EP 45-Latest on NFL returning, MLB predictions, and reasons to wear a mask (other than the obvious)

many talking points, so many things. Every time I look around, I noticed something new. Um. The thing that jumped out the Dallas Cowboy cheerleader poster framed poster by the way, um from And when I looked at it, I thought it was from the seventies and you confirmed nine seventies seven. Yeah, this is a This was a gift from my brother in law. He got it at uh flea market or or a secondhand store or you know, something like a pawn shop or something like that. Um, and he gave

to me as a Christmas gift. Nineteen seventy seven original Dallas Cowboy cheerleader poster from the movie. I think is is what this was. They did a movie, they did Dallas Cowboys Cheerleader movie, and they really I mean I remember not to see what Texas was at North Dallas forty remember that movie, but I didn't know there was a Dallas Cowboy Cheerleader movie. Maybe maybe my m off off the mark there a bit with that, but I should look. But you've got I mean, you've got a

a Minnesota Twins official home er hanky. Yeah, what year is that from that one? Is that one's not as old? That's like a two thousand ten piece. Let me take a look at it. I think we could do a whole show. And you've got you've got the Honda, the brand new the paper plate. Oh yeah, I just hung now of the Santa Fece Like, look what I got. That's a flag X right there, right there in the new Santa fe Oh, because you've got old school. You've got a Minnesota license, but you've got a Wyoming license.

But you got New Hampshire license plate. What's that the one that's covered as Massachusetts? Massachusetts? So all of those places have connection. I've lived there or my wife, your wife is Yeah, there's a lot there. I think a lot of cowboy fans would would love to know that Dean is in I'm in the middle of cowboy cowboys stuff going on, and not just the Dallas cowboys, real cowboys like Wyoming cowboys. There's a painting. It's up over there. It's right, it's right next to oh where is it?

It's right next to the couple of tennis rackets, the body, the wetsuit, and the sombrero which are all in the and the and the CD collection which are all in that corner. Do you guys ever need a Halloween costume? I have it for you. The the old leather, the old leather couch on wheels casters. You put it on four inch casters. You can wheel the bad boy in and out of the garage. Before you got here, Dean, we wheeled this bar in the bar that that that has a saying painted into the bottom of it that

the best revenge is happiness. That was a quote my buddy connor Burne, who dad whose dad works for the Ravens, or work for the Ravens. Longtime pr guy there. He did this piece and he asked me to hold onto it, and then I turned it into a work bench. He was gonna come back and get the best revenge is happy, right it is? And then you've got the one gallon jug of Jamison. So I think right behind the right by Troy an Tony, I will say it's very organized, trapped.

I'm very impressed. Yea, you gotta stay organized, they in order to in order to keep a pawn shop open in your garage. Yeah, this is it. I'm gonna say. The audio sounds amazing. It does sound amazing. Joe's very happy because we're not no longer doing zoom. We'll see how long. Let's see what we can keep this up. I feel like what I don't want to happen is

what happened in this country. Okay, we we opened up and we were like, yeah, let's go back, and everybody got crazy and everybody started, yeah you know what, We're gonna go to bars. And now we're gonna we're just gonna forget that this virus still exists. And now case of spike. And now we're pulling back and right at a time for football season, great time. Now this is awesome. Um A hundred is that right? A hundred? Thirty two days down? Um? On mind? And that feels like a

lifetime ago. It feels like a lifetime ago back in January when people were like, I've noticed people at the airport wearing masks and was like, oh, you know, it's another one of these viruses before this, and and I was like, oh, yeah, this is this. Yeah, I remember like stars or or h H N one one N one and uh and little did we know that it would complete everything. And I don't know what what are we in right now because we we went to quarantine.

I feel like the first round of quarantine was like fun.

It was like, oh, we're all in, We're watching Tiger King, like this is cool, Like everybody's doing oh wow, there's this like like it was like it was literally like we discovered plutonium when people started using zoom, like it hadn't been around a long time and people have been doing video conferences for a long time, and everybody was like, oh my god, zoom And it was kind of cool initially, and then I was like, Okay, the summer months are coming,

it's gonna get warmer. You know, we're gonna get a handle on this. Europe's opening up, Asia's opening up. We start to open up. And now I feel like we're we're right back at square one, and Europe and Asia is banning us. I'm going, we're banning each and every state is like banning other states from going. I was gonna. I booked a flight to New York about a month ago when things look good, and I had to cance so that I can't. You know, they're saying like fourteen

day quarantine if you come from certain certain states. I don't know how they how they police that, but I don't feel like I'd be the one that gets caught at the airport and like, sorry, sir, you can't leave. That's been I love, I love my mom, loved my family, But fourteen days in that house with my sister and the kids and my mom would be what about your brother's either, No, my brother used to hang out of his house. That's a reality show, waiting the latent reality show.

Like I can't even We'll get him back on the show if T s A wants to stop. My mom she left earlier. It was sad to see her. She got to meet her grandson today, so that was great. Oh, how was that? She loved him? He didn't think it was gonna. I didn't think it was gonna go bad. I mean she traveled to l a X. I dropped rop picked her up. It was so quiet and dead. It was weird to see it that that way. It seemed like, I think, I just want to fly just

for that. Yeah. She she's like she got fight to Sacramento. I'm fine, s I book three ft Sacramento day. I just come back because I'm just like doing day trip, just just an airport trip. I'm flying the Sacramento. I want to go to Minneapolis that I love, Minneapolis St. Paul Airport, so just go. Delta does connect through there all the time. I'll just go l A to Minneapolis MSP and then come back. I got some walleye at one of the restaurants in in the Minneapolis airports, A Fish. Yeah,

you ordered first. First, you ordered a walleye. You might be the only person I've ever met that has ordered a walleye in a restaurant and then you ordered it at the airport. It wasn't It wasn't great, but I was excited to see it. Anyway. It wasn't great. I feel I feel like the walleyes one that you catch and then you eat that day, Like that's that kind of. I don't even know. I is. It's like a fish.

