The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz - Postgame Show: Dan Wants To Go Live All Weekend

Episode Date: January 9, 2026

"Did he invent the mascot?" Dan yammers to himself about UM playing in the National Title Game, as he plans to do all weekend. Well, Jeremy was there, too, but that doesn't count. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

I mean, when we talk about the physical toll of basketball and how the game is stretching its limits with the science and the range that they're asking players to play, do you not find fascinating? I think I might, after the club here, just spend 50 more minutes talking by myself about this UM game because of all the things I found interesting. And you guys can all leave the room. But the bit of analysis I'm about to give you here, which I think is just funny at the commerce center of all of this. So Moten leaves the game, two plays in, kind of integral to their interior defense. Immediately Mississippi gets a 73-yard rush, longest since 2018. The physical toll of at the end of that game, Miami secondary was gone. If you'd played two more quarters, Chamliss would have thrown for 700 yards.

Miami was playing nobody in the secondary because everybody was ejected or hurt. And the thing I just wanted to point out to you that nobody thinks of this time of year, I don't think, is, hey, those are an awful lot of games they're being asked to play. like Miami secondary is falling apart physically you're going to you ask this many games of the players at the center of the commerce you're going to break a bunch of teams like it's whoever gets to the end of it but you're going to physically break this guy and Messador's going to run out there and risk his first round talents because of whatever he's doing with needles on the sidelines how it's like it's really getting hot at the right time right like it's so much of this is you're going to put 12 really talented teams together there are going to be some disparities but it's like hey Who's fully healthy? Their running back was not healthy. That made a pretty big difference in that football game. He had one big run and then was useless for the rest of the game. Do you guys not find funny the idea that the NFL is playing 17 games with adults?

We're also doing that with kids' bodies and they're going to break the joints and stuff. The fact that Tony's healthy. This kid played all of these games at the college level where half of him he was like 17 years old. It's insane. While making that particular catch that needs to be made inbound, even if he's not. it's out of bounds. Like, there has to be, do you not agree that there needs to be something beyond instant replay

where you have an athletic feat of such ballerina grace that you'll remember it for a long time and therefore it should be ruled in bounds whether the toe was in or not? Like, do you believe any dollop of judgment should be applied to the judges who are... Just the scale of like, nah, that was too cool. Aesthetically beauty.

Aesthetic beauty surpasses here. Our need to get the rule exactly right, that's a completion. Miami wins. No? You're not good with that? I just don't like that a toe counts if you're facing the other direction there. You know, like if you're going, if you're going forward and your tiptoe, that counts. But when you're going backwards, if your toes hit, then your heel. The toe did hit first and then the heel came afterward.

That should be a toe tap. That's kind of how it's always worth. That wasn't even the most impressive play he made, by the way. That one, like, that's the crazy part. As unbelievable as that catch was. I would argue that was the most impressive. The catch that he had that was like, you know, the screen and then just weaving through defenders for like a 25-yard gain, that was the one that makes me go, this guy is a super

superstar. That for me, that plays more on the offensive line. Like, dude, they're getting out. But his vision, the blocking there is fantastic. The blocking's amazing. And they had, I mean, that's, huh, the three-pronged genius of Mario Cristobal. That's where that comes in. But his vision and athleticism and quickness all combining in that moment for that play when they

desperately needed it. To me, that was the one where I was like, holy cow, this kid is ridiculous. Let's say this right now. If this kid didn't rush for 60 touchdowns, his senior year of high school, massive disappointment. He was special in high school. Played quarterback a senior year. You guys didn't even mention the third or the third and six play where he broke two tackles.

They would have had to kick a field goal. They ended up getting a touchdown. Like, because he broke two tackles because he was too physically strong. He had 57 catches for 1,018 yards and 12 touchdowns as a receiver before converting to quarterback. where he had 524 yards and eight passing touchdowns filling in as the quarterback. You would think that would be the end of the club, but it's not. No.

