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- [00:01]
A
Ever notice how ads always pop up at the worst moments when the killer's identity is about to be revealed during that perfect meditation flow. On Amazon Music, we believe in keeping you in the moment. That's why we've got millions of ad free podcast episodes so you can stay completely immersed in every story, every reveal, every breath. Download the Amazon music app and start listening to your favorite podcasts. Ad free included with Prime.
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B
Oh, hey.
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C
Welcome to gift wrapping. Whoa. So is Saldana.
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A
Hey, can you wrap these please?
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C
Wow. IPhone 17s.
- [00:40]
A
You splurged at T Mobile. You can get four iPhone 17s on them. The new center stage front camera is amazing for group selfies. It's the perfect gift for everyone.
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C
I'm the worst. I only got my mom a robe.
- [00:51]
A
Well, it's better than socks.
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C
So I have to trade in my old phone, right?
- [00:55]
A
No AT T Mobile, there's no trade ins needed when you switch. Keep your old phone or give it as a gift.
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C
Incredible.
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A
In fact, wrap up my old phone too for my aunt Rosa.
- [01:04]
B
Forget that.
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A
Aunt Liz will be jealous.
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C
Sounds like my family drama.
- [01:07]
A
Oh, I got it. I'll give it to my abuela. I'll take reindeer paper with. Hey, where are you going?
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C
To T Mobile.
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D
The holidays are better. AT T Mobile get four iPhone 17s on us. No trade in needed when you switch plus four lines for just 25 bucks a line. And now T Mobile is available in US cellular stores with 24 monthly bill credits and four eligible board inside essentials for well qualified customers. Bottle pay plus taxes, fees and $35 device connection charge credits and administration. If you pay off earlier, cancel contact US Finance Agreement 256 gigabytes. $830 required. Visit T mobile.com.
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C
Hi, it's Mike. It's Saturday. It's the Saturday show.
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E
We sometimes will bring you an appearance.
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C
I had on another show.
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E
And the other show this week is Matt Lewis can't lose. You know Matt Lewis, he used to host Matt Lewis and the News. Get it? Get how it works?
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C
I really didn't.
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E
It was a pun. I understand Parker Lewis can't lose. That's the new show. But his old show Matt Lewis and the News was a pun on Huey Lewis. And so I do hijack the interview.
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C
You'Re about to hear for about the first eight minutes by talking about the.
- [02:10]
E
The of Huey Lewis a little bit. You know, we get into the heart.
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C
Of rock and roll.
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E
It's still beaten in Cleveland.
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C
Actually I never say that on the show, but I wanted to.
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E
I really wanted to. I mean, I should have thought to.
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C
Myself, if this is it, I could.
- [02:23]
E
Come up with some other Uey Lewis puns. But of course, what did I come up with? Just I want a new drug. Which they essentially ripped off for Ghostbusters.
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C
You know that, right?
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E
Huey Lewis is still dining out on Ray Parker money.
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C
And Ray Parker brings us to Parker.
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E
Lewis, which brings us to Matt Lewis, who can't lose.
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C
I shan't bring you the whole show.
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E
I try not to bring you the whole show so as to act as an inducement for you to go and seek out the whole show, which. In which Matt talks to many people under the political sun. And I was one this week.
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C
Do enjoy.
- [03:06]
E
When you're, say, 52 or 53, I.
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C
Don'T know how old you think you are. I don't know how old you think you are.
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E
I think I'm maybe in my 40s.
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C
I was thinking about. Oh, I was in my 40s back then, and I was. Couldn't quite put my finger on what.
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E
I look like, what I felt like. I told myself a story. It was the same, but, you know.
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C
It wasn't the same. It's the.
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E
The creakiness of the knees. It's the recovery after, say, doing what.
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C
I thought was a pretty normal thing.
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E
It was the diet or the lack of dieting, and used to be a.
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C
Little leaner than now. It's. This is a big one.
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E
The energy crashes at 2pm like it's just supposed to, but it didn't used to.
