January 14, 2020 • 40 mins
On today's Straight Outta Vegas, RJ Bell and the crew take a look at the future odds following LSU beating Clemson in the College Football National Championship. Brad Powers has to answer for underestimating coach Ed Orgeron and RJ Bell tells you why he thinks Major League Baseball doesn't want to hand out harsher punishment for the sign-stealing scandal.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Don't listening to Fox Sports Rago. This is straight out
of Vegas with the voice of Vegas, your host r
J Bow, correct the pregame show America has always wanted
(00:40):
from the veggest trip Ear's r J Bow. You heard it.
I'm r J Live on a Tuesday, Tuesday after the
National Championship game. And oh did we get it wrong,
No doubt about that, Live from Las Vegas to hundred
FSR stations across this great nation in studio, all the
(01:04):
college knowledge, Brad powers, and we're gonna examine I mean,
this is gonna be almost a postmortem, almost like an
autopsy of lost tickets, powered up losing tickets. We like Clemson,
We thought it was a big overreaction. Obviously, not sports
(01:27):
vettors listen for the money, not net sports fans listen
to no more than their buddies. But you can't have
pros without Joe's He's in l A, He's Jones. It's
not always good to be here, are j And Yes,
we start on straight out of Vegas on a Tuesday,
a day in which we've got scandal and professional sports.
We've got the NFL, a f C, NFC Championship coming
(01:49):
up this weekend. But what for today is the Vegas lead? Well,
it's to me, it's mostly because we got it so wrong.
We gotta start with that Imson loss without L s U.
Victor absolutely, and it was L s U all over Clemson,
number one over number three forty two was the final.
(02:09):
L s U. Are your national champs? Now listen. The
reason that we can be so candid about being wrong
is you cannot listen to this show for any length
of time and not know that Brad Powers knows his stuff,
that Physik knows his stuff. Some would say I know
my stuff. We don't always agree, which is even more
(02:32):
of a sign of honesty. Now, the thing you got
to know about Brad and Brad you know, you started
out in this industry with Phil Steele, a guy who
does a lot of TV for ESPN. Now uh really strong, uh,
fundamental understanding and he does a lot of work in college.
(02:52):
And that's kind of was your approach when you moved
to Vegas, which is, yeah, I'm a better but really
it's about knowing you know. Maybe that's the first question
is what did you see as the difference between handicapping
and just being an analyst? Because you know, you listen
(03:13):
to a lot of guys on FS one on Fox
Sports Radio. They know their stuff. Like Clay Travis, he
knows his stuff when it comes to college football, he doesn't.
You know, he's not a gambler. He's not. I don't
think he claims to be, actually hopefully not. But he
I mean, he is a sec guy. He knows his
(03:34):
football and he he understands what an over under is
or what a spread is or a money line is,
and he'll make his bets. But he's not a professional
with that. What did you see as the distinction between
Clay Travis, let's say, and a professional? Great question. I
would say that obviously, when I was at Phil it
(03:55):
was more about team and player specifics and when there
wasn't much account for the market necessary. And here's one
example of it, like just looking at different books that
are you know, quote unquote sharper than other books. That's
something we just never accounted for. When I end my
time of fill Steel, and really that answer speaks to
(04:15):
what the big differences between an analyst or a media guy.
We always say a media guy gotta get it right,
a sports better has to get it right. Why when
everyone else is wrong. Good point, right, Because if we say, hey,
tom Brady Circuit two thousand and seven, he's mighty good. Okay,
(04:37):
we're right, You're not gonna make any money thinking about
Tom Brady being good. The question is is he a
little better in a certain spot? Is he a little
worse than others? That kind of stuff. So, and what
is it that you've got to be right against. It
is the marketplace. And probably what we do at least
(04:58):
half the time is we'll talk about the I'd say this,
and I mean, we've got the college football two thousand
or I guess two thousand and twenty odds already, right,
so we know, Okay, what's your thoughts are next year?
So maybe i'd be a good little thing. Let's let's
go over those real quick, because I'm kind of curious.
(05:20):
I haven't looked at him yet. Yeah, Clemson is your
favorite despite the loss last night? Clemson's plus two? What
does that mean? If you bet a hunter bucks you
win to on Clemson. So if I'm just an analyst
and I say you know something, I think Clemson, Yeah,
they lost the game, I think they have as good
a chance as anyone next year, Am I right? Yes,
(05:43):
but as a sports better, all it would take is
reading from the odds to know Clemson, the market says
has the best chance to win it. Continued, Ohio State,
your alma mater r J plus three fifty a second
in line, followed by Alabama seven to one. That's the
largest to Alabama has been preseason in about a decade.
(06:03):
So you're saying, if you've got Alabama, even though they're
the third favor seven to one, you couldn't get a
payoff like that at this time of year for the
next year in about a decade. So the chance of
them winning it next year Alabama is less than any
time in the last ten years. Wow, and it's still
(06:26):
the third fave. It's still the third favre. And then
you have Georgia and l s U both at eight
to one. Okay, so this feels like as much as
this year was supposed to be a two team race,
I didn't see l s U on that list. On
that two team list though they were not, you were right,
And next year feels like even more so a two
team raised Clemson, Ohio State absolute r. I don't think
(06:50):
the SEC is gonna be okay, No, no, they're not
that I'm RJ. Broth straight out of Vegas doing a
postmortem Quincy style. Remember Quincy, Jonas, know who the hell's that?
You don't know? Quincy? How old are you? Late thirties
later that means like forty one? How old are you?
(07:15):
Quincy was former Cowboys quarterback. Question no, no, Remember the
famous Seinfeld. This was great. Kramer had a girlfriend uptown.
It's the first time or you know, she was downtown,
right because he's midtown and she was downtown, which is like,
you know, three miles away, and he was like dating.
It was like he was dating a girl from across
(07:35):
the country. One time. Jerry Walkson goes, Jerry, you believe
I'm watching Quincy right now and she's watching Quincy right now. Anyway,
he was a medical examiner, very very important postmortem. See
you're following. I got you, that's Jonas. What did you
(07:56):
get wrong? Because really you had You've been against all
I would say, you're the face of anti alice. You
it's not the thing to be right now, it's not
a right, but that's what you've been. Even yesterday you
were so strong with it. You said, listen, I bet
this thing. I gave it to you at six Clemson,
I would beat it at three and a half. Is
(08:18):
effectively what you said if you read between the lines.
I mean, when you are that adamant, there's no way
you know today you could say, well, you know I
said it wasn't as strong as six. No, no, no, no,
you were compuctible. I said, still bad at, still bad at,
and you better get I mean you probably had picks
(08:39):
against LSU here four or five weeks. That's conservative. So
you started the year thinking this was the fourth best team.
How could you be so wrong when you were what
was the marketplace at with LSU starting the year six
or seventh best team, so you were literally a coup
(09:00):
notches higher. Where did it go wrong? Where did I
questioned whether or not Ed ors Aron could be elite?
It starts with him, a guy with an accent like that,
A guy in ed Wars around that was fired from oldness,
A guy that l s U fans last November wanted
to fire after the Alabama Morsell The fans must have
(09:23):
such deep insight in their own coach. I mean that
can't possibly be like, oh, the fans don't like and
so how should I? How could I like them? Fair enough?
But was that it? Though? I am taught not to overreact,
and I don't know how a guy seems like you're
changing get overreact to what the fact he had a
losing record at Mississippi no entering lap just last season.
(09:45):
Entering last season ed wars round was the favorite to
be the first coach fire in college football? Okay, And
I just don't see I don't normally see that change.
