Skip on "Obsession" with LeBron James
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Here we go. This is the Skip Bayless Show, episode 27. This is the undisputed. This is everything I cannot share with you

during a two and a half hour go for the throat debate show known as Undisputed. Today on this show, I will respond to a shot that Draymond Green did fire at me about how my entire career has been attached, as he said, to tearing down LeBron James. Today, I will also flash back and go inside the Barry Bonds that I covered for three years

And I'm going to tell you or try to convince you that in aura, in legendary stature, that for me, Barry Bonds remains right up there with Jordan, with Ali, with Tiger Woods. Today, I will also answer some of your questions about who is the LeBron James of acting? I got one for that.

And I'll also answer a question about what song would I sing on karaoke night? And then finally, I will tell you an amazing story about the fierce will of my quote unquote daughter, Hazel, my Maltese, who was supposed to be Ernestine's dog, but who has now changed my life. That will be my favorite story of the day, if you can wait for that.

But first up, as always, it is not to be skipped. A couple of shows back, I challenged, or should I say I dared, Draymond Green to join me on this podcast, or at least to let me join him on his podcast. And hey, Draymond, let's debate the shots you have fired at me. Of course, Draymond has ducked me. I've tried and I've failed to connect.

He's obviously running scared from me because he knows that I would chew up and spit out the points that he's made about me, or at least tried to make, that I would make him look silly. My offer still stands, Draymond. Any place, any time, any way, shape, or form you want it. I am not bluffing. I am still ready if you are able. But since it's now pretty clear that Draymond...

will continue to duck my challenge. I'm gonna go ahead and I'm gonna respond to one of his criticisms. That one being that I have built my career on tearing down LeBron James. In fact, someone sent me the other day that I assume has been circulating on social media. It did make me laugh out loud.

Obviously it was started by one of those billions of blind witnesses out there, those LeBron lovers, defenders, lunatics who despise it when I tell the truth about why LeBron is not Jordan and will never be Michael Jeffrey Jordan. That meme indicated

that about 50,000 of my tweets in all the time I've been on Twitter have been about LeBron James. Across this meme was stamped obsessed with a picture of me, a profile shot of me looking obsessed with LeBron James. So I've been on Twitter for 13 plus years. I've tweeted about 58,600 times.

So that would mean that about 50,000 of my 58,600 tweets have concerned one LeBron James. Now, I do not have the time nor the inclination to go back and count. So forgive me for that. I refuse. I will not. But allow me to enlighten you on this, Draymond.

The primary debate topic on Undisputed over the last six years, the primary debate topic in all my years on First Take concerned my Dallas Cowboys. That was always by design because always that topic has consistently rated better than any other topic, including the LeBron topics on First Take slash Undisputed.

I'm not making that up, I'm reciting ratings data. Every time we do cowboys, we spike. It's just a matter of fact over many, many years of my being on debate shows on television. Obviously the Cowboys are my favorite team. I'm lifelong diehard since I was 10 years of age.

I did work in Dallas for 16, maybe 17-ish years. I wrote three books on the Dallas Cowboys. To a fault, I live and die with my Dallas Cowboys. So it's a little hard for me to believe or buy that only about maybe four to 5,000 of my 58,600 tweets have been about my Cowboys. You realize Draymond that every Cowboy game,

Every game without fail. I live tweet it from kickoff to usually agonizing finish. I live tweet it like every 30 seconds it seems like. Wouldn't those start to pile up on Twitter? I would think so, but I don't know. And Draymond, just a little FYI, I used to tweet a whole lot and talk a whole lot on television.

about my all-time favorite NBA team, my San Antonio Spurs of the dynastic years. That's until Kawhi left them for dead. But from when I joined in 2009 to say through 2019 season, I tweeted a whole lot about my Spurs. And from 2009 until now, I tweeted a whole lot about my favorite NFL player, Tom Brady.

And from 2009 until now, I tweeted a whole, whole lot about my favorite NBA player, Kevin Durant, the best player on the planet, even as we speak. And quite a bit, I've tweeted about his nemesis all those years in Oklahoma City from 2009 through 2017, that being Russell Westbrook, whom I nicknamed, I believe, back in 2012, Russell Westbrick.

And just for the record, 2011, through that NFL season, I tweeted a whole, whole lot about one Tim Tebow. And I could go on and on and on about this, but I will give you this, Draymond. LeBron James has been, through all my years on TV and on Twitter, the face of the NBA. I have tweeted a whole lot about LeBron only because he's played in 10 NBA Finals.

So tweeting about the face of the league for all these 19 years, 10 times in the finals, that's my job. That's what I do. And I'm guessing that's what just about everybody else in the sports media has done, talk and tweet and post a whole lot about LeBron James. But what I also deal in, Draymond, is truth. Not sure you do.

