Deep Dive
Shownotes Transcript
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This is the Skip Bayless Show, episode 56, in honor of the greatest and baddest defensive player ever, Lawrence Taylor. This, as always, is the Un-Undisputed, everything I cannot share with you during the two-and-a-half-hour debate show that is Undisputed. In episode 56, I will tell you...
how and why I have finally made peace with March Madness, how I finally just tried to grin and bear it. I'll also tell you why Aaron Rodgers has turned out to be exactly what I said he was long before he won that long-ago, far-away Super Bowl 12 years ago.
I will answer as always your great questions about my cowboys, about my bucket list, about my diet Mountain Dew, and about my choice to write the foreword for my autobiography. And finally, if you will so allow me, I will try to explain to you why my daughter Hazel, my six-year-old Maltese, is so rare that I'm now convinced she's actually human.
But first up, as always, it is not to be skipped. It is time once again to jump into that pool as in that office pool. I know you are. It is time once again for amateur hour, the New Year's Eve style event of the sports calendar that is mostly for non-fans, mostly for casual fans, not for hardcore basketball fans.
Because if you want real live basketball, if you want basketball played at the highest level, I'm talking about supremely played basketball, you watch the NBA. But if you want extremely evenly matched basketball played mostly by players who will never play anything more than college basketball, if you want wildly unpredictable thrills and spills, if you want basketball that's exciting for all the wrong reasons,
Basketball that is rampantly but blissfully amateurish. You want March Madness or March Badness. You know what? Do try this at home. As you're watching a March Madness game, if there's an NBA game on another channel that's handy for you, flip back and forth for a while and tell me what you see. It's going to be hard on your eyes to watch the March Madness college basketball game. My wife, Ernestine, is coming to be a big NBA fan.
Not by force. She just chose it. She likes it the best of all the sports to watch because she always says, I can see their faces. I can see their bodies. I like to look at their bodies. I'm fine with that. But sometimes she'll walk through while I'm watching March Madness games and I do watch them like crazy. They drive me crazy. But sometimes she'll walk through and she'll glance up and say, oh, you're not watching real basketball. No, no, I'm watching college basketball.
Never has there been a sports event more perfectly nicknamed than March Madness. I mean, the Super Bowl isn't always super, but the NCAA basketball tournament, it is always pure madness. I mean, you better prepare for bracket, bracket. You better prepare for 12s beating 5s and maybe a couple 13s beating a couple 4s.
Who knows? Maybe we'll even see a 16 beat a one because the truth is they're not really upsets. I mean, this tournament is actually predictably unpredictable because its very format is so maddeningly flawed. I mean, seriously, what do you think is going to happen if you take a bunch of kids and you throw them into some strange arena with strange shooting background in, let's say, Des Moines?
at some weird made-for-TV time, late morning, late night, and you make the three-point line three feet closer than the NBA's, and you make the games eight minutes shorter than the NBA's, and you give the players only five fouls instead of the NBA's six fouls, and
What's going to happen if the NCAA refs are, like the players were supposed to be, amateurs, amateurish? Well, you know what's going to happen. Anything can happen, and often does. The hopeless underdog gets hot from that very short three-point line, and it's not much more than shooting free throws, and all of a sudden the best player gets
for the prohibited favorite gets three quick fouls early on. It has to sit for 20 clock minutes because you only get five. And well, everything can happen everywhere all at once. And by the way, congrats to Sunday night's Oscar winner for best picture. So buckle up for buzzer beaters across the nation in the first round. Prepare your racket to be wrecked early on. Why? Because
When it comes to picking madness games, you got to trust me on this. The more you know, the worse you will do. The more you know, the worse you will do in picking these games. This is why your office pool inevitably will be won by the man or the woman who watched zero regular season college basketball and zero conference tournament college basketball.
They will pick their games, their winners, because they like the mascots or they like the team colors or because their grandmother's uncle's daughter's son went to Oral Roberts. Hey, I do, as I say, I watch March Madness like crazy because it's a flat out blast.
but it's to me it's it's like riding those those old amusement park rides i used to ride i called them vomit rides remember the teacups do they still have i'm sure they still have teacups those evil spinning tilting teacup rides just strap me in and let me let me feel my stomach rise up into my throat let me feel the throw up rise up into my throat
These are cheap thrills for the easily amused. But the truth is, I mostly watch the NCAA tournament games to see who can play pro basketball. Yes, I root for my alma mater. I root for my Vanderbilt Commodores. They deserved an NCAA bid. They did not get one.
