Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me! - WWDTM: Carissa Moore, Bob Costas, and Jim Rice

Episode Date: December 27, 2025

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Visit plus.npr.org today. And thanks. and WBEZ Chicago. This is Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me, the NPR News Quiz. I'm the gift you get for the person who has everything. Alzo Slate, and here's your host at the Studebaker Theater in the Fine Arts Building in Chicago, Illinois, Peter Sago. Thank you, Alzo, and thank you, everybody.

Thank you so much for being with us. Well, everybody, we made it. We made it through 2025 a year that began with terrible apprehension about the future and has ended the exact same way. My motto is, instead of worrying about what's about to happen, enjoy some things that already did. So, this hour, we're going to relish the great things we got to do in 2025, such as talking to the legendary sportscaster Bob Costas, which we did in September, along with guest scorekeeper Che Rimefest Smith. Now, I asked Bob if, as per the cliche, he had started talking

about sports because he couldn't play them. You know, I wouldn't say that I failed. I wasn't that bad by school yard standards, but I couldn't make my high school baseball a basketball team. And the baseball coach, who was also a math teacher, that's the way it works in high school,

he actually said to me something to the effect of you're not bad with the glove and you can run a little bit, but I don't think you can hit your weight and I don't think you weigh 130, which might have been true when I was 16 years old. And then he actually said, you know, you're always talking about baseball and you know more about baseball than any of my players.

Have you ever thought about broadcasting? And I said, that's pretty much all I think about. And he actually said, as if it was a movie, good, try that. Whoa. That's awesome. And have you ever gone and, like, found any of the guys who did make the team and say, how long did your career in sports last? One of them actually pitched in the major leagues for two years.

He did make it to the big leagues. The rest of them have scattered to the four weeks. wins, and I'm sure they're aware of me, and I'm not quite aware of where they are, and I don't care. Yeah. And you went off to Syracuse University, right? The Newhouse School, to learn your trade. This is, of course, if you don't know, it is the Harvard of broadcasting schools.

And I'm curious as, like, how do you learn to do sports broadcasting? Like, what are the skills you have to study? You know, you cannot learn it in a classroom. You want to get as good and as well-rounded in education. as you possibly can, and to be a reader because it improves your appreciation of language and turns of phrase, and the broader your frame of references, the more you can bring to bear where appropriate in a sports broadcaster or any kind of broadcast. But the only way you actually learn to be a broadcaster is by doing it.

You can't sit there in a classroom and learn it. You just have to find out if you have a knack, and then you work on that knack as you move along. So, okay, you're a Hall of Fame broadcaster, an absolute legend in the industry. Nobody's perfect all the time. Can you remember a time when, like, you just blew it on live TV? Oh, my, yes. Now, I realize it's NPR. Yes.

Do you want the unedited version of this? Yeah. Give us the MTV version. I mean, go ahead, Bob. What are they going to do, defund us? Here you go. Now, if everybody comes, Clapick could give $5,000.

That would be really wonderful. Go ahead. Go ahead. All right, so here's a deal. My first job out of Syracuse, I did minor league hockey, my first, my senior year at Syracuse, $30 a game. But I was lucky enough right after that at age 22 to go to St. Louis, big station, KMOX, 50,000-watt station, to broadcast the games for the spirits of St. Louis in the old ABA.

The first night they play on a Friday night, they have a big lead with about two minutes. minutes to go, and the game slips away. They're up by seven, and somehow the game slips away. Two nights later, they're playing at home again, and they're ahead by five with like a minute to go. And I turned toward the analyst, who was a wonderful gentleman named Bill Wilkerson, and I said the following, Bill, it appears as if the spirits have this game well in hand, but Coach Bob McKinnon, taking a time out here, wanting to take no chances, because the last thing he wants to see is a repeat of Friday night's blow. I actually said that.

I actually said that. They blew the game, and, you know, the same acts just got kind of mangled, right? Well, I mean, if you think about it, I mean, it is his job, and if he blew the game, it just sort of comes naturally to that phrase, doesn't it? My thought is I looked at Wilkerson, and he looked at Wilkerson, and he looked at, and he looked at at me and his eyes got as wide as saucers. And the engineer just made that circular thing with the index finger like

keep on going, keep on going, we can't have all this dead air. And I was a hundred percent certain that the next morning I'd be on a flight back to Syracuse. But the station manager took pity on me and said, don't ever let this happen again. I certainly will try not to. A lot of people called in and they were like, can we get more of that Bob Costas?

I have been a fan, I'm a baseball fan, not on your level, but I've been watching a lot of you over the decades broadcast baseball. And I remember vividly your reaction the first year they had the wild card in the playoffs in baseball. Oh, yeah. So you're against that. You're also against the designated hitter.