Once but once you felt do you think he was
gonna get fired because he was bad? Or because l
s U is unreasonable? Allah? Prior, I mean you didn't
(10:08):
think it was because by definition, when you said they
were the fourth best team, you thought they were going
to have a good year. So like, why were you
worried about firing unless you were using that the odds
of him getting fired as a proxy of how good
a coach really is, right, Like, I don't it be
one thing if you said, um, you know, the coaches
(10:30):
all voted and they thought he was the worst, and
then you could say, maybe they know more about his
skill set than me. Yeah, here's what it is. And
it's so funny. I only say this to provide context.
I've taken more high level math classes than people in
this country just know to have a finance degree. And
(10:54):
I took uh three calculus classes in college and three statists,
so let's just call it six high math classes. I
hate math people in this industry because not not that
there's not many of them that you know, got their
masters or PhD s. And no, a lot more math
(11:14):
than me, no doubt, but it's the way that they
are so close minded that you've got to do it
this way or you're an idiot. And like even a
guy like Bill Parcels, you know, they're telling him why
he's wrong with the math. It's like, could you imagine
one of those dudes on the other sideline against Bill
(11:36):
parce House and what kind of bet I'd like to
make on Bill Parceuse in that case? And it's because
this you're right, husky fellow. I think he or draw
On actually shops in the husky section. I think he's husky.
And he's got that voice, he's got that accent. It's
(11:56):
almost like the exact same things that make him six
asful as a recruiter as a team builder are the
things that offend those who live in their mom's basement.
Well wait a minute, maybe there's a connection there. I
guess I'm guessing at origin Ron or Dron went to
his senior prom I'm just I have no idea. I'm
(12:19):
guessing he did right. And I'm guessing most of the
people that jaded you against him didn't fair enough, including myself.
So but you're not mad. You're not one of these
snobby math guys. And you know, speaking of Belichick, you
(12:40):
know there's actually up at NFL dot com. There's a story,
you know, from a while back that says he puts
less than zero stock into analytics during the Patriots pressure.
Now here's what's funny. Belichick's using math as much as anybody, right,
He's just he doesn't have to hang his hat on it,
and if anything, he wants to put you off the set.
(13:02):
That's what's funny. Look at the hedge funds, the guys
that really make the money, they don't want to have
a big lecture about how they're doing it. They want
to try to deceive you on how they're doing it.
They can keep doing it, so all these matters, you
think they figure, Hey, I got a big edge, I'm
gonna get a job in the front office. I'm gonna do.
Look at Billy Bean, right, once he got famous, all
(13:25):
those inefficiencies went away. But somehow I don't see these
guys trying to hide their efficiencies, right, I don't see
them hiding their secret sauce. You know why there is
no secret sauce. They're in their mom's basement, literally, and
the guys who have got out of the basement have
(13:45):
at least you know, you listen to a Billy Bean,
he's not pontificating. He's saying, this is how we do it.
We think there's efficiencies here. I'm not trying to dictate
what everyone else has to pass some purity tests at
Oregron didn't pass the purity test, and you couldn't comprehend
he was any good. Now what purity test is Saban? Ever? Like,
(14:06):
do you ever see Saban, you know, with his little
scientific calculator from Texas Instruments? I don't see it. So
but why it is just you either got to win
a bunch of championships or Yeah, but he also looks
the party. He's a guy that's, you know, turning seventy,
looks like he's fifty eight. He's fit in shape. I
like the yelling and the screaming. It's like a it's
(14:27):
a bias against him being overweight. Wow, I mean, Jonas,
we're getting we're getting some real truth here. When you
say I just I wonder if Brad still though thinks
about Ed oars ron as the coach at Old Miss
where he was terrible. I mean, because that's the sample
size we've got as a head coach. You know what,
it didn't go well for for him at all Miss Well.
(14:48):
I think Jonas just did the tease. We are continuing.
This is long form, man, you know, another five minutes
when we come back, we are literally gonna keep digging
because we don't like to be wrong. And Ad, hey,
he didn't agree because I don't really ask, you know, permission.
But that's part of this show is when you're wrong,
you go under the microscope. And by the way, when
(15:10):
we come back, I'm going to have maybe my strongest
rant in months about the cheating scandal in baseball that's
coming up next. He's r J. Bell, I'm Jonas Knox.
This is the pregame show you've always wanted right here
on Fox Sports Radio. Be sure to catch live editions
(15:30):
of Straight Out of Vegas weekdays at six pm Eastern
three pm Pacific on Fox Sports Radio and the I
Heart Radio app. I'm r J Bell, we are straight
out of Vegas, and I'm Jonas Knox's voice of you
the fan. Coming up here. In just a couple of moments,
we will continue our National Championship recap to find out
what the hell went wrong. Yes, blood lett, blood letting,
(15:53):
you could almost call it. And in a few minutes
my rant, and it's a rant on this baseball all cheating.
I don't think you've heard this take anywhere. You can
listen to the fastest grown show on Fox Sports Radio
that's Straight out of Vegas, up one fifty percent since
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(16:17):
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Just search for r J. Bell right now in the
strip fifty eight degrees. The neon is pumping, so r J.
We've been recapping the National Championship. L s U favored
going into the game, and they take care of business
(16:38):
for the L s U Tigers, much to Brad Powers Dismay,
are your national champions and that's what we're trying to
figure out what did Brad get wrong? So we talked
about Brad. You thought he didn't fit the bill or
your on as a great coach, as a title winning coach.
(16:58):
Some of it the excent. You might say, Wait a minute,
Brad's got prejudice against accents? How do you how do
you respond to that? Because I think it's a valid question.
I probably shouldn't consider where I grew up. So I mean,
you've got a little accent, you're signed from the farm.
I would say it's a little ignorance there on my part,
(17:20):
but I listen. I think it's a lot of honesty,
meaning that different people might relate different accents of different things,
but in general, that good old boys, southern accent. You
don't think rocket scientist, I do not. I don't think
XS and O is gonna out scheme Nick Saban and
(17:40):
be a national title coach. No, I do not. But
you do see that if that's the kind of players,
if you're recruiting Southern boys, they the guy that shows
up with computer and you know, the advocate like physic
would recruit so well, fair enough, absolutely right. So in
a weird way, you got to say the guy who
(18:01):
actually has some skills when it comes to x as
and os. When it comes to analytics, who has the
ability to present themselves or maybe the most genuine presentation
of themselves is the good old boy That seems like
a wickedly effective comments. But at no point did you
(18:23):
think maybe I got oars your on wrong. I did not,
r J. Maybe I'm just too stubborn, too much ego,
And I still don't think I have it all the
way wrong. Now, wait a minute, I thought we were
in a me A call PA type mode here, You're
I mean I could have been out during the commercial break.
You said, I'm I'm giving up. I'm I'm conceding too
many points. No, what what do you point back on?
(18:44):
I will say I couldn't be more wrong on a
single season than what I was on L s U
this year. But to me, I still think it was
L s U was fortunate. They caught lightning in a bottle?
This up? What is that called winning? Is lightning? What
was lightning in a bottle? I mean you got a
hot orderback and Joe Burrow hot, so somehow that dismissed.
So it was which quarterback was great? That one of
(19:06):
Heisman so was there any recent Heisman winners that weren't hot?
Fair enough? J Well, I mean, I'm just saying, like,
what is the Heisman winner other than a guy that
gets hot? Right? That's the definition. Now the question is,
do you somehow think like Burrow is probably gonna go
number one? Right? Some people are saying this is the best,
(19:29):
literally the best run up quarterback we've ever seen. Do you?
I mean, is that debatable to you? I think it
was the best season at quarterback we've ever seen. But
here's what I'm holding on to. Wait wait, wait, wa wha.
You're saying Joe Burrow had the greatest season in the
history of college football Statistically he did? No, No, no,
(19:50):
I'm not asking statistically. I'm saying what you did. So
that's more than a Hawk quarterback, isn't it? All? Right?
