The Kevin Sheehan Show - The Dundies

Episode Date: July 1, 2021

Thom was back in-studio for the first time since the pandemic started and he had a gift for Kevin. The guys meandered through several topics of interest to them before getting to the Nats, Chris Paul, Washington Football, and more.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

You don't want it. You don't need it. But you're going to get it anyway. The Kevin Cheehan Show. Here's Kevin. Yes, who is in studio today. Look who's here. Do you know the last time we did a show in studio?

Was it March of 2020? Early March of 2020. Early March because you immediately, after Rudy Gobert tested positive and the whole world started to go nuts, you said, I quote, this thing's coming for me, closed quote, and you said, I'm not coming in there. You're going to have to call me. And we didn't even have Zoom then. No.

I mean, that was a year and a half ago. And you are back. You know, I have had people in the studio, but they have been, I've had some interns here and there. My son, some of his friends. Right. You know, trying to help them get some credits in school for like an internship. that's pretty damn easy working here. Although, you know, I give them things to do.

But so they've come in a couple times because they wanted to record their voice, like, you know, doing an update or something like that for a project. Other than that, do you know there's a red marker on the front of this studio? And that indicates that the cleaning people don't come into the studio. I don't know why I haven't taken that off. I would have no problem with the cleaning people coming in and cleaning the studio. but I just got used to doing it by myself. Like once every two or three weeks, I'd grab the vacuum cleaner,

come in here, and then you'll see I've got like some pledge or see it down there on that lower shelf. Oh, yes, I see your cleaning supplies. Yeah, I've got cleaning supplies. And I would just, you know, take, you know, once every three weeks, I would just vacuum and clean the studio. But it was just me in here. It's not like it was getting that, I mean, every once in a while there would be some cereal on the floor. No pretzel salt?

No pretzel. No pretzel salt after all this time. Just some magic spoon cereal sometimes on the floor if it, you know, came out of my mouth. But it's good to have you here. Now, is this going to be a regular thing? This is a one time thing. This is a one time thing. Really?

This is just so I can see your face to make sure you haven't changed. No, no, no. There is an ulterior motive. No, there isn't. I know what you think there is. I can believe me there isn't. Okay, good, because we're going to have a lot of. lunch after the show today. Tommy,

I, look, I've seen pictures of you because you tend to put a lot of pictures of yourself out on social media. Yes. You know, if you're at the beach and you're enjoying a beer with the water in the background, whatever it is. I don't really do that much, as you know, but I've seen those pictures. I've not seen you in full form. You have lost a lot of weight. And you've lost weight before, but this is the first time. When you walked through here, what did I say to you? I'm like, holy shit. Yeah. You're wasting away to nothing. You're healthy, though. I weigh what I weighed in 1976. That's incredible. Yeah. And what have you been doing? We've talked about this a little bit here or there. You've been walking a lot. I know that. Well, I mean, my philosophy was, and we've talked

about this during the pandemic, I was determined to have something to show for being locked up for this time. I wasn't just going to, I don't have that much time left, so I wasn't going to waste this time. Right. So you called a lot of friends. So I call a lot of friends. I was determined to lose weight. I started walking a lot. I started just simply counting calories. That's all. and I've reduced that limit slowly over the months. And I also wrote two screenplays. Yeah, right. So, yeah.

But you're not sharing us, sharing with us what those screenplays are. Well, I mean, when you get some of your movie mogul friends to show some interest. And you asked me, now, I don't know, four months ago, five months ago, who do you know, that I could share a screenplay with. And I said, what do you mean? Who do I know? Who would I know? People know people.

You think I got friends at like DreamWorks? People know people. You never know. What you come up. Look at, buddy, you've got powerful friends. I do not have powerful friends. Yes, you do. I don't.

Well, not in that area. I wouldn't, I mean, like, I remember thinking, who would I even, you know, I have, I have a stepbrother who lives in L.A. and has been involved in trying to write screenplays in different things. And I've asked him before, and it's been a while since we've talked about it, I'm interested in how that whole process goes. Because there's like a, there's a treatment. It's called a treatment. Are you familiar with that term? I'm familiar with the treatment, which is like a six-page synopsis of the story. Right. Of a show or a movie. Yes.

So if you don't get past, like the treatment better be a great piece. Well, I've ignored the treatment. You have. I've written treatments before. You have. And ultimately, what people in a business say, well, I want to see the script, you know. So I've written the script. I'm working angles based on people I know.

Nothing's come up yet. But look, it's like buying a lottery ticket. It really is. I mean, the chances of something getting made. Right. are slim, but I know these are good movies. I know it. I know they're good.

I know that they would, and I know there's a lot of garbage out there that gets made. There is a lot of garbage that gets made out there. That would be so incredible if somebody bought your screenplay and made a movie. It would be cool, but you got to play to win. You got to write, you got to have something to sell in order to hit that. And then you've got to protect yourself a little bit, right? Well, I've already registered both of them with the Writers Guild of America and also the library. of Congress. So I have double protection.

Oh, you've got double protection. This is, you didn't have to worry about that with your books, did you? No, they were automatically, they were always in the library of Congress. The, the publisher always had a copyright. It wasn't my copyright. It was the publisher. It's the publisher's book, you know? So, and then plus, you know, nobody, nobody was fighting to steal my books, okay?

They're still not. they're still available for really, I don't know, actually, I think if you asked to be paid a dollar to take one, it might happen. I'm kidding, of course. So you have taken this, you know, year and a half now of the pandemic, and you have written two screenplays. You've lost a lot of weight. Yes. You have reached out, and we haven't had an update in, you know, many, many shows on how many people you've reached out to. recently, and if any of those conversations were worthwhile, any of them?

Well, I stopped doing that after a couple of months because the last guy I called, I'm not going to give his name. Uh-oh. It's a sports writer friend of mine, and I called him on the second day he was working in a roast beef franchise that his son had just started. And it was utter chaos, and he's screaming into the phone. Oh, okay. I can't talk now, you know?

And after that, I said, I'm not calling anyone again. I was thinking that you were going to say to me, especially considering your age, that you got somebody on the phone that said, hey, did you hear about Harry? You know, he's got, you know, he's got this blood disease. Did you hear about old Joe? Old Joe, he's not mobile. He's in a home. Like those conversations, like I have a friend of mine that only calls when

there's like bad news. And I said to him, this is an old close friend that doesn't live in town. And we probably talk, I don't know, 15 times a year. But in recent years, the only reason he calls is to say, hey, do you hear about Frank? Remember Frank? Frank was, you know, in our high school class? Yeah. Yeah, he died.

