Taylor & Travis, Tommy Fleetwood, Birds, Squirrels, and Serena's Controversy

Summary

Casuals with Katie Nolan: Episode Summary

Episode: Taylor & Travis, Tommy Fleetwood, Birds, Squirrels, and Serena's Controversy
Date: August 26, 2025

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Main Theme & Episode Purpose

On this lively and wide-ranging episode, Katie Nolan and her "Casuals" crew (Brady, Chris, Isabella) deliver a welcoming, humor-filled breakdown of the week in sports—with digressions ranging from Taylor Swift’s engagement, wild animal antics in sports stadiums, big personal news for Serena Williams, to the weirdest things kids aspire to be in the Little League World Series. The show balances thoughtful takes on the ethics of celebrity endorsements and body image, with plenty of inside jokes, deep-cut sports lore, and a continual effort to make sports accessible and entertaining to everyone.

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Key Discussion Points

1. Taylor Swift & Travis Kelce’s Engagement (00:58, 92:16)

• The crew reacts in real time to Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce's engagement announcement, which broke just before taping.
• “They’re getting engaged. Wow. Oh my God.” – Katie (01:37)
• The excitement derails the usual show opening, with everyone joking about the public's (and their own) obsession with the couple.
• Later, the team debates whether the wedding will be public or "Bezos-private." Katie jokes she’ll delay her own wedding: “I can’t go up against that programming. I can’t be compared to that.” (92:20)

2. Fantasy Football Names & League Announcement (07:01, 108:18)

• Listener Marissa reminisces about Katie’s classic fantasy team name, “Me Katie Soft Lady,” derived from player Mecole Hardman.
• The crew shares their favorite, often pun-based, fantasy team names:
  • Brady: “Breeze Witherspoon” for Breece Hall (08:37)
  • Chris: “Punters are people too” in honor of Australia/NFL punting pipeline. (09:57)
• The “argument” about whether your team name must match your roster becomes a light, meta-sports riff.
• Major announcement: Isabella will be drafting and managing a show fantasy league team. Listeners are invited to join via email for the Monday draft (108:18). Notable: “Matthew Berry...he’s like the guy...he’s going to come by to give you some tips and tricks.” (111:03)

3. The US Open—Celebrity, Culture & Haircuts (17:27)

• The tennis tournament’s growing hype in U.S. culture: celebrity sightings, podcast tie-ins, and “ancillary content.”
• Carlos Alcaraz’s infamous haircut: “My brother misunderstood with the machine. He cut it and the only way to fix it is to shave it off.” (17:27)
• Katie, in her singular style: “You never quite know what lumps you have on the scalp...he got lucky. He’s not lumpy.” (18:54)
• Ben Shelton’s match: Complaints about in-game interviews with players’ family members—“Leave this guy alone, he’s got something going on right now!” (20:44)
• Daniil Medvedev’s on-court blowup after umpire calls a point replay due to a photographer's interruption: “He is not a man. He wants to go home” (22:40).
  Brady, summarizing: “Yelling at the umpire is not getting paid by the hour like it’s some sort of revelation is crazy.” (23:45)
• Maria Sharapova inducted into the Tennis Hall of Fame, Serena Williams giving a gracious speech despite dominating their match-up: “Hey, congratulations. Remember how I beat you 20 out of 22 times throughout our career?” – Katie, paraphrasing (26:19)

4. Serena Williams & GLP-1 Weight Loss Drug Partnership (27:12)

• Serena opens up about using “Zepbound,” a GLP-1 weight loss medication, in a campaign for telehealth platform “Roe”—her husband is on Roe’s board.
• Katie breaks down the complexity of this kind of sponsorship: is it destigmatizing honest talk about weight or muddying the waters between personal health advocacy and business interests?
• “[Serena] is one of the greatest athletes of all time...if the message here is that even Serena needed to take this medication...why should I keep hitting the gym?” (31:36)
• Katie’s key distinction: “I can separate how I feel about Serena Williams taking GLP1 from how I feel about using her reveal in a paid sponsorship by her husband’s company.” (36:54)
• Isabella raises concerns about societal obsession with weight loss: “It’s less about what Serena’s doing...the fact that right now, we’re all so concerned with weight loss as a way to feel comfortable in our bodies.” (39:23)
• “We do not treat fat people kindly as a society, and I feel like if they do anything to try not to be, they’re yelled at for that.” – Katie (40:48)

5. US Open Dating Show, “Game Set Matchmaker” Review (43:25)

• Crew reviews the debut of “Game Set Matchmaker,” a US Open-backed dating show. Katie finds it amateurish: “If you thought it was easy to make reality dating competition TV, watch this and see just how hard it is.” (45:05)
• They praise the preview’s diversity (gay, lesbian, older couples) but note the awkward premade questions and technical issues.

6. NASCAR and Racing Follies (49:15)

• Bubba Wallace’s multi-car wreck: “Bubba caused—a 12 car wreck on Saturday night. He admitted he caused the wreck.” (50:01)
• Follow-up: Connor Zillich’s celebration injury leads to absurd NASCAR loophole—his backup, Parker Kligerman, subs in and wins, but Zillich gets the credit: “This is like any group project I worked on in college.” (54:23)
• Chris offers international melon trivia as a stall tactic after a Red Sox mistake. (“Cantaloupe in Australia is ‘rock melon’.” 62:58)

7. Little League World Series—Actuary Kid & Bat-Flipping (57:47)

• Chinese Taipei dominates, ends U.S. win streak.
• Spotlight on a Connecticut player whose “dream job” is actuary, baffling announcers: “He just wants to be an odds maker, and nobody’s flagging this.” (58:50)
• Katie on “Ryder Tillots”: “That is the beginning of a pretty specific sentence...” (61:10)

8. Squirrel on the Field & The Legendary Randy Johnson Bird Incident (64:45, 66:43)

• Red Sox-Yankees game had a squirrel delay, with play resuming while the animal remained on the field, to Katie’s horror: “What if it gets hit by the ball?” (65:23)
• Crew introduces Isabella to the 2001 Randy Johnson “exploding bird” pitch: “That bird just needed an actuary.” (68:00, 68:26)
• Key Quote: “It’s a billion to one shot. There’s no chance of this ever happening.” – Brady (68:09)

9. Baseball Home Run Tracker & The Castellanos Lore (72:22, 78:46)

• Discussion of Cal Raleigh’s record-setting season as a home-run hitting catcher (“Big Dumper” has 50+ homers). (72:41)
• Shout-out to Vinnie Pasquantino’s hot streak after his podcast appearance.
• The “Man of Faith/Castellanos” story: Katie explains the Internet meme and legend of Nick Castellanos, who hits home runs at comically inappropriate moments, including during live on-air apologies and tragic remembrances. (79:14, 87:22)
  • "I pride myself and think of myself as a man of faith. As there’s a drive in a deep left field by Castellanos…" (83:34)
  • Castellanos’ home runs seem inextricably tied to tragic or awkward sports moments, adding to his Internet lore.

10. NFL, NWSL, and F1 News (99:02, 101:17)

• Tommy Fleetwood wins his first PGA event after 164 starts, sparking discourse about age/gender in sports love stories. (94:05)
• NWSL’s Bay FC sets U.S. women’s pro sports attendance record (101:17)
• Trump tries to “steal” the World Cup trophy and demands Roger Clemens’s Hall of Fame induction, causing much bemusement. (102:03)
• Brief discussion of Ryder Cup questions, F1 Dutch GP preview, and updates on new drivers (Valtteri Bottas = “Butt-ass”).

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

On Taylor & Travis (01:37):

“They’re getting engaged. Wow. Oh my God.” – Katie

On Serena & GLP-1s (31:36):

“When that is paired with weight loss medication, I think a lot of people bristle against that and feel like if the message that’s being sent here is that even Serena needed to take this medication...why should I keep hitting the gym?” – Katie

Isabella on Body Image (39:23):

“The ultimate goal of feeling happy in your body...right now, we’re all so concerned with weight loss as a way to feel comfortable in our bodies...that’s the biggest concern for me.”

On TV dating shows (45:05):

“If you thought it was easy to make reality dating competition TV, watch this and see just how hard it is.” – Katie

On the Randy Johnson Bird Incident (68:09):

“It’s a billion to one shot. There’s no chance of this ever happening.” – Brady

On the Castellanos Meme (83:34):

“I pride myself and think of myself as a man of faith. As there’s a drive into deep left field by Castellanos...” – Tom Brennaman, as quoted by Katie

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 00:58 — Taylor Swift & Travis Kelce Engagement
• 07:01 — Fantasy Football Names and League Plans
• 17:27 — US Open, Celebrity Culture, and Tennis Haircuts
• 22:40 — Medvedev’s Meltdown Incident
• 27:12 — Serena Williams, GLP-1 drugs, and Roe Endorsement
• 39:23 — Body Image and Weight Loss Discourse
• 43:25 — “Game Set Matchmaker” Review
• 49:15 — NASCAR Antics and Bubba Wallace
• 54:23 — NASCAR Driver Substitution/Win Oddity
• 62:58 — Melon Recipes and Stalling from Red Sox Error
• 65:23 — Squirrel On the Field
• 66:43 — Introduction to the Randy Johnson Bird Incident
• 68:09 — Reaction to Johnson’s Bird Pitch
• 72:22 — Baseball Home Run Watch
• 79:14 — Man of Faith/Castellanos Saga
• 99:02 — Tommy Fleetwood’s First Win & Golf’s Love Stories
• 101:17 — NWSL Record, World Cup Trophy Antics, Clemens/Trump

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Wrap-Up

This episode exemplifies the light, funny, and approachable spirit of “Casuals,” blending approachable banter and deeper analysis. Whether it’s analyzing the ethics of Serena’s pharma deal or screaming (literally) about celebrity engagements, Katie’s crew brings every listener—sports diehards and newcomers alike—into the conversation.

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Contact Info & Participation Reminder:

• To join the fantasy league, email CasualsWithKatieNolan at gmail.com with subject “FANTASY.”
• Social: @CasualsThePodcast on IG & TikTok

Next episode:

• Fantasy football draft with Isabella, featuring possible insights from Matthew Berry!

“We love you, we mean it. See you Thursday!”

Transcript

[A]

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[A]

Hey, Isabella. What did you see? Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce are engaged.

[C]

No way. I thought you were gonna say they broke up, but that's cool. Okay. Was the proposal public?

[A]

I don't know. I just saw. It's just. I. This is. This. This is. Derails this whole show.

[B]

I heard this via a scream from one floor above me, and I texted my wife to ask if she was okay because I thought maybe the. A bookshelf had fallen off the wall or a small asteroid had crashed through the house. No. She's that excited. They're getting engaged.

[A]

Wow. Oh, my God.

[C]

Can I see her ring? Hold on, I'm looking this up.

[B]

Taylor posted on Instagram, your English teacher and your gym teacher are getting married. Emojis.

[A]

Cute. Hello? I don't know. I don't know. They yelled at me for yelling, and now I feel like I have to quietly say hello. But the nature of our theme song, right, is that it hits and then you want it to. You gotta meet that energy. It wasn't hating you yell. They were just like, why are you yelling at us? And I was like, because it feels right. And now I can't find what feels right. Now I'm going, hi. And that feels so bad. But, hi, it's Katie. I'm Katie Nolan. Welcome to Casuals. This is a podcast. We love sports. We think they're for everybody. So we talk about them in a way that anybody could find entertaining, even if you don't know a single thing. Joined today by my casualties. The one with the accent you just heard from that's Chris.

[D]

What's up?

[A]

Isabelle is here.

[C]

Hi.

[A]

And Brady.

[B]

Fourth guy.

[A]

Fourth guy. Wow. Fourth guy. Well, second guy. Yeah, whatever. We're all on zoom today because again, we still are awaiting the finishing of our brand new fancy studio, which I'm trying not to get too excited about because as you get older, you try not to get excited about things because you learn that's the best way to avoid being disappointed by anything. But it should be happening sometime kind of soon. And until then, we're all on zoom, which means Myrtle's here, my dog.

[B]

Oh, I'm fifth guy then.

[A]

Yeah, thank you.

[B]

Yeah, I understand the rankings.

[A]

She's being cool right now. Let's all pray that stays the case because Dan's on a trip for a week and we miss him so much. What was I talking about? Our podcast. This is it. If you want to reach out to us. And why wouldn't you? Our email is Casuals with Katie nolan gmail.com our voicemail 6468010043 on IG and TikTok. We are at Casuals, the podcast, but we start every podcast with a yap. And I don't. And I. And I feel like I'm going to get a little yappy about some topics we talk about today. So I'll spare you guys from yapping too much here. Up top. I thought instead, what a great time to get to some emails. And I was in kind of a sad mood today and I was wondering, Chris, if maybe we had an email that would make me feel happy. Something that's just like, I don't want to say full of compliments, but leans very compliment forward.

[D]

Hey, you know what? I think I might have found something for you.

[A]

Let's go.

[D]

I got an email here from Anthony and Anthony writes, I'm writing to let you know how important and special your podcast is to me. As a straight white male, there has always been this assumption that I play sports, know the ins and outs of all professional sports, and even give a fuck about sports to begin with. Maybe it's because I didn't grow up with any male role models, but for whatever reason, sports has never been a big part of my life. The truth is, football, NFL is the only sport I pay attention to. Go Niners. And even there, I can't cite stats. And I have no idea what most of the position, most of the player positions, fullback versus running back, etc, even mean. I just really, really enjoy watching football games, usually with buddies of mine. And then your lovely podcast Came out of nowhere and has provided me with something I've never really had before. An environment where I could listen to highly competent people talk about sports and not be made to feel like I'm an idiot or not a real man because I have no idea what the fuck a screen passes. The fact that your casuals crew is co ed is just such an extra treatment. It's not a bunch of bros sitting around citing stats, using jargon and making me feel completely alienated. So when I say I love you and I mean it, I mean it, Anthony.

