26: The Fish is Plated with Jordan Howlett
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And welcome back to the show. We're here to help. We've got a really fun one today. Yep.

It's baseball themed kind of accidentally. We have a special guest, Jordan Howlett comes on and crushes it. He's a really fun follow on Instagram at Jordan underscore the underscore stallion eight. And then, uh, well that, that call is, uh, loosely themed around, uh, baseball or sports. And, uh, so it's our second call.

And what's fun about it is it's about the Chicago Cubs. The Cubs just took the Milwaukee Brewers manager, Craig Council. We don't, Jake, I really don't think it's going to help us to get too into the sports because I could just talk about, you know, how the Bears are in the toilet and Chicago sports in general. Same with the Packers. All right, guys, we're having a lot of fun doing the show. We love the support. It's, and I didn't say the sport. I said the support. We're having a laugh. But continue to share the podcast. We love it. It really helps.

And yeah, catch up on all the episodes if you haven't. If you have a question, helpfulpod at gmail.com. I'm in Australia. Let's party. Anything else, Jake? Where are your shows? I'm in, by the time this comes out, I'll be, I guess, everywhere. Melbourne, Canberra, Brisbane, Perth, Adelaide, Sydney. Enjoy the show, everybody. Enjoy the show.

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Hello.

Hi there. How's it going? Welcome to the show. Let's get that out of the way. You're on with always host Jake Johnson, Gareth Reynolds. And we actually have a special guest today, a man with a huge online presence who I don't know if he's followed me back on Instagram yet, but he's amazing. Jordan Howlett, who's going to help us as well. Can I get your your name?

Fake or real, your age, and where you're calling from, please. Yeah, of course. My name is Chris, real name, and I'm calling from northern Ontario, Canada, about five hours north of Toronto. Okay, we don't need that part. I think it helps. We're not going to drive to see you this afternoon.

My thought is if I was going to see him and I was in Toronto, I would like to know how many hours north it is. And now I know because Chris told me it's five hours. Yeah, Jake will carve that time out. How old are you, Chris? I'm 27. 27. Okay, great. All right. So what can we help you with? Yeah. So about five years ago, my wife, Megan, and I were only dating at the time. We'd been dating for about a year.

And I was getting to know her family a bit and her father-in-law, Jack, or her father, Jack, my future father-in-law, who was about 70 at the time. He is one of the spriest, youngest, most energetic 70-year-olds I know.

He'll still do backflips on a trampoline, for example. You might need to check an ID, but keep going. Yeah, so he asked me to join his recreational baseball team for the season. And I thought this was a great, great opportunity to get to know him. I'll get to be kind of the young, energetic guy on the team. There'll be a beer league. We'll be having fun. Get a good in with the family. However, it turns out that the league he's been playing in is actually a competitive adult men's league.

where a lot of the players in the league are university players in their off-season or university coaches or former players. And I haven't played baseball in 10 years, and I only ever played for one year when I was younger. So I pretty quickly realized I do not belong on his baseball team or in this league at all. And

However, I persevered and played through the whole season. My wife was encouraging me. She's like, this might be his last season. You'll play with him and then he'll probably be done. It'll be great. Doesn't matter if you're the worst player in the league. It's okay. Quick pause. Chris, are you the worst player in the league?

Uh, there. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. First of all, thank you. You're the man, Chris. You're the man. That's the difference between Canada and the U.S. That is a that's a Canadian admission that we just appreciate that brutal honesty. Okay. So you're the LVP. Yeah.

Yeah, so that was about five years ago, and we keep playing every year. He's now 75. He has a pacemaker. He's still stealing bases, sliding into his place. No sign of slowing down. At 75 years old? Yep.

This year, I wasn't able to play because I had to take an online course for my work. Least valuable player kind of excuse, by the way. Yeah, I was just going to say, that's not winning you any friends. Now, I'm going to tell you, Chris, as you've been talking, Chris, Jordan's been nodding his head. He's on your team. When you said you couldn't play because you had to take an online course, that was the first time I've seen you shake your head no, Jordan. Yeah, that's where...

Jordan wavered. Yeah. Okay, so this season you did not play. Yep. I realized how much of my time this takes up. Our games are twice a week, three hours a game. Wow. We're going seven, 16 things deep. Starting at 8.30, ending at like 11.30, sometimes midnight. Amazing. Okay.

