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Ben & Woods On Demand Podcast

6am Hour - New Aaron Hernandez Show + RIP James Earl Jones

Ben, Woods, and Paul are here for you on a Tuesday morning! We start the show with some foreplay as Woodsy explains to us why he is so sleep deprived. Then we get a special early interview as actor Josh Rivera and producer Stu Zicherman from the new FX show “American Sports Story: Aaron Hernandez” that comes out next week! Then at the bottom of the hour we pay our respects to the legendary James Earl Jones who passed away yesterday at the age of 93. Listen here!

Duration:
45m
Broadcast on:
10 Sep 2024
Audio Format:
mp3
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Card has no cash access and expires in six months. Sometimes in football, you need just a little more for that first down. You need to be pushing the pile, and on our new podcast, we'll give you that extra effort. I'm Mike Renner, longtime NFL analyst who helped develop player evaluation systems that every NFL team uses to this day. And I'm Kyle Long, former all-pro offensive lineman in the NFL, who knows a thing or two about getting people moving. You'll get expertise from inside the trenches and behind the tape for four episodes every week. So make sure you download and subscribe to the "Push in the Pile" podcast on The Odyssey app. [music] This podcast on 97.3, the fan is presented by Hamel Casino. Fun of all else. [music] Welcome in, everybody, Ben and Woods, 97.3, the fan. Happy Tuesday to you. Let's get your heads right. And Ben, the chat, you had me all nervous. I was looking at the YouTube chat. There was nobody there, and then all of a sudden, it just blows up the... It's like they have their alarm set for 5.58. When I was in there, or I was actually... I was in there at 4 a.m. this morning. 404 is when I walked in the door today. I'm Woodsie, that's Paul Reindel, the EP, Executive Producer, good morning, Paulie. 504, I think, was when I walked in there. Benjamin Higgins, the friendly neighborhood sports anchor, 533, for Benjamin. I woke up, first thing I do when I get out, probably like most of us nowadays, is I reach over for my phone. And I open up Twitter just to see if anything has happened while I was sleeping. And the first tweet I saw was a picture of our studio clock. I know it well. 404, as I have to stare at it for 4 hours every single day. Yeah. And it was a picture that you took at 404 a.m. and I was wondering, "Hmm, I know he gets here early, but why would Woods be here so very early this morning?" And it's to shame. It's possible, just on both of us, just so he can lure it over as the fact how early he gets here and how well prepared he is for the show. I can start posting pictures of how late I stand. I also feel like that wasn't the reason, though. I feel like there was another reason you were here so early. Oh, yeah. I had nothing to do with you guys. I was woken up again 2.35 in the morning. Your old pal Woods is not going to be around much longer, based on the quality of sleep and sleep that I get. I'm going to drop dead at some point. I would guess in the next two years, if I keep up this routine, so it's been nice knowing you guys. It's been fun. Really enjoyed entertaining, trying to entertain people, but it's just not a -- it's not a -- it's not tenable. It's not a tenable situation. You can't live on three hours of sleep. Three and a half. Max. You just can't do it. I've done it for years. You can't do it. You can't do it. You can't do it. I think when you fall asleep -- I'm maybe more. I think when you fall asleep, you get -- you get REM sleep. I do not. Yeah. I get none. Zero. Four minutes. A night of REM sleep. I'm at my -- I'm at my wit's end. You think it's because you've got kids? That is stressful having the young kids. It's because I have a spouse that gets up at one o'clock in the morning. There's no question about it. You have a big house. Maybe you ought to sleep in separate bed room. Maybe I should sleep in another state because that's what I'm considering today, is if I will live in another state at this point and do maybe afternoons somewhere. Yeah, man, it's just kicking my ass, dude. It's very, very tough. Somebody said I should go to one of those sensory deprivation tanks. If I could get one in my house, I would do it. I would absolutely do it. Sponsor alert. Sponsor alert. Anyone have a sensory deprivation tank that I can move into my home and just -- all right, that's it, boy. It's just get inside. It's just untenable, man. It's not a situation for me that works anymore. I'm just cashed. So you can't sleep through someone waking up. Benny, if we're all right, so let's say this is my bedroom, okay? This is our bedroom or my bedroom. And I hear this from the other, just I'm dead asleep, and I hear this. I'm up. Just tiny noise like that. The tiniest, taffing noise, like here, again, I'm up. So it's not like people are like, oh, man, this guy says I've done it my whole army career and I'm like, I mean, if it works for you, great, what I'm telling you is it doesn't work for me. I don't sleep well. I don't sleep long. It's just not working. Your plugs. Try it. Mass. Try it. Got it all. Ambient. Name it. The next thing is like, I don't know, six