Will Cain Country - In MLB Playoffs, The Winners Win

Episode Date: October 13, 2023

Story #1 - The Texas Rangers are in the ALCS without a postseason loss. The underdog season is the best type of season to Will. Can't lose. Story #2 - Following the Hamas attack on Israel this past weekend, Will asks if there's an increased threat to America, especially with our open Southern border? Story #3 - Will reads feedback from his listeners. He hears from you and your opinions on this week's past episodes, especially from his special Thursday debate episode with Fox News contributor Ben Domenech and comedian Dave Smith on how Israel and the world should respond to the Hamas terror attack. Tell Will what you thought about this podcast by emailing [e-mail] Follow Will on Twitter: @WillCain Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

One, the Texas Rangers are in the ALCS. Does that make you want to celebrate or quit baseball? Two, how safe are we after Israel? How safe are we in America? three your emails feedback after a jam-packed week of the will cane podcast it is the will cane podcast on fox news podcast what's up and welcome to the weekend welcome to friday as always i hope you will download rate and review this podcast wherever you get your audio entertainment apple spotify or at fox news podcast you can watch the will cane podcast on youtube or follow me on x at will

this is the fourth episode of the will cane podcast after three highly informative jam-packed episodes all focused on Israel throughout this week on monday we talked with robert greenway of the heritage foundation making sense of the terror attack in israel and projecting forward what happens next on the world stage how does this not domino into world war three on wednesday episode of the Will Cain podcast, I gave you my 10 conclusions, my 10 views at this stage of this crisis, at this stage of this story, 10 views on Israel and Hamas. And on Thursday, we had a debate, go back and listen to a special edition of the Will Cain podcast, a Thursday edition of this show, a debate on the history and the course of action for the United States and Israel after the terror attacks

by Hamas with Dave Smith and Ben Dominage. I think you will find it not only enlightening, I think you will find it unique in today's media landscape. Today, let us take a breather. Let us have some fun. Let us interact. Let us start with story number one. The Texas Rangers are since the first time or the last time in 2011 in the American

League Championship Series. The Rangers are 5 and 0 in the postseason. They are undefeated after sweeping both the Tampa Bay Rays and the Baltimore Orioles. After stumbling through September, the Rangers are on a heater, and they may soon get back two of their starting pitchers in John Gray and Max Scherzer. As it turns out, one of the listeners of the Will Kane podcast is a wonderful lady named Nancy Heim. Nancy is the grandmother of Rangers catcher and all-star Jonah Heim.

Nancy is proud of her grandson, as we are here on this show on the Will Kane podcast. We are proud of Jonah. We are proud of the Rangers. And let me tell you, this is the best kind of sports season. This is the absolute best. I have talked to you about this before. The best sports seasons all feel like gravy. They all feel like icing.

They all exceed expectations. This wasn't supposed to be our year. Oh, I know. I understand the talking point from Rangers GM, Chris Young. We went all in to win now. But anyone could look at a roster. Anyone could look at the young talent in the farm system and say, this entire enterprise matures in two to three years.

And yet somehow, here we are ahead of schedule, ahead of expectations. And that all feels like gravy. but give me some more gravy. When you expect to win, it's not as fun because, yes, you celebrate, but it has a lining of relief. When you don't expect to win, it's pure unadulterated joy. Here, let me give an example. Ask a Dodgers fan.

Ask a Braves fan. Ask an Orioles fan how it feels to fall. short of your expectations. But I'm playing with house money. I can't lose. If the range is, God forbid, lose to the Houston Astros, the dreaded and feared, and the hated Houston Astros in the American League Championship Series, I'll be all right. It's not a premature cope. I'll be all right. I know you can't always say next year's our year. We're coming back. We're going to bring up young man Wyatt Langford. We get Jacob de Grom back, a healthy Max Scherzer. Baseball is baseball, who knows who we get injured in 2024. So you have to strike while the iron is hot.

You got a win in your window. And for better or worse, early or late, now is the window for the Rangers. But even if we lose to the hated Astros. And as it turns out, this isn't like a long and historic rivalry. I mean, the Astros were in the National League forever. Playing for the silver boot every year didn't mean much but man they have managed to astros fans and i love you i love those of you listening who are astros fans but you you got to know you've you've between listen listen listen we have to be real about history between the cheating and the obnoxious behavior you have superseded the philadelphia eagles fans even the placid new york giants fans Are there Washington Commanders fans?

