Ben & Woods On Demand Podcast
Aug. 9th Hour 3: Jake Mintz + the Klug Report
Now today's episode is sponsored by NerdWallet Smart Money Podcast. Get your head in the financial game with smart investing and budgeting tips straight from the nerds. NerdWallet's experts will set future you up for success with dependable, fact-based insights. No financial misinformation allowed. Learn how to save on your summer vacation. Find your next credit card or loan for a big purchase and invest in your next index fund. Make smarter decisions in 2024. Follow NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast on your favorite podcast app. Nothing is more important than getting a good night's sleep, and when you don't get the rest you need, your whole day is thrown off. That's why it's so important to choose the right mattress. Sleeping on a purple mattress is truly a unique experience, because purple mattresses are made with a gel flex grid. The gel flex grid is an innovative material that moves with your body to relieve pressure in areas like knees and hips, and support in others like your back. It feels soft where you want it and supports where you need it. Purple mattresses instantly adapt when you move. You don't sink in and get stuck like with memory foam. And thanks to over 1,400 air chambers in the gel flex grid, you will sleep cooler on a purple mattress. Purple has a wide variety of mattresses from the original purple mattress to the Restore Hybrid Collection, that combines gel flex grid with coils and the Rejuvenate Lux Collection, the height of luxury, with over 112,000 to 5 star reviews to prove it. Visit purple.com to find the perfect purple for you and enter code podcast10 to get 10% off. This season, the W is going to new heights. And that means the queens are ready to take it to court and the court. Welcome to Queens of the Court, an Odyssey original podcast. I'm your girl, Cheryl Swoops, and I'm Jordan Robinson. All WNBA season long. You can count on us to bring you interviews with some of your favorite WNBA stars, analysis of all teams, and hot takes you can only find in this courtroom. Listen to Queens of the Court, a WNBA podcast presented by AT&T on the free Odyssey app or wherever you get your podcasts. All right, my friends, we are halfway home on a Friday, Ben & Woods, 97.3, the fan. About to be joined by Jake Mance from Sespa's Family Barbecue. And so like when you see a tweet from the Ben & Woods account, you never really have to wonder who it's from. It's not you, it's me, or Paulie. But when you respond to a tweet from Sespa's Family Barbecue, you don't know who tweeted. Was it Jake? Was it Jordan? Does that make sense? They should just sign like, you know, Josh Jam, it was Jay, yeah, J-M-J-M-J-S, right? So then you know who it is. Again, Ben & Woods, you don't need to worry about who's responding because you still don't have the password. We've got J-M, I do. I actually could. I've been posting a couple of Instagram reposts lately. I've been trying a little bit more. We've got J-M today. Jake Mance from Sespa's Family Barbecue and Yahoo Sports joins us. Let's get him up on the YouTube stream. There he is. Good morning to you, Jake, how are you? Hey, handsome. I'm good, hey, hey, beautiful. Can I respond to the allegations? Yes, please. So the real barbecuedies, the real hardos, no. If the first letter of the tweet is capitalized, it's me, if it's lowercase, it's Jordan. All right, so hang on. Jordan, it's a Jordan tweet that I responded to yesterday, and it was in response to the Chicago White Sox naming Grady Sizemore as their interim manager after firing Pedro Grifall. And Jordan said, "Very cool." One, number two, he should give himself some DH at best. Let's see some swings. This offense needs all the help it can get. And I tweeted, "I'd actually love to see a player manager again someday as long as they don't have a crippling gambling addiction," like the last player manager. You watch that documentary, by the way? Couldn't do it. Really? About P. Rose? Couldn't do it. Yes. Couldn't bring myself to do it. I have so much to sustain for that, man. I couldn't get over it. It won't change your mind. It will not change your mind at all, even in the slightest, man. But the player manager is one of those things, though, Jake, that is a, it's gone. It's never come. I would say confidently, it's never coming back. No. And that's just because the job of the manager is so difficult and so different compared to what it used to be, and the job of a player is different than what it used to be. They just take so much time and effort and attention to do both of those things. There's no scenario in which it would be worth it. I could imagine a setup where you could maybe have an interim player manager? Yeah. Right? But maybe, you know, if like Paul Canerco was still in the White Sox or something? Yeah, for like a week. But I think you can do it. Yeah. For like a week. Yeah. That'd be a good bit. It just, it doesn't make sense. You see, so like something that even, I think is impressive, like Logan O'Hapi, who's the second year catcher for the Angels, he's their captain. He's their captain. That's amazing. He's like 12 years old. Right. Right. The idea of a real big league player being a, every manager is just completely ludicrous. Now, you're having managers who have been playing more recently, Steven Vote with The Guardian's was playing like what, a year ago last year, wasn't he? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. He retired last year. So no two years ago. I believe his, I think his final season was 2021. Okay. No. It feels like it was very soon. The age last year, that players are getting into the, the dugout as managers much faster than they used to use with the A's in 2022. But yes, guys are getting into the, into the dugout much faster and the reason for that is because they understand the state of play in club houses better than an older manager generally. Sure. And so you would assume they'll be able to relate to the players better. It's almost similar to, you know, if you're a cool 28 year old teacher, who knows the TikTok dances, like your students might like you more, it's a similar thing. But to be a successful player and to be a successful manager, there aren't enough hours in the day. Yeah. It's, it's such an unfeasible thing in the way that, you know, everything is so specialized now. And that is one of the things that it was stood out about that documentary that you haven't watched and won't watch is watching him play managed was just, it's weird. Like, I remember it when I was a kid, but to watch it now, it just makes no sense. I wanted to ask you, go ahead. We had an example. I believe Nelson Cruz. As a player GM for the WBC, right? Yeah. The WBC. That's right. That's a little different. You know, you can't like DFA yourself in an international tournament is different than pinch hitting yourself. I can't even imagine guys, I'm going to take one here. I got this one. All right. I got this one. I'm a player manager for the tier one. I am a player manager for our baseball team and yeah, I had to start inserting myself in games because I also want to play, but it's, and I performed. Thank God. And we also know that if I wasn't an efficient, better option, I'll take yourself out. 100% man. 100% I'm old. Jake, Jake mince is our guest from says for this family barbecue. It is brought to you each week by our friends at Granal barbecue. Someone asked it, Ben was wearing that hat the whole time I put it on to promote our friends at Granal barbecue who bring us our friends at says for this family barbecue each and every Friday. I'm coming out there for the playoffs, boys. I'm coming. I'm going to get some barbecue out there. Good. I love that. But yeah, it certainly feels like it's more likely as the Padres are up to 86% I in fan graphs to make the playoffs, but it's still a pretty tight race. So obviously we've had a pretty nice couple of weeks here since the all-star break, Jake and things are going almost too well, like we're waiting for the other shoe to drop like how can yeah, this is the San Diego Padres. We're talking about we don't get runs like this, but this is they're the hottest team in baseball. Would you agree with that statement? I would agree with that. And the schedule is certainly helping them out. If you could just play the pirates, these pirates all the time. I mean, what you got the Marlins this weekend, yep, then the pirates again and the Rockies after that. I mean, if you're not up 25 games in the wild part of this, that's an embarrassing. That's what makes us so nervous as it should. You got the white Sox are still on the schedule got the Dodgers in the Diamondbacks in the last week of the year. If you need to catch up on some ground. These are looking nice in San Diego. I wouldn't even say the word division. Yeah, like that's the boogeyman don't even utter that. Okay. I know you want to manifest positive energy, but like let's not put the car before the horse here. I mean, manifesting positive energy is one thing, but also, you know, knowing how the game works and how quirky it can be and how bad a stretch can get at times. Yeah, you can't really look at it. You just need to continue to beat those teams that you need to beat that are on the schedule. But I wanted to ask you, joined by Jake Mintz from Sesterless family barbecue right now. I know, you know, your big Orioles fan as well had to be a little bit of a sigh of relief that Jackson holiday is back up and is hitting, you know, prodigious home runs at a pretty, pretty nice rate so far. Yeah, he's a big old boy now, you know, a couple of couple months in Norfolk do a lot of good. Do a lot of good. He is showing why he was so highly touted to come up to the major leagues that that age and have those expectations, it is difficult. He did not look right in his original stint with the Orioles. He was like one for 28, did not have a homer. It just wasn't the player that everyone was being promised and that he knew who he could be. He went back down, worked on some things, came up with a bit more of an edge and he's already hit four of them runs over the last two weeks, I think, and it's the reason why you don't trade the guy at the deadline, right? It's a reason why these teams hoard prospects, which maybe isn't always a good thing. Also not something that your team does, no, we can't really, but holiday is showing why you don't give up on someone when they're 21 years old and have one bad two week stretch in the bigs. No, Padres have traded most of their prospects, but they keep their one name Jackson, who's 21 years old and yes, he is, he's continuing to absolutely tear it up and we had the discussion this week, Jake Jackson doesn't care about winning the rookie of the year. He really, truly does not, does not, it's not, but that's a good thing. That's a good thing. He ain't going to win it. Well, that's what I wanted to ask you because they're certainly now, they didn't get to go head to head. The Padres miss Paul Skins, both of these two series, so