Now there are six wild card teams every year, and everybody has a designated hitter. What is it like to be that influential? Yeah. You know, it's just another small indication of the general decline of Western civilization. Let me ask you this. Over the years, obviously not just baseball, NFL games, NBA games, horse races, and the Olympics, of course, for many, many years on NBC. So out of all those things, can you tell me like what the weirdest or most unusual sport is

you've ever had to broadcast and comment on? Well, I didn't do play-by-play as the host of the Olympics, but you're commenting on and showing highlights of almost everything, curling in the Winter Olympics, you know, think about getting a gold medal, an Olympic gold medal for an activity in which you can drink beer while doing it. Yes. Even more so, in the Summer Olympics, racewalking is a staple. Now, there may be, I don't know, 200 racewalkers in the United States, but in parts of Eastern Europe,

like in Romania or something, you know, racewalkers are like Michael Jordan, apparently. So, 1992 in Barcelona, I'm hosting the Olympics, and there's a package of highlights, and it ends with a bunch of racewalkers. And you know what it looks like, right? Yeah. It looks like, it looks like, got to go, got to go, got to go right now is what it looks like. 15 minutes shorts who really need to use the restroom. I understand. Right, exactly.

So I come off, but I think it's completely harmless, and the people on the set laugh, I said, isn't a competition to see who can walk the fastest, a little bit like a contest to see who can whisper the last? loud it. Eventually, don't you just, like, cross over and start running? Now, you would think that was completely harmless, but the very small racewalking community wanted my head on a pipe. And that's why you can never go back to Romania. That's correct. Well, Bob Costas, it is such a pleasure to talk to you, and we've asked you here today to play a game. We're calling And the Emmy Goes to? We are right now in the eye of the Emmy Storm, the Creative Arts Emmys. weekend. The primetime Emmys are this weekend. So no one is talking about anything but the Emmy Awards.

Ooh. We're going to ask you three questions about these JV. Oscars. Answered two correctly and we win our prize, one of our listeners. Rhymefest, who is Bob Kostis playing for? Bob is playing for Matt Johnson of Houston, Texas. All right. Ready to play? Here is your first question. Where does the name Emmy for the award come from? Is it A, it's the initials M.E. for Mamie Eisenhower, who presided at the first awards. Is it B, strangely, it is named after our own panelist, Emmy Blotnick, or C, it was named for the Image Orthogon Tube, an important bit of early TV technology.

I'm going with C. You're going to go with C, and you are right. The Image Orthogon team was known as Emmy. Huge advance. TV technology, so much so that Emmy was named for it. Here's your next question. The whole point of the Emmys, of course, as you know, is to promote TV. But at the 2015 Emmys, Andy Sandberg went above and beyond to encourage people to watch the HBO show Game of Thrones. How did you do it? A, by wearing a handmade 15-foot-long dragon costume on stage.

B, by giving out to the live international audience his actual HBO login and password, or C, by playing a video in which his head was C-G-Ied onto every character in every sex scene from that season. You know, I should know this, but somehow I missed that particular telecast. I'm just going to guess B. You're going to guess B.

He gave out his HBO login and password to the universe. He did. Yes. And people report, everybody first immediately ran over to their televisions or whatever, and it worked for a few days. All right. Very good, Bob.

Two for two. Two for two, right. As someone in your profession might say. Yes. You're batting a thousand. Yes, he's batting a thousand. Let's see what he does with this pitch. In Dame Helen Mirren's acceptance speech

after winning an Emmy for her performance as Queen Elizabeth I, she said that her greatest triumph was what? Was it, A, making her Queen Elizabeth the first recognizably different from her Queen Elizabeth the second? B, the voiceover work that she had done for the film Legends of the Guardians, the Owls of Gablool, for which she was unfairly snub. Or, C, she said her greatest triumph was, quote,

not falling ass over tit as she climbed the stairs to the podium. It is without question, C. You're right. You called your shock, as you might say. And allegedly, the sensors were manning, you know, that bleat button were so charmed by her British accent that the remark made it to air, and now, again, to us.

Rhymefest, how did Bob Costas doing our quiz? Bob got three for three. He got them all right. Congratulations. It's the trifecta. It's the hat trick. It is. It's the triple crown.

That's a good thing. Part of your job is coming up with catchphrases and names. What should we call it when someone goes three for three on this game? The Kosti. There you go. Costi. Bob Costas is a Hall of Fame broadcaster, and not coincidentally, the winner of 28 Emmy Awards himself.

Bob Costas, thank you so much for joining us on Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me. Thank you, Peter. Thank you, everybody. Take care, Bob. Bye-bye. When we come back, we warm up the winter with a return to Hawaii and a talk with one of the greatest surfers of all time. That's when we return with more of Wait, Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me, from NPR.

