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- [00:01]
A
What do MLB and the NFL have in common? Well, I mean, I guess a lot play clocks and ball for the purposes of this conversation. What I'm getting at is both their seasons this year open on a Wednesday. Yeah, Rogers League is just a Tuesday here or there for making like baseball and being an everyday sport.
- [00:19]
B
Now, I don't know if you like
- [00:20]
A
that, but I do like the spirit of stealing from our former national pastime and some other sports too. To punch up football a bit. Yeah, it's already great, but it could get even better. Here's a few thoughts in that direction. First, fix the lame in game punishment mechanism, AKA the yellow flag. Guys are out there committing crimes of passion and all they get is a flag thrown at them. Pretty lame. Also lame. If you commit an error in mlb they put an E up on the scoreboard. I guess that stands for eek. If you want to stop the scourge of recidivism, you need stronger deterrence. Like in basketball when there's a file they let your victim take three shots and they make you stand there like a jackass watching from just a few feet feet away. Maybe even better. The NHL has a whole box for its rules violators what Ned and that other guy in Pulp Fiction did with the gimp hockey refs due to jerks and skates. So in football, where guys have to sit in a blue tent if they get bonked on the head, it'd only be justice for the guy who did the bonking to have to go sit in a shame tent and make sure it's see through. Or maybe make him just play the rest of the game nude. No bad ideas here. Next, the English Premier League has relegation, which would be fantastic. There's never a year in which some dumb fans don't ruminate about whether college football's best team could beat the NFL's worst team. Spoiler alert. They couldn't. But if only to prove a point, let's do it. It'll be great for everyone except those poor Ohio State buck guys. I don't know how they'll rebuild their self esteem after losing to the Jets. It'll be at the last second on a field goal, but still. Next Pro football's got better players, but college football's got a better soundtrack. Soccer too, and their fans are the ones who provide that soundtrack. Why don't we do nice acapella songs, my fellow football Americans? At least we get the fight songs on Saturdays, but we need more on Sundays. There's Bear Down Chicago Bears making every play on the way to victory. And hail to the commies or whatever they call that team. And the Steelers polka, where we're from that town with a great football team. And fly Eagles, fly. But where are the rest of you at? I thought this was a copycat league. Next, the Lombardi trophy. Sleek and sty in a minimalist kind of way, I guess. But no one would debate the Stanley cup and Heisman are more iconic. And that's a problem when the NFL's by far and away our most popular sport. Why do we know who won the Heisman a decade ago but not the NFL mvp? The cool trophy with the cool name. That's why the NFL needs to do that. Pick your enduring legend. I'd say Walter Payton, but he's already got a really cool trophy. Tom Brady maybe could make it deflatable. I don't know. Let me know what you think next. Pretty much every other professional sport has a minor league system, so pro football should have one of its own. And wouldn't you know it, the CFL's just sitting there. Serendipity. Now, please don't confuse me with the crazy old guy who wants to take over the whole country. But I do think both sides of the border would ultimately be happier. And despite the short term ego blow, I know the Canadian league would ultimately be way more relevant. Come on aboard, Rough Riders. You too, Rough Riders. Can't you see? It's not that football's not already great. It's that we have a chance to make it even better. Oh, and one more thing in that regard. If baseball managers have to wear their full uniform, then NFL head coaches should have to suit up too. Show some solidarity, fellas. Let's start the show. Yes. Hi and hello, my fellow football Americans. Welcome to America, presented as ever by DraftKings. DraftKings. The Crown is yours. We've got Pablo Toure coming up. Can't wait to talk with him. Big time celebrity guy who was investigating athletic celebrities and otherwise, now a celebrity himself. Multiple Emmy nominations, all the rest of it. Excited for that. And before we do get to that, first things first. Subscribe, please, wherever you find podcasts and to our YouTube page. Football America is how you track that down on the YouTube and spread the good word. And while you're in YouTube, please, more conversation on there. I'd like to steer everything away from social media at large and specifically into the YouTube comments section so we can have a rolling back and forth. And now let's say hello to our pals, Gino and Mike. Mike and Geno. Fuentes behind the glass in Miami, Florida. It's episode number 57. So Gino Fuentes, let's get to it. The greatest player to wear the number 57 in NFL history and sports history at large.
- [04:55]
C
Okay, NFL, this is kind of an old number, really. We got a few. We got Tom Jackson, Dwight Stevenson, if we want to take it for the Dolphins. Mike. I mean, there's a few Steelers on here, but who's worth mentioning, really? Let's just move on. K Rod, the closer for the Anaheim Angels.
- [05:13]
A
I went to the World Series in ought to against the gigantics, Barry Bonds with the gigantic head and all of his teammates. Game six, that iconic one, I was there for that. And he was. He was the behind John Wetland, who was the closer. He was the eighth inning guy. And that was when that sort of emerged. That was during that air in Major League Baseball. And happy baseball season to everybody out there who. Who follows along. Yeah, with those glasses. And he was scrawny and otherwise, so he cut a distinct figure out there. And in that World Series, Barry Bonds hit the longest home run I think I've ever seen in my life, unless it was that one in hoes by Jose Canseco and Skydome. The longest one I ever saw in my life was Glen Allen Hill in Wrigley Field in the bottom of the eighth. That one is iconic on the north side of Chicago. He hit it and I don't know if it went through a window on Waveland or. Or wherever it went, but it was. It was a moon ball one way or the other. And the reason I remember that one is because. Did you guys, Gino and Mike, you ever play mound ball at Marlin's games or.
- [06:21]
C
No.
- [06:22]
A
Or elsewhere?
- [06:23]
C
Don't know what you're talking about.