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C
All right, you know what we're talking about? We're talking about testosterone.
- [03:50]
E
And we've been thinking about ways to get your testosterone up. You go down that Internet rabbit hole, there is a sphere, a sphere. O for man O's. Don't bother with that. Bother with. It's really no bother. Mars Men, Mars Men gives you the same benefits of optimized testosterone. Energy strength, focus without shutting your body down. No needles, no synthetics. Just a really cool case with a really cool series of jars. And those are the Mars Men supplements doing their job. Hitting the reset button on the hormone factory that is you and yourself. Natural ingredients that support healthy T levels, stamina and recovery. Mars Men gives me constant energy. I have to say, the lifting, the dead lifting has gone well. I kind of can't believe that my back is taking it, but I'm gonna keep doing it until it doesn't. I'm setting personal records, trying to contain my pride in myself. Thank you, Marsman. For a limited time, our listeners get 60% off for life and two free gifts. When you use GIST at men, go to mars.com that's mengotomars.com and use code gist at checkout. After your purchase, they will ask you.
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C
Where you heard about them.
- [05:20]
E
It's very important to say the gist. Please support our show and let them know our show sent you. Owning homes, amazing. It's a dream. A dream that people, people strive so much of their lives to achieve. One day you're luxuriating and sipping coffee. Iced for me, a warm cup of joe for my honey in the backyard. Then boom. Burst pipe. Boom. Why is hail coming through the skylight? Boom. The floor is buckling.
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C
Repairs.
- [05:48]
E
Much like the honey badger, they don't care. You know, you protect your health, your car, your phone. What about your home? Your biggest investment? When things go wrong, the cost can hit hard and hit fast. That's what happened to me. And that's where Homeserve comes in. Regular homeowners insurance doesn't cover a lot a lot of the day to day. In fact, the insurance kind of exists not to cover the day to day. So I'm talking about H vac breakdowns or electrical issues or plumbing failures. You're on your own. HomeServe offers a subscription for as little as 4.99amonth. They have a 24.7hotline. It is super simple. Choose a plan for your needs and your budget and when something goes wrong, call their 24. 7 hotline. They've been doing it for over 20 years. I use home serve and you should too. Oh, and what a process it was to try to claw back some of our money and some of our time. This is one of those where I could talk to you about regret. But now instead I will talk to.
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C
You about taking the action I wish I did.
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E
Help protect your home systems and your wallet with homeserve against covered repairs. Plans start at just 499amonth. Go to homeserve.com to find the plan.
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C
That'S right for you.
- [07:11]
E
That's homeserve.com not available everywhere. Most plans range between 499 and 1199amonth.
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C
Your first year terms apply on covered repairs.
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B
All right everybody, welcome back to the podcast. And I'm happy to welcome first time guest Mike Pesca. He's an award winning journalist, host of the Gist, which is the longest running daily podcast. He's also on Substack. Mike Pesca, great to see you.
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C
Hey, it's. I wanna. So I start off right off the bat by taking some Glory away from myself. As long as run daily news and analysis podcast. There are definitely some like longer podcasts where they talk about, I don't know, Dungeons and Dragons or something.
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B
Point well taken. It's, it's. I mean you are, I don't want to say legend trailblazer, but it's an honor.
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C
I listen to your show. I listen to Matt Lewis and the news a lot. And before we even started, I found out it was a pun. And I love puns. I love puns. Hiding in plain sight. But I didn't realize you were going for the Huey Lewis reference.
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B
Yeah, and so then I lost my feet. So now I'm sticking with the 80s references. Matt Lewis can't lose.
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C
So. So this is, I guess you wanted a new drug and this was your new drug. It was an interesting show. So I think it was, I don't know if it was 80s. It was definitely early 90s, late 80s, maybe.
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B
Early 90s, yeah, yeah.
