The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz - The Big Suey: Who Is Sal Licata?
Episode Date: July 23, 2024Dan, Greg, and the Shipping Container continue their intense conversation on Tua Tagovailoa and his contract with the Miami Dolphins. Is everyone right and also wrong? Then, Tony delivers his Top 5 Vi...ral Sports Videos That May Or May Not Be Real. Plus, Stugotz continues to lie to the WFAN crew, and Rays pitcher Pete Fairbanks blesses the show with more hilarious postgame sound. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
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Welcome to the Big Sui, presented by DraftKings.
Why are you listening to this show?
The podcast that seems very similar to the other Dan LeBattard podcast.
I'm sorry, I'm not going to apologize for that. In fact, the only difference seems to be this imaging.
I have been tempted in restaurants just walking past tables to grab somebody's fries
that if they're just there, that hasn't happened to you guys.
I've done it.
And now here's the marching man to nowhere, fat face and the habitual liar.
Maybe Mike McDaniel feels like he controls all of this
and he's like, okay Tua, you think you're worth 50?
This season, the offense is gonna look different.
You think you're gonna have those stats?
And they try to have a successful season
while undermining Tua.
So they're gonna tank just to not pay the quarterback.
But try to tank their offensive quarterback stats.
Chris, go sit in the penalty box for two minutes
for a GST spectacular. I.T.A. spectacular.
I'm obviously-
What do you call it, tanking for two?
That's a good idea.
Exactly.
I'm obviously joking a little bit,
but what spot are the Dolphins, in all seriousness,
what spot are the Dolphins in
if they have two in a contract year?
You don't want him,
if he has the year he has last year, he's gone.
You're gonna lose him.
No, you can sign him.
The problem is that indecision is making the price go up.
Every day that they wait and don't sign him,
he costs them more and more and more
than had they done this a month ago, a year ago, whatever.
So at a certain point, they need to make a decision on him
because they're going to price themselves out.
If they think he's too expensive now,
a year from now, what is he gonna be?
It's not gonna go down.
Correct.
Well, it could if he gets hurt, first of all,
which you guys should skip right past.
And if they undermine him.
I mean, but it's the NFL, anyone can get hurt on any given play.
That is correct, but...
You can't not sign players because they may get hurt one day.
Correct.
That is also correct.
I would say to you that what it is that you guys are presently doing that is the mind
bleep of this and it is why you're stuck in this particular purgatory is
you're saying it's bad leadership because they haven't signed him and i'm
saying the only reason i think they have good leadership because they made him
look like that night and think was possible
and so we are stuck in between the two things because i don't believe to was
that good
it's not it's not has been made that good by the circumstances that have
surrounded him and if i were him and i don't mean it as a slight to say
i don't believe he's that good what i'm saying when i say i don't believe he's
that good is
best passer in the league look at all the numbers the offensive numbers are
off the charts i don't believe he's that
i believe that is a system product i believe that is what jared goff is and
if you pay him what Jared Goff got,
I would shrug my shoulders and say, okay, fine.
If it's more than Jared Goff,
because the market stipulates that,
and you then prevent me from getting all the other pieces
I have to put around him in order to make him successful,
you're putting me in a position
where I'm paying him too much,
and I trust these people to not overpay
on these things.
It's more important than ever.
You're all fantasy GMs out there.
You all question every GM.
You think you're Sunday League.
That you know what you're doing.
You don't have to handle the salary cap permutations.
And in this particular case, I don't feel comfortable tearing up so much of my value
in the one guy.
I'm particularly afraid of getting hurt.
Still, they can try to protect him.
They can try to play the Brady game.
I see they're gonna roll him out more.
If he's gonna be light,
he's gonna be rolling out around the pocket more,
and he's gonna be in more positions where he can get hurt.
I do believe he's more susceptible to injury
than the average player.
I believe that we spent a year talking about that.
It's not saying that his bad leadership
because they don't sign him.
It's because they keep being in this purgatory position.
They don't make a decision one way or another.
And like you say, they've surrounded him
with all these pieces, anyone can do it.
We saw what happened when he's not there.
Anyone can do it.
You could find another piece to go in this system,
but like he's very much a part of this system
and why it has been successful.
They're playing to his strengths.
There's surrounding pieces around him
that he can work with.
If they let him go, they're going to have to start over
from scratch.
