Spurs Make It A Series And The SCF Continues To Rock, World Cup With Rob Stone, Braves 2B Ozzie Albies In Studio Plus FAQ's

14:48PFT Commenter:knicks offense was just stagnant yeah it was a lot of dribbling it was a lot of dribbling a lot

14:52Big Cat:of one-on-one uh it does feel like the spurs have imposed their will to the point where they're the Knicks are playing in their head and they just can't get out of it.

15:04PFT Commenter:If we're doing blame pie, is there any blame memes for you kind of softening up on Zach?

15:13Big Cat:I didn't even think about that,

15:15PFT Commenter:but someone pointed that out to me is like memes essentially saying like, we're all good. He should have kept that same fire on the number 11 controversy. No,

15:27Big Cat:I mean, it means that golf. We're good.

15:29PFT Commenter:Okay.

15:30Big Cat:I have another maybe piece of blame pie What about Tibbs? The Knicks are so exhausted From last season playing for Tibbs That they finally hit the wall This postseason That's a good point I didn't even think about that All those minutes add up memes I didn't think about that I disagree with that one I think they've had a lot of time off I don't know about that

15:54PFT Commenter:If you want to blame the refs I get it If you want to blame the bag I get it If you want to blame memes not being hard on Zach anymore, I get it. I think the Spurs, for the most part, just played better. And their young guys like Steph Castle, he even admitted it. He was a little bit lost in the first two games. He was great. His defense was great. Wemby was awesome. They just put together the game that they thought they could put together.

16:19Big Cat:Yeah. You could blame Trump because he left early. We blame Brandon Johnson for that, for leaving the Bears game early. You can't leave that game early for the president. You make everybody get rid of their bags. Also, did he fall asleep? Yeah, for sure. 100%. Yes. Just a little nap? I fall asleep watching sports all the time. Yeah. Nothing to be ashamed of. Just close your eyes for a minute? Yeah, just resting his eyes. What about Cardi B? Cardi D. Cardi D. As Charles put it. Shout out to Chuck. Those big old women in San Antonio could use some cardio.

16:51PFT Commenter:Mm-hmm. Nice.

16:53Big Cat:She looked good. She looked great. excellent performer um i thought she she killed it as usual stefan digs probably watching that like look what i like get away yeah who by the way hank is he well no he proposed that's right that's right yeah is he going back to the patriots there's rumors it's weird that he hasn't been signed yeah he had a good year last year yeah i think it's like who's who's going to be more crazy this offseason i think the less crazy guy between digs and brandon iuke will have some closure yeah and then the digs hasn't been acting crazy yeah but there's a body work there yeah

17:27PFT Commenter:for sure um memes what is it and zach you can chime in too like it has to feel i don't think the next fan should panic it's one game but part of being on a winning streak like that and then losing a game it's like oh fuck this is foreign i don't really know what to think now like is the sky falling you haven't lost in so long you're probably not used to it right it's definitely

17:50Big Cat:weird uh but i think i think it was almost needed to a certain extent okay it just brings down to earth and you just gotta you just gotta have your back against wall and just fight uh is the old saying true that the series doesn't start until the home team wins a game that could be it we could just be in for astros nationals style final yeah well no you don't you don't want that no the next will want that or the next two yeah that's right yeah what are you gonna say is that it was sobering in terms of like all right it's a healthy reminder these guys are also like playing the best of their ability they want to win a championship just as bad uh you didn't see that through the previous series just because they were able to walk through teams uh to so so yeah i'm still feel confident in the team i feel good about it and if we can get good officiating we should be in a good spot what do you think about uh somebody in gramercy park giving wimby a key because you can't get into that park right they don't you know you're not allowed to just walk in And he was in there.

18:48Big Cat:He was doing a sketch of a sculpture to pass the time. Some in this office would say that's a bad optic. Yeah. And it's a bad look for him to be doing that on game day. I think it was the day before, but still. It's still bad optics. Yeah, bad optics. Like some guys go to Carbone. Some guys go like a lot of bad optics going around. What do you think about? Don't talk about Carbone. What? Don't talk about Carbone. He just talked about Carbone. No, I'm saying like if you go out. Like are you telling me that guys should be going out for dinner? like the night before big game. Where are you getting these sources from?

19:20Big Cat:I mean, it's publicly available information. You can read it on BarstoolSports.com. Got it. Who went to Carbone? Oh, you didn't hear about this? No. Won't name. We can't name names. Well, tell me. You've got to say it now. All right, so Wimby, there was a video of Wimby sketching the statue. Okay. And then somebody at Barstool did a blog being like this. Who? Rico Bosco did a blog. Did he get arrested? No. No, that was AI. Okay. It looked so real, though. It was somebody from the Taliban.

19:47PFT Commenter:Okay.

19:48Big Cat:So what did he say about Carbone? Well, he said that some guys go and they do sketches of statues and stuff. Some guys, they go out to Carbone the night before a big game. So there's some bad optics that go around there. You never know which one is going to be the one that is the bigger distraction.

20:04PFT Commenter:So he was just writing a blog being like, I know this?

20:08Big Cat:No. No. Definitely not. No. Definitely not. like the entire purpose of the blog are you are you saying was just so that he could say i know that one of the players on the spurs went out to carbone i would never say that neither would i i would never and if you did i would never agree with it yeah uh but still pretty weird that wimby was like that's what he does to just pass the time yeah and just when you think the guy can't get any more french he one-ups you on it um but yeah i i did also hear there's a quote from uh from quarter bryant on how him and wimby passed the time because they asked about like you know doing art and things like that and he said we love to do extracurricular activities usually me him hb we've done painting we've done game days like playing board games we went to the world's quietest room we've done a bunch of dumb stuff so i mean you can look at this and say like Like, okay, Wemby is eccentric, et cetera, et cetera.

21:08Big Cat:They're just running back the same playbook from the Spurs of the 2000s. Yeah. Like, they didn't do anything. They didn't go out. They didn't party. No, Wemby famously sleeps 12 hours a night. Yeah. They would just hang out at each other's houses and, like, play Xbox. Listen, it worked.

21:21PFT Commenter:I wonder. Here's the thing I'm not worried about, but I'm curious about, is Wemby has looked a little gassed when it's not back-to-back, but one night in between. How is he going to look? In game four, he did get, he played the entire fourth quarter on game three, but there was also so many stoppages. By the way, credit to the reviews. They nailed them. So many. But they nailed them. Yeah. There was like multiple times it was like, hey, good review. That was, it was the Wemby three, great review. The ball out of bounds, great review. They just crushed the reviews.

21:56Big Cat:I heard some people on, I think it was Get Up this morning, that were crushing the review system being like they screwed up a bunch of, I don't think that they screwed anything up. I just think that it fucked with the flow of the game a little bit. And you can be like, yeah, it gave Wimby a chance to stay on the floor and catch his breath. Because when Cornette was playing last night, he cannot stay in front of Cat. No. It's impossible for him to do that.

22:17PFT Commenter:No, it's when Wimby comes off the court, everyone just goes to the hoop. Yeah. Every single time. That was actually the moment, Memes. I assume you had the same thought. When Wimby hit the three and one and they got reversed, and then the Knicks scored. I was like, oh, this is it. Like, this game is over. Knicks got it. That was a great timeout by Mitch Johnson. Yeah. Yeah, it was. Because, yeah, it was about to be a 10-point game, then it was a five-point game. It was like, this is it. Do you feel like the crowd was – do you have any grade for the crowd? I like the crowd.

22:50Big Cat:ESPN was speechless before the game inside the NBA. They were like, wow, this is unreal. Yeah, Chuck, Kenny, and Shaq all, like, stopping and being like, This is an incredible moment, and they've been in huge games, huge moments all played in finals, and they themselves were like, wow, speechless. That, I feel like, settles – the crowd was alive. Yeah. I think in a game like that, you have to have the Rowdy Boys Lounge. You've got to set aside 1 ,000 tickets that you sell for face value for diehard fans of the team.

23:26PFT Commenter:Yeah.

23:27Big Cat:If I spent$10 ,000 on a ticket, I probably wouldn't shut up. No. That's just me.

23:31PFT Commenter:No. True. By the way, I wanted Steven Che to come in here to help us with the parlay because we were so bad with our parlay the other night. Have a seat, Che.

23:38Big Cat:Sit down, Che. We're talking about the cat bag, letting the cat out of the bag. Yeah. And. Bad. Yeah. All right.

23:44PFT Commenter:Let me do the ad real quick. Draft Kings, the final round of the basketball season is here. Two teams left, one trophy on the line, and only Draft Kings has you covered every step of the way. The DraftKings Sports app is now available in all 50 states and includes all markets, bringing each game straight to your fingertips wherever you are. From New York to San Antonio to L.A., you're in on the excitement at the speed of sports. Follow every possession, every fourth quarter swing, every clutch shot that decides a series. Sweat the whole run in real time with a seamless experience built for championship basketball no matter where you're watching.

24:16PFT Commenter:You're always connected in the game with one app. new DraftKings customers. Sign up with code TAKE. Spend$5 to get$200 in rewards within 21 days. That's code TAKE in partnership with DraftKings. The crown is yours. Okay, so Steven, you are a massive, massive Knicks fan, former season ticket holder. You have Knicks in five. You're not deterred at all. He actually was like, it's odd how confident he is. Do you have a pick? Because our parlays have been bad in this series. Do you have a pick? You guys had OG, 18 plus. That was memes. Last night. Shout out memes. Good job memes. Mitch Robinson and...

24:55PFT Commenter:I thought Cat 3s were bad. Cat didn't even take a 3.

24:59Big Cat:Robinson was close. I thought he was going to show out for the president. I thought he was going to really, really explode on him.

25:06PFT Commenter:So what do you got for us? You just want one single prop? One single prop, and then we'll add it into ours. I'm going to give you two. I'm going to give you the option. Okay, so you're already not following the assignment. My favorite one is... No questions, though. No. My favorite prop... Oh, he did. He said, you just want one prop? Oh, yeah, yeah. Yeah. My favorite prop is Jalen Brunson rebounds. And point guard rebounds suck because a lot of it is happenstance. Like, does the ball bounce their way? Let me give you a stat. So, four plus rebounds is, I think, last check, plus 133. He's done this in his last...

25:44We got seven of his last eight games against the Spurs.

25:49PFT Commenter:had I bet this in game one, it would have been reversed. So knock it down or boost it up eight in a row. Because it was that tip out that Bridges got credit for. Had I fought that, we would have gotten it reversed.

26:03Big Cat:Why didn't you fight it?

26:04PFT Commenter:I didn't bet it.

26:05Big Cat:Okay. Okay.

26:07PFT Commenter:But he's had... This is all just striking all of this from the record. If you had fought it, it would have been eight in a row.

26:13Big Cat:You're the Mark Wahlberg of props. If you had been there, it would have gone different. But you're telling me that you're selfish because you didn't think to fight injustice. You're fighting for the people. You're fighting for the people, dude.

26:24PFT Commenter:Maybe some people are the under.

26:26Big Cat:Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.

26:30PFT Commenter:You've got to fight for the fair thing. If you're a Knicks fan, you're not going to take Brunswick under. I'm not auditing every single stat.

26:34Big Cat:But you're telling me that you knew that it happened and that it was wrong and you didn't do anything about it.

26:40PFT Commenter:Correct. Okay, can we get back to your pick? Okay, if you want a pick that is hit in every game that is a little juicy. It's largest comeback, five plus points. That means... Okay, I like that. Yeah, it's very easy to root for because... Wait, what's the odds on it? It's usually like minus 150. Okay. Can you parlay that? Yes. Okay. All right. I have Dylan Harper, 20 points and rebounds. See how easy that was?

27:04Big Cat:Just give a pick. I've got Jalen Brunson, six plus assists, over five and a half assists, Jalen Brunson. Okay. Okay. And then five plus points, comeback.

27:16PFT Commenter:Yeah. Do we want to have one more? I think that's good. No, no, no. Let's have one more play. Memes? You want five? No, four. Jalen Brunson. Oh, we're doing both yours? No, no, no. We're just doing the five-point thing. I have a parlay that's either live or going to be live momentarily. This is now. He's killing us. Let me – Memes was money with his last pick.

27:36Big Cat:Landers Jam at 10-plus points.

27:37PFT Commenter:Okay. Sorry. We'll do four-leg parlay and bet it on DraftKings. All right, Stephen, I have one last question for you. Yes. But I got to do a quick ad. We have a new sponsor alert. New sponsor alert. TickPick is going to be the official ticketing partner of PMT starting in July. Thanks to TickPick. We are very excited to be with TickPick. We're excited to be working with TickPick. Ticket prices for the finals are crazy, but the best prices are always on TickPick. And we love TickPick. We love TickPick so much because I have a question for Steven. memes and Zach do you guys want to go to game five yeah okay well thanks to TickPick you guys are going to game five whoa

28:25Big Cat:memes and Zach didn't confirm

28:26PFT Commenter:oh yeah memes Zach would you guys like to go to game five yes sir memes yeah let's go alright so the boys the original trio that went down to Indiana last year you guys are going to be flying down to San Antonio game 5 thank you to TickPick Saturday night that's amazing we're going to win in 5 we're going to win the championship you guys might get to watch the Knicks win a championship live in person

28:57Big Cat:that's crazy Larry O 'Brien is going to be in the building I'm crying right now hell yes

29:06PFT Commenter:fucking hell yes thank you to TickPick

29:10Big Cat:Give memes a hug. Thank you to TickPick. Thank you to TickPick.

29:12PFT Commenter:That's awesome. Give memes a hug.

29:13Big Cat:That man needs a hug. Oh, I'm so pumped for you guys. It's going to be a good moment. Put the camera on the max.

29:19PFT Commenter:And the three of you, they're going to get some content. We're going to get some funny stories. Steve and Che, you might have to come in Sunday night. That's fine. To recap. Sure, yeah. Because the three boys going to San Antonio. So we'll get all the flights in the hotel figured out. Oh, my gosh. That's amazing. But the tickets are done. And TickPick. Shout out TickPick. They're coming on as an official sponsor in July. But guess what? Start using them now because they got memes crying. They got Che going pumped up. Zach is sweating. Zach has just fixed his glasses for the 100th time. I mean, yeah, unreal, unreal.

29:52PFT Commenter:I've seen a couple of Knicks playoff games in person. The fact that Knicks fans travel, especially to San Antonio, is like 20 % Knicks fans past a couple games is incredible. That is an ideal environment. Thank you so much. Vampire meetup? We could do that. No, you guys lost that game, right? Oh, shit. Yeah, yeah. No vampires. No vampires. Memes.

30:14Big Cat:This is so awesome.

30:15PFT Commenter:Yeah.

30:16Big Cat:Fuck yeah, dude. Memes, you know what you're going to wear?

30:19PFT Commenter:I got to do the black sweatshirt.

30:21Big Cat:Yeah.

30:21PFT Commenter:Yeah. You got to win Wednesday. You got to win Wednesday. I have to win Wednesday. You have to win Wednesday.

30:28Big Cat:Wednesday has now just become a must win. Because you win.

30:30PFT Commenter:But listen, no matter what, even if you lose Wednesday, game five will be massive, massive. Pivotal. That will be the biggest. Yeah. I mean, that's the biggest game in the series, even if you lose on Wednesday. But I want you guys to win on Wednesday so you can – the Larry OB is going to be in the building. Che has been saying, to Che's credit, for the last two weeks, he's been saying Nixon 5. So if this actually – if he calls his shot and then gets to see it in person, what a night. That would be sick.

31:01Big Cat:Was that a scheduled loss last night?

31:04PFT Commenter:I thought we were going to lose either 2 or 3. We won two, so three was not going our way. That's okay.

31:10Big Cat:Anything that you're very concerned about with the Knicks?

31:17PFT Commenter:Jordan Wood's bag needs to be back in the building. As long as that's good, we're straight.

31:22Big Cat:Fourth quarter offense. Does she take them to away games? Yeah. Does she take the bag? Okay. Can we find a bag? Can you get a bag like that to bring? Where do they sell those things? Just in case she doesn't bring it. Probably like Macy's or something. Try to find that bag for me, Jay. Okay. And then we'll chip in for the bag, too. Okay. Sick. Hell yeah. Yeah. Yeah, pumped. Thank you, guys. Thanks, TickPick.

31:46PFT Commenter:This is going to be awesome. Thanks, TickPick. Thank you, TickPick. I'm pumped for you guys. Yes. All right. I just texted Caitlin, so we'll make sure we get your flights. Do you guys want to go in Saturday morning? Yeah. Yeah, that'd be fine, right? Yeah. Just got to go early so that we don't have any issues. Sure. It's a late game. Yeah. Saturday morning, you come back Sunday. What a day. meet up with the boys the PM listen you guys do a little little AWL if you get Knicks fans AWL just get strength in numbers yeah

32:17Big Cat:I know we're saying no teeth but I do have my backpack just in case

32:19PFT Commenter:you keep your vampire teeth on you at all times at all times

32:22Big Cat:yeah I got them on me in my backpack

32:25PFT Commenter:15 feet from here okay just in case go get them okay alright Che love it thank you good luck see you Che you got this thank you boys love you guys yes Thank you, TickPick. So yeah, new sponsor. We're very excited for TickPick to come on. Excited for the boys. This will be awesome.

32:44Big Cat:Imagine if they get to see it in person. It'd be pretty amazing.

32:47PFT Commenter:It'd be pretty freaking amazing. Is this about to be the summer of memes?

32:51Big Cat:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I think so.

32:54PFT Commenter:Okay. Other things we got to talk about. Memes, you good?

32:58Big Cat:Yeah, I'm good. I'm good. Thank you so much.

33:00PFT Commenter:Yeah, of course. Thanks to TickPick. um what else we got to talk about should we talk soresby brendan soresby so there's no rules in

33:10Big Cat:college football as of two days ago officially no rules correct because he bet on his own team when he was at indiana uh 40 times i believe was the number of number of bets that he put in on just on just his own team uh bet a lot of money on some other sports other games and um a judge in lubbock texas which is where texas tech is located has ruled that he is eligible to play next year yes and um now that that could go up for appeal but the appeal would not be heard until i

33:42PFT Commenter:don't think until after the season's over pft the only thing you got wrong there the judge in lubbock texas actually is a judge from fort worth who has a houston degree so it's totally on the

33:52Big Cat:up and up okay all right so it's just coincidence that he lives in lubbock i think there was a texas

33:56PFT Commenter:tech judge that recused himself at first so that's okay so it works so the judicial system works this is and and look i know that there will be people who will uh say we're hypocrites i do not think we are because we obviously are sponsored by a gambling company and we love to gamble we talk about our bets all the time we don't play the games we don't play in the games we're not on the teams you can't be on the team and bet on the team you can't be on the team and bet on the the games that are taking place, the integrity of the sport, and I'm not clutching pearls here, is 100 % at stake.

34:30Big Cat:You can't have that. I'm not going to clutch pearls either because what's happened is this is a pure 100 % result of everything that college football has done to itself for the last 50 years. And it is... All the different elements of pretending that they're not employees, saying that they can't get paid, they can't get tattoos, everything that's gone into the evolution of college football and the ability of players to make money has led to this point where they don't really have a governing body that is capable of enforcing any of the rules yeah they used to and then it turns out that that whole system was fucked up and uh illegal and so then they got rid of that and now it's just essentially college football is on the honor system now so if you want to self-report if you want to suspend your own players for stuff you're more than welcome to do so uh but just know that the rest of the schools probably won't be doing that i have heard that a bunch of the uh the big 12 schools are going to get together potentially all agree to not play against texas tech in which case in which case i think if it's already scheduled like for the big 12 schools that would count as forfeits so texas tech would win a bunch of those games won nothing well it feels like there's a lot of

35:44PFT Commenter:things that could happen here one is the the the big 12 schools could be like hey this is absolutely not we're not doing this and then texas tech would probably have to play ball and be like hey you know what this actually is kind of ridiculous the other one is like the college football committee let's say texas tech goes undefeated they could just not rank them they could yeah you know what i mean just like hey we're not going to rank you it is crazy like you can't you can't do this you can't have someone who bet on the games and i also the whole thing is so weird because brennan stores me and I'm not, you know, addiction comes in all shapes and sizes.

36:21PFT Commenter:It feels like he's not taking a lot of accountability for it, where he's just like, yeah, you know, I did this, but I really should get to play.

36:28Big Cat:He did. So when the news first came out and he said that he was addicted to gambling, I was like, okay, well, that's like, well, we'll see what happened. But it turns out he made a shitload of bets. Yeah. I don't know the exact number. I don't know what the average amount was. He bet a lot on a lot of different sports. So he might actually have an addiction to gambling, in which case i hope he gets better i hope that he's able to like continue his career and make a lot of money and be successful and all that stuff um but again like this is it's it's entirely a creation of college football and the way that the governing bodies have been set up and evolved over the years they have nobody to blame but themselves about it and the only way that you can get past this is you have to have a collective bargaining agreement and until you have a cba in place that the players negotiate along with the universities, you're not going to be able to enforce anything.

37:17Big Cat:And even, so there's a bill that's going through Congress right now that's trying to fix a lot of these things. I think it comes closer than most have in the past, but what's going to end up happening since the players won't be designated as employees, they won't have a CBA, there's going to be a lawsuit in the next year, in the next two years, that challenges that bill that goes through and challenges the whole, like giving them the antitrust exemption that they're talking about giving to the NCAA, and they're going to challenge that antitrust exemption in court, and then that's probably going to get overturned in like two years anyways.

