KFC Radio - CCK Podcast: Can We Play Baseball On The Moon? (featuring Charlie Duke & Fay Vincent)

Episode Date: June 1, 2020

An astronaut and a baseball commissioner joined us last week. Did the moon landing really happen? (yes) Do we think we will get baseball in 2020 (no). Target Jennifer got sprayed in the face with a fire extinguisher and so did a bunch of listeners, apparently. Why do baseball players and owners hate each other so much? Fay Vincent explains how the owners stole $280 million from the players in the 80s.You can find every episode of this show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or YouTube. Prime Members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. For more, visit barstool.link/kfcr

Hey, KFC Radio listeners, you can find every episode of KFC Radio on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube. Prime members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. Kevin, Kevin. Oh. Kevin. You're just ridiculously stupid. Welcome back, welcome back, welcome back. Welcome, welcome, welcome.

Is this Kevin? Welcome back. Oh, yeah, man, how you doing? You good? I know you like that. I know you like that. Come on, you've been back. Welcome, welcome, welcome, welcome.

I see the girls in the club. It's KFC. Jared Carabas, Casey Smith. Another edition of CCK. Riding with you for an hour before Barcelona, Chicago takes over. At 2.30, we're going to have a goddamn American hero, Charlie Duke, on the show. He walked on the moon. Probably the most exclusive club in the goddamn world.

Anybody who's ever walked on, allegedly. Right, Jared? Allegedly. Allegedly. Walked on, allegedly, right, Jared? Allegedly? Allegedly. Walked on the road. I was waiting for that. I knew that was coming eventually. So we got that on deck.

It's a weird, it's a weird time right now. And I feel like throughout the last, like, 10 years when I've been here, there's been situations where things get dark and scary and tense. And, you here, there's been situations where things get dark and scary and tense. And, you know, that's I never know what we're supposed to do in those moments because we're not really qualified or educated enough to talk on it.

But at the same time, people expect to hear from us. And we're trying to do humor in a time where there's not humor. But never in my life have I encountered something that is so deadly serious. The George Floyd situation is one of the worst things I've ever seen. We're talking about the murder of an innocent man. The fallout from it is dangerous and scary. And yet at the same time, the amount of videos that I woke up to that were flowing throughout the night also have this dark level of such humor, and I have no fucking idea how to handle it.

The fire extinguisher, the fire extinguisher in the face is one of the funniest things I've ever seen. It just is. And I wish it never happened. I wish there was never any reason for these protests and these looting to happen. But when I see that,

when I see the guy who was stealing the mannequin from Target and the person filming saying, what are you going to do with the mannequin? What the guy who was stealing the mannequin from target and the person filming saying what are you gonna do with the mannequin what's what's gonna happen with the mannequin when you got the guy who's ready to fight the dude who's walking around with an umbrella for some reason and he says here hold my blunt he takes a big hit of it because he's gonna go fight him there's so much shit going on that is very unintentionally and subtly funny yet at the same time we're talking about you know the reasons why it's all happening is like one of like the biggest black eyes the world has ever seen and i don't know where what you can say what you can't say what we can laugh about

what we could talk about what people like myself are even you know qualified to speak on since i'm just like a dumb privileged white guy i don't know what's what, and I don't know what the rules are anymore on the internet. There probably would have been a time where I would have blogged about all this and said, hey, I know this is some fucked up shit, but also let's talk about the humor in it. Nowadays, it feels like you can't even do that. I don't know what's what. It's a wild time out here on the internet streets. It is tough because I know exactly what you mean when you're like, okay, the bigger picture

of this is that, you know, obviously horrible things are happening. The racial war is just fuming. Black Lives Matter is like everything that's going on. Very serious. But then you talk about the fire extinguisher lady and you are told that she's an elderly woman and then you're told she's actually only 30 years old. There's no way, Casey. There's no heaven she the and in quotes she's 30 is trending on twitter right now because it's so unbelievable that that human being could be anywhere near 30 years old like i i

honestly believe like and i know what you say like these days like you can't you have to be super super sensitive because it's way bigger shit going on than laughing if you can't look at that woman who it may be a horrible human being i don don't know. I obviously the videos speak for themselves. But if you can't look at that woman and say that she's not 30 years old and think it's funny that people are saying she's 30. I don't know what else to tell you. Like that woman is not 30 years old. No, she's just not. I think that has to just be a couple people were making jokes about how like white people

age poorly and we took it and ran with it as true. There is just no way that that human was born in the 1990s. It's just not possible. She and I are the same age? No. She and I are the same age. Not possible. I will say that I bet you she's way younger than you think.

She looks like she's pushing 60 and I bet she's 40 something. But there is just no way no how that target jennifer is 30 and i and i need like i'm surprised we haven't found out like last names and the full truth by now because the internet usually does its thing but because it's funny to hang on the fact that she's 30 it's so good it's like one of those things that i almost don't want the internet to like i don't want the truth because I don't want to find out like, oh, no, she's actually like 51. And then it's just like, okay, that makes sense. But this like this chick, this chick out here claiming she's protesting for peace when she's just sitting at the back door of a Target in an optionally chosen wheelchair just trying to stab people

it's getting blasted in the face by another like a white person who was just like just hit her with the fucking extinguisher and that that fire extinguisher jared i don't think i've ever even seen a hardcore match in the attitude era with a better fire extinguisher blast. This was like a perfect centralized stream right to the face. And when the smoke clears and she's just like sitting there covered in dust and all

disheveled. God, it's not funny, but it's so funny. It's not funny, but it is. The internet moves way too fast. Do you have any idea what we're talking about. I've seen tweets about target and I'm like, what the fuck are you people talking about? Like I,

I, I haven't seen the video, but I've seen the tweets about target and now I'm putting two and two together, but no, I have no fucking target guys. Target looked like it was like a, like a bomb hit.

Like I've seen, there's. I've seen looting. I've seen rioting. Every time a racial war really bubbles to a fever pitch, these things happen. I remember the 92 Watts riots. Shit was crazy. But I don't think I've ever seen a store get decimated quite like that. The fire alarm's going off. It looked like an earthquake hit.

There was rubble everywhere the people who were just scurrying out with like uh bags of fucking uh toilet paper just like uh i'm not really stealing but i could use some toilet paper like let me just scurry out here the aftermath of the streets of minnesota looked like the walking dead it looked like uh like a post-apocalyptic purge and it's kind of i mean it's again the word here is not funny but the fact that like the last place i would think of a like a racial war hotbed is not minneapolis minnesota maybe that's ignorant by me i don't know but you know when it's like a city like la or new york or places that have like incredibly diverse populations with like huge urban areas. I don't think of Minneapolis

to be the spot where it's like you can't go outside because rubber bullets are flying, people are looting, riots are occurring, and it's not safe out there. Dude, Jared, it's crazy. This chick in the fucking wheelchair

got lit the fuck up blasted dude absolutely blasted there's a video of her anymore when she just she's at the end though when you can it's it's i mean again you're not supposed to laugh at these things but when you get a catch a glimpse of her like here here is the thing i i have absolutely i don't I don't think of this as a political issue. I don't think of this as a right and left issue. Like it's 1,000 percent cold-blooded murder. I don't care if you support – I've supported cops. We've raised money for cops.

