You got to hear how their football fans living in apartments and big cities, sympathizing with all of you out there who won every live game every Sunday afternoon, but who can't get DirecTV where you live? Well, I have some good news for you now. You can stream 2020 NFL Sunday ticket on your favorite devices, no satellite required, and get every live out of market game every Sunday afternoon. Go online to NFL Sunday ticket, dot TV now to see if you are eligible.

Why watch early one Sunday at a market game when you can watch all of that catch every game with NFL Sunday ticket dot TV use promo code, South Beach twenty twenty at checkout to save 15 percent. That's promo code South Beach. Twenty twenty to save fifteen percent. NFL Sunday ticket dot TV. Don't miss any of the action. Head to NFL Sunday ticket dot TV today.

This is the down labor part show with this two got Sparkasse. If God has fallen in love with a Cleveland Indians, we will get to that in just a second.

But before we get to that, I want to wonder aloud with the audience, because sports can be a relationship that the customer has with his sports team.

It could feel emotional he or she has with their sports team where you feel like you're in a bit of a relationship. I don't know how many of you in the audience are dating or how many of you even remember dating. It's been so long since people could safely date. But I want you to imagine the relationship with sports right now being someone that you're dating and you can't figure out why things are just a note off, OK, because it's not just that I'm watching NBA games to guys and they look like really evolved video games sometimes like even better, as realistic as our video games are now, there are times I am watching the television and the absence of things make it so that I feel like I'm watching graphic animations instead of actual human beings.

This can't be it can't be happening to just me. There have to be times. Put it on the pole, Tony, please. At Libertador Show, are there times that you're watching NBA games and the graphics make you feel like the human beings are video game characters right now?

But last night. Sports tonight in South Florida for a long time have felt a little sad, but what I've gotten from my last two viewing experiences has been a little extra sad. One was watching the Marlins play in a minor league stadium last night with no fans like in the middle of Buffalo. It just it felt so minor league. And keep in mind, this is a team that has felt so minor league for decades.

The Buffalo Blue Jays. Great game, though. I mean, Louis Brinson almost had a big two run shot to keep the Marlins, you know, in contention.

Thank you, God, for nothing. But the Buffalo ballpark is incredibly sad and not just because it's in Buffalo. It's just very minor league. But when I was watching and I know this happened, I know South Florida is going to recognize what I'm talking about during the Heat Pacers game, there were audio difficulties at one point and all you heard was lifelong broadcaster Eric Reid in his distinctively nasal voice, clearly broadcasting from a sad janitor's closet somewhere because all the other ambient sound got eliminated.

And it was just Eric Reid's voice and it was dystopian who got to where. I'm listening to him talk about, you know, what should be an exciting game. But all of the elements are gone. The ambient sound, the fans, his fellow broadcaster, whatever it is, they need to pipe in to make it sound like he's not in a janitor's closet somewhere far away from the action. And so it was just him talking into a microphone.

And it made me so impossibly sad because my relationship with sports is a note off and I'm grateful that it's just a note off, because in that moment I was reminded, oh, wait, I had already changed my expectations for how sad all of this is. I'm enjoying this to God. And my father and Pablo Torre are in a virtual crowd. Everyone allowed in because why wouldn't everyone be allowed in? There are no fans allowed at the game, but they need to bombard us with stimuli.

What has replaced the home experience of T-shirt cannons flying T-shirts into the crowd is just an assortment of stimuli. Tell me, Mike, did you well, you fell asleep at halftime, so I don't even know if you do that.

He Pacers game. Yeah, I mean, it's I mean, 845 halftime. What do we in Spain.

Chris, did you what did you have that reaction to Eric Reid when all of a sound fell? I've got to think all over America, this is happening with the regional broadcast where you're reminded as we try to get back to something that feels normal. There are so many reminders that we're in the apocalypse like that that make appearances to remind us when sound blows out, when someone's coming to us from a janitor's closet, when the Marlins aren't playing a home game and are playing a team that is homeless and they're the home team in Buffalo where they don't have Major League Baseball and the park is empty.

So when a guy comes up in a dramatic moment and it's Francisco Cervelli who we found is Venezuelan, I thought he was Italian. We all did off to a great start with three homers.

