Opening Day With Jeff Passan, We Finally Got A Great Tourney Game, Lebron vs The World, Fyre Fest + Severance Finale
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Attorney game to remember with Texas Tech taking down Arkansas. We're going to talk about the rest of the Sweet 16. Kevin Willard and the weirdest exit possible. LeBron went on Pat McAfee and made some waves. Renewed his rivalry with Stephen A. Smith. A new one with Brian Windhorst. And then we're going to finish the show with some Severance finale talk and Firefest of the Week. And it's brought to you by our friends at DraftKings.com.

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The crown is yours. Okay, let's go. A.W. Head. It's part and might.

Welcome to Part of My Take, presented by DraftKings. Bet the unexpected with DraftKings Sportsbook. Download the DraftKings Sportsbook app. Use code TAKE, that's code TAKE, for new customers to get $200 in bonus bets when you bet just $5 only on DraftKings. The crown is yours. Today is Friday, March 28th. And boys, we finally had some madness. Texas Tech down 16 with 10 minutes left.

Takes down John Calpapari and the Arkansas Razorbacks. And I feel bad for Arkansas fans, but I laugh at Cal because that was an all-time meltdown. And Hank just sent me a graphic. This is reading off. So Arkansas doesn't own all of this.

2021 missed the tournament. 2022 is all Cal. 2022 lost to 15 St. Peter's. 2023 lost in the second round. 2024 lost to number 14 Oakland. 2025 blew 16 points second half lead.

Yeah, I don't know that you can group this one in with the other ones because at least he got this far and he was a 10 seed. Yeah. It's a bad joke. It was a hog reveal. They're chokers. That was bad. It was a bad job in the second half for sure. I don't know that you would put this on the same level as losing to a 15. This was a bad loss though, especially the way that Texas Tech was playing.

McMillan was out. They were not shooting the ball well. They were absolute monsters on the offensive glass. There was one possession where I'm like, I think Texas Tech got the offensive board like five times in a row and then finally willed the ball in the hoop because it felt like for the first 35 minutes of this game, Texas Tech, every time they scored was a miracle and they found a way. They willed it. They scored that three with nine seconds left.

And then the real egregious thing by Cal is he doesn't call a timeout with nine seconds left. Just lets his team go down there. Boogie Flynn takes kind of a fade away that front iron takes.

That was avoidable, and Texas Tech, incredible fight by them. They deserve all the credit. Well, it was the classic Todd Bowles. You can't take him with you. Yeah. You got the timeout, burn a hole. I guess he was like, I guess maybe we can just catch him by surprise. Yeah. But maybe his thought was that Darion Williams would be winded after backing the guy down. He wouldn't get back on defense. Maybe a travel. Darion Williams, by the way, I enjoy watching him play very much because he is just always bumping and grinding.

And he's also in slow motion. He had a couple of moments where there was like a breakout and he just, he, he basically let the entire Arkansas defense get back. Cause he's like, I'm not going to do this. Yeah. Big boy bumping and grinding boys are buzzing. I do feel bad for Arkansas fans. Um,

Eric Musselman wouldn't have blown that lead. Oh, no. No chance. Absolutely not. Nolan Richardson wouldn't have blown that lead. Yeah. I mean, we have fun with Cal. That was bad. I like Cal. I want him around in college basketball. He's fun. But that was a bad one. They don't call it 45 minutes of hell. Yeah. It's 40 minutes of hell. So at that point, Calipari is like,

They don't pay me for overtime. Texas Tech shot... They actually shot 25% from three, so they kind of cleaned it up at the end because they hit a couple. But there was a moment there where they were shooting like 9% from three. 22 offensive rebounds is ridiculous. Yeah, it's crazy. That's a ridiculous number. And they're a good team, and they've been injured all year. They've had guys in and out. JT Toppin with that... He had that hook shot in overtime that was just a thing of beauty, but...

Texas Tech. We deserved that game. I'm glad that we got some over to them. I'm glad that we got some action in the Sweet 16 because the first two games sucked.

Bad games, bad job, basketball. Well, bad games, and listen, I bet BYU, I put a lot of money on them, game of the year. I can hand up and say that was not a bad game. That was a nuclear explosion by Alabama. I don't think I've ever seen a team shoot the three like they did tonight. And that was what? BYU against Wisconsin. They didn't shoot it like that.

It was pretty good, but yeah, Alabama. What they did tonight. Yeah, they were playing Missoula ball. They shot 51 threes, and they were 25 for 51. You actually could take out the last second huck by Grant Nelson at the end of the first half. That really wasn't an attempt. They were 50% from three shooting 53. If they hadn't shot a two-point shot, they still would have won this game.

It was insane. That's how crazy it is. When you take into account the three-pointers and the foul shots that they made, if you eliminate every single two-point basket that they made, they still would have beaten BYU. I'm just going to say it just because you're just being unnecessary, ugly there. BYU shot 12 of 26, 46%. That's half the amount of threes against Wisconsin. It was crazy. They shot 51 threes and hit half of them. That's insane.

It was absolutely nuts. I don't think any team in the country beats Alabama if they're shooting like that. Oh, I agree. Like, that was... And they were shooting from deep. They were shooting because, you know, BYU was trying to mix it up. They were throwing some zone at them. They were just shooting over the zone. Mark Sears was 10 for 16 from 3. 10.

10 for 16 from three. He just kept shooting and it just kept going in. It was insane. I know we joke about Alabama because of our friend Rico Bosco. That Alabama is fun to watch and that was an insane offensive explosion. I mean, BYU scored 88 points and lost by 25. So I got a dumb question for you, Big Cat. Is it bad that they shot so good?

Does that ever carry over to that? If you have an outlier, a game like this that's so insanely good from three points, they're not going to be able to keep that going, right? I think the rims in Newark might be a little soft because we saw it in the Duke game too where Duke, that was 193 points. Yeah. So combined in those two games was like over 400 points. I guess you could also say they gave up 88. Yeah, they gave up 88, but like –

That's insane to give up 88 and still win by 25. And still just beat the shit out of your opponent. Yeah, that Alabama team, that's a scary... That is what, if you're an Alabama fan, you just have in your back pocket where you're like, hey, we could just come out and just shoot and hit every three and no one can beat us. Because they do have that. Yeah. And that was what we saw tonight and it was incredible to watch.

And BYU, they weren't making their threes tonight like they were against Wisconsin. They were ice cold from the outside. I was hoping that the rim in the first half would translate and that BYU would heat up in the second. They also, here's one thing I noticed about BYU. I've never seen a team miss as many alley-oops as BYU missed.

I think it was a little bit racist how high they were throwing the ball and missing their alley-oops. I would say some of them technically aren't even misses because they wouldn't hit the player. Yeah. It was just a turnover. I don't know how the scores would... Is that a shot? I think that's a turnover. Do I count that as a turnover? No, it's just a bad pass. Yeah, it was like, I'm going to throw it. That guy can jump 13 feet in the air. Yeah, it was... Yeah, the BYU is not...

not on their game. Alabama absolutely destroyed them. Duke, I know is 193, but Duke just stopped playing offense for like the last 10 minutes. It felt like like running their real offense because it felt like they could, they were in control against Arizona for the entire game. Even got Caleb Love who that was his last college game, went out on his sword scoring 35. We never got the bad Caleb Love in this tournament. We didn't.

But Duke looks so good. That game ended at the end of the half. Yeah, when Cooper Flagg hit the buzzer beater three. Duke just has so many guys. And when Cooper Flagg's bringing up the ball, what are you going to do? So the way they ran this game, especially after the first 10 minutes, the last 30 minutes of this game, it was Cooper Flagg on the inside running a two-man game. Occasionally, Knipple would drive to the hole too, but they would just space out the defense and then let Cooper Flagg do whatever he wanted with the ball.

Yeah. And they couldn't stop him. There was no chance. No, he was phenomenal. He scored 30 points. He was all over the place. Yeah, Conn Nipple.

I think we've got to just say nipple. Yeah, I do like when he does the shimmy and he gets to the baseline. I call it the nip slip. Yeah. That's a good move. Con nipple. Yeah, con nipple. Duke is fun. I have bad news. Duke is a fun basketball team. If you enjoy watching basketball, you're going to love Duke Blue Devils. It's crazy. I don't want them to win it all, but I've been saying they're going to win it all, and I don't hate them the way that I usually hate Duke, and it hurts me.

Yeah. Because they are fun to watch. They are. And then the last game, Florida killed Maryland. And Florida is really, really good. I expect Florida to go to the final four. Condon did get hurt for a little bit there, which was scary for Florida because that is their ceiling. Yeah. Him being out there. And they're just an awesome team.

The story, obviously, though, is Kevin Willard in the weirdest three-week stretch because this goes all the way back, I think, before the Big Ten tournament or right around the Big Ten tournament. Kevin Willard, should we first announce it? Congratulations to Kevin Willard. You are the head coach of the Villanova Wildcats. You got your guy, Max. Congrats, Max. You got your guy. How would you rate Kevin Willard's exit from Maryland?

Not a great exit for Maryland, but I'm worried about his tenure at Villanova. That's the past. We're worried about the future. Okay. And Kevin Willard at Villanova. So you just said the quote I heard from Max memes. I don't know if you caught this was I am worried about Kevin Willard at Villanova. Yeah, no, I'm focused on that. You said worried, though. But that's what I care about. That's my...

I'm not worried about that. I think that if I was in charge of a coaching search, I would take into account how poorly he handled the exiting of the Maryland job, and I'd be like...

Actually, I don't know if we're going to go ahead and do this. Maybe the people of Maryland are also doing a bad job behind doors, you know? Okay, so from what we know... The Maryland Athletic Department seems like a shit show. It seems like a shit show. And I feel... I want to say this. I feel really bad for Maryland fans because this should have been a really fun...

Like sweet 16 run. They hadn't gone to the sweet 16 in 10 years. You had Derek Queens buzzer beater on Sunday. It should have been a really fun. Like this is the start of something big and,

And instead, it was two weeks of just the weirdest press conferences and the weirdest headlines. And Kevin Willard, from everything that I've read, essentially he's been the Villanova coach for like a week and a half now. He started this all two weeks ago doing a press conference being like, hey, we need more support. We need more NIL. We need all this stuff. Fine. Totally fine.

everything i've read maryland basically said okay kevin willard you're right we're going to give you everything you want and he's like well actually villanova is going to give me uh i'm going to the big east i want to go back to the big east and everything i asked for yeah you delivered it but i'm not going to take it it's um it's a bad position for a coach to be in because coaches here's a news flash they have zero loyalty to whatever job that they're correct unless it's one of probably like a

A dozen. There's probably a dozen schools that guys are at where they're like, this is where I want to be as long as they'll have me. But outside of that, they will be looking for a higher paying job, a better job if it's available. And it sucks. It sucks. This is the part that I don't like about college basketball is this type of stuff.

Because Maryland should have been such a good feel-good story. It should have been... I feel bad for the players. I feel bad for the fans. Because of the nature of the sport, they've had...

a bad time going to the sweet 16. Right. It has not been enjoyable. There was nothing happy about this time for them. There's really no fix. Like I can't think of a way to, to make this right off the top of my head, but I do maybe if, if reporters agreed to stop asking coaches, well, no jobs, the fix is he could have done it.