That's fine. You can support cops and be all about the shield and the blue line and then just admit that this guy was a fucking racist scumbag murderer. And the people who are like, well, he didn't't mean to like the casual racism i'm seeing is crazy the amount there are people who i know for a fact are not like hardcore bigots by any means but they're still if you're if you're like tweeting or talking and you are throwing out a butt in this situation or a however or a but did you think about this like no no no not this time man not this time like there's a lot of times you can call like it is there's two sides to the story or you know no one was a saint or whatever you want to say this one not there's there's no

wiggle room there's nothing here i have no problem talking about that literal situation i think that is as is as clear as day the the looting rioting and some of the unintentional humor to come out of it i think there's a little more wiggle room for like well i know this is bad but did you see her get blasted with the fire extinguisher well i'm watching this video i was just gonna say i'm watching this video for the first time like this this woman getting blasted like absolutely covered by this fire extinguisher. My first thought was, first time I have sex after quarantine's over,

that's what it's going to look like. Oh my God. You would take it. We were trying to tiptoe around, can we even laugh at this? And Jared was like, nah, let me make this about sex. That's just what it looks like when I cum.

Yeah, but I would say- After a month of quarantine. Let's hope it's with a more attractive lady, though. Yeah, I mean, you know, it is what it is. We don't judge here after quarantine. Beggars can't be choosers. I mean, there's a clip after she got blasted... ...where she's just...

She's still like... Our eyes are closed, and she's all dusty from the fire extinguisher, and she's just driving her scooter into the wall, and the guy going, Jennifer, have you had enough? Have you had enough, Jennifer? And it just loops because it's only like five seconds long.

It's so perfectly internet. And then the aftermath where it looked like she went through fucking war, she's like, I got hit and I got robbed. It's like, well, you were standing outside a door stabbing people, lady. Stabbing people. You're lucky all that happened was you got hit with a fire extinguisher. The first video that I saw that went viral was the one where it's just like the little clip where it looks like just some lady is in a wheelchair, like just getting like tossed into the Black Lives Matter riot.

And it doesn't look great. Like, it looks like, why are they attacking this woman? But then you actually look at what she was doing. Like, first first of all she's not in a wheelchair because she has to be she stood up and was like walking around so it's not like she's like full handicapped one two the video that's like clearly like a snapchat video where it just says she out here stabbing people and you can hear people in the background be like she's stabbing people like she's got a knife it's like no shit she got hit in the face with a fire extinguisher you know what's fucked up though and this is where i think a lot more like the casual racism comes in is like the like some of the videos that are circulating cut the text out they cropped it like so that's beneath that so like if you see certain tweets or certain videos

on certain websites they really do paint the picture i think it was the daily mail that was like look at like white woman white woman assaulted and beat up as she tries to peacefully protest. That's not the fucking story. Or if it is, then someone's telling, then it lies in the other direction where that's made up. But all I know is you can see where the internet, they did it with the cop too. That cop's a fucking absolute terrible person.

I hope he fucking dies. But the hat that says make America white again or whatever, that picture floating around, that's just not real. That's just fake. That's just a hoax. The Internet is such a goddamn dangerous place with this shit, and that's why I will just – I'll just laugh at it because I don't think you should be getting – you probably shouldn't be making your decisions or getting your information from, you know, your viral tweets anyway. Although, it sounds like the president's

going to, you know, issue an executive order figuring out social media soon. Man, this world is so fucked. Well, basically, Twitter said they were going to start fact-checking Donald Trump's tweets. I think they were going to include like, if he tweets something that there would be, you

know, like I actually don't even know. They do that on Reddit. Like if you post like on like baseball Reddit and it's like an opinion, it'll be and if it's not actually true, it'll basically have like a sticker next to it that says like actually false. That's I think basically what they were going to do on Twitter. And and so immediately he whips up like a fucking executive order it's funny how quickly things in the

government get done when it's like well now you're gonna mess with my tweets hang on a second hang on one minute you know we can't figure out uh corona we we don't care about jeffrey epstein's pedophiles we don't care about this that and the other thing But you start fucking with my retweets, man. I'm trying to get these likes out here. Like, again, no politics thrown into this. But, like, we don't have bigger shit to deal with than Twitter right now. Like, I feel like there are some things we should be focusing on, and it's not if you can get your retweets.

I don't care, like, right, left. Don't tell that to Donald. Donald disagrees. I'm just saying like i understand like you know if it was like whatever what's the date today like may 28th or something like may 28 2020 and this all this shit hadn't happened like i'd see a headline like oh donald trump's going after trump all right that seems like i mean that's something he's gonna do fine whatever like everything else is nice there's baseball on tv the nba playoffs like all that no

it's coronavirus donald focus on that can focus on that? Can we focus on the world reopening first, please? What's crazy, though, is I mean, I never really know if I talk to my mom a lot about politics and I come from like the Internet side of things where I'm seeing like the younger demo and the digital generation and she's coming from the opposite. And like, I can't tell if it really matters at the end of the day, because I don't think these people go out and vote, but there's no doubt that like social media and the internet plays a huge role in elections and campaigns and shit now.

And if all of a sudden, if you're going to go out there and like, you know, hopefully just like spread lies or misinformation or even just not even lies or misinformation, just like, you know, you're, you're going to get out there and hopefully just spread lies or misinformation or even just not even lies or misinformation. Just like you're going to get your propaganda off. And then there's going to be a tweet or a sticker, like Jared said, or whatever, disproving it right away. I can see certain people being like, oh, that's actually a fucking problem. Like it doesn't, you know, not a real world.

Oh, for sure. Things to worry about. But I wonder just how much it's like, you know, that. Well, wait a minute. We're not going to be able to win if we can't, like, you know, manipulate the Internet anymore. But like I said, it's definitely going to be a problem. But I don't think people really go out and vote either, though. So it's like I don't even know if it if it necessarily matters. Like, you know, I'm not saying that it shouldn't be something.

Right. I'm not saying that it should be something that's just like completely ignored i'm just saying that right now i feel like going to war about with twitter is not really the move that any politics or any politician should make and again i'm not just singling him out although it's him doing it like i don't care if you're like a you know complete far left-wing democrat doing it i'd say the same thing it's like hello well i believe i don't care if you're right left i don't care what you are i feel like uh you should never i think the that places like twitter should be the wild west forever i think that you should have to have a brain i think you should have to know like how to find things that are fake i think you should have an eye for it i think you should know if things are like completely outlandish and i don't think that you should have Twitter, Jack or Zuckerberg or all these people

regulated at all because that's why I like the internet. That's why I like this shit. It's like there is no control. It's just no holds barred. Yeah, I don't want it to change. I don't want that.

I feel like imagine if they had fact checking on my tweets. half the shit I say is just made up anyway. That's what I'm saying. We're out here getting jokes off. We're out here being outlandish on purpose. We're out here being sarcastic. Well, we're going to have a sarcastic button next. We're going to have, you know, you send a sarcastic tweet, you get a sticker put next to it so that people know.

