Transcript of Amin Claims New York Will Burn If The Knicks Win The Title | Hour 3 New

This is the Dan Levator Show with the Stugatz Podcast.

It is time for Amin to share his game notes. No one in the media will tell you what happened better than my boy Amin. On Thursday, Weekend Observations is brought to you by Miller Lite. Legendary moments start with a light. Weekend Observations also brought to you by one Pulitzer is worth all the Emmys put together.

Oh God, Dan.

Roving mobs of deranged lunatics, massive police presence, road closures, arrests, helicopters hovering overhead. Fire trucks, ambulances, all to celebrate Dave Dameshek was dead wrong day. Y'all remember that shit when he was like, oh, means that the Knicks are gonna be good? You're about to lose in the first round. Nobody, but hold on, February. I told you guys in February this is the best team in the East. Nobody listens. I was outside of Madison Square Garden after Game 4, Dan.

Really?

I promise. Yeah, I was there. I took footage. Okay.

Can we celebrate this for a second? I want to celebrate this with Amin for a second. Hold on on the weekend observations for just a second, because at his core, Amin, in the middle of being right at the Knicks, at the center of the Knicks, that has to feel good for you as somebody who just loves everything about that.

I love everything about basketball, Dan. And the thing was, I knew I was going to be in the city. So I said, why else would I be anywhere else other than right near Madison Square Garden? Because I want to see the shit show happen. And so it's funny, I ran into Desus by accident just in the street, uh, but when I went there, uh, it was just a mob of people. And then at some point I was like, wow, it's a lot less than I thought it would be. And I realized the cops had cordoned off Madison Square Garden. I was inside this cordon. It looked like the most massive VIP section in the club ever. And there were people hanging over the barricades and they were like, oh, I mean, I mean, I'm like, yeah, yeah, let's go Knicks. Oh yeah, yeah, good for you, guy. And then people started climbing over the barricades and climbing over structures and stuff, basically spilling into the VIP section. And cops started grabbing people and arresting people with nuts. All right, back to it. I, I was outside MSG after Game 4. I promise you, the city is not ready for a championship.

They will burn it to the ground. Down. Then you and I— I mean, Greg, I don't know, Zazz, maybe you're old enough, I don't know if you are— you remember when the Bulls won 6 out of 8 championships in the '90s? Do you remember after every one of those championships— this is a team that had the best athlete in the world, Michael Jordan, right? And they were dominant, and he never let them down. Every time they went to the finals, they won it all. Every single time. Dan, they rioted. They burned cars and like trashed it like they had never won anything in their lives. So now take that energy, give it to a city that hasn't won shit in 50 years, and then also infuse social media and viral videos and trying to be crazy for crazy's sake to get attention. The attention economy. The city will literally burn. There will be nothing left. Ashes.

The city will literally burn?

Yes, the city. Adam Silver said he plans to implement an AI system to review calls in the NBA. I can't wait for a coach to call for a challenge and the review to come back, it wasn't a charge, it wasn't a blocking foul, it was a play on. And honestly, that's when the game got competitive, because that's how AI— I don't know if you guys ever noticed, every AI in written statement. It's not a this, it's not a that, it was a that. And honestly, this, that, that, it drives me nuts how many threads and tweets are written clearly with AI because it follows that same not this, not that, it was a that. And honestly, it was kind of that, right? That shit is so dumb to me that someone would take the time to say, I gotta tweet this, but hold on. Let me make it sound professional. Get the hell out of here. Go back to LinkedIn with that bullshit. Wemby ordering the hit on Jared McCain is like Goofy putting out a contract on Piglet. You guys talk about this at all?

We talked. We didn't do it that way.

You don't think there's something inherently ridiculous about Victor Wembenyama being the one ordering the mob hit? And it's like, who you gonna take out? Should we take out Shay? Should we take out Chet? Like, no, Piglet over there.

The TikToker.

TikToker.

Was that— wait a minute, I just sound more like Gobert. I imagine Gobert sounds like this.

They're both French.

Generic French person.

Yeah, they're both French.

Yeah, that's how that works then. SGA, file this a cease and desist letter against the company using his name, image, and likeness to promote an Operation-style board game called Unethical Hoop. The law firm representing him is called Arant Fox Schiff LLC, which means Shea is so locked in on beating De'Aaron Fox and the Spurs, he hired Arant Fox. They got De'Aaron Fox, they got Arant Fox. Arant Fox. These are the jokes.