Amazing. I realized how much time it's taking up, how much stress it is, and how much I enjoyed not having to play. You hate it. Welcome to baseball. That is the true definition of it. Yeah. So how do I tell my 75-year-old father-in-law I don't want to play on his baseball team anymore? Great question. Gareth, you got anything to start? Jordan, anything? What's the first thing that's kind of coming to your head, Jordan? Where are you at when you're hearing this, even if it's not advice? This man's healthy. His name's healthy.

I never heard Jack seem so. It's intimidating listening to it. And you're right. I played Division I baseball for a while. I was actually supposed to get drafted in the 2020 draft. Oh, wow. And baseball is exactly that. Baseball is fun because the most part of baseball is when you don't have to play.

So like the best time, the best time ever is when the game's over and you can go home and be like, I'm happy we're done. And if you just so happen to do good, you're like, this is great. Baseball is just anxiety. That's it. There's not a lot of fun with that one. But to answer your question, I mean, baseball players are so aggressive with their dedication, especially the older they are. They don't take anything as an excuse, like almost at all.

So to answer your question, how do you tell him you don't? You don't say, I don't want to be a part of your baseball team. It's literally you got to think of something that is so egregiously out the way that he's like, there's no physical possible way I can play baseball right now. And you just push that off until the season's over. I agree. That's the only way that I can calm him down. I concur. Here's the issue.

As I see it is Megan. So you if you're going to pull off a lie, it almost feels like one of two things make this complicated. Either you need to also lie to your wife, which is different than lying to your father in law.

Or you need to get your wife to sign off on a lie. I think Gareth is in an interesting spot here. Chris, can we get a little bit more info? What does your wife think about this league? You being gone two nights a week for these hours? I'm sure you've talked to her about it. So where's Megan at with all this?

So she started off fully on board, loved coming to the games, thought it was hilarious watching me strike out every at-bat. And then she's just eventually stopped coming to our games because it's way too much of a time commitment. So she's kind of checking out at this point. Does she know how you feel about this, like total candor? Does she know where you're at? You're like, I do not like this? I'd say she's about like 80% of the way. Like I've talked about how...

how much I've enjoyed having time off. Yes. Not necessarily how much I hate sucking at the game. It's tough. Also, I just got to, and I would never listen. I love Canadian. You're, you're hitting the abouts a lot in this one. I was about to say the same thing. Those abouts are intense. It's intense. I love it. I love it, but it is, this is not a stereotype. Could you say really fast? Uh, I'm not about that life. I'm sorry.

I'm not a boot that life. I'm sorry. Thank you. Thank you. We just did a clip. So thank you very much. We got it. Yeah. What do you think, Jake? I mean, it's tough if she's 80 percent there. The problem is, it's your father. It's her father. That's where it really. I'll tell you where I'll tell you where I'm starting on this. I thought it was, first of all, really interesting, Jordan, that you played ball. Kevin, great pairing on this one. Our producer. Home run from Kevin. I think you say to him, Jack, can we talk man to man?

And he goes, like, sit down. And you go. Say you want to do it on the trampoline. That's what I do. Go ahead. I'm sorry. I really hope Jack sounds like that. Please continue.

He does. Hey, Jordan, what are the old coaches? What's the old baseball coach sound like? That's quite literally. It's just grizzled. It's, yeah, go ahead. There's at least two decades worth of experience, right, that you wouldn't sit down and talk to me. And I'm thinking of Jim Leland. I'm thinking of a cigarette in the clubhouse. I'm imagining all that dip in there. A cigarette and dip. A cigarette and dip. Just the beauty of the old baseball. With a nicotine patch. The old baseball.

the old baseball, the old timer, but here's where I would go, Chris. I would say, Hey, Hey, uh, uh, Gareth, you mind being the, uh, coach here for a second. Is it be an honor? All right. What's going on, Chris? What's it up? What's your, what's going on? What's this all about? Oh, go ahead. Maybe we've made a mistake. Come on. All right. I'll pull it back. I'll pull it back. Go ahead. Hey, uh, Jack, I think, I think I might have to, uh, uh, step away from the team and I'll tell you why. Hmm.

