The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz - The Big Suey: The 10-Foot Pole

Episode Date: February 25, 2026

"If you're only going to consume the flesh of one beast for the rest of your life..." It's time to determine what this group will touch with a 10-foot pole, including Luka's future title chances, pork vs. beef, and the new ABS system in baseball, which Greg is vehemently against. The show also remains very, very, very old. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome to the Big Suey, presented by Draft Kings. Why are you listening to this show? The podcast that seems very similar to the other Dan Levitard podcast. I'm sorry, I'm not going to apologize for that. In fact, the only difference seems to be this imaging. I have been tempted in restaurants just walking past tables to grab somebody's fries if they're just there. That hasn't happened to you guys? I've done it.

And now, here's the marching man to nowhere, fat face, and the habitual liar. This episode of the Dan Lovitart show is presented by Draft Kings. Draft Kings, the crown is yours. Nice. He said that with a lot of force. I feel like that was a really good read. Greg, you're on fire so far as I mean. I appreciate that.

Thanks, as. Why is there a poll behind Tony from the start of our show today? Juju has the polls. We usually do that at the end of the show. No, no, no. It's that like a actual. It's a poll more like a staff. I'm glad.

It's time to start holding people's feet. to the fire here around this show. You know, like everybody loves to talk about what they will and won't touch with a figurative 10-foot pole. Tony's back there talking about this, that, and the other. Everybody, that's what the show's about. But you know what? We go the extra mile.

It's not a figurative 10-foot pole. We have a literal 10-foot pole. What will you touch with it or refuse to touch? Tony's nine-foot-feet tall, I guess. All right. All right. So how do we get this started then? What? Well, let's do some basketball.

Actually, should we hand that thing to a mean? Let's see how it's done. Give that one to a mean. Give it to a mean. He's the basketball guy, right? So he's holding the pole. He's holding the 10 foot pole here. He's holding a 10 foot pole. He's holding a 10 foot pole. Lighting. All right. There you go. All right. All right. Listen, people were very excited. They were very upset in Dallas a year ago when

Luca went from the MAVs to the Lakers and people, boundless optimism in Los Angeles when Luca arrived, titles, not multiple titles, not one, not two. Luca now, there's some discord. People are unhappy with him. I mean, Luca will finish his time with the Lakers without winning a single ring. Will you touch that with the literal 10-foot pole? Where's the image? We need an image of, we need a...

We need the image of old Luca there. I will stab it. Stab it with a 10-foot pole because here's the deal, as I gingerly put this thing down. All right, number one, winning championships is hard. We see it every year. People get hurt. People get suspended.

People lose the motivation to play hard, apparently. Coaches mess up. So just the act of winning a championship is never a given in the NBA. Number two, Luca Donchitz has not historically. been a durable guy. No, I'm not doing a, let's support Nico Harrison's BS trade thing, but there was a kernel of truth in like, how do we know this guy is going to stay durable? Number three, he plays in the Western Conference. And as we see every day, the Western Conference is cut through.

You could be a championship caliber team and never even get a chance. Why? Because the Western Conference. And number four, the biggest thing about the current CBA is nothing is permanent. Guys are getting traded left and right to say, oh, he'll finish. his Laker career with a championship, how long is his Laker career even going to be? He might be gone in a couple of years. Paul Hamels. Rob did to get that one in there.

So Amin would touch that with a 10-foot pole, so as a result, he's got the pole. I'm stabbing it with the 10-foot pole. There's no fear in my heart when it comes to this. I have another one then. Hand this one off to Tony. Let's see how he feels about that. It came up yesterday when Greg Cody came in here and said that he had just fined finished off an egg and sausage. Egg and ham. Is that what you said? I think it was egg and ham.