Go ahead. I can't get over the fact that four
months ago Joe Burrow was going to be a late
round pick at best, and now he's number one. And
maybe that's the issue. In today's day and age, I
am not quick enough to adjust. I'm too steady, atty,
(20:12):
slowly upward trajectory instead of making you know, significant upgrades,
couldn't you say the same thing about Kyler Murray. I mean, well,
where would Kyler My big argument with Kyler Murray was
if the draft had been how twelve months before, we
were speculating second round or something that was like fourth
or fifth or fourth or fifth round. So you weren't
(20:33):
some big pessimist on Kyler Murray at the college level.
M hm, right point. So there's something here. I don't
think we've gotten to. What do you think it is?
You know what I think it is. I think early
on you got entrenched as a borrow or as an
(20:54):
L s U skeptic, and for you, you just don't
like to back off. There's that, and I think it's
maybe one more thing I'm gonna admit another flaw, jealousy.
I didn't bet a two hundred to one burrow. I didn't.
I didn't bet an L s U fifty one ticket.
I didn't have those tickets. And you know, I'm Mr.
Long shot when it comes to that. It's true. And
(21:15):
Jonas before we even had this show, literally the first
show Brad ever did with me local radio here in Vegas.
He walks in, I said, well, give me a couple
of hisman long shots. He goes, I got I got
one Lamar Jackson a hundred to one. I go who
because Lamar Jackson cash is the hundred to one ticket.
Then the next year you had a big jumbo long
(21:38):
shot that gots uh didn't cash but got second. Right,
I love the Stanford running back hundred to one, he
finished second, didn't get paid. I know you didn't get paid.
So when you have two hundred one and one wins
and one gets second, so you're saying you didn't have
a vested interest in his success and you a skeptic.
Here's the thing, Jonas, it would be very easy for
(22:02):
a listener to say, you know something, the qualities that
Brad Powers are admitting are really problematic for a guy
that's gonna advise me on my bets. You know something,
Almost anyone and I mean almost anyone, And I say,
there might be a handful of guys in their sixties
(22:24):
that have grown above this. The ego it takes to
be a sports better. It's one of the great paradoxes
in the United States, I think, really, which is to
be a sports better, you've got to have a massive
ego and massive humility. Now what do I mean by that?
The ego is I will lay minus one ten against
(22:46):
the world, because by definition, the odds are the world's opinion.
It's wisdom of crowds, collective i Q. Whatever term of
art you want to use for it. It's everyone has
an aggregated opinion. It's like voting, except the votes are
weighted by how much you bet. Jonas bets thirty three bucks.
(23:10):
I bet three. I got more votes in Jonas, but
we're both voting right. And oh, by the way, one time,
at some point Jonas has true inside information. First of all,
I better be texting us. You can use one of
those secure apps if you want. But he will find
(23:31):
a way to call his book and say, you know,
I know, I usually bet thirty three, but would you
take I just have a feeling today? Would you take
three thousand on this if you had true inside info.
I'm not saying he'd do that. I hope he would,
but you know, and that's what happens is when there
is true inside info somebody, and then what would he do.
He'd tell us, He'd want to cut probably physick, would
(23:53):
tell someone before there'd be millions of dollars on this.
That's what happens when there's true inside infoe the market,
a lightening pace figures it out and moves in that direction.
If someone really knows their stuff about hockey first quarters somehow, yeah,
(24:13):
who who's thinking about that? Who's listening to that? Who's
talking about that? I don't know. But if you know
your stuff, what's gonna happen? That guy might be betting
five game, that's it. But someone's gonna find out how
much he knows, and then they're gonna start batting in.
Before long, the whole market's gonna move. It's like the
stock market. Efficient market theory says, here's that finance degree
(24:38):
that everything known publicly is built into the price of
a stock. Well, that's what the efficiency of the betting market.
But somehow, Brad every day says I'm gonna bet eleven
to win ten against the world. That takes guts and
some would say it takes stupidity, but it takes ego
(25:01):
and confidence. On the other hand, if you're not learning
every day, if you're staying stubborn, forget about it. There's
a lot of duct tape shoe guys, and we call
them that because they used to win and they had
new shoes. Now they have to put duct tape on
the old shoes because they haven't won since they bought
those shoes because the market changed. Think about the NFL,
(25:25):
how different it is today than even seven years ago.
So you've gotta keep changing as a better that makes money.
But you also, somehow, some way have to have a
massive ego. It really is a dichotomy. And you know, Jonas,
you're in a unique position because you know you're here
(25:48):
and you're supporting us, and you're doing a wonderful job,
but you're observing. Do you see that that it both
takes humility and ego. Yeah. And I also think that
because you're human beings, you can fall victim to maybe
having a little bit of a bias going into it.
And so because Brad was so adamant that l s
U was not the l s U everybody thought they were,
(26:09):
maybe he carried a little bit of that with him.
I carry a lot of that with me, which is
why I'm terrible at gambling. Like that's that's so, give
me an example of where you've had to buy um, Well,
I mean the Super Bowl, Uh super Bowl. I want
to say it was forty eight. It was Broncos Seahawks.
I believe that was Super Bowl forty eight. Um. I
was so convinced that Denver was gonna win that Super
Bowl that I continued to live bet Denver the entire game.
(26:33):
And they got blown out, and no joke, I went
one in seventeen in my bets in that game. I
continued to live bet it. This wasn't a love that
Jesus No, I don't. I don't. I have no affiliation
with him. I don't even know who that is. I mean,
Jones is so right, and I think that if you're
a better who's on the radio, who's on television, it's
(26:56):
even worse because you're in a weird way. You are
afraid to be wrong. I'm not, but I'm demented. But
most normal people would be afraid to be wrong. And
that's I think. We've seen it with Pezik, where he's
a little quick to reverse himself. Then he would have
been years ago. And we've been talking to him like
(27:17):
if you I'll give you an example, and it's a
good one for me. Seattle. Beginning of the year, I
said Seattle was like a nine and seven level team.
Seattle got very hot. I thought it was a fu gazy.
I really I thought it was deceiving. I thought it
wasn't just the truth of it. And I kept saying
(27:38):
that Seattle was overrated. How do you know the gazing?
It's a fake me. I know the ful gazes. But
when it ended up, what did I do? Did I
reverse myself? No? I said, you know something, I still
think I'm right. Let's watch and see. Now you could say, well,
they made the Division round, r J. Maybe you weren't right.
(27:59):
I think it's hard to watch that team and say
this was an elite team. This wasn't a super Bowl team.
Now I could have been right. I could have been wrong.
You only need to be right fifty of the time.
And you guys might think, boy, r J is doing
it such a service by telling us how hard it
is to win. I am because people who are trying
(28:19):
to cheat you are going to say it's easy to win.
But I'm doing it for another reason, because I want
your expectations to be reasonable. Because if you think we're
gonna be right every freaking time, then when we're wrong,
sometimes you're gonna go somewhere else. And then somewhere else,
chances are they're not gonna have your interests at heart
(28:41):
the way we do now are there there's there's It's
not like there's no one else that has your interests
at heart. I'm saying, this is an industry full of
people that want to get over on you. It's just
their nature, right, Betters, nature is to get over on people.
And you know, maybe it's just I've been in Vegas
(29:02):
over twenty years and I've gotten over enough. But I don't,
you know, to me, I want to help, I really do.
I I do think what's happening in the next year
or two. You know, it's been about eighteen months we've
had this show and it's it was the first and
only still show on a major national network radio that's
(29:22):
from Vegas, talking Vegas. And if we do a good
job and again fastest growing show n FSR, that's about
as good as you get. That means that we keep going. Yeah,
but it means the next show happens, and the next
show happens, and maybe the way we're doing it becomes
the way it gets done, because the way that it's
been done in the past by this industry leaves a
(29:44):
lot to be desired. So to wrap somehow something. So
I guess My last thing, Brad, is it seems like
you're equivocating, as they say, where you're still skeptical. So
if I said how many years, le's let's see if
I can make you, if I can punish you for
your skepticism, because that's really the ultimate revenge. If I said,
(30:09):
at Oars, you're on, we'll win another national title? Yes
or no? What we in his career? What would you say?