One of two ways. You could have done it the Will Wade way. Which I didn't mind. Yeah, and just say, yeah, I'm taking the Villanova job. I love these guys. I'm going to coach these guys. I'm going to coach my ass off for these guys, but I am gone. Or just basically don't talk about it at all because he did the thing. I understand coaches will do this all the time and it's bullshit, but I also am never going to begrudge someone taking a higher paying job or a job they want to go to for family, whatever it may be.

But you could easily just say, like, I'm focused on this team. I'm not going to talk about this. My agent's going to handle everything. He went on a radio show on Tuesday and said, I'm the Maryland coach as of right now. That's crazy. And this is the same thing that he did. He was at, what, Seton Hall? He was at Seton Hall. So when he was at Seton Hall, his season ended kind of the same way. And in the tournament, he was like...

Yeah, I've got an agent. I haven't talked to him yet, so I don't know what's going to happen. He was very, very cagey about it, about the way that he left. He said in his post-game press conference, the only thing I'm worried about right now is who my next boss is going to be. He was still throwing shots at Maryland. Yeah, because the AD went to SMU. Yeah, and he's like, I haven't talked to my wife. I haven't talked to my agent. That's all lies.

He's talked to both. Yeah. He's going to be announced the Villanova head coach. If he's not, I actually don't think you can go back if you're Kevin Willis. Well, so there was a report that came out that said that he is expected to take the job. I think it was Baltimore Sun. But Maryland is planning on making a last-ditch effort to bring him back.

Which would be wild. So awkward. Because when they left the team hotel today to go to the game, the fans booed them. Maryland fans booed their head coach on the way to a Sweet 16 game. And there was a report, it was a rumor, who knows, that he did not go to the team dinner last night. Do you think that's true? It might be. Because...

He strikes me the way he's handled this whole thing. And listen, again, most people aren't confrontational. I don't like confrontation.

He probably was like, I'm just going to stay at home and do some game planning because I don't really want to sit with my players and my staff and have to have them make jokes or ask me questions. Yeah, I think you're right. I think the way to handle it is just like, I'm not going to talk about anything else. Not talking about it? You got to set the ground rules as a head coach. Not going to talk about the next job. Or the Will Wade. Not the halfway of, as of right now, I'm the Maryland coach. Here's how I would handle it as somebody that would not feel comfortable doing the, yeah, I'm taking the Villanova job, but I'm still coaching these guys and I love these guys.

I would probably say, I'm not going to talk about my future. I love these guys. And then I'd shame the reporters for asking me about it. I love that move. Focus on the kids. I think it's highly offensive that you want to take the spotlight off the players and their experience and try to divide us. I think that's a shameful thing to do. That's what Izzo did. You see Izzo when they asked him about the transfer portal? He's like, I got guys here. I got 15 guys here that I love. I don't want to talk about new guys. I don't want to talk about the transfer portal.

Yeah. It's my guys right here. Yeah. Like that. There is something you don't know when Kevin Willard's been coaching for 18 years. This was his first sweet 16 run. And it basically was sullied by all of this. Like I just, again, it's, you can do whatever you want. You can take whatever job you want.

There's just a way that you can avoid all of this. And he basically, he did the exact opposite of avoidance in the fact that he made it as murky as possible. And he kept on having weird press conferences and kept on stoking the flames. Like he could have shut this down and,

And he just didn't. Yeah, he did a bad job quitting. But I still think that whether you go that way or the Will Wade way, it sucks that it's a conversation that happens. Yeah, but it's also part of sports. I don't like that it happens in March. Especially with, I mean, this is how NIL works now. This is how Transfer Portal did. We always said that it was unfair that coaches could move and players couldn't. Now it is equal. We have Scotty Pippen's son hit the Transfer Portal. He's on Michigan.

Michigan's in the Sweet 16. Remember when Bo Pribula did it for Penn State when they're in the playoff? Yeah. This is just the reality of it. They should change when the transfer portal, because that's the other part, is the transfer portal opening during the tournament or the transfer portal opening during college football playoffs is so fucking asinine and so backwards because I bet you, not to excuse Kevin Willard, if the transfer portal opened, let's say, April 15th,

Kevin Willard would not have had to have his advanced talks with Nova because the pressure of, like, you got to figure it out and you got to figure out who your coach is, you got to figure out the transfer portal, starts so quickly. You know what was crazy tonight, too, is that the first half was close. It was 40-38 at halftime. Do you think Kevin Willard was like, we're so close, fuck it. At halftime, I'm just going to tell the boys. I'm going to open up my heart to them. Be like, hey, guys, there's been a lot of talk. I want you to hear it from me first. I am leaving. I am leaving.

Let's go out there and let's fucking win this game because I love you guys and I'm still coaching you right now. And they took it the exact opposite way and they're like, fuck this guy. Yeah. Yeah, probably. It could definitely have happened. That was his big motivational speech. Backfired big time. Stephen Che was trying to get me on that. This is the exact same thing as Liam Cohn. The Bucks weren't still in the playoffs.

Yeah, not the same. That's the thing. If Kevin Willard, if Derrick Queen's buzzer beater doesn't go in, none of this is weird. It was a little weird a couple weeks ago when he made the demands, but he would have been the Nova coach, and we all would have been like, okay, that makes sense. Which, by the way, this is a stat that I wish that we had. I wish that we had said this earlier in the week. Teams in the last 10 years are 1-7 after a buzzer beater.

in the NCAA tournament in their next game. One in seven. Would have liked to have known that earlier. I think I saw it, but that also is like how much of that stat is real. Like, I don't know. It's real, but I... Yeah, I understand, but is it just... I'd have to look. Because you'd think maybe buzzer beaters... What?

You think it's directly correlated? You hit a buzzer, you lose the next game. No, I think it has more to do with maybe an underdog that shouldn't win the game. Right. And they end up winning at the very last second on a fluky shot. They're less likely to beat a better team in the next round. Right. It has nothing to do with the actual shot. Right. Hank was ready to ride. Stats are stats. Stats are stats, but you'd probably have to look into it a little more. Numbers never lie. Numbers never lie. Hank, how did you like the games tonight?

They were great. I liked the... It was fun. It was a fun night. It was better than last weekend. Yeah. And we should have... I mean, the Elite Eight matchups now. The whole deal we made is that there was no upsets at the beginning of the tournament, but Duke-Alabama is going to be great. Texas Tech-Florida should be great. These are great games. Kentucky-Tennessee tonight. Yeah. It's stacked. Yeah.

We're living in the best times. Michigan-Auburn. The Crown starts on Monday. I don't know if you guys have seen, but I'm actually jacked up for The Crown. I'm not going to watch The Crown. Was that a show on Netflix? You know why you're going to watch The Crown? You're going to watch The Crown because The Crown starts Monday at 2 p.m. I like the timing. Yeah.

And it goes 2 p.m., 4.30, 7.30, 10 o'clock. You're going to watch the crowd. I can't turn my back on NIT Stew. Oh, I'm sorry. Also, I should mention, on Tuesday, 2 p.m., 4.30, 7.30, 10 o'clock, you're going to watch the crowd, buddy. It's good having basketball on in those days. I'm going to watch the crowd. I mean, the timing of it is a no-brainer. Yeah, it's great. What are the matchups? Which crowd matchup are you most excited for, Cat? Tell me the teams, and then I'll tell you how excited I am.

Nebraska, Arizona State could be good. Washington State, Georgetown. It might take the over in that. Utah, Butler. George Washington, Boise State. We need to find a crown expert. DePaul, Cincinnati. UCF, Oregon State. Villanova, Colorado, Tuesday night. Tulane, USC. Where are they playing the games? Vegas. All of them are being played in Vegas. So, yeah, I'm a crown guy.

I'm excited for the crown. I want Max. You'd be live streaming every crime game. Yeah. No, but I said, yes, I get fucked up with it. I'm looking at Pacific time. I don't know what that means. What do you mean? So all of these are two hours back. Why is your computer not having time? Well, I'm looking at the bracket.

So on the printout bracket, it says Pacific. So that means that you need to add two hours to it. Just look at the website. Got it. I also like that the final four of the crown is the same day as the real final four, but it's just before. So if you're craving boots. Oh, that's great. So it's 1230 and three our time. So it'll be going right up until the final four. What about the championship? Sunday. Sunday.

Love it. Okay. Yep. Love it. It's great. I'm a crown guy. It's good scheduling. It's good scheduling for the crown. Your crown with a sickness? Sure. I don't know what that means at all. It's a lyric.

Down with the sickness? Oh, got it, got it, got it, got it, got it, got it. I thought this. I don't know. My bad. Just say I'm crying with the sickness. Yeah, I'm crying with the sickness for sure. Fuck yeah, you are. All right, we got to talk some LeBron. Before we do that, Hank, will you look up what the prices are in game time for the Cubs opening day next Friday? Sure. Okay.

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Opening day Friday against the Dodgers. Yeah, I think it's going to be a nice day too. And you can get into Wrigley for just $64. Wow. Use the game time picks. You can put those savings back in your pocket and spend them at the ballpark on a hot dog, a new hat, or some good old-fashioned Cracker Jack.

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Lit the world on fire. Then hit a game winner against the Pacers. Then we should mention he had the laziest entry pass ever in the Bulls, who were very hot. Won on a Josh Giddey half-court shot, which was an incredible... If you didn't watch...

I would assume a lot of people didn't watch the Bulls-Lakers. Just pull up the clips for the last 40 seconds. It was insane. It was nuts. Three to cut it within two. Yeah. And then stolen inbounds pass. Kobe White was just on fire again. Go ahead, Bucket. He's been on an insane run. And then was it... Lakers scored a two. Yeah, it was Luka to Austin Reeves. Yep.

They go ahead and then Giddy hits a half-court shot. Yeah, half-court shot. But LeBron. LeBronversation. LeBronversation. Great name for the interview. I have some takes. I want to hear what you guys have to say. My first take is, how pissed do you think Skip Bayless is?

That he's not involved? LeBron goes on this Pat McAfee show. It was actually pretty entertaining. Very entertaining. I liked the whole thing. You didn't hear LeBron. LeBron doesn't do these type of interviews often. And he started a war with Brian Windhorst. He went at Stephen A. Smith again.

Said the NBA was rigged. Said the NBA was rigged. Said Giannis could have dominated the 70s. Said his team that made the finals when he was younger was a joke. Basically shat on it like the anti-player joke. Yeah, yeah.

But all this to say Skip Bayless was not mentioned once, and all Skip Bayless wants to do is get mentioned by LeBron. He's the big loser in all of this. Yeah, Skip was really grasping at straws tonight because he was mad at LeBron. He was calling him out for losing the game tonight in the home palace of Michael Jordan. So he was laying in extra hard trying to make LeBron seem like a loser. But in reality, Skip was just like, maybe he's going to call LeBron

Like Stephen A by my name in the LeBronversation. But I thought that LeBron and then Stephen A's response to LeBron, they just need to have a fucking conversation on a podcast together. They need to quit talking about each other behind each other's backs. They need to just sit down and do it all in a room. You think that this is all the work to get Stephen A Smith some ratings? I don't know. To get the NBA talked about? It does feel very workish at this point.

