The Bill Simmons Podcast - Ep. 116: Team USA, A-Rod's Retirement, and 'Roast Battle'

Episode Date: August 12, 2016

HBO and The Ringer's Bill Simmons brings on Chris Ryan to discuss Team USA basketball's struggles against Australia (12:00). Then, ‘AGW’ writers Joel Solomon and Travon Free join to give their final thoughts on A-Rod (32:25). Finally, 'Roast Battle' runner-up Sarah Tiana and ‘AGW’ writer Pat Barker discuss the artistry behind the roast (54:00) and Blake Griffin's comedic chops. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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I would urge you to watch this week's episode. We had Seth Rogen, Ricky Williams, and my old buddy, Rembert Brown, and we ended up doing a weed round with Seth Rogen and Ricky Williams, who I introduced as the Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig of the weed round. People liked that one, so I would check that out if you have a chance. And finally, we're selling merchandise on The Ringer,

helping to raise money for our friends at charitywater.org. The link is right on our website. It says merch, hoodies, T-shirts, sweatshirts, you name it and don't forget to check out the ringer podcast network because we continue to crush it don't forget to check out the ringer.com either uh let's do it taping this on a thursday so th rolling. A bunch of guests on this podcast.

I'm not even going to promote all of them. We have so many guests I don't know who's coming up, but Chris Ryan's here right now. Hey, what's going on? Dream Team. Yeah.

Olympics. We call them a Dream Team? I don't think so. What are they called? Redeem Team 3? I think it's the, played a little bit like the Hangover Team yesterday.

The Hangover Team? Yeah. Yeah. That's a good one. I like that Galifianakis Cooper Yeah

I just Yesterday's game against Australia It felt very much the product of Those guys going to watch the swimming The day before And I'm going up to Michael Phelps And be like What are you doing tonight man

And he's like I can't I got a race tomorrow And they're like Well we're going to go to a spa But maybe you can come out And join us later So you think these guys Are having too much fun No I mean they're like, well, we're going to go to a spa, but maybe you can come out and join us later.

So you think these guys are having too much fun? No, I mean, they're on the boat. How much trouble can they really get? That's not even the thing. It's just I think that they just seemed to step slow yesterday and everybody had a bad shooting night at the same time. I was kind of wondering a little bit about the, you know, when they get to the Final Four and they have to go play in in the Syracuse stadium? Was that the Carrier Dome or whatever? And their field of vision gets messed up because the stands are already different? It looked a little weird in there, didn't it?

Yeah, it did. And the color scheme is strange and there's no fans anywhere around them. I wonder if that throws off your shooting at all. My takeaway is that it's a very beatable team that wasn't terrifically constructed. And I'm surprised J.J. Redick wasn't on this team. I just would have overloaded on shooters. I have no idea why Harrison Barnes is on this team. I can't for the life of me figure it out.

It's the weirdest pick. You could have taken anyone from the top 10 three-point shooting, but there was a moment in that game when nobody could make shots. Yes. And we were all watching. We had a big rigor NBA meeting, so we had all of our basketball people here. And nobody could make shots. Yes. And we were all watching. We had a big, rigor NBA meeting. So we had all of our basketball people were here. And nobody could make shots.

And we were like, what is the crunch time five if they're down four? Yeah. The question also is why bring Draymond if you're not going to let Draymond be Draymond? Yeah. How is DeAndre playing over Draymond? Draymond's the perfect international basketball guy. I don't know. Our theory was that maybe the Snapchat thing was like a penalty for him. Yeah yeah the k was just kind of like you're gonna sit it sit it out i yeah

you've embarrassed the program it's also i don't condone of that snapchat dick conduct he doesn't know what snapchat is i have a hundred dollars it says coach k doesn't know what snapchat is how do you think that went when they explained it to him so coach k there's this uh social thing called snapchat you take videos that disappear quickly do you think i think just like one bead of sweat came down his forehead he didn't even know he wasn't even able to verbalize his disappointment or his confusion it was just like you know like your grandfather watching avatar for the first time it's like so it's draymond's dick but it wasn't the entire dick it was just the top half we don't know where it ended it wasn't limp

and he immediately apologized Coach K's like he's our 11th man now I can't condone that conduct I just it's been I take your point with JJ I do think that if you just did pure shooting around around one big man that would be probably better

than what they have right now it's like why is the rose is like a package deal and also it just doesn't seem like those guys are really popping off so it's two more guys they basically have like wasted three spots plus they're not playing draymond enough right and then playing deandre a little too much i think yeah play kairi the warriors and Melo at the five. I don't care. I mean, do something. Melo played a little bit of five yesterday.

I like Kyrie. I like Klay. I like Durant and Melo. And I like Draymond. That's our crunch time five. Why is anyone else playing at crunch time? Jimmy Buckets and Paul George to play three and D and kind of give energy and change. Great.

Yeah. I don't think when Paul George shoots in close Olympics games, I don't think they're going in. No. I don't feel the same way about the Rosen. Nothing felt like it was going in yesterday. Australia was like two good shooters away from really. I think if we had had Kyrie, Klay, JJ, Durant, and Melo, it's over.

Yeah. How do you guard those five guys? And then put Draymond in where... It's just weird. We didn't learn the lessons from the past. And then when they were firing up those bricks yesterday and Australia started making plays and it really came down to Joe Engels, the much maligned Joe Engels. Yeah. Joe Engels.

But now he had a couple of plays where if he had just been a competent basketball player a couple of times, Australia could have won that game. He usually just... If that was Ben Simmons in the Joe Engels spot spot i think i would have won gonna make any of those jumpers no but i think he would have gotten some of the they wouldn't have gotten out rebounded like they did he would have done more than joe angles yeah and they wouldn't have been running uh fast breaks that looked like they were diagrammed up in 1959 and they did some good double clutch basket did something good double clutch alley-oop, white guy alley-oops from like 1954.

The Delhi alley-oop where Delhi got like two feet off the ground. It was really great. Yeah. It was a redemption of sorts for Delhi. Yeah. Who really got buried in the finals and then was deemed expendable by the Cavs and the whole thing. I said we argued about Kyrie. I think Kyrie is the most polarizing guy in the ringer office.

Right now? I'm pro Kyrie. I think he's going to be awesome this season. I don't think you have a choice to be whether you're pro Kyrie or not. That's what I don't get. You can say he's overrated right now because we're all riding high, but that guy, like you said yesterday, he scored 45 points in game five. He's fearless.

They drew up a shot for him in game seven. I mean, come on. They drew up the biggest shot of the season coming out of a timeout was Kyrie. The biggest shot in franchise history. Yeah. Kyrie, we're going to come out of this timeout. We're going to get you in an ISO with Steph Curry and you're going to make a shot over. And we have LeBron James on our team, but you're our choice here.

And LeBron's like, that's cool. He's going to make this. I thought it was interesting what you were saying yesterday. Just like this idea about what will the calves look like in the especially in the first half of the next season and is it going to be like all kairi ball and kevin maybe even try to get kevin love more involved and lebron kind of be like i'm i gotta i gotta chill out the move for lebron unless he's just wired and built like nobody we've ever seen in the history of professional sports is in year 14 to scale back in the regular season.

Yeah. And just kind of pop in and out when he's needed. I would almost compare it to like... He should have a rondo season. Show up for the national games. I was thinking like a Jack Nicholson and a few good men type of impact where it's just like he comes in for some impact scenes and they're huge scenes but really it's a cruise to me more kevin bacon movie and kai it's kairi's time to be cruise yeah

and kevin love can play uh what was it jt walsh was that the character if you get mad who's markinson you use this use the first four months to get kairi and kevin love going yeah and to get thompson going and to build on everything that you had last year and tie lose comfortable and try out some things. And LeBron, I mean, I would play LeBron 58 games next season unless he's looking at career records and thinking, all right, if I do this, this, this and this, then I'll have 40,000 points. Like he might, I don't know how he thinks, but he might be looking at the whole big macro picture now

and be like, all right, I need one more title, 40,000 points. He seems to take perceived like narrative slights a little bit more seriously than statistical challenges. Yeah. Because he probably could lead the league in scoring every year if he wanted to, but I think that he would see the formation in Golden State as like a more of an imposing imposing that's more of an imposition to him than like oh i gotta make sure i catch up with this person that person on the all-time scoring list i think he should have played in the olympics

i just think it would have been great for him i also just this is also are we manufacturing are like are we fake nervous about this like they're gonna win the gold i don't think it's a fake thing i i think it's a kind of a flawed team and it's built around durant and mellow have to be great for the for this team to win and kairi's got a big shots durant wasn't good in that australian game i thought he stunk you know i don't know i there's an alpha dog thing that always manifests itself in in every Olympics. In 2008, there was this awesome moment.

