The Bill Simmons Podcast - U.S. Soccer, Winter Olympics, Paul Pierce, and Boston Sports Media Shenanigans With Rob Stone, JackO, Bill's Dad, and Kirk Minihane (Ep. 325)

Episode Date: February 12, 2018

HBO and The Ringer's Bill Simmons is joined by Fox Sports host Rob Stone to discuss the new U.S. Soccer president (6:00). Then, JackO joins to give a full update on all the happenings of the Winter Olympics (26:00). Then, Bill's dad hops on the line to give his takeaways from Paul Pierce's jersey retirement in Boston (45:00). And finally, Boston radio host Kirk Minihane runs through the hottest story lines and the shifting culture in Boston sports (1:01:00). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Today's episode of the Bill Simmons podcast on the ringer podcast network brought to you by ZipRecruiter, our 2018 presenting sponsor and your own personal scouting department. ZipRecruiter uses its powerful technology to distribute your job to over 100 of the web's leading job boards, then identifies the right people with the right experience, matches them and invites them to apply to your job. It's like having Bill Belichick scanning talent for you. Oh yeah. My listeners can try it for free

at ziprecruiter.com slash BS. Meanwhile, SeatGeek is the best app for buying and selling tickets to sporting events, concerts, and more for $20 off your first SeatGeek purchase. On any game or sporting event, you know what to do. Just use promo code BS. NBA fans,. From right now through All-Star weekend, all you have to do is use promo

code ALLSTAR for $30 off any NBA purchase for any remaining game this season. Wow. Download the Seat Geek app or go right to SeatGeek.com. Finally, Rocket Mortgage by Quicken Loans wants to help you whether you're looking to buy your first home or your 10th. They'll give you a transparent online process and the confidence to make an informed decision. Get a real mortgage approval in minutes. Adjust the rate and length of your loan in real time. To get started, go to rocketmortgage.com slash Bill Simmons. Sorry about that. Equal housing lender licensed in all 50 states. NMLS, consumeraccess.org, number 3030. If you haven't

heard, we revamped the Ringer MBA show Monday. He checked with John Gonzalez. He zooms around the Ringer universe and talks to a bunch of our people. Really fun way to start the week and dive into some NBA stuff. And then on Fridays, last Friday, we launched draft class with Kevin O'Connor and Jonathan Jarks. And if you care about the upcoming NBA draft, and I don't know why you wouldn't. Lots of good stuff in there.

They're gonna be doing that every Friday throughout the season. And by the way, one shining podcast with Tate Frazier and Mark Titus. They're doing two a week. Might even up it to like two and a half a week. Tate, what's the biggest college basketball story of the weekend?

Trey Young, the media's turned on him. The world's turned on him, actually. This is great. I hope he falls to like number 10. Yes. It'll be awesome. And then all of a sudden, now that he won't have three guys going against him,

he'll have space. He's got the Orlando Magic. They're going to draft him. You think so? We think so. We believe. The Orlando Magic? Well, they're going to be in the top three.

Exactly. They're going to go for it. They still love Trey Young. So we have a rollicking podcast today. We're going to call Rob Stone because U.S. soccer presidency just changed hands. Wild election. Want to find out from him what happened there. Jacko, my buddy, is going to give us a Winter Olympics report. My dad went to Paul Pierce night. He's going to give us a report for that. And then

Boston radio personality, Kirk Minahan from The Morning Show, Kirk and Callahan, is calling in for the first time. We're going to talk about a lot of Boston sports stuff, a lot of media stuff. That's all coming up first, Pearl June. All right. My buddy Rob Stone's on the line. You know him as the handsome face of U.S. soccer. Well, maybe you don't know him as that, but that's how I know him. He's my handsome face of U.S. soccer. We had a big election this weekend, and the candidate I was rooting for, Kathy Carter, did not win. The person that did win was the number two of the president, Sunil Gulati,

who had been in charge for over a decade and who nobody was happy with anymore. And somehow his right-hand man won the election. And people are confused. People are bummed out. What have you been able to find out? Including you. I'm very bummed out.

Yeah, it's just like, I don't know. I just would have liked a different voice, but make me feel better about this. Hold on. Hold on. I'm going to make you feel better about this. All right. And I'm not, I'm not speaking as a puppet or anything, but we're in the, number one, we're in the trust tree, right? We're in the trust tree. You can, all right. We were trusting each other. So your opening tweet came in a little hot, came in a little harsh on Carlos Cadero.

I think a lot of people felt that way. I know I slightly did, but I know who you are, and I just love your passion for life and sports. And then you clearly softened it at the end. And I think it's a little unfair to say it's his right-hand man, it's his henchman. But I get it. I get it when you just look at that quick photograph of, hey, he's been involved with U.S. soccer, and he's been the guy underneath Neil Galati for a while.

Yes, that is clear to make that type of assumption. But then when you look into it a little bit further, you also have to realize that Cordero announced his candidacy to run for president before, quote-unquote, his boss, Sunil Gulati, said he wasn't going to run. And if anything, that created some friction between the two personalities that I'm not sure has really been fully sorted out since. So Cordero is a guy who has been preaching change internally for a long time and has been doing some things

behind the scenes that you and I really wouldn't be fully privy to see because with the way U.S. soccer is currently, you only really hear from a couple figurehead type people, be it the national team coaches and the president here and there. So to say that he's just going to be a clone of Sunil Ghalati, I think is really far off. And I spoke with Carlos Cadero yesterday, and he made that pretty clear. This wasn't taking shots at Sunil. I think people also really forget how far U.S. soccer has come in really a short time. People are angry right now.

Nerves are frayed. And just emotions have been stirred up to a point that I've never seen it before. And I think that's good. But I think in the midst of all this, people are losing sight of just how much good Sunil Gulati really did for U.S. soccer, how MLS was kept afloat at a time when it was given its last rites. The fact that we now care this much about U.S. soccer, Bill, I think is a testament that Sunil Gulatiarian Company has done a lot of things right. Because you and I were talking the other day.

I mean, it's not too long ago where I was dragging you to a soccer game. It's true. Pulling you to old Foxborough and, you know, watching the game on the field with you. Like, come on, man, just come. And you're like, no, man, there must be some type of Patriots something hanging on or maybe the Celtics are doing a spring camp or whatever. You know, I was dragging you. And now, of course, being a parent and your daughter's so involved in it,

you care. You care about it. And I think that's a big sign that U.S. soccer has grown. Cordero's got a lot of good ideas. He knows a lot of things that are wrong. And some of the things that you and I will touch on in a second are things that bother you with the youth system and what's going on

with the pros and our men's national team and our women's national team. There's a lot of stuff going on, but he's got a lot of answers, but he's got a lot of plans of action, and we're only, what, about 48 hours into this?

And the biggest one is making sure that the North American joint bid to host the 2026 World Cup is successful. And I know there are some people out there who got all bent out of shape about it, like, why is that the most important thing? Well, it's important because it's immediate. You know, the final bid is due within weeks. Canada, Mexico, and the U.S. have to continue to strengthen this because there's a political climate out there that I think is impacting this potential vote. But that is a pure moneymaker, and people may get upset, Bill, saying, like, I want our teams to be better on the field. Well, guess how you get better on the field?

You have more money to spend, right? And you have more money not just to spend on that team and sexy new uniforms and let's play in bigger stadiums and let's have more marketing, but now you have more money to spend on the grassroots and more money to spend on coaching and scouting and all the things that go into having this quote unquote successful team, this 1% of U.S. soccer that you see every four years for a men's World Cup, every four years for a women's World Cup.

As you know, there's so much more that goes involved into it. And 2026 World Cup in the United States as part of a joint bid with Mexico and Canada is a money-making machine for U.S. soccer, for soccer, you know, just in parentheses, in general, in the United States, because the commercial interest is going to be absolutely, absolutely off the charts. So that's kind of priority number one, that he wants to get this budget cranked up, like doubled, like to the point where England and Germany, that we're competing dollar for dollar with them.

Because right now, as big of a country as we are compared to England and Germany, we're getting tremendously outspent by their soccer federation. And that's like a quick win for him, too. And he's a business guy, right? You know, in the Goldman Sachs background. And another thing I think people get really bent out of shape about is this, like, it's a business guy. It is a business.

You know, I know it says it's a nonprofit, but you're kidding yourself if you don't think U.S. soccer is a business. They want to be in the business of making money, of being profitable, of furthering the growth of this sport, and obviously getting to a World Cup. And I love the fact that we expect our men's team to get to a World Cup. And when we don't, it's an abysmal failure. And people are angry and ready to, you know, burn down soccer fields in the name of, you know, let's get us back.

And how come we can't be as good as Germany? I thought Kathy Carter was going to win. And I read a lot about this election over the last couple of weeks. It was kind of compelling, actually, some of the coverage. It seems like the two things that killed her. One was that, as you said, Cordero, he ran for the presidency before Sunil stepped down, which was a clear break and a clear way for him to say, I'm not this guy's puppet. Now, if Sean Fantasy, the Ringer editor in chief, ran for my job before we had talked about it, I would have him murdered. So I can only imagine how Sunil Gulati felt. But these, you know, the players count for 24.5% and this counts for this. And the fact that it doesn't seem like she had the players vote because the women's team didn't feel like she was in their corner the last 10 years.

And that seemed like a real thing. And that's crazy to think that the only female candidate didn't have the support of the women's team, but but it seems like that's what happened. What did you hear about that? Well, there were two female candidates. Hope Solo was also. Oh, I forget. Wow.

But nobody thought Hope Solo was going to win. There were four candidates that actually had a chance. I agree. All right, a couple quick points on that. Kathy Carter, and you know her, and I've met her, is an incredibly intelligent, compassionate executive. She played the game at a high level. She's a really good person, and she's done a ton for the growth of this sport in our country, and I hope she will continue to do that as she transitions back to her job.

And you know what? I hope she continues down the road, as I hope to see with a lot of these candidates, that they remain involved, that they still want this change, that they still want to be active. And this wasn't a three-month hurrah, and boy, I hope I can go from whatever position I am into U.S. soccer president.

If you're legit about it, stick around. And I bet at the next cycle, you're probably going to get some more votes and you're going to get some more recognition. So for Kathy, I don't think she was ever able to fully separate herself from the old establishment. Carlos Federo was inside QSI. I mean, he was as close to the old establishment as you could get with just a snapshot. And Kathy wasn't that close. But she got pegged as she was and she

could never shake it. However, her and her people went about it. She was unable to ever kind of shake that, that thought concept with, with some of the voters out there. And I think that hurt, uh, as far as, you know, the athlete council, which really is really is a big talking point because for years and years, people in soccer have been saying the athletes don't have enough voice. We're being run by all these people who are forcing these minimal salaries upon them and these requests for marketing. You guys are being put in smaller hotels with other nations are in bigger hotels and the travel, this and that. Well, finally, the athletes, the players,

are having a word and are having a say. And I think that's why they came together, Bill, and said, let's do this as a block vote. Let's not have our power, our 20% of this vote, our power be splintered. Let's come together and see if there is a candidate that we can all come behind and i spoke with stew holden yesterday he's kind of become this mouthpiece and look he's a long time friend

he's a work colleague of mine as well and he said you know we came together and we all kind of voted you're like hey let's just see where we sit right now yeah and you know one you know here's your number one here's your number two and And basically it was clear from just that initial first vote that there were, you know, two to three candidates that had a majority of everybody's weight behind them. And they said, all to this conclusion of, let's have one strong vote if there is this one person that either is our number one or we could get behind as, all right, you know what, that would have been my backup or that would have been my third pick, but I'm still good with it. You know, we've all had those, right? I've had people, I'm like, hey, I'm good either way with this cat. But the third one, no thank you. So I think the athletes said, let's have a strong word.

