Muse

Can you describe me in one word or less? Chubby. Thank you. Can you describe me in one word or less? Meow. Oh, okay. Thank you. Describe me in one word or less.

Magic.

I guess I am magic. Can you describe me in one word or less? Creamy. I guess. Can you describe me in one word or less? You? Yes. Meat snacks. Can you describe me in one word or less, please? Can you describe me in one word or less? Ragu. Describe me in one word or less. Yeah, exactly.

T-B-T-L. I was shaking. My tongue was shaking. My head was shaking. My arms were shaking.

And my legs. My feet, too. Oh, I see. Dirty monkey not okay. But dirty monkey dance?

I don't know if it's video games or what, but it's so unfair to, after something like this, to blame people in the backseat or say they deserved it. Best friends are very cool to be. Very best friends are f***ing dope to me.

And what we did see is we took them turds and we crammed them in between the number there, so that's one turdy, two turdy, three turdy.

I love candy for dinner. What about you? They taste like burning.

Well, all right, hello, good morning, and welcome everyone to a Monday edition of TBTL, the show that just might be too beautiful to live. It's Trucktober. My name's Luke Burbank. I'm your host.

Nobody buys me. Nobody buys me either.

Coming to you from the Madrona Hill studio, perched high above the mighty Columbia, where it is an absolutely spectacular day here on October the 13th.

Oh, ma, pa, it's just beautiful.

I saw something this morning that I don't know if I've seen before. It was, I'm going to say, I don't know, maybe two to three hundred geese. And they were flying along above the mighty Columbia. Now, they were going north. which seems like a problem for them, based on the time of year. But they weren't flying in that sort of V that we've all seen before. They were flying in single file. So there was like one in the front, and then you go back about two or three hundred geese, and there's one at the back. And this line of geese was undulating. It was as it sort of went north above the Columbia River, and it was just, it was absolutely gorgeous. It was a heck of a way to start this Monday for me, And it made me feel like maybe luck is on my side today. It's your lucky day. You just found a USB flash drive in the parking lot. I'm also wearing my lucky sweater, my newly, I guess, sort of minted lucky sweater with Paddington Bear on it. I put this on, I was wearing this on Friday night. Basically, when the Mariners, I don't know if you know this, but we're pretty interested in the Seattle Mariners here on this podcast right now. and the Mariners were playing on Friday night and things were not going well and then I put on this Paddington sweater.

Hello, I'm a thousand years old and I'm a Mariners fan.

And I, after I put the sweater on, they came back and won the game and so then I wore the sweater for yesterday's game and they won the game and so now I guess I live in this sweater. We all live together inside episode 4574 in a collector series. Let the fun begin. Yeah, there will be probably some Mariners talk today. I don't know how to avoid it, my friends.

I won't trash talk. I won't be out there blowhard.

If we do manage to exhaust that topic. And I'll mention something. Andrew and I just did a 55-minute show for and with each other that we did not record to try to, as we say, foam off, burn off, off gas, some of our most detail-oriented and wrong-headed takes about the X's and O's of baseball. so that when we do talk about the Mariners today, we don't get so bogged down in those details. If we do manage to get through all of that and we still have some time, I do want to talk about the stolen dinosaur. Somebody stole a dinosaur in the Palisades neighborhood of California. You've got to be kidding me. But it brought the neighborhood together. By the way, it's a dinosaur. It's the type of dinosaur that's come up on TBTL recently. So we'll sometime either today or tomorrow or in the next three months get into that. will definitely though say hi to this guy he is the longest running co-bro of the show maybe best known for his depictions of the tall ships he's had a ton of adventures already this weekend or last weekend that he'd like to share with us today i've had a few a few

what? He's Waldo's. He's Andrew Walsh and he's joining me right now. Good morning, my friend.

Good morning, Luke. I am going to start with a topic that has nothing to do with the Seattle Mariners and really nothing to do with sports. Just as a little courtesy. Probably a good idea. Just a little courtesy. Obviously, the sports weekend is going to come up. It was potentially the biggest one of my life, but in an attempt to throw a bone to the people who do not care about our Seattle Mariners. I'm going to ask you, see, turning this into a quiz is such a bad idea. I did it this way to Genevieve and it didn't pay off, but I don't learn my lessons easily. So I will say that it's related sort of to the Seattle Seahawks. I didn't really pay attention to the Seahawks game much yesterday, but I had it on in the background on the radio. And I heard something at the very end of the Seahawks game yesterday during a commercial break that I realized I had heard the week before as well and wanted to ask you about. clearly this is a commercial for a company that specifically has bought ad space during Seahawks games not just generally on the sports radio station I listen to because I listen to that station all the time and I never hear this commercial but now I've heard this commercial twice and both times it was near the end of a Seattle Seahawks game on the radio would you like to take a guess as to what I heard and I will this is how I set it up for Genevieve and it failed It was the least likely product or service I could have imagined advertising specifically during a football game. And it's not necessarily gendered, by the way. Genevieve went right to that because she's sexist.

Always with her. And I'm tired of it, honestly. I am too. It's not because this product is associated with a different sport. No, that's a good guess too.

I also think this is, I've set you up. There's no way you're going to think of this. I've set you up for failure. Well, I'm going to ask for some hints, and that might get me closer. Okay, let's do some more.

I can't be defeated in my lucky Paddington shirt. No, I do love that shirt.

That's cute as hell, by the way.

It's really me stepping outside of my comfort zone, because you know me. I'm pretty monochromatic. I don't like to wear—

I thought you were going to say macho. You know me. I'm pretty macho. Yeah, you think this is screaming. He's wearing a green—

Paddington holding a New York Times newspaper.

It's a pullover sweatshirt. It's a green classic-looking pullover. Oh, I'm sorry, sweater, Luke, or sweatshirt? Yeah. Sweater.

Well, it's funny. That's depending on where in the world. I've heard people call, I've heard people interchange those, but I would call this a sweater.

It's a sweater. It's the sweater material, not like a sweatshirt material. And it's just all green, but then there's a nice, cute depiction of, is that Paddington? Is that definitely? It's Paddington Bear. Paddington Bear, but he's not wearing anything but a tie. Doesn't Paddington sometimes wear like a rain slicker?

Yeah, like a rain slicker, yellow rain, not this one.

And he's holding a, he's wearing a tie and he's holding a newspaper. And that's it. It's very cute.

But I usually just wear stuff that's very typically black and no writing. I don't like hats with a lot of writing. I don't go in for cutesy. But something about this sweater kind of spoke to me when I saw it online. And so then it had arrived on Friday and the Mariners were having a tough time. And at some point, out of sheer desperation, because I'd already feathered the nest. We're coming back to this quiz, by the way. I had already feathered this nest that is my weird shrine that I'm building on and near my television. It's got a photograph of my niece, Gemma, in Mariner's gear. It's got now a photograph of my brothers, Sam and Dave, in Mariner's outfits. And it's also got the Stubat Jorge Polanco ball is now there. You've pulled that back from the upstairs. That came downstairs. It's out of retirement. That came downstairs on Friday night. It's out of retirement. It's closer to the television. It worked, by the way, in that Rango—everybody's calling him Rango— hit can we no we can't can we talk about how like i think i may i managed to just force that into being a thing on our text chain nobody else calls him rango but i do think just through sheer repetition i had my brother david now always texting buff rango like that thing i noted the beginning of the season like he looks like the cartoon character rango to me at least within our text chain i managed to kind of make that a shared language okay but back to this this sweater i put it on probably in the 11th inning out of just desperation. I just thought something needs to shift in the mojo. And then they ended up winning. And then I was wearing it yesterday. Becca and I were hanging out and I had it on. And then I didn't even realize that I came home and then I was watching the game and I had it on. They won. So now it's a whole thing. Okay, back to the quiz. Okay. So this is the least likely and it's local to Seattle. This service is in Seattle. Okay. It's the least likely service to have a specifically um uh football focused is it no the commercial itself doesn't mention football or anything i just think It's very interesting that the people who run this particular, what I'm going to guess is a small shop, decided to spend what I would guess to be, by radio advertising standards. A big part of their budget. A big part of their budget to air during Seahawks games.

Is it Crazy Al's House of CTE?

How did you know?

I told you I'm wearing my lucky sweater.

Crazy Al's House of CTE cannot afford this ad space.

Okay. Okay. Because that would be a weird place for them to be advertising. You're right. That would be strange. Yeah. Okay. No. Is it a, let's see.

What would the product, I'm trying to think of it almost more, I think you would describe this more as a service than a product. Okay. A serve. Okay.

Because there's a lot, I mean, there's a million things that come right to mind because they are the typical, I'm going to try to like kind of work backwards. You having a flashing light situation? Did you just see that too? Okay. You saw that too, right? Yeah, you did not hallucinate that.

Was it all the lights in my studio or just that lamp behind me? I think just the lamp. Be careful, my friend. Oh, it just did it again. I don't know what's going on. Oh, wait, no, now my other lamps are going out. My ring light just went out. Am I having a breaker issue?

Maybe, but our connection remains ironclad. I guess so. Which is good. That's good. If something's going to stay online, I'm glad this is our little connection.

The listeners are like, well, they're not talking about baseball, at least. I'm going to go fix this ring light. You go ahead and make another guess.

I love the idea that there is somebody outside of your house who's actually flipping the breaker to keep us from talking about Mariner baseball.

Oh, you know what? There is construction going on outside of my house. Well, that could be. That could be interesting. But why is it happening to different lamps at different times?

It should be knocking your computer offline. Although your computer's on power, I guess. Unless it's like, yeah, they have battery. But it's not knocking your Wi-Fi offline, thankfully.

No, they've been very, very fast. Or are we in heaven? Is this holy forking shirt balls?

Okay, so this is a, what I was starting to say was there are so many services that come to mind, you know, whether it's roofing, whether it's, you know, heating and cooling, whether it's slab jacking. There's so much, you know, those kind of local electrical, those like local companies that will do a big spend on becoming the official, you know, the official flooring company of the Seattle Seahawks or whatever. So you're saying it's not one of those kinds of things. Those are a natural choice. You're saying it's something else that's very un—is it something—is it an emotional thing? Is it like a therapist?

It's not a therapist. I think that would be really smart. And actually, I do hear some really good therapy commercials, like online therapy commercials, during just regular sports radio programming, which I actually think are really good, actually. That's actually cool. There is one, Luke, and I don't have it in front of me here because it's really hard to find radio commercials. I've been looking for this one that I'm trying to get you to guess. But there is one that begins with just a male voice, just like kind of, I think he's sort of berating himself, and then they just start like layering voices over top. Have you heard this commercial? No. So it's like a cacophony. It's the same voice, but it's basically what goes on in my head. It's like this guy, it becomes like one voice that's criticizing you, then it like starts overlapping, overlapping, overlapping, until it's like a cacophony of your own voice sort of saying, like, dummy, and I was like, whoa, you found me. Yeah.

I wonder, are those ads typically for, like, mental health, like, call this number if you're having trouble?

It wasn't like a PSA. It was more of a, hey, getbetterhelp.com or something like that. Oh, nice. That's smart. It was a really good ad, yeah.

That is. That's well-conceived and sounds like well-executed. Okay, so it's not therapy. It's a thing that we are surprised. It's a company that we're surprised is spending a large amount of its budget, probably, on ads that are super specific to the Seattle Seahawks. Is it the Los Angeles Rams?

Just to be very clear, the service and the ads are not incorporating football in the ads. It's just the placement that I find interesting.

So they don't mention the Seahawks?

They don't mention the Seahawks.

How do you know it's specific to the Seahawks?

Because I told you, like, I know that it's just airing during the football games because I – this is not me bragging. This is me admitting that – But you listen to so much of the – I listen to – I know the ads. I can sing along with them. I trust you on this. Yeah.

I trust you on this.

For certain games, when baseball comes around, during the games, you start to hear ads that you don't hear during just regular programming. Like certain – the salespeople are selling ads to air during games. that's different than the salespeople just selling ads to air during Bump and Stacey or some other talk show, right? Yeah, yeah. So I've only heard this commercial twice, and it was both near the end of the Seahawks game. Like, I think maybe even bridging. I feel like this service has a specific slot that might be right after the... game but before the post game show okay now is that related to the service they provide no it's

just shocking that this service decided to advertise not just on sports radio but during a seahawks game and i'm not trying to be insulting towards them i i think it's awesome and maybe when i tell you this you'll think that i'm just stereotyping and that there's no there there

Is it a service Is it pet related

It is not pet related

Is it something that we think of as being I know it's not therapy But that we think I'm going with this And I'm getting too bogged down in this idea That football is fierce And machismo and violent And that this is something that is not that

Yes, I think that is it And again, I'm not trying to stereotype

So that is it I'm thinking in the right way

I think of this, I will use this description, I think of this as a very delicate service.

It's very delicate. Okay, it's a delicate service. Is it like something physical with like massage, with, you know, somebody getting their fingernails done, something? Is it like a, I'm trying to think of pampering. Is it something that you would think of as pampering?

Not pampering. Not pampering. I've literally never heard a commercial, TV or radio, I've never heard this service advertised before.

This, okay, but it's very soft. You think of it as being soft?

I think of it as being very gentle.

Okay, very gentle. Is it for a hypnotist?

It is not for a hypnotist. Is it for flute lessons? It is not. I like what we're doing here. We're very much into, this is very super password, is it?

