PMS 2.0 1375 - LIVE From The Home Run Derby, Rob Manfred, CC Sabathia, Jett Passan, Aaron Judge, Shohei Ohtani

18:01Pat McAfee:Obviously, signing John Boy. Obviously, with how welcoming you've been to us. What went into that decision? And do you believe, like we believe, that that is a great thing for the MLB? Well, you know, it absolutely is a great thing for Major League Baseball, 100%. Ironically, in the early years, we were, you know, very forward-thinking on Internet delivery. You know, MLB.TV was the first over-the-top product. The problem is we got into this thing where we thought we could drive everything to our platform. Got it. Okay. So then when I became commissioner, you know, I came up a different side of the business.

18:41Some of the people you were referring to came to me and said, you know, we got this wrong. You know, we're just in the wrong place. We're trying to drive everybody here. The right strategy is to make sure we are where the people are. You got to go where people are going. And that shift has been a really good thing for us, a really good thing.

19:02Pat McAfee:We've enjoyed the hell out of it. We've enjoyed covering it. And obviously, you know this now because you guys have leaned into it and your crew has. It's like a lot of things are clips. Like our show is a clip show to some people where they just see clips. And it doesn't matter if it's just the clips. At least they're seeing our product. I like to see that you guys are doing the same thing with the MLB. Now, another question, the rules changes that have taken place. I talked to Bettman a little bit. and whenever they had the lockout, I think the NHL had the lockout, they changed the rules and made a different game coming out of the lockout.

19:30Pat McAfee:They have obviously prospered since then. For you guys, it seems like you guys have tinkered with the rules, whether it's the pitch clock or some other things. No game is too long. It feels like it's all consumable. Is that ongoing? Is that at a point where you figured it out? And when does the decision go to let's try to make our game more suitable for the modern times? Well, look, when you get to the point that you think you have it figured out, you better retire because they need a different guy. You know, I mean, 100 % got to tell you that. We're always trying to fix this. Yeah, yeah, I got it.

20:01I respect that. I mean, look, we feel like we made a set of really fundamental changes. You know, the institution of the clock, the elimination of the shift, the bigger bases, they were really two themes behind it. Number one, we listened to our fans. Our fans were saying the game's too long. There's not enough action. and, you know, we work to address that. The second thing is all of the changes were directed at athleticism. You know, when you can take your defenders and move them around wherever you want on the field, that player doesn't need to be as athletic if he has to stay in position. And, you know, you saw it last night in the draft.

20:43I had my little 7-year-old grandson was with me sitting in the front row. He sits through like 24 picks. So I saw him this morning. He says, why did they only pick shortstops? I said, well, he picked shortstops because it's the best athlete, right? Yeah. And that's important. And we need to continue to look at the game, listen to what our fans are saying. And, you know, I'm not looking to discard the history and tradition. I am looking to make adjustments to make sure we stay relevant. How long have you been with the MLB? I came inside in 1998, and I was an outside lawyer for 10 years before that.

21:17I'm old. Okay, so 37 years. Yeah.

21:18Pat McAfee:Roughly with the league. First of all, thank you for your commitment to sport and commitment to league. I said that to a lot of people. I think the equipment manager for the AL is 49 years or something like that. And then the equipment manager for the NL is the Braves guy. I think it's like 30-some years. It's like everybody we've met has a lot of skin in the game here at the MLB for a long time. With that being said, I have to bring something up. Okay. Because I attacked you pretty good. when you get caught on a conversation by somebody recording here, you're over here, and you call it a piece of metal or whatever.

21:56Pat McAfee:Okay, listen, I thought you got screwed there because you're getting recorded whenever you don't know it. But do you think like that and other things have led to a stain about how people view you? Just strictly, let me tell you why. Me working with you and your people these last two weeks, you might have the greatest group around you out of all the leagues. Legitimately, you might have the greatest group around you. And obviously you were the one in charge of them. But at that moment, it was hard not to just be like, what is this guy? Did you learn anything from that moment? And did that moment deep down piss you off?

22:23Pat McAfee:Because it's like, how am I getting outed by people that are supposed to be my team there? Look, I think if you got one chance to turn the clock back and undo something, that would probably be the thing that I would undo. I did learn a couple of things from it. Number one, you know, I'm a lawyer by training. you know you you say things to defend a position um in in this case it was you know what we had decided to do with respect to the astros and that whole situation you say things to defend your decision and one of the things i've learned you know at some point you put your decision out there let people think what they think and you're better off yeah you know you really are better off because the guy who thinks you're wrong the chances you're turning around ain't that good yeah especially in Just not that good, you know.

23:17And so, yeah, I really did learn something from it. I think it made me better at the job as time has gone on. But, you know, one of the great things about this job is you learn something every day. You know, you kind of and I think one of the reasons that you've had a positive experience with the people that work in baseball is I do think as an organization, even though we have the reputation of history and tradition, I do think the organization looks at the game every day and says, what should we be doing to make sure we're better?

23:51Pat McAfee:Well, I believe it. And just from what I've experienced, and I want to let you know, we were a part of that whole thing coming after you. I appreciate you addressing it, but I also appreciate you sitting in that batter's box, pun intended, and just continuing to go about it. Because you're in the fire, brother. You are in the fire. Ty Schmidt, lifelong fan, also an AL All-Star this year. Yeah, absolutely. In respect to the salary cap debate, how likely do you think that will be in the next, I mean, I don't know, 10 years? Because I think as a Yankees fan, and we've talked about this a bunch, like I know there will be a floor, so teams will have to spend to that.

24:24But I've never liked how, you know, like teams like the Yankees and the Dodgers and the Mets will get punished because their owners are willing to go spend money, you know, to bring town. And where, you know, these guys are from Pittsburgh and it's like we miserable. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. They just think they're okay with not spending money and hoping that their farm system and the guys they draft will be good enough to kind of take them to the next level. Yeah, just where do you see that going? Yeah, so here's what I think about that. You know, we begin on every issue by listening to our fans.

24:55I think it is undeniable, if you're denying it, you're not being honest, that we have fans in markets who believe they don't have a fair opportunity. Correct. to win. Yeah, that's one of them right there. You can blame the owner or whatever. It's the system. It is the system that produces that. And at the end of the day, what we sell is competition. And so anything that undermines competition, which I believe the issue you're raising does, sooner or later we're going to have to come to grips with that issue. 100%. You know what? I'm looking at his jersey. I've got to tell you, we did a custom one for you, Pat, just to show that we washed.

25:37Pat McAfee:Yeah, man. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, this is hilarious. Thank you, man. You're welcome. You're welcome. That is awesome. We thought it would increase the likelihood you would wear it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Hold on, though. To follow up on his question, and it's real. Like, I grew up in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Mm-hmm. Okay, we had the Pittsburgh Penguins. They've won multiple back-to-back Stanley Cups. Pittsburgh Steelers, obviously, you might as well just. Creme de la creme. They've been season tickets for that in, like, 30 years in holding. You know what I mean? One of the premieres. So, like, the Pirates being a team, how many interviews have you done with a shirtless man?

26:14Pat McAfee:There you go. Not that many. Yeah, not that many. Okay. Well, maybe this will be the last one. Maybe this will be an annual tradition. But the – Oh, now, that looks good. Yes, it does. I mean, that really looks good. It feels pretty good, too. I should have – Custom ham on that thing? Yeah, we're breaking chains on the street. Yeah, thank you, boss. I appreciate you. When I grew up in Pittsburgh, though, I wasn't the biggest baseball fan strictly because I wasn't a Pirates fan. fan. And the reason why I wasn't a Pirates fan is because the Pirates were just a team that you go down to the ballpark and have a good time.

26:41Pat McAfee:You never expected them to actually win. And it's like, I think at this stage, especially with the sell the team chance, everything you say, it's the system's fault. It's like, it'd be good for the league for every team to be competitive, right? Is that what you're selling is whenever it's like we're trying to get that? 100%. For the good of the game, brother. Because I think I would have been a good baseball fan and probably player. Would have been a good player. But just stayed away from it strictly because my dad was like, nope, we're not doing it and we're not getting into it because of the Pirates experience.

27:05Pat McAfee:Not saying it's just the Pirates. There's other teams that feel this way as well. But it's good for the sport, I think, right? You're right on the money, Pat. I mean, exactly right. The fact of the matter is Pittsburgh's a great sports town. Great. It is a great sports town. There are tons and tons of really passionate Pirates fans who remember when the Pirates were a great, great team year in, year out. And they just want to look at the system and say, we got a fair chance to win when you're sitting around in February looking at spring training and what the year is going to be like. And we need to deal with that issue.

27:47Pat McAfee:Okay, well, we appreciate you. We assume you will for the good of all Yenzers. Now, speaking of the Pirates, we got the guy. We got the starting pitcher, Paul Skeens. Paul Skeens, we love him. He played for the Indians in Indianapolis. Obviously, we watched his run in Omaha with LSU. He's been very cool to us. We're very appreciative of him. I saw him miss a football throw for a million bucks at my big night out. He told me he slept soundly, too, sorry, because I didn't have to give away another million bucks. So I like the cut of his jib. But it's not just Paul. I see, obviously, there's an entire slew of international media right now.

28:22Pat McAfee:I assume that's Japanese media, but I don't want to get too – I think that's Japanese media. Sure. Line up around Shohei. Aaron Judge is hitting absolute bombs. You've got Big Dumper, Kyle Raleigh playing great. It feels like your stars are all playing great. How good is that for the MLB and sports as a whole? Look, we feel like we have great momentum right now. Yes. The rule changes helped. We're three years into them. They appear to be durable. You know, when you make a change, you want it to last, right? Yes. They appear to be durable. But you throw on top of that the influx of talent that we've had into the game.

28:57You know, Paul's game is a great example. I mean, nobody, you know, really knows about him. And then, you know, all of a sudden in one year, he's the guy, you know. I mean, you know, Aaron Judge, Shohei. Scoble, too. Sorry. Yeah, I mean, another great example. And I'll tell you, you think it's crazy here. Our opener in Japan. That was fun to watch, dude. I mean, it was unbelievable. I mean, unbelievable.

29:24Pat McAfee:You guys are selling ads to Japanese companies? Oh, yeah. Our Japanese business, we had a reception before game one, and it was our sponsorship group. So I thought, you know, I'm going to this party. I'm going to see the usual suspects, you know, our American sponsors. Twenty five Japanese companies, completely separate slate of companies. And, you know, our individual teams have taken advantage of it. The Dodgers clearly and, you know, the Cubs went with the Dodgers on that trip. And, you know, it was great. for their project. Yep. Friend of the program. You know, that's true. You know, and it's important to say that it's not just one guy.

30:03Yes, agreed. Exactly. It's a group of guys that have come here and made a difference. We're lucky. We got great players. We got some of our very best in big markets. And as a result, you know, our attendance and our ratings are really good.

30:18Pat McAfee:Commissioners always hated by their crew. Bettman even had the best year that they've had. He got his ass booed at the draft. Roger Goodell I think he's having a little bit of a baby face turn I think he's having a little bit of a baby face turn Still gotta go out there with firefighters and the military Still gotta Still gotta do that How do you handle that as a human Because you know you have to make decisions And you have to be the face of decisions And people are gonna hate it Everybody will say you get paid well Obviously But you're still a human in there You're a lawyer But I assume you're a human in there I haven't practiced in a really long time I'll tell you, anybody who tells you it doesn't bother them is lying to you, okay?

30:58I mean, just 100%. Nobody likes getting booed. But, you know, you do learn to manage it. I mean, even last night during the draft, you come out, you try to smile at the people that are booing. Yeah, they're going to boo your ass. You know, they're going to boo no matter what. You come out, you smile, and you go on. And, you know, I do think that the biggest thing to think about is to convince the majority of the fans that you care about what you're putting out there in front of them for us, you know, 186 days over a 162-game season. It's unbelievable. Yeah, what's the biggest, I guess, common misconception on the commissioner's job, what you guys do?

31:40And then I guess the second part of that question is there we talk about the new rules and speeding up the game. Is there any old school MLB rules you'll bring back?

31:48Pat McAfee:Yeah, maybe like a boxing glove for when you want to fight. You know, I have to tell you, your second question may be the hardest question anybody's asked me in a really long time. And I'll tell you why. We are really forward focused. and having said that all of the rule changes that we put in three years ago our kind of theme internally is let's put back out there the best form of baseball right let's bring back the stolen base let's bring back the athletic middle infielders let's bring back the ball in play not just relying on a home run so in a really kind of weird way we were looking backwards too you know we wanted to get back to our best um i think the piece of the commissioner's job that people completely ignore is the internal piece and it gets back to what pat was talking about with our organization um you know people focus there's the guy you know he's running the sport the fact of the matter is our sport gets run by 1200 hard-working people that are in that office in New York every single day, and it's really hard to get it right.

33:03Everybody thinks, you know, oh, God, everyone wants to work in a sport, baseball, football, whatever your sport is. But it's harder than you think to get your organization right.

33:11Pat McAfee:Well, your culture is seemingly great from everybody that we have met. So congratulations on that. Not easy as a leader. I know you want to defer to other people, but there's somebody that has to guide the culture. You're doing a great job, I think. Tone, Pittsburgh Pirates fan, loves your league, has a question for you. Yes, I do. Yeah, you talked about forward thinking. The robot umpires, the auto strike zone, which is going to be used tomorrow night, I believe, is probably some of the most forward-thinking thing that's come across. Obviously, umpires in the strike zone, the strike zone changing every game.

33:37Like, it's something that's just been a part of baseball forever. Where are we at on that? And do you think that would be the most forward-thinking role that you guys have done? Yeah, look, I'm going to object to one piece of your question. Sure. I never call the automated strike zone system robot umpires because one of the things we really do want to preserve is the role of the umpire in the game. And, you know, the way the system is designed, he gets the call. He makes the call just like he does today in order to – that's his role. You know, that's what he's doing out there, number one. Number two, technology off the charts good.

34:15I mean, we started 10 years ago. You know, it was two inches that it was the margin of error. Now it's like a hundredth of an inch. I mean, it's unbelievably good. And so here's the funny thing. You know, I have a very, we're not going to get into exactly what it is, but I do have a transparent email and it's on purpose. I like to hear from people figure it out, just regular fans. And I do, now there's filters for bad words. I want to kill you does not get through. I wish I had that filter on mine. But here's the thing. We put it out there in spring training. Obviously, a lot of people go to spring training.