whiskeys or something? Just heroin. Just heroin maybe, Paul. I mean, just pass out. So, Andres is my body is telling me that I don't need to sleep. That's false. It's absolutely false, man. Anyway, so that's why I got it. I once I am up, I'm like, well, I'm up, I might as well go in and see if I can whip up any magic here in the studio. I was not able to. So we did not. We did not whip up any magic, but you know, you never know till you go in there. So yeah, man, today is, yeah, somebody made the point. The start of a new winning streak starts today. Do we kiss this roach or do we smash this dude into a thousand pieces? I still don't know. I'm going to give the rough. How about this? Last time we kissed it on Friday, they won. Okay. Let's give this little turd one more, one more shot. They have the best record since we started kissing the roach in baseball. It's been unreal since that since the roach came in. I lost the roach. All right. Now that means you stomp it out. But you know, listen, despite, despite my tiredness, I'm very happy to be here. I'm excited about our show today. We have something a little different coming up in just the next segment. And I had the chance to watch American sports story, Aaron Hernandez. And I was struck immediately with the performance of Josh Rivera, who plays Aaron Hernandez. And we're going to be joined by him and one of the producers, Stu Zicherman, is going to be joining us in the next segment. But it's one of those docu series dramas. It's going to be airing on FX and it starts a week from today, a week from today. The best sets of DBR, it's a Ryan Murphy, Ryan Murphy, Ryan Murphy, directed, uh, doc series. That's how Beau would say his name. Oh, Ryan Murphy. Yeah. Right. Murphy. And it's like a biopic. It's, it's a dramatization. It's not a documentary, uh, that you've seen like Netflix had a huge three-part. Which was great. Which was really good. Yeah. This is totally different. It's supposed to be different. The best comparison would be. It's the same people that did the OJ one or Kuba Gooding Junior played OJ. So good, man. So good. Um, did we all not love that one? Who was? I mean, we, I loved it. Ross Ross was, uh, Kardashian. It was brilliant. I'm curious though, if it's more of a authentic dramatization or more like the winning time Lakers where the people involved would go. This wasn't, no, that's not how it happened. That's not, this, this is all just made up for drama, for television purposes. And I'm going to ask the, uh, stew, the producer, like how, how close to reality, did you try to keep it or how much did you try to pizzazz it up for entertainment value? I mean, I think there's always a little pizzazz you have to add and, and, you know, kind of take some stretches on some storylines. But I think the bare bones, if you watch the documentaries, I think, did you watch the Aaron Hernandez docs? I did see some of those. Yeah. It stays pretty true to that and uses a lot of stories that like his brother wrote a book too. That's really telling and, uh, talking about his, his sexuality and, and where he was with that. And that's a big player, uh, in this, this series as well. And I, again, I had the chance to do the advanced screening on it and it, I mean, it's staggeringly good. And this guy, Josh Rivera was so good, man. I just can't tell you again, this performance, that's what fascinates me the most. I'm very excited that we were able to get him on the show because I'm, you know, from what I've been told, he's not much of a football. He didn't play. It's on a football. He was in the sports guy. Wait till I ask him about his background and acting and you're going to be really surprised. And I'm like, dude, how do you prepare to play a murderer? Yes. A crazy person. Yep. A hundred percent. I mean, we all know the story and, and I'm like, too, that's, that's gnarly to prepare for the, a role like that. I can't wait. I hope we get to keep them on for a little bit of time because we're going to do that in the next segment. So we're actually going to break a little bit early so we can knock that out. So the only time they had available and then we will get into some of the other, uh, no Padres last night. No Padres. Yeah. A hundred percent. So I hope everyone enjoyed a peaceful night at home. Just hate watching other teams like I did and watching some Monday night football and we'll talk about that. Thanks so much to the 49ers for your transparency really, really cool, definitely really cool. Really cool. Thanks so much. All carnage. It's not just fans. Last night. Yeah, it's, it's so much that went in, uh, into that last night. So we'll talk about all of that. And then some this morning here on Ben and I don't mind changing things around a little bit. So a little early break. Kelly's traffic. And then we'll come back with a Josh Rivera star and Stu Zicherman producer of the new Aaron Hernandez movie coming to FX next. So it's a 97 three the fan from the mind of a two foot tall talking spokes puppet comes this year's biggest challenge. It's time for Bob's dare to compare the hottest game show on TV that asks what happens when you compare Bob's to the competition. You get style, you get quality, you get beeps and boops and dings and whomps and thousands