Pardon My Take - Jake Arrieta, NBA Playoffs And Monday Reading Is Back

Episode Date: April 18, 2022

NBA Playoffs are here and Kyrie put on an all time villain show in defeat. (00:03:15-00:10:40) We talk about all the Games from Saturday and Sunday including another Glen Taylor protestor. (00:10:42-00:34:30) Who's back of the week covering Baker Mayfield, Russell Wilson and more. (00:35:37-00:53:38) Jake Arrieta joins the show to talk about his career, pitchers mentality, pitching for his little league son, baseball in 2022 and tons more. (00:55:00-01:49:08) We finish with a Monday Reading "My Boyfriend is Digging a Giant hole in our backyard, should I be concerned?" (01:50:51-02:03:35)You can find every episode of this show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or YouTube. Prime Members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. For more, visit barstool.link/PardonMyTake

Hey, pardon my take listeners. You can find every episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube. Prime members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. On today's part of my take, we have a great guest, great interview, Jake Arietta, former Cy Young, champion, world champion, talks all baseball.

I think he'll be a guest going forward talking baseball because it was great to talk to him, some cool stories. We also have the opening weekend of NBA playoffs. Ball is life. Some awesome games. Even games that were blowouts were awesome. I don't know. I don't know if it's too late to say this, but crowds being back.

It's fun. Crowds are crowds all the way back. Is this the first time that the crowds have been officially back in the NBA? It was like havesies last year for the first round. This is, I think. Yeah. No, you know what it's going to be?

When Toronto fans come back for NHL playoffs. Yes. At that point, we have to stop so crowds are back. Yes, crowds back. We're going to talk a little Kyrie who's back. And then we got a Monday reading for everyone. And before we do that, our friends at Helix Sleep are back. Why would you buy a mattress made for someone else with Helix?

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Now in the street there is violence, and then a lot of stuff worth to be done. No place to hang out or wash it, and then I can't blame all on the sun. Oh no, we're gonna wrap this down to electric revenue, and then we'll take it higher. Oh, we're gonna wrap this down to electric revenue. It's part of my take, presented by Varsus Sports.

Welcome to part of my take, presented by Helixs mattresses. Go right now, helixsleep.com slash PMT. You get $200 off your mattress order and two free pillows. Today is Monday, April 18th, and ball is life. NBA playoffs, baby, what a weekend. Great start. The game that we're all looking forward to was the bucks,

excuse me, not the bucks, the Celtics and the Nets. That's the Wamp Bet. Everyone here is invested, Jake probably more so than anybody else, where we'll have to take a full tin of dip if there's a wamping, and nobody won't anybody. Really, it was just a great game. I'm excited to watch the rest of the series.

Hank, I'm curious to know your thoughts. I know that you probably went from being super confident to being like, oh, shit, the sky is falling, to being like, oh, shit, great job. I'm glad that we won that one, but still a little bit concerned. Yeah, you had a moment where it was like, this could be a very bad loss, because the Celtics were cruising.

Celtics were cruising, and then Kyrie dominated in a way that you haven't seen since he was on the calves. And it was just like, this is the worst. He was talking shit before, and he's backing it up. He's hitting every single shot. The Celtics blew a 13 point lead. They had to execute perfectly at the end of the game, and they did somehow, and it was an unbelievable finish.

So can I ask a question about Kyrie, because it's going to be the big story going into Monday? Yes. Where do you stand with him? Because from a neutral party perspective, and I think PFT probably agrees with me, I love every second of it. At this point, it feels like it's fair play across the board.

If you miss the game, Kyrie, at halftime, someone called him like a bitch, and he said, suck my dick to a fan. He was giving- He said, suck my dick bitch. He was giving fans the middle finger. He was giving fans the middle finger behind the head, which was a super sneaky, great move. He was doing the cry face.

And what we like in sports, he was backing it all up, and he was playing out of his fucking mind. And at the end of the day, as long as it, like, doesn't cross a line, I think this is great for sports. I think Celtics fans should boo the fuck out of him, should hate him with the fire of 1,000 sons, and Kyrie should do everything back to them. And that is what sports is all about.

I fully agree. I mean, it's like you want the villains to embrace being a villain. Right. He's embracing it. Sort of. Sort of, but it's like, as long as he doesn't get mad now, he's like, I don't like being called a pussy and a loser. And now, obviously, that's all anyone's going to do.

But yeah, if he's going to back it up, it's war. It's war times. Yeah. Like, all is fair in war, period. That's what they say. Yep. I think that Kyrie is actually, here's what's going to happen, because I do agree with Big Cat

I do agree with Big Cat's take that it's all good. Like, I like the dynamic. And I actually think that Kyrie likes the dynamic, too. He said, so after the game, he did say, like, would people start yelling pussy and bitch and fuck you? There's only so much you can take as a competitor. What is he going to happen after that? Wait, wait, wait.

He's like, nah, fuck that. That's a playoff. It is what it is. I know what to expect in here. I'm going to give that same energy back to them. And then after that, the quote that's not being, because I watched his press conference, and they're taking that quote, and now the media is like,

it's so disgusting what's happening with the fans and Kyrie. After that, Kyrie said it was fun. Yeah. Going back and forth. He said, embrace it. Yeah, he said embrace it, and he said it was fun. And I love that. That's awesome for sports.

It's good. Like, people are always like, oh, I miss the days when players and teams hated each other and hated cities. Well, guess what? That's where you're getting right now. We're in the middle of a player in a city hating each other, and also that translating into great basketball on the court. And Kyrie's having fun.

I'm just worried that what's going to happen is since all these quotes are being taken out by the media, people are going to be like, they're going to turn Kyrie into like a big victim and everything, and then turn the Celtics fans into like the big bullies. The media doesn't like the anti-vax guy, so. Well, here's the thing. It's a media.

It's a pyramid rock and a hard place. The media also likes the Ramadan fast guy. So it's like, Kyrie's got everybody all fucked up. I really do think that they're going to make this a thing where they're going to vilify Hank's beloved Boston fans. And nobody here's the thing. Here's all the same fruit.

I'm defending you right now, though. Here's all I'll say is that I think that's out the window. Again, until there's a line crossed, I don't think there's going to be a vilifying of either side, because Kyrie's literally giving the finger to kids and families, which I'm cool with. I want that to happen. He's telling people to suck his dick.

I think that makes it a little bit harder for people to be like, poor Kyrie. Also loved that Kyrie before the series said, so giving the energy to what the fans are doing, that's not where my attention is. And then he walked on the court and that was like, again, he backed it up and play. Like if he sucked, I think that you'd

have a different story where it's like, oh, the fans got Kyrie off his game. He wasn't playing up to the level that he should be playing, especially because the Nets need him at that level. But he was incredible and it all was good. I loved every second of it. I want more of it. That's what sports are all about.

Guys, fans hating a certain player, a player upping their game to stick it to the fans. And then, of course, Hank, you end up winning the game. With Kevin Durant, who didn't have his best game, losing Jason Tatum with two seconds left. And after the Celtics missed a million layups, they win with a buzzer beater layup, which doesn't happen very, very often.

They played. The Jalen Brown scored right away on the two for one possession that they had to have. Like that was an easy layup somehow. The Nets defense is bad. And then the Celtics played unbelievable defense on Kyrie and KD in the possession right before they won. And you made a great point when we were just

hanging out before the show, you're like, old Marcus Smart takes that three. And he would have. Yeah, he definitely would have taken that three. That possession at the end there with Marcus Smart, that's the give and take that you have when you have a certifiably crazy person on your team. Because sometimes he'll make a stupid play

and it'll just completely ruin it. This was honestly like, it was a borderline stupid play the way that it all unfolded. That's clearly not like what they had drawn up. But he's so crazy that he's the only player in the league that's crazy enough to make that play and get the ball to save him. I also think it's not even old Marcus Smart. It's like you could the same thing could happen next game

and he might do it. Yeah, that was just we got. But it was a great game one. It is the series that everyone will be talking about because it's definitely like the Nets are not a usual seven seed. Like that's the thing is their star power doesn't make them. And I doubt there's been a time where two verse seven

has been close to a pick them in the series. And yeah, we're going to now. Yeah, we're going to go on on next Monday in Brooklyn. Now the South to serve one went away from avoiding a wampang. They are. Yes, so we'll see. Now, but I don't think the first serve goes to the Celtics in the Wampang.

I think they they held serve. This was a lucky revenge game. The leprechaun was out for blood. But I don't think that Hank, if I were in your position, I wouldn't feel like super confident. No, every game is going to be like this. They're two really good teams. But winning the first game, you're more confident.

That would be an extremely deflating loss. That was a loss. And I'm sure the Nets and the Nets fans are like, fuck. Yeah, I think game one for the Celtics was a must win. They had to have that one. They had to have that one the way it played out. They had to have a they couldn't. Yeah, they had to have a 13 point lead and blow it with Kyrie

hitting like every single jumper to beat them. That would be so crushing. Going into the game, it wasn't neither team had to win it. But the way the Celtics were going to lose it would have been very, very bad. All right, so we should just, I mean, there was there was great basketball all around. I don't know if we could start with Saturday afternoon.

Luca not playing as a huge bummer because I think I've come to the conclusion. And I don't know if we have jazz fans that are, you know, fans of this show, maybe a few. I'm so sick of this jazz team. I want them out of here. Yeah, they're like, they hate each other. Yeah, they are.

They hate each other. This is the one series that we told you you did not have to pay attention to if Luke is not playing. Right. It's going to be shitty. It's going to be boring. Even when he comes back with the calf injury. Yeah.

He's not going to be Luca. He's going to be lowercase L, Luca. But they almost won. They, the Mavs almost won. And I'm just, I don't know. I just want, it feels very reminiscent of that Clippers team when we were like, get, you know, get them out of our face where it's like,

I just don't want to be told that Rudy Gobert and Mike Conley and Donovan Mitchell are going to have like an extended run in the playoffs. How much get them out of my face? How much is Mike Conley getting paid right now? Is he still on that huge contract? And when he got signed everyone was like, that's a key piece.

Good for him. So I'm just, I just, I want Luca to come back and do some fucking cool shit. I think it's a perfect team for Utah. You just, you get to have a team that's good during the regular season, go into your little corporate events, your youth group retreats to the games, win most of them.

Three years, 68 million. Pretty nice for Mike Conley. Four years to me. Is this year three though? This is year three, I think. No, it was year one. Oh, it was year one. And they didn't even have Joe in here anymore.

Oh, he resigned, yeah. He was like there. He was like the lovable. Like I liked him a lot. You're right. Mike Conley former teammate of Mark Titus. Yep. Be interested to see what, like how much money

Mark Titus's teammates have gotten over the years. He sent him out. Yeah. I mean, Evan Turner's over a hundred million alone. Greg Odin. I heard Greg Odin is now an assistant coach somewhere in Indiana. I forget what school he's at.

Well, he was making money. He was a grad assistant on Ohio State for a while there. So, and he should, my rule should be allowed. He should be able to play for the Buckeyes. That would be awesome. Yeah. Greg Odin was playing for the Buckeyes. The T-Wolves, I now am rooting for the T-Wolves

to go to the finals just to see if we can get crazy protesters at every NBA city in America. That was so awesome. Because we had another one. We had someone who, a woman who chained herself to the basket and stopped the game. Same, same deal. Protestant Glenn Taylor killing a lot.

Like this guy. This guy, do you think these women that are like gluing themselves and chaining themselves to the basketball, to the hoop, were they relatives of the chickens? They're very upset. I think they're pro bird flu. It's crazy.

That's what it sounds like to me. It sounds like what they want instead of exterminating the chickens that are sick is for the chickens to go on and infect other chickens. They think that not enough birds got killed. Like I would probably, if Glenn Taylor killed a family member of mine, I might glue myself to the baseline once.

I don't know if I'd go to game two. I don't know. Like it's very Minnesota nice, the way that they're doing it. They're like, we're going to cause a scene. But real briefly, we don't want to really interrupt the game. The chain kind of upped it. Cause the chain, they had a little trouble

getting the chain off. So the chain kind of upped the deal. I don't know. I'm excited to see what they have planned next. I don't know where you go from here. Now are they working together? Or is this just like a copycat? I don't know.

And they also like, they're going to blow through their budget. I don't like, as they, as if the T-wills progress, it's going to be tough to keep, to keep this budget going where they're buying like the best seats in an NBA playoff game just to get kicked out. So I'll say this. The first one was funny.

The second one also funny, cause she looked like Janet from the Sopranos. The third Janice, excuse me. Hank, she's the one that like got into a fight with Tony at the dinner table. Cause she used to blow a bunch of guys. Yeah, sister. But if it happens a third time,

I actually think I'm going to start to be sympathetic to their cause. I'm going to be like, yeah, that guy did kill a lot of birds. That's how it works for me. If you do it three times, then I'm like, wait, something's up here. They, they must have a very good point.

Oh, see, I'm going to go reverse. I'm like, Glenn Taylor, you should just execute a bird live before the game. Like it's center court. If he just comes out and just chops off a bird's head and be like, what do you want me, what do you want from me now, bitches? I shutter to think what they'll do at commanders games

with Carson Wentz as a quarterback if they're anti bird murder. Yes. There we go. Get that in. Yeah. He hunted all those ducks. Yep, exactly.