I'm getting meditative. Is it for a place, Andrew, is it for one of those sensory deprivation float companies? Oh, no. And again, I think. Which I have a gift certificate to. Have you done that before? Genevieve is huge into that. I just realized something in this very moment, Andrew, which is I must really have, there must be something about my brand that really tells my mother's in law that i need to chill out you need to relax because my my i guess you would say former mother-in-law cheryl who who i adored and i still adore to this day love her very much she once bought me as a gift a float session in one of those eggs and i used it and it was great and i really appreciated it and then i just remembered that this weekend when i was hanging out with becca she goes you know you still have that float that my mom got you oh yeah what's going on with me everybody's getting the mothers but it's not just that everyone's getting them for you it's the mothers of the people that i'm in a relationship with are like that guy should go inside an egg and float in some very salty water uh and think about things next next year it's just gonna be xanax do i stutter can let's eliminate the middle Listen, hit me with that Zanny. I needed that on Friday night. I was going completely natural on it, and it was tough on that in a moment. Okay. Let's see. I don't know. Can you give me one more hint, and then I'll just concede? Let's see here.

Well, I will say I've never heard this thing advertised before. I believe it is related. Well, I'll just tell you. It's related to handwriting, Luke. Handwriting? It is for handwriting, Luke. I'm going to tell you. it's for a calligraphy service whoa and this is not me dunking on them this is me standing up and saluting them I've never really considered calligraphy services before I'm guessing the majority of people who would hire that service would probably be for event planning specifically weddings right and I think in the commercial I'm sorry I would shout out the company I just can't remember I think I'm always so overwhelmed by the fact that I'm hearing a calligraphy commercial after just hearing a bunch of men bang their heads into each other and go into blue tents. And then they're just like, you need calligraphy at your next event. And it sounds like you can either hire them to write invitations and that kind of stuff. Or it sounds like they're also advertising, set up a calligraphy table at your next event.

I love this so much. Isn't it great? That's great. And yeah, if you hear that ad again, you remember him. Let's give him a free plug. because I support small local calligraphy. I'm tired of big calligraphy coming in and undercutting all of the local folks. And then eventually jacking the prices on calligraphy. You know, I have like, it's strange, calligraphy has touched to my own life, Andrew, and to my own childhood. When we moved up to Seattle from the commune,

It was so that my dad could work at this sign business, which was called Signworks. And I think the idea was that he was kind of mostly going to be the sort of bookkeeper for the business. Because there was two guys that worked at the business. There was this guy named Peter and Jerry, which sounds like they could have founded a successful ice cream company, but they didn't. They went with signage. And when we moved up here, they both, Peter and Jerry, decided they were not interested in making signs anymore. And so then my dad had to become the guy making the signs, which he didn't know anything about. He just had to kind of like figure it out.

I did not realize. And this is the company that's still the name of the company that your dad runs.

This is the company that is still happening and is still my dad.

He's not technically the founder. He's like the Elon Musk of the sign company.

100%. He's the Howard Schultz of SignWorks.

Don't tell him I said that.

He muscled out. No, he would not like that. No, he would not.

Please do not. Don't listen.

I mean, we talk about this a lot. i feel very fortunate that my parents are not that their politics are are i don't know if their politics are aligned with mine but they're not fans of the current president which i think for me is a relief because it would be really hard if i had to try to reconcile that um with people that i love but let me tell you who my dad's almost on the other side like i'm like we gotta we gotta hang a blanket over all of the screens in the house because if he sees he's triggered this current president on television he just loses it yeah to a degree that's almost like okay walt but anyway here's here's my point when we got to seattle and when uh and when walt went to work at signworks uh jerry decided you know what i'm really more i want to follow my love of painting by the way he's a phenomenal painter to this day like a really really talented painter of you know all kinds of things he's really creative and and great painter but peter and his wife buffy although i think she now goes by a different name back then we called them, Peter and Buffley, Peter and Buffy, they decided, he decided to leave SignWorks because he wanted to pursue full-time his calligraphy business.

Really? See, and that's kind of in line. I can see that. It's about, like, you know, lettering. I mean, that is an amazing thing to be able to paint lettering like that.

Their thing was they would do two different kinds of projects. They would do calligraphy of Bible verses, which then they would frame, and they would go to, like, the University Street Fair in Seattle. They would go around to like think about anything that was like a sort of a kind of a proto farmers market, like anything where you might show up on a Saturday and there'd be lots of booths set up and people would be selling different things. They would go around selling like calligraphy. And there's these beautiful little like pieces of parchment paper that would then have a frame around them. And it would be a Bible verse. And then also they did pressed flowers. So sometimes you could buy like a little framed thing of pressed flowers. It was all very beautiful, but it was interesting to me that it was clear that calligraphy was a bigger financial winner in their life than sign works.

That should have told you something.

We're leaving this sign business for the lucrative world of calligraphy because that will pay more than doing these signs.

Calligraphy is my backup plan. Yeah, exactly.

Calligraphy was their safety school. And at no time did my dad go, that might indicate something about the sign trade. Well, it sounds like he's done all right. I love that. Sure, he has. I'm his biggest employer. It's worked out really well.

Do they charge mileage for their calligraphy services?

I think, you know what? I just got the most recent bill, and I didn't see mileage on there.

Oh, do you think that he heard you browsing a little bit about that on the show?

He didn't bring it up. I don't know if it's just also, it was a sort of a, it was a, how do I put it? First of all, I didn't look very closely because I kind of don't want to know. and also my parents were on a journey they came down here then they went and visited my sister liz and my nephews and then they sort of came back so maybe if he's doing a family trip yeah as part of it he doesn't that i don't know i gotta say i don't know the system i have a new thing that i'm mad at him about but it's all right it's not mad it's just i'm litigating a new thing in my own head starting yesterday afternoon which is you know how i got i got that big outdoor fire pit that could in my mind is somehow possibly conservative coded um which i have no actual evidence for that other than my spidey sense um and how the first one they sent me had this like strange ooze covering it no i don't did you talk about the ooze on the show i thought i mentioned this to you they mailed me one and it was covered in this strange almost like liquid cement that was not supposed to be on there it had somehow gotten i feel like i'd remember this even me yeah right so they sent me the first one in the mail and it was had this weird almost kind of like constru something had happened i don't know if it was at the facility i don't know when this happened maybe it was on its way something had leaked into the cardboard box that this fire pit which is metal and very heavy right it was in the box this ooze had leaked into the box and had stuck to the side of the fire pit itself in and it was a What?

lot of it and it was impossible to get off that's why i'm calling it like a liquid cement of some kind what color was it grayish i could send you a photo and it had solidified though at this point it's solidified and not like oh this is a little bit of like funk on it and like you know i'll i'll brush it off with a wire brush it's like again it was almost like some kind of very very commercial concrete liquid concrete product of some kind and it had kind of it had sort of adhered itself to a significant amount of the fire pit's exterior yeah and this was not a cheap item and so i emailed them and i said uh you know hey this happened to this um what what should i do and they said oh we'll mail you a new one and they said and if you don't mind if you want to just mail the other one back i was like uh okay so they sent me the new one and i realized pretty quickly oh they don't give two quits about the first one it's not even worth it for them really for me to send it back where's it gonna go they can't i'm gonna reuse it yeah they're not gonna reuse it like they don't then and by the way no one followed up like i just had so i got the replacement one which was great i set that up and then i took the old one and i put it in this box that that the that the um that it had come in this big cardboard box it's a very heavy item i can't i can't overstate that and it goes in the specific box and i put it in the specific box in case they followed up and were like hey where's where's our bunk fire pit that we sent you and then an amount of time went by and i was like i realized uh they're never coming for this and so me and my dad have been sitting out at the fire pit a lot and we really enjoy it and i said hey you know what if you and mom want it i have another one that they sent me that's got all

this crud on it about how long has it been since they since they sent you the new one like a day no no uh like i don't know a month or something a month okay that's good that's good yeah i think

enough time is i'm i'm i'm i'm uh well you know me i feel pretty okay with not having it i guess if you know what i mean like if they were to go hey send us the other one like i went through in my mind how what could they do if i don't send them the the bunk one so i said to my dad hey do you if you want this i have it and then um i and then i sort of actually forgot about that that i'd mentioned that to him and then the other yesterday they were still here at my house and my dad was like hey um can i grab that fire pit thing and i was like yeah it's in this huge box it's like under the deck it's really heavy you might want to wait for me to be there or use the hand truck or whatever and like he's like oh okay and then he's like text me later oh i got it it's in the truck and i was like okay cool okay and i so i come home and it's raining it was raining a lot yesterday here and uh i look over and by my garbage can there is the massive cardboard box that it had been in that is now sitting there soaking wet that i now have to deal with

would you have preferred him to take the whole box or leave the box and keep it dry in case you

needed it for something else well that also would have been an option i didn't even consider that

okay you're just mad that you don't want to deal with the garbage i don't want to deal with a

rotting wet i'm like your son gives you a 500 fire pit and it's like take the cannoli leave

the gun it's like take the fire pit leave the garbage for him here's the deal and this is the the the pain and pleasure of being an andrew can you at least relax and knowing no nobody i can answer that question try that nobody would have thrown it away properly anyway that's the one thing when sometimes when i see like if genevieve leaves a box somewhere i'm partially like really we couldn't we couldn't have thrown that away we're just gonna leave that for the universe to take care of i'm the universe in this case yeah but then i'm like you know what though if that had been recycled and it wasn't me it would have just been shoved in the recycling bin and taken up like more than half of it like i go out there i cut it up into a bunch of little pieces i'm an insane person i know i'm not really the one in the right in this story but in a certain way i'm like well yeah i'm the one to do that that i need to do that because i'm the only one who knows how to

do it well i think the problem the reason that that theory does not map nicely over this experience is my dad is very type a with that yeah so if my dad would have brought that home he would have like exactly like you he would have he probably has a special box cutter that he uses he would have flattened everything because they deal with cardboard in their life it was something about me giving him this thing that's actually has even with the gunk on it i realized later i could have probably sold it on ebay if i wanted to all that would have been morally questionable but like a decently high street value and it's fine I love my mom and dad I want them to have things that make their life more enjoyable but there was something about again like take the fire pit leave the trash for me that was just like because now now I have to take this and break it down and take it down to the recycling thing and throw it in by the way this will take me all of 10 minutes of my life but there was I you know what I think really is is underpinning all this was a slight feeling of like oh wow I

In a moment of I don't want to call it weakness But in a moment of feeling a certain way I was like oh you should have this And probably 5% of me was like oh was that the way Was that the way for me to Should I have given it to them Should I have given it to somebody else Should I have donated it Should I have tried to resell it I don't know should I have held on to it for an extra 6 months In case they reach out and go where's our fire pit I think really what's going on here was After I made the offer I then wondered if that was the right decision and then I kind of forgot about it and then my dad was like oh hey how about that thing that you said in passing the other day which that's on me that is on me and then okay you know

hold on did you sort of feel like maybe it would have taken you sort of said in passing this time so do you feel like the first time it was raised it was almost like a oh yeah maybe that would be a good idea but maybe we would have had one more conversation that was like are you sure this is good you're sure this is cool

before I take this thing it's only we only had one conversation about it and i think i want to frame it as it was quote in passing it probably wasn't i think it was me saying to him hey if you want it you can have it so like what i realize is this is totally on me i think what's i think what's underpinning all of it is this slightly complex thing of the financial now it's just happening the financial relationship between me and my parents specifically me and my dad and that when my dad is here working he's paid like I would pay anybody else. And that's to me fair and right. This is a lot of time out of my dad's life. But then you get into this other stuff, which is kind of like, I don't know. What I would say to people out there is it complicates your relationship when you have hired one of your parents and you're the major employer of one of your parents, when you then sort of give them something that's kind of worth actually a lot of money, but also it's kind of jacked up. So it kind isn't worth a lot of money but it's like somehow i feel like somehow the the big wet cardboard box being left behind for me to deal with i think it touched a slight nerve that's related to other larger questions and issues about some of the nature of our relationship you you were doing

something nice for the help and you just sort of felt like they should have been a little and all i ask is no direct eye contact that's right it seems like you know what we just did though Andrew you know what critically we just did I know exactly what we just did because I was I was looking at the clock and it's 30 ish minutes into the show 32 minutes into the show and we have no baseball talk you're welcome no direct I mean direct baseball we have we have different we have different listeners who have different needs on this now I got a lot of yeah we have a lot of

people who are mad at us that it's been 32 minutes yeah but I honestly I wasn't trying to troll I

honestly do think we've been talking a lot of baseball on the show lately because it's been All last week, I couldn't conjure up anything else to talk about. So this weekend, I was like, calligraphy, that's what I'll come in on. And it was smart.

And that got me into my deteriorating relationship with my father.

Exactly. And some real confessional stuff, which is really what people want to hear us talk about. But I do know that also people were, and this is where I love our relationship with the listeners. And it also reminds me of relationships I have with other podcasts. There are so many people who wouldn't usually give a, I'm going to swear here, dang about baseball, let alone this specific Seattle Mariners baseball team, who are going out of their minds with happiness for us and texting us and emailing us and telling us that they stayed up on the East Coast until really late to watch this game on Friday. And so also I do appreciate that, the folks who are just kind of like along for the ride. That's really, really sweet.

For instance, our friend television's Chris Hayes and his son, David, he texted us last night. And this was, the game was still very much in question. And he said, David and I have decided to emotionally invest in the Mariners.

