The Press Box - Rory McIlroy’s Long-Awaited Masters Win, the Barstool Apology Tour, and the Nico Iamaleava Saga

Episode Date: April 14, 2025

Hello, media consumers! This week, Bryan and David discuss the intense back and forth of Rory McIlroy’s first win at Augusta National (1:00), before running through a number of short items, including: The faux reluctant update about Stephen A. Smith’s presidential campaign (17:50) The bevy of Barstool personalities releasing apologies for their discussion of the Mary Kate Cornett rumor (20:00) The newest era of college football insider-dom and how it’s covering the Nico Iamaleava story (29:20) An update on Journalism, the official racehorse of ‘The Press Box’ (40:00) Plus, the Overworked Twitter Joke of the Week and David Shoemaker Guesses the Strained-Pun Headline. Hosts: Bryan Curtis and David Shoemaker Senior Producer: Bobby Wagner Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What's up, everyone? I'm Nora Prynciotti. And I'm Nathan Hubbard. And we're coming in like a wrecking ball to announce a brand new series. That's right. It's every single album, Miley Cyrus. Deep dive with us into the career of one of our most creative and confounding pop stars. We're starting, of course, with the best of Hannah Montana. And ending with her brand new album, Something Beautiful, in June. And don't forget about Miley Cyrus and her dead pets. We certainly will not be doing that. So listen now on Spotify or we're ever you get your podcasts.

David? Yes. Now that we have the piano player going, let's talk about the Masters on CBS. Rory McElroy completes the career Grand Slam in the craziest and most agonizing fashion, as if he was popping those pills that Jason Isaacs was taking during White Lotus after every other hole.

Mm-hmm. On Sunday, he goes into the 13th hole with a three-shot lead. The Rory Bryson DeCambeau showdown had kind of been a bust. And it felt like the CBS coverage was going to be coronation coverage. Kind of boring. But hey, it's Rory winning a major after a 10-year layoff. So this is pretty cool. Yeah.

Then he goes in the water on 13. He double bogeys, Justin Rose, who's ahead of him, 30s, all of a sudden the Masters is tied on Sunday on the back night. And dude, the CBS broadcast just did the Undertaker sit up at that moment. Yep. I had not heard Trevor Emelman, who's their lead analysts, say much of anything on Sunday, and he is going in on Rory. How could he do that?

How could you just throw this thing away? And they also had this great thing. And again, you and I are not golf people, but like how did that shot happen? Like you didn't miss. It was 25 feet from where you were trying to hit it. Yeah. It was truly like a what the hell just happened moment.

And I was thinking to CBS because I'm like, okay, you now have a tournament that's more exciting than you could possibly have imagined five minutes ago. Mm-hmm. But it's also a really strange and hard story to tell in the moment. because if you're a journalist, let's say a print journalist and you're sitting in the media center of Augusta after the tournament, you know Rory's won, okay, you can write that lead, right?

Rory, you made it hard on us, but you got there. But in the moment, you and I've talked about this a lot, uncertainty is kind of the hardest thing to do. Because you don't know if this is going to be like, oh, he's going to eke it out or this will be one of the great sports meltdowns of our entire life. Yeah. And a particularly sad one at that.

No, it's totally true. I mean, it's not, the final call is what's going to live on in our memories. But yeah, I mean, if there were just, you know, lots of tape of them just mischaracterizing what was happening, that would live on too, because it's, I mean,

it's not the end of the world, sure, but it would feel like, I mean, we rely on Jim Nance to narrate the story. for us. And WrestleMania is coming up. So I don't need to get too far in the wrestling weeds,

but that's one of the great things about wrestling is the announcers, oftentimes, you spoke to Michael Cole about it, know, know what story they're telling, you know? Although in the modern age, they like to be blindered to it so that they can be more naturalistic.

But it's, but still, it's, I mean, you, you rely on the announcers to give you that sort of, you know, to accompany you through this journey.

and you don't know what story you're telling, it makes it a lot harder. And it's not a story of two golfers playing great down the stretch. Oh, my God, who's going to win? Right. That's a story we know how to tell. We know how to tell that story. It's like, oh, my God, is this guy just going to spontaneously combust? And it's going to be the saddest thing ever. Yeah.

Yeah, and you don't want to go too hard because you saw what happened. You know, I mean, it's not, you can't just criticize the guy. because you might just have to, you might be about to interview him on, with the green jacket on, which is what happened in Bullard Cabin. So that's CBS. I was also thinking about the writers at that moment.

Because I cannot emphasize to you enough how much Rory McElroy is the golf riders guy. He is their guy. Kyle Porter, excellent writer, put it in this way on Twitter. I like Roy personally, of course, but I also think his golf and his golf, life bring out the best in me, the best of my writing and my thinking about the stupid,

ridiculous game. I've said it a thousand times, but I am grateful that his career has intersected with mine. There is nobody more fun for me to write about or to have as a character in the golf universe. Yeah. Rory's good to the golf writers when he's at the podium after a round or before the tournament. He had this amazing quote this week where he was talking about. about heartbreak, that 10-year span where he was like, it's the next tiger, oh my God.