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C
But it was, it was entrenched in the 80s insofar as the whole show was we can't get the rights or we can't literally get Matthew Broderick play Ferris Bueller. So we'll just take the whole aesthetic and idea of this kind of charming, maybe WASPy, definitely rich kid who everything works out for him. So that's all it was, even the syllables of his name. Right? Ferris Bueller, Parker Lewis, same deal. It was just like let's do a TV series. If Ferris Bueller came to. To life, not terribly successful, did run for three seasons. I watched a bunch of them and even at the time it's a little older than the target demographic. I watch it as a sociological or somewhat media experiment than it is an actually enjoyable sitcom.
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B
Your knowledge of, of, of 80s and 90s pop culture is concerning. Concerning to me, but it's the right word. I don't know whether to be impressed or, or concerned. But that is a deep pool. And now I have no segue, I have no transition. But this is a. Ostensibly a political podcast. So let me ask you a political question. You've been so I have to confess something which is like what we're about to discuss is something that really hasn't occurred to me. It's been just from a Machiavellian strategic standpoint. It has become very clear that. That Democrats are running on affordability and ought to be running on affordability. And yet I never really considered like what happens when they, if, if they catch the car.
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C
Right. I agree with everything you said. This is the right tactic and the right message for them. But is it more than a message? When does the rhetoric meet reality? And will the voters appreciate that? Or even more important, will anything actually change? So my, I keep talking on my show the gist, the longest running. No, I'm not going to do that thing. I, I keep talking about word wars because we especially Democrats, but it's true of all politicians. Very hard to solve problems. It really is. Um, it's kind of easy to solve problems that are just stupid own goals. And I think the tariffs might be in that category. But even if someone comes in or if Trump scraps the tariffs, it's not as if the economy goes back not to having its lurches and questions and having 95% of our growth be Nvidia and AI stocks. So it's very hard to actually bring down prices or address prices. You don't really want to bring down prices overall. That would be deflation. That would be worse. So what do you do besides talk about this magic, magic word, magic message? You can win the word war. And sometimes this shows up in the guise of, well, we can't really address illegal immigration, but damn it, we could make you feel terrible if you use the phrase illegal immigration. And so that's one battle of the word wars that the Democrats were good at waging. Is affordability another such battle. And so I think it's going in a couple of ways and we're going to see it present itself depending on which politician we're talking, talking about. So for Cheryl, especially Spamberger, these are not socialists. Spamberger says, keep that word out of your mouth. She's really clear we should never delve into things like defund or socialism. They ran on affordability and if you ask their campaign managers is Pod Save America had a panel discussion with the three campaign managers of the candidates I mentioned and we put together a super cut on the show of 12 times. This was all taken from a 10 minute segment of laser focus. Laser focus. They were laser focused on affordability. Well, they won because their focus, their laser focus on affordability. If you talk about Spamberger and Cheryl, they could cap some utility prices. That's within their power as a governor. So that'll symbolically and tangibly help a little bit. Mandani has these policies we all know about fast free buses. But then he has these policies that I don't think will help affordability at all. So you have a, you have a phenomenon and this is politics. They named the problem and that's really sometimes all I think politicians can do you name the problem. When the voter says he she understands the problem, that's what I think of as the problem. Then you win the election and then what next is the question. And I don't know that many a Democrat, many a mom dummy mamdani socialist type Democrat really wants to engage in actual solving questions of affordability as opposed to big theoretical swings that could really blow up like rent freezes or and this was another we could talk about, about this price controls which every economist will tell you unless you're in a war and need be for a really terrible idea. So I'd watch out for affordability as this issue that'll keep on giving even though it gave in 2025.
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B
Now this is, this is, this is concerning and I do again, you know, the tariffs, I think immigration also could, could be driving up prices. You know, construction labor, the cost of construction for example is probably going up as a result of fewer.
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C
Yeah, I think it will. I don't know it's been felt yet. But that's definitely the long term trend. What'll happen if you have less cheap labor in the country?