I have not given up on my conspiracy theory that LeBron is starting a separate league. Him basically admitting that he believes the NBA was rigged.

is further evidence of it. It's trying to put a little crack in the truth. Hank, I've agreed with you since day one when LeBron said that he was thinking about starting his own league that would rival the NBA after they've done everything just bending over for him for the last 25 years. I thought that fair play on both sides.

Until Stephen A was like, you didn't go to Kobe's funeral. Well, no, he also said... He also said... Good point, good point. Things that he was never brought up. Yeah, there are things... And then he brought them up. There are things that he could have brought up in the past. And he didn't. Which he hasn't, and he will continue to not bring them up. Correct. And those things, as he listed them, were, I didn't bring up that you didn't go to Kobe's funeral. Yeah. I get it right when I'm talking about the news between you and your son...

There were things about your son's illness. I'm so thankful that he's okay. And then he just moved on from that point. Yeah. And also the Dwayne Wade didn't go to Dwayne Wade's Hall of Fame induction. That's right. But when he fired the shot about Bronny, that was the weirdest one to me because he didn't finish his thought on it. It was almost like one or two things happened. Either one, he was letting LeBron know that he knew something that he wasn't going to detail. Or two...

He just decided mid-sentence, oh, fuck, I better not go there because LeBron's going to kick my ass. Right. And then moved on. But that part was really weird to me. And then also, oh, yeah, it turns out that LeBron did go to Kobe's funeral. And he just asked to not be photographed there because he didn't want to make it about himself. Right. So the Stephen A. Smith-LeBron stuff, I mean...

It's basically just giving Stephen A. Smith life. But it's a power move by LeBron. To do McAfee's show on the same station. I am the biggest LeBron hater, but...

Yeah. He hates Stephen A and Stephen A hates McAfee. So as a way to get back at Stephen A going on McAfee, like that's a, you got to tip your hat to that. And I thought Pat did a really good job because Pat does do a good job of like asking questions that are uncomfortable, like just getting right to it. The one, the couple of things I, like him going after Stephen A was fine, whatever, like Stephen A,

That's the game. Stephen A wants to be talked about. I thought the Windy shot was weird. Yeah. The Windy shot was weird just because, like, I don't think Brian Windhorst ever said he's best friends with LeBron. No. And he's also... Everything I've, like, heard from Windy, he's always pretty effusive in praise of, like...

I wouldn't have a career if LeBron... Yes. I wasn't in the same place, same time as LeBron James. I think maybe what LeBron's heard is everybody else being like, Wendy is best friends with LeBron. That's why he gets all the LeBron scoops. But Wendy has never said that. It's just everybody else being like, Wendy is the guy that has everything about LeBron. But it's also very funny because LeBron, you should probably look at your inner circle because they're probably the ones talking to Wendy. Yeah. Right? Yeah. If I was Wendy, I would have been like...

I wish that LeBron would say that to my face because I'd have to swing on him. I don't think so. Wendy had the whole media responding for him, having his back. Yeah. And these are minor things because, again, overall, I like the interview, and I thought LeBron was more relatable than he's been in a long time. The other one that I was just like, this is weird, the Giannis scoring 250 points in the 70s, that just feels...

It feels desperate of like trying to push, you know, I'm the goat conversation. And...

It always strikes me as weird when guys bash the people who came before them, who not only, like, 70s NBA players, games were on tape delay, guys weren't being paid a ton of money, they were traveling like shit. Those guys built what the NBA eventually became, so you should have a little more reverence for those guys, I would assume. But it's also weird to me because if you're bashing guys from the 70s...

What do you think is going to happen in 40 years? You're going to get bashed. Yeah, right. It's like it's like having a conversation like everyone knows someone who's a big gossip and always has like inside, you know, telling you, oh, this guy's doing this like and they ask you what's going on in your life.

And you're like, no, you're just going to tell this to everyone else. You can't... If you're going to bash the 70s, they're going to bash you eventually. Or it's like hypothetically if a coach left the job unceremoniously. Right. What do you think he's going to do to your job at some point? Right. It's just so weird to me. Like, you're going to get... It's going to come around on you, LeBron. I don't know why...

you could just take the high road and be like the guys in the 70s were great in their own way the errors have changed basketball has evolved but I appreciate them and I hope people will appreciate what I've done for the sport in 40 years also if yeah is he saying that if you took modern day Giannis and then just teleported him back in time and dropped him in the middle of a game yeah he would dominate okay that's that's probably correct yeah he'd probably be the best player by by far but also if you were to take

Giannis and then have him be born in that era. Right. He probably would never play in the NBA because they didn't scout in Greece. Correct. And so LeBron, if he had been born in that era, probably would have been a great player, great basketball player, one of the best.

But would he have been as... He wouldn't be a carbon copy of who he is today. Would he have been able to play for 20-plus years? No way. Super teams didn't exist. He might never have won a title. Yeah. But he also, like... His career longevity is because of how far we've come in sports science. You'd think...

Like, to bash those guys, they were playing in fucking Converse and Chuck Taylors. Yeah, I don't like him going at Wendy. Yeah, Wendy was too much. I don't like that. But I do like the fact that Stephen A is like, I would have swung on him if he put hands on me. Yeah. I love that. Yeah, I like that, too. And then also fair play by LeBron posting the boxing video of Stephen A. Smith. Yeah. Be like, bring it on. It's a good rivalry. It's a great rivalry. It is a great rivalry. The other two ones I had. Hey, can you think that Stephen A. Smith and Pat McAfee don't like each other? I think there was a report.

Definitely. Because Stephen A. Definitely. Stephen A. seemed very complimentary to Pat McAfee earlier. I think the beef has been settled, but I think there was a beef six months ago. Okay. This also, Stephen A. was in a contract year, so I think he probably was hangry all the time. Yeah, he's never been on McAfee's show. Oh, he hasn't? I didn't know that. No. I didn't know that. Wow. So, yeah. I mean, that's not really like...

I know there was a report. Let me confirm that. Other two funny side pieces of the LeBronversation. I saw this tweet from Justin Termine. Sorry if I fucked up your name, dude. Termine Radio hosts the NBA today 4-7 Eastern on SiriusXM.

The most disturbing part of this entire interview was the amount of swearing for a guy who claims he understands his responsibility as a role model. Very disturbing. Makes you appreciate guys like Steph Curry even more. Very disturbing. Fact. Fact. I was disturbed. The part that I liked the most was the swearing. Yeah. Yeah, it makes them relatable. And then the other one was, Hank, your boy Perk down bad. Did you see that?

Perk says that he blocked LeBron's number after LeBron unfollowed him on Twitter. Perk is down. I mean, Perk also is like, does he understand what?

Like blocking someone's number who never calls you and who just unfollowed you. You're blocking somebody that already broke up with you. I got your ass. I was actually thinking about this. It's probably so that he doesn't reach out to LeBron to stop himself. You think Perk has LeBron in his phone as do not text? Yeah, do not text. And you get a couple glasses of red wine and Perk. You got cut off from the Celtics too. He did? Yeah. For what? For talking shit last year. Being like, break up the Jays and this team's not going to win a title. Yeah.

So he's not even welcome back within the organization, really. KD kind of roasted him, too. Yeah. No, he's gotten... He just burned all his bridges. Damn. Damn. That's tough. The swearing was bad. Swearing was bad. No, it wasn't bad. It was very disturbing. It was fucking awful. It was very disturbing. Okay. Okay.

MLB opening day? Yeah. We're going to talk with Jeff Passan in a minute about... I would say everyone should listen because he's great at giving us a lot of the nuggets, storylines, rookies that you've got to watch out for so you can know before everyone else knows. Uh...

How did everyone's MLB opening day go? Tyler O'Neal hit a home run, so it went pretty good for me. Six straight. Six straight opening days. Crazy. He was just like, I have no idea what's going on with me after he hit this one. He's automatic. Cubs are 1-0. Phillies 1-0.

I'm not counting Japan. Yeah, but Max, you're 1-0 with an overtime win. So it's really, we got a point, too. We don't play hockey. We're playing hockey. We're playing hockey today. I was pumped, actually. I was pumped. You were 1-0? Yeah. I was pumped. Mackenzie Gore had 13 strikeouts through six innings. Yeah, but Alec Boehm said after the game that it was because of Shadows. Oh. Okay, well, he also pitched there last year, and he wasn't as good, so...

Shadows, 4 o'clock. He was like, no game should ever be. How many strikeouts did your guy have, Max? You don't even. Your guy? Yeah. The best pitcher in the NL? Yeah. How many strikeouts did you have? Your guy? I'm asking you a question. Zach Wheeler, I think he had nine. You haven't answered. Let's see. Let's look it up. Memes, how was Soto's debut? He got a hit in his first at-bat. How was his last at-bat? Not great. Oh, what happened? Bad strikeout. Oh. Yankees win today. We will win tomorrow. What?

I'm just saying, today was a win for the Yankees. Oh. They dominated. Are we keeping up? Are we doing game-by-game score on the Yankees versus Soto? Okay. I'd like you to update that every time we do a show. Today was the Yankees' win. All right, so when we do Sunday's show, I want Friday, Saturday, Sunday. Done. The best pitcher in baseball had eight strikeouts, Max.

Eight. Eight strikeouts, six innings, one run. Mm-hmm. That's... McKenzie Gore had 13 strikeouts, six innings, and zero runs. Which one's better? Seven to three, the final score. No, we're talking about pitching. We're talking about the starting pitchers, Max. Okay. But they got a point, too. We got an overtime point. You lost the game. Oh.

Dude, learn how scoring works. I have a question for Max Tank. I actually already threw this out to PFT. We're going to talk about this with Jeff Passon because we were talking about rookies. Cam Smith. What, you don't like Jeff Passon? He might have had some words for you at the end. Cam Smith made the opening day roster for the Astros. He was part of the Kyle Tucker trade. A lot of Cubs fans are like, this sucks. Cam Smith's going to be awesome.

I think I'm rooting for Cam Smith to win AL Rookie of the Year, and I might even bet it. And the Masters. And the Masters, because...

If he wins AL Rookie of the Year, then Tom Ricketts has to re-sign Kyle Tucker. Otherwise, it's one of the worst trades ever. You think owners think that way? I don't know, but I'm trying to think optimistic. It's early. It's opening day. Do you think that's stupid? I don't think it's stupid. Whatever makes you feel better. Well, everyone's inclination is if you trade a prospect, you don't want him to be incredible right away. Right.

But Kyle Tucker's on a one-year deal, and the goal is to obviously re-sign him. If Cam Smith is incredible, and you're like, wow, we traded him? I think what you're really hoping— Yeah, that's preseason code. All right, all right, I was just working it out. I get it. Because one doesn't equal two. I get it. I understand the sentiment entirely.

But here's what you're doing. You're really hoping that your guy is good and that he stays around for a long time. Well, Kyle Tucker is good. But you hope that he continues to be good. Right. You don't want them to put like a Jason Hayward type contract on him when he appears to be good.

just because you don't want to miss out on the guy that you traded away, and then that contract becomes something that you want to get rid of for the next four years. But Kyle Tucker's good, and he's been good, and he's on the right side of 30. A little different than Jason Hayward. What if Cam Smith wins Rookie of the Year, and they don't re-sign Kyle Tucker? Then it's a disaster. But you're rooting for that? I'm rooting for the pressure to be turned up to re-sign Kyle Tucker.