[A]

Oh my God. And Chris, what a. If I may start with great email selection fit exactly what I needed. Thank you so much, Anthony. I love you and I mean it. I'm telling you, honestly, I know a bunch of you. I know a lot of people just like you. It's what I. Exactly what I had in mind. One of the examples that I had in mind when I was making this podcast. So it, it's very life affirming and helpful for me to hear something like that because I feel like there's a lot of podcasts you can listen to and more every day. I didn't know that they're doing a Cheers podcast. I just found that out in our pre meeting that we've got a Ted Danson, Woody Harrelson. Why wouldn't you listen to that? Why wouldn't you listen to Amy Poehler? Like I've got to provide some sort of unique value and so an email like this makes me feel like I can go, okay. It's just, even if it's just me and Anthony, I got Anthony and it matters to him. So this is very helpful and welcome and I'm glad that we could do this for you. And my heart is warm. Is everybody else's heart warm? Absolutely. Yeah.

[C]

Also Anthony, thank you for including me in the group of highly competent people talk about sports. I was like, well, thank you.

[A]

You're like, you know what?

[D]

I am highly comfortable.

[A]

She's like, that's exactly right. Exactly right. All right, well, we love you, Anthony. You're our new best friend. Are we coming on too strong? Let's do. Also, I'm sure we've got with football season coming up, some email, voicemail, something about fantasy football.

[D]

You know what, I think I have that too. Let's have a listen.

[A]

Hi Katie, it's Marissa, Long time fan. I was thinking about the time you named your fantasy team Meet Katie, soft lady off of Nicole Hardman's name. And it still makes me laugh to this day. So My question is, do you think you could ever even top that? Probably not. But interested to hear what you come up with this year. Love you so much and I really mean it, Marissa. I love you so much and I mean it. Did you hear that, Isabella? There was a guy. There is a guy named me Cole Hardman. And okay, so sometimes when you do a fantasy football team, you don't have to. It's not a requirement, but you have to name your team. Sometimes someone will be like, Isabella's great team, which is the auto name that they usually give you. But you can also make it a pun. You can also just make it some other, you know, if you've got a nickname for yourself that you like, whatever. But some people like to make it a pun based off of the players that are on their roster. And I had me, Cole Hardman. And so my name was me Katie Soft Lady.

[C]

Oh, that's funny.

[A]

And I loved it and I told people about it. I've also had Return of the Macklin when I had Jeremy Macklin. Tootsie Sproules was my first ever fantasy football team with Darren Sproules. So, yeah, there's fun. Brady, this feels like you. It has your name written all over it. You love a puns. Yeah. So there's surely you have either a team name you've had in the past that you love or a name you use all the time that you love.

[B]

So my first round pick last year was Breece hall, the running back for the Jets. His first name is Breece and the team went by Breeze Witherspoon.

[A]

Okay. You took a. It was a big setup, but then was just like, yep.

[B]

I needed to make sure that Isabella was, you know, just wearing.

[C]

Isn't there.

[A]

She's highly competent.

[C]

Is there an athlete named Bryce hall or.

[B]

No, there is also a Bryce hall who's a cornerback from like, Iowa State. I think deeper than you were planning on digging.

[A]

Okay. Or not. Or maybe you just love the Iowa State.

[C]

Sure love the Iowas.

[A]

The Iowa State Sweets.

[B]

The Sweets.

[A]

Who. What are they?

[D]

Cyclones.

[B]

They're the Cyclones.

[A]

Cyclones. Oh, this is the first time hearing of that.

[B]

Is the Iowa State University named after the thing that routinely destroys homes in Iowa? It's. It's a rough one.

[A]

What? What?

[B]

You ever think, like, the Miami Hurricanes, they're named like, hey, what's that thing that destroys our whole city every couple years like Miami?

[A]

I really don't watch college football.

[B]

Hurricanes.

[A]

I just outed myself so badly. I really. There's too many schools. A lot of schools Too many schools, so much yelling. And why is everybody waking up early in the morning with poster board? So those are. Chris, do you. How. What about you? Do you have fantasy football names? Are you a pun guy even?

[D]

No, I'm very boring when it comes to my fantasy football names. I've had the same name since I've started because I just can't be bothered coming up with a new one. And it's punters of people too, because the Australian pipeline of punters coming through. I was very close with the guys who created Pro Kick Australia, which is the pipeline that all these former Australian football players come through and punt in college and then to the NFL. And they all had the saying punters of people too. That was sort of their mantra. So I just adopted that mantra. That's it.

[A]

We found a new one.

[B]

I'm sorry, the correct answer is making penis puns out of Michael Penix's name out of the Falcons quarterback. You went way too serious, everyone.

[A]

Did you see the. Somebody on a lower third of a broadcast when he was talking wrote Michael Penis Jr. And like, had to. Oh, man. Oopsie.

[B]

Poor autocorrect.

[D]

Noopsy poop. Not the last time it's gonna happen, I'm sure.

[A]

Please stop using autocorrect for Chirons. I think maybe we should spell check those. Funny enough, not the only time that's gonna come up in the podcast today. Oh, and then for this year, I guess Marissa's ultimate question. I don't know if I said love you mean it. So I'm saying it now, is do we have any good ones for this year? And it's important to note, I guess, Isabella, you don't have to have the guy on your team to name your team that you can just make like. I know I. I used to be a purist about this, but with how late the draft happens, and I just, I feel sometimes like it's you. If you want to come up with it before the draft, but then it's like, fine, but it's like week to week.

[B]

If your team is like the Amon Ra Dogs and then you're going up against Amon Ross St. Brown.

[A]

It is annoying. I agree.

[B]

Should be the one that has this name. Like, oh, you're appropriating.

[A]

Nice.

[B]

No, Amon Ross St. Brown. His pronouns are he, him, I asked.

[A]

And then he woke it back on you. What are you gonna do now? That was a woke spike.

[C]

Wait, so are. Are people normally making team names that are, like, inspired by someone that's on the Team like a player.

[A]

Yeah, that's what we just said. You know this. We just said that.

[C]

But you're. No, I know, but I'm saying. Because you were saying, oh, you don't have to do that. And Brady was like, so is it like, oh, I'm saying that is Norma.

[A]

He doesn't have to be on your team. So if you made it me, Katie Softlady, and you didn't have me, Cole Hardman. Some people would say, that's not allowed. And Brady is. Some people. And other people would say, like, well, what? You waited till you got your team and then you came up with your team name. How did. Nobody would know who's who. It's like in the draft is when you see everybody's names, and it's like a. So I see both sides, and I really don't want to spend another minute on such a silly, silly argument, but that's sports. Here's what we'll do. We're gonna. Later in the show, we're gonna get Isabella. We're gonna let you guys know our plan to get Isabella a little more acquainted with the joys and horrors of fantasy football throughout the course of this upcoming football season. We got a little plan, so stick around. We're gonna get to that at the end of the show. So see you in three hours. And I'm very excited, Isabella, and you should be very excited, too.

[C]

I am.

[A]

Good. You better be.

[C]

I'm confused, but I am.

[A]

You won't. We're going to. I think we can get you, like. The goal is to get you comfortable. No, maybe a little uncomfortable. The goal is to get you, like, in there and feeling like you, like. Like you can.

[C]

You know what I feel like? It's like when. When you play a board game for the first time and someone's explaining the. Yes.

[A]

And you're like, you just have to play. And you go. You just got to play it, and you'll get it.

[B]

And that overemphasize the importance of the team name in the scoring, of how the works. We may have led too hard with that.

[A]

Yeah, this part doesn't matter. This is just the. I mean, ultimately, none of it matters. But you're not allowed to say that part out loud because then the whole thing falls apart.

[C]

So, yeah, okay.

[A]

It all matters equally. Okay, let's go ahead and hit an ad break, and when we come back, we will talk about the news. Man, life can get packed, huh? Just so much stuff to do all the time. You gotta clean the bathrooms. You gotta read the news. You gotta watch the sports. You gotta drop your kids off at school. Not me. But I'm sure that's something that takes up a lot of time. Life just gets in the way. Well, when life is full and time is tight, Instacart helps you stay on track. Instacart is more than a grocery app. It's a care company that works around your schedule. Get groceries and household essentials delivered in as fast as 30 minutes. Whether you're hosting a barbecue or getting back from a trip or just juggling back to school chaos. It helps save so much time to open your phone and scroll through and pick out the things you need. That's why I love Instacart. Download the Instacart app and use code CASUITS20 to get $20 off your first order of $80 or more. That's code CASUITS20 to get$20 off your first order of $80 or more. Which is great because that means you can add that to the tip offer. Valid for a limited time, excludes restaurants and additional terms apply. Vuori delivers a new perspective on performance apparel with pieces designed to look great beyond the gym. Whether you're running errands, office or meeting up with friends, Vori is perfect for whatever your day brings. Take the Vuori Performance Jogger. They're great for fitness, but they're also stylish enough for everyday wear and comfortable enough for lounging around. As part of the Dream Knit connection, they are made of Vori's softest premium stretch fabric. They're lightweight moisture wicking and feature a four way performance stretch. Mine, I got them in like a teal green color. What I really love about them is that they're thin. So in this time of the year, sometimes when you put on like a bulky sweatpant, it's too much. These are perfect. They're lightweight, they wick away sweat so they're very good for wearing even in like a hot month. We're allowed to be comfortable in hot months, guys. And you should do that with the Vori Performance Jogger. It's an investment in your happiness. For our listeners, they are offering 20 off of your first Vori purchase. Get yourself some of the most comfortable and versatile clothing on the [e-mail] casuals. That's V-U-O-R-I.com casuals exclusions apply. Visit the website for full terms and conditions. Hey, I don't know about you guys, but I love learning. I love in my old age gathering information in any way that I can. There's just nothing like gaining a fresh perspective, especially when it comes from experts who've seen it all and have the wisdom to prove it. And that's why I love Masterclass. With Masterclass, you can learn from the best to become your best. Apply improv to your daily life with Amy Poehler, develop your singular voice with Mindy Kaling, and learn to tell a story that persuades people with Michael Lewis. With plans starting at $10 a month, billed annually, you get unlimited access to over 200 classes taught by the world's best business leaders, writers, chefs and more. I just started a masterclass with Helen Mirren. She's teaching acting and I assume by the end of it I'm going to be able to act like Helen Mirren, which is pretty exciting. Right now, our listeners get an additional 15% off of any annual [e-mail] casuals. That's 15% off at masterclass.com/casuals. For 140 years, MultiCare has been in Washington prioritizing long term solutions, partnering with local communities and expanding access to care. Together, we're building a healthier future. Learn more@ multicare.org okay, time to talk about what's happening in sports. And there's so much, as always. Who said it was slow?

[D]

Not me.

[A]

It was literally.

[C]

It's definitely not me.

[A]

Yeah, it was me. The US Open, which is becoming a real, like, cultural moment here in America, there's like, you know, I feel like there's more hype around it than usual. Lots of celebrity sightings, lots of ancillary content being made around the US Open. The big news last night, that people would not shut up about. Carlos Alcaraz shaved his head and his beard. He's the world number two. He came out with a buzzed haircut as he defeated American Riley Opelka. Am I saying that correctly? Yeah, I think so. In just over two hours at Arthur Ashe Stadium at night, he explained the reason behind the haircut after the match, saying, my brother misunderstood with the machine. He cut it and the only way to fix it is to shave it off. He said, it's not that bad. I guess. I mean, of you. Thank God. It's not that bad.

[C]

No, it's not. He looks great with a shaved head.

[A]

Imagine if he did it.

[C]

I actually think he looks better with the shaved head.

[A]

I agree. But imagine this story if he didn't. Imagine you are getting a haircut before the US Open, which that lady just said is becoming like a cultural moment in America at least. And you come out there and you've just shaved your head because it goes wrong, and the whole world is looking at you, and you have an ugly shaved head.

[B]

You never quite know what lumps you have on the scalp.

[A]

That's so true. And he got lucky. He's not lumpy.

[D]

But if you cared that much about your haircut in the first place, would you have enlisted the help of your brother?

[A]

Yeah, I guess you're right. That is fast. Because if people kind of fast and.

[D]

That if people cared that much about their hairstyle, heading into a major tournament, they probably would have seen a professional baba.

[B]

He also said I was misunderstood with the machine. Not the clippers, the machine.

[A]

That's my dad used to call the confluence.

[B]

She's got the vacuum on the head.

[A]

My dad used to say, who. Who was the last to use the machine? About our computer in the house. Okay, other than that hair news, what else did we see? Because for me, my big thing. I watched Ben Shelton's first match. Hold your applause. Thank you. I watched tennis. I'm trying to become Isabelle's friend. And I. What stood out to me was hearing, you know how I hate in game interviews when the booth, the commentators have a way to talk to. Usually in, like, baseball, it would be to a player who's playing in tennis. It's to, like, a family member or a coach or something while a match is happening. And they were doing this with. I believe I should have fact checked this. Ben Shelton's dad. And he, like, asked him a question, and then when he answered it, McEnroe was like, thanks. Thanks for doing that. See you later. And his broadcasting partner was like, no, no, no, no, no. Please leave your earpiece in. We're not done. It was just. You only asked a question. And it made me laugh so hard where I was like, yeah, I get that. Because I think Mac and Rowe has the feeling that I had when we did an in booth interview when I was in the booth, which is that, like, can we leave this guy alone? This guy's got something going on right now. Can we maybe hop out of his ear?

