The Bill Simmons Podcast - Dominant Warriors, Five LeBrons, Soccer Trolls, MLB Struggles, and Chappaquiddick With Chuck Klosterman | The Bill Simmons Podcast (Ep. 388)

Episode Date: July 11, 2018

HBO and The Ringer’s Bill Simmons is joined by Chuck Klosterman to discuss the Golden State Warriors acquiring DeMarcus Cousins and how long their dominance in the NBA can last (01:56). They also debate whether a starting five of all LeBron Jameses would be better than a starting five of any other player in NBA history (21:12). Then they talk about soccer trolls (52:30), the current and future state of MLB (54:28), and the Chappaquiddick scandal in light of it being turned into a movie (1:33:22). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Today's episode of the BS Podcast on the Rigger Podcast Network brought to you as always by our friends at ZipRecruiter. Having high sports IQ, very important. Just look at the conversation we're about to have right now with Chuck Klosterman. High sports IQs all the way around. When it comes to hiring, you don't need a high hiring IQ. Just use ZipRecruiter. ZipRecruiter's powerful technology scans thousands of resumes to find people with the right experience for your job. 80% of employers who post on ZipRecruiter get a quality candidate through the site in just one

day. My listeners can try it for free at ZipRecruiter.com slash be as ZipRecruiter, the smartest way to hire. We're also brought to you by theringer.com, where even though it's mid-July and even though there's not a lot going on, we have some awesome pieces on The Ringer right now. Jonathan Charks wrote about Jonathan Isaac, who might be the first one to break the magic curse. Roger Sherman wrote a really funny piece about the movie Set It Up on Netflix. And the fact that Lucy Liu is a sports media empire CEO slash person and all the flaws in whatever they turned in with that one. We have an oral history on Step Brothers, which is also going to be the rewatchables for this week.

Check that out. And who will be the next NFL's next Legion of Boom by Danny Kelly. Just a whole bunch of awesome stuff, including a big feature by Dave Hill about a cockfighting ring raid that upended a small town. That happened. Check it out. TheRinger.com. Coming up, Chuck Klosterman.

First, Pearl Jam. All right, Chuck, close to being on the line. It's been a couple months. A lot of things have happened. The Warriors have carved in some dominance. I don't know if Chuck likes that or not. LeBron has moved to LA. The World Cup is happening, and we're going to talk about Chappaquiddick later because we were both

fascinated by Chappaquiddick. Let's start with the Warriors. Now people are saying this is bad for the NBA to have a dominant team. This sucks. What's your take? Well, you know, uh, I thought it was a real great NBA season. Like a lot of people did.

I think the, you know, the, the, the, as the kind of unspooled, it was real interesting, but it is strange how the end of the year was exactly what everyone said would happen in October. It would be the Warriors playing the Cavs and the Warriors win. I don't think it's bad for the league, though. Do you? No.

I like watching great basketball. I like watching great basketball teams. I like having really good teams. I would rather have dominant teams. I think what sucked was probably that round two range. It just felt there was a lot of time between games. There wasn't a lot of excitement. And there just seemed like

for about 17, 18 days there, the NBA wasn't that much fun. But the Houston Golden State Series was really compelling, I thought. And Celtics-Cavs was too. And then we had it. The finals was what it was. It turned on the first game. Yeah, well, I mean, I thought the East playoffs were good the whole way through.

The West playoffs, I mean, yeah, I know what you're saying, but, I mean, that could happen regardless of how the talent is distributed. I don't know if people, I mean, it's something to talk about. You know, they can say, like, is this good or is this bad? I guess, you know, I think that the thing that is disturbing people maybe a little bit, I don't think they're, I don't even know if they're conscious of this, but I think that it's hard for people, particularly in the United States to get used to a professional sports league where the players run everything.

I mean, it's weird that this happens. Like, this was not even 15, 10, 15 years ago. This didn't seem possible. And now, you know, the players have all this agency, and the money is so massive that guys can take a lot less than they could potentially earn. And it's still like it has almost I mean, how do you even visually imagine? Like, how do you imagine the difference between 208 million and 179 million? You know, it's like, well, what do, how do you look at those things and say,

oh, well, you know, I can't give up, you know, $26 million or whatever, but you can in this scenario. It's like, it's almost an abstraction. So, you know, when I heard Cousins was going to the Warriors, at first I was like, huh, this is getting weird now, but it totally makes sense. He's not going to the Warriors At first I was like This is getting weird now But it totally makes sense He's not going to play for a long time It isn't even necessarily going to be

The best move for them Like I can absolutely see A scenario where he's healthy And they're better off With him not on the floor Although I also think Maybe you're kind of the historian on this. Would you agree that if next year the warriors are healthy,

that is the best starting five in basketball history? I know NBA history. Cause we can't count the Olympic teams in NBA history. Would you say that if the warriors are at full strength, those are the best five guys. Any team has ever put on the floor simultaneously. I would say it is so you're saying a boogie's in there

yes, and he's healthy and he's playing well I'd have to look back at some of the 60's Celtic teams because there were some years where because the league only had like 8 or 9 or 10 teams sure, absolutely a couple of those Celtic teams had Havlicek coming off the bench

and crazy stuff like that hek coming off the bench and crazy stuff like that. Although he was coming off the bench, though, often when he was the first or second best player on that team. True. For a while. You often talk about the 86 Celtics. You got three of the top 50 players at the time on that team. But here you have two MVPs who are still basically at their apex level. You have a guy who,

if he was on a bad team would probably lead the league at scoring. You have the most versatile player, two way player, maybe in the league who doesn't seem to care if he scores and can have a good game scoring four points. And then you add the first or second best center in the league. I don't know when that situation has happened before. I can't think of a team where you would say their best five guys are all potentially first teamteam All-NBA players. I think the 86 Celtics is a good comparison to this

because I don't see him playing a lot of minutes next year. I don't think he's going to come back until January, February range. And even then, I don't see him playing big minutes. And I see him in that Bill Walton 1986 role for this team where he comes off the bench in both halves but occasionally finishes games and is able to swing the momentum and swing different things. And the other thing that was great when Walton was on that team, which I still think is the

best team ever start to finish, he hadn't won yet. And his own storyline kind of invigorated everybody else. And I think that's what that Warriors team was missing last year. Who hadn't won yet, and his own storyline kind of invigorated everybody else. And I think that's what that Warriors team was missing last year. Who hadn't won yet? The Bill Wall. Well, he'd won in 77, but he hadn't won with that team, and it was kind of the new wrinkle. And I think this Boogie thing.

If Cousins is healthy, he's not coming off the bench. If it's May and he is a hundred percent and here's the deal, it's an Achilles injury on a real big guy. So in the past, you'd be like, Oh, I don't know. But now it seems like anyone can come back from anything. I mean, the situation like with the Vikings and Peterson has just changed my view on all of this.

Now I think anyone can come back from anything. And I think he'll probably be the same player he was or very close to it. And how would you not have him on the floor if that's the case? I disagree. I think that's the one injury we have not seen good track record for people coming back, especially in basketball. It's been a lot of people taking really two years before they were close to what they were,

and even then it wasn't the same. Like there's been – think about Kobe. Dominique Wilkins came back late in his life. Late in his career, Dominique Wilkins came back and was still pretty effective. Kobe was a pretty old person when this happened, and he still managed to be a person who could score 60 points in a game

yeah but he took 50 shots yeah Kobe was not the same Wesley Matthews was not the same he wasn't as good sure of course he wasn't as good but I I'm just saying it does not seem impossible to me

you know there's always a first of all right when Bernard King came back I'm just saying it does not seem impossible to me. There's always a first of all these, right? When Bernard King came back, that was the first time it seemed like that had ever happened. An injury like that came all the way back. It took him two years. It seems more and more plausible that he will be able to recover from this. Maybe you're right.

I don't know. I'm not a doctor. I just want to see somebody come back from this injury. A hundred percent. I'm pretty sure in basketball, it hasn't happened. The other thing is they're not incentivized really to care about what he thinks because he's there for one year.

They can't, people seem to think he was going to be there for 10 years. Like the way the seller cap works, they offered him 5 million million. The following year, they can only offer him 120% of that. And he's clearly using them because he's going to parlay this one Warriors season into a big contract the next year. So they can basically tell him whatever they want. I actually think he'd be pretty devastating coming off the bench because if you rig it the right way, you always have three crazy scorers out there.

You know, you would have some version of Durant, Curry, Clay, and then Boogie is the fourth. And three of them are always out there. I think that would be pretty great. I'm really excited to watch this team. I'm in the minority. I want to watch great basketball teams. I'm excited that this team is so good. And when you compare it to the 86 Celtics, I think Bird at his peak in 86 was better than Durant or Curry. But I think the combo of Durant and Curry is probably a higher upside than Bird and McHale. Parrish versus,

I would say maybe Clay. Clay's probably, Clay's a top 20 guy. Parrish is probably top 25 when he played. It's relatively even. And then the wild card is Draymond. Draymond is better than Dennis Johnson or Danny Angelos. Boogie versus Bill Walton is fun.

They do, they are certainly the most talented team we've had. I would say, you know, the 82 Lakers were really loaded. You go back to that team because they had Young Magic. They had Kareem really still in his prime. They had Jamal Wilkes.

They had Bob McAdoo. They had Norm Nixon. That team was up there. But this is pretty crazy because you have – Boogie was on pace to be a second-team all-NBA guy last year. So, if he doesn't get hurt, well, obviously he's not the same now, but they have three guys

on their team who, as recently in the last 12 months, people were considering top 10 guys. And then Clay is a borderline all-NBA guy. And then Draymond, same thing. Pretty crazy. And here's, I guess, why it doesn't bother me

to have a team that's loaded. They're still eventually going to lose, and that's going to be interesting. They almost lost last year. It's not as though... That Rocket series was the first time when I was watching them, and I was like,

I guess there isn't a situation where they just have so much talent, so much shooting that no one can beat them. It's like, they could have lost that series. It was very possible. Um, I think the Celtics are going to be very good next year. I think the,

this, I think the Sixers could be very good. Um, and it just seems as though any dominant team eventually, you know, they lose something. It's not talent. They can gain talent,

but that edge that you need to have, you know, that desire that matters. So it's like the Warriors, they could probably, if I had to put money on who will win the title next year, I would obviously bet on the lawyers, but it's not going to happen in perpetuity, you know? So it's, I think when you have these real dominant teams,

it does make it more interesting because every time they almost lose, it becomes important. Yeah. And the other thing, if you go back and you just look over the last, I don't know, 40 years of Final Fours in the NBA, the top seeds in each conference

usually go to the third round. With very rare exceptions. You had the 99 season, I'm doing this off the top of my head, but the lockout season in 99, when they only played 50 games, the Knicks made the finals as an eight seed. You know, that's pretty, pretty crazy that that happened, but it was a way shorter sample size. It was a lot like Leicester city winning the premier league where you, when you just have

less games, more wackiness happens. But for the most part, you go through year by year by year, and it's always the teams with the best records that usually make the Final Four. So I don't know if it's that much different. I think what people seem to not like is that this was so orchestrated and that it was this confluence of events with the salary cap going up and Durant deciding to jump to a 73-win team, all that stuff. But at the same time, they did everything by the rules.

