Episode 001 - The Beginning At The End

[00:00:24] Speaker A: Hello, folks. Former Pat and Jeff, like sports fans, I welcome you into the statement game with Pat Barker and Jeff Sewing. We are changing things up. Old format got a little bit stale. We thought, we thought we would do something a little different. That's why, number one, you can now watch us on YouTube because we decided what more could people want than to see our faces while we're talking a bunch of crap about sports? Uh, and number two, we are just trying, you know, in vain to make money that we're be upfront about it. We would love to just for this podcast to pay for itself. So here we are on YouTube, on Apple, on Spotify, wherever you get your sports podcasts. You know, if you are a fan, if you were listening to Pat and Jeff like sports, that this is the best one and the best part of this podcast for a long, long time has been the one, the only. Give it up for Pat Barker, everybody. [00:01:24] Speaker B: Oh, man, I, you know, we're, we're, we've, we've, we're diving head first into the year 2008. This is our game plan. We are putting content on YouTube. If you guys want to be in our MySpace top eight, make sure you leave a comment. I'm excited, man. This is. [00:01:47] Speaker A: Yeah, we're still on Twitter too. It's not even where. You haven't even gotten to X yet. So we'll make our way. I'm sure it'll be state mandated at a time, but we'll make our way over there eventually. I'm really excited to talk to you. In general though, it has been too long. We have caught up on a couple of conversations here and there, but I haven't got my full Pat Barker experience in a really long time. How you doing, man? What's been going on? [00:02:16] Speaker B: Well, look, I, I think, I think for this the majority of our viewers for the first time will be, will be new. They will not know us from the Pat and Jeff Lake sports days. We just a little quick background. We hosted that podcast off and on, mostly on for the better part of eight years, I believe. Seven, seven or eight years started in the 2017 World Series, the infamous Astros trash can series. And yeah, we are we giving a little background on ourselves. We're both stand up comedians by trade. I live out here in Los Angeles. Jeff is out there in Cleveland. No, no, you're not in Cleveland. See, that's how long it's been since we've talked. We have talked. I just got used to introing hundreds of episodes with Live from Cleveland, Ohio. It's Jeff Sewing, you are now in upstate New York. Unless you've moved again since the last. [00:03:10] Speaker A: Time, here I am in upstate New York. Rochester is. Is where you can. Where you can find me. [00:03:17] Speaker B: Rochester. So we met in LA through the comedy world and we're both sports fans and yeah. So we, we do this podcast. What's new with me? I don't know. My. My city burnt to the ground. [00:03:28] Speaker A: I saw that. [00:03:29] Speaker B: That was. That was a cool way to start off the new year. Everything was on fire. The good news is none of my stuff burnt down. The bad news is the Santa Ana winds are coming back tomorrow, so there's still time. We are definitely not in the clear. It's been very, very cool to dive into comment sections and really just go down that rabbit hole of absolute lunacy. I saw one yesterday. They announced that the Santa Ana winds were coming back and there were just all sorts of who's controlling these winds? Who's controlling the weather? This is a distraction from the Diddy case. This is. Everybody has a theory. As if this is the first time wind has ever blown or fire has ever started. Anyway. Yeah, everything sucks here. How are you? [00:04:29] Speaker A: You know, it's real cold here. I want to complain about our weather, but your weather is flat fire, which is hard to compete with on the scale of bad. Mine is snow and single digit temperatures. So I don't really want to go outside. Not that I really want to go outside anyway. It's not like I took advantage of Los Angeles when I lived there, but it's such a weird experience being here, you know, now we're in Rochester, or I should, you know, to be more accurate, we're in a place called Canandaigua, where. By a lake. I don't care about lake life. A lot of people love lake life and they love to put stuff from, you know, Kohl's and TJ Maxx on their wall. That tells you how much they love the lake life. I'm not that guy, so I don't really appreciate what's going on with me right now. But there's been some cool things. Like there, obviously people like a lot of different stuff than they did in Cleveland. Mostly here they like Canada. I did take my daughter Joey ice skating. Yes. Over the weekend and got out there on my skates. [00:05:37] Speaker B: I saw on Instagram you were moving around pretty good out there. [00:05:40] Speaker A: Yeah, well, it's because I was propped up by something. I did take like a couple by myself just to see if I could do it. And I can, I can. But Buddy, that needs to be a hobby that she gets over very quickly. I mean, it's, it's just I'm not in the shape I need to be to take my daughter skating. [00:06:04] Speaker B: Do you think Tanya Harding's father ever said, I, I'm not good at this, I should steer her away from this. [00:06:11] Speaker A: Honestly, with her attitude to, like, her general, like, every once in a while, rage outbursts, she could be the next Tanya Harding. So I don't want to sell my sort and stop her dream. You're right about that. [00:06:25] Speaker B: No, you gotta, you gotta be a good dad. You gotta, you gotta struggle out there. If your girl is going to be the next Tanya Harding, you gotta, you gotta make it happen. And look, I, I, I, I love Rochester for you. I love this. I know what you're, I know what you're saying. You're not into it now. Give it time. Give it a year. I, I predict by episode five of the Statement Game, there will be a live Laugh Lake sign on the wall behind you. [00:06:52] Speaker A: Yeah, I'll put it up on our Instagram. That doesn't exist. And our Blue sky account. That doesn't exist. That's where you have to be now, is the Blue Sky. You're, you're either on Blue sky or you're racist. That's what the Internet tells me. So, so that's where it'll be. [00:07:07] Speaker B: I think I'm officially done with new social media. I just want to put this out there. Follow me on Instagram at the Patbarker. I think I've hit the age where all the new stuff is beyond me. I appreciate President Trump saving TikTok. That was a scary 12 hours for everybody who's on that app. I am not. I'm not getting on Blue Sky. I'm not getting on anything else. I don't think, I think this is it. So that's why people are. You know, I, I see a lot of people my age getting upset with Zuckerberg and his new hair, and they're like, no. Until he cuts his hair, I'm gone. Meta. I'm like, this is all I have left. The moment I delete Meta, I become one of those guys who's like, you can email me and that's the only way you can get in touch with me. And I refuse to, I refuse to do that. So I am, I'm riding it out till the end. You can find me on Instagram, you can find me on Facebook, but I prefer that you didn't. Please don't. [00:08:09] Speaker A: I appreciate that we're going to do really well at our goal of making money on the podcast by promoting the hell out of this thing. On Pat, about. [00:08:19] Speaker B: This is not about. It's not about money. I want to be. [00:08:22] Speaker A: I want to be very, very Instagram, too. It's very. It's. It's about the money. Pat, let's. Let's be honest here. We don't want to be on screen. [00:08:31] Speaker B: I do. [00:08:32] Speaker A: You do want to be on screen. Yeah. [00:08:35] Speaker B: And I feel like this intro has already run long, so I won't throw too much. It's been too long since we talked. But. But what? I'm. What I'm excited about the reason I want to be on screen. I don't care about making any money. If we make a million dollars, you just keep it all. You're doing all the work. [00:08:47] Speaker A: I just show up and I will do it. [00:08:50] Speaker B: I. I'm proud to announce. I'm happy to announce that at the age of 41, 20, 25 is the year I've become a hat guy. I. I've been dealing. I've been dealing with this situation for a while now. I don't have the money to go to Turkey and get it fixed. I don't have. I don't have the self confidence to let it look like that. And I don't have the time or energy to go bald because it still grows a little bit and I'd have to, like, maintain it a lot. So I decided for the next few years, until I can transition completely into effortless baldness, I'm becoming a hat guy. I bought like 15 hats. Hats that don't even. I don't even. This is the Yomi Ori Giants, but I got it because the orange matches some shit. Sometimes trying to match. Trying to be like the kids. I got this sky blue Phillies Sixers combo that makes me look like I'm trying to be fabulous in the year 2003. So I'm excited every week to roll out a new hat on Pat and Jeff. Like sports or the statement game. I'm sorry. Old habits die hard, and I don't care about making any money. And if I do, it's all going towards hats. Enough. That's enough of me for the intro. [00:10:07] Speaker A: That is enough of you for the intro. And we're going to move into sport. We're going to do things a little differently. If you used to listen to the old podcast, this one here, we're just going to ram some sports down your throat. All right? You want to know what we think of A ton of different things. And so here it's going to come. We're going to start off with a little segment we like to call Quick Hitters. I am going to bury Pat with a bunch of questions. He's going to give me some answers, and I will comment when he is wrong. Pat, Jimmy Butler is forcing his way off another team. If you were a general manager, are you bringing back the mercurial mercenary for your playoff run? Are you going to make that trade? [00:10:48] Speaker B: See, this is a tough one for me, and I promise I'll go quick. I know. I understand the title of the segment. As a Sixers fan, right, I got the only time where Jimmy Butler was gone and it was like, our fault, right? So as a Sixers fan, I'm naturally inclined to be like, yes, he's misunderstood. He. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. We should have never gotten rid of him and kept Tobias Harris, all of that kind of stuff. I'm trying to approach this objectively as. As the owner of just random NBA team. No, I'm not bringing in Jimmy Butler. I'm not bringing in that headache. It has never yielded a championship. His numbers are fine. They are not worth the level of headache that comes along with it. In entertainment, a lot of people do bad stuff sometimes, right? And not to compare Jimmy Butler to, like, actual criminals. I'm not saying that. But what, what. What I'm saying is, for the sake of an apples to oranges comparison, sometimes you have to separate the art from the artist, right? And your favorite artists do really bad things. There's two scales you can measure it on. How bad is the thing you're doing and how good is the art. That's why Michael Jackson gets a passion. His stuff on the one scale, really, really bad. The stuff that he allegedly did, really, really bad. The art that he made, really, really good. Chris Brown on the first scale, maybe not as bad as Michael Jackson, but on the second scale, nowhere near as good as Michael Jackson. You know what I mean? When you're separated, it's always like, what is the return? What is the risk versus reward? And I think in the case of Jimmy Butler, at his age, at this point, I think the reward is not as great as the risk. And if Miami and the culture of the Miami Heat and Pat Riley and all that shit couldn't get him to calm down, what chance do you have in your dumb city? [00:12:31] Speaker A: Yeah, he's also created this. Not created it, but this thing has been happening in the last five years. It's just kind of bubbled up to the surface, which is guys who can no longer really win you a championship requesting trades and trying to get out. Right. It kind of started with James Harden where James Harden was like, I want out of here and I, I want to go over to wherever the fuck to try to win a championship that, that isn't going to work out because James Harden cannot do that for a team anymore. Jimmy Butler also looks like he is at that stage a player that is almost the complete antithesis of the game today. He plays defense. Nobody plays defense, Nobody cares about defense. He doesn't, he doesn't shoot three pointers. Everybody shoots three pointers. In fact, everybody thinks there's too many goddamn three pointers. At this point, there seems to be no reason to give up anything of any real significance for a Jimmy Butler. But I'm sure some team is going to do it, don't you think? [00:13:32] Speaker B: Yeah, probably. But that era, and it's not just what he is on the floor, it's what he is off of the floor. The players who are demanding trades, that was the beef against the NBA for a long time is that the players control where they go, even if they're under contract and everything. And then you look at the trend of who's winning the last few years and it's these teams with well put together rosters with homegrown talent, the Jokic's, the Giannis's and everything like that. And the appeal of going out and taking those massive risks and bringing in the Hardens and the, the Butlers and all those kind of guys and everybody forcing their right just to form a three superstar super team. That's not even, that doesn't guarantee you anything anymore. So I think there's even less potential reward. So yeah, no, I, but I do think somebody look there, there's always somebody who's desperate, somebody who's going to miss out on the, you know, the big names every time and they need to make a splash and they're going to convince themselves that Jimmy could be that splash. And you know, fool me five times, shame on me. [00:14:32] Speaker A: This one hits a little close to home. This is a decades long absence that it's been for the Chicago Cubs and Sammy sos. Finally this weekend, the Cubs convention happened. They bring back Sammy. It's okay now because he apologized. Did he say he used steroids and he was sorry for that? He did not. But he said sorry for something and now he's back in the Cubs organization. They're going to induct him into the Chicago Cubs hall of Fame this year. Could this be pat, a step in the direction of Sammy Sosa getting his way to the actual hall of Fame? [00:15:05] Speaker B: No. He should be there, and I think he will be someday. I think there's going to be this great cultural awakening where we realize that we are punishing the guys who produce the most entertaining era of baseball of any of our lives, and we're punishing them while rewarding the people who enabled it. And it is. It's absolutely absurd. And, you know, so. So, of course, but Barry Bonds. You can't have a Hall of Fame without Barry Bonds. And this is. It's. It's ridicul, ridiculous. And I think at some point the old sports writers are gonna die, and whoever they're replaced with as like, you know, whatever. These people are gonna. Somebody. At some point, we're all gonna get together and just be like, what are we doing? Like, the fact that Sosa even had to apologize to get into the Cubs hall of Fame, Like, I know the Cubs are your team. The fact that they made him apologize for hitting all those home runs and selling all those tickets is absurd. It is absolutely absurd. And this has no correlation to the direct hall of Fame. If it did, Mark McGuire would have been in. He never even came close. When McGuire came out and apologized and acknowledged steroid use, his voting percentage actually went down. Because they're going to sit there and hold this against these guys when the fact of the matter is, at the time they were doing it, there was no steroid testing. Major League Baseball looked the other way. Major League Baseball was a complete accessory in this era. They begged these guys to save the fucking Sport. After the 1994 strike, they're like, all right, we saved the sport. And then they were like, how dare you save the sport? We didn't tell you to do it that way. And, yeah, shame on Major League Baseball. I don't think this has any correlation. I don't think he should have had to apologize. I think it's ridiculous. But I'm glad that he's. He's back now and everybody can stop pretending that they gave a fuck that he used steroids in the first place. [00:17:11] Speaker A: I'm with you on most things there, except for. For the two reasons. We have no evidence, number one, that any of us, that is a big enough contingency can come together and decide anything is okay. Now that is. You're outside your mind on that. And number two, you are expecting that the old sports writers are going to die. I don't know, man. These guys seem to be hanging on. Like, if you look at hall of Fame ballots from this year, it still just doesn't make any sense. You know, when we get those things into the public and you're like, how do you not have CC Sabathia as a Hall of Famer? Right. Right now, Ichiro's unanimous. But we don't know what's going to happen with some of these other names that are clearly hall of Famers. There's no end in sight. I mean, I think you and I, if Sammy Sosa or guys like him ever make the hall of Fame, we'll be long dead before we even see that. So as far as I'm concerned, as far as I'm concerned, that's never going to happen. Never going to happen. [00:18:10] Speaker B: Well, yeah, I mean, I think it'll be, I'm betting like 20 years from now by the time Sammy Sosa is totally translucent. I, I and 20 years. Yeah. I hope I'm long dead in 20 years. Sure. [00:18:26] Speaker A: Yeah. I don't really want you to be dead. Long dead in 20 years. Not that long, Pat. Jesus Christ. Tonight, the College Football Playoff. There's a culmination. It's Notre Dame, it's Ohio State. Who you got and why is it Ohio State? [00:18:43] Speaker B: Boy, I, you know, I dislike Alabama just because of, you know, the success and everything, but as a Michigan fan, I can't root for Ohio State. I grew up hating Notre Dame because I came from a big Irish Catholic family, and I always found it so stupid that they're like, this is our team, the Irish Catholic boys. And it's like, oh, you mean Manti Teo. Oh, cool, cool, cool. Yeah. Super, super Irish. Dude, there's. I always thought it was just the dumbest thing, so I don't care. I think that I'm going to go Ohio State. The main reason being, as much as we all argued and by we all put this on me, I was the guy who's like, boise State should be in the National Championship game. They're undefeated. And everybody told me, if you put them against a real football team, they have no chance. And I was always like that. But it's not fair. They went undefeated. How can. I was always so concerned with the fairness. So now they've expanded the playoff, and they give teams like that a shot, and they lose every time. They're not as good as these other teams. 