And they came behind Cordero and Kathy Carter was right there. She was second place in the athlete's mind as well. So, you know, Kathy ran a good campaign, but not good enough. And I think her message

got a little bit lost. Yeah, I mean, she lost the players. When you read the election, they did like three different ballots. And the one that was up in the air was the 24-whatever percent of the players. And once they swung the Cordero, it was a wrap. That was it.

Yeah, swung the vote. I mean, they were Ohio, right? They were the Midwest. They were the states that you had to win that were either blue or red. And I don't know what they are. And the Athletes Council went with Cordero. So the one thing, the Cordero thing worries me for a variety of reasons. And, you know, I guess the shame of it is that there wasn't that one fresh voice

that we could point to and be like, okay, that person has no baggage. They're just going to come in and they're going to do the things I want them to do, which makes it like every other election we've ever had in this country. But the one thing that he's pretty passionate about, he came from Miami, came from a poor background. He's obviously, he's a minority and he's really passionate about how do we get more people playing soccer? How do we take care of lower class players? How do we take care of lower class players? How do we take care of poor kids, disadvantaged kids? How do we get them the same coaching?

This is something that I'm really passionate about because it's one of the reasons we started my daughter's club team with our coach, Jacob Tadella, that we have 33% scholarship kids on the, on, uh, on my daughter's team. And we just, it's, it's not something that's very common. And what's happening is the higher you go in youth soccer, at some point you got to fork up, you know, 3000 bucks for scholarships, jerseys, referee fees, tournament fees. Sometimes it can be 3,,500 bucks some people don't have it and he seems pretty committed to pouring money into youth soccer and making it so that it's not a

haves versus have-nots situation you talked to him did he talk about that oh yeah that that in coaching which are kind of hand in hand yes in this conversation, were one of the first things that came up. And it brought up an analogy to me. Do you remember the elections a couple of years ago for, I think it was the mayor of Manhattan? Yeah. And they had the debate. And there was that one guy with the fantastic mustache and facial hair. And his whole platform was, the rent's too damn high.

Right? The rent is too damn high, and I can't get enough of the rent. It's too damn high, guy. Well, guess what? There are elements of soccer in this country that are just too damn high, and getting your coaching license is too damn expensive.

And coaches will tell you that, and Carlos said that to me as well. You know, to get your A coaching license, which is the top level, it's essentially $5,000. You've got to take time off. You've got to travel. If you go to Germany, it's 600 euros, under

$1,000. So why is it five, maybe even sometimes six times more expensive to be a premier coach, just to get that piece of paper, that license in America than Germany. And by the way, you left out... That's wrong. You left out that it takes years, years to get it.

It's not like you just show up to get your A coach. You know, there is a provision, you know, former national team players are allowed to jump several levels. I can't remember if they're allowed to go right to the B level or to the B testing level. But there is something like that to encourage, hey, former players, let's stay in coaching. You already have a lot of knowledge and experience.

Let's make it easier for you. So that is an intelligent move. But the cost is too much. And they realize that. And they know they need to subsidize this more. And it kind of goes back to that budget, you know, that they just don't have enough money to provide this growth and this investment in the grassroots. So they know that they need to load up. They need to amplify their budget, you know, several times more than where it is right now so that they can start helping not just coaching but the grassroots.

And that's your point. These underserved communities that maybe don't even fall under the U.S. soccer umbrella, they're saying why. I don't know. You gave me this great example of Idaho, right? And there's all these soccer pockets in Idaho. It really warms my heart that you think of Idaho now and and you can say, hell yeah, there's good soccer there, and there's passionate play, and there's kids that want to go, and parents that want to coach.

But some of them don't fall under the U.S. soccer umbrella. And he said, why? And it's because it's too damn expensive. And so they want to find ways to subsidize these clubs, to make it easier so they don't have to pay all these things. Look, when you're traveling to Vegas or Phoenix or L.A. or wherever the hell you're going for these soccer tournaments, look, some of that's going to be you're going to have to eat some of that, right?

We as parents understand that. But there needs to be a way to make that more palatable by maybe lowering your registration fees or taking your registration fees and putting it almost like in a pool and letting that pool grow. Wait, hold on. It gets so much seedier than that because they'll do like the three day weekends where your team only plays like,

yeah, because they're all in business with the hotels. It's basically a money machine. They almost need, my recommendation for him would be, there almost needs to be a commissioner of youth soccer that looks out for this stuff. Because not only are you talking about, they can't find enough coaches,

they can't take care of poor kids. There's a huge disparity between, you know, the top five states with soccer. Like the 25th best team in Southern California would be the best team in Indiana. That doesn't make any sense. And then on top of it, the disparity between men and women,

or boys and girls, I should say, but there's a lot of resources, all the scholarships slash coaching, whatever extra stuff, finding fields in big cities, stuff like that. That stuff always skews toward the boys. That's the biggest reason we started our club, because the girls are treated like second-class citizens in California. They get shitty fields.

I haven't personally seen that. I've got girls, but they don't play soccer right now. I back you up on how difficult it is to find fields uh fields coaching um resources but yeah you see it like you know i mean look i grew up spoiled in in connecticut like you did right yeah and i had no idea of the soccer struggles out there you know i had full fields when i was a kid. You're like, if I had a practice, we were practicing on a full field. And I'm talking as, you know, as a fifth grader, a sixth grader, seventh, eighth grader, right? My son goes to training and he plays with the LA Galaxy team. And it's like three teams on three quarters of a field and there's no goals to be seen. And that's fine. You don't always need a goal. You don't always need all the space.

And you know, sometimes you need less space to become a better player to be honest, but sometimes it's nice to kind of let the horses run, right. And can let the legs go and you guys got some space and it's so hard. And I mean, I think that's an LA thing. No, but it's, it's all over the place though. Cause like New York, once it gets to the winter, you're trying to find gyms and weird places. You're going to the bubble.

You're going to the tennis courts or something. But at least they're playing. At least they're looking for those alternatives. But you're right. Look, there's so much talent here in California. And you can say the same in Florida and Texas and Arizona. Guess what? It's the same thing.

It's the same thing for baseball. It's the same thing. It's the same thing for baseball. It's the same thing for football. You know, those outdoor sports, you know, you're just going to, out of numbers, out of sheer numbers, and the fact that they can play year-round outside, you're going to have more talent traditionally coming to those areas. But he recognizes this. We all do. You know, this is something that, like, punches you in the head, though. This is obvious. This is, you know, there's no grace to this one. And they've got the board of directors and they've got people underneath it that this falls under their umbrella. And I think right now, everybody realizes that more focus, more money needs to be spent on solving that

problem. There's not a magic bullet out there where you just go, well, of course, let me just write a paycheck to this guy. But it's also getting corporate involvement and commercial interest involved. Let's name a company and say, hey, guess what? You're our new U.S. You three companies are in charge of U.S. youth soccer and funding it. And how can we do it? What's going to make it? Let's have you guys host this tournament in St. Louis.

You guys host this one in Texas. You guys host this one in Texas. You guys host this one in Phoenix. And let's find a way to bring some of these underprivileged clubs to an underprivileged club tournament, you know, where people can actually see and say, holy cow, there's some great talent out here with a little more coaching or a little more seasoning. Boom.

And it's almost overwhelming. Like I'm breathing in a bag sometimes, you know, because of how vast our country is and how many kids are playing it and how many people really care about it now, which was, which really wasn't the case not too far, not too far ago. Last question. Where does the money come from? Sponsors? How does he plan on raising it? He's got the business background. Where do we get more money to throw into youth soccer? Because I feel like- You got to get more commercial interest. You have to get more commercial interest.

And I think a lot of that tied in with World Cup 2026. So if you've got this great, shiny unicorn lurking out there in 2026, that you can kind of continue to push these commercial entities towards it. Look, you're going to want to be a part of this now. Come 2026, this thing is going to blow the roof off. I think that's why he's saying this is such a priority, and obviously because it's time-sensitive as well. I think that serves as a massive, massive launch pad. And look, we're going to find out, Phil, what date is it?

June 13th, Wednesday? June 13th. Wednesday, June 13th is the FIFA Congress. It's the day before the World Cup starts. And then the World Cup starts this summer, where we will find out if it's going to be this North American joint bid or Morocco to host the 2026 World Cup. It's either going to be a fantastic way to start off the World Cup, or it's going to be an absolute soccer punch uh to american and

north american soccer fans if the world cup isn't coming our way in 2026 uh last question 30 seconds explain why america is actually going to care about the world cup you have 30 seconds uh this one care about it because it's it's the biggest best sporting event on the planet right now i don't care what you say about Olympics. And if there's one country that can handle their home country not being in the World Cup, it's the melting pot of the United States. I have people in my little pony town in Manhattan Beach that can't wait to see what Spain's going to do. And talking already about Germany and England, yes, they hurt deep inside that the U.S. isn't there,

but they still have these ties, some patriotic ties to these other countries. Plus, it's just such a great event to watch. And once you get hooked, you're not leaving the World Cup, whether your country's in it or not. Yeah. And by the way, we know these stars. It's going to over-deliver.

It's absolutely going to over-deliver. I agree with you because we know. People have lowered the bar so much. But we know the stars better than we did four years ago. People know who Suarez is. He's not just a biter. People have lowered the bar so much. But we know the stars better than we did four years ago. People know who Suarez is. He's not just a biter. We're messy.

Ronaldo, Neymar are fine, and they're all going to be at the World Cup. I mean, why would you? I'm in. How many Olympians did you know starting, I don't know, a week ago, right? Three. You start pumping the profiles, and you're going to see these the best in the world. Yeah. You're going to go watch. By the way, I know we don't have a team that this is why God created gambling. That's all I'm going to say. There's going to be odds on every team. Pick one and you have a country for two weeks. Rob Stone, we have to go. I love you. I'll talk to you soon.

I love you more. All right. For over 30 years, Just For Men has created easy, great care solutions for men. And now Just For Men is providing a hair regrowth solution as well, formulated with the number one dermatologist-recommended ingredient proven to regrow hair, 5% minoxidil. Hair regrowth from Just For Men is an easy-to-use topical solution that's clinically proven to help regrow hair. It reactivates hair follicles to simulate regrowth. Perfect for men with thinning hair. Plus with a unique precision spray applicator. This is hair regrowth made easy, simply spray and sit back, move on, start winning over thinning. Look for one and three month supplies of hair regrowth in the shave aisle, or just visit

hairregrowth.com and use promo code regrowth2525 to get 25% off your purchase. That's hairregrowth.com and use promo code regrowth25 for 25% off. All right, on the line, our Winter Olympics correspondent, Jack O. How are you, buddy? Good. Good, my friend. How are you? Not a lot of people in my life are watching the Winter Olympics right now. Really? And that's when I turned to my college roommate, my friend of 30 years, and the last man on earth who actually cares about the Winter Olympics, Jack O.