And I was like, I know. I saved yourself.

Okay. I mean, I like that kind of, but also be very, very aware. Yes. Beware, beware, be very, very aware of that, sir. So, yeah, it's our brand. I mean, I was getting like I was getting texts over the weekend from people I haven't talked to in years about this. So you're right. It is also something that a lot of our listeners are very psyched about. So why don't we do this? Maybe we thank some donors and then and then we'll jump into all of that. For those of you who are very invested in that plot line of of Seattle and the show and everything.

Thank you, baby.

Phew, Andrew, I just did a quick scan. Mm-hmm. And I'm not seeing us trying to thank any of our fine, wonderful, and beloved, I can't overstate this, Canadian listeners. Yeah. Canadian donors slash listeners, because, you know, I've been corresponding with some of them, including listener Sarah, and we've been basically saying, listen.

We love each other. We love you. We love Canada. We right now are rooting for a baseball team, the Mariners, that are playing the Toronto Blue Jays. But please understand that our love for that baseball team does not mean that our love for all of you up north has in any way changed.

No, not at all. I love Canadians. I do, too. And I'm a little bit worried. I'm probably worrying needlessly, which is my favorite way to worry, by the way, if we're ever on the newlywed show. What's your partner's favorite way to worry?

I think you and Genevieve would actually kill it on that show because you've, well, now, I guess it's not fair after 20 plus years. That's why it's called the newlywed game, right?

No, that's the thing. Vives and I talk about this all the time. It was my idea. I said, listen, we've been dating for, now it's going on 25 years, but we're not actually married. We can get married and then go on the newlywed game, and we would just absolutely own it. You would, that is a great idea.

Wait until they reboot that, hosted by, what, who would be the new host of the newlywed game? Who's currently Joel McHale?

I was going to say Wayne Brady, but he's already tied up in another talk show, right? That's probably why I thought of that, Gesundheit. The listeners didn't hear it, but I saw that sneeze.

Yes. You know, I remember that years ago I made a promise that when I was going to sneeze I would not mute my microphone. And I don't know what that says about where the show is at these days, Andrew. like if that means that we've classed the joint up?

Maybe. I appreciated that. You know, our friend Cassie was on the show a long time ago. I'm trying to think. Maybe this wasn't on the show. This might have been one of those special videos we did a couple of years ago for donors or something. But I remember Cassie coming on some sort of TBTL property, let's call it that, and saying that she really doesn't like it. Our property holdings are bad. Yes, when people sneeze really, really loudly, like, you know, just like that kind of gunshot report of a sneeze. I don't like that. And I got to say, sometimes when I'm here at home, I sneeze very loudly. But I sort of tried to defend that behavior a little bit out of concern that I'm one of those people and I'm not somebody who's looking for attention usually. But just sometimes that's how it works. But I will say, I actually had to text Cassie on Friday. I was walking to the Eagles. That was the big game night, right? I'm getting all my days confused. I was walking to the Eagles. I'm like, okay, I'm going to at least take a really long walk to try to work off some of this energy. And I had, Luke, my over-the-ear headphones on. Don't forget, we're still going to get to my favorite way to worry. Did you Josh Naylor it? I had, what does that mean? Did you sneeze your headphones right off? No, no. My headphones were on, over-the-ear headphones, noise canceling on. I'm listening to pregame coverage, and I jumped out of my skin when somebody sneezed behind me. I turned around. He was like at least a half a block behind me. He was walking a dog, and he sneezed, and it scared. I jumped, Luke. I jumped. My headphones were on. We were outside. I was far away from him.

Yeah. Here's what I think about that loud sneeze. Well, first of all, here's one thing. Sneezing is Extremely pleasant I think For most people Although I'm at the age where I have to really make sure I'm engaging my core So I don't injure something when I sneeze So that's a consideration But you know Sneezing can be a kind of a very Satisfying kind of a It's a good feeling I don't know if this is like junk science or real science But there's some conversation around It's actually on the spectrum towards You know like a sort of a sexual kind of moment For people or whatever when you're by yourself and you got to sneeze and you really just let it fly that's a great feeling and i think everyone should enjoy that if you are in public or if you're around other people who are not expecting it then i think i don't know what i said to you and cassie back in the day but where i where i'm currently at on this is if you just let it fly around other people that's a little bit disrespectful because they're not prepared for it absolutely yeah and i think that that's

kind of what i realized is first of all i don't when i heard this guy sneeze i'm like oh that's what these guys are talking about i've never sneezed that loud in my life even when i was alone even when they sent me out to space with katie perry i didn't sneeze that loud i don't

know if you knew i was on that trip but i was yeah you sneezed the song uh what a wonderful

world in the style of lewis armstrong i did um anyway here's what i'm worried about i saw somebody on blue sky saying i really hope people don't boo the canadian national anthem when the toronto blue jays come down here to seattle uh i do as i sure hope they don't either exactly i was like I didn't even think about that as being a possibility but I think that there were some sports teams that and I'm trying to think it wouldn't have been football because there aren't any Canadian oh it must have been during the the hockey playoffs during the hockey playoffs last season I think there's a lot of talk of both of both you know Canadians I

think i'm right about this and apologies if i'm misrepresenting any any countries here but i'm pretty sure that during hockey playoffs there was booing on both sides of national anthems and i was like i would be beyond mortified if i would not Seattle fans booed i do i really one of my least favorite things in the world is when Toronto Blue Jays fans come to uh T-Mobile Park and take over our stadium and sometimes in a not very polite way despite the reputation and i i really do i I think there's a great rivalry and sometimes even potentially a toxic rivalry between these two fan bases. But I would be mortified if Seattle fans booed the Canadian national anthem, especially at this time in history.

Right. I think it's the this time in history thing that really factors in because I think there's a certain. And by the way, I want to thank Christy Pugh, who's in Roanoke, Virginia.

Thank you, Christy.

I know Christy's got thoughts on this as well, which I'm going to try to explain verbatim. Christy's thoughts as well as Mike Sylvester's thoughts. He's in Everett, Washington. And they're in lockstep on this. They are. Despite the fact that they're on different sides of the country, the things that I'm about to say here are going to be exactly their feelings and thoughts on the matter, which is why they donate. Same, believe it or not, for Kathy Walquist, who's in Rockland, California.

And all three of these donors, these wonderful TBTL donors, have the same opinion that you're about to explain?

And, Andrew, it doesn't stop there. Guess who else thinks exactly like I do? Nicole Spahich. I thought for sure. Worcester, Ohio.

If you could have given me a million guesses, I would have never guessed Nicole. But you're saying Nicole is a part of this.

Nicole Spahich and her calligraphy business in Worcester, Ohio.

That's right.

The least likely person I can think of to share my exact opinion on the matter of Mariners fans booing the Toronto, or I should say the Canadian National Anthem.

Before you go on, can I ask you a quick question? Yes. Please. McKenna Jones in Portland, Oregon, where are they on this topic? Do you have any idea? Hard disagree. Disagree. Okay, so McKenna Jones of Portland, Oregon, another donor. Does not agree with anything that I'm about to say.

But still, and this is the amazing part, Andrew, donates. Okay, well, thank you. McKenna understands that reasonable people can disagree without being disagreeable. I love this. As my pastor, Dr. Trevor Harris. I really wonder about that doctor part. As my Bible teacher.

Are you just sort of realizing this now?

I'm just kind of, 36 years later, I'm just kind of going, Dr. Trevor Harris. Okay. Let's examine this. Wondering about that, the doctor, I would like to see, I believe that it's a thing, but I'd like to see what institution of higher learning issued that doctorate, that PhD. I'd kind of like to see that PhD, Dr. Harris. He did say, though, let's disagree, we can disagree without being disagreeable, which I think is a nice sentiment. And then this is the craziest part of this whole thing, Matt Jones, who has the same last name as McKenna Jones. Yes, but is in Mountain View, California. Yeah, I know, Matt, yeah. 100% agrees with Kathy Walquist's agreeing with me. Really? Okay. Yeah, so Matt Jones is in the agrees with Luke, is in lockstep with Luke category.

McKenna's the only person who doesn't agree with you.

McKenna's the only holdout, and yet McKenna doesn't let it bother them. That's great. Okay, awesome.

And what is the opinion again, or should we just do tough stories?

I'm going to do the opinion now. I'm going to say thank you to our donors. We couldn't do TBTL without you. Here's the opinion. i could see there was a time long ago when america had not gone completely off the deep end politically where i think booing the canadian national anthem is kind of funny just kind of like it's almost k it's almost wrestling it's almost like boo to you you you know like uh you know we'll shake a fist in the air at you and uh and like you know there yeah there was a time when i could see all that as kind of good fun and kind of just like yeah we're just kind of ribbing you and yeah razzing exactly it it was it used to exist in the category of razzing but it to me it no longer does because of what is happening in this world and particularly what is happening in america and the way that our federal government particularly the white house is is seeking to alienate canada and sort of like uh for no reason drive both economies into the absolute abyss like it's just it's almost like i i don't want us booing canada because we may need to live there yeah right i would like them to i would like them to be open to the idea of a lot of us moving there like i mean i used to like i told you this off air but back when i felt like the kind of u.s canada thing was more just like friendly rivals and more just like there's a lot of similarities between the two countries and dissimilarities and america's obviously this country that takes up all this oxygen on the world stage and i could understand the canadians the canadians and i knew felt a certain amount of frustration about being sort of feeling a little passed over at times in the conversation like you got this behemoth to the south of you that again has so many similarities to canada and yet is always kind of like i'll just use that phrase again taking up all the oxygen in a lot of different conversations so i kind of had a little bit of a like america canada we're the big brother we're kind of like we're raz in canada we're giving him a noogie but it's all kind of in good fun and now it's like the big brother is not doing well the we're having a lot of concern about the big brother and now the little brother who's just been kind of hanging out over on the side who's like actually you know still thriving generally speaking we we may need to go live with the little brother and i so it's the whole thing it's just so much more fraught

than it ever was before yeah i and i'm so just i can't even decide what adjective to land on here but let's just say ashamed of my country right now and i would i don't even take part in anything that celebrates the country uh during the ball games myself and i would certainly just be so embarrassed if i was listening to a broadcast and people were booing so if any of our listeners I just don't think I need to say this, though, because none of our listeners who would potentially be going to any of these playoff games in Seattle when the series comes back here would do that. I just can't imagine any of our listeners booing the Canadian anthem.

Well, this is the other part that I think the four out of the five donors or five out of the six donors absolutely agree with me on, which is I kind of feel like to me, baseball is not super MAGA coded from a fan base. i would say that the nba is the least maga coded fan base and then i would say baseball and then i would say football you know is in third place and then i guess maybe maybe hockey and then football or football and then hockey but i'm trying to think i'm just imagining scrolling around t-mobile field at a mariners playoff game and again who am i to divine the true heart of these fans who are there but there's just something i i just feels to me and of course there are exceptions to every rule but it doesn't feel to me like t-mobile park on um what is it thursday night is when the series comes back to seattle that whatever how many thousand people is wednesday is it wednesday okay so wednesday when that when when things start up again at t-mobile it doesn't feel to me like that is going to be the highest concentration what if here's what i'm trying to say. How many people, roughly, do you think T-Mobile holds? 40,000?

45,000? I think it's 45. I want to say, honestly, I think it's 44, but I will look it up. I think if you took

44,000 people that are in T-Mobile field on Wednesday, T-Mobile Park, and you took a sample of 44,000 people who are in the state of Washington but not at T-Mobile. Damn, it's almost 48. If you took 48,000 people that are at T-Mobile, and you took 48,000 people that are not at T-Mobile that are in Washington State, and by the way you adjusted out for the fact that there will be a lot of canadians there so let's just forget let's just pretend that all 48 000 people who are in that stadium are mariners fans right and they're drawn from presumably this let's just say the surrounding area and then you go grab 48 000 people from the surrounding area and you tally up their politics i bet you the 48 000 people not at t-mobile will trend in a higher amount towards being people that would boo the

national anthem of canada i gotta be open to the idea i lost i lost the math there here's my point

i think i'm not joking i'm sorry i think that people who love the mariners are as a person less likely to be maga than people that don't care about baseball oh yeah i i think so too

it's interesting as you were divided and again i don't know if this is a conversation that we should be having today or that i should always do math on the radio and i do want to say one quick thing here um and this is a weird coincidence because the show hasn't posted yet but i just got an email from mckenna jones in portland oregon that says i really appreciated all the joshing around the thank yous today but just to be very clear i also do not want anybody booing the national anthem just not to get that lost that is not part of the disagreement between you and mckenna mckenna and you're on the same okay thank you for the clarification i just wanted to make that clear mckenna wanted to make it clear because they just sent an email in uh amazingly

I just feel like the chances of the folks on Wednesday who are there from Seattle booing the Canadian National Anthem are, I hope anyway. Maybe I'm just, this is optimism from me. And I'm in a highly optimistic place. I've got the Paddington sweater on of optimism. You know what? I'm putting on the cloak of optimism here, Andrew, on this Monday. I feel like they're not going to boo the Canadian National Anthem as a group. I sure hope they don't.