they'll head to head battle between the two, but Jackson certainly made a statement in Pittsburgh this week with his two home run, ninth inning dramatic home run game and just continuing to, I mean, outsized, you know, he's talked about Logan, a hoppy, but we're in a sea, we're going to ask Mike Schilden at nine o'clock about the leadership that Jackson Merrill is a 21 year old is showing on a, on a veteran laden team every single day, he's amazing. Merrill is amazing. And I think in a normal year, but have a great argument to win the rookie of the year, Paul Skins is doing something historic and unless he robs a bank or, you know, invades a country, I don't think you can take it away from him. He has a one nine nine ERA in 86 innings. He's going to get, I think he will finish in the top five and say, yeah, well, they shut him down. That's what I'm wondering. Now that they're under five hundred and if they keep losing, are they going to try to protect some innings and save some in September? And will that hurt him if he only gets to like a hundred and fifteen innings for the rookie of the year, the scion for the rookie, it's not going to make a difference. He's going to get to 120, 125, 130, and that's going to be more than enough for the scion. I don't think he has a chance just because of those innings, right? Sale is going to end up around 180 wheeler. We'll get over 200, probably. I don't think Skins should win it and that's not his fault. There's a reason that they built him up really slowly at the front half of the year. So now they have enough runway with him where I think they will let him continue to pitch. And the other thing is, I mean, he sells out the place when he does, so they're not going to, you know, it's a money-making operation. That's a good point. Now, the joke's on you because I just saw Paul Skins just invaded Guatemala, so. So it's over. Oh, yeah. It happened. During the Olympics. Yeah. What a better time. What better time to do that? I know. Talk about the Olympics very quickly. You're glad. Sure. I wrote something that's going up on Yahoo today about baseball in the Olympics and MLB in the Olympics. So for those of you who don't know, baseball existed in the Olympics for a long time. It got cut from the normal program in 2005. We had it in 2020 in Tokyo because host nations can propose it. We're probably going to have it in 2028 in L.A. and there's a conversation within the game going on right now of should big leaders be allowed to play, right? Should MLB pause the season for a week and a half and send all the stars to L.A. to do a WBC style tournament. And I think, yes, I think it's worth it. I think the upside is enormous. I think the logistics of doing it in L.A. are not that bad. I'm curious what you guys think. We have this discussion too. And as we tend to do kind of waffled back and forth on it and all these guys say they want to play for country. They all do. So I say let them. I say let them. It's midway through the season. They're built up. It's not like the WBC where, you know, guys aren't quite ready to ramp up yet and they're really having to get hot way early. I think, I think you do it, man. I really do. And I don't know if I guess you pause the season and just wait. Now it would be excruciating to be without, you know, pottery's baseball every single day for a couple of weeks in the middle of the year, but it's every four years. I think they do it too. I don't think that's going to happen. I think logistically it's just a nightmare to stop the season in the middle of the year. And the world baseball classics exist. We don't need what you have every two years now. We have essentially a World Cup for baseball once the WBC, once the Olympics, it's exactly the same thing except everyone's going to go. The Olympics is kind of cooler because, you know, it's everyone's built up, which means the WBC probably has to go away and they've invested way too much in the WBC to simply say, you know what, the Olympics, which we don't make a dollar off of, the Olympic Committee makes all of this and we're going to give you all of our best talent and let them potentially get injured for the pennant races. It's just never going to happen. They're going to talk about it, but it's not going to happen. So I think it will when it's all said and done. I think logistically you do it during the All-Star break, you start the tournament. The All-Star game would be July 11th and the opening ceremonies are July 14th. So you do the All-Star game, then you roll right into it with games in LA. You do it before opening ceremonies. A lot of nations do that. I think that Rob Manfred wants this. I think this is something that he sees as part of his legacy. And then in regards to WBC, I don't think that they would do the Olympics in 2032 in Australia, or in 2036 in, I think-- To just a one-off in 2028. Chile in Indonesia. You just do it as a one-off and you say to the Olympic Association, like, whenever it's in a country that gives a big crap about baseball, we'll do the tournament. Because it's just worth it for the fan interest on the back end. We've shown that international baseball can develop interest. And I think you would do significant ratings and you don't like the five rings and the gold medal, like that's going to mean a lot to these guys. Big time. They all say it. The trade-off is worth it and, yes, the injuries are a big deal for hockey, which is a sport that you guys probably never even heard of before. Vaguely. Vaguely. They have paused the season of