- [06:25]
A
Mound ball is at the end of every half inning. Of course, once the final out is recorded, the catcher or first baseman or whoever records that out always rolls the ball back at the mound. And mound ball is. Everybody in your group anthes up a dollar or $10 or $20 or $100 or whatever you want, and everybody antes that up into a hat. And if the ball stays on the mound, because, as you may have noticed, it slopes. So the ball is disinclined to stay atop the hill. It usually will roll off, but if it stays on there, you win that money. My friends and I played that for a while at Wrigley Field. We were regulars going to Wrigley when we all lived around there, but it was a little too passive. So then we came up with home run ball, which was more dynamic. And everybody. Every batter you would put, you would ante up again, whatever, $10, $20, whatever. And then every batter, if your guy didn't hit a home run and instead made an out, yet to put a dollar into the cap, and if he was looking at a third strike, $2. And if he hit it into a double play, $2. But if he got a hit or a walk, you didn't have to put anything into the hat. And every batter, you pass the hat until somebody hits a home run. And on that one, we were in a really large group. It was. One of my friends brought like 10 other guys, and there were. There was like $1200 in it, which was a massive amount of loot. It still is a massive amount of loot for somebody who was 23. And I won all that money in one fell shot. The thing is, though, part of the deal is that if you win that money, you have to spend it on booze for everybody. So I was left with roughly $11 after I bought everybody a beer. But still, it was a. It was a memorable moment. Thank you for to my story about mound ball that turned into home run ball. And give it a try. Your next big league ball game. We need the NFL version. We need a football version of that is what I'm getting at.
- [08:20]
C
Sounds like everyone got drunk. That's. That's my read.
- [08:25]
A
We. We may have shown up. We may have shown up to the ballpark that way. Maybe we just continued going in that direction. Mike Fuentes or Gino. Did. Did my opening remarks inspire you in any direction? Do you have anything that we can steal? I just volunteered. Moun. I don't know what the NFL version of that would be, but what could we take from another sport to jazz up the NFL a little bit more?
- [08:51]
C
Okay, let me see. We got. We talked about this a little bit. Power plays from the NHL. Yeah. If you have.
- [09:01]
B
Let's say.
- [09:02]
C
Let's call it a personal foul penalty.
- [09:03]
B
That.
- [09:03]
C
That brings that up. You have a personal foul penalty. You lose a player for the rest of the drive.
- [09:08]
B
No, I don't like that.
- [09:09]
C
You don't like that one?
- [09:10]
B
No.
- [09:11]
C
Sounds fun to me.
- [09:12]
B
I do. I do like.
- [09:12]
A
You like more points. The NFL is all about how.
- [09:16]
C
I mean, you get a pass interference now.
- [09:17]
B
Yeah, but you're 11. You're gonna tap the quarterback on the face mask when you're rushing them, and it's 15 yards. So, like, we don't need anything to help them anymore. I mean, my. The Cheap one to say is. Is fighting. But I don't want to lose a guy for two minutes either, you know, so it's, it's. Even though it would be pretty epic if like an offensive lineman and a DN just throw off their helmets because you got. That's what the hockey players do. They take their helmets off, take the gloves off, and they start the ref just throwing blows.
- [09:41]
D
Yeah.
- [09:41]
B
But you know, the second they go down, that's it.
- [09:42]
C
Yeah.
- [09:42]
B
You know, the thing is, I don't think you'd be able to keep the other like gigantic people away from each other once the fists start getting thrown.
- [09:50]
A
So the idea, well, well, what it might inspire though, is much like hockey has, it has goons. Would you start? Well, I guess NFL players are all
- [09:57]
C
by definition, the entire defensive line on the other side is goons.
- [10:00]
A
I guess you already have a bunch of pugilists ready to go, right? I guess. Well, maybe you make it, Mike. Maybe that's the. The solution is you're allowed to fight, but it has to. It can only be your kickers.
- [10:12]
B
Oh no.
- [10:13]
D
What.
- [10:14]
B
What if like we take.
- [10:14]
A
They'd be good like mma because they could kick.
- [10:16]
B
Yeah, well, that. Well, how about we just take those two guys and we separate them to like a pen, like, like a squared circle off on the sideline.
- [10:23]
D
Yeah.
- [10:23]
B
So that way you don't have other guys trying to jump in, you know, and then maybe even better, you electrify the fence. There you go. Now that really keeps everybody out. It keeps these guys from doing it and that's. There you go. And then, you know, after that it's, you know, we'll say five drive. You know, it's five minutes major for fighting. We'll just say five drives. Like I can't play for five drives.
- [10:40]
C
All right, I got one. How about if. How about if you do this? Let's. You five plays soccer does here you just have a running clock the whole time. And the end of the game when the clock runs out, the referee decides an arbitrary amount of time that they can play and only he knows the amount of time that's left in the game.
- [10:55]
B
Even better, at the beginning of the season, we get every team like, like the Walter Pay a man of the year award, except everybody picks a fighter and they all go to a secret island in the middle the of Central Asia and they have a kumite. Right. And then the winner of the NFL blood sport, they automatically make the playoffs and we gotta play the season. How about that?
- [11:14]
A
Well, listen, if they're now doing. I I don't know if you saw that flag football jive, and I really am anxious to talk with Pablo about that and who it benefits if they, if, if they can now. And the league has signed off on them running around out there and, you know, they literally were getting knocked down to the ground and everything. You couldn't do the old Superstars competition, a decathlon of actually popular sports, like, you know, 50 yard dash and closest to the pen. And, you know, I've long wanted to do this with my friends. I just am too lazy to actually organize it. But they used to have on TV the Superstars competition. There was an obstacle course and a bike race and everything else. We could have all of that. And fighting can be one of the events. Let's not just have it be MMA or pugilism. But that is just one of the 10 or 12 events. We have this a. Just a little. A little pow wow here. And look at how we've just improved football. I hope Roger Goodell. I trust Roger Goodell is listening. Before we get to Pablo, a couple other things I've been thinking about. I'm. This isn't a new thought for me. I don't understand why we call pants pants, as in plural, when it's only one item of clothing. I understand there are two pant legs, but you get the pluralization when you say two pant legs, much as you do when you say two shirt sleeves. They're shirt sleeves because there are two of them. But it's a shirt, you understand? Why is it. Why isn't. Give me my pant. I want my pant. I need to put on my pants so I can go, why would I put on pants? That implies I'm putting on two things, doesn't it? And when you pull on your pants, what do they cover up? They cover up your butt. So if we're gonna pluralize what's covering your butt, why aren't we pluralizing?
- [13:05]
B
Well, technically. Technically, they also cover up your balls, all right? Which is plural. So you chose to go.
- [13:13]
A
And that's my point.
- [13:15]
B
But there's two butt cheeks as well. There are two butts, two butt cheeks and two balls.
- [13:20]
A
It's one butt. And so, But. Right, but we, I think we accept as a society, and we did long ago, that your butt is your butt. But in fact, they're really two of them. They're side by side. They're two.
- [13:33]
C
No, the two cheeks make a butt, just like the two balls make a sack.