34:56It's a really great time of the year for us. So this year, the emails about bad balls and strike calls have gone like this, up crazy, because they've now seen you can do it better. And the sort of theme of the emails is, what the hell are you waiting for? You got it. You know, you ought to go do it.

35:16Pat McAfee:And then there's this too, right, the reviews, challenges, which is not in regular season yet, right? Right. We're going to use it tonight. It's been used in the minor leagues for several years, and we tested it with big league guys in spring training last year. We're in a process directed at bringing it to the big leagues next year. The great thing about it that we didn't fully understand, you know, the rendition on the board afterwards is like a fan-friendly. Yeah, like tennis. The Hawkeye technology where it's coming in. Yeah, you know, I mean, it's weird. I was actually out at the U.S. Open, and, you know, I played a lot of competitive tennis up through college.

35:52Oh, really? You checked the watch? Yeah. I quit a long time ago, but I did play. Anyways, I'm out at the Open, and all of a sudden I realize there's no linesman. There's no linesman, but what had misled me is they're still showing the rendition up on the board, and, you know, it made me realize there is entertainment value in that rendition that we need to take advantage of.

36:15Pat McAfee:Well, there's also skepticism if you ask the tennis players. I mean, that was the first thing that we asked because in our league, the NFL, we've had to go through a lot of technology. And I think what you're going to experience over the next couple years, the same thing the NFL experienced at the beginning of it all, the umps are not just going to casually just disappear. Okay? The refs for the NFL had a lot of pride in the calls that they were making in the field. So the technology thing was almost a pushback from the refs until it was so dumb, like, hey, they're here to help you. Because I think I saw a guy casually go like this, and the ump was like, get your ass.

36:45Pat McAfee:out of here. And that's because the ump is like, oh, you think you're going to show me up? So we had that with the NFL refs for a bit until they got to the point of just acknowledging it was going to happen and understanding that it's there to help them as opposed to hurt them. Good luck to you trying to sell all the umpires on that. Especially because you guys got umps that are legendary. I'll tell you about that. That's actually kind of interesting. We had exactly that dynamic when we first went to instant replay. We don't want it. Because they think you're showing them up. Yeah. You know what flipped them?

37:16the media. They got tired of seeing themselves being shown up, you know, on ESPN and wherever. So they flipped on replay. We actually have the right with our umpires union to deploy the automated strike zone system. And, you know, they were really forward thinking about it this time around. They really were good about it.

37:35Pat McAfee:It helps them. You know, that's like the NFL refs, I think had to, and I don't think all of them are on board just yet still, but I think for them, It was just pointing out like, hey, instead of getting your family threatened afterwards, can we not just correct this in like two minutes or two seconds and move forward? Connor has a question for you, Commish. Yeah, Commish, something you guys were kind of ahead of, it feels like, was the streaming. With Apple TV, you guys were one of the first to kind of be on a streaming service full time, basically throughout an entire season. I know how important local markets is to baseball when it comes to TV.

38:08How are you navigating that kind of situation, especially now as, you know, the NFL gets into it in other places? And are you guys up right now? I'm sorry? Are your rights deals up right now? No, no, we're not up until after the 29 season. Got it. So, excuse me, I said 29, 28. 29 will be the beginning of our new deals. Got it. It's right around the corner. So, look, I think the most important thing to say is, you know, the media environment right now is really kind of disrupted, particularly at the local level. It's hardest for us because we're the most local dependent in the RSN model. I think our goal is twofold.

38:53Number one, we want to sell more games nationally. Okay. We think it's good for our exposure. more broadcast exposure, big game exposure. We also believe that the buyers that are out there are going to be national buyers, particularly the streaming companies. They don't want to buy the state of Wisconsin. We all do respect. We love Wisconsin. Yeah, we do. And two counties in Michigan, which is what the brewers have to sell. You've got to sell more nationally. Secondly, we need to streamline our offering. We need to get out of the blackout business. Here's a great one for you. We took over the Padres local broadcast a couple years ago because of the bankruptcy that it occurred.

39:39Within two weeks, we lit up MLB.TV, which is an out-of-market product. We lit it up in-market in San Diego. We sold 20 ,000 subscriptions in the middle of the season. What's that tell you? There were 20 ,000 people in San Diego who wanted to watch games, were willing to pay for it, and we were telling them, sorry, you know, I can't help you. So we need to, we need, and we are too many places right now. We've experimented. Apple's been a great experiment, but we do have a lot of fragmentation. We need to get into a more streamlined model where a fan knows, Friday, I want to see my game tonight.

40:19Either they go to a digital service, they know the game's there. If it's not there, it's going to be one of a couple of national games, and it's easy for the fans. That's what it needs to look like.

40:28Pat McAfee:By 2029, all the fans are going to be sophisticated enough with everything. And are you watching all the other leagues? Do you guys talk to each other? Do you have a commissioner's group text? I had dinner with all four of them. We don't have a group text that we use regularly. I had dinner with all four of them last week in Sun Valley. I've known Roger the longest. You know, we actually belonged to the same golf club years before either of us were commissioners. Wow. Which golf club? That's a place in New York. We don't need to do that.

40:59Just trying to get in there. You know, Adam, we've had a great relationship. You know, he's great about it. He came to the World Series last year, as did Roger, actually. And, you know, I went to the Super Bowl. I went to part of the NBA playoffs. Really nice back and forth. and Gary and I actually went to the same undergraduate school. So I've been doing panels with Commissioner Bettman for a really long time, and he will occasionally remind me that he's been commissioner longer than I have. Yeah, I can imagine holding that over your head for a little bit.

41:29Pat McAfee:That's a great group of people to be friends with each other because for us as sports fans, we appreciate the fact for everything you guys do for us year-round, and we appreciate what baseball has done for us, not only these last couple weeks, But until we're done, I think, I think it's going to become a new summer thing for us. And I'm learning about the game. So I'm like a child that doesn't really know much about the game. Can throw it. Can catch it a little bit. Can make contact if I have to. Love Paul Skeens. Love Shohei. Love Aaron Judge. Domper. Love Big Domper. Love the Trumpets guy. And I love the Home Run Derby.

42:00Pat McAfee:So, like, I'm an eager new fan. And I think the way you guys have handled it has been fantastic. You should be very proud of yourself. Well, thank you. And, look, we're happy, really happy to have you here. I can't tell you, you know, it's part of where we started your first question. We want to go where people go, and I know people are listening and watching you all the time. Unbelievable that people watch our show. It's so outrageous. Well, Kamish, how do you think tonight goes? I think it's going to be really exciting. You know, it's just for our fans, it's a different kind of product, right?

42:29It's kind of made for the one-off event. Let's get some excitement. You get a view of the players that's different. You'll see out on the field, very casual, the guys that are not participating. so it's going to be a really fun evening.

42:42Pat McAfee:Man, we appreciate the hell out of you. What's that, Connor? I mean, yeah, it'll be a really fun evening if we just juice the balls. Yeah, that is a question. Why don't we just do that? What's going on with the balls? Why are the balls always a question? So, just quick follow-up. Obviously, Big Dumpers not feeling the effects. Neither is Aaron or Shohei or some guys. But then there's other guys maybe that don't have as much power that are saying the balls are different. Is that a constant conversation in baseball? The balls? Because I remember a few years back they were juiced, allegedly. Yeah, we did have four or five years ago a statistically significant performance of the baseball we undertook a whole program directed at one thing consistency at the end of the day you have to remember our product like unlike anything else in professional sports it's handmade you know the sewing and everything is different so like the issue that people were talking about this year the seams are a statistically insignificant amount higher, but that's just kind of how the sewing went this year.

43:42You're not going to fix that. We're hoping tonight we got little baby seams.

43:47Pat McAfee:These balls are flying. We appreciate you so much. Hopefully it's the first of many times we get a chance to chat with you. Congratulations on everything you've been through at the MLB. Thank you for the hospitality. Thanks for having me. It's great to be with all you guys. Ladies and gentlemen, the commissioner of MLB, Rob Manpreet. Thank you. That was really fun. We're still live. If you don't want to bear anything, don't say anything. Peace. Okay. As Commissioner Manfred continues about his day, we will obviously move to a legend, a first ballot Hall of Famer. I believe Commish and CeCe are about to switch places with each other, and we can't thank him enough.

44:31Pat McAfee:First ballot Hall of Famer, ladies and gentlemen, World Series champ, legend, CeCe Sabathia. Yes, CeCe. Hey, Commish, thank you. You're awesome, you're awesome. Go get him back. CeCe's looking good. Yeah. Thank you, Commish. Hell yeah, Commish. What's going on, CeCe? And if you want a little bit of Red Bull, it does give you wings. There's a sugar free one too if you need it. CeCe, good to see you. Diesel them high. Hey, good to see you. We're not all 6 '8". I've got to raise my seat. All right, here we go. All right. How tall are you? 6 '7". 6 '7". Jeez Louise. Congratulations, first ballot. Thank you.

45:13Pat McAfee:Well earned. Legendary stuff. Appreciate it. Obviously, you've done a lot of great things for the league since retiring and obviously while you're playing. That's my first time getting a chat with him. I feel like he's – hey, I feel like he and the MLB are doing very good. Do you agree? Yeah, I feel like we're on the right track. I feel like we're doing some good things and, you know, Getting fans back to the ballpark, the pitch clock has helped. That was Rob. The ABS, I think, is going to help. So I'm excited about where the game is actually going. ABS. Automatic balls and strikes. Automatic balls and strikes.

45:42I'm sorry. It's not robot. I'm sorry. Don't call it a robot. Don't call it a robot.

45:46Pat McAfee:We do not like saying it's a robot. They're taking our jobs. Obviously, Boone is the manager and a lot of Yankees represented out here at the All-Star game. What is it like for the players at the All-Star game? Is there a lot of chit-chatting with people they've never met before? Do all these guys know each other? Like, what's the big benefit of the Austin? Some of these guys know each other, right? Because, you know, a lot of them play perfect game coming up, and, you know, so they know a lot. What's that? It's like AAU for baseball. Got it. So it's like, you know, them coming up together. But now, you know, you get here, and there's some guys that you don't know.

46:19You get to hang out with, you know, some players that you look up to if you're a young guy. I know Jacob Medzorowski is, you know, 25 innings into his career and gets to come out here and hang out with Clayton Kershaw and all these different guys. So it's a lot of fun to be able to mingle here. It's tiring, though. I feel like the all-star break, I always tell them, the all-star break is too short. Like, they just ended last night. They get here, they got the home run derby, all the media stuff. Then you got the game, and then you're right back on. Yeah, it's for the players. For the players, we need, like, Friday to Friday.

46:49Pat McAfee:We were watching them load in the bags last night at, like, midnight. Yeah, and guys are coming in. If you have a night game on Sunday and you get in at, you know, 1 a.m. and you got to be up to do all of this stuff and gets a little tired. That is baseball as a whole, though. You guys are on the road for 186 days, I believe, is what Manfred just said. There are 162 games. Yeah. Too many games? No. No, I love it. I love it. I mean, it's every day, you know, when you get to be a part of it. Well, I didn't play every day either. I'm only playing every fifth day. Every five days. I mean, I love it.

47:20Go ahead, Tom. Yeah, Cece, I have a question about skeins. because you started your career with a small market club, but he has a two ERA and he's four and eight right now. How do you deal with that mentally as a pitcher? How is it in the clubhouse? Do you think he feels jaded at all? How do you think that's going to affect his career later? No, I think when you're in that situation, I was never as good as he was. You know what I'm saying? First bout of all favor. But I think it's not weird, but guys are apologizing to you. Like, oh, we want to score you runs. and, you know, they feel just as bad as, you know, the fans do.

47:54But as a pitcher, you know, you go out and do your thing, and it's a team sport. So, you know, they don't get on you when you give up homers or give up runs and stuff like that. So I never, you know, got on my teammates about not scoring runs or making errors or anything like that because nobody's saying anything to me when I'm giving up 900-foot home runs.

48:13Pat McAfee:They're talking like some historic shit for Paul Skeens right now, and obviously the Pirates went on a little bit of a run. And I think we have a graphic with all the ERA plus, I believe is the stat here. Yeah. Average ERA plus, can we take off the lower third there, is 100. Okay. This is new stats you guys make up. Every sport's making up new stats. Yeah, I don't even, I don't understand that. You guys can explain that. ERA plus. I was told it's ERA plus factoring ballpark dimensions and weather. A bad ERA is 75. A good ERA plus is 125. Paul Skeen's 214. Oh, wow. Right now in 43 career starts, 22 % better than any live ball pitcher since 1920 across his first two MLB seasons.

48:53Pat McAfee:So he's holding up his end of the bargain. Obviously, he's a starting pitcher for the All-Star game. It's not just him. Scoobo, the other guy pitching for the Detroit Tigers, he's an absolute monster. Feels like there's a lot of great pitching going on right now. It is. I mean, I feel like the pitching outdoes the hitting right now. But Scoobo right now, he throws 103-mile-an-hour cutters. Yeah. Like, he is unbelievable. He almost took Detroit to the World Series by himself last year. He got them to the ALCS. So that team has a really good chance to win. Last year they were doing it with just pitching.

49:19Now they're doing it with pitching and offense. So it's going to be scary come October when that guy is healthy and he's on the mound. He's going to be hard to beat.

49:27Pat McAfee:Yeah, he's got a lot of moxie to him. I appreciate that. I love that emotion. Yeah, me too. You've got to pitch with that emotion. I love it. Got to be a human. Who won 26 last night? Gage Wood, kid from Arkansas. Yeah, correct. He was the one that was, whenever they called time, was staring at the guy. I love everything about it. Yeah, these guys are trying to get to where you are. I think Tony just mentioned it, first ballot Hall of Famer. I know one of the special things for us in the NFL was we would watch Baker get that knock at the door. What was that moment like when you found out that you were going?

