Transcript of WBC Hero Vinnie Pasquantino, Bill Raftery Talking March Madness, Conf Tourney Week, Bam’s 83, NFL Free Agency And Fyre Fest

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On today's part of My Take presented by DraftKings, we got a twofer for the people. We've got our good friend Bill Raftery talking some March Madness Conference Championship week, and then we have Italian-American hero from the World Baseball Classic, Vinnie Pasquantino, who hit 3 home runs to make sure that we didn't have the most embarrassing exit possible in the World Baseball Classic, which we will talk about. We also have to talk about Bam's 83 points. We're going to talk some college basketball, free agency kind of winding down. Kyler's got a new place. Trey Hendrickson is a Baltimore Raven, which is very funny. It's a great show. It's a Friday show. It's brought to you by Venmo. Get in the game with college-branded Venmo debit card and earn up to 5% cash back at some of your favorite brands with Venmo Stash Rewards. You can add your Venmo debit card to your mobile wallet as soon as you sign up and pay online or in store right from your phone. And the best part, the card is tied right to your Venmo account. Got paid back for dinner? Immediately access the money in your Venmo balance and spend it on what you want— game day snacks, tickets, new merch, You can easily split purchases in the app, and there's no monthly fee or minimum balance.

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Yeah.

Part of my take. Welcome to Part of My Take presented by DraftKings. The crown is yours. Today is Friday, March 13th. Oh, shit.

Friday the 13th.

Friday the 13th. Spooky. It's college basketball conference championship week.

We just watched so much ball today and I got ball coming out of my balls.

I got balls everywhere.

Yeah.

Hank, how are you feeling about balls? Hank, actually, he watched so much ball, his foot fell asleep and then he fell. My whole leg. His leg fell asleep.

They call it the stranger.

He fell.

I thought I was paralyzed.

Yeah, that's just—

that's just March.

That's March.

This is March.

Everyone's hurt this time.

Warrior.

Yeah.

So we started the day with a bang because we had our only undefeated team remaining, Miami of Ohio, which feels like a year ago, lose to UMass.

Yeah, that was— that does feel like it was 2 days ago. But real quick, before we get to that, I feel like we should address on Wednesday. So we recorded late on Tuesday night after the Max Crosby thing. And it was one of those days where we woke up on Wednesday. And I felt like by the time 10:00 AM rolled around, like I wanted to record a brand new part in my take.

I don't even— I don't think 10:00 AM. I was up till like 11:30 at night and I was like, I wish we could record some more right now.

Yeah, we had the BAM thing.

Yeah. Which we got to get to BAM. We got to get to that WBC. We got to get to Trey Hendrickson. We're going to hit all of it.

All that stuff happened. And on Wednesday morning, I honestly thought about hitting you guys up and be like, you guys just want to do a just a quick one for old time's sake. It's been a while since we've smashed the emergency podcast button.

Yeah. Yeah, it's been crazy. Zach was ready. He's always ready.

Yeah, you got to be on the lookout for the emergency pod.

Were you up? I was up.

Love it. Yeah, so we— but, but yeah, so today was college basketball. We're going to talk about all that stuff. Today was college basketball. Miami of Ohio, last undefeated team, goes out in the first round of the MAC tournament. Now we get to do the debate: should Miami of Ohio be in, or should a 16-loss, uh, Auburn team that had a double Pearl freakout. We had Bruce Pearl freaking out and Stephen Pearl, the coach of Auburn, freaking out as they blew— they were up like 10 with 8 minutes left, ended up losing by 10. Yeah. And that's the kind of day it's been. It's been madness everywhere. I think we've said this before, but Miami of Ohio, in my opinion, should be in.

I asked the question if they lost first round of the conference tournament, you said 100% they're in.

Well, I don't know if they will. I think 100% they should be.

I think they should be in. I also respect the hell out of Miami of Miami of Ohio for, for losing in the first round to really kick up the debate an extra notch. Like, if they had lost in the championship, then I think everybody would have been like, yeah, put them in. The fact they did in the first round, you really— thank you for starting the conversation, Miami of Ohio. Yeah, I appreciate that.

We need to, um, just focus on the fact that they're, I believe, 31-1 and not do anything about strength of schedule, because I saw the graphic, uh, midway through whatever game we were watching and Auburn is 17-16, and they have the 4th hardest schedule in the country. And Miami of Ohio is 31-1, and they have the 340th, I think it was. Yeah. So we got to just erase that from our memory. What the record— just go with our record. The record— they've only lost 1 game.

Yeah. Miami of Ohio's record against Quad 1 is 0-0.

They haven't lost.

They haven't lost a single game to Quad 1. That's, that's what I would lead with. And then after that, I'd say, and oh yeah, by the way, our record overall is 31-1. Pretty good. Yes. It's also— it's hard to go an entire regular season without losing a game. I don't care who you're playing. If you're playing other college basketball teams, if you're playing other teams that have the same— they're in the same conference as you. So they have similar resources, similar recruiting pools. If you're able to go an entire season without losing a game, that's hard to just wake up every day and not stumble once. And 100%, like every— all these small, tiny margins of victories that they have. It's still hard to do to go full season.

So it's also—

it's put them in.

It's also just like a good litmus test for what you believe in as a person. And when it comes to March Madness and March Madness, to me is the greatest thing we do as a country. When we put 64, now 68 teams, been 68 for a long time, into a bracket, it's the perfect tournament. Is it the fairest way to decide a champion? Absolutely not, because we know every year that there's going to be some crazy one-game elimination. Having to win 6 games in a row. The best team doesn't always win. Last year's Duke team, 1999 Duke team, like all these teams that are incredible, they don't always win. But I still love to have the little guys in there, and I don't want to see just some middle-of-the-road, uh,.500, you know, power conference teams. I'd rather have the story of Miami. I want to see what happens when they play their first quad-win game Mm-hmm. In the middle of March. Yeah.

And you know what? If you want to make it so they give you a little bit more consideration, Auburn— what if Bruce Pearl came back and he said, you know what, I'll coach the team in the tournament? They might be in. They might listen to that. That might be what pushed them over the edge. Put Miami of Ohio in. Put Miami. If they don't get in, it's a disgrace. I will boycott— what am I going to boycott? The halftime show of the first play-in game.

I was just saying, just boycott the early games tomorrow.

I'm going to boycott. Well, no, if they don't get in.

Yeah, I know, but just pre-boycott. You'll do your boycott and then that will stand.

A pre-boycott? Yeah. It's never been done.

I'm not a bracketologist, so this probably doesn't make sense.

I don't believe that for a second.

Why can't they just have them both play the play-in?

Well, they still have to be in then. Right, right. But that's not like—

can they do that? Is that a possibility?

What do you mean? Yeah, it's a possibility. But then another team would get left out.

Yeah.

For ratings, that would be electric.

Well, I've I've said this before, the—

if they want the play-in game to matter, the way they should do it is I'm tuning in for an Auburn.

Yeah, no, Sunday night they should have— we should know before Sunday and the brackets are revealed. It should, it should basically say here are the 4 teams that are on the officially on the bubble and we have 2 spots left and they play Sunday night right after the bracket comes out. That's what it should be. So it's like an extra play-in. I know that I don't want to go to 72, but that would be— or whatever it would be, 70. But that would be cool. They're actually— we say they're not officially in the tournament. The Sunday night game does not count as the bracket. No one can fill that out. Yeah, it's just this is how we decide the last two.

I do think that Auburn's definitely played their way into having their— the live feed on screen when they do the bracket reveal, Dave, of the team, like having the team in the— in the auditorium. Yeah. And having the camera person there. And going to see their reaction no matter what happens. They have the right. They've earned the right to have their disappointed faces broadcast to the world during the bracket.

Yes. They've also— they've played their way into Jay Billis doing like at least 5 minutes about how they should be in because they played such a strong schedule.

And honestly, they have played a really tough schedule. They beat Florida. Yeah. They've got impressive wins.

Yeah. They played Purdue. They played Houston. They played a lot of tough games early in the season, but they didn't win them. So that's like the old age-old, like, if you play the tough game but you don't win it, what— how much credit do you get?

Auburn could lose by single digits to any school in America right now. That's how good they are.

Yeah.

Or double digits.

Yeah. They've had a lot of, like, single-digit losses. Yeah.

But they've also lost double digits. Yeah. Yeah. Max, Villanova's safe. Yes. They lost to Georgetown. Yes. They're safe. Correct.

Right. We're sure. Yes.

You know, we're—

no, Nova is just going to be the team. They're going to get in and then everyone's going to be like, oh yeah, this team, this team's losing first round pick against who? Pick against Villanova.

But we're sure they're in.

Yeah. I'm like, not fazed by this bit at all.

OK, I'm curious.

Yeah, right.

You sound— I mean, you and Titus just did it for the entire second half of the game, which was—

because we're telling you that we're sure they're in.

Yeah. Which was like annoying to just listen to while I'm trying to watch the game. But other than that, like that, it— they're in, so it doesn't faze me at all.

Max, I got a question.

It's the worst bubble year of all time.

I know they have 20. Everyone in the bubble keeps losing.

Yeah, the bubble is terrible.

Yeah.

So like, yes, they'll probably drop a drop to the 8-9, which sucks because then even if they do, like, it just—

it—

there's a 0% chance that Villanova gets to the Sweet 16 now. There is probably a 0% chance as a 7 as well. But it doesn't really matter. More rest going into next week.

There you go. I mean, listen, I'm— you today, you wanted to win because like I'm in the same boat with you.

I don't know. I just—

yeah, I wanted to— I wanted to win today. They fucked around, almost didn't beat Washington. But tomorrow it's like— or today if you're listening to this, I'm kind of done with— if you can't— the conference tournaments, they just fuck you. Like, like if, if you have to play 4 games, you're just going to— and you get to the final, which the Badgers did, I think, last 2 years. You just get screwed. You just— it doesn't make your seed better and you, and you end up being more tired. But today you should—

the Big East tournament's different. I know. Like, I love the Big East tournament. So I think it's like my— I think it's a top 3 favorite, like, sporting events in the world. Like, I love watching the Big East tournament.

But again, it doesn't matter because you're in. Correct.

But it still just makes me sad that I'm going to watch the Big East tournament tomorrow with like no—

without a team, without a fight.

Yeah.

What are your— what are the rest of your top 3 sporting events in the world?

I don't know.

Okay, good, good, good point. Good call.

MLB playoffs. MLB, MLB, MLB playoffs.

Okay.

I don't know.

There's a lot of good sporting events.

Shut up.

There are a ton of good— Don't make me answer questions like that.

I'm—

I know. I know you love it. I know you love the Big East Tournament.

It's awesome.

I know. You know what?

There's no recency bias about that either.

I grew up loving, absolutely loving the ACC Tournament. And it's something— What tournament is not—

Big East Tournament's the best tournament.

Okay. Well, Max, you just got done talking.

Now I get to talk and you're right.

You're right.

You don't yuck my yum. I wasn't over here being like, no, it's not as good as ACC. The ACC, right? I grew up loving the ACC tournament. I don't love it anymore because it's not Greensboro.

Now imagine it's not the same. PFT, imagine if it was the Big East that you loved.

Yeah, if it was Italians, right? No, like, like Max says, the Big East is an Italian league. The ACC is a North Carolina league. It just is. That's what it's always been. It's a tobacco league. Put it back in Greensboro.

I like that. I like that take.

No, you know, you hate— you hate the ACC.

You saw—

I mean, it's not so big. You weren't talking about the Big East.

Yeah, the Big East tournament's the— I mean, whatever.

The crown jewel. Yeah, it is a great tournament.

Shout out the crown. We lost the CBI today. I know, that's crazy. That's fucking nuts. I love the CBI. The CBI was the moment that I realized that like regular life wasn't for me. I was— I had dreams of going to business school when I was like 25 and couldn't figure out what I want to do in life. And I paid for a business— what is it called? The— what's the test? GMAT? Yeah.

With GRE?

You know, I think it's a GMAT. Okay. I paid for a class. It was like $2,000. It was like a lot of money to pay for a class to like get good at the GMAT. And I was just sitting in the back of the GMAT updating scores because I had like Oregon State in the CBI. Yeah. And I was like, this is, this is like one of my business schools. Not trying to teach me shit. I'm just gambling on games in the back on a, on a made-up tournament. So I love the CBI.

Yeah, the CBI. It's sad to see the tournaments go away. They should have just— my favorite tournament.

Yeah, that was—

was that— what was the trophy for that?

Yeah.

Iconic trophy.

Mm-hmm. I'm trying to remember. I felt like they did have an icon.

You got it.

One time, probably like a A long stick with a basketball on top.

Yeah, I guess long stick with a basket, maybe like a triangle stick. A triangle stick, like 3 sticks. Oh, 3 sticks together type. Like you're talking about a bundle of sticks.

Yeah. What do you call that?

I just called it a teepee or triangle.

Is there a different word for it?

Is—

you tell me.

I think there is, but I— triangle.

Yeah. What?

Just search it.

Yeah.

Bundle of sticks. Bundle of sticks.

Searching for the trophy. No, search bundle of sticks. Tell us.

Oh no, it's a— it's a—

it's just a basketball.

OK, read us other words for it. Crystal basketball. It's a crystal basketball. And that's the CBI. That was our CBI talk.

It does look like a trophy that you could smoke out of. This is just a bong.

The trophy is a bong. What other— what else did you find for us?

Bavin.

Okay.

Sheaf.

Yeah.

Kindling.

Yeah.

Yeah. Any other words? Truss. Okay.

You got SafeSearch on? Yeah.

Yeah. Did I say bunch?

I think so.

That's all I'm seeing.

Oh, really? That's— you got a little smile on your face.

Okay. Fajot.

Is that what that is?

Yeah. Yeah, that's exactly— that's French.

Oh, no, that's a linebacker from Navy. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

We're going to bleep out everything that was said.

Why? That's mean.

No, no, no, I'm editing. Not going to bleep it. Yeah. Hank got in my hole with Villanova and they were the worst team ever tonight.

You know what that is? That's you being a good partner. Yeah. All right. All right. So Duke almost lost.

Yeah.

The other big one, FSU taking a 3 there at the end was crazy.

Okay, so Duke obviously pretty dominant at times. They can't shoot free throws. No, that's going to be a problem for them.

Let's see what their— what their free throw rate. I mean, listen, they're the best team in the country, so I'm not very worried about it.

Right. But Florida State, they weren't scared.

They weren't scared. Yeah, they're 214 in free throw percentage.

Yeah.

Their free throw defense is pretty good, though.

That's very important.

Yeah. Very, very.

I like those stats. The free throw defense, the like field goal defense in football.

They're great. They're great. Very important stats. Okay. Any other college basketball? I'm just excited. Friday's going to be great. Friday actually is one of the best days because it's like the Wednesday conference tournament week. You get a lot of shit teams. Thursday you kind of get into gear. Friday you have all the good teams playing. Well, every, every good team that had a bye, everyone has now entered the tournament and it feels like, holy shit, this is the day.

The stat that we were talking about earlier was how they're It's been what, like, how many dozens of years since a team that has lost the first game that they played in the conference tournament went on to win the national championship? So you have to win at least like one game.

Yes.