- [13:36]
B
Make a ball. Sack. Correct. And the sack is one but you need two.
- [13:39]
A
Okay, well then how come two pant legs don't make a pant about that?
- [13:46]
C
And no, I don't.
- [13:47]
B
I've never thought about that, actually.
- [13:50]
A
Actually, balls equal nuts, but I'm not talking about those kind of nuts. Another thing, I was thinking about the other, because I enjoy nuts, the kind that you eat, and I enjoy the deluxe pack. Except what I don't like is the sucker nut, the big one. I forget what it's called every time I ever think about it.
- [14:10]
D
Sucker want to honor.
- [14:12]
A
I don't want to honor it by knowing its real name, but it's the big one. And it consumes like two thirds of the can of nuts, and they call them deluxe nuts. And you think like, well, I'm fancy, I'm going to get those. Because it has pistachios and cashews and almonds, along with peanuts, but it also comes with that gigantic. That, that big sucker nut in there that, that nobody wants. It has no taste. It. All its value is to the nut makers is that it consumes the whole thing and you got to pay for it. And it comes along with all the other nuts, and so they just throw them all in there. I can't think of what that dang nut's called, but I don't want to know what it's called. But I. I'm not going to eat them. But anyway, whether you're eating the deluxe nuts or you're eating peanuts or almonds or cashews or shame the devil, the sucke, what they have in common is they're all a snack item. But they're the worst snack item, bar none, to eat with a sandwich. How say you? Right? Like, is it really properly a snack item if it can't ride shotgun with your sandwich?
- [15:14]
B
I don't know. I. I wouldn't. Like, I consider cookies a snack, but I wouldn't have it with a side of.
- [15:19]
A
Sandwiches aren't a snack, they're a treat.
- [15:21]
B
Okay, now that's semantics. All right? What did Pablo say?
- [15:26]
A
What do you mean, what did.
- [15:26]
B
Those are just. Those are just semantics. Those are semantics. Get to the Pablo interview. This is semantics. Oh, they're not a. They're not a snack, they're a treat. What sense that treats anything. I want it to be.
- [15:38]
A
What, what are you, you, you, you. You on the payroll? A big nut here or something? My point is that you wouldn't. It can't be a snack item.
- [15:47]
B
Sometimes I treat myself with a big nut, if you know what I'm saying.
- [15:50]
A
Well, I Don't know why we're working blue here. I'm trying to have a nice conversation with you about something important, and you have to turn it into something ugly. All right, I'll leave that. I just think. I like. I like what you got going.
- [16:05]
B
No, because you just. You just want. You just want nuts to be chips. That's all you want. You just want nuts to be chips, and they're not. Okay, we get it. Nuts are not chips. Awesome.
- [16:11]
A
No, I don't.
- [16:12]
B
Nuts are not French fries. We got it.
- [16:14]
A
All right. I enjoy it. I enjoy a nice pretzel with my sandwich sometimes.
- [16:17]
B
No, you don't. That's a lot. That's a lie. That's a lie.
- [16:20]
A
How dare you, sir?
- [16:21]
B
Oh, but you're thinking. You're thinking, like. You're thinking of, like, hard little pretzels, not big, soft pretzel.
- [16:25]
D
That's why he's.
- [16:25]
B
Okay, I get you.
- [16:26]
A
I don't need a soft.
- [16:28]
B
These are. These are all bar snacks. Bowl of pretzels, bowl of nuts with the beer. That's it. I don't even know my sandwich.
- [16:33]
A
A soft pretzel is its own thing that you get at the ball.
- [16:36]
B
Yes, but the hard pretzels. What's the name of the pretzel that comes in the bag?
- [16:40]
A
A hard pretzel? Yeah.
- [16:42]
C
You had the first time. Yeah.
- [16:43]
B
What's it called?
- [16:43]
C
It's a hard pretzel.
- [16:44]
B
No, I know, but what's the name of the brand? Like, what's the most famous brand of this?
- [16:47]
C
I don't know what they're called.
- [16:48]
D
Wow.
- [16:48]
B
They didn't pay for advertising on the show.
- [16:50]
A
Anyway, there's Snyders of Berlin, and then there's Snyders of the other one. And I can't think of what that one is, but why? I mean, of all the pretzels. Of all the people, all the surnames on the planet Earth, two pretzel makers, both named Snyder, have the two most popular pretzels in the world. That's fascinating. And I think that's a good thing for Pablo to investigate. Maybe we should get to him right now. But instead, let me tell you this, or ask you guys what you think about this. My sister Debbie sent me a meme. And it was. It was a. It was a. Like a hypothetical, and it was, you get $1 billion if you can call somebody in your. In your list of contacts and they don't answer. If you call that number right now and they don't answer, you win a million dollars. Who would you call? And she said, I would call you David. And I said, wrong. That's that. I said, you're wrong. Because I've conditioned you through decades of hard work of. Of forcing you to live my way. I'm not going to live in your world. You're going to live in mine. Everybody in the family now knows, don't call Dave on the phone. He's not going to answer. But that means when you do call me, it's got to be an emergency. Someone must have kicked. So I do answer when I see your name. So if you did call me, I would answer and you would win a billion dollars. And I would say, who died when you answered the phone? And then you would say, nobody. In fact, I'm a billionaire. And I would say, can I borrow some money? That's how that conversation would go. So she's a dope. And now I hope she doesn't call me because she doesn't deserve a billion dollars for her lack of faith. How say you guys?
- [18:34]
C
But wouldn't you be more upset that you picked up? Because then she wouldn't be a billionaire.
- [18:39]
A
Oh, right. She wouldn't win the billion if I
- [18:41]
C
picked up, so then she'd be upset at you two for picking up. That's what she can't win.
- [18:45]
B
This is a loose situation.
- [18:47]
C
She just cooked.
- [18:48]
A
Yeah. All right. Go eat some nuts, Mike Fuentes. Here we go. Let's get the Pablo. Tori. Hey, my fellow football Americans, a quick break in the action to ask this question. Are you counting down the days until payday like your old pal Dave is? Instacash from Moneyline can help you access up to $500 of your hard earned pay early. There's no interest, no credit check, and no monthly fees, so you can manage those in between expenses with a lot less stress. Download the Moneyline app and link your qualifying bank account to see what you qualify for. Moneyline make money easy. Instacash is subject to terms and eligibility requirements. Expedited delivery requires a turbo fee. See moneyline.com oh, time to get fancy, everybody. We have a three time Emmy nominee with us. By the way, congratulations. Muzzle Tov. All the rest of it to everybody associated with the great show. Pablo Torre finds out. Our pals Bailey and Randy and David and Amin and Matt and everybody else who works on the show. Good for all of you guys. And now the guy whose name is actually a part of that show, it's Pablo Torrey. Congratulations to you. How are you, man? Thanks for the time, dude.