Or he's got, you know, liver cancer. Or he's got what, I'm like, why do you do this? I have zero interest in finding out, by the way, God bless him, and I'm praying for him, but these are people that are really obscure in our lives anyway. Like, we haven't seen him in 30 years. Right. So, but this is what he loves. He loves to sort of wallow in like the misery of others.

And I'm like, no, I want something upbeat. Call me with a tip on a fight or a game. Well, I'm about, I'm going to be doing that in October, because I have set up a 50th class reunion. Oh, I know. Up in the Poconos. So how's that going? Oh, it's all done.

It's all done. I didn't have to do much. You're good at this. Yeah. So that's set up, and I'm sure we'll have a lot of conversations like that. So, yeah, well,

how many people, is it going to be again? I don't know. But how many people were in the, 165? 165. So, it might be 75.

That's a good turnout. That'd be a phenomenal turnout. Yeah. I mean, if you've got, literally close to half your class to show up for a 50th. I think that I don't know what the percentages are, but to me that seems high. Well, Strasbourg High School, we're East Strasbourg.

Strasbourg High School had their 50th reunion for the class of 71. They were a little bit bigger, and they had about 75 people for theirs, but not much bigger. Yeah, I mean, first of all, you have how many people are still around, how many people are healthy enough to go. I mean, once you get through that, you have, you know, people who just get to the point where it's, oh, I didn't turn my ringer off. I'm so glad that wasn't for me. Well, but, you know, but, but you know what, Tommy? Actually, in a place like East Strausburg, Pennsylvania, how many of those people stayed in that area and lived their life? A handful.

What's a handful? I don't know what the percentage is. I would say that, I would guess that the percentage would have been much higher than, a more densely populated urban. Yeah, I mean, there's an attractiveness to small town living, particularly in East Rowsburg. Right. Although it's not the same quite as it used to be.

But Rudy's is still there, which is good enough reason to stay. Dollar, dollar beers. Yeah. I look that up on there. There's like dollar beers on Thursday night for a happy hour. Yinglings. So, I mean, you know, my work is done pretty much. I'm going to get some photos blown up.

from the yearbook into poster size, maybe about a half a dozen, just to have around the room, random photos. So it really was not much work. I mean, the guy who's hosting it owns a great restaurant Marshall's Creek called Alaska Peets. He's a friend of mine who went to school with us, Frank Rickabono. Very generous guy. He's just hosting it. He's going to provide entertainment.

Everyone has to pay for their own food and drinks. What percentage of your high school class was Italian? Not many. Oh, really? There were a couple, like Frank was, Frank had come from New York, around the same time I did in 1965. You know, when this is, this will be just one story about this. When I was in seventh grade, and I had a Brooklyn accent, okay,

and apparently a strong Brooklyn accent, because the school put me in speech therapy classes. Really? in seventh grade? Until they figured out. You're just a New Yorker. Yeah. That was it.

That's how many New Yorkers were there in 1965. I mean, it's like they never heard this before, and they were trying to correct my speech. That's ridiculous. Yeah. I told you right before we started recording, but I want to mention this. If you didn't listen to the podcast yesterday or you just listened to the first part, I interviewed Dan Grunfeld. had a conversation with Dan Grunfeld,

Ernie Grunfeld's son, who's written a book about, you know, his father and their family. And it really was, I really enjoyed it. Like I didn't know a lot about Ernie Grunfeld's life and how he grew up. And the reason I'm,

you just reminded me of it, is one of the things that he said at some point. He goes, you know, you would have never known that my dad lived the first eight, nine years of his life in communism. Romania. He had a harsh, you know, whole life New York accent. Yeah. And that's how he learned how to speak English. I mean, he didn't speak English when he got here, not a word of it, had never really, you know, played basketball. But if you missed that and several of you reached out on

Twitter to say how much you enjoyed it, so did I. But here's from our guy at C. Wellion on Twitter. You know, he's got a gif of Justin Timberlake sort of giving the roll the eye look. Me, he writes, when Dan Grunfeld, Ernie's kid on at Kevin Sheen, D.C.'s podcast said, I know championship contenders who wanted to go up and grab Jan Vesley, which he did say, because I said to him, I said, all right, so were there any moves your dad made where, like you said, what are you doing, you know, in the draft? And I said, like, yeah. John Vesley, and he goes, let me tell you some. I played college basketball, and I was playing overseas.

And I know a lot of teams were trying to move up to take Jan Vesley in that draft. Well, it's a good thing the Wizards manage to get in there and snap them up. Really, really enjoyed it, though. Sharp guy, and I hope he does well with the book. It's really an amazing story. Before we get started. Well, we sort of have gotten started. Well, before we really get started.

Okay. I see next to these cleaning supplies here. Yeah, your bobbleheads. You've got the various gifts I've given you. I know. I didn't throw them away. Over the years. I didn't throw them away.

Now, I have a gift for you today. Really? Yes. That I'm thinking is not going to wind up down there on the bottom shelf. It's on the bottom shelf because they got a little bit dirty and you can see. I brought into my studio recently a lot of books. Yes. Which I put on the back shelf here.

To impress the cleaning people when you come back. Clearly the cleaning people. But I had, we were moving and we've been, you know, sort of packing up. And one of the things we attacked about a month ago was the various bookshelves in the home, which by the way, like I looked at the bookshelves. I'm like, really? I read that book. Or, you know, I didn't read that book.

I'm not even familiar with that book. So there were a lot of books that were purchased or, you know, given his gift. Where did you put all my books? Your books are in that case down there. See, I've got an extra case, and I'm just waiting for a bigger studio so that I can prominently feature your books. Okay. Well, this gift I have for you. Is it another bobblehead of Bryce Harper and a Phillies?

I think it's going to wind up on your desk permanently. Okay. Uh-oh. He really did bring a gift. What is it? Uh-oh, it's his bowling trophies. What is this? Oh, Tommy gave me a Dundee.

What's the Dundee for? You'd have to listen to find out. I know what Dundies are, but when Michael Scott gave out Dundies, it was usually for a specific thing. That is very nice. I thought you'd like that, being a big office fan. Yeah, that's very nice. You know what? This is going to be right on my desk as it is with Michael Scott.

Yeah. Where's my world's best boss? cup. I need one of those. That was very nice. Where did you find something like this online? I can't say. Okay. I know people who know some people. Okay. We get a lot, some things to talk about today. So I think we should start with the Nats who beat Tampa yesterday 15 to 6 with Trey Turner hitting for the cycle. In a game, by the way, with 18 hits and 15 runs and Kyle Schwerber didn't have any of them. Yeah. You know, they hit him with a pitch. trying to figure out how not to serve up home runs.

