0:02

This is Wins and Losses with Clay

0:04

Trevis. Clay talks with the most

0:06

entertaining people in sports, entertainment

0:09

and business. Now here's

0:11

Clay Travis. Welcome

0:19

and Wins and Losses podcast.

0:21

I am Clay Travis. We have got I don't

0:23

know what the number is now, thirty five of these

0:26

long form conversations. If you're new

0:28

to us, i'd encourage you to go check out the entire

0:30

library. The idea is these

0:33

conversations are just as good in two

0:35

years or three years, or hopefully ten years

0:37

as they are when you are listening to them and the

0:39

week that they are released. The

0:42

guest this week and or this month

0:44

in October of twenty

0:46

twenty is legendary sports

0:49

broadcaster Bob Costas.

0:51

And Bob, I've been watching you literally

0:53

my entire life, and I feel like there are

0:55

a billion things we can get into, but

0:58

you reached out to me most recently. First of all, you

1:00

participated and I thought a really well done

1:02

piece by Greg Couch about the struggles

1:05

of the n b A when it came to

1:07

the ratings this year, UH and trying to analyze

1:09

where the league goes going forward.

1:12

And I appreciate you being involved in that OutKick

1:14

article because certainly I watched you for years

1:16

and years be associated with the NBA,

1:18

and we'll get into that in a little bit as well.

1:21

But in particular, I

1:23

sent out a tweet one of my listener, one

1:25

of my listeners, one of my readers out there, grabbed

1:28

in uh, probably thirty second segment

1:30

that you had done on Don Lemon CNN

1:33

show dealing with the

1:35

return of college football, and I saw

1:37

it and what immediately jumped out to me was

1:40

that CNN had mischaracterized

1:42

the return date. They had gotten it wrong.

1:45

We are actually talking today

1:47

on the day that the Big Ten will return.

1:49

There's a Friday night football game between

1:52

Illinois and Wisconsin later tonight,

1:54

and uh, but last week's CNN

1:57

said that the that the Big

1:59

Ten was returning that weekend, and it was an interesting

2:01

conversation, and so I popped it out there,

2:03

and then you reached out to me. We've never talked

2:06

before. We had a good private conversation.

2:08

You said you'd like to come on and do the show. So we've

2:10

got a lot to get into, but we'll start

2:12

there with what you felt.

2:15

And I think this is a fair fair position

2:18

is at times we live in a

2:20

social media era maybe all the time,

2:22

where small clips can be characterized

2:25

that are not necessarily representative

2:27

of the entirety of a statement that was made.

2:30

And that's why I like having long form conversations

2:32

with people here. So welcome to the show, and we'll

2:34

start right there with the tweet that I

2:36

sent and the hit that you did on CNN with

2:38

Don Lemon. Thanks

2:41

Clay, and I appreciate the opportunity to speak

2:43

here at some lane. First of

2:45

all, um, as you know, I

2:47

couldn't see the graphic

2:50

that was incorrect. Somebody at the production

2:52

level at CNN, and it's not a sports

2:54

operation, got that wrong. If

2:56

I had seen it, I would have subtly

2:59

corrected it. But what I said,

3:03

Don asked me about the return

3:05

of college football, and I made

3:08

all I think the necessary stipulations.

3:10

I'm sure that they've got all the protocols

3:12

in place, etcetera, etcetera. But to

3:14

me, there's something, if you take a step

3:17

back, something about this that exemplifies

3:20

how big time college sports

3:22

football the most, but college basketball

3:25

also big time college sports

3:27

has for so long been so out

3:29

of perspective and so out

3:31

of proportion that the whole

3:33

thing is a sham, And well, I shouldn't

3:36

say it that way, and I didn't say it that way, that it is

3:38

too often a sham.

3:40

And what I said was in light

3:42

of for example, Dan Mullen, the Florida

3:44

football coach, saying, we need

3:47

ninety thousand people for

3:49

our game against l s U. We

3:51

need to have the swamp full.

3:53

Ironically, he's the one who drained the

3:55

swamp. He tests positive, a good portion

3:57

of his team test positive.

4:00

And what I'm saying is a lot of people are

4:02

so obsessed with football,

4:05

be at the NFL or college

4:07

football, they just have to have it

4:09

no matter what. And you know as

4:11

well as I if you could give truth

4:14

serum to many college football

4:16

fans, especially in certain parts

4:18

of the country, and you gave them

4:20

the following proposition, over

4:22

the next ten years, your

4:24

university will more or less mirror

4:27

Stanford. You'll always be competitive,

4:30

maybe once or twice you'll win the national

4:32

championship or be in contention for

4:34

it. You'll be good across a wide

4:37

swath of sports, and the

4:39

the compact that should exist between

4:42

academics and athletics will

4:44

be there. Or you

4:46

can be in contention for the national championship

4:49

almost every year, And

4:51

if a very large

4:53

number of your quote student

4:56

athletes aren't really students at

4:58

all, and if many of them recruited

5:00

despite dubious and sometimes criminal

5:03

backgrounds, and if many of them will

5:05

in fact misbehave and and bring

5:08

some rather dubious attention

5:11

to the program, but you'll be in

5:13

contention for the national championship every

5:15

year. We know damn well

5:18

which of those two choices would be most appealing

5:21

to a huge percentage of college

5:23

sports fans. And in that sense, to

5:25

me, it's out of whack. And

5:27

this notion that we have to

5:29

have college football no matter what.

5:32

We gotta travel, we gotta intermingle.

5:35

We know how large the size of the rosters

5:37

are and all the auxiliary personnel,

5:39

even if life on campus is nothing

5:41

like normal. The one thing that's going

5:43

to be as close to almost we can possibly

5:45

make its football. So

5:48

that's what I said. I said, I think

5:50

the exact words were too

5:52

often, not always, too often,

5:55

football, or in this case, college football

5:57

isn't just pleasing pastime

6:00

or an interest of some kind. It is

6:02

too often a mindless of obsession.

6:04

Now people object to that, fine, but that's

6:07

what I said, all right, I

6:09

think so much of what you said is obviously fascinating.

6:11

I have spent a ton of time arguing

6:14

for the return of college football. Uh

6:16

and everybody out there who is listening

6:18

right now to this program knows that I've advocated

6:21

as aggressively as I can possibly

6:23

for it. So I'm not going to make that argument right here,

6:25

because we've done it a ton about the importance

6:27

of it. What I will say is I agree

6:30

with your larger context that college

6:32

football fans uniquely and I think

6:34

it's actually the most American of all sports. By

6:37

the way, if you actually strip it back and consider

6:39

all of the different conflicting loyalties

6:41

and hypocrisies and challenges,

6:43

and both incredible highs

6:45

and incredible lows, it is in many ways,

6:48

I believe, a metaphor for the larger

6:50

American experience rich poor, the

6:52

difference between the big schools

6:54

and the small schools, the difference and resources.

6:57

I mean, there are just so many fascinating to me representation

7:00

of college football that reflects both the good and

7:02

bad of American life in general.

7:04

I do agree with you on the big precept there

7:06

that that basically you dove into, and I've

7:08

said this for a long time college football

7:10

fans are selective moralist, and

7:12

what I mean by that is they want

7:15

other programs to behave morally,

7:17

but they will forgive anything

7:20

that their school does if it makes

7:22

them more likely to win a football game. And I

7:24

didn't really think about this, uh Bob a lot,

7:27

and thanks for being on with us here until I started

7:29

doing local radio. And that's kind of the warrior

7:31

background in me. Is if somebody

7:34

when when you looked at an n C double A violation,

7:36

for example, the first way I

7:38

would think about it is as I analyzed

7:40

the case, and I make no book, bring no bones

7:43

about it. Right. I I am a University

7:45

of Tennessee fan. My grandfather played for General

7:47

Neiland. I started going to games when I was five years

7:49

old. I'm actually going up to

7:51

watch Alabama probably absolutely

7:54

obliterate Tennessee this weekend and Kneeland.

7:58

But what was thinking about

8:00

it was I always say, okay,

8:02

if my school is accused of wrongdoing

8:05

before I figure out what my opinion

8:07

is. What would my opinion be

8:10

if it were Alabama or Florida

8:13

or Georgia one of the rival

8:15

programs that was accused of doing

8:17

the same thing. If my response

8:19

is not the exact same to those

8:21

accusations. That is a way

8:23

to test my own fan bias.

8:26

And so what I would always say on the radio anytime

8:29

we had a story was I would say, Okay, what would

8:31

your response be if Alabama was

8:33

accused of this and you're a Tennessee fan,

8:35

Well, Alabama they cheat, you know how they are.

8:37

And I said, okay, but if you're defending

8:39

Tennessee and you believe it immediately if

8:42

you were Alabama, then that's an example

8:44

of bias. And to me, what has

8:46

happened in a large sense, I'm not surprised about

8:48

any of the arguments I see on social media

8:50

in the country now, because basically

8:53

the country has become a college football fan, right.

8:55

You will you will defend to

8:57

the end of the earth anything that your school

9:00

does, or your party does, or

9:02

your guy or girl does. But

9:04

if the other side does it, it's an

9:06

outrage. And so what

9:08

bothers me in general is not

9:11

the decisions that are made. It's the hypocrisy

9:13

because, as I told you one of our conversation, as my

9:15

listeners know, I kind of consider

9:17

every opinion that I have to be almost the equivalent

9:20

of a judicial opinion. This is the lawyer in

9:22

me speaking, there has to be a precedent

9:24

that connects my opinions across

9:26

the board or else. I'm guilty

9:28

of what I accuse others of, which is hypocrisy.

9:31

And I'm not saying I'm perfect. Certainly I make mistakes

9:33

in the way that I analyze cases and facts

9:35

and everything else, like any other human out

9:37

there. But I do believe that there

9:40

is a logical basis behind most

9:42

of my opinions. And if you went back and looked

9:44

at what I wrote in two thousand twelve, it

9:46

would make sense in two thousand twenty. And

9:49

if you, for instance, you know to to bring

9:51

in multiple conflicting areas, If

9:53

you looked at what I said about Duke Lacrosse

9:56

and you compared it with Brett Kavanaugh, it

9:58

would cross O right. It would make

10:01

sense logically in the Kavanaugh

10:03

case the same way that it did in the Duke

10:05

Lacrosse case, or in the Ezekiel Elliott

10:07

case, or the O. J. Simpson case, which I know you

10:09

were involved in a big way. There are so

10:11

many different interesting threads there.

10:13

But that's what jumped out at me about the first thing

10:15

that you said there well as

10:17

you were presenting your argument.

10:20

In the last couple of minutes, I

10:22

was thinking about something you

10:24

got to, which is that

10:26

that sort of tunnel vision about

10:28

college football. Uh, mirrors

10:31

what we see in our politics, where

10:34

a relative misdemeanor by the other side

10:36

is in fact an outrage but a certifiable

10:39

felony, not a matter of opinion, but it's

10:41

objectively true if our guy

10:43

or our side did it, either it can't be

10:45

true, or will ignore it, will soft pedal

10:48

it. And this is just one example.

10:50

I don't want to get overly partisan politically

10:52

here, because I'm much less partisan than

10:55

a portion of your audience likely thinks.

10:57

And we'll get to that later. And I'm sure

10:59

you could find an example of this that is

11:01

the equivalent from the other side. But

11:04

when Janine Pierro, with a straight face,

11:06

says, by my new book, don't

11:09

lie to me, and all the lives

11:11

that outrage her, of course come from

11:13

the left or from Democrats, well,

11:15

if she doesn't just defend she venerates

11:18

Donald Trump, who, regardless of your political

11:20

affiliations, as objectively one

11:22

of the most dishonest people in modern

11:25

American political history. You can

11:27

you can barely fact check him in real time. He

11:29

lies so frequently, and the

11:31

irony of that is lost on Sean

11:33

Hannity, are on Janine Pierrou. That's

11:36

just the world we live in, all right.

11:38

So this is this is fascinating

11:40

in general. Um, and I do think

11:43

this this goes into my analogy that I've been making

11:45

for a long time. What matters to

11:47

me is whether or not

11:50

there is a logical basis

11:52

to reach a conclusion. And let me explain

11:54

what I mean for everybody out there who's listening, and I think

11:56

you'll follow along too. And I like

11:59

to use this in all g in sports. Uh. And

12:01

we're talking to Bob Costas. Appreciate him joining us.

12:03

If I tell you, hey, I don't think that Tom

12:05

Brady is going to win the Super Bowl this year.

12:07

And I said this to you in my conversation recently,

12:10

and I said, you know you might listening

12:12

right now, say, Okay, I agree with you. Tampa Bay Buccaneers,

12:15

Bruce Arians never done it before. NFC is

12:17

gonna be tough, NFC South, you got Drew Brees.