37:51Big Cat:The only way that you can put a permanent fix to this is if there's a CBA where you agree on what the rules are and what the punishment is going to be, and the players are like officially finally designated as employees. because otherwise, and you can agree or not with whether or not we should call college football players employees of the universities. That's like a semantic conversation we can have. But the upshot of it is if you don't call them employees legally, you're just going to end up tying yourself up in court. And then whatever rule comes after that is going to make even less sense.

38:25Big Cat:And you're going to have no ability to enforce anything. And that's kind of where we are right now where it's like every school you you can just be on your own honor system if you get caught doing stuff if you want to uh punish your star athletes you're more than welcome but there's

38:39PFT Commenter:going to be a lot of schools that don't yeah the so i'm not a slippery slope guy because i think a lot of times those are disingenuous people will be like oh well if this happens and then they'll take it all the way to the end and be like well then this could happen yeah i guess it could but most of the time it doesn't happen this is a slippery slope one because and i i read an article yesterday uh dan wetzel who's an awesome college football reporter talked to a lot of coaches anonymously and this was the quote that i was like he this is exactly correct the quote is from a uh big 12 coach he said if this is the precedent then i owe it to my players to bring in people from las vegas to teach us how to gamble then collectively we need to decide which games we will play hard in to cover and which ones we won't i'm supposed to do what's best for my players and in that case they would be able to make a lot of money betting on our games that's the precedent for me it's it's not as far-fetched as you think when you say that we're allowing players to bet

39:37Big Cat:on games that they're in we should also let's be clear because we did kind of overlook something he is going to be punished there's a punishment for swordsby that he has to serve um he's going to sit out uh the first two games against abilene christian and oregon state yeah so there is a punishment in place he's not skating scot-free from this it's it is great this this is crazy

39:57PFT Commenter:though it's like again i don't want to like for the most part all these things i don't really care uh but there are certain lines where it's like if you have players who are allowed to bet on games how can anyone trust what they're seeing you can't like it's why the giante porter and the in the terrier's year those are big big issues yeah that's why they're mad and the nba comes down

40:22Big Cat:super hard on them and you would think that like schools would recognize the importance don't throw the baby out with the bath water if you have a player that's betting on his own games you have to be smart enough to realize that if you don't actually take steps to make sure that he's punished or has to miss games um or kicked off the team whatever the case may be you're going to end up just creating a massive amount of doubt that's going to go through your entire sport.

40:49PFT Commenter:The entire product just becomes people – like this is actually something that people would start tuning out if they're like, hey, this is all rigged and players are playing hard for one game and not playing hard for the other. That quote from the coach made me think, you know when a big-time team plays a small school, like a sec school plays a max school in the first couple weeks of the season and the spread will be like 48 and they always end up taking their foot off the gas in the in the third and fourth quarter because they're up by you know 35 why would they just keep your foot on the gas and have everyone you know i mean and then and then guys can get injured because they're playing four quarters in a game that's totally out of the like there's so many weird things that could happen if this is the precedent i don't i i think if i had to guess i i feel like something's gonna happen where he's not gonna play also i know soarsby's good um but is he

41:44Big Cat:is he worth like blowing up everything from whose perspective like tech yeah yeah i don't know um

41:51PFT Commenter:it would also be i think the the thing i'm rooting for is for him to play and then stink i uh i read

41:59Big Cat:the judge's ruling on this and it was very funny because it was like we've ruled that uh if we if If we suspend this kid, if we don't let him play football next year, that's going to impact his ability to make money and get better at playing football. So that's not fair to do. Let's let him play. Yeah. It's like, yeah, no shit. It's crazy. No shit. But I mean, like if you are betting, that's the thing. Like if you have a big picture perspective on this, it is if you think that there's if that element of distrust has proven itself to be true, where you have reason to believe that players are betting on their own teams, then there will be consequences in terms of ratings.

42:34Big Cat:in terms of sponsorship money, TV deals that come in down the line. And again, I think the only way past it is like you have to actually have a CBA in place. That's the only way that it's worked for the NFL. That's the only way that's worked for major sports in America, which college football is. It's the second biggest sport in America. Yeah. And we need to stop pretending that it's not a major sport because if we keep pretending, then it's going to be the Wild West and it will kill itself.

43:01PFT Commenter:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, and it feels like we're on that path. Yeah, it was pretty shocking that they were. I mean, I guess it's not shocking, but then again, there have been judges who have, like, judges who are hometown judges, like the Alabama Betty Yacos case. Yeah. That judge is from Alabama and was like, hey, this is probably a bad idea to have a guy who's a professional athlete come and play at Alabama. He actually made the right call.

43:31Big Cat:Yeah. You know what? This judge might actually just hate college football. He's like, if I allow him to play, then it will end up killing college football.

43:42PFT Commenter:It's crazy. Yeah, what if he does play? And I don't blame, by the way, any Texas Tech fan who's fighting for this. Yeah, yeah.

43:50Big Cat:I'd do the same thing. Yeah, no.

43:52PFT Commenter:It's how fans should act.

43:53Big Cat:For sure. If you're a Red Raiders fan, you're like, let the boy play. Yeah. He served his time. Yeah. I get it. Didn't you see?

43:59PFT Commenter:Suspended for Abilene Christian.

44:01Big Cat:yeah yeah keep it up no like that's that's exactly the role that you should be filling

44:05PFT Commenter:okay before we do the stanley cup final uh talk what is the why is aj brown trending again can someone explain that to me what do you do there's a lot of play i think

44:17Big Cat:is it madden related no no not madden related um this is more like the way that he left you want to leave a place better than he found it right what do you do so when he left he decided to sign an autograph on his way out. I don't understand what the big problem is. Okay. Yeah. And what are the autographs? I so don't care about this. So when he left, he went to pick up his stuff at the facility, and then there's a picture of him that I guess is up on the wall at the team facility, and he signed it. The best to ever play here, always open when he left. So if anything, he made the facility more valuable.

44:54Big Cat:Yeah, his signature's right there. They should get it graded. Max? don't care don't yeah cool i said he was when he got traded traded to the patriots i said he was the best receiver to ever play for the eagles he thinks so too i have no problem with that

45:12PFT Commenter:t.o's pissed somewhere do you want to ring i don't know what you want me to say say t.o was better

45:21Big Cat:wasn't okay there you go wasn't wasn't disagree but he didn't say the best wide receiver he said the best to ever play here ever play here you can take that always open you can take that for what you will i i don't care you guys can care i personally where do you put aj brown on the mount rushmore of eagles all time i don't care where's your big dom bobblehead it is on my desk where's mine it's behind you oh check this out wait how did you get it to bobble so well

45:54PFT Commenter:did you is there is the thing still underneath its head yeah oh no look at that big dumb it's nice you might just be bad at bobble i'm gonna fuck you up it looks a little like svp a little bit a little bit um okay should we let's do a time travel real quick for stanley cup final game four uh which will be on zoom and then we'll be back in studio for hot seat cool in our interviews before we do that twisted tea summers here and twisted tea is coming in clutch to turn our day drinking up a notch their new summer party pack has a brand new twisted lemonade made with real lemons and five percent alcohol it's got that refreshing taste with a little kick no carbonation and goes down smooth we love twisted lemonade i'm gonna have a twisted lemonade this weekend when i'm grilling my uh cheeseburgers i'm gonna do that gonna have a little twisted lemonade outside with the grill on.

46:48PFT Commenter:So whether it's hitting the course for a round, pre-gaming a ball game, or inviting the guys over to some backyard grilling, the new Twisted Tea Summer Party Pack is perfect to keep the good times rolling. Grab a refreshing Twisted Tea today. We love Twisted Tea. It is the drink of the summer. Okay, here's us talking Stanley Cup Final. Okay, we're back after the Stanley Cup Final Game 4. And PFT, I just tweeted this, but I feel bad for the people who are too proud to enjoy both hockey and basketball at the same time, because we are living in blessed days. This series has been absolutely incredible.

47:26PFT Commenter:We had another game where a team goes out to an early lead and the other team comes back. And now Carolina has tied it, uh, two, two in the series, Jordan stall, he's 37 years old. He's got a goal. He scored two goals tonight. He has four, uh, every single game. He's got a goal in the Stanley Cup final so far. It's been awesome. It's just been awesome hockey. I don't really know what else to say other than it has been the most entertaining hockey. And we have a great series. And just like the NBA finals, which we just talked about, we're just blessed to be living in times when we have such a competitive, awesome finals in both sports.

48:02Big Cat:Yeah, I mean, we can do head to head. I think right now NHL might be up three games to one on NBA. If we're just going like game by game.

48:12PFT Commenter:Yeah. Yeah. Game by game. Yes. Every single one of the hockey games have been incredible.

48:17Big Cat:All the hockey games have been incredible. The basketball has been great, too. But the hockey has been just unreal. There's no such thing. I tweet out the other night that there's no such thing in the NBA finals as a lead. And a team's always going to come back. In hockey, it's the same way, too. It's like every team that has taken a lead has blown that lead in the Stanley Cup. And then at times they've gone on to reclaim it. what do you think about Bussie? Is this galaxy brain move by Brendamore? Number one, I just love saying Bussie. We're sussy for Bussie. We're sussy for Bussie. By the way,

48:51PFT Commenter:my point was that more that the people who do the Jake Malisex of the world who constantly are bitches and can't have a thought of, hey, I like both sports. Those guys, the little brothers. My point is, you don't even have to compare them. We don't even have to do a game by game it's just both are great enjoy both because they've been great and they haven't been on the same night and it's been every night has been awesome that was my point but yes bussy anderson

49:19Big Cat:i was making a joke about yeah three games to one lead i don't i don't give a shit uh the games have been great in both series but it is fun to just like provoke both sides uh because i do like the please like my sport people i think these are a very valuable part of the the sports ecosystem

49:36PFT Commenter:him it's it's the please like my sports versus the look at the ratings uh nba finals ratings people being like look at this dominates hockey who cares uh bussy i don't know what happened to anderson maybe he was concussed like i said after uh game three i think also being on the group chat with the hockey guys he might be in none i'm not quoting anyone this is more the vibes i was getting he might have the s word attached to him as a goalie a little soft so So they weren't totally shocked that he was scratched, but he was, yeah. So they didn't report an injury. So it seems like he was just healthy scratch and healthy scratch.

50:15Big Cat:It could be gamesmanship by Brenda Moore. It could be just not reporting an injury. Could be that he did get clipped when he kind of hit his head and neck at the end of the last game. Or it could just be that they wanted to mix things up and go with the lefty and switch up the catching hand. Because Marner had said that, I think it was game two or game three, he got confused when he was going up against Bussey and when he had that penalty shot. And he was like, oh, yeah, I forgot that his glove was on the other hand by the time that I shot. So it could be just like giving them a different look and having a different-handed goalie might just be enough to fuck him up a little bit.

50:56PFT Commenter:Yeah. And guess what? It worked because they just tied the series, and now they have essentially home ice because they have three games left and two of them are in Carolina, and he did a good job in the third period not letting Vegas score. It was also like that was a Carolina performance where Vegas had 21 shots total. Like they were, you know, their defense and getting on top of the Hurricanes had, it felt like the possession of the puck a lot more than the Knights, and that's the game they want to play. And when we talked to TJ Oshie, he said it. Like the way to beat Carolina is you have to get out early.

51:31PFT Commenter:the exact opposite happened. Carolina scored a minute and 15 seconds into the game. And it was these, I'm telling you the, the, the boards they're juiced because that was another one similar to the overtime goal in game three. It was a funky bounce, real hard bounce, not like just a funky, like the, the, the puck is bouncing far off the boards back in front of the net. And I think maybe the Vegas boards are juiced, which would be cool. Maybe they should do it even more. And the empty netter. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, so there's something up with the boards in Vegas.

52:04Big Cat:And also 14 playoff goals for Howden. Pretty incredible.

52:08PFT Commenter:Nuts. Did I tell you guys the little mishap I had with our good friend Liam Blutman, who is a diehard Vegas Knights fan? He was actually at the game. During game two, I want to say, he texted in this group chat a minute, And he said, howden plus two hunt, two 50 to win the cons, my LOL. I read that and immediately went and bet it. And then when Mitch Marner scored his hat trick in game three, I was like, Hey dude, like there's no way howden's going to win the cons, my now. And he's like, yeah, dude, I was saying plus two 50, LOL. No chance. He wins. I can't believe his odds have gotten this low.

52:50Big Cat:Yeah. That's you gotta, I put that on him. yeah i was saying he was 101 before the playoffs assuming that everybody is as locked in on the golden knights as he is to the point where he can do sarcasm about the golden knights yeah he was

53:06PFT Commenter:like yeah he was 101 before the playoffs now he's plus 250 lol i was like oh fuck so but hey maybe i don't know that i mean the knights have to win this series i don't know who's gonna win this because it feels like at times the knights have just been the better team but then you have a game like tonight and it's like hurricanes hockey and now they have the home home ice advantage

53:25Big Cat:going into the last three games I think the uh the Jack Eichel Conn Smythe dream might be dead officially dead uh not going to blame Merles for it because I think the process was right um but the puck's just not bouncing his way so unless something weird happens that might be over but yeah I hope we get seven I just want this game I want the series to go seven I want there not ready for the start of Mount Rushmore season just yet.

53:52PFT Commenter:I agree. And who do we have for the crank tonight? Was it T-Pain? I was looking that up right now. I was trying to figure out who it was. I think it was T-Pain. Yeah, it was T-Pain. T-Pain did a pregame concert. He also did the crank. He cranked it? He cranked. Max, do you want to share the update on the crank that we might have? I don't want to jinx it before it's official, but we're looking like we got a crank from a big five major sports league. Yep. Yep. You can put context clues. Yeah.

54:31Big Cat:Lacrosse. It's water dogs. Crank.

54:33PFT Commenter:Well, big six major sports league. Think of all the major sports leagues, but major, but major rugby major big seven. Then if you want to count rugby in there, Indy car crank. The UFL. That's just counting as football. But yeah, nine. But it's a major. It's a major league. Golf.

54:55Big Cat:Live. The live crank. The yard goats crank.

54:58PFT Commenter:It's major. It's so major. Yeah. You can't get more major than this league. If you stay in the confines of the United States of America. as long as you stay in our country it's as major of a league as you get in its given sport at a beautiful stadium I'm not familiar with this actually I have been to a game Swansea played there once in a friendly I love that it's right out of the bridge in Philadelphia who knows where it is but you should look up that stadium it is beautiful very aesthetic aesthetic stadium for sure.

55:41Big Cat:The home club for, what's his name? Cabin Sullivan, future face of this league. Future face of this league. Yep. But don't want to jinx it because I still haven't. We're still at the beginning stages of getting this crank, but we're there. We're in the stage. We're in a stage. I mean, they were a big part of the Max villain origin story on part of my tape because they were the, remember they lost? Yeah. the same day. Whoa, whoa, whoa. We still don't know. We're still not jinxing it. We still don't know what major league we're talking about. The same day that the Phillies got bounced in the World Series, this other unnamed team lost in extra time in their championship game.

56:27There's so many sports that have extra time in Philadelphia. Dave Portnoy hates this team. Oh, yeah. True, true. Good point. It took me a while to get there. It took me a while to get there.

56:41PFT Commenter:We're starting to get a nice collection because I purchased today the St. Bonaventure's 2022 NIT semi-finalist banner that they raised. That has been purchased. I think schools are now targeting me, and they're just going through their storage and being like, well, this is something that we have a buyer of one that will take this. That's all you need, right? You just need one buyer.

57:08Big Cat:Woj was like, we need a backup point guard from Lithuania. What can we do for NIL? We need like$10 ,000. Oh, I know. I've got just the fundraising plan.

57:20PFT Commenter:Listen, it's a sick banner. It couldn't be more brown. It's just so brown. And it's NIT semifinals 2022 St. Bonnie's basketball. I think it was the last NIT that took place at MSG. So a little bit of history for people. NIT Stu, shout out. He would love this banner.

57:42Big Cat:It was basically you and NIT Stu going head to head.

57:45PFT Commenter:Yeah. Okay, I had two other things real quick before we get back in studio hot seat. Cool throw. One, is Aaron Donald playing football next year?

57:55Big Cat:Yes. Schefter made it seem like he was. Yeah. Like saying, I can't report that he's going to come back and play, but if the Rams come up with a presentation that Aaron Donald likes, he will say yes to it. My guess is that Sean McVay knows exactly what kind of presentation Aaron Donald wants to see. He will then present that to him. I need to know what it's going to be. Is it going to be a PowerPoint?

58:21PFT Commenter:I'm guessing it's going to be two commas and seven zeros. you don't think it's going to be like that will be the presentation like a team's meeting yeah no i think it's gonna be seven zeros two commas and then be like aaron you pick the number you want to go in the in the beginning okay aaron uh i'm gonna slack you real quick i'm gonna send

58:43Big Cat:the deck over to you and uh you can pull that up and just look for my dongle here yeah no it's basically like hey we're getting the band back together max we talked about it earlier but hank

58:54PFT Commenter:doing his math um i think that was earlier right i don't even know what what portion of the show was max just had to do his his mental math face which did not i would say he's gonna ask for 20 million dollars or 30 million dollars or 40 million dollars you couldn't see my fingers but i was going one two three okay four five six okay that would be one and then the seventh million okay so it's between 10 million and 99 million correct and i think that's probably the i think they're gonna to be like you decide where you want to land and then we'll figure it out well the cap isn't real

59:27Big Cat:we'll just figure this out i'm looking at the rams cap space right now um they're like right in the middle i think if i'm reading this correctly which i'm probably not because nobody really truly understands the cap uh but yeah they're gonna work it out aaron's gonna come back he's gonna be great i don't even know like he's probably not as he's probably lost some weight I would guess since his playing days, but Aaron Donald's a beast and he's going to be fine. No matter what miles Garrett next to him. Congrats to the Rams.

59:58PFT Commenter:Yeah. And then the last thing was just, it's worth mentioning. So the white Sox who have been electric this year, Braden Montgomery, they called them up today. I think it's their number two prospect in the whole system. Walk off home run for his first, first home run in the big leagues, first home run or first game in the big leagues, hits a walk-off home run. I don't think you can do it better than that. That's got to be the best feeling of all time.

1:00:25Big Cat:Awesome feeling. Awesome feeling. And also a quick update. They did not upgrade Wimby's foul against Brunson. Oh, yeah. So they reviewed that. Took their sweet-ass time looking at it.

1:00:38PFT Commenter:They couldn't. We all knew they couldn't because four flagrant foul points means you're suspended for a game. Wemby has two if they gave him one more now you're basically saying if he fucks up even a little bit he's going to miss a game and everyone's going to cry foul for the rest of you know time because Wemby was out for a game

1:00:59Big Cat:series is over yeah

1:01:00PFT Commenter:they couldn't do that they had I think I mean that would have sucked though I don't think it was a flagrant foul but it was such regard like he it was a foul it's crazy he pushed him it's bullshit it webby's getting a little bit dirty but uh yeah i you can't you can't upgrade that given everything at stake i agree okay let's get back to ourselves hot seat cool throne and then two great interviews rob stone and ozzy albis okay before we get to hot seat cool throne draft kings the nba finals are in full swing and the intensity isn't letting up every game delivers high stakes drama clutch performances and unforgettable moments you'll be talking about for years and with DraftKings Sportsbook, an official sports betting partner of the NBA.

1:01:43PFT Commenter:Your winnings get a boost every single day, all finals long. The biggest stars turn it up when the title's on the line, and DraftKings turns it up with them with a profit boost available every single game of the finals. Bet player props, bet live from the opening tip to the final possession. Every bucket, every dime, every clutch takeover matters, and only DraftKings Sportsbook keeps boosting you all the way through. All DraftKings customers can enjoy a profit boost every single day throughout the finals. Download the DraftKings Sportsbook app now. Now use code TAKE to claim your profit boost.

1:02:11PFT Commenter:That's code TAKE to get a boost every day of the NBA finals in partnership with DraftKings. The crown is yours. Henry, hot seat, cool throw.

1:02:19Big Cat:My hot seat is me. Oh, why? Trey Young went on the Pivot podcast. He said, this is the most slept on I've been in my whole life. Imagine the Wizards as the number one team in the East next year. Can you imagine? What people going to be saying? I haven't played much in a year and a half, but trust me, I'm just entering my prime. Yeah, that's right. Ice Trey. Are you scared? I mean, that got me a little scared. Think about it. Not because it's like I can't see them as the one seed, but I'm worried about them being in the top eight seeds. The fact that he changed, he moved the Overton window. Yeah.

1:02:56Big Cat:You were thinking like, okay, maybe somewhere in the 10 through 7, but hearing him say one, you're like, damn, now they might be like four through six. To answer the question, what would they say?

1:03:05PFT Commenter:I would say PFT saw the future.

1:03:08Big Cat:True.

1:03:08PFT Commenter:Although, no, technically he didn't because he said eight seed. That's true. I would love to be wrong. Right. I would love to. Yeah, actually, PFT, you'd be more wrong if they were the one seed than if they were the last place team.

1:03:21Big Cat:I'd be way off about my prediction.

1:03:22PFT Commenter:Yeah. If they're a last place team, that would be like, what, six away from being in the play-in or four away from being in the play-in? If they're the one seed, they're far away from the play-in.