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B
Sure, but still. So here's my real concern, right. Like let's say that you're very worried about liberal democracy and you're like we Democrats need to win the election and obviously they're not going to win at talking about liberal democracy. So let's use whatever tool we have in the toolbox and that, that tool affordability, we can talk about it. And Trump is playing into it. His optics are horrible with the Lincoln bedroom or Lincoln bathroom and the Mar A Lago Gatsby party and MBS and all like all that stuff doesn't look great and then you win the election. But then if you can't fix this problem and let's be honest, it's very hard to fix the problem, then you're what's going to happen. The public will turn on you again. We're going to have this just cycle of throw the bums out and you're going to end up with, I don't know, Marjorie Taylor Greene or Tucker Carlson or Candace Owens.
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C
Right, right. And what you described is exactly what happened in 2024. Kratz biggest message was autocracy and Republicans was a few things but it was more affordability and obviously affordability was the better message. It resonated with people because there is a I'm worried about autocracy crowd and they're all voting for the Democrats anyway. But the Democrats would still give speec on it. And I understand you want to show yourself as a stalwart on the issue. There are probably a couple of people who might have flirted with voting against Kamala Harris as like a punishment over Gaza. Then you say the autocracy thing and maybe you win some of them back. There are people vote for very odd reasons. But you're right. That's how the last election played out. I think most political pundits would tell you abstract concepts don't play, process doesn't play, and abstract concepts don't play. The more tang you get, usually the more you win. You know, then again, some rules of how to win an election have been thrown out, like positive wins over negative. And then Donald Trump is relentlessly negative and he did win. So you're absolutely right. I don't know how much actually solving the problem, especially in a year, will comport with whatever happens in 26. I think at 26, the Democrats have a very strong chance of winning, especially with what we saw with the Texas map redistricting decision. Don't know if that'll stick, but man, is that fascinating. Right? The Republicans reap the whirlwind of redistricting. California engages in countermeasures. Now California, because of a voter referendum, is compelled to redistrict and Texas might not even be able to. So add it all up. 26 I'm with you. I think the Democrats have this strong shot. 28 if not Tucker, someone Tucker picks might just be the person who becomes president because there's a lack of progress on this very impossible and I think a bit of a quicksand concept of affordability. I really do think if Mamdani, who has shown signs that he's very good politician and is not going to go socialist crazy, but if he really shows to be a failure with some of his policies, they can hang that around the necks of all the Democrats who are very supportive of his election, which is to say almost every Democrat this side of Chuck Schumer.
- [17:23]
B
I'm not too worried about New York or 2026, but I think if Democrats do win in 2028 and aren't able to actually govern, then you end up, you may be worse off than you would have been. So I mean, someday 2032 is going to happen or whatever, whatever the year is there, they really need to have a plan, right? I mean, so right now I would think fixing the Affordable Care act or simply extending those subsidies would help a lot of families, including mine. I don't the tools are difficult and AI is happening. I mean up until now, as you sort of noted, I think AI has largely benefited Trump by boosting the stock market, which is a measurable that he likes to brag about. But I feel my guess is not in terms of affordability specifically, but in terms of employment. AI is going to dramatically change things in the next few years. And if Democrats are in office they had better have a plan. I just I wonder how much actual policy work is being done.