I think Megan wants me home more. I think our relationship is starting to suffer. And my relationship with your daughter, no matter how much I fucking love baseball, and you know me, I'm a ball player. What happens in between those lines is my life. But your daughter means more to me than the game that I love. And I got to step away. Where are we at here, Jordan? I saw a head nod.

That was hold on, Jordan. Hold on. I'm sorry, but I saw the head nod I was looking for. This is a baseball thing and I got the approval I wanted. I don't care about you, Gareth. I'm going Jordan. I need a line. All right, go ahead.

Jordan, what'd you think of that? That was beautiful. That was perfect. You see St. Claude's right in there, put the ball in his court. Like, okay, you're really going to take me away from your daughter to play this game now? Are you more dedicated now? Of course, he could get completely put back in his space and he could just love the game so much. He's like, I don't care.

I need you to play right now, tomorrow. That might have been what he was going to say. Now you're in a different territory. Now you're like, oh, I'm really in trouble. Well, now you're committed to playing until he retires. Now you have to. Now you have to. But you're at least so Gareth. Now going back to Jack. So you know what? I got to quit this game because my relationship with your daughter is suffering. What do you think, Jack? I'll talk to her.

Chris, what do you think your father-in-law would say if you talked to Meg about this and said, we're doing this as a couple because guess what? You got into the fucking league with him because of her. So she can help you out of it. What do you think she would say if you went to Jack and said, it's just too many nights with my work, with her work. I need to spend that time with her right now and then go, we're talking about maybe making you a grandpa and we need these hours to do all that.

I think that's kind of right on the money. I think that's exactly the kind of reasoning he could understand that he'd see with. I think he might be a little concerned about me saying I'm having a problem at home. Okay. I think he might not gloss over that one. You can scale that back a little. I think that could definitely get him.

Megan would co-sign all this, basically. Yeah, so Megan and Jack's wife, Madeline, are both pretty concerned for him at this point. Oh, wow. And his safety playing in this league, because those fastballs are coming in pretty hard, and he's got a pacemaker. He's diving still, sliding. Jesus, Jack. First of all, let's just take a second and show a little goddamn respect for Jack. Yeah.

Backflips on the trampoline. I love Jack. I do too. I love Jack. The idea that you're going to have to step away from a game when a 75-year-old is sliding still. Yes. Incredible. Okay. So Megan and his wife, everyone's a little concerned. So this could work. Jordan, where are you thinking? Where are you at right now?

I think honestly, yeah, I think that's the best way to do it. I mean, you're right. They do scale back to having issues at home thing. But I mean, same thing where it's like, I mean, we want to spend more time together and strengthen our relationship a bit more. And it's a little more important than any game can possibly be. So I mean, then you can really double down on like, I love this relationship with your daughter. So I want to focus on that more. I think that's a perfect out.

I think that's the way out. I think that's the pop fly. If you want the weird version, please allow me to step into the spotlight for a moment. Allow me to step up to the plate. Allow me to step up to the plate and do some weird shit. Now batting in the end of the game, Gary. Because we were just about done, my king. All right.

You fake an ACL. Now, what you're going to have to do with that is you're probably going to have to keep it. You're going to have to to Megan, too. Probably she's not going to want to go as big and bold as this. So you fake it. You're training for the year. You're getting ready. You're in the yard. You're into it. You're doing burpees. You're doing wind sprints. You're getting ready. Then all of a sudden, damn it all.

Your leg goes. You fake a doctor trip. You go online. You buy a little air cast. You have your leg in that for two weeks. One, maybe. Say you're making a great. Hold on, Jake. Let me cook. Let me cook. And you say. I think you've cooked. I'm cooking. Let me serve. Let me serve. Let me serve. Let me plate. Let me plate. It's all the way through. It's dry. Let me plate. Let me plate. Play it out. Play it. Play it. And then you take it off. Let me plate. And then you say. And then you say, all right. You go. I can walk around now.

But there's no way I can play. There you go. Played it. Now everybody eat if they like. Okay, so Jordan, what I'm shocked by with this, because to me that is just dog shit. You, who I expected a Division I player...

