Best of Outkick the Coverage: 06/24/2020

Clay Travis goes-in on all parties involved in the Bubba Wallace mess! Clay brings in the crew and listeners to weigh-in on the incident that the FBI cleared up. Clay takes some great calls from across the country all through the show, and plays a clip of Bubba Wallace doubling-down on CNN last night. Plus, Jon Morosi is in the house with GOOD NEWS (for once) regarding MLB!

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Thanks for listening to the best of OutKick the Coverage podcast.
Be sure to catch us live every weekday morning from
six to nine am Eastern three to six am Pacific
on Fox Sports Radio. Find your local station for OutKick
the Coverage at Fox Sports Radio dot com, or stream
us live every morning on the I Heart Radio app
by searching f s R. This is the best of
OutKick the Coverage with Clay Travis on Fox Sports Radio.

(00:27):
I hope you do. Because we are water in the
middle of a desert. We are an oasis for many
people across the country who believe the country has gone insane.
I know many of you feel like you're dying of thirst,
You're parched, You're walking around saying, my god, what has

(00:47):
happened to basic common sense? What has happened to all
segments of normalcy? Another story where sports is absolutely proven
to be ludicrous? Now, Bubba Wallace, this story again, I
would say anywhere in the country, I think out Kick

(01:11):
covered it better than anyone did. People say why, why
would you say that? And the answer is because everybody else,
it feels like, in sports media and certainly in the
media in general, wants to react before we know what
the actual facts of a situation are no one takes

(01:33):
the time to take a step back and think, Okay,
let's work through the process. If you listen to the
show yesterday, I told you that I believed there were
three potential outcomes, and by and large, people were only
talking about one of those outcomes when it came to

(01:53):
the Bubba Wallace investigation. We had a good interview yesterday
with Shannon's Bag where we got a lot of factual
information and then I walked through it and it's like
people are afraid to consider any of the actual possibilities
here because it's racist. If you don't say everything that
happens in the universe is racist, right, I said, Look,

(02:15):
it's possible that there is a racist person at NASCAR
who put a noose in Bubba Wallace's garage. That's possible.
That's option one, option two, which is what I said
I thought was the most likely, and it appears that
I was correct. I said, is there is not a

(02:36):
negative connotation that this is just if you go back
and listen, I said that this is just potentially the
pull rope in the garage. There's evidence that suggests that
pull rope has got it's not a noose. It's got
a circle at the bottom of it to allow someone's
hand to get inside of the circle and pulled up

(03:00):
and down the garage door easier than it would be
if you just had a plane rope. And then also
I said, it's possible this is a hoax designed to
get as much attention for Bubba Wallace as possible. I
still believe that it is the misunderstanding, But I'm going

(03:22):
to dive into this in a big way and explain
to you why it's all total lunacy when you really
look at all the details. But for those of you
out there who had not heard the news yet, yesterday afternoon,
the FBI announced that there was nothing to the allegation
that there had been a racist act and that NASCAR

(03:46):
immediately putting out this story as if there had somehow
been a a noose that was left for Bubba Wallace
was wrong and that there was no way to actually
defended in any way. And uh, here was the Here
was the statement that the FBI put out joint statement

(04:10):
from the U. S. Attorney's Office and the FBI Special
Agent in Charge. On Monday fifteen, FBI special agents conducted
numerous interviews regarding the situation at Talladega Superspeedway. After a
thorough review of the facts and evidence surrounding this event,
we have concluded no federal crime was committed. The FBI

(04:34):
learned that garage number four, where the news was found,
was assigned to Bubba Wallace last week. The investigation also
revealed evidence, including authentic video confirmed by NASCAR, that the
news found in garage number four was in that garage
as early as October. Although the news is now known

(04:55):
to have been in garage number four in nineteen, nobody
could have known Mr Wallace was going would be assigned
to garage number four last week. The decision not to
pursue federal charges as proper after reviewing all available facts
and all applicable federal laws. We offer our thanks to NASCAR,

(05:15):
Mr Wallace, and everyone who cooperated with this investigation. It's
a total made up story and what NASCAR should do
is tell us why this investigation took longer than ten seconds.
When you look at the pictures of the garages, this

(05:36):
is nowhere near a noose. It is a freaking garage
poll door with a handle on it. The FBI even
referring to it as a noose is absolutely ridiculous as well.
This should have taken thirty seconds, fifteen seconds, eight seconds
of actual investigation. Oh, this is what you're concerned about.

