Transcript of Tony's Ego And Chris's Sueys Ruin The Show | Hour 3

You're listening to the Dan Le Batard Show in partnership with the DraftKings Sports app, now live in all 50 states.

We've got another SUI award to give out or vote on at lebatardaf.com in this hour. And before I wander too much away from this, I really am sort of, I guess, I'm so dismayed today on the fact that Pablo Torre is in New York doing this really, truly amazing work. And we're sitting here in Miami just screaming at each other about whether or not the tire competition yesterday ended in a tie or ended with Coca, you know, successfully throwing the ball through a tire if it gets stuck in the tire.

And I see him now.

I love this competition.

I see him practicing in the garage and I see that again, he threw a football poorly. And then it got stuck in the tire.

So what are you guys doing and planning here that—

I see that Zazz is exasperated. Is it about this, Zazz, or is it about something else?

I gotta tell you something, Dan. You know, my boys, my 2 boys, they're both in high school, all right? And they went on a high school trip at the beginning of the week. They're both gone. I can't get a hold of either one of these motherfuckers. Like, I sent them text messages. I want proof of life. And neither one of them responds. They've been gone the whole week.

I don't know what's hap—

send a text message. Respond to me.

I thought you were worn out because Tony wants a do-over on what we did yesterday and wants to unbreak a tie that wasn't a tie.

I'm worn out too that Zaslow, who finished in 3rd place, is sitting in here in the lap of luxury instead of holding that tire. That's his punishment.

Holding a tire?

We have the intern holding the tire.

I, I do want to say Coke has been practicing for at least 45 minutes to try to throw the ball to defeat me, even though he knew yesterday he didn't defeat me, which is what we're gonna get to this rematch here in a second. But if Zaz were to have the punishment of holding the tire, I would have sunk the game and just drilled Zaz 4 times.

The intern has been here for 4 days. This is his 4th day.

Yeah, that's perfect intern responsibility.

That is true. Put balls thrown at him. Media.

Why though is Tony getting a rematch on this? Like, who decided that Tony gets a rematch after— did— okay, but—

Oh, but isn't the shame of losing again worth—

That's right. Yeah, it's worth it.

It's a double-down bet that I'll make.

It's kind of like the Zaslav household. If you challenge someone to a tire toss, you have to do it.

If he wins, we say, ah, see, we let the baby have his bottle and now he won. But the more delicious result is that he loses again.

Oh, you'd like that, wouldn't you?

But the only way it works as a joke is if he fails again.

Like, if he succeeds, we gave him a rematch. And why'd we give him a rematch? Because he successfully made 2 out of 5 throws yesterday.

It was like when my dad— when my dad missed 10 straight penalty kicks and we're like, let's keep going. And then he made the next one and we were just like, oh.

All right, fine. You guys decided this, so go ahead, Tony. I guess you get a rematch even though you have not earned a rematch. Uh, Coker and Samson will be here all of next week doing their show. Beginning on Tuesday from 7 AM until we start at 9.

I want to tell Tony quickly though, I've told you, Dan, about the curse of 'sposed to, that a lot of football teams— nay, any competitor— you don't want the extra weight of being the one who's supposed to win. Tony, you're supposed to win. Now you've got a rematch. You better win this one or this is an all-time humiliation.

All-timer, huh?

Best wishes.

Coker just hit the intern again in the head. I've got, I've got Grady from Human Resources wandering around.

You want him to hold the tire too?

This just can't be legal. Get—

well, get Grady involved here because look, you guys remember at ESPN they made us stop running sprints because they were afraid. I still have the memory of, of, of Chris Cody on our first Freedom falling in the street, winning a race against Chris Whittingham.

That's right.

But injuring himself. And, and now we have Human Resources here.

We have—

Tuck and rolled though. I had a cut on my leg. It could have been bad.

Well, but let's, let's stop hitting the intern in the head with a football.

Can we do that?

I can't promise anything.

All right, get out there. Go ahead and get out there.

Intern is learning a lot today.

Well said.

So let's get into, uh, the, the controversy of the day here, because, uh, Damashek, I, I actually think here that we are too close to this, but this is if it is true, one of the most flagrant scandals involving cheating that we have ever seen in the history of sports.

