Transcript of Is The Rock Done As An A-List Star? | Hour 3

Meditieren, Yoga, Joggen— nichts entspannt mich. Echt? Mich entspannt meine Steuer total.

Steuer?

Wie Finanzamt?

Die Steuererklärung?

Ja, ich hab ganz locker über 1.000 € zurückbekommen.

Hast du geheime Connections oder Excel-Superkräfte?

Nö, nur die WISO Steuer App.

Wow, und das ist einfach?

Klar, die macht fast alles automatisch.

Ich fühl mich plötzlich so entspannt. Hol dir dein Geld zurück! Abgabefrist: 31.

Juli.

Was?

Schaffst du ganz entspannt mit WISO Steuer. Ach ja. You are listening to the Dan Levitan Show in partnership with the DraftKings Sports App. Now live in all 50 states. Happy 31st birthday to Harrison Butker. Patriots.

Happy birthday to him.

I don't care.

Good luck.

He's a Chief. Should be a Patriot.

Amin Elhassan has been found. I don't know where he was. I've got a number of different questions for him. The first is, where were you yesterday?

Yesterday I was in Las Vegas. Today I'm back home in Phoenix.

And, uh, did you tell anybody that? Like, we were expecting you yesterday and then you weren't here yesterday. Uh, is there any particular reason that you didn't tell anybody that?

Uh, because I didn't tell myself that I wouldn't be there yesterday.

Accountability. We like that around here. Thank you, Amin.

That was accountability. Okay.

Yeah, seems like it did happen sometimes. That's a hand up. Vegas went off me, coach.

I did an accountability right there.

Yesterday would have been a good day to answer the question about Tyler Herro and Bam Adebayo and whatever your unique thoughts are as our Meadowlark NBA insider. Have you heard anything, found anything out in the last 24 hours that is interesting there? I should say Ramona Shelburne has reported that Herro, this This is the backstory according to sources with knowledge of the encounter, and I ask— I know Mike's got some reporting on this as well. Adebayo confronted Hero about comments the guard had made critiquing the center on social media. Hero responded verbally in a way that Adebayo took exception to. Bless you, Zaslo. And the encounter became physical. Sources with knowledge of the encounter told ESPN that Adebayo struck Hero near his chin, although descriptions of the nature of the physical contact is in some dispute. Hero did not get knocked to the ground according to sources with knowledge of the interaction, who added that he was restrained by others in the gym from responding physically. Uh, what do you know here, Amin?

Uh, I don't know anything. We're all— we're all bartering off of hearsay. Even Ramona and all the other great reporters are reporting— they're reporting what people have told them. We don't know what's happened. I have to imagine, uh, as Zach Harper pointed out, this happened in a casino around teenage kids. Somebody got it on camera. There's no way in 2026 a bunch of kids with phones and in a casino somehow that that's not captured. So we'll find out exactly what the nature of the physical contact was. But I think we can all surmise that it was about the DMs that were leaked. Tyler Herro talking about Bam in a disparaging manner.

I mean, are you surprised that the NBA hasn't even put out a statement? Are they going to do anything?

No, there's no— there's no jurisdiction. This did not happen on NBA time. Did not happen at an NBA venue. It was in the offseason. There's been no legal recourse. There's no pressing of charges or anything. This is none of their business, to be quite frank.

I still hear the hangover in your voice.

Never had a hangover in my life, Dan. So you don't hear that. You hear my voice. I lost my voice. That's because my kid was playing in a tournament. I was screaming all weekend long, but I don't get hangovers.

Let me play for a mean some sound from Byron Scott on the LeBron James situation, which I imagine will rectify itself here in the next couple of days. LeBron LeBron James is said to be in the consideration stage. He has all of the information. Here's Byron Scott on the podcast I thought was fake, uh, Byron Scott's Fast Break.

10 years ago, yes, every team was calling. Yeah, to get LeBron James on their team. Yeah, that was 10 years ago. Now Rich Paul and company, they making all the calls to see who's interested in having LeBron on their team. Again, guys, we got to understand that the guy is 41 years old. Yep. Been in the league 21, 22, 23 years. Incredible career, you know what I'm saying? Unbelievable career. Still playing at a high level. Yes, sir. Nobody's saying that he can't play, you know, another year or two in this league. But as far as teams that are looking at him right now, the teams are also saying, all right, we're going to take you for one year, maybe two, and do we want to take all the other shit that goes along with it? Mm.