Yeah, that game was awesome. Anthony Edwards is fucking awesome. I don't know, like this is, we shouldn't overreact to every game one because I do think that Grizzlies will have an answer for this, but it was just really fun watching everyone make the jokes about the Timberwolves winning the championship and thinking there was going

to be a letdown spot and there was no letdown spot. No, I mean, the Timberwolves, they've got, I mean, they've got momentum. I'm a believer in momentum and I am going to do the thing where we take game one and blow out our proportion. Yeah, and Carl Anthony Towns, I, you know, he's, so the other note of this game was ESPN's audio went absolutely haywire and like, I thought my TV

was blowing up and then they had Stephen A. Smith and Greeny call the game for like half a quarter from the Brooklyn studios and Stephen A. Smith was just bashing Carl Anthony Towns. He's like, he literally was just doing first take for a live game, but Carl Anthony Towns, something about him, he just like, when he fucks up, at least like twice a game, he'll throw a pass

into like the fifth row and he'll look around at everyone like it was someone else's fault, but him. You're like, what's going on? He also has a great perplexed face. Yeah, he's really good at like, remember when Russell Westbrook missed that three this year and he was like, looking around like, I can't believe that's a NBA shot.

It's like a tennis player looking at their racket. Like, is there a hole in this? He's super good at looking confused. I love the fact that ESPN, anytime they need something, they literally have like a Stephen A. Smith button that they can smash at any given time because he's paid what, like 10 million a year. That means that he's just on retainer.

Yeah, him and Greeny. If there's a microphone that needs to be screamed in 24 hours a day, you put up the bat signal and he comes in swooping in and I fucking love it. And having him match up with Greeny is so funny because Greeny knows who the alpha on the stages. Whoa, is there ever been a situation where Greeny's been the alpha?

No, Greeny is the alpha, that's what I'm saying. Greeny knows that he's calling the shots. Stephen A. Smith is lucky enough to be around him. Greeny and Stephen A. Smith are like heart surgeons where they just have a beeper at all times. They're like, oh, we need you in the studio. We got to have you talk. We got to have you fill an hour real quick at like 11 PM.

Well, for Stephen A. Smith, it's very easy. It's like plug and play. If he doesn't know anything about what's going on, he'll just like pick one guy, be like, that guy's a disgrace. And then he'll just talk for like 30 minutes about what a disgrace he is. It was great. It was a great break.

And then we had the Sixers who, I feel like most disrespected teams going into the first round, heat number one by far. No one's talked about the heat, myself included. I'll put my hand up on that. Rest in peace the cows, by the way, we didn't cover that, but I do think they would have beat the heat.

They definitely would have. Yeah, they definitely would have beat the heat. And then Sixers, I feel like are sneaky second because everyone was like, oh, if you're looking for an upset, it's like the upset we do in the bracket. Go, if you're looking for an upset, it's the Raptors over the Sixers.

And then Tyrese Maxie happened, which I have a couple of stats that are pretty awesome. Only a Philly, I think it was like NBC Philly wrote the article. And the first, it was like, look at these crazy stats from Tyrese Maxie. So he scored 38 points. He's the third youngest guy to do that

in an NBA playoff game, Magic and LeBron being the two youngest. So that's pretty good company. But the big stat they had that led the whole article was Tyrese Maxie scored 21 points in the third quarter, 12 minutes of play, which is more points than the last 100 minutes of Ben Simmons in the playoffs as a Sixer, 19.

I love that. I just loved it. He's going back to it. Yeah. Just like, this guy's awesome. Let's bring up Ben Simmons. Yeah, keep going back to it. I appreciate that.

I mean, it does serve to highlight just how ridiculous Ben Simmons was at the end of his tenure in Philly. You lose track of what a circus it was, especially because of the way the last years played out since then. But yeah, I mean, it does. That's a great use of perspective.

Yes. And it also was one of those games that the Sixers won it. And I don't think, I mean, Embiid wasn't like full on Embiid. Like he wasn't Hulk Embiid where he was 19 points, but he was not great shooting. And so you've got to feel pretty confident if you're a Sixers fan watching that being like, oh, yeah, Hardin and Embiid weren't like,

it wasn't like your stars beat him. Hardin's Maxi beat them. Hardin wasn't bad, though, but I can't figure out if that's a case of having the lowest possible expectations for James Hardin and him barely surpassing those. I think he went like four for seven from three. Yeah. So he made a few outside shots, which he hasn't been doing

recently. And also maybe it was just Racillo poisoned our brains and telling us, it'd be very funny if James Hardin just had the playoffs from hell this year and just dominated everybody. He got the MVP over Chris Paul in the finals. Yeah. That's actually, I'm rooting for that now.

Maybe even let Chris Paul win the finals and have Hardin win the MVP in a losing effort. That would be hilarious. And you just have to tip your hat. Hardin also showed up with one of the craziest jackets that I've ever seen that had, it had just two puppets attached to his jacket. And I guess it's something you could actually buy at Gucci.

Yeah. I think they just make it for James Hardin. He's got a guy. But then they put it in the store. So they're like, no, no, no, everyone can wear this. I bet that there's a guy at Gucci that's like making stuff for James Hardin, just doing it as a joke. Like if I tell him that this is cool, he'll believe.

It's probably that other Gucci. What is it, the Palo Gucci? Yeah. The brother that got kicked out of the family that nobody liked. Yeah. It's probably him. That's the guy that's making it. It looked like a costume where it's like, all right,

I have a jacket that actually is a real jacket. And then I just have like, I overordered bark box toys. Let me just throw a couple of things on this. Yeah. Staple Gumby to it and tell him it's cool. Yeah. And then Saturday night, we were reminded that the Warriors

are fucking awesome. Yep. And Jordan Poole is really, really good. Warriors are back. When I said that, like, don't be surprised if this Nuggets team does something. Oh, oh, I thought because I thought you also said surprise with the Warriors.

No, no, the Warriors are my pick. Yeah, yeah, I like that. They're my pick out of the West. The Nuggets were my don't be surprised if they do something in the playoffs, which is just, again, me saying, making a pick without ever having to be accountable for it. But it does all hinge on the fact that they have two other star players that are out.

And today I saw an article that Porter is thinking about coming back. Oh. But again, this has been like twice a week in Denver. If you need an article that needs clicks or needs attention, just be like Porter's thinking about coming back this week. Yeah. He's been considering coming back for about four months,

three months now. Yeah. It's I've just kind of accepted the fact that it's not going to happen. And the Warriors do have the ability to flip the switch. I'd officially like to, can I switch permission to switch my pick to the Warriors? Just become a Warriors podcast.

Is that OK? I mean, the Suns are beating the Pelicans pretty badly in the first quarter here. Is that OK? Well, I do think my Warriors box is my official pick. I do think we could say that like people forgot about the Warriors, even though nobody really did. It's right at that that stage of them kind of being talked

about a little bit less that we can now hold the banner and be like, we're the ones that never forgot about you guys. And I wanted to. There was a big storyline because Steph came off the bench because he had been injured. And everyone's like, look at this stuff coming off the bench. And usually I'm cynical of these stories that get forced down our throat.

But I was like, you know what? That actually is very cool. Yeah. LeBron would never come off the bench. How many minutes have you had? He had a shitload of minutes. He had a shitload of minutes. Jordan Poole was able to like Jordan Poole had an incredible game.

And a lot of that because he started and was I I'm just going to give Steph the credit that he deserves in that moment because it is like one of those stories that we probably made too much of a deal about it. But Steph Curry, if he wanted to start with one leg, he would start with one leg. Yeah. You know what I mean?

Like he calls the shots. So how does that work in terms of six man of the year voting? If Steph Curry were to come off, if you were to come off the bench after like sit out the first two minutes of the game and then play for the rest of the game, essentially, could you be six man or is it the guy with the six most minutes? I don't think you can be six man just for the playoffs. No, no, no, I'm saying like in the regular season.

Yes. That's what I'm saying. Like Manu used to have starter minutes. Yeah. But he would come off the bench. I speaking of the awards, there's no bigger loser than the guy who's still arguing MVP awards as if the votes haven't been cast. Like going game one, oh, and Bede had a bad game one.

He shouldn't be the MVP. It's like, dude, it's over. Yeah. It's already been done. Do you think that there's an element of the Sixers playing their games in Canada that like makes us forget about their performance more? I always feel that way. Like if it's against the Raptors for whatever reason,

I'm always more likely to gloss over in the early rounds. I just I don't I don't pay as much attention to that. I don't know. That probably says a lot. My internalized xenophobia. Well, I'm like, yeah, the Sixers, here's the best thing I can say about what the Sixers did. They handled their business here.

Here's here's what I think you're getting at. And I agree with this point is that the Raptors really got screwed with Kauai not coming back because teams that don't get to defend their titles, they don't last in your brain the same way. Yeah, I mean, that was an awesome team. Right. That Raptors team felt different. You want to feel old? No. You want to tell me how time works?

Yeah. That's Riley Curry. No way. Are you serious? Like a full blown adult. They showed her in the game and I was like, wait, what? Yeah, it was. I mean, that is how time works.

Children become, you know, I don't know if she's a full teenager yet, but like children get older. No, she can't. Yeah, she can't be a teenager. Yeah, but still. I mean, you don't remember when she was two. It's like a grown up outfit. She's got like, she's got like zippers and stuff.

That's like a track suit. That's not something the nine year old wears. But it's just she has a podcast. No, I'm saying like. We were podcasting when she was. Yes. Yeah. I mean, the Warriors in 2015. That's when she showed up on the stage and, you know, was ripping the curtains down.

Well, she's a front runner. She only came out after wins and she wouldn't be there to address the media after losses. Yeah. But the Warriors are good. And then Jake, your heat handle business. Disrespected ones in the history of basketball. I'd agree with you. And it's one thing like, I think it was the Hawks a few years ago where people were like, God, they haven't been there before.

These guys have been there before. So it's not like the pressure in the top seed should be scary. It's Disneyland bubble. Bubble. That was a little bit more than Jake. It was a little bit different. Okay, you're you're in a room full of brawn haters. If we concede that the heat had been there, then we also have to concede that LeBron

not necessarily. Spolster. Yes. Spolster has been there. Spolster has definitely been. Haslam. Been there. Kyle Lowry.

Kyle Lowry. Been there. Yes. Duncan Robinson. Maybe the best basketball playing podcaster in the history of the medium. For real. He he is putting it on for all like representation matters and watching a podcaster do what he did today.

I see him up there and I'm like, I can do that. I could be me. I believe that. Yeah. Until I saw him do that, I was well, no, CJ McCollum, probably the best basketball that's true. That's true. But seeing Duncan Robinson do it, it felt like I finally was like, oh, someday I can

grow up and go eight for nine and NBA playoff game from three. I love when he when he hits his sick, like off balance, three point shots. He's the best. I like watching him play when he's when he's dialed in, but when he's not, it's very sad for podcast. I don't claim him when he has an off night also PJ Tucker. It's when he's that's when he podcasts too much. He podcasts.

Oh, PJ Tucker's been there. Yeah. God, that's true. He's a dog defending champion. He is a dog. That is that's absolutely a fact. One last thing about the Celtics Nets game, Hank Tatum doing the look at my hand is the coolest thing ever when he does an awesome play and he looks at his hand.

I think that's one of the coolest like celebrations that you can do. His son, I mean, obviously I'm biased, but his his son is cute as fuck. And he's like in and around the team and he's like, he's like the mascot for that. Deuce. Wow. Deuce Deuce. Deuce Tatum. Like he'll be on the sidelines and Marcus Smart will be like, dude, Deuce Tatum is down

in the ball and he'll like try and be like punching him and shit. Deuce Tatum's like a character that Jean-Claude Van Damme played in like 1994. I'll send you these pictures. They're fucking bad ass roadhouse to Deuce Tatum. Wow. Pain don't hurt. What an. All right.

That is some team of destiny shit. Deuce Tatum. Yeah. And then the Bulls totally gave away a game to the Bucks. You know what that was though? I think we all forgot about game one Bucks being a thing. Yeah. Because if you go back last year, I looked this up actually, if you look at what they

did in the playoffs last two years, I think they've lost all but one game ones. So I think they're like, they're one in six and game ones over the last two years. And they and when they lose, they usually get smoked. So if you're going on like historical context, this was, this is the chance that you had to beat them. And the Bulls have a little game one. I can't remember if we did it twice. I remember obviously one time when the Bulls went down to the heat and beat them game one

in the Eastern Conference final and then the heat gentlemen swept them. So Bulls have some game one module. But yeah, that was, that was a game I'm, I have my expectations are very low. I've seen some people being like, dude, you're being so down. I, I watched the Bulls like anyone who's watched them has known that they have been one of the worst teams in the NBA, not just in the playoffs, the last two months. They played a lot harder tonight than they have against good competition in the last two months.

