The Press Box - The Joe Biden Three-Month Check-in and Rob Stone on the Greatest Bowling Call Ever

Episode Date: April 14, 2021

Bryan Curtis and David Shoemaker check in with Joe Biden three months into the job and discuss how the media is treating him (4:06). Then they share some Overworked Twitter Jokes of the Week (23:27), and Fox's Rob Stone joins the show to talk about his viral bowling call at the Professional Bowlers Association Tour (25:35). Hosts: Bryan Curtis and David Shoemaker Guest: Rob Stone Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Ring or Dish is the place for all things celebrity, for major celebrity moments like the Met Gala and the Oscars, to the weird habits of the stars you love, to refreshers on the biggest tabloid stories from the last 20 years, Ring or Dish has all the vital details. On Tuesdays, catch jam session with Juliet Lippman and Amanda Dobbins for Royal Family Rumors, Celebrity Real Estate, and Industry Analysis. And on Fridays, listen to Tea Time with me, Kate and Amelia, for lightning fast coverage on pressing celebrity news and gossip. Check out Ring or Dish on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. David, the Biden administration announced this week that to reach Americans who have not yet gotten the coronavirus vaccine, they are partnering with country music, television, and NASCAR. What I want to know is what other pop culture institutions would help convince Americans to take the vaccine. I don't know, can you buy ads on like evangelical TikTok? Is that a thing?

Isn't that where the crazy misinformation is coming, where disinformation is coming from now? Because you see all this stuff with like all these like evangelical leaders are actually like going or pro vaccine and they're kind of having to make. This is so nuts having grown up in the church. They're having to make like the evangelical or the biblical case for getting a vaccine, which is just so seems. so unnecessary.

But what they're competing against are like are like the voices of like TikTok Christianity that have sprung up in earnest over the past year plus. I mean, it's just just weird. That doesn't really answer your question in a particularly funny way though. But speaking of evangelicals,

you saw the Jerry Falwell Jr. vaccine thing. Yeah. Please get vaccinated so our nutcase of a governor will have less reasons for mindless restrictions. Yes. I guess we'll. take it? Yeah, yeah. You can make fun of the nutcase. The liberal governor is all you want if

if you're just encouraging people to give vaccine. It's amazing though just in general the situation, I mean, the place that conservatism or evangelical conservatism or whatever it is has twisted itself into that you can't actually say a thing that agrees with a Democrat president, despite the fact that it aligns with the previous Republican president without finding a weird backdoor way of like doing it to like, you know, you're like getting vaccinated to only. You're like getting vaccinated to own the libs basically. It's like the only thing you can do. So yeah, hopefully NASCAR, hopefully CMT, deadliest catch, like whatever. I was watching some reality show that I don't even know what it was because I got a new TV with free broadcast television and it was some Alaskan

survivalist who was helped building a survivalist house in Hawaii or something. I don't even know. That would be a good one though. I feel like that should be where we maybe maybe those like any kind of survivalist shows, like alone. That's a. fantastic one. That's where I would go. That's where I would be spreading that vaccination. Speaking of cable, what about those ads where celebrities who are, shall we say, a little past prime are selling products to people?

Is there a way Joe Biden could invoke the Defense Production Act, the one Trump wouldn't invoke, and just take over those commercials? Yeah. So instead of diabetes medication or life insurance, it's all about the vaccine now? And I don't even think we need Tom Selling to re-record his bids. I was going to say Tom Selleck with that just like just just liars you know plain of face just saying like there's a I'm Tom Selleck there's no way I would be tricking you elderly people to getting vaccines that exert brain mind

control over the populace I would believe them I think a lot of people would too coming up on today's show Joe Biden is still plottingly effective plus Rob Stone on the biggest bowling call maybe ever and an overwork Twitter joke of the week featuring infrastructure. All that more on the press box, a part of the ringer podcast network. Hello media consumers. Brian Curtis and David Schumacher here.

David, we thought we'd lead off today and do a three-month check-in on the Joe Biden administration. We're not totally going to take Greg Gutfeld's word for it. As they say in NFL draft circles, we want to do our own evaluation. And today, it appears we have an ostensible peg, for this segment. Yeah, it's a topic so boring that even you and I couldn't resist it.

Biden announced today that all American troops would be withdrawn from Afghanistan by September 11th, which is the 20 year anniversary, of course, of the September 11th attacks that launched the conflict. I guess we could use that term in Afghanistan. This comes on the heels of administration review of the military and political situation there. And yes, it is several months later than the previous presidents announced withdrawal date of May 2021. May is sneaking up on us, obviously. But this one, unlike Trump's May date, this one's actually based in reality, not just as a, you know, subtle FU to whoever his follower in the White House would be. It's interesting because there was a lot of, there was a number of articles in the past week or so

that were sort of presaging this, saying that it, looked like he was going to, Biden was going to have to delay it. Of course he's going to have to delay it. The May date was always a little bit of a non-starter. And, you know, talking to generals and other military leaders saying, we just need an answer. We just know, we, we just need to know what we're going to do. But it's weird. I don't, the news came out today and it was, it seemed like, well, I mean, it is. It's a really big deal. And it's, but it also seems like a very, there's a very Bidenness to it. It's just sort of a well-considered, fairly

obvious thing that Buck's conventional wisdom sort of only in so much as it shows the distance between Washington conventional wisdom and the rest of the country is conventional wisdom. Does that make sense? This shouldn't be a big deal. This shouldn't be a hard decision. But it is a

hard decision if you do it recklessly, like her previous president might have done. This just seems very, like very normal news, yet it's a sort of news that gets, you know, big fonted headlines in New York Times. What do you think? No, totally.