And it's like, oh, are we going to ever win another major? Yeah. And he said at a certain point in someone's life, someone doesn't want to fall in love because they don't want to get their heartbroken. People, I think, instinctually as human beings, we hold back sometimes because of the fear of getting hurt, whether that's a conscious decision or subconscious decision. And I think I was doing that on the golf course a little bit for a few years.

years. When have you heard an athlete talk like that about their craft? Like, this reminds me of some relationships I was in. Yeah. Rory's case, some very high profile relationships he was in. I was like, dude, if Rory blows this, we, you and I are going to have to do a golf rider welfare check. Because those people, I mean, I was at the U.S. Open two years ago and you would just literally look over during the practice round. Rory be still. standing next to the ropes. And there's the no laying up guys. There's this guy.

There's this guy. He's just feeding them to the extent that it's very hard to imagine another athlete of his caliber feeding people in the press. Yeah. And he's a nice guy, at least by golfer standards, a nice guy. And man, I know there's a lot of, there's levels of rooting. I'm not worried about that here. But I'm just saying if Rory had blown that, God, that would have been a rough day.

Yeah, it's true. I mean, and it's, it's, there's sort of a generational thing where certain writers' careers line up with, you know, I mean, that's, most of the LeBron Jordan debate has been about, right? It's, it's, it's people who can't, who, who, who were writing every day during the Michael Jordan era and people who were writing every day during the LeBron James era. I mean, I mean, I know, again, just to go back to the wrestling, there's so many of us, so many people who do what I do with pro wrestling stuff that, that are. that were only, and I guess it's important to say, it takes a star of that caliber to shape people's careers, right?

Like people who do wrestling podcast and wrestling writing who were only afforded that opportunity because of the emergence of CM Punk in his day, right? And that's what someone like Rory allows, you know? And that's what a lot of that connection is built on. Yeah, sure, he might bring out the best in you. But it's, but there is a generational

thing. The next time that there's, I mean, some of the other younger golfers on the tour didn't necessarily create a, or weren't necessarily there for the creation of an entire new generation of journalists. You know, it takes a certain level of hype that attends

only like the most elite players to allow, for that to happen. Let's do the one for one golf comparison. Tiger Woods. Yeah. By the time a lot of these guys got in, Tiger Woods was fading. Yeah.

Or if they got in during the Tiger era, Tiger was not feeding them like he was feeding. No, Tiger already had his guys. Not to say, like, if he had any guys. Well, I'm just saying there was already people who had made their careers writing about Tiger Woods.

You know, like there was like that, that position was taken. Completely true. So yeah, it's, it would have been, it would have been,

I mean, I guess, so this is a win for journalism too is what we're saying, right? It's a win for journalism. Also, I was wondering this, if Rory had blown it, does someone kill Rory in print? Does that person exist in our media universe anymore? Like, I imagine there's somebody from that golf contingent who more in sorrow than an anger writes that piece. But, you know, when we were growing up, all the newspaper columnists would go to the majors.

Yeah. I mean, I haven't had this memory of Skip Bayliss when he was a reporter or when he was a columnist when I was a kid. And he would just like rip Tom Watson or somebody like that. It's like, okay, for the people of Dallas. Yes. We need to rip Tom Watson today because Tom Watson failed, choked, whatever. Does that person exist in our media universe now who would just rip Rory if he'd lost? I mean, listen, I'm sure that would have been a segment on some of the morning shows.

I don't know that it would have gotten the same reaction as just like Ronnie James Rant. number 10 or whatever. Okay, morning show, yeah. There would have been a Stephen, they would have done a kind of, okay, we got to do Rory today. They probably did Roy today anyway. But in print,

the person you're actually reading, like who writes that piece? Maybe some of our golf writer friends can help us with that one. So I'm not totally sure. Yeah, I think Rory's, well, the past, whatever, number of years of Roy's career

have been fairly well documented. I don't think it would have been shocking for someone to go in on him. But you're right. I don't know who that would have been. Back to CBS. So after a very weird back nine, it looks good for Rory on 18.

He's up by one stroke. Drive is right down the middle of the fairway. And as he is walking to the final green, or walking, I should say, down the fairway, Jim Nance starts telling the Rory McElroy origin story. And he keeps telling us. telling it in additional installments all the way into the playoff. And I'm like, this just feels like the wrong story to tell right now.

Yeah. Isn't the story the drought? Yep. We know who this is, right? Mm-hmm. This is not Ludwig Obergh, who Normies might need an introduction to. We're doing like Rory's parents and all the opportunities they gave him. Yeah.

I don't know. That just felt like it was a. little off. Anyway, finally, in the playoff, Rory hits a

birdie putt. He tosses his putter and crumbles to the sacred sod, as Nance would later say. CBS takes that

shot of him just lying on the ground and shaking. And then he starts to do this walk-off, this long walk-off.