They just shot like shit. And a lot of that's true holiday, just being incredible at defense, but that did feel like a winnable game. There's not a lot that you can do against Giannis though, but you like, you double team them and then it's two passes away. Good Vooch, DeMar DeRozan and Zach Levine shot 21 for 71. You can't win like that. No, not great.

You can't win like that. So I just went in with very low expectations and then the third quarter happened and I was like, ooh, could we, could we fight here? And then you lose that way. It feels like that was going to be one of our best shots in this series. Yeah, for sure. Hank, did you want to do your embrace debate real quick? Uh, yeah, we obviously talked about them a little bit earlier with the heat stuff, but

LeBron has been live tweeting, uh, all the games in the NBA and I was just sitting wondering cause on NBA on TNT, they kind of call him out, they go to him into coming on and stuff. And this is kind of the first time that he has not been in the playoffs at all. So my embrace debate was, will we see LeBron on the desk as like a panelist at any point during these playoffs? I don't think so. I, I really don't. I think that LeBron is, do they let you drink wine on the air?

Yeah. I think he's it. Chucking Kenny. He's becoming more relatable, uh, as he's doing this because he's experienced exactly what we all are doing while we're watching these games, which is getting drunk and tweeting while watching it. So I think LeBron is like, Hey, this kicks ass. So I was thinking about it.

I actually think we could see it, but I'm in a weird way. I think it might be ESPN, not TNT. Anything. I think, cause think about it. Yeah. The consummate, like you come on this show, I won't ask you a single hard question. Oh no, Greeny will, he'll have eight inches of LeBron tickling his uvula. Stephen A. Smith has never been like skip as the LeBron hater, not Stephen A. Smith.

Stephen A. Smith isn't a full on LeBron hater. I feel like that's a soft landing spot. He could even have magic come on with it. Like I, I think that it was, it would be more likely that it would be ESPN than TNT. They should actually let him do like his own manning cast style thing from his house, just like him and his daughter drunk on a couch, just watching the games and talking about it. Yeah.

I would watch that. Yes, of course. But yeah, he is, he's trying to get in the mix. And I think the problem is he probably like scheduled his, his like month long vacation for after the finals, never thinking he wouldn't even be in the playoffs. His family's probably never seen him in May. Yeah. So, and like his kids are still in school, so he's got to sit there on his couch and

just be like, all right, this sucks. But yeah, I would like to see him on ESPN. That'd be fun. I mean, I think even like the biggest LeBron haters would still watch, of course, as we would take. Yeah. Because you need ammo. Yeah.

And that would give you a full clip. It would be incredible. Any other first round, first game, first round notes. I, I do, I'm trying not to overreact to the first games, but it is very much your Warriors pick after. Yeah, I did. I want, well, I don't know if you saw, but I put 67 units on that game. So I'm up 65.9 units on the playoffs.

That's pretty good. Yeah. No big deal. So I was very happy to watch them. I think that's a smart move. Honestly, the Warriors, people forget they're still the Warriors. Yeah. I think Hank, you've forgotten that they're the Warriors.

I made my pick to go to the finals. Yeah, that is true. You're forgetting though. You should, you should welcome people onto the bandwagon. We're waking people up. I think I get, I think I can change my pick this early because we haven't even completed the first game in the first round and yeah, I want a big bet on them. So, wait, does that mean I can, I can rescind my wamping?

No, the wamp bet is set in stone. All right. Why are you feeling a little nervous? No, I was just curious. I didn't know. I didn't know how the retractions were after game one. The Celtics might be decent. No, I can't believe I got dragged into this.

Oh, I can. I'm sorry for, for making you part of the team. Yeah. Content, baby. Let's do it. You think the, you think the AWLs want to see me, PFT or Hank put a fucking horseshoe in no way. Nope.

You doing it? That's, that's asses in the seat. That's clicks, baby. Yeah. You'll be, you'll be spinning. You'll be puking. You'll be on the moon. I think you're going to puke in under three minutes if it happens.

Anything for that. Mike comes. Mike. What? Come. Why? Who knows? Yeah.

Okay. That was really weird. That kind of ruined the vibe. Hank, Hank thinks that Jake will come when he gets his mouth full. I think a lot of things could happen, but. You've never done one before. That is true. That is true.

Hank's been on a heater recently. Imagine, imagine if Jake just nutted. Yeah. He was like, called it, cashed those tickets. I don't think anybody's ever come from having an entire, a wampus cat of dip in your mouth. Billy, what are you going to say? To specify, it is a four finger dip. So it's not the whole can.

You just did three fingers with your hand. This is four with the thumb. All right. So three fingers and a thumb. Yes. That is the wampus cat grip of the dip. Okay. I love it.

And I will be doing a wampus cat if it goes to game six or seven, just so there's a definite wampus cat. You just want to do. Oh, nice. That's actually a great team player. Because I will participate. No, that's huge. Yeah.

So there will be a wampus cat. Because we didn't want like, if we're doing a second take on the whole series, I think it's going seven. Like I was a great game. I wanted to back and forth and I, it looks, it looks like it's going to be a game, a series that has like the makings of an all time series just based on game one, which I said I wasn't going to do. So I appreciate that Billy way to step up, way to step up.

Um, all right, let's do who's back. Who's backs brought to you by our friends at cores light. It's a hectic time of the year between weddings, graduation, spring sports and more. We're busier than ever right now. And sometimes we forget to take a second for ourselves. So this season take a second to enjoy an ice cold cores light because you deserve a beer that's made to chill. There's only one beer out there that's literally made to chill and that's cores light the mountains

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Who's back Hank? Jordan Spieth. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Big winner today. I was looking at him. I thought it was his first one since 2017, but he actually won one last year. But still, there's a four-year gap, five-year, including this year, but won the RBC Heritage

in a playoff. He's back. He seemed like he fell off a little bit. Sometimes with golfers, they are super, super hot, and then once they fall off, they kind of never make it back. Yeah, they get mentally broken. Did you see what was up with his wife running up to him after he won? His wife was carrying their baby in one hand and sprinting down the fairway.

Like with Sean McCoy? Yeah. Yeah. Like carrying a loaf of bread. And the baby was just bouncing all over the place as she was sprinting down to him. It was terrible baby security. So as someone who carries a baby, you find the grooves in the baby and you're able to carry them one-handed like that.

You got to watch this clip, though, because it looked like she was doing a drill and somebody was going to reach out and just slap that arm. I know if you just watched security camera me carrying my baby, you'd be like, oh, dude, that baby's about to fall. It's like, no, I got it. No, you got no problem. Because you know, three points of contact. I got that baby.

She was hanging on to it like, yeah, Sean McCoy is actually a great comparison as to her baby carrying technique. All right. That's your who's back? Yep. Anymore? For who's back? Okay.

I got two. I got five. I got five. I just, Billy, extra credit, Billy. I really, I actually did six, but I'm just going to do one so I can keep the show moving. My who's back that week is staying hydrated, specifically Russell Wilson. Staying hydrated. What were you thinking, Hank?

Your neighbors? Oh, no, no, no. Did you talk to your neighbors? No, I didn't. I thought you were going to be a converted waterist. No, I might be a waterist. I might be a water guy now. I've been drinking a lot of it recently.

It's good stuff. Russell Wilson has a new house in Colorado, bought for $25 million. Looks like a nice place from the outside until you look at the specifics of the house. It's four bedrooms and 12 bathrooms. He's got 12 bathrooms in his mansion with only four bedrooms. My only thought is because he's the big nano bubble's recovery water guy, he must stay so hydrated that he can't be more than like a hundred feet away from a bathroom. I also, that's kind of sneaky genius because if you're that, if you're Russell Wilson,

you don't want friends and family crashing. How many, if you listed Russell Wilson's new house on Airbnb, what do you think it would say that you could sleep? Because you know how Airbnb will be like four bedrooms, it can sleep 25. It's probably nine because you got the master bedroom, then you've got a theater, but then you've got two others. You've got the mother-in-law shed in the back for future to stay in whenever he drops into town.

There's no way, like they could definitely sleep comfortably 20 people, but it's smart to be like, nope, sorry, don't got any more bedrooms, four bedrooms. That one's actually, that was my film watching room so we can't sleep in there. Yeah, we got a full court basketball, but we don't have enough bedrooms. This is my massage room, not for sleeping, it does have a bed, but it's not for sleeping. We had nine car garage, four beds, and 12 bathrooms, and maybe the most irritating part of his entire house is the basketball court that he has inside. Yeah.

It's like a squash court that was converted into basketball, so it's got, yeah, it's a half court basketball, but not just half court, but it's also not even wide enough to have anything. It's basically the key. You can practice foul shots there, you can play knockout in there, but you can't actually play. Which is fine, like if one of us had that, that'd be the coolest thing ever. But if you're Russell Wilson and you buy a house for 25 million, I want the full court.

I want a full court, I want, not only, I'll go one more, I want the full court, but I want it to be like middle school where you can drop fucking rims all around. You can play with, you know, there's six rims. You got six of them, two of them, you can lower down to eight feet if you want to do a dunking contest. Yeah, play, you could have a fucking AAU camp in your house. I would get a giant scoreboard that's suspended from the ceiling that I would keep track of during my own like pickup games that I've had there.

I've had like the horn, the buzzer, I have like a sound system, it's sweet. Yeah, Denny Hamlin has that, like that's how you got to do it. Did you see, by the way, that guy went viral, he has a Jumbotron in his living room, total dudes rock mom. That's awesome. Like no, that has to be the most annoying thing to have, like pretty much every day of the year, except maybe Sundays, and then you're like, this is sick, and then your friends leave after watching games or something like, damn, that Jumbotron was like, did they

really have to play pump up the jam during the third quarter? No, it's an awesome thing for like friends to come over and experience, but then you have to live in a room that has a Jumbotron hanging from the ceiling when you're just trying to watch. You're like, why is my, why is my, why is my fucking electric bill similar to growing like, you know, seven acres of weed? Yeah. What the fuck is going on?

It is sick though. Yeah. It was dudes rock. All right. My who's back. So I have two. I love each row because each row is the quintessential. I think most athletes are like this, but no one embodies it quite like each row where

you know how it's like, you don't retire. The game retires you each row. I think he like, I think he went and played in Japan after he retired and he came, well, he came back and then he went back and played in Japan. He wants to just play baseball till he's a hundred years old. It reminded me so much when he went out of the mound. How awesome those like early 2000 Mariners jerseys were. Yeah.

So clean. Yeah. And he came out full, full kit, which would normally be like, what the hell is this guy doing? But then he threw gas 93 miles an hour. Oh, they had the gun on him. They had the gun on him. I saw it.

It looked like he caught the corner. Maybe. Yeah. He was throwing gas and then my other who's back, we haven't talked about him, but Baker Mayfield, we, I think we missed it in the mix of like all the playoffs starting, but saying that he would like to go to people's work and boo them. I say that's acceptable. Yeah.

Well, and I would say that Baker, if like I was making $20 million a year, I'd be, I wouldn't be bothered. Yeah. Well, probably not. But that's not. I don't think so. Yeah. Baker's never, he's always been bothered by everything.

Yeah. He should actually, he should take that out on to Sean Watson, just boom at practice. Yeah. Is he going to, he's not like going to show up for workouts and stuff, right? I don't know. That would be very awkward if he went into the season as like the backup quarterback on the Browns. Yeah.

Where is he going to go? I guess he's got to wait till the draft. You never know. You never know. You never know. That was the podcast. What? Oh, he was on You Never Know?

The You Never Know podcast. With Mike Stud? Yeah. Who is not Mike Stud anymore, right? Just Mike. Just Mike. Shout out Mike Stud. Yeah, just Mike.

Just Mike. You never know. Yes. He said, he's an OG. Yeah. We've known Mike forever. The video, I mean, they're like sitting on his couch and the video of just Mike's dog was like in the, he was sleeping in the background like rolling around.

So that's what everyone was like commenting on because it was like first take, you're watching Baker Mayfield. You just see his dog in the background. That's genius by Mike. Yeah. Dude's rock. Yeah. Absolutely.

I think his dog's nuts. It was like spread eagle on the couch behind it. Like Paul George. Like Paul George. Yeah. Baker just has elbows in it. Yeah. How about Paul George?

Genius. I didn't even know they were testing for COVID anymore. Just Paul. He's just like. Paul was driving on the way to the stadium. He was like, you know, I'm going to swing by CVS real quick. Pick up a PCR. Just in case.

We're going to spit on this. Yeah. Playoff PCR. It's what they're calling them. Maybe a little red ink. All right. I'm out. No one can make fun of me.

I mean, he was genius. He's smart. Yeah. I don't think he was going to do anything this postseason that would have even begun to change the narrative about him. He probably called up. Yeah. He probably called up Kawhi.

I was like, so. And Kawhi was like, nah. He's like, okay, cool. Yeah. I'm out. Kawhi's going to be back like February of next year, I think. And that's when Playoff P will be like, okay, let's. This is the year.

Kawhi. It never felt like this was. You know what? Because I don't even think I could have mustered up the energy to enjoy a Playoff P Playoff L. Right. It wouldn't have been the same. I had no expectations for him.