I mean, well, there's only thirty four. Somehow I thought he broke into the league at thirty four with the Yankees.

You got that was I don't know that I've ever had an experience quite like this. OK, the situation in that Marlins game is thus. They're down for one in the nine. The Blue Jays relievers, while they get a runner on the Blue Jays reliever, then walks another guy on a three to Curveball. That is the single dumbest pitch I've ever I've seen thrown in the major leagues. He could have allowed a home run. What you can allow is that guy to get on base so that Savelli does what he did in the next at bat, which is three pitch.

He's hacking and nothing says dystopian apocalyptic future, like backup catcher Francisco Cervelli, hacking Therriault during a pandemic and he hits a home run to tie the game for four. And I don't believe that anyone in that sad ballpark actually enjoyed that homerun. They all wanted to go home because baseball is sad and dystopian right now and he hit a home run to extend the game. This has to be happening all over sports to gods. Have you felt this where you get sad watching a game because something reminds you, wait a minute, nothing about what's happening now is normal.

Yeah, it happened to me as exciting as the PGA Championship was over the weekend, and it was very exciting. You had a moment on the 16th hole where and we and we discussed this on Monday where Colin Morikawa hit one of the great shots. In fact, I had it right. Number one, all time greatest shot, the history of greatest wow shot in the history of golf.

And there was no one. There was no sound. There was no celebration. It was just the shot. Gymnast's described the shot. There was no reaction to the shot. And yeah, so I've had those moments and I'm struggling. What to do here would sports because of the lack of fans. But certainly, yes, it is off a beat. But I'll take it for now then I will take it further.

I understand that you take it. But one of the things that has to happen, and I know everyone that is like Stewart loves Jim Nantz on their broadcast, his style, we need to replace it with Gus Johnson during these times, like during these times, an emergency replacement situation where you can't get stage. Golf announcer guy doing the show in boat shoes. You need to go get somebody who's going to give the enthusiasm that you're not getting anywhere else.

It's so funny that you bring that up, because I was thinking as much as I loved that with a crowd calling golf in that moment with no crowd, the guy I wanted calling that tee shot for Morikawa was Kevin Harlan.

That's a driver right between the eyes. Like, give me something, you know, how much have you missed?

How much have you missed? Kevin Harlan, did you even realize how much you missed Kevin Harlan? Put it on the pole, Tony. Did you realize how much you've missed Kevin Harlan?

I had no idea.

It's one of the astonishing things that has happened to me throughout this pandemic that I had no idea how much I had missed Kevin Harlan. And so I started to listen to Kevin Harlan again. That guy is one of the few announcers that does not need that. He doesn't need any sound behind him. You just need Kevin Harlan on the broadcast. And what you have is excitement.

You don't need fans in the background just because he goes and he gets the enthusiasm from his nether region. It's like it's it's coming it's coming up from his undercarriage. It's Nance doesn't have it there. Nance doesn't have anything in the undercarriage. He can't go and get something extra from the hole. You get there if you can.

It's true. We we come back with God's love affair with a Cleveland Indians out of nowhere next. Did you know Geico is now offering an extra 15 percent credit on car and motorcycle policies, that's 15 percent on top of what Geico could already save you. So what are you waiting for your baby to let you sleep in?

What we sleep here another half hour. Thanks, sweetheart. Love her. And you'll change yourself, too.

There's never been a better time to switch to Geico. Save an extra 15 percent when you switch by October seven. Limitations apply. Visit Geico Dotcom for details now.

Puno, this month, Napa's got all kinds of motor oil deals that can save you some serious cash, like a five quart jug of nappa for synthetic motor oil for just sixteen forty nine. With savings like that, you may start feeling like a VIP, but don't let it go to your head. These oil deals are for everyone. Quality parts, helpful people. That's nappa know how to know how General State's pricing sales price is not a good applicable state.

Local taxes are recycled. These offerings eight thirty one point.