I would argue it's more annoying a situation like the Lakers where they do everything wrong for six years, like literally everything. Every draft pick they made, with the exception of Brandon Ingram, is something you could criticize or look back on and be like, wow, that was a huge mistake. They had to trade. Well, wait, Kuzma and Baumhart, they had like four good young players. I was talking about their lottery picks. They, they, they pick seventh,

seventh, second, second, and second. Randall's gone. They gave away D'Angelo Russell to get rid of Mozgov's contract. Lonzo is available. I just think people are afraid of his dad. The Mozgov-Dan combo signings in 2016 were absolutely atrocious. The way they've handled their coaching stuff the last six years was just atrocious. I would say they're one of the three most poorly run teams in the league this decade until this year. And then they get LeBron anyway.

Like to me, that's more annoying. It's like, you don't, you don't, you don't deserve LeBron. You haven't done anything to deserve this. You're just getting him because he wants to live in LA. That's literally the only reason. Well, okay. That's some of what you said is true there. I guess I disagree with some of it.

Okay. First of all, you, I know you, you're always kind of fixated on the hardened trade, and it would have been interesting if Oklahoma City had kept that team together. That would obviously be a super team if they had those three guys, and I don't think anybody would mind that, because it would seem to have happened organically. So what you're saying is true, I guess. Lakers are just kind of a fascinating situation.

I think that their potential is being overrated by casual fans, but underrated by the serious basketball people. I think their real performance is going to fall somewhere in the middle. I think that they're... I see a lot of people are now that when i listen to the radio and i'm driving around listening to sports talk the idea seems to be it's like well lebron obviously doesn't care about winning titles anymore he must that must have been he must have passed that point in his life because he's going to this team that just may not make the

playoffs or whatever i don't think that's true. I mean, I think his mentality is wherever I go, I'm kind of all we need to make a team substantially better. In fact, you know what one of my big regrets is now, Bill? I kind of regret after these playoffs every negative thing I've said about LeBron throughout my life.

It's not like I went around criticizing him incessantly but i just i i really felt almost lucky to have watched him play in the playoffs this year and he is a good guy and yeah i just i think that uh that uh it was it was almost as though it was like i like i uh okay there's this one guy, I don't know what's his name. He's on like Fox sports one.

He really loves LeBron. Nick. Right. And loves him. Nick. Right. Yeah. Yeah.

I like that. Great. He's all right. I'm down with him. Yeah. So do I, I think it's, I think it's still entertaining,

but like for a while, like he would just, he would like anytime he would mention LeBron, he would just sort of like, kind of as an ancillary thing, just throw in that he's the greatest player of all time. Even if he's talking about what kind of car LeBron drives or whatever, he'd just kind of throw that in there. I was like, what's he trying to do here? What's his point?

Is he trying to be the first guy to be famous for saying LeBron is the best player ever? So not like that point, but he is the best player ever, I think, now. Whoa! I think that he has, that the way he's gone about achieving that is pretty admirable. And I feel like a jerk now, kind of for having said a lot of negative things about him

just because he was so famous and maybe and it's so easy to criticize somebody that great. Yeah. I'm shocked.

You just ditched Michael Jordan. I just, I think, I think he is. Well, because here's the deal. Okay, you all, we always talk about how you can't, you can't compare eras or whatever. And I don't know if I really agree with that.

Because what I always think of is you have to look at the gap between the best player and the second best player. Now, the gap between Jordan and Barkley or Carmelone, who was ever the second best player, whatever the case may be, probably was greater than the gap between LeBron and Durant. So I guess that that'd be the one thing you could still say that sort of makes Jordan different, that the gap between him and everyone else may have been greater.

But I don't really see anything that LeBron doesn't do as well or better than Jordan except hate people. That's the only thing that he lacks, that Jordan hated people more and was more competitive and maybe cared a little bit more about the bottom line. But in every other way now, it kind of seems silly almost now. I mean, not silly, maybe he's going too far it's still a valid argument but I now it just

it seems as though if you had to pick one of those two guys for your kind of theoretical hypothetical match against the aliens or whatever the fuck it is what's the thing when we play the aliens is that what you always talk about when we play aliens the Bob Ryan's idea it's Bob Ryan's idea.

It's Bob Ryan's alien test. Okay. We're fighting the aliens. We're not fighting them. Somehow they're really amicable. They want to play us in basketball. They showed up. They challenged us. I suppose because they're aliens,

they're like, you can clone whoever you want to be the best version of that player. I guess I would first be like, well, we got to get LeBron. I think that that would be the first thing just because he's bigger. And I mean, what, what, what skills? Like, okay, would you say Jordan was a better defender? But I think LeBron potentially for one possession could be the best defender of all time.

If you had to shut somebody down for one possession, I think I would put LeBron up against anyone. I think Jordan was a better scorer. And I think Jordan was just a better quarter-to-quarter

defender. He's just better. LeBron took a lot of time off on that in the last few years, which was really smart. That's what he had to do. I think the best case for your argument is the old, if you had five of the same guy against five of any other guy who had went, this has always been the best LeBron case. Five LeBrons would beat five other, five anyone else's, right? Who would, who would be best LeBron case. Five LeBrons would beat five anyone else's, right?

Who would beat five LeBrons? Maybe it's five LeBrons versus five Magics in the finals. Is that possible? I like this line of thinking, because does this also work? Who do you take for your football team? Do you have to have 11 of a guy? I know who I'd take. Oh, well, we're going to find out right after this.

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And you can choose to earn your degree online or on Full Sail's campus in Orlando, Florida. To learn more about Full Sail University's Dan Patrick School of Sportscasting, go to fullsail.edu slash Bill Simmons. Back to Chuck. All right, we're back. So you're saying 11

of somebody in football. Yeah, and they gotta play both ways. And they gotta kick. I think the obvious choice is Walter Payton. I think Walter Payton is clearly the most complete football player of all time.

For some reason I was just thinking 11 Bo Jacksons would figure it out. That would be good. That would be good. I guess they'd be a pretty physical team. It probably should be like a defensive guy. It probably would make more sense to pick a defensive back who had played quarterback in college. This is probably the 9,000th time on this podcast I've mentioned the name Nolan Cromwell. For some reason, I always bring up Nolan Cromwell on this podcast every time. I don't know how it happened.

One of the great white athletes ever. Everyone says that Lawrence Taylor was the greatest athlete who's ever played football. Seems to be the consensus. So if you had 11 Lawrence Taylors on both sides. But remember, we got to have, it's hard to sort of imagine Lawrence Taylor playing quarterback. And that's the key to this. It's whatever guy you pick.

Are you challenging him? You can't really pick a quarterback. You can't really pick a quarterback because it's hard to imagine the quarterback doing anything outside of that. Like, you know, Aaron Rodgers, hard to imagine him playing tackle or whatever. So you've got to pick somebody who is sort of kind of a pure athlete

who could also feasibly take the game. Peyton played quarterback on certain possessions in games. Like, at one point, their quarterback got hurt, and Dick had benched the second guy and had, I think it was against the Packers. I can't remember what year it was. They just put Walter Payton in the shotgun. He played quarterback for four possessions.

He's a great example of missing your era. He might be in the top three greatest missed his era guys. What era should he have been in? If you put him 20 years later during the era of fantasy football and everybody being able to see every game and highlights and even if you brought him even 30 years and now Twitter's involved, I think we just

I think Walter Payton would have been the most popular football player of the last 20 years or whatever. People just loved him. He was a pretty popular player at the time. I mean, if you go on YouTube for like just watching dudes' highlights, I would say he's number one. Earl Campbell's

probably number two. Gale Sayers is really good. Yeah, but there's less of that. We've seen it all. When you watch these Walter Payton clips and these Earl Campbell clips, every once in a while it'll be like, I never even saw that. Gale Sayers.

There's such a limited amount of footage. True. There's only like five. Like you never see. I've never, like if someone shows me something that Gale Sayers did that I haven't seen, I'm shocked.

It's like seeing footage of the Beatles that I haven't seen or something. It's like, I'm just blown away that somehow I managed not to see it. Randy Moss is definitely in that conversation. He's he, I would put him in the top five. Yeah, the Peyton thing. I love football. I'm a little older than you.

Grown up, and we just had the two games they showed on NBC and CBS. Sometimes there'd be three. They didn't show the Bears really ever because the Bears weren't good. So the only time we even saw Walter Payton was when they would cut in do the highlights like let's go to Chicago where Walter Payton did something great and you'd be like

oh my god who's that the Vikings were the local team for where I was so you'd always see the Bears twice yeah that was two more than I saw and then usually the late CBS game was Dallas. I feel like it was a couple times they played. They were never on Monday night, though, very rarely.

Very rarely see the Bears on Monday night. Those 80s guys really lost out. I feel the same way about the basketball guys, because Magic and Larry and Michael specifically. And I think Dominique during the Twitter era would have been phenomenal because of his in-game dunking. I still have him number one as the best in-game dunker I've ever seen.

But just night to night, Magic and Bird messing around and doing some of the stuff they did, I think translated better to league pass and Twitter than anything, especially the passing. I mean, they could have single-handedly rejuvenated the whole passing era. I think Donchich has a chance. Highlights on Twitter, though, it's like

you just, you know, you see it, don't really look at it again. They're up there all the time, so they seem much less meaningful. I don't know. You know, like, to me, the apex of highlights was when Howard Cosell did the Monday Night End.

That was the best it ever was, because you were seeing stuff that was just the only time you're going to see it, announced by the perfect person to do it. Like, as a little kid, I almost didn't look like that. I know I did. I liked that part more than the game like you just sort of wait for that and i've often like wait like i wouldn't go to bed i could watch the highlights of that before i went to bed or whatever um now highlights are very cheap so it doesn't seem as though um now i i i'm i i tend to look at box scores more than i look at highlights

just because i'm like oh i, I want to see what happens. I was going to ask you, so what do you think is going to happen now with Trey Young? I think he played well last night. He finally had a good night shooting. But I watched the Hawks and the Knicks game. I think it was the first game Knox played last week. And I'm sort of a mixed mind of what's going to happen with Trey Young now. I'm wondering what you think before I give my position on this.

I think he's really young. I think he weighs about 120 pounds. I don't know if he totally knows how to play basketball when he doesn't have the ball. I think he's a ridiculous shooter. I would urge everybody to just ride the up and downs this first year. I don't think we're going to know for five years. If you go back and you watch Curry and the Warriors in 09 and 10 and 11, there's no real sign that anything that's about to happen is going to happen. I mean, he almost got traded for Andrew Bogut. So I think it's going to take a while. I'm hoping that people don't go nuts the first time he goes like two for 18 in a game because it's going to happen.