Right. There's no buzz around him. Next year, when Kawhi comes back, then we'll be like, okay, this is a Clippers year. It'll be so much more satisfying to watch him lose. Yeah. So thank you, Paul. God bless Kawhi Leonard because I think this is by design, but there's never been a superstar in any league that you just forget exists for like great lengths of time.

And I think that he enjoys it that way. He's a slow healer. I think he'd rather us just forget he exists, but it's happened multiple times in the last five years. We're like, oh, Kawhi. Yeah. Yeah. What's he up to?

I mean, the beauty about NBA contracts is that you can do stuff like this. You can just straight up like what Zion's doing. Yeah. You can just be like, you know what? I think I'm going to burn a year off my deal and not play that. And everyone's like, well, shit. We didn't think about that when we did the CBA. I guess it got us by the balls now.

That Zion statement, I had some big time Derek Rose flashbacks when the exact wording was Zion and his team disagree with the Pelicans assessment of his injury. I was like, oh boy, that's never good. I mean, that's the start of the yet. If you're Zion strictly from like a business standpoint, it's a smart move. What he's doing. You would rather that if you have a player on your team that, that you draft first overall to be like the future of your organization, you'd want that ideally to be a guy that wants

to play and wants to help his team win. But from a business standpoint, there's really nothing that's stopping him from just being like, no, I don't feel like coming back right now and then getting, and then getting another year closer to a big max contract. I just imagine that conversation going down where, and I actually do side with the players more often than not because team doctors are employed by the teams and they, they're literal job is to get players to play through anything, but just having like the idea that they're sitting down in a medical office and the doctors like, so Zion, you're a hundred percent and

he's just like disagree. Uh huh. Was it? Nope. Not playing. Derek was his cousin. No, his brother. His brother.

Yeah. He's like, well, my brother, my brother doesn't think so. It was just not. It was, it was never like as overtly as this one was just straight up. Nope. We disagree. But it was just bad all around. Like he could come back, but he doesn't want to come back, but they don't feel he's

healthy, but he is. Who knows? I do. I will say that I've heard like players interviews and we've talked to guys, you know, football players, especially where they're like, yeah, team doctors would just lie just to get you back out there. Yeah. So I should walk that back.

I do. I will side with Zion. I completely, I understand it. And even if, if he is doing a thing where he's just like, I want to get a year closer to getting a big contract and getting into a position where I'm being paid a shitload of money as opposed to just like a decent amount of money. I understand that from a business aspect, but also if I was like a fan of the team, yeah, no, that's it.

Then I'd be like, God damn it, please play. I've been looking for, I went out, I bought your Jersey the day you got drafted. This was something that was very excited about. And now it's not happening. I would be disappointed if I was in that position. Exactly. From afar, I side with Zion and this, but I know that having lived through it, I was like, Derek, please fucking play and Pelkins fans have every right to just be mad.

In theory, I think that this is a good thing when it happens to me. I'm very mad. It's like communism. Yeah, right. I didn't sign up for this. All right, Billy. Someone has to do it. My who's back is Jesus.

He came back. There it is. Someone did have to do that. Shout out. I'm mad that you took off your Easter shirt. He looked so handsome. I was stunting. Billy got an Easter haircut.

Excuse me, you dyed the tips invisible. Tips Easter invisible. You shaved for Jesus? You getting cash? You getting presents? No. You getting any chocolate? I'm part of the I mean, like the time my life where there's no little kids in my family

yet. So like all the holidays kind of don't have like a childish vibe anymore. Yeah. So I guess you don't have a kid. Yeah. Yeah. You guys hurt fucking. Yeah.

Got to work on that. Anyway, you'd be a good dad, Billy. I'd be hyped to be. Not yet. No, but I you would be a good dad. I'm saying that right now. I appreciate that. Yeah.

I think he's a great dad. Whitey is very well behaved dog. Yeah. You got you got good dad energy. Yeah. And you can't tell a lot about a person from how their dog behaves. And Whitey is just like this little tiny meathead that just runs around. Not really making any sense with what he's doing.

It's perfect and very well behaved though. Yeah. It's basically like Billy. So my other whose backs are football ish. Oh, yeah. Football, football's kind of back. USFL. Yeah.

Jeff Fisher. Looked awesome. Back. He looks like in shape. He just looking good. That's the extent of the USFL coverage I had was I just saw Jeff Fisher was like that's cool. Oh, Paxton Lynch.

Fuck that guy. Yeah. Paxton Lynch. So he had a pick and a fumble. Good. After coming back in. And there were bad picks. Yeah.

Bad fumbles too. I know you still hate him for that. Memphis bowl game. Yep. Most importantly though, Kyle Sloder finally started in a regular season professional game this weekend. And he won. Nice.

He's going to have a future down on whatever the team New Orleans breakers, I think. Yeah. Sure. You could say anything. I don't know. There's like a bandits that's in there somewhere. Yeah. But there's it's very funny to see like these teams that no one's ever seen play before.

And then they have odds as to who's going to win the regular season championship. It's like, right. How does anybody have any idea what's going to happen? And is this season even going to make it to the end? I just know that there was a moment. I put it. I saw Jeff Fisher pop up on my timeline, so I put it on one of my TVs and it was halftime and it was Jeff Fisher and Todd Haley.

And I was like, Oh, this is sick. And then I still didn't watch. Yeah. So I'm just I I love football, but spring football just doesn't I want. I actually you want to know what's sick. I actually watched some spring football games and I wouldn't watch the USFL like I watched a little bit of Georgia spring football game and watch a little bit of Ohio States shout out Vandy that can't even get a win in their spring football game.

They tied. How bad is that? They tied 3232 like you can't even get a win in your spring football game. The kicking game is awful in the USFL. Miss Field goes left and right. One of the kickers was Zach Galfinax's cousin that made sure to say that. Also in other non NFL football news, that definitely was brought up in like some big meeting.

They're like, who do we got? Well, we got Zach Galfinax's cousin. That's going to do real well on social clip. Terrell Owens scored touchdown to fan controlled football. Yes. Yes. I saw that as well. You know, at the end of the game, garbage time.

Also guess who else is back? Swedish House Mafia just dropped an album on Friday, first album in 10 years. Whoa. Swedish House Mafia might be not as big of a deal in your life as it was in mine, but Swedish House Mafia is pretty awesome. Billy, 10 years ago, I was way more in drinking age than you. Yeah, but I was 12. I was at middle school dances listening to Swedish House Mafia.

Yeah. Absolutely. What's the biggest impact Swedish House Mafia has had on your life? Greyhound, the song for Cardio. Okay. Nice. Yeah. If you want to like get through a run, listen to Greyhound by Swedish House Mafia.

I'm going to check it out. I'm going to do it. Love it. Then my last who's back is Bigfoot. There's been pictures of a Bigfoot sighting. I've tracked it down. A lot of states are claiming that the Bigfoot was seen in their state, but I've tracked it down to Ohio.

There was some Bama people claiming that they found them in Bama, but I know that this is like getting shared as misinformation. There definitely is pictures of what looks like a Bigfoot, but I'm not sure exactly where the Bigfoot was seen. What is a Bigfoot, Billy? Wait. You just saw it officially in Ohio, so that's a Big 10 title. Yeah.

That was the first picture of Ohio. Billy, there's a lot of misinformation out there, but I just want to correct it and let you know that Bigfoot is currently in Ohio, not Alabama. Well, it's a Sasquatch. It looks like a full-ground Sasquatch. How tall? I'd probably say six to seven feet. What do you think they eat?

I think they eat vegetation. I think they're a huge, maybe a little omnivorous diet, but mostly heavy greens. That's how gorillas get their mass. Probably some sort of gigantopithecus, but ... Why would they choose Ohio? I feel like there's tons of greenery. All right. Okay.

Good highway system. Good enough for me. Yeah. Might be a Buckeyes fan. Yeah. Anyway, those are my Who's Backs. Thank you. All right.

The week is respect in the name of walking someone with the bases loaded. Oh, yeah. Corey Seeger intentionally walked with the bases loaded. The Rangers still won the game. Mike Trout's reaction was so funny. The Angels. The Angels. Yeah.

Mike Trout was like, why are we doing this right now? It was also like the third inning. Yeah. This isn't Barry Bonds. Bottom of the fourth and a three-two game. One out. There was also what I think is the most electric call in sports, the walk-off walk. What happened in the Orioles game, right?

It was Orioles Yankees. Oh, man. Aaron Boone. Aaron Boone managed to get tossed after the game was over. I love. You got to hear John Sterling's call on that. Yeah. Strike three.

Yeah. That's an easy one. I love a walk-off walk-off. We're going extras. People, like the way that the stadium reacts and the players on the field, like jumping up in the air, sprinting out on the field after a walk. Amazing. And then the umpire always sticks around and makes sure he touches his own plate.

Yep. Attention to detail. Yep. You have to. It's similar to the ref counting threes in the three point contest. But yeah, this is a crazy, crazy incident here. I really want to get John Sterling's call. Damn.

Damn. Can you find it? I can look for it. Yeah. Yeah. He probably was so confused. Like how can the game end on a walk? All right.

Let's get to speaking of baseball. Let's get to Jake. You had an awesome interview and we are have a sponsor before we do. Yeah. I want to talk to you guys about a great, great friend over at Cross Country Mortgage. I love Cross Country Mortgage. If you've ever purchased a home, you know how tough the process can be. If you're still throwing away money on rent every month, you're just sitting on the bench.

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We now welcome on a very special guest. One of my favorite baseball players of all time. He is a world champion. He's a Cy Young winner. It is Jake Arietta. Jake, thank you for joining us. And I truly mean that. We can get into my Chris Farley, Paul McCartney type of questions later.

Because I went down memory lane before this. And yeah, it's going to be Chris Farley, Paul McCartney at some point. But good to see you. Let's start with this. You are not pitching right now. Are you, do you want to announce your retirement? Are you officially retired? Well, I haven't signed the papers, man, but I'm, I'm done.

You know, it's, it's, it's time for me to step away from the game. Uh, at some, at some point in the uniform goes to somebody else. And it's just my time really, you know, what's funny too is Carl Texman, we're kind of talking a little bit, uh, throwing some ideas around for the, for the future. And I go, man, hey, I just signed with the Tokyo Giants and I get like radio, I get radio silence from him. And so I text him a few days later and I go, man, I was just, I was just talking with you. So everything's good.

And then also a team and a team in Mexico, I don't remember the name, but they sent me an email and a bunch of texts like, Hey, we'd love to have you while you're looking for a job. You know, we've got these guys on the roster. I'm like, dude, I'm not going to Mexico unless I'm drinking pina colada. Yeah, I'm not, uh, you know, it is what it is. So yeah, man, I'm, uh, I'm done. Okay.

So obviously last year didn't go great. Um, we can address that real quick. I, I'm very curious. I was happy that you're back with the Cubs. Like I said, you're one of my favorite baseball players of all time. How was it though with David Ross as your manager last year, who you played with and then having to have that difficult conversation like, Hey, this, this might be, this might be over.

Yeah. You know, having David as a manager was, was great. Look, I, I don't know if there's anybody else that I'd rather play for. Um, the field general goes out with a, a home run, his last at bat in the world series, right? Like he's, he's my guy. He's one of my guys. So regardless of what has to happen behind the scenes with, with my performance or,

or where the team, the team stands, like that, that's just part, that's just part of the job description, right? It's a difficult, I mean, we had, we had some emotional moments, right? Like I was, I was at a point where I was doing everything I possibly could to, to make things work. And, you know, unfortunately, and I, I came to this realization around the 19 season, towards the end of the 19 season, the men, look, my body feels amazing, but the show, the, the old whip, it's just, it doesn't rotate the way it used to.

And whether I like it or not, that's just kind of where things were going, you know, and it got to a point where I just couldn't feel my arm in, in space at release. And it was most dramatic on my, my curve ball and my changeup, right? Like I was hitting guys with changeups and those are two pitches where I could, I could throw where I wanted, right? Velocity was not the issue. I was still, you know, 91, 94. I could not physically feel where, where my arm was at at release, you know, and

trying to, trying to keep it going, trying to provide for, for the organization and for a fan base and for, you know, for my teammates, you know, and doing what I did in Chicago before, like it sucked to be in that position, you know, to go from warming up before games and hearing the, the fans and the stands going nuts and kind of knowing that I was going to dominate. And then last year it's like, oh, hopefully he gets the third inning, right? So it, it sucks. It sucks, but, but it is what it is.

There's no, there's no script that you, that you can like look at and say, this is how it's going to, how it's going to play itself out. It just, it happened that way. Unfortunately, um, but you know, we're, we're here now. It's, it's all good. I don't regret anything, you know, uh, Chicago is my city. It always will be, um, but yeah. What, what I've liked it to go a little bit better.

