Latest / The Regulars / Pro Bowl No More, MLB Players Being Threatened and Ryan Fitzpatrick Calmly Roasting Deshaun Watson
Transcript
- 0:00My Raiders still haven't picked a quarterback. Burning hell
- 0:04Pro Bowl. And my God, domestic violence is
- 0:08just hilarious. It's hilarious according
- 0:12to, of course, Callaway Golf. Ladies and gentlemen, we got a lot to discuss
- 0:17today. We're The Regulars. I'm Cody Decker. I'm Tanya Rae Fox, and I'm,
- 0:20I'm gonna be the chill one this show. So strap in, let's do
- 0:28this. What a
- 0:32week in the world of sports. What a week in the world of world.
- 0:34What a week in the world of politics. What a week. Just what a fucking
- 0:37week. Tonya Rae Fox. What can I say other than the world is
- 0:41perfectly great and the sports world is even better?
- 0:44Yeah. With literally no problems whatsoever except
- 0:48for, you know, everything is completely on fire.
- 0:52Oh, and Callaway Golf is the weirdest fucking thing I've
- 0:56ever seen in my life. Amazing stuff. I honestly, I'm interested
- 1:00to get to that part of our, uh, episode so much because I
- 1:04have— I feel like I have a detail for you that's only gonna make it
- 1:07worse for you. Oh, thank God, because all of the research that I have
- 1:11unfortunately done on it has, uh,
- 1:14has only made me fully lose faith in humanity. And I can't
- 1:19wait to tell you what actually has made me angrier than just about everything else
- 1:22about it, because amazingly The video that they made, which is
- 1:26dogshit, yeah, um, isn't even scratching the surface
- 1:30actually of what's pissing me off. Okay, so I'm really excited
- 1:34when we get to Media Corner because, dear God, you all have lost your fucking
- 1:38minds. We have good— some good— I'm actually— I'm gonna look forward to our Media
- 1:41Corner. We have some other stuff to get through today, Cody. You know,
- 1:45you and I are feeling the, the full moon energy from last
- 1:49night. I feel like, you know, We both came— like, when I arrived
- 1:52at your house, we were both in the same exact mood for wildly different reasons.
- 1:57But this show usually makes us feel better, so we'll exorcise our demons.
- 2:01Yes. And drink a lot of alcohol in the process. I'm very excited for Sauvignon
- 2:05Blanc and the opportunity to talk shit. How do you feel
- 2:09about kicking it off? Like, well, I'd like to kick it off by saying,
- 2:11yes, we are drinking Sauvignon Blanc tonight. And those of you that are wine potential
- 2:14sponsors, sponsor us. Oh yeah, we'll put your bottle right fucking here the entire show.
- 2:18We'll sell out as much as anybody else. Yeah. Yeah, get somebody— get— if there's
- 2:22anybody in the chat that knows, uh, people who want a, a wine
- 2:26that might want to sponsor us, we are— oh, also, we've been getting a
- 2:29lot of requests, I think maybe since our last episode, but whatever,
- 2:33from people being like, oh, like, is there a Patreon? Is there like
- 2:37whatever? Like, people have been like, we want to support you. Please do. So what
- 2:40we're gonna do is the big goal is to get to, uh, 1,000 subscribers,
- 2:44get ourselves into a place where we can not only start monetizing
- 2:48on YouTube specifically, but also we can set up subscriberships on YouTube.
- 2:52We can do those things. So that's the big goal right now. You know what's
- 2:55another thing I'm looking forward to doing? This is— I'm not kidding, this is something
- 2:58that I really look forward to doing with this show. A merch store is something
- 3:01I really want to do. Merch is like— I feel like could be huge
- 3:04for us. Um, we already have a couple of
- 3:07real winners. And, uh, you know,
- 3:10there's— we, we have made it very clear as we
- 3:13enter into football season, I've already had people reach out to us you know,
- 3:16we got to start incorporating guests onto this thing. We got to start letting people
- 3:19get in. And so, you know, it's about time, man. Yeah. So, and we— and
- 3:22that's what's also fun is, again, we have aspects of this studio that we haven't
- 3:26even really gotten a chance to explore yet. So I'm looking forward to having a
- 3:30separate section for actual guests. I think we're going to have a really, really fun
- 3:33time on this show going forward. We appreciate everybody that's joining in on this.
- 3:37Like, share, and subscribe. We are currently at 796
- 3:41subscribers right now on YouTube.
- 3:43Get Get us to 1,000. Get us to 1,000. And honestly, the 1,000 is the
- 3:46thing that actually like really starts this thing going. Like,
- 3:50this is— we've been grassrooting this, and I feel very good about where we're at
- 3:53right now. Like, truly, Tanya, like, I love what we're doing. I think the
- 3:57content's fantastic, and I think the, the people that are along the ride and
- 4:01really kind of get it, they fucking get it. And that's what's awesome. People are
- 4:05responding well to the show, and that's all that we could possibly ask for.
- 4:08If people were telling us they were like, and it's not for me, It's not
- 4:11what we're hearing. So you know what? We're going to keep doing what the fuck
- 4:12we're doing and then we're going to take over. Oh, and there's a question right
- 4:15out the gate. Marla KR asked, who designed your logo? We both did,
- 4:18actually. It was kind of a collaborative effort. We knew what we wanted it to
- 4:22be and we just kind of played around with it until we thought we got
- 4:25it right. And you know what my favorite thing about the logo is? It's the
- 4:29arrow, which was yours. Yeah. I have no idea why I like
- 4:32it. Yeah. Makes no sense. It really— everybody who first saw the
- 4:36logo was like, I don't get the arrow. And I was like, well,
- 4:40uh, you're gonna like it. Yes, you're gonna— she sent it to me and I
- 4:44said, I don't get the arrow. And then as I kept looking at it,
- 4:46then we looked at the older logo, I'm like, I need the arrow. Yeah,
- 4:49the arrow is necessary because we are the— and then we are the
- 4:54Regulars. The Regulars, you know, like Megan
- 4:58Thee Stallion. Yeah, we are the Ohio State.
- 5:01Yeah. And it's, it's for some reason, a much
- 5:05bigger topic of conversation than I could have ever anticipated. And I think that's a
- 5:08good thing. I do too. All press is good press. You're right. You're right.
- 5:11You're right. Why is that there? Yeah, you just asked that question. That's why it's
- 5:15there. Because you're asking. Yeah. But yeah, let's just fucking kick it off and let's
- 5:17go ahead and— ooh, that's actually a good point. Looks like the devil to me.
- 5:21It is. Listen, it really kind of is. Kind of is. Now I think about
- 5:24it, it is a little bit of a devil. And if we ever, if we
- 5:25ever turn good, we'll add some little angel wings on the other side. I refuse
- 5:28to ever turn good. But let's get right into it. Let's start with our headline
- 5:32number 1, ladies and gentlemen. Tanya, the Pro Bowl is dead and
- 5:36our long national nightmare has come to an end. This is— so the
- 5:40NFL is ending the Pro Bowl. Uh, player honors will remain, but alternates
- 5:44will no longer be acknowledged. Uh, that's obvious. So there will be 88 Pro
- 5:48Bowlers named. That's the standard operating procedure.
- 5:51And then because there's no game to be played, there will be no need for
- 5:54alternates. Now, before I get into the details and the few questions that people might
- 5:58have, uh, let's just both say it off the top. Usually when the NFL
- 6:01does something, it sucks. This was the right
- 6:05choice. This has been the right choice. This was the right choice. I hate to
- 6:08say it, like, I feel like the Pro Bowl has actually been dead for years
- 6:11and years and years. And I'll actually pinpoint for me, I don't know what your
- 6:13thoughts are on when the Pro Bowl legitimately died. It was the moment
- 6:17it left Hawaii. Yeah, the moment it was no longer in Hawaii. And by the
- 6:21way, it was even dogshit there too for the last couple of years because it
- 6:23wasn't really a game. It was an exhibition. There was like fun stuff. Stuff coming
- 6:26out of it. Yeah, and we got like shit out of it. There was a
- 6:29tradition to it. We got movies like Blue Crush. I'm not saying that it was
- 6:32a fucking massive winner, but I loved that it was about the fucking Pro
- 6:36Bowl in Hawaii. Um, I, I don't know, man. It's just like,
- 6:39I, I— there was something about it. But I think there's also a thing that's
- 6:42a little nostalgic for me when it comes to the old Pro Bowl, because the
- 6:44old Pro Bowl my dad would go to every single year. Oh really? Every single
- 6:48year. Oh yeah, he would go to Hawaii there. He would stay at Turtle Bay.
- 6:50He would meet and rub shoulders with all these guys. I remember my dad would
- 6:52come back, he's like, yeah, I met Lawrence Taylor. He was, he was hammered.
- 6:55And I said, and then it was great for me because then I got to
- 6:58interview Lawrence Taylor and he was hammered. So my dad was right. One thing about
- 7:01Lawrence Taylor, he's going to be hammered.
- 7:05So yeah, I completely agree. I think that that was, that was sort of the
- 7:09nail in the coffin. It was already dying. It was the nail in the coffin
- 7:11when they moved it out of, out of Hawaii. In place of the games,
- 7:14Pro Bowlers will be invited to Los Angeles for an in-person celebration
- 7:18in February. The process of selecting Pro Bowlers will remain
- 7:22the same. Ballots cast by fans, players, and coaches are weighted equally
- 7:25to determine the selections of the 88 players on offense,
- 7:28defense, and special teams across both conferences.
- 7:32So here's a good sort of idea of just like how,
- 7:35how many extra Pro Bowlers we've had over the years is in 1998,
- 7:40there were just 7 Pro Bowl selections who did not attend the Honolulu game,
- 7:43including the 5 who were playing in that year's Super Bowl. 20,
- 7:4720 years later in Orlando, that number had ballooned to 35.
- 7:50Yeah. Which means you get 35 alternates or you get all these alternates,
- 7:54right? Which is like, I thought it was kind of cool for a while.
- 7:58There would be certain— there's always certain alternates where you're like, I'm really glad that
- 8:01they got a Pro Bowl nod. Yes. But like, then there's people who you're just
- 8:04like, it just feels egregious. And then it's sort of shifting the,
- 8:08you know, the way we use Pro Bowls, whether people like it or not,
- 8:11is sort of irrelevant. It's a same as All-Stars, um,
- 8:15in these other sports. And so when you see someone is a 4 or 5-time
- 8:18Pro Bowler, that, that means something. And like, and until
- 8:21we make it not mean something, it means something. Yeah. Um, there's salary
- 8:25implications obviously to this, which is why they're not going to get rid of Pro
- 8:29Bowl nods altogether, which again, I don't think you could do because there's too much,
- 8:33you know, outside of the fact that there's salary implications, the— they are obligated through
- 8:37the CBA to have some sort of thing thing like this where you can be
- 8:40named to it, and then you, you know, there are, um,
- 8:44certain, you know, bonuses and things, incentives. No, there are tied to this a ton.
- 8:48So, but there are— we are going to lose some, some Pro Bowl nods
- 8:52here. We are. We will. Like, this is what the players wanted though.
- 8:55That was the final thing I wanted to say, is that the players wanted this.
- 8:58Yeah. And so, and by the way, I know all of you had your jokes,
- 9:01and I get it because I've made the joke myself many a times. I ripped
- 9:05I ripped your poor dude apart. Who'd you rip? I ripped some dude
- 9:09from the fan. Oh really? The Shador joke? Yeah. What was the Shador? Listen,
- 9:13I've made the joke in the past as well. I would have ripped you too.
- 9:16I usually— but the joke is normally— I'm just always saying like that,
- 9:19excuse me, that's Pro Bowler Shador Sanders. And I would do that just as a
- 9:22little gag. I like that. Yeah, but that's about as far as I go.
- 9:24Yeah. Uh, so whenever anybody talks shit about Shador Sanders, like, excuse me,
- 9:28that's Pro Bowler Shador Sanders. Exactly. Uh, but no, it was the joke that Uh,
- 9:32I saw someone made it. Yeah, a lot of people made it. It was— I
- 9:35believe it was James Coe, right? And fun fact, I don't know James Coe.
- 9:37No. And I haven't met him. Again, like, don't really— like, I'm at the point
- 9:41where I'm like, I, I just don't care if you're gonna make a hack joke
- 9:44for internet clout. Guess what? I'm better at it. I'm better
- 9:48at internet clout. You are very good. That's the thing. Like, that's the new thing
- 9:51I've decided is, okay, you wanted to make the hack joke? Ah, too bad
- 9:55I showed up. The wrong person saw the
- 9:58gag. Yeah, that sucks for you. But here's the deal, like, um,
- 10:01Listen, the players wanted it. I think we can all agree we wanted this gone.
- 10:05No, this is the first time, Cody, is this the first time in like
- 10:09recent memory that fans, the league, and the players all wanted the same
- 10:12thing and got it? Dude, listen, it's been a clown show the last couple of
- 10:16years. And I'm not saying that as like how we always use, oh, clown show,
- 10:18clown show. No, no, this has been a legitimate— and it's been understandable,
- 10:22right? Like, why would the players want to play in this? Why would the
- 10:26organizations want them to play in this? No, it makes all the
- 10:30sense in the world. So we're going to fucking flag football and guys jumping into
- 10:34ball pits and shit. Like, fuck me, get rid of this.
- 10:37Thank God. And make it just like— make it an award ceremony. Like, just— that's
- 10:41what they're doing. Yeah, yeah, just make it like— they made it like a black
- 10:43tie thing, you know? It's gonna be in Los Angeles. You and I are somehow
- 10:46gonna score ourselves an invite. I'm excited for this now. We're gonna figure it out,
- 10:50guys. We said something nice about you, NFL. Invite us. We will
- 10:54be nice. We'll be cool, NFL. I will be charming. Firmly believe— and I'm
- 10:57not saying this as a joke— I think this is a winner because
- 11:01it's going to be during Radio Row week. It's going to be a whole thing.
- 11:03Like, this is how it should be done. I think you guys made the right
- 11:06decision. I think the players are gonna be happy about it. Is it gonna be
- 11:09in— so is it not going to be in between the Super Bowl and between
- 11:11the playoffs? Oh, it's got to be. It will because it's going to be in
- 11:14LA, which is where Radio Row is, right? It'll be in LA this year.