But my God, has this team turned it around? And now all of a sudden, Juan Soto is starting to heat up. Yeah. And there are only two games out of first. I know. The Mets got beat last night, 20 to 2 by Atlanta. And they've got the Dodgers in for a four-game set. Then they go to San Diego.

Then it's San Francisco. This is one of the toughest stretches of schedule for anybody. but how about this turnaround? It's amazing. You know, I think we tend not to do this because credit is difficult to ascribe sometimes when things like this happen. But you've got to give Dave Martinez credit

for putting Schwabre in the leadoff spot in the first place, which kick started the whole thing to begin with, for keeping these guys, you know, at an intense level, never laying down. I mean, we've talked about that before. You also got to give their pitching coach Jim Hickey credit. I mean, because they've gotten some good pitching. Not yesterday from Lester, but yeah.

But generally, out of some unusual characters, they've gotten some good pitching with Steven Strassberg on the disabled list for much of this time. So you got to give, Jim Hickey is the new pitching coach. He came from the Cubs. He was with Davey when Davy was a coach for the coach. Cubs and when Davy signed his new contract, one of the provisions was he got to pick his coaches now.

Right. So he got rid of Paul Menhardt, who was very successful. It was good, yes. But he got his guy. And I think you got to get, look, we're quick to blame the batting coach or the pitching coach when both of those go south. Okay, they're usually the first ones to get fired before the manager does. So I think you got to give Jim Hickey some credit.

for managing to weave together a staff of, you know, wannabes and has-bens to keep them where they are right now. Turner's third hitting for a cycle, he became the fifth player in Major League history to hit for the cycle three times. By the way, the triple, which came in the sixth inning, which he got hurt on. He heard his finger sliding into third. And he's had finger problems before. had two additional abats in the game, but the speed in which he got to third. I played the call on the radio show. Dave Jagler was doing the radio call at the time. You hear the, you know, the ball off the bat, and literally it seems like two and a half seconds later he's sliding into third.

He was going for the triple. He can really, really motor. He knew what was at stake. The triple being the hardest of the cycle to accomplish. Yeah, yeah. And again, that he hit, that happened in the sixth, you know, in his fourth at bat because of how many times they were going around the order yesterday. This is a huge stretch. You know, they had this 17-game stretch following the weekend series in Miami with the Mets in that makeup game, and then the two with Tampa, and then the four with the Dodgers,

and another three with San Diego or four, whatever it is, in San Francisco and then San Diego. And a lot of the people that cover the team, and I can understand why, we're looking at this stretch saying, you know, if they can go eight and nine or nine and eight or, you know, even if it's like seven and ten, as long as it's not a disaster, they're going to be in this thing. Well, they're three and oh so far with 14 left in this stretch. And the Mets, you know, are not playing well right now. And they have a couple of big time opponents. I think they've got Milwaukee coming up before the All-Star break. I know they play Pittsburgh, which is not, you know, they're horrible, but there's another really good team that they play.

They play the Yankees. They play the Yankees and the Brewers before closing before the All-Star break with Pittsburgh. So this is a crucial stretch in the division. I mean, I think it's cool to follow the standings and hope for a race, which we really haven't had. had the wild card race. Yes. You know, they sort of weren't, they were in the division race, but then it was really about, you know,

grabbing one of the two wild cards. And that was a lot of fun. That was fun. But being in a division pennant race, you know, with the Mets or maybe with the Mets and the Braves. Scoreboard watching. Yeah, your scoreboard watching. Yeah.

Be a lot of fun. They got to get healthy. Strasberg, I think, pitched another session yesterday. You know, Fetties on the injured list. They need Hudson back at. some point. You know, this series with the Dodgers, this guy, Espino, I think, is going to end up starting a game because they don't have anybody else right now.

It'll be, yeah, it'll be. He will. Like a five-inning start. It'll be Corbyn tonight. It'll be Scherzer tomorrow. And then Saturday night, they play on Fox. It's, you know, either a national or regional game. Kershaw's pitching.

That would have been nice to see Max against Kershaw. Of course, I'm sure Fox thinks so, too. Yeah. But I think that's going to. to be the game that Espino ends up pitching. He pitched great the other night, and Joe Ross will pitch on Sunday. So, because they don't have anybody else, I don't think. Maybe they do. Maybe I'm missing somebody that they called up. But anyway, good for the Nats. Great for Trey Turner. It's amazing what Schwabers been doing. And then on the most productive, offensive day of the year, he does nothing.

I know. He strikes out three times. I know. And I'll bet you he felt, in a way, I bet you he felt great. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Because, I mean, he didn't carry the team and his teammates stepped up. I had Gene Wong from the Washington Post who's much more involved in covering the Nats right now, especially with Boz getting ready to retire. And that was a 405 first pitch on the most oppressive heat and humidity day in the year.

And he said it was an issue for a lot of the players, including Lester, you know, who's had issues with help before. I can imagine. I mean, I remember walking out of my door at 8 o'clock last night, Frederick, it was 95 degrees. Yeah, it was ridiculous. I played golf yesterday. You're a better man than me. I have a rule where I don't go for my walks if it's above 90 degrees or below 40 degrees. It was definitely warm, but I think I did a good job yesterday of preparing.

I thought you were going to say, hydrating? Yes. What were you hydrating with? Well, I was hydrating. I knew I was playing yesterday. I knew what the forecast was. So the day before I started drinking a lot of water, was eating a lot of fruit.

We had a watermelon at home that I opened up. That is very hydrating. It's mostly water. Of course it is. Yes. And then before yesterday morning, lots of water drinking. What about during the game?

You can't hydrate, you know, five hours before you go out. That doesn't work on a day like. You have to literally, if you're going to do it right. Look, if I hadn't hydrated, well, it was golf. I wasn't, you know, participating in a high stress activity, but I was walking. You do it longer, like earlier in the process, so it gets in your tissues. Yeah. That's why you do it.

But here's the other thing I do. did and I've noticed this before and I've been told that this is a good thing to do, especially, you know, heat. I had been hydrating well and then I carved up right before I went. I made a bowl of pasta like Michael, Michael Scott. Yeah, I made a bowl of pasta. I did not vomit at the end of that race. And I didn't start off going faster than everybody else. But I just had a bowl of pasta and I think that that was huge as well. Boy, this is boring. No, no, so wait a minute. What?

Who did you, is this group that you did golfing with? All these guys. How many guys? Yesterday, there were only eight. And we had, so we had four, we, no, there were eight per side. So we had 16 total. We've had as many, I think, 24 total. So when's the next time you do this?

Next Wednesday. Okay. Here's what I need you to do. I know all these guys are rich and they got lots of money. No, they don't. Yes, they do. No, they don't. Yes, they do.