And in reality, I know the other side of this is... I mean, I guess you could apply that pressure. Right. And the other side of this, which I've thought this all through, is the real way this is probably going to work out is Cam Smith will be great, and then Kyle Tucker won't get re-signed with the Cubs, and Tom Ricketts will... The only lesson he will learn from this is never trade prospects, and then we'll hold on to prospects forever, and they'll never be good. That's also possible. That's probably the reality. Yeah.

Listen, it was a dumb thought. I threw it out there. I don't know. It is Cope, but I don't know. I don't think it's a dumb thought. You have to protect yourself. So maybe I should bet Cam Smith to win Rookie of the Year. You have to protect yourself somehow. I won't judge you for how you choose to do that. Okay. Kyle Tucker is very good. Yes. Kyle Tucker is the guy you want. Yes. Long term. Yes. And I'd like them to do that. Dumb thought, but we'll see. Maybe I'll bet it. Good thought. Yeah.

Also, all the bad teams won today. Yeah. Or a lot of the bad teams won today. So you had the Marlins. They beat the Pirates. And then you had the White Sox beat the Angels. My method this year, I'm not going to be fading one team. I'm diversifying. Oh. So I'm going to be fading what I project to be the three worst teams in baseball, which would be the White Sox, the Marlins, and the Rockies. So I'm 0-2 on the season on that. Not off to a good start.

But the season's young. The season is young. One day. Also, I saw some Yankees guys looking a little bit disheveled with the new grooming standards. I hope that the Yankees come out tomorrow and they say, yeah, you know when we told you that we relaxed the grooming standards? That was a test to see who is a true Yankee. Yeah, who wants to be a Yankee. And those of you that took advantage of that, see ya. I like that. Take a hike. I like that. It was entrapment. It was entrapment. We got you.

We found out. We weeded it out. Cut all the guys that aren't true Yankees. I like your diversification, although it's the reverse Mark Titus. Our friend Mark Titus bet the Marlins parlayed with the White Sox to both win their respective divisions $5 to win $350,000. Pretty good. Off to a 2-0 start. If the season ended today, that would cash. Would it? Do they beat division rivals? I don't know if it would.

I don't know if it would. I'm looking at the... No, the Marlins beat the Pirates. The Phillies also. The Phillies won. Yeah, the Phillies won an in-division game, so the Phillies are probably... Although, technically, I'm looking right now, the Marlins are listed first and the White Sox are listed second, so... Wow. Might not work. It's right there. It's right there. He just needs 161 more of those from both teams. We're both going to lose over 100 games. Definitely. Definitely.

Okay, let's talk some more baseball and we'll be opening day with Jeff Passan and then we have Severance Spoilers and Firefest after Jeff Passan and then we'll

Yeah, get to that. Okay, before we get to Jeff Passan talking baseball, guess what? It is summertime. It's about to be summertime. It's spring, but it's about to be summer. And Truly Unruly is our drink of the summer. Truly Unruly is the first high ABV hard seltzer that actually tastes good. Truly Unruly is a hard seltzer that breaks all the rules. Drinks light, parties hard. With 8% ABV, it hits hard but still tastes amazing.

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Do you have any tips? Yeah, use taxact.com. They make it super easy. They got expert assist. They got everything you need to do your taxes. Okay. This is 100% credentialed and 100% US-based? Sure is. Okay. What about, can you get the answers you need starting at $20? You can. Oh, wow. If you need a little help or a lot...

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It's crunch time and you want to get it right. Tax Act makes it easy so you can get them over with and be done for the season. Go to taxact.com. Awesome. Thank you, Hank. Go to taxact.com. Okay, here he is talking baseball, Jeff Passan. Ooh.

Okay, we now welcome on a very special guest, friend of the program. It is Jeff Passan from ESPN. It is opening day. We're going to air this on Friday, so we're already going to see opening day, although technically the Cubs are 0-2. I told you in text that I'm just not going to acknowledge those two losses. I don't think they should count. They should have done an exhibition game. But it leads into my first question for storylines going into this baseball season. Are the Los Angeles Dodgers bad for baseball?

Everyone loves asking this question. And it's the problem with it is if I say yes, then I'm lying. But yes,

But if I say no, then it infuriates everybody because I think fans of every team outside of the Dodgers believe that the Dodgers are bad for baseball. And I understand, like, I get the sentiment. They have an incredible team. They have a chance to win more games than any team in Major League Baseball history this season if they can manage to stay healthy.

And when you put everything against the backdrop of that and of the fact that they're going to spend a half billion dollars this year when you've got a handful of teams that have payrolls under $100 million and we're so conditioned to this parity salary-wise because the NFL and the NBA and the NHL all have salary caps, of course it must be that the Dodgers are ruining the sport. And yet when I pull back and try and look at this rationally,

They are playing in a collective bargaining agreement that was agreed to by all 30 owners. Now, I bring that up because they decided for this system. What the Dodgers have done is they've taken the natural advantages that they've had and used them incredibly well. Like if the Dodgers sucked at developing players, right?

or if the Dodgers sucked at analytics or if the Dodgers sucked at any of the areas where they're actually good, they wouldn't be this seemingly unbeatable machine that we see right now. The problem is when you have a system that operates like Major League Baseball's,

And then you have a team that not only has that financial advantage, but is incredibly smart with how it deploys its resources to you have the opportunity for a team that looks unstoppable. And the only way to remedy that is not through a salary cap, because if Major League Baseball, when the collective bargaining agreement expires in December two thousand twenty six,

says the only way we're going to go back to playing again is under a salary cap system, we're not going to have baseball in 2027. Right. Like it is plain and simple. Players are not going to be bullied and cajoled into accepting a cap because the notion that the cap is like this panacea, that it's going to fix all of baseball's problems, no. A cap would not necessarily do that.

It would help in some regards, but it wouldn't fix things. And so because of that, I think we have to live with the idea that we've seen a team like the Dodgers in the past. They're called the New York Yankees.

This was the narrative throughout the early 2000s, the late 90s, when salary disparity really started coming into baseball. And what the Yankees did is they spent themselves into a bad position. We've seen the New York Mets guys spend themselves into a bad place. Money does not necessarily equal success in Major League Baseball.

It allows you to make mistakes and it gives you opportunity at those high level players that some teams just don't have access to. And that's not great. Like if you want to say that part is bad, I would agree with you on that. But is it bad enough where you're going to put constraints in place that ultimately hurt the players, the people who we watch these games for?

We don't watch it for the laundry. We watch it to watch incredible athletes do incredible things. And if you're trying to do something that harms them in the name of parody, you're barking up the wrong tree. All right, so I'm going to wait for this season to happen to answer that last question. Is it bad enough that we need to change everything? Because if the Dodgers win like 125 games...

and then sweep their way to the World Series, then I'm just going to play the results and be like, yeah, it's broken. How many games do you think they actually can win? Because they won the World Series last year, and then they added a ton of pitching, and it feels like even if they have some injuries, they have guys that can step up. Realistically, is the record something that you could be like, yeah, we could be talking about this in late August?

Yeah, I mean, we're looking at 116 games from the Seattle Mariners. And let's not forget that Mariners team bombed out like in the first round of the playoffs, too. So that's like when I try to answer that question, the Dodgers good or bad for baseball, right? One of the things I always go back to is that I can more or less guarantee that the Dodgers are going to be in the postseason. And there are only 12 playoff spots. So there's a lot of value in that.

But let's look past 2024 and back to 2023. They got swept in the first round by the Arizona Diamondbacks. Let's look back to 2022. They got beaten by the San Diego Padres. Let's look back beyond 2020 when they won the COVID World Series.

They hadn't won a World Series since 1988, and they have been spending not quite to this level, but pretty similarly over that time. And so the great equalizer in baseball is that its postseason is just kind of a crapshoot. Like even the best team is going to go into a series with a 60% chance of winning, not a whole lot higher than that. Right now, if you look at the Dodgers, like the most favorable projections are

have them like a 25% chance to win the world series. Now, if you ask me, would you take the Dodgers or the field?

Even though the numbers suggest otherwise, I'd probably still say the Dodgers just because beyond their stars, guys, they have so much depth in the organization and depth matters. Depth allows you to weather the injuries. Depth allows you to weather the ineffectiveness from some guys you might not have expected. And that's one thing the Dodgers have done incredibly well. They have developed players who can either step in for free agents who leave or

Or be there when guys get hurt. Yeah. I think they might be bad for baseball, though. Because here's why. Hear me out. Now we're not complaining about the Yankees being bad for baseball. We're complaining about the Dodgers being bad for baseball. And I miss that. I miss being able to do that. You were talking about the salary. Obviously, with a league that doesn't have the same salary cap...

like the NFL does. It's not built for parody. Has there been more discussion about the salary floor and having a high salary floor? So some of these teams that get away with not spending any money at all, some would say it's disrespectful to their fan base. They're just printing money. They know they don't have to win to make money. Has there been a discussion about incorporating that into the next CBA?

A floor comes with a cap, a cap comes with a floor. The two shall never be separated. And, you know, as somebody who looks at like the Pittsburgh Pirates and sees Paul Skeens on a near minimum contract and sees Jared Jones before he got hurt, but Mitch Keller, they've got Bubba Chandler coming up like the Pirates have an incredible pitching staff.

And they didn't do shit this offseason. And it, you know, like, I should be the person who's yelling about this because I live in Kansas City, because I grew up in Cleveland, because I embody, like, the Midwestern thought process when it comes to sports. And, you know, when you have a team like the Pirates, I look at them and I'm like, try.

Just once, just once, please go out and try to field a winning team. I look at Cleveland. They traded Andres Jimenez, lost Josh Naylor this offseason. They won the American League Central last year. Another team didn't do shit.

And it just bothers me as a sports fan and somebody who loves nothing more than widespread competitiveness that some of these teams that are in position to go out and potentially win World Series don't treat their seasons like it. It's disrespectful to fans. It's disrespectful to the game. And listen,

I would love for there to be a salary floor in place in order to force some of these teams to go and spend. We saw this off season, the Oakland A's actually went out. Sorry, that's the A's, not Oakland anymore. But the A's went out this off season and spent some money. And the reason PFT, they did that is because they were inundated

in position for the Major League Baseball Players Association to file a grievance for them not spending enough of their revenue sharing money. Now, that was enough of a threat for them to go out and spend, but it wasn't seemingly enough of a threat for the Miami Marlins who were in the same position to go out and do that. And I understand if you're going to like pull back and do a full rebuild, it kind of makes sense just to bottom out what your payroll is going to be.

But that doesn't make the game better. And when too many teams are doing that, when the lack of incentives to win are in place, it's problematic for the sport, which is why I think MLB and the Players Association in particular did a really good job in the past collective bargaining agreement of draft pick penalties where you can't pick multiple years in a row.

inside of the lottery if you are at a certain salary level or a certain market level. So there are little things that are helping, but they haven't solved the problem at this point yet. And it's why when we get to that collective bargaining time, you need smart people in the room

to make decisions that positively impact the sport writ large. Yeah. All right. So let's do NL, AL. So NL is, I would say, is more top-heavy than the AL. It feels like, obviously, you have the Dodgers. The Mets spent a lot of money. The Braves are getting a bunch of guys back, including Acuna. Yeah.