of dollars in savings. Everyone's winner when you dare to compare with Bob's discount furniture. Jump in store at my bops.com to play now. Pay off up to $650 via virtual prepaid master card in 15 days free phone up to $830 via 24 monthly bill credits plus tax qualifying port and trade and service and go 5g next to credit required contact us before canceling entire account to continue bill credits to credit, stop and balance and require finance agreements do sometimes in football you need just a little more for that first down. You need to be pushing the pile and on our new podcast we'll give you that extra effort. I'm like runner a long time NFL analyst who helped develop player evaluation systems that every NFL team uses to this day. And I'm Kyle Long former all pro offensive lineman in the NFL and knows a thing or two about getting people moving. You'll get expertise from inside the trenches and behind the tape for four episodes every week. So make sure you download and subscribe to the push in the pile podcast on the Odyssey app. I'm very impressed that you got an advanced screener just for you with your name water marked on it. It was a cool thing to make sure you couldn't leak out to anyone else. It's only the second time I've ever had that I got an advanced screener of bird man which was the Michael Keaton yeah and I felt like I felt like I had made it at that point. And but man I was happy to get I love the 10 part you know the you know to be able to binge that and it was it's just actually the problem is I get super excited for a show. It's like four episodes or three parts or something I need more. I got to have more and this one does not disappoint. Now the reason you got that screener is because we got some special guests on early today and joining us right now the star of American sports story Aaron Hernandez playing Aaron Hernandez in the limited FX series debuting next week. We've got Josh Rivera with us Josh good morning to you. Good morning. How you guys doing? Doing really good doing great. And we also have the producer of the the program American sports story Aaron Hernandez Stu Zickerman is here Stu also welcome thanks for joining us. Thank you so much. It's great to have you guys. I wanted to start with Josh got to watch the the entire series blew me away. And I think when I when I found out kind of your background this was quite a departure from Westside story right. I mean your your Westside story one day and the next day you are a psychopathic sociopathic football player that is literally literally high the entire series. I've never seen a human being smoke as much weed as as your Aaron Hernandez did. Yeah, we had this special herbal like it was basically like smoking tea leaves and man it tasted pretty bad. But yeah, it wasn't it was quite a big departure wasn't it as far as genre and the kinds of things I had to do, which was a you know a fantastic opportunity and a terrific challenge because you know obviously like I'm just I'm always competing with myself. I'm trying to one up myself with everything I've done previously. And so this was a great opportunity for me to just do something completely different and collect some different muscles. So yeah, I'm I'm really happy you enjoyed it man. That means a lot did very very much. Yeah, Stu the sports dramatizations have become really big the OJ though the Lakers series on HBO. My question to you is when you take something from real life and turn it into somewhat a dramatization how close were you trying to remain to the real life events and what we knew about the Aaron Hernandez story. Well, I mean, I think what's what's amazing about the Hernandez story is like we don't really know that much right like I mean we've seen the documentaries we've read the articles and and all they can do is speculate no one really knows what was going on and no one really knows why Aaron, you know, did some of the things he did killed on Lloyd, you know, it's such a mystery. And I think, you know, what's great about doing a show like this and the reason to do a show like this is you know, we in the writers room can sort of get together and take everything we know about it and all the research and try and connect the dots and and try and come up with answers and take the audience, you know, into the room where Aaron asks Bella check for a trade or out to know and we can take you there and and try and sort of like piece the whole thing together in a more complex way. Yeah, no question about it and I thought, you know, I didn't look at it and say, man, I've seen them take a lot of liberties here at all. It all stayed fairly true to what I had seen in the past and joined by Joshua Vera who played Aaron Hernandez and Stu Zicherman, the producer, one of the producers from the the new Aaron Hernandez movie coming out on FX debuts next week, Josh, another question for you. I'm looking at you now. You've probably had to drop some pounds, but I know you had about 30 pounds of muscle and you had to you had to add the tattoos. Can you tell us about the process of adding all that muscle because I would like to do that. And then also the getting those tattoos put on you every day. What was that experience like? Yeah, so I'll start with kind of the fitness regimen