There might be some boneheads who do it, but I was going to say breaking down this sort of, and again, such a bad idea to do, but breaking down the different sports by kind of like political leanings. You would certainly, and you have to like sort of keep in mind, you have to like sort of parse out players versus fan base as well. Oh, yeah. Because basketball players are definitely.

going to be like the most sort of they're a labor focused group you know i mean they're going to have like in my mind the best politics right of any playing group the nba absolutely and then to be honest about it and then baseball i think the fan base is going to lean way more towards you and i and but the players in baseball well you're going to get a much more mixed bag you got to call it what it is you got i mean they're going to be a lot of a lot of concern yeah exactly the white guys yes specifically the white guys white guys uh although not um not uh gossman who was pitching for toronto i'm saying his name wrong aren't i the look on your face is it gossman no uh somebody was tweeting out what wonderful uh politics that gossman has well i

love to hear that hear that yep but generally speaking white sports guys it gets real tough real fast on their personal politics and baseball's full of white sports guys and a significant A significant number of them have bad politics.

Yeah, let's just say it's against my religion to root for Clayton Kershaw. Let's just put it that way.

And you don't have to go far in the world of the NFL to find white sports guys with bad politics. It's just, it's rough. It's rough out there. But I do think that that's different than the fan bases. And also, who can know these things? But if there's anyone who's willing to guess at it, it's me, Andrew.

Yes, thank you for your service.

Okay, I would like to welcome back to TBTL. Well, let me play this. Hello and welcome to Top Story. I'd like to welcome back our listeners in the greater Michigan area who may have had a difficult time of spending last week with us, which I completely understand.

Although, wouldn't today maybe be the day that they're having the most difficulty spending it with us? Because now it's all been told. We love you guys.

Yeah, we absolutely love you. I mean, I'll welcome them back tomorrow, too, I guess, one more day to kind of. it's it's it's weird how this goes because of course for us for us the the big mariners supporters it's kind of like friday feels like a lifetime ago because we also had this thing that happened on sunday whereas if you're right if i were a tigers fan uh friday would still feel pretty pretty painful and and pretty recent to me um let's just talk if we can a bit about how friday

night went for both of us how did it go for you sir um well i i t-vote the game so i will be finding out this afternoon what happened i'm taping that but um what a lame obvious joke

for people who have by the way for people who are listening to this down the road or don't care about sports or have lost the thread friday night was for the mariners and tigers the game to end all games for this season the winner was going to get to keep playing and the loser was going to be done for the season and it was uh something that was real high stress for everybody involved yes very

much so and it was just yeah i guess i don't know you you said it well i don't have to go into more detail and so um the mariners had lost the previous game in the series and that hurt more than i thought it was going to i never had the expectation that the mariners were going to advance i knew it was a possibility i'm not trying to be a negative nelly here and again apologies to all of our listeners named nelly but i just or our listeners named negative oh no we have one listener named

negative and you know what you did um i uh i mean with a name like that honestly did they

have a chance honestly very cheery individual i hope someday they'll donate it's like nicknaming a really big guy tiny exactly when they start calling me stretch all right um i friday night

friday night i were not expecting the mariners to win but it hurt more than you thought when They lost on Thursday.

On Thursday, when I talked to you, I was in a very, or I guess on Friday when I talked to you, I was in a very low place. The Mariners had lost on Thursday, and that had hurt more than I expected it to, maybe because of the manner in which they lost, or maybe because I had dared to start hoping. I don't know what it was. I thought I was very prepared. Not sanguine. Nobody had described my behavior last week who listened to the show sanguine, but I didn't have some expectation like, oh, this is ours to lose, certainly. And given the what looked like a pretty huge momentum shift in Thursday days loss to the Tigers, I was very pessimistic as far as the outcome Wednesday days. Oh, we had a day off on Thursday. You're right. And so on Friday, my plan was to just stay home. And I told you this. I was like, I was in such a bad place on Wednesday after that game and all of Thursday that I was like, I'm just going to stay home and watch game five by myself. If we win, it'll be a bonus, but I'm totally prepared for the loss, and it's going to hurt, and I'm just going to, like, try to just move on, play some darts, listen to some comedy, bang, bang, whatever. Like, I could just really see how my Friday night was going to go. A dark night for the soul. Something sort of started to change, and I don't know if it was during the show or after the show that I started to think, well, maybe I could go out. Like, I did watch a previous Mariners game. this series that was a huge victory for us and i watched that at the eagles with some friends at our eagles club and you know so that didn't make me feel like the eagles was a cursed place to watch the game you know which it sort of had in the past i'd watched a lot of losing games there for various sports but i was like you know what as friday morning turned into friday afternoon i started to get more and more let's say eagles curious and so i'm like you know what and also So I've been enjoying this weather so much. I'm like, what I could do is just walk to the Eagles. The game started at five. If I leave here at like even 3.30 or 4 or something, just sort of kind of meander, take my camera, walk towards the Eagles. Maybe that'll kind of put me in a good headspace. And then I can watch the game. And then at any moment, I can pull myself out of this game. I was like thinking about it sort of as very much in the baseball analogy that we've been talking about, which is in playoff baseball, you don't let your starter stay out there too long. It's a very short leash, as they say. The second you start to see any trouble in a situation like postseason baseball, you're just like, OK, I'm out of here. And I'm just like, if I go to the Eagles and the vibes aren't right at any moment, I can just always go back to listening on the radio or walk home or do whatever. And so then I go to the Eagles and I'm really glad I did. And the, you know, bunch of, you know, I was there first, I was there very early, and I put this, other people are sitting at these low-top tables around, like, kind of looking at TVs. I pulled a stool up right below the big screen TV where I had sat the previous game, and it was just like, let's go.

I had myself a bag of, I was a little parched from my walk, so I stopped for some Gatorade at a 7-Eleven, and then I got myself some Bugles and some pretzels as well. So I'm sitting there watching the game, eating my bugles. Little by little, my friends are sort of like kind of trickling in as the game sort of continues. And I will say the bar is very into it. I'm very glad that I picked the right place to watch it. They have the volume up. Everybody is like really dialed in. People are even saying, hey, turn the volume up more. You know, like it wasn't like any kind of clash of interest. They're like Jay-Z for every song. Turn the game up on my headphones. The reason I have to say that is the Eagles is not a sports bar. And there are people there who don't care about sports, including one bartender who actually actively dislikes sports. And so you just sort of never know what you're going to be getting into. But I was, like, psyched. Like, people were dialed into the game, as was I. But, of course, it was just a nail-biter of a game. And as you mentioned, it went 15 innings. And I'm getting pretty anxious. I'm getting a little bit high. I'm getting a little strident about some of the decisions that some of the players and manager are making during this game. although in hindsight the manager did an amazing job we got to give him credit at least for that for that Friday night win but I definitely was I was definitely airing some grumpy opinions about what I was seeing on the on the screen and I have a feeling I was probably becoming slightly insufferable which is that's on me but then and I don't want to go into detail here but there was just I started to get a little bit of the whiff in the friend group of like as we say on this show Well, it was a shorthand relating back to an experience you had during a painful Super Bowl loss. And somebody said, why is everybody so sad? I just got I started to get this little bit of whiff of like, you know, from from folks who had shown up maybe halfway through the game. Why is Andy so sad? And like, I'm not saying they said that or it reached that level. But short leash, I was just like, I'm out. Yes, I'm these aren't my people. This is like I love these people, but these aren't my baseball watching people right now. They were, but they're not now. And I just immediately, I still had the game on in my headphones, in my Bluetooth headphones that were sitting in front of me from my walk like three hours earlier. I just had forgotten to turn it off. And I just started to get a little, I just got the little whiff of just kind of like, oh, Andy's sad. And I was like, I put on my headphones. I didn't say anything to anybody. I put on my headphones. I put on my hoodie. And I just went back outside. in the 12th inning after Randia Rosarena hit into a double play in an infuriating way. And I think I was screaming at the TV before. I was like, don't swing, don't swing. It didn't matter what the pitch was. It was like, just don't swing. And then he swung into a double play. And I was just like, I felt indignant. And then I was like, why is Andy? And then I was just like, okay, headphones on, sweater on, and it was a lovely night. It was such a weird way. I see all these videos of people like celebrating and high-fiving and hugging and just going crazy

and various watch parties, mine was way more subdued because I left the Eagles in the 12th inning, I put on my headphones, and there was probably, like, what, maybe 30 more minutes of gameplay, as it turns out, but it's, like, beautiful, crisp autumn evening. I'm walking around the Maple Leaf neighborhood. I'm looking at the game being played on huge TVs through people's windows. I would stop every now and then. And then when we eventually won, and so I listened to the last three innings, including the

big win and i was expecting to hear maybe more celebration in the neighborhood but i was in a very quiet residential neighborhood and i just started screaming and clapping my hands like any i'm sure people locked their doors they're like ah we got another one usually they stay on lake city way but we got another one is probably what people heard is i was just like yelling and clapping my hands i got these big meaty hands that make a loud clapping sound and i did that And then I just walked back to the Eagles and just embraced a very drunk Camaro Kev who just wanted to hug everybody in sight. It's like somebody had broken his potion of, what is it? His bottle of love potion number nine. Are you familiar with that oldie? Oh, I sure am. So anyway, so I didn't get the in-person celebration during the winning moment. But it just sort of felt like, you know what? Part of me is sort of bummed that I wasn't there with other people. But I also know that, like, I had to leave at that moment. And that's just the way it played out.

and that will forever be my memory of game five i'm jealous that you got to hug our crew of friends and the be in i mean not in the moment of like polanco getting his single but in just like you know the somewhat short aftermath because i i watched it totally by myself which was kind of just how it worked out so my my uh parents had to been here but they were going down to visit with my sister and her family and so oh that's actually not true they had a social event and then after they're so they couldn't get out of you had mentioned that you mentioned that on friday yeah yeah they had a social event they couldn't get out of and then they had then they were going on to my sisters and and in fact my mom did like my mom and dad did stick around for like half of the game too so it's like i could see something shaping up which was like my dad who he's intrigued by these games but he doesn't live and die by it and my mom who does live and die by it and my dad kind of being like he'd sort of packed up the entire car yeah he's sort of got you know he's cinching up his bolo tie literally yeah and my mom is just kind of like kind of like pacing with me and you know whatever but anyway so i watched about half the game with them but then they left and then it was just me and my emotions and this baseball game and i didn't even realize how unhinged i was becoming until like something important would happen like uh you know a hit for the mariners that we needed or like a strikeout that we needed and like let's just say you know it was there was traffic for the other team and then we get out of like a jam our pitcher comes in and throws you know gets a strikeout or a double play and the sound that i would make it would come from such a deep place such and like it like that it surprised me and then i was like kind of going around my house kind of like like closing a couple windows and being like i i have neighbors you've been to my house they're not like right up against me it's not like i live in seattle in a neighborhood in seattle but it's like you know if someone was screaming at the top of their lungs in my house it's conceivable that my neighbors could hear it and it would be like i was i had sounds coming out of me but then it would then i'd be totally silent like it'd be like this it'd be like me watching i started off watching on my couch and then of course by an inning or two in i'm pacing behind my couch and then like never to return to the couch just like walking behind the couch walking behind the couch and then just like but in total silence just kind of wringing my hands not even it's weird not even saying anything out loud like you might have been at the eagles where i'm just kind of like okay you can do this you know or don't do this or like watch for this or you know that kind of stuff that we do sometimes trying to coach the team up by through the tv through the portal of the television i was somehow totally silent like all of that was inside my own head right and and i was just pacing back and forth back and forth sometimes i would like nervously look at TikTok to try to distract myself from how stressed I was about the game and then something would happen that would just be like a critical moment where we we did

something and I would just like explode and then I go back to being totally silent and then something else happened by probably the maybe 10th or 11th inning which was I opened up the sliding glass door and I started standing outside and watching the TV from outside. This is relatable I do this

Sometimes I walk really far away from the TV and watch them around a corner.

Like, I couldn't, I was at this, I couldn't hear, I didn't want to hear the announcers anymore. Not because I even was particularly mad at them. But, like, it was like the television was showing me something that was creating such an intense experience for me that I couldn't be so close to it. I was outside in the rain on my deck, peering around the side of my house in through the sliding glass door around a support pillar at the TV and mostly getting a sense of what was happening by what the base runners were doing.

And I just want to throw this out here for listeners who didn't watch or kind of don't understand the pacing on this. If you're talking about doing this in like the 11th inning or so, you've been watching this game intensely. intensely for about four and a half four and a quarter hours at this point and you never know when it's going to end because there's not a clock and so anyway just to as we describe ourselves as going you know mentally unwell here yes like it is we were mentally unwell because we've been watching not and I was sort of thinking about this later where I was kind of like again not trying to get too much in my head but like I was a little bit bummed that apparently my negativity was too much for the crew but also I was thinking like I started doing the math like we watched what 15 or 1600 innings over the course of a season 162 games plus the playoff plus nine and then how many you know I think I think the math is actually would be 1500 if they were all you know nine inning games which they weren't but I'm just like sort of doing the math in my head like I'm not saying I sat down and watched every single game this season there were a few I missed And there were some plenty that I listened to on the radio where you catch as catch can. But like, this is a journey that didn't start at like 8 p.m. for me. This is a journey that started in March. And then this game is going on. It ended up going on just shy of five hours.