So in the NL, is there a team that you have circled as like, hey, this is a team that no one's looking at that could possibly break through this Mets, Dodgers, Braves, possibly Phillies, Diamondbacks, like top of the NL that looks top heavy?

I think people are sleeping on Cincinnati a little bit. You know, Ellie Dela Cruz has a chance to be a super duper star and Matt McClain, who's the second baseman there, was out all of last season. He's an all-star caliber player and Hunter Green at the front of their rotation. And they're managed by Terry Francona, who all he's done throughout his career is win. Yeah.

Um, the, the red sort of stagnated last year. I think I might've picked them to win the central last year, but in a division as wide open as that is, uh, I like a team that has some youth on its side. I like a team that has, uh,

a little bit of energy going on and the Reds feel like they could be that team this year because you're right in the national league. You've got your clearly established teams that are either going to be good all the way to great in the East. It's the Braves, the Phillies and the Mets in the central. I don't know if anyone's good. All five could,

could win that division, frankly. And in the West, the Dodgers clearly at the top, but the Diamondbacks had the best offense in baseball last year and added Corbin Burns, the best free agent starting pitcher this offseason. The Padres still have a ton of talent and did a good job adding Nick Pavetta to a rotation that really needed another starter.

And the Giants are an improved team, and it'll be interesting to see, A, how Willie Adamas plays there, and B, how much Justin Verlander, who's like well into his 40s now, has left. Yeah. So in that central, we got to check in on the health of our guy, Christian Yelich. He's very important to this podcast for reasons we could get into with you, but I don't think you want to hear about. Well, actually, let's ask him if there's no way you're aware of what we have with Christian Yelich. I hope you're not doing your job if you're aware of it.

I am happy to say that I am not. It's for the best. Please enlighten me. So we had back surgery, right? Are we thinking that a guy like Christian Yelich would be able to compete in the home run derby this year? I don't give a shit about that. Why? Why do you? Oh, we do. It's very important. If Christian Yelich ever wins a home run derby in his career, we have to eat each other's asses.

- Okay, I do suddenly give a shit. - Yeah, right, right. It's very important to us. How can you not be romantic about baseball? - Could he compete? I don't know if he could,

But I do know that I have some favors to call. Well, there was a year that he hurt his back right before. So this all comes from we he's been a friend of ours for a while now. We first had him on in 2017 and we were joking with him that he doesn't really have a good home run swing. And it was also the time that there was a porn going around where the guy in the porn was a doppelganger for Christian. You know, she looked exactly like him and we brought it up to him. He's like, yeah, I get tagged in a lot. And.

And then it just went to that. You know, the old, like, I'll eat my column. PFT and I were like, well, we'll eat each other's asses. But you're saying he probably can't.

No, no, I'm not. In fact, I'm rooting really hard for it now. I'm going to make sure that the especially juice balls are there for him. Oh, shit. Oh, yeah. Okay, all right, so the ale. I feel like after I watched the latest White Lotus last night, I feel like this is a very White Lotus conception. We'll turn some people off.

We'll get back to Jeff Paston in a second. He's brought to you by Noble. If you're going to work out, you've got to try Noble footwear. I'm wearing them right now. I've been wearing them all week. They're great for working out. Went on a run wearing my Nobles. Very lightweight, very comfortable, great support. Legs felt great afterwards. Feet felt awesome. They make the best shoes, the most comfortable for both in the gym and on the go. With options across training and lifestyle, Noble has options everywhere.

for everyone. They look great too. That's the thing. I was wearing them yesterday. Got a compliment. Second, I stepped into the office. They were like, damn, what are those PFT? Nice shoes. I said, yep, they're No Bulls. Exclusively for part of my take listeners, No Bull is offering 30% off your order. Visit www.nobullproject.com slash PMT and get 30% off your entire order. That's N-O-B-U-L-L-P-R-O-J-E-C-T dot com slash PMT.

and get 30% off your entire order. Jeff's also brought to you by Experian. Madness in March is good. Madness in credit is bad. To take control of your credit and finances, make sure that you pick the Experian app. Experian could be your financial Cinderella with tons of free tools at your fingertips to help you take control of your financial life. The amount of free tools that you get with Experian could fill a bracket with things like your free FICO score. You could boost your FICO score instantly for free with Experian Boost.

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You know, the rookie class this year is not all that great. On the National League side, the guy who I picked, I mentioned him a little earlier, is Bubba Chandler with the Pirates. And I think you guys will, I don't know if you saw this story, but I think you'll appreciate it. So Paul Skeens, you know, probably the best pitcher in baseball right now after less than a year in the big leagues, gets named opening day starter for the Pirates.

And Bubba Chandler was a guy who I think he went to Clemson to play football, got drafted, was a two-way player, like just an extraordinarily athletic guy. But Pirates made him a full-time pitcher, fastball up to 100 now, great breaking stuff, good control and commit. Like he's going to be a guy. I picked him to win Rookie of the Year this year, but...

On the day Paul Skeens was named opening day starter, he got a text from Bubba Chandler and I don't have the exact words, but it essentially said, enjoy it while it lasts because next year I'm going to be starting opening day.

Wow. I love that. I adore that. The guy hasn't thrown a pitch in the big leagues yet, and he's got the balls to text the guy who is best at what they do right now and say, get out of my way. And that's, I mean, it's confidence. It's swag.

That's a dog. A big Bubba Chandler fan already. Yeah, it's a great Bubba move, too. I like my Bubba's a little cocky. Yes, absolutely. All right, so what about the AL rookies? Because PFT's right. We just need to basically come away from this, and our listeners do, where they can just say, oh, yeah, you hear about Bubba Chandler? He might be better than Paul Skeens. And everyone's like, damn, but you know Paul. Christian Campbell is my pick for the American League. He started off this season as –

potentially the second baseman or the favorite going in for the Red Sox after being minor league player of the year last year. And he just kind of stunk at the beginning of spring training. And there was, you know, the gloss wore off a little bit, but the Red Sox believe in the bat.

And I understand why. It's an unorthodox swing, but he's got incredible contact skills. And through this work, I wrote a story about this earlier this spring on Roman Anthony, Marcelo Meyer, and Campbell, the big three prospects with the Red Sox. And Boston's doing a bit different form of training of hitters than there used to be. And hitting has fallen so far behind pitching in Major League Baseball that...

it is one of those things that's kind of broken and could use some fixing. And I think these guys with Campbell actually winding up making the Red Sox opening day roster, playing at second base, forcing Alex Bregman over to third and Raphael Devers to be, uh, DH he's, you know, he's the favorite. I would say at this point, uh, do not sleep on Jackson, Job, uh, right-hander with the Detroit Tigers. Who's in their rotation. Uh,

as well as Cam Smith, who Big Cat, I think you might know Cam Smith's name. He was one of the players who went to the Houston Astros in the Kyle Tucker trade. And less than a year after being drafted, he's making the Astros opening day roster and is going to be their starting right fielder and was one of the best hitters in the Grapefruit League this spring. Oh, that'll be fun when the Cubs don't resign Kyle Tucker.

Yeah. That's going to be a lot of fun. When Rick is like, I can't find the money for it. We just have so many restaurants and luxury seating in Wrigley now. All right. So who's going to win the AL? It is wide open. It feels like, especially with Garrett Cole getting hurt, John Carlos Stanton, I don't even think we count it as an injury because it's kind of to be expected. I guess so, but it's a weird injury too. What is that?

He's got issues with both elbows. Oh, we talked about this. Yeah, that's right. My dog had the same thing. I can give you a little bit of insight. My dog had bilateral elbow injuries. Fixed him up. He spent about three months in a crate. Gave him a lot of trazodone, anxiety medication. He wore a cone. Then he got out. He's good as new now. So have the Yankees considered putting him in a crate? With trazodone.

John Carlos Stanton in a cone of shame. It is a weird, it's a really strange thing for a baseball player to have like both elbows give out at the exact same time. But do the Yankees still have hope? Cause they've got other, they've got some really, really good players. They've got a good roster still. Yeah.

The Yankees' hope is the fact that they reside in the American League. Because if you drop them into the National League, they're fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth best team. Before Garrett Cole needed Tommy John surgery, I still had the Yankees winning the American League East. I do not have that as the case anymore. I don't have them making the playoffs. And I feel like this is like potential asshole zone for me because I didn't have them making the playoffs last year either. And they made it to the World Series. It's not that I'm like...

a Yankee hater because I don't think that's the case. I just look at them and there are so few things with the Yankees that I can point at and say, yes, that is going to happen. I know Aaron Judge is going to have a very good year as long as he's healthy. He has consistently done so and is going to be in the Hall of Fame and is the best hitter in baseball right now.

But beyond that, do I know that Austin Wells is going to be a success at leadoff hitter? I do not. Do I know that Jazz Chisholm is going to take that leap forward we've been waiting years for? No, I don't know that either. Don't know about Anthony Volpe or Jason Dominguez. Have no idea if we're going to get 2023 or 2024 Cody Bellinger. It's just

Paul Goldschmidt have anything left? Can Carlos Redon be a top of the rotation guy? How does Max Fried, who's been consistently awesome throughout his career in Atlanta, transition to New York? All of these different things that are up in the air give me pause about the Yankees. But I'll also acknowledge that if a few of these things hit right, the Yankees very easily could not only win the American League East, but could win the pennant again. Like this is a team whose ceiling is

is pretty high still, even after the Cole injury. But the floor happens to be lower, I think, than it is in typical years for the Yankees. Okay. So what other teams in the AL should we be looking out for in terms of like, hey, this team, maybe people aren't talking about them, but this is a team that if everything goes right, they could be in the mix come October. Yeah.

I apologize for doing like a long checklist here, but that's how wide open the American League is. It's like, I mean, you can make an argument for every team. Tampa Bay, Shane McClanahan turns out isn't that hurt coming back from Tommy John surgery now and headlining a really good rotation and an excellent bullpen. Junior Caminero with the Rays is going to be a superstar and this is going to be his first full season playing. So I could see the Rays doing it.

The Blue Jays, I have them at the bottom of the AL right now. But if Vlad Guerrero and Bo Bichette have the years that they have, Vlad last year and Bo the years before that, they're both impending free agents. They could lead the team to the playoffs. The Red Sox, I have winning the division. I feel good about what they did getting Garrett Crochet and Alex Bregman this winter. And let's not forget about the Orioles who won 101 games a couple years ago and made the playoffs last season. I think people are sleeping on them a little bit.