And I was going to bring this up later in the segment. We might as well say it now. I am amazed at how the discourse around Joe Biden, the president, is almost exactly the same as it was around Joe Biden, the candidate. Conservatives sort of desperately trying to get their mind around this guy, and then they just give up and start pretending that AOC is wearing a Joe Biden costume and is actually the president. right and joe biden's you know ostensible allies or at least a larger group on the left sort of thinking i think if anything just underestimating the political savvy of team Biden now maybe it's just

impossible to overestimate team Biden so you can only underestimate team Biden but there seems to be the thing where it's like you know the administration started right and it's like oh my gosh this is going to be like 2009 again it's going to be obama waiting for the fever to break trying to cooperate with Republicans and they're going to get rolled. And they didn't do that, at least with the COVID relief bill. And now you have the withdrawal

from Afghanistan, which is apparently a real withdrawal from Afghanistan. Again, as you say, the kind of, you know, just the kind of thing. It's like, oh, wow, if this gets done,

this will be a big deal. Yeah, I mean, there was a really, I thought, poignant and smart line from an administration official, I think in the New York Times story about this. I'm sure it's more widely spread than that. But basically they were just like, we are going to stay very involved in the political future of Afghanistan, but we're not going to let our military be a bargaining

chip in that process. We're taking a step back sort of so we can engage like we engage with so much of the rest of the world. It just seems like it just, I don't know, I don't want to be too effusive because points of comparison are difficult. But you're at, you're at a lot. right about the way that Republicans have been responding or reacting to everything Joe Biden's done. I think that for so long, I mean, for the past four plus years, just sort of all that the Republican are kind of conservative talking heads and Republican political leaders really did was sort of played cleanup for Trump's tweets, you know? And they sort of cobbled together a bizarre epistemology by just like by making the best sounding version of what Trump was, whatever Trump was

agitating for in inanely at the moment, right? And they sort of forgot how to think on their own, you know, to sort of like take the, I mean, to sort of coalesce around a real idea. Now, whether or not the Republican Party is the party of ideas in any real sense now, I guess, is an open question. But they're always, they've always been a really adept political organization, right? Political animal. And even that now seems to have abandoned them. And it's sort of unclear whether or not Joe Biden is just like the kryptonite to whatever they can do. or whether they just don't have, I mean, they're still out there.

I mean, you watch Fox News. Like, we should talk about the George Floyd trial in depth on a recent episode. I mean, on an upcoming episode, we will. But I've been watching it almost every day. And I was saying to my wife just yesterday, I was like watching the defense attorney, Derek Chauvin's attorney,

it's actually his trial, not George Floyd's trial, I should be clear. Chauvin's defense attorney do his thing. Like, I almost get the idea that he's, just that the words don't matter and he's trying to act like a television attorney who's winning. Like if he just asks enough questions repetitively and sort of raises his eyebrow, then maybe he'll be able to convince some of the jurors that he's doing a good job, even though the words are, he's losing on his own terms. There's some of that with what

the Republican Party does now. I don't mean to impuging them with any race crimes or anything necessarily, but it just seems like they're going out there on Fox News and like wagging their fingers and raising their voices in a in a recognizable way, but they're not actually saying anything. They don't have anything bad to actually say about the Biden administration. It's sort of shocking. That's the lesson learned from Trump, right? Yeah. That at the end of the day, it doesn't matter what you think. It doesn't even really matter what you do. It's all about style. You go out and project that you're winning and project that you're savvy and project that you've got it all under control. You'll be fine. Whereas the Biden administration, it's certainly not beyond,

you know, the kind of symbolic speech or, you know, Joe Biden coming out and, you know, giving some kind of moment of national mourning. We talked about that with the coronavirus. He did that several times earlier in the administration. But, you know, it's just more about sort of, you know, they're less worried, let's say, about sort of the appearance of leadership. Mm-hmm. And, you know, we could date, the Republican question is really interesting because you could date it to Trump. You could also date it to Mitch McConnell declaring that he was never going to let Barack Obama, succeed on a piece of bipartisan legislation. And when that is your focus, then you've sort of stopped having to worry about ideas.