This is all about Tony? Oh, you're talking about a different subject. Okay, I didn't know where you were going. Go ahead, continue.

The Steve Ballmer being the second owner from the Clippers to have an international shame involving the question of whether or not his team should be taken away.

There have been two things around this thing that I have found wildly interesting for the year going up to it. And now as we arrive at this, which feels a bit like Judgment Day. For a year, I have been legitimately confused by the sheer number of people who wanted Pablo Torre to be wrong. When if you were listening to his podcast, he had facts locked down in a way that I thought people would appreciate the truth in journalism and the idea of, Holy shit, this seems like somebody who's really rich doesn't care at all about whatever your rules are in your dumbass NBA league. That's what it's felt like to me. So now the ruling comes down and I'm seeing a whole lot of people saying, oh my God, holy shit, that penalty, and Windhorst saying, they got off light. Holy shit, that penalty. So we've had a year to prepare for whatever was the verdict on this. The verdict comes down and a whole lot of people are like, good God, the Clippers got hammered. But Windhorse is saying that cheating was so bad that Ballmer's still lucky to have a team. So what's true here?

Because I've had a year of fact gathering and I've also had the media doing an unbelievably shitty job at covering this story. Like, giving Pablo the corner for a year and everyone conceding it.

Yeah, that's, that's interesting that Windhorst is saying that. I feel like he's the only one then saying that they got off light, but I do wonder how much he's factoring in that, oh, but they're gonna get a couple first-round picks right now in this Raptors trade.

He is, but he's saying relatively easy, that they got off relatively easy here. Kawhi certainly did. Like, there's no There is no question about everything that was collectively bargained here makes it so that you can't actually punish Kawhi Leonard that much, even though what he did is super egregious, but he doesn't actually have to pay attention to the rules here very much.

I don't think, Zazz, that he's alone saying that they got off light. Samson said essentially that, right?

Well, Samson— did Samson say they got off light, or was Samson pushing back on me as far as what the Clippers' future is going to look like?

Well, that— I mean, to me, that's the heart of it. Obviously, that's what the NBA is attempting to do, is to level a real serious penalty. And, you know, it matters what your brand is. They're not the Raiders, who at least are supported by— you know, the bad boy image is supported by them winning and You know, I always say there's a difference between being an ass and an asshole. At least you have some gravitas if you're an asshole. If you're just an ass— and that's what the Clippers are, right?

You always say that?

I do always say that.

Yeah, I like that.

There's a big difference between an ass and an asshole.

You don't think so?

I dig it. Should we put it on the poll?

You're just a goof. You're just a goof if you're an ass. You're a jackass.

We park our cars same garage, you and I.

If you're an asshole, you can hurt people. And you, and you do. That's what makes you an asshole. Either way, the Raiders were assholes. You know, if they ain't booing you, they don't know who you are kind of thing. Um, the Clippers are a punchline, an ongoing punchline. I feel like, and I've said this for a quarter century now to The Sports Guy and beyond, they really need— they never were going to compete with the Los Angeles Lakers brand in LA. 25 years ago, I thought they should have rebranded. But they definitely need to reboot the whole thing now. Who's ever going to be a Clippers fan now?

Dan Le Batard.

DJ Laz is playing Kool-Aid in the background of my pit bull.

Here's Dave Demachek and he's like, hey guys, Pittsburgh, uh, all right.

Everybody's like, who the fuck is this guy?

Dave Demachek.

He goes, what TV is the Penguins game on?

Who the hell is this guy?

This is the Dan Le Batard Show.

I just want to examine this part of it before we go out to this very important The entire rematch where Tony, you know, gets a rematch even though he made 40% of his throws yesterday. And they seemed really close, by the way, as well, because you guys weren't throwing it very far.

Do you guys understand how weird it is for me to experience— this is the greatest penalty in the history of this sport and one of the greatest penalties ever, and your lead investig— or your lead basketball voice at ESPN is saying They got off light. They got off relatively light. So like, what's real here in terms of what the penalty should be, given that if it is true, it is one of the most brazen and expensive examples of cheating that we've ever seen in the history of American sports, and everyone was sleeping on it so much for a year that they're shocked yesterday that the penalty is this stiff when somebody involved with the reporting on this is telling you in Pablo and David, is it stiff enough? Like, what should be the truth here? Because that seems like an awfully long, wide range when we've spent a year preparing for this moment.