And nobody on CBS has anything. And it's an amazing moment because Rory has cry face. And by cry face, I mean, it looks like he has either just cried or is about to cry or maybe both. Yeah. And it was so fascinating to just see a public figure with that face. Yep.

It's not something you see very often. People are using terms like, you know, the kind of authenticity or vulnerability. I get all that. But for me, it was just the image of seeing somebody in that kind of suspended cry face shot. Yeah. I totally agree. Just looking around, looking for somebody to hug. Mm-hmm.

A couple more quick master's things for you. Only in golf broadcasting. When Justin Rose was in the pine straw at 12, an announcer said he was stymied. Mm-hmm. That that was pretty good. Rory's missed eagle putt at 15. Jim Nance said it was feeble. I texted one of my golf pals and he said,

that's not a super common golf word, but one you might hear when someone's trying to say someone did something bad but not totally rip them. So if we ever have to be the guy to rip Rory, a feeble putt, just remember that one. I got a T-shirt etiquette question for you. Uh-huh. I started Master's Sunday down in Orange County.

Christine and I were going to see my mother-in-law, her mom, and she and I, Christine, that is, are having coffee at a coffee shop and a guy walks in wearing a shirt with a hood. It's not a hoodie. You know what I'm talking about? Kind of a lightweight hoodie. Yeah. With a master's logo.

Okay. So what do we think about this? Is it cool to watch the Masters at home in a Masters logo T-shirt? Yeah. I mean, you probably got that. It was like it was some sort of official Masters merch. It was. Yeah, see, I mean, you don't have a lot of opportunities to wear that.

It's when you golf or when you're watching the Masters. So, yeah, sure. You don't think that's a little Roblo NFL hat or if I'm watching WrestleMania next weekend. I'm just in a WWF, WWE T-shirt. Oh, not a wrestler specific. Just like, no, it was just the Masters logo. Do they make, they don't make, do they make Rory McElroy T-shirts? I'm guessing no.

I think there's merch you could get, right? You could wear like his brand of a blue shirt or whatever. Yeah, okay. That's got to exist. Lastly for you, the people in the universe who were not watching the Masters on Sunday. I saw a strain of people tweeting about Draymond Green, which just, this just makes me smile all the time when we have a major sporting event. Yeah. It's like, who is not watching this in my Twitter feed?

Yeah. People watching regular season basketball is. often the answer. Maybe that's just because I work at the ranger.com. Do we want to bring on new official producer of the press box Bobby Wagner? Yes. So he can tell us what he was doing instead

of watching the Masters on Sunday. Guys, I can only be myself. I was watching the New York Mets. That's right. First place, and at least, the New York Mets. Haven't missed a game yet this year. And then I went and saw a pretty bad like two stars out of five stars movie. So, you know, a perfect Bob

night. This is so on brand. What movie do you see? Drop. Which one is drop? Oh, I know what that is. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. This new movie where she's on a date and she keeps getting weird drops from her, I don't know, from a stranger. I don't know.

It was an interesting idea. But then again, I was like, this is just a trailer. One of those movies where you're like, they just had a trailer, you know? And they were like, we're going to make this into 90 minutes. But it was a pretty full theater. So maybe the movies are back. And this concludes the 45-second mini big picture that I have now brought to the press box. Thank you for that.

I do think there's something about golf on a Sunday that makes you more inclined to be engaging with other sports too, right? It's just like you're fine. This is a very old TV show. I mean old old time, way old time, meaning like 10 years ago way of interfacing with TV, right? I mean, you're just like, like we're not no one. The master's, I guarantee of all the major sporting events of the past five years, the master's had the least people asking how they could stream this online.

right? This is this is hook up your old cable box, turn on the TV and flip channels. And if there's a golf event and there's, you know, on the next channel, you know, there's a basketball event or a Mets game. A basketball event. A basketball game basketball event. As we call it here, the ringer.

Basketball event. Yeah, and golf doesn't really require your full attention. No. In the way that some other sports do. I would be lying if I didn't tell you, I fell asleep. I was going to say, God. I got a great 20 minutes in there on the front nine.

It felt so good too. And they woke up refreshedly. What happened? We're still ahead? Yep. All right, David, coming up on the pod, I've got a bunch of short items for you.

An update of sorts on Stephen A. 2028, the Barstool Apology Tour, an update on our official racehorse of the press box. And, as Jim Nance would say, there's a new champion. we have a new title holder for worst question ever asked at the White House. All that and much more on the press box. A part of the ringer podcast network.

Hello, media consumers, Brian Curtis David Shoemaker and producer Bobby Wagner with you. David Stephen A. Smith was on ABC News this week on Sunday. It was billed as an exclusive. Did he break his silence? He broke his silence. Could there be anything less exclusive than Stephen A talking about his presidential ambitions? No. Has any silence been broken more?

And he said exactly the silence. Has there been one moment? He said the same thing, too. He always says, which is, look, I don't want to run for president. I must mention that I just signed a lucrative new deal with ESPN. Mm-hmm. But, but if forced to, I might consider running for president. And by the way, a lot of people have come to me and ask me about it.