What have you been watching? Care is a strong word, but I guess as a child of the cold war, you know, I still have a little pang for the Olympics. Okay. Harkens back to the old days when we would go up against the Soviet union. So, um,

yeah, I've watched probably an inordinate amount of Olympics compared to your average, uh, average person, I suppose. My, my kids are at an age where they're into it.

And it's, you know, my daughter, especially my younger daughter, who's six and change. I don't know if she picked it up at school or what, but she was all gung-ho to watch the opening ceremonies. She's been gung-ho to watch the Olympics. So Saturday was a rainy day when my wife took my older daughter off to soccer. My younger daughter and I watched a ridiculous amount of Olympics and crazy sports that obviously I would normally have zero interest in. Give me some highlights.

Well, I've watched way too much curling. Over the weekend, they show a lot of curling. No disrespect to curlers intended, but I think if it's an activity you can do while drinking a beer, it should not be an Olympic sport.

And you could totally, like, drink a beer while you're curling the stone and sliding it down the ice. You know, I understand there's strategy involved and some degree of skill, I guess. But, like, you know, they have mixed doubles curling now. And I was saying to my wife, like, I've never curled in my life, and I feel like she and I could start training for 2022 in Beijing. Would you please? Can you do that for us? Actually, curling would be so right up your alley because I've participated in any number of bar sports with you, like shuffleboard and your competitive nature and your strategy

and your competitiveness. You would totally, totally get into that. I think this is a perfect thing for the ringer. I think this should be, you should start now training for 2022 in Beijing to represent the US of A in curling. I'm glad you can vouch for me on this. Cause I, you know, the audience doesn't know. I don't brag about it. It's not something, you know, I'll talk about it when it comes up, but I am one of the great, uh, non-moving athletes of all time. One of the great hand-eye coordination and alcohol are the only two things involved. I'm your guy. I'm the person you want for whatever.

And I guarantee, like, I watched some feature about this brother and sister team that represented us poorly, I might add, in mixed doubles curling. And they grew up in Wisconsin, and they have curling clubs. So if I lived in Wisconsin or grew up in Wisconsin, I would totally frequent the curling club and go down and hoist a few beers and slide a few stones. I would totally be down for that. I'm surprised we didn't think to do that in college. I know. It's disappointing.

Worcester should have a curling club. There should be, like, a Holy Cross curling club is what should really develop from this Olympic experience. Or the campus on the hill in Worcester College curling club. So it's not to offend anybody. Yeah. What else do you have? So you got curling you loved.

Yeah. Then, you know, you have the snowboarding. And the snowboarding, and the snowboarding is phenomenal to watch, and they make it look easy, and obviously it's impossible, but I mean, when you watch these kids, and they're all kids that do it, I mean, you can literally smell the weed, like, coming

through your TV. So I totally respect that, because you couldn't have more of a stoner sport than snowboarding, and, you know, sometimes they'll take their helmet off, and their iPod buds pop out. So they're like, listen, this is a tunage while they're snowboarding. I love that sport.

You get an Olympic medal for that. And I'm convinced that they put these sports in the Olympics so the U.S. could win more medals. No question. Who else could possibly be good at this? I know there's other countries that compete. Canada's decent. But I mean, that's a tailor-made for the U.S.

Yeah, I'm with you. It's amazing video games haven't become a sport. It's true. Well, that'll probably be in the next one. Eventually, they'll have esports. And, you know, the Winter Olympics, unlike the Summer Olympics, somebody pointed this out on Twitter, but I have a similar thought. Like, it's hard for NBC to do these soft profile, soft focus profiles

because there's not really that many, like, hard luck stories coming out of the Winter Olympics because these kids that are snowboarders, it's like, you know, they had the smallest house

in Aspen. It was a lot for him to overcome, you know, because they got so much money to be involved in, like, skiing or snowboarding. So it's not like, you know, a hardscrabble existence that you really can't, like, milk these heartstrings it's not like you know a hard scrabble existence

and you really can't like milk these heartstrings for these stories you know bobby almost quit snowboarding after he lost his weed connection when he was 15 couldn't find it anywhere in his neighborhood and then he met john yeah and i've watched a ridiculous amount of luge and luge fascinates me at so many different levels because i'm like you know this american guy won a silver medal and it's the first ever like single luge medal that we've earned yeah and you know basically i'm like how does one become like a luger in america like how do you get into luge and i guess you basically have to grow up in lake placid or salt lake now where there's like an olympic complex and you watch the olympics and you're like i'd like to try that you

start losing because they have like these outfits and these boots and i'm the Olympics and you're like, I'd like to try that. You start lugeing because they have like these outfits and these boots. And I'm like, where do you go? Like if my kid wants to play basketball or soccer, I can go buy basketball shoes or soccer cleats. But like, where do I go get like a luge outfit? Like, how do you get into luge? How do you pick that up? I was actually thinking the funniest SNL sketch of the year, which wouldn't be a hard bar

to climb with some of the shows they've had. But it should be somebody who's a loser and he just won the silver. But you know those pants that they wear? The guy just has like an 18-inch cock. And it's just like, and everyone at the party is trying to pretend that they're not just completely horrified by this guy. But those pants are just, you see everything.

And plus they're lying on their back with their crotch coming at you. It's kind of terrifying. Some uncomfortable camera angles, no question about it. I watched- And the Europeans are into it. Like the Germans are great at luge. Yeah. And they're, you know, the guy who's like the luge commentator,

who I guess was a former luger. And, you know, he goes on the World Cup former luger and he you know he goes on the world cup circuit so that you know they have the olympics but they also have events leading up to the olympics over the course of a year or years so he like follows this obviously and you know he has it down to like the micro degree of you know where the line should be and how you control it and it looks like you're just you know careening out control. But there is some semblance of strategy and control to it. It's just insane to me. They go like 85 miles an hour on your back on ice.

That's crazy. I watched yesterday when the guy who had the lead, he screwed up his last ride, and it won the gold for somebody else. And it went from this guy was going to win the gold to he screwed up going around this one turn and didn't medal but he was going around I have no idea what's happening but the announcers understood every turn

made it through turn 5 oh great and turn 6 and then he hit turn 12 and his sled hit the side and it was like a nudge like you and I would barely notice it and we'd think it was fine. And these guys were like, oh, what a mistake! Oh!

And it was like he just barely grazed the side and this is the difference between the gold and fourth place for this guy. That's when the Olympics are really fun. I watched one thing today and it was the women's luge and it was an American and they said she had a great first run

and said she was really beating herself up after her second run. So then they showed her times, and her first run was 46.5 seconds. Yeah. And then her second run was 46.9. She's like hitting herself in the head because she was four-tenths of a second, half a second slower yeah come on get your shit together come on how dare you you're embarrassing the sport of luge so it's just it's just incredible i like the pairs the pairs figure skating i like trying to figure out

one if they've ever had sex and then two how many times before they decided to just be friends or three if it was never on the table for one reason or another. Because there's a couple where they clearly, there's some cutting edge potential. Right. Where they're just long hours. They started out hating each other, but then, you know, in the hotel room one night. There's a couple things that fascinated me about ice skating. Like, you know, how do they decide if you, or how does one decide if you're going to be a

pairs figure skater or an ice dancer? I don't know. There's more like jumping and things, right? They throw you and there's jumps and so maybe they're like, maybe ice dancing's good for you. Tate, do you know the answer to that one? How do they decide, Tate?

I don't know. I can look it up. I think it's personal choice. Tate, would you rather be a pair skater or an ice dancer? Those are going to be two no's for me. Tate's out. So they've had this team competition now because I think ice skating is really like

a humongous, figure skating is a humongous seller on the Olympics. Because I think it brings in females that are not a normal sports demographic necessarily. And ever since the Nancy Kerrigan, Tonya Harding thing, like, you know, figure skating, you can't get enough of that. So now they've added this team competition that never existed before. So they have, it's like the top 10 teams.

And if you come in first, you get 10 points. If you come in 10th, you get one point. They add all the points together for the different, like, men's, women's, pairs, dance, whatever. So that was the only thing that was on the other night, and I'm watching it. And they had a pairs team from China. And the Chinese guy was the biggest, the male portion of the figure skating pair, was the biggest figure skater I've ever seen in my life. This guy could have played defensive line for the Raiders. He was so big.

This big, hulking guy on figure skates was just fascinating to me. I'm like, I need more of this humongous Chinese guy that's probably on every steroid there is. And then I'm like, he's going to toss his pair, his co-competitor or whatever, whatever they call the other half of the pair, he's going to toss her and she's going to hit the ceiling because this guy can bench, like, 700 pounds. He's going to throw her like,

that's going to be a deduction. Cause he hit, she hit the ceiling on the throw. It's like the, the all-star at Olympics has come to life. This guy was such a monster. I was like, my God, look at the size of that guy. I couldn't believe it. I also love rare for the figure skating world, I think. Yeah. There are some other fun stuff with the winter Olympics. Like the, the announcers there are some other fun stuff with the Winter Olympics, like the announcers that get assigned to the thing, where it's like, one of them was Terry Gannon, who's like a college basketball guy.

Right. And he's like, all right, we're here with the mixed snowboarder or whatever. And it's like, how did Terry Gannon get involved in this? It's pretty funny. Yeah, they have... There's a guy that normally does NFL, and he was doing the luge. was like the uh the sideline reporter for the luge yeah when do you start preparing for that it's like seven weeks ago it's like bob do you start preparing for your luge sideline reporting yet yeah i just started going on the websites uh you have the analyst who's like

a former luger or a former snowboarder and this is their entire life like they they spend you know all their time in europe and they're going on the world cup circuit yeah and um and doing everything and so they they like live and breathe this stuff but when you have the casual announcer who just parachutes in from like you say college basketball or football or whatever yeah it's it's insanity like you're right how do you start how do you start picking up on luge terminology i also like that costas just refused to basically refuse to go they've been diplomatic that Costas just refused to, basically refused to go. Yeah, that's crazy. They've been diplomatic about it, but he didn't want to go.

He was like the modern-day Jim McKay. I know. He was going to be like the face of the Olympics. You can't beg off of that. Now they have Mike Tirico. Mike Tirico's like, Bob, you've had such a good run. I just don't think you should go to this one. Go out on top, Bob. Although, you know, it might have been a good run. I just don't think you should go to this one. Go out on top, Bob.

Although, you know, it might have been a good call by Costas because it seems like this Olympics, it's like 40 below. Like they've had to cancel events because it's too cold. Yeah, too windy. Sounds awful. The snowboard, you know, the wind I felt really impacted the snowboard because these people would like jump off the second jump and the wind would take them and there was just no prayer to land it.