I agree with what you're saying,
and I would also add to you that wherever it is,
the differences on where they assign value,
my guess is that Gardner Minshew would put up
some decent numbers with this particular offense as well given that they have a
bit of a cheat code this isn't to say that gardener minshew is to a but you
understand what I'm saying if they could do it with to a they could find a golf
to do it with as well like it's not like we are in agreement that it can't be
anybody but we're in agreement that if I give you one of fifteen guys and pay him at value there are fifteen guys
who could do it right
okay if one of them is golf
then it should be noted that
jared golf is making fifty three million dollars a year
uh... the second highest paid player in the history of the nfl at the time he
signed that contract
okay if if he's not that good, and if he's not worth that money,
well guess what? That's the market right now.
That's what the Dolphins have to deal with.
Greg, the system indicates he is good enough to make that money, right?
Like, they were just in an NFC Championship game,
and they were playing very well, and like, he's kind of turned the tide.
Him and Ben Johnson, the OC, have turned the tide on what this Lions offense is
because of Jared Goff's ability to throw into the middle. If they
offered to a Jared Goff contract I think he would sign it. Of course he would.
They're not getting close to a golf contract which I think is what the
problem is here. Now the difference between Jared Goff and Tua is Jared Goff
got them one game away from the Super Bowl which Tua has not. Right.
Trevor Lawrence got paid. You could make an argument, and I would,
that Tua is as good or better.
Jordan Love, who's really done very little in Green Bay,
is about to get his.
And Tua's over here going, what about me?
When's my payday?
And I don't blame him, and the Dolphins have to blink,
or else a year from now.
Goff has also been in a Super Bowl,
and he's won of playoff games
but he got that contract because he took them one game away from the super what
he got that contract because he made it the best detroit lions team any of us
have ever seen and sometimes that gets you paid to work on it
did that at least in this generation
uh... the best offense the best offense we've seen this century from the from
the miami dolphins which is what he's in charge of to also is a victim of the The best offense we've seen this century from the Miami Dolphins.
Which is what he's in charge of.
Tua also is a victim of the Brian Flores era, right?
Because we saw how he looked under Brian Flores
and assumed that's who he was.
And then when we see how successful he's been now,
we assume, well, that's because of Mike McDaniel.
And we assume that his success in college
was because of Nick Saban.
So we have two coaches that we give all of this praise to
in terms of their successes in college, back with Nick Saban. So we have two coaches that we give all of this praise to in terms of their successes in college back with Nick Saban
and now where we have this genius mastermind
offensive coach in Mike McDaniel,
so we credit him with the success.
And then with Brian Flores, we kind of attribute it to,
well to his sucks and that's who he actually is.
And he's only good because of his coaches,
which I don't know if that's fair or not.
It was actually pretty funny.
I think probably that Greg Cody has been in the dolphin facilities where this would have taken place
But Brian Flores has these off or had that these office
Sort of floor to ceiling
glass windows that you could press a button and
Physically sort of frost them.
I've seen those, I wanted to get all those for my house.
But that was sort of-
Very expensive, I assume.
That's what Tua was walking into though,
when the office would go,
like can you imagine whatever the coldness is
when you're not getting along with your coach
and a physical frost just goes over the windows
because of what Flores had and the sort of separation
is the Belichick way.
I, this part man, as someone who will tell you
that I value the small things that make me happy now
more than I ever have, the pollution that money can be
when you've already found people who believe in you,
the way that these people who believe in you the way that these people
clearly believe in a two or they have rehabbed the confidence that Flores
could have destroyed during a delicate time a style of coaching that really
runs Belichick right out of the league because that's not how we deal with this
generation of young player the job is is hard enough. Mental frailty can get punctured at any point
when you're doing what these people are for a living
and to as sleeping at night with whatever his fears
and pain are of is my brain okay.
I'm making decisions about my brain
and my future mental health
in ways that are truly terrifying.
To have a group of people in
management who support you the way this group of people have supported Tua and
then have the disconnect be over a few million dollars, that poison to me is
really something that is a contaminant that I feel for the people involved
because there's a human being underneath that helmet and I wouldn't want to get so caught up in
What the other guy has that I forget how tough my first year was when I had a coaching staff
That didn't actually believe and understand me in a way that Mount made me feel properly supported
There is and should be a value to that and I'm not the guy who's asking others to take discounts,
but I am asking Tua to look into a mirror
and have a self-assessment on value
that does give the franchise some credit
for what that value is.
But that's also a very pro-management view
on this situation, right?
Of course.
