← Dan Bernstein Unfiltered
Dan Bernstein Unfiltered
Chicago Bulls: Bryson Graham and Michael Reinsdorf set the tone for the future.
01:02:44
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Everybody talked about it since I first moved to Oregon. The big one. The earthquake that trashed the whole West Coast. Total destruction.
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Officially calling it the largest natural disaster in American history.
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I just didn't know what would help me next. So I took it all. Even the gun. It was time.
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Cello American Afterlife presented by Pair of Thieves the number one fiction and drama podcast in America. Listen wherever you get your favorite podcasts available now. Dan Bernstein Unfiltered Unfiltered on 31 2Sports on 31 2Sports is brought to you in partnership with my bookie and today also by Russ Armstrong and Chicago window guys. Call 847-302-9171. Check out his five star reviews at ChicagoNowGuys.com and also today by Aura Frames A u r a frames.com and for a limited time with a promo code DBU, you can get the best possible Mother's Day gift and 25 off their best selling Carver Matte digital picture frame with that code dbu. It was a big day and I think a very positive day yesterday for the Chicago Bulls. They needed one. They were due for one. When we talked in this space yesterday about what had to be accomplished at that press conference yesterday, I think they did it. I think they kept it simple and I think that Bryson Graham made a very important, good first impression. I also think even though it's going to be seen as not as important, I thought Michael Reinsdorf handled himself very well yesterday. He first of all started the press conference with a direct personal apology to the fan and I found that really interesting that he said I want to talk to the Bulls fan and I'm sorry I'm so with it. We haven't accomplished more that he knows that the Arturis Karnishovas regime was a failure. He's aware of that and he, he didn't get too basketbally. He didn't try to. He's in his comfortable lane as an owner, and in a way that was true to himself, I thought he took a risk in apologizing the way he did. It wasn't without risk to do that, to start that entire thing and say, first and foremost, before we do anything else, I'm talking to you, the Bulls fan, as the owner of the team. I'm sorry that to this point, I have failed in whatever he feels his responsibility is. And if that were to come off as anything other than genuine, that could have boomeranged, I'd be here making fun of it today instead of lauding it. So there is some risk involved. And he pulled it off because I believe him. And maybe I'm. I'm a dupe, maybe I'm a mark. Call me whatever. But when he said that and the way. And having talked to him outside of these sort of, you know, public circumstances a couple of times in my life, and not saying I know him well, but I know people who know him well and around him a lot, there was. It was really important yesterday that the Bulls evince genuineness. And I think they accomplished that. I think there's a sense that they can at least tell us as fans that they get it and that they know how far away they are. That was a critical conclusion of yesterday, was hearing the new person in charge, that young man. And I'm not. I'm not going to get hung up on his age. I'm not. There's no point. 39 years old is plenty old enough to be trusted to. To shock this team, to shake this team out of its torpor. And I want him to do that. I want him to grab this team and grab this franchise and look at everything involved and open up the curtains, air it out. If the Bulls are an old house, and they are. They're kind of an old house right now. But what they need to do is pull all of the blinds and open the curtains and get a cleaning crew in there, dust out all these corners and do a Marie Kondo on the Bulls. Start throwing a bunch of crap out. Do we need this? What's the closet rule? If you haven't worn it in a year, donate it. That's what they need. That sometimes, however long you've lived in a place, and usually you confront it when you move and you just say, oh, my God, what are we doing with all this stuff? This has been. Why is there an old desktop computer tower in the back of a closet of a third bedroom. What is this doing here? How long has this been here and why did I ever want to save this? Those are the kinds of decisions that need to be made within the Bulls organization at every single level. And I think this is the guy to do it. And if he's not, we'll say he should be fired and he'll be fired and that'll be that. But I am, I am nervous and excited about what the future holds because I don't know how Bryson Graham is going to look at the way we've been accustomed to the Bulls looking at things. And I do have a list of questions and maybe some concerns based on what he said, but I found both Michael Reinsdorf and Bryson Graham to be genuine. He didn't try to be somebody he's not. He didn't try to. He didn't sell us some narrative inflating the things he's done in the past. If anything, I thought Bryson Graham came off as a little too humble. And one of my favorite moments of the entire press conference that I thought was very telling was an off the cuff moment later during the question and answer when Sam Smith was, I thought, doing a really good job asking about a potential coach for the team and he talked about championship pedigree or do you want a younger coach to grow with the team, etc. And Graham, with the owner sitting next to him, started talking about collaboration and, and yeah, you, you, you filled my email box with, with concerns about Ryan Pace and the word collaboration. But you notice when Michael interjected to cut him off when talking about the coach because Bryson Graham said, well, yes, I'm, this is going to be, it's a, obviously a critical decision. I'm not going to commit to any type of coach or prerequisites that we're going to find the right person for this job, the person that fits the, what we need and, and what we want and it'll be collaborative and I'm not going to hire a coach that Michael doesn't want, that Michael's going to. And he and Michael Reinstar stopped him and said, you're, you're picking the coach. And that was exactly what needed to be said because I was going down that road like you were probably where I'm saying like, oh, collaboration, no. Run the team, run the