Couldn't stick the landing. Couldn't stomp on it. Have they had the ski jump yet? Yeah, I watched some of that the other day, yeah. Yeah, see, I'll always watch that. Yeah, I like that. Yeah, it's good. But we grew up with the wide world of sports

with the guy wiping out. So it was kind of secretly hoping. The poor guy from Yugoslavia. Oh my God. Oh! It's amazing that guy still walked after that. He lived. It's amazing enough.

So what's your... Yeah, the ski jumping is crazy. Like, I couldn't even stand at the top of the ski jump. I know. I would, like, wet myself, let alone the notion of sliding down that. Like, I do love that, though, because it's so cool to watch,

because, like, they're flying down the mountain, you know? All right, before we go, your number one thing you're ready, you're most excited for a Winter Olympics the rest of the way. Well, I always like hockey, but that's not really a fun answer. So I like the bobsled, too. I'm gung-ho for the bobsled. I like the bobsled as well. I'm gung-ho for that.

So I don't know if they have the same luge guy, like the same slider guy. That's what they call it. He's a good slider. That's the term for a luger. They don't go with luger. They go with slider. And then I think there's a thing called skeleton, which is like luge, but you go head first instead of feet first.

That sounds safe. It's like luge isn't quite crazy enough for you to go down 85 miles an hour feet first. Let's try it head first. That's another one. How does one get like decide to become a luger versus the skeleton? It's these are all great questions. Listen,

you know, Bob, we think a skeleton is better for you. Yeah. You should go face first. Not sure he has the leg symmetry for luge. Take notes and we're going to back here our winter olympics correspondent before we go though i came up with a nickname because we're we're dangerously close to spring

training now oh boy i have a nickname for stanton and judge oh yeah what's that i don't even think tate knows this do you know my nickname this season i'll be calling them the Winklevoss twins. That's my derisive nickname for the home run nirvana that you've stumbled into. The Winklevoss twins. I was watching Social Network and I was watching Armie Hammer play both parts and I was thinking he kind of looks like Stanton and Judge. So now I'm going with that now. The Winklevi. That's it.

Congrats on them. Congrats on having the Winklevoss twins on your team. Jacko, we'll talk to you soon. Thanks for the update. All right. All right. All right. Congrats on them. Congrats on having the Winklevoss twins on your team. Jacko, we'll talk to you soon. Thanks for the update. All right. All right. All right. Bye-bye.

Quick break to talk about Rocket Mortgage by Quicken Loans. They understand that home plays a big role in your life and family. That's why they created Rocket Mortgage. Rocket Mortgage gives you the confidence you need when it comes to buying a home or refinancing your existing home loan. Don't you want to fully understand all the details and be confident you're getting the right mortgage? Come on.

Whether you're looking to buy your first home or your 10th with Rocket Mortgage, you get a transparent online process that gives you the confidence to make an informed decision. It's convenient. Their trusted partners allow you to share your financial information with Rocket Mortgage at the touch of a button. In addition to getting a real mortgage approval in minutes, you can even adjust the rate and length of your loan in real time to make sure you're getting the right solution.

For you, apply simply, understand fully, mortgage confidently to get started. Go to rocketmortgage.com slash Bill Simmons, equal housing lender, licensed in all 50 states, NMLSconsumeraccess.org. Number 3030. All right, on the phone right now, my dad, he was gracious enough to take my son to Paul Pierce night last night.

The Celtics were not gracious enough. They got their asses kicked. And it didn't put a Paul over the night, but it would have been nice if the game was better. First question. Did you think at any point from 1999 to 2006, first seven years of Pierce's career, did you give up on that night ever happening? Yes, but maybe not for the reason you think. I thought he would have a career that merited getting his number put up there,

but I really thought he wasn't going to stay with the Celtics. I still don't think he would have stayed if they hadn't made that trade that brought in Garnett and Ray Allen. The team was so bad, and he was really frustrated. And as you remember, he had a couple of issues in the city of Boston. The team was terrible. There was no light at the end of the tunnel. And I think, actually, it's not that I think.

Doc Rivers mentioned it in his speech last night. He said that Paul had made it clear to him that if the Celtics couldn't turn things around, that maybe he needed to be a winner somewhere else. That's exactly how Doc Rivers phrased it last night. For that reason, yeah. I hope you cheered extra loud for Doc Rivers last night since he left and that got us Brad Stevens. He's standing up for Doc. Yeah, if you remember the Celtics, I think it was the 05 draft, Chris Paul. They had a deal for the pick that would have gotten them Chris Paul.

They were going to send Paul Pierce to Portland. And I think it was Paul Pierce for the number three in somebody's contract. And Paul Pierce caught wind of it, and he basically blocked it. And he told Portland, he let it be known through his agents. Like, if you send me to Portland, I'm going to sabotage the situation. At that time, Portland was coming off like the whole jailblazers era. They'd gotten rid of Rasheed Wallace. They were a mess. And he gotten rid of Rasheed Wallace.

They were a mess. And he just didn't want to go there. It's a great what if though, because they definitely absolutely a hundred percent would have taken Chris Paul and, you know, maybe they don't win the 2008 title at that point. But yeah, that he came back the year after. Remember that 05 playoffs? He got kicked out of that Indiana game. He really got skewered by the Boston media,

and he was like, he just doesn't get it. He's not a great guy, all that stuff. And then he came back the following year and had just an incredible year, the 05-06 season, where he carried us. Yeah, he talked about it. He gave a... I knew it was a long speech, and I read in the paper,

he spoke extemporaneously for 19 minutes, and he gave a beautiful speech. Yeah. You know, about his upbringing with his two brothers by a single mom. And you and I had dinner with Paul and his single mom when he was a rookie. Yeah, that's right. And remember, so, but he talked a lot about how the first few years in Boston were difficult. He butted heads with Doc Rivers over and over again. And he had it. And then he had a sit-down with Doc. And they actually both said the same thing.

But he said he had a sit-down with Doc and thought more about was it worth butting heads over and over or was it time to be a leader, to be a team captain type person. And everything changed in that 2006 year. But I still say he might not have hung in here if they didn't make those trades because losing was really frustrating. Yeah, that last year, the year of the Duncan Lottery, they basically shut him down.

He could have come back. It's the only time he's ever really missed extended time in the first 15 years of his career. Because I think one of the great things about Pierce was how incredibly durable he was. But yeah, I was living in Boston the first three plus years of his career, including his rookie season, which was the lockout season. Rick Pitino was there. Team was super unhappy. We were delighted to get him. I remember that was the second draft I ever Rick Pitino was there. Team was super unhappy. We were delighted to get

him. I remember that was the second draft I ever did for my old website. And we were watching Paul Peerstrop and right around like pick five, you and I are looking at each other and we're like, does he have a cocaine problem? Like what's going on? We just didn't understand it. He was supposed to go in the top three. And at the time there was like no wireless internet and your tv room was next to the room where you had your like big ugly apple computer and i'm running in there between pics and googling to see paul pierce rumors to see if something was wrong with them and he kept falling and he kept falling and we had both really wanted dirk nowitzki we By the way, there was no YouTube back then. We had no evidence other than there was a seven-foot German guy

who could shoot and kind of reminded people of Larry Bird. We were like, this is great. Well, there was a day you came to the house and you said, I need to show you this clip of this guy from Germany. And what we couldn't tell was whether Nowitzki was playing against people who were five feet tall. Right.

You know, when you see one of those people playing abroad. It was like Giannis. It was like the same thing where you have no idea if he's going against 13-year-olds.

So we're kind of hoping either Nowitzki or Pierce gets there. And then like around pick seven, somebody, I think Philly took Larry Hughes. Milwaukee took Trailer Six. Philly took Larry Hughes, Milwaukee took trailer six, Philly took Larry Hughes seven.

And it became clear we were going to get one of them. And then all of a sudden Sacramento took Jason Williams, I think, and then maybe Philly took Hughes eighth. And all of a sudden Nowitzki and Pierce were still on the board at number nine. And we were out of our minds. This was like the first good lucky thing that happened to the Celtics the entire decade. And then there's this two minutes where we were like, who do we want? And you're like, well, I've seen 34 seconds of Nowitzki.

And it was just funny how it worked out. But then that first year, he's playing with Pierce. It's the strike lockout season. Patino, everybody's miserable. He's on this Pierce. It's the strike lockout season. Patino, everybody's miserable. He's on this really strange team. And then they end up firing Patino. Jim O'Brien ushers in a very early prototype of the everybody shoot threes era. And him and Antoine start getting a little something going.

And they definitely are young and they're shooting threes. They have a little swagger. And then he almost gets stabbed to death in boston on my birthday um and first we think he's gonna die he doesn't die then he comes back and is ready for the season which he got stabbed like 17 times so if anyone ever questioned his toughness um that was amazing but i really really do. I've written this. I really think that affected him because I think he rushed back. I think he had this traumatic experience and I think it affected him. And I don't know if he really dealt with it.

And it wasn't until that 05, 06 season that he kind of settled into who he became, which was, you know, a really durable, awesome, herky-jerky scorer who was a good two-way player and who ended up having this great stretch from 2005 to 2012. Where do you put him? I had him seventh for Celtics. Where do you put him? Yeah, I saw your list. I actually agree with your list.

I put him seventh also. I looked at the six guys you put ahead of him, and maybe you could quibble with McHale and flip off them 6th, 7th. But that's about the only move I could think of making on your list. So for the people listening, I had Russell 1, Larry Bird 2, Havlicek 3, Kuzi 4, Sam Jones 5, McHale 6

and Pierce 7 the case against Pierce 3 third team All-NBAs 1 second team All-NBA never made a top first team 10 All-Star games finals MVP 2008 outdueled LeBron in a game 7

and I was glad Danny talked about that jump ball because I thought that was the best play of Pierce's career. Yeah, they had it on the internet this morning. I watched it again. Yeah. I vaguely forgot about it. Yeah, well, he out-hustled LeBron, which was he was just kind of stronger and wanted it more.

And I actually think that was kind of a seminal moment for LeBron. I think you look at what happened to his body from that season on, I think he doubled down on weight training, all that stuff, because Pierce just wanted him more. There's no doubt one of the top five games I've ever seen in my life in person was that game seven in Boston against Cleveland in the 08 second round. It was mano a mano. Yeah, it was great.

Your friend from ESPN, John Walsh, was there. We had a drink afterwards. And all he could talk about was, how often do you see a duel like that? Two superstars. Not quite superstars yet, actually. Going mano a mano. It was almost like

whoever had the ball last, that team was going to win. I don't think I've seen that back and forth since between two players. We saw the best ever version of that, which was Dominique versus Larry. 1988.

Yeah, but it wasn't a game seven. And it wasn't a game that ended up winning the championship. It was a game seven. It was game seven. Was it? Yeah. You're just old. I'm old, yeah.