Because you could also say,
well, Mike McDaniel looks kind of pedestrian at times
when Tua's not out there making things happen.
Mike McDaniel looks like he doesn't have solutions
to certain problems.
Mike McDaniel looks like the second time teams
see his team play, they've figured him out.
Mike McDaniel looks like when he has
the backup quarterbacks in, his offense doesn't work.
So I would say that he's helped Mike McDaniel
as much as Mike McDaniel's helped him,
because we don't have any evidence
of Mike McDaniel succeeding without Tua.
As a head coach, we don't, but it's only because,
you know, he hasn't been a head coach outside of Miami
in the backup situations that they have been here,
haven't been top five picks,
they haven't been top five talent at quarterback.
But they're trying to tell you that his quarterback isn't,
like the argument they're making is like,
you're not a top five quarterback.
But I'm not being pro management i'm being pro happiness
do you know how fun it is to play the game the way to what gets to play it he
wasn't allowed to play it that way in his first year and the disconnect of
who's responsible for that
tore apart brady and bella check you don't think it's gonna tear apart to
amateurs like to win mcdaniel to
let him play out the contract run the shit out of the ball
okay
when when you say it's not pro management it is pro management when
you're saying it's just business they're not disrespecting it's just business
the fact of the matter is this one
flawless quarterback in the nfl it's patrick mahomes
there you can have a criticism of every other starting quarterback in the league
including the ones making fifty million dollars a year the market has spoken
loudly in just the past year or two okay where every quarterback who's signed an
extension is practically be destined to be the the the biggest paid player in
the league until the next contract i don't think to is asking to be the the
biggest paid but he's looking at eight or nine quarterbacks making fifty million a year and he's going i'm better than that guy
that guy and that guy i want mine i got out of my system i hadn't done it for
years i had none for years i know i did twelve minutes too long
son we have not i don't think it was fun i think i was great i added a lot i
think was necessary i was fun as jessica she thought it was fun
there's a lot of Tua.
We've had worse topics.
What we just haven't done, we have not.
I love Tua talk.
I think if we clip you saying Tua's not good, we will do numbers.
Numbers, Dan.
I am surprised that we have not had that conversation for three straight years every day.
Cause it used to be what sports radio was in this market.
I want to make America great again.
Thank you.
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Don LeBretard! Surely every time you're watching this, you recognize that your wife is laughing,
that she married Larry David. Yeah, I do. Yeah.
He's one of the great characters in the history of television, in my humble opinion.
And to my credit, my personality...
In my humble opinion, followed by to my credit.
To my credit.
It's amazing.
It's just amazing.
To my credit, my personality does predate Curb Your Enthusiasm.
Stugats!
Oh, wow.
I'm not going to say Larry David patterned himself after me.
You copy. All right, put it Larry David patterned himself after me.
Alright, put it on the poll please, Juju.
Did Greg Cody copyright being an asshole long before Larry David?
This is the Don LeVatar Show with the Stugats!
What have you guys done to me?
What did you guys throw into the algorithm?
I've tried to stay out of the Tua conversation. I've probably stayed out of it for more than a year. I have not had any kind of
opinion that could be grabbed and aggregated and thrown as chum into the water. There are very few
sports topics that get this kind of engagement. What have you guys done to me on the subject of to if the to a conversation
was a pool this is what you just did don't about hard okay that's going on
with Miguel Ali that's not my fault that button says cannonball back to you Dan
all right good work these are your own words that were posted on the internet
right but what is being what is being done with those words
to misrepresent me as you guys often do?
But how is that a misrepresentation
if that's what you said?
How does playing your own words misrepresent you?
I don't know, Chris was laughing at me.
I don't know how you edit stuff.
I don't know what you guys do to put me in bad situations.
What have you thrown into the the chum stream of
Getting to it engaged just a good old-fashioned quarterback is he worth the conversation Dan
I'll get back to the roots and people love it. All right
Jessica if the topic was a pool you did
Well-said yeah excellent work is the executive producer and in ball. Well said. Yeah.
Excellent work as the executive producer.
Jessica, the number of things that I would like
to get you involved on today,
because I didn't like the way that that two,
a conversation went, and the way that it boxes you out.
I mean, to be fair, I have my own opinions,
but I thought you guys handled it very well.
So I said, I'll sit this one out,
I'll let Tony, Tony's right, Billy's right,
you're right, Greg's right in small parts.
I don't think any of us are completely right.
Everyone was right.
But you know, there's a lot of sides to this thing.