What's the other shit?

All the other antics that the people that's working with, you know, Rich Paul and all those guys and all other stuff that goes along with it.

Okay. I mean, I think, I think Rich Paul tells a lot of whoppers, but if Byron Scott really believes that teams aren't calling for LeBron's services to play at the minimum, that Rich Paul is out there cold calling teams asking if they would like LeBron to play for them. Like, what the hell are we talking about?

Yeah, I love B. Scott. He's one of my guys. His podcast is actually really good. They get some great interviews from not only basketball, but people across entertainment. But B. Scott is a Laker through and through. He is— you want to talk about toeing the party line, and that's not because he's getting, uh, a directive. That's B. Scott, man. He's gonna be the Lakers talking point, and the Lakers talking point is like, yeah, LeBron's old and who wants him anyway, right? So, uh, I know that I personally interviewed Kenny Atkinson, head coach of the Cavs, and he gushed and he called LeBron the greatest player of all time, and he kind of wanted almost wanted us to kind of push back on him so that he could like defend LeBron. And, and the Cavs are very excited. I know the Sixers— Mike Ganzey did the same kind of thing, uh, the president of the Sixers, and he's kind of hot to trot. We know what Draymond and Steph have been saying, uh, so I could tell you that's at least 3 teams— the Sixers, the Cavs, and the Warriors— that clearly are interested in and have not had to been cold-called by Rich Paul.

I would throw in obviously the Heat as well. The Minnesota Timberwolves are on the hunt as well. The Denver Nuggets. That's at least 6 teams right there that we know for a fact are very interested. I don't know what B. Scott's talking about other than I'm thinking he's doing the Laker thing again. Hmm.

It's a good hype, man. I don't know about the B. Scott podcast, but this is a good note to hit. It makes anything better. I would say it would make anything in entertainment better. Any sports take better. Any kind of music better.

Good player, that LeBron.

Yeah, that's, that's what he did say.

He said a nice career.

Nice career.

You know, it's a pretty good career.

Yeah. I mean, I want to get to your weekend observations in a second, but before we do, just among the free agents still available out there or, or possible players still available out there, who's most valuable?

I guess Kawhi Leonard. That's an interesting one right there because the Clippers and the Raptors had a deal. They had a deal. They agreed to the, the terms of the deal. Hell, Kawhi was at Kyle Lowry's retirement announcement. So it felt like, okay, this is just gonna go through. And apparently when they went to do the trade call, the actual last step that makes the league verify your trade, that's when the league said, all right, now you guys are gonna inherit all the risk, right? Are you cool with that? And the Raptors said, well, hold on now. Wait, wait, what?

Do what now?

And so, yeah, so, so this has changed everything. And now we have to wait until the finality of this investigation before we figure out where Kawhi Leonard is going to be, whether it's still a Clipper, whether it's a Raptor, whether he's a free agent because they void his contract. All of these things are on the table. And so that is a massive domino that might affect a lot of things moving forward.

I mean, why is the league willing to warn the Toronto Raptors about possible ramifications and not the Miami Heat when the FBI is investigating a player?

I think because this one is a league investigation and the other one we were talking about— I'm drawing a blank. Terry Rozier. Terry Rozier. Terry Rozier was not under league investigation at the time, so they don't have purview over a federal investigation. They have purview over this because it's their investigation.

Let's do Amin's World Cup Observations.

It is time for Amin to share his World Cup game notes.

No one in the media will tell you what happened better than my boy Amin.

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Speaking of hell, Art Bryles, the game—

Speaking of hell, Argentina. Argentina always hell.

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Dan Levitar. Yeah, very good.

Imagine if someone told you you couldn't have a Corvette. I'm a grown-ass man who's not filthy rich. I can't afford a Lamborghini.

Great, Cody.

Well, I probably can, but that's—

Hey!

Oh, what the heck?

Hey, Craig!

This is the Dan Levitar Show.