That's going to happen. But here's the thing that I find interesting. Normally when a guy like that, he comes from college to the NBA, if he ends up busting, it's because he can't get the shots he got in college. Like he was a knockdown shooter or whatever in college, and now he gets the NBA and he can't do it. I don't see how that can happen to him, though, since him getting his shot is dribble the ball at the court and pull up 35 feet away or whatever. Like you can't, like he can get, so at some point,

it's not like you forget how to shoot, right? It's like he can't suddenly, it's not like folks or whatever, where there's some mechanical problem. So I wonder if he's just going to, like, I don't know why he's going one for 13 and two for 11 in so many of these summer league games. I don't really understand that. It just, it seems really contradicts the way he seemed as a player in college.

But then at the end of the college year, he was struggling too. So I don't know. I guess I want him to succeed. He had a good one last night. He was like 7-13. He went. Well, but yeah, he was like 7-13 on three. Yeah.

But like 17 of 19 overall. Yeah. Like 7 of 19. He only made three. He missed every other shot. That. Like 7 of 19. He only made 3. He missed every other shot. That might be who he is, though. I had 4 turnovers. I think he went to the right team

because they're going to be awful and he can just kind of figure out who he is and what he's going to do. I do think, though, it really seems like the order of that draft, even just a month in after we've had the draft,

would be totally different. I don't think there's any way Marvin Bagley would go second. I just don't see it. I was so impressed by Wendell Carter on the Bulls, and I thought Knox looked really good. It goes to show you yet again, these teams tank to get into the top five, and yet every year, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13,

you get two or three gems out of those picks. You just have to know who to pick. Bad teams. Bad teams do dumb things. Can we go back to the five LeBrons for a second? Okay. Sure, sure, sure. Who would you have in the finals against the five LeBrons?

Would you have Wilt finals against the five LeBrons? Would you have wilt five wilts? You know, you don't, I don't know a great deal about will ball handling because, and the thing is, it's very possible. He was a pretty good ball handler, but that was during a period where a center wasn't supposed to dribble like he wasn't supposed to bring it up um ever under any really no if he could handle the ball uh yeah that would be right in there i mean can i give you a dark horse i think okay sure i think five pippins would be pretty good

like better than you realize the guys who play the three there's an obvious choice for this right because they can go up or down well the guys who can guard different positions handle the ball

and like his versatility Grant Hill would be another one that I think healthy Grant Hill is somebody another one that I think, healthy Grant Hill, is somebody that five Grant Hills might actually be a fun one. I'd be interested to see if the listeners out there have any ideas of who would play five LeBrons in the finals. But even if you say five Pippens or whatever

against five LeBrons, it doesn't seem close to me. Yeah, it'd be tough. It is hard. I guess I would take five Jordans it doesn't seem close to me. Yeah. It'd be tough. You know, it, it, it is hard. I mean, I guess I would take five Jordan if I had to pick somebody in this, in this new alien scenario, um, you know,

alien clones. Yeah. It just sort of fit in that, like just work from the premise that somehow he's just going to want it more. And he's going to, he's just going to do whatever, and he's just going to do whatever necessary, poison him or whatever to succeed.

But what probably happens though- He's like 60 pounds heavier than Jordan or something, right? Yeah, well, the early 90s Jordan. Yeah, late 90s Jordan, I think, had more weight. But I think the 5MJs would be the underdog. They'd probably be two-to-one underdogs and would take it personally and would just go all out. And the five LeBrons wouldn't know what was happening.

But I'm with you. The funny thing about what happened with LeBron, for me, from a historical standpoint, was if he'd beaten the Warriors in that finals, I think it almost would have been unassailable that he was the greatest player of all time. Because if you go back and you go to the mid nineties with Jordan, nobody was like, this is the greatest player of all time until the 97 and 98 finals, the combo of Malone goes against him. He hits the game-winning shot in game one. He's the flu game in game five. Vanquishes him in six.

And then the next year basically carries that broken-down Bulls team all the way and makes the shot. And by the end of 9-8, we're like, that's the greatest play ever. LeBron could have had that moment, I think, in the finals last year. If he had gone toe-to-toe with the best team, not only in the league, but in the decade, and actually beaten them somehow with all these dudes

he was playing with, J.R. Smith and Korver, I think we just would have walked away and gone, wow, okay, it's over. No more conversation. Well, yeah. I mean, I don't know. This is maybe the simplest way to look at that. So Jordan takes two years off. The Bulls are still pretty good. Like, they won, you know. This is maybe the simplest way to look at that. Jordan takes two years off. The Bulls are still pretty good. They won. They were in the playoffs. They were a competitive team.

If you would have taken LeBron off the Cavs this year, how terrible are they? We're going to find out. They're in the lottery. There's no question to me. They'd be awful. And I think you can go through outside of the years he was in Miami, that was kind of the case every year. I know, but part of that is so much revolves around him on a basketball team. I've made this point before that when he's not there, it's just people don't have the reps to know how to think for themselves, basically.

He's doing everything. Everything's running through him. And then it's like, all right, I'm out of the game. You guys do it. And they don't know what to do. Westbrook had this issue with OKC too. He'd ball all the time. And when he leaves the court,

the team would fall apart. People would be like, look at their on-off court with Westbrook. And it's like, yeah, because everything they do runs through him. Nobody thinks for themselves. Kevin Lovett had a period in Minnesota where everything ran through him.

It shouldn't be a completely alien experience that when LeBron's not on the floor, that he sort of becomes the player he... I agree. But they turned him into a spot-up three-point shooter. He almost lost those skills. I actually think that's Cleveland's fault and LeBron's fault to a lesser degree that Love came to Cleveland with all of these different really interesting skills

and only used a couple of them. I thought that was a mistake. He should have been the second- best player in a really good team. Yeah, that's true. And he turned into like Ryan Anderson. They were not a really good team. They were a bad team with one great guy. And it seemed as though that one great guy, I mean,

or we were just swap LeBron out with anybody. I mean, Durant's the second best player. Switch those roles. Put Durant on that Cleveland team. How far do they go? They make the playoffs in the East, probably. They're probably the eighth seed

or the seventh seed. That's about as far as it gets. Durant leads the league in scoring, certainly, but that's the end. I don't know. I think Durant, I think Durant would have had a pretty interesting effect on some of those guys.

Because he's just more fun to play with than LeBron. I think LeBron's a better basketball player, but Durant is definitely more inclusive. And he's not one of those, this system has to fit to me. He's one of those, I want to fit into whatever system we have. I always liked those guys more personally, just because having, you know, played basketball back in the day, I was like playing with people like that more. Well, now you have a special relationship with your man. I do.

It's so special. You are professionally invested in his success. I'm really not. By the way, we have Jimmy Butler on my podcast next week, and that will be the third time he's been on the podcast, which is two less than Durant. Well, sure. I mean, but that's like, you could mention a bunch of guys.

It's not the number of times that they have been on the podcast. It's the idea that sort of, that now you have special access. I don't. I don't. We retired him. Because where else does Durant sort of speak candidly for long stretches of time? He did.

You managed to sort of kind of chisel away this one thing. No, I did not. There's been no chiseling. He did, after the finals, we been no chiseling. He did, after the finals, we didn't do a podcast. He did Lee Jenkins Sports Illustrated and did an interview with Chris Haynes. I didn't do anything with him.

I think we're retired from the pods. We took him as far as... Oh, really? Yeah, we did. He's done. He's dead to you. We discussed every single thing we could possibly discuss.

I don't know if there's much left, but I don't know. The next one, we might have to invite you so you can push the envelope a little bit. Oh, no, I like Durant. I think he seems like a, he does seem like a different person than he was in Oklahoma City, but I'm not sure why that is. Maybe it just seems that way. No, I think he definitely is.

I don't think there's any question. I think the OKC thing gave him an edge, not necessarily in the best way. I mean, the Warriors are kind of, I mean, this is not a controversial statement. They are a difficult team to like now. The clearest example being the first game against the Cavs that went into overtime it's sort of like they should have lost that game four different times and then in overtime when it became clear that the Warriors were going to win they started kind of laughing

on the court and acting like the outcome was self-evident yeah I was like come on that looks terrible you know it's like like if you if you act that way the whole game is one thing but like acting like the outcome was self-evident. Yeah. And I was like, come on. That looks terrible. You know, it's like, if you act that way, the whole game is one thing. But like, you know, they should not have won that game in any, there's definitely two reasons why they shouldn't have won that game.

The part that I don't understand, and I've asked people, I asked Iran, I've asked different people that work for the team, I asked Steve Kerr, I don't understand why it's been so grueling for them.

And they've all explained it. Like even Iguodala, I talked to him when I did the HBO show. I don't remember if we put it in the show or not, but we were just talking about why is this so hard? You guys always talk about how hard it is. Why? You have so much talent. Why is this so difficult?

Why is this such a grind? And he was just like, it's just every night, night after night, it's the Superbowl for the other team, you know? And we're doing that from October on every game we play is the biggest game of the season for the team we're playing. And we're getting covered nonstop. Like, you know, like we're, we're the president or something. And it's just day after day after day of it, and it wears you down.

I guess that makes sense, but they're not the first team that's had to go through that. Yeah, I mean, there's probably some truth in that, but I have generally found in life with all people, if you ask them to describe their career or their work life, they seem to either exaggerate that it's harder than it is or easier than it is. It's very difficult for people to give an accurate sort of description of what their work life is like. It more has to do with their perception or attitude about work in general.

Because people are always sort of acting as though their job is so difficult or so hard or so tax taxing or, oh, my life is great. It's so easy. It just comes. I'm the luckiest person. Nobody ever seems to give a real accurate portrait of what working is like. They either exaggerate it or they're there. That's true. Hold on. We're going to take a break. Let's talk about Burrow. From style to shipping, comfort to functionality, Burrow has reinvented the luxury couch. These sofas are maximized on comfort and support. Burrow's sofa, handcrafted in the same factories as other high-end retailers, but delivered for much less. Shipped for free, ergonomically designed.

They have a built-in USB charger. You can actually customize your Burrow sofa by selecting the color, size, armrest height, and leg color. You can enjoy 30 days of cozy on your comfortable Burrow, wrist-free, or tri-Burrow at one of their partner showrooms today. We have a couple of these at The Ringer. the ringer. When I go over to where the website part of our offices are located, I frequently see Brian Curtis and Kevin Clark sitting on Burrow sofas, seeming so comfortable they're not actually working. It's frustrating. Go customize your own Burrow and get $75 off your order by going to burrow.com.bs. That is burrow.com.bs for $75 off your purchase. Burrow makes the luxury couch for real life. Hey, going back to that Warriors thing,

do you see similarities with when you have these basketball teams that wear down over the course of a few years? I think this happened in the Pistons, the Isaiah Thomas Pistons, where 87, 88, they couldn't get over the hump. It was so hard. 89, 90, they win the title. 91, the Bulls knocked them out. And then they just kind of like broke.