49:55I know you were probably expecting it, but what was that moment like when it was realized? You know, it was a great moment. I didn't expect anything. You know, I had a bunch of people over at the house, and they have this, like, Hall of Fame tracker. And, you know, everybody was telling me not to check it. I was checking that thing every five days. For the last week. I kept checking. I was refreshing, refreshing. And, you know, I felt pretty good on the morning of. And even when I got the call, I mean, they tell you, you know, if it's between 6 and 6.45, they call it like 6.38. You know what I mean?

50:23So I'm like, it was closing and everybody sitting around. But it was cool. I mean, I was kind of in shock. And then if you watch the video, my daughter kind of grabs me and then I kind of come out of it and get to celebrate. But it's just a surreal feeling coming from where I came from, in Villal, California, to Cooperstown. If I can make it there, I feel like any kid can make it.

50:43Pat McAfee:Yeah, if you're 6 '7", and can throw the ball. It's a great boomer. I want to go back to the Yankees. When you first got there, I remember a lot of the rhetoric or the media was saying, oh, he might not want to go to New York because he doesn't want to deal with all the bullshit surrounding it. Hoopla. Yeah, hoopla, if you will. How impressed have you been with Max Fried, who goes there, and initially he's not expected to be the ace. They have Garrett Cole, and then he kind of has to step up. And he's been unbelievable so far. How impressed have you been with him? And how difficult is that when you're kind of thrust into like, hey, you've got to be the guy for the Yankees now?

51:21Yeah, I mean, it's been incredible to watch what he's done. You know, coming over from Atlanta, you know, he's already an established pitcher, a great pitcher. And then coming into New York, it can be difficult. And, you know, we've seen so many guys come in there and fail. But I knew in spring training, I just watched him, watched his demeanor, watched the way he worked in his bullpens. I'm like, he's going to be fine. But no matter whether he has to be the ace or whatever he has to be, he'll be pretty good. So it's kind of hard making that transition to New York. Myself, I didn't want to come just because I was a West Coast kid.

51:53You know, I grew up on the West Coast. I thought I'd play for Dodgers, Anaheim, whatever. But it ended up being the best move I could make. It was the best decision I ever made coming to New York. My family's growing there. We blast them. But if you can make that place work, it's the greatest place I'll ever play. If you can make it in New York, you can make it anywhere. It's a true story. It's a traveling circus. Everywhere we go, the stadium's filled. Every time you show up in the Bronx, the stadium's filled. Stop spreading. I mean, it's all real. I get chills. Look, I got a bunch. It's real.

52:25So it's a lot of fun putting on those pinstripes.

52:28Pat McAfee:Okay, let's talk about the other side of the country. And you talked about a team you'd be playing for, the Dodgers. I mean, over here, we got Japanese media already setting up for Shohei. Obviously, they got in here like an hour before we even started. Nobody else was here except for them setting it all up. He has been spectacular for baseball as a whole. Have you got a chance to meet him? I think we're talking to him at like 235-ish right here. I'll host the press conference. Have you heard about this? Oh, yeah. I'm hosting the press conference. I love it. I love it. Hard-hitting questions. Where are you supposed to be here?

52:57In that jersey? I love it. Definitely. You've got to keep the jersey. One million percent. You've got to keep the jersey.

53:02Pat McAfee:You've got a question, make it a good one. All right, enough. Let's move along. Honored to be a part of it. But then we're talking to Shohei here because the NL media day is right after that press conference. So everybody's going to be in here. This place is going to be berserk. Yeah. He has been spectacular for baseball. Have you ever met him? What are your thoughts? How do the OGs feel about him? Yeah, no, I met him a couple times. And the very first time I seen Ohtani play, we were in Anaheim. And he hits a ground ball, chopper to short, and he beats it out. And I looked at Luis Severino right to my right.

53:29And I was like, that's the best baseball player I've ever seen in my life. He's the best baseball player. You remember that? You guys played Little League. I'm not wrong. We've been saying that since 30 years. Remember that 12-year-old kid that just hit homers? He threw the hardest. He's the fastest. Gross smirk early. This guy's doing that in the big leagues. You know what I'm saying? He throws the hardest. He hits the ball the furthest. Like, he's the best player that I've ever seen. I mean, I'm a huge Barry Bonds fan. Grew up in the Bay Area, and he's my GOAT. But I have to put Shohei up there because I don't think Barry can go out and throw seven-inning shutout.

53:58So me and D-Bot's not big baseball people.

54:00Pat McAfee:We agree. This guy's pitching faster than everybody. He's hitting it. Isn't that the game? Isn't that the game? It's literally our first one. I've created that guy on the show a thousand times. I told Ty, hey, Ty, this is the guy. He's like, hey, whoa, whoa, whoa, relax. Yeah, but think about that. The guy you created, probably in real life, going to have a little bit of an arrogance problem. True. Show him the complete opposite. It's like, hello, thank you very much. It's an honor to be here. I am better than all of you at everything. Yeah. And then the bat flip that one game where he was getting back.

54:35Pat McAfee:I was like, yeah, I like that. The Americanism. Oh, John. It's happening right in front of our eyes. It is. CC, we appreciate you stopping by. Congratulations on the Hall of Fame, Maude. And what are you looking forward to tonight? We need Big Dumper needs to hit a few, right? Big Dumper needs to hit a few, but James Wood. James Wood is my favorite player in the big leagues, man. And watch this kid's going to put on the show tonight. James Wood. James Wood from Rockville, Maryland. Yes, sir. Known for his unique combo, power, and athleticism. Yes, sir. Got some notes on each of the hitters from the MLB.

55:05Pat McAfee:Are you ready for the press conference? I love it. Ladies and – what's that? Okay, here's – put that up. Ben Ward from ESPN, who does our simulcast, said their stats, people ran through all their stats. They think the Cruz missile, O 'Neal Cruz, is the odds-on favorite to win this. Strictly because of Velo and bat speed is what they're saying. And I've heard that he puts on a show during BP. Oh, my God. They just released a video the other day from the catcher's point of view. The ball jumps off his bat like no one else. I feel like we've got a good field. It's going to be a lot of fun. Jazz is going to put on the show.

55:42Obviously, you know, he's a showman. Byron Buxton's from Atlanta. It's going to be a lot of fun. Big Dumper is leading the league in homers. So Brent Rooker is excited to be in the home run derby. So it's going to be a lot of fun. This should be a good one.

55:55Pat McAfee:Shout out to ESPN Stats for all of that. And shout out to the Pirates probably winning the home run derby and having the ace and not being able to win a goddamn game. That's cool. First ballot Hall of Famer. Appreciate it. CeCe Sabathia. We'll be back in the next hour before we lead into the press conference that's happening right here that I will be hosting. We'll be streaming it live on our YouTube. It will also be on MLB Network. Yes, we think it's ridiculous, but I'm going to go up there and I'm going to try it. Hell yeah. Because this is the All-Star game. This is a Midsummer Classic. This is history.

56:23Pat McAfee:This is legacy. This is legendary. And this is a week we'll talk about forever. Ty's on the fucking All-Star team. Congratulations. First All-Star now. I didn't even see the pants. I love that. Four units. Yeah. I love that. What are you talking about? Can you put those things up there real quick? Get the socks. Oh, yeah. He's part of the team. We got to get you some J's, though. Yep. Hey, Aaron Judge will be joining us in the next hour. I believe there is a little bit of a J talk potentially happening there. He's got some Jordan. Also, I'd like to be able to smoke some J's in this place. Did not do that earlier.

56:53Pat McAfee:Just want to let everybody know. I am proud of me.

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58:16Pat McAfee:This is a beautiful set up down here. This is exactly what everybody in professional sports is looking for. Let's own the park. Let's own the restaurants that people are tailgating outside of. And let's even own the theater across the street for people to do shows at. This place is beautiful. Obviously, the MLB has done fantastic work in setting it all up. And thank you to them for having us. Now, I will reiterate the fact that I stated in the first hour, there was a lot of people working against us coming here. A lot of people. The MLB stepped in and said, we would love for you guys to come. Them and Mike Foss came together.

59:00Pat McAfee:No stone unturned. I was on the emails literally watching it all unfold. Send in a, well, tell that guy to go fuck himself. And then watch him kind of do their thing. I'm pretty good one of those email senders. Might be the best in the history of business, to be clear. I think I potentially am. But the way this has come together, we are very, very thankful and grateful to be here. I think Ty and I will be a part of the Home Run Derby tonight. What? I'm hosting the press conference that is happening on this stage over here at 2 p.m. You guys are getting at bats? We will stream live on our YouTube, on ESPN +, Disney +, and TikTok Live.

59:31Pat McAfee:They will run it on the MLB network. What I'm saying is we're very thankful and grateful to be here. In the middle of the summer, we're at the Home Run Derby. We're going to watch this anyways. The fact that we get a chance to experience it, we're very thankful. The Talks and Tips here at Boston Corner and at Ty Schmidt. Ty, really cool to be here. Yeah, without a doubt. I mean, you mentioned it. You know, like, as we've done this for a while now, and I love baseball. I watch literally every single Yankees game every night of the week. And I just kind of figured, like, you know, and you get it because we're a football show.

1:00:00It's like, hey, we're going to get through the summer best way we can. And doofuses. Yeah, for sure. So I didn't ever think this would be an option, much less, like, basically having the red carpet rolled out for us. You know, it's like I –

1:00:12Pat McAfee:And there's going to be baseball people that hate to hear that. Definitely. We just would like to tell you we're sorry that it's happening and it hasn't happened to you. Hopefully it does happen for you guys someday. But after our conversation with Rob, it feels like Rob really wants everybody to become a part of the MLB in baseball. I don't like the gatekeeping fans that sports have. I don't get that. So, like, professional wrestling has it, and they're the worst people on the internet. Sure. They're like all every sport, damn near. I don't know if every sport. Football. Yeah, I feel like football.

1:00:37Football does, because remember Taylor Swift.

1:00:39Pat McAfee:Taylor? That's nine-year NFL vet Darius J. Butler. UFC might have the most. That's one half of the hammer. Done. Cowboys AP tone. I think wrestling community, internet wrestling community. Without a doubt. Very heavy gatekeepers. Yeah. And what they like is not what I like at all. I've been a wrestling fan my entire life. What do I know? Nothing. Yeah, that entire thing. They're very gatekeeper-y. Feels like UFC has that as well. Casuals. Guy will have a couple of friction shirts, obviously, haven't figured out. And we appreciate those people's passion because they are committed fully to said thing.

1:01:08Pat McAfee:They don't want to see it get ruined by others. But it's like we get a chance to experience these fans in a negative way a lot because we're very lucky to be brought into these worlds. The baseball gatekeepers are something. I saw some baseball people pissed off about us getting an opportunity to be here. and it's like, I understand why you're pissed because you probably think that you should be here. When you get to the point you should be here, I think Rob will have you here. Like, we're very thankful and very lucky and we're going to try to do it some justice. Yeah, without a doubt. And, I mean, like you said, like, it's not...

1:01:35There's also TV execs that are not happy that we're here. That is also true.

1:01:39Pat McAfee:That's a whole other animal to talk about. But it's also no bullshit. Mid-level, powerless TV execs, just so you know. And I think you're experiencing that right now. He who is watching this. Yeah, we're here. None. Power negative. Just so you know. Go ahead, Ty. Well, I was just going to say, like, it's no bullshit the way we've been talking about it. Like, you've said multiple times, and it is sincere. Like, hey, I'm actually, like, enjoying baseball this year. You know, it doesn't mean that you're going to sit down and watch nine innings every single night. But, like, if the Dodgers are playing late and Shohei's going to get it bad, or, you know, the Yankees are playing.

1:02:14Everybody's watching. Exactly. Exactly. And it's been super entertaining. So, yeah, this is kind of a perfect time for us to, hey, let's dive into this a little bit more.

1:02:22Pat McAfee:Yeah, and learn about it. D. Butch, I don't know how big of a baseball fan you are. You're a fan of every team in every league. That's not true. What's that? Stupid shit, too, like F1? I mean, that's not stupid. We're off this weekend, and that's why I said his brother was able to make his Wimbledon final. But, yeah, I do like sports. In summer, you know, summertime has been a tough stretch. You know, I'm a football guy, basketball guy. So it was tough to find. Hockey, obviously. Hockey. That's embarrassing. That's embarrassing. You just forgot you're a Panthers fan. You're back-to-back Santa Claus.

1:02:54Pat McAfee:That's bad. I didn't forget. Top two. I just got into hockey, what, four years ago? So, obviously, we are a defending champ. Back-to-back. What's that? Since inception, you've been a Panthers fan. Yeah, I know. He knew it. I'm saying, but actually following, actually watching the game. Like, 10 years ago, I couldn't name five guys on the roster. Now, I can go talk about it. All right. We'll talk to Jet Pass in here in a matter of moments. He's been our baseball source plug for years. Can't wait to chit-chat. Anytime we get to see him in person, it's good. Before we get to Jet, there's some summer sports talk that we need to get to.

1:03:22Pat McAfee:Hashtag summer sports talk. Hashtag program summer road trip. Hashtag things are happening. The NFL always has its drama. Always has its drama. A lot of them. Guy got arrested over the weekend. Obviously, don't love that at all. Don't love that at all. TJ Watts, still not a Pittsburgh Steeler. What the hell is going on? Hey, Tony, what the hell is going on in the Pittsburgh Steelers? You know, I haven't worried in a long, long time. I'm starting to hear things. No, because remember, everybody said it's going to get on. We all know it's going to get on. He's T.J. Watt. He's a Pittsburgh Steelers.

1:03:55Pat McAfee:Why is he skipping mandatory minicamp? Well, he's willing to take a hundred dollars. That's part of the process. That's what everybody said. We're talking about Trey Hendrickson over in Cincinnati. And that's because Trey has come out and gone very public about it. And we're like, they're in trouble. They're in trouble. And then all Cincinnati Bengals fans kept saying was, well, is T.J. Watt in the building or not? Because it's kind of a similar situation. and the entire time we're like, no. Then we ask the people that would know. The insiders are like, it'll get done. We all think it's going to get done.