Because once upon a time during game four of the 2016 finals, Draymond, you called LeBron on the court as you battled. You called him a bitch to his face. And you kicked him below the belt. You'd kick several people below the belt. You obviously got suspended for game five and the rest is NBA history. And yet, soon after that season ended,

It sure looked like you allowed LeBron to buy your loyalty, to buy you off. You became business partners with him. What a sellout! But I'll admit, Draymond, I do love to tell the truth about LeBron James because he is the most overprotected superstar in sports history. I'm just gonna regurgitate a few facts here. I didn't make these up. I didn't exaggerate. I'm gonna be nice about it today.

LeBron has always been a below average three-point shooter, far below average free throw shooter. These are facts, not cheap shotting. LeBron has always been a scary, bad, late game, close game free throw shooter, shaky closer. I don't think he was born with the clutch gene.

Facts are the facts. Since LeBron joined the league, nobody has missed more late and close game free throws than LeBron has. He's missed 17. Next on that list is his former teammate J.R. Smith at eight. Nobody since LeBron joined the league has missed more late and close shots, either from two or three, although Russ has missed a few more from three, West Brick.

But the truth is, I guess I'm one of the few who's pointed those things out, not trying to tear him down because he does that himself. He tears himself down by missing all those threes and all those free throws. And please, if I'm wrong, Draymond, just tell me or we can do this face to face, which I would relish. But just this past week,

regular season, LeBron finished 93rd in the NBA in three-point shooting while taking the 15th most three-point shots. That math doesn't work for me. Finished this past regular season 86th in free throw shooting, but 15th in free throws attempted. Does not compute.

There were at least 15 times this year, Draymond, I don't know if you got to watch that many of the Laker games because you were preoccupied with your own, but at least 15 times, the Lakers were late close in games that I thought LeBron should have closed, and he failed all 15 times. There was one game against Sacramento,

when he missed walk-off shots twice in the same game at the end of regulation, at the end of the first overtime, and they lost in two overtimes. So in some ways, LeBron did as much damage to last year's Lakers as Russell Westbrook did. I'm not making any of this up, not exaggerating. Yet, I always say, Draymond, I always say again and again and again,

LeBron's still the best passer in basketball. Gifted once-a-generation passer. Still the greatest driver of the basketball I've ever seen is LeBron James, freight training down the lane at 6'9", 260, 270. Never seen anything like him. Still a very nice guy. Always compliment him on that. Sometimes too nice for his own good. Still, as I always say, he's the single greatest crusader ever.

for social and racial justice in the history of sports. I know Ali took some more dangerous stands, but over time, LeBron is the king of crusading. And I love him for that. I appreciate him for that. I've often complimented him on being such a great role model, the I Promise School in Akron.

It is starting to give me pause a little bit that on the shop of late, he's just gone completely over the edge with the F-bombs. I don't get it. It's beneath his dignity. It's like trying to be a rapper, trying to reach for more street cred. I have no idea. But as Shannon often says to me on Undisputed across the table, that is so unbecoming of you, Skip. I say the same thing about LeBron.

I just say what I see. I react to what LeBron does because LeBron is always doing something, Draymond. I've said many times, he is the most interesting man in sports. In sports history, the most interesting man is LeBron James. There's never been anything like him.

I'm talking about, there's nothing premeditated about LeBron. This isn't scripted, this isn't forced. He just has a natural born force field around him. Stuff happens to LeBron James. S.H. happens to LeBron James. It's just always something, controversy swirls constantly around LeBron James. I always tell our producers,

We'll have a call that we have out here in California time, Pacific time, around five o'clock each evening, go over what might be in the show the next day. Sometimes we're a little light, not much happening. Oh my God, what are we going to talk about tomorrow? But there's a LeBron game that night and I say, don't worry. Something always happens during a LeBron game that transcends the basketball.

some controversies, some post-game backlash, some remark that he makes, some shot that he takes, some shot that somebody else takes at LeBron. I have never seen anything like it. Every game has a subplot of made-in-Hollywood drama. Every single game just takes our show over. How can we not talk about it? And then I just think back at all the things that have happened

Last year, the first go around in Cleveland, they lose games four, five and six to Boston. LeBron shrinks and it gets reported via someone in his inner circle that LeBron had to be sedated for those games because he had a locker room issue with a teammate. Then Dan Gilbert, his owner, accused him of quitting in those games. Quitting? It's impossible. Then he goes to Miami in that first finals game.

told that he's making a list of people he's going to say, I told you so after they went up two games to one. I'm at the top of that list. And he epic fails in four, five, and six. 2013, game six at home. It's another epic fail in the making. LeBron turns it over three times in the last three minutes. Unforced errors, two in the last one minute.