You're against it because the other team is for it. And this has come up on COVID relief. It's also coming up on the infrastructure bill and the infrastructure package that Biden has put forward. There is not really a coherent defense or a coherent sort of opposition to this other than, oh, it's the Joe Biden thing we don't want to do that. everything yeah well i mean the only coherent defense is everything is infrastructure right i mean is it going on twitter and making jokes yeah yeah going on twitter and making jokes but how like oh is you know

pet grooming infrastructure too ah ha ha you like it there's there's there's not a lot of there it's interesting if you're not the party of ideas though it does open yourself up to a an interloper like donald trump coming in and knocking out all of your presumptive nominees uh in the primary which who knows he might have won by force of you know character any what character's not the right word personality regardless. But it also opens you up to having, you know, the only ideas that are kind of floated out there are these sort of very mainstream ideas that Democrats don't even need to appropriate. They, by and large, agree with. So we see Joe Biden out there doing, passing a big COVID relief bill, which Donald Trump was pushing for in his last day as in office,

this infrastructure bill, which Donald Trump had been touting in some former fashion over the past four years. Also, hopefully, yes. Yes. Yes. Leaving Afghanistan, so obviously Trump put that on the calendar for May and had been talking about that since the Republican primaries five years ago. There's really nothing on the Biden agenda that is not nominally a part of the Republican agenda if what the things that came out of president, then President Trump's mouth, were representative of that. And that's what happens when you're not a party of ideas, right? I mean, if you're as you can't really say, no, I disagree with that. I would rather do this other thing if there's not another thing there, right? Everyone has to say, yay, infrastructure.

And now all you can really do is try to whittle down the definition of infrastructure, you know, draw it back. But it's funny that for all of the chatter about what infrastructure means and how Biden is over-expanding the definition, you don't really get the feeling that the bill is not going to pass. I mean, you don't believe you like the opposition is particularly meaningful, accept in so much as maybe it's going to be meaningful for scoring political points in four years. Well, or two years, right? Because I guess, I guess if you're saying, if we're evaluating the political

savviness of this, part of it is the minority party almost always gained seats in the midterm. So if you just do nothing, if you just do generic, hey, that Joe Biden is doing the wrong thing, sort of panamime, that you will gain seats. And maybe you'll win the House back. And you'll gum up his whole administration, which by the way, when we talk about the Biden scorecard here, how amazing do those two Senate wins in Georgia look right now? We're talking about Joe Manchin, you know, essentially being a no-go on blowing up the filibuster. Like everything depends on 50 senators and still holding the house. What would this look like if it were not 50-50 in the Senate? this would look like what you're talking about, I think.

It would be, it would be, you know, eh, we don't want to do that. Nah, no, no, we're not going to do that. Yeah. And it would be an absolute mess. I don't think we should skip over the unsexy business of norm restoring that Joe Biden has done so far. You don't even have to, you know, embrace all these, right? You don't have to think that Jen Sacky is absolutely leveling with the American people 100% of the time that she stands behind a microphone and does a press briefing.

But there are press briefings. That is something. You don't have to think Joe Biden is telling the truth all the time to salute the fact that he is not lying all the time. Like every time he opens his mouth and doing up is down, black is white kind of style of politics like Donald Trump was doing. So that has got to be here in the scorecard somewhere, doesn't know? Yeah, I mean, just meeting in the White House with these, you know, congressional leaders to discuss the infrastructure bill when, I mean, I guess there's a little bit of freedom to do that magnanimously when you don't, you don't necessarily need any of their votes to pass it, you know, which is kind of interesting situation that Biden's found himself in. But still, he wants to do it everything in a bipartisan way. That's always, that was the knock on Biden throughout the campaign.

at least he says he does. Well, yeah, but right. But there were people who were making the case all through the campaign that that's the sort of thing you have to say to be Joe Biden in a campaign, right? Yes, yes. And look, maybe he's landed on the happy medium between what Obama thought he could do in 2009 and what was actually possible, which is, I'm going to say bipartisanship. I want everybody involved.

I'm going to give Republicans exactly 30 seconds to prove that they're serious about being involved. And as soon as that's up, okay, we're just going to do our own thing. that's it and there's a lot of ways i mean there's a listen obviously there's a lot of political issues in the democratic primary that that that joe biden has not really come near at this point you know elizabeth warren still talking about well and i think it was menendez we're still talking about um student loan debt forgiveness that's going to become an issue at some point obviously there's you know you know medicare for all obviously was was being pushed much further to the left than joe Biden seemed to be willing to go, although he might be able to make up all their ground.

We don't know where they're going to go. But people who, very fair-minded people, have looked at the COVID relief bill and said, this is the most liberal piece of legislation that's, that's, you know, been passed in the past 50 years or more. You know, I mean, when you look at things sort of on their own terms, and this, and the infrastructure bill, too, this is really significant left-lefty legislation that is further to the left than Joe Biden ever seemed on the trail. Ari Melburgh last night, I think it was last night.