the past. There's going to do it in two years. I believe the International Hockey Federation and the International Olympic Committee cover the cost of the insurance on player injuries. And I think that if that was the case for baseball, it would go quite a long way. I like that. I can't wait to read your piece. There's no insurance that can make you whole when you're tied for the wild card and your ace pitcher goes down during an Olympic game and is unavailable for the rest of the season. Yeah, of course. Maybe Grace is Rodriguez or something, right? We have this with M&D as in it's stunk, right? And I feel for Mets fans and for Edwin. But you can't look at the 2023 WBC and tell me that was not a huge success. It was awesome. It was awesome. You're right. I mean, absolutely right. Yeah, it was great. It was great. Well, good stuff as always, man. I can't wait to read the piece later on Yahoo Sports. Really appreciate you checking in with us on this fine Friday. Another beautiful one. You guys take it easy. Thank you, buddy. You too. Jake Mann says for this family barbecue. Brought to you by Grand Ole Barbecue. All skeins, no, installing a military junta in Guatemala. I mean, he's just going to lose the rookie of the year on that alone. It's terrible. It's awful. If he and Livy done break up, we have a good shot. That's a good point. If they break up, Jackson Merrill wins. I think going away. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. Clearly that that has given him some cache a 1.99 area isn't saying 107 K's or something. That's insane. He's nasty. He should be very much talked about for rookie of the year. I liked Don Arcilos take the other day on and Don Arcilos said they should have two. They should have one for a pitcher and one for a hitter. Why not? I mean, it's a no brainer. Why not? Why not? Remember, crony got robbed by Devin Williams. crony should have won rookie of the year, but Devin Williams got it after throwing 27 innings. That's what they talked about on the broadcast. Two. Just do two. They already have AL and NL's. Right. So pitcher and position. So four. You've got now four rookies of the year. Pretty awesome. Pretty much. Why don't we just make every rookie rookie of the year at the end of the year? Never. And we all feel good about it. Why are we hoarding these awards so tight and just everybody's going to get a participation trip? No, he's the best pitcher. He's the best hitter. Rookie. No brainer. Do it. You are interested in seeing Paul Skeen sitting on the bench at Petco Park next week and not pitching. We got some tickets to give away for the Monday game that he will not be a part of. But you can be a part of it when we come back. Your chance to win some pot raise tickets next year with Ben Woods and 97-3. Today's episode is sponsored by NerdWallet Smart Money Podcast. Get your head in the financial game with smart investing and budgeting tips straight from the nerds. NerdWallet's experts will set future you up for success. With dependable, fact-based insights, no financial misinformation allowed. Learn how to save on your summer vacation. Find your next credit card or loan for a big purchase and invest in your next index fund. Make smarter decisions in 2024. Call on NerdWallet Smart Money Podcast on your favorite podcast ad. Nothing is more important than getting a good night's sleep, and when you don't get the rest you need, your whole day is thrown off. That's why it's so important to choose the right mattress. Sleeping on a purple mattress is truly a unique experience because purple mattresses are made with a gel flex grid. The gel flex grid is an innovative material that moves with your body to relieve pressure in areas like knees and hips, and support in others like your back. It feels soft where you want it and supports where you need it. Purple mattresses instantly adapt when you move. You don't sink in and get stuck like with memory foam, and thanks to over 1,400 air chambers in the gel flex grid, you will sleep cooler on a purple mattress. Purple has a wide variety of mattresses, from the original purple mattress to the Restore Hybrid Collection that combines gel flex grid with coils and the Rejuvenate Lux Collection, the height of luxury. With over 112,000 to 5 star reviews to prove it, visit purple. This season, the W is going to new heights, and that means the queens are ready to take it to court and the court. Welcome to Queens of the Court, an Odyssey original podcast. I'm your girl, Cheryl Swoops, and I'm Jordan Robinson. All WNBA season long, you can count on us to bring you interviews with some of your favorite WNBA stars, analysis of all teams, and hot takes you can only find in this courtroom. Listen to Queens of the Court, a WNBA podcast presented by AT&T on the free Odyssey app or wherever you get your podcasts. Look at the fan, can't you just turn it off, can't you just watch the last 7 minutes, you would have been enthralled, even as a not huge basketball fan, usually I'm waiting for Adam to hit the bottom, he was ready with basketball man to fire it, I didn't even tell him that was coming. It's the stakes, it's like any sporting event, what makes sports great woods, states, something on the line, and fries, no, no, S-T-A-K-E-S, the stakes are high. And while a gold medal, I don't know if it's as high as an NBA championship, for the case of Team USA and the collection of talent, anything less than a win is, it's the embarrassment of losing to a lesser team. Not that Serbia, they had the MVP, the reigning MVP of the