In your conference tournament. Then after that, it doesn't really matter. And then you get to the NCAA tournament and everything happened and you're able to win. But if you lose that first game, I guess it's just more about limping in. Yeah. To the big dance.

So, yeah.

Duke avoided that one barely today.

But we have like, I mean, some banger games tomorrow. And it's like I said, all the, all the buys are now in play. And you have, you know, Ohio State, Michigan starts off today. I know that Michigan should probably kill them, but like Kentucky, Florida's playing, my Badgers are playing Illinois, Tennessee, Vanderbilt rivalry game, Pug going up against St. John's. That's a good route for St. Root for Seton Hall, Max.

Yeah, I would like Seton Hall to win.

That's how you get back in it.

Sneak their way into the, into the tournament.

Yeah. Okay. Let's talk some other stuff before we do that. Quick word from our friends at Twisted Tea. Twisted Tea. We love Twisted Tea. Twisted Tea is refreshing hard iced tea made with real brewed tea and 5% alcohol. Twisted Tea is the perfect drink to keep the good times going all day and all season long, whether you're hanging out at a friend's house, catching a game at the stadium or at the bar. Or day drinking with friends, Twisted Tea is there to turn your day up a notch and make a good time a great time. Grab a refreshing Twisted Tea today. We love Twisted Tea. The Half and Half, delicious. The original, delicious. The peach, incredible. Weather's getting a little warmer, Twisted Tea season. We're also brought to you by our friends at DraftKings. The tournament is coming. 64 teams, buzzer beaters, bracket busters, upsets nobody saw coming. And this year DraftKings is giving you a free shot at $1 million. DraftKings has you covered all tournament long with a $1 million free-to-play survivor pool. Pick one team each day of the tournament. If they win, you move on. If they lose, you're out. Keep surviving, and if you're the last one standing, you win $1 million in cash.

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Yeah, yeah, it's almost like they had it ready to go.

It's almost like they're like, oh, we can get Trey Hendrickson, who by the way, Max Crosby is better than Trey Hendrickson.

Yeah, completely different players, completely different players.

Trey Hendrickson is, you know, a pass rusher who not— doesn't hold up in the run like Max Crosby, who just does everything incredible and never gets off the field. But the Ravens are like, hey, we could get Trey Hendrickson. So let's say it's 80% of Max Crosby for the same price and we don't have to give up our two first-round picks and we could pivot if we get— like, yeah, that's the thing about making these trades where you give up picks. It leaves it so that if you are wrong on the trade, you're really kind of screwed yourself. Whereas in free agency, teams screw up free agents all the time. You just eat the cash.

Yeah. And with this one, they send Max back and they sent him back to Vegas. I don't know what Vegas is going to do about the salary cap situation. Like we said on Wednesday's show, if any team is built to absorb that, they have enough money. It's probably the Raiders and they'll probably be okay. But then I started to wonder if the Raiders were going to like, what would the market be for Max Crosby? And I guess not that many teams have reached back out. Maybe they got scared off by the alleged failing of the physical, which by the way, Yes, Max Crosby failed a physical, but everybody knew he was going to fail the physical. That's the thing. It's like you knew this guy had surgery. I don't necessarily think that there was anything that was crazy when they looked up the imaging and they thought to themselves like, this guy's knee is not going to get better. I think it was just because they found out that they had a good option in Trey Hendrickson and they wouldn't have to give up the draft picks. And they had, by the letter of the law, they had the ability to fail him for the physical because he's not ready to play.

So technically, the Ravens didn't break any rules.

Yeah. So Albert Breer did a really good article breaking down like how the process works. And it essentially— what he said was that when you agree to a deal, the Raiders doctors and trainers and the Ravens doctors and trainers get on a call together and they share all the information. And that's just how it works. So before the physical even happened, the Ravens had all his medicals. So they, they had a pretty good idea of what they were doing.

Yeah.

And then the physical happens. And yeah, it's kind of shocking that they failed the physical because like it— listen, they could pretend that they were. And I know that Eric DeCosta then said that they were in on Trey Hendrickson and Max Crosby together. Whatever. They could say whatever they want. The timing is a little coincidental, and it feels like this was like, hey, we got cold feet. Because the Ravens too, like, that's the thing where I think we were all a little shocked when the first— when the deal was first announced, because the Ravens, that's not what the Ravens do. They don't trade picks like this and take these type of shots. So it was kind of out of their norm as a franchise. I think they were out of their norm as a franchise, and then we're like, oh shit, we're out of our norm. We, we We get it. We're getting cold feet. Let's not do this.

Well, let's go back and do the thing that we really love to do, which is fail guys for some shady physicals that we can sign somebody else.

Right.

That's better than just came available and just draft really well, which again, they haven't, you know, been hitting home runs, but they have over their history been a really good team that's drafted really well.

I was kind of on the fence on whether or not to believe the Ravens and all this. And then Eric DaCosta spoke about it. And his quote was, nobody's more upset about this than me. That is definitely the thing that you say when you're not upset.

He's basically walking around being like, goddamn it. Yeah. No, I can't believe this happened.

We say that all the time about our friends that are going through bad losses in sports. Max, nobody is more upset than I am about Villanova tonight.

Yeah. Eric DiCosta is walking around sighing in people's ears. Oh yeah. Damn it.

Damn, that stinks. I really wish, you know, I wanted Max Crosby.

What's wrong, Eric? I was just thinking about Max Crosby again.

You got to get over that, Eric.

Oh, fuck.

So, so Max goes back to the Raiders and then I was like, what, are teams going to give like the same deal that he got for the, for the Ravens?

No.

And it seems like they're not. But then I started reading some quotes from Max Crosby and he put out this tweet, everything happens for a reason. Believe nothing you hear and half of what you see. I'm a Raider. I'm back. Run that shit.

Yep.

And he tweeted out an Undertaker GIF.

The perfect Undertaker GIF. Yeah. And got me fired up.

And so now, now I'm actually thinking that like maybe the price just went up on Max Crosby.

He's motivated.

Because you got, you got a pissed off Max Crosby now that just got shamed for having a fucked up knee.

He's ready to go.

Like if I'm the Raiders, I'm like, okay, You know what? Make it 3 first-round picks.

Yeah.

And then we'll talk because I think Max is going to be better than he was when he was just going out to Baltimore.

It pumped me the fuck up when I saw that.

Yeah, me too. I feel like—

It was awesome.

I feel like watch out for the Raiders.

Yeah. Watch out for the Raiders. So other free agency news. Kyler Murray is a Viking. We all kind of expected it. It happened.

Yeah.

So he's now going to be awesome again.

Well, yeah. I mean, they lost— they lost Naylor. Their speedy slot guy went out to to Vegas, so they needed a new wide receiver. So they went on, got Kyler. Like, it's— this is still Nines team. Yeah, don't get it twisted.

But Kyler's gonna be really good in like 2 years. He's gonna be the next Sam Darnold, maybe. The NFC North now has, uh, 3 number 1 picks at quarterback with Kyler Murray, Caleb Williams, Jared Goff. Kind of cool.

That is cool. He's gonna look smaller in the purple. Yeah, I did tiny. I did a little Photoshop work today. With the Instagram draw feature. He looks very, very small. Yeah, purple. It shrinks him up quite a bit. Yeah, it's going to be an open competition. And you know what? This iron sharpens iron. So I think that we're going to see a very, very sharp 9 at the end. Sharpest, sharpest 9 you've ever seen.

Yeah. We also had Daniel Jones signed his 2-year deal, $88 million base value, $50 million guaranteed. I don't know.

There was a time, Big Cat, not too long ago when people wouldn't pay $80 million to a guy that just tore his Achilles.

Yeah.

And I feel like that's changed in the last 3 years or so.

I don't know.

Achilles used to be something that they'd pretty much shoot you for. It's like, okay, you're done. You won't play sports anymore. Enjoy retirement.

Yeah. Listen, Daniel Jones, had a good half of a year. The Colts, at what point are we like, hey, the Colts, are you, are you ever going to get over the Andrew Luck thing? It's been like 10 years now. I think— I don't think they'll ever get over this.

Is this is their, their attempt at it because—

but they've made a million attempts.

I think that they— Matt Ryan, Phil Rivers, Daniel Jones is different.

Who else was it? Carson Wentz? No.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Carson Wentz on that list.

Yes. There's someone I'm missing too.

Anthony Richardson.

Anthony Richardson.

Gardner Minshew.

Let's see.

Curtis Painter.

No, I'm thinking of like they did that one. They did the— all right. Since—

yeah, Gardner Minshew.

All right. Since Andrew Luck, Jacoby Brissett for a year, Phil Rivers for a year, Carson Wentz for a year, Matt Ryan for a year. Gardner Minshew for a year, Anthony Richardson for a year, Daniel Jones for a year.

I think Daniel Jones is different because I do think that he played good enough last year to get an extension to be the quarterback that they want to stick with. It just sucks that he tore his Achilles. He was a really good player. He was. The Colts offense was very good last year.

He was.

I know you think back to the games where he was— he had like the broken fibula for a couple of games too. I think Daniel Jones is a good quarterback. I would have given him the extension, but then the Achilles, it's like, yeah, you know what I'm saying? Like 4 years ago. Yeah, no, no, Achilles, it's like that might be the end of your career.

I mean, look at Jason Tatum.

Jason Tatum's back in like 9 months now.

Yeah. What's going on in the Celtics game, Hank? You're locked in.

Down to 1 second left.

Okay. Max pointed to it when he was just like, look.

Well, you kept talking about the Villanova loss and I was like, Look, you kept— and you were being mean to me and I was like, be mean to Hank.

Yeah, this isn't a tournament. It's all one tournament when you think about it.

Every night you go out there, you want to win, Hank.

Any other free agency signings you want to— that were notable?

The Commanders signed an entire new defense, which I'm happy about.

There you go.

If you were a 27, 28-year-old defensive player, we signed you. So welcome to D.C.

Bradley Chubb to the Bills feels like the most Bills move ever.

Yeah.

Hey, we're going to get him. We're going to get all we need is just a pass rusher who's maybe a little injured. Get us over the hump.

Yeah. Feels like a perfect move for them.

Yeah.

I think Kirk Cousins might be going to—

on the Patriots now. CJ Gardner-Johnson's on the, on the Bills.

I think Kirk Cousins might be going to the Raiders.

Yeah.

Which would make a lot of sense is like him and him and Mendoza together out there in the desert. Would love to see that.

Yep, that would be fun.

Yeah, just—

that would be very fun.

Paint the town red.

Keaton Mitchell. Well, memes, oh, the over in the Kansas game. That was— that was what that was.

Huge.

I love that.

Thank you for that meme.

Uh, Keaton Mitchell, just put his hands up. This is March, baby.

No, I had that over.

This is March.

This is March. Keaton Mitchell to the, uh, Chargers. Right.

Yeah.

Evan Neal back on the Giants.

Boom. Yeah. Boo this guy.

You see him at the Will Brick Mall. Boom.

I do love the—

never stop booing him.

I love the Chargers just continuing to bet. It's like we're going to— we're just going to get old Harbaugh players and we're going to send them to the new Harbaugh. They've just been player swapping. It's like if they're— if you're good enough to play for my brother, You're good enough to play for me.

Yeah. Also, Titans' new logo. What do we think?

The new jerseys?

Yeah. New logo and new jersey.

Yeah, I like the uniforms.

I think the new logo is cool.

I think—

I actually think the new logo is like, if you're a Titans fan, that's a pretty sick tattoo you can get. I think it's a very simple logo.

If you pull it up, it's pretty clean. It's very clean. I like on the uniforms. I like the block numbers. I like the T with the 3 stars. Yeah, the helmet is good. It's got— the 6-string stripe.

Yeah.

Down the top of the helmet for a guitar.

Good job, Titans.

Yeah, Titans.

Really well done. Oh yeah, those are sick. I hadn't— I just saw the logo. I hadn't seen the jerseys.

It's good uniforms.

Yeah, those are sick. Okay, Titans, it's—

you know what?

My attention.

You know what I like about it? It's like, you know that we love the old Houston Oilers powder blue uniforms. And you did just enough to make us think about them without actually realizing that we're thinking about it.

Well, and also powder blue as a color is a cheat code. Yeah, it's a complete cheat code. You put powder red, blue on anything and it looks good. Yeah, it's just a fact. So good job, Titans. Kind of look like Ole Miss.

Yeah, I can see that.

But I like it. I can see those Ole Miss uniforms are awesome.

Yeah.

Okay, let's talk. Let's talk World Baseball Classic real quick.

One other NFL story.

Yeah.

The NFL is probably going to put a game on Wednesday before Thanksgiving.

Yeah.

So the Wednesday night, Blackout Wednesday. That's the next date that the NFL is targeting in its quest to have at least one game of football every day between like November 1st and December 31st. I love it. I like it a lot. I know, I know that people are sick of the NFL expanding to days that they normally don't play games on, like a Wednesday night game might feel kind of weird. That Wednesday night is begging for a football game. I don't think I would like to get rid of the Black Friday game. And instead have that game on that Wednesday night.

So this is a take that we, we talked about this off air, that as 41-year-olds, uh, this game is great for us. If you're in your 20s, you're like, what the fuck, because that's a big drinking night. I, I will say though, the NFL's getting into a little bit of dangerous spot where part of the reason why we love the NFL is the scarcity, is that it's one day a week It's Sunday. It's, you know, a big deal. You play like it's not every single night. So I'm in for this one, but they got to be a little careful here with like, you know what I'm saying?

Yeah.

The scarcity does make— try to throw the game, Hank. Don't do this.

I do. No, I don't.

Don't, don't not listen to what I'm saying and then, and then, and then say the opposite.

Big Cat's actually kind of agreeing with you.

Yeah. I am. I— the NFL, if it was on every single night, would then become like the NBA. It would still be the NFL, but like part of why the NFL special is there's a— it's Sunday. It's a religious experience with Sunday. We watch the NFL. That's what we do. And then also think about— and this happens where we have just shitty Sundays because they've spread games all throughout the week.

Yeah.

And it's like Sunday should be sacred. I don't want them to ruin Sunday. I'm cool with this one, but like, just be careful, NFL.

They're not—

you might take away the thing that we— that makes you special. And that's that Sunday is a special thing and you only get 18 of them.

Yeah. And if you think the NFL is not going to take over a night that's, that's like very special to a lot of people because they like to drink a shitload of beer on that night. Yeah. The entire league is based around church day. Yeah. On the Sabbath. So they don't give a fuck about interfering with somebody's like bar night. And guess what? If you're going to be at a bar, you're probably going to be watching football too. I don't have a problem with doing it on that Wednesday.

But you get what I'm saying, though.

But I'm saying, like, at this point, I do agree with what you're saying. At this point, it should be one in, one out.

Yeah.

So you got to take away one of your other little Mickey Mouse—

Correct.

Games.

Just be careful.

And if you take away Black Friday, that Black Friday is for college football.

Yeah. Just be— just be careful. It's— it's— we're getting to this point where it's like I just, I just want it to still be special. And if you start putting games— because I always just assume whenever they do these, like, the one-offs, it's just a trial balloon to just be like, we'll just do NFL every single night. Oh yeah. Oh yeah.

And guess what? It's— we're a matter of years away, not decades, from the NFL doing a spring game.

