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"Bagged potatoes" - The Tony Kornheiser Show | Wave AI Podcast Notes

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"Bagged potatoes"

The Tony Kornheiser Show

Wed Apr 01 2026

Summary

The Tony Kornheiser Show — Episode: "Bagged Potatoes"

April 1, 2026

Episode Overview

In this engaging installment of "The Tony Kornheiser Show," Tony—joined by regulars Michael Wilbon, Ron Green Jr., Buster Olney, and a cameo from Adam Ferrara—delivers his signature blend of sports, personal anecdotes, and lighthearted banter. The episode flows from poignant sports news (Tiger Woods’ decision to seek help, Gary Woodland’s emotional golf comeback) to baseball (with an extended Shohei Ohtani appreciation), then winds its way into a quirkily sincere debate on planting potatoes in bags. Throughout, the show is punctuated by Tony’s wit, friends’ camaraderie, and listener engagement.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Full Moon Debate and Cherry Blossoms

Timestamps: 02:50–06:37

Tony and Michael ponder the exact timing of a "full moon" as printed on wall calendars. Michael contends the full moon starts on Wednesday night; Tony is unsure and expresses his desire “to know what is the absolute full moon.”
Haiku shared:
“It’s not a panther, it’s not a cherry blossom. April’s full pink moon.”
Quick transition to springtime in D.C., as Michael shares the blooming of his “white bud” tree, and Tony comments on the fleeting beauty of D.C.'s flowering trees.

Notable Quote:

“I enjoy it for three or four days. In the walk up, I just wanted to know what is the absolute full moon?” — Tony Kornheiser (04:30)

2. Nationals Game Recap and Phillies’ Prospects

Timestamps: 04:16–05:46

Tony recaps the Nationals’ recent 3–2 loss to Philadelphia—singling out errors by Luis Garcia and the on-field impact of Bryce Harper.
Michael highlights the Phillies pitcher’s promising future, referencing his Tommy John surgery and his family in the stands.

3. NHL: Frontier Justice and Radko Gudas

Timestamps: 06:37–09:36

Tony praises Radko Gudas for facing Toronto after injuring Auston Matthews—highlighting his willingness to “face the music” and engage in early-game fights.
Michael questions whether such stories should overshadow the hockey itself; Tony suggests it was necessary for Toronto’s fans as a form of closure or justice.

“He could have skipped the game, said, ‘I’m done and I’m not going to go out there and play because it’s a hostile environment.’ He played. ... He got in a fight. ... This is the kind of frontier justice that Gudas did... commendable.” — Tony Kornheiser (08:30)

4. NBA MVP Debate

Timestamps: 10:09–13:11

Tony reviews the NBA MVP race with opinions from recent PTI segments:
- Kendrick Perkins and Pablo Torre back Shea Gilgeous-Alexander (SGA).
- Tony’s pick? Jaylen Brown of the Celtics:
  
  “That team went into the year without Jayson Tatum... and they’ve been kept up there by Jaylen Brown being outstanding. I would give it to Jaylen Brown.” (11:41)
- Discusses the merits of Luka Doncic, Victor Wembanyama, Cade Cunningham, and notes Jokic is perhaps the world’s best player, but not Tony’s MVP.
- Ponders the locker room dynamic and LeBron’s reaction to coach JJ Redick publicly supporting Doncic.

5. Listener Engagement & Community Moments

Timestamps: 13:11–15:27

Michael shares a story about a listener spotted on a plane (Madrid-bound!), inviting “the Littles” to engage more.
Adam Ferrara pops in with a comic update, promoting his Arlington Drafthouse gig while ribbing Tony about never leaving home during Nationals’ games.

“Tony’s going to tell me, no, I’m home watching the Nats. I found the channel, 1261. I had no idea it went that high.” — Adam Ferrara (14:28)

In-Depth Interview Segments

6. Golf with Ron Green Jr.: Tiger Woods’ Announcement & Gary Woodland’s Courage

Timestamps: 15:40–27:50

Tiger Woods’ Announcement

Both Tony and Ron react to Tiger’s public announcement that he’s seeking help for personal struggles.
Ron emphasizes the step’s necessity amid Tiger’s repeated car incidents and speculates about Tiger’s diminished near-term presence (“Ryder Cup captaincy... probably on pause”).
Ron reflects on Tiger’s legacy:

“Nicklaus may be the greatest champion. Tiger is the greatest golfer ever... His presence still matters in the game.” (21:00)

Gary Woodland’s Emotional PGA Tour Win

Ron recounts Woodland’s terrifying ordeal with a brain lesion, surgery, and resultant PTSD—emphasizing his resilience in returning to elite play.
Tony is floored by Woodland’s openness and competitive perseverance:

“It is remarkable that he could be a world-class golfer and be going through this in the moment of playing golf.” (26:13)
Ron reveals that at Augusta next week, Woodland will tee it up—a true feel-good sports comeback.