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Visit concur.com to learn more. From NPR and WBEZ Chicago, this is Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me, the NPR News Quiz. I'm Alzo Slade, filling in for Bill Curtis, and here's her host at the Studio Baker Theater in the Fine Arts Building in Chicago, Illinois, Peter Sago. Thank you, Alzo. Thanks, everybody. Thank you so much. So it is late December in Chicago, and the days are short and the winds are cold, so we are all getting nostalgic for the trip. we took to Honolulu Hawaii in October. We had such an amazing time. It's hard to choose a favorite moment.

Not for me. The best thing I saw in Hawaii was me standing there in Hawaii. That's right. Alzo and I were there. We did two shows in the Aloha State, and now we are going to hear part of that never-before-broadcast second show. We saved it for a moment when we needed it most, like now.

First, a bluffed the listener game with panelists Shane O'Neill, Dose Sloan, and Helen Hong, and then a visit with one of the greatest surfers ever, Honolulu Native and Olympic champion, Carissa Moore. It is now time to play the Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me, Bluff, the listener game. Call 1-T-A-8, Wait-Wa-Way to play our game on the air. Hi, you are on. Wait, Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me. Aloha.

Aloha. Aloha, yes. My name is Rich. Hello, Rich. Where are you calling from? I'm calling from Kailua, Oahu, Hawaii. Can't beat it. You can't beat it. What do you do there? I'm recently retired, and I'm very active in Rotary,

and I volunteer as a mediator at the Mediation Center of the Pacific. Really? Really? I'm sorry. I mean, I know I'm a visitor to these lovely islands, but I can't imagine anybody ever has a problem they need to mediate. It just, it all seems like a happy place. Well, Richard, great to have you with us.

You're going to play our game in which you have to tell truth from fiction. Alzo, what is Rich's topic? Carpe Diem. Sometimes you have to seize the day. climb that mountain. Tell her you're in love with her. Move to Europe forever because things got really awkward after you told her you're in love with her. This week we heard about somebody really going for it. Pick the one who's telling the truth and you'll win the weight waiter of your choice and your voicemail. Are you ready to play? Yes. Yes. I'm sorry, did somebody

in the room with you have to tell you to say yes? No, no, that didn't happen. That didn't happen. Okay, never, no, it didn't happen. Didn't happen. Standing there on your own, your own talents, brains, brought to this, no help at all. Let's first hear from Shane O'Neill. Kristen Elliott of Maple Bluff, Wisconsin is a busy woman. A resident at the UW hospital, she puts in 24-hour shifts in their emergency room. She goes to Pilates classes three times a week and volunteers at the soup kitchen at her local church. But when an invitation came for an ex-boyfriend's wedding, she knew she needed to squeeze in one more thing into her busy schedule, finding

a date. So last Saturday, she set up 18 hours worth of mini-dates. That's 180 dates in one day. She kept track in the Marathon Day with a spreadsheet, adding numerical ratings and columns for physical attributes, red flags, hygiene, and whether they showed up in a fleece quarter zip. Sadly, none of these dates seemed suitable. So she plans to schedule a second day of seven minute-long second dates. Unfortunately, with the extra two minutes, I can only book 73 dates in a day, she said sadly, before strapping on a helmet, climbing onto her scooter, and rolling off to a sip and paint party where she plans to finish half a bottle of wine and no fewer than three paintings and two ceramics pieces. A woman seizes the day by scheduling 18 hours

of speed dates during them. Your next story of someone capturing the moment comes from Dulce Sloan. Rusty Albertson of Cleveland, Georgia, retired from being a middle school geography teacher for 47 years. His wife, Jeannie, also retired from nursing, and now they finally have the time and money to travel. Growing up in Cleveland, Georgia, Rusty was always fascinated that the names of cities can repeat in other states or even countries. So Rusty wondered if there were any other Clevelands. Much to his excitement, there are seven other Clevelands in the United States for a total of eight Clevelands. As a fan of the rap group Bone Thugs in Harmony, he always wanted to visit Cleveland, Ohio, but now there are six other Cleaslands for Rusty's Cleveland Tour.

Jeannie, on the other hand, was less enthusiastic. She said, well, I thought he meant traveling to somewhere fun, like all the cities named Paris or Miami, to which Rusty supplied all the Miami's. I don't mind going to Indiana or Missouri, but I'll be damned if I ever go to Texas. A man sets off in his dream to visit all the towns and the country named Cleveland. Your last DM Carpade comes from Helen Haugh. It's not easy getting a Guinness World Record.

You might have to hold your breath for 20 minutes or eat 80 hot dogs in one sitting, or you could create your own original world record and make it uniquely painful. That's what Gabriel Wall did when she chose to set the first ever record for the fastest 100-month-year record for the fastest, 100-meter sprint barefoot on Lego bricks.

I know. Her training included jumping up and down in a kitty pool filled with Legos. Wall also went barefoot for months, and when she explained that she was training to sprint over Legos, people inevitably asked, why would you do that? Why?

