#4578 A Few Small Beers

Summary

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TBTL Episode #4578: "A Few Small Beers"

Release Date: October 17, 2025
Hosts: Luke Burbank & Andrew Walsh
Guest: Bobby Pape (via voice memo)

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Episode Overview

In this Friday episode, Luke and Andrew celebrate the end of a hectic week, reflect on their beloved Seattle Mariners' postseason rollercoaster, and dig deep into the cultural and personal meaning of "the best beers," prompted by a list from their friend Bobby. Other topics include Andrew's dog-sitting saga, the odd joys of day-drinking in empty bars, sports fandom psychology (and coping mechanisms), and the elusive, perfect beer experience.

This episode is jocular and reflective, full of TBTL's signature meandering tangents, affectionate ribbing, nostalgia, and a bit of sports heartbreak.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Great "Best Beers" List (09:40–34:53)

Prompt:
Listener Bobby Pape sends in a "Top Five Beers" voice memo, not about brands, but about classic circumstances that elevate the beer experience.

Bobby's List (15:21–26:39):

• Oli/Honorable Mentions:
  • Shower beer: "More a thing of myth...I think more people have not actually had a shower beer than like the idea of a shower beer." –Bobby (15:21)
  • 5pm Happy hour beer: The iconic after-work, end-of-week cheer
• #5: Airport "time warp" beer – any time’s fair game (“no clocks”—casino-vibes)
• #4: Tailgate/parking lot beer (especially for Bills Mafia fans)
• #3: Mid-afternoon, dark bar beer (“You’ve slipped out of work early...some shitty local TV news or soap operas or some bad movie on the tv, and you just taking in a quiet cold one with the regulars, the career drinkers..." –Bobby)
• #2: Business lunch beer (“maybe two, get back to the office after”)
• #1: Crisp autumn campfire beer (“straight from a cooler dripping down the side of a cold bottle...you come home smelling like the fire the next day. Absolutely perfect.”)

Hosts’ Reflections:

• Luke and Andrew praise the creativity of the list—less about what beer, more about when and where.
• Luke shares a nostalgic story about skipping work at Jackie's Fifth Amendment in Brooklyn for an afternoon of "a few small beers," famously served in a "fuck it bucket"—a pie tin of mini Budweisers on ice (20:03–23:13).
• Andrew nostalgically describes the magic of a post-yardwork beer, sitting in the garage, admiring the day’s work (28:08–28:44).
• They debate which scenarios Bobby omitted, e.g. "boat beer," "baseball park beer," "first vacation beer," and, controversially, the “hangover beer” (“born out of pain, heartbreak, and bad decisions...but it works.” –Luke, 30:44–32:52).

Quote Highlights:

• “My absolute number one beer that is not even mentioned...is the post yard work beer.” –Andrew (28:08)
• “The ballpark is the hallowed, sacred location of beer consumption.” –Luke (34:15)

Segment Takeaways:

• The best beer isn’t about craftsmanship; it’s about context—ritual, reward, and camaraderie.
• Listeners and hosts alike cherish these “beer moments” as markers of adult life, freedom, and nostalgia.

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2. Mariners Mania & Baseball Fandom (05:34–13:39, 41:53–92:02)

Ongoing Theme:
Much of the episode is suffused with anxious anticipation and debriefing of the Mariners’ playoff series. The emotional stakes are high, and the guys contemplate how wins, losses, and the company of others deeply affect them.

Key Points:

• The Mariners are tied 2–2 in the ALCS; a "make-or-break" game is looming.

• The hosts reflect on the all-consuming nature of postseason baseball:

  • “We don’t care about our lives, hygiene. Our lives are built around this schedule right now.” –Andrew (05:44)
  • “Our stress response is to go toxic positivity.” –Luke (64:32)

• Andrew’s experience dog-sitting prevents him from the usual bar meet-ups or multi-hour baseball-watching at a friend’s house (06:31–12:57, 80:07–81:16).

Coping with Loss:

• Both reveal their methods to step away from the anxiety:
  • Andrew, after a Mariners meltdown: “I put the game in my headphones...walked down to the weed store...came back...smoked half of it walking home. I just wanted to get to the part where Veeves and I could go next door, watch Columbo, spend some time with the dogs, play cards...We can get to that part of the night. We can do that right now.” (54:55–56:43)
  • Luke describes how not being hyper-present for the worst moments (because of work) made the blow easier.

Sports Fan Psychology:

• They dissect the meaning of “toxic positivity” vs. “toxic negativity” among sports fans, referencing their group chats and a friend’s need to “process” via negative venting (61:49–66:46).
  • “He needs to hand these bad feelings off to other people who now have to deal with them so that he feels better.” –Luke (66:46)
• Is misery the ultimate badge of fandom? Is it ok to turn off the TV or tune out?
  • “The idea that [turning off a game] was a novel concept...is there some little gremlin inside us that says, ‘oh, well, if you’re not the most miserable person on the chat right now, then you don’t care enough’?” –Andrew (61:49)
• The line “Why is everybody so sad?” (a reference to the aftermath of the Seahawks’ Super Bowl loss) resurfaces as shorthand for the emotional costs of fandom (64:32, 71:23).

Predictions and Hope/Hopelessness:

• The key Mariners game is at 3pm, not 5pm, much to their scheduling chagrin (76:18–79:53).
• Luke predicts a Mariners win out of "cosmic reversal": as soon as a sports narrative feels “true,” it flips (88:00–89:14).
• Andrew: “My prediction is that the Mariners don’t go on to the World Series. I don’t feel like we’re going to be able to salvage this. I hope I’m wrong and I’m not trying to be negative...” (89:17)

Quote Highlights:

• “I am not conceding this series, but I feel like we’re playing with house money. This season has already been a pretty big success.” –Luke (71:23)
• “Hope is a dangerous thing. That’s something I just came up with right now.” –Andrew (53:44)

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3. Andrew’s Dog-Sitting Adventures (06:31–12:57, 80:07–81:16)

Overview:
Andrew recounts a week of dog-sitting two neighboring pit mixes, Maggie and Goose (or “Goober”), and the emotional and logistical effort it’s been—balancing his own needs, the dogs’ pack tendencies, and ensuring they feel loved in their owners’ absence.

• “Their home is just not conducive for me spending a lot of time there or doing any kind of work there...it is taking up big chunks of my day because I feel so bad.” –Andrew (07:47–09:51)
• The challenges of learning “dog etiquette” and feeling responsible for their barking or behavior.
• The comfort animals provided after a day of sports-heartbreak and marijuana coping.
• Limits his social options—can’t take the dogs to bars, can’t invite them to his own home (cat, different dynamic).

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4. Miscellanea: Mobile Saunas, Soda Water, and Podcast Ads (03:45–04:33, 38:33–40:33)

• Mobile Saunas: The guys note a recent trend of “pop up” and “mobile” saunas in Seattle and San Francisco, but time constraints sideline the topic (03:45).
• Artisanal Soda Water: Luke riffs on his “homemade, hand forged, artisanal soda water” habit, and how carbonation timing is a risky throat-clearing game for a podcaster (04:42).
• Podcast Ad Placement:
  • TBTL’s business model stands in contrast to bigger shows like Pablo Torre Finds Out, who recently ran out of pre-roll ads.
  • “Here we are relying on people like Cary Deutsch...And it’s working!” –Luke (39:41)

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5. Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the psychology of beer:
  • “The best beer isn’t about craftsmanship; it’s about context—ritual, reward, and camaraderie.”
• Luke’s Brooklyn memory:
  • “Are we just like kind of blown off work today to drink beer at Jackie's Fifth Amendment?...I just remember that being one of my favorite Tuesdays of all time.” (22:50)
• On baseball heartbreak:
  • [Detroit Tigers broadcaster, post-loss] “I gotta do a game recap!” (84:34)
• On Mariners fandom:
  • “There’s just something about living in that world with them every pitch for nine innings...Is this fun? Not right now.” –Luke (59:12)
• On dog-sitting:
  • “Goose just really...he really needs us all to be together. Like, I just don’t want to leave Goose alone.” –Andrew (06:44)

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• [09:40] – Introduction of Bobby’s "Best Beers" list
• [15:21] – Bobby’s full Top 5 Beers rundown
• [20:03] – Luke’s “Fuck It Bucket” story (Jackie’s Fifth Amendment)
• [28:08] – Andrew on the post-yardwork beer
• [30:44] – Debate: hangover beer, first vacation beer, boat beer, baseball beer
• [41:53] – Donor Thanks and more Mariners talk
• [54:55] – Andrew’s marijuana coping strategy for a Mariners meltdown
• [61:49] – Group chat negativity, toxic fandom, and psychological exploration
• [76:18] – The agony and logistics of watching decisive Mariners games
• [84:34] – Play the Tigers broadcaster’s "Do I have to do a recap?" blooper

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Tone & Language

Loose, humorous, self-deprecating, and nostalgic, with elements of sports heartbreak, sincere reflection, and classic TBTL banter. Andrew is detailed and gently anxious; Luke is wry, a little more “toxic positive”; both are candid about the foibles of adult life and sporadic joy.

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Summary

This episode sees Luke and Andrew in quintessential TBTL form: riffing on absurdities (like mobile saunas), dissecting the rituals of beer, bar, and ballpark, and talking themselves—and each other—through both sports-induced elation and despair. Bobby’s beer list catalyzes affectionate stories about friendship, work avoidance, and the small pleasures that mark the adult calendar.

Layered over all is the obsessive ache and hope of postseason fandom. Through it all, listeners get a glimpse into how adult priorities collide (dog care vs. bar hangs), how group chats process collective pain, and how sometimes the best way to “be a fan” is to let go—at least for an inning or two.

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For Listeners

This episode is a tapestry of memories, communal sports feelings, and the rituals that make ordinary days special—a must-listen for fans of both beer and baseball, and a time capsule of life’s small but meaningful escapes.

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Power out!

Transcript

[Andrew]

Is that it? Just that one word? Yeah.

[Bobby]

Okay.

[Andrew]

Yes.

[Luke]

Uh, hey, Stephen, that was really good.

[Andrew]

Feeling is here that you could be.

[Luke]

A bit more positive.

[Andrew]

More positive? Yeah. You know, really go for it. You want me to go for it?

[Luke]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

All right. Yes.

[Luke]

Very, very good. Let's just try without the script. Might just loosen you up a little bit. Yeah, I mean, it's.

[Andrew]

What is it?

[Luke]

One word? You don't really need it, do you?

[Andrew]

I probably don't need the script. It's just a word. Yeah.

[Luke]

Okay, let's do it again.

[Andrew]

Yes. Is that it? Yes. Right.

[Luke]

Hi, Steven.

[Andrew]

Yes. This is Clem Fandango. Yes.

[Bobby]

Can you hear me?

[Andrew]

Yes, I can hear you, Clem. Fandango.

[Luke]

Honestly, this is going so great, but I just think there was a little loss of energy on that last take. Maybe try one more.

[Andrew]

Are you ready to go? Yep.

[Luke]

What?

[Andrew]

Yes. Tbtm. Guess what day it is. Guess what day it is. It's Friday.

[Luke]

Gonna get down on Friday.

[Andrew]

Everybody's looking forward to the weekend you.

[Luke]

Negligently ruined her iPhone.

[Andrew]

You have to pay for that.

[Luke]

It's as simple as that. Isn't that rocket science? What is rocket science?

[Andrew]

Rocket science is when the scientists find out things about space. Mm.

[Luke]

Ah, Gazpacho soup just burned my lips.

[Andrew]

The gazpacho? Yeah, it's been sitting out.

[Bobby]

It warmed up.

[Andrew]

It warmed up so much that it burned your lip.

[Luke]

Let me explain something to you. If you're expecting something ice cold and you bring it up to your lips and it's room temp, it's going to feel like your mouth's on fire. It's gonna like your body's on fire.

[Bobby]

And boom goes the dynamite.