7. Baseball Talk with Buster Olney: Shohei Ohtani, Giants’ Manager, and Automated Umpiring

Timestamps: 28:52–39:02

Shohei Ohtani’s Greatness

Buster echoes Tony’s assertion: “Ohtani is the greatest baseball player ever.” (31:24)
Both marvel at Ohtani’s dual dominance:

“He pitches and then he hits as the DH... Whatever he picks up, within a couple days he’s the best guy.” — Buster Olney (33:16)
Buster shares Ohtani’s unique place in the sport’s culture, including tidbits like greeting umpires every at-bat.

Giants’ College Coach Gamble

Tony and Buster dissect the hiring of Tony Vitello, a college coach, to manage the San Francisco Giants—agreeing it’s “the riskiest hire out there” and following clubhouse reactions closely.

Automated Ball-Strike System

Buster discusses early player and fan feedback. Mike Trout loves it; fans are engaged, but catchers fear job devaluation. Buster doubts full automation will replace the home plate umpire:

“If you do that, that will completely gut the position of catcher.”

8. "Bagged Potatoes": Planting Experiment

Timestamps: 39:38–41:52

Buster introduces Tony to the concept of growing potatoes in bags (or large pots) for better yield and simplicity.
Tony vows to try it in his planters, anticipating a “Thanksgiving bounty.”
Buster promises that “digging out potatoes in the fall is like Christmas morning... you don’t know what you’re going to get, but it’s spectacular.”
They swap planting times: mid-May in Montana for Buster, “soon” for Tony and Michael.

Memorable Quotes

On Tiger Woods’ struggles:

“It feels like now his story is divided into three chapters: the golf, then the injuries, and then there’s the drama. And to borrow a line from me, it feels like it’s all sort of painted in Sunday red.” — Ron Green Jr. (18:16)
On the joy of potato harvest:

“Digging out potatoes in the fall is like Christmas morning with all the presents. ... It’s spectacular.” — Buster Olney (41:03)

Listener Mail Highlights

[42:06–End]

Memorable stories include dog mishaps (dogs eating rabbit poop, corn cobs), childhood connections to rising athletes, Masters and Wrigley Field anecdotes, and a loving shoutout to the Cane Bay High School Choir.
Tony and Michael offer signature banter, riffing on Tillamook ice cream deals, TV channel numbers for sports, and the challenges of parking at Bethesda Bagels.

Notable Musical Moments

[15:40, 28:16, 53:19]

Gus Gustofferson’s new single “Wakes You Up” and his earlier song “A Friendly Place” are featured—linking the show’s theme of daily joy and community.
Tony gives instructions for independent artists who want to submit music to the show.

Conclusion

This episode encapsulates everything fans love about “The Tony Kornheiser Show”—sharp sports analysis fused with warmth, humor, and a dash of domestic observation. From Tiger’s tribulations to Shohei Ohtani’s superhuman talent and on to the delightfully quirky “bagged potatoes” gardening experiment, Tony and his colleagues provide a familiar, comforting, yet thought-provoking auditory experience.

For full enjoyment, listen to the in-depth interviews with Ron Green Jr. (15:40–27:50) and Buster Olney (28:52–41:52). For a smile and slice-of-life wisdom, don’t miss Tony and Michael’s tree blossom chat (03:56–06:37) and the beloved listener mailbag (42:06–end).

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Transcript

Tony Kornheiser (0:00)

Hey, it's Tony. On today's show, we're going to talk to Ron Green Jr. About Gary Woodland's emotional win last week and of course, Tiger's announcement that he's going to seek some sort of help. We're also going to talk to Buster, only not just about baseball, but about a new idea, which is planting potatoes in a bag. In an actual bag. But first, sales weasels need to be happy. Okay, quick question. Why should your energy boost taste boring? The new Fruity Rainbow shots from five Hour Energy are proof that caffeine can actually be a treat. These bring an explosion of fruity flavor with a tasty caffeine kick. Think sweet, colorful candy vibes, but in a tiny bottle that gives you the perfect boost. Caffeine just got a serious flavor upgrade. There are 17 flavors in the full five hour energy lineup. 17. So you've got options depending upon your mood. But this Fruity Rainbow launch is all about bold, playful candy flavored chaos. And somehow all that big flavor fits into a portable 2 ounce shot. No bulky drinks, no sugar crash, no sticky wrappers. It's a zero sugar treat that's totally sweet tooth approved, which makes it feel indulgent without slowing you down. If you want your pick me up to actually taste fun, this is it. Get candy flavored Chaos with fruity rainbow 5 hour energy shots available online at 5hourenergy.com or on Amazon.