I say no, and I'd be willing to give you
three to one. Okay, we have a bet, so we do. Uh.
I think this one needs to be a little bigger
(30:30):
than usual. Right we usually do a hun dirt Oh no, no, no, no,
you don't want you or anything. Now what we're gonna
have to figure and we'll talk about this tomorrow is
when it gets resolved. Because the bets until he knocked
on what passes away? You could say he could be
retired for seven years and I could still say, hey,
come right. He could write Dick Vermeil was retired for
(30:55):
a Wildfi recall. So we'll figure out the terms. But
I think maybe we should you do four d to
win twol. That way it's a nice four figure payoff.
We'll figure it out. But think about this. He talks
so much about how stubborn he was, and then at
the end he made a gigantic bet it gets out
of oars row on. I don't know what that says,
(31:18):
but it probably says a lot. We talked about the
baseball cheating scandal. I got a hot tag. Be sure
to catch live editions of Straight Out of Vegas weekdays
at six pm Eastern, three pm Pacific. Straight out of
Vegas here on Fox Sports Radio. Coming up ten minutes
from now here on fs ARE, we will have a
best bet, your chance to make a little bit of
coin on a Tuesday night. I want to let you
(31:39):
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the Fan. He's the voice of Vegas. R J Bell.
Did I Did I hear that? Right? Jonas is the
(32:02):
Little League is getting new uniforms this year. Um, I
would have to is that Dan Buyer who had that
story and he said, one of the major, you know,
one of the I think the Falcons were getting new uniforms.
It's almost like, couldn't you imagine like the little you
know town you grew up in, brad And it's like, hey,
did you hear um the high school is getting new
(32:22):
uniforms for the football team. I mean, it just seems
weird to hear that the NFL teams getting new uniforms
is probably the design. Yeah, but that's a phrase you
hear a lot small town America. Yeah, I know. The
Rams announced it also on social media earlier this week,
have a few weeks ago as well too. They're gonna
be doing new uniforms next year also. But there's gotta
(32:45):
be a better way to say new uniforms because it
really sounds like they're gonna get like, you know, the one.
I mean, you just are getting what I'm saying. It's like,
you know, we're doing a big lot or a big
drawing for new uniforms for the fund exactly. It sounds different.
(33:09):
I don't know. All right, Listen, every show talks about
hot takes we always say cold cash over hot takes.
I don't think this is hot, But when we come back,
I'm gonna say how I believe sincerely that what's going
(33:29):
on in baseball is literally connected to why Donald Trump
was elected president. That's coming up next to He's r J. Bell.
I'm Jonas Knox. Is the pregame show you've always wanted
right here on Fox Sports Radio. Fox Sports Radio has
the best sports talk lineup in the nation. Catch all
(33:50):
of our shows at Fox sports Radio dot com and
within the I Heart Radio app. Search f s R
to listen live. I'm r J. Bell, we are straight
out of and I'm Jonas Knock's voice of you the fans.
So r J. Major news came down in Major League
Baseball yesterday in which Jeff lu now general manager for
the Astros, and also A J. Hinch, their manager, we're
(34:14):
both fired after an investigation into the cheating and sign
stealing scandal from a couple of years ago in the
World Series. Yeah, I gotta tell you. Part of me
thinks this story isn't even worth talking about. Part of
me thinks this is the biggest story in baseball in years.
So when I think it's small I'm thinking, hey, you
(34:34):
can steal signs without the aid of electronic equipment, So
what's the big deal? Right? So you could say, oh,
it's a small print, kind of nuanced story. But then
on the other hand, it's literally the World Series. It's
literally how much does it matter? It's the championship, it's
(34:55):
the Bobby Thompson type. Home run was about what to literally?
If I recall, that was just to make the World Series,
wasn't it? Or was that the World Series itself? I
think it was the World Series. I think it was
the Giants win the pennant. The Giants win the pennant?
Was the call? Wasn't it? So just to make it? Is?
(35:16):
We now we know the call? Right, Kurt Gibson, You know,
I don't believe what I just saw was a game
in the World Series. Now, how much did this stuff
affect the results? Boy, I've seen things where the analytics
people are saying, if you look at the home against
(35:36):
Road and the disproportionate results, it was significant. And how
many times does it take? Knowing when it takes one
swing want three run home or changed the whole World Series?
So I think it's big. And what was the black
Sox about right, it was about cheating and the World
(36:01):
Series being affected. And when I say black Sox, no
one has to wonder what I'm talking about. All right,
why did you you know, say they ain't so Joe.
So to me the question becomes not just the players,
not just the Dodgers, by the way, not just maybe
this guy was fired over losing the World Series, maybe
(36:24):
losing some other time to Houston. But it's the fans
by definition, you know, David or David Stern understood during
the Tim Donahey scandal. If the fans don't trust the results,
you're done. You're wrestling at that point. And wrestling can
be successful, but it's for a different reason than sports
(36:45):
it's successful. And to me, it's really a disconnect between
between the rules and justice, meaning that what's happened in
this society. And I mean this is something that literally
Kafka wrote about way back uh the book by an
Ran The Fountain Head talks about if you want everyone
(37:06):
to be under your control, then you make everything illegal
and then you decide when to prosecute, and literally from
totalitarian regimes like Russia way back in the day, there
was all this feeling of the rules are corrupt, something's
wrong with the rules. We can't trust the rules. And
we talked about President Trump. I think it's hard to
(37:29):
say that President Trump isn't a big part of him
being around or being the president is being driven by
people saying, you know something, you guys, the rules you're
trying to make us live by are such bs that
you're not living by him that we want someone to
come in there and just tear it all up because
we hate these this idea, this this pontificating of what's
(37:52):
right and wrong. And I think sports is as bad
as anybody at this any organization, NFL, baseball, basketball, It's
about the hypocrisy. It's that you don't trust the rules.
You don't trust it matters. Sixty one used to be
this sacred number Roger Marris and now what does sixty
(38:15):
one mean nothing? It's uh why because the rules didn't matter.
Now the question is would Barry Bonds or supposedly allegedly
whatever we want to say, would the guys that beat
or that did cheat, would they have done it if
there was more respect for the rules. And to me,
(38:36):
the lack of respect for the rules stems from that
they're hypocritical that they're not about justice, they're about how
does the people in power get over what is the
most convenient for us, because we get to make the rules.
There's a famous story that after the Revolutionary War, King
(38:58):
George asked a guy that was painting his picture, who
also painted George Washington's picture. He goes, what's Washington gonna
do now? He said, no, He'll go back to his
farm and, you know, be a citizen. He goes, what
he could be the king and he's not going to
be the king? He said no. He goes, if that's true,
he's the greatest man that ever lived. And the idea
(39:21):
that you can be in power and make rules that
aren't to your benefit but are to the benefit of justice,
it's the most difficult thing because we're all human. We
want power, we want preferential treatment. But to me, baseball
and all they've done not for justice's sake, but for
(39:42):
their own pocket books and maybe their own expediency. Oh
there's some problem here. We could crack down on him
big time now, or we can kind of hide it,
or we can wait, or we can deny it because
we don't want to take the heat. Today. We don't
want to take the loss of revenue today. To me,
(40:02):
all of these decisions as Baseball has made that's made
it where the rules aren't connected to justice is what
made this seem like something small initially. But maybe it's
bigger than we realize, and maybe hopefully baseball is gonna
wake up and make it about justice and not just
(40:23):
their own benefit, because the fans deserve that. The odd
Couple is next on many of these Fox Sports Radio affiliates.