NBA, anchoring their squad, couple of other NBAers, but then it's just a bunch of Serbian guys you've never heard of, happened to be hitting some shots though, and when you do that and you have an MVP on the floor, things get dicey and they were down 17 in the first half, still down 11 with 7 minutes to go. And you could see at that point, it was like, this is like a legacy time here. We don't win, and then we're playing Germany for the bronze medal, and I saw someone tweet. Brilliant. Do you think someone mentioned that, do you want to be known as LeBron's, for the rest of your life, LeBron James, if you lose this game, LeBron's, I mean, come on, this is, this is your chance. You get one shot every four years, you don't want to be the team that loses the first Olympics in 20 years for Team USA, and it ended up being a pretty thrilling comeback and finish at the end. You had Kevin Durant, he had a huge three, and then Embiid had his best game, and then it was Curry, and it was LeBron triple double for LeBron James, and Steph Curry, 36 points, made a ton of three pointers, more than 50% has best game of the tournament, and they pulled it out and they will now play. And this is, again, I would recommend you tune in on Saturday. They will play France for the gold medal, the host country, featuring whose France is most intriguing player. Victor, Victor, very good, Wimpy, and France against Team USA, where the entire crowd will be rooting for him. They're going to be rooting hard now, basketball, what's this here, thank you guys, it's great to be here, everybody. And USA has gotten a lot of support while they're there because they're, I mean, they've got all the stars, you know, everyone wants to see them do well, but not against France. They're going to be the big enemy in this game on Saturday. Now they should win, they'll be favored immensely, but as you can see, you hit some shots, anything can happen. It was compelling theater yesterday. One of the most compelling parts of this Olympic games in France was that game against Serbia. What time is the game on Saturday? Ooh, good question. I know it's on Saturday. That's on Saturday. I need to know. Well, let's see. Olympic schedule on Saturday. It is at basketball, men's 2 a.m., excuse me, 2 a.m., oh no, that's the bronze medal game. Sorry. You don't have to worry about that. 30. 1230 is much better than 2 a.m., yes, 1230 Pacific time, gold medal game France against USA. I'm going to be watching our beloved San Diego Padres take on the Miami Marlins at 1 10. You can actually hear that game right here on 97 3, the fan, a home of the Padres. So that's what I'll be doing. I can't wait for your update. I have multiple screens. I, you know, all you also don't have crippling ADHD. So I don't know what to tell you there. I'm, it's hard enough for me sometimes to pay attention to my beloved San Diego Padres game without drifting off into space, much less watching basketball on one screen and baseball on a night. I could ask. Let me ask. Well, maybe ask Mike Schill. Could you just go ahead, put up like eight in the first and then I can on on Saturday and then I can turn my attention and woods can turn his attention toward a little basketball. I don't think we should ask him that and and and I think he would do it. I think he would. Thank you. All right. We got some tickets to give away for a Mondays Padres Pirates game at Petco Park. It is a 640 start first 40,000 fans in attendance will take home a 1999 Tony Gwen Henley, Jersey presented by surf pro. Those are like the three button top dots, Don Henley, Tony Gwen, John Henley giveaway celebrates the 25th anniversary of Tony's 3000th career hit, which was August 6th earlier this week. Jersey is available in five sizes while supplies last or I've early gates open 90 minutes prior to first pitch. We're going to give one to the fifth caller right now eight, three, three, two, eight, zero, ninety seven, three, fifth caller gets a pair of tickets eight, three, three, two, eight, eight, zero, ninety seven, three. You can learn more at potrays.com/giveaways. We will come back. Adam has teased a fairly juicy edition of the clue report like that for eight thirty five coming up next year on ninety seven three the fan. Facebook coverage in ninety seven, three, the fan is presented by T mobile switch to T mobile. You can get tons of benefits still save on every plan versus AT&T and Verizon use their savings calculator to find out how at T mobile.com/switch got more baseball coverage coming up at nine o'clock in our managers report with Mike Schilt from Miami, Jesse returning to his hometown of Miami this weekend. It will never not blow my mind that Jesse Aguiler is from Miami. Never. It always will blow my mind. It blows my mind that Adam Kluge is from Georgia. Yes. Yes. Went to the University of Georgia and grew up in Atlanta, Georgia. Yeah. Because he doesn't sound like a Georgian. I don't know. I don't sound like a Texas. You don't sound like a Texan. Adam doesn't sound like a Georgian. Jesse Aguiler just doesn't seem like a Miami guy. Manny Machado seems like a Miami guy. He's got the flare and all of that in Jesse Aguiler. But we have stereotypes. People from other parts of the country assume in San Diego, we're all beach going surfers. Yeah. Beach bums. Yeah. All the time. Right. You know, some of us. What's the last time you went to the beach? Haven't gone yet this summer. So probably last year before, maybe in Hawaii, yeah, in Hawaii. Yes. I was just in Hawaii. Yes. Exactly right. Here. No, but my