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- [00:02]
Tony Kornheiser
On WhatsApp, no one can see or hear your personal messages. Whether it's a voice call message or sending a password to WhatsApp, it's all just this.
- [00:13]
Pablo Torre
So whether you're sharing the streaming password in the family chat or trading those.
- [00:17]
Tony Kornheiser
Late night voice messages that could basically become a podcast, your personal messages stay between you, your friends and your family.
- [00:25]
Pablo Torre
No one else, not even us.
- [00:27]
Tony Kornheiser
WhatsApp message privately with everyone. Pardon the eruption, but I'm Pablo Torre and Tony China is experiencing a boom in the sale of sex dolls.
- [00:40]
Tony Kornhouse. Don't look at me. I only have three. That's all I got.
- [00:45]
That's restraint from you.
- [00:48]
Yeah.
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Pablo, A metal statue.
- [00:49]
Have you ever been to China? Have you been to China in your life?
- [00:53]
I have not. I have not. Never covered the Olympics? No. Never been. You of, I presume, given I've been to China.
- [01:00]
No, I purchased. I've been to China. Yeah. I've been to China. Yeah. And I didn't know anything about sex toys there, but I have been to China. Welcome to pti, boys and girls. Sources say Wilmot has the day off, so I am joined by our good friend, but not everyone's the host of the podcast. Pablo Torre finds out. Mr. Pablo Torre. And we begin today with the British Open, which Scottie Scheffler won by four strokes yesterday. A 68 was never in what anyone could call real jeopardy. This is his fourth major and he has won all four by at least three strokes. Three of them by at least four strokes. Pablo, what did you see in this win and what does it mean for Scheffler's career overall?
- [01:46]
Yeah, Tony, I want to get to the personality part of Scotty Scheffler, but I want to start with just the history he's making in real time. Because what you just said, that degree of dominance, that degree of anti climax, that is something that no one has done in their first four majors that they've won in their career, right? So already we're saying, whoa, is this guy one of the greats? And when we talk about the greats, you're talking about who's done this in a single year. And he's the third guy to do that. And it's Ben Hogan and Tiger woods and Scotty Scheffler. So to me, the fact that you have this guy who was so dominant that he makes, you know, a Sunday like that, boring, it's impressive on its merits, but also impressive because personality wise, we've talked about this already in the last week, he Talks about the game like he's a character in a documentary about his life 20 years from now. He has this sort of existential wisdom around why he's not fulfilled by it, but he is nonetheless obsessed with it. He reminds me in a way of Tim Duncan, almost like he's not the conventional superstar. He's not the guy who's going to say, like Tiger Woods, I want to be an all time immortal. Put me on the COVID of everything. I want to be a global star. He's different. He's different in both of those ways.
- [03:03]
Yeah. So I don't want to get carried away. And I want to point out that Rory McIlroy has five majors and the first four he won, he won in a relatively short amount of time. Like Scheffler, Brooks Koepka, who nobody talks about, has five majors. Jordan Spieth, who's going through a bad slump, has three. And he's only a couple of years older than, than Scheffler. But the last three years, Scheffler has been dominant. There was a statistic that went out yesterday that Scheffler had accomplished going from the day he won his first major to the day he won his fourth major in exactly the same time as Tiger Woods. 1,197 days. Which opens the door for us to discuss Tiger Woods a little bit here. Scottie Scheffler is not Tiger Woods. No, not yet. He's not Tiger Woods. Tiger woods had a 10 year period of dominance in which he won 14 majors. So you can tell me when scheffler gets to 14. But he is beginning to walk down the road that ends with Tiger woods and Jack Nicklaus. And attention must be paid in that regard. Yesterday he went out there. He was never really in trouble. But if you thought he was in trouble, he had a great par save on six. He had a great par save on seven. These are putts of 15 to 20ft. Then he doubles eight and everybody goes, oh, whoa, he doubled. He comes back and he birdies nine. All right. And nobody ever really thought that he was going to lose. And here is a quote from a contemporary, Xander Schaflee, who won two majors himself last year. Give me this. When you see his name on the leaderboard, it sucks for us. And that's another way that you can look at Tiger. Two small statistics. Tiger was 442 when he went into a Sunday with the solo lead. Closed it out 44 out of 46 times. At the moment, Scottie Scheffler is working on 11 in a row. He knows how to close. And so I know how much Wilbon would resent me putting him in the same sentence as Tiger Woods. But we are watching that happen right now. We are.