(06:00):
Let me look at the rest of the garage. Oh,
there are a ton of these as well. Yeah, this
is not a racist act. We don't need to put
out a statement on Sunday night that's filled with historyonics
and then I have to throw everybody under the pus here.
To me, this is a fundamental failure of almost the

(06:20):
entire cottage industry of sports. First of all, it's a
failure by NASCAR. There was no reason for this statement
to ever go out on Sunday about a news found
in Bubba Wallace's garage. This could have been privately investigated
for like a very limited amount of time, dismissed, and
gone ahead with normalcy. Instead, NASCAR put out a statement

(06:44):
which made it sound like there was a noose there,
and it makes me wonder whether NASCAR was doing whatever
it could to get as much publicity as possible. It
was a bad look for NASCAR. It was stoop bit
of NASCAR to put out that statement on Sunday. The
only way you can argue that it made any sense

(07:05):
at all is if you believe NASCAR was complicit in
trying to drive attention to its overall product. If you
are Bubba Wallace, if somebody tells me that this happened,
I want to see it for myself before my crew
chief takes it to the public. I'm in charge of
the overall UH decisions that are made by my crew.

(07:30):
If you're going to come to me and you're going
to create a story that is this substantial and this
large and this massive, I would want to say, hey,
I want to see this for myself. Can you take
video of it? Have you looked at the rest of
the nooses in the garage to see whether or not
they are similar to open and close a garage? Bubba

(07:51):
Wallace should have made that decision. People say, oh, Bubba
Wallace did nothing wrong. If somebody comes to me on
my staff and says that they have found something that's inappropriate,
I want to see it. I don't want to immediately
have it go public nationwide. I want to know the
details for myself, as opposed to allowing this to be

(08:16):
spread nationwide talking about it going on the Freaking View
television program as well as going on with with Don
Lemmon last night on c an N doing interviews with
Fox Sports on the Racetrack about this news and your
response to it when it was all a hoax and

(08:38):
it wasn't real. I'm sorry if you're going to ask
me to comment on something like that, I need to
see it. I need to know for myself with my
own eyes, what actually has happened. This is on Bubba
Wallace too as much as it's on NASCAR. And finally,
the sports media is an utter joke. You can't trust

(09:02):
most members of the sports media because they are so
far left wing. They are desperately rooting for awful things
to happen, and they give up all of their journalistic integrity.
It used to be that the entire point of being
a journalist, of being a member of the media was

(09:23):
to pursue the facts before you started to share your opinions.
Now everybody gives their opinions before they even know what
the facts are, and they give their opinions based on
what they want the facts to be. And the sports
media as a collective group is so far left leaning

(09:44):
that they want awful things to be true about America
because deep down they believe America is awful. That's the truth.
That's the essence of this. That's how stories like this spread. NASCAR,
Bubba Wallace and the sports media all failed completely. Let
me just say this, if you look at all of

(10:06):
these big, huge racism stories, they get all of the attention.
If the best thing that can happen to your career
is that you are a victim of a racist incident,
shouldn't we hit pause and say, wait a minute, let's
actually wait for the facts to come out. Because now

(10:29):
we've got three different stories that are just like this.
We've got Michael Bennett. Remember when Michael Bennett said that
he was the victim of racial profiling in Las Vegas,
and then the Las Vegas police and a casino came
out with a hundred and twenty different versions of camera

(10:49):
footage which proved that Michael Bennett's story was all a lie.
It was the lead story on every NFL pregame show.
Oh my god, so ad for Michael Bennett that he
was victim of a racist attack. And then the story
wasn't true at all, and it's just disappeared. Everybody felt
the need to talk about it. Everybody felt the need