team. You run the team, you run the team. And I'll tell Bryson this if we ever get to talk to him, and I hope we do on the air, that he was so humble in saying, if I'm the Smartest person in the room, we're gonna fail. You gotta be pretty close to the smartest person in the room. You don't have to be the smartest. Obviously, you're gonna have lawyers doing the legal work and have CPAs doing the accounting, and if somebody gets injured, a doctor comes in to fix them. But when it comes to being the smartest person in the room, you better be damn close if you're going to be what we think of in this town as people who've successfully run teams. Obviously, Theo Epstein is still the name that we hold up there, because he had done it before, and he came swaggering in with his speech about baseball is better in this, you know, big, prepared oratory. And he said, going to be able to write your columns for you for what you're going to say about me and this. We've got a plan here. That's going to take some time. And I thought that Graham came pretty close when he said, we're going to get out of the mud and we're going to roll up our sleeves and work to get out of the mud. And this is just the beginning. Thank you for saying that. Thank you for not telling us, boy, we're closer than you think. Watch us compete. He was not out there selling tickets. He wasn't out there trying to polish your apple for you. And I liked that. I liked the fact that he understands also the kind of player that you have to have to win and the kind of player you're going to have to have to win in. Not just what basketball is at the NBA level now, but what it's becoming. And yes, he used an acronym. I know. And thank you for keeping me top of mind. When an acronym is used, I'm going to allow this one. There are conditions. There are different rules when it comes to such things. First of all, he's not a coach. And second of all, the acronym kind of crept into his discussion when he was talking about the kind of players that he wants. And he was using that as either a mnemonic or a little cheat code just to tell you what he likes in a player. When he said he looks for slap size, length, athleticism, and physicality, okay, he didn't say, this is how I coach or this is I general manage and I run an organization that adheres to this principle. This acronym is how I run my organization. That's not what he said. He was just mentioning that as a. As a mnemonic and a description of the kind of players he likes. Do you have Any quibble with a guy who's looking for size, length, athleticism and physicality in players and versatility, we can add that it might be SLAVPA in there. And then I was thinking like, you could go, if you wanted to be nice and sweet, you could go with pals instead of slap. It's less aggressive and it's kind of warm. We're all, we're just pals. It's pals. Physicality, athleticism, length and size.
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No, that sounds bad. And I like acronyms. They make me cringe a little bit
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to begin with, but me, me too.
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Not that I don't, I don't disagree with any of those four attributes for an NBA player. Of course those are great, but it's
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just acronyms are kind of, I, I, I generally don't like them. But I, I disagree with him more coming from a coach. If he is telling his scouts, find me guys all around the world with size, length, athleticism and physicality. And add in whatever you want. Smarts and awareness and good looks. Good looks, good background, good makeup. I want them saving dogs and cats from burning houses. And people named cats, I want them saved from burning houses as well. But okay, so pals you don't like. What about, what about Alps? What about Alps? Alps. And then we could all wear lederhosen and sing songs about the edelweiss.
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Yeah, you're making it worse. I think slap. Slap works.
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Slap is better than Alps.
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Yes. And pals.
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I don't know, but I'm put in
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the mind of laps if you want to do laps.
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Laps. But yeah, but that sounds like post practice punishment.
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Yeah, Slap. Slap is good.
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Yeah. Laps. Yeah. Pals. Laps. Slap. But Alps, you know, just sort of a, like the ricola horn and that. You know, we happen to be in a lovely mountain, spring day.
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We could go with spla.
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Salp. I think salp is a word. I actually think salp is a word.
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I think you're thinking of SAP.
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No, I know, I know SAP is a word. I thought I'd seen SALP before, but maybe that's. Yes, yes. SALP is a barrel shaped planktonic tunicate in the family salpidae. The SALP moves by contracting its gelatinous body in order to pump water through it. I knew it. That's your winner. I've seen it. So we could go with salp. Salp. But he's going with slap. And when people talk about this dude finding talent, that he just got a sense for it. And some people have it and some People don't. Okay, great. But I love that. I love the fact that Michael Reinstorf jumped in and said, you're picking the coach. Leave me out of this. I'm not collaborating with you on that. What do you think? I'm hiring you for? Good. That was good. And I, I thought yesterday, for the most part, worked my. And my other little things that I had in there. I. Sam Smith is great, but please, please, please. Whether it is Sam Smith or whether it's Larry Mayer with the Bears, whoever it might be, the person working for the team website should not be asking questions in press conferences. That's not media.
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Yeah, I know. It's a pet peeve.
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I guess it's not media. Yeah, it should. It should not be somebody who works for the team. They can have access whenever they want. They should.
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Yes.