- [05:01]
Yeah. Look, you mentioned the road that he's on. It was the road that he was on at the PGA that made me first aware of, like, wait a minute. So this guy and this cop and the pants that can't be repaired. Is this gonna be the story of Scotty Jeffler? Turns out he is, Tony. He is all time enough to dream on. So a caveat, right? He's not there yet, but he makes you want to fantasize about it. And that's what's so exciting about the present. But we turn, I think, to baseball in the present, because the Brewers, Tony, they came out of the All Star break the same way they went into it, which would be on fire. Wilbon, again, his hated cheeseheads swept three from the Dodgers in LA to make it 10 straight wins overall. This elevated Milwaukee into a tie with the Cubs for the best record in the National League. So you love baseball. You watch this stuff. Where do this weekend's results play? The brewers, the Dodgers and the Cubs, in your mind.
- [05:54]
So let me start with the Dodgers. It's not a terrible thing to be swept by Milwaukee in Milwaukee just before the All Star break has happened. It's different if you get swept by Milwaukee in Los Angeles after the All Star break, when everybody thinks they're in sprint mode and all the games matter. I believe I have the statistic correct, that The Dodgers are 2 and 10 in their last 12. And along with the Brewers, Houston, another very good team, beat them three times in Los Angeles. Everybody says the Dodgers are going to be fine when their pitchers get healthy. What if they don't get healthy? The Dodgers at the moment have the 11th best era in the national League. It's terrible. You can't have that. That's not championship. 11th best. So I would say I'm not writing off the Dodgers, but I think there's legitimate concern. The fun part of the story, and I'll get out of here quickly. The fun part is the Cubs and the brewers, because it's making Wilbond's head explode because he hates the Cheeseheads. But the Cheeseheads have now won four division titles since the Cubs won their last division title. And we're going to get to see this. They have eight games head to head for the rest of the season. Those eight games may tell the story. They may.
- [07:00]
Yeah. I want to quote something For Wilbon's sake. Because Pat Murphy, who's the very quotable manager of the brewers, has been saying some stuff, Tony, and he says this quote about his own team. It's a bunch of guys nobody's ever heard of. No disrespect to the great fans of Japan baseball, but they can't name five guys in our lineup. I'm still proud of our club and what they did and how they competed in big situations. A bunch of average Joes, okay? And so this whole like, average Joe's thing, this is a dodgeball reference, this is a Brewers thing, talking about how they are, in fact the 24th ranked payroll. The Cubs, I believe, are 11. The Dodgers, of course, at the very top. This is something that they make fun of, that they are the underdog, the plucky underdogs. The question I have for you though, is if the Dodgers are actually healthy, is this actually a debate? Is this a present tense, fun argument right now? Or is this actually fait accompli if the Dodgers are who we think they'll.
- [07:55]
Be in October, it is fait accompli if the Dodgers are healthy. There's no question about that. But the brewers, what, what the brewers have done. The Cubs had sole possession of first place in their division since April 12th. You know, and the. And the Cubs did nothing wrong here. Since April 12, they're 49 and 33. That's a 7598 winning percentage, which is good. The brewers, since May 24, do you know what their record is? It's 34 and 12. That's not good. That's great.
- [08:29]
That's.