It's like, no, that's the fun is when I send something sarcastic and people react to it in uh literally and i get to say you people are stupid that's why i'm on the internet of my fucking tweets are tongue-in-cheek like i remember uh i tweeted something about like the astros and like alex cora and like everyone being completely innocent like specifically alex cora and then when he got suspended everyone was trying to old takes expose me and i was like are you guys fucking idiots like i had like actual like baseball yes well that is true like actual like baseball writers were like quote tweeting it being like wow i can't believe that like this guy actually gets paid to do this that's what's fun you that's why i like i like when you get to point at someone and be like, oh, you do this for a living. You have a degree in this shit, and you couldn't sense some comedy

and some sarcasm? You fucking morons. Fucking stupid. 833-85-STOOL is the phone number. We already got a couple people on the line. Let's get to them. We got Kevin in Massachusetts. What's up, Kev?

Hey, what's going on? How are you, man? Good, good. A couple things I wanted to say. I actually got hit with a fire extinguisher. Same exact way that lady got hit. What did you do? Yeah, what did you do to your dad?

Well, I was at work, and I actually went to the bathroom, got out of the bathroom. A bunch of the guys were waiting outside, and boom, I got hit. I had no time to react, no time to do anything. They were just kind of messing around with me. So, you know, the worst thing I ever experienced. What happened? Like, what was the aftermath?

I was out of work for three days. I threw up for, like, the next three hours straight. I was sick. It was everything was covered in it. It was pretty bad. I mean, I guess it makes sense considering it's a goddamn chemical compound that can extinguish fire. It's probably not good to be breathing in and having it all over your skin. I can see the joke, but it was terrible.

Yeah, I mean, I don't wish it upon anybody who's not out there trying to stab people. If you're trying to stab people, I think you should get blasted. As a prank at work, probably not so much. And did you guys see that video of the guy taking the mannequin out of the Target? That was the best of the whole, out of all the videos, best video. I mean, I probably watched it 700 times. Can you imagine, like, you're late to the looting party, and you're just like, ah, there's no TVs, there's no, like, groceries left. I'm going to take this mannequin.

And that guy filming it going, what are you going to do with the mannequin? What are you going to do with the mannequin? What are you going to do with the mannequin, man? It's just, if you can't find the humor in that, like I said, despite the fact that it's all happening because of very serious, very dark, dangerous shit. But if you can't laugh at mannequin, you know, the internet's not for you. That's what I said. Like, it's a dark place. It's a misinformed place.

It's a dark place. It's a misinformed place. It's a dark place. It's not fun. That's what the internet is all about from faces of death down to porn down to this kind of shit. Let us regulate this ourselves and laugh at what we want to laugh at and believe what we want to believe and stay the fuck out of the way because otherwise we lose basically our jobs. Christian from Florida, what's up? Hey, how you doing? Good, man. What's up? Good. I wanted to add

on, I too got blasted straight in the face. Look at this! Can everybody, can we have a day here where everyone who's ever been shot with a fire extinguisher calls in, please? We're two for two. Tell us how your experience was, Christian. Well, it was a little bit different. We're two for two. Tell us how your experience was, Christian. Well, it was a little bit different. Drunk

college after the bar. And my buddy got me coming through the parking garage. Just as a straight up prank? Like, LOL, ha ha ha, I blasted you in the face with a fire extinguisher? Yes, exactly. Yep.

And I don't think commend is the right word word because I don't want to commend anything Target Jennifer was doing. But like you said, it's a chemical compound that sucks the oxygen out of the air. My lungs were shut. I could not breathe for like 20 minutes. And she got, I mean, she got like a full, like a five Mississippi to the face. You know what I mean? It wasn't just like a turn of the corner and it lasted. When that was in the DMs on my Twitter, I was like, I could not even imagine. In her post-game interview, she's talking. I don't know how she was even talking. It's a chemical compound that sucks the oxygen out of your lungs.

You know what? I don't want her in the foxhole with me because I think she's a fucking lunatic racist who might stab you, but also anybody who can take the beating she took and she's still just out there wheeling around the streets talking. I mean, she's one tough broad.

30 years old, though. We got to find out. She's not 30. I know she's not, but if we find out she's like, I think anything less than 44 is going to really leave me in a pressure. Shocked?

Yeah, that is. Although like I do. I mean, I think 30 is, is incredibly young for it to even like, look at that woman and think that, but I have seen people recently where they like look much older to me.

And they're like 36, 37, just cause they don't take care of themselves. So it's like, maybe she's a fat, disgusting pig. She probably hasn't gotten her hair done and her makeup done and all that shit recently, like the rest of us.

So she's definitely older than she younger than she appears. But I'm saying that that it's it's just she's not 30. Yeah. Someone said, can you believe Jennifer from Target's 40? I would have been like, wow, but I can believe it. I literally cannot believe I will not believe that she's 30. She could show me her birth certificate. I'd say I still don don't believe it i just don't understand how we haven't figured it out yet it'd be different if it was like one tiny little clip where you didn't really know

who she was or where it was like not only do we know where it was and there's a million different angles like i feel like we know everything about her except for how old she actually is which leads me to believe no one actually wants to find out how old she actually is. It's like, just let the, you know, it's like, let's believe in Santa Claus here. Let's just, by the way,

the fire extinguisher thing, the like thinking about this and maybe I'm alone. Obviously as I've gotten older, I've realized how serious they actually are. But I feel like a lot of people, like the guys that were doing to the dude that called in like at the office, it's like,

you kind of think that a fire extinguisher, when you see it on a movie or when you see it from far away, that it's just like some sort of like really strong mist or something like you don't really realize like how dangerous it is to breathe. Like, why would you prank your friend and shoot them in the face of the fire? I mean, when I was a little kid, I thought there was water in them. I thought it was just like air water. Yeah. And then I realized then I realized it's certainly not that.

But I still don't think I comprehend the idea of like like that guy said it just sucks oxygen away and if you blast someone in the face a human who needs oxygen it's not gonna be good no like i feel like even at like in our 30s we're like damn like that's kind of crazy to think that it could be that damaging but it's like yeah no shit that's why have you ever put a fire out with an extinguisher no yeah have you have you no i mean i think it's you know it's something that the average person i feel like i need probably never going to encounter you know i feel like i need to feel like what it you know just like the power coming out of that thing now like i want to know i would love to shoot rocket in the face with a fire extinguisher would you would you be able to do it without like feeling bad about it like if i couldn't breathe

well i mean yeah i wouldn't i would never do this as just like a ha ha ha prank gotcha but if me and you were like let's make a video and it's like a attitude or a hardcore shot and i'm gonna shoot you with a fire extinguisher and you were down with it that would be awesome i mean i am down with it i just i i feel like it's one of those things where you go into it being like yeah i'm down because of the content and then you on the other side, are like, that was a terrible idea. Immediately regret it. Perhaps maybe, like, I don't know,

maybe not a fire extinguisher, but maybe getting blasted in the face with a very powerful hose. Yeah, I feel like that was, you know, that's a bad idea for anyone to agree to do that. I don't know who would do that, but, like, you know what, Kevin? If you want to fucking spray me

with a fire extinguisher, might as well. Why not? I mean, that's a legally binding contract in my mind. It's it's live on radio. You heard it here first. If and when I shoot the rocket in the face with a fire extinguisher, people get to be like, well, he did say he could. I do have consent. That was consent in my mind.