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Whenever they want. They can walk down the hall. They can. They work for the team. They can be there in the morning sitting in his office. Stop including your websites or your team's writers in those press conferences. And maybe the same would apply now, unfortunately. You know, Casey Johnson used to work for the Tribune and now he works for an arm of the team as a team insider. But, you know, it's a team side thing still. That's not objective reporting because that's not his job anymore to give you objective reporting. It's his job to have special access and give you what he hears due to special access. So if they want to curtail some of that as well, make sure that the people asking questions are the people who are there representing someone other than the team, the franchise itself. I thought the questions were still good. It's nothing against Sam or Casey or Larry Mayer. Personally, I like them all very much. I just think by the principle of it should be. Those are opportunities for professionally adversarial questions to find out things. As George Orwell said, journalism is finding out things that the subject doesn't want you to know. All else is public relations. So less pr, more journalism at these press conferences would certainly make me happy. Also on my list was no over the top pandering to the Jordan era. And I will say that when it came from Bryson Graham, it didn't come off as insincere. It didn't come off as pandering. He described himself as a child of the 90s. And let me be. There's, there's, there are a lot of informed opinions I can give you about basketball and the various times in which the life and times of players and everything else that's gone on I can't speak anything about a child of the night 90s. I wasn't one and I didn't raise one. I was too busy working. I was too busy sitting there bitching about Jerry Krause, lowering the curtain as I'm trying to watch practice. So I'll take him at his word for what he said about being a child of the 90s and the size of what the Bulls were in the lives. And not just in his case, somebody who went on to play high level college basketball of the who's whose life was and has been basketball. The space that those Bulls took up and what they meant culturally, it is important and it is why the Bulls are a worldwide brand. Those are all true things. And I don't think that anything that he said yesterday rose to that level that would be described as pandering. I didn't think it was lip service. I didn't think anything that was said by anybody there was done to curry favor with fans that we've seen all these cringy Bears press conferences before and Coach Ditko, I'll be calling on you for help. No, I thought that the eyes were on the future, and Bryson Graham's eyes are on a long, maybe difficult process. When asked about current players on the roster, he didn't say a thing and was transparent enough to say, I don't want to answer that question right now. Who do you like? Who do you not like? Are there untouchables? Are there guys you wouldn't trade any? He basically said, you answer the phone for anybody and everybody. That's your job. I love that answer because that's always the true answer when you're talking about players, transactions and possibilities. There's never a good reason to declare anyone untouchable, ever. There can be somebody you think, I'm never trading that person. But there's, there's never an upside. You don't gain anything by telling the world we would never ever do this or we'd never ever do that. That's your business what you would do. And if you, if you wanted to be respectful to the current roster, that sounded to me like he's, he is certainly reserving the possibility that he thinks everybody on the roster sucks. And that might be true. And that's okay. It's okay. I, I do find it jarring that he is that young and he, he looks young and he sounds young. But, but you know, when you're old, everybody looks young and that's fine. But if this is him going through the bull's house. And he also said that there are people in the organization. I don't think it's necessarily, you know, get baby with the bathwater stuff and just get rid of people to get rid of people. But there's going to be plenty of justification of what have you done here, what do you do here? And in other organizations where he's seen examples of. I'm not going to use the word efficiency because I don't really like it. Efficiency is sort of this edged, McKinsey ish word that usually means strip everything down and fire everybody and it's too private equity sounding. Usually make the business more efficient means cost. Make everything cost less and make us make more. And if it ends up that we end up destroying the brand, we'll get a new brand. We don't care. We'll just sell it off. And you can't do that really with a sports team. I don't think the goal of a sports team should necessarily be efficiency when it comes to the way we look at businesses and cost. Go ahead. It's not my money. And Michael Reinsdorf also talked about resources and talked about hires, and he bristled at the narrative of the Bulls not wanting to spend to help people out. But I would tell him that when it does come to some things the Bulls have gotten behind and that has been an issue, that they haven't had the right questions being asked. They've had to have people. And Reinsdorf organizations have had people outside the organization say, why do you do it this way? Why not like this? Why not like that? Why can't we do this? When asked, they've responded and yeah, the Berto center was, if not, I think it was the first dedicated, custom designed team practice facility that I think now is being used as a. As a public tournament space. Isn't it like that? Yeah, there's stuff played there right now and it's. At least there's a use for that horrible building that. My only problem with that is that Jerry Cross designed that thing as a bunker as like a bomb shelter that happened to have basketball going on inside because he just didn't want any prying eyes. And it's not aesthetically pleasing and it makes you feel like you're going into something like out of a Michael Crichton book, the Andromeda Strain, where they. You have to, you know, do an eye scan to get in the bill. It's like it's basketball. It's just basketball. Everybody knows what plays you're running. You're getting it to Michael Jordan and getting out of the way, and he's going to try to dunk, okay? Oh, no, let's. Let's not let anybody see that. And here's it. You're running the triple post offense, but we can't see it. We have to cover everything and drop all the curtains so no one knows anything. And that's been an issue with the Bulls, too, is you can be as, as furtive as you want professionally, but you got to let the fans in. You got to talk more. And I think he's ready to do that. He seems personable, he seems real, and he's doing it with a smile on his face. I don't think you have to pretend that this is the most serious thing in the entire world. And then when asked about a coach, I didn't mind that he wasn't ready to put some of those criteria out there. We only want somebody who wins a champ who has won a championship, or we want somebody with NBA experience. You don't have to say anything like that right now. And I think when he said was we want the best person for this job, when we ask the right questions and we get the answers that we, we want for somebody who fits how far away we think we are or where we want to be, whether it's somebody who grows with the team or somebody who's going to come in right now and impose a structure that's different. Maybe it's somebody who's won a title before, maybe it's an older guy with experience, maybe it's not. Maybe that there's an understanding of how to build a staff that can take care of all of those things. And I am really hopeful that we learn more about the structure of the rest of this front office that he is going to be putting together. And we don't know. We've made all kinds of assumptions based on how it's been constructed in the past, but it sounds like they know they need. They need a nerd, that they need somebody from the quant side. Dave Lewin keeps getting mentioned because they're like, oh, Dave Lewin. I've seen it reported that they're, you know, some team sources, either Dave Lewin or somebody a lot like Dave Lewin. Yeah, we get what you're talking about. We know if you're talking about a highly educated numbers person who can manage those things, get hire everybody. And he pushed back against the narrative of that they don't. They don't provide these resources. It's not just, I wouldn't Say it's an entirely false narrative. And I would tell Michael this, that Michael's dad specifically