Chris, I've been a little jarred here recently, and we have to sort of temper expectations for everyone because the world is upside down. But even by his standards, Stewart is a sports information seems uncommonly flimsy. What Lewis Brinson thing was Stewart talking about in the first segment? Because I don't know how much of the game he's watched. I don't know how much he's bluffing. I don't at this point. I have no idea. Like under normal circumstances, I never know when Stewart's lying.

He's very good at camouflaging, making it seem like he's watched the game that he has not watched. But what was he talking about with the Lewis Brinson home run? Do you care to explain yourself? Because I don't know what you're talking about.

So watching the highlights moron's down four to one of the night. The first place, Marlen's, by the way, they tied up for four. And Lewis Brinson hit what I thought was a home run that ended up being a foul ball now. Now I'm not certain it was Lewis points it at all.

But Matt, how are you confusing Logan, Forsayth and Lewis Brinson? They don't look a lot alike.

I'm just going off the highlights I saw this morning. Again, they don't look a lot alike. Like it'd be hard to confuse Logan Forsayth with Lewis Brinson, although I do understand why you might not know the names of any of the Marlins right now. Most of us don't. Totally fair.

Again, I did not watch the game. I am totally basing this off the highlights.

One of them is white and one of them is black. What is then the highlights? Are you watching them on a black and white television? Like what in the highlights is is telling you that Lewis Brinson hit a foul ball fare, home run and not Logan Forsight, the guy who was announcing the highlights.

That's that that you told me.

Is that a fine for blaming them? Was it Jonathan Coachmen? I don't know. I mean, whoever was doing the highlight this morning, that was unnecessary. By the way, the weather is so bad. They just asked me my TV just asked me if I wanted to switch from HD to SD.

I have no idea what it means. I don't know the definition.

All right. Well, the sugar is deteriorating, Mike, in a way that we we have to extend a wide berth here because we're in a pandemic and more compassion needs to be extended.

I mean, four months of not having to worry about sports at all, he really needed to know is what team Tom Brady is playing on now. And now all the sports are going on. It's going to give them a little bit. You got to give them a little bit to warm up.

All right. I will. Although I am a little worried in general, though, how much catching up there needs to be if he can't tell the difference between white guys and black guys, that's problematic. Like because then you get into the next step up. He doesn't know whether he's watching hockey or basketball. That's not on me.

Now, perhaps I heard the highlight, Rog. Perhaps the guy delivering the highlights delivered them wrong, which is not a fight on me.

But what I heard was it was Louis Princetonian. Baby Britza was on base. What Forsyth hit the home run? I have no idea. But I'm just telling you what I heard. You know, I was a half watching, mostly listening.

I mean, now it finally makes a little sense because Logan Forsight hit the home run. That was foul. They called it fair. At first. He rounded the bases, went into the dugout, and then they reviewed it and called it foul. Louis Brinson was the last out from the previous inning and this was extra. So he was on second base. So maybe that's what you're OK.

Maybe we're going to extend to a wide berth here. But speaking of guys that Stuart has just been introduced to, what is going on with the Cleveland baseball team that has made you fall in love is the name pronounced Adam? Plutarco, Plutarco, do we know how this person's name go?

Is more fun to say. So let's go with that. Yeah, well, I don't know, because Adam Plutarco, I think we were all introduced to to Sergeant Plutarco this morning. This is a guy that he is.

I am Sergeant. Sergeant Plutarco is a wonderful nickname for him. I don't know where you came up with that, but that is wonderful. Here's a guy who. What? I'm sorry I interrupted you. Well, here's how I came up with it.

If I was pulled over on the highway by a motorcycle cop and he got off his motorcycle, walked to my car, took off his helmet and looked like Plutarco, I would not be surprised. I mean, that's the kind of guy he is a hunk.

I have telling you, this guy could be a state trooper, a picture, a sergeant.

Luka and Tony put it on the pole.

Please let Batard show. Is anyone in 2020 using the word hunk to describe a handsome man? Because that reminds me of like 1970s happy days. But go ahead. I'm sorry again to interrupt you.

So he is taking issue here with Plesac and with Mike Clevenger, the two Indian pitchers who after Plesac, first victory major. Victory, he wanted to go out and celebrate in Chicago, Clevenger, Mike Clevenger, and the picture took him out to celebrate. They tried to sneak back into the hotel and they couldn't get around security. With all the covid stuff and the pandemic. Everyone was upset. The Indians were upset that these guys broke protocol, went out, tried to sneak back into the hotel.