Please laugh.

PTF, PTFO nominated for 3 Sports Emmys Tuesday night. The bad news, we went 0 for 3. The good news, Kenny Atkinson let us know that analytically we actually went 2 for 1, and James Harden assured us that we still had the better show. So we're good. Were you there?

Were you at the Sports Emmys?

Like the hell? Of course I was.

Oh no, I'm just laughing because that whole event is so funny and stiff, and you're a bit of an outsider among those people. Like, that's just such a dry cleaning bag of stiffery.

Dan, you want to talk about a stiff crowd? Hey yo, um, at one point, this, uh, people win this award for best editing, and the, the guy who, the guy who's doing the speech is an editor, and he's, he's like, I'm so nervous, and I'm fumbling and like, you know, I apologize. I'm an editor. I'm not used to doing this, to being in front of the mic. And I yelled out, don't worry, we'll get it in post. And nobody fucking laughed.

You were heckling.

You were a great line.

You were heckling at the Sports Emmys.

No, it was a joke. I mean, I was trying to make him feel—

I mean, that is an award show. When do you ever hear a heckler joke get a laugh at an award show?

Not a heckler joke. It was just a nice kind of like, hey, I got your— I'm like Mo Cheeks with the little girl who could sing the national anthem. You are not nice guy Mo Cheeks. You are not like nice guy Mo Cheeks.

Get it in post is a funny line.

Do you have content? Do you have content from you prowling the Sports Emmys with your Meta glasses?

Well, you'll love this. Pull up that next picture, guys, because Nick Wright was one of the presenters. And I can only describe his outfit as patently ridiculous. Leave the photo up, please. Top 5 things Nick Wright looks like. You'll love this, Daz.

Willy Wonka.

He looks like he's in Hamilton.

Daz, OLI— oh, I like that one. Hamilton's a good one. OLI, he looks like Willy Wonka, the harder years.

This is an amazing picture of Nick Wright. How have I not seen this?

Number 5, because you don't follow me on Twitter or Instagram or anything else. Number 5, he looks like one of those AI reimaginings of a live-action Grimace. That's Grimace from McDonald's, if you don't know. As opposed to Grimace the Attorney.

Yeah.

Number 4, he looks like he's got an interview with the vampire in Detroit. Number 3, he looks like a failed— no, put the picture back up. They don't need to see me. They need to see the picture. He looks like a failed magician hired for a company retreat in Reno. Number 2, he looks like the same failed magician in Reno has another gig across town as a Prince impersonator. And the number 1 thing Nick Wright looked like on the Sports Emmys night in his outfit is he looks like he's threatening to blow up Gotham if The Batman does not reveal his true identity.

I mean, I'm sorry, I did not know you were there, so I will ask these questions honestly. Were you with Pablo? Did we come— did Metal Ark Media come inches from Nick Wright having to hand Pablo a Sports Emmy?

Dan, you know me. I have a podcast called Basketball Illuminati where we keep our third eye open. There is a very strong conspiracy theory that we had a La La Land Moonlight situation where Nick Wright just read somebody else's name out of spite so that we wouldn't win.

Wow, that can't be a real conspiracy.

Why not?

That would be great work from the Joker.

That's what he does. He doesn't steal things, that's what he does. By the way, again, if you're listening to the pod, please go back and watch this on YouTube. Please. I can't, I can't—

it's a great picture. It's a great picture. You just did describe what he looked like. You did it very well. I, I can't believe Uh, that he looks like a Crown Royal bag that he almost had to hand pop. Yes, put the picture up and ask the poll question: does Nick Wright look like a Crown Royal bag?

Zoom in. Very good. Oh crap. Hey Zazz, yo, what's happening in the Stanley Cup playoffs? Uh, Carolina's about to go to the— nobody knows, nobody cares, shut the hell up. Donald Trump.

Come on, man.

Said he's— I'm sorry, Roy. Donald Trump said he's planning on attending a Knicks game during the finals. I can't wait for him to bring up that if they had that ballroom, they could have played the game at the White House. Then are you like me? Have you reached the point, like, just give him the goddamn ballroom just so he shut up about it?

No, I haven't gotten there.

No, you know he hasn't gotten there.

I am so scared that it's just going to be a billionaire bunker for all our data, that they're going to hide it. After they steal all our money.

