The Taylor Swift-Travis Kelce Edition
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Speaker C: I’m Stefan Tatsis, and this is Slate’s Sports Podcast.
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Speaker C: Listen for the week of September 25, 2023.
Speaker C: On this week’s show, Spencer Hall breaks down a crazy Saturday in college football that included the Humbling of Coach Prime and 240 something current coaches beefing with 280 something former coaches.
Speaker C: Ben Lindbergh of the ringer explains baseball’s pretty wild.
Speaker C: Wild Card Races the greatness of Ronald Acunya Jr.
Speaker C: And the future of Shohei Otani.
Speaker C: And finally, Nadira Goff of Slate and Dan McQuade of defector join to discuss a new documentary about Philadelphia eagle center Jason Kelsey and his brother Travis’s new pal Taylor Swift.
Speaker C: I’m in Washington, DC.
Speaker C: I’m the author of the book’s Word Freak.
Speaker C: A few seconds of panic and wild and outside.
Speaker C: I also once broke the news that Wall Street junk bond king Michael Milken would plead guilty to securities and tax crimes.
Speaker C: Josh Levine is off this week, but you can listen to him on the series of which he is the editorial director one year.
Speaker C: The new season All About 1955 is out now, if you haven’t heard Josh’s episode about the Cannon Street All Stars, the all black Little League team that white teams wouldn’t play, you should do that.
Speaker C: The most recent episode is about, and I quote, the communist hunting housewives who spawned a far right conspiracy theory about an American gulag.
Speaker C: Slate staff writer Joel Anderson, the host, most recently of Slow Burn season eight, Becoming Justice.
Speaker C: Thomas also is away this week, which leaves me and our guests trying to fill the huge Josh Joel void in our bonus segment for Slate Plus, members Nadira Goff and Dan McQuade will stick around to talk some more about Tayte and Philly sports movies.
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Speaker C: Plus, Dion Sanders and his Colorado Buffaloes travel to Oregon on Saturday for their what’s left of the Pac Twelve Conference regular season opener.
Speaker C: In the run up to the game, Sanders seemed less chatty than before the Buffs shock the world wins over TCU, nebraska and Colorado State.
Speaker C: Maybe that’s because he knew his team didn’t stand a realistic chance against the 10th ranked Ducks.
Speaker C: Oregon head coach Dan Lanning, on the other hand, was so confident that he let ABC’s cameras into the locker room to record his run through a brick wall.
Speaker C: Pregame speech.
Speaker C: Let’s listen.
Speaker D: You’re tougher your helmet, right?
Speaker D: Every moment.
Speaker D: The Cinderella story is over, man.
Speaker D: Right?
Speaker D: They’re fighting for clicks.
Speaker D: We’re fighting for wins.
Speaker D: There’s a difference, right?
Speaker D: There’s a difference, right?
Speaker D: This game ain’t going to be played in Hollywood.
Speaker D: It’s going to be played on the grass, right?
Speaker D: It’s going to be played on the grass.
Speaker C: Landing went on to say, this ain’t no party.
Speaker C: This ain’t no disco.
Speaker C: This ain’t no fooling around, no time for dancing or lovey dovey.
Speaker C: I ain’t got time for that now.
Speaker C: Joining me now to discuss this game and others on a weekend that featured six ranked versus ranked and seven unbeaten versus unbeaten games, it’s Spencer Hall.
Speaker C: He’s a co host of the Shutdown Full Cast podcast, a panelist on the SEC network’s Thinking Out Loud, a producer of the storytelling portal, Channel Six, and so, so much more.
Speaker C: Spencer, welcome back to the show.
Speaker E: I appreciate the reference because college football will refuse to make sense and will happily stop making sense.
Speaker C: All right, let’s start with that a** kicking in eugene, Oregon.
Speaker C: Ran a fake punt from its own 17 yard line in the first quarter, led 35 nothing at the half.
Speaker C: Went forward on fourth and goal from the one in the third quarter and then stopped trying.
Speaker C: It ended 42 to six.
Speaker C: We were prepared for a battle.
Speaker C: It didn’t end up being a battle, Lanning said after the game.
Speaker C: Ouch.
Speaker C: Dion Sanders, to his credit, took the trash talk.
Speaker C: Well, take shots, they won.
Speaker E: True.
Speaker E: And you get to talk.
Speaker E: It a thing that happened a couple of different times in a couple of different spots in college football this past weekend.
Speaker E: But for anyone who I think had been watching the Colorado bubble, this was not a surprise because everyone knew they had no fat guys.
Speaker E: You need athletic fat guys.
Speaker E: You need linemen defensive and offensive to make this thing go.
Speaker E: Dionne was able to flip a lot through the portal, a lot.
Speaker E: But it takes time to sort of coalesce the larger talents around each other to get an offensive line that can get real push, and to get a defensive line that’s able to disrupt whatever they’re trying to do on offense.
Speaker E: Colorado simply doesn’t have those.
Speaker E: They were able to get a lot of skilled players.
Speaker E: They were able to plug and play Shadur Sanders in an attack that has been extremely productive against bad defenses.
Speaker E: And it’s exciting.
Speaker E: It’s exciting when new things happen.
Speaker E: It’s exciting when you have a coach like Deion Sanders who is good at his the.
Speaker E: If you can get one clarion point through all of the madness, and this is a fully broken brained discourse at this point among people who are watching college football, because everything about the Dion experiment breaks a certain type of brain in ways that are very obvious to see.
Speaker E: But you need to know the dude’s pretty good at his job, and I think pretty good is fair.
Speaker E: This is not.
Speaker E: Look at Ohio State.
Speaker E: Ohio State played Notre Dame and they had trouble getting a yard.
Speaker E: That is historically one of the two or three best programs in the nation.
Speaker E: Every single year and they didn’t have enough offensive linemen to get a yard at certain times in that game.
Speaker E: Notre Dame had to gift them an empty space in order to do that.
Speaker E: I was not surprised at the result.
Speaker E: In fact, I was actually kind of surprised that it wasn’t worse given how it went in the first quarter.
Speaker E: Because on that first drive, if you want to know what to look in for a blowout when you go, hey, is this going to be a blowout?
Speaker E: Was anybody breathing hard on the offense on the first drive?
Speaker E: No one was breaking a sweat and they were pulling off six, seven, eight yards at a time.
Speaker E: It wasn’t big plays, but it was easy.
Speaker E: And when you hit the easy button on the first drive, it’s going to get bad fast.
Speaker C: Well, you could see Bo Nix is a real quarterback too.
Speaker C: And the difference in talent was so apparent from that first drive and throughout the first half.
Speaker C: I mean, it was effortless.
Speaker C: You know, I have to think that Dion, who’s incredibly self aware and it seems weird to say that, but I think that he is.
Speaker C: I mean, I think Sanders knows his limitations.
Speaker C: He not only recruited well in the Portal through his charismatic personality, he also hired an incredibly good coaching staff to get them as far as he’s managed to get them.
Speaker C: This was a one in eleven team last year, as we’ve discussed before on this show.
Speaker C: But he must know that, look, we’re not making the playoff here.
Speaker C: He knows what the limitations are and he also knows how to manipulate everything too.
Speaker C: Obviously, he’s a master of, you know, Jay, Caspian, Kang Tweeted.
Speaker C: What I thought was a really perceptive thing about Dion, which was he said respect to prime for understanding.
Speaker C: The first rule of content, drop all your takes early because people aren’t going to pay attention all that long.
Speaker C: But if you entertain them at the start, they’ll just associate you with that forever.
Speaker C: Even if you’re losing by 40 to Oregon, I don’t think that Colorado can finish three and nine and people will still say nice things about how successful they’ve been, but if they go seven and five, eight and four and play in some lesser bowl game, it’ll be a success.
Speaker E: They’ve already you need to understand this is already a success.
Speaker E: This is already a success in terms of Colorado.
Speaker E: Brand so we’re talking about somebody who is going to get generational results there for Colorado football already and that’s before he gets a second round of recruiting.
Speaker E: So that’s incredible to me.
Speaker E: Dan Lanning did the same.
Speaker E: It’s my favorite part.
Speaker E: Dan Lanning had the great irony of delivering what we would call a fire take in the locker room, saying that they were playing know, actual football for wins, not for clicks, doing that in front of every camera that he had turned on him in the locker room prime professional wrestling bit.
Speaker E: Absolutely professional.
Speaker E: Like the person standing in the middle of the ring full of people going, I do this for me, not for you.
Speaker E: Which is why I want to make sure the camera’s pointed right at me.
Speaker E: So I love it.
Speaker E: I love the showmanship on both sides.
Speaker E: This is what you’re supposed to do.
Speaker E: Talk it.
Speaker E: Dan Lanning has been recruiting his a** off at Oregon and isn’t there to lose and went and got a quarterback most people had assumed had kind of peaked or plateaued and has turned him into not only one of the Pac twelve’s best quarterbacks, but one of the best ones in the nation.