Yeah, it's I hate this shit is just so goddamn unfortunate and i and i i almost wish i was so ignorant and didn't know anything about it because i feel absolutely moronic talking about other things and trying to like you know like let's talk about baseball let's talk about this the other thing and it's like well the world is in fucking shambles right now but i guess that's what we're supposed to be doing here is is providing an escape and talking about all the other shit. Jared, I am fully on record today. Just recorded. Got to believe.

I want it known that on May 28th, I am officially predicting there will be no baseball season. Did I lose you? Did Jared die? Did he die? Yeah, you're back. I'm back. My audio cut out. I think you're wrong.

I wrote a blog about this this morning, and I said, call me crazy, but I think we see baseball this year. You are crazy. You are crazy. It was like a 1,400-word blog where kind of just like laid out everything that I know, everything that I've heard, uh, my stances on like everything. It's very layered. And then I came to the conclusion because, uh, the, the couple of sides that I was looking at is that, you know, like I'm talking to players, I'm talking to agents, I'm talking to executives

within baseball teams. And then I'm also talking to people in the media. I know you don't like them, but Jeff Passon, we had him on section 10 last night, had him on section 10 last night. And, uh, I straight up asked him, I was like, do we see baseball this year? And he said, yeah, I think, I think we'll see baseball in sometime in July. And I also talked to a player in the league yesterday who I think it's important to note is on like the lower end of the spectrum in terms of earnings in 2020. Um, and he was just like, yeah, we're not having a baseball season. And then he also said that he was talking to other pitchers being like, um, the other pitchers have said, like'm not even throwing anymore like i'm not even preparing

myself for the season because it's a waste of time um so you know i'm sorry are you arguing for how there's going to be baseball because everything i'm hearing is saying people yeah jared you're really kind of walking that one back no i'm not uh jeff passon said the baseball was gonna be back in so let me get to the fucking point um oh my point my point was that players are obviously discouraged after how the last negotiation went so while it sounds bleak because players are saying like hey there's not going to be a season or hey like i stopped preparing for season. Like that seems to me like it's an emotional response, an emotional reaction. How poorly. Yeah. Like the the not the investigation, the negotiation went and a guy like Passon, who is obviously going to be level about it and is more plugged in than most people, if not everybody is saying, yeah, I mean, we're going to have baseball in July.

Then I kind of go with the level reporter over the like emotional baseball player that wants to get paid well here's the thing first of all two things jeff passan's a fucking dickhead who's not fucking levelhead and he's a little emotional over over emotional cry baby so fuck that guy second of all i think that what we're talking about here is waiting for it's gonna sound like owners owners are going to have to compromise and yeah i just can't imagine in any world that major league baseball player major league baseball owners are the ones who are going to concede i mean that's just not happening dude did you did you happen to see the max scherzer tweet last oh yeah big time so max scherzer obviously is

echoing the sentiments of many baseball players and obviously the top earners in the league and they're digging in being like hey we agreed to uh prorated salaries we're already taking a pay cut with the prorated salary based on what we were guaranteed to make regardless um and the whole open the books thing that that wasn't like a hey, I'm guessing type thing. I think there's going to be a pretty big story that comes out in terms of like Max Scherzer saying opening the books because it may be a situation where owners are put in a position to where they're like, fuck, because I interpreted that, and there's rumors going around that I think will come to light pretty soon. But I don't want to say it was a threat, but I think it was more of like a, hey,

the players are privy to some information that you don't want in public. So let's not make this difficult. What I was going to say is the only way that the owners would ever really cave is if they feel like they lose their, their position of power and leverage. And the only way they lose their position of power and leverage is if, if people open up the books and see like, well, you're actually still going to end up like making money this year or something crazy like that. I just didn't think that there was ever a situation where they would let that happen. Now, I don't think it's a situation where owners or teams are making. Yeah, I think that. Yeah, because it's already it's already making the rounds right now. It's more just like people confirming the information.

That would be nuts. It's not so much that teams and owners are making more than they're claiming this year it's that uh their revenues may have been much higher than what was made public uh in years past and of course if that's the case then it's like you guys can absorb the loss of like hey we're we're agreeing to full prorated salaries based on the games that we're playing. And now you're asking us to take a cut off of what we're already taking a cut of. So you guys can more than absorb the blow based on the revenues that were generated in years past and based on like information that's not even out there. Well, that would certainly be a game changer. I would love for that to happen because those owners would look like such fucking assholes.

And I don't think I think not only would that change things this year, I think that changes things for years to come if there's a little more transparency, be it a leak or a release or whatever. I think that'll change the face of baseball. Let's hit our first break. We'll see if we can get Charlie Duke online, talk to

a real-life astronaut, an alleged moonwalker, and we'll chat with him for a little bit, and then we'll take some more calls. We'll keep it moving for the second half hour here of CCK on Power 85. Today's the day I finally start. Today's the day I finally get on the long road to get back in shape and I'm doing it with Crossrope. My esteemed colleague, John Henry, has been doing Crossrope for something crazy like 55 straight days or 65 straight days. He's been working out all through quarantine using the cross rope routine and the guy swears by it. And listen, we all know Feidelberg. Guy just wants to lounge around like I do. So if he's down with cross rope, you know

that it's got to be effective. It's got to be fun. It's got to be easy to do because if fights can do it, anybody can do it. You can get a killer full body workout in just be fun. It's got to be easy to do because if fights can do it, anybody can do it. You can get a killer full body workout in just 30 minutes. It combines intense cardio with jumping rope using full body resistance training. The cross rope that you get comes with different handles, different ropes, different weights, different sizes. And so you can get a different type of workout by just strapping the rope into the handles. Easy peasy. Click it in, click it out. No problem. So if you want to do, you know, rather than have to go to the gym, have to do the whole circuit, include your cardio, run, then lift. You just do the cross rope. You get it all done in one shot. You're lifting, you're working your lungs, you're working your heart, you're toning

your muscle and it's fun. It's quick and it keeps you entertained. That's the thing. Feidelberg always says he doesn't want to do one thing over and over and over again for a long time. Crossrope keeps it moving, keeps it changing, and that's why me, I'm going to pick it up. That's why Fights has been using it, and that's why you should too. Go to Crossrope.com slash KFC and get up to $40 off Crossrope sets plus free shipping when you go to Crossrope.com slash KFC. When Charlie Duke was a little bitty baby, said I want to be a pilot. And his daddy said, maybe if you work real hard, you'll never play the fool. We're back. Jared and Casey, and we're now joined by Charlie Duke, who is an American astronaut and the youngest man to ever walk on the moon.