Wade was awesome in the 2008 Olympics, but it's almost like because Kobe was there, he didn't play quite enough. I feel like Wade might have been the alpha dog, but Kobe was at the height of his powers. But in that last game, it got really tense. Everybody started looking around, and Kobe's like, I got this. And he made some big shots, and he won. And it seems like Carmelo is that guy this year. And Durant has to be the guy. I expected Durant to be the guy, but I think maybe Carmelo is the guy.

You know, this is like stupid first take, hot take nonsense. But it's a really interesting question. It's watching these guys decide who's the guy. There's going to be a moment where, and yesterday was sort of weird. It was so physical. And the last five minutes took like 30 minutes. And there was just so much fouling and muscling around. And they knew that was going to happen playing Dele and Bogut.

Like that was just going to be the way that those guys played. But there's going to come a time where somebody's going to have to be like, I'm taking 25 shots this game. Or just, I don't like where this is going. We're up one all of a sudden. There's three minutes left. The crowd's going crazy for the other team. I'm going to where this is going we're up one all of a sudden there's three minutes left the crowd's going crazy for the other team

I'm gonna stop this now there was a little bit of a reluctance to drive to the hoop I think also especially because they weren't really getting the calls they wanted

but like Durant in 2010 when the world championships I think they beat Turkey in the finals it was kind of Durant's breakout moment it's like I'm the guy I got this guys

Kobe in 2008 same thing 2012 LeBon got in foul trouble in that gold medal game and there was a moment when he couldn't get back in because the international rules it was like this 90 second stretch and the lead was falling and he couldn't get he get and finally he got back in he did some stuff he kind of righted the ship and then i think chris made a couple big plays but even like having having Chris out there would make me feel better. I don't know if I trust Kyrie, but Kyrie scares me a little because Kyrie might be like,

I got this and just miss a couple shots. Yeah, but I'd rather have Kyrie try than Kyle Lowry kind of just do weird Kyle Lowry things. Even though I like Kyle Lowry a lot on the Raptors. I don't trust Kyle Lowry. I don't trust DeRozan. I think you have to have been in that spot at least once in a stage where you actually won. So you think they're missing one or two guys who have been there before? Yeah, but they have some.

Like, Klay's been there. Oh, you know, we haven't even talked about this, but the other kind of waste of a roster spot, sadly, is Boogie. Yeah, but he had to be on the team. It's just he's not playing well. Yeah, but he had to be on the team. It's just he's not playing well. Yeah, but he's getting into foul trouble in the first nine minutes. It's just like another guy where that could just be Kyle Korver or something. But the pick was defensible, right? Sure, yeah.

He's just been disappointed. I don't really even follow international coaching tactics that much, but you also wonder whether maybe this is one too many Olympics for K. No question. And maybe yesterday he was playing the wrong guys. Or just let Tibbs coach this one. Yeah. And just kind of have like,

just, I, these guys just seemed like they could use a little bit more of a plan. I agree with that. I think they got, they panicked when guys started dropping out. Yeah. And they just were just great.

Oh, DeRozan said he'd play. All right, let's get him. And these guys are all really good NBA players but we've learned over and over their international basketball you need specific types of players yeah and I don't trust Barnes when he's shooting I don't trust the Rosen Kyle Lowry his shot kind of comes and goes the percentages are better than the eye tests he's also also like, he's an MF-er. Yeah, that's the thing. He won't be afraid. Yeah, he's like, if Delhi wants to tangle, we can tangle.

So I look around. I look at all these different countries. I don't see the scary opponent. There's teams that bring it. Like, Australia's feisty. Yeah. And they're going to hit people and knock people around. Bogut is totally motivated.

Croatia's fun. Yeah, Croatia's fun. Spain's like a guy short, but still, you'll have to work they'll post up gasol we're gonna have to deal with that gasol's own deandre jordan forever like that's gonna be an issue but there's not that one team that i think could yeah could just shoot us out like the way to beat the team usa is you you got to make like 17 to 23s. And you have to have somebody who can post up. You got to put us on our heels.

Guys start missing. People start looking at each other. But I guess the most shocking thing for me, which isn't that shocking because it's been a running joke now for eight years. But just how good Carmelo is in this format. I know. And how comfortable he is. And I wrote this two years ago for Grantland. I still think he could have been the best guy on the title team.

We'll never know. I think his window passed. So you think that if he had gone, what? What were some of the... The analogy is Dirk in 2011. You take a guy who's got a specific set of offensive skills, who's a forward, who's a tough matchup, who's not great defensively,

who's somebody who creates shots for other guys based on the attention he gets but isn't a creator, and somebody who's just money in the last five minutes and who makes big shots in a tough matchup. Carmelo could have been Dirk in 2011, I think. I don't know if he could have been the leader, but we've seen it work. And I was telling you today, I'm becoming more and more intrigued by this Knicks team. Yeah.

Because Carmelo's in awesome shape. I think this is the best shape I've seen him in in a couple years. And if he comes back and he's like taking all the momentum from this, I was the guy in that Olympic team. I can, I'm one of the best seven players in the league and they have enough good players around him. The East.

Isn't that great? I don't know. Yeah. If Kristaps has like a good second season, there's no reason why they can't conference semis at least. Yeah. If he does, if,

if Kristaps does the second year jump and then you can get 30 minutes a game out of Noah and Rose, you know, the case for Rose is their point guards were so horrendous last year that even if Rose is the worst possible version of Rose, he's still better than Jose Calderon last year. But I just also think Rose has everything to play for right now. True. I mean, he's literally become like,

he's become a punchline, and this guy was an MVP a couple years ago. The Bogut thing pisses me off. What about it? I wish the Celtics had just traded the 31st pick in the draft for him. Just makes me mad. Just because you think he's a good guy to have a team? I don't like that Golden State was like, oh shit, we have to get rid of Andrew Bogut. It's like, this guy's a good center.

This guy, you can get 20 to 25. I think Andrew Bogut agrees with you based on how he was playing yesterday. Well, did you see he was in awesome shape? He was motivated. He's doing stuff. I wish he was on the Celtics. It makes me mad that Dallas just got him for free. Andrew Bogut is one of those guys, Juliet and I call them frail stars,

but there's definitely like two times a game where he's walking up the court and you're like, ah, he just tore a hamstring. Like he just tore it in half. He's just like, mmm. Yeah, yeah. in in person it's painful to watch him run he's one of those guys when he's running you're like oh he used to be pretty pretty nimble athletic guy too right back when he was on the box he's had a lot of bad luck injuries i talked about that with him when i was in the pod it was injuries like some guys are brittle and other guys just they broke their elbow because they fell wrong and it bended the wrong way. He got his legs taken out from under him on a dunk, right?

Yeah. He had two bad injuries that were just flukes. But I liked the way he was playing. I liked how motivated he was. That Australian team, if they had had Simmons and Exum, because Exum's the other one. Yeah. I mean, the Exum data, the sample size for Exum. Who knows? He might not even be good.

Right. I mean, he's probably better than Joe Ingles. I think we could safely say that. Which, if you could add any star to this team, who would it be, LeBron? To this U.S. team? Yeah. Curry. Curry. Yeah, because I think I get what, I think I see what the idea was

in the sort of the way they were putting this team together, because it's not unlike the way you see a couple of international soccer teams put their teams together. We're like, we're going to take the cores of two good club teams. Yeah. And if these guys all play together already, that's going to be good for us. So Italy played with the entire Juventus defense and England tried to use Tottenham and Liverpool as like the cores of their team. And I get the like, look, let's just get a bunch of Warriors, a couple of raptors and a couple of thunder player and we'll we'll be great and i because of some people who dropped out but i just think if steph's on this team this is like we've only we've only had one competitive game and i guess we were a couple points to like we

were only up a couple of points on that australian game was too was too competitive i thought for where we are as a country and the players that we have, come on. So if we're not going to get the very best of the best in the league, if we're not going to have LeBron and Chris Paul and Westbrook and Chris... I've already made this case. I think we should go 25 and under. Yeah, because at least you'd be emotionally invested and there would be some suspense.