(11:12):
to feel so sorry for Michael Bennett. Oh, I'm so
sorry you had to deal with this, Michael Bennett. And
then all of the details come out and it's a
complete lie. There's zero evidence to support anything that he said.
Nobody calls him on it, The media that interviews him
never brings it up. The story just went away. He
lied to everyone. Video came out that proved that he

(11:34):
lied to everyone, and Michael Bennett doesn't have to suffer
any consequences at all. Remember Lebron James. The racist graffiti
on Lebron James's gate, There's a camera right beside it
that was mysteriously turned off. They called the police, but
when the police arrived at Lebron James's Brentwood Area l
A mansion, the racial slur had already been painted over.

(11:57):
There was zero evidence that had happened. The l A
Police Department investigated it closed the case without determining that
any crime had been committed. You probably never even heard about.
That goes completely away after everybody covers it, after Lebron
James compares himself to Emmett Till after all of that

(12:18):
process plays out, nobody even calls Lebron James. On the
fact that the whole story may well have been made up.
No crime. L a p D just dismisses it. They
show up a few minutes after the alleged incident happened.
It's already been painted over. There's a video camera right there,
nobody mysteriously wasn't on. There's no footage to show us

(12:39):
who did it. No, Lebron James is the is the
recipient of racist vandalism, fact that it didn't happen, that
the l a p D can't confirm it just disappears.
And now Bubba Wallace at least the fifteen freaking FBI
agents who investigated a garage pull door rope. Fifteen FBI

(13:02):
agents showed up and said, Oh my god, what is this.
It's a garage pull door rope. It's utterly insane. All
three of these things proven either to not happen or
to be lies. Michael Bennett, Lebron James, Bubba Wallace. Media

(13:23):
got ahead of it. All of the media covered as
if this was a true. Why should you in the
media presume that anything is a true. I'm fired up
about the failures in the media because I'm a part
of him and Honestly, this actually works to my benefit
because every time one of these hoaxes blows up, my

(13:43):
audience explodes because so many of you feel like, and
you're right, you can't trust the media that covers stories,
and you may not agree with me. A lot of
you may even hate some of my opinions. But the
number one thing you know if you listen to out
Kick is you can trust what I am telling you.

(14:04):
I desperately try to make sure that I get the
facts right. And everybody else on Monday, and we had
Jason Whitlock on the show. I encourage you to go
listen to it. Everybody else on Monday is talking all
about this awful racism before we even knew whether there
was any true to it at all. And the and
the the added part here is a lot of people

(14:27):
on social media will call you racist if you question
or say let's wait until all the facts are in.
We have so expanded the definition of racism that if
you say, okay, well that's an allegation, let's wait and
let the investigation take place before we determine what happened,

(14:51):
then people out there will be like, oh my god,
that's racist. There are people right now who will tweet
me after this opening and they will say it was
racist of you not to believe that Bubba Wallace had
a noose put in his garage the minute that the
story came out, I'm sorry, Michael Bennett, Lebron James. Now,
Bubba Wallace, do you even remember just Smollett Juicy small Yeah,

(15:15):
as he's called by Dave Chappelle. The minute you hear
some of these stories, I would just ask you, wait
a minute. Is this the best thing that could ever
happen to just small Ya's career? Is this what he
would want to happen if he could set out anything.
Does this make him more relevant? Is this going to

(15:38):
make him more money? Does this make him more of
a celebrity. If the answer to all of those questions
is yes, why would you presume that anyone is telling
the truth without any investigation into the facts actually taking place.
I'm gonna open up phone lines eight seven seven nine,
six three six nine. I will bring in the crew again.