[Luke]

Well, all right. Hello, good morning, and welcome, everyone, to a Friday edition of kbtl, the show that just might be too beautiful to live. Too small. Deuce. My name's Luke Burbank. I'm your host, Carol.

[Andrew]

Hold my calls.

[Luke]

Coming to you from the Madrona Hill studio, perched high above the mighty Columbia, where I telling you, when I woke up this morning and I looked outside, I knew it was gonna be time to activate the Denzel drop. Didn't know you like to get wet, though. And yet, something semi miraculous has happened since I came out here to get ready to do the show. The sky's parted, the sun is out. In fact, there is so much sunshine, I had to close. I had to pull a shade down. Here in the Madrona Hill studio so that I would not be absolutely walloped by a direct Sunbeam. It's looking like a Beautiful Friday, my friend.

[Andrew]

Oh, Ma Pa.

[Luke]

It's just beautiful. Maybe that is some sort of a sign, my friends. A sign that something is shifting. Something in the universe is shifting. And we are ready for a very, very good Friday. And honestly, a good Friday evening of baseball. Watching the Mariners played last night, the Mariners are now tied 2 to 2 in the American League Championship series. They did not win. They are playing tonight practically for their very season.

[Bobby]

Everything about them just makes me nervous.

[Luke]

I'm taking this weather shift though, as, as some kind of a sign of something. Also the fact that here we are at episode 4578 in a collector series. Let the fun begin. One of my favorite episode numbers to be at. So that's got to be some kind of a good sign. Let's see, what else might we talk about on the show today? Well, if we have the time, we may talk about the apparently more mobile saunas in the news.

[Bobby]

It's gonna be very hot, gonna be.

[Luke]

Very uncomfortable for everybody. We talked yesterday about this pop up sauna. That's social sauna is the term for. It's going around Seattle and, and then wouldn't you know it, this morning I'm reading in the newspaper in San Francisco about a whole kerfuffle about a mobile sauna in Mendocino. So again, time permitting, we'll talk about that. We always have time for this guy. We always permit time for the longest running cobra of the show. Maybe best known for his depictions of the tall ship.

[Andrew]

Hey, Lloyd.

[Luke]

He's Andrew Walsh and he is joining me right now. Good morning, my friend.

[Andrew]

Good morning. Luke. You don't know this, but I got a real, I mean a real last minute throat clear in right before you introduce me. Oh, that felt good. You did?

[Luke]

Very satisfying.

[Andrew]

Yeah, very good. How about you, Mike?

[Luke]

Was your mic was on though?

[Andrew]

Oh, no. Can you introduce me again? How are you doing? Do you need me to filibuster a second? Do you need to clear your throat? Are you all set? Cause I don't, I don't have a lot of water.

[Luke]

I'm feeling pretty good right now. I've got my, you know, I've got my homemade hand forged artisanal soda water here, which I do. I've got to time it just right because what I do like about the carbonation is I do think it kind of does help kind of clear the throat out a little bit. It's got that effervescent kind of quality. But if I drink it like right before the intro package is ending and it's time for me to start talking. The carbonation can create a problem where I get like a giant air bubble lodged in my throat and I'm kind of betwix in between. So it's a dangerous game. But I think. I think unlike the Mariners, I think I played it successfully. By the way, we will be getting to that later on in the show. I heard that somebody had commented Andrew, on the program recently that they were disappointed that we hadn't decided to talk about the Mariners. And it was only because we hadn't done it right at the beginning of.

[Andrew]

The show, which is something we've been trying to do because you and I, who obviously are obsessed with this team right now and where they are and.

[Luke]

The history literally don't care about anything else.

[Andrew]

We don't care about our lives, hygiene. Our lives are built around this schedule right now. Right. Like ours. My I when I realized when I woke up this morning that the game is on at 3pm this afternoon, something I Wait, it is. I'm pretty sure, like, I that's what. Okay, well, that, that's what they told me on Ask Vivs. I. I actually forgot what the real one was there for a second.

[Luke]

I actually think Ask Beefs is way funnier.

[Andrew]

Yeah, I'm pretty sure the Mariners game is on at 3.

[Luke]

I looked it today and I thought.

[Andrew]

It said it probably is giving you the east coast time. Yeah, 3:08.

[Luke]

There you go. Why did it Andrew. Okay, we can't get into this right now. We'll talk about.

[Andrew]

Don't worry, we're not going to talk about the Mariners, but we will talk.

[Luke]

About time zones the Mariners may be playing. So when you saw that the game was at three today, what went through your mind?

[Andrew]

Well, the thing is, I didn't like I knew it was at three. I've had it sort of in my mental calendar that it's at 3 o', clock, but it's been a very busy week. It's been a very strange week. I haven't been talking too much about it, but I've been dog sitting these dogs next door whom I'm just deeply, deeply, deeply in love with. But it is taking. But it is.

[Luke]

I told you.

[Andrew]

No, I. I mean, they're good dogs. I always. Is that Maggie. God damn it, Maggie. I.

[Luke]

It's Goose.

[Andrew]

Maggie and Goose. I'm gonna send you a bunch of photos after the show.

[Luke]

By the way, props to me for remembering the second dog that that's. The supporting cast is named Goose.

[Andrew]

I'm already into nickname territory With Goose, I call him Goober. I love these dogs, but it does. So here's the deal. And I want to be careful because I don't want to sound, I don't want to paint my neighbors in any kind of a negative light. I truly love these folks. They're the best neighbors I maybe ever have. And I know that they rent next door. And so whenever we do happen to see the property owner, we're always just like we love our neighbors. Just to make sure that he knows that like that I don't know if he could do anything to keep him, keep them there. But you know, they're younger, they live a different lifestyle than us. They have these two dogs now, one of which, you know, is, you know, is referred to as a puppy. I don't know his exact age, but is a dog that is as big as the full grown 3 year old because he's going to be huge. Both of them have some sort of, you know, bulldog in them. I'm assuming like pit. I know, I think they both have some pit, which I absolutely love. That's probably my favorite kind of look as far as a, a face and a maw is concerned. And they're both pretty high energy. Actually. I would say the puppy Goose slash Goober is high ish energy, but it's because he's so young. Maggie, who's three years old, actually has way more energy and almost more of a nervous energy like she. It's so clear that they don't like to be left alone, especially Maggie. So, you know, they're next door. I can't bring them over here. We have a cat and they have their setup over there. But also that was the.

[Luke]

Because one of the things we talked about was, oh, how will Bingo and Maggie maybe interact? But the decision was made that they shan't. The twain shan't meet.

[Andrew]

Well, we were thinking about bringing just Maggie over here and maybe just having some time with Maggie to hang out here. But what I've realized is these guys really miss their owners and really like interaction. And I think Goose especially likes they're such pack animals. I find it so interesting as somebody who hasn't been around dogs a lot. And again, so I'm going to say just to give you a sense of these dogs, I refer to one as a puppy. Maggie, the three year old is about £50, almost exactly £50. And I think Goose is right behind her, but has these huge paws that just show you that this dog is going to be a giant walking amongst men. And so they're both probably, you know, between 40 and 50 pounds. And they're very physical dogs. They like to walk all over you, kind of jump on you, but never in any way that makes me uncomfortable. At least I love them. I mean, they're so great, and they're just so. They're so well behaved. But also, Maggie, like, when you go to say hello to her, you have to open the door and then run down the porch steps because she's going to happy pee, as they call it. Like, she's going to pee a little bit. And so I'm trying to, like, always, he's piddles. So I believe we used to call.

[Luke]

That they're going to piddle.

[Andrew]

Yeah, but so it's kind of like they're a handful a little bit. But, you know, that whole. The Internet speak now, like, handful pejorative, handful complimentary. I sort of mean a handful complimentary. You know, like, I love these dogs, but it is taking up big chunks of my day because I feel so bad. Like, the neighbors, like, well, just let them out in the yard and then go back home. But it's like, when I'm working here, they do like to bark at the neighbor dogs that walk by. And then I always feel responsible for that. And it turns out Genevieve's like, it's fine. Dogs bark at other dogs. They're not out there barking their heads off the whole time. And all the neighbors who walk by every day with their dog know that these are the dogs that bark at other dogs. You know, like, to me, I'm always like, oh, I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. And one guy the other day said to me, he's like, it's okay. The dogs bark. And I was like, okay, great. This was just a neighbor walking by with his dog. So I'm sort of learning dog etiquette. But I just feel such an immense amount of responsibility for these dogs. And I hate leaving them over there by themselves. But they can't really come over here. And their setup, their home is just not conducive for me spending a lot of time there or doing any kind of work there or anything. So the way it been going is when Genevieve's been at work, I've been spending days, I kind of. She feeds him in the morning, goes to work. I go over there, spend a little time with him, get him to run around in the yard a little bit. I went to the store and bought them some toys yesterday so they could kind of play together. But I think that they really like, to be together. I think I started this thought and didn't finish it. Like, Goose really is a pack animal. When Veeves and I both went over there last night, at one point, Veeves went inside for a second and I was outside with like, Maggie and Goose. But Goose was not happy until Genevieve came outside so all four of us could be together. Like, Goose just really. So I really. During this time where their family is away and we're, you know, babysitters, basically. I don't like the idea of bringing Maggie over here and leaving Goose alone back there. I think they need each other and Goose come over maybe, but I kind of don't love. I don't want to like, play with Maggie over here and have Goose just in a crate.

[Luke]

Like, I don't comfortable in the crate. You know, the crate trained. They like it in there.

[Andrew]

Yeah, I mean, we do. We put Goose in the crate every night before he goes to bed. And we've kind of got a rhythm and I think that they. They've even calmed down a little bit. I think, like, they, they recognize us very much as their people now. Not that they were ever unfriendly towards us. But last night after the Mariners game, like, Veeves and I just went over there, watched another episode of Columbo, played cards, and like, Goose just fell asleep on. On Veeves lap, sort of. And he's such a snuggler and. And I'm. I'm madly in love with Maggie and enjoy these dogs. It's been an experience, but it's been a huge time suck because I'm just constantly going over there and then trying to come back here and do a little bit of work. And then, in fact, this might be a time.

[Luke]

And we've been working on. And by we, I mean you have been working on some TBTL productions as well.

[Andrew]

Exactly.

[Luke]

Involved.

[Andrew]

And it's kind of a pain to like, stop in the middle of that. You know what I mean? You're making an edit and you're just like, ah. And then you're like, ah. The dogs are barking. The dogs are barking.

[Luke]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

But anyway, it's. It's going pretty well, but it's just been such a drain on my time, basically. And I don't remember how exactly we got into that, but there's an update on the. On the dog situation. What did you say that got me talking about the dogs? I have no idea what we were talking about.

[Luke]

I'm sure that it was something where I was trying to talk about how we don't talk about the Mariners. But then we were talking about the Mariners and I had mentioned that somebody, when they listened to the beginning of a show recently, didn't hear Mariners talk. And then went on and mentioned it in the comments section like, oh, I can't believe you didn't talk about that. It was like, well, there's a lot of episode left that you didn't actually get to. And it's all replete with Mariner conversations.

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[Luke]

Actually, you know what, though? Something that people do like to sometimes do when they're watching baseball is they like to have a few small beers. Small beers. I know that we got a message from our friend Bobby Pape, who was. I have not. I'll be honest with you. I saw this come in. I was kind of.

[Andrew]

I was.

[Luke]

I'm watching some of my neighbor's dogs too, which I don't talk about. But that's kept me pretty busy. We're all busy this week, Andrew. So I didn't get to listen to it. But you said that it actually laid out some interesting concepts around kind of ranking beer experience.

[Andrew]

Yeah, that's not how Bobby set it up. I got this voice memo in our inbox from our pal Bobby that said, this is my list of top five beers. And I thought, I was like, you're listing. Is it going to be like Michelob followed by Heineken or. You know what I mean? I was like, well, what is this.

[Luke]

Incredible If Michelob was the top of the list.

[Andrew]

Right. So. Well, that would be number five. Right.

[Luke]

So we're going five up to one.

[Andrew]

I would guess five down.