Well, and also, I think it's good for those players. Yeah. I think it would be better for Kyrie if he knew he was the best player on the team. And I think it would be cool to have CJ McCollum out there instead of, you know, a couple of these other guys. But it just seems like they're no man's land. What was the starting five under 25s guys that you had? I forgot about Davis, but I forgot about him because he was hurt. And I had Carl Anthony Towns in that spot, even though he can't legally play for our country.

So that was a problem. Yeah. Bad research by me. So Davis would be on there. The Kyrie. I can't remember. CJ McCollum.

I only picked five guys that were from the last few years and then everybody else was young guys. Yeah. I think that would be really fun. Aaron Gordon. Put Aaron Gordon in the Dream Team team he'll try to have the greatest dunk of all time over bogut's head the only problem is that if those guys don't win the gold medal then we have to go through this whole thing again like the crisis in american basketball and those guys not taking it seriously enough and then we'll go back in that though i feel like we won that battle

yeah i thought so too but it's over like i'm not worried about american basketball like we're better than everybody else we have the we have the best players so let's there hasn't been this so have you been watching other stuff besides yes yeah and i love the olympics i love the olympics too it i don't know whether it's the way it's being broadcast or the actual truth but the the main events it seems like there's just not been a ton of suspense there was a little gymnastics the gymnastics thing was a big body blow for mbc although maybe it didn't hurt the ratings but just that they're that that dominant yeah that removed the domino for them yeah they basically have to be like they're gonna win it's a question

of by how much and whether or not they're the greatest collection of gymnasts ever yeah and hold on do you know anyone who understands gymnastics points not particularly oh there's 0.69 ahead of everyone else. It's like, great. I have no idea what that means. I know a lot of people on Twitter who are gymnastics experts. After reading two Wikipedias and hearing Tim Daggett talk about it for three minutes, they're like, oh, that wobble.

That wobble, it's going to kill her later. It's like if somebody won the Super Bowl 120 to nothing. It's like, no, it's really not. It's not anything like that, actually. It's gymnastics. What do you think of Allie Reisman's parents? I love it. That's exactly how I am at every one of my daughter's soccer games.

You're a nervous fan? I'm pacing the sidelines, yeah. It's an interesting counter-narrative to see them be like, we're the reluctant soccer, you know, like the reluctant reluctant gymnast parents it's like we knew this was going to be us we didn't want this to happen i like the neuroses involved in it it's good i i am very fascinated by the coaches yeah and the relationships with the gymnasts and just i'm always this is terrible but there's always like a creep factor with coaches because we've read so many bad stories.

So I always find myself silently judging the coaches and their motivations for why they're on the team. And it's like, ooh, that hug was a little long. There's also like a team coach and then there's a lot of like individual coaches. Yeah, I judge all of them. I always judge it by if my daughter was out there, would I trust this guy?

Would I trust that guy? The outfits worry me now as somebody whose daughter is about to be a teenager. The beach volleyball outfits, I think, got a little skimpy. I've turned into that guy. I really, really, really have gotten into team volleyball. Team volleyball has been great. Indoor volleyball has been amazing. Every four years, I go through amnesia and I forget all about it.

And then it's just like the fake spikes are incredible. Or like I'm setting it toward incredible or like the i'm setting it toward me but instead i'm sending it behind me that's illegal right like andrew wiggins can't go for a fake alley-oop to distract somebody and then have carl towns come in right behind him and dunk it that's not fair right it's the first olympics i've watched with my daughter and she's fascinated by the bodies and little kids notice things that we don't notice because we're so used to it. But she's fascinated by the different bodies and how the different types of bodies seem to work for different sports. So the gymnast bodies are very, they're all similar.

They're like these stubby, like they're little power bodies. And the volleyball bodies are these long, you know, they look like Alex Morgan like alex morgan if you just stretch alex morgan out yeah kim hill is six four and she basically has like i can't even imagine what her vertical is but she's just like skying over people so the basketball players look like that but they all have like bubble butts they basically the volleyball player with bigger butts and then the swimmer bodies they're all like high you know everything's above the waist muscle and then skinny legs. Yeah, there's the guy, I can't remember his name right now, but the guy does breaststroke who had like the inverted chest plate thing. And he swam because it was good for his like body to grow out of that like deformity.

It was really, that was a really interesting story. So my daughter watches these things and she's like, well, I never could have been a gymnast. I'm too tall. She's watching the swimming and she's like, my legs are too strong. The swimmer legs are all like these skinny, almost like runner legs. And then their upper body is just massive. And she keeps looking at the volleyball is maybe the closest, but even their bodies. It's just weird.

It's like hard to believe we produce so many different types of athletes. That's one of the things that jumps out at me at the Olympics. Michael Phelps's body is like, we'll never meet anybody whose body looks like that. This is a good focus group thing. Does she care at all about when this stuff is on? No, she doesn't know. I don't even think my daughter understands. I don't even think she knows this stuff's taped away okay i think when you're a little kid you just assume everything's happening live she thinks my show is live even though i'm standing right sitting right next to

her greenwald and i were talking about whether or not the olympics should just be basically like a two-week first weekend of march madness situation where it's more or less accepted that you're going to be watching at work and everybody has like a really communal atmosphere around the television and everybody goes out for long lunches and watches the olympics but it would pretty much completely kill the prime time which is the only reason why nbc spends like a billion that's not the only reason i still feel like people would watch the prime time if they showed it in real time too that's the part i don't get but you i would want like the entire like it's entire like, gymnastics is on right now and it's got like, it's just really difficult.

It should be on right now. We should be like, oh, everything should be live. They wouldn't show the basketball on tape delay. That's the part that's weird. It's like certain sports are tape delayed and then the other ones they know they can't. But one of my other big takeaways is swimming's kind of boring let's be

honest i think if it wasn't really exciting the relay is super fun yeah but when you're watching like oh it's the 800 meter medley right it's like wow this is gonna be 10 minutes long i'm just watching people swim and thank god for rowdy gains Because he gets so excited. Rowdy Gaines is Gus Johnson for swimming. Yeah, it really, really helps. Oh, what a turn up the wall! Meanwhile, the guy's like way ahead. Yeah, I think that the one thing that has helped for this Olympics has definitely been the rivalries. Because Katie Ledecky and Michael Phelps have been so dominant.

Pretty much like when people get up on the blocks, they're like, this person's going to win. It just depends on by how much. But it has helped that, you know, LeClo and Phelps had that beef with the butterfly that Lilly King was doing, the finger wag. Like there's been a little bit of tension. So that's helped the swimming a little bit. Well, the other thing that's really helped is Phelps is filling that Tiger Woods void that we've all really missed. Of like how good can this guy be? Somebody's just fucking awesome. They're just like, I i'm the best one how dare you challenge me yeah people love that and

they've missed it i think as good as lebron's been i don't ever feel like we've 100 totally committed to him being that guy the how dare you challenge him guy sure tiger was the last guy i can remember who was really wired that way where when when you have that guy like messing with Phelps and doing the shadow boxing and that thing became the social media meme this week. Phelps face, yeah. The Phelps face. Like that wouldn't have worked with LeBron. There's no NBA player that that works with. I don't think there's really a football player.

I don't think there's a baseball player. Hockey, no. I think it's also pretty rare that those guys but lebron it's i mean who challenges lebron stanley johnson i mean like who's who would ever shadow will though like draymond punched him in the nuts yeah but by accident draymond was never like i mean draymond cursed him out a little bit but it was like it wasn't like draymond doing powder in front of the calves bench in cleveland which is a you you know, a clue is basically doing that to, to Phelps. Right.

But I'm in it and it, and it failed. Yeah. It was, it was like a desperation move, but it reminded me of like Jordan in, I don't know, 92 and 93 when the Knicks were trying to get in his head and not only did not work, it just made him mad and it made him better. And at some point you're just watching it going, this is a bad idea. You don't, don't make him mad. This is stupid. Yeah this is stupid yeah it's it kobe never got that way for me and i i never felt like oh don't make kobe mad right i always go on a pendulum between how much i like

to watch dominance and greatness versus how much i like to see competition and underdogs and comebacks and stuff like that like you know on one hand when pete federer and you're watching him and you're just like, this guy's just technically superior to every single tennis player I've ever seen. And there's just, why even play? And then every once in a while, you know, sometimes it gets a little dull appreciating greatness.

And I think that that's what we run into. Phelps isn't like that because Phelps is so, comparatively for swimmers at 31. I mean, I love having Phelps. Yeah. Phelps is the best. The only thing that bothers me about Phelps is it takes the attention off of Lochte.