12:19

Uh, You've got a lot of challenges there. But

12:22

if I've said I don't believe Tom

12:24

Brady is going to win the Super Bowl because he's

12:26

never been there and won it before. You

12:28

might agree with my conclusion, but the

12:30

facts upon which I based that conclusion

12:33

are completely wrong. And one of the things

12:35

that troubles me most about society today

12:37

is the basis of facts.

12:40

And I think there are lots of politicians of both

12:42

parties that agree with me here, and unfortunately

12:44

they don't have a prominent of a platform in their

12:47

parties. In general, we can disagree

12:49

about conclusions, which are basically opinions

12:51

about ways to address problems, but

12:54

when we don't agree on the most

12:56

basic factual level, then

12:58

we can't in any way have a legitimate

13:01

marketplace of ideas. And worse than that, we

13:03

have people who look at the conclusion and

13:06

say, oh, I agree with where that person

13:08

he or she got from a political purpose,

13:11

but they don't understand that the facts upon

13:13

which that was based are quicksand and there's

13:16

nothing there and therefore the essence of the

13:18

argument is not legitimate, and that

13:20

bothers me in a big way by

13:22

by and large, And this is a generalization,

13:25

and it's more true in the social

13:28

media world than it is and what still

13:30

passes from more traditional

13:32

forms of media, which is anything

13:35

that aligns with my predispositions

13:39

and or resentments. I'm inclined

13:41

to believe without skepticism.

13:44

Anything that challenges that, I'm

13:46

inclined to dismiss. The

13:49

mainstream media has many

13:51

flaws that should be held to account.

13:54

But when you've got an all purpose intellectual

13:56

will get out of jail free card that says

13:59

it's all news, which

14:01

really has come to mean anything I don't want to

14:03

hear, and anything that doesn't align with my prejudices,

14:06

or anything that is critical in a responsibly

14:08

journalistic way of someone I don't

14:10

want to see criticized, I can just immediately

14:13

dismiss it. Never consider it as fake

14:15

news. Okay, what happens

14:18

in the Twitter world, And that's what started

14:21

this conversation, and I'm glad we're acquainted

14:23

through it is a fragment

14:26

that misrepresents not only

14:28

is out there, but you think

14:31

people, no matter what their political

14:33

affiliation is, no matter what the rooting interest

14:35

is in sports, you would think that

14:37

they had learned, They would have learned by now that

14:40

a lot of what is out there is either

14:42

untrue, misleading, or

14:45

incomplete. And so you

14:47

had people responding to

14:49

what you tweeted, Well, what about

14:52

all the people who rely on Saturday

14:54

college football for the hotels and

14:56

the restaurants. Of course, I'm aware

14:58

of that of co words, and I've stipulated

15:01

that many times, um

15:05

this this may seem trivial,

15:08

and it is, except sometimes something

15:10

that isn't all that important. It's like a

15:12

grain of sand on the beach. A

15:16

geologist can tell you what the beach is like

15:18

by examining that grain of sand.

15:21

Jason Starr, the acclaimed baseball

15:23

writer, Hall of Fame Baseball

15:26

writer. As a matter of fact, I went to

15:28

college with him at Syracuse, and

15:30

he wrote something very nice about

15:34

my induction into the broadcasters going in the Hall

15:36

of Fame a couple of years ago, and he

15:38

tweeted out, and I'm not much of a twitter guy,

15:40

but some people called it to my attention, he

15:43

tweeted out one

15:45

line from what he called my wonderful

15:48

speech or something to that effect, and

15:50

that line was that

15:52

very often the way

15:55

we recall the most memorable

15:57

moments in sports is dependent

16:00

upon how they were framed by

16:03

a great writer or by a broadcaster,

16:05

producer, director. And

16:07

in my Hall of Fame speech, which was about

16:11

people other than myself, I

16:14

mentioned the Vince Scullies, the Jack

16:16

Box, the Ernie Harwell's and also the

16:18

producers like Um David Neil

16:21

and Mike Weissman, and a great director

16:23

like Harry Coyle, and how they shaped

16:25

people's recollections. I used Kirk Gibson's

16:28

Home Run as

16:30

an example, and Gibson himself says

16:32

he was at the center of it, but partly

16:34

how he remembers it is how you

16:37

now here Vince Scullies call, and

16:39

the way Harry Coyle directed it. It was like

16:41

a movie, right, So this

16:43

one line is there, and then

16:46

I shouldn't have done it. You should shouldn't waste

16:48

your time going down these rabbit holes. But since someone

16:50

had called my attention to Jason's

16:53

article and then the tweet that accompanied it,

16:56

there were a bunch of responses. Maney of

16:58

them are very kind regarding me. But somewhere,

17:01

oh right, Hostess says

17:03

that the broadcasters are more important than the

17:05

players. Thought about the players, it's

17:07

about him. If

17:10

you had seen the speech in context,

17:13

it was the exact opposite of that. It

17:15

was less about me than almost anybody I

17:17

think who has ever stood there behind

17:20

that podium. It was about my love

17:22

of the craft and my love of baseball. But

17:24

wouldn't you think that by now somebody

17:27

wouldn't think that they could go

17:29

off and voice an opinion based

17:31

on a fragment of something. And

17:33

yet that is rampant in our

17:36

media culture. So people, including

17:38

some people of goodwill, believe

17:40

a lot of things that just are not

17:42

so, are not so factually, or

17:45

are not so about the beliefs and motivations

17:48

of people they either support or

17:50

opposed. All Right, this is fascinating

17:52

to me what that whole story in

17:54

general. I I have said

17:57

for a long time that my biggest talent

17:59

to the in that I have one is

18:01

and my wife says this, drives are crazy

18:04

about me one of many things. By the way, we've been married

18:06

sixteen years, so they're basically

18:08

everything I do. Drives are crazy at this point.

18:10

But yeah, welcome

18:12

to the club. Indeed, be sure to catch live

18:14

editions about Kicked the coverage with Clay Travis

18:17

week days at six am Eastern, three am

18:19

Pacific. We're talking

18:21

with Bob Costas. This is the Wins and Losses Podcast.

18:24

I genuinely am not impacted

18:27

by what someone says about

18:29

me online, positive or negative.

18:31

I don't know why that is. I but

18:33

I think it's been important

18:36

in allowing me to basically continue

18:38

to plow forward in my career

18:41

even as social media has become more

18:43

all encompassing. I'm sure I've got my

18:45

phone sitting in front of me right now. If

18:47

I typed in my name, I could go through and

18:49

there would be ten awful things that have been said

18:52

about me today already that I

18:54

just haven't seen. And so you are

18:56

one of the most accomplished broadcasters

18:58

in the history of sports on television.

19:01

Kevin Durant, for example, is

19:04

whatever you want to say about him, one of

19:06

the four or five best at his craft

19:08

of basketball that has played

19:10

in his generation, right, I think that's probably fair

19:12

to say. Yet I do believe

19:15

that there are many people out there who

19:17

are wildly accomplished like yourself,

19:19

like Kevin Durant, and I'm we're using athletics

19:22

in particular, but I think it could be the president. I

19:24

think it could be other people who are,

19:26

you know, reading the mentions and reading the tweets

19:29

that are really taking

19:32

into account what other people say.

19:34

And and my perspective on that is, if

19:37

I'm one of the best in the world at anything,

19:39

I don't care what someone who is not

19:42

in my field thinks about me

19:44

at all, And I don't know why

19:46

that is. I care about people who know me

19:49

right, people who have interactions. But for

19:51

you, I don't know. Like I told

19:53

my mom, never read the comments to anything that

19:55

I say. Read it, have your own opinions. I

19:57

almost have never read any comment that people have

19:59

put after my articles in my entire life.

20:02

Same thing is true for Twitter. At this point,

20:04

I barely read the mentions. I share my opinion.

20:07

What do you think it was about that

20:09

that made you click down below?

20:11

What you said was a nice thing. Jason Stark,

20:13

who is an incredibly accomplished writer, was saying,

20:16

to see what people you didn't know we're

20:18

saying about what he had said about you. You mentioned

20:20

rabbit holes. To me, that's like, that's like going

20:22

all the way in the rabbit hole to China. Like you,

20:25

you've gone really far at that point. And

20:27

truth, that took about five minutes, and

20:30

but it is fascinating and it's seductive, and I think

20:32

it speaks to social media in general,

20:35

which is designed to make us care

20:37

what people we don't know think about

20:39

us all day long, whether you're a celebrity

20:41

like Bob Costas, who's one of the best sports journalists

20:44

of all time, or whether you're

20:46

somebody's grandma who's going on Facebook

20:48

and making a comment and then it goes viral and a

20:50

lot of people she doesn't know suddenly respond

20:53

to it and she feels compelled to read what they say

20:55

to Yeah, I think the

20:57

key here, Clay is I'm trying to make a larger

20:59

point, and you'll have to take me at my word here.

21:02

I am well aware. I hope I have enough

21:05

perspective to be well aware that on the

21:07

worst day of my life, I am

21:09

more fortunate than most people will

21:11

ever be. And I'm very, very

21:13

appreciative of all the nice things that have been

21:15

said and written about me, and about all

21:17

the breaks and great experiences I've had

21:20

in my career. I truly feel blessed.

21:23

And so I'm not losing any sleep over this, and

21:25

I'm not spending undo time

21:27

on it. But where it interests me is

21:29

in the larger point. And

21:31

sometimes you have to use your own experience,

21:33

because if you're an honest person, you're going to

21:36

be credible about your own

21:38

experience. You're going to know the wise and wherefores

21:41

of your own experience. And if it

21:43

illustrates something larger, that

21:46

is of some importance beyond yourself,

21:49

then I think it's legitimate. And so we

21:51

may talk, for example, about the gun thing

21:53

from eight years ago on NBC

21:56

and how you know. I wish it hadn't

21:58

happened. I wish people didn't have a misimpression.

22:01

I wish I had done a better job in that moment.

22:04

But I also think it illustrates a larger

22:06

point. And that's why we're talking about

22:08

beyond me just muttering to myself.

22:11

We're talking to Bob Costas. This is the Wins and

22:13

Losses Podcast. I'm Clay Travis. Okay,

22:16

I want to get to the essays and

22:18

everything else, but I want to start here. You

22:21

have won a legendary career as

22:23

a sports sports broadcaster. There are

22:25

a lot of people out there right now who have experienced

22:28

many of your broadcasts over the years.

22:30

There are also a lot of young people who

22:32

listen to this podcast because one of the

22:35

goals with the Wins and Losses theme

22:37

is to discuss the best and worst parts

22:39

potentially of one's career and

22:42

the wins and losses along the way.

22:44

So I want to start here. Take you back

22:46

to when you are in college, if

22:49

you are able to go back and tell

22:51

twenty year old Bob Costas

22:53

things that you have learned along

22:56

the way in your career that you think would

22:58

have been very important. There are a

23:00

year olds who would like to be the next Bob cost

23:02

Us listening to this podcast right now. What

23:05

do you think you have learned that

23:07

you didn't know when you were a college kid

23:09

or maybe a high school kid trying to become

23:11

what you became. I

23:14

think I learned this along the way, and it

23:16

didn't take all that long. No

23:18

matter how much you would meire someone, you

23:20

can be influenced by them. I was influenced

23:23

by Jim McKay. I was influenced directly

23:25

by Marty Glickman and Marv Albert. I went to Syracuse

23:27

because they had gone to Syracuse,

23:29

and because Syracuse had early on fifty

23:32

years ago, they had a genuine

23:34

communications department, not just a print journalism

23:37

department, but a true state of the

23:39

art communications department. Now

23:41

almost every university does, but Syracuse

23:44

was ahead of the curve, and since I

23:46

got there, a legion of

23:48

notable sports broadcasters have followed,

23:51

and some had preceded me. Marvin

23:54

Marty and Dick stocked In and

23:56

Len Berman and a few others, But now it's

23:58

into dozens and does. But no

24:01

matter who, you were influenced by

24:03

Jim McKay, Vince Scully, Jack

24:05

Buck. Early in my career I was in St.