[Luke]

Yeah, you're right. That'd be a pretty, pretty underwhelming view. My top five beers and you start with number one beer.

[Andrew]

In fact, I'm glad you brought up the format of this. So Bobby, clearly a Lebitard show listener has basically, even though he doesn't say this specifically, has submitted this in LeBatard Top 5 sort of format. And this is the way that usually works is on Levitard show they'll come up with some sort of weird top five list or one character on the show will do that. But then they'll also talk about Olis, which means these are the ones that are on the outside looking in. So you might have like maybe actually seven. But here are the honorable mentions. So when you hear Bobby say oli, that means basically honorable mention. And I'll let Bobby take it from here.

[Bobby]

All right, boys, it is just shy of 9am And I'm about to run into WQLN FM, my local NPR affiliate here in Erie, Pennsylvania, to help do a little on air fundraising the next couple of hours. But before I do, listening to yesterday's episode, thought I would do top five beers in honor of Dan Wilson's roadie after the ALCS victory the other night. First, the shower beer. More a thing of myth, I think. I think more people have not actually had a shower beer than like the idea of a shower beer.

[Luke]

It's.

[Andrew]

I. I've. I've had plenty of shower beers. What about you?

[Luke]

Plenty of shower beers.

[Andrew]

Yeah. I don't know. I don't know. I wonder why Bobby thinks that that's something people say but don't do.

[Luke]

I. I definitely had a period of my life where I think I was into the. I've never been the hugest of beer drinkers, although I've certainly consumed a huge amount of beer in my life. But it's not. It hasn't always been my go to. But I def. Here's what I'm realizing. I think I had a period time where I might have been maybe, maybe into shower cocktails, which is a terrible idea. It's a very open container for the shower water getting into.

[Andrew]

Well, that's true. Yeah. And also, you got to be careful if it's actually in a glass. If it's.

[Luke]

Yeah, well, there's that. It's impractical from, you know, like, where are you gonna put it? Like, you know, in. In the shower. So this is not getting like soapy waters mixing with your gin and tonic. But I love it.

[Andrew]

I love featuring you with like one of those, like a martini. You know, how when you get it, it's like filled totally to the rim in one of those up glasses and you're just like trying to bring it to your lips in the shower.

[Luke]

I have definitely been drinking alcohol in the shower in my life, but I would say I couldn't say plenty of times. But it's definitely happened before. But Bobby's point is that the shower beer is more the stuff of myth than actual behavior, which I question.

[Andrew]

But I will say this. My shower beer experiences tie into one of my other beer experiences, which I'll bring up after Bobby gets through this. So Bobby was talking about shower beer.

[Bobby]

It's the Woodstock of beer. It's a lot more have one than actually have had one. But still, nonetheless, shower beer. Also, Oli, the 5pm Happy hour beer. The end of the week. Slide down that dinosaur happy hour beer.

[Luke]

Number five looking in.

[Andrew]

Well, here. No, there are. I feel like there are some really interesting omissions in this list. So we are here, by the way, outside looking in to flay Bobby today, by the way.

[Luke]

Yeah. Nice work.

[Bobby]

Airport Time warp Beer. It doesn't matter the time of day. There are no clocks. It's like a casino for travelers. The time warp Airport beer. Number four, the parking lot. Tailgate beer. Whether it's a bottle or a can or out of a keg. Drinking with people wearing face paint and manually modified jerseys with duct tape. And if you're a Bills fan like me, lighting things on fire and jumping through tables.

[Luke]

Exactly. Get off those tables.

[Bobby]

Bill's Mafia Tailgate beer.

[Andrew]

Did you see the guy? This is like two games ago. Maybe. It might have been. Oh, I know exactly. It was game two of the alds. So we were still there at what you call the Johnson Center. Luke, but everybody else knows as the Rogers center there. Alcs, Toronto, oh, and cs, of course, as I try to jokingly correct you, did you see the guy with the Bills Mafia, no shirt. It was right behind home plate. He's wearing like a white hoodie that just says Bill's Mafia across it. But I guess.

[Luke]

You know what? I actually do think that flashed through my mind. And I remember thinking like, what are you doing? And then I thought, yeah, but also, I don't usually wear the appropriate sports apparel to the game. There's something about that, that for some reason it's my inner Josh Naylor. It's my inner Brian Naylor. But yeah, I do think I have a. I had a vague memory of that guy because he was right behind home plate.

[Andrew]

Yeah. Okay, here we go.

[Bobby]

Number three. The mid afternoon dark bar beer. You've slipped out of work early. Maybe you have a day off. Maybe you're taking a sick day. Stumbled into a place that does a good job blocking out the light. Maybe it's 2, 2:30 in the afternoon, there's some shitty local TV news or soap operas or some bad movie on the tv, and you just taking in a quiet cold one with the regulars, the career drinkers at mid afternoon. Beer number two.

[Luke]

Very. I have a. I have a specific moment related to that that I remember when I used to live in Brooklyn, there was a bar called Jackie's Fifth Amendment that me and my buddy Robert Smith really liked.

[Andrew]

Such a good name.

[Luke]

It really. Because it was also on Fifth Avenue in Brooklyn. And that back, it had this tiny little kind of room you could rent out, which I did for my going away party called the Judge's chambers. It was just like the back Room of Jackie's Fifth Amendment. And I remember Robert and I meeting up there for some reason, because our direct supervisors were in D.C. and we were in the New York bureau. And so they kind of kept tabs on us. But it was, you know, there was. Every once in a while there was maybe a little wiggle room as to like if we were out gathering information or not or something. And I remember, and I'm going to use a bad word here, but they used to have this thing. It was weird because it wasn't actually a bucket, but this thing you could buy at Jackie's Fifth Amendment. And literally, as the drop would indicate, it had small beers in it. Pretty small beers.

[Andrew]

Oh, I know what you're talking about.

[Luke]

Yeah, you know what I'm talking about, right?

[Andrew]

Exactly. Yep.

[Luke]

And you can get these at various bars. I don't feel like it's a big Northwest thing, but I think it's a Midwest thing and a Northeast thing maybe where you get like it's like five of these or something, but each one is like maybe half of what we consider a normal sized beer.

[Andrew]

Or like it may be probably like 10 ounce. Right. It's usually not. It's not quite half, but they're like these little mini bottles. I know Coronas sell like minis like that.

[Luke]

Yeah. And what they called it a Jackie's Fifth Amendment. This is the bad word part. They called it a it bucket because when you ordered it, it was like. Well, you're just kind of saying it. But what was weird is it didn't come out in a bucket. It came out in a pie tin.

[Andrew]

Oh, weird. With ice. Like on vacation. That's what I love. When you're on vacation, you get one of those tin buckets.

[Luke]

Yeah, they called it that. And yet it would come out in a pie tip. It'd be like five of these. I think these were Budweisers, was the ones we would get. And they would come out and it'd be in like. It'd be like a pie tin with some ice in it.

[Andrew]

It did have ice.

[Luke]

At least it would have ice. And then these like little small. A few small beers in there. And I remember this was like a Tuesday or something. And it was just one of those days where again, it raises the question, why were we even at Jackie's Fifth Amendment at like noon? That's too early really to be there on a workday. But I remember that we had gotten together and maybe we were having some lunch there or something. And it was like we kind of got that twinkle in our eye of like, I think what it was, we were going to meet there, we were going to maybe have some lunch and then jump on the subway and go into the office and actually get some work done. And I think as we were there in the darkened, dim light of Jackie's fifth Amendment and as we ordered a couple of sandwiches, but then also realized they do sell beer here, in fact, and then looked at each other and kind of got this twinkle in our eye and said, okay, we'll have one fuck it, bucket. And then just like, you know, enter. Enter the dimension of Lost Tuesday. Just like, so great. It was so great. It was like, you know, and I think I remember because he. Robert's a little bit older than me and somebody I've always kind of looked up to in journalism and stuff. And I remember it was like I kind of needed his permission because it was like, at that point I'm probably like, well, I mean, I was probably like 30 or something. It wasn't like I was a kid, but it was like, are we doing this? Are we just like kind of blown off work today to drink beer at Jackie's fifth Amendment? Because, like, you're a more responsible person than I am. And I remember, I think he might have like called or texted like our editor or an editor that we were working with. He basically kind of like covered for us or something. And it was just like. I just remember that being one of my favorite Tuesdays of all time.

[Andrew]

Oh, I love that. Yeah. And I think of LA as. As Bobby was describing the kind of dark bar afternoon. Like there were a few times where I would go into some like, random, like truly random bar. I remember one time by myself and you know, very little English speaking in this bar, but it's like blazing hot, sunny day outside and I just like. And I found the weather there to be a little bit unrelenting. I know that different. Different people like different weather. But I just remember needing, needing very, very. You would go into this place would be like going into a cave. Your eyes would adjust to the light and you would sit down. And I like the way that Bobby talked about how what's on the TV is actually unwatchable. You know, it's some sort of like awful local news or something like that.

[Luke]

Like, it's Morty Prim.

[Andrew]

Yes, exactly. Yeah.

[Luke]

What is this? What's more Crim segment?

[Andrew]

Not.

[Luke]

Not a creep of the week.

[Andrew]

I can't remember off the top of my head. It's been a minute. I know I have some more Crim.

[Luke]

But yeah, there's. There is. You're absolutely. There's some kind of bizarre relationship with the worse the TV the programming is, the better the experience is. And I don't know why that's the case. Maybe it's. It could just be the fact that all the experiences that you have doing this and this being fun are always. The backdrop is always terrible local tv. And so that then becomes part of the experience. And so to have, like, if they were showing, you know, Detroiters, let's just bring it back to the Mort Crim thing. If they were showing something good on TV would almost be like, wait, don't waste this right now. This needs to be just either like some kind of a fishing show or like whatever is being played on local television or the most affordable part of the cable TV, cable spectrum at 2pm.

[Andrew]

Although if they had some movie on, like I always love a movie on in the back. If they had like Blade Runner on in the background or something like that, I would certainly take that.

[Luke]

But see, that doesn't feel like daytime content to me for some reason.

[Andrew]

I'd be fine.

[Luke]

My opinion.

[Andrew]

Yeah. By the way, this is all I got for Mort Crim in my files. I don't even.

[Luke]

Chump of the week.

[Andrew]

Is what we experience real or is reality a computer simulation constructed by an advanced alien race? For more, our sports reporter, Jim Caputo. All right, back to Bobby. So we've heard about the dark bar in the afternoon.

[Bobby]

All right, boys, it is.

[Andrew]

Oh, I hit the wrong button. I went all the way to the beginning. I had to find where we left off again. Let's try this.

[Bobby]

Two, 2:30 in the afternoon. There's some nice good needle drop, shitty local TV news or soap operas or some bad movie on the tv. And you just taking in a quiet cold one with the regulars, the career drinkers at mid afternoon beer. Number two is the business lunch beer. You're out with a couple of colleagues, maybe from another company, a little B2B action and you decide yourselves, yeah, this would be all right. We can have a beer, maybe two, get back to the office after the business lunch beer. And then number one with a bullet, the crisp autumn campfire beer straight from a cooler dripping down the side of a cold bottle. Maybe you're wearing a pair of shoes with no socks that doesn't quite fit, sitting around a campfire. Nice tall, crispy cold boy, maybe three or four come home, smelled like the next day. Absolutely perfect. The crisp autumn campfire beer. Thanks, guys.

[Andrew]

So I'm not a Big camper. Maybe that affects my feelings about this list, but I feel like there were some. And again, I'm not trying to take this to hot talk.

[Luke]

Glaring omissions.

[Andrew]

I feel like there's so many glaring omissions. Does anything seem omitted to you? What's your reaction to that list?

[Luke]

I. You know what? Because I don't have a rich personal lived experience with every kind of beer situation, I felt like for me it was pretty much covered. I just would disagree with some of the order. There was an outside looking in. The second outside looking in to me seemed like it should be in the top five.

[Andrew]

It was more to me, the ordering 5pm Happy hour.