I was really excited when you gave me the head nod on mine. Did I get a nod? But you gave Gareth the head nod on that? Oh, no. Only because, and I'll tell you why. I'll tell you why. The only thing that actually worked from this is the amount of admiration you'll get from Jack if you have an ACL tear and you said, I could walk on it in less than a week. This guy's a marvel. He wants to come back. He's hungry, but I'm not going to let him because he's my son. No.

I'm not going to let him do that. Now you got all, you win all of it. Now you're the son that wanted to. Yes. I'm not going to say that that was part of my initial pitch because it wasn't. I think I just kind of floated some crumbs out there. But no, no, Jake, Jordan and I together. Stop it, Jake. Here's what happened, Gareth. You cooked it. He plated it. We've cooked it.

You cooked weird fish. He plated it. Is there a delicious meal on the table? Yes, there is. Get some food. So, Chris, here's where we're at on this one.

I say use Meg and his wife and do a team effort where you say, I love, I've loved this time together, but I've just gonna, I gotta choose family a little bit with work and where we're at with life. I would love to keep doing this. Maybe you and I could go to the batting cages cause I've loved our bond, but I think I gotta choose Megan a little bit in the building of my family right now, rather than the playing of this game that I love.

Gareth has said fake an ACL injury and then live on that injury. And Jordan has then heightened that and said he will have respect for you having the ability to walk a week later on it. 20.

$26 fake cast available online. Keep going, Jake. Jordan's first thing was the only way out of this is a lie, which also ties into mine. But I think you've got two really big pieces here. It's a big lie, a faked injury or some way out another lie. And that is saying, you know, it's not really a lie, but it is a lie. But family first. What do you think you're going to do here, Chris?

Actually, it's a pretty easy decision for me. I actually used the ACL excuse four years ago. So I actually tore my ACL right near the end of the season, not playing baseball, another sport, but tore my ACL and couldn't finish the season. So I took a year off, but he had me back on the field that next spring. So I don't think I can tear the ACL again, unfortunately. So I'm thinking...

The family time is a great option. I think there's an opportunity to come at him from two angles here. I can get Megan to talk to her mom about like drop hints about Chris isn't home that often. I'm starting to miss him. And then so he'll be hearing it from his wife that, oh, well, our daughter is saying Chris isn't around. And then I'll go to him. That way it's kind of already in his mind. Here's what I think you do, Chris.

You use what you use, Meg. What's Jack's wife's name? Madeline. Madeline, Maddie and Meg. I like this team.

You use Meg to go to Madeline and they start getting in fucking Jack's ear so that Jack makes you leave the team. You don't quit. He kicks you off the team. So this is on his shoulders, his sadness, but he sits you down and goes, Jordan, this time I would like you to be the coach.

I didn't even get, you didn't play ball. You were in England kicking a footy around Jordan. Will you tell me as the best baseball manager you've ever heard, give me a, your wife and your daughter have said, you got to kick this kid off the team because he's not home enough. How would you say to me, Chris, I'll be you here.

Okay, Jack, what's going on? I'm sorry. A bit of everything. Where are we at? I need you to sit down. I want you to look right in my eyes. Yes, sir. How important is family to you? 100%. How important is ball to you? Gareth, you take over, Chris. My accent's falling apart. Ball's everything to me. Jack, Dad. Dad.

I'm going to take it back. You called him bad. You just call me Jack. Sorry, Jack. We have a, we have a set it to a, no, we can't, can't bring that back. We have a suite. We set it to a different level of communication. Now, now you, every, every man, he has to make a choice in his life. It's family or it's ball. We cannot be both at the same time.

And I'm not going to lie to you. I have to make that choice for you. You got to pick family because I'm so tired of hearing about you not being home. No, I'm shut. Oh, you're him. I forgot. Go ahead, Jay. We're both him. Okay. Same time. Okay.

I understand. All right, so we have to quit. Sorry about that. About that life. I'm really sad. Sorry. But I'll spend more time with me. Figure it out, eh? I love you, Jack. My dad. I'll tell you what. I'll tell you what. The vernacular and the accent switching is so impressive. You should probably get into acting. That's probably what you're speaking. I also tore my ACL. My leg spot, I can't. Chris. Bye.