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Tony Kornheiser (2:23)

Previously on the Tony Kornheiser Show. I just wondered about it. Do you go through Eastern Europe with a rake and then start collecting people and bring them over? Are they pros? Did they have to apply for college eligibility? I mean, I don't Know any of these people? But they function so well together.

Ron Green Jr. (2:44)

Yes.

Buster Olney (2:45)

Tony Kornheiser (6:37)

Most of the flowering trees, again, 7 to 10 and they're being replaced by green leaves. Now the flowers being. That's the nature, that's the cycle. That's what happens. I had a couple of things I wanted to talk about. One was the NBA MVP because today's not a basketball show. And one was. Is his name Radko? Gudis. Radko, good. As the defenseman for Anaheim, the guy who took out Auston Matthews. I just wanted to say this. He took out Austin Matthews, knee to knee. And Matthews is out for the season. This happened a couple of weeks ago, two nights ago, not last night. Two nights ago, Anaheim came into Toronto and Gudis, who could very easily. He could have skipped the game. He could have said, I'm not playing load management. I'M just, I'm not playing in this game. He's a villain in Toronto. Obviously he has been suspended a number of times in his career. He's a tough guy. I think he's also the captain of Anaheim. But much to his credit, in my mind, much to his honor, in my mind, he played. He could have said, you know, that's they're not coming back to Toronto this year. He could have said, I'm done and I'm not going to go out there and play because it's a hostile environment. He played and he knew we'd get in a fight. He got in a fight how early opening face off and he got in a fight. And I read about this sort of. This was Toronto's ability to allow whoever wanted to fight him to get the first crack based on seniority. And Max Domi, who is their longest tenured fight guy, said, I want it. And as soon as the tip happened, they squared off. Domi hit him like 10 times. Goodis did not react. Good has took it. There were two other dust ups later in the game. Luckily nobody was hurt in this game. But to me this is a kind of frontier justice that Gudas did. And I thought, good for him, good for him. This is commendable. Wilburn is always telling me and always telling all of you, oh, there's only fights in the NHL. There's no fights internationally in Europe, there's no fights in the Olympics. Gudas is from Prague. He's been in 50 fights so far in his career in the NHL. 50. That's more than Leon Spinks in his career. Gudis said last night, by very deliberately playing in that game, very deliberately making himself available, if you want a piece of me, here I am. And again, I feel that's commendable.

Tony Kornheiser (10:09)

You'll get back there, the ball will still be there. Somebody must have marked it, and it'll still be there. Who is the NBA mvp? This was what we talked about yesterday. Kendrick Perkins says it's Shea Gilgis Alexander. Pablo Torre says it's Shea Gilgis Alexander. The. The premise for this was that Luka Doncic is going crazy lately, and The Lakers are 15, 16 and 2 lately. You know, the Thunder's 25, 2 since February 1st. So let's not get carried away with the Lakers. But Doncic had, I think, 42 last night. But nobody thinks that Doncic is the MVP. And in fact, the question that. And the reason his name came up is because his coach, J.J. redick, promoted him, which J.J. redick is supposed to do. The overarching question to me, though, is how does LeBron James feel when JJ Redick promotes Luka Doncic to be the MVP of the league? Does it make LeBron James want to stay another year with the Lakers, one last year? Or does it make him want to go somewhere else and feel unappreciated by the coach that he helped get the job? And LeBron is responsible for JJ Reddick getting that job. Their pals, they did a podcast together, and JJ Redick got this job without any particular qualifications and coached anywhere. Hadn't coached anywhere. You know, got the job. Lakers are doing better. Didn't do well last year, doing very well this year. I wonder the effect on LeBron. Anyway, my choice is Jaylen Brown of the Boston Celtics, because that team went into the year without Jayson Tatum, their best player. And everybody assumed that they'd finished seventh, eighth, ninth. Like Indiana, which went into the year without their best player, Tyrese Halliburton, who got hurt last year in the way that Jayson Tatum got hurt last year. The Celtics are in. I think they're in second place in the East. No. And they're in second. Yeah. They've been kept up there by Jaylen Brown being Outstanding. So I would give it to Jaylen Brown. I think I'm probably in the minority on that. I think the contenders. And as long as everybody understands Luka Doncic is a contender. Not as much, I don't think as Victor Wembanyama who has led the spurs to 25, 26 and 2 lately. Not quite as much as Shea Gilgis Alexander, who was the MVP now and is having almost as good a year. And his team is in first place. Lakers are not in first place. Not as good a year. I don't think as Kate Cunningham was out of it now because he got hurt, collapsed lung. But his team, Detroit was in first place, still is in first place in the east and the other wild card in this. And I would not vote for him as long as everybody understands that the greatest basketball player in the world is Nicola Jokic. His numbers are amazing. His team isn't that great and he hasn't lifted them beyond where they were last year like these other people have done. But he's a great player. Anyway, that's all I've got. We're going to do baseball today with Buster Olney and we're going to do golf with Ron Green Jr. Can I