We are Straight out of Vegas back tomorrow six pm
Eastern Time, right here on Fox Sports Radio
Don't listening to Fox Sports Rago. This is straight out
of Vegas with the voice of Vegas, your host r
J Bow, correct the pregame show America has always wanted
(00:40):
from the veggest trip Ear's r J Bow. You heard it.
I'm r J Live on a Tuesday, Tuesday after the
National Championship game. And oh did we get it wrong,
No doubt about that, Live from Las Vegas to hundred
FSR stations across this great nation in studio, all the
(01:04):
college knowledge, Brad powers, and we're gonna examine I mean,
this is gonna be almost a postmortem, almost like an
autopsy of lost tickets, powered up losing tickets. We like Clemson,
We thought it was a big overreaction. Obviously, not sports
(01:27):
vettors listen for the money, not net sports fans listen
to no more than their buddies. But you can't have
pros without Joe's He's in l A, He's Jones. It's
not always good to be here, are j And Yes,
we start on straight out of Vegas on a Tuesday,
a day in which we've got scandal and professional sports.
We've got the NFL, a f C, NFC Championship coming
(01:49):
up this weekend. But what for today is the Vegas lead? Well,
it's to me, it's mostly because we got it so wrong.
We gotta start with that Imson loss without L s U.
Victor absolutely, and it was L s U all over Clemson,
number one over number three forty two was the final.
(02:09):
L s U. Are your national champs? Now listen. The
reason that we can be so candid about being wrong
is you cannot listen to this show for any length
of time and not know that Brad Powers knows his stuff,
that Physik knows his stuff. Some would say I know
my stuff. We don't always agree, which is even more
(02:32):
of a sign of honesty. Now, the thing you got
to know about Brad and Brad you know, you started
out in this industry with Phil Steele, a guy who
does a lot of TV for ESPN. Now uh really strong, uh,
fundamental understanding and he does a lot of work in college.
(02:52):
And that's kind of was your approach when you moved
to Vegas, which is, yeah, I'm a better but really
it's about knowing you know. Maybe that's the first question
is what did you see as the difference between handicapping
and just being an analyst? Because you know, you listen
(03:13):
to a lot of guys on FS one on Fox
Sports Radio. They know their stuff. Like Clay Travis, he
knows his stuff when it comes to college football, he doesn't.
You know, he's not a gambler. He's not. I don't
think he claims to be, actually hopefully not. But he
I mean, he is a sec guy. He knows his
(03:34):
football and he he understands what an over under is
or what a spread is or a money line is,
and he'll make his bets. But he's not a professional
with that. What did you see as the distinction between
Clay Travis, let's say, and a professional? Great question. I
would say that obviously, when I was at Phil it
(03:55):
was more about team and player specifics and when there
wasn't much account for the market necessary. And here's one
example of it, like just looking at different books that
are you know, quote unquote sharper than other books. That's
something we just never accounted for. When I end my
time of fill Steel, and really that answer speaks to
(04:15):
what the big differences between an analyst or a media guy.
We always say a media guy gotta get it right,
a sports better has to get it right. Why when
everyone else is wrong. Good point, right, Because if we say, hey,
tom Brady Circuit two thousand and seven, he's mighty good. Okay,
(04:37):
we're right, You're not gonna make any money thinking about
Tom Brady being good. The question is is he a
little better in a certain spot? Is he a little
worse than others? That kind of stuff. So, and what
is it that you've got to be right against. It
is the marketplace. And probably what we do at least
(04:58):
half the time is we'll talk about the I'd say this,
and I mean, we've got the college football two thousand
or I guess two thousand and twenty odds already, right,
so we know, Okay, what's your thoughts are next year?
So maybe i'd be a good little thing. Let's let's
go over those real quick, because I'm kind of curious.
(05:20):
I haven't looked at him yet. Yeah, Clemson is your
favorite despite the loss last night? Clemson's plus two? What
does that mean? If you bet a hunter bucks you
win to on Clemson. So if I'm just an analyst
and I say you know something, I think Clemson, Yeah,
they lost the game, I think they have as good
a chance as anyone next year, Am I right? Yes,
(05:43):
but as a sports better, all it would take is
reading from the odds to know Clemson, the market says
has the best chance to win it. Continued, Ohio State,
your alma mater r J plus three fifty a second
in line, followed by Alabama seven to one. That's the
largest to Alabama has been preseason in about a decade.
(06:03):
So you're saying, if you've got Alabama, even though they're
the third favor seven to one, you couldn't get a
payoff like that at this time of year for the
next year in about a decade. So the chance of
them winning it next year Alabama is less than any
time in the last ten years. Wow, and it's still
(06:26):
the third fave. It's still the third favre. And then
you have Georgia and l s U both at eight
to one. Okay, so this feels like as much as
this year was supposed to be a two team race,
I didn't see l s U on that list. On
that two team list though they were not, you were right,
And next year feels like even more so a two
team raised Clemson, Ohio State absolute r. I don't think
(06:50):
the SEC is gonna be okay, No, no, they're not
that I'm RJ. Broth straight out of Vegas doing a
postmortem Quincy style. Remember Quincy, Jonas, know who the hell's that?
You don't know? Quincy? How old are you? Late thirties
later that means like forty one? How old are you?
(07:15):
Quincy was former Cowboys quarterback. Question no, no, Remember the
famous Seinfeld. This was great. Kramer had a girlfriend uptown.
It's the first time or you know, she was downtown,
right because he's midtown and she was downtown, which is like,
you know, three miles away, and he was like dating.
It was like he was dating a girl from across
(07:35):
the country. One time. Jerry Walkson goes, Jerry, you believe
I'm watching Quincy right now and she's watching Quincy right now. Anyway,
he was a medical examiner, very very important postmortem. See
you're following. I got you, that's Jonas. What did you
(07:56):
get wrong? Because really you had You've been against all
I would say, you're the face of anti alice. You
it's not the thing to be right now, it's not
a right, but that's what you've been. Even yesterday you
were so strong with it. You said, listen, I bet
this thing. I gave it to you at six Clemson,
I would beat it at three and a half. Is
(08:18):
effectively what you said if you read between the lines.
I mean, when you are that adamant, there's no way
you know today you could say, well, you know I
said it wasn't as strong as six. No, no, no, no,
you were compuctible. I said, still bad at, still bad at,
and you better get I mean you probably had picks
(08:39):
against LSU here four or five weeks. That's conservative. So
you started the year thinking this was the fourth best team.
How could you be so wrong when you were what
was the marketplace at with LSU starting the year six
or seventh best team, so you were literally a coup
(09:00):
notches higher. Where did it go wrong? Where did I
questioned whether or not Ed ors Aron could be elite?
It starts with him, a guy with an accent like that,
A guy in ed Wars around that was fired from oldness,
A guy that l s U fans last November wanted
to fire after the Alabama Morsell The fans must have
(09:23):
such deep insight in their own coach. I mean that
can't possibly be like, oh, the fans don't like and
so how should I? How could I like them? Fair enough?
But was that it? Though? I am taught not to overreact,
and I don't know how a guy seems like you're
changing get overreact to what the fact he had a
losing record at Mississippi no entering lap just last season.
(09:45):
Entering last season ed wars round was the favorite to
be the first coach fire in college football? Okay, And
I just don't see I don't normally see that change.
Once but once you felt do you think he was
gonna get fired because he was bad? Or because l
s U is unreasonable? Allah? Prior, I mean you didn't
(10:08):
think it was because by definition, when you said they
were the fourth best team, you thought they were going
to have a good year. So like, why were you
worried about firing unless you were using that the odds
of him getting fired as a proxy of how good
a coach really is, right, Like, I don't it be
one thing if you said, um, you know, the coaches
(10:30):
all voted and they thought he was the worst, and
then you could say, maybe they know more about his
skill set than me. Yeah, here's what it is. And
it's so funny. I only say this to provide context.