Poor Lochte. Lochte had to have at least thought of doing a Tonya Harding on Phelps at least 50 times. He started with the hair. He thought about it. He definitely thought about it. I think Serena has that quality too. I don't mean to overlook her. I think Serena's hit some points and

what's weird is the the flaw in the serena ointment is that none of us were surprised when she immediately got bounced from both both uh doubles and singles in rio because it's like she has to almost convince herself to put her heart in it if it's not if the stakes aren't totally there and part probably part of her is like oh oh, good, I'm out of Rio. What did they say? Did she talk at all? Like, oh, I have an ankle thing? Or what was the Rio thing?

Who knows? But if it was Wimbledon, she's not getting bounced like that. Yeah, it's funny because it's hard to have this in football. It's hard to have. I mean, you can respect the Patriots on a long-term basis. You can respect the Packers on a long-term basis. You can respect the Seahawks. Quarterbacks can get there a little bit. A little bit. But so much of it is depending on if you don't have a left tackleterm basis you can respect the packers on a long-term basis you can respect the seahawks quarterbacks can get there a little bit a little bit but so much of it's depending

like if you don't have a left tackle then like you're dead you know rogers and brady a couple other guys if they're playing an inferior team and the inferior team starts doing this stuff like what that swimmer tried to do to phelps yes you just go don't do that that rogers is just going to destroy you yeah you know i do think there's but i like having i like having phelps like i hope he is able to keep it together to the thought of him being in tokyo in 2020 yeah at 35 if he could wait be like the relay guy again one last time for like one last gold like we'll never see that again not in our lifetime no it's been it's it's he's been such a huge thing for american swimming and it's kind of like i i don't i'm trying to think right now like of like whether or not like i've ever had more confidence in an athlete than i have in him tiger yeah tiger at a

point where i just felt like any time down the back nine he's got it if it became a skin situation my i'm betting my life on Tiger. Yeah. Phelps has turned into an I'm betting my life guy. Probably eight years ago, he turned into that guy. Yeah. Chris Ryan, this was fun. Yeah, thanks for having me.

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All right, I'm here with Trayvon Free and Joel Solomon from the Any Given Wednesday writing staff. Two Yankee fans. Yeah. I don't know how I ended up with Yankee fans on this show, but they're here. You hired people from New York. I know. It could have been worse.

We could have been Mets fans. We're taping this Thursday. That's true. We're taping this Thursday afternoon before A-Rod's last game at Fenway Park. I just want to go on the record. It's not going to matter. People will hear this after the game.

But the Red Sox I know and love, and the Boston I know and love, and the Massachusetts I know and love, we would throw at A-Rod in the first at-bat. Are they still those Red Sox? 95-mile-an-hour fastball right in his back. Just a little farewell present. No rocking chair, no T-shirt,

no signed jersey from the whole team. Fastball in the back. And the Yankees fans would love that. And the Yankees would love it. It would be a bench-clearing brawl where none of the Yankees would come out. It would be a good daily news headline the next day. Nice little olive branch from the Red Sox. If it was a bench-clearing brawl, would any Yankee come out to defend A-Rod's honor?

Maybe like three? Chase Hedleyley just because he likes to mix it up cc if he could get out there quick enough maybe let's see see what he'd walk out there yeah um all right so the a rod legacy comes to the yanks in 04 you won a world series with them highest paid baseball player of all time some weird gita relationship like would you i'll go trayvon first would you do the A-Rod experience all over again would you run it back no

no I don't think so what would you do Joe it would be tough to stomach but at the time you get a title out of it yes he did help you win

the 0-9 title I mean I guess you do get but I feel like you'd have to go back and run the scenarios of like what what was happening

when we took A-Rod. And what player could we have gotten that might have changed the course of that Yankee history? Right. So it basically came down to Aaron Boone blew out his ACL playing basketball. That led to the A-Rod trade. And a big part of that at the time was keeping him away from Boston. So to do it over again, I mean, it's tough. But also two MVPs in there. Don't forget.

For the Yankees? For the Yankees. Really? I don't even remember that. Two MVPs. I think I blocked that out of my mind. What would Boston have been like with A-Rod? Well, that's the thing.

So we lose Manny and Nomar in that trade in the winter of 03. And then you get all the shit that came with A-Rod. The steroids and the suspensions. Well, we had the steroids already. We had plenty of those, I think. But no, I think we lose Manny. We don't win in 04 and 07 without Manny, unless A-Rod replicates what Manny did.

We certainly don't win in 07. Manny and Poppy won the World Series for them. But I just, knowing what, in 03, we didn't totally know what a rod was like we knew he was a little full of himself but i think the right he had a reputation of somebody who does you know just plays hard take care of his body but he's i don't know if his personality would have worked in boston i don't i don't think it would have either but yeah he's so good that's the thing like a rod is it's hard to separate the steroids from the stats because you don't know what effect they had on his productivity but for a player who's probably the most hated

sports figure in the last how many years would you say you go sports figure i think so people fucking hate a rod i'd have to think about that he's definitely the most hated baseball player i mean what sports figure think about like when i think about all those new york uh when you go with like the ray rice types like people yeah i mean but on a longer like over a period of time like he's been new york media just fucking hated a rod for so long it seems like the yankees hated him and yeah i being at a Yankees game, the last Yankees game at the old Yankee Stadium. And there's this guy, A-Rod's a bat to bat. And this guy next to me is just fucking tearing, the Yankees are winning.

And he's just tearing into A-Rod. So like even, and he's singled. But the guy still didn't give a he just hated him and he was just going off about him to to pretty much anyone who would listen i think joel kind of secretly likes a rod is my takeaway the my thing is he the expectations were so big and when you were coming in with the core four he didn't he didn't stand a chance how these guys were best friends they came up together they won championships together and i don't know what the comparison would be you know if there's like a

van halen and then sammy hagar comes in i don't think it's like a hit tv show where they added some yeah polarizing character that never changed a mom on fresh prince or something and then you're like what who's this's this lady? Aunt Viv didn't exactly. Wait a minute. And that's kind of A-Rod. He got penciled in. He was supposed to carry on the legacy. Him and Jeter were best friends.

And, you know, I think he gets a bad rap sometimes with the contract. It's an enormous contract. But you know who else has an enormous contract? Josh Hamilton and Ryan Howard and Albert Pujols. Well, you know it's was one of the things he never got credit for and the reason the red sox deal fell through was he was trying to give back 25 million dollars of that contract but he was actually i thought it was a relatively noble thing that he never got credit for he gave back like 10 of

his contract to go from a losing team to play for the red sox and try to win a title which if anyone else had done that we would have been like wow right what a great guy an awesome human being but then when you see the photos and you hear about the minotaur painting you're just right and then you think like oh it's an ego play he just wanted to be liked and that and that kind of was his achilles heel that's the thing he did always just want to be liked well if so if he goes to boston okay and part of the appeal of that trade was they didn't have the quote-unquote face of the franchise right nomar people in boston liked him but he wasn't exactly mr dynamic manny had had kind of had his ups and downs and they were like we're gonna get the best shortstop in the league he's gonna become the face of our franchise we're gonna sell nesson with this guy and there were real reasons they

didn't know ortiz was about to become ortiz you know they didn't see they didn't see the mania resurgence coming all that stuff and he goes to the yankees and he's a third baseman yeah which is a waste of a ride it's like if you had will ferrell and snl and you just make him the weekend update guy like it was kind of a misuse of how great he was. No, I think so. I mean, but you also have to probably think about what happens if you try to get Derek Jeter to move from shortstop. You couldn't have. You can't get a guy with four rings to move.

Jeter was still a good shortstop at that point. Yeah. Yeah. No, he was never going to move. Jeter was still a good shortstop at that point. Yeah. Yeah. No, he was never going to move. But I mean, that shows like how LeBron can go to Miami and adjust his game. I mean, that took, you forget, like that took real kind of a big move for A-Rod to just step aside and want to win. He was the first ring chaser of the decade. Everyone thought LeBbron invented actually ring

chaser goes way back but yeah a rod did a ring chasing move i don't think he gave up and i think it was illegal for him to give up the money to give up the 25 million yeah i think it was i think he had to keep the contract because the players union's like once we set that precedent well that's probably why he said it because he knew it wasn't going to happen oh you think it was like an evil genius but i mean maybe well i would i heard that was kind of what happened with uh robinson cano too where he wanted to take less money to stay with the yankees after he'd gotten offered more money by on the agents by the um seattle yeah and they were like if you take the like if you set this precedent of taking less money to like be loyal a team, it messes up everything we try to do for you guys.