And you see this with bands a lot where bands will have these five to seven year runs and they're done. And I feel like that's going to happen with the Warriors. I don't see this team staying together for 10 years. It seems like we're headed for either it's going to be after this next season or the season after at least one or two of these guys will leave. It's almost like they're destined not to stay together. That this is just the way the league is. And we've seen that with bands, that there's so many bands that they hit this point where they either stay

together, they break up and it happens four years, five years, six years, seven years in, and they usually break up. Do you see similarities with that or am I crazy? Um,

well, I mean, in some ways what you're saying is nothing lasts and that's true for all things, right? I mean, in some ways what you're saying is nothing lasts, and that's true for all things, right? I mean, very few things that are valuable just sort of exist eternally. Sports actually kind of pushes that because it has trade and creation, seeing all this stuff. Bands, I think a lot of it has to do with, you know, you tend to start a band when

you're relatively young. It's rare that you would start a band late in life. So you do when you're a young person. And a handful of years means a lot. I mean, the difference between being 21 and 29 is substantial. You're a totally different person. I was a totally different person at 29 than I was at 21. So it would have been odd for me to start a business with three of my friends when I was 21 and just think it was going to go on forever. Right. I mean, how many bands can you think of that kind of, you know, major band who it's the original lineup and it never changes? I mean, like, well, U2 is the biggest example the easy top is a big example um i think the band sloan is like that uh that they haven't had any lineup changes um

who else that would be some other it's it's not a lot major bands yeah it's hard you know it's hard to find groups like that so staying together is actually much more the exception it shouldn't be surprising if they're a band it should be more surprising if they don't well the similarities I would say is that in a band or an NBA team

it's three or four people that really matter right and that's it and maybe even two maybe two and a half, wherever you want to say, but it's the relationships and the way they mesh in every aspect of their life that keeps it going. And we've seen the same thing both times. Once they start to either, oh, that guy's getting more than me. Oh, why do people like him oh what you know they're fighting over a girl like whatever the hell can happen yeah that's when it goes south

yeah i guess it's always like okay radio heads a band that hasn't had any changes so radio heads a band with one guy who's clearly the leader a second guy who's absolutely essential the essential guy's brother is in the band so that kind of simplifies things the drummer seems like a real sort of understated person who just likes to sort of be involved um so it's really just left it's the last guitar player also i think the the way the the way the money is distributed probably plays a role in this. So did you hear about this podcast? Because the Kyrie LeBron thing, I think, ties into all this, right? Kyrie just decided he didn't like playing with LeBron anymore.

And he just had it. And there wasn't really any great reason for it like there's this podcast that uh dave mcnamara meneman joe varden and jason lloyd three guys who covered the calves they did this long podcast about it and um i didn't even know about it jay kang my old grantland teammate sent me this link that kind of summarized it. But it was all about Kyrie didn't like Mike Brown because Larry Hughes, a client of Kyrie's agent, already had a bad relationship with Brown. Kyrie didn't like Ty Lue very much because he felt like Ty Lue was on LeBron's side. Kyrie was mad because he was the first one to wear the I Can't Breeze shirt.

And LeBron wore it after him, but LeBron got the credit for wearing it. It was all like a little stupid shit like that, but it added up and then Kyrie wanted to trade. Yeah, well, that doesn't sound implausible to me what i mean there's got to be some explanation that happened that's as good as any um and i i i wouldn't have i assume the bedrock reason is that in all of these situations you know like you say like this t-shirt deal what he's basically saying is like, even though I did something, the other guy is seen as being the important-ass person who did it. You know, whatever I do, no matter how I succeed, it's always going to be seen as ancillary to this other person.

Particularly that if we win five championships, I'm remembered as the guy who is LeBron's teammate on these five championships. So maybe he thought, this is not, you know, I want something different out of my life. And here again, like I say, because money's so big now, it's almost not even a factor, you know. The title stuff, interesting how the NBA has really found a way or, or accidentally made that so important to a person's legacy in a way that you

just don't see in other sports. I, it's kind of become the whole thing. And I guess he'd already achieved it once though. So. Well, that's part of it, right? Yeah. He won. So it's like, well, screw this. I don't need this anymore. I think what Durant said in my pod about him, too, I think is true. I think he just wants to play basketball and he didn't like the other bullshit that came

with it. He just wanted to show up and hoop. I'm worried, as a Celtics fan, I'm worried that there's a Durant-Kyrie partnership looming down the road. Is my fear. Well, I'm worried that there's a Durant-Kyrie partnership looming down the road. Is my fear. Well, I would know you have special access to these guys. Oh, stop.

I'm not only on the outside looking. Well, no, who knows what you know that I don't know that you know? How am I supposed to know this? I'm just somebody just kind of following this sort of from a distance. You're more in the mix. I think we're in an era now where people become buddies and they decide they just want to play together. Well, maybe that's how the media works now too.

Well, maybe that's how Grantland worked. We launched Grantland. We were both at it. We wanted to play together. We're going to take a break. Hey, let's talk about Ringer Podcast quickly. If you don't know about all the Ringer Podcasts we have, here's just a sampling.

Did you know Larry Wilmore has a podcast called Black on the Air? Did you know Cousin Sal is a gambling podcast called Against All Odds? What about Joe House's eating podcast, House of Carbs? What about Mallory Rubin and Jason Concepcion banging out Binge Mode Harry Potter? They're doing like 70 episodes. Did you know One Shining Podcast with Mark Titus and Tay Frazier is continuing through the summer and that they're doing podcasts from Vegas right now? Do you know about the Dave Chang Show?

He did a two-part podcast with Alan Yang recently. That was awesome. I think you know about the rewatchables because we've done some awesome ones. What about the JJ Reddick podcast? Still going through the summer. What about the Ringer MLB show? What about the Ringer NFL show?

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get your podcasts back to Chuck. I noticed that you guys, you, that you, you speaking of Grantland, I guess this is a, this is a ringer thing. You, I was mentioned in a piece you guys ran about the death of soccer troll. Yeah. I want to talk about that. I didn't even really remember you being a world cup troll. I thought that they,

they referenced something I wrote 15 years ago. Totally understandable since I'm an impossible person to find now. Like how could you possibly find this? This is, this is great. I'm glad you brought this up. This was on my list. You,

you kind of, you don't really care about soccer either way now, right? Well, no, I mean like in some ways that was the ultimate, that was the ultimate soccer piece because it's like the American soccer fan is upset. Even if you're not talking about him. Yeah. It's like, it's like, you're teasing me. You're teasing me. You're mocking me. Oh, why aren't you talking about me? It's like, you're teasing me, you're teasing me, you're mocking me. Why aren't you talking about me?

It's like, I mean, I haven't really, I was in a World Cup, or I guess I'm still in a World Cup pool, so I've sort of been following the outcomes. I saw the shootout, the Russia-Croatia shootout, but I haven't really watched

a lot of the games. Have you been watching them? I guess this has been a very close World Cup. All the games seem close. So you still haven't bought in? 2018, you're still not watching? You're just saying it's not for you? No, I mean...

It's not for you? I mean, it's not... I guess I would if... Under different circumstances. It's not like I would walk away from watching it. I just haven't really been watching it at all. You know, trying to think of it. Maybe I watched the very beginning of the World Cup.

Maybe I saw a little bit of it there, but not too much. No. I will say that watching a lot of it. I have. And I will say the single most surprising thing to me about this decade was soccer, basically replacing baseball for people. I would say under 35. I think, I think baseball is in a colossal amount of trouble. And the attendance is starting to back it up.

And just the interest and just having run two different websites since 2011 through 2018, the appetite for people just to read and follow baseball day to day just isn't there anymore. You follow your own team. You don't really care about what's going on with other teams. We've seen this coming for a while, but this was the first year where I really feel like baseball's in trouble as a monster sport. I just don't think it's going to grow. What do you mean when you say it's in trouble? What do you mean by that, though?

What's going to happen? Do you think that in 20 years there will not be Major League Baseball? Do you think that pro baseball players in 20 years will be making $60,000 a year? I don't know what's going to happen. It eats up a lot of innings from a live rights standpoint, so I think from that standpoint it's always going to be pretty good. But I'm just amazed by people under 35 that for a variety of reasons, they just don't, they don't really care about baseball. And I'm sure there's exceptions, but

the, I think there's a million different factors, right? There's, they, they were showing all these world series games after these little kids were in bed. Like, you've heard all the factors. We've talked about them over and over again. But I think the length of the game, the fact that, you know, even now when you go to the games, half the people are on their phones. I got LAFC MLS tickets, and you go to these games, and people are into it, and it's two hours, and you're out. And I think what's happened with soccer the last, I don't know, 12 years with the TVs going widescreen, with the HD, with the FIFA game, which is the biggest sports video game, I think of the last 12 years for

younger people. And then the premier league and the people showing them and the world cup, all of this is built to this point that I can just judge it from the people that work for the ringer. They care about soccer more than baseball. It's just a fact. You know what? I'm absolutely certain that is the case. But I guess here's the one thing I would say in response. Anytime we're looking at the popularity of anything,

the idea is always like, what are young people? What are people 18 to 30? And everyone makes the same mistake every single time. They seem to think that what people who are 18 to 30 years old are into is what's just going to remain popular going forward. And all that happens is they're replaced by a new set of 18 and 30-year-olds who have different tastes and different interests. And the whole thing happens again. So I really think if a sport like baseball, if I was, you know,

is it baseball and old man sports? Well, maybe so. There's always going to be old men. That's always going to happen. That's always going to exist. There's always going to be the kind of person who wants to follow baseball. So look at young people and say, like, well, okay, younger people are interested in A more than B.

I guess A is what's popular now. A is going to be replaced by C because that's the difficulty of trying to chase young audiences. They never remain static. But here's the counter to that. The audience ages into an audience that still likes soccer when they're 30 to 45, right? Are you sure? How many people who watch

golf were golf fans when they were 15? How many? Golf's different. You age into golf. I think with soccer, I look at somebody like Mbappe on France, who's the 19-year-old prodigy. I just think he's already more

famous and popular than any baseball player you could throw at me. Especially for people in America. Like Evan, how old are you? Evan's producing the pocket. Do your friends care about soccer or baseball more? Yeah. I wouldn't know this unless

we had this website and I was around people every day who all they care like this ronaldo transferring to juventus that that was bigger than any baseball story that could have happened any baseball trade any baseball for agent signing it just mattered more i don't think that would have been the case 12 years ago. Why do you believe, though, in 20 years there will not be people having a conversation like this saying, I think soccer is really in trouble. People are much more into

e-sports now. The young people I talk to are more into that. It's like, that's going to happen. That might happen. I agree. Something like that will happen, because it always does. There's no point. You can't go back to any point in the last hundred years and look at what young people were into culturally and say, you know what?