And I— you and everyone in this room, our job is to watch football. So if they do it every single night, I'm not going to complain in the fact that, like, I'm going to watch every game. But then you have to like, kind of like, you know, we're 41, we have nothing to do on that Wednesday night. You have to like step outside and be like, wait, there are people who like probably don't— can't watch NFL every single night.

That's true. That's very true.

So, but just be careful, NFL. I love you to death, but just be careful.

They're, they're definitely going to do a spring game. Yeah, 100%. Which, 100%, now that I think I might, I might be kind of into that.

Yeah, I mean, spring football.

Yeah, just one spring game would be kind of sick. Max, no. How? Just think about it.

I'll just throw it out there.

How?

I don't know.

How would they just save one? How?

Because it'll make them millions of dollars.

It's like saving one for later. So just save one for later.

When would you do the draft?

And the game wouldn't count.

Yeah, it's like, oh, it's like college football later. Oh, you Okay.

College football programs do their spring game and it's like a practice.

I don't think anyone would care.

No, no, people wouldn't care.

Yeah, I'd watch.

But you would watch like you watch a Hall of Fame game. You would be like, oh, this is fun.

And then it would be like, actually, like a way to see your new rookies.

But yeah.

Okay. So World Baseball Classic real quick. We're going to have Vinny on and he is Italian-American hero Vinny Pascutino. For the 3 home runs against Mexico. But what happened is on Tuesday night we lost to Mexico and Mark DeRosa, the manager— Italy, sorry, Italy, Italy. We beat Mexico, then lost to Italy, then Italy played Mexico. Mark DeRosa, the manager of Team USA, 100% did not know the rules and that if things had gone differently on Wednesday night, the Team USA could have been eliminated before the knockout stage. He went on an MLB Network show and said before the game against Italy, we're going to try to get some guys in who haven't played. We're going to get some guys off their feet because we've already punched our ticket. He then afterwards said he misspoke. But anyone with a brain, when watching the game against Italy, when he was warming up Clayton Kershaw and then brought in Mason Miller, you can know the moment that he was like, hey, dude, we like actually want to win this.

It's important.

Run differential. All this shit actually matters.

If you looked at the lineup he put out there too, there were a few guys that he wanted to play. It did appear like it was being treated like an exhibition.

Yeah.

Because he thought he was through to the next round.

Yeah.

And then, yeah. So after the game, everybody has seen this, this clip from Mark DeRosa. And then he did a press conference earlier today.

Yeah.

You see that? And he goes, there are some false narratives. I was well aware that we had to win that game based on all the scenarios. They went in 2-0. We went in 2-0. Actually, not true. Mark DeRosa, you were 3-0. 3-0 going into that game.

3-0.

I don't really— I would not trust Mark DeRosa to be the master strategist.

We got a problem.

In fact, like a lot of people were talking about, the last name is Italian.

Very Italian.

And he seemed to throw this game to Italy. I'm just saying, connect the dots.

It's a problem, Paizan. I will say this. We play Canada tonight. Tonight we play Canada, right?

Yes. Friday night.

This is— I'm worried about this game.

It is everything that we've been puffing our chest about for the last month can be taken away from us tonight.

Yeah.

And like, I know we kind of skirt, you know, with the Four Nations was an exhibition. If Team Canada beats us, they have just an insane amount of like right back in our face. It's going to be brutal.

We are -800 on draft. We cannot lose as -800 favorites.

We can't.

And not—

and we were talking about earlier, but when you have something like this, a rivalry, You can't lose the most recent one because there's not going to be another one for a while here. Maybe in the World Cup, but like Olympics. What?

Oh, oh, I thought you meant in baseball.

I'm saying if we lose this, we are— they have bragging rights for the foreseeable future. We could be like, oh yeah, we took hockey. They're like, yeah, we took your pastime that you are the only country that played for the longest time. I guess hockey's a little bit Similar, but still, no, that's a good point.

We dominated Canada and the most important thing in the world to them.

Yes.

Yeah. But yeah, you're right. We don't want them to hit us.

Can't have this.

We can't. Not as what you said, -800. Can't lose that game.

Can't lose.

Who do we got on the bump?

Logan Webb.

Very good. Okay.

Who are they? Who are they sitting out there?

Michael Scirocca.

All right.

He's Italian.

Italian-Canadian.

He has an edge.

Going up against another Italian.

Can't get rid of these guys.

Team Italy, by the way. Anyway, we're going to— like we said, we're going to have video on. So, but that was Team Italy. That's a crazy upset and a crazy ask. Like, they beat the shit out of us.

Can I just say that I feel like the Italian team is more American than the American team, a little bit, the way that they're acting. Yeah, I'd like to see some of that same stuff from the Americans.

The double kiss.

Yeah, the double kiss. They seem like they're having a great time. They're loud, they're boisterous, they're arrogant, they're fun. That's what I want out of my American teams. I don't, I don't want Aaron Judge striking out in the 9th inning.

No.

Looking sad.

Hey, are you going to be— are you, are you pumped for— have you watched any World Baseball Classic? Yeah, you can.

Oh yeah.

Yeah. It's fun. I've been having a great— I mean, we have to, we have to win. We have to win on Friday.

We have to win. I like the Dominican team.

I want, I want, I want—

whoa, whoa. What did you just say?

What's the situation?

What's the—

if we win and the DR wins tomorrow, then we play them in the semis.

Oh, awesome. You said you like the Dominican team.

Dominican team.

I thought you said you like the Canadian team.

No, but you want—

but if the Dominican team is, is awesome, they're fun.

They are very fun.

Yeah.

But if it's US versus the Dominican team, you're rooting for the US.

Of course.

I don't know.

What was that smile? What was that smile?

He's not rude.

What was that smile?

Nope, he's not. I'm telling you right now, he doesn't need to talk anymore. Hank is 100% going to root for Dominican Republic. 100%.

No.

Why don't you just fire?

Why is the hesitation?

You just leave. Why don't you leave? I wouldn't even say that you leave. You'd be like Ellen and go live in the Italian or English countryside. I would be rude. I didn't.

I'm rooting for a lot of America.

Why is it so hard for you to say?

I didn't. I said it every time I answered it.

The answer correctly.

What do you mean correctly? Not honestly. You said correctly.

I'm rooting for the U.S. You're telling us what we want to hear.

So it's not— that's not the—

this isn't a right or wrong answer. This is your opinion.

Yeah.

We know it's also a right or wrong.

The Dominican team is electric. And I like to be entertained when I'm watching sports.

You always say, this is crazy.

I wouldn't even say that I was rooting for Italy.

World Baseball is not a real thing. It's also very much in line with you.

It's not a real—

this might be the most perfect Hank take out there.

Grow the game. The Dominican team is like—

I would like I just say, just say, just say, I want to watch more games with the Dominican Republic team.

I want, I want more.

How many games have you watched from the Dominican Republic?

Two.

You've watched, you've watched, I came home drunk on Friday and watched the highlights.

That does not count.

And then I watched the game last night.

You watched the full game?

Yeah, no, I mean most of the game.

No, you highlight, I had the game on. All right, listen, I just can't, I want, I want every single person out there that said that Hank was So mad about the Patriots losing the Super Bowl that he got racist about the halftime show. I want all those people to listen to what Hank's saying right now and apologize to him and be like, you're right, Hank. Hank, you're not racist. I'm sorry. You are. You're just a fucking moron, Hank. You—

this is— this is pure, like, straight from the fucking tippy top of the mountain, pure Hank.

We—

I want to bottle this hank up and drink it because it's the best.

You're—

you just always find a way.

Why do you want people to fucking hate you?

I don't.

I don't give a fuck.

That's why. That's why I can't lie. Actually, the Dominican team is— he does not care. Like, he's giving his opinion. His opinion just always is the one that will piss off the most people. And I respect that. I don't— like, if you're pissed off, these people are also watching the games.

Like, it's not— it's a fucking—

this tournament is for entertainment.

Everything's for entertainment, right? Yeah. And when I don't really have it, I guess whatever. You have a dog in the fight.

Well, I got—

you are the worst, Hank.

I don't want to.

I love this.

I don't.

I don't want to do this to you, Hank, but I think I can. How many players on the Dominican Republic?

More than probably USA.

More than the Aces.

More than the Aces.

OK. All right. So that'll be fun.

Let's hear it.

Tatis, Vladimir Guerrero, Martel.

Oh, this is where— hit us with a Tom. Soto. Okay.

The most electric guy that— the guy who's had the most electric celebrations.

Name?

No, I'm letting you get to it.

Line?

I don't got it.

Austin Wells.

That's another one.

He is on the team.

The most— he's the most Dominican.

Who?

Junior Caminero. I think I'm double— yes.

I— Hank, I love you.

Do they also have—

so good.

Do they also have O'Neil Cruz?

Yeah.

And O'Neil Cruz. That is a fun-ass team.

From the guy who wants Super Bowls played overseas for his next act. He's rooting for the Dominican.

Julio Rodriguez is another one.

We're not there yet.

We're not there yet.

Yeah.

We play who we play.

Yeah. You probably, you actually, you actually probably, if we're, if we're really breaking down, you're probably rooting for Canada so you don't have to be split.

No.

So, so do you want to have, do you want to have, we got to have Dominican Republic on the cave at 5:30 then, right?

Sure. Yeah.

Oh, you're not watching.

I mean, Max, he'll be watching.

Oh, there's, there's— oh wait, there's only TVs in the cave.

I forgot.

I swear to God, that wasn't a— that wasn't a—

that wasn't a—

no, I think he was not.

That was not a shot.

No, I forgot.

I truly forgot.

And I'll make sure that Hank's watching Dominican.

I'll make sure of it.

Yeah. Hank, are you going to be rooting for the Dominican Republic against South Korea?

Yes.

Oh, so you're going to be rooting for the matchup of USA, Dominican Republic.

I kind of need you to get like a full jersey.

Yeah, whatever.

It's not that serious.

This has been like—

this is—

this is—

it is what it is. People can hate.

I haven't—

I didn't give that much thought into this until I realized they were matched up against each other. But it is what it is.

You are going to have the, like, Latin music fans' brains in a pretzel based on the last, like, 3 weeks of your life.

Dude, I like to be entertained. I want to hear from the bad buddy, not entertaining Dominican AWLs. Embrace He wasn't.

Yeah.

Embrace the fuck out of Hank. I want you to be like Dominican Hank.

Yeah, there might be.

I want you in the parade. There's probably— I want you in the parade in New York.

There's probably a rivalry between Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico, right?

Yeah.

So Dominican Republic probably loves you.

Yeah. Let's embrace them.

Hell yeah.

DR Hank.

Skeens also will be pitching that game if we get to it.

Let's go. Paul Skeens is really good.

I like Paul Skeens.

Yeah. You love him.

Absolute skins.

Yeah. Okay.

Last thing I saw, I hope it's an entertaining game.

Bam, 83 points. Do we care?

Yeah. I mean, it's a lot of points.

It's a lot of points.

My take is that it should—

that, that's staying on New York City.

Yeah. Yeah. The 83 should mostly be given credit to the Washington Wizards. It should be like the Wizards allowed one man to score 83 points against them on this day. It was such a weird game. And I did— I was watching part of the game live in the first half, and Bam had, I think, 43 points at halftime. So it's not like the whole game was him getting fouled, going to the line, etc., etc. Like, it got weird at the very end of the game when they were very clearly trying to get him the record. But Bam had a great game. He played really, really well. But the fact is, like, when you think of the top 100 basketball players of all time, you probably won't think of Bam Adebayo.

So Yes.

And what happened was this was the Wizards' masterpiece. What we saw— they— it's not going to get any more Wizards than that. Like, the Wizards— Wizards showing up to cities and playing basketball games should not be tolerated by those cities. You should look at the Washington Wizards' presence showing up in your town like the way you would look at the Westboro Baptist Church and be like, no, no, you're not— not—

I don't want you—

not in my city, Washington Wizards. I'm not— that's more offensive than Magic City night.

Yeah.

Is the Wizards coming into your city?

Yeah, I— it's a lot of points. I don't, I don't buy the whole like, oh, it's cheapened because, you know, the fouling and all that stuff. Every— I mean, Kobe took every shot in the last 7 minutes of his 81-point game. Well, they were just feeding him the ball constantly. Like, to get that many points, you have to do something like that. So I have no problem with that. I do find it funny. Because it was like, it was like one last stand for, for, for Kobe fans to just go nuclear online and be really upset about things.

And a lot of Kobe fan fiction out there.

Yeah. I also, I also think Laker Dan, think about making a comeback. Laker Dan respects Bam. He's a true, true number 1 points all time because that was the fun.

It's not. That's it's also number 2. It's like, right. I know.

But that's the funny thing to me. I thought the biggest winner of the night was Wilt. Because when Kobe was number 2, Kobe fans started doing the conspiracy theories that no one— that the Wilt thing never happened. Yeah. I don't think they're going to do that for Bam.

No, no, they don't care.

Yeah. So, Wilt, you're back to number 1.

Yeah.

There was a 1 with an asterisk for the, for the whatever, 15 years that Kobe had it. Now you're back to 1. Yeah.

The Kobe fans, they, they— it did give them a good opportunity to talk about like what Kobe would have done if he was in this situation. Which is always a treat to see people do that.

Bam also was— I mean, he was on fire. I know the ending was a little weird and there's a lot of free throws. Did he have like 50 at half?

No, I just said he— yeah, the first half he was really good. Yeah, like he was dominant and he had 43 at half, I think.

Yeah. So he, he had an insane game. And I just— it's— I think it's more about society at large. And this is probably too deep of a conversation to have like a lengthy conversation. But I do think we're all just whether it be social media, the amount of like content we consume every single day, I think we're all guilty of it. It's really hard for like big moments to have lasting power, you know what I mean? Where it's like to be wowed. It doesn't feel like when we had a monoculture 20 years ago, 30 years ago, and like a big performance happened, you're like, I'll always remember that. It just doesn't. We just move on so fast.

Well, if you think about the guys on this list, right, Wilt Chamberlain was a superhero. He was like the strongest guy ever. He could bench press like 500 pounds. He claimed that he banged like 40,000 women.

Believe him, he was—

that's as close to Paul Bunyan as you can get. He scored 100 points in a game. We look at him the same way we look at almost like a deity. And then Kobe, same way. Like, he's got a diehard group of fans, even people that don't consider themselves like diehard Kobe people. They recognize like Kobe was an incredible basketball player and a unique personality that like changed the game and continues to have an effect. And also it's very sad, like obviously the way that he died so suddenly. I think that looking at that now, it's— it almost elevated Kobe to now we think of him in that same like rarefied air, like don't— nothing that anybody does is worthy of being compared to Kobe Bryant.

Yes.

And then to have Bam Adebayo go and score 83 points when he's a, he's a fine player. Yeah. But to have his name Hall of Famer, people, people are like, well, no, that, that this can't be right, right? Because he's not Kobe Bryant, right? And he's not Wilt Chamberlain, right? And so it's also just not a pure scorer.

Like if it was Luka or Steph, I mean, Steph's different because Steph isn't that rare, but like there are pure scorers. Remember when Devin Booker had what, what did he have, like 70 or something? Where it's like a guy like that is such a—

I think he had a big game too, didn't he?