It's really good. I think next time you go to Whole Food seafood, you know, actually setting up a fishing trip right right here, right out of Redondo. Really we're not gonna catch I don't know, as my dad. Alright, so we are getting sports back this week. And I know, yes, MLS has been back. I get that, but when you talk about the big four in this country, um, MLS is not part of it. Baseball, right, So baseball is back. I've been watching some preseason games, spring training games, whatever

the heck you want to call him. But the the the most interesting point about the baseball opening day, which is Thursday, is that that Center release about it today, Dr Fauci is going to be thrown out the first pitch at the Nats game in in d C. And I don't know, like I I like him, like I like him. I think he's got a very tough job, especially dealing with the current administration. But I just like, at one one point he is saying, we can't play sports.

We gotta you know, NFL, you gotta be in a bubble. Hey, hey, Doc, you want to throw out the first pitch. Yeah, let's go. I'm in. You know he's gonna wear a mask, right, of course, what are the odds that he doesn't wear a mask? They were people were wearing masks. He's he's wearing a mask, throwing out the first pitch. The mask is who knows? What is that mask? Gonna look like?

We're gonna get into mask. I wish like it would be amazing if he would sell advertising on the mask and and then donate it to COVID nineteen research, Like that would be gold. That should what happen? That that should absolutely happen in this capitalistic, allegedly capitalistic society. God Mary John, I'm sure there'll be a lot of pushback, like shouldn't he be working on a vaccine not throwing

out the first pitch? Of course. Well, speaking of vaccines and speaking of testing, the NFL finally, UM, a lot of people, you know, we're questioning, what what has the NFL been doing for months? Right? Well, the NFL, they haven't been sitting around doing nothing, obviously, but the NFL and the NFLP agreed on daily testing. Um, at least through the first two weeks of camp. They will be able to pull back to every other day if positive UM tests are less than five percent UM, which is

interesting because you think about testing every day. The cost I saw one estimate seventy five million dollars. And then the question becomes, well, if the NFL is using all these tests, what is that taking away from the general public? Is that taking away from six people? And the way that I read it was not. Because the NFL is contracting with a third party laboratory too to increase their number of tests just for the NFL. And uh, and think about that company. I think it's Biosphere Labs or

something like that reference lab. That's it, Like, I want a piece of that action. The general deal says tests per day with the team d twenty per team per day. Right, so then and that's gonna be and every team is gonna is gonna have their one thirty second of that of that bill um so and that's like you imagine, do you think that's you know, when a bunch of us are at a restaurant, they're trying to figure out money,

like what's okay, what's what's twenty divided by six? And they're sitting there and you know, like Jerry, Jerry just is like, wow, we only had a hundred and tantists did today? Like, dude, dude, I don't care if you only had an appetizer. When we all go out to dinner, we're splitting it like that's the rule. Like I don't care how many tests that the Jaguars had on Tuesday. We're splitting it one thirty second. Okay, don't give me that. Oh I only had drinks, then, don't come. Come, don't

come to dinner. I'm a vegetarian. Don't come. Don't come to dinner. Oh you you took me to a steakhouse and I'm a vegetarian. Dude. Their sides you can get. Every steakhouse has a side for vegetarians, okay, like the cream spinach. Every steakhouse. Just get a scream spinach if you're vegan. If you're vegan, get the steam brockerate. But don't give me that ship. You're you're paying one dirty second and I don't want to don't give me the itemized bill. That's why I want to go out and

groups like that. I just go big. That's fine, that's fine. I'll have a double lobster tail with three glasses of wine or three I always get hose because I generally don't drink while I while I'm eating. I mean, either I don't like And then the bill comes and it's like this dude has had you know, eleven Martin. You know what, I don't care. If you're there and you're at the table, you're in, You're all in. We're gonna make a rule on this. Yes, the rule is group setting.

You go to dinner, you're all in. If you're in. If you're in a couple of situation, then that that you divide it in half. So if there's eight people, four couples, every couple pays a quarter. That's how it works. Okay, don't give me this. You know, you start adding up about separate checks. Hate separate checks. I missed the whistle. We didn't have the whistle. Separate checks are legal if you go to dinner with me and you and they, you asked for a separate check. But you'll never get

a project. I don't. It's just not gonna happen. Sorry, So it's law. We just made a new rule. The cancer. So again, this whole there was this coordinated effort on social media. What was that Sunday um Saturday when was Sunday, right, So it was Sunday we want we want to play? Right hashtag we want to play? And all these players, um, we're posting, And it was almost as if they the way they were making it come across like the NFL wasn't doing anything and they wanted to play. How is

the NFL going to keep us safe? And I know if you read like the comments and you read like I get it. I get everybody's in their own situation. And if I worked at Walmart, I want the people at Walmart to keep me safe. If I worked at you know, I work at Fox Sports the studio, I I trust those people to keep us safe when we

go into the studio. And if I play for an NFL team, I I expect the league and my club to keep say But the problem is that when you have a million dollar athletes that are are posting these things, you get the general public that says, well, you know, I have to go to work, I have to do these things. Don't complain about it. And I don't think they're complaining, but I just think that's how it comes

across to certain people. Ultimately, the league and the NFL p A is gonna do what's best for everyone, what's best for the players, UM, the safety and ultimately playing a season. There's too much money at stake to not work together. The virus may say, like it's been saying all f you, you ain't playing. But I can't imagine if the virus doesn't say that, that it's going to be the NFL and the NFL p A preventing themselves

from playing the season. And that's what it comes down to. So, UM, rookies report to camp right UM this week, the quarterbacks report, So it's gonna be interesting to see how it all plays out, what it looks like. UM, because obviously football all it is a contact sport. Although training camp and things like that, you don't have a lot of padded practice anyway, less than than than what was in the past. And uh. And so you know, I know you're excited,