But the truth is, I haven't actually picked an entire bracket in a couple of years because I finally just wore out on it. Because the truth is, your guess is as good as my guess. When it comes to this, I'm the opposite of an expert. I did win two office pools that I can remember, 1993. I just picked North Carolina because I thought they were the best team with the best coach. And I just got lucky.
Then I'll never forget 2003. I did pick Syracuse because I thought this freshman named Carmelo Anthony was just easily the best player in the country and he turned out to be just that. Otherwise, I have wasted way too much of my time in my life getting mad at madness. We don't do a whole lot of college sports on Undisputed, but we do do far more college football than basketball.
As you probably know, we are mostly in order an NFL and NBA show. That's what we have found to work by trial and error over these many, many years that I've been doing this. That's what our audience, that's what you have told us, that you most want us to debate and discuss NFL, NBA in that order. Marsh Madness has never really set up very well for us
especially in the first couple of rounds, because I just don't think a whole lot of people tune in to hear what Shannon Sharp and I have to say about, to go deep on about, what, 12-seed College of Charleston? Will it upset five-seed San Diego State? Or whether, I don't know, 14-seed Kennesaw State will shock five-seed Xavier? I'm assuming a majority of pool participants think
Wouldn't watch undisputed anyway Because they don't really follow sports that closely anyway in fact Let me pull back the curtain for a moment and let you in on this would you believe that last Monday for the first time in my 19 year TV career we opted to not do a March Madness topic not do one at all and
We do 10 topics a show. We chose not to touch March Madness. I'd known from Shannon's night, Shannon's, excuse me, note the night before that he was going to pick Alabama. I was going to pick Alabama. And there was just so much NFL free agency and so much jaw to talk about, to break down, to tear apart, to dive into.
that we decided who really cares about our final four picks because, I mean, everybody and his dog makes a final four pick. And in fact, I will bet you that my Maltese, Hazel, could make better madness picks than I would make. And trust me, she's something of a sports genius because she watches at least as much sports as I do because she is always there with me watching sports. So guess what happened this past Monday?
Our audience, you, validated our no madness decision. We had one of our biggest out of NFL season ratings ever. You have spoken. Now, when we actually get to the final four games, the final two games on that Saturday leading to that final one game on that Monday night, we will definitely be all over it on Undisputed. That's mostly undisputed.
Because to me, that's when you see potential high draft picks get fire tested on a huge national stage. I love that. That's legit. That's what it's all about. So I am picking Alabama because of Brandon Miller. He is easily the best player in college basketball. And he easily, to me, makes Alabama the best team. Some like Houston, the odds makers like Houston.
I'm sticking with Brandon Miller in Alabama. My Vanderbilt Commodores at the end of the year went on a late season SEC roll. They won 10 out of 11 conference games did my Vanderbilt Commodores. But guess what happened just before my black and gold went on that late tear at Bama in Tuscaloosa. My Commodores lost, you ready for this? 101 to 44.
101-44, then won 10 of their next 11 SEC games. And guess what happened just last Saturday in the SEC Tournament Championship game? I'm sorry, last Sunday. In the championship game, this is against a very good Texas A&M team that eliminated my Commodores the day before. Brandon Miller had an off game. He went 5-20-10.
from the floor. He went four of 14 from three, yet he still managed to score 23 points with 12 rebounds, and Bama won that game by 19. That's all you need to know. Yet, of course, it was Brandon Miller who recently and inexplicably agreed to run a teammate's gun back down to him at the club to which he had taken said teammate and dropped him off. And as you know,
another man wound up using that gun to kill a woman. Brandon Miller was not charged, but he was sitting in his Dodge Charger when the gun battle broke out and some bullets did hit Brandon Miller's car. Then he had the audacity to continue with that pat-down routine that he was using during their introductions before Bama home games.
where a teammate patted him down for a potential gun. It was a bad look for Brandon Miller, for Alabama basketball, for the NCAA, for March Madness, especially if Brandon Miller winds up cutting down the Nets in Houston. One shining moment could turn into one glaring moment. Do I have now questions about Brandon Miller's character? Sure I do, but not about his leadership. I watched them closely.