Yeah. Like pure score that like they can just get hot like that. Bam is not in that mold. So it's weird for people to contextualize and be like, oh yeah, he had an insane game. I respect Bam. I respect the 83 points. I don't give a fuck about everything. Every fan base is going to say something else is Mickey Mouse.

So this is a great clip that was going around yesterday. It was an interview with Brian Shaw and he said that Kobe had 62 points And his teammates were like, you got to go back in the game, Kobe, in the fourth quarter. And Kobe said, now we're up 30, we don't need it right now. I'll do it another time. And so then now that kind of fed the—

so that's easily a 90-point game.

Yeah, being like, well, Kobe could have done it, but out of respect, he decided not to. And I also like the fan fiction about like what Jason Tatum would have done.

Oh, did you, uh, see that viral tweet? It was pretty funny. Yes, Jason Tatum just gets strays everywhere, which is not right.

It is what it is.

So it was, uh, from Cordell L-L-E, uh, D Rook on Twitter. Jason Tatum would have subbed himself out at 81 and texted Kobe.

Yeah, I mean, you guys would like— that's like kind of the joke that people have been running into the ground for 4 years.

That's funny.

That's—

yeah, I thought it was funny.

We didn't say it. I didn't even—

no, I know.

It's a funny tweet.

I can see why Cordell did it.

It was funny. No, I understand.

You don't think you'll find any little—

it's, it's like Jason Tatum, anything he does, it's like Tex Kobe. That's been a running joke that people have been doing for 5 years.

This was funny, though, because Kobe was kind of in the news. Yeah, because of the game.

Right.

I understand.

And there was a GIF of Stephen A. Smith when he's like rolling his eyes and it's like Vanessa when she sees another text from Jason Tatum. That's, that's funny. That's funny. That's funny. Funny's fun.

Although, I mean, I think the Celtics— don't you guys play the Wizards next couple days?

I don't know.

I feel like Tatum's going to try to go off against us. Like, he— Tatum might be out for 3:14. He might be out for blood to avenge Kobe, right?

I don't think so.

No, I think he might be. I think, I think he's right. I think he circled this and he's like, Kobe, I got you. I'm not going to let Bam steal your shine. It's me, Jason Tatum. You know what Jason Tatum might do? He might go out there, break Bam's second place scoring record, and then change his name to Kobe Bryant so that the record books will show Kobe Bryant has his rightful spot in number 2.

Yeah.

Jason Tatum, first guy to idolize Kobe.

That's what I would do if I was Jason Tatum.

I can't believe you're rooting for Dominican Republic. It's fucking crazy. So good, Hank. I seriously, I don't think I've ever loved you more than in this moment.

Sure. Let's go, D.R.

Okay, let's get to our interviews. We got Italian-American hero Vinnie Pascantino and Bill Raftery talking some more March Madness, and then we will finish with Fyre Fest. Okay, before we get to Vinnie Pasquantino, we're brought to you by Everyman Jack. You're a grown man making better decisions about what you put in your body, and you— are you paying attention to what goes on it? Here's the thing: using grooming products with harsh chemicals is like washing your car with dish soap. Sure, it gets the job done, but you're stripping away the protection and doing long-term damage Most guys think they have to choose products that work or products that are better for you. Everyman Jack says that's BS. They're clean, naturally derived formulas, have none of the garbage the other guys use— no parabens, no dyes, no shortcuts— and they're incredibly effective. Their coconut-based body wash cleans while hydrating. Their new 48-hour antiperspirant has unbelievable glide and staying power. Everyman Jack: clean, effective, made for men. What more could you want? Start your new routine and find Everyman Jack at Walmart, Target, Amazon, Kroger, or wherever men's personal care products are sold. We're also brought to you by our friends at SimpliSafe.

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It is Vinnie Pasquantino, and he is off of 3 home runs and American hero Vinnie. You are an American hero. Thank you.

Yeah, you're welcome.

Okay, that's great.

Yes, grazie.

Yeah, thank you. You're— I, I said in the middle of the game, I think we should give you your American citizenship.

That would be amazing. I would, I would appreciate that a lot. Uh, yeah, when you said— you sent me that after the game, I was dying laughing. Like, that's what, that's what this tournament's all about, trying to grant citizenship for, for those Italian Americans.

Yes.

Yeah.

Are you still beamed up from last night? You had so much espresso after the home runs.

I would imagine, uh, I got my coffee coffee here. So, uh, yeah, I'm freshly beamed up now for this morning. I got— I went to sleep at like 2:00, 2:30. I did what any, any, uh, any, any guy does after they have a nice night. I ordered some Taco Bell and insomnia cookies with my wife, and we had, you know, we had a good time. So it was good. It was a good night last night.

I love that. And then, um, I, I gotta ask you though, playing for Italy, have you been to Italy?

Yes, in 2022 we took a week-long trip with the 2023, um, national team. So the team that played in the WBC, then we did go out there. So I know all the jokes are out there how we're not really Italian, but we have actually been there. So we've been there.

You've been there.

That's all that matters.

Have you heard from anybody back in the old country? Anybody celebrating how this team's playing?

I'm hoping to hear from the Pope at some point. That's kind of the goal is hear from the Pope. So we know he's a White Sox fan, so hopefully he's a Team Italy fan too. But I did an interview yesterday for Italy TV, which was fun. And I know they had the game on television out there. It. I think it was at midnight last night. So that's, it's pretty cool to get some baseball over there and try to help build some development culture.

That would be great for the Pope to reach out. I bet you he has watched. I think, I don't think that's crazy.

Yeah, definitely.

There's no way the Pope doesn't know what we're doing. There's no way.

Yeah, absolutely. He's absolutely aware. I mean, he actually probably was upset that Kyle Teal, because he's a White Sox fan, that Kyle Teal got hurt.

Some of my favorite Twitter jokes are like, man, how upset do you think the Pope is that Kyle Teal got hurt the other night? Yeah. Like that's just, it's very funny thinking of random things like that. Of what do you think the Pope is thinking about the White Sox catcher right now?

Yeah. Is there, is there on Team Italy, is there like a haves and have-nots for guys that don't have a vowel in the, at the end of their name?

Oh, big time. Like that video that came out where the guy was talking about how the team was recruited. That's exactly how it happened. If you have a vowel at the end of your name, We came after you. So think about how Italian you have to be if your name doesn't end in a vowel. Like, that's— we were going deep trying to, trying to get guys to play. So yeah, I mean, some of the names on this team are, are absolutely incredible. Like, the names in themselves make you eligible for Team Italy.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I, yeah, that's why when I saw Kyle Thiel was on the team, I was like, this is bullshit. Like, he should— he like, how does he pass? But I guess he passed. How many is it? I would imagine like in terms of camaraderie, is it just a lot of dudes talking about the Jets free agent signings.

Yeah, that's basically what I'm doing. Um, that's, that's all I'm doing, letting everybody know how much value we're getting. I did actually talk to the Jets general manager last night after the game, and I told him, Brick, how, how much value I think we're getting. So I think I told him I think we're doing a great job and that, you know, I, I love not overspending for free agents. It's been, it's been fantastic.

Okay. Yeah, because I mean, like, I, I feel like whether, whether directly related or, or, or like one-off. Everyone's got— everyone on the team has more of a connection to the state of New Jersey than Italy.

Yeah, but the state of New Jersey has a ton of connection to Italy.

I know, it's where most Italians actually should just be the team New Jersey. Yeah, the Jersey Bulls.

But yeah, it's good. A lot of, a lot of pork roll, egg and cheese happening in our clubhouse. We're, uh, we're getting back to our Jersey slash Italian roots. It's been good for the, for the fellas.

Do you guys debate that? Like, is, is half the clubhouse Taylor ham and half the clubhouse is pork roll.

Andrew Fisher, this beautiful psychopath that he is, on his EvoShield like shin guard, it says pork roll, egg and cheese on it instead of his name. It says pork roll, egg and cheese. So you guys are at the Jersey Roll Clubhouse.

Yeah, this is a New Jersey National Baseball team.

It's very funny. You guys are just probably that. It's like Jets and Giants is the biggest fight that goes on during this this during this group. What— so Kyle Teal gets hurt. How close— let's be honest— how close were we to, to maybe calling up Max? Were we gonna— how many guys away were we to getting Max? Because he did play, uh, catcher at Hofstra.

So that's stairs of the UCL.

I played catcher for like one fall season of my 9th grade baseball career, but I, I had a picture. I had a picture of me playing catcher.

Yeah.

Hey, Zach.

Zach, by the way, Vinny is trying to get your home runs from last night to go to last year's Dingers Only team. He just absolutely can't.

But yeah, we were a few phone calls away at Max. I tried to get you a tryout last week, but you no-showed us. So I know I was ready to go.

I was ready to go.

It was like Vinny was nice enough. I was texting him and he was like, hey, if Max— because he listened to the show last week, he's like, Max wants to come down and be the team meatball. We could do that. It just— schedule didn't work, but he was— he was offered.

So you could be the espresso boy, Max. You could, uh, you could pour the espressos for us.

That's an unbelievable honor.

That would be the highest honor you could get. Yeah, that's incredible.

Uh, Vinny, I, I got a weird question for you about how things were— they shook out before that game. Um, was there any conversation at all about, hey, if we lose to Mexico and Mexico scores like 2 runs, both of us can get in. It's like the Chargers-Raiders game from a couple years ago in the last week of the season. You guys both had the opportunity to advance. It would have left the US out. Um, but was that something that ever crossed your mind?

Uh, not, not colluding with Mexico. The, the only question that we asked was if we're losing 4-0 or 3-0, whatever it is, in the top of the 9th What do you do? Because the only way you can guarantee yourself to make it to the next round is by not winning the game. Because if you go up 5-4 in the top of the 9th and then they score 2 runs and beat you, then you're out. So the only way to 100% guarantee that you make it through in that specific situation is to not win the game. But the goal of the game was to win the game like we did. So we never— thank God we didn't get into that situation because that would have been really awkward of just trying to like, how do you finesse that? So I'm glad we didn't, and we never talked about what are we gonna do because I, I think everybody kind of felt gross talking about it.

Mm-hmm.

But it was something that was talked about of what do you do in that situation? Like it puts teams in a really unfair spot knowing, knowing the way that it could have worked out. But I'm really happy we didn't get into that situation.

Yeah.

Yeah. So speaking of New Jersey and Italians, there is some conspiracy theorists out there. Mark DeRosa is from New Jersey. He is Italian. Was there any handshake back of the, you know, you know, back of the bar type of deal that went down before the game where he was like, hey, I'm going to pretend that I don't know the rules? Or was he just—

he just didn't know the rules? Yeah, I think he just didn't know. He's doing his best to not talk to any other team. So even though he talks about it, his job is quite literally to talk about every single player all year long. And yeah, but he's got the best 30 guys over there in this clubhouse. He's made sure to let everybody know how good his guys are.

Oh, I like this.

So yeah, it's been— that's been a quite interesting dynamic of having the guy who talks about everybody all year managing the USA team and talking about how good they all are, which everybody knows how good they are.

Right.

They're very good.

Right.

I like D-Ro a lot. It's just been— it's just been— that's a weird spot to be in for him.

Yeah.

Managing the team, trying to get your guys fired up. But then at the end, you do have to go back to your real job at some point. Like, if he ever says anything nice about me on MLB Network, do I believe him? Or do I, uh, you know, I think a lot of players are wondering that right now, like what's going on with that whole situation.

Yeah, the, uh, and it was, it was very weird. You could also see the moment. I think that's the thing is now you guys have the trump card if he ever trashes anyone. It's like, hey, remember when you didn't know the rules? Um, that was crazy.

Kershaw was up in the, the joke I keep seeing on Twitter is like Kershaw was up and then all of a sudden Mason Miller was up and it was like, wait, is this the moment that they found out? Yes, uh, but the players knew, the players knew, by the way. Yeah. Uh, so I think, I honestly do think it was just mispeak because the players knew going into that game that they were not clinched. So I don't know what happened there, but, you know, they found a way to make it in and, you know, they've got an opportunity to try to go win the thing. But there's 8 teams left. Anybody can win it at this point.

Yeah, no, it's been a great tournament. It feels like the atmosphere has been almost like a postseason atmosphere. Like, do you guys get— how amped up do you get before these games?

Dude, I— last last night and the night before. I mean, we were winning by 8 in both of those games, and I thought we were tied or up 1 the way the crowds were. The crowds were phenomenal. I've never had a— I've never been more nervous standing at first base with nobody on base winning by 8 runs in my life. Those did not feel like games where you were up by that much. The crowds in Houston, the USA crowd on, on whatever night it was, was fantastic. In the Team Mexico crowd last night, I mean, it's the loudest building I've ever been in, and You know, been in some playoff games, been fortunate enough to play in some of those atmospheres, but second to none, these atmospheres we played in the last few nights, it was incredible. This tournament is, is amazing. Getting 20 countries together to try to build the sport of baseball and bring people together through the sport. Couldn't be better.

What did— so we had the situation with Cal Raleigh, who we love, is a friend of ours, and Randy Rosarino, which I think has been settled now. But were you like, you have teammates, you know what I mean, that you like Bobby Witt's playing like, are you Are you talking to the guys? Are you chumming up with the guys? Are you— I like that it's a little bit of tense moments going into these games where they're not— everyone's not all buddy-buddy.

Yeah, well, I had like this weird moment the other day where I had a press conference and USA was right after us, and I was still in the line, still needed to go shower after practice, and the entire USA team was just standing there waiting for me to get done. That was the most awkward experience of my life. I'm trying to like chop it up, but also we kind of hate each other, I guess, in this tournament. Yeah, Bobby was being all weird because he wasn't sure if he was able to talk to me or not. Um, but I don't care, like, whatever the rules are, like, I, I'm just having a good time. But that, that situation, from my understanding, Cal and Randy talked to each other before the game and Cal said, please don't do this. Oh, uh, I don't know if that's— I don't know if that's true or not, but I heard that that they had discussed it prior and Randy knew that he wasn't going to do it, which is why that, that happened, and that they're fine, that this is a nothing story in that it just became bigger because, you know, it happened in 2023 with Will Smith and Randy as well, where, you know, trying to fist bump or whatever and didn't do it.

But then you see in the Dominican-Venezuela game, they're like full-on hugging before the game.

Yeah.

So there's just a bunch of different, a bunch of different opinions on it, but we're all just competing to try to win games. And some guys need to lock in more and don't like to talk as much. I'm the opposite. I'm sure Cal hates me because I'll just talk to him my entire at-bat. Yeah, that's what he needs. Good for, you know, good for him.

Yeah. So who do you guys have next?

We've got Puerto Rico on Saturday, and I believe I'm facing a teammate in Seth Lugo. I think he's pitching for Puerto Rico, so I'm excited for that. He's probably going to try to hit me. He loves throwing inside, so I'm excited to see if he hits me. I'm going to charge the mound, so we'll get a little Royals on Royals fight.

I like that.

I like that. Yeah. Is there, is that an advantage for you or is that a disadvantage? Because you're around him all the time, but you also never go up against him.