Travis because you wrote it in my notes. Um, the first time you're gonna get to see Brady in the box, Like you woke up this morning you were like, Hey, camp opens, this is the first time I'm gonna see Tom Brady with the box. And then it's gonna be the first time we can see Cam Newton and Bill Belichick with the Patriots, those that haven't been like spun into like a political thing like so like everything is

a political story, like everything. Cam Newton was an m v P in two thousand fifteen and he had to pay and he always he's playing on a seven million dollar contract. And and Nick Foles, who hasn't had half the career that that Cam has had, is making however many millions. It's all political. It's all Travis. We forgetting about wrong. I mean we That's my god. The other thing, Travis, and you surprised the heck out of me. I did

not think we were having hard knocks. I just assumed that if we're limiting people who have access to the facility and we're creating these tears, how are we going to have camera people bringing the whole camera crew. It's what we're doing, hard knocks. Yeah, like what I mean. We saw the trailer come out on Tuesday and it's two teams rams and chargers. And but I'm I'm looking at you because I said there was no herd. Because if you and I are running the NFL, I'm on

the camp. Like we both have the key. We both were in the submarine and we both have the key, and I'm saying we're not turning the key, and you're like, yeah, turn it. Let's go Hard Knocks. Why are we doing Hard Knocks, Travis? Is it the NFL's call or is it HBO. No, the NFL would ultimately have seen it's the NFL's call. Yeah, they would ultimately say we're not going to do it here because of a pandemic, and

we're gonna limit the number of people that have access. Well, I mean, I'm guessing the testing is just gonna be the same for all those people that are showing up to those camps every day. And let's use so no, no media is allowed. We're not allowed fans, but we can the card Knocks because we want to. You have to be able to promote your your brand, like like that show is like that, I mean all it is. It's like, let's get pumped up for football. Football is

coming out. Every Hard Knocks is like every year whoever's on Hard Knocks, the odds of them winning the Super Bowl changes drafted because everybody, everybody, We're going and the stories and ultimately we fall in love with these players who get cut and are never heard from again. On the NFL level, which I was talking about with my wife, like, you're not going to have those those long shot stories this year because those guys are gonna make the team

because you can't even see them. Because the other note I have here is there's a report saying no preseason, no preseason game. How are those guys gonna get a look at all? Like they're not going anyway? Limit and and you might even end up limiting number. You know, who knows what the roster sizes are gonna be. Yeah, it's it's pretty crazy. The no preseason games is really interesting because, um, you look, even with preseason games, you watched the first two or three weeks of the regular season,

and it is very sloppy. It's sloppy from a playing perspective, it's sloppy from an officiating perspective. They are still because of the way the preseason has been structured. You look at the Rams, the Rams, I think it was last year, they didn't play any starters in the preseason at all. So you're you're you're ones are getting very few reps in the preseason to begin with. Now right now, no preseason, no reps for anybody. Week one, kickoff. That's the first

live football that like real NFL speed. These these players are going to be exposed to. The officials have not had They just will talk about their officiating clinging. They just had it on the fifteenth to the eight team. The officials used preseason more than anybody to work out the kinks. We always told officials, okay, preseason, if you have a question in your mind, throw the flag right,

and then we'll tell you. We'll tell you, you you know what, that's not a foul because it doesn't impact it doesn't impact anything. If you don't throw, we don't know where your head is, right, So lean towards throwing the flag. You can't do that in the regular season, like you can't say, well, you know, if you're not sure, just throw the flags flags right. So you're not gonna have that. And that is that those four games are so critical

for the officials cruise change. Um, you know, they have to get to to kind of working together in communication. So it is week one. Hopefully we have week one and I'm fine, like good, I'm not complaining, no preseason. Fine, I'll take sloppy football over no football. Yeah, let's end things right so we can take that month, get everyone ready for week one. Yeah, and I and look and I get it. I get it. It's preseason. We can sit here and we can say, Wow, that's gonna be

a big deal, but nobody we're not. We understand why, right, we understand this is not by choice, this is necessity. And to get it, we don't want to put players at further rest. Listen that the ship show has to be as much of a ship shows is. It can't be like, oh, the NFL is just back to normal. It's gotta be just as much of a ship show as the rest of the world. It's gonna work out perfectly. It's and it's gonna be dramatic and it's gonna be and it's gonna be it'll be good good, Like you said,

lots to talk about, um the other things. So I talked about the officiating clinic. They had their virtual clinic on the eighteenth. That's what everybody's doing virtually. I was, um, you know, I was presenting the Big ten officiating clinic over the weekend, the Pack twelve Officiating clinic I presented

at the the Southwestern Athletic Conference. All of these clinics, UM and I think it's been really good and and and there's been a lot of access to video and things like that, but there is no, um, there's no substitute for actually getting out there and doing it. UM. So things that they talked about at the NFL officia and clinic officials will be tested. Officials will be tested

twice a week. They'll be tested on Wednesdays in their in their home city, and then they'll we tested at some point if they have a Sunday game, it looks like potentially Saturday, when they get to the city the city and get tested, then, um, these these tests are gonna have pretty quick turnarounds, so you'll know if somebody does get tested. Obviously, if you test on Wednesday and you're positive, you're gonna stay home, you're not gonna work,

You're quarantining for two weeks. If you test positive on Saturday before the game, UM, that's gonna be interesting because now, especially if you've flown and you have to quarantine, you're not gonna be able to get on a plane. So it's an officially gonna be stuck. If I live in Seattle and i'm and I go to Chicago for a game and I test positive on Saturday. Am I sitting in Chicago for fourteen days? You know that that's a big,

big deal. Obviously, it is what it is, UM, and that's why all of these especially on the college side, but all of these officiating programs are looking at regionalizing their assignments. So now if you have an if you have a crew, you're gonna try to put them together based on region. Maybe they're all if you you come,

you know what the Big Ten is doing. They're looking at, you know, driving distances four hours, six hours, and you try to put a crew together that is no less than six hours apart, and then you assign those games based on driving distances. Easier to do in the Big Ten than it is in the NFL, right, because in the Big Ten you have less teams and it is more regionalized. Although the Big TENNI is kind of stretched out with your East Coast teams, Rutgers, Maryland, things like that. UM,

the NFL you're all over the map. So it's gonna be a lot harder. But again they've talked about that. They they they went through five official mechanics. Right, we have seven officials on the field and in the NFL, UM they're they're thinking about and reviewing. You always went six official mechanics because if you lost somebody in the middle of the game, right, somebody tore you know, um, hurt a knee, twisted an angle, that official went down.

You don't have alternate officials at regular season games, so you had to work with six officials. But to go to five, that's high school. When when in the NFL was the last time they went with five? Man I saw, I was like, this was in the sixties or seventies, seventies. I think I believe in seventies seven they went to maybe if they haven't had less than seven since since the late seventies. And if you think about think about NFL players and just five officials, it will be naim.