Misses the three to tie. Long rebound out to Bosh. Kicks it to Ray Allen in the corner who saves LeBron's legacy. I've never seen anything like it before. Only that could happen to the most interesting man in the history of sports. 2014 against my Spurs. Game one. The air conditioning breaks. I don't know what happened at the AT&T Center San Antonio. We were there. I was there. Only one man cramped in the fourth quarter. Guess who? The King.

Ramped. 2015, played the greatest first three games of that finals I've ever seen LeBron play. And then right on cue, just when I'm ready to anoint him, embrace him, game four at home, could have gone up three games to one, he disappeared. Shot seven of 22. I don't know what happened, but it was interesting.

2018 game one, Draymond, you remember this. LeBron shot the ball the best he's ever shot it in any big playoff game at Oracle. Goes down to the wire. He's got a 15-foot jump shot on a switch with Steph on it. Little Steph on him. Passes the ball off to George Hill. I just think he ran from the shot. It was a do or die. It's a win or lose shot. They were down one.

And then I just thought LeBron in overtime quit. He's pouting on the bench over the J.R. Smith blunder that followed that off the missed free throw. It's just always something with LeBron James. I'll never forget after that game in 2016 at New Orleans, he just volunteered to the media that the Cavaliers were top heavy as S.H.,

Charles Barkley was all over him the next night. It's just LeBron being LeBron. It's fascinating. I didn't do it. I didn't say it. I didn't try to tear him down or make it up. He said that. And then he chose Russell Westbrook. He chose, he campaigned for it. That was who he wanted to put them over the top last year. And it was a big swing and a big mess.

But as I said then, LeBron's basketball IQ is so high, still the highest in basketball, that he knew bottom line, just in case, fail safe, the quote unquote goat, as Shannon always calls him, the quote unquote goat, I call him the phony goat, always needs a scapegoat. Well, was Russ the scapegoat? It worked this time, it worked next year. Sure looks like we're on that way, right?

So the other day to finish this up, Draymond, by the way, this is after LeBron shows up Saturday at the Drew League game here in LA. Shot two of 13 from three. I can't make this up. Missed the late clinching free throw that could have at least clinched overtime. Anyway, the other day, checking the ratings out and some topic popped about our fourth question in the show, really popped big for us.

call back up the rundown because I couldn't remember what the topic was. Guess what? Cowboys. Yeah, dog days of summer, cowboys are still popping. It's always about the cowboys. And yet, I do forget with you Draymond, I'm dealing with what you call the new media. And in the end, I have to accept the fact that new media doesn't let the facts get in the way

of shots it wants to fire. Let's take a question from you, from the audience. Hmm, here's a good one. How about Travis from Los Angeles, home of Hollywood? Who is the LeBron James of acting? Travis, I will go with Tom Cruise. Tom Cruise is obviously all time great, but Tom Cruise has little to me, little to no range.

And obviously, the farther LeBron gets from the basket, the worse he gets as a shooter. So I could also say LeBron doesn't have great range. LeBron's a below average shooter who's on his way to becoming the all-time leading scorer in NBA history. And that's because he's been so very good for such a very long time. So I've seen the...

newest edition, the current Top Gun, the sequel, Top Gun: Maverick. And Tom Cruise is very, very good in this role that was filmed when he was 59. He's now 60, but it was filmed when he was 59 years of age. So he has endured. But Tom Cruise is greatest at just playing Tom Cruise. And he played him again in Top Gun: Maverick, and it really, really worked.

I seriously doubt Tom Cruise will ever win an Academy Award. He's obviously no Denzel. Denzel is Jordan. But Tom Cruise is a great Tom Cruise, and so is LeBron.

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It's time now for a flashback. As I sat watching the Home Run Derby the other night, watching the balls fly out of Dodgers Stadium, I enjoyed it. But in the end, I was like,

For me, it still felt like a lot of child's play because I got spoiled by the greatest home run hitter ever. And during that derby the other night, I couldn't help flashing back about that hitter, that home run hitter who's also the greatest hitter ever, greatest player I ever saw, player I had the privilege of covering for three years in San Francisco, closely observing. That man...

was and is Barry Lamar Bonds. Now, I know this opinion is highly controversial, extremely volcanically debatable, but I'm sorry, I don't completely condemn Barry Bonds for resorting to anabolic steroids that he obviously began using when he exploded

from 49 home runs in 2000 to 73 then the record obviously broken 73 home runs in 2001 that at age 36. i definitely believe barry bonds belongs in the hall of fame because he was a hall of famer no ballot hall of famer long before he had to resort to steroids so let me put barry bonds in my perspective this is just mine when i think of a mount rushmore of sports

When I think of transcendent sports figures, when I think of legendary auras, magnetic stature, people I've been around and felt the power of, I think of Ali. I once interviewed Ali by phone, but went to many of his fights, was around him a lot. I think of Ali. I think of the Michael Jordan I covered in Chicago. I think of Tiger Woods.