It could be a little bit of both. I think I faced him twice this, this season already in live at-bats. So I've got a little bit of an idea of what he's got, but that guy's got 25 pitches. So he just could pull anything out of the, out of the toolbox at any given time. So we'll, we'll see.

Is there any amount of home runs that would be too many home runs for you to say, no, I've had enough espresso. Thank you very much.

No, no, never, never too many home runs.

Any—

I don't hit enough of them, so any that I can hit. And like, honestly, I'm just doing it for Zach anyway. When you think about it, it's how many, how many home runs can I put up for Zach? Um, that's all I'm thinking about.

Are you— were you in the zone last night?

I was somewhere last night. I don't know if in the zone was the correct answer, but I was somewhere and it was just working out. Although I don't think I really hit any of those balls hard. Thank God we were in Houston. But it was just one of those nights. You just, I mean, I was 0 for 12 going in, so it was more hope and pray than anything. I tried to bunt my first at-bat right before the first homer. So just praying that I could do something offensively to help the team and maybe not go 0 for in the entire tournament.

Yeah.

Oh, it was a, it was a great game.

Speaking of ballparks, talk us through, I want to hear about the moment that you found out that the Royals were moving in the fences 10 feet. Is that one of the greatest moments of your life? Like, how does— who tells you? That's got to be up there with like, holy shit, this is going to rock.

Yeah, I think I found out in October maybe that it was, you know, 95% sure that it was going to happen. General manager told me he was all fired up, but I'm kind of a prick. I don't know if you've noticed. So my immediate reaction was like, okay, he's sick. What is it? I just, you know, I just hit— I just hit a bunch of homers. I'll just do it again. But because when it first happened, everybody was like, oh my God, what a hitter's ballpark. Now it's going to be crazy. And I'm like, shit, it moved from 389 to 379. It's not like it's making it fucking Yankee Stadium in right field.

Right.

But yeah, I mean, that 10 feet is going to make a big difference, I think. And they did a lot of research, like credit to the Royals. They did a ton of research on figuring out how it was going to affect this specific team, pitchers and hitters, because I think they have— I think we have 5 more years on our lease in Kauffman Stadium. So who knows? What's going on with that. So I think it's kind of a test run for if we are fortunate enough to get a new stadium, what, what that stadium's dimensions could look like.

So I'm looking at the, uh, somebody did do the math on it and they said that last year you would have had an increase of about 10 more home runs with the new fences. That's millions of dollars.

My ARB number would have looked a lot better if it was 42 homers instead of 32 homers. Um, but Yeah, maybe, maybe. But it's less— it could be less hits though, depending on where the outfielders are playing. So, you know, can't change what you're doing and just try to try to stay out of that conversation.

Yeah.

Do you like the nickname Pasquatch?

Yeah, Pasquatch is the one that I like. So I'm fortunate enough to have a mascot when I get on base, which is pretty cool. He comes out there and walks around. Yeah, I like the Pasquatch. Pasquatch. Got my necklace on at all times. I don't know if you can see it. I got the Sasquatch there.

Oh, I love that.

Good.

What's it sounds like there's a nickname that you don't like.

Break?

Uh, Italian breakfast, which was given to me by a buddy named, uh, Joel Penfield. He, he, uh, he, he does some media with Kansas City, and Billy Butler was the country breakfast, and I'm a big first baseman, so they named me the Italian breakfast. And no offense to Billy by any stretch, but I don't want to be a DH, um, so I try— I'm trying to stay away from— I don't want to be known for eating food. That's not the goal here. So I feel like the Italian breakfast— stay away from all all food.

Probably just like coffee and a cigarette, right?

That's exactly what it is. Yes. I'm trying, I'm trying to be a bill of health here. So coffee and a cigarette doesn't, doesn't do it for me.

How, how pissed is your dad during this stretch that his name's Dennis? Like if he's hanging around with Team Italy and shit, that's, it's gotta, sorry, I know we talked about it last time you were on, but like this is the time that you need a, you need a Paul, a Christopher, a Vinny. Like, yeah, this is brutal.

Yeah.

Dennis, Dennis doesn't really fly, but he, he's busy with his high school team, so he, he's not even here.

Oh, okay.

He's got games of his own to win. So he's trying to get away from Team Italy a little bit and try to, he's focused on Spring Hill High School baseball right now, not Team Italy. So he's, he's very happy being Dennis at this current moment.

Okay. All right, good. So like if you guys, will he come down if you guys make it to the final?

Probably not. Oh, okay. He'll just watch on TV and rip my ass somehow.

Yeah. 'Cause he's Dennis. That's, I guarantee you.

Yeah. He's Dennis. He's, he's kind of not allowed.

Yeah. If he was Paulie, he would be down there and he'd be having the time of his life.

If he was Paulie, he'd be, he'd probably be on this interview in a, in a white tank top right now with a a few chains for everybody to see. There are, there's one of the guys' family, Gordon Grassefo, his family is wearing green jumpsuits to all the games with like, with the tank tops underneath and sunglasses. It's amazing. I think I'm about to order a few jumpsuits just to, if we do go to Miami, if we're fortunate enough to win on Saturday, make, make a nice impression down there.

This is awesome. This is like when, remember the summer when Jersey Shore, like the, the show kicked off and everyone just started dressing. You guys are basically doing a Jersey Shore like party mixed with high-level baseball.

Yeah. I'm trying to think of what the— what is it? Gym, tan, laundry. I'm trying to think of what it could be in baseball. I don't know. But yeah, we're having a good time. We're passing out wine postgame. Like it's, it's been incredible. This being able to lean into the Italian stereotypes and it being okay is great for a few weeks.

Yeah. Yeah.

This, this tournament, this tournament's awesome. You're wearing suits. Out to every game. Like, it's, it's good.

You need to get— if you guys get to the final, you need to get everyone's grandmother, everyone's Nona all together, because that's really what's probably, you know, getting everyone— everyone is just talking about their grandmother or grandfather and being like, yeah, the gravy they made. And, and yeah, they're all going to make their own—

they're all going to make their own gravy, their own sauce, and we're just going to have a pregame and postgame in the clubhouse if we make it to the final. It's gonna be— it's gonna be the most Italian celebration of all time.

Oh well, yeah. And then, and then you should go to Eleven afterwards. Italian national anthem.

We'll tell you about 11 later.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Probably don't know about it, but we'll tell you about it. Uh, Zach, you got a question for Vinny?

What's going on, Vinny? Good to, uh, Verge, to see you again.

All right, man.

I was just, I was curious, uh, I just, I do want to say I appreciate you so much for, you know, the blood, sweat, and tears you put into this, uh, Dingers Only season that was last year. And I was curious if given the opportunity, uh, what it would take to, you know, get you on an extension, you know, maybe pick you up for next year. Anything you need, I'll get it covered.

I want to finish my career on your Dingers Only team.

Okay.

I would love nothing more. I'd love nothing more than an extension with you. So you just, you have your people contact my agent and just let me know.

One Jersey guy.

I don't really got guys like that. I know you probably do, so I can reach out.

Yeah, perfect.

I got you. That's awesome. Thank you for your time.

Good job. Yeah, good question.

Max, you have a question?

Max, are you getting swept up a little bit in Team Italy?

I am. I love Team Italy. It's tough. Are you guys— you guys are— you guys wouldn't play US again until the final, right?

That's right. All right.

So we're in a good spot of I can still— I can now root for Team Italy fully and Team USA fully.

What are the chances—

see, you already asked me. You already asked my question. My question was, what are the chances that you saw that picture? You guys saw that picture of me catching. You're like, we got to get this guy out.

Yeah. Probably low.

Probably low. But like, I would have repeated—

we had a conversation last night with the GM where we were looking for a guy because one of our guys went down. I said, hey, I don't know if you've heard about this guy, his name's Max, he's on a podcast, he's ready to go.

There we go. That's all I needed to hear.

He was at Hofstra for half a season and he's ready to rock. 3 dingers.

3 dingers.

When you guys were going through the list of guys, uh, whose names ended in vowels in baseball, did anybody just like throw out like like Juan Soto. Yeah, just like as a heat check.

Like Soto, you know who texted me the other day and said, uh, he loved the opportunity to represent the Italians was Tommy Pham. So we're trying to, uh, we're trying to find a way to get Tommy, okay, to get Tommy with the Italians. Uh, we'll trace it, trace back his lineage and see what we got. But if he's from Italy, he's eligible.

Yeah. Um, all right, Vinnie, you're the best, man. I got one last question. Roback question. rhoback.com, promo code Take 20% off your first purchase. Q-Zips, polos, hoodies, joggers, shorts. rowback.com, promo code TAKE. Are you guys as a team like— I, I know this might sound wrong, but like, are you like rewatching The Sopranos or anything like in the clubhouse? That would be really cool.

Uh, no, we're not. We do have some Italian music because the— we do have like some— we have, I think we have 6 guys who are like playing the Italian league and are, you know, Purebred Italians is what I'm— what I've been calling them, right? Finish the game last night. Gabriele Quattrini, he finished the game for us last night. They're providing the, the music for us and the atmosphere of letting us know how to really get back to our Italian roots. Um, but no, no, no Sopranos. We've talked about it quite a bit, but a little bit of Godfather references, some Goodfellas in there. So, uh, we're really trying to get back to our roots with the Italian movies, uh, and conversations in there. But no, I haven't watched anything yet. But we do— if we, like I said, if we're fortunate enough to win Saturday. We've got another flight. Maybe we'll, maybe we'll lock in on Saturday with something.

Yeah.

So if you guys do win, is there going to be a trip to Italy? Are you going to go back? Have to get a parade.

Parade.

I don't know why the Pope hasn't invited us yet, but, but, uh, we'll, we'll see. We're waiting on the Pope to make it happen. Okay.

Yeah, you should never have to buy a cannoli for yourself ever in Italy if you guys win.

Yeah, exactly.

The Pope's in AWL for sure, so he'll hear this and he'll be like, oh shit, my Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Somebody will get back to him.

Yeah, absolutely. All right, Vinny, you're the best, man. Thanks for joining us, especially, uh, it's like 7 hours ago you hit 3 dingers in a huge game. You're an Italian-American hero, and, uh, we appreciate you, and we'll hopefully see you this summer when you come through Chicago.

Yeah, sounds good. Thanks, guys.

Vinny Pasquantino was brought to you by Chevy, our great friends over at Chevy. They know that football season's over, but you know how it goes. The minute the big game ends, we're already talking about what's next. Next, free agency, the draft, who's getting paid, who's grinding, because for football guys, there's no off-season. That's exactly why they roll with the Chevy Silverado. Silverado's the truck that shows up every time, built to haul, tow, built to take a beating, never fails a physical, but smart where it counts with modern tech that makes life easier. Big screens, they've got available camera views that help with towing and parking, and a cabin that feels right whether you're road tripping, heading to practice, or loading up for the weekend grind. During the season, it's the MVP of the tailgate. After the season, it turns into your training camp truck, hauling gear, tackling home projects, doing all the work that never stops. Because the grind doesn't take breaks, and neither does Silverado. Check out the current offers. Build your own Silverado at chevy.com. Learn more. Go to chevy.com and check out the Silverado today. And then Bill Raftery is brought to you by our great friends over at Body Armor.

If you're, uh, if you're up all night holding court at the hotel bar like Bill's been known to do a time or two, In the morning, you might want one of these Body Armor Flash IVs I got right here. We've got the strawberry kiwi right in front of me. It's a great way to rehydrate. Even if you had a tough workout, crush a Body Armor Flash IV. Long night out, Body Armor Flash IV. It's packed with electrolytes, delivers faster, longer-lasting hydration without any artificial dyes, flavors, or sweeteners. If you're training, if you're traveling, or if you're just feeling the heat, work hard, hydrate hard with Body Armor Flash IV. Grab yours today at 7-Eleven. And now here, here is Bill Raftery.

Okay, we now welcome on a very, very, very, very, very, very special guest. Probably the most special guest we could have on in March. It is the legend, recurring guest, Bill Raftery. He is, uh, we're getting ready for the madness. He's in New York City ready to call the Big East tournament. First of all, thank you so much, Bill, for coming back on. We love having you on. How excited— what's going through your head right now as we're on the precipice of the best couple of weeks of the year?

Well, when you— when I hear Barstool, it resonates. You know, it just has a nice ring to an Irish guy. But just the excitement. I think turning the page is the biggest thing for these kids and coaches. Like, you've gone through the gauntlet of a regular season. With the ups and downs, personalities, interference, people telling kids things that sort of distract from the success in some ways. But all of a sudden it goes away. You know, when you're, when you're good enough to obviously be a factor in your conference tournament, but also come NCAA time, I divide it into 3 schedules almost. Regular season tournament and then NCAA tournament. And I think each one brings a different personality. And I guess the one that wins sustains it the longest or brings it from one section to the rest. So, but in terms of the excitement, you know, we're in New York and excuse me, just walking around the streets, you know, another sellout for the Big East tournaments and You know, people, even though people thought the league was down, it's still very competitive. And obviously, you know, here rooting for their own team. But a lot of these people stay.

It's like a feast for them.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Which, which fan base at the Big East tournament is the rowdiest?

Wow. Well, again, when St. John's is good, obviously, which they are, you know, you've got a lot of these guys can afford the price of tickets.

Right.

So for the hand-me-downs, you know, UConn's got to be another one when you think of it. And then Villanova probably would be the third in terms of particularly local interest where a lot of those fan bases, the kids are from the local high schools here.

Yeah. Yeah. Bill, I just reached out to Dan Hurley yesterday when his brother was let go by Arizona State. We're advocating for the Hurleys to team up as a duo again and maybe get Bobby back on the sidelines for the NCAA tournament as an assistant coach. If you see him, just put that bug in his ear. Tell him America would love to see the guys back together.

Well, I saw him this morning at their shootaround, and we never broached the topic, but it's close to home, obviously, for him. But I think the referees union would be in protest of those two together. Just, yeah, you know, A very interesting combination, as you know. And some people always say to me, well, what was the father like on the sideline? And I said, he won all the games, so he was fine. The most he'd do is put his arms over his head once a game and say to the refs, you're kidding me, but not quite that way. And then sit down. He used to win 35 games a year.

Yeah, yeah.

But, you know, I wouldn't say it's like father like son. But, but I think the intent and the, uh, the aggression of, uh, how important every play is and how, you know, each game, uh, you know, Danny's still thinking about the Marquette game the other night about some of the things that they did wrong. And I'm sure he didn't bring up him and his actions, but, uh, I'm sure he's had conversations with his family and himself in the league. So it is an interesting idea, but I just don't think unless you had boxing gloves that it would work out.

The refs wouldn't know who to tee up. Yeah, they'd be, they'd be confused. They'd turn around and be like, I got double Hurleys. I guess I got to pick one.

No, they were, they were together at Wagner. Right.

Oh, yeah.

And from what I heard, that was interesting.

Yeah.

Yes. You know.

Yes.

Really strong-minded, aggressive kind of guys.

Yeah. So you said you're obviously there. You're talking to some of the coaches. Has Coach Pitino given you any inkling, the elder Coach Pitino, any inkling of when, if the white suit's going to come back out? Because we feel like that is the most unfair advantage a team could potentially have, is when Rick Pitino says, hey, it's a white suit game. You, you basically might as well not show up or get off the bus.