13 and 2. Ohio State is going to be better. And look, Notre Dame has beat real teams on the way there, and they're certainly better than Boise State. But What I'm saying is I, I really feel like these college football powerhouses are that way for a reason. And I expect Ohio State to win convincingly. Every few years we come up with a reason to convince ourselves, like, oh, Coach prime and Colorado and the nil. And then at the end of the year, it's always Ohio State or Michigan or Alabama or whatever. The. Like, I. The more things change, the more they stay the same. And the winner is always like the same five schools. I don't expect it to change this year. [00:20:40] Speaker A: Yeah, I, you know, this playoff thing has been new and some people haven't liked how things have worked out with no receding and stuff like that. I think they'll get some of that figured out. Overall, it's going to result in some really good games. Although tonight I do not think is going to be a very good game. Let's go to the NFL, though. This past weekend, Chiefs advanced to their seventh straight AFC Championship game, which is so ridiculous. And they. Anyway, they beat the Texans 23 to 14. There was a lot of bitching about the officials on this one. Is that sour grapes from Texans fans and NFL fans in general, or are these refs really angling for those sweet Taylor Swift tickets? What do you think there's something people. [00:21:24] Speaker B: Need to know about this podcast or, you know, I assume we're going to keep this from the old podcast. This is a new podcast. It's a statement game. There's nothing you need to know. You're going to figure it all out. But one thing that I prided myself on and I really appreciated about Pat and Jeff, like sports, it was never the reactionary podcast. It was never the manufactured hot take podcast. In a world where, and this is why I say it can't be about the money, like going on YouTube and trying to get views and clicks and all that, like, great. I understand it's necessary for growth and I appreciate, I hope you, like, subscribe. Smash that subscribe button, whatever the fuck they tell you to do. The reason it can't be about that is because the way to become the most popular sports program in the world is to take up stances that you don't believe in and manufacture outrage and scream at each other. It's the Skip Bayless, Stephen A. Smith, you know, culture. And they just take the hottest take and they scream it. And, you know, these idiots get on TV for 20 years and they're just like, lebron James stinks at basketball. And they just keep screaming it. And then somebody backs up a Brinks Truck to their fucking house. And they go, here's a billion dollars for saying the dumbest thing as loudly as possible. We never did that. We are, I think, a very common sense. A couple of sports fans. I think we have logical, well measured takes. However, things do get to a point where you're like, okay, the guys who got in on the ground floor with this and started screaming five years ago, they might have been onto something. There is and pardon. Pardon the, the. The euphemism given, you know, what LA has been going through this year. But there's a lot of smoke around the. The NFL wants the Chiefs to win. Fire. There has been a lot of officiating that is very. And I'm not talking about just the Texans. I think at this point we're expecting it a little bit. But there has been a lot, for years that has really, really benefited the Chiefs. There is a lot of evidence around that. And for the longest time, one of the reasons I rejected the conspiracy theories was because I'm like, to what end? It's not. Kansas City is not a big market. I understand you want to get New York and LA in the, in the. I get that. Right. But what is the benefit to taking a small market team and pushing them? And I didn't understand and it didn't make any sense. It's very clear the NFL would love for their relationship with Taylor Swift to take up as much TV time as possible for her to be around as much as possible. And if the Chiefs were a 9 and 8 team, would Taylor Swift be dating their tight end? I don't know. Maybe. I have no idea. He's a handsome guy. He's a future hall of Famer. He's funny. There's a lot of reasons to date him, but it doesn't hurt that his team is always going to the super bowl. And it sure doesn't hurt the NFL to cut away to her every three seconds and be like, look at that. Look who that guy's, you know, hooking up. All I'm saying is, regardless of what the reason is, yes, there is clearly biased officiating going on. And it's been going on for years. It's been going on for years. And to deny it at this point makes you look crazy. [00:24:51] Speaker A: It's so insane too, because outside of the Taylor Swift thing, it, it really makes no sense that you pick that team, frankly, that guy, to Patrick Mahomes with his, like, Kermit the Frog voice and everything like that, to be like the face of your league. It does. It Also doesn't make sense for. For the sport that's winning. Like, you're, You're. You're not going anywhere, man. Like, you're winning. You're. You're crushing it. You could just ride off in, you know, complete parody with somebody different winning the super bowl every year. And for some reason, it's getting harder and harder to explain what these games look like, especially in the playoffs. So I. We don't want to be that podcast, but we're going to end up being that podcast if results like two Texans crashing into each other while Patrick Mahomes slides underneath them, gets a personal foul. Something seems amiss in your product, and they got to get that looked at, or else people that. That's the sort of thing that starts to eat into your lead. I'm just kidding. They will never give up their lead. We like people bashing heads too much. How about this, though, Pat? Your Philadelphia Eagles. Your Philadelphia Eagles, they extinguished the LA Rams 28, 22. You see what I did there? [00:26:05] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:26:06] Speaker A: Can you let me know, Pat, Why does God love you, the birds, but hate Los Angeles? You know, what's he got with the birds but hating Los Angeles? You might hate in Los Angeles, I guess. [00:26:20] Speaker B: Yeah. He had no affection for the birds. When I was in Philly, I lived there for 30 years. They didn't win. Why does God hate Los Angeles? How much time you got, buddy? This is supposed to be quick hitters. I. I don't. I don't. I don't know. There's so many things to hate. I. It was, it was a. It was a lot of fun to watch. I love watching football in the snow. It's just a. It's something I've always, you know, it's one of those things that there's no tangible reason to like it. It makes the game, in a lot of cases worse and sloppier and everything like that. And for a game with implications like that, really, you should want it played on the most neutral kind of setting possible. But it's just fun to watch guys slip and slide and fumble the ball and look like idiots out there. I. I don't know. It was. I. I do think the Eagles need to tighten some things up if they are going to win a Super Bowl. They might be able to get away with that again next week versus the Commanders, but that game should not have come down to where it came down to. The Eagles being up two scores that late in the game should not have let the Rams back in it. Especially in an environment that was difficult to pass in. The Eagles are a far superior running team. They were controlling the game. And then they really let the Rams get dangerously close. You can't miss two extra points in the playoffs and expect it not to come back to bite you. It was not a perfect game by any means, but the things that are good about the Eagles are great about the Eagles. They were a better team than the Rams. They deserve to win. And. And furthermore, this is one thing I want to, you know, make clear to everybody who does not live in la. There's always a lot of narrative when there's a. There's a disaster of some sort and then that team is in the championship, right? The, the peak of that was probably the Yankees in the World Series and then in oh, one. And then the Saints winning the super bowl after Katrina and all that. Nobody out here gives a fuck about the Los Angeles Rams. [00:28:25] Speaker A: They do not. [00:28:26] Speaker B: Nobody. If the Rams won the super bowl, it would not move the needle even an inch. For there would be no. There's some Rams fans. I'm sure they would be happy, but there would be no, like, wow, you lifted the city up in the wake of the wildfires and gave us something to focus on. Nobody cares. Nobody's watching it. It doesn't matter. It would not have brightened spirits. It would not have. It wouldn't have changed anything. So from that perspective, I don't get the Dodgers have that ability a little bit and the Lakers have that ability. The Rams do not. And it wouldn't have mattered. [00:29:06] Speaker A: Noted. It is not God that hates the Rams, but the city of Los Angeles itself. That's good. That's good. I'm glad we got there in the end there. Then yesterday we have this game that kind of lived up to the hype. It was a really good game. Came down to the end. It was the Bills and the Ravens. But for me, it was pretty much just a game in which the Bills watched the Ravens walk around a field of rakes like Sideshow Bob, just stepping on every single one of them to a 27, 25 loss of the Bills. You know, this feels a bit hot Takey and. But I just kind of. I don't know where else to take this game, that this is maybe the least hot takey thing I can ask you about this, but is it true or false that Lamar Jackson ever plays in a Super bowl in his career? [00:29:58] Speaker B: Is he willing to be Patrick Mahomes backup? I will he play running back for the Chiefs? Because, boy, that's. I mean, that's a Big. That's a big barricade to get past that Chiefs team. I'm gonna say true. [00:30:22] Speaker A: I like it. [00:30:23] Speaker B: I'm gonna say that he does make a Super bowl because I feel like he's. He's obviously otherworldly talented. He is one of the best quarterbacks. And this is a blind spot for me. This is. I come from a place of unrelenting optimism when it comes to the best players winning it all. And it's not because I actually expect them to do it. It's because I hate sports fan culture where everything is measured by rings. And I hate when we have the greatest players ever and we're watching them and we are refusing to appreciate their greatness because they did not get, you know, a ring. When really it's easy to boil down Lamar Jackson to zero rings. And then if you want to get into the discussion about Mark Andrew dropping a two point conversion that hit him right in the break, there's a million reason every year why a guy does or does not win a ring that have nothing to do with them. So I hate the fact that, you know, legacies get tied in a team sport to team success when somebody can be so individually incredible and we just decide not to appreciate it collectively. So it's not that I actually think he'll get to a Super bowl or win a Super bowl necessarily. It's that I really, really want it so people will treat him with the respect that he deserves. [00:31:51] Speaker A: Yeah. Because if you get that one, like, it completely changed how people talked about Matt Stafford, for instance. And I think the same would be true for Lamar. And you know, you're right. Like, that's. This is that he's the clear cut, clear cut MVP of the league this season. I know some people think Josh Allen, in every statistical measure, Lamar Jackson was a better player than Josh Allen this year. He