- [20:04]
D
Thank you for already being better at incorporating this thing. Into my own resume. I have yet to break out that. That honorific. And now I will do so without fail, multiple times during this program as a three time Emmy nominee. Thank you.
- [20:19]
A
Well, first things first, Pablo, have you considered if you do win one, let's just say one. Let's not get greedy. You get one. Have you considered how you'll handle your acceptance speech?
- [20:32]
D
You know, I. There's a sincere answer which I'll give you, which is that our staff is. No, we're, we're so. We're so. We're so overworked and tired that I will genuinely thank everybody for being terrible parents and husbands and wives in order for us to drink from the chalice of external validation. That is the first response that I will have. And the second thing is that I will abide by the lesson of Tony Kornheiser, who keeps his sports Emmys, as he has told me numerous times in his bathroom. And so I aspire to do both of those things with no guarantee, of course, that either of those things will be. Will be presented to me. But it is, it is, it is a delight to contemplate.
- [21:14]
A
I've had the occasion to provide counsel. No one's taken it. I haven't been an Army Emmy nominee myself directly, but I, I'd like to think that I would actually do this. That if I won an Oscar, an Emmy or any, I would throw a big party for everybody who helped get me there and thank them one by one, sincerely. But I would use my limited time to call out everybody who ever doubted me.
- [21:37]
D
Oh, that's a good idea.
- [21:38]
A
Great use of your time. And you can do it, right? If I can trial run right now. If you'd like to.
- [21:43]
D
If. If I. I would like to. Also on the guy that Michael Jordan invented as the reason he's good at basketball, that, like, JV basketball player who was just like, at home being like, what? Why am I being criticized at the basketball hall of Fame induction for the greatest athlete of all time? What did I do? I need to invent someone. I need to invent someone so I can be mad at them and then in a turn of events that is surprising to everybody, start weeping and become immortalized as a meme. I need to do these things in the honor of the greatest ever.
- [22:17]
A
Dude, you have a little bit of time to get your ducks in a row.
- [22:21]
D
This is good workshopping, though.
- [22:22]
A
Yeah. The. I mean, you're talking with senators about prediction markets now on the show. It was a banner episode or in fact series about the NFLPA ongoing. The 18 week schedule seems like it's all but a certainty and sooner rather than later, all the other great work. As we jump into that, though I mentioned at the top of the show, I feel like your work has coincidentally or ironically propelled you into being a celebrity yourself. You're talking to all the big shots and now you're one yourself. So I think it warrants treating you that way. If you remember, Inside the Actor Studio, James Lipton used to wrap it up with that questionnaire from Bernard Pivot. I think I'm going to give Pablo the Bernard Pivot question.
- [23:09]
D
Do you have a stack? You don't have any blue index cards, though? Mercifully, no. You don't have like the Liptonian just like stack.
- [23:18]
A
This voice, this voice limits my ability to do impressions. I wish I could do a James Lipton, but I'm not going to even try it here.
- [23:25]
D
Pablo, the best.
- [23:26]
A
What's your favorite word?
- [23:29]
D
God, you know, my, my, my actual, my favorite word, Dave, is journalism. And allow me to gag on my own vomit by embodying the parody of myself that I have become. There's, there's, I mean, I'll give you a word that, that I, that I do think of in times like this. I'm in New York, you're not. And the word apricity. The word apricity refers to the warmth of sun in winter walking around. Remember what it was like on the East Coast. It's cold, brutal character building, actually. And then the sun will peek out and a ray of sunshine will catch your face. And despite the frigidity, you will think to yourself a pricity, warmth possible despite all of these horrific conditions. And that's what it's like to do journalism. And. Sorry, sorry.
- [24:40]
A
You didn't even have to check one of your extra cell phones that you keep in front of you even while you're doing shows and otherwise. Like real journalists these days do a pricity. I like that one quite a bit. What's your least favorite word?
- [24:53]
D
Oh, gosh. Oh, man. So this is the, the real answer is like. Yeah, I guess it is. It is a word. I can hyphenate it. This is my staff. I, I, I become a tiger parent to my staff, meaning that I am the immigrant parent who abuses them. If we don't get an A and B plus, B plus stave. Just not good enough. Just not, not up to our standards. It's like, you know, we think we're good, but you're not. You're lying to yourself. That's enough. B plus is my least favorite word, actually. Thank you for asking.
- [25:35]
A
Motivational. I love it. This also makes me think that if James Lipton were doing this, this. Your answers are too long for the.
- [25:43]
D
Yeah.
- [25:45]
A
Questionnaire.
- [25:46]
D
Poorly.
- [25:46]
A
You. Like, if you were an actor and I were James Lipton, we would not even have time left over to discuss why got into the craft of acting. Like, you know, Bobby De Niro. You know, Was I nervous when I met Robert De Niro? Sure I was. But, you know, Bob is such a generous partner doing scene work. It's why I got it, you know, like. But we're not gonna have time for any of that.
- [26:09]
D
Yeah.
- [26:10]
A
Very quickly, I did. We just had a little debate here, and it got sideways. Before you joined us, Mike Fuentes said that his favorite snack is a cookie, but a cookie's not a snack.
- [26:21]
B
When did I say my favorite snack was a cookie? I never said that. I never said it.
- [26:26]
C
No, no.
- [26:26]
B
I never said it was favorite. I said you don't have cookies with a sandwich. That's all I said. You don't. You don't eat cookies with a sandwich. That's all I said.
- [26:32]
D
Well, nobody in the history of the
- [26:33]
B
world has had a Philadelphia cheesesteak with a side of cookies.
- [26:35]
D
No one.
- [26:35]
B
No one does that.
- [26:36]
A
But I said that you can't. But I said nuts are a snack food, but they, but they can't ride shotgun with a sandwich. What does that have to do with anything properly? Well, because then you brought up that cookies are a snack and they're not.