That never changed. Well, I think here's how, here's what I would compare it to. I would compare it to when the NBA started to really take off in the eighties. The seeds were there in the fs, 60s, 70s. And then for whatever reason, the combination of more TV games, the popularity of the players, the branding stuff,

all of it kind of collided. And at that point in the mid 80s, you could have made the same argument about the NBA you are making now, where it's like, whoa, young people 20 years from now. But the NBA is still here and it's bigger than ever. And all those fans aged into being able to buy tickets and raise kids that like the league and that the NBA is not going away. All the stories that ran the 90s after Jordan retired and, and suddenly the ratings dipped

and there were all these people saying like, were people into basketball or were they just into this one guy? Black basketball is in trouble again. Those stories were stupid though. I never bought into that stuff. Now? Now, it was, that seemed to me like, it seemed like a more race-driven thing than anything. It seemed like you had a lot of black athletes making a lot of money

and people were pissed off about it. That was really the fundamental problem in the NBA in the 90s. It was people looking at a slight dip in popularity of a sport and trying to come up with explanations why. This baseball thing isn't a slight dip, though. You're talking about attendance is down like 20% this year and TV ratings are down. And look at ESPN. ESPN doesn't even have

baseball tonight anymore. They don't run baseball tonight. If I was you, making your argument, what I would say is this. I would say, well, soccer is a more global sport. And the natural momentum of the internet and

the world in general is to become more global sense. And they will think like, well, you know, I'm not just interested in what's happening in America. There's an obligation for me to sort of also know what's going on in Europe, in the Premier League, and all these things. So that's possible. It might be that like suddenly we will be interested in soccer players from other countries

the way people in Germany are. Yes, that's the deal. But I'm saying like in the, uh, uh, that this will, that that will continue. And that would be the thing because, because the way you keep looking at this is that these sports are star driven things. Like when you talk about the NBA's popularity, you often say things like I'd say seven or eight of the 10 most popular athletes in America are basketball players. And that is true. The NBA is still less

popular than football. Despite the fact that there are more famous basketball players than famous football players. Well, football's in trouble for a different reason. It is. It's in trouble because it has this sort of looming crisis ahead of itself. It's a trouble the way, like, because it has this sort of kind of looming crisis ahead of itself. It's a tobacco industry. Yeah, it's a tobacco industry kind of thing that's hanging over it. But listen, I'm just talking about soccer in America.

I think globally, soccer has been there the whole time. It almost goes without saying. I'm talking about people, the way the culture is now, the way people like faster things. They don't want to spend four hours watching a baseball game. Soccer is two 45 minute halves and it's over. And I think it's a real advantage for it. And the whole thing about soccer is too boring. Nobody scores. People understand soccer much better than they... I know I do. I understand soccer a hundred times better than I did 15 years ago. I actually, I can watch a one nothing game and, and legitimately enjoy it. And I would not have been able to do that in 2000, you know, four.

Yeah. Well, you know, I think, and a lot of people said that about tennis in the early eighties, when there was a tennis boom happening and all of a sudden people were saying, oh, I get tennis. Now I understand tennis now. I understand the nuance. I understand why, you know, McEnroe plays in this style and Borg plays in this style. And then those guys went away and it kind of,

it kind of didn't evaporate, but it kind of eroded with it. I mean, I'm not, it's, you know, you're right. Soccer is obviously, the things that I wrote in 2003 about soccer never having the potential to become popular in the United States, clearly it was proven wrong. By the way, I agreed with you.

For the record, I 1000% agreed with you in 2003. I didn't think this would ever happen. I never, ever, ever envisioned a world where people would care about soccer in America like they do, but they do. And here's the thing. Okay. When I wrote that in 2003,

it wasn't a provocative opinion. It was the conventional opinion. Okay. That was the conventional perception of people who were into sports. And I was a young person. I was 28 or whatever, you know? And that changed. Okay. And now you're looking at this change and you're saying,

see, this is how it is now, but it's only how it is right now. I think it's been this way. I think it's been this way since the earlier part of the decade. I really feel like it's been building. And the fact that America is not in the world cup and people still give a shit about it would have been impossible 12 years ago. Nobody would have believed that, but people care.

I'm just telling you what I'm seeing. I don't. When is the last baseball argument you've had? Do you argue about anything with baseball? Have you heard a baseball argument that compels you? No, you know, it's the argument that I always are.

It was like, like a recent one was like, let's say Mike Trout became really political. No, you know what the arguments always are. It was like, like a recent one was like, let's say Mike Trout became really political. Like he became sort of like a left-wing ideologue. Would that help baseball? It would. It would totally help it. If he was like a MAGA guy?

Well, no, well, if he was, well, you're saying, this argument was what if he went super hard left? Well, I'm saying either. Yeah. Either any sort of any interesting, anything with the baseball player would help baseball right now. The Red Sox are have the second best record in the league and they're going

to be in a one card wildcard game and get knocked out. And I'm going to have spent, by the way, I still love baseball. Just for the record. I still watch baseball. I care about it. I'm going to have spent... By the way, I still love baseball, just for the record. I still watch baseball. I care about it. I'm going to finish it. I'm 48 years old. I can see two situations that would immediately create huge interest in baseball. I think if

somebody was batting 400 in late August, or particularly if somebody had a hitting streak that was rivaling DiMaggio, I think that would create a bunch of interest. I agree. Because those two things are covered in different ways, and people like to have something they can follow every day.

You know, you say like in baseball, you follow your own team. If there's a guy to follow every day to see, is he going to do this? I used to think that about home runs, but now, of course, if somebody was going to hit 80 home runs, we'd immediately be skeptical of it. Well, I don't know. Pure hitting. We wrote about this on The Ringer this week. It's basically strikeouts and home runs now to the point that it's dangerous

for baseball because when you watch baseball, I think Tom Verducci had some stat that it's like every three minutes and 47 seconds, there's a ball put in play during the average baseball game, which is just a nutty number. And it doesn't, the real problem is it doesn't really fit into what society is like now. And I just know this from watching my kids. My kids would never sit through a four-hour baseball game. I delightedly would have done it 40 years ago. That continues, though. You know, it's so interesting, you know,

when they talk about, you know, in the 80s when MTV was on, people were like, this is going to destroy people's attention span. People were like, oh, what an old-person idea. It actually really did happen. I mean, you can pretty much clearly see how the evolution of television,

all the negative things people suspected television would do have actually happened exactly in every context. So if this continues, even if this continues, even a soccer game, you know, a non,

a continual motion commercial free event will become too much. And I'll somehow want the game to be, you know, seen in a smaller window. However, you're right about baseball does seem to fit in to where society is, and soccer does. I mean, there is still sort of this, I don't know,

what's the positive connotation of the word baggage? Because I was going to say soccer is this baggage, but it's not baggage, It's something they like where to, if you sort of perceive and present yourself as a soccer fan in the United States, you are latently saying I'm kind of intellectual. Like I see this. It's like, Oh,

you see a game where nothing's happening. And I see all of these things happening because, you know, I'm a little more sophisticated. This is part of, I think, the allure of soccer to a lot of smart young people that it's almost a way to brand yourself as a smarter kind of sportsman. And if soccer continues to grow in popularity, when all of a sudden, you know, you walk into, you know, like a small rural bar and a bunch of guys are watching a soccer game on the television, that's going to disappear. The meaning behind being a soccer fan

will end. I think that that will be disenchanting to a lot of the people now who love soccer. I've been shocked. I took my son to an LAFC game. He didn't want to go. He hates soccer. He never wanted to play soccer. He doesn't want to watch it. He dislikes it. My wife and my

daughter and I were going, we're like, you have to come. You're only 10 years old. You don't get to decide. He's mad about it. We go. He had a great time. Guess what? It's really fun to go to a soccer game. And guess what else? It ends in two hours and you go and you eat. It's a 45 minute half. You got a nice break, another 45 minute half you're out. And it was just really entertaining. They

do a nice job with the crowd. And, and, uh, I'm just kind of, I'm just shocked by the whole thing. My son loves going to baseball games way more. My son likes baseball, which is he's in the minority. Like he's loves going to Fenway park, loves going to Dodger stadium, all that stuff. But I don't know if there's a lot of kids like that. And that's,

that's a problem too. I don't either, but it's, you know, I, I, I guess I still question your methodology on this. It just seems to me that,

well, you know, it's a lot of what you're saying might be true but you're you're making that mistake of thinking that somehow the world's going to stop and continue as it is like things are going to keep changing i'm not trying to predict the future trajectory of these things you have to you know you're talking about how your kid and his friends feel about baseball. He's in the minority ever. He likes baseball more, whatever. But if we use the 10 year old kid in the mind of the 10 year old kid is the example we have to assume there's going to be a totally different 10 year old in 10 years, like totally different person. So his behavior

doesn't really indicate the future of anything except his own life. I think four hour games every day, three to four hour games every single day for six straight months is not a sustainable entertainment proposition for anybody under 30 years old. They're just, they have too many things to, too opportunities now, and too many chances, and too many options to just be like, I'm throwing away all my other options. I'm just going to sit in front of the TV and watch a four-hour baseball game. I don't see it. And I also think-

But do they, does the support, does the success of the sport depend on someone willing to invest their time in the entire event? I would say if you have people under 40 and you're losing that entire demo, that's bad for the sport. Basketball, I still, even in the late 70s, early 80s, when it wasn't going well, I still knew a ton of people who loved basketball and loved watching all these different players.

I never felt like the league was, whether cocaine was going to ruin the league, I guess was a different story. But I never felt like basketball was going away. And I don't think baseball will either. But I just think when you're talking about these guys making $400 million contracts, all that stuff, I don't see how that's the case 20 years from now.

I don't think the money will be there. Well, I mean, the money will still be there, but it will be, you know, it's 20 years so you've got to look at inflation cutting it in half. Oh, yeah, yeah. I guess inflation. They'll probably be making this, you know, I mean, it would be an interesting, but here's an interesting deal, okay? So

what is... I mean, this kind of blew my mind. I was, you know, we were talking about, I was, I just kind of blew my mind. I was, you know, we were talking about, I was talking to somebody about the old, um, the old, uh, super, super team competition ABC used to run along with the, you know, where it'd be like, where it'd be like the team, like, you know, the Steelers, when the Steelers weren't allowed to play there, when I wouldn't let them play or whatever, but it'd be like the Rams were in the super bowl against Steel.

So they would, they'd like have a tug of war and all these races and all these things, you know, against his teams in Hawaii. And we were trying, somebody was like, why did the players even do that? You know?

