Pardon My Take - Rick Reilly + Kevin Durant's Injury And NBA Finals

Episode Date: June 12, 2019

NBA Finals Game 5 recap. Kevin Durant's injury, Bob Myers cried, Toronto felt shame (2:25 - 16:06), and Nick Nurse blew it (16:06 - 18:17). Hot Seat/Cool Throne including Hank's upcoming quarter life crisis and the USWNT shitpumping Thatiland (18:17 - 33:15) . Rick Reilly joins the show to talk about his new book, his career at SI, how children of the 90's looked up to him, his "sell out" moment, and the famous Kate Upton 3 boob tweet (33:15 - 86:13). Segments include Ratings War, PMT Sports Minute, PR 101 for North Korea and Guys on ChicksYou 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/PardonMyTake

Hey, pardon my take listeners, you can find every episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube. Prime members can listen, ad-free, on Amazon Music. On today's part of my take, we have Rick Riley. Yep, Rick Riley came into the studio. We talked about everything. We talked about his new book. We talked about his career, how we looked up to him when we were kids.

His sell-out moment, which actually, I kind of want to be Rick Riley because he made a lot of sense, and a lot more, especially the Kate Upton third boob. We have Game 5 of the NBA Finals, one of the most dramatic games in NBA Finals history. We have HotSea Cool Throne, guys on chicks, and PMT Sports Biz Minute is back. Before we get to all of that, part of my take is brought to you by the Cash App, the number one finance app in the App Store. Cash App is the most powerful way to send, spend, and save. It's connected to the free cash card.

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Download the Cash App today, enter code Barstool, get some money, and save some animals. Okay, let's go. Welcome to part of my take presented by the Cash App, go download it right now, use code Barstool and $5 goes to the ASPCA, save some animals. Today is Wednesday, June 12th, PFT, I think we have to apologize to Kevin Durant. I'm sorry, Kevin. I'm sorry, Kevin. Kevin, you are not a B-B.

Well, in our defense, we have actually been team Kevin Durant for months now, but game five of the NBA Finals was one for the ages. It was, had all the drama, had all the intensity, and Kevin Durant was at the center of all of it. He comes back. He gets injured. He, well, I should say he comes back and he balls out 11 points in 12 minutes. He gets injured and I mean, he basically, everyone, he's gotten the most shit probably

for any big time athlete. Some of it deserved because he obviously is always online and clapping back at people. But I feel like this one game kind of changes a lot of the perception. He put his heart on the line. He probably knew he could get injured again, went out there for the Warriors and played great and then gets injured and it's his Achilles. So it might be, you know, all the way into next year. And now you have to be like Kevin Durant.

He's the fucking man. Kevin Durant is literally a warrior. Yeah. No, he went out there. I was surprised that he did it, to be honest with you, because I know everybody was saying you had people on Twitter, armchair doctors, you had medical experts on TV. Dude, everyone on Twitter has an MD. Yeah.

You had medical experts on TV. You had just everybody, like even the team, the team doctor said there's no risk of re-injury. It might, well, there's a risk of making that injury hurt again, but you're not going to make it any worse by playing, which anytime a doctor tells you that, that's always bullshit. Because the human body is a very interesting thing. You know, like it's so random. Yeah, it's so random. You have like a left ACL injury, then you heal that and come back.

Way more likely to tear you right ACL, because the body overcompensates in different ways. Now Kevin Durant, he has such tiny calf muscles, he has many are saying Patrick Mahomes style calf muscles, very small calves. But anytime you have a calf injury, there are other parts of your body that are going to overcompensate for it. In this case, it was the Achilles. So that sucks that he got injured and you're right, there's going to be huge ramifications. Some teams are, I think it was Skip Bayless actually that was saying, are teams really

going to want to pay for Kevin Durant for you? Let me stop you right now, Skip. Yeah, they're going to the best for the Knicks fans who are like, you know who the real loser tonight is us. Yeah, because we don't shut up Knicks fans. You're still going to pay for Kevin Durant. He's still going to be awesome when he comes back. I just think here's what I think.

We need to rebrand the Achilles injury. We named it after a dude that lost a war like 5000 years ago. And we're still calling it the Achilles. It should be the Kobe heal. Oh, OK. That's yeah. Well, is there any other famous Achilles guys? I kind of like the Achilles.

You get an injury named after you. That's pretty bad ass. The guy from SAW. Oh, he got his Achilles sliced open. The Kevin Durant, though, like you can't sit there as a sports fan and be like, this guy doesn't care the utmost because I know there's the blame game now and everyone's like, well, it was the doctors. Was it Bob Myers who will get to his press conference was so weird.

Was it Kevin Durant forces way back? I whatever it may be. Kevin Durant basically was like, I'm playing. And I like these minutes. The the load management crowd has shown up and been like, well, he shouldn't have played 12 minutes and he shouldn't have played 10 out of the first 12 minutes. So if he played nine, he wouldn't have gotten hurt.

No, he's when Kevin Durant is on the floor, you saw it like he started bringing the ball up. He was the point guard like he was going to go 100 percent. He was on fire. He went, I think, three for three from three 11 points in 12 minutes. And what happens is something that might be unlucky, something that might have been because of the other injury. I don't know.

I'm not going to blame anyone. It sucks. Yeah, it sucks to see a guy like that get injured. But all credit to Kevin Durant for even going out there because I feel like, you know, you saw all those reports being like, well, is he playing? Is he not playing? And as soon as that happens, the pressure probably feels monumental on the athlete. Like everyone's dogging me.

Everyone doesn't think I can come back and he came back and the worst possible scenario happened and saying that he should change his game to fit the injury that he's coming off. Crazy. It is bullshit. It's like, you don't tell a guy to completely change what they're doing, become like Clay Thompson. If you're Kevin Durant, only catch and shoot. Don't try to create anything off the off the dribble.

Like you don't tell a lion, OK, only chase down a wildebeest. If it's making a lap, if it's cutting the line, you got a knee sprain. Yeah. Make sure you go off to the warthogs, not the, uh, exactly. A lion's going to get hungry and it's not going to concern itself with the opinion of Bayliss is out there. You can't tell. Here's an example.

If you told Vantes perfect, hey, Vantes stopped aiming for people's heads. Then Vantes is just going to get himself hurt. Right. That circumstance. Right. So the so that's the Kevin Durant stuff. It obviously sucks. Uh, I it'll be interesting to see if he now stays with the Warriors. So let's actually before we get to the Toronto fans, Bob Myers and his press conference. Boy, was that awkward.

A lot of tears. Holy shit. A lot of crying. I I might be an asshole for saying this, but when he got up to the mic and struggled and held back tears and was like moving the mic around. And then just dropped the it's an Achilles. I laughed out loud because that the like what he was showing was not like it didn't mirror what we're talking about. We're talking about an injury.

I thought he was going to say like, we just got the nuclear bomb sent to, you know, like to LA and we have like 10 minutes before everyone dies. He was so emotional and this is also the Bob Myers. Remember, he made that joke after the Warriors won the championship at the rally when he was like, uh, Steph Curry can get anything he wants because he's been here longer. Kevin Durant hasn't been here that long. So come on, dude, like you you care because Kevin Durant's probably not going to be a warrior anymore.

Actually, I'm going to say it was more because he he fucked up and somehow. Yeah, that those are the tears. And if he cries, those are the tears of a guilty man who's like, I need to be super emotional because I know that my medical staff fucked up by allowing him to go out there. And now everyone would be like, oh, poor Bob Myers, he really cares. And I I'm not saying he doesn't care because he probably does a lot about his players. He hangs out a lot with his players, but it was a little extra. It was very extra on Bob Myers's part.

And so, yeah, the tears were a little bit funny. So now I think we have to get in to the entire city of Canada for how they reacted to that injury. And now I'm going to defend Canada a little bit. I think you're going to have a similar take. But when when he went down with that injury, I think a lot of the initial reaction was we're going to win the NBA finals. Of course, there's very first reaction. I'm not saying it was the right reaction to have in that moment,

but I don't think that the majority of fans that were cheering when he went down were cheering because they were happy that he had an Achilles injury. Well, they were kind of happy that he got an injury because it means he was out. And the so there's two different sides here. It happens. Everyone runs to Twitter and is like, hey, fuck Canada's best part, fuck Toronto. And I was like, you know what? That's a scumbag move by Toronto.

But if you are a fan of any team, any sport and you think your fan base doesn't have bad moments, you're crazy because literally step one of being a fan. It's fanatic like you aren't a fan of a team or sport or care so much. You don't go and go to a bar and watch your football team every fucking Sunday if you aren't a little bit crazy. If you don't like sports fans by definition are not well adjusted human beings. Yes, that's just what we are. And I'm talking about myself here, too.

Right. So I don't think that there was anything malicious by it. At first, maybe some of the fans that were clapping went like a way. I'll say it way over the line. It was the waves. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Those guys went way over the line. And then they immediately realized their Canadianness and you're like, Hey, hey, let's calm down led by a lot of the Raptors players. Yeah, credit to them credit to them. They're like, Hey, we're not clapping for this.

And then who do you think was more extra? The GM of the Warriors or Drake? Because Drake was pretty Drake looked like. But he does have his number tattooed on his arm. He does loves Kevin Durant. Yeah, so they're very good friends. I'm just happy that Toronto can stop the act. Like we can stop the act with with Raptors fans that you guys are different

than everyone else. You're not. You're the same and that's fine because like, let's just be honest here. You want to win at all costs. You want to see your team win a championship at all costs. And that's totally OK. You shouldn't cheer injuries. But in that moment, you blacked out. You have never won anything.

And you see like the best player in the world go down. You're like, Oh, shit, this is actually going to happen. And so I I like in one part and like you guys are scumbags. But the other I'm like, kind of understand what's going on. I just I'm waiting for the LeBron James Instagram post of a young LeBron James asking, why does this happen? Have to happen to my future best friend, Kevin Durant.

Right. Like that. I need Kevin or I need LeBron to weigh in on it. Secondly, I want to say that at least it happened in Canada because he's got free health care up there. That's true. That was a spin zone. People were thrown out. Saw that happen to Kauai. It's fixed. Kauai is a severe boo boo on his thigh this season.

So it's good that it happened there. And it's also kind of one of those like sliding doors moments. You look back, we were one fluke, Kauai Leonard shot bounce away from having a classy city like Philadelphia that would have treated that injury with the respect that is saying they would have eaten Milwaukee. I'm yeah, I'm saying that Philadelphia here. If you're a Philadelphia fan, this was like a this is a Christmas present last night. Oh, yeah.

To be like, we're not the we're not the only scumbag fans out there. Fucking every fan base. If you think that your fan base is better than anyone, then you are just wrong. If we're wrong, there have to be like one or two fan bases that you would like the Portland Timbers are probably fucking better. They probably wouldn't share. No, the Portland Timbers are the ones that get into like the dark throwing European riots against the sounders.

I don't even know. Somehow play like seven times a year. Yeah. Like think about it. You think of like the nicest the places in the world in the country where everyone's like, oh, these people are really nice. The Utah Jazz. Everyone knows the Utah Jazz fans are the worst worst. Like every fan base has moments like this where the I just don't like how Twitter and people are like, look at every family like, wow,

these guys are scumbags. My team would never know your team probably wouldn't have. You know what the the best way that you can figure out which fan base would be less likely to do this is the fan bases that we call bad sports towns right that are that don't show up. Miami Heat probably would be less likely. People would have already left. They would have been like, shit, Kevin Durant's on fire.