has openly decried analytics over just scouts and thinking things about baseball and having people beat the bushes and project things just because they're baseball people. Whether or not the baseball is part of the basketball, we can debate where one ends and the other begins, but that has been a thing. They mentioned strength and conditioning and they mentioned, you know, player health and all that. They've got to fix that. That wasn't addressed. I would ask about that because of the Bulls reputation around the league as far as the medicine goes. And there was another aspect that was mentioned that Graham underlined if you were listening carefully and that is taking care of players, families. And then he stopped and he said, because that's really important and it is the aspects around the league when you start talking to free agents as they're talking to people about where you want to play, where you want to make your life. It has nothing to do with the Bulls global brand and how big they are in China and whether or not tourists are coming to the games has to do with. With the same way you would look at any job when you're talking about. And yes, they're billion dollar corporations, but they're also human beings and regardless of them, they make all that money. They shouldn't care about anything else. It's just, that's just unrealistic and wrong. That's not how it works. You care about how your, your family, your kids, how you're helped out with your, your move here and really importantly, how they're taking care of your body and your mind. And while the Bulls have done really well, I think with stuff on the mental health side, physical health hasn't been all that great reputationally. And they have to work to repair that image in the whispers around the league about their medicine and whether or not they can trust what's being said, are their second opinions, are there positive outcomes, what are injury likelihoods, et cetera. It isn't just for making sure your guys are healthy. It's for making sure people don't say, yeah, the Bulls, what's going on with them? Because that hurts you. That becomes a big problem. And then it's going to take time to go find these players. But I'm down. If you want to find players who are tall, long, athletic and aggressively physical and they can guard multiple positions. And when he said, if you have somebody who, if you have a wing who can switch onto a big. Yeah. And who can shoot it, yes, yes, all of them. I want every player on the floor to be 6, 10 and have a handle and be able to shoot and be tough and rugged defensively. That's what I want. There's no reason. So I would say, Trey Jones, you got a lot to prove because there's a lot of people on this roster who might be looking at themselves and be like, well, I'm, I'm six feet tall and I can't shoot well. I wonder how long I'm going to be here or immediately calling their agent. It's going to take time. There are going to be players here for a year or two who don't necessarily fit. And we're going to know right away. We're going to know right away when, when we begin to look at the rotations and we begin to see how they're. The expending the capital that they have and the resources that they have. With all the salary cap this year, I think you put the brakes on jumping in and using all of it. He said, maybe we'll get a player. Maybe we become a trade market or signing facilitator. Like, the correct answer was whatever is best for us given the situation. And they didn't try to say, well, we're close. Just you wait, we're closer than you think. No, you may be the opposite of that. And if that's what he said during the interview, how far away are we? You're very far away. How do we get closer to where we want to be? Here's how I would do it. And if that's how the interview went, good. There's a lot of work to be done and a lot that we have to know today on organizations win championships, we're going to address some of those things and just look all over the league of what the, what the coaching possibilities might be and some of the names that are out there. The only name that I want, I just. All I ask as far as a coach goes, I want Eric Musselman to at least get an interview. If we can. If we can go with the, the comments that were made by the head of the Bulls basketball side about what he's looking for, and he's not going to hew to any specific rubric at the moment. I think one of the best coaches not in the NBA right now happens to be the head coach of USC men's basketball, and it may be one of the toughest competitors I've ever been around. I would love for them to interview Eric Musselman. I just, I don't think there's anybody. If you have played, you know, you hand two coaches a team or you do it like the Iraq series where every coach gets the exact same squad. He's not going to. There aren't many people who are going to walk out on the floor and beat an Eric Musselman coach team because he's just good at it, really good at it. And I think he's fine at college, but the pros are where he's supposed to be. That's the only personal choice that I would have is just interview him, see where that goes. Maybe you don't hire him, but I would love to know what he thinks about the guys that you have right now. All in all, an important and positive day for the Chicago Bulls. Rolling out the new guy in a way that I think sets that that tone. Mother's Day is coming up. Think about aura frames, especially for a mom who might also be a grandmother. This would really work in my case. Instead of the usual Mother's Day flowers, an aura frame isn't something that is going to die after three days on the kitchen counter. It has free unlimited storage. You can add as many photos or videos as you want. You can add a personalized message. It comes in a gift box and all you have to do is download an aura app and you can send photos right to that frame. This is the number one digital frame of its kind. Number one in the App Store on Christmas Day in 2025. It is named number one by Wirecutter. 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You know, betting golf doesn't have to mean throwing a dart at one outright and then just sweating for four days because in my bookie bet the whole tournament, not just the trophy that's at stake. You pick a head to head matchup, you bet the round, follow the cut line Wait for Sunday, maybe jump on somebody making a charge. Or Saturday, as they say, moving day. You bet on who's going to make that move. PGA Tour betting is better when you just keep it simple with my bookie. And if you want to do it by knowing putting stats and seeing what the weather is, and if the greens are drying out for the afternoon tee times, go ahead and do that. But you don't have to. And if you need a little extra to sweeten the deal, how about this? The promo code, DBU. That gets your first bet covered up to $500 when you make your first deposit. Don't overthink it. Find your angle, make your pick. And cash in at my bookie. So I have the luxury every day of. On my morning commute, I drive right by Wrigley Field. I take Addison to the drive, and I come in. And when there's a day game and you're driving in, you always, you know. You know that you. You feel the energy around the park a little bit for those 120 starts. And you can see that here's, you know, the. The T shirt boxes are getting unpacked and the beer trucks are delivering everything, and everybody is gearing up for the influx of people. And you can feel the energy around the park. And it's fun and it's nice, and it's. One of the cool things about living in a city like Chicago is you. It isn't. We don't have that ballpark out at Cheap Land, out way past an airport somewhere surrounded by nothing but parking lots, that it's right there and you can watch everything. And you know what it reminds me of? You know the scene in the town where they have successfully gotten in. They're dressed as cops and. And it's right when they realize that. That Jon Hamm's got the drop on him when he. After they show Ben Affleck walking in with all of the action and the activity and the people with the hand trucks and the kegs of beer. And it's the quiet where he's like, wait a second. What happened to all the bustle of people getting ready for the game? And you know something's up. And that's when they realize that they're. That he looks, you know, he peeks outside and sees all the trucks and knows that they got him. I always think about that because I love that movie. Not like Joe Missoula. I don't watch it every day. You know that Maddie, that the head coach of the Boston Celtics watches the town every Day he could probably find
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D
a better use of his time. It's great movie, I love it. But not every day.