Sure. Of course I would have liked to see it through, uh, last year, uh, with the boys all year, but Hey man, I had a seven. So what are you going to do? You're not, you know, it's the way it goes. Yeah. And at your best, you were, I mean, you were filthy. Actually, we always have this debate on the show when we talk about baseball

pitching, is it better to be filthy, dirty or nasty in which one were you? I mean, I was all those, I was all, I was all those, man. You know, um, I just really, it really was for a while there. And, uh, especially that second half in, in, in 15, um, I was, I just did a podcast and I was talking about how you go from one star to the next. And like, I would forget the one before because it's, it's over, right? Like I was so focused on not the numbers, but just like getting 27 outs. Like that was literally what I thought every time I took the mount is I'm

getting 27 hours and, um, everything clicked. And not, I mean, the stuff was always there, right? Like when I was in Baltimore, I was 93, 98 with, with all the movement just without the command, right? So being able to like kind of put it all together, uh, having, having the mount presence, the demeanor, uh, the, the filthy stuff, the dirty stuff, the nasty stuff, and then also the command of it, right? It just all kind of clicked.

And you know, for three or four years there, you know, things went pretty well. So I don't know that much about you personally, uh, but from what I've gathered, watching you pitch, you seem like a guy that, um, on game day, you're a psycho, you turn into an absolute like, okay, you know, like Max Scherzer kind of has that vibe where, um, you know, when, when it's not his day to pitch, he's the nicest guy, people hang out with him, shoot the shit, whatever on game day, absolutely dialed in, uh, which is, is that a fair way to describe you?

Yeah. I think, you know, once it got to about an hour before the game, I wasn't really the easiest guy to talk to. And it wasn't because, you know, I didn't like you or I didn't want to have conversation. Like these were in, right? Airpods were in or headphones were on. And I was just going through my routine and like, I just wanted to

beat you so bad that like, I, I didn't have time to even say hi to you. Right. Like, and from the outside looking in, I talked to guys about this all the time. Like when we, they would play against me, like, oh, like, you seem like a dick or like you're just not, you're not a nice guy. Like you said, with Max, couldn't be further from the truth. Love Max, right? But like, there's something about those, the highest level of competitors that

whether you're pitching against somebody you don't know or your best friend, it doesn't matter. Like I'm doing anything in my power to beat you. And then afterwards, hey, let's, we'll grab a beer. That's like whatever, however it plays itself out, but there's a place that certain guys go to, to kind of dial everything in, maintain that focus from start to finish, because I was, I was guilty of this early in my career. Having, having pretty good focus, but having that lapse and, and, and

concentration, even, even if it was briefly, right? Just for a brief moment, next thing you know, you give up four runs, right? And that's, that's a, you know, that's giving credit to the opponent, right? They make a lot of money too. They're really good. So if you have that lapse in focus, even for, for a little bit of time, you risk getting your ass kicked, right? So that's, that's kind of why I was always dialed in the way I was.

So between the, you know, those Cubs teams, when it was you, Lester, and there was also a year or two when, when Lackey was on the team, who was, who was most like, don't fuck with that guy before a start. Because I would actually, as, as psycho as you've seen before a start, I'd still probably put my money on John Lackey because he's just a scary dude. But those are three dudes that like, you don't want to fuck with before they, while they're on the mound and also before they're on the mound. Man, that's, it's funny because you're, you're, you're spot on with, with Lac.

But I mean, it couldn't be further from the truth. Like if you, if you actually hang around him, he's the biggest goddamn teddy bear. On the planet, right? Uh, I, I, I mess with him all the time and, and Lester, Lester the same way. But on game day, you're, you're right though. Like in, and Lackey would always say this. He's like, I wasn't good enough to not go to that place. Right.

He's like, I didn't have the 97 to 100, right? I like, I was just, he's like, I'm a normal white guy with decent stuff. And I throw strikes. So I had to be that like asshole kind of, kind of vibe, right? On game day. But, uh, I mean, Lester had a little bit of that in him too, right? Like if he, if he had a rough, rough ending or something like that, you didn't want to be in the way as he's coming down the steps.

Yeah. Yeah. What about, uh, like the umpire interactions that you guys would have because that was another thing with Lackey. I always thought that he, what he would have certain games where he would like almost bully the ump to be like, Hey, this is what you're going to call. Would you, would you feel like you'd be able to do that? Like once you establish, establish yourself as a premier pitcher, did you think

that maybe the umps gave you more respect or, you know, explain things better in between innings? I think Lackey had the shortest leash with umpires. Lester was probably two. I was, I was three. I gave, I would typically give the umpire like two or three before I started chirping at all. Yeah.

But I wouldn't say anything. And then when I would, I would like scream at him, like, you know, just say, Hey, like I've given you three or four, like you need to figure it out. You know, and when you would do that, you would notice that the umpires would typically let that slide, right? Because they know when they, they miss in pitches, right? Like if the guy, I understand if the guy's setting up a foot off the plate, you hit the glove, like that's a ball, right?

But if I'm, if I'm in the zone, I'm hitting the glove repetitively and you keep missing the same pitch, then I have to say something, right? And it's, it's not to be disrespectful. It's like, Hey, I'm, I'm working my ass off out here. This is not easy. Like if I execute in the strike zone, you got to raise the right hand. Like that's, that's kind of what it came down to. I mean, John would, John would, uh, I mean, from the get go, right?

And I think he, he had several of these moments, but he's like, you know, if you miss, you can't miss the first pitch of the game as the umpire. Like what? We're, yeah, you know what I mean? Like first pitch of the game, you're gonna, you're gonna ball me on a, on a ball down the way. So, uh, lacking shortest leash, Lester second, me, I think I gave him a little bit more leeway.

Yeah. I used to love watching Lester pitch it always, it boggled my mind, but it was also kind of funny to watch from an outside perspective. Um, when he would try to throw the ball to first base. Whether it was on like a comeback or to the pitcher, if it was a pickoff attempt, I have to assume that you guys, you know, like spring training, you work on that sort of thing. Would he be able to do it in spring training?

Man, he would like, he would go out there. You know, we would say we'd stretch at eight, 39 o'clock. He'd go out there with one of our infield guys or one of the pitching coaches. I mean, even Rizzo would go out there with him, bucket of balls, work on throwing the ball to first base. Um, just one of those things, man, he, he did not like throwing the ball over there, and I'll kind of equate it to like me trying to throw BP to my son's team like last year and the year before, when they're like just starting to be able to,

uh, you know, hit a little bit, right? But I can't throw slow. It's the same thing. Like, dude, I, it's a real quick story. My son's last game of coach pitch. We lost because I struck five guys out and I hit three. So like trying to, and you know what, um, and the parents on the other team are like, who is this guy?

Why are you letting this coach throw, you know, but it's one of those deals where it's just, we're not used to lobbing the ball. Right. And so it's just one of those things go back to the, to the little league thing. Like you're only pitching to your son's team and then the dad of the opposing team or whatever is a guy that probably didn't win a scion. No, I don't think so. Was there any of the five strikeouts that felt good?

Cause I feel like there's probably one kid that you were like, I don't really like, you know, like that felt good. Like that, I put that pitch perfect. That, that was a good strikeout. 100% now that you mentioned it, it wasn't even, it wasn't even necessarily where the pitch was. Just maybe the kid was like a little shit, you know, you get five pitches, right? So, whatever, whatever the result is, like, okay, all right.

Okay. That's three pitches. I get two more. Jesus, throw one of these down the middle so the kid can hit it. No, I missed. Okay. This is the last pitch. This is a lot of pressure.

There's a lot of people watching and I hit them like, Oh my God. All right. And well, you know what, that's it. And when you get hit, you don't get to go to first. Like you just go back to the dugout. So it's even, it's even worse. That's so fucking funny. You know, that's messed up.

So like, and look, love, love Lester death. Yeah. One of my guys, I don't understand why more people didn't steal off of him. I know. I mean, some like out of respect. Sometimes it would take like 10, 15 foot leads knowing that there was nothing. My favorite thing that he ever did. You remember when he like threw his entire glove to first base?

Yeah. Yeah. Because he went through the ball. Ball was, well, the ball was actually stuck in his web on that one. Yeah. But then he did have a, he picked a guy off at least once or twice where he just bounced it to first. And then God, I think it was against the Cardinals.

It might have been like Tommy family and offer something like that. But yeah, I mean, guys sometimes have that. I've seen it with people in the past that just physically can't do it unless they're throwing it a max effort. That's, that's, that's incredible. So all right. So I'm going to do my Chris Farley thing because obviously I was a huge fan. I was at a bunch of these games because I had season tickets,

but so for people who don't know the context here, Jake had a stretch, a five month stretch from 2015 to 2016. I looked it back up and I was like, even looking it back up, even though I lived it, I was like, Holy fuck, you went 26 and one in 28 starts. You had the only loss that you had was when the Cubs got no hit for the first, first time in 50 years. Literally the only time the Jake area lost a game was because the Cubs got no hitting first time in 50 years.

You had two no hitters in that stretch. You had 162 and a third innings pitched 26 earned runs and 200 strikeouts. I like that for my money. I, I remember like going to the one memory I have that's very vivid is the 20th win that season in 2015 against the brewers when you pitched nine innings shut out. And it was like this feeling that every time you started, it was a legitimate question. Will he get a no hitter?

And I have to ask like, did you, was that just the coolest feeling in the world to get up there being like, I know there is nothing these guys can do to touch me? That was a mindset and it was, yeah, I mean, the best part about that is what I was able to, you know, because we were, we were progressing to becoming, you know, that world series contending team, right? And when I got there in 13, you know, it was still just like a team full of, you know, some one year deal guys, young players, the revolving door 14,

you know, I think I had like a two, four, two, five ERA. I had a real nice season. And then we had some draft picks that were ready in 15. We signed, we signed Lester. Then it was like, holy shit, like we got Schwerber. We had Addison Russell. We had Chris Bryant. We had Javi.

It's like, damn, and they're all ready to go now. That's, that's one of the rarities of it. You know, and you give Theo credit and the rest of the front office for drafting so damn well to get this group of guys ready at the same time, right? Crazy. But yeah, man, like I just, the delivery was, was on point. The, the health obviously was, was paramount, right? Just being able to go out there every five days.

And every time I went out there, it just led to more confidence. Like each and every time I went out there, like you said, I expected to get 27 outs, or I expected to at least be in the eighth inning, right? With, with the team having the lead, you know, and, um, yeah, it's, and I, a lot of it was a blur. And I think that's, that's because I was only focused on my next start, right? And then once that start was, was passed, doesn't matter anymore. Now we got to do this, right?

And I want to, I want it so bad to be a part of the group of guys that erased that 108 year, you know, drought. We all did, right? And all being, being able to provide something unique to that team. And this is something I mentioned in the podcast I just did. We had the same starting five all year. Like how many times has that ever happened, right? Like I, I'm sure it's, it's probably happened maybe like decades ago,

but can you remember back to another team that had the same starting five from, from the end of spring training to throughout the world series? Yeah, it was, it was crazy. It was the whole thing, the ride. And like you said, the, the 14 season led into the 15 season. I don't know if you remember this moment, I've told it before, but I was lucky enough to hang out with you guys during that. After you guys had clinched, we were at a country club

and it was before the Pirates wild card game. And I was like, I'm kind of nervous. And you looked me dead in the eye and you're like, we're winning that game. And then you went out and pitched nine in and shut out. And that was like how locked in you. You looked me, I was so scared when you looked me in my eyes. I was like, you had a glass of wine and you're just like, we're winning that game. I'm not, we're, we're winning that game.

And so that's, that's a fun story too, man. And it kind of goes a little bit, a little bit further. So we're on the flight to Pittsburgh and you know, there's guys, the guys are nervous. I know I'm pitching a game and me and Dex start, you know, start talking. And you know, he's like, it's a big game and the nerves are kind of there. And I told him, I said, get me one run. Right.

That's all I said. I said, you give me one run, we win the game. And kind of same thing that, that, you know, I told you, I'm kind of walking up and down, you know, the rows of the plane. I think I had it, you know, I think I had a beer in my hand and just telling everybody the same thing. Cause I knew, I knew people were nervous. Right.

Like, no, I, I got you. We, we get one run, the game's over. And sure enough, Shorber goes out there and hits a lead up Homer. Yeah. Right. Like, and then that was, and then, you know, Dex came up to me and I, I go, hey, that's it. It's game. Game's over.

And Shorber, I've heard the story that Shorber went in the tunnel after he hit that home run and just screamed to himself, suck my dick Pittsburgh. And he does that. That's, that's his thing, man. And he, I mean, he did the same thing. Shit game. One of those games in Cleveland, right? Like he's just screaming it on first base.

Right. That's, you know, and it would have been awesome to have that same group forever in Chicago. But I mean, how do you not love Shorber? He's, and I tell the boy, the boys in Philly, like a lot of fit, like Miles Teller is a good friend of mine. He's like, Hey, what do you got on Shorber? I go, I go, bro, you guys couldn't assign a better guy. Yeah.

Right. Like if you like a leadoff hitter that's going to hit you 40 home runs, you know, in, in front of Harper and that's, that's a nice lineup by the way. Yeah. Yeah, it is. Yeah. And counts a nice line. Yeah.