(16:00):
This is a fundamental failure on the part of NASCAR,
on the part of Bubba Wallace, and on the part
of the sports media. I'm not giving anybody a pass here.
This is a failure of all three on every possible level.
There was no reason for this story to play out

(16:22):
like it did. And I know some of you out there,
probably who were gonna want to talk to me on
the phone, are going to say I think this was
a complete, uh complete rig job by NASCAR in an
effort to try to get more attention. I don't think that.
I think this was a failure systemically because I believe
NASCAR gets the complaint and they are so petrified that

(16:45):
if they don't take it serious, they're gonna be considered racist.
So they drastically overreact by putting out that statement on
Sunday instead of allowing the investigation to take place first.
This was a failure by Bubba Wallace because if somebody
on your crew reports that, how is your first thought?

(17:06):
Not I want to see it for myself. This was
a failure of whoever is on Bubba Wallace's crew and
didn't take the time to actually walk around in the
garages and recognize that this wasn't a noose, it was
a pull rope for garage doors. And this was a
failure by the media to put the cart before the

(17:28):
horse to race in the direction of covering this as
if it were a hundred percent true before we knew
the investigation had actually taken place. All of this failure, failure, failure,
all right, eight seven seven, three six nine. If you
want an antidote to the disease, a vaccine to the

(17:52):
virus that has taken over the entirety of sports media
and the entirety of this country, I'm telling you you
need to be reading out every day. We've hired Jason Whitlock.
We have an incredibly talented group. We're gonna have millions
of people reading our website this June gonna be one
of the ten biggest sports websites in the country. By July.

(18:13):
Go to OutKick dot com. You can sign up and
be a v i P. You get access to comment
to all of our articles, you get a phone number
to call this show, a v I P direct line,
and most importantly, you're gonna have access to all of
the events that Jason Whitlock and I are going to
be doing, including in the city of Nashville, a college

(18:35):
football and NFL kickoff party that is coming in the
month of August. So for everybody out there who is
desperate for sanity to return to America. I am the
king of reasonable nous. I am the king of sports
media sanity, and so is my company, OutKick. Go check

(18:57):
out out kick dot com bookmarket. If you feel like
everybody else has lost their mind. We are the water
in the desert, the oasis that you have been searching for.
You can sign up and be a v I P
as well and be involved on an even higher level
OutKick dot Com. We'll take your calls. I'll bring in
the crew when we return. Shame on you NASCAR, Shame

(19:18):
on you, Bubba Wallace, Shame on you Sports media. I
feel like this is Game of Thrones and we need
the Searcy Walk where everybody screaming shame, shame, shame. This
was a failure all around of all three major party
actors here. This is Outkicked the coverage with Clay Travis.

(19:39):
I'm working right now on crafting our poll question for
the day, and the question is who looks the worst
in the wake of the NASCAR noose debacle? NASCAR, Bubba
Wallace or the sports media. And I know all three
look bad, but I need you to pick who looks
the worst. I just tweeted it out. You can go

(20:00):
vote at Clay Travis. You should also go follow me
at Clay Travis on Twitter. You can go follow out
kick as well at out Kick. If you think that
the world has gone insane, like many of you do,
I am here for you to provide at least some
small measure of sanity. Danny g you've been on the
show for a while. People get mad at me because

(20:23):
I don't tow the corporate line, because I don't always
say what everybody else says. But guess what, Michael Bennett.
I was right. Michael Bennett was lying Lebron James and
the racist graffiti incident. I was right. I didn't come
out as aggressively in saying Bubba Wallace was lying, but
I was like, I really don't believe that this story

(20:44):
is as it has been reported. I'm sure you guys
sometimes get tagged. People are like, oh, I don't know
how you work on this show. Sometimes such a racist?
How dare you be on the radio. Oh my god,
Oh my god. I'm like, I'm sorry, I just don't
believe it. Jesse Small Yeah, Juicy Small Yeah, same thing,
Jesse Smallett. There is more of a demand for high

(21:05):
profile racism than there is a supply of high profile racism,
and so people jump to conclusions, they spread stories that
oftentimes are not very true. I'm not saying racism doesn't exist.
I'm just saying you gotta be skeptical when the best
thing that could happen to somebody's career is that they
are a victim of racism. And this is, in the