You have risen to number one in this cross-state rivalry of the most hated fan base. And it is what it is. You can look at us as little brother, and you can look at us as less than, you can do whatever you want, because you've got a winning franchise, and you win over and over.

But you should just know, and I know you that you don't care, that comes with a great amount of, well, unlikeability. I mean, I think the nation will be rooting for the Texas Rangers. But if we fall short, and it's once again Bregman and Altuve and Verlander, if it's once again the Houston Astros, I'll be all right. House money, baby, can't lose. Clear eyes, full heart. Now,

there are those that are so disillusioned that they want to call an end to baseball. I give you two of my producers, James Laverty and Patrick Hatton. James Laverty is young and already embittered so his future isn't bright. He's a continuous and habitual jinxer here on the Will Came podcast. He likes to text in the middle of a Cowboys or Longhorns or Rangers game and pronounce the game complete much before it is over. But he's also a Yankees fan.

What more than that, he's a George Kirby fan because he's a Westchester guy and therefore he was rooting against the Rangers and for the Seattle Mariners. But he's a Yankees fan. And you want to talk about entitlement? everything about them is coming from a place of bitterness this year because they're not achieving their entitled world series and patrick hatton is a braves fan i mean sort of the same thing but more akin to a chicago cubs fan you know living through what felt like a curse for most of their history the 90s you know i know they broke through but it was always far short

of glavin smolts and maddox it was far short of expectations and this year the braves won hundred games so of course they should be in the world series least that's what you'd think if you were part of the text chain for the will cane show i just want to share with you some of the thought process here among these producers the thought process here that the fact that the rangers have made the alcs and the dodgers are out and the yankees were never in the running and the braves at the time of this recording are on death's door. The thought process on this show is that we should be done with baseball. I'll read you this text from Patrick Haddon. I'll be honest with you, I hate baseball,

the postseason format. Like, why do you play 162 games and then let teams who are barely over 500 into the playoffs? How can a team beat another by 14 games yet still have to face them to go to the World Series? I hated the wild card since the 90s, but the newest format is that on crack. Baseball is a quirky sport. The Braves won 104. Best in all of baseball. And yet had lots of troubles in Oakland at the beginning of the season, losing two out of three to the worst team in baseball. Hey man, I thought that's why we played the game. That's my editorial. Even seven games series, he goes on, don't truly tell you who the better team is, but it sure is better than three or five games. Baseball's not like other sports. That's why the regular season matters so much. You learn who was good over the entire course of a summer. Okay. Well, my response to that is why don't we just do it like the English Premier League then? Why don't we just cancel the playoffs? Why don't we just say whoever wins the most games in the regular season is your champion? Or as a small compromise, maybe you take whoever wins the most games in the National League and whoever wins the most games in the American League plays in the World Series, very old school-style World Series. Patrick goes on, either cut the regular season, since it doesn't matter anyway, or figure it out.

and maybe have something like the NBA Cup to have a tournament separate from the reward of the postseason baseball that should come to the best teams over 162 game season. Now, this is absolutely reverse engineering, and I accused Patrick of this, I responded, this is loser's limp. If the Braves, and we don't know what happened last night, maybe they're going to a deciding fifth game with the Phillies, but if the Braves were sweeping the Phillies, I promise you, I promise you, I would not have. received this text. He somehow calls his brother into, as a character witness, that he would have said this even when the Dodgers were losing when they were the best team in baseball losing in the playoffs. And I said the following. I said, predictability is the enemy of sports. That's why the worst playoffs are in the NBA. The best team always wins in a seven game series in the NBA. It is uninspiring. It is not entertaining. It is boring. It is predictable. You almost

always have the best team win the title. Now, you can say that's the way it should be in a meritocracy. You can say that's pure justice. But what I would say to you is that's why we have a playoffs. Are you done having a playoffs? Young James Laverty jumps in to have Patrick's back and says he's with him 100%. I don't think the Diamondbacks have. any business being in the NLCS. Eighty-four wins is laughable. The Diamondbacks, having swept, I repeat, swept the Dodgers.

Not a fluke. Three-game sweep of the Dodgers. Not a bloop hit in a fifth game deciding series for an 84-game team to come and eject the vaunted Dodgers from the playoffs. Swept. This is why we play the game. Now, James says to me, you may like unpredictability, but the public doesn't. No one would watch a Tampa Bay Ray's D-Backs World Series.