Earlier this weekend, his show referred to Joe Biden as, quote, walking softly but carrying a big liberal agenda, which is, you know, a little bit tongue in cheek. But I think that there's something there, that whatever he's the demeanor, whatever norms are being restored, whatever old version of, you know, liberalism that Joe Biden claims to represent, it seems like there's an incredible amount of they're there, if you'll forgive the turn of phrase. You know, I mean, it's a, things are really happening. Yeah, it's funny. And I think if you look, if you, if you want to say that

the Democratic Party's just moved a long way that the world, or American politics at least, is just sort of, the center has changed a lot. And that Joe Biden has sort of ridden along with that, but has somehow maintained this Biden-esque quality where even when you said, an agenda item like that, it seems plottingly centrist. It seems unimaginative. It seems unambitious because it's coming out of Joe Biden's mouth. It's kind of a weird power to have,

though perhaps an effective power, especially because as we've said a minute ago, his opponents have so much trouble figuring out an effective way to think about him. Well, and it's, I mean, It's not just his opponents, right? I mean, also it's just, it's going to be really interesting to kind of watch the mainstream media at large over the next, I mean, present, every day to day, but over the next couple years. Because, you know, the Afghanistan withdrawals at the top of the New York Times homepage right now.

I think the font size has actually come down since it was first announced, but it's a, it's, it's, it's, those really significant things that every outlet is going to have to sort of figure out how to weigh. right? I mean, it's like how significant is, I mean, the COVID relief bill felt like an exhale by the time that it happened. And sort of the intricacy of the bill weren't necessarily the front page news when it happened. And, you know, all major legislation that gets passed in this day and age is a major accomplishment, you know, right? I mean, everything that happens. A bill that passes. We end up getting hyper-focused on like Joe Manchin, which is justifiable. Which Joe Manchin would like us to be. hyper-focused on Joe Manchin. Yes. We could have done a whole segment on Joe Manchin, and I'm sure at some point we will, but he's a sort of very interesting character in that he's easy to cover, right? He's a perfect figure for modern media to sort of try to tell the entire story through,

even though what's happening separate from him is much more important, right? I mean, the things that the COVID relief bill, despite his last minute line edits is a deeply significant piece of legislation of liberal legislation. And, you know, Joe Manchin is just an interesting one to watch because he's catnip for the media. And are they going to be able to tell sort of the bigger story

as it happens? I like the idea of the Biden administration having track changes mode on and Joe Manchin is the editor. Just J.M. pops up in the upper right. like is in the upper right end corner and you're just like oh damn it mansions in the document this is terrible you don't think you'd have one of those little animals as his stand in rather than just the initials yeah he's already got the little icon can i ask a very stupid question about joe mansion by the way

since we're here and then we can leave sure this is my like i feel like i would have had the same opinion if i wasn't paying attention to politics but i understand what joe mansion wants right joe mansion wants the attention joe mansion has this just kind of obscene attraction to this vague, this kind of amorphous concept of bipartisanship, right? Where as long as you just sort of piss off both people just a little, then you're doing your job, regardless of the actual stances of both parties, right? One would think that you would be elected on a platform that had actual actual contents and not just, you know, 50-50.

You know, I'll make sure that the balance of power doesn't shift. But why, wouldn't it be in the, like, Joe Biden and all the Democrats' best interest, instead of just catering to him blindly or sort of, you know, or doing the other thing where you make the bill bigger than it needs to be so Joe Manchin can chop some stuff off and still feel like he's done something, why don't you just spend $100 million and put the most state-of-the-art, noisy polling operation in the state of West Virginia and just make sure that every time Joe Biden suggests something new,

every major newspaper has mounds of polling data that says this has a 99% approval rating in West Virginia. Like, wouldn't that, if every Joe Manchin headline was Joe Manchin refuses to, you know, sign the infrastructure bill despite the fact that it has a 90% approval rating in his home state. Like, wouldn't that be more effective than whatever catering to him that they need to do on a personal level? Yeah. Are we just absolutely sure all these bills are going to pull it 99% in West Virginia? Everything Joe Biden wants to do. No, but COVID relief and infrastructure, I mean, like, checks for everybody and, you know, jobs for everybody. It seems like a pretty high polling opportunity. I don't know. Maybe you're right.

Joe Manchin may not sign on. I mean, that's the problem, right? I think that Joe Manchin probably knows the numbers. I'm more concerned not just about pestering him with the numbers, but making sure that every time that he's a naysayer, that the numbers are actually out there, which to show that, I mean, everyone's just like, well, he's from West Virginia.

If it wasn't him, it would be a Republican. And maybe that's true. But the whole point of what we've been talking about is Joe Biden isn't pushing, isn't on it's on their face pushing policies that are just like, crazy Marxist AOC parodies, right? I mean, these are things that Donald Trump was for nominally in his day. Anyway, I guess we'll come back to Joe Manchin at some other time. All right, David, let's do the Overword 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 at the press box pod where they are always, always gratefully received. David, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg made some news this week when he said, quote, There is racism physically built into some of our highways. We could have absolutely predicted what would happen. Conservatives lost their minds. And Libs asked, have you read Bob Caros the power broker? Because there's some stuff in there. It was an overword Twitter joke or maybe just a good joke to write.