Naysayers, notwithstanding, Wall completed the same. spiky sprint in 24.75 seconds. Her husband immediately presented her with fluffy pink slippers that she'll probably never take off again. All right. Hear them, Rich, are three stories of someone seizing the moment. Is it from Shane O'Neill, someone trying to maximize their chances, having speed dates for 18 hours all fit into one day? from Dulce Sloan, a man determined to live out his dream of visiting every Cleveland in the country beside his own Cleveland, or from Helen Hong,

a woman who fulfilled a lifelong dream by setting a world record, in this case, the land speed record for running on Legos. Which of these? Which of these was the real story we found of the week's news? I got to go with number three. The Lego lady, I tell you, she needs them all. She does.

And you figured that out all by yourself. All by myself. All right, you're going to choose then. You're going to choose, you're going to choose Helen's story about the Lego run. Well, we spoke to someone who actually had the inside dope on this particular story. She wanted to set of world record, so she decided that she would run over Lego bricks. That was Kyle Melnick, as a reporter for the Washington Post, talking about the record breaking. Lego run. Congratulations, Rich. You got it right.

Hell, I'm selling the truth. She's going to win a point. You're going to win our prize, the voicembell of anyone you choose. Thank you so much for calling. Thank you. You could share it with your backup. Yeah. Take the step towards what you all reach for. You have to take the chance and risk it all. And now the game where we ask people who were really, really good at one thing about another thing. We call it not my job. So not far from us, right? right now in Honolulu, there is a 100-foot-high mural on the side of a building with two people painted on it. You've seen it.

One of the two figures is Duke Kahanamoku, the legendary father of surfing. He introduced the sport around the world in the 1930s. And the other is Carissa Moore, the first ever female Olympic gold medalist in shortboard surfing and generally acclaimed as the greatest woman ever to ride away. And one of those two icons joins us now, Carissa Moore, welcome to Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me. I'm so happy to have you. I'm so happy to have you.

Since I brought up the mural, I gotta ask, what is it like, because you live in Honolulu still, where you grew up, what does it like to drive around and see your own sort of visage painted next to like one of the great national heroes and you're in front of him. I mean, I definitely have to, like, pinch myself. It's super surreal.

I can't believe they still have it up. Really? Yeah. Somebody painted a hundred foot high painting. They don't just, like, wait a couple days and paint over it. No, I don't like erase it. Well, yeah, I hope it stays up for a little while longer. I want to show my daughter one day and be like, that's mom.

Yeah. Definitely take a lot of selfies. You know, it would be great. I don't know if this is true, but if there were a liquor store across the street, and you went in, and they asked, asked you for ID, and you just pointed it. It's a dream. It's really good.

You grew up here in Honolulu. You grew up surfing at Waikiki, right? Which was basically the birthplace of surfing. There's the statue of Duke right there. And you got famous pretty early, right? I saw an interview of you, an interview with you that was done when you were seven years old surfing at Waikiki, and you said to the interviewer, you liked surfing. because, and I will quote you, I like it because it's different each day and it's not always the same.

So I ask you now, do you still stand by that? Yeah, I sounded pretty good. Yeah. You look pretty good. They said, you know, it's interesting, you were seven and they were already in the local news and people were saying this is going to be a professional surfer or something. a professional surfer someday. And so that was something that you knew was perhaps on your path early on? I don't know if I knew, but my dad knew. And he's here tonight. Is it really? Yeah.

Yeah. Dad! I don't know where he is. He's here. He's somewhere. He's somewhere. Because he was an athlete himself, a great swimmer here, right? And he's in that report, by the way, paddling out with you. So I got to see him. I know about stage moms, right? The classic. Are are surfer dads. It's like you're going to catch one more wave. Get back out to the break. Maybe. Maybe. Maybe. No, but he is the best. He still paddles out with me. He does. Wow. Do you? Yeah. Really, at your level of achievement, your world championship

status, you have to paddle yourself out. Nobody paddles you out. Nobody falls in tears. No, we do surf together all the time still, and I feel really lucky that we get to. to continue to share this journey together. Right. Do you ever, just for fun, literally surf circles around him? There's this nice dance that we both have out there, for sure. You see, I don't know a lot of surfers, but I had always thought of surfers as being very outgoing, very confident,

because it's a dangerous and difficult thing that you do pretty much for fun. But you don't seem that way. You seem kind of like not particularly egotistical, and you're the best in the world. That seems weird to me. I struggle with confidence. Really? Yes, I doubt myself and overthink everything all the time.