Speaker E: If you told me Bo Nicks was going to be a legitimate Heisman contender at Oregon in the year 2023 back in 2020, I would have slapped you.
Speaker E: I would have completely dismissed the idea out of hand.
Speaker E: But they’ve done it, and more importantly, they’re significantly better along both lines.
Speaker E: They’re a big, mean, physical team.
Speaker E: They ran a fake punt with a lineman.
Speaker E: They ran a fake punt with a dude who qualifies as heavy baggage on most airlines.
Speaker E: That is outstanding work on his part, so don’t sleep on that part of the story here either.
Speaker E: Yeah, this is the worst team that Dion will field at Colorado.
Speaker E: I think Oregon could say the same thing because they’re only going to get better as well.
Speaker C: You mentioned Ohio State, Notre Dame.
Speaker C: That game ended with Notre Dame fielding ten players for the last two plays of the game, the last play of which was Ohio State’s winning touchdown with no time left on the clock.
Speaker C: Football, I am told, Spencer, you’re allowed to have eleven players on the field, is that right?
Speaker E: I’d have to double check.
Speaker E: But most plays, they seem to get away with having eleven on the field.
Speaker E: And that is the kind of mistake that unravels what had been a for the previous 58 minutes of the game had been a beautiful performance by Notre Dame.
Speaker E: They’d done everything they’d wanted to do.
Speaker E: They’d ground the gears down, they’d slowed that game to a crawl.
Speaker E: They’d held Marvin Harrison Jr.
Speaker E: The best wide receiver in football in my opinion.
Speaker E: They’d held him to relatively minor contributions with some outstanding defense and a whole lot of attention, and it was all undone with a series of simple mistakes.
Speaker E: There’s a bad play on that goal line stand or lack of a goal line stand in terms of forgetting to put eleven people on the field, that’s bad.
Speaker E: So in terms of unraveling every good thing you did in the last minute or two of that game, notre Dame did it.
Speaker E: Notre Dame did it.
Speaker E: And they let Ohio State off the hook.
Speaker E: Which makes it even funnier that Ryan Day manages to cut his own promo after the game on Lou Holtz and anyone who managed to doubt Ohio State by saying, oh, we’ve only played one bad half.
Speaker E: I could probably point to two bad halves there Ryan over the last two years.
Speaker E: Two or three years.
Speaker C: Let’s listen to Ryan Day after the game because I mentioned in the intro you had two coaches going after old former coaches who talk on television for a living.
Speaker C: Now, this was the first one, coach.
Speaker F: You knew this one wasn’t going to be easy, but it came down to the wire.
Speaker F: And what can you say about the performance from your quarterback, Kyle McCord to finish that drive?
Speaker D: Toughness.
Speaker D: Toughness.
Speaker D: That’s it physicality across the board.
Speaker D: Finish it off.
Speaker D: Having like I like to know where Lou Holtz is right now.
Speaker D: What he said about our team, what he said about our team.
Speaker D: I cannot believe this is a tough team right here.
Speaker D: We’re proud to be from Ohio and it’s always been Ohio against the world and it’ll continue to be Ohio against the world.
Speaker D: But I’ll tell you what, I love those kids and we get a tough.
Speaker C: Know, they just don’t win in Ohio.
Speaker C: They’re just the plucky bunch of underdogs.
Speaker C: It’s hard to recruit there to Ohio State, isn’t it?
Speaker E: This is one of my favorite tropes, the underdog Ohio.
Speaker E: The one that’s produced more presidents in the history of the United States than almost any other state and managed to be the center of American industrialization and production and has the largest state university known to God or man.
Speaker E: It’s plucky underdog Ohio State.
Speaker E: Sure, sure, buddy.
Speaker E: I didn’t quite buy the promo.
Speaker E: I don’t I love that he gets the chance to get it off as a connoisseur of these kind of know it’s C tier.
Speaker E: And it has to do nothing.
Speaker E: It’s nothing to do with the material.
Speaker E: It’s the delivery.
Speaker E: Ryan Day’s just not a promo guy.
Speaker E: I know he felt it deeply.
Speaker E: I know he did.
Speaker E: I just don’t think again to go back to wrestling mike work is not his strong suit.
Speaker E: All right?
Speaker E: Beating teams that put ten defenders on the field when you have eleven guys on offense, that is definitely a strength of theirs.
Speaker E: And by charges, I mean this, that Ryan Day in his time at Ohio State has done a great job recruiting.
Speaker E: He’s done a great job developing an offense.
Speaker E: The defense has come along, but when push comes to shove, they can be shoved.
Speaker E: I think that’s dependent, by the way, largely and almost entirely on the Michigan games that they’ve lost.
Speaker E: Two games.
Speaker E: Two games.
Speaker E: That’s it two games to Michigan, back to back.
Speaker E: And that’s been enough to sort of make this label stick.
Speaker E: So I don’t know if bowling somebody over with a man advantage necessarily helps you beat that claim.
Speaker E: I know what it does do, which is this that this team now has a proven record of winning wild ones.
Speaker E: If you can win a wild one, if you can win an ugly one, if you win a close one, I have faith in you as a football team, if you really don’t care how it looks and you’re able to do this and you weren’t shook at the end, that makes you pretty tough, like I’ll say.
Speaker E: Yeah, mentally pretty tough.
Speaker E: Do I still think you can get a yard against a good defense?
Speaker E: I want to see it with 1111 on eleven, not when the other team has made a mistake of basic arithmetic.
Speaker E: Take that, Notre Dame.
Speaker E: In your academic rankings.
Speaker E: Ten is not eleven.
Speaker C: The other part about Ryan Day’s little post game on field speechifying was that, come on, like the whole going after Lou Holtz.
Speaker C: I mean, Lou Holtz.
Speaker C: Lou Holtz.
Speaker E: In addition, he’s always going to pick Notre Dame.
Speaker C: He’s always going to pick he’s former Notre Dame coach.
Speaker C: He’s also like 100 years old and he’s not a particularly likable human being at this point.
Speaker E: Not at all.
Speaker E: Maybe never was.
Speaker E: Yeah, let’s just go let’s revise that history a little bit.
Speaker E: Lou Holtz is the kind of guy who’s definitely going to call you soft because you’re not Lou Holtz.
Speaker E: Right.
Speaker E: Because we all know real toughness is getting every program you ever coached on probation and then leaving.
Speaker E: That’s real toughness right there.
Speaker E: Yeah.
Speaker E: Yelling at Lou’s, fun and yelling at Lou feels good.
Speaker E: It feels good, even for the uninterested observer.
Speaker E: But man, Lou’s always going to pick Notre Dame.
Speaker E: He also coached at Ohio State, something he said in those remarks, by the way.
Speaker E: He was the defensive coordinator under Woody Hayes.
Speaker E: And Lou did have one of the best lines I’ve ever heard, which he probably didn’t actually say, he probably just thought it up after right.
Speaker E: But he did have one of the best lines ever, which is when they were playing USC and OJ.
Speaker E: Simpson scored like, I think like a 76 yarder on him.
Speaker E: Like just ripped off a 76 yard run for a touchdown.
Speaker E: Woody Hayes storms over him with storm line and goes, what’s he doing going 76 yards through my defense?
Speaker E: And Lou goes, well, he couldn’t go any farther than that.
Speaker E: Couldn’t go 77.
Speaker E: The end zone, like the goal line’s right there.
Speaker E: That’s why he went that far.
Speaker E: Coach.
Speaker C: The other coach that yelled at an old man over the weekend was Jake Dickert of Washington State after they beat Oregon State 38 35.
Speaker C: Washington State.
Speaker C: Oregon State, of course, the last two Pac.
Speaker C: Twelve teams standing.
Speaker C: Lee Corso on ESPN Game day apparently said he made some terrible joke about how no one wants us bowl.
Speaker C: This was the no one wants us bowl again, going after old guys, I don’t quite see the motivational value here.
Speaker E: But I feel a little bit better.
Speaker C: Do you feel a little bit better about this one?
Speaker D: I do.
Speaker E: Because Washington State’s punching up.
Speaker E: They really are because they have been one of the OD men out in realignment they are always the OD man because pullman’s OD and Washington State is an OD program.
Speaker E: It’s a place that’s had to do OD things to survive.
Speaker E: They were the original.
Speaker E: Let’s go spread and get a quarterback and play some bizarre, charismatic, high octane football before most teams got on board with that package.
Speaker E: They are the team that everyone else agonized over it.
Speaker E: They jumped in feet first with hiring Mike Leach.
Speaker E: They’re weird.
Speaker E: They’re weird, and they are in a point now where the future is still very much in the air.
Speaker E: So, yeah, go ahead, talk it, man.
Speaker E: Go ahead.
Speaker E: If the only time game day pays attention to you is to say stuff like that, and you end up winning arguably the most exciting game of the weekend, at least the most dynamic game.