I want to talk to Amin about the games the next couple of days, but before I do that, there are some other things that I wanted to bring up with him, including, because he's a movie guy, whether The Rock is done as an A-list star, because he has had, he's had some trouble here. It was a hell of a run, and I I think the A-list star in general might be gone. Like, I think if, if he goes down, it all goes down where it's been. So, you know, streaming services have taken over so much. I don't know if you guys are seeing that a bunch of states are suing about the Paramount-Warner Brothers deal because they don't want movie theaters and American entertainment changed as much as it's already been changed. So your thoughts are what here? I mean, on the idea of The Rock no longer being an A-list star, at least in part because there's no such thing anymore.

Well, I think there's still A-list stars. I mean, Tom Cruise, A-list star. Tom Cruise still brings them out. There's a new Tom Cruise trailer that came out. People got excited about that. I think The Rock, part of his struggle is kind of trying to transition away from what made him an A-list star. People like him because he's a funny action guy, uh, trying to do serious roles and being taken seriously. There's nothing against that, and that's great that he wanted to pursue that, but Ultimately, that's not what people want to see The Rock in. And so if he's willing to do smaller pictures, meaning the box office isn't as great as, you know, the Fast and Furious or something like that, he can do that. But it's not going to be what brings him the, you know, the massive paydays. And that's what we're talking about with A-list stars. You pay these people because you know the people will line up to go watch your movies.

His Oscar bait failed. This Moana remake, which is only a handful of years removed from the original—

I will not watch—

is essentially a shot-for-shot live adaptation recreation with very new material in there where he is actually recreating one of his more popular characters. DOA, uh, stands to lose tens of millions, if not over $100 million, and everything that he seems to have upcoming doesn't seem ripe for success. He's got a Monster Jam movie that looks straight out of Vinnie Chase's Entourage that looks almost certain to be a punchline. I think we're done. When you, when you go for it for the Oscar bait and you fail spectacularly— that failed miserably at the box office despite him getting some positive reviews for his performance— and you have something as surefire as the intellectual property of Moana hitting a children's audience, and that fails too. Not— I don't think that there was such an appetite. We're only a year removed from an animated sequel to Moana, which maybe Disney has to revisit some things. But typically The Rock, you know, 10 years ago was something that you would inject into a franchise to give it life and to give it box office success. I think the, the nation at large in the world has decided this guy's done being an A-list box office draw.

I wouldn't say that. I think it all comes down to roles. I mean, it's the roles that, that make—

he was playing Maui.

I get it, but, but Mike, that was such a massive blunder by Disney regardless of whether he was in it or not. Like you said, number one, the Moana sequel just came out a year ago, one where, by the way, they did not bring back Lin-Manuel Miranda for writing. Well, so everyone noticed, yo, these songs suck. And that was the whole thing about Moana was what a great soundtrack. Moana was what made me want to watch Hamilton because I was like, oh snap, this guy's really good. Let me watch Hamilton. I watch Hamilton, I'm like, never mind.

Yeah, but they hired the, uh, they hired the TikTok musical winners, and the songs on Moana 2 stunk. In fact, if I'm Lin-Manuel Miranda, yesterday's price is no longer today's price.

Of course, of course. And so you start there, so already you got some missteps. But then the other thing is the whole live-action remake is all built on one thing. Nostalgia. I grew up watching The Jungle Book. Now this is The Jungle Book I take my kids to see. I grew up watching Beauty and the Beast. Now I take my kids to watch this Beauty and the Beast. Yo, my kids watch Moana, man. Like, there's no nostalgia. Like, there's no nostalgia in order for us to have a live-action remake. It's like saying, hey, let's do a— let's do a reboot of the Spider-Man movie that came out a couple years ago that Tom Holland and, and, uh, Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield. It's like, it just came out. What are we doing?

Well, so the way that I mean, the way that these films are shot with all these green screens to do all these reshoots potentially and touch up with digital effects takes all the character away from what would be a live, live action adaptation that would bring character to an animated film. You see the trailer for this, it looks animated itself because it's so touched up with CGI. If you're going to do a live action adaptation, bring some character to it. Make it seem different, right?

And so to me, that's an example of the, the vehicle was not good, not the driver. Like, there's no one you could have cast in that that would have saved that. And that's not, that's not a commentary on modern, uh, audience tastes or whatever. That's just, hey, Disney, not good enough. That's, that's someone lazy. Yes, in the decision-making process.