And I must admit it, I think of Barry Bonds. We're talking about immortally great here when I talk about Ali and Jordan and Tiger and Barry Bonds. I'm talking about what my partner on Undisputed, Shannon, always says about being in the same room with Michael Jordan. It's like Shannon says, it's like you think he's about to levitate.

like he's other worldly, God-like. I got to know Michael in Chicago, I know, that's true. Now, why didn't I include Tom Brady in this mix? Obviously the greatest quarterback ever, greatest clutch player ever, not in aura. He doesn't belong in aura or that almost mystical magnetism that the others had and have. I'm talking about off the field because,

When we're talking off the field aura and magnetism, Tom doesn't, he doesn't apply there. Still comes across to me off the field as that corny dad next door who can somehow morph during football games into psycho Tom, especially in the clutch. So I don't include Brady in that aura, but I do include Barry Bonds. And I think Barry's all time greatness has just gotten lost in

and the steroid scandal, and in his never-ending battle with the media. He could be so surly, so snarly, so unembraceable. And Ali was great with the media. Jordan was great when he wanted to be. Tiger was great when he needed to be and still is. Not Barry. He built up no goodwill with the reporters who covered him, including me. He bought no what I call life insurance.

that could have maybe helped take some of the sting out of this steroid scandal, some of it, some of the taint off it. Now he's gone and in some ways he's forgotten. And yet I did have the privilege of covering this man for three years. I did not get to know him because he wouldn't let anybody know him. But I did closely observe him day after day in the Giants clubhouse, in that dugout, on the field. And

I saw a man who obviously descended from baseball royalty and he knew it. Godfather was Willie Mays, his father Bobby Bonds, who by the way played 16 years in the big leagues, made three all-star teams. Let's face it, Barry grew up pretty much a spoiled rich kid in San Carlos, which is just south of San Francisco. Went to Sarah High School, San Mateo, where a kid named Brady eventually would go.

At every stage of his career, Barry Bonds knew, just knew he was better than anyone else because he was. To me, he was a Hall of Famer well before the steroid scandal. MVPs in Pittsburgh 1990, '92, '93, finished second in '91, fourth in '94, just dominated baseball, as well as pre-steroids, eight gold gloves, eight.

I wouldn't go so far as to say Barry was a five to a player because his arm was accurate but average at best. So I can't go five, I'll go four and a half to a player. But he did steal 52 bases in 1990. And then he did lead the league in home runs and RBIs in 93, long before the steroid scandal. But in 1998, Barry had to watch something that I also covered.

The Summer of Love, The Great Home Run Chase, Sammy Sosa versus Mark McGuire, who quote unquote saved baseball. I was there every step of the way as columnist at the Chicago Tribune covering Sammy Sosa. What a phony Sammy Sosa was. He played good guy for the media while, trust me, he was a not so good guy off camera, on camera fraud.

Sosa acted like he was McGuire's best friend, like they vacationed together. And trust me, Mark McGuire barely knew Sammy Sosa, but it played well that summer. And Sammy was great. So was Mark. But at least Barry wasn't a phony, didn't try to snake charm the media. But of course, as you now know, the great home run race was steroid fueled.

Pretty clear that Sosa and McGuire were steroid products. Heck, I covered Sammy back in my days in Dallas when he was first up with the Rangers at probably 19. I think he weighed 160 pounds. But Barry saw what was happening. As Curt Schilling said at that time,

Half Major League players are using steroids and half are thinking about using steroids. So Barry Bonds said, "If that's the way the game is being played today, I will play it better than anybody else." Barry came late to the steroid party and he went all in, as in, "Balco all in." And he gained what looked to me like, I don't know, 30 pounds of muscle.

At first, when I got to San Francisco writing newspaper columns, I defended Barry Bonds. I just wanted to love him. I wanted to be in awe. I wrote that I appreciated how dedicated he was to his diet and his weightlifting. While many of his teammates partook of those high-fat post-game clubhouse spreads that they offer, I often watch Barry go sit by himself at his locker

and eat his chicken and broccoli and brown rice that he clearly had brought from home. Reminded me of somebody I know, somebody speaking right now. And yet, Barry did eat alone, often. Teammates glanced sideways at him in awe, almost like he was some legendary figure in a wax museum, like they couldn't believe they were actually sharing the same clubhouse with Barry Lamar Bonds.