should be the MVP of the league. He went into this game and you, I mean, seriously, you watch that thing and it wasn't one of those times where you're just like, oh, the Bills are just the better team. You watch that game and you were like, boy, the Ravens just keep shooting themselves in the foot. They keep daffy ducking, looking down the barrel of Bugs Bunny's rifle and getting their beaks blown off. Like, it was the most ridiculous game that I've ever seen. Like, I was like, I can't even blame this on coaching. I can't necessarily blame it on all the players. Just like specific moments in the game where it was important that you didn't screw up and they screwed up. That's, that's. I get, you know, that's how you lose in the playoffs, and that's how you lose to a team that you could have beat. They just straight up could have beat that team. [00:32:59] Speaker B: And Lamar, real quick, I just, I don't want to let him off the hook entirely. Lamar Jackson is at least partially. He was responsible for some of those mistakes as well. So I'm not saying that he's infallible or flawless. That's not what I'm. [00:33:10] Speaker A: Bad sack, fumble, bad interception, like things that cannot happen in that game. And he let those happen. It's, it's. It's too bad. Finally, we come to the most shocking result of the weekend, which is the Commanders just bodying the Detroit Lions 4531 in that one. It never in the second half is when you were like, oh, man, this doesn't really even feel particularly close. It didn't even feel like, oh, they were just two touchdowns down. The Commanders beat the hell out of the number one seed in the nfc. A lot of people's favorite super bowl pick, a little bit of America's team. Everybody kind of wanted to see the Lions do it. And the things that have come up sort of after this game, you know, they're going to be very hot Takey. One of the things I thought was interesting is that people were just lamenting the fact that the Lions got here and this is how it ended. And they talk about, oh, man, Lions, Lions fans really deserved to have a team go to the super bowl and win the Super Bowl. And it got me thinking and I was wondering about that concept, that concept of do fans deserve things? Do fans deserve to see their team in a championship or do they deserve to see a winner? Like, did the lion our Lions fans robbed right now, right? Like, did they deserve this championship? [00:34:40] Speaker B: It's a tough question. This is more of like a philosophical debate, and I want to get your opinion on it for sure. I think fans deserve for the team to make a legitimate effort to win. Big picture. When front offices fail to even attempt to field a competitive team, that's the only time where I'm like, fans deserve better. Fans don't deserve necessarily a particular outcome, but they deserve to feel like the team is making an honest to God effort to win. And that's why for years I would say lions fans deserve better. And now I would say, file this under life isn't fair. Sometimes it's not that you're not getting what you deserve. The team went what, 15 and 2? Yeah, they put a really good team out there. A team that lost Aiden Hutchinson and still, you know, was one of the best teams, one of the best defenses in the entire league. And then they the bed on the biggest stage and that happens. The Lions are not the first team to do it. They won't be the last. If the Lions didn't have such a sad, pathetic franchise history, nobody would even be looking at it this way, right? If the Lions were pick another team that's won a Super bowl, you know, semi recently. You know, nobody's talking about the Ravens do the Ravens fans deserve? But nobody's talking about that because they won a couple championships in the last 25 years and that's, that's good enough for people. Lions fans now are finally getting what they do deserve as fans, which is they pay for a ticket, they go to a game, and the. The organization is actually trying to win that game. That's all you. That's all you deserve as a fan. That being said, do I feel bad for Lions fans? Oh, hell yeah. I feel bad for Lion. I feel terrible for Lions fans. [00:36:44] Speaker A: So I'm with you on that. I feel bad for Lions, Lions fans. And the idea of deserve is a tough one because who's to say, like you mentioned the Ravens. Why don't Ravens fans deserve a championship? Like, I don't know, like, why didn't. There's no LA Rams fans, but if there were LA Rams fans, wouldn't they deserve a championship? You know, after the, after the disaster, there's. There's that weird thing with deserve. And then you go to the team context and it's like, does the team deserve to win a championship? It's like, well, not more than an organization like the Ravens who year in and year out put a competitive product on the field for their. That deserves recognition more than somebody who's just kind of an upstart thing here. The way I would feel a little bit better if I'm a Lions fan is there's two ways or not feel a little bit better, but hope that this is the case. I would hope, as a Lions fan. I think that why people are thinking in, in the terms of deserve and they are thinking of like, oh man, like this. Like the fans, they needed this one, they had to have this one. I think it's because the Lions had been so bad for so long. You just can't in your mind see this, see what's happened the last three years and think to yourself, maybe the Lions organization has gotten it so. Right. That they are now a team like the Steelers, like the Ravens, like the Packers. They are one of these teams now in the NFL who is just run so well that you're going to keep getting these situations and one of these times it's going to work out. One of these times you are going to break through and you are going to win a championship. That's how I would feel better if I was a Lions fan. Because Dan Campbell isn't going anywhere and he's weird and he's a meathead and he cries too much at press conferences. I'm sorry. He cries too much at press conferences because eventually that doesn't mean anything. He cries too much at press conferences. But he's a really, really good head coach. Brad Holmes is probably the best executive in the NFL right now. That's who's in charge of your team. I would. I would hope that you're looking at that and expecting that of the Lions moving forward. And the other thing I would say this is one of those times. There's not many that actually come around where this is absolutely true and you get to say it and it's okay. The Lions got fucked by injuries. I get it. Like the next man up shit is real. I understand. Like, you got to be a team and you got to get. Every team is hurt. Not every team is missing six starters, including three of their 11 best players in the Lions. You know what I mean? They lost their entire team. Backups. Backups are in that game. We didn't get to see what that game was supposed to look like. You know what I mean? Because there were just so many injuries. And I am going to give Lions fans that excuse. That's what you deserve. You deserve to have that excuse, but you also deserved this. Lions organization continues to be what it looks like they have become over the last three years. Does that. Does that make sense for you? [00:40:04] Speaker B: Absolutely. And that's another cliche in sports that, you know, like you say, I get it. I get every team. And I would want. I would want the players on my favorite team to answer that question differently than you just did. If they ask the players are injuries and excuse, I want them to be like, no, absolutely not. Every team has injuries. Next man up. Because they are the ones who have to have the right mindset going out on the field. And I want that to be their mindset. But for people who don't have to have a particular mindset, who don't have to go out on the field, who can look at it objectively, and say, yeah, every team has injuries. Does every team have injuries of equal importance? No. The Lions had major, major injuries and it's reductive to just be like, oh yeah, well, you can't use that as an excuse. Maybe not an excuse, but a reason. There's a re. Now listen, take it from a Joel Embiid fan. Just because that reason exists every single year does not mean it eases the blow. So Lions fans, I'm sure even if they're accepting of that excuse or that reason, that it's not going to make anything better. But if you take a second to step back from the ledge and look at big picture, you're absolutely right. It's a well run organization, it's a well coached team. There's no reason to think that they won't continue to move in this direction. And that's all you can ask, is that your team gives you a shot to win it every year. There are 32 teams, only one is going to win it all. There's a, you know, a 3% chance for every team, roughly. And your team is one of the few that has, you know, better than that number, has a real chance at winning this thing. And I hope, I hope that it happens. I hope that the Lions fans, and this team in particular, wins a championship. But if it doesn't, at least they're in. They've enjoyed the experience of being Lions fans, I would dare to say, a lot more the last few years than they did the 30 years preceding it. [00:42:13] Speaker A: Yes, yes. And if I can give any sort of word of advice or at least what, I don't even feel qualified to give this because I don't have this as a fan myself, but I would preach a little bit of patience right. You. Once you get to this situation when it's like, oh, we can't quite get over the hump, what starts to happen is maybe Dan Campbell has to go. Maybe Jared Goff can't win a Super Bowl. Right. That's what they're saying in Baltimore, too. Maybe Lamar Jackson can't win a Super Bowl. That's why they didn't sign him to the contract extension and had to franchise him to tag him in the beginning. There's maybe he can't win a Super bowl right now they're thinking maybe, maybe Harbaugh needs to go. We need somebody fresh and new in here. That's when you start to get in trouble, is when you start to get impatient and make rash decisions and do things like that. I understand people are going to be like, you can't win a Super bowl with Jared Goff. You can't win a lot of Super