- [26:48]
B
So. So, but, but what you're saying is that I can never have a snack unless I have a sandwich with it because I'm never having a snack unless it comes with a sandwich. That's basically what you said. Said that makes no sense.
- [26:57]
A
I mean, I think the association with what a snack is is that it rides shotgun. 2. It's. It. It's the one that's a side.
- [27:06]
B
That's. That's a side. That's a side. If I go to a restaurant, I get a sandwich, I get something on the side. It's a side. It's not a snack.
- [27:13]
A
Listen, I'll get. I'll do the pivot questionnaire with you. Once Pablo moves on to something else, can I please speak with the guests again? Is. Do you agree that a nut. Is that. That's a shortcoming of the snack food item called a nut.
- [27:27]
D
Pablo, you're asking me, are cookies snacks and are nuts snacks? Those are. That's a double barrel proposition. Or what do You.
- [27:36]
A
I guess so. Well, because a cookie is not a dessert, and I think people would call it that, but it's not that either. It's a treat.
- [27:43]
D
I. My constitutional standard is very simple. It's what's in a lunchable. You familiar with lunchables?
- [27:52]
A
Sure I am, of course. Yeah.
- [27:53]
D
There's, there's, there's, there's a, there's a cookie in that thing. They give you a cookie. I'm going, I'm, I'm saying cookie, snack, cookie, snack, nut. I'm not seeing in lunchables. Not seeing that in a lunchable.
- [28:13]
B
Oh, that didn't work out the way you thought it was going to. Dave,
- [28:17]
A
I'm thrilled for you. Enjoy, Enjoy. Hey, Pablo, here's the thing I've noticed is that everybody, you know, if they are on the wrong side of some of your investigations or their supporters of teams or individuals or otherwise. It seems like I see on your social media feed a lot of people coming at you like you hate sports. And I'm sure that's not the case because it also bleeds through in almost every conversation that I hear you have and they're always record. It's not like I'm eavesdropping on your private conversations just to make.
- [28:53]
D
That wouldn't be alone.
- [28:54]
A
It's essentially like it seems to me that you don't just enjoy sports, but you are in fact a die hard sports fan. True.
- [29:03]
D
I, it's, it's, it's funny for this to be my PR challenge. Do I love sports enough? Guy who's only professionally worked in sports. It'd be a very funny bit of self loathing if I hated sports, but immediately only did sports for money. Yeah, man. Like I, my origin story as a human in, in all of the ways that I guess are increasingly a thing that I should take pride in. Like, yeah, I was like radicalized by like the 92 Dream Team. David Stern is responsible on some level. Like his, his whole, his, his psyop worked. I grew up writing down statistics into little notebooks. I grew up learning about the Dream Team as if they were superheroes. I grew up a sad parallel fan of the New York Knicks while also weirdly having that whole thing of like, I do think Michael Jordan is man though I'm wearing a, I'm wearing my. It's opening. I mean the Yankees blew out the Giants. I am wearing my Yankees jersey right now. It's my 55 Matsui. Because we're also doing an investigation into him, which I should not spoil any further but like, I love, I love the New York Yankees, despite it all. Yeah, I, I don't, I don't know how to credibly convince people who wonder whether I really like sports. I don't know how to do that without showing them, like the, the actual cardboard boxes in my parents apartment of all of the cards I've collected, which are, again, pathetic. But real.
- [30:51]
A
Very, very, very real. So, yeah, I think that's fantastic. And, you know, I'm at the. Pretty much at the other end of the spectrum, which is people challenge whether or not I know anything because I like to jag around and I'm such a homer, but I think the conclusion is the same. What I think and what I want are two different things. As long as you can figure out where that line is, I think you're in good shape. Yes, my heart would, Would love for certain events to happen on the fields of play. Doesn't mean I think they're going to happen.
- [31:26]
D
Look, my thing, as a matter of can you love something but also criticize it and investigate it and make the people who do it hate you is, is I don't want to go like, you need me on that wall here. But just generally, I, I just have felt more like a guy who believes in the sappy motivational speech a coach gives in a locker room. As time has gone on, I, I actually, I, I am like, yes, sports should be a place where, like, fair play matters and the rules matter, and I don't know, it's just like, yeah, I actually do feel that now. And so my version of sports that I love is a different burden from yours. I am, I am the guy who's like, can we just get it to be the version of sports where people aren't, like, corrupting it and therefore ruining my childhood retroactively? I would like to not have wasted all of this time.
- [32:23]
A
That's great. And by the way, that would be an interesting investigation. At what point in recorded history did motivational speeches in the locker rooms largely stop working? Because that's a 20th, 20th century method. And Bill Belichick, do your job. Just listen to what I'm telling you. Don't go outside anything that I'm telling you. Just do this one thing for 60 Minutes and we'll win. That's the winning message. The, the Marty Schottenheimers of the world. Like, there's a gleam, man. This is your one opportunity, and for the rest of your life, you'll treasure this moment if you get it right. Too much pressure, Coach. We're already.
- [32:59]
D
We're.
- [32:59]
A
We already know the stakes, man. Now. Now you're. What do you feel? The weight of the world.
- [33:03]
D
What do you mean? The inches we need are everywhere around us. What do you mean? You got plenty. You want more inches,
- [33:16]
A
You know, in the age of free agency and all the rest of it and the. How much a specific jersey costs to get a player's name on the back of it, you don't want to make mistakes because that guy could leave town five months later, and now you're left holding this jersey with nothing to do with it. So let's say you're on a tight budget. You can only get one or two or three of the best New York specific jerseys, which are the ones that you want as a New York City sports fan. And I will also ask you to name the 1, 2, 3 that you definitely don't want. This is a. This is probably the biggest. I mean, I. By definition, the biggest list available to any sports town is New York City.
- [34:00]
D
Right? So you're saying if I. If I can only afford three jerseys to honor my. My. My metal stand of New York athletes, and then the opposite. Okay, so number one, I mean, one of them I'm wearing. So let's just say for the sake of consistency, that I do care about Matsui so much that he deserves to be on that.
- [34:21]
A
Great.
- [34:22]
D
I'm going Charles Oakley, man. I'm going Charles Oakley. I love a guy. So briefly, Oakley, the patron saint of the security guard being evicted from the Garden by Jim Dolan's security guards. How heartbreaking must that have been for, like, the security guards to apprehended Oakley to have, like, a single tear in my. This is how I imagine it. A single tear rolling down their cheek as they must throw out their favorite human. And so I will honor Charles Oakley in that regard.