[Luke]

That, see that is for me that like as he said, quoting me, you've slid down that dinosaur. And that first little sip of the beer that just lights up all of your sensor and receptors to tell you again, this is why the whole thing is so damn addictive. Just tells your brain, hey, we've entered a totally different world right now and it's going to be just fine. And that is a very powerful experience to me and many other people. So that for me would be. That'd have to be top five.

[Andrew]

So I will not do this in a countdown order. And I'm also just sort of doing this from the top of my head. So I don't know if I have more than two what I consider omissions. But my number one beer, my absolute number one beer that is not even mentioned, not even olied on this list is the post yard work beer. Like that is.

[Luke]

Thank you.

[Andrew]

Oh my God. You sit, you pull out like a lawn chair and you put it in your garage and the garage door is open and you've just spent like four hours in the sun mowing the lawn. And then you got a little bit too obsessed with some little project moving some rocks from here to there or whatever. You might even start a little fire in the solo stove. Or you sit in the garage with the garage door open and you watch the work world go by while you.

[Luke]

Have a beggly of gasoline and lawn clippings and you just, yeah, you, you, you're looking out on all of your hard work. You're like, God, yes.

[Andrew]

You're looking at, you're, you're like kind of looking at what you've just done. You're looking at the bags of leaves. Maybe like that to me is by far the best beer you can have. And sometimes, and then sometimes I mentioned this earlier, that can be followed up with the shower beer, which is like that's often if I'm drinking a shower, that makes sense. It's like an 80% chance that I've now come inside and maybe I've had a beer or two in the garage and now I've come inside, but I'm covered in dirt. And it's the kind of shower where you can actually see the dirt coming off of you when you look down at the water. And then. Right, you have. And then you have again like a Miller High Life or something like that sitting on the sink outside the tub or something. God, I mean, those are two biggies for me. But then also that by the way.

[Luke]

Explains the shower beer more to me because for me, any kind of shower drinking was always in a pre funk kind of a way. I'm really getting amped here and I'm so excited about whatever it is that we're going to be doing that I need to actually start this early, which doesn't feel like your move, which is why this makes much more sense. It's like after you've been working hard in the yard and you're already maybe one to two beers in now your shower beers as you're sort of as your, as your. And you're also a multiple times a day showerer as well.

[Andrew]

Yeah, I usually shower in the morning and then after something like that, I would definitely shower again at night. And then also I think, and this is changing to another thing that I feel like was missed was like the first vacation beer or just vacation beer like in general. Often if you're going someplace sunny, I mean my personal experience, but like if you're taking a, you know, if you're starting your vacation in, you know, some town in Mexico or in, you know, some warm place and like you're ordering a Corona or something like that with a lime and the first one you have, and it's probably still like daytime, you've just landed and you know, you got through the airport, you just went through customs or whatever. And now like you, you go to some beach hut somewhere and you get your first Corona. That's huge for me. You're probably having a cocktail in that situation. So I don't know if you. I think we can sort of interchange those a little bit though.

[Luke]

Well, here's what I will offer. That's not on the list. And this would be a controversial best beer because it actually, it's born out of pain and heartbreak and bad decisions, but hungover beer?

[Andrew]

Oh, see, that's not something I have experience with.

[Luke]

So like you're In Vegas or you're on some, you're at some sort of like weekend getaway with a group of friends, something that is designated to be like, there's probably going to be a decent amount of alcohol that is consumed. Even in my much more drinking days, I wasn't typically the kind of person who would be day drinking after night drinking. But sometimes in a pinch, like again, you're in Vegas and the whole stated mission is there's just this kind of like, you know, rolling thunder aspect to it sometimes the next day, let's say, you know, it's, it's noon or something and the people are emerging from their, their slumber and their stupor and you're kind of organized at like maybe the, where the sports book is or like some kind of a burger joint restaurant and everyone's kind of licking their wounds and everyone's just kind of like woozy and like, golly, I went too hard last night and you feel so awful. And, and in that case, I could never actually like, the idea of a shot of liquor would make me almost feel like I needed to throw up or like any kind of a cocktail would be like, whoa. But there was something about like a Bud Light, like a light beer, something that does not have a hugely high alcohol content. Just a way of kind of like easing back onto the horse and into life. That like the crazy thing is it works. You know what I mean? This is the whole the hair of the dog works because you just become drunk again and all you're doing is kicking that can down the road. But there was, there'd be a moment where like the beer, the hangover beer would actually be working. In other words, you'd be feeling less terrible again in the short term, I would be very clear about it. It's not a long term solution to your problem, but that moment of like being somewhere probably, you know, where. Let me give you an example. A beer on races boat when she Lanigans are afoot.

[Andrew]

Well, that was another one I was going to mention. Boat beer. Not that that would necessarily be my top five, but it should be mentioned as an Oli. Like a boat beer is a very specific thing, especially on a lake. Right?

[Luke]

Absolutely. And like that would be the kind of thing when we would go to Chelan and again, I'm happy to report for my liver and also local law enforcement there in Chelan, we don't really do that anymore. But like when we would go there, that would be the kind of thing where it was just like, there's just Be a lot of imbibing. And then the next day, everyone would just feel horrendous. And then it'd be like that first beer in the middle of the day would sort of like, again, it would stave off the hangover, and it would just be. All of a sudden you went from just being like, I don't know if I can exist anymore, to being like, where the party at?

[Andrew]

Yeah, right. Yeah. So kind of you're saying hangover beer, but. And you're using the. What do you call it? She. Lanigans. And again. What's that?

[Luke]

Regrettably, I'm using the term shelanigans.

[Andrew]

I just paused there because I always. One time I thought you guys went to Chehalis or something.

[Luke]

Oh, God, that would be.

[Andrew]

I called him.

[Luke]

There aren't enough hangover beers in the world. Peace of love to our listeners. And Chehalis.

[Andrew]

It's just funny that I confused those two. But anyway, and then one other that I will mention, and I will say this is not one of my favorites. I think other people fetishize this experience a little bit more than me. But I'm kind of surprised baseball beer wasn't mentioned. Like, baseball park beer.

[Luke]

That's, I think yard work beer. And then for me, baseball beer. I mean, for me, honestly, I think baseball beer, number one, I would never. I'd never. It would never occur to me to drink a cocktail at a baseball game. Like, that's like, you know, flying a kite at night, as they say on the Simpsons. Like, to me, the ballpark is the hallowed, sacred location of beer consumption. And I look forward to it. And, like, again, the most beer that I might consume in a given year of my life would probably be in one visit to the ballpark. So that's got. That's for me, that's gotta be the number one.

[Andrew]

And for me, maybe number one would be my daily morning beer. No, you know, the interesting.

[Luke]

But if you're not hungover, it's not a hangover. So that's why it's a different category from what I was talking about.

[Andrew]

The funny thing about me is I can. I'm not saying I do without, but I can do without the baseball beer. Like, when I'm at a baseball game, I'm totally happy to get one of those cups that I can refill with soda. Because, like, now maybe I don't want to get into my relationship with alcohol. But, like, there's enough going on at the baseball game. Like, there's just. I don't need you Know, it's more like when I'm at home playing darts, listening to podcasts, like that's kind of good beer time.

[Luke]

What would spice this up?

[Andrew]

What would spice it? But like when I'm at a ball game, I'm happy to just like kind of have snacks and soda or what have you. But that's also probably because I drink more beer than you, whereas for you, you don't drink that much beer. So it's going to be more like, hey, I'm at the ballpark. And this is something that I associate with, with being at the ballpark, as a lot of people do.

[Luke]

Yeah, there's something about that enormous, you know, plastic cup of, of beer. Generally very mid range beer. That's another thing I feel, whatever, this isn't.

[Andrew]

Yeah, that's not true anymore. I guess you haven't been to the park in a while. Most of the beers are not mid range there anymore.

[Luke]

Well, that's part of this. Where I said this isn't going to be fun is like I don't need to get in. I don't need to weigh in on like how people should. What kind of beer people should be drinking at the ballpark. But I would just say for me, what I associate most lovingly with that experience is definitely something in the range of a Budweiser. It would never occur to me to have some really wonderfully constructed. I don't even have the terms for a fancy beer. But for me it would be if you see me at the ballpark and I've got a beer in my hand, it's probably a Budweiser.

[Andrew]

So anyway, Bobby, we didn't fucking that bad. No, that was a lot of fun and it was a good conversation starter as well, which is something that we need on the show. Otherwise Luke and I just sort of stare at each other.

[Luke]

That's right. Until we have a few small beers and then small beers. Then the conversation really picks up and gets really interesting. Thanks, Bobby.

[Andrew]

Thank you, baby.

[Luke]

All right, let's thank some donors. These wonderful generous folks are supporting TBTL with a monthly or yearly donation. And it's how we are able to do the show five days a week. I was listening to Pablo Torre finds out which is kind of if you are, if you're in the Venn diagram that I am Andrew of people who are overly obsessed with sports but people who also like investigative journalism and quality production. It's like it's a perfect circle and it's very big in the world of like plus people like us. I think Think. But I was something interesting this morning when I was listening. They went to what was clearly a break and there was no ad. And I thought, in what universe are they not selling enough ads? Now here was what was really weird. And this will take this conversation to such a boring place that only you and I will enjoy. There was another ad break later where there were ads. And my theory is that they charge a certain amount for the first one and they charge less for the second one. And they didn't have anyone paying the rate for the first one, so that one went unused and then the second one kicked into a, you know, a. Like a simply safe ad.

[Andrew]

I mean, they are kind of like. Like if you. Have you ever used like an auto fill cat feeder? I don't know if they have them for dogs as well, but you sort of like you fill up a canister and then it's just sort of a gravity bucket, right? And then they can kind of eat. And then the more food they eat at the bottom, it kind of falls down.

[Luke]

Well, you'll be surprised to know, Andrew, that I have one that is WI FI enabled and has a camera on it.

[Andrew]

And it's for you.

[Luke]

It's. Well, yes, when I'm a good boy, I'm allowed to have two big scoops.

[Andrew]

That would be so great if Becca was like pushing a button somewhere in Portland and giving you a treat.

[Luke]

I would have you into our life. But a lot about me you don't know, Andrew.

[Andrew]

I think about those pre rolls kind of like that from our experience doing it as well. Like, you know, like somebody, you know, let's say three or four different brands signed up for what we would call maybe the P1 slot. I don't know.

[Luke]

The first commercial break once the show has started, right?

[Andrew]

But then eventually, because then it's all automated. And then basically when the system sort of when the gravity filler is out of that, they say, we'll go to a break and there's no content there. So the show just moves on. But then the next break, there was still some ads in that gravity feeder. Do you think that's a good analogy? I'm kind of proud of that.

[Luke]

It is kind of. I'm following it. But I guess my first thought was like, this is again, for people like me, this is like maybe the hottest podcast going and yet even. And I assume that it's tremendously profitable. But it's like even they're grappling with whatever it is their business model is. And yet here we are relying on people Like Cary Deutsch of Bellevue, Washington. And it's working.

[Andrew]

Yes.

[Luke]

We get to do this for our job. We get to work with John Sklaroff. And it's all because of folks like Kerry, folks like Lauren Realberg in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The real, real bergs know.

[Andrew]

Andrew, I have some tape for Lauren.

[Luke]

You, like, are definitely. You're the real thing that a lot of people say. So do you think if you weren't. I mean, if you were less fake.

[Andrew]

Do you think you would be or you could. Or you have a desire to. That's for the real bergs.

[Luke]

What's that? What is that from?

[Andrew]

That is clearly.

[Luke]

We use that in intros sometimes.

[Andrew]

Yeah, I don't notice from. Might be from the. It's probably not the Kroll show, but you know who that is, right? Oh, gosh. Why am I blanking on his name? I don't know.

[Luke]

This is such a John Daly, the other guy who's in every Crow sketch.

[Andrew]

It's the guy. See, I can't think of his name, but I know that Eddie Pepitone is.

[Luke]

Luke Waters of Seattle, Washington.