Bowls with Jared Goff. But we're in an era where I myself, with my own eyes, in the prime of my sports, sports watching days, have I, with my own eyes, I watched Nick Foles beat Tom Brady in a Super Bowl. With my own eyes, I saw Joe Flacco win a Super Bowl. With my own eyes, I saw Eli Manning win two Super Bowls. And I'm sorry, you're not going to tell me that Eli Manning is that much better than Jared Goff. He just isn't, right? You can absolutely win a Super bowl with that guy. It's just that things have to break. What? At the end of the day, if you're not missing all that stuff on the defensive side of the ball, the offense scored 31 points, and that's with them turning the ball over five times. Like, patience, things are going to be okay. And just. I hope for your sake as Lions fans that what you have here is the Ravens, is the packers, you know, is the Eagles, is the ste. You know, that's what I. That's the. The era I hope you're in as Lions fans. [00:44:13] Speaker B: It is. You know, it's so funny how I talked about how nobody cares about the Rams. Well, the advantage that the Rams have in that way is that there LA doesn't have this culture of 247 sports talk radio. I grew up in Philly, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year. You have to have a host on there for three hours a show, taking calls from Eagles fans who hate everybody on the team after a loss. They hate everybody on the team. The quarterback stinks, the coach stinks, the players stink, the front office stinks. Burn it to the ground. And this hat. Listen, this happened many, many times with Donovan McNabbit, quarterback, where, you know, no matter how good the team was, the fans wanted to burn it all to the ground and they wanted to fire Andy Reid and they wanted to replace Donovan McNabb. Now, there's a weird stance for me to take because ultimately, I don't know, maybe they were right. They didn't win anything. So, who knows? Shout out to the sports talk radio fans. You guys maybe were right all along, but I feel like, generally speaking, cities with a big sports talk radio presence, mainly east coast cities, but Detroit certainly falls into this category, cities where sports is the most important thing going on for all the citizens out there. It's how they measure Their happiness. Sports and especially football are extremely reactionary. The grass is always greener. And what I would say is, if you look at all of these teams that have built up consistent ineptitude over the last 20 years, what is the one thing they are always doing? Every two years they have a new quarterback and, or a new coach and, or a new offensive coordinator. There is no consistency. They never bring anybody in and just say, hey, we think this is the guy and we're going to, we're going to ride with it. Because there's value in consistency, there's value in familiarity, there's value in a relationship between a coach and a quarterback and an offensive coordinator and getting on the same page. And you don't have to be the best quarterback in the world. It's really hard to get those guys. You know what's really easy to do? Give up on your quarterback every two years and draft another guy who's going to be out of the league in two years. A lot of teams have figured out that recipe. So before you go, the grass is always greener. We got to replace Jared Goff, okay? With who, who's, who's the guy, who's the guy who comes in and fits into that system and can lead the team and go better than 15 and 2. Because that's what Jared Goff did. He went 15 and 2. Did he lose this game? Yes, this team lost this game. Absolutely. But to ignore the other thing would be, would be crazy. I, you just gotta, you gotta ride with golf. And if LA had that culture, who knows, Maybe Matthew Stafford doesn't win a Super Bowl. Maybe they get killed. From the second they trade for Matthew Stafford and they're like, this guy never won anything in Detroit. Why are we bringing this guy in? 24 7, 365 on sports talk radio, it's fuck Matthew Stafford. And then the front office starts to panic because they're like, oh, the fans are rebelling. We got to draft a guy in the first round. Don't become that team. Stick with golf and see what happens. [00:47:21] Speaker A: Yes. I don't need to see how good Hendon Hooker is. They drafted him a couple years ago from Tennessee. I was just showing off. Hendon Hooker from Tennessee. He's very good in college. What a great name, huh? [00:47:37] Speaker B: Hendon Hooker. Yeah, that's, that's an all timer name. I can't believe that guy. [00:47:41] Speaker A: You never really get a double H. And you know what else? You never really get a glass of wine as good as Graham and Fisk's wine in A can. I have been a longtime proponent of Graham and Fisk wine in a can. Here's the thing. Wine feels a little too hoity toity for me. And so. But I like it. And so sometimes you want an alternative for beer. And what more convenient way than in a can? This right here, this little can right here looks like a little Red Bull can. That is a glass and a half pour of wine, which means, like, it's the exact perfect amount. You have one of these things, you're feeling nice, you move on with the rest of your night. I'm gonna crack it open right now. This is the white with bubbles. This is my favorite one. Gold can for championships. And it's good. Every time you take a poll of one of those things, you're like, huh, I didn't think that would be good at all. And it is. They've won wine enthusiast best Buy awards. They're the best. It's all California wine. A bunch of guys in Cleveland, Ohio, I know them, I love them and I love the wine. So Graham and Fisk wine in a can. Head over to graham and fisks.com and you can just order that shit straight to your door. It's the best part about it. So, ladies and gentlemen, please, Graham and Fisk wine in a can. Get it fine in stores, have it delivered straight to your home. It's wonderful. [00:49:08] Speaker B: Yes, I've had. I've had the wine. I agree with that. It's due to time zones. A little bit early for me to be cracking open a can of wine, but, you know, drink enough for the both of us. Jeff. [00:49:19] Speaker A: It's 2:15 somewhere, Pat. Right. This. I'm the most excited to talk to you about this next topic, if I'm being honest. If you hadn't listened to the podcast beforehand. We are. Our sport is baseball. Listen, I love the Bears and the Bulls and, you know, if the Blackhawks were good, I don't know if I would like them, but I did when they were good before. But I love the Bears, the Bulls, but the Cubs, baseball in general, we're both nerds for it. And so this was actually a humongous week kind of in baseball news, and both having to do with the Los Angeles Dodgers, who just yesterday signed Tanner Scott, who was the best reliever on the market. So it. Oh, my God, another arm for them. But prior to that, they signed Roki Sasaki over from Japan. And this kid, if you don't know anything about him, this is another ace type pitcher coming from Japan on one of those really cheap deals. He's young. What is he, like, 23 or 24? He's just. He's too young for them to have. And now they have an entire staff of guys that could win the Cy Young Award. You know what I mean? You could see the whole staff finishing 1 through 5 in Cy Young voting at the end of the year. And a lot of what's been going on is like, hey, man, fuck the Dodgers, right? I hate the Dodgers. The Dodgers are the new Death Star. They're the Yankees of the 90s where everybody got angry at them. And I am wondering how you feel that you've got the pulse because you're out in la. Not that anybody's talking about the Dodgers right now. [00:51:03] Speaker B: Oh, they are no good. [00:51:05] Speaker A: I'm glad. I'm glad they're getting the distraction of the Dodgers out there in la. But I'm wondering how you feel about that general sentiment that it's like, the Dodgers are the bad guys now and, you know, screw them, they're ruining baseball? [00:51:23] Speaker B: I mean, it's 100% accurate in terms of the sentiment. It's. It's gotten ridiculous at this point. Look, I talked, you know, earlier about how one of the things I love about this podcast is our takes are intelligent and measured and not, you know, manufactured and everything like that. And they're not angry for the sake of being angry. Let's start with some facts. The Dodgers have done nothing wrong. The Dodgers are operating with this within the system of Major League Baseball. The Dodgers ownership is taking record profit and turning it back into putting a great product on the field. The Dodgers are doing everything that every team, every fan of every team should wish that their team is doing. They are making an effort to not just win a championship, but to build a dynasty and to give fans the best possible teams for the next, you know, 10, 15, 20 years. And they. They did it initially a really commendable way. They. They've been ahead of the curve on international scouting. They've been ahead of the curve on drafting and. And development and everything like that. They have done everything as a model organization. And I feel like they were getting a lot of unfair. In the late 2010s and even the early 2020s, the Otani signing changed everything. It was the smartest thing they could have done. I couldn't believe there were people arguing that 700 million was too much, especially when 680 million of it was deferred. And what it did was it. It created this. This vacuum where everybody expected Roki Sasaki to go to la. Nobody expected him to go anywhere else. It was the. The fact that they even pretended that it could go another way, I think was insane. Everybody knew what was going to happen for some reason. The Tanner Scott thing was. Is really the one that sends it over the edge because it's like, all right, we were prepared for Roki Sasaki. The. The fact that you can then turn around and get Tanner Scott also is ridiculous. I will say, living in LA and as a guy who loves going to baseball games, even though I'm a Phillies fan, I love. And look, it's not cheap to go to a Dodgers game. It's not cheap to go to any sporting event anywhere anymore. So if I'm going to be spending money, I. I'd love to go and see seven future hall of Famers