He, Shorber is one of those guys, we're lucky enough to meet a lot of guys, but he's one of those guys I've gotten to know. And it's like, I genuinely just root for him no matter, like he could be on any team, even maybe even the Cardinals, I might even still root for him personally, which is saying a lot. Yeah. He's easy to root for man. And he's just like, he fits in anywhere.

He's just, he's just a baseball guy. You want him on the team. He's good in the clubhouse. He's funny on the flights. Like he's just, he's just one of those guys, right? So wherever he goes, like you said, it's, he's easy to root for. There's also something that's just awesome about kind of a big boy, mash and taters, just like smash and donk.

Yeah, he's thick man. He's thick. Yeah. And he moves deceptively quick too for a side. He's pretty athletic. Yeah. He is, he is. He's like a propane tank with ears.

He's, I, the other story I tell, I don't know if I've said this one. You might have been there too. I was, like I said, I was very, very lucky to be able to hang out with you guys during those years, but it was, I think it was Rizzo's event and we all went out to dinner and Schwerber was eating a salad and he was just like, fucking Theo says I got to lose 15 pounds. And he was like, I've never seen someone so sad about having to eat a salad at a steakhouse.

And that was like, you could feel it. It was great. It was like, that's, you're a dude. You're just a guy. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, he, he's gone through those little periods where, you know, he had, he had the knee, the knee happened in 16 and I mean, he busted his ass.

Like, like I've never seen before to get, I mean, to come back, right? Like the way he did. And, you know, we had, you know, Josh Kat was the, was the owner of a company called Kitchfix and I think that they're probably still, still big in Chicago, but he would, you know, we kind of fuck with Schwerber, but they would always put like this big bag of pre-made meals on his chair, right? Like this is, this is what you have to eat, whatever. But I think, I think he's going to rake either way.

Yeah. Whether he weighs 220 to 40, no matter he's going to hit. Yeah. Yeah. I remember talking to him when we went down to spring training one year and he was talking about his, his prep and how he came back from the knee injury. And part of that process was he just went out, stood in the batter's box. Well, they had a pitching machine fire a hundred mile an hour fast balls.

He just stood there for hours on end, tracking them with his eyes, not even swinging. That's the most psycho shit I think I've ever heard. Like just, it's always like a meditative state that you put yourself into. That's one of those little things that you hear like a great player do that you're like, oh shit, like, why didn't we ever think about that? Right. But that's how, that's how you put in, you put in the work and you, and you get those, those reps in, you know, when you have a torn ACL, right?

So fuck more, more power to him for doing that. And obviously paid off. And yeah, it was not, not only a huge contributor, I mean, during that run, but in the years that came after that. And, you know, you just look what he's done in any lineup that he, that he's going to hit it. Right. He's a guy, a guy that can, that can hit lead off and do that sort of damage. You don't, you don't see it everywhere.

Yeah. We had him for like six months in DC and I was so happy to be rooting for him. Hit like a hundred homeruns that one weekend. It was awesome. Um, so, yeah, so let's talk about baseball today. Because now you're on the other side. Who's your favorite pitcher to watch and why? Oh, I mean, it's such an easy question.

Yeah. If everybody on the planet doesn't say Jacob DeGrom, I mean, they're not like, you know what I'm saying? Like I've told people this for a couple of years. I think he's the best starting pitcher to ever put on the uniform. Wow. And I don't, I don't, if he can stay healthy, right? And I, I hope, you know, him and Scherzer are on the aisle currently.

Still correct. Yeah. Which is such, such a shame. Like I think Scherzer is off, right? Yeah. Scherzer must be back, but DeGrom is. Yeah. So our game needs both of those guys, but most importantly, DeGrom.

I mean, he's just, if you get to watch him in person, just what he's able to do with the baseball and what, where he, and when he came into the big leagues, was it 2013 or something like that? Yeah. So his average fastball velocity was around 93. Maybe a takeover. It's gone steadily up since then. And now he's sitting 99, like averaging.

Like it's just, it blows you away to see what he can do as a starting pitcher. So I think he's just, I think he's in his own league, right? And I hope he stays healthy for another 15 years. Because if he can do that, I think he'll be the best ever to. Yeah. I saw him live last year. I bet the over on, on the game. And I think that was the game where we went out there and struck out like 16

people against the Nationals. It was the most dominating performance I've ever seen from a pitcher at some point halfway through. I just, I said, you know what? Fuck it. I'm, I'm here to, to apply greatness. And it was, it was awesome to see. It's, it's a thing of beauty, man.

I mean, to, to watch a starting pitcher, not only command the baseball, have the mound presence, but to, to do it at that's that type of velocity, right? I mean, he throws 98 to 102, you know? And, and why the catcher's glove? It's like, it's there at 102, which is just a wild, a wild thing to, to, to witness in person and to watch him do it for a hundred and something pitches. And to also hear that now that his mechanics are as refined as they've ever been, like that's a scary proposition.

So look, I, I, I wish him all the health. I hope, I hope he gets back out there as soon as possible. Cause man, I just, I love seeing it. We're going to get back to Jake Arietta in a second before we do. Hello, Fresh is here to tell you about their pre-proportioned ingredients to your door. So you can get convenience without skimping on quality. Skip the trip to the grocery store and don't waste money on excess food. If you found yourself in a new workout program, maybe you're working out every day,

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Use code PMT16 and get up to 16 free meals and three free gifts. That's HelloFresh.com slash PMT16. Use promo code PMT16 for up to 16 free meals and three free gifts. Here's more Jake Arietta. I've got a hypothetical for you because I think we talked about what it would be like if an average person faced off against Jacob to Graham. I'm not going to ask you that, but I will ask you at the peak of your career. So we're talking like late 2015.

If I stepped into the batter's box against you and I had you throw a hundred pitches, do you think I could lay down a bunt? No. Not even a bunt? A bunt fair. Yeah, fair, yeah. I mean, not like reach for space, but just make contact. The ball rolls fair territory.

No, there's just so many things that I would do. Like I'd throw you like high sinkers at your hands that it probably fell off your fist into your face. You know, I would throw you like I'd throw you the what you probably couldn't get the curveball down either, but that would probably be your best bet, right? Throw your low curveball and just kind of kind of throw the bat at it. I don't, I don't think so, man.

I think if you threw me a curveball, I would, I would bail out of the box every time. You could throw me a hundred straight curveballs that would start coming at me. And I would never learn my, I would just bail out. It's a hard thing to do. I, you know, and Eric, my buddy, we just did a podcast. He goes, well, how long do you have to react? You know, is it like a second or a little more than a second? I'm going to do it.

It's like a 10, two tenths of a second. Right. Right. Like by the time you, you think you're going to swing, it's already too late. And that's why I told them, like it's that it's that much more impressive with what hitters are able to do with the velocity where it is in the game today, because you almost have like at a hand, you're the swing and you're not. Yeah.

You know, it's, it's, I don't know. Another hypothetical reverse it. You won silver slugger in 2016 as a pitcher. You hit like 262. If you were able to, to bat all year, what would your average and numbers look like? That's a good question. Not getting consistent at bats is hard, right? You hit once every five days, still working on it in between.

So you want to think that your numbers would maybe go up a little bit or stay around the same and have some little bit more power, but then you're just facing so many more arms, right? There's so many more opportunities for, you know, for failure. Even you go through periods where you're hitting the ball hard and you're still getting out. So it might sound like the right answer to say my numbers would, would be where they're at or higher. I, I just think I'd get it. Honestly, with y'all, I think I'd get exposed a little bit more, right?

Because look, yeah, because I can, I can hit, I could hit the fastball. Like I was ready to hit the fastball all at all times, but if you got ahead of me, if you throw anything that resembled a strike, I'm still swinging at it. Like that's, that's why it's so much more impressive to see guys, you know, they're, you know, it's a 1202 count and you throw this bastard curveball and it's like, how do you not even flinch, right? So I'm pretty sure the numbers would have, would have gone down in a full season. So, so from a pitcher's perspective, like, and could you feel it when you're in the batter's

box, would the pitcher take a little off, like take a rest almost when the, when the pitcher position comes up in the NL, because I always felt like that would be when a lot of the hits happen where it's like, oh, maybe they're not, you know, throwing their absolute best stuff. They're taking not a break, but it's a different mentality than going up against Mike Trout when you're going up against a pitcher. Would you, would you feel that happen from time to time? With certain, with certain guys and from experience, you know, 90% of the pitchers that step in the box, it's like, all right, I'm, I'm throwing, I'm throwing a four seam right down the middle, right? Right. But when you have like, you have Adam Wayne, right? You have DeGrom,

you have Cinder guard, you have Scherzer, you have Grinke, you have Bum Gardner, when you have certain guys, you just know the guys that can, that can swing it, right? And if, if I'm, if I'm going to be a dumbass and throw Grinke, like 93 down the middle, he's going to put a nice swing on it. Is it guaranteed hit? No, but I'm, I'm doing them a favor. And I feel like guys were the same way with me, right? Like the guys knew I could hit, the guys know I could hit the ball a long way. So a lot of the times I would get like a first pitch slider, which is a fucking terrific pitch to throw me first pitch, you know, and if you, if I got into a 2-0 count and you threw a fastball, like it better being like a decent spot, like, but that doesn't mean I'm going to hit over the

fence. It just means I'm going to put a really good swing on it. Yeah. I think maybe my favorite career highlight of yours is when you were batting. It's not even a stark that you had or a particular pitch that you threw. You stepped in the box against Madison Bum Gardner and you put a shot out into left field and it's like a sea of black and orange out there, except for the dude that caught the ball. He's the only club fan in the entire stadium. And he hit it like directly into his glove. It was awesome. Can you walk me through like that at bat and how awesome it feels as a pitcher to hit a home run off a great pitcher like Madison? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, really cool story. You know, we're on the road, obviously playing San Francisco and trying to

try to move past them to get to the, to the NLCS. And at the time, Bum Gardner had been, you know, he had like 20 scoreless innings in the postseason or something. Like he was, that was kind of during his run of being like, you know, this, this Titan in the postseason and just kind of bulldog and hard to beat. Right. So I was, it was a pretty exceptional game. And he kept throwing me up and in, right, which is from the left side, he's kind of slinging it over here and it's kind of coming across the plate. I think he threw me two up there. I think I swung a miss and I took one for a ball. He went like, might have thrown an off speed. I mean, I got two strikes. He's definitely, he's coming up and in again. Right. So I sold out to the up and in,

if he would have thrown anything middle away, I mean, I'm walking back to the back, right? But I happened to guess right, put a good swing on it and off the bat, I'm like, shit, that's going to either, it seemed to me like it had a little bit of topspin. I caught it, I caught it pretty clean, but it was kind of a lying drive. And so if you see when I'm running around first base, the ball had just gotten over the wall and I'm kind of getting after it to get on second base for a double. And I see it's out. I go to high five Brandon Hyde and he almost like spins me around. Right. And like a corkscrew and I almost say, shit. But my favorite reaction was Riz and the dugout just kind of seeing it on replay his reaction. And then Dempster told me he was sitting in

the stands during that game and he said, he just kept screaming, the Russians cut, the Russians been cut, right? Cause, cause you know, at the time, Bumgarner hadn't given up shit in the post season for a while. So really cool moment. But yeah, I've got some cool moments as a hitting pitcher. One, I'll tell you real quick. So in 20, this might have been 2016, we're in Arizona, all the starting pitchers during like five grand, whoever hits the first homer, the other pitchers buy him a watch, right? So I think Lester started game one, I started game two, I'm facing Shelby Miller. First to bat of the year, I had a homer dead center. Right. So I won, I won the watch bet very, very first, very first about the year. And Lester like,

you got to be shitting me first at bat of the year. Like, I mean, they were, they were, they were fast, right? But now I think that's, that's a pretty cool one too. We have that same right here at part of my take. First, first guy that hits a major league. First guy to bench that. Yes. Yes. Who's the, uh, who's the hardest guy to get out right now in, in major league baseball? Or maybe even if you're, you're top three hitters, that you're like those guys, they do something different than everyone else where it's just a completely different beast when you're, when you're facing top three right now. Okay. Um, Soto. Yep. And the, some of this, some of this is from nightmares from, from personal experience for these guys. So Soto just, I mean, he's 21 years old

or 20 and just the, the advanced knowledge of the strike zone to go along with his ability as a hitter is amazing. Again, hopefully he stays helping and plays this game for a long time. It's good for the game. Uh, Ronald Lacuna, uh, has to be in there. Um, again, hopefully he can stay healthy. Awesome that he's, he's back from that, uh, uh, that injury, that, that injury was awful in, uh, in Miami. Um, those two guys are phenomenal. Who else, man? Um, uh, let's go, let's go down the teams where we got here. I mean, and when he's healthy, I mean, uh, Fernando Tautiz. Yeah. Like when he, when he's, when he's dialed in, like he's going to the opposite field, you miss with spin inside part of the plate.