This kid is the leader of that basketball team. This kid at 6'9" can flat out shoot it and rebound it and pass it. He can play. Brandon Miller belongs in the NBA. It is so unconstitutional that the NBA can still force high school stars to play one hypocritical season of college basketball. I have never understood it, never could fathom how it continues to be.
I do remain a bigger NBA fan than a college fan. Give me the best basketball played by the best players under the best circumstances. Give me the seven game series to determine a truer champion. Give me the game that belongs to the players. College basketball belongs to the coaches. College basketball is far more for the arch conservative fans living in the ivy covered past.
and muttering under their breath about what those overpaid NBA diva superstars have done to the game once played by guys in crew cuts shooting at peach baskets. I will watch March Madness, but now I've taught myself to chuckle at it, to grin and bear it, to enjoy the upsets without letting them upset my stomach. Time for your questions. Time for Dave from Arizona.
What current member of the Cowboys is closest to becoming a Hall of Famer? Interesting question. Never even thought about that. So I looked into it and I realized that Tyron Smith, left tackle, I believe will be a first ballot Hall of Famer, has now played 12 years, 148 games, but he's missed 17 games the last three seasons. So do I think he can make it another year?
I hope so. Would I be surprised if he called it quits before next year? No, I wouldn't be surprised. So I guess he would be the closest to the five-year cycle that it takes before you're eligible to be inducted into the Hall of Fame. So I'll go Tyron Smith, first ballot lock Hall of Famer, will probably be the first to be inducted. But then I looked a little closer. Wait a second. Zach Martin, also a lock Hall of Famer.
Wait a second, would you believe that Zack Martin is a month older than Tyron Smith? So wait, Tyron Smith has played 12 years to Zack Martin's nine years in the NFL, 12 to nine, but Zack is a little older because Zack redshirted at Notre Dame, stayed for five years while Ty Smith at USC was three and done.
Again, how the NFL gets away with forcing high school players to play three years of college football is beyond me. But Ty Smith did play his three years at SC and then hit the draft. But Zach Martin is a month older. Then again, look at this. Ty Smith has played 148 NFL games to Zach's 137. So in three fewer years, Zach Martin has played only 11 fewer games. Huh. Interesting.
Zach's just stayed much healthier, obviously, than Ty Smith has. How much longer can Zach last? I have no idea. I hope three more years. Again, they're both 32 years of age, Ty and Zach. 32 doesn't seem that old. Brady played until he was 45. He might play again for all I know. 32? Can both of them last a couple more years? Three years? I don't know for sure. But that brings me to the newest addition to my Dallas Cowboys. By the way, I shouldn't
overlook the children on my team before I get to the newest addition. Micah Parsons is only 23 years of age. I'm pretty sure he's going to be in the Hall of Fame. I don't want to jinx him. It will be only about his health, not about his ability. I'm pretty sure he's going to be in the Hall of Fame at some point. Health, the key issue.
Could CeeDee Lamb or Tony Pollard have huge breakout years the next two, three, four years, become Hall of Fame candidates? Maybe. It's probably a long shot, but maybe. Which brings me to the newest addition. When I saw that my Cowboys had stolen Stephon Gilmore from the Indianapolis Colts for a mere fifth-round pick, I fell out of my chair.
I screamed so loudly that Hazel bolted up out of her bed and looked at me like I had completely lost my mind because I did. But here's the catch. Stephon Gilmore is 32 years of age also. Would you believe he's two months older than Zach Martin, who's a month older than Tyron Smith? Wait, so the oldest guy on the team at age 32 is now 32?
Stephon Gilmore, and he seems like a kid to me. He still plays like a kid to me. He still seems just as athletic as ever. You seen pick off Dak at Jerry World last year? You seen break up that pass that Mahomes threw to try to set up the game-winning field goal at Indy? He broke it up, batted up in the air into an interception. He's still a shut down corner. I still think he's in his prime at age 32.