I'm out. Yeah. I'm going to live. Wait, it's still on the fountain. Blue. It's still 81 degrees outside tonight. I'm going to Nick Cannon's while now fall out of the strip. Fuck this. So yeah, I don't blame Canada. You are one of us. Toronto fans.

You can no longer hold any. I don't even think a lot of Toronto fans. Like there's just such a stupid, weird disconnect between Twitter and real life because I really think that like most Toronto fans probably never thought they were morally superior. It's just a few dorks here and there on Twitter who think that they're better than everyone. And then they end up being like the mouthpiece for a fan base.

So I don't blame. I don't begrudge. It was a bad moment, but I'll begrudge Toronto. You guys are human. Hockey fans would never cheer for an injury. Yeah, right. Right. That's I mean, like I said, the I said to you earlier, we should have learned this when I was like, oh, Canada, you're just like us.

Well, we should have learned it when Vancouver burnt their entire city to the ground when they lost the Stanley Cup. That was amazing. That was such an amazing celebration. Like shattering storefront windows. Listen, we're all idiots when it comes to sports. That's why we love it so much. And we also got the nice thing with the Kevin Durant injury

and everyone, you know, the Toronto fans cheering for the injury. We had another. This has been the biggest week in as a blank fan because there were a lot of Kevin Durant's tweet. There were people were tagging him. People were tagging his mom being like as a Raptors fan. I'm just rooting for Kevin Durant. That's very nice of you.

Listen, as a rugby fan, I just want to say that you hate seeing this type of injury happening in a noncontact sport as a guy as a fan of having intact Achilles and is always scared as a man over the age of 30, knowing the playing basketball could have been you. I could tear my Achilles at any moment. I just want Kevin Durant to get healthy as much as it was a as a blank fan night. I think it was a bigger stay classy night. Yeah, stay classy.

You might remember from that famous movie, Wedding Crashers from 2006. It was all over Twitter. When I shout out, it was all you couldn't you couldn't go three seconds between refreshing without a stay classy reference from like being directed to the entire city of Toronto. Fans are never classy. No, like we have classy moments. But think about this.

Like if you're like, man, I can't believe trying to do this. Think about a group of like four dudes, 25 years old. They went they were drinking moulson for four hours before the game. They've never seen a championship in their lifetime. They get to the arena. They're jacked up. Kevin Durant shows up and starts torching them. The baddest guy in the planet shows up and says, I'm just going to hit every three.

Boom. He goes down. In that one second, you're probably going to be an asshole. Yeah. And then you then you correct. And then you feel bad about it. Right. Do you think back in Roman times at the Coliseum, if like a gladiator sprained his ankle, they would get pissed off at the tiger that was coming up to eat him and be like, quit showboating. Stay classy. Yeah, listen, we should talk about the game itself for a second, too.

Yes. Nick Nurse with one of the worst timeouts of all time. I liked it. He he said he was actually trying to get them some some rest. And also there's the theory that you, you know, the rule that you can't take more than two timeouts into under three minutes. Can't take it with you. So he, Kawai Leonard goes super novus 10 points in like 90 seconds. I swear to God, Nick Nurse called that timeout to soak it in. Like that was a soak it in.

That was a Saturday afternoon in March. Lawrence, Kansas call timeout. Let the seniors get in there. Moment like what are you doing, dude? You have all the momentum in the world. And then it goes Clay Steph Clay threes. The Warriors Championship Resolve is just insane. Let Kawai have his moment.

You know what that was? Every time I'm watching a basketball game on TV, if the fans, if there's a moment where the fans are just going fucking nuts, I just I expect to hear that whistle for a timeout, right? You hear it coming before it ever. You're like, this is too loud. There's going to be a timeout soon. Nick Nurse just heard all that cheering. It was like, we got timeout time.

Yeah, timeout. This is when the timeout shouldn't be a TV timeout. Yeah. So I'm going to call the timeout. And Steve Kerr should have called the timeout when Steph Curry got trapped and Draymond got the over and back like that. The coaches kind of beefed up the whole way down the stretch. But that that one timeout and I actually don't blame them for the last session, because I think as much as you don't want Kyle Lowry shooting,

the Warriors just played great defense. They played great defense. They doubled Kawai. Draymond is insane and shout out also Boogie because Boogie is basically the fat guy who's just trying to get as many rebounds as possible. And so out of breath. Yeah, every time they run a pick and roll with him. Yeah, it's like the saddest thing ever.

Now, if you were to take a contrarian point of view against against that final possession, you would say something like on that final play as soon as he saw the double team coming from Iggy to his right. Number two should have just power dribbled hard left on clay, bounced him off and gone up for the potential game winner. So he should have bounced clay off him, which is a play that many basketball players run. I love the final. I mean, there are bad final possessions.

Whenever a team does the final possession and a guy just holds a ball at the top of the key for like the entire shot clock and then like with two seconds left, tries to drive. But in terms of like what you should do in a final possession, when you get doubled as hard as he did, there's many times in NBA history and basketball history where making the right pass proved to be the good, good play. It just so happened that Kyle Lowry was the open guy. Kyle Lowry took the shot.

Maybe just don't have Kyle Lowry on the floor. Kyle Lowry, I think he hit like a popcorn vendor with that shot. It was so far behind the basket. It was it was a very tough final possession. But I think now we got to look forward. I think the Warriors win game six. See, I think the wrap is going to win it. I think they're going to. I think Kauai loves the road games.

He's I think the wrap. I think all this drama is great as game five was. I just have a feeling that the rappers are going to come out and just and just fucking kill the Warriors on Thursday night. I don't know why. I just it feels like that was so much emotional energy put into that game by the Warriors and Kevon Looney is probably out to now. So it's like they have no one.

They basically just need Stefan and Clay to not miss. Clyde just is probably sick of playing. He just wants to go home. He's like, I don't listen. Let's just end the season. Yeah, I don't want to have an extended. He might not even show up for the parade. Yeah, I won that bet, Hank, over six games.

I'm happy to I mean, I think we're all happy because we got sports still going. But so you you think the you think it's going seven. Yeah, but that's just because I'm doing the thing where I'm holding on with both hands to the hockey and to the NBA off the edge of the cliff. Right. One more. One more Sunday night. I think it's going seven to you do. OK, so one more game in Oracle.

Hopefully the fans don't leave early. I got a thousand bucks on the Warriors. I need this. Yeah, I need this. All right. So before we get to our hot seat, Cool Throne, Rick Riley is coming up. We had him in studio about three weeks ago. If you want to watch, you can go to barstoolgold.com

slash PMT, very fun interview coming up. Hank, do you want to start Hot Seat Cool Throne? The soon to be 26 year old Hank? Yes, my hot seat is Thailand. Yes. Yeah. Tough, tough showing for the women's of Thailand. I mean, they basically was like Alabama verse. I don't even know who is it was.

They got blown out. Yeah, 13, nothing like Abilene Christian. Yeah, it was it was bad and but on the other hand, you're not really country until Hank mispronounces your name. Yeah, who are you in this world until you get to that point? So yeah, it was it was a shit pumping. I'm going to say right now, the U.S. Women's National Team, the W stands for wagon in U.S.

W. N. T. And we have Rose Lavelle coming up on Friday. That's right. We scored the second goal and probably like the seventh and 10th. I don't even know how many goals it got out of hand real quick. You might have scored a bunch of goals. Alex Morgan had five. Rose had two.

I predicted before the game, I said, Rose was going to get to Alex was going to get three. Alex ended up almost having while taking the under six while taking I was really that was a tight rope. I was really and the first half over. I was thread and needle and I got most of my predictions correct. But Alex Morgan almost had a double hat trick, which is fucking crazy. Just kneecap Thailand.

So yeah, and that was talking soccer. I was talking soccer. My other hot seat is Canadian intelligence. So back to the game. Barsal Sports on Twitter posted a meme where it was like it was from England World Cup like a few years ago when a bar was going absolutely crazy when they scored a goal. It might have been last summer, two summers ago, whatever.

And Barstool put the video of Kevin Durant's Achilles popping. And so it looked like the bar was reacting to that. It was erupting. It said Toronto fans reacting to Kevin Durant getting injured. And there was a ton of Canadian people being like, this is fucked up. Like, how could you guys this is fake? Like not understanding that it was clearly fake and going out of their way to show how fake it was, not getting that it was a joke.

These are on brand for Canadians. And these are also my favorite moments because whether like, you know, obviously we have a lot of people who hate us online. But when you can't get a simple, simple joke and then you like knee jerk, be like, well, even if it's joke, Barstool's trash is like, what? What you just you miss the joke and now you're going to this. But the people there was one guy who basically spent he must have spent like 20 minutes going through the picture and Photoshop and putting in like notes.

Like there's ashtrays. There's England flags. It's a light out. Yeah, there's a there's a David Beckham poster on the wall. He went to bro. Full figure this out in a second. Full snopes on us. This was like loose change for Canadians, like debunking this video. It's a loose loonies. Yeah. And then they're like, and then they you're like, hey, man, it's a joke.

Like, well, that joke isn't funny. Actually, it was really funny. Yeah, it was pretty funny. There it is. Is that a tank? And then my cool throne is Bill Belichick's likeability. He canceled the last two days of OTAs and took the boys out paintballing. Oh, wow. That's so funny. Getting soft.

So instead of having them at practice, he just took them out to shoot each other with guns. Yeah, which what offensive linemen had to catch a punt to get that possible? Probably out of who knows. Maybe they were dangerous. Yeah, that's probably because Joe Cardone, he got like promoted to lieutenant at a practice. That was their version this year of like an office.

Joe, if you can if you can achieve a higher rank in the military while you're at OTAs, then we'll take it off for the last two days. I fucking love football. I love football coaches just being like this non mandatory thing that you guys all have to show up to. I'm going to give it I'm going to give you a day off. Yeah, yeah, but you I mean, it's one of the players. It's like, oh, yeah, brings it back to like being an elementary school.

And it's like, oh, yeah, we're going out for an extra like 30 minutes. No, this isn't like a Belichick. This is every coach does this. And it's fucking it just it just amuses me every single. By the way, if Joe Cardone did not dominate at paintball, then I don't know what's going on with their military. This is that's probably got to be like the best practice that he could ever have. Imagine if someone got injured, though, playing paintball.

I always will. I never would. I'd be like, hey, guys, you have the day off and we're all going to just go to a movie. Well, Belichick shot Kyle Van Noy, recurring guests in the face with a paintball gun. Damn, damn. Can't really complain about that. No, because you're like, yeah, coach, it's an honor. Good shot, coach. Probably deserved it. Yeah. Is that it, Hank?

That's it. Good job. Good job, Hank. That was awesome. Yeah. Happy birthday. Pre-lated. Yeah, there you go. When's your birthday again? Thursday. Thursday. Thursday. OK, hopefully you'll have another parade, you son of a bitch. My hot seat is Alabama, the state of Alabama. Whole damn state. Whole damn state.

Roll damn tide, because Dabbo Swinney said that when he's going on recruiting visits through Alabama, he's got like duck cover going underground tunnels so that he doesn't get caught down there, doesn't get spied by Nick Saban. He said that he is Osama bin Dabbo when he's traveling throughout Alabama. So that's a pretty solid quote from Dabbo Swinney. That's almost as good as Zero Dark Thirty, twenty three. Yes, yeah. Osama bin Dabbo is now officially what we're going to call Dabbo Swinney from now. I hope during training camp this summer,

instead of having the linemen do like the the barrel roll drills in Oklahoma drills, they just put them in like hoods and have them doing the monkey bar thing and crawling underneath nets like it's an Afghanistan training complex. Yeah, that was pretty funny. My other hot seat is me putting myself on the hot seat and you because we kind of we had I don't want to say we went after Madison Bumgarner because we said that. No, I was we said that the world needs Madison Bumgarner that he is being well, I guess it's just me then.