And then when I started going back and like looking at what was the money, like the average salary of these guys were, and like, they would almost do it for a free trip to Hawaii. These guys are making like $75 it for a free trip to Hawaii. These guys are making like $75,000 a year playing pro football. Do you know,

you probably do, if you're a rookie on a 10-day contract in the NBA, do you know what the minimum of that is? Isn't it like 75 grand? I think it's like $28,000

for 10 days. Oh, the 10 days itself. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's still amazing. That's like a rookie. So you have no, if you're a veteran, it's more, okay? So that's like 28,000 for 10 days. Oh, the 10 days itself. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's still amazing. That's like a rookie. So you have no, if you're a veteran, it's more. Okay. So that's like what a teacher's aid in Mississippi makes. And for 10 days of a 10-day contract in the NBA, where you never touch the floor,

you know, so it's just the money, the numbers now are so astronomical that even if 20 years from now, baseball players are making exactly what they make now, if it doesn't I don't really know what you mean by that outside of people saying it's the second most popular sport in America, which nobody would say anymore. Well, I think that's what I mean by in trouble. I don't, I just think there's a relevancy that it's losing. I was watching the Sammy Sosa E60, which was on a high comedy scale, probably a nine out of 10. Jeremy Schaap, at one point Sosa gets up.

He's got the Michael Jackson lightened skin. It's a crazy half hour. But they go back to 98, the Sosa-McGuire thing. And I just don't know if that happens again. I don't know if two guys having a home run chase or whatever the equivalent, unless it's a scenario, like you said, where somebody is trying to get 56 straight hits in the challenge to Maggio or somebody is trying to hit 400. I don't see any scenario where that happens again. Or where people would care about baseball that much and be totally invested in

these guys. I don't even think ESPN would be all in behind it anymore. And I don't know, shit just changes. And one other thing we forgot to mention, the way people talk about baseball, because it's so stat obsessed that there's not a lot of wig room left for arguments anymore. You know, where like the Lakers signed Rondo.

You and I could talk about Rondo. We could argue about Rondo for two hours, right? We are actually, we're on the same page with Rondo. We both, we're both pro Rondo. But if we had, if we had an anti Rondo person, we could go back and forth on Rondo for two hours. I could argue about Russell Westbrook until the cows come home. We could argue about whether Kyrie should have left

LeBron. Is Kyrie a superstar? The NBA has all these built-in arguments that are outliers from stats. With baseball, you're not allowed to have those arguments. You can't. Everything has to be backed up by the numbers and you can't be like, well, actually, I don't think... You can never have a Russell Westbrook type argument about Bryce Harper or Mookie Betts. You just can't. So you're basically, you're just kind of trapped in this dialogue that's just all numbers based. And that's really it. You can be like, oh man, I hate when Dylan Batances pitches the eighth. I never feel like he's going to come through. And that might actually not be the case statistically. It might be the opposite. And then it's like, you can't argue about it. So I wonder if that hurts baseball. Baseball went too far with that. I mean, they just, it was, they, there was,

you know, there was a period when people didn't care about statistics enough, and then suddenly they cared about them too much. That was an equilibrium that was not... Because, you know, people used to even make that joke about baseball, like, in the 1980s. Like, it seemed crazy that sometimes a guy would come to the plate, and they'd show, like, what he hit against right-handers and what he hit against left-handers, and people would be like, oh, baseball is all stats or whatever stats or whatever you know this is crazy and now it's so far beyond that you know it's like it's like that something like that it would be more like an argument over

do we should we even care about batting average you never you never know with the new thing we're not supposed to care about i mean i the first time that happens with RBI, since then, it's just happened constantly. I'm constantly being told what statistics not to think about. Well, it's funny because the baseball people get really mad about this. They're like, what are you talking about? The stats are the truth. Why would we argue about anything that isn't the truth? I'm conceding that.

I get that. The stats, we can measure every baseball player to the ninth degree. I get it. But my point is if like, I'm looking at like, like JD Martinez is killing it for the Red Sox this year. He's 28 homers. He's been awesome.

He's an MVP candidate. There's no wiggle room with that. That's it. It's like, yeah, JD has been great. Now we've moved on. We're not talking about it at all.

30 years ago, Wade Boggs was hitting like three80 for the 86 Red Sox. And the big argument day after day in Boston was, is Wade Boggs actually good or not? Are these fake stats? He doesn't drive in runs. He doesn't hit for power. Is this guy actually worthwhile to have on your team?

Now we know with the math, Wade Boggs is actually phenomenal to have on your team. He increases your chances to have runs. But we would argue about Wade Boggs for days and nobody argues about anything with baseball anymore. I don't know. I haven't heard a compelling baseball argument. I can't even remember the last time.

Well, I mean, that's a kind of a compelling arbiter for the success of the sport or anything else. Do you think in general, you can tell the health of something, be it a sport or a film genre or politics or whatever? Can you gauge the health of it by how much people are arguing about it? Possibly, I don't know.

Well, so here's a counter though like like boxing people wrote off boxing boxing's dead boxing's done boxing's actually had this weird resurgence over the last year and a half because people need live rights and and there's just more of it and for for years and years it was like the ufc is killing boxing ufc the uf UFC is the next sport. The UFC is going to be dominant. The UFC is now in the middle of the worst swoon of probably the last 10 years. They don't have any stars.

A year and a half ago, they had Rousey and Lesnar and McGregor and John Jones. They were just loaded and it just seemed like it was going to last forever. Then a year later, all of those people were gone. So that's a good example of like, don't get carried away in the moment of, oh, this is the next thing. And then, but I think that, I think soccer, I think soccer is here to stay in a really, really big way.

And I think it, I just think people get it. They understand it better. And I don't see it going away. I really don't. Well, I mean, you might be right. I mean, we're just two guys talking here, obviously. I mean, I definitely feel less stable about every opinion I have about everything. It seems as though it's becoming more and more.

I am. Here's a great example. Can you remember I say, like, you know, I drive around listening to the radio now and I listen to a lot of sports talk radio. And because I have, you know, it's like the satellite radio. If you're listening, if I'm listening to a sports talk show, the person's name keeps scrolling across the, you know, the face of the radio. So I'm seeing who's talking. And I don't do this every day so occasionally a guy's name will come across or a woman's name will come across and i realize i know

nothing about the person and yet i find myself already having opinion an opinion about them and i'm like how can this be and it keeps happening over and over you know see someone's name and i'll be like oh yeah this guy this guy's a racist right or i'll like someone's name will come across and i'll be like oh this this broadcaster she is a frothing feminist who only sees sports through that one prism or some guy will come across and i'll be like oh he everyone likes him he's a he's a real intellectual guy and i realize i don't know anything about these people. So I'm thinking, and I'm listening to them in almost every case. The opinion I have going in is wrong.

But that's not really an accurate depiction of this thing that I learned. And it has to have been Twitter. That somehow I saw people making statements about these individuals. And even though I did not take those statements seriously, because I had nothing else to compare it to, it just sort of merged in my mind. The internet does not seem to have a huge impact on the things I know about, but it has a massive impact on the things I don't know about, because I'm getting no other information. And it's making me think things based on nothing. Based on one thing, which is the kind of person who likes to have opinions on Twitter, which typically means somebody who is kind of performative, somebody who is probably an ideologue, and

somebody who might have some elements of mental illness, who sort of needs to sort of consistently have feedback from the public to validate that they exist. And this is who we've turned the discourse over to. Like, we basically said, you guys get to dictate sort of the collective discourse because you want it the most. Like, you're the most interested in doing that. So I don't, it's, I just, I feel like, I feel like I look at the world and I just, I understand it less every day. Well, people are definitely reading less. I think.

Well, what they're reading more, they're just not reading. Yeah, they're reading, they're reading fragments. They're just like, yeah, you know, they're kind of reading all day, but it's not a different kind of reading. I used to read books constantly, and now I feel like I've probably read less books in the last 12 years than at any point in the last, I would say, 40 years of my life. That's not good. But there's also these other strange things happening, right?

Okay, so we wanted to talk about Chappaquiddick today. So you sent me a story about Chappaquiddick, right? From the National Review. From 1969. What is the likelihood that you would have been reading the National Review if the internet didn't exist? Oh, zero. Zero. And what is the possibility of a real conservative person reading a story in the nation, if not

for the internet? Zero. But this is why there's like, part of the reason there's so much tension in society now, because you would think, you know, if you were like a real sort of optimistic person, you'd be like, well, great. You know, it's like now somebody on the left is reading the National Review and someone on the right is reading The Nation. It's going to cross-pollinate ideas and they're going, that's not happening at all. Because publications like

that are only intended for their base. They're written for their base. So anybody outside of their base reading those publications is only going to become enraged. It's only going to make them upset. And because now it's very easy to sort of get to find anything and just have free access to anything, people are going to be less happy about how they view the information they're taking in because they're not really making the decision. They're just sort of following links. Well, and then when people, when they're super left or super right, a lot of their tweets are directed toward the people that are following them who are most likely to agree with them. And that opens up its own can of worms.

It's violent disagreement. Someone coming from the outside violently disagrees with them. Everyone following them violently agrees with them. And there's no nuance anymore. Like the discussion we had about baseball just now, I bet somebody's going to get pissed off and write a blog post about it. We just, two people talking about baseball. Hey, what are the reasons this could be?

You're not allowed to have a nuanced conversation about anything. It has to be all the way in one side or the other. Baseball is really complicated. I don't know what it's going to look like 20 years from now. I'm not pretending I do. I just know that it's not resonating with young people anymore. Well, you're kind of pretending you do because you keep saying it's trouble over and over again.

Well, I think it's in trouble as a major enterprise, yeah. I don't think it's going to die. I don't think we're never going to have baseball anymore. I just think, I don't know what happens to it. I think they're eventually, it's going to lead to, they're going to have to change rules. I think they're going to have to speed it up. They're going to have to figure out how to do it.

And they've done this half-assed versions of it, but people do not want to watch a four-hour baseball game they don't so they have to fix that i get asked about okay because i so often write and i'm so jaded with like classic rock and rock music in general i am often the person who gets asked you know is this the end of rock music is rock music dead i sort of write in that in but what if we're wrong? I have a whole section sort of about the end of the rock era and why I think that happened. But to say something, to say rock music is dead, what you're really saying is it's just not the normative condition

of music. I mean, jazz still exists. Jazz is just not central to society. So there can still be great rock bands. Like a new rock band could emerge today and make the greatest rock record of all time. But it's impossible for that band to be the Beatles or to be Van Halen or to even be the Strokes or any of these. That can't happen now because the genre in which works is no longer central to the world now could that be the situation with baseball maybe it's already happened okay but does that matter to the person who likes baseball i don't know if it does like are are you enjoying the nba more i love enjoy the NBA more when it's more popular? No, I just told you, I still love baseball.

I still watch it. I still care about it. I haven't, my feelings about it haven't really changed other than that. I don't think it's nearly as fun to go to games anymore. I used to, 20 years ago, that would have been my number one dream, to have Red Sox season tickets. I wouldn't want baseball season tickets now. So, but I still love watching.