- [18:33]
C
Yeah, we are very aligned on how we think these things can play out on the AI piece. You know, Spamberger's big issue, as you know a big issue was these data centers and it also take a lot of energy. So I think AI will have a lot of dislocations and I think that they might be net positive. I'm not closed off to that. But if you're not doing what it takes to win elections, which is to speak the concerns of the voters, you're not going to win. Democrats do need to be on top of it. These septuagenarians are not in a position to talk on AI in a believable way. I thought the path for Democrats and I question myself because this is the kind of person I am and what my orientation is is I'm quite centrist. I think that talk of socialism or actual implementation of socialist policies play in New York, especially if you're running against Andrew Cuomo and are a pretty good messenger but is death for Democrats nationally. And I thought someone like Marie Luz and Khan Perez was kind of the future of the party. Turns out they've turned against her. They're censuring her. They're so now I think all right, if I had to guess, I would say it's likely that MGP is the future, but it's slightly less likely that she defects from the party overall. And so I think someone like that is the choice for Democrats. A message like that. And remember and I don't know how much you keep up on this but on left Twitter and Resistance plus leftist Twitter, there is a sentiment out there and you see it from this guy G. Elliot Morris, who was the guy who took over FiveThirtyEight and ruined it after they after Nate Silver left, he didn't have he's not a good I guess he might be a good pollster. He doesn't build good models and it was quite embarrassing for 538. Now he's come out with a theory that it doesn't matter what you say in terms of moderation, the voters will vote for you Anyway, this is a terrible theory. It's been put into place and has lost and has been damning for Democrats. But there's a lot of people who want to hear it. And you know, Paul Brugman has him on and if you look at the top 10 left leaning substacks, about six of them are in this camp. And there is a guy who does the Hopium Chronicles who was the last pollster who got into a fight with Nate Silver. This is, this is how it works. If you're a, if you're on the left side of the Democratic Party as opposed to the center left, you get into a fight with Nate Silver. If Democrats do better than maybe some people who are very worried thought they would, you get anointed as the next seer and you keep a big audience. And Democrats believe this stuff. So this might be a little too in the weeds for people who are like, I just want eggs to come down. But yeah, this is the dynamic by which the Democrats can f themselves into putting forward someone whose message, rhetoric, ideas will not resonate with America. And in some year, some pretty bad Republicans could be there to pick up the mantle.
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B
Yeah, it's going. I mean, I think Democrats have an opportunity right now and Donald Trump's approval rating in the latest Reuters poll is like 38%. I, I don't see things getting a lot better. Maybe he rebounds, but, but it seems more likely to me that, that he doesn't. So Democrats have an opportunity, but like, will they seize that opportunity? I don't think they have their act together. I don't think the, the next leader has emerged. I mean, all they need, all they need. All we need is like Joe DiMaggio to show up. Or like all we, all they, all they need is like the next Bill Clinton, the next Obama.
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C
Except, except, you know, Mike Trout was the best player on the California Angels and he never made the playoffs. Mike Trout and Shohei Ohtani played together. So it takes more than a superstar or even the two best in, in class to boost the team. It's a team sport. Politics in many ways.
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B
I don't know about that. I think that, I think I would push back a little bit on that. I think that in politics, if you get that standard bearer who is charismatic and sort of a rock star, it covers a multitude of sense. I think it's more like basketball than it is baseball.
- [22:54]
C
Yes. Presidentially right. Ball dominance.
- [22:57]
B
Yeah, totally. I'm talking about at the, at the presidential level.
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C
This is a great analogy. Maybe there's a segue out there for other stuff we could talk about. But think of it this way. Baseball has not just the team, but the farm system and they're playing for the future. And as you sip from your Baltimore Orioles cup, I know you understand the importance of draft picks. So even when Obama was that star, and he was that star, the Democrats were losing state legislatures by leaps and bounds. Is that how one loses? Is that the idiom? They were, they were like, like water through a bucket with a hole in it. And therefore, and you know, they only had control when they had control of Congress, they passed the aca. But if you don't have these other levers of government, the agenda suffers. And this was a big problem for Democrats under Obama. It might not even be Obama's fault. But I'd rather have the rock star than not the rock star. I'd rather have the ball, dominant point guard who transcends all else. But if you don't put Scottie Pippen and a good three point shooter around Michael Jordan, you have early career Michael Jordan, you still need the team is my point. Have I really convinced you anything about politics or more about basketball? I don't know.
- [24:12]
B
I think it's, I think it's both. But I, I have become a believer sort of in the great man theory of politics that you can do all the blocking and tackling, you can have the infrastructure, you can have more. Hillary Clinton has more campaign headquarters in swing states than Donald Trump. Hillary Clinton has raised more money.
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C
Yes.
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B
Doesn't even have a finance operation. You can do all the black round game. Yeah. You can have all the. And it's not even bullshit. I mean like when you actually have the logistics, you really do the organizing, all that's important and good. And I'd rather have it than not. But at the end of the day, Trump, Trump is magic. And I'd rather have magic. I'd rather have luck. So.