wife, she goes all the time. She loves going to the beach. Adam, are you, you've been in San Diego for a few years now. Are you guys beach goers? We go to the beach nearly every weekend of the summer and I was wondering with my kids and my wife, since we got back from Hawaii and everyone really enjoyed swimming in the bay and being on the beach, I still don't know that we'll go here, which is weird because we had so much fun. Why not? What's stopping you? The fact that you can't see under the water. Yes. And the water temperature is a big one. It's, it's butt cold, butt cold. My son loves going out and I'll put my feet in and I'm like, oh my God, oh my God. I don't want to do this. It's shocking. But you can't keep saying he wants to go and sort of have to do it. I went in last weekend and it was frigid. Do you wear a, a, a rash guard type? I don't have it. I recently told my wife to, I need to get, once I don't get sunburned, but I don't currently have one. So I don't have, you know, it was in Hawaii. We just, you walked into the water and you're like, this is it, man. It's just perfect. It was just perfect. There is one unfortunate stereotype of San Diego that is shamefully very true from the movie Anchorman. And that is our obsession with coverage on local news of giant panda bears. I, and I don't know if you turned in any of the channels yesterday, but we were wall to wall at channel 10, channel eight, channel seven, channel five, channel nine, everyone live at the zoo for panda moant. We called it panda ammonium. I mean, I mean, such a Ben pun, but Anchorman kind of ruined it all for us because we literally were Brian Fantana live at the zoo in front of the panda exhibit. And you can't go in there because they will eat your fate. They are literally bears. They will eat your face. It was so ridiculous yet so necessary as well in San Diego yesterday. I was getting, you know, this morning as I was making my coffee, I looked at the TV and there it was, it was, it was panda time on Fox five and I looked at Hannah and I go, this is and she's again. They've been gone for five years. This is the big return of the pandas finally for people can go down and see them the crowds at the zoo yesterday they had, we had the helicopter above showing the parking lot absolutely jam packed with people who wanted to get the first look at the new giant pandas at the San Diego zoo. Joan Embry in studio. You remember Joan Embry? You remember that tonight she was the animal person who went on the tonight show with Johnny Carson and would bring in different animals. San Diego Zoo representative. She was actually in channel 10. I can't tell you how many times I saw her on TV when I was a kid. Like every day you'd see Joan Embry with a different animal. Oh, I've got a koala. Oh, here's a links and she take them in studio and show off the animals as I was a kid. She was actually there yesterday still doing her conservation work and talking about, you know, rare and precious animals. It was incredible. That's amazing. Yeah. That's that's that's definitely something that that we do and we do and are doing panda monium panda monium yesterday in San Diego, you probably had to smile a little bit. Of course I did. Yeah. Of course I did. Are the other stations bummed that you guys beat them to that punch? I'm sure they all used it to. We didn't trademark it or anything. So good. I like pandas though. They're cute to look at. But like you said, they will absolutely rip your face. So apparently, and I learned this yesterday with our pandemonium coverage so that. So you know how they have the black spots around their eyes, the very signature giant panda and scientists have always kind of researched. Why is it? Is it? It's not really camouflage. It doesn't help them blend into their environment. What is the, what is the purpose? And they have pretty much determined that pandas, that's how they identify each other. Like they can recognize the difference in your little eye markings. They're all like fingerprints. Oh. You can, they'll remember for years like, Oh, yeah, that pan and I had beef. I remember that panda from a few years ago, just based on his eye markings around his eye. That's absolutely fascinating. Also sounds made up, does very, very, no, there's no way to know that. But there, it sounds really, really black, like Jackson Merrill is going full panda around his eyes. He did last yesterday. He went and mud called it full Alice Cooper. You want to talk about an eyewash bit is the eye, is the eye, does it really do anything? I didn't think so either. That does it. How can I say that it, it cuts down the glare, but I can't see my cheek. But the funny thing is when you put it on, you, all you stare at is the eye black below your eyes. It's never worked for me. My kids love it because I mean, let's be honest, it looks badass. When just the two, two little, you know, just one on each side. That's all you need, you know, you know, the whole Bryce Harper thing, you know, I've never done that. I question whether any outfielder in history is ever caught a fly ball because of it because they had eye black. Yeah. Thank God. I had that on the day because I forgot. I would have lost that one. They still lose things on sunglasses, but you know, yeah, that's, um, who was it, it wasn't a Padre fortune. They had the sunglasses on their head or was it, it was Peralte. It was. Yeah, it was Peralte. On the, he had sunglasses on his head and lost one of the sun and he's like, maybe I should put these on since I've got them out