I agree, Moana on its own had issues, but let's not pretend like this isn't a trend for Dwayne Johnson. Well, it's been trending downward for a while now, and I think he needs to be a part of a bigger ensemble, and he can no longer be the tentpole guy on a big-time box office film. I think we're gonna see him in Saudi Arabia fighting Roman Reigns, I'll tell you that much.

No, no, stop that. This, this— look, he just needs a role where it's just like a down-the-middle action buddy comedy, him and Kevin Hart, him and someone like that, like, and then he's the big muscly guy who actually has feelings, and the other loudmouth is is the funny guy, and then they go and get into shenanigans together. It's, it's not unlike what, uh, Eric Andre and, and John Cena just did on Netflix. It's just The Rock.

The Rock and Kevin Hart had great chemistry. It's real chemistry.

They do. And that's, to me, that, that's, that's what you need. Like, it's not like, unlike basketball, like, there's no player, not Wemby, not Jokic, nobody that could say, hey, I'll just put you with 4 bums and you're going to go to the— that's not how this works. You have to have a good script. You have to have good chemistry with your co-stars, and you have to have a good director who knows how to make this thing look good. And without those things, we're trying to just say, oh yeah, he could be in anything, man. 10 years ago, he was in that Black Adam movie that was supposed to be a massive thing.

Well, but that was the beginning of the end, though. That, that was the beginning of what this— that, that's what started it. That Black Adam movie had so much press behind it and so much money behind it.

And there hasn't—

I don't think there's been very much good since then.

It wasn't good then. That's my point. It's like this— there's this hubris that, oh, just put him in it and he'll save it. And that's not how this works. Any good movie that he's been in— and when I say good, I mean successful. I'm not even saying like this is critically acclaimed. It's been successful because it had other parts to it that made it successful. It wasn't just him. Same thing with Will Smith. Like, think about Will Smith was the biggest movie star in the world. And then it's like, I'm going to make After Earth. Why? Because I'm a Scientologist and I really think this is, you know, like, this is an important kind of movie or story to be told. Oh, it isn't. It's crap. It's a crap story. And your son can't act. And M. Night Shyamalan is a hack. And like, they come out with a hack movie and everyone's surprised, like, oh my God, maybe Will Smith isn't a star anymore. No, it's just you picked a crappy role.

All right, I got some movie stuff for a decent movie guy like Amin here. Thursday, The Odyssey is coming out. Are you into The Odyssey?

Oh, I, I like Christopher Nolan's work. Most of his movies to me are very well made and very well done. I like the— the cast is incredible, right? It's a huge ensemble cast, and it's a story that is a timeless classic. We all know, at least I assume— again, there are people who watched Hamilton and learned about American history for the first time, so I assume we all learned about The Odyssey in school. Maybe some of us didn't. So I think it's a great story, a great cast, a great director. These are the hallmarks of something that's going to be a great movie. The big thing for me is I'm not going to go see it in IMAX. You got me the first time with Oppenheimer. Never again. Why? I'm never falling for that again. Because IMAX is a scam. It's just big. Okay. Oh, you could see more of the ocean. I don't care. I don't care. I just— just let me watch.

I'm going on the 70mm screen on Thursday. It's like, it's not exactly IMAX. I'm going to that though.

It is IMAX. I went to the 70mm IMAX showing of Oppenheimer to watch people in a classroom write equations the whole time. I'm like, why did I watch this on a massive screen? Oh, oh, now they're outside. Oh, oh, they're out by— he's talking to Einstein by a lake. Like, why do I need to see this on a massive screen? You know why? Because Christopher Nolan is a scam artist. Great director, scam artist though.

Uh, put it on the poll at Le Batard Show: is Christopher Nolan a scam artist? Uh, I also want to play for Amin here, get his expert analysis. Uh, this is from the Little People Convention in New Orleans. I mean, I want you to tell me this video, if you've ever seen a crossover result in this kind of calamity. Have you ever seen anyone crossed over this well? Verne Troyer here on defense. Bang!

No, too soon.

Is—

have you ever seen, have you ever seen a crossover that, that, that, that, that, uh, distinct?

Face first with the feet in the air afterwards? No, I've never seen that one. Uh, by the way, I think we have clearance to shit on Vern Troyer because he, because he was mean to Brad Williams once. So like, I feel like we have carte blanche.