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He watched it every day. I think Beth could watch it every day too, actually. But I. So driving by the park, I always see that. But man, right now, when they're winning like this, it's different. Everything registers differently when they're doing what they're doing. And this, this Cubs thing a couple days ago, was it. Or was it yesterday? Maybe I lose track when I said that. It's, it's important now to refocus on the fact that like, holy shit, they can and should go, go win a World Series this year. Can changes to should at some point. And yeah, in the first week of May, there's enough evidence to suggest that, get into that trade market, make a move, fix whatever you got to fix and, and reinforce what you need to reinforce and, and go win a World Series. But it doesn't mean you can't also enjoy everything that's going on. Last night was an example of one of the great Len Casper descriptions of Wrigley Field. Wrigley Field is an amplifier of emotion. And I can't put a metric on it. I can't say that it is a four times amplifier or five times, or you can turn the gain up or whatever you would do. I can't measure it, but I know a true statement when I hear one. And for good or bad, Wrigley Field makes everything feel stronger, makes everything feel bigger. And it, it feels pretty big when. And then last night JD Said, boy, this place is going to go bonkers if Pete Crowe Armstrong can come through here. And I'm laughing, I'm chuckling, and I do. If you listen to Oti this morning, you know, Cody was just talking about how crazy he went. I lost it. And I think I said, oh, my God, he did it. So I'm screaming, and even Zoe upstairs, she goes, what the heck? What's going on down there? And Beth's like, cubs guy hit a home run. And I'm. I'm running, running around the kitchen. I could not believe Beavis came through on that one. And he picks that one off his shoe tops and cranks at Oppo. But that was one of those, that was one of those little shivers of excitement that runs through you and you're like, okay, all right. This. When they know it, everybody in the park knew it. The broadcasters knew it, the Reds knew it, and every fan there when, when there is an understanding of something that starts to come together. Maybe it was Last year, where I would say there's no better time to be a fan of a pro sports team than when you know your team is getting good. And sometimes that's even more fun than the ultimate championship in some ways. But that recognition and also that threshold, the allowing yourself to think that and overcoming your natural skepticism or pessimism, even for a moment, even if the next day you can wake up and be like, yeah, well, it's May 6th. What am I doing? Why am I being crazy? You can contain all of these feelings that. That bubble up to the top at different times, but that's a great one in sports. That's a. As a sports fan, when you know, oh, recognizing that. That moment and what it can portend, you don't have to get stupid. And you. And for a long time, a lot of the Cubby stuff, and it made Cubby stuff stupid, sort of before they won the World Series and everything was, the Cubs are doomed. The Cubs are fated for greatness. And it was. A lot of it was. Was this heavy, portentous ridiculousness. But even beyond that, you know it when you feel it. And it might be a meaningful feeling, whether it's for Pete Crow, Armstrong, or for you as a fan or for manager and his trust in that player. But when it's a young player who you feel is on the cusp of or already reaching stardom, knowing it in that moment, that's why JD Said it. He knew. Everybody kind of knew how it was feeling there. And that place is going crazy, man. Look. Look around. And even some of the drone shots, when you can just see the overall sort of roiling of the crowd and the movement and people turning around, where you don't just have to hear it, you can see the activity. I will say, great job by Marquis with these drone shots to go ahead, have at it, do more. Because the more reps that whoever's driving that thing, whoever the drone pilot is, the photographer doing that they've got. They're starting to. And it's, you know, for a director to begin working a lot of that in at the end. And I loved it in the immediate post game where instead of just pictures of individual fans, instead of just those images, we got the whole shot of the W flag and the brown line or red line going behind it and everything that you were seeing that was really cool television. And it's one place generally, I think marquee is meh. And certainly the stuff outside of the actual games is really not good. But within the games, what they've done to pioneer both the Megalodon camera and the stuff with the drones. That's good tech. That's good tv. And I think the best stuff on Marquee are the games themselves. Really, it's the. It's the only thing I watch there are the games themselves, because that is by far the best work that they do. The only. I mean, the only reason to ever turn it on is for the games. And a lot of that, the stuff the drone is doing now is there's some appointment television there. It's also because it's my neighborhood, and maybe it just.
- [42:39]
D
It's.
- [42:40]
C
It's more to me because you get these big shots of the place kind of where I live down the street, and it's just cool.
- [42:48]
F
My name is Mackenzie, and I started a GoFundMe for the adoptive mother of a nonverbal autistic child. The mother had lost her job because she wasn't able to find adequate care for this autistic child. So she really needed some help with living expenses, paying some back bills. So I launched a GoFundMe to help support them during this crisis. And we raised about $10,000 within just a couple of months. I think that the surprising thing was by telling a clear story and just like, really being very clear about what we needed, we had some really generous donations from people who were really moved by the situation that this family was struggling with.