They already did that, Dan. Wake up. Argentine police.

And run the world with AI from there.

They're giving billions to J6ers. $1.7 billion. That's less than $2 billion. Argentine police arrested 2 Chilean citizens suspected of being part of a gang that orchestrated burglaries at the homes of celebrities. I ripped this straight from the headlines, including Patrick Mahomes, Travis Kelce, Luka Dončić, and Mike Conley Jr. One of these names is not like the other. I feel like this is kind of a little personal, right? It's like, yeah, yeah, let's get— let's, let's rob these super rich guys, the super rich famous guys. I think they're better. Also, that Mike Conley guy, we got to get him.

I'm sick of Tyler. Wait a minute. Conley's career earnings have to be pretty giant. No, like, yes. He's got to be extraordinarily wealthy.

$100 million for sure. I'm just saying, Dan, you're, you're from Chile, you're in Argentina, you're like orchestrating this transnational gang of like home invasion people. The list comes back. Patrick Mahomes. Yeah. Travis Kelce. Yeah. He's dating Taylor Swift. Luka Dončić.

Oh my God.

He plays for the Lakers and the backup point guard for the Minnesota Timberwolves. All right, whatever. It seems, it seems personal. It seems like, uh, feel like almost Mike Conley was the target all along and those other names are just to obscure the fact that they're going after Mike Conley.

$295 million career earnings for Mike.

He did well for himself. He did well for himself. Kenny Smith taking credit for creating the podcast world is like Dan pretending Miami invented traffic. Kenny thinks he was the first guy. Him and me and Charles were talking and making jokes. Yeah, you guys did it, and that's where everything else came from. PTFO. I don't know if you saw this, the latest PTFO episode, they broke the up-to-now suppressed videos of Slain Gorilla Harambe.

Remember him?

Mm-hmm. Eating his own shit, which is a perfect metaphor for Tuesday night at the Sports Emmys. We ate our own shit.

It's a good line. I mean, it's a good line, but you're coming off as bitter. You're unbecoming as a Pulitzer winner. Everything you're doing right now sounds embittered. You're allowed to not win a Sports Emmy. It's possible that Pablo Torre finds out doesn't win all the awards.

I mean, it sounds kind of ridiculous though, you know, like how they give like the there's a separate Coach of the Year award that the Coaches Association gives out, but it's like, what's the point? No one ever recognizes that award. So just kind of go with the flow. You sound like Jaylen Brown, big bro. Sound like Jaylen Brown after the Sixers series.

Well, hold on, this your favorite season ever, huh?

I, I, yeah, I need a bunch of people with sunglasses behind me for Twitter. Yeah, never mind. All right, uh, Georgia Tech baseball crushed the Canes. There's no joke there. I just want to talk shit, but Mike's not even here, so let's toss that one. Greg Cody performing Cuckception on Zazz has to be one of the greatest show bits ever.

So good.

It's amazing. I was laughing so hard.

So good.

The idea that Greg can say things right now that later is going to cook Zads. You guys do not appreciate that enough, like the mastery there. Also one of the greatest show bits, whenever we're congratulating anyone as a group, Roy in the background says, yeah, yeah, yeah, congrats. I laugh every time you do that, man. You say, hey, hey, it's happy birthday, Chris. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Mutter grumbled happy birthday. He was so bored with the idea that Trista had been born.

Yeah, yeah, words, words.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Happy, happy, you be happy. Yeah, whatever. Yeah, yeah, you were born, big deal.

Really? New season of Bar Rescue, and we've got you covered. Here's the Science of Bar Rescue podcast, hosted by real-life bar restaurant consultant Chelsea Reynolds. Commercial kitchen and food truck vet Colin Cassard, and two guys who might be drunk in the front row at Nick Wright's Reno show, you know, Hasson, Zach Harper. Uh, Cinephobe episode 311, The Order, starring Jean-Claude Van Damme, Charlton Heston, and literally no one else you've ever heard of. Synopsis: a playboy criminal finds himself in a dangerous world of martial arts and ancient evil when he travels to Jerusalem to investigate the disappearance of his archeologist father. It's like if you had to make Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade but you were on your last dollar. John Morant posted a long-ass IG story message about how he's done a lot of good things behind closed doors and give it back, and he lamented on no one ever talks about that stuff. And I think one of my favorite replies was a guy saying he pointed a Gun at the Pacers team bus. The hell is Jock thinking? Speaking of hell, what the hell was Sedano doing here? I still need clarification.