The fascinating part in what you're describing is that their own range over the last basically 12 to 15 hours has shifted in tone, because the reality is that this is the largest punishment for an owner in the history of the sport outside of having your team taken away from you. When it comes to cheating, this is the largest punishment. And so what most people who have not watched all 14 parts of Pablo's exposé on all of this are experiencing is like, oh my God, it's all real. All this stuff that we've been seeing in clickbait headlines, quote unquote, it's all real. And they've levied this massive punishment when the reality is, is there's even more to the story. And even Wachtell Lipton itself is saying we're still looking into more and there might be more that comes down the line. But when David and Pablo and Amin were first reacting to this last night, they were like, oh my God, what a giant punishment. This is all amazing. Now they've actually read through the entire document. They've had the time, not their 90 minutes that was taken up by their pre-planning meeting that David found so fascinating, but they've had the time to read every single word and they've gone, Wait a minute, there probably should have been an even deeper punishment than we've seen, and with more to come, that might happen.

Well, is that what Adam Silver has done, is kept his powder dry to take the franchise away from Ballmer? Because that would be the— the only thing left to do really is that, right? I mean, how much— what room is there between we're taking away 5 draft picks and we're suspending you and all of that and just stripping the franchise away?

This is one of the many fascinating things to me about what it is that just happened. 2 words: at least. It's gonna be at least 5 first-round picks, and it's gonna be at least a $30 million fine.

For all of that, all of the pages and all of the, all of the lawyer talk yesterday, the NBA is still holding the hammer of, do you really want to fight about this, Ballmer? Like, do you really want— when they say at least—

Well, that has to be it, right? Is that it's a threat. It's a threat. Don't take this to court. because we could actually add on to this.

This is where we are with this. They had to conclude that investigation before the basketball season. Yeah, yeah, they, they have to let the Raptors and Clippers and Kawhi play. And so if there is indeed a lot more here and Ballmer decides to fight instead of putting down his sword, and he still seems like he's going to be fighting, to me, one of the fascinating things that's happening here that I don't believe, uh, that a lot of people outside of the listeners of Pablo Torre Finds Out and our show understand is this has been covered so differently by an ignorant press that doesn't understand what's happened over the last year and has not listened to the 14 Pablo episodes, uh, how he won a Pulitzer, that the people who are running the coverage on this are not properly informed. And so the public is surprised by a penalty that should have seemed obvious because this should look to you like one of the greatest examples you've ever seen of, of somebody rich trying to cheat and then getting cornered on, this is provably false and I was duped too, and still yelling with his lawyers because this is a human being who's been rich for a very long time and knows how to fight in these circumstances.

But you've got a journalist holding the cards who's been out in front of the investigators on this. You've got a journalist that everyone's afraid of because they know he's got more. And so how is it that there's this disconnect where 10 days ago ESPN reported something that was just unbelievably false, like, or according to the NBA and what it is that they said, and immediately said like, you've got this wrong. And now you've got ESPN, a league partner, and the NBA saying your reporting's bullshit on this. Like, where'd you get your information? Because clearly the information was coming from the Clippers. And it's all meant to obscure that the public doesn't need to know how bad this obviously is, and you're telling me it's working if everyone is saying, holy shit, what a penalty, and Windhorst is like, they got off relatively light?

That's the part that stands out, is what happened with ESPN, because you guys are talking about, oh, the basketball season's coming up, they needed to end this now. It's early September. The basketball season doesn't start until mid-October. There were still weeks for them to uncover—

Yeah, but we had to find out what team Kawhi Leonard plays for.

Okay, but if If that trade is agreed to in principle, that could happen right before the season. You think he's playing preseason games? You think that he's not working out for what they need him to be? He's not the only one in the trade though. No, I understand that, but I don't— personally, I don't think that that's the only factor. I think that you saw a very obvious— because the way the NBA responded within the hour to that ESPN reporting so strongly.

That never happens.

You never see that.