No, I'm going to keep going. That's fine. I'll walk away. I'll talk to Roy and Jeremy about it. I don't care. You guys can't. No, you guys can all go. Roy, Jeremy, if you guys want to leave, you guys can leave too.

I'll sit here by myself. All I'll need is video. Terrick Scoobles arbitration. Did the hockey show somewhere? Because that's pretty crazy, Dan. You see the Tigers? I filed a 19 million, but Terrick Scubal filed at 32 million. I'm going to just continue to sit here and talk to myself about yesterday's game, and I don't care if all of you leave, because there were a number of things that I did not get to.

One of which is the amount of effort that it's going to be to keep being Michael Irvin for the rest of this as we turn him as a mascot into Max Patkin, the original clown prince of baseball. All I need here actually is video. Lewis, are you still here with me? No, Lewis walked out. Oh, he's there. Look at him. Lewis, just put up on the screen here because I was trying to teach people before the show, and nobody had any interest in this, and we never did anything else with it,

and it was infuriating to me as every day is around here. And we were talking about Max Packen and whether or not he was the original mascot, because I don't actually know the history of this. Is Max Paxin, the clown prince of baseball, the guy who invented mascoting? He was more of a barnstormer, Dan, so he was a minor league player, and then he got hurt, and he joined the Navy. And then when he joined the Navy, he gave up a home run to Joe DiMaggio in a game that they were playing against, I guess, the Yankees. But, like, faking anger, threw his glove and pouted and stuff, and everybody liked it so much that he turned it into just his shtick. And then started from there, he was hired as a first base coach for the Cleveland baseball team.

and then after 1949, he just started barnstorming around the country, showing up at exhibition games and being a bit of a clown. So there were mascots before that in American sports. That I can find out for you. So he did not invent the mascoting because the first mascot of any kind that I was introduced to was the San Diego Chicken. But then it was explained to me that the history of baseball sort of began with this person who physically funny looks like 1940s ballparks, barnstorming,

minor league entertainment. He's just being a clown. He's being a clown in service of the sport and in service of entertainment. Yeah, I'm seeing that the earliest examples were there was a taxidermy bear for the Cubs in 1908. They later used a live animal in 1916. And that's kind of the origin of all of this. But hey, good news for Miami. Sebastian the Ibis is the first image you see on the Wikipedia page. The things that I was talking about earlier in the show are so dated that I was asking then to get me a photo of Yamayama, who used to be the original University of Miami mascot. He was just a guy who would stand on the sidelines and wander around and go Yamama, yama.

It was just absurd. There was very little talent involved, but he was just the manifestation of silly cartoonish school spirit. Yeah, I had never heard of him, but I looked him up after you mentioned this. And so he was a cheerleader at the university in Miami. single cheerleader in the 60s and then basically just continued, even though the program wasn't very good, he continued to be the guy on the sidelines. But also eventually became a businessman and was doing all these other things, but would still show up to the games and be the Yamayama guy. He unfortunately passed away about 20 years ago in 2006.

He had a heart attack. So R.P. But that's the way to go. That's the way to go. It's the way that Michael Irvin will want to go if he were. No, this is what he is doing on the sidelines. I'm making the comparison between Yamama, the evolution of Max Patkin. I am saying that if you are the number one mascot for a school and you get your identity from being the number one mascot for a school,

if I gave you your choice, how it is it that you would like to perish and be remembered. It's I had a heart attack because of my enthusiasm for my school. It's why it is that I'm bringing all of it up. Because Michael Irvin is the perfect modern manifestation for whatever it is, the cartoon mascot of Max Patkin and Yamahama are. He is the coolest version we can have because usually those guys are not Hall of Famers. So if we can't get Mario, we'll get Michael Irvin and we'll ask him, hey, do you, first question, do you hope to die of a heart attack?

We can do that. But do you understand how rare it is to have the mascot be somebody who's an NFL Hall of Famer? It's usually Max Patkin athletically. It's usually Yamahama. It never gets to be the NFL Hall of Famer who won championship. with the Cowboys. I'm going to do a live show all weekend. I'm going to do it with ketchup on my forehead in a park on a bicycle.