Speaker E: I don’t know if you saw play one, Cam Ward, who cam Ward has been my nominee for most likely to be nicknamed Crazy Legs in 1942.
Speaker E: Like the kind of quarterback where you go, man, it’s a ride, and we’re all on it with him.
Speaker E: He’s very much one of those quarterbacks.
Speaker E: First play of the game, he on corks like a 70 yarder, just a bomb.
Speaker E: And that’s how you knew.
Speaker E: You’re like, okay, this game’s going to be great.
Speaker E: This is how it’s going to go.
Speaker E: This is the tempo we’re playing at.
Speaker E: And they end up winning, and they’re going to continue winning because they do happen to be a really good football team.
Speaker E: And by talking this kind of mess, he’s motivating his team.
Speaker E: That’s it.
Speaker E: You got to remember, coaches are always talking to their team.
Speaker E: Even when they’re talking to you, they’re talking to their team.
Speaker E: And even when they’re talking to their wives, they’re talking to their team.
Speaker E: And if they’re talking to their kids, in their head, that’s the team, too.
Speaker E: So that’s exactly what Dickert’s doing here.
Speaker E: I fully support it.
Speaker E: Also, great delivery, too.
Speaker E: Great delivery.
Speaker D: Because the facts say people watch the Cougs and the people watch the Cougs more than every team that’s left over in the Big Twelve.
Speaker D: Coach Corso, he’s at the point now where they give him the sheet and he reads off of it and they try to make a joke, but it.
Speaker C: Didn’T even great delivery.
Speaker C: Little mean.
Speaker C: I mean, Corso is at the point now where they give him a sheet and he tries to make a joke, and it doesn’t even make sense.
Speaker C: He’s an old man.
Speaker C: I mean, cut Lee a break.
Speaker C: Flip side.
Speaker C: He did the you know, the better point that I thought he made was when he went into the I’d love to have a conversation with Coach Corso about XYZ.
Speaker C: It was about breaking up the know.
Speaker C: I’d love to have a conversation about how he thinks student athletes and mental health and flying them all over the country is a positive thing.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker E: And full disclosure, I am a contributor to ESPN, so let’s go ahead and get that out there.
Speaker E: But that doesn’t really affect what I’m going to say about this which is I think they could have that conversation.
Speaker E: Like why lee coached.
Speaker E: Like if anyone understands institutional struggle, it should be the guy who not only coached Indiana but coached Florida State when they were in the wilderness, when they were on the come up, before Bobby Bowden turned them into a mega.
Speaker E: So yeah, like a lot of these things when we know, okay, we’re talking about larger issues here, I’m always like, well that is true.
Speaker E: And the influence of television Money, ESPN and Fox’s Money is largely unaccounted for in the sphere in terms of how it has moved around actual geographical assets into a map free geography, free television product that ultimately will serve nobody.
Speaker E: Remember, the dream of capital is to have business without people.
Speaker E: That’s it.
Speaker E: And then the more we can eliminate people, the better.
Speaker E: And that’s what TV money is pushing for.
Speaker E: If we can get brands without the cities, if we can get events without worrying about the travel, that’s fine.
Speaker E: They’re just going to drive after the dollar and that’s no different.
Speaker E: In college football, there needs to be a conversation between two people as well about this because they can work that out.
Speaker E: The larger thing we can’t work out is at what point do we manage to accommodate people into the sport and to account for their needs.
Speaker E: That’s really it.
Speaker E: And I say, like, college football in particular has a problem with this because at the moment they’re not considered employees.
Speaker E: That’s going to stop because the Supreme Court’s already basically invited the easy pick six.
Speaker E: They’ve already said, please someone challenge this so we can continue to talk about the absolute sham of a business model amateurism operates under spencer hall shut down.
Speaker C: Fullcast podcast, SEC Network, ESPN, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
Speaker C: Spencer, always a pleasure.
Speaker C: Thanks man.
Speaker E: Likewise.
Speaker C: Up next, Ben Lindbergh of the Ringer joins to discuss major League Baseball’s wild card races.
Speaker C: Seven days remain in the Major League Baseball regular season.
Speaker C: Six teams have clinched playoff berths.
Speaker C: Eleven teams remain, mathematically anyway, alive for the remaining six spots.
Speaker C: I hope as many of them as the schedule allows, finish with the same record.
Speaker C: And that playoff spots are determined by tiebreaker number five last half of intra league games plus one leading to much cat or walling about Major League Baseball eliminating game 163s with playoff expansion last year.
Speaker C: Our friend Ben Lindbergh is here now.
Speaker C: He’s a senior editor at The Ringer where he writes a lot about Star Wars these days.
Speaker C: The co host of the long running baseball podcast effectively Wild and the co author of The Only Rule is It Has to Work and the MVP Machine.
Speaker C: Hey Ben.
Speaker B: Hey, Stefan.
Speaker B: And I’m with you.
Speaker B: There are some rules changes that I’ve conceded defeat on, that I’ve reached the resignation acceptance phase like the zombie runner.
Speaker B: I don’t think we’re getting rid of it except in the postseason when it goes away as MLB acknowledges that it’s a farce, and it makes a mockery of the game.
Speaker B: But I’m with you on the tiebreakers.
Speaker B: I’m sad that we no longer have tiebreaker games, and so I am rooting for some apocalyptic, catastrophic scenario where everyone ties and it exposed just how unsatisfying it would be to decide these division races and wild card races on something other than head to head games to hash it out at the end.
Speaker C: I mean, there are so many good examples of game 163 being amazing or 165 going back even farther.
Speaker C: 51.
Speaker C: Giants dodgers 78 yankees.
Speaker C: Red Sox I mean, these are iconic moments in baseball history.
Speaker C: Why would you not want to encourage that?
Speaker B: Yeah, I’m with you.
Speaker B: It’s something that set baseball apart.
Speaker B: There are so many great memories.
Speaker B: It’s more complicated to keep track of who holds the tiebreaker over who else, and what is that even decided on.
Speaker B: And really, you’re just talking about one extra day or two.
Speaker B: They did away with the tiebreaker games because they wanted to expand the playoff field and have more playoff games and didn’t want the postseason to stretch deeper into November, which I understand, but really, it’s just a day or two, and it’s not even every year.
Speaker B: So for me, it would be well worthwhile.
Speaker C: All right.
Speaker C: Orioles, Rays, Twins, Braves, Brewers, Dodgers all in the playoffs.
Speaker C: As I said, too many teams to name, still trying to wild card.
Speaker C: But these are good races and realistically in the American League.
Speaker C: Rangers, Blue Jays, Astros, Mariners are alive for three spots in the NL.
Speaker C: Phillies, Diamondbacks, Cubs, Marlins, cincinnati kind of have shots for three spots.
Speaker C: Also, why have we seen such sort of parity down the stretch with all of these teams?
Speaker B: Yeah, it seemed like we were sort of moving past the super team era that we’ve been in for the past several seasons, where you’d have teams that were just leaps and bounds better than everyone else.
Speaker B: You still have Atlanta, the best team in baseball, and we can talk about them, but the highs are a little less high than they’ve been.
Speaker B: The Dodgers will probably win 100 games, but they won’t win, you know, 111 or something like that.
Speaker B: And the Astros are are still sort of trying to just slip into the playoffs here.
Speaker B: They’re not the overpowering Astros that we’ve known.
Speaker B: So there’s a little less overwhelming team talent in baseball these days than there has been over the past several season.
Speaker B: And I think that’s a good thing.
Speaker B: And part of the rationale for expanding the playoffs, ostensibly at least, other than the fact that you just want more games to sell to TV networks in October, is that you would have meaningful races down the stretch and that more teams would be in it.
Speaker B: And at least this year, that is proving to be the case.
Speaker B: So it’s really coming down to the wire here in the Al West and then, relatedly in the Al Wild card race and of course in the NL wild card race.
Speaker B: And granted, some of the teams that are vying for those last playoff spots are not great teams, but they are similarly mediocre and so that at least is providing some pretty compelling races.
Speaker C: On the non mediocre front, the Braves have had just an unbelievable offensive performance this season.
Speaker C: Jason Stark in the athletic put together, as he always does, a long list of statistics that basically argue that the 2023 Atlanta Braves are the 1927 New York Yankees or better.
Speaker B: Yeah, you can make a pretty good case if you just look at WRC plus weighted runs created plus, which is just sort of your holistic everything in one number measure, where 100 is average.
Speaker B: The Braves are at 124, so they’re 24% better than the league this year.
Speaker B: The 1927 Murderers Row Yankees were 125, so essentially the same.
Speaker B: And it’s these Braves and the Astros of a few years ago when they were really overpowering, they were at 124 and then you had other Babe Ruth, Luke Eric Yankees teams in the mix there.
Speaker B: So they are right in the running for best offense ever.