1:04:20Pat McAfee:It's like, are we sure that this is going to get done? T.J. Watt heading to the market would be bananas at this time of year. I don't even know how possible it would be, but they still do not have a deal done. And Caboli, who is the Pittsburgh Steelers reporter for this particular program, has been saying a lot of things, Todd. Yeah, he has. He's right there. He's talking about the length of deal guarantees and total value. So, like, T.J.'s 30 years old right now. So I think the team's kind of having a situation where they want to look at how many years do you want to have guaranteed money with TJ?

1:04:48Miles Garrett had basically three years of what? You wonder? It's TJ what? First battle is gold jacket. Listen, I'm just telling you what I'm hearing, okay? I'm not saying I'm making these decisions. I'm not saying it's my opinion. Yeah, but what side are you on? I haven't decided yet. What? I won't decide until the dust has settled. No, on TJ's side? I'll tell you what, if the Steelers keep TJ, great move. If they decide to move on, boy, what kind of value did we get? The best.

1:05:17Pat McAfee:Yeah, you think Omar Khan's going to be able to work a good deal. The con artist, the general manager for the Pittsburgh Steelers, they're in the middle of it. They've done a lot of things. Obviously, you go all the way back to Darius Slade, then DK Metcalf, Aaron Rodgers, trade for Jalen Ramsey, trade for John Smith. You make a lot of moves going all in, seemingly. You would think that TJ Watt would be on the team, but there's a lot of money going to a lot of places. And I know you're only paying Aaron$10 million or whatever the case is, But it's like, how do you get to the 40 number that TJ is probably expecting because you guys have kicked this game down the road a little bit and still have everybody?

1:05:49Pat McAfee:We shall see. This would almost be the year where the Steelers would be hoping for a hometown discount as opposed to the last couple years that they've gotten. It's like, hell no. Exactly. They pushed past the point of hometown discount for TJ Watt in his eyes. And, you know, if you listen to JJ Watt speaking, he didn't speak about TJ's situation. He was speaking about Trey Hendrickson's situation. He's like, if you get the deal done earlier, it's obviously a lot cheaper and better for all parties. When you kick it down the road, hey, we'll take care of you next year. We'll take care of you next year.

1:06:14Pat McAfee:It only gets higher. And then the feelings, too, little negative feelings kind of can creep in there whenever it's that type of business. So everybody's assuming it gets done outside the world. TJ skipped mandatory minicamp. That's a statement. But I'm hoping he gets it done because this Steelers team, if TJ was also on the team, you're talking about a real run maybe for, Oh, mama, I'm in fear for my life from the long,

1:06:42Are you worried? Yeah. A little bit. But also, the contract's out there. Miles' contract's already done. That should be TJ's contract. Just do that one.

1:06:51Pat McAfee:All right, so now you're on TJ's side? I'm waffling a bit. Oh, nice. Penny pinching Pittsburgh. All right, let's talk about what else is happening around the NFL. The quarterback series is back on Netflix, and thank God. Thank God for it. Obviously baseball carrying us. Yep. WNBA doing its thing. Shout out to the W. Shout out. I think there's some other sports happening internationally. I think I saw ping pong was taking place this morning. Super duper cup. FIFA super duper cup. Congrats to Trump and Chelsea for winning that one. Yeah, Trump won that one. President Trump and Chelsea won them. Hey, Gumpy, let's go to the back there.

1:07:31Pat McAfee:Gumpy, was Trump, did President Trump play for Chelsea in that final? How did that all come together, Gumpy? He was the first one to touch the trophy, so technically he did play for Chelsea. Well, actually, I don't want to say too much. I touched that trophy before anybody else. Are you leaving? No, bud. We did this. Now, I believe FIFA. Look at how much fun he's having. This is awesome. The FIFA president's back in there. I thought we were leaving. I thought we were leaving. So the president obviously celebrating with Chelsea. They won$100 million, Gumpy. and this tournament is now officially over.

1:08:06Pat McAfee:Was it a success or a failure? How should we be viewing the super-duper FIFA World Cup? They have it. Chelsea won between$130 and$150 million. The tournament produced$2 billion in revenue. Cole Palmer scored two goals in the final, one player of the tournament, man of the match. And Chelsea beat PSG, who won pretty much everything. PSG won everything this year. It was the first time they lost in a final. So Chelsea had an unbelievable tournament. They were plus 1 ,200 at the start of the tournament to win it. And the Palmer guy you talked about scoring two goals, I don't know if it was the finals or the semifinals, they were actually signing guys to their team.

1:08:46Pat McAfee:Guys were hopping on planes, flying over to these games and scoring goals. Yeah, João Pedro, they signed him his first game. He scored two goals in the semifinals. He wasn't even on Chelsea at the beginning of the tournament. He's unbelievable, scored again yesterday too. Can you do it in TSD? Well, so that's the thing. I mean, TST has this registration process where you've got to be registered as coach or player. If in the super-duper FIFA World Cup, we can just call guys, put them on a plane, and come win$140 million. Can Team USA do this during the World Cup? We should be able to. Lou Messi, yeah.

1:09:16Didn't that poopy Premier League team just do that too? They signed some guy like halfway through the season.

1:09:22Pat McAfee:Who? Burnley? Yeah, wasn't it Burnley? Didn't Burnley just sign some guy? Burnley made a big-time acquisition. Who was it? They spent some money on a famous guy, Gumps. It just happened. Kyle Walker. He's one of the best right backs in England history. He'll be playing for J.J. Watts Burnley. So soccer's happening. Appreciate that. But the quarterback series on Netflix is back. Three quarterbacks. Jared Goff, Kirk Cousins, and Joey Burr. Now, all three very interesting. Kirk Cousins, I appreciate the way he operates. I appreciate the way he operates. It's more the same from the first season. You think to yourself, this is the most humble guy.

1:09:56Pat McAfee:This is the most nerdy quarterback in the history. He's very lovable. I will say Kirk Cousins in the entirety. Joey Burrow's a dog. Joey, Joe Burrow drops a lot of fucks. I like that. That is something. Seems like he's not holding anything back. Also, he's learned how to play the piano just because he walks past the piano in his house. And he figures he might as well sit down for 10, 15 minutes and learn how to do this. And now he's playing the piano. Haven't seen the entire series. I've seen a lot of it. Jared Goff and MCDC have been a huge piece of the story. And I'll tell you, if I'm a Lions fan, and Foxy, you could probably reiterate this more.

1:10:30Pat McAfee:You guys are bopping to quarterback, I assume. Yeah, I absolutely love quarterback, Pat. To your point, I didn't know anything about Joe Burrow. Learned a lot about him. I like him more. Kirk Cousins, we knew he was a dog. How he handled the panic situation was flawless. It was perfect. Love Kirk Cousins. But watching Detroit Lions, MCDC, Jared Goff in their best season ever, getting the full recap, it was amazing. It made me love Jared Goff so much more. It made me love MCDC so much more. And that's saying a lot. Like, trust me, I already love these guys' favorite in franchise history. And I thought that quarterback did an outstanding job.

1:11:06Pat McAfee:And some of these clips, some of these behind the scenes are absolutely beautiful. Foxy forced us to run this, but here's two clips from quarterback on Netflix. It's a long one. Yeah, it's like six minutes, but I'll tell you, it is beautiful. And congrats to Omaha. Congrats to NFL Films. Congrats to Patrick Mahomes. Congrats to Netflix on an incredible new season of quarterback. Here's some footage of MCDC and Jared Goff being on the same page.

1:11:56Pat McAfee:You understand? We're fucking going. And we will fucking just march down this building. It's going to be so fucking glorious, gentlemen. This will be one you're never going to forget. Let's fucking go. How low can we get this? They'll be left in probably about 50 seconds. 50? Okay, got it. If we don't get it first. No, I'm saying they'll have, yeah, if we don't get it first, we're going to have at least 50 left. But if we get it, we'll bring it down to zero. I got it, I got it, I got it.

1:12:27Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey. Hey, one more first down and we can drain it all the way down and kick it, okay? We need one more first down here, okay? Let's go, baby. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Blitz comes. Goff back. Goff looking. Goff throwing deep downfield. It is caught inside the 25. Very close to a first down. Does he have it? Hold on, real short. It's gonna be third and one for the Lions. Third down. Third down. They're gonna need about a half yard. 180, what's that? Gough takes the snap, turns, gives the demo right side. He is hit, and he's going to come up short.

1:13:01It is going to be fourth down and about a half yard. Now, this is a fascinating decision. He's dying to go for it, but obviously he's got to kick this field goal. What do we do? Pick it? I'm not sure what we're going to do. I'm really, I'm unsure. I know the prudent decision would be to kick the field goal and go play defense for 30 seconds and finish it off there, but I know the way that Dan had come into the game mentally was that we were going to be really aggressive. We going? We are under a minute. They got no timeouts. We going? Kick the field goal. That's probably the right thing to do.

1:13:39We're going to kick it. Hey.

1:13:44me. I was pissed that we were not going to be able to finish the game with no time left and give them a chance to score. I think we do feed off each other a little bit. So I thought, man, we were hurting on defense. And we just brought some guys in off the street that were starting for us. And to me, that's not fair to ask them with 40-something seconds left to go out there against that offense. And I think his confidence is always going to help me. You know what? Let's f***ing finish this. You got to go, coach. You got to go. We're going.

1:14:24They are trying to kill this clock and put Jake Bates in a position to go win it. We need a happy yard, okay? Come on.

1:14:32Pat McAfee:Come on. Let's go, boys. You got it. You got it.

1:14:40On fourth down, Jarrod up under center. 180, we set. Turns, gives it to Montgomery, gets the first down. Yeah! Let's go! Oh, my God, Jarrett's lip. That could have been bad. My shoe's just a size too big, and I think one of our linemen got a little piece of it. Jarrett tripped as he came out from behind center, handed it to Demo, just barely got it to him. He got the first down. You let that clock run now. Down to 30, and the Packers can't stop it. Good f***ing job. Hey, let's f***ing go. That's that s***. Good f***ing call. If that hadn't worked, our defense would have had to get a stop and we would have had to beat them in overtime.

1:15:32But yeah, big balls by Dan. Bates is ready. Lions going for the win.

1:15:40Box the hole, kick away. It is up and it is good. You want to talk about grit. What a night for the Detroit Lions. Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey, f***ing challenge. Four or five on fourth down. Amazing. Hey, you're falling, buddy. Keep going. All right, we'll see you in the playoffs. Keep doing it. Thank you, bro. That's so much. 12-1. Still on top of the NFC. F*** yeah!

1:16:19Pat McAfee:I told you, you'd never forget this game. You will never forget this game. We don't have to talk about how tough we are. We don't have to talk about how resilient we are. We live it, man. We've been living it.

1:16:36Hey, hey, hey. Hey, like he said, this just don't just happen, boys. We're different again. I'll say it again. This group's different. We're on three, one, two, three.

1:16:46Pat McAfee:That's awesome. Foxy, you had to love that. I assume Foxy and shout to football being as amazing as it is. Nice to relive that moment. And thank you to the Lions for allowing Omaha and NFL films basically in to creep on them all year. Same with Joe Burrow and Kirk Cousins yet again, especially down here in Atlanta with what he experienced. And speaking of Atlanta, the third time this city has hosted the All-Star Game, first time in Truist Park. Joining us now is the insider, the pundit, the brain of the next generation of baseball, ladies and gentlemen from ESPN, Jet Pass. You look really good, Jet.

1:17:20Thank you, buddy.

1:17:21Pat McAfee:This is a grade-A suit. Also, we got a little bit of a notch pocket square. And we got the three peaks on that. Did you fold that yourself? Sure did. Wow. It's a pro. It's the All-Star. Listen, if you're going to wear a suit in this heat, that better be right. I'm going to be outside at the Derby tonight. It's going to be a mess. Yeah, I like that. Sweat through it. It's a midsummer classic, and it's hot. We're going to be out there as well. His eye black might run a little bit because of how into it he's going to be. Jen, let's chit-chat about this. What are the main storylines coming into All-Star weekend?

1:17:52Pat McAfee:All the studs playing, all the stars playing. It should be a great home run derby. What is the story of baseball coming in here? Is there free agencies or trades? What should we be talking about? I think tonight we're going to be talking about Cal Raleigh, you know, the big dumper in his breakout season. I love the fact that Cal Raleigh is going to be out there leading Major League Baseball on home runs, Pat, at a time when Aaron Judge is around, when Shohei Otani is around, when you have all of these great home run hitters. Here's a guy, a switch hitter, has never won the Derby before. Cal Raleigh is a switch hitter.

1:18:24A catcher has never won the Derby before. Cal Raleigh is a catcher. Cal Raleigh is a catcher. His dad, Todd, who was a head coach for a long time in college baseball, going to be throwing the pitches to him. His younger brother, 15-year-old T. Raleigh, going to be behind the plate catching. All catchers. A family full of catchers. And so the idea that this can be a family affair, but that you're also going to have just monsters out there. James Wood, 6 '7". Could have been a tight end in another life. O 'Neal Cruz, hitting balls 122 miles per hour. How tall is he? 6 '7". Byron Buxton, big guy, finally healthy from Georgia, coming into his own Matt Olsen.

1:19:05Been a home run hitter for a long time. This is, you know, it's not the most star-studded field, but I think it's got a chance to be a really entertaining home run derby.

1:19:14Pat McAfee:We got dongs on the way. Ty, there's a question for you, Jet. Yeah, Jet, in terms, are you surprised by, I don't want to say like the youth movement, but like we were kind of talking a little bit, and it does seem that the last couple years, All-Star weekend has kind of been like a way for the MLB to show like, hey, there are so many good young players that casual fans know nothing about. Like the Derby is a perfect example. Yeah. And I think that that's why the Derby and the All-Star game are so important to this sport. Like baseball right now in Shohei Otani and Aaron Judge have, I think, the two biggest stars of the last 25 years.

1:19:50Like, these are real transcendent across all sports names that people know who do things that people can really, like, look at and say, hey, that's impressive. Shohei Otani playing both ways, hitting 50 home runs and stealing 50 bases. These are things that, you know, baseball has a difficult time going across into the football realm, the basketball realm. But I think baseball has a moment right now, and those young stars are a big part of it. We're going to see one tonight in Junior Caminero. He's 21 years old. He's hit 20-plus home runs already in his first full season with the Tampa Bay Rays, has the fastest bat speed along with O 'Neal Cruz in baseball, and has a chance to really put on a show tonight.