Everyone's right, everyone's wrong.
And that is why there have been months of indecision
as the price goes up on this because I do think
It's a legitimately fascinating subject for a market that has had trouble replacing
quarterbacks since merino like it's an unbelievable run of
Never having someone who's this kind of valuable and then arriving where you still can't determine what the value is
Of somebody because the sport has changed so much management changed so much
He's changed so much and you're just confused as to what the valve
We're all sitting here in the value assignment business
It's salary kept you got to win in the margins because you got to be better with your money than the other guy is with his money
And we're all sitting here like what's he he worth? And we're arguing about it.
And everyone's a little bit right,
and everyone's a little bit wrong.
I mean, the Dolphins obviously don't wanna pay him
as much as he wants to get paid.
They've had their reservations,
which is obvious because of how long this has taken.
And Tua rightfully wants to extract as much money
out of his career as he can,
because the window he has to make the amount of money that he
could make being an NFL quarterback is very, very small.
We all know this.
So I don't blame him for wanting to make more money and thinking his value is higher than
what the Dolphins think it is.
And this is how negotiations work.
Unfortunately, they're very clearly not seeing eye to eye on it.
And so that's why I think the Dolphins have botched this from the beginning.
They've waited too long and the price has just gone up, like Greg said.
But at the same time, I don't think Tua is wrong
for not wanting to budge and sign something
that he doesn't think is worth what he's worth
a few months ago when the negotiation started.
So it's kind of a shit show, to be honest.
The other thing that I wanted to bring you in on,
because I felt this never happens to me,
where I get to see that something on the
internet is fake before someone else understands and tells me that something
is fake. I'm almost always on the wrong end of that and I don't know how the
rest of you listening to this and in this room grew up with your parents or
grandparents chirping about sort of the
dangers of propaganda, the dangers of misinformation, the dangers of not being
able to have information or information sources you trust and how corrosive that
can be to democracy, to freedom, to confusing and disorienting a public that simply cannot trust its eyes, its ears,
because of how well propaganda has worked.
But rest assured that in my childhood,
there was very little talked about more
that engendered fear than the idea of propaganda
or the government being able to shape agenda
in a way that has control of the facts shape agenda in a way that has control
of the facts and information in a way that confuses and I believe that right
now in 2024 we're all living in whatever the modern equivalent was for what they
were feeling in the 60s that looked more like McCarthyism and all that stuff but
the modern thing that's happening right now is that it becomes very hard to tell what's real and what's not real. My wife was fooled by an AI
video of Mike McDaniel talking about Tyreek Hill and the number of children
that Tyreek Hill has had out of wedlock, and she doesn't know anything about
sports, and it seemed real and it looked real and it's a i and you can't
tell from the distortion of the the the lips in the way that everything's moving
you cannot tell that he that it's not him talking and the only thing that gave
me access to his like no ballery coach would never talk that way publicly about
all of what is happening there although man
it would sure as hell be a hell of a lot like that's one of the refreshing ones
mcdaniel he's one of the ones who actually says the interesting things
nobody's willing to touch this subject at all in the dolphin
facility
the thing that i want to ask the young people here is are you guys better about
not being fooled
by all of this stuff or do you guys also now get got
because it's getting better and better
and it's getting more sophisticated about how to fool you?
Like AI, I'm getting better at detecting it.
Like I got fooled by Paul Maurice videos
were circulating during the Panthers playoffs
that were clearly fake.
Panthers never won.
One or two of them may have got me,
but like AI, I'm improving at recognizing
It's all in the mouth if you can't really tell what the person is saying via the mouth
You know it's AI didn't I do a top five list once of like top five ways to detect AI videos after there was some
Dabo Sweeney video last year Tyler. I was that that one was real
Anytime I think of that was really stick a Tyler Tyler
but That one was real. I know, but anytime I think of Davos, when you stick a Tyler. But one of the reasons, if I can,
I don't remember everything from the top five,
but one of the ways you can tell if it's AI
is if the person is saying something that is ridiculous.
That is usually the number one tell.
There was a Biden one that was making the rounds yesterday
and the day before that I was like, huh, clearly AI.
No one's being fooled by Leon Edwards
Say his brain was applesauce in real life. That's crazy
No one is being fooled by Leon Edwards, correct?
Oh, I don't know Dan Oh, obviously the I haven't seen it. Let's see this thing. The welterweight champ is
Fighting this weekend in London doing a training a running, you know training with his coach
All right looks real so far and then the park his coach. All right, looks real so far.