24:07

Louis at km O X. One

24:10

of the things I learned was, do not copy

24:12

them. They're great because they

24:15

are distinctive, because

24:17

they are not generic, and if

24:19

you try to copy them, you'll only

24:21

be a pale imitation of the

24:23

master. Early on, it's inevitable

24:26

you'll copy somebody. You've got to have a starting

24:29

point, but eventually you've

24:31

got to be able to develop your own style,

24:34

otherwise you won't get very far. And

24:36

the other thing I learned early on was

24:38

that there's no such thing as a perfect

24:41

broadcast, and not even

24:43

I think Vince Scully would tell you the same thing. As

24:45

close to perfection as you could get, maybe

24:47

have perfect moments. Jim McKay was

24:50

perfect in that moment in munich

24:52

Ino, Al

24:54

Michaels was perfect with do

24:57

you believe in miracles? But if you are

24:59

a perfect actionist, that can be

25:01

a good thing because it keeps you

25:04

working hard and it makes

25:06

you concentrate on the fine points

25:08

and never be satisfied. But

25:10

it can also cost you sleep unless you get

25:12

a handle on it. Because I

25:15

used to threat over things

25:17

that other people thought were terrific. Some

25:19

of the things that people mentioned to me as among

25:22

their favorite things I've ever done, somewhere

25:24

in the back of my head is yeah, but

25:27

if only I'd said that, or if only

25:29

I changed one word, or if only

25:32

I'd remember to include that. And

25:34

eventually I came to understand,

25:37

on my own peace of mind that sometimes

25:39

perfect is the enemy of the good. A

25:42

lot of what I've done has been pretty damn

25:44

good, only occasionally

25:46

if you reach perfection. Did

25:49

you go back early in your career and

25:51

study your broadcast, listen

25:53

to yourself to pick out flaws

25:56

or so, And how would

25:58

you do that and be effective in being

26:00

able to analyze yourself? Well?

26:02

Then you know, in the seventies, if you're listening

26:05

to radio broadcast on a cassette

26:07

recorder, uh, you couldn't get

26:09

your television broadcasts unless

26:12

you went down to thirty Rock

26:14

at NBC and somebody there, you

26:16

know, quote it up for you.

26:19

I bought one of the very early VHS

26:21

machines. Uh, three quarter inch

26:23

tapes an hour at a time, so

26:25

a whole ball of ball game was three tapes.

26:28

I remember the Sandberg game in the

26:31

legendary Cardinal Cub game, where

26:33

Sandberg get the two home runs of Bruce

26:35

Suitor late in the game, and it was the NBC game

26:38

of the week on a Saturday afternoon, when that meant something.

26:40

It was a really big deal. Sometimes the

26:42

Saturday afternoon game of the week got higher

26:44

ratings regular season game than some World

26:47

Series games get now. Um,

26:49

And it's probably the signature game of Sandberg's

26:51

career. It took five tapes,

26:54

um to have that, and I've got those

26:56

VHS tapes somewhere,

26:59

um. But it was much harder then

27:01

than it is now. Now you can everything at

27:03

your fingertips and you can review it.

27:06

Uh. Yeah. I used to go back, and I

27:08

remember being discouraged early on

27:11

the first time I heard myself

27:14

on the air at w A E Er,

27:16

the campus station at Syracuse, and I

27:18

heard it back and there were still vestiges

27:21

of a New York accent, and it was a

27:23

thin, reedy kind of penny

27:26

voice. And then shortly after that

27:28

I heard the twenty six year old Al Michaels

27:31

just a year or two after that on the radio

27:33

on the

27:34

two World Series between

27:37

the Reds and the Age, and I said to

27:39

myself, damn, he's only twenty six. I'll

27:42

never be that good, at least not in the next

27:44

few years. I'll never be that good. Um.

27:46

And I was discouraged, actually, but things

27:48

turned out all right. I guess I'm along run. So

27:51

that's amazing. Take me through your

27:54

career path as a young guy. You're at

27:56

Syracuse. How do you get

27:58

in because you've got to the top

28:00

at NBC at a relatively

28:02

young age. How did you get

28:05

along that path? What happened

28:07

to allow you to advance the way that

28:09

you did, and where did you start? Very

28:12

importantly, I had a professor

28:15

at Syracuse who took an active

28:17

interest in me. He would

28:20

identify a handful of kids

28:22

each year who he thought had the potential

28:25

to be good if they worked at

28:27

it. And he was a caring but

28:29

merciless critic to the point

28:32

where and no joke here, Clay

28:34

in the until the mid eighties

28:37

when I was on NBC and pretty successful,

28:39

I would still hear from him after the

28:41

baseball and football broadcast. That

28:43

was good, but you know, he was still

28:46

critiquing me, and and he helped

28:48

me with projecting, with

28:50

with getting my voice into better shape.

28:53

I never took speech classes, but he kind of gave

28:55

me some tips. Um, and he told

28:57

me, you're you're rushing too much here. Ace

29:00

is important. Try to pace yourself.

29:03

Uh, don't feel like you have to use all

29:05

your preparation early on. It's normal

29:07

to be anxious when you're young, so

29:09

you come in really well prepared. But if you

29:11

empty the whole bucket in the first few innings are

29:14

in the first period of a hockey game or whatever

29:16

it is, wait till the time where it really

29:18

fits and the audience doesn't know

29:20

whether you've used or a hundred

29:22

percent of what you came into the boothworth

29:24

as long as what you use was appropriate and

29:27

it was good. So I think that with

29:29

his help and being at w

29:31

A e R, which is a legendary

29:33

campus radio station, and you're surrounded

29:36

by like minded people, some of whom

29:38

are really quite talented, and we fed

29:40

off each other's energy, I think

29:42

I became pretty good early.

29:45

I must have had some precocious level of

29:48

talent, and I worked to refine

29:50

it. And then when I was a senior at

29:52

Syracuse, I got a job broadcasting

29:54

minor league hockey in the Old Eastern

29:56

Hockey League, the league that the Paul Newman movie Slap

29:59

Shot is based on thirty bucks a

30:01

game, five dollars a day meal money on the

30:03

road. But that was sort

30:05

of a baptismal um.

30:07

I wasn't that good at it right away, but

30:09

I came became pretty good at

30:11

it by by mid season, and

30:14

I thought that I'd come back for a second season

30:16

of that, uh and finish up the

30:19

remaining credits at Syracuse. When

30:21

I sent a tape to k m X

30:23

and St. Louis on a lark, the Carolina

30:26

Cougars of the Old A B A had

30:28

become the Spirits of St. Louis. They would

30:30

last only two years until the ABA

30:32

folded and only four of the teams.

30:34

The nets dispersed, the Nuggets and the Pacers got

30:37

absorbed and the Spirits went

30:39

away. But those two years were big

30:41

for me. Uh. Somehow, some way,

30:44

Jack Buck, who was the sports director of the station,

30:47

they had some two applicants

30:49

on real to real tapes, and

30:51

Jack Buck liked my tape and I

30:53

got brought into St. Louis for an interview,

30:56

and perhaps my willingness to work cheap. Eleven

30:59

dollars was my salary for that first

31:01

year at km X, and I would have paid them

31:03

eleven thousand and

31:06

So I'm at k X, I'm twenty two

31:09

years old, and I'm not a

31:11

colleague of I wouldn't be so presumptuous.

31:13

But I'm in the same place as

31:15

Jack Buck and Dan Kelly, who until

31:18

Doc Emer came along, was the gold standard

31:20

of hockey announcers, and everyone was

31:23

terrific. They're both in news and in sports.

31:25

They were all. They could have stopped the network

31:28

with the quality of the talent that was there. And

31:32

you got to kind of pick up your game if

31:34

you're going to keep pace. And I think that accelerated

31:36

my development as well. And

31:38

I'll try to make this as concise as possible, but

31:40

I've already failed in that regard. People

31:43

love these stories, don't don't worry about that. Km

31:46

o X was not just an affiliate.

31:48

It was a CBS owned and operated station

31:50

when that really made a difference, powerhouse

31:55

station and many of their

31:57

announcers Joe Garagiola, Harry

32:00

Jack Buck, later Gary Bender,

32:02

and Dan deardorfan of course later Joe

32:05

Buck and Dan Kelly on hockey. These

32:08

guys had gone to the network while

32:10

remaining at km o X, so it was kind

32:12

of a feeder system. So al

32:14

Michaels is at CBS.

32:17

It's September and

32:19

he signs with ABC in less than a week

32:22

before the first game of the season, and he

32:24

was supposed to do San Francisco at Green Bay.

32:26

And so the president of CBS Sports

32:29

calls Bob Highland, who ran km

32:31

OX, and says, we need somebody.

32:33

Well, Buck already had an assignment. Kelly had an

32:35

assignment. He said, we got a kid here. He's

32:37

twenty four years old. He looks like he's four team,

32:40

but he's pretty good off.

32:42

I go to Green Bay. I had never done, except

32:44

for a half of two football games

32:47

on the radio. I've never done a football game. I

32:49

go to Green Bay. Jay Randall

32:52

showed me how to make a spotting board. I go to

32:54

Green Bay. I do this game. I'm

32:56

sure it wasn't a game worthy of the time capsule,

32:58

but it was good enough. The They brought me back

33:01

for occasional games, maybe three or four small

33:03

regional games a year in football

33:06

or backed up basketball games on the

33:08

NBA and Don Olmire at

33:10

NBC, even though none of those games ever went

33:12

into the big market of New York. He

33:14

became aware of me and he hired

33:17

me when I was twenty seven full time

33:19

at NBC. And after I was there

33:21

for only a month or so, he calls me into

33:23

his office and he says, you know, we really

33:26

liked to work. We think you have a future here. Let

33:28

me ask me something. How old are you? He said?

33:31

He said, God, damn it, you look like your

33:33

fourth seen that words. He

33:35

goes, how much older do you think you would look

33:37

if you grew a beard? And I set out

33:39

five years at least, and he perks up. He goes, really,

33:42

I said yeah, because that's how long it would take to

33:44

grow it. So you

33:46

know, somehow, somehow it

33:48

worked out. Um, even

33:50

when I was hosting the Olympics when I was forty, I'm

33:52

sure I didn't look the part exactly,

33:55

but people accepted it and and

33:57

it worked out. And I think I think the

34:00

outom line of it is if you have any talent

34:02

at all and you get thrust into situations.

34:05

Brian Gumbel left Sports to

34:07

go to the Today Show. They didn't

34:09

have anybody in mind to host the football

34:11

show, and that eventually became hosting

34:14

the NBA on NBC and hosting

34:16

the Olympics. I got thrust into

34:18

it. I had almost no studio

34:20

hosting the experience at all. The first

34:22

five years. I've never used a telepopter at all.

34:25

I just ad lived everything. But I

34:27

just found my way, and you become

34:29

more and more comfortable with it. I

34:32

think of the luck involved. NBC

34:34

hires Ben Scully, Joe

34:37

garg Joel and Tony Kubec had been a

34:39

legendary pair. They put Joe

34:42

with them. Then has to be on the a game.

34:44

He is the greatest I inherit. Tony

34:46

Kubeck the backup game becomes

34:49

a much more important thing. And

34:51

then I started hosting the World Series, and

34:53

in the years where we had both lcs is, Tony

34:56

and I would do the American League. That put

34:58

me on a much bigger stage than I would have

35:00

expected at that point in my career.

35:02

Now, if an opportunity comes along, you

35:04

have to be able to take advantage of that opportunity.

35:08

Uh. David Letterman starts his show

35:11

at NBC one night.

35:13

He wants a sportscaster and to do mock

35:16

commentary on elevator racist

35:19

Mark Albert is the guy. He wants Marvis

35:21

out of town doing a nick game. I'm

35:23

sitting in the office. They go,

35:26

we got this kid here, Bob Costas

35:28

send them up again on the elevator

35:30

on on the sixth floor. I do this thing

35:32

for David Letterman. He likes it because I kind

35:34

of get where he's coming from and what he wants. This

35:36

mock serious thing. He brings

35:39

me back to sit down next to him. At the end of the

35:41

show, I'd say something that makes

35:43

him laugh. He says, you're really funny.

35:45

Would you like to do this again? Of course

35:47

I would. You're David Letterman. Even then, he's

35:49

David Letterman. I was probably on two

35:52

dozen times, and those things not

35:54

only introduced me to a different audience

35:56

in a different way, but early

35:59

on, when you're trying to find your way, you

36:01

get some laughs there, or you get some good

36:03

notices for what you're doing. In the sportscasting

36:06

world. It increases your confidence

36:08

and it makes you feel like you can

36:10

be more spontaneous and show more of yourself,

36:12

not just color between the lines, for maybe

36:15

color outside the lines a little bit. Fox

36:17

Sports Radio has the best sports talk

36:19

lineup in the nation. Catch all of our

36:21

shows at Fox Sports Radio dot

36:23

com and within the I Heart Radio

36:26

app. Search f s R to listen

36:28

live. We're talking to Bob

36:30

Costas. I'm Clay Travis. We're here with the Wins and Losses

36:32

Podcast. How nervous were

36:35

you going to Green Bay to call that game? At

36:37

twenty four years old? Shaking

36:39

like a freaking leaf. And

36:42

the analyst on the game with

36:45

someone that only older listeners would remember

36:47

firsthand, Hall of Fame receiver

36:49

Tommy McDonald, who had been

36:51

a big deal at Oklahoma and then

36:54

primarily with the Philadelphia Eagles, one

36:56

of the last to play without forget

37:00

about a mask, no no bar, no

37:02

bar on, Yeah, that's amazing. And then

37:04

went and then went to the single helmet

37:06

thing, and he was quite a single bar

37:09

and he was quite a character. But

37:11

however nervous I was, he

37:13

was a hundred times more nervous. He

37:15

has since passed away. And I say this with affection

37:18

play. He literally froze

37:21

on the on camera open. He

37:23

couldn't remember what he wanted to

37:25

say. And I'm twenty four

37:27

years old. Nobody outside St. Louis

37:29

has any damn idea who I am,

37:32

and so I basically I'm doing the

37:34

whole broadcast by myself. There

37:36

were times when he couldn't complete sentences,

37:39

and that was the last game be he ever

37:42

did. So I was

37:44

nervous to begin with, and I was damn near

37:46

panic stricken by the second quarter. But

37:48

but I muddled through. They

37:51

brought me back. So either I was very

37:53

lucky or I was a little bit better than I feared.