[B]

This guy's at work.

[A]

This guy's in a stressful situation. He does not want to hear from us.

[B]

But also, they're interviewing Ben Shelton's dad in a place where everyone's like, you have to be as quiet as possible. Yeah, keep it down and shut up. But also, someone's talking to you in your earpiece.

[C]

Also, his dad is his coach.

[A]

Yeah, pretty sure.

[C]

So, like, that happens a lot, huh? Yeah. And so it's like, hey, I. I also have to watch my player and help him out. So. But also, as McEnroe, having been a tennis player, he's probably like, yeah, thanks for the question.

[A]

Bye. He's like, no, please leave your ear priest in.

[C]

No, no.

[A]

The. Did. Did anyone watch. Anyone here of the casualties? Watch the Medvedev situation live.

[B]

That thing was late.

[A]

Yeah, well, Daniil Medvedev's match against Frenchman Benjamin Bonzi was delayed more than six minutes between points on Sunday night after a photographer entered the court on match point.

[D]

So what was happening was Bonzi was serving for the match and he took his serve and it was a fault. Then the cameraman moved in the background and the chair umpire told Bonzi to take his first serve again because of the interruption, which is a typical thing that happens in tennis. Medvedev then reacted because he didn't believe or he didn't agree with the call from the chair umpire. He said that the disruption was minimal and didn't impact the match enough for Bonzi to be awarded a second first serve. And that was the cause of his outburst. It wasn't directly at the photographer. It was more towards the chair umpire's decision to give Bonzi a second first serve.

[A]

So when Medvedev yelled, he wants to go home, guys. He doesn't like to be here. He gets paid by the match, not by the hour. Who was he talking about?

[B]

He's talking about the umpire.

[C]

The umpire.

[B]

It's like this umpire is trying to. Because it was late at night, he was accusing the, uh, trying to like, get the. The match over with and trying to get out of there. He was shouting and he was like, he is not a man. He is not a man. Like, like, yeah.

[C]

And the crowd was like, kind of like going along with him was really like, booing.

[A]

And was it a bad decision? I don't watch enough tennis to know.

[C]

Honestly, I think I could understand the frustration of, like, you know, giving him another first serve again, because the moment where the photographer came on the court was after the first serve was already settled.

[D]

It didn't impact the first serve.

[C]

Yeah, it was the moment between the first serve was already settled and then he was getting ready for his second serve serve. So I could see the frustration of giving him another first serve attempt. But, you know, I don't know about him. You know, him coming at the umpire.

[B]

Yelling at the umpire is not getting paid by the hour. Like, it's some sort of revelation is crazy.

[C]

And then him, like, smashing his rack.

[A]

Imagine how Bad a match would be if they were paid by the hour. We could be here all day. We're already here all day. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's. I don't know, a blow up like that. Tennis has a lot of that, and I guess it's probably because the nature of the game is like a pressure cooker. You're all by yourself, you gotta handle it all. All alone with a new haircut even sometimes. And that's just too much stress for me. I wouldn't be able to handle it. Are people mad at Medvedev? Is this bad or is it everybody moved on? We're fine.

[C]

Yeah. I think it's kind of like, like 50, 50 like. I think some people like, like how entertaining Medvedev is and that's why they kind of like give in to the whole theatrics of it, of him being like, what the hell? But then there's some people like me who's kind of just like, I don't think we needed to do all that.

[A]

But not all that.

[C]

I don't think we need to do all of that, but some of it.

[A]

You could have done. Not all of it.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

Maria Sharapova, also inducted into the Tennis hall of Fame in Newport, Rhode Island. That's where the Tennis hall of Fame is. Is that like where tennis was invented? That's the most tennis place I can think of. Newport, Rhode Island. Is that just where the hall of Fame is, vibes based?

[C]

I don't know.

[B]

The people here probably play a lot of tennis.

[A]

The people here will care about.

[C]

Yeah. Yes.

[A]

We have no connection to the genesis of the sport. We just. This is where we live. So that was over the weekend. And one of her fiercest rivals, Serena Williams, made a surprising speech. There are only a few players in my career who challenged me to be the very best every single time we stepped out on the court, Williams said of Sharapova. Maria Sharapova was one of them. Whenever I saw her name next to mine in the draw, I made sure I practiced harder. These two were at the top of their game together for several years. They. They played 22 matches against each other since 2004. Their last match was in 2019. Williams has managed to get the best of Sharapova with a 22 record. Williams also holds an 8 and 1 record in major events against Sharapova, including a 31 record in major finals. So a bit of a lopsided rivalry.

[D]

Does that make the fact that she came on and made a speech at Sharapova's ceremony a little bit worse because you're like, hey, congratulations. Remember how I beat you 20 out of 22 times throughout our Korea?

[A]

Hey, it's me, the lady you hate.

[C]

Yeah, I'd be a little salty. Honestly.

[D]

I wouldn't really call it a rivalry, because you never really beat me.

[A]

Yeah, that's what I would have said in my speech, but Serena was actually pretty very kind. I didn't know that they were friends like that, but they spoke of having a relationship, like, a pretty strong relationship. So that's. I found that pretty interesting. What I didn't find interesting, I mean, that's a lie. I found it, like, 80 pages of notes interesting. But I feel so conflicted about this story. I don't know if you saw that Serena Williams. It's hard to phrase properly, but she has come out and said that she uses GLP1s, which are the weight loss drugs that you've heard of before. The one specifically she says she uses. It's so funny that all this work, and I'm gonna forget what it's called. The one she specifically said that she uses is called zeppbound. It is the brand name for Tirzepatide. I went down a whole whole rabbit hole on this. But anyway, the first way I encountered this headline, I believe it started at Vogue, but I bumped into it as a people headline that was like, serena Williams is opening up about using GLP1s to help her lose stubborn baby fat or whatever that she couldn't get rid of. It was like £20 that she was talking about overweight. And then in the bed body of the articles, you find out that she's partnering with Roe, which is a. You've surely seen commercials for these recently. It used to be called Roman, and that was when it was first, I believe boner pills and hair medication. I could be wrong, but I believe it was like, that kind of a company that's like, direct to mail. They'll mail you your medication. The doctor is telehealth, through the app, type of a deal to help men with those pressing health problems that they had. And so then they dropped man from the name and it became roe. After another round of investing, I believe it's like a $5 billion valuation on this company. And basically, it is a telehealth app that connects you with a doctor that gets you a prescription and sends that to a pharmacy and then directly sends to you the medication that you need. And now they've covered a wide variety of services. And I'm not up on this company. I don't know which ones they still do and which ones they don't. But we at least know because this partnership that they do, GLP1s, they do this Zep Bound. And now this is important. Boring, but important to note because I feel like a lot of people have the opinion that these medications are for people with diabetes and people are using them that don't have diabetes, and that that's not okay. And that used to be the case. But this is a medication that is so groundbreaking that they're actively. It's currently like, being approved for other uses and also being investigated for other uses. So it is now zepbound specifically is prescribed for weight management. It is. So I just want to correct that because I hear people a lot of times be like, it's diabetes medication. And some of them are. And there are different names for when they're being used to treat diabetes and when they're being used to treat weight management. And all that's important and all of this should be taken up with your doctor is the ultimate point here. So, like, don't take anything. I'm saying as like, the word of God. Lord knows I didn't go to med school. I couldn't have handled all the class. Point being, Serena Williams has come out as a spokesperson for roe. And in being a spokesperson for Roe, she. During this US Open media push that's clearly being made. I saw it in Vogue. I saw it in People. NBC News had exclusive. She was on the Today Show. She is doing this planned ad campaign around the U.S. open when eyes are on tennis for Roe, in which she opens up about using these drugs. Now, some people are saying celebrities should not do pharmaceutical drug ads. I'm some people. I think it's weird. I think the United States is one of the only countries that's still this weird about pharmaceutical ads in the first place, New Zealand being the other one. Chris, do you have any insight into where they have strayed from the light?

[B]

He's Australian.

[A]

I know he hates the. Don't they. Don't you guys have, like, a rivalry? Don't like New Zealand.

[D]

They're like our little siblings. I can't hate them. They're only kind of good at rugby, and that's about it. We always smash them in cricket, so it's all good. I can't hate them.

[A]

All right, well, us in New Zealand are the only ones who let you direct to consumer advertise your pharmaceuticals, which is kind of wild considering all the other countries, you know, that exist. So we're already weird about it. And then the fact that we let celebrities do it really is just like. It's just dicey. But where this is really interesting is that she's not a spokesperson for the medication. She's a spokesperson for the platform that supplies the medication, or I guess, theoretically helps weed out whether or not you need the medication and then gets it to you. But for all intents and purposes, it's like, this is how to get this medicine is through this thing that I am promoting and being paid by now. Couple facts that are important here. Ro. Her husband is on the. He's on. He's like a director of the board of roe. He is like, works there in a big way, let's say. The other thing that's kind of important is the other side of this. This is why this is so complicated and complex to talk about. The thing people react against with GLP1s and Serena being the spokesperson is that Serena is the. One of the greatest athletes of all time. She is peak physical form. She has peak physical form that has really rebelled against throughout her career. Any sort of expectations being put upon her in terms of the way she looks and the way that she acts. She has always been strong. She's always been strong, have a strong resolve. She has stood as this, like, peak of physical greatness. And when that is paired with weight loss medication, I think a lot of people bristle against that and feel like if the message that's being sent here is that even Serena needed to take this medication to get her body to where she wanted it, what hope do I have? Why should I keep hitting the gym? I'm not even close to where she's at. And she couldn't get over that little bit, so I might as well do it too. And I think that gives a lot of people pause because of how little we know about this medication. While it is groundbreaking and they're learning more about it all the time, it's medication. This isn't like a celebrity that has a lot of work done on their face. A face full of injectables, advertising a lotion. It's similar to that, but lotion has a lot less likelihood of having an adverse effect on my body and my relationship with food, which is kind of important than. Than GLP1 does. So I feel like it is a difficult. I hate the way we talk about weight loss and weight loss, drugs and weight and all of it. The shame associated with it, the way we make people who struggle in this fight feel. I hate all of it. We're terrible at it. It's like tied up in a lot of complicated feelings. It's like when we're at our worst, I think. And so Serena's defense of why she's doing this is that she wants to show that it is not work away able. Sometimes you'll struggle with your weight because of changes in your body, and you can't. You can be the greatest athlete on earth. It has nothing to do with how hard you're working. It's just about this thing needs a help, and we now have a thing that can help it. And she says that she wants to destigmatize this medication. And I'm with that in a theoretical sense, but my issue here is you are being paid by a company where your husband works, and it's. They're framing this because she can't. She's not the spokesperson for this medication. She's the spokesperson for Roe. But in all of the interview, she's not said a word about roe. I don't know what other services it offers. I don't know if it's an app I download on my phone. I assume it is, but she doesn't say, I don't know if it gets in touch with my cart or if when I get there, they're going to assign me a doctor. I don't know anything about it at all. But I know that Serena Williams struggled with 20 extra pounds when she had her second baby and that she couldn't get rid of that. I know that she tried to be vegetarian and then tried to be vegan, and that just wasn't working. And so this was. I know the reasons that she eventually takes the medication, but I don't know anything about Roe. So it feels very icky to me because it's being framed as if in the while she's saying she wants to destigmatize it. Let me read you a quote from one of the articles. Serena also hopes her owning up to using a GLP1 destigmatizes the drug as a shortcut for weight loss. Tell me something. Would you. Have you ever had to own up to something that you weren't ashamed to admit? That phrase itself, that they're saying she's going to destigmatize, they're stigmatizing it. You shouldn't have to own up to using a GLP1. You could talk about using a GLP1, but if you want to destigmatize something, truly, you would have to do that by removing the Stigmatism from it, which means you wouldn't say she finally copped to doing something you would say, she told us that she uses. And so this just feels very muddy in a place where it shouldn't be. I think the FDA put out, like, a warning last year, like, we're gonna start cracking down on. I believe it was like, influencer partnerships with pharmaceuticals. And I assume influencer is annoyingly just a different kind of level of, I believe the word celebrity. And so it may be that, I don't know, it just feels to me too clear that they went like, well, if you're a spokesperson for Roe, technically, maybe we can get away with doing stuff that they wouldn't allow us to do if you were the spokesman. And I don't know if that's what's happening. This is just conjecture. But to me, you cannot afford to be unclear in this way. And this bummed me out. I want to be really clear that I can separate how I feel about Serena Williams taking GLP1 from how I feel about Serena Williams using her reveal of using GLP1 in a paid sponsorship by her husband's company. Those are two different things. And I don't want this to be misconstrued that I'm upset with Serena Williams for using GLP1s. I don't know anything about that stuff. I tried to learn a bunch of it last night and have a bunch of it written in front of me. I, I. But it's not my area of expertise. What I'm. What concerns me is that this is. People look up to Serena Williams. She is a. Because of who she is as a person and the way that she has carried herself throughout the numero challenges she shouldn't have had to face, but she did have to face in her career. She is, I mean, I, I look up to Serena Williams. I'd be lying if I said I didn't. She has been, like, stood 10 toes down, to quote the entire Internet at this point, on everything that she believes. And this, to me, feels like maybe she thinks she's doing that, but that I wish she could have looked a little deeper to make sure that, like, this is a little bit sus. Am I wrong in this? Am I way off base?