here for whatever reason. Yeah. I think it looked, it looks cool. I think that's why guys started doing it and it looks cool to wear it. The sun was going to go directly in my eyes, but I put this little black and then the sun diverted. It's raised to underneath my eyes and now there's no glare. It's very, it's very, I never got that. I really, well, it's, it's the opposite of I want. It's eye black. Yep. Let's do, uh, the traffic and then the traffic reports next year on 97 through the fam and get things started here. With our addition today's edition of the Clue Report. Now tune into the, to the, greatest. Welcome to the Clue Report, two stories from the world of sports that we haven't gotten to yet. And one story that you didn't know you needed, it's the Clue Report on 97 through the fan. Are you ready to blast the moon? I need some help, please. That was good. He is back and he is ready to go and I'm excited for the Clue Report, Adam. Good morning, fellas. How are you? Good morning. A few days ago in this very similarly named segment, The Rindle Report, Paulie highlighted American sprinter Noah Lyles, every one golden had a very inspirational tweet about overcoming several things in his personal life to achieve allergies, asthma, depression, anxiety among the things I think he tweeted about yesterday, Lyles won another medal. He won the bronze in the 200 meter and moments after the race, he told reporters that he had tested positive for COVID-19 two days earlier, still one of bronze said after testing positive, he left the Olympic Village and quarantined in a hotel, took some meds and he was allowed to remain and participate in the race. How impressive is it that he won the bronze after testing positive for COVID? I've had that new strain of COVID, it knocked me, now I'm not a world-class athlete either, but it knocked me on my ass for like two days, all I did was sleep, so it's everything these guys do is impressive and what he's already overcome is impressive, that is very impressive as well. You always wonder now. Could he have won the course? Of course. If he had been fully healthy. Chris talking about this yesterday and people were like, you know, I was the mask up guy and like, oh, what do you think about this? Is this risky behavior? Like that was before we had vaccines. Yeah. Now you can choose to or not to, you know, personal decision, but now that we're protected, if you want to go outdoors and do what you can, now I would recommend if you're going to be tight, you know, caught up in a bus or anything and you have COVID, you should either stay away or be masked up in that situation. You know, you have it, but now we, you know, it's a different time before that. Yeah. You wanted to protect those vulnerable around us and stay away from them and we had to do that before. It's a little different now. COVID's still around, but obviously because so many of us have gotten vaccines, we're okay. And I'm okay with, I'm okay with no Lyles competing if he could and he did and congratulations to him. In case you guys missed it a couple of days ago, NFL Network was broadcasting live at Seattle Seahawks practice. And while they were on live TV, a fight broke out in the background this is on Wednesday and you can see DK Metcalf take his helmet off and hit a guy in the head. Similar to remember a couple of years ago with Miles Garrett and Mason Roodle, he literally hit his teammate in the head with a helmet. I don't know that it was his teammate. Wasn't it? Was it a two team practice? I think it was a two team practice. If I'm not mistaken, I vaguely remember seeing this tweet, but yeah, I mean, it was a fact like you can't. You can't. The other guy had a helmet on too. Yeah. Yeah. But still, you can't swing a helmet or something without a helmet on. That's a crime. Yeah, dude. Not great. Even if they do have a helmet on also, but these fights are in training camp are so like the coaches like want them to happen. Oh, yeah. Okay. We need to have a fight today. 100%. I mean, can't, you know, ritual that you got another team out there, even with your own team. We need a fight today and they'll actually tell veteran players, I need you to start. Oh, dude. A fight. I don't know if you guys just to kind of mix things up with this team. Did you guys see the Ryan Clark thing that he was talking about when he played for the Steelers in an Antonio Brown, the day he got paid when he got his huge, huge deal from the Steelers. Ryan Clark said he's going to be insufferable. Now he was a great player. This is like the coolest behind the scenes video I ever heard. A B was out there and he was running mouth, running mouth, running mouth, talking to talk a trash to his own defense and playing against him. And he said by the end of practice, it was full on war, like, like full on we're not pulling any punches, wrathless burger, even with his red jersey, you're getting hit. A B's getting forearm shiver. He said it got, he said it was the most intense practice he'd ever been a part of. And I, it's like the, it's one of my favorite parts about football is when they show those in, you know, you got to have it sometimes you got to have it out with people on your own team. Adam and I have had it out plenty. I've never hit you with a helmet. I never hit you with a helmet. Right? In most workplaces, you can't resort to physicality on a film. So yesterday, new Seahawks head coach, Mike McDonald, who our audience would know is an NFL head coach. Based on real estate. Well, I was trying to trick everyone