1:03:31Big Cat:I'd feel mentally wizarded. It would be tough. Now, I do think that the Wizards probably trend more towards the one seed than they do towards the 10 or the 12. If you did gun to your head, you'd say one seed over 10 or 12? One to my head? Yeah. Crystal ball to my head? Yeah. More likely they get the one seed and miss the playoffs. Mm-hmm. Now, you're also discounting the nature of the rivalry that we've got built in with the Knicks for next year. Like, the Knicks need to be – they need to start thinking about Trey Young. Is that why the Knicks lost game three? I think the Knicks are kind of always thinking about Trae Young.

1:04:06Big Cat:Always thinking about Trae Young. It's honestly like. He's already rent free, yeah. You just can't stop thinking about him. Wemby was thinking about Trae Young when talking about the Knicks. Yeah. Yeah, he was. The whole league is thinking about Trae Young. Like, you guys are forgetting about Trae. I didn't. I never stopped thinking about Trae. Forgot about Trae. I never would. That's good. I like that, Hank.

1:04:25PFT Commenter:And then my cool thing, I got a couple. Also, people sleeping on Trae Young might be right. Yeah, he hasn't played in a year and a half. Yeah. They could be right. They could just stay asleep and be fine.

1:04:38Big Cat:No one's going to wake them up. Doubt it. Doubt it. Me and Trey are going to have a conversation about this on the bench. October 2026. Lock it in, Trey. See you there. And then my cool. What math were you just doing? I was year math. It is. We'll be trying to figure out what year it is. Year math. That's tough math. Year math. It's 2026 right now. I know. I did not object. I literally just said nothing.

1:05:02PFT Commenter:I know, but I can see the thought for a second and I realized you were correct and I moved on. We should do a silent film of Hank's faces. I'd watch that. That was a good face.

1:05:11Big Cat:Yeah, it was a really good face. The Hank math faces. It's good. All time. my cool throne is it's again DC PFT good sports town yeah UFL final this weekend yeah DC is in it in the championships in DC DC defenders looking to go back to back never been done before in UFL history I heard it's gonna be literally on fire literally on fire it's gonna be viral 50 cents playing halftime it's gonna be electric would you rather see 50 cent or bat boney

1:05:41PFT Commenter:bat boney probably 50

1:05:43Big Cat:I like saying bad boy. Yeah, bad boy. Bad boy. Against the Louisville Kings. No Kings March in D.C. this weekend. Is that kind of like a rock and a hard place for you? Because you're a colonel? No, no. I'm a D.C. defender. I'm an alum. Kind of. Kind of. Practice squad alum. Practice squad alum. Practice squad tryout alum. Practice squad alum. Got cut. Practice squad alum. He got a jersey. Yeah. Everyone. Well, anyone that goes to the trial. Not true. Not true. There's a lot of guys that have tried out for UFL teams that don't get. Don't get any jerseys? That don't get a custom jersey afterwards.

1:06:21Big Cat:Yeah. But no, it's going to be. It should be. It should be a wild scene in D.C. Get the beer snake going. Yep. On fire. Mm-hmm. And then my other cool throw in Charlie Woods. Yeah. Going to the U.S. Open. Yeah. Kind of. About time. He was caddying for his good friend, Miles Russell, lefty. I think they're going to be playing at Florida State next year. And Miles Russell qualified through the longest day in golf. He's going to the U.S. Open. I don't know if Charlie Woods is going to be on his bag for the U.S. Open, but he should be. Absolutely. How do you make it through and then switch to another caddy?

1:06:57Big Cat:You can't do that. We learned from Cat's girlfriend. Now, this time of year, you've got to bring the bag.

1:07:03PFT Commenter:Yeah. Lucky bag. Bring the bag that got you there.

1:07:06Big Cat:Yeah. Trust the bag guy.

1:07:07PFT Commenter:Yeah.

1:07:08Big Cat:Who's the bag guy? Who's the bad guy? Who's the bad guy? Who else qualified? Shane Bacon did not qualify, unfortunately. Jim Renner also did not qualify, unfortunately. Max Homa also did not qualify, unfortunately.

1:07:26PFT Commenter:You know what? I was keeping track of the guys I was rooting to qualify,

1:07:29Big Cat:and I didn't pay as much attention to the guys that did. James Nicholas, corn fairy guy. I follow him on social media. He made it. Is that Jack's grandson? No. Do you think Max is going to watch the U.S. Open, like the entire tournament? He's probably going to be like most golfers, where he'll probably play during the day, maybe catch some stuff on TV when he's not playing. But I would imagine he's not sitting on the couch watching the coverage.

1:07:56PFT Commenter:Maybe a little. I mean, he's got friends. Yeah. No, that's what I'm saying.

1:07:59Big Cat:I'm sure he'll be relatively aware of what's going on, probably watch on Sunday if he has nothing else going on. Okay. We have Neil Shipley qualified. Nice JMU Good for him Who else? What are the names? Ben James

1:08:15PFT Commenter:Dylan Wu Billy Horschel

1:08:19Big Cat:Decepi Prib Nick Hardy I'm just reading all of you

1:08:21PFT Commenter:So all of these people qualified?

1:08:22Big Cat:Yes All of these people qualified Oh I didn't know there was this many

1:08:25PFT Commenter:There's a lot of people in this tournament

1:08:26Big Cat:Cole Hammer Great name Robbie Higgins Good name Hank, give us a name to know Keith Mitchell

1:08:32PFT Commenter:Cashmere Keith Emiliano Grillo Chris Kirk is good JB Holmes Grayserman's good. J.B. Holmes, slow. Really slow.

1:08:41Big Cat:What do you mean? Mentally? Like, no, he's got a pace of play. Oh, okay. Keep going down. Who's Cole Hammer? That's a great name. Great name. Yeah. Where's he from? Cole Hammer. Max McGreevey. He's from West Virginia. Toasty's good.

1:08:57PFT Commenter:Toasty? Okay. Emiliano Grillo. Yeah. He's good. He's good. That's a guy.

1:09:07Big Cat:Hey, do you think you have any chance one day of playing qualifying? I don't. What about just making it to the longest day in golf? I don't. No, you could qualify. I think you have to be like a plus one to even enter to compete to then get to the longest day. You could just lie about your handicap. True. But no. Yeah, no. Maybe if I had twice as many holes as them. Actually, no. What? You just want to play four holes? If I could play like four holes, and then that's my score. Then you would qualify. I would have a chance. If I had to play 36. These guys are all like minus eight. How are you going to get minus eight in three holes?

1:09:52Big Cat:Maybe if I started at minus 10 and had to play four holes.

1:09:55PFT Commenter:Maybe you started on the green. Yeah.

1:10:00Big Cat:Okay. PFT. I mean, Hank took one of mine, but I'm going to start out with the hot seat being Dylan Gabriel. So there's a quarterback controversy in Cleveland right now. The controversy is they don't know what number Dylan Gabriel is going to wear because Jared Verse wears number eight. Dylan Gabriel also wore number eight at the same practice. Then the Browns don't have any uniform numbers that are open for Dylan Gabriel to wear. They're all tied up with other guys. But I did hear that today. worry not because jok is not going to be able to play this year so number six is now like temporarily going to dylan gabriel but for a while a guy that is in theory competing for a starting job didn't have a number probably doesn't speak well for the chances of him getting the starting job yeah okay um and then my cool throw is the united states the u.s is back and all it took was some europeans to come visit us and just do like stream of consciousness blogs of visiting like the south i had this as well and and it makes even people that live in america be like yeah you know what our country's not so bad we got some good spots the chattahoochee river uh watching so these are like uh european people who are here in the united states for the world cup and getting to see them discover waffle house uh in real time getting to see them discover just like random little towns the stone mountain uh in georgia uh and and watching them really understand what americana is has been fun to watch and it makes me a little bit proud to be an american to be like yeah yeah all those yeah all those guys from norway that are visiting bucky's for the first

1:11:46PFT Commenter:time that's what it's all about yeah this one guy who said some proper chicago food bro they have a milkshake with cake in the cup it's ridiculous talking about portillo's cake shake which i love it made me realize you know when europeans or people from other countries say like america has no culture we actually do it's called gluttony it's called eating past being full that's what we do better than anyone else having a german dude show up to america and being absolutely floored by a big gulp i take some pride in that yeah having a swedish chick come

1:12:20Big Cat:to the united states and being like what is ranch yeah oh my god i've never had ranch before blew her mind um eating two half pound burgers at 10 30 in the morning america who did that

1:12:31PFT Commenter:big cat did that america listen i might have taken my i burger myself out of like the first seven holes charity golf event because i ate so much burger just just people that like this this

1:12:42Big Cat:lady right here discovering a road trip combination of combos and twinkies and being like this is america yeah she's right yeah she nailed it like you can read books about american history if you want we've made more than enough movies about it if you really want to experience america as a foreigner you need to just rent a car and then just drive it about 12 hours across as many states as you want and then stop once every three hours to get something to eat there was one guy who just

1:13:09PFT Commenter:went to chile's for the nba finals he's like at chile's for the nba finals and it looked incredible

1:13:14Big Cat:yeah he had everything that one guy has margs and everything one person discovers a uh like coca-cola freestyle machine uh-huh like yeah blue is mine that's america and that's what we do better we'll always do that better than europe and then um also i started reading up on some of the rule changes in this world cup uh because i have heard some of the the europeans complaining about some of the new policies at this world cup um there's some wild ones that you should get to know uh you're not allowed to cover up your mouth as a player if you cover your mouth when you're talking

1:13:47PFT Commenter:to an opponent you get a red card for that shit huge for the lip readers yeah which i don't know

1:13:52Big Cat:like i think it ties back to trying to prevent players from using racial slurs but i mean there is a possibility that they want to cover up their mouth because they don't want people to read their lips because they're talking about a tactic or about the game so that doesn't make sense to me and then there's gonna be a five second rule on throwing if they drop food yeah yeah you could do that or on throw-ins or goal kicks they're going to count like the referee is going to do the arm motion like in basketball i think count five seconds if you don't kick it off boom other team gets the ball never been done before that is never been done but it's good if you hate time wasting which i do uh it's gonna be good to help address that but yeah god bless all the europeans that are just like using their three months of vacation that they get every summer to just drive around and eat at chain restaurants because that's really what it's all about it's gonna be so awesome

1:14:46PFT Commenter:like watching watching all these america or europeans figure out just how much we rock

1:14:52Big Cat:is just the best and if you look at where some of the teams are staying right now and where some of their supporters are probably going to be flying into it's very very funny so you've got ghana staying in boston that's going to be a funny mix of cultures you've got uh saudi arabia is going to be staying in austin texas you've got norway and greensboro north carolina and you've got uh there was one other really wild oh yeah iraq the iraqi national team staying at the greenbrier oh out in west virginia where like cal shanhan will make the 49ers stay on back-to-back weeks it's very funny to imagine these teams just like okay uh iraq here you're experiencing west virginia Yeah.

1:15:35Big Cat:First time. Go for it.

1:15:37PFT Commenter:West Virginia rocks.

1:15:38Big Cat:Egypt staying in Spokane, Washington. Perfect. Pretty much in Idaho. Perfect.

1:15:43PFT Commenter:Okay. My hot seat is me because I posted a picture from the pause Chicago golf outing on Monday. Wasn't the most flattering picture for some. Was flattering for Max. Max, you looked awesome in that picture. Yeah, I love that picture. Memes nipples went viral To put it As straightforward as possible Cannons Memes nipples took over the internet for about Three or four hours It was a trending topic when I went And looked It was not good So memes I apologize How are you feeling You're mad at me I know you are Although the tickets now have softened the blow No I'm not mad at anyone

1:16:29Big Cat:My body's just a weapon on the golf course

1:16:31PFT Commenter:You kept on saying that.

1:16:32Big Cat:What is that? I just I'm a viral machine on the golf course. I don't get it. Look at those fucking tits. He's talking about the. Oh, yeah.

1:16:41PFT Commenter:The other one. When he was. All right. But you're actually you are actually. You didn't. When I came in this morning, you wouldn't fist bump me. Yeah. But I know that bothers you. Well, I mean, yeah, it's because you're just walked right by me and you're just like, I'm not mad at you, but you're mad at me. Yeah. And it works.

1:16:54Big Cat:Okay. So you are mad at me. I'm not mad. I think the most amazing part of that picture was you were wearing, is it two shirts or three shirts that those suckers poke through?

1:17:03PFT Commenter:It's actually a great sign for Roback. It's going through two shirts. You didn't have Roback on. Roback wouldn't do that to you.

1:17:10Big Cat:Yeah, they gave us a gift card, and I got a sweatshirt at the shop because it was going to rain, and it just immediately backfired.

1:17:18PFT Commenter:Are they pierced? No, not pierced. Didn't you?

1:17:23Big Cat:Were you? i don't want to yeah i'm gonna photoshop oh yeah at one point back here i saw i saw him while we were doing the show i saw him cropping out the picture and putting something into ai i was like what are you doing he's like i'm giving myself pierced nipples like right before like

1:17:40PFT Commenter:right as you guys were saying that can you explain what happened in this picture and again i did not so hank will attest to we were playing it was uh zach max memes and jerry playing a scramble and then Hank and I were auctioned off for a charity for Paul Chicago to play with two other guys who were awesome dudes. I got this picture sent in the Stella Blue group chat. The only thing I saw was Jerry being short. I just hit sent. Hank was with me. If I had seen the nipples, I would have said something to you right away. Oh, yeah. And then I got off the golf course and memes was like, why'd you post that?

1:18:15PFT Commenter:I was like, what are you talking about? And then I looked. I was like, ah, now I see. What happened? I don't think there's really much to explain.

1:18:24Big Cat:I just have pepperoni nipples.

1:18:25PFT Commenter:Are they, though?

1:18:26Big Cat:They're kind of going up. I didn't think that you... I've seen your nipples before, Memes. They're nothing to write home about. I got nice nipples. There's just normal... I think you got normal nips. Normal nips. I got the pepperones. Someone said, no offense, but your staff has an estrogen imbalance.

1:18:43PFT Commenter:It was eight tits, eight breasts, and not a chicken sight. Max, you look strong. You look like you have a six-pack. Yeah, I don't care about any of those comments. I'm looking at this picture and being like, maybe the needle looks good.

1:18:58Big Cat:That's always tough when there's like an imbalance, like such a huge picture imbalance between two guys because Max is going to want to spam that picture all the time. Understandably, you do look great. And memes, just like the worst possible angle of a picture for you. Meanwhile, like, yeah, Jerry, a little on the short side. Yeah, Jerry's looking short. I'm saying memes has the biggest small tits in the world. Yeah.

1:19:21PFT Commenter:That means small Small is good You just have to Focus on the Just forget the biggest part The compliments in there Don't let these fellas

1:19:29Big Cat:Get in an elevator What That wasn't that funny Hank I'm just reading one Someone said I had St. Louis stripper titties I don't know what that means

1:19:43PFT Commenter:What Did you go through All the comments You were trending And then you got on golf Twitter like there was like Bernard golf Twitter was like look at these fucking guys well they were just like respectfully what's going on with this guy's nipple

1:19:58Big Cat:I love the idea golf Twitter looks at memes shrink yeah well it looks like you guys had fun we had a great time shout out pause shout out

1:20:11PFT Commenter:cell blue yeah great day out we went after the after the round we went to there's like a cocktail hour and then I went and looked at my phone and I saw 550 and 50 replies and I was like, oh boy, I didn't realize it was that. We're up to 669 replies on this picture now. 1.3 million views. 1.3 million views.

1:20:27Big Cat:I apologize, memes. I don't mean this in a perverted way. Were you aroused? It looks like it. You sure? Did they look like that the entire round? I'd love to flick them. You just like playing golf? Yeah, I guess. What the fuck?

1:20:42PFT Commenter:They're really sticking out. Did you hit a good shot with those nipples? I did. Oh. So that's all that matters. Single-handedly parred this hole. No one expects those nipples to par a hole.

1:20:57Big Cat:Memes and Max anchors yesterday. Yeah. We needed them bad. Zach also. Did you see Zach's bag? I saw that he had like two irons and a putter. Yep. Yeah. He had a five or six approach putter. He was saying that other guys have too many clubs. Listen, you got to master the clubs you have. Then you can add on. You can always add on. There's a billion clubs in this office. and even more specifically in our back corner. I have my entire righty set, which I don't use. Zach sent me a picture of a bunch of clubs on Sunday night before, and he was like, I'm good to take these, right? I'm like, yes, take all the clubs in that corner.

1:21:34And for some reason, he just chose to take four clubs.

1:21:36Big Cat:Yeah, I seen a photo of the ones in the bin, but I didn't realize at the time when I sent it, they were like some this-handed, some the other-handed, so I just went with the dominant-handed. But there's so many other clubs back there. You could have just grabbed other clubs that were in that corner. That's fair. I played it wrong. Yeah. Look, hindsight's 20-20. Yes.

1:21:53PFT Commenter:Zach, you got to just get comfortable. He also, PFT, Zach and Max live like two minutes from each other. Zach took like$150 Uber. He was too nervous to text me and ask for a ride. Well, I wasn't at my usual van at the point. It's crazy. I was at the Dick's Sporting Goods. Which, again, he was at the Dick's Sporting Goods getting golf balls, which we have for him, and getting a golf bag, which we have for him. He spent like$300 on this trip that could have been free. Step up, Zach. Why didn't you ask him? You just have to ask any questions, and we would say, you would not have been going to Dick's Sporting Goods if you were explaining to me what you were doing at Dick's Sporting Goods.

1:22:33Big Cat:No. Why didn't you ask Zach if he needed a ride? So there was a group chat before that, so this is what happened. There was a group chat before that memes asked Dom for a ride, and Dom said, yes, I already have one in the car, but I can fit you too. I assumed that one in the car was Zach. It was not Zach. It was somebody else. So then once memes said who was in the car, I texted Zach and said, do you need a ride? And he said, I'm good. I'm already on the way. Still didn't tell me that it was an Uber. It all worked out that we had a great day on the golf course.

1:23:08PFT Commenter:Everyone. We did. Everyone. I had a great day. Yeah, the golf course and the internet is two different things. You had a great day on the golf course, not a great day on the internet.

1:23:18Big Cat:I had a great day on the internet, too. I would say they might even be opposite things. Yeah. You're on the golf course, you're touching grass.

1:23:26PFT Commenter:Yeah, big time. All right, my cool throne is the internet because you've done a good enough job that Sam Presti had to mention you in the press conference, the roundup of the OKC season where he said that SGA's playing six guys five guys on the court and a guy on the internet uh no the sixth guy i believe is social

1:23:47Big Cat:media oh social media yeah yeah so he did it all-time quote he did it those are bars great job when you hear him say that if you're on the thunder you're like fuck yeah sam yeah i appreciate

1:23:56PFT Commenter:that and if you're like a burner who's just been tweeting sga flops you're also like fuck yeah we

1:24:01Big Cat:did it well i was gonna say if you're a burner that is the guy he's talking about you hear this and you're like i fucked up big time you're probably thinking to yourself like he's making I should stop. No, I think you're proud of yourself. You're like, I got through. You're thinking I should stop. This GM is mentioned. It's really bad. I can't believe. You know how trolls think. When they get acknowledged by somebody like the GM, they're probably just going to stop and be nice. Yeah, totally. You made a lot of good points. I'll start to be polite online.

1:24:28PFT Commenter:They're not going to be like, hey, Sam Pressy triggered. Right.

1:24:32Big Cat:Rent free. All right, Zach, go ahead. Mahatsi this week is going to be 10 Bay Buccaneers legend Tom Brady. I don't know if you guys saw this, but Tom Brady might just be a freaky-ass boy. Yeah. Good nut. What do we think about good nut? What are our thoughts? Weird. Never had a good nut. We're talking original sparkling and chocolate. I'll drain Tom Brady's good nut every day. You drink one of Tom's good nuts? Yeah.

1:24:53PFT Commenter:This is weird. Can we just say it's weird? Super unset. Now, question for you guys. Look at Tom Brady and look at you guys. Maybe he's doing something right. Whoa, Meme's nipples are totally fine.

1:25:02Big Cat:He could probably use a couple good nuts in his life.

1:25:06PFT Commenter:Do you think Tom Brady saw memes nipples? Yeah. It's weird, Hank, to name a brand good nut.

1:25:15Big Cat:What memes? Who doesn't like a good nut? So many people saw my nipples. It's so many. 1.3 million views. It's weird. Hank, just admit that it's weird. It's just weird. It's just weird. Admit that literally everything Tom Brady has done for the last three years has been weird.

1:25:31PFT Commenter:No. Hank, it's weird to have a coconut water drink and name it after implying that you're drinking cum. That's weird.

1:25:41Big Cat:No, you're weird. Your mind is perverted. Get your mind out of the gutter. Okay. But who is this for? Who is excited about drinking good? Elite athletes? No, the name. Who's amped up to drink good nut? People that like nuts and coconuts. Would you go original sparkling or chocolate?

1:26:02PFT Commenter:oh it depends i mean they should do a jizz flavor that would be that then i'd be like you know what

1:26:10Big Cat:it went from weird to you're just probably original and chocolate same time like lean into it yeah yeah one one after the other yeah tool system would you have two hands at once yeah ski pole and would you pour them at the same time yeah like yeah one of those yeah yeah no okay Okay, you're making some good points. It's weird. It's okay to say it's weird. I think you need to get your mind out of the gutter. I think it's perfectly normal and healthy. And if you probably drank one of these every day instead of eating a burger every day, you would be in a much better place in six months. Wrong. Meat is good for you.