You remember when I said the best in the world thing just a moment ago. Like championships, world championships, Olympic gold medal. Yeah, you could keep telling me that, but somehow I don't believe it still. I think you should wear the medal every day. Like wear the metal on the daily. Just wear it around everywhere. Well, that's interesting because surfing is not easy to begin with, and in the level you competed at,

all around the world against the very, very best surfers in the world where you get, like, one chance to, like, do it or wipe out. Did you, like, psych yourself up? How did you get yourself out of this lack of confidence of which you mentioned and get yourself into the right headspace?

I like to have random dance parties before I go out surfing. So actually, right before I paddled out for the Olympic final in Tokyo in 2020, 2021. Yeah. I phacetime to my husband, and we did a dance to Ed Shearing. You did a dance to Ed Shearn.

You did a dance to Ed Sharon with your husband over FaceTime. Yeah. It just helps me, like, get out of my head a little bit. Right. And is it true that, like, you were rather pregnant during your last competition? I was pregnant. Yes, I was 10 weeks, so she was really tiny. Right.

Because we saw a video of you when you were much more pregnant, and it's like, how did you get on the board to, like, paddle out? It is a wonder of the world. It really is. Watching me do that. Yes. Yeah. Because I just, I mean, I didn't see it, but I imagine.

You know, you're very pregnant, and you lie face down on the board, and your hands can't reach the water. My butt is really high up in the air, and I kind of look like an inchworm, and I can't, like, lift my head. It's really quite a sight. And your daughter, yes? Yes. Is how old?

Seven months. Seven months. Yeah. Whoa, congratulations. Your new mom. Is there a surfboard equivalent to a jogging stroller? Can you, like, strap her in and go out and surf meet her? Well, I'm with the human strap.

It's a lot of just going straight and just making sure that she's safe. Yes. And she's not upset. Yes. And she's enjoying it. Does she enjoy surfing? Yeah, I think she does. I mean, there's no crying.

Yeah, that's important. Is her first word going to be gnarly? I hope it's mom. Oh, that would be better. But then gnarly. Well, Carissa Moore, it is such a pleasure to talk to you. we have asked you here to play a game that this time we're calling

Shortboard, meet really bored. So you're one of the greatest shortboard surfers ever, but what do you know about being bored? We're going to ask you three questions about boredom. Answer two out of three correctly and to win our prize for one of our listeners. Alzo, who is Carissa Moore playing for? Elisa Plant of Tumwater, Washington.

Here's your first question. BuzzFeed, once published among there are many lists, a guide to things you can do if you're bored, including which of these activities. A, making adorable little dolls out of your cat's hair. B, opening four browser windows and watching Netflix, Hulu, Apple TV, and HBO Macs at the same time. Or C, seeing how much soap you can put in your pasta sauce

before you can taste it. I think I'm going to go with A. You are right. You're right to do so. Yes. BuzzFeed suggests buying a book called crafting with cat hair. All right, that's good.

You got one right. Beloved children's TV host, Mr. Rogers, Fred Rogers, would often get restless and bored in the company of adults. His widow says that when a grown-up gathering, a party of some kind got dull, Rogers would liven things up by doing what? A. Bring out a puppet he always carried with him,

this one called Prince Eric the drunk. B, change into his leather cardigan. Or C, start farting. Ooh. I kind of think it's A, but I like the way you said leather cardigan. So I might have to go with B. So you liked A, which is the puppet. Prince Eric the drunk, who didn't normally appear in the kingdom of make-believe.

But you liked the way I said leather cardigan. Are both of those wrong? They are both wrong. Okay, is it C? It is C. Okay, cool, let's go see. You're right, let's see, yes. Started farting. Hey, what?

That's what he would do. His widow, Jean, says, quote, he would just raise one cheek and he would look at me and smile. This makes me love him even more. And you thought it was impossible. I'm very serious. You have one more question, Carissa.

Here we go. Just this year, a man in Illinois admitted to a police officer that he did something on purpose because he was bored. What was it that he did? Was it, A, he crashed his car into the back of the policeman's car. B, he went outside in February and intentionally stuck his tongue to a frozen flagpole.

Or C, he had a Cubs uniform printed up with his name in the back and managed to spend two innings in the dugout before somebody caught it. I think it's A. You think it's A? It was A. It was a guy. It was a guy.

He crashed his car and just to the back of the policeman's car. He said, what the hell was that? And I was like, I don't know, I was bored. And then he wasn't bored anymore. Also, how did Carissa Moore do in our quiz? She was gnarly. Three out of three. Yes.

Yay! Carissa Moore is the first ever winner of the Olympic gold medal in women's shortboard surfing, a world champion and a living treasure here in her hometown of Honolulu. Carissa Moore, thank you so much for joining us. Everybody goes out of it. Carissa Moore! When we come back, Baseball Hall of Famer, Jim Rice explains his complex approach

to becoming one of the greatest hitters ever and pay attention because it happens pretty quick. That's when we come back with more. Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me, from NPR. This message comes from Wise, the app for using money around the globe. When you manage your money with Wise, you'll always get the mid-market exchange rate

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AI data centers use a lot of electricity, and you may be paying for it. I think it's almost inevitable that, Ordinary people are going to end up subsidizing the wealthiest industry in the world. On the latest Planet Money podcast, how data centers might be hijacking your electric bill. Listen on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts. From NPR and WBEZ Chicago, this is Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me, the NPR News Quiz. I'm Alzo Slade, and here's your host at the Studebaker Theater and the Fine Arts Building in Chicago. Peter Sago.