on a single team or whatever. So I enjoy it from that perspective. Those are all the logical points. Here is what my. That's what my head is saying. Here's what my heart is saying, really, really fucking. Seriously, this is what we're doing. And that's as far as I've thought. The argument to the contrary through it is a very, you know, it's an emotional thing. As a Phillies fan, my team won 98 games last year. My team should theoretically be competing for a world championship. It does feel insane to watch this team go and get all of these players and seemingly have no limit. Now, look, almost all of these guys took less money to be with the Dodgers than they could have gotten somewhere else. And that is because the Dodgers did all the right things in terms of building the culture and all that kind of stuff. And they want to come play in LA at a place where they're going to be taxed, you know, at 50% or whatever. There are a million reasons not to want to come play in la. The Dodgers have done an incredible job building up the city and the team to where everybody wants to play here. But it does suck. I don't think a hard salary cap is the answer. I think this is more of an anomaly than an indication that baseball's system is broken. However, I do think there are tweaks that need to be made. You cannot have all this money deferred. It's psychotic. They need to tweak that. They need to. And look, there's no hard salary cap, but it's not like they could just spend money with impunity. They are paying million hundreds of millions of dollars at this point in luxury taxes. They are. When they pay Tanner Scott 18 million a year, they're actually paying them closer to like 34 million because of the tax implications, because of how far over the luxury tax they are. So there are steps in place. It's not like they're just like, oh, everybody just spend whatever you want. And everybody, you know, the small, small guys get. But there has to be something that's done. I think the deferred money is a good place to start because I think if they could not defer all this money, they would not feel nearly as comfortable, you know, circumnavigating the tax the, the way they are. So something needs to be done because I do. It's not, it's not fun. The one thing that I will say, and then I'm going to turn it over to you for baseball fans who are looking for a silver lining is that despite the fact that you guys all get on there and scream and yell about how it's not fair and there needs to be a cap and everything like that, you look at the sports with a salary cap, you've had way more dynasties in the last 25 years. In the NFL, you've had way more dynasties in the last 25 years. In the NBA, way more repeat champions. Baseball, despite creating an environment where, oh yeah, big market teams have this advantage, for whatever reason, they haven't had a back to back champion since the turn of the century. There's more parody in baseball than anywhere else. And it is more likely in baseball than in any other sport that a super team like the Dodgers goes and gets cold for three or four games and gets beat by a total David versus Goliath type of situation. Because now we've created a thing where we have 29 Davids so 29 opportunities to beat them. And it is going to be so satisfying when that happens. If you remember back to the Yankees when they were great, it's when they build up with the core four of the guys that they drafted. It was the, you know, Posada and Jeter and Rivera and Pettit and all those guys that when people really turned on them was when they went out and, and started buying all these other players, the Giambis and the A rods and all that kind of stuff. They didn't win with those guys. And I want you all to remember how fun it was every year to watch those Yankees super teams lose. Because that's what we did. It's revisionist history to be like they bought everybody and they won. No, they won, then they bought everybody and lost and boy, was that fun to watch. So you have that ahead of you. [00:57:40] Speaker A: I hope the hate for that team was so powerful that we all cheered for a Boston team. I mean, that is. That is some powerful, powerful hate. Look, I. And I don't think you did. I don't blame the Dodgers for doing what they're doing. They're playing their own game. And that's the problem, is they're the only one playing the game. Everybody else, we talked a couple of years ago, and this has not stopped, right? Baseball off season used to be fun. Used to rival NBA off season, right? Which is also really fun. NFL off season, which is also really fun. Things used to happen. They used to happen every day. People would come off the board. By now, we would know who's playing where, and we'd be able to put, like, everybody in the lineup just so. And get excited for this team or that team or like, oh, I didn't know that the Mariners picked up. Blah, blah, blah. That's a really cool thing. That's not anymore. A couple years ago, what happened is we theorized, oh, the owners are clearly colluding, and they think the players are making too much money. So they're just waiting until the end of free agency to dry these people out, and then eventually they're going to take what what they get, right? The Dodgers aren't playing that game right now. They're the only team not playing that game. It's still happening. You can tell because there's still like a hundred guys that could, like, you could field a pretty good team right now just off of the free agents that are out there and nobody is willing to sign them. I understand Tanner Scott is taking less to go play with the Dodgers, but how I kind of think of that is Tanner Scott is taking less than one other option, right? He had another option that was going to pay him more money, and he chose the Dodgers. What if he had five other options? You know what I mean? Doesn't that make it little less likely that he'd end up with the Dodgers because something else popped up. Maybe not. Maybe not. But the fact of the matter is, these teams used to compete on some sort of level to try to win, but now everybody is trying to do the same thing, and this is what happens, and this is what has happened in a lot of sports. We got the nerds involved, and that's fine. A lot of the nerd things are very cool, right? The nerds like home runs, for instance. Home runs are fucking awesome. The nerds like strikeouts. Strikeouts are fucking awesome. But every single team is trying to do and trying to win the exact same way. Except for one, except for two, The Mets as well. Right. The Mets are also spending a bunch of money and money doesn't matter to the owner and all that sorts of stuff. But at the end of the day, like these other owners are, the real problem is that to say that I won't hate the Dodgers during this season, I'll fucking despise the Dodgers. I can't wait to hate the Dodgers. I can't wait to root against the Dodgers. I can't wait to root for, you know, my former team, the Guardians, in that first round series and hope that Jose Ramirez just goes bonkers and whatever pitcher that they just reclaim from everybody to turn into an ace that they're going to trade next year just shuts them down. Right? I'm going to, I'm going to hope for all that and I'm going to be rooting against them. But the fact of the matter is, with everybody trying to do the same thing and trying to get the same result in free agency and trying to win the exact same way, it sucks. And it's. And it's allowed for this to happen. It is allowed. If you create that space, people are going to fill that space. And the Dodgers and the Mets in particular have filled that space. And now everybody is, is, is going to be mad at those teams. And I'm going to tell you right now, Pat, it's going to result in a salary cap. They're going to get it. That's. That's what all this is. They're going to get a hard cap and people are going to think that they like it. And it's actually going to create way more imbalance than it's created so far. [01:01:47] Speaker B: It might result in the loss of the 2027 season, by the way. [01:01:51] Speaker A: Yep, that's right. [01:01:52] Speaker B: I think we, I think that's a very real possibility. [01:01:56] Speaker A: And then we'll need Sammy Sosa again, won't we? [01:01:58] Speaker B: What I'm saying, before we get off of this, I want to give a shout out to two other teams that I think belong in that same category. One is my Phillies, who have, they've, they've spent liberally. They just, you know, it has not been the best roster construction. When you look at the moves the Dodgers have made versus the Phillies, the moves they've made, boy, it's, you know, I appreciate the effort from my team in spending the money. [01:02:26] Speaker A: I would say just before you jump off that, it's not. You touched on this in the Beginning. It's not just that they spend the money like everybody else. They're also better at everybody at scouting. [01:02:38] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. When I. When I look at the homegrown talent on the Phillies versus the Dodgers, and we. We could run through the Dodgers, you know, but, like, you know, it's. It's, you know, Will Smith is your catcher, and he's homegrown. And Max Muncie was picked up off the. The trash heap and everything like that. And, you know, Mooc, they were like, oh, yeah. Well, they went out and gotten. Mookie Bets was not free agent signing. Mookie Bets was the result of a trade. They traded prospects that they developed that everybody thought were going to be good for Mookie Bets. Then they did extend him. Kershaw was obviously, you know, a homegrown. They have lots of homegrown talent. And up until a couple years ago, they were not just, like, going out and throwing money to try to fix the problem. Now that's what they're doing. So now the game has changed a little bit. I want to also give a shout out to the Toronto Blue Jays, who are desperately trying to throw loonies and toonies at every, you know, half decent free agent under the sun and get rejected by every one of them. Every single one of them get rejected in very cruel fashion. Like, the players come out publicly and they're like, I really like the Blue Jays and get everybody in Canada hyped