[B]

It doesn't feel as genuine because you can track the money, like, one step deeper, so it doesn't carry quite the same weight. So, yeah, it doesn't feel as good. But I agree, it's complex. It's. You really do have to divorce that from someone making this their own. Mission, making this their own statement. And I wish that was independent of wherever you could track the sponsorship to it.

[A]

Yeah, it just. I don't know. Everybody's talking about it, but I just. I haven't heard anybody talking about it in a way that I'm like, no, that's not the. That's not the issue. It's this. I don't know. I just.

[C]

If I think even from, like, from when I, like, zoom out from this, like, it's less. I think the issue I take is less with whatever Serena's doing in this partnership. It's more so I think just this general focus on, like, how everyone. The ultimate goal of feeling happy in your body. Everyone's thinking about weight loss right now, and especially right now. It's like everyone's always saying, oh, my God, everyone's getting skinny. Everyone's getting skinny right now. Everyone's talking about how celebrities are all dropping so much weight. And so I think that's the biggest concern for me, actually, is less about specifically what Serena's choosing to do and whatever any individual person is choosing to do to lose weight, whether it's through exercise, through using a GLP one, whatever. But just the fact that, like, right now, we're all so concerned with weight loss as a way to feel comfortable in our bodies, does that make sense?

[A]

Yeah. Makes perfect sense to me as a girl who grew up, came of age in the 2000s. I feel like it's similar that we went through, you know, when they. You'll show, like, a picture of Jennifer or, like, Jessica Simpson or Britney Spears, and you'll be like, they called her a pig for what she looked like on this day. And you look at it and you're like, what? Yeah. What do you mean? That's. I would. That's a goal for me. What do you mean?

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

And, yeah, it's.

[B]

Natalie from Love actually will never not be bewildering to me.

[A]

There's a size of an ass there, sir. What we call her chubby. I know that movie bar for bar. It's a shame that I carry, but it. I can't deny it. It's true. Yeah. So it's just complicated. It's complicated. And I hope that nobody listening to this feels in any way shamed for any decisions that they make about their bodies. I don't want anyone to feel like any shortcut or not. I don't care. We do not treat fat people kindly as a society. And I feel like then if they do anything to try to not be they, then are like yelled at for that. I just want everybody to feel comfortable to Isabella's point. Additionally, to feel comfortable in your body no matter what it looks like. If you want to be a little bit tighter toner, go for it. If you want to be. It has to come internal trying to block out the rest of the noise. All that matters is that you're healthy and that you have a doctor that helps you if you use any medication because these things are very complicated. You're talking to a lady who listened to three podcasts last night just to make sure I don't step in it in any sort of dangerous way from people who go important to know I am a doctor, but I'm not your doctor. That's how much I've looked into these things. It's. They are. There's a lot to them and they're complicated. But they may something I found out from my research in doing this. They might be using able to use this drug. Whatever this is and the way that this works to treat addiction, it one of the that's that could be game changing. This could be game changing. Like this right now, this moment that we're in is what it looks like when a giant advancement of some type has been made. Like it gets a little messy. I just wish that like, I don't know, I wish this wasn't like a conversation we were having so much in public and like sponsored and such. I wish this was like a. I don't know, I just wish that we were different about this. And I also wish I knew how to wrap things up in a way that made us feel good about moving on to whatever I'm just gonna have to say next. We have talked about this on a past episode. The dating show that they were going to launch. I believe the last time we talked about it, Game Set Matchmaker. This is the US Open Dating Show. I believe last time we spoke about it we said that it was going to be eight people or it was one lady on eight different dates and it was. The lady was going to be that figure skater. Alana Sedaka, 24 year old figure skater from Long Island. She was going to be right. The last time we talked about it it was like Bachelorette style.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

Well, since this is from an article from the ap. Since the initial announcement of the US Opens Venture Game Set Matchmaker, which garnered mixed reactions on social media, the concept of the show has changed from a more individual style with one woman going on dates with multiple suitors to the more expanded form that it has now, which is eight episodes. Eight people going on blind dates. Okay. Did you see the podcast? I watched it. First episode. First episode was like six and change, and it was about half an hour too long for me. This is the YouTube description for episode one. I'm gonna cut out the ad copy up top of, like, this is gameset Matchmaker brought to you by Blue. Blah, blah. Brought to you by. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Game set Matchmaker follows eight couples on their first date at the US Open, set against the backdrop of all the great things to do during fan week. Because, again, this was filmed before the actual U.S. open. From jamming out at silent disco. Who doesn't love that? And cheering on mixed doubles matches. To playing red ball and taking a lesson on the court to enjoy. Okay, blah, blah, blah, blah. We sent them to the US Open. But before the US Open happens, I watched the first episode. They take the host, they have her establish that she's the host, and then immediately she goes, but I would never ask these people to do anything I myself wouldn't do. So I'm gonna go on the first date. And it's like, you think that's why not? Because you were gonna go on all the dates at one point? Also would be fun to think that she went on this first date, fell in love with the guy, and was like, we gotta change the concept of the show.

[C]

Yeah, Yeah. I was like, I actually really like him.

[A]

So we actually record a pickup where I say that I'm gonna go on the first. First date, and then we'll actually change.

[B]

I went the other way, that she went on the first date and was like, no.

[A]

Yeah. I won't be doing this for the rest of my week unless it's during the US Open. I won't be watching another mixed doubles match while I play red ball.

[B]

And jamming at a silent disco. I understand, like, one of those things. What is it?

[A]

I think a silent disco is like what we did at the AD conference, which is everybody's wearing headphones and you're talking. They listen to the music in the headphones. So it's like, if you walk by, it looks like mass psychosis. You have the headphones on. Everybody's dancing to Assault. Don't make me laugh. Hard. I have a cough. I'm sorry. Ronnie and Alana. Those were our first two. A conversation about nothing. Listen, if you thought it was easy to make reality dating competition TV show content, watch this and see just how hard it is. Because what you're seeing here are the bones you don't normally want to see the bones. You don't want them to have a lame conversation about nothing and then right away in a six minute episode have to resort to a stack of pre written questions handed to you by a producer. That is somebody who went, how hard can it be to produce a show like a dating show? Everything on TV is a dating show now. And then we're three minutes in and she's pulling out a stack of cards.

[C]

I know.

[B]

Conversation levels better or worse than MTV's next.

[A]

Worse.

[B]

Oh, God, no.

[A]

Okay. At one point he said, like, who do you think has it harder or is more athletic or something? The ball boys or the athletes themselves?

[C]

Yeah, the girls like ball.

[A]

The ball boys. And you're like, what are we doing? This is so stupid. This is on the US opens YouTube channel. Like, this isn't working for me. It feels like they're trying to be. And I. And look, first date energy is awkward. First date energy with cameras is awkward. But like, I'm a seasoned, at this point, reality dating show watcher. I'm past this. Get me to the stuff. This is a nightmare. I will say they do a preview for the rest of the season because I guess like they're. What are they dropping a new one every day? I don't know what the release schedule is on this thing. It seems like the planning stage didn't get as much time as maybe you'd ideally like. I like that they're taking a risk with content. And then the. They do a preview of the rest of the season. And I like, I saw a gay couple, I saw a lesbian couple, I saw an older couple. I do like the way that they did that. I'll give them credit for that. And then I can't wait to see how this goes. I will be watching all six minute episodes that come out.

[C]

Me too.

[A]

Just to see.

[D]

Do we know they're all six minutes or was this one six minutes? Because the conversation was so boring. And they're like, this is usually half an hour, but we could only find six minutes of barely watchable content for this episode.

[A]

At one point she told him, she's like, I know how to dj. And oh yeah. And he was like, you do? And I was like, well, that's. Maybe they're made for each other. That's not the reaction. I'd be like, how dare you tell me that on camera. There's no way to not look like an asshole. Oh, good. Oh, good.

[C]

And he's a lacrosse coach.

[A]

Messages I have to receive about it. Yeah, he's a lacrosse coach for a.

[C]

High school team in the Bronx.

[A]

Yeah. First year as head coach, so good luck to Ronnie.

[C]

Yeah, Shout out to him.

[A]

When's the season? I don't know. I don't know. That's what you get for not following high school. Well, they have to be in school, and they're not right now, so is he coming up on his first season? Probably. Maybe.

[C]

Yeah, maybe he's auditioned to be their coach.

[A]

Guys, what's it matter? It's a high school. Who cares? Don't yell at us. Please don't.

[B]

He's rolling up on the first track. He's like, hi, I'm Coach Ronnie. You may know me from.

[A]

Also, can I get a love mic? I think they're booming the whole thing. And you are outside. I can't hear these two. It's crazy.

[C]

I know. They're sitting right next to, like, a.

[A]

Bunch of courts, and I'm like, absolutely nuts. Absolutely.

[C]

Oh, my God.

[A]

A little too disconnected from the tennis for me. US Open. Maybe next year, maybe you could do this during, I don't know, the US Open.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

Crazy idea. Hey, we're NASCAR fans now because we had Bubba Wallace on our show the other day, and coming up in about a month, we're going to have his friend Ryan Blaney on. So we are NASCAR fans for that period of time, I feel like.

[D]

Sure.

[A]

Right. Is that before. Are we having Blaney before the big. Do they have a big Super Bowl?

[B]

Yeah, before the end of the. Before the end of their championship season.

[A]

We have him up before that, so maybe we'll ride it through the. Ride it right, Isabella. Through the season, head to head.

[B]

We will have to ask Blaney, be like, you're better than your friend Bubba, Right?

[A]

Yeah. And hopefully he gives us something, because Bubba gave us nothing on Blaney, and I don't think he did the thing I said he was gonna do, which he was gonna drive away and go, I know what I should have said. And then text us. He hasn't texted us, I assume no. Bubba.

[B]

Anything too nice?

[A]

Bubba. So hard to say that in that tone, because it's very rare that you go, Bubba, Bubba. Anyway, Bubba caused. Maybe caused a 12 car wreck on Saturday night. Ah.

[B]

He admitted he caused the wreck.

[A]

Okay. Bubba. And Joey Logano at. Joey Logano was also in it. I guess he's just mentioned because he's famous at Daytona International Speedway, had significant ramifications on the NASCAR playoff standings on the latest episode of Actions Detrimental, which.

[B]

Is what that is.

[A]

Denny Hamlin's podcast.

[B]

Podcast.

[A]

Great. Check it out on the SiriusXM network. Rated five out of five. Get the app. Denny Hamlin shared his belief that Wallace was at fault for the biggest crash of the night because number 23 squeezed logano and Kyle Busch. He can't squeeze Bush when he wasn't clear. That is unfortunate. And I bet. Not to speak for our best friend Bubba, but I bet he didn't mean it.

[B]

We learned that when we read about crashes like this or see highlights. Like, we are way more terrified by it than the drivers are.

[A]

I know.

[B]

He was like 12 cars going 180mph running into each other and smashing the wall.

[A]

I've driven full speed into a wall. I'm like, what? And he's like, okay.

[D]

Now my favorite quote was when he said, oh, good, it's only gonna hurt. When he realized he wasn't gonna die.

[A]

This is only gonna hurt.

[D]

Oh, good.

[A]

Oh, no. No worries.

[B]

Just walked away. Part of that is that Bubba's not paying for the car. Whereas I think, like, if I.

[A]

You think a significant amount of the fear, the cold sweat that hits when you start a hydroplane, you think a large portion of that is. I'm gonna have to pay for this financially.

[B]

15% of it.

[A]

Wow.

[D]

That high, Brady.

[A]

That's high. It's too. I can't be thinking about cash at a time like that. I've just. Just soiled myself, you know what I mean? Like, I am in my body more than I like to be in a moment of fear like that. I have suddenly become less cerebral and for the first time in a long time, inhabited my physical form. So I'm not thinking about cash at all. I'm wet. And for a number of reasons, you know what I mean? Like not. And not the good one, just all the bad ones. That's what's happening to me in a moment of fear. But Brady's going, ah, shit. Is my insurance going to cover this?

[B]

I think that's a very rational thought thought.

[D]

I disagree.

[A]

Dad Thought. Money's not real. Our. Our ape brains can't. Don't understand or think about that. Am I learning? I'm all ape brain. That's why I don't care about business. Whatever. Also, I heard we got an email update about that guy who. Oh, my God, it's. I'm cringing even just talking about it. Connor Zillish who got. Was getting out of his car and fell trying to celebrate and broke his collarbone and then just like late. We have an update on that.

[D]

We do we got an email from Maddie from Georgia and Maddie said, hey, Katie. And the casualties. This follows up on the Connor Zillich story you covered when he broke his collarbone celebrating a race win this week. Zillich was cleared to race but chose not to risk further injury. With the playoffs approaching to earn points, however, he still needed to start at the green flag. He dropped to the back to avoid trouble and pitted at the first caution to swap with backup driver Parker Klingeman, a semi retired driver and race analyst for the cw who would have been in the booth if he wasn't driving. Klingemann had never driven this car or worked with the crew before and entered the race in the rear. Despite all this, he went on to win the race. However, this win was actually not a win for Parker per NASCAR rules. This win is credited to the starting driver. So Konazilich is the official race winner, but we all know Parker won. I thought this was kind of a crazy follow up to an already ridiculous story, so I thought I'd share because I'm fairly certain Katie wasn't watching NASCAR's second tier series on a Friday night. Love you mean it. Maddie from Georgia.