1:26:45Big Cat:Coconut's also good for you. What if it was just like, suck this meat. Big Cat's Burger Company. What would you say about that? Suck this meat? That makes no sense. Who sucks burgers? Big Cat's Meat Tube. It was Big Cat's Meat Tube suck one. Would you think that was weird? That's a horrible name. What about Good Mouth Meat? That's a good name. That's not a good name. It's just, you're right in a way, Hank, that I could see a guy like Tom Brady having thought so highly of himself that he would make like a tom brady flavored cum coconut drink it's not studies have shown it is coconut if you consume like 15 million sperm per week uh you actually end up living five seconds longer so we're going to optimize what like what are the other alternatives to not drinking cum no it's coconut dude there's zero cum in this okay that would But actually, I would love to have that as a tagline.

1:27:51Big Cat:Yeah. Zero cum. Yeah. Good nut. No longer featuring cum. Zero percent cum. Cum free drink. Yeah.

1:28:03Big Cat:I guess for the sickos that need that, like you. Like, it should list on the back. It should say potassium, 5%. Vitamin C, 90 milligrams, 100%. Cum, zero milligrams, 0%. Niacin, 16 milligrams, 100%.

1:28:17PFT Commenter:Maybe even cum 0%, jizz 0%, just to really hammer it home.

1:28:22Big Cat:Cum nor jizz. And then you could even, like if I was a competitor, I would have like negative 10 % cum.

1:28:28PFT Commenter:Yeah.

1:28:29Big Cat:Like you get more, your body will make more cum if you drink this. It would actually be fun. It's actually the straightest drink that you can ever have.

1:28:35PFT Commenter:It would actually be funny if Brady put a little pre-cum in every single one. Right. I told you it was no cum. Yeah. Just pre-cum. It's pre-cum. Yeah. Okay. Zach, good hot seat. in my cool throne what what are they laughing i was good it was i did a i did a google it i did an ai search and it was yes coconut water is connected to semen in two main ways internal

1:29:00Big Cat:health and external sperm preservation okay it helps promote oh so if you drink coconut water it's good for your sperm oh that's why you called it good nut i i just thought maybe that's why i I was doing some research. Is this drink the world's leading source or the world's most healthy thing that you can do for your own cum? Pineapple juice. That makes it taste sweet.

1:29:25PFT Commenter:That's good. Yeah. Unless. I don't really have a preference. Unless you're a savory guy. It's all good. I think it's all good.

1:29:35Big Cat:Okay. I'm not picky. Zach, you're cool thrown. Oh, my cool thing this week is going to be Kaysenat and Guys Who Stream. You guys see Streamer University back?

1:29:44PFT Commenter:Stream University. Streamer University. Streamer University. But Kaysenat, when was the last time he streamed? Eight months ago. Wasn't this like a – didn't this happen and everyone was like, that didn't really work the way they wanted it to?

1:30:01Big Cat:There were some rough patches last year, but it was like proof of concept wise kind of plays. They took over the University of Akron last year when they did it. So you just submit applications, like people who are trying to stream online, then they bring you into a campus. They got some classrooms, some alumni. Sign up, Zach. Good classes. I was waiting for you to finish so I could say this. Sign up. Next year, we're getting streamer university. I want you at streamer university. You will be attending streamer university 2027.

1:30:27PFT Commenter:100%.

1:30:27Big Cat:Yes. First student. How much does it cost? No, it's just like there's an application process. I don't think it works. We're going to figure it. We're going to get you in.

1:30:35PFT Commenter:You got a whole year to figure out the application process. You will be in Streamer University 2027. And if anyone knows anyone who's involved in Streamer University 2026 and we can get Zach into this one, he would love to be in this one. Yes. Send me DMs. Not even PMT Boucher Party. Send me DMs if you have any connection to Streamer University 2027. Or 26. Well, 2026 is over. It already happened?

1:31:01Big Cat:Right? no this is the trailer for the new one

1:31:06PFT Commenter:so your application is already submitted

1:31:09Big Cat:no I was just

1:31:10PFT Commenter:I thought it was happening right now alright so is that getting on the application we gotta get you in now what kind of stuff do you do at Streamer University

1:31:18Big Cat:I can submit one if you guys like me to

1:31:20PFT Commenter:it's not if we like you to you have to I can do that

1:31:25Big Cat:also do you guys see the trailer I'm watching it right now It touched 32 million people on the Everything app. I think it was a great trip. When does this occur? What happens at this university? You just go and... So this is what happens, basically. You apply streaming. It's like going to college. Blah, blah, blah, blah. You're in.

1:31:45PFT Commenter:When does it happen? Next thing I want to hear about Streamer University is with you and a fucking hat and cap and gown.

1:31:54Big Cat:I can submit an application, yes, sir. I can definitely do that for you. No, you will. You will submit an application.

1:31:59PFT Commenter:You will do Streamer University. We're going to clip this right now. Anyone out there who has any connection to Streamer University 2026, please reach out. We need to get Zach. Dom just texted saying he's got a guy. So where are you? Oh, right. Yeah. All right. Great. So yes.

1:32:16Big Cat:I'm curious to know what goes on at Streamer University. We're going to find out because Zach's going to be there. Wait, wait, wait. But do we know? Zach, do you know at all? Yes. So you go in, you apply. If you get accepted in, then they have. Everything's live. So all the students are ripping live. Teachers are ripping live. And then you'll go to class. Wait, are they teaching actual classes? Are they teaching you classes about streaming? Yeah, there's valuable lessons to learn. It's like how we do Camp Barstool. So you're streaming while you're attending a class, learning how to stream? Yes.

1:32:46Big Cat:Yes. Do they have a sports team? No. Currently no sports team, though, sir.

1:32:50PFT Commenter:Well, you're going to have to try out for the sports team.

1:32:52Big Cat:All right, yeah. Maybe I'll walk on. Maybe you create the sports team. Yes. That could... Mm-hmm. And then you stream.

1:32:58PFT Commenter:I can't wait to watch you at Streamer University.

1:33:02Big Cat:It's a beautiful thing that he does for people, and I can submit. You're going to be the people. I will submit an application.

1:33:07PFT Commenter:So you'll be streaming on PMT YouTube. Okay. Great. At Streamer University. What? Yeah. Yeah. Zach's going to stream. He's going to learn how to stream by streaming. Yep. This is great. He's going to come back, and he's going to be a streamer. He's just going to be a streamer. I fucking love it, Zach. Way to go. Hey, Zach, let me be the first to congratulate you on being accepted to Streamer University 2026.

1:33:35Big Cat:I don't know if it works quite like that by Wilson and application.

1:33:40PFT Commenter:Wait, is that the? Let's hail to the chief. Let's hail to the chief. What is the graduation?

1:33:45Big Cat:Now they only say it's graduation. Happy birthday. As we go on. Happy birthday.

1:33:53PFT Commenter:We remember.

1:33:55Big Cat:Can I graduate? Can I get my punk ass off the street? Boom, boom. These guys are also streaming tomorrow.

1:34:08PFT Commenter:What are you guys streaming? No, you're streaming. You're streaming. Oh, yeah. Dugs. By the way, speaking of. Wait, yes. Golden Mug. Golden Mug is starting on Wednesday, June 10th. It's running through Friday. We're going to stream some Dugs on June 11th. But Golden Mug, we're doing the same thing we did last year. is our favorite golden mug that we do. If you go buy anything on StellBlueCoffee.com right now, you'll be entered. If you buy ready-to-drink cans, you'll be entered 10 times. The winner, we're picking 15 winners. Every winner gets a plus one, and what you're getting is a trip to Barstool HQ.

1:34:46PFT Commenter:We'll look around, check out Barstool HQ, and then we're all going to a baseball game on a rooftop in Chicago with all of Barstool Chicago HQ. So it's going to be our company outing and 15, so 30 people, 15 people plus one are going to come. You guys were there last year. It was awesome. We drank beers. We watched the baseball game, maybe a team in blue playing another team. It was great. And so go right now, save some dogs, StellaBlueCoffee.com, and we will be streaming. Zach and I will be trying to win a national championship on Doug's on Thursday. okay let's get to our interviews we have uh rob stone talking world cup and then we have ozzy

1:35:30Big Cat:albis in studio before we get to rob stone he's brought to you by our great friends over at reese's everything happens for reese's one of the best things about the new reese's lounge that we have here is unlimited supply of reese's you literally cannot eat us out of reese's there's so much of it and they've got the new flavors they've got the marshmallow which is delicious you got the Strawberry PB &J, which is incredible. The limited edition cups, they make it all happen. And nothing, nothing beats summer break when you were a kid. It was time off from school and sad school lunches, but you don't get summer break as a grown-up.

1:36:05Big Cat:That's a huge bummer. The good news is you can take a break from sad work lunches this summer. Get those new Reese's. Everything happens for a Reese's. Both taste just like your childhood. The marshmallow cup and the Strawberry PB &J, the official candy partner of Barstool Sports, Reese's. Get yours today. at Hersheyland.com slash Reese's. That's Hersheyland.com slash Reese's. Rob Stone's also brought to you by Jose Cuervo. When Cuervo enters, every moment gets better. You find yourself in the center of the dance floor. You can't help but stand up and high-five those around you at the game. The room reacts like you just got the same text at the same time.

1:36:42Big Cat:You stop checking the time. Suddenly, small talk escalates to laughing so hard that you can barely catch your breath. That's the Cuervo effect, a signal everybody understands, a moment that anyone can join and a good time that just grows all you have to do is keep it Cuervo with Jose Cuervo and now here's Rob Stone okay we now welcome on a very very very very special

1:37:03PFT Commenter:guest he is hosting the World Cup along with North America I think those are the two hosts it's North America and Rob Stone who you will see on your TV all summer long hosting on Fox Rob, great to see you. Also, big noon kickoff, which we've worked together and had a great time. Rob, good to see you. We're ready for the World Cup. Are you ready for America to get a ton of Rob Stone right down their face? Nobody asked for that. Nobody wants that. I'll give them as much as they can take, and then I'll back off. But, yeah, the summer of soccer is here. I don't know if you guys can feel it. And I kind of wanted to feel it when the calendar turned to 2026.

1:37:43And I've been impatient for the last couple months, But like the last probably since Saturday, I felt kind of like the refrigerator sitting on my chest and it's harder to breathe and the brain won't stop. And everywhere I go, it's soccer conversations or soccer visuals. And it's all about the World Cup. So it is here. And listen, nobody does FOMO like the United States, right? Like we are the capital of FOMO. And people are coming out of the woodworks talking soccer and World Cup and tactics. I was sitting in a sauna at my gym three days ago, and I had a 20-minute conversation about the World Cup in Argentina and the U.S.

1:38:21Men's National Team, and then I had to, like, stagger out of there. I was like, I'm done. I can't take this anymore. But that to me was like this great sign that, yeah, the World Cup is here and people can't get enough of it, and we haven't even started yet.

1:38:33PFT Commenter:Yeah, and it's your – I would assume, is it your favorite sport? I mean, you host Big Noon Kickoff, but you played soccer collegiately. It's got to be your number one, right? Soccer's my DNA. It was my gateway drug into this business, so it's up there. But let me tell you, the big noon kickoff is over my shoulder. I love college football. I love everything about it. But we can have two loves, can't we? The three of us have a lot of love to share, so we're all right. Yeah, actually, you know what? Maybe even bowling. Toss that one in there. Yeah. Oh, no, bowling. Let's go. We haven't even talked to the U.S.

1:39:02national team. We're already going to bowling.

1:39:03PFT Commenter:Yeah, I was going to say, you know what? Let's not talk to any soccer. Let's just talk what your thoughts are on Brendan Sorsby. Oh, man. Don't answer that. All right, let's talk soccer. Let's talk soccer.

1:39:13Big Cat:I thought what you said is actually I agree because I don't – I agree with what Weston McKinney said the other day too, which is that he expected there to be like soccer fever in the United States for the last couple years. But what ended up happening since we're hosting the cup, we didn't have to go through the trials and tribulations of qualifying for the World Cup. So it felt like none of the games that we've been playing had anything at stake. And so it's tough to kind of build up that excitement if you just kind of like jump into the World Cup at the very end. But now that game in Chicago against Germany was awesome.

1:39:44Big Cat:The first half, I think. And also the first half against Senegal, I think it gave a lot of people, myself included, who were a little bit skeptical about the way the U.S. men's national team has looked. It gave us reason to think at least our attack, our offense, could be really, really entertaining and really good. And I think that bare minimum, my bar for success is we have to win at least one knockout stage game. What do you think? Wow. You and I are like totally on the same page with everything. These are sort of my bullet points, my talking points. And one of the key ones was I feel so much better about this national team than I did probably a week, week and a half ago.

1:40:22You know, Big Cat, we were talking, I don't know when I was with you guys in Chicago in your studio. And you were like, this team, what are we going to do with them? And I was like, yeah, I'm nervous. Yeah. I wasn't feeling the love. I wasn't feeling the vibe. But it certainly has picked up. I think home field advantage has something to do with it. To your point, PFT, about those strong starts against two really quality teams that will be in the World Cup as well and that should get out of their group stage, that gives me hope, gives me optimism. I feel better, but that doesn't change what the reality is of what they're going to do at this World Cup.

1:40:56Again, my gut is we get to the round of 16. I think that's kind of the ceiling. And if we're really lucky, we get to the quarterfinals, And that is as good of a tournament as we could hope for. But I guess my point is I feel better about those thoughts than I did a week and a half ago. They haven't changed. I don't have them rising into the semis or I don't have them as a surefire quarterfinal team. But I definitely feel better that they're going to get to the round of 16. I feel better that they have a chance to get to the quarterfinals.

1:41:25PFT Commenter:Are we going to get bullied? That was our conversation last time. Because I remember what was the cup we played in last summer? Gold Cup? Gold Cup, yeah. We got bullied. We lost to Mexico. Yeah, we got pushed around. Yeah, so that's really, like, my bar is I want us to do well. I'm going to get excited. I'm going to watch every game. I don't want to get pushed around. Yeah. I love that point, and I think that's been something that has been felt by the American fan base for the last couple years. PFT probably goes to your point, too, that there haven't been these meaningful games or not enough meaningful games where people can get motivated and the team can get excited and have that camaraderie and that real fight and that real sense.

1:42:04steel that you can only really build up through World Cup qualifying. I've seen that, right? And I really saw it at the tail end of that Germany game. You know, there was a lot of pushing, a lot of shoving. There were some questionable tackles by the Americans, right? Coming in low and hard and clean on the sideline, totally unnecessary, totally unnecessary, you know, just a few minutes until the World Cup stage is finally upon you. And I know if that was a German player doing that to an American, I would feel so aggrieved. But since it was an American doing it to the German, I was like, hell yeah, here we go.

1:42:37I don't care. Let's come in with these tackles. I don't care if we're losing. Also, we were fighting to get that equalizer. So again, this goes back to that, those feel good vibes where, hey, that blue collar mentality, that fight that we're not backing down from anybody approach seems to be coming out of the U.S. camp. That's what the manager, Mauricio Pochettino, that's always been kind of his directive when he was at, whether he was with the club or here he is with the national team in the United States, he wants some of that fight, some of that steal, some of that hit, some of that nastiness that makes you happy and proud.

1:43:09A little blood on the jersey and a whole lot of grass stains. I'm all for it. And I'm seeing more and more from that from the U.S. Obviously, it takes way more than just the heart and the blue collar. But at a minimum, I'm seeing that right now.

1:43:21Big Cat:No such thing as a friendly. I like that. He took away the F word. I hate that term, and I banned it. I banned the term friendlies from my use at Fox Sports. Everything was like a World Cup tune-up, right, or a Gold Cup tune-up or a preparation for the World Cup. Friendly just, like, what are we even doing? If it's called a friendly, why are we even playing this? We could do friendlies all day. 5v5 pickup, is that a friendly? I don't think so. People are blowing out their Achilles on the basketball court. That's not friendly. Get after it. Let's play. Let's play to win. I agree. I'm knocking on wood right there.

1:43:53Big Cat:let's combine let's combine two out of your three favorite passions we'll leave bowling out for once wrestling is wrestling going to get in there well i was going to say like if you were to if you were to compare the u.s men's national team to a college football team who would they be oh all right huh i'll give you the nfl team because i thought about this the other day if they're an nfl team i would say i have a couple but let's the chargers the chargers feels like that's the u.s men's national team like we've had a couple good teams felt like we've been able to do something never really works out.

1:44:24Big Cat:We play a good team in the playoffs. We get bounced. That's kind of what happens. Yeah, that's good. You're right, because there has been past success, right? You know, the first ever World Cup, and let's be honest, that was a different World Cup than what we're in right now. You know, the U.S. made it to the semifinals. After that, and the one that really matters in modern time is 2002, that great quarterfinal run in South Korea and Japan, and a goal that we should have had that, you know, a handball and disallowed things. We had a chance to be at the semifinals. So I guess my point is they have had some brief level of success, but they are an underdog and nobody's thinking much about them.

1:45:02There's elements of Vanderbilt football the last couple of years that kind of peaks with me. Like, hey, nobody really expects much about them. What a great place to be, right? Like, hey, you're getting a Vanderbilt education. You're smart. Good for you. Oh, now you're good at football? All right. Like, I'm not mad at you, Vanderbilt, right? I'm not mad that Vanderbilt's having a good football season. I'm not mad like when TCU had that run to the national championship. I kind of like that. Like some good American boys who are maybe kind of, you know, over their skis a little bit but getting away with it.

1:45:34You know, I don't think it's the big Alabamas, the Georgias, the Ohio States, the Michigans. That's clearly not with this U.S. men's national team. I think it's a bunch of plucky dudes. Here's one. How about this? How about if this summer's U.S. men's national team is the Indiana University of college football. I wouldn't hate SIG coaching this team.

1:45:53Big Cat:That'd be nice. Why not? I think you can do anything. You're right. I would take Coach SIG to sit on the bench next to Pochettino. Yeah. What could go wrong? Yeah. I like that. That's good. I was thinking, so we have a coworker that said maybe Texas A &M because kind of always in that conversation. And we're a cult. Yeah. But A &M's got all that money, and they've got all that recruiting perks, and the U.S. doesn't quite have that box that we can check.

1:46:18PFT Commenter:I like A &M, though, because we're a cult and there's always kind of like a feint of like militaries somewhere around. Are we all in the military? Good one. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

1:46:28Big Cat:We could use a 12th man, too. That would probably help our chances. See, that works perfectly, 12th man. Yeah. All right, we're on to something. In terms of actual news with the men's national team, the defense feels kind of suspect. Is Chris Richards going to play? because he's been hurt and it took him a long time to get back. He hasn't played yet with us. I did hear that he practiced like in full yesterday and he would be a big piece. I guess first question, do you think he's going to play in the opening game? And then two, how big of a deal is getting him back in the lineup? Yeah, so Chris Richards last played May 17th and that was for his club.

1:47:04So if he plays on Friday versus Paraguay, it'll be 26 days since his last game. that's a big number you know and and talking with former u.s national team coaches greg berhalter and bob bradley and bruce arena we've got a podcast uh throughout the course of the world cup and and we brought that subject up and a majority of them were like i think i'm good you know we've trusted him this long we know who he is you can figure out um how to scrape off that rush you can get that steel wool across that rush over the next couple days and get him fit because you're right the backline, the cohesiveness, the spacing, the timing has been problematic.

1:47:44And Chris Richards has been by far our best defender for the last couple of years. And he's in the middle of that defense. He's a great communicator. The fact that he was at practice as a full participant, and I will say that practice was pretty light, right? It wasn't like, Hey man, we're, we're hitting some bodies. It wasn't like full pads, right? To go back to the college football reference, but it was a full practice for the U S the fact he was there, the fact he was able to do that everything that was asked of him is promising to me it's more about hey hey how's tuesday and wednesday like how do you feel right is is the ankle good what's the swelling like well no more but i think even if he's 75 you let him go yeah i agree all right so the rest of the world

1:48:25PFT Commenter:let's talk about the world cup the rest of the world um give me if i said you get to pick five teams and the winner has to come from these five teams what are the five yeah i think that's actually pretty easy okay um oh so so uh four teams okay um keep talking i'll say three yeah right no we'll take away so let's let me throw two quick facts at you that might help you kind of like shrink the field a little bit only eight nations have under ever won the world cup and they've only come from europe and south america so you're probably going to pick from from that little pool of those eight only seven are here at the world cup italy of course is not here No nation has ever won the World Cup with a foreign head coach, which is really unique.

1:49:08So all the success has been with somebody who is from that country leading that country. So like Brazil is now led by one of the greatest managers ever, Carlo Echelotti, but he's Italian. Does that scrub Brazil? I don't think that scrubs Brazil. I just don't think Brazil is good enough this year. So if you gave me four nations to win it all, the first two are super easy, Spain and France. um after that it starts getting uh a little bit more open uh argentina you know to quote rick flair to be the man you got to beat the man yeah so argentina still has the belt i i think they are an absolute threat and then i think the other team is going to come from europe and i'm not exactly sure who it's going to be and part of me wants to say england and part of me also thinks England is really overrated, but when you look at their collective talent, you do say, ooh, these three lines can go really deep.