- [24:57]
C
And the other you.
- [24:59]
B
But it's hard to quantify. It's hard to, it's hard to count on that because you just need. But we need that guy to show up.
- [25:05]
C
And the. Another reason why it's hard to. Yes. And you is the great man theory depends on not just the man, but the circumstances. So look at the man over your left shoulder, our right shoulder as viewers. Churchill was the great man for the moment. And then when the moment passed, England and the Conservative Party jettisoned him. And so I think Donald Trump, especially in 2016, met his moment. And so the moment's going to change as well. Right. And affordability. Affordability will largely be dependent not on policies set by the President, but by economics and circumstances and supply chains in China and pandemics. And look, there was just. There's just this report about why the barge crashed in Baltimore. I have no idea if anyone's paying attention to it. Damn it, I hope someone does, because this is infrastructure. This is like half of the things, right? Yeah, that was some of it. That was definitely too simplistic. I'm not a barge expert, but yeah, I wasn't plugged in. It was a plug.
- [26:05]
B
It was like the a.m. p.m. Snooze, snooze button and it all goes wrong. Simple little thing.
- [26:10]
E
And we'll be back in a second with more of some of Matt Lewis's conversation with me on Matt Lewis Can't Lose. I'm going to quote the National Institutes of Health. I defer to the experts. As many as 30 million men in the US have experienced ED. It's more common than a bad night's sleep. I don't know that the National Institutes of Health has all the statistics on a bad night's sleep, but I'll also say that ED probably correlates to a bad night's sleep. We have good news about all of this and it's not about NIH funding. It's about himss. HIMSS makes getting access to treatment for ED simple so you can feel like yourself again without stress, without awkwardness. Confidence is really important and through hims you can skip the guesswork and get access to care that actually fits your lifestyle. Going to say again stress free, straightforward, designed around you. Through Hims, you can access personalized prescription treatments for ED like hard mints and SexRx, plus climax control if prescribed. It's not one size fits all. They have options ranging from trusted generics that cost 95% less than brand names to the aforementioned Hard Mints. Think of HIMS as the digital front door that gets you back to your old self. 100% online access to trusted treatments for ED and more. All in one place. To get simple online access to personalized, affordable care for ED, hair loss, weight loss and more, visit hims.com the gist that's hims.com thegist for your free online visit hims.com the gist actual price will depend on product and subscription plan. Featured products include compounded drug products, which the FDA does not approve or verify for safety, effectiveness or quality. Prescription requires the website for details, restrictions and important safety information.
- [28:16]
C
Oh hey, welcome to gift wrapping.
- [28:18]
B
Whoa.
- [28:18]
D
So is Saldana.
- [28:19]
A
Hey can you wrap these please?
- [28:21]
C
Wow, iPhone 17s. You splurged.
- [28:23]
A
At T Mobile. You can get four iPhone 17s on them. The new center stage front camera is amazing for group selfies. It's the perfect gift for everyone.
- [28:31]
C
I'm the worst. I only got my mom a robe.
- [28:33]
A
Well, it's better than socks.
- [28:34]
C
So I have to trade in my old phone, right?
- [28:37]
A
No AT T Mobile. There's no trade ins needed when you switch. Keep your old phone or give it as a gift.
- [28:42]
C
Incredible.
- [28:43]
A
In fact, wrap up my old phone too for my aunt Rosa. Forget that. Aunt Liz will be jealous.
- [28:48]
C
Sounds like my family drama.
- [28:49]
A
Oh, I got it. I'll give it to my abuela. I'll take reindeer paper with. Hey, where are you going?
- [28:53]
C
T Mobile.
- [28:54]
D
The holidays are better. AT T Mobile get four iPhone 17s on us. No trade in needed when you switch. Plus four lines for just 25 bucks a line. And now T Mobile is available in US cellular stores with 24 monthly bill credits and four eligible for inside essentials for well qualified customers bought.