1:20:32And that's what the All-Star Game should be, right? Like, this is a show. This is why Major League Baseball chose Jacob Mizarowski to come here after five starts in the big leagues. He's really good. He might be a Hall of Famer. He might be a guy who flames out. Like, we don't know at this point. I mean, it's too early in his career. But what we know he is right now is a guy who's going to go out there in one inning and throw 102 or 103 or who knows how hard and throw a slide. Maybe 105. I love that. Listen. He could. He could. He's got that arm in him, and he's got that dog in him, too. And I'm looking forward to seeing him go out there and pitch Kansas City, Missouri, represent.

1:21:12Pat McAfee:You talk about – shout out to you. You talk about the youth movement and everything like that. I think it's the seventh consecutive All-Star game where there's 30 fresh faces, 30 players making their debut at the All-Star game. I think 13 out of the last 15 All-Star games has had that stat. So it is like a lot of youth movement coming through the All-Star. Is it still heralded around the league as a big deal to be an All-Star? I assume yes. It is. I mean, listen, they've had this year particularly like some bigger names drop out. Like Zach Wheeler didn't, you know, wanted to go take some time off.

1:21:43Jose Ramirez wanted to go nurse some injuries. And there are so many all-stars now, it's almost like, okay, are we getting into the realm of participation trophy at this point? I know. NFL.

1:21:56Pat McAfee:NFL, we have like a top 20 quarterbacks make the Pro Bowl. It's not. Drake May. Yeah, exactly. It's not quite like at the Drake May level at this point. But baseball's all-star game has also evolved. It used to be like back in the 70s, if you were a starter, you would play all nine innings. Like, it was a full game. They did not care. The starting pitcher would go deep into the game. And, you know, like, the old baseball fan in me wants to see it return to that. So there aren't complaints about Mizorowskis or someone coming into here and not being deserving of it. But Major League Baseball has been accused of not being able to create stars.

1:22:36Well, when you bring a guy who throws 102 or 103 to an event where eyeballs are going to be on it a whole lot more than they normally are for the Milwaukee Brewers, what are you trying to do? You're trying to create a star. It's tough to have both. And so while I understand the Philadelphia Phillies being mad that Christopher Sanchez isn't here because he's had a phenomenal first half, I also understand Major League Baseball has got a duty to its fans to put on the best game possible. And I'm sorry, but for one inning, I would rather see Jacob Mizorowski than Christopher Sanchez. No disrespect, Chris, like great pitcher.

1:23:11Oh, I do. D-Buck's been watching film. He's with the Phillies. Sanchez guy.

1:23:16Pat McAfee:Yeah, he's with the Phillies. He's with the Johns over there thinking that Sanchez should be in this thing. We want to see fast pitches, big bombs. Yeah. That's what we want to see the all-star, especially because there's a lot of casuals watching like myself. Tonight we just want to see the ball fly far, and I want to see somebody throw 104 miles an hour in a couple. That is just – I'm a simpleton. I apologize for that. But I want to see guys who make actual bats look this size, and I want to see them take balls really far, and I want to see pitchers on that mound throwing it really fast. Pat, here's why I wholeheartedly agree with you on that.

1:23:51Because what the All-Star Game should serve as is the gateway for people to become actual fans. When you see guys do incredible things, you're like, that's a guy I've got to watch. That's someone I want to see a little bit more of. And then you watch a game, and it's not slogging on for, like, three hours like it used to. And now it's quick. You got your two-and-a-half-hour quick baseball game, and it's like, oh, this sport's not boring. There's actually action going on. It's interesting. There are characters. There are personalities. Like, I think baseball has a good product to sell right now.

1:24:24Agreed. And what the All-Star Game should serve as is giving a little bit to the people to, like, bring them in. Give them those dopamine hits with those 104-mile-an-hour pitches and with those 500-foot home runs. And after that, say, hey, we also have something that has thought and that has strategy and that has all the things that, you know, those of us who have been baseball fans for a long time fell in love with it because of.

1:24:47Pat McAfee:So it's not just the players. It's not just the sport. Teams have their own runs. Storybook-type stuff happens. Droughts, heaters, you name it, throughout 162 games. Right now, there's a bunch of mass holes that are feeling themselves. Go ahead, Con, man. Yeah, Jet, Pat said it. The Boston Red Sox are the team of baseball right now. You know, the story is the stars, but we're talking teams. The story is the Boston Red Sox, okay? Absolutely. They're on a 10-game win streak. Everyone after, you know, Devers gets traded. The Sox kind of fall off a cliff a little bit. Now they're on a 10-game win streak.

1:25:19Some people are saying it's because Alex Cora has the boys going. Some people are saying it's because Roman Anthony and Marcel O'Meara, they're playing so well on the field. They're also doing very well off the field per sources and photos. But a lot of other people are saying that, you know, Donald Trump knows the game like Pete Rose. Now, I'm not saying that that's... Was there a film study in the Oval Office? But, yeah, some people are leaning towards the idea that maybe they got in there and J.D. Vance taught them how to turn two. I'm not sure, again, whether that's the case or not.

1:25:51Pat McAfee:Some people judging his running technique this weekend. Yeah. He looks to be in quite a panic. Tough trade. It looked like he was running after a child. Yes. I agree. Every dad knows that. Okay, I don't want to go sprinting after my child who's jumping into a tiger cage. Agreed. But to that point, they go visit the Oval Office of 10-0 now. That is going to be something that is celebrated by a political party. But for the people of Boston, whenever they trade away. Rafael Devers. And then they trade away Marchand from the Bruins. A lot of Boston fans are like, are sports over in this town? We're waiting on the Patriots.

1:26:28Pat McAfee:Now they're the hottest team in baseball. Can that continue? And how many different teams go through these types of things? Every team does. Well, not the Pirates. They won four straight, I guess. They won seven straight, and then we went off for a week, and they lost every single game until we came back. But they won last night. So if we're working, they're winning. Pirates did well in the draft last night, too, by the way. Yeah, I know. Every draft. That matters. Seth Hernandez at six is good. But back to the Red Sox. We'll see him in ten years. Seth? You know, Seth. Sethy. Hard-thrown righty out of California.

1:26:58I like this guy. I picked the Red Sox to win the American League East before the season. Boom. Tell them, Jet. And in early June when they were struggling, I was standing by them. And here's why. Because they have been an incredibly talented team the whole time. Sometimes it takes 100 games to figure out who you are. And that's an insane thing to think about. Like, but it's reality. Like, Sedan Raffaella, who's been brilliant. Beast. Like, one of the best players in baseball. We didn't know what position he was for sure, you know, in May. Was he going to be an infielder? Was he going to be a center fielder?

1:27:39Now he's one of the best center fielders in baseball, and you can make an argument that he belongs here in Atlanta right now. Roman Anthony, you know, takes a little while to figure out big league pitching. When I was talking with Cal Rowley's dad, Cal Rowley's dad was saying, you know, we used to talk about this in our house. In baseball, you know, you have low A, you have high A, double A, triple A. Major League Baseball is 8A. That's how big the leap is from triple A up to the big league level. So it takes guys some time to figure it out. And Roman Anthony seems to finally be figuring it out.

1:28:11And they've gotten healthier at this point. Alex Bregman coming back is going to make it even better. Huge. And now we're going toward the July 31st trade deadline, and all eyes are going to be on the Red Sox. Aroldis Chapman's going nowhere. Alex Bregman's going nowhere. They're going to add, and if they get another starting pitcher who can be at the top of that rotation with Garrett Crochet, Brian Baio pitching so well, Lucas Giolito, the Boston Red Sox are legitimate World Series contenders. Suck it. Everybody. Everybody.

1:28:42Pat McAfee:That was not directed at any individual team or person. I'm back. Just the world. With that being said, Jet, Brian Cashman basically, he never does this. He was like, hey, we need a reliever. We need a third baseman, and we probably need another bat. With how well the Red Sox have closed out the All-Star break here and with how shitty the Yankees have been pretty much for the better part of the last month, how much do you think that kind of lights the fire under their ass? Like, hey, they need to go get multiple pieces. And the fact that both of them, by the way, are still behind the Toronto Blue Jays in the American League East.

1:29:18And the fact that the Tampa Bay Rays, I know that the Red Sox took care of them over the weekend. But the Rays are a dangerous team, too. It's like the American League right now is the East, those four teams. The Central, Detroit's running away with it. And out West, you've got Houston and Seattle. So there's seven teams competing for six playoff spots at this point. The urgency for the Yankees should be paramount right now. Because this is a team that is having a prime year from Aaron Judge. You cannot waste another Aaron Judge all-time great season. And the Yankees, if they do not improve their team right now, are at the risk of doing that.

1:29:59But look, they've gotten a really good year from Cody Bellinger. Jason Dominguez, I think, is better than certainly I thought that he was going to be. It's a pretty deep lineup. In the starting rotation, if you have Freed and Radon at the top in a playoff series, you feel good. They need to shore up that bullpen. No question about it. If they can go out and get a Eugenio Suarez to fill that third base spot and go and get a couple of relief pitchers and maybe a... I don't even think they need the top of the rotation starter. I think more like a back-end starting pitcher just to fill in. I think the Yankees are going to be just fine.

1:30:31And then October is such a crapshoot. Like, I would love to sit here and say, if you go into October with the best roster out of anyone, you're going to win the World Series. That's not true. Like, it happens every couple of years. If not, the Dodgers would win every damn World Series. And, you know, if the Dodgers lost this year, it wouldn't surprise anyone despite how much talent they have.

1:30:52Pat McAfee:I don't think Dodgers are going to lose anybody. No. Maybe Pittsburgh Pirates if they meet them in October. Bingo. They haven't ended the break here very well. Dodgers, you know, coming up. Well, it's because all eyes are on the All-Star week. The Boston Red Sox. But with the AL East kind of sticking with them for a second, what happened to the Baltimore Orioles? Because they were supposed to be the, like you're talking about how, how the Pirates had a great draft, you build your team in that way. And then I thought the Orioles did that. They were the one seed. They were up there two years ago.

1:31:22Two years ago, yeah. And now they fell off a cliff. Is there a way you can build your team right and then for the whole entire thing to collapse a year later? Because it feels like that's what happened with Baltimore. Yeah, and I don't think Baltimore is going to have to go back into a rebuild mode here, right? They've still got a lot of talent there. What they don't have is pitching. Pitching's been the Achilles heel all year. And, you know, they addressed it last year by going out and getting Corbin Burns. And Corbin Burns was phenomenal for them. But he left in free agency this offseason. They signed Tomoyuki Sagano.

1:31:57You know, they signed Andrew Kittredge. Like, they just did fill in gap-to-gap moves, and it didn't work.

1:32:06Pat McAfee:With the Pirates. No. The other pitching experience. We got Paul Skeens, brother. Pirates. And the cruise missile. Filling in gap to gap. Excuse me. Yeah, I mean, there's a lot of gaps, but we got a couple gaps that we've certainly covered up. You ever seen Titanic? Yeah. There's a couple holes. Yeah. And then that thing goes up like this. But Skeens is up or just playing that thing down. He's the captain. Poor guy. And the missile, cruise missile is out there just hitting bombs in front of a great fan base that fears that they'll never see a winner. Anyway, Tone has a question for you. I do have a question about Paul.

1:32:40Do you vote for any MLB awards, player awards? I don't anymore. I stopped doing it. Do you think the voters will hold it against him that he is the best pitcher? He has a two ERA, but he's four and eight. Do you think he's – because I saw he's no longer the favorite to win the NL. Cy Young, which he definitely should be. Do you think voters are going to hold it against him that he's not winning games? Nobody looks at wins anymore. Okay, good. Yeah. And it stopped with Felix Hernandez. Thank God, says the Pirates. The loser mentality. Yeah. Whoa, whoa, whoa. King Felix did have a situation like this.

1:33:14Yeah. And here's the thing. I think we all look at what teams do winning games, but pitcher wins are not in any way reflection of their performance. You're going to have a guy probably win 17, 18, 19 games this year who's half the pitcher that Paul Schienes is. And so they will look at – when I was voting for the Cy Young, the first thing that I looked at was innings pitched. And I know that's kind of old school of me, but I want to see who goes out there and who posts. Like, who is going to get me deep into games? Who's going to save my bullpen? Who's going to go CG if I need it? Which is why Zach Wheeler is right up there with Paul Skeens.

1:33:54Like, Zach Wheeler's awesome. And I think Zach Wheeler in the past, frankly, the year Corbin Burns won the Cy Young, Zach Wheeler threw something like 35, 40 more innings than him. And it should have been a lot closer than it was. But Skeens is going to throw a lot of innings this year. So I don't think there's going to be that much separation from there. I look at strikeouts. I look at walks. I look at home runs allowed. And then from there, if those numbers are all tight, it's just looking at little tiny granular things. It's going to be an interesting and close vote. I will say there's a chance that some voters, if there is almost a virtual tie in terms of numbers, do wind up looking at the success of the team, and Wheeler would be the favorite because of that.

1:34:35Pat McAfee:Okay, so let's talk about the future of this particular sport and league. Celebration last night in a pretty big way. Go ahead, D-Buds. Yeah, you talked about Seth Hernandez, number six. Who was the winner? Yeah, of course. Who was the winner last night in your eyes of the draft? I know it's much different than our draft in the NFL. We're going to see those guys week one, hopefully impacting wins. But who won in your eyes last night? I think the Seattle Mariners really won. They were a borderline playoff team last year. Major League Baseball, in this last collective bargaining agreement, instituted a draft lottery for the first time.

1:35:10And so the Mariners would have been picking down in, like, the mid to late teens had they not won the number three overall pick. And, you know, Eli Willits goes number one overall. The Nationals are essentially in a rebuild right now, and so they're spreading their money out among a bunch of young, talented high school players. And Willits is getting a way under-slot deal, which means the slot value for that top pick is around$11 million. It's not like the NFL where you get paid what your slot is, or the NBA where you get paid like it. In baseball, you can get creative. You can shift money around a little bit.

1:35:47Bobby Bonilla. And who's that other guy we talked about last night?