Stop it. Stop it. As other friends that are much more important than I. You know, they're not playing handball at Sheep Said Bay in Brooklyn. They're playing golf on a private golf course. Okay. Why are you doing this? Well, I want you to hit them up.

For your screenplay? No. Or for candles. For tickets for my concert, the D.C. Grace's concert. I want you to tell them that, you know, The King's Soul, I'm sure the band is right up their alley. These are old white guys who love old soul music. Yeah, definitely.

Okay? Yeah. It's Sunday, July 11th, from 2 to 5 at Caddies on Cordell. You can buy tickets on the DC Graze website, DCGraise.com. Tell them it's for a great cause. I'm going to try to get a lot of people to come. Okay, look at that. You're a hell of a guy.

I don't care what they say about. I was thinking screenplay or you missed my reference keeping with the theme today or candles Serenity by Jan. Right. Which of course Michael

pitched in the dinner party. You should know. My motives are selfless. Is there any better sitcom of all time than the episode than the dinner party? It's up there. It's way up there.

Seinfeld the Keith Hernandez two-part episode. Yeah, that's awesome. It's classic. Um, yeah. All right. Uh, I want to talk about Chris Paul. I want to talk about your column, which would be a continuation of the conversation that we had Tuesday about not, you know, by the way, there are two separate conversations here. Tanya Snyder co-CEO. And then the Wall Street Journal story. Yes. They're completely different conversations.

The Wall Street Journal was about that, but it's what came out of that story that had nothing to do with her that ended up being the primary focus of our. conversation the other day. We'll get to all of that and more right after this word from a few of our sponsors. I wanted to mention a couple of things real quickly. So on the radio show yesterday and several of you listened to it and reached out to me and I did not mention it on the podcast yesterday because I thought I'd wait until Tommy was back. But somebody, and I forget what prompted it, somebody asked me on Twitter, why haven't you ever shared? You've shared gambling stories. before, but you've never shared, like, what was your biggest win ever, gambling?

And I know the guy's trying to dig to see, like, how much I bet on games or whatever. That's fine. And I never have really, I've shared some gambling. First of all, as I mentioned, Tommy, people who bet on sports, people who bet in general, they don't remember their big wins, usually. They only remember their bad beats, their worst losses. And I remember many more of those. But I did share the following story, which generated a lot of reaction on Twitter, which I found interesting some of it, and I will refer to it here in a moment.

But the biggest, like by far and away, and it's not even close, I one night, 15 years ago, in Vegas at the Venetian, at a craps table, won in 45 minutes, $82,000. Wow. Wow. So that's your reaction. A lot of you are like, oh my God. And then some people are like, oh, man, Sheehan, I thought you were a whale. No, I'm not a whale. I have a friend who's a whale, by the way, not part of the golf crew.

Who, by the way, isn't going to be interested in your screenplay, but might be interested in coming to Caddies on July 11th. What I've seen him do and how much he's been on. I'm not even going to mention, but it's obscene numbers. But somebody said, and many people are like, oh, my God, that's ridiculous. Like, how much were you playing? I probably started with like $25 pass line bets. You know, it wasn't like I was starting, you know, a thousand bucks on the pass line.

But if you know anything about dice and craps, if it was a 45-minute roll, I think I've told you this story before, maybe not on the air, but when I got done, Our casino marketing host, Kathy, I'll never forget Kathy. I haven't been out to Vegas in a while. She said, do you want to know exactly how much you made and how the whole thing went? And I said, what do you mean? They had all the data, everything. How long the role was, where I had all the money, where I had pressed, everything.

For everybody at the table. By the way, there were people that night at the table that made more than I did. Yeah. But you know, you've seen a ridiculously hot dice table and how it goes, you know, it lights up a casino floor like nothing else does. And this was a 45-minute roll before they finally crapped out. So it was just building, you know, it was, all right, I don't remember the specific numbers. I do remember how much I won on that role specifically because she told me, they told me.

But to be clear, it was Friday night and there were still two more days in Vegas. And so I did not walk out of that town with $82 grand. It was a lot less. But you walked out with more money than you came with. Oh, definitely. Yeah. But more times than not, I've walked and gotten onto that flight home with a lot less than I came with. But that particular time, I think I mentioned this on the radio show.

My memory is that I basically had about a third of it. By the time the weekend ended, that sounds so disgusting. is. But after lots of sports betting, and by the way, lots of picking up big tabs the rest of the weekend, which many were comped after that night. But we were, you know, everywhere, as you can imagine. And so, yeah, that was it. And nothing that I remember that. I remember one night, and I think I've told this story before, we were in Vegas. There were like eight of us. there were eight of us in Vegas on a Super Bowl weekend and I got on a ridiculous role playing Blackjack

and we had asked earlier our casino marketing host if there were any Super Bowl tickets because the Super Bowl was in Pasadena and it was on Sunday we were in Vegas and a couple of the guys were like hey I'd like to get up and go to the game and I'm like well I don't have tickets and we can ask you know we can ask our host and they don't know we don't have any tickets we have none but that night I got on a roll playing blackjack and it was one of those deals it was like I'll never forget like I got two eights against a six split them got a third eight split split it again got a fourth eight all right and I had a lot out there on the first

hands and then on the on the first on on on the first one basically you know I I get a three double down 10. On the second one, I get like a two double down ace. On the third one, I get like another three double down nine. And on the fourth one, I got like a two again doubled down and like, you know, a 10. So there I am, not only did I have four hands, I had doubled down bets on all four. And the dealer, you know, there was no drama. The dealer flipped over Jack six, took a hit and it was a queen, bust, won all of them. But as, you know, she's counting it up in and paying out my winnings, our casino marketing host walked over to us and said,

Kevin, how many did you need? Ha ha ha ha ha. And I said, well, there are eight of us. She said, I can't get you eight, but I can get you six. So six of us got up that Sunday morning. The other two also came with us. And we just figured, well, you know, you guys can figure it out when you get there if you can find, you know, a ticket.

Right. And we went to that Super Bowl. It was the Buffalo Dallas Super Bowl. Pasadena. Oh my God. It was Dallas's first Jimmy Super Bowl. Yeah. It was the year after Washington had won in Minneapolis. So, I had gone to that Super Bowl the year before. And, um, and, uh, I, like, it was one of those things that I had zero desire to go to the game, but after that, you know, and she hands you six tickets. She has to sort of use them at that point. And we just got up and took the, you know, took the quick flight from Vegas to LAX and went to Pasadena. We're there

for the game. Um, and, and, and, you know, it was a little bit of the game. Um, and, and, and, you know, it was, And as you know, I don't even like going to Super Bowls. I like exiting town. Yes. Because when you and I went, we couldn't wait at the end of a week just to get out of that place. Yeah. We didn't have any desire to go to the game. Super Bowls, by the way, are very overrated as sporting events to attend.