- 11:17Like, are they going to do it? I wonder if they are going to make
- 11:19it adjacent to the Super Bowl every year. Um, so like next
- 11:23year it'll be in like Vegas. Oh no, is it next year in Atlanta?
- 11:26I thought next year was Vegas. Is next year Vegas? I thought next year was
- 11:29Vegas and then Atlanta, but I might be wrong. I might be. Next year is
- 11:33Atlanta. I want to go to— I cannot wait to go to Atlanta for Super
- 11:35Bowl. Really? It's going to be— I love Atlanta. The truth is, I have no
- 11:37idea if I'm going to be able to go to Atlanta for Super Bowl.
- 11:39I just will see what, what's going to be going on at that point.
- 11:41Cody, if I'm going, you're going. We're figuring it out. That's going to definitely be
- 11:44the goal. No, we're committing. Don't, don't even say
- 11:48such a thing. We're going. No, no, no, no, no. I'm just— you're right.
- 11:52Fuck it. We're going. The regulars are going to be there because at this point,
- 11:54this show is going to be fucking batshit. For a fact, you know about manifesting.
- 11:58No, no, no, let's be real clear. I, uh, I feel very good
- 12:02about where this show is going. We're going to Atlanta.
- 12:06Yeah, I can't stress enough, 2028. I've— I— and I'm
- 12:09not saying this as a joke, like, I've been very lucky in this industry over
- 12:12the years. And this is a— I will hope that you take this as a
- 12:15compliment to you because this is what I mean it as. I have felt very
- 12:17good about some shows I've been on. Like, I— like, the only show in my
- 12:21career that, like, I was, like, super proud of was legitimately what I
- 12:24was doing with Michelle. I was like, this is it. This is the show
- 12:29that it needs to be. And of course, other people had short-sighted
- 12:33views on exactly what good content is, but that is just what it
- 12:37is. But this is the only other thing that I've ever done that I'm like,
- 12:41I am so proud of this. And I'm more proud of this than
- 12:44I am Beetle and Decker. Because you had to do it from the ground up.
- 12:47It's something that's entirely ours that we just completely built
- 12:51from the ground up. And the people that are coming along for it that fucking
- 12:54get it, they fucking get it. So like, I am— I'm excited for
- 12:58where this is going to be. And you bet your ass we're going to be
- 13:00in fucking Atlanta doing a live show in front of 2,000 fucking people. Los Angeles.
- 13:04We are going to be the official sports podcast of Los Angeles, whether you all
- 13:07like it or not. And all you people that are with us right now,
- 13:09we're not forgetting you, because you're going to fucking come with us. You're the ground
- 13:13roots. Want to know the best thing? I know we're off track right now,
- 13:15but want to know the best thing about me? I remember my OGs. I always
- 13:18have. I do it on Threads. I've done it— like, I don't forget
- 13:22who was following me early on. Like, I never fucking do. I make
- 13:26friends with them. I get into the DMs. Like, I don't— that's— that is like
- 13:29one thing that I'm dead serious about. Every— I have so many
- 13:33followers on my, my social media now, and there's like 25
- 13:36people that are my OGs. Like, if they're commenting, those are my people.
- 13:40Yep. So yeah, we're, we're like that. We're about that shit. Uh, back to the
- 13:44Pro Bowl though. What I will say is, uh,
- 13:48you know, the, the lack of the game doesn't bother me at all. I think
- 13:51having people earn the Pro Bowl nod is, is great.
- 13:55I— it does feel like I'm interested to see
- 13:59how they differentiate it from being an All-Pro,
- 14:03because if you're going to have a whole award show type—
- 14:08not award show, but like invited to the celebration
- 14:11for Pro Bowl, it feels odd because like All-Pro
- 14:15is the big one. Yeah, like All-Pro is the actual— do you think they
- 14:18just kind of merge them a little bit? I don't think you can't. I don't
- 14:21think you can. Interesting. Because they're two different— like, again, that's like all still in
- 14:25the CBA too. I guess I'll have to read the, the wording of it.
- 14:28But like, Pro Bowl having 88 people— I mean, there's way fewer
- 14:33All-Pro players. And but it is odd because the bigger nod is getting an All-Pro.
- 14:37So are you gonna have— what is the celebration? I don't even think there is
- 14:40a celebration for All-Pro. I mean, no, there really isn't. It's more of an announcement.
- 14:43There's the awards, there's the NFL Awards. Maybe— I don't know, we have
- 14:47to— actually, I gotta— now I realize I gotta do some deep digging on this.
- 14:50Are the Pro Bowlers gonna get a bigger party? Like, that's not cool. So I
- 14:53think you're a Pro Bowler, you're also an All-Pro. So like you still get to
- 14:56like— no All-Pro isn't in the Pro Bowl. So all the All-Pros
- 15:00get to go to the Pro Bowl party. Yeah. Like I've only been to a
- 15:02couple. A little gold star. But I've only been to a couple like award ceremonies.
- 15:05Yeah, but it's always been on the baseball side. So I actually was the
- 15:08emcee— not the emcee. I'm sorry, I was not the master of ceremonies. I was
- 15:11the voice of God at the Golden Glove Awards
- 15:14at the Plaza Hotel a couple of years ago. Golden Globes? No. By the
- 15:18way, when I was offered the job, that's what I thought I was being offered.
- 15:21Guy better. You're like, no way. I'm like, let's go. I'd be— I'd do great
- 15:25at it. But I crushed it because, you know, Daddy's got some amazing pipes.
- 15:27Uh, I decided to go with like a monotone thing. I was like,
- 15:30he, he made 45 plays this year. And I— dude,
- 15:34I sounded so good. It's fucking sexy. Yeah, you and your dad have truly beautiful
- 15:38voices. Yeah, yeah, he— the, the 2 things that— well, I should say the
- 15:423 things Jay Decker left me, uh, uh, male pattern
- 15:45baldness, this incredible fucking voice, and, uh,
- 15:48of course hereditary alcoholism. Of course. Yeah. Thanks, Jay.
- 15:52I got one of those as well. Appreciate you, Jay. But yeah,
- 15:55no, I, I don't know what they're going to do with that. But all of
- 15:58this, all in all, I don't— this might be the first where we've kicked off
- 16:02the show with a— the NFL did something and we're not mad.
- 16:05No, it's amazing. It's actually kind of funny we're starting with positivity
- 16:09towards the NFL because I— there is not a world where
- 16:13I disagree with any of these decisions. Get rid of the Pro Bowl, which sucked.
- 16:16Get the guys out of Orlando. A fucking great idea. Add another thing for the
- 16:20media to get invited to in Los Angeles or at the Super Bowl. Absolutely.
- 16:23We can all get dressed up and feel important. Absolutely. I'll be there. Listen,
- 16:26yeah, absolutely. You'll be there. There's— we're gonna be each other's date. We're gonna fucking
- 16:29show all that dressed to the fucking nines. Yeah, like, you guys think— you guys
- 16:33think we're just chill? We just look like this, like just t-shirts all the time?
- 16:36No, dude, we are going to be black tie, bro. I'm gonna look so fucking—
- 16:40I'm not even gonna wear these. These are fucking phenomenal glasses. I'm gonna wear my
- 16:43buffalo horn ones. Oh yeah. Daddy's going all in. Yeah, I might wear a
- 16:46fucking 3-piece suit. Yep. Oh, that'd be awesome. 3-piece suit. I've never seen you in
- 16:50a suit. Oh, not going to
- 16:54lie. Listen, I don't think I'm a handsome guy until the 3-piece
- 16:58suit comes on. Okay, so that's when you get— that's when the 3-piece suit comes
- 17:02on. Confidence kicks in. You have to understand, because what I do with the 3-piece
- 17:04suit, this is, this is a little, little, little, little cheat code that I got
- 17:08because I got, you know, the sleeves are a fucking little bit of a cheat
- 17:10code. Yeah, it's a little, it's a little way of kind of kind of adding
- 17:12a little extra attractiveness that wasn't there before. Okay,
- 17:15so what I do is I— when I— the jacket comes up, I start to
- 17:18roll up the sleeves a little bit, just a little bit, not all the way.
- 17:21No, no, at the very most I might get it almost to the
- 17:26fore— at the edge of the forearm, because all you need is a peek.
- 17:28All you need is a peek. The peek of the full sleeve tattoos under the
- 17:32suit is good. That's good shit. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- 17:35I'll be wearing a pocket watch on that fucking thing too. You're like, this guy
- 17:40is a fucking zoot suit riot. I like it. I like that.
- 17:43And I like that you know what you're doing. I like— because the intention,
- 17:46knowing what you're doing, is half the battle. Having the confidence. Premeditated. Everything was
- 17:50planned out. Um, you know who doesn't know what they're doing, Cody?
- 17:55It's funny because it's so true.
- 17:58Fucking my Raiders. Well, here's the deal.
- 18:01Is it that they don't know what— like, I don't know why they haven't made
- 18:04the announcement. I think this is so fucking obvious and clear-cut
- 18:10It's not even funny. Um, Kirk Cousins is the starter of this team this year.
- 18:12Yeah, he's the starter of this team for multiple reasons. One,
- 18:15they're paying him. 2, Fernando's not ready yet, and that— there's
- 18:19no shame in that. Fernando needs some time in seasoning. By the way, name a
- 18:23rookie quarterback that was ready to start week 1 in their rookie year. Almost never.
- 18:26Nobody. Nobody ever. Nobody. Um, and I don't want to see him ready because also
- 18:29keep in mind, this team is not going to necessarily compete this year. They're going
- 18:33to be better. But I do not— that's— yeah, I hate it. Like, let's be
- 18:36real clear, I don't need to throw him out there. Kirk Cousins will be a
- 18:39perfectly good crash test dummy. He's got a better offensive line than Geno Smith had.
- 18:43He has a capable offensive coordinator. Clint Kubiak knows what he's doing.
- 18:47I also like the pieces that are around him. So I think the Raiders might
- 18:50even be better than we're even expecting, because if there's one thing I know about
- 18:53Kirk Cousins and his actual quarterback play, Kirk Cousins is one of the most
- 18:57tight end-friendly quarterbacks in the NFL. Oh,
- 19:01and the Raiders happen to have the best fucking tight end in the game in
- 19:03Brock Bowers, so his numbers are gonna go through the roof. I did pick him
- 19:06third— second in my fantasy draft. I haven't fantasy drafted yet, but I would love
- 19:10to get Brock. I picked him. I got him during his rookie year and I
- 19:12thought I was a genius. What a fucking pick. I got him now, and the
- 19:16reason why I picked him, believe it or not, was because of Kirk Cousins.
- 19:19I'm like, he's gonna fuck— Cousins also is a high completion percentage dude, big time,
- 19:22you know? And he's got a much better— like, he's got the offensive coach now,
- 19:26you know? He'll do good with No. And here's the other thing. He'll melt down
- 19:28when you need him the most. Like, God forbid you guys are like in any
- 19:31level of playoff contention. We're not going to be. But like, yeah, that's where Kirk
- 19:35is great when you have no expectations. Exactly. Because he, he will be the best
- 19:38quarterback you've had in a minute. No question about it. And I'm— what I'm really
- 19:41excited about, and I want your take on this because I kind of surmised this
- 19:44the other day, and I don't know if a lot of people are kind of
- 19:46breaking down this kind of trajectory because I keep looking at Sam Darnold
- 19:50and everything. And really what I'm looking at is the Minnesota Vikings. Where was Kirk
- 19:53Cousins probably the most successful? Probably the Minnesota Vikings. I mean, he's been successful other
- 19:57places, but at the Minnesota Vikings— great in Minnesota. Yeah, under, under O'Connell.
- 20:01Yeah, under O'Connell's system, he was phenomenal under that. And then of course
- 20:05you see Sam Darnold and Daniel Jones, and it's become this island of misfit toys
- 20:09of quarterbacks that they go there and like reinvent their career and go elsewhere.
- 20:12And Sam Darnold went from that O'Connell system over to Clint Kubiak's
- 20:16system and fucking continued the exact same system that he was doing before.
- 20:20Now you got Kirk Cousins, who had his best career years under that
- 20:24O'Connell system, and now he's going to be in a Clint Kubiak system. I think
- 20:28this is a borderline match made in heaven. Now, will Kirk Cousins' age
- 20:32really show? I have a feeling it will, at least at some point. He's aged.
- 20:35It's dropped off from his peak, um, and he's always had
- 20:40a lack of clutch genes. 100%. You're talking about a veteran quarterback
- 20:43to bring along your rookie. It's exactly what Alex Smith Yes,
- 20:46this is, you know, like, that's what you fucking want. I have always said
- 20:51so, you know. I don't buy— I don't understand what Kubiak's doing here, why he's
- 20:55not naming the starter. I feel like, tell your rookie— like,
- 20:58we had— I, I don't know why we don't act like we didn't have 20
- 21:02years of Bill Belichick feeding Tom Brady his fucking ass every year,
- 21:05making sure his, his ego was in check. Fernando Mendoza will be okay,
- 21:09and if he's not okay, then you— then now you know what you have to
- 21:13build up and The reality is, tell the kid he's not starting to start
- 21:17the season. By the end of the season, he will very likely be starting.
- 21:18Most likely start him by, you know, like a lot of these guys end up
- 21:21starting by week 9, week 10, whatever it might be.
- 21:24Fine. But like kicking off the season is so deeply unnecessary.
- 21:27We have so much evidence that not having to start right away
- 21:31helps a lot. And if you can actually sit them the entire season around
- 21:34a— you don't always have the advantage of having a veteran
- 21:38quarterback worth a lick to sit behind.
- 21:42You got Kirk Cousins. Like, I don't even like Kirk Cousins.
- 21:46And I would— that's a massive advantage. Like I said,
- 21:49Patrick Mahomes sitting behind Alex Smith, he has talked repeatedly about
- 21:53how big of a deal that was for his development.