But let me explain to the audience something, okay? If you do not have this video, keep in mind, just over the half-court line, the crossover begins, and then Vern Troyer then faceplants near the free-throw line, okay, with his feet up in the air, landing on near the free-throw line like a javelin would.

Should have just stayed down, by the way. He tries to get up immediately. I'm gonna just stay down. Just stay down. You have to— when that happens to you, you have to accept, okay, this is embarrassing. Let's all lean in and laugh at ourselves. The way he pops back up like, oh no, I'm good.

Like, guy, gotta grab a hand there, grab an ankle, do something.

Wish I could have seen the end of that play though. It looks like a nice jumper.

I'm okay with what we just saw there. It's enough.

Dan, his hips are off the ground. Yes, his hips are not touching the ground there, ladies and gentlemen, listeners. He is face down, his chest is flat against the ground, his hips are raised off the ground, and then like, like horns, his legs are up in the sky.

The crossover is so good that Verne Troyer lands and the only parts of his body touching the ground are the side of his face, his shoulders, and the back of his hands. Okay, the rest of his body is up. It's just the back of his hands, it's his two shoulders, and the side of his face.

Bring, bring that still shot again because I want to point something out. That his own teammate, even though we know the shooter, that's his head right there. The shot hasn't gone up yet. His own teammate is no longer concerned about stopping ball or is this shot going in? And he's like, is my guy okay? He's just staring at his guy right there.

His teammate is backing away as if scared, as if scared of something that's happening there. I mean, thank you. We will let you go on real quick. Yes.

One last thing. I know I talked about World Cup withdrawal syndrome, but there is another disease that's going on. It's World Cup related. I don't know if you guys have noticed this, so I have in my hand right here, these are my credentials from Summer League, and typically this is how you wear a credential. And then this World Cup, I've been noticing people doing this weird side satchel thing, and I'm like, what's going on there? And you guess what's happened at Summer League? Everyone's rocking it like a crossbody. And I'm here to say enough. Stop following the lead of these stupid, stupid people over there in the World Cup. Yes, they have The game, the great game, Drogba, Bonita, all that stuff. But I'm not here to emulate their dumb fashion trends. This is how you wear your credential, right? Like this. Stop doing it like this. First of all, security can't see it. So you got to go, oh, this is me over here. Just wear it regular.

Yes.

Posers.

Well done.

Thank you, Amin. Appreciate the indignant punctuation to your segment.

Right on.

Well done from Greg. Dale Levitar.

Can't wait for 39.

Yeah, I can't either. 40 comes first.

Do you know what 40 is yet?

Not yet.

What are we doing? Greg, did you just laugh? Did you just laugh out loud at something Lewis said in your ear?

Greg Cody.

Yes, I couldn't help it. It was funny. Yeah, but thanks, Lewis. Yeah, gagging the goose, of course. Choking the frog. I mean, there's a million of them. Of course. Half of them would sound dirty if we keep doing it.

This is the Dan Levitan Show.

Greg Cody has announced and Mike Ryan has notarized that this is the greatest semifinals in the history of the World Cup. England-Argentina is interesting for a number of different reasons. Greg Cody said that empirically Argentina has been quantifiably the slowest team in the entire tournament. Okay. So they are in the final— they are in the semifinals, even though their last 3 matches they've won by barely nothing. They should have probably lost all 3 of them. You could have made the argument for them being eliminated. I do not believe they are the class of this group, but they have Messi. I believe they are clearly the 4th best team in this tournament, but they've got a singular star who has no precedent in the history of sports, really. So what you have happening in this game uh, which is the better of the two games from a storyline perspective, the weaker of the two games in terms of who's best. Because if France and Spain were playing for the championship, I think everybody and everybody who loves soccer would take that, would take the game being played today as the championship and say yes, whichever one of those two teams wins is the best team in the sport.

Spain has allowed one goal in the entire tournament and didn't allow any goals the last two times it played in 2022 either, and recently beat France Euros.

Their superstar just turned 19 years old. Incredible stories around Spain.

But England, Argentina, you may have noticed Argentina famously does not have any Black players because their history with race is horrific. The entire country's history.

They never had a Black player.