And we kind of had this all originally planned after we thought SpaceX and Ben and Doug were going off into space, what, yesterday or two days ago? And then it got postponed to Saturday. So I guess we can kind of maybe talk more about previewing that. But we want to welcome Charlie to the show. What's up, Charlie? How are we doing? Fine. Kevin, nice to talk to you. and then it got postponed to Saturday, so I guess we can kind of maybe talk more about previewing that. But we want to welcome Charlie to the show. What's up, Charlie? How we doing? Fine, Gavin. Nice to talk to you. Thank you very much. So before we start, I have to just full disclosure tell you that me and my co-host, Jared,

have over the years have certainly entertained some of the rumors about the moon landing and whatnot, but I've never gotten the chance to actually talk to an astronaut about it. So I would like, you've done more than entertain it, Kevin, you've done more than entertain it. We've argued it. I can,

I, I think what it is is that I, it just seems almost incomprehensible that anybody could have pulled that off at the time in history when they did. But, uh, you know, you, you're living proof and one of the very, very few members of that club. So what do you have to say to idiots like him and myself who sometimes joke around about

the moon landing not happening? Well, if it didn't, I tell everybody, if we faked it, why did we fake it nine times? Yeah, I guess, I guess. If you don't fake something, you just need to do it once and shut up and leave. But, no, the evidence is overwhelming that we went to the moon. You can see our spacecraft on the moon's surface from lunar reconnaissance orbiter photographs. On our landing site, you can see our descent stage, you see the car, and you see all the experiments packages.

And not individual footprints, but you can see where we walk, because when you walk, it turns up, the dust gets darker. So anyway, the evidence is really strong. I've got 600 pounds of moon rocks still sitting in Houston, and they're totally different than terrestrial rocks. And you were 35 when you walked? How old were you at the time? I was 35.

35. 35. I mean, I'm 35 right now, and I can't even imagine accomplishing even a shred of that. That's unbelievable to do at that age. And now when you look at what Elon Musk is doing and SpaceX and some of the advancements in technology with the rockets being able to land back in the same spot, all that kind of stuff, does it just blow your mind considering what you guys were doing? Or is it like your thoughts on how it's all progressed and changed? Well, they still have a parachute. They have a launch escape system like we do, like we had on Apollo. So they can get off the pad or off the rocket if it blows up. They've got parachutes, so we had the same.

They have a rocket, their first stage, that will come back and land. Of course, that wasn't planned for Apollo. So that's really just the new technology that I see is more of the instrumentation, the communications, all of those kind of things, new systems that, you know, touch screens and stuff like that, that we didn't have. But that's what's so crazy about what you guys did. I mean, you know, my experience is obviously only through movies and TV and stuff like that. But to think about what the entire space program in general, even before the lunar landing, pulled off, when you're talking about, like, pencils and paper mathematics, and you're talking about, you know, communication that is even, like,

it's nothing even compared to what I'm doing right now on the radio from home. Like, how the hell did you guys pull this off? Well, it was, technology was pretty good back then, state of the art. Of course, computers were whole floor computers that mission control to control the thing. And we had an instrumentation unit on the Saturn rocket that controlled it. In our spacecraft, we had a computer that the software was done by MIT, and they had 80K memory to put all those programs in, and they did it. And 80K, my cell phone's got 800,000, no, 600,000 times that memory. That's crazy.

I mean, I know what you're saying for the time. It's all pretty advanced. But, like, the fact that, you know, you guys accomplished that when people are walking around with something in their pocket that dwarfs that. When you're about to go, were you confident? Were you like this you know we these guys know what they're doing and we have the technology or is it something where you're thinking like i don't know i might not i might not come back i might not make it or at that point are you pretty confident in everybody's uh everybody's role you were uh you're pretty confident uh we

were really confident that uh we're going to make it work, and so we were ready to go. Sitting in the, well, laying in the couch, we had basically face up, if you will, towards the instrument panel, and we were just, we trained. We knew we were focused. We were excited. The whole attitude was like these guys that are flying on Saturday. God willing, they're going to be, let's go.

I'm ready. Keep counting. And so that was the focus that we had in the spacecraft. And we had gone through every emergency. We had overcome Apollo 13 problems. Apollo 12 got struck by lightning twice at liftoff. And we made it. And then we had other problems. And thanks to Mission Control, we were able to overcome all those problems. And so we had a lot of confidence that this thing's going to work and we're going to get back okay. So I have a question about coming back because more so about the training than the actual experience, because if you're going to the moon and then you land on the moon, but then you have issues coming back, like you can't just call

triple a. So like, what is, what's the protocol? What's, what's the training teach you if something did go wrong once you're there and you're trying to come back? Well, on a lunar surface, you were exposed to a vacuum every time you were outside walking around. And so you depended on your spacesuit and they were very secure. We had a lot of confidence in those and our backpacks or life support systems were great. There was a tense moment as you count down to liftoff. You got one engine. It's got to work actually for about seven minutes and 15 seconds to get you back into orbit. And it had an automatic sequencer. So when you punch the proceed button on the computer, it started counting down. And when it got to zero, the engines ignited, separated the stages, the engine ignited. Now, if that didn't happen,

we had a set of emergency procedures that we could go through to try to get the engine started. And you had about 30 seconds, if I believe, well, maybe 30 minutes. I don't remember exactly, to get the engine going. If you couldn't, mission control would be looking at it. And we would power down. If they said, power down, guys, save your battery power, we'd power down and make it last as long as it could, and then maybe somebody would come up with a good idea. Just sitting around hoping somebody smart comes up with something good.

Yeah, and if that didn't work, you just were stuck on the moon. Not to get dark or morbid about it, but did you think about if that worst-case scenario, let's say there's no communication or nobody's coming up with anything. Well, no, you have communication. You kept your radio going. Anyway, if nobody came up with it, you'd still make it last as long as possible, and eventually you're going to just run out of oxygen and go to sleep and still be there. But fortunately, rocket engines are really simple.

You need electrical power. You need pressurized fuel and oxidizer. And you just spray them into the engine engine and they blow up or ignite. Yeah, real easy. I think it sounds easy for people like you. It does not sound easy for people like us where, I mean, I just can't even, you know, if I get a flat tire, Charlie, I'm in trouble, let alone come up with some of the shit you guys are coming up with. It's wild, man.

Well, at my age, I got a pickup truck and I can't even lift my spare tire, so I got a problem, too. So you're 35, and you're going up at that point. Are you a family man? Are you a single man? What was your life at the moment? I was married. I had two sons. Our oldest just turned seven, and our youngest was almost five.

So that was their age. Did they understand what, you know, Dad was doing? Did they get the scope of it? Well, they don't remember, but of course they did, because I took them down to the Cape with my wife. We took them up onto the launch pad. They got to steer into the spacecraft, see the spacecraft, see me training, the simulators, all of that. But they don't remember much about it, to be honest.

They just mostly pictures and stuff that we show them. But the actual memories are sort of faded for them. So what's your memory like of it because i know if you know i'm just thinking about if i do something as simple as like go on a vacation and see a cool uh little cool spot here or there i mean when you're one of only what 10 people to ever do it you stood on the moon you look out you see the whole you know the whole world the whole space uh in that moment are you are you nervous? Are you just in wonder?