Well, you know, I didn't see him. I'm not doing his games this afternoon. Uh, you know, I'm just on tonight and then I leave tomorrow for the Big Ten on the weekend. But I wouldn't put it past Rick to reach back and buy most of the tickets that are available if it gets to the end of this thing and he's got to play a couple of these heavyweights.

Yeah.

Hey, listen, if it works, you know, I remember doing a game in Louisville and the, uh, he was perspiring and his underwear leaked into the white suit.

That happens with him.

Yeah, somewhat.

You might call havoc. It was very unusual. But I don't think I'll do the white suit here. I doubt it.

Yeah. By the way, you're more than invited to come by the Barstool offices this weekend if you have any free time. We're about an hour— sorry, we're about a mile from the United Center. So we'd love to have you come by and you can bring anyone you want. We have beer on tap for you.

So I would love it. But I think it's pretty, you know, we get in Friday. I stay in the room to look at the games.

Yeah.

You can't really go to the arena and watch, you know, you can't put your iPad on and see a game before kind of stuff. And then, you know, Saturday we got, we got a doubleheader and then Sunday get up to the game and then get on a plane and try and figure, well, they'll let us know either before we take off or a little later in the evening where we're going.

Yeah. Yeah. That was the nicest way to say not a shot. Well, I appreciate that. You let me down very easily.

Yeah, you know, just judging by the atmosphere there, I don't think it's what you'd call a fine dining spot.

That's true, you're absolutely right. All right, let's talk about the Big Ten tournament though. Um, Big Ten is, is loaded this year. There's a lot of really, really strong teams. When you look at a season where Purdue is the 7th seed and they were one of the top teams going into this year, what team right now do you think, outside of maybe Michigan, because that's obviously the answer to who's the best in the Big Ten. But what team are you most interested in playing really good ball right now that you're excited to watch?

You know, I'm curious to watch Purdue, to be honest with you. Now you've got time off to reflect. Do you, you know, sort of look at the lineup and say each opponent, should I play a little smaller? Should I play a little bigger? You've got experienced guys. I would think this is a great couple of days off for Purdue. You know, you know how good they can be. Of course, preseason prognostications don't always follow through. I had them in the Iowa State game and Iowa State really got after them. As you recall, it was a wipeout, basically. So I think they've had some games where they've learned lessons, I think, hope. They've learned some, you know, where Indiana or Northwestern, like, maybe fall asleep a little during the course of the game. So that intrigues me. The other one is without Kaysen, this is a little bit of a dilemma for Dusty.

Yeah.

By that, you don't have a guy that you could say is your backup point. I know he can shoot. He's a terrific defender. So Yaxel, now I think he'll be handling the ball more in that point forward kind of a concept. Now, you know, with Cadeau or without Cadeau, but McKinney is a kid we're going to see playing the NBA. So that's really not much of a comedown when you think of it.

Yeah.

So, but that team in a sense too. So those two sort of intrigue me. Michigan State, the, the bench plus Scott making shots have gotten to become a better team. You know, they're not the same team as they were 3 months ago. I know they lost at Michigan— excuse me, at Michigan. But, you know, they're a team that's— they're going to come and play the same way. Can your team do that? And I think that that's the key when you play Michigan State. But that's not slighting anybody else. You know, Nebraska is a dilemma with the 5 out and the way Mass plays, who can, you know, make shots outside and also load up in the lane. So I just think it's like a heavyweight. And I think that's part of the dilemma over the years. They beat the heck out of one another, you know, come tournament time. I think physically and mentally they're, they're somewhat whipped.

Yeah.

Now, the teams that have won the championships have all been pretty good since 2000. So that's another point of reference. But I just find that league is strenuous mentally and physically, maybe more so than any of the others in the country.

Yeah. What's, what's one team from the conference that you think can play their way into the tournament, solidly play their way in, not, not, you know, winning the conference tournament, but win enough games, play themselves off the bubble, which—

wow, that's an interesting Are you giving Miami a bid?

I mean, I, I would do that. Yeah. Yeah.

I think you go undefeated in regular season for the, for the full season.

I think you should get in. Yeah. It should mean something.

I thought Indiana before you posed this question.

Nope.

But I think Ohio State is, is one that can really help themselves. You know, they've been close. They've been like Virginia Tech when Seth The great— was down there, who's on the bubble every year, if you remember. But, uh, I think Ohio State has an opportunity to do some damage.

Yeah, yeah, Seth Greenberg.

Yeah, the, uh, Indiana— I mean, they, they are— they're such a disappointment. They, they lose to Northwestern on Wednesday night, their, their season's over. The fact that we're even considering them still on the bubble kind of actually speaks to how soft the bubble is this year, where teams just are losing. Like, you have a Texas who is on the bubble. They lose to Ole Miss. All these teams that feel like they can make a move have all kind of faltered at the exact same time. So it's, it's interesting to watch that happen.

So, you know, you guys as a fan look at it one way, and I say going into that game, uh, the way Chris Beard guards, to me that's an even game.

Yeah.

Like, you know, we take for granted that you should win it because of certain reasons, and And you don't realize how demanding it is to compete. You know, he lost to Auburn, gave them a heck of a run in the Sweet 16, if I'm not mistaken, last year. But, you know, it's tough and you pay for your sins. I think you have to schedule strong in November and December and you've got to win those games or else you're going to be on the bubble within your conference. Come this time of year. So it pays to do well there. The one thing about Indiana I found— and again, I know everybody is, you know, threes and tough twos, you know, the, the clinic kind of conversation— you've got to still score in the low post area. It's like, you know, do you go 4 times in a row taking a 3 and come up empty, or maybe get a 2 here so it goes 10 to 4? Yes, 12-2. So I think that was part of, uh, you know, some of the reasons they struggled a little bit, because they weren't making shots and they could key on their best players, which there were some.

But, uh, I just think you got to have a well-rounded approach where you can score with threes and, you know, you know, by the guy— the guards turn in the corner, find people and your bigs able to finish at the rim or offensive rebound kickout threes. That, I mean, that's obviously the best shot in the game right now.

Yeah, Darren DeVries actually said, I saw a quote where he was like, you know, first year in the Big Ten, one of the things that he's learned is like that the 4-5 position, you need, you need big bodies. They're, they're just, there's just guys that are, you know, if you, if you look across the league, Purdue's always got a monster Michigan with Mara. Yeah, like there's guys just, just massive, massive guys. You know, the freshman in Washington, like there's guys that are just monsters and you need to have that to compete in the Big Ten, which speaks to what you're saying about beating each other up.

Yeah, you got to hire armed guards to help you underneath, you know. Yeah, but it is the physicality is one thing. Obviously, the ability of the foreman to play out on the floor is a major issue if you do play bigger. Bigger. And that, that's like a really important thing, you know.

Yeah.

And then getting back to Purdue, that's what I find interesting too. Clough and Wren are very tough to defend against. Uh, does Matt fool around for minutes playing Wren where he's a monster in that low post with the floater? And, uh, he's, you know, he's got a counter as well. So that, you know, bringing them back into the conversation Their physical play is impressive. And Jacobson, another big kid who can pick and pop. So, you know, size is important and points inside are important not to be overlooked.

Right.

What about an interesting team in the Big Ten, Nebraska? They've had a great season, still haven't won an NCAA tournament game, but everyone's expectation this year is obviously this would— this should be the year where they find some success in March. What should the expectation be for Nebraska if we, if we just thought of them as a team that, that did not have this, this past that's just kind of hanging over their heads? Like, what should the real expectation for this Cornhuskers team be?

You know, digressing for a moment, I think it was Rick Cobb, Al McGuire. I'm making it up. But Al McGuire, Rick Cobb told Al, I think I should be starting. And he said, ahead of home, he said, your son, Allie. And Al McGuire said, I think it was Rick, could have been another player, Rick, I like you, but I love my son. And you look at this Nebraska team, when your son plays, he's got to be the best player or the worst player. And that kid exemplifies what college sports is all about. He is fantastic. And that, you know, there's better players on the team. There's guys who can shoot better. But I think he just drives the spirit of the unit. I don't think his dad has to do much of that, the emotional end of things, but they can score, which is really, you know, in the tournament, it's hard to score sometimes. Kids think a little more, is this a good shot? They don't have the rhythm or the comfort zone of a home crowd. But I think to your point, I think this team can do some damage, to be honest with you.

You know, I mentioned Mass before. He's a very unusual guy to have to guard. Bukenthal, I'm not saying his name right, but the kid from UCLA, you know, he gives them some size and some strength. They've got outside shooters. Jacobsen can make shots, Franklin can make shots. So, you know, they're, they're, they're a really solid basketball team. I don't know how deep they can go, but I, but I do think there's promise of winning a game.

Obviously, I saw an interview with you the other day and they brought up the double onions call that you made. Is there any chance that we're going to get a double onions this March?

Do you know who that was against?

No, no. Who was that?

Well, it was Siena against Ohio State. And Ronald Moore was the kid who makes it. It was at Dayton. He makes a shot at the buzzer to tie it. So that was the onions. And then, you know, he makes the winning 3 and that was the double onions.

That's right. Yeah.

And Fran McCaffrey was at his wedding and they got— they called me at home from the wedding years later. You know, they say it, say it again, you know, kind of a thing, which was pretty funny. But anyhow, I, you know, these conference tournaments, to answer you, yes, I hope we do get them in the tournament as well. But I do think there's an evenness around the country that, you know, the first weekend there's going to be great games that maybe the first day we didn't have other years. I just think there's a lot of talented teams that that, you know, are gonna be hanging around and trying to steal it late. So I, I think this might be one of those years.

Yeah. Yeah. What's the most impressive team you've watched or maybe impressive performance that you've called this year?

I was impressed with Arizona on the road to Connecticut.

Yeah.

Early on. And, and a lot of the better teams I've had beat the opponent easily.

Mm-hmm.

But from a distance, I had Duke, Florida State. Unfortunately, with these injuries now with Duke, Gamba, I believe, and I don't know factually, will be back. Foster, I don't think. It sounds like he's out. But the twin, Caden, has really shown strides where it's not, you know, the most— well, you never want to lose a kid of that talent, but defensively it's maybe a drop-off just a little bit.

It.

But I'm impressed with Duke able to take on everybody. And what the big kid, you know, Cameron, the bigger of the two, I should say, of the twins, the positions he can play, that he is a nightmare to defend. Who do you put on him? The unselfish play. I like to compare him to Cooper Flagg because he never forces the game to come to him. He's a different player than Flagg, obviously. But he's just one of those what-do-you-need-right-now kind of kids. And it doesn't come from John suggesting it. He just has that innate ability to read and know it's time to post up, it's time to cut, it's time to make a 3, it's time to screen and slip. You know, he guards and, you know, they certainly have to protect them on the defensive end because, you know, without him, they're not quite as good.

Yeah.

Yeah. We've got a guy here, our good friend Rico Bosco. He's actually a Staten Island guy. Huge hoops fan. When I told him you were coming on, he was, he was like, oh my gosh, I can't believe you got Raftery again. He's the best. So he had a couple questions for you. We have him in the, in the booth. Rico, uh, go ahead, fire away.

Uh, yeah, Bill, we actually met in Houston. You gave me a couple minutes of your time, so thank you for that at the Final Four.

Rico, what high school?

Zavarian.

Okay, yeah, we had a lot of kids, St.

Peter's, Yep, we, uh, we actually won the city in '05. You called some of LeVance's games.

Oh, okay.

Yeah, so, um, you guys basically are family.

And then he gave you some of his time in Houston.

Yeah, he's a great guy. Uh, one of my favorite things on the broadcast is when Jay or Jim, they talk about, you know, you holding court, um, after the games, uh, putting away a couple of beverages, hanging out. Who are some of your favorite coaches to, uh, to hang out worth?

Uh, most of them were deceased, unfortunately, at this point, you know. Uh, I had nothing to do with their demise. Maybe I contributed a little. Uh, you know, Jay Wright was great win or lose. Uh, let's see, Louie at Dante's used to hold court win or lose. A lot of guys can't handle the lost night, you know, but Let's see who else. Tom Young at Rutgers years ago. Oh, well, trying to think. I'd love to say John Wooden, but, you know, certainly I don't think he was much of a hang guy. He just kept winning championships.

Yeah. Yeah.

Let's see, around the league.

Is there—

is Beheim— if he won?

Yeah, I was going to say, is there a loser in the world?

Okay.

That was my question going to be is like, is there a guy that there was absolutely 0% chance that you would ever text or call after a loss?

He beat PJ and I could be wrong, either 24 or 26 straight times. They went out to dinner every night. PJ finally won in like the middle, just, you know, a couple of years before he made the tour, you know, made the finals. Beheim wouldn't go out. He refused to go out. It's like, talk about a sore, you know, sore loser, obviously.

Yeah.

Dave Gavitt would have been one because it was both coach and D.D. and then Big East only because of his grasp of the climate of college sports, you know. Yeah. He was always Donald D. Rowe, God bless him, was another guy. He didn't drink, but he made you drink kind of. You know, he had lasting power and a great sense of humor. But I'm sure when I get off, I'll think of some of the other— Ed Dunahoo was the Kings coach, but he was at Niagara. He recruited Calvin Murphy. We had it. We had an agreement either way he would go out some nights, regrettably, because he, you know, wasn't worried about a curfew.

Good question.

Good question.

Great question.

Yes.

You ever go out with Coach K? Would he hit the bar?

Yes.

Yeah. Coach K liked his wine, you know. But, you know, at Army— at Army, generally they would go back, you know, in the ECAC tournament. We had a very good friendship. It was— all my friendships were good with coaches because they usually beat me.

Right.

So we got along. We got along well. But Mike would be in the Dave Gavitt category where it would always be interesting, his take on the current climate.

Yeah.

And I have not said this to him, but I'd love him to step in the middle of this thing and, you know, maybe get some respect from Congress and sort of square it away a little bit. You know what's going on.

But for another discussion, I listen, I'd love it, too. But I don't think Coach K doesn't seem like a guy who's going to come in and like make the thing about himself. You know, so he's, he's not going to get involved.

No, but he would make it about the game.

Right, right.

Which, you know, I think, uh, that, that's foremost in his thinking, you know.

Yeah, I think he cares about, you know, Duke basketball. I, I don't think he would do things that would impact other teams' kids.

Yeah, right.

He's, he got— he's focused on, on what happens in that building. Do you think— has Coach K reached out? Has he been active at all this year with Duke? Because I know he had, you know, the office in the building.

He goes to the game. Regrettably, I have not talked to him, which I do almost always. I usually call and say hello when I see him on air, which I did recently, but I have not talked to him. But I know he's enjoying what John's done, you know, like, you know, sticking with high school kids and being able to get the best players and, you know, just fantastic beginning of this kid's career as a coach. He's very grounded, John. He's got great insights. He really talks to a lot of coaches, particularly NBA guys. He's got a great relationship, one with Joe Mazzulla. So I think the better coaches keep growing. They keep, you know, they're— they investigate or they, they try and pick people's brains Uh, because I, I don't think he can stand still anymore.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Uh, Rico, you have another question?

Yeah. Uh, I don't know if he's much of a drinker, but the other stories I love hearing— my favorite coach of all time, Rick Majerus. You ever share a meal with him? Famous eater.