I think we've given you some solid advice here. I think you lean into the family. If you can get the family to get Jack to get you to quit. Great. If that's too slow, I think you do it on your own. As Jordan said, family first. Great. Thanks. I appreciate it. And we appreciate the call and Jordan. Thank you so much. Man. We appreciate it. Yeah. You stole the role from me, but still, I appreciate it. Come back and let's take you anytime we need a manager. We're going to get you on. We're going to get Gareth off. All right.

I appreciate plating it. Thank you, guys. Yes. Great plater. The plater. Yeah, on plate.

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Hello. Hi there. Welcome to the show. How are you? You've got great energy. You're on with Jake and Gareth. We're here to help you. What is your name? Fake or real? And age and where you're calling from? My name is Alyssa. I'm 45. I live in the Chicago land area. Where are we at here? What can we do for you? All right. So I am a huge Chicago Cubs fan. Legit, like I know.

During the season, I know who they're playing, who they just played, who they're going to play, who the pitcher is likely for the day, all that stuff. But my issue is that my friends either are casual fans or they only care about how hot the baseball players are. And I would like to...

try and get my friends to care a little more about baseball and the Cubs so that we can talk about it together. Because I find that I try to engage strangers and I'm normally not a, I don't want to talk to a stranger. Like that's a no for me. But if I see someone out and about with Cubs gear on, I'd be like, hey Cubs, just to see if I can get them to talk to me. That's how desperate I am. I get that. Yeah.

Yeah. So basically you're looking, you're looking for a way to get your friends more into your interest that they're kind of ambivalent on. Right. Yeah. Or not nearly as committed as you. Yeah. Yeah.

This is a dead end. Interesting. This is a dead end. And I'm going to tell you why Alyssa. Okay, go. So I know, I know exactly where you're at because there was a time in my life where I was such a crazy diehard Cubs fan. I watched every game. I was living in Chicago with my dad. It was 2003. We not only watched every game, but we felt like when they won, we were winning and,

And if they went on a losing streak, we would be like, fuck, our life is going to shit. But my, my brother who's, you know, my, my best buddy and as close as it can get is way more of a casual fan. Yeah. So he likes baseball in terms of the fun of the game. If they win or they lose, well, it's more fun if they win, but who cares? Right.

And so it's just a different experience. And for years we would kind of like talk it out more and I would try to like see if I could get him more involved. And then I just realized it's it's separate planets. There are people who are psychopaths about a team and then there are people who are just casual. I think what you need to do is form a different group. And that is like your Cubs fanatic friends. That's where I'm at.

So I've tried like message boards and groups and shit, but you get some people on there that are just whack. And I just, it's hard to find one. Yeah. It's hard to find ones who can jive with me and we can still just talk baseball.

Well, here's let me say a couple of things. I think Jake's advice is is where I was headed. Basically, you know, you can't retrofit a like into your friend group on that level. You know what I mean? Because it's fake. It's also fake. If they try, they don't know the right stats and then you'll hate them for it.

I will definitely be annoyed. What's nice about Jake's story is he was living with his dad. They're watching the game. And living with your parent and hanging out with them in that level is a normal, acceptable thing. When you're in your 20s. Well, yeah. If you're staying with someone for a little bit of time when you go to visit them. No, no, no. I didn't stay with them. I lived with them. I lived with them. Yeah. And staying and living. I'm just saying it's very nice to hear staying and living with your parent is an acceptable thing and a fine thing at any age. Especially...

What matters is you love your parent, but I'm not trying to get hung up on staying and living and hanging out where you are in age and all that sort of stuff. Thank you, Alyssa. Okay. All right. So let's everybody get muted for a second. What we could potentially provide is a way, an olive branch to potentially a normal, see if there's someone who can reach out to the show and maybe there's a little bit of,

a way for us to help bridge that gap for you a little bit. So I'm open to that.

Maybe on the show we could do a Cub intro or maybe we just via email could try to like set you up and see if there's something that's a little more. Again, we're not promising like a fully vetted situation. I think something a little less crazy than I'm on a message board searching for friends. Right. Kevin has popped his beautiful face on our Zoom. Melissa, you can't see the show, Kevin. But when he pops on, we got to let the hunk talk. Go ahead.