And for the last, you know, I would say effectively starting with the eighth inning. every i mean this is this is the thing that we talked about this last week there's something that is fundamentally different about watching a stressful baseball game versus watching a stressful football or basketball game which is that in football and basketball there are these there are there's a decent middle section of the game where you're really it's intense but it's not every single play isn't make or break every single play is not an 80 yard touchdown throw that will either score the touchdown and win or the ball will be dropped and you lose and something about baseball particularly when it's the mariners who keep the scoring pretty low in a lot of these games where it's and and particularly in like an elimination game against detroit like we were playing or even last night against um against the blue jays there's something about watching a baseball game in the playoffs where every single pitch could just be the game every single pitch your guy could throw a pitch that their guy hits a home run on or a base hit on with people on and that's the game because you never are able to come back and score more runs than they just scored or vice versa you could win the game it's there's just something unique about the way baseball functions as a sport that just turns it into an absolute pressure cooker if you are someone who has like you said andrew has been really caring about this since march and that's hard to everybody should get to enjoy this however they want to and they should all have the level of engagement that they choose to. Um, and, and no, nothing about our kind of like insane focus on it should be seen as a, uh, our saying that you should, everyone else should enjoy it or everybody else should experience it at this level of obsession. But it is like one of those things, again, particularly in an elimination game, like we were just playing, that's like, it was so intense for me that I couldn't physically be inside my house close to the television. And then once like they got into the extra innings, again, the way that I was tracking it, and this actually helped me because we had the Mariners on Friday night had a bunch of chances to just win the game and just managed the bottom just fell out and like in a way that when you talk about dark magic Andrew when you were talking about the Mariners being cursed I could have seen a world in which you had totally decided on Friday night that the curse was back baby because we had there were just there was multiple I mean there was two innings where I think we might have had the bases loaded with either zero well zero outs or one out where it was like we got into some moments where it was almost impossible to conceive of a way in which the Mariners would not have just won the game and we managed to not win the game and when that happens you start to really think and I would while this was happening I was just standing outside in the rain on my deck just kind of staring essentially what happened was I went into this almost sort of like trance state where like I don't know I wasn't listening to the announcers I wasn't seeing specifically where each hit went I was just watching the guys on base, and I was watching how the base runners reacted, all the way up to the one that Polanco got when we finally won the game.

The way that I knew we won the game was the reaction of the first baseman for the Tigers and the reaction of the right fielder.

The right fielder who just, like, I thought it was a very interesting way for the whole thing to end for them. He just, like, doesn't even pick up the ball. He's just like, that's the game. There was something very emotional about that. i felt bad for him in the moment not in the moment but later on yes i i you know i what i guess here's

what i'm saying for me it eventually turned into i just had to watch it as pattern recognition like i couldn't watch it as like did that was that a strike or a ball and did the umpire get the call right because that's also something that's been really making me insane is every time there's a missed pitch that i think hurts the mariners in other words the umpire

or think something is a strike that was a ball or vice versa. It sends me into a whole spiral. I was eventually, by the end of this game, the only way I could function in watching it was to just watch the larger pattern of the players on the field and what did they do and what do I think that means. It's like, I couldn't handle the specifics of the game. And I knew when Polanco was up there and when he hit the ball and I saw that the first baseman hadn't grabbed it and I saw that the right fielder was not fielding it, I knew that meant we had won. I needed the generalities and not the specifics.

It's almost like disassociation, almost.

I think I was kind of disassociating, which is thrown around a lot on TikTok. I think I might have been slightly disassociating. I can't handle the specifics of this right now. I have to just deal with the generalities.

Yeah, I think it's a little bit like the instinct to cover your face with your hands when you're watching a scary movie that you voluntarily put on or went to the theater to see. I know, and I'm being quite serious, I wanted to see that movie Friendship, but I watched a lot of the movie Friendship through the cracks of my fingers because it was so cringy. Not scary, but cringy that, I don't know, it's such a dumb thing to do that we instinctively do. It doesn't protect me in any way. Me covering my face with my hands when I'm watching a cringe comedy doesn't do anything, but I'm doing it. I'm not going to stop.

It somehow feels like you're slightly protecting yourself. I guess here's what it is. I needed a layer of something. And in this, it was just, I guess, geography. I needed a layer of something between what was happening on the field and what was and what was happening for me as a fan of the team or a watcher of the game. because to be right up against the tv and to be experiencing it all kind of in real time it was too intense for me i couldn't i needed a gauzy layer to somehow blunt the effect both good and bad because by the way when he got that hit i just stood there i didn't run around screaming i stood there like frozen this is making it sound like i'm i'm not handling this well um i believe me i was very happy on friday night but it was just like i was in disbelief you know at that um more than anything and just like all of a sudden just like this weight left me but it was weird and also because i was on myself i did my my response wasn't to go into crazy whooping or anything it was to just it was just like i almost like i almost like needed to just like sit down and just like not cry but i think i would say i i understood people who were emotional and i saw lots of clips of that online you know about the outcome mariners fans because it had of course

been so so long for us there was a moment in yesterday's game skipping ahead a little bit here sure i told you this via text at one point and just so you know i wasn't just trying to make you laugh it was a real thing that happened to me i can't remember what had happened i think the game i think we're losing the game the whole time and then it might have been when cal rally tied it up or it might have even been something maybe the game was already tied and it might have been something even less heroic than that but things started trending in the right direction and i'm here at home all by myself genevieve's back at the eagles watching the game with our group of friends and i was just like on sunday night i was like i can watch this one more chill i wasn't expecting a win it's a seven game series or something about all the tension building up for game five going into this that on a sunday night i was like i'll come back from pop-up i'll clean up my stuff i'll like i just could putter a little bit and just enjoy the game without as many pins and needles not expecting a win given everything that we know about them going into the series i was just like okay i'll just relax on this one but then as it starts looking kind of good there was a period of time where i don't know when i started saying it because i didn't realize until i'd been saying it for a long time i was just going yes sir yes sir yes sir yes sir yes sir and then at some point i'm just kind of like how long have i been saying yes sir i don't know when this started i've just been saying it and it's funny how you just leave your body at times

you do you become and particularly when there's no one else around like i watched that game by myself also yesterday yeah turns out this might be a pattern for me and so like i think i think that the craziness like i was i was overly intense probably but i wasn't in i wasn't unhinged when i was watching the game with david and alicia and gemma and i was probably not as unhinged when i was watching the first half of Friday night's game with my parents there's something about being a person in your home environment with no supervision and a baseball game on a playoff baseball game on that if you're a certain kind of person like you or I Andrew it really brings

out the crazy yes yes exactly I'm so today the game is on and actually just a couple of hours

here as we record yeah we've got a hard out in two hours yeah we should you're welcome so I only

have 18 more stories no um so and it's a day game and

actually have a lot of work to do today so i need to like kind of like kind of keep it together um but then the next game in the series will be on wednesday here and i'm kind of looking forward to that because that's going to be a little bit different i'm going to watch that game at a sports bar with two of my buddies who are actually both of these guys know baseball way better than me but are also not kind of insane no they're mariners fans one of them is a big mariners fan the other one is more of a is he roots for the mariners now but he's from atlanta so he's a raves fan but lifelong baseball fans who know a lot about baseball and i feel like that's going to be good for me this is going to sound so um uh beta but like i like watching sports around people who know a lot more about the sport than i do um and that's it's not hard to find those people depending on the sport but i love that but also they're very calm presences and i do feel that like i am in the minority there are so many people i know who truly truly love baseball and are just a million times more mature about it than I am you know like people who just I will watch every pitch of the postseason even if they don't have a team in it whereas like sometimes if I got really burned by a team like there's postseasons where I feel so upset about not being in it that I don't pay attention to the postseason which isn't good um and anyway these guys I'm going to be watching with they don't even know each other but um I think we're all going to meet up to to watch it at an actual first of all at a sports bar that is there to do one thing which is play sports and serve drinks and food i guess that's three things i guess and you can sit there so stools and chairs is four things four four roof over the head that counts five we could go on how much time before the game starts anyway hours but these really like an hour 50 these two buddies that i have who i know from different parts of my life both have that sort of calming hardcore long time baseball presence seen it all that i'm gonna kind and and also just are able to kind of have a bit more like both maturity and knowledge about it so i'm really looking forward to like watching that game because today's game i don't have any expectations for i feel like we got to lose one in toronto at some point right well that's the attitude i'm going that's the attitude i'm going to take on today so i don't drive myself bananas and then on wednesday i'm going to start getting pretty itchy again i think so i'm sort of looking i'm looking forward

to that sort of change of scenery i am uh i'll be watching the game here again alone alone again um today but then and then Wednesday night I don't know what I'm going to be doing likely here watching it but then Thursday I will be working I will be hosting live wire and that's a kind of a that'll be a tough one uh because there's just there's just no getting around it and I also I don't know if so would live wire start at 7 30 hey by the way if you're not a baseball person and you'd like to hang out Thursday night Alberta Rose Theater it's going to be real fun live wire but um that's going to be one of those ones where I don't think I can I don't think it's realistic for me to try to not know what happened because because by the way the game starts at five so there will actually be like two hours now i shouldn't be watching the game or monitoring i should be assiduously preparing for my job hosting this radio show but also it's like i could conceivably know a lot about the game when i'm walking on stage at 7 30 so what do i what what do i want my approach to be do i then try to go into a media blackout also part of the problem from a structural or from a functional standpoint is the way that i communicate with our producers during the show is actually via text message.

You need to mute the whole... I don't think it's a good idea to try to do a media blackout, but if you're trying to do the show and the fun-living criminals, you've got to mute the whole criminals.

But I have to mute more than the criminals. Here's the thing. I have to mute everybody on my text chain. I have to mute Brian Babylon from Wait, Wait. People are just coming out of the woodwork of my life to be like, did you see that? And it's like, I did. It's like, there's nothing in my text. there's no one in my contacts who I am safe from telling me something about this because they understand that it's such a big deal to me and it's kind of almost become a national story at least to some degree

what about Yammer Luke?

I'm thinking about getting on Yammer what's the other one?

we'll be using delicious Yammer

I'll delicious a few Yammer with the producers that's a delicious Yammer I basically think I'm just going to end up experiencing i i get i mean i'm just gonna kind of i don't know how i'm gonna mostly i'm here's my concern about thursday night is really more that just like the the reality of the game is intruding into my mental space when i don't want it to yeah you know what i mean like in other words it's it's i do want them to win of course but it's like it's more like i'm interviewing someone and then i'm just getting a notification a seattle times push notification that we won or we lost and now i've got those feelings competing with this interview i'm doing and i don't want to have those feelings

in that moment yeah yeah are you glad it's not a seattle show though you'd be really competing for people's attention i think if it was up here you're starting to really notice like seahawk during a regular sunday you know i do the same every Sunday and I notice if the Seahawks game is still on when I do that drive the streets around here are dead like people are just driving to your pop-up when I drive to pop-up on a Sunday if it's like a one o'clock game and I'm driving there at two o'clock like middle of the game or whatever I can take a left turn out of out of my neighborhood no problem which is usually a big problem and lately I've been noticing that effect on the traffic and uber prices by the way around baseball games now too oh interesting yeah because i almost went i was all prepared to watch the game last night here at home alone i had a whole plan for it um but then my buddy did say he was at a bar in ballard where he's been watching the games and he said like we had no plans we hadn't talked about it at all but he said i'm it was like 20 maybe a half hour before yesterday's game he just said i'm saving a stool for you here if you want to come and i was so torn luke i was just pulling into my driveway after pop-up and i had my whole evening plan set and like i just knew what but then there was a something about it he'd been telling me this bar is a good place to watch it he'd been watching games there and he literally said this place is crowded but i got a stool with your name on it and i was so tempted but then the thing that did sort of break there were a bunch of things that made it not make a lot of sense and then i saw like an uber was like over 30 dollars to go to ballard and again i i would spend that if it was really important but it was finally i was kind of like uh that doesn't work out for me right now for a lot of different reasons but also i think this is surge pricing based on people trying to get to a place to watch this baseball

game very possibly yeah i um i'll tell you i i yesterday was an absolute gift for us yeah not just as a fan base but also like from a blood pressure standpoint i know that's been a hot topic on the show lately like i it was so weird to go into yesterday's game feeling so differently about it just like hey wouldn't it be cool if wouldn't it be cool if i could remember my dingus password like wouldn't it be cool if they did something here that's very unexpected but also like being completely at peace with the idea that like it was unlikely and that that didn't mean that the sky was falling like again to return to our eternal question is this fun yesterday was fun i mean it was fun because they were victorious but it was also fun because i didn't have to stand on my deck watching it through the sliding glass door like right i was like okay there is a version of this and you know again i say all this with peace and love to our fans in canada who would be very sad by this but like i wouldn't be shocked i would not be shocked uh for the mariners to win today i just think there's a this is it's such a momentum sport it's such a mojo game and there's something about not feeling a bunch of pressure so in getting so lucky yesterday i think that the Mariners you know they didn't have a lot of pressure they won today there's no pressure tonight today the pressure is absolutely on Toronto it's a fluky streaky game and I could see the Mariners playing really well it's like I would love I would love love love and I think we deserve it as Mariners fans for the Mariners to play some postseason baseball that does not feel absolutely devastatingly crushingly pressure-filled and they had that yesterday I'm feeling that today i would like us to it would be amazing if we won today because what it would really mean is then i've got like two to three more games of getting to watch with like what people might say a mentally balanced approach maybe you don't think i don't think if they win today you don't think that that means you'll feel very chill about the next two games no if i'm understanding your correction your your uh the mariners win if the mariners no i i am going to be really

Because what my brain will start doing will start constructing how painful it will be to lose the series if we were up by two.