37:56

Okay, other question, Don Olmeyer,

37:59

I know that he was incredibly

38:02

important for a lot of different people in

38:04

the world of sports. What did he

38:06

mean for you and for people who do

38:08

not know him? Who was he and

38:10

why was he important? Don

38:12

Oldmeyer was bigger than life. He

38:15

and Dick Ebersol, who was even more

38:17

important in my career, were proteges

38:20

of run Ledge. Run Ledge

38:22

is of course, still viewed as the single

38:24

most important person in the history of

38:26

sports television who wasn't on the air, although

38:29

I think Dick Eversol could rival him

38:32

for that. Uh So, first

38:35

Don and then Dick headed up

38:37

NBC Sports, and they each had a tremendous

38:39

influence on me. And the very fact

38:42

that they liked me and saw

38:44

something in me that maybe

38:46

others would not have seen at least that quickly

38:49

that elevated my career. They put

38:51

me in positions to succeed

38:54

or I guess fail, and luckily

38:57

each of those worked out. In the case of

38:59

Dick Eversol, not only did

39:01

he elevate me from late night host

39:03

of the Olympics to primetime host. I've

39:05

been the late night host, he made

39:07

me the primetime host in

39:09

in Barcelona, but he

39:12

also created a late

39:14

night talk show for me in conjunction

39:16

with Brandon Tartakoff uh

39:19

later with Bob Costas, followed Johnny

39:21

Carson and David Letterman in NBC's

39:24

late night lineup, and showed a different

39:26

side of me because only

39:28

maybe five of it had to do with sports. Most

39:31

of it was other walks of life.

39:33

So ohmy are at the beginning hiring

39:36

me, having some confidence in me,

39:39

giving me big assiglence. I mean,

39:41

in the first year I was there, when Dick Enberg

39:43

had an overlap and there was a college basketball

39:46

game and a football game, he'd go to the football

39:48

game and Ollmyer threw me right in there

39:51

with Al McGuire and Billy Packer, a

39:53

legendary combination in college

39:55

basketball back when a college basketball

39:57

game on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon was a different

40:00

thing than it is now. The media landscape

40:02

was so different. So Don threw me

40:04

into those things, and basically it was sink or

40:06

swim, and I might have sunk a few times, but I

40:09

made it to the other side of the waterway, I guess

40:11

to strain that metaphor. And then

40:13

when Don went off and

40:15

eventually became the head of entertainment

40:18

at NBC in the nineties, in the heyday

40:21

of NBC e Er Seinfeld, Uh,

40:24

Cosby, Show, Um whatever, Friends,

40:26

whatever it might have been, when NBC was the unquestioned

40:29

number one eversol Is running

40:31

NBC Sports and NBC Sports

40:34

is clearly number one in that area, and

40:36

all Myer's running NBC Entertainment, and

40:38

luckily I'm their boy. I

40:40

mean, I'm sure that I aggravated them.

40:42

I know I aggravated them sometimes because

40:45

sometimes I have a mind of my own, So I may have pissed

40:47

them off now and then. But what they did

40:49

for me, uh is something I can

40:52

never fully repay. And they were both

40:54

so charismatic and dynamic. They

40:56

themselves were as big a star, at least among

40:58

those who knew them as any of the broadcasters

41:01

were. They had tremendous presence. When

41:03

they walked into a room, you knew

41:06

that you better snap to it and pay attention

41:08

because there was just something about them

41:11

something you know, intelligence is one thing, inside

41:13

is another, but presence in charisma,

41:15

and they had it in space. You mentioned

41:18

going on David Letterman. So as a kid

41:20

growing up in Nashville, I would

41:22

watch baseball all day long,

41:25

right when I was home in the summers, in particular,

41:27

I'd watch w g N with Harry Carey

41:29

and Steve Stone. In the afternoons, I

41:31

would watch the late night at the time

41:34

ESPN games. And one of the great

41:36

things about being a kid and being able to stay up late,

41:38

and I've always kind of been a night owl despite the fact

41:40

that I have an early morning show, is I

41:42

would watch David Letterman, and I just

41:44

found him to be an unbelievably compelling

41:47

television present who, as you mentioned earlier,

41:50

broke pretty much every rule that

41:52

would have existed in television. Right if you

41:54

had gone through and said, how would you design a

41:57

late night show? Uh that they

41:59

came up with basically the everything

42:01

that they would tell you not to do. And it worked

42:03

flawlessly for Letterman. What

42:06

was working with him? Like you said, you

42:08

went on a show a bunch as well, and you've

42:10

later followed his show. What did you

42:12

find him to be like off the

42:14

air as opposed to on the air, And

42:16

how would the show be constructed, and

42:18

what if anything could you take from that?

42:22

Well, David, I didn't

42:24

want anything to

42:26

be cookie cutter. You go on other

42:28

shows, they do a pre interview and

42:31

you talk about a few areas that you might discuss,

42:34

and you give them a few anecdotes that you have

42:36

that are sure to get laughs and be interesting.

42:39

And David would have that, but he'd depart

42:41

from it. Jay Leno would pretty much

42:43

stay with it, and Jay was successful

42:45

for his own reasons. But Letterman

42:48

thought there was an integrity in that.

42:50

At least that was my assumption that if

42:52

he just painted by the numbers, that he couldn't

42:54

be David Letterman. So you never knew.

42:57

He could get bored with what you were saying, or you could

42:59

want to alan j you it could throw something out.

43:02

So you really had to be on your

43:04

toes when you were on with David

43:06

Letterman. But David was great

43:08

to me. Um, he was always very

43:11

kind to me, said nice things

43:13

about me, and when he went

43:15

to CBS UM after

43:17

he didn't get the Tonight show and Jay Leno did.

43:20

Part of his deal was that he controlled

43:23

the hour after his show, and eventually

43:25

Tom Snyder got that hour and later

43:28

Craig Kilborn and Craig Ferguson. M Snyder

43:30

was the first month, but only after David

43:32

offered it to me. I

43:35

was very tempted because it was David Letterman,

43:37

and because it was a full hour and it was an

43:39

hour earlier, twelve thirty instead of one thirty.

43:42

But NBC had the NBA. Uh,

43:45

they still had the NFL, although

43:47

I was I was transitioning out

43:49

of the NFL, but still that they had it. They

43:52

were reacquiring baseball. I was the host

43:54

of the Olympics, and so

43:58

if the offer had come at a different time, I said, who

44:00

would have taken it? And I certainly appreciated that

44:02

David thought enough of me to offer it

44:04

to me. Um he remade

44:07

late night television. You know, his

44:09

his idol was always Johnny Carson, and

44:11

Johnny was magnificent and he had a certain

44:14

saboaf there that almost

44:16

no one else could match. For his time

44:19

period. I don't. I don't mean time period at

44:21

night, I mean that era of television.

44:24

He was beyond cool. But

44:27

David actually going forward

44:30

was more influential. Because everybody

44:32

as wonderful as Conan is or or

44:35

Kimmel or Fallon or Colbert or whoever you

44:37

want to name, they all are

44:39

influenced by David Letterman. Follow

44:42

them. There's no doubt at

44:44

all. And all of this kind of

44:46

leads into this question, which I think is is

44:48

important also for people out there listening, and I'm

44:50

Clay Travis. We're talking with Bob Costas on The Winds

44:52

and Lost his podcast. Being

44:55

able to do sports well requires

44:58

an ability to see sports as

45:00

part of a larger landscape of

45:02

American and world life, and certainly

45:05

you had to do that at the Olympics. Do

45:07

you believe sometimes that people

45:09

who do sports get so wrapped

45:11

up into the essence of the sport itself

45:14

that they lack the ability to understand

45:17

the larger context. And how

45:19

has that mattered and been an asset

45:21

to you in terms of the growth of your

45:23

career and what you were able to do understanding

45:26

sports. But also just based on our conversations,

45:29

I know that you have a lot of interest outside

45:32

of sports. Sometimes there are guys

45:34

and girls in our field where it's like all

45:36

they know is sports, and I

45:38

think that can sometimes constrain them to a large

45:40

extent. It's a perceptive

45:42

question, you know. You listen to Vince

45:45

Scully through all those years

45:47

and then obviously was steeped

45:49

in baseball history, but

45:52

he knew something about the world

45:54

beyond that you could gracefully

45:57

bring it in. I knew Jack

45:59

Buck very well. Jack

46:01

Buck was wounded at the bridge

46:03

at Remagen during World

46:05

War Two. He got either the Bronze

46:08

Star or Purple Heart, I don't remember which.

46:11

He had worked on the docks. He

46:13

had grown up relatively poor

46:16

in Massachusetts, one of six or seven

46:18

kids. He was a Depression era

46:21

kid um. He'd scuffled

46:23

a little bit. He'd lived the light.

46:26

He was a reader. He was someone

46:28

that that got out there, you

46:30

know, he was. He lived a textured

46:33

light, and that came across in his

46:35

broadcast. As great as people perceived

46:37

Jack being from his network broadcast,

46:41

it was really on the Cardinals day in,

46:43

day out, night and night out, where his

46:45

sly wit and his frame of reference

46:47

and his texture as a person came

46:50

across, and that's that's

46:53

what you want to emulate. I don't know if you ever fully get

46:55

there, but it's that in your own way

46:58

that you want to do if

47:00

the circumstances allow it. You want

47:03

the broadcast to be textured. I've

47:05

always used this example. Over time,

47:08

maybe you can't get it into every broadcast,

47:11

but over time you

47:13

hope to do what a really good

47:16

um issue of Sports Illustrated

47:18

does. Some of it is a celebration

47:21

of sports. It's excitement, it's

47:23

beauty, even the poetry of it, great

47:25

photography, great writing about

47:27

a big event. Some of it's quirky

47:30

and humorous. Some of it's historical

47:32

and when called for and in proportion,

47:36

there's journalism and there's commentary,

47:38

and taken all together, it's a

47:40

mosaic. It isn't just one thing,

47:43

or isn't just primary colors. There's different

47:45

shadings. And I hope that over time

47:48

That's what my career has been and

47:51

where I got frustrated, and it's nobody's

47:53

fault. NBC does not run

47:55

for my benefit, did not run for my benefit.

47:58

But in the last ten years or so of

48:00

my career there they had lost

48:02

baseball. They had lost the NBA,

48:04

my two favorite things. I've done

48:06

a dozen Olympics, and the formats

48:08

became more and more constricting,

48:11

and so there was less of a chance to do the very

48:13

thing that your question implies.

48:16

And so if you think about younger

48:18

viewers, they may

48:20

not have the full sense

48:23

of what I might have been about. And

48:25

I don't think it matters all that much. I mean it matters

48:27

to me. No one's going to put it in

48:29

a time capsule of the twentieth century,

48:31

but from the mid eighties too,

48:34

I don't know, early two thousand's

48:36

the combination of the late

48:38

night show of the n b A, of

48:40

the baseball coverage, of the early

48:43

hosting of football, of

48:45

showing up on Letterman and Atlano

48:47

and even Carson on

48:49

one occasion, or Nightline

48:52

or Meet the Press or Charlie Rose,

48:54

or doing pieces for the NBC news

48:57

magazines, and then the Olympics,

48:59

of course, and then my spint

49:01

at HBO. I think that almost

49:03

everything I did that was true

49:06

to me as a broadcaster and as a

49:08

person. And you know, no one's

49:10

going to be universally popular, but I'll

49:12

stand by that and be comfortable with it because

49:14

it was true to me. I think some

49:17

of what happened over the last decade at

49:19

NBC didn't perfectly

49:21

exemplify who I was, either

49:23

personally or professionally. But that's nobody's

49:25

fault. Just the way it goes talking

49:28

to Bob Costas and I'm fascinated by so much of what

49:30

you just said, and I told you this off

49:32

the air. One reason I think I

49:34

don't care very much what people

49:36

say about me, and this also goes

49:39

to a larger conversation, is when

49:41

you do daily radio for three hours

49:43

a day, fifteen hours a week, I

49:45

basically get to have therapy in public

49:48

for anything that bothers me. Right, I get

49:50

to tell you exactly what

49:52

I think. And it can be about being a father

49:54

of three young boys. It can be about being

49:56

married. It can be about a game that

49:58

didn't go away the way I anticipated,

50:01

or a bet that I lost, or whatever else. I

50:03

think people who listen to my radio

50:05

show, and it's obviously you

50:07

know this, it's never as many as

50:09

you want them to write. I wish that more

50:11

people listen to the show continues to grow and

50:14

everything else, But when you're in this

50:16

space, you always want to have more,

50:18

right, Like that's kind of in the universe

50:20

in which we live. If you're ambitious and you want

50:23

to continue to grow, you think you're

50:25

pretty good and you'd like to have as many people paying

50:27

attention as possible. And we're one of the four

50:29

or five biggest radio shows now, but I

50:31

think, you know, we should be the biggest. And the

50:33

point on a larger scale is though we

50:36

have a big enough audience now where I feel

50:38

like people may not love me all the time, but they

50:40

know me right. I am an authentic person

50:42

to them on many different ways, both good

50:44

and bad, as the people that we all know in our day

50:47

to day lives are. And we

50:49

have found that I bet you have found too. Oftentimes

50:52

it's not the talents that make people

50:54

like you, it's your flaws,

50:56

because they humanize you, whether dad,

50:58

mom, grandma, grand paw, aunt, uncle, whatever

51:01

it might be, you in an interesting

51:03

way. At least in the last you

51:05

know, fifteen twenty years, for many people

51:07

who are listening to us, had a massive

51:09

audience, the Olympics, big

51:11

sports, all of those. But

51:14

you're within that television

51:17

window where the larger

51:19

context is not necessarily known.