I've taken more high level math classes than people in
this country just know to have a finance degree. And
(10:54):
I took uh three calculus classes in college and three statists,
so let's just call it six high math classes. I
hate math people in this industry because not not that
there's not many of them that you know, got their
masters or PhD s. And no, a lot more math
(11:14):
than me, no doubt, but it's the way that they
are so close minded that you've got to do it
this way or you're an idiot. And like even a
guy like Bill Parcels, you know, they're telling him why
he's wrong with the math. It's like, could you imagine
one of those dudes on the other sideline against Bill
(11:36):
parce House and what kind of bet I'd like to
make on Bill Parceuse in that case? And it's because
this you're right, husky fellow. I think he or draw
On actually shops in the husky section. I think he's husky.
And he's got that voice, he's got that accent. It's
(11:56):
almost like the exact same things that make him six
asful as a recruiter as a team builder are the
things that offend those who live in their mom's basement.
Well wait a minute, maybe there's a connection there. I
guess I'm guessing at origin Ron or Dron went to
his senior prom I'm just I have no idea. I'm
(12:19):
guessing he did right. And I'm guessing most of the
people that jaded you against him didn't fair enough, including myself.
So but you're not mad. You're not one of these
snobby math guys. And you know, speaking of Belichick, you
(12:40):
know there's actually up at NFL dot com. There's a story,
you know, from a while back that says he puts
less than zero stock into analytics during the Patriots pressure.
Now here's what's funny. Belichick's using math as much as anybody, right,
He's just he doesn't have to hang his hat on it,
and if anything, he wants to put you off the set.
(13:02):
That's what's funny. Look at the hedge funds, the guys
that really make the money, they don't want to have
a big lecture about how they're doing it. They want
to try to deceive you on how they're doing it.
They can keep doing it, so all these matters, you
think they figure, Hey, I got a big edge, I'm
gonna get a job in the front office. I'm gonna do.
Look at Billy Bean, right, once he got famous, all
(13:25):
those inefficiencies went away. But somehow I don't see these
guys trying to hide their efficiencies, right, I don't see
them hiding their secret sauce. You know why there is
no secret sauce. They're in their mom's basement, literally, and
the guys who have got out of the basement have
(13:45):
at least you know, you listen to a Billy Bean,
he's not pontificating. He's saying, this is how we do it.
We think there's efficiencies here. I'm not trying to dictate
what everyone else has to pass some purity tests at
Oregron didn't pass the purity test, and you couldn't comprehend
he was any good. Now what purity test is Saban? Ever? Like,
(14:06):
do you ever see Saban, you know, with his little
scientific calculator from Texas Instruments? I don't see it. So
but why it is just you either got to win
a bunch of championships or Yeah, but he also looks
the party. He's a guy that's, you know, turning seventy,
looks like he's fifty eight. He's fit in shape. I
like the yelling and the screaming. It's like a it's
(14:27):
a bias against him being overweight. Wow, I mean, Jonas,
we're getting we're getting some real truth here. When you
say I just I wonder if Brad still though thinks
about Ed oars ron as the coach at Old Miss
where he was terrible. I mean, because that's the sample
size we've got as a head coach. You know what,
it didn't go well for for him at all Miss Well.
(14:48):
I think Jonas just did the tease. We are continuing.
This is long form, man, you know, another five minutes
when we come back, we are literally gonna keep digging
because we don't like to be wrong. And Ad, hey,
he didn't agree because I don't really ask, you know, permission.
But that's part of this show is when you're wrong,
you go under the microscope. And by the way, when
(15:10):
we come back, I'm going to have maybe my strongest
rant in months about the cheating scandal in baseball that's
coming up next. He's r J. Bell, I'm Jonas Knox.
This is the pregame show you've always wanted right here
on Fox Sports Radio. Be sure to catch live editions
(15:30):
of Straight Out of Vegas weekdays at six pm Eastern
three pm Pacific on Fox Sports Radio and the I
Heart Radio app. I'm r J Bell, we are straight
out of Vegas, and I'm Jonas Knox's voice of you
the fan. Coming up here. In just a couple of moments,
we will continue our National Championship recap to find out
what the hell went wrong. Yes, blood lett, blood letting,
(15:53):
you could almost call it. And in a few minutes
my rant, and it's a rant on this baseball all cheating.
I don't think you've heard this take anywhere. You can
listen to the fastest grown show on Fox Sports Radio
that's Straight out of Vegas, up one fifty percent since
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(16:17):
Radio dot Com, hundreds of stations across the country. Also
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Just search for r J. Bell right now in the
strip fifty eight degrees. The neon is pumping, so r J.
We've been recapping the National Championship. L s U favored
going into the game, and they take care of business
(16:38):
for the L s U Tigers, much to Brad Powers Dismay,
are your national champions and that's what we're trying to
figure out what did Brad get wrong? So we talked
about Brad. You thought he didn't fit the bill or
your on as a great coach, as a title winning coach.
(16:58):
Some of it the excent. You might say, Wait a minute,
Brad's got prejudice against accents? How do you how do
you respond to that? Because I think it's a valid question.
I probably shouldn't consider where I grew up. So I mean,
you've got a little accent, you're signed from the farm.
I would say it's a little ignorance there on my part,
(17:20):
but I listen. I think it's a lot of honesty,
meaning that different people might relate different accents of different things,
but in general, that good old boys, southern accent. You
don't think rocket scientist, I do not. I don't think
XS and O is gonna out scheme Nick Saban and
(17:40):
be a national title coach. No, I do not. But
you do see that if that's the kind of players,
if you're recruiting Southern boys, they the guy that shows
up with computer and you know, the advocate like physic
would recruit so well, fair enough, absolutely right. So in
a weird way, you got to say the guy who
(18:01):
actually has some skills when it comes to x as
and os. When it comes to analytics, who has the
ability to present themselves or maybe the most genuine presentation
of themselves is the good old boy That seems like
a wickedly effective comments. But at no point did you
(18:23):
think maybe I got oars your on wrong. I did not,
r J. Maybe I'm just too stubborn, too much ego,
And I still don't think I have it all the
way wrong. Now, wait a minute, I thought we were
in a me A call PA type mode here, You're
I mean I could have been out during the commercial break.
You said, I'm I'm giving up. I'm I'm conceding too
many points. No, what what do you point back on?
(18:44):
I will say I couldn't be more wrong on a
single season than what I was on L s U
this year. But to me, I still think it was
L s U was fortunate. They caught lightning in a bottle?
This up? What is that called winning? Is lightning? What
was lightning in a bottle? I mean you got a
hot orderback and Joe Burrow hot, so somehow that dismissed.
So it was which quarterback was great? That one of
(19:06):
Heisman so was there any recent Heisman winners that weren't hot?
Fair enough? J Well, I mean, I'm just saying, like,
what is the Heisman winner other than a guy that
gets hot? Right? That's the definition. Now the question is,
do you somehow think like Burrow is probably gonna go
number one? Right? Some people are saying this is the best,
(19:29):
literally the best run up quarterback we've ever seen. Do you?
I mean, is that debatable to you? I think it
was the best season at quarterback we've ever seen. But
here's what I'm holding on to. Wait wait, wait, wa wha.
You're saying Joe Burrow had the greatest season in the
history of college football Statistically he did? No, No, no,
(19:50):
I'm not asking statistically. I'm saying what you did. So
that's more than a Hawk quarterback, isn't it? All? Right?
Go ahead. I can't get over the fact that four
months ago Joe Burrow was going to be a late
round pick at best, and now he's number one. And
maybe that's the issue. In today's day and age, I
am not quick enough to adjust. I'm too steady, atty,
(20:12):
slowly upward trajectory instead of making you know, significant upgrades,
couldn't you say the same thing about Kyler Murray. I mean, well,
where would Kyler My big argument with Kyler Murray was
if the draft had been how twelve months before, we
were speculating second round or something that was like fourth
or fifth or fourth or fifth round. So you weren't
(20:33):
some big pessimist on Kyler Murray at the college level.