Egg and ham croissant, which was a weird way to articulate what he had just eaten because generally people go meat and then the egg is the afterthought. Like ham and egg, yeah. Yeah, right. But you like a ham and egger. But now what really caught my ear was that you mentioned ham, which is in my book, the best of all breakfast meats, underrated, though it may be, a bone in ham. Yeah, that's a good way to go. A bone in ham. Bone in ham with some over easy eggs. Like a honey glazed ham? No, no, like the kind you get at Christmas time, and then you put it in the fridge at night,

and then when you wake up, your first deed is to shave off some nice pieces, then drop them into... Yeah, it's a honey-baked ham. Okay, honey-baked ham. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's better than baking. Greg, you're on me there, right? Honey-bake ham. You don't erase your voice?

I am. Oh, like the one that cracker barrel. Can we get... Yes. Can we get a picture of a pig up here right now? Okay, here we have a pig. Oh, look at it. Tony, he's going to taste so good.

If you can only consume the flesh of one beast to the exclusion of all others for the rest of your life, the correct beast to choose is swine. Will you touch that with a 10-foot pole? I would, again, stab it with a 10-foot pole like I'm harpooning a whale. I would go like this, boom, where's that camera? So you're going swine. So pig would be the... No, I'm going a different one. Oh, so you would not touch it.

You understand it. He'll touch the conversation. I don't think he knows how to... No, he's willing to... No, he's willing to talk about it. Thank you, Jeremy. He's touching the conversation with a 10-foot pole. He doesn't have to agree with your take.

Correct. No, no, no. But he's not. But the point is that swine is the best of all meats. It is not. You would not touch that. I would not. It is the cow.

Make your case. The cow has so many different things. I can cook steaks. I can get ribs. I can do burgers. Rids. You can get beef ribs, but you can really do you. Okay.

I mean, if you really zero in there, you want beef ribs? Have you ever had a good beef? Of course, I've. I had good. Okay. So then what are you talking about? I know what it is like. I know a pork.

I know a pork rib is tiny. It's a tiny little rib. The beef rib is like this big. It comes out like the pole. Like the footstones. Exactly right. Like a dinosaur rib. That's what I like with a bark on top.

I know you've had those. I love that bark. The bark is great. You have that. You have steaks of all kinds. You can do sausage. Stakes of all kinds. Yes.

Yeah. Like two or three. New York strip. Filet mignon. Ribon. Rebine. Rebon. Chiraco.

You don't even know about Churaco? You know about Chiraco? I don't know about Chiraco. I do know about burgers, and I'll miss them. I'll miss them something awful. But then again... You need a pork loin? I'm going to wrap myself up in pork chops.

Yeah, bacon. And baby back ribs. Beef bacon is better. Pork Billy. Mnupole. Beef bacon is the superior bacon. Short ends. Can I tell you?

Short ends. You can get burn ends. You can get burn ends on the cow. Burn ends. Yeah, but that's off the brisket, though. That's beef. That's beef. Yeah, baby.

Guess what's for dinner? Okay, I would go cow as well, but can I tell you, ham is great. How can you eat ham? Well, okay, so I love ham. Jews eat. I think that's an antiquated notion, Tony. No, it hasn't changed. It's not antiquated.

I don't know anybody. I don't know very many Jewish people outside of Orthodox Jews who don't eat ham. Okay. And haven't their whole lives. So I love ham. All right. Don't get me wrong. I did not try ham.

I never tasted ham for the first time until I was 16 years old. What the hell? That seems impossible. I'm growing up, people are having ham and cheese sandwiches, you know, whatever else you're doing with you. And hold on. You're sitting there like, oh, I wish I could have some. It never occurred to me even to have it. I just know this is not something that we have ever had in my house.

It's just like growing up, I never had soda in my house, okay? That's not true. This is something that we never had in my house, ham. and I know that we didn't have it in my house because we're Jewish, and it's just a thing that we don't eat. And I had never, ever tried it before. Never even thought about it, to be honest, all right? And then at 16 years old, my parents got divorced.

I'm sorry. And I'm all right. Your rebellious phase started? And my father moved out, and he got his own place, and I was at his place one time, and he's making a sandwich, and he pulls ham, deli meat, ham, you know, out of the fridge. And I'm like, well, you got there, man. And he said, this is ham.

Ham. Like, I'd never been in a house where there's ham. I go, ham. Not that I was offended. As a Jewish person, I was offended because I never had it before. And they go, I want to try that ham. And he gave me a piece. I'm like, this is delicious.