But it is what it is like. You can't You have to prepare for these things. You have to prepare for contingencies that you never ever thought were possible. Um that if you know, an official gets um comes down with you know, a positive test and maybe you know what if two or three even just if you wake up on Sunday morning and you have a cold, or you have a fever, or you have a sore throat, they're being told you don't work. Okay, you don't work so normally you have a cold. I'm gonna go out

and work. I'll take some you know, remember Michael Jordan played with the flu, you know the Last Dances on Netflix now Netflix and see that mother. First it was the flu, then it was bad pizza. That that got debunked by the Utah Pizza. So he wasn't sick. Maybe he had COVID. Maybe he had COVID. He was the first COVID he was so he's so amazing that he defeated it for the entire population for twenty years and then it came back. He's all upset. I thought I

killed this already. What are we doing? We're gonna take a break. All right, let's take a break on that note you since you got me fired up, Let's take a break. We come back. We'll get into um the latest on other sports returning, and uh, I want to talk some odds with Joe m all right, we're back, who calls? One thing I want to talk about just

before we wrap at the NFL. The Washington Post story that came out last week about the sexual harassment and the details and and just the just the sheer number of people that were involved in that were affected by that. But the problem that I have was the way that story was hyped leading up to before it was released. It started to leak right the week prior, and it was like, this thing's coming, this is gonna be big.

We're already, Washington is already in the news because of the name change, and everybody was was kind of focusing on that. And then it's like, this, something's gonna blow that out of the water. And they made it out to be this is gonna be insane, this is gonna be shocking, this is gonna be earth shattering, and people started to speculate and and they started to speculate about

what this could possibly be. And it was things like Dan Snyder was paying off the officials, Um, you know, Jay Gruden was sleep being with a receptionist, like all of these specific details, and people would expect have people texting me, hey, what do you know? And I was like,

I don't know anything, Like I have no idea. And I was like, and I can tell you that, hey, I never took a bribe from Washington, and be if they were paying officials, they need to get their money back because because they did not get a return on that investment at at all. But the problem I have with that the way it was handled, and I don't

know who's at fault. I just don't know. But when the story did eventually come out, it was like you had a whole bunch of people that didn't see those type of what they would consider juicy details, and it was like, Oh, this isn't a big deal when it is a big deal, and it almost minimizes the fact that these women were were traumatized, were traumatized in this

environment of sexual harassment and this negative environment. And like I said, when you do that, when you hype it up to that point, people expect like they expect, like Dan Snyder was, was, you know whatever, like these crazy things, and when you don't have those details and it's like, oh, sexual harassment not a big deal, it is a big deal. And that's the problem that I have with that, that

whole thing. I think people just expected it to be like Jerry Richardson from a few years back, and yeah, and he's gonna have to sell. Dan Snyder is not gonna have to sell the team because of this, right Obviously, he's the owner. It's on his watch. Um, it's a it's a it's a bad environment. I will tell you that I am that, maybe not to that extent, but I don't care NFL. Other work environments have those elements.

I mean, that's just the reality situation. And and we all got to do better in that in that extent. But um, he's not gonna be forced to sell the team unless there's something specific aimed at him, and there wasn't anything specific aimed in him. But he does have to overhaul the whole environment. There were people that said that that the environment and that in that organization was

not great from a lot of different aspects. But yeah, you had a couple of people in the personnel department lose their jobs in in the play by play, guy said he retired and but it's you know, and and it's sad that there was of the I guess fifteen women, only one felt comfortable enough to to come out, and you know, with her name. The other we're still whether it was you know, signing NDAs or worry of reprisal. And then that's the sad part about this whole thing.

It's crazy to know that it's it's Ron Rivera at both of those places too, and he's just coming in and change the culture. And he's just yeah, and I can say, Ron Rivera is the is the one of the best people on the planet. And Ron Rivera will make changes in. Ron Rivera will not stand for that. Um, that type of behavior. So um. And Ron even said, you know, Ron's daughter works for the team, works for Washington, and he's like, you think I'm gonna allow that with anyone,

but especially my daughter. So um. It's interesting, but about but the hype. It was like Joe. When Joe hypes an outfit coming into the studio any texts, he text me, oh, dude,

wait to see these pants. And then he's like hype, like you think these pants are gonna be like Christmas lights and it's gonna be like a mural of of Kobe And you know, we talked about tattoos last week, and um, all these things and it's like, all right, they're they're pants that are kind of fashionable and little bit and a little bit uncomfortably tight, like they're just and and they're a little bit high water like like

you're expecting, you know, to walk through a puddle. But he takes risks and we should we should get do you know what you are? You are very forward thinking when it comes to fashion and in our little studio, which again it's not a great compliment because we're not talking about fashionistas. This isn't you know, This isn't walk Away in Paris, but the runway in Paris, the fashion show. But you do you do I win best dressed in

the studio? Do you win best dressed? Um? Casual? Scott's not here to defend himself, he would say he probably is wants to be into that in that conversation too, with his hats on backwards and let's yeah, Scott looks the same. Thank you for the Capri son gave me a son because it's hot in his garage. The problem I have with the Greece son is what when are we going to fix the straw When are we gonna How have they haven't? No way the second haven't they

fixed it? Isn't it different? Now? Okay? So not you have an old school one. I don't know how long this been sitting in turn we're talking about right, You take the straws, you have to stick it into you have to pierce the skin of the container to get to the delicious. I think they changed the Dean well they have on the top that you pull apart. That's even harder. No, that's the way these are probably from January. They've been in the fridge out here. That'd be an

interesting world like, we should do that world record. How many Caprice sons can you Pierson? Like a minute, there's gotta be three, Like literally, oh my god, he did six. That's amazing. It's this guy has it down. And then they expect, like, who's drinking Capri sons? Five year olds? And they expect five year olds have the this dexterity to put the straw. It's insane, Like how many was purposely done to help kids with their Maybe maybe not to drink eight three sons? It's that easy. Maybe they

were ahead of us. Maybe highly doubt that because that would mean they'd sell less. We try to get the CEO of pre Son on the show this week. We he'sad we're onto something, so he's not retiring alright. Baseball okay, Baseball sixty games starts Thursday, give us some maj show. I think what I've been reading is the consensus right now the two best teams the dres in the in the n L and the Yankees in the ALE. I would love that being a Dodger fan hating the Yankees.