- [34:53]
A
Good thing he went peacefully, too, right? I mean, I wonder how many security guards it could have. It might have taken.
- [35:01]
D
Yeah, exactly, man. And then I'm going, look, and I own this. Literally 17. I want. I want the Jeremy Lynn. The most fun I ever had as a New York sports fan, despite many, many World Series, was linsanity. And I still. I still have a Jeremy Lynn jersey. It is the most compromised I've ever been journalistically, was covering Jeremy Lynn for Sports Illustrated, despite him being also an Asian American Harvard graduate who had talked to me before he became a person that tabloids were rumoring might date Kim Kardashian, which was an actual thing. Stunningly, that we should all remember that the New York Post once reported. Then the bottom three. Oh, boy.
- [35:47]
A
Because I think that again, from 3,000 literal miles away, it's easy for me to say LT56, a Jeter 2. I would say Rangers. Brian Leach, too. Not Mark Messier. He. You know, he was a. A carpet bagger. Brian Leach was your own. You want him?
- [36:07]
D
Oh, sure.
- [36:08]
A
Clyde Frazier. Mookie. Well, not for a Yankees fan, you understand, But I.
- [36:14]
D
So, so, yeah. And I. Look, I. I have a different criteria for what I choose to enshrine, but like Benny Agbayani, the Hawaiian Punch Mets outfielder, I've been claiming him as Filipino. Even if he's not for years. He deserves consideration as well. Gosh, I remember being woken up by my parents to be like, hey, the Rangers, they're winning the Stanley cup in 94. And me being, like, kind of into hockey, but not really and being like, oh, cool, Mark Messier.
- [36:42]
B
That's why they.
- [36:43]
D
For that reason. Yeah. But honestly, like, if you just name some guys where it's like, like, could I be caught dead wearing an LT jersey in 2026? No. Daryl Strawberry, who we. We tried to book on the show recently because we want to do an episode. We did an episode and wanted him to be a character in it about people who've been pardoned by President Donald Trump. He promised an interview. Never delivered on it. Hard for me to wear a Strawberry jersey for the reasons aforementioned. It's.
- [37:15]
A
When Daryl Strawberry comes up. Could you believe you're in New York City at the time while you're a little kid, obviously. But if anybody would have tapped you on the shoulder and say, hey, by the way, you know Dwight Gooden and Daryl Strawberry, the two. The twin stars of the Metropolitans in 1988. If somebody said this to you, neither one of them is going to the hall of Fame. You would never believe it, dude.
- [37:36]
D
I was looking back at Darryl Strawberry's baseball reference, like, hall of Fame resume, and was. Was still stunned to be like, oh, he's not even close. Like, not even close. Like, in my mind, I'm still like, this was the greatest young hitter in Major League Baseball. And he was. And then everything, of course, happened. That explains why you won't take my call at this point. Chris Dudley is my third. I'm sorry, man. You got a ball thrown at you by Shaquille o' Neill after he's. He's. You're dunked on by Shaq. You throw the ball at Shaq. Afterwards, you go to Yale, you run for Senate. It's horrible. I'm Sorry for letting the, the world, the real world, inflect my choices for like the three least favorite jerseys I would ever purchase. But it's hard for me to not look at those three guys and be like, what are we doing? What are we doing, man?
- [38:28]
A
Fascinating. Fascinating stuff from you there. Did you hear about the team that it was in last place and. And stayed there and then their star player ran into the wall and he died right out on the field. But then he was replaced by this reserve guy, mysterious 35 years of age he was. And he came out of no mysterious circumstances. And one of your peers older than you, Max Mercy, somehow never could get to the bottom of this until deep into the season. It was a crazy season, by the way, because the owner of that same baseball team, New York Baseball, was gambling against his team, which is a no, no, you're not allowed to do all that. And by the way, I should mention it turns out once Mercy did get to the bottom of this scandal that the guy who came from nowhere actually got shot by a random woman who didn't like athletes for some reason and so she shot him. Do you. Do you know about this? Would you wear a Hobbs number nine?
- [39:33]
D
Yeah, I was going to say I feel like Roy Hobbs is a person I would have investigated if I was a ra.
- [39:40]
A
Yes.
- [39:40]
D
Sorry. Doesn't quite. Doesn't quite add up. How natural are you, sir?
- [39:45]
A
That's right.
- [39:45]
D
I. I have. I have like let's. Let's talk about Wonder Boy. Let's talk about it. We get some tests. Let's test that wood.
- [39:53]
A
Wonder Boy cracks in the critical moment, as I don't have to tell you. And then he says. He says, go. Go pick me out a winner. Billy or Tommy or Billy. Billy, Billy, Tommy, Billy, Johnny, Jim, Jimmy. Go pick me out a winner. And the kid goes over grabs the Savoy Special. We're allowed to do that in the bottom of the night. You're allowed to just go grab a bat and then throw it in there. The ump has no questions about this.
- [40:19]
D
Just. Just as there was literally a character in Deflategate whose name internally with the Patriots was the Def. Sorry, it was. No, it was the deflator. So too. Is. Is that kit like. Like that? That. That's okay. Sure. Let's not ask questions about what he's up to.
- [40:37]
A
The Savoy Special hit. That's the. That's the home run bat. Priceless. Another movie. I was thinking about some of these things that would be fictional sports stuff, but that would be great. Pablo Investigations would be. Did you see the game the other night with the star receiver. He made his ninth catch of the game in the end zone to essentially seal the game before the nation. But when he caught the ball, he got knocked cold on the field and then he lay prone for not. Not. He wasn't out like, tua for like 3, 4 seconds. Then like, woke up and like, whoa, what happened? Kind of thing. He was out cold for a minute on the field and the doctors and everybody are out there. Then they finally wake him up and he starts dancing because he's got presumably some serious head trauma. He doesn't know what's going on, he doesn't know where he is. And then he conducts interviews and is hugging his agent. They don't take him to the hospital, they don't do anything with him. Like, just dance away there, fella. That's a great investigation for Jerry Maguire's top client. Right?
- [41:43]
D
Look, Rod Tidwell. I was, I was. The other day I was like, is this, like, did Michael Irvin sue over this? Like, did he have, like, did he have an objection to, like. That's clearly based on, like, me, this character in all of his, like, general aesthetic and vibe, but yeah, I would like Will Smith's Dr. Bennett Omalu to have to interview Jerry Maguire over how scene.