But good friend of the program, who's probably never listened, Aubrey Huff got back on his bullshit on Twitter and he said, if all you Twitter muscle folks thinks Madison Bumgarner is a fake tough guy, I would bet my ridiculous retirement plan. You wouldn't say that to his face when standing toe to toe with him. Oh, damn. I were one K. Aubrey Huff. Nice job, dude. You got a Roth IRA there. I was going to say this is Aubrey Huff we're talking about.

So it's most likely just like some mayonnaise jars filled with printouts of pictures of like the logo of Bitcoin and like a shed in Texas. Yeah, it is buried in his backyard. So for he did say it was ridiculous retirement plan. So Aubrey, I will take that. I will I will get my ass kicked by Madison Bumgarner for your retirement plan. Yes, I want to see that retirement plan. My cool throne is Alexi Lollis looking like a smug prick on national television.

Oh, nice. So it's Alexi. Alexi Lollis season. And that means that he gets to stare into the camera after every single game, looking smugly like he kidnapped your dog. And he's the only one that knows the answer to a riddle to retrieve it from you. And also randomly getting super, super mad for like a minute and a half about something totally inconsequential to try to go viral. Yeah, that will happen at least once.

Yes. So he's back in a bit. He's got he's like the most smug. He's got the most smug face, I think, on national sports media these days. For a guy who never wanted to want to ring. He didn't do shit. All he had was he had stupid hair and bad goatee. But those jerseys were fire. I'm actually kind of describing myself here.

Yeah, those jerseys were fire, though. Yeah, those are the old 90s ones. Yeah, the 94. Both of them, the one with the stripes and the one that looked like it was denim with the stars. Yeah, those are very, very far. All right. My hot seats is actually me and Hank. Oh, Hank and I. Hank and I cool thrown me and Bubba.

Hank and I hot seat for me because it turns out this whole like having a kid thing. It's coming up. So it's coming up. There's going to be an episode sometime in the next two weeks. Where I'm just not here. We already have it taped. But yeah, it's like one of those future things where you're like, this will last forever. Nope, turns out it really is pretty close to nine months, guys.

Yeah, we're on brand for you. Yeah, it's very on brand. We like future me. Nine months will never come. Well, guess what? We're getting we're staring nine months into the fucking in the face right now. Having sex is the ultimate example of future me will handle. Yeah, so I'm not I'm not nervous.

I'm excited, but it's also like I'm going to get this nut. It'll probably be fine. I'll figure out a way to deal with it later. And then the other hot seat for Hank, Hank, like we said, pre-lated happy birthday. Twenty six years old, you are getting right into the prime of that quarter life crisis, my friend. So we're here to talk to you about it. Well, I mean, honestly, and this will make a lot more sense when the episode

that drops when the baby comes out. But I was listening to that. I wasn't involved. And that was like a very eye-opening experience because you guys were talking about like what it's like growing up and certain points in your life life, which I'm still at. And I was like, oh, shit, like, is it going to get bad for me? Yeah. So it was that we taped it with

Rosillo Titus, me and PFT, and we taped basically a life podcast. So that was that's our evergreen break in case a baby, which should come up soon. So that will there will be a day in the next couple of weeks where you will it will just be life. It's a great episode. Awesome episode. Awesome episode. But you and you guys were talking about growing up and being around my age. And I was like, you obviously weren't talking to me, but I was listening like, oh, shit. Yeah, like we.

Our jobs before Barstool and what was our life like? Yeah, no, quarter life crisis. Hank, do you guys think that a lot of midlife and quarter life crisis has been averted in the area of New England because their sports teams are doing so well all the time? Yes. Because that makes the rest of your life so much better. Right. I mean, you literally are about to turn 26. But before you turn 26, you're going to go to game seven of the Stanley Cup final.

Also, I work with you guys. So it's like, I'm really I'm really actually not too much of a crisis. Yeah. I'm doing all right. But yeah. And Bubba is only 20 to 23, 23, 23, 23. They're all the same when you're that age. We're going to get you all the numbers of the same. You graduated, Bubba. I swear to God.

All right. My cool throne is the US Open course. Yes. Did you guys see the rough at Pebble Beach? It is rough. The Fescue is that is fucking rough, dude. I'm excited for it. The US Open. This is our this is our weekend. This is for the course when the US GA really kicks in in high gear. Yeah, they they can make a golf course turn into Syria real fast. I'm rooting for the course and Brooks Kepka.

Yep. That's it. Absolutely. I want Brooks to win. I want Brooks to go minus 15 and everyone else to be like plus three. Maybe Tiger in the mix. Tiger, maybe Tiger, you can go minus two. Tiger and Brooks in the final pair. Brooks is the new if Brooks wins this one, he's the new Tiger. I'm going to say he's a Blake and a Tiger and a Brooks.

He's everything. He's our everything. All right. You got you see him get with Joe Buck. They hash that out. They did. Yeah, Joe said, hey, here with an old friend like to make our amends. And then Brooks came up to the camera and goes, hey, what's up, Jim? You really sold that video. It's good. It's good. Nice try, Jim. Good, good, good, good.

Try to be viral there. Mm hmm. It will work. It was. Yeah, it did work. Joe's a friend and Brooks is everything. Our Blake and our Tiger Blake and our Tiger. Narcissistically, do you guys think that they use you guys to kind of break the ice and probably? Yeah, definitely. Yeah, definitely.

Absolutely. Brooks was probably like, hey, suck my dick, Joe. And then Joe was like, hey, suck my dick. And then Brooks is like, we actually don't say that anymore. And that's how they know. So again, did you see that fat picture? Big cat was like, I was going to say the same thing, dude. He's a fucking fat ass. And then they just kind of went off into the sunset.

All right, let's get to our interview with Rick Riley. Before we do that, it's summertime. It's hot outside. And that means it's a bad, bad day to be a Bud Light. It's time to break out your favorite Hawaiian shirt and stock the coolers with some crisp, refreshing Bud Lights. Not only is it summertime, it's also about to be Mount Rushmore season.

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for more details, drink those Bud Lights all summer long. We're also brought to you by our friends from DXL. I talked about that picture. It was not a good picture. Well, for all you bigger gentlemen out there, when you're a man of my wholesome stature and physique, what some would consider to be the perfect specimen of a man, it's hard to find clothes that fit. DXL is the only one stop shop for big and tall men like me to buy clothes

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Use that promo code unit at DXL.com slash Barstool. OK, here he is, Rick Riley. OK, we now welcome on a very, very special guest. It is Rick Riley. You know him. He has a new book out. It's called Commander in Sheet, How Golf Explains Trump. Perfect book for Father's Day.

We're going to run this right before Father's Day. And you'd think I would bring a book because it'd be a smart thing to do. That's OK. We're not readers. So we read your Wikipedia entry before this interview started. Yes, we're going to get. Yes. So let's talk about the book first. We want to get into everything else, but let's talk about the book. You wrote the book. Why?

Because I was retired. I don't know if you know that I quit sports writing. I was writing movies two hours a day and otherwise just living in Italy half the year and screwing around and playing piano. And I kept seeing on my phone all these things from Trump about I'm a club champion. You've got to vote for me. Eighteen club champions and that's against the best players. That's with no strokes.

I'm like, you liar. You'd already told me how you did it. Right. When I when I catted for him or played with him for who's your cat. He my book. And what he does, he plays the first round at any course he opens by himself with Milani in the car to whoever and he calls that the club championship. But isn't that genius? It's diabolically.

I mean, that is really the point. Right. This is what I always struggle with because not even to get into politics here. If I had the money to have my own golf club, you bet your ass I'd have the fucking record. Like I that's part of being rich. Yeah, can't it can't be broken rules. So so then so then I started looking into like he's not really telling people this. So then I started checking around and I heard a story that one time he walked into his club in Florida near Mar-a-Lago and saw that some guy

had won while he was somewhere else. He said, oh, Joe Schmo, I beat him all the time. Make me the champion. And they're like, what? Yeah, I beat him all the time. So make me the. They pulled him off. And then there was one he won when he was in Philly and the tournament was in

Bedminster and he called. So what won the club championship? And he and the guy in the pro shop goes 75. I shot 72 up here. Make me the club champ. I love it. Just on his word, on his word, giving himself a cheating come in. Well, because I'm very confused here. Everything you said so far.

But then a month later, a month later, it comes out. They see the caddy and he said, what's he taught him? I shot 84. Yeah. So big cap brings up a good point, which is there's a difference between lying and cheating. So I would consider like if your balls, you know, in the bunker, you take it, you throw it on to the fairway. Yes, that's cheating. Yes.

But if you say, I shot better than this guy on the wall, that's just lying. Yeah, I guess. Yeah. Yeah, right. It's kind of a buddy, but it gets worse. I mean, he'll he kicks. He kicked Mike Tariqo's ball into a bunker because Tariqo wasn't around. He hit this great shot because he had a bet against Tariqo. And he tried to cheat Tiger Woods. So. But isn't this a gentleman's game where you have to take the gentleman

at his word? Is that what the gentleman's game means? Well, you're doing. No, OK, gentlemen's game is because golf is the easiest sport to cheat at. Right. It's hard to cheat in baseball. It's hard to cheat at most sport. Well, football made golf is the hardest sport to cheat at because it's the expanse is so huge. So it just became from the very beginning a game of honor.

So if you're over there and you're 200 yards away, I trust you're not going to throw it out of the woods. Bad decision. I absolutely. And you trust I'm not going to fake a chip shot like he did. One time a guy caught him. He fakes this chip shot. He's got the ball in the right hand, goes running to the pin, made it. He's a magician. But what does it know is there's a guy behind him that he didn't see.

So I think I think the problem that we're having understanding this is PFC and I are hackers like we golf maybe twice a year. And I don't care. Like I don't even keep score. I mean, I'm going out there to have fun. If I hit the ball in the woods, I might even go look for it because I'm like, I'd rather hit the next shot off the fairway. That's fine. But regular golfers out there, the majority of golfers

cheating is obviously a big deal. But you're not telling people you're a 2.8 handicap. No, I'm not, which is better than Jack Nichols right now. OK, 2.8 is almost pro. And so you look at how he does it. So you guys don't really know golf, but you got to put in your last 20 scores and they average those out. And so I'm like a 6.0.

And so he would be 2.8. That'd be twice as good as me. And yet Tiger, Anika Sorenson, Dustin Johnson, they all say he's about a 10. Well, that's a seven. And that's exponentially. It gets harder. Right. That's just a huge lie. And then he's betting money like you don't bet money against your buddies.

Right. Oh, I do. But yeah, I see what you're saying. Like your money, but you're not even score. Right. Oh, and golf. No, you're right. I do not bet money in golf. You're right. Right. So he's betting money. He's taking the money. Then he buys lunch. Right. Yeah. So. OK.

So you also said that golf is the classic, like is the quintessential sport that tells everything about a man's character or a person's character. Explain that. It's like a Roarsock test for your soul. You know, everything looks like a vagina. That's not what Roarsock means. Oh, I see. Yeah. When you take it. Yes. Yes.