- [43:35]
C
GoFundMe is the world's number one fundraising platform, trusted by over 200 million people. Start your GoFundMe today at gofundme.com that's gofundme.com gofundme.com this podcast is supported by GoFundMe. If you're looking for a cool Mother's Day gift, I have the one for you that you absolutely cannot miss. Because you could do the brunch thing, or you could do the flowers thing, or the chocolates or the pajamas or everything that you're sold every year. But how about getting your mom a way to capture everyday moments that maybe mean more than you expected? Or maybe there are memories that live in your head that can live elsewhere outside of your head, and a place where everybody in the family, including your mom or your wife, who is a mom, can enjoy them. And that is with an aura digital frame. You get everything with the aura digital frame, especially the carver matte frame, which is their best seller. Because everybody loves it. It's easy to set up. It takes two minutes to set up the frame. Even I. If I could do it, you could do it. You have total control over who has access. It's completely private. The Aura app lets you share photos even more securely than, say, email and other digital frames require that you use email. Aura doesn't. And you can frame instantly from anywhere, wherever in the world. There's no memory card. You can just zap a photo right there and it appears everything is displayed in true color. Automatically adjust for the light level of the room. You turn out the lights at night, your frame turns off so it saves energy. And you can preload the photos before it ships. You can keep adding from anywhere, anytime. Add a message before it arrives. It comes in that gift box that you saw. Name number one by Wirecutter. You can save on the gifts that moms love by visiting aura frames.com and for a limited time, listeners can get. You can get $25 off their best selling Carver Mat frame with the code DBU. That's a U R a frames.com promo code DBU. Support the show by mentioning us at checkout if you want terms and conditions apply. But It's Aura frames auraframes.com promo code DBU. And then you can take care of your Mother's Day stuff. Ted Turner died at 87. And of all the stories being told, I don't have to tell the one that. Where. It was Ted Turner's speech to the collegiate broadcasters at Brown University that ended up getting the Duke contingent removed from that particular speech. We were. It's not my fault. It's not my. It wasn't me, and it wasn't Steve Goldberg. It was. It was Paul Levinson who was asking Ted Turner about competitive sailing in the middle of this broadcasting conference. When are you getting back into competitive sailing? Well, I'll take one more. And I don't know where that came from. And then people are like, who are you and what are you doing? And where's your faculty advisor? And we said, we're from Duke. We don't have a faculty advisor. It's all student run. Are you guys drunk? Maybe a little. And then, yeah, then we left and went and went back to the bar. But Ted Turner was very interesting. And in this age where, unfortunately, we are reduced in the world to hoping that billionaires are benevolent. And really that's where we are. That's much of the world, because these billionaires are ungovernable, and all we can do is hope that they're not awful. We can presume that every billionaire is awful and then be pleasantly surprised when they're not. And I would count Ted Turner on the list of those who, on balance, he might have been kind of eccentric, if not completely crackers, but I would say that he wasn't. And as the owner of the Atlanta Braves and the creator of CNN and. And TCM and dbs and TNT and all these things, he did some things that are worth noting. I thought Craig Calcatera, in the cup of Coffee newsletter, did a pretty good job today. And he had written about the time that Ted Turner named himself the manager. Sometimes, why does the owner come down and manage the team? And he's like, well, hell, that's a real good idea. I'm gonna do that. And he did it for one day. He also. He was suspended for a year by the commissioner. Back when we had a commissioner, Bowie Kuhn, suspended him. Technically, the charge was tampering with free agents, and that was because Gary Matthews was a free agent. And Ted Turner said, I'll sign him at any price. And they later repealed the suspension. What Craig says here is, it was less about tampering and more about Kuhn and the other owners not liking Turner, wanting to spend big bucks on free agents. That reminds you of anything. And in the event he did sign Matthews, I said, when Atlanta, Fulton County Stadium debuted a $1.5 million video board in 1977, and you think, okay, well, that's just what you do. You put. It's common practice. You put a video board in. That's not why he did it. And he said why he did it. And it was for the specific purpose of running replays of calls that went against the Braves that he felt were blown calls. And he wanted to rile up the fans. He thought the umpires like. It's sort of like if Hawk Harrelson had the opportunity to immediately broadcast everything he didn't like about Mark Wegner and Joe west and everybody else, that's what Ted Turner did. And the replays were then banned, as you know. But it was because of Ted Turner that they got banned, because the umpires didn't like it. It was hurting their feelings, and they didn't like the fact that the fans were mad that the umpire screwed up a call. So there is sort of a soft rule that is not enforced anymore. But it used to be courtesy to not show these calls that might make the home crowd mad at umpires. But I think that's going away. And we now do see those replays in ballparks. But he spent a million and a half in 77 when that was a lot of money just to put up A board to show the umps they were wrong and have the fans mad at him. And then in the early 90s, when Bud Selig and the small market owners were spearheading the plan to bust the union and impose a salary cap. And Turner was against that. What was his logic? His logic was, quote, we have the only legal monopoly in the country and we're fucking it up. And it's. They didn't listen to him. They probably should have. And Ted Turner was a, was a very strange man. He, he stopped being that kind of crazy hands on owner. Oh, I'm not even talking about the wildest thing. When Andy Messersmith, who wore number 17, had his last name changed to channel because Ted Turner owned channel 17, he owned WTCG channel 17. So he realized, wait a second, Mr. Smith is wearing 17. Why don't we just put, instead of Messer Smith, we'll put channel on there. And they did. And he was able to do it