But what do you guys make of that though? Like, I'm always talking about journalism here, Damashek, and the idea that ESPN, which is partners with the NBA on a television contract—

ESPN just went into business with the NFL, the NFL owns 10% of ESPN—

if the Clippers can just take a propaganda arm that is the worldwide leader in sports and have them run their Pulitzer Prize-winning reporters out there to just have a story that the NBA then says is wrong, like, what do you make of all of those conflicts?

You said that the ESPN reporters were uninformed. I think— I don't know, I'm not going to assume that this is what you're getting at, but it seems willfully uninformed, right? They are. And, you know, it's not a big conspiracy theory to suggest that they now are in league with the league and so are disincented from damaging the league. And I really do think that this all leads to what— and this isn't an indictment of the world in which Pat McAfee wants to live, but what he gets at is— Like, dude, why are we talking about all the negative stuff? Sports are here to boost our spirits and make us feel good and happy. Why do we have to know about all the ugliness? And basically what that amounts to doing is washing away the last half century of sports journalism, right? I mean, it's like, let's just ignore the ugly stuff and focus in on the good times of sport.

Not to sound too highfalutin, but this is where sports are a microcosm for society. Because you're looking at it through a lens of, oh, this person in power who's used to getting away with everything, who skirts the rules, and we all look at it as expecting no punishment, expecting them to get away with it, because that's what we see reflected in our society. If you're a rich guy and you use the term witch hunt, nobody's going to ever face any consequences. And that's why people are so shocked that there are consequences here.

Windhorse. It's weird, right?

I think they're ready out there, Dano.

Twice my voice gave.

All right, let's go out there.

Uh, Jeremy, can you give me some play-by-play? They put this together very quickly in the garage for some reason. We have all of South Florida's beautiful landscape as our backdrop, and we've decided to do this in a parking garage because that's the creativity that we have around here as Pablo creates the biggest scandal in sports. Uh, Jeremy, you give me some play-by-play because we don't have microphones here.

Uh, Coca, get ready here. I, uh, get ready here to make 5 more throws.

5 throws.

Is Coca going first or is Tony going first?

No, I want the pressure on Tony, so I'd like Matthew Coca to go first and establish where things stand. Matthew Coca will line up to throw. There is a big white van.

There's a—

let's be sure that's a white passenger van. There is a second car going. It looks to be— I can't, I can't tell because of my sunglasses.

All right, all right, let's do this.

There's a Honda Accord behind Matthew Coca as he warms up. Now he's turning toward the tire. Nope. Here comes the, the 2-shot. We will see the tire. That is our intern. Here's the first throw and it's off the top. A little flinch from the intern. Now, second throw for Matthew Coca using a different football.

Strong dude, intern.

Lines up and the throw.

Ooh, hit in the face.

That ball sails wide right.

Coca's been practicing for about 20 minutes and now he's 0 for 2.

He has walked to the other side of the garage to pick up the ball.

And this was a terrible idea by you guys because Tony's now not gonna lose.

Ooh, a little bit of a flinch.

Here comes the 3rd throw. Terrible idea by you guys.

And the 4th throw.

Yeah, it's gonna go over 5.

Just off the inside. Another flinch from the intern. If you're watching on the video side, those are Frankie's hands as well.

Ah!

And over 5 for Matthew Coker. That arm is a beauty.

All that is needed.

Way to go, guys.

Way to go.

All that is needed.

Well, it could be still embarrassing for Tony if he also goes 0 for 5. We have a tie here. Coker, you're done, dude. It's Tony's personal standard.

If he doesn't do better than 2, it's a humiliation.

Yeah, we need to get this ball over to Tony.

Just a horrific idea.

And once we get the ball to Tony, Brutal. It's gonna be okay, Dan.

No, it's not. He's not gonna miss 5 times.

You don't know that.

I think he will.

Let's see how this goes. Here comes throw number 1, and it's—

Way to go, guys.

All right, way to go.

Great Cody penalty kicks all over again.

Great, great shit from all you guys. Way to go.

Down, Le Batard!

For 5 minutes, I was watching everyone just like, nope, not letting you in, not letting you in. So when I got up there, I had to say something, and I said it. Cheaters never prosper.

Chris Cody.

My buddy was saying, not today.

Yeah, but you're—

Not today. I think that was what he was adding. Yeah, that would have been so much better. I'm telling you, the response I got from this guy, what I said was amazing.