We stole him. He makes a grand total of $8 million a year. We stole him. Our weakest link on our defense, the corner opposite Trevon Diggs, just became our strength. I think Stephon Gilmore is a better corner than Diggs is. I wanted Jalen Ramsey, and I think Stephon Gilmore is a more dependable corner than Jalen Ramsey is. Not as athletic, not as fast.
plays as much with his head and his heart now as he does his talent. But you want to talk about a leader? You want to talk about a playmaker? You want to talk about high character and high football IQ? We just stole Stephon Gilmore. He gives us the best cornerback tandem in pro football. He gives my Cowboys the best secondary in pro football. He gives my Cowboys, I think,
the best defense in pro football. Dan Quinn didn't take a head coaching job. He's still there. He's my unofficial head coach. My defense is by far the strength and backbone of my football team. Can my defense overcome middle-of-the-pack Dak? Hey, if any defense in the history of football could, this one next year just might.
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My wife, Ernestine, often tells me I don't toot my own horn, quote-unquote, enough.
My wife Ernestine gets very upset when people constantly try to discredit or disqualify me for being some kind of shock jock contriving against the grain opinions just to get clicks and ratings. Trust me, from the bottom of my soul, that's not what I am or what I do. Shock jocks get exposed as frauds, as one-trick ponies, as jackasses.
I am not that. God gave me a pretty good brain and pretty good feel for sports and the people in and around sports. I watch those people very closely. I watch the games very closely. And I am constantly asking myself, what is really going on here? I am not afraid to say what I see and I see a lot. At heart, I am a truth teller, not a shock jock.
I'm often proven right. In fact, if you want to know the truth, if I can listen to my wife, Ernestine, just for a moment and drop my old school church going humility just for a moment, I am invariably proven to be right again and again over time. People just keep trying to explain me away and I just keep showing up every day after day after day.
I stand strong. I don't back down. I don't back off. I endure. Jerry Jones once said of my opinions, many of which he did not love, some of which he took exception to, to my face. But he once said of my opinions, they are always significant. When I spoke, he listened.
Was right from the start about Aaron Rodgers and it wasn't easy to be right about Aaron Rodgers first It was my man Stephen a Smith then it was my man Shannon sharp Again and again and again and again I had to hear never been anything like Aaron Rodgers Aaron bleepin Rogers transcendent thrower of the football the swagger the flare the girlfriends the State Farm commercials the super coolness
Yet from the start, two years before that long ago Super Bowl that Aaron did win, I said, yeah, he's got great arm talent, but his footwork is awful. And even worse, his leadership intangibles and his postseason guts and clutchness are highly questionable. Even before Aaron Rodgers won that one Super Bowl 12 years ago,
I was calling Aaron Rodgers a blame-deflecting, finger-pointing diva, a master media manipulator. He fired back at me a couple of times. This is before he won a Super Bowl. I stood my ground and he backed off and I heard not a peep from him again. But he did win that Super Bowl as a road wildcard team with no expectations, very little pressure.
If my man Michael Vick hadn't made one bad choice, one bad throw late in that playoff game in Philadelphia, if he hadn't thrown that one interception into his own end zone, Philly wins that game. If my man from Vanderbilt, Jay Cutler, hadn't hurt his knee and spent the entire second half on an exercise bike during the NFC Championship game at Soldier Field,
Maybe Green Bay doesn't advance to the Super Bowl. As it was, Aaron Rodgers got outplayed in that second half by the immortal Caleb Haney. Since that long ago, far away Super Bowl, Aaron Rodgers is seven and nine in the postseason. Think about that, seven wins and nine losses. Six of those seven wins were pretty fortuitous, to put it mildly. He got to beat Joe Webb.
a Viking receiver having to play quarterback. He got to be Kirk Cousins at Washington. He survived my Cowboys in the Des Coddick game. He beat Odell's Giants in large part because Odell had gone to South Beach with his receiver group to get ready for his first ever playoff game up on the frozen tundra of Green Bay. Aaron did beat my Cowboys again.
with the help of two intergalactic field goals that looked as if they had no chance off the foot of one Mason crossbar. Several of Aaron's postseason losses were flat-out embarrassments, debacles, disasters, including his worst ever playoff performance, which was the NFC Championship game at Seattle following the great escape in the Des Coddick game in Green Bay. Just three years ago,
Aaron MVP had the number one seed, got to play his first ever home NFC championship game, and he lost to Brady's Bucks after he had it first in goal at the eight and up chucked three straight times to the point that his young head coach said, I have seen enough. I'm going to take a field goal that made it 31 to 26. What?
