Muse

Is that it? Just that one word? Yeah. Okay.

Yes! Uh, hey Steven, that was really good. Um, feeling is here that you could be a bit more positive.

More positive? Yeah. You know, really go for it. You want me to go for it? Yeah.

Alright.

Yes! Very, very good. Let's just try without the script. Mine just loosened you up a little bit. I mean, it's, what is it, one word? You don't really need it, do you?

I probably don't need the script. It's just a word. Yeah.

OK, let's do it again.

Yes!

Is that it? Yes. Right. Hi, Stephen. Yes. This is Clem Fandango. Yes. Can you hear me? Yes, I can hear you, Clem Fandango. Honestly, this is going so great, but I just think there was a little loss of energy in that last take. Maybe try one more.

Are you ready to go?

Yep. What? Yes! T! T! T! T! B! T! L! Guess what day it is? Guess what day it is? It's Friday, Friday. Gonna get down on Friday.

Everybody's looking forward to the weekend. You negligently ruined her iPhone. You have to pay for that. Simple as that. So isn't that rocket science? What is rocket science? Rocket science is when the scientists find out things about space. Ah, gazpacho soup just burned my lips. The gazpacho? Yeah, it's been sitting out. It warmed up. It warmed up so much that it burned your lip. Let me explain something to you. If you're expecting something ice cold and you bring it up to your lips and it's room temp, it's going to feel like your mouth's on fire. It's going to feel like your body's on fire.

And boom goes the dynamite.

well all right good afternoon and welcome everybody to a friday edition of tbtl the show that just might be too beautiful to live i got the time if you got the diapers my name is luke burbank i am your host i'm so excited about this show coming to you from the beautiful and i mean that beautiful oh ma pa it's just beautiful south waterfront of portland oregon where It's a genuinely warm day today on this Friday.

I feel warm and I'm levitating.

Like, I got into the car. I have been on a content creation sort of palooza today.

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

I was helping out with an event for the Portland Chamber of Commerce this morning. And then I was on Sean Jordan's podcast, It's Nice to Be Nice. And now I zipped over here to the South Waterfront to record today's TBTL. And I've still got LiveWire's Fancy Pants fundraiser tonight. I got in the car today. It was, like, legitimately warm. Like, kind of almost like, oh, I've got to roll the windows down. It's too warm to sit in this car.

I feel warm, and I'm levitating.

Such a nice little treat here. I know we're going to go back to cold, gloomy weather in the Northwest, but this is a beautiful day. I hope I don't sound too distracted. I am currently doing battle with a very pesky, I don't know how old, four-year-old bangle kitten. Meow. By that, I mean Bubbles Burbank, since I'm here at Becca's, and this is where Bubbles lives now. She's in the room, and she is making her presence known. She is extremely obsessed with my broadcast setup here. So we'll see if we can get through that okay. I am, in the words of Sarah Koenig, I am so excited about this show because it is the Friday before the Super Bowl.

I mean, I figured he had to be in sport, but he wasn't in sport.

Like, I don't know if you know this, the Seattle Seahawks are playing in the Super Bowl this Sunday, and it's got me real fired up, so I'm sure we're going to probably end up talking about that. Oh my God, I'm freaking out! And we'll also, if we have time, will indulge in what I think is maybe one of the hardest Seahawks-related sports quizzes I've ever seen. I've taken the quiz. We may subject my friend Andrew to it to see how he does. Speaking of my good friend Andrew, the longest-running co-bro of the show, maybe best known for his depictions of the tall ships. Two bros!

Bro, hit it up!

He's joining me right now. Good afternoon, my friend.

Hey, Luke. Is Becca in earshot, or are you just using her apartment while she is out?

She is in earshot. Well, I mean, I'm in the bedroom. She's in the other room. Do you want me to holler something?

Could you holler at her? Could you just tell her that I got Wordle in two today and I was feeling pretty good about myself?

Andrew got Wordle in two and he's feeling pretty good about himself. How many did it take you?

She's checking. Please hold. Okay. Three. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Three. So I guess Andrew takes this one.

You know, I wasn't meaning that, like, I hope she understands I wasn't making it like a competition with her specifically. I was just proud of my performance. I wasn't trying to stack it up against anybody else. I don't think it was a particularly hard one, but it was just a weird word that I tried on the second turn, and it worked out all right. And since you happen to have the ear of our wordling friend over there.

Yes, of the recognized wordle master in this family.

Sure.

She wanted to know what your starting word is, but what she forgot is that no one can know your starting word.

No, you can know my starting word. I try not to tell Genevieve my starting word because then she'll use it to strategically. Right, to get a strategic advantage. Yeah, exactly. But I've been using the word aired, A-I-R-E-D, because it's a combination of a lot of vowels that I like, but it's one of the rare words that has not been used already by a wordle.

He's using, Becca, he's using aired as in A-I-R-E-D because it has vowels but has not been the word yet. How about you? What did you start with today?

Pages. She started with pages today. Oh, that's fun. Oh, okay, yeah. And I can see how that would set her up for success as well.

So anyway, well, this is slightly improving the Wordle conversation on the show. It went from last week where I was just reading. I was a text message like exchange. I was just reading text messages between the two of you about Wordle to today. We just have Becca very far off mic, and I'm just repeating. It's getting better and better. The segment is slowly improving.

Emphasis on the slow. I mean, eventually it's going to be her and me doing this podcast, and it's all going to be about our Wordle scores. In fact, I think it's sort of funny. You're kind of, as you mentioned in your intro, pretty excited about this weekend and about the Super Bowl. In fact, maybe, can I just go ahead and just transition? Hey, Andrew, do you have big weekend plans? Not much going on over here. But I got to say, it would be funny if instead of talking at all about the Super Bowl, because there might be some listeners. I don't know. It's a pretty big deal. But there might be some listeners who are concerned about, oh, no, are we going to get into football talk today or something? It would be funny if we totally ignored the Super Bowl and then talked only Wordle the entire time. That would please me.

To be totally honest with you, I bet you that would be about a 50-50 for our listeners. I bet you about 50% of our listeners are probably really intrigued and excited about the Super Bowl. Actually, that sounds high. I bet you about 30% of our listeners are really looking forward to hearing some Super Bowl talk. and i'd say 30 would be much more excited about wordle and then uh what does that leave uh 40 uh are not interested in either topic they just want to hear more about bubbles trying to hang up my laptop right now she's where she wants to be she's trying to understand what this laptop is and why i'm yelling at it into a microphone so she keeps going behind the laptop trying to understand it and then popping i sent you a photo of what she's doing popping her head up above the laptop adorably and then almost pushing it down to where it closes which would totally take our broadcast off the air and then then she goes around to the front of it where the keyboard is to see if that is giving her any new information and she just obsessively going between those two

points bingo i don't know if this is something that you experience with bubbles i don't i don't remember how well your place was set up with a printer well of course you're a big printer guy so and that's right when you were living in your apartment you were living with bubbles and so you would have had both a printer and a bubbles and so i don't know her relationship with the printer but boy that is one of bingo's favorite things i have a printer that's kind of really tucked away here in my office i don't like the looks of printers it's amazing i'm so happy that i have this place to put my printer where it's tucked out of the way but it is such a pain in the ass to use because it's so far out of the way. And yesterday I was trying to fix something on it. I'm having some issues with one of the color cartridges. So I'm underneath my desk, fiddling around with my printer. It's not that I'm out of anything. For some reason, the printer just, I've changed the cartridge a couple of times. Is cyan the yellow one?

I don't even know. Whichever one is the yellow one. I switched over a few years ago to just like, I guess it's just a toner. So I can't even print cyan. I can't print any colors. Oh, cyan is the blue one. All I really need it for is just the scripts. Because it kept telling me I'd be out of some bunk color that I don't even... I was like, is that even a real... Is cyan even a real thing?