- [29:08]
B
Okay.
- [29:08]
D
Plus taxes fees and 35 device connection charge credits ended pounds due if you pay off earlier. Cancel contact U.S. finance agreement. 256 gigabytes. $830 required. Visit t mobile.com.
- [29:20]
E
We'Re back. And here we rejoin my conversation with Matt Lewis.
- [29:24]
B
I wanted to ask you about this, about there's been a big scandal. There's been some baseball scandals recently too, but I think there's a big basketball betting scandal and I don't, you know, I don't know that much about it, but I do feel like, I mean just sort of at the 10,000 foot level that gambling, like sports gambling is something that in the last decade has dramatically changed our lives. Not me. The last time I bet was like 20 bucks that Hagler would be or Sugar Ray Leonard or something. You know what I mean? It's like that's how long it's been since I bet. And then because, because I, I would, I would lose so much money, I guarantee you, if I bet on sports. But it seems like if you're a young dude today, it's like there's a lot of porn, a lot of swiping right or left and a lot of sports gambling that I'm sure is rewiring their brains and keeping them from like getting married and having kids and all sorts of weird things. But before we get to that deep, deep thought, what the hell's going on with sports gambling right now in this story?
- [30:35]
C
The baseball story is kind of similar to some parts of the basketball story. So because you could bet. And the big problem, I actually engage in low level sports gambling and like it. But I do understand that there is the attraction and addictive element of it being in your phones and that kids without develop prefrontal cortices, which is anyone before 25 are susceptible to it. So we'll get into this. But here are the facts of it. You can bet not just on game outcomes, but you could bet on individual. Individual players. You can even bet quite insanely. These are prop bets on in baseball, individual pitches. So a couple of Cleveland guardians pitchers to help a friend, because these are guys getting paid millions of dollars, you could bet $10,000 as or 12 as a few of their friends did. Ortiz and Clase. Emmanuel Classe is like the best reliever in the game or was last year. He threw a pitch directly into the ground. This was not even shading the strike zone. He didn't risk getting called a because a friend had a bet that the next pitch or the first pitch of an inning will be a ball. This is something that is pretty hard to get away with, especially if people are looking for it. Especially if none of your pitches besides that one go directly into the ground. So he was, no pun intended, throwing, if not a game, then at least a game outcome. And now he faces really serious charges. Both of them do up to.
- [32:01]
B
Wait a second, wait a second, wait a second. He's not throwing. Like to me what makes this harder to detect is you're not throwing the game or even the game outcome. Right. You could, you could pitch a great game, still win. Yeah, but trip on the, you know, trip on the way to the mound. Like someone wins a bet because of that. Right. So am I correct that like you actually it, it doesn't necessarily impact the game outcome, just. Well, just whether someone wins money.