Did they did they try to sneak back in? Because I was I thought I read somewhere that one of them didn't even get back.

I saw Jeff pass on first take yesterday with Stephen A. Smith and Stephen seized on it. Wait, are you saying one of them got back at, like, 3:00 in the morning and the other one just simply didn't come back at all?

Well, Clevenger got to the team plane, OK? So somehow it got all the way to that were Clevenger who went out, broke protocol, got all the team play. And a lot of people are upset with both pitchers. No one more upset than their teammates. Sergeant Plutarco, I he took them to task.

And I'm certain Mike has the let's get to that sound from Sergeant Plutarco.

They hurt us bad. They lied to us. They sat here in front of you guys and publicly said things that they didn't follow through on. And it's going to be up to them. It really is. And I'll let them sit here and tell you how they're going to earn their trust back. I don't need to put words in their mouths. You know, the term that I continue to hear and excuse my language is grown ass, man, right.

So those grown ass men can sit here and tell you guys what happened and tell you guys what they're going to do to fix it. And I don't I don't need to do that for him.

Good for the sergeant, because it is nice to hear one of their own teammates called them out.

Seriously, they have a picture in Carlos Carrasco, who was battling leukemia. They have Terry Francona, a manager who has been sick for a couple of a couple of years now.

Danny has underlying conditions at Clevenger and Plesac can't do what my high school daughters have been able to do with the exception of Rachel, what do it Under Armour all-American lacrosse tournament. But they've been able to sit side by daughters for the most part. And these two can't just sit in a hotel. It's absurd. And they should be ashamed of themselves. And I'm glad that Sergeant Plutarco called them out.

Yes, you go ahead and side with the sarge, as you yourself are on a 14 day quarantine for go into a hot state.

Yeah, they're good. Come back. Good. Well put. It's your home speaking, and I need you to do me a couple of favors first, could you get that blueberry that rolled under the fridge last week? It's throwing my funk shway off. Second thing, Bundall, your home and car insurance with Geico. It's easy and we could save money. Lastly, I know you were thinking of painting the nursery back to off-White, but I'm actually feeling this baby blue didn't think it was my color, but I am pulling it off.

Geico for bundling made easy. Go to Geico Dotcom today. And finally, French authorities have opened a murder investigation after a 30 year old corpse was found in a basement during renovations of a Parisian mansion abandoned since the mid 18th century that sold for about forty one point two million dollars. The UFC heavyweight title is on the line when Steve Bowe is stepping out so hung up on the second day of a last name, that step is the easy part. Now, what do I say?

You know, Chick Stewart's earlier this week, you got all the names right and stumbled on the word completed or competed. I don't know which one you were trying to say, but you missed one of my mom.

Show me a chick. eBay. And did you call me a complete their trilogy at UFC 252 on ESPN? Plus, it's a good fight right there. You're looking forward to that one, correct?

Yes. You got very mad at me the other day because I became Bert Sugar analyzing that. Last I heard, sugar is such a great reference, I'm guessing.

Put it on the pole at Batard show. Do you know Bert Sugar is because that's an old reference. It is. And he looked like an old timey newspaper man from the 1920s. Whatever you imagine him looking like with an unlit cigar, he was always chewing. I just think that as good a reference as that is, I don't feel like the audience knows who you're talking to.

Can't wait to watch this fight, given your analysis, and just concentrate fully on the right side of steep on the right side of Daniel Courtice. If you on the left hand of your chest. Yeah.

You can't give them that window step is going to make you pay every time I found the weakness, of course, covers it up and then what a step do to counter it. I mean I became Harold Letterman.

I became. Is that what's a better reference? Because Bert Sugar's funnier visually. Harold Letterman is a funnier name to throw out there, both of them too obscure for the joke to work.

OK, Jim I. UFC 252 is exclusively available to ESPN plus subscribers for sixty four ninety nine. Visit ESPN plus dot com backslash Peevey for more details for all the latest headlines and information to the sports editor at ESPN Radio all throughout the day. All right.