- 21:56It's— it was a massive deal. Tom Brady had to sit and
- 22:00watch and learn behind Drew Bledsoe. Yeah, those are the 2 best
- 22:04quarterbacks of the last fucking 25 years. If you have the opportunity
- 22:08to do that, which not every team has, You do it every
- 22:12time. No question. I am praying that Tom
- 22:16Brady himself, who, by the way, is a part owner
- 22:20of the Raiders, has in some way, shape, or form an ability to tell Kubiak,
- 22:24like, listen, bro, like, there's no reason for Mendoza to be starting. There's just not
- 22:28none. You know, like, there's just none. So, no, I'm agreeing with you wholeheartedly
- 22:32on that. And listen, I, I am excited, believe it or not,
- 22:35as a Raider fan, because I'm not— my expectations— there's some good pieces
- 22:39on there. Yeah. My expectations are very reasonable. I— they're,
- 22:42they're currently set up at 5.5 wins over-under right now. If we get 6
- 22:46wins this year, I'm calling that a true unadulterated victory, especially considering
- 22:50the fact that they're in the AFC West, which we know is a fucking juggernaut.
- 22:52That's why it's so low. It would be higher based on like
- 22:56where they're at, the pieces that they have. It would be higher if they weren't,
- 22:59but even going up against 3 playoffs. But even their fucking— their, their non,
- 23:03uh, in-division-like schedule, they have the hardest schedule in the NFL
- 23:06this year. Like, it's gonna be fucking brutal. Why? Who is—
- 23:10who is— oh God, you want me to take you through the Raiders schedule?
- 23:12I did the other day. I know the Patriots is rough. They have the NFC
- 23:16North, and I was looking at it and I was like, oh boy, yeah,
- 23:18it's gonna be— it's getting the NFC North, like, whoever gets
- 23:22them every year, I always feel bad. I mean, I feel bad for the NFC
- 23:24North itself. Yeah, here, let me take you through this year. Now they're opening up
- 23:27with what might be their easiest game of the year, which is the Miami Dolphins.
- 23:31After the Dolphins, Chargers. That— listen, I hate
- 23:35the Chargers. I make fun of the Chargers. They are fucking good. They're good,
- 23:38but they're also beatable. They are when you're an in-division rival,
- 23:41right? So like, that's one of those— you could split with the
- 23:44Chargers. You're right, we could, we could split with the Chargers, but I'm not expecting
- 23:49that to take place. Uh, then New Orleans Saints, a winnable
- 23:52game, a very winnable game in New Orleans. Uh, Kansas City,
- 23:56uh-oh. Uh, New England, uh-oh. Uh, Buffalo, Uh-oh.
- 23:59Um, Rams, uh-oh. Jets, winnable game,
- 24:03winnable game. Um, Niners, uh-oh.
- 24:07Uh, Seahawks, uh-oh. Broncos, uh-oh. Browns,
- 24:10winnable game. Chargers, uh-oh.
- 24:13Broncos, uh-oh. Titans, winnable game, gonna be a
- 24:17good game though. Yeah. Uh, Cardinals, winnable game.
- 24:21I hope not. I'm hoping the Cardinals are good this year. Kansas City Chiefs,
- 24:24uh-oh. Yeah, no, I, I feel you. Um, it's not great. Like,
- 24:28yeah, obviously you're playing— so you're playing the AFC, you're playing the AFC East,
- 24:32and, and that's— it's going to
- 24:36be a tough year. And listen, I, I am not upset about it. I understand
- 24:40it. I just want to see— I want to see competitive football, and, and that's
- 24:43what I want out of my Raiders. And listen, the best chance for them to
- 24:45really get to where they need to get to is to start, uh, Kirk Cousins.
- 24:48I think everybody is aware of this, and I don't know why they're even like
- 24:51playing games because, because nobody has any patience anymore.
- 24:55There's no, like, nobody has any patience or understanding on how to build. The fans
- 24:59want to see Fernando, they want to have the superstar, they want to whatever.
- 25:02And the reality is the best thing that could possibly happen for him is to
- 25:05have to sit at least 10 games this season. But I'm
- 25:09rooting for them. There's no reason, there's no reason to root
- 25:13against them. You know, I just constantly ask myself why the Raiders are like this,
- 25:16but then I say, why are you asking that question? Yeah, that's ridiculous.
- 25:19This is actually the best the Raiders have been when it comes to their— well,
- 25:22I was more asking like this bullshit with the— with Kubiak being like, I don't
- 25:25know, like there's nothing more to learn here. Just fucking make the call so that
- 25:29your guys can get ready for the season. Jesus Christ. Yeah, but let's go ahead
- 25:32and get over to number 3, over to my world of baseball. Yeah,
- 25:35because a wonderful announcement has been made,
- 25:39Tanya. Tampa officials have approved a $2.3
- 25:43billion deal for a new Rays stadium.
- 25:47City officials on Thursday approved a $2.3 billion deal for a ballpark
- 25:51funded by public and private money. The 4-3 vote by the Tampa City Council came
- 25:543 months after a tentative agreement was reached with the state for a stadium,
- 25:58which will include $1 billion in tax money.
- 26:02The Tampa Bay Rays are owned by an investment group led by principal
- 26:06owner and chairman Patrick Zalupski,
- 26:10which purchased the franchise for $1.7 billion in September
- 26:13of 2025. So I would like to point out That the
- 26:21taxpayers are paying $1 billion for
- 26:24the ballpark that the billionaires— for a
- 26:28team that where the billionaires just purchased the team for $1.7 billion, which was
- 26:31a steal. And they're, they're now building a ballpark worth
- 26:37$600 million more than what they bought the
- 26:40team for. In what city?
- 26:43Tampa. Mm-mm, try again. No, St.
- 26:47Petersburg. Yeah, St. Petersburg, which is not Tampa Bay. Yeah, I just want to point
- 26:51out St. Petersburg and Tampa Bay are 2 different cities across water. How far is
- 26:54it from the— yeah, but how far is it? It's across a bridge about 20
- 26:56miles. It's a long drive. Is it 20 miles? It's a long drive. It's a
- 27:00long drive. It's 20 miles from where the current one is. Oh no, no,
- 27:03no, where the stadium is is going to be in the parking lot where the
- 27:05current stadium is, right? But it's in St. Pete. Yeah, but that's where it's been.
- 27:08I know, but that's a problem. Do you know who is one of the lowest
- 27:11attendants in Major League Baseball year in, year out? It's the Tampa Bay Rays.
- 27:13And that's not why it's low. It's also a shitty ballpark. That's also because most
- 27:17of the people down there are Red Sox fans. It's also because all the people
- 27:21are in Tampa. No, you think that, but— no, no, I know that because
- 27:25I lived there and my ex-wife's family's from there. But did you also live in
- 27:28all the other Florida cities that are just like this? Miami's the same way.
- 27:32You're not wrong about that either, but St. Pete's like a fucking retirement community.
- 27:36I understand, but like this issue with nobody in Florida
- 27:39actually being Florida. Oh no, we should get rid of Florida baseball together.
- 27:43Same shit happens in Phoenix. They get overrun, but because like it's a
- 27:46retirement state. Yeah, so everybody's from New York and
- 27:50Massachusetts and Pennsylvania. People in Tampa, I understand that, but they're
- 27:54all like— they get— oh, the whole state itself in those southerns,
- 27:58they're all overrun by transplants, just like Phoenix, just like out here. We talk about
- 28:02it all the time, right, in Los Angeles, how You can go to games that
- 28:06are like entirely overrun by San Francisco 49ers fans and
- 28:10Pittsburgh fans because of how many transplants are here. And so
- 28:13I do think that that affects the Rays a lot and the retirement.
- 28:17Like, there shouldn't be a team in Tampa. There should not be a team in
- 28:19Tampa. I wish there was another way to say this. I'm sorry, Tampa Bay.
- 28:22It's not a knock on you. It's just you are not a market that can
- 28:25sustain a Major League Baseball team. And neither is Miami, for that fucking matter.
- 28:29It's been proven year in, year out. Like, there have been times
- 28:32where Miami's won 2 fucking World Series, by the way. Hey, have you
- 28:36ever been to a Heat game like that wasn't during the like
- 28:40Big 3, like Heatles era? Oh yeah, they're always there. There's no— there's
- 28:44no— again, no shade to Miami,
- 28:47which is fucking awesome. I love hanging out in Miami. It's amazing.
- 28:51Not a sports city. No, they don't give a fuck. And the Heat are
- 28:54good. Even when the Heat were good with Jimmy Butler, even when the Heat were
- 28:57good with Dwyane Wade and Shaq in 2000, They don't fucking care. They don't give
- 29:01a shit. Florida is not a viable market. Meanwhile, by the way, the Lightning have
- 29:05been one of the best teams in the NHL for like 2 decades. To be
- 29:08honest, I honestly don't know. I will say the Lightning fandom is much better than
- 29:12the baseball. But I will also say their stadium is in Tampa. Okay,
- 29:17solid counterpoint. It is in Tampa. Solid counterpoint.
- 29:21If I live in Tampa, you know how hard— let me give you an example.
- 29:24We're in LA, we know the opportunity to build. They've tried, they've tried
- 29:28over and over and over again, and the team has a lease. How come the
- 29:31Lightning can play there? It's because the team of the Rays have had a fucking
- 29:35lease with the city of St. Pete that is like, I don't know,
- 29:38indefinite, it practically seems. So they can't even leave St.
- 29:41Pete if they wanted to. A billion dollars. It's fucking insane. I don't get it.
- 29:45Like, they've been talking about it forever, and like, for instance,
- 29:48Tampa Bay does have a baseball stadium. It just belongs to the Yankees.
- 29:52The Yankees draw more in spring training than the Tampa Bay Rays
- 29:55do in Tampa Bay. Because at the end of the day, and this is so
- 29:59fucking weird, let me give you like a geography aspect of this. I mean,
- 30:03let's just look at this practically. We're both in LA. We understand the LA geography.
- 30:07The idea of how that— this is the equivalent. How often do you get
- 30:11to Angel games? Yeah, it's like going. It's like
- 30:16going to the Angels. I've lived here for how long? I've been to one.
- 30:17It's like us going to the Angels. It's 37 miles away,
- 30:20but Los Angeles speak is not 37 miles away. 37 miles
- 30:24and— well, 37 miles, I don't— I mean,
- 30:27that's about as far away, like, that's further than like Foxborough Stadium was
- 30:31from where I grew up in southern Massachusetts. It's far. It's like a far way.
- 30:34So, and you gotta understand, in Tampa Bay you have to cross a bridge,
- 30:36and if there's traffic on that bridge, guess what? It's a long, long, like,
- 30:39Keys type of bridge that you're going over along those. Yeah. So like,
- 30:43we're talking From getting from Tampa Bay. And as
- 30:46someone that had to spend a lot of time in Tampa Bay because my former
- 30:49in-laws lived there and I went to a couple of Rays games from their place.
- 30:51Did you ever do spring training down there? No. Luckily, I only had Arizona spring
- 30:55training. Thank God. Thank fucking God. And by the
- 30:58way, I feel about that and I hate Arizona. I prefer Florida somehow.
- 31:02Oh, no, no, no. There's a practical matter there.
- 31:05The Arizona spring training, everything is in Phoenix, period.
- 31:09In Florida spring training, everywhere, everything's in Florida. Yeah, a bit different.
- 31:13Like, I— no matter what, if I had a spring training day, I was at
- 31:17home at the very latest at 5 p.m., at the very latest every day.
- 31:21And usually I was home before that. If you're in Florida, you might not get
- 31:25home till tomorrow. Yeah, like that's the difference. We used to send our camera guys,
- 31:28our dudes and stuff there. Those were my guys that we'd send down there from
- 31:31Boston. And man, like setting them down there for their— it
- 31:35was a disaster. They were staying at the— they were staying at a place that
- 31:38you'd never heard of before because what is that, you know, where the Red Sox
- 31:41play is in? Yeah. What is it? Fort Myers. Fort Myers. Yeah. And it was
- 31:44always just a disaster. So that's, that's valid. So that was my reason
- 31:48for that. But no, it's just, it's just beyond impractical. It just is.
- 31:52And I don't think it was a good idea. And I think Major
- 31:55League Baseball is misstepping by even, even allowing this to take place.
- 31:59If they were going to build a stadium, it needs to be an actual Tampa.
- 32:01Well, thank you. Thank you for pointing that out, because, you know, my big thing
- 32:04about it is I'm really genuinely alarmed by the fact
- 32:08that this was a team purchased for $1.7 billion, uh, that just got
- 32:12a $2.3 billion park. Like, everything is off,
- 32:15everything's made up, the points don't matter. Also, there's also a practical
- 32:19matter that's actually bugging me a little bit. Yeah, uh, take a look at the
- 32:23renderings of the stadium. Uh, it's a little funny because it's like got this whole
- 32:26glass— are we gonna end up with a Bills Stadium situation?
- 32:30It's gonna be like the first baseball stadium with a full like glass ceiling type
- 32:34of thing. Okay, glass dome. So they just had an absolute disaster
- 32:38with their roof and they were like, you know what we're gonna do? Glass dome
- 32:41in hurricane season. In hurricane— like, what?
- 32:46Good luck, everybody. What the fuck is wrong? I got nothing, dude. It's such a
- 32:49fucking weird idea. Their roof was torn off. All I could
- 32:52do is like, oh my God, the glare at this place is gonna be brutal.
- 32:55Also, I don't know, I don't care what that thing is
- 32:59made of. It could be made out of shit that fucking Superman brought
- 33:03here from Krypton or whatever, but like, it's hurricanes down there,
- 33:07bro. Being someone that just was in a hurricane,
- 33:10those suck. I'm not gonna lie, I would— after all that shit,
- 33:14I wouldn't put a roof on it. Like, oh my God, dude, it rains
- 33:18every 5 minutes in fucking Tampa. Playing rain— have you not played sports in rain?
- 33:21Baseball in rain's a bitch. All sports in the rain are a bitch.
- 33:24Yeah, but throwing a baseball, that's a deadly weapon on a pitcher's hand now.
- 33:27Oh, not the deadly weapon. Uh, excuse me, you ever been hit in the head?
- 33:29It fucking hurts. No, but I did just see a highlight of one of Greg
- 33:32Maddux's Like back in the day, his— that pitch that would go like out and
- 33:36then slide back in. Oh yeah, yeah, crazy movement. But here's the difference, that was
- 33:39thrown at 85. Like, no, I don't know what this thing was, but it looked
- 33:43so much harder to hit than any fastball I've ever seen. Oh yeah, his shit
- 33:46was— it was nuts. Oh yeah, no, no, I'm just saying, I've never seen a
- 33:49Greg Maddux pitch slowed down like that. And I was like, oh, I mean,
- 33:52obviously he was like, you know, I'm, I'm not like the most baseball-heavy
- 33:56person, but I knew he— his— that was his reputation. He was— he— but I
- 33:59was like, what the fuck was that pinpoint accuracy? He knew how to manipulate a
- 34:03baseball better than just about anybody, and he topped out at 86 miles per hour.