And then this happens.
And then this happens.
Yeah.
All right, so far looks real to me.
I'll be the judge of this.
He's jogging in a park.
Pick up hoops game going on.
They throw him the ball.
Oh!
Kicks it one shot.
That's totally fake.
Right into the hoop.
Good shot.
100% fake.
That's real.
Again, this is a left kick that ended
Kamaru Usman's run as probably the greatest
welterweight that we've seen in a long time.
Right, but he's standing at a three point line. Someone tosses him the ball and in the air, left kick that ended Kamaru Usman's run as probably the greatest welterweight that we've seen in a long time.
But he's standing at a three point line, someone tosses him the ball and in the air he one
time kicks it.
Yeah, lovely drop.
The length of the court into the other hoop and that is a thousand percent fake.
What?
I don't know.
I don't know.
A strong kick.
I don't know.
So Dan, this video reminded me of things that I would see in my childhood growing up, usually
on commercials from PTI when you were doing them.
And I made a top five list of the most incredible things
that we've seen from back in the day
that might have been real or might have been original AI.
We don't know yet.
Billy, do you remember, because if I remember correctly,
one of the first times that I ever saw a video of any kind that was
meant to purposely distort how good someone was athletically it was Michael
Vick throwing a football out of his... Okay hold on that might be on the list down.
That's the first time I even remember seeing what wasn't there a viral
commercial campaign that had an assortment of athletes doing... We're getting to it
down number five Chris Chambers catching three balls with two hands.
That's one of them, I remember.
Here we go, he's there.
He's like, all right, you guys want to see me catch a football?
All right, here we go.
He's got his gloves on.
He's walking down.
Jugg's machine's about to throw a ball.
He's backwards, by the way.
No, he's got his back to it.
Here we go.
Bam, bam.
He's got his back to the footballs.
Yes, and he catches three footballs.
Come on. You're going footballs yeah that's not
real then come on what year was that looks like oh four that was Chris
Chambers as a charger I didn't even remember him as a charger uh number
number four that was number five for chambers number four the aforementioned
Mike Vic doing a lot of football one Knocking the guy six yards back after a quick out route.
Here's another one, see?
Quick pass and a hit.
It's not even a hard throw.
Yeah, it's a lob.
Here you go, I think this is the one out of the stadium.
Here you go.
Go deep, go long.
Oops, I overthrew it.
It's out of the, yeah.
All right, still going.
I think that might happen.
For those of you.
They didn't go out at bounce.
That's gonna happen.
Is that USC Stadium?
And imagine, like, if someone throws a ball at you
and they're throwing that ball 40 miles an hour,
think about the fact that you jump up
and a car hits you at 40 miles an hour.
You'd bounce back like that.
For those of you who didn't see the video,
it was a just a little tiny little flare.
Out route.
It wasn't even an out route.
No, it's just a little.
It's a pitching catch.
It's just a little toss to his running back
out of the back field and his running back
goes flying 10 yards like Jason Statham
being pulled by one of those rubber cords
essentially in a stunt.
Like it was a four yard little toss
and the running back ended up going seven yards
on his back because the ball was allegedly thrown so hard.
You know when they throw in front of the sideline
before the game and like the receiver catches it
and tosses it to the quarterback,
that's what they were doing.
It's a check down.
Number three, LeBron James making
five full court shots in a row.
Which is incredible.
Perfect form by the way.
Regular form, look at that.
75 feet catch. But are these all commercial campaigns commercial campaigns what this was viral before viral spin turnaround
I don't remember this one actually cash is this so this is 2009 so it's sort of he's shooting from the other baseline just
Casually taking all jumpers incredible. I mean you're gonna tell me that's not real then it's yeah, give me a break. It's not real
Hmm number two number two rest in peace Kobe the Mamba jumping over a car that
Kobe's getting ready shelf on his feet defensive stance. He's doing the bird man shaking the hands here we go defensive stance
Bam nailed it jumped over Mercedes Benz Dan. I
Didn't know that wasn't real until right now that was
real that was real that's a hundred percent real depth perception Dan
Blake Griffin jump over a Kia that was that was that fake also jumped over
like yeah yeah and number one probably the greatest athletic feet of any
century Lawrence Moroney jumping through both windows of a car. What? Here we go, look at him. He's getting ready to get up here.
He's got a ball, looks like he's running back,
he's running, running towards a car.
Whoa!