I like it.

He got him.

Cheaters never prosper. This guy yelled as angry as he could.

I ain't cheating!

This is the Dan Le Batard Show.

Let's play the next SUI Award.

I am so pissed off right now.

Now the SUI nominees for Best Story. Amin Alhassan, Paul Silas-Rick Mahorn story.

We just played the Cavs. Paul Silas is the head coach. Paul Sias is a big dude, right? So Paul Sias walks up behind Mahorn and he goes, shh, to me. And I'm like, yeah, sure, whatever. And I'm like, is he gonna scare him, whatever? And he smacks the ever-loving bejesus out of the back of Rick Mahorn's head. I'm talking about like the sound reverberated around the cavernous Phillips Center at the time, now State Farm Arena. And Mahorn turned around and I've never seen him with that kind of rage in his eyes. And I realized He thinks that I did that.

Why would he think that you did that?

That's what I wanted to know! Why would I do that? And then he looks and he sees Paul Silas, and instantly all the rage drains out and he starts laughing, and they hug and everything.

Why would that be funny no matter who did it?

I said to him, oh, wait a second, you were about to kill me when you thought it was me, but it's Paul Silas, it's a big joke. And he says, Paul Silas is a bad dude. And I was like, you know what, all right.

Andre Hawkins incident with a medical trainer during training camp.

So I'm at practice and And a kid, a young, like, trainer, like the, the young, uh, medical trainers are the ones in charge of, like, squirting water, like, whatever you're gonna need to drink at practice. We're in camp, and camp sucks, as you know, and we're all fighting for jobs, and this is miserable, and you're away from your family, and it's hot. A new kid is, is at the Browns. He's doing the, the water. So I come up—

He should have been shadowing someone else.

He should have been shadowing, absolutely, because every time I try to get a drink It's just water all over my face. You talk about the worst aim ever, right? So I'm like, okay. So after like a couple days, like, it's like I ask for a drink, it's nose, ah. I'm like, all right. Just give it to me. Just give it to me, exactly, right? It develops into I'm not even asking for the water. He's just coming like this, so I turn and he just starts squirting. I'm like, okay. So then by like day 5, I come off the field, he does it again. I grab the water bottle, I turn it, I squirt him all—

this is a new kid—

all over his face.

I'm like, now how does that feel? Aim the damn bottle.

Dan Le Batard on how he got arrested.

My friends were getting kicked out of a Johnny Rockets as I was arriving. As they were being kicked out, I noticed that my shoe was untied. I did not take Tony's advice. I stopped, bent down, and tied my shoe. The police officer thought I was being defiant and kicked me in the back. And I got up and congratulated him for being the person in crime-ridden Miami who protects the condiments at Johnny Rockets. And that's where I got arrested. And then he He waved. Yeah, more sarcasm. I'm in the back seat. They're very tight in the back seat. I got the plastic cuffs on me and he's showing me the police report, holding it up against the window saying, what about now, smart guy?

How smart are you now?

And I'm like, you don't spell John Doe with a W. He had spelled it John Dow because I wouldn't give him my name.

Dan Le Batard, squatter story.

So for a few years, my wife and I have been working on building a house, trying to get a house built, and we've been using it as an Airbnb in the interim. Okay? And, uh, we're, we're in and out of using the house, and others are using the house. And a couple of times after someone hasn't stayed there, I've been like, oh, some things have been moved. I don't understand why that's over there. Who did that? I'll call somebody. Did somebody do this? Don't understand it. Got some mail one day, and I'm looking through the mail, and there are a couple of things in there that are the correct address but are not my name. And I'm like, what is that?

What is this?

This isn't here. I throw it out.

Yesterday, Uh, Elise calls me, my assistant, and says, do you guys know why the room upstairs is locked? You have a squatter? And we're like, the room upstairs is locked? Why would it be locked? Is there— is there someone in there? And she's like, no, there's not anyone in there. But what do you mean it's locked? So it's locked from the inside, but there's no one in there? Yeah, there's no one. There's no one in there. And, and it's also a room, by the way, that is totally empty. Like, it's a room that has no furniture in it, and it's locked. So we don't know. So we go to start figuring it out and trying to figure it out, and we open the door and break in, there's a bed and a television hung in there that's not ours. I had also spotted a few days earlier, I'd opened a drawer and there were a bunch of doorknobs in there. And I'm like, why are there doorknobs in there? That squatter was preparing to fully occupy my house, to have everything in there, his doorknobs, so that when I got there and said it's my house, he could spend months there litigating for free.