True. You're right. If the public had its vote, every year the NCAA championship would be Duke versus Kansas, or Duke versus North Carolina. And every year the Super Bowl would be, I don't know, the Patriots versus the Cowboys, highest ratings possible. And every year in baseball, it would be the Yankees against. the Dodgers. But that isn't it. We don't do it for the ratings. We do it for the anything can

happen in any given game. Now, I will grant you that you'd like to hit some kind of sweet spot between predictability and meritocracy. Let's rank these from predictable to least predictable of the four main sports. The most predictable is the NBA, and in my estimation, the most boring. Then, you would probably say the next most predictable is baseball. And yet here we are in the entire baseball industry is questioning why the Orioles and the Dodgers, and maybe the Braves, are out. I know you could have two or three good pitchers or the flow of the game is interrupted. But most of the time in a seven-game series, the best team wins. Football probably hits the sweetest spot between unpredictability and meritocracy in crowning the best team. Even though it's only

one game, upsets are hard to come by, but they're possible and they happen. Just ask Jeff Hosteller. And then the most unpredictable and maybe too unpredictable is hockey, because you could just have a goalie, as they say, stand on his head and take over the playoffs. And it makes it exciting if it's your goalie and your team, but all too often a one-seed loses early in the NHL. I'm for playing the games. I'm for the unpredictability. I'm for the entertainment. And I'm for the Texas Rangers. We'll be right back with more of the Will Kane podcast. Stop. Do you know how fast you were going? I'm going to have to write you a ticket to my new movie, The Naked Gun.

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Terms and conditions apply. Visit bemo.com slash V-I-Porter to learn more. Story number two. After Israel, how safe are we in America? Mayor Eric Adams of New York has issued an alert, no credible threats, but everyone should be on high alert in New York City.

He quote says, lone wolves are real. New York City has the largest Jewish population in the world outside of Israel. And of course, we know how vigilant we've been about letting through potential lone wolves. The southern border is an absolute travesty of a national policy. Anyone and everyone who wants to come in can make their way in. Well, you may fail once, you may fail twice, but sooner or later, that lotto ticket will cash. You'll get into the USA. And last episode, or rather Wednesday's episode of the Will Kane podcast, and my 10 views

on Israel and Hamas. I read you a tweet from Bill Malugian about the special interest illegal aliens on the list who come from nations with hostile attitudes or known terrorists into the United States. The numbers are staggering. They're absolutely staggering. Like 13,000 from Turkey, 500 from Syria. It's staggering. And that spills over onto the streets of Chicago, of Dallas, of Miami, of New York. It makes not just possible, but perhaps, perhaps even probable, at some point, we experienced some type of terror. You know, in France a few years ago, it was the result, not of a lone wolf, but of not our traditional concept of terrorism in the United States.

Several Islamist terrorists with rifles and guns, and I believe they ended up killing 120 Parisians in cafes and streets, reigning terror. Tell me how we're going to be able to prevent something like that in America. You can tell me it's because of our awesome intel, The one that didn't see this one coming in Israel, the one that perhaps is subservient to the Israeli intelligence about what's happening inside their own domestic borders, they didn't catch 400 Hamas fighters coming through a gate. But we're going to catch a lone wolf with an AR on the streets of New York. Sooner or later, we're going to pay the price for horrific government policies that have absolutely been terrible.

You have to be real. isn't partisan. It's our world that have been terrible for the past three years. On top of that, we have taken in untold number of refugees. Now, that's not to malign refugees. We don't sit there and go, well, every refugee is a terrorist. No, we understand logic. I don't remember if it's the SAT or the LSAT to get into law school, but it's like all baseball players wear hats. Does that mean all people that wear hats are baseball players. Not every refugee is a threat to the United States, but taking in tens of thousands of refugees, do you think it increases our risk for a lone wolf slipping through the cracks, if those

refugees are coming from nations that are, as we just described, special interest from hostile or terrorist grounds antagonistic to the United States? Add on top of this, all of this that's happened in southern Israel, I think you have to have this logical takeaway should end any debate over gun control. I mean, you're living in southern Israel. Terrorists are running town by town. Do you want to be armed? Your police didn't respond. Do you want to be armed simply with a pistol?