[A]

Maddie, I love you and I mean it too. You don't know I'm a nascar. I'm a NASCAR gal. I was not. I didn't. I was not watching it. That's nuts that ever. That I assume the thing where you only have to do a little bit and then somebody else replaces you. Happens often enough. It's not that rare.

[D]

Correct. That part has happened. But I don't know if the winning.

[A]

Part feels like it's got to be rare.

[D]

That's like Cars 2 territory we're dealing with.

[A]

That's like any group project I worked on in college. You're just like, I did all of that. You did nothing and it's your win.

[D]

Yeah. Pretty incredible.

[A]

Not to ask an insensitive question. Did Connor Zilich celebrate at all?

[B]

Gently, very gently.

[A]

He raised one arm up in the air.

[D]

And just to put a bow on Connor's roller coaster month, Trackhouse Racing announced Saturday that Connor Zilich will drive full time in the NASCAR cup series in 2026. So he has been promoted to the NASCAR cup series.

[A]

I said I'd retire. When he fell down, I said I'd retire. And he is going deeper, going up. He's moving up the ladder.

[D]

Go to the big leagues, man.

[A]

I just. It's. That's race. If you ain't rubbing, you ain't racing.

[B]

Trackhouse Racing is Ross Chastain's team.

[A]

It's. Who?

[B]

Ross Chastain's team very famously celebrates his.

[A]

Brandy's brother.

[B]

No, no. Famously finishes. Celebrates his races by smashing a watermelon.

[A]

Which is like, Gallagher.

[B]

Like Gallagher.

[A]

Okay, that's already taken. Dude, do a honeydew.

[B]

No, there's. Gallagher was, like, 40 years ago.

[A]

So you know his name. Don't you know?

[B]

Forever Smack.

[A]

Not just. Just watermelons. I feel like there's plenty of other melons that need the pr. Smash a cantaloupe. Be that guy.

[C]

I love cantaloupe.

[A]

Yeah, when it's good. When it's bad, it's just filler and fruit salad.

[C]

And it's hard.

[A]

It's like, what are we doing with this? Don't give me flavor. This isn't edible. This is. You're supposed to decide if it's edible before you give it to me.

[C]

It's like when you have, like, an under ripe mango, and it's like, what is this? Why would I.

[A]

Worst. Dan had only ever had a mango like that until I was like, you need to sit down and get. We went to a grocery store. I bought. We were in California. I bought a mango and a knife, and we went out into the car, and I cut it open. And I, like, was like, you need to eat this. And the look on his face, he was like, what is this? I was like, fucking mango, dude.

[B]

That's wedding vow territory. God, Katie, I did not know good mangoes until I met you. And my life has changed.

[A]

Oh, Phoebe. Oh, my God. Vivi. Little League World Series ended, and I'm not happy about it. A, because now what am I supposed to watch all day? And B, we didn't win. America did not win. Chinese Taipei won. Lin Chi Si retired the first 13 batters he faced and allowed just one hit in five innings as Chinese Taipei beat Nevada 7 nothing in the little League World Series championship on Sunday. They came into our house and they embarrassed us, and I don't like that. I don't appreciate it. Maybe we deserve it. That's not what I'm here to talk about. Chinese Taipei won its first Little League world series since 1996, although its 18 titles are the most of any country besides the United States. And then, if you were around in the 70s, they won five straight from 1977 to 1981. So they had a period of dominance. Other than the United States, they have the most wins at this tournament. So it's not even. It wasn't even, like, a fun, exciting new country the game was okay. It wasn't that exciting of a. You know, it's fun when you. It is fun when you see a kid get a good hit and you're like, yay for that kid.

[C]

He's five, eight.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Big 12 year old.

[A]

That's totally normal. That's tall for a 12 year old. Big kid. He hit more than 80 miles per hour with his fastball multiple times during the tournament. So he's good. And we knew that and we just didn't stack up. The United States has been on a bit of a run, Lily. World Series, an international team, hasn't won since Japan in 2017. So we were due, I guess, for this. My takeaways from this last period of Little League World Series viewing. Did you see the kid from Connecticut whose dream job, you know, they give you little facts, facts about the kids, like, oh, it's my favorite show. This is my. This kid's dream job was to be an actuary. Jesus. And that is what it's like.

[B]

The person who assesses risk mathematically for an insurance company or I guess anywhere.

[A]

So they're like odds makers.

[B]

Odds makers.

[A]

But like, this little baseball player wants to be an odds maker, and nobody's flagging this.

[C]

Hey, buddy, blink twice if you feel okay at home.

[A]

Blink twice if this is brought to me by DraftKings if it makes you feel better.

[B]

They said this, and in the broadcast booth, you'd never get this. But Todd Frazier also had no idea what an actuary did. So there was a long period of trying to explain this to Todd Frazier, and you just have to move on. On.

[D]

At some point, he's just got to come from a family of actuaries. Right? There's no way this kid's just like flipping through a career book and just like, oh, actuary, this a career book.

[A]

How come I never got one of those?

[B]

Or this kid just wakes up in.

[A]

The morning, where's mine now? I could use it today.

[B]

I'm a with Carl Ravage. I'm gonna give him a chance. That's what you hope for Todd Frazier.

[A]

I think if I were ranking stories, this could be that led us to him saying this in this interview. It would be number one that a really sweet actuary in his hometown did something really nice for him and really inspired him. And he's always, since then, wanted to be just like his best friend, the local actuary at the state farm, the town actuary. The next thing that it could be that I would like is if his entire. Well, no, it's if he was asked what his dream job was, and he was like, I want to derail an entire broadcast. I know they're not gonna be talking about me a lot because of my prowess, but I do want to be talked about for an entire inning. And so I'm gonna give the most ridiculous answer that I possibly can. That would be the thing I like. And then if I can give you the third not thing I would like, but this is my. I'm jumping off the roof of my building if it comes out to be this. If this is a deep play for a Jake from State Farm. Some sort of a. Because State Farm is insurance. Correct. If this turns out in some way, that would be time for me to go, is what I'm saying. I think I would have to head out if this turned out to be that. Say goodbye. Other thing I noticed, there was a kid on Nevada named Ryder Tillots.

[B]

Till it's what?

[A]

And I won't be saying anything further until it's a couple years from now. It just feels like a name you can make a lot of nicknames about. And. And for fear of being misconstrued, I don't want to be making them, but Rider Tillots is the beginning of a pretty specific sentence. And I thought he was. He also, I'm pretty sure, walked and then, like, flipped his bat kind of disrespectfully. I can't. Nobody wrote about it, so I can't find that it happened. But I remember going like, Ryder Tilletts. And, yeah, those are my big takeaways. Socks Yankees. Listen, I got a bone to pick with Chris. And I got a bone to pick with former guest and friend of the show, Joe List, the two of you. Yesterday, Chris wrote in our group doc here that we use that we run off of for the pod. Socks sweep Yankees. The game had not. The fourth game had not happened yet. Socks sweep Yankees. Joe, listen, Coming back from whatever town he was doing standup in, flying back home to the great New York City, his plane must have gone over Yankee Stadium. He took a picture out the window of his plane. Four broom emojis. Posted it to his story. I was like, joe, the fourth game has not happened yet. And alas, the Sox take three out of four against the Yankees in the Bronx.

[B]

Chris only even edited it to just say, red Sox beat Yanks. It no longer says sweep Yanks, like the three. One series win is solace enough.

[D]

Did you guys know that in South Africa, cantaloupe is known as Span Spec?

[C]

It's nice.

[A]

Okay.

[D]

In Australia, we call it rock Melon.

[B]

Rock Melon?

[A]

Really?

[D]

Rock melon.

[A]

Rock melon. Enough. You also call peppers capsicum. Correct. And raisins sultanas.

[D]

Yes. There's also a Maltese surname, Sultana.

[C]

Do you guys also call eggplants aubergines or. No.

[D]

No, I don't.

[A]

He doesn't know. I feel like he doesn't know if.

[D]

I've never heard that term, so I'm gonna assume no.

[C]

Isn't that England? Or is that England?

[A]

Who says? Oh, you're getting sicker as the podcast. I know, I know.

[C]

So sorry, guys.

[A]

No, that's okay. I'm sorry. No, no, no.

[B]

Making successful diversion by Chris. Good job.

[D]

Thank you very much.

[B]

Thank you.

[A]

You really did do that. I just followed it. We all learned something about it.

[D]

Lured you all into the trap.

[A]

That's really not okay, Chris. It's really not okay. Especially because you edit this podcast anyway, so you could have edited your way out of it, but I guess that would violate trust. No. Good job.

[D]

I. I was pretty confident I got a push notification from somewhere or other that said red Sox, Yankees. And so when I was doing the first draft with all the stories that I want to touch on for the pod, I just sort of went, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang. Yep.

[A]

Red Sox, sweet. Yanks are starting minimizing.

[D]

And didn't realize that that wasn't, in fact, the case.

[A]

Deflect.

[D]

Still a good series, though, for the Sox.

[A]

Darvo, Deflect. Accuse reverse victim and offender. Darvo, that's what you're doing.

[C]

Guys, I'm so confused.

[D]

I was just reading. It was Joe. It was a push notification from Joe List.

[A]

That's it. So we're all just gonna ultimately blame Joe List? I'm fine with that. I think he'll also be fine with that.

[D]

The Joe List app.

[A]

Joe tried to do this too. When I messaged him about it, he goes, how about that tennis match? What are we doing? Big news from the Sox. Yankee series. Other than the. All the winning that the Red Sox did is there was a real squirrel, a real squirrel event that occurred on. I watched the Nessen broadcast because you couldn't pay me to watch the yes. Network broadcast. Personal opinion. And so I. We. I got to follow this whole squirrel saga. But a squirrel ran out on the field, which sometimes will happen. And this one went straight to the mound where Max Freed was. They had to pause the game for a sec. The squirrel was. They were trying to get it off the field. It was. It really milked its moment. It ran past an, ump. Who didn't move in any way to try to help, which I guess is smart. When a wild animal comes running at you, just like, let it do what it's got to do. And then they resumed the game while the squirrel was still in the outfield. And I said, that's crazy. You got it. Let's get the squirrel off the field. What if it gets hit by the ball? And Dan was like trying to reassure me. He said, the odds of that happening are so low, I think they just have to, you know, keep going. And I was like, tell that to the birds that got hit by a pitch. It could happen. If the odds are there, protect the squirrel. And then the squirrel could not figure out how to get back off of the field. It forgot where it came from, which you're not supposed to do. Somebody threw a peanut at it, which I don't think was appreciated. That certainly prolonged this day. At one point, it's. You could see it dangling. It's get. It gets like caught between like a video board and a fence. So it's just like the outline of a dangling squirrel. Hopefully the guy ended up all right. But I was glad. I was proud of the Nessen broadcast for return. It was a relatively boring part of the game to continue to go back to the squirrel. At one point, Dan and I were on the couch going, show the squirrel. Because they hadn't updated in a while. And I feel like we might not have been alone in that. So shout out to anybody, anybody who watched Squirrel Gate live also big from this.

[B]

Katie. Hold on. Katie, we have to do this. Since you mentioned it, we have to do this. We have to. I'm so excited to do this for what happened. Isabella.

[A]

What?

[B]

Have you ever seen the Randy Johnson bird?

[A]

Yeah. We did this with her already, didn't we?

[D]

Wait, is this one the Rainy Johnson bird? I don't think we didn't.

[B]

All right, I have just sent you.

[A]

Oh, man. We already have one of these later. All right.

[B]

But this one's in real time. This is exciting. And this one doesn't have an ad on the front of the video.

[A]

Wait. Yeah.

[C]

Wait, wait, wait, wait.

[A]

Hold on. What did I ever see? Trigger warning of what she's about to see.

[B]

No, absolutely not.

[A]

Her face. Wait, was it.

[C]

Oh, my God.

[A]

Wait, where's the bird?

[B]

Afterwards, spring training 2001. Randy Johnson is the heart hardest throwing pitcher in Major League baseball. And by complete random chance, he throws a pitch to home plate. And at the exact time he throws it, a bird of type no one will ever know, swoops in front.

[A]

There wasn't enough evidence to decide what it was.

[B]

Just complete by 100 mile per hour and explodes into a pile of feathers. If you're looking for the bird, you can see the lump of bird body roll to the left of the screen.

[A]

It's in the big nest in the sky.

[B]

There was no saving that bird.

[A]

It was out in a blaze of glory.

[C]

That's crazy.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

It's a billion to one shot. Like there's no chance of this ever happening.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

Because at first I couldn't tell if it was his pitch that hit the bird or if the person at bat already hit it. And then that was, oh, my God, just say time.

[B]

Dead ball. I guess this doesn't count.

[D]

That bird just needed an actuary.

[A]

To.

[D]

Assess the risk for sure before swooping in front of a Randy Johnson fastball.

[B]

We'll post this. The best part of this bit is the reaction. Isabella's face.

[A]

Watching the audio content is a bit lacking, but oh, boy, her face. That was the most shock I think we've gotten from you so far. Also in this series, the. We've talked about this before as well. The Red Sox have a prospect now, a player nicknamed the password. His name is spelled J, H O S T Y N X O N, I believe. And everybody's. Everybody's dodging saying it. Everybody. I've watched a lot of Red Sox since he has been called up, which is the headline I think I didn't finish reading. He got called up. He's part of the team. They're all avoiding saying it. Nessen misspelled his last name in the graphic. Garcia. His last name is Garcia. They nailed the first name again. That's J, H O S T, Y N X O N. And then it says Garika.