No, but they didn't win the championship that year. You're right. The difference with Pierce was that. I think that's why it doesn't stick with me. We lose that game seven. Obviously, we don't win the championship that year. You're right. The difference with Pierce was that. Yeah, well, I think that's why it doesn't stick with me. We lose that game seven. Obviously, we don't win the championship. And because 2010, after the Perkins injury in game six, I mean, that probably was a season I look back and it seems like we were going to win that year and we didn't win that year.

So you take away 08 and Pierce never would have had a championship so yeah I like game seven against Cleveland was pretty meaningful and the game four against the Lakers was great he outdid LeBron and Kobe in the same year which is you know you're talking about the third best player of all time and the eighth or ninth best player of all time and he went toe- best player of all time. And he went toe to toe with them, which is pretty great. The, uh, the, the, I tweeted yesterday, something that I think is interesting about his career, that the era that he came up in versus the way they play basketball now, he's kind of built for now. I know it's a, it's a hard, what if, and there's a million guys that you can do what ifs with, but his ability to shoot threes and get to the line and play multiple positions and play that kind of wide-open style

is just perfect for 2018. I agree with you. I read your tweet. I mean, I saw your tweet. It's too bad. His game would have flourished even more, I agree, in this era, where it's pretty wide open and seemingly there's less defense.

There's more team defense, but less one-on-one defense. The rules are different, too. You can't hand-check the same way. His combination of threes and free throws is what you want right now. And it's basically Houston's model for how they're ripping off all these wins. You've been, I'm trying to think of all the retirement things you've been to because Havlicek was probably, I think that was my,

I know there had been others, but we went to Havlicek. We saw Cowens. We saw Jojo White and Dan and Don Nelson. We saw McHale and Bird. Yeah. Parrish. Reggie Lewis, who obviously wasn't there. We saw... I don't think I saw Maxwell. And I still don't really totally understand why they did Maxwell. DJ and then Pierce. This was the

first one in a long time. Yeah, the number previous... On the banner they lifted and they actually gave all of us t-shirts with a replica of that particular banner the number before

his is Reggie Lewis is 35 so I'm trying to think if that was the last retirement it must have been the way they were on the banner I thought Maxwell was, but yeah. Great career. I think Maxwell was the one before Lewis. 15 years, basically a 22, 6-4 every night.

Really never missed games. Really good two-way player. I thought it was a great career. I'm glad I was there. And I got to admit, those first couple years, I was very worried that we would ever have that night. So it was nice to see it. Yeah, you saw almost his whole career.

But there were some very funny and poignant speeches. I think it was Doc who talked about, remember when that playoff game, we thought he was done, his career was over. Yeah. And he goes out in a wheelchair. I know, it comes back. Oh my God.

A few minutes later, there's a buzz in the crowd and he's miraculously walking out to the court and he makes two threes in a row and wins the game. I know, listen, the Laker fans remind me of that one all the time. I wrote a column about that game. The four minutes when he got hurt and went out, it really did. It felt like

pre-2004 Red Sox in the building. People were... Well, you and I were together and we thought the season was over. I thought I had to carry you out. Yeah, I was ready for the big one. Alright, Dad. We got a lot of people big one. All right, Dad. We got to run.

Got a lot of people on today. Thanks for coming on. Listen, I really enjoyed taking my grandson to the game yesterday. I know he never saw Paul Pierce, but I think it's a memory he'll always have. There's nothing like seeing a number go to the rafters. He loved it. And he loved his autographed hat you gave him. So thank you.

Okay. All right. Talk to you soon. Bye-bye. Hey, I want to talk about Gillette. I've been thinking about Gillette a lot lately because football's over. I don't get Gillette Stadium in my life, but I still have Gillette. I've been shaving since college.

Guess what changed my life? I'll tell you what. The Gillette Fusion Ultra Sensitive Skin Shaving Gel. Recently, I started using the Gillette Fusion Pro Shield Razor as well. And it's been great for me because my neck does not like razor blades or shaving cream. It's the first combination that's really enabled me to just shave without ravaging my neck. I ordered it. I ordered the razor. I got four refillable razors and free shipping, then every fourth order free because I subscribed. And now you can get Gillette Performance delivered to your door. No more getting mad at yourself because you just got

back from the grocery store and you realize you forgot to buy blades. Those days are over. Subscribe today. Pick your favorite razor. Get every fourth order free. Visit Gillette online at gilletteondemand.com. All right, on the phone right now, he was supposed to call in earlier, but he had a tragic pothole accident. So now he's calling by cell phone. It was going to sound nicer with the little studio thing. We're going to make it work on the cell phone.

The co-host of Kirk and Callahan morning show on WBI. He's never been on this podcast before. I've always wanted to have him on. He's been described as a provocateur of the Boston, uh, media scene. And, uh, there was some media stuff that happened last week and it just seemed like the perfect time for us to talk about all this stuff. But Kirk Minahan, I wanted to ask you first about Paul Pierce and everything that happened yesterday. Did you ever, was there a point during the Paul Pierce experience where you thought to yourself, there's no way this guy gets his number retired?

It's hard with the Celtics because their standard is so weird, but I will say when he put that thing on his face after losing to Indy, to the Pacers, I started saying, and if he got traded, like he did, that's sort of the sneaky thing in the Pierce revisionist history now is like, he did want to be traded. Like he wanted to be traded. So if he went out right there, got traded, he would be looked at so differently. I mean, what Pierce ultimately got was, was a break because of the Garnett trade. I mean, that, that trade changes the way we look at Pierce historically.

I saw you had him, what, sixth or seventh all time? Yeah, seventh. I mean, he's not, I mean, you know, Collins won MVP. Collins had him. But, yeah, at that point, after the Pacers series, if you said to me, is his number yet retired? I probably would have said yes, but that was the point where you said,

eh, but after that, I mean, you know, it was a done deal. Yeah. Cowens is an interesting one. I think I might've not,

I think I might. I mean, you want MVPs. Yeah. I think I missed Cowens. You know what I did? I looked at my pyramid and I picked out the Celtics and the order that I had, I just went with, and I think I actually missed Cowens. You know what I did? I looked at my pyramid and I picked out the Celtics and the order that I had, I just went with, and I think I actually missed Cowens. Now I have to apologize

to Dave Cowens. Yeah. I mean, you know, uh, yeah, that's, that's, that's, that's a no brainer, but Pierce is right after that. Yeah. So I had Pierce seven and he should have been eighth. Cause yeah, I think in my book I had Cowens ahead of Sam Jones and McHale. So that was a screw-up. Sorry, Dave Cowens. I think Cowens is sort of the great forgotten Boston athlete in the last 30, 40, 50 years.

Cowens, for some reason, I don't know why that team that won a couple of championships, I think it's because it was between Russell and Bird, is never discussed historically in Boston. It's weird. They're sort of the one team that slipped through the cracks. Yeah, and Cowens was done fairly fast.

I think it was only like 10 years, and then he had kind of pseudo-retired once, and then he was gone, and I don't know. It's too bad because if he had stayed around for Bird for a couple years, you're right, he probably would have gotten a couple of years, you're right. He probably would have, he would have gotten a couple more rings, all that stuff. I ask you this from, from time to time because we'll DM each other every so often. I'm always fascinated. You're, you're in the grind.

You're doing this four plus hour radio show every morning and you know, you're trying to hit the stuff that people in Boston, in the surrounding Boston area actually give a shit about. What is the hierarchy now of the teams? Because you told me during the Red Sox playoffs in last October, you were like, people are on the Patriots. Like the Red Sox, it's fine, but it's Patriots right now. It's Patriots, Patriots, Patriots. What's the hierarchy right now at the four teams?

I would go, number one, Patriots. Number two, Patriots rumors. Number three, any chance you get to bash a national writer who shits on the Patriots. Number four, any chance you get to dub on ESPN when they bang on

Patriots. Five, I would say right now, Celtics, then Red Sox, then Bruins, I would say. The Red Sox, who are, by the way, on WEI all the time, they love when I say this. It never felt less relevant

to me in my lifetime than they do as we're talking this afternoon. I mean, I know they've had a monster offseason that's had the whole city cooking, but it's just you know, baseball than they do as we're talking this afternoon. I mean, I know they've had a monster offseason. They've had the whole city cooking. But it's just, you know, baseball, you watch Jerry, because it's all the time, Jerry Kelly, he's right. When you watch a game like Patriots-Eagles, or you watch a game like Patriots-Jaguars, second half, or Patriots-Steelers, and then you think about a May game against the Twins,

and you're just thinking, this is not even close to the same thing. Just the pressure of it is so different. And the way that ESPN has gone against the Patriots and the National people, and they hate you for Belichick and Brady, and Brady's own thing, and Guerrero and McDaniels, and there's all this palace intrigue all the time. There's nothing. I've never seen a team, and I grew up with Bird in the 80s. I saw the Red Sox win in 03. I've never seen a team that has the peak popularity of the Patriots to last, say,

I'd say deflate until right now. Ever in my life in Boston, I would say nothing's even close, except for the 80s self. That's the only one I put in the conversation. You know, I think this is so weird to say because I hated this story more than anything, and I'm still mad that it happened. But I think the flake gate pushed the Patriots to another level locally because it really turned us against them, Boston against everybody, and it kind of tied into, you know,

one of the things that I love about Boston and the DNA of Boston is like, fuck everybody. All we have is each other. And it just, it was like the perfect Boston sports story. And everybody was so resolute that, you know, not only did this not happen, but everyone's against us. And that was it, man. I'm with you. Not since the 80s Celtics. I would say the 80s Celtics, the Ortiz, Manny, Red Sox, 0-3, 0-4, and then this Patriots run are like the three great eras of just a team-city connection.

Am I missing? Is there anyone else you would throw in? No, not in my life. What's funny is this Patriots run is as long as those two put together. I mean, the Brady-Belichick run now, I mean, if you think of the Bird run, it's 79 to 87.

Really, essentially, maybe 88. I mean, this run is twice as long now. It's twice as long. It's unbelievable. You're right. You know, we got off the plane in Arizona to do the show right when Deflategate was happening, and for and for three months it was insane you show up for work you know we're on six in the morning you show up for work before the show and we have full-on phone calls and comments were basically fuck goodell you know fuck espn fuck but you know

it was just it was just anger and it's anger that you don't see for you know even by east coast standards for a couple of years. What's funny is Goodell just won a week ago. Goodell was gone. Patriots fans feel like they won that war with Goodell rightly or wrongly. Having Goodell hand Brady the trophy last year was kind of that. By the way, Goodell probably really actually won the war. They've moved on from Goodell here.

It's been a really weird few weeks here at Patriotland, starting I think with Wickersham all the way to McDaniels coming back and everyone has a theory and everything. Brady's hand is just, it's insane. You know, with the Red Sox, I think two things happen. One is that people, as just the younger generations kind of grow up,

they just don't care about baseball as much as our generation did. And then, you know, it's weird to say this, and I wouldn't do anything differently, and I'm so glad it played out this way, but I think the three titles definitely didn't make baseball life or death anymore if you're a Red Sox fan, you know? It's just not.