up. And then they're like, psych. I know what the. I'm not going up there. So there's that. The one. The one. The only thing I'll add, and you're 100. Right. They're gonna bring in a salary cap, and it is just going to benefit the big market teams more. And all you need to do for evidence of that is look to the NBA. It. The salary cap ushered in this player empowerment era, where the players get to choose where they play whether they're under contract or not. They went from like, oh, you're under contract, you play in that city, to, oh, no, you can demand a trade. Oh, yeah, you could also pick the team. You're essentially a free agent at all times. In the end. [01:04:29] Speaker A: Yep. [01:04:30] Speaker B: And where do these players choose to go now because of the way basketball is going, it ended up not mattering. We discussed that earlier. But when these players choose their city and all of a sudden money is not a part of the equation. Money is not in the picture. You cannot outbid another team. If you are the Memphis Grizzlies and money is not in play. What is your argument to get a free agent, to want to come play a big name free agent? Who wants endorsements? Who wants name recognition? Who wants to be a star? Who wants a legacy? What argument do you have over the Lakers, over the warriors, over the Heat, over these teams that have legacies and are in big fun cities to live in? [01:05:26] Speaker A: What. [01:05:26] Speaker B: How do you convince a really good player to come play in Memphis? I don't care how good your team is, they're not gonna do it. They're not gonna want to play in Oklahoma City. Oklahoma City is incredible. [01:05:40] Speaker A: Yep. [01:05:41] Speaker B: But if I'm a free. If I have the next five years ahead of me, and money is the same everywhere, except guess what, I'm going to get end up on a hell of a lot more cereal boxes with a Lakers uniform on than a Thunder uniform on. What do you even have at that point? [01:05:58] Speaker A: Yep. [01:05:58] Speaker B: You're. Regardless. [01:06:00] Speaker A: Yep. [01:06:01] Speaker B: So, you know. [01:06:02] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. And then you say, oh, salary floor, though. Yeah. Well, then you're going to get a situation where they sign subpar talent to contracts that they can then not move, and then they're going to get weighed down that way. I mean, we can spend a whole nother friggin hour of this. But instead of that, we're gonna let Pat tell you about the Roast Battle League. [01:06:24] Speaker B: Yeah. So, yeah. Jeff and I met as comedians in la, more particularly at a show called Roast Battle. This is a show that's very near and dear to my heart, where two comedians go up there and they write Roast jokes about each other and then they hug and they're friends. And I made most of my best friends in LA through doing this show, and it's. It's provided me with a lot of cool opportunities. You see over. [01:06:47] Speaker A: Damn it. [01:06:48] Speaker B: I always. It's mirrored so I never know that right above my finger there, that is an autograph script from Rob Gronkowski set at the Tom Brady Roast. And right next to it, Randy Moss. Shout out to Randy Moss as he continues to bravely fight against cancer. Those are opportunities I got because I got to write on the Roast because of Roast Battle. So it's an important show to me, and I have an important role in the new Roast Battle League. We are. We just wrapped up our second season with 16 cities all across the world. And this weekend, we are going to London to. For the championship, the championship of Roast Battle. We have battlers from New York, Louisiana, Scotland and Tokyo competing in London for the thing. There's way too much backstory here. To get into, and I don't even have a particular plug. What I want you guys to do is understand that this is a big part of both of our, you know, history and comedy. And if you haven't checked out the show, if you discovered this show without knowing anything about us, give Roast Battle a look. Check it out on YouTube. We upload new episodes every week. I am a house judge for all the episodes here in la. It's. It's a lot of fun. And make sure you are checking that out as well. [01:08:01] Speaker A: One of the best times of my life, the. The Roast Battle game. Except the two times I lost. Two. Pat, in said Roast Battle. I'm not gonna speak two, two, two. [01:08:10] Speaker B: We only battled once. [01:08:12] Speaker A: I thought we lost twice. I lost twice to you. Oh, I lost twice. No. [01:08:16] Speaker B: Oh, we battled once and you lost. But, you know, you. You have correctly pointed out for many, many years that that maybe should not have been the. The case. It was maybe, you know, well, we. [01:08:26] Speaker A: Can listen back someday, but today's not that day. Not that day. Speaking of winning and losing, though, we are bringing back something that we used to do on the old podcast, and it's just got to make its way to this podcast. We. We love playing games on these things, and we hope you'll play along with us. So what we're going to do is play a little game called 24 7. And how this works is I'm gonna have different topics. Pat's gonna have 60 seconds, right? And I've got 24 things, and he's got a name, seven of them in the category before the 60 seconds runs out to clear the category. Everybody makes sense. Are you excited for this, Pat? This used to be like your favorite game. [01:09:08] Speaker B: This was my favorite game. I was usually the one administering the game, not the one playing it. It's a very high pressure environment. I'm scared to death. Let's go. [01:09:17] Speaker A: Heck, yeah. I'm gonna get the timer up real quick. I actually found games for all three of the main sports categories is there's a football one, there's a basketball one, and the baseball one. Okay. The football one is what we're going to kick it off with Jaden Daniels in the playoffs as a quarterback. And that's a free one of these for you. I was wondering if you could give me seven of the last 24 rookie quarterbacks to be in the NFL playoffs. I'll give you Jaden Daniels. So you need six more. Ready? Go. [01:09:58] Speaker B: Starting with. With my worst sport of the three. But we'll. We'll go. Jaden Daniels. Was Jalen Hurts in there as a rookie? [01:10:08] Speaker A: No, he was not. [01:10:10] Speaker B: Okay, let's see. Mahomes. [01:10:13] Speaker A: No. [01:10:16] Speaker B: Was Brady one of the last 24? [01:10:18] Speaker A: Nope. [01:10:20] Speaker B: Okay, so I guess it's a. It's all more recent. Let's go with Michael Vick. No. Okay. We're off to a rough start. That's okay. I'm feeling good about this. We're gonna rebound. You ever just start to blank entirely? I feel like that's what's happening now. How about Russell Wilson? [01:10:44] Speaker A: Yes. [01:10:45] Speaker B: All right, There we go. That's. That's one. Derek Carr. [01:10:49] Speaker A: No. [01:10:51] Speaker B: Let's go with Jordan Love. [01:10:54] Speaker A: No. [01:10:56] Speaker B: You sure? [01:10:58] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:10:58] Speaker B: Okay. I got. I got a long way to go. Mitch Trubisky. [01:11:03] Speaker A: All right. I feel. No, it's not even Mitch. Okay. Good Lord, Pat. I've never seen you flail at one of these categories like that. Here we go. You ready for this? I'm going to go most recent to the oldest. Ready. Jaden Daniels. Bo Nicks this year, pat. Come on. C.J. stroud. Last year, that was a pretty good one. Sean Clifford. Skyler Thompson. I don't know who those guys are, and you shouldn't either. [01:11:25] Speaker B: I'm fine with that. [01:11:26] Speaker A: Brock Purdy, Mac Jones. Some guy named John Wolford. Who is that? Lamar Jackson. [01:11:36] Speaker B: Okay. [01:11:37] Speaker A: Nate Sudfeld, Nathan Peterman. Taysom Hill. Oh, my God. Connor Cook, Brett Hundley, Dak Prescott, Landry Jones, AJ McCarron, Logan Thomas, Jimmy Garoppolo, Kirk Cousins, Robert Griffin III, Andrew Luck and Russell Wilson. [01:11:59] Speaker B: Listen, I mean, I definitely should have gotten more than one. All right, There were a couple. A couple obvious ones in there, but a couple where I'm just like, all right. Nick Hunley. Like. Like. [01:12:09] Speaker A: I'll say this, like, after reading the names back, getting seven of those would have been a tough one. And that's why this second one. We're going to basketball now. And I feel really good on this one for you and anybody else who's playing along. You ready to go? LeBron James is about to make his 21st All Star game appearance, which is an NBA record, of course, because everything he does is an NBA record. I want to give you the other 24 NBA superstars who made 12 or more all Star appearances. Okay, Time starts now. [01:12:48] Speaker B: Kobe. [01:12:49] Speaker A: Yes. [01:12:50] Speaker B: Shaq. [01:12:51] Speaker A: Yes. [01:12:52] Speaker B: Kevin Durant. [01:12:54] Speaker A: Yes. [01:12:55] Speaker B: Jordan. [01:12:56] Speaker A: Yes. [01:12:59] Speaker B: Bird. [01:13:00] Speaker A: Yes. 5. [01:13:01] Speaker B: Magic. [01:13:03] Speaker A: Yes. 6. [01:13:04] Speaker B: Kareem. [01:13:05] Speaker A: 7. There it is. That was 18 seconds. You got to feel good about. That was a really good. [01:13:10] Speaker B: I feel. Yeah, I needed. I needed a rebound. That was yeah, that's a little bit more. I mean, this one, a little more straightforward. The first one, there were some obscure names and I panicked and I just started like, you know, I. When. When you panic, it snowballs very quickly. That one, I was way more relaxed. I feel comfortable now. [01:13:28] Speaker A: And I mean, this one, if you wouldn't have got this one, we would have had to cancel the whole podcast. It's Kareem Kobe, Tim Duncan, Garnett, Shaq Durant, Jordan, Carl Malone, Nowitzki, Jerry West, Wilt Chamberlain, Bob Koozie, John Havlich, Dwayne Wade, Larry Bird, Magic Johnson, Moses Malone, Hakeem Olajuwon, Chris Paul, Oscar Robertson, Bill Russell, Dolph Shays. I did not know that one. And an Isaiah Thomas. [01:13:58] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, that. That one was a little bit easier. That one was basically like, Name the top 24. Seven of the top 24 NBA players. [01:14:05] Speaker A: Ever of all time. That's exactly right. And so that's why that one went number two, because now we got ourselves a game going in the third and final category. This is baseball. And I specifically made this one a little challenging. Although I've got some faith in you here. We've been talking about Roki Sasaki and him coming over. Wonderful. He's a Japanese player, had a ton of success over there. Coming over here, likely to be very, very good. And so that got me thinking, who are the top 24 on the born in Japanese strike or just born in Japanese born in Japan strikeout leaders in MLB history? So the top 24 Japanese strikeout leaders. 