Uh, we, we, we— he was very friendly with our kids. Uh, I— yes, I, uh, Casa Dante in Jersey City. Uh, we were at the ABC camp. And we— it's now closed, was really one of the great restaurants. And we sat down and he said to the waiter, give me all of the appetizers. So we started, and he would eat some of each dish, and if he really liked it, he would finish those dishes.

I love that. I love that.

We were, we were, we were in El Paso, Texas, uh, you tell cap. And the Bear was the coach, Haskins. And we said, where should we go? It was a late game. He said, well, the only place open is the truck stop. So we went to the truck stop. And I ordered a beverage. He used to like umbrella drinks. He wasn't much of a drinker. It was sort of embarrassing, this big strong guy, you know, having an umbrella in his But the waitress came over and he pulled the table next to us in and did the same thing. So he ordered the appetizers and then he ordered a few meals. And I had a white egg omelet. I felt like I was a little altar boy sitting next to him. But having said that, brilliant, incredible understanding of the game. His people skills were beyond the norm. And such a quality human being. Just enjoyed eating and partaking of conversation. Very sad to lose him at such a young age. He was, you know, he had a lot to do with Al's success. He and Hank Raymond. Yeah, they were sobering influence. And I don't mean alcohol, just the way they looked at things.

And, you know, get in the house here.

Yeah. Yeah. It's honestly a joy to talk to you because I can, I can tell you still love the game. You still love basketball. Is there something like this time of year that gets you especially fired up?

Yeah. Well, you know, being with Jim when he started, Jim Nance, years ago, I did his first two games, I think, with him, one in Arkansas, one in Miami. Miami, and I did his first studio show. Then we did games, and then of course, you know, he became the prime number one. And then to get back with him late in my career, uh, was, was sort of a, you know, just a thrill in a lot of ways. So I went from him being a young guy coming from Utah where he did the study— wasn't from Utah, but he did the pro team there— and then to have Ian Eagle, who I spent 8 years with sort of at the end of my career, who's one of the up-and-coming— well, he's there— superstars. And having been a friend of his doing net games because it was, you know, anybody who wants to announce should do pro teams that struggle and you're trying to figure out how to get through 4 quarters of a 15-win season. Yeah. Bird was magical and brought the same energy. And, you know, obviously for me watching him, it certainly rubbed off.

So those bookends and in the middle to have Vern. Vern was a problem because we'd come back from dinner and a very festive night with everybody. And the bar at the hotel would be open. And he'd look at me and he'd say, should we have one more? And of course, I would say, why not? And then we go over and all the young people, all the young guys on the crew and gals would come. But so I've been very fortunate to be— and I'm leaving a lot of names out, but that's made my life really enjoyable to be in partnership with so many talented guys.

Yeah, absolutely. Well, Bill, we'd love having you on. I had one last question, the rollback question. R.H.O.B. Roback.com, promo code TAKE, 20% off your first purchase. Q-Zips, polos, hoodies, joggers, shorts. Roback.com, promo code TAKE. And it's actually, uh, I'm gonna give it to Rico because I know Rico's got— he's probably got like 10 other questions. Rico, why don't you hit him? Why don't you hit him with 2 more? Because he— Rico is just a college basketball guy through and through, and he loves you. And so we thought it'd be cool for him to be part of this. So Rico, go ahead if you got a couple more.

Just one. I'll give him one last one. Uh, you'll be in Indy, obviously. We'll be in Indy. I'd love to buy you a drink at the pump party, if that could be my honor.

Like, you know, bad last question. That's a deal. That's a deal.

All right, awesome. I'll have to get your number, add you to the Rolodex if you're okay with that.

You don't want that, Coach.

We'll organize it.

I don't want that.

But, uh, yeah, I appreciate that, Bill. That would be a lifelong honor. So first one's on me.

Okay, I lost. I lost the—

okay, all right, perfect.

Rico has agreed to pay for one drink.

Yes, first one's on one drink.

Yeah, you're gonna ask one more question?

Yeah, give him a real basketball question, Rico. Come on.

All right, who's the pick to win the title? I mean, it's obviously top-heavy, but you know, a lot of people sometimes can go outside the box. Is it just going to be chalky like it is last year, or who's the team you think is, is cutting them down?

Uh, I know they've had a couple of bumps on the road. I'm not giving up on Houston.

Oh, smart man.

There are two freshmen, are Sanak and Flemings, are the real deal. The guy on the sideline is just amazing what he gets to do on the defensive end. And I think in the tournament, we talked a little bit about offense. You really got to be a good offensive team to score against Houston. Now, there's other teams that are really good and talented, you know, Arizona, Florida. I like a lot. They're coming on. But, you know, just something about this Houston team that they're being overlooked and nobody mentions them much.

Much.

And I just— so I know they bring toughness every day they're on the floor, much less during games.

Yeah. Okay, well, Bill, thank you so much. We appreciate it. And, uh, you know, have a great March, and we'll see you in Indy.

I look forward to it, guys. Thanks for having me.

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Henry, get us going.

I—

my Fire Fest of the week is that I got a flat tire while driving to work. In your sick car? In my sick car. I wanted to trade it in. Yeah, I've had— I've had— I feel like I might be getting banged by the dealership just because I brought it in, got everything fixed. Felt like I've got banged a little bit there, but it was just like, oh, you need to get this fixed and we recommend you do this, this, and this. I I was like, fuck it, just do it all, then I won't have to come back anymore. I've since had to go back 3 times. This one, I think there was just a puncture in my tire.

So why'd you drive over a nail? I think they said it was a pothole, potentially.

Yeah, look out for those. By the way, this just popped in my head, like, why there should be a service, just guy for hire, that he's not a mechanic, so he doesn't have a mechanic shop, but he knows everything about cars. He takes your car into the mechanic shop. Shop and just make sure you don't get banged. Yeah, yeah, he knows everything. You just—

he comes, picks it up.

As a man, that's tough.

I would do it. Yeah, a lot of times guys are too embarrassed to admit that sometimes we need husbands too.

Yeah, right.

That's an awesome idea.

I think this is a great idea. I would spend a lot of money.

Yeah, for that service. Pick you up, pick up your car, take it to the, to the auto shop, and be like, hey man, whatever happens, I trust you, you're gonna get me the best deal.

I'm willing more than 100 because him just picking it up and getting it there is also service within its own.

Yeah. Well, what about— what about talking on the phone? I feel like if the mechanic calls you, you can at least look it up online. No, you need face to face. I got it. Because like, I've got— I've gotten banged by a few mechanics in my day. Trust me.

But mechanics last like a year and a half. But mechanics can smell guys who know cars. So like, they know— they'll immediately just be right in line like, oh, this guy knows cars.

I'm not fucking with this. I think my current mechanic and I have a good understanding. The first question he asked me was like, you carry When I brought my car in, yeah, like, you care? And I go, absolutely I do. And so he respects me as a gun owner. Yeah. But yeah, no, you have to, you have to just like kind of go along with what they say with confidence.

Yeah.

So we need to get this service, okay?

And we could call it Husbands for Guys. Yeah.

Like, it's actually not just for Craigslist. Yeah, Craigslist.

And say I'm looking for a husband. Look, yeah, it could be for a lot of stuff, like a guy coming over to like look at your roof.

Yeah.

Clean your gutters. Yeah. Help with a tree in the backyard.

Hard. I saw a kid on the street doing the, uh, like those, those videos I think we've talked about on the show where they, they clear the gutters, like they're all blocked by leaves and they— the guy like goes and finds them and clears them out. I saw someone just doing that the other day.

Yeah, respect. Like, there's a lot of talk these days about, you know, like the masculinity crisis in America. I don't think we have a masculinity crisis. I think we have, uh, being open about our masculinity crisis. Like, it's okay to say, hey guys, I'm kind of a bitch when it comes to this.

Not all of us can hammer in a nail like Dave, right? So you could, you could get on the phone, be like, hey, can you come over? I need you to take my car into the shop. Can you cook this steak for me?

Yeah.

Bang my wife. Like all this stuff, like stuff that guys should not be afraid to ask.

The masculinity crisis is really that we are scared to be called bitches when really we should just be open about it and be like, hey, I need a husband for this. Yeah. So he's gonna take my car in, he's gonna get it fixed, he's gonna bring it back, and I'm gonna keep my pride as a human being and as a man intact. But also, you shouldn't have driven over that nail.

Yeah, that was your fault. Well, it was two things. It was, it was kind of thrilling, uh, because I got in the car and it's like my, my low tire pressure thing went off, and I'm like, surely that's just an error because I just, I just got it fixed two months ago. And then I started driving, I'm like, this doesn't feel good. I got out, my tire was basically completely flat.

And so the drive—

it's not a sick car— on a flat tire to the dealership is I was like, this is kind of exciting, but a little bit scary. And then the second thing is like, despite everyone besides, you know, everyone is like, there's no need for you to get a new car. But it's like, I kind of want to get a sick car.

Yeah.

You've been sick car cocked.

Yeah. By both of us.

Hank's up now. He's next.

We both got sicker cars than you.

Our cars are way sicker than yours. And now you're a little bitch with a flat tire.

You got—

well, no, I'm good now. You got—

no, it's a good family car. Mm-hmm. Yeah. You could fit like one, one baby and a dog. Well, yeah, I don't have baby or dogs, right?

I know, but that's what I'm saying. Like, you're like going to soccer practice, that sort of thing.

It's a very functional—

good for like a righty set of golf clubs and a lefty set of golf clubs.

You fit both your kids in there. Yeah. Do you think the day that when, when, when you're on your deathbed many, many years from now— and I want you to live a long, long life— do you think your golf clubs will show up for to, to comfort you?

You?

Yeah.

Okay.

Are you gonna— are you gonna leave stuff to your golf clubs?

Yeah. You think your golf clubs will hold your hand as you— as you go into the great unknown?

Probably.

Okay, good. Hopefully take them with you. He's got his pitching wedge in his hand as he's slowly slipping into death.

Yeah, bring your sand wedge for when they lower you down into the ground. I think that there's definitely been some doctors that have like gone into a room, somebody's passing away, and the guy's like, can you bring me my driver?

Just like, go out. Hold on, let me hold it. Let me, let me get one more practice swing.

Yeah, I think I fixed something here.

I figured something out. I got my grip. Yeah, I got my grip dialed in. Let me just make sure I go to heaven with my grip ready to go. All right, so sick car no longer and flat tire should have driven over a nail and you're a bitch for getting banged at the auto mechanic shop.

Yeah.

Okay.

All right. That's good.

Firefest, possibly future sick car. Possibly future sick car.

I need to, by the way, wait, wait, wait, wait. What are we thinking there, Hank?

What are you about to say? Say I need, I need to get in an accident that totals this car so that I don't, I have no choice but to get a new car. That sounds, I wasn't going to say that. I didn't say that.

I think I was thinking it gets in an accident. He's like, are my golf clubs okay? He just runs out out.

He's like, oh no, they're bent. Hank, I, uh, I think you just loan your car to Menzi for a little bit. Mhm.

And like, Jesus, take the wheel.

Let him go to break.

You could sell it to Zach for $3.

Oh, Zach, is Zach in the market for a car? Zach's not a driver. We've learned that.

He's been in 7 accidents.

Everybody who crashes gets back behind the wheel.

True.

No, that's not true.

That's true. Like, no, there are fatal crashes all the time.

What do you mean?

Those are really unfortunate.

People who die.

What about the guy from, uh, that's worse case, hope everybody's okay. But no, everyone's not okay. Like, when you are okay, you got to get back behind the wheel.

Who's the F1 guy that got his face burned off?

I made a movie about it. I don't know. Not sure. Ford or Ferrari?

You're talking about F1? Brad Pitt?

No, it was Chris Hemsworth. Schumacher?

Maybe.

No, Schumacher got in a, a ski accident, and he basically did the most dangerous sport his entire life, retired third and then got a skiing accident and hasn't been seen since. Actually, really sad story. Rush, Rush, Rush, Rush.

Okay, good. Firefest. I only care about Conor Daly when it comes to race car drivers. He's racing, by the way. He's back. He's racing at the Indy 500.

Nice.

Going hard on Conor.

You got this, Conor.

You got it in like 2 months. Yeah, but they just announced it like yesterday.

Niki Lauda. Got it. Got his face burned off and then got back in the—

got back behind the wheel.

Remember our F1 phase?

That was funny. Yeah, I never, never was able to—

I was into it. I tried.

I was the first— well, no, the, the first 2 seasons of, uh, Drive to Survive are really good. Then I was like, I'm gonna try to watch a race, and that's when—

yeah, it kind of fell off a cliff. Same. I was like, oh, it's perfect, it's like early in the morning, I can watch it before the day gets started, and then I turn it I was like, nah, I still generally like following from a distance. I like to know. No, actually, no, I know.

I don't even like a few weeks can go by, but I'm like, oh, who's in the lead? Like, yeah, but yeah, I haven't— the new Drive to Survive came out.

I don't really have much of an interest in watching.

I would say it's now F1 is— is— is— I watched them. I cried. I cried. I watched the— do you know you cry on planes because of the altitude?

So what is that?

What they told you?

I did not know that. I was like, I watched, I watched the F1 movie on a plane. I wasn't even that into it. And then at the end I was like tearing up. Yes. And I was like, I was like, I wasn't even, I didn't even like the movie that much, but like the end got me. And they're like, oh, it's because you're on a plane.

That's the thing. Yes. I actually, I actually shouldn't be judging because I got a little teary-eyed today seeing a, uh, a mashup video of dudes surprising dudes after not seeing each other for like 20 years. It was like my dad's 70th birthday. He hasn't seen his best friend in like 10 years and he just shows up and I got a little teary-eyed.

Yeah. No, I do think there's something to what Hank's saying, though. I watched this. I watched The Smashing Machine on a plane and I started to cry. I was like, this movie is not even sad.

Yeah.

The F1 movie, I was just like, it was on and I was like, it was fine. But then the very end, I was like, I, you know, whatever. Spoiler, he like wins a race or whatever. And I started tearing up.

Up.

I was like, why am I crying? But F1 is in the camp now where I'm never going to seek it out. If someone tells me, I'll be like, oh, that's interesting. Yeah. Push, push.

Yeah. Push, push, push.

Okay.

Yeah. For me, I feel like that movie is no different than Ford v Ferrari.

Same movie.

Ford v Ferrari. Way better movie.

Way better. Same movie. Way better.

F1 is a fun movie.

It's a good plane movie.

Yeah, it's very fun. But I had no emotional connection yet.

Still teared up. So good ending. Top Gun 2 is the best plane movie. My Fyre Fest of the week, actually pretty good week.

Not a lot to complain about except what? What? It's a block. Whatever.

That's technicality. What I'm talking about, movies to watch on a plane.

Yeah.

He's saying he likes to watch plane movies on planes.

Yeah. I feel like you're in— that's like a block.

It's best environment. Yeah.

F1 is also a huge blockbuster. I think I might just cry on planes because I— because I love aviation and it's beautiful. Yeah, like, this is great. Having a wonderful time. But yeah, I had a pretty good week. I had a good clean week overall. The one thing, just quick one, we got some, some medicine delivered to the office this week.