And so now for the rest of my life, I love ham. So good. Let me say it right now. Let me see it right now that someone does not eat pork. every time I've accidentally had pork disgusting really I've had pork chops on accident

I've had pork chops did you slip and fall in a pork chop one in your mouth I was somewhere I was somewhere where they were serving and I took like one bite out of it because you're curious

no no like they was it was one of those like You ever did that blinded up back No he must have been dry it's a preset like hey this is the and this is the main course and they brought it on I'm like okay and I thought it was

I thought it was beef. And I took a bottle of like, oh, this is disgusting. I was like, oh, it's pork chopped. I'm like, oh, that's gross. Bacon, I've had bacon. It was like, oh, that's just gross, right? Wow. I didn't know bacon was in it.

I took a bite in the burger. I was like, oh, what is that? And I was like, oh, it's bacon. Oh, but you give me some beef bacon? Oh, my God. Beef bacon. Beef bacon is amazing. I like turkey bacon.

I used to like turkey bacon until I had beef bacon. It's a little flat. Until I had beef bacon. And I was like, holy hell, I've been living a lie. Josh Hamilton. I mean, a lot of people would choose swine for their one beast because of bacon. That's how much people often love. But again, you don't know Churaco.

You don't get it. You've never had a Churaco medium rare with a little chimmy churie on top and a little lime squeezed on top. Also, you know why the whole bacon obsession is, right? Because Big Bacon put in billions of dollars into marketing to have bacon and milkshakes, bacon and donuts. This is a real thing. My taste buds were duped? Is that your claim? You were programmed.

You were programmed by the pork sellers of America. Yes, the other white meat. Look at you. What else are you being programmed by? Your pawn. What else are you being programmed by Dave Damashek? Well, here's the other thing I believe is that even when it comes to people will try to make a divide of sausage links versus sausage patty. And they'll say, well, the virtue of the patty is when you want a breakfast sandwich.

and I say even then give me the link. Give me the displayed out link on whatever your delivery bread is, if it's a bagel or an English muffin or just traditional pieces of bread. I'll take the link over the paddy. Oh, I like the paddy. There's no situation that I ever want the sauce. I'm a link at it. The link has to have a snap to it.

A snap. That's the difference that's what you get from it. Right. Okay, so are we touching it with the 10 foot pole? Tony did not. Or he said he's touching it. Just to change your opinion. I got it right now.

To give you the right opinion. Not touching it with a 10-foot pole means you say that. He's refusing. I don't have this conversation. I'll have the conversation. And I'll be right. So he touched it. Laverneous polls.

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Minimum odds required. Four additional terms and responsible gaming resources, see dkng.com slash audio. Limited time offer. Dan Lebatard. Can I tell you something? I don't know, it was maybe like a month ago. And I decided to watch pitch clock.

And I told Jeremy. Stugats. This is a good show you're doing. This is the Dan Levitar show with the Stugats. All right, who else can play? We got another one, Dave. Who else wants it? Garrett Pohl.

Right? Did we do that one yet? Yeah, you're playing the game. All right, you know what? If you want to stick with, you know what, let's go back to sports here. There's a lot of buzz around. Conner McDavid is a big choker. Let's give it to Roy. Because our favorite thing.

Well, no, actually, I'm going to go football here. And because our favorite sport is pro football, then we have to connect Connor McDavid or whoever's in the news to make it an NFL conversation. And so now it has become Josh Allen and Connor McDavid are comparable because neither guy's ever going to win a title. I think Zaz floated something interesting, though. Is Patrick Mahomes, let's give it to, we want Zaslo? Sure, I want to try.

Let's give Zaslo the literal 10-foot pole here. Jay Pohl. Here we go. Jonathan Zaslo. Patrick Mahomes is finished winning Lombardis. Will you touch that with a 10-foot pole? You'll have this conversation? Zaz is now holding the.