Yeah.

arguing with me over whether it's my house or his. He was this close to changing all of the locks in my house. I should have figured it out with the doorknobs. I couldn't figure out why they're— I'm like, whose doorknobs are these? Why are there doorknobs in this drawer? Where did these come from? But there was somebody who's sneaking in and out of the house around when we were there, like, was, was able to do it. I'm rarely upstairs. I would have no reason to go upstairs. The mail didn't clue me. The, the doorknobs didn't clue me. And the way that we got him arrested last night is the cop was just waiting for him to get there, and evidently he pulled up in front of the cop and started saying, yeah, this is my house, this is my house.

Amin Alhassan, bachelor party prank story.

I got a buddy of mine went to a bachelor party recently, and one of his buddies did the most diabolical prank ever known to man. What he did was, the night before everyone was leaving, he went into everyone's suitcase and packed a bottle of water, but at the top it had like a rubber mini dildo, and then buried it deep in the suitcase so that everyone going to the airport is gonna get stopped by TSA like, do you have any water in the bag? No. I'm like, no, there is water in the bag. And when they pull it out, there's a dildo on it.

Dan Le Batard, Jim Leyland story.

I told you guys the story, right? Rich Donnelly, the third base coach, what he would do to Jim Leyland.

on the road when he was old, he'd knock under his desk and Jim Leland would always go running to the door.

And in every city, he'd turn back around and be like, there's kids in this place too! It'd be Jim Leland, I imagine, either tighty-whities or a robe, right? Had I not told you guys that story?

I love that story.

No, never heard that one before.

That's new.

Never heard that one.

But old genius champion manager Jim Leland, from city to city, the hotels were either haunted or haunted by kids who were always running away whenever Rich Donnelly wanted to go to bed.

It's that poop again.

Don't put it out with your boot, Ted.

Dave Damashek, Ed Hochuli story.

I was once, about a decade ago, pregame down in, uh, in Chicago downtown in Soldier Field, running around on the field about 45 minutes before kickoff one Sunday. And, um, oh, look who it is! It's iconic referee, um, Ed Hochuli running towards me. Right, the guns are out, it's a nice day in Chicagoland, and he's running towards me into the bowels of the stadium. And as he goes by, I go, hey, ref! And I go into my pocket and I pull out a dollar bill. And I go like, let's make sure the home team has a good day today, okay? And he stops and he goes, what the hell are you doing? I realize I have erred immediately.

No!

I've made a grave mistake. And he said, what do you think you're doing? And I said, I, I, you know, I was just, uh, you know, having some fun. He's like, you stay right here. Who are you? And now the shame sweats are starting, you know, the, the cold chill down the spine and everything else. And he runs off and he's replaced, uh, you know, 90 seconds later by a couple of sizable toughs in NFL blazers. And they are interrogating me about like, who are—

who do you work for?

Who are you? And I said, um, the NFL.

Dave Damashek fantasy football story.

Many moons ago, I joined a fantasy football league, about a quarter century ago now. It's populated by noteworthy sports people like Bill Simmons and Cousin Sal and so on, and Jon Hamm. And Cousin Sal, maybe 20 years or so ago, came up with a diabolical plot that much like Survivor, the champion gets to kick out someone of his choosing, but only at the draft. So it's not like you tell them in spring.

So you prepared for the draft?

You showed up?

You go all summer long, and then on the eve of the season— so it's too late to join another league— the champion comes in when everybody's gathered around.

Okay, so hold on a second. Is there like negotiating leading up to draft night? You're trying to state your case as to why you should not be kicked out.

Yes. Simmons' tact has been for about 10 years to announce, like, I hope you kick me out. I don't want to be in the league anyway. It's dumb. I hate fantasy football.

I'm closing my eyes and I feel like I'm right there.