- [08:30]
Seven hundred and forty winning percentage. So the Cubs, they're just getting run over by a bus. Like they're not. They're not contributing to it. Like they're just getting run over. Let's go to a third story and revisit a story we did last week about the chaos at the top of the NFLPA. First, Lloyd Howell resigned. And now we have J.C. tretter, who worked closely with Howell, resigning as well and saying he is withdrawing from any further consideration for any position in the nflpa. Pablo, in the stories that I've read, you are receiving credit for your investigative work on this particular story. So what do you make of Tretor's resignation?
- [09:06]
That it was inevitable that when you are the guy who oversaw the process that installed Lloyd Howell, who had a part time consultant role with the Carlisle Group, a private equity firm that is in business now, has the capacity to be in business out with the NFL, that is A problem when Lloyd Howell also was complicit in what is described by the government as one of the largest federal fraud settlements in American history when he was a CFO of Booz Allen. That is a problem. Tony, I can go on and on. Just know it's even worse when you don't even necessarily know that when you hire the guy. And so JC Tretter was the guy who oversaw the selection process of the executive director of the union. And so briefly what I did was I found these two arbitration rulings that were suppressed between the NFL and the nflpa. And the question of course is why? Why did they suppress him? And what I outline exhaustively, too exhaustively for us to talk about here, is that J.C. treader had an intro in preserving his reputation. He was implicated certainly in the second ruling. And also he wanted the long term job that he gave to Lloyd Howell really as a stopgap for the time being. Again in the present tense.
- [10:13]
So I have some questions because I'm not steeped in this and it all comes back to you, so I should ask you these questions. How in fact could the NFLPA put these two guys at the top of the chart? I had read that at one point the executive board of The NFLPA voted 10 to 1 not to extend an offer to Howell to hire him. Then they didn't tell the player reps cuz they didn't want them to walk into a room with prejudice. But why did the player reps then hire Howell? And this is chaos. What happens to the nflpa, a very respected institution? What happens to them?
- [10:50]
Yes, yes. Gene Upshaw's nflpa, Tony has been disgraced by this entire saga. And so the second part. First, first what they need to do is figure out is there anybody in the building who, when they witnessed any of this happening, stood up and said something? Who blew the whistle? And if the answer is there is nobody who could do that, who could take over for this union as the interim executive director, then you got a clean house and you got to go outside. And as for how this happened, how did in fact the 10 to 1 vote reported in the Washington Post and elsewhere become this giant mess? This is what I'm reporting. Still today I look to find out how close was the vote for Lloyd Howell. No one said anything during my reporting. Now when Lloyd Howell is gone, everyone's saying, whoa, whoa, we didn't want that guy. It was 10 to 1. But one more detail that's very important to know, one last detail, is that when J.C. tretor was overseeing the process of electing this executive director. There was an amendment to the Constitution in which the the board, those reps could not know the identity of the candidates until the day they had to show up to begin the voting process. It used to be 30 days. You could bet everybody. Then it became you got to show up. Then you'll find out why were they secretive? Another relevant question.
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That's like walking in in November in the presidential election and not knowing who's running. I mean, come on, that's ridiculous. Let's take a break.
- [12:13]
Would be helpful.
- [12:14]
Coming up, are the Lakers or the Clippers adding the more impactful guard?
- [12:20]
And the tigers are the first big league team to 60 wins. But did Tarek Skubal create a bigger headline last night?
- [12:27]
The good news for the NFLPA is that there is labor peace because of Demar Smith's deal until 2031. So they have time. They have time to reorganize. They have time to get leadership.
- [12:38]
30 is the big year.
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Pablo Torre
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- [14:26]
Tony Kornheiser
Trying to find out what's percolating with the people in mail time. Let me see what's first here. Here we go. Bigger LA edition. Marcus Smart to the Lakers or Chris Paul to the Clippers?
- [14:39]
Wilbon would say Chris Paul, I think, because he's Will Bon. I will say Marcus Smart.
- [14:45]
Yes.