[C]

God damn it.

[A]

Amazing. It's like, yes, yes, yes. Oh, my God.

[D]

The typist was just tired by the time he got to Garcia and just sort of fell asleep on the keyboard. That's what it like sounds.

[A]

Anybody who was qcing it to see if everything was spelled right just focused on that first name and then they didn't even look. And that's why Justinction. I believe Garcia joinson Jostension. I thought it was like, I think Garika. That's what we will be. Justinshin Gurica. He was great.

[C]

This name sounds like what people growing up would try to pronounce. My last name would say. And it's like, like five letters.

[D]

Your surname incorrect.

[C]

People have called my last name Isabella Johnson and I'm like there's no H. There's no H. I promise.

[A]

I know, I know. You're not asleep at the wheel like that. That's what you got to say to people. You gotta go, hey, hey, stay with me. It's five letters, okay? Two of them are O's. Just hit them. You know, maybe they're in. Maybe they're an O. Take a risk.

[C]

Yeah, but don't hit me.

[A]

Johnson. Yeah, yeah.

[C]

It's like, even if you said Jocelyn, I'm like, okay. You were trying to pronounce it the way it looks.

[A]

Sure.

[C]

It's not. It's Joseph. And then you go distinction, you know?

[A]

Yeah. You're like, where are we getting that X? Where's that X coming from?

[B]

Their dad is John Garcia too.

[A]

Which is okay. So that's interesting. It's just John.

[B]

It's just John.

[A]

Are you sure he's not just from like a time when you would go, I'm so sick of telling people how to say my name, that I'm just gonna tell them that it's John.

[B]

It's John. And he. Nessen interviewed him about his son's debut and he said we wanted to give him a unique name.

[A]

Great. Nailed it.

[B]

And saw this somewhere and went with it.

[A]

It's important to have goals and to follow through on them. So good job. The password. And then we already did in game interviews talking about McEnroe, but Sadan Raphael did an in game interview that started out so awkward, as always. Had to mute the tv. Can't have it on in the background. What I'm hearing an awkward conversation. It drives me absolutely insane. And then he at one point went back to make an incredible catch and his earpiece fell out. And on his way back to his position because he had to go back for the ball, on his way back, he scooped down, found it in the grass. They're those tiny little beige colored, fully in ear wireless earbuds that they use. I just gave everybody the finger. I didn't mean to. I was trying to show that, like, I don't know if you've ever had to put one of those in there. They're so small you sometimes feel like they might get lost in your ear. And he looked down and grabbed it off the grass, put it right back in his ear. And in that moment I went, no. I was so hoping that he'd be like, I can't find it. Guess we're gonna have to call it. This sucks.

[D]

He wants that money. He wants that interview money.

[A]

I hate to do that. I forgot. Okay, a couple other baseball things while we're here. Big moment for home runs right now. We are in home run season. Cal Raleigh, AKA Big Dumper. We've talked about him a lot this year on this podcast. He is this updated for where he's at as of time of recording.

[B]

These stats are live.

[A]

As of Tuesday, August 26, Cal Raleigh has 50 home runs. On Monday night he homered against the Padres to become the first catcher in history with a 50 home run season. Before that, on Sunday, he homered twice against the A's. That's when he broke Salvador Perez's record for most home runs in a season by a player primarily playing catcher. I feel like you have to phrase it that way, but basically a catcher has now hit more. That's more home runs than a catcher had ever hit. Dunber has 30 games remaining, so he's not done yet. He's certainly not slowing down. He's chasing down the following records that we can keep an eye on. A record for a switch hitter. Mickey Mantle has 54 home runs as a switch hitter. So if he hits more than 54, he'll break that record.

[D]

Isabella switch hitter is someone who bats right and left hander.

[A]

Oh, so like based on mood. Okay. Based on pitcher those they can stand on either side of the plate. Thank you. Chris Smart Mariner single season record. Ken Griffey Jr. Set that at 56. He did it twice. So a single season home run record for the team. 56. American League record. Aaron Judge 62. That's crazy.

[B]

It's weird to say because my it doesn't feel right. Was Roger Martin right?

[A]

It doesn't feel right but that he recently broke that. Isabella. Aaron Judge, he go Aaron Judge, that's great but also go big dumper. Go big dumper. 62 is a little far away but 30 home runs in 12 games for him. Crazier things have happened. How many home runs does Aaron Judge have right now?

[B]

Judges because Judge has been hurt a little bit. I want to say he's like 5 behind. Let's look up judges stats in real time. 10 behind judge at 40. Who.

[A]

How many does Shohei have?

[B]

45.

[A]

E also chasing the major league record? No chance. 73. The major league record is 73. Most multi homer games in a single season would be 11 is the record and he has nine. So these are all things that if you're, you know, looking for something to root for or keep an eye on in the baseball season. These are all records that Cal Raleigh could potentially break in this Season, this wonderful large dumping season that he's having. He's currently on pace. Isabella. They're allowed to. Not allowed to. They're able to, like, based on how often you're hitting them per game, assume or guess how much. They're basically actuaring how many home runs he could hit. And they. It's set at 60 1. He's on pace to hit 61 home runs, which would be pretty wild. And at that point, if you're at 61, just like, hit 62. Don't be. Don't be stupid. You're right there. Yeah. Just go for it. The Mariners as a team, you ask. Well, they're 71 and 61. They're currently holding the third wild card slot. They're a game and a half back of the astros in the AL West. They're 3110 this year in games where the dumper homer. So that's good. At least he's not like Mike Trout and Shohei on that Angels team, you know, where they were hitting grand slams and the team was losing somehow. He's, you know, so. Go Mariners. Go dumper. Also friend of the show, former guest Vinnie Pasquintino. The Pasquatch is the new reigning American League Player of the Week. Why? Well, he's had a historic week. That Royals first baseman. It's the third time he's been named player of the Week. He received top recognition in June and prior to that, during the 2022 campaign. Last week, Pasquintino hit.379. So he was 11 for 29. He had six home runs and 12 RBIs. He led the majors in slugging percentage, OPS and total bases.

[B]

Vinnie Pasquintino in 2025, before doing casuals, was hitting.188 with a.600 and three OPS.

[A]

What month was it? It was.

[B]

It was like late April. Why you got not.

[A]

It was late. I feel like that's important to say.

[B]

Vinny was hitting.188.603 OPS. OPS is. You don't need to know what it is. Just know that over.800 is generally considered a good hitter. Vinnie in 2025, after doing casuals since he sat down the studio.274 batting average.829 OPS.

[A]

Yeah. That was totally us. Didn't he. This is what I was looking for in all of this. Text. Didn't he break a. He tied a team record for consecutive games with a home run.

[B]

5. He tied the team record of 5.

[A]

He had a game. A home run in 5 consecutive games. Shout out. Vinnie. This Is so exciting. This is so exciting. I.

[B]

Since meeting Dan Soder. 829 ops.

[A]

Yeah. Why'd you change it like that? Because you didn't like that.

[B]

I don't know who I can give credit.

[A]

Why'd you do it like that? It was still in April. Both things happened in April. The issue was with the April. Okay. If anyone's gonna take it, it's us. Let's be clear. Giving it to Dan. I don't know what that has to do with anything. We love Vinnie. Whenever I see somebody that I quote, unquote, know, doing something cool, and it's so hard to not go like, should I send them a message? Should I be like, keep going, Vinny. But I don't. You. Then you don't want them to be like, I read your message and it fucking. And now I'm so. I'm just. I guess we're rooting for you from afar. And if you're ever mad I didn't say something, this is proof. I would have. I was just trying to give you peace. Okay. Glad that we got that out there. My podcast just exists so that I can have evidence that I'm trying to do my best. Okay. Even if I'm falling short, I'm trying to do my best. I'm doing it out of love. More home run news on Sunday. Shohei Ohtani. I don't know if you saw this, Isabella. Very funny. He was being heckled by a fan who'd been yelling all day, and he hit a home run. And then after the home run, he dapped the fan up. A Padres fan sitting next to the dugout. He'd been on them all game. And in the ninth inning, he gave him a high five and a tap on his way back to the dugout after he hit a home run. That's cool.

[B]

Yeah, he's the best.

[A]

That is pretty cool. It's very cool. Because of all this home run news, we'd be remiss if we did not point out that last week on Tuesday was the five year. I hope you're sitting down. It was the five year anniversary of the man of Faith Castellano's debacle. Isabella, you don't know about this, right?

[C]

No.

[A]

Amazing. Let's all really embrace this feeling.

[C]

Man of faith, like he's religious.

[A]

Don't even ask questions till we get to the. You can ask questions. I didn't mean to say that like that. Let me restart. I meant, like, just let me tell you what happened. Ask questions as you get there. Don't try to guess what it is. You'll never get. Yes, it. So Tom Brennaman, he was a baseball announcer for the Cincinnati Reds. Okay. He did play by play commentary. So he was the guy who would go line drive the left out at first. Okay. The guy who tells you what's happening.

[B]

Hell of a throw by the left fielder, right?

[A]

Fox Sports Ohio. So there was a double header. This was August 19th of 2020, an interesting year, but this may be historically one of the more interesting things that happened, believe it or not. So it was a doubleheader, Reds at Kansas City. So he's at the game, calling it for Fox Sports Ohio before the start of the seventh inning. They came back from break. Now on. When you watch Major League Baseball on MLB tv, you get almost like the. You're getting more of a raw feed. I don't know if you've experienced this. It happens with NBA too, sometimes where it's like you're getting stuff that the broadcast is coming back from commercial and coming in a little bit later than the streaming. So the streaming gets like a little bit of. And sometimes there's like a hot mic and someone's talking and you'll hear something. So that happened at the start of the seventh inning of the first game. So people that were watching the broadcast didn't see this, but people who were watching it out of market. So anybody who was like, you know, not in Cincinnati, but were some, for some reason watching this game got this hot mic moment where you catch Tom Brennaman saying, describing an unidentified location as, quote, one of the f slur capitals of the world. I thought this was funny. In the Wikipedia, it says, according to David J. Halberstam, who interviewed Brennaman more than a year after the incident, the location in question was San Francisco. Okay. It's like that. Well, we don't have to act dumb. I'm not gonna lie.

[C]

When it's. I see three asterisks for the word and I thought it was ass. I thought it was gonna be one of the ass capitals of the world.

[A]

Yeah. Which would be less bad, I think by a lot.

[C]

Oh, for sure.

[A]

Much have rather said that. But he didn't. He said, again, the f slur. Yeah. Ugh. So he was another interesting wrinkle to this that people forget he was broadcasting from the park in Cincinnati, which is not where the game was. But Covid had everybody not traveling. So he was like remote calling this game, which is just an interesting wrinkle. It really doesn't ultimately affect it. So he continues going after saying that the seventh inning starts up. He goes into a promotion for the Reds pregame show. Then he goes on. He does play by play. He goes all the way into the second game of the doubleheader. So it's like the day game has happened. It's over. He did it during that seventh inning. Now it's the night game. He gets all the way into the top of the fifth inning of the second game. And in that period of time, what had happened is the people who saw it online captured the video, put it on. I think it was. Yeah, it was still Twitter at the time, right. And. And everybody. It like, spread like wildfire. Everybody was like, what? And so then by that inning, the fifth inning of the second game, Brennaman was pulled off the broadcast by Fox Sports Ohio before being replaced by Jim Day. Brennaman issued an apology on the air. So this is right before he's leaving. Jim Day's gonna come in to replace him. It's the fifth inning. They're back from break. And you see this. I made a comment earlier tonight that.

[D]

I guess went out over the air.

[A]

That I am deeply ashamed of.

[D]

If I have hurt anyone out there.

[A]

I can't tell you how much I say from the bottom of my heart, I'm so very, very sorry. I pride myself and think of myself as a man of faith.

[D]

As there's a drive in a deep.

[A]

Left field by Castellanos. It will be a whole. And so that'll make it a four nothing ballgame.

[C]

Okay, wait, so hold on. He's doing. I wait. He's calling the game, like, describe.

[A]

So he's apologizing during the broadcast. It has come down like, we got to get you off the air. People are really losing their minds. So he has to apologize. But in the middle of his apology, he is the play by play guy. There's nobody else there to do that. This is the broadcast of the game. And so he just says, it's a deep left, deep drive to left field by Castellanos. It'll be a home run.

[C]

That's so funny. Could he have chosen a different place to issue an apology?

[A]

I would say he could have chosen a different word to say. The more I think about this, the more I'm like, a slur at work is crazy if your job doesn't even involve a microphone. But like, you work at the job, your daddy did, and you're not uncomfortable. You're not like, you're. I think you got way too comfortable, bro. And then he tried to Come out and say that. He doesn't ever say that word. And I'm like, I don't think you test run a Slurpee at the office. I know people like to play stupid now. And they go, words are just words. Oh, you're too woke. Oh, you're blah, blah, blah. You would never. You've never been employed then. If you think you can walk around at work, even without the microphone and say that word is insane, insane embarrassing, you should be embarrassed. You were embarrassed. It's so funny. The after part, I mean. And here's the thing, Isabella. The reason this has become a thing is twofold. Number one, the speech eventually became. Have you heard of a copy pasta?

[C]

No.