Speaker B: They already have hit the most home runs in National League history.
Speaker B: They are within range of having the most home runs of any Al or NL team, which is pretty impressive because this year is not the most extreme home run rate year.
Speaker B: The ball has been deadened a bit relative to where it was a few years ago, so it’s actually saying something when you set a home run record these days.
Speaker B: So top to bottom, that lineup is pretty overpowering.
Speaker C: They’re going to be the first team in history probably to hit 300 home runs and steal at least 100 bases.
Speaker C: They’re going to have a team slugging percentage potentially of 500, which is crazy, no team ever has done that.
Speaker C: And leading the way, you mentioned the home runs.
Speaker C: Matt Olsen has more than 50 in a year where nobody’s got a ton of home runs, certainly not like last year when Aaron Judge broke the American League.
Speaker C: But Ronald Acuna Jr.
Speaker C: Is the superstar of this team.
Speaker C: He joined the 40 40 club, 40 homers, 40 steals, except that it’s going to be like 70 steals and 40 homers.
Speaker B: Yeah, that’s one of the fun races to follow down the stretch here in this final week, too, the NL MVP race, because you have a CUNY who is sort of the presumptive favorite all season long.
Speaker B: But Mookie Betts is outstripping him at least by some winds of prevalent replacement measurements.
Speaker B: He’s great at defense, which is not Acunya’s strength.
Speaker B: And then former Brave Freddie Freeman is also in the running there, trying to have a 60 double season.
Speaker B: Acunya is just incredible though, 40 homers going for a 40 70 season.
Speaker B: And granted, obviously it’s been made a little bit easier to steal bases this year with the rules changes that have promoted steals.
Speaker B: But even so, he is lapping the league in this category.
Speaker B: So it’s not like everyone is doing this.
Speaker B: He is still very much an outlier here.
Speaker B: And it’s so unusual to see someone with that kind of power, even if they have that sort of speed, to utilize it this way, because how he’s done it, he’s not the fastest guy in baseball, but he’s been incredibly aggressive when it comes to stealing.
Speaker B: Anytime he has a chance, anytime he’s been on base, he’s going.
Speaker B: And that’s rare when you have a guy who’s also hitting 40 homers.
Speaker B: Because players, not only do they tend to slow down a little bit as they get older, but if they’re big power threats, often they tend to dial it back a bit because they think, hey, if I have a slide here, I break a pinky, I’m done, I’m out.
Speaker B: I’m going to hurt my team more if I actually go for it.
Speaker B: And no, he’s saying tell with it, we’re just going to go.
Speaker B: I think he’s just so happy to be back and healthy and his knees are fine and he is taking full advantage of the rules changes.
Speaker C: Yeah.
Speaker C: And he stole bases before in his career.
Speaker C: He stole a lot of bases in the minor leagues.
Speaker B: Yeah, right.
Speaker B: And he had 37.
Speaker B: He came close to a 40 40 season in 2019.
Speaker B: But this is extreme even for him.
Speaker C: In the American League, the best team appears to be the Baltimore Orioles, which is kind of a hard sentence to imagine saying based on their recent performances, but this has been a steady and well orchestrated construction of this roster.
Speaker C: This doesn’t feel fluky anymore.
Speaker B: No, it’s been fun to see this come together.
Speaker B: Obviously, it was extremely unfun along the way because they tanked hard to get to this point.
Speaker B: They did the Astros rebuild and it was led by some of the same people who orchestrated the Astros rebuild.
Speaker B: So they ran it back.
Speaker B: They did the same sort of strategy and it wasn’t clear that it would work again because it wasn’t new and novel.
Speaker B: They weren’t the only ones doing this.
Speaker B: It wasn’t clear that you could still tank and come out the other side as a really strong team.
Speaker B: And yet they have, which is a testament both to how hard they tanked and also the quality of their scouting and drafting and player development.
Speaker B: It’s just every other week this season, they’ve brought up some highly touted prospects, many of whom look very similar.
Speaker B: And so that’s been kind of a meme, just being unable to tell the top Orioles prospects apart, but especially the position players, not even all of them are up yet.
Speaker B: They still have the best prospect in baseball, jackson Holliday, who’s at AAA, as well as Kobe Mayo, another great prospect.
Speaker B: So they have too many talented young players for the number of positions that they have.
Speaker B: And so there’s been a question all along of will they spend?
Speaker B: Will that ownership group actually support the front office?
Speaker B: Will the front office be willing to trade some prospects to get better?
Speaker B: They didn’t do a whole lot at the deadline, but here they are on the verge of 100 wins and clinching the Al East.
Speaker B: And it’s just been so much fun to see this come together with this group of young guys they’ve got.
Speaker C: Yeah, I mean, two of the best players are Adley Rutchman, the catcher who was the number one pick in 2019, and Gunner Henderson, who was a second round pick in 2021.
Speaker C: I did not know that.
Speaker C: Adley Rutchman also kicked at Oregon State and kicked a 63 yard field goal.
Speaker B: Oh, wow.
Speaker B: Stefan fatza’s hero not know that?
Speaker B: How could you not know that?
Speaker C: I don’t know.
Speaker C: I didn’t know that.
Speaker C: I mean, the interesting thing to me, or an interesting thing to me about the Orioles is that this is an ownership in a front office that has not been sort of supported by the fan base, not sort of recognized or respected in a lot of ways.
Speaker C: There’s a lot of dislike among people in baseball and fans toward this team, which has, on the field been absolutely likable.
Speaker B: Yeah, it’s saying something that John Angelos is one of the least likable owners in the game because he has some steve competition there, but every time he has opened his mouth this season, it’s to say something that has made everyone angry or groan.
Speaker B: He’s just the prototypical failsun, essentially, at this point in Major League Baseball, but the team itself on the field is doing what it can to make up for that.
Speaker B: So the front office has been sort of spend thrift.
Speaker B: I mean, that’s been their mo is just, let’s hoard our prospects and let’s have them come along and let’s not spend a whole lot.
Speaker B: And obviously part of that is ownership, too.
Speaker B: And it’s hard to apportion blame there when it comes to why isn’t their payroll higher, why haven’t they supported this great core that they have by adding even more talent?
Speaker B: But as it is, they’re just so good.
Speaker B: I mean, they could still use some pitching help, certainly.
Speaker B: And one of the stories of the offseason will be, will they look to upgrade?
Speaker B: Will they trade from their great depth and strength of prospects here to try to round out their roster a little more?
Speaker B: But they have fully arrived.
Speaker B: I mean, they went from terrible team, historically awful, to last year sneaky, surprising contender were in the race right up until the end.
Speaker B: And this year, they’re just maybe the best team in the league.
Speaker B: So it happened pretty quickly when it happened.
Speaker C: Shohei Otani was shut down for the remainder of the season.
Speaker C: He has a torn ulnar, collateral ligament, and then had another injury which stopped him from hitting in addition to pitching.
Speaker C: So, surgery, free agency.
Speaker C: How do you forecast the future for Shohei Otani in baseball now.
Speaker B: Yeah, it’s a sad ending to what will regardless, be an MVP season for Otani, despite the fact that he will have not played almost at all in September.
Speaker B: He’s just been so far ahead of everyone else.
Speaker B: We were sort of robbed of the opportunity to see him have a truly historic all time great year.
Speaker B: But it was even despite the injuries that curtailed it.
Speaker B: So as it is, this would be his second UCL surgery.
Speaker B: Now, it’s not clear exactly what sort of surgery he had.
Speaker B: His agent and Doctor were vague about that, but it seems like it’s this new variant, this alternative to Tommy John, an internal brace repair, which is not swapping out the ligament, but just sort of stabilizing it and allowing it to heal.
Speaker B: Which you can come back from more quickly than the full blown TJ, especially a second one.
Speaker B: But even so, he’s going to be limited to Dhing next year.
Speaker B: He’s not going to pitch until 2025, but he still fully intends to be a two way player at that point.
Speaker B: Obviously, he was going to completely break the bank this winter if he had finished the season strong and healthy.
Speaker B: People were talking about 600 million dollar contracts, which would have been wild considering that Mike Trout is still the greatest contract ever in baseball at 426, or Aaron Judge at 360 for a free agent.
Speaker B: So Otani is almost certainly going to break those records.
Speaker B: Even so, it’s a weak free agent class.
Speaker B: There’s not a lot of offensive talent out there, and he still can hit even while he’s rehabbing from this injury.
Speaker B: And although the fact that this is a second injury for him makes the ODS a little lower, that he’ll be able to come back at full strength and beat a two way guy again.
Speaker B: Even if he doesn’t, there are fallback plans.
Speaker B: He could be a reliever part time.
Speaker B: He could just be an outfielder.
Speaker B: Right?
Speaker B: He could be probably a plus everyday defensive outfielder while being one of the best hitters in baseball.
Speaker B: He wouldn’t actually be that much less valuable than he is right now, even though it would be a little less sensational.