I go back to the seventy eight World Series, eighty one World Series. You can go back much further than that. Um, that would be awesome, Like what what what can we what can we bet on? Yeah? So they're definitely the favorites, right, Dodgers are plus three fifty to win the World Series. Yankees are plus four fifty. Then you got Astro's Braves twins. But that is Astros Astro's plus fift that's without the signs stealing. If they were still sit stealing signs, I

think that we don't. They might have as different They might have a different you know, drum or something. Maybe maybe they're using a trumpet. I can tell you. I'm I am an Angels fan, but I do like the Angels at plus three thousand, really and I also I never like that. What surprises me is the twins. The Twins have been successful of regular season success, and then they run into the Yankees in this playoffs. The ship the bet but I would not, Okay, so what is

that one? Two, three four five? The six. If you weren't looking at this and I told you who has the sixth best chance to win the World Series, you would not guess you would not. I wasn't looking at That's why. Thanks, thanks for this way talking about the team. Oh I thought you were talking about Twin Still no, No, the sixth is the is the Mets. Like I would not have bet this. The Mets have the sixth best chance,

according to Vegas to win the World Series? Like, what are the What have the Mets done to to improve? They got to gram, they got they have a first year. Man if they are still well? It was supposed to be right. They were supposed to be Beltron and then Beltron got busted sign stealing like I've never even heard of this. Louis Rojansky like he's a former player. Um, but you go down? What okay, Joe? So where's your best value? Take off? Take the Angels out because you're

an Angels family. Where's the best value? I actually like the Indians, Actually like the Indians. That plus the can you not use that? Can you just say sorry? The Cleveland Native American team? So you like the Indians, you like Cleveland? I think for the money, I think the obviously is that the best I'm saying, what's the best value. I think the Indians are the best value. But with

the Angels of course, and I am saying that non biased. Um, but obviously the Dodgers, and it's it's probably gonna be the Dodgers for sure, but you know, getting sixty games season though, like if you start off, if you if you have a bad first ten games, you might be done. I do think the th was the deepest team. I think the Yankees obviously, I mean, who have who do you think has the best pitching staff in baseball? The Gnats have a good team, Like I was, Yeah, they

lost friend don Um. They're bully there they want in spite of their bullpen um last year, they didn't really improve the team as much um and and quite frankly, they shouldn't that they shouldn't have beaten the Dodgers last year. I mean, if Dave Robbers doesn't let Kershaw come out for that start of the eighth inning, it's you know, you bring in my Ada and then Jansen in the ninth and whatever. But anyway, Um, look, the Yankees sign Jerichole So I think the Yankees gotta be up there.

I think the Mets have have um a great staff, but Syndergard, like I said, Syndergards out with Tommy John Surgery. UM Dodgers rely on Kershaw and uh and Walker Bueller. I don't know if they're in the top five. Who do they have here? Who does this? So this article says the Yankekees, Mets reds. How how dated is that? It says MLB Indians and that, And yeah, I think obviously pitching his key and in a short season, I

think it's even more important. Well, the other the other thing about pitching in a short season is you know you're not gonna have pictures on on in incounts and pitch counts and things like that, so you're not gonna you know, you're not gonna limit starts. And that's where I think the Dodgers, if they're young, pictures um can can come through. I think their staff is gonna be So they got Dodgers number one, They got Tampa Bay

number two, they're always sneaky good Max. Three, they got Tampa Bay three oh yeah, three, three Dodgers to and who they have the Yankees one Dodgers too, Four's at Houston and then five Cleveland. So yeah, the list I'm looking at is kind of similar. It's but it goes Gnats, Raise Reds, Cleveland, Dodgers, Yankees. But yeah, I mean, how many complete games are you gonna see from like Max shars or this year? I don't know. I think it's

he's never gonna want to come out. I think the other thing is you now you have the n L d H, which is gonna which is gonna impact the pitching in the NL. I mean they haven't. You know, you always think about I like, like an automatic hour I hate, but I hate the DH because I think there's so much strategy. And you talk to managers that have managed in the American League and they're like, you just you kind of just given the lineup car and then you just sit sit back and you try not

to screw it out. And when you have the picture, you have to make those you have to make those decisions. And you know, am I gonna pinch hit? Now? You know? My guys it's up, we're down one nothing. My guys throwing well, but it's in the sixth inning. I got a man on second. Take care you know, you know all of that stuff that's strategy that I really love. Gonna be huge. It is gonna be huge. All right, Let's switch to NBA. What what's Milwaukee and the Lakers?

Is that? Definitely the Lakers even with the injuries of Rondo and in In brad and Bradley not coming back, and the Lakers are plus two fifty Milwauker's plus three, Clippers plus three twenty five. I'm shocked at that. I wouldn't ever take that. What's the best value? Where? Where do you like the you know who? I like? You know what? My my sneaky team and I and I'd be cleaning up. Are you like the Nuggets? You all right?

You were talking about nug not the Nuggets. I mean I like Toronto plus two thousand, Utah, Baby, Utah plus six thousand, Give me to Utah, Give me to Utah, give me too. So Hunter wins you six gees. What would you do with that hypothetical betting dot com? Hypothetical dot com? Would that hypothetical six thousand? I would buy? I would I would figure out a way to improve the priest Son's straw insertion process and then be able to turn the capris on into a mask for COVID.

There we go. We're gonna talk about the mass in the next break. After the next break, the Lakers box and followed very closely by the Clippers, which I'm pretty shocked about, plus the Clippers. All these are from sports dot Com, so the odds are a little different other places, but I'd take Toronto plus two thousand. Toronto was playing

well before before the home shutdown. Um, and you think, obviously Kauai was such a big, big part of the winning the championship, which Joe forgot that Toronto won the championship a couple of weeks ago. He was, he was, he was, he was. He was questioning a line in a rap song. He was, he questioned the line in the right He's like, wait, they just said when the ring, Like that's that's not okay. Jason Bieber, Jason justkay Jason.