[A]

So it's a concept. It's kind of. I'm gonna suck at explaining it, but it's basically like a meme. So something you would see repeatedly posted, but it's just a block of text. So it exists almost sort of like subvert whatever you're responding to. And so the. And that's a deep drive to left by Castellanos has. That whole paragraph has become a copy pasta for when somebody. When you're talking about something and you're listening to someone and you're going, this guy's full of shit. And then they. It's like a twist. So it, like, has become basically, gotcha, poppy pasta, child of disingenuous or whatever the adject. The noun, verb, noun form of that word is. I just had a stroke. That's one reason. The second reason that this has become such a big cultural thing is that Cassianos has hit a home run during either. It's a little complex and a little convoluted, but just trust us. He's hit a home run either while somebody is talking about something really, really serious in the booth, he hits a home run. Or in line with, like, historical and cultural, like big events. So I have some examples. Number one, this isn't the first one that happens, but to it bets it best paints the picture. In 2024, Tom Brennaman announced he was coming back to work. He obviously got fired from everything. He got fired from the Fox football stuff he did. He got fired from the Reds gig. He felt really bad for himself out loud for a while. That was kind of embarrassing. And then in 2024, he gets a second chance. They announce it July 21, 2024, he's coming back. He's going to be the lead commentator for football on the cw. Whatever.

[C]

They do sports.

[A]

I guess this was like a new thing. And they, they, you know, they gave him the gig on that same day, the day that's announced, Castellanos hits a home run run. So the guy, the guy calling that game repeated Brennaman's famous phrase. Okay. Yeah. Okay, so. July 5, 2021, they're playing Kansas City. While Royals color commentator Ryan Lefer was eulogizing George Gorman, a veteran of World War II. Castanos hits a home run.

[C]

Damn.

[A]

September 11, 2021, the 20th anniversary of the September 11 attacks. Castanos hits a home run to left field. And much like that fateful first one, it extended the Reds lead for nothing. May 30. May 30, 2022, Phillies play by play announcer Tom McCarthy is doing a Memorial Day tribute honoring American veterans and American servicemen who lost their lives. Castellanos hits a whole a solo home run to left field. Oct. 11, 2023, during Game 3 of the National League division series against the elite Atlanta Braves. As the TBS commentators were discussing former Phillies manager Charlie Manuel's rehabilitation stroke. Castellanos hits a two run home run. People went back and looked up his first ever home run. It was May 1, 2011, first career home run as a professional baseball player. He was a minor league player with the West Michigan white cap. And it was the same night that al Qaeda terrorist leader and FBI most wanted fugitive Osama Bin Laden was killed.

[C]

And has Castellanos commented on any of this?

[A]

He has. He's jokingly acknowledged it before. Yeah, yeah, two more. These ones are just quick. July 13, 2024. Castellanos hits a home run to give the Phillies lead over the Oakland A's. The same day Donald Trump was shot in an assassination attempt. And April 6, 2020, five minutes after Alexandro Ovechka broke Wayne Gretzky's all time NHL gold record. This was this year Castanos hits a grand slam against the Los Angeles Dodgers.

[B]

This is missing one. There's even one spring training. They were playing the Blue Jays. And the Blue Jays are talking about they had to react to their pitching coaches DUI and how the team was dealing with it. And it was just, you know, something they don't have to deal with at the end of spring training. You don't have to deal with ever. It's very, you know, irresponsible. And he has to go face the team in the clubhouse. And there's a deep drive to left field by Nick Castellano. This is going to make it a 4 nothing Phillies lead like he homers in the middle of a dui story about the Blue Chase pitching coach.

[A]

It's fun. It's become a little bit of sports lore. It's that's crazy. Truly. The situation couldn't replicate itself in any other. This is sports. To me, this is the most sportsy of sports. It's something else.

[B]

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[A]

Contact us at 1800-flowers.com we know that connections are at the heart of being human. Whether celebrating life's joys or comforting during tough times, 1-800-Flowers helps you express what words can't for nearly 50 years, millions have trusted 1-800-Flowers to deliver thoughtful gifts that help create lasting bonds. Because it's more than just a gift. It's your way of showing you care. Visit 1-800-flowers.com pandora and connect today. That's 1-800-flowers.Com pandora hey, it's me, Katie. Just here to let you know if you guys want to laugh out loud every day, you have to check out the Bonfire podcast. It's hosted by my friends Big J Okerson and it says Robert Kelly here, but it's Bobby Kelly, two very funny comedians who invite you and some of their funniest friends to come and hang out by the radio Bonfire as the blunt and candid duo talk about everything from comedy and entertainment to sports, show their funniest stories from the road, and giving fans a chance to call in and get their opinions on the topics of the day. They've got new episodes every day, so download the Bonfire wherever you get your podcasts. Okay, so we just found out live in real time. Brady just texted me that the picture that Taylor Swift and Travis Kelsey announced that they're engaged. We then recorded the cold open so that we didn't obviously seem like we didn't know about the big story, but like we didn't know about this big story. And we're already like an hour into the podcast now. I'm definitely not getting married anytime soon. She's got to get hers out of the way. I can't go up against that programming. I can't be compared to that. This is why I didn't go on a date with Jake Gyllenhaal.

[B]

Because then you're right. A song about it 10 years later.

[A]

I shouldn't want to be compared to Taylor Swift.

[C]

Yeah, that's hard.

[A]

I'm not that. I'm not that type A. I'm not that organized. I can't even give myself an Easter egg. I don't plan ahead. I don't have a staff. I don't.

[B]

You think this will be a quiet, private ceremony?

[A]

No, I don't. Brady, what do you think?

[B]

I want to know your opinion.

[A]

Well, I will say, didn't she show up to somebody's wedding and then that turned it. Not her own fault, but didn't that turn somebody's wedding into a whole big spectacle?

[B]

Travis's cousin's wedding, where she showed up?

[A]

No, I was thinking of lovely. No, I was. No, I was thinking of a different wedding. I think I was thinking of Margaret Qualley and Jack Antonoff. Yes.

[B]

Well, no, but she'd be.

[A]

Didn't people, like, descend on the town that they were at?

[B]

But she would be expected to be at that one. She's worked with Jack for.

[A]

I'm not saying she wasn't expected. I'm saying people descended upon the town where my wedding was happening because of one of my wedding guests is kind of a. Oh. The point was that we should all swarm for Margaret Qualley at Taylor Swift's wedding. We should all show up and be like, margaret, Margaret, please.

[C]

I think they'll have a private wedding. I think they'll make it private wedding.

[B]

But in the sense of, like, Bezos had a private wedding, Like.

[C]

No, I don't think it's going to be like that. I don't think so.

[A]

What do you think?

[B]

Like, rent out the entire state of Rhode Island?

[C]

Why Rhode island, where she lives?

[A]

Because isn't that where she.

[B]

That's where Holiday House is.

[A]

Because the Tennis World Museum. Because of the Tennis hall of Fame. The Tennis World Museum, you know.

[C]

Oh, is that where she's from?

[A]

No, she's from Pennsylvania. You wouldn't know it. Well, okay. I guess nobody cares then, that Tommy Fleetwood finally won one. I mean, this was going to be our big news of the day. How dare they. How dare on a Tuesday.

[B]

It's a story about love into a story about love.

[A]

Tommy Fleetwood picked up his first PGA Tour victory Sunday after posting a two under 68 to finish 18 under in the Tour Championship, three strokes ahead of Russell Henley and Patrick Cantlay. Cantlay, maybe try harder at Eastlake Golf Club. This was Fleetwood's 164th career PGA Tour event. He entered with five runner up finishes as well as 30 top five finishes, the most without a victory on the tour since 1983. He just constantly was missing by just a little bit. He entered the event with the unofficial quote, best player to never win title. This was his fourth time and the third time this year alone, holding at least a share of the lead entering the fight. Entering the final round, I choked up at the thought of that. This is the fourth time, three times this year that we're in the final round. He's got a lead and it didn't. But this time it did. So we don't have to be sad. It did this time.

[B]

You remember at the Travelers this year, he had the outright lead going into the 18th round. He bogey Keegan Bradley. Birdie.

[A]

Devastating. First player since the FedEx cup began in 2007. Earned his first PGA Tour win in the Tour Championship. He walks away with $10 million.

[B]

Not bad.

[A]

Not bad at all. I'd take it. His career earnings are now at, I think nearly 60 million. I don't know why we always say that. It's like we don't have to keep track. What are we keeping track for? Let him. He doesn't have to. Don't tell anybody that. For me. I don't want to know. Why are we putting the.

[B]

Everybody loves Tommy.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Like, he's just such a beloved guy.

[A]

Yes. And so this was big. This was great. I. He was in the. On Saturday, I texted my dad. I love having things text my dad about. And I was like, tommy Fleetwood's putting himself in position for an interesting Sunday. And then my dad just told me about his. What he did. That's what interacting with the dad is like. Then he goes, I shot the best. Let me say what it is to give my dad the credit he probably deserves. I shot a 38 for nine holes, just two over parents. I wish I could. He said, I wish I could bottle that and repeat it next week when my playoffs begin. And I said, if you can do it once, you can do it twice. I believe in you. And he sent me a heart, said, thanks, Katie. Now what did you want to talk about, Brady?

[B]

Too much discourse about Tommy Fleetwood's wife as I'm googling Tommy Fleetwood. Like, I wanted to make sure we have all the facts and have everything here. There's just a lot of, like, who is Tommy Fleetwood's wife? Wife. Which is very Normal. But then what's the deal with Tommy Fleetwood's wife? And then why has she been out of the public eye?

[A]

And is she a public figure?

[B]

No. So Tommy Fleetwood's wife used to be Tommy Fleetwood's agent. Which. Okay, it happens. I get it. You spend, you know, time around somebody and you're like, oh, maybe I actually am in love with this person. I get it. But then there's just this weird stigma of people writing articles about the fact that she is 24 years older than Tommy Fleetwood.

[A]

Oh.

[B]

Which, you know.

[A]

Huh. Well, now, I don't know. I don't know enough here. I'm flying too blind. But I will say that 24 years plus, how old were they when they started dating?

[B]

I mean, Tommy was an adult. I can look this up because the.

[A]

That plus agent feels. I don't. Makes me. It just raises my, like, control. It raises my little antenna.

[B]

2017.

[A]

I'm not saying anything's going on. I don't know anything. That he was how old?

[B]

They've been married for eight years. 2017.

[A]

Oh, I thought you said he was 17. I was like, Brady.

[B]

No.

[A]

Hey, Brady.

[B]

So he would have been bumping into.

[A]

A real thing here that I don't think we're ready to talk about. No.

[B]

Tommy would have been 26 when they started dating.

[A]

She would have been adult 50. Okay. And she is no longer his age.

[B]

It. No, no.

[C]

Could I date a 50 year old right now?

[A]

Well, I don't think your boyfriend would like it.

[C]

I'll let him know.

[A]

I've only met him once. Not to take his side.

[B]

Pedro Pascal, 50. There's your line in the sand.

[A]

I could date a. Yeah, Yeah. I could make it work.

[C]

I could.

[A]

Oh, I could make it work. I could blur my eyes, you know? Yuck. Pedro Pascal. Yuck. Ew. Other things. Bay fc. Hold on. Graduations to them. What? What?

[B]

Very important thing in the golf world. You want to talk to your dad this week? Ryder cup selection is tomorrow.

[A]

Oh, okay. This. You guys go nuts over this?

[B]

Yeah, Dads go nuts over the Ryder Cup. The big issue is that.

[D]

Speak for yourself, Keegan.

[B]

Keegan Bradley is the American captain, and Keegan Bradley has the ability to pick himself to play this year here, rarely does anyone have the ability to pick themselves. It's kind of frowned upon. But also he top five this weekend. He's playing an amazing level of golf. So.

[A]

Frowned upon why it. Just choose yourself. We should all be choosing ourselves.

[B]

Usually it's older captains. He's not quite as old.

[A]

I don't know, I think he should pick himself.

[B]

I would.

[A]

Unless that's the wrong opinion, in which case I'll. I'll read more about it and I'll change my mind.

[B]

Essentially. Pick me behavior.

[A]

Oh, pick me some. Actually, it's actually the least pick me. The only way to cure yourself of being a pick me is to choose yourself. Then you don't. Then you're not constantly thirsty for being chosen.

[B]

Okay, that's true self love.

[A]

You're already choosing yourself. I think he should do it in a radical act of defiance. I think he should pick himself.

[B]

He should put hats on the table and put the hat with his own face on it and pick it up like a college selection.

[A]

Yeah, Brady. Yeah, Brady. He should do that. That would be a real hashtag boss move. NWSL Bay City FC or Bay FC set a new attendance record. They had a game at Oracle. They set a new record for attendance for an NWSL game as well as a new record for any United States women's professional sports league. They had 40,091 people watching them lose to the Washington Spirit. Unfortunately, they did not win the game. Trinity Rodman started. She was in the starting lineup for the first time in five months. You may have noticed after Ben Shelton's first round win at the US Open, he said, like, my girlfriend flew in for this. This is where she was flying from. See, it's all connected. The NWSL now has 48 of the 50 most attended matches in US Women's Professional League sports history. So shout out to NWSL, but shout out mostly to NWSL fans. You are wild in a good way. You're crazy in a good way. You show up, you're loud. It's the best. So shout out to NWSL fans. I know we have a lot of them that listen to this podcast. Barry Bonds was also there. I just have to say, anytime his name is involved in a story, I have to say it for Dan. Just like legally, I'm required to say Barry Bonds because he loves him so much. Okay, two last things that we just have to Trump tried to steal the World cup trophy. Johnny Infantino, the president of FIFA, Italian for Giant baby, brought it by the White House, right? And Trump was like, I can just keep this. That's what happened.