because what was really cool about that is that I had been I had been in hunger games just before that and you know, I had to slim down for that because the hunger games, you know, and so I was at the lightest that I'd ever been at that point. So I really wanted to get back in shape anyways and the fact that it was company subsidized was really great. But there's no sexy Hollywood secret, man. To be honest, I just they hooked me up with a trainer and I just worked out every day with probably five days a week. And I guess the only thing special about it was I had a nutrition help where it was just kind of eating clean food, but like a ton of it like a ton of food. I have never before like I got a big appetite. I've never been in a position where I did not want to eat and I had to make myself eat before. It was pretty bizarre. But yes, I put on a ton of weight in like three months. It was like carrying around a whole different body. It was pretty wild. And the tattoos we had and a special effects person, his name's Dave Presto. He's my favorite guy. I love that dude. He's got like 11 ammies or something crazy, but he drew all the tattoos and he was able to reference a lot of the chronology of because, you know, he starts with only a few errand does. Yeah. And then it eventually becomes huge sleeves and body tattoos. So he drew these and made kind of these stencils that he was able to piece together in different ways on my arms. And what I would have to do in the trailer is I have these basically like gymnastic handles that I would hold on to for hours, for hours I had to do this. And they would put all the tattoos on. We would put on like movies and stuff like that. The whole thing took about like three to three and a half hours every day. Oh my God. It's pretty wild. Well, first of all, I'm stunned because every other tweet is the secret Hollywood stars don't want you to know about getting in shape. And he just told us there's no secrets just to have to work hard. No, they're liars. They're liars. Well, Josh, how about the football part of it? Because when we watch you line up, when we watch you running routes, when we watch you know, I'm assuming making at least some of these catches that you had to make, taking hits, things like that, it looked to be a little bit grueling. How does one prepare for that? Yeah, I'm glad you asked. So I have a little bit of a football background, but I've never been tight end. I was a guard and a linebacker. So I have I have stone hands. I can't catch bird garbage. And so I had to do like while I was working out during pre production, I did a lot of work with some of the football coordinators to get those stances to look natural and to you know, get those routes to look natural, working on my receiving skills and all of that stuff. And there was a there was about a week towards the beginning, you know, a lot of the less contact stuff is me and some of the quick routes you can see my face and stuff like that. All the cool stuff, like the really, really cool looking stuff that's probably somebody else to be honest. But because there was there was one week or like a span of a couple days while we were doing some of the Florida football where I was like, I'm doing the football like I played football. I'm a football player. I gained 30 pounds. Like I can do this. And oh my gosh, I got the rod kicked out of me that day. I remember the next day my bones were hurting. Everything was hurting like my eyeballs were hurting. I was like, man, give my stunt double in there. This is crazy. 100% active Josh Rivera, producer Stu Zicherman from the American sports story, Aaron Hernandez debuting on FX next week and and Stu, I want to ask you about the casting process, not just Josh, but you're casting, you know, people who we know in real life like Bill Belichick and Urban Meyer and Tim Tebow who I just saw is Arnold Schwarzenegger's son. How do you pick people that are going to be convincing to an audience that already knows these people in real life? Yeah, again, it's a challenge. You know, I think that, you know, I've always felt like when I watch a show like this, you know, because I'm a big sports fan, I watch a show where, you know, someone's playing someone, you know, I never think they look exactly like them at the first second, but very quickly, if it's good, like, I forget about that because the person's driven body is the part, you know, and I think that for us, we were just looking for people that can sort of like dimensionalize these characters, you know, and, you know, the, you know, the Belichick one's like the best example, it's because like, that's a hard part to write. Yeah. You know, we spent a lot of time in the writers when I'm thinking about like, Hey, how do we write Belichick? You know, it's like everything you know about him, he's so private and he's kind of a crumogeny and like, that's not going to be fun for an audience to watch, you know, so like, you have to think about how you're going to sort of bring these people to life and then you have to cast it with actors, you know, our actor who plays Belichick, just just ran to the role, you know, and just sort of like, you know, filled it up with air and, and you sort of hope all your actors do that and I think