- 34:05That was the difference. And by the way, if Greg Maddux was going up and
- 34:09coming up these days, we would never see Greg Maddux. You wouldn't— Greg Maddux would
- 34:12never be a big league. That's what everybody says. But my counterpoint, which might be
- 34:16like a little bit neurodivergent, is always like, but if he was coming up
- 34:19today, he would be in it because he would still be Greg Maddux and he
- 34:22would just adjust to today's standards. Here's where I would disagree with you on this.
- 34:26It's simply because he— and it's not because he wouldn't be dominant. I honestly
- 34:29think if you take Greg Maddux in his prime, put him in the major leagues
- 34:32right now, He would be just as dominant as he ever was because he was
- 34:35just a maestro. You're talking about scouting. He would never be signed.
- 34:38There's no universe that he would ever get signed. What I'm saying is, okay,
- 34:41I guess what I'm saying is, but in this world, wouldn't he have adapted
- 34:46his skill set to something that would be signed? If the only thing he can
- 34:49adapt is adding 10 miles plus to his fastball,
- 34:52fine. Why? How do you think he couldn't? Because in adding 10 miles plus to
- 34:56his fastball, you're going to be losing a lot of that movement. The Greg Maddux,
- 34:59literally everything that he did he wouldn't be able to
- 35:02physically do. Interesting. I'm going to think more about this. Yeah. Okay. I appreciate that.
- 35:06That's all. Greg Maddux was an artist. I'm going to consider this
- 35:10and I'm going to consider maybe the potential that he could have thrown that
- 35:14same pitch 10 miles per hour faster. If he could.
- 35:18Why? They're already doing shit that they've never— we never thought they
- 35:22could do. No, no, I agree. I'm just saying, being that pinpoint at that speed.
- 35:25Think about it, though. I mean, if That's what everybody said about Greg Maddux at
- 35:29the time was like, this is not human. Why? But also there's also the aspect
- 35:33now that we have challenges of pitchers. Greg Maddux also got calls that he wouldn't
- 35:36be getting these days. Well, that you could say that about literally every fucking great
- 35:40pitcher. And that's what I'm going to say about every fucking great pitcher. You better
- 35:43not say it about Pedro Martinez. I can tell you that much right now.
- 35:45Shut the fuck up. You shut your fucking mouth. Yeah, well, obviously,
- 35:50before we go to Media Corner, This is
- 35:53actually really bad. And I had to put this in here because,
- 35:58uh, this is about the MLB players who revealed in an
- 36:01Athletic, um, poll that they
- 36:05get threats, DMs, and encounters regarding them, and then sort
- 36:09of talked about the modern toll of legal gambling. And Cody, the first thing
- 36:12I thought after reading this headline was something that you have said
- 36:15repeatedly on this show, something that like I never disagreed
- 36:19with I never disagreed with it. I understood your point, but that
- 36:24like I couldn't like really feel in my body. You know when you agree with
- 36:26someone but you're like, I just can't really like fully feel it? No, you know
- 36:29I'm right, but you're just like— but you're not— but I'm not emotional about it.
- 36:32It hasn't hit you yet because I don't think it's— I don't think there has
- 36:35been a moment where— I guess, I guess
- 36:39the way I put it is there hasn't been that crossover example that made
- 36:42you— that made it personal to you, right? Yeah. Or that, that like just really
- 36:46made it feel like fully real. And you
- 36:49have said repeatedly, like, somebody— we are getting to the point with
- 36:53gambling in sports where somebody is going to get hurt or
- 36:57killed. Yes. And that is intellectually— I know you're right.
- 37:00Yeah. That's why I've never argued it. But this article
- 37:05essentially speaks to that. And hearing from the players and exactly what's going
- 37:08on is proof positive
- 37:13that what you've been saying repeatedly on this show is true.
- 37:18The level that the— I want to make sure that I shout out the person
- 37:21who posted this article because I don't like— so this is from Zach Meisel.
- 37:27This spring, we asked 100 major leaguers across 23 teams
- 37:31for their response to a simple but very modern question. The players spoke on
- 37:34the condition of anonymity to discuss various topics.
- 37:38Has a fan ever confronted you or contacted you about a sports
- 37:42betting loss? 81 of the players said
- 37:45yes. 19 said no. In one of the responses,
- 37:49a National League pitcher said, is anyone going to answer no to this? Even if
- 37:54you're not on social media, people find you. It's common now for broadcasters
- 37:58to weave betting lines or parlay suggestions into their narration.
- 38:01It's possible to survey the scene at a ballpark and it's impossible
- 38:05to not spot an ad offering a tempting bonus if you enroll and make your
- 38:09first bet. The players who have no direct say in these corporate alliances are the
- 38:13ones who are ultimately determining each other's fate,
- 38:17and they are the ones receiving the backlash. Many of those who replied
- 38:20no said they only replied that because they removed the direct line
- 38:24of communication to the bettors. They avoid social media, they ignore DMs.
- 38:29I'm going to read you a couple of quotes from the players in this piece.
- 38:33You should see my Venmo requests from an NL pitcher. It literally
- 38:36happens every game. AL pitcher. I've had people approach me.
- 38:41NL pitcher. I nod my head and move on. It's always about costing them some
- 38:45amount of money. Expletive, expletive, expletive. NL outfielder. On social
- 38:50media, said AL pitcher, everybody feels like they can say whatever the fuck they want.
- 38:54I've been Venmo requested, said an AL pitcher. I've gotten a bunch
- 38:58of threats. It sucks. It's been all over the map. No one's really taking the
- 39:02time to message you and say, hey, great game, said an NL hitter. If they
- 39:05win a bet, it's not because you did it. It's because they knew.
- 39:10I've gotten DMs like, you owe me $50 or you can't get
- 39:14one more strikeout, said an NL pitcher. And some choice words. This one
- 39:18is insane. An AL pitcher— East pitcher—
- 39:21an AL East pitcher said he once received a Venmo request for $3,000
- 39:25after a game, accompanied by a message that said, you cost me my parlay.
- 39:29Let's do the right thing. The pitcher said he replied that his worst day
- 39:33is still better than your best day, and the bettor repeated the ritual after another
- 39:37outing with another $3,000 request
- 39:40and a message that read, you did so poorly today, you don't deserve to get
- 39:44paid. The pitcher said he fulfilled the request and sent back, I make
- 39:48way more than 3 grand in a day. An AL pitcher said he'll send
- 39:5250 cents or a funny barb back to them.
- 39:56Sometimes it crosses a line. It only gets weird when you see your home
- 39:59address on there, said AL pitcher. An NL outfielder
- 40:03said he receives threats all the time. I hope you die. I hope
- 40:07your family dies. You ruined my parlay. All the
- 40:11time. Ever since betting became legal, it's become this way. Yep.
- 40:15I wanted to read all of those quotes, which I know is kind of boring,
- 40:18but like at the end of the day, it's really important that like we not
- 40:21bury what the fuck these players are fucking saying? Because you've been saying
- 40:25that this is something that you're scared about. And this— seeing the
- 40:31idea that people are requesting $3,000 and threatening
- 40:35their families, that's incredibly
- 40:39alarming. Yeah, like incredibly alarming. And also,
- 40:44it is not hard to see how this escalates to somebody in
- 40:48a moment of mental illness or a mental breakdown or just deep,
- 40:52deep unsettled anger and dysregulation.
- 40:56They're not like— this is scary for these players.
- 41:00I don't understand. These players have families. They have wives, they have children,
- 41:04they have daughters, they have sons. I don't tell you
- 41:07other than families are vulnerable. Tanner Scott has gotten 2 losses
- 41:11this week over the Atlanta Braves, against the Atlanta Braves. The last time that he
- 41:15blew a save was like 2 months ago. And in that, he got multiple death
- 41:18threats to his fucking wife and kids. I don't know what to tell you other
- 41:21than this is a massive problem and someone's gonna fuck— get fucking killed. It's going
- 41:25to happen. That's the worst part. I hate that I'm saying this, but it's
- 41:28going to happen. How do I know it's gonna happen? Because history always repeats itself.
- 41:31100 years ago, we dealt with this. You know why there's a commissioner in
- 41:35all leagues? Why there's a commissioner in Major League Baseball? It happened in 1919 when
- 41:39the Black Sox Scandal happened. The Black Sox Scandal, by the way, everyone really
- 41:43tries to look at history a very certain way. It's a little ugly
- 41:47to me. If you really do some research on what happened in 1919 with the
- 41:50Black Sox scandal, yes, some players absolutely sold out and took the money.
- 41:54But other players that didn't sell out were basically threatened
- 41:58that the mob was going to murder their family if they didn't fucking sell out.
- 42:01Some players were also, by the way, selling out specifically
- 42:05because the owner, Mr. Comiskey, wasn't paying the White Sox their
- 42:09fair wage. So the White Sox said, fuck you, we're going to go get our
- 42:13money that we earned because you're making all this money and not paying us.
- 42:16So let's be real clear, there's a lot of extra nuance to the 1919
- 42:20Black Sox Scandal that no one ever really wants to do a deep dive
- 42:24in. It just really helps the major league owners and everything
- 42:27when they say, well, those greedy players. And that's why we get the greedy
- 42:30player fucking narrative for the last 100 years in every single
- 42:35CBA. They just look back, well, remember when the players were greedy in 1919?
- 42:39Even though there's a shit ton of nuance behind that. Players were threatened,
- 42:42their families were threatened to actually sell out that World Series. Not all
- 42:46of them, some of them. That being said, that was 100 years ago.
- 42:50We're dealing with it again now, and none of you motherfuckers
- 42:54want to do shit about it. And I hate that we're always fucking reactive in
- 42:58nature because it's going to lead to someone actually getting hurt. It's going to lead
- 43:01to an actual sick-in-the-head motherfucker showing up at a
- 43:05guy's car after a game with a fucking knife or something And that's
- 43:09going to be when all of you start taking this shit seriously. Gambling is
- 43:12a fucking disease. It is like, it's okay to do
- 43:16it and have fun with it. I've had fun with it. We can have fun
- 43:19with it. But the problem is Pandora's box has been open and there's been no
- 43:22regulation in Major League Baseball. And I know I'm singling out Major League Baseball kind
- 43:27of unfairly so because every other sport is just as corrupt. They just have the
- 43:29most famous, like they just have the most famous gambling story of all time.
- 43:33But let's be real clear. They are all culpable at this point.
- 43:36ESPN, you, you can't turn it on without somebody saying, and of course, go on
- 43:40ESPN Bet right now and check out our +1,500 parlay.
- 43:44Fuck all of you. You're gonna get somebody hurt. And I'm waiting for
- 43:48somebody, anybody with a shred, a fucking
- 43:52shred of humility, a shred of decency that will
- 43:56finally just say, hey, maybe we should regulate this
- 44:00a little, a little, maybe, maybe fucking
- 44:04get to it before somebody gets killed because I don't want to see it happen.
- 44:07And when it happens, I don't want to say I told you so because
- 44:11this is not a situation that I should say I told you
- 44:15so. Fucking get a hold of it, Major League Baseball. You're the
- 44:18example when it comes to the world of sports gambling, and you're in bed
- 44:22with all these sports gamblers to the point where I have such a problem because
- 44:26I've been defending Major League Baseball about their decision to never let Pete
- 44:30Rose into the Hall of Fame, which is something I vehemently, vehemently agree
- 44:34with. But now, like, it's impossible to defend because
- 44:38of your own actions and where you're actually in bed with. No, we cannot allow
- 44:42Pete Rose into the Hall of Fame. But if you guys go ahead and put
- 44:45down $1,500 on our BetMGM parlay, then don't worry about
- 44:49it. Like, what the fuck is this? Like, truly, how do you have the
- 44:53balls to speak out of both sides of your mouth? I just want to protect
- 44:56fucking players and their families at this point. You guys can make your bets,
- 45:00you can make your money, but fucking handle it. And you haven't. And it
- 45:04almost seems like you're purposely doing it at this point, of which
- 45:08I feel like you're just as culpable as the person that's committing the
- 45:12crime when it eventually happens, as the person committing the crime.
- 45:16It's, you know, the idea of the mob or
- 45:19some sort of organized group taking power,
- 45:24threatening the safety lives of athletes seems like it's a made-up
- 45:29thing. Seems like it's like straight out of a movie.
- 45:32It's not. And maybe,
- 45:35maybe in 1919 it was
- 45:39the Italian Mafia, right? Now it's the mob.
- 45:43Now the mobs now also are corporate.
- 45:48Yeah. If you don't think that billionaires
- 45:52would bribe you, threaten you,
- 45:56if you don't think that they're in bed with governmental agencies,
- 46:00there's a lot of danger here. Yeah. And the reality is that
- 46:04we are also in a very precarious spot economically.
- 46:091919 was right before the, you know,
- 46:13the entire— the Great Depression. Like, we were leading into
- 46:17the worst economic times in the 20th century.
- 46:21This is how this shit goes. And keep in mind right now, how, how exactly
- 46:24is everybody feeling in the pocketbook right now in the United States?
- 46:28Not great. We got gas prices up, we're fighting trade wars all over
- 46:32the goddamn place. People are really, really struggling right now. Now you take people that
- 46:35are now putting their money that they have and making bets trying to make it
- 46:38big And now they got to have a big bad to look at. And that
- 46:42big bad is honestly not their bosses who aren't paying them a fair paycheck or
- 46:45the government that's taking away their money. No, no, no. It's the players that couldn't
- 46:49help them make their parlay and they were going to— somebody is mentally
- 46:52ill. That player is on a $200 million contract and I can't
- 46:56afford my fucking rent this month. So it's their fault. Certainly not all
- 47:00the things that are causing the actual problems with our money these
- 47:03days. No, no, no. And I understand people feeling desperate when money
- 47:07gets involved. I get that. I have been broke. I have lived
- 47:10in my car while being a fucking professional baseball player. Creating— they're
- 47:15creating the situations to be desperate so that people put their money into gambling.