He's taking it a left or left center for a homer. Uh, good strikes on judgment. So I mean, I think those are, those are three good ones right there, but yeah, I mean, I could, I could probably come up with a few more, but those, those, those three are tough. Was there any dude that you pitched against that might not have been like a superstar or a name that we would first think of or think of the great hitters of like the mid 2000s or, uh, or the teens that for some reason had your number, like one guy that was a thorn in your side. Uh, there are guys like that, man. Um, try to think early in my career in Chicago and then, uh, well, I mean, look, Joey Vado, obviously he's, he's way high on the list, but I could never really get him out. I got him

out of kind of like maybe, you know, three times in that no hitter and it's Cincinnati, but I just got hits. Uh, I gave up and look, I love Eric so guard, but I give a grand slam to Eric so guard early in my career. Okay. That, that to me, um, that sticks with me, you know? Um, and that was, I think 2010, 2011. Wait, when you say that sticks with you, like, how often do you use it popping your head? Uh, when I'm telling stories like my little league team and they're asked, you know, they think, they think that like you're always like elite and just like the best there ever was. I'm like, dude, no, like I, I give a, I give up a grand slam to a nine hole hitter, right? And it, you know, uh, more than, more than it should, you know, I'm gonna, yeah. And I'm gonna

text Soggy right now and he's not a bitch. He's like, I'm thinking about that grand slam. No, there, I'd have to look back, man, but there, there are definitely guys that would hit in that like, you know, seven to nine spot that I just couldn't get out. Right. And some of it, some of it early in the career is just kind of lack of focus. You get through the first five, six guys and you're like, Oh, I got them. And then you give up, you know, you give up three or four runs. Yeah. Yeah. Um, get a, get a headline grab going one way that every, uh, like it's always good to drum up some sort of headline when, uh, when players talk about the shift for whatever reason. Um, what are your thoughts on the shift? Are we banning the shift?

All right. Well, this is a, this is a tough one. Cause if you talk, you know, you talk to guys like Rizzo or you talk to hitters that only hit the ball to the pool side, they get passed, right? They, they don't want the shift. And I, I, I hate to say that I kind of understand it, but at the same time, and Rizzo, Rizzo has been good. Like when he's, when he's behind the count, he'll go to the opposite field. Like he'll, he'll, he'll hit those little line drives, like in front of the left fielder, he'll take his base hits. Like what happened to, what happened to that? What happened to focusing on being as well rounded of a hitter as you can? I, well, let me answer my own question. I think that some of it is this advanced analytics and

these guys just telling them to, to be one dimensional. Like we want you to hit for power and continue to try and hit for power regardless, right? Yeah. But I mean runs, runs come at a premium sometimes, right? Like it's not just guaranteed that you're going to score a five or six runs in any given game, right? Like I've been part of teams that went through stretches where they scored one or two runs in the course of four or five games. So if, if I can, if I can get some production, you know, even if it's a, if it's a base hit to the opposite field, then that puts the starting pitcher in a stretch, right? Things can happen. Pass ball, we, manufacturing runs shouldn't be a lost start, right? Yeah. So I, I understand the argument for

banning the shift, but I also don't like the idea of having the greatest product in the world, the, the greatest product of the sport in the world, the highest level of the sport, telling guys that they no longer need to learn how to be multi-dimensional as a, as a hitter, you know? So, and look, I'm not, I'm not dead set on that. I love having the argument. I love listening to guys kind of discuss why it should or shouldn't be done. And, and, you know, but I, I don't love it. Yeah. I don't love the shipping and ban. I really don't. What do you think? What do you guys? I agree with you. Like beat the shift. Yeah. Beat the shift. There's lay down, lay down a bun. Yeah. I remember when I once laid down a bun to that side and it's like, and like you said,

if you can beat the shift with an easy single to the opposite field, then you can't shift the next batter. You know what I mean? With a guy on base. So everything kind of changes. So I, yeah, I'm with you. I think that it's, it's gamesmanship and teams should, guys should learn how to beat the shift and then they won't shift. Cause like that's the thing is all these things are numbers based and as soon as a guy can prove that he can hit it the other way, they won't shift them. That's a fact. And I've seen, you see, Freddie Freeman drop it down. I'm, you've seen a lot of guys, you know, I think that it would seem Max Muncie do it, right? Like if you're going to leave that entire side of the field open, Bryce Harper's done it, right? Like guys

will do it. So maybe they just need, we need to do it more often, but then you sacrifice, okay, your biggest thump in the lineup potentially, like being on first base. So I see that, but there are a lot, there are a bunch of lineups in the game right now that aren't just provided power from one or two guys, right? Like there's a lot of guys who can leave the ballpark with one swing at the bat. So, and getting guys on base is, it's a big deal for, for more pitchers than you think, right? A lot of guys don't like to throw out of the stretch. And you would think at that level, it's just, it's just kind of part of the game, whether you're in the lineup or the stretch, but the guy on first base or second base can fuck with him, right? And if the guy gets a second base,

now you have to deal with mixing in different sets of signs. And, you know, or if he's not stealing your signs, he can see the grip in your glove and then you change like the way you position your hands. Like there's way more variables that come to play than you think. So getting a guy on base, it does more than just, you know, create a situation where you, that will lead to runs, right? It puts more pressure on the pitch. Yeah. Yeah. That's interesting. And on the outfield too. And on the infield, like everything, everything changes up the small adjustments. I actually think, so yeah, home runs are fun. I love home runs. It's awesome to watch. Our producer Bubba has a thing like a kink where he just sits down and watches YouTube compilations

of monster shots, which is awesome. I get that. But you know what? Small ball is fun. I think small ball is fun. When you get like guys stealing bases and you get like manufacturing runs like you were talking about, that to me is why I started watching baseball and what I loved when I was a kid. Yeah. It's one of those intricacies of the game that makes it, one, it requires like another level of knowledge to understand that, right? Like if you're just like a common fan of the game, like, yeah, you expect to see home runs and you expect to see 100 miles an hour and all that stuff. But like, if you really love the game, you understand like the complexity of it and you appreciate the complexity of it, right? Like gaining, gaining an extra 90 feet,

right? Like it is incredibly important whether that, if that guy can move from first base just to second base, there's so many more things that have to be done now with that guy there, right? If this guy, and think about the plate, the plate on a base hit. If this guy, if as a pitcher, if I can't keep this guy somewhat close to the bag, right? If I allow his lead just to get a little bit too far out there, that's the difference between him being safer out at the plate, right? So there's so many things that have to happen. And especially if you have a young pitcher on the mound, you want to expose that, right? Whether he has, he has, you know, a great demeanor or mound presence or not, like things speed up when guys get on base. So

that's something that, you know, can't go overlooked. Yeah. All right. So this has been awesome, Jake. We appreciate it. One last question. It's the rowback question. You take 20% off your first purchase with the code take at RHOBACK.com, 20% off your first purchase, rowback question. So you, you played in Major League Baseball for a very long time. Can you give me the top three cities that the team would be most excited to go visit? Top three cities that you'd be like, whether it be the actual field or the, you know, maybe the clubhouse or the actual city in terms of eating options. What are the top three that everyone was? And also side question, did you believe that there were ghosts in the Fister Hotel in Milwaukee?

I never saw one. We actually had a ghost hunter find them. We stayed in there. Okay. Yeah. Oh, with that, with that show, those guys from that show? No, we just hired someone. It was on Craigslist. I just remember VJ who, you know, obviously very well used to say that like, shout out to VJ. Shout out to VJ, the man. He said that like half the Cubs wouldn't stay there. Man, I like, if there, if there are ghosts, like I want to see them. I'm going to, you know, I'd like to see it. I think the whole deal with the Fister was the wallpaper was so shitty and old that when you say, yeah, you say a place like that, the wallpaper makes you think it reminds you of like old horror movies from the 70s.

No, no, no, 100%, 100%. And you know what? The Vanoy and Tampa's kind of kind of got a similar vibe, right? I don't know if you guys have been there. Yeah. So we would stay there and we'd play the race. So good question. Maybe not necessarily in any particular order. Obviously Chicago's number one, let's be honest. You guys are familiar with that city. I love San Francisco. It's kind of gotten a little weird, you know, over the past couple of years, but I mean the food, the people watching, being close to the water. A good friend of mine, Mark Bright owns a restaurant called Angler that is right there off of the water, not far from, from the ballpark. It's a, it's a must go. Last time I was there, it was me, Rizzo, Tommy Lestella, and Ian Hap, and we had like

this like 20 pound, like huge crab, right? And they tell me, I'm like, Hey, how much is that? They're like, um, I think it's this crab is probably like 200 bucks. I'm like, all right, yeah, great, great. And then the bill comes, it's like a $500 crab. I mean, if you're off by, and it was fine, we still loved it, but like off by 300 bucks. That's, that's, that's a lot. That's a lot. I mean, whatever. But San France, cool. I love the ballpark. And just walking around early, like being kind of elevated in the stands and looking out at the bay, really cool place. I haven't been to Toronto in quite a while, but I've always loved that city. Yep. The ballpark is, but I mean, the city's, the city's great, especially if you're there kind

of in the late spring, the golf is phenomenal. Stand down near the water. I think it's Harbor 60 is the name of the restaurant, one of the best in the world. Number three, let's see. And look, I'm not a giant fan of New York, but I love to go for like three or four day stretches. Yeah. It's a perfect city to do that. I love to go there for three or four days. I like to, like to bounce around, grab a coffee, grab a juice and just go for a walk, man, whether it's the essential park or going down the solo. I mean, you can spend a lot of money there, which is fine. And I love playing in city field. Obviously Yankee stadium is great. Yeah. So those, those three are great. Those are good answers. Those are good answers. Well,

we really appreciate you coming on. And also a special thank you. I, I, I know you probably, it was like a blip for you, but when you decided in 2015 that the shirt that I made, the We Are Good shirt was going to be your warm up shirt for every single game. That was huge. That was huge. And then there was a day where I was out in the bleachers because I had season tickets in the bleachers. And I think there was like probably like 70% of the bleachers was wearing that shirt. And I think Rick, it's looked at it and was like, wait, what the fuck? And I'm trying to sue us because he's like, you can't sell that. I was like, yeah, that probably makes sense. We probably shouldn't sell it. Well, I don't know. Well,

I think you should really just maybe take the, uh, if you got to get rid of the Cubs logo, maybe you should bring that back as a great shirt. It was. And you wore it every single, like, I don't, I think I only sent you one, but you just wore it every day. Yeah. I cut the, I cut it to a v-neck, big v-neck guy, sleeves off. I mean, when I get to, when I got to the field, shorts, sliders on, and then we are a good shirt every day. It was the best. You would like do push-ups before games, right? To get yourself warmed up. It's just one of those. Yeah. Well, that wasn't, that didn't get me warmed up. It was just kind of one of those last like things that I would do before I would start playing catch. Because the warm-up was happening

like hour, two hours before the game. That was just kind of, that was a little showmanship for the fans. Yeah. That's what I figured. I was like, I don't think that doing, doing shops on the field really gets you like an extra tick or two of the last three. Yeah. Like if that would, that was my only, only warm-up, just like six push-ups. Yeah. I am also, I don't want to bring up bad memories, but I also am convinced that 2015, I don't know, CS, if you had worn sleeves, it would have gone differently. You were wiggie. You were sleeveless. That was like one of the coldest baseball games I've ever been to. Well, unfortunately. And you were just badass with no sleeves. Well, look, look, the, if anyone can do it, it's a starting pitcher because

you're out there, you're moving, right? Every pitch, right? So your, your, your max, max effort or exerting effort, 10, 12 seconds, you're doing it again. In between innings, you go on there, you throw your jacket on, whatever. I just, I've never liked the sleeve. It just would always screw with me. And then guys like, that could wear those old school baggy sleeves that would come up over your hand. Yeah. Like psychopaths. So I just, I would lather some red hot or whatever. And it was tank top and then Jersey. Like that's just, it was like, it was no joke, like 40 degrees with like a 15 mile an hour wind. I was like, yeah. Yeah. What was colder was game two and Cleveland. Yeah. Yeah. That was, that was unbelievably cold. You know?

But yeah, that's just kind of, kind of my deal. I hated sleeves, man. So I try to stay as warm as I could so I could go out there and no slaves. And you were never a guy that would put on, like I always love it when pitchers would put on the warm up jacket when they get on base. It's like, we're not even going to try to run here. I absolutely, absolutely hated it. Really, you know, that I've always been against. I just think it's such a bad luck, you know? Well, hey, look, I can't take any, anything away from Greg, right? He's unbelievable, but cut it out with the jackets. Yeah. I love it. I kind of love it in a weird way where a picture gets on base and they're like, I really don't want to be here right now. I would

much rather be in the dugout. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I understand not want to run the bases. That's, especially if you, you know, say you're on first base and there's, it's a full count, there's six foul balls in a row, right? Like you got to take off, you got to come back, you got to take off. Like that's, that's not where you want to be, but the jacket's got to go. It's got to go. Like are you really, are you really that cold to where you can't wait a few minutes? Yeah. It's a good, it's a fair point. I've actually, we've talked so much. I have one last, last question. I was just reminded of, of game six in Cleveland. Was it a little bit bittersweet going out there and winning that game, knowing that Marlins man wasn't in attendance?