Are you just going about your business because that's your job? Like what's it like when you're actually foot on the moon? You're really focused. You've got a timeline, and you've got a whole bunch of experiments that you've got to do, and you want to do them correctly, and you want to collect the right samples. So you didn't have any time just to sit there and wowee, golly, look at this. That all came along with it when you were training, I mean, when you were doing your job. The only time that you were relaxed and had a chance to look around was when you were

in the Rover. We had a chance to look around was when you were in the rover. We had a car. John Young was the driver, so he had to really focus on where he wanted to go. But I got to look around, and I got to take pictures and talk and just enjoy the ride, if you will. And that was probably the most relaxing time when I was on the moon. The rest of the time you're real focused on your experiments and your collecting of the samples. I tell you what, in this modern day, Charlie,

if you came back with pictures of the moon and you put it on your social media and your Instagram account, oh, buddy, you would be king of the Internet, man. Yeah, well, some of that's on there right now. It was our 48th anniversary last April, last month. And so I published, put on a liftoff picture, and that must be 40 or 50 videos on YouTube now about just Apollo 16, much less all the other flights.

So there's a lot of material out there for kids and people that are space enthusiasts want to see. There's a lot of material out there for kids and people that are space enthusiasts want to see. There's a lot there. Now, what is this story I see about you? You almost died when you were jumping on the moon? Well, it could have been disaster. We decided to do the Moon Olympics on the moon, and it was a prelude to the regular Olympics. Wait, hang on one second.

You just told me how you don't have time to even soak it in because you're doing your business, and now we're talking about the Olympics on the moon? Well, that was the last thing. You know, if you look at all the flights, Alan Shepard on Apollo 14, he hit a golf ball. David Scott did a Newtonian experiment with a hammer and a feather. So we had a few seconds, and we were going to say, well, let's do the Moon Olympics to kick off the Olympic year. And so we started bouncing. Down here on my spacecraft and my spacesuit and everything on Earth.

I weighed 363 pounds, but up on the moon, only 60 pounds. So John and I started bouncing, and when I bounced and I jumped, I straightened up. And when I did, the big backpack pulled me over backwards. And if I landed on that backpack real hard and it broke i'm dead oh my god so in that moment you're like you flip backwards i had but fear is not bad emotion if you don't panic and so i roll right i just thought do something and i roll right broke my fall and bounced onto my back but everything held together i remember john young running over and said look down said that wasn't very smart charlie

i said yeah help me up and uh so when i got up the tv camera had seen all this stuff and uh mission control was very upset so uh the moon the Moon Olympics lasted about 20 seconds. That is, I mean, I feel like that's like a hallmark of you guys is that you just don't panic. I mean, in normal situations, normal people are freaking out over far less. And I feel like on top of having to be smart and having to be physically in shape and all that, just having nerves of steel the way you guys had must have been one of the most important things for doing what you did yeah we had uh there was a lot of training you know we've been fighter pilots test pilots most of us and uh

and uh we went through 2 000 hours of training in the simulator so we knew what to do uh we knew how to cooperate we just knew everything and we'd gone over it over and over and over again so we had confidence we're gonna pull it off and we did and what's it like when you come back down and you know you guys are i i mean i'd have to imagine one of the most exclusive if not the most exclusive club in all of like the armed forces and, and air force and all that. Is it, is it like a, a sense of pride or, you know, or is it just, I mean, it, uh, you really, uh, proud that you got a flight, uh, in a way you're humbled.

How did I get chosen? But you, I did chosen, and then I got to do it. And so it was a real – you basically climbed to the top of the ladder and had a great sense of accomplishment. It was so exciting. I volunteered for the backup crew on Apollo 17, which was the last mission, and I didn't get to go. But I was hoping that if they got sick or something, I can make it.

So anyway, I didn't get to go, but it was a great experience and something that's still vivid in my mind now, over 48 years later. And so what do you think is next? I mean, it sounds like there's really not much for us to go back to the moon. Uh, well, it is,

it's, uh, there's, there were pressing on, uh, yeah. NASA has got a, uh,

goal to try to land on the moon 2024, 2025. We have a spacecraft. It's called, uh, one spacecraft called the, uh, uh,

Orion. It's part of Artemis. The program is called Artemis. Artemis is the sister of Apollo in Greek mythology. And so the second missions are going to be called Artemis. And we have a vehicle that will take us to the moon but no lander uh but now they have uh nasa has put out some proposals to boeing and spacex and several others to uh come up with something uh to land on the moon and uh by 2024 2025 and i think it doesn't take that long if you work at it hard uh you could build a lunar module or lunar lander in four years

so we'll see what happens are you uh what are your thoughts before i let you go here because we're almost wrapping up uh just in general are your thoughts on on elon musk and spacex and everything uh you know they're hoping to accomplish sometimes to me it feels like they kind of throw out these like pie in the sky ideas uh but are they actually feasible from your point of view, some of the stuff that Elon says he wants to accomplish? Yeah, SpaceX has got a great program. They've got a great rocket. That Dragon spacecraft has been very successful taking cargo up,

and this is a modified one, so the people take people. And I'm very excited about this privatization and private NASA cooperation. NASA's funding a lot of that, and so they've done a good job, as several others have. So I think the future is very bright for tourism and space, private enterprise, And so it's a good idea. Well, I appreciate the time. I mean, I could talk to you for hours on end. I'm fascinated by all this stuff, but I appreciate the time you did give us, and thank you so much for calling in.

Sure. All the best. Okay. Hope we get out of hell tomorrow. Let's hope. Fingers crossed everything goes well. See you later. Have a good one.

That's Charlie Duke, the Moonwalker, which it's got to be. I feel like if I could put like one thing on like your resume or one thing to introduce yourself as, it would be that. It's pretty cool. I could listen to that guy talk forever. Could you imagine just being like, you know, it's like, hey, I'm, i'm uh pedro martinez i'm a baseball hall of famer like that's cool that's awesome it's like oh i'm uh george bush former president pretty cool i walked on the motherfucking moon how about that yeah me and only 10 other people ever have done it it's just like the coolest shit again of course allegedly jared Jared. Allegedly. That didn't change your mind?

None of that changed your mind, Kevin. Maybe it could have just been one grand plant by the government. No. You can't listen to that man and those stories and his sweet voice. He is fucking. And you know what? I mean, I think it's kind of like it makes sense that in order to even get to that level and be that like a comp i mean astronauts are legit

like the best like the smartest most physically fit like badass dudes like ever you know what i mean but it also makes sense that to get to that level you'd be like yeah i don't know man like it was just my job i just went up there did my thing came back down it was pretty cool because me i'd be like guess what i fucking did guys i? I would be telling everybody that, every girl that, every story. I'd be so obnoxious about it. But I feel like in order to even be those guys, you're just kind of like, yeah, you know. That was my job, and so I did it. Holy shit, you guys are fucking awesome.