I thought he was. He was questioning a lyric in a Justin Bieber song about Toronto getting a ring, and he's like, did it did the Blue Jays win the World? Hit in the head a lot? Who who did did the Maple Leafs win the Stanley Cup? Was like, what it's in? Toronto won the NBA title and and I guarantee you Justin Bieber is not referencing if the Maple Leafs won the Stanley Cup. I don't think Justin Bieber is gonna it's Justin Bieber from Canada. Yeah, maybe he would,

Oh maybe he would. Okay, so maybe he would reference the Maple Leafs, but it was Toronto. Um, good news from the bubble knock on wood UM, zero positive tests. I mean that's great. I mean, if if that, I mean that bodes well because I really believe that what happens with baseball and hockey and basketball is gonna have a lot to do with what what the NFL does. UM and uh so zero tests, zero positive tests with with UM NBA and no baseball was a small small number. UM,

they're obviously not in in a bubble um. Interesting thing about baseball Toronto. We talked about Toronto not being able to play games in Toronto. Where are they going to play games? What's the you know, what's the latest? Pittsburgh I believe is that the kind of the front runner to share at the time I put this run down together was they were they were the front run I think Pittsburgh from a location standpoint, it is it's it's relatively close to Toronto. Um, what that means they would

live in Pittsburgh. Then they would have to I don't think they're going to be traveling across the border. They would have to set up something temporary. That's tough for those players, but hey, it is what it is. You got to get through. Um, what else are you looking at? HEREC and DC coming up mid August. Whole this whole Fight Island thing is wild. Like think about the testing, the amount of testing that they're doing, brazy, you know.

I think he said it's like four thousand tests per fight. Yeah, they've been doing. Hey, they're crushing it. And Dan, if you listen to his interviews, he's so like he just he's in low. He just jocks Abbi Dabi so much. Like they're so great. They're the most perfect place. They they're so good at everything. All right, all right, why are you? Why are you antize xenophone? Like what I don't understand? All right, well, red blooded American Dean bring

the fighting back to Vegas. Well, if we can't get our ship together, then we're not gonna have anything. You don't come on, you don't even want you know, my being on this. All right, let's let's take a break. When we come back, we're gonna talk about what we can do to help people see the light when it comes to wearing masks. Next on good calls. All right, we're back on good calls. Um. The next this is a question hopefully we can create a rule here, Um to wear a mask or not to wear a mask,

that is the question. And this is we've gone back and forth on this, I think again because this was new, this virus people initially you know you've seen you've seen people. I mean people in Asia have warn masks for years, um, during non pandemic times, right, they just that's that's how you you prevent or you've reduced the opportunity for virus is to spread or anything anything that's sneezing, anything that

gets out those particles. Um. So I think we're at a point now where everybody realizes we got to wear masks when you go out, when you're around people, wear a mask. It's not that big a deal, but obviously it is for some people. And so we want to talk about we got to give people a reason to wear a mask other than the obvious ones for your own health. And the well being of humanity. If that's not good enough for you, let's come up with some

other ideas. Why wearing a mask? It's cool? Okay, So I'm just gonna put on my mask, of my new mask that I got. Okay, hold on, go ahead, go ahead. Well wait, how cool do I I mean you look Do you look cool when your voice doesn't sound muffled? Either, my voice doesn't sound muffled. I've got a I've got an air filter here. Okay, that's not like a ventilator anything that's changed. That's changeable now. It's to get fresh air. And it actually I'm not gonna let you wear my mask,

but it has a wonderful aroma. It's like almost scented. And I looked freaking cool. That's actually not a bad idea. Like do like like essential oil and fused masks, so you're you're smelling like you could. All right, this is so. And when I walk around with this mask, I feel like a superhero, Like I literally walk around now at Santa Monica. So you're not gonna have too many opportunities to be superhero. But I like, I want some ship to go new, like I want when I went around.

I want some ship to go down because I do feel like a superhero and I do feel like fighting crime with my mask on. So looking cool is definitely a positive with the mass. But you gotta get the right mask. Your Your mask is definitely I I go with the I'm zero from Mortal Koman do actually yeah or bean, I just go with the Bandanna. Um, I've been masked shamed at the seven eleven because I forgot a mask. Yeah, and I'm and I'm not one for shaming. I'm not. I hate that, but I think it calls

for it. Does it calls for shaming people like if you're gonna flaunt like and make because why because I have selfish reasons to shame. Because I want football season. So it's not to have football season. We gotta have football season. So so you know, I'm anti all this stuff, but I do wear a mask, and just out of respect for others. If people are people think that it's important important, If it's important to them, I'm going to honor that and wear the mask when I'm in stores

and whatnot. Personally, I think it's ridiculous. If I'm around people, I'll wear the mask. Wear a mask if I'm out. If I'm out walking on the beach, I'll just take my mask off, you know, around, put around my wrist, and I'll just continue. If there's people, I'll just put your mask on. If you're gonna go in a store mask. Apparently in Manhattan, beachs are giving tickets to people who aren't wearing masks in the street. Now, they did that

in West Hollywood. They were doing good again outdoors though, Yes, just wear I tho outdoors with the safe reason. Why why not? Because everybody stopped doing it, And now we're back into this. We're back in this mode. If we want football season, just wear a mask. It's not that big a deal. I need football season, right, They tell you we don't, don't. They tell it's not. It's not like we're not violating rights here. Right you were. You didn't have to wear a seatbelt in fifties and sixties,

and then you have to wear a seatbelt. Right, you weren't. You were smoking. You can smoke anywhere you want. Now you can't smoke anywhere you want. Right. You can't smoke in restaurants, you can't smoke in bars, you can't smoke in in buildings. You gotta be ten feet away from the building to smoke, So wear a mask. Okay, what are the reasons that other then you look cool? Okay, look well to help me out here, you could um. I mean there's an animity, there is annimity. You read

people's eyes. You can't I can't tell if people are smiling. It is. It is tough being single. You can't really you you can't really tell what someone looks like. But I do. You do have to look at the eyes more, and I think that's important. We should look into each other's eyes more. So that's another positive. Increases, contact increases, it does. Listen, there are some people who makes more attractive.