I guess it's blue. I don't know why they call it. Anyway, I guess they just call it yellow, yellow. Now, I thought they used to have a funny name for yellow, too. But I guess not. But for some reason, my yellow, I have several... cartridges they're all full i would change them out like there's something going on with the printer there's something with that tube or something i tried cleaning it with a pin um i was messing around then eventually it occurred to me it doesn't matter it just doesn't matter like it was one of those things where i was like kind of going a little bit batty about it and then i was like wait i just usually print in black and white anyway i i and i was looking up like kits i could buy to to like flush the hoses and everything i was like what why just if you have something you really need to look nice just go find a kinkos build a time machine go back to a time when there were kinkos uh all of that is to say bingo the cat over here it's probably his number one fascination our printers like he's fascinated by a lot of things but as soon as he starts to hear that even in the when it's just cleaning it does a self-cleaning mode as something is like coursing back and forth and the thing he comes running in and then he sits he just positions himself right where the paper comes out and he just sits properly, right? Haunches on the ground two feet in front of him and he just waits and he looks right into it like he's a submarine operator looking through a periscope. He's just waiting for it to come out and then... Like he's in Das Boot. But what made me think of this was you were talking about how Bubbles doesn't know what's good, like she thinks something's happening behind the computer because you're talking into it and that's what he did. He jumps up on the printer and he's like where's the paper coming from? And he's like looking at the back of the printer because he can't figure out where he thinks you are the world's greatest magician i know the way he looks

at me how is this guy materializing this paper the fact that i put on a top hat and i have like

a magic wand i mean i i kind of play into it i'll admit i can't tell you andrew what the beautiful

day it is here in portland i'm sure it's also pretty nice up in seattle but from this vantage point i'm looking out on this local park now i'll mention that we are just like you know steps from the ice facility in portland so this park is actually where a lot of people that are going to go down to protest like a bunch of labor folks were up here uh like a week or so ago and it's it's oftentimes now a staging area for folks that are going to go protest ice but as of right now it's a friday afternoon it's uh the sun is shining and there is a one two three four five six there are six kids that are playing touch football i thought that that was outlawed you got six kids You got some looks like a couple of maybe they're in about sixth grade or something, seventh grade, some boys, some girls. And they are just having a wonderful time in the grass, just running around and tossing the football. And it is so it is so wholesome what I am watching here. I am loving it so much. You know, I believe the children are the future and they're they're enjoying a little touch football game. And it makes me very happy.

I'm worried I'm going to emphasize just a side comment that I'm misinterpreting. But what do you mean you thought it was illegal?

i just meant you know how we hear so much about kids being on their devices sure yeah you know just just kind of being indoor kids and not that there's anything wrong with that but like there's something about seeing some some kids just literally throw tossing around the old pig skin

uh oh i thought you meant they were playing football on their i thought they were playing

retro bowl on their phones i mean andrew i'm talking brick and mortar they're throwing their phones at each other i'm watching yes there's an app that you can download a football shape onto your phone and they're throwing their phones okay at each other that makes sense i can see that okay now they're going back for the kickoff i'm not kidding i'm just going to narrate this game andrew this is now maybe this speaks to my the the privilege that i had growing up in in the city of seattle where there was a lot of other people my age but this was our greatest joy by the way they have not adopted the new NFL kickoff style. So there's not a landing zone for the ball. This kid that just kicked it, that definitely would be a touch back and probably beyond maybe the 35 or 45 yard line. When I was a kid about the age of these kids, we had invented a version of, of football that you only needed three people to play. So one person was all time quarterback. So that would be the same person who would be quarterback for both teams. And the team would just be like me, I'd be one team. and then like my buddy Micah or my buddy Peter would be the other team and then like James would be all-time quarterback so you would set up you basically just be running you'd want the person who was the quarterback there was no rush on them obviously and they were not allowed to cross the line of scrimmage but it just turned into a drill well where if I was on offensive I was just running a pattern and you know Micah was trying to cover me and Peter was throwing it to me or whatever and we would play this on the front lawn of Daniel Bagley Elementary School because it had these three sections. It basically had these three sort of sidewalks that were interrupting the grass, but they made a perfect end zone, midfield, and then end zone. And when I tell you that we could do this for like six hours at a time,

time it was a really really really fun way to while away an afternoon and so all that is to say watching these kids doing some version of that it's uh it's it's making me as you can tell feel

very happy on this friday when i was in valley city ohio my friends it would be me tony and my friend tim and we would do something similar and again that's an awkward number of people to play football uh but tim and i would both be referees and tony would be a left tackle sure sure sometimes

you'd have to conference like it was like tim would throw a flag and then you'd be running out to announce it to the crowd you'd have to kind of get tim over there and be like okay who is it on you have to turn your you have to turn your microphone pack off exactly in fact i was about

to make a joke about like the letters on the backs of the jerseys of a of a of a referee and i think I can't picture him correctly. And do those letters signify something specific to the game? Or is it like their role? To their position.

So I think there's maybe L is one of them, which probably means like linesman. Okay. So you're, and then there's a back judge. I don't know if they put, I hope they don't put BJ.

I think they do put BJ on there. I think they do. Because I was about to say that. I was going to say I wear a jersey that says BJ, but then I just thought it would be like misinterpreted.

Yeah. So that'd probably be back judge. That's the, my sense was that's the furthest back official. so you get a you know a pass interference down the field or i mean the back judge can throw the the the uh actually they might also be behind the play this is where what were we talking about this is like yesterday on the show much like the ai how wrong i am andrew has absolutely no bearing on how confidently i'm going to stay sure yeah yeah uh when i'm talking about a too bad they're late card or something of the like but um but yeah yeah like uh there would be what are the different positions there's the referee looking yeah there's the line there's the the the back judge those are the linemen and then what's is the ref that's the head official is the ref i think that's the person who gets to say you know what i'm always impressed by and there must be some trick to this that i don't understand imagine that you are you know like uh ed hockley right or one of these one of these kind of now quasi famous nfl head referees in other words the person who gets to say what the penalty was okay yeah i wouldn't have known that name but like well i'll tell you what ed hockley's son i believe sean hockley is also in the league and they both just got like tremendous

guns that's the hockley oh i know okay i do know i do know i know at least one of those i can picture it they have the the short sleeves on the jersey are really yeah and that's not an accident

that's not an axe you'll never catch me wearing a shirt cut that tight in the biceps thank you very much. But what I always find, and watch for this on Sunday in the Super Bowl, if you are looking for a way into the game, if you're not a sports fan or not a football fan or just don't care, watch to see this impressive move. Now, let's say that there is a penalty. It's a holding penalty. That would mean it's on the offense, typically. Let's say it's on a guard whose number is 74. Holding offense number 74. That's a 10-yard penalty. A first down. Actually, I've given you a fairly straightforward example but you never see the guy or the woman someday i hope because we do have you know we have female refs now i don't think we've had a female head official yet for the super bowl but i hope that day comes soon but the person who's going to make the announcement about what happened on the play they don't write down any of these numbers they don't write down the number of the player who did it they just have to remember it and they've got to say it in a very specific order they got to say the penalty the player who is accused of the penalty the down and like the number of yards and sometimes it'll be like you know illegal contact on the defense number 27 that's because it'll probably be requal and let's be honest uh that is a spot penalty it'll be first down from the 52 yard line to me that's so many numbers that you've got to remember in a matter, and the game's got to keep moving, right?