1:50:01So I think those are the four that you would feel really good about.

1:50:05PFT Commenter:Okay, I like that you didn't say Portugal because I don't want Ronaldo to get one. Messi's my goat. I had a question about Portugal. Ronaldo, I actually – Messi's my goat. Ronaldo just – he's Pinaldo. All he does is he gets all his goals. I think I saw a stat. It was 93 % of his – Pinaldo. 93 % of his career goals came from penalty kicks. yeah all right so that's a good nickname here here's my thought on Portugal I think it's hard to call Portugal a dark horse right I think a lot of people are starting to lean into Portugal because people aren't just frankly talking about them enough to me what will be most fascinating is will Portugal have the messy effect this World Cup like Argentina had with Lionel Messi four years ago where hey we have a goat we have this pressure we have this responsibility to win the World Cup for Lionel Messi.

1:50:54It's that one thing that had been missing from his hardware case. And so he finally gets that trophy and everybody was so invested in winning it for Messi. I wonder, I just wonder, and I don't know because they're two different characters, but is there that feeling in the Portuguese camp? Like, hey man, Ronaldo's one of the best ever. Can we do this? Can we send him out on a proper note? And I get it. He's easy to wear that black hat. It's easy to kind of cheer against him. You know, he's got ab muscles that I didn't know existed. You know, everything is perfect. The quaff, the leg muscles are fantastic.

1:51:29He pulls the shorts up to let you know how defined his quads are. So he does a lot of things that make you lean against him and want to cheer against him. But I am curious if Portugal gets a bounce in their hope to try and win it for him.

1:51:43Big Cat:So I'm a Messi fan too. And I feel like maybe the funniest outcome would be if Portugal won, but Ronaldo didn't play. because they, I think in the last world cup, it's happened before in the last world cup, they were better when he wasn't on the field. So to that point, like, will he accept what his role needs to be? And that was the drama four years ago in Qatar. Like, can you still have Ronaldo on your team and not make it dysfunctional if he's not starting? Yeah. So if he can say, Hey, you know what? I can start game one and three and I'll come off the bench game too, if needed, if he's in that mindset, which by the way, I think he should be, watch out for Portugal.

1:52:21PFT Commenter:Yeah. All right. So what about a player that you think might have the most to gain from this World Cup? Like, you know, was it four years ago? No, eight years ago, Mbappe, where it's like, holy shit, this guy. I guess it was four years ago where it's like, oh, my God, this is incredible. Is there a guy right now that most diehard soccer fans know who he is, but a casual like myself? Yeah. I'll be talking about him in three months. Yeah, Erling Haaland, the big Norwegian striker. I know who he is. He strikes that look. You know, he's super pale. You know, it's like you just pulled him out of the Arctic Circle from some fishing boat, and all of a sudden, this guy is able to lumber around and score goals.

1:53:04Listen, if you're a true soccer fan, you know how talented this guy is. Yeah. I'm not telling anybody any secrets right here, but I was having this conversation with Peter Schmeichel yesterday, and I said, here in America, the casual fan, the FOMO fan that is going to be jumping on board, they don't necessarily know this guy. And when you get the shots of him, this towering, imposing figure that looks like he came out of the Norwegian ice with the slick back tight hair and his goal power and the smile and the fact that when he scores, the team is going to run up to him and hug him and he's going to be towering over them and patting them on their heads almost.

1:53:41I think he's that type of mythical figure that the non-soccer diehard here in America could really lean into.

1:53:50Big Cat:He is a Targaryen. Yeah, it's crazy. Yes, exactly. All he does is score goals. He's just a machine when it comes to that. When it comes to England, I feel like this should be England's year, right? Like on paper, this is setting up as good as it has. Now, when you say it's England's year, then instinctually every English soccer fan will hear that and be like, here we go, we're about to get our hearts broken again. Like their expectations, I feel like, are just so beaten down in that country that they can't really get that excited about thinking this is their year. But on paper, they feel like they have as good a chance to win this World Cup as they have in a very long time.

1:54:25Big Cat:Is that fair? English fans, lighten up, man. Lighten up. Enjoy it, right? Have your pints. Enjoy your three lines and how well they're playing. You know, they are major factors in every major international soccer tournament over the last stretch of years, right? Don't be down and dour. Raise up. Enjoy them. Don't suffocate them. That's been the problem with England is I feel that national team has been crushed by the press and the fan base and the stress and the expectations rather than just kind of being like, hey, we're a really good team. We're one of the top five in the world. We have a real chance to finally bring it home for the second time ever.

1:55:03I would encourage English fans to just sit back and enjoy. Go to Dallas for your opening game versus Croatia and just cheer on your team. Don't be nervous. Don't be tight. Just embrace what this team is. And I think if they can be loose, it'll get pushed over to the national team. They play better when they're freer and they can smile. And for sure, for sure, England has a chance to bring it home this summer.

1:55:27Big Cat:Yeah. What about the next group of teams? If there's one that could make that jump up and you could see them in like the semifinals, if it's Japan, Netherlands, I guess Croatia would probably be in that discussion. Switzerland has a good team. Yeah, Croatia's been there. so often, but their team is old. I don't know if you guys saw that meme out there. It was like four shirtless 50, 60, 70-year-old dudes who looked like they were from Eastern Europe, and they were coming around a bend looking like they're ready for a fight. And they were like, here comes the Croatian national team. I kept playing that on loop, and I'm cracking up.

1:56:00And that's kind of the vibe. You're like, I still don't want to fight those guys. Half of them look drunk or on some type of meds, but I'm backing away. I'm going to the other side of the street to avoid them. So Croatia, they still got it. They are still something to be reckoned with because they've done it for so long. I think asking them to get to the final four is probably too heavy of an ask. I don't think enough people are talking about Ecuador. Again, we talk about South America and Europe. This is where your champion is probably going to come from. And Ecuador is on a rise. They had great qualifying through Comma Bowl.

1:56:35All those games are just absolute bears. Whereas I think Ecuador is going to be one of those nations like a Norway. Czechia is another nation that I don't think people are talking about. They have some real young emerging talent that might surprise some folks. So, and I do like the Dutch, you know, three times runner up, you know, is this the time that they can kind of finally get over that hurdle and win it all? I think they're close. I think they're going to make noise, but I think their lack of depth is eventually going to sting them, whether that's in the quarterfinal or semifinal round.

1:57:03Big Cat:And then one thing people don't talk about with Ecuador, like we talk about, the Denver Broncos, like training at altitude, I'm pretty sure Quito is like twice as high as Denver is. It's probably like the highest capital city where they train in the world. I like their defense too from what I've read about them. And then I was also just thinking about the storylines that could possibly come out of New York City because I believe France is playing in New York. Senegal. We could be in like playing at Madison Square Garden the day that France is playing a game in New York, that could be a tough day for New Yorkers.

1:57:40Or for the French. Or for the French, either way. Yeah. It'll be a tough day for anybody in the greater New York, New Jersey metropolitan area if they want to get anywhere. Bad day to have a kid's birthday party. Not too far from whatever the stadium is called, New York, New Jersey Stadium. Oh, we're not allowed to call it MetLife.

1:57:55Big Cat:Yeah. That's going to be tough, isn't it? I got to catch myself. It's like, oh, they're going to Boston Stadium, right? All right. That's fine. Real quick note, though, you were talking about the altitude for Ecuador. Also, I do feel like there is a bit of a home field advantage for South American nations. Obviously, there's such great diversity in this country, but there's a great South American population here, whether it's the Equadores or the Brazils or the Argentinas, the Uruguays as well. And the weather this summer, I think, is going to suit them. It's what they're used to in South America more so than maybe what you'll see with some of these European teams.

1:58:31I don't know if you guys saw those great images. The Norwegian national team after training in North Carolina, they're all shirtless. They're all like on the – it looked like a bunch of college kids out on the quad. When you go to school in the northeast or you go to school in Wisconsin, you got that first sunny day. The sun came out in March or April. Everybody's like, shirts off. Let's go. Let's get some vitamin D. So the Norwegians, the English, how are they going to handle this heat, this sun, the travel? I think the South Americans are a little bit more built for it.

1:59:01PFT Commenter:Yeah, that's a good point. What about, give me a couple teams, because I love to bet the over. Give me a couple teams that play open style and like, hey, these games are going to be electric.

1:59:14Well, I would say games that are going to be electric might involve the minnows of the world. You know, we talk about this being the largest World Cup ever. So 48 nations are playing, which means there's a lot of teams that wouldn't be here under the old format, right? And there's a handful of teams who've never had World Cup experience. So there are going to be some teams out there, this is probably more to your point, that might get overwhelmed by the moment, particularly in the first round. And I said this to a couple people earlier, there's going to be a lot of moments to pick the over in goals scored in the first round because you're going to have on paper some real mismatches.

1:59:51And you're going to have some Hades or some Curacao's who are going to say, you know what, here's my chance to step on the field with the big boys. I want to prove to them that we belong, that we can play instead of maybe being pragmatic and like, hey, hey, hey, let's get all 11 behind the ball and just kind of defend. I think there's going to be some a few games that are going to sneak in there. We're going to go, oh, how many goals were scored in that game? Five goals, six goals. So for me, that's the entertainment value. And again, you know, goal differential is a tiebreaker. So you're not going to see teams kind of pull back.

2:00:25They're going to keep that foot on the gas. Argentina is a team that can score.

2:00:34You know, Brazil has shown that they have a surplus of offense as well. Their question mark is on the defensive back line. They have a great goalkeeper, but I think those games are going to be high scoring. I like that. It kind of goes to our theme, too, about like South America. This could be kind of a tournament of South America where they feel at home. Their fan base understands this. The weather doesn't impact them. They're playing with joy. They're on an absolute upswing right now, and a lot of them are pretty offensive-minded, unlike Paraguay, also from South America, who's very defensive-minded, and the U.S.

2:01:06opens up with them on Friday on Fox. But outside of Paraguay, I think the rest of South America is ready to be opened and score some goals and electrify their fan bases.

2:01:15Big Cat:I love that. From the defensive standpoint, the U.S. has always been known as having the best goalkeepers. That's been the one bright spot that we've had going back to, I guess Tony Miola was even a pretty good goalie for us back in the day. He was a great goalie. He was a hall of favor. He was a great goal and a pretty good place kicker for the Jets, too, at one point. That's right. Yeah. I mean, we almost beat Brazil on the 4th of July. Who could forget? So, like, looking at that tradition of always having, you know, a top-tier goalie, we're going to this World Cup. We don't really know who's going to be starting for us, right?

2:01:44Big Cat:It could be Freeze or it could be Turner. Correct. I've had a lot of conversations about that topic the last few days. I was with Brad Guzon, former U.S. Men's National Team Keeper, last night, and we were discussing it. And I'm like, all right, well, what do you do? And we were kind of breaking down Germany's first goal off that set piece. And what was that? The second minute in Chicago on Saturday. And the first thing he said and first thing some of the former coaches said to me is like, why was there a four man wall? So now we're getting soccer nerdy. Can we go soccer? We'll go soccer nerdy for 30 seconds if you're all right with that.

2:02:18So they put a four man wall. So now now you're a little bit thin with the coverage behind you. right because if you have a four-man wall you have that many dudes trying to block it because you think it's a shot okay if it's a cross you don't need four guys in the wall okay and if it's a cross and you think or you think somebody's going to make a quick pass you need at least three in the wall so that guy can break out and cover that okay but if there's four in the wall you as a keeper are saying to your defense everybody else this guy's shooting it well you remember where that ball was that wasn't a shot right that was a tough angle that was distance So already the non-verbals from the keeper Matt Fries is, I'm not feeling confident.

2:02:59I need four in that wall, right? Rather than, hey, we're good with three or maybe even just two, and now I can bring those surplus of defenders back here to have tighter marking on some of these great German attackers. And then he was stuck on the line when the ball came in. You've got to own that box, right? If you're a goalkeeper, you own that area. American keepers own that area. Get off your line. Any ball that's flighted, that's like the hang time on a punt, 1-1-1000, 2-1-1000. Get to that ball, right? You've got your hands. You've got your body. You have free reign literally to run over people more times than not in soccer, right?

2:03:32Goalkeeper always gets the advantage. So you've got to get off your line. And that freeze was stuck to his line and ended up pulling the ball out of the back of that. That one moment said a lot about where his mentality is, and it scared me a little bit. I have a ton of belief in this kid. He's going to be great. But can you handle that big stage? And that was just a tune-up. But that was a tune-up in front of a big audience in a big stadium versus a team that is going to have a say at this World Cup in Germany. So I'm nervous. I think I feel a little bit better about Matt Turner and where his mental state is right now, his comfort level.

2:04:05And if my goalkeeper is comfortable and upbeat and confident, so am I. So are his defenders. So are the players, the 10 players in front of him as well. So I think it'll be really interesting who starts on Thursday. I also wouldn't be surprised if there's some form of goalkeeper rotation that goes on at this World Cup, which would be incredibly unique and awfully rare in World Cup circles.

2:04:29Big Cat:If you have two goalkeepers, do you have one? Well, here's the thing. I don't think we have one goalkeeper, right? Like last time we rotated, we had Casey Keller and Brad Friedel. Like those are two number one dudes. Yeah. Right. Like you're, you're, hey man, whoever's in goal, I'm good with. Right. I'm, I'm, I'm sleeping easy the night before. Now I'm not sleeping easy, whoever it is. So it's not like you have two quarterbacks means you don't have one quarterback. Actually, no, it's exactly what that means. We have two goalkeepers because we don't have one goalkeeper. Yeah, who's better than everyone else.

2:05:01So I think part of the management is, hey, is it better for that player? Is it better for this team? Is it better for our future going through the stages of this World Cup to commit to one guy and say, hey, buddy, I believe in you. You're my guy. Take it easy. right you don't need extra melatonin tonight to go to bed you can go you can shut it down with a clear conscious to know you're a guy go play free go play confident i think that's what the manager wants to do but the problem is we're still debating this here on tuesday and they open up on friday

2:05:30PFT Commenter:yeah i would say that is a problem all right so rob what is your what's your schedule like are you are you so you have shows in la are you going everywhere going a lot of places yeah because the U.S. opens up in L.A. and, you know, the Fox base is kind of right here. It's all hands on deck for, you know, the opener, the opening two games on Thursday and then Friday where they play at L.A. Stadium, SoFi, and we'll be there. That's a three-hour pregame. As soon as that game is over and we're done with our postgame responsibilities, myself, John Strong, Stu Holden, we jump on a jet and fly right to New York to cover Brazil, Morocco the next day.

2:06:07As soon as that game is done, we jump on a jet and go down to dallas and get ready for uh who's who am i getting england who am i getting ready for england croatia yeah i think on that one england croatia uh no i'm sorry netherlands japan as soon as that one is done we jump on a jet and go right to kansas city to get ready for argentina once that is done right back to dallas when that is done i think it's a new york or a seattle and then back to la so you're doing it all it's a lot of travel it's all right Hey, man, if you heard me complaining, you misread me. No, no, no. I didn't take it as a complaint.

2:06:40This is the World Cup, man. I know. I can't wait. I asked the question. I asked the question. Listen, if they stuck me on a Greyhound bus to get from L.A. to New York, I'll figure it out. I don't believe that part. Now you've gone too far.

2:06:53PFT Commenter:Now you've gone too far. Fair. That's awesome, though. So you'll be like this. It is whether you root for the U.S. team, whether you root. Like everyone should get excited about the World Cup. It's the best. It really is like such a fun thing for, you know, every four years to just have. It's free sports. It's like, hey, I didn't expect sports in the middle of the day. Now I got it. It is the greatest sporting event on the planet, whether you're a soccer fan or not. And that's why I encourage my sporting fans, like my Urban Myers, like Urban, just come to a game, please. He hates kickers, though.

2:07:27He hates kickers. Yeah, but you can't use your hands.

2:07:29Big Cat:You know he hates kickers, Rob. Can't use your hands in soccer. That's a problem. I'm trying. I'm trying with him. He's my pet project. He's a lot of work. But like the Matt Leinerts and the Mark Ingrams and the Brady Quinns, they get it. Coach Meyer is a little bit more work. But there is nothing like it. And I love how it's overtaking everybody's social media right now. Like we didn't have that in 1994. And my algorithm is all over the place. But I'm getting these images, these Instagram things that are just making me laugh and kind of proud to be American. And, you know, like there's this one German dude who's like just mesmerized by the concept of a big gulp at 7-Eleven.

2:08:08Right. Like they're taking pictures of this and like, this is amazing. Like, look at how much soda they can put in this container. And they're going to Wendy's and Taco Bell and like taking pictures of the spread. They're talking about their first 1 a.m. meal at Waffle House. I'm like, yes, yeah. Waffle House meal. I get it. You know, how did you get your how did you get your, you know, your hash browns? Were they smothered and covered? Did you get the waffle combo? Did you get the all-star? What was next? You were doing this. And I love the fact that so many people are coming to America, particularly right now where I think a lot of people have some preconceived notions about what our country is.

2:08:41And they're coming here with this open mind and they are embracing who we are and what we are. And I think that love is going back from Americans. I saw it in Russia. I saw it in Qatar. We were a little hesitant. like what are we walking into Russia in 2018? What is Qatar going to be like in 2022? Those two nations could not have been more hospitable. It was a summer of love. Everything was open. The natives wanted to talk to us, the locals to learn more about us. We wanted to learn more about them. That is happening right now in real time in the United States. And I love it. I see it at the airports.

2:09:18I can see like the World Cup paraphernalia or a team flag or the fact that you just know they're from another country. You hear the dialect. And I go up to them. I'm like, where are you guys from? They're like, all right, you're from Ecuador. Welcome. Like, how can I help you? You're here in the Bay Area. You're here in L.A. Like, come do these things. Try these things. You're in L.A., go to an In-N-Out, right? Figure out what an In-N-Out burger is, because I know they're not everywhere, right? I love the fact that we get to share it. I know we're talking a lot about a food and beverage right now, but there's so many other things that we have to share.

2:09:47That's what we do in America. We do it really well. Yeah.

2:09:49Big Cat:We do supersize. I actually thought that the Waffle House was perfect diplomacy. yeah we could have the un should meet in a waffle house and everything would be fixed and be like all right yeah i get it you guys are pretty cool this is good food oh shit i got this food that fast yeah that was awesome and there might be a fight across the restaurant we get to watch a little bit of a yelling okay that's cool like dinner and a show there's the jute there's the jukebox right you can play certain music if you want yeah you can you can have that supersized sweet tea at eight in the morning you know your body doesn't need it but your body needs it But yeah, I love me some Waffle House.

2:10:23I had some evenings at Waffle House now. Yeah.

2:10:25PFT Commenter:All right, Rob, I know you got to go in a minute. I got one last question for you. It's a rowback question, R-H-O-B-A-C-K.com, promo code TAKE, 20 % off your first purchase, Q-Zips, polos, hoodies, joggers, shorts, rowback.com, promo code TAKE. Zach, get us going.

2:10:38Big Cat:How are you doing today, Rob? I did have a quick question. Yeah, Zach. So we're seeing a lot of stadiums here to comply with FIBA regulations. They're putting in the grass, right? Are we going to see those same guys maybe keep the grass, or are they going to go right back to the turf like do they see the nod and kind of read the room of like oh this is injury prone this is bad for the players maybe i should respect my team and put and keep the grass or are they going to go right back to the nfl owners right talk to the nfl owners they're the ones who are making that that final decision the upkeep and the maintenance about it but it will be interesting you know if if it's a pretty injury free tournament i guarantee you you know to your point zach that a lot of those nfl stars those studs the saquon barkley's etc gonna be like hey hey, man, why aren't we doing this here?

2:11:20Right? Like these guys are running around hard and cutting and everything is fine and it's easy on our body. And by the way, we are your investment, right? You are spending millions on me and my body. Why would you not want it to be at its absolute best? And why would you not want it to be protected? So I'm with you. I think grass is better for every sport out there. It will be interesting to see if there is some carryover effect. But my gut feeling tells me as soon as that game is done at whatever stadium the last one they're pulling it out and donating it to some school some college we should buy it yeah i'll buy it we should buy it who wouldn't

2:11:56PFT Commenter:want it right we can put it on the roof we'll buy it wait zach that was a that was an nfl question

2:12:01Big Cat:do you have a soccer question yeah we go sorry question i would like to know i feel like it's important question ask anybody we're going you're going ronaldo or messi

2:12:12careful rob yeah so i've changed i've changed i was in the ronaldo book for a while but the last four or five years i've kind of leaned to messy and i as much as i here i love the showman of ronaldo right i love his look i love his his winks how his goal celebrations how he does everything i love the fact he's a showman mess he's not a showman he's just a quiet guy who gets stuff done in remarkable fashion and I think I've grown to appreciate that I love the fact that he had a team and a nation absolutely fighting for him and how much it meant to them and how much it meant to him to win that World Cup so I now lean towards Messi correct and I hope he has some of those Messi magic moments this summer and I think he will they have a tune-up they have their final game tonight by the way you know we were talking college football did you see like they're playing warm-up games at Texas A &M, playing it at Auburn University.

2:13:12I love that international soccer is coming to these SEC communities, hence the Waffle House or even the Huddle House. Have you guys ever been to Huddle House?

2:13:21Big Cat:Been to Huddle House, not bad. Crystal, have you ever been to Crystal? Crystal's great. Yep, like the Southern White Castle. Yes, and a little more affordable, which is telling you something. Yes, people, enjoy your Crystal on your journeys through America. I love the fact that Messi's played at Texas A &M and played in these SEC stadiums.