And you guys got some medicine?

I haven't yet.

I got mine yet.

You haven't got a confirmation yet? I got— it'll arrive. Okay, it'll arrive. Mine got to the office on Tuesday. And it involves injecting myself. And so I opened up this big box filled with these hypodermic needles. I felt like a junkie when I was taking it. I was like, we got to store these needles in the office. And then I've never been a needle guy. When I go to the doctor, if I'm getting a shot, I'm always like a look away guy. Same. I can't watch that. I'm okay, I can, I can deal with the shots. I just don't like to watch them go in. So now I have to inject myself, and I'm not good at it, is my Fyre Fest. I'm not good at shooting up. So I got it, I got to do it in two places. One is the back of my leg leg, which I'm good at. I can inject it into my calf to try to get that healed. The second one is my ass.

And I always thought to people, my ass, my ass, my ass.

So, yeah, uh, I always thought that I would be like— the whole point of injecting stuff in your ass is that it's easy to inject it into your ass. I can't shoot into my own ass. I— first time I struggle with that. First time I tried it, you need someone else to shoot it into your ass. I need, I need an ass. I need somebody to—

Zach, load up my ass.

Zach will do it. Yeah, if you can shoot it in the—

find a cheek. I got you. Okay, okay, perfect.

Max and I talked about—

well, no, he needs it in the ass.

No, he needs it in the ass.

Yeah, I thought it was on cheek. Yeah, yeah, the cheek of my ass. In my—

yeah, in my ass cheek.

Yeah, we'll shoot it straight in your ass cheek. Yeah, exactly. So Max and I were talking about like, we should just— because we're all gonna have this— it's probably good for the dudes, better dudes. Yeah, we might have to shoot in your ass. Yeah, we might have to just do like a circle of us injecting stuff into each other's asses.

Yeah.

Because first time I will be letting you guys guinea pig this, by the way.

I'm not—

I don't—

well, first, none of this sounds appealing.

First time I did it was necessary. It was technically when Billy did it to my arm and it worked. But my leg does feel better since I've been shooting up my calf. But it's been like 2 days.

My ass, it's like— I did— I think he actually said it 10 seconds after he put it in.

He's like, wow, I feel good. Yeah, no, my calf feels great. My calf feels really good, but my ass, it's like the first time I did it, I didn't get low enough because I'm shooting from above.

So I think I like—

you basically did in your lower back.

I don't know how you did. I hit the muscle the first time, which meant that I didn't get the needle in all the way. And then I injected it and then I had like a bump. So I'm just— and then I injected in my stomach yesterday instead, and then I had a little bump filled with the liquid. So I'm just— I'm just taking bumps all day, like a bump every every day, but the cat feels wonderful. Do it like Christopher, put in your toe. In between my toes? They'll never tell.

Behind my eyeballs.

Cosette crawled under there for warmth. Yeah, I don't want to— I don't want to sit on Blake and kill him like Christopher did to Cosette. But, um, yeah, so just like injecting myself with peptides is not—

no, I'm not a drug guy.

No.

Um, okay, I have two real quick. What first is, I went to a I went to my son's friend's birthday party, 7-year-old birthday party, and it was at Slugger's, which people who maybe don't know Wrigleyville, Slugger's is a famous bar where they have batting cages upstairs. And I've spent a lot of time at Slugger's in my 20s, blackout drunk. So being there for a 7-year-old birthday party was quite an experience and shock to the system.

Stone cold sober.

What's it like when you're sober? There. Weird. It was like 11 AM on a Saturday and it was literally my son's friend's birthday party. And then right next to it was a bachelor party. So it was, it was open to the public. Yeah. Shout out those guys though. The bachelor's name was Paul and they all had Chris Paul jerseys, different teams.

That's a great, great— awesome. We got to think of something with Max.

Yeah.

Yeah, we got to think of something.

What do you think, Max? Beads? I got nothing.

Beads.

Um, but yeah, it was just—

I don't know if you guys have had this experience, uh, suits.

Yeah, like racing suits. Going somewhere, um, that you have like done debaucherous stupid shit, but as like a sober adult in charge of a young little kid is very bizarre feeling.

Like, I mean, a little bit of a date slugging is bizarre.

It was crazy. There's like 4 video games at work. We found one video game that just spit out— all you do is press a button and spit out tickets. That's all we did. We just, we just sat there and just, and got tickets.

In terms of a 7-year-old birthday party, it's like that— I feel like the floor has way too much beer that's been spilled on it. Oh yeah.

For a 7-year-old's birthday. I mean, people were drinking at 11:00 AM at the party. Like, it was like, again, it was a— the bar was open. So it was quite an experience. And then the other one was on Monday, Max and I went. So I can't talk too much about it because I'm in a movie. I got a part in a movie that's coming out hopefully sometime in the next year. But what I can talk about is Max and I learned something on Monday that changed our lives forever. Are you guys familiar with French hours?

Do you know what French hours are?

I'm interested.

I sound like—

it sounds like something I might be interested in. You guys are interested? So Max and I showed up, the call time was 6 AM, and they're like, hey, we're doing French hours. And Max and I were like, what is that? And they explained it to us. And then Max and I both did a fist pump and high five. 5, so that might give you an inkling to what French hours might be. You just eat the whole time? The whole time. Exactly. There's French hours. We have grapes. No lunch break.

No lunch break, but rolling food all day.

Every 2 hours, brand new spread.

I was—

when we say rolling food, it was 6 AM omelets, 8:30 sandwiches, 10 o'clock, uh, chicken tenders and Indian food.

Food, uh, 1 o'clock pasta, 3 o'clock tacos. This doesn't make a lot of— like, in France, you go to lunch for— you take off work for 3 hours, and then a lot of times you just don't go back to work.

So that's the whole— I think they do this to keep the French at work, to keep them happy. Yeah. So it's like, okay, we're not doing— we're not doing lunch breaks, and we're gonna end 2 hours early. Yeah, that stinks, we're not doing lunch break, but you just get an insane amount of food all day.

And Max and I look like the biggest losers because it's like an actual movie set, and everyone Everyone there is working and they've worked in this industry and we're just walking around like I was. There was a point where I was just walking around with chicken tenders in my hands, just going, French hours, got to love them. And everyone's like, dude, what? What are you talking about? French hours, though. We also realize that we do French hours every Sunday in this office.

Yeah, French hours is how we live life.

Yeah, it's like French Super Bowl. You just can never take a break.

You just have to keep, keep eating. Like in between.

Yeah.

Every halftime you get up, you have another snack.

And we took it as a challenge. We ate every single course that came out.

Every single one. I at least had tried every course.

Tacos, we didn't, we didn't try the tacos. French hours, way of life. You got to get on French hours.

All right, Zach, finish this off. My fire fist this week is, uh, so we live here in Chicago. There's a big body of water. We've got a lake and we've got a river. I made it to the river for the first time this week. I took a route from the apartment on foot foot. My fire fest suggested I may have wasted an entire year inside because I— you guys are right, the river's sick.

The river is awesome.

Zach lives a 20-minute walk from the river. I thought you guys were kind of just like hyping it up a little, like it may be a little bit overrated. Completely well-rated. I may have wasted several months inside of my apartment.

So you like the river?

What about the lake? Haven't seen the lake yet, but like, I'm getting to that next.

Zach, let me tell you, if you like the river, you're gonna I love the lake. It's way more water.

It's sick, dude.

Yeah.

So I come to you guys with open arms and an apology.

You were right.

I told you guys.

It's pretty cool.

No, I know. This is me. I would tell him this once a week. I would be like, Zach, you live so close to the river. Just get outside. 20-minute walk to the river. You'll feel good. Every week.

Every week I would say.

This is me acknowledging that you guys were right. Okay. But also you are equipped better than anyone I've ever seen for Chicago winters because you do not leave your apartment.

That was a— that was a skill I didn't know I had.

But yes. Yeah, you have that. It's a survival skill.

You're a survivalist. And we did go— I did go just recently installed third monitor. So if we need to stay inside again, I'm ready.

Oh, okay.

So you're not going to go see the lake? I will see the lake in due time. You got to see the lake.

You guys are right. You're a Florida guy, right? That's true.

In Florida, would you go outside?

No.

Yeah, I would be outside.

It's a different outside though.

Don't lie.

Yeah, exactly. Let me rephrase it.

Different outside.

You were here this summer. He's not an outside guy.

He would go to Target. And that's— Florida, how many hours a day would you spend outside?

Uh, a day?

Or like per week?

He was about to say 3 per week. Day. So we're gonna go less than an hour a day.

I did— do we count driving with the windows down?

No. 3 hours? Kind of, actually.

Like, I could be talking— no, a day.

3 hours a day?

Be outside?

Well, We have— we got like an inside— at the house it's like indoor-outdoor living. You pop the sliding glass door so then you're like kind of outside, kind of in, hit a lap. Right, so that sounds—

yeah, pool. So the pool, like, I think accessible pool.

How often would you be hitting laps? I like the pool a lot. The pool's nice. The pool in my apartment is just not as accessible because it's like you got to be hot.

I think it has to be hot.

No, attractive.

You got to be— oh, only, only, only adults who are tans are at that. Is it indoor-outdoor?

No, it's just outdoor. Outdoor. Outdoor.

Outdoor.

You're hot enough to go to the pool. You should see this pool, Big Cat.

Yeah, I mean, you should see you.

You should see you at the pool. No, you should see you at the pool.

If you're a hot body, what?

Pods out for the summer? Yeah, I should go to a little pool day.

We'll do a pool day at Zach's place. I think we got to do baby steps here. We got to say pool day.

And then I put the over-under at 1.5 times that you go to the lake this summer.

Summer.

I'm making it once for sure.

If the lake's anything like the river— Zach, maybe we add the husband app. It's like you can hire just a really fat dude to stand next to you at the pool. That's not a bad move. Mm-hmm. And it's like, oh, that guy's not so, so bad. It would be such a good app. Yeah, that would be a great add to it. Do you—

are you a swim shirt guy? No, no, you can't. No, I'm not a—

no, shirts belong everywhere but in the water. The swim shirts, if you wear a swim shirt as an adult, you just, you look like a child.

Child.

I think the shirt's worse than no shirt unless you're— it's suctioned, like, you know how you get— it turns into a sausage casing.

You see every crack. The swim shirts are built to deal with the water, not actual shirt.

I think they have like built-in SPF as well, which is sunscreen.

If you're a fisherman, that also plays.

That's fine, but I'm saying— no, but like there's— I feel like if you're a fisherman, like, then you can be swim shirt guy, and because it just is all-encompassing, right? But not from the shore, from boat. Yeah, yeah, like, but you can jump in— you could jump in the water from the boat if you're a fisherman guy wearing the swim shirt, right?

Yes, but like, my kids wear swim shirts because they're— it's like, all right, we're gonna be out in the sun for 5 hours. They don't want the sun— we don't want the sun to like absolutely crush them. So if you're an adult doing that, you look like a child. They shouldn't sell adult swim shirts. No, I agree. There's always the one ginger guy though, is like, I need this. That might be Special K. They're very—

that is— I need— that's true.

Yeah, I'm the ginger guy. Yeah, but that's also something that, like, listen, Darwinism, like, should exist for a reason. Survival of the fittest. Like, if you can't handle the sun, sorry, but then you can stay inside. Yeah, right. Like, yes, I'm saying you shouldn't be able to use technology to fight Darwinism in, like, a big picture sense.

What Zach's doing— Zach is the smartest one by far out of all of us. If you had gone back in time, like, like 1,000 years and said, hey, you can live in this apartment and you have air conditioning and a toilet and people deliver food to your door, they would never leave. They'd be like, yeah, you'd be crazy to go back. Like, my entire life is spent trying to find shelter and avoid everything that's outside. So like, yeah, if we're going to talk Darwinism, Zach might be the smartest guy that we got.

Some days are meant to be inside.

All days. That's true. That's true. So I feel like we're pretty much done with winter.

You keep doing this and it's bothering me. Hank ran this playbook 2 years ago.

I know.

And I did feel like—

but then it snowed yesterday. I did feel like I was right about this year. Well, yeah, tornadoes too.

And it snowed. And it snowed.

And like an insane hailstorm.

The hail was bad. We already dealt with this with Hank.

Please don't do this. The hail was bad. It's going to be fine this weekend, right? Yeah.

Monday's the last day of winter.

No, it's going to be cold.

Not where me and Hank are. Well, no, you're going to be back on Monday.

It's going to snow.

We'll be back on Sunday. Yeah.

Yeah.

You guys will be back.

You guys are golfing all weekend. No, we're going to—

we're going to watch golf on Saturday after we golf. Damn. College basketball means nothing. I thought both of you were going to be big college basketball.

When?

Well, when did I say that?

Also, actually, you didn't. PFT said it. Well, no, I said what my schedule is. My schedule every year remains the same. And I'm pretty sure that they're going to have have the games on at the golf tournament.

Monday is a high of 23. I don't know if they'll have the games on at the golf. So are you gonna watch golf or the games? Both.

While you're standing out there? I'm not gonna have to watch golf on TV, so you're gonna— because I'm gonna be at the golf, and then at the golf there's going to be TVs.

Got it.

Where do you have, like, a suite?

I think so. Okay, okay.

Yeah. What about Friday?

Uh, hanging out with Bortles. Whatever happens, this sounds like a sick week. Whatever it does. But it's also college. I mean, this is Thursday, Friday, Saturday, conference championship week.

My favorite weekend of the year. And Hank, one of the same. Just got it. Just got to go where boss man says.

Yeah, it's the same thing.

Yeah.

Did you hear that?

That was conference championship weekend when you made this trip? Yeah, I initially tried to get it for a different weekend, but then the only weekend that we could do it was going to be when the, uh, actual tournament down there was. Got it. Based on a lot of different travel. So it was not my first choice weekends, but going to the tournament, hanging with Blake, it's gonna be a fun weekend.

All right, numbers. 23, 56, 9, 44, 69, 46, 77, 48, 11. 81. 81. What's your guess, Shane? One more.

One more. Niner. 48. 67. Oh, 67. 67. That was excellent, Hank. Love you guys. Also, uh, happy birthday to TJ Tampa. Did you miss a big birthday? And Jalex Did you miss a big birthday Wednesday? There's a good chance that I did. Who are you thinking? Paul Bissonnette?

I did miss Biz's birthday.

Brutal, dude.

DJ Tampa? TJ Tampa?

Biz is one of my favorite guys in the world.

I know, but who is TJ Tampa? You gotta lock in on our guy.

Is that a strip club announcer?

I absolutely—

You don't know who TJ Tampa is. TJ Tampa?

He's an NFL football player, dummy. You gotta lock in on our guys though, first and foremost. Now that your birthday comes up, Guy, PFT. When you don't wish a birthday to our guys, they're like, what the fuck?

It kind of sucks that— oh, it is a football— like, that is the—

yeah, I know.

You think he was lying? Yeah.

No.

Okay.

I wish Whitney— I got Whitney on his birthday. I wish him a happy birthday.

Yeah, I screwed up.

But Biz's birthday was a show day. Biz, I'm so sorry that I missed your birthday. Whatever I can do to make it up to you. I feel like shit. You're the best, Biz.

Love you, Biz.

Forgive me.