that, that when actors sort of like Josh was, you know, Josh always says, you know, it's like, when you embody the role and you make it your own, I think the audience very quickly kind of forgets what they're looking at and they just start watching and rooting for the character. That's a really good point that you make and I thought the guy that played Urban Meyer, I forgot, I just assumed after a couple of episodes, Oh, I'm, I'm watching Urban Meyer in a hospital that talking to his wife, I'm that that's what I pictured in Josh last one for me. So I got to imagine when you do your research and, and learn more about the Aaron Hernandez character. Look, man, I don't know that sympathetic is the word that I feel for him, but I do when you kind of put the pieces together with him, I go, okay, I mean, it explains a lot. And where do you think, where do you think he kind of lost his way? Was it high school? Was it Florida? Was it the NFL? And we talked about it a little bit on the show yesterday. All of the steps that everyone took to ensure like he stayed out of trouble. None of it worked. I mean, he was, he was just kind of a lost soul from the very beginning. So when you played him, did you find yourself connecting with him at all or, or feeling sympathetic? Cause I'm telling you, with the performance you laid out there, it had my mind spin it a little bit. Yeah. Well, I'm, I'm, I'm glad you felt that way. Cause that means I did my job correctly just cause approaching something, I try to approach everything from an actor standpoint, like part of my job, a really huge component is to have empathy for the person that I'm playing, you know, and if we're talking about the reality of it like I, you know, the, the facts of the facts, like I don't have a huge amount of sympathy for the situation, but when I'm approaching it from a character lens, like I have to, I have to make this like a realized whole person. And when you're talking about where he lost his way, obviously, like a lot of people have speculations. My personal belief is I think it started to go downhill once he, and this was, this was reinforced when I was able to watch the show. There's a specific moment where he realizes that he just got away with something for the first time. And you see the, the, the cinematography in that scene is really powerful cause you can just see it register that he doesn't play by the same rules as everybody else. And, and that dawns on him. And I think things just get worse and worse from there. Because when you compound that realization with, you know, kind of a degenerative brain or with a myriad of other issues that he's running into in his life, you know, any normal person would be at least a little bit swayed by the, by the premise, by the, by the, what's the, what's the word, whatever, by consequences, but he knows early on that he doesn't have to face those. He doesn't play by the same rules because he's really good at football and everybody wants to see him win. I think that was a pretty huge, huge contributor. Well, we're very excited about American sports story, Aaron Hernandez, gentlemen, thank you for your time. Let's get on with the hard work of promotion now after you, you put it all together. Thank you so much. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Thank you for watching. We really appreciate it. Our pleasure, man. Thanks so much. Thanks. Thank you. Josh Rivera, American sports story. Aaron Hernandez, such a premiere September 17th. It is one week from today on FX and how many episodes is it 10, 10 episodes, not really set up for a season two, I would think. No, I think season two is not in the cards, but I, I just, I mean, I, the guys perform, you'll see, I would have great dude number one, you can just, you know, see what a great guy he is and then to watch his performance, the transformation into this absolute, you know, sociopath is, is really dynamic. It's really well done, it's, you know, like you said, a dramatization, but he crushes it. I was just hanging up with them on Zoom and they were still hearing you talking to like, what a great dude. Yeah. What a great performance it is. Yeah. Just raising his arms. He did that. He knocked it out of the. I mean, it's got to be so much fun. This part of the, the job, like the job's not over once you cut the finals, right? The promotion and I could hear them. They were talking about plans of when they're going to LA next for like Emmy stuff. Yeah. Yeah. That's got to be the fun part. I just called the hard work paying off. I really liked his performance so much that like, I don't know that I would go watch West Side Story before, no, now that he's in it, I'm like, all right, maybe I'll go watch West Side Story, you know, I mean, he just, he was brilliant, brilliant in it. And, um, the process of having to get the tattoo and the strap is talking about day, you know, just stick your arms and just like hang there. I mean, I can't even imagine also like 30 pounds of muscle. Holy smokes. That easy. But they paid him to do it. I know. Yeah. It's on the house. That's great. Interesting stuff. Yeah. Good. It's a non pot raise morning when they didn't have a game last night. A fun way to start the show. We will talk some baseball coming up. But since