I pretty much felt the same way. But clearly, Barry resorted to steroids. And yet clearly to me, greatest hitter ever. I've never seen anything like him. 2001, Barry pulled off something I'd never seen before and will never see again. He became a hitter who had the advantage over every pitcher he faced. It's obviously always the other way around, except for '01, maybe '02 and '03.

Barry had the advantage. Now I'm going to defend him to a degree here because you can't give anabolic steroids to some career minor leaguer with doubles power and turn him into a 73 home run guy or even a 49 home run guy. Barry had an extraordinary eye at the plate, greatest eye ever at the plate, and he obviously had extraordinary hand-eye coordination.

and extraordinary athletic ability that allowed him to maximize his power. So yeah, the steroids took him from 49 to 73. They helped him to experience a late career home run explosion, but the gifts were there. The dedication was already there. He was Jordan-esque in the sport of baseball. In fact, he was the Michael Jordan of baseball.

I mean, the eye was so great that he just shattered all of Babe Ruth's records for on-base percentage. 12 times he led the league in walks. It's like the expression, you spit on pitches. He spat on just about every pitch that barely missed the plate. And I witnessed game after game, traveling with Barry through the 2001 season, traveling with the Giants on the road,

He might see three hittable pitches a night because people just wouldn't pitch to him. He might see three a night. And if he did see the three, he would hit the three as hard as you could hit a baseball. And said baseball would either hit the wall or clear the wall. I'd never seen anything like it before. Hitter had the advantage over pitcher. This was so rare. This was so legendary. This is so underrated.

It was so dismissed, it was so disqualified, and now it's so forgotten. I wanted so badly to love Barry Bonds. I wanted the media to love him, and he just would not allow it. He rarely spoke to the media after games, but I did hear him twice when he was in the right mood speak at length to the media in big sessions, group sessions.

This was before game one of the 2002 World Series, Giants versus Angels. And then again, before the start of the next season in spring training, I don't know what provoked him, but he sat down and did a lengthy session with the media. And he wasn't just great in those interview sessions, he was all-time great. I've listened at length to Ali and Tiger and obviously Jordan and Brady.

Couldn't touch Barry Bonds as an interview. Just an extraordinary speaker. I interviewed his father, Bobby, in spring training way back in my first year out of Vanderbilt. Bobby was really a great talker. He filled my notebook. So open, such a good guy. I wish there'd been more of Bobby and Barry, but somehow Barry was so suspicious, so distant, and...

The truth is, off camera, not a nice guy. Spoiled brat, difficult to deal with, difficult to manage or coach. I get all that. But listen, when he chose to speak, his genius level, speaking of hitting, it was so over the heads of us ink-stained wretches, but I was mesmerized as Barry spoke about hitting in that sort of higher-pitched voice of his. It's more of a Tyson-esque voice. Man, when he talked about

bat size, bat speed. He chose the smaller bats and almost looked in his hands like a little bat, only 34 inches long, 31 and a half ounces heavy. If only Barry could have showed a little bit of that Barry on a regular nightly basis after games, it would have served him so much better. But

All this got lost. Remember, Barry Bonds never stepped out. He kept his left foot planted in the batter's box. Never seen anything like that. Just throw me another one. Throw me another one. Reminded me of my favorite player growing up, Bob Gibson, the pitcher for my favorite team, the St. Louis Cardinals, who just said, give me the ball back and let's go. Let's go again. He wanted to throw it every five seconds, rock and fire. Don't step out on him. He'll hit you right in the chest.

That was Barry hitting the baseball. Just throw me another one. I'll hit it. He had the tightest, shortest, sweetest home run stroke I'd ever seen. Quickest trigger I'd ever seen. Bam! Ball was in McCovey Cove. 762 times, Barry Bonds hit home runs. But the traditionalists, they still consider hammering Hank Aaron. 755, the record, obviously.

achieved without PEDs. So there came a day in my days in San Francisco when I got so frustrated with Barry. I wanted him to be so likable, so embraceable that I wrote a column, this is in 2003, voicing those frustrations with him. And that night after the game,

I was in the Giants clubhouse, it was kind of at the back of a media scrum listening to one of his teammates, I don't know, Rich Aurelia or JT Snow or somebody. And I felt someone from behind me grab my left arm around my biceps, grab it hard, I'm talking vice grip hard,

And for a split second, I thought it was one of my media competitors trying to reposition me so they could get a camera shot. That was my first thought. And then I thought maybe it's one of my media buddies just messing with me. But as I turned, I looked straight into the glaring gaze of one Barry Lamar Bonds. And he just glared and squeezed for the next 10 seconds that seemed like 10 minutes to me.