Now, you know, it's kind of the job of a Sunday news show host to get different answers out of politicians that say the same thing over and over again. That is actually part of the art form here. Yep. They have their talking points. I'd like to get in. Jonathan Carl did not make any new headway with Stephen A's presidential ambitions. Also, if you watch the clip, it's really fantastic because he asked him about this. And Stephen A starts talking for about two and a half minutes.

Now, that's not an unusual length of time on first take. But if you're Jonathan Carl, as soon as anyone on your show starts talking for more than two minutes, you go into political journalist mode. Yeah. I'm sorry, Senator, I'm going to have to interrupt you. Excuse me, sir. And if you listen to this, he tries to get in a couple of times and he just has no chance. Stephen A's like, no, no, I know all about monologuing on television.

So you're just going to have to wait for me to finish. That might have worked on Mitch McConnell back in the day, but it's not going to work on me. We got the barstool apology tour, David. Yep. last Monday we talked about the internet rumor about Mary Kate Cornett student at Ole Miss

it was false but it was repeated by barstool personalities and with Cornett's name deleted referred to by Pat McAfee and the gang on that show well Dave Portnoy came out to NBC came on NBC and said

I'm sad and I wish we didn't play any part of it and I'd apologize and say I wish we didn't he continued, I have been doing this for a long time, and I thought it was clearly a fake story. I thought we were better than that. This is Dave Portnoy on Barstool personalities amplifying this rumor. Well, that was sort of the starting gun here. And then we got a series of Twitter apologies from some of the barstool people involved. And I thought the way to acknowledge this story would perhaps be to do a reading of some of these

apologies. Oh my God. Okay. Just so we make sure that people out there are hearing every word, or at least reading every word, that was uttered from Barstool. This is from Jack Mack. I know one of your favorite personalities over there. Big Jack Mack guy, yeah. In February, I made a few comments surrounding the horrible rumors about Mary Kate Cornett's alleged affair. I now understand those rumors are fake and the affair did not happen. I regret these comments and want to apologize to Mary Kate, her boyfriend, and both of their families. I will learn from this massive mistake. Goes on from there.

This is Barstool Personality, KFC. He calls it a bonehead decision I made to make a really lame and really bad piece of content. Dot, dot, dot, dot. Professionally speaking, I am way smarter than that. I have been doing this for a very long time. I know better than to engage in gossip and salacious rumors particularly about someone who is not in the public eye.

By the way, if you've ever been to a J-school class and had the day the defamation day, we're just quoting directly from the text right here. Particularly not someone in the public eye. I would never do such a thing to them. KFC continues, I am a father myself. Always a great phrase when it's involved in this. I have a daughter,

you know, I should have taken the table. time to stop and put myself in their shoes. We have another one from Barstool Personality Smoke. By the way, whenever there's a barstool story, I'm always learning the identities of new barstool personalities. Yeah, no, it's good. It's a learning time for all of us.

Were you aware of Smoke's work before I just mentioned it here? Not sure. Quoting Smoke, I truly regret making that post. I will take what happened very seriously and I will learn from this going forward. dot, dot, dot, I will be donating to another charity to help victims of cyberbullying. Sorry. Now, as for apologies, as of Monday morning, we were still waiting for one from Pat McAfee. He did briefly acknowledge it during whatever live event he was taping a few days ago.

He said, we will try to figure that out and make some sort of silver lining in a very terrible situation. You can have that promise from me. It won't be as impossible to be a fan. of mind going forward. You think WrestleMania would be the time that he would just during the main event,

a quick timeout? Sorry, quick time out. Quick time out, by the way, the choice words, whenever you want to just pivot and say something serious within a whole thing, maybe a face toward the camera.

Can we get order up that shot from the WW truck? Amazing stuff. This weekend, David, I was catching up on the Nuggets Now They Tell Us Stories. Oh, I was hoping you would bring this up. One of my favorite genres, if you have listened to literally no other Ringer podcast,

the Nuggets fired their coach, Michael Malone and their GM Calvin Booth right before the end of the season. It was a shocking event, not quite Lucas shocking, but pretty shocking. Yeah, pretty shocking. So now we were going to get the Now They Tell Us Stories explaining everything that happened. I don't know if you've had any takeaways from the story, but I had one, which is that I clicked on the ESPN story, which was prominently displayed on their homepage there.

Why the Nuggets fired their coach and GM with just days left in the season. Here's what I got. A big headline, a giant video of Brian Winhorst. Yeah. Below the headline. And then in the tiniest type imaginable. Like I'm not sure even an art director, the level of David Shoemaker, could have found a tinier type.

the bylines of the people who actually wrote the story, Tim McMahon and Ramona Shelburne. Oh, yeah. I know we've talked about ESPN journalism disappearing from the website. Yeah. In more of a metaphorical way or sort of a 30,000 feet footway. The bylines folks are literally disappearing. Yeah.