Tweets dunking on Robert Moses are infrastructure. Thanks to our pal Michael Moynihan for that one. a little early season controversy in baseball, David, because we're going to cover actual baseball? We're just going to cover the controversies. I think we're going to do that. Unpire Ron Culpa, Ron Culpa,

admitted he blew a call that handed a victory to the New York Mets. It was an overwork Twitter joke, of course, to call this Maya Culper. Thanks to Justin Schooner for that. And finally, Congressman Matt Gates is still embattled. How embattled is he? Oh, I'll tell you.

He's so embattled that he sought a meeting with Donald Trump and Donald Trump refused to see him. It was an overword Twitter joke to write, Wow, Gates really is like a son to Trump. Because how he treats his kids. Thanks to Joe Schmidt, if you discovered the final level of embattlement, the one where even Trump abandons you,

Congrats. You made the overword Twitter joke of the week. In the notebook dump, David, we had an amazing sports TV split screen over the weekend. Over on CBS, you had the Masters and you had a lot of golf announcers talking very much in this key right down here. And then over on FS1, and I want to make sure I get this right, you had the Bowling Proprietors Association U.S. Open. in Reno, Nevada. Mm-hmm. And you had a young bowler named Anthony Nyer stepping up and nailing a 7-10 split. And then you had Rob Stone, a Fox, guy we both know, absolutely delivering the bowling call of the year, decade, century, I don't know what.

Who would know, who would be able to say? But it was amazing. It was fantastic. Here's just a little bit of that. Assassin, just dropped the 710. You bet, kid, you bet. Oh, man. Well, as soon as we heard it, we had to get Rob Stone on the press box.

Here is Rob Stone on the art of calling bowling. All right, Rob, help us with some context first. David and I know converting a 7-10 split in bowling is hard. We know that much. But is it as hard as throwing a no-hitter in baseball, breaking off a 99-yard run in football? What's the common? comp here. That's a good one. I think it's, I think it's harder than the no hitter because the no

hitters have kind of become commonplace. I think in our world where you expect a handful of no hitters every season. They're still celebrated and we still go nuts and it still goes on the bottom ticker with breaking news. The 99 yard runs are always kind of like fluky, right? It's like somebody slipped in the secondary or it was a bizarro screen pass or, you know, something about it. But the 7-10, it's always there, right? It's like there's no moving targets. It is what it is. It's a 7-pin. And on the opposite side, it's a 10-pin. There's no other, you know, impediments put in your place. There's no game planning outside of just hauling it and hoping for the best. And, you know, since I've been calling bowling in the back of my head, you know, you always think about kind of some of those bucket list, no matter what the sport is, right? For soccer, like, man, you know, to do a World Cup, how great would that be? And for bowling,

a 300 game was always on my bucket list. I hope I can be part of a 300 game. I have no idea what that's going to be like. I'm so jealous of the people who have been. And finally, I was. But a 710 split conversion is not even in the conversation. It's not even bucket list material because you just, you don't even think it's ever, ever going to happen. So when a 710 opportunity comes up over the course of the bowling shows, typically, we're just kind of blowing it off in the sense of, oh, poor guy, what a tough break, here's an open frame. who's really going to set them back. And the shot happens, and, you know, they're lucky to get one pin, frankly, sometimes.

So it's just such a non, it's almost a non-event until it happens. And then it becomes an event. Just a minor follow-up on Brian's very, very spot-on question. You know, they always talk about in basketball how there's guys that can barely hit a shot, but they say like in warm-ups, they're draining like 70% of their threes. Does the Ginger Assassin or Bowler on his level make like 50% of 7-10s in practice, or is it just a wild, like an oddity for them too? I don't think it's something you practice, right?

Because ideally, if you've done your job, you're not staring at the 7-10, right? And the 7-10 is pure punishment. You've done something wrong, and this is how you're going to have to deal with it. Do they practice other spare shots? Absolutely, certainly. but I don't think there's a pro out there who talks to the guy at the bowling center and is like, just keep setting me up seven tens, man, just keep dropping seven tens because I'm going to do it because you'll hardly ever see it. Right. And at that point, the odds are so minuscule that you're

going to make it up and, you know, your crestfallen at that point because you know you're, you know you're, you know you're, you've hurt your game, you've hurt your chances. So a seven, ten is something that nobody practices, they just kind of stare at it, curse it. And that's why they're probably hauling balls down there at maximum speed because they're so angry and teed off. And that also happens to be one of the best strategies for taking care of the 710, 710 is just putting all your anger into it and giving the high heat down the lane and hoping for the best.

I have a question about the bowler who did this because you call him the ginger assassin in the clip, which is a fantastic nickname. yet I look at his shirt and it says hammer with a picture of a hammer which is well hammer is hammer is a sponsor hammer's a sponsor I thought that was a generic bowling nickname so it's a sponsor um and and and listen right David knows this right David knows I'm I'm a wrestling guy right and and I think if you if you go back and listen to it definitely some some jr some Jim Ross snuck out on that call and I do have a propensity at in bowling to dropping in some wrestling here and there.