You're going to keep doing that to him every week, aren't you? You're going to keep shaming him, but he doesn't have any shame about it. Like, he's, he's leaning into it.

My goal is for him to never make another appearance on the show without wearing a robe.

Juju, what are your thoughts here? Like, what are your thoughts at what's happening? He's neutralizing our ability to make fun of him because He's leaning into, yeah, I'm a robe guy. What of it?

Yeah, bro. I don't give, I don't care how much he lean into it. You being a robe guy is hilarious no matter what, Jorge.

It's the hands for me though.

It's where he puts his hands.

It's the hands, the hands and the caption. And I've already done the experience. That's the part that's funny. 'Cause outta context, he's in a robe, he's doing his hands like this.

But the hands are closed is my favorite actually.

He was good at karate when he was young. I don't know if he was a white belt or a yellow belt, but he wore, he was one of the few Cubans running First belt, Dan. A white belt.

Everybody gets a white belt.

I wasn't bragging about it. I was—

maybe he said he was good at karate on the white belt.

No, did I say—

what's bad?

Did I say he was good at karate? I meant to say he did karate and enjoyed karate. But now he was—

no, according to him, he was really good.

Maybe he was. I'm sorry, I just assumed he wasn't. I thought that was just Cuban bragging.

But also, I don't— but also, not to cut you off, also, he also claims that his nickname was Fourth Quarter George. So do with that what you will.

Bad nickname.

Fourth Quarter George would be a great nickname if you were a fourth quarter George that was winning NBA games in the fourth quarter.

He played pickup ball. There's still fourth quarter pickup.

Well, there's that. I mean, real quick here before we let you go, actually, let's keep him for the postgame. We're going to get out of the way reluctantly for Jeremy Tashay. There are amazing things happening in baseball. What happened? What happened?

Reluctantly? Oh, we're excited for pitch clock. Oh my God, you guys are going to love it. Stay tuned. And that's the postgame. We'll do more.

We got some good trivia. June Lee is joining Jeremy. A lot of good stuff. I said you're going to find out.

It's going to be in seconds here. You're going to be able to find out with Jeremy. But I want to continue the postgame with Amin because I want to ask him about the distinction that he makes between Chris Haynes's reporting and Windhorse's reporting and Simmons's reporting, because there's a lot of different reporting on whether it is the Boston Celtics actually want Giannis or he might end up there. And so I want to get Amin's expertise on the sourcing.

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Don Lebatard. Doesn't matter anywhere. We could do it in Buffalo or Baltimore. Either. You said you could do it where? Anywhere. Oh, whoa. Oh, that's crazy. That's crazy. That's crazy. He said he could do it anywhere. That's crazy. Murda, Murda, tell him.

Stugatz.

I had no idea Mean had that in his locker.

That might be his best.

That's crazy. I'm not kidding.

That's crazy, killer. It's two Americas, Dan, you don't get it. This is the Dan Levatar Show with the Stugatz.

We really let Ethan build a whole game around the Montreal Expos career leaders in hits.

He's been here all week just talking about last week's defeat. It's kind of sad, dude. Get it together.

Oh, because of the Canadians?

No, I'm angry. I'm angry. Okay.

I'm okay with Canada.

I just want it to be about baseball. Welcome to The Pitch Clock. Here's the pitch: a two-part baseball segment combining a nostalgic baseball trivia game and an interview with an expert. This is The Pitch Clock. The Pitch Clock is back. Very excited to be back at it because I'm still obviously very angry about my defeat last week. Whoop that ass! So we're going to talk about baseball soon. Ethan, what's the game, man?

Chris Cody, you won last week.

Yes, I did.

Oh, thank you for reminding me.

Do you want to go first or second?

I'll go first.

All right, Jeremy, leave the room.

Oh, one of these things.

All right, Chris Cody, we're gonna play StatPad again. You remember how to play?

No.

Okay, I'm gonna give you a category. You gotta give me a player and a year. Okay.

Okay.

Today, last time we did home runs. Today we're doing hits.

Okay.

So you want to get the most amount of hits possible.

Okay.

All right. Your first category is a Houston Astro between 1980 and 2025, an outfielder.