It does. What if you have bad teeth? Yeah, you see a girl and you're like, oh man, maybe not this is a good time to get But if you get to. But if you get to, you get to know her before the mask comes off, then you're already in. And then you and then you've you've you've overcome the shallow house syndrome and you've gotten to see the inside of the person because of the mask, and you might have the rest of your life living in masking. Do we have a new show for Netflix? It's a dating show,

and you wear a mask. Everybody wears masks, and then you get to talk to each other, and then you pick and then you get the how's that number one? On Netflix? Right now? I don't I don't see anything. Tell anyone, Tell anyone, we gotta do that. I think that's the show. That's the show. We've got it. A lot of secrets on today's episode. What else? What other reasons wear a mask? I think we're all just excited to be around each and the mask is like a

fashion statement. Joe, you're a fashion guy. I won't do it. It's a fashion statement. You can branded, you can do all kinds. I saw a guy wearing a mask just like the other day, and I wanted to days brothers. So I don't know if you noticed this. Since you're paying so much attention to my fashion, I don't like wearing brands that are prolific on my on my body

unless they're paying me. But you will. But but which is ironic because you will throw around a a very high level higher education, higher education, you know, institution a Yale, Harvard, I think for the wrong school on I do have a Hofstra shirt. As a matter of fact is is UM one of the greatest institutions of all Go look at look at the pullub Hostro alumni right now, travel boy famous. Where are you on this list? I don't know where I am, but pull up just some of

those names. We'll have Joe put on the big screen. Here's some actors. Christopher Walking, how he yeah? Makes some movies already made, already made? Speedy Carol, James Cohn. What's up? Where's Dean blond Wiman? Katie Nolan? Alright, former Fox employee. That's right about that? How are you? Are you not upsetly? You don't make this list? This is I'm a what's what? Go to? Where car makes it? And Dean Blondino doesn't? Oh, I've been on that list. That changes. It's not football season.

I'll be on that list in October. Not enough people googling you right now? Is not were he Morris? Well, we're getting deep into it now, Yeah, are you raheem? I don't know a lot of these. I don't know a lot of them. Okay, wait, there's that guy um that actor right, No, that's not him, the guy from Goonies with all the scars on his face. That's not him right. Let me just be honestly. I know one to three, four, five, six, I know six of these. No, you know more than I'm I'm looking at it. You

don't know, Meredith Eaton, is you're crazy? I don't know. Look I'll tell you. I know obviously, Chris White and Marcus Colston, Speedy, Wayne Crabatt, Bertie made Off, I wouldn't know him if if it was, and Christopher Walking those are the only ones. Copez, No, he did. The Godfather got nothing. It makes great wine. I was gonna say, is he the wine guy? God? Unbelievable? Is he um Nicolas Cage's uncle? Or speaking of universities, I watched um

you ever see the show American Greed? Would they have watched that show? They did the they did the whole um Lori Laughlin Um the university scam getting the kids into school. I didn't realize like the extent, like like Felicity Huffman and what this guy was doing. This guy Rick um Brick Singer. So he was. He was like a failed basketball coach. Then he went into coaching kids

to get ready for their their testing. Se T A c T getting into college and he did pretty well preparing kids for school, and then he started this whole scam. What he was doing and what Lori Laughlin did with her kids, her two daughters get in get into USC on on rowing scholarships, like like as an athletic, as a student athlete, and they would he would set them. They were taking fake pictures of them doing like rowing,

like crew and then they would get in. They would they would there was this whole scheme and they would bribe the coach and then they would get in and they would never go on the team. They would never do anything, and they would just do it for admissions. How are the kids not being held at Calph? The kids apparently were not The kids apparently didn't they I think I think they left school because of all the attention. But apparently the kids were not in on it um.

But this was like just take I don't know this road. They were paying like like six dred thousand dollars to get your kid into get the Yale. The Yelle soccer coach was in on it, and he was like four and fifty dollars split between this guy, Rick Singer and the Yelle coach and they would get him in on a scholarship and then never play insane and then they copped a plea deal, and then that's cutting into your actual scholarships you can give. It's cutting into it's cutting

into kids that would actually work to get into school. Yeah, it's pretty wild. You don't, Hey, I worked my ass off to get in the hush just say it sucks because I'm still paying student loans and I'm damn near forty damn near forty almost forty and for a yearn for a year. What do we got from Brandon Blandida. I had a couple of good Brandon Blendie knows today and we can't talk about them. Why because they're yes, f W what is that not safe? Not suitable for you?

Just check the boxes as explicit. I do it every time. We this is already, I mean, if you want, if you think it's you know, I had an interesting thought like, what do you think is the most underrated steak? The most underrating stake? You're gonna say the tri tip? No, I went with. I had a k I had a key bone last night. That was fantastic bone. I stink the t bone. And I think New York strips are just everyone's about the Ribby or you're either Ribby or fileg.

And I'm like, you know what, I'm a New York strip. I don't think I'm not a I'm not a I'm not a guy. That's that's the brain of Madrid. I'm not I'm not a state like. I don't. I'm not like I like a filet if I'm going to get a steak, but I don't like I'll have a New York I don't really eat steak. That you're like that with everything in your life. Yeah, okay, sure, you just don't want to hop on it. That's that's the well. I don't want to hop on a band. I don't

never want to hop on the side of anything. Just like, oh yeah, everything's cool. I don't I like everyone. When you're that cool, you don't have to worry about like a flame. You know what, Maybe I'll have a Maybe I'll have a What's no, what's the cool new one? Now it's not a new steak, but everybody's in on it. It's the flat iron. Flat Iron is the one. Everyone's it's like the new there's another one, though, steak. It's like the big one. Oh, you're talking about the Cowboy Ribby.

Is it the Cowboy Ribby or there's another big, big one that everybody I keep seeing because I watch a lot of ton of food shows, like, oh, the blah blah blah steak and you could literally like kill somebody with it. Is it the cowboy? Ribbon's gotta be Google big steaks, the old just be careful. If you careful, what comes up a big steak, big steaks? Tomahawk, Tomahawk, that's the same as the cowboy every right now, the tomahawk. I was like, when did the tomahawks state come into play?

It's just a ribbi with It's just a ribby with the boning. That's that's that you want to keep hearing. There's your Look at that t bone right there. Look at that thing. Looks nice. That's what I had this monitor, this monitor for the show's actually look at we get our own studio, right. But the tomahawk, that's the one everybody like, that's a helicopter, not a state. Brandon blandid Oh, this is a good because we just talked. I just talked about it this week. Habitual line step, Well, that's

Tom Brady. We've talked about that. No, just the friend.