Everyone, everyone was very scared. He's got juice, you know. I got a Cameo. His favorite ballplayer, Bill Simmons, growing up was Fred Lynn, you know, of the Red Sox. So I got Fred Lynn on Cameo to kick Simmons out of the league.

David Sampson, Scott Boras story.

The only thing we did with Scott Boras is one of my favorite things I ever did in baseball is every time we negotiated with him, we'd do it on speakerphone and we would leave the room and just let him talk.

No.

And we had our assistant tell us when there was a pause and we'd come back in the room, but we would leave and go to my office, which was next door to the GM's office, do other stuff, and then come back because it didn't matter what he was saying and we certainly didn't care. And it certainly didn't move the ball. It was just a matter of when our owner would give in to what Scott wanted. That was the only thing we were waiting for.

Greg Cody was friends with his wife's ex-boyfriend?

Did you almost get into a physical altercation with her ex?

Uh, no, but, but we actually became awkward friends.

I know, didn't he like visit us once and like slept at our house?

Yeah, yeah, that was weird.

I remember thinking that was weird at like 18. My mom might like, yeah, my ex-boyfriend's gonna be staying with us for a couple days.

And right after Right after the breakup, we were both tennis players at the time, and we played tennis.

For mom? Like, you played tennis?

No, no, no.

Was it doubles, singles?

It was singles, and I, I had already won your mother, but he hit a hard shot that hit me right in the private region. And for years, like, I was worried that it was an issue down there.

Was this intentional?

There was a time when—

Yeah, did the ball hit you on a bounce or straight?

It hit me straight.

Also, maybe he did it on purpose.

I'm not alleging that, but I am implying it.

Pre-Christopher, post-Christopher?

Oh, pre.

Did it hit the twig or the berries?

It hit the berries. And, and that's why he's worried.

That's why he was worried for 10 years.

For a couple of years after that, one berry was noticeably bigger than the other.

Really?

Which concerned me, but I had it looked into and it was okay.

Doc said everything good?

Yeah. Barry Bonds, well done. Yes.

So Uh, can we stop for a second here? Because Chris, what's happening in the other room? Why is Tony laughing at you? Why is Jeremy taunting you? Why are you looking like you're totally insecure?

Because the Suis have been so great this week, in my opinion, and it, you know, not a great story year.

This guy is having a full-on meltdown back there. I've never seen anything like it.

And I love your squatter story. I meant earlier today to go back and tighten that one. I forgot to do that. It's like the first mistake I've made.

No, you've done a great job.

Tony, why are you laughing at him though?

His insecurity kills me.

I had to lay down on the floor at one point.

It's insane.

Roy kept giving me time updates of how much long— he's like, 7 minutes left, and it was just like punching me in the stomach.

So you think this has been bad?

No, see, that's what I mean. I know Jeremy keeps telling me it's good. Maybe it isn't. I just—

It is not. It is not nearly as bad as you feel it is. Tony pitched an idea where they threw footballs in the garage and the payoff was him winning.

Wait a second, these series have been terrible.

What are we talking about?

This category—

Tony's scaled down.

Tony and his ego ruined the show today.

Tony's ego ruined the show. I can't believe you guys allowed all of that.

It's Coker's fault.

It's Coker's fault?

It was you and you alone.

If he would have made one, we would have been able to salvage it.

The hubris.

Eli Leonard.

Do you think, Damashek, that Cody is right or wrong? Has the story category been good, bad, average?

Like, he is just—

look at him. His body language is garbage.

I mean, the squatter story was great. I don't know exactly what you would cut out of that. I disagree in general with you.

Yes.

Zaz, what are your thoughts here? You've got a good ear for interesting.

I was—

I'm, I'm turned off by the best story category from the, from the beginning because I happen to know that my American Airlines bus story is not included.

That's what this is.

And hey, do you have when I said this?

Okay, okay.

But, but you know what? If we're being honest here, my story was best story of the year.

No, but this is exactly what a revelation is. Exactly what happened. My story became a national Right before we started, Zazz turns to Chris and goes, hey, is my story about American Airlines in there? Don't ask me anything like that. And it rattled Chris before we even got to best story. So the moment it started, he's like, oh God, it's 13 minutes, I can't take this, it's gonna be too long. And he has been sweating, he's been up and down behind the desk, he's been losing his mind. And at first Tony was trying to comfort him. Tony was like, hey, I pitched the idea of throwing the football. And then now he realized, I think this is gonna pay off for me.