Two years ago, another MVP for Aaron, another number one seed, and he lost the divisional home game, the first game they played in the playoffs, to Jimmy Garoppolo. Stunk it up. Last season, all Aaron had to do was beat Detroit in Green Bay. Detroit.
a doormat in the conference, a team they had in the division, a team they had owned for years on end. All you have to do is beat Detroit and Green Bay to make the playoffs, and Aaron could not. He stunk. But year after year, Aaron has held those Packers hostage in ways, in worse ways than Brett Favre ever dreamed of. Aaron lied about his vaccination. He insisted on going public.
with all the details of his experimentation with the hallucinogenic drug ayahuasca banned in the U.S. He experimented in South America. Aaron Rodgers has revealed himself to be exactly what I said he was 14 years ago when it was highly unpopular to say. It was not easy to hang in with that opinion, especially against the Aaron-loving onslaught from Stephen A. and Shannon.
But here I am still standing. Yes, I did propose a recent trade. Aaron Rodgers straight up to my Cowboys for Dak Prescott. But as I said then, that was only because I was so down on, so done with middle of the pack Dak. I called it trading problem for problem. Overpaid salary for overpaid salary. Hey, Green Bay could have taken some of the risk out of going
With the completely unproven Jordan Love. And I was thinking maybe Cowboy Nation could hope that a change of scenery could help revitalize. And Aaron Rodgers, who, as I've talked about on this podcast, has played far better against Dallas in big games than he has against any other team.
Maybe he could have channeled some of his cowboy hating mojo into cowboy inspiring mojo at the age of 39 and 40. Hey, Aaron's one of the greatest frontrunners I've ever watched, but so are we. So are the Cowboys. Could have been a match made in Super Bowl heaven. That's how desperate I was after Dak stunk in that playoff loss at San Francisco. Again,
But the truth is, I am so glad we did not sell our soul to the all-time blame-deflecting, finger-pointing diva. Besides, there's no way Jerry Jones would have sat still for bringing on a player who could have rivaled Jerry for face of the franchise. So for today, just for once, I'm taking some credit for the stand I took against Aaron Rodgers 14 years ago.
How'd I do, Ernestine? Now, please pass the humble pie. Another question from you. This is Winston from San Francisco who asks, "How many episodes of First Taken Undisputed do you think you have done in your career to date?" I wore myself out last night thinking about this and trying to do the math on this. But here's my best estimation. Over 23 years and four months on national TV,
I have done 5,715 shows. 5,715. So if we have averaged, let's say, nine topics per show because they came and went in different stages and variations. But let's say the average was nine topics per show. That means I've done about 52,000 debate topics on live TV.
which means I'm almost 52,000 and 0 in winning debates because, as you know, I don't think I've ever lost one. Suffice it to say that nobody is more experienced in the debate format than I am. You could say I'm the Cal Ripken of the debate format, of the genre, if you will. Now,
My friends Michael Wilbon and Tony Kornheiser have been on TV for more years during their show, which is all-time great, but their show is only 30 minutes a day. Mine is, or was, two hours a day at ESPN for all those years, and now two and a half hours a day for these six and a half years I've been at FS1.
So what's my secret? What have I learned about doing live TV on an everyday basis? How do you survive? How do you thrive? It's preparation and concentration. Most debates are won the night before by researching and thinking them through. If he goes there, I will go here. If he goes here, I will go there and I will have him. Then of course, when that red light goes on,
You must lock in and you must hyper focus for each of those nine or 10 debate topics over, we do 10 over two and a half hours. If you let your mind wander for even a split second, you lose. We are live and I live for live. Another question. This is Ali from Kannapolis, North Carolina. What is the one bucket list item
You want to eventually purchase. Okay, Ali, I'll be the first to allow and admit I do make good money, but I am not materialistic, not by birth. When you watch your father drink himself to death because he fears he can't provide for his wife and three kids, that fear gets instilled in you. I fight it to this day, financial insecurity. You also have to understand the profession,
I chose, the one I live for and love, is very here today, gone tomorrow. I live on the thinnest of ice called ratings. And those are thin ice ratings with those hot lights beating down on them, bearing down, beaming down on them every single second. At any moment,
any and every moment, I expect to be told, "Sorry, we're going to go in another direction. I just trust nothing in this business because you can't. You'd be a fool to." So, I have never owned a house. I know a house is not an item, but I'm going to call it one for the sake of answering this question. I have never owned a house, a big house with a backyard, that kind of house.