we're already on, on Hollywood, a little shout out to his family for a little one. Absolute legend. I loved your tweet last night too. We could bring that back. Thank you. I think you're right on that. Is it? Am I right? That is. Is he the one person we can all agree on? He's the one person. I think that everybody can agree on. I think so. Who doesn't like James or who's the edge, who's the edge Lord out there? It's like, eh, he's not that great. That's going up next with Beno Woods, a 97 through the fan. The one constant through all the years, Ray, has been baseball. America has ruled by like an army of steam rollers. It's been erased like a blackboard rebuilt and erased again. But baseball is marked the time. This field, this game, is a part of our past, Ray. It reminds us of all that once was good, and it could be again. Oh, people will come, Ray. People will most definitely come. You don't like field of dreams? I love fields. I think it's corny, unrealistic, corny, literally. You don't even like that speech. It's overwrought, whatever. How can you not like the delivery, though? James Earl Jones, as I tweeted yesterday, is the one person that we could all agree on. Right. Like Padres and Dodger fans, the Crips and the Bloods, everybody agrees that James Earl Jones was an absolute treasure and an artist and a G. I mean, to the very end. What a part of all of our youths doesn't matter that we're 15 years apart, Paulie. He was a part of your youth as well as mine and bounce, you know, with Darth Vader, you know, look, like it's just, it's iconic. He's just an icon. And then yours, all the one that told you what happened to your father, he told me enough. He told me you killed me. Me. I am your father. Whoa. Just blow your mind. Are youth your youth, Paulie, with like Lion King and stuff on me. Everything the light touches. My kids is our kingdom, a king's time as ruler rises and falls like the sun. One day, Simba, the sun will set on my time here and will rise with you as the new king. I mean, as iconic and as long of a career as he had, yeah, I was born in 1990. Right. Lion King, I want to say '92, '93, like it was one of my first movies that I just loved. The Sandlot, you know, he was in that world. Of course. And you're just like, man, he's just, he's iconic. Iconic. Yep. That's like 1% and yeah, saw that news come down yesterday. It was just kind of like a man, 93 years old, tip of the hat to you, sir, for a long, really fruitful life, certainly. And I would say for me, for my, for my money, I'd say the best pipes of all time. I tend to agree. I was going to tweet it yesterday, but I thought, all right, Woodsy, this is a knee-jerk reaction. Whose pipes are better than James Earl Jones? And I sat down, I mean, there's some good ones, you know, there's some, there's some good pipes out there. There are Benedict Cumberbatch. Yeah. There's a really good voice, but not as good as James Earl Jones. No, I, I, I, I'm trying to think of best pipes of all time. I mean, Morgan Freeman's on that. Morgan's Morgan Freeman's pipe. His is his delivery as well, but James Earl Jones with the deep and rich. That's not, that's it. That's your finger. Even watching the news growing up, this CNN, yeah, yeah, that was him. That was him. That was James Earl Jones, King Joffee Joffer in coming to America. One of my favorite characters with the giant lion's head around his body, you see coming to America, right? Yes. The original. Yes. So a brilliant, brilliant career was very bummed to see it yesterday, but 93 is a, it's a good run, my friend, a very, very good run. So you know how we do it on this program. And I really hope we can see more unity and more peace when already things are so difficult. So shout out to his family. And good news here. Julian reminded us in the chat has Paulie reminded me and Ben that Disney actually licensed his voice to use pretty much whenever they want. So we will definitely get more James Earl Jones as time passes. I don't really know how I feel about that. Like AI James Earl Jones. Yeah. I think that's the thing. Yeah. I'm not so sure about that. I don't know how to feel about it. When in reality, like, or was it like they, they have a licensed it to Lucas, then now Disney and like Darth Vader will always be James Earl Jones. Like a big, I don't know that we're going to get a new Darth Vader stories. Is it? I mean, he was never the guy in the Darth Vader suit. No, it was a different guy. It was a different actor. Yeah. But it was his voice, but he's really, really great. But I don't know how to feel if it's, if it's a, it would have been weird if they've taken off the helmet and Luke's father was James Earl Jones. Yeah. Not, I mean, not impossible, but not impossible, but it would have been a little bit different. Paulie, do you have that clip? I do. Okay. So yesterday, my friend Jack, it was actually Jack's idea. I want to give him credit. Because dude, tomorrow you got, I'm assuming you're going to do shout out to his family for James Earl Jones. I said, yeah, at prime time, there's no pottery's game. So we're going to mess around a little bit. I said, he said, have Paulie run that through a Darth Vader filter. I go, it's a great idea. So I said it to Paulie. So try to run that through a