And I just stared back without speaking a word. And without a word, Barry turned and he left. I guess that was his way of telling me he did not like what I wrote. I guess he was trying to intimidate me. I have no idea. Maybe it was Barry's way of thanking me for what I wrote. I have no idea because nobody had any idea when it came to this man.

All I know for sure was that's as close as I ever got, literally, to Barry Bonds, wherever he might be now. Let's go back to your questions, shall we? Let us try. David from Nashville. What makes you think the Cowboys won't start the season 0-6? I don't have them winning a game until they play the Lions. Okay, David.

I will give you that games one and two and games five and six will not be easy. One and two, Brady at Dallas, Joe Burrow at Dallas, not easy. Game five at Rams, game six at Eagles, not easy. But I will not be shocked if my Cowboys manage to win two of those four games. But the two middle games at Giants,

and Washington at home? Are you kidding me, David from Nashville? I will bet you 10 cases of Diet Mountain Dew that the Cowboys win both of those games at Giants, Washington at home. They swept both those teams last year and they will sweep them again this year, which frankly is not saying very much.

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. And another question from you, from the audience, from Dennis from Argentina. What would you sing at karaoke night? Ask Dennis from Argentina. Love it that we have somebody watching, listening in Argentina.

- Okay, Dennis, this is for you. You might or might not know my all time favorite song, to me the most beautiful song ever written and ever sung, a song that just echoes with rising passion. It's called "Unchained Melody" and it was recorded by the Blue Eyed Soul duo known as the Righteous Brothers.

Bobby Hatfield's vocal on Unchained Melody is ethereal. I've tried to sing it along with Bobby Hatfield 10,000 times in the car, in the shower. And when I'm the only one listening, I think it's pretty great the way I sing Unchained Melody. But the truth is, I sing worse than Westbrook shoots. And if I actually tried to karaoke Unchained Melody,

It would be an epic fail on the order of LeBron in games four, five, and six of the 2011 NBA finals. It would be a nightmare, but I can dream. In honor of the dog days of summer, I'm about to tell you a story about my dog, whom I would never refer to as a dog to her face. Her name is Hazel. She's a Maltese. And Hazel...

for me is as close to human as an animal can ever get. So allow me, suffer me a story that demonstrates what a shockingly fierce will my daughter Hazel has. And I call Hazel my daughter because I have no human kids. But now I have a female Maltese who has changed my life. I decided when I was 22-ish

just entering this media business that I've been in low these many years that I would have no children because I was always going to be married to this job which isn't a job to me it's a calling it's it's a passion it's my life and I knew from the start to move up in this business you have to move you have to be willing to move and move and move and I went from Miami

to LA, to Dallas, to Chicago, to San Francisco, to New York, and now back to LA. And I didn't want to do that to whatever sons or daughters I might have. Also, maybe most important, as I've mentioned before on this show, my father was a bad guy who did everything in his power to keep me from succeeding. Then when I was 16-ish, he ran off with a woman down the street, left us in a lurch.

And I feared my whole life that if I had kids, I would slowly be doomed to turning into him. That's my ultimate nightmare. So I decided to break the chain. No kids for me. I wouldn't risk it. But instead, I have had lots of dogs. In fact, soon after I was born, I guess we had them when I was born. I was the first born. We had a colleague named Major who

And I will never forget the morning when I was probably four years of age, my mother stopped me in the middle of the kitchen just after I'd awakened. And she delivered the news that we had to put Major to sleep. And I didn't get it at first. "You put him to sleep? Why?" "Because he was sick," she said. I said, "You mean he's gone?" "Yep, he's dead."

That was the first lesson my mother tried to teach me. Maybe the only lesson was life is rough. People die, dogs die, you move on. I had two German shepherds. I had another Australian shepherd, blue heeler mix, a rescue. Had to take all three of them to the vet and have them put to sleep. Two girls and a boy. Shiva and Dusty were the girls. Night, named after...

My school mascot, Northwest Klassen in Oklahoma City. My high school mascot, we were the Knights, so it was K-N-I-G-H-T, Knight. For my boy, German Shepherd, I also had a Siberian Husky named Star who got run over by a car. What's the old saying? People often last too long. Dogs never last long enough. Much truth to that. So frankly, going back,

15, 17, 20 years ago, I got to the point where I was ready that I just didn't want to subject myself anymore to another dog and another death. And in my 12 years at ESPN, I was commuting back and forth between Bristol, Connecticut, New York City. There was just no place in my life for a dog as much as I love dogs. So it was just after my wife Ernestine and I moved to LA six years ago to do Undisputed.

that Ernestine suddenly announced to me, I think I'm going to get a dog. I said, okay, it will be your dog. You take care of it. You feed it. You potty train it. You clean up the pee and the poop. And she said, fine, I got it. She wanted what she called a teacup dog. And I'm like, you know, teacup? She said, yeah, it's one I could carry around in my handbag.