I did for about a month, once upon a time, out here in LA. My first go around was in Van Nuys. It's just a little house. It was three bedroom, two bath. This is back in, I think, 1978. My first wife and I bought the house. And within a month, I was offered the head columnist job at the Dallas Morning News. And I jumped at it and I took it and I ran with it. And we had to immediately turn around and resell the house we had just bought.
Took a little bit of a bath on that, but I live to tell. So Ernestine and I did buy a place in a great gated community, but it's pretty small. It's two bedrooms, three baths, and it's zero lot line, so there's no backyard. So again, this isn't really an item, but the one thing on my bucket purchase list is a house with a big backyard.
A backyard I can put a big basketball court right in the middle of. A big backyard I can chip golf balls in or chase hazel around. I've just never had that big backyard. That house we bought in Van Nuys in 1978 was all cement in the backyard. Had a little pool, a tiny pool, a waiting pool, but it was all cement. Of course, the problem is out here, if you know the real estate market at all,
The kind of house I envisioned is so expensive that I can't even tell you what kind of numbers we're talking about because I would be ashamed and horrified to talk publicly about those numbers. And I would think I would jinx myself. I told a friend of mine in Oklahoma City the other night, my hometown, that if I were to return to Oklahoma City and spend the kind of money I think I'm going to have to spend for my dream house with the big backyard and the basketball court,
I could buy the state capitol building in Oklahoma City for that kind of money. But that's the only item on my bucket purchase list. Greg from Portland, Oregon asks, "How many Diet Mountain Dew bottles are in your fridge at home at all times?" I asked my wife Ernestine this question. Nobody runs a household better than Ernestine Sclafani Bayless. Every once in a while I run out of the many vitamins I take.
out of my multis or my fish oil or my vitamin D3s. And I say to her, could you order? And she says, second drawer, second drawer. She's always two steps ahead of me. Ernestine tells me she tries to keep at least 10 bottles of diet dew in our fridge at all times. She says sometimes stock runs low when she tries to order it from Amazon.
And she actually, I did not know this, she actually has to stop at a nearby 7-Eleven to pick up a few bottles. Thank you very much for that, Ernestine. I mean, diet dew must be that popular. And it is, as I always say, it is the breakfast of champions, the nectar of the gods, my one vice. But I limit myself to one diet dew a day, about 4.30 a.m. out here in L.A. before every show.
Just do it. School is back and Dick's Sporting Goods has what you need to win your year. We've got everything from cleats to sambas, dunks, and more. Plus the hottest looks from Nike, Jordan, and Adidas. Find your first day fits in store or online at dicks.com. This is Vance from San Diego. If Ernstine gets the dedication to your autobiography, who do you want to write the foreword?
If you know forwards, they sort of introduce the book, put it in perspective. Man, I thought long and hard about this last night. I have been so blessed in my lifetime, my career, that I have many candidates worthy of writing that forward. Seriously, I could list a dozen. But right here, right now, I would ask my brother Lil Wayne to write that forward. I believe Wayne is the greatest lyricist of any rapper ever.
I think Jay-Z is close, but my money is on Wayne. I sometimes think our text chains would make a great book. Seriously, our text chains, back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. We get on roles sometimes about issues, players, people. And I skim back up and I think that is some spontaneous greatness.
Wayne is a brilliant writer. He is so deep, he is so insightful, he is so wise, and he is so, so clever. Wayne watches Undisputed religiously. Wayne knows me just about as well as anyone this side of Ernestine. I would be honored if Wayne would agree to write the foreword to my autobiography. And finally, I'll disqualify myself up front.