1:35:51Pat McAfee:He's getting$9 million for the next 14 years. Chris Davis. Chris Davis. Max Scherzer is the second highest paid Washington National this year. Yeah, right. Behind Steven Strasburg, who's not playing either. Number two overall pick, the Angels gave Tyler Bremner, who was expected to go like in the early to mid-teens. He went up to number two because he was willing to take a haircut on the pick. But Kate Anderson was widely regarded as the top prospect in the draft, and the Mariners, who already have Logan Gilbert, Brian Wu, who's here as an all-star right now, George Kirby, Luis Castillo, and Bryce Miller in their rotation.

1:36:27Get a guy who could be in the big leagues at some point in the next year or two and could be a top-end starter. An absolute coup for the Mariners.

1:36:36Pat McAfee:All right. Well, thank you for the intel. Thank you for the vibes around baseball for years and years with us. You have been our plug for baseball for years. And I think we've been very transparent on our relationship with baseball. I don't know much about it. But now that we're here, we have you to thank for a lot of it, Jim. We appreciate you bringing us into the world, and we appreciate you taking care of us. You're the man. Honestly, I'm so glad you guys are here. Just to get to experience what this is like. This is like, I think this is my 22nd or 23rd All-Star game. I've been doing this a while now.

1:37:07And being able to reach out to a wider group of fans and show them what this world is like, it means a lot to me. And you guys are a big part of that. So thank you guys for coming. Come on, you're the man.

1:37:18Pat McAfee:Ladies and gentlemen, senior MLB insider at ESPN and pundit Jet Passes. Hey, Jet. Jet, we appreciate you, brother. Thank you. See you, Jet. See you, Jet. Bye, Jet. See you, Jet. All right, Jet. All right, Jet. Hit the brakes, kid. All right, take a hike, Jet. I'm leaving. That's what they're saying, not me. I want to let you lie. I see, Jet. Oh, athlete. Good dismount. Okay. That was like 45 % of his body height. Wow. He's got a low center of gravity. It is about 45%. Yeah, I know. I did the quick math. I eyed it. He's got that re-put-together back. Yeah, exactly. Hey, also beat that tree. People forget.

1:37:51Pat McAfee:Yeah, exactly. Hey, did you take that tree, turn it into a bat, hit a couple dingers with it? Did you take it? I should have brought it here. Yeah, yeah, bring the whole tree. All right, anyways, tree tried to kill Jet Passan. He survived. He survived. Hey!

1:38:08Pat McAfee:Joining us now, ladies and gentlemen, is a man who's a two-time AL MVP, a seven-time All-Star, three-time All-MLB first team, four-time Silver Slugger, AL record for the most home runs in a season with 62. who currently has 35 homers. He's hitting.355 in 81 RBIs. At one point, he was above.400 on the season. Ladies and gentlemen, Ty Schmidt's dream human, Aaron Judge. Well said. Well said. Aaron Judge! All rise, gentlemen. Seriously. I don't know if you're going to be able to fit. You're a gigantic human being. Don't worry about it.

1:38:53He took that from your locker.

1:38:55Pat McAfee:Yeah, he took that from your locker last night. First All-Star nod for the kid. That's right. Yeah, this is his first All-Star, so you remember your first time All-Star. This is his first All-Star. Holy shit, we got to lower that a little bit. Can you put that on? Is that big enough? Let's do it. Jeez. Oh, let's go. Oh, yeah. Let's go. Here we go. Aaron Jones. hell yeah ty is there anything you'd like to say to aaron here before we get started uh yeah i have two girls if i do have a boy i will be naming him after you no pressure but judge or aaron aaron maybe aaron judge schmidt potentially uh on that note how does it feel to be the guy we uh i chit chatted with him about you and he talked about how you've really accepted and embraced the role of being the captain of the yankees being the face of the pinstripes which is obviously a big deal to him and your entire fan base how has that been becoming that guy?

1:39:50Pat McAfee:Because obviously we've seen you for a while. Gigantic human. All rise. We're hitting bombs. You've gone through your entire life publicly seemingly at this point. But how does it feel to be the guy in New York? It's incredible. I wouldn't say I'm the guy. I'm just another guy. Which is what the guy would say. Exactly. No, I'm just trying to follow and just keep this legacy going. The captains that came before me, especially the last one, Jeter, the way he went about it, the way he played the game, you know the championships just staying out of the spotlight doing everything the right way you know I just try to kind of follow his lead and just kind of keep that legacy going so then when I'm done playing hopefully someone behind me is kind of taking the next torch and that's all it's an old school mindset it really is an old school mindset it feels like baseball has a lot of that inside of it and we'll certainly ask you about that you saying like not doing a lot of publicity he was kind of forced to do this one so we appreciate you Aaron Judge was not reaching out to get his face on a camera anymore kind of felt obligated to the MLB people because we asked about it for Ty and also because we've been following you.

1:40:53Pat McAfee:This year, different. You're over 400 there for a while. And we're talking about, like, a varsity player playing against JV. Does it look like a beach ball whenever you're in one of these zones? Or what is it about this year? Or maybe you just as a hitter as a whole? It's just trying to get better every year. You know, we had a great season last year. I got all the way to the World Series. You know, we didn't finish the job. But, you know, that's where I take the offseason, kind of take a couple weeks to reflect and be like, hey, how can I get better? How can I help the team? You know, what things can I do personally to just kind of take that next level in my development?

1:41:24And we're just working on it. What is it? Is it seeing the ball better?

1:41:28Pat McAfee:What is it? Like, how does that work? How do you get better at seeing the ball? How old are you? 33. You're about to beat Jesus. You make it one more year. Congratulations and God bless him. But with that being said, seeing the ball better, is that something? Or like, take me as somebody who never played baseball. How does a hitter get better? Well, I think the cool thing about with the major leagues, like when you're working your way up through the minor leagues, you're in high A, you do well there, they bump you up to double A. And now it's a whole new league, new pitchers, new players. You do well there, triple A.

1:41:57Well, in the big leagues, you're kind of at the top. There's nowhere else to go. So you're seeing the same pitchers over and over and over again. The new guys kind of come up. They might stay there for a little bit. They're gone. But you see the same pitchers over and over. So I feel like just getting a chance to see the same guy and get more at-bats, get a feel for it, But, you know, a good thing is usually going to happen more for the hitter.

1:42:17Pat McAfee:How many times behind closed doors have you fist-fought Shohei Ohtani? Not once. Not once, man. He's a great guy, you know, great ambassador for this game. We're going to get him back, though. We'll see him down the road. No, but you two. I just literally talked to Manfred about this, and I assume he's very grateful for you and all the stars in the league. But you and Shohei and Big Dumper and Scooble and Skeens, all the stars playing well is great for the league. Do you guys feel that for the league? Do you feel the momentum that you guys are kind of a part of right now with the league as a whole?

1:42:50Yeah, baseball's in a great spot. I feel like just every stadium we go to, it's packed out. You know, just the publicity a lot of these guys are getting, you know, worldwide. You know, we're having fans all around the world watching this game, celebrating this game. It's something special. So, like you said, when the Stars are out there playing their best, it's good things for the sport. That's for sure. And I got to say also, like, when I work out at the Yankee Complex, this show is on 24-7. That's crazy. Just to let you guys know. So I wasn't forced to do this when we heard about it. I was like, I couldn't wait to get on here.

1:43:20So it's special. It's special. That's awesome.

1:43:21Pat McAfee:I appreciate you. Go ahead, Ty. That's awesome. I just got goosebumps. So you guys have heard Ty, I assume. Yeah. All right. Good. That's good. Obviously, everyone, you know, hitting-wise, like, it's kind of crazy because I expect you to, if not hit a homer every single game, at least go two to four. So, like, sometimes, like, you know, if you go 0 for 2 with a couple walks, you're like, Jesus Christ, what's going on with Judgey today? But I've said. Yeah, just act like that. Yeah, no, no. Well, I mean, this guy gets it. I'll take a bullet for him. I've long said, though, I don't think you get nearly enough credit for how good you are defensively.

1:43:55I mean, just, what was it, Saturday against the Cubs, you rob a PCA home run, you have the shoestring catch, and then, you know, you have the sliding grab to end Rodon's inning, and get out there unscathed. How much of it, because obviously everyone's always going to talk about your numbers at the plate, how much do you have to put in defensively, though, to make sure that you're sharp? Because you are a weapon in the outfield. Yeah, I just never wanted to be a liability out there. I wanted to be a complete player. I know how hard the pitcher's working on the mound. I don't want to be that guy that drops a ball, lets a ball fall in, and he's like, come on.

1:44:32I didn't want that look. So I just wanted to always be a guy that the ball's in my direction, You know, my teammates can depend on me. And, you know, talking about earlier what you said about, you know, going 0 for 2 or 2 for 4, I love those expectations. You know, that's one thing that drives me every single day is knowing that, you know, fans are coming to the ballpark, they're turning on the TV, you know, expecting me to go out there and do something great for the team. So that pumps me up here and there.

1:44:54Pat McAfee:Yeah, you kind of ruined our show there for a while. Because remember, we were just doing the 400 watch. Yeah. Because you're mad over 400. So if we could fucking, you know, if we could please get back to over 4, D-Bud has a question for you. Yeah, Aaron, you obviously made the correct choice, but we're in a world now where young kids start to get specialized in sports really early on. You were a phenomenal athlete, I know, at least at the high school level in all different sports. When did you know for sure it was going to be baseball and you were going to go that direction? I always thought it would be baseball.

1:45:24I loved playing baseball growing up, just the chess match, back and forth, pitcher, hitter, the pitcher, catcher, just everything involved. But I loved football growing up, just the mentality you've got to have to go out there and just, you know, I'm going to kill this guy in front of me. Which was, you know, so much different.

1:45:39Pat McAfee:Put your ass at tackle, though. No, I'm not tight in. Oh, yeah, 6 '7", you're right. But there is like a – is baseball 6 '7"? I mean, I think O 'Neal Cruz is as well. Is there like a too tall moment? Like if you get to 6 '8", is that too big for baseball? Well, I think I'm technically 6 '8", but I tell people 6 '7". Oh, because of this. Just to stay underneath that. Yeah, exactly. Because I assume too tall, not – I mean, how many – Randy Johnson's the only one I can think of. Yeah, there's a bunch of guys. You can be as tall as you want. Yeah, there's not too many. Your strike zone is gigantic.

1:46:09Oh, yeah, he gets screwed with the low strikes all the time. Yeah, we'll talk about that. We'll talk about that next time.

1:46:16Pat McAfee:Okay, before we go on any further, we're going to see you in some fresh cleats, I believe, at this All-Star game. Oh, yeah. Ladies and gentlemen, I think this is the debut. I think this is the first time anybody's getting eyes on him except for the team at Jordan or Aaron Judge. Here's the Air Jordan 4 retro baseball cleat that he'll be debuting. and will be available on Wednesday on sale, I believe. Ooh! Oh, yeah. So clean. Size 75. I don't know if anybody else is going to have this size. Those things are beautiful. You're obviously on the Jordan team. How long has that been, and how cool is that?

1:46:52Pat McAfee:And how much do you have say in, like, what you want to kind of wear next? Because these are filthy, obviously a classic that everybody loves. Yeah, this is a classic, you know, especially for the All-Star game. It's cool to kind of bring something out like this. But the Jordan team, they're so great with us every offseason and even during the season. You know, the next couple weeks, we'll be kind of talking about what we're going to do next year. You know, I've been on the brands. 2023. So it's just a special partnership, man. The love and support they show us every single night is incredible.

1:47:21I want to also hook all you guys up with some fresh Jordans, too, before we get out of here. So we'll try to get that lined up. We're getting gloves.

1:47:28Pat McAfee:We're getting Jordan gloves. That's my captain. If you want some gloves, we'll hook up some gloves. No, no, is that what you were talking about? What were you talking about? No, some shoes. We'll get you some shoes. We'll get you some fresh J's. So I know you got some fresh shoes on right now, but okay. This snake died in its sleep, Aaron. Okay, it lived a nice, great life. But I will certainly put some J's on, especially if they're going to be gifted by you. The Jordan team in every sport is obviously such a high rank in everything. All-Star week, obviously gigantic. You're very comfortable in this setting.

1:47:59Pat McAfee:What is it like for the new All-Stars? like whenever you come here and you see all like what is all-star week like as an all-star for you guys is it too much is it tiring is it exhausting do you enjoy it is a waste of time like what is the mindset of most players whenever they come here for this celebration you want to get this one or you want to first time first time he has experience i can't wait to chop it up with you in the clubhouse later no honestly i think you know i go back to my first one in 2017 in miami it was just for me it was amazing to see a lot of the players that i looked up to you know buster Buster Posey was one of them.

1:48:31You know I'm stepping in for my first at bat in my first All-Star game. I got Buster Posey for San Francisco Giants calling pitches against me where I watch as a kid you know rooting them on on TV. So I think that's probably the coolest thing is to get a chance to interact with some guys you usually don't get to see pick their brain a little bit you know come out here celebrate the game. I love what they're doing now having the draft here have everything here. I think it just brings more excitement to this you know special day.

1:48:55Pat McAfee:Yeah it makes it a big hub. You know we get a chance to experience in football the Super Bowl do their thing and And then for college football, the playoffs have kind of become that. In the NBA, all-star week is when everybody kind of comes. Feels the same right now. I don't know if it's always been like this. You said it's pretty new. But draft into this press conference, into the home run derby and everything, it's taken over the conversation. We're lucky to be here. Boston Red Sox fan, Boston Connor has a question for you. Yeah, Aaron, thank you for leading with that, Bex. That's what I want to ask about.

1:49:19Something that I love about baseball and just sports in general is just hate. You know, I love the hate that teams have for each other. and the best rivalry in sports, it feels like, across the board is, you know, Sox-Yankees, or at least it was. You know, as of recent, you know, the Sox haven't been good when the Yankees are good, and then, you know, the Yankees haven't been good when the Sox are good. Right now it's kind of hitting its stride here where the Sox are getting good again. Do you think it's still possible to have very passionate, you know, throwback rivalries like the Red Sox and the Yankees used to have, or do you think at this point now because of all the access, because everyone's friendly with each other, much closer, that it's almost we're past the era of Veritech and A-Rod and those guys, and now the Red Sox, Yankees, rivalries in general are kind of going into a different stratosphere when it comes to that stuff?