I don't even think about that. Really? That would be the first thing I would think about. Didn't, you know, I mean, but you can, you know, he's fucking there, right? You see that, especially it's like, well, what do you do? You're the only guy in this color shirt. Well, he didn't go to Cleveland because the fans attacked him there. It has nothing to do with the fact that you can't see behind home plate on television. It's just, he didn't, he didn't like the people there. So he didn't show up. We were, we were told, we were told like, Hey, when you leave the field or your family and friends leave the field, tell them to not have their cubs gear on. But you know. So Marlins man was right. Yeah. Marlins man was right. Especially if you're in a damn construction

shirt, like you can see that from, from anywhere. Yeah. Yeah. So it takes sketchy, but Hey, I love Cleveland. I've had, I've had a blast there. And it's funny when I get the question, Hey, like early in my career, what cities do you not like? Yeah, I'd have a couple, but now I'd say when you play long enough, you have your spots, right? Like you have the places you like to go. You got your food, you got your golf courses and you're, and you're good to go. I love it. Chicago, San Francisco and New York. So you'll be, you'll be voting for Biden again. What's that? Excuse me. Thank you. You're the best man. We appreciate it. Hopefully we'll see more of you. No doubt. No doubt. It was good being with you. Jake Arietta was brought to you by our great

friends at shady rays. I'm wearing shady rays right now. They're the official sunglasses part of my take. Summer's coming right up. It's spring. It's sunglasses season. It was nice. It was beautiful outside this weekend was where my sunglasses the entire time. And shady rays is the official partner part of my take and they're hooking you guys up. They want to hook up the award winning listeners to get your hands on a pair of shady rays. They've got an outstanding combination of fit style and performance without the big brand price tag. And it doesn't just stop at the quality shady rays offers the most insane protection program in all of eyewear. Every pair is backed by their lost and broken replacements. If you lose or break your pair, even on day one, they're going

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go to shady rays.com slash PMT 50 for 50% off two or more pairs of polarized sunglasses. That's right. 50% off half off two or more pairs of polarized sunglasses just by going to shady rays.com slash PMT 50 get 50% off two or more pairs of their polarized sunglasses. Okay, let's wrap up. We got a Monday reading. By the way, I watched a Jordan Spieth video. The baby has every right to cry, but that baby was never going anywhere. So that was like a that was like the baby is probably like what the fuck this sucks. Yeah, the baby denied baby was never going that ball. You can punch that baby out. It wouldn't go anywhere. I don't know. Yeah, there's a running back coaches watching that right now. Adam. Okay, this is brought to us by Billy. Billy actually

came out. Billy, you want to do the reading? Sure. All right, let's do it. This is good reading off bill. Let me pull it up. I found it on Reddit. And I forget what exactly here I can you send it to us. I can send it to you pulling it up. Boom. Perfect. Billy football. Which what's what's subreddit? I think it is from the AI TA. Am I the asshole subreddit? Oh, nice. No, it's from relationship advice. Nice. Perfect. Okay. Go. So I know this is a weird question, but my boyfriend likes to spend a lot of his free time digging a tunnel on some property that he inherited. I haven't seen the full extent of it. But like last I saw, it was remarkably deep under the surface. He spent roughly a year on it and

it's evident. The front of the thing is deep wide, well put together at the front, which is the only part that I've seen. He's got cement beams, electric lights, even chairs and a small table. Time out. Okay. Time out real quick. I obviously with the table and everything, but for a minute there, I thought this is going to be one of those joke posts like plot twist. I'm married to my dog because like wouldn't that make sense that like my boyfriend slash my dog is just digging a huge hole or maybe it might be a guy that's got like a cosplay fetish where he likes to pretend that he's a dog and that's what he's doing there. The first thing that you mentioned that really caught my eye that I don't remember reading about before is this is inherited land. So it seems like I'm

just thinking this might be a treasure hunt thing right off the back. Like maybe there's a will that's been left where it's like, you know, I'm going to leave you three riddles and that's the clue as to where the treasure is on the property. Read that last sentence again about the construct of the hole. The front of the thing is deep, wide and well put together. At the front, which is the only part that I've seen, he's got cement beams, electric lights, even chairs and a small table. Okay, this part, this is actually crazier that how do you have a tunnel in your backyard and not want to go in it? That she hasn't visited. Correct. Because I don't think he lets her in. Okay. I feel like this is like his club. This is a little man cave. I'd like to go visit this. Okay. I haven't

gone into it, but it looked like the quality severely dropped as the tunnel went further. Get tired. How a ton of works. Yeah, you might you want to make it look nice on the outside. You think like a coal miner? You think it's a fucking luxury bedroom at the bottom of that hole? Mostly becoming open dirt with some wood beams holding it up. My biggest concern is his safety. I'm really worried that he's going to dig too deep and he'll collapse on him or something. Okay. She's right or die. Because like, her biggest concern is not, hey, my boyfriend just keeps going out every day and digging a tunnel. She just wants him to come back every day after he's done digging the giant tunnel. Yeah, like have fun with your little tunnel. Just don't get

hurt. Her tunnel project. It sounds like they need to have a conversation. Like all this seems like it could be solved with her just being a normal supportive spouse and being like, hey, what's the deal with the hole? Yeah, can you just walk me through it? Yeah, are we getting some treasure? Because I'm in. Yeah, what's your motivation here? Approach it that way. Okay. I've tried voicing this concern to him, but he just laughs it off and assures me that he'll be fine. Aside from safety concerns. That is, no, no. Whenever a guy says you worry too much, that means that you're actually in that moment not worrying nearly enough. Yeah, that's every time I go pick up hoops, I'm like, my back is fine. Yeah, I'll be fine. I'll be fine.

So this hole, is he digging it by hand? Is this a shovel situation? It gets into it later. Okay. Aside from safety concerns, there's also the fact that he doesn't really have a social life because of this thing. Yeah, he does. He's digging the hole. And also probably he probably has bros helping him out with it. Yeah, she clearly hasn't seen Feel the Dreams. Like if you build that they will come, if you one day are like, Hey guys, want to check out my like mile long tunnel? It's like that video. If you've seen the TikTok of the dudes just digging a hole at the beach, and then within like five minutes, other dudes just stop by and they start digging. Yes. If a guy just, if any of you, and obviously New York City is a little different,

but if any of you at any point in your life were like, Hey, I've been working on this tunnel for a year, you want to come check it out? The answer is yes. No matter what. Guys love holes. Yes. I'm pretty much the only person he still talks to outside of his job, and he doesn't go out and do anything anymore. It used to be dog. It's a dog. It used to be that he'd occasionally head out and do some digging on the weekends. But now he spends almost all of his free time out there. He still comes home, but he barely spends any time with me. And I know that he isn't doing anything but digging that damn hole in the ground. This can't be good for his mental health. But I don't know

how to convince him to stop. He's always really happy when he comes back from digging, which is why I haven't seriously tried to stop him before. I think it's great for his mental health. Yeah. It sounds like he's getting rid of all of his stress and negative energy in a productive manner on his construction project. Also, just the idea of having like a task that you have to complete and just throwing yourself into it. That's good. I also think that as men, when we're growing up, we're told that our lives will have so many adventures in them. I thought you were going to say we're told that you can't actually dig to China. No. Well, I was told. Maybe he's trying to find the devil. Maybe he's just digging until he finds

Satan so he can kill him. But I think that as we're growing up, at least I was under the belief and the assumption that I would have just nonstop adventures. You discover something and then you go on a treasure hunt. We're told through cartoons and movies. And I think that guys just need adventures sometimes. And it sounds like he's found his adventure, which we should be applauding this and encouraging help him. Yeah. Wait, does he drop a location? Going on. Obviously, I don't think he's insane, but I hadn't considered I had to swipe left to the new one and find my place. Obviously, I don't think he's insane, but I hadn't considered the mental health aspect of this. And I just don't know what to do.

TLDR boyfriend spends all this time digging a tunnel and I'm worried for both his physical and mental health. Well, physical. No. Well, I guess the tunnel collapsing. Yeah. I guess that would be whatever that throw that aside. It sounds like he's actually reinforcing it pretty well. I think this guy is a genius. Like I what do we what do most people complain about these days? Like 2022, everyone's on social media. Everyone's living their life online. Everyone's looking at a screen. This guy's found a way to beat all of that by just building a never ending tunnel. It sounds like something that would happen on South Park. Like this guy sounds like Randy Marsh. Yeah, I could see an episode of Randy just decides to dig a giant tunnel in his backyard.

Or now this just popped my head. This could also be Elon Musk. Isn't he a big tunnel guy? He's a big tunnel guy. Yeah. He just never completes them. Yeah. He was digging that one to Halsey's house for a while. Yeah. So maybe it is could be Elon Musk. And this could be written by Halsey. Yeah. No, she's too busy watching the playoffs. And she's a big NBA. By the way, she was firing off tweets. She's very funny on Twitter when she's talking about basketball. Yes. I it's the old meme of like guys will literally dig a giant hole in their backyard for years at a time instead of going to therapy. Yes. Yes. It sounds like this is his his stress relief right here. It sounds like I would I would be more concerned if he just stopped digging the

hole. Yeah. All of a sudden because then he's got all that pent up whole aggression and nowhere to take it out on. So looking in the comments, one of the biggest remarks were that the greatest danger would be hitting pockets of natural gas. Yeah. So if the tunnel doesn't collapse, just he could hit some gases that would knock him out. Get a scenario area, though, that oh, natural gas, but then they could be rich. That could be the rest of their lives. If he dies, then guess what? It means that he's probably found a tremendous source of energy. Yeah. Right. I he's fracking. I understand that that concern. But that's why they used to have actual canaries. They'd keep down there in coal mines. So the canary dies and they're like, fuck, I got a split.

This bird's dead. So that's what she's got to do. She's got a bird. I'm a bird. Problem solved. Also, I want to go help this guy. Like if we can figure out a way to find this guy, pardon my take road trip. Yeah. Absolutely there. I also think like this could be a long elaborate just like Suey thing that he's doing where he's just like, I'm going to dig this hole until I die. He's building himself a tomb. Yeah. Just death by hole. You guys ever seen lovely bones? No. No. Well, there's a dude who dug a hole and he did bad things in it. Oh, you think he's got Buffalo Bill kind of shit? He's got a hose down there. He's got, yeah. Yeah. Well, all right. So if that's the case, then cancel the road trip. Let's go on an adventure. Yeah. No,

if we found it, we were the ones who then we were here. Yeah. No, one of us would have to stay back in the car. That's all we got to do. Jake. Yeah, Jake. And if we don't come back, then just call the cops. Save the children. Like this could be us like actually saving maybe hundreds of lives or us having a great time. This guy's awesome. I just want to at least talk to him. Let's get him on the podcast. Dude, he's got a table with chairs. So you could definitely like play some drinking games on it. He's building a bunker. So yeah, what does he have the multiple chairs there for? It sounds like he's having, he's already having dudes over. Yeah, when his friends show up. Yeah. Yeah. He knows that eventually this will be the biggest attraction in his town. This honestly

sounds awesome. Yeah. Like I'm thinking of being a kid going out in the backyard just digging, finding rocks and shit. Yeah. That was maybe the best time I've ever had in my life. I would love to dig a hole right now. Every day. Let's go dig the hole. Also, don't need a gym membership. Fucking digging a hole is hard work. It's a great workout. Yeah. There's no better tasting drink than like an ice cold lemonade after you've been digging a hole. A little, little dirt under your fingernails. We're in. We're in. Jake, what are your thoughts on on Holegate? If I see a hole, just going down in there won't help much. Yeah. Just like stay away. You're not a hole guy. Yeah. Not a caveman. Many holes. Yeah. Can't get worse. In the hole, it could get better.

Yeah. If there's gold. Then there's gold. Yeah. It feels good. What if we're being bombed? True. You raise good points. What if there's a tornado? Yeah. What if this is a shelter he's building? This reminds me of the song that Billy was playing right before we, uh, we'd heard. He attempted the 72 on stake challenge, which is called, the song's just called Diggy Diggy Hole. And Billy, we were driving down the street and like, uh, no, it was in Arizona because Billy was like, Hey, do you want to hear a Viking metal song about digging a hole? I was like, fuck yeah. Put it at the end of the show. Yeah. Yeah. Toss it on here. Diggy diggy hole. Diggy diggy hole. It's actually hilarious. It's by this Italian, uh, band that dresses up as gnomes and they just

sing about like digging a hole and they like perform as gnomes, not gnomes, dwarves. Put it on. Yeah. Put it at the end of the show and, and please someone, if anyone is listening to this and knows Hole guy and wants to reach out, we'd love to have him on the show and then go visit this hole and help him. Yes. With his mission. Yes. All right. Numbers five. Give me a 37. First tennis player ever on Wednesday show. 70 minus one. 22. None of us have gotten in a long time. 37. So that again. You've never gotten three out of play. Come down. 63. You've never gotten an egg? Second time. You've, wait, we've all gotten except Hank.

I didn't know that. You definitely had it before, Hank. I'm gonna talk about this like a week ago. That's like the worst streak ever. Damn, you suck at this. Yeah, I do. Love you guys. Chimpanzees regularly hunt monkeys. Whoa. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.