Look, I know that just about every parent thinks his or her kid is the cutest or the smartest. So go ahead, just disqualify me, ignore me if you want, be my guest. Check out, be done with me. Ernstine and I don't have kids, but we do have a six-year-old Maltese we consider and treat like our child because she is. So please forgive me and suffer me and allow me just a moment
of your time to tell you why our Hazel is a rare, rare creature. I've had many, many dogs in my life known remotely as amazing as Hazel, who's as close to human as any canine I've ever encountered. Ernestine lost her mother. It's been, what, six, seven years ago now? And I've been convinced from the start that her mother
has come back as Hazel. But that's just me and that's probably crazy. But I do reflect on this as I think back of all the dogs I've had. My very first welcome to life on earth moment came when I was three years of age and it concerned the passing of my very first dog. It was a collie named Major. This is like it was yesterday. My mother walked up the steps from our single car garage into the kitchen where I was standing.
As she passed me, she said, "Major's dead." Just like that. Major had been sick. That was my mom, who could be so cold-bloodedly honest and realistic when it came to death. Her attitude was, "You gotta learn to accept it. Death is going to happen. No time for tears. Pick yourself up," as she always said, "by your bootstraps and move on. I'll make breakfast." Next, we had
a couple of toy Manchesters, a brother and sister named Tiger and Miss Lou. They were gifts from grandparents on my mother's side. Then I had two German Shepherds, one named Sheba, another named Knight, as in K-N-I-G-H-T. We were the Northwest Knights in high school. Then I had a Siberian Husky named Star, who was chosen by my first wife, Liz.
Then I had another German shepherd named Jason, which I inherited in a relationship I had with Nancy. Then I had two Shiba Inus named Sonny and Suki, gifts from Martina Navratilova. Then I had an Australian shepherd, blue heeler mix named Dusty. Took me about three years to get over losing her. It was a she named Dusty, who I thought had changed my life like no dog could, which brings me to Hazel.
the one I did not want. Ernstine wanted what she called a teacup dog. A teacup dog? A dog that she could basically carry around in her handbag, as she always said. And I'm like, please, I just don't want a little diva yap dog, yap, yap, yap, yap, yap, all day long, little fragile diva lap dog. So Ernstine told me she chose Maltese. I didn't know anything about Maltese. I went with her to
picked the Maltese out, moved to a home of a breeder out here in Southern California in Burbank, about 30 minutes from where we live, and there were two left, two sheaves. Hazel was the bigger one, but her sister was far more feisty and just was constantly after her wanting to play fight. Hazel just ignored her, kept turning the other cheek as in butt cheek,
But we chose the bigger Maltese copy because we thought Hazel, she wasn't yet Hazel, but we thought she just looked a little healthier. Guess what, ladies and gentlemen, Hazel now weighs about 10 pounds. She is anything but a teacup. Ernestine completely, thankfully, swung and missed on that. She's more like a Gatorade cup because she is athletic, she is fast, and she is flat-out fierce.
Hazel will bite. And as I've said, Hazel has become at least as much mine as Ernestine's. In fact, I can't refer to Hazel as a DOG because she's just not, not to me. So please feel free to tell me I'm just being too proud papa here when I tell you the things that Hazel does that are so much more amazing than any other DOG that I've ever had.
Let's start with this: Hazel knows she gets fed her dinner every day at 5 p.m. So I'll be working at my desk, she'll be sleeping in her bed at my feet, and suddenly, every single day, precisely at 5 o'clock, she jumps up out of her bed, she goes to the door, which is closed, she stands looking back over her shoulder at me,
I glanced at my phone to verify and every single day I am astonished to see that she is ready to eat precisely at five, five straight up, five o'clock. Can she read clocks? Does she just have a clock in her head? How can she do it every single day? Five sharp. She jumps up, goes to the door and looks at me like, it's time. This is not learned behavior.
I didn't reward her with treats and try to teach her to do this. She could just tell time. I don't know. I've never seen anything like it before. Straight up five, she wants her dinner. Now, tell me this isn't amazing. I lift weights at home every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday without fail. And every single time I lift weights, Hazel sits nearby watching or sleeping. And here's the stunner, at least for me.
Hazel knows exactly what my last set is in each workout that I do. Exactly. She knows because she knows I then take her outside because I finish each of these workouts by going down to the gym in our gated community just to use the machines to do my legs. It's the last thing I do in the workout.