ESPN is making it impossible for you to tell who wrote the story. Yeah. Sometimes it feels like it's impossible to find the story. like you know it's there and it's I'm not saying it's like buried like it's literally right in front of you and all the hyperlinks that you can find or like it's just the thing underneath the video it doesn't even take you to the place yeah yeah no you're right it's it's a brave new world of journalism Brian we got to get we just got to get comfortable here I know I'm just looking at this I'm like you're trying to like I look at this and I see a picture of the Joker I see a picture of Wendy

that's cool but this is a story that people wrote, right? They went and got these, now they tell us details, and you don't want to tell us who wrote the story. Now they tell us, but now they don't tell us who wrote it.

Now they tell you at the end of the article. That's where... Is it going to be like the old New Yorker? You need to read to the end of the piece to find out who wrote it? Exactly. Can I ask a really just factual, like, am I stupid or is this obvious?

question about this whole story. Please. The same thing happened with the the Grizzlies firing their coach not too long ago and the story and the shock of in both of these cases was the timing not so much that the

people involved were let go. It was why do you do it with a week remaining of the regular season. Right? That's the question. That's where the drama comes from. I've seen a lot of people talking about the nuggets and saying well it must have been a lot more dysfunctional than we

thought, you know, there must, you know, kind of looking for, looking to put the logic that we're used to, to read the, you know, the conventional wisdom back into this semi,

supposedly inexplicable thing. I think, I think there's a couple of things going on. One is that, I think, you know, the, the,

the Grizzlies firing probably gave some cover or some good idea, some idea to the Nugget staff that, I mean, the Nuggets front office said, hey, we can do this now. Nuggets ownership, I should say,

because their front office got axed too. And there's been some comparisons made to, you know, football, soccer, where these things happen, you know, at more unconventional points in the season and whatever else. But it seems to me that, like, look at the nuggets. It just, it just seems like the owners decided that they were going to move on and separate from, I mean, and people are like, well, you know, this could hurt their playoff chances. That's exactly the point. If you've decided that you don't want to deal with this coach and GM anymore, the last thing you want to do is give them a chance to redeem themselves.

This is literally because if they won the championship, then he couldn't fire them anymore. Or then they would be even more of a PR nightmare if he did, right? Hold on one second. If they win the title, you would take that even if you're like angry owner, angry, angry team president, right? If you're like, man, I want to fire this guy. he inconveniently just won the NBA championship.

Yes, of course. Okay, I will be upset that I can't fire him right now, but I will take the chip. We're all good. Let's say a nice run to the Western Conference final. Yes, but the worst case scenario would be a run of the Western Conference final or even to the finals, you know, and you're on the cusp.

Oh, God, we were just one player away. You can't blame that on the coach, you know? Yes. But if they're not there to potentially do that good, then there's no question about it. Then you actually get to do what you want to do. I believe the ESPN piece, which I stress was written by Tim McMahon and Ramona Shelburne in case you missed it, said that they wanted to fire these guys at the All-Star break,

but exactly to your point, they went on a winning streak right before the All-Star break, and then they couldn't fire them. So then they just had to do it now, wait for a little dip and do it now. The new sports insiders, David. This is a big story in college football over the weekend. Nico Iamaleava, quarterback at Tennessee, leads them to 10 wins last year, and they made the playoff. One of the good young quarterbacks in college football.

Well, Pete Nacos starts to do some reporting over it on three. Pete Nacos is part of the new tier of insider, which they are a transatlantic. portal insider. College football's had insiders forever who report on recruiting. Yeah. Which high school player is going to go to my school, which one's going to go to my rival school. Yeah.

But now in the NIL era, you have the transfer border. Mm-hmm. You also have, and this is the case with the NICO situation, renegotiations with your own players after a successful season. Yeah. Hey, I had a great year. we won 10 games, we made the playoff, my deal needs to be increased. And as the rules are right now, you can do it every year if you're a player.

Yeah. If you want to. So Pete Nacos last Thursday starts reporting over it on three that Niko's reps were in what he called active contract negotiations with Tennessee, meaning we're going to need a little bit more money. Mm-hmm. Nico's dad starts dumping on Pete Nacos on Twitter saying, come on, what is this? Nico then misses practice the next day, that is Friday.

And then Tennessee, shockingly, says of their star quarterback, actually, we're going to move on. We are all good with this contract renegotiation. Yeah. Which resembles a professional player holding out from training camp. Mm-hmm. I'm not going to go. I'm going to miss one unless my contract gets right.

Yeah. You're going to let them know you're serious. So there's a whole college football discussion to be had there. But what's interesting for me is this new frontier of insider. The transfer portal insider. We know publications love insider. Yeah. Straw that stirs a drink, off-season scoops to give us stuff to connect actual games with more actual games.