- [14:46]
I mean, look, I get it, I get it, but we've seen Chris Paul and the Clippers before. Marcus Smart, though, is indicating to me something bigger. And it's about Luka Doncic. So Luka Doncic says, I need defensive help. They get Marcus Smart. He says I need a three point shooter. They get Jake Laravia. He says I need a big. A rim running big. They get Deandre Ayton. This is the thing LeBron used to do, Tony. This is a changing of the guard. When Luka Doncic says, I plan on winning multiple championships here and I need all these pieces and I'm going to recruit them, he recruited Marcus Smart. It tells me something different about how this team's gonna operate for the next decade or so. So give me that one.
- [15:22]
I agree. Right down the line. I agree. It's Marcus Smart. Marcus Smart is 31 years old. Chris Paul is 40. I give Chris Paul all the credit in the world. He played all 82 games last year with San Antonio. He averaged 28 minutes a game. That's production, Holmes. But in my mind, I don't know how much the Clippers need him. They have Bradley Beal and they have James Harden. James Harden is a 42 minute a game player most of the time. I know how much the Lakers need Smart. And you're right, it's because of Luka, because Luka's not going to guard everybody. Marcus Smart is there to guard people. He's there to guard Anthony Edwards. He's there to guard John Morant. He's there to guard James Harden. He doesn't have to play offense. That's why you have Luca and LeBron. But somebody out there has to play defense. And what you're saying makes perfect sense to me that Lucas said, if we can get these three people, we're in great shape. And they go when they get them. Sure. And it's hit. Yes, it is his team. I don't think this makes LeBron upset because it's easier for LeBron to win with a team like that. That's what I mail this. Here's one more bigger headline from last Night. Tarek Skubal getting 11 strikeouts in 6 2/3 innings or the Tigers becoming the first team to 60 wins.
- [16:45]
I'm taking the individual, I'm taking Tarek Skubal, I'm taking the guy who might get a second Triple Crown, even though of course it's looking tight in that race. Got a good guy in Boston who might actually, you know, take that. But to me, Tony, I return to the word that I always love citing in baseball. And that word is stuff. Tyre Scubal. We talk about what stuff is. Stuff is you can control your baseball, you can control your pitch. You also can throw it in the zone and everyone tries to hit it and they can't. The advanced metrics love this guy just the way the eye test does. Watching him pitch a game efficiently, watching him throw it right there and no one hitting it. He has the best stuff in baseball. Even if of course, Garrett Crochet might have the Triple Crown this season.
- [17:32]
Yeah. So I learned a lot about headlines working in newspapers for over 40 years. And I know that headlines are creatures of the moment more than anything else. Scuba goes out. He strikes out seven in the first three innings. He's got eight through four if I'm the copy chief last night. Cuz he's got Sunday night baseball all to himself if I'm the copy chief last night. My headline is Scubal. But the fact that the tigers got to 60 is indeed the bigger story. Let's see if they can get to 61 because they get Paul Skeens tonight. And wouldn't you like to see more than one inning like you had in the All Star Game of Skubal and Skeens? But we'll see what happens. It proves a couple of things. It proves that the Tigers last year, their playoff appearance is not a fluke. It proves that AJ Hinch really does know what he's doing. And here's a quote from Skubal himself from last night. That's what matters. We're the first to 60. That matters more than anything I'm doing individually and I would agree with all of that. The headline would be School. The body of the story is the Tigers. Enough email. Let's take one last break. Still to come, a big setback for Titans quarterback Will Levis. What happened? Did he run out of mayonnaise? What happened?
- [18:48]
And the WNBA's All Star Weekend becomes a showcase for a labor movement. Tony and I want to know what were you like for the copy chiefs at the Post? Did they like Tony Kornheiser on deadline. Those copy chiefs or what was that relationship like?
- [19:00]
I was not real late. I think they liked me because I was not real late, you know, and I didn't tell them how to do their job.
- [19:08]
Pablo Torre
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- [20:55]
Tony Kornheiser
Pardon.
- [20:56]
Pablo Torre
The interruption is brought to you by ESPN Fantasy Football, the number one fantasy game. Download the ESPN Fantasy app to play today.