10-foot pole. We did Nick Wright Dirty by showing the Patrick Mahomes picture, which is always funny. Okay, so pose me the question again. I was very focused on not dropping the pole. Patrick Mahomes is finished winning Lombardis. As a player, at least. We had a conversation only a few minutes ago about how difficult it is to win a championship. Patrick Mahomes has already won three of them. And he's been to, what, a total of five Super Bowls? He's lost two? Right. So I am touching this with a 10-foot pole. I'm all over this.

Think about if that actually happens. That is a bold stance to take that Patrick Mahomes will not win another one. Well, 13 months ago, had he and his teammates beaten the Eagles, we would now talk about Patrick Mahomes as the greatest quarterback of all time. Which would have been ridiculous. Well, if you win three in a row, there's at least a case to be made. and then it would be the MJ and LeBron conversation. The guy they're comparing him to is one seven. I hear you.

Like I say, it would be the Jordan and LeBron debate ongoing. And instead, I do think that it's plausible, at least, if not likely, that Patrick Mahomes has won his last Lombardi. Yeah. That's why I'm touching it with this poll, I see why you're touching that seven-foot, I mean, 10-foot pole. I think his reputation is sealed and made. Like, he doesn't have to win a full. He's going to the Hall of Fame, but it would be disappointing at this point, right? It would be disappointing for him, but not for history.

I don't think it would be disappointing for him. Right. Because how many, and I don't know the answer to this, I suspect the number is five or less. How many quarterbacks have won three or more Super Rules? It's five or less. Montana, Bradshaw, Brady, Aikman. Eggman is the outlier in that. Right?

I think Bradshaw is, no? Oh, come on. Don't, don't do that. Don't do that. I mean, I know you want to play that game, but obviously. Bradshaw made the mid-career pivot from a guy who turned around and handed the ball off, allegedly, to Franco and Rocky Blyer and the defense carried the day. And then they installed the Mel Blunt rule in 1978, and he leads the league in touchdown passes

and wins the MVP. Don't give me that job, Cody. Nepal Kidman. You could make an argument that Terry Bradshaw is undeserving of the Hall of Fame. You could make that argument. I can make a lot of arguments. It doesn't make them right. He laughs in your face with that statement.

Terry Bradshaw's, and I don't have the stats in front of me. I'll pull up the stats, Greg. Terry Bradshaw's career completion percentage is around 52% or something. You know who else's career completion percentages around there? Everyone else he played with. It was a different era. It was a different game. If you're trying to measure, no, he was not.

If you're trying to measure him against 21st century qubies, everyone's going to lose out. Everyone. Roger Stalback does not have Brock Purdy's stats. Ryan Tannenhill threw for more career yards than Joe Montana. Does that make him better than Montana? Nope. I mean, come on. Listen, you can take circumstantial, generational stats and compare them with the 70s.

And, of course, it's the same reason that Steve Garvey isn't in the Hall of Fame and Dave Parker had to wait so long to get in because we try to apply modern standards to things that have. happened 40 years ago. It's unfair. Paul Feinbaum. Great. To Greg's point, he was writing the money with the completion percentage of 51.9%, 52% for his career. But, Dave, and I will ask you this, because obviously it's hard to compare eras because obviously the game is completely different. We could kind of establish

a benchmark, a baseline of things that were bad in all eras, right? Interceptions, turnover is bad in all eras, correct? 70s, 80s, 90s today. Magic 102.7. Terry had one, let me see, I'm counting, three. Could have done this before.

No, he had, because there's a lot of rows and numbers. He had four seasons that he, of 14 years, that he did not throw double-digit interceptions. Also, they do a tournament at the end of every season. And then when they do that tournament, it's a playoffs they call. And then they play the Super Bowl at the end of this thing, you see. And then they give out one trophy, only one trophy. and I know people are empathic. They're not society's greatest empath.

That's, that's me. But everybody's so empathetic about like, that's not the end-all, be-all, except that so long as the sport continues to conduct that tournament and award only one team, the trophy, it is going to be the most important thing of the season and who wins it. So what you're saying here? And in a league called the quarterback league, and when we all agree that the most difficult position in sports to play as quarterback,

and when that guy is paid 20 times more than his teammates are paid, then obviously whether or not you win those games is everything. And so Terry Bradshaw won four of them. What are you talking about? There's no case to be made. It's a ridiculous case to make that Terry Bradshaw not a Hall of Fame. Okay, Trent Dillford won a Super Bowl. That's not remotely compromised.