1:50:12I think it's still there. I think there's a level of respect that we have for everybody, especially when we go to Fenway and we step in that historic ballpark and playing against those guys. I got a certain level of respect for them. But I also, you know, can't wait to, you know, beat them every single game I can. So, you know, especially you hear from the fans, the fans are yelling at you, you're saying some things you can't say on here, I don't think.

1:50:33Pat McAfee:In Boston, of course. We've just heard it everywhere. I've never heard it as much, but I know what you're saying. But it's fun. You know, I enjoy it. You know, I think we might get to that point at some, there might be some times where maybe a couple guys throw inside. Maybe we throw inside. We kind of see what happens. Yeah, but it's I don't know it might be good for the game, but we'll see man I got so much respect for those guys. I think they kind of feel the same So we just try to go out there and just put on a good show and you know kind of leave it all on the field on that No to thrown inside tone has a question for you.

1:51:04Yeah, I do it and throw it inside and Ty talked about throwing low earlier in the low strike call You talked about getting better each year How do you feel like how do you deal with now in this point in your career? Like just getting pitched around the time Can you tell at the beginning of the bat that you're gonna be pitched around or or you like? like hey I'm not going to get a pitch to hit this about or can you tell when when you know like hey they're not going to give you anything usually have a feeling but I try to block that out because there might be a one slip up or one mistake they make and that might be the only pitch I see.

1:51:34Yeah.

1:51:35Pat McAfee:Yeah. Might steal a dog shot. Yeah. Exactly. So you just try to stay locked in. You kind of have a feeling. You know I think I get most upset when you know they're pitching around me and I'm prior back here is like. Come on. We're seeing the same thing. How do you feel about the not Robotic. The ABS. The ABS. Manfred told us, please don't say robot. Yeah, he did. I take exception with you saying robot. It's a system that we have crafted over the years. How do you feel about that? Hitters love it. Pitchers hate it. Is that a good read? Yeah, a little bit. I think it's just new. So it's just new.

1:52:08Anything that's new, people are going to kind of have their opinions, kind of hit on it a little bit. But I still love the human element of the game. It's kind of been my thing growing up. I don't know if it's old school or not, but I just love having the umpire back there, the human feel. But I know it's coming. It's coming the next couple years, so we just got to get used to it.

1:52:24Pat McAfee:So are you allowed to – I don't know the rules. Please, bear with me. They're throwing outside on you, okay with getting a walk, maybe steal a couple strikes though. Can you step into that thing and hit that? You're not allowed to cross home plate there? You can do whatever you want as long as you stay in that little batter's box. So you can go all the way out to the edge of that. You cannot leave that going forward. Because if you were to take somebody who's trying to take you out. Step on the plate. That would be higher out of the century if you did. I'm not saying you should do that. Don't change anything, Jesus, especially for me.

1:52:58Pat McAfee:But know that if you did do that, big pop out of me at my house. Sure. With that being said, thank you so much for stopping by. Congrats on the new shoes. Congrats on another All-Star bid. Congrats on another phenomenal year. And thanks for representing the Yankees so well, because this guy's happy as hell every time he sees you. Without a doubt. Without a doubt. Are you excited to watch Jazz tonight at the Derby? I can't wait. I can't wait. He's going to put on a show. He's an entertainer. And he's one of the. Are you going to be on the field? We miss you, Jeff. I'll be out there. I'll be out there.

1:53:22Yeah. Hey, come on.

1:53:23Pat McAfee:Miss you, Jeff. We appreciate you. We continue on YouTube, ESPN +, Disney +, TikTok Live. Also, the press conference I will be hosting will be live at 2 o 'clock here and on MLB Network. We'll see you tomorrow. Goodbye. Okay, we're still digital. Don't say anything that you wouldn't want to say. You understand what I'm saying? To your grandma. You understand what I'm saying? It's the captain. People are still listening, Captain. Okay. I don't want to say it, but I'm going to say it for Ty. Every time you guys go into a slump, this guy's getting closer and closer to driving in traffic. Okay? So when these slumps happen, long season, what is it that gets you guys out of it?

1:54:00Pat McAfee:Can you feel it when you're in it? Is everybody actually from the baseball movies I watch, are we changing our underwear? Is that type of shit happening? What happens in modern baseball to get out of a slump, Or do you feel like when you're going into one for teams, not players, but teams as a whole? For teams as a whole. Because Ty is thinking about jumping off cliffs. You need to know that. That is what's happening. I don't believe that. He's a true Yankee fan. He rides and dies with us. Yes, I do. That's the second part. That's what I'm talking about. Aaron, you are repeating what I'm saying.

1:54:33You know, we play every single day. You know, so you kind of are just so focused on today. And all of a sudden you look up and it's like, hey, we lost five in a row. and, you know, we'll just say, you got to change something up. I think it's more of a joke. We'll kind of like, hey, you know, we got to switch things up here, try to do something fun, just kind of get our mind off of the fact we just got our butts kicked for three games against the Red Sox, so we got to switch it up here.

1:54:57Pat McAfee:You guys, your mental toughness for dealing with failure is crazy. It's nothing like any other sport. So I have so much respect for it, and obviously I respect the hell out of you. Sick. Yeah, the T-shirt. Yeah, the accessories. T-shirt jacket, the fucking, yeah, you see the rink. The ring. I mean, the whole thing. The ring's filthy. Baseball, we forget. That's my wife. Great taste. Yep. Great taste. You're the man. Thank you so much for the hospitality. We'll see you tonight, I think. Can't wait. I think we're doing the intros for everybody. Oh, boy. No, it's great. I'm excited. I'm excited. Mr.

1:55:31Pat McAfee:Captain, I would respect you. A little bit of a better response. Yeah, we should have a good time. We appreciate you. Okay, I'm going to go do that, and we'll continue on the other side. I believe Shohei's joining us after the press conference at around 2.30. I will ask him about the other side of the Aaron Judge. Punch him in the face behind closed doors where he said it didn't happen. We shall see. Be a friend. Tell a friend something nice. It might change your life. We're live from the All-Star Game.

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1:57:00Pat McAfee:He is happening here and we are incredibly lucky to be here. The one half of the toxic table is here at Ty Schmidt in full regard. One half of the hammer down Cowboys AP tone is here. Nine year NFL vet Darius J. Butler is here. And ladies and gentlemen joining us live is a man who is in goat conversations already. He can throw it. He can hit it. He can captivate an entire globe. Will, are you telling him these things? Ladies and gentlemen, Shohei Otani! Yeah, Shohei! Sir. Thank you. Thank you so much for coming by. Congratulations on another All-Star. What has All-Star week become for you, just as you enjoy the week as a whole?

1:57:58I'm just grateful to be part of this All-Star festivity. The fans voted me in, so I'm very grateful that I get to participate and play. So I'm looking forward to it.

1:58:08Pat McAfee:Hey, Will, can you ask him who were some of the players when he got to his first All-Star that he was excited to meet and maybe got a little star struck, which I assume they did the same exact thing for him? And Will, can we have good energy on the delivery? Who were you? When did you meet the former All-Star? You've been from now? Yes, when I was born in Japan. I lived in Japan, so I've seen the All-Star in Japan. I've seen the All-Star, and I've seen the All-Star in Japan. I've seen the news before so that I've seen the All-Star. I think I've seen the All-Star in Japan. To be honest, I grew up watching Ichiro play in the All-Star game, so that was somebody who I wanted to meet.

1:58:47Pat McAfee:Whenever you were growing up, it feels like, when you got to the MLB, All the baseball purists were like, hey, this is a guy who can be a guy. Has he committed his entire life to baseball? And at what age did he think, OK, this could become full-time professional? That's a dream of a player. And also, also, Domoregato for coming out. I've always been thinking about it. At first, I started to see the Japanese football game. I started to see the major league in the world. creep搞 neoo will be throwing hard I brought to Rhin I grew up watching women rock I wanted to be open Senator about the and I were told

1:59:34Pat McAfee:the I'm new to I'm a casual baseball did not play growing up and all the baseball people are like it's impossible to do because it's either too much wear or tear or not enough focus on something it's very difficult to do why do you think you've been able to have success doing it when so many other people don't I don't have any experience but how difficult it is to do the two-fold

2:00:02I've been doing this style so I've been doing this for years I think it's hard to do with which one. I think it's hard to do with which one. I think it's hard to do with which one. I think it's hard to do with the rhythm. I think it's hard to do with the rhythm. Of course, there are some hardships being able to pitch and hit at the same time. But I grew up doing both throughout my whole life. Aside from a couple injuries that I had here and there. But for me, it's pretty normal.

2:00:33Pat McAfee:That's a great answer, Will. Good delivery. I think it even matched the tone here from Shohei. Last question for me before the boys have some. And once again, do mo regato for coming by and everything like that. Do you have, you think, stronger muscles, stronger bones, better tendons than everybody else because you're able to do both? And if so, what should I be eating to become Shohei or Connie like? How many people are you eating?

2:00:59What should you eat? I'm not too old. I'm not too old. I'm a person who's not used to be a big, so I'm a person who's been a big. I was a little bit of a big, but I was a little bit of a big, training and cooking. I'm a big, so I'm a big, too. I'm a person who's been a big, too. I actually grew up pretty thin, and it was not the way I look right now. So I worked out a lot, and I ate a lot, and this is how I became.

2:01:31Pat McAfee:What are you eating? What is the meal of choice? I love meat. I love meat.

2:01:43Pat McAfee:Have you enjoyed America's customs and cultures since coming over here? And what is your favorite thing that America does? That you go like, this is very American of America and I like it.

2:02:02I feel like I'm really focused on the field. I've been really excited for the first year. I've been very excited for the team and fans. I've been here for a warm time. I've been here for a long time. I feel like I've been here for a long time. I just really enjoyed being with the guys, the teammates. They really welcomed me with open arms when I first came here to the US as a foreign player. So I'm just really happy with hanging out with the guys. Like the lads, love that. Tai Schmidt has a question for you. I'm sure you get asked this all the time, but would you rather pitch against yourself when you're on like an absolute heater, or would you rather hit against yourself like when you're just spinning it like you never have on the mound?

2:02:46Could you strike you out? I think I can, yeah. I think that's a bit difficult to throw. I think that's a good answer to throwing. I think that's a good answer to throwing. I feel more confident being able to get the hitter version of Meow as a pitcher.

2:03:17Pat McAfee:Do you view yourself more as a pitcher or a hitter? Like, whenever a lot of the baseball purists are like, he's such a good hitter, there's no reason for us to potentially go into pitching. But on the flip side, you're such a good pitcher, and baseball revolves around having a good pitcher as well. Do you view yourself as a pitcher? Is that how we should talk about you, just happens to be a great hitter? Or are you a great hitter who happens to be a great pitcher? How would you like us to talk about you as doofuses that have a microphone? Can you please explain that?

2:04:15I think it's a good thing to try and get better. I think I feel better when I'm talking about the batter.

2:04:28I grew up, you know, I feel like I was more talented as a hitter growing up and it was hard for me to pitch actually. So I feel like I'm more of a hitter who learned how to pitch more than the pitcher learning how to hit.

2:04:43Pat McAfee:What was the word doofus that you used in there? So doofus? Ahurashi.

2:04:53Pat McAfee:Is that a doofus that's, what is it again? Ahurashi. Ahurashi? Ahurashi. Okay, so we ahurashi. D-butt, professional athlete, ahurashi. Yeah, right. Yeah, so obviously I've dealt with injuries. You dealt with two major elbow injuries. Were there any difference coming back from this one? I know you've been taking the mound recently. Any differences coming back from this one, or is it pretty similar to the one before?

2:05:40I actually felt pretty comfortable and felt better after the second surgery. You know, just the way the ball fell in my hands when I first threw ever since the surgery, the progression throughout felt really comfortable and progressed a lot more quickly than the first surgery.

2:05:57Pat McAfee:How close to full go are we? You don't have to tell us, obviously. Please tell him he doesn't have to tell us.

2:06:12I really just have to increase volume and but aside from that I feel pretty good with what I have

2:06:17Pat McAfee:Okay, that's awesome. What are you throwing me? High fastball

2:06:29I think it's awesome that you bat leadoff because normally with someone with your numbers, someone with your powers batting the third, fourth, fifth. Why do you bat leadoff? Is it something that you want to do that Coach Roberts wants to have you do? Why are you in that leadoff spot? I don't have to worry about it, but I think it's good for any team. I think the team's balance is going to be able to do the team. I think I want to try and do it. I think that's the best thing. I feel pretty comfortable batting anywhere. At the end of the day, I want to make sure that I'm honoring what the team wants and what the manager wants and how it just fits well with the line-up.

2:07:11there's a couple that you like, you know, and then home run.

2:07:16Pat McAfee:There's a couple where it just looks like you're – how long have you been – you said you were skinny growing up. How long have you been a bomb hitter? You are a bomb hitter. I mean, you hit the shit out of the ball. So far. So far. I mean, they travel so – and as a pitcher, that doesn't really correlate, which I think why a Juricis, like myself, here in America are so dumbfounded by it. But how long have you been a bomb hitter? And do you take pride in the fact that it's fireworks whenever you are at bat? Like must watch?

2:08:01If you look back my first year in the big leagues, I was pretty skinny. So I would say like probably 2021.

2:08:08Pat McAfee:What pitch do you feel like you're a better hitter because you're the best pitcher, hitter that there is in the league? Do you see the ball better, do you think? Do you have a feel for it whenever you're pitching and hitting? Do you feel like that is an advantage to do both? That's a good advantage. You think one helps the other? Yes, but I think when the pitcher is throwing this, it's hard to throw it. I think there are some advantages in the mound.

2:08:42I think I have more of a mindset as a pitcher. As a pitcher, you kind of know what the hitters don't want to hit or don't want to swing at. So I really take that experience as a hitter on the mound.

2:08:55Pat McAfee:You've been an MVP, you're a world champion, you captivated the globe, you put the MLB in a spot that it's never been. We say thank you for that, for the sport. But you're still so young in this entire game. Is every day a process of trying to get better still? Is there new goals, new dreams, new everything? What does day-to-day look like for you whenever you're forecasting future plans? Do you have the new目標? Do you have any challenges in the season? Yes, yes. I do. I think that's always true. I want to change everything in season three. It's important to keep going, and it's important to keep going.