Ron Green Jr. (22:21)

Yeah, I mean, he was probably best known for, you know, he won the 2019 US Open at Humble Beach. Before that, he had had a love. He was a defending champion Phoenix. It became sort of an Internet sensation for playing with this young lady, Amy Bacherstedt, Special Olympian, who made a par on the famous 16th hole playing with Gary. And the way it just captured hearts that day and there on the Today show, really sweet and got to the essence of who Gary Woodland is. I mean, he's a guy from Kansas, really good players, won five tour events, sort of log cabin solid type guy. And then in 2023, I think he was playing at the tournament in Mexico and he just, it started, he just jolted awake one night, shaken, couldn't control his hands and just consumed with fear. And to hear him tell, it was just this horrible experience. It was caused by a lesion on his brain that pushed on an area that controls sort of fear and anxiety. And it just, you know, it got worse and worse. I mean, you go back and listen to what he said. He said all he thought about was dying. He said, every day I got up thinking of a new way of dying. I thought this was going to kill me. And he would, he said he would multiple times. He would come awake at night and he would literally, it had to do. A lot of it came associated with fear of heights, too. He said I would be holding onto the bed, thinking I was gonna just fall to my death right there. And I'd lie awake at night for an hour or so, just shaking and scared to death, he said. He said it's a horrible experience, he said, because all you want to do is go to sleep to get away from it. But going to sleep was the worst part. And so finally In September of 2023, he had surgery. And that surgery came with some risks. Obviously he didn't have any serious long term effects. It was very successful. But, you know, it didn't solve everything. It made it much Better, but over the course of time and he's getting well wishes and he's playing golf and back to being as close to what he was before then the surgery as it could be. But he developed some symptoms of PTSD and it became significantly more. I mean, it became sort of the defining part of him, particularly when he's out playing golf. And he told a story of he's playing the Napa event last fall, he was an assistant captain for the Ryder cup team and they had players out there and people coming up from behind him seemed to trigger this response and he would just, he said he had to just play golf. And he put sunglasses on. He was crying so bad he couldn't control his emotions. He was, he just had to be somewhere else. And you know, the Tour worked with security and they sort of put people in place with some protocols to help him. But he would, I would duck into bathrooms, I'd play behind sunglasses, I'd finish my round, I'd just go to my car to get away from people. I was, you know the term hyper vigilant, sort of this acute sensory perception looking around for everything all the time. And resurfaced the week he won last week on the story of on the ninth hole on Friday, somebody got too close to him behind, on the rope line, right behind the ninth tee, and it triggered another episode.

Tony Kornheiser (50:03)

They don't have much. They don't Ben Sandler Dr. Ben Sandler, a dentist. I've disliked UConn ever since the Rudy gay recruitment affair. Ask Gary, he'll fill you in. I've disliked Hurley ever since the game. He tried to fight Turgeon when at Rhode island, but I like but like Sansi, I hate Duke, so that ending was a thing of beauty. As Jackie Gleason would say, how sweet it is. Ben Sandler Columbia, Maryland Steve, a sycophant on Monday's pod, you quoted Proko Haram's A Wider Shade of Pale and noted its link to the works of Jeffrey Chaucer. Proko Haram lyricist Keith Reed has stated there is no connection whatsoever. Mr. Chaucer, or Jeff, as his friends, close friends call him, have apparently made no direct comment on this. Right? He did say life is so short, the craft so long to learn, which could be an allusion to Reid's lyric writing ability. But Jeff has refused further comment. You know how writers can be. Yes, and it also matters that he's dead for 500 years, you know? Ward K Vienna, Virginia Going into the final four in the TK Show Biggs Group, Brian Polian is in the lead. Phil's mom is in last place. However, if Illinois wins the tournament and Michigan beats Arizona, then Phil's mom will finish above Brian Polian. That's crazy. How can that be? Yeah, she won't win the tournament because Gary Braun will stay ahead of her if Michigan beats Arizona. Still, I am rooting for Illinois this weekend because I roll with Phil's mom from Eric Spay. At the risk of accusing you of using some Will Bonian geography, I have to call you out for a statistic you referenced in Monday's otherwise Emmy worthy PTI broadcast and what seemed like golden factoid, you asked when was the last time a team located west of Mississippi won the NCAA tourney? And the answer provided was Arizona in 1997. Not only are Texas and Kansas west of the Mississippi, they each have an entire state between them and the Big Muddy River. So the answer to the question is Kansas four years ago and Baylor the year before that and again, Kansas. In 2008, I was given that information by the producers of the show.