Will you give me this? Will you give me Terry Bradshaw is the least impressive of the three-plus Super Bowl quarterbacks. No. Troy Aitman. Troy Aitman is less impressive. Do you put it on the poll? Who's less impressive? Troy Aikman or Terry Bradshaw, not Carrie Bradshaw, almost said Carrie Bradshaw. Dave, Terry Bradshaw had more interception seasons of 20 plus than he did single digits. Oh, for a long, long time. There was only one person who threw a fourth quarter go-ahead touchdown pass in the Super Bowl. Deep shots, too, at that. And Terry Bradshaw did it not once, but twice.

He did it. What's a crazy stat, though, to sort of point to how different the eras are, the first 300-yard passing game of Bradshaw's career, he gets drafted in 1970. First 300-yard passing game of his career, Super Bowl 13 in January of 1979. Through the love of God, St. Trusky! So I wanted to mention something that I saw yesterday. I was looking at it on Twitter. And literally, right after I was watching it, I got a message from Chris,

sending me the exact video that I was watching. And so spring training is going on right now. And by the way, I have such a hard time with baseball. Where, like, baseball has tried to be really progressive. Major League Baseball has tried to be progressive. They're changing rules and they're trying to stick with the times. But I have a very difficult time every year knowing what rules changes are actually taken place. I never know how many teams are in the playoffs in Major League Baseball.

How many playoff teams are letting in this year? Like I never know, all right? But I guess credit to Major League Baseball for trying to become more progressive. And one of those things is they're installing, I guess, the ABS, the automated balls and strikes challenge system. So my first question here, before I get to the video I was watching that Chris immediately notified me at the same time I was watching it was, is this, and I guess Jeremy's the right person to direct. this question to, is this a thing, like, for sure at the major league level this year, they are doing ABS challenge? Is it challenges?

Yeah. And is it unlimited? Like, what is it? I believe it starts with two and so long as you get it right. You can continue. I don't think it's if you get both right. I think if you get it right, it like stays it too. I can check on that and correct myself.

But it's at the major league level this year. Yeah, and it's for your team, right? It's not per player. So it is determining circumstance. different than another challenge in another sport. And the only people who can trigger the challenge is the pitcher, the catcher, or the batter, right? They got, like, pat their head or something. Wait, two total, Tashay for the game?

It's two total, but as long as you get them right, you keep them. Interesting. Wow. So it sounds like we got that down, all right? And now they're taking away the square, though, right? Isn't that that that's the thing? No, no, the square stays, but they're taken away on the television broadcast marking where the ball landed. No, not even that, actually.

What they're doing is... I'm glad we're talking this out. Yeah, no way. I never know. Going into every year with MLB, I don't know what rule changes are in effect. The only different... Well, so the rules for the last couple of years have been the same. But when you look at the way it's going to display on the screen,

all that the difference is is they'll even show you where the ball lands. But it used to be that when a pitch is a strike based off of the automatic, it would go green or red or in some cases it would fill up. They're not doing that anymore. And that's a result of they just don't want teams to be able to see it if they're going to challenge. Yeah, whatever. That's fine. I know what it's a ball and a strike.

So anyway, yesterday there was a game. It's poor umpire. Well, I mean, it's the job. But yeah, this poor umpire where he kept getting checked for, you know, or challenged for ball and strike calls. and like the play happens, the pitch comes in, whoever challenged it, and then the umpire, like he sees the challenge, and he immediately like steps aside, like five spots. It's almost like he's now on trial.

He has to step aside all on his own. He's isolated now. And report on himself, too, the findings. He's the one who has to say what they were. He's on trial now for everyone to see if he's going to be innocent or guilty. And five consecutive challenges. the challenge was successful. And he had to announce that he was wrong.