Because baseball has changed or because you have changed? I would say both. I also think... Well, it has changed more. It's kind of crazy. I was on a plane recently and they have some of those old Ken Burns baseball episodes on.

Yeah. And I was watching the section about the 20s you know and it is surprising that if you see a little footage from the distant world of baseball it doesn't look radically different than baseball now it certainly looks different but compared to every other sport it looks more the same. Okay? Like, you like it, or particularly if, like, say it's a still, like a still from center field of a baseball game from 1928. It looks like that could be a baseball game now, where the guys are standing, everything about it. Even a static shot of a basketball game or certainly a football game seems to have, you know, no similarity. Now,

if we're, if we were planning a sport, if we were saying, let's say you and I were making up a sport right now, what would you favor a sport that constantly changes or a sport that has sort of a, sort of a stable, inflexible sort of a nature, but the sport that we create will be the sport that it is. I would say basketball for whatever age we're in now is the perfect sport. I'm saying we're making up a sport. I know, I know. But I would try to steal as much from basketball

in whatever the modern sport, because the thing with basketball is it's just constant. It's ADD, basically. It's like every possession's different. Something's always happening. There's always the potential for something. So you'd want that, I think. And I don't know.

I don't know what the answer is, but it would be something that moves fast, is designed for this ADD generation, and always has something happening. Okay, well, I'm trying to think of, you know, what, so always has something happening out now. Does that, does that,

are you describing soccer when you say that? I wouldn't say, it seems to me that soccer in the sort of the pacing of the event what sport would you say it's most similar to? I guess hockey, right? Hockey is the closest analogy of the major sports. Hockey is the closest

analogy to the flow of a soccer game. People aren't interested in hockey in any major way. I would say people love hockey. No. I would say... No, I would say baseball. I actually think soccer has replaced... I think it's replaced a lot of the things that people loved about

baseball for certain people. Sort of like the casual watching experience. It's on. You're also reading something and talking to someone. You can look and look back and nothing has really changed and that way I guess it is like baseball but there's a lot of nuances to it

the advanced metrics that have gotten a lot better over the last five years resembles a lot of what started happening in baseball in the late 90s early 2000s and it's one of those things where there's not a lot going on but there's a lot going on and the more you know about it the more you know there's just a lot going on, but there's a lot going on. And the more you know about it, the more you know, there's just a lot going on. But if you're watching it casually,

you're just watching guys kind of running around and hoping somebody scores. The other thing with soccer is the women's national team here is its own kind of monster. I think when we have the World Cup next year, it's going to dominate this course here for three weeks. And baseball doesn't have that version of that where it can pull in all these female fans or little girls or people who might idolize whoever the next Abby Wambach is. I guess Alex Morgan. No, it's not Alex Morgan. I don't know who the next one is going to be for the women's soccer, but it's pulling in all these different demos constantly, I guess not Alex Morgan. I don't know who the next one is going to be for the women's soccer, but it's pulling in all these different demos constantly, I guess,

is my point. And it's attracting kids. Have you been to a baseball game this year? Oh, no. I mean, first of all, there's no baseball team here, but I mean, if there was, I would be. I don't really go to live sporting events that much. So one thing that's changed baseball in person,

and they had to do it, but it has to be mentioned, is the net. They put this net all the way around both dugouts so people wouldn't get hit by foul balls anymore. But it made me realize that one of the reasons I love going to baseball games was because of the possibility of getting a foul ball is really significant. And to have that removed was really a game changer. It just didn't feel the same. It was like, wow, this sucks. We're not getting a foul ball. It is any kind of barrier like that probably does have a psychological aspect,

you know, in the same way that distance is a barrier. If you're a long ways away from a sporting event, it's not the same as being close. Not just because you can see it better if you're close, but you can sort of feel the game in a way. Yeah, you feel detached. But it was weird. It was a weird experience.

And it made me realize, first of all, I'd never caught a foul ball. I came close a few times. It made me realize how meaningful the foul ball, the possibility of every pitch being the one that this could be the foul ball I've been waiting to catch my whole life. And now it's just gone. Now you're just at the game. It's like, I have no chance. So I saw the Chappaquiddick movie.

I listened to the podcast cover up, the narrative podcast. That's not done yet, but most of it's done. And I realized that I've done a bad job of being properly obsessed by this topic. And I love doing deep dives. You and I once did a gigantic JFK assassination podcast on my old BS report. We also did the disappearing airplane flight. I think we did a podcast about that too. So as I started deep diving into Chappaquiddick,

I texted the only man who could have cared as much as I cared in that moment, Chuck Klosterman, who I asked if you had seen the movie and you were like, I went to the theater and saw it and I never go to the theater. So I thought the opening afternoon, the afternoon it came out, I went. Yeah. So I,

I realized deep diving this that it's, it's kind of the most underrated incredible American story we've had in the last 50 years that I don't think people under, Evan, do you know what Chappaquiddick is? Evan doesn't know. So no, I think people under 35, they probably don't even totally know this happened or they heard it or whatever. The background is Ted Kennedy, Senator of Massachusetts, youngest brother of Jack and Bobby, both of whom had died. Bobby died the year before. He's in Martha's Vineyard. He's with a group of males and females who work for Bobby

Kennedy's campaign. They're having the year anniversary. Mostly women though. Mostly women. Because they were called the Boiler Room Girls or something. The Boiler Room Gals. The Boiler Room Gals. So at some point... At some point, Ted leaves. Also, nobody seems to know they're there.

Like, nobody... Ted Kennedy's wife doesn't seem to know he's there. It's the 60s. It's the Don Draper era. Ted leaves with one of the ladies, Mary Jo Kopechny. It's unclear when he leaves. He's spotted by Martha's Vineyard. Where was it? A Chappaquiddick or Edgar Town.

I can't remember. One of the police people saw his car heading down the wrong road and it was stopped. And he pulled over and got out of the car. And then what we think was the Ted Kennedy car maybe panicked and sped down the wrong road. It was a road called Dyke Road that was a dirt road, had potholes and bumps, all this stuff. The road next to it was the road toward the ferry. Now, this sergeant said he saw the car at 1230. The ferry was already gone at that point.

The last ferry off Chappaquiddick was at midnight. This car goes flying down this road, and we think it's the same car. It ends up, there's a turn, misses the turn, and goes off the bridge, lands upside down with half of the car sticking out of the water. Ted Kennedy swims out of this car, and then 10 hours passes, and then we find out that there was this Mary Joko Peckney was also in the car and she drowned and may have been able to live if anybody alerted the authorities. And then it's this 10 hour, what could have happened? Why didn't he go to the house right there to call the police?

Where did he go? His two friends got involved. They allegedly came back back swam in tried to save her then Ted Kennedy they get in a boat they go back to Edgar Town and he's seen by somebody at 2.30

and goes to his hotel and goes to sleep and then wakes up the next day and goes to breakfast and then they find the dead girl in the car and it gets covered up to the point that they don't even charge him with involuntary manslaughter. It's his car. He admits he was in it.

They get him off the Island. And the whole thing is just absolutely amazing. What did I leave out? Chuck? Well, I mean, you just like to summarize the story basically is like Ted Candy drove off the road with a woman who wasn't his wife into the water.

She died. He didn't. He seemed to just think maybe if he avoided it, nobody would notice. But then at one point realized, you can't just forget about this. And I mean, there's no interesting like this. Is this even a conspiracy? Because the conspiracy usually indicates that there's sort of one story like the government or the institutions are trying to promote and then there's like the real story underneath it seems like the story underneath is sort of the story everyone accepts that you know

like ted kennedy was kind of a hard-drinking guy you know like women quite a bit uh the assumption is that there was probably something going on with this woman that he wouldn't want his wife or anyone to know about. And then when the accident happened, he just tried to get out of it. He kind of did, although it did end the possibility of him becoming president. He got reelected the next year in Massachusetts. Oh, absolutely. It's unbelievable. If you want to step down, yeah. But I mean, it stopped him from becoming president. He probably would have become president at some point.

He probably would have got the nomination in 1976, older Carter. Like, that probably would have happened, I think. It's, you know, also, one thing that I didn't know, but I learned from the movie,, like, apparently he invented the cliche of wearing a neck collar to court. Right. To indicate that you're hurt. Like, that was, like, his thing.

It was like, oh, I'll wear this neck brace and people will think I'm okay. Do you think that in some ways there was a collective willingness to forgive him because of what had happened to his brothers. A hundred percent. But somehow he was, he was seen as like an umbrella, you know, it was like the Kennedy umbrella.

They had these two tragic things happen in their lives. And there was a desire to forgive him. He does that when he does the statement, he finally gives a statement that's televised, 15 minutes long, to the American people apologizing for what happened and brings up the Kennedy curse and somehow makes himself sympathetic, even though I think there's a 99.9% chance he was a drunk guy trying to get laid or drove off a bridge and then ditched a girl in the car

and got out and didn't tell anybody. Cause he was afraid it was going to ruin his, his presidential campaign. Meanwhile, the girl was probably alive for multiple hours in the car. And it seems like she's suffocated. Why do they think she was alive for multiple hours? I mean,

the car would have been filling up with water. I don't think it was. I mean, it's like it was, I don't think it was filling up. I think it was filling up so slowly. I don't think it was. I mean, it's like it was. I don't think it was filling up. I think it was filling up so slowly because it wasn't totally underground. And this podcast said the car's upside down and she's completely disoriented. It's pitch black.

So she can't see. And your instincts are telling you to go up toward the top of the car, go up to the, but she's upside down and doesn't realize to just go down and then swim in the window. So she's panicking, and maybe that's why, you know, maybe she ran out of breath faster or something, but she definitely, the autopsy slash whatever, the coroner, how the water came out of her lungs and stuff indicated that she was alive for a while before she died. But there was never actually an autopsy, which was another

crazy thing about this. He got so many things buried or discarded, including the fact that an autopsy could have proven if she had died before the car ride, if he had driven it off intentionally. It could have proven that she was super drunk. It could have proven that she was assaulted in some way. Like, who knows? But I think he paid off the family. It's pretty clear. Like, the family let it go, like, immediately, which is very –

Well, I think the family thought of the Kennedys as wonderful people who their daughter completely believed in politically and would have done anything for. And I don't think it occurred to them that Ted Kennedy could have been, could have not cared about whether or not she lived or died. I think that I just don't think that they were willing to do that. You know, I didn't accept that belief. Well,

and they got paid off. To pay people off. Like, what do you have to be paid to accept the death of your child? I think millions and millions of dollars. I don't know if that would be enough. Are you saying that, I mean,

use your own kids. Don't, you don't have to pick up a number, but what number would it be like you would accept their wrongful death from someone? I think that they wanted to believe him. Yeah, but they never even did a civil suit. Yeah, because they wanted to believe his story.