It's just a fact. I would even say, like, I was here, right, 13, I think even as great as it was with what happened in the city that year, that didn't feel as big time. It was unexpected. It was kind of fluky. But, I mean, you're right. You know, Jerry and I will look at our papers in the morning,

you know, this morning. We have all this stuff going on, obviously. And you see this, the Jason Master now at the Boston Herald previewing the catcher position with Christian Vasquez. And you're like, this feels like a different fucking universe than we talk about every single day. But 25, 30 years ago, you know, shows would do two or three hours on it. It's just, it's a generational shift that has happened.

Guys, you know, I'd say younger than, I don't know, 35, 30, have just turned their back on baseball. I don't know what that means 30, 40 years from now, but that is, at least in Boston, that's not even arguable. I mean, this is a complete football town now, 100%. We like when the Celtics are good. Some of the Bruins are rolling. But this is a Patriots town, 100%.

Yeah, and I was living there when it started with, I've been a Pats fan my whole life, but Parcellss when it seemed like the team was going to leave and then parcells saved the pats and you could feel all the seeds were planted with that generation from 93 to 97 and p carroll comes in and most loaded team ever all that stuff um the great sports radio argument i think of all time is br versus Bledsoe in 01 as it was happening I have never seen a more polarized people on one side people on the other side nobody no way to really prove the other side was right or wrong just all gut instinct and it was a bloodbath for three months

and it was really it was uh it was actually I gotta say I I'm obviously have uh have had issues with Boston media blowing shit out of proportion over the years. That was a great story. And that was, you know, the way it resolved itself was kind of amazing. Where do you stand on that debate now? Have you changed? Are you still Brady? Has anything done the last year or two off the field?

Is wine? Have you tried some of that wine? Has that changed your mind? I'm still Brady Camp. It is. In one of those debates, if you polled it at the time, it would have been 50-50 for a while.

What you saw was, it was an early interesting test case. The first time I started realizing, oh, wait a minute. Okay. Obviously, you have some guys in the media who are legitimately just bloods of guys becausesoe's nice to them. Guys like Ron, guys like Cofardo. And that's the first time I realized, oh, wait a minute. These guys aren't actually saying what they think. They're saying what their friends are telling them to say.

I mean, if you watch Tom Brady play football in 2001, and I like Bledsoe. He's a tough guy. He's a good quarterback. I'd like to see all that. Brady did everything well that Bledsoe didn't do well. It was like this weird thing where, you know, Brady had great presence. Brady had great patience. Brady didn't throw dumb interceptions. Brady didn't force the ball to his tight end. But these Bledsoe guys, I think Bledsoe was a nice guy to some of them. Fed them stuff.

Were blind and right. And Ron Borges, God love him, was almost like this. People say this all the time. It's like these guys, you know, who still think World War II is going on. them fed themselves for blind and right and ron borges god love him was almost like this yeah people say this all the time it's like these guys you know who still think world war ii is going on they're hiding like a tree somewhere like he thought like he was still like banging the bledsoe drum like three years ago and you're like well i mean ron let's let's let's move on from that but you know yeah i think borges has bigger issues at this point to worry about than drew bledsoe versus brady yeah we should talk about that in a second i i think you're right this is something that i when i had my old website this

was stuff i was writing about where you could see people protecting certain sources they had by the way this is happening nationally i would say it's the worst it's ever been especially in the nba where every for sure every star has their like one go-to reporter every star has their one go-to reporter, every team has their one, and that's the person they leak stuff to. It's effective. You saw it with Bledsoe. Brady was playing better than Bledsoe, and people were pushing for Bledsoe to get his job back.

And then if you remember, nobody remembers what happened the next year when they went 9-7, because I was still living there when the team didn't start out that well, and people were like, oh man, they never should have traded Bledsoe. This is a disaster. Brady's a flash in the pan. Oh my God, what did we do? Bledsoe had a good year. Bledsoe threw for like,

he went to the Pro Bowl, he had a good year, but I mean, but you see it now when like, you know, John Heyman breaks report. He's like a Scott Forrest guy. You can connect all these guys. But you're right. I remember reading you for the first time at Digital City. That's one of the things you would do.

The other thing that you did that I would do with my friends, and this was your appeal, is you would shit on Sports Talk Radio. You would shit on Nordway. I hated it. I don't know. Shaughnessy. Yeah, you're right. You hated it. Butway or you would shit on, I don't know, Shaughnessy. Yeah, you get it right. You hated it, but you listened to it every day like we did. You hated it, but you listened to it because it was the only thing around.

Right? I mean, unless I'm wrong. No, it was one of the, it's almost like an addiction. Well, I also think 20 years ago, 20 years ago, there were less outlets to even kind of know what people were thinking about sports, especially local sports. And we relied on EI and the two newspapers in such a big way. And they had just an unbelievable influence, you know, and it was really just those three entities. It was like the

Boston Phoenix once a week. And now it's like, I think the biggest thing that's changed over the last 20 years since, since I, since I moved to LA is you basically have, you have two full-time sports radio stations. You have, you still have the two papers, although I don't think they have the same influence than what's did. But then you have the, you have Nesson and then you have that, the CSN Boston, whatever the hell that they're on, like from seven to 12. I can't believe how much content there is. And it's becoming harder and harder to stand out, which is, you know, going back to what you try, what you're trying to do for a living. You have four hours a day. And what is the balance of trying to provoke people, trying to get attention versus trying to have good conversations? What's that balance like? Well, you try and do both as much as you can, but you certainly are fighting for people to listen.

I mean, especially now there's apps, they can listen to whatever they want. Obviously, there's satellite, there's podcasts. There's 5 million different things. But, you know, I think there's sort of this idea now, and I know it feels to me, maybe even in the middle of it, that there's more stuff written about EEI for a local sports station than all the stations put together in the country, whether on Deadspin or Offal Announcing or these places. It's like we sit around in the morning, Jerry Callahan and I, and say, okay, what are we going to say today that's stupid and it's going to get people talking? But you find a topic that you're most passionate about and you hope you disagree on it.

Some shows, I think, say, okay, you're going to take this side or you're going to take that side. To me, that never works. But what we do is we bring a third person every day that usually disagrees with us. We have somebody call in and disagree with us, and we bring disagreement. I personally don't think, and I think you and I might disagree

on this, but when it comes to sports talk radio, I think you have to have some amplified version of yourself. You have to be connected to reality. But if you talk like Mike Greenberg or Mike Golick talked, or Trey Wingo or Mike Golick talked in Boston, you're going to finish in 41st fucking place.

There are going to be adult contemporary stations in New Hampshire who literally beat you in the ratings in Boston. That is true. Beat ESPN Radio in Boston. I know you hate hearing that, but that is what goes on. So, you know, it doesn't like, you know, Dan Patrick doesn't work in Boston. People like his show. It doesn't work in Boston.

Colin Cowher doesn't work in Boston. Levitar doesn't work in Boston. People like your show. It doesn't work in Boston. Colin Coward doesn't work in Boston. Levittar doesn't work in Boston. A, it has to be local in Boston for it to work. B, there has to be some whatever, you want to call it edge or whatever it is. There has to be passion. There has to be disagreement. There just has to be.

I remember, so Sean McDonough, when he challenged Ordway's show, like 2001, 2002, I went on that show a bunch of times. And Sean wasDonough, when he challenged Ordway's show, like 2001, 2002, I went on that show a bunch of times. And Sean was really adamant. I had no idea what I was doing. But Sean was really adamant about we're going to have discussions. We're going to have interviews.

We're going to try to elevate the discourse. Raise the bar, right? Yeah, raising the bar. Guess what didn't raise? The ratings. The ratings were not good. Now, the signal was terrible, and it was never really a true test

because they just weren't in enough places with a strong signal in a strong enough way. You couldn't really tell. Near the end, they had Rosillo, who was on here last week, who was pretty clear early on, a talented guy and was headed for something, but they just weren't able to challenge him. And then, you know, a few years later, the new station comes out, the one that has Felger as the drive time guy. And what's it 98,

what's the, what's the actual number? I hear it on the internet. What's the number 98 five. Yeah. So now there I hear it on the internet. What's the number, 98.5? Yeah. So now there's a challenger, and that kind of upped the stakes. But I was tweeting about it this weekend, and we, you know, first of all, I love when we disagree on stuff. I was saying I thought 1990 was the tipping point for when the Boston scene got super negative. And there's a couple reasons for that.

One was the Lisa Olsen thing. It wasn't the incident itself as much as it led to this whole shit show between the Boston Globe and the Boston Herald and got super nasty. And, you know, kind of a turning point for Will McDonough's career, who I thought was, you know, a really great guy to read growing up and all that. But he was kind of nasty about Lisa Olsen in ways that just were not flattering for him. But that got nasty.

And right that same year was when Curse of the Bambino came out, which set this legacy of just the woe is me Red Sox fan and just bringing up bad stuff all the time. And it just started to get negative. That's EI, I think, kicked off when 90 or 91. Right about then, yeah. Yeah. And things just started to flip as the decade went along.

Bird retires. Reggie Lewis dies. People stop caring about hockey as much. Cam Neely's hip. And it just became negative. And by the end of that decade, I think that's when... John Harrington, yeah, yeah. Yeah, and I think that's when Callahan,

was he the one that coined Fellowship of the Miserable? I don't know. I think that was Orton. No, Patino said that, right? Remember Patino said that in the press conference, didn't he? I forget who. Yeah, well, he did all the negativity in this town, stinks and it sucks and it sinks, whatever.

Maybe it was Jerry, yeah, yeah. I think there's stinks and it sucks and it sinks. Right. But, um. Maybe it was Jerry. Yeah. Yeah. But I think there's something to that, but yeah. Go ahead. Well, I was just, so it seems like since these last 30 years has, has edged toward the negative in ways that I've never totally understood. I didn't understand when I lived there.

I don't understand watching it from afar now. And at the same time, some of the elements make sense. And you know, like you were talking about with the Patriots, where number one is the Patriots. Number two is going at people who are coming at the Patriots. That is kind of Boston. So maybe the area just should be negative. What is your take on all of this? Well, here's what I'd say. I don't know if it started in 90 or whatever, but I think you would maybe disagree. I don't know. But I think if you went back and looked at Bill Simmons' columns from, say,

when I was reading, started reading Digital City, so that was like 99, 98, 99. I was out in L.A. Failing to be a screenwriter at that point. Reading your stuff. I was one of your first subscribers. I remember I'd get it in my inbox. Nice.

You were, I think I was number like your first subscribers. I remember I'd get it in my inbox. Nice. I think I was number 41 or something. Some crazy number. I think you would agree that if you went back and looked at your stuff, that you were plenty negative at that point. It was not sunshine. It was a lot of negativity. So I think when you live there,

when you're in the middle of it, there's no doubt. I mean, I don't know what it is. I don't know if it's the weather. I don't know if it's generational. I don't know if it's the Irish influence. I don't know what it is. But I've lived in California. I've been other places.

This place is seeped in negativity. But I look at it, somebody lives here, and I like it. I embrace it. I don't have a problem with it. I like fighting. I like being cynical. I like being negative. I like being sarcastic. I like it. I embrace it. I don't have a problem with it. I like fighting. I like being cynical. I like being negative. I like being sarcastic.