60 seconds. Your time starts now. [01:14:58] Speaker B: Hideo Nomo. [01:15:00] Speaker A: Yes. [01:15:02] Speaker B: Bet Otani's on there already. [01:15:04] Speaker A: That's right. That's 2. [01:15:08] Speaker B: Matsui on the Dodger on the Padres. [01:15:14] Speaker A: No. [01:15:15] Speaker B: Darvish. [01:15:17] Speaker A: That's three. [01:15:21] Speaker B: Hideki Orabu. [01:15:24] Speaker A: No. [01:15:26] Speaker B: I feel like the floor might be pretty low on this one. So a year in. Is Yamamoto on there already? [01:15:33] Speaker A: He is not, but you're not wrong with that thought. [01:15:39] Speaker B: Yeah. This. This one's tougher than I expected it to be. I'm sure I'm missing a couple of really obvious guys. [01:15:52] Speaker A: Oh, we got 10 seconds. [01:15:54] Speaker B: This one hurts a lot. Kikuchi. [01:15:57] Speaker A: Yes. That's four. [01:15:59] Speaker B: Ryu is Korean. Channel Park's Korean. [01:16:03] Speaker A: That's it. [01:16:05] Speaker B: Oh, can I, can I, can I, can I throw a couple out after the buzzer, please? Kazuhiro Sasaki. [01:16:12] Speaker A: That's correct. [01:16:17] Speaker B: Okay, never mind. We could be here. We could be here all day. I know there's a couple really obvious ones I'm missing. I feel like some. I feel like the Mariners had a starter. I just got Sasaki. He was a reliever for them for many years. But go ahead, hit me. [01:16:34] Speaker A: Run them through. You. Darvish is number one. Only Japanese pitcher to have over 2,000 strikeouts. What a feather in the cap and a great career for you, Darvish. You Darvish. Hideo Nomo. Kenta Maeda. [01:16:46] Speaker B: Oh, fuck. [01:16:47] Speaker A: Hiroki Kuroda, you say? Kakushi, you had that one. Daisuke Matsuzaka. Hisashi Iwakuma. [01:16:58] Speaker B: Yep. That was the Mariner starter, by the way. Iwakuma. [01:17:02] Speaker A: Yeah. Tomo Oka. Koji. Koji Uehara. Shigetoshi Hasegawa. Masato Yoshi. Kazuhisa. Ishii Hideki Arabu. You did say Hideki Arabu. Takashi Saito. Junishi Tazawa. Max Suzuki. Kazuhiro Sasaki. Hasanori Takahishi Takahashi. Excuse me. Akinori Atsu. Saka no Atsuka. Excuse me. Hideki Okajima. Kodai Senga. More recent one. And not Yamamoto, But Shota Imanaga was on that one. [01:17:44] Speaker B: Yeah. So there were a couple of. A couple of rookies. [01:17:48] Speaker A: Yeah, there were a couple young. A couple youngins on there. Just not Yamamoto. [01:17:54] Speaker B: Yeah, because he missed a couple months. [01:17:57] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:17:58] Speaker B: Well, I feel like I have to turn in my Yomiyori Giants hat now. That's. Dude, that's. That's pretty wild, actually. Like the first seven or eight names, I'm like, okay, yeah. If I had more time, like the. The Kaz Ishis of the World and Dice K. We all remember the Dice. [01:18:17] Speaker A: Kimonaga, I think he would have gotten to Senga, too. Yeah. [01:18:24] Speaker B: But there were a lot of names in the middle that I. I'm not familiar with that. That was a. That was a great question. The first one was designed to watch me flail. Nicely done. The second one was a layup for me to set up the third one, which I think I could have had an actual shot at, but I came up well short, so nicely done. Good job. [01:18:42] Speaker A: Yeah, I was pretty proud of thinking of that. Japanese strikeout leaders 1. I thought you'd have a lot of fun doing that. And actually, you would have had a lot of fun had I asked you that via text message and just gave you the rest of the day to shoot names at me. [01:18:54] Speaker B: Right, but what's the fun in that? [01:18:56] Speaker A: It's not as fun as making you flail around and say guys names that you can't pronounce. Oh, that kind of backfired on me because I had to say all the names at the end. [01:19:03] Speaker B: Yeah, I pronounce everything perfectly. [01:19:07] Speaker A: All right, we're going to end the show with a segment called if I May, and I'm going to start this off. And Pat, if I may, I just want to talk about Lonzo Balls return from injury this year and how we are not talking about this like enough of the medical miracle that this, that this thing is right now. Lonzo Ball, basically, he's still not playing back to backs, but they've bumped him up now to 25 minutes a night. And I kind of feel like at some point it's only going to go up from there. And I think it would have gone up if this guy probably wasn't a trade candidate for the Chicago Bulls to possibly bring back, you know, a second round pick or something. But it was unfathomable that he would bring back anything before this season started. Anyway, Lonzo Ball worked his way all the way back from, from all that absence. He's got somebody else's knee in his knee and somehow he's been able to play actual good, impressive, exciting NBA basketball all season long. I just want to give a little bit of a hat tip to Lonzo Ball because a lot of people have already fallen by the wayside and would have given up the game a long time ago. He has taken a road that is far, far less traveled because it is impossible that he's even on the court right now. This reminds me a lot of. Oh, God, I got to remember his name. I know his first name is Sean. He used to play for the Warriors. Maybe it's Livingston. Yeah, yeah. Where he had that horrible thing where it looked like his leg just detached at the knee. That horrible, horrible injury that I can't even watch. And then he came back as a lesser version of himself and was a really great role player from, for some of those warriors championship teams. And Lonzo, somehow athletically, it seems like he's about where he was, which is just like an unbelievably fascinating story that I wish more people were talking about. [01:21:02] Speaker B: Yeah. Also in that same vein, Alex Smith. Yeah, Alex had his leg damn near ripped off of his body. It still, it looks horrific. And he came back and played on it and like, like it seemed like he could barely move. And he made the playoffs, if I'm not mistaken. [01:21:17] Speaker A: Yes, he did. [01:21:18] Speaker B: So, yeah, I mean, absolutely. The, the Lonzo thing has been really so nice to see, to see him come back and, and play, you know, at that level and just make it back on the court at all. And then to be, to be playing at this, just keep him out of big ball or brand shoes and he'll. He'll be fine. [01:21:37] Speaker A: That actually, legitimately he has said is like. They think that maybe that was the case. [01:21:42] Speaker B: Yeah. Oh, I'm seeing all these memes right now where it's like, can we take a second to give lavar Ball his flowers for, like, building this into existence? Like, first of all, he didn't will anything. His kids are freak athletes. It's genetics. They're really good. He tried to make his one son, who was a surefire number two overall draft pick, play with paper bags on his feet, and it almost killed him. Yeah, let's just, let's calm down on giving Lavar Ball too many flowers. Okay? Yeah, I, I was originally gonna talk about something else, but this just hit me a minute ago. I want to, if I may, I wanna send a special you to UFC and boxing fans for ruining the sports landscape by making. Creating a world where we have to sit here and argue about a hard cap in baseball, because God forbid any of these guys make any, you know, oh, he's making $40 million play 162 games. Meanwhile, you got a YouTube guy boxing against a UFC guy in Saudi Arabia or whatever the. And they're combined making half of a billion dollars. They're making $250 million a piece. Logan Paul versus Conor McGregor. You guys have made a mockery of your sports by gravitating toward. And, you know, maybe. Maybe this isn't UFC. Maybe this is all like, you YouTube fans who are just like, you know, coming over and I can't blame. I'm blaming the wrong people. Let me. Let me generalize this a little bit more. Whoever created the world where the highest paid athletes are, the Paul brothers, I will never forgive you for doing this. I will never forgive you for creating this world that we live in where the most anticipated sports events are senior citizens boxing against YouTube stars, bars. This sucks you. [01:23:30] Speaker A: That's why God hates LA, because you guys say like that. [01:23:35] Speaker B: I will square. I will square up with God right now if he can. If. If one thing I said is a lie, may he strike me down right now. [01:23:44] Speaker A: Oh, God, it was good to be back in the saddle with you again, Pat. I can't wait to see where we go with this one, and it's gonna be a lot of fun. I hope you guys kind of enjoy us for the ride, but you can follow me. Imotorguy. Bsky. Social. That's how you have to write things on Bluesky, everybody. You can send us an [email protected] Are you gonna make fun of us for our Yahoo Email? You probably should because it's absolutely ridiculous. But you know what? Statementgamemail.com was taken, so I had to do something else. Statementgameahoo.com Pat, where they can find, where can they find you? [01:24:23] Speaker B: Pat [email protected]. no, don't do that. That's a, that's a joke. The Pat Barker on Instagram. Follow me there. [01:24:33] Speaker A: You can do that. We'll get the socials up. We'll try to figure out actually how to do what we're trying to do here. But we are glad to be back with you. I'm super glad to be back doing this with Pat. So I'm. Until next time, I'm Jeff Sewing. [01:24:50] Speaker B: I'm Pat Barger. We didn't, we didn't talk about that part ahead of time. [01:24:55] Speaker A: There's no real way to close the show. But thanks so much, everybody. We'll see you next time.