In the Central, the Twins, bad year last year, always questions about health, but they've got a lot of slug in that lineup, and they're starting pitching with Pablo Lopez and Bailey Ober at the top of that rotation. They have a chance to be pretty good. Kansas City made the playoffs last year. Great pitching, and my pick for American League MVP, Bobby Witt Jr.,

Uh, I've got Detroit winning the central with Tarek Scooble and so many other great starting pitchers in that rotation. And AJ Hinch is a manager just like he gets how to construct lineups and use the platoon advantage in his favor. Cleveland won the division last year. I'm not really on them, but they're, they're also one of those teams that surprises, um,

Seattle playoffs two years ago, 88 and 85 wins the last two seasons, a great starting rotation. And today they signed Cal Raleigh to an extension. Uh, Cal Raleigh's nickname is big dumper because he's got a fat ass and it's like, honestly, it's the best nickname in baseball right now. And love, love him as a player, want a platinum glove leader in the clubhouse. Uh,

the A's are going to be better this year. I'm not sure if they're a playoff team quite yet. Uh, the Astros seemingly always are a playoff team and, uh, you know, training Kyle Tucker and getting Cam Smith back in addition to Isak Paredes, who's going to absolutely abuse the, the short fortune left field, uh,

the Astros still have a chance to be good, but the team I'm picking to win the pennant is the Texas Rangers. They won the world series two years ago. They were pretty awful last year, but they get Jacob to ground back to headline that rotation this season. You know, Kumar rocker and Jack lighter, both really good young arms. And when you look at the lineup that Corey Seager and Marcus Simeon up the middle,

Josh Young at third base. They traded for Jake Berger at first base. Wyatt Lankford, Evan Carter in the outfield. They have good catching with Jonah Heim and Kyle Gashioka. Like on and on and on. If the Rangers bullpen,

can perform or if at the trade deadline they can go out and get some high-end relief arms i think they have probably the highest ceiling in okay so there were two teams you didn't mention white socks we don't have to talk about because they're uh i mean they're a joke jerry reinsdorf should sell the team the other one mike trout he's gonna be back is there any chance we get mike trout on a different team could this be the year

You know, I remember I went to spring training with the Angels on the day Trout was going to talk two years ago for the first time. And it had been coming off a season where he'd gotten hurt, which has been sadly like an all too frequent thing lately. And we posed him the question, like, do you have any inclination to leave?

Would you waive your no trade clause to go to a contender? And he said, I feel like I have unfinished business here. Now, he hasn't said anything to the contrary since. But like, guys, we got to remember, Mike Trout is 33 years old now. I'm not going to say he's entirely past his prime because I think if we have like a full healthy year of Mike Trout, he can still be a guy who puts up a thousand OPS and looks like one of the best players in the game.

But he's been around for 14 years now. He's had 14 years of Artie Moreno bullshit. And it just goes to show you the importance of ownership. I don't know if this is the same way in other sports. You guys can tell me in football especially.

Because, like, I don't know who's considered the good owners or the bad owners in football. But the way that Artie Moreno has run the Los Angeles Angels in the 20 or so years he's owned the team, and especially over the last decade and a half since Mike Trout's been around. Like, let's look at it this way. They had Mike Trout in his prime with Shohei Otani for six years. And they did not make the postseason once. It's crazy. That is bad.

It's insane. As somebody who was the biggest Mike Trout stan imaginable during his best years, the year that Miguel Cabrera wins the Triple Crown, I'm arguing that Trout should have been MVP anyway because that wasn't just a hot take. He was a better player that year. What Cabrera did was incredible. Trout was just better than him. It saddens me that...

That Mike Trout might never know what winning feels like. Yeah, because what are we doing this for? Like, what's the whole purpose of athletes going out there? There's the individual accomplishment that you want. They're the goals you set and that you try to meet. And that that gives you some feeling of fulfillment.

But at the end of the day, you want to win something with the people who you spend seven or eight months in close proximity with, with some of your best friends in the world. Because coming together as a team and achieving something like that beats anything you can do individually. And Mike Trout simply has never had that in his professional career. He won the Super Bowl this year, though. He did win the Super Bowl. He's pumped for his Eagles. Yeah. But you're right. It's like...

How could that not get to you on a day-to-day, year-to-year basis? You go to work every day. You don't win. Your teammates are bummed out a lot. I would like to see him win. I'd like to see Mike Trout go to a better place. A place that will take care of him. I don't know what team that would be, where he would want to go. But, yeah, maybe the unfinished business is like, yeah, they send me my check every two weeks, and it's a pretty good check. So I'm going to continue with that business. Is Rendon going to play at all this year for them?

No, Rendon had surgery, so he will not be playing. He is not playing. That guy is amazing. Yeah. I mean, he really, really is amazing. There were two contracts –

the winter he signed with the angels that were for seven years and $245 million. It was Anthony Rendon and it was Steven Strasburg and the total production that their teams are going to get for the half billion or so dollars that they spent on those players. It's unbelievable. And, and it shows why like owners in baseball are so hesitant to give out deals like that. I,

I get it because they can go sideways so fast. And in Rendon's case, like,

I'm not going to say he never liked playing baseball because I don't think that's true, but it was never like his passion. It was never what he lived for. He was never like a grinder. He was just extraordinarily talented at something, got paid an obscene amount of money and hasn't been able to get back out there. Yeah. What about the Astros? I feel like the Astros, no matter what we do, we'll never get rid of the Astros. They're always going to be hanging around. They're going to be pesky. They're going to be showing up in the postseason.

um, is this, is this like the last dance for that? That core group of guys has been around for a while. I mean, there's no one left really. Like after Bregman left this off season, it's like Jose Altuve and Lance McCullers are really the only ones left from, from the cheating team. Um,

And, you know, Altuve is going to be there forever. Like he's the the astro of lifetime astros. But they still have Jordan Alvarez, who is one of the best hitters in baseball. And adding Cam Smith has, you know, has sort of reinvigorated potentially that lineup.

And they've still got Frambois Valdez, Spencer Arriguetti, Hunter Brown. The Astros have done a good job of developing starting pitching, as you saw Carlos Correa and George Springer and some of the core – Alex Bregman, the core guys of not just the cheating championship, but the one they won after that as well. But yeah, the Astros –

They're an interesting organization because it's one of those teams where people from other organizations love shitting on the Astros.

Like absolutely love it. And I think some of it goes back to the cheating, but some of it, they just don't believe that they're particularly well run. And yet they make that trade with Tucker and it's immediately paying dividends. Yeah. Um, all right, Jeff, I got one last question for you. This is, has been fun. I'm ready for baseball. There's always something about opening day, uh,

It feels good. It's a fun day. Row back question. You know what it is? It is spring telling us it has arrived. That's what it is. I don't know how you guys feel about spring, but...

Living in the Midwest, spring is when the sun starts coming out. I walk outside in spring. I can wear shorts and a T-shirt and not like my asshole kids who wear shorts and T-shirts in the middle of the winter because I don't know when it happened that children's skin suddenly became impervious to cold weather. I feel like this is a new generation. I don't know if your kids are like that. My kids fight me with coats every day, and it's like 10 degrees. I'm like, you need a coat. They're like, it's not that cold.

Like, what are you talking about?

But no, you go outside and you see the sun every day. And I think that's why opening day feels good because it is introducing us to the season that makes us happy. Yeah, I'd agree. I'd agree. All right. All right. So rowback question, R-H-O-B-A-C-K.com, promo code TAKE. 20% off your first purchase. Q-Zips, polos, hoodies, joggers, shorts, rowback.com, promo code TAKE. Good hoodies. Yeah, very good hoodies. The best hoodies. Great hoodies. All right. So I know you don't watch as much of the other sports, but I assume that

you are at least generally aware of Travis Hunter, who played for Colorado this year. Going to be a top pick, Heisman Trophy winner. If you had to just make a gun to your head, Travis Hunter or Shohei Otani, who's more impressive at what they're doing?

uh Shohei Otani because he has done it at the big league level and I don't I by the way to be clear Travis Hunter absolutely should play cornerback and wide receiver in the NFL a hundred percent if you have the ability to have a guy out there who can impact both sides of the ball why would you limit him from doing so particularly if he's on a rookie contract with

which is short enough where you're not locking him up longterm and you're not going to have any of like the wear and tear issues later on in life. It's the NFL. You can get rid of them anyway. Contracts aren't guaranteed. Uh, but Otani being elite at both levels, uh,

uh at the highest level of baseball if travis hunter can be an all-pro cornerback and an all-pro wide receiver in the same season get back to me and we'll have a conversation um and and i am not minimizing in any way he's awesome i love watching him play but it's just a matter of levels yeah counterpoint uh otani doesn't tackle anybody and otani has never won a heisman

both true. Uh, Hunter's never won an MVP and I'd like to see him, uh, hit a 95 mile per hour fastball or throw a ball. 95. Good, good, good counter. Yeah. Our producer Hank is an idiot. And he said that he thought Travis Hunter was more impressive than show. Hey. And we were like, Hey, I didn't, I didn't know, uh, your, your analingus Christian Yelich story, but I did know that Hank's addiction. Perfect. Perfect. Well, Jeff,

Thank you. Oh, when is Otani going to start pitching again? He's been shut down for like a month now, so he's going to have to build up. And let's remember, he's coming off of his second elbow reconstruction. So the Dodgers are going to take it easy with him. And they also have so much pitching depth that they really don't need him. So is it going to happen in May as expected? It could.

But I think it all just really depends on how his elbow responds. And we're going to get a much better sense of that over the next month or so. That's such a flex for the Dodgers to be like, hey, it'd be nice to have you pitch, but we don't need you. Yeah, we don't need it. Yeah, it's all good. Oh, man. I had one last thing about Mookie Betts because I've been reading about Mookie Betts. Did he lose 25 pounds? Did he have the flu? He went down from like 185 to 160? Yeah.

Yeah, I don't think it was quite that much weight and I don't think it was the flu. They haven't said what it is specifically, but the sense is he's going to play in their actual opening day stateside. So, yeah.

Listen, baseball is better when Mookie Betts is good. And I hope nothing but a full recovery there and us seeing him, you know, even if the Dodgers are bad for baseball, like seeing Mookie Betts out there is a good thing for everyone.

Agreed. That's why it's not fair because Mookie Betts is so likable and he's playing for the team that everyone should hate. It's like, God damn it, I want to hate you. But yeah, Mookie's... I hope he's okay too. Yeah. All right. Well, Jeff, thank you so much. Appreciate you coming on. We'll maybe talk to you in the middle of the season. And I feel like we got some good... Bubba Chandler. Bubba Chandler. Yep. Bubba Chandler. I just call him Bubba. Watch out. Hey, Paul Skeens is good, but Bubba Chandler might be better. You know what? Paul Skeens is great.

But Bubba Chandler has it. Yeah, that's it. We got it. That's the takeaway. Yeah. I look forward to talking with you guys on the day that home run derby rosters are released. I have my mission for the 2020. You said it's the hardest thing to do in base. The hardest thing to do in sports is to hit a baseball. That's impossible for Christian Yelich. Can't do it. Baseball is that many times. Can't do it. Can't do it. All right. Thanks so much, Jeff. Thanks, boys. Appreciate you having me.

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Okay, let's wrap up. We got Firefest of the Week. Henry. Yeah. Oh, also, do you want to do Severance? Yeah. Oh, Severance recap. Yeah, I like this. Max cried. Max, what part did you cry in when he got reunited with his wife? Yep. Yeah. Yeah. So Severance, Severance, Severance. Spoilers, spoilers, spoilers, spoilers. Skip this part if you haven't watched it, but you also probably have watched it. Good call.