No!
Come on!
What are you, a toad?
That wasn't real?
Jumping through both windows of a GMC.
Come on.
Come on.
There is no name in the history of the show
that Stu Gatz has called more often and been told by the person answering the phone that I am getting on a flight right now.
Then Lawrence Moroni
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Don Lebertard!
You have some hot takes today.
Joe Chestnut's a fraud.
Oh, he's on fire.
He called Connor McDavid overrated before
the show yeah no I love it two guards Roy let me explain it to you and not
that you need to you know more about hockey and this is coming from a guy
that's watched Connor play six times right if that this is the down Libertar
show with the two guards
with the Stugats!
One of the many great pleasures that come from having done this show for such a long time and my god what a privilege it has been. I don't mean to make it sound so past tense, but given what Stugats is doing these days
I am past tense and
I want to talk nostalgically with you
because I do have a great deal of gratitude
for what it is that we get to do every day.
I'm genuinely concerned about what the next few years
of all of this is going to look like.
We have had an amazing run.
Nobody gets to do 20 years of this nonsense.
These kinds of shows end up falling apart.
There are breakups.
You don't make it to your 20 year anniversary.
Go ahead and look at all the shows ever who have done it.
There aren't very many.
This is not, it doesn't even make sense, Greg.
You're a writer that my career specifically
would go to eliminating all
other things and just being this show in its 20th year. And a lot of people who
watch and listen to this show never know, it's one of my great prides, what's a bit
and what's not a bit over 20 years. Stugant is publicly flirting with WFAN in a way
that is not respectful to Metal Arc.
We are paying him this week to not be here
doing a guest host thing at WFAN
where I'm told those offices are right across the street
from Metal Arc.
A three minute walk I think.
Is he going to go to Metal Arc while he is there?
Yes or no.
Is he going to go visit the 20 employees we have in our New York office, all of it built
by the way this thing is growing and expanding, trying to do things differently in a new and
collapsing media age.
He's got a foot out the door in a way that flirts publicly with New York, but New York
doesn't want to pay him.
And so he's out there on the air saying what today Chris in his first day.
His guest host week is not a full week.
He may not be there Friday.
He didn't do Monday.
He's doing Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. What's the content that he's making? He's
Saying that he's available for a contract. He's saying you're afraid of some host there. We have a clip of it
Let's play this clip. Actually, it's just I'm afraid of some host at WFAN. We're gonna play again
We're gonna play a clip and Dan you tell us is this true or is this false?
So they said what they had to say, Dan and I,
listen, Dan and I, you know,
Dan would be the first one to tell you
he too is terrified of Sal LaCotta, okay?
I have no idea who that person is.
Why are you terrified of Sal LaCotta?
Why are you terrified of Sal?
Who is Sal LaCotta?
Why are you afraid of him?
How would I be the first one,
why is he speaking for me in New York
through a phlegm fake laugh,
telling his lies about people I don't know?
Can I tell you something that got back to me?
And it's like an awkward,
it's a weird story to tell,
but so he was over at the golf tournament that he goes to every year, right?
And he ran into Josh Allen and apparently
According to him wait wait was it actually Josh Allen or was it a country singer that looks like Josh Allen
I'm told it was Josh Allen. I saw Josh Allen's out there
So he had a conversation with Josh Allen apparently Josh Allen asked him. How's Billy doing?
Which I was surprised to hear
And then he told Josh Allen, you know, Billy's afraid of you How's Billy doing? Which I was surprised to hear.
And then he told Josh Allen, you know, Billy's afraid of you.
So it seems as though this is a move
that he does when talking to people
that he just says that other people around him
are afraid of said person he's talking to.
But I don't really understand the point.
How should the audience and how should I feel
about what is presently happening?
He did a move last week in chris
he's gotten very good at this with you and in general over the many years that
he is uh... you know slippery and sneaky
he lies to people about what has been allowed so he told me he told carl that
he was going to be in new york and i told carl that he had told me that he
was going to be in new york
and he hadn't told either of us and then just
surprised everybody
with something that has been the work since last year like he knows he's
going to try and get up there over the summer to see if he can get a week in new
york that gets paid for by somebody
the problem is is that he will say it but the way that he says it is what
leads to the confusion because he did say last week, I'm gonna be on WFAN.
But he didn't say specifics as to when.
So he's right in saying he did say I'm going to New York,
I did say I'm gonna be on WFAN.
It's just the details.