In my opinion. Do you agree? I agree. They're just not, it's a corporate crowd. It's like, you know. If they were playing it on the home field, one of the teams, then it'd be through the roof. Like, if you gave me the choice right now of going over to the Euro right now and watching England play a semi-final game in Wembley or going to the Super Bowl next year, I would go to Wembley. That was an incredible crowd the other day.

I know you're not watching it. When England beat Germany at Wembley, it was insane. And they play their quarter-final game in Rome. If they win, they're playing the semifinal game back at Wembley. How many people died? I'm not sure. How many people died? Yeah.

I don't know. I don't know. Do they don't have a body count yet? No, but it was, I'm sure there was probably some, you know, a fight or two somewhere. Speaking of fights, let me share my only decent gambling story. Okay. I was 13 years old in East Trialsburg, and it was the fire company's carnival to raise money for the fire company. It's a volunteer fire department.

And they had a craps table there. and I'm standing at the craps table watching these guys play craps. And it's pretty cool. But these, we're not talking Vegas guys. We're talking blue collar, you know, small town guys. Right. And the one guy says to the other guy,

to the guy running the show, the game, you're cheating. The dice are looted. And it turns into a huge brawl right in front of me. Oh my God. And then it was a riot. in the entire carnival. How do you...

I know it's just a waiting thing, right? With the die. That there's somehow... How does that... I don't know. I don't know either. But this guy accused somebody of cheating, and then it came to blows.

And then I thought it was the coolest thing in the world. You know? Yeah. By the way, boys and girls, especially the kids that are listening, don't gamble. All right, don't take these. I could share with you

for every good story, I got three that are just soul-crushing. Okay? If you bet you will eventually lose, so bet responsibly. And if you're going to do that, do it with MyBooky. Go to MyBooky.orgie.org. Use my promo code, Kevin, D.C., and just bet responsibly. Boy, there is that, you know, there is that conflict. There's the conflict of all the gambling money right now being thrown at sports

content, whether it's podcasts or radio. And for a lot of people that are doing these spots, they have no idea because they've never really gambled. Like I listen to guys on our station or other stations, and I know that they've never placed one wager. And if they have, it's recently when it became legal and it was like a $5, you know, 17 parley. Just understand that I understand that this is something you have to do in moderation and responsibly because it can turn badly. It can turn badly. Gambling, you're going to lose. So you just have to understand that and then understand, hey, this amount of money I'm prepared

to lose to have a good time. And most people can do it in moderation. What's the entertainment value for you? Gambling? In other words, there's an entertainment value number. Oh, a number? Yeah, that you gamble with, that you say, this is what I can lose with. Over the last 10 years of my life as my expense structure with kids and colleges and everything else, it's nothing.

I mean, it's not nothing, but I'm completely different. So are a lot of my friends. I still have a couple of friends that are way out there. They're crazy. But nobody wants to lose a lot of money. But, you know, it always does make games a little bit more interesting. Of course it does. A lot more interesting.

Speaking of games, I just loved Chris Paul's performance last night for the Sons. He's a very interesting sports figure of the last 15 years because he is a first ballot cinch Hall of Famer. Yes. Like there's no doubt. He is a guy that everybody has appreciated as a player. He's not only been a great player, he's been a super smart player. He's actually a very smart guy. You know, everybody says that.

And at the same time, he's not beloved by a lot of players. Like, they respect him. But my sense of it has always been, Tommy, and I don't know that this is 100% true, is he's one of these guys that's really smart. and just sort of doesn't suffer fools very easily. Like he wants to be around bright people all the time. And so he may not be the warmest and cuddliest of guys. What he has been is he's been an incredible player, super high IQ player.

And he had a game last night that was effing unbelievable. You know, game six, they lost game five at home. The clippers were down. They made a run to cut it to seven with a minute 40 to go in the third quarter. You know, the fans are going nuts. Clippers are making a run. And by the way, they're explosive, even without Kauai Leonard. They score in bunches.

And I was actually thinking in that moment, they're going to get back into this game. They're going to have a chance. And from that moment, Chris Paul, over the final minute 30 of the third quarter, and the entirety of the fourth quarter, 12 minutes, he scored 27 points on 10 of 12 from the floor, 5 of 5 on 3s, and the Clippers team only scored 21. Wow. It was, there have been a lot of these throughout the NBA playoffs. There have been a lot of, I mean, the Durant games were unbelievable.

Lillard's game was incredible when he went for 55. There have just been so many of these games, Kauai Leonard's game six in Dallas. ridiculous. But last night was up there. I don't know if it's the best one. I think Durant's game seven and game five were probably the ones for me. I mean, he was insane in those games, 49 and 48 respectively. Paul finished with 41, had 31 in the second half as a 36-year-old. By the way, some really good players like Devin Booker and DeAndre Aiton and others on the team, he took the game over and would not let them lose. And they pulled away and they won by 27.

By the way, he also had eight assists and zero turnovers in the game. Zero turnover. That's a smart player. His assist to turnover ratio, I'm going to pull it up right now. It's been incredible in this postseason. He just doesn't turn the ball over. In this series, it's 4 to 1. In the last series, it was 10 to 1 against a game.

Denver and their four games sweep. 10 to 1 assist to turnover ratio. Against the Lakers, it was 3 and a half to 1. But overall for the postseason, he's got 122 assists and 22 turnovers. That's it. In 6, 10, 14, 15, 16 games, he's been amazing to watch. And he missed the first two games of the series because of COVID. Yes. So I started thinking about like the guys who sports fans, Tommy,

want to see win because they never have. And Paul is in the conversation now of those players that have had phenomenal careers, but have never, this is his first trip to the NBA finals and he's never won a title and he's been

a great player. And we know in the NBA, right, Patrick Ewing. John Stockton, Carl Malone, Charles Barkley, the list of players that have never won it that were great players, because they all played in the Michael era primarily. You know, to me, the most recent story of the sports world or that particular guy's sport coming together and rooting so hard for the player was Alex Ovechkin. It was the massive 10,000-pound gorilla off his back when they won it in 2018, and everybody celebrated it. They wanted it so badly for him. Yes. And I think Chris Paul, I don't know if I'd put him

at that Ovechkin level, but it's close. Like, I think media, I think fans, and I think people, even in the sport that don't love him, are rooting for him to win a title. Getting to the title, it was huge. Getting to the championship here. There's not a lot of sentimental favorites left in the NBA final, you know? Yeah, no, not like this. No, there's not a lot of, big personalities, big stars, sentimental favorites. He's pretty much it right now. I was thinking about, like, Elway was one of those guys. Everybody wanted him to finally win one, you know, and he did.