Put it on the pole, please, Tony. Are funnier boxing named to say funnier name comedically, Bert Sugar.

Harold Letterman and a late entry Larry Merchant is good as well, Larry Merchant as a name is is pretty funny. I don't know if you can get that sound, Mike, of Larry Merchant, I think well into his 80s threatening Floyd Mayweather that he was going to kick his ass.

Unfortunately, pay per view. I can't replay that. But it's on YouTube, folks. Go ahead and seek that out. It's a great if I were a younger man and it was just white haired Larry Merchant, I think, close to his 80s. So stick out during the pandemic. There are any number of things over the last six months here that have become illuminating, where the light that is shining on some of these things is inescapable, where things are laid bare in a way that doesn't have camouflage.

So one of the things over the years that has made me unpopular and you will see on August 17th is this roster at ESPN Radio become super sports, sports, sports, sports, sports. One of the things that has made me unpopular over 15 years is that I've been talking about the race relations as they relate to sports and beyond for a long time. And it has bothered people a great deal. They accuse me all the time of pulling the race card and I'm a race baiter and I've just been someone who's talked about this stuff ad nauseum for the better part of two decades.

And I told you at the beginning of the pandemic, as things spilled into our streets, oh, my God, what I was saying was so vastly underestimated in terms of the tensions in this country. So I was unpopular for giving voice to something that is vastly, vastly worse in a way that everyone can see. Now, the other place where it's become obvious to Godse in a way we can't turn back from this, we will not be able to turn back from this.

I thought sports was business greedy. I said all the time that the big disconnect between the customer and the athlete is that the customer wants to make it an emotional relationship and the athlete is like, hey, maybe this is prostitution, don't get too attached. It's so much worse than I thought. Like, people doesn't care at all about where it sees an end, as long as the checks cashed during a pandemic like baseball. And now you see it happening in college football.

You see what's happening in college football with the hearts of kids, like the greed, the greedy. You can't we can't go back to what it is in front of you. The bare naked greed is something that you will not be able to escape ever again. The importance of this is not going to go away as you just see how awful the greed is, where they will distort everything. One homeless team playing in Buffalo against another minor league team that's fielding twenty seven janitors because they need to get to the end of the paychecks and the television.

We're three weeks into the season and that other team hasn't played a home game and they played a road game in the city of Buffalo.

They need to play a certain amount of games. They don't care who plays in those games. They don't care who the winner is. They don't care who the loser is. They don't care about anything other than getting the max amount of games that they promised to the TV networks and to the people they sold advertising to. That's it.

Talking about the sports with a Z crowd has been on us for years. Anytime we have our wacky fixed baseball shows and we put a pond in the outfield, I mean, double headers being seven innings and a runner on second base already as it starts in six game seasons. And we'll just add teams to the playoffs and you get to pick your opponent on television in a special. This is stuff that we would have came up with years ago and called crazy.

I love it to God. They have taken a bat to the structural integrity of our most historic game in a way that is simply get out of our way. We need to get to the bank.

I think Christian Yelich might hit one hundred for the season and he needs to get hot to that to happen.

I mean, you could have a postseason when the Marlins are involved. Let me think about that. But no one cares as long as we get the games.

It Chris, what happened during the last segment that we were talking that you didn't come on to the air with the best of your stuff, but you gave us the best stuff off air? I mean, the Plutarco guy, look, I don't want to be the guy that is celebrating what Clevenger and the other Plesac guy for the Mayans did, they shouldn't do what they did. They did. But everyone has that for that during this quarantine in this pandemic is the safest of the bunch.

No matter what you say you did or the safe measures you took, they always took one safer measure than you did. And I feel like Clute goes kind of be in that friend here like his. You better not have any any webs in his closet or whatever we keep in closet. And if he better be very safe. I know if I'm another Indians' player I'm keeping an eye on going forward, it's Clevenger Plesac and they are going to watch Saja bluecoats every single move for the remainder of the season.

And Chris is right. He better not have a misstep. He better not have. But wait a minute.