Because I just love the theater of wrestling and it makes so much sense. And, you know, David, we've talked about this in the past where, and I say it to, I say it to my soccer people, my football people, bowling people, if you're coming out or you're doing something and you're not getting a reaction, booze or cheers, you're doing something wrong. Right. So I definitely bring some of that wrestling mentality to a lot of my broadcast. And I'll drop nicknames. and I went on a Brett the Hitman,

not the Brett Hitman Heart. I went on a rant a couple weeks ago about the Heartbreak kid and his breakup with his tag team partner and you know where I'm going with this, David. So like kind of a nickname just helps, right? It helps sporting. We have nicknames everywhere

and clearly this kid did not have a nickname. I gave it to him. I hope he's okay with it, but it's definitely very wrestling to, because I was frankly surprised watching Rawl last night that one of the McMans didn't have somebody in red hair that was, you know, the Ginger Assassin out there. I thought like if they were really on it,

they would, and from parts unknown, weight unknown, the Ginger Assassin. Oh my God, that's fantastic. Well, it's for something, for an event that's this rare, you know, making the 7-10 split conversion, it was the call that really got it, well, to use the wrestling term, got it over, right? I mean, when we were, when I saw it on Twitter, it was, I mean, we started off asking about the rarity of the, of the 17th.

I mean, it's, it's, it, because it was presented to us, or at least to me, as look at this great call. Sure, it's a big moment, but listen to this great call. So how do you, you said you weren't necessarily planning or it was a bucket list for the 710, but like, how do you even, I mean, do you have a feeling that something like that's going to go viral when it's happening? No chance. No chance.

I didn't recognize that it went viral until a long time ago. I'm sorry, until much after it passed when I woke up and my phone had all these things and like, oh my God, dude, you know, my fraternity brothers and soccer teammates are telling me like, I'm seeing it on the Today Show. I'm like, seeing what? What are you seeing on Today Show? Like, what is Jimmy Fallon talking about? I don't know what you're discussing.

So, no, going viral never crossed my mind. I mean, I just lost my mind. That's all it is. I mean, plain and simple, I lost my mind. It was very much a Will Ferrell in old school type moment when he was debating James Carville and this question about economics came up. And Will's like, I got it. I got it. I'm going to do it. And then he just kind of, you know, he closed his eyes and shook his head and he kind of blacked out and presented this thing. And that's what I did because I left that bowling stadium and I had no idea what I said. And hours later, I had to be. play it back because I had no clue what I said. I just know I was screaming and yelling and so happy. I mean, it was pure, pure joy. And I think that's probably what a lot of people have latched on to that it was this unadulterated happiness, unbridled joy, something that wasn't scripted. And I think it resonates even more because of everything that we've been dealing with in our lives over the last year and change that there is these pure moments are the ones that seem to resonate right now. And that's all it was. You know, my partner, Randy Peterson, and I were so

stinking happy for the kid and so thrilled that we got to witness history that we just kept yelling and we would swivel our chairs. There was a buddy behind me who actually filmed probably the last 75% of the rant. He just happened to have his camera there and filmed it. And you see our chairs swiveling and we're looking at each other. And, you know, like we're gesturing with our hands and putting them over our head. And, you know, we just have this this eye contact. Oh my God. What do we just see?

This is insane. This kid just did this thing that we never, ever thought we would see and never prepared for. The three of us sat down. We could pretty quickly come up with a list of all-time football calls, all-time baseball calls. Is there a comparable list for bowling? Is there like a Chris Schenkel top 10 out there in the world somewhere that gets replayed

on all the shows? Everything Chris Shankle did was gold. Right? I mean, he was such a fantastic broadcaster. So, but, you know, he and I are cut from a different cloth. I would say so. The bowling world has been made well aware of that over the course of the last couple of years. So I don't know. I think, you know, the moment that probably resonates the most is that Pete Weber rant when he won the title and, you know, who do you think you are?

I am. It'll probably be in one of those type of discussions, I guess. I don't know. It's so silly and so stupid, and it's my personality to get excited and pump things and be a salesman and push stuff over the top. So I had no clue that it would resonate to the level that Brian you would be texting me today saying, hey, can you join me on the podcast? Right. I don't even think my mom and dad are aware of what the hell is going on with it. I mean, it really is an incredible tribute to be able to break through. And I really take what you say about the craziness we've been living through to heart because as silly as it sounds. my wife and I have said more than once that the thing we would do

we're going to do first when the world opens back up is go to a bowling alley because there's just something so illicit about that right now. Yeah, it's pure, it's innocent, it's American, it's fun, it's an activity that you obviously

typically share with others and I think we've all just kind of been aching for it. We've been aching for feel good news, you know, something that doesn't associate itself with a vaccine that's good news, right? I just want something that is so pure and simple and clean that I can smile to. And frankly, that's digestible, right?