M hm, right point. So there's something here. I don't
think we've gotten to. What do you think it is?
You know what I think it is. I think early
on you got entrenched as a borrow or as an
(20:54):
L s U skeptic, and for you, you just don't
like to back off. There's that, and I think it's
maybe one more thing I'm gonna admit another flaw, jealousy.
I didn't bet a two hundred to one burrow. I didn't.
I didn't bet an L s U fifty one ticket.
I didn't have those tickets. And you know, I'm Mr.
Long shot when it comes to that. It's true. And
(21:15):
Jonas before we even had this show, literally the first
show Brad ever did with me local radio here in Vegas.
He walks in, I said, well, give me a couple
of hisman long shots. He goes, I got I got
one Lamar Jackson a hundred to one. I go who
because Lamar Jackson cash is the hundred to one ticket.
Then the next year you had a big jumbo long
(21:38):
shot that gots uh didn't cash but got second. Right,
I love the Stanford running back hundred to one, he
finished second, didn't get paid. I know you didn't get paid.
So when you have two hundred one and one wins
and one gets second, so you're saying you didn't have
a vested interest in his success and you a skeptic.
Here's the thing, Jonas, it would be very easy for
(22:02):
a listener to say, you know something, the qualities that
Brad Powers are admitting are really problematic for a guy
that's gonna advise me on my bets. You know something,
Almost anyone and I mean almost anyone, And I say,
there might be a handful of guys in their sixties
(22:24):
that have grown above this. The ego it takes to
be a sports better. It's one of the great paradoxes
in the United States, I think, really, which is to
be a sports better, you've got to have a massive
ego and massive humility. Now what do I mean by that?
The ego is I will lay minus one ten against
(22:46):
the world, because by definition, the odds are the world's opinion.
It's wisdom of crowds, collective i Q. Whatever term of
art you want to use for it. It's everyone has
an aggregated opinion. It's like voting, except the votes are
weighted by how much you bet. Jonas bets thirty three bucks.
(23:10):
I bet three. I got more votes in Jonas, but
we're both voting right. And oh, by the way, one time,
at some point Jonas has true inside information. First of all,
I better be texting us. You can use one of
those secure apps if you want. But he will find
(23:31):
a way to call his book and say, you know,
I know, I usually bet thirty three, but would you
take I just have a feeling today? Would you take
three thousand on this if you had true inside info.
I'm not saying he'd do that. I hope he would,
but you know, and that's what happens is when there
is true inside info somebody, and then what would he do.
He'd tell us, He'd want to cut probably physick, would
(23:53):
tell someone before there'd be millions of dollars on this.
That's what happens when there's true inside infoe the market,
a lightening pace figures it out and moves in that direction.
If someone really knows their stuff about hockey first quarters somehow, yeah,
(24:13):
who who's thinking about that? Who's listening to that? Who's
talking about that? I don't know. But if you know
your stuff, what's gonna happen? That guy might be betting
five game, that's it. But someone's gonna find out how
much he knows, and then they're gonna start batting in.
Before long, the whole market's gonna move. It's like the
stock market. Efficient market theory says, here's that finance degree
(24:38):
that everything known publicly is built into the price of
a stock. Well, that's what the efficiency of the betting market.
But somehow, Brad every day says I'm gonna bet eleven
to win ten against the world. That takes guts and
some would say it takes stupidity, but it takes ego
(25:01):
and confidence. On the other hand, if you're not learning
every day, if you're staying stubborn, forget about it. There's
a lot of duct tape shoe guys, and we call
them that because they used to win and they had
new shoes. Now they have to put duct tape on
the old shoes because they haven't won since they bought
those shoes because the market changed. Think about the NFL,
(25:25):
how different it is today than even seven years ago.
So you've gotta keep changing as a better that makes money.
But you also, somehow, some way have to have a
massive ego. It really is a dichotomy. And you know, Jonas,
you're in a unique position because you know you're here
(25:48):
and you're supporting us, and you're doing a wonderful job,
but you're observing. Do you see that that it both
takes humility and ego. Yeah. And I also think that
because you're human beings, you can fall victim to maybe
having a little bit of a bias going into it.
And so because Brad was so adamant that l s
U was not the l s U everybody thought they were,
(26:09):
maybe he carried a little bit of that with him.
I carry a lot of that with me, which is
why I'm terrible at gambling. Like that's that's so, give
me an example of where you've had to buy um, Well,
I mean the Super Bowl, Uh super Bowl. I want
to say it was forty eight. It was Broncos Seahawks.
I believe that was Super Bowl forty eight. Um. I
was so convinced that Denver was gonna win that Super
Bowl that I continued to live bet Denver the entire game.
(26:33):
And they got blown out, and no joke, I went
one in seventeen in my bets in that game. I
continued to live bet it. This wasn't a love that
Jesus No, I don't. I don't. I have no affiliation
with him. I don't even know who that is. I mean,
Jones is so right, and I think that if you're
a better who's on the radio, who's on television, it's
(26:56):
even worse because you're in a weird way. You are
afraid to be wrong. I'm not, but I'm demented. But
most normal people would be afraid to be wrong. And
that's I think. We've seen it with Pezik, where he's
a little quick to reverse himself. Then he would have
been years ago. And we've been talking to him like
(27:17):
if you I'll give you an example, and it's a
good one for me. Seattle. Beginning of the year, I
said Seattle was like a nine and seven level team.
Seattle got very hot. I thought it was a fu gazy.
I really I thought it was deceiving. I thought it
wasn't just the truth of it. And I kept saying
(27:38):
that Seattle was overrated. How do you know the gazing?
It's a fake me. I know the ful gazes. But
when it ended up, what did I do? Did I
reverse myself? No? I said, you know something, I still
think I'm right. Let's watch and see. Now you could say, well,
they made the Division round, r J. Maybe you weren't right.
(27:59):
I think it's hard to watch that team and say
this was an elite team. This wasn't a super Bowl team.
Now I could have been right. I could have been wrong.
You only need to be right fifty of the time.
And you guys might think, boy, r J is doing
it such a service by telling us how hard it
is to win. I am because people who are trying
(28:19):
to cheat you are going to say it's easy to win.
But I'm doing it for another reason, because I want
your expectations to be reasonable. Because if you think we're
gonna be right every freaking time, then when we're wrong,
sometimes you're gonna go somewhere else. And then somewhere else,
chances are they're not gonna have your interests at heart
(28:41):
the way we do now are there there's there's It's
not like there's no one else that has your interests
at heart. I'm saying, this is an industry full of
people that want to get over on you. It's just
their nature, right, Betters, nature is to get over on people.
And you know, maybe it's just I've been in Vegas
(29:02):
over twenty years and I've gotten over enough. But I don't,
you know, to me, I want to help, I really do.
I I do think what's happening in the next year
or two. You know, it's been about eighteen months we've
had this show and it's it was the first and
only still show on a major national network radio that's
(29:22):
from Vegas, talking Vegas. And if we do a good
job and again fastest growing show n FSR, that's about
as good as you get. That means that we keep going. Yeah,
but it means the next show happens, and the next
show happens, and maybe the way we're doing it becomes
the way it gets done, because the way that it's
been done in the past by this industry leaves a
(29:44):
lot to be desired. So to wrap somehow something. So
I guess My last thing, Brad, is it seems like
you're equivocating, as they say, where you're still skeptical. So
if I said how many years, le's let's see if
I can make you, if I can punish you for
your skepticism, because that's really the ultimate revenge. If I said,
(30:09):
at Oars, you're on, we'll win another national title? Yes
or no? What we in his career? What would you say?
I say no, and I'd be willing to give you
three to one. Okay, we have a bet, so we do. Uh.