Now, yeah, I always say it's like bicycle shorts. It reveals a lot about a man. Everything looks like a vagina. Yes, exactly. And so he cheats. He cheats on he tries to bully his way or bribe his way to better course rankings for his 15, 18 courses. Now he cheats on his handicap.

You can see. So I was telling you about the handicap. Yeah. It's taken him eight years to get those 20 scores. You have to post every score because otherwise I'm not going to bet you. Right. And at Wingfoot, where he belongs, they won't bet him anymore. So he doesn't go there anymore. And he kicks the ball so much at Wingfoot, they call him Paley. They've taken him off the board. You're not alive.

No one will bet against Trump. But you can you can go right now to gin.com, G-H-I-N.com and look him up. And he cheats. He just cherry picks his best score. So so when you cattyed for him, did you did you go full 18? I ended up playing against him. OK, so what is his game like? Well, first of all, he starts lying about you.

Like, this is Rick Riley. He's publisher of Sports Illustrated. Right. I'm like, that's pretty good to be around a guy like that. I'm just a writer. Then the next guy, this is Rick Riley. He's the managing editor. Like, no, why are you lying about me? Right. And he goes, it sounds better. Right.

And then he says, this is Joe. He's voted best hamburger chef in the world. And Joe's like, what? No, I'm not. And then he we played a money bet score for 10 bucks. And he took four Mulligans. He took a gimme chip in. You know, I've been on all these political shows.

They don't even know what a chip is. But he pretends I'm in the hole for par. And he's off in four. He's off the green in four. And he says, well, that makes this good. So like, he's going to make the chip in. Yeah. Wait, so let me get this right. You basically wrote an entire book

because you're mad you lost a bet. Is that all that's all it is? You could have just could have just paid you 10 bucks. Oh, the commander, you're just you're just mad because you lost. No, that sounds like you lost to him. That was I did lose him. Right. That was amusing. OK. That was fun.

Because when we knew him in sports, he was just a big blowhard guy like your uncle says he he punched out Sinatra and slept with Marilyn Monroe, and it's all bull. But this guy's now running the country. And he's saying you should vote for him because he's a great golfer. And I know it's all bullshit. Right. But I'm more concerned about the fact that he only plays for 10 bucks. He's a billionaire.

I mean, I've seen his taxes. He's so rich, he was able to lose billions of dollars. Yeah, the billion dollar loser. And the fact is like him playing for $10 in a full game. That's honestly concerning to me. I would like the stakes to be higher. It's just about winning. He's got to win no matter what.

He's got to tell people. But the truth is when he plays on TV, when he's ever played on TV, Pebble Beach, seven times, Lake Tahoe Celebrity, Stormy Daniels, three times. He's never been. He's never made the cut. He's never been in the top half. What is it? He ain't no two point.

What does he shoot usually? Like, what would you say he would down trouble and shoot if he was completely honest about every shot right now? Eighty five. OK, he's still pretty good. That's not bad. But at the Tahoe, they kept track, right? Right. And he wasn't didn't break an egg.

Now he bank stormy Daniels and a playmate model in one tournament. Right. So that's maybe he was tired. Right. Right. How about this? There's a there's a story in your book about him beating the club champion when he just kind of pulled up on his golf cart and the club champion was playing with his son, right? Not in my book.

That was reported by golf after the book came out. So what happened was he was it's unbelievable. He was in Singapore with Kim Jong-un of North Korea, and they played the club championship at the course next to Mar-a-Lago. And when he gets back a month later, he sees the guy. It was the money guy that helped start off Green Book. His name is Ted Virtue. He's Ted. Great job.

But you didn't really win. And Ted's like, what do you mean? You know, I wasn't here. He's like, oh, that's funny. No, you got to play me right now. Six holes for the title. And Ted's like, I can't do it. I'm playing with my son.

He can play. And the story goes that he hit it in the water and Trump hit it in the water. And the two Virtues put it on the green and by the time they got there, one of the balls was suddenly Trump's, which happens a lot because his caddies are always way ahead, moving balls around. He's got advanced scouts. Exactly. And Trump makes the 20 footer and Virtue loses. That's a good pot.

And so Trump goes, I'll tell you what, this is golf.com. So I tell you what, we'll make you the co-champion. But then when we go to his locker and you can see on his locker, all the things he's won, but you're all mostly phony. It doesn't say co-champions. This is 2018 club. But yeah, it's like the Texas A&M just adding national champions to the side of their stadium after like 70 years.

Hey, we did that at Colorado. Yeah, that's true. Congrats on the mushrooms, by the way. Yeah. You know, my nephew happens that happens to be his beat. He's a journalist in Colorado. And he said they thought, sure, they were going to lose. And now you can grow mushrooms in Colorado.

I'm a little scared about that, to be honest with you. Why? I don't know. I feel like a lot of people can't handle mushrooms that try mushrooms. It definitely is. You've got to be in the right setting. And the other thing is they don't know how much to take. Right. It's like, because I'm from Colorado, so I'm always there. And people think, oh, I'll take two of these brownies.

And they're they're having a call in the ambulance. Just take a little. Some people have no chill. But probably the best thing for your book sales would be if he were to find out what you've written about him and if he attacked you publicly, right? Dude, I'm begging for a tweet. I can't get one tweet.

No, but you can't do that. That's playing into his hands. Have you tweeted? I would love for him to tweet. I'll be drinking ported beer the rest of my life. Can't get on. OK, because if you went on Fox News, then I feel like you'd get, you know, if you did like a morning show, you know, you'd get that tweet.

Somehow, in my case, he learned restraint because I know he knows all about the book because Eric Trump blocked me on Twitter. And one of my good buddies is one of his good buddies and he cares about golf. He's been more loyal to golf than any woman, than any political party, than any stance. He loves golf.

He loves winning. And so for him, not to tweet is killing me. Because as soon as he tweets, he's going to say, Rick Riley, what an asshole. I kicked his ass. He's the most dishonest reporter. Little Rick Riley. I'm going to come back with. OK, who read it to you?

Yeah, you know, yeah, you've got that ready. Well, say something really inflammatory about him right now. We'll tag him in our tweet about it with your quote. Because maybe he's going to get back at you and then he'll download and listen to our podcast. I am muted. It's the number one podcast. There you go. I challenged him to a hundred thousand dollar bet. OK. And as long as he had a rules guy with each of us

and it wasn't one of his courses and he didn't have his cheating caddies with him. Hunter Grant goes to charity, whatever, although they just shut down his charity for corruption, but whatever. Maybe he finds a new a new charity and he hasn't even been at that. OK. So I would love to if you're out there. All right, let's see. We'll we'll get the challenge out there.

A hundred thousand dollars to a fan, do you think? I don't think he's much of a podcast guy. No, probably not a podcast guy. No, I don't think so. His caddy. Just one last thing. He's so involved in golf. His Twitter feed is run by his ex caddy. A guy named Dan Scavino.

Yeah. And so Scavino sometimes screws up and tweets the exact same thing on his account that he just put on Trump's. And so there's this whole Scavino way of writing a Twitter tweet with the capitals this for no reason. And and that's all Scavino who who loves Donald Trump because he gave him two hundred dollars the first time he caddy for him. And he said, this I'm going to follow you around the rest of my life. You said you're the Italian Donald Trump now.

Yes, from that. So one issue that you ran into with your book, there were a lot of people that were reluctant to go on the record, totally with you. They would share the stories. They would kind of give you, you know, their experiences with Trump, but they wouldn't put their names on it. Everybody had a story left, right, Republican, Democrat. They all had a story about playing with Trump, and it was always crazy.

And I'm like, this is so great. Thank you so much. And they'd be like, oh, you can't use it. That's what you mean. You just gave me this great story. It's going to lead off chapter. No, no, I don't want to be audited. He'll hate me. And so there was a ton of great stories I didn't get to use. I was because my question was going to be if it's somebody. Have you talked to any professional golfers, current professional golfers,

and they wouldn't give you their names for this book? Well, I said, hey, Phil, I went to Phil Mickelson one day and I'm like, Trump says you're his very good friend, very good friend. And he went like this. He just stared at me for 10 seconds. He didn't even blink. And like, so I need a comment. Trump says, are you his good friend?

10 more seconds. Yeah. And then he walked away smiling. And I think that's because his wife really hates Trump. Also, he's had some tax issues in the past. Yes, true. Yes. Probably wouldn't want to. Yeah. Well, Brad Faxham told me a great story about how Trump tried to cheat Tiger.

He tigers on the left. They got a money bet going. Trump's on the right. He and Faxham are playing against Trump and Dustin Johnson. Pretty good players. Trump chunks it into the water and he says to Faxham, throw me another. They didn't see. Faxham's like, what?

Throw me another. So Faxham threw him another. He chunks that into the water, takes up his Super Mario 50 mile an hour golf cart to the water, drops, hits on quickly. Tiger hits it to kick in for Birdie and they get there and Faxham goes. So what are you putting for, Mr. Trump, President Trump? And Trump goes for.

Boom. He's actually putting for seven. Well, but four. He said four. He missed it. Yeah. But that's I mean, you're trying to cheat. Tiger. I know. I know. Well, if anyone knows about cheating. Yeah. What do you think? What do you think? Yeah.

If Trump and Kim Jong-un, if they got together, they did like a best ball. What do they shoot? Well, I think you're thinking of his dad. Kim Jong-il, who shot 38 ones in a single round with five holes in one. But, you know, the true story about how that happened. He shot. He shot 37. Have you ever seen a guy keep score and he only keeps by over, over par, under par? No. So let's say he makes a five on a par four.

He writes a one. Got it. Or he makes a triple on a par four. He writes a three. So Kim Jong-un was terrible. And he's writing all these numbers, writing all the numbers down. But the minister of information thinks that's what he made on the hole. And so that's how he thought he made five holes in one and shot 38. OK. And then, of course, Kim Jong-il was like, well, I am.

Yeah, you're the best golfer of all time. I didn't say it. He said it. So everyone go by the book. And we want to talk about some other stuff, too, your career as a sports writer. So you were very influential, I think, in everyone our age. We're both 34 years old. The life of Riley was something that we read. I remember reading it like as a kid, every single time

the sports illustrator showed up at my doorstep. Thank you. Remember those days? Yeah, I mean, it's crazy. So like your transformation from that guy to today, where you retired it. I feel like sports writers don't usually retire. Yeah. What what has it been like when you go from, you know, Sports Illustrated to ESPN to retiring at kind of a young age. So I always wanted to retire like I always wanted to retire early

and because, you know, I've never thought of myself as a sports writer. I just love writing about people. And that's the job I got in sports. I won this high school contest, sports writing contest and got a job out of it. How old were you when you won that? 18, 35. OK, that'd be nice. Like it's a nice little back door. This guy's good.

So I won that contest. I got a job at the town paper, Boulder, Colorado, right in sports. But I like sports, loved it. But I really wanted to see the world. I wanted to travel. I want to play piano. I wanted to write movies. And so I always I my goal was to retire at 40.

I couldn't do it. 50 couldn't do it. And then finally at 57, I could do it and people like, oh, what? What happened? How come you don't like sports anymore? I'm like, I love it. I just want to see the rest of the world because sports is fantastic, but it is still just a corner of the world. You're right. So do you do you ever regret?