2:13:41PFT Commenter:We were joking like, listen, no shot at Marcel Reed, but like that's got to be the weirdest. Marcel Reed giving him a signed jersey. It's like, what are we doing here? I'm sorry. My dog is barking. That's all right. We love dogs. Callie, hold on. Go attack. That's a mean 30-pound golden retriever. This person, my wife. The Marcel Reed, you saw Messi come into the tunnel and some guy talks and was like, But you're like lip reading, like, hey, man, you need to go over here. Just smile, and this guy's going to give you a jersey. I have no idea who this guy is. You're like, I'm Marcel Reed. I'm a Heisman candidate.

2:14:17I'm a quarterback from Texas A &M. I don't know what any of that means. Here's the jersey. Smile nice. Off into the pile it goes. Who wants this Marcel Reed signed jersey?

2:14:26Big Cat:I would even say I'm glad that you came around and saw the light with Messi, first of all. I don't want to push you away. We should be acknowledging people for growing and admitting their past mistakes, so welcome to the right side of history. I would even say Messi number one, Maradona number two, Ronaldo number three. I don't think he's top two. Pele? You're not even putting Pele in there? Yeah, good point. Pele three. Only three. For me, it's hard to bump Pele out at number one. The problem is the further and further we get away from his legacy, the less and less we remember about it. We're watching grainy videos and some of the stuff he did.

2:14:59And the same goes with Diego Maradona and the moments of magic that he created, particularly at the World Cup. You can't go wrong with any four of those guys. All of them I would love to have on my team. It'll be interesting to see who joins that level, right? Like Kylian Mbappe, you know, with a magical run this summer and leading France to another World Cup title, you're going to start putting him in that conversation.

2:15:19Big Cat:Yeah, I do have one last question about the ball. So I love the ball controversies every year. Seems like somebody has, like, the ability to connect with the ball that's like back in the South African World Cup when Diego Forlan was the only guy that could figure out how to kick that ball. What have the early returns been on the new World Cup ball? I haven't heard any. That's a good point. I'll have to dig into that when I get in today. I haven't heard any. But you're right. In years past, like, this one is faster. This one floats more. This one's got more bend to it. To me, it's just dudes overthinking things.

2:15:50Like, can you just put a ball out there? But they're also, like, trying to find the needle nipple or whatever. They're always kind of lining it up, and they want to strike it. Talk to memes about that.

2:15:59Big Cat:Memes will show you where the nipples are. we just ventured off the soccer highway yeah Rob doesn't understand that you might have actually went so viral it was very viral and they were protruding I'll send you the picture Rob

2:16:16PFT Commenter:Rob you're the best we look forward to seeing you all summer long and safe travels hey hopefully we can do this again you know my number man I'd love to chat with you guys anytime we can make it happen I'm here for you absolutely thanks so much Rob you got it guys be good enjoy this World Cup

2:16:32Big Cat:we'll get back to part of my take and ozzy alby is coming up here in a second but rob stone is brought to you by mountain dew summer's coming i can't wait to crack open some mountain dew at camp barstool just nothing goes better with hanging out outside nothing goes better than being on a boat than the refreshing citrus kick of mountain dew we got the stars and stripes on this one the american dew cans because mountain dew is proudly born in the foothills of tennessee You know, you just know that there are some guys, some bros overseas from Scotland right now somewhere driving through the foothills of Kentucky that cracked open their very first Mountain Dew of all time.

2:17:10Big Cat:And they're probably going to move to America afterwards. That's how good it is. Enjoy the refreshing citrus kick of Mountain Dew. It's an American original. Grab a Dew. Tasting great since 48. Mountain Dew. And now here's Ozzy Albies.

2:17:25PFT Commenter:Okay, we now welcome on a very, very, very, very special guest. He is three-time All-Star World Series champion, second baseman for the Atlanta Braves, the first place Atlanta Braves, Ozzie Albies in studio. Ozzie, thank you for joining us. Let's start there. You guys are the best team in baseball right now. Is there a point, like, how high can you get about this team and how you guys are playing? or is it like, hey, it's 162, we got to just keep grinding? Yeah, like you said, 162, so we got to keep grinding. We got to keep going. Got to keep pushing every day. You know, we are in the up place right now, number one, and it's fun when you win in games, definitely.

2:18:07I would imagine. Oh, yes.

2:18:08Big Cat:What was it like last year? Because it feels like it's about the same group of guys, and last year obviously went sideways for a lot of different reasons, but then you bring back a lot of the same guys, and now it's good. What was that like getting through that year? Yeah, going through years like that is definitely tough. after being like seven times in the playoff, you know, seven straight years in the playoff. It's, you know, for being there, it's special first, you know. And going through a year like last year was very, very tough on everybody because everybody's expecting to win. Like we go to the field, we expect to win every single day.

2:18:39And it wasn't going our way, but we kept pushing. And we had like a great finish towards the end, but it was definitely a late time to, you know, get it going. but they tweak some stuff here, change some players, coaching staff, and I'm so happy that we're doing great right now.

2:18:56Big Cat:We talked to Matt Olsen last year, and he told us about something that you guys had in your clubhouse that you don't have anymore, or at least you didn't have it last year, and that might be the reason things kind of got messed up. You used to have an ice cream machine in the clubhouse, and they got rid of the ice cream machine? Yeah, they got rid of it, and we didn't have a good season, so we pushed to bring it back. Is it back? No, it's not back yet. We have one here. Hopefully we get it back, though. We'll get you some ice cream here. Should I take the one here?

2:19:23PFT Commenter:Yes. No, you can't take it, but we'll give you some ice cream. Listen, last year Cal Raleigh came and had some ice cream. I think he hit like six home runs against the Cubs in three days. I got to have two Cubs. Yeah. I need a couple of them to take back.

2:19:35Big Cat:Wait, so you should get the ice cream machine back. Yeah. That's an important thing for team morale.

2:19:40PFT Commenter:When they took it away, did you guys not have a players meeting being like, hey, how can they do this? We tried. We tried. We tried to bring it back. Not hard enough. Well, we'll try harder this time. Yeah. We'll get it back. We'll get it back. I feel like you got to be angrier about that. I don't know. Just go off on text, right? I'm mad about it for you, but was there any one guy who was like, hey, this is real bullshit? Yes. Okay. Who was it? Yes. Well, most of the guys, not just one guy. Okay. Because, for example, we have our closer, Iggy. He loves ice cream. Like, he will eat the whole machine, man.

2:20:13I'm telling you. He loves it. So he was asking every single day, where's the machine? Where's the machine? Like, so I'm happy we're in the talks right now to bring it back. And the boys can have fun again. Okay.

2:20:25Big Cat:Besides the ice cream machine, which, again, I don't want to minimize the impact of the ice cream machine. But besides that, what's the biggest difference in the clubhouse with Walt Weiss as the manager? Oh, Walt Weiss, to me, he's one of the greatest person in general. Not besides his manager role he has. He's just a phenomenal human being and a person. and you can talk crap with him, you can have fun with him. And when it's game, it's serious time, let's go. So to me, he's definitely a role model for a lot of people on the team. And you don't want to mess around with him because you saw what happened in that brawl too.

2:20:58He's a good tackler. Oh, he'll take you down immediately. You don't mess with him. But he's definitely, he sets the tone for us and he's straight to the point. Like he comes to you, tell you what's going to happen, if you're going to play or not, if you're going to do this from the bench, Whatever the case might be, he's just phenomenal.

2:21:16PFT Commenter:Yeah. All right. I got a weird question for you. So you're from Curacao. It's a population of 160 ,000. You grow up and you are the biggest Andrew Jones fan, which makes sense because he's from Curacao. He's probably a hero on the island. But then you play in Major League Baseball for the Braves. Was there any part of your life where you're like, am I living in a simulation? Because that does feel like too perfect. I'm going to be fully honest with you. I never thought because once I was coming up through my living in Curacao and I did some tryouts and most scouts were like, you're too small. I don't think you ever make it.

2:21:54This, this, and that. We don't trust in the small guys. They want the tall guys. So I'm glad and happy that I proved them wrong. Yeah. Definitely that. But then I remember for my birthday, for my first birthday, my dad surprised me with Henry Jones. that was right when after he had the two home runs in the playoff okay Yankees something like that uh I mean it was one of the best thing of my of my life and to play in the big leagues and play WBC when he was managing me was like literally a video game yeah the type of like is this really happening yeah so to me it's like you live in the dream every single day till you like sit down and it comes to your mind like hey that just that just happened yeah like this is the coolest thing ever a 10 time gold glove hall of fame guy managing you and from that small island yeah from the small island yeah definitely living the dream that he had always was there a moment when you

2:22:52PFT Commenter:were coming up where andrew jones was like hey i actually think you can do this yeah when was that it was in double a triple a he actually came down to the field before a game and we sat down and talk for like a good 30 minutes in an hour and i'm like i'm literally seeing one of my role models yeah my face telling me that i can make this a reality and all i gotta do is keep going keep pushing yeah it became a reality it became reality the dreams did come through yes for an island of 160 000 people is everyone your neighbor can you say like andrew jones is your neighbor like i can't imagine he grew up much further away from you right like 10 minutes yeah because everything's It's probably 10 minutes.

2:23:30Everything is close. Everybody calls each other cousin and family. Okay.

2:23:33PFT Commenter:All right. So your cousin was Andrew Jones. Basically, right? Yeah. Who else is on the Curacao baseball team? On the WBC? Yeah. It was me, Diddy Gregorius, Rafaela with Boston, Kenley Jansen with Detroit. we had Pro Pro Pro Pro's brother and a couple more Trump he was with me early this season and let's see who else that seems like a lot Henry Jones son he's a big prospect he's a top prospect did you play at Williamsport or no I never played Williamsport because I feel like Curacao is usually in it right Curacao is always in it yeah like they always represent our our island with a good team at Williamsport.

2:24:20But I was the team that Shurimi Profar, Tureks and Profar brother, beat in Curacao. So they went, and I stayed in Curacao that year. Oh, no. I lost the final game in Curacao to make it to the team. Oh, that's brutal.

2:24:34Big Cat:Why do you think it is that Curacao has such outstanding representation in Major League Baseball? A lot of talent, a lot of baseball talent comes from a very small country. I think it's because, like you said, small island, small country, and we focus on baseball a lot. I think it's the number one sport on the island. Most people love soccer also, but when you have the baseball crazy guys that wants to make it, wants to be an Henry Jones, wants to be a Kenley Jansen in the game, me as well, a Rafaela, they push for that. They just focus on that. They stop going to school. They tell their parents, hey, I just want to focus on baseball.

2:25:13I want to be a big leaguer. And I think they just push to the limits and see how good they can be to when they sign free agency. Because from Curacao, you've got to sign free agency. It's not like you come here and go to scholarship and all that stuff.

2:25:27Big Cat:Yeah. We have to talk about your fish for a little bit if that's okay. Oh, yeah. Of course. So you're a big fish guy. Maybe the biggest fish guy in baseball. I think it's probably fair to say, right? Probably, yes. How many fish do you own? I own about 500 fishes right now at this point. Holy shit. 500 fish?

2:25:42PFT Commenter:How do you keep them alive? because we used to have a goldfish, a gambling goldfish. Actually, incredible. Gambling goldfish. Yeah, yeah. No. He was really good. We had multiple. The first one, we died in less than a week, and people were like - I've been there. Okay. All right. Because we got a lot of shame for that. It's normal. Okay. It's normal, but obviously, I felt sorry. Yeah. Because I should have done my research a little better. Yeah. Yeah, us too. But we all start at some point, somewhere. Yeah. So our second one, we stayed alive for like five months, and we put him into a Las Vegas gambling contest.

2:26:19PFT Commenter:He actually finished like 50th against other humans. Professional gamblers. Yeah, he picked five NFL games a week, and he went like 54 % against the spread, which is pretty insane. It's really good. Yeah, he's a special fish. He also died, and then we buried him at the Pro Football Hall of Fame. His grave was robbed. That's a different story. but yeah so how like you you you have to like i have 500 fish is a lot of fishes at the house that has been there for five years jeez and they they don't stop growing like they growing growing growing yeah um it takes a little bit of definitely the hobby is not for for people that aren't like i'm gonna do it tomorrow like if you have a schedule you gotta stay on the schedule because the fish you haven't on a routine now like if every sunday you do a water change that means i know it's a fish but it's expecting to get his water quality back to where every sunday he knows hey there is fresh water coming in i'm gonna feel better yeah it's literally like a human yeah basically so it's like feeding your body the good food the the special water and all that stuff so you can keep going so uh to take care of all of them i have to do water change on my smaller tanks because the smaller tanks, the water gets polluted faster, obviously, because it's a small volume of water.

2:27:39So every week I do 30%. Either every Saturday or either every Sunday.

2:27:44PFT Commenter:Yeah. Yes. Do you know all your fish? 100%. You know all 500? Like if I just showed you a picture, you'd be like, oh, yeah, that's my fish.

2:27:52Big Cat:Yeah, 100%.

2:27:53PFT Commenter:I don't believe you. 100%. Show it up.

2:27:55Big Cat:Did you name all 500? No, I can't. How many of them have names? A couple of them. I'll say about 10 of them has names. They have to do something really special to get noticed to get a name. Yeah, and it was some of them that were adopted, that local adopted that the people that had it used to call them on their name already, so I kept it. So just in case, I talk on the channel and they realize that's their fish. So for example, I have mango. It's a koi fish that got adopted from a local koi place I go to, and I still name it mango because it's just special how I was able to rescue that fish for that particular fan that I have.

2:28:36Are they all salt water or all fresh water? Do you do salt water too? All fresh water. And then one of them is brackish water with African cichlids. Okay. And you do the maintenance yourself? Oh, 100%. Yeah. You don't have anybody?

2:28:46Big Cat:Someone has to help you out during the season. So when I'm out of town, I have my wife's mother, mother-in-law takes care of everything. Do you have any sharks? I do have freshwater sharks. Okay. Yeah. Not salt water. That's pretty cool. I think that's for the next chapter, right? Yeah. I like that you're hands-on, though. It's like you have a relationship with all these fish. I'm going to be honest with you. The hands-on is actually fun because it gets me something to do besides after playing baseball. I'm home. I'm doing some stuff. I have the dogs running all around. They watch the fish. When I go feed, they want some food of the fishes and stuff like that.

2:29:21So it's fun. I have fun with it. All right.

2:29:23PFT Commenter:Is that one of your fish? No. I don't have that one. You were right. We got that on Google. Google image. All right. He knows his fish. Nope. We just pulled up a random clownfish on Google Images. You don't have clownfish? Yeah. I know about it, but I never own one yet. Why? I should, right? Is there a fish that... I mean, it's like a Moby Dick. Is there a white whale fish that you're looking for? I'm actually looking for a freshwater arapaima. If you can pull that one up, you'll see how big they can get. And they are a true monster Amazonian fish. A freshwater... What is it called? Arapaima. Okay.

2:29:56I actually saw one yesterday at the Shedd Aquarium. I visited there, and it looks like it's 12 feet long. Did you go by the Stingray? I did touch the Stingrays. How many? I don't know how many are in the tank, but I touched about three or four of them. Okay. I have the record. No big deal.

2:30:12PFT Commenter:I have the record. Yeah, yeah. Oh, nice. Yeah, I got the record. I broke it probably about 15 years ago. How many? I pet like 40. Oh, my God. I was just dominating, just walking around petting them all. The sturgeon, too? I didn't pet the sturgeon. Okay. Listen, I'm a traditionalist. I just keep it to the stingray. Someone else could have a surgeon record. Yeah. All right, so that's a gnarly fish. Yeah. Holy shit. We fished it actually in spring training this year. They have a big facility in Florida, Jurassic Living Facility. And we went and we have a picture where four of us was holding the whole fish.

2:30:48And there is still more room. That tells you how big. I mean, it was bigger than this cow.

2:30:52Big Cat:Holy shit. Do you have a fish that if you win another World Series, will you treat yourself to a nice fish? That one? It might be that one, right? Wait, so how do you get that one? Is it hard? Can you just call and get it? I think you got to get where I live. We got to get permission first for the county. Oh, got it. And then make sure the space is enough because they get really, really big. Yeah. I'm not kidding. Yeah. They are monsters. So what got you into this? I guess growing up on an island probably helps. Growing up on an island, three to five minutes from the water, too, you go fishing most of the time, most of the weekends.

2:31:26And funny enough, my grandfather used to own koi fishes. And I always help him feed, do water change, maintenance, change the pump, do this, do that, scrub the algae that grows over time. And that's how I got into it. And I always had a goldfish. I started with a goldfish also. How was it gambling? No, I didn't do any of that. Okay, all right. We just had him as a pet, and we paid like 30, 50 cents for it at a PetSmart, and happened to live eight years. Wow. Yeah, that's pretty good. Yeah, we called him Goldofredo. He started my whole fish hobbyist. I'm not kidding. He was the original? He was the original.

2:32:06We buried him in the backyard, put a whole rock with his name, everything on it.

2:32:10PFT Commenter:Got you hooked. Way to show us something. All right, what about this? These are your kois? One second. All right, we got a picture. Those are your kois, right? I do have the same koi, but toes are not mine. Oh, he's good. He's good. I do have the same pattern, though. Damn it. So when you go on the road, do you go to every aquarium? I try to visit all of the aquariums in each city, yes. I did the Arizona, the Philly one. Obviously, I tried the aquarium yesterday. We tried to go to the one, I think it was in Boston, but we didn't have time. So next time, I'll go to that one, too.

2:32:47Big Cat:Baltimore's got a good one too. I heard. Baltimore's got a really good aquarium. It's a very cool design there too. I don't remember the sketch if I'm going there this year, but if I do go, I'm definitely going to see it.

2:32:58PFT Commenter:What's the best one that you've been to? The best one so far, obviously Georgia Aquarium, one of the biggest here. I'll say number three right now, my three favorite ones are Chattanooga. Okay. It's like big because of fresh water too. So I'll say Chattanooga, the Shedd Aquarium, Oh, the one I have the record at. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. 100%. Like I saw the arpaima and my red, I own like about eight red tail catfishes at home. So I saw the red tail yesterday. I'm like, oh man, I can't wait for mine to get like that too. Does your house smell? No. I don't believe you. 100%. Like there's, that's like someone who has like multiple cats and you walk in and you're like, ooh.

2:33:38PFT Commenter:You'll see. You'll see. It doesn't smell at all like fish or an aquarium. Overfiltrated tanks. Flush the pumps every week. and that's i think that's what what does the the part of not spelling and and it's closed so it's nothing coming out okay yeah so your uh do your fish love you i think they do i feed them very well yeah like you walk by and they they come swimming immediately yes they want me to like put my hand and they try to like bite my finger all the time yeah and your dogs they love your

2:34:05Big Cat:dogs too the same way how many how many dogs do you have now we have seven at the house and one one uh you have a zoo you have a full zoo basically we have a small zoo you know uh we have seven dogs and we fostering one at the moment oh that's awesome total yeah and they get along well the fish too yeah like the fish like them and they like so when they go inside the room and they wiggle in their tail the fish is thinking it's like a like a bait so they're trying to like grab their tail through the glass and i'm like you're the king you can't like relax and i just give them some food like some treats so they can feel better do you ever go swimming with the fish yes you do i saw a video of you swimming with your koi you and the monster fishes too the rattails i go in there yeah you jump right in oh right right in it so you're like playing with my

2:34:52PFT Commenter:snorkel stuff on and go right in it do the fish know when you're in a slump i don't know about that okay okay hopefully they don't know because we don't want to know yeah yeah do you have a do Do you have a slump buster? Do you have something to get you out of a slump? Not really. I just keep pushing, keep going hard. And sometimes you just do less. Yeah. Sometimes people start doing more and more. But I think it's just you take your mind away from it and just keep playing. Because the game is more about all around. You still got to do good base running. You still got a good defense also. That wins your games.

2:35:29So sometimes those moments present. But you got to take your hat away from it. Yeah. Who's the hardest pitcher you've ever faced? I'll say one of the toughest pitchers in the game that I face as a starter is Jacob DeGrom. Yeah.

2:35:43PFT Commenter:We've heard that before from people. Oh, my God. He was at some point telling me what's coming. I still couldn't get to it. And then I had my good days where I took the same pitch and I hit a base hit, scored a run, stuff like that, helped the team win. And those are great stuff when you do it against somebody like him. Yeah. He's super, super good. But there's definitely pitchers out there that they're very tough. Yeah. Does it ever annoy you guys in the clubhouse that that fat fuck blooper pretends that he's part of the team? Oh, my God. Because he does. And he's like, bro thinks he's on the team.

2:36:20Well, it does annoy me. Okay. But definitely some other people. Okay, there we go. I won't say names, but some people, you know, Not everybody likes everything that happens. You heard comments here and there, but I'm like, how about keep going this way?

2:36:37PFT Commenter:I wouldn't be shocked if he's trying to take at bats in the middle of the season. Can you imagine that? Yeah. No, I can't because he's an egomaniac like that. It's crazy. Trying to make it all about himself. It's funny. Do you have a favorite unwritten rule of baseball? No. Do you have an unwritten rule that you're like, I actually believe this. Don't do this. I'll say I always make sure I don't step on the white line on the field. Okay. I like that one. I heard that before when I was coming up in the league and all that stuff. They're like, hey, you respect the white line. Don't ever go over it.