And they didn't even have social media where they could, like, brag about it. Yeah, it's like they weren't even doing it for clout. They were just fucking like, yeah. They were actually just doing it for their job. But I do have to imagine. They didn't just land and be like, fire off a tweet. I got to imagine down at Cape Canaveral, these guys are like the fucking rock stars.

They're all rock stars. You know what I mean? Maybe you don't get those Instagram likes, but everybody else you meet is like, holy shit. There goes Charlie Duke. Walked on the moon. All right, so big thanks to him. Jared, I want to hear more from you on these owners and these leaks and these rumors.

Please keep up as baseball's watchdog. And I'm sure we'll probably be hearing much more about this in days to come. So thank you to Charlie Duke. Everybody stay safe. Pray for Minnesota and everything else in between. We'll see you guys tomorrow. Stay home, stay healthy, stay hot. All right, we're back. It's CCK, another half hour before Barstool Chicago takes over.

Right now we are joined by former MLB commissioner, Faye Vincent. And also coincidentally, it's your birthday today. So happy, happy birthday, Faye. How you doing? I'm an old man.

Thank you very much. We won't even go into the fact I'm 82. 82. Shit. I would, I would have guessed not, not a day over 60. How you doing Faye?

I'm great. Thank you for calling. So obviously, you know, a lot going on in the sports world. And I have been reiterating over and over and over again on this show as we discuss all the different leagues, how I am not envious of any of these commissioners. It has got to be an absolutely impossible spot where there really is no right and no easy way out. So as a former commissioner yourself, are you keeping abreast of how Manfred and the league are currently handling it?

Do you have any thoughts on what they're doing and what you would have done differently and just how something like this can, how stressful it can be? Well, I certainly agree with you that the pandemic virus has caused a major upheaval in our country at large and certainly in sports. I think the commissioners have a difficult job in any event. But I heard Gary Bettman yesterday on one of the networks, and he did a first-class job of describing what they were doing, and he has a big advantage in that he says he and his union are working together very carefully and thoughtfully, and that's good news. Baseball, which I follow, as you would expect,

obviously it has itself in a very difficult situation, and I'm so far away from it, it's very difficult for me to evaluate what's going on. Obviously, there are some things happening. One is the baseball contract is up next year, so they're at the end of a long run, and they know there's going to be a major negotiation. Now they're having another, I think it is a lesser, but it could be potentially a very major negotiation about how they get to next year.

And as usual, the union and the owners are far apart. And there's a major governance problem in baseball. It's been there for years. I lived through it. And to some extent, I'm a victim of it because I couldn't get the two sides to work together. And there's still a lot of ill will in baseball because some of the people, certainly some of the owners, were around during a very bad period. And I think that spills over.

So I think it's a very difficult time for baseball, and I'm not at all certain that it's going to get worked out. I don't see signs that the owners are going to get the union to accept the owner's proposal, and if not, I think there may very well be another standoff. If you, you know, put your money down right now,

you're saying you think there'll be no baseball? Yeah, again, you have to give me a little credit. I mean, it's silly to comment on something when you're so far away. Right, right. If I say I wouldn't put a nickel on either prospect here because I'm so far away. But I think baseball, the union is very powerful.

They've shown that they stand up and they're not unwilling to close down baseball. And I think there's a reasonable prospect that baseball won't play this year. I feel like the growing sentiment and kind of understanding from fans is shifting away from, oh, these guys are just millionaires playing a kid's game to saying, well, let's forget about the millionaires. Let's talk about the billionaires. And I feel like at least my generation and a lot of the blogs and podcasts and the Internet world are starting to realize that the greed is really coming more from the owner's side.

And I feel like probably back in the day, probably more when you were in control, that that was not the sentiment. Do you feel like there's been a shift in fans kind of placing blame from the players to the owners or vice versa? Yes, I think so. And part of it is the finagling in Houston. Look, I think what happened in Houston cost baseball substantially. And the fact that the union has not seen fit to work with baseball, even on that issue, and it seems to me the likelihood that the union and the owners are going to come together for something that is baseball of interest is far-fetched.

I think what's happening here, though, and you are an observer, you will pick up immediately. What's happening is a recognition by the union that the owners have held on to all the equity in these clubs. So the Yankees are now worth $8 to $10 billion. And if the family sold, if the family of Steinbrenner sold out tomorrow for $8 to $10 billion, the players would get nothing. And the players, I think, in the Marvin Miller era, believed that that didn't matter because they were getting paid huge amounts of money.

Now I think the players are beginning to recognize that the television, MLB.com, is owned by the owners. SNY, all the different sports channels that present baseball are owned by the owners or a conglomeration of interests away from the players. In other words, the players are running the risk that with this pandemic and income tax rates on wealthy people going through the roof, as is going to happen, and you know it's going to become a much bigger problem for the union because as rates go up, the players are going the dollar when we're paying 50 cents or 60 and soon to be 70 or 80. I think underlying everything that's going on in baseball today is that reality that the baseball players, all sports figures, are very, very wealthy, but they're all getting paid as if they were members of a working man's union. Right.

I mean, the average salary in baseball is probably $4 million. That's not a working man's union. That's a rich man's union. But they are paid through the union mechanism at ordinary income rates. That has to change. And I think what the union is trying to figure out is how do they go about, do they try to do some of that this year? Do they wait until next year?

How do they open up that whole equity window, which has been shut? And meanwhile, the owners have been smiling all the way to the bank because they own 100% of every team, and every team's value has been going through the roof, and gambling is only going to make it more valuable to own the franchises. So I think there's a lot going on that we're not reading about. Is it feasible that the union would be able to negotiate that, though? Are you saying that every player would get a piece of equity or be a part, share profits?

Let's say you come up for a cup of coffee or you're not that good. I can understand what you're talking about. Well, I talked to Michael Wader. Look, one of the problems with the union has been they've had the bad luck. Michael Wader was a genius and he was the head of the union, the baseball players' union, and he died of a glioblastoma tragically right at the height of his career. I talked to him and asked him how he could explain to the players that they didn't own a piece of MLB.com,

and why wouldn't they own a piece and get a piece of that in an equity form that would give them some capital gains treatment. And he said, you're absolutely right. We've got to do that. I'm going to do it. And then he died. So Tony Clark, I don't think, is as, how do I say it, sophisticated as Michael Weiner.

And so I don't know how the union begins to deal with this problem. But I knew this. The union cannot sit there in the position they're in and have the Mets are being sold at a price that fell apart was $2.5 billion, and the Yankees are worth, I'm sure, $8 to $10 billion. And if they were sold tomorrow, the players would get nothing. There's something wrong with that, and it's going to have to change. So as it stands right now, first of all, do you believe that if there wasn't a CBA negotiation

occurring next year, that it would be much more, it would be easier to get a deal done now? Do you think that's the main problem right now, or is it still just like the year at hand? I don't think I know enough to comment on that. I just don't know. I don't have any sense of it. Yeah, I mean, from my point of view, just as a fan speculating, I feel like everybody's nervous to set a precedent where it's like,

all right, let's agree to something this year so that we can bring baseball back to America, but then all of a sudden you shoot yourself in the foot for the big negotiation, which can last for... Well, I think that's a reasonable guess, but I have no idea. Where do you, as an outsider, not an inside information here, but just as a baseball mind, whose side are you on here? Do you understand the players' point of view more so than the owners?