So, in other words, us actually, which would be considered miraculous if we went up by two. For you, that would actually be worse than us losing the game today?

No, I don't want to be on the record as saying that it'll be worse if the Seattle Mariners lose today's baseball game. That's not what I'm saying. As regarding my mental health, I don't think— There's no helping you. I don't. Yes. Yes. Okay, good. No, I do think that what happens later in the week is going, I think Wednesday, that's why I'm sort of already talking about Wednesday's game, because I think almost no matter what happens Wednesday, I'm going to be kind of out of my mind, even if we're up by two, because I'll be worried about, Luke, it's like, I've been trying to describe this. I'm not doing a good, good job of it. And I will admit that, but like, I'm what I'm worried about is the narrative where we lost in a devastating way sort of like I can't explain where I am mentally on this but what I'm trying to maintain is joy I'm trying I'm not being sarcastic here I'm trying to maintain the joy of this season and even even on that that that bad loss that we had you know to the Tigers and I was just trying to remember where we were that was that was in detroit right but anyway that bad loss in detroit you know that really hurt but i took that long walk and i think i'll always remember how i felt you know what i mean and even like me kind of battling ridiculously battling people just in my head online that didn't ask for a fight you know and i'm glad that i didn't get in any petty dumb passive aggressive fights on blue sky um but anyway just i remember where i was but right now i can still envelop that into generally a postseason of joy a fall like I've never had before I've literally never gotten to enjoy this much Mariners baseball in this manner before and I think that there is a good chance that we don't make it to the World Series it's just a chance we don't make it to the World Series I never expected I told you at the beginning of the season that at some point I'd given up thinking the Mariners will ever make it to the World Series I don't know if you recall that conversation and i said to you i'm just sort of trying to enjoy it just knowing that my team will never have any great level of success but i still enjoy baseball like i had just given up on it i was telling people that well we'll never see it now people are saying hey guess what the mariners are three games away from being in the world series and i don't even know what those words mean i can't even so my point is i don't have expectations like we deserve to win it all or that we will win it all but i'm really scared of some sort of narrative that turns it into boy they really owned us in a specifically torturous way and that's why I think the back end of this week, no matter how many games up, I'm scared of that narrative

the better, you don't I mean you obviously care if they lose the series, but more than caring that they lose the series, you don't want it to be in a way that is emotionally gutting to you, so that it's extra hard to recover from

and that Jays fans will always have that over us, in a certain way, which is the irony

is that we and it didn't end up you know neither i don't think either us well we i know we didn't go to the world series but like ironically we kind of are that to the blue jays right now in that we went up there in a wild card series a few years ago and won two games including the largest comeback by a road team in the history of major league baseball engineered in some part post-season major league post-season post-season cal raleigh who is still bedeviling them um and And, like, so I hear what you're saying. If the Mariners go up 3-0, your anxiety raises, goes up, because that means that for them to then not win the series would be considered such a titanic collapse that that would be harder for you to process.

That would be hard. But then, of course, I'll also be on pins and needles if we're down to, or, you know, whatever the math is. I just think that it's just a time thing.

You don't want to wrestle—I keep saying this. You don't want to wrestle Wilson throwing the interception in the Super Bowl moment. Yes, exactly. Or, you know, peace and love to our Phillies fans, but the way that that season ended with that throw home. Right, right. A complete, like, we keep using this term sort of, I think, slightly incorrectly, but basically like an act of God, a force majeure. Some sort of insane, never-before-seen collapse or quirk that will be, you know, some kind of laces-out moment that will be replayed for years and years to come. Again, peace and love to our Boston fans, but, you know, the ball going through Bill Buckner's legs. We just don't want it to be like that We don't want to be part of some kind of Quote-unquote curse And if we're doing well Then that means if we were to then somehow Not prevail, it would be Now here's another thing that's giving me some Hope and some, and by the way I realize this, I used the word sanguinity The other day on the show, that's a word Oh nice, proud of myself I thought I invented it, but okay, I'll share it with Webster's Something that's giving me some sanguinity is Whereas Has, historically, for the Seattle Mariners, if anything is ever kind of working out, like maybe we're getting to the playoffs, it feels like, well, this is our shot. If we don't do it this year, then it's back to, you know, sort of the basement of the American League West. I predicted it at some point late in the season. I think we're going to be a team to be reckoned with for a while to come. We have a really good young pitching staff. We have hitters who can generally hit. Like, I don't know who you think going into next season. I mean, who, who, who in the West is, looks better on paper than the Seattle Mariners. And the reason that gives me some sanguinity is because if we don't make it to the world series this year, I have a strong reason to believe we could make it to the world series next year. I think we're entering a phase. These things are kind of cyclical. I think we're entering a phase where we're going to be in the conversation and in contention and in the post season for the next few seasons. And that's a really cool thing. Whereas when we were missing it by one game and before we had, you know, before we had a Josh Naylor, I know we don't have him re-signed, but just like Julio Rodriguez emerging as actually a very good player, the player we hoped he would be that he kind of didn't seem like, and really our pitching staff just having a bunch of really good young arms in it. I don't feel like this is our, our window is not only this season. And so that makes me feel like if we play the Jays tough and we just don't end up getting to the world series or we get to the world series and don't win, I don't think it's 24 more years before we get back. I think we're in, I think we're in a window of time where we're going to be formidable and that helps me a lot just emotionally and mentally.

Yeah, that, that does help. And you're right. I will try to adopt that as well. Well, I don't, not telling you how to do it, but that's what I'm doing. That is smart because for me, it's just been the Mariners even, you know, Making it to the playoffs in 2022 was really, really special. But unfortunately, my memory of that, though, is maybe that's what I'm sort of getting at here. 2022 was like two really painful losses in that series against Houston. Like two games. And so what do you remember? You remember the 18-inning loss, which was just like such a – just letting the air out of the balloon so slowly.

Coming on the heels of the – us surrendering like a whatever it was. In game one, like a seven-run lead. Yeah, seven-run lead. It was almost the record. Maybe it was a six-run lead.

Yeah, there was something like that, yeah. And so, yeah, it was just, although they weren't a road team, didn't they? Right, no, no. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Anyway, it doesn't matter. But so that's kind of like. It was a bad feeling. Yeah, so anyway, those are bad feelings. And you're right. And then thinking like, well, maybe we'll never make it here again. Because we snuck in on the wild card. And then that fluky come-from-behind win of ours that you mentioned before. And so this season has just played out very, very, very differently. And so I need to, no matter what happens, remember all of the good times for real.

I think the thing to remember is we are good. Like, we have good hitters. And even when they're having a game, like, it was sneaking into my mind last night. And, in fact, I heard one of the announcers say this, and I was like, I can't disagree with you on this, even though it bums me out, which was like he said at one point they kind of look like the old Mariners. Like, because we were having such a hard time getting runs. and we were going through you know this long stretches where we're not even you know and by the way ironically so were the Blue Jays but they just had a one and we had a zero at that point because of that one swing by George Springer so like and then I thought to myself so the announcer says because the Mariners had you know it was probably the fifth inning or something and the Mariners have generated like pretty much zero offense and this was the thing that for so long being a fan of the Mariners was our pitcher is dealing our the other team has got one run but we've gotten zero runs and you're just watching these guys that make a lot of money go up there and just look really bad and he said that and i was like you know what that was before we went into houston and swept them when we went into houston and swept them something shifted tectonically for this team and we're not that team anymore and we are a team that has good hitters and we're a team that has a guy who looks remarkably like the cartoon character rango to me and like i i just have to keep reminding myself we're not the cursed mariners we're the good mariners and and even if we have a couple of lousy innings even if our relievers give up some runs even if you know Gino Suarez is swinging and missing we're not the cursed mariners anymore I just keep telling myself that that might be wrong by the way but I'm telling myself that and it seems to be working

so far yeah yeah no you are right hopefully we have a long road ahead of us do you think Dan

Wilson's possible alcoholism is part of it do you think that helps um where are you on this I wanted

to say this earlier in the show because we only have like three people listening probably at this point. But I really loved Friday's show. I loved having your brother and your mom on the show. I thought those were two amazing segments. I'm not just saying that because it meant I had to talk less, which everybody has been asking for, honestly. But it was really, really great. But it was really interesting to hear that perspective of your brother serving Dan Wilson at Cafe Lago. That's the right name of it, right? I get that place confused with other places. And him mentioning that dan wilson the the night before the big big game on friday had he said he had counted up to four rainier tall boys along with a frisee salad and a steak or something like that

right yes i believe that was on the menu for who then dan wilson and his wife apparently stayed at the restaurant until after it was closed down and this was to me the most beautiful moment of the whole story of like all the other patrons and customers leaving so that dan wilson can kind of like let his hair down a little bit. Like he's not thinking I'm being observed as the manager of this baseball team. He's just hanging out with his friends who work at this restaurant. And then he saunters out the door and turns around and says to them, we're going to get it done. And he was right. I loved that moment. Very, very cool. Um, I, by the way, I want to be careful. I say that with tongue in cheek talking about, you know, um, uh, Dan Wilson and, and what he's drinking versus what anybody else is drinking and whatever that means for anybody in their life. I want to be careful about that but let me just say I thought it was funny that after we were talking uh you know to David about the fact that uh that Dan Wilson was definitely enjoying his tall boys on Thursday night the eve of the biggest game of his life as a manager here's the headline from Adam Jude today in the Seattle Times headline Mariners defy odds to beat Blue Jays in game one of ALCS, opening line, Toronto. Dan Wilson finished pouring a cold light beer into a tall to-go cup, grabbed a plastic bag containing his carry-out dinner and headed up to a ramp leading out of the visitor's clubhouse. A little later on in the piece, he says, rarely has Wilson broken character during his first full season as Mariner's manager. He's calm and he's consistent and he's generally not expressive with his emotions. With that cold Canadian beer in his left hand, Wilson let loose a little on Sunday night just before exiting the clubhouse. Quote, that, he said, was awesome. I'm just saying, this is a man who had a beer to go leaving the clubhouse.

Pouring it into a to-go cup. I really like that.

As a person for whom alcohol has played a significant role in my adult life, more significant at certain times than others, like the idea that he's clocking, like we all know people like this. Some of us are people like this. It's like there are the people that are like, okay, we're getting on the team bus. We're going back to the hotel. We'll see what happens. Maybe we'll have some dinner. Then there's the guy that's like, okay, but also where's the cold beer?

Where is the beer? You know, though, that sounds like the best beer I've ever had in my life. I didn't get to have it, but yeah, that sounds like a good – because there is – I hope it was Labatt Blue when you're up there in Canada to just say blue.

I mean, I'm a Molson man because I was once in one of their commercials, but any of them will do in my opinion. i'm with you and i want to be clear i wish i wouldn't have even used that particular word because like i'm not here to speculate on dan wilson and alcohol let me just tell you this before we talked to david on friday it was news to me that dan wilson even ever enjoyed yeah a few small beers in the words of our favorite sensei from one battle after another like i didn't even know dan wilson was a few small beers guy and now i really know he's a few small beers guy and i frankly love it about him yeah um because i don't see any evidence that it's impeding or impairing his ability to manage he's that it's not a it doesn't strike me as an issue from again anything i've ever heard about the guy but like there's something about the fact that he is a few small beers guy that kind of really endears him to me yeah i mean the problem

for me is and again this is where i don't i don't know i don't even want to talk about this because You know, Genevieve has just been like kind of – I think I mentioned this on the show. She's kind of like telling me – because I've been complaining about Dan Wilson all season, and I think rightfully so in a lot of cases. And Genevieve has been like, oh, I guess you – I guess Dan Wilson's still a bad manager, huh, getting the team this far and everything. And I think I'd mention this to you. I kept saying we're here despite Dan Wilson, not because of Dan Wilson. After Friday's game, I think that argument – he did a really, really, really good job.

His pinch hit is kind of an all-timer.

Yes, and I was really shocked when he went to Spires, and that didn't work out for him. It put us in peril. But what he ended up doing was what I expected instead of Spires, which is he started putting our starters in there. That's why I was so shocked. I'm like, why are you even going to bullpen arms when you have starting arms in the bullpen? I was nervous about- I really thought we were going to see Castillo out of the bullpen, or Logan, not Spire. And then when Spire gives up basically the lead we had, you're like, oh, my God. I was so mad at him. But apparently he was sterling as a manager the rest of the game. But the whole drinking thing, like, and again, you can't draw the connection between those. Like, I really, these two little snapshots of an adult man enjoying some light beers. Like, it's just like, I'm not seriously going down that. But it is, it does sort of play into like yesterday, like on yesterday's game when he decides not to challenge something that sounded very challengeable that could have cost us a run. I didn't see it as this thing.

Do you think that was the residual few small beers from the team play? I don't know. I've heard of you.

Okay, what? My point being that the idea is, hey, he's always cool. He's always calm. He's always collected. It's like, yeah, that's one thing, but it's also the narrative that he is so conflict-averse. And he doesn't ever kind of get out there and stand up for his team very often. And he does miss things. And he does have what I would sort of describe as a sort of lazy approach to managing it sometimes that, like, I don't know.