Speaker B: So he’s still going to make an enormous amount of money if he wants to maximize the years and dollars here, we’re still looking at probably something in the 400 to 500 million dollar range.
Speaker C: Yeah, he’s 29 years old.
Speaker C: Long contracts worth a lot of money have been given to players who are older than Shohey Otani.
Speaker C: He hit 44 home runs this year, pitched 132 innings, struck out 167 batters.
Speaker C: His slash line was three, 4412 654, which is insane, the 304, especially in an era where, what, ten players batted above 300 this year across baseball twelve.
Speaker C: So the money seems sort of a foregone conclusion to me that it’s going to be in the four to 500, because why shouldn’t it?
Speaker C: The one thing I think Otani really did this year was establish himself.
Speaker C: Not that he wasn’t already a household name, but as a popular figure.
Speaker C: Everybody knows now that not only is he an amazing, unicorn, two way baseball player, but they have seen more of him that’s got to have some appeal to New York, Los Angeles, Seattle, whoever is going to sign him.
Speaker B: And wherever he goes, it’s going to be an ownership level decision.
Speaker B: Right.
Speaker B: So you never know how it’s going to go down when the owner gets involved and they just decide, I want to splurge.
Speaker B: I want to be the owner who employs Shohei Otani.
Speaker B: But that is definitely something that teams are factoring into, their estimates and projections.
Speaker B: The fact that he just brings in so much extra revenue, whether it’s sponsorship deals or the fact that everyone in Japan is going to be watching every one of your games when he’s healthy, and just the fact that he does sell tickets, especially when he pitches.
Speaker B: Granted, as long as he’s not a two way player, he might be a little less sensational and ticket selling than he has been when he’s fully operational, but assuming he gets back to that point, he has transcended the sport in a way that very few, if any, players do these days.
Speaker C: All right, finally, my favorite story of the last couple of weeks has been Blue Jays starter Yuse Kikuchi admitting acknowledging, mentioning that he sleeps 13 or 14 hours a night.
Speaker C: I mean, athletes need to sleep, but this has just been hilarious.
Speaker C: Maybe it’s partly because Kikuchi is Japanese, he speaks through an interpreter.
Speaker C: His teammates have run with this, but this has been a great little story.
Speaker B: Yeah, in his defense I don’t know if it’s defense.
Speaker B: A lot of people are envious of him, I think, but he says he only sleeps 13 to 14 the night before he pitches.
Speaker B: Other nights he’s okay, getting only eight to ten, which I think that is in some ways more extraordinary.
Speaker B: The fact that he is able to just will himself to sleep several more hours every five or six nights.
Speaker B: I mean, just getting eight to ten minimum as your baseline, that’s impressive enough.
Speaker B: But just being able to dial it up to 13 to 14 at will, and it sounds like I mean, we’re all perplexed by this.
Speaker B: Everyone wanted to know more immediately when this quote first surfaced.
Speaker B: He seems entirely blase about it.
Speaker B: He seems flummoxed that everyone else is so flummoxed by this.
Speaker B: He’s like, I just close my eyes and I can go to sleep everywhere.
Speaker C: Like buses, planes, locker room with blaring music.
Speaker E: Right.
Speaker B: And he’s not the only athlete who takes recovery and sleep hygiene very seriously.
Speaker B: Of course, athletes are all tracking their nutrition and their quality of sleep these days, and we’ve heard guys like LeBron and Roger Federer talk about wanting to get 12 hours.
Speaker B: Otani himself has talked about how sleep is a top priority for him.
Speaker B: And Justin verlander as he’s gotten older, but this is, I think, extreme.
Speaker B: So a lot of people have been perplexed, worried or just jealous, I think.
Speaker C: Of the fact that, oh, I’m totally envious of you.
Speaker C: Say Kakuchi.
Speaker B: And he said that it’s good for him to sleep a lot because it makes him less anxious if he’s awake.
Speaker B: He’s stressing about his upcoming start.
Speaker B: So he just goes into standby mode.
Speaker B: He just deactivates.
Speaker C: And the way this came about and became public knowledge was great, too, because Kikuchi said kikuchi sort of blamed his early exit in a win against the Yankees to a cramp, a muscle cramp, because of a poor night’s sleep.
Speaker C: And he said that he only got 11 hours versus the normal 13 or.
Speaker B: 14 before we’ve all been there.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker C: My left trapezius always acts up.
Speaker C: Yeah.
Speaker C: If I don’t get 13 hours of sleep.
Speaker C: Ben Lindbergh, senior editor at The Ringer, co host of Effectively Wild, co author of The Only Rule Is It Has to Work, and the MVP machine, which you should buy and read.
Speaker C: Ben, thank you, as always, for coming on the show.
Speaker B: Always a pleasure.
Speaker B: Enjoy the playoffs.
Speaker C: In our next segment, we’ll talk to Nadira Goff of Slate and Dan McQuade of defector about, well, mostly Taylor Swift, but also a documentary about the Philadelphia Eagles center Jason Kelsey.
Speaker C: This next segment was supposed to be exclusively about a new Amazon Prime documentary about thoughtful, down to earth, hard working Eagles center and Philly icon Jason Kelsey.
Speaker C: And we will discuss it with two native Philadelphians who are invited here for their expertise.
Speaker C: They are.
Speaker C: Nadira Goff, who’s a culture writer at Slate.
Speaker C: Hey, Nadira.
Speaker F: Hey, thanks for having me.
Speaker C: And Dan McQuade, the visual editor at Defector.
Speaker C: What’s up, Dan?
Speaker A: Hey, thank you for having me.
Speaker A: I can say, like, Wooder here, if you need some Philly accents on the.
Speaker C: Pod, you can do whatever John you want.
Speaker C: Guys.
Speaker C: The news cycle, however, demands that we start with Jason Kelsey’s Doofus glamour boy brother Travis, the Kansas City Chiefs star tight end, now one of the most famous people in America because Taylor Swift accepted his invitation to the Chiefs 41 ten win over the Chicago Bears on Sunday.
Speaker C: Tay Tay watched the game from an Arrowhead Stadium luxury box with the Kelsey brothers.
Speaker C: Mom Donna Swift wore a Chiefs windbreaker screamed, let’s f****** go.
Speaker C: After Kelsey caught a touchdown pass from Patrick Mahomes and helped clean up after the game footage shot by I kid you not, walter Payton’s son, who’s a sports anchor for a Chicago TV station, captured the two of them walking out of the stadium.
Speaker C: Let’s listen to this future Emmy Award winning reporting.
Speaker D: How you doing?
Speaker C: Yes, that was Taylor Swift saying, hey, that is so exciting, side by side.
Speaker C: But no PDA TMZ reported Kelsey wore a cream and sky blue denim jacket and pants ensemble by Fashion Kid.
Speaker C: Three, two, one.
Speaker C: Kelsey wore a cream and sky blue denim jacket and pants ensemble by the fashion brand Kid Super titled 1989 Bedroom Painting, which I read online may have been renamed on Sunday to cash in on Swift’s rerelease of her 2014 album 1989.
Speaker C: They left the stadium in what was described as Kelsey’s vintage convertible.
Speaker C: Nadira, you said before the show that you could talk about Tayte and Travis for hours.
Speaker C: I’m giving us like five minutes.
Speaker C: Travis, kelsey started this whole thing and he’s going to get eaten alive.
Speaker C: Right?
Speaker F: Okay, first of all, I did not know that potentially kids super renamed some of their clothing to 1989.
Speaker F: That’s hilarious breaking news.
Speaker F: I mean, actual breaking news.
Speaker F: I don’t think that Travis will get eaten alive in the sense that I’m unsure how real all of this is because I think it’s very beneficial for both of them, publicity wise.
Speaker F: So, Taylor, listen, her status as an Eagles fan is about the one thing I can no longer hold against her.
Speaker F: The one thing I don’t hold against her because I was born in the old school era of Disney Channel Beef, where she had some serious feuds with some of my favorite celebrities.
Speaker F: And so therefore, her and I were cool, but we’re not on the best of terms, obviously, hypothetically.
Speaker F: But the one thing I do love about her is that she’s an Eagles fan, and I think in her sort of dating history past, like her public past, right.
Speaker F: She’s known for dating a specific type of skinny, curly haired white male that’s sort of at the height of their game, whether it be acting or singing or whatever, but very much gives off childish energy, or at least in the way that she recounts their relationships, gives off very childish energy.
Speaker F: Some of them were actually children because she was a child, right?
Speaker F: Like 18 or whatever.
Speaker F: And then some of them are Jake Gyllenhaal treating her like trash.
Speaker F: Right.
Speaker F: So I do think that this is a step forward for her, especially with her whole previous situation with Maddie Healey, who was the lead singer of the 1975, and they were linked together, and then he was canceled for some Unearthed podcast episodes in which he said some really horrible things.