51:21

You don't have you've got the massive audience

51:23

everybody may know you when you walk through the airport,

51:26

but at times you're almost an enigma

51:28

that people can project up on to

51:31

choose to believe what they would like to believe

51:33

about you. Is that a challenge

51:36

in many ways? I would think it's it's such an interest,

51:38

it's it's it's kind of the opposite of what I've got now,

51:40

where the people who listen, we've got a good size

51:42

audience, but they really feel like they know me.

51:44

Whereas when you're talking to million

51:47

people on television or seventy

51:49

five million or whatever the biggest number was that you ever

51:51

spoke to, they kind of see

51:54

you and and and and you're a sphinx of

51:56

sorts. They project up on you

51:58

what they think of you.

52:00

You know, that's so insightful, And it's one

52:02

of the subtexts of this conversation.

52:05

And as an aside, one

52:07

of the obvious reasons why

52:10

I've taken advantage of this format

52:12

uh and gone on at greater length that I almost

52:14

ever have a chance to go on on

52:17

television. And going back to the

52:19

last comment I made, I

52:21

was very comfortable with what

52:24

I put out there in the eighties, nineties

52:26

and early part of the two thousands,

52:29

I think that those who paid even casual

52:31

attention had a pretty accurate idea

52:34

of where I was coming from professionally

52:37

and personally. And if

52:39

in more recent years they had followed

52:41

me on HBO or on the Baseball Network,

52:44

then that would also be true. But on

52:46

NBC, my role on

52:49

Sunday Night Football, working alongside

52:52

Al Michaels and Chris Collinsworth, they're doing

52:54

what they were put on Planet Earth to do, and

52:56

Fred Goodelly the producer, and Drew

52:58

Sakoff the director, everybody else what

53:01

they were put there to do. And I

53:03

was there because I had equity

53:05

and NBC and people associated me with big

53:07

events on NBC, and I don't

53:10

know that that really uh

53:12

personified anything that I truly

53:14

cared about. There were moments perhaps

53:17

that I was able to contribute something worthwhile

53:19

that was um if not unique

53:22

to me, than at least distinctive about

53:25

me, but for the most part it didn't serve

53:27

that purpose. And on the Olympics,

53:30

the same thing. I think the

53:32

first seven or eight that I did pretty

53:34

much we're close to the

53:36

bullseye nothing, as we started out this conversation

53:39

saying, is ever truly perfect, but pretty

53:41

close, And then After that, the

53:43

formats and viewer expectation

53:46

and everything else um changed

53:48

the role. And I think I still handled it professionally

53:51

and competently, and there were times

53:53

little windows where maybe you could hit a great

53:56

note, but those windows seemed to me to

53:58

be fewer. And and now

54:00

you coupled that with social

54:04

media, and that's what brought us together

54:06

here and this point. And

54:09

again I'm not saying it's the end of the world. And

54:11

I'm one of the luckiest guys on the planet, so

54:14

I'm not complaining. But

54:17

there is a widespread misimpression,

54:21

perhaps especially among your

54:23

audience or audiences

54:27

that have a certain predisposition.

54:30

There is a misimpression

54:32

that I'm somewhere to the left of Bernie

54:35

Sanders or Noam Chomsky.

54:37

And the truth of the matter is that anybody who

54:39

knows me knows that that isn't

54:41

even close to true. That I'm

54:44

an ala carte guy, that I

54:46

have many views

54:49

that could be called old

54:51

school liberal, not progressive

54:54

or leftist. I

54:56

have a problem with that. I have a problem with cancel culture.

54:58

I have a problem with political wreckness. I have

55:00

a problem with identity politics.

55:02

If it's blind identity politics. I have

55:04

a problem with what I understand is going on

55:07

in academia to a large extent

55:09

um. But I have classic

55:12

liberal views, but I also have many

55:14

views that could be characterized as

55:16

conservative. But a few

55:19

things kind of hope

55:21

a bear uh

55:23

in the right wing blog of sphere and

55:26

Fox News or whatever. And it's

55:28

part of the business model there to

55:30

say to the resentments of the audience,

55:33

not so much the enlightenment of the audience.

55:35

And so someone like me, relatively visible

55:38

and well known, is useful if

55:40

you can make a straw man out of me. Now

55:42

I'm not I'm not as useful as Nancy Pelosi

55:45

or somebody like that. And neither am I aligned

55:47

necessarily with Nancy Pelosi. But

55:49

but in passing there were times when

55:51

I served the purpose. And the purpose

55:53

was not let's see what he really thinks

55:56

and let's get into shades of gray and nuanced.

55:58

No, the purpose was he

56:01

is part of the left wing media

56:03

machine. And it's very hard,

56:05

as you said, I don't have a show like yours. It's

56:08

very hard to answer

56:10

that you can defend a position you actually

56:12

hold, and you should if you actually hold it, But

56:14

how do you defend or explain a position that's

56:16

been assigned to you, and motivations

56:19

and a constellation of beliefs that people

56:21

have extrapolated from one thing that they

56:23

misunderstood to begin with. How are you supposed

56:25

to defend or unravel all of that

56:28

when none of it is true to who you are? What

56:31

I always say on my shows is

56:33

social media creates fifty

56:35

foot tall caricatures

56:38

that are often one inch one inch deep.

56:40

Right, you can punch right through it, but

56:42

the caricature itself is so large

56:45

that it isn't in any way representative.

56:48

And all of us out there, regardless of whether

56:50

you're a Democrat, Republican, independent, everybody

56:52

listening to this right now has beliefs

56:54

that conflict with their party if

56:56

they are intellectually honest. And I always

56:59

say, if you agree with everything

57:01

that a political candidate is saying, then

57:04

you aren't listening very hard. And I'm

57:06

not even sure if I were running for president

57:09

or political office that I would agree

57:11

with everything I say, because I'm constantly

57:13

evolving and recalibrating

57:15

what I believe on a day to day basis. That's

57:18

what I think intelligent people have to do

57:20

now. A big part of

57:22

your becoming what I think it would

57:24

be fair to say, is a is

57:27

a figure of of

57:29

of an easy target. Right, Because

57:31

you work at NBC, you seem

57:34

like, you know, you've got the glasses on, you

57:36

seem professorial at times. You

57:38

can imagine how you could play the role

57:41

of a feat liberal. Uh,

57:43

Mom costas right like you. You kind of they

57:45

put up the picture and they can kind of take advantage

57:47

of you. Your global You've been doing the Olympics,

57:50

all these things. A lot of that came

57:52

out of and you can correct

57:54

me if I'm wrong here, But in essay you

57:56

did about guns on NBC

57:59

J Ring Sunday Night Football, What

58:02

exactly happened there? What was

58:04

the experience? What would you

58:06

change if anything, about the

58:08

way that that was presented. First

58:11

of all, I, to some extent

58:14

fumbled it, and I've always

58:16

owned up to it. Jovan Belcher,

58:19

linebacker for the Chiefs, murders

58:22

his fiance in front of their two year

58:24

old child, uh and his mother

58:26

in law, and then goes to the Chiefs

58:29

training center and in front of his coach and

58:31

general manager, commits suicide.

58:34

All right, I do not think

58:37

that I'm going to be called upon to do anything

58:39

in essay form that Sunday

58:42

Night. Uh. They had devoted almost

58:45

the entire pregame and halftime

58:47

to looking at this issue still evolving.

58:50

They had a lot of people from the chiefs with poignant

58:53

commentary. Dan Patrick and Rodney

58:55

Harrison and Tony Dunge were handling it back

58:57

in the studio. UM usually I

58:59

would my essays sometime

59:02

after the opening kickoff, and

59:04

I presented to them so that they could put some

59:06

b roll on it with about I don't

59:09

know, seven eight minutes to go in the second

59:11

quarter. In this case, with about three

59:13

or four minutes to go in the second

59:15

quarter, it's we're gonna need a

59:18

minute to ninety seconds from you and

59:20

a producer. I take responsibility

59:23

not blaming it on him, because I'm the last line

59:25

of defense. I gotta sign off on it. A

59:27

producer hands me a column written

59:29

and here's the irony written by

59:32

your colleague and partner, Jason

59:35

Whitlock, who now is seen

59:37

as although it's a caricature, and I have

59:39

more regard for Jason than to caricature

59:41

him, but for our purposes here is

59:44

seen as a conservative voice. He's

59:46

on Fox, he's on OutKick. But

59:49

Malason had written a large article

59:52

about this part of which decried

59:55

what he called the gun culture

59:58

in sports. And the gun

1:00:01

culture in sports had been something

1:00:03

which had been written about and talked about

1:00:05

well before the Belcher incident.

1:00:08

ESPN had done a big thing about it.

1:00:11

There has been takeout stories

1:00:13

in the New York Times, Sports Illustrated,

1:00:16

and the USA Today about a

1:00:18

gun culture in sports.

1:00:20

And all you have to do is google athletes

1:00:23

and guns, and there's a litany of

1:00:25

criminality, tragedy, folly

1:00:28

associated with athletes and guns.

1:00:30

And while certainly it has happened

1:00:32

in society, it has happened

1:00:34

infrequently, if at all, that a prominent

1:00:37

athlete, by virtue of having a gun, has

1:00:39

turned the situation around for the better,

1:00:41

where any sensible person would say, thank

1:00:44

goodness, he did that. So there

1:00:46

was a gun culture. Think Gilbert

1:00:48

Arenas pulling a gun on a teammate

1:00:51

in the Washington Wizard's locker room. Think

1:00:54

Ray Caruth, Think Tank Johnson,

1:00:56

think a long, long list.

1:00:59

And that's what That's what

1:01:02

Jason was concerned

1:01:04

about, an attitude towards

1:01:06

guns, a misplaced notion

1:01:08

of street cred or manhood,

1:01:11

and the easy accessibility

1:01:13

to guns which leads

1:01:16

very often to tragedy, no one in

1:01:18

the right mind thinks that that Javon

1:01:20

Belchi couldn't have strangled his fiancee

1:01:23

or beaten her to death or stabbed there.

1:01:25

But we know that a gun not

1:01:28

only makes it easier, but that

1:01:30

the survival rate with a gun, whether

1:01:32

it's attempted suicide or attempted murder,

1:01:35

is the survival rate is less

1:01:38

than by other means. And

1:01:40

if we're also just talking about guns in general,

1:01:42

you don't have maths instances

1:01:44

of people throwing people off the roof or

1:01:47

up the building, but you do have

1:01:49

mass shootings that involve guns.

1:01:53

So now this producer

1:01:55

hands me this article. I look at

1:01:57

it, and what Jason was saying

1:02:00

was obvious to me. He

1:02:02

was talking about a gun culture, out about gun

1:02:04

control, out about the Second Amendment. It

1:02:07

rang true to me, and I thought wrongly

1:02:09

that the audience would understand the

1:02:12

point, so I quoted

1:02:14

a portion of it because they didn't have time to write

1:02:16

my own thing. I quoted a

1:02:19

portion of it. It was misunderstood

1:02:23

as a plea for gun

1:02:25

control or an anti Second Amendment

1:02:28

position. That's my fault,

1:02:31

And in retrospect, Clay, I'm a good

1:02:33

enough broadcaster. I knew this an

1:02:36

hour later when the response started

1:02:38

to come in and people were outraged that they wanted

1:02:40

me fired, and the n r A goes

1:02:43

nuts and he's anti American,

1:02:45

he's anti Second Amendment, etcetera, etcetera.