I don't know. I mean, you listen to more sports radio than I do. So maybe they've, um, that's a point that's been made and supported, you know, in terms of like, I just don't know pitch by pitch and decision by decision over the season. Like if they have, and by the way, if you are one of the last three people listening, congratulations, you've now entered hell. Um, I don't know if there's a war for managerial decisions. Like, you know what I mean? Like, is there a way to really, like, actually sort of statistically rank Dan Wilson's manager choices and if it adds to wins or detracts from wins, other than just the feeling we have based around a time when a guy came in and gave up a hit?

I'm not sure about that. I do know that during games, I think, like, on the text chain, me and your brother, well, and. Durs I guess were pretty dialed into times where he was making just incredibly boneheaded decisions and like and you kind of keep saying that like well he must be relying on certain numbers but there are other managers out there that are actually I mean in fact I mean again I know we beat them so I'm sort of like arguing against myself I guess or arguing against reality but like the national media was talking about how Hinch is just such a better manager than Dan is now Hinch is no longer playing baseball this season and we are so take it for what it's worth

but pulled Tarek Skubal out which is now considered one of the worst managerial decisions that

anybody's ever made exactly but I do think that there are plenty of times you can point to it and you can just say why are you doing this and this was something that service did a lot too but like being absolutely committed to always looking for like the the certain lefty righty or lefty lefty matchups depending on what side of the ball you're on and just like all these things that are sort of like well that's like a very basic approach but if you dig into the numbers more this doesn't make sense if you look at the history of these people and also just like i don't know they're just like i do think there were plenty of and i don't have them in front of me now because i wasn't actually keeping a dossier on this but i do think that there are the managers who's the oh geez one of the most famous managers in baseball down in the with the reds now used to be with cleveland you know like just well known for being a great in terry francona francona thank you tito um just being a great in-game manager and you know again dan also i think fired from boston because of how they did in the postseason year but then proved himself after that like and and you know and whatever and like you really cannot argue the fact that the mariners did not hire anybody with managerial experience they hired a guy who had never managed a major league baseball game to be their manager full-time in the middle of a losing not a losing season but But during, you know, they fired him mid-season and then just signed him without trying out anybody else. Like, who hires anybody in that manner?

I just, I feel like the thing about that argument that I don't understand is, what has Dan Wilson done? It's a long season, and, you know, the timeline is very long with these things. We missed the playoffs by one game last season, right? Like, I'm not saying that, I'm not asking that sarcastically, I actually don't remember. I think that was one of them. There's been a bunch. I think it was the last several years. There's been too many of them, right? I guess what I would say is, like, if someone is asking, was it the right decision to hire Dan Wilson as the manager of the Seattle Mariners, I guess I would feel like I would point to the fact that we're leading 1-0 in the ALCS. Like, it just seems like you couldn't have more of a proof of concept than that, right? Like, I guess maybe a different manager, we would, I don't know, we would be up two games in the ALCS. Like, we would just have won one more regular season games, I guess.

But I mean, I just don't think that that's the argument. We could have not gone on a 10 game losing streak near the end of the season when we were on the road and not gone on a winning 17 out of 18. Right, exactly. And I'm not saying that like and so it worked out the way it worked out. But it's not like, oh, the Mariners are good this year. Therefore, Dan Wilson is the reason. I don't think Dan Wilson is the reason I think bringing I think Polanco getting good is the reason. I think bringing in, you know, two players at the deadline, although Gino hasn't been working out great so far, but I do think Naylor has something to do with it. I think that, you know, and I'm not saying that Dan Wilson, some people, you know, a lot of people and the people who are like most, I think, forgiving of him do describe him very much as a vibes guy. And so the clubhouse is behind him, although you heard that the players like service as well, I heard. But, like, you know, there are different skills, and maybe you can't quantify that as much. But there are times where you can look and you can say, oh, Dan, don't do this. And then he does this thing, and then it happens exactly. I do believe, and again, I don't have them written down, there are games that you can point to that were managerial losses in our season. And I think it's more than a couple.

I would say that the thing about it is I think baseball is probably the sport where the managing is the least impactful on the game. Oh, wow. Because think about football. Think about a system. Like to me, like the coach of a football team and then the coordinators that they hire can design systems that other teams are not ready for, that will catch them by surprise, that will minimize their weaknesses and amplify their strengths, etc. I mean to me baseball is and if you look at like who is the other greatest manager I'm not saying Dan Wilson is the greatest manager in Mariners history but you know the other other manager to really do much in the postseason for us Lou Piniella Lou I'm smoking a cigarette and drinking a Bud Light right after the game Piniella I'm throwing bases into the field of play because I'm mad at the umpires like I think baseball is I think baseball is a sport where first of all I think it's impossible it's an impossible position to be in as the manager because the only time that you, you don't even get any credit when it works. If you bring in Spire to replace, um...

what was the first game where it was a mistake to bring in Spire? It was, or to not bring in Spire. If you leave George Kirby in against Carpenter and you go up the home run, then you, then you have made a grievous error. If you bring Spire in and he gets Kirby out, no one even mentions it because it was just considered the right decision. But if you bring Spire in and he gives up a home run, like he did the next game or two games later, then you did that wrong. Like,

You,

I disagree.

I mean, all I heard on Saturday were people talking on the radio about how, Dan Wilson managed an amazing game. He was getting so much credit for the managerial decisions he made on Friday. He got tons of credit for that.

Wait, wait. Yes, on Friday. You were saying that you never get credit. But I'm talking about the beginning of the season.

You're saying that you never get credit if things go well, and I'm saying that things went well on Friday, and he's getting tons of credit for it.

Okay. Well, okay. There you go. That's an example. He did get credit for that game going well. I also think he made good managerial decisions. He did. I agree. So maybe he's learning.

I do think that he's adjusting. I do think that he's adjusting a little bit.

Yeah, I just think that here's the problem. I think that it's a very, very thankless job, because if we talk about the first two games of the Detroit series, if he leaves George Kirby, in which he did, and then gives up a home run, he screwed up. And then a different game, two games later, if he brings Spire and Inspire gives up a home run, he screwed it up. And yet he does not control these players. All he can do is put in the person who has the best chance of accomplishing the thing and then hope that they accomplish the thing. And then when they don't do it, it's like he made the wrong call, you know, that I just feel like for all of the baseball managers, I just think it's, I don't know. I think that it's, I also do feel like I like, for instance, not challenging the, um, I think they should have absolutely challenged Cal being out at the plate yesterday is I think that that's our replay. I wonder here's, I wonder what our, like, you know, our magical replay guy who's up there somewhere. I wonder if he called that into Dan or not. Now, if he called that into Dan and Dan was like, no, I'm too busy having a few small beers, then that's dereliction of duty on Dan's part. But I also wonder if our guys even flagged it. I'd be curious about that, too.

Yeah, like what information is he getting down the line from other coaches? That should have been challenged 100%. And I didn't see that, but I had heard people saying that. In fact, I didn't even watch a replay of that. But I don't know. I do think it's about, like, so there are numbers and then there are people who are digging even deeper into numbers. I I'm I'm blanking and I'm so sorry I was going to look this up while you were talking there but I didn't want to get too distracted but like I listened to the beginning of Mike Salk's radio show here in town after a game last week and it was a game that we won but it was one of those things where it was sort of it was after Dan had made a questionable decision I think to leave Bryce in but I think we won I might be confusing my games but it was amazing to hear Mike who by the way is not somebody who bashes managers he's that is not his thing at all but he was like I was shocked that he let Bryce in left Bryce in and it wasn't just about lefty righty or it was like he broke down every matchup and he was looking at velocity what was going on with Bryce's velocity but then also breaking down throughout the season what happens when Bryce is facing the the third um the the player's third time in the lineup and it was so detailed and like you can sort of disagree about these sort of things. But I don't think that there's just a book that you can say, well, book says this. And so Dan just does this. I think that there are plenty of mistakes to make and plenty of people who are so damn deep into baseball that it's not as there are times where it's kind of like anything can happen. But there are also times where you got to be smarter.

But here's what I would say. There's no way Mike Salk has a deeper informational access than the Mariners pitch coordinator. I'm not talking about Pete Woodworth. There's a different guy who was on the pregame show yesterday with Shannon Dreher. And to hear this guy talking about the research that goes into literally every pitch that gets thrown by a Mariners. There's like five guys we've never heard of who all they do all day long is watch every hitter the Mariners might face and how they respond to a specific amount of spin rate. like it's wild the the the data on this and i'm sure mike totally could be right but i what i'm i guess here's what i'm trying to say and what i don't know and the reason that i can't say definitively on this is because i don't know what information is getting to dan wilson and then also if dan wilson when he gets that information is choosing to ignore it that's the part of this i don't really know but what i know is that pete woodworth the mariners pitching coach and the like five guys that work under him that just sit around all day studying literally pitch by pitch there's no way that they're not aware of what the math is there's no way they don't like mike salk knows it when he's not doing a roofing ad but somehow the mayor is the guys that are paid to do it

don't know so now maybe they are telling dan this is what the math says based on every matchup that's ever happened between these people and he's ignoring it and if he's doing that then sometimes

maybe his gut is leading him wrong but by this it would just sort of sound like all managers are the same and so it doesn't matter who you have sitting there because it's just it's all it's all numbers and it's all by the books whereas like i've been listening to folks talking about how and then this is not people criticizing him people actually complimenting him saying well dan's thing as a manager is he trusts his guys he just sounds like he's a more of a trust your guys more than the numbers kind of guy and that is something you compare him to that's possible and like there's who you know lou pinellas throwing bases while dan looks like he might be nodding off at times and like there you know there are different approaches to the game and again to his credit maybe more important than the numbers is him making the guys feel like they have hope in the locker room maybe that's the case but it's really kind of frustrating to watch when you look like when this was again i'm not talking about the postseason here with a notable exception but in the main during the during the regular season when you're watching you're just like why are you doing this we know exactly what's going to happen here and then it happens

yeah i mean i i believe me you've you've seen the text history i've been furiously mad at him and the mariners a million times this season written them off so like i'm not acting like i've just been the king of sanguinity this whole time but i guess i just feel like i guess i feel like it the outcome from it has overall been um for me positive and so like i guess to me the proof's in the pudding and the pudding is pretty good right now now we could be i could be feeling really different after today and after next week and there could be some moments where i'm just like what were you thinking but and maybe this is what the maybe this is what the essential question is i don't think you and i disagree about the amount of information that the mariners have as an organization i think it sounds like you're saying that what you've heard and what your opinion is that dan is kind of a trust your guys guy and that that's at times where he basically veers off of what the data says because he's kind of being a trust your guy guy and you would rather him be a sticks to the what the matchup says kind of guy i just think he could

be smarter i think there are plenty of times well how do you define smarter because it's either

trusting your guys or it's going with the data yeah make just make smarter decisions whether

it's data or just like what is in front of your goddamn face just like i don't know i just think

winning the al west getting a buy in the first round winning the next series and winning a game on the road that just i don't know how he could make smarter decisions i mean i well he doesn't

you know like he's got a better team than the teams were last year he's not in the blue jays no no than Mariners teams like you're just saying that like Dan must be a good manager

because we're managed he outmanaged he had a really good game yes he had an amazing he had

an amazing game on Friday and he won yesterday and I'm not saying he always makes mistakes and I do think that he might be getting better here in the postseason but he's also made some obvious mistakes that he was made that he was being pointed out by everybody in in national media as well and I just don't think I just don't think logically you can say oh he's a good manager because we're in the postseason we have a better team by far with players on the basis that disregards the fact that we have a better team like do you think that we would not be here with this exact team this is the lineup that we have right now you're saying we wouldn't be here with scott service because dan dan's a better manager i'm saying that's unknowable and i'm just saying

so much of this is it it is it ultimately comes down to luck a gut feeling the ball bouncing a certain way which is another way of saying luck like i just think it's so not a science even though now we have created all this data around it to try to make it so that there's no there's less luck involved and there's less kind of gut instinct etc like you know i listen i here's the I guess I don't even, I don't even really, believe it or not, despite the last 20 minutes, I don't even have a really strong opinion on if Dan Wilson is a good manager or not, or if the Mariners would have won more games with or without him. But I guess I just think on this day of all days, I just don't feel like our biggest problem, not that you're saying this, but I don't think, I'm just not, I guess I'm not that worked up about Dan Wilson's managing personally, because I just feel like it's going kind of well right now.

Well, let's get back to why we got on this topic. I'm not going around complaining about Dan Wilson today. You're just saying that you sort of like this beer loving kind of lackadaisical approach. And I'm kind of like, well, it also is the same sort of demeanor that he has when he's not challenging things that should obviously be challenged. and the sort of lackadaisical approach to, you know, again, sort of being the anti-Panella and just kind of like really just being like, okay, whatever happened. And I'm admitting that that is a superficial take on my part. I'm not connecting the two things.

You don't think my beer take is?

But that's just what got us here. I'm not mad at Dan Wilson today, even though we're having this conversation. I just think that. Like, it's kind of, I don't, you know, I don't, I would just, I was just sort of making an observation that, yeah, he is a little bit like Benicio Del Toro, just like maybe, and he's a very successful character. So, you know, I guess. A few what? A few small beers. But it playing into this knock on him.

Do we want Benicio Del Toro managing the Mariners? Maybe, honestly.

But like the knock on him being that he isn't kind of seeming engaged enough in these moments kind of is kind of like, okay, all right.

I think also, by the way, what is coming out right now in this conversation and what the listeners would be maybe observing is the amount of Seattle sports talk radio that you listen to versus what I listen to. I listen to zero of it, and you listen to a lot of it, to where you can identify calligraphy commercials that are unusual in the milieu.