- [42:13]
A
Wait, wait. We want. We want this to feel real, everybody. So we're gonna break the third act climax here. We. He does have to get tested, you know, he has to go to the blue tent.
- [42:24]
D
That's right. And then years later, his brain gets donated and researchers have to thin slice it for tau, the protein that contains traces of chronic traumatic encephalopathy. Yeah, it's a dark. You know what? I get why they did it that way. Honestly, it's probably best that they didn't go that direction, box office wise.
- [42:43]
A
Just a couple more things for you. Back to reality here. I don't want to get up on Mount Pius about this, but can you explain to me what went on in Los Angeles with the flag football thing? I understand that. I understand that Prince Bonesaw man and Tom Brady made out, but. But sincerely, what it. Why I get that the Olympics are going to happen in two years, and so on that level, like, showing the world what it looks like, I guess, kind of thing. But why otherwise should normal people be watching this?
- [43:21]
D
You know, I was watching the war in Iran and thinking to myself, how will this affect the flag football contest that fanatics is putting on with Tom Brady in Saudi Arabia? And lo and behold, lo and behold, it got you got relocated.
- [43:36]
A
I mean.
- [43:37]
D
Yeah, exactly. We could talk about insider trading on Polymarket all you want and Kalshi, but really the tell happens to be that you had the stars of the NFL competing against a bunch of dudes who just clearly, I don't know, were willing to do things that tested their ligament strength way more. We're living in this era in which the greatest, most powerful, most valuable thing is sports rights. And so the notion that you can sort of like shoot some ladders your way to being a new popular sport using the existing popular, well paid, very famous human beings that play the most popular sport already and all you got to do is call it flag football. Feels like a real. It feels like, it feels like a shark tank idea. Like you say you want more sports in America. Well, what if I told you Sharks that I'm gonna give you football but not will there be Tom Brady? Well, yes, for the first one, you know, it's just like again. And then it goes from there. It's, it's. I get it. I get why they're trying it. Why should you care about it? I think the, the question will be when Tom Brady and Joe Burrow and all these. And Odell Beckham Jr. Who's just like, you know, whatever. You could, you could do one handed catches in the end zone. If it's like football. I guess you could, you could persuade an audience that this is, this is football. Just try doing it though without the
- [45:05]
A
guys who you recognize in a weak way though, right. That it. By, by that logic though, it would have been better than for the NFL guys to whip the guys who are nominally flag football player, professional flag football players because it undermines that. It's football. If these randos can whip our.
- [45:26]
D
Yeah.
- [45:27]
A
Heroes.
- [45:28]
D
I agree, I agree. I. It's like if the NBA had its all NBA first team play slam ball. Well actually, no, that now I'm, now I'm already convinced that that's a good idea. I would want to watch that. And I do think the slam ball pros would defeat them now that I think about it.
- [45:49]
A
You know, I did color analysis on, on slam ball way back.
- [45:52]
D
Wait, is that right?
- [45:53]
A
Yeah, that's true.
- [45:54]
D
Is that right?
- [45:54]
A
That is true.
- [45:56]
D
Oh my God. How many, how many concussions did you see in your announcing career in that sport?
- [46:02]
A
I must be some kind of a cynic because. Well, I am some sort of a cynic as it turns out. I'm just, I don't know if I'm going to be on the front line of, of flag Football. I'm going to have to wait 18 months and see how it goes before I, before I buy in. Time is precious. Speaking of which, only a couple more here for you. What would happen for real, from as far as you can tell, what would happen if. And if Spain and let's say Brazil or maybe Mexico or some combo of those just said we're not coming to the World cup, we don't like the looks of things there. We're making a statement here. We are actually concerned about our athletes, or rather we're, you know, esprit de corps. We're not showing up because of the way you're treating brown people around, around the globe. What would happen happen?
- [46:54]
D
I mean, look at the group that the United States got that was not accidentally, I think, engineered by FIFA. We would so immediately, in the United States, at the direction of the most powerful people in our country, immediately not give a shit and proclaim that we were in fact the one true champions, if that's the way it would have to go.
- [47:17]
A
So it was. So you think it would bend to the US's? What great news.
- [47:22]
D
What great news. The actual good teams are. I mean, again, I'm not saying that they did the war in Iran to move black football to la. I'm not saying that ICE is killing American citizens so that we could discourage other actual powers in soccer to not show up to the World Cup. I'm just saying a bit of a convenient outcome. A bit of a convenient outcome from. For the US and A.
- [47:46]
A
You know, it really does seem, though maybe you're right. I mean, it feels to me like they have actual leverage and could actually change, you know, what's happening politically by, by making threats like that. That would be such a black eye. Or maybe, maybe you're right. Speaking of powerful institutions against individuals, the Baltimore Ravens did what they did with Trey Hendrickson and it stinks. And everybody knows what happened and everybody just kind of toes the line. But so long as we're going to allow it to happen and you're going to accept bogus, easy to see through excuses, what's to stop someone like Malik Willis serving as this generation's Curt Flood and saying, well, things have changed in Miami since I signed there. Yeah, that, that deal that I was sold a bad bill of goods there, so I don't have to go there. I'm reopening my free agent agency.
- [48:47]
D
Yeah, I like the era of backseats. Yeah. Sports has entered into. You thought it was no backsies. Surprise. It's backsies. Like I, I The whole thing around. How do you get out of this? You know, it's. It's the. It's the medical tent, but in a contractual sense, like, what's happening on those tests? What are you seeing? Who gets to pull the trigger based on that? Can you. Why is it. Why can't the player medically test the owner and be like, whoa, whoa, you think you have problems with my. With my degenerative knee condition? I just ran a DNA test on you, and you carry the biomarker for Alzheimer's. What the hell? I have to work for you now?
- [49:40]
A
That's exactly. I mean, but for real, like, hey, gm, like, you know, I. I think your process of building a football team seems degenerative or at least kicking it down the road by a year. I wasn't clear on that. So now I'm not showing up, and who's to say, well, that's. That. That. That's bogus. You're exactly right. When it's a subjective thing that the Raven say his knees no good. I mean, obviously, it's out in the open. It's. It's. It's just nonsense because. Seems like he's going to play for the Raiders just fine this year. So if team by team can assess medical conditions and say, not high enough, not. Not good enough for us, then what are we doing? Why can't players do the same?
