjoy that there was espn's uh

Speaker 2 taylor wall was calling a game here well look at listen to what he said because you're going to get jealous here zaszlo he's calling a basketball game and i believe this is this is his introduction like he is opening the broadcast he is opening the broadcast on espn taylor wall is doing a college basketball game and this is how he opens it all right welcome back to charles and taylor wall jacks alongshaw here as uh as the great greg cody would say college basketball is back jack

Speaker 1 that's awesome.

Speaker 1 I mean, that's awesome.

Speaker 13 All right, welcome back to Charles and Taylor Walt, Jack DeLongshaw here. As the great Greg Cody would say, college basketball is back, Jack.

Speaker 8 So inside.

Speaker 1 Even the guy next to him is just like, okay, whatever that means.

Speaker 2 Keep it moving. I mean, that's real confidence, though, at the start of a broadcast to be so inside.

Speaker 9 Did you warn your partner to do that?

Speaker 8 Right. Listen, I'm...
I'm going to say something. Just roll with it.

Speaker 1 You guys have the same kind of reaction to the start of college basketball season that I did, which was, oh, not yet.

Speaker 2 It is too early.

Speaker 1 That's an after Thanksgiving thing for me.

Speaker 2 Oh, that's a March thing for me.

Speaker 1 I think it's a March thing for like 90%. It's a two-week thing for Dan.

Speaker 1 The people that are really into college basketball are either in Indiana or they gamble way too much.

Speaker 2 Not enough options for you on the gambling that you need to do college. You need to do college basketball in November.

Speaker 1 Dude. Before you know what, anyone is.
The people that make a lot of money on gambling,

Speaker 1 on sports gambling, they love their college basketball. It's the one with the lines where it doesn't matter what the house have.

Speaker 2 I want to talk a little bit about a gambling story that is going to be under the radar, and I want to ask you guys why it's under the radar, because it seems to me that the basketball prop scandals are bigger than the baseball prop scandals.

Speaker 2 But this most recent Cleveland Guardian scandal

Speaker 2 scandal that involves Luis Ortiz and Emmanuel Classe. Now, Emmanuel Classe, a year ago before last season, was as unhittable a human being as there was.
He was the best closer in baseball.

Speaker 2 Every time I watched him pitch, I'm like, how does anyone hit what that man is throwing? They,

Speaker 2 the middle of last season, were yanked off the field, and then over the weekend, Jeff Passon reported that indictments came out of Brooklyn because, in what I believe to be the dumbest way possible, these two guys get caught because people are betting

Speaker 2 on individual pitches they are throwing.

Speaker 2 They're betting huge amounts. It's the easiest way to catch.
You've heard Mike Ryan say that this is more regulated than it ever has been.

Speaker 2 And the reason these scandals are bigger than they ever have been is, at least in part, because all of this is being regulated so closely. And

Speaker 2 some of the quote-unquote criminals, we're going to do innocent until proven guilty, even though the circumstantial evidence is damning. This is the most obvious way possible to get caught.

Speaker 2 Let me bet that a pitcher is going to call a, a pitcher is going to throw a ball in this situation instead of a strike.

Speaker 2 And then Emmanuel Classe, whose control is impeccable, is throwing a ball straight into the dirt in front of the mound. And there's a huge amount of money being bet on that somewhere when

Speaker 2 very few people are betting individual pitches to be a ball or a strike. It really is the dumbest way possible to do this and the easiest way to get caught.

Speaker 1 Exactly right. It is the dumbest possible thing, and I don't know where anyone thinks they can get away with that.

Speaker 2 But this scandal is not being treated like the NBA scandal. Why? I think it's just popularity.

Speaker 1 Yeah, not as famous. That's all it is.
I'm learning this person's name for the first time. I don't follow this.

Speaker 2 Hold on. But John Tay Porter is not as good as his job as Emmanuel Classe is.

Speaker 1 Oh, I'm talking about popularity and sport.

Speaker 2 No, but when, okay, I got it. But when John Porter was caught, and it was first, it was earlier, so maybe that has something to do with it.

Speaker 2 It was the first thing that arrived where it's like, wait a minute, a nobody player on the end of the bench is allowing unders to cash because he's leaving with an injury.

Speaker 2 This one, though, is especially dumb, and we enjoyed sort of dissecting how dumb some of the details were around the fixed poker game with Chauncey Billups.

Speaker 2 We enjoy the stupidity of Terry Rozier risking a salary that is, you know, $26 million a year. It's usually harder to get to the pros because they make so much money.

Speaker 2 You're not offering them enough with a prop bet to make the risk worth it. The place that it is worth it and the place that I believe has the biggest problem, even though this is a problem.