- [21:08]
Tony Kornheiser
Happy time people. Happy 45th birthday. CC Sabathia Carson Charles Sabathia Jr. Will enter the hall of Fame this Sunday after 19 seasons in the majors and 251 wins. When Sabathia retired at the end of the 2019 season, he led all active pitchers in wins, innings pitched and strikeouts with 3,093. Sabathia won the AL Cy Young in 2007, led the majors in wins twice and was a six time All Star. Now we don't usually think of Sabatha among the all time elites, but he is tied in wins with Bob Gibson. Sabathia was the first pitcher to debut in the 21st century and post at least 250 wins in regular season play. The current active leader in wins is Justin Verlander with 262.
- [21:57]
You know, I'll admit when I saw that he was a first ballot hall of Famer, I was taken aback. I was sort of surprised. And then I realized the 3000 strikeout club has two 20 dudes in it. Look at the other 19 besides CeCe Zabathia. He is a more than deserving first.
- [22:11]
Ballot hall of Famer and very few lefties in it actually. Happy Anniversary Gaylord Perry. This is Posthumous but yesterday, July 20, 56 years ago, the hall of Fame pitcher hit the first home run of his major league career in his 547th at bat. Interestingly, this homer occurred roughly an hour after the Apollo 11 spacecraft carrying Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed on the moon. What gives this context is that years before Alvin Dark, then managing Perry on the San Francisco Giants, was watching Perry at the cage during pitcher's batting practice and declared quote there will be a man on the moon before he hits a home run, unquote, the two time Cy Young winner ended up hitting six home runs in his 22 year career.
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Tony, I've been spending the last 30 seconds workshopping an Alvin Dark side of the moon joke, but I'm not quite sure I have it yet. You got any help from me, I'd appreciate that Alvin Dark side.
- [23:07]
I'm just telling you that it was actually true. It was an hour after they landed on the moon and Perry freed from that burden of Alvin Dark in a home run. Happy trails to WNBA All Star Weekend. Sabrina unescu won the three point contest. The FISA Collier's team won the game with Collier herself scoring 36. But the biggest storyline from the weekend had to do with the collective bargaining negotiations. The players wore black shirts during Saturday night's warm up that read Pay us what you owe us. And fans in Indiana chanted pay them as league Commissioner Kathy Engelberg presented the game's MVP trophy to Collier.
- [23:43]
Love to thank yes, look, the wnba, yes, they are on a lag in terms of making profits, but the valuation of these franchises. Tony, there's a reason why everybody wants a piece. It's a matter of time before a percentage of revenue, not raw dollars, but percentage of revenue feels equivalent to the.
- [24:00]
NBA's let's go quickly to the big finish. Titans quarterback Will Levis will have season ending surgery on his right shoulder. Your thoughts?
- [24:10]
My thoughts are that it is Cam Ward time. They took him number one for a reason. Bengals owner Mike Brown says he thinks the team will get a deal done with Trey Hendrickson. Is that significant to you?
- [24:20]
Oh yeah, he's a great player. But what about Shamar Stewart? Brown calls the impasse foolishness. Really? Mark Stein reports that the Sun, Celtics, Knicks and Kings are among teams showing interest in Ben Simmons. Does that make sense to you?
- [24:35]
It does because my foolishness is not giving up on Ben Simmons yet. Inter Miami star Lionel Messi had two goals, two assists in a 51 win over the New York Red Bulls on Saturday. Your thoughts?
- [24:46]
He's the greatest soccer player playing in the United States of America. He's well worth the price of a ticket. Go see him last one 45 year old Rich Hill is back. He will start for the Royals against the Cubs tomorrow. Are you impressed?
- [24:58]
Yes. He's tying Edwin Jackson for the 14th overall Most teams played record. An incredible thing for Rich Hill.
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We're out of time. We will try to do better the next time. I'm Tony Kornheiser.
- [25:11]
And I'm Pablo Torre. Thank you for watching. Watching Pablatore finds out is where I investigate stuff.
- [25:16]
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