2:37:15So I'm really like when I'm crossing to go take defense or even go just practice, I make sure I go over it. Have you ever messed up? No. No. Hopefully I don't. Never stepped on the line. I mean, playing, like running down the line, probably, yes. Yeah, that's different. That's in the game. Because you're just going. Yeah. But I make sure every time I take the field, I promise you. You see pitchers do it, too. Yeah. I go, I make sure I jump it. That would be really funny if you tried to avoid the white line while running. Oh.

2:37:44PFT Commenter:Yeah. I mean, I'll probably have to be running on the grass. Yeah.

2:37:47Big Cat:Or like you're in the field. Yeah. It's like a pop-up. Exactly. And you're like, I can't touch that line. Can't touch it. That's different. You know, like I'm looking at the pop-up and you're going like foul territory. Me taking the field, I always try to avoid it. Are there any rules that you have on the team for who is and who is not allowed to challenge pitches? I don't think we have a rule on that one because I want the team guys to be aggressive. Especially, like, I'm not as aggressive with, like, other guys. Like, when it comes to if there is no situational moment, let's say the game is 0-0 bottom third.

2:38:20I mean, if it's really close and I'm, like, guessing, I won't challenge that, you know? But if it's a guy on third, less than two outs, or even with two outs, and you can be 3-1 instead of 2-2, for example, I'd rather you take a shot and be wrong. Don't take a shot, and then you see it on the iPad. You're like, ah, I should have challenged that.

2:38:39PFT Commenter:Because we had Francisco Lindor in here, and he said he'll never challenge because he's so bad at it. I think everything is a ball, too. Okay. Don't get me wrong. From defense, I think everything is a strike. I'm like this with a catch. You're like, hey, let's go. Ask for it. Then it was like three inches off the plate. So what's your record on challenges? I think I'm pretty good right now, actually. I think you can look it up. I'm going to try to look it up. Somebody should keep track of this. I think I won, I'll say, two out of six. That's not that good. Or two out of four. Ozzy, I'm not going to lie.

2:39:09That's not that good, dude. You go three for 10, and you hit in 300, right? Yeah, I know. I mean, that's all a baseball trick, but still. I don't know how much, to be honest with you, I don't know how much I challenged before, but they have challenged against me a lot. Yeah. Because I don't, like I said, I don't ask for it consistently, but I think I won two challenges this year from the four or five I challenge or three.

2:39:34Big Cat:You've got, I think what I'm reading right now, you might have the most important challenge in the history of baseball. Yes. I had one in Arizona. I remember that one. Yeah. So you extended the inning. Yeah. We scored eight runs, right? Walked in a run and then you scored eight runs that inning. Yeah. And it led to a 17 to two blowout. Oh, yeah. Okay. I remember that. That's a big one. That's the biggest challenge of all time. I remember that one was really, like, not so crazy off the plate, but I saw it, like, high and far. So I was like, no, no, let's go. This is the ball. And then I walked.

2:40:04I walked to first immediately without even looking.

2:40:07PFT Commenter:Can I give you a tip, though? 100%. Because it's going to be, like, you know, the challenge system, I love it. I think it's great for the game because they've figured out a way to do it so fast. Even when you're at the stadium, you're just like, wow, that was quick. It's amazing for the game. But here's what you got to do, because I doubt anyone does this yet. You need to start going up to the umps before the game and be like, hey, out of respect for you, I won't be challenging. Be like, I trust everything you say. Then they're going to start giving you some extra, you know, like balls here and there.

2:40:33PFT Commenter:Yeah. Just be like, hey, man, I respect you so much. I'm not trying to show you up. I just want you to know that I'm not going to challenge. And I was wrong, I think, a week ago. And I challenged. I was like, it was like biting the line like this much. And I went there and I said, hey, my bad. I think my eyes are not telling me what it is today. And he goes, hey, I've been there too, man. I respect you. I respect you also. Okay, there we go. Boom, done. That's good. But I'm cool with him. We talk, we have fun. It's 162 games. You got to have fun. Have you been kicked out of a game before? No, never yet.

2:41:05Oh, you got to. Hopefully. You got to. Hopefully I keep it that way. Ozzy, people are saying you're soft for never getting kicked out of a game. No, not soft. I just respect their job. I'm going to be real on that one. I respect. I don't want to curse them out big on TV. You see my mouth going crazy on them. I mean, they have a family too. They have kids. So I don't want them to go home and say, Hey, Dad, Ozzy was saying this, this, and this on you. I keep it respectfully. But, yeah, never been thrown out yet.

2:41:36PFT Commenter:What about? Hopefully it doesn't happen tonight. Yeah, you're playing second base. Batter charges the mound. What's your move? because you're one of the first lines of defense. So that happened this year for the first time in my career where I actually saw punches being thrown like live. And what were you doing? And so I was – the play happened. It was a throw to second base. I attacked the guy. So I have the ball. I'm like, where do I throw it? Do I throw it out? Do I throw it to the pitcher? I threw it out. Turned my back going back to my position and it happened. So I wasn't even paying attention.

2:42:07Then I saw – I was like, oh, crap. I got to go. And then by the time I said I got to go, I saw already punches being thrown. So I just walk in there. And then if you see the video, actually, I went to Soler. And I told him, like, hey, that's not you. And he's obviously, like, 6 '4". I'm 5 '7". So it's like a little guy trying to stop the big guy. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you can just go for the legs, though. You know that move. You got to go for the legs so you can come down. That's the only chance I got before he kicks me.

2:42:37PFT Commenter:Yeah, no, Jorge Soler. He's a monster. He's a monster. I will never be in a fight with him. Yeah. Even though I talk a lot of trash to him when he was with us, having fun and joking, but I don't think I will ever be in a fight with him. How much did he hate playing in the cold? He does hate the cold. I mean, I'm one of them too. I hate the cold. Okay, because when he was on the Cubs, I just remember when it was like early season, like, well, can't really expect much from Jorge here because he looks like he wants to be anywhere else. So you hate the cold as well. I'm the same way, but once I get in game mode, like game mentality, so I throw some Vaseline on the body, Abilene whatever the case about it a little moist and you know you just go play yeah you gotta go play I mean yeah I gotta be on defense I gotta hit get some heat warm uh heat warmers here like for the hand hand warmers and stuff just go at it yeah I have a question here from Big T you met

2:43:27Big Cat:Big T outside earlier he's a massive Braves fan uh getting married this weekend and he asked me to ask you this question so again not for me this is from him uh he said is it more fun when the The Mets are total garbage all season or watching them suffer at the very end and choking it away. Which is more fun for you? All right. I'll say this. It's more fun for when we, you know, clinch the division and they have to go fight for it. To be like, so like you said, late in the season when they're choking for their life. Yeah, I'll say that. Because they're our biggest rivalry, I think, beside the Phillies.

2:44:03So, yeah, we definitely want to do great against them. So definitely the late season, yeah.

2:44:09Big Cat:We heard a rumor from somebody on the Braves, and it was that when the Mets had their most recent epic collapse at the end of the season, that the team would gather around and watch our colleague Frank the Tank meltdown whenever you guys would win and the Mets would lose. Do you remember watching any of that? I heard about it. Yeah? I never watched it, but I heard about it. He would always just say, like, the Braves never lose. And it's true. When the Braves are good, they never lose. Yeah, when we're good, I'm going to be honest, as we play really good baseball. And it's just fun. Like I said, early, it's fun when you're winning.

2:44:39And you want to keep doing that every single day.

2:44:41Big Cat:Yeah. Kind of a sad season for the Braves with Bobby Cox passing away. And I didn't know if you had a relationship with him, what that was like. But the guy was a legend. Maybe, you know, he has to be in the discussion of the best manager of all time. 100%. No doubt about that. Yeah. And I did have a relationship with him. Even when he started getting sick and stuff, I was sad watching him come to the clubhouse in a wheelchair. Still knew my name. still said Ozzy and everything because he was kind of like, you know, losing it slowly. And I remember we have a group picture with him in the club.

2:45:12I was one of the special, like one of special moments we had because, you know, you see one of the best managers in the game suffering. And it kind of melts your heart a little bit. Yeah.

2:45:22Big Cat:Just an all-time guy for what those Braves teams of the 90s were able to accomplish for so long. Like he deserves so much credit because not only, yes, he had a great team and maybe one of the best pitching staffs of all time, but people don't realize that he put that team together. 100%. All the rules he actually bring to the team. I remember when I got to the team, there were rules he created since the 90s. We used to wear only black leets, black turfs for practice, socks. You have to do pants up. Everything talked in all the time. No glasses on the logo, on the A of the Atlanta Braves. Those are rules that he put up since the 90s.

2:46:00And it's still carrying until today. We still don't do it. If you watch anybody on the team, and even when there is a new guy that come in, we make sure we tell, hey, put it on the back. Watch any day game when we have glasses on. It's always either on or on the back. I never realized that. That's cool. Very cool. Those are rules that we still just keep following because he's one of the biggest guys that put this team together.

2:46:22PFT Commenter:How the hell do you switch hit? That's the craziest thing ever. I really don't understand it. I don't. Guys who can switch hit, it blows my mind. Yeah, it's tough. It's definitely tough, and I started late. I started when I was 15. No way. Yeah. So you just never bat lefty until you were 15? No, no. Only when I was 15, I remember doing a tryout with the Braves when I was 15 with a meadow bat. They wanted to see what I can do, and they saw I can hit. I can swing it on the right side. I can have speed and all that stuff, and they were like, hey, we want you to be a switch hitter, especially on the left side, put the ball in play and run.

2:46:57So I did that through my minor career, and then about double eight, they were like, hey, we need to start elevating the ball now. And I'm happy it worked out.

2:47:06PFT Commenter:That's crazy. So you, because I just assume most switch hitters, they just grew up doing it the whole time and it was just natural. They were almost ambidextrous. You just, like a kind of late part of your development, had to just start doing it. How bad was it to start? Oh, terrible. I couldn't hit the ball off the tee. I was hitting the rubber more than I hit the baseball. That's insanely impressive. Yeah, yeah. I was hitting the rubber, break the rubber, split it in two. Definitely hard. And then, you know, you slowly, like, instead of doing too much, you slowly slow down the process and start focusing on what to do.

2:47:41And I had a guy that always was there with me, helping me be better. So definitely put in the work, start swinging it from the left side way more than the right side until I got better. And then I'm so happy it worked out.

2:47:56Big Cat:Have you ever thought about messing with another pitcher? And let's just say they have a left-handed pitcher and going up to the plate and be like, you know what, I'm going to bat lefty against you. I actually did righty on righty. Did you? Yes. I did it in 21 against, there was a pitcher called Last Name Harper. I'm not sure if it's Reen Harper or Ryan Harper, the way you say it. And I went right on right and took him deep. So that was like a special moment because I normally go right on right on position player, like if it's a blow-up game. but um i did it that day in the game and they were like they don't know what to do now so yeah i'm so happy i actually hit hit a bomb and helped the team win and it was it was fantastic that's awesome what was uh what was the reason why you decided to do that because he threw a lot of breaking balls and i'm definitely more confident on the right side and i was like i can i can take a pitch and actually do an adjustment i need to do to have a better you know better at bat and i'm happy to end up being the two-run home run to help us win.

2:48:56So it was fun.

2:48:57PFT Commenter:Can you – I think you're allowed to switch sides mid-at-bat. Have you ever thought about doing that? I never did it, but that would be probably something I can do. That would be pretty cool. Yeah, why not? Kind of mess them up. Yeah, I kind of have to do it one time. Yeah, you should do it. Please do. We'll try to do that. Yeah. Yeah, let's do it, man. Also, we ask every baseball guest that comes on, maybe next game, if you get walked, can you sprint to first base for us? Okay. Respect 90. All right, let's do it. Yeah, just like hard sprint. Okay, I'll do it for you. We love that. I'll do it for you.

2:49:27PFT Commenter:Really respect 90. Hopefully that happened tonight. Yeah, yeah. We'll do that. Really respect 90 for us.

2:49:31Big Cat:When you hit a home run, how fast? Have you compared how fast you get around the bases to your teammates? I do have gone fast before because it was like I barely made it out. So I was running faster. I was like, might as well keep going. Yeah. Just keep going. Just sprinting around. Yeah. I remember David Ortiz. He used to sometimes just like walk around. Walk. He does walk it, but I mean, Big Papi, legend too.

2:49:51PFT Commenter:so you deserve it yeah all right i got a baseball like fundamentals question because we have a uh slow pitch softball league we're actually in the playoffs no big deal uh and we sometimes make errors uh all of us the entire team yeah do you ever find yourself have you ever in in a big league game thrown behind the runners and been like shit that was stupid behind the runner yeah like if there's like a guy on say first and third and it's like you're trying to get the guy out at first but then the guy at third can just go home because you threw behind the runner? Probably. I don't remember, though.

2:50:26All right. Probably. Did you get yelled at for that? No, you just asked. You're like, what was that? Yeah, okay. I was like, I thought I can get him. I did that one time.

2:50:32Big Cat:I was catcher, and I threw to first base. That was the guy on third. I threw the guy on third. But I got aggressive. I mean, it happened. They were challenging me with a big secondary lead, and they weren't respecting my arm, so I had to try to force something on. You have to.

2:50:43PFT Commenter:We do it, like, once a game. It's no big deal. Yeah. We're just trying to make plays happen. Have fun with it. Yeah.

2:50:50Big Cat:How do you feel about bat flips? I love it. Good. I feel like if a pitcher leaves you a ball that you're not supposed to leave it hanging and you bat flip, he can't get mad. He's supposed to strike you out. That's facts. Yeah, yeah. I agree. Bat flip as much as you want. Just don't get mad when you strike out, though. Yeah. And they show you out. Yeah. What about if you have somebody like a teammate that bat flips maybe a little bit too high? Yeah, I might get real next to that. Yeah, then you're like, come on, man, can you just maybe not do that right next time? Especially if you're winning by a lot.

2:51:16Yeah, I think you respect the game. Yeah.

2:51:18Big Cat:What about when do you stop stealing? six runs up, five runs up, late in the game. Okay. Yeah, not early, late in the game. Would you ever bunt to break up a no-hitter? No, I think that's a really shady way to break a no-hitter. I feel like if you went sixth inning and you didn't try before that, like even fifth inning, and you didn't try to get a hit before those five innings went by, I think you should keep swinging the bat and just earn the hit. Yeah. You know, like, don't lay down a bunt. Third baseman is playing back. Like, there is no need for that. Play the game. What about combined no-hitters?

2:51:55Those count, right? Of course. Yeah, agreed. Agreed. I mean, I agree on that 100%. It's a hard game, man. Yeah. Like, it's hard to throw strikes consistently. It's hard to hit the ball. It's a round bat, round baseball. And if you did a combined no-hitter, tip of the cap, you guys earned it. Yeah. You earned it.

2:52:14PFT Commenter:What about – is there any times that you notice yourself you're, like, swinging too hard? Where you're like, hey, I got to loosen this up a little bit. I got to have a little more finesse at the plate. Yeah, it happens. It happens here and there where you're trying to hit the ball 500 feet. Yeah. And you will never hit it 500 feet. Right, right. You know, there's probably, like, what, four guys in the whole 200 years of baseball that went that far? Yeah. That you're like, hey, slow it down. The less you do, sometimes it's even better. I agree. I remember playing a couple years back through a little bit of pain on my shoulder.

2:52:46And I was not taking hard swings. And I had one of the best years of my career. Oh, wow. Like, crazy fact. But it happened. And then after that, I did surgery and all that. But I was like, wow, it actually happened.

2:52:59Big Cat:Yeah. If a coach told you, like, hey, we noticed that you're swinging too hard, what would your response to that coach be? I agree. Yeah. Because you see me trying to do too much. Right. and it's great that he's actually you know he trusts me to come to me and tell me hey see you over swinging like so i'm done a little bit right and you know what about what if he wasn't a coach and he was like one of the worst hitters on the team that's not worst hitters on

2:53:24PFT Commenter:the team my obp is insane yeah worst hitters on the team is crazy max that's crazy not one of the best. The guy who is on base two out of three, three out of four. You've been on the team for three or four years. A guy comes in. He's like your six hitter and he comes up to you. You're hitting like 800 on the year. You have one bad game and it's like oh, you're swinging way too hard. Hold on. No, no. I didn't say oh, you're swinging. I said hey, just swing a little easier. That's not what he said. Hey, friend to friend, dude. Swing a little easy. You're hitting 800 on the year? Yeah, 800. At that time.

2:54:00PFT Commenter:He also I would love to go through my stats, Max. This is softball. I've been on base basically every single game.

2:54:07Big Cat:It's crazy. Oh, my God. But Max, in this circumstance, we were talking about a coach saying it. Yeah, the thing is, he's not a coach. Right. But what about a friend? You'd hear from a friend. I've heard it from outside of baseball. Yeah, yeah. And sometimes, not that I took it immediately, like, hey, you don't know what you're saying. Yeah. But I was like, kind of like was in the back of my mind, like, when I get to the field today, I'm going to actually go look at that. Okay, so that's good. So that's growth. Sometimes you see your friend, your mom, your partner, whoever it is, they see you from the TV from a different angle.

2:54:41They're like, hey, I saw your actual, like your leg is turning more than it normally turns. For example, like you're rotating more. Your swing is going, your pad is going underneath the ball more than it used to be directed. Like they can see that. Yeah, always being coachable. Some people that watch you every day, they can see that. And you playing the game, you worry about so many other stuff, you don't even realize you're doing it. Right. Until it becomes a habit. And now, like you said earlier, you're like, oh, for whatever. Yeah. And you're like, oh, damn, I actually is doing that. Yeah. And you fix it, boom, you're right back on track.

2:55:13So sometimes it does help. Yeah, for sure. Whether or not, it's a good friend, it's a good whoever. Yeah, you'd say that person's a good friend. Yeah. You hear that, Max? Good friend. Some people think you're picking on them, but. No, I'm not picking on you. It's a good friend. You can't take everything that's picking on you. Is there a.

2:55:29Big Cat:Is there a difference between like a bad first base coach and a good first base coach? Because to me, that seems like the best job in the world. The best job in the world. Like we have Antoine Richards on the team, one of the best coaches I had. And he's always prepared. Like always prepared. I remember there was a ball. I finessed it to like left field. It was a lazy fly ball or whatever. He come back to me. I give him my helmet. We chilling. He goes, hey, what about you actually swing the bat? Like I looked at him. I go, I swung the bat. He goes, no, swing a little harder this time. Don't finesse it.

2:56:01Hit a homer next hit bat. He's like, yeah, you're aggressive. You are aggressive, and you didn't have that on that particular bat. And then, boom, I hit a homer. I'm like, bro, thank you. I'm like, hey, that's the way it needs to be. You're not picking on me. You're just telling me, hey, I saw this, and go get better at it. So I love that.

2:56:20PFT Commenter:Yeah. All right, so you have your foundation, the Ozzie Albies Foundation. You're focused on dog and animal rescue. That's awesome. We love dogs here. so what do you got what kind of work are you guys doing so we rescue dogs from you know shelters and stuff that you know we can i truly believe we can give them another chance in life because sometimes dogs can be you know not fitting their family that is there and they take it to the shelter they don't want it no more so we definitely believe in the the best chance program we have and we rescue the dogs train them give them a new home give them a new family i truly believe in giving another chance can help and we rescued over 100 dogs just in one year and rehomed them and uh it was one of the best things we could have done actually matter of fact we just rescued a dog last saturday like three days ago and they say he was like you know biting and stuff like that he's aggressive and then we picked him up one of the sweetest dogs dogs we ever like had from the shelter.

2:57:21He was all knotted up. We give him a bath. Now he's running the house. Yeah. Enjoying. We made like a little fence thing. He jumps the fence to go play with my own dogs. Yeah. So it's like the best fun thing you can do because we love animals.

2:57:35PFT Commenter:That's awesome. I mean, there is like a stigma with rescue dogs where it's like, oh, something's wrong with them or they've gone through trauma. Yeah, I think there's nothing wrong with them, but it's more like humans that didn't want the dog or puppy anymore and they mistreat them. right because the minute i raised my hand and the dog went like this i was like oh he probably got hit before right something like that so then we rub it on the belly and he feels comfortable and and and trust trustworthy again and boom the dog is a different animal yeah but i'm a different type of dog completely in one day right my dog stella yeah i remember when i first rescued her she was like loud noises like dropping your keys or like everything a door everything was scary They got mistreated before, 100%.

2:58:19Yeah, that's awesome. I love that. We love to do it. Hopefully, we can do 200 more this year because that's the goal. We try to keep rehoming dogs and make it a better chance for them because I think the problem is not the puppy. The problem is what we do towards the puppies.

2:58:37PFT Commenter:And the thing that I always say, because I was telling you before, the Stella Blue Coffee, where we're trying to get 1 ,000 dogs adopted this year through it, the ready-to-drink cans. But the big thing is like people want to get a dog and they don't realize how many dogs need a home. So they go to a breeder, but it's like there are so many dogs ready to be. Ready to be. Right. You know, put in a new family home and give them a chance because they deserve it. Yeah. Like I said, I don't think the problem is the dog. I think the problem is the humans that mistreat the dog. So I think I will never go to a breeder.

2:59:09I think it's just go to the shelters and adopt is a better way to do it. Agreed.