Because that was a, I don't know what, a 22nd, 30-second rant, including the sponsorship that I was able to sneak in there. And the funny part is because I'm away with a couple of my good friends right now. And they're cracking up at it because, you know, their wife or kids are telling them this. And they're telling me more and more stories about who's tweeting it and who's talking about it, who's using it. So random parts of the day, they'll just play the clip out of nowhere and just start laughing. And I think some of it, too, is you hear the word ginger assassin and it just

puts a smile on your face. Like, it's not threatening at all. You just, it's so stupid and ridiculous that it makes you happy, right? And I think those two words are kind of the key to it that just, that let it help, help it run and the energy doesn't hurt either. But I think, I think people have just been kind of waiting for moments like this that they can they can latch on to and take a nice little break from from everything that's been going on. And speaking of the assassin, he actually lost this. Right. He did not win. It's funny, Brian, because I've been thinking about it. My friends have been asking me, you know, about certain elements. I'm like, you guys are totally over-analyzing it. Like, it's your buddy Rob who just lost his mind for 20 seconds.

But when I think about it and the build-up to it, you know, I think, I think his story, certainly added to our enthusiasm. You know, it's an 18-year-old kid, right? So, oh my gosh, I can't believe this kid is 18 and he's on the pro tour. The night before the event, I go into the parking lot at the National Bowling Stadium and I see him loading up his pickup truck with Pennsylvania plates full of bowling bag balls. And this kid is 18 and drove cross-country to compete in these tournaments. And the fact that my partner, Randy, had bowled professionally with his dad. You know, there were all these little connections that you wanted, you wanted the kid to do well.

And he did win his first match and you're cheering for him. And the second match, he wasn't going to win it. And then boom, here comes the 7-10, right? It was just like, oh, man, what a low blow. Like, he doesn't need this, right? This is not, this is not worthy of him. And the fact that he was able to overcome it, I think, I think elevated us to an even higher level, to be honest.

Now, as a, as a professional, know this is i mean we're definitely in whether it's the time that we're in because of coven or just the perfect moment in in social media uh that we're in right now you're capable of going viral more than ever does this is this going to sneak into your subconscious now like i know that like you have you created the term handbone if i if i am correct in saying that and you've had there's been a couple of moments in your bowling announcing career that i feel like would just be easy fodder for like 2021 social media, but this is the one that people are going to remember. So now do you, is there going to be part of your subconscious? It's like seeking out this sort of, this sort of

moment? No, no chance. Because I think if you're seeking it out, you're going to fail. And society is so smart, so intelligent, so wise right now. They'll see right through it, right? They'll know, hey, man, this isn't pure. That was staged. And the best moments in, in broadcasting are the ones that really are from deep down or from the heart or from the gut, are not rehearsed or not choreographed, are just this essence that overtakes you and works with the moment in the moment. And I don't expect anything I say to ever be that big. You know, frankly, my job, particularly in the studio,

is to make everybody else have the great soundbite and the great quote that everybody latches on to. So this is unique territory for me. And I think anything, and I think anybody would tell you that, Joe Buck was here talking, he would say anything that he's done that has resonated, you know, that great baseball call, we'll see you tomorrow. Like there's no way he had that written down saying, should there be a walkoff home run and it's going to force another game in the World Series? Here's what I'm going to say.

Instead, it's just in the moment and being a fan and being the viewer and kind of being their mouthpiece, right? Saying what they're saying and what they're feeling. And obviously a lot of people were feeling that happiness and that jubilation as well. Yeah, and I think, Rob, you know, to the larger point, if we were ranking things announcers want to do, number two, have a really memorable call that goes viral. That's number two on the list. Number one, and you alluded to this earlier, don't forget to mention the sponsored element that you're supposed to mention. And that's actually low key, my favorite moment. Oh, my God.

Oh, my God. And that is the guaranteed rate spare of the game. Now, that's professionalism. right there. Seamless transition. Seamless, right? Seamless. Well, it's funny on the video, if you watch it, you see my hand kind of reached back and my stage manager is right behind me and I know a card is coming. So I'm reaching to hand it to them because I don't want to screw up any of the verbiage for a sponsor.

And it was, and the wording for the sponsorship on the card, it literally looks like something I would have said in the moment anyways. So it worked out perfectly. And I got to tell you, that sponsor has, I mean, they've gotten their bang for their buck this season already. So yeah, it did, I didn't notice it in the moment because that's my job. That's what I'm supposed to do. I'm used to it. But there's a lot of other people out there who have said, and you got the sponsorship in. Like, you know, you took care of the sponsor as well.

I'm like, yeah, I guess I did. Again, I blacked out. I was Will Ferrell. I was somewhere else. You gave me, if anybody gave me a card, it was like an Anchorman moment to you. You gave me a card. I'm reading it. I'm saying it.