Well, no, I wouldn't. I don't think that that's the case. But they don't have one now. And it's because there aren't very many Black people in Argentina. And Argentina is playing England in a game that has plenty of storylines tomorrow. But are Are you guys afflicted with the World Cup withdrawal of the last couple of days where you've been—

long 2 days, the long 2 days. But also part of it is because I'm eagerly anticipating this. I— if you want to parse, oh, that's the worst of the semifinal. I don't think there's a bad semifinal here. Oh, that's not as good of a final. The real final is on this semifinal. No one knows that. We're splitting hairs here. Argentina have looked unimpressive compared to the other 3, but they've all had their dips outside of France. Any one of these teams can beat the other. Any final that we get is going to be great. I actually like the way that the semifinals have broken up in terms of international rivalries. You're guaranteed to see that. And by the way, this is exactly how FIFA designed it for the first time ever. They ensured that if the top 4 seeds handled their business and won their groups, they would meet up in the semifinals. So quantifiably, it is headed into it the single greatest FIFA World Cup men's semifinal group ever.

I can't argue with that. I mean, I know that's the narrative right now is that this is the greatest World Cup Final Four ever. But I really think it is for so many reasons. And Argentina is trying to become the first back-to-back winner since 1958 and 1962. And realistically, you could argue they're the fourth best team in this group. But Lionel Messi, and we see time and time again, he has taken this World Cup Against lesser opponents, though.

He gets lesser opponents than any he's going to see the rest of the way. Like, you can do that shit against some of these teams that get tired late because they can't defend him for, for the entire time. Not against anyone he's playing the rest of the way.

But historically, they have a psychological edge when these two teams meet up there. There's incredible infamous moments. We already covered the Hand of God, Beckham's red card. And geopolitically speaking, not too far removed from a war. Argentina playing mind games, reportedly picking the darker set. Of kit because of their success wearing that specifically against England. But England, having tested their mettle against DR Congo, having gone to Azteca and mustered up the, uh, the, the mental fortitude needed to beat Mexico in that stadium— once I saw them have that result, my prediction was England wins this whole thing.

If England—

a lot of golf to be played, right? But but I think that they have a mental edge and they tapped into something special here, Zazz.

If England smokes Argentina, Argentina's entire run this World Cup will be fraudulent, right? I don't think so. Like what we say, they haven't played anyone.

No, but I don't— they haven't played anyone, but the way they've won will be remembered by Argentinians forever.

Yeah, they've played 2 of the 3 best World Cup men's matches I've ever seen.

But if they finally face a power and they get their ass kicked, it's like, alright.

I do think they're going to lose because what I've seen for them in '86 minutes of 3 straight games. I'm like, nah, you can't play that way against what's left.

Yeah, there's no pressure on Argentina to win. There's no pressure.

There's always pressure on Argentina to win. Okay, but this is not a house money thing. I know what you're going to say from Messi. Yeah, personally he needed the one, right? But he's not just chasing greatness. He's not just chasing a trophy.

Winning multiple is a huge—

winning multiple, winning back to back, that sets him apart. Remember, like, what people held against him was the international success, because the trophy count on the club side is undeniable. Pelé never had that success over in Europe. He played in South America. Pelé was known for what he did in the World Cup, and that success until recently eluded Messi. If Messi pulls off with what we're all admitting seems to be the less— the least impressive team of the four, that is an all-time moment. And You have to. Although the Ronaldo people, they're just firmly entrenched. You have to give it up to them.

When I look at that half of the bracket and I look at an English— England, the inventor of modern football. When I look at England going for its first World Cup since 1966, I think that's the pressure more than the defending champion trying to repeat.

Can you guys look up, please? I have— I've told you guys that my algorithm is now just filled with a whole bunch of soccer. All over the place. Well, no, but you have to go ahead and look up some Pelé highlights just so you can see how much slower players were back then. Just, just so that you can enjoy from 50 years ago who he's playing against and how it is that he's coming by whatever it was. It was 3 World Cups for Brazil, right, over the course of about 16 years.

That's why I think what Messi's done solidifies him in my eyes. And I know recency bias, right? He's the only one that I got to see actively. But I watch these old highlights. I see the shape of the, of the turf. I see the speed in which I'm like, wait a second, is this normal speed? And all the injection of analytics training to get the best possible performance from every individual player individually and collectively as a unit. So many resources go into these national sides now, even that I think Messi is the greatest of all time.