And in this case, national, too. I think that's what's really kind of got me, too, is kind of a lot of national conversations about his style of coaching.

But, okay, but previous to this, like, during the regular season, I mean, first of all, I totally dismiss what the national announcers are saying because, to me, they're morons. They're like Alex Rodriguez and Big Papi.

Oh, I'm not talking about the TV broadcasters during a game. Who are you talking about? I just mean I've been listening. AJ Porzynski? I don't know, man. Like, podcasts. I was listening to the John Boy Media podcast, and, you know, just, like, various, like, I'm just saying it's not. I know I quoted. I guess I'm getting a little defensive because I sort of feel like you're putting me in the corner of like just like quoting Mike Salk and maybe I'm talking too broadly here because I can't I again I don't have a game in-game decision that I can kind of point to from like July or something like that but there does I think that there I think that there are conversations you can have about smart managers versus not so smart managers that rely on more information than just whether or not you made it to the postseason yeah and by the way just so you

know I wasn't trying to say that Mike Salk doesn't know what he's talking about I wasn't trying to like denigrate your argument because it because of Mike Salk what I was trying to say was you have spent this whole season listening to people who have been breaking these games down after they happen like regular season games and they've got to fill their day part they've got to fill their show with analysis of the game and so they're thinking about it and talking about it and you're listening to it and they I'm sure make a lot of good points and then I'm just here in southern washington like listening to uh you know like pablo torre finds out talk about um if you can tickle people in the ufc and so i'm coming into this without any real priors on dan wilson and his decision making over the season you know whereas you've been listening to a lot of it and again a lot of it i'm sure is totally right so that is just so you know my point what i was where i was going with that wasn't that you're getting bad information my point was that this is not even a thing i've been thinking about very much because i just don't like in the regular season I just haven't I don't listen to any Seattle sports talk and so I just don't I don't think about Dan Wilson very much and his man managing style so you you have more info on this

than I do I'm actually trying to give you credit thanks I appreciate it and sorry I got defensive there I just it's just been again a season-long frustration with him in general and again and Genevieve can just say but we're in the postseason so he's obviously a good manager and I just kind of keep saying like we're in the postseason that is true it doesn't mean he's a good manager and I'm sure he's a very good guy. People seem to absolutely love him, and maybe that's the magic. Maybe that is more important, is vibes. I don't subscribe to vibes being more important than in-game decision-making, but like you say, I guess we're here.

I think the problem is that your partner and I agree on everything, and I think you're trying to somehow work on your relationship with Genevieve through me, and this is not the place for it.

That's exactly what it is.

Please.

Oh, I found out, by the way, I also learned that the dates are wrong. I guess dog sitting starts tomorrow, whatever that looks like. Oh, shit. That's a big story. What did I just hear, though? I'm racking my brain because these little moments of you and Genevieve being the same person keep on coming up, and it's so weird. The other day, I got off the – did I get done doing the show with you, and I said something to Genevieve about something that you bought? She says, oh, I have one on the way, or something. It's like these small things that are just kind of like, what? I hadn't even heard of this thing before. I'm inside your freaking head. Exactly. Exactly. Man, I was looking back at, let's just close out with this. I'm looking back at last year's roster because I was just sort of thinking, how much does Dan Wilson get to take credit? And it's just like some of these names that we were playing, we were trying to, Samad Taylor. And by the way, I like Samad Taylor. I always rooted for him. You were kind of a Samad Taylor apologist for a minute. Last year, we had a Cade Marlowe, my dude. I mean, we had a very, you know, end of his career, Mitch Hanegar. Again, I'm not trying to throw. Hannah Goat. But still, that was so rough last year. Justin Turner, of course, he didn't stick around. It's just like, I'm just looking at some of these names. Remember Sebi behind, he was our backup catcher last year.

sebi zavala or whatever just like my god it's like ghosts i mean yeah there's nothing that is that i saw this is actually a different this is a whole different thing because this was the last time somebody put up a lineup card of like the last time the mariners won an alds game which is very different because that team by definition would have been good and your point is we had some real stiffs last year which you're right about but i was just looking at these names it was like mark mclemore and like you know we used to you know we used to have a mclemore who wasn't a rapper now how did he feel about ceilings it was very very pro uh-huh but like just there's just also there's something about baseball and naming some guys that's just the craziest yeah like because there's so many players that cycle through in a season and like the some guy and it's no but i hear what you're saying is it like it's funny to think about some of the people that we were that we needed in critical moments last season um compared to the people that we have now you know and uh it's it is it is the world is a better place i think you're right i think that the under maybe the under sold thing about this whole season has actually been polanco honestly like yeah i mean cal rally that's turn around cal yeah i don't i mean you can't say enough about cal and the fact that he's hitting for average two in the playoffs which is just amazing and josh naylor last minute whatever but like low key in all of that i just think quietly polanco being good and then kind of bad but then kind of pretty good again and then really good in the

playoffs it's like golly i didn't see that coming i love him so much i remember do you remember i was saying to you i think it was last year maybe the very beginning of this season when he's still scuffling a little bit it's like he has not been good for us but i like like i always loved him i love i know i thought you were at your mind i really i've always loved him i like how he looks i really how he looks striking out i know but there's just something and there's something about seeing him be good that is just so wonderful. You bought low on Polanco. No, that wasn't a prediction. It was just like it bummed me out because he seemed like such a fun, lovable guy. You know what it was, Andrew?

It was a vibes thing. It was definitely a vibes thing. You should think about being more of a vibes guy. No, you were... Dude, there was no one who was more pissed that they re-signed Polanco to play third base than yours truly.

A lot of people were.

I almost quit on this team. I almost quit on this team the day that announcement came out that was to me the ultimate capitulation before the season started it was your answer for third base is a guy who sucked last year and hasn't played third

base since high school or something that I was so furious about that I remember because remember I was going my whole thing they would always say the coaches or especially Jerry would say oh we just want to put our players in the best position to win I'm like then why are you playing a person at third base who's never played third base before and making an ass of himself out there. I was mad on behalf of Polanco. That is literally not putting your players literally in a position to win, not figuratively.

Oh, and by the way, you know, he wasn't good at third. No, terrible. They moved him after like five games. And this is the last thing I'll say before, mercifully, maybe we can end this torture. We're also now actually getting close to the pregame shows for the game. We should probably stop our post-game show and begin the real pregame shows by listening to them. But did you see who, when they decided, when they put Wu on the active lineup, on the active roster, who that bumped off the active roster for the ALCS? No, I was actually curious. Who? Ben Williamson.

Oh, yeah. So he was still hanging around just in case, right?

They had, he was, if Wu wouldn't have been able to even theoretically go, Williamson would have been, and they also, by the way, put Mastroboni on for Rayleigh. You saw that. Yes, I did. Yeah, that was. So it's Myral, it's Myral, I'm calling it Mastroboni Hero Series. It would be hilarious. God, I've got to dust off that meme. Following Leo Rivas Hero Series, Miles Mastroboni Hero Series would be really quite something to see. But poor Ben Williamson. All he did was come in as a rookie, I think play very solid defense.

Very good defense.

Get immediately jettisoned for Gino Suarez, who's hit for like an absolute turd out there. And then he gets back on with his chance to like actually get to play in the ALCS. And they're like, let's bring on a pitcher on the 0.05% chance. I don't feel strongly that Wu is going to pitch in this series. I feel like the goalpost keeps moving, don't you?

You know, I'm not sure about that. It definitely would be near the end of the series if the series goes long. But I guess I was a little, I guess, and now we're just sort of getting into this. I'm a little confused right now. If you have Wu there, we basically have a four-person rotation if you're not counting Wu, right? Because some people were like, we're surprised we're putting in Logan today. And I was like, well, what's the other option? I guess Castillo technically has more rest.

That was it. I think that that was, I think the theory was that Logan threw more pitches than Castillo did. On Friday, yeah. And therefore... it would have been more logical to throw Castillo out there, but they, I think Logan is actually seen as the stronger choice like in other words, the upside of Logan is considered to be higher, like and what I read in the paper today was that they were always planning on throwing Logan out here today because we assumed we were going to lose game one, so Logan was supposed to be the stopper, we were like, we have to basically like, we have to risk it with Logan on whatever today is, Monday. So they were planning on Logan

before yesterday's game

this is what i read in the paper was that it was always going to be logan because we thought that our best chance of winning today was with logan and so even though it didn't make sense because castillo was more rested it was like we think i mean logan might just have better like numbers although logan doesn't have great numbers against the jays this season i want to point this out we might be trying to back to back buck the odds here because logan's um logan the last time he threw against toronto it didn't go well it's kind of it feels like we're just going we're kind of millering it up again we're kind of throwing a person in there who in recent history has not been killing it against the toronto blue jays in toronto and we're just kind of hoping for a different outcome and it worked yesterday so maybe it'll work two times in a row yeah and again the

options are sort of limited because you don't have anybody who's fully fresh right and like i guess you have emerson hancock who's kind of like a a bullpen guy former starter who could be thrown in

there to eat up some innings but you're not it's kind of wild he hasn't even gotten an appearance

i'm gonna surprise by that too which is funny because this is something i must be wrong about is like i've sort of kept i keep on thinking about him as sort of a little backdoor little i don't know well backdoor is the wrong word but almost like a little bit of a how can i not how can i say ace up my sleeve without it being that strong like uh jack up my sleeve right yeah like he's a fresh arm who can actually kind of eat up some innings pretty clean you never know though i mean i guess it's he's not very dependable but i'm kind of like man we haven't even touched him i couldn't believe we didn't touch him on friday i think it's because

probably they don't consider him what you call a high leverage arm i think the place for emerson and maybe like and palmer if they can get you know get them all together would be like you need someone to go like three pretty good innings you need someone to go three innings and and keep it close three innings and only give up one to two runs i think that's when you bring him in uh i again i'm talking like i know but like as opposed to even these guys like spire and bizardo and them even though sometimes they don't do well and it makes us crazy their whole job description and the thing they're used to is like coming in with no margin for error that's why when they put castillo in on friday night i was nervous because what does castillo do every time he starts a game yeah he immediately puts two people on it takes him three innings to like lock in and i was like we don't have three innings for you to lock in bro like i was of all the things about friday night that made me happy and pleasantly surprised the fact that those starters just came in and just did what they did even though it was like they're like for logan anyway his first relief appearance maybe like ever in his life like i was so stoked about that because i could also have seen that just blowing up like it's such a different mental state i heard something that's really stuck with

me that i thought was really interesting i think you will too that really shocked me and that does underscore my like kind of um lack of knowledge on a lot of these things i it was friday i'm walking to the eagles and i'm listening to the pregame show and i'm listening to two former pitchers talk it must have been furbush and um and our boy hyphen right ryan roland's ryan roland smith and it was like a little round table but the fact that there were two we have an australian and he's not the guy named furbush weird to me good call um the fact the fact that like you we have a little round table going with like baseball people talking but two of them are former pitchers one thing that they both said and vehemently was something that i didn't really consider which was they feel like castillo's big win against detroit when he started and i'm blanking on which day that was but i the one thing i definitely remember about that is he racked up 25 pitches in the first inning and 25 pitches in the second inning i remember him going 50 pitches by the end of the second inning and just thinking how long can this go on but then he settled in as he often does and and really pitched a hell of a game but both of those pitchers were like he got lucky they're just like what they knew and what they were seeing about him later on in the game they're just like they were saying we couldn't believe that Dan had left him in and that was not one of the times I was complaining about Dan at all I was I remember I texted you guys I'm like you never judge Castillo on the first two innings, let him settle in. That's always my thing. But these two pitchers, and I can't remember exactly what they were saying about it, but they were so in agreement on the fact that like... Dan got lucky, and Castillo got lucky, because they would have pulled him before that, and they were again saying, I'm glad he didn't, but it was just kind of like, they're just seeing things that I'm not seeing. Yeah.

Yeah. It's a, I'm going to say something very uninteresting. It's a crazy, crazy world. And by that I mean, Andrew, the fact that we actually did an hour before this show about the Mariners, and then...

That one might have been better, honestly. I'm not sure I liked the Andrew Wilson talk. And then an extra hour.

That wasn't enough for us. one hour about the Mariners, not for broadcast, then the whole regular show, and then an additional 45 to 50 minutes about the Mariners, allegedly, for broadcast. And here we are, my friend. I think if we had done... 55 minutes out from

first pitch. I think if we had done anything under two hours today, though, listeners would have literally been disappointed at this point. I saw people

were clamoring for it. People were saying, like, well, people were saying emergency show on Saturday. Oh, I didn't see that. I saw that online. And, like, I almost called you. Like, I was so delirious on friday night i was like but i didn't want to i didn't want to guilt trip you into it but um no people were definitely saying they wanted a long show today and um and and you got it you got it america and parts of canada that are still listening anyway we love you uh we appreciate all of you that's going to do it for today's episode of tbtl but guess what we'll be right back here tomorrow more imaginary radio for you so please do join us for that in the meantime have a great monday take care of yourselves go mariners and please remember no mountain too tall and good

luck to all oh man guys i've never watched a mariners game and i only watched it because i listened to you guys and i knew that you were so excited about this game and i can't believe i just did watch 15 inning game it was so exciting and i'm so happy for you guys have a good one bye cobros it's 10 o'clock friday night the mariners just won we did it power out