filter. Paulie sent it back to us and well, it hasn't really caught up yet. We don't have the same systems as Disney and Lucas films, apparently. Yeah. And maybe James Earl Jones is just so good that AI can't handle him. Maybe maybe in their life, it's too hard, but this is Darth Vader filter. Yeah. Shout out to his family. Excuse me? One more time. Shout out to his family. His family. His family. Hey, it's James Earl Jones. I'm from Wisconsin. How are you? Hey. Shout out to his family. People will come, Ray. I swear to God, they will, they will people will come, Ray, baseball continues to just move on at its own pace. So people will most definitely come, Ray. Hey, how are you? Hey, did she get that hat tag out of her throat yet? Where's moonlight Graham? Hey, dad, can you get over here and get that hat tag out of her mouth? Shout out to his family. It's the weirdest thing I have ever heard. That's the worst filter of all time. Did you find that other bad Star Wars filters? It was like the first thing that came out. Hey, Shout out to his family. What in the? Shout out to his family. How are you? Shout out to his family. Yeah, helping the Chicago. Hey. How are you, James? Rest in peace. Oh, God. More damn acroids. Yeah, it's more. Can I? Yes. Oh, God. Well, so if that's that's what we have to look forward to. Then I'm going to pass, okay, on the whole thing. Hey, how are you, Ben? I know you want to talk pageries and all your math that you did last night. I do want to know what I had a purpose for it. I know you did. Do you know what my purpose was? To enrage me. No, it was not my purpose. I was trying to calm everybody down a little bit. And I succeeded. So some people I succeeded. Talk about that coming up right after a check of traffic here at 97.3 the fan. Ice ball coverage on 97.3 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. Yeah, with no pageries game last night, it was full on scoreboard watching and hoping for a little bit of help. And the pageries did get some from a pair of old friends, Ty France with an RBI double in the second inning and Nick Martinez with seven innings, a two hit shutout ball as the Cincinnati Reds beat the Atlanta Braves one to nothing. That knocks the Braves two and a half games behind the Padres and a game behind the Mets who pulled one out against the Blue Jays and a wild pitch and a pass ball in the eighth inning to get a 3-2 road win. So right now Padres game and a half up, Diamondbacks a half game behind the Padres, Mets a game and a half behind the Padres and the Braves two and a half games behind the Padres with the top three advancing to the postseason at the end of the regular season. Yeah, it was put on the end of that game and the Blue Jays game and they had a runner on first. When you run at the plate, tying running on, tying run on, winning run at the plate two out, two outs Edwin Diaz on the bump and he hangs a slider and this guy goes Oppo and he sends it back to the wall and I'm like, here we go, walk off win right up against the wall, makes the catch and I'm like, man, the Mets magic is really happy. It wasn't quite Jackson Merrill in that situation. No, and there again, they had the bases loaded and ended up scoring like you said on a pass ball and a wild pitch and it was like, okay, well, they're clearly going to win this game and man, it was their magic is not seeming to dissipate right now. But why I did so much math on Twitter last night, I really have seen a lot of nervous Padres fans coming out of the woodwork after just two losses in a row by your San Diego Padres and of course, the tightening of the wild card standings and, you know, they're the doomers and like this is, this is how it starts and the Padres are heading toward a very bad place in which they're going to miss the playoffs and I want it and it is absolutely possible that the Padres can still miss the playoffs. They aren't guaranteed anything. Many would say probable that is that is incorrect that many would say that I'm not saying that's what I wanted to point out, so I would say so for the Padres to miss the playoffs at this point, they would have to be passed by all three of those teams that are behind them. Now the Diamondbacks are only half game behind Padres play the Diamondbacks three times. Literally, they could pass the Padres without too much consternation there. The Mets are only a game and a half back and have the tiebreaker on the Padres. So yeah, there's a very realistic world in which if the Mets continue playing well, they could pass the Padres. But the Braves, you know, that's especially after yesterday's loss. That's a little bit of a different story. Yes, there are only two and a half games back and there's 17 games for to play. So there's time, especially Padres don't play well, but remember the Padres own the tiebreaker over the Atlanta Braves, which means for the Braves to pass the Padres, they're going to have to win four more games than the Padres the rest of the way. Okay, four more. So for instance, if the Padres went 10 and 7 the rest of the season, which would be seven and seven and sweep the White Sox for just for example, the Braves would have to go 14 and four to pass the Padres. Okay. And the Braves, by the way, still have four against the