I mean, my hottest take on this is that I'm going to kind of miss A-Rod. He was a fun villain. I liked having him around. I enjoyed the A-Rod era. I liked complaining about him. I liked when he came up small in the crunch time. And I don't know. There are things I enjoyed about the experience.

Yeah, I mean, he had big moments. I mean you however you feel about steroids or not which i'm totally pro steroid he had big moments that were fun to watch and i can't remember any of them what were they i mean i feel like it's more the milestones getting to like the focus on 09 just he didn't come through in 09 he did focus on 09 and 09. And that was when everybody finally let off of him a little bit. But I think the big moments for A-Rod were seeing him knock off notches on those different milestones. Like the home run totals and the hits total. All those things. He was just crushing Yankee records.

Last year at 40, he had a great year. He really did. I think we were talking about people who thought he might have been on the stuff again. That's what we have to lose. I guess he could have lost money. They made a wild card and I'm interested in what you guys think. The Yankees in the last week have

genuinely made me feel bad for him, which I thought would be impossible. Impossible. And when Girardi's saying, I don't do retirement tours. No, that's all you've done the last four years. Yeah. So to kick him out to the curb and also do it like abruptly in the middle of the season

when the 96 team is coming back this weekend, not give him final at bats in Boston. I think that's a token of it going to the top of the organization, the hatred for A-Rod. Like, Cashman fucking hates A-Rod. No matter what he says publicly, he's so glad that this dude's gone. So what are all the reasons Cashman hates A-Rod, do you think? Obviously because they had to lose a year of his contract. Yeah, I mean, they had that big public fight where A-Rod was saying things in the press and Cashman was having to, like, backpedal on certain things.

Yeah. I mean, this guy's running the Yankees and you're putting him in the position to have to like spar with a fucking player and do you think part of it is that they paid him all this money and yet he was cheating and when they gave him the giant contract they didn't realize i guess maybe that he was cheating and so they were paying for kind of a false bill of goods yeah that's how i would feel burned yeah and i think it's part of why cashman is like fuck this dude you don't get a farewell tour you don't get it's all i mean it's definitely like a tarnished legacy and just the giant headaches that a rod came with but also they i think they genuinely want him out because of production they were going to release him like we we've talked about this all week like it come if he was hitting like he was hitting last year he'd be the toast of the town he's not hitting they want these contracts off

the books that you know to share is gone cc's on his last leg I think they have mccannon ellisbury that's it they want these new yankees in and they're like hey they should have let cc go like three years ago what's weird it's weird that of all the fan bases i think the reds which is why it's funny that his last road game is tonight i think the red sox fans have the fondest feelings for him for two reasons one that trade falls through and that ends up winning us three world series um hold on i was oh and the other one is uh game six 2004 lcs the slap the slap the gloves on a royal which 86 years of red sox history was leading up to our expectation of that was this guy cheated he's on second base they're only down by a run we're blowing this game where we had a huge lead and this is the red socks all over again and he's going to get away with this and god hits the red

socks and then they review it and they call him out and then he's at second base with his oh what did i do and it was just like the defining a-rod moment that's what it took that's what it took to reverse the curse and i mean that's it's still painful. That is still painful for you guys. You guys thought you were going to win that game. Jeter scored. 2004 is one of the worst years in sports for me personally. In my life period. Because you had the Lakers.

Losing that series and the Lakers losing to Detroit just like it destroyed me. You were a shell. Those were two championships that were supposed to be guaranteed we had this super laker team they built that was supposed to just plow through the pistons yeah and then you were up three or three oh three one against boston and you end up losing that was like four or five months later and you end up losing the entire yeah like back to back just when did you know you're gonna lose to the pistons what game was it i think it was i knew game three i kind of felt it around game two and three or it was just like remember

kobe pulled game two out of his ass yeah and then it was like oh the lakers got this and then the pistons just killed them they just turned it turned it on. I couldn't explain it. I didn't know what. It felt like, oh, this is just the will of the sports gods saying, this team is supposed to be champions this year. And then I remember game four, Shaq had one of his great playoff games. And during that game going, oh, this is starting to feel like the O2 King series. They're just going to pull this whole series out of their ass.

Shaq's going to. And then it was like, that was it. But I feel like the Red Sox hurt more because. It had to have. It was probably. It was kind of like how Golden State fans probably felt this year when you're like, oh, we're going to destroy this team. We're up 3-1. And they just come back.

Well, that was also an identity loss for you guys because it was like I felt it my whole life the Yankee fans oh you we're like the little annoying brother to the Yankee fans that anytime they want to just smack us in the face I mean statistically it's so hard to do it's so hard

to do in baseball it was a miracle so you just you had to deal with the pain and then realize this was some destiny shit. When Tony Clark hit that ground rule double, that every time that goes in the corner, it just rolls around and people just run around the bases. And that was the one time it just bounced over. And that could have been the game right there.

You would have taken the lead in extra innings. It was also the first time, well, game seven, when Damon been the game right there. You would have taken the lead in extra innings. It was also the first time, well, game seven, when Damon hits the homer early, that was the first time, it's like, Yankee fans,

especially with the old stadium, two outs, two strikes, bottom of the ninth, still had a chance. Standing up going nuts. This time, it was like,

holy shit, this is it. This is done. It was a weird Yankee team. You look back at it, it kind of lost its soul. There was all those guys like the Kevin Brown types. Every time I see that 30 for 30, it's so hurtful.

I don't know why I put myself through the pain of watching it, but for some reason when it gets to the part of the Yankees being up by three games, part of me still thinks we can pull it out. You know how it ends. I'm like, see see we got it look it's right there you're just gonna win one more game what do you remember about the 09 title because i don't know i i wasn't a big fan of watching the yankees win a world series was that to share had a big moment in there right yeah that suey was just unbelievable that postseason

they gave him like special porn for that month yeah that's what yeah he gave him special porn for that month. Yeah, they gave him this porn he'd never seen before. He just went into a tear. I mean, that was also beating a great Phillies team. That pitching staff was ridiculous. But you thought that was like this new, it worked. New era. New era. I feel like you were about to get a few.

Yeah, for sure. Like in the early 2000s, late 90s. And then it just never and now baseball is just turning the sport where it just gets to late september and then somebody gets hot for four weeks which is this flawed red sox team it's like at least we can score runs who the hell knows like you might just get hot for five weeks and score eight runs a game and win the world Series. And call-ups make it so... I feel like now... Have you seen this new kid we have? Andrew Benintende?

Is he one of the ones you guys have to give back? Which one? No, no, no. I know you guys lost a lot of Cubans. Yeah. We like to bend the rules with our international prospects. No, this is the college kid they drafted in the first round. And he looks like, he kind of looks like Ashton Kutcher in that 70s show.

He almost has the whole arm. He's like Fred Lynn 40 years later. I mean, he's going to be, he has a chance to be the Boston athlete that gets the lead the most in Boston since early Brady. I think it's in play. Since like 0-2-0-3 range Brady, where Brady could have just walked in any bar and just pointed at anyone and been like, come on with me. I think this kid has a chance. Boston's needed this.

Yeah, he can step into that role. We have this unbelievable outfield now. Ben Intende and Bradley and Betts. Who are the Sox, though, post-Poppy? Because he brings so much to that team energy-wise. He does. As a leader. Well, you guys know this.

When you have baseball of all the sports, it's just so constant. It's 162 games, six to seven months a year. Same guys day after day after day. And then you just yank someone out. Like with Jetereter it took like a year to for me to get used to watching the yankees it's like where's jeter oh that's dd gregorius right the the other i forgot the other funny thing how the yankees are billing this on yes network is alex rodriguez's final game as a yankee yeah and even a rod will not say i'm done like well i just

want to get through friday i i don't think he's coming back. He has one hip. He can't hit a fastball. I think I saw today the Mariners were, like, talking about. Well, he just looks broken down now. You watch him hit, and it's like his lower body's gone. But the stuff with Girardi, now you're poking the beast. Now you're, I think this is what they shouldn't do.