I'll tell you, I don't know how this is going to be a positive thing. No, they're going to have to start recruiting people to be umpires. Because who would want to be an umpire when you're second guess routinely? I got great news. We have their replacement. It's called the video cameras. Well, here's the thing. I like the human error involved in officiating.

I think we should live with the human error. But if we're not going to live with the human error, the occasional human error, make a decision. Either make it all human judgment or make it all electronic. Quit waffling in between with the challenge. Kind of with you on that. I don't know if I totally agree with you because this ABS system works so quickly that you issue the challenge. It happens within seconds. It's kind of like tennis, right, with the line judge.

This happens so quickly, and as long as they're right, it continues on. But the way this is ultimately headed more likely than not is you have a human back there who is calling balls and strikes, but based off of like a notification that they're getting, if it's a ball or if it's a strike. So you're a- Are you in a union and are you paid? Your computer gods. Your computer gods are telling you that was a strike.

Strike! Guys, but we have to do something because it is the dumbest thing in all of sports. that the last couple seasons, I'm at my house on my couch, and I see that it's a ball or a strike. And this umpire in the game that matters is just getting it wrong. It is, we can't have this technology and not use it. Like, I'm all four, not making them all robots, but just the balls and strike thing.

You either have to do this change or take away that box from fans. Like I, it just, you want to get my blood boiling with sports the last couple years. Clearly, I like this. Chris. I'm watching it and it's just like, how are we here? Get them. It is the dumbest thing in all of sports. Find me something dumber the last couple seasons than a guy on my couch knowing it's a baller's strike,

but the guy officiating the game doesn't. I haven't seen Chris this fired up since he had to eat the chick-fil-a chicken beans. Yeah, that got me fired. Greg was very excited, by the way. Who's the guy on your couch? You said there's a guy on your couch, you know, who knows? My friend, Fred. Oh, Fred.

Wow, you're becoming your father. Fred knows. That is you becoming Greg and right before our eyes. Levatard John's as Lord Stugats This is the Dan Levitar show With the Stugats

So you guys know Atlanta Braves pitcher Chris Sale He's great pitcher Here is Chris Sale Now we're going to hold him to this Right Because this is on the record We're holding you to this Chris Sale

He is saying He will never challenge I will never challenge A pitch. I will never do it. I won't do it. Why? Why? Because I'm not an umpire. That's their job. That's fair enough. I'm a starting pitcher. I've never called balls and strikes in my life. Plus, I'm greedy, and I know that. I think they're all strikes. You know, especially, you know, the catchers nowadays, the way they catch the ball, the way they receive, they make them all look like strikes. And again, I'm a starting pitcher and I'm greedy. I like pitches that are on the corner that might be a little off.

in the heat of moment, especially you throw a good pitch. You know, you got Murph or Baldi or whoever back there, and they kind of catch it the right way. I mean, they make a lot of balls look like strikes, and I don't want to take away one of those challenges that might be needed later on in the game. And I've dealt with it before, you know, across all games and my entire career,

there's been balls called strikes and strikes called balls, and you just kind of deal with it. You know, he started, I was like, you're crazy. And then as he explained it, he started to make more sense. I'm like, oh, this actually ties into something on the NBA side that we've talked about. I think Jeremy we talked about. Well, no, it's about challenges. And so one of the most annoying things, if you're watching NBA basketball right now.

I know what you're going to say. I'm a thousand percent with you. Ball goes out of bounds, and players instantly go, whoo-hoo, it's like two seconds. Three minutes into the game. Yeah. Oh, my God. They're swirling their finger. There's a twirling their finger.

Oh, you got to go into the coaches. Review it. And so we came up with the solution. It's like, you know what? But some coaches do review it. But this is the solution. The solution is to do what baseball do, which is, you know what? It's like a timeout.

Any player can call it. And you know what? It doesn't matter if you don't have one or not. No takebacks. No takebacks. We'll do it. And if you don't have any, it's a technical foul. Yep.

And we'll get rid of overnight all of this, this right here. You're talking about the human element from the players. Yes, of course, they're in the heat of competition. What you're also advocating for is vibes over science. No, I'm not. We have the evidence. It's right there for all of our eyes like Chris Cody just said. We all can see it.