(21:29):
world of sports, the third straight huge racist incident that
has not had any substance to it. And if you
want to count, like four years ago, what started my
sort of questioning of everyone in the sports media. People
may remember this was the Missouri hoax, protest over things
that were supposedly going wrong on the University of Missouri's campus,

(21:52):
which just weren't true. But Danny g yesterday you heard
us with Shannon's fake You heard me kind of walk
through the possibilities, and this is basically what we said
on the program yesterday that I thought this was a
poll rope on the on the on the garage door,
and that there wasn't gonna be a lot to this,
and that it was a misunderstanding. And then what happens boom,

(22:14):
I'm right, your thoughts, well, I give our entire show
a lot of credit because we were all asking lots
of questions about this yesterday rather than reacting super emotional.
We do take a lot of machine gun bullets daily
for working with you in this case. Yesterday, when this
news came out, I did feel bad for Shannon and

(22:34):
some other people who work for with NASCAR, um and
and I kind of felt the pressure. You mentioned it
in your opening segment there that NASCAR had to have
felt pressure when that crew member reported it to them,
so they were in a tough Yeah, he's the one
that should be in your pool, I think, Clay. Because

(22:55):
of what's going on in the times right now, I
can see why NASCAR overreacted, although they should and have
never put out that statement. Yeah, it's that crew member
that I'm upset with. Yeah, but Bubba Wallace has to
be responsible for that too. To me, because if you're
gonna make an allegation that's that significant, I want to
see it for myself. It's easy to do. Like, think

(23:16):
about what I would say to you if you were
going to make an allegation like that about Fox Sports
Radio Studios. There's no way that I would say, Hey,
just report it, let's go ahead and release a huge statement.
I would say, hey, can you take a video of
this thing? Can you take a picture? Can you send
it to me? When did this happen? How long has

(23:37):
it been there? How does it compare to other incidents?
Like I would ask all of those questions because you
work with me, and I know as soon as you
say something publicly on some story that it's going to
be directly connected to me. And I need to know
what the basis for the complaint is before we allow
all of it to just take off. So yeah, Bubba Wallace, uh,

(24:01):
and the crew member whoever reported this is an idiot,
and we should know who that person is that started
this entire process rolling. But when you are the person
who makes the money, Bubba Wallace is the boss of
his crew chiefs and his crew employees, and so ultimately
he has to be the person who looks at this

(24:22):
and says, wait a minute, can you go look at
every other garage pull door. Isn't that Richard Petty? Though?
Shouldn't this crew member of sent this to Richard Petty
even really runs that now? But I will first of all,
that might happen, But Richard Petty is in the same
spot as NASCAR. If you're a white guy who overlooks
a racist complaint, then you get accused of racism. Bubba

(24:45):
Wallace has to be smart enough to know that he's
the guy who's going to have this connected to his
name for the rest of his career, fair or foul.
There are a lot of people out there that are
going to call Bubba Wallace just Smollett for the rest
of his worts career. And he's not, right now a
talented enough driver to be able to rise above all

(25:08):
of this and just go out and perform. Once this
allegation came out, and once Bubba Wallace leaned into it
right because he just not just that it occurred right
that this complaint was made, it's that Bubba Wallace accepted
it as fact. He went on the freaking view he
was scheduled to be on Don Lemon. He did his

(25:30):
interview with Fox Sports talking about how he wasn't gonna
start stop smiling because he's not gonna let some racist win.
He one hundred percent accepted that this was true and
leaned into it for the benefit of his brand. And
by the way, credit to the other NASCAR drivers and
the other NASCAR staff who made it clear that they

(25:52):
don't support and will not tolerate racism. But the whole
thing was a sham. And all this does if you
are a person out there and you are desperately of
the opinion that we don't spend enough time talking about
racism and that the country is fundamentally unjust, you're entitled
to whatever opinion you want to have. But stories like

(26:16):
these the Boy who Cried Wolf, are going to make
stories like these in the future even less believable. The
minute this came out, there were a lot of people
on social media who flat out said, the minute this
allegation was made, I don't believe it. And the reason
why so many people said that was because of Jesse Smollett,
was because of Michael Bennett, was because of Lebron James.