[Andrew]

He's the guy. No, he's the guy that's our donor. I know. We'll get to him in a second.

[Luke]

I got confused.

[Andrew]

He's the guy that Eddie Pepitone gave me a hard time for saying he was funny, and he wanted me to say why he was funny. He's the guy with the big diastema in his teeth, and he is like, in all those kind of children's hospital.

[Luke]

Yeah. Yeah. I want you to give me a reason why you think he's funny. Because Paul Sheer.

[Andrew]

Paul Sheer. Paul. Yeah.

[Luke]

Well, how did this get made?

[Andrew]

Yes.

[Luke]

Or why did this get made? I think Paul Scheer has kind of grown on me. Here's what I think I like. I think I like Paul Scheer, the person in the world who does like that. That how did this Get Made Podcast is a hugely successful. All of their ad breaks are full. But, like, I like him a lot doing all that stuff. The characters that he portrays in all of those shows always to me seem like just like the joke is that they're really unself aware and over the top as they're the like, like fire chief, Invest, murder investigator, whatever guy. You know, there's not enough subtlety there for me.

[Andrew]

But I did talk over Luke Waters, Seattle, Washington. You were trying to wedge him in there. I was. I couldn't stop because if I stopped, I wouldn't have been able to pick up again. But Luke, I'm sorry about that. I blame Luke.

[Luke]

I forgive you.

[Andrew]

It's waters under the bridge, Luke.

[Luke]

Yes, it sure is. I was going to ask, is this another Mariners reliever I don't know about?

[Andrew]

Thank you, Luke.

[Luke]

We appreciate you. Thanks also to Nancy Nestor in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

[Andrew]

Albuquerque? Oh, I don't do well. You should have heard me.

[Luke]

Stifling was my. My one Albuquerque reference. Nancy, thanks. Thanks to Brenna Cullerton, who's in Gig Harbor, Washington.

[Andrew]

Beautiful Gig Harbor.

[Luke]

Betcha that Brenna is thinking thoughts about the Seattle Mariners playing tonight or today. By the way, that 3pm thing is really throwing me like I didn't. I didn't have a particularly. Well, we can. You know what, I'm going to thank the other donor today and then we can talk about this. But just kind of our approach because I'm almost like I'm having like a. I don't know, I'm having a crazy last minute switcheroo thought around this game. But after we thank Brenda, let's also thank Catherine McFadden in Portland, Oregon.

[Andrew]

Hey, Kathryn. And her sister, longtime friends and supporters of the show. Thank you.

[Luke]

One of my very favorite places to have hosted Livewire last night, Portland, Oregon. Thank you, Catherine. Thank you to all of our donors for making TBTL possible, for making us more successful from both a financial and downloads standpoint than Pablo Torre finds out. And what was the other one we mentioned?

[Andrew]

How did this get made?

[Luke]

How did this get made? Combined, we're bigger than both of them combined because of you, our awesome donor. So thank you very much. Hey Andrew, do you by any chance have any big weekend plans?

[Andrew]

You want to know if I have? Big weekend. Big weekend.

[Luke]

That's what I want to know.

[Andrew]

The biggest one I've ever had. Big weekend. Well, I'm trying.

[Luke]

I feel like I have a sense of what your weekend plans might be.

[Andrew]

Well, this is what I'm trying to figure out too. This one might be a good place to say, and I'm sorry, I've been doing this a lot lately and we're going to get into a better rhythm at some point, but I just don't see a way that I can get the newsletter out today. I. This week just prom. Just trust me when I say I've been working on tbtl, things that are very important.

[Luke]

I can verify that. A lot of times when he says that, it's honestly bullshit.

[Andrew]

It is bullshit.

[Luke]

But not this week. This man has been hard at work.

[Andrew]

And because of that I was like, oh, well, I have all Day. I guess when I do this to myself, when I'm not staying on top of the newsletter responsibilities throughout the week, then it can really hit hard on Friday. And this week, I knew I was doing that. I was budgeting my time. I was like, okay, well, I have all of Friday, I guess, and then I'll just get it done before the Mariners game.

[Luke]

You thought, am I gonna have to go to the celebration parade on Friday because they'll have swept the Blue Jays, and will that leave time for the newsletter?

[Andrew]

I didn't expect that. But I definitely, like, I just don't have time to do a hey Dummies. Produce a hey Dummies. There's just a lot of. The newsletter takes up a lot of time and I've waited too long and then realizing, oh, wait, I don't have until 5pm to get this done today, but only 3pm If I'm gonna watch this. This goddamn Mariners game, which I'm kind of dreading anyway.

[Luke]

Sounds like.

[Andrew]

So anyway, I don't know what's gonna happen. My guess is no newsletter today. And I will. Maybe I'll just take advantage of Bobby's list and go have myself an afternoon.

[Luke]

Beer with every beer on the list.

[Andrew]

Yes. Yes.

[Luke]

Including the ones we suggested.

[Andrew]

Including the camping one, somehow. So.

[Luke]

Yep.

[Andrew]

Yeah. So that's it. I mean, that. I haven't really thought past that right now. I guess we have this game on at 3pm and then there will definitely be another game. Oh, no, there won't be one tomorrow. So that's what kind of bums me out. Whatever. It doesn't matter. My schedule. You didn't ask me about my big schedule plans, but it just really bums me out. Like, I love a free Saturday, but this week has been sort of so crazy and I'm not getting everything I need done. And I just wish that we didn't have base. I wish that today's game would be on tomorrow. You know what I mean? I could use today as a Friday to get some shit done instead of having a three hour.

[Luke]

What would happen to your Thursdays?

[Andrew]

What's that?

[Luke]

Because something happened to your Thursdays?

[Andrew]

Yes, right. Referring to the drop. So anyway, I'm actually weirdly bummed. I'm like, God, if only they had put this game on a Saturday and I could have had today to get some work done. So anyway, that's where I am. I'm going to be watching baseball and then I guess tomorrow just sort of like pacing around wondering where my baseball is, the way Maggie paces around Wondering where she buried that bone I bought her.

[Luke]

I got you some toys, by the way, to try to distract you.

[Andrew]

Appreciate it.

[Luke]

I am actually having today is going to be for me, I would say, not a rare treat that makes it sound like I have such a busy life, but like it actually is the case that it's my Friday and I've got a story going up on CBS this week. But it's done. It's now screening for the Bosses. We'll have TBTL pretty much put to bed. I did Livewire last night. Like a lot of my job life stuff will actually be sort of wrapped up here today. And yeah, I have kind of. I don't have any major responsibilities this afternoon or even tomorrow. Becca is. Her family has this big fall party. They live on this. When she was growing up, her family home was in this beautiful piece of property down in Salem, Oregon, in kind of wine country. And the leaves turn. And so they've had this. And they have all these apples that get pressed. So they do this fall party. She's going down on Saturday to get that all ready. So basically, like, this is. It is. It's very nice. But this is all lining up. This kind of lining up for me to where today I'm like, well, okay, I'm actually going to have. Because like, for instance, last night we can kind of take a step back. I did not get to watch much of the game, which was of course a blessing because I was hosting Livewire. And that's, you know, I feel like that was a. That was a major blessing to me because I. There's. We do a sound check at 5:30, which is like exactly when the game started. And I could have literally been on stage. I have a laptop on stage with me. I could have had Fubo going on my computer while I was doing the sound check. But the thing is, the house band, they sit behind me on the stage and they would be able to see that I had the baseball game on. And my feeling was if they see the captain of the ship is so obsessed with baseball that he's not even really paying attention during the sound check like that the baseball is prioritized over this thing that we've all come together to do for hundreds of people and then thousands of radio listeners, I feel like that was setting a very bad example. Like I would be if I was on. Wait, wait, don't tell me. And Segal, who's a world class Boston Red Sox fan, and I mean that in every sense of the word, if Sega was watching The Red Sox, as you know, as we were doing. Wait, wait. I'd be like, well this doesn't feel like he's taking this seriously. So I point being I didn't really know what had happened until about probably 6:30 when I go up to my chambers at the theater, which is to say the room that I change in and also where I pace around and think nervously about the show, the radio show I'm about to do. And then I turned it on and we were winning one to nothing. I thought oh, that's a nice feeling. And then right, right after that Jimenez hit the two run home run. And then I thought, ooh, that's a bad feeling. And then I just turned it off because I was like I'm already, I've already need to, I need my anxiety to be focused on the radio show I'm about to do, not on this baseball team thing. So I turned it off. And then Andrew, my experience through, mercifully you could say the Kreminal's text chain was friggin a ghost town during the game, which I didn't think was necessarily the greatest sign. But I was also like occasionally I would say like I would see like on my family text chain the Hawk squad people would be saying things. But it was getting summarized by AI for me.

[Andrew]

So your texts are getting summarized now? We don't need to summarize texts. They're short form communications.

[Luke]

I don't know if I can get back to. I think once I click on it then it undoes this. But if I have a text particularly. Yeah, if I have a text that I haven't clicked on. Right. So it's on the. Basically I'm looking at a preview of it and the preview now the preview, the AI previews it and so I got one last night, I don't know, maybe at about 8:30 or something that I looked over and it just said something like rooting for Ivers, not giving up yet. I think the Ivers thing must have been related to the salmon race. And then the not giving up yet kind of gave me hope that maybe we came or game not over. It was just like rooting for Ivers, game not over yet.

[Andrew]

Why do we need a computer to misinterpret and confuse a short message in a text chain? Like the text is more valuable than a computer that is reading a text that makes sense and then spitting out garbage to us. I don't, I just.

[Luke]

Where I'm at with you, I am.

[Andrew]

Going around feeling like that, that Tim Robinson character Who just says, I don't want to be around anymore Every time we talk about our phones anymore.

[Luke]

Too much shit on you.

[Andrew]

I'm just like, there's too much shit on me.

[Luke]

Too much shit on you. What's the name of that character again? I forget now. But anyway, so I had this moment of when I saw Game not over Yet. I thought, oh, maybe we came back. And then of course, after Livewire was done, I just like glanced down at the MLB app and I saw that we lost by a lot of runs. I was sort of like when I was doing that TV shoot and on the really bad Detroit game, the game where we just like, you know, like we're leading Detroit by three, nothing. Detroit was getting booed by their own fans. And then all of a sudden we collapsed. This game felt a lot like that, I think. But in both cases, I was not present for the collapse and therefore I have a certain kind of feeling around this team that I am guessing you don't right now have.

[Andrew]

Well, why don't you stop working during these games since that apparently is causing losses.

[Luke]

I tell you what, have you thought about this? Not going to work tonight, this afternoon, and I ain't going to work on Sunday. I just want to bang on the drum all day.

[Andrew]

I wonder what time that Sunday game is. Boy, that'd be interesting if I could. If I might actually miss that. If it's.

[Luke]

You might be working at your pop up, you might be.

[Andrew]

That would be the first one that I actually like, miss. Miss, which, who knows, whatever. If they. If they win, I don't. And then if they lose, I guess I wouldn't have sat through it. But yeah, it was a disaster of a game. You know, I came in here like not really bemoaning the previous loss the night before, which a lot of people were like, boy, what a painful loss is 13 to 4. And really the two of those runs that the Mariners had were garbage time anyways. More like 13 to 2. And because I have no idea who they put out there to pitch when we got our last two runs, but I was like very you will. You probably, Luke, you probably heard the show yesterday while we were recording it.

[Luke]

I was.