Here we go. well i mean i think it's safe to say that i mean i don't know your number one objective i'm sure is telling the story and you did a great job of that but part of i mean any announcer's objective has to be to get more eyes on the product and you probably did more for bowling uh in that call um than it it would be possible to do for a lot of you know more mainstream sports so that's that's got be that's got to be quite an accomplishment have people from within the the pba been been blowing you up besides just your friends have you heard it from from inside yeah you know the the the PBA, Tom Clark has reached out to me and, you know, said things. And a lot of it's like,

do you see who's tweeting about this now? And this is so great. And, and I think that's part of, part of the joy that it's brought me as well, because I'm, I'm so fortunate that I get to work on some, some bigger properties, right? No offense to PBA and bowling, but, you know, college basketball, and college football at Fox and all the great soccer we do with MLS or World Cup. These are things that, that get hyped on a regular basis. And, and they own, you know, a segment of that pie graph of your attention. And bowling is just this tiny, tiny, tiny little wedge. And for that sport to have something that they can hold on to, that's a positive, right?

A positive moment. I think it's great for them. You know, I don't know what they're going to be able to do with it, but I'm glad that I was able to contribute in some part to a positive moment for that sport and for that league going forward. And that does add some extra positive sentiment for me, at least. I'm a humble guy. This attention is kind of, I find it very silly, and I'm laughing about it.

And it's very welcome because I know that it's going to serve a higher purpose, hopefully, you know, for the sport of bowling. Was it anywhere in the back of your mind that there were golf announcers on another network this weekend talking very quietly while you were going in completely the other direction? Well, you're, you know, on a couple points that does resonate with me. And not so much that we were going head to head with the masters, but the fact that in the old days, bowling had had a golf fan type mentality where it was very much the golf clap, the golf clap. And I know when I came in, and it wasn't my place to say it, but I hated it.

You know, any broadcaster wants to be in an environment that is exciting and has got, you know, everybody's in a froth and they're ready to go. And the athletes are ready as well. And these poor bowlers, they haven't been granted that. So through the years, it has picked up. There's been more chanting. There's more fans. There's, you know, signs are brought to these events. And part of my job, too, is also to be a salesman, is to hype this stuff up, is to sell

these stories. And some of that is being excited, right? And letting people know, hey, this was a big, big moment. You know, a lot of people know that a pick six is a big moment. A lot of people don't know how big 7-10 is. And I think our excitement level, educated. them on that a little bit. Last question from me. What's a bigger moment? This one or winning the WW 24-7 championship? That's a cold. That's a cold shot, brother. That's a cold shot. So it's,

it's my birthday tomorrow and I'm a horrible person to have to shop for her for a birthday, David. And my wife, you know, she's like, what do you want? And she's just given me, God bless her, I love her, but she's not a good gift giver for me. And so finally this year, I gave her two things. and the first one was I want my 24-7 championship reign properly documented in my house. That's all I want. So she looks at me. She's like, I don't know what that means. I go, I don't either.

But there better be a picture. And hopefully we can put it above the fireplace of me and that damn belt. So the 24-7 thing holds a special part in my heart because it's so silly. And I've grown up with wrestling. I didn't grow up with bowling. You know, bowling's become a part of my life the last couple years, but that wrestling, man, you know it, David. It's so addictive.

It gets, it seeps into your soul and it just doesn't leave. I'm jealous of both of them for the record. All right, Rob Stone, watch him call the PBA on Fox, Major League Soccer, Fox's College Sports. He will never sound like a golf announcer, no matter what he is calling. Rob. 100%. You will not get that for me. Happy birthday. Thanks for coming on the press box.

Thanks, guys. All right, it's time for David Shoemaker. our guess is the strained pun headline. Yeah. Thursday's headline about a to-do involving former LSU president F. King Alexander. I'm already laughing. Was a F. King mess. Today's headline comes from about 50 people.

I'm going to credit it to Paul Goodlow. It's from Rolling Stone, David. I'll read you a little of this story. An organization has created a new Nirvana song using artificial intelligence software to approximate the singer-gatars songwriting. Dot, dot, dot. The songs creators say nearly everything on the song

from the turns of phrase to the reckless guitar performance is the work of computers. Okay? The AI has written a Kurt Cobain song, a Nirvana song. What was Rolling Stones' strained pun headline? is it smells like it smells like Nirvana was the weird out Yankevick song

that smell that's actually very good that might actually be better than never mind am I in there was I in the okay you're making the tour through the right part shape

is it something shaped box uh gosh I'll what if we were going to the third and final studio album by Nirvana. What was it?

There is never mind. In utero, but what was it? Now the AI is coming up with the song. It is in stereo. In, in, uh, my, you can do better than that pun boy.

What is it? Why don't I, why can't I get it in computero? In computero. Oh, that's good. Good stuff, Rolling Stone. He is David. maker. I'm Brian Curtis, production

magic by Kaya McMullen, sitting in for Erica. We are back Thursday with Broadway writer Michael Riddle, plus more lukewarm takes about the media. See you then, David. See you later, Brian.