- 47:18I mean, the whole thing is a fucking disaster. So, you know, this is really,
- 47:22really dark. And it's very dark. I'm officially, you know,
- 47:25I'm officially nervous. And I also, you know,
- 47:28the class war that we are in right now does not help the situation.
- 47:32It's not going to make these players any safer. And it's certainly not going to
- 47:34make these better in any— put them in any financial spot to be okay.
- 47:38So I— it's something I've been very concerned about. It's something I'm actually quite passionate
- 47:41about. And by the way, I'm not the one that says get rid of sports
- 47:45gambling. No, I actually think sports gambling is not the devil.
- 47:48I do think it was also fine. We were like,
- 47:52where sports gambling was at our whole lives was fine.
- 47:55Yes. Like, we were never— I was not anti-gambling. I was
- 47:59not whatever. Still not. We lived— it was like, it was legal in Nevada,
- 48:02and there were certain states that did it, certain states that didn't. But if people
- 48:05wanted to bet on sports, they bet on sports. Yeah, there were entire podcasts long
- 48:09before the legalization and the adoption by— of the broadcast agencies of
- 48:14all of these betting books, right? These sportsbooks.
- 48:17Podcast dedicated to— we all did fantasy, we all did, you know, there was like—
- 48:21yeah, fucking Bill Simmons has been talking about it in his shit since the 2000s.
- 48:26It was fine. Yes, this is way
- 48:30too far. But here's the thing, this is what I'm most disappointed about, about the
- 48:34entire thing of sports adopting sports gambling. There was a part
- 48:37of me at the time, and shame on me, I apologize. I must— I was,
- 48:41I was young and truly thought the better of humanity.
- 48:45There was a part of me that thought this was a good thing because it'll
- 48:49be watched and regulated. This is a good thing.
- 48:52I'm so sorry. I'm a fucker. I know, I know. Sorry, sorry that
- 48:56I— sorry that I thought people in leagues would do the right thing. You believed
- 49:00in humanity. It's on me. Trust me, there are moments
- 49:04where I get back to believing in humanity and they just remind me why I
- 49:07shouldn't. Yeah, exactly. Before we get into the Callaway Golf
- 49:11of it all, I wanted to point out an interesting thing that happened in Media
- 49:14Corner for our first Media Corner segment. It happened
- 49:18during the Browns game,
- 49:21their preseason game against the New England Patriots. Yeah.
- 49:25And The first clip I saw was
- 49:29of Ryan Fitzpatrick. The second clip I saw was of later
- 49:33in the game from Al Michaels and Kirk
- 49:37Herbstreit. Now, I had seen
- 49:40this post from Ryan Fitzpatrick, or I'd seen it like somebody
- 49:44else had shared it. Yeah. And essentially what Ryan Fitzpatrick
- 49:49did on the broadcast, so he's like in the booth, he's joined them, whatever else.
- 49:52Was just calmly eviscerate Deshaun Watson.
- 49:56Just very calmly, very like to the point
- 49:59where I almost didn't catch it right away.
- 50:03And I'm gonna play you the clip. I'm gonna
- 50:06play you the, uh, old schooling this. Yeah, I'm gonna— because I want you to
- 50:10hear him talk about it, but that's the wrong one. I'm gonna— you know,
- 50:12I could have just put this on the actual show and Mocha could have hit
- 50:15it. Well, you weren't exactly crushing that aspect of today.
- 50:18It was, uh, we— I didn't want to ask you for too much. Um,
- 50:22okay, okay. No, I'm still professional. No, but I actually— I— the bigger
- 50:26issue is that I don't want the NFL to take this clip down. Oh,
- 50:28that's fair. Yeah, yeah. Okay, so I want you to hear
- 50:32what Ryan Fitzpatrick says about Deshaun Watson and make sure you play this
- 50:36a little close to the mic. Of course, of course. But I have to rewind
- 50:39it. Okay, ready? But I also think this is set up here
- 50:44for Shador. I mean, if Deshaun, once he fails, Shador's gonna jump into
- 50:48this thing and he's going to be the guy, and there— this city is going
- 50:51to be behind him. Yeah, but you think it'll fail?
- 50:54Yeah, and it's, it's gonna happen. I mean, Shador's playing this
- 50:58year. I think all 3 of these guys— I think Gabriel's gonna have a chance
- 51:01to play as well. But you know, this is such a young roster with a
- 51:05lot of changing parts. You know what I love?
- 51:09The way I was already a Fitzpatrick fan, now I'm a huge fan.
- 51:12When he fails Just no faith. Correct, by the way.
- 51:16But the way he said it, you know, when he fails and blah, blah,
- 51:19blah, and then fucking loser Kirkhart, he comes in and he's like, you think he's
- 51:23going to fail? Yeah. By the way, without changing the tenor
- 51:27of his voice, without like he says, yeah, yeah, for sure, he's just going to
- 51:31fail. And then they're going to go to, you know, Dylan Gabriel and should— or
- 51:33something. That is— we— I— A-plus.
- 51:36I have been familiar with Ryan Fitzpatrick since he
- 51:40was at Harvard. Okay. I love this Patrick. I don't always
- 51:44love him. I love him. But what I will say is that is
- 51:48very intentional. Yeah. His choice to say it the way he said it,
- 51:52to not change his tenor, to not react to Kirk Herbstreit in
- 51:55any way that was defensive, but to be like, you know, it is very obvious
- 52:00that Deshaun Watson is going to fail. We're not going— that is like one
- 52:04of the more brilliant ways I've ever seen somebody eviscerate somebody on a
- 52:08national broadcast. Yeah. Now, that very clearly rubbed
- 52:13Kirk Herbstreit the wrong way. And Al Michaels was
- 52:17also on the broadcast, too, and he's old as hell. So no
- 52:21shock there that both of them had this reaction. But their reaction to
- 52:26this was essentially to— in the third quarter. So this
- 52:30happened in the second quarter, I believe. But in the third, whatever it
- 52:33was, later on in the game, They had a whole conversation where they
- 52:38said when that news broke, everybody was kind of like, wow, what's going
- 52:42on? Everybody was kind of surprised. I'm a guy that believes that
- 52:46everybody deserves second opportunities. Kirk Herbstreit
- 52:49on Deshaun Watson. Al Michaels seconded
- 52:53that notion. So not only did Ryan Fitzpatrick
- 52:57essentially neg Kirk Herbstreit into praising
- 53:01Deshaun Watson for deserving a second chance after he
- 53:04was Alleged— accused of assaulting 27
- 53:08women. But he got— then Kirk got Al Michaels to sign on.
- 53:13So in the same— the reason that I wanted to talk about this is because
- 53:17in the same broadcast, what you're seeing is that
- 53:20there is an entire group of broadcasters,
- 53:25older broadcasters, establishment broadcasters, and MAGA broadcasters who
- 53:29are completely ill-equipped to actually do the job
- 53:33completely at all anymore. Kurt Herbstreit, I mean this from the bottom of my heart,
- 53:36is the most unqualified man who's ever fucking lived.
- 53:40He's a fucking joke. And he took Hal Michaels down with him.
- 53:43Yeah, he's one of the more, more qualified broadcasters. He is.
- 53:46But, and by the way, but he's 100 years old. But to sit here— okay,
- 53:51Kurt Herbstreit, let me explain to you something real fucking simple. Is Deshaun
- 53:55Watson in prison? Did he lose money?
- 53:58Then he, then he got all the second chances he ever fucking need,
- 54:01you dumb motherfucker. I feel so bad for your poor dog
- 54:05that has to be lumped into fucking you, because as you know, Hitler had a
- 54:09dog, and now I fucking hate that dog too. I hate your dog because
- 54:14of you. That poor, poor thing. I think we should start a rescue service for
- 54:18anybody anytime Kurt Herb Street tries to fucking rescue a
- 54:21dog. We need to rescue that dog. I agree.
- 54:25Listen, I— it's a great point. Second chance.
- 54:29He's not in fucking— he's not in fucking prison and he's making all of his
- 54:32fucking money. That's his second fucking chance. He got him getting
- 54:36the opportunity to play fucking NFL football is not a fucking second
- 54:41chance, you stupid sack of shit. Go back in the tanning booth and add more
- 54:44filler, you fuck. The price he paid for all those accusations
- 54:48was an 11-game suspension and $230 million
- 54:54guaranteed. That is the only
- 54:58fucking thing that matters in this conversation.
- 55:01It's the only thing. 27 women were told,
- 55:04we don't fucking believe you. We won't even put this through a grand jury.
- 55:08They said, we'll suspend you 11 games for what?
- 55:12We don't even actually fucking know. Then gave him $230 million
- 55:17that he gets no matter fucking— no matter what, of which he's played,
- 55:20what, 16? Games in that time. 19 games. And this
- 55:25stupid fucking piece of shit is on television talking about
- 55:28how he should have a second chance right after— by the way, this is a
- 55:32full-on undermining of what Ryan Fitzpatrick just
- 55:37said. So not only is he dick-sucking a piece of shit who's paid
- 55:40no price for anything he's ever done and only been rewarded, so I don't
- 55:44know why you feel bad for him. Unfuckingbelievable. But also now you're undermining Ryan Fitzpatrick
- 55:49who told you point blank, as somebody who's actually played the position, been in
- 55:52the NFL, and actually was in the NFL at the same time as this
- 55:56dude, you're going to tell him he's
- 56:00a fucking— I cannot stand it. So fucking— and if Al Michaels
- 56:04was 10 years younger, I'd be harder on him, but I don't.
- 56:07I'm over it. I'm over it. Al Michaels been out the pasture for years and
- 56:11years and years, and I'm not— I'm not losing my, uh, my appreciation for
- 56:15the Miracle on Ice. No, he said— he, he said, do you believe in miracles?
- 56:17He kind of gets a pass for a long time. Bad. I didn't like that
- 56:21impression. You've done better. Look, I— it was out of nowhere. Leave me alone.
- 56:24Okay, this is actually— I'm sorry, it's not my— I'm sorry, super, super valid.
- 56:27Sorry, it's not— it was out of— you got to give me some time to
- 56:29work on it. That's actually super— okay, listen, if you— if we're doing the NFL
- 56:32Films guy, that's actually— okay,
- 56:35well, you can go bar for bar with Chris. The Autumn Wind is a
- 56:39Raider. He fights you and throws you down
- 56:43and beats the fuck out of your family. Yeah, that classic
- 56:47NFL Films line. The Autumn Wind
- 56:51is a pirate. Uh, if you have not heard about the Good Good
- 56:54Golf and, uh, Callaway— boy,
- 56:58I didn't hear of it until you told me about it— ad controversy.
- 57:03Fuck me. The very brief CliffsNotes
- 57:07version for everybody— go look this up— but I want to talk
- 57:12about a very specific angle of it. Good Good Golf, a a brand,
- 57:17white dudes who are making videos, made a video as
- 57:21an ad in an ad campaign with Callaway Golf.
- 57:25In the— this was approved by fact-check, looked through,
- 57:29put out by Callaway Golf and Good Good Golf. It all went through all the
- 57:33proper channels, went out. It was a video that depicted a man assaulting
- 57:39a woman on a golf course for taking his golf club. So allow me
- 57:43to give you the full, like, transaction that takes place on
- 57:46screen. It's very short. It's very short. And by the way, I also saw the
- 57:50full video of this entire thing. Um, one,
- 57:55it just starts off as a slow video of a girl going over to a
- 57:57woman that is one of their golfers, apparently that's on Good Good, uh, goes and
- 58:01is slowly grabbing a driver out of a bag, a Callaway
- 58:05driver out of a bag for this Callaway Good Good collaboration for this
- 58:09new driver. The woman is grabbing the thing out and
- 58:12the guy sees it, freaks out and starts sprinting at her and shoulder blocks
- 58:17her to the ground. And what's weird is she legitimately like leaves out
- 58:20like a painful gasp and looks like in pain on the ground.
- 58:23Grabs the driver and said, don't you ever grab my driver.
- 58:27And then he walks away. He just does domestic violence. And this was apparently
- 58:33funny. On what fucking planet
- 58:37was this funny? That being said, that is the fucking full video of
- 58:41where this controversy had— Tanya, take it away. So everybody
- 58:45reacted the way, of course, you'd react when someone puts out a
- 58:48domestic violence, like assault on a woman video
- 58:52to sell a golf club. Didn't go over well. No. All of
- 58:56the ensuing half-ass bullshit fake apologies go
- 58:59back and forth. They say Good Good does a non-apology
- 59:04apology. Callaway does a, we don't know how this happened.
- 59:07We didn't actually see it, but our other team did. But I didn't personally
- 59:11see it as the CEO, whatever. They go back and forth. Good Good ends
- 59:15up then throwing more shade back at Callaway.
- 59:19Then they pull— Good Good pulls their like
- 59:23support of the PGA Tour out. They were, they were sponsoring it. They're no longer
- 59:27sponsoring it because the PGA doesn't want to be involved with them. The whole deal.
- 59:31Galloway themselves, they've taken a stock hit, the whole thing.
- 59:34So they— we are 9 fucking apologies
- 59:38and/or explanations and/or blaming each other into
- 59:41this after a week of this. Okay, you can go look up the
- 59:45timeline. You'll be bored by it. The more important thing that needs to be discussed
- 59:49is that when I saw this ad, as soon as it
- 59:52went viral, the first thing,
- 59:55the very first thing I posted on the internet was This
- 59:59was completely intentional. Oh yeah, this is—
- 1:00:03this did not slip under the radar. Nobody didn't know
- 1:00:07that this was going to— like, of course you're do— you're literally physically assaulting
- 1:00:11a woman in a, in a golf ad. Like, this was not a surprise.
- 1:00:16This was not our jeans are good where like there could even
- 1:00:19be an argument, which by the way was barely an argument.
- 1:00:22Barely. This was— you're clearly— you literally
- 1:00:27hit a woman and she cried out and you yelled
- 1:00:31at her while she was on the ground for touching your golf— for touching your
- 1:00:35golf club. So nothing about
- 1:00:39this was accidentally misconstrued. Not at all. So my first thought
- 1:00:43was the reason that they did it was because sometimes you get the reverberation
- 1:00:47of the reaction to the misogyny, which is
- 1:00:51doubling down on the misogyny. Yep. And so
- 1:00:54I'm pissed about all the libs and women who are pissed
- 1:00:59about this whole thing makes misogynists
- 1:01:02more loyal to your brand. And your brand is already a
- 1:01:06ton of misogynist golfers to begin with. And boom, bing, bang, boom,
- 1:01:09right? Yeah. There's something else at play here
- 1:01:12that I would like you to know about. I want to hear. Okay,
- 1:01:16so Callaway
- 1:01:21Golf is currently in the middle of a stock buyback.