Would you like a semi-automatic rifle? Would you like an AR? I'd like everything. I'd like them all and I don't intend to surrender that constitutional right not simply for the principle, not simply for hunting not simply because

every American should have the right to own a gun but because it's increasingly clear it's a tool for survival and a tool that should not be taken away from the people this is a moment in American history where we have to look at Israel and we have to reconsider

we have to analyze how safe for we in America we'll be right back with more of the Will Cain podcast Fox News Audio presents Unsolved with James Patterson Every crime tells the story

But some stories are left unfinished Somebody knows Real cases, real people Listen and follow now at Fox Truecrime.com Story number three Interaction

with you the viewer the listener I want to share some of the feedback I got this week on several episodes of the Will Kane

podcast with you you you guys gave me some awesome feedback and I appreciate it I won't only read compliments but I won't not read compliments first

let's go to YouTube you can go to YouTube and watch the debate between Dave Smith and Ben Dominage at the Fox News channel Wilcane podcast Side Show Amit says, we need more debates like this. Well done. I agree.

We need more. Tracy Schneider says, thank you, Will. You did a great job moderating. Wonderful conversation debate. I am seeing more and more of these long-form civil debates starting to happen. I think it's really important for Americans to be exposed to these types of debates. I totally agree, Tracy, and I intend to do more right here on the Willcame podcast. user HB9 FP4 VVS 2F.

Thanks, Mom. Says, this is awesome. Can't believe Fox allowed this. They did. That's right here on Fox. The Flood 24 says, Dave, speaking of Dave Smith, speaks from a perspective born in the luxury

of not having to fight for your survival literally every single day, every week, every month, and every year. I don't have patience for the assumptions this guy makes about the situation in Israel. I appreciate that, that there are certain on-the-ground realities that prevent you from the 30,000-foot debate.

But I also think that Dave is right in these moments of not just practicality but heightened emotions, we have to step back and look at the long-term implications. We all do this. We all do this when it comes to Afghanistan. We do it with 9-11 in the Patriot Act. We do it at any number of occasions, even looking back to what could have or could not have gone better with World War II.

But I think it's important that we do this not only in the rearview mirror, but we do it through the windshield, not only looking back into history, but looking forward in those moments of heightened emotion, looking at it with cool heads and projecting the ripple effects, a phrase often used by conservatives, the unintended consequences of our policy. Five-Hep-Paul says, I agree to some extent with Dave's last point.

America and nations like the UK, Australia, New Zealand, etc., should concentrate on free market capitalism and trade. Forget those that don't believe in capitalism. Let them follow socialism, Marxism, or communism. See where that takes them. I think that's in reference to Dave, making, I think, a very eloquent point at the end of that episode where he says, America isn't supposed to be able to control the affairs of the globe. America is a shining city on a hill with a limited government designed to serve the interests of its own citizens right there in America. John Smith says, to be clear, what Israel does is proper because they declared war.

People in Palestine had plenty of time to evacuate from war zones. The Big Daddy says, doesn't matter security level. Intelligence networks. Evil will find a way. And then Benito Franklin says, intelligence failure? they literally drove, sometimes even walked up to fences, and started cutting them. As far as I know, the whole border is video surveilled with military guys sitting in front of monitors 24-7, also watchtowers, patrol. So far as I'm concerned, Netanyahu must have had some involvement in letting them through.

And then finally profound Will 43, not my burner account, said, Will is an excellent moderator. Never knew that until now. On that note of intelligence, over to Twitter, Wendell Gumbs says Egypt absolutely warned Israel beforehand. There are conflicting intelligence reports on that. Congressman Michael McCall has confirmed publicly that Egypt did warn Israel about a potential terror attack. That is rejected, by the way, by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Lori Ann said, was it a failure? It's unimaginable that Israel didn't know.

Over on email, Dale Yancey says the following. Will, thanks for an insightful, in-depth conversation with Robert Greenway. His analysis was sobering, but also appreciated his emphasis on going after the organ grinder. Also, Will, there's one major factor in our favor if we go to war in support of Israel. God says that he will bless those who bless Israel. That would be a good thing because right now we need God's blessing with our current administration, evil administration, He says, and it looks like we're being cursed and judged for our evil deeds as a nation, which includes abortions and now child mutilation.

Keep up the righteous journalism, telling the truth, and seeking authenticity. Shalom, Dale Yancey. I read this email not only because I honor everything each and every one of you guys say, but because that is a sentiment that I've heard more than once, that, and you know this, much of Christian theology talks about our commitment to Israel. Stephen Zimmerman says, big fan of your work, including when you were at ESPN, is it possible Ukraine or even Taliban sold weapons to Hamas? Thanks for looking into that, the best Steve Zimmerman. What I'd say that, Steve, is I don't know that they would have sold those weapons to Hamas.