They wanted to believe that Ted Kennedy did everything he could to keep their daughter alive. Oh, God. His story was so bad. His story about, one part was he said after they couldn't save her, they were driving back to Edgartown, and he swam across the channel 150 yards back to his hotel because there was no fair anymore.

And he just, he panicked and he swam like 150 yards, not like a short length of time. It's late at night. It's completely pitch black and he's been drinking the whole night and he just crashed a car and probably got a concussion. And there was like currents. It wasn't like a lake. It's like, you know, a river.

Um, and, and that was one of his stories. Yeah, and it changed his perception forever. I mean, it's like, he died in 2009. And of course, he had a long political career. He was a real meaningful, you know, member of Congress and all these things, but, uh, he was never, um, sort of respected or perceived as having a huge amount of personal integrity because of this event. I mean, so it's not like, I mean, yeah, I mean, it was, it, it did even like, like, you know, you could just ask the guy in the room, like, you know, what Chappaquiddick is? And they were like, no. But if you asked them to describe Ted Kennedy, assuming the person could do this, it would be kind of a mixed description. The sort of meaning of this event never left him. And the Kennedy family in general, it seems like

that thing is over. The idea of the Kennedys being the closest thing to royalty in the United States, it seems. And this movie sort of isn't like isn't the cause of that, but it kind of shows how the perception of that family

as kind of being unassailable or something people aspire to is kind of done entirely. And I don't know if it will, it's hard to imagine a family having that sort of role again in society. Yeah, you and I had the same reaction to that.

The Kennedys have not aged well. I think the JFK stuff has not aged well. Chappaquiddick, I don't know why it didn't age badly at the time, but it seemed like he was able to keep his career, even though he killed somebody and got away with it, basically. But that now has not aged well.

The movie's pretty damning. I recommend the movie. I thought it was really good. I enjoyed it. Here's something I'll just ask you, and then we can finish up here. This is something I talked about the last time I was on Booktour, which I guess would have been in May, I think. Okay, so if anybody out there went to any of these book events, you can probably stop listening now. Okay, so I was at home one night, and my wife is kind of texting furiously suddenly. And she's texting with her friends.

And I have no idea what they're texting about. And they're texting about the last royal wedding. Yeah. Which I guess I vaguely knew was happening. But I can also sort of, if I don't want to follow something, I can just not hear about it. So I knew something was going on, but I didn't know any of the details. And I realized it suddenly dawns on me that this is of super high interest to people, you know, as these royal weddings often are.

And I was thinking about kind of the tabloid culture of the United States and the tabloid culture of the UK. In general, like the tabloids in England are much more salacious and seedier and like more tawdry than the tabloid culture of the united states however the apex of tabloid culture in england is always the royal family yeah it's always been that way and it always will be and it's kind of a classy thing right it's like their royalty they're, right? It's like they're royalty. They're very mannered. They're very formal. There's nothing tawdry about the royal family. If anything comes up that is sort of sleazy, the most minor thing is a big deal because they're sort of looked at as this sort of prestige thing, okay? So that's the apex of English tabloid culture. The apex of American tabloid culture is always changing.

Like, it's the Kardashian family, but it used to be the end of Elvis' life. For a while, it was like... Michael Jackson. Yeah. Yeah. So it's always changing. Okay. So on the one hand, that's always the apex of American culture in terms of its tabloid world.

So in England, you have sort of a respectable thing at the top, but it's completely unchangeable. It's based on this one family. You can't break into it unless you can somehow find a way to marry one of them. It's like an immovable thing. Like the top of tabloid culture in England is this one family, and that's it. There's no, it can't change. In the United States, the top of tabloid culture tends to be kind of something kind of gross and unseemly, but at least it is based on, for lack of a better term, merit.

Yeah. Like, you can aspire to become the situation, and it can happen. You know, it's like, there's a meritocracy to being the most famous person in America for reasons that are not admirable. So what situation do you say is better? Is the way it is in England better or is the way in the United States better? If we're talking about the top of their tabloid culture, is it better to have something that's acceptable but fixed

or something that is kind of unseemly but constantly evolving? I would rather have the unseemly constantly evolving. I was reading a story today about Kylie Jenner is worth $900 million. There's a Forbes magazine cover story and people are pissed off about it because she's 20 and she's this whole business. I was thinking like, that's amazing. How do the Kardashians keep doing it?

They're like the Dallas Cowboys in the 70s, 80s, and 90s, just continually coming up with new teams. Now they have, it's Kylie, right? Kylie? Kyrie? Kawhi? If she ever dated one of them, I'd be confused. No, it's Kylie.

Yeah, I mean, now she's this whole industry. I would argue the Kardashians are the royal family right now, for better or worse. Yeah, except what's interesting is that at some point that will end. They'll be replaced. The royal family will never be replaced. No. I thought the royal family, after

Charles divorced Diane and it turned out he was with Camilla Bowles the whole time, it seemed like that was going to lose his luster. But no, they love it. No, that was sort of as edgy as it got for that world. Like that was like the fact that this happened was, um, you know, uh, uh, like the biggest sort of scandal within that family and like recent memory or whatever. Um, uh, and still that's not, you know, that would not be, uh, seen as a very controversial move in the world of the Kardashians, you know, that would not be seen as a very controversial move in the world of the

Kardashians. You know, well, I just think it's interesting. I think that it's interesting how, how like this family, you know, it's like somebody,

I was talking about this, I said at a book event and somebody mentioned from the audience said like, well, you know, I was talking about this, like I said, at a book event, and somebody mentioned from the audience said, well, I have a friend from London, and we've talked about this. And what the person from London says is like, the reason we care about the royal family is because we all share this. We all have this. It's something that we all sort of experience together. But it's interesting. It's interesting.

If you change the timber of your voice, that suddenly becomes sinister. If you say like, we all have the royal family, we all share it. It's all something that, it's like suddenly it seems like this dystopian world.

It's the same word, but it, the idea of something that you have to sort of know about and that you have to in some way care about because it's part of your shared society, you can see that as very positive or very negative. Well, we have the Trumps now. We have Don Jr. and who's the other one? Eric?

Ivanka? And Barron? Because we started talking about the Kennedys. Melania? Ivanka and, uh, Yeah, I guess. You know, because we were, because we started talking about the Kennedys. Melania? Like, well, you know, like what about the Kennedys? The Kennedys were always seen as sort of American royalty

and they call it Camelot or whatever. But I think that's done. I think the idea of, of seeing the Kennedy family as somehow special in a positive way. Yeah. That probably has passed, right? Yeah.

And, you know, and this movie sort of illustrates that. It's like you would, it would now be very difficult to do a hagiography of JFK. I agree. The expectation would be that you would, that it would be sort of the portrait of a complicated person. Who liked to get laid, who wore a back brace and liked to have sex. And the Kennedys. We'll never see the whole, like, the family rich

enough to just buy off a murder. And then people who love them enough to just kind of look the other way. I don't think that happens again. Well, I mean, okay, let's say Hillary had won the election. Let's say Hillary had won the election.

Yes. And she had, and had a great first term and was reelected. And then some years down the line, Chelsea ran for the presidency. In fact, I think that at some point Chelsea will run for the presidency. I think that's very possible. But, you know, that would have been, you know, obviously a unique situation in American history. Their family would have had both spouses be president, and their kid would have been sort of in the same level.

But even, you know, the Clintons aren't perceived the way the Kennedys were perceived. I was just on vacation last week. My father-in-law, who's pretty left-leaning, is now like, I really now believe that Clinton should have been removed from office. Bill Clinton should have been removed from office for the Monica Lewinsky thing. And I'm like, boy, it's interesting how at the time, there was just an overwhelming sense from

the American people that the media had gone too far and Kenneth Starr had gone too far. And this is not that big of a deal. And that we recognize that marital infidelity and lying about marital infidelity should not be a reason you can't be president. Now, I don't know if people think that. Now, we talk about young people in

your office. I bet if they're all informed about what happened with Monica Lewinsky, they would all say Bill Clinton should not be president. I think that that has become sort of the standard position to take, even though when it happened, the more progressive way to look at it was to say they're overreacting to this. This is not something that should be caused. We don't want to live in the kind of country where someone's activities outside of politics destroys their political career. That is no longer the progressive opinion to have. That is now seen as an incredibly reactionary view. Well, one of the opinions was basically like, why would he do with her?

Remember that whole thing? That would not fly now. 20 years later. That was a big part of it. Really? That's who he's going to cheat on his wife with? That would never fly now. The whole idea of that impeachment was because you know he

perjured himself in testimony about whitewater that uh the monica stuff was sort of ancillary to that and that was sort of this whole thing i think now the thinking would be well he should have been removed from office just for having done this, just for having taken advantage of this person who was his subordinate and was not much, you know, she was an adult woman. Do you have to give her agency? But at the same time, she is the president. She's younger than him and all these things. It would, it would, I think that that would be what people would justify because that's, I think that there are people who believe that would be in, you know, that,

that removal of Trump, that can be, you know, just sort of, that could be sort of justified simply for his personal behavior and the way he talks. Remember another thing from back then was, well, if Hillary took better care of him, maybe he wouldn't have to do that. That was another angle. There's a lot of hot takes in 1999 with the Clinton thing that would not fly

in 2018. Yeah, well, because that kind of hot take you just mentioned, like, it's hard to find that written anywhere. That was the kind of thing people just said, right? That was a cocktail party take, yeah. It was like a hanging out with their friends take. Now that

would be made in public. And there would be like, someone would be like, oh, look at social media. Look at all of these people who are blaming Hillary for bills and fidelity. There'd be this entire list of this. You know, and that's just a strange thing. It's just an interesting thing when they talk about social media. It's often described as like this is kind of like a town square or this is kind of like a cocktail party

you know you're involved in this thing like can you imagine being in a town square or at a cocktail party with somebody who every 20 minutes loudly gives their opinion about some unrelated event like you probably wouldn't stand that close to them. Would you probably would not want them at your party. If that was like, it's like every so often they got into table and they just gave their take on something. And then in 20 minutes later,

they did it again. We wouldn't say to that person is like, God, I'm glad they came. Right. You know, that was a real great addition to this party, whatever,

uh, that that's what's different. Sort of, you know, these, That's what's different, sort of. It's not like that. It's actually very different than just a sort of a... It's not like a conversation. It's very different. We have to go.

We're almost at the two-hour mark. We haven't talked to each other in a while. We have a lot to talk about. Chuck Klosterman, anything to plug? Nope, just hanging out. All right. Thanks, as always. Thanks for coming on.

It was a pleasure. Talk to you soon. All right, bye. All right, thanks to Chuck. Thanks to ZipRecruiter. Don't forget to check them out at ziprecruiter.com. Don't forget about all the new Ringer t-shirts that we put up. We were giving out some of them in Vegas.

People were going nuts. That is TheRinger.com. And we're back on Friday with one more BS podcast. Until then. On the wayside Never once said I don't have Feelings within On the wayside On the wayside Never once said

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