Thank God we got that out of the way. So you cried? Yeah, it's an emotional part. Imagine thinking that your wife is dead for such a long period of time and then that first moment that you actually realize that she's alive. How could you possibly...

like put yourself into that situation. It's got to be an unbelievably emotional moment. I got misty-eyed. I don't think there were any tears. No, no. Misty-eyed. You know that wave that you get? Yeah. Right. Welled up. I laughed when Marques shot the big dude in the neck. That was so fucking funny. And just screaming at the other lady. Yeah. You fucker!

I thought there was a moment Hank was going to be right, that he was going to go on a killing spree and just kill everybody down there. And I was like, oh my God, we laughed at Hank, but he was right. I thought what I wanted was Helly to kill her dad. And as that was happening, I was like, oh my God, oh my God, oh my God. And then obviously she didn't. Oh, she picked up a pen. Yeah, it was weird she didn't, low key. And then you guys were like, you just want Game of Thrones. Brienne of Tarth, we got it. Yeah, yeah. We got the Game of Thrones. That was also...

Although the goats thing, like explain the goats. They just go to sacrifice. They sacrifice them with any time someone dies at Lumen, which seems like a decent amount of times because I have a lot of goats out there. They

They sacrifice the goat with the person and it takes them to heaven or something. Did you also notice that in the earlier episode where they had the goats and the people that look after the goats, they asked the people from the outside for macro data refining. Do you guys have pouches? Yeah. They're looking for oldie. Yeah. That's what they were like. Look up your shirt. Let me see your bags. What Hank, I think, is referring to, and I agree with Hank low key.

I thought that Helly was Helena on the inside during that episode, at least at the start, until she like kind of teams up with Mark and he goes on a separate way. I thought that we were going to see Audi Helly on the inside again.

She can't be outie down on that floor, though. No, she was. She was early in the season. Earlier in the season. She banged Mark in the teepee. Yeah. No, that was when she was innie. No. That was outie. You're not paying attention. You're not paying attention. Hold on. Hold on. Whoa. Big cat missed a big part of this scene. Mark banged innie, hellie, and outie. I know that. He's got two bodies on one body. I know that. He had a threesome. The outie one was outside.

No. Until that outside moment, the whole beginning of the season, she was out with Audi Helly. I understand. No, because she was Audi Helly when she was on the inside. She went undercover. Yeah, that entire part of the season. Even on the inside, not just on the Orkbow. He fucked Audi Helly outside. Yes, but he also hung out with Audi. Then he fucked Inny Helly inside. Wait, he also hung out with Audi Helly for the first couple episodes of the season on the inside. I get that, but they fucked on the inside. That was Inny Helly. Yes.

You guys just told me I was wrong for that. No, I literally just said that. No, but the orbo is also technically inside. You guys just told me that I was wrong for saying that she fucked Audi heli outside and any heli inside. When you say outside, you mean it would still... I know I might have been wrong that she can't be switched back, but I literally just said she fucked any heli inside.

Yeah. Yeah. She fucked off. You guys just said I was wrong for that. I don't think we did. No, you said she can't go Audi down there. But they fucked outside. Yes. That was Audi heli. Correct. We're talking about two different things here. I understand. Well, you said Audi heli can't go downstairs. I'm now remembering the beginning of the season. She was faking it.

Yeah. I thought that's what we were seeing. When was that? That was like the first couple episodes. When Irving was getting mad suspicious, when he was like, you saw Night Gardener? Night Gardener, yeah. When she said that she saw Gardener when she got that glimpse of the outside. That's right. When he did the override control. Yeah, yeah. That's when Irving was like, I'm beginning to keep my eye on you. And then he tried to kill her because he knew that she was outside. I thought we were going to see Audi Helly. I thought that's who we were seeing at the start of the finale.

I thought she had done it again. Because it was a very important day. I feel like the real theory is that it's Audi Helly at the end of the episode. Yeah. Because she looked back and smiled at Gemma and Irv said...

uh uh innie helly was never cruel and it was kind of a cruel looking smile when she looked at jemma and was like i won yeah that's what i was so i was thinking when i was watching the episode at the start i think this is outie helly and then she didn't kill her dad and she kind of like nudged mark to go on and go downstairs and do that whole shit and i was like maybe it's maybe i was wrong maybe it's not and then at the end i was like yeah that kind of seems like outie helly

So people think that once they realized that Mark was down there and getting Gemma, that they switched positions.

The Glasgow block. The block that at the very end they made her Audi Helly. Okay. But it was Annie Helly the rest of the episode. So now I just wonder what they're going to do in the episode or season three. Yeah. It's going to be him and Helly just hold up in a room with a bunch of dead people and blood everywhere. It's got to be like five seconds into them running down the hallway. They're like, whoops. No, I think the dad. I think they already kind of set it up with the dad being like he...

likes any heli. He sees Kira in her. And he's gonna probably maybe try and convert Mark. Like, they're gonna try and convert any heli in any Mark to convince them that if they...

roll with the Kears and they can stay together. Yeah, I really like the scene where Mark was arguing with himself on the video camera, like stepping outside the room. That was a really good way to do it. And I don't think I could win an argument with myself. I think that's a very hard thing to do. No. Right? That's how I feel when I'm deciding to bet on a basketball game. I don't know why he didn't just mention the Pete.

Like, they had a mutual, there was a mutual friend there that could have helped bridge the gap. But Audi Mark doesn't fully understand how close any Mark was with Pete. I guess. Because remember, he, like, just went, like, it was a crazy guy who had nosebleeds who then went to his funeral. Yeah, I guess that makes sense because that didn't make sense to me. The other thing that, it was two episodes ago, it kind of bled into this one, that still just makes no sense to me. I hope they, like, flash back to it is the fact that

and Mark and his sister just sat in the woods for 10 hours. Arguing? They weren't even... But what did they talk about? Like, why did they have to show up to the forest to... Or like... I don't know if it was 10 hours, but yeah. They got there in the morning and then they cut back and it was nighttime. Like, all right, time to go. Well, it's always winter. True. It's always winter. And what is it about the birthing center that they put the...

They're like geofencing and they can switch you back from any Dowdy. Yeah, that was weird. And then the. Well, so the women don't remember that they went through the pain again. Okay. That was the whole member, the crazy like government governor's wife. She had no recollection of the sister because she went in there. So she didn't have to actually give birth. When any Mark told Cobell that Irving knew where the testing floor was like she got.

That made me think that Cobalt is going to flip again. Yeah. Because she was like, oh, yeah, Irving knows where the floor is. And she goes, wait. She was basically like, wait, what? She was looking nice in front of that fire. Yeah, she did. She looked real good. Real nice. She gave you those eyes. Real nice.

I was pissed that like, I don't know. I guess he had to make that decision because they're two different people, but I was mad. Yeah. I really liked the episode. I thought it was one of the best episodes. I was just pissed at him. I was just like, you motherfucker. You've come all this way. But he also, that's the great part about the show is these two people that are independent of each other. Like he's making a decision for his own existence, not realizing that...

There's a guy out there. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And think about if you're the any market, you turn around and you see, I guess you would think it was the, what was her name? The health woman. Not Gemma. Miss, what was her name? I can't remember. Miss something. Huang? No. Miss Casey? Yes. Miss Casey. So you just see Miss Casey yelling at it through a door being like, come out, come out, please come out. There's got to be a way where he can have both.

Yeah. Episode three is just all threesomes. Well, can't I could see them like figuring out a way because obviously if Cobell invented the chip, could she like flip a switch to turn Audi Mark into any mark so he can get out? Oh, you think she's going to get back in the lab? Oh, I see what you're saying. So he wakes up as Audi Mark on the floor. He's like, fuck, I got to get out of here. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

I don't know. Great show. And Rickon. There's a lot. Yeah, what's up with Rickon? I think they're going. I feel like we're getting a full flashback season, episode, series. There's so much 10 years ago past stuff that they need to address that I think to stretch it out, I could see them going deep in it. Because Rickon. I would watch a full spinoff series about Rickon. Yeah. What a weirdo. He's fucking funny. Yeah, he is funny. All right. Fire Press of the Week.

Oh, also White Lotus. Did you see Duke is very upset? No spoilers for White Lotus. It's still ongoing, but very funny. Well, traditionally, the best way to have people avoid seeing the thing that you're embarrassed about is to threaten legal action against them. And then that way, they won't sign up to see what all the fuss is about. People will stop talking about it. Yeah. Okay. I think I've said this on my Firefress before, and it probably means it's time to just get a new slats or like a new bed frame, but...

I plopped onto my bed again. I went to take a piss in the middle of the night, just kind of fell onto my bed, slats pushed down and broke, and it was like 4 a.m., and so I just went to sleep basically inverted, and my neck is killing me. I got a solution for you. What's that? Sleep in a hammock. Yeah. You don't have to worry about slats in a hammock. There you go. True. You don't have to worry about getting just balled up and dying.

Yeah, and I feel like it's bad for your back. That's interesting. I think it's good for your back. For, yeah, long-term, eight hours a night, every night. I think it's good for your back. One hour, summer, in the middle of the day, there's nothing better on this planet. But you're saying laying on something more firm would probably be better for your body. Like an extra piece of outdoor furniture? For eight hours a night, every night, yeah. But for one hour break in the summer, I'd take a hammock over anything in the world. I think you guys are denying science. I think hammocks are better for your back.

And how so? I think that I've been reading a lot of pro hammock propaganda. Okay. And many people on the various message boards that I've read have said things like, ever since I started sleeping on a hammock, my back pain is non-existent. These are people who are pro hammock. Pro hammock, yeah. Well, it's on like reddit.com slash hammocks. Yeah. Or hammockminder.net. Big hammock. Big hammock, yeah. Yeah. Hammockfans.com. Hank, I got some new outdoor furniture coming. I can't wait for you to sit on it.

No, he's not allowed. I think he's not allowed. It's going to be great. You're going to have a great time. Yeah, it's fine. I just need like a simple chair, but whatever you got. Simple chair. Okay. I can get you more than that. It's going to be a beach chair. Best outdoor furniture there is. Beach chair. Now it's the best outdoor furniture. It's all you need. Okay. Beach chair. I'm kind of with you. It's about being outdoors, not about what you're sitting on. Right.

Okay. Beach chair. Make sure if you get a hammock that you hang it at about 30 degrees hang angle with an asymmetric lay. And then you're going to get rid of your back pain. All right. Good to know. Okay. What's your Firefest PFT? My Firefest of the week is, I realized this, I believe on Sunday of this week, but I went to a concert like,

Four or five months ago And I had a great time And I got in the mood To see more live music So I looked up to see Who was coming to Chicago In the next like six months And I proceeded to I was drunk at the time Hand up Bought eight tickets To go see ACDC At Soldier Field Eight really nice seats And I was like

And then the person that I bought them with turns out it's going to be out of town for the ACDC concert. So now I got seven tickets that I got to find people to bring along to go see ACDC in Chicago. And I realized, especially in this office, that seven tickets is the perfect amount to have people

people not like you if they don't get the invite because it's a big enough group where it's like, Oh, anybody that he likes should be invited. Right. If I'm not invited, I'm not part of the crew. Right. And I, I was saying this the other day to Mincy and Mincy just put his hand up. He said, stop right now. I'm coming with you. So I, that's great. So Mincy, Mincy said like right off the bat, like no ifs, ands, or buts. He has locked it. He said it like nine times. He was like, just say, no, I'm definite. I'm a definite. Yes. Um,

So, Minty's going to come. And then Megan was listening to me. So, her and her husband, Mr. Making Money, are coming. But now I've got to figure out what to do with the remaining tickets, remaining five tickets. Because, again, this is like you're in – remember the Club Cool Days in New York? Yeah. It's like if you don't get the invitation, then PFT doesn't like you. That was also very – I mean, the Club Cool Days is one of the funny – I randomly was thinking about it today. I think that was the only time I went out in New York.