I like challenging things. I honestly, you know, if you said to me, make the money I make now, which is a nice amount of money, or work with Betray Wingo, make five, six, seven times more, whatever it is, and do four hours a day with Mike Golick and Mike Golick Jr., I would say, put a bullet in my head. Just put a bullet in my head. I can't sit there and be like, you know, whatever it is.

But he's a nice man. Oh, but he's a nice man. Nick Saban is misunderstood. This guy's nice. Who do you think's better? This guy's great. Oh, let's bring in this guest right now and talk about how great this other guest is. I have no interest in doing that.

Absolutely none. Whether it started in 1990, you might be right. I don't know. But I would say this is, you know, the rise of social media and competition, I think, is bred it. Now, I think it's always been inside people. I think now there are just more outlets to be an asshole. I don't think people in 1981. You talk about Ray Fitzgerald and all these other guys.

There were assholes in 1977. Like, on the street, there's no sports talk radio, and there's no Facebook and Twitter and whatever there to be. I mean, you grew up here. You know, I mean, you went to Celtics games like I did. All the people, I go to half, my dad and I had season tickets for the Celtics. My dad, we had half season tickets. So I'd go see the Bird Celtics.

And half time ago, I have a hot dog to sit outside, you know, waiting for the, and this is the Celtics, you know, we're probably like 57 and 12 at this point. And everyone's baking. I mean, that's just, that's just the way it is. It's always been that way. Yeah. I feel that way.

It might be, well, you think about it, the two, Boston and Philly, I think are the top two, right? For, for cities that just never seem to be happy unless the teams are really, really doing well. My dad, I talked to my dad last week, and he was like, you can't believe the heat on Belichick right now. And I'm like, what? We won five Super Bowls. And it's like people have lost their minds over this Malcolm Butler thing. And I'm like, we won five Super Bowls. He's like, you don't understand. It's the weather sucks here. And people are so mad. We lost that game. And they just don't understand

why Malcolm Butler didn't play. And he's like, I'm walking around Beacon Hill. And it's like, every conversation I have is about Malcolm Butler. And that's just the way it is. How long have you lived in LA now? Too long. 16 years. I wonder if it's just so long now, all that blood left your system. There's no way that you're talking to your dad

and you're really saying, you're from here, you know if you lived here and they didn't play Butler at all, that night with your friends watching the game, you'd be like, why the fuck is a Butler playing? What is wrong with LHC? You would definitely have those conversations.

See, but I was having the conversation of why the hell did we let them just do the seven and a half minute drive with nine and a half minutes to go in the fourth quarter? Why, why weren't we sending the house? Why weren't we trying to either, you know, blitz and either they scored touchdown and we get the ball back or we make something happen. Why are we just sitting there and letting them go five, six, seven yards at a time? I will never understand that. I would have driven Matt Patricia to the airport.

I'll never understand it. It's like the only thing that couldn't happen. The only thing that couldn't happen in that fourth quarter was a seven minute drive, which they let happen. And i tried not to get mad that night and i was bummed and i was like oh my god like that was the first time i felt like a pats belichick team had gotten out coached and then you know the sounds of the game inside the nfl those shows start up on like tuesday and i'm torturing myself watching and by th Thursday, I'm like, what the fuck are we doing? How do we let that? They had the ball nine and a half minutes left.

Either let them come down and score, make anything. We don't get the ball back till 221. So I did get mad. I was less mad about the Butler thing. I just, at this point, like they obviously read something into something that they didn't like. I think they told him he wasn't starting. I think he reacted badly and they were like, screw this, he's out.

I really don't think it was anything more complicated. I agree. I think that's exactly what happened. What's funny is the Monday after the game, the Monday after the Super Bowl, we just took calls the whole show. We were like, we'll just take calls. We don't usually take a lot of calls. I would say, I'm going to conservatively estimate that 100% of sports talk callers suck.

Yeah. But on that day, we decided to take them out. We can talk about it because it's the worst. But we took them out. I'm not lying when I say the majority of the callers were asking, calling for Belichick to be fired after the Super Bowl, to be fired from his job after the Super Bowl. The guy who's coaching, I don't know,

eight Super Bowls, is that right? Eight Super Bowls for the Patriots? Yeah. And they're calling for him to be fired. And the great thing about sports talk callers is they'll call whatever. Jim Brady calls in. And you know, yeah, I want Belichick to be fired.

Okay, why? But I mean, the second question question they have nothing they have absolutely nothing just it just misplaced anger and there's nothing worse no i don't know when i'm in a car and i'm driving around i don't want to hear some guy call and give his opinion on the sports talk show we do it because that's what shows always do if i had a show to myself which who knows i may have eventually i'm dedicated segment or two to callers. I hate callers. I do. I hate callers.

I hate them. The only thing worse than callers are college coaches. Those are the single worst radio guests you can have. Like, coach, you got to be proud of your guys. Oh, we're so proud. We're so proud, Kirk. I love the way we're playing right now. That is the worst.

When I was on the McDonough show, he used to call like the bc hockey coach and we would have to talk to this guy for 25 minutes and it was like i'm like people have to be driving into the highway dividers listen to this this can't be the best well that's right you know after hayward got hurt uh i sarcastically started the show by saying, I need callers. I need calls from people who have suffered similar injuries. I want to know what happened. I want to know what the timetable is because you guys know.

Yeah. We got calls for hours. I heard myself playing softball. You know, the guy hurt himself. I love that guy, too. He knows exactly what the process is. He's not back in three weeks. He's a pussy.

Those calls. I love those calls. Those are the best. The best. I also like the professional callers. Like, around here, you have the Danny from Quincy, the old Butch from the Cape. Like, you know, we owe you six minutes. Like, you've earned this because you've called

Sports Talk Radio so many times in your life. You can monologue. We don't want to interrupt. I love that. I love that. Love it. So the Boston sports media scene right now, we had some drama over the weekend with Ron Borges got duped by a caller. What Nick from Boston. That's the, that's the, uh, so he duped Ron Borges pretended he was Tom Brady's agent Don Yee.

And the Herald wrote a back page story based on these random texts that this guy did to Ron Borges. And then later that same day, the midday host, one of the midday hosts of a WEI show, Christian Foria, he decided to reenact the text in an inappropriate Asian accent, and now he's suspended. And yeah, not a great week. Didn't go, didn't go well.

Uh, you know, I'm not listening. I'm not going to sit here and, and you know, I've been suspended, I think five times in the last six years. So I'm not really one to pass judgment,

but I'll say we'll start, we'll start with the Nick thing. So Nick is a caller, is a caller to our show. Uh, I guess, you know, he calls once in a while.

He likes our show, hates Borges, who I also hate Ron Borges, by the show, I guess. You know, he calls once in a while. He likes our show. Hates Borges, who I also hate Ron Borges, by the way. So you talk about negativity. Should I be happy that somebody is in trouble with their job professionally? No. Am I happy that Borges is? Yes. I'll admit it.

I'm petty. You're talking to a petty person. So this whole thing about Borgesorgias work, Borgias, you know, old people tend to either text up pictures of their penis or their telephone number on Twitter, it seems to me. Like, no, the telephone number, I think, is by mistake. The other stuff, I don't know how that works. Yeah. So we treat the other telephone numbers like Gamitz does sometimes and Ryan does and Shaughnessy does. I'm not sure what happens where they do that.

So it was up there for like 20 minutes, just long enough in this world for somebody to grab and say, I'm going to screw with this guy. And the guy unbeknownst to us pretended to be Don Yee and went back and forth with Borges and fooled Borges into thinking right that Brady was going to hold out unless he got the same contract as

Jimmy Garoppolo. Now, to that I would say if you're Borges, great. If Don Yee has this, maybe you should second source it. Secondly, a 41-year-old quarterback is going to demand $75 million guaranteed and he's never done anything like that in his career before? That's a little strange to me.

Yeah, I was going to say that the third and biggest part of this is, I mean, I heard this story and I was like, that doesn't sound like anything Brady would do. It didn't pass the sniff test. So where were the editors on this whole thing? That's a good question. I mean like, that doesn't sound like anything Brady would do. It didn't pass the sniff test. So where were the editors on this whole thing? That's a good question. I mean, you're a Harold alum. The other thing

is, Borges said sources in his story, plural, which is a lie. He lied. We've done this for the last couple of days. That's the thing that I think most people hate Borges, so they're happy that he's in trouble. But sources would indicate that somebody else then confirmed this thing that Nick from Boston made up. So someone's confirming something which is bullshit, which

means it's bullshit. I mean, you know, I saw the Stephen Glass movie. I'm like Peter Sarsgaard on this. I could break it down like nobody's business. So Borges, I think, is whether he's done or done, like officially done or not, it doesn't matter. They bring him back to the Herald, which is on its last legs anyway. Whatever he writes now, he is now a legit punching line.

He's a punchline, no matter what. On top of the plagiarism thing from like 10 years ago, nobody wanted to deal with it. What ultimately happened to, it's colored by its own bias. He hates Belichick. He hates the Patriots.

He wanted the story to be true. So he ran with it. Yeah. What's next? What's going to light your fire over these next few weeks? Well, the other thing that we've done a lot of is sort of, we do a lot of on our show, sort of story of the day stuff. Like just take today, for instance,

we're doing this Monday afternoon. Like, you know, the Boston Police Department, I don't know if you saw it, they tweeted out that picture of Red Auerbach for Black History Month. Did you see this? I didn't see this. So it's Black History Month in February, right?

And Boston Police Department says, congratulations on Black History Month or whatever. All this stuff built for Russell. Then they tweet out a picture of the Red Auerbach statue. It got deleted. Stephen A. flipped out on him. Marty Walsh said it's disgusting. Now, I have to admit, when I think of the great Black Americans in history, Red Auerbach is not in the top five. I'll grant you that. But I would say you can make the case that drafted Chuck Cooper, starting five, making Russell the coach, the fact that in the 60s, while they were 50s and 60s,

they didn't want them in hotel rooms. Brett said, fuck it, we're taking the whole team out of this hotel then. I think our back did a lot for that. So I think he could be saluted for that. But, you know, Marty Walsh's saying it's a disgrace it's an embarrassment that i feel like we're in this like what's what's pander in society let's let's overpander on each other with top each other with sometimes you step in today

i do stupid we you know what right out back to do some good things for this is really about this rush to outrage that seems crazy that i think it's so connected the fact that trumps president people put that anger somewhere else. It leads to insanity. I mean, we had a crazy summer with the Adam Jones story. I mean, absolutely nuts. It's total madness right now. I've never seen race in America in such a fever pitch. I may be a colleague, great, but it might have something to do with the fact that Trump's president. I don't know,

but it's nuts right now. And that's something to do with Trump's president. I don't know, but it's, it's, it's, it's nuts right now. And that's something you've, you've really pushed the envelope on with your show, with the pander culture, trying to actually, actually, or no,

huh? Do you buy into it or no? Yeah. I mean, I think, I think Trump ignited a lot of, Trump opened a lot of scars that probably weren't properly stitched up in this country. And it does seem like the country's gone

a little bit off the rails in a lot of different ways. And I don't know, I see it here in LA. Like LA has this massive homelessness problem right now. And it seems like people's, like nobody's even kind of talking about it or caring about it. Meanwhile, these tents are popping up all over the place. And, you know, they made, they changed this rule out here that if you have a tent, you can basically park on whatever sidewalk you want. And this is becoming like, I would say the biggest issue LA has right now.