Okay, Astro outfielder hits. My answer is going to be— he's not a hit guy, but he had some good seasons, so I'll go Carlos Lee.

Carlos Lee, he played first base, I'm pretty sure.

He played some left field. Get out of here, shut your mouth.

Give me a year for him.

Uh, 07.

07.

190 hits.

All right, what year did he play there?

98th percentile. He was there for a good chunk of his career for sure before he came to the Marlins. But yeah, nice pull. Carlos Lee, 07. All right, your next category is AL East third baseman between 1980 and 2025.

Okay, AL East third baseman Let's go with Alex Rodriguez.

Yep, of course.

2009.

Okay.

All right.

So A-Rod this year. Not your best guess. Okay. 127 hits. That was in the 45th percentile.

It's not good. Okay.

Next category. New York Met between 1980 and 2025 that played first base.

A Met who had a lot of hits. I'll go with Carlos Delgado. The year, I feel like he was— he went that— Marlin '05, '06.

Delgado.

Carlos Delgado, '06, first base.

Yeah, 82nd percentile, 139 hits.

Okay.

All right, we're going to go next category is a catcher from the AL West. So the Astros, the Mariners, the Rangers, the A's, and the Angels between 2020 and 2025. So how many, how many AL West catchers between 2020 and 2025 can you name, dude?

Let me just try to think of one. All right, I got one. Yeah, Cal Raleigh, of course.

Last year, I'm guessing. Yeah, you're in the 98th percentile again, brother. 147 hits for Cal Raleigh last year.

Jeremy will definitely say him, so that'll be a wash. All right.

And your final category, this one's tough. A Cleveland baseball player at shortstop between 1980 and 2025.

Cleveland shortstop. This is easy. Francisco Lindor.

There you go.

Give me a year.

Let's call it 2017. 2017.

2017. All right, nice pull. 93rd percentile, 178 hits for Lindor that year.

So basically, who's my second guy that I said? That's basically where Jeremy can beat me here.

A-Rod. I feel like it's gonna be a hard season.

It's gonna be hard to beat me outside of that. A-Rod, correct?

Because you did pretty solid here. You got an 82, a 93, a 98, and a 98, but then that 43 is weighing you down. Your total score was 781. So that'll be the score that Jeremy will try to beat.

Let's do it.

All right, let's get him.

Very, very excited to have June Lee back on the Pitch Clock. For those of you who don't already, you can follow him @June. That's J-O-O-N on Instagram, @JuneLee on Twitter, and @iamJuneLee on YouTube, where he is doing really awesome work with some deep dives all around sports. You guys definitely want to go follow him there. June, I'm happy to have you back, and I'm actually going to start with a topic that came up through your YouTube that is applicable all across Major League Baseball right now. You recently did a video with Adam Ottavino, former big league pitcher, highlighting why everyone is throwing 100 miles an hour now. And I like literally everybody. So what are the biggest things that you took away from that conversation that you think is important for our Pitch Clock audience to know about before they go check out the full video?

Well, I think that there's been this major cultural shift within baseball where this idea of throwing 100 used to be almost like, oh, God gifted you this thing. And the way that major league teams now think about it is that it's much more so that you can just teach the guy. There's a couple of things you can do mechanically. There's all the plyo balls and the weight training and the way that torque is kind of evaluated and all the cameras. Like, you can teach a guy to throw 100. So So while there's obviously been this massive shift towards velocity, in large part because of the way that analytics have changed baseball, scouting now, especially on the cutting edge of the sport, is now much more towards pitchability and how people approach batters on a plate, the kind of mix that they have. So I think we're going to start to see the swing back towards guys who know how to pitch more than they, they have in the last 5 to 10 years.

It's great to see. That these teams are learning now how to induce velocity as opposed to trying to teach guys how to pitch so much later into their careers. It's going to be a really good thing for Major League Baseball. But one of these guys that we all know throws 1,000,000,000 miles an hour, he's, he's the poster boy for it right now is Jacob Mizerowski. And I neglected bringing up the Brewers over the last few weeks. This is on me. One of our listeners reached out to me via Twitter and was so upset as a Brewers fan that we have not talked about the Brewers.

Brewers.