for a few weeks. And then the, I think it was a National League president at the time, he was like, wait a second. This, this, we can't do this. That's advertising on jerseys. We can't have advertising on jerseys. This is a stunt. And they shut it down. But Ted Turner bought billions of dollars worth of land for conservation purposes. He also gave billions of dollars to, for the United Nations, I believe was one of his charities. Not really a charity. One of his important efforts was to keep the health of the United Nations. And certainly anybody who is married to Jane Fonda for a decade has to at least have enough understanding of the world beyond the way we now think of billionaires to be. On the eccentric, benevolent side, if we have two axes between malevolence and benevolence, between normal and weird, I would say definitely weird, but definitely more toward benevolent. And sadly, it just reminds us that much of our existence in the world right now is hoping, hoping, hoping that ungovernable billionaires are good people and empathetic people. It sucks that that's where we are, but that life in our world today is hoping that billionaires have empathy and aren't horrible. And it was a reminder when Ted Turner passed away. The NBA playoffs are easy money at my bookie if you stop overthinking. A lot of playoff talk coming up on OWC today for saying, why aren't you talking about the NBA playoffs, Brian, about the White Sox? Well, OWC will take care of your NBA playoff talk too. And playoff basketball hits well at my bookie because the board's Clean. You can keep it simple. If you want to do these involved parlays or workout spreadsheets for how long a flight was and when the flight got in and who's staying where and who's going out with their old friends. And that time, you can. Or you can just pick a team, and you can roll with the spurs, who are pretty damn impressive. Or if you think the Pistons figured it out, just pick them. And if you're new to my bookie, if you've never made a deposit, there's even less reason to sit it out. Use the code DBU, and then any bet you choose up to $500 is fully covered. You make your play, and then if it doesn't hit, you get it right back. Just opt in using the bet back bonus token. All you do, dbu when you register, when you deposit, and then you've got that covered. So pick your squad, take the shot. Don't just watch the playoffs. Cash in on them. Only at my bookie. Poor, poor Robert Prevost. Poor Pope Leo. You figure that you rise to being the human being on the entire planet who is designated to be closest to. To God, and essentially, you're channeling God. That's your job. And then you gotta. You've got cell phone issues, and you're not immune. You're still human, so you still have to wake up and be like, oh, got some headache with my cell phone. It's like I was today when I got my new sticker, my city sticker for my car with the. The zone number and the regular city sticker. And I thought that I had those plastic protector sticky sheet things, because they always come in two, and you buy them in two, and you're like, okay, well, it's always in one of the glove compartments. It's either in Beth's car or in my car. So I sort of stuck the thing in there. I'm like, all right, I know it's in her car. And then her car wasn't open. Then I forgot, and then I went back and I looked. I'm like, honey, I know it's in your car. Give me. And. And I looked. I looked, I looked, and it wasn't. So now I got to make another stop and get the sticky thing. But, see, you think the Pope doesn't have to deal with stuff like that. Aha. You would be wrong about even the human being closest to God on the earth according to the designation of the Catholic Church. This is from the sun times. Two months into his pontificate. Be nice to have a pontificate, wouldn't it? I don't have one. I'm never going to have one. He's got one. Pope Leo called his bank in South Chicago to change his phone number and his address. The former Robert Prevost answered all his security questions posed by the bank teller. But there was still a problem. To change his phone number and address, he was told he'd have to show up in person. So his bank in South Chicago, I'm picturing it, you know, a branch in a strip mall, wherever it is, you know, next next to a wing stop. And Pope Leo said, well, I'm not going to be able to do that. And this was a story told by his buddy, Reverend Tom McCarthy. And Reverend McCarthy was speaking to the fishers of men at Saints Peter and Paul in Naperville. So the Pope says, we can't do it over the phone. I already answered the security questions. They said no. So then he actually did it. Would it matter to you if I told you I'm Pope Leo? See, here's what I kept thinking he was going to do right there. He was. He was going to say that he was Jim rose of Channel 7. I'm. I'm Jim Rose. I'm going to the front of the line. And then Matty there at Herman's Sporting Goods was there saying, ah, no, no, you're not. I do know who you are. And get back in line.
- [58:12]
D
Yeah, that was something.
- [58:14]
C
The Pope is like, I'm Tom. Share Hawaiian. Hawaiian, my brother. So she hung up on him the moment he said, would it matter to you if I told you I'm Pope Leo? And she's like, yeah. Click. McCarthy said she hung up on him. Could you be imagined being known as the woman who hung up on the Pope? So the Pope made some more phone calls. He called McCarthy's classmate, the Reverend Bernie. Siana or Shiana. Call Bernie. I don't know. Hello, Bernie. And Bernie got somebody who reached the bank's president. The bank's president reiterated the bank's policy. Good for him. He said customers must change their phone number or address in person, not over
- [59:05]
D
the phone, which is insane, by the way. It's 2026. I mean, it's. It's absolutely, positively insane to make people go in person.
- [59:16]
C
It's their policy. You got to stick to it. So he said that, and he just said that this. This can't be done. So then Reverend Bernie pulled the card. He threatened to move Pope Leo's account to a different bank. Hey, we'll take Our business elsewhere. I don't know if that's how Bernie sounds. I just. I like him sounding like that.
- [59:42]
D
It sounds very much like the scene from the Michael Douglas movie American President. Familiar with it?
- [59:48]
C
I'm familiar with it, but I didn't see it.
- [59:50]
D
He ends up dating a lobbyist, Annette Benning, and he tries to order her flowers. And he gets hung up on when he was like, I'm the President, and she hangs up on him. And then he's riding in his limo past that particular flower shop, and he gets out and goes into the flower shop, and the woman, like, passes out.