I think this one needs to be a little bigger
(30:30):
than usual. Right we usually do a hun dirt Oh no, no, no, no,
you don't want you or anything. Now what we're gonna
have to figure and we'll talk about this tomorrow is
when it gets resolved. Because the bets until he knocked
on what passes away? You could say he could be
retired for seven years and I could still say, hey,
come right. He could write Dick Vermeil was retired for
(30:55):
a Wildfi recall. So we'll figure out the terms. But
I think maybe we should you do four d to
win twol. That way it's a nice four figure payoff.
We'll figure it out. But think about this. He talks
so much about how stubborn he was, and then at
the end he made a gigantic bet it gets out
of oars row on. I don't know what that says,
(31:18):
but it probably says a lot. We talked about the
baseball cheating scandal. I got a hot tag. Be sure
to catch live editions of Straight Out of Vegas weekdays
at six pm Eastern, three pm Pacific. Straight out of
Vegas here on Fox Sports Radio. Coming up ten minutes
from now here on fs ARE, we will have a
best bet, your chance to make a little bit of
coin on a Tuesday night. I want to let you
(31:39):
know we are brought to you by Auto Zone AutoZone
as the free services you need help you get back
on the road. Like their free Auto Zone fixed Finder
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Getting the job done just got easier restrictions apply getting
the zone auto Zone. I'm Jonas Knock's voice of you
the Fan. He's the voice of Vegas. R J Bell.
Did I Did I hear that? Right? Jonas is the
(32:02):
Little League is getting new uniforms this year. Um, I
would have to is that Dan Buyer who had that
story and he said, one of the major, you know,
one of the I think the Falcons were getting new uniforms.
It's almost like, couldn't you imagine like the little you
know town you grew up in, brad And it's like, hey,
did you hear um the high school is getting new
(32:22):
uniforms for the football team. I mean, it just seems
weird to hear that the NFL teams getting new uniforms
is probably the design. Yeah, but that's a phrase you
hear a lot small town America. Yeah, I know. The
Rams announced it also on social media earlier this week,
have a few weeks ago as well too. They're gonna
be doing new uniforms next year also. But there's gotta
(32:45):
be a better way to say new uniforms because it
really sounds like they're gonna get like, you know, the one.
I mean, you just are getting what I'm saying. It's like,
you know, we're doing a big lot or a big
drawing for new uniforms for the fund exactly. It sounds different.
(33:09):
I don't know. All right, Listen, every show talks about
hot takes we always say cold cash over hot takes.
I don't think this is hot, But when we come back,
I'm gonna say how I believe sincerely that what's going
(33:29):
on in baseball is literally connected to why Donald Trump
was elected president. That's coming up next to He's r J. Bell.
I'm Jonas Knox. Is the pregame show you've always wanted
right here on Fox Sports Radio. Fox Sports Radio has
the best sports talk lineup in the nation. Catch all
(33:50):
of our shows at Fox sports Radio dot com and
within the I Heart Radio app. Search f s R
to listen live. I'm r J. Bell, we are straight
out of and I'm Jonas Knock's voice of you the fans.
So r J. Major news came down in Major League
Baseball yesterday in which Jeff lu now general manager for
the Astros, and also A J. Hinch, their manager, we're
(34:14):
both fired after an investigation into the cheating and sign
stealing scandal from a couple of years ago in the
World Series. Yeah, I gotta tell you. Part of me
thinks this story isn't even worth talking about. Part of
me thinks this is the biggest story in baseball in years.
So when I think it's small I'm thinking, hey, you
(34:34):
can steal signs without the aid of electronic equipment, So
what's the big deal? Right? So you could say, oh,
it's a small print, kind of nuanced story. But then
on the other hand, it's literally the World Series. It's
literally how much does it matter? It's the championship, it's
(34:55):
the Bobby Thompson type. Home run was about what to literally?
If I recall, that was just to make the World Series,
wasn't it? Or was that the World Series itself? I
think it was the World Series. I think it was
the Giants win the pennant. The Giants win the pennant?
Was the call? Wasn't it? So just to make it? Is?
(35:16):
We now we know the call? Right, Kurt Gibson, You know,
I don't believe what I just saw was a game
in the World Series. Now, how much did this stuff
affect the results? Boy, I've seen things where the analytics
people are saying, if you look at the home against
(35:36):
Road and the disproportionate results, it was significant. And how
many times does it take? Knowing when it takes one
swing want three run home or changed the whole World Series?
So I think it's big. And what was the black
Sox about right, it was about cheating and the World
(36:01):
Series being affected. And when I say black Sox, no
one has to wonder what I'm talking about. All right,
why did you you know, say they ain't so Joe.
So to me the question becomes not just the players,
not just the Dodgers, by the way, not just maybe
this guy was fired over losing the World Series, maybe
(36:24):
losing some other time to Houston. But it's the fans
by definition, you know, David or David Stern understood during
the Tim Donahey scandal. If the fans don't trust the results,
you're done. You're wrestling at that point. And wrestling can
be successful, but it's for a different reason than sports
(36:45):
it's successful. And to me, it's really a disconnect between
between the rules and justice, meaning that what's happened in
this society. And I mean this is something that literally
Kafka wrote about way back uh the book by an
Ran The Fountain Head talks about if you want everyone
(37:06):
to be under your control, then you make everything illegal
and then you decide when to prosecute, and literally from
totalitarian regimes like Russia way back in the day, there
was all this feeling of the rules are corrupt, something's
wrong with the rules. We can't trust the rules. And
we talked about President Trump. I think it's hard to
(37:29):
say that President Trump isn't a big part of him
being around or being the president is being driven by
people saying, you know something, you guys, the rules you're
trying to make us live by are such bs that
you're not living by him that we want someone to
come in there and just tear it all up because
we hate these this idea, this this pontificating of what's
(37:52):
right and wrong. And I think sports is as bad
as anybody at this any organization, NFL, baseball, basketball, It's
about the hypocrisy. It's that you don't trust the rules.
You don't trust it matters. Sixty one used to be
this sacred number Roger Marris and now what does sixty
(38:15):
one mean nothing? It's uh why because the rules didn't matter.
Now the question is would Barry Bonds or supposedly allegedly
whatever we want to say, would the guys that beat
or that did cheat, would they have done it if
there was more respect for the rules. And to me,
(38:36):
the lack of respect for the rules stems from that
they're hypocritical that they're not about justice, they're about how
does the people in power get over what is the
most convenient for us, because we get to make the rules.
There's a famous story that after the Revolutionary War, King
(38:58):
George asked a guy that was painting his picture, who
also painted George Washington's picture. He goes, what's Washington gonna
do now? He said, no, He'll go back to his
farm and, you know, be a citizen. He goes, what
he could be the king and he's not going to
be the king? He said no. He goes, if that's true,
he's the greatest man that ever lived. And the idea
(39:21):
that you can be in power and make rules that
aren't to your benefit but are to the benefit of justice,
it's the most difficult thing because we're all human. We
want power, we want preferential treatment. But to me, baseball
and all they've done not for justice's sake, but for
(39:42):
their own pocket books and maybe their own expediency. Oh
there's some problem here. We could crack down on him
big time now, or we can kind of hide it,
or we can wait, or we can deny it because
we don't want to take the heat. Today. We don't
want to take the loss of revenue today. To me,
(40:02):
all of these decisions as Baseball has made that's made
it where the rules aren't connected to justice is what
made this seem like something small initially. But maybe it's
bigger than we realize, and maybe hopefully baseball is gonna
wake up and make it about justice and not just
(40:23):
their own benefit, because the fans deserve that. The odd
Couple is next on many of these Fox Sports Radio affiliates.
We are Straight out of Vegas back tomorrow six pm
Eastern Time, right here on Fox Sports Radio
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Rich Davis
Steve Covino
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