thinking, Mike McDaniel is the head coach, not Mike Mcdonald. They're both head coaches now. Mike McDonald said, quote, DK is a leader on this team. We look to him as he goes, we go. You guys think that that's what leadership looks like? I don't, I wouldn't mess with DK Metcalf. Guess what? If they end up winning a bunch, they'll say that's leadership. And if they lose, it's, uh, it's unhinged behavior, you know, exactly. That's the only difference between the two things is whether the team starts winning or losing after it's exactly right. That's it. And finally here, guys, Ben and Woods has pretty much become the official home for fringe sports controversies. You guys covered the bass fishing controversy with weights inside the fit. Great story. The hot dog eating controversy, right? Where the contestants stole the plate. Yep. When we talked about that at the hot dog contest, the, the plate counting controversy, I think I know where you're going here. I'm going to take you guys over to South Russia right now where the digesting chess champion chess was taking place and security camera footage caught 40 year old Russian chess champion, Amina Abakarova, Abakarova sneaking into the chess tournament room, checking to make sure that the coast was clear, pulling something out of her bag, and then she poured a substance onto the board and rubbed it all over the chess pieces of her rival and then exited the room. Well, I have the security footage. But what would you put on chess pieces that would, I will tell you what's Abakarova? Abakarova was targeting 30 year old Umay Ghanat Asmanova, who subsequently became ill during the match. A tournament judge got suspicious, checked the security footage, and Abakarova then admitted to police about the attempted poisoning of her rival. She told police she broke a thermometer, spread the mercury over the board and the chess pieces in an attempt to poison her rival. Like that's like mercury poisoning is going to be fatal. That's insane. I thought they were going to be like a prank like baby oil and the pieces and they kept slipping out of her hands or something. Baby oil. Now you can see it up on our YouTube feed. There she is. Yeah, she's walking, it looks like a classroom almost with desks set up with chess boards and she walks over to one specific board, kind of looking over her shoulder, pulls something out of her bag and now surreptitiously looks like painting or dropping something right around the pieces of her opponent. There'll be white pieces. I guess she knew she was going to be the black black pieces. Yeah, that is that's stagger. I mean, she's so carefully looking around. Don't you look up in the corner and see the camera rooms, by the way, but you know there's people in the corner of the room in the bottom. And you have to know that you're being watched and because they have to, they have to watch these competitions. I guess it would feel like it would be impossible to cheat because I mean, the game hasn't obviously started yet. The pieces are just set up in their neutral position. So it's not like, hey, if I steal her queen and when she shows up tomorrow and there's no queen, I'll have a huge advantage. No, they'll just find another piece and put it back. You would think there'd be no way to cheat. No, even if she did put baby oil on there, as you suggested, you could just get new pieces and wipe them off. It's not that this is taking it to the next level is the lay is the poisoned. Okay, like she okay, as far as I know, Oh my God. Many people will say that's what you have to do to get an edge to win. I'm not one of them. I like to get an edge certainly, but I don't want to poison any part. Don't there's no one in San Diego poison Paul skeens while he's here, just so Jackson Merrill wins the rookies. Exactly. And we'll be clear about that. That would be a don't do this moment. That's a whole different segment. God, that is terrible. Thank you. I don't know. It's great job. It was a very good report today. Brandon Woods, the home of fringe sport controversy. That's right. On Monday, we'll get an Italian Paul Ryan will review this with his Godfather music and everything and probably formula one story and maybe a Mets story from from Frank. We'll look forward to that. For what it's worth. Ava Carova faces three years in prison if she's convicted. Yeah, I mean, she's definitely going to get convicted. It's all I can't you know that poisoning people. That's the Russian like spies. That's what they do. Yeah, what they do. It's a big thing in Russia. Poison claimed her rival had been badmouthing her in her family after winning a previous chess tournament. Chess trash talk. Oh, that is gnarly. All right. We'll come back. Mike Schilt will join us from Miami. Our managers report with the skipper of the Padres and birthday boy coming up next year on 97.3 the fan today's episode is sponsored by nerd wallet smart money podcast. Get your head in the financial game with smart investing and budgeting tips straight from the nerds. Nerd wallets experts will set future you up for success. With dependable fact based insights, no financial misinformation allowed. Learn how to save on your summer vacation. Find your next credit card or loan for a big purchase and invest in your next index fund. Make smarter decisions in 2024. Follow nerd wallet smart money podcast on your favorite podcast ad. Trying to figure out what to eat for dinner yet again with nor sides and bullion is your not so secret ingredient. 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