- [60:07]
C
She faints.
- [60:09]
D
This is the President. So. Sounds like a very similar story.
- [60:12]
C
Well, McCarthy, an Augustinian friar from the south side, has known Pope Leo for 43 years. He told the story as a reminder to parishioners that the Pope is, quote, like us and a very humble guy. Now, the good news is when. When his buddy Bernie threatened to move the account, the bank president said they don't want to lose the Pope's account. They followed through. They changed the information. So everything's taken care of. And McCarthy also said to have someone of our own, someone who can understand when he talks, he talks like us. He likes pizza. And then he says he likes peeps. Like marshmallow peeps. It's capitalized here. Said he likes peeps. He likes the White Sox. Did he mean he likes peeps like his peeps?
- [61:05]
D
I think he means peeps.
- [61:07]
C
Marshmallow peeps.
- [61:08]
D
The marshmallow peeps.
- [61:10]
C
Yeah. And you microwave them and they. And they. They swell up and they get enormous. Or maybe he uses the power of God and he does, like. Like shoots lightning out of his fingers.
- [61:21]
D
Just drop those right in the garbage can.
- [61:24]
C
Why?
- [61:24]
D
Not a fan.
- [61:25]
C
Oh, me either. I hate him. Yeah, I hate him. And to me, it's not the marshmallow. It's the grit from the outside sugar. And when I. When I chew it, it reminds me of like the. The polishing scrub from the dentist. You know what I mean? That high pitched enjoy. That I hate. That's where I'm good, thanks. No, no, I don't. I don't like that. But I. I'm happy the Pope was able to finally get his. His phone. Do you know who I am? I'm the Pope. Sure you are, buddy.
- [61:58]
D
Well, like, he's really polite about it. He's like, would it make a difference if I told you I'm Pope Leo? It would make a difference. But you can tell me.
- [62:05]
C
Feel free to tell. Okay. Click. Now, had you could drill down there, couldn't you? Like, I wouldn't know what to ask, but wouldn't there be some. Some, like, theological trivia that only the Pope would know?
- [62:21]
D
No. You would hope not. You'd hope that everyone would know the same biblical and spiritual knowledge.
- [62:28]
C
The Pope?
- [62:29]
D
I don't know.
- [62:29]
C
I mean, I don't know what he. What he could do. Like, if he's. If he's holding his phone. Like, could you take a picture of yourself right now?
- [62:35]
D
Well, I would have asked him to FaceTime. Like, if you're really the Pope, then FaceTime me.
- [62:39]
C
Right. FaceTime me right now and then. And then we'll set you up.
- [62:41]
D
Yeah, well, I'm glad he got it done. And you should be able to change your phone number to bank without going in person. It's a lot to ask,
- [62:51]
C
I agree. I think. Well, I mean, I just.
- [62:54]
D
When was the last time you were inside a bank?
- [62:56]
C
Not the Robin. Last time I was inside a bank, I think it was, I don't know, a year ago. To pick up a cashier's check. You know, sometimes you need. You have to bring in for, like, you know, a big down payment on something like that that you have to actually go get one. Oh, you know what? I think before we left for London, I was in a bank getting currency. I did. I did that in a bank because I had the best exchange rate just to go in and make sure I had something in my pocket for travel.
- [63:31]
D
Yeah, I think I've been in the bank once in the last, like, five years. Thing is, I changed my account at pnc, upgraded the account, and so I had to go in for a different. Different card.
- [63:43]
C
So that was it.
- [63:45]
D
Yeah, but I think, like, people don't go to banks regularly anymore, do they?
- [63:49]
C
I don't think so. Although there's a new branch. They keep opening branches. I never really understood branch banking like. Like why that is significant, but. Okay. All right. They know the business a whole lot better than I do. And speaking of which, by the way, if you're buying windows, why don't you talk directly to the owner of a window company and a factory here in Chicago that's going to custom make all the windows for you, rather than dealing with one of these massive marketing companies disguised as a window company. So call Russ Armstrong. He owns Chicago Window Guys. He is Chicago Window Guys. He's got the factory. So when he comes to your house and tells you, we can do this for this price, do this for this price, there's. There's none of that like, well, I got to get back to my supervisor to call this supervisor to check it against these charts. It's all Russ. It's his business, it's his factory. So when he says, oh, yeah, we can do this for this, we can do this for this, how does this sound? That you're getting it from the absolute top. And Russ is the best around at making sure that you have the best windows for your house at the best price. He will match or beat any price and he's going to have people doing the work who work directly for him. And rather than having some day laborers there or random third parties that are provided for one of these big marketing companies, you don't want that. You want him to know the crew that's in your house. And he does. And it's why I recommend Russ to Everybody. Call him 847-302-9171. Check out his five star reviews at ChicagoNowGuys.com or just ask me, feel free, send me an email and say, what do you think is, what do you think of this? I can tell you exactly what my experiences were and I'm happy to tell you, Dan@312sports.com and I'll tell you everything I'm telling you right now. I will tell you directly about how great Russ is, how easy he is to work with and how careful he is just to make sure everything is on schedule, everything is clean, everything is taken care of. He goes above and beyond. 847-302-9171. His five star reviews are available@chicagowindowguys.com and that's going to do it today for Dan Bernstein. Unfiltered. We thank our sponsors, Aura Frames, that is auraframes.com promo code DBU for 25 off their best selling Carver mat Chicago window guys at 847-302-9171. And we're brought to you in partnership with my bookie Dan Bernstein. Unfiltered. Unfiltered on 312 Sports.