I'm like, oh, great. A little spoiled diva yapper. Drive me up the wall. So Ernestine did a research. She decided on a Maltese and she found a breeder out here in Southern California, not too far from where we live from the west side of LA. It's about 30, 40 minutes from here in Burbank, California. And she went out and she picked up our new addition and she named our new addition Hazel.

after the star of one of her favorite 60s sitcoms called Hazel, starring Shirley Booth, the great Shirley Booth, as the all-knowing housekeeper for the Baxter family. Hazel. It would be. All Ernestine's choice. Yet pretty soon, I wound up sitting on the couch watching a game, and that little ball of fur named Hazel was by my side, and one thing led to another, and she wanted a play fight.

I mean, do serious battle. I'm like, okay, you want to go? Let's go. Her teeth start raking my hand, but I tried to show her and teach her, I won't hurt you as long as you won't clamp bite me. No closing of the jaws. And she got it right away because Hazel is high IQ. Hazel is quick smart. And she got it right away. We will compete. We will do battle. She will skin my hands up.

But no wounds, no emergency room visits. And we had fun. We competed hard. And then as she grew, it became clear to me that she wanted me to chase her all over the house. And I started to realize this girl can fly. I mean, cat quick, cat fast, cheetah fast. Wow. And she weirdly, she growls in rhythm as she runs. Ruff, ruff, ruff, ruff, ruff.

And she competes because I compete to catch her. And occasionally I do and knock her off stride. But we go until all of a sudden she looks at me and stops and says, water break. And she runs into the kitchen and drinks water. That means the chase has ended.

It usually ends when we either break a lamp or scuff up the wall and Ernestine yells, I told you, you can't do that in the house. Then when Hazel was maybe two, two things became very clear. She was no teacup pup. She wound up being about 10-ish pounds. And when she stretches out on the floor to go to sleep, she elongates to like four feet long, not exaggerating.

It's Gumby-esque. Ernstine kept saying, "Did I ever get sold a bill of goods? The breeder told me she was a teacup." And then number two, we began to realize that sweet little Hazel, and she can be the sweetest Maltese this side of Malta, she wants to kill everything that moves that's not me or Ernstine. Kill people, kill other dogs.

killed dogs five times her size. Ernstine keeps saying she has no idea how little she is because she doesn't or she doesn't care. She is absolutely fearless and she is shockingly powerful. I'm reasonably strong for my size and when I need to restrain her, it requires all of my might. Trust me, it takes all I got to hold her down when she decides to go. And the shock to me was that

Hazel, the teacup, has turned into the all-time greatest watchdog I've ever had. Supersonic hearing and smell and just killer will. Hazel would gladly die defending her quote-unquote mom, Ernestine. That is her mission in life. Every dog needs a mission. Her mission is to die for Ernestine if so required. But

Now for the surprise and flip ending to this story, and please don't tell Ernestine I confided in you about this. Hazel has become my dog. I didn't try, I didn't mean to, but she is mine. She always keeps an eye on Ernestine because that's her job, just to make sure Ernestine's safe. But when I'm home, Hazel hangs with me every single second.

We play fight, we play chase like crazy. Man, Hazel just flat out competes. Hazel does not like to lose. And yet in the end, Hazel just, she just loves sleeping at my feet, resting at my feet. Even when I'm lifting weights, she sits right there with me every last pump, every exercise, every rep. When I'm on the treadmill,

I just put her little bed down at the end of the treadmill and she just sleeps right at the end of the treadmill. Every second I'm on the treadmill, which is always one hour, she just waits patiently for me. When I'm watching games, sleeps right at my feet. And when I go psycho and I lose my temper and I scream something at the TV, I shouldn't scream. I mean, I do scream. I lose it. She'll open one eye, look up at me like, come on, it's not that big a deal.

And I calmed down. And Ernestine always says, Hazel has evened you out. You're so much calmer now than you used to be. Ernestine doesn't love it that Hazel became my dog. We don't talk about it. That was not the plan. But as long as she knows that Hazel's mission in life is to protect her, I think she's vaguely okay with all this.

I must admit, when I'm here at Fox, I miss her during the day. I look forward to getting home because I know she will always be right there at the door and she will act like she hasn't seen me for six months. And she will immediately, immediately upon my reentry into our abode, she'll look at me like, you ready for a crazed game of chase? And I will chase her all over the house.

until Ernestine yells, I told you to be more careful. So it was last week that I experienced my proudest moment with my daughter, Hazel. Through the six years we've had her, she's been remarkably healthy. So we haven't needed a vet. So we sort of lost touch with the vet that she needed when she was a baby for her shots. Then one day last week, I look up and Hazel's

left eye is closing, like something's really wrong with it. And then after an hour or two, I realized it was completely closed and I thought it had an infection. I didn't know what was wrong with it. Of course, Ernestine freaked and started to try to get her into a vet. And out here in Southern California, pandemic going on, I don't know what's happened. She just couldn't get her into any vet. They're just booked solid. She started calling around and she finally found a vet who makes house calls.