1:02:48

I should have off the top of my

1:02:50

head, I should have said, because

1:02:53

this is really what I was thinking. Every

1:02:56

time a tragedy intersects

1:02:59

with sports, we hear one of the dumbest

1:03:01

cliches in sports. Well,

1:03:03

that really puts it all in perspective, But

1:03:06

in fact, that perspective has a very short shelf

1:03:08

life because we're right back to obsessing

1:03:10

about the same sports issues we were concerned

1:03:12

with fifteen minutes ago. If

1:03:15

we're really looking for some perspective in

1:03:17

the aftermath of this tragedy, then

1:03:19

a serious conversation should ensued,

1:03:21

including but not limited to domestic

1:03:24

violence and are those who play a violent

1:03:27

sport more inclined to it than

1:03:29

they're athletic peers and contemporaries

1:03:32

the effects of football itself. We're

1:03:34

learning about the long range effects

1:03:37

of CTE, but we're also beginning

1:03:39

to learn then in the short term, emotions

1:03:42

and impulse control can

1:03:44

be affected by head trauma, especially

1:03:47

when mixed with alcohol. Performance

1:03:49

enhancing drugs or

1:03:52

pain killers, whatever it might be, and

1:03:55

the whole idea of athletes and guns.

1:03:57

And I should have said, and would have said, not

1:03:59

talking here about anyone's responsible,

1:04:02

lawful exercise of their legitimate

1:04:04

Second Amendment rights, but there is

1:04:06

an irresponsible attitude toward

1:04:08

guns that is part of the sports

1:04:11

world, and we'd be better off taking

1:04:13

a serious look at that. If I had said

1:04:15

that, the n r A types, the absolutists

1:04:17

still would have come after me, but a larger

1:04:20

portion of the audience would have understood what

1:04:22

I was saying. I clarified

1:04:24

it after that, almost immediately

1:04:27

after that, I went into the Lions.

1:04:29

Then I went on with Bill O'Reilly. I went

1:04:31

on with Howard Kurtz. But again,

1:04:34

if it's part of the business model, no

1:04:36

one comes on and says, oh,

1:04:39

okay, he clarified it, we get it now.

1:04:42

No, that wouldn't serve their purpose.

1:04:44

So somebody on box says, Bob

1:04:48

Costas is a hypocritical buffoon.

1:04:50

He has armed security,

1:04:52

but he doesn't want you to have it. So

1:04:55

I said to Howard Kurtz,

1:04:57

who's their media reporter, I've

1:05:00

never had armed security. I've never

1:05:02

had personal security in my entire life.

1:05:05

Maybe I should, especially now, but

1:05:08

I never have. I said,

1:05:10

there's massive security. Of course, at an

1:05:12

Olympics, where the President of the United

1:05:14

States has to go through the same security

1:05:16

that someone holding a ticket has to go through,

1:05:19

and there is one security person assigned

1:05:21

to NBC something I football. Apart

1:05:24

from that, I have never had personal security

1:05:26

a day in my life, on the job

1:05:29

or going to the restaurant or walking down the

1:05:31

street. What was the way that was fun?

1:05:34

Bob Costa says, because I don't personally

1:05:36

pay for it, an NBC does. I'm

1:05:38

not a hypocrite, even though I've got all of

1:05:40

this personal security.

1:05:43

If I could make this any clearer

1:05:45

than this, I don't know how I could

1:05:48

look. When I hear about somebody

1:05:51

whose home is broken into, they're

1:05:53

in some kind of danger, and

1:05:55

he or she uses a gun to defend

1:05:57

themselves and their family, I

1:06:00

applaud it. I applaud

1:06:02

it. If someone breaks into

1:06:05

your home, you don't

1:06:07

have time to evaluate what

1:06:09

is it here at

1:06:11

sixty if you're if

1:06:15

you're a woman who could be overpowered,

1:06:18

or you're a guy who calculates

1:06:20

the odds, and I don't like my chances here in

1:06:22

hand to hand combat and my

1:06:24

kids are asleep upstairs. If

1:06:27

there's even a five percent chance of one percent

1:06:29

chance that you, your wife, your

1:06:31

kids are in danger, that

1:06:34

person who broke into your house put him

1:06:36

or herself in jeopardy, and

1:06:39

whatever happens, I'm okay with

1:06:41

it. I do not want

1:06:44

to see the Second Amendment revoked.

1:06:47

I think there should be reasonable guns safety

1:06:49

laws. UM.

1:06:51

Looking at rules about cars

1:06:54

um would be a good template.

1:06:57

Uh. Nobody says that because

1:07:00

or speed limits, and because you have to

1:07:02

register your car or have a license.

1:07:04

Nobody says that means that we're going

1:07:06

to have to go to Grandma's house and a horse and buggy

1:07:09

on Thanksgiving because they're going to take our cars away.

1:07:11

And nobody says also that

1:07:14

you, um

1:07:16

that you should be allowed to drive the same

1:07:19

car that they use them that they

1:07:21

Tonify hundred or at

1:07:23

Indie on a city street.

1:07:26

These are reasonable restrictions which don't

1:07:28

get in the way of people's basic rights.

1:07:31

Um. And when someone says

1:07:34

they look to take the Second Amendment way, they're going to

1:07:36

take the Second Amendment away. Anyone who

1:07:38

could pass a Civics test knows just

1:07:40

how difficult it is to revoke

1:07:43

a constitutional amendment. Exactly

1:07:45

one has been revoked in the entire history of

1:07:47

the country, and that was the short lived

1:07:50

prohibition against alcohol.

1:07:52

The steps you'd have to go through to

1:07:55

revoke a constitutional amendment

1:07:57

are so extensive that hill is so high

1:08:00

to climb. And nobody I know that has

1:08:02

any credibility has suggested it. Certainly

1:08:04

not me, but that

1:08:07

kind of paranoia that

1:08:10

that that's it worked there this,

1:08:12

this person who is prominent, has said

1:08:15

something that perchs your resentment,

1:08:17

and it's not in our best interests really

1:08:20

to clarify it or to acknowledge

1:08:22

the shades of gray, because this

1:08:25

works for us, this works in our business

1:08:27

model. So once once

1:08:30

that was in place, and I thank you for giving me

1:08:32

this much time, Clay, And I also

1:08:34

know that no matter how carefully

1:08:36

I've expressed myself, how truthfully

1:08:39

and how much nuance, there are some people

1:08:41

who just don't want to hear it because

1:08:43

it doesn't align with what they want

1:08:45

to believe. Bob Costas here Clay

1:08:47

Travis Wins and Losses. How much of the reaction

1:08:50

do you think had to do with your opinion

1:08:53

came out during a football game? Oh

1:08:56

a lot, a lot of it did and

1:09:01

in other words, if you had gone on meet the press,

1:09:04

you know, let's say that weekend, because

1:09:06

they had wanted to talk about violence in football

1:09:08

and you had expressed the exact same opinions,

1:09:12

I don't know that it would have been

1:09:14

characterized in the same way as

1:09:16

it was because it occurred at halftime

1:09:19

of a football game, and whether or not people wanted

1:09:21

to see a serious analysis of Jovan Belcher

1:09:23

in that situation a lot of people, and this has

1:09:25

been, you know, kind of what I've focused on for

1:09:27

a long time. I try to think about the average guy

1:09:30

or girl out there watching a game. They just

1:09:32

want to have a beer, and they want to watch a football

1:09:34

game, and they don't really want to see

1:09:36

or have to confront larger societal

1:09:39

issues for any reason. And so I

1:09:42

think sometimes the juxtaposition

1:09:44

of frivolity, which

1:09:46

is in general football and gun

1:09:49

control or racial oppression

1:09:52

or whatever it is, that is grating

1:09:55

too many people because this is their escape

1:09:57

from the real world. So I think that also

1:10:00

actored in in a big way here, which goes to you

1:10:02

having a relatively short amount of time to

1:10:04

suddenly get thrown into the deep end to the pool

1:10:07

where you have to address something that is freighted

1:10:09

with incredible difficulty and complexity

1:10:11

in the middle of something that's otherwise privilege.

1:10:14

They asked me to do it, and I should have said I

1:10:16

had enough standing to say, look, there

1:10:18

isn't enough time. It's better

1:10:20

off being addressed in a

1:10:22

larger and different forum. I didn't

1:10:24

do that. That was my mistake. Look,

1:10:27

a guy who wins a gold glove can

1:10:29

food a routine groundball. It happens.

1:10:32

This is live television in the heat

1:10:34

of the moment, and I made a mistake in

1:10:37

judgment. But that does not mean that

1:10:39

my views should be perpetually

1:10:42

mischaracterized and grotesquely

1:10:45

caricatured. But I think if

1:10:47

I had done what I mentioned a few

1:10:49

minutes ago, starting with domestic

1:10:52

violence and the effects of football,

1:10:54

and then framed the gun part of it

1:10:56

as I just suggest that I should have, then

1:10:59

it would have been less jarring, and it would have

1:11:01

been understood that I wasn't doing it

1:11:03

gratuitously because these

1:11:05

issues had intersected with

1:11:08

with football that weekend, just

1:11:11

as when NBC asked me to do a commentary

1:11:13

on the red Skins team name that

1:11:15

had become a big issue that week. The President

1:11:17

had been asked about it. Goodell had been asked about

1:11:19

it, Dan Snyder had been asked about it, and Washington

1:11:22

was playing Dallas on our air,

1:11:24

and I delivered a very measured

1:11:27

commentary about it, trying

1:11:29

to lay out the distinctions

1:11:32

in my mind between redskins

1:11:34

and names associated with Native Americans

1:11:37

like chiefs, braves or warriors.

1:11:40

By definition every dictionary, by

1:11:42

definition, redskins is derogatory,

1:11:45

pejorative, a slur,

1:11:47

an insult. No such definition

1:11:50

applies to chiefs, braves, warriors.

1:11:52

So I'm not a political correctness guy, even

1:11:54

though it was handy for people to luck me in there,

1:11:57

because after the gun thing then there were poised

1:11:59

to believe um that I was some sort

1:12:01

of crazy leftist. Um.

1:12:04

Now, I think some people view the Redskins

1:12:06

thing differently. Even then,

1:12:09

a lot of conservatives, including the late Charles

1:12:11

Krafhammer, Kathleen Parker,

1:12:14

Phil Mushnik, who is viewed as being writer

1:12:16

center media columnists in the New York Post,

1:12:19

Tom Cole, a Native American but

1:12:21

Republican congressman from Oklahoma,

1:12:23

a lot of them agreed with me at that

1:12:26

at that time. But what also came

1:12:28

out of that play was this

1:12:30

this notion, including among

1:12:33

people who are fans of mine and

1:12:35

who might have agreed with what I've said, But

1:12:37

the notion, well, he really leaned

1:12:39

into politics. He politicized

1:12:42

everything. They were well over a

1:12:44

hundred of those halftime essays. Two

1:12:47

the two we've just discussed guns and redskins

1:12:49

could even be construed as political.

1:12:52

Everything else was Tom Brady and Peyton

1:12:54

Manning or art Model or al Davis dies

1:12:57

and you do some sort of assessment and

1:12:59

a pre creation or what's right

1:13:01

or wrong about the overtime rules? That's

1:13:04

what it was. Herry. And

1:13:06

if I'm such a left wing guy as

1:13:08

opposed to the ala carte guy I really

1:13:10

am, What would it count for?

1:13:13

The essay I did about Vladimir

1:13:16

Putin in Sochi, which

1:13:19

was widely viewed as one of the toughest ever

1:13:21

directed towards the head of

1:13:23

state and toward a host nation.

1:13:26

What would account for me? Asking the

1:13:28

heads of the IOC repeatedly, what is

1:13:30

it with the IOC and authoritarian

1:13:33

nations like China and

1:13:35

Russia? What would account for me? Twice

1:13:38

in the opening ceremonies and again

1:13:40

in two thousand and eight, pointing out

1:13:42

that China was positioned,

1:13:44

had the motivation and the means to replicate

1:13:47

the old Eastern Bloc sports

1:13:49

machine, complete with all

1:13:51

the cheating that that implies, and

1:13:54

pointing out both in an interview with President

1:13:57

Bush in two thousand eight and another

1:13:59

common areas small little snippets,

1:14:01

judicious small percentage

1:14:04

of the overall coverage. But look, there's no

1:14:06

freedom of speech here. There's a firewall

1:14:09

on the internet. Yes, China has

1:14:11

opened up to the world. Yes, the

1:14:13

Beijing that I'm visiting in two thousand eight

1:14:15

is much different than the

1:14:17

p King is. Most Americans knew it that

1:14:20

I first saw in nineteen. It's

1:14:22

been transformed. It's a modern city,

1:14:25

it's there's lots of commerce.