Speaker F: Coming off of that.
Speaker F: To date someone who actually seems like the first man she’s ever dated publicly, like, not a boy, but a man.
Speaker F: Right.
Speaker F: Capital M man.
Speaker F: I think it’s very, very smart for her.
Speaker C: Well, and connecting with the NFL is no stupid move either.
Speaker C: Right.
Speaker A: Dan, I do think it’s very interesting when there’s a relationship like this because know, plenty of football fans are also Taylor Swift fans and are Taylor Swift fans that much different than football fans?
Speaker A: They’ve both been going to football stadiums in their costumes in recent times.
Speaker A: Like, football fans don’t exchange friendship bracelets.
Speaker F: But maybe they should.
Speaker A: Maybe they should.
Speaker A: Maybe they should.
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker A: But they exchange, like, beer in the parking lot before the game, as I’m sure Taylor Swift fans do, too.
Speaker A: But I think what’s cool about when there’s, like, an athlete musician relationship is know, both of these people are very famous.
Speaker A: Taylor Swift is obviously a huge musician, and I do think the fiora over this is really showing how big of a pop star she really is.
Speaker A: And, like, Travis Kelsey has won two Super Bowls recently because he and his brother were in the Super Bowl last very he’s in a bunch of commercials.
Speaker A: I feel like that’s how football players really get famous since they wear helmets on the field.
Speaker A: There isn’t much of a crossover in the celebrity coverage world of athletes and artists.
Speaker A: Right.
Speaker C: The NBA does a pretty good job of crossing.
Speaker A: I mean, but I just feel like when there’s a sports and musician or actor or artist relationship, sometimes it’s kind of memorable.
Speaker A: I still think of Jason Seahorne and Angie Harmon, the Giants cornerback and the star of Baywatch Nights on dating in the 90s, sierra and Russell Wilson, obviously.
Speaker A: David and Victoria Beckham.
Speaker A: Sort of the goats of this recent celebrity.
Speaker C: Frank Gifford and Kathy Lee Crosby.
Speaker A: Frank Gifford and Kathy Lee.
Speaker A: Joe DiMaggio and Marilyn Monroe.
Speaker C: How much farther back do we need to Ruth?
Speaker C: Babe Ruth dated some can dancers, I think.
Speaker F: I mean, it’s fun, right?
Speaker F: It’s fun seeing Taylor sort of get back in her Americana bag and momentarily, one hopes, momentarily trade in her Eagles hoodie for a Chiefs windbreaker and scream, let’s f****** go.
Speaker F: And get excited right next to Donna Kelsey.
Speaker F: Right.
Speaker F: It’s funny, but it’s also fun.
Speaker F: And it’s nice to see her sort of in this role, where I feel like in the past, she has dated a lot of guys who have this air of being smart or smarter than her.
Speaker F: Right?
Speaker F: Like, here she is singing her pop songs, and then she’s, like, dating all these guys who think they’re smarter than her or something, right?
Speaker F: Like, that’s sort of the air they give off.
Speaker F: And this is the complete opposite.
Speaker F: And I love that for her, the.
Speaker C: Power dynamic here is all tay tay.
Speaker C: I think.
Speaker F: Yeah, 100%.
Speaker C: 100%.
Speaker C: I mean, I thought that Travis Kelsey, in that six second shot on Instagram of them walking out of the stadium, looked terrified.
Speaker C: There was total, like, deer in the headlights.
Speaker C: He doesn’t know what he’s getting into here.
Speaker C: Look on his face.
Speaker C: And that may be wrong.
Speaker C: He’s a pretty self possessed guy with the media.
Speaker C: He is very good at working the media.
Speaker C: He and his brother both clearly want to have some sort of football media, sort of Manning Brothers type situation when they retire.
Speaker C: But this feels like, whoa, like, dude, you might be out of your league here.
Speaker C: But let us now transition to this new documentary, Kelsey.
Speaker C: I want to play a clip from near the end of it where Jason Kelsey talks seemingly extemporaneously right after losing last year’s Super Bowl to the Chiefs about the city where he has played his entire NFL career.
Speaker C: Let’s listen again.
Speaker D: I think that we gave it everything we had and just came up a little bit short.
Speaker C: I really do think that this team represents Philadelphia.
Speaker D: And this whole thing it’s a Philly thing.
Speaker D: It’s like the whole mantra of the postseason having the courage to fight for.
Speaker C: Who you are and embrace your strengths and believe in yourself and be happy with who you are and how you’re different.
Speaker C: Being unapologetically yourself until the whole world.
Speaker D: Has to accept how great you are.
Speaker C: That’s a philly thing.
Speaker C: Man.
Speaker C: Nadira, you reviewed the documentary in Slate and you wrote in Slate that as a proud Philly native, the film takes home the prize as the most Philly sports movie ever.
Speaker C: What made it so Philly for you?
Speaker C: And I think Jason Kelsey sort of encapsulates that.
Speaker C: And he is not a Philly guy by birth.
Speaker F: No.
Speaker F: Yeah.
Speaker F: And I think that’s sort of the surprising thing about I think, you know, this documentary does a lot of things first.
Speaker F: I think it was gifted with one of the most sort of fortunate documentary endings ever, which is when they set out to make this documentary, I’m pretty sure they knew it was like Kelsey’s last season.
Speaker F: They probably didn’t think much of it.
Speaker F: But then, lo and behold, the Eagles go on a winning streak, they win the playoffs, they enter the Super Bowl, and then it becomes this historic Super Bowl where two brothers are facing off for the first time in history.
Speaker F: Right.
Speaker F: And so I think this documentary was sort of given just a lucky gift in terms of the way that the events played out.
Speaker F: But I think what it is, mostly for 75% of it, it’s a depiction of a specific beloved athlete going through common athletic problems.
Speaker F: Right.
Speaker F: We have the beloved Jason Kelsey, but he’s wondering the same questions that plenty of other athletes have wondered.
Speaker F: Is football worth it?
Speaker F: He’s had at least seven surgeries.
Speaker F: He fears CTE.
Speaker F: He has a body that can neither play without anti inflammatories or exist peacefully just in the offseason without pain.
Speaker F: He has a third young daughter who was born only a few weeks after this.
Speaker F: So, you know, there’s a lot that he’s sacrificing.
Speaker F: And I think that in the way it depicts him dealing with those things, what it’s trying to posit is that his ascendancy to Philly royalty was some sort of kismet.
Speaker F: Right.
Speaker F: Because he embodies a lot of the characterization that Philly natives feel is inherent to the city or inherent to being a Philadelphian.
Speaker F: He’s an underdog.
Speaker F: He was a walk on his college team and a six round draft pick.
Speaker F: He’s loyal.
Speaker F: He’s only played for the Eagles and he’s played for the Eagles for 13 seasons.
Speaker F: He has sacrificed, and he’s shown grit and perseverance and working himself to the bone.
Speaker F: And I think that quote about being unapologetically yourself until the whole world has to accept how great you are is really a Philly thing.
Speaker F: And I think he’s someone who gets what Philly is about, not only because his career and his past has embodied it, but also because he sort of indoctrinated himself into the culture.
Speaker F: He married a local girl who’s a diehard Eagles fan.
Speaker F: He wore the Mummers costume and gave that sort of really lasting speech at the Super Bowl parade.
Speaker F: He made the Christmas album with the Eagles where he said f*** you to Dallas.
Speaker F: These are things that are very sort of inherent in how Philly fans think and act.
Speaker F: And I think another sort of gift to that that adds an extra layer to that.
Speaker F: What makes it the most Philly sports movie to me, in a city that’s full of them, right?
Speaker F: Because every sports movie loves an underdog story and a story about grit and perseverance, and that’s just what the city’s about.
Speaker F: But not many of them showcase a key component to the Philly sports fan experience, which is, know, Philly, we’re not a city of losers, but we’re a city of really hopeful people, even though we experience loss quite often.
Speaker C: Well, I’m going to push back on that part of it.
Speaker C: And the thing that I and this is not about the documentary so much, Dan, but it is about the trope of Philly as this underdog city that has emerged oddly intensified.
Speaker C: Know, the Eagles won the Super Bowl, which seems weird that it’s kind of BS like.
Speaker C: Let’s be clear.
Speaker C: Philadelphia has had plenty of success in sports.
Speaker C: You grew up there, dan.
Speaker C: You know this to be true.
Speaker C: In your lifetime, you have seen World Series and Super Bowls, maybe not NBA or NHL championships, but college basketball championships, et cetera.
Speaker C: This feels like a tired trope.
Speaker C: And the film, to its credit, doesn’t really exploit that trope, I thought, though it does allow Kelsey to be sort of emblematic of it in a fair way, I thought before.
Speaker A: One thing I found interesting while preparing for this podcast, I watched a bit of this 2005 documentary called Eagles the Movie, and it’s sort of just like a recap of the Super Bowl season with McNabb and to that also talks to fans and goes to tailgates sort of throughout the season.