[B]

Yeah, Pretty much said, can I just keep this one too? Because they've already let him keep the club World cup trophy.

[A]

Here's the thing. At a certain point you go like, yeah, I given all of the feedback the man has received and everything that led to this moment where Giant Baby is showing him the World cup trophy. What in his life has ever made him think that he can't just have that? Like, that's. I'm not saying he's right. I'm saying, like, that tracks for me of just like, I can have this one. Yeah. And you'll get a different one or no one will get one except me. And I think that's fine because I'm the best.

[B]

Grandpa. Just taking salt shakers in the restaurant. Put that back. You're not supposed to.

[A]

It's also, like, just take that. Like, you gonna leave this to someone? I don't. What is this? You're. What do you need this for? He looks so stupid holding it. Am I allowed to say that still? Or is someone gonna yell at me?

[C]

And if they do, who cares?

[A]

Thank you. Just. That's a judgment, just like a. He just looks stupid. Also, Trump has demanded that Roger Clemens be put in the hall of Fame. This one's more like. I'm looking at your docket, sir, and I do not see how we're already at this one. I think the Roger Clemens needs to be put in the hall of Fame is at the bottom of the pile. Not even sure how it made it into the pile of things that need to cross your desk. That we need your comment on that. We need you to kind of figure out but crazy that Isabella has been a sports fan for, like, a couple months. And twice Trump has publicly come out to say that somebody should be in the hall of Fame. That has previously been said. They can't be. Three months ago, he applied pressure to them, and they changed their ways. Their. Their ruling on Pete Rose, who's dead, to make him eligible for the Baseball hall of Fame. Now he says, I played golf yesterday with the great Roger Clemens and his son Casey. Roger Clemens was easily one of the greatest pitchers of all time, winning 354 games. Okay. You were on Baseball Reference. Great. The Cy Young Award seven times. A record by a lot. And played in six World Series winning two. What is this, a Magic Johnson tweet? He was second to Nolan Ryan in most strikeouts, and he should be in the Baseball hall of Fame comma caps now.

[C]

And do you guys agree?

[B]

I mean. No. He's third in strikeouts.

[A]

I'm sorry. He's not done. People quote. People think he took drugs, but nothing was proven. He never tested positive. And Roger, from the very beginning, totally denies it. He was just as great before those erroneous charges were leveled at him. That rumor has gone on for years, and there's been no evidence whatsoever that he was a druggie. He wrote druggie. That's crazy. Clemens responded with a post to X. Okay, but surely Donald Trump truthed it. Yep. It's a screen. I hate it. It's a screen grab of the truth social post that has 419re truths. And then they then went to the other bad website, X and he posted about it there where he said, wonderful time yesterday at Trump National D.C. with POTUS and my son Casey. I appreciate the love. DT knows more than anyone the fake news that's out there. We're still doing that.

[B]

Still doing it.

[A]

Everyone has their agendas. I played the game. Everyone has their agendas. I played the game to change my family's direction generationally and to win. Excuse me, that sounds like an agenda. What are we doing here with the agendas? What do you think is the agenda to keep you out other than to not encourage children, which is who the hall of Fame is supposed to be for. It's where you take your kids so that you, an old person can teach your young, younger generations who were the greats and why they should be looked up to and why baseball rules. And we don't want to see you. Why would we. It's not an agenda to want to keep out of that. The people who did it the wrong way. I did it to get rich for my family is what that says. I did it change my family's direction generationally. I did it to make money for my family. Okay. That's not the way to. That's not the argument that would win me over in this case. I was supposed to say I did this to make all the money that I could. Okay, then you did that. Bye. Bye. Well, one could. This is what the athletic says. One could quibble with Trump's framing of some of Clemons accomplishments. He has two more Cy Youngs than Randy Johnson. He's actually third all time in strikeouts, not second. You said that there was no denying them. Of course, it was never about that. Like Barry Bonds, Alex Rodriguez, Kurt Schilling, Sammy Sosa, Rafael Palmero and others. Clemens was a Central figure in MLB's steroid era. So, like, listen, it's just interesting. It's like, if you're gonna make all these cases, like, why not just start with, like, Mark McGuire? Like, what's the. Why would you. I don't. This. How does he have time for this? I'm trying to get through a podcast. I barely had time to get to this story. How does the President of the United States At a time like this, have time for this. I mean, Taylor Swift just got engaged. Okay, we have to slowly come to the end of this podcast, but I promised and I teased up at the beginning that this year we're going to teach Isabella about the joys and the utter devastation of fantasy football. The idea that we've come up with to do this, we are going to have Isabella draft a fantasy team that we will check in with every week. I know that we sometimes, if you're a seasoned fantasy football fan, you know the mantra. Nobody wants to hear about your fantasy team. But Isabella doesn't know about any of that yet. So I think what we can actually do is want to hear about her fantasy team, because I do. I do want to hear about the decisions that she's making with her roster and. And the things that she's learning through her first experience with fantasy football. So every week, we will be checking in with the podcast's football team drafted by and run by Isabella. In order to do that, we need to make a league. So we're going to do the draft for this fantasy league during Tuesday's episode of next week. But because of scheduling conflicts that we've had to nail down, we will be recording that on Monday at, like, 4. So we're going to do the draft for this league. That is going to be 10 teams. We need nine listeners to participate in this league with us at 4 Eastern time on Monday. The. What is that?

[B]

First.

[A]

First. Not the second.

[B]

Second is Tuesday.

[A]

That's Labor Day. So we're doing it on Labor Day. Yes. Well, so. Okay. And if that rules you out, then that rules you out. Please do not enter. Okay. And this is. Look, you're not getting anything. The winner of the league is going to get casuals merch. A nice bundle of casuals merch, which I guess is a good way of letting you guys know that we have merch coming soon. Coming. Yay. I believe we were allowed to say that. Are we allowed to say, like, little stuff about what it is?

[B]

Yes.

[A]

Okay. We're gonna have a sick hoodie, and then I think we're getting a crop top that I'm pretty excited. Oh, and then socks and T shirts and all the. But it's coming soonish. We're working on it. Okay. The winner of this league will get that, but other than that, there's nothing special about being this league, so I don't want anybody to feel left out. I'm going to tell you in a second how to try to get in. If you Want to. But if you've, like, oh, Katie, it's a holiday I can't go to. It's like, that's okay. We're not going to, like, do much with it. You're not going to, like, be on the podcast. We just need nine listeners, and I want you to draft like it's your fantasy football team. Listeners who eventually get picked. I don't want any sort of anything to try to help Isabella. This is a competition, okay? For this all to work, it has to be a league. Okay? So 10 teams. We're looking for nine listeners. You got to actively participate and manage your team, and you don't get to do any favors for Isabella. What you do to enter, email us. You know it. It's CasualsWithKatynolinmail.com the subject line has to be fantasy in capital letters. Okay. If you don't do that, it's gonna get missed. We're also doing that so that if you're emailing about something else, it's not gonna get lost. So please do this fantasy. And if you write in an email that doesn't have fantasy in the subject line and the body of it is like. And also, I was hoping I could be in the disqualified. Fantasy in the subject line. Sending an email just about that. Then open a new email and send a second email. Nobody will notice. Or click care. Okay. Fantasy in the subject line. Help Chris out. We're going to draft 4pm Eastern on Monday. Isabella. The plan is on Thursday of this week to give her the information that she needs to not fly fully blind. I don't want to give her. I don't want to overload you with too much information, but I want to arm you with important information people to target how drafts work. And so I called a friend of mine who's going to. Confirmed. I can say out loud, I don't.

[B]

Have a time slot. Confirmed. So.

[A]

Okay. But he said yes.

[B]

He said yes.

[A]

So Matthew Berry, who is like. He's like fantasy football daddy. He's like the. Is that a good way to describe him, Brady? He's like the guy.

[B]

Accurate, but, like, weird as hell if you don't.

[A]

You wouldn't say it. Yeah, sure. He's a big deal. And he's gonna come by to give you some tips and tricks and explain kind of how it all works. I'm very, very excited for this. Me, too. Okay. I was gonna say, how do you feel?

[C]

I'm nervous. I'm literally going into this completely blind. Like, I have no idea.

[A]

We're gonna you'll feel. Hopefully by Thursday you'll feel better about that. Yeah, we'll give you materials, et cetera, et cetera. I'm so excited. I'm so excited. And now it's a four hour podcast and Taylor Swift is engaged. So let's go ahead and get to Chris because we do this every Tuesday. Chris puts together a bunch of what to watch if you want to watch sports this week. And so what do we have this week, Chris?

[D]

First thing, college football season obviously started last weekend in Ireland. We got a game on home turf in America this weekend. Big game is number one Texas against number three Ohio State on Saturday, August 30th at 12:00pm ET. So you know what that means. Gonna pop a bunch of nooners on Saturday. Ohio State's obviously the reigning national champion and Texas is the first number one ranked side to begin the season as underdogs. So good for Texas, I guess. So. That's gonna be fascinating to watch. Make sure you check out some college football. College football. A lot of fun. The second thing that I want everyone to watch is the Women's Rugby World Cup. USA versus Australia. We teased that a little bit last week. That'll be on Saturday, August 30th at 2:30pm Eastern. Just a bit of an update from USA's first match. In Australia's first match, Australia won their first match against Samoa, 73 0. USA, on the other hand, lost their first match to England 69 to 7.

[A]

What?

[D]

69 to 7. So 69 being what England scored and then 7 being what the USA scored.

[A]

That can't be right. That's right.

[D]

Was the score.

[A]

Ooh, that's not good.

[D]

So we're gonna be a tight matchup.

[A]

I think we're. Well, listen. Well, listen, you're comparing. This isn't. We're gonna kick your ass. Okay? I don't have to get into why. I stand pretty confidently with my friends Isabella and Brady here in America and we're gonna kick your ass, okay? Because we fucking need this right now. Okay? And you guys are kind of just like not going through anything. So, like, what else can we watch? We wanted to watch sports.

[D]

The third thing is the Formula one is back. The Dutch Grand Prix will be on Sunday, August 31st at 9am Eastern. This is the first race back from the summer break. It's been been a while since we've been able to watch some live F1, so I'm looking forward to that. Oscar Piastri leads the championship by nine points over teammate Lando Norris at the moment. Lando's had a pretty solid run the last month of the season, so it's going to be really, really tight. McLaren pretty much have the Constructors Championship sewed up there, but it's going to be really tight. Battle between Piastri and Norris for the final 10 races remaining. And just in Formula One news as well, Cadillac, the American team that is joining the grid next season, they just finalized their 2026 lineup with Valtteri Bottas and Sergio Perez.

[A]

I'm sorry, what was the name?

[D]

Valtteri Bottas.

[A]

Oh, I thought you said butt ass.

[C]

That's what it sounded like to me.

[D]

Valtteri Bottas and Sergio Perez are the drivers, which meant that they went for experience over some younger guys, which was an interesting decision. Mick Schumacher was a name that got thrown about out, but in the end they went with Bottas and Perez.

[C]

Wait, how do you spell it?

[D]

B, O, T, T, A, S. Okay.

[A]

It kind of is butt ass. It's just. How would everybody else say it?

[D]

That's the way I said it.

[C]

You think when I read it I.

[B]

Say bodice to respect the man's culture, I would go with butt ass.

[A]

I don't. I feel bad now. I thought you were saying, like, Bortez and for some, because of who you are, it sounds like butt ass, but you're telling me his real last name is butt Ass. That means we're being disrespectful. So we need to apologize, everybody. Isabella Brady. Sorry.

[C]

Sorry to miss, but family apologize. That wasn't nice.

[A]

We weren't meaning to be mean. We thought this was one of those weird things Chris says. Dumb. Go usa. Okay, so that's what you can watch if you want to watch sports this week. Real quick, shout out to Keith in Atlanta, who emailed us us all the way from Atlanta, to let me know what I should have known on my own, which is that Boston Glory won the Ultimate Frisbee association this weekend. Shout out to. To Keith, who we love and mean it, and also to the Boston Glory. And shout out to you, dear listener, who we love, who stuck this whole thing out. I cannot believe Taylor Swift got engaged during our podcast. So I had no time to prepare anything interesting to say and everybody's going to be mad, but that's just. Them's the breaks, kids. On Thursday we're gonna have. Hopefully Matthew Berry will nail that down. We'll teach Isabelle about fantasy football. I would like us to get into what's going on with sports and all of the things you have to subscribe to to be a sports fan. At this point, if we're going to be the Casual Sports Fan podcast, I feel like ESPN just launched a new thing and then somebody else the World Baseball Classic is going to be on Netflix. I feel like the price tag is going up for these streaming services and I feel like it's getting rally the ranked month of and as a lady who still has cable and is embarrassed to admit that I do that because it's easy because it's all in one place and now it's starting to like move off of that to other places. Now I'm getting annoyed by it. So maybe we should do a quick little business rundown of that to keep the fans abridged of all things that need to happen. In the meantime, if you want to reach out to us, don't forget you can enter our Enter to be in our fantasy league. Write Fantasy in the soundtrack line of an email to Casuals at katie [e-mail] or voice on Igne TikTok. We are at Casual is the podcast. We love you, we mean it and we'll see you on Thursday. Bye. Congrats, Taylor.