2:09:33It's important to keep going, and I think I'm going to keep going. I want to change everything in season three. Yeah, naturally I just want to progress and get better. So I do have a vision of just getting better in many many steps. so that's what I'm trying to do on a daily basis.

2:09:51Pat McAfee:You're a dog, dude. Oh, you know what that means? Yeah. That's good. Welcome to the Merck. We appreciate the hell out of you coming here. We appreciate you stopping by our show. Thank you for what you do for sports as a whole, and I think you helped bring the world together, brother, and I think that's a beautiful thing. So thank you so much. We appreciate you. And, Will, great work. Will, you had really good work there. Yeah, there it is. You brought energy at one point. Yep, show he approves. So we've never had to deal with this. I can only speak one language, okay? You and him have to get along very well, right?

2:10:26Pat McAfee:I mean, legit, you guys have to get along very well. Is that an accurate assessment of the entire thing? So with Will, whenever it starts, Will, I guess I'll ask you. It's a feeling out process like a relationship, I would assume, right? And trying to catch his demeanor and his tone and everything like that because you're a very important piece of Shohei Otani as a whole. Yeah. Is it like getting a feel for who he is as a person, the tone, or how does that kind of work for you guys when you start? Oh, well, he's a great person, so I really don't have to do much. No, but that's what you're trying to be.

2:10:58Pat McAfee:Yeah, well, I just want to let you guys know it's amazing what you've done. We appreciate the hell out of you, and go baseball, dude. Good luck out there. Thank you. Enjoy the week. Thank you. Will, great work. Thanks. Thank you very much. Ladies and gentlemen, multiple-time MVP, world champion, world icon, ladies and gentlemen, Shaheia Toy. Yes, Joey! Thank you, Shohei. Thanks, man. We appreciate it, too. Holy hell. Hey, great meeting you. Thank you. Good luck. I gotta steal it. Hey, can I steal a selfie? Boys, boys.

2:11:34Pat McAfee:Hell yeah. Thank you, thank you, thank you. The goal. Awesome, man. Great work, Will. Really good work, Will. Hey, couple All-Stars right there. That's right. Oh no, oh no, oh no. Oh no, no, don't have to. He's an athlete. Thank you, Shohei. Did you see what he did? The look back? Oh, from this angle, he went ah. Oh, is that what he did? Yeah, he was messing with us. Okay, because I thought he was looking back mad at me that I thought he would get hurt jumping off of that. No, he went ah. Shohei, they will ban us forever from everything. Hey, nice little - I guess I should have. What's up, man?

2:12:13Pat McAfee:Nice little Monday here. Hey, not a bad little show. Not a bad little show. Not at all. Tonight, going to be a part of the show as well? Yeah, so pumped for that. Host a press conference out there. Yeah, you did. You hit it really well. You did an excellent job. And you had to step in in a couple of moments. I couldn't hear. I couldn't hear. We couldn't hear. I couldn't hear it either, so then I listened to it on YouTube. I couldn't hear the multitude of questions. but that one the rhythm and tone of it felt like oh this one is a little bit more could you please say that again it was a long one too because I could not hear it where we were sitting I think speakers were shooting out so we were kind of it was loud in the back it was an interesting thing nobody on the stage could hear most of that stuff so that's probably where my role probably could have been better but shit I couldn't hear I need a mic.

2:13:08Pat McAfee:It's a good moment. We're celebrating sports, though. Lucky to be a part of it. Thankful to be here. And thank you to the MLB for the hospitality. I think that's the big takeaway for this whole thing. Yep. I got a sleeveless jersey from the commissioner. So sick. Very cool. They put us right in the middle of the damn theater. We got jerseys, too? Yeah, they gave us all jerseys. Yeah. Hey, all-star. Spelled our names right. Yeah, even mine. Wow. Wow. All the vowels. Yeah, I have my real name. Really? Yeah. Yeah, ML Jersey, but. These people have been great to us. You get it. Tonight should be awesome.

2:13:42Pat McAfee:I think everybody should watch. Ty and I, I think, are introducing the batters. So cool. What? Yeah, I don't know if I was supposed to say that. Surprise! Oops. No, I don't think anybody would be mad that we said that. And I think they probably just told us to handle it however we want. Me and Ty are going to be introducing the batters this evening. It is a title and an opportunity and an honor to be asked to do it such, and we will do it justice. We understand what the situation calls for and what the situation doesn't call for. We will be certainly excited to do the job, and I think we'll be standing on, like, second base.

2:14:20Pat McAfee:Correct. In the middle of the truce park. So far. Wow. Gloves? Something to think about. I think we're holding it. Hey, ball skirt is job skirt, brother. You won't have one. I don't have the glove on. Oh, nice snag with the palm, too. Yikes. Yeah, what was it? Bare hands. It was a catch. It was a catch. Hey, we're a baseball program, aren't we? Yes, we are. Nobody talks about it. Even us. Sometimes. We have a catch all the time. We do have a catch all the time. This glove is a little stiff. That's a show glove. It's cool looking, though. Show glove. Not like show head. No, like a show pony. Shout out to T-Mobile.

2:14:56Pat McAfee:Can't say it enough. If you're looking for a phone coverage, get the best network. The best mobile network in the United States, as it was voted on by the name right here above my head. Yeah. Man, that's a fine print. Speed test, I believe it says. According to? Yeah. Something speed test. Okla? Okla? Okla. Speed test. Oh, God. That's the best. I didn't see that helmet. Is there something on that helmet? Okla's speed test said, hey, T-Mobile is not the best network. You can check it out at T-Mobile.com forward slash network. It's better over there. Yeah. T-Mobile. It's like Will being the best translator.

2:15:40I mean, Joe Hay would legitimately not be able to communicate with anybody. Don't. Actually, I don't. So he understood what he was saying. I think he would.

2:15:48Pat McAfee:So I told Joe Hay in that conversation, I told Joe Hay that I only speak one language. That is true. I can kind of understand another one, though. You're right. So, like, French. I took, I think, two years in high school, and then I took four semesters in college of French. Okay. So I understand what they're trying to do with the words. So I know the ballpark of the words. How they're supposed to sound. So, like, I was in Morocco. French is the second native language there. So I heard people speaking in French, could understand kind of what they were saying, but didn't have the word bank to respond.

2:16:25Pat McAfee:Tie it with Spanish. Felt like that's what Shohei was kind of doing there. He understood what we were saying, but it's like, I don't know if I have the entire answer yet. Especially with English, where it's like there's so many slang terms. And Japanese is so much different than English language. I mean, that is a tough jump, I think, both ways. Like, I think English to Japanese, tough. Nothing similar. Like, there's like, you know, like in the French language, E, E, S, E, N, T, O, N, T. Like, the ending of words all mean things. masculine feminine words so you kind of do that in the japanese language there's it's very different i mean it was i went over there it's tough i mean nowadays with ai that we're learning yeah sunglasses right goodness yep shit sunglasses i might be able to just talk to everybody which would be so sweet should have used them for this oh yeah how do i say and then the sunglasses hey meta translate this but it's like i think he's going to get to the point where he speaks very good English, but I think at the moment it appears he can understand what we're saying, but I don't know if he has the confidence fully yet to commit to a full answer.

2:17:30Pat McAfee:Do you think that's probably a good reason? Yeah, and I also think part of it is you see what he already has to deal with with the Japanese media. If he starts speaking English, unbelievable. It's like he's never going to be able to breathe. Yeah, you've heard that with some hockey players. Right. Some of the Russian hockey players are like, nah, I'm not learning. If I learn, I've got to talk to him. I've got to talk to everybody.

2:17:54Pat McAfee:That's amazing. Shohei was awesome. I love how they have to walk around in full units. I know. I think that's an MLB mandate. I think all of the guys who are here have to be in full uniform. Dude, I was on my phone. All right, how much time do we have? And then, hey, hey, hey. So everybody was like, hey, hey, hey. Look over. Holy shit. Shohei Otani in his full uniform. Hello, Shohei. Holy shit. Good to see you. All right, we're out of here. It's great to be back. Tomorrow we'll be in Indianapolis. And then Wednesday we'll be in Los Angeles for the ESPYs. ESPYs are Wednesday. Shane Gillis is hosting.

2:18:36Pat McAfee:Let's have a good night at the ESPYs. Let's enjoy that. And then Thursday, who knows where we are. Legit. Or what we're doing. Could be in Utah. Could be in Vegas. We'll be doing a whole show. Who knows? The summer road trip is kind of destination-less. We're kind of on our way. But are we ever getting there? Of course. We'll find out. We got wings. Of course we get. Shout out Red Bull. Red Bull was like, yeah, we just kind of want to be in your guys' world, whatever you want to do. It's like, all right, how about next week? We got to go to. We need you. Sounds good. Because we drink Red Bull.

2:19:19Pat McAfee:Oh, yeah. So, like, them becoming a partner, good news. This is just like whenever we actually use all the companies. Without a doubt. And they work. Those ones work. Yeah. Shout out Red Bull for all the years of service. All the years of service. Long time. And for getting in the sugar-free game and not the taste changing drastically. Amen. And speaking of taste, thank you for working on the taste. Yeah. Yeah. Over the years. You remember way, way, way, way, way back. Oh, yeah. Gave you wings, but also it was tough to get done. Motor oil. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Red Bull want the work. Yeah. Yeah, they did.

2:19:50Pat McAfee:Say, hey, we got something here. They certainly do. They've given us wings for decades. Thank you to Red Bull. All right, let's get the hell out of here. Ty, you and I got a big night. Yeah, we do. Excited for it. Come on, boys. Come on, boys. Pump for you guys. Congrats. Oh, you got winning tonight. We got some notes. Yeah, we got winning. Who you got winning? Do you want to hear the notes first? Oh, yeah. Sure. And then this might sway who you pick. Sure. D-Buts, you'll be last. Okay. Connor, you'll be first. Okay. James Wood. I don't know if everybody knows who's batting when. Never mind. Oh, yeah.

2:20:26Pat McAfee:Good point. Good point. Oh, yeah. Good call. Well, now they know who's leading it off. Maybe. Or last. But do they? Yeah. Good point. Just pick them. Just read them randomly. I don't think I want to do that either. Just look at the list and then pick who you think is going to win. Okay. Boom. Okay. Perfect. Boston Connor, who will be winning the Home Run Derby this evening, that Ty and I will be announcing and hopefully kick it off in a proper fashion. I mean, I've given this a lot of thought, and I'm really bummed we took that list off already, Foxy. Yep. And just taking a look at the guys again that I have been looking into a lot.

2:21:04I'm personally, of course, going to pull selfishly for Big Dumper, but I'm going to pick the hometown kid, Matt Olsen. Oh, I like it. To win the Derby. I mean, I think that's the best scene. A bunch of Braves fans here are going to be pulling for him. Come on, Matty O. Make something out of your season because everyone says you either strike out

2:21:23Pat McAfee:or hit a homer. Okay, that's from Boston Connor who looked like this at one point on today's show, obviously. Stare it down. Stare it down. It's all my chance. Hey, good selection. Okay, we'll go with you, Ty Schmidt. Obviously, you'll be introducing the guys. Who wins it? Yeah, I'm going to go with the long shot. I'm going to go with my Yankee brethren, my all-star brethren, Jazz Chisholm Jr. I think it's just a great night. Jazz is a showman, and I think he's going to go out there with the intention of putting on a show. So I'm going to go with Jazz. Okay, AP, turn. Do you agree or disagree with that, Ty Schmidt?

2:21:55I disagree. I'm going to go with O 'Neal Cruz. He's got the velo. He's got the bat speed. But if you're looking for a dark horse, Junior Caminero would be a second.

2:22:04Pat McAfee:Hey, remember, ESPN stats says cruise missile winner because of bat speed and exit velocity. So they're saying, hey, who's going to win? The cruise missile. D-Bots, do you agree with anybody or do you have your own? I got my own. I'm going with the guy who was fourth on that list, but first in the big leagues and home runs, and that's the big dumper right there, Cal. He's the favorite. I'm going there. Not going to make it too hard. Plus 260. I like that bet. I'm going with a big dumper. How about big dumper? And obviously I won't make any selections because I would like to be non-biased. Journalism, yeah.

2:22:36Pat McAfee:Smart. With that being said, come on, dump. Come on. He's a dump. With that being said, cruise missile would be cool too. Yeah. How about Great Wood, James Wood, Olsen, Rooker, Buxton, Caminero, Chisholm, Rizzo. Let's have a night tonight. Yeah. Here we go. Let's enjoy it. Thank you to the MLB. Great work in the back boys. Great work. Great work. Great work production team that did everything. Hoo-yah. Hoo-yah. Hoo-yah. Hell yeah. Thank you. We're it boys. Audio. Microphone. Everything that goes into this is absurd, so we appreciate everybody that does it. It's not easy either, and it's very tedious at times, because you've got to plug one thing into another thing.

2:23:16Pat McAfee:And then guess what? You've got to do that 100 more times. And they've got little prongers that are tough. And also, if one is wrong. And if you fuck one thing up, the whole show's ruined. You're dead. All 100. Boom. Just like that. They just gave us lights. That's awesome. Good night. The show's over. We're an MLB show. Yeah. That's cool. All right, be a friend, tell a friend something nice that might change their life. We're in this thing together. Team on me. Team on three. This one's for baseball. One, two, three. Team. Goodbye. Close your eyes. Exhale. Feel your body relax. And let go of whatever you're carrying today.

2:23:54Pat McAfee:Well, I'm letting go of the worry that I wouldn't get my new contacts in time for this class. I got them delivered free from 1-800-CONTACTS. Oh my gosh, they're so fast. And breathe. Oh, sorry. I almost couldn't breathe when I saw the discount they gave me on my first order. Oh, sorry. Namaste. Visit 1-800-CONTACTS.com today to save on your first order. 1-800-CONTACTS. This episode is brought to you by State Farm. No two football players are exactly alike, and the same is true off the field. That's why State Farm gets to know you, so they can help personalize coverage for your life and budget.

2:24:32And like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. You