So I alternate workouts Monday, Wednesday, Friday, just back and forth, chest and back one day, then shoulders and arms the next day. My final set on chest and back is my third set of body weight pull-ups on my universal. Body weight pull-ups, but it's the third, I do three sets, so it's the third set. Invariably, when I reach only the third set,
Does Hazel jump up and start wagging her tail? Because she knows. She knows. I am in awe of this because she knows it's my last set. She jumps up and wags her tail and looks expectantly at me like, you ready? How does she know it's my third and last set? She'll bark her approval when I finish. And the same thing happens on my shoulder and arm workout.
My final set is my third set of seated bent over rear delt raises for the backs of my shoulders. Not until the third set does Hazel jump up and start wagging her tail. And when I finish, she barks her approval because she knows it's time to go outside. My workout takes at least an hour and a half. Trust me, it's complex. It's tedious. It's for me, endless.
But I don't miss it and I never fail to finish it every single set. And she knows exactly what my final set is. Not the first set or the second, it's the third set of the rear delts and she's ready to go. She knows it. I didn't teach her this. I didn't train her. I didn't reward her, reinforce her with treats.
I'm sorry, I'm astounded by this because no other dog I've ever had had anywhere near this mental capability. Maybe I'm just naive. Example number three is just plain bizarre because it's so un-canine. Ernestine loves to feed peanuts to the squirrels in our gated community. Several of those squirrels have come to know her, to love her, and they'll come out
of the bushes and come right up to her in ways the squirrels don't come up to anybody in our gated community but they'll come right up to ernestine they'll all but take the peanut right out of her hand and then they'll perch on their hind legs and just devour the peanut just right beside her now for the shock to me every dog i've ever had lived to chase and kill squirrels every single one of them it was like their mission in life my shiba inu that i had once escaped out the back and
killed a squirrel and proudly brought it back to the back door. But right away, I realized that Hazel has zero interest in squirrels and in the squirrels now completely know and trust that. We can be walking Hazel, squirrels will come right up to Hazel. They'll come up to her first. I guess to see if she wants to play. But Hazel just looks the other way. She's completely disinterested in the squirrels.
She doesn't even give him the time of day. She just looks away and looks at me like tell me when we're finished Why is this because she knows her mom Ernestine loves those squirrels Please understand Hazel wants to kill every dog we pass I'm talking about giant dogs tiny dogs It's all I can do to restrain her she wants to tear every dog to pieces
She turns into this snarling, bass barking terror. Her bark sounds like it's coming out of a dog ten times her size. But squirrels? She sniffs at. Never seen anything like it before. Damnedest thing I've ever seen. Hazel mostly doesn't like any people. Any people except me, Ernestine, and her sister Joyce. She has bitten three people that I know of. Fortunately, none like emergency room badly. Maybe they were just warning bites.
But the other morning, I turned on the alarm as I left around 4 o'clock, exited, realized I'd forgot my phone and had to reenter. The alarm sounded just for a moment before I could shut it off. And around the corner flew Hazel in full snarl, ready to tear me apart. I wish you could have seen it. Her mission in life is to protect her mom, to die for her mom, Ernestine.
Now she spends much more time around me. She does love me to chase her around the house and to play fight with her. I've posted video, maybe you've seen it, of Hazel just going crazy play fighting with me. She constantly rakes my hands with her teeth as I pop her upside the head with my open hands. We do compete, but not once in six years has she made a mistake, not once.
and clamp down on my hand. Not one time since she was a puppy. We get after each other. She gets mad at me, but not once have I required any kind of trip to the emergency room. She'll scratch me up, but never clamp bite me. Look, I know everybody's kids are the smartest and they're the best looking, but speaking of that, if you've seen a picture of Hazel, if you're seeing one as I speak,
Tell me I'm wrong about this. Tell me she isn't the prettiest Maltese ever. I'm being completely objective about this. Trust me. We take Hazel to the mall occasionally on a Saturday. We see a lot of other Malteses. A lot. I've seen a bunch of them. Live. Hazel is by far the prettiest. By far the most spectacular looking. I know, I know. I'm just like every other quote-unquote parent who thinks...
His or her kids are it. Trust me, mine is it. Mine is rare. Mine is as close to human as a DOG can get. Mine is a gift from God. Thank you, God, for my hazel.
That's it for episode 56. Thank you for listening and or watching. Thanks to Jonathan Berger and his All Pro team for making this show go. Thanks to Tyler Korn for producing. Remember, Undisputed every weekday, 9.30 to noon Eastern. The Skip Bayless Show every week.