Chris is not so right because for some reason, instead of skeleton's, he's got Webbs in closets like I think he was going for spiders there. Yeah.

Look what I meant, what I meant. All right, let's go. My private jet. This ain't going to fuel itself. Here's the great thing. Here's the well, here is the great thing about the coatis through gods and you and everyone else who gets to win because you sit next to strident, obnoxious race baiting me. This is the tweet I get yesterday. I think Leadbitter needs another vacation. Keeping the coatis around as his punching bag for the hard network out is cheap.

I love the show and I get the show and I love Dan, but I turn the show off for the first time on Tuesday because it's apparent that he has checked out.

You see all the webs in my closet all the way up. You see the. We work at ESPN, we have worked at ESPN for a long time, one of our favorite games to play while working at ESPN is to sort of look up and be like, where did he go? You know, where Jerry Rice was on ESPN for a while? Eric Mangini was on ESPN for a while. And then they just sort of disappear. I don't actually know.

One time in ESPN's history, I felt like Gilmore and Holtze are the place that you went. I legitimately and I mean, this is no slight to Rod Gilmore. He may still work at the network doing some games, but he was at one point sort of our voice and face for college football. And we asked the question, where did he go? And loopholes popped up the other day, who got doing analysis here on the pandemic? And he said we should play college football because when we stormed Normandy, there were going to be lives lost, which is just terrible as analysis.

Like, we don't need college football as badly as we need some of the things that were being fought over in wars. But that's where loopholes went and loopholes just sort of vanished from one day to the next on ESPN. Right. Like, I, I was I was getting used to Lou Holtz is a part of my every Saturday and then he's gone. So what I want to ask you. Is a give me some of the people most jarring in terms of you looked up one day at ESPN and they were just gone.

Dave Campbell was the leathery skin of baseball for a long time, Dave Campbell. And then we look up and now we've polished up A-Rod and made him the new Super Campbell. And I want to ask you about that. But I also want to empty our loopholes file. I want I don't know how big this file is, but we we had a lot of fun at Lou Holtz's expense, because for a professional broadcaster, he's got some things that, you know, get in the way that are something of an impediment for broadcasting, literally an impediment.

So let's check this out now, Marshall.

Usually it's all routine. Kato, who did a touchdown passes for defense. Kevin Johnson put up two hundred seventy two yards. That's a Marshall record. Nothing to sneeze at.

That is a little old sneeze. That is Rece Davis, a Disney prince, cleaning up some unprofessional broadcasting.

I maintain its Reese's finest moment. I think it's unbelievable. Let's listen to it again, just so that you can hear that Lou. Holtz's sneeze does indeed sound like a car horn from the 1920s.

Tom Marshall, usually it's all routine. Kaito, who gets a touchdown, passes Kevin Johnson for a two hundred seventy two yards. That's a Marshall record. Nothing to sneeze at.

I can't wait a minute.

This is going to take a while to empty this file because again, I just want you to sit around for the sneezing again. I want you to imagine, OK, everyone's dressed like Bert Sugar in the Great Depression America, and we've just invented the car and somebody needs to get out of the way.

That car horn is going to sound like is the Marshall.

Usually it's all routine.

Kato, who gets a touchdown, passes Judson's 270 yards. Marshall record. Nothing to sneeze at. I got places to be. Let's go.

Let's go, everybody. I don't even know the traffic lights in nineteen twenty. I don't actually know. But somebody is on their iPhone and they're looking into their iPhone and they're not noticing that the light has turned green and right behind them who got the first traffic light was available to to the public in 1910.

So you're far East Tenth Street, New York City.

The iPhone might be a problem given my period piece comedy. What else do you have there from the little holds file? How many things do we have in that file? My.

It's overflowing. Give me a break as we approach the, you know. All right. Do we have any Frank Caliendo doing? Lou Holtz because I thought Frank, one of Frank Caliendo strongest impressions was Lou Hold.

Yeah, have him doing it. Twas the night before Christmas with Gruden, Berman and Lou Hold Center.

Okay. So now that, ladies and gentlemen, is a team that is a tease in August, do you want to hear Twas the Night Before Christmas and Christmas with Berman and Holt?