And then like, as someone who received a schedule one time,
I saw how confusing this can be.
Because he'll send you, like he'll send you,
like, you know, here's the next 12 weeks of my life,
this is what I'm gonna be, but like,
he'll actually send you every single week,
and some weeks are I'm here.
So then you get lost in there when I'm there,
when I'm here, and then those aren't always updated also.
So like, the truth is buried in like a little nugget
of like a bunch of, it's like a needle in a haystack.
The truth is in there somewhere, you just gotta find it.
And he'll give you the haystack and he's like,
well it was in there and then you just didn't see it.
He had texted me and Chris last week, like guys,
next week me, him and Chris are starting to record something
for something we wanna do for football season.
And he's like, next week for sure buddy.
He like locked us in. He's like, you guys good next week to record. We're like yeah
No problem. Where did he tell you that was airing?
Nowhere yet, but maybe def our I don't know. What is it? It was a DraftKings pitch show
We don't want to give too much away. We're still working on Jessica. My rhyme is shamancy Billy's face
Jessica what am I supposed to I'm legitimately asking you here because ask, is this a bit, is this not a bit?
I don't know how to handle the fact
that we are all in a contract, dear,
and I'm not making it up when I tell you
I have had to hold Skipper by the collar
from not just really going crazy
in a way that ends Stugatz's relationship with our show.
And Stugatz knows that I'm always going to do that for him, and so he takes advantage of it.
Actually, you know what I thought was super interesting? I don't know if you guys noticed this.
It was, to me, the most fascinating part of the Warriors breakup that nobody talked about. Clay Thompson told Steph Curry,
do not go to management and try to get me more money because you, Steph, want me
to stay here. I want management to do that without your interference and I
thought that was unbelievably wise, not just proud,
but wise because I have not had the wisdom over 20 years of always having to go in on the back end of negotiations
to make employers who will not allow Stugats
to have the leverage over our situation.
So I always have to go in and get Stugats
the proper value for Stugats,
and the amount of resentment that that has caused
over the years that I had no idea
would be circling around in the place
where you're not being properly respected by your employer,
and that's the respect you want.
You don't want it from Steph Curry
because of how much he values you.
You wanna get it out of your employer.
I was really surprised that Clay Thompson had the wisdom
to ask Steph to back off so that they could just break up.
Don't you kind of say that though?
Don't you have to say that?
I think if you're Clay Thompson,
it makes you look nothing but good to say that
When even knowing the steve currie behind the scenes may say hey, we need to keep clay
Let's get this done But why can't why can't it just be like why does it have to be nefarious something that clay?
Thompson is doing because he's concerned about how you're going to receive him saying the right thing or the wrong thing when
All he's doing is telling somebody who he loves and that they've done amazing things together.
I want to be valued by my employer here, not by somebody who has power over my employer.
I just think it makes Klay Thompson look nothing but good to say that.
It's like if I, on a microscopic level, if I'm looking for a raise from the Dan Levitard
show, I tell
you I don't want you to make this happen I want somebody else to value me and do
that when in fact I do want you to make it happen but it makes me look good to
tell you I don't. How should the audience feel about what is presently happening?
I think they're tired of hearing about Stugats. But I do have an update about
Sal Acotta we have awarded him Gas Bag of the Week multiple times.
My bad, I didn't mean to disrespect the Sal Okada
who I clearly fear.
One was about Grimace getting too much credit
about the Mets.
Maybe you were afraid of that.
Are you afraid of Grimace?
Some people do have a fear of Grimace.
There was a whole viral trend with milkshakes.
The Mets stopped winning now.
The Grimace is no longer lucky for the Mets.
The Mets have gone back to just being 500 and middling.
The other one was about Juan Soto
looking for walks, I believe.
Oh yeah.
I think you also said that he looks like his co-host
and that you couldn't tell the difference
between the two of them.
They both looked identical.
Other than the Grimace thing,
not sure where the fear eliciting comes in.
I'd be the first to tell you
that I fear Sal Lakata of WFAN,
but thank you for bringing up Juan Soto because I was watching some Yankee baseball, which
was really raised baseball this weekend, and I saw a whole lot of people in Yankee uniforms
who don't belong in Yankee uniforms, but Soto is one of them and he's great, and Judge,
Aaron Judge is somehow better, and toward the end of a raise game where
Fairbanks I don't know do you follow Pete Fairbanks at all you have no idea who I'm talking about here
Right Greg the closer for the Tampa Bay Rays. No. All right
He's an unusual walk in here in uniform and my dad would be like, who are you right with the name Fairbanks on the back?