Greg, would you—

the goalkeeping in particular back then was really, really bad.

But that's the beauty of sports, right? When we watch a black-and-white grainy video of Babe Ruth batting, we're like, he couldn't put the bat on the ball now. You watch Johnny Unitas in the '60s dropping back to pass, you're like, what? You know, everything is bigger and better now and faster, but there's still Pelé and Maradona. I don't care the the era, there's still greatness. You know, that doesn't go out of style.

You've been talking about Yaz Olsho. Would you be interested in Tim Kirkshin's best number 8s of all time?

Yes, I would.

Okay. So he's got— what are the rankings, Jeremy? Don't give us who his best number 8 of all time is. Can you go— does he do them in order? Can you go 4, 3, 2, 1?

I can just give you the 4 that he brought up in this conversation on his own podcast. Now, I was surprised Gary Carter didn't make this list, but the 4 names that he brought up were indeed Yaz. He brought up Joe Morgan, a name we had yet to mention, Cal Ripken Jr., and Yogi Berra.

Those—

that's his Mount Rushmore of number 8s in baseball.

Perfect. A great list.

But who's number 1?

Yaz. All you can eat.

Yogi Berra. He has Yogi Berra as the greatest number 8 of all time.

You know what? The catcher always gets gets the inside track. The catcher— seriously, I'm not even kidding. Yogi Berra was great, but a catcher is always going to get the benefit of doubt when it comes to that kind of a list, in my opinion.

Were there any fan accounts on Twitter that you wanted and just like you couldn't get?

No. The only 4 I've ever had are myself, Yaz, Mavis Staples, and Brendan Benson.

What do you mean yourself?

@GregCody.

Oh, a fan club of your own?

Is that—

you're the head of—

called Upset Bird. What's my Twitter account?

You're the head of your own fan club, is that what you're saying?

No, I'm the head of my own account. Nobody does Greg Cody like me, and you know it. Hey, that's what I'm talking about.

Sing that shit. That's not how you say it.

What do you say?

What do you say?

What do you say?

What'd he say?

What'd he say?

What'd he say?

Nice hat, asshole.

See, Zanjolo thinks that's his phrase, but he won't even say it now. Like, I'm challenging him to say it.

They got a word for that, you know.

What's that? Cock. Yeah, I've heard that. You know, I want to see how similar his version of that is to my original, but he won't say it.

Yeah, keep saying it every time. It's just dollars. Dollar signs.

What'd he say?

It's just more money that's gonna go into my pocket at the end of this.

Is that right? Yep. Gonna sue me, are ya?

I already told you, you're Napster.

Napster.

Does Napster exist anymore?

Um, kazaa!

Nope.

LimeWire.

LimeWire!

Yeah!

Yeah!

This is— normally, traditionally, this is a slow time in sports.

It can't be because of the World Cup, Brad Williams says it's a slow time in sports. I'm like, what planet are you on?

But the reason the ESPYs are tomorrow, even though the, the award show is a bit dead in general, is because it's traditionally the slowest day of the sports calendar is tomorrow. And the host of the ESPYs is a local kid. Marcelo Hernandez has to be the youngest person to ever host the ESPYs. That guy's not even 30, is he? From Saturday Night Live. That he— I would imagine that he'd be nervous doing this. This is a different thing. It's not the norm. I mean, anybody gets nervous sometimes performing, but this is a very young performer here locally. Tony, are you looking for the— with enthusiasm at Latino representation? Because this is not something that traditionally goes very well in sports media. We are very underrepresented in the sports media.

In this room, we're good. Locally, we're good. Nationally, we don't have that. So no, it's good. It's going to be cool to see Marcelo do it. I don't go out of my way to go consume his content, but like, I'm proud of somebody from Miami being able to be on these huge stages. SNL, obviously the ESPYs. Am I going to watch it?

Probably not.

Yeah, it sounded like you were lukewarm, like you're supporting him only because he's Hispanic.

Exactly right. You nailed it, Dano. He's good culture.

Okay, perfect.

I'm not going to watch it, but I support you. I promise you.

But be funny.

Maybe if you want to be funny, be funny.

I don't care.

I'm not gonna watch, but I like it that you're there.