Speaker A: And one of the first things in the documentary is they interview some local psychologists or something who are like, philadelphia has this inferiority complex.
Speaker A: And I feel like you used to hear that a whole lot.
Speaker A: And I don’t know if you hear it as much anymore because people have shifted to this underdog thing, which I at least think is like way more of a positive portrayal of Philadelphia than this inferiority complex, which I do think people here have.
Speaker A: No one is more annoyed by Philadelphia fans than me.
Speaker A: I feel like, as both a fan and a sports, know, I did a story once somewhere about where I found every single team in the NFL’s fans being referred to as blue collar, which to me makes it like a worthless descriptor if it can describe any team’s that I don’t know for sure.
Speaker A: But I do think that there’s a lot of other football teams, fans that act similar to Philly fans.
Speaker A: But I do also think that that know, probably why Jason Kelsey works so well here.
Speaker A: He talked to us, the inquirer for a Matt Breen story a couple years ago, and one of the quotes Kelsey said was, philly might not want to hear this, but I do think there’s a lot of similarities between Philadelphia and Cleveland.
Speaker A: And as much as it pains me to hear that as well, philly has a much better downtown.
Speaker A: People live there.
Speaker A: But I do think that obviously that’s true.
Speaker A: They’re like American cities not too too far from each other.
Speaker A: They both have hollowed out manufacturing, know?
Speaker A: And so I do think that Kelsey is good at pandering to fans, right?
Speaker A: He dresses in the Mummer’s costume.
Speaker A: He goes down to Sea Isle City and hangs at Ocean Drive.
Speaker A: The bar there.
Speaker A: But I do think he also has a really nice way of caring about what he’s doing, right?
Speaker A: Like before he put on the Mummers costume, he talked to some people and was like, what can I do that will be funny?
Speaker A: That will work with me having Frank nonstop for five days after winning the Super Bowl.
Speaker A: And I do think people do and should appreciate that.
Speaker A: And he’s in a lucky situation, right?
Speaker A: He’s an awesome player, but he’s also the center.
Speaker A: When he screws up, people aren’t going to see it as much as when a wide receiver drops a pass or a quarterback fumbles.
Speaker A: But I do think that he’s leaned into it, into the Philly thing in a very enjoyable way, even if people sort of go, I’m a little tired of some of the performative philadelphia Delco.
Speaker C: Delco Delaware County for listeners who are.
Speaker A: Not from I mean, it’s a Philly thing.
Speaker F: It’s my least favorite slogan that we’ve ever had.
Speaker A: Some marketing team approached the Eagles before the playoffs and were like, hey, we have this whole plan for what you should do.
Speaker A: And the Eagles were like, oh, no, we’re just going to go with this.
Speaker A: It’s a Philly thing, and it seems like they should go with the marketing plan.
Speaker A: But it works so well.
Speaker A: You see it everywhere now.
Speaker C: Jalen hurts.
Speaker C: Did say it.
Speaker C: So there was good sourcing there for it.
Speaker C: Yeah.
Speaker F: I think the thing about losing again is that it allows Jason Kelsey in the documentary to sort of get away from the usual platitudes, I guess, about what being a Philly sports fan is.
Speaker F: And so instead of saying it’s a Philly thing over and over again, what he says is that he likens football to being about, know, fighting to win a rep in the gym or fighting for a play on the.
Speaker F: Field and fighting for your worth, which he says is really hard to do, but it keeps you alive.
Speaker F: And I think that, to me, is the actual true Philly motto.
Speaker F: We’re not always the city of brotherly love, but we are the city that fights for our worth, battling every day to stay alive.
Speaker F: Right?
Speaker F: And that’s also, I take it, kind of seriously.
Speaker F: We’re one of the poorest major US.
Speaker F: Cities with a shocking percentage of people living in deep poverty.
Speaker F: That’s 50% below the poverty line.
Speaker F: We have a really very dangerous sort of state of emergency with gun violence and homicide that no one ever really wants to talk about.
Speaker F: We have a fraught history with policing.
Speaker F: We are a us.
Speaker F: City that dropped a bomb on itself, and we’ve had a ton of experience with leadership instability.
Speaker F: And it’s not that we’re the only US.
Speaker F: City that experiences these things, but I do think that we have a sort of unique experience when it comes to hardship, when it comes to a lack of luck as a city.
Speaker F: And yet we’re still here.
Speaker F: We’re still the same people.
Speaker F: We still unite over a whole bunch of gruff men throwing a ball and running into each other at full speed.
Speaker F: I think that it actually is kind of something real.
Speaker F: And I think that he points it out in a way that is really just succinct and very good.
Speaker F: And he’s good at like he’s good at getting to the heart of what not only Philly people want to hear, but the truth of it.
Speaker F: And I think that’s one of the reasons why we love him.
Speaker F: And I think that’s one of the reasons why the documentary works so well.
Speaker C: The documentary is called Kelsey.
Speaker C: It is on Amazon Prime.
Speaker C: Nadira Goff is a culture writer for Slate.
Speaker C: Nadira, thanks for coming on the show.
Speaker F: Thanks for having me.
Speaker C: Dan McQuade, visual Editor at Defector.
Speaker C: Thank you, Dan.
Speaker A: Thanks so much.
Speaker C: They will be back for Slate Plus members in our bonus segment.
Speaker C: So please sign up for Slate Plus and stick around for that no Afterballs today.
Speaker C: So that is our show.
Speaker C: Our producer this week filling in for Kevin Bendis, was Jared Downing.
Speaker C: To listen to past shows and subscribe or just reach out, go to slate.com.
Speaker C: Slash, hang up and you can email us@hangupats.com.
Speaker C: And don’t forget to subscribe to the show.
Speaker C: And to rate and review us on Apple podcasts.
Speaker C: I’m Stefan fatsis.
Speaker C: Remember Zelmo Beatty?
Speaker C: And thanks for listening.
Speaker C: And now it is time for our bonus segment for Slate Plus members.
Speaker C: Welcome back.
Speaker C: Nadira Goff.
Speaker F: I’m excited to be here.
Speaker C: And Dan McQuade from Defector.
Speaker A: Hey, what’s up?
Speaker C: All right, let’s talk some more about the doc and other sort of Philly sports movies, because the Philly sports movie canon does run pretty deep.
Speaker C: And Kelsey the documentary.
Speaker C: One of the executive producers, by the way, is a former Philadelphia Eagles lineman and friend of Jason Kelsey’s.
Speaker C: And it is at its core.
Speaker C: Like we said during the main know, there’s a Philliness to Kelsey that carries the Philly part of it.
Speaker C: There’s some nice montages of Philly fans in the film.
Speaker C: And the Eagles do lose the Super Bowl, though they do make the Super Bowl, which many other teams did not last year, but it sort of is part of that catalog of Philly movies that play up the blue collar, as you said, dan nature of the city or image of the city.
Speaker C: Because there’s really nothing that Philly likes more.
Speaker C: And I mean, nothing not tasty cakes, not climbing a greased light pole.
Speaker C: Nothing that Philly fans like more than being portrayed as tough and underdoggy.
Speaker A: You know?
Speaker A: I mean, that’s why I think Kelsey’s speech worked so well.
Speaker C: Kelsey’s speech at the Super Bowl parade in 2019, right?
Speaker D: You know who the biggest underdog is?
Speaker D: It’s y’all.
Speaker D: Philadelphia.
Speaker D: For 52 years, y’all have been waiting for this.
Speaker D: You want to talk about underdog?
Speaker D: You want to talk about a hungry dog?
Speaker D: For 52 years you’ve been starved in this championship.
Speaker D: You know what’s up?
Speaker D: Everybody wonders why we’re so mean.
Speaker D: Everybody wonders why the Philadelphia Eagles aren’t the nicest fans.
Speaker D: If I don’t eat breakfast, I’m f****** p***** off.
Speaker A: His like, no one likes us.
Speaker A: We don’t care.
Speaker A: That is absolutely not true at all.
Speaker A: But people like to think it know?
Speaker A: I mean, one thing that Eagles fans do a lot is when there is another incident with fans of another team, right?
Speaker A: If there’s, like a fight in the thing or something bad happens at a stadium, philadelphia fans will tweet or say, and this goes for media members do this, too.
Speaker A: They’re like, oh, but I thought it was only Philly fans who were that bad.
Speaker A: And I think it’s like, well, you can’t sing no one likes us, we don’t care, and then also do that.
Speaker C: Nadira, let’s talk a little bit about how Philadelphia is portrayed in sports movies.
Speaker C: There’s a long list.
Speaker C: I mean, it starts with Rocky, of course.
Speaker C: The wrestler Silver Linings Playbook.
Speaker C: Creed Invincible.
Speaker C: The one with Mark Wahlberg as a Philadelphia eagle.