I think Iran is suggested to be the great weapons supplier to Hamas. And I think it would have, it's hard to get weaponry into Hamas, but it obviously happens. What I would suggest to you, though, is there are absolutely American weapons floating around. those left in Afghanistan and those that have flooded in to Ukraine. And there are images, I believe those images I saw were from the West Bank, where people were holding up American M-4s, okay? I don't know if they were sold, or they just migrate around the globe, sold directly or migrate around the globe, or how that works.

But absolutely the United States flooding the world full of our weapons finds its way into the hands of our enemies. Crystal Lynn Carroll says on Instagram, direct message, I always look to you to make sense of the chaos. So of course, I listened to your podcast yesterday, 10 takeaways from Israel. That's Wednesday's episode of the Wilcane podcast. I listened on my way to work as a teacher I had a lesson planned to discuss it. And to be honest, I was nervous about tackling it in a room full of teenagers. You helped clarify a lot for me and put my mind at ease. Thanks, Will, the absolute best. Thank you, Crystal, very, very much. I feel like my approach to

the story right now of the three episodes we did this week. You know, that Wednesday's 10 views on Israel is the one where obviously I project the greatest amount of certainty, but I also want to make sure I characterize or frame what I'm giving you with an appropriate level of humility. I'm in a process of learning and searching and striving for the truth. I find far too many people are sudden experts on one of the most complex political and geopolitical issues of the last century. And in top of being experts, everyone's absolutely full of certainty. They know they end in sentences, their sentences in periods, but even more than that, in exclamation points. And I would just tell you, I'm going to dive deeper. I'm working on deep history on this

conflict. Next week, hopefully we can have a historian here on the Will Kane podcast to give us some of deep history. And look, you know, there are those that say context is working. in the midst of this horrific terrorist attack. And as I said, in that conversation with Dave Smith, I don't know what that history helps us to understand the events of last weekend, helps how it informs us. Because, look, raping women and killing children, I'm not that concerned with what happened 50 years ago.

But to understand how this plays out for us in America, I do think we have to understand more for any of us curious and concerned about this really inflection point, I think, in history. Look, here we are. I think it's really undebatable. We're on the brink of a recession. We are in the next 12 months going to probably be in the most chaotic and turbulent presidential election of our lifetimes. we have a ground war in eastern Europe where let's be real both sides because the Ukrainian side is backed by America are armed to the teeth with nuclear weapons and now we have lit the tinderbox that is the religious and geopolitical I mean bonfire of the world in the Middle East and so I want to understand.

I want to see clearly. It's going to be an emotional year. The more we can cut through that, the better I'll do my best here, by the way, on the Will Kane podcast. And then I want to share this email with you from Jeff Ray. Will, today's podcast with Ben Dominic and Dave Smith

was as interesting and insightful as anything I've heard on the incredibly appalling events in Israel and how they should respond. I think great points were made on both sides, and so adamantly agree with what you stated about. The average American today has no clue what the intricacies are in this conflict and mostly take a knee-jerk position. And if more would be open to absorbing debates as you host a day, we would have much better understanding. Thanks for your efforts and all that you do.

The show is great, and I rarely miss it. Go Rangers. Yes, sir, Jeff Ray from Fort Worth, Texas. Finally, young man on Twitter, Carl Liber, Liber, said, I'd like to note that Will Kane was an incredible moderator in this discussion. Dave Smith, who we appreciate, said, yes, he did a great job, and it's remarkably fair. Well, this is the reason I read it. Carl said, yes, very fair and extraordinarily capable of keeping the conversation focus.

I must admit that I do sometimes enjoy debates that devolve into a total show as a guilty pleasure, but thankfully, this wasn't that. And to that, Carl, I appreciate. the compliment, I'll do better next time to let the fireworks fly. Let's hope the fireworks, though in the meantime, are for the Texas Rangers. It's going to do it for me today here on the Will Cain Podcast. Let me know what you think. Willcane Podcast at fox.com. I'll see you again next time. Listen to ad-free with a Fox News Podcast plus subscription on Apple Podcast, and Amazon Prime members. You can listen to this show, ad-free on the Amazon Music Act.

Hey, I'm Trey Gowdy, host of the Trey Gowdy podcast. I hope you will join me every Tuesday and Thursday as we navigate life together and hopefully find ourselves a little bit better on the other side. Listen and follow now at Fox Newspodcast.com.