Dodgers, three against the Phillies and three against the Mets, which they can, they're home. I mean, they can win some of those that, like I said, nothing is guaranteed. But the Braves would have to pretty much play out of their mind to get to 14 and four with the Padres just kind of play an okay at 10 and seven, even if the Padres have their worst stretch of the year. By the way, I checked their worst 17 game stretch of the season is six and 11. It's when they had two five game losing streaks at the beginning of June, one, a few games in between. That's the worst they've done all year and 17. The Braves would still need a winning record to pass the Padres. They need to go at least 10 and eight in their last 18 games to pass the Padres. So yes, it's possible, but no, it's not like, oh, this is definitely about to happen. The Padres have a significant advantage here in this race toward the playoff spot and the wild card, at least over the Atlanta Braves at this point, which is really all your, you're just kind of worried about the one team that could slide right in as you, if you crumble or if you go hit a bad stretch or whatever, but I do agree, you know, you need to avoid, you need to avoid that. You can't count on any wins. I mean, you just, you, you look at the wide socks, they've won. I'm sorry. Did I say the Phillies, the, the Braves play, that's why I make sure I got this accurate. I put it down. The Braves play the Mets, the Royals, the Dodgers, the Phillies, the Royals, yeah, you just ruined my day. Yeah. Yeah. I was, I was all excited for that. But three playoff teams. Yeah. You know, it really in the remaining six series, it's the Padres have Dodgers and Diamondbacks and Astros. I mean, it's, it's similar, but the Padres are in a much better starting position than the Braves are. Correct. They've got the white socks too. Yeah. You can afford, you know, you can afford a series loss in there. Not that you want one, not that you're going to, you know, not that any of us will be happy with that. But yeah, the, the games against the white socks, Ben, here, I mean, you have to win all three. There's, they've won 33 games this year. You just have to. But again, they're in the best position you can be in in sports is the ability to control your own destiny. You hear it all the time, but it is so true. You don't have to get help from other teams. Getting help is great. You got some last night. That's fantastic. But you win games, you will be in. It's that simple. We win. We take your business. We're rolling. If the Padres go 11 and six, it's almost impossible for them to miss the playoffs at this point. Right. The Braves would have to play insanely well. 15 and three. Right. You know, with that schedule that that is all and the injuries they've suffered, that is not really a feasible finish to the season. So yeah, I mean, they would have to like completely tank and Arizona stays super hot. Right. Over the next 14, no, they'd have to re get hot because they're, they're very average right now. Like they would have to play out of their minds. The next 14 and we would have to be horrible over our next 14 for that last series, those last three games to not be for a playoff. Correct. Correct. You kind of hope that at a maximum, it comes down to is, oh, well, we're in there in. Let's see who, let's see who plays at home, which is important. It's absolutely important. But you know, hey, listen, if we get down to that point and that's all those three games matter is, is seating and where you play. I don't care. Good. We're in as long as we make it. I think it's very important. I think it's a slight notch below getting in is having a home playoff. We played better on the road, which is fine. I just, I, dude, you know how you know my stance. We get to hit first. Fine. We give up a lot of early runs, let us, if I, if we end up playing in Arizona, as bummed as I am about not going down there to the ballpark and being a part of the energy and being at a bar before the game and all that, yes, it's going to suck. Not going to be that upset. As long as they're in, if we happen to get first licks and our pitcher doesn't have to go out there and give up two runs in the first and we played from behind, I'm absolutely okay with it. I can, I can make myself feel better. If it's at home, I can make myself feel better if it's on the road. I'm in. All I'm saying is I think nine and eight is probably good enough. Hundred percent. If the Braves went 12 and six and the Padres went nine and eight, Padres are in the playoffs. Yep. Do they have to, even if they want every series, that wouldn't be good enough if the Padres go nine and eight, if they didn't sweep at least one of them. We'll come back. We've got a little take on Woods for you. Let's talk about the Monday night football, fantasy football controversy last night as well. Next on 97.3 to fans. From the mind of a two foot tall talking spokespuppet comes this year's biggest challenge. It's time for Bob's dare to compare the hottest game show on TV that asks what happens when you compare Bob's to the competition. You get style. You get quality. You get beeps and boops and dings and whops and thousands of dollars in saving. 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