1:14:27

They're not a communist country

1:14:30

by economics anymore, but they

1:14:32

are still an authoritarian country,

1:14:34

often often a terribly tunitive

1:14:38

totalitarian country. Is

1:14:40

that a left wing thing to say? Is

1:14:42

it a left wing thing to say that? The

1:14:44

two thousand twelve Olympics in

1:14:47

London for anniversary of the Munich

1:14:49

massacre, when the Israeli delegation

1:14:51

came in to point out that the IOC, for

1:14:54

reasons of its own, would not acknowledge

1:14:57

this, not commemorate the

1:14:59

dark this day in Olympic history

1:15:02

and here's the key. I wasn't talking about

1:15:04

Newtown. I wasn't talking about um

1:15:08

Sandy Hook. I wasn't talking about

1:15:11

something that happened outside the context of sports,

1:15:13

that was relevant in the context

1:15:16

of the Olympics and on that occasion. And

1:15:18

it took about thirty seconds. But I don't think

1:15:20

many other broadcasters in my position would

1:15:22

have done it. But it certainly wasn't a left

1:15:25

wing position. I think I'm a

1:15:27

common sense guy who

1:15:29

has, as I said, all the cart positions,

1:15:32

some that could be characterized on either side

1:15:34

of the central dividing line. Have you

1:15:36

voted for Republicans for president as well

1:15:39

as Democrats in your life? Yeah, and

1:15:41

you're and you're open to doing that in the years ahead.

1:15:43

You know, who knows who's gonna be running in That

1:15:47

might surprise people who are

1:15:49

convinced that you're a left winger. Right, you're

1:15:51

open to voting for either side of the

1:15:53

political equation. Sure,

1:15:56

sure, Now I want to make it too

1:15:59

political, but I'll just say this

1:16:01

this year, if if

1:16:04

a Republican like John

1:16:06

McCain or John Kasik, or

1:16:08

Mitt Romney or

1:16:11

or others, if Republicans

1:16:14

of those of that stripe, we're

1:16:16

running this year against Joe

1:16:18

Biden, who is a decent man, clearly

1:16:21

a decent man, but has certain deficits.

1:16:24

I would seriously consider voting Republican.

1:16:26

Be sure to catch live editions about Kicked

1:16:28

the coverage with Clay Travis weekdays at

1:16:30

six am Eastern, three am Pacific.

1:16:33

We're talking to Bob Costas. I'm Clay Traviss is

1:16:36

the Wins and Losses podcast. This

1:16:38

ties in a bit with cancel culture, which

1:16:40

you said you are not a fan of live

1:16:42

television or live radio or

1:16:44

any form of live broadcast. You have

1:16:47

done it as well or better

1:16:49

than almost anyone when you consider the number

1:16:51

of hours that you're going to do it. Everybody

1:16:54

out there who listens to the radio show knows it's difficult.

1:16:56

It's like tap dancing at times above a

1:16:58

razor, particularly in social media era,

1:17:01

what I would say often happens. And this

1:17:03

is what my position on the n r A. I

1:17:05

think many people in the n r A are

1:17:08

terrified that if they've given inch, somebody's gonna

1:17:10

take a mile right and that uh,

1:17:12

and that the perspective on you

1:17:14

may you may you and I may have different agreements,

1:17:16

or many people out there may have different agreements on

1:17:19

what should happen with the statue of Robert

1:17:21

E. Lee Right, um and uh,

1:17:23

And certainly many people could have a variety of opinions.

1:17:26

I'm a big history buff grew up in the South.

1:17:28

I abhor the idea of taking down

1:17:30

statues. I think it's a bad precedent to set.

1:17:33

I think oftentimes the statues the museums

1:17:35

don't want them, which is a usual thing to say.

1:17:38

But I think most people, regardless

1:17:40

of where they come down on that issue, would

1:17:42

say it's crazy to tear

1:17:44

down the Washington Monument, or to blow

1:17:47

up the Lincoln Memorial or the Jefferson Memorial

1:17:49

or things like that. But to me,

1:17:51

the problem with cancel culture is

1:17:54

it's the progressive tip of the spear. They

1:17:56

never stop right there. There's never like your

1:17:58

point on the Redskins name is I think a one.

1:18:00

If you told me, hey, you can give

1:18:02

away the Redskins name and we'll

1:18:05

never have an argument about the Chiefs or

1:18:07

the Braves, or the Florida State Seminoles

1:18:09

or any of those tribes, that's the end

1:18:11

of the discussion. Right. As a reasonable

1:18:14

person, I would say, Okay, I'll give you

1:18:16

the Redskins. Let's just table all

1:18:18

other mascots and whether or not they're offensive.

1:18:20

I don't want to be Yeah,

1:18:24

I don't want to go uh full

1:18:26

board to try to defend the fighting Irish nickname

1:18:28

because somebody is upset that it's a caricature

1:18:30

of an Irish person who has, you know,

1:18:33

so much too much to drink and wants to get into a

1:18:35

fight. I'm okay with it, right, let's

1:18:37

just yes,

1:18:39

right. At some point you

1:18:41

have to just say, in my opinion, okay,

1:18:44

we kind of reached the logical extension

1:18:46

of offense. And the problem with political

1:18:48

correctness and progressive culture to me in

1:18:50

many ways is then it can't

1:18:53

happen because they wouldn't have a reason to

1:18:55

exist, right, And so I understand

1:18:57

some of the pushback on those issues.

1:18:59

But as someone who does live

1:19:02

television as much as you have, and and has

1:19:04

done as many different live radio events,

1:19:06

are you as troubled by the obsession

1:19:09

with finding the two minutes that somebody

1:19:11

has that may be the least accurate reflection

1:19:13

of their career and insisting that we

1:19:16

cashier them for it and that they can no longer

1:19:18

do what they've done for so long. Absolutely,

1:19:21

um, people who demand

1:19:24

respect and compassion and

1:19:27

rightly so for marginalized

1:19:29

groups or historically discriminated

1:19:32

against groups. Often are not

1:19:34

very respectful of the totality

1:19:36

of a person's life, are very compassionate

1:19:39

about a mistake that doesn't

1:19:41

necessarily reflect the depth

1:19:43

of someone's feelings. Um,

1:19:48

you know, I think that we can we can work

1:19:50

towards being a more tolerant and sensitive

1:19:53

society without without

1:19:56

needing notches on our belt. We canceled

1:19:58

this guy, We canceled that in stitutional we canceled

1:20:01

this, that and the other thing. Um

1:20:03

with without with failing to recognize

1:20:06

that the things took place in a

1:20:08

different context. The idea

1:20:10

that some twenty five year old kid is

1:20:13

going to stand here in and

1:20:15

judge something that happened decades

1:20:17

and centuries ago. Judge

1:20:20

the people. Judge the people, not

1:20:22

necessarily the attitudes, because attitudes evolved,

1:20:24

and rightly so, but judge the people

1:20:27

and what they did and said in the context

1:20:29

of their time, and and be so

1:20:32

unself aware as not to realize

1:20:34

the generations from now. If this

1:20:37

continues, you will will be viewed

1:20:39

just as harshly and perhaps just as unfairly.

1:20:42

You think you've reached the endpoint of

1:20:44

evolution in sensitivity

1:20:46

and awareness. But you haven't, Jack,

1:20:49

you haven't. And if you played this game

1:20:51

eternally, eventually it's going

1:20:53

to come back and and like Frankenstein's

1:20:56

Monster, it's gonna, it's

1:20:58

gonna it's going to kill its career gator. That's

1:21:01

what history teaches us, and that's why having

1:21:04

an understanding of the scope of

1:21:06

history is so important. I've just got a few more questions

1:21:09

for you. Uh, the Olympics.

1:21:11

You've hit on several different times. What

1:21:14

is it like for people out there who

1:21:16

don't know the procedures and the processes

1:21:18

and what is involved to do in

1:21:20

Olympics? Is it the hardest thing that

1:21:23

you do in live sports business? How

1:21:25

would you contextualize that? It's

1:21:28

it's very difficult. But what helped

1:21:30

me was the advice that Jim

1:21:32

McKay gave me and then my own experience, which

1:21:34

was that the host of the Olympics must

1:21:37

be a very good generalist. You

1:21:39

have to have a very good grasp of the history

1:21:42

of the Olympics, history and current

1:21:44

circumstances of the host city and

1:21:46

the host nation, and you have

1:21:48

to know about the handful

1:21:51

of events and sports and competitors

1:21:53

that are likely to be part of the focus

1:21:56

of prime time coverage. You

1:21:58

know that the researchers are so good

1:22:01

that if somebody or something pops out

1:22:04

out of nowhere, like I think of Rulan

1:22:06

Gardner feeding the seemingly

1:22:08

invincible correll In, who

1:22:10

was so good that that competitors feared

1:22:13

going in against him. Um he

1:22:15

was a mythic figure, and Rulan Gardner

1:22:18

beat him for the gold medal in Sydney in two

1:22:20

thousand, even though he was an American competitor.

1:22:22

I didn't know who the hell Rulan Gardner was

1:22:25

until this happened, And if it hadn't happened,

1:22:27

it wouldn't have been on in prime time. But it was such a big

1:22:29

upset that eventually we throw it on the air as

1:22:31

quickly as possible, and in the space of about

1:22:33

five minutes, the researchers give me his

1:22:35

bio. And something you have to be good

1:22:37

at is that you have to be able to take a briefing

1:22:40

briefly, quickly and assimilate

1:22:42

the information, understand what's worth emphasizing,

1:22:45

see if there's a narrative here that makes

1:22:47

some sense. But if you go into an

1:22:49

Olympics thinking you have to know every Rulan

1:22:52

gardener, and you have to know every platform

1:22:54

diver from Peru or every crush country

1:22:57

skier from Norway. Your head

1:22:59

will explode. Ken Jennings

1:23:01

of Jeopardy fans, the front Fame couldn't

1:23:04

possibly, you know, hold all of

1:23:06

that information. At a summer

1:23:08

Olympics, you've got two hundred countries and over ten

1:23:10

thousand athletes. So be a good generalist,

1:23:13

be able to see the big picture and

1:23:16

then be able to say, hone

1:23:18

in on the particulars, if and

1:23:20

when they rise to the top. Here's another

1:23:23

example, Clay of

1:23:26

the business model that applies

1:23:28

too often, and it applies across

1:23:31

the political spectrum. But in this case

1:23:33

it was the right wing that got me

1:23:37

in Sochi. NBC

1:23:40

put together a piece that

1:23:42

explained Vladimir Putin's

1:23:44

influence in Russia, and part

1:23:47

of that said that Forbes,

1:23:49

not Mother Jones of the Nation. Forbes

1:23:52

had named Vladimir Putin the

1:23:54

year before as the world's

1:23:56

most influential leader, bumping Barack

1:23:58

Obama to two. They didn't say was the best. They didn't

1:24:00

say he was a good guy, most influential.

1:24:03

So I had said that. Immediately

1:24:06

after narrating that piece, there

1:24:09

was a panel discussion which made it clear that

1:24:11

he was a former KGB agent, that

1:24:13

he was no friend of the West, that he

1:24:15

was aligned with UH

1:24:17

with very questionable and that's

1:24:19

to be kind policies, that

1:24:22

it was a repressive regime, etcetera,

1:24:24

etcetera. And subsequently

1:24:27

I did a commentary which

1:24:29

talked about all those things

1:24:31

and talked about how the

1:24:33

success of the SoC games on the surface

1:24:36

might obscure just how

1:24:39

problematic and often vicious and

1:24:41

criminal Blutin's Russia

1:24:43

was. Okay, Fox

1:24:47

News decides that I have praised

1:24:50

Vladimir Putin, and they make

1:24:52

an issue out of it because that moves the

1:24:54

needle for their audience. John

1:24:57

McCain comes on the next day with

1:24:59

Neil of Vudo. I had known McCain

1:25:02

who was a sports fan. I'd have friendly relationship

1:25:04

with him. I'd interviewed him on a couple of occasions.

1:25:07

You know more than your audience does, Clay,

1:25:09

how these things work. They kind

1:25:11

of briefed the guests, these are the topics,

1:25:14

and this is what so and so said, and McCain

1:25:16

was sometimes shot from the hip, said, you

1:25:18

know, I really like Bob Costas. I enjoy

1:25:21

his sports broadcast, but he doesn't know

1:25:23

what he's talking about. He should stick to

1:25:25

sports, okay. Subsequently,

1:25:28

the Olympics are over with, McCain

1:25:31

calls me out of the blue, calls

1:25:34

me, and before I could even say hello, he

1:25:36

says, my friend, I'm sorry.

1:25:38

I saw what you said in full context.

1:25:41

I tweeted out an apology. What

1:25:43

you said was contextualized.