- [32:28]
C
It's one pitch, right? So instead of challenging the hitter, doing whatever you do with a pitch, starting off with a count a 0 and 1, you just concede that you start off with a count of 1 0. And that's not great. But there are 162 games and maybe he thought he could get away with it. He couldn't get away with it because it was so blatant in this. And there was also on the back end, I guess they're not that sophisticated to understand that if the people who monitor these things see an unusual spike in an unusual outcome like one pitch, overall, there's not tens of thousands of dollars in the market for that pick bet once There is, you start saying, the monitor starts saying, oh, that's odd. And then you look into it and then you correlate that odd betting pattern with an odd outcome, a pitch that wasn't even close to the strike zone, and you begin to build a case. By the way, this was one of the arguments for sports gambling, that it won't be abused because it will allow for such sophisticated methodology to figure out when someone's cheating. And that's true. All the people who have cheated have been. Okay, that's not the full sentence. All the people who have been caught cheating have been caught because they use sophisticated methodology to raise alarms. But of course, we only know about the people who were caught. And it's only a disincentive if it becomes very public that this happens. So maybe after Class A and Ortiz get jail sentences, which in a way my heart breaks for these idiots. On another, in another sense, it's like that would be a real disincentive for anyone else doing it. So maybe then, then the message will get out, you can't cheat, will catch you. The basketball cheating. Just to lay the predicate here, it's a bunch of different scandals. The one that's most similar to the baseball scandal we talked about is a very good player named Cliff Rosier. Took himself out of a game, I think faked an injury. And just like you could bet on the next pitch, you could bet on an individual player statistics. Well, if he's only playing five minutes of a game, the under or he'll get less than 12 points, less than five rebounds, that's going to pay off. And that's what Rosier did. Here's a guy getting paid. He was in the first year of, I think it was a three year, $64 million contract. So he's getting, and he had been paid about 18 year million a year previous. Here's a guy sitting on tens of millions of dollars, saw off a friend, goes to the friend's house, he counts the money based on really ruining his career, but also taking himself out of a game early. And then there are other, other NBA scandals. There is a coach named Chauncey Billups who did tip off gamblers, it would seem, about the health of a key player, Damon Lillard. But he also sat in on poker games that were run by the Gambino crime family, a couple other crime families. Three of the five got involved so you could make the case. Oh, that's just. So the federal government dirties up the enterprise as much as possible and makes it seem Nefarious. But you know, if it's right there, I would have done it too if I was the government. And there are a couple other NBA scandals where game outcomes, their performances absolutely were thrown for the benefit of gamblers. A guy named Johnte Porter, a very mediocre player, is now banned from the league because he did that. So this doesn't even get into the policy stuff. But yeah, it's going on because it's possible. And I think history shows us that when anything is possible and money can be made, then that possibility will come to reality.
- [35:57]
B
But obviously if you're running a sports league, I mean at a certain point, if the, if there were a tipping point and the public comes to believe that the games they're watching are going to be determined by whether the pitcher's friend made a certain bet, then it's going to, it would undermine intra. Not just credit, not just the sort of integrity of the game, but just like interest in the game. Why would I watch a game if it's, if it's phony?
- [36:23]
C
Right. And so the league would say it hasn't even come close to that point. They're going to take it seriously and we're going to see probably, I would guess lifetime bans on Rosie aging out anyway and Bill up 2 was well regarded within the profession. But you can't do that. So. And what you're saying is exactly went to the heart of the integrity of the game. It's why the first commissioner, Kennesaw Mountain Landis was hired in the wake of the Chicago Black Sox scandal of 1919. If your listeners and viewers saw eight men out, that was when they threw the World Series. We needed to hire a very respectable federal judge to set things right. And the game did hinge on, was a bit on a razor's edge back to then. Now there are no real questions about integrity. Pete Rose was rather harshly disciplined for betting on his own team until around 2011. 2012. A commissioner, the, the commissioner of the NBA, Adam Silver saw how much money was being spent on illegal gambling. He's a forward thinking guy. He knew that this would become possible on the Internet. And he was the first commissioner to say the sports league should get in on this, the sports league should partner with these gambling enterprises because we're confident that games won't be thrown and we can make some money. Well, he was right about the second part, but it's, it's dicey about the first part. There is, if you look at ratings and interest, there is no widespread sentiment that Lebron James is throwing games or that the sport overall is not on the up and up. But one of the guys indicted was a pal of LeBron James who knew if LeBron James was healthy or not and would tip off gamblers because that greatly affected this the the line. So just the couple things. Here are a couple of things we talked about. Literally, are players in the game affecting the outcome of a game? That's bad, but it's small. Most of the indictment is someone giving advice to a gambler so the gambler can enrich themselves. But the game was still played on the up and up. So whether LeBron James is healthy or not, he's just. Just judging by his own health and playing in the game or not playing in the game based on how his hamstring hurts. If no one bet on the game, that would be the outcome. It's just that someone did bet on the game or bet on his hamstring and made some money illegally. But all the implications you're talking about are on the table.
- [38:50]
E
And that's it for the show, not his show. He had more of it. But for our Saturday show, I will talk to you on Monday.