So I vowed to make the first topic from one of the teams today, the Milwaukee Brewers, who at the time of this recording are 14-4 in their last 18 games. They've taken over the lead in the NL Central. They're led by Jacob Mizerowski, who— I have the stat here— 6 consecutive starts with 8+ strikeouts without allowing an extra base hit. No one else in MLB history has done that more than 4 games in a row. The guy's electric. June, the Milwaukee Brewers and their success led by Mizerowski, what stands out to you about both?

Well, Mizerowski is obviously the headline guy. He's throwing 105 and he's been this kind of, you know, force of nature since he got up to the major leagues last year. But I do think that one of the things that has been overlooked for the Brewers' success this year has been Kyle Harrison. And he's a guy who has 2.5 wins above replacement. And I say as a Boston Red Sox fan, has been the bane of my existence this season. I think the Brewers are just the best player development system-run organization in all of baseball, arguably like one of the best in all of sports, let alone in baseball. The Brewers were giving up Caleb Durbin, who has been one of the worst offensive third basemen in baseball, to the Red Sox. And people at the time in Boston were like, looks like a guy who might fit the thing and could replace Alex Bregman in the aggregate. And it has been one of the most lopsided trades in baseball in the early part of the season, in part because Kyle Harrison looks like a completely different pitcher, and this is a trend that the Brewers have been doing not just for the last few years, but the last decade, dating back to the David Stern era.

Dan Lebatard. Can I tell you something? I don't know, maybe like a month ago, and I decided to watch Pitch Clock, and I told Jeremy Stugatz, this is a good show you're doing. This is the Dan Lebatard Show with the Stugatz.

Jeremy, we're playing StatPad again. The number you're trying to beat, the number you're trying to beat is 781. The category we're doing is—

781?

The category we're doing is hits. Okay. And the number to beat is 781.

Okay.

All right.

Your first category, a Houston Astros outfielder between 1980 and 2025.

Got this, Jeremy.

Outfielder.

We believe in you. If it would be, if it was infield, it would be a lot easier.

Am I right?

It would be a lot easier. There's a guy—

there are plenty of guys.

I'm gonna go Michael Bradley.

Boom!

In 20—

big, this is big.

Are you thinking of Michael Brantley?

Brantley?

Yes.

Whoa, Michael Brantley.

Sorry, judges.

I don't know why my brain just combined him with Jackie Bradley Jr. I— okay, so the other year I was gonna say was 2019.

All right, we'll go 2019. 179 hits, 93rd percentile.

We should dock him.

No, I feel—

hits, we dock him there.

That's fine.

It's a good start. I'm really—

I'm feeling such a lack of confidence. As you should. I feel bad about myself.

All right, your next category: an AL East third baseman between 1980 and 2025.

So this is your chance to make up some ground.

Okay. You know what?

I'll just go with it.

Yeah, go with it.

Evan Longoria, '09.

Nice, nice, nice shout. Uh, Longoria, 81st percentile, 164 hits. So you're back in it. You, I mean, you're very much alive.

Yeah.

So you're beating me by like 20 right now, roughly. All right. By my bad math.

Your next category, Jer Bear.

Mm-hmm.

A New York Met first baseman between 1980 and 2025.

Just know I nailed these final 3. Like, you have to be so good at these Final 3 answers. I think if you go left eye open, right eye closed, it was the first base. It opens up your brain kind of.

I just don't think you— I don't think I know who the first baseman was there, so I'm just gonna go— I'm gonna go Carlos Delgado. I'm gonna go, but I'm trying to think of what year he was there.

Funny thing is Can I tell him? I chose him too.

I know you did.

But it depends on what year.

Yeah, I know. I'm gonna go— Oh no.

You hate to see it.

'07.

All right.

Is that what I said?

Chris Cody went with '06.

Oh, thank God.

He had the same number of hits in '06 and '07.

The same amount of hits?

He had 139 hits So here's where we're at.

You said he had 781.

Yeah.

Yes.

So I'm at 482.

299 hits.

And I have 2 players left.

Yeah.

You're at 482. That's correct.

Oh, okay.

You have 2 players left.

All right.

Travis Kelce has bought his way into ownership here. Yes. The Chiefs tight end, the fiancé of Taylor Swift. And he is a resident of Cleveland Heights, or at least originally from there. You may have seen him shotgunning a beer at the Cavs game. Game. But what does this mean for MLB, for Kelsey, for Cleveland? Like, I would imagine you find this to be very interesting.