[Andrew]

I thought it was a fluke. I thought it was. I thought it was a bad start that we then gave up on so that we didn't waste, you know, better bullpen arms. And so like, I didn't think the score really reflected what happened. What I hadn't really considered, I was thinking very much, I guess, about our pitching. I Guess what I hadn't reflected on enough was how paltry our offense was, and, boy, was it on display last night. It really gave you that feeling of like, yeah, you really had to remind yourself that the Blue Jays just had this happen to them over the course of two games. Exactly how it's happening to us right now over the course of two games. Because if you were to see our at bats yesterday, it was just so pathetic. It was just like the embodiment of that meme of a stick figure just poking something with a stick, saying, come on, do something. Come on, do something. Like, it was just. It was concerning. And as a Mariners fan, or maybe any baseball fan who follows a team and understands things are streaky, you get this feeling of just like, oh, we're getting into a slump at a really bad time now. I got to remind myself it's two games. This just happened to the Blue Jays, and then they came back with, you know, roaring here in Seattle. So who knows? I'm not saying I'm giving up on everything, but I definitely realize I did fall into the trap of hope. I don't know if you know this, Luke, but hope is a dangerous thing. That's something I just came up with right now. And so I feel like at a certain point I was like, oh, yeah, the Mariners. I never went into the series thinking, oh, yeah, the Mariners have this on lock. Definitely going to win this. But I started to think that we're. I started to not think we're definitely going to lose this, you know? And now, as my sister Hannah said.

[Luke]

In Hawk Squad, I believe she said, I really have a better grasp now on Andrew's eternal pessimism.

[Andrew]

Oh, nice. I got a mention. I didn't know. Yeah, dude, you gotta let me know anytime. I mentioned, I name checked a lot. Really?

[Luke]

There's no Google alert for that, is there? If you're getting mentioned in Hawks squad.

[Andrew]

I'll see if I can. Yeah, you gotta let me know now. I'm nervous, though. Maybe some of them I don't want to know about. But you're being an Andrew. Derogatory. Anyway. Yeah, so yesterday was pretty rough, and it was the type of game that pretty early on, things went south. And I'm sitting on the couch watching with Genevieve. We had just kind of checked on the dogs next door, and I know we need to go back over there to kind of. I just want to spend time with them. I feel really bad leaving them, the dogs alone for long periods of time. So I knew that after the game, I Wanted to go over there with Genevieve and spend some quality time with them. At least maybe an hour or something before putting them to bed. So I sort of had that hanging over my head and I was just sort of like antsy, you know, And I'm sitting, sitting on the couch. And then when it's. When the game got out of hand and just like some pretty ugly things happening, I just got really sour. I mean, Viv's and I are just sitting on the couch, like, kind of staring at our phones and the game kind of not even really talking much. Just like glum, just glum as hell. And then I remembered that they right near me, like literally three blocks from me. They sell something perfect for moments exactly like that. And it's a. It's what they call a 1 gram blunt pre roll. And you can go down to a store and you give them about $15 and they give you one of those. Or you give them $30 and they give you two of those. And that's what I did yesterday. And I smoked. I put on my. I put the game in my headphones like there was no point in watching it on the TV anymore.

[Luke]

So you were still listening, though. You were still following.

[Andrew]

I hadn't given up. I'm just like, I got to get out of here. Let's shake things up. Also, the better the Blue Jays did. I have not been in a situation either because I haven't heard the announcers that much, or it's been a game where the Mariners are ahead. But I have not been in the situation that I've heard other about, which is like really disliking the. The commentary that they're hearing during the national broadcast. But yesterday, when we're now in this narrative where the. The Mariners are clearly going down to. And then you had Max Scherzer out there, who now they're calling Mad Max because he's having this great inning and there's this great. And I wouldn't. I don't blame them. I don't think that the. I don't think the commentators were being biased. It's where the narrative was. Like you have this old hang dog guy going out there reclaiming glory. Great storyline. If you're not absolutely miserable as a Mariners fan, your guy. So I, I put on the headphones and immediately felt better just hearing Gary Hill Jr. In my ears because he's got. He's not like, hey, look at. Oh my God, can you believe what Mad Max is doing? He's sighing and he's saying he's my guy, right? And so I walk down to the weed store and I buy. I buy a couple of these blunts, and I did not smoke them both, by the way. Don't worry. Everything is fine. But I came back.

[Luke]

One was for Maggie.

[Andrew]

One was for Maggie. I got a chew. They call them chew blunts. And I gotta say, I'm not usually somebody who turns to marijuana as a mood enhancer, because I feel like it is usually just going to increase whatever mood you're in, generally speaking. So if you're in a bad mood sometimes, that's a dangerous game. But I just wanted to. And so I kind of smoked half of it, like, walking home. And then I gotta say, it really helped me kind of disassociate from the game a little bit in a way that I was like. And by the way, this is. I'm not trying to make it sound like this is the first time I've watched a baseball game under the influence of marijuana, obviously. But in this case, I was kind of like, you know what? I am sitting here on this couch, furious and fuming and just in such a funk. And then when I'm done with it, I just want to fast forward to the part where Veeves and I can just go next door, watch Columbo, spend some time with the dogs, play cards. I'm like, why can't we just get to that part of the night? And then, like, at some point in the eighth inning, I was like, we can get to that part of the night. We can do that. Right now, we're not. And I was like, we're not coming back from what was, at that point, a 6:2 deficit. I'm like, we're not coming back from this. And as we're getting ready to kind of leave, we made the decision, let's just stop being miserable and turn this off. And I'm not usually somebody to bail on games. Then you had those last two runs come in, and it was happening as I was turning off the tv. I'm like, smart decision. I'm like, you know what? Some sort of miracle happens, some sort of absolute miracle, and this becomes one of the most historic Mariners games in. Well, in history. The most historic, the most notable game in Mariners history because it was such a comeback, and I missed it because I turned off the 8th and 9th inning. I'm still gonna be happy. Yeah. I'll still watch the highlights, and I'll be like, oh, I missed it. But you know what? Maybe that's what needed to happen to change the Luck. I was just like, I just don't need to sit here and be miserable anymore. And you know what? I don't think I've ever been able. And again, maybe this was the drugs, but I've never been able just to move on from a game so quickly. Like, it wasn't even like, I'm packing my feelings down. I just went and had a really. And maybe I said to Veebs, I'm like, I guess that's the miracle of marijuana. And she said, yeah, and dog love. Like, you know, like, maybe there's something about support animals. And so we went over there, and I just stopped thinking about the game entirely until I got a notification on my phone, like, you know, 20 minutes later, said, the Mariners lost. I'm like, yeah, no shit, they did. But what's going on with this murderer over here?

[Luke]

You know? Yeah, like, I had. Didn't have that exact experience, but it was similar in that I was disassociated from what was going on as well. And so it was like, just kind of getting that bit. Oh, well, they didn't do that. They didn't do that thing I wanted them to do, and that's a bummer. But not like, there's just something about living in that world with them. Every pitch for nine innings that just is so intense and is so. I mean, keeps coming back to the eternal question, is this fun? Not right now, but, like, I know what you mean. That kind of, like, feeling of like, you know what? I actually. Out of self care and whatever, I am also allowed to not. Not allow this. I'm allowed to step away from this if I choose to. This is voluntary. And. And yeah, if a little medical marijuana helped you with that, I think I say go for it, you know?

[Andrew]

Yeah. And also, I mean, I think maybe I would have maybe gotten there anyway, but you got there quicker. Yeah. Yeah, it was just kind of like. I just thought you'd think it's funny that I just decided to go buy a couple of blunts.

[Luke]

I love that. Not ruling it out for myself today, but.

[Andrew]

So I told you this little anecdote before the show, and I'm trying not to throw our buddy under the bus because he already takes a lot of shit on this show. But I kind of got to bring it up because this kind of plays into something I want to examine psychologically about sports fandom, especially at this critical point in the season or post season. But our buddy Ders, who we talk about a lot, who's on the text chain, but you Block him a lot because he's often very, very, very negative. I think that he's also gotten better at being positive during good parts of the game, by the way. And also he's a very self aware, sweet man who also knows that he's being overly negative. And it's sort of a stress response for him, as you say. But last night, like you said, there was almost no activity on the sports thread except for a few things he was putting out there when he was during moments of absolute frustration. But it's like that kind of thing where he just, like something bad will happen, like something really bad will happen. Like Naylor's thrown out to end an inning where it sort of looked like we might be able to mount a bit of a comeback. And the response is just all caps. L, M A O O O O O O O. And it's kinda like that doesn't that kind of like just screaming sarcastic laughter into the void doesn't make me feel better. But nobody was really engaging with that at all. He was the only one doing that. And then I opened up Blue sky and I saw that and I don't see him posting on Blue sky that much, but I wonder if it was because of lack of engagement. And again, he feels like he's screaming into the void. It was a terrible feeling last night. It was the night before. I just was so sanguine about it and oh, this is really ugly. And now you start.

[Luke]

Now it's the kind of worst fear.

[Andrew]

Territory is getting closer, especially just seeing some really, really terrible at bats. And it's kind of like, oh, that wasn't just Fluky pitching. We might be in trouble here. And I understand it and I understand the feelings he was having, but it was weird because I don't think he posts on the website very much. But I open up my app and I'm just mindlessly scrolling and I saw him post something like, boy, a lot of toxic positivity on this app tonight or something. And first of all, I think we follow a lot of the same. Mariner's Blue sky is a little bit different than Mariner's Twitter. It's a little bit. It's like there's a lot of frustration and stuff, but it's a little bit more, you know, maybe a little bit softer. And people, you know, I saw a couple of people just saying this feels like we're going down 3:1 in the series, but just a reminder that we are still, when we lose this, it'll still be a tied series at 2, too. People not saying. Not being Pollyanna ish, but just saying this feels worse than the numbers actually say right now. And we're all kind of catastrophizing because you're seeing a terrible game, and you're just, like, you want to shake them and say, wake up. Wake up. Play the baseball that you were playing two nights ago. So we all have our feelings about that. But the reason I'm bringing this thing up that Der's posted isn't to lambast him, because I really do think that he's a very good person who's having very bad feelings, and he doesn't know what to do with them, and it's coming out in this way. But that idea of. The idea of being too positive when you're a fan is something that I want to think about. Like, it never occurred to me to turn off a baseball game that was making me miserable before, especially when it's a historic game in the postseason like this. Right? But last night, at a certain point, I was like, oh, I'll just turn this off. I don't have to do this anymore. And the idea that that was, like, a novel concept kind of struck me. And then this idea that, like, are you a bad fan if you do that? And then also, is there something internally inside people like me and Ders that it's kind of like, well, if you're not miserable right now, you're not a true fan. And I don't think he's saying that, and I'm definitely not saying that, but is there some little gremlin inside us that says, like, oh, well, if you're not the most miserable person on the chat right now, then you don't care enough. Enough, or I don't care enough. You know, Like, I. There's something psychological about being. For those of us who are maybe already predisposed to go negative or feel very negative about these things, I wonder if there's something about, like, connecting the negativity to being a good fan and not just, as we always say, the. The person at the party who's like, why is everybody so sad?

[Luke]

Yeah, I think I'm in a weird spot with that question, because I. I take this stuff way too seriously. And for some reason, my stress reaction is to go. Toxic positivity. Like, that's. For whatever reason. That's where my mind goes and my responses go. So it's always like, we can still do this, or, well, you know, well, we had a great season. You know, it's like. And that is In a way, a version of. And when you say that, why is everyone so sad? That's a callback to when the Seahawks. I was in this huge loft space with, I don't know, 50 to 100 people in it watching the game. And then the Seahawks throw an interception at the, on the goal line to lose the super bowl. And we were just. The place is stunned. And this one tipsy person who clearly hadn't really cared that much about the game just goes, why is everybody so sad? And it was like, that's as close as I've ever come to murder that I know about. And I fought people. I mean, I've tried to murder people and it hasn't worked out. This person, I was going to throw out that building. But anyway, all that is to say there is something about, about unwavering toxic positivity. I don't actually, I don't want to necessarily, I don't want to agree that that's a term. I don't agree that's a term I'm using. But there is something about somebody who's just like, completely and totally ignoring the facts of the case of the game and just being like, it'll be okay, guys. That, that's just kind of like, well, it's probably not going to be okay if we keep doing this or whatever. Like, I could see that. Just totally unvarnished. I should not sound varnished, but totally un, uninterrogated positivity is kind of annoying. And I also definitely feel like the reason I was mad at that person at that Seahawks game was because I thought her not being sad about it and me being more sad about it made me more of a real fan. Like, I'm sad about this because this means a lot to me because I'm a real fan because I've spent my whole life following this stuff and you don't care about that, therefore you're not sad about it. And so my sadness is connected to how real of a fan than I am. So I do think there's a little bit of that. But I, but I also kind of feel like I can. So, yeah, I do think that that's probably. I, I, I guess my problem with the term toxic positivity is A, again, I'm probably a practitioner of it, and B, it's like, how toxic can it really be? Other person is just too optimistic. I feel like, to me, like, is toxic negativity, Is that A, is that redundant?