I mean, I think the interesting part about your career is you were the guy who everyone read and then, you know, correct me if I'm wrong. There was a time when you went to ESPN, where maybe you were doing stuff that people mocked a little more, including us or after that, you know, it felt like and I always wonder about, you know, we're 34 right now, like I said, at what point do you get to a point where it's like you go from this influential sports writer to maybe someone that people are like, oh, he's a has been.

Well, first of all, they tripled my money. That works. So what am I going to do? I got works. I want to retire. They're like, you sold out. Yeah. Wouldn't you for your money? Yeah. Yes. So I took the trip with the money and I want like I'm a very curious guy.

I wanted to try TV, see if I could do TV. TV was sort of I liked it. They didn't like me that much. I really loved doing those money and I countdown features. Yeah, it was really hard. I had a show called Homecoming and I interviewed. It was like you bring people back to their hometowns and that was really fun, but they they killed it after two years.

I did sport. I anchored sports center like 15 times. That was a thrill. I never would have gotten to do that. I wrote for ESPN dot com for a while. It was me and Bill and the world changed. It wasn't like you said that sports illustrator used to come in your mailbox. And that was it. All you had was your town paper, maybe USA Today and sports illustrated.

I mean, when I was there, people hardly even knew what ESPN was. Yeah, no, it was it was very influential. And it was that saver factor, man. And you had the world at your doorstep kind of right that 800 words. And it wasn't like you could write 5,000 words. It was 800. Those and I would bust my ass to make those the best words I could come up with. And then it changed, right?

Everything changed and everyone had a podcast and everyone had a blog and you can rip everybody and there's Twitter and all this stuff. And suddenly it's kind of like everybody became a sports writer. Yeah, and it wasn't that special anymore. And there's still great sports writing out there. But there's so much of everything. So I guess if you're asking, was it a mistake to go to ESPN? No, I don't think it was at all.

Did you hear the noise, though? Did you hear the people who were kind of, you know, mocking you or be like, Rick Riley's over the hill or kids? My kids told me some some of that was and I'm like, and again, we were we definitely that's fine. Yeah. And the more I thought a lot, a lot, that's fine. And you put both fun at Simmons and everyone. Everyone.

Absolutely. Mostly just ourselves. I mean, look at us. That's the self deprecation. Twenty years ago, we would with a fat asshole and a skinny asshole that looks like Post Malone had sex with David Slade. Tall guy. Let me ask you a question.

Be able to do something is probably not. Right. Explain this to me. Like Bill and I are friends. Why do people think we hate each other? Was it just that beginning that was? Well, I think he got you got the big money and he got huge money. I know. But it felt like at the time that he wasn't getting the big money and you got

the big money and I think this is something, you know, it's really your career is fascinating to me because, like I said, you were influential beyond measure to young, you know, but so is Simmons like same exact way. There's got to be. So how do you think Simmons is 50? I think right. So to everybody who's now 20, I think there's no people who love it and there's got to be their hero.

Right. Yeah. Because he was first on Twitter. He was first with a great podcast. He was first with Grant Lennon. But it slowly fades away. Yeah, I think people our age, Simmons was, you know, one of the first blogs that we read, he was like this guy. He was a transition guy from the Sports Illustrated ESPN that would come every

week, every month. He was a transition that I think took a lot of people into reading sports blogs and things like that. He was the transition from me and to Ford and Russian was print. Right. And 800 well chosen. You bust your ass on those words to this whole new world where you could write stream of consciousness because we've had discussions about it.

Right. And I'm like, you're, you're so good, but you need like a carload of editors. Right. He's like, that's what my fans want. Yeah. Like, okay, I guess I got to learn how to do that. But I never could learn how to just blow it out. 10,000 words on Kevin Garnett, but he could.

Right. And I think that's the difference too, is that you came from a more traditional background. Yes. Simmons didn't. We definitely didn't. And so we're at the point now where I think people appreciate the relatability and the self-deprecation where older school journalists, guys,

they don't do the self-deprecation because they see journalism as this high and mighty thing. And of course I'm not knocking journalism. We poke fun, but it's like there's obviously a very big need for it. But sports journalism, for the most part, people just forget that people want to watch sports to escape something and they don't take it so seriously. We mock people who like the sports writers who complained about cheering in the press box or the Diet Coke machines broken shit like that.

You know what I mean? Those guys, like, come on, man, you're covering sports for a living. It's awesome. What I couldn't get used to and I still don't get it is how covering sports writers or sports casters is a thing. Like we came up to do games, athletes, stories, incredible. As soon as you guys got on TV, which I understand that, like as soon as Tony Kornheiser and Michael Wilbon, who I love and I love PTI, as soon as they get on TV,

they go from they go from less of writing about the story to the story. Yeah, I think at some point, ESPN became watching ESPN journalists and watching their analysts became almost like sports, right? The line blurs like with around the horn. They turn talking about sports into a sport where it scored. You make points. And so it's like there's a winner and there's a loser. And at that point, a lot of people that were watching ESPN were like, you know

what? Somebody should cover the journalists like the journalists are covering the sport. Well, two stories about exactly what you've just brought up and how dumb I am. You remember Ralph Wiley? He was this incredibly smart guy out of Oakland and he's black and he was a friend of mine and I was white and he called me up when they go, we got to do a show on ESPN and it's going to be called Riley versus Wiley and you'll be white and I'll be black and you'll be old school and I'll be and we'll argue

about sports every day for a half hour. And I'm like, that's the dumbest idea I've ever heard. And then two years later came out part of the interruption. So then the guy named Mark Shapiro calls me and goes, Hey, I'm starting to think we're going to do arguing, but it's like a sport and you keep score and you guys will yell at each other and be every day. I'm like, that's, I'm not working every day. That's the dumbest.

That'll last six weeks. And that was around the horn, which I'm glad I didn't do because I don't like to work that hard, but both those ideas worked for the exact reason you said, right, which is that it's more than just writing now. It's personalities and argument and every day. And I'm like, I guess that was just wasn't my era. Yeah, I want to jump back to something you mentioned earlier, which is the 800 word column that was at the end of every sports illustrated the life of Riley.

Did you know that it was the exact amount of time that it took to read that column was the exact amount of time it took me to take a shit? Yes. Was that on purpose? I had so many people come up and they'd be like, Oh my God, I read you every third Friday morning when I'm taking my morning dump and they'll have their handout and I'm like, yeah, I don't think I'm shaking your hand. I probably taken 400 shots.

I'm not going to shake like we have done that together. I've spent more time in the bathroom with you than Pam Anderson. Yeah, it's it's been a classic Riley joke right there. That is like that. I feel like to use that one. Rick, say that one. That is so good. Yes.

Now I don't shake those people's hand. But going back to just a little treat. That's good. Yeah. And Nicole's Pam Anderson to go back to your question. Um, did I notice the noise right had no idea what was going on out there? And then people said, Oh, you got to look at your mentions on Twitter. Oh, it's a bad day.

And I was like, Oh crap, what is this? And so that kind of bothered me. I think I was doing it for like two weeks. And then I did this thing with Mark Cuban. I go, What about your, do you go to your mentions? He goes, Let me ask you this. Do you leave your front door open so people can come in and hit you with a baseball bat and like, No, well, why would you go to your mentions?

OK, that's that. So I don't go to my yeah, that makes sense. But that also is probably where there's a little disconnect by like guys like us. And maybe someone like you is like, we are very actively engaged with our audience because they people feel like they're our friends. You know, what are you doing? They're ripping you like you know, what happens? It's tough because you pay more attention to the two people out of 100

that say something bad than the 98 out of 100 that say something good. So it's tough. But I think in the long term, it's good to have a connection with the people that I can see that writing for. I can see that for you guys because you go back and arguing and you got all this time to fill. But how does it help me write great sentences? True, probably I came up with Dan Jenkins, who said, write true sentences.

And Dan and Frank Defoe would say, write about people, not sports. And Jim Murray would say, there's no he would say to me, there's no city ordinance, you got they got to read you, make it fun, make it make them cry, laugh. All that noise doesn't really help me write great sentences. I agree with that. I think that's very true because you can get that is a big time suck right there. Like you can get lost in an argument online that you could maybe be doing something more productive than arguing.

I hope you get noise, nose cancer. I don't really need to read that. Exactly. No, it's true. All right. Yeah. So you before you did the life of Riley, though, you wrote a lot of features for Sports Illustrated. You were very, very good at that. And it about killed me.

Every one of those features takes a year off your life because you don't talk to your wife anymore. You're staying up every night thinking about it because they wanted the if you had to hire an ex-Vietnam pilot to get you through a snowstorm to get the right quote for this feature, you did it. And that was when Sports Illustrated had a limited budget. Yeah. And so we went all over the world on these features and it would take you two

months and it was so hard, but it was really, really fun. And and what's the word? It was, it was it felt good to get it right. Yeah. And, um, but so, but nobody remembers the features. What do you remember? Which one's the one that you're like, that was the one? March shot.

It's been a week with her. Oh, shows me the Nazi armband. Oh, I find out she's hiding cars on her 100 acre estate in Cincinnati so that she gets a bonus from Chevrolet. And I found that out because a guy comes up to me and goes, I keep getting all this email about a geo I bought, a guy who used to work for the Reds. Since the March shot was this old crazy German owner of the Cincinnati Reds who had Shotzi who would take a pee on Barry Larkin shortstop spot and she'd bring

this dog through the buffet line in the press room and all this stuff. Anyway, found out even it turns out she was hiding it. So she got suspended from baseball off that story and suspended from Chevrolet. Her Chevrolet dealership for two years. And she was just crazy and she'd say crazy stuff. Like we'd get it. I'd get up in the morning, go to her house and what are we doing today? Mrs.

Shot. Oh, we're going to a pro tobacco rally, honey. And so we get in the car and it's eight a.m. and she's drinking vodka as she's driving and she's got a cigarette going. I think Shotzi's got one going and she can't see out the thing. And I'm like, holy shit, we're going to die here. And it was insane. At some point when you're writing that, are you like this lady is just burying herself like almost literally because she said every night she

prays to her dead husband or dead father and all these people that ran her life. She really had no business running a baseball team. She just narrated it and I go, Oh, maybe we could shoot you praying for the cover and or or inside. And she goes, absolutely. And she comes out in a lime green teddy. And like people say, are you afraid of death? No, I've seen Marge shot in a lime green.

Oh, was she trying to seduce you? No. And didn't that she appeared on the cover smoking? Yeah, I remember that. So when you were there were so many great ones like that. Yeah. So when you're doing these features, that sounds like, you know, like you said, fulfilling when you do life of Riley, that says you've got the 800 words,

you know, it's coming out weekly, you have a strict deadline. Then when you go to ESPN, you're doing TV, you're doing a column for, I think the magazine and the website. At what point in your life was writing the most fun for you? Oh, definitely the column, because every week you had to entertain the country or make them cry or make them laugh or make them mad. And people were, it was crazy. How many how much feedback I get instantly, as opposed to features took two months.

And and people come up like that column you wrote was the first time I've been able to talk to my dad in 10 years, or we took that column and buried it with my grandmother, or I laughed so hard, I veered off the road, or thank you. And they'd have tears in their eyes, whatever it was, because I loved writing about the little guy doing great things. I also loved doing about the big star like bonds doing horrible things. And so that was really fulfilling and but exhausting, because you couldn't take a week off and people like, that doesn't look very hard 800 words in a week.

I'm like, you didn't see the 20 ideas I killed, right? You didn't see the 10,000 words I wrote to get to the 800 good ones. Right. Interesting. So I wanted to go back real quick to Twitter, the tweet. And you're probably thinking, what tweet is he about to bring up? Because you've had some bad tweets, sir. You have had some bad tweets, but this is the tweet. We actually have made into a running segment on our show.