- 1:01:26They've been— they sold off their stakes in Topgolf. Oh,
- 1:01:29because Topgolf, by the way, is going under. Yeah, so they sold off their stakes
- 1:01:34in Topgolf, and what they— the whole thing, to make everything quite simple,
- 1:01:38is that for the last few months they have been in the
- 1:01:41middle of buying back a ton of their own stock.
- 1:01:48And one way, while you're profiting,
- 1:01:51you've made some money off of selling off of your, your Topgolf, you know,
- 1:01:55ownership, all that stuff to make a good sort
- 1:02:00of deal on buying back your own stock while
- 1:02:03you're in the middle of that. By the way, they still have like a
- 1:02:07shit ton of shares to buy back. I don't know,
- 1:02:10is to tank your stock. Do I
- 1:02:14think it's an accident that they did something so
- 1:02:18fucking egregious, so stupid, and they got
- 1:02:21some dumbasses to do it for them that they could disavow?
- 1:02:26Do I think it's an accident that they did that, then their stock
- 1:02:31tanked in the middle of a stock buyback?
- 1:02:34I do fucking not think so. Think that, Cody? I'm just gonna pose you
- 1:02:39the question. Feel free to weigh in.
- 1:02:45If you believe in coincidences at this point in your life,
- 1:02:50fucking slap yourself in the fucking face. None of things
- 1:02:54are a coincidence. Anytime you're dealing with billions of dollars,
- 1:02:58nothing is a coincidence. If you think it's a coincidence,
- 1:03:02then congratulations, you're a dumb fuck. That is exactly what
- 1:03:06those billionaires want you to be. I didn't
- 1:03:10know about the stock buyback portion of this conversation. Yeah, they have
- 1:03:14approximately $120 million remaining under the current repurchase authorization.
- 1:03:19You know what really pisses me off about this? Any other year, the FCC would
- 1:03:21flag this and a lot of people would go to jail. Unfortunately, due to certain
- 1:03:25regimes that's currently in the White House, that won't be the case. Um, they will
- 1:03:28be allowed to buy back all their stock. The company was also in substantial
- 1:03:32debt, which is why they were selling off Topgolf. Well, it's really lovely that they're
- 1:03:35gonna be able to buy back their stock at a fraction of the price because
- 1:03:37of their own tanking of it, but they got a bunch of unwitting dipshits to
- 1:03:40fucking do it. By unwitting, unfunny, untalented dipshits, I might add.
- 1:03:43Go ahead and watch the video. Fucking not an actor in the bunch. And also,
- 1:03:46based on their fucking swings, not a goddamn golfer in the bunch either. The fuck
- 1:03:50even is this? They should have let that woman golf. She was clearly— she's clearly
- 1:03:53the only one of you that has Shred of fucking talent. I actually believe she
- 1:03:57was hurt when she hit the ground. Yeah, you guys are fucking pathetic. And by
- 1:04:00the way, the CEO of Good Good, I have no fucking idea who you are,
- 1:04:03who apparently got drunk and went on Twitter and started saying, well, I'm gonna sue.
- 1:04:05Yeah, well, they set us up to fail. Maybe they did, but you're a stupid
- 1:04:08fuck that made that video and thought it was funny. You thought that shit was
- 1:04:11funny. That's the beautiful thing about this, is there's no— there's no good guy.
- 1:04:15Yeah, everyone's a bad guy. They used your asses. I hope you all fucking eat
- 1:04:18each other, you stupid fucks. They used your asses because they knew you were stupid
- 1:04:22misogynists who aren't funny. You are a like, oh my God,
- 1:04:26they're— I— they are corporate villains and you're wannabe
- 1:04:30fucking idiots. Like, they have a champagne room
- 1:04:33literally of 90 people who are like, what can
- 1:04:37we do to fucking get our stock back? Well, I have an idea. You know
- 1:04:40those stupid fucks on YouTube? I'm listening.
- 1:04:44That's exactly how this shit happens. And I don't know what else to tell you.
- 1:04:48The fact that you guys made this video to begin with,
- 1:04:51Let's just start there. You're so fucking stupid, talentless, and fuck you.
- 1:04:55Uh, second, defending it. You're so fucking stupid and talentless
- 1:04:58and fuck you. The people online that are immediately fucking
- 1:05:02defending it, you are so fucking worthless and stupid
- 1:05:06and fuck you. I just— it once again goes in the whole Venn
- 1:05:10diagram of the amount of people that justify fucking domestic
- 1:05:14violence and hate trans people and want to, uh,
- 1:05:17train and want to protect women. Weirdly are all in the same—
- 1:05:20there is no Venn diagram. It's a fucking circle and
- 1:05:24you dipshits are fucking in it. That's it. I, I, I— and
- 1:05:28you know what, there's not a single person that looked at that video and smiled
- 1:05:32that just doesn't hate their wife. That's just what it is. You golf
- 1:05:36to get away from your wife. I'm sorry your life is miserable. You know why
- 1:05:37I golf? I golf because it's fun. I golf because
- 1:05:41I find it therapeutic. I golf because it's a good way for me to get
- 1:05:44on a green field for a couple hours walk a couple of miles, play a
- 1:05:48challenging game, and smoke a shit ton of weed. That's why I golf.
- 1:05:52You guys golf because you're miserable little misogynistic little bitches.
- 1:05:56And that's what you are. Good, good little bitches. Good,
- 1:06:00good little bitches. The best part about this is that, like, it's just
- 1:06:04another reminder that corporations don't— their politics lie with
- 1:06:08how they can make money. So you thought you were in bed
- 1:06:11with Callaway Golf. Some good old boy. We're in
- 1:06:15with the good old boy. We're part of the club. We're gonna be a part
- 1:06:18of the country club. And what happened was they saw the opportunity
- 1:06:22to pit a specific group of people who give a fuck
- 1:06:26about women and a specific group of people who are misogynists
- 1:06:31against each other because they don't have any values.
- 1:06:34They're corporations. They don't care. They don't think you're
- 1:06:38cute and cool because you're MAGA. And they don't give a fuck about us because
- 1:06:42they obviously don't like women or liberals. They don't like any
- 1:06:45of us. We are all the butt of the joke. Women were the butt of
- 1:06:49the joke. Golfers were the butt of the joke. And your pathetic fucking
- 1:06:54channel and brand was the butt of the joke. So all the people that you
- 1:06:58politically disagree with, who you thought would be triggered by your little— oh, all the
- 1:07:02woke libs are going to be triggered by our— no, you're just a bitch.
- 1:07:04No, you were just used. Yeah, you thought— you
- 1:07:08thought you were doing something cute for a big corporation that was going to
- 1:07:12back you. They used your asses, and we're all the butt
- 1:07:16of their joke so that they can save their fucking company and then go,
- 1:07:20go out and celebrate, pop the champagne, and laugh
- 1:07:24at you and the rest of us. You're not in the— you're a fucking joke.
- 1:07:28Listen, good, good. You're not in the fucking club. You're not in it. You're never
- 1:07:32gonna be in it. You are in this world, in this world that you thought
- 1:07:36you guys were fucking rubbing shoulders with, you stupid fucks. You're their
- 1:07:40caddy. You're their disposable fucking caddy. That's all
- 1:07:44you are. Go back and make your fucking cute little YouTube videos, you dumb twats.
- 1:07:48These people are so self-important, and it's like unbelievable. You like— imagine
- 1:07:52you could not— if any company ever said—
- 1:07:56because you know, you just know that they sort of like side somehow suggested that
- 1:08:00they like incepted them to make that video without putting
- 1:08:04it in writing, right? I'd be like, why do you think they want
- 1:08:08us to get fucked? Like, why do you think they want us to get in
- 1:08:10trouble? No, you're too dumb. You guys are so fucking dumb. But don't worry,
- 1:08:13you got a couple of drivers with the word good on it, so I hope
- 1:08:17it was all worth it. Good, good, good, good. Oh, you fucking idiots.
- 1:08:21We are, uh, we're gonna move on from the
- 1:08:25misogyny and we're gonna debut a new segment. I love that. The new segment
- 1:08:29is called Let Me Ask You Something. I love that. And that is me asking
- 1:08:32you something, Cody, because You sometimes
- 1:08:37can give me insight into things I don't understand. This is fun
- 1:08:41fact, I was a professional athlete. Not a great one, but one regardless.
- 1:08:46And I do have a lot of insight and stories. And I've hung out with
- 1:08:49a lot of professional athletes at work, and we've had— and I've worked with them
- 1:08:53for years, and I have all these great stories. And I like to collect these
- 1:08:55stories. I like to collect these insights into things. I find it super
- 1:08:59fascinating, and it's made me a much better sports analyst. Um, it's also
- 1:09:03been able to help me spot the, the bullshit artists from
- 1:09:07the people who really have the integrity, right? So I, I have a ton
- 1:09:12of experience sort of collecting the stories about professional athletes over the
- 1:09:15years, and I would like to add you to the tapestry. So thank you.
- 1:09:18I'm going to play— thank you.
- 1:09:22I'm gonna play you guys
- 1:09:26a clip. And it's going to be— well, I'm not going to play it.
- 1:09:28Obviously, Mocha is going to play it. But I would like to show you this
- 1:09:32clip from Andrew Whitworth's podcast with Ryan Fitzpatrick,
- 1:09:35the aforementioned— 2 for 2 today. I think it's called Fitz and Whit is the
- 1:09:39podcast. And he tells this story to Ryan Fitzpatrick.
- 1:09:43I want everybody to listen to it and then we will circle back around and
- 1:09:47ask you a question. So, Mocha, go ahead and play that clip.
- 1:09:51On to Cincinnati game. We're on to Cincinnati.
- 1:09:54Patriots go to Kansas City, get their faces peeled off,
- 1:09:57and Bill Belichick famously, the press conference, on to Cincinnati.
- 1:10:01That time I think we were 3-0. We had just come off a bye week.
- 1:10:04That was supposed to be the big showdown, us and the Patriots in New England,
- 1:10:08both undefeated. They get absolutely pounded in Kansas City.
- 1:10:11He does the on to Cincinnati, and I'll never forget it. The opening drive,
- 1:10:16that stadium, that energy. There's games where you just know.
- 1:10:20You get into the first series of the game and you go, uh-oh, like it's
- 1:10:24one of those days. How our game started and how loud it was offensively,
- 1:10:28and then when they had the ball with that opening drive and freaking just
- 1:10:32methodically, the Brady, you know, just— and then they score
- 1:10:35and Tom runs in the end zone, hits the fist pump, an LFG.
- 1:10:39He hits the LFG, the entire stadium is chanting Brady.
- 1:10:44Brady! Brady! You're sitting on the bench
- 1:10:47like, we're about to get this ball back. And there's zero chance we're
- 1:10:51winning this game. That's how it felt like, because that place that night,
- 1:10:55I'll never forget it. Played in the infamous On to
- 1:10:58Cincinnati. So obviously I watched the whole thing.
- 1:11:02This is an iconic moment in my sports fandom. Yes, indeed.
- 1:11:06And this is something I've talked to people many,
- 1:11:09many times over the years about. I've talked to coaches, I've talked to GMs,
- 1:11:12I've talked to players, a lot of players about this. Is this
- 1:11:17idea that Whitworth is talking about there, where like sometimes no matter
- 1:11:21how prepared you are, no matter how good your, your team is, no matter
- 1:11:24how ready you feel like in a moment or where
- 1:11:28you're at, yeah, there is an energy, a vibe,
- 1:11:32a specific— like we call it in, in sports
- 1:11:37fandom and in sports, we, we call this thing like there's just a,
- 1:11:40there's a momentum, there's an energy to it that you can't you cannot explain.
- 1:11:45There's— this exists all over sports. Yeah, it exists with,
- 1:11:48you know, I mean, specifically in baseball,
- 1:11:51players going through hitting droughts, getting the yips, whatever else,
- 1:11:54right? There's all these little things that are like very
- 1:11:58woo-woo if you really break it down. Yeah,
- 1:12:01whatever. This idea that these
- 1:12:05little— that these, that these moments that people experience
- 1:12:09in a game where you know, you're outmatched,
- 1:12:13not necessarily in talent or on paper, but just because
- 1:12:17of a moment. Have you ever experienced something
- 1:12:21like that? And do you think if you haven't, do you think it's real?
- 1:12:25I have. And it's real. Okay. There is,
- 1:12:30there is. So I'm going to give you a story. I didn't
- 1:12:34play for him at the time. A guy named Tim Leary. Tim Leary was the
- 1:12:37pitching coach at UCLA. He's a UCLA kind of legend. He was a major leaguer,
- 1:12:39won a World Series in Los Angeles in '88. Actually won 17
- 1:12:43games in 1988 for the Los Angeles Dodgers. No one
- 1:12:47ever brings him up because Orel Hershiser threw 50, like, fucking 7 scoreless innings in
- 1:12:51a row. Um, but Tim Leary was an amazing pitcher, and he was the pitching
- 1:12:54coach at UCLA, and he always had a pitching plan. And I
- 1:12:58remember, uh, Gary Adams, who was the legendary head coach there of like 40 years,
- 1:13:02anytime things didn't go according to Tim Leary's
- 1:13:06pitching plan, he would come up to Gary in around the 5th or 6th
- 1:13:10inning because he knew and the vibe, he felt it. And he walked up to
- 1:13:13him and he would say to him, like, lean in. And Gary told me this
- 1:13:15story along with 3 other people. Gary comes up and he's like, you gotta—
- 1:13:18he would lean in. And I knew we were gonna lose any time that Tim
- 1:13:21would lean in and say, Gary, we're fucked.
- 1:13:26There is times when you just know you're fucked.
- 1:13:29But have you ever known before, like, as the game starts?
- 1:13:33Yes. Yeah. Okay. Yes. You have to understand, when you go into hostile territory
- 1:13:37and you're playing with guys that— and it could be a combination of anything.