Let him go out. He's trying to do all the right things if especially the way with cheater there was every a base at every inning was being taken out steiner sports had all this farewell stuff it was a huge money-making thing i was at that game yeah the last one yeah this is amazing that game was tremendous i lost my voice i i couldn't i still have that i had really good seats too and i still have that video on my phone or like he slaps that fucking ball and me i was with a co-worker from the daily show and we just lost it we were screaming so loud even the game didn't matter it was just like jeter just was being jeter jeter was great i i was always scared

when you came i told you guys this yesterday I always judge these guys by when they come up against my team. Am I scared? How do I feel? I always felt like Jeter was going to screw us every time he was up. I always felt like he was going to come through. I don't know what the actual stats said. I just know how I felt. I can't change how I feel.

I thought he was going to get a hit. He had that magic. The only guy who could fucking, in his career, with a walk-off single to win the game at Yankee Stadium. Well, Robertson blew that save on purpose. I'm still convinced. They, like, didn't want that night to end. Because that game was over.

That game was over. You think he did that? No. Would you blow a save on purpose for anyone you know? For Jeter, yeah. You would? I would. Yeah.

Well, now Jeter's a successful media mogul. And A-Rod, he's getting married. The guy who doesn't like to talk about anything personal. Deputy editor-in-chief. And A-Rod couldn't even get the scoop from A-Rod. Well, A-Rod's going to have a better post-career, I think, than Jeter did. Because I think he's great at TV. I think he's going to be, Fox is going to ride him every year.

It's hilarious because in TV you have to, when you're doing those studio shows, there's a certain level of phoniness that is a real asset. Barkley accepted because Barkley's exactly the same in any situation he's in. He's either swearing or not swearing, but he's the same. But A-Rod's just put on earth to be a tv robot for the next 20 years you're exactly right kevin and you know moving the arms and turning and setting people up and it's just great yeah yeah he was awesome last year and it was like him and pete rose makes no sense it's like it's like something you would hallucinate what if he yeah what if he got into the Broadcasting Hall of Fame? Instead of the Real Hall of Fame?

He would be honored. I feel like he would love that honor. I think the Red Sox should have a Villains Hall of Fame. I would totally put A-Rod in there. They should retire his number 13. Yeah, just like the five athletes we hated the most when we played against them. He would definitely be up there for me. I think he's probably number one.

I loved when A-Rod wouldn't come through against the Red Sox. He was my favorite guy not to come through against the Red Sox. I was like, fuck that guy. He sucks. He could never come through. Now you've got one more chance tonight. Yeah. Yeah, well, by the time people listen to this, who knows what will have happened.

He could hit four. Probably not. It would be funny if he hit a home run and came back to the dugout and nobody acknowledged him. It was like the prank thing, but it was just real hatred. All right, fellas. Thank you very much for stopping by the BS Podcast. Good talk. Thanks.

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Use the offer code BS and you get 10% off your first purchase. It's so easy. Even Joe House figured it out. And he's the dumbest internet person I know. Squarespace.com. All right, this is going to be fun. We have a Pat Barker from Any Given Wednesday. Hey. Roast battle finalist. Runner up. Yeah. Sarah Tiana. Hello. It was a Cinderella run. It really was. You didn't have a lot of roast battle finalist runner up yeah sarah tiana hello it was a cinderella run it really was you didn't have a lot of roast battle experience no i didn't have a lot of roast battle experience but i've had a lot of roast writing experience yes that's been just something that i always have done and uh i don't get offended easily so i guess i'm good for it on That's what I told these guys, because I think the roast battle should be the fifth.

I should replace the challenge as America's fifth professional sport. I was that into it. And in the first night, I was like, that girl, Sarah, was great. She had the best spirit about the whole thing. And they were all like, are you kidding? Like, we all know her. And I was like, oh, we got to get her on. Yeah, she's if you're into the roast battle scene in L.A. at all, you know who Sarah is.

That's like the I don't even know what you are of the roast battle. Like you're like the Mel Kiper Jr. slash if Mel Kiper Jr. also played. Yeah, I was really good at like defensive back. I don't know. I don't even know how to describe you. I would I would love to take the title title of the world's foremost roast battle analyst. I love doing it myself, and I think I'm pretty good at it, but I'll break down game film all day. You could do both.

You could be the first guy who's in it, but also analyzes it, too. The whole thing was amazing, and I also like when the judges also seem maybe more stoned than most of the crowd. I thought it was a great wrinkle well the very first night i was the very first battle up yeah and i made fun of david spade and i had prepared to make fun of kevin hart too but he didn't give me any notes yeah because i was gonna be like i'm sorry i can't listen to you right now because my purse is in the green room and i know your friends are there but i didn't get to talk to him and then Spade afterwards like the other day was just like I can't believe you made fun of me and I'm like

you're about to do the Rob Lowe roast like you better get ready I'm the nicest person that's gonna roast you and it's just because I was the first one see that's that's why Sarah's great whenever I do it I do not mess with the judges at all I don't antagonize because they're all way more successful than I am. Yeah. And I know they could shut me down. Like I'd be so worried if I went to Kevin Hart, he would just,

you know, he would just like, well, the Doug Williams, Jamie Foxx thing is like the worst case scenario, right? Yeah. I don't want to walk into that.

So I keep my mouth shut, but Sarah is, uh, she's very like in the moment and she'll, she'll go after the judges and it's very impressive. It's the right thing to say, you know? So how did we get, so on the one hand we have this society that has become so politically correct but politically over correct and yet the roast battle and you just

hear the worst the worst jokes and the worst words and words we're not allowed to say anymore and all this stuff and it's almost like everybody's agreed okay this is over here right it's okay which i don't know how long that stays that way did you worry about like having like a backlash to any of your jokes uh no i mean i guess i never do i mean even when i wrote on the burn which was jeff's uh tv show another one of my favorite shows we used to do this thing called roast in peace or like yeah or whatever the the it was Soon, I guess, was the last year we roasted a dead person that week. And that was my favorite because I love when someone dies. I think it's like the nicest thing you can do to them. And I know maybe I'm just really messed up.

But like when Al Davis died, I was like, oh, I don't know how he died. I'm assuming he choked. But I just, I didn't, you know, like, you know, there's always, you know, something that you can say. And I just think that's nice. That means I'm still thinking about you. And when I write a roast joke, I think it's an honor. Like, I've spent time. I know a lot about you. I care about you.

And I care to say something that will lighten the mood a little bit. Pat agrees with that. Pat was like, Pat asked me yesterday, like, why wouldn't you ever be roasted? And I was like, I can't think of anything worse. My feelings will be hurt for like 20 years. It'll be like my idea of hell. After a while, you just build an immunity to it.

That's the thing. It's almost like you're an MMA fighter who's just used to getting elbowed in the forehead. It's just pain tolerance. You know, like a piece of you dies and you no longer have that like you know that that emotional like level where you you things bother you like what was the miscarriage joke that was like the one of the worst stories i've ever heard in my life yeah so i i do the roast battle in la and you have to give notes to the other person here's all these things about me that you can use i battled one of my good

friends and uh bill actually made me recreate the the meanest moments of the battle in a pitch meeting yeah because i'm fascinated it's like i don't totally understand it yeah there's been a couple miscarriage ones my wife and i had a miscarriage and uh one of the good ones was uh when pat lost his child to a miscarriage there there was nothing funny about it, which is how Pat knew he was the father. That's a great joke. I also have, I have very sort of like tight eyes. So one person said, Pat, why are you always squinting? You look like you're staring into the sun you'll never have.

That's so great. Just harsh. And then, you know, and then you hug them afterwards. It's unbelievable. I don't know how you do it. I don't know how my wife does it. Yeah. You don't let her come anymore, right?

She came to my last one. She was there for some vicious. See, there's just like lines that I won't cross as well. What? I just watched you for four days. It seemed like you were crossing every line. Yeah, because I think that there's always a clever, tragic way to do something that isn't like just mean yeah as opposed to because i i think it's more important to write a joke that's amazing and clever and smart right that also stings but not

one that's gonna bring up craftiness yeah i like not like you're such a fucking hack yeah you're just terrible at comedy and that's like the joke yeah i remember when somebody made a joke about women not being funny as one of the roast jokes against me i don't even remember what it was that's how bad it was and they go oh she's just offended because she's a chick and i'm like no that's just hacky like i'm just upset you're offended at the lack of creativity yeah offended that you like even when i roast somebody that is not nearly as skilled in roast as I am or anywhere like success, whatever it is, I don't care who it is. As long as it's someone that I know and respect, I'll roast them because I've roasted people before that do not put any work into it. And I'm like, if I'm going to put two weeks of my life into researching you, you better be worth it. And I would assume that the jokes on

me would be worth it that's why we saw some of those unprepared people at the roast battle yeah we won't name any names but yeah i think they stood out and i just yeah i just i just think but you were saying it's such a pc world and i think comedy is the last form of free speech i hope it stays that way i really hope like the roast battle and I've always loved roasts. I mean, that was one of the, the reason I got hired by Kimmel was because he did a roast of Shaq that I wrote about on ESPN.com in 2002. And he was the only white guy literally in the building. And he came out and he did all these jokes and I praised him for a couple of paragraphs in the column and he just emailed me out of the blue.