Kirshaw last year, even though it was, you know, in the bubble, everybody wanted to see Kirschaw finally win a World Series, get, you know, a pitching one and win one. Somebody called in and said, Dale Earnhardt, when he finally won. the Daytona 500, it was like a massive thing in that sport. Senior. Yeah, senior. Okay.

And then, you know, I brought up, you know, Dirk Novitsky, I think everybody wanted to see him get to the finals and win it. A lot of people started bringing up guys that, you know, really, that had chances that never got it done, like Dan Marino and Fran Tarkington and Jim Kelly, and coaches like Marv Levy, et cetera. But Chris Paul's in that group. You know, Reggie Miller finally got. to an NBA finals, didn't win it, lost to the Lakers,

but people really were excited to see him there. I think that Paul is in that conversation. Speaking of the Lakers, think about how history would have changed if NBA Commissioner David Stern did not step in in 2011. Right. And stopped the Chris Paul to Lakers trade. I know.

Chris Paul and Kobe Bryant. Right. Together. He would have won there with that group. Change the course of history league. I'm rooting for him. You know, I was, I was happy, by the way, to see Paul George in all of the Clippers last night when they lost, and they were asked about Kauai Leonard, say we would have still been playing had he been available to us. That is a weird situation. I don't know why the

level of sort of secrecy around the injury. I think I mentioned this to you the other day. I forget, I can't stand Skip Bayliss, but he sort of reported that it's a serious injury and that he's very upset at the way that the Clippers medical people have handled it over the last couple of weeks, which is exactly. That was the story of the same in San Antonio. Exactly. By the way, I believe that the Clippers were right there with the Sons without them, which surprised me.

But I do agree with Paul George. Had he been playing, I think they would have won the title this year. I think they would have beaten either Milwaukee or Atlanta. And meantime, we get, you know, the Eastern Conference finals tonight without Yannis more likely than not, maybe without Tray Young. And it is true, these NBA playoffs have been great, but God, the stars have missed a lot of games with injuries. Yeah. No doubt. Let's talk about your column.

We'll do it right after this word from a few of our sponsors. Tommy's column off of the Tanya Snyder co-CEO. news, which was broken by the Wall Street Journal, which created a whole other conversation, came out yesterday, Tommy's column did, and you took the angle of fairy tale. It's a great column. You know, sometimes when you nail it, I love it because I think it's funny and it's also quick, per usual, but you really, really got after them at a big way. Have you heard anything from anybody? Well, I've gotten a lot of positive response on social media. A lot of people liked it.

A lot of people retweeted it, including you. And again, I never hear. Including you. Surprise. He retweeted it, people. Without anyone telling them. You didn't tell me. You know, when I retweeted it very early this morning when I read it, because it was

excellent. It had me, it had me howling. But I never hear from anyone. the organization. Nothing. Yeah, I don't hear anything from them. Nothing at all. And you know what? We get no help from them still. None. You see, I figured not hearing for them? I shouldn't say none, but very little. Not hearing from them for me is a good thing because if I screwed something up really bad, I think they would jump on it. Well, yeah. I mean, that's the thing, right? Like, when you write something or we say something, if we're dead wrong, we're going to hear. Yes.

from them. Boy, recently, what was it? I'm going to look it up on my phone because I got a text in the middle of the segment on radio talking about this

and it's the first time that... Yeah, so when I don't hear anything from them, I feel pretty good about what I wrote. Oh, it was the Chase Young stuff. I was, you know, in the OTAs. Yes.

And part of the storyline was that he was off doing commercials and he was off doing family feud. And I didn't have to, have all the information, but I was just saying, you know, if these were the things he was doing, and I immediately heard from the team to say, just for clarification, Kevin, you know, family feud was filmed back in March before the draft. And then they confirmed that he was in Miami working out, you know, so it wasn't like he had, you know, sort of these obligations. There was a shoot with

under armor, which was, you know, a day and a half shoot. Anyway, the point is, when we say something that's inaccurate, we hear from them. Yes. And we should. Yes. We should hear from them. Absolutely. If you're going to go all scorched earth like I did, you better not screw up. Tommy's column really, though, rips the Wall Street Journal. And this is where you started the other day before I had read the entire article and I think we had all just seen excerpts of it at that point. But you wrote in your column about Andrew Beaton, the Wall Street Journal reporter who wrote it. You said, in a piece of work that should embarrass anyone associated with this media operation, we read about the burden of Dan Snyder, quote, attempting to reform a culture, closed quote,

as if he was some sort of innocent bystander, while decades of dysfunction, destruction, and deceit has wrecked this one-time premier NFL franchise. This really was the ultimate puff piece. It was. Right? And, I mean, it was a puff piece where there was no pushback. There was no, there was no contention that anything he said might not be accurate. So why did you, why do you think there wasn't pushback or do you think it just wasn't well researched?

No, I don't think he's big enough in an idiot that he would not know what's going on. I think that was the quid pro quo for getting an interview with Dan Snyder and getting the story. Would you, would you do the interview with Snyder if there were ground rules? No. No. unless it was some kind of family thing, maybe. What do you mean family thing? No, if there was some kind of family information that was unrelated to anything football, you know,

but no, I wouldn't. I wouldn't give him the questions beforehand. Although I have emailed questions to people for stories, for quotes like that. I have done that. I wouldn't do that with him. And I wouldn't abide by these ground rules. What do you think the ground rules were? You think they said, we want to give you this story.

It's going to be a big headline story. We are naming somebody co-CEO of the football team, and we want you to have it, and we want to have some quotes in there. How did that all come together, do you think? I don't know. Again, the business has changed so much in the past 12. to 15 years. I don't know how something like this comes together anymore. I mean, it's a PR level

way above my pay grade that the team is paying for to have something like this. And I don't know what the relationship is between their PR company and the Wall Street Journal. I don't want to speculate how it came together. All I know is that, I mean, you know, I think it backfired. I think it backfired based on the response I got from people. And I put in there, there's a caveat. I put in there because somebody was suggesting earlier that, well, maybe he's just talking about on the business side. He wasn't referring to, you know, not interfered, to being involved more on the business

side. No. I know that. I know it. But I also put in. Belawah, I mean. Yeah, he was there for that. You know, that wasn't a surprise for him.