All right. I've been really interested in the Taylor Swift, Travis Kelsey conversation. Not that I have been following it, but just how there's so many new NFL fans now that Taylor Swift has been going. And I think that's been kind of a huge olive branch for football. So if there is some sort of like...

There is drama or relationship stuff or some kind of like, there's a, we got a new hunk shortstop, Dansby Swanson. Oh, great. We have the hottest middle infield in the NMLB. I believe between him and Nico Horner. Ooh, I'm going to tell you something. I'm going to brag here a little bit. Nico and I, I did his podcast years ago and he and I follow each other. So if you're talking about a hunk hot sandwich, I don't have a connection to Dansby, but

But maybe we could link your group of gals up with some photo. Oh, my God. We would just lose our minds. Lose our minds. You could get Nico Horny. Yeah, so there might be something there, but I don't think that's what we're going to live with. I think here's where we win. I think Kevin's right, but I also think he's wrong. I'm just being honest. Because if you try to get your friends into the fact that the middle infield's hot, they're going to be like, hell yeah, bottle up. Oh, I have one friend.

I have one friend who only cares about how hot the players are. Like I told her that I was coming on here and she doubled down. She said wieners before winning every time. Not a bad philosophy. I mean, that's not what I'm looking for. I need some wins. I just watched the David Beckham documentary and that is definitely wieners before winning. When he was on Real Madrid, I didn't care if they scored a goal.

Yeah, you would already. You just run around with those legs and those cute shirts, my guy. You have won. You know what I'm saying? But here's what I would say. I would say if you lean into also every haircut made him look better. Yeah.

He's one of the only guys. Even now, you're like, how is he looking arguably better? But this motherfucker shaves his head and they set it up like it's a big thing. And they're like, it was really revolutionary. He took off his little hoodie. And I was like, if I had that face, I would shave my head, too.

It's not a big, bold move. But this is not about how handsome guys are. I don't want the podcast going in this direction, actually. I mean, we could sit here all day and just chew the fat on how David Beckham has none of it. Go ahead. I mean, Travis Kelsey can get it. Alyssa, I'm getting off this topic. Yeah. Okay, okay. Keep going. He looks good with a mustache. Go, Jake. Yes, he is handsome. And who's handsome on the Bears? Wait, actually, Alyssa, who's a more handsome football team, Bears or Packers? What just happened to you? What happened?

Who could get it more, the Bears or the Packers? I guess the Bears. Honestly, I don't follow. The only sport I really follow is baseball. Don't follow the Bears. All right, hold on then, Alyssa. Who are the top three Cubs? Who are the top three Cubs who can get it? Oh, Sandsby, Nico. Can we go David Roth?

Whoa, you're going to manager can get it. Yeah. I like a little silver fox. Alyssa, here's what we're going to say in our advice. I got to get out of this call because I don't know where the fuck we are. And I'm embarrassed by my behavior. So I think what we need to do is we need to find you.

fans who just care about the game and if it starts off on social media or just emailing and then I think you could meet those people at a game and you don't have to meet for coffee but you find people who are also fans and your only connection is you don't meet together in case someone's a psycho you meet at your seat you watch the game and you form a text group and that's your Cubs group

You know what? I like that. I like that. Yeah, we'll do what we can on our end. And again, I think it definitely got a little foggy in the middle there. I don't know what happened there. I mean, I was even aligned with the David Beckham stuff. Here's my list. Dan's big. No, no, no. We don't need your list. We're not looking for your list. You're not here. Alyssa, Alyssa, Alyssa and Jake, stop. No, no, no. Stop it. Oh,

Both of you stop it. Both of you stop it. The way he glides around short stuff. We're leaving the call. The call is ending. This is the ramp down. Hey, but don't forget about Ian Hap. That's a handsome guy. All right, yeah, Ian is a cutie. I wish there was a mute all. The call is ending. Anthony Rizzo every day in those pinstripes. It's not about which Cubs Jake's going to bang. In those pinstripes? Alyssa, you're married, Alyssa. Stay off of this topic. Jake, you're married and straight. I don't know what is happening.

And I'll tell you this, Alyssa. Physically, he's not my guy, but I'll take a Kyle Schwarber any day. He can just mash it. Have a good day, Alyssa. Thanks for calling the show. Appreciate it. Okay, bye. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

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That was a HeadGum Podcast.