No, I think the tragedy is, and it's a tragedy that exists across our country. I mean, the biggest problem we have as a nation is governance. We can't control. I mean, every segment of this society is having a trouble making tough decisions. The tragedy of baseball is it still exists in a union format where the union says to me and other commissioners, the future of baseball is not our concern. We're only concerned about protecting our players.

Well, the ownership and the players have a lot more in common than they are willing to accept, and the getting together is going to have to happen. Now, they've had a terrible relationship. They hate each other, and it's very difficult. But, you know, if you can get peace in Ireland and the Arabs and the Israelis can sit down, anybody can sit down. I think there has to be some governance, a beginning of governance,

that puts the players in a position where they see what is done by baseball generally as in their area of concern. And the scandal in Houston only brought that up because the players basically insisted and got immunity. So no player member of the union was disciplined. For what we all know, the players were doing. They disciplined coaches, managers, owners. But the union was left out. And that was a great credit to the union, except that it made the point that I'm making,

which is they don't see themselves with the owners as the caretakers of the future of baseball. And until somebody gets some, it has to be some remarkable leadership group that comes together and say, we have to work together. So far, that hasn't happened. I mean, yeah, I know what you're saying that, you know, if some of these other groups have negotiated peace, it's possible. But to me, it feels impossible.

I feel like baseball more so. Why do you think baseball, why do you think the relationship between those two groups in baseball is just so much worse than every other sport? Like, where did it go wrong? I feel like the NBA is kind of on the same page. Well, you're a young man. You don't remember. The owners stole $280 million from the union and from the players. They called it collusion. They got caught. They had to pay $10 million a club, 28 clubs, $280 million.

And that reality polluted the relationship between the union and the players and the owners. And the owners got caught basically cheating, stealing. And I came along right after that, and I said it won't happen again on my watch. And the owners criticized me because they said, we don't admit it happened. Now, if you don't admit it happened, why did you pay $280 million to the union? Right. Why should it happen? And what you're saying is that so many of these owners are, you know, lifelong owners,

right? So they're, you know, players are from a new era, but a lot of these owners are coming from, you know, the era where that kind of stuff was going on and, like, they're butting heads. Well, some of the ringleaders of that collusion are still in baseball. Not many. And, of course, Seelig is gone. But the fact is that collusion is the single biggest pollutant,

and almost no sports writer, and I had a sports writer from one of the biggest papers say to me, I was 14 years old when collusion happened. He said, what happened? Tell me. Why is it so important? If you don't understand collusion, he said what happened tell me why is it so important if you don't understand collusion i say to the baseball world you don't understand why there's such

trouble bringing these two sides together that makes 180 million dollars 20 years ago with a lot of money to steal and you know you when you get caught doing it it pollutes a lot of money to steal. And, you know, when you get caught doing it, it pollutes a lot of things. What would you, speaking of the Houston situation, if you were a commissioner during that, what would, union aside, what do you think a fitting punishment would have been? Well, I think that it's not my place to criticize Manfred. I mean, I think the mistake probably was not getting the union involved in the disciplinary procedure. To give the union members immunity looked like it was a good idea.

It saved a lot of litigation, a lot of lawyers' time. But the fact is it sent the wrong message to baseball and to the fans who said, look, we know who was banging on the walls and using all the signals. It was players, and why aren't they being disciplined? And why is it that just because they're in a union and the union would litigate, they get a pass? I think that was a big mistake looking back.

I think Manfred probably would tell you that was a mistake because you have to get the whole group together working on something as serious as cheating of that magnitude or you're not going to get the right result. The union has to be in on anything important in baseball. When baseball went through its, you know, 94 work stoppage, the general thought is kind of that the Sosa-McGuire home run chase is kind of what saved baseball. Do you think if they don't play this year,

do you think they'd be able to just resume and still have the same level of popularity, or do you think it would take an event of that magnitude to save it? Well, I think the rumors of baseball's demise are almost always exaggerated. Baseball is extremely resilient. However, 94 hurt. And I think I've known some fans who really got turned off. It really bothered the heck out of them. Some of them haven't been back. But look, baseball

attendance has been strong. If anything, indications are it's as popular as it ever was. Recognize that football has taken primacy in the sports world over baseball and basketball. But the fact of the matter is that anything that really shuts down baseball and takes baseball away from the public eye hurts. And I think these guys are playing a dangerous game because we know the harm is serious. But, you know, can baseball come back? Absolutely. And, look, if there were a game on tonight, I'd turn it on because I'm a fan and I'm really committed to it.

But there's no question that the habit of baseball diminishes when there's no baseball. That's why getting these games back is pretty important. We've been discussing here kind of the player's side versus the owner's side, and our general belief is that until the owners have to open up the books, explain how much they make, explain how much they stand to lose, whereas players, we all know their salaries, we all know the pay cuts they're taking, but there's no transparency on the owner's side. Do you think that's something that can ever be achieved or presented, where we'll actually know how much they make per year and how much they would stand to lose if we didn't play baseball?

Well, yes, I think it's going to have to happen because the numbers are so enormous. And I think the union has sat very quietly and said, we're happy to get paid hundreds of thousands of dollars a year. But now that this equity issue is going to become very important, the television, the multiplicity of television vehicles that are very, very popular, including MLB, is so staggeringly popular that even the books on that are things that have to become available. I don't think in this day and age that the owners are going to get away making any progress with the union without giving out all the information.

Now, they're worried that it's going to get public and that it's going to cause some harm in other negotiations like television. And maybe there's some semblance of a reasonable concern there. But I don't think in our society anymore you're going to get away with being as big a sport as baseball and football and basketball are without giving out the information. And, of course, the question is what information? Because these things are layered in various corporate forms. And the fact is the players in the union, if they're going to be asked to become partners in any sense,

are going to have to have the data. Right. That only makes sense. If you're going to pair up, you've got to all be on the same page. Well, baseball said we want you to be a 50% partner to the union, and the union says we want to know 50% of what? Of what? And we want to know what you have that's not in the 50% pie you're offering us, and what are you making away from the sort of on-field and television?

What are you making in all these ancillary businesses? And the answer is the owners are going to have to make that available. Well, I appreciate the time. I could talk about this for hours and hours, but we only got a minute left. So I really appreciate the insight. It's fascinating stuff. So thank you so much for the call. Thanks for calling me.

All the best. Have a good one, Faye. Happy birthday. I wanted to ask him so bad about why the Wilpons still get to fucking own the team and get away with what they get away with, but we didn't have enough time. I was waiting. I was like, I want to ask you, but if I know my man Faye, he would have said, well, I can't, I don't want to speak on anybody like that.

So interesting stuff from him. I wonder if the transparency really will be there. I think that's a huge, huge piece of the puzzle. So we'll find out in days to come. Barstool Chicago is up next. Thank you so much to Faye. And we'll catch you guys on Monday. Stay home, stay hot.