So, I mean, you know, that doesn't fly either. No. No, no, no. He's trying to act like this was all Bruce's fault over the last many years. It's always someone else's fault. It was the minority owner's fault. That's been my point for years is that the biggest issue with this organization is that the owner has been the problem, but he'll never admit it because he can't. And maybe it's because, you know, it's full, you know, fledged narcissism. but really he's never been able to admit that any of this is his fault. You know, it started with Norv, and then it went to Marty, and then it went to Vinny, and then it went to Zorn,

and then it went to Mike Shanahan, and then it was Bruce Allen, and it was Lafamina. It's been everybody else's fault but his own. And like I said to you the other day, you have to be so detached from the real vibe of your customer base to think that they are going to buy into, you haven't been involved enough, and you've got to get involved more.

You've been detached, and it was everybody else that was, you know, at fault for the organization's performance. You know, maybe the purpose of it was, maybe their audience was the NFL and other NFL owners and NFL executives. Well, they're not fooled by this. I know that, but, you know,

But it's a story about Dan Snyder that's not filled with poison. Tommy, I will tell you this right now, and I'm 95% sure of it. People in the NFL like and respect Bruce Allen a lot more than they like and respect Dan Snyder. I can believe that. So whatever. We're comparing small crowds here. I understand that. But Bruce had fans.

and had friends in the league and still does. I don't know that Dan has any in the league. You know, we speculated the other day about, you know, the potential reasons for her being named co-CEO. The bottom line is, you know, obviously, we can talk about whether or not she's qualified or whether or not any of these people that they've been hiring over the last year are qualified.

I can't tell you if they are or not. I think Jason Wright's resume speaks to being highly qualified. and I'm sure that Jennifer King being the first black female assistant coach and, you know, Julie Donaldson, you know, I'm not, I'm not diminishing any of their resumes and whether or not they were qualified. But clearly the organization over the last year has decided that it is going to try to fight all of these allegations and all of this ugliness with we're going to become the most progressive, team in the NFL. It's not a bad strategy. It's not a terrible strategy at all. It's a good strategy.

Yeah. And it's... Except the guy, no one believes the guy at the top is going to change. Right. That's the problem with it. True. But it is a pretty good strategy. But they have turned that football team, and Rivera had a lot to do with it, with his

story last year, fighting cancer, with his personality, the Alex Smith comeback story. Yeah. I wrote last year that they've turned in the... to the NFL's teddy bear. Well, yeah, I mean. I mean, because people were rooting for them besides Washington football fans. They were rooting for Rivera. They were rooting for Alex Smith.

Look, I think that there are longtime NFL fans that, you know, probably the same way people thought about the Cowboys when they suck for several years. The Packers suck for like 20 years. Like, there are longtime NFL fans that wouldn't mind seeing Washington be, you know, in the conversation again, you know, and having Washington. versus Dallas be big games, whatever. I'm getting away from the point. They tell you what they've been doing through their press release,

through the line in the journal. And their press release, they wrote, Mrs. Snyder is one of the few female CEOs in NFL history, furthering the Washington football team's commitment to being a standard bearer of diversity and inclusion in sports. And, you know, there is a line that's very similar to that in the journal story. The point is they're telling you this is a major priority for them.

Now, when is the Wilkinson report going to be done? And are we going to see it? And was this some sort of preemptive move because he's going to get suspended? You suggested that the other day. By the way, I don't think any of that matters as much as the quotes and the continued realization of just how detached from reality he is, and you see that in those quotes in the Wall Street Journal. Right, I suggested

at the bottom of the column that the Tanya Snyder move is laying the groundwork for her to take over if and when Dan is suspended when the Wilkinson report comes out whenever that happens. But suspension, look, I mean,

the George Steinbrenner suspension for two seasons back in the 90s, that was a real deal. I mean, he was, Bud Seelich made sure he was out of it. and Gene Michael and Buck Showalter were able to build up the Yankee farm system as a result. Derek Jeter, Bernie Williams, Andy Petit, all the guys that Steinbrenner probably would have traded. But Tommy, I just want to ask you one thing before you get to whatever's coming next.

Bud Seelig has much more power or did, right, than Roger Goodell. Yes. Because Bud Seelig essentially... Actually, that wasn't Bud. That wasn't Bud Seelig. Excuse me. Well, whomever the commissioner was. Bud Seleague took the team away from Frank McCourt in L.A.

It was Faye Vincent. Yes, he did. Roger Goodell cannot take the team away from Dan Snyder. No. And Selegg did it from Frank McCourt in L.A. Yeah. And he did it based on... Well, actually, what happened in L.A. was the divorce was pretty much what set the groundwork in motion for the Dodgers to be sold.

But I think Snyder, suspension will be like... when a manager gets kicked out of a baseball game and then manages from his office via cell phone, you know, he's still managing the game, you know, and a Snyder suspension, I think will mean very little, particularly to the people who feel like they were wrong by this organization. I don't even know how that manifests itself, a suspension of an NFL owner. Jim Ursay was suspended. Yeah. I don't know for how long. I don't remember that.

I don't know. You know, somebody wrote me this long note about, because I made a comment, I think, on the podcast about, somebody said, look, you know, ownership has its privileges. Of course. He's the owner. He can do whatever he wants. But I said, but sports teams are public trusts. Yes. You know, and I said that, and I'll be honest with you, I don't even really know what that means. Like, technically, I don't know what that means. I don't know what it means to be a sports team that is a public trust.

I think what it means, this is my guess, is it means that you are, you know, a major driver of, economics, of social, you know, philosophy, whatever. It's a matter of building and keeping and bringing a community together. See, I can't even explain it as I'm starting here. I've heard the terms so often. Do you know what it means? Well, I think what it means is basically that, I mean, there's no product without the public. And the public has to trust. And we used to talk about this with newspapers all the time. The public gives newspapers to publish a license to publish every day. You know, if they stop buying it, they don't have that license anymore.

You can say that about a lot of products. Yes, I know yet you can. But there's a lot of government involvement with sports teams. Usually a lot of subsidies of stadiums. Okay, right. Usually a lot of public funds somewhere along the way are used for an NFL franchise. And I used to think that that, That was true, but the fact that attendance means so little anymore in terms of revenue for the NFL that their TV money is everything, that the public trust thing may not exist anymore.

Yeah, the thing also about public trust. And so I got into a conversation with somebody the other day about it, Neil and Rockville being one person and then somebody else. And, you know, they said, no, you know, this is something that the owner, that the commissioner has to protect is, you know, that these teams are public trusts. And I said, we'll explain that. And he didn't really explain it very well. But he said, they, you know, while they don't have literal ownership, they have figurative ownership in the team. No, they don't. We're not owners in the team. We don't have stock in the team. We can't tell the owner what to do. We can't prevent the owner from leaving. I mean, we've seen it too many times.