But they, they used to have them on pay-per-view. Yeah. It was like Shaq was doing, it was like shack was doing it was like 9.99 so it was like the shack roast was first and then the emmett smith roast was second which is still the greatest hour that was fantastic that was jeff's greatest roast performance ever that was uh i think that was jamie fox doug williams yeah that was the emmett smith one that was jeff ross jeff ross did the uh uh i'd have more jokes but moose johnson stole all my shit because moose johnson had come out and he said nothing for 15 minutes like he thought it was like a cocktail party or something oh my god yeah but uh now it's

great and i i love i'm glad it's become a franchise yeah like that's the last bastion of free speech i was shocked at how pleasantly shocked at at how little negative backlash there was. It's a good thing. And the ratings went up every night, right? Oh, yeah. And then Montreal became a bigger and bigger thing.

It was a big success. Yeah, and I think as long as it's funny, you can get away with saying anything. It was a huge success last year. But it wasn't on TV, right?

But it wasn't on television. And even the girl that I, I battled this girl, Catherine Ryan, from England first. And I found her ex-husband from like eight years ago. So you didn't Google deep dives. No, I just like texted my friends from London.

Like, do you guys? Yeah, no. But I didn't even need to use anything from him. But just in case, yeah, I think it's really important. I want you to be, really important i want you to be i don't want you to know what jokes are going to be coming like ralphie should have been so prepared for fat jokes and he could have had a rebuttal every single time he might have guessed it was gonna come up at some point it was almost like he didn't know it could get personal yeah i

don't know why then he felt you could tell he was just totally betrayed by by jeff at the end could you see when you're in montreal and afterwards do you feel like it raised your profile because i felt like that oh yeah so you noticed yeah i noticed i mean so what happened i mean i'm sitting here right now that's probably pretty awesome that's that's like a very tiny um I mean, I got to meet like Blake Griffin and like so now like I love. Oh, polarizing subject. Polarizing subject in the office. No, it's. Yeah.

Trayvon and Brendan, one of our other writers. We had a healthy debate in the writer's room about whether he should be allowed to get 15 minutes of Montreal or not. Oh. Whether he paid his dues. Right. Brendan was adamant. It's a good debate. I know.

He said.on's like i don't get to just go on the clippers and shoot threes in some random november game yeah i was like not a fair comparison and went back it was good it was but he was like pretty good right he was really good and i actually got really mad at him and i was like i can't feel like oh i'm just gonna try to dunk now how would you feel about that? He was like, you should start with free throws. And I'm like, I'm already getting help from Dwight Howard on free throws. I don't need your help.

Sarah told me that she invited him to the semifinals of the roast battle tournament. Like a guest? Just to attend. I asked him, yeah, and then I wrote a tweet about it. No, no, no. And I got him to approve it first then I wrote a tweet about it. No, no, no. And I got him to approve it first. But yeah, he loved it. I said.

Yeah, she texted me and said, I invited him to the semifinals, but he couldn't make it. But that's okay. He's never been to a Final Four before. Anyway, I was like, she's roasting Blake now, too. Oh, I did the whole time we were there, too. We were at a bar and he couldn't get a drink. And I'm like, this wouldn't happen if Chris Paul was here. Like I would have a drink right now.

Like this would be so much easier. You can jump over a car. You can't get a whiskey. Like how hard is that? But he was super funny about it. Really cool. And it makes sense that you would think like somebody who's at the highest level of being an athlete would be comfortable being able to go up on

stage as long as they could like remember the beats and kind of punch it but it's basically stand-ups like at least what 50 confidence yeah 60 oh yeah i don't think he's lacking a hundred 80 yeah i mean a lot of people can write good jokes but not a lot of people can tell them you know because i was thinking the finals with you because i was a hundred percent of the bit i tried to figure out how i could bet on you actually and it turns out not a lot of uh illegal caribbean betting action on the roast battle but um but you told one joke that didn't do well and i can tell you got rattled yeah that was my first joke and uh i was like it was like the first time i was like whoa sarah she's actually she's she's human i know it was

like when dolph lundgren got started bleeding and rocky whoa, Sarah, she's actually, she's human. I know. It was like when Dolph Lundgren started bleeding in Rocky IV, and you're like, oh, my God, he's human. She's cut. The Georgian is cut. Yeah. And then I did the joke about him looking like a 49er, and that just bombed, and I was like, oh, I'm out. I'm done.

So that one, part Canadian audience. It was a misread of the audience. It seemed like the Canadians, certain American references just went right over their heads. I've been Monday morning quarterbacking it the whole time. I just got rattled and then I literally blanked. I just blanked. I couldn't remember it anymore. That's why I felt like that guy, Jimmy, who had the clipboard.

Yeah. I think props should be illegal. Yeah. Tom Brady doesn't get to just bring a fucking clipboard. Yeah. I think props should be illegal. Yeah. Tom Brady doesn't get to just bring a fucking clipboard out when he's calling plays. He will for the first four weeks this season. Oh, you just roast battle Tom Brady like that. Oh, that was so good. Sorry.

Please don't fire me. That was a good joke. No, that was a good joke. I'd never fire you. No. You're the best. Yeah. No, that was a good joke.

I'll accept that. We have a quarterback whose owner sold him out and sold away our first round pick and made him look very culpable. I bet Garoppolo's going to do so good. So you Monday morning quarterback. Yeah, I just was like, I'm like, I should have just opened. The thing with the roast battle is as a standup,

I would never go on stage with completely untested material in front of a live audience with millions of people watching like I would be you know prepared and for the other battles I have been able to run them like out loud say them out loud to friends or Pat or whoever it was like be like oh you know does this sound right oh I should change this order whatever it was and for that one I didn't and so everything was just so fresh and new in my brain. And that's part of the test, you know, and Mike won that test. And yeah, I'm like, I should have opened with he's a big film buff. That's why there's always a thick layer of it on his glasses, like anything like that. I think I could have, I should have saved the, um, the kids on the

hard drive joke for him. I had planned it for him. Yeah. But it came up with Earl. Almost like you used it too early. I used it too early. So, yeah. But that's the thing too, because it was a rebuttal.

So like if you don't use it for Earl in that case, you might not be able to use it later. Yeah, you never know. It's a chess game. Like up there, I have 12 jokes in my head. And I chose to go first because if it went to overtime, he would have to go first. Belichick would go second. Yeah. He'd want the hammer at the end, I think.

He would always go, and he goes for it on fourth down. Yeah. Yeah, but I just was like, I anticipated it. We need some nerds to figure out if it's more advantageous to go first or second. I would say second, right? Yeah, I'm the nerd who's figured it out for you absolutely oh i forgot mel caper jr yeah no yeah mel caper roaster you want you want to especially if you have like a really good closer because if somebody like i've gone first and then the other person it's like a dead heat and then they hit you with a closing punch and then you can't rebuttal it there's nothing you can do it's over the other thing i noticed i think it's effective when the sneaky rebuttal joke before the joke after they go some people are doing which technically

feels like cheating yeah but they were allowing it the whole time because the judges were stoned out of their mind i think but like you're like oh that's a great joke they're insulting comments and then you reset and you go and it's like you get a double yeah and i should have done that i had the opportunity to do that with mike after uh he said i said a joke and then uh i just it was a rebuttal but i just couldn't think of another thing to say so i just let him go i was just completely rattled by the end. I was just, my brain was mush and I couldn't think anymore. It's still a win because you made the finals. Yeah.

You became America's roast battle sweetheart. And now when you do interviews, nobody has to, they don't have to start with, so what's it like to be a woman in comedy? Now it's what's it like to be a woman in roast battle. Now it's like, what's it like to be the roast battle? And then the second part is, so what do you think of whatever? You must get that all the time.

All the time. Because Katie Nolan, who I'm friends with, that's like the go-to question for sports media. So women in sports media. Katie's just good. It doesn't fucking matter. Do you like Michelle Beadle? Yeah, who cares? They try to make them enemies.