2:59:15Big Cat:I used to work for a dog adoption place way back in the day. And the most common thing was like me or my coworkers saying, oh, I'll foster this dog. And then that dog just becomes like part of your life. And you're like, well, I guess I got another dog. We did it. How many of those, how many of the dogs that you have right now were fosters that it's like, I really like this dog. So definitely Max. Max was one we found. And my wife come to me and she's like, hey, this dog, the family doesn't want it no more. He's getting a bed right now. I'm going to keep it at the house and maybe re-home him. one day later he chewed he chewed my car bumper so I kind of like spanked him on the bus hey don't do that Marv I was like no don't hit him just talk to him teach him but I wasn't like mistreating him I was just like hey don't do that and like then I talked to him and after that now I love to play with him every day sometimes you gotta be stern with Max he's the biggest fetch play dog that I have at the house so I have to throw baseball about 30 times a day and he still wants more is Max a big boy or is he a little bit he's like 100 pounds oh nice He's a golden doodle.

3:00:15I love that. And now I'm like, he's my best friend. He stands up and he stands on my shoulder. He's tall. So I love him. We do everything for him. Every time we finish a game, I get home, I'm like, hey, let's go outside. We just play with him.

3:00:30Big Cat:In the back of your head, every time you foster a dog, there's like a 50 % chance that this dog is just never leaving my house. We are fostering one right now, and I love him a lot. And I know I already have seven, but I think eight is not going to be that much. Yeah, no.

3:00:45PFT Commenter:I think once you get past like three, it's just kind of – You just have a farm. Yeah, you literally have a farm. And he's like literally 8, 10 pounds. Okay, perfect. So tiny and, I mean, I love him. Like the way he just went right away and played with our main dog, Poochie, that thinks he can run the house. He's 10 pounds and he thinks he can beat up Max, for example. No, you can't beat up Max. Exactly. Max will pick him up and throw him over there. Yeah, Max is the strongest. He chased Max, tried to bite Max. Athlete. Yeah. And he played with him. And I was like, this dog is lovable. I already want to take him inside the house.

3:01:22PFT Commenter:Yeah. Do you let your dog sleep in the bed? Because that would be a problem with seven dogs. I mean, I let my dog sleep in the bed. Tough question. But we tried to. You know, train them to not sleep in bed. But we have two of them that sleeps with us every night. Oh, those dogs think they run everything. They get to sleep in the bed. Yes. And now I can't even hug her at night. Because he wants me to hug him and cuddle with him. So I'm like, dude, like, give me a chance. He's like, nope. I'm in the middle. Move, move, move. I'm in the middle. I'm the guy. My dog's 30 pounds, like small dog, but she somehow finds a way to sleep diagonally and like take up the most amount of space in the bed at all times.

3:02:05Yes, all the time. Yeah. At all times. 24-7, man. As soon as I lay in bed, he's right here. Yeah. Done. And he throws his head back like this.

3:02:12Big Cat:Oh, that's awesome. I love it. You must get the best greetings when you get back from a long road trip. Yeah. Like seven dogs at once, eight dogs at once. Just go run errands and we come back. It's like I've been gone for a month. Yeah. Yeah. like running up to me jump jump jump they want to be baby like in my hands like a baby that's 20 for 7 are the fish happy to see you after a long trip yes definitely they really to be honest man people don't think this but they do realize when you don't like you're their owner like I walk in and they're like oh you're here I want food I know what you're gonna do I know this I know that like it's facts you should do a video where you get back from your next road trip being like I return home to my fish after a long road trip just watch how much I'm gonna do that and show it you'll see For real.

3:02:54You'll see them come up the tank right away. I know you're going to feed me. Give me my food right now. That's awesome. Yes, it's awesome. It's basically the best thing ever.

3:03:01PFT Commenter:Well, Ozzy, this has been so much fun. I have one last question. Roback question. R-H-O-B-A-C-K.com. Promo code TAKE. 20 % off your first purchase. Q-Zips, polos, hoodies, joggers, shorts. Roback.com. Promo code TAKE. Zach, you got a question? Zach's not a big baseball fan, but he's trying to get into the game. All right.

3:03:16Big Cat:How are we today, sir? I do have a quick question. with this being your 10th year in the majors, are you excited to get your gold card? And if not, would you be willing to work out like a joint custody situation with us? All right. Fun fact. I got to say this. So I know it used to be 10 year, right?

3:03:32PFT Commenter:The gold card, by the way, for people who don't know, it's a certain amount of time played in Major League Baseball. They give you a gold card. It gets you two tickets to any game at any time in a Major League Baseball stadium. So I do have the gold card already. Oh. They bumped it down to eight years. So now you have eight full service years in the show. You get the gold card. Okay. Two tickets, whatever game you want to attend, and it's a lifetime card. Yeah. Are you going to use it, you think? 100%. Okay. Yeah, when I'm done playing, I think, you know, like a playoff game. Yeah. That is the best thing ever.

3:04:06Yeah. I attended the 2024 World Series, Yankees, Dodgers, and I was doing the questions on the side after games. That was one of the most fun moments that I had. Obviously, I want to be playing. Yeah. but we got out of it quick early and I had the chance to do that. It was, I mean, the energy of the game. And in LA, it's, you know how crazy it gets. Right. Crazy. So it was good.

3:04:30PFT Commenter:To Zach's second part of his question, would you consider maybe letting him hold it for a little bit? Because you're playing. I don't have it with me right now. All right, but like maybe send it to us and he can just hold it for like a couple. I'll send you a copy. Yeah, I have it already. It's actually a cool card. I don't know if I have a picture. You're going to have to prove it by giving it to Zach. Letting him see it in person. It's eight years now.

3:04:54Big Cat:Yeah. Somebody should try to just copy those. Zach going up to the game. Zach being like, yeah, I played eight years for the Dodgers. We'll just do a proof of life, and then we'll send it right back. Right back. Hold it for a second, and we'll get it back to you. You made 14-day shipping. We do two weeks, and then right back to you.

3:05:11PFT Commenter:It would be funny if we did a video of Zach trying to go into Wigley, saying he's Ozzy Albies. He's just been like, hey, I'm Ozzy. What's up, guys? I want my two free tickets. Yeah, it's a cool thing to achieve definitely in the big leagues. It's fun. Yeah. Well, Ozzy, this has been awesome, man. Best of luck the rest of this year. Great having you in the office. Also, Matt Olsen wanted me to ask if you can dunk. I always tell him that I can dunk. I always dunk on him. Obviously, he's way taller than me. There is no chance. I say, well, I might use a trampoline. What about that? Okay. So tell him yes.

3:05:45I'll say you don't. Yeah, yeah. Let's do it. Oh, man. All right. Well, thanks so much, Ozzy. Thank you, guys. I appreciate it. Thank you.

3:05:54Big Cat:Ozzy Albies is brought to you by Chevy. Our AWLs know that Chevy Silverado is the official truck of part of my take. That's because Silverado is the truck with grit that shows up every time. Built to haul, tow, and take a beating, but smart where it counts. It's got modern tech that makes life easy. Big screens. Camera views that help with towing and parking. and a cabin that feels right whether you're road tripping, heading to practice, or if you're loading up for the weekend. During the season, it's the MVP of the tailgate. After the season, it turns into your training camp truck, hauling gear, tackling home projects, doing the work that never stops.

3:06:27Big Cat:Because the grind doesn't take breaks, neither does Silverado. Check out the current offers. Build your Silverado at Chevy.com. That's Chevy.com. Okay, let's finish the show.

3:06:37PFT Commenter:We got FAQs. Henry?

3:06:39Big Cat:Are there any athletes slash people that you would say no to interviewing if given the opportunity that you haven't already? And if so, who?

3:06:46PFT Commenter:Glenn Maxwell. There are.

3:06:49Big Cat:Ravel.

3:06:51PFT Commenter:Yeah, there are people, too, that if they don't, if they, like, say 15 minutes, we say no.

3:06:57Big Cat:Yep.

3:06:59PFT Commenter:Like, there's just certain guys that we just would not interview in a 15-minute time frame. I would say a guy like Michael Jordan.

3:07:07Big Cat:Yeah.

3:07:08PFT Commenter:Listen, if Belichick was like, hey, it's 20 minutes, we'd have been like, no chance. Yeah. We just don't. We cannot do an interview that quickly. And all we're going to do is make our fans mad, being like, why didn't you ask this? Why didn't you ask that? Like, how could you not ask that? So, yeah, we've said no to people that are in that, like, 15-minute hard-out range. We also, I think, have started to say no a little bit more to people who are on, like, hardcore press junkets, because those don't always do great. Right. What do you say, Max?

3:07:42PFT Commenter:I disagree with the Michael Jordan. Yeah, I agree. 15 minutes is too short. It's not enough. It's not enough. I'll be so much for Michael Jordan. I know, but 15 minutes would literally be... Also, MJ, if he said 15 minutes, it's not, we can figure out a way to get 30 out of that. They would be instantly like, you're done. It would be a tease. It would be such a tease, memes. People would be mad at me. It would be a tease for the people. It would be a tease for us.

3:08:10Big Cat:Such a good 15 minutes. No. No. It would have to be a conversation with him that would develop like the Belichick interview.

3:08:18PFT Commenter:Yeah. I would want two hours with him. I would be very confident in two hours we'd get an awesome interview.

3:08:24Big Cat:If you do a 15-minute interview with Michael Jordan, then the entire 15 minutes he's thinking about how he's going to get out of there.

3:08:29PFT Commenter:Right. 45 minutes. I would obviously say yes to 45 minutes. I would internally want an hour or more.

3:08:37Big Cat:Think about how many questions we would have for Michael Jordan. I would say yes to 45 minutes, but it would have to be in person the first time.

3:08:45PFT Commenter:Yeah.

3:08:45Big Cat:It would not be over Zoom.

3:08:46PFT Commenter:And we do that as well. I'll just say the name. We got offered Bill Murray, who I would love, love, love to interview, but it was like a 20-minute over Zoom. And I was like, I want to do it in person. He's a guy that I want to do in person because I think that we would gel and it would be awesome. And I don't want to do an interview just to say, because I think it would be wrong of us to be like, here's a name in the title, get everyone pumped up, and then you listen and it's like, oh, it's 15 minutes, 20 minutes, and it's over Zoom. Bill Murray's like a dream guest. I'd want to sit down with him for an hour.

3:09:26PFT Commenter:It would be so awesome.

3:09:27Big Cat:Yeah, it'd be really tough to get into anything noteworthy with Bill. If you even feel like you're having a conversation. Right. in 15 minutes i would what about tom brady i feel like he you need time one good nut with tom yeah

3:09:40PFT Commenter:post not clarity you need a shitload of time that's another one you need a lot of time um i would say no to isho speed yeah i just don't think that the uh the audience is there for him well if we're trying to actually know if we're trying to tank our ratings we do isho's like nobody would let they'd be like who what about chalamet yeah chalamet i do it in person i do Xiaomi over Zoom because I think younger people can understand Zoom a little bit more. That's also it. It'd be way better in person.

3:10:07Big Cat:I think Xiaomi would be great in person. Yeah, first time I would say in person. Like,

3:10:12PFT Commenter:do you think Michael Jordan or Bill Murray have ever opened a Zoom themselves?

3:10:15Big Cat:No.

3:10:16PFT Commenter:Right. So then I wouldn't do it. You know what I mean? Yeah. Xiaomi has. It's also the list of people now of will we travel to that person? Yes. That's like that. That also is We would drop everything for MJ. Yeah. We'd go anywhere. We'd go to his yacht if he wanted us to. Magic, too. If Magic wants us to go to the Mediterranean, we'll be there. Show up.

3:10:38Big Cat:Yep. 100%. If the Knicks win, I feel like traveling to Chalamet, we would do. Yes. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. Big Cat thought about saying no.

3:10:49PFT Commenter:No. I would say yes. I'd have to feel it out to see, like, is he a fan of ours? Because that's the other thing. is if we're traveling and he just doesn't really – he's just doing it for press. But if he's like, hey, I listen to you guys, or I know who you guys are. I'd love to come on for an hour. Can you come to New York? Like, yeah, 100%. I think he's – I think that he's someone that you could win over, though. Yeah, definitely.

3:11:14Big Cat:I think the fact that he obviously watches a ton of sports. Exactly. We would get along. We would get along real well.

3:11:20PFT Commenter:But you understand what I'm saying. It's like, is he doing a press junket? If he's doing a press junket, probably no. If they're like, hey, after the Knicks won, if Chalamet was doing a press junket, he had 15 interviews in a day and we got 30 minutes, I'd say no. That is true. That is true. Because I just don't think we would get a great interview and he would probably be tired. We get our best interviews when it's people who want to come on or people we have enough time and they're not like exhausted and they get to know us and like we have a good rapport with them. We earn that trust.

3:11:52Big Cat:Yeah, but Wyndham was like a press junket. He was good. I wouldn't say a press. No, that wasn't. That was doing press. No, but we've done lots of those interviews via the PGA Tour. When they have somebody reach out to just one, it's usually a pretty good interview. You're saying the movie press, John.

3:12:07PFT Commenter:Yeah, and look, I like these guys, and I'm happy they came on, but like Seth MacFarlane or a – do we have – Wahlberg. Do we have Matt Damon on? No. Yeah, we did have Matt Damon. The Affleck and Matt Damon one was good. Yeah, but that's a little – it's a little awkward because how it works from the other side is they're doing – They're sitting in a room for an entire day doing 15 interviews. And we're just like interview seven. So it's always a little bit hard to navigate that because they're very much aware of their in interview mode. They're like very, you know, not uptight, but they're not relaxed.

3:12:42PFT Commenter:When we get guys relaxed, that's when it's the best.

3:12:48Big Cat:Is Big Cat worried about a very flation when it comes to introducing guests? How many varies is too many varies?

3:12:54PFT Commenter:Yes.

3:12:54Big Cat:what will guest intros look like in five years if this doesn't stop it's a problem i've gotten

3:12:58PFT Commenter:myself into a hole and i don't know how to get out of it because i also feel bad when when we have someone and i don't hit them with like five or six berries i'm like people are gonna be like oh you didn't really like that guy i don't really know how to fix it i think you got to go back

3:13:13Big Cat:you started with two i think all right i think it's very very special it does i will say this

3:13:19PFT Commenter:it is intentional people like people like sit there and they're like oh they really like me it's like we do that for everyone but in the moment i think it disarms people a little bit

3:13:32Big Cat:i'm trying to think who we had on that you just hit them with we welcome on a special guest and didn't say any varies at all yeah i can't rogers might have been might have been rogers

3:13:41PFT Commenter:yeah yeah it's a problem i gotta figure out how to how to fix that we might have to we might have to have a like a black monday market crash and then get back to one because when yeah the various have lost like all meeting yeah oh i just get lost in them all right from here on forward i think maybe not friday's show because we already taped those interviews but after this week we're gonna we're gonna go keep it to one or two varies unless i really mean it and then we'll go more so you'll know so everyone will know so that still just means the one very you just don't really like that much no no that means it's i they're very very special guest well that but like a one or two so one means you don't really like that much too it means you really like like orion whitney or rusillo they're gonna get like six or seven memes memes why are you going horns down doing spider-man back here okay nice okay it looked like he was going horns down i was about to find him why are you doing spider-man but yes good astute question by that person because it has been in my head every time we start an interview.

3:14:45Big Cat:All right, we'll end with this one. As a lifelong Knicks fan, I need to hear Zach give us a pump-up speech. I want Zach to act like he's in the locker room talking to the Knicks. Last night's game was brutal to watch, and vibes are low right now. Love you guys.

3:15:01Right now? Yeah.

3:15:03Big Cat:Okay. Gentlemen, let's get together. We're going to go commit crime. We're going to... Listen, we're going to go out on this court and we're going to murder them. They'll never see their families again. It's been a physical series. And today it reaches the precipice of physicality. You go out there, you kill them.

3:15:30Big Cat:Let's go. Oh, nice. Memes and Zach, would you like to disavow the Knicks fans that did commit crime? Yes. I also don't think they're Knicks fans, even though people are... What do you mean? The guys in the Knicks jerseys in New York? They're Spurs fans that got dressed up as Knicks fans.

3:15:47PFT Commenter:No, you're wrong. They're Philadelphia fans dressed up as Knicks fans. That's 100 % Philadelphia. Well, one guy was wearing an Islanders jersey.

3:15:55Big Cat:I didn't like that either. But could people from Philadelphia afford to travel up to New York City? For crime? Yeah.

3:16:01PFT Commenter:Yeah. No, that was bad. Disavow Knicks fans. We did talk about Knicks fans. that did that.

3:16:08Big Cat:We did talk about this a few weeks ago. It's like, things go great, and then like last year, they threw garbage at the Pacers fan. Now they're just beating the shit out of Spurs fans. They heckled Wendy. The likable Knicks fan storyline is now dead, though.

3:16:21PFT Commenter:Yeah, I said that was going to happen. I said New York... Listen, that's... New York shouldn't apologize. They should just never try to be likable again. We know where it's going. Just be yourself. That's the beauty of Philly. Philly never tries to be likable. What? Those videos are bad. I'm saying, though, that... Max, when you saw the videos... I'm not comparing it to Philly. I'm saying Philly never... It's the whole, they don't like us, we don't care.

3:16:48Big Cat:Max, was it your first thought when you saw those videos? Imagine if Philly did this. Well, not really, because it is a pretty big deal regardless. People are talking about those videos. Yeah. And I think they're talking about them just as much... I think we probably would have led the show with it if it happened in Philly, because you could have scumbag Philly fans and it got under my skin. We're part of the problem. But I think that those videos were bad and people realize those videos are bad. Yeah, and I do think it's probably like 1%. Yeah, every fan base has really bad people. I had this argument for memes.

3:17:23There's so many more New York fans that the percentage-wise is about the same.

3:17:29PFT Commenter:Yeah, but that was bad. Disavow. Disavow. Disavow.

3:17:33Big Cat:I felt so bad for that guy with the bloody nose. They took off his jersey and then burned it. Yeah. That was bad. Let it be known. I was saying kill him with points. We're talking about basketball in the hype up speech. Not what? That was a bad read the room. I thought we should clarify after Zach's violent speech. Tell me. Okay. No, you were talking to the team. You're talking to the team. You're talking to the fans. Yeah. Fans, come on. What are we doing?

3:17:54PFT Commenter:When we clip that, have a graphic under saying Zach is only addressing the team, not the fans. Yeah. Disavow all fans.

3:18:01Big Cat:When Zach says we're going to commit crime, he's not talking about actual crime. He's talking about crime on the basketball court. And when we're in San Antonio, don't beat us up.

3:18:11PFT Commenter:Oh, yeah. That was awesome. Yeah. Don't forget. You're going to San Antonio. San Antonio, the people are awesome. Yeah. Big old women. What up? We've been there. Do you think maybe is there a strip club? Should San Antonio AWLs hit you guys with some reps?

3:18:26Big Cat:There's some places. I could point you in the right direction. Zach, maybe bring some backup glasses. You want to go titties and face? Next one, glasses are gone. Yeah, probably no vision on the flight back. I'll get him in front of it. This place is recommending Jaguars. I've only been to the Jaguars in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, or IP, I think it closed down. If San Antonio's half as good as the Dallas one, you boys are in for a hell of a night.

3:18:54PFT Commenter:There you go.

3:18:55Big Cat:Good times. I feel like San Antonio's blowing it by not having a big women-only club.

3:19:02PFT Commenter:That would be awesome. Yeah. That would be awesome. All right. Good show, boys. Again, thank you to TickPick. Incredible memes. Zach, Che. I love that trio.

3:19:14Big Cat:Thank you, TickPick.

3:19:14PFT Commenter:They gave us that. That trio gave us Zach. Yeah. And the McDonald's. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. Like, the McDonald's story was when we're like, oh, shit. This guy is fucking weird. And we like him. Keep the teeth on me. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Put them on. In? Yeah. Put them in for the numbers. numbers Zach you lead 98

3:19:37Big Cat:memes 11 2 95 88 I'll go 15 I'll go 50 55 if I didn't eat coffee that night we'd never know that McDonald's story yeah true

3:20:0491.

3:20:05PFT Commenter:91. 91.

3:20:2627.

3:20:28PFT Commenter:27.

3:20:32Big Cat:happy birthday to Kate Upton. Happy birthday to Pokey Reese, the big two. Happy birthday, Bill Burr. Happy birthday, buddy. Happy birthday on Thursday to Joe Montana and Vince Lombardi, maybe the best football birthday of all time. Happy birthday also on Thursday to Diana Taurasi, Kodak Black, and Henry Hill from Goodfellas. And also, we're on birthday watch. Hank's birthday coming up on Saturday. Wait, you told me it was Wednesday. The 13th. You told me it was Wednesday. I got confused. My number. Listen, Hank's birthday is not Wednesday. Hank's birthday is the 13th, which is Saturday. And we're waiting for it.

3:21:14So it's not Wednesday? No. It's Saturday.

3:21:16Big Cat:Got it. My birthday, Mulcahy. It's always Saturday. Mulcahy? Which one? Which one? I think Nick. Okay, happy birthday. All right, go Knicks. Dave Mulcahy. Oh, yeah, it is his birthday. Love you guys.

3:21:32Thank you.

3:22:02Thank you.

3:22:33Thank you.

3:23:03Thank you.

3:23:32Thank you.