- 1:13:40Sure. It literally could be anything. It could be you see it in one guy's
- 1:13:44face, you hear something that just goes like, there is just something
- 1:13:48in the vibes. It is woo-woo. It is magical, if you want to put it
- 1:13:52that way. I think it's one of the coolest things about sports is that we
- 1:13:55all know what it means, but we can't explain
- 1:13:59it. Can I make it realistic? Like, can I just try to make it as
- 1:14:02close to humanly— well, you don't want to take the magic out
- 1:14:06of it. Do you know when you just have a fucking day when
- 1:14:10you just— you can't put your finger on it? Yeah, you're— there's something
- 1:14:14emotionally happening to you. Yeah, and it could be somebody said something,
- 1:14:17but that any other day wouldn't bother you. It could be that somebody
- 1:14:21cut you off on the road and any other day wouldn't fucking bother you,
- 1:14:24but for some reason the mathematical equation of your emotions
- 1:14:28somehow came to this peak. When it comes to teams,
- 1:14:31especially if you spend every day together, that shit is like—
- 1:14:35there, you can't quantify it, but it's very contagious. That emotional feeling,
- 1:14:39you know, people take on each other's emotions, right? It's almost like, it's almost like
- 1:14:43that old-fashioned joke, like, where people are saying like, oh, when women's periods
- 1:14:48synchronize. Yeah, it's the same fucking thing with emotions in a clubhouse
- 1:14:51and a dugout, in a, in a sideline, on on a field, on a court,
- 1:14:56when the vibe gets broken. Why leadership is such a big conversation about
- 1:15:00like— it's why veteran leadership is so important. It's the person who can tone set.
- 1:15:03When we say tone set, we almost act like it's like a, oh, it's a
- 1:15:06real tangible thing. No, tone setting is a thing. Very much a
- 1:15:10like, like enigmatic sort of just vibe. Yeah. Like, I'll give
- 1:15:14an example. I'll give a hockey example. Say you're setting the tone in hockey and
- 1:15:18you're going to start the whole fucking thing with a fight. If your guy that
- 1:15:20you always— that you get— that wins his fights gets his
- 1:15:23ass kicked, that's deflating to your
- 1:15:27team. Oh shit, even our tone setter
- 1:15:31can't do it. And by the way, the same thing can happen if, you know,
- 1:15:34like there will be— their enforcer might go after your best player start
- 1:15:38of the game. That's setting a tone. And how you respond to it is too.
- 1:15:41I think that like, you know, obviously one of the
- 1:15:45most accomplished feared duos
- 1:15:49in sports being like, you know, across— splashed
- 1:15:54across national headlines and entering a game is probably going to strike
- 1:15:58a little bit of fear into a team. But I think it's really fascinating
- 1:16:02to hear a player explain what it feels like to be on the other side
- 1:16:05of it, because clearly this wasn't a situation where Andrew Whitworth and the
- 1:16:09Bengals were like, oh fuck, we got to go up against— they were
- 1:16:13excited. They're like, we're going in. They're ready. We're ready for it. Yeah, they're asking
- 1:16:16whatever. On to Cincinnati. We're on to Cincinnati happens,
- 1:16:20and they're like, okay, well, they're on to Cincinnati, true. And then across the
- 1:16:24course of the time, things start getting like a little bit more amped, a little—
- 1:16:27it's pretty clear there's like something in the fuck, there's something brewing.
- 1:16:32Yeah, right. That changed the whole dynamic
- 1:16:36entering the game. Yeah. And to me, like, someone comes
- 1:16:40into your house, or someone you come in and, and they can start dominating,
- 1:16:45you know, you come into theirs and they can start dominating you mentally. Is it—
- 1:16:49they— people act like it's lore,
- 1:16:53right? It's just lore. But when you've experienced it or when you've
- 1:16:56experienced being in the zone, you know that feeling when you're, you know,
- 1:17:00you're playing and you're just like, it's a— it almost feels like you're out of
- 1:17:03your body. I'll give you an example, like a real example that I actually did
- 1:17:05feel. So when I was called up to the big leagues,
- 1:17:09I was playing for the San Diego Padres in 2015. Now on paper, the San
- 1:17:12Diego Padres had a really good team, like a really good team. Like it had
- 1:17:16like Matt Kemp was there, BJ Upton was there, Justin Upton was there, Josh Johnson
- 1:17:20was there. Fuck yeah. All the cutest players in the history of the league.
- 1:17:22Craig Kimbrel was there. Like we had— Craig Kimbrel, the hottest. This was a team
- 1:17:26that on paper should win, but the personalities were not
- 1:17:30gelling. And it turned out when I got up there, everyone fucking
- 1:17:34hated each other. It was the most toxic clubhouse I've ever been in. And I
- 1:17:38remember going out to the field with this team and it just— I—
- 1:17:42everyone was miserable to the point where I should be excited.
- 1:17:46It's my first time being called up after grinding for years. I was miserable.
- 1:17:50This was miserable. See, this— what you're describing sounds like a normal
- 1:17:53experience. No, no, I am. But like, but I'm trying to say how,
- 1:17:57how everything can affect you. And then I remember one
- 1:18:01time things started like kind of like looking up. And I was like, okay,
- 1:18:05things are gonna get better now. And we're going to Dodger Stadium, and I find
- 1:18:08out I get to start at Dodger Stadium. And I'll never forget it, which is
- 1:18:11amazing because you're from Los Angeles. I'm from Los Angeles. I, I, it's my one—
- 1:18:14it's, by the way, it's the only time I ever got to start a big
- 1:18:16league game. Yeah, it happened to be in LA at Dodger Stadium, which is so
- 1:18:18fucking cool. Very, very cool. Um, but I'll never forget it.
- 1:18:21Um, I remember getting on the field, and I remember the first
- 1:18:26pitch happened, and I, and I just remember that pitch happened, and I
- 1:18:30looked at the field And I just looked at the body language of everybody on
- 1:18:33that field. I looked at Jed Jerko at short, who was a very solid baseball
- 1:18:37player, and he just— it wasn't his fault, by the
- 1:18:41way. I'm not singling out Jed. It was everybody. But I remember looking at Jed
- 1:18:44and going, looking at Jed and going like, man, he doesn't look comfortable.
- 1:18:48And I'm playing first base and I look at our pitcher and it was Casey
- 1:18:51Kelly, who's a fucking phenomenal pitcher. I was like, he doesn't look comfortable.
- 1:18:55And I just look around and just everyone just looks like it's the
- 1:18:59first inning of the first pitch. Was the Dodgers like intimidating to you guys at
- 1:19:01that point? Or— it wasn't that they were intimidating, it was just we're at a
- 1:19:05packed Dodger Stadium. Yeah. They look like they're having so much fun.
- 1:19:10Yeah. We are here for them
- 1:19:14to have so much fun. Yeah. And it almost felt like by
- 1:19:17the third inning our team was fodder for these fans to watch
- 1:19:22their heroes beat up on us. Yeah. And I'm just like, there is there was
- 1:19:26just— we're— we cannot win this game.
- 1:19:29There's no universe we can win this game. Yeah, yeah. And we
- 1:19:33did not win that game. Yeah, I, I just— and it was just
- 1:19:38like the— there's a vibe you cannot quantify.
- 1:19:41It is so real. And when you're in a hostile— that wasn't a good Padres
- 1:19:45team you were on, right? It wasn't. Yeah, but on paper it absolutely was.
- 1:19:48Sure. Like, on paper, Chad Jerko was a phenomenal player.
- 1:19:52This team was fucking phenomenal. But like, you couldn't get
- 1:19:56the— what you needed. But when we go up there against this insurmountable
- 1:20:00hill that is this Los Angeles Dodgers team, yeah, and the vibes are— and
- 1:20:04we're at Dodger Stadium, and trust me, when you're at Dodger Stadium and the Dodgers
- 1:20:07are playing well, boy oh boy, it's like you just— you just
- 1:20:11walked into a place where you're not just an enemy. We practically— it
- 1:20:15was like we weren't even looked at like we were fucking existing. They were
- 1:20:19like, whatever. Exactly. It was just— there was something about it where like, we just
- 1:20:22kind of looked— you guys are the Bengals. We're about to get our asses fucking
- 1:20:24handed to us. You were the Bengals going up against the Patriots. We got our
- 1:20:28asses handed to us. It was just— listen, there— I wish there was another way
- 1:20:31that I can really say it, but dude, it's so real, you know? Like,
- 1:20:34I mean, I understand the concept, and I think that like it's really cool to
- 1:20:37be able to collect these stories and collect the, the realities of what
- 1:20:42it's like to be in those moments. Some of us have been athletes when we
- 1:20:45were younger and we haven't done it professionally, but I think everybody who's ever been
- 1:20:48like an athlete, a really competitive athlete in any way, shape, or perform, like understands
- 1:20:52that feeling of when you're just like in the zone and what it feels like
- 1:20:56to be on the other side of a team being in the zone. And I,
- 1:20:59I think that that thing, the feeling— like my dream is
- 1:21:03to interview or talk to people
- 1:21:07who are on the other side of massive upsets, when you're the people— what,
- 1:21:10like what it feels like, what's happening to you when you
- 1:21:14are the Falcons in 2017. May I give you the opposite
- 1:21:17example. Sure. I've also been a part of the opposite example. Yeah, I was a
- 1:21:21part of a team once that was so shit on,
- 1:21:25so underappreciated, so fucking dismissed
- 1:21:29that we fucking took the world
- 1:21:33by storm. Nothing to lose. I— and this was in 2017, Team Israel
- 1:21:37in the World Baseball Classic. We went into this tournament in Korea, we were
- 1:21:41250-to-1 odds to even like get out of the first round.
- 1:21:45ESPN wrote an article describing us as has-beens and never-was.
- 1:21:49And we're sitting around looking at each other in that clubhouse. And this is a
- 1:21:53very tight-knit team, by the way. Pro-Palestine over here, just to
- 1:21:56make everyone clear. Me too, by the way. Yeah. No, I said that for
- 1:22:00us. Yeah. This show, make no mistake. Yeah. I played for Team Israel.
- 1:22:04This was a different time in 2017. Incredibly important to say these days. Yeah.
- 1:22:07I want to make this abundantly clear. This was 2017. Very different time. Very,
- 1:22:10very educated team. We got the opportunity to take a phone call from Netanyahu and
- 1:22:14we all said, fuck no. Yeah, that was 2017.
- 1:22:18Netanyahu to fuck himself. Yeah. So we're clear. They asked us if we wanted to
- 1:22:21and the 4 of us that were the leaders of the team said, yeah,
- 1:22:24sure, put him on the phone. We're going to fucking yell at him. Go ahead
- 1:22:26and do it. Anyways, we didn't take the phone call. Yeah. Which, by the way,
- 1:22:29people that go to the White House, you can make that choice. So you can
- 1:22:33make that choice. It's not that hard. It wasn't that fucking big a deal.
- 1:22:35Just fucking didn't do it. Fucking— there you go. Anyway, never, never has-beens.
- 1:22:39Never has-beens. So we went in this tournament going like, these motherfuckers
- 1:22:42don't seem to understand who these players are. This wasn't like—
- 1:22:47we weren't just a bunch of Jewish ballplayers. We were a bunch of downtrodden guys
- 1:22:50who have been shit on our entire careers that knew how good we were.
- 1:22:54And we're like— I remember for warmups before
- 1:22:58we took the field, I— there's a video of me laughing
- 1:23:01as I'm running out of the dugout when we're about to take on Korea.
- 1:23:04The first game in the whole tournament. We are so not favored
- 1:23:08in this at all in this first matchup at Korea versus Korea. And I remember
- 1:23:12Tecto Field yelling, they don't know what's coming.
- 1:23:15They don't know what's coming. You were like,
- 1:23:19you know, that iconic scene in the, in the 30 for 30 about the 2004
- 1:23:23Red Sox with Kevin Millar where he said, don't let us win this game.
- 1:23:27Don't let us win this game. Don't let— you got a problem. We got Petey
- 1:23:31Game 5, and he was fucking right. That exact same thing.
- 1:23:34I'm like, they don't know what's coming. I fucking know what's
- 1:23:38coming. And then I'll never forget it afterwards. Like, God, I can't believe it.
- 1:23:42This was such a shock because not only did we beat them, then we went
- 1:23:45on and beat Chinese Taipei. Then we fucked up the Netherlands, who was a
- 1:23:49powerhouse. Yeah. Then we go to fucking Japan,
- 1:23:52and then we beat Cuba, who was a powerhouse. It was— and then they started
- 1:23:55changing the narrative. Well, you guys are just the United States B team.
- 1:23:59The fuck? You're like, honestly, that's— that,
- 1:24:03that turned into a compliment real quick. Wow. We went from nobodies
- 1:24:07to the fucking USA B team. Hell yeah. You guys fucking
- 1:24:11don't seem to get it. We were just— we were so pissed off at
- 1:24:15the disrespect towards us and our careers. And there was a shit ton of chemistry.
- 1:24:19And everyone on that team looked at each other and like, yeah, you're fucking great.
- 1:24:22You're fucking great. You're fucking great. And all of us never got the opportunity
- 1:24:26we fucking deserved, and we took a fucking bite out of all of their asses.
- 1:24:30And I think that that's a big part of the whole thing, is just like
- 1:24:33the energy that can be exchanged from people who,
- 1:24:37with a shared goal— just wish I were a different country on my chest— the
- 1:24:40shared— exactly. But like, you know, at the end
- 1:24:43of the day, I was proud of it at the time. Yeah, and you should
- 1:24:46be. And, and you have more than done your part
- 1:24:50in being the kind of person who should
- 1:24:54be representing Jewish Americans. Like, you're an amazing representative. I can't stress this enough.
- 1:24:57Like, I support Jews, period, stop. And that's actually— I'm
- 1:25:01not to get down this road because this is a very testy road these days,
- 1:25:06but I truly want to make this abundantly clear. I'm a proud Jew,
- 1:25:09full-life Jew, played for Israel, went to
- 1:25:12Israel, represented Israel. Um, those of
- 1:25:16you that think that, um, a government
- 1:25:20regime and Judaism is the same thing. And I'm
- 1:25:24talking mostly about Jews in this scenario. By the way, that people think that because
- 1:25:28Netanyahu says it, that makes me truly sick. Now,
- 1:25:31they— everybody should know better by now. And antisemitism is insane.