(26:39):
Because all of these high profile sports cases, as well
as the Jesse Smallett one, have just completely evaporated and
they blow up. So it's just like the Boy who
Cried Wolf, the people who allege fake acts of racism
detract from actual racism because people stop looking if you

(27:01):
scream something and it proves to not be true that
many times, any other thoughts from you just wondering how
some of the media reacts today, because thank god, we
don't have to moonwalk like Michael Jackson. But over the
past couple of days, I had to listen to some
radio shows and watch some TV shows where they were
damned nearly in tears and playing dramatic music underneath the segment,

(27:25):
and I'm just wondering, when you come back on television
or radio today, how do you you know, how do
you go backwards from that? I don't know. And then, thankfully,
I don't think we've ever had to do that in
the history of this show, because I always say the facts,
the facts, the facts are what matters, and that can
mean sometimes that in this era of hot take performance art,

(27:46):
my hot takes are not that hot. And this is
me putting my lawyer hat on, but I've just seen
too many cases that don't stand up when you actually
look into the evidence. And so I would feel awful
if I had to come on with you and say, hey, sorry,
you know the last two days, all the screaming and

(28:06):
yelling and ranting and opinions that I've been giving you,
I would love to hear a show like that. Well,
it turns out that I mean, honestly, I've never had
to do it in my entire career. It doesn't mean
I don't get my opinions wrong sometimes, but I've never
reacted and accepted as fact something that's proven to not
be factual. I just I I can't imagine what that

(28:30):
feels like to spend days ranting like that. And what
you should do is everybody out there listening should vote
with their time who can you trust? Ultimately? I think
that's what everything comes down to. Who is authentic, who
is trustworthy? Who do you believe that you can listen
to like you do for this show potentially for three
hours every day. I'm not gonna be perfect. I'm gonna

(28:53):
be flawed like everybody else, but I'm going to get
the facts right and I'm not going to jump to clusions.
Dub is out today. I'll go next to Eddie Garcia. Eddie,
you've been doing updates for a while. You were skeptical too,
But it's like, if you're skeptical and in the sports media, oh,
it's racist not to believe that a racist act happened.

(29:14):
The minute you got to get on your hands and
knees and beg for forgiveness, you didn't do it. We
didn't do it. We were right. Well, I said yesterday,
I'm glad I work at a place where you can
have differing opinions because we know the other network, there's
no one over there who who was even allowed to
give a different opinion than what was being said. So
I'm glad, Like I said, I'm glad we have different

(29:36):
opinions here, um than what people want us to believe.
I guess at times I do kind of understand how
NASCAR handled this in a way because the crazy environment
that we're living in, there was no way they could
dismiss this, even if there were some people in NASCAR
or at Talladega who thought this is ridiculous. It's just uh,
you know, it's just a pull rope. They they may

(29:57):
be overreacted, but they handled it in a way that
they couldn't dismiss Bubba Wallace what he said, or else
they be killed. They you know, they get the FBI
to come out and announced that obviously nothing had happened.
Fifteen FBI agents investigated a garage door rope. I did see.
And this is on USA today right now. It's the
headline is NASCAR abows to continue investigation into news, What

(30:19):
is there to continue to investigate. I think it's been
wrapped up. The fact that they're even still calling this
a noose is pure idious and bubble rope for a
garage door that has a handle like the the idea
of the noose, like nooses exist everywhere. Like if you
are a cowboy and you're trying to catch a trying

(30:43):
to catch a cow or a bull or whatever the
heck it is, that's a noose. It's a it's a
circle that I mean, like if you have a it's
a slip knot right, like I mean, this is so
utterly ridiculous. I really was disappointed because Bubba Wallace did
go on Seeing Then with Don Lemon last night, and
he still sounds like he doesn't believe this. Uh. He said,