[Andrew]

Yeah, maybe. I don't know.

[Luke]

Whatever we think of as toxic, normal toxic stuff, to me, that's, like, pretty obvious why that can be not great, because it just is bringing the room down and it is very negative, and it is making the person doing it. I mean, here's one of the things about toxic toxicity that I think is kind of unfair. Here's why I have a problem with it. And again, not to throw Ders under the bus, but what Ders is doing, in a way, is making everybody else on the text chain do emotional labor so that he feels better. Because the putting of the super negative stuff into the chain, that's him processing. Why is he processing? He wants to feel better. He has bad feelings. He cannot hold them. They make him feel bad. He needs to lighten his burden. He needs to hand these bad feelings off to other people who now have to deal with them so that he feels better. And that is. And by the way, I've done plenty of things in the text chain myself that are not great, where I've gone off on people. And that's. What is that me doing. That's me doing the exact same thing. That's me trying to feel differently in the moment by doing something and then putting. Making it someone else's responsibility to have to deal with that now, which is not good of me when I do that. But I guess I find that toxic positivity seems less threatening to me in the world. Like someone just being kind of like. And definitely based on what you were saying, I actually, I very much, as a known toxic positive person, I subscribe to that very theory that the Mariners, it feels way worse than it is on paper right now. You lay two eggs at home and you just look like little turds out there. And of course it feels horrible. But also, I do feel like if we win today, we are now back in the advantage position, even though we've got to go play in Toronto. Like, I would rather be. I'd rather we be ahead three two than Toronto be ahead three two. So that tells you there's something. There's something to the fact that being 3:2 would really help us. And also, I think I keep saying this. I think there's a reason why when you win the first two games, you tend to go on and win this thing. And I think, I bet you if you look back at a lot of these series, they might not go exactly like this, but I bet you there are certainly a lot of moments where it's like, oh, the team that got out to a quick lead, they just lost their mojo. But what happens is, like, we just played Two really, really lousy games. All we have to do is play one non lousy game today and then the pressure's on Toronto. And then when we go to Toronto, we just got to play one non lousy game in Toronto. And I just think that the. I think that's why I don't, I don't feel. I feel, you know, I don't feel as good as I felt when we were up 20 or up 2 1. But I don't feel like all is lost. I think we're going into a game tonight that feels like. Oh, what, Andrew? A week ago, when we were going into a Friday game that we really needed to win, I mean, in that case it was literally elimination. I do have the feeling that if we don't win today, we're in really bad shape going into. I don't like the chances of going into Toronto and winning two games. Although, by the way, stranger things have happened.

[Andrew]

Well, I mean, started the series that way too.

[Luke]

Yeah, it's like, it's like if the worst case scenario happens on today, on Friday, we still go into Toronto with at least a hypothetical chance.

[Andrew]

Well, that's, that's what people were. I mean, I know we're just kind of keep saying the same numbers over and over, but I think that that's what. That's the only kind of positive thing that I saw on Twitter or I'm sorry, on Mariners blue sky yesterday, which was just people saying this feels like we're reacting like it's an elimination game. It's not even setting us up for an elimination game. We still have two more games to play no matter what, you know, and, and by the way, that was a good reminder to me who felt like the sky was absolutely falling. And also. And this is where we kind of get back into, like, I'm not trying to be. I'm sure there are fans and maybe you're one of them who doesn't want to hear this kind of talk right now. But it's. I'm actually at a place that I'm not usually at with the Mariners, which is like, I still think that even if we don't win another game in this series, like, I'm gonna be sad. Like, obviously, why is everybody so sad? Why is everybody so sad? But I am very grateful that we've had this so far and I did not ever expect. I mean, I honestly, if I was a betting man, I would have bet that we didn't beat the Tigers, you know, and so we already did that. And so, like, Again, I'm not trying to say what a great season, guys, but hopefully there will be more to build on and, and hopefully we'll get maybe even more pieces next year. I know I'm talking like the season's over and it's not, but I'm just saying that, like, I'm trying to remind myself that this isn't, no matter what happens, still good compared to every other season I've ever watched of Mariners baseball, literally every other season.

[Luke]

I totally agree with you. Like, I am not conceding this series, but I feel like we're playing with house money. This season has already been a pretty big success in my mind in that we made it to the playoffs, something that we hadn't done in a while. And then we actually won a series in the playoffs. We had a buy and then we won a series and, and I think. And we're playing, you know, what certainly, I think most people thought was the best team in the American League, a team that absolutely humbled the New York Yankees. We're playing that team to a draw so far. Like, and if we don't end up, you know, making it to the World Series, I mean, like, I will not think that this season was a total failure. We didn't come into this season thinking like, it's World Series or bust. It's like, if the Dodgers don't make it to the World Series, that's a big failure, you know, like, and it's funny because I go and I read some of the, like, well, in my darker moments, sometimes I'll go look at the New York Post, which I never like because I hate the news, that newspaper's editorial existence. But I do think that they sometimes have funny stories and also funny headlines. And to see the way that the New York Post sports section is regarding this Yankees season is just so hilarious, like, so angry. So another lost season. And it's like I forget that the Yankees have already. And you know, again, peace and love to our Yankees fans. But I forget that the Yankees have been eliminated and that over there in the, you know, in the media capital of the world, in that largest of apples there, it's like, it's like a truth and reconciliation committee. It is like it's, it's friggin Nuremberg. It's like we need to, we need to figure out who knew what and when they knew it. And we need to get to the bottom of this. And like, we got like, they're in, they're in like free fall over there and, and we're still playing meaningful baseball. That's pretty cool. And so even if we don't end up beating the Blue Jays, I. I won't feel like this season was a total loss. And that's also living somewhere in the back of my head. Head. You know, it's just like. I don't know. I just. I can. Now, listen. I said in Game 3, we were going to win by a lot. And then I thought, well, for game four, we'll likely bounce back. I was wrong on both of those counts, but I remain. My air of sanguinity remains unaffected, somewhat, a little bit affected. But I. You said something I thought really good earlier and important, which is that, like, the way that the Mariners fans, we Mariners fans, feel right now is exactly how the Blue Jays fans felt after game two. It's like, what are we even doing? Why can't Vlad Guerrero get a hit? I mean, I was reading. I was going on the. The Toronto Star and reading all of their columns. This is. I'm a sick, sick person, Andrew.

[Andrew]

Sick.

[Luke]

In the words of Larry King. And I, like, I, I love when, when the Mariners are beating another team, I love to go read the local paper of where the other team is. It just kind of like, check the vibes. And it was, you know, it was basically, they were saying exactly what the Mariners columnists and the Mariners, you know, sports knowers are now saying here in Seattle, which is, the Mariners have got to get it together, and in particular, some of their players like Gino Suarez and Rosarena, et cetera. So just remember, I mean, again, I think in a certain way, baseball is like the streakiest sport of all of the sports because it is such a crazy proposition. I once had a baseball coach who, like, this baseball coach, it was funny because you could tell that he had his good sport had always been baseball, and he wasn't. Let's just say he cut a sort of a. Maybe a Josh Naylor kind of line in the world, like, where, you know, he wasn't somebody who you looked at and you immediately thought, born natural athlete, right? But I remember him saying what people don't understand. Like, and he was talking about, like, the other sports at the high school, because what they don't understand is how unbelievably hard it is to hit a round ball with a round bat. For some reason, that stuck with me, it was like his defense of the idea of baseball. And also, like, I know we don't look like the basketball players. I know we're not the football jocks. I know some of us look like a Koopa Troopa from Mario Brothers. But what they don't know how hard it is to hit a round ball with a round bat. And that is kind of true. It's really hard to hit a round ball with round bat. Therefore the margin of error, the difference between a couple of. I mean, now here is something about the Mariners and this is where we are going X's and O's. But whatever. It's Friday. It's 75 minutes into the show. I do. A point of concern for me is that we have not manufactured the runs that we've gotten in the games where we've scored. Like the second game in Toronto where we. It was that day game and we went way up and it was just like, oh my God, it's all happening. You got to remember we had two, three run home runs and a two run home run in that game. Now you could argue that a three run home run is the ultimate risk play, right? It's the ultimate. What you can do with runners in scoring position.

[Andrew]

Well, that would be A slam. Would be the ultimate, right?

[Luke]

Well, I mean, with those runners.

[Andrew]

Oh sure, yeah, yeah.

[Luke]

I'm saying in the moment of you being up with two guys on the ultimate thing you could do would be to hit a home run. And so in a way that is, I guess, manufacturing runs. But. But it's also kind of a lightning strike. It's kind of a thing that comes out of the clear blue sky guy that is very hard to do and pretty hard to reproduce. As opposed to continuously getting runners on base and getting quality at bats where you get base hits that bring guys in. That's more like you're kind of. You're earning your runs the old fashioned way in that case. And we haven't done very much of that. In other words, a couple of swings different. And that second game looks real different too. That's what I sort of. The home run ball is a fickle mistress. Right? Because it's like when it's working you look great. But it can also, I think it kind of could mask a lot of bad at bats by Gino Suarez and Randy or Rosarena. Like that's the, that's the thing is that I'm a little bit worried that we have gotten this far because our home run production has gotten us enough runs in critical moments where we've. And our pitching, you know, generally was showing up. But that what we have not been. I mean we ever statistically very low in the league of like bringing in runs. When we have less than two outs and runners on base, we do really badly with that. That kind of situational hitting. We got someone on third and. Or someone on second and it's less than two outs and we don't figure out how to get them home. That is. That is troubling to me. And then watch tonight or this afternoon again. I'm still reeling from this 3 o' clock news. Not just because it moves my whole day up, my day of what, I don't know, but also because it means that wherever I'm getting this information about when these games are, are, it is the wrong place. I don't know if it's because they were listing what time it is in Toronto when the game is on. I don't know what. I looked today and I saw 5pm and I was like, oh, okay, that's kind of later than I thought it was going to be. But all right, I guess it's going to be another one of those 5pm ers and it's 3pm I don't know why I was seeing that information, but I'm. Here's where I'm going with this, Andrew. I have watched all of these games here at my place or not at all. Right. It's either been here once with my brother and then the rest of them by myself or not watching them because I was working. What I haven't done is gone to any kind of a local establishment to watch a game. And I don't know why it being at 3 o' clock instead of 5 o' clock kind of has me intrigued. But like, I could go down to town, I could go find. I think we've got a B dub somewhere I could go find. You know, certainly there's sports bars, there's places that'll be playing the game. I could go down. I mean, this is a dangerous game, Dano, because it's like I don't know anyone there. I'm not trying to make friends. The energy could be weird. There could be people that are saying, why is everyone so sad? They could not have the. The audio of the game.

[Andrew]

Yeah, that's the thing you want. You want to find.

[Luke]

I mean, I can just turn around and come home if that's the case.

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[Luke]

But I also. It's just weird that it's like this is a sort of a byproduct of the strange version of my life that I find myself in at 49 years of age, which is I live in this house that's kind of not near anything that I. It's not near a lot of the people that I know, and it's not like. So there's been almost no. There's been no thought in my mind so far of, like, who am I going to watch the game with? Am I going to go to the Eagles and watch it with the Pals? Or am I going to get together with my local baseball fan friend group? Then we're all going to. Or am I going to have people over? It's. Other than when I had David and Alicia and Gemma over, maybe it's not. Is it too late to get Gemma here? Like, it's. It has not even occurred to me even one time to go watch any of these games in a public space with anyone else. And I'm wondering if maybe that's adding to some of my craziness, because I am, as I've mentioned, just here in this house, high above the mighty Columbia, just pacing back and forth and just yelling things gutturally that I'm hoping Alexa's not hearing.