Yeah. Ramona shelburne and i was emailing with her after that i think it was new york magazine did this huge piece about ramona who has developed like just a shitload of sources and um is a really good basketball reporter she's starting to branch out and the whole piece was basically she's a woman in the sport and it was like she's just good like she's one everyone thinks she's one of the best ones that's the angle do you get that when people find out you're a man who's into the bachelor i do what's it like to be a man what's weird is there's a lot of men in the the bachelor has now crossed over because it's so fun for men to make fun of it yeah but but you guys it's it's like a soap opera everyone's secretly in love with it i'm i'm a little tired of it i i i'm you know what i'm

tired of is is just the over-the-top racism on bachelor bachelor bachelor paradise it's unbelievable yeah it's probably our last really truly truly racist institution. There's never been a Black Bachelorette. They've had like 30. There's never been a Black Bachelorette. Every time there's on, it's always like they have one or two. And they become like the Gonzaga in the March Madness, like trying to buck the odds to get to the final four. They never make it, but the producers always tell them

they have to stay on for two episodes before they get voted off. And it's unbelievable. It's really like our last truly racist tv franchise other than like the duck dynasty and that kind of i guess maybe there's other ones how do we get pat on rose battle how do we get pat on rose battle my one of my goals for uh 2017 i was i thought he would be on it this year well yeah i honest. Yeah, I think he, especially after seeing some of the people that were on it, I think Pat, so one of my goals for 2017

is to get Pat Barker one of those 16 spots. Nice. I appreciate that. If I have to do fucking hashtags and whatever else I have to do to get Jeff Ross better pot, I don't know what I need to do.

Tell Jeff, yeah, your endorsement would go a long way. But you know what? I'm just going to go out there. I'm going to take it one roast at a time. Just keep my head down. Just keep working hard. And, you know, the good Lord willing, I'll be saying some awful shit on Comedy Central next year.

Yeah. You should totally be on them. You'll be on it next year. And we'll see. I mean, who knows what happens to Sarah last year after you've seen some Super Bowl teams they get in the super bowl they have a tough loss next year they go 5 and 11 you just don't know how they handle that big moment they're replaying it over and over again you just don't know but this could be her second year miami heat situation where she came up short the first year and now she's going to go back with revenge on the mind next year and just murder everybody

waking up at five in the morning writing very gross jokes. Or this is my Oklahoma City moment where I choked at the end but instead I'll just stop roasting altogether. And just give up. I got really close. I'll just be like, no I'm going to start sewing.

That is kind of what it did. I battle back and forth i'm not lately i'm in the camp of i kind of wish he had stuck it out one more year i do feel like he i i think what chris bosh said on my show i really think that was a huge part of it is the baggage of how close they were and how painful it was and it was like he just wanted to get away it's like a bad breakup i totally agree with that i can only imagine how hard that feels but to go to golden state like i know i mean if you can't beat them join them whoever tweeted that one of the some basketball

player tweeted that and i was just like that is it like i mean as a coming in second for me i would have rather come in eighth you know seriously yeah because it's just like you're so close and then you just choke at the end and you're like how is this happening not necessarily i mean yeah i choked i'll just say that because that's what people are gonna say anyway i'd rather just keep it out there i'd rather just keep it out choking is is is too harsh well you had you basically had four jokes yeah your that didn't work. Your opener didn't work like you thought it would. And then the 49er one was just a coaching miscalculation.

Yeah. I think that's part of the Rose battle. Four is such a small sample size. It's so hard. Like the best baseball players on earth go 0 for 4 all the time. Yeah. Like every other game.

And she went 2 for 4. Yeah. That guy Mike was really good though. Oh yeah. He's so good. You had to go four for four to beat Mike I feel like. Oh for sure. I was anticipating it going into overtime and that's why I chose to go first.

Because when I went against Sam I went first and then that's why I killed it. Like we went to overtime and when I said the joke about I'm just like your real mom. I'm not going to think about you after five minutes uh you know like that was great and that closed it out and then there was nothing he could do to come back from that so um do you want to give us do you want to give us your atlanta falcons before we go quickly your your one minute atlanta falcons preview my one minute atlanta falcons preview like what I think is going to happen this year? Oh my God.

Well, I really hope that Julio stays healthy the whole year. I hope Matt Ryan. Do you like Matt Ryan? Are you thumbs up, thumbs down, thumbs sideways? Sideways at this point. I don't know if it's in it. It's the QB that inspires the most ambivalence of any expensive QB with the fans like if you

insult matt rhino falcons fan yeah they don't defend them they don't join in they're just kind of they don't know what to do yeah it's like well you you know he's matt ryan he you know yeah it's not often you get like hardcore nfl fans who like you insult their team and they're like i can see your point of view. Right. That's reasonable. Those are some fair amount of points. Yeah.

That's why we had to pump in sound because we're all just like, oh, OK, that's fine. We understand that loss. Somehow you didn't lose your first round pick for that one. Yeah, I know. What's worse, sound pumping or like some balls that naturally deflated? Don't get me started. I got it. I mean, also videotaping practices.

Do you have opinions on that? I'm fine with it now. I think Brady's gonna be in the log cabin just getting madder and madder and he's in the middle of nowhere. The last time they did this, he won a Super Bowl the next year. This whole sports is making Tom Brady mad.

It's just gonna be him and Westbrook going completely insane, like cyborg mode. Swearing revenge on everybody. That's what going to be him and Westbrook going completely insane, like cyborg mode. And just, yeah, swearing revenge on everybody. That's what I'm hoping happens with Westbrook. I'm really hoping that. Except when Brady gets mad, he channels it into success and teamwork and winning. And Westbrook is going to channel it into field goal attempts. Oh, I love it.

And offensive charges. Well, I think it's going to be better for him. That's my hope, anyway. When I was watching them in the finals the whole time, I was like, like well there's no captain like there's two chiefs and not enough indians and i felt i feel like there needs to be a chief you have to have a lebron on the team and you know it's going to be weird for him to be in golden state because there are a lot of alpha dogs yeah and i've i mean i don't know we'll see i think clay thlay Thompson is also the best player on that team. It's like Jeff Ross in the roast battle.

You know who the stoned off-dog judge is. Yeah, Ross. Ross is the, he's the LeBron of the roast world for sure. We wrote, Jeff and I wrote jokes. No, because LeBron can act. They have basically the same hairline. Jeff and I wrote jokes for Jimmy for the AMAs for two straight years in like the middle of last decade. Wow.

And I've never seen anything like it. Because it would be like 10 o'clock. You'd have to just give him enormous amounts of food. He would get stoned right before. He would eat like you know 17 chicken parms and then would proceed to write 90 minutes of you know and come up with all these jokes everyone else is in like a coma yeah well that's because jeff doesn't start working until way later after everybody else has been there he's like on a new zealand sleep zone cycle or

something yeah when we wrote on the burn we would get at 10. He would come in at noon and then didn't like anything until he was stoned about 4. Right. And then he's like, now let's get started. And you're like, we have to go home, Jeff. What's happening? He should live in Alaska or somewhere

without daylight. Alright, Sarah. You want to plug anything? No, just roast battle. Sarah Tiana on Twitter. somewhere without daylight. All right, Sarah. You want to plug anything? No, just roast battle. Sarah Tiana on Twitter. We have to figure out stuff for you to do. Yeah, I'm a huge fan of you and your show.

Well, thank you. Anything that I could possibly do here is an honor. You're very beloved on the Any Given Wednesday premises. Pat Barker next year, 2017. Make it happen. Start training. Make that hashtag. Start training. Make that hashtag. Barker 2017. I love it. 2017. Yeah Barker 2017.

Let's hashtag that. Somebody who added some sort of mean joke to it. Yeah please if you have to roast me in the process go for it. Yeah roast Pat with your hashtag. Fat Barker 2017. Hashtag Fat Barker 2017. She's a natural. That will start trending. Well that's more likely to trend than Pat Barker 2017 She's a natural

And that will start trending Well that's more likely to trend than Pat Barker Yeah I'll go by the name Fat Barker If it gets me on television I'm not above that Thanks to Sonos The smart speaker system that streams All of your favorite music to any room

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including Weed Round with Seth Rogen and Ricky Williams. And that's it. Enjoy the weekend. We have two podcasts coming next week, so enjoy that. And goodbye, A-Rod. Take care. Anytime y'all want to see me again, rewind this track right here. Close your eyes.

And picture me rolling