Thank you, Alzo. Thanks, everybody. So, we've been having a lot of fun this week because this week we decided to focus on the past and completely stop thinking about tomorrow. Go to hell, Fleetwood, Mac. So here are some more remarkably fun moments we have with our panelists this year.

Alonzo, according to a frightening news study, more than a quarter of 18 to 35-year-olds who drink beer, do what? Wash down their weed? I don't know. Let's see. Can you give me a hint? Yeah, it's perfect if you love your beer. Cold and watery.

Oh, they put ice in... They put ice in their beer according... Ooh. Wow. Well, the entire city of Chicago... We can do. We do. Depredations, crimes of all kinds,

autocrats, planning to live forever. Ice and beer, though. and you're like, that's too far. Yes. According to a new survey, 28% of young adults put ice in their beer, completely spitting in the face of decades of put the glass in the freezer technology.

The problem here is, of course, is that your ice cubes will melt kids and it will water down the beer. What you really want to do is decant your bud light and drink it at room temperature so it really opens up. Do they actually do these things

just to annoy? previous generation. Probably. Like watery beer is awful. Hey, grandpa, watch this. Plink, plink, plink. It seems like there's an obvious solution here to the problem of warm beer, if you feel

that's a problem. Step one, Google does beer freeze. Step two, make beer ice cubes. Step three, forget about the beer ice cubes that you made. Step four, be like, why are these ice cubes so disgusting? Shane, according to realtors, before deciding

to buy a house, more and more people are asking to do what? Oh, just use the restroom. Oh, more than that. Oh, spend a night with the realtor in the master bedroom, the main bedroom. I'm going to give it to you, although the realtor is not necessarily invited.

Oh, people want to have sex in the house? He just went, you went there. You went there, you went right there. No, people want to spend the night in the house. Okay, yeah. Some of us sleep at night, Shane. I know. More and more homebuyers are asking to spend the night in the house before they fully commit to buying it.

It makes sense. You're spending your life savings, right? You should get the chance to make sure everything works. I see what it's like at night. Change the locks and then sell all the current owner's possessions. What is the rationale? Is it just to see if it's on it? Well, sort of.

I mean, they want to see what it's like. Some people say, well, I want to see what it feels like to be there alone. I want to see if there's noises at night. And some of the realtors are like, well, that's okay. Some of them are like, no, because of liability. I mean, what if something goes wrong? And if something really goes wrong, bang, now they have to sell a house that's haunted. Yeah.

My childhood home was for sale. And I went to look at it. And the realtor did not know that I had grown up in this house. And it had been on the market for a really long time. And she said, you know, I wonder if something bad happened in this house. I was like, I could tell you. Sister, I got stories. Lots of bad things happen in this house.

Emmy, after an airplane passenger posted photos of the snack or seatmate brought on the flight, people are arguing over whether it is okay to eat what on a plane? Wheat fins? Are wheat fins and are wheat fins problematic in your view? What are wheat things? Like, commute? How much time do we have? like a communion wafers? It's sort of if

Trisket had less of hair. Oh. Oh boy. Nabisco, have I got the slogan for you? Bald triscuits. Bald trisket. Oh, no, I will...

Oh, that's good. Thanks. No, I will give you a hint, Emmy. What was amazing was she had all these, but she didn't even bring dye to make Easter eggs or anything. Oh, were they soft-boiled, hard-boiled? Hard-boiled eggs. I'm going to go hard-boiled.

She had seven hard-boiled eggs, and I also would have accepted corn in the cob and an entire whole boiled potato, because those were the side dishes. Does she only know how to boil things? Like, what is he, a pilgrim? Who is eating that? We got to get this lady an oven. Who brings this kind of food on a plane? Even paleo bros are like, lady, too far.

It sounds like a meal my dog. dog wants to be left alone with. That sounds like witchcraft. Were they pre-peeled? Because if you have to sit there and peel all the stuff. According to the person who posted the picture, she said four of them were peeled, three of them were not yet to. Witchcraft.

That's witchcraft, man. That's wick and stuff. Yeah, that just made all our astrological science change. So clearly, our theory is this woman bought too many eggs about a week ago, and now she's going to go out of town on a long trip. She didn't want to waste them. Or she's a mongoose. Alex, this week, we learned about a new technology that promises to improve your life

by monitoring your health and your wellness, all by placing a tiny camera in your what? Paranineum? Naturally, you're not far off from that. No, come on, man. Yeah, no, it's, that's part of the view. It's like you take the way. the lens cap off and you put the...