And I warned her, I said, "House call?" She said, "Yeah, it's a female vet who comes with a male assistant." I said, "Do you realize what's gonna happen if they dare to step foot in here and try to look closely at her? All hell will break loose. Nobody ever comes in our place. Nobody. That's Hazel's house." In fact, we have a doormat outside the front door that has a picture of a Maltese

And it says, "You must get Hazel's approval to enter this house." It's true. So the vet and her assistant came. I said, "I'm busy. I'm watching a summer league NBA game." She said, "I got this." Ernsting tried to handle it and she couldn't. And she came in desperate and she said, "She's already bitten the woman and her assistant. Fortunately, they're okay." She nipped them both pretty good.

And I'm like, I don't have time. And she said, you've got to try this for me. So I went in and I tried to hold her and it was just no dice. It wasn't going to happen. And the vet finally said, we've only got one way here. I've got a sedator. And I said, what? Sedator? And I'm thinking like orally with some kind of pill. No, she says needle. Needle? That could be really dangerous for you.

the vet and for Hazel, my daughter, because you start injecting anesthesia. I don't know what's going to happen. She come out of it and finally I realized this is the only way we're going to get that eye looked at and the eye is closed. So I turned Hazel around but backward and before she knew what had happened she got stuck and she yelped and nearly tore out of my arms

But I managed to contain her and then I sat about 20 feet away from the vet and her assistant who were then sitting in the floor because they were trying to make friends with Hazel sitting in the middle of the living room floor. And she said, "I'll give it 10, 15 minutes max and she'll probably fall asleep." And we waited and we waited and we waited and Hazel kept growling and she kept eyeing the vet and her assistant and she refused to yield.

20 minutes, 25 minutes, 30 minutes passed and my girl Hazel refused to succumb. There was just no way that she was going to let the vet win. She willed away the anesthesia and I think she got the full dose because the vet knew it was going to take a large dose. The vet said, "I've never seen anything like this before." But Hazel was not going to give in. She defeated

the anesthesia. She was still 100% alert and growling and ready to attack after 35 minutes. And the vet said, do you think you could at least get a muzzle on her? And I said, sure, let's try. We tried three of them. And the third one, she finally accepted it. And then I resorted to all that I know with Hazel. Ernstine talks more baby talk to her. I just talk to her like she's

an equal, like she's human. And I looked her right in the one open eye and I said, "Look, this nice lady needs to look at your eye. Something's wrong with it and we gotta get it fixed. You just gotta let this nice lady look at your eye." And I truly believe she listened to me because she will mind me, not the other party involved, but she does mind. And I think she did accept and she was wide awake, 100% alert.

And she finally, in full control of her faculties, she let the nice lady check out her eye. I held on with all my might for dear life. And the vet checked it and said, it's not infected. It's scratched, which was something of a relief to me. And then Ernstine took back over medication to be applied twice a day. And she was going to have to wear some kind of cone mask.

to keep her from scratching her eye on the carpet, rubbing her eye on the carpet. We tried a cone and she tore it off and then we tried a donut that she tried to rip off but it stayed. So for the last week, poor Hazel was stuck in a donut around her neck, restricting her really from sleeping. She was having a hard time eating, but obviously she couldn't rub her eye on the carpet.

And we just took the donut off last night and the eye is opened again and it looks okay to me. I don't think we're going to resort to the vet again. So in conclusion, I'll be the first to admit to you, I'm pretty smitten with Hazel, as you can readily hear. That little female teacup who's supposed to belong to Ernestine. I occasionally post pictures on IG.

of me and Hazel, I have to restrain myself so that I don't turn into those parents that Ernestine and I always roll our eyes at, the ones who can't stop talking about, showing you pictures, videos of their kids. But Hazel changed my life so much for the better. And it's like God gave me exactly what I needed. I needed a quote unquote daughter who's as sweet as she is fierce.

and as sympathetic as she is athletic. Who knows? Maybe Hazel will outlive me. Wouldn't surprise me a bit. But if she doesn't, I'm gonna be all right with it because she has brought me so much joy. Thank you, Hazel. I love you, girl. That is it for episode 27. 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 this show. Remember, Undisputed every weekday, 9.30 to noon Eastern. The Skip Bayless Show every week.