Speaker C: They all have a similar tone to them, which is, A, underdog scrappy, somebody coming up from hardship.
Speaker C: But B, it’s a very South Philly portrayal of the city.
Speaker C: These movies are largely about white characters.
Speaker F: It’s so white.
Speaker F: It’s very white.
Speaker F: That’s just the truth of, like, when people think of Philly, when they think of the stereotypical Philly accent, they think of South Philly, they think of those depictions.
Speaker F: And it’s really funny because know, Philly born and bred, and so is the majority of my family.
Speaker F: And we use slang and we talk in a way that you would never see in any of these movies.
Speaker F: And I think maybe even the for real for real.
Speaker F: But I think one of the ways that or I guess one of the times it even came close is of course with and so because that was predominantly black movie made by Ryan Coogler, who is a black director, and even just the presence of the teens and young guys on the dirt bikes and the ATVs going down Broad Street is like, yeah, this is sort of a part of the real philly that we don’t necessarily get.
Speaker F: And so I think documentaries have a lot more leeway in that where they can show fan footage and they can be about a specific person that’s real.
Speaker F: And so we can’t say that it’s a skewed depiction in certain senses the way there are so many Philly sports movies.
Speaker F: But I find that they as much as I love them, I find that their depiction, though tonally, I do love an underdog story, right?
Speaker F: Is representation wise, lacking a bit and it’s still going on.
Speaker F: I really enjoyed the movie Hustle, the Adam Sandler led movie Hustle, but it is led by Adam Sandler, but it is also made by Isaiah Zagar’s son.
Speaker F: And I love Isaiah Zagar and so therefore, I will give him a pass.
Speaker A: Yeah, when I saw that, I was like, oh, I lived near the Magic Gardens, isaiah Zagar’s, like big mosaic trash sculpture garden area.
Speaker A: And when I saw that was his son, I was like, oh, no wonder this like, I’m sure that the director of that movie is I’m sure that Adam Sandler is in control of that movie.
Speaker A: Not that he’s the director, but clearly he let this person make it feel pretty realistically was, which was really cool.
Speaker A: I think what’s funny is what percentage of sports movies are Rocky but they win in the end.
Speaker A: And not that Rocky was the first sports movie to sort of do that underdog story, but it really is the template for almost every sports movie.
Speaker A: Know Invincible, which is one of those Disney used to put out those actually pretty good, like, family sports movies.
Speaker A: And I actually, like, invincible a lot.
Speaker A: I think it’s enjoyable, even if he goes from playing street football in a dirt park to the NFL like that when he did have some other but whatever, those movies are fine.
Speaker F: I was about to say quasi nation.
Speaker A: A true story, but it is a true story.
Speaker A: Yeah, he played for the Philadelphia Bell in the World League, which was like a brief league in the 70s, but no, D*** Vermeal held open tryouts.
Speaker A: And this guy, I think he was invited, but whatever, he made the team.
Speaker A: It’s incredible.
Speaker A: And he really did recover a muffed punt to win Vermeer’s first.
Speaker A: So, you know, because Philly has such a long sports history, it’s sort of very easy to find stories like this.
Speaker A: I mean, I assume we’ll get a Nick Foles movie, right at some point.
Speaker C: But these movies know for these know about representation, these are actually good sports movies.
Speaker F: They are.
Speaker C: And there is something appealing about the Philadelphia dynamic.
Speaker C: Hustle’s a really good movie.
Speaker C: I really liked it.
Speaker A: Yeah, Hustle was a lot of fun.
Speaker C: Hustle was a ton of fun.
Speaker C: Silver linings playbook.
Speaker C: Dan, you didn’t like as much.
Speaker F: I’ve got some critiques for that movie too.
Speaker F: But I mean, the sort of Eagles watching family part I thought was very apt.
Speaker F: Oh.
Speaker A: There’s this documentary called Maybe This Year.
Speaker A: It came out twice.
Speaker A: It was called maybe next year.
Speaker F: Next Year.
Speaker A: And somebody got caught in a someone in it who they followed got caught in like to Catch a Predator YouTube knockoff.
Speaker A: So they excised him from the movie and retitled it.
Speaker A: Maybe this year I could go on a classic Philly storytube things.
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker A: Oh my goodness.
Speaker A: And it’s similar to that Eagles to that Eagles one in that it sort of goes through the season and follows fans throughout it.
Speaker A: And the first one does too.
Speaker A: But this movie followed a lot of black people in the city and that is a large part of the Eagles fan base.
Speaker A: And then obviously the Creed movies.
Speaker A: There’s this indie movie, The Nomads, about a North Philly rugby team.
Speaker A: It’s actually based on a friend of my wife’s, Lauren Murphy Sands.
Speaker A: She coached this team, the Nomads in North Philly.
Speaker A: It’s not like anything special, but it doesn’t end with a team of losers winning the big game.
Speaker A: It’s more about them just like learning to be a team, which I always appreciate when a sports movie at least has a different know.
Speaker A: And I think as more people get opportunities to make movies and as it becomes easier and easier to make films with advances in technology, I do think we will see a lot more movies about different parts of Philadelphia.
Speaker C: Yeah, it’s interesting because what you said with the interviews with fans, it is much more representational.
Speaker C: I mean, you put together this hilarious video a few years ago of great moments in Philly sports fanhood.
Speaker C: Let’s play that.
Speaker A: Oh, man.
Speaker D: My man just started throwing babies out the window.
Speaker D: We was catching them, unlike Aguilar.
Speaker F: Is there anything you want to say?
Speaker D: Go Eagles.
Speaker D: I am stealth, baby.
Speaker D: You’re screaming like it’s still the game going on.
Speaker D: We’re talking about the fightings here.
Speaker D: The fightings said should 17 year old.
Speaker C: Dodging security and waving a towel.
Speaker C: The chase ended when the officer fired.
Speaker A: His Taser and the teen went down.
Speaker D: What did you think about the win?
Speaker F: F****** amazing.
Speaker D: Oh my god.
Speaker F: We’re going to say sorry for that.
Speaker C: My man starts throwing babies and we were catching him.
Speaker F: Iconic Aguilar.
Speaker F: It’s one of my favorite clips ever.
Speaker F: Grace Report.
Speaker C: It’s so good.
Speaker C: I mean, it really does show the panoply of humanity in Philadelphia.
Speaker A: I love that this guy was being interviewed on the news for being a hero.
Speaker A: He helped rescue these children from a fire.
Speaker A: And he thinks to make fun of Nelson Aguilar for dropping a pass the other game, I think he dropped like big passes in two straight games.
Speaker A: And that’s what led to a guy who caught who had a hundred yards receiving in the Super Bowl that they won suddenly being mocked everywhere.
Speaker A: I do think that’s something where I do think it’s great about Philly that is not often talked about is that people can work their way back into being beloved by the fans.
Speaker A: People did not like Alan Iverson, Dr.
Speaker A: J.
Speaker A: Ryan Howard, Jimmy Rollins here, you know, when they were know, Scott Rowland just got standing ovation at the Wall of Fame ceremony over the weekend.
Speaker A: And I think people eventually sort of realize, oh, this guy was good, or just sort of forget about the bad times.
Speaker A: Zach ERK, he’s now with the Cardinals.
Speaker A: He scored the winning touchdown in the Super Bowl.
Speaker A: There was a time in, I think, 2016 where he avoided hitting Vante’s Perfect on the Bengals, and he was like a pariah here for a time because they were like, oh, he’s soft.
Speaker A: He doesn’t have the chance to do then.
Speaker A: You know, if you ask anybody if they even remember that right now, they probably don’t.
Speaker A: At people work their way.
Speaker F: We have a really selective memory.
Speaker F: Yeah, very selective.
Speaker C: No more tay tay.
Speaker C: One last tay tay thought.
Speaker C: Go ahead, Nadira.
Speaker F: I can’t wait for the future.
Speaker F: Song about Travis Kelsey.
Speaker A: Hold on, let me get I took a lot of notes about Taylor Swift and Travis Kelsey.
Speaker A: She was wearing New Balance 550s.
Speaker A: They’re like the white with the red colorway.
Speaker A: I have the same ones, but they’re the Amy Leandor limited versions.
Speaker A: And when I was looking this up, they are worth way more than I thought on the resale market.
Speaker A: So I need to list them right now.
Speaker F: So you’re a sneaker head.
Speaker C: I should also note that Dan McQuade is wearing a Buddy Ryan throwback Eagles sweater right now for this podcast.
Speaker C: Dan, thanks so much for coming on the show.
Speaker A: Yeah, thanks so much for having me.
Speaker A: Always happy to come on and say wooder and other words.
Speaker C: And dear goff, thank you for making your hang up and listen debut.
Speaker F: Oh, this is so fun.
Speaker F: Thanks for having me.
Speaker C: And thank you, Slate Plus members, for your membership.
Speaker C: We’ll be back with more next week.
Speaker C: Bye.