Yeah. So Max Olson over at ESPN, Sam Khan just got this job at the athletic. Pete Naco said on three, breaking scoops. And what's interesting is there were already college football insiders and not just the recruiting ones like Pete Thamel, who McAfee calls the authority over there at ESPN. Every coaching change, every special teams coach moving from one school to the other, Pete Thamble's all over that. But now there are so many scoops in college football, you almost need a. second person. Rosters are bigger. There's more schools. Oh yeah. This is a whole new,

I mean, a new beat, obviously, but yeah, I mean, just the size and scope of all this. I mean, it's like you'd have to have a whole new staff. Absolutely. And then at least one big newsbreaker to go along with your previous newsbreaker. Yeah. Because it's, you know, it's, it's Georgia, it's Ohio State. It's the big schools. But hey, if a wide receiver, Wyoming has a fantastic year, yeah, he can go to one of those schools, right? He's like, he's a free agent. And he's a free agent after every single year if he wants to be. Yep. A lot of scoops to be had.

There was one moment in the playoff this year, Texas, my alma mater was about to play. And Pete Nacos, the aforementioned, had a scoop that teams were coming to Quinn Ewers of Texas, who's now in the NFL draft and say, hey, why don't you sit out the draft one more year and come play for us? Mm-hmm. Now, this is before Quinn Ewers was about to play a playoff game for Texas. Like Texas was alive in the national championship race. Yeah. And I was like, at that moment, I was like, oh my God, college football has become the NBA.

Yeah. It's not about who's going to win the actual national championship in front of us. It's about who could hypothetically win the national championship next year. Whole new frontier of insider. Fascinating to me. WrestleMania questions. Okay. You're about to hop on a plane to Vegas.

Where will you be sitting at WrestleMania? case people don't know what happens to journalists. I don't know. I believe I will be in the press box, but there's, you know, there's, I may have some seats on the floor.

It's a little bit unclear right now. But this is a, you know, we're at a high point at WWE's modern history. And this being in Las Vegas, I think there's, I think floor seats are going to be at a premium. Because there's a lot of,

Vegas type people, celebrity type people. LA type people, yeah. That will need a floor seat. Yeah. What I'm always fascinated with wrestling, and I guess boxing operates under the same principle, is that there is one side of the floor that is not visible from television.

Oh, yeah. So if you're watching a wrestling match or boxing match on television, the side that is basically below the ring as you see it. When the wrestlers are looking at the camera or looking at the audience at home. That's called hard cam. And right there, uh, and if you're like in a basketball arena, historically, that whole like riser is, is covered up. There's the camera, the whole, the whole camera setup is there and there's tarps over a lot of the seats because it's just, it's, it's, you know, they, they save that for production. Now, and when, when things are really hot,

they take the tarps off and they sell every one of those seats and use the least amount possible. And that's often where, if I, you know, wanted to press seat to a, Madison Square Garden event at the last minute, that's where I would end up sitting. And the principle is that you don't want to put those journalists on TV because they're not going to be jumping up and down and wearing crazy t-shirts and going and giving you that kind of Miz on Sen that you want. Yeah, that's where I'm, and plant them there. Not just a journalist that goes for, you know, friends and family of the wrestlers too and, you know, whoever would be, you know, kind of getting those people who weren't front row worthy,

but also aren't diehard fans. Yeah, you're right. surprise appearances we should think about when it comes to WrestleMania. It just got done with the mass man show and we were riffing

for a while on the likelihood of our president, Donald Trump, attending because he's been going to all these UFC shows and it's the same ownership group.

Yeah. Driving around, right, football games. And, you know, he hosted a couple of the

WrestleMania's back in the day in Atlantic City. Way back in the day. He's also in the W.W. Hall of Fame, I believe.

I don't think that that's you know, there's been any change there. This feels like a hundred percent chance, right? Unless he's got one of these club tournaments. He's competing in. I don't know if he has the time in his schedule to sneak away to Las Vegas. A big laugh, by the way, he has the time in his schedule.

But yeah, I don't know if it's 100%. You know, I mean, WWE, despite being part of the same parent company as UFC, has been, I won't say reluctant, but a little bit more deliberate about their engagement in politics. I mean, that was in the Vince McMahon era, they sometimes touched on politics, but tried not to get too political.

I mean, they know their demographics as well as the UFC does. And I think, you know, WV's skews in such a way that I don't think having, you know, siding with one political party would be a net positive.

No. We should note, Linda McMahon, former president, CEO, what was her title back in the day of the WWE is in Donald Trump's cabinet. She is. You mentioned the history. A lot of signs. Donald Trump likes wrestling. Like, he will enjoy the event. Yeah.

In a way that he might not enjoy a NASCAR race. Mm-hmm. I don't know. I like our chances. Did you see Linda talking about A1 in public schools this week? I didn't actually. She was talking, she had some sort of Q&A thing.

And I did, I honestly thought it was just a literacy program I was unfamiliar with the first time I saw it. But no, she was talking about using AI in classrooms to teach children and just, and just said A1 over and over again, which made me hungry and I couldn't tell why. But yeah, but yeah,

that's, it was quite a Linda McMahon moment. I didn't want to go down to steak and ale or someplace like that and get you steak that would require a bunch of sauce. I love steak. I'm probably sure I'll have my fair share of steak at Vegas this weekend. It's a very steaky place. I know this is low brow of me,

but there's nothing that gets on my nerves more than when I go to a steakhouse. I'm just like, hey, you have A1 or a similar steak sauce, and they're like, no, sir. This is, you know, as if like looking down their nose at me. You've really done that at a nice steakhouse? Yeah. Do you have A1? I say do you have steak sauce?