It has been laid bare that they are frauds that we're assuming that human beings can stand behind and decide 97 miles per hour. Yeah, no, that was in the strike zone. When we all have... What about the curves? We have the technology available for us. It's right there for us. Why are we pretending that that doesn't exist? To put it on the players is to keep us in purgatory to say,

well, that's you to have to challenge. If you don't think that was the right call, then challenge it, player. And the reason Chris Sale doesn't want to challenge it is because he's being political. In the here and now, in the here and now, if he says, oh, yeah, I'm going to challenge a lot of these umpires. They don't know what they're talking about. They're going to call more balls and strikes against him.

Oh, you're saying the umpires are like, I like this guy. There's a relationship. That's interesting. The catcher is, the umpire is literally hovering over him. So he's planted seeds. The whole time, the catcher knows that if I start challenging him all the time, it's going to be a fraught relationship versus me saying like, you're doing a great job, ump.

Wait, okay, so, all right. Interesting. Now I'm with you. Much like Chris Sale, you started, I thought you were out of your mind. Like a crazy person. But then as you started to land the plane and you're telling me, no, no, no, if I'm out here in support of the umpires, The umpires will be more like, oh, he's one of the good ones.

He doesn't question me. He doesn't second-guess me a bunch of times. Of course that's true. It is a strike. Guess what? Vibes over stats is such a great place to be. Who wants lasers and technology? I want vibes.

That's why we're here, Dave. Because we want the vibes of sports. No one wants to do math on a calculator. We want to see drama play out. Nothing slows sports more than a challenge. Baseball saved itself from drowning by quick. the pace of its slow game. And now they're voluntarily inserting something that slows the game more.

It's ridiculous. But you need it. No, you don't need it. You put up with the occasional human error instead of a pitch being a quarter of an inch outside and having a replay or an ABS system to tell us whether it was a ball or a strike. More straw man stuff, Greg Cody. It doesn't have to take 11 minutes. When they say, well, red challenge flag on the field, you know you're in.

for a big wait. It doesn't have to be that way. When they show the replay, do you not know Greg Cody? I know. I know immediately. I see it in real time very often. Why? Because I'm watching on HTTV. It's not in front of me. I have a clear image literally than the referee has of the play. I see in real time if I need the double down of the replay by the time I see two replays. I'm like, yeah, that ball hit the ground. I know that. There's no reason. And by the way, what proves that I'm right about that is the way, what did they call it this past season, the expedited review or whatever, that proves that I am right about that. They would just be like, yeah, no, no, no, you should move along. Yeah, that was incomplete. And they would just say, right, expedited review, yeah, that was

incomplete. You're right. There's no reason it has to take, you're right, has to take 15 minutes of your life. Even if it's expedited, it's still too slow in an unnecessary intrusion. Unnecessary. I'm on my couch and I know it's a ball, but this umpire who's affecting the game doesn't. This one's quick. You're just fine with that. That's one of the many reasons why... It could be a buzzer. That's one of the many reasons why it's advantageous to watch a game from your couch rather than in a stadium, unfortunately. But all I'm against is the challenge system itself. Make a decision, sports. Go with human beings making the calls with the risk of a human error, or go with all technology, not in between. The challenge system is what I don't agree with.

embarrassing an umpire because he missed a call occasionally. I don't agree with you. I mean, Greg, you and I are at the exact opposite. Different garages. Yes, different garages indeed. I feel like Colonel Kurtz. I feel like Brando at the end of apocalypse now when it comes to officials. They're frauds.

It's been laid bare with video that they don't know, that they miss calls all the time. They are, they're, they're, they're, uh, air. boys sent by grocery clerks to collect a bill by the league office. We have to support their jive, their jive explanations. Like, well, it would take too long. It would bog the game down. It doesn't have to. It doesn't have to.

It could instantly know. Yet, strike, strike. The only reason we don't, I think a big part of it, at least, when it comes to umpires, home-played umpires, is it would visually be jarring for us the fans to not see an umpire back there. It will be a weird day when it's just the catcher. I want to see if we could do like a robot balls and strike kind of thing right here. I want to play this and see if this was a baller strike.