Not toilet. Yes, in your toilet. God dang it. The legendary bathroom fixture company Kohler introduced the decoda. That is a $600 camera that you clamp to your toilet seat. You point it down

and it analyzes your waist to give you valuable health data. Visually? Point it up and your dreams will be haunted forever. Wait, what can it tell? It can. And analyze your gut health and hydration levels and also whether or not you've had beats. Now, I'm unclear in how you actually get to see the photos.

I hope it's not that you walk out of the bathroom and there's like a big screen with them all on it like after a roller coaster ride. No, actually, of course, you, this will not be a surprise. You have to subscribe to their service. You pay them $7 a month and you get to see the photos and your health data. No, I would pay not to see the photos. If you don't pay them, everybody else sees them. I just feel like there's always, like, data leaks and, like, no fun intent. I don't want this to come back, to bite me in the butt.

Yeah, well, I'll show fun, yeah. There's no way of talking about this without eventually arriving there, yeah. I would buy this if it let you know when you set a personal best. On the season finale of books we've loved, we've loved, we're hanging out with four friends looking for love in all the wrong places. We are revisiting Terry McMillan's Waiting to Exhale with Brittany Luce from It's Been a Minute. Find all episodes of books we've loved on NPR's Book of the Day podcast feed on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts. Finally, in May, I got the thrill of a lifetime. We visited Boston, where I spent much of my childhood,

and we got to talk to one of my childhood heroes. Hall of Famer Jim Rice of the Boston Red Sox. As soon as Peter stopped giggling like a 10-year-old boy, he asked Jim, what is like to walk the streets of Boston like a god among men? Do you, do you, I'm assuming you get, well, of course, you're also on TV, helping to broadcast Red Sox games, so I'm assuming you get recognized a lot. Yes, this is a very sports-minded city, regards to you playing baseball, football, but they know who you are. We hear about Boston.

I am one, a Boston Red Sox fan, that we can be a little abrasive. Does anybody ever give you grief for anything, or are you way beyond that? No, when I first got here, being from the South, I was brought up that you speak to everyone as you walking down the streets and things like that. And someone stopped me and said, we don't do that here. So it was hard for me to make that adjustment, being a Southern guy and, you know, being a husband. We don't speak. You came up here and you had manners and they're like, that's not what we do in Boston. That was it.

So, Jim, you played in front of the green monster at Fenway for people who don't know. That's this very high, close-in wall that makes left field in Fenway particularly hard to play. Did you just like enjoy yourself when opposing teams would go out there and watch them screw it up? We did. But as a player, this is like your house, which we knew. The time we hit the ball, we knew we had a chance to get a double. Now, the opposing team, they didn't have any idea how good I was. They were getting a single.

So this would happen, right? It happens sometimes to this day that an opposing player will hit the ball high off the wall. That's a hard hit ball. They're like, I'm taking two, easy. And the next thing you know, you've got it in to second base before they're even rounding. Well, we had a team here the other day. I guess they called himself the Mets, I believe. I've heard of them.

And there was a guy, a Soto, making all this dough, and he hit one out. He stood there, and he tried to style a little bit. Yeah, he was admiring his job. And it didn't work out pretty good. No. It's a really high wall. Yeah, it really is. You are in the Baseball Hall of Fame, a rare and extraordinary achievement.

Yeah, thank you. You were. You were elected in your last year of eligibility, 15th year. I got in my last year. Yeah. And what were you doing when you got the call? Well, do I have to say it? I believe you do.

Please. Okay. My mom and I, she was a general hospital, and I was a general hospital, Young and the Restless. And so, no, I'm serious. And so my whole career, I watched Young and the Restless. So, when I got the call, I was watching Youngler & the Restors. And I was asked, well, you just made it to the Hall of Fame.

I said, look, I'm looking at the Youngler & Arrestors, call me back late. I swear to it. Really? For you. Yeah. The stories. Wait a minute. It seems like they call you this.

Mr. Rice, I'm calling me from Cooperstown. And you're like, wait a minute. It just turned out that's not Denise. It's Denise's Evil Twin. I'll call you back. Well, I knew that because they said if you get in the Hall of Fame, they'll call you at a certain time. Right. Don't bother me at 1230.

1230 to 1. No. They couldn't wait for Bold and Beautiful. Believe it or not, Young & the Rest is much better than Bold and Beautiful. Oh, I believe it. Wait, you go from their Younger and Restes to the Bold and Beautiful, or vice versa. And so if you watch the guy named is Victor, and I have it on my phone. Oh, he's a very famous actor who did this role for me.