You're not like the guy in the commercial. Like, I'm sorry, do you have any A1? No. A1, by the way, ideal sponsor the press box. We're still looking for some sponsors for some of our elements. Dude, A1, A1 is delicious. And the big thing is I get, I understand the argument against A1. But it does like, that is how a lot of people eat steak.

And it changes the, that changes the flavor. I mean, it changes what you're, the experience. You know, I would never high horse you about any restaurant thing, food thing, or whatever, because you and I like the exact same kind of food. But I just don't think you need it all that much at the nice steakhouse. At a nice steakhouse. But there's a, but there's, I get it. But I'm thinking more of like, there's a lot of places that consider themselves nice that maybe aren't that nice.

The pretenders. I'm not, you're right. You're absolutely right if you go to a steakhouse, like a nice steakhouse. But if you go to what just generally like a nice restaurant, that happens to have steak on the menu. You know, just like, if I'm deciding between things, then maybe the decision in my mind involved some, like, the flavors of A1, the sumptuous flavors of A1.

Stake sauce. Finally for you, David, we have a new official racehorse of the press box. Okay. He's one of the favorites, the favorite, in fact, for the next month's Kentucky Derby. Oh. This horse's name is journalism. I'm not kidding.

Journalism is one of the favorites for the Kentucky Derby. That's amazing. So we've decided to go all in on journalism. And today I want to present some vital facts that I learned from the Louisville paper. Courier Journal. The Courier Journal. Thank you very much. Had a little moment there.

The Louisville Courier Journal. See, I was concentrating on pronouncing Louisville correctly, which you taught me many years ago. You did a great job. Biff the name of the newspaper. Here's some vital stats for journalism. Journalism's color is described as bay. That is a horse color, yes. His dad, I believe sire would be the official horse race term here is curling.

One of the preakness. His mom or dam, am I saying that correctly, is mopotism. Okay. Mopotism. When I first read that in the script, I thought it said nepotism. And I was like a parent for journalism. It would have been perfect. Oh, my God.

Journalism bought two years ago for $825,000. Now, you might ask David, how did noble journalism get his name? Well, I'm glad you asked. I'm glad I performed you asking that question. One of his owners, Aaron Wellman, explains to the L.A. Times that they tried to tie journalism's name to his pedigree. He's out of America called mopotism, not nepotism, but mopotism. So we thought ending in an ism was a way to go.

So we came up with journalism. I've always been a huge fan of journalists and journalism. I love it. So I was a little let down when I found out that we were just kind of looking for an ism and maybe communism or something would have been a tad controversial for triple crown race. But that last sentence brought me back. I've always been a huge fan of journalists and journalism.

How many times you've heard anyone say that over the last 20 years of American life? I'm a big fan of journalism. Yeah, not a lot. You and I are going to be big fans of journalism next month at the Kentucky Derby. Oh, yeah. The press box is going all in. Journalism needs a W. It really does.

It would be a big, it would, if Rory McElroy's loss, I was going to put a dent in the general vibes of journalism imagine of journalism itself lost at the Kentucky Derby. Holy cow, dude. Let's not even imagine

what could happen to journalism on the course potentially. We don't want to go there. Plenty of dark thoughts. I was explaining this to Joel on Thursday, but the horse wears the saddlecloth and the saddlecloth just says journalism on it, which is kind of like Richard Petty's old stock car

saying STP. Yeah. What great advertising for our profession. Noble journalism. All right, coming up in 30 seconds, David, we have a new champion. Here are the worst question that has ever been asked in the White House. But first, let's do the overworked Twitter joke of the week where we celebrate a gag that was so obvious that all of media Twitter made it at exactly the same time.

Send your nominees to add the Press Box Pod where they are always gratefully received that shocking NBA story I mentioned that sent the ringer into emergency podcast mode. It's so many good emergency podcasts to listen to. The Nuggets fired title winning head coach Michael Malone. It was an overwork Twitter joke to write we are now in the post-Mallone era. Yeah.

Right down the middle. Thank you to Corey Easter Day, Ping 33, and KG. If you kept it simple and ringery, congrats. You made the overwork Twitter joke of the week. All right, David, in the notebook, Dom. We had a change of title, by which I mean championship belt title. Oh. You might remember that Brian Glenn of Real America's voice was the previous holder of the title of worst question in White House history.

He not only asked Vladimir Zelenskyy while he wasn't wearing a suit. He asked the Irish Taoiseach about Rosie O'Donnell moving there. These were kind of the co-championship bad questions. Well, it's a body of work thing. Yeah, so you submit your portfolio to the judges at the end of the calendar year. Yeah, it's like, you know, when you don't ever win the best directing Oscar, but you get, you finally get that Irving Thalberg Award or whatever the hell that thing is for body of work. Well, last week, David, on the occasion of Donald Trump's annual physical, we got a new question.