1:25:46

It was all good. Okay. Now

1:25:48

I go on Bill O'Reilly, and

1:25:50

I mentioned this to O'Reilly. Now

1:25:52

you would think it was important

1:25:55

enough for two or three days to make an issue

1:25:58

out of Bob costas sympathy, as

1:26:00

is with Vladimir Putin. If it was

1:26:02

important enough to make an issue out of it, wouldn't

1:26:04

it be important enough to cite that McCain

1:26:07

reversed field. Wouldn't it be important

1:26:09

enough to note that. Wouldn't

1:26:12

it be important enough to say, look, if

1:26:14

an American broadcaster really

1:26:16

praised a foreign adversary,

1:26:19

wouldn't everybody from the New York Times

1:26:22

to the National Review take exception

1:26:24

to that. Why is it only in

1:26:26

these little echo chambers that this was

1:26:28

mentioned? Maybe because we

1:26:31

mischaracterized it and made

1:26:33

something out of nothing, and now

1:26:35

we don't feel compelled to correct it. Because

1:26:38

that wouldn't fit our business model.

1:26:42

Um and that that, along

1:26:44

with other things and coupled with social media,

1:26:47

is why some people, including some people

1:26:49

of goodwill who just don't have the media

1:26:51

literacy to navigate this think,

1:26:54

Yeah, you know Bob cost this, I've always liked this sports

1:26:56

broadcasting, but he's really kind of a political

1:26:58

guy and he's really out there. Are on the left, not

1:27:01

sho. That's fantastic

1:27:04

what you mentioned starting to cover the Olympics

1:27:06

in many of the people

1:27:09

listening to us crazily are so young

1:27:11

they don't remember the dream Team. That

1:27:13

was for me one of the best

1:27:16

moments as being an American sports

1:27:18

fan was the Dream Team. You also

1:27:20

covered the m b A at a time

1:27:22

that the NBA was just stratospheric

1:27:25

with the Jordan's era, and I

1:27:27

think you were featured in some of the documentary

1:27:30

surrounding the Jordan era and if you

1:27:32

weren't just watching yeah yeah,

1:27:34

the Last Dance. Just watching that made

1:27:36

me think back to all of the games

1:27:38

that you had been involved in. What

1:27:40

was it like to cover Jordan's

1:27:43

I don't know what kind of relationship, if any,

1:27:45

that you had with him, but for people

1:27:47

out there who now think about the Lebron versus

1:27:49

Jordan's debate. Jordan was

1:27:52

and unbelo He was like the sun in

1:27:55

my life growing up. You know, it was an inescapable

1:27:58

object that was almost always

1:28:00

present every day. What was it like

1:28:02

to cover him? I had a good relationship

1:28:05

with him. He was a magnificent player,

1:28:08

but he also had all those intangible

1:28:10

things. His presence

1:28:12

was the presence of a star. He

1:28:15

was handsome, He carried himself

1:28:17

with incredible grace. Although

1:28:20

he's not a small man, he's six ft six,

1:28:22

but in the context of basketball,

1:28:25

he wasn't so big, so overwhelmingly

1:28:28

strong as to be unrelatable to

1:28:30

some portion of the audience. Everything

1:28:33

about him was like a ten on a ten scale.

1:28:35

Plus the era, the Dream Team,

1:28:38

the NBA factor in my bias. The NBA

1:28:40

was on NBC, and prior to that in the eighties that

1:28:42

have been on CBS. Now primarily

1:28:45

it's a cable product. This

1:28:47

is no knock on the quality of the coverage. The

1:28:49

coverage is great. You know, Ernie

1:28:51

and Charles and Shack, those guys

1:28:53

are great. That's probably the best studio show in

1:28:55

the history of television sports. And

1:28:58

my Breen is breaming terrific, and

1:29:00

Kevin Harland is exciting to listen to, and Marv

1:29:02

still does the games, but it isn't as

1:29:05

much a part of the cultural conversation

1:29:07

as it once was. The promos for the

1:29:09

NBA on NBC, We're on during

1:29:11

Seinfeld and Carson and Letterman

1:29:14

and e r And and all the rest um

1:29:16

and the games were all the playoff

1:29:18

games, all the weekend playoff games were on NBC

1:29:21

doubleheaders, triple headers, primetime

1:29:24

games. It was just a whole different

1:29:26

thing. And even though the Bulls won all

1:29:28

those titles, there was a constellation

1:29:30

of stars. Just think of the roster of

1:29:32

the Dream Team. It's only Jordan and Pippen

1:29:35

from the Bulls. Think of the others. Think

1:29:37

think of the texture and how visible

1:29:40

Um Stockton and Malone

1:29:42

were, and Barkley and Isaiah

1:29:45

at the tail end of the Pistons run

1:29:47

and Clyde Drexler and Patrick Ewing

1:29:49

and pat Riley, even the coaches. It

1:29:51

was a whole group of stars. Now Jordan

1:29:54

was at the center of it. Here's the way I feel

1:29:56

about the Lebron Jordan

1:29:58

comparison on is an all

1:30:01

time great And if

1:30:03

you want to call it a toss up. I put it this

1:30:05

way. Let's say Lebron

1:30:07

is equally excellent, and

1:30:10

his prowess is equal in its own

1:30:12

way to Jordan's basketball prowess.

1:30:15

He is equally excellent, but not

1:30:18

equally great, because

1:30:20

Jordan's greatness went beyond numbers

1:30:23

or even the specific outcomes of games

1:30:25

or championships. His impact

1:30:27

on the league, his global impact.

1:30:31

Just what mentioning his name

1:30:33

conjures up. It's intangible,

1:30:36

but you know it when you see it and you feel it. So

1:30:39

Jordan's was greater than Lebron,

1:30:41

not necessarily better, although I think

1:30:44

I still would give him an edge of the basketball player.

1:30:46

But he was greater than Lebron.

1:30:49

It's so well said. We're talking to Bob Costas,

1:30:51

this is the Wins and Lost his podcast. I'm Clay

1:30:53

Travis. Charles Barkley. You mentioned

1:30:55

there, and you mentioned that that NBA

1:30:58

Inside the NBA Studio show

1:31:00

maybe the best that's out there right now.

1:31:03

Did you foresee Barkley becoming as

1:31:05

good of a media personality as he has

1:31:08

become when he was a player. I

1:31:10

don't think he could perceive ahead

1:31:12

of time that it would be this big, but you

1:31:15

knew that he would be a star on television. Money

1:31:17

was an active player. We were talking about how

1:31:19

we could use and Dick Eversoul was talking about it.

1:31:21

I mean, he's such an incandescent personality

1:31:24

that that part didn't surprise me. Because

1:31:27

we're running short of time here, and I thank

1:31:29

you for giving me the platform and for being so patient

1:31:31

with me while I took advantage of it in

1:31:33

the way that I did. Um, I actually

1:31:35

have to run off and do something for the Baseball Network

1:31:37

about a half hour from now, which means I

1:31:39

have to change clothes as opposed to

1:31:42

what you can do for a podcast or

1:31:44

or radio. A couple of points that I wanted

1:31:46

to make. One that relates

1:31:48

to one of your earlier questions when you're talking about

1:31:51

having a sense of things beyond stats

1:31:53

and numbers.

1:31:55

Somebody mentioned to me the Mets

1:32:00

and would the raise be like the sixty

1:32:02

nine Mets raise against the

1:32:04

Dodgers, Mets against the Mighty

1:32:06

Baltimore Orioles. And one of the

1:32:08

things that came to mind, besides

1:32:10

the obvious statistical comparisons,

1:32:13

um Tyler Glass now and Blake Snell

1:32:15

have never thrown a complete game. Tom

1:32:17

seb and Jerry Kuzman through eighteen and sixteen

1:32:20

respectively in that season,

1:32:23

and sever through a tenant in complete game in Game

1:32:25

four, and Kuzman went all the way

1:32:27

in the clincher in Game five. But those are

1:32:29

just differences in strategy as the

1:32:31

game evolved. But if I were to

1:32:33

answer that question, and I think

1:32:35

that this is part of what makes a good broadcaster,

1:32:38

I'd like to think this is what Red Barber

1:32:40

would say, or whatever

1:32:43

it might have been that you brought to Jim McKay's

1:32:45

attention or Vince Gully, it's this.

1:32:48

You would have had to have been there. The

1:32:50

sixty nine Mets came out of nowhere.

1:32:53

Not only were they never good, they were comically

1:32:55

bad. They were synonymous with lovable

1:32:58

ineptitude, and they've never had a win season.

1:33:00

Then they go all the way and they win the World

1:33:02

Series. But it's more than that.

1:33:05

The Dodgers and Giants were

1:33:07

only half a generation removed from

1:33:09

being in New York, and many

1:33:12

of those Dodger and Giant fans attached

1:33:14

themselves to a National League team

1:33:17

because Willie Mays and those guys were still coming

1:33:19

through New York to play the Mets, and

1:33:21

so there was a National League feel that

1:33:23

predated the Mets. People who had

1:33:25

rooted for Snyder and Newcombe

1:33:28

and Campanella and Robinson and

1:33:30

Willie Mays, they became

1:33:32

Met fans. The Yankee dynasty

1:33:35

had just ended. Mantel retired after

1:33:37

the preceding season. Now the town

1:33:39

belonged not to the Yankees. It belonged

1:33:42

to the Mets. And not incidentally,

1:33:44

I'd make this point. It's not really a political

1:33:47

point. It's just a fact that factors

1:33:50

into the texture of it. Mookie

1:33:52

Betts happens to be the only African American

1:33:54

in this year's World Series either team.

1:33:57

The Arios had Frank Robinson and Don view

1:34:00

Heard and Paul Blair and el Rod Hendricks.

1:34:02

The Mets had ed Charles and Cleon Jones

1:34:05

and Tommy A. G and Don Clendennon,

1:34:07

and their manager was Gil Hodges, who was

1:34:10

attached to Jackie Robinson's

1:34:12

Brooklyn Dodgers. There was a

1:34:14

texture to it and the World Series, even

1:34:16

though every game was on in the afternoon, every

1:34:19

one of those games got a higher rating

1:34:21

than even a Game seven would

1:34:23

get today. Leave aside that this is

1:34:25

a weird season, sixty games, neutral field,

1:34:28

almost no fans in the stands. Even if this

1:34:30

were a normal season, every one of those games

1:34:32

got a higher rating than a game seven would

1:34:35

likely get today. I think part

1:34:37

of your job as a broadcaster isn't

1:34:39

just to know what stat cast

1:34:41

tells you the exit velocity is or

1:34:43

what someone's ops is. That's important,

1:34:46

but if you can't, if you can't

1:34:48

capture what the weather

1:34:50

was, you know, that's kind of a catch all. Tell

1:34:53

them how the weather was, meaning in the biggest

1:34:55

sense, what were all the dynamics

1:34:57

that were at play here, not

1:35:00

what it was in raw

1:35:02

statistical or objective terms. How

1:35:05

did it steal? What did it look like, what

1:35:07

did it steel like? What was the humanity

1:35:10

of it that was That's a point

1:35:12

that I would make if someone asked me about the sixty

1:35:14

nine Mets. It's different than

1:35:16

just comparing Tom Sieber's e r

1:35:19

A to Charlie Morton z r R. That's

1:35:22

incredibly well said, and I think it

1:35:25

is a fantastic way to end. I know you

1:35:27

have to go get changed for your job on

1:35:29

the Major League Baseball Network, Bob

1:35:31

Costa, this has been a lot of fun. Are you on Twitter?

1:35:33

How can people reach out and give you feedback

1:35:36

from this podcast if they wanted to do so?

1:35:38

No, no social media whatsoever.

1:35:40

I just don't see that much of an upside. Yeah

1:35:43

for me, I I've had my platforms, and

1:35:45

so I do what I do as a as

1:35:47

a sports broadcaster. UM

1:35:49

So, so there you have it. That's Bob

1:35:51

Costas. He just told you. He's not on

1:35:54

social media, so you can't reach out and

1:35:56

let him know what you thought. But I think you guys

1:35:58

are going to have completely you love to

1:36:00

this huge roster of great episodes.

1:36:03

They are timeless. That's the goal

1:36:05

of the Wins and Losses Podcast. If you enjoyed

1:36:08

this one, it's a really good chance you're gonna

1:36:10

like a lot more of them. Thirty four,

1:36:12

thirty five dubb Do you know how many we've totally done.

1:36:14

I think it's thirty five of these at least

1:36:16

an hour in length, uh, from a

1:36:19

variety of different perspectives. I hope you

1:36:21

can enjoy and learn from them as much

1:36:23

as I have. This has been the Wins and Losses

1:36:25

Podcast. I'm Clay Travis. Check back frequently

1:36:27

and in the meantime, go check out the archives of

1:36:29

our long form discussions here. Fox

1:36:32

Sports Radio has the best sports talk

1:36:34

lineup in the nation. Catch all of our

1:36:36

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