Speaker 2 Rest assured, it's a problem. It's got the attention of Adam Silver.
Adam Silver does not want this anywhere near his league. The place that it is the biggest problem is UFC

Speaker 2 because those people aren't being being paid enough, and the risk ends up being worth it when they're totally in control.

Speaker 2 The problem in UFC is those guys have been training so long on how to survive and win that they're very bad at losing and making it look like it's an accident. They're bad at it.

Speaker 2 Like, people who are watching UFC fighters throw fights can tell, wait a minute, that's remedial.

Speaker 2 He should be able to, this person is such a favorite that what is happening in that spot is something that it, you know, a a white belt in karate would be able to defend that better.

Speaker 8 They can't just take fake taking a punch to the mouth and going down. These experts can look at it and say that that doesn't look like it.

Speaker 2 It's fairly obvious. The one that happened most recently with UFC is super obvious, but also UFC, I would say, is just simply more susceptible to this.

Speaker 2 College basketball is another one, college football, I guess. But college basketball is so in

Speaker 2 there are so few people that can control the result.

Speaker 2 But in UFC, you've got you've only got to get to one guy the crime the criminal only has to get to one guy who needs money and make it worth it to the one guy and the pay is so shitty in ufc that you that that is a huge that is a bigger problem than it is anywhere else in sports because you have one guy who can control the result and again what i'm saying is the labor is played so paid so poorly that you can actually make it a tempting amount of money for a fighter because I mean, some of these fighters

Speaker 2 are working second jobs.

Speaker 2 You can hear stories of even champions because the pay is so shitty in UFC.

Speaker 2 To me, that is vastly more dangerous in terms of the structural integrity of the sport, but you're starting from a place where the sport doesn't have very much structural integrity.

Speaker 2 Boxing and the fighting games, you know, they're notoriously in the sewer and notoriously susceptible to this kind of stuff.

Speaker 8 I feel like we could do it in tennis, too. Tennis, and that's why it usually happens.

Speaker 1 It happens a lot in tennis.

Speaker 8 I feel like tennis pretty easy.

Speaker 1 These scandals are, there was a massive one with Juventus in 06 before gambling was legalized here. Like this is, really,

Speaker 1 it's as old as sports are.

Speaker 1 Gambling scandals around it. And

Speaker 1 probably some of the more effective ones ever and the largest in scale, you don't know about them.

Speaker 2 Oh, but Mike, hold on. The place I've got to stop you is that the money in sports is is so giant with the salaries of athletes now.
You're talking about tennis. Tennis players are paid well.

Speaker 2 Tennis winners are paid very well.

Speaker 2 Even in UFC, the winners aren't paid that well.

Speaker 2 That's why Francis Nagano is going and doing boxing matches because even as heavyweight champion of the world, he's like, this isn't enough money.

Speaker 2 That's why John Jones isn't fighting as much as he could be. Because he's like, this isn't enough money to be worth it for me.
But in

Speaker 2 tennis, the checks are big.

Speaker 2 UFC, no, man, those are not big. You can absolutely, and it's not a prop bet.
It's not like, hey, in one game, can you go under here and walk off with an injury?

Speaker 2 In UFC, what you're talking about is, hey,

Speaker 2 as a favorite, this loss isn't actually going to cost you very much. Like, if you lose this fight, I can make it worth your time to lose this fight.

Speaker 2 And you can continue this as a career if you don't get caught.

Speaker 1 Don't you think it's legislated in part because the physical aspects of it? Like, you know, going down in the fourth round means you get punched, you get knocked out.

Speaker 1 And also, it certainly interrupts your future earnings.

Speaker 1 In that league in particular, Dana is cruel.

Speaker 2 Oh, but you can have losses there and climb back out of losses.

Speaker 1 Like, that's hard. Not very often.
I don't feel like that happens very often. It's hard to climb out, especially if you're on the undercard there.
Like Dana churns these fighters out.

Speaker 2 i don't agree with you there i see all the time fighters fighting big fights with four and five and six losses losses happen in that sport you can absolutely rebound from from that couple but like lower undercard guys like i don't think so okay but that's not what we were talking about what do you uh what are you nodding your head at i'm agreeing with mike that like a few losses in that sport you're not getting big money fights anymore The part that's crazy with Classe and Ortiz is that Classe had been apparently doing this for a couple of years, and then ultimately he brought in Ortiz.

Speaker 3 He threw a couple of pitches that got flagged, and then right away they were both dependent. So it was just because he wanted to get Ortiz a little taste.

Speaker 1 Come on, taste the taste of wetness.

Speaker 2 It's a strange advertising campaign.

Speaker 9 I have 16 good teams, by the way.

Speaker 1 Half the league is. No way.
No!

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