- [50:18]
D
I think that we're. Unfortunately, we're. As much as. We just attempted to be, like, a better advocate for labor rights than perhaps the actual NFLPA at this moment, as much as we just tried to do that, I do think this probably just directionally brings us to yet another televised special. Like, it's not the combine, but it's just like, medical tests. Like, we're. We're now going to watch the scope of Max Crosby's knee. It's going to be a subscription product on ESPN plus. You can pay for it. And I demand to see those MRIs. And now I could get them for the low price of 999amonth, in addition to my, you know, regular NFL premium pack package.
- [51:03]
A
Oh, Score scored with some of that great NFL film Sam Spence era music as the probe is going through the knee. This is gonna be great.
- [51:14]
D
That's right. You're gonna get. You're gonna get rich. Eisen also getting, like, one of those, like, those snake cameras entered into his body in solidarity as a guy who's running the 40 like the players. Yeah, exactly.
- [51:30]
A
As far as the NFL PA thing, it really. I mean, I encourage Everybody to go check it out and how it. I guess that's the last question for you. You know, first of all, it seems from a distance to me that Dominique Foxworth just, you know, make made better sense, if only because of what Pablo Torre and company uncovered with J.C. treader and J.C. treader steps. I mean it was cleaner to go in a different direction, but I completely understand the explanation that you provide for it. But I guess bottom line is how does this impact things for this, for the football fan? What, what is the, what is the long and short of it?
- [52:10]
D
Yeah. So my main political position in sports and in politics is competition is good. It is. If you have a really powerful entity that just gets decide whatever it is that they want and they make it happen because there is no competition, there's no countervailing force. The product you get is worse. Think about it. In every realm of your life, you don't want to just buy one thing that only one company can sell you. You'd like competition to create pressure to make that really good. And the NFL, of course, which is itself the 1 distributor of NFL games, the only competition provided is really from the players union. And so if you're a fan who's like, you know what? I love football and I in fact love the fact that football is in some sense scarce. It's events, it's a thing you need to appreciate because you only get it so often. And therefore I don't want an 18th game or a 19th game or a 20th game. I don't want, want to make, I don't want to continue to force the Jacksonville Jaguars into the throats of every foreign country. We don't need more international games like why are we doing this? This is not making the product better. I want the product to be better. If the NFLPA is not led by credible people who are not immediately, immediately seen by the league office as the greatest gift they can receive because they're pushovers, because they are more concerned with self enrichment than they are with actually checking the NFL on its fundamentally unchecked desires, then the product of football will get worse. And, and the thing about the nflpa, I can just summarize it very simply. The last regime was the most corrupt regime, I think in the history of sports unions, let alone the nflpa. And in fact in labor unions across America throughout our history, corruption has been one of the biggest problems in all walks of life in all industries. And so coming out of that context, you would think that this union, which needs to be a check on Roger Goodell and the owners, the multi gazillionaires, you would think that their number one concern would be, let's just make sure we get a guy who demonstrates a commitment to calling out and preempting corruption when it arrives, ideally before it arrives. Instead, they got in JC Tretter, the guy who installed the most corrupt executive director in the history of sports unions and then sat as his number two under a new created job and watched all of this happened and didn't resign until after that guy was forced to reside. And so it's when you went, oh, you went the opposite way with the corruption problem and therefore the product of football degrades because no one believes you're credible at checking your own institution's self interest.
- [55:17]
A
Wow. You know, I. The scarcity argument I definitely believe in. To go back to the first point you made there, you know, death is the mother of beauty and all that. The thing that makes it tough. Except that all the other player unions seem to do a better job of it pretty consistently. And this includes going back to Gene Upshaw. Not to take shots at people now pretty far down the line. But, you know, it's pretty consistent how lousy the NFL PA has been. And there is something to that. But it should exist more in all sports. They cannot transcend that, that the owners are the team brand and players have leverage up until they stop doing what's best for the brand so they can hold out the day after the season ends. And like, he deserves his money, that guy. Why isn't the team paying him? But once it gets to be late August, like, he still isn't there, like, man, he's going to make our team not as good for these next three months. That's the ultimate leverage. But a guy who is already aligned with the owners is never going to, is never going to fill in that gap. It just is so obvious to me that, right, what it does is mirror so much of what we see in American politics the last few years.
- [56:39]
D
Yeah, look, it's a blowout. It's a historical blowout that continues to go on and on and on. And look, you talk to Dominique or talk to anybody who really has studied unions and is a true believer in the premise of them. In brief, the only thing you can really do is credibly threaten to organize your workforce to not work. That's the real check on, on, on these owners on the league office. And if the owners don't believe you, then you got no shot. And so if nothing else, the league, Roger Goodell, these owners who I want to be checked so that the product can be better. They're looking at the NFLPA and they are laughing because this league is watching its only check effectively eat itself. And in that regard, it's like, yeah, good luck organizing you guys to sacrifice anything, because self interest seems to be the number one goal at the very top.
- [57:42]
A
Well, magnificent stuff. Congratulations again on the multiple Emmy nominations. Hopefully now you'll go on your way and start figuring out an acceptance speech. Three shots at it. I hope you get one. You know, like, yeah, call out everybody who. Who. Who tried to hold you back over. Over your rise and all the rest of it. But in the meantime, thank you very much for. For the time, Pablo, and. And congratulations again.
- [58:09]
D
I genuinely fear now that I'm going to get slam ball dunked on three times and I will think of your face. Your. I will think of you announcing it as it happens. Thank you.
- [58:19]
A
I said that's where I came up with the phrase I three words for that dunk. Ooh, la. And la. That was. That was. That's why Dave is not currently doing color analysis on any sports.
- [58:35]
D
You know what I found out today? What I found out today is why slam ball died. Thanks, Dave.
- [58:41]
A
This guy right here, everybody. Thanks, Pablo.
- [58:45]
D
Thank you.
- [58:47]
A
All right, there goes Pablo Torrey. Obviously, make sure. I'm sure you already are, but if you aren't, somehow make sure you are following Pablo. Tory finds out wherever you find podcasts and on YouTube and do the same for your pals here at Football America. We'll talk to you in a few days. Until then, thanks so much, my fellow football Americans. It's been a thin slice of heaven.