I still wouldn't know who yeah, you'd say that's Conor McGregor yeah uh... so fairbanks is fun to watch because he throws a hundred miles an
hour i don't know how anybody hit salmon people do
uh... but he's also an unusual interview and at the end of that game they were
winning six to three
and then somebody hits a double and and or so to hit a double and erin judges
coming up as the tying run.
And I guess was he asked, Chris, was Fairbanks being asked whether they should have put Judge
on base because Judge has been such a beast this year that he shouldn't pitch to Judge?
I don't want to get confused here.
I think it was there down by three, Judge hits a double, Soto hits a double, and now
the guy was saying should you have walked Judge, but that would have brought the tying run to the plate.
Okay, well I was watching the game, so here's the situation, right?
Fairbanks is leading 6-3 in the ninth, Soto hits a double off of the wall to score a run,
it's 6-4, and now Judge is up, and these are the only two guys who can hurt you.
Soto and Judge on the Yankees, they're terrifying, the both of them, and so Soto's on second,
Judge is batting with the ability to tie the game and the count goes three two and frankly
as soon as judge headed in the being a real high fly ball to center field but i
thought he hit a five hundred feet to center field i guess they asked fair
bank should you have just put judge on base as the tying run
think after so does double the jupiter kevin order a walk to judge? We want to put the winning run on there?
No.
We want to bring the winning run to the plate?
It's been done.
I trust myself.
Okay.
Right?
I'm going to go try and get the...
Wow.
It's a funny stare though.
Good answer.
You're looking, Tony, like you don't think that that is anything other than the common
response that you... Normal other than the common response.
Normal response from Fairbanks.
And I love the southern twang, too.
He's like, you want me to bring the winner on on base?
Like, what?
Aaron Judge is pretty impressive, Frank.
It's been done.
I trust myself.
It's been done this season, hasn't it?
Didn't they do it with Ramirez in Cleveland
with the Guardians?
And they said it hasn't been done since Barry Bonds
and he says I'm better than Barry Bonds.
You wanna know a weird baseball thing that happened
and I know this because Mike Scherr's a crazy person,
he was texting me about it.
So yesterday in the Red Sox and Rockies game,
they're in extra innings, it's a tie game.
The Red Sox score a run in the 10th inning,
but it's in Colorado.
So the Rockies have a chance to score or whatever.
Or actually no, the Red Sox take a two run lead.
So they're up seven to five in the 10th inning.
That's safe in Colorado.
Okay, so the way that extra inning rules work,
there's a runner automatically on second base.
The Red Sox pitcher intentionally balked
so that the runner would go over to third base
because they were concerned that he was gonna be
sending the signs to the hitter.
So he intentionally balked.
Same about the hitter hits a two run homer.
Intentional balk, tie game.
That's not the best of the Fairbanks sound
I can play for you because we've been playing
Fairbanks sound here.
I know that you guys are tired of my raise coverage,
but I just love how goofy this guy is.
Pete, can you kind of run through what was going on in the ninth inning?
Maybe you didn't like some of the balls that were coming in?
Yeah, they were horrible. They marked that down all caps for me. Horrible.
No excuse though, didn't throw strikes and that's what happens when you don't throw strikes.
You get punished for it. So I'd love to see those come out of the humidor tomorrow
in a little better shape before they get rubbed up.
But, you know, that's nobody to blame but myself for not being able to adjust to some of the quality issues. Dry or not
smooth or what was the issue? There's just overall bad. I'm not gonna elaborate
further than that they were not uniform from ball to ball so there's no I mean
dry smooth whatever you want to say just non-uniform didn't feel right.
Just make it tough for you to grip and kind of get the ball where you want it to go?
Yeah, it's tough to throw your slider
when the ball goes that way out of your hand.
The humidor is only in Colorado, right?
The humidor, the humidor for the baseballs?
No, I think they have them everywhere now.
Do they? Yeah, I think so.
Humidor, for cigars, not baseballs.
Come on.
Let me hear some more Fairbanks sound, please.
Was it just a matter of command, location, selection, anything specific?
No, I thought it generally sucked.
I didn't think it was a specific suck. I thought it was like an all-encompassing type of suck.
So, you know, we're gonna try and rectify that. But for right now,
I'm gonna be pissed about it. Hey, it's Mike Ryan. And by now, you know how much I love Game Time.
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