And it's like, it's not happening, but yet if, you know, 20 beagles in North Korea were saved at the Olympics, that would be a national story for four days. I just, I don't understand what the priorities are right now. Just with anything doesn't make a lot of sense. But I think, but I think our show, I think it sort of mischaracterizes the sports talk show. Our show isn't like we talk about sports a lot, but we sort of talk about the issue of the day more than anything else.

And sort of, I mean, we definitely tapped into the anger and into the passion. Like today I listen to our afternoon show, Dale Arnold and Holly and Rich Keefe. And they spent the first two, three segments talking about the Pierce retirement ceremony. And I'm thinking, well, that's fine. But like, where's the, who's going to disagree?

He was really nice. He was a good player. Like, where's the, where's the fight in that? Like after a while I get, I tune out, I get bored. And my problem is I'll just say in the air, I'll be like, this is a, this is a terrible fucking segment. Let's talk about anything else. I mean, literally let's, we could talk about any, let's talk about the Eagles documentary.

Right. Talk about anything else, other than anything else, anything else. Yeah. I think you're that trap too. I think you're the first host who's heckles his own show on Twitter as it's happening.

I've never seen that before. Like if, if, if Tate was here right now, like tweeting about this segment, I, I just have the, I think you've,

I think you've created a new franchise with that. Oh, it's really worked out well. Management can't get enough of it. They love it. I'm sure we'll get a sponsorship at some point. No doubt. All right. Good luck with the next.

This is kind of the dead time with the Boston sports right now, especially because I got to be honest. I've been worried about the Celtics for seven weeks, and I've been worried that a national television embarrassment like yesterday was coming for a while. They've kind of been overachieving, which is weird because their record was pretty high. But the entire second unit revolving around Terry Rozier is not ideal by any scenario. And I think they didn't make a trade because I genuinely think that they think Gordon Hayward is coming back. But in the meantime, it's pretty

bad. And they just are getting their asses kicked. Every single game, they're down by 12 points. And I don't know. It's bizarre. It's been a weird season. It's been a strange season. And you watch that game yesterday. I know it's no different. But LeBron literally

can go to the basket and score whatever he wants. And you're thinking in a seven-game series, why is that going to change in a seven-game series when they face each other? What's going to be the difference when it comes down to that? It's weird. It's been a bizarre, bizarre

something season. So now you're going to come on the Enough About Me podcast, correct? That's done? I want to be the third guy on your show when I'm in Boston one time. What's that called? The casting couch? You've thrown that out like 40 times over.

That's bullshit. You've thrown it out like 40 times over the past couple of years. I know, but I've never been in Boston. One of these times I want to come back and I want to be the – because I've got to honest, no offense, but it doesn't seem like the bar is like that high for the couch person. I think I could do it. I think I could handle it for four hours. How dare you say that? I mean, in my defense, in our show's defense, it's been almost two weeks since one of our casting coach members made fun of Tom Brady's kid.

I mean, there's something to be said for that, right? Yeah. Did that, did that blow over finally? Maybe? No? I didn't think getting the Super Bowl week that that was

going to be the biggest story in the country for like three hours, but it was. Yeah. I mean, it blew over that Brady was great. We're lucky that Brady

seems like generally a good guy. He does. In our dealings with him, we have him on every week. He's a good guy. I think he thought it

was actually said on the show it wasn't. Yeah. I think it's blown over now. In our dealings with him, we have him on every week. He's a good guy. I think he thought it was actually said on a show it wasn't. I think it's blown over now. I don't know what Alex Freeman's future is. In the city, it's tough. It's, I mean, there's not a lot of rules I follow, but like there's not a lot of upside on dumping on a five-year-old kid. This doesn't really work out that often. Yeah.

Last question. What year does Tom Brady retire? I'm going to say 2000. I watched that. Did you watch Tom versus time? I did. I enjoyed it. What'd you think?

I liked it. I was telling people why I liked it. And one of my friends was making fun of me. Like, of course you liked it it's Tom Brady and I was like no actually you know what he's a really private guy and I actually learned a lot

about his life and what his house looked like and what his routines like and it wasn't that long I kind of ate it up I enjoyed it yeah I just kind of like looking at his blender and stuff like that in his office yeah and it's like yeah I just kind of like looking at like his blender and stuff like that yeah in his office stealing

yeah and it's like he's got like a good wide shots he's got a shitty TV in his office right yeah it's weird it was like

why isn't his TV bigger but then like his car he had this souped up car and then the funniest part to me was they went to Costa Rica right and

he's driving these ATV vehicles with he's got like Edelman and Amendola? And he's driving these ATV vehicles with, he's got like Edelman and Amendola with them. And they drive these ATV, they're driving through like this forest and they landed this man-made football field. And it became clear that this was like

Tom Brady's Costa Rican compound and that he had built the man-made football field. But they weren't really saying that in the documentary. But yeah, it was like, why is there a man-made football field in Costa Rica in like the forest? This is ridiculous. Wasn't that in Montana?

I thought that was in Montana. Wasn't that with those guys? I don't know. Maybe you're right. Am I mixing it up? You're mixing up your Brady like weird spots in the world that he's built football fields in. Yeah.

You're right. I might be mixing it up. I will say this is more than a little. And I like Brady. There's more than a little whiff of Scientology to Brady. I met Guerrero at the Super Bowl, by the way, for the first time. Yeah. I'll tell you the story real quick before my Brady prediction.

I was at the Mall of America for the Super Bowl, which was, I would say, probably the second or third worst experience of my life. Going to the Mall of America for the Super Bowl, which was, I would say, probably the second or third worst experience of my life, going to the Mall of America for the Super Bowl. Okay. And I've had shingles, and both my parents have died in the last couple of years. Yeah. I'd say I'd rank it top two or three. But one of the nights, I went on a night show on the board, and I walked down, and the Mall of America had a store that sells cookie dough, just cookie dough.

And I was like, fuck that. I'm going to check it out. I had nothing else to do. I went to the store, had this big thing of cookie dough, just cookie dough. And I was like, fuck, I'm going to check it out. I had nothing else to do. I went to the store, had this big thing of cookie dough in a bowl, turned around, took a step, and walked right into Alex Guerrero, who was, like, judging me with these weird eyes. And I've been critical of Guerrero. And Guerrero, like, was, like, super nice and kind. And, like, I almost thought he was going to, like, invite me to the room. Remember, like, when Tom Cruise got promoted and they, like they shook his hand and gave him that sword and pants or whatever?

He moved up to like Theon 7 in Scientology. I got that vibe. But it's working for Brady. Brady's going to play until he's 45. He keeps saying 45. Tom House in that documentary said 45. Now, barring an injury, which could definitely happen, are you

telling me that Brady you see right now is 15% worse when he's 43 or 44? 20% worse? Is he a good NFL quarterback? I mean, why not? I also think 45 because he's been saying it for the last few years. And it really seems like the number he's fixated on is 45. But this is what happened to Kobe, who's another guy who I think would have played to 45, but he got hurt. And I think when you're an old athlete, no matter how good you are, when you get hurt and you can't train for seven, eight months straight and your routine gets shaken up, I don't think you can put it back together once you pass a certain age.

That's what happened to Kobe. He was never the same after he blew out his Achilles. And I think if that doesn't happen, I really think he could have kept playing at the 2012, 13. Like he was still putting up points, you know, and he was still pretty athletic. And with Brady, it's like, it's all fun and games. Like you even saw in the Eagles game, there was two or three times when somebody rolled into his legs,

like any one of those, that's it. You, you get hurt and you're done. So I would also say 45. Well, ultimately, uh, I talked about Garoppolo's, uh, Brady's agent contract when he drafted Garoppolo,

Brady just ultimately outplayed what Belichick thought he was going to be. Belichick's probably slotted 36, 37 years old. And Brady just outperformed it. Like he, the craft had the craft hat. That's another reason why I think Brady's going to play those 45 is they wouldn't have traded Garoppolo if Brady was gone in this year or next year.

I think Brady told the crafts, I'm Blanton 45. The craft said to Belichick, listen, we don't tell you to do anything else. We're telling you to do this. And Belichick said, all right,

fine bucket. I'm trading for the first team I'm calling and trading the 49ers. I believe that part of the Wickersham story. 1000% I do believe. I don't believe the crafts told him to do anything. I I believe that part of the Wickersham story. 1000%. I do believe. Really? I don't believe the crafts told him to do anything. I think they had a conversation about it. I just don't think,

I don't think craft at this age of just where he is in life. I don't see him just ordering Belichick to do something, but I think they probably had a real conversation about it. And like, Hey, I talked to Tom, like, you know,

he's really adamant. He's going to play till 45. What are we going to do? Jimmy's a restricted free agent. We can't pay both guys. Like you, you've got to make a decision on this. And I think that maybe that's how it played out. Maybe they had a Brady Garoppolo debate was eerily similar to the, uh, Steve Grogan with the neck brace versus Tommy Hudson debate. I remember unforgettable. It was eerily similar to the Steve Grogan with a neck brace versus Tommy Hodson debate. I remember.

Unforgettable. The Steve Grogan one was more like, he should retire. He's wearing a neck brace. We don't want him to get paralyzed. Kirk Minahan, thank you so much. This was fun. I'm glad we finally did this. Take care.

Sounds good. Thanks, guys. Thanks to ZipRecruiter, the smartest way to hire. My listeners glad we finally did this. Take care. Sounds good, man. All right. Thanks, guys. Thanks to ZipRecruiter, the smartest way to hire. My listeners can try it for free at ZipRecruiter.com slash BS. Thanks to Gillette. Get Gillette performance delivered to your door. No more getting mad at yourself because you just got back from the grocery store and you realize you forgot to buy blades. Just get them online.

It's so easy. Subscribe today. Pick your favorite razor. Get every fourth order free. Visit Gillette online at gilletteondemand.com. And thanks to Hair Growth from Just For Men, an easy to use topical solution that's clinically proven to help regrow hair. Formulated with the number one dermatologist recommended ingredient

proven to regrow hair, 5% minoxidil. It reactivates hair follicles, hair follicles, hair follicles, hair follicles to stimulate regrowth. Perfect for men with thinning hair with a unique precision spray applicator. This is Hair Regrowth Made Easy. Start winning over thinning. Look for Hair Regrowth in the Shave Bio. Or visit hairregrowth.com and use promo code REGROWTH25 to get 25% off your purchase.

Thanks to Rob Stone. Thanks to Jacko. Thanks to my dad. Thanks to Kirk Minahan. And we'll be back midweek with a guest we have never had on before who knows stuff about stuff. It'll be good. Until then. On the wayside on the brimstone

I don't have I don't have On the wayside On the first side of the river I'm saying I don't have