I'll read it to you. Adding Kevin Durant to a Warriors team that already had Curry plus Thompson. Yeah. Is like giving Kate up in a third breast. Yes. Nothing appealing about it. So we actually have started. We do this, the Rick Riley third. We write jokes three out of three boobs.

OK, tell it. So like, no, if you say a joke, we'll be like, ah, that was like a 2.25 boobs. So that's funny. What what like that? What was behind that? What? And you also have like, I didn't think it would work. Session. Yes. But three, three boobs on Kate up.

It'd be fucking I'm very, very appealing to me. What are you talking about? It's also called the Richter scale. Yeah. All right. OK. Where would the boob go? The third one right in the middle? Have you seen total recall? Yes. There you go. Boom. Yeah.

See, that repelled me. You like that. I mean, I did not like it. What was your thought process during that? Because I thought they were making a mistake. But the third boo. Yeah. Like, what is that? You know what? I was doing mushrooms. OK, so I was wrong.

But let's see what they do tonight. Right. OK. What's the windows is there? This is going to air like in three right before Father's Day. So I'm sorry. No, let's see what they do tonight. I apologize. One of the players.

I didn't think it would work because I didn't think both Clay and Curry could subjugate their games enough to make it work. But to their credit, they did. But when Kevin Durant went down. OK. In game six against Houston. Yes. They were back to two boobs. Yeah. But hold on.

Would I mean, would you admit that three boobs work now? It works. Three boobs. Pretty fucking awesome. It absolutely works. Two in the middle boob. The one you added. Two finals MVP. Let me ask you the reverse of that. Yeah. How would three testicles look?

Also awesome. Yeah, pretty good. Big ass balls. What's the problem with three balls? You know, the ancient art of Japanese flower ranging, it says that things look better in odd numbers than they do in even numbers. So three flowers looks way better than four.

Four flowers in a vase. I would assume that three testicles in a scrotum is much more appealing. OK. So then Lance Armstrong's single. Great. Great ball sack. Great ball sack. Awesome ball sack. Awesome balls. John Cruck. Holy crap.

Yeah. Crucky. Yeah. One time we were covering the Tour de France and Robin Williams was a big... This is back when I, like an idiot believed Lance Armstrong was clean. And so is... Robin Williams gets on the bus and he's like, oh, Lance Armstrong, it's not fair.

Only one testicle of your aerodynamic. Because the French hated Lance. Because he used to wear this shirt. Texas is bigger than France. Because he hated the French. It's a classic. And he purposely, like when he'd have diarrhea, try to get near fans and let it rip.

And he was a lot of fun, but he was such a dick. And he was such a liar. But I'll always remember that. You are aerodynamic. It's not fair. And we are saving your piss from 1994. It's like a beautiful bouquet like they're going to drink because they saved all his pee. Thinking that their technique in discovering steroids

would get better, which it kind of did. Yeah. So you bring up Lance Armstrong is an interesting one because I feel like it's similar to Tiger where you have a relationship with the person and then you find out that they've kind of been lying to you. And you have like beef with Tiger, right? Were you not or disappointment with Tiger or what? I just hated the way he behaved.

I mean, I swear, he was the number one hero of every kid pretty much in America, maybe the world and dropping F bombs. I'll never forget 97. He's got a 13 shot lead at Augusta number 15 on Sunday. He hits a kind of a chunks it out of the rough and this kid comes up, gets under the, he's outside the ropes, comes to tap him on the back, touches hero and he pulls the club back

and he's going to slam it and almost brains the kid. Wait. So you hated him before all the cheating allegations or allegations, what happened? Of course I said, stop swearing. That's very old man yells a cloud of you. I appreciate that. But do you think the greatest player in the world should be showing kids you throw your clubs,

you slam them, you say the F bombs? I have no problem with swearing because kids are going to hear that anyways. And so yeah, it might not be the best example, but I would rather have a superstar that gets a little fiery, maybe crosses a line, drops a few F bombs. Well, you don't have a seven year old kid. Then a guy that just is a robot that goes to the motion.

Okay. How about a guy that doesn't tip? How about a guy that tells so many dirty stories on the course that the NBC sound woman went up to Stevie Williams and said, if you guys don't stop these filthy stories, I'm walking off this course and I'm going straight into the press. That's bad too.

Fine. How about not paying Rick Riley? Not paying for dinner. Like I had, I had a dozen stories. Tiger just gets up when he's because he doesn't eat dessert and he gets up and doesn't leave any money. He had like a Navy SEAL simulation training program. So having said this, everybody tells me,

and I haven't been around him lately, that he's much better now. He's changed. Humbled. But by the way, you get the presidential medal of freedom. And when the president says, golf should only be for rich people

and you should only play golf if you join a country club, has said that three times publicly and Tiger Woods represents complete opposite. The Tiger Woods Foundation bringing people golf to all these people that didn't know about it. You're going to take that award. And by the way, you went on Colbert

and said he wasn't even a real president. And by the way, he tried to cheat you. And by the way, you're in business with this guy. Right. How is that an objective recipient of the presidential medal of freedom? I mean, I get he can't turn it down. That's a tough one.

But to me, that's just star fucking of the worst kind. It's a tough one to turn down. If the president's like, I want to give you the highest civilian honor. I agree, but don't, but I think Trump's just playing for the base. Who's the hottest athlete in the world? Let's put it again.

Who's next? Arias Stark gets one. Ooh. I mean, Max, security gets one. Yeah, Max. Well, yeah. Who did Sheriff Clark say that American Pharaoh,

they should bring American Pharaoh onto the justify, because the horse is not politicized. Doesn't have liberal politics. Meanwhile, I'm reaming out Tiger Woods for swearing. Yeah, you know, you made good points. I just, I understand the sentiment entirely. I would just have a hard time like putting fault on an individual athlete for being given this great honor.

I don't want to put it too much on that. You're right. The fault is all on Trump. If you want to take it, take it. If you don't, then that's fine too. He has to take it. He has to take it. Yeah.

As Michael Jordan said famously, Republicans buy shoes too. Which he actually didn't say. What? Yes. I think they debunked that. Just turned his world upside down. He just said something like that, but not exactly that. Really?

Yeah. You bring up an interesting point though, because one of my favorite things that you wrote, I think you covered the last year of the Bulls Dynasty, didn't you? Did you go on the road with them? Yeah. Did 10 pages.

Yeah. What was that like? Because we've talked to the key member of that dynasty, Dennis Rodman, and asked him what the relationship between him, Pippin, Phil, and Jordan was like. So he gave us his answer to that. But I'm curious what you saw when you were on the road with them.

Well, stories I heard. People laying in front of the tires of the bus so they couldn't get out until Jordan came out and signed their thing. A woman rented the room the day before he was going to get there. She had a friend at the hotel and he was in the closet. It was frickin' madness. They were the Beatles.

It was so much bigger than the Warriors. People don't have no idea. Although the Warriors have gotten close. The 2015 Warriors, I feel, maybe it was, no, no, sorry, 2016 when they went 73 and 9. It felt similar where every night was like a rock concert. Yeah, except this is Michael Jordan. Yeah, but it's Michael Jordan.

Yeah. And Rodman was crazy and Scotty. And it was freaking amazing. And that was one of the great 10 days of my life. That's awesome. They say that, I mean, I have traveled with the Warriors too. And they say it's equal, but it's not equal because you've done both.

Right. There was something interesting I read the other day about a piece that was written by David Foster Wallace about Roger Federer. And he was covering him during, I think it was a French opener, Wimbledon, something like that. And they were able to go back and talk about,

they analyzed one of his paragraphs about the series of ground strokes that he had in this match. And they went back, they watched the YouTube clip of it. And it didn't match up at all with what he had described seeing that day. Do you ever think that there are things like events that you watched back in the pre-internet days, sporting events that you went to,

that you wrote down your emotions at the time and then you sat down to write and what you ended up transcribing from what you felt in that moment, what you jotted down, might not actually match up with the tape because I feel like that probably happened a lot before the internet. A lot.

You just, you can't see through perfectly objective eyes. I remember I did a piece on Dave Kindred. I mean, Dave Winfield. And I realized later I got him wrong. I got him completely wrong. How many times did that happen? Just like you're a guy screwed up, yeah. You spend two months on a piece,

you really try to get him right. That's interesting. Talking to 50, 75, you're doing 75 interviews with different people. You really feel like you know him, but sometimes you don't. I mean, I remember spending a week with Shaq and he had the music up so we just drove around all day.

He just drove around, he's looking for houses and he had the music so loud that people would look up in horror from their Kentucky Fried Chicken inside a closed restaurant. And so I never heard, so the whole piece was, never heard of what he said, but talk to another hundred people about him. So yeah, you try your best.

That's interesting. Here's another one I wanna just read to you. Right now, Peyton Manning is like a small boy with jelly all over him. You don't want his hands on the ball. That was weird. Did I say that? Yeah.

Peyton Manning with jelly all over him. Well, I'm a Bronco fan. Yeah, I know, but that's not the question here really. All over him? Yes, you have small boys. The question is not whether you like the Broncos. The question is, what made you think of Peyton Manning as a small boy with jelly all over him?

You don't want his hands on the ball because you don't want the small boy with jelly on his hands. But jelly's sticky. Do you think you nailed it? When you hit that one, were you like nailed it? I'm sorry, I thought... So Bill Simmons always says to me,

doesn't matter what you say on Twitter, it's over in eight seconds. It's true. It's a good point. So don't you guys write bad tweets? Oh, all the time. Never. I actually, I know.

I totally agree with you. I look back at tweets a week ago, I'm like, oh, what was that? You shouldn't look at them. Right. It is weird to look back at your thoughts that in the moment we're like, got it. Should we all be deleting our tweets?

You've deleted a bunch of tweets. Yeah, because I don't wanna look back at them. That's fair. I actually did, it's a nice little segue here. 2015, you stole a tweet from me. Ooh. What? You stole a tweet from me in 2015 about your Broncos.

Tell it. I said, this is a really good joke, by the way. So I'm very proud about this one. It was during a Broncos playoff game, January 11th, whenever that was, 2015. Manning's still good at overthrows. Maybe we should send him to pay a visit to ISIS. Really good joke on my part.

About five minutes later, wow, Peyton Manning, another overthrow. Maybe he should go to the Middle East. No, I think you're mixing this up. I said, Tim Tebow has more overthrows than the Arab Spring. That might have been another one. You might have doubled it. Was that first?

That would have been first. No, but mine would have been first about Manning being good at overthrowing people. Right, but we know that Rick likes the overthrow Middle East thing connection. Maybe we're just building on each other. Yeah. We're just ripping it.

We're just fucking it. Let's build on this vision. I used to write jokes for Jay Leno because he stole three straight jokes in a monologue straight out of my column that week. So I called him up and he said, look, people get the same ideas at the same time and things happen and sometimes everybody thinks

they are the first guy with a joke, but really we all thought of it at the same time because I said, University of Miami takes their, so many criminals, they take their picture from the front and the side. The team picture. Yeah, classic. And I'm like, really?

So I tried to write jokes for him for a while, but you do kind of discover that some people can come up with the same idea at the same time. I don't think I followed you at that time, did I? I don't know if you did. It was just like the timing was five minutes off. And it was just one of those things we're in retrospect.