And here's the problem. So the box office power. We're not shareholders. Right. The box office power, I don't think is there anymore. Again, they prove last year. They don't need people in the stands to make money. Right.

So. Yep. They did in many ways prove that. But they'd like people to be in a lot. Of course they would. And they want people to buy their product. And they want people to continue to watch on TV more than anything else. But the absence of people in the stands is not generally not going to move, make a dramatic impact on something like the ownership.

Right. Last topic. So CBSportsline.com came out with their list of coaches ranked 1 through 32, ranking, you know, for 2021, who are the best coaches in the the NFL one through 32 it's a subjective list of course it is um Rivera was 17 on that list and Mike McCarthy was 23 really yeah well that's absurd seven losing seasons in 10 years you know how does somebody do that with a straight face yeah um it wasn't seven in 10 years yes it is well he wasn't 10 complete years you know he didn't finish his last okay um the uh the uh On that list, it's stated very clearly about McCarthy.

One of the toughest to rank, McCarthy's accomplishments are undeniable. All right, 131, 87, and 2 winning record, 600 winning percentage. 10 and 8 in the postseason, 1 in O in Super Bowls. And yet, he's also 16 and 26 since 2017. Good for him, allowing Kellan Moore to retain offensive oversight in 2020. And Dak Prescott's injury obviously hurt his. Dallas debut, but it's tough to believe in McCarthy as an innovator in today's NFL. Ron Rivera has a 535 winning percentage, and his playoff record is three and five,

because he's been to the playoffs four times, and twice have been with losing records, and he was 0 and 1. I'm sorry, he's been to the playoffs now five times, twice with losing records. But they wrote, they write, Washington went seven to nine and won the NFC East in his first year at the helm, which was a remarkable and fitting feet for a coach who's long fostered steady culture, but never quite taken the next step. Rivera's respected voice should keep the football team tough, especially on defense. And as Ryan Fitzpatrick Gamble raises the ceiling for 2021, as always though, a title feels a little too unlikely. But he is six spots ahead of Mike McCarthy. The media love them somewhere on Rivera, don't they? He's a better football coach.

St. Ron. He's a better football coach. Seven losing. seasons in 10 years. He's a better football coach. Okay, how does that happen? Um, what do you mean? That's almost hard to do in the NFL. No, it isn't. Lots of coaches have happened. Ten years, seven losing seasons? Yeah. That's Norv Turner like. Yeah, 10 years, five playoff seasons, though, right? And the only, but let's not, let's not kid ourselves. Well, there's context. Five, five of his, let's just call them nine and a half seasons. That's white out. By the way, That's not context. That's white.

That's white. Nine. Eight and a half seasons in Carolina. So in nine and a half seasons, he's been to the playoffs five times. Right. He's been to the Super Bowl. How many winning seasons did he? And in those nine and a half seasons, he's had three winning seasons and two non-winning seasons where he won divisions and went to the playoffs.

That is sort of the goal. And if you look at the other seasons, six and ten, seven and nine, six and ten, seven, and nine, and then he got fired at five and seven after a five and one start. All of those seasons were compromised by his best player and his quarterback, being either injured and out or playing injured. So four division titles in nine and a half years. This is all whiteout you're using. You got out your little bottle of whiteout. They don't even make white out anymore.

Well, that's what you're, you found a bottle somehow. No. And you're putting it all over Ron Rivera's record. No. He's won four. Will we have a winning record this year? I think I predicted eight and nine. Okay. So that will mean eight losing seasons in 11 years. And I think Dallas has a slightly better roster, and they've got a better, they've got a better known at quarterback in terms of what Dak will be.

Dax healthy, they're going to be good. He's a hallfamer, no doubt. Who, Rivera? Yeah. No, he's not. No, he's not. He's just better than Mike McCarthy. He's just in football people, people with real sharp football opinion. Oh, yeah. No words, people who agree with you. People who have buckets of white out. Anyway.

Don't make me get out of his chair. You know what? You'll get out of it much quicker than you used to with all that weight loss. You know, the bottom line on the big takeaway from the conversation this week, like I think I said with you the other day, I can't let. my brain, which tells me as long as Dan Snyder owns the team, they'll never be a sustained winner. I can't let that stop me from talking about the games and the team in sort of a compartmentalized way. Because what would we talk about? Like if we aren't going to talk about the games and the players and the seasons and the drafts and the offseason and the Mondays after the games and the Wednesdays,

I mean, it's a given. I'm a Washington Redskin Lifelong fan. Washington football team lifelong fan. I know what the situation is. I know. He's one of the worst owners in the history of sports, and as long as he owns the team, the odds are stacked heavily against this franchise ever being a sustained winner.

But on the other hand, 2021, really good defense, a quarterback that can really sling it, you know, some good young players on offense, what could go wrong? What could go wrong? And maybe they can, you know, go 9 and 8, 10, and 7,

and be in the playoffs again. Maybe. Look, they could. I'll grant you that. They could do that, you know? But all you need, Kevin, and I've described this to you before, but you choose to ignore me,

is like on the package. of cigarettes, you need a surgeon general's warning. Yes. Before you start talking about the team, you need a brief two-sentence statement that says, I understand this is useless and immaterial and means nothing. And it's harmful to your health?

But I'm going to talk about it anyway. All right. Anything else for today? I got nothing else for you. Did you watch any of the College World Series? I'm just curious. Okay. No. I didn't either. It's funny. I know a lot of people that really

were into watching it. You know who really enjoys it is Scott Van Pelt. He loves the College World Series. Have at it. It's one of those things I've never gotten into, even though it's very dramatic. You know, it's like playoff baseball. Mississippi State won the College World Series, and they were one of three Power Five conference schools before last night that had never won a national championship in anything men's or women's. So they finally win a college world series. The two schools left that haven't. Do you have any idea who they are? East Strasbourg. State. Power Five Conference. Power five conference teams. East Shrews is pretty powerful. Virginia Tech's one of them, believe it or not. They've never won a national championship in any sport

and Kansas State is the other one. Maryland has the, among the Power Five schools, 21st most championships. They've had a lot of successful sports that, aren't, you know, football and basketball. It's lacrosse, field hockey, et cetera. By the way, very happy that Eric Ayala is coming back to Maryland. That's good news. That was expected. The big news we're all waiting for is the Aaron Wiggins decision.

We did not talk about the new name, image, likeness stuff. We will get to that at some point, promise you. It's interesting. It's going to impact recruiting, my belief, it will. But we will save that for. another day. You got anything else? Are you ready to go to lunch? I'm ready to go get some grub, buddy. All right, I'll be back tomorrow. Have a good day, everybody.