I had a friend I love him, John the Greek, and he just like whenever, whenever we'd hang out and you you know, you hang out and you say things and it gets and look, we're not we're not PC, and we and we say something that's off color, we make a funny joke or and he would always take it to the next level, like for no reason, like we're having a good time and we're laughing, like the hang out with a group of girls and whatever, and then he'd like say something that was so outrageous and

I'm like, dude, why do you have to keep stepping over the lines? Yeah? And then they leave, like why do you have to keep stepping over lines? Like you don't have to talk about you know anal right now, it's not like that that important. What what are you doing? Every group's got one. Yeah, But to a line stepper, would you say, who's our? Who's our? Do you look around the table and you're like wondering, Well, if it's there, if it's three of us, it's Joe. But I don't

think Joe's necessarily a line stepper. I think Joe, you understand where the line is depending on the here's the deal. The line moves depending on the situation, depending on the group, right, the line move, and you have to understand, of course, as a former stand up community, you have to know your audience and you have to understand where the line is. And and that's just the bottom that's that's the bottom line.

And that's the thing. Like if you if it's just a group of us and it's and it's you know, just friends and everybody's cool with each other, the line will you know it's it gets a little further out there short if you're with you just meet people, you have to you lean on the side of the line is not that far. I think there's the difference is this, there's the habitual line sever you're like, I can't bring this dude to like my company party or whatever. I can't.

I think. I'm like, I'm never gonna embarrass the ship out of you, and something along those lines. You you're good, you're good. I would bring you to a company party because you're a good conversationalist. I wouldn't have to babysit you, and you're you're fun. Right. There are friends like I would not bring to a party like that because they're gonna step over a line, you know. So, yeah, the company party, I'm good. But you know, if we go

to Cabo or we're else some where where, it's party time. Yeah, I'm probably gonna do something somewhat ridiculous or embarrassing, but it's kind of accepted there. But it's not you know, the Fox Christmas Party Vegas, and anything goes there, right, I'd say, I'd say we've got some we've got some Vaga stories. Yeah, I mean, but exactly. But it's it's not the habitual line stepper. Is that that everybody has one in your group. I think it's important. Let's let's

do another one. Let's see what else. Checklist for like you? Checklist for like you. I don't know what that means. We're running low. You haven't been updating. I'm updating on my I'm not updating on that. I'll send you a new one. Here. I'll go into my I'll go into my notes, the secret notepad. See someone dancing, think they are deaf? We're having a stroke. Yeah, bad dancers? Do you want to do bad dancers? Um phenomenon survival shows. You could drop me in the desert five miles from

a holiday inn, and I might not make it. That's one. No, That's what I was driving through the Arizona Desert and I was thinking about like those survival shows like bear Grills and that, and I was thinking, like there's nothing for miles and miles and miles. But I was thinking, if you dropped me five miles from a holiday inn, I still might not make it. Like that's how that's how like the amazing these guys are and how not good I am in those types of survival. Like you

grew up in Wyoming, Travis, you you can build a fire? Joke? Do you think you could build a fire? Right now? With what's in this garage? Do you think you could build a fire? Yeah? I mean we're talking about electricity, so yeah, but no, I'm saying without using any kind of with two sticks and and yeah, Tom Hanks in I think if I absolutely had to, then I probably could figure it out. Certainly not my strong point, right, I can I get I guess I know. Necessity right

one is Necessity is the mother of all. Yeah, right, whatever you're gonna die, if you start, you'll find a way. But like when I watched when I watched Castaway, and how did he know all that ship, Like, how does he know to make the fire? That one? He worked for FedEx? Yeah, maybe he was a boy scout. I was. I was a boy scout. Like I couldn't build. Like we take a bunch of like dry wood, I'd imagine somekerosene and there's five. Yeah, I'm not great at I'm

not great at that. But I also I think I could figure most things out if you have good survival skills, like just you'll figure it out. I could survive in New York City. A lot of people couldn't. From people from Waomi couldn't survive. And even if I was thirsty because in the summer, the air conditioning units, the water drips and you just get underneath and you could get some water that way. If we're talking about survival of the New York City, there's probably not gonna be a

c units all over. You know, we're talking like, Okay, do you have like a plan for if here we go? Here we go? Right if there's like a world ending type I know you do, of course I do. My plan is I'm gonna go to your place. Well, you're lucky that you've got me as a friend. But if

you didn't. If I wasn't your friend, then what I'd be like It literally would be like James Franco Seth Rogan and this is the end, be in my place and we'd be freaking out, and we'd be trying to figure out how to get the big jug of water in the basement without getting eaten by the demon outside. Like that would be literally, and and fucking Danny McBride would come over and cook all of our food in one in one city. See, I've got a plan for all that kind of stuff. But it involves tech, right,

it involves having gas and water. And well you said, if if Mad Max taught us anything, you gotta have gas. Post apocalyptic world, gas is going to be king. I've got like a hundred and thirty gallons in my truck at all time. You gotta you gotta have gas, gas firearms. Speaking of what you guys know, there's an asteroid heading towards the So it's it's I just saw it's gonna get closer than the moon is it's gonna miss us

on apparently. But there's also the comment that you can see on the twenty s I kind of wish it would just hit us like it's gonna miss us, gonna miss us and are we gonna see it? I don't know. I don't know where you can see it. I got Did you guys see the Will Smith Jadab Smith interview? Oh my god, I didn't see it. You didn't see it? So where she has this show called Red Table Talk. She brings him on the show and they start talking about marriage and how she how ad entanglement with August

is the other dude. Basically, she went on on her own show to admit I think he knew before, but you haven't seen this. It's hilarious. She's like, you know, me and August, we had an entanglement. Will and I were saying. It was like it was a big thing on social last week, like Will and I had an entanglement and she kept taking tangle it. So you don't see all the memes that like Instagram with like you know,

you know when you're talking about entanglements. Oh, it's because we was just like this, um, just the look on his face, just like Will Smith memes. Speaking to me, there's a lot of Will Smith man. I was playing take on Me by Alha in the car and my nine year old son. LUKEA was like, oh, I know this song is from a meme and I was like, oh jees how, it's all or like a video game. Everything's from meme or TikTok or whatever. TikTok. That's the

way to promote songs. Now, this has been Good Calls with Dean bland You know, please foll on me on Twitter at Dean Blandino and Instagram at Dean doc Landino, and please follow the show on Instagram and Twitter, Approules podcast and be sure to radar podcast on the I heart Radio app on the Apple podcast. Good Calls with Dean Blandino is a production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.