If I would ask you right now, one of the three breaking news that come to your mind immediately that you used. Yeah, well said. That's bullshit, man. I think it's a strike. You can't just take any subject matter we're talking about and then apply it to that clip. Do you think it's a baller strike? Do you think it's a baller strike? Just outside for me.

What do you think that? You know what? I'm going to go with that being a ball. Would you touch that sound with it? I don't know what that means. The ball. I will say the one guy who's going to bet. And by the way, like Major League.

Major League umpires are on average right about balls and strikes. It wasn't that funny. I mean, 93% of the time. Exactly. Which is a good note. But that, if anything, that proves Dave's side of the point, which is the human part of this is correct. The overwhelming majority of the time. So the times where it's right.

especially late in games, it's so advantageous that there's now this system that within a few seconds we can get it right. But here's what I'm going to tell you. I believe that the guy who is going to benefit the most from this system is Jazz Chisholm Jr. Because everything about jazz is black. Yep. Disliked by umpires. And he is someone who is someone who is. is uber confident when he walks into the batter's box, and I have watched at bat, after at bat, after at bat, after at bat, where he has a great eye, where he knows that ball is just off the plate.

Most of them do. And he is called for strike. Not just because most of them do. I'm talking about a guy who at a dis- He lets the umpire know that he knows. Not only does he let them know, at a disproportionate rate, you see those pitches that are balls called for strikes, and he's looking around like, what are we talking about? I'm telling you, Jazz is going to benefit in a big way from this challenge system. Zaz with the pitch, the wind up, here it is.

The Packers winner, the Bears lose. Bears lose. So going back to Jazz, this is actually interesting. What happens when Jazz Chisholm is up to bat, and unlike Chris Sale, Jazz Chisholm will challenge. And Jazz Chisholm, it's called a strike. He knows it's a ball. So he challenges, taps his head, his helmet. and the umpire is on trial all by himself standing right over there it comes back that it was a ball and what if jazz just got this shit eating grin just staring like what's going to happen then

well the other the other element to also do is if you are an emotional ball player and you say oh i know that that was a that was the wrong call challenge that the skipper is going to be like what do we want to save those right it shouldn't be a strategy there shouldn't be an element of strategy of how you deploy your challenges, deploy being right. It's a crazy place, like I say, purgatory that we live in and it's self-imposed. One of the many things I hate about the challenge in the ABS system is the idea that theoretically the challenge can happen on the second pitch of an at-bat with nobody on base in the third inning.

In other words, it's a meaningless pitch. Well, but that's why the manager has to tell his, there has to be a rule set that, each team has where it's like, we don't challenge unless it's after this. I would assume that there will be certain teams with certain players who might have the green light at all times. But I'll ask Clayton McCullough the next time I'm at spring training, hey, what is your rule going to be team-wide? Are there going to be certain guys who have the ability to do this whenever they want? Is your catcher going to have the green light whenever he wants? Or is this going to be the type of thing where, hey, we'll only make a challenge if there's already a runner on base?

because we think we can produce a run or someone in scoring position or after a certain inning. I'll ask that question so we can get the answer from a major league manager. Zaz with the 2-1? You want to know how that? What were the kids doing?

So going back to Amin's original point, it makes me nuts when these NBA coaches several, yes, it's one thing for the player to do the bullshit, okay? And by the way, I'm with you that if the player does it, it should automatically trigger the challenge. But if that happens, he's going to come up with another sign.

Like going like this means challenge. Like, they're going to come up with another signal, all right? But anyway, why do these coaches challenge an out-of-bounce play four minutes into the first quarter? Are they stupid? It's because you've got a player that you're just trying to, it's politics. You're trying to get your main guy to be engaged in the game. And if this, what it takes is just like people say, why do they post that dude up? But as the first play, he's terrible on the puzzle.

You're talking about DeAndre Aitin, right? I'm not naming names. I'm just saying you do that because you know that'll keep the guy engaged for the rest of the game. Zaz and the pitch. He took the buckle. Yeah! Yeah!