[Andrew]

Yeah, that's where I. I'm trying to figure out, too. And maybe it's Bobby's list of beers that got me thinking. Oh, yeah, Maybe I'm thinking. Yeah, for some reason, like, I'm thinking about a Reuben right now. I don't even think he mentioned a Reuben.

[Luke]

I don't think food. Well, food maybe touched me. Not much.

[Andrew]

Or maybe when you were talking about, you know what it was, I think when you were talking about you went to that bar and you just. And then you're like, well, should we get one thing of beers? Probably a Reuben. That sort of sounds good. But the thing is, like, I need to. If this were a five o' clock game, almost any place that's showing the game is going to be absolutely crowded. I did this on Wednesday with some friends, and luckily my friends got there early enough to grab a table, but there it was, like standing room only at the sports bar in Greenwood that we went to. I'm sorry, Green Lake. And I will always do that. Will I ever do it? I'll never get pike and pine rice.

[Luke]

It's like me calling it Paddington instead of Pooh Bear, which, by the way, I did the other day as a joke a bunch. But then I was like, people don't know that I'm doing it as a joke. And then it's going to start a whole new round of.

[Andrew]

I think we did name that show. Patting to myself on the back. I like that. That was yours, I think. But anyway. Yeah, so I'm sort of tempted, but also, I don't know. Well, this is one thing too is like with knowing that whatever I do, I'm gonna have to come back and you know, kind of make sure the dogs are okay and kind of. And I honestly.

[Luke]

Oh, you can be drunk for that.

[Andrew]

No, no, I, I, Oh, I know. Trust me. I know.

[Luke]

If you take your dog dadding so serious that you're like, no, no, but.

[Andrew]

Just like knowing that like at some point we gotta get back here, we gotta feed them, we gotta, you know, like make sure that they get let out and that, that is like, it's kind of a reminder of what dog ownership is like. But also I sort of feel like if I had, if this was my own dog who lived with me and like, I feel like I would hopefully have a dog that I would find a place that could accept dogs and we would go together. You know what I mean? Like, but right now I can't take these dogs with me. Like, high energy. They, they, they, I don't think that they're in any way a danger to other dogs, but they bark at other dogs. Like, I'm not in a position to take these dogs out in public. And so, and I don't even know if they really do that. But anyway, the point is, it's kind of like, it's a good reminder of kind of like, boy, this whole week just feels like, well, I can't really make the usual, you know, footloose and fancy free decisions that I would usually make because that is sort of hanging over me a little bit. So I have no idea. I might just stay here and watch the game. Maybe go somewhere else. I don't even know where I'd go. Like, I just want, what I want is to find again, I think maybe Bobby's list and all of our memories of nice corner empty bars in an afternoon or whatever. What I want to find is a great dark bar that has the game on but nobody knows the bar exists. You know what I mean? I want to go watch this game with five other grumps at the bar and then play some touch tunes afterwards. But the thing is you're just not going to have that because the whole city is on fire right now. Not on fire. I mean like fired up. Fired up is what I should say. Don't play, don't play into the MAGA agenda, Andrew. Seattle is burning, Luke. I don't know if you've heard it's burning with Mariners fever. Anyway, so I don't know, I'm just Babbling. Now, I did want to ask you, and I'm not saying this because I think maybe I do wonder if some of our hardcore Tigers fans maybe had to maybe take a break from the show for a couple of days after that, that painful series loss. But I, I was considered this a trigger warning if you're a Tigers fan. But Luke, did you hear the announcer after last Friday's game? You did hear it. Should I, can I play it for the listeners though?

[Luke]

Sure. I have never felt more empathy.

[Andrew]

Yes.

[Luke]

For an announcer. This in my mind was like I heard Aaron Goldsmith in this. I heard any of the Mariners announcers I love if they had to do, if they were, were having to do the work that this person was going to be having to do.

[Andrew]

Yeah. So this is an announcer for the Detroit Tigers and I think his name is Dan Dickerson. I don't know if that rings a bell to you, Luke. I might be getting that wrong. So apologies, but I think his name is Dan Dickerson and he, you know, just got done calling a five hour game that ended in an ABS. In a 15 inning game that ended in an absolutely heartbreaking loss for Detroit. And then he forward promotes. He's like, all right, well we're going to a commercial break or whatever and when we come back we're going to do a game recap. And now this guy is thinking, I got to recap this game. Like this is like the, the end of the Tigers season. He's miserable and they go to commercial break. But unfortunately his microphone was not turned off. And so you heard this and I'm playing this from the Internet. I hope it's cut right.

[Luke]

I'll be back to talk about it after this on the Detroit Tigers Radio network. And fragile. I don't have to do a game this game recap. Oh, I'm sorry, was that out loud?

[Andrew]

Somebody started putting music underneath that so I'm getting out of it. I thought that was just a clean recording, but you could hear him just say I gotta do a game recap. And I, I dude, I feel you. I am not playing that out of like haha, we beat you. I am saying I feel that, bro, you shouldn't have to do that. I know that's exactly right.

[Luke]

But also it's just so funny. It feels to me like we're going into another one. I hope this is mildly entertaining for the listeners. Just like last week on Friday we said, well, we're going to have some kind of feelings on Monday and we don't know what they're going to be. They're either going to be jubilation or tribulation. We are going to be in sackcloth and ashes or we are going to be partying down and we're going into another weekend just like that. Like we'll see, we'll know something on Monday. I mean the three possibilities are we win tonight and we win on Sunday or we win today rather than win on Sunday and it's jubilation on Monday. Monday, we lose both games and it's we're in the depths of despair or probably the most likely outcome. We've won one of the two games either today or Sunday and we're cruising for a seventh game, a winner take all game, which, when does that even happen? Is that like Monday?

[Andrew]

That would be Monday. Yeah. Because it would be. Yes, we take the day off on Saturday, then two more games, it would be Sunday and Monday in Toronto.

[Luke]

Not to mention, Andrew, this is a total last minute lanyap. The game that they keep promoting, the college football game that's been promoted all week as one of the best games in the country is Saturday, the big noon game, the University of Michigan hosting the University of Washington Huskies. So like smack dab between. And I'm not as I'm not crazed for the Huskies the way that I am for the Mariners or the Seahawks. But basically, basically I've got this whole Mariners thing today and then I've got the Huskies who are actually kind of a pretty fun team to watch this year. They look, you know, they're not going to go to the Natty, but they're like, you know, they're a competent team and they're going into Michigan and this is going to be a big nationally televised game. So I've got Friday night, I've got Saturday and I've got Sunday. There's all these big giant sporting events.

[Andrew]

For me, by the way, just to get the schedule clear here. Today's game, as we discussed, is at 3. Game 6 will be 5pm on Sunday night. So that's good for me, I will be able to watch it or bad for me. And then if it goes to a Game 7, that would be Monday, but again an evening game at least 5 o'. Clock.

[Luke]

Holy guacamole. Clear out my Carol. Hold my calls on Tuesday. I know, what is that Tuesday morning gonna look like?

[Andrew]

So that's where we are. That's where we are. But you know what, it's.

[Luke]

I know you love to make predictions. So what's your prediction for today's game?

[Andrew]

Oh, man, you do you want to know my keys to the game?

[Luke]

Ye. What are your keys to the game?

[Andrew]

Well, we gotta, we gotta get our offense to wake up. Certainly. What is my prediction? I. What's your prediction? I really don't like predictions.

[Luke]

I think we're gonna win because I think, I think that there's a reason why sweeps in a three game series. I'm talking about just like regular old season sweeps don't happen a ton because it's just like it's usually kind of hard to beat a team three games in a row because of how, how, you know, know, sort of capricious the game of baseball is. I don't know if you heard me earlier, round bat, round ball, all that. I just think that we'll probably. We looked, we looked, we looked real bad the last two games and usually. Here's what I know about baseball. In my experience, as soon as you've decided something is true, it becomes not true. So as soon as we've decided that the Mariners cannot hit, it becomes untrue or as soon as we decided the Mariners pitchers can't pitch, it becomes untrue.

[Andrew]

Oh, good. And I believe both of those things right now.

[Luke]

Good. Well, you're setting us up for a bounce back as soon as, as soon as there's any dominant narrative. Because think about after the first two games, dominant narrative was the Mariners actually have built the strongest team in MLB for the postseason. That's what people were saying and very loudly, and that the Toronto Blue Jays were incapable of coming through in the clutch. That was the story. And that so proved to not be the case. So anytime there seems like something is the obvious story, in my experience, that then goes out the window. And that means to me, I think that the Mariners are going to bounce back and play pretty well tonight.

[Andrew]

And so I think they're going to take this series. I, I will.

[Luke]

I don't know about the series, but I think we're going to win tonight.

[Andrew]

My. The only thing that I sort of have a feeling about, and again, maybe this is just me protecting my feelings. Maybe it's me just like really looking at what our team looked like the past two nights. But my guess is my, my feeling, my prediction is that the Mariners don't go on to the World Series. I don't feel like we're going to be able to salvage this, this series and I'm coming to grips with that. And I hope I'm wrong and I'm not trying to be negative, but I don't know exactly how it's going to play out, but my guess is the Blue Jays are going to probably end up getting swept by the Dodgers in the Series.

[Luke]

I mean, that's the other thing is that if we win and we get to the World Series, we then have to play the Dodgers probably. And the Dodgers are. Did they beat Milwaukee again? So they're up 3, 0.

[Andrew]

Yeah, exactly. I don't know if they're gonna lose.

[Luke]

Another three of their players are.

[Andrew]

AI.

[Luke]

I mean, that's.

[Andrew]

Right.

[Luke]

Shouldn't even be legal.

[Andrew]

Exactly.

[Luke]

So, yeah.

[Andrew]

So that's.

[Luke]

I mean, that's. Another part of this is. It's like. It's like, obviously, I would like us to still get the chance to play the Dodgers, but the Dodgers are pretty frightening team because when you have an illegal amount of money, then you can. And. And you spend it all on your team. That. That's a pretty tough team to beat. So it's like you. You know, we. I mean, it would be fun to get to the World Series because we have never done it before. I would like to say that I live to see the Mariners play in the World Series. I also do not like the idea of saying I lived to see the Mariners get swept in the World Series.

[Andrew]

Right. But, you know, I think Shohei Ohtani Beats by Dre Ad by the way, we never kind of closed the loop on that, but we did get our first.

[Luke]

I sent you a picture.

[Andrew]

Oh, you did? I don't think I got it.

[Luke]

I texted you a photo of the beats of Shohei Ohtani behind one of the Mariners in, like, the second inning of that game. That's absolutely.

[Andrew]

Huh. I wonder if that was. That was not last night's game. That was.

[Luke]

You know what, Andrew? Look at this.

[Andrew]

You didn't send.

[Luke]

No, I did. Message send failure.

[Andrew]

Oh, okay.

[Luke]

Because your phone hates texts from my phone that are pictures.

[Andrew]

I love the way your phone can't send a text and you're blaming my phone for it.

[Luke]

Okay, you know what?

[Andrew]

This is the most. This is the most iPhone user thing in the world. My phone can't send a text, and it's your phone's fault. Fault.

[Luke]

Well, is it. Do we know it's my phone's fault?

[Andrew]

I don't know. Your phone can't send texts. Mine can.

[Luke]

I mean, your phone can't get texts.

[Andrew]

Yeah, I get the ones that I need to get.

[Luke]

Yeah. Okay, good. All right, cool. Cool ending to the show. We love it. All right, thanks for listening, everybody. We got a big, exciting weekend in front of us, and I hope it goes. All right? In the meantime, have a safe weekend. I'm gonna say, go, Mariners, and hope that's not jinx, and tell you that we're back on Monday with more imaginary radio. In the meantime, please remember, no mountain.

[Andrew]

Too tall, and good luck to all. Power out.