I think I'm off the hook.

You guys ruined the show today.

No, Tony ruined the show.

You guys—

Tony did.

Did you hear the squatterstorm?

I came in today so proud of our company, and that has all been erased.

They should take the Pulitzer back.

Oh man, I called sports a microcosm of society.

Finish the category.

Greg Cody needs his wife's support.

This is my dad calling me on Saturday night, leaving me a voicemail. He doesn't know he's leaving me, complaining to my mom about me not getting my picks in in time.

I'm going to have them send out a group text to the league this coming week proposing punishment powers. Okay, that's enough. If anything like this happens. I'm back.

That's enough.

Stop it.

Chris, you said to stop it. You promised him.

He does sound drunk.

And then he goes, and I need your support.

Okay, all right.

Just play it.

Just play that part.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no.

He asked not to. He asked not to.

Listen, understand one thing. That wasn't the commissioner of PFPI talking to Moms Maniacs. That was Greg talking to his wife. Okay, there's a separation of church and state there.

But you were— you wait, wait, wait, wait. You told— you promised him you wouldn't.

I was replaying.

Don't make him—

don't make him angrier.

There's more that you can listen to on my podcast. That's all. Give it—

give it—

if anything like this happens, look, I don't want to keep upsetting your father.

Tyler Herro's Twitter troll tells the story of their DMs.

And I came up on his burner and I commented, retire Hope, pretty much. And then he commented back telling me that he's just getting started, this, that, this, and like his career is going to be great. And then he hopped in my DMs like making fun of me, and then we were going back and forth for like months. I would basically, every time he had a bad game or something like that, I'd tell him he's terrible, Miami's gonna be better when you're gone, stuff like a lot Along those lines. And he would— anytime he had a good game, he would have him on my DMs like, drop, drop dots, talk about how nice he was, and, and this, that, this. He needs, he needs the team to be built around him and things of that nature. And then the particular message about Bam, he had a terrible game the game before, and I was telling him how bad he was, and then he's like, everyone's worried about me, but there's a guy making $60 million. And then he started to go in on Bam.

All right, a little bit of a bounce back there at the end.

I mean, the visual of that guy wearing a mask while he gave us that distorted voice interview. lebitardaf.com is where you vote for this stuff. And because we cannot play music here, one of the best categories every year is our best musical performance.

Where can people get that, Chris?

Because we're not gonna play that on the show because we don't have the rights to the music.

We will put that out separately on YouTube. So if you're a YouTube watcher, you can watch that isolated and we'll also release it as a podcast. Just can't do it live on YouTube.

Okay, lebitardaf.com where you vote on this stuff. Shams is reporting that Kawhi Leonard reportedly did not have any knowledge of the salary cap circumvention that was going on.

Kawhi Leonard.

It's ridiculous. We, we've— it's been an open secret for years that Uncle Dennis is on that bullshit. Everybody knows this. Kawhi's the only one who didn't know. Come on.

Come on.

Dan, in our final moments together, since you're not in tomorrow, I don't feel I know you as well as everybody else here. I'd like to change that. Answer me some questions very quickly here. When's the last time you were in the ocean?

My wife was just in this morning.

You know what, I used to walk from the Clevelander with a bag that floated through the ocean to my apartment.

You can only swim in one body of water for the rest of your life. Ocean, lake, river, pool?

Good answer by you.

Yeah, I go pool, but I'm gonna go lake.

Pool?

Lake. Favorite band?

Uh, the Beatles are litigious.

Hey Hey, We're the Monkees.

Favorite player in sports history?

Uh, Barry Bonds.

Barry Bonds is your favorite player of all time?

Good answer.

Not Junior Caminero.

I, I'm floored by that one.

Maybe Dave Winfield because it was a childhood hero. Maybe Dave Winfield.

Barry Bonds. I can't believe it. You can only swim in one for the rest of your life, Pacific or Atlantic?

The Atlantic. It's warmer. Uh, Kawhi Leonard reportedly says—

I'm so off the hook.

I didn't know about the salary cap.