It was such a bad joke on both of our parts that neither one of us should be proud for it. So I'm going to forget about it if you are. The way you wrote it isn't really funny. Manning's so good at overthrows, maybe we should send him to pay a visit to ISIS. That's pretty good. He just overthrew a guy and we were in the process

of dealing with all the sad and all that shit over there. See, because oh, Tim Manning wasn't much of an overthrow. It was Tebow. It was the worst brick and arm. Bad mechanics agreed. Terrible. I remember one time, I'm friends with Elwin, I go, I noticed you ran the ball quite a lot in Cleveland.

He's like, we let Tim throw it eight times. He said, we think we set, we think we set football back 40 years. What do you think he's doing as a friend of his and also a Broncos fan? Like he hasn't done well with the quarterback position. Suffering. Yeah.

Nobody's more comfortable. Do you think he feels the heat? Oh, he doesn't feel that he doesn't care if he gets fired. He wants to win. Right. Here's what he's like. He used to have this pool table. We'd play pool table and no one had ever beat him

two games out of three. One night, Bubby Brister comes over. Remember, Bubby Brister beats him. Two out of three. Always sold the table the next day. I love those kind of stories. That's Elwin. I've never had a pool table.

Yeah. I never heard of it. It's cool. I feel like when Jordan passes, hopefully it's not for another 100 years, but there will be stories like that. We already get a bunch of them, but the all time athletes have stories like that.

Don't you remember, right? Tom, is the story about Jordan? Which one? He's doing it. He's with Jordan and if Jordan's filming some ad and he's done a lot of work with this production company and he says, I want those brownies that some and so and so makes.

I'll do it if you give me a pan of those brownies. And I want them in my green room in the trailer. And so he gets these fantastic brownies. Well, he only has time to eat one of the brownies. And so he's got to go shoot. Spits on the rest of the brownies. Because he's so competitive. Nobody else can take his goddamn brownies.

Is that really, is that just being an asshole? It's not like competitive anymore. It's just like, I'm going to spit on everybody else's brownies. I just want to eat all these brownies. So you might say, well, Trump's just being competitive, but Jordan didn't cheat to win. Oh, he didn't cheat to win. Well, he pushed off.

This guy just makes up whole championships he won, makes up scores he won. And then just because he sees Lee Trevino at one time at one of his courses and Trevino's coming off the course. Lee Trevino, greatest player of all time. Trevino's like, what? He wants to shoot today. Lee and Lee goes 73.

Oh, and so he starts, this is Lee Trevino, greatest player of all time. Shot a 69 today. Trevino's looking at it. And then the next guy, this is Lee Trevino, greatest player, shot 65. Oh, man. So Rick, I had to get off the course,

off the place before I set the course record. Right. That's fantastic. So you can buy Commander in Sheet. Perfect Father's Day gift. I have one last question. It's a Seeky question put in promo code take you get $10 off your Seeky purchase.

The million dollar question, can you plagiarize yourself? Is that possible? Good question. Because I actually don't- Can I sue myself? I don't think you can. I think, I mean, it's- Thank you.

It's, I actually, like, obviously you should probably not just rip off your own cause, but I do think that it's kind of, it's not technically plagiarism, because it's your own thought. Do you need to set this up a little? People know what it is. Yeah, you set it up, you set it up.

All right, so I was 23 years at Sports Illustrated, and you had to come up with your ideas. And most of that was writing columns. So I had this whole, I must have had 500 ideas in it of stuff I could do on a rainy day. It was called the rainy day list. And like, do this, do this, do this,

because you couldn't take a week off. Oh, cause they were getting a bonus for whoever had the ad across. So you'd be like, I'm taking, I'm going to Italy for two weeks. Well, you gotta give us two columns. Evergreen, they're called Evergreens. Right.

So that we could run at any time. So I'm like, oh crap. So you'd try to do two that week, or three the week before, and you'd have to do an Evergreen. And sometimes you forget to take it out of the rainy day thing and put it in the already did thing.

So then I go to ESPN for eight years, and I'm writing two columns a week there, and you're doing features, and a couple times, I did like, okay, I got four hours before the plane leaves. Oh, let's do this. And I forgot that I had done it

because I calculated once with books and movies and columns, I'd published over two million words. And I just fricking forgot, and you'd thought I had run over Mother Teresa with a monster truck. That's a good, that's a good, Rick Riley line.

Put that into the next column. Yeah. That's a good line. It's just 2.2 boobs. It just rolls off, doesn't it? You're just doing them all the time. I don't know. Just being around you.

It's like, you're just fucking spitting it, spitting hot fire. Which one was yours? Was it a marble down the hood of a Tesla, or a marble? I think you said that about Brooks Kepto, right? Yeah. Like his body is like watching.

It looks like a piano. Oh, no, I actually have a question. So. Well, you know, that's the line about, somebody was trying to beat somebody and they were really big. And I said, the difference between these two guys is the difference between a piano player

and a piano mover. Okay. I'm going to give you. I think a pot was faster than Oprah on a water slide or something. Oprah on the water slide, yeah. That's fucking gold. That's 2.75 moves.

At one point, did you say like, this guy's got more talent than an alligator's dentist? That was a good one. Well, I stopped doing dental references. Yeah, yeah. Like, I'm like, whoa, people are really paying attention. Yeah. What was it about the dental references?

He didn't like it. But what was it about that? Like, why did you have, why were you so attracted to making teeth jokes? Oh, because I was terrified of dentists. That makes sense, it's a good answer. I hated dentists. And this guy called me up and says,

do you realize you've made something, something, 100 dental references? Like, I had no idea. Again, I didn't know you could cover sports writers. Right. I thought you got into the business to cover teams, athletes, owners, but I was wrong. But again, if you reach the point

where somebody is counting how many dental references you've made over the course of your career, you're doing okay for yourself. Are you? Yeah, I mean, ESPN backed the brink truck up for you. They said, we're going to anoint Rick Riley, king of the sports writers. Oh, you sold out.

Yeah. Who wouldn't have? That's a shit load of money. Triple money? Yes. I'm not blaming you at all for that. Yes, I sold out. I couldn't have signed fast enough.

It's like the old Metallica line when they're like, you sold out and they're like, yeah, we sell out every single city we go to. And they're like, there it is. By the way, imagine one for you guys. Okay. The guy who signed that deal for me was Skipper. Oh.

A friend. How do you like him? A good friend. A great friend. What'd you think when all that came down? It was very weird because we went to his office and we met him three days before he canceled the show. Talked to him.

Great guy. We'll have your back. He had that Southern twang. Love him. We're trying to get him on the podcast, actually. Simmons just had him. I think we're going to. I think we're going to get him

and we're going to try to get him to stand in need. The great thing about Skipper is he's so forgiving of himself and you and everyone and Oberman and Simmons. And he just, he's flexible. He's so smart and kind. I really liked that guy. I was really sad to see whatever happened to him. Yeah.

I still don't know what happened. He partied. Yeah, he partied too hard. And as far as our relationship with him, it wasn't, it was easier to deal with in hindsight because it wasn't about Austin necessarily. Things were happening all around that were much bigger than the show that Big Cat and I were putting on.

And do you know Bomanie? Bomanie Jones over there? So he actually, he told me something that when we got the news, I was initially crushed a little bit. But he hit me up and he was like, hey, don't worry about it. If it happened after five weeks, it's because of you guys.

Right. If it happens after one week, it's not because of you guys. Oh, that's a good point. And I was like, that, that makes sense. That took this thing out of a little bit and. And you guys lasted longer than George O'Leary. Another name. True.

That's a fact. And, and here's one that you can use for free. Wow. That TV, you guys didn't last long, but you lasted longer than Rick Petino at an Olive Garden. Boom. You know, that's habit. Habit.

Take the one for the road, Rick. I didn't say that, did I? No, no. But you can. That's a Rick Riley joke right there. We're letting you. I gave you two today. You're dirty.

You lasted longer than that Kardashian, Chris Humphries, Mary. Oh, that's a classic Rick one. That's a classic Rick, like two thousand years. Seven years. Yeah. See, this is why I want to live in Italy. There's nothing left.

You do. Yeah. 24 hours later, you got the hottest news. I do have one last thing for you here. I'm going to give you three descriptions of Brooks Kepka and you tell me which one you didn't make. This is great. Okay.

And did someone make the other? Did you write it? I'm just going to give you three. And you tell me which one was yours and which one did not belong to you. Okay. He looks like the guy who comes to repo your boat. That was me.

Yep. Hey, is this the guy who moved my piano? No. Last one. Boy, this guy's got arms like church organ pipes. Yes. They were all yours. Yep.

You can nail them all. I like this guy. A little trick. Rick Riley, commander in chief. Thank you so much. This has been fun. Wasn't so bad, right? I mean, I got to say.

You're probably a little nervous coming in here. All my kids are like, be careful. Cause they get all this and I'm like. That's what we love to do though. We usually, you know, we're still going to make fun of you just so you know. I want that on the record. But I love the boobs thing.

Now we got a face to it and we've talked to you and it feels like. But if I make fun of you, you get over it. Go for it. Please make fun of me. Make fun of how bad my ice is jokes are. But how can I know you made fun of me because I don't let people in my front door

with a baseball. We can listen to the podcast. Subscribe. Ah, there you go. Well, no, don't do that because then I'll get in my head. Yeah. Rick's listening. I'm not going to be mean.

So don't do that. Also, I need to show you before you go. I've actually have four boobs. I can't believe I forgot. Oh yeah. I have four nipples. So I got the big. Keep your pants on Rick.

Jesus Christ, dude. And then I got the third guy right there. So do you think that that's like, that's Kevin Durant or is that Clay? That's Clay. That's Clay. And that's LeBron joining the Warriors right there. Right there.

Okay. I've been on booked here six weeks. I think this is a low point. Yeah. Oh, by far. No where to go but up. Four nipples. You want to see my belly button?

No, it's really, it's, it's dummy thick. Look at how deep it is. Oh my God. You could probably don't see caves like that in Colorado. I could, I could knit a quilt out of that. I could. I could. Absolutely.

God. All right, Rick Riley. Thank you, Rick. You too. That interview with Rick Riley was brought to you by Postmates when you need red wine at 4 p.m. sushi at 9 p.m., a breakfast burrito at 8 a.m. and ibuprofen at 10 a.m. Postmates.

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just go to me, Undies.com slash take. That's me, Undies.com slash take. Okay, let's get to some segments. First up, we'll do a little more game five. Ratings War. So NBA Ratings War is my favorite thing that's going on. I go to sleep after an unbelievable game where it was so dramatic,

like the height of sports through and through, thinking, man, I don't know how to feel until I wake up in the morning and know what the ratings were. I need to know how many other people watch the game before I can feel good about whether or not I watch the game and how much that game mattered. Yes, so I'm going to give you two ratings tweets and you just tell me what you feel from it, okay?

So let me do, I'll give them both to you. All right, so NBA Finals game five overnight rating is up 37% from game four. The game is the fifth highest rated NBA Finals game five ever on ABC behind only the three Cavs Warriors games and the Pistons Lakers in 2004. Alternatively.

Oh, wait, wait, can I give my reaction now? No, no, I'm going to give you the second one first. I mean, I'm going to give you the second one as well because I want you to get the whole picture. But I want to give my reaction to that. Okay, then I'll give mine to you. Okay, so just based on that, the NBA's king NFL is in big, big trouble.