It's a little hard to hear, but I think you will get the gist. Okay. Will you guys also consider releasing the president's fitness plan. He actually looks healthier than he did eight years ago. And I'm sure everybody in this room could agree. Is he working out with Bobby Kennedy and is he eating less McDonald's? Thank you, Caroline Lovett, for confirming that the president is in very good shape. President Trump looks healthier than ever before. I'm sure everybody in this room could agree. Is he working out with Bobby Kennedy and is he eating less McDonald's?

Oh, my gosh. The perpetrator, according to the New York Post, was Kara Kastranova, who the paper describes as a former professional boxer and credentialed reporter from Lindell TV. Yes, that is Mike Pillow Guys TV. Oh, wow. I think I said Mike Pillow Guy, Mike Lindell, aka My Pillow Guy. I looked at the website. She apparently hosts a show called Live from D.C. That's just a good name for a show about politics.

Anyway, congratulations. The worst question ever asked in the history of the White House. We will be updating this probably on Thursday. All right, some departments before we go, David. We got some only in journalism words. Okay. These are words you read all the time in news stories, but never actually hear in human speech.

And this week, we had many ways to describe what happened to the stock market after the Trump tariffs. our good friend Greg Tepper suggested royal love when markets are roiled oh yeah steaks royled you don't need to put any A1 steak sauce on it reporter Victor Hokobo from K-H-O-U in Houston gives us whipsawed oh god

the only word that it could describe the market and will also maybe be uttered by Michael Cole on Sunday night alert listener Dennis Schwarz gives us tumult. Tumult spreads to bond market. New York Times declared tumult is such an old-timey word. Yep. I think of Grantland Rice's memoir,

the tumult and the shouting. Then we get some good examples of media piss test. Oh. This is where reporters say a thing is like another thing except on steroids. I want to direct you to Senator Mark Warner of Virginia. He was talking about the Trump tariffs, and he said this. So, Ambassador Greer, can you explain to me how it helps America's national security or our trading balance when we have, and I loved your fancy Greek formula, which was basically bad math on steroids, formula. Bad math on steroids.

That's fantastic stuff. These are two of my favorites ever. alert listener Andrew Greening sends in a story from the Hollywood reporter about the Fox Business Network. Quite a ride for the Fox Business Network. And one of the anchors is describing what's been going on there. She says, we've been tearing up the show in the middle of the broadcast. Oh, my God, we've been moving things around like a chessboard on steroids. A chess board on steroids.

That's a great one. And this is the all-timer of Alzheimer's from Doug Giamboresse. Thank you, Doug. A former Customs and Border Protection Commissioner is describing in the New York Times Donald Trump's new deportation policies, comparing it to Trump's first term when he was also doing a lot of deporting. The commissioner says, wait for it, David, it's deja vu all over again on steroids. Oh, that is just unbelievable. Deja vu all over again on steroids.

Okay. It's time for a feature that always feels like deja vu, always like a bad memory haunting you till the end of your days. It's time for David Shoemaker guesses, the strained pun headline. Yeah. Monday's headline about Donald Trump's tariffs was World War fee. Today's headline comes to us from alert listener, The Disc Fan.

It's from Puck. You saw the story last week, David, about conspiracy theorist Laura Lumer. Laura Lumer walked into the White House. She dumped on a bunch of national security officials and then Donald Trump fired them. I want you to use her surname and think about what Laura Lumer has wrought. As you ponder, what was Puck's strained pun headline? Lumer, like the Lumer Apocalypse. The Luma, that's very good.

Puck would have been proud of that. Looming, is it something with looming? Looming, loomer, boomer. What if you think of television commercials from our youth? People perhaps dressed as various things you would find in the vegetable or fruit aisle at the supermarket. The fruit of the loomber. Fruit of the loomer. Yeah, that is.

That is good stuff. Fruit of the loom still. Yeah, still exists. Just coasting along. Still making some good tidy whitties for everybody. I think so. I don't know. I'm sure there's still a fruit.

Cannot confirm directly. He is David Shuebaker. I brag Curtis. Bragg's your magic. Bobby Wagner. David, you are going to be on assignment next Monday at WrestleMania. Yeah. So filling your very big wrestling.

boots. It's going to be Chris Ryan. Yeah. We're going to do a 25 for 25 on the birth, death, and rebirth of blogging. Oh, that's great. Revisiting a part of Chris's life that I don't believe has been talked about on the Ringer podcast network all that much. Cannot wait to talk to him. Well, we only have so many podcasts to discuss these things. Yeah. Chris has only had so many hours to talk, you know, hasn't been able to fit it in. Had to get the White Lotus finale in before. But now we're going talk about blogging. That's for other podcasts. See, we do that, we do that stuff here. Joel's here on Thursday. David, I'll see you postmania for more

lukewarm takes about the media. See you then, David. See you later, Brian.