(31:06):
it's a news, it's a news is news, over and
over and over, and he said he's never seen something
like that in the garage before. It's so it sounds
like he doesn't believe what the FBI has said. And
I thought he had a chance to say, look, under
the circumstances, we reacted this way. But in hindsight now
it was a misunderstanding. It was an overreaction and just
come correct with that. And but he's still he's not

(31:27):
doing that apparently. And the sports media is just unbelievable
how they've covered this. There aren't reporters anymore, uh, in
certain in certain places, there are places. I mean, she
hadon spake, came on with us, and she gave facts.
She didn't give her opinion. She didn't get on a
soapbox and start preaching to anyone. And reporters are supposed
to go by evidence in facts and report what they know,

(31:48):
not what's not their opinions on you know, these things.
And the sports media to me, is on top of
the pole. Unfortunately. Yeah, right now, four thousand of you
have voted in the first ten minutes. You can go
vote at Clay Travis, who looks the worst in the
wake of the NASCAR news debacle, Nascar, Bubba Wallace or
the sports media? And I said, I know all three

(32:10):
look bad. I need you to pick who looks the worst.
The sports media is getting fifty two percent of the vote.
Bubba Wallace, NASCAR, So media, Bubba Walla Nascar. I think
that's the right I think that's the right trajectory as well.
We'll see how the numbers continue. You can go vote

(32:30):
at Clay Travis. This is outkicked the coverage with Clay Travis.
You're listening to out kick the coverage. I hope all
of you are having a fantastic start to your Wednesdays,
wherever you may be across this great country or this
great land. Major League Baseball officially coming back. The players

(32:52):
are going to report on July one. We'll be talking
about that with John Morosy next hour. Our Major League
Baseball insider get Aimes, will read commence on July twenty
sixty games season. That is finally a positive after months
of talking about when Major League Baseball would come back,
now we have official dates. But we are unpacking the

(33:16):
absurdity of the Bubba Wallace story, which has fallen apart NASCAR,
Bubba Wallace, the sports media. Everybody's got egg on their face.
The latest in the fake racial incidents in the world
of sports. Michael Bennett lies about the Las Vegas police,
proven to be a liar about their racism against him.

(33:39):
Story disappears. Lebron James racial slur on his gate l
A p D investigates there's no evidence that actually happens.
Story disappears. Bubba Wallace and his crew say there is
a news in his garage at NASCAR fifteen FBI agents
investigate there is no news in his charage. Lies yet

(34:02):
which one of those is the most to blame? Your
answer may change when we play the audio for you here,
you can go vote at Clay Travis and tell us
what you think in terms of who looks the worst
in the wake of this story, the sports media, Bubba
Wallace or NASCAR. Sports media getting fifty two percent of

(34:22):
the vote, Bubba Wallace getting percent of the vote, NASCAR
getting twenty one percent. We are taking your phone calls
allowing you to react. We only have five lines instead
of our usual ten because dub is out of the
studio in Nashville, So I'm gonna ask you to be
fast as we moved through. But first let me play
you the audio. Bubba Wallace went on the View yesterday

(34:44):
in the morning before this story went out, and then
once the FBI had debunked the idea that there was
any race issues here, any hate crime. Bubba Wallace then
went on Don Lemmon after the FBI had already released
their eatement, and he continued to argue that something was
going on here. Listen to this. The image that I

(35:05):
have and I have seen of what was hanging in
my garage is not a It's not a garage pool.
I've been racing all my life. We've we've raced out
of hundreds of garages that never had garage pools like that.
So people that want to call it a garage pool
and put out old videos and photos of of of
knots being as their evidence, go ahead. But from the

(35:27):
evidence that we have, I mean that I have, it's
a straight up noose. The FBI has stated it was
a noose over and over again. NASCAR leadership has stated
that it was a news I can confirm that I
actually got evidence of what was hanging in my garage,
over my car, around my picker guys to confirm that
it was a noose and never seen anything like it.

(35:48):
This to me makes Bubba Wallace the number one blamer
because this sounds like he did what I would have done,
which is say send me pictures of this thing, and
then he ran at the idea that this was a noose,
even though it