This league, there's nothing like professional basketball. This is what happens when you let the players have fun out there, ratings are delivered big time. This is America's sport. NBA game five ratings down 19% over last game five in NBA Finals two years ago. Trend lines remain same, even though last night provided lots of drama.

NBA's fucked. We're done. So the live deals that ESPN, that ABC, and that Turner has in place, billions of dollars. So those companies in addition to the NBA are fucked long term. Like I would be shocked if the NBA stuck around longer than a couple more seasons.

Okay, I have one more. This is actually for me. I didn't tweet it, but I thought it. NBA ratings up infinity percent over the 1967 NBA Finals that was actually taped to late. Okay, yeah, so doing very well. Yeah, huge, huge. America as a country is doing great.

I have we figured out if fucking idiots, like they just get online and I'm talking about everyone. Like they just, here's the thing I hate the most. When you have an idea, you've already decided what your side wants to be. And then you just find the statistic to back it up and then be like, well, facts. And all these sheep are like, well, it's facts, dude.

It's facts. Dude, you can spend any rating into a positive, including 89,000 people watching you on ESPN2 at 1AM. Correct. You can find really good shit in that. It's so stupid. And I mean, especially the one guy I'm thinking of who basically spent an entire year bashing the NFL

and has now jumped to the rock of the NBA will never catch the NFL. No shit. I just think that it's very classless to be cheering bad ratings. As the NBA is hurt, possibly injured, limping their way into oblivion, you're just, you're gonna cheer for that?

You're gonna cheer that on? It's sad. You don't root for that. Ratings people. I'm seriously, I'm gonna start just not, I'm not even gonna, I'm gonna turn the game on, but I'm not gonna watch it. And then I'll tell you my thoughts about the game

the next day when I see the ratings. We need to get sports biz Jake on the ratings game. Yeah, he needs to get into the ratings. Like finding the most obscure ways to spin it in any direction possible. Bringing it down like second by second. This second was the highest rated second in NBA finals history.

That's a fact. You know what else I love? I love the bathroom break graphs where it shows like where the country, like back in the Olympics when it showed that Canada used the bathroom in between, in the intermissions between first and second and second and third periods in the gold medal game.

And then there's a little Pornhub spike too. Yeah, Pornhub spike after the game. We gotta get on that. All right, speaking of the PMT Sports Minute, let's actually do the PMT Sports Minute. So we have this every Wednesday. Our intern Jake, who if you're not following PMT Sports Biz, people were very mad at him

when he was debuted because I don't think they fully got it. I think people are starting to get what Jake is all about. He's a very good kid. And he just wants to give us a little bit of information. Listen, nobody out there is covering sports business. No one. No one is.

And Jake is. So here it is, PMT Sports Minute. Good morning. This is Jake Marsh with the PMT Sports Biz Minute. Let's take a look at the Stanley Cup by the numbers. Our very own PFT commenter had the chance to drink out of the Stanley Cup around this time last year.

Did you know the cup is made of a silver and nickel alloy? It stands 35 and a quarter inches high and weighs 34 and a half pounds. Stack up clones in the cup. It'll take 2.11 of them to get the identical height of Big Cat who's six, two and a half and 2.04 for PFT. Yes, he is five, 11 and a half with shoes on.

So let's just round it up to six feet. Meanwhile, according to the Sports Business Journal, insurance company Aflac is working with the SEC and its schools to sponsor the pop-up medical tents that are on common on the sidelines. These tents averaging five by 12, seven by 14. I've also made their way in the NFL and high school football.

So now while you, the AWLs are debating whether or not a player in the tent is hurt or injured, these student athletes are going to be treated on in the Affleck tent with the possibility of a freaking duck staring right back at them. Only in the SEC. The French open behind us. Shocker, Rafael Nadal wins again

and that's all the time we have today that's for PMT Sports Visit Today's Minute. Mr. Cat, Mr. Commenter, back to you. Great job, Jake, very cool. Kept it to exactly one minute. And it was very cool. And it was very cool. Very, very cool.

I, full disclosure, I didn't even listen to it. It was very cool. Was it? Yeah. What was in it? Just all sorts of fun facts about things that you don't, this is now making it a PMT Sports Two Minutes. Because I'm having you recap it.

I'm not going to, I'm not going to do a recap. I'll listen to it tomorrow. Just know fun facts. Fun facts. All right, before we get to the guys on chicks, a little PR 101 for North Korea. So North Korea also kind of back. What happened?

They, so Kim Jong-un executed their general who was accused of plotting a coup. That's really nothing new from North Korea. But the way that he did it was he threw his general into a piranha-filled fish tank and just had him. Hannibal Lecter much, yeah. Yeah, that was Hannibal Two. What's just called Hannibal.

We'll just say Hannibal Lecter. Hannibal. Hannibal Two. No, it was the shitty one. Not Red Dragon and not Silence of the Land. And so then, so in the report that I read, the British Intelligence Service, they commented on it by saying, this is classic Kim.

So there, there's Kim being Kim. There you go again, Kim. Wait, so we now have someone ruthlessly killing a general in a like bathtub full of piranhas. It's the same excuse as Manny being Manny. Yeah, classic Kim being Kim. That's all that is. So that's tough.

As a sign of good faith, they should have, Trump should throw Chris Christie into a tank full of sweat pants. Or tank full of jelly donuts and see if he can eat his way out. Eat your way out or dive a heart attack before you get out. Which one? Which one's it gonna be? All right, let's wrap it up. I think he could eat his way out, honestly.

Like he would probably love that. Yeah. All right, we'll start with an update from one from last week or two weeks ago, I forget. Sub BBBs again, especially Big Beard Hank. We do not say that anymore. Okay. We already apologized to Kevin Durant.

Especially Big Beard Hank. Wait, so anyone can still be a BBB. Yeah, that's true. Not Kevin Durant. We stopped calling him that, so I think it would be nice to stop calling us BBBs. Big baller brand, yeah. BBBs again, especially Big Beard Hank.

I confronted my boyfriend about liking slutty pictures on Instagram, but he said he only likes them because he used to be friends with them in high school. Should I still be worried? Wait, so he was, oh, okay. This is the one that was- You should definitely be worried.

I thought he was liking Instagram models. That's a different game. He's liking people he knows in real life. You should be very worried. It's very soft, yeah. Well, again, this is probably the scenario where he doesn't know that you can watch him do that. Yeah, but this is a bad situation.

You should be very, very worried. I've never really understood the purpose of the like on Instagram. Well, you just let him know. Just like a E high five. It's like every, and it's the best part. It's a poke. Yeah, the best part is every single Instagram model

that I follow, if they post a picture right underneath it, it says liked by Glennie Balls. Wait, so didn't they say that we're gonna get rid of that? Of the, like, you can see who liked it? No, that's Twitter. Twitter's doing weird shit. And Snapchat got rid of, like, best friends. You could see, like, who people were Snapchatting

that they got rid of that. That's probably smart. Yeah. Okay, next one. Hey, boys with a Z. My FWB and I were hooking up in the shower, and after we were done with the hookup, he farted. What, whist?

We were still showering. It smelled like death. Afterwards, I asked him, what would have happened if it was just a random girl he farted on in the shower after sex and not me? Wait. He said, he said he would have held it in and only let it rip because it was me.

Should I be feeling pride or shame or both? That's such a great spin though. Like, I only farted on you because I love you. That's a weird question to ask though. Would you fart in front of any other girls having sex in the shower? Well, they're only friends with benefits, so it's like they're not fully in a relationship,

so you can have a little, right. One of them, obviously, you know, cares more. Here's the thing though. Sounds like a tin if you said it's like, I farted with you because you're special. Farting in the shower, it's either, you can't smell it whatsoever, or it's like the worst smell of all.

It's a wet dog mixed with, like, a full- Raw nags on a month. Yeah, because you're trapped in the shower with a curtain, like one of those cash grab machines. Yeah, but the best part about farting in showers sounds like a duck. Yeah, whack. That's why I move as you go.

Is there a duck in here? Yeah, you do that too? Yeah, I yell it. It's classic. Is there a duck in here? What's going on? Sup, Daddy Cat. My boyfriend always stares at other dudes' butts

and comments on them, often commenting about and asking them how much they probably squat. Is this weird? No, no, it's just guys being dudes. Dude, he just wants to see if his goals, he's probably getting gains, right? He's in the gym, he's squatting, maybe a little front squat too.

He wants to know that he's doing the right stuff to get that nice plump peach. Yeah, listen, when you have a bodybuilding.com forum login that you use all the time, looking at another guy's ass on the street pales in comparison to what you see in another man's avatar on those posts. It's weird if he's not working out,

but if a guy is obsessed with working out, the general icebreaker is like, what do you squat? What's your routine? Right, it's like, are you doing, you know, are you doing Tabata's? Like, what's going on here? Are you doing box jumps?

It's not, hey, how's the weather? Or, damn, the Yankees don't have anyone good, like at the end of their rotation. Right, it's like if you're a chef and you go to a restaurant, you're gonna stare at the food because you guys share an interest. I mean, we've literally,

every single time we see Russell, that's all he talks about. Hey, PMT boys, especially baby Daddy Cat. This question is for Bodie. I don't know what that means. Both of us. That's it. Bodie?

Slang for both of us. Both of you. Yeah, both of you. Bodie. Is that true? Both of you. Yeah, Bodie. Really?

Patrick Swayze and Point Break. Both of them. Is that actually? The good and the bad. So if you say this. So Bodie, have you seen Point Break? Of course. So Patrick Swayze's character

is both the good and the bad of humanity. So it's Bodie. His name was Bodie. So that became slang for both. I honestly can't tell if you're making this up, but that actually is an extremely legitimate answer. That was great. I nailed that.

Especially from like a movie from the 90s. Anyway, this question is for Bodie. Why are boys so obsessed with anal but never want to talk about girls poop? Please answer my question so my boyfriend is proud of me. Caught us. Because it's so cool when it goes in,

but it sucks having anything come out. That was very, you conned us in a hypocritical lie. We want to give to you. We don't want to take from you. That was very perceptive. All right, last one. Hello, gentlemen. I was having sex with a guy recently.

No need to congratulate. It's the wrong podcast. And during the first half of the hookup, we had the lights on, but then out of nowhere, he reached over and turned them off. I'm probably overthinking it, but should I be offended by this move?

We've hooked up before so it's not like he didn't know what to expect. Any good reasoning for this? Ugg, thanks. Yeah, there's something weird about him. He would not do this if it was like, if he saw something about you that he didn't like, because when guys are having sex,

you're just like, I like this thing that like whatever it is I'm having sex with is good because I'm having sex with it. I think having sex with lights on is weird. So yeah, I don't think this is that weird. It's like kissing with your eyes open. No, having sex with lights on is awesome. No, it's not.

Get such a good look at everything. No, that's not what you want. Like you, if you suck at sex like I do, you don't want to have lights on. It's just like way more, there's way more pressure. The bright lights. I like, I like the lights on.

That's weird. That's weird. I think it's, I think it's great. So much hotter with the lights on, lights off. Yeah, you think you're awesome at sex. You're one of those guys who thinks he's awesome at sex. No, I, no, I know, I know I'm not awesome at sex. Yeah, you'd have the lights on.

No. All right, we'll see you everyone Friday. Love you guys. I'm coming for your love, okay? I'm coming for your love, okay? I'm coming for your love, okay? I'm coming for your love, okay? I'm coming for your love, okay?

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Being a shy anoid, well I'll be coming for you anyway. Being a shy anoid, well I'll be coming for you anyway.