I think it's fascinating on so many levels. Less so about what it means for the Guardians necessarily, because like a celebrity having a minority stake is not necessarily going to impact the business of things. I do think that it's more emblematic of of like the shift we're going to continue to see in how ownership groups relate to fans. There's all these conversations that are interesting going on around sports right now, around ownership and getting athletes more involved. And I think as like kind of these ownership groups, especially as the kind of the wealth gap in this country continues to expand, I think we're going to continue to see more of these things because these ownership groups need people who relate to the general public. And Travis Kelce is one of those guys.

Ultimate relatable man married to a billionaire. Let's get to our Star of the Week. We always highlight one of the stars in baseball. This week I've got 4 on the list. Let's start with Ketel Marte, who— this is per Just Baseball— on May 12th, he was hitting.208 with a.625 OPS. As of today, he's hitting.275 with a.797 OPS. A ridiculous couple of weeks for him. Christopher Sanchez, who might just actually go win the NL Cy Young. Forget Paul Skeens, forget Jacob Mizarowski. Carries into his Wednesday start against the Padres a scoreless inning streak of 37 2/3 innings. Then there's Munetaka Murakami. He's the guy we've mentioned before. Most homers by a rookie before June outside of Pete Alonso and Mark McGwire. And speaking of Mark McGwire, Nick Kirtz just snapped a 48-game on-base streak, which tied McGwire for the longest in A's history. So Kirtz Murakami, Sanchez, or Marte. Who stands out to you, June?

I will take Murakami, although I have a— I have an outside this list pick. I'm going to take Rafael Devers.

Bring him up.

Let's go.

White hot for the Giants over the course of last month. He was almost a win and a half below replacement at the end of April. He was absolutely terrible. Giants fans were coming for his neck saying that the trade with the Red Sox was a bust on both sides. And he got up to 0 wins above replacement yesterday, which means in the last month he's had basically close to a win, a win and a half above replacement. I mean, has been one of the hottest hitters in all of baseball. And so, you know, Murakami, I feel like you could talk about him for hours. You know, it's funny to go back and look at the scouting leaks that were coming out about him in the past offseason about whether or not he was going to be able to translate. And, you know, people talking about whether or not he's going to be able to hit fastballs above 95 miles an hour. I think that if you looked at his mechanics and you looked at Ohtani as kind of the precedent, Ohtani also had a bad batting average on balls above 95 miles per hour coming into Major League Baseball.

And he's obviously Shohei Ohtani now. So I say this as someone who also has Murakami on my fantasy team, like unbelievable. And so it just feels like I open Twitter on a night-to-night basis and there's just another Murakami homer going out of the ballpark and crushing these homers.

He's a blast to watch. If you guys haven't been watching the Chicago White Sox and you have MLB TV, make sure you go do it. But also make sure you go watch everything Jun is doing over on YouTube. If you follow him on social media, he'll direct you there. But it's I Am Jun Lee on YouTube. Everything he does is fantastic. Jun, thank you again. And hopefully we can get you to stop by again later in the season.

Yeah, thanks for having me on.

An AOS catcher between 2020 and 2025.

I can't believe it.

Just so I'm not going with that guy, I'm gonna go with Shea Lengelier's last year.

Not a bad choice.

I can't believe I listened to Ethan.

So Chris Cody obviously went with, with Cal Raleigh.

I did, and it was the best answer.

I'm sure it was.

Yeah.

It wasn't the best answer.

You should have gone with it.

But it was up there. All right, 133 hits for Shea Lengelier.

We need a big one. Uh-oh.

The 95th percentile. So still a really, really good guess. You have 615 hits and you need what?

781, which means I need what? One—

156 to tie.

157 to tie.

That means if he gets the guy I got, he wins.

Just enough.

Your final category, a Cleveland baseball player, a shortstop. From 1980 to 2025.

It was, it was it pre, I can't think of how long he's been there. I'm gonna go 2018 Francisco Lindor.

I went, all right, so just to know, so you know, went 2017 Francisco Lindor. That year he had 178 hits. You need 157 to win, Jeremy.

Should be good.

183 hits. Jeremy Taché, you are the winner of this week's StatPad with 798 total. You are off the schneid, my friend.

This was a very good game. I like this game better. I like the versatility of knowledge, Ethan. I like that we don't just have to know a second baseman for the Montreal Expos. Hey, I won. That feels good. I don't feel— I don't feel anything.

I'm embarrassed for you. I feel weird.