I have it on my phone. And he called me and said, Jim, I know you watch the Younger in the Restes, congratulations you in the Hall of Fame. So you got a call from Victor? I have it on my phone. That's amazing. That's amazing. You said that you watched it your whole career. Yeah.

So what did you do during, like, day games? It's like, Jim, you're up. You're like, no, my stories are wrong. No, no. You could have a tape, but a good friend of mine, Bob Montgomery, which was behind Carth and Fiss, we play golf a lot. And he asked me one day, he said, why we always have to play golf and be back before at 1230?

Really? Yeah. I didn't smoke. I didn't drink, and I didn't really have lunch because I was very nervous. I was so antsy about the game, so I didn't really eat. And so that was my down time to watch Young and the Restless. Have you ever thought of doing a walk-on? I thought about that, but I'm too, like, you know, my hands are sweating now by being up here.

I can play in front of a crowd, but this here is terrified. Really? Honestly, yeah. I'm sweating. Because I'm not accustomed to this. You're not accustomed to the sitting in, well, yeah. I got a quick question, too, I never had a chance to talk to a Hall of Fame hitter. You guys, it's about, what, less than a second to decide to hit the ball.

So what, like, can you talk us through the mechanics of when you decide to swing and don't? Like, how does that work? C ball, hit ball. C ball, hit ball out of it. C, ball, hit ball. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is what we called analytics back in the day. Well, Jim Rice, it is an absolute thrill for me personally to talk to you. And we have invited you here to play a game that this time we're calling

Watch out for these green monsters. So as we said, you're one of three Hall of Famers so far to play in front of the Green Monster in Fenway Park. So we're going to ask you about actual monsters that are green. Answer two to three correctly. You'll win our prize for our listeners. Bill, who is the legendary Jim Rice playing for? Colton Johnson of Boston, Massachusetts. Okay.

You got this. Here's the first question. The very green, Incredible Hulk, has been smashing things since his appearance in the comics in 1962. But one of his most exciting adventures happened in the 1990s, which saw the Incredible. Hulk taking on what enemy? A, 100 baby ducks, B, the boy band, New Kids on the Block, or C, Marvel's quarterly financial report and future projected earnings.

C question, answer question. Exactly. Number three. Number three, you're right. Yeah. It was the Marvel Annual Report, which was printed that year as a comic book, in which the Hulk discussed publishing. revenues with stockholders. Here's your next question. That's very good. In Dr. Seuss' book, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, The Grinch is shown in black and white. And the Grinch only became green for the animated TV version. How did animator Chuck Jones decide the Grinch should be that shade of green?

A, it happens to be the exact same shade as stomach bile. B, it was the same color as the really ugly rental car he took to meet Dr. Seuss, or C, his ink supplier was having a sale on that shade the week they went into production. I'll go with C. You're going to go with C. His ink supplier was having it. Make him green. It's cheap.

No, it was actually the color of the rental car. Nonetheless, I mean, you're used to this. You get a couple of chances to get a hit. Okay. Here's your last question. Sesame Street's green monster, Oscar the Grouch, has been living for decades in a trash can that never gets emptied, which is a good thing because which of these,

according to Sesame Street lore, is in that trash can. A, three tons of big bird guano. B, 17 elephants, a bowling alley, a skating rink, and an Olympic-sized swimming pool. Or C, 36 human bones. B. B.

And, ladies and gentlemen, he hits it out of the park. Yeah. It is B. Oscar's trash can, canonically, is bigger on the inside than it is on the outside. Bill, how did Jim Rice do in our little game? Two out of three, Hall of Famer. That's a win.

Jim Rice is a baseball Hall of Famer. He spent his whole career playing for the Boston Red Sox, and we'll never pay for his own soda in Boston. Jim Rice, thank you so much for joining us. What an absolute honor to meet you. Thank you so for being here. Jim Rice, ladies and gentlemen. That's it for Facing the Future

While Looking Backwards Edition. Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me, is a production of NPR and WB.EZ Chicago in association with urgent haircut productions Doug Berman, Benevolent Overlord. Philicotica writes our limericks. Our public address announcer is Paul Friedman. Our tour manager is Shana Donald. BJ Leader Ben composed our theme.

Our program is produced by Jennifer Mills, Miles, Dornboss, and Lillian King. Special thanks to Monica Hickey. Peter Gwyn is The Chains We Forged in Life. Our visuals host is Emma Choi. Technical Direction is from Lorna White. Our CFO is Colin Miller. Our production manager is Robert Newhouse. Our senior producer is Ian Chilog and the executive producer. Wait, wait, don't tell me, is Mike Danforth. Thanks to everybody you heard this week.

That would be our panelists, our guests, Bill Curtis, of course, as well as his ABLE backups, Alzo Slade, and Che Rimefest Smith. And thanks to all of you for listening. Sagan. We'll be back with you next week.