- 1:25:35But that's the problem. That is a big problem. Repeatedly tries
- 1:25:40to make that correlation. And it's not the same. I'm sorry. Like,
- 1:25:43you don't get to have that both ways. You don't get to equate a
- 1:25:47religious background, or more importantly for me, 'cause being Jewish has nothing
- 1:25:50to do with religion. I'm an atheist. Being Jewish that I am
- 1:25:54proud of is more of my heritage and what my family and my family's
- 1:25:58family and other families have endured, survived,
- 1:26:02and we are survivors. And that's why, and frankly,
- 1:26:05because of my Jewish heritage and because of how I see
- 1:26:09my Judaism and Jewish heritage, heritage is why I'm
- 1:26:13very pro-Palestine, right? Yeah, exactly. And that's—
- 1:26:16I mean, that's how every one of my friends feels. I firmly believe
- 1:26:20that life should be preserved and uplifted,
- 1:26:24and apparently others do not see the same way as me.
- 1:26:27Yeah, but you know what, like, there— everybody
- 1:26:30has been through their moments where they were challenged to stand on their
- 1:26:34principles, and you did it, and you played great baseball while you were at it.
- 1:26:37So I fucking love that for you too. And I, I just, I think the
- 1:26:41most beautiful thing in the world is that a collective energy can happen around,
- 1:26:46around a sports moment, whether it's the actual team, whether it's the fans,
- 1:26:50whether it's— yeah, whether it's the, the way the teammates are relating to each other,
- 1:26:53whether you're feeding off of the crowd. It's real. It feels
- 1:26:57as real as anything I have ever experienced. And I love
- 1:27:00to hear athletes talk about it. It might be my favorite thing to talk to,
- 1:27:04to athletes about. I experienced it only a little bit myself when I
- 1:27:07played sports when I was younger, but I definitely like— I think it's the one
- 1:27:10thing that I miss the most about any doing anything competitive is
- 1:27:13just like there's some little zone you tap into, you know?
- 1:27:17No, no, that's— and I tell people all the time when they ask me,
- 1:27:20do you miss it? Do you miss it? Yeah. No, I don't miss playing at
- 1:27:24all. You know what I miss? I miss the clubhouse. Yeah. I miss the guys.
- 1:27:26I miss that energy when— because those moments, like, I'll tell
- 1:27:30you this, that WBC that WBC, the— those moments
- 1:27:34that were great in that 2017 WBC will
- 1:27:38never be matched in any other sports thing I think that I've ever had,
- 1:27:42ever, maybe ever again, which is perfect. And by the way, a lot of people
- 1:27:45who, who play for a national team or in an international competition
- 1:27:49say the same thing. There's something different about those competitions. It's not— it's, it's,
- 1:27:52it, it gives you a different vibe. There is that. But I,
- 1:27:56I gotta tell you that as much as I was very proud to represent
- 1:27:59people, right, there was something about that group of guys. No, it's the guy—
- 1:28:03that's what I mean. Yeah, it's like, it's the people, like that vibe you get
- 1:28:06with each other because you have a shared goal in a way that's not,
- 1:28:09hey, these people are paying us. Yeah, no, there was— right, there was something really
- 1:28:13special about that group of guys. Yeah. And also, just side note, because I always
- 1:28:16tell, tell everybody this, uh, athletes for the most part, as you know,
- 1:28:20not the brightest. And, and they're just not. They're— they're—
- 1:28:23I don't think they're the stupidest people. I don't think they're the stupidest either.
- 1:28:26But like, I've in baseball specifically, not a whole lot of smart people.
- 1:28:30Um, this was the smartest assembled baseball team.
- 1:28:34Okay, ever assembled. No, no, no, ever assembled. Got it.
- 1:28:38Ever assembled. Well, you were on it, you know. It wasn't
- 1:28:42just me. It was, it was, it was Ryan LeVar Way,
- 1:28:45Yale. It was, it was Nate— Red Sox great Ryan LeVar
- 1:28:50Way. It was Nate Fryman, Duke. It was, it was Craig Breslow,
- 1:28:54Harvard. Well, that's a bunch of fucking NBA players. Yeah, it was, it was,
- 1:28:58it was me, UCLA. You just described the NBA. Hold on, I'm not done.
- 1:29:01There's— we got some more. There was, uh, hold on, there was what,
- 1:29:05uh, uh, who, who played at Stanford? It'll come to me.
- 1:29:08Stanford, one of our pitchers who I fucking love. It'll come to me.
- 1:29:12Oh man. Uh, but it was, uh, you know, Sammy Fold. It was classic
- 1:29:16Sammy Fold. It was a fuck— it was got like an MBA in business,
- 1:29:19like It was just— what a fucking team. Like, what a group of not
- 1:29:23just ballplayers, what a group of people that I, I would— I was really proud
- 1:29:28to be associated with. Those guys on the field, I will, I will always
- 1:29:32cherish that. Yeah. And I think that those are the— I
- 1:29:35think those little moments of glory are the things that we hold
- 1:29:39on to later on when we kind of lose that feeling of being tied
- 1:29:43into a collective goal. And I I— we talk so
- 1:29:47much about the bullshit in sports, but like, there are really beautiful things that
- 1:29:51I love about sports. And it's not just results, and it's not just like analysis.
- 1:29:55There's a thing that happens, which is a thing, and people— we
- 1:29:59don't ever just like sit in it. And I just like— these
- 1:30:03little stories tap me into being a fan. They tap me into being somebody who
- 1:30:06loves sports, getting to watch people talk about
- 1:30:10this stuff. Yeah, this was about my team, but I'm telling you, I'm like this
- 1:30:14with everything. It doesn't have to be about my team. Yeah, it just happened to
- 1:30:16be. It came across my thing. But like, I fucking love that stuff. I watched
- 1:30:20the— I've watched the Dallas Cowboys documentaries from the '90s
- 1:30:24and the stuff they were overcoming and the shit show that they were dealing with
- 1:30:26and their relationships with each other. Like, I find it so fascinating. Why do you
- 1:30:30say that? Did you know that they made a documentary about our thing? Yeah,
- 1:30:33you did tell me. So you're saying it's actually— I would suggest watch it because
- 1:30:36it's actually a really good documentary. But here's the thing about it. The documentary that
- 1:30:40they were trying to tell was like— and they really wanted
- 1:30:44this to be the thing. They wanted it to be like, we're gall-finding our
- 1:30:47Jewish, like,
- 1:30:51faith. I think they were trying to get to baseball, and none
- 1:30:56of us got that. But what the story turned into— and I remember we
- 1:31:00were in Japan and I looked at the director, I'm like, you're welcome. He's like,
- 1:31:02what? We just gave you an actual watchable documentary. Yeah,
- 1:31:05because the documentary turns into this fucking underdog baseball
- 1:31:09story. I love that. That is so much better than what the story they were
- 1:31:12trying to tell was. Well, wait, where can we watch the documentary? I have no
- 1:31:15idea. It's called Heading Home: The Tale of Team Israel. You can't just throw it
- 1:31:18out there. What if we had to pay for it? It might be on— last
- 1:31:21I checked, it was on Prime. Tubi, maybe? Oh,
- 1:31:25actually, it was. It was on Tubi. Okay, check it out. Fine, fine. It's actually
- 1:31:28really— I'm telling you, it's actually really, really good. It'll surprise you how good
- 1:31:32it is. Okay. And there's even a moment in this thing that I— it's my
- 1:31:36favorite part of the entire documentary because when we were in Israel, we met Cody,
- 1:31:40had hair. Guys, don't freak out. I did have hair and I didn't have a
- 1:31:43beard during this time. It's a whole different person. It's scary. You're not going to
- 1:31:46like it. But I will say we were in Israel and I remember we were
- 1:31:50met. We were speaking to a Palestinian guy. We were talking. We were having this
- 1:31:52great conversation and we asked him, hey, would you support us? And he— in
- 1:31:56this tournament, he's like— and he was very kind. He's like, I'm not going to
- 1:32:00lie to you. It's very hard for me because of this and this. Just hearing
- 1:32:03him talk about it was just— yeah, it was the best moment of
- 1:32:06my time in Israel because it was a perspective from somebody who
- 1:32:10was so kind that was just being honest about their life,
- 1:32:15their— how their life and how they feel they're perceived in their own country
- 1:32:18that they're born and raised in. And I thought that was so important
- 1:32:22to get that perspective. And it's the only moment of the, of the thing that
- 1:32:26actually gives that perspective. And I wish this documentary that they allowed a Palestinian perspective
- 1:32:30into it? Uh, a really great director named Jeremy Neuberger.
- 1:32:34He is phenomenal. The 2 guys that directed this are great. I'm surprised.
- 1:32:38And now, by the way, we went to a lot of film festivals, and I
- 1:32:40remember this one time we were doing a Q&A and a woman tried to stand
- 1:32:44up. I have a question. I have wanted to say something about the, the Palestinian
- 1:32:48portion. And she started going on a soapbox, and I got on the microphone.
- 1:32:50That's enough. That's enough. And she's like, no, no, I think I— the fact— no,
- 1:32:53no, here's the fact. The fact is this is maybe the most pro-Jewish fucking
- 1:32:57movie that's ever existed. Knock your shit off, you're not a fucking victim.
- 1:33:00The only person in this movie that was a victim was this man, and not
- 1:33:04being willing to hear his perspective tells me a lot more about
- 1:33:07you than it does about Jews. And I actually got a nice
- 1:33:12ovation on that, and the director said, I can't believe how well you handled that.
- 1:33:14I'm like, yeah, where the fuck were you? I'm a fucking baseball player, you made
- 1:33:18a movie. Fucking defend it. Listen,
- 1:33:22I'm proud of you, I'm always proud of you. I'm so glad
- 1:33:25that people are learning a little bit more about not only your baseball career,
- 1:33:29but also, you know, the complexities of— well,
- 1:33:32but no, I mean, the complexities of being in,
- 1:33:35you know, being on a, a team like that and being proud of
- 1:33:39what you did and also being able to look back at it. Like, I don't
- 1:33:41think enough athletes are able to reflect on who they are as people,
- 1:33:45what their achievements are, and to give themselves credit and also say, yeah,
- 1:33:48there were also moments in that that I had to make difficult
- 1:33:52decisions. There was a couple of moments where we were used as political pawns,
- 1:33:56and I— but trust me, I will tell you those stories happily.
- 1:33:59Uh, like, it made me— the things they made us do made me fuck— there
- 1:34:02were 2 things they made us do that made me legitimately sick. And I think
- 1:34:05that, like, I think that at the end of the day, you know, like,
- 1:34:07there— anybody who watches our show is
- 1:34:11very clear on our values and very clear on
- 1:34:15the things that matter the most to us, and You
- 1:34:19know, the com— how we get to be the people that we are today,
- 1:34:23how we get to that place, the things we look back on and think,
- 1:34:26damn, there's a bunch of shit I didn't know. Being honest
- 1:34:31about that is not— that's not a fucking knock on,
- 1:34:34on us beyond— it's only a knock if we didn't learn. It's only a
- 1:34:38knock if we didn't grow. It's only a knock if now,
- 1:34:42you know, you're, you're easily propagandized too, by whether
- 1:34:45it's by the American government. Oh God. Or the Israeli government or
- 1:34:49whoever, buddy. Like, you know, sure, are a
- 1:34:53bunch of Israelis propagandized? Absolutely. Yeah,
- 1:34:56so are we. Very. Oh God, yes. So are we.
- 1:34:59No question about it. We're all fighting the same uphill battle. We've all,
- 1:35:02as white people— I can't speak for non-white people,
- 1:35:06but as white people specifically, we've had our shit fucked
- 1:35:10up forever. Yeah, we're slowly but surely deconstructing over and over again. We're doing
- 1:35:14our very best to do to do that. Yeah. And I think that it's—
- 1:35:18I think it's one of the coolest things about your career that you're able to
- 1:35:21speak from a place of being able to say, actually, I did stand on principle
- 1:35:25before I even knew how bad things were. I stood on principle.
- 1:35:28And by the way, at the time, things weren't nearly that bad. Like, things— they
- 1:35:31were— you didn't know. No, no, portions were bad. Like, because a couple years earlier,
- 1:35:35the whole Iron Dome thing was going on, if you remember those. But at this
- 1:35:39point, things were relatively peaceful. Well, right, right, right, right, right. There was—
- 1:35:43but there, there was apartheid. Oh no, there was absolutely issues.
- 1:35:47But like, but I'm saying relatively. I'm saying relatively. And, and I'm
- 1:35:51just basically using today's standards as a comparison. Yeah, we didn't— I didn't know what
- 1:35:55the fuck was going on over there. I can't claim like I knew what the
- 1:35:58fuck was going on. It was a different thing. And like, here's the thing,
- 1:36:01I— and that's another reason I'm glad you said that, because it's another reason why
- 1:36:04we do this show, um, and why I'm proud of this show. Because sports
- 1:36:08are used right now, especially more than ever, they're used
- 1:36:11as a propaganda wing for these things.
- 1:36:15I think the glaring example that everyone can use is the
- 1:36:19Saudi money that has been inflicted, and inflicted, I'm using that word
- 1:36:22very intentionally, inflicted into the world of sports.
- 1:36:26Now look at what the US government is doing with all the sports. Truly just
- 1:36:29pay attention. Pay attention to Paramount and everything that they're purchasing right
- 1:36:33now and how they're being used as a wing of the US government right now.
- 1:36:35I, I don't know what else to tell you other than we are not— sports
- 1:36:38are politics. Yeah, you know, I— we are not any less propagandized
- 1:36:42as a mass society than anybody
- 1:36:46else in the world, and we're all just doing our best and, um, being honest
- 1:36:50about where we stand and hopefully being always being open to being educated.
- 1:36:54I will say, um, the fact that we
- 1:36:58are open to being educated applies to everything but
- 1:37:02one specific person So before we finally sign off, after everybody has listened
- 1:37:07to us have our long emotional moment— yes, like,
- 1:37:10subscribe, tell your friends to like and subscribe, tell them about the show,
- 1:37:15and remind them that always and forever
- 1:37:19they're watching a podcast. They are. Where it's always fuck
- 1:37:23Kurt Schilling. Cody, we leave you with anything.
- 1:37:27If we— if you have nothing else to take away from this episode?
- 1:37:31Um, fuck Churchill. Fuck Churchill. For the regulars, like, share, subscribe.
- 1:37:34Cheers. We'll see you Monday.