Yeah. It was like the first week we were there and then Dave got mad and Dave went out and created his own Club Cool. Yeah. Well, you guys are massive Kanye fans. Yeah. You were there. Club Cool? You weren't? No. No. Well, you moved already? Yeah. Kanye is not my guy. Maybe he's your guy.

I don't remember who was there. Yeah, I wish I had gone. It was really sick. I think I was out of town that weekend. All right, so let's rank your top six favorite coworkers. Well, so that's the problem is like if I don't ask somebody. We'll just sound it out. Yeah, go one through ten. I'm going to say everybody in this room. Oh, nice. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Wait, we're not...

Oh, memes. All right, so that's four. Yeah, so Hank and Big Cat tied. Yeah. Well, no, it's for tickets. Was that an invite? No, we're just tied. Oh. If you want to go see ACDC right now, you guys are invited. I think we have dibs. You guys have dibs, but... Did you talk to Greer? I did not. So that's the other thing that comes into this, is that Greer is having his bachelor party in Chicago that weekend, and...

And they're going to ACDC as part of the bachelor party. But then I thought about that, and then I'm like, is that weird? Where if I give the tickets around me to people in Greer's bachelor party, am I inviting myself onto Greer's bachelor party? No. No. Greer would absolutely love that. Yeah. Okay. And also, it doesn't have to be Greer. It could just be other people from this office that are just going with you. That are going to the bachelor party. Correct. Correct.

And it's also such an easy out just being like, oh, well, it's Greer's bachelor party. It's a gift to Greer for him getting married. All right, you know what? That's the easiest way. As my wedding present to Greer, who's getting real married, not at all a green card marriage, I would like to donate four tickets to ACDC to his bachelor party if you would like it.

Damn. And I'm keeping four. So we're out. I really wanted to go, too. I really wanted to go. Did you really, Hank? Yeah. So bad. You kind of invited me the other day, and I kind of said yes. Well, do you want to go? No, no, no. There was a kind of? No, yeah. Well, I mean. A kind of invite and a kind of yes? Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Hank didn't say kind of yes. He was just like, I'll think about it. No. I was like, I'm in. Sounds like there was a kind of yes. It's fine. All right, Hank's going. No, no, no, no, no, no. Four for three. What's the date? It is the Saturday of Memorial Day weekend.

I'm out. I'm also out. I penciled Big Cat in. I wasn't invited. Here's how I operate. If I have a situation like this around Big Cat, I invite him knowing that he's going to say no. Yeah. I mean, I know I have shit with my family, my kids. All right. So Hank's in. So now we're down to three tickets. That's my wedding gift. Should I call Greer and ask if he wants them? Hank's maybe in.

You kind of offered and he kind of accepted. I turned 30 that day. Oh, wow. Actually, no, the next day. How many meatballs are you going to put in your mouth that night? So many. I offered you like four days ago and you didn't say yes. He kind of said yes, but you also kind of offered. That's the worst kind of friend. That's like a maybe. I don't think I said maybe. I was thinking I said I'm in. The maybe is so bad.

This is Michael Greer from Macro Data Refinement Barstool version. This is our severed man. He's not going to answer. What a joke. This is our data guy. Wow. We're never inviting Greer onto part of my take again. Nope, never again. One and done. We have our Canadian. His name's Oldie. By the way, I got a text from Oldie today because it's opening day. Oh, yeah, he's pumped. He's so fucking pumped about opening day. He said...

I fucking love sports, bro. Yeah. So pumped. He's addicted to college basketball now, too. Yeah. I don't really have a fire press. No, I was just joking, by the way. You can have all four tickets. That's the kind of yes. Yes. Don't do this, Hank. He did it. He just did it. You're going to be golfing that day anyways. Let's get real. Yeah. Come on.

That actually might be my fire fest. My fire fest is that the weather's turning and I'm going to lose my friend Hank for the rest of the season. That is tough. I'll see him somewhere around week six of the NFL. It's bittersweet. Audi Hank. It is. You see him. You're just like, all right, that's it. Nice knowing you. Greer's calling me back. Should I answer? Yeah, sure. We'll give him a shot. Michael. What up? You're live to tape on part of my take right now. Okay.

So, Saturday of Memorial Day weekend, you are going to an ACDC concert in Chicago. Is that correct? That's correct, yeah. One Mr. PFT commenter would like to gift you four tickets to that concert. Is there anyone in your party that would like four tickets to the ACDC concert? In my party? Anyone who's going to your bachelor party. They're all coming to the concert. Do they all have tickets? No.

Yeah, we all got tickets. Oh, okay. I could maybe find more. Well,

find more people no he's gotta find more people you're getting the tickets the tickets are yours you have to find the people to go yeah Max tell him that I accidentally bought too many tickets and that I would now like him to decide who from the office gets the invite BFD accidentally bought too many tickets to this concert and it is now your responsibility to find people from this office to go to this concert but it's not his responsibility it's yours but congratulations on your marriage

Thank you. Thank you very much. I'm more than happy to find homes for those tickets. Okay, sweet. All right, cool. All right, thanks, Greer. We did it. Yeah, so I got to say goodbye to Hank. We do it every year. It's kind of like the end of Severance where he just stands at the door and, you know, I scream. I'm on the inside and I scream, don't come back. It's the old school distracted boyfriend meme. Yeah. Work and then golf.

He's going to get so good at golf this year. PFT likes to fly planes around F-18s and just sit in the skies all day, and that's fine. You don't know what an F-18 looks like. Big Cat likes to spawn children and provide life for them. And that's okay. No one frowns upon that. But that's what you guys like to do outside of work.

I like to golf, and that's a problem. I didn't say it was a problem. I said I would say goodbye to you. I miss you. I'm here. I'm going to be. You're going to be gone. It's a bittersweet day. As I see you at work now. It's a bittersweet moment. I'd like to encourage Hank's. I think it's important to have hobbies. By the way, there's like a big barstool content thing coming up in, I don't know, a few months. I was front and center saying Hank should be involved because he's really good at golf.

That's not true. True or fact or fiction? You did do that. I'm fiction about the good at golf part. Okay, but in fact, I was gassing up my boy. True. Yes. And you're good at golf. But then you shamed me on the podcast. No, I didn't. I didn't shame you. Let's rewind the tape. I said, I'm sad. This is the point of year where I have to say goodbye to you. But I'm here as much as I was in the winter. That's not true. It's not a good or bad. You're going to keep working. I'm going to miss you.

I don't know what that means. Usually you come on the yak on Fridays, stuff like that. No, Hank, I'm excited for you because I plan on playing more golf this year too. So I can't be too hard on you because then I just look like a hypocrite. What's the best round? I'm a Hank Stan, long time Hank Stan, over a decade long Hank Stan. I'm going to root for you.

To crush it this year. By the way, shout out to Cheeky Golf Club boys. That was awesome. Awesome. Over a year doing it. Trying to get playing a round every single day until they got 18 pars in a row. What is your best round this year? I like to break 90. I don't want to set too lofty goals. Wait, you haven't broken 90? I have, but from the white tees. No, I did from the white tees last year, but I feel like that doesn't count. I just assumed you broke 90. That's my bad.

No, I mean, I have, but I want to do it more consistently. Five times. Five times, Brink90. What's the best score, though? 86. Okay. What about a hole-in-one? Yeah, I mean, I would love that. Okay. Just try. I can't really plan on it happening. But you can set it as a goal. Yeah, go for it. Why not try? I'm going to try. Okay. It doesn't sound like you will. It sounds like you're not really focused on the hole-in-one. No, those just have to come to you. You can't push forward too hard or else it will never happen. Okay. Okay.

All right. Well, I'm excited for your golf adventure. Thank you so much. I'm going to play. How many times will I play with you? A few. I have some ideas. Okay. Wait. On camera or not camera? Both. How many times do I play with you as friends? I think once. I would like to come to Michigan this summer. Okay. I think twice. You know what? I'm going to say three times. Three times that we're going to play together. Not maybe all 18 holes. No.

But we will actively be out together playing golf. Like last year when you took a vacation and then we played a golf run. They're like, I got to go do the act. No, that was. No, that was. Was that. Remember? No. No, I think that was because I had rough and rowdy that night. No.

Yeah, I had to get on a plane. And you also just robbed me. You invited me out to your golf club and you took so much money off me because you brought a golf pro with you. And you're like, oh, Big Cat, you have Jerry? I have this guy. He's just a pro at golf. Let's just play duos. Hank, if we played one-on-one, 18 holes, how many strokes would you give me? Ten? No, I'd give you like six or seven. How many strokes would you give me? I'd give you...

I give you a lot. 30? Stroke a hole. Stroke a hole. Do you want to do a summer long contest? Call it seven strokes. You should just get a handicap if you're going to play more golf. There's a very easy way where you could post enough scores to have a handicap where it's like we don't have to make up strokes. Let's say seven strokes. Seven strokes and all the holes that we play, all the rounds that we play this summer, you have to beat me by more than an average of seven strokes.

Why don't we just play match by match? I feel like we do this all the time on camera and PFT just wins outright. Well, that's on camera. That's on camera. He chokes on camera every time. Also on clutch when the lights come on. Also PFT's clutch when the lights are on.

We haven't done that in like two years. It's fine. We'll see. Time will tell. Okay. So you're turning down my challenge. I don't want to do like math averages and shit for golf rounds. Let's just play like I won match one, you won match two, and who wins the most matches. I want a summer long competition, like an extra long round of golf. How many rounds do I have to play to get a handicap? Eight. Out.

Okay. I actually might be like 20. I don't think it would be possible for me to get a handicap. I think the course would close before I did a real round of golf. I just don't have the attention span. Credit to me for being a good guy. We were going through bachelor party submissions. We should have the one end of this week, if not next. But there was one that was in Oregon that was like...

Three days walking 36 holes each day. Oh, my God. But I felt bad for whichever camera guy goes. But that would have been a hilariously fun for some people. I would enjoy that. But that's Max would be miserable. I am so bad. He said I could stop at any time I wanted if I got a par, which we just never. That's really funny. That's really funny. We should do that challenge for me on camera.

That would be a funny video because I don't want to golf and then we just... I have to keep golfing until I get one par. You can get one on a par three. Maybe. No, par threes... That's the least likely for me that would get a par. Yeah, you hit Dinger's own. Because like a short par four, I could get it right next to the green and still probably bogey. Yeah. Yeah. It would take me a while. Okay. Numbers. 18. Oh, you're spicy today. 22. 22.

You're not going to get it. 75. Cool if I did. 99. 34. 45. 46. You guessed 45. Not me. Oh, 55. That was 45. Meme's not even close. You're not even getting better at it, memes. No. Okay. Love you guys. One day. Save on Cox Internet when you add Cox Mobile and get fiber-powered internet at home and unbeatable 5G reliability on the go.

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