And they might not be a great public speaker, honestly. For real. Seriously. A lot of the calls you can just make gestures with your hands for various things, like it was call start or whatever, false start, whatever. But when they have to turn on those mics, now they've gotten a lot better at it, but you and I used to watch football during a time when they didn't have those microphones, and so when they started using them, they were often very awkward. the microphones wouldn't work right and it's a lot of pressure you talk about the pressure of giving a verbal yes when you're sitting in the exit row of an airplane, you're just somebody who's good at calling football games or kind of like refereeing And by the way, you have a day job Yeah, and now you have to talk to like America, you have to talk to the world

The globe on Sunday

Like, that's a lot of pressure. And the fact that they it's very rare that you see them stumble around the number again, the particular uniform number of the player or the the you know, the where the ball is now going to be played from based on the like you're sometimes you're doing math on the fly because you're minusing the number of yards at the penalty took the playback. you have to figure out where the new line of scrimmage is again you've got to remember the number of the person who did it like and they don't they they seem to have created some mnemonic device for this where you you see them usually get it right so um you know be in andrew what we're in right now is the before period where i don't i'm not trying to look up where the referees live on on google street view and consider egging their homes um because the super bowl hasn't happened yet so i'm not mad at them they haven't done anything to hurt my seahawks so let's all enjoy this time of comity where we're just enjoying the the skills that these uh these these officials and referees have uh have developed over the years that's the tbtl promise

more comity less comedy so almost no comedy i know that you're going to be giving me a quiz and a little bit or potentially we got to talk about this quiz and how we ended up where we are with it because you started to talk to me about it before the show yesterday and i think i literally said shut up shut up your face you really did for the let's save it for the show shut up little man shut up little man is what i said but uh why can you not to put you on the spot but i now have it in front of me via yahoo sports an article that was published i believe a few years ago that says why do nfl referees have jersey numbers um and it goes into the uh oh this was from just last year but um uh or 2024 but anyway i do also have the letters down here so what did you you said you have the back judge that's the bj lettering on the back of a jersey so yeah it's the lettering or does it so it says b and then j like back yeah and i think i've seen that before that's why when you said that's what i would have remembered that my guy and then what you did you you did say side

judge right sj i think i don't know if i i don't know if i said side judge i think i might have

said line line oh yeah okay but side judge is what you're looking so side judge is what is is

the person that's along the sideline i'm assuming yeah i was wrong about briefly here and then

umpire is you and down judge is dj dj tanner yeah so wait but that is the down judge is the down

judge behind the quarterback or is that actually the back judge and the down judge is downfield

like back that would make more sense huh down judge referee but like how did the one how did

the one word the one name that got used in both sports was umpire right yeah okay here we go oh

now i'm on oh now i'm on the official nfl page and by the way i would just like to say i love this for us i love that this is our nfl i'm sorry that this is our super bowl coverage is getting into the details of what the different referees do like nobody is doing this we're

owning this space take that bill simmons yeah the ringer no thank you this is the zinger where we

break down umpiring positions i've been listening to that uh podcast lately by the way it's good it's good turns out it turns out the guy who's in charge of podcasting at the biggest platform for podcasts is uh pretty good at podcasting uh yes it's a good show it's a good show who knew i was

little starstruck when i met him bill simmons i was at that ufc thing in las vegas we were filming at and he walked in and i i didn't really go out of my way to say hi to anybody except him i just said hey man big fan he said it was that thing where he didn't know what i was going to say to him when i when i approached him actually this is what was probably weird for him what he was seated in the very very front row of this whole deal he was with his his group like teenage kids and i i assume his wife and then i was like interviewing dana white up on the actual like the literal ringside where they had cameras and stuff and we're watching this fight together and he's telling me things about it and so then that ends and that was the closest i was going to get to bill simmons so i needed to take the opportunity to say hey man i'm a big fan but i guess what happened in his mind was there's this guy there's some tv dude he's talking to dana white they're filming him they turn the lights off that tv dude turns around and starts coming at bill simmons menacingly and quickly and you kind of look like what's this guy's deal gonna be and then i said imagine the

stuff that he gets you know sorry to cut you off but like you could be somebody who are is

remembering some take of his from five years ago absolutely so i could see him kind of doing the quick calculation of does this person seem dangerous and then to me saying really big fan big fan of the show really what i meant was big fan of page two which was like the first sports blog that I ever saw, which was Bill Simmons writing for ESPN, and it brought together for me all the stuff I kind of... of cared about in the world which was sports and pop culture and whatever all that is to say that show the ringer is very good but what we're doing here is also important we're talking

about back judges yes now i i don't know and this is showing a lot of restraint on my part on the show some unusual restraint i honestly don't know if i want to continue this conversation on the podcast it really might bore people back to death but there is a really cool on the official uh nfl page operations.nfl.com the only nf the only part of the nfl website that is not getting hits this week i'm on it it's the operations page well this is the time to use it that's right going to the beach in the winter there are no lines that's like it's like going to cedar point in december um so anyway but it's you can kind of you see the position of all of the uh referees on the field and in a little clickable graphic and you can click on them and i'm clicking on the the one guy he's along the side and he is called a side judge but there's another guy who's along and he's kind of um what do you call the area it's like the the the backfield of the defense so in other words he's a secondary so he's standing yeah i guess in the secondary but along the line is that the back judge or the down judge that's a side judge so he's in the secondary but but but he's along the side he's along the sidelines though but he's back there like the quarterback can see him out of the out of his left eye sort of downfield then you do have a back judge who's like in the middle of the field and he's way back in the secondary like you say okay so you're right there and then on the right sideline you have a field judge and he's on the right sideline he's kind of across from the side judge who's on the other side of the field in the he's in the defensive backfield 20 yards behind the line of scrimmage then at the line of scrimmage you have another line judge on the right and that's who's going to call like offsides and false starts and a down judge on the left and those guys are both on the sidelines as well then kind of behind the quarterback you have the umpire primarily the offensive backfield opposite the referee his responsibility is he reviews players equipment oh that sounds fun maintains control and then you have an umpire who's also behind the quarterback kind of on the other side uh and he wears the white cap known as the crew chief and leader of the officiating known as the rob low so he exactly so he's the referee and there's also an umpire and they're both hanging out behind the quarterback kind of creeping them out kind of hanging out kind of like saying like you know don't stand a little too close exactly genevieve would hate being a quarterback because she hates it when people stand over her shoulder you know what i really hate um

is when like becca and i are on a walk and somebody is walking behind us but not faster than us but not slower than us and and and i will keeping pace but just like three steps behind us and i will always and she's the same way this is why the relationship works because she is also annoyed by that so we just will step to the side and let the person go past yeah like there's something about someone walking at almost exactly the same pace but just three steps back that just like is and i try to not do it i try to not be that person either so we'll we'll either walk much more slowly than people in front of us or we'll just full-on speed walk past them yep we'll do whatever it takes to not create that awkward we're all walking at the same pace but a little bit separated yeah

i don't like that how many steps do you put between yourself and the person in front of you the escalator, because that's something I've been thinking a lot about lately. Because you want to kind of pack in, you don't want to be, you know, take up too much space, but also you don't want to be sticking your nose in somebody's back.

No, definitely. I mean, I'm giving it

two at a minimum. Me too. I'm usually two, I think. And that doesn't feel

like, unless you're, I don't know, maybe you're in the airport and there's like a bunch of people, I don't feel like that's being Irresponsible with resources Let's say you're just in one of the many dying Malls of America And someone's on the escalator Let's give them four steps Let's give them plenty of room

The context here is I mean kind of in a busy situation Because when I'm taking an escalator Most of the time it's coming and going From the train station And so usually You're going to have You've probably come off the train With a whole bunch of other people who are all going to the escalator as well so it's a you know it's a bunch of people and so you want to you do want to like not like put five it wouldn't make sense to put five stairs between you and the person and a slow day at the mall absolutely give them give them an hour give them a 15 minute run and then get on the escalator why not just leave the afternoon and then come back go get a pretzel go get one of those really tasty sweet pretzels well that we

Thank you.

were at the mall this last weekend which by the way was a lovely experience like i haven't i don't feel like i've been to a mall in a while it was a sunday and there was lots of folks there and one of the things i was like who wins who wins the battle of the smells at the mall is it the is it the bath and body works or is it the wetzels pretzels or the annies or the whatever yeah because those are both those are those are both really really throwing down in the like we are the most dominant smell in this mall kind of battle yeah and also the thing i miss about

indoor malls and i really do miss indoor malls sort of like if i had to go there a lot i would probably complain about them because they weren't my favorite places in the world but i mean actually in high school i spent a lot of time just just like a high school teen like hanging out in the mall and what i like about malls is the combination of the smells i love that you can get a little bit of the little bit of the leather shop. Wilson's. Daddy Loves Leather, I think, is the one that I used to go to, combined with the wafting smell of the pretzels. You know, that's a good point.

You've got a little maybe back in the day, the Orange Julius. Yes, yes. And then maybe a C's Candies. Maybe that is the appeal of it, is just like getting hit with a kind of a different smell as you, as you, uh, saunter through, I will definitely say that like, it was fun to be there. And it reminded me of like, yeah, why it's kind of fun to be in a mall on a, you know, it actually turned out to be a pretty nice afternoon, which is the weather. I know I'm, I couldn't be talking about anything less interesting for whoever's like tuning into this, not only today, but let's say in three months, but like the weather has been pretty wild around here just in terms of how nice it's been, including that day that we went to the mall. We were going to go see a movie, and I was like, we're legally prohibited from seeing a movie on a Sunday in the Northwest when it's actually blue skies and sunny in the wintertime. I cannot agree to that because it's so rare that that happens. And here I am talking to you on this Friday, and we've got another one of those days going.

Yeah, it's been really, really, really nice lately. I remember last year, and I was saying to Vives, and I remember this because it was a day that I had to take photos of my garbage bins to make sure that they were properly set up outside, and I wasn't going to attract any extra fees. You know, I take the photos to show that, like, look, I'm following all the rules, and I post it to social media. But I remember it was a January day, and it was so nice out that I also took a picture of my grill because I was grilling as well. Like, you get these days every now and then. And like you mentioned at the beginning of the show, like, yeah, we'll probably have, you know, we'll probably have a spell of, you know, another stretch of winter or something like that. But I mean, we're definitely on the, we're definitely on the upswing here. Like, this is great. Like, I'm very excited. I marches right around the corner.

I didn't even realize this until you, I think, were maybe repeating something that you and Hannah Brooks Olsen were talking about. But this idea that, like, if your team, if your football men's, if they manage to get to the Super Bowl, they have then created a very, very kind of narrow distance, if you will, between the end of your football interests and the beginning of your baseball interests. And that's really where we are this year, because, you know, we're always pretty interested in the Mariners, but we have particular reason, I think, to be excited this year. And so the Seahawks have done so much for us as a community, not the least of which has made it so there's only two weeks where I have to talk to people or in any way interact or have my own thoughts. Yes, exactly. We've got it down to about 14 days between the end of the Super Bowl and the beginning of the first minor, or I should say, spring training game.

It will be interesting to see what my media habits are in the next couple of weeks, because even like my Sunday ritual of making coffee and hot chocolate in the mid-morning to take it to my volunteering gig, you know, I'm just basically kind of puttering around in the kitchen for, let's say, two hours every Sunday. And there's always baseball. And then when baseball turns into football season, I I'm usually listening to baseball on the radio. But then when it's football, I'll bring up a laptop and I'll just have that like, you know, pitter pattering away in the corner while I'm doing things. But then for these two weeks before the spring training game start, what will I be listening to? I'm not maybe a wordle podcast.

Well, I mean, it's sad how much what you're describing is really a thought that I have even been having during the period of time that we've been getting excited about the Super Bowl, and by that I mean we go from, like, towards the end of the regular football season, there's pro football on almost every night. There's Sunday night football, Monday night football, Thursday night football. When we get into the playoffs, there's some Saturday games, and all of a sudden then it goes to okay the Seahawks won the NFC championship game and now we have 14 whole days or whatever it is 13 whole days of no football happening ever and

And I found myself reflexively picking up my remote control, being like, what are my eyes supposed to look at?

That's what Genevieve was quoting. What were we talking about yesterday? I'm not sure. But she quoted a line from 30 Rock. And then she muttered, sometimes people don't know that I'm quoting 30 Rock. I just quote 30 Rock all the time. But she said something like, you don't have a TV, but what do you sit and stare at? Or something that Liz Lemon says to a guy she's on a date with. No, I think the line is, because it's funny.

or something. What do you sit and look at? Yeah. I mean, here's the thing. I have a TV. It's full of content and none of it is the content that I want to look at, which is, I don't know, I guess football, like, you know, or baseball. Maybe what it is too is my obsession with like watching or listening, but, but mostly watching these sports is I'm at the point where committing to watch a full movie or even maybe a new TV series just feels overwhelming and that's because i've i've i've fried my brain on tiktok and so sports in a weird way it feels very non-committal to me and very highly engaging so it's like i'm never like oh my god the seahawks game is on am i going to be interested in this for two to three to four hours it's like it's it's sort of it asks nothing of me and it offers everything to me as a viewing experience you know it feels like of course i'm gonna the mariners are playing of course i'm putting that game on and of course i'm riveted throughout like it somehow fits into this perfect like little pocket of what i need in entertainment because i'll scroll through netflix and i will start and then bail out of like three shows and then just end up looking at tiktok on my phone or something there's something about about sports live sports for me that that again it doesn't feel like i'm committing to anything but let me tell you when i'm watching it i am a hundred percent

engaged yes absolutely and you don't have to think about it i mean that's my whole thing with on demand media these days which i you know i'm not just i'm not cranky about on demand media it pays the bills as you know which might actually be a decent segue into thanking our donors for the day but yeah um but uh it is really really hard to choose something and i hate choosing just give me something and during baseball season especially because you say you know football too like any football games on you can watch it but during baseball season almost any time of day you can find not any time but you know almost any time of day every day of the week you can find some baseball game going on somewhere i've already got the calendar circled for the world baseball classic like my buddies have been sending me you know the mariners have more players than any other team i didn't know that but looking at the lineups it makes sense people have been sending me like the lineups of the dr versus the u.s team and i'm like already like salivating looking at these

rosters i'm still i'm still in mourning about the last the ending of the last world baseball classic this is what we've done today andrew by the way on the friday before the super bowl we've discussed the specific positions of the officials and we're going to re-litigate the last pitch of the wbc from like last time around because didn't it end up being shohei otani versus trout i think it was trout so trout was pitching no uh was it like it's like otani striking out mike trout to for for japan to beat the u.s in the world baseball classic or something

i couldn't think so something very i can't totally confirm that but it's something no no i'm pretty sure it was trout i do know it was trout i just can't remember the outcome yeah the outcome was i otani struck him out in japan one yeah but it was like it was like

something out of a like a 1980 it was something out of rocky uh-huh where it's like you've got you know you just got like these two superpowers and it comes down to the final thing and and of course it's not just like a random uh jip team japan reliever it's freaking shohei otani yeah it's not just a random team usa guy that we kind of don't know because he's a kansas city royal peace and love to the royals fans it's like mike trout against shohei otani with the game on the line and the whole tournament on the line uh it was very cinematic except in this case mike trout

did not win i will not have any pasquatino erasure on this show let's thank the donors

thank you baby all right let's go ahead and thank those donors these folks are supporting tbtl financially. It's how this whole thing works, I should say. This is 100% listener-supported podcasting right here. I was just on another podcast earlier today, Andrew, and was talking about our fine TBTL show and telling the story of it and saying how today we were going to be on like our four thousandth and six hundred and something episode and i was talking to two guys uh sean and randy who make their own podcast called it's nice to be nice and um they were frankly shocked they had never heard a number as high as 4658 in any context in any context yeah and uh and it's only because of the donations of like joel johnson who's in vancouver washington hey thank you joel vancouver washington i don't

if i do i don't know if i've been there i mean i don't know if i know it know it well it's kind of

based on where i live now it's kind of the big city i mean it's right across the river from portland there's a certain argument that it's you know vancouver and portland are almost kind of one sort of entity although i don't know if people in vancouver would sign off on that but um coming from my place it's the first major city that you will hit sometimes if i need something and i'm like where can i get this it's like oh well they've got it in vancouver you go into the city you were

We were mentioning that the other day that you taught when I was growing up in Valley City, Ohio, my grandma, who would be visiting from like the suburbs of Cleveland, if she was like watching us for the weekend or something, she would say like, well, I got to go. I had to go into the city to get bread. And the city in this case, I believe, was Brunswick, Ohio, which is just a small little hamlet of its own. Is that where they do the bowling balls? I don't think so. I'm guessing that the bowling balls could that be that feels like a do they bowl in Britain? I was going to say a British thing, but I don't even know if they do big ball bowling in Britain.

But like, yeah, but Brunswick. I always assumed that Brunswick, Ohio is where they made the Brunswick bowling ball.

I don't think it's Brunswick, Ohio, because I feel like I would have known that. But I'll look this up. That would be on the sign. It would be on the sign. And I feel like Brunswick would just be bigger to support that industry. And rounder. And with like about three holes in it. You know what? Fair enough. Fair enough. I'm looking it up. I can't figure this out. but we'll think more donors, and then I'll get you some information. Thanks, Joel.

Thanks also to Meg Haz or Haz. Look at this. Meg Haz. Which branch? Haz. Meg Haz out there in Atlanta, Georgia.

Now, who might that be? That name rings a bell. I know that my girlfriend's name is Genevieve Haz.

Okay, so that's got to be a coincidence, though, right?

Probably. Where was Genevieve raised? Atlanta, Georgia. Where's this Meg from? Well, that's crazy. I mean, what are the chances? Well, now, I will say this. I'm wearing a pair of shoes right now that were gifted to me by somebody named Meg Has this Christmas via a DSW gift card. So could it be the same Meg Has, my very own mother-in-law, as I colloquially call Meg? Thank you so much.

By the way, that's so generous. And also, like, what hasn't this woman done for you, Andrew? She's clothed you. That's what, literally. She's feeding you during the holidays. She's putting food on my table here with this donation Meg, thank you

Yes, thank you She gave me the world's tiniest penguin many years ago Thank you, Meg

We just heard about that the other day We're just talking about that Making its second appearance Thanks also to Gail Schreiber of Edmonds, Washington

Hey, that's another familiar name Thank you so much, Gail A long, long time donor and friend of the show

And a familiar place Beautiful Edmonds, Washington Don't get me into the culture Don't get me into the Arby's We'll be here until sunup You know what Edmonds has?

Speaking of, a wonderful bowling alley that I go to sometimes, and they probably have Brunswick bowling balls. From Brunswick, Ohio.

Thanks, Ian Webster, who's in Virginia Beach, Virginia. Beautiful Virginia Beach, Virginia. I spent a week there once, long ago. It was absolutely lovely.

Ian, I didn't not thank you there because I don't appreciate your donation. It's just because I'm trying to figure out where Brunswick. It looks like Medowa, Illinois, is the headquarters of Brunswick Bowling.

Hmm, interesting. Now, what about the fact that Ian's last name is Webster? Mm-hmm. Is that beyond the dictionary? Is Webster a—am I losing my damn mind on a Friday? Is Webster also some kind of sporting, some kind of athletic equipment? A Webster? Let me think. Maybe I'm thinking of a Weber barbecue. Maybe I'm thinking of Daniel Webster. Maybe I need to stop making content for the day, Andrew. Maybe it's been enough already.

Let's see. There's Webster University Athletics. No, when you said that, I was like, oh, yeah, what is it? Is it like a – does Webster make volleyballs or something? But I'm not seeing anything. No.

Okay. Well, Ian, we appreciate you nonetheless. We also really appreciate Jennifer Evanoff, who's in Chicago, Illinois. um i uh i just read this article in the new york times uh the other day about a an architect in there's a big show of his in chicago at the i think the chicago art museum maybe uh he is no longer with us but he his last name was goth And he was kind of a really talented but also kind of quirky architect who was very polarizing to people. But they were showing all of these different homes and businesses and things that he had designed over the years. And somewhere in the heart of the article was a hyperlink to a British, like a documentary made about him probably in the 1970s. And, Andrew, you talk about how much you love, like, digging out those VHS tapes and digitizing and just seeing these things that are total unintentional time capsules. but this documentary about this architect he's just this at this point he's pretty elderly probably in his upper 80s he's got a little bolo tie on and he's just got the most plain smoke in midwest unassuming kind of nature about him talking about these little houses that he designed and things and i was just i was absolutely in love with this guy and in love with his work and very excited to go visit this uh this uh you know what do you call it not a display but this exhibition in chicago is up through march so i'm gonna go see that when i do wait wait next time thanks also thanks jennifer thanks julie brown of renton washington thank you julie near the v mac pretty near the v mac andrew all things come back to the seahawks today indeedly do thank you

julie hello and welcome to top story all right we've been dancing around it all day andrew

there's one more NFL officiating position that we're not talking about that's Gene Steratore no wait I think we've actually fully covered officiating

I was waiting for his name his name was right on the tip of my tongue before I was trying to pull a Seratore reference it's always a good one I mean here's what I will say

I've got a tight 5 on Gene the thing about this is because replay is such a big deal in the nfl now that is it's not an official role uh in terms of the officiating crew but it's an official role as part of the broadcast crew but this is the problem i want to think of an analogy the first analogy i'm thinking of andrew is far too dark for the circumstances trying to think of a less dark analogy basically generally speaking the replay of the replay official broadcaster the gene sterator who they're going well what do you think of this call gene i feel like when the game is over they go down to the same like official locker room there's like a sauna that all the refs and officials are going back to they've got their own locker room it's not where the players play they go to a separate restaurant it's kind of the same but not as nice not as high paying and then they've all got to like hang out and then those officials there's a fraternity and to the degree that they have women there's an association of these officials that I think makes it so when Gene Steratore is talking about if the officials on the field got it right or not he's always going to side with them, almost always, because these are his people he's like, I feel like they go way too soft on the officials

it's like when you get a cop commentating on a cable news show

this is literally the darker analogy that I was avoiding literally it was I was literally like it's like having a cop it's like having a cop weigh in on cop behavior like it was exactly what I was gonna say and then decided not to say

well you know what I'm the one who will be bold for both of us today but yeah I know what you mean although there are times there are times they say I'm not sure about that call but I do feel like it's more rare

that does happen but I feel like there it's you know what Andrew it's like it's gotta be pretty egregious it's gotta be pretty de-egregious to me for them to want to like throw one of the officials under the bus because of course they've been down there they know that it's i mean it's an incredibly hard thing to do to try to you know figure out if if a cleat was in bounds or out of bounds or a ball moved when it hit the ground or i mean it's it's remarkable they get as much of it right as they do honestly so um all right i do want to talk uh a bit about the super bowl but through the lens of this Seahawks quiz that you sent me the other day. You said, hey, you know, it might be kind of fun to take this quiz. And I believe the way you set it up to me was it might be fun if I administered the quiz to you and you said, but you'll be surprised at how poorly I do on it.

Now, you should be very clear that, like, yes, I sent this to you, but I did not look at anything. All I saw on my phone while I was waiting in line at the post office was a pop-up from the Seattle times that said something like, are you ready for the super bowl? Take this Seahawks quiz from the Seattle times. I just hit clear on it. And I texted you from my car when I got outside. I don't know if you could tell it was text to speech or speech to text. I should say it might've came off a little bit weird, but I just said, I just saw that there's a quiz. I haven't looked at it. I don't know what's in it. My.

assumption at the time was because Seattle Times mostly you know I would guess caters to casual Seattle Seahawks fans especially since you might get some hop-ons and since we're going to the Super Bowl I figured that the quiz would be a 10 question super super easy quiz but that I would still embarrass myself on it because I think even though I enjoy watching football I think you're going to be pretty shocked at how little i know about like let's say the personnel uh or naming defensive players or specifically what their roles are so i thought this will be fun you give me a simple quiz and i'll embarrass myself i'll just throw myself on that embarrassment grenade but

now you've looked at the quiz yeah well that's what i also assumed would happen and then because i needed to pick me up the other day i thought why don't i go through and take this why don't i go through and ace this quiz um and so i can feel good about my seahawks knowledge because i think of myself as a as a seahawk knower about 40 years into following this team and so i i did i thought it's going to be really easy i'm going to dunk all over this which is one of the main things they do in football yeah is dunking clearly clearly you're not the first that was the first question i missed yeah how many slam dunks did dave craig do um but then i took the quiz andrew And I became filled with anger, filled with rage because, A, I did really bad at it. I think it's 12 questions, by the way. I got absolutely creamed. And then I became mad at whoever. This is like also I feel like this is some weird new thing. The Seattle Times is doing. I don't like it. It's not like Seattle Times dot com slash quiz. It's projects dot Seattle Times dot com. What does that mean? Is this some new thing they're rolling out? The projects? I have no idea. I almost thought it was like some kind of like a weird ZergNet website at first when I went to it, because I've never seen projects.seattletimes.com. But anyway, I'm going to give you this quiz, and I actually think you randomly throwing a dart on each question, you will probably, I think I got four out of the 12. I feel like you completely guessing will get you four out of the 12. Because the questions, I think, are not even really Seahawks questions. That's why I'm mad about the quiz. They are like crazy statistical things that nobody would know. Not just kind of like who had the most touchdowns, but like how many. Like, let's just get into it, okay?

Okay. All right. I'm intrigued. I mean, I guess in a certain way I'm more nervous than I was. But that's stupid. not be nervous because you're saying it's impossible and if you did terribly then nobody expects anything of me and that's where i like that's my sweet spot yes expectations have been

managed yes there's and you know what i'll be honest with you there was one answer in here that i found thoroughly fascinating and it was a thing i didn't know and so that almost justifies the whole thing okay okay so uh question number one and feel free to play along at home everybody Which player holds the record for most games started as a Seahawk?

Which player holds the record for most games? I'm going to give you some names here. It's a multiple choice.

You've got Matt Hasselbeck, the quarterback. You've got Max Strong, a longtime fullback for the Seahawks. You've got Steve Largent. Steve Largent, legendary receiver for the Seahawks. And then you've got Walter Jones. Walter Jones was a Hall of Famer, I believe, and a long, long-time offensive lineman for the Seahawks. Matt Hasselbeck, Max Strong, Steve Largen, or Walter Jones, most games started as a Seahawk.

You know, the only player I know or that I think I watched on that list is Hasselbeck. It doesn't make sense, I don't think, but I'm going to go with it. I'll just go with Hasselbeck because that's a name I know.

I believe I went with Walter Jones. I think I thought that was, you know, some of these offensive linemen, if they figure out how to keep their bodies working, they can be in the league for a long, long time. I put in Walter Jones, you put in Matt Hasselbeck, and we were both wrong. It's Steve Largent.

Steve Largent, okay.

Steve Largent, arguably the greatest Seahawks player ever, was also their most durable. Steve Largent started 197 games for the Seahawks, followed by Walter Jones at 180. Okay.

Can I tell you something that you might find interesting, or maybe some non-football people might find interesting about this? As we're taking this quiz, I'm taking some notes as you give me the multiple-choice answers or options. But I'm also sort of keeping score, and I'm doing it with a brand new pen that I got, Luke, that is one of those four-colored pens that we grew up with. Oh, yeah, those ones. Yes, because I'm learning how to score baseball games, and so I printed out some scoring sheets, and I went to Office Depot. Yes, they still have Office Depots. We exist. And I bought three of them.

exactly like the kind i grew up with so i'm using green blue and red to keep track here i've told

you that uh when i used to live across the river from here in portland down the street from me was an office depot next to a taboo video two places that you would really thought the internet would have kind of rendered like kind of irrelevant and they're like they were just in the irrelevance district like hey we're both still here doing this if you want to come by i wonder if like so

to speak like after hours at the uh at the office depot if they're sick of all these like horned up

guys coming in to buy whiteout yeah invented by one of the monkeys moms as we've learned and repeatedly talked about question number two on which college campus did the seahawks first hold training camp this was i believe one of the ones that i actually knew okay uh washington washington State University, Eastern Washington University, Northwest College University was a college campus where the Seahawks had their initial training campus.

Hold on a second, Luke. I don't know if we'd leave it in or not, but you've added another level of difficulty in that we literally couldn't hear what the last two choices were because you just went into robot mode because of the connection. The last I heard was Eastern Washington University.

The last two are Northwest College, which is a Christian college over on the east side near Kirkland, or the University of Washington. So Washington State University, Eastern Washington University, Northwest College, or the University of Washington. Which one was the first place they held training camp?

Eastern Washington University.

I think that's a strong guess. I think that's what I put down. Let's see. And that's right. Ding, ding, ding. Oh, my goodness gracious. Eastern Washington. Oh, I've got to get a bell over here. You've already tied with me.

I said that with confidence, but I didn't have any. I just liked the sound of it. I thought I would have heard if it was WSU or the UW, and so that left the other two.

That was very smart of you. When I was a kid in the early days of following the Seahawks, I remember when they would talk about training camp would be in Cheney, Washington. And it would be really hot over there because it's even hotter in eastern Washington than western Washington, and it being August. And that just made a real—I remember when we would go visit people in Spokane, we would see the exit for Cheney, Washington, and I would think, that's where the Seahawks go sometimes. They also did practice at Northwest College in Kirkland as well, or trained there for some number of years, and then, of course, eventually built the VMAC. Okay, good. You are one right, one wrong. Again, you were on pace to, at a minimum, tie me, maybe even beat me. okay uh this to me again feels like maybe just because i got it wrong i don't i find this question to be annoying question three out of 12 john elway passed for 432 yards against the seahawks in 1985 but that's not the most ever who holds the record for most passing yards against seattle is it andrew peyton manning joe montana uh tony montana wait no uh ben roethlisberger

tom brady or dan marino wait suddenly we have five options that's what they're doing here peyton manning there is a skill to writing quizzes and i think you're right like i don't know if this person i don't i don't know if they have a problem is andrew there are too many cooks

in the kitchen this quiz was made by sean quinton and ed guzman well i guess it was two cooks maybe that's the right amount of cooks the sources were seahawks.com pro football reference doc and field goals.com so we want to know who you lls is that the one field yeah that's actually that's

actually a that's a pretty decent yeah yeah um okay so this is the most ever yardage against against the seahawks not during a super bowl but just during during just all time or in in a single game single game oh okay i was thinking all time um in a single game well actually yes this is the

question is it isn't a single game but it is in a single game but the question is not written very well john elway passed for 432 yards against the seahawks in 1985 but it's not the most ever who holds the record for most passing yards versus Seattle. What they've left out of there is in a single game. Yeah, they must. I mean, I

guess when you reread the question, it's like, okay, we're talking about 400 yards, then that's a game. Yeah, that's not a

career. But the fact that you've got to kind of do that math yourself is... You should say

in a game, yeah. Okay, so let's see about Montana. I don't think it's Joe Montana. I don't know that... Is it Joe Montagna? I think it's Joe Montagna. It could be Roethlisberger. Let's see here. Yeah, because He didn't really move much. He just threw it, right? So.

So Manning, Brady, Marino in a single game. I'm going to go Roethlisberger. I don't know why. Andrew Walsh, you're going to be absolutely right. All right. Look at this. I hate that I have to get my points off the back of that jerk, but so be it.

He threw for 456 yards against the Seahawks once. The previous record was in 2010 when Philip Rivers threw for 455 yards has a Charger against the Seattle Seahawks.

They should have put Rivers on the list. That would have been a fun one that nobody would have got. I mean, even as a wrong answer, I think it's a fun option.

So, Andrew, I want to be very clear. I got that one wrong, by the way. I thought maybe it was Peyton Manning or something. So right now, you've got two correct answers long before I had gotten two correct answers. So you are pulling ahead of me here. Hopefully, you're like the Hydro that looks like it's winning, but then it's going to flip out and crash, and then I'm going to zoom on in there at the very end.

Well, I don't like, I don't see this as, again, when I was talking about Wordle before, I didn't mean it as like pitting me against Becca, and I'm not trying to pit you against me here. I think these are just our journeys.

Andrew, it's Seattle against the world, man. Seattle against everyone. Have you seen those shirts? Oh, my gosh. And everybody has, like, it's like Boston versus everybody. It's like, calm down. It's not exactly what's going on in the world. Every city is like, it's us versus the world. No, it's not. Maybe not. No, it's not. Okay, question four. In 1975, Seattleites were asked to submit suggestions for the team name, receiving 20,000 entries and ultimately ending in Seahawks, the team name we now know and love. Which of the following names was not one of the 20,000 entries?

Can I take issue with the fact that know and love? I actually, while I root for the Seahawks, I do not love the name the Seahawks. I don't like team names that are either too broad like Wildcats I think you should pick a Wildcat Minnesota Wild has got to be really low I kind of like Wild

isn't that the most general thing it could be

but I like Wild because it's almost like an idea I like names that are concepts like Wild that's an adjective I think that's pretty clever but like Wildcat just say Tiger choose one anyway and i i think seahawks is kind of similar like it's not a just oh and the way the the new hampshire fisher cats came up with the name fisher cats that's not even an animal a fisher is an animal and there's nothing that's a seahawk i don't like the name seahawks and i'm sorry to be saying

that two days before the super bowl so what i'm going to read you are a list of apparently a list of of things that were submitted as possible names for this football team before it had a name except one of them is made up and this is like seven names seven potential names for the football team one of them is not real the rest of them are apparently real okay only one okay out of the 20,365 entries puddle jumpers was that real or not real squids cool dudes anchovies Traffic Jammers The Go-E Ducks So like Sort of like Gooey Duck But Go-E Ducks Or the Squirrels One of these was not an actual suggestion The Puddle Jumpers, the Squids, the Cool Dudes, the Anchovies The Traffic Jammers, the Go-E Ducks And the Squirrels

I'm thinking I need you to remind me of a couple I got Puddle Jumpers, Gooey Ducks I know it's not spelled that way squids squirrels cool dudes cool just think about me just just picture luke and then that'll help you remember cool dude you know what i'm picturing is i'm picturing you and now i'm picturing those digital sunglasses dropping down onto your face exactly you'll never forget it when you picture it that way puddle jumpers gooey ducks squids squirrels traffic jammers cool dudes or what's the one i'm missing anchovies oh yeah anchovies um let's see here Anchovies seems like maybe an easy one, but I do think that, because you said there were like thousands of submissions, right?

20,365.

So yeah, tens of thousands. And I could see somebody in Ballard thinking, well, we connect to the fishing community. Cool dudes is obviously terrible, but kids would have been entering this contest, right? And they would probably do that. That's how we end up with boats named McBoat's Face or whatever that hilarious thing was. Traffic jammers, I could see somebody thinking that back then that Seattle was overcrowded, which is hilarious. Was it the flying squirrels or just the squirrels? Nope, just squirrels. I'm going to go with squirrels. Okay. I forget the real answer to this, so I'm going to... plug in squirrels i'm gonna hit submit andrew walsh you you so-and-so you son of a squirrel

squirrels is absolutely right because it has literally nothing to do like every a lot of the other ones are somewhat like about uh you know ocean life or something right puddle jump

right and also just think about this although anchovies this would also apply to is anybody concerned about the squirrels is anybody intimidated by the score like you I mean, football, you're going to try to do something sort of majestic, sort of, you know, I don't know if menacing is the word, but something, not a squirrel. You're not going to go for the squirrel. So you're absolutely right. That was not a real suggestion.

Let me ask you a question about this quiz, too. And I know that we don't have time to, like, do the quiz and get into all the details of the answers. But, like, is the fun of this quiz, when you submit an answer, it gives you some background on it, like the New York Times news quiz? Like, oh, out of all of the suggestions, you know, Timmy Dunquiff suggested cool dudes. Like, is there any historical context that is offered?

Not really. It said, I've now scrolled to the next page and it won't let me go back, but the answer was squirrels. And then it said something like, we're just lucky they're not called the Seattle squids.

Okay. You know what I mean? Yeah, that's, this is, I could, maybe I could get a job right now.

I'm also realizing, Andrew, when you go to this quiz, it says, test your knowledge of the team. And then below it, it says, it's supposed to say, with the Seahawks in the thick of a fifth straight playoff trip. But the word with is spelled W-T-I-H. There was like a copy, there was a copy edit issue. Practically one of the first words I'm going to see is spelled W-T-I-H instead of with. Which, I mean, who am I to nitpick on these things? I mean, if anybody listened back to our show and nitpicked my mistakes, I would be embarrassed even more so than I am normally. They do that, by the way. I regret even bringing that up. I don't want to pile on here. Let's just— Okay, let's go. I mean, mostly I'm just—I'm amazed at how well you're doing, Andrew. Let's not bury the lead, okay? You're doing really well here.

Yeah, it's pretty good.

I have three out of four correct so far. I mean, that's pretty incredible. All right, question number five. Brian Bosworth and Steve Largent retired in the same year. What year was it? Oh, interesting. Was it 1980?

Okay.

1987. When they say in the same... See, that's also the wording of that. That sounds like they retired in season. Yeah. I would say Brian Bosworth and Steve Largent retired, I guess, in the same year.

I would just say the same year, not in the same year, but yeah, okay.

What year was it? Was it 1987? Was it 1991?

Mm-hmm.

Was it 1989?

Mm-hmm.

Or was it 1993? Is there an all of the above? There is not. Huh, interesting. There is anchovies for some reason I don't know why that's there

And the cool dudes, 87-91 Brian Bosworth All I'm trying to do here is Bosworth and who?

Largent

Most games started ever So Largent Largent I would know From the Tecmo Bowl game Because I played that game And I didn't really have much of an understanding of the league But I got to know some players' names Because of Tecmo Bowl 89 is the version that I played okay well that's interesting so that's going to help so it's either going to be 91 or 93 and I'm going to go

91 I Andrew I'm going to put 91 in and if I remember right oh damn it I was getting so excited sorry you are wrong I was 1989 I think I also put in

It was 89, so it must have been after the 89 season, because I swear, can I just look it up? Because I feel like this might be more fun anyway. Can I look up, first of all, did you hear that they're making a Tecmo Bowl movie? This is a true story. I just saw it the other day. Oh, I believe it.

Hey, Andrew, if the eye has been peed, there is somebody who is going to, I mean, they made a new He-Man movie. Yeah. But at least that is a storyline.

Like, Tecmo Bowl was just blips on the screen, and I love it, by the way.

Are you acting like the Emoji movie didn't have a storyline, my friend?

That's right, or even Minecraft, I guess. Okay, Tecmo Bowl lineups 1989. Oh, I should just look up Seahawks. And then, because I thought, I mean, I swear I remember Largen. That's how I knew that name as a kid. I wouldn't have known it otherwise. Here was the lineup. Here we go. the uh kelly stufer james kelly stoffer our quarterback okay uh see i don't feel maybe i played a 1990 game or something i don't know can we play a fun can we play a quick in-game game

that'll be fun for me here sure like

mr collard used to say fun times yeah make somebody pitch yeah underhand softballs that he would rocket into the outfield much to our terror so does this give you the first and last name of the players on the 1989 tech mobile game it does although this is definitely not the version

i played which is bothering me this i don't remember any well this isn't about you this is

my fun time now sir okay focus in you've already beaten me on the real game now i need to get some of my shine back okay okay so can you give me the last name of some of these players and see if i can

remember what their first name was yes i'm scrolling here okay some of these look familiar uh so for i give you first and i give you last name you give me last name i try to guess the creed craig dave craig craig dave craig okay that's oh that's the goatly yeah okay um krieger see i'm a little bit confused here okay okay i don't know what okay i think i see this how about fener oh chris or derrick fener derrick fener what about williams williams probably john l

williams exactly yes blades oh brian blades of course kane his brother benny blades was also in the league kane that one how do you spell that one k-a-n-e huh that one i does not ring a bell Who was Kane?

Raisin. No, Tommy. Tommy Kane, wide receiver. Oh, okay. That guy I don't remember.

And Heller. Last but not least, Heller. We didn't do Heller, did we? No, we didn't. I don't know who Heller was either.

Tight end, Ron Heller, number 85, was the starter. Tight end, Ron. At least on Tecmo Bowl.

Well, I started off hot, and then I kind of fell apart.

Here, I can build you back up. I can build you back up real fast here. Well, don't give me a complete. No, no, I'm giving you a – don't tell me what to do. It's my fun times, too. Kennedy.

Oh, Cortez Kennedy. Of course.

You'll never get this one.

He was dating a UW volleyball player when I lived in the dorms, or at least I don't know the nature of – no, that's not true. That wasn't Cortez Kennedy. That was Sam Adams, actually. Sam Adams, who was a different Seahawks lineman. And I remember I'd come out of the dorms, and I would just see Sam Adams sitting in his very expensive car waiting for this particular volleyball player to get done with class or whatever it was. What about Wyman?

Number 92, Dave Wyman. Wyman and Bob. That's right. Okay, should we get back to this? I'm kind of bummed that I didn't get that right. I'm also very confused as to what version of Tecmo Bowl I played because I swore Largent. I remember him going into the end zone and then it would say Largent across the top of the screen or maybe the bottom of the screen. I don't know. You didn't play Tecmo Bowl as much as I did, did you? Okay. Anyway.

All right. I'm going to have to bounce in about five minutes. So I really want to get to this. I'm going to do this next question because it's interesting. And then I want to get to the question that I thought was particularly interesting and interesting to you as well, Andrew. So who was the only Seahawk to ever wear the number 12? Think about this. They retired the number 12 not because of the great accomplishments of somebody who wore the number 12, but because that's designated for the fans now in Seattle, the 12s. But before they thought that whole thing up, there was a guy wearing the number 12.

Was it? Okay, good. There's multiple choice.

Yeah, was it Dave Craig? Was it Sam Adkins? Was it Jim Zorn? Was it Rick Meyer? Or was it Warren Moon? These are all quarterbacks. All quarterbacks for the Seahawks. 12 would be a quarterback number. Dave Craig, Sam Adkins, Jim Zorn, Rick Meyer, or Warren Moon?

Well, I feel like if it was Warren Moon, they might have retired it because he's Warren Moon, right? And maybe the same as Craig and Zorn.

See, Andrew, you don't give yourself enough credit, my friend. That's very deductive reasoning. And you're right, it's not Warren Moon. But I like how your brain's working.

I get him a little bit confused, though, anyway, because I think of him as an oiler, though, because I think, again, from Tecmo Bowl. And by the way, I did find the Tecmo Bowl that has the lineup that I remember. Was it 88 or something? I'm trying to figure out what I was looking at before, what year that was. But this one has Dave Craig, Kurt Warner, Daryl Turner, Steve Largent, John L. Williams again. Downtown Daryl Turner. Let's see here. I'll skip to Joe Nash, Jeff Bryant, Brian Bosworth. Yeah, and the defense. Anyway, all right. But that team that I just read to you, would you open it off the top of your head if that is before or after the team I was just quizzing you on about last names and first names? Like would Wyman have come before or after these guys? Okay, it doesn't matter.

I think Wyman would have come after them.

So you said it's definitely not Moon. It's not Moon. And I was sort of thinking. that Zorn may be kind of a similar situation. I don't know who Adkins is. Yeah, Zorn was kind of a Seattle legend. Yeah, you would think that there'd be more celebration around it. I'm going to say it's Adkins or Meyer. Is it Meyer or Myers? I don't even know. It's confusing because it's M-I-R-E-R,

but I'm going to lock you in on Sam Adkins because Andrew is absolutely right. Okay, I'll take it. Ding, ding, ding.

I had narrowed it down to two, but I'll get a half point for that one. How about that? And I know you've got to go.

Sam Adkins who was the he was the Dave Wyman of the broadcast for many many years it was Tony Ventrella and Sam Adkins I think maybe calling it or maybe Sam Adkins was a big part of the broadcast and it's always I wouldn't say Bob Euker-ish in that Bob Euker's entire shtick was like I wasn't very good at football but Sam Adkins was a baseball excuse me Sam Adkins was kind of a perennial backup he didn't actually because he was behind And maybe Zorn and Craig, he didn't ever get to play a whole ton, although he wasn't bad when he played, but he was the number 12. And that was kind of always a sort of running joke that he had his number retired, even though he was not a particularly accomplished player, and he was one of the color commentary guys.

Nice. All right, well, I'll tell you what. Here's the big question. Oh, you have another one? I'm concerned about your time here. Okay.

Thank you. I appreciate that. Here's the big question, the one that I found the most interesting. How did the Seahawks secondary get its nickname Legion of Boom? Is it because, did it come about when members of the secondary started knocking helmets and saying boom in the locker room before games? Is it because Richard Sherman is a comic book fan and decided on the name? Did it come from a sports radio show caller who suggested the nickname? Or did it start the night the Seahawks shut down the 49ers during a thunderstorm?

What was the last one? I think I know the answer, but what was the last one?

Did it start the night the Seahawks shut down the 49ers during a thunderstorm?

No, I don't think so. I'm pretty sure that they claim on 710 ESPN, I think on the Bob and Dave show or whatever they call it, Wyman show, I think they claim it was one of Wyman's listeners who coined it.

Andrew, you're absolutely right.

That one I knew.

That one is the only one that I knew knew. I had no idea about this, and I found it totally fascinating. It's now one of the most popular nicknames in sports The Legion of Boom Well, I don't know how you quantify that But okay It originated before the 2012 season Cam Chancellor was being interviewed by Bob and Graz Oh, Bob and Graz before Wyman, okay On 710 ESPN Seattle When he told the hosts he wanted to bring the boom This is what Cam Chancellor said A caller then texted the name as part of a poll And after the approval of Richard Sherman the name was cemented could you imagine being some rando 710 espn listener and firing something off on the text line uh we should call them a legion of boom and it's like they actually said yeah that's pretty good we'll use it it becomes like the fearsome foursome or you know whatever you know just like the purple people eaters like just like an iconic defensive nickname in the nfl like that's pretty cool yeah it is and i'm kind of surprised that there isn't more

Like I said, I had heard that, but I heard that because I listen to that station a lot. And I think I hear Bob reference it from time to time, but not even in an especially goading way or like an especially boastful way. Show off. But just I kind of like every now and then he'll just sort of like, yeah, isn't that interesting? But I'm kind of surprised that there isn't more made of it when, you know, newspaper writers and just, you know, blogs and everybody are trying to fill Super Bowl week. Like, why not interview the person who texted that in, you know?

Well, because it's probably impossible to know.

You would think that somebody would claim it, though, you would think.

Well, right. But, I mean, I would claim it if I thought I could get away with it. Try it. I don't know that it wasn't you. Well, we've already recorded this whole segment. I've just blown.

Good point. If it was you and you got that question wrong on the quiz, that's on you.

Well, have you noticed my memory is going lately, dude?

What was the famous – didn't the bear – I'm just – this is not important. I'm going to start the music now. But when you were listing famous defenses, didn't the Bears have a famous defense? Or am I just making that up? Maybe they just had iconic players. The Monsters of the Midway, maybe? Yeah, maybe.

Was that them or was that a New York team? You had the Fearsome Foursome. I think that was a Rams defense. You had the Purple People Eaters. Was that a Vikings defense? You had the Monsters of the Midway. I don't even know if that's specific to the defense or just a team.

Chicago Bears defense, Monsters of the Midway, according to AI, which I don't trust at all. It also said that Blur's days is too bad they're late.

Yes, exactly. That the marsupial gurgle is something that Seahawks fans do to cheer on their team.

We're all going to be marsupial gurgling like crazy on Sunday. I'll tell you that.

I'm worried about Monday, by the way. Should we do a late dialogue?

No, you can't. You have a busy Monday, probably.

No, we need to because I'm going to be—I didn't even tell you this. I've got to fly to L.A. really early on Monday morning. I'm going to be trying to break into the hotel Monday in order for us to record the show before I go out and do some TV stuff. So, yeah, we might—you mean you're worried because you think it's going to go so late on Sunday that you're going to need a late start on Monday?

Well, I know it's not going to go late. We never really talked about my Super Bowl viewing plans. We don't have time to get into it now, but I've been very anxious about it Because for the past, I don't know, eight Super Bowls or whenever the, you know, however long and Vives and I have been doing this podcast, 10 years or something, I've been at home with a notebook, like with nobody else here, paying very close attention to the commercials so that I can be ready for both TBTL on Monday morning and after these messages to talk commercials. And I don't think I'm going to do that this year because I kind of want to be with friends and watch the game. But I also know what's going to happen is I'm going to be very quickly not paying attention to the work I'm supposed to be doing and just probably having side sippers with Kevin. And then the next thing you know, I'm going to be I'm going to have no idea what happened in the game or the commercials.

So win win.

Yeah, exactly. So, well, I don't know. Be prepared for that. Don't ask me any questions on Monday.

I will have I will have memorized all of it for both of us, I think. And if not, I'll re-watch the Super Bowl. If they win, I might just re-watch it on the flight down to L.A., just for the funsies. But anyway, okay, well, you and I, we'll coordinate over the weekend about what Monday looks like. But certainly much to discuss one way or the other come Monday. In the meantime, that's going to bring us to the end of our broadcast week. Thank you so much for spending the time with us. We really appreciate it. We'll be back here on Monday with more Imaginary Radio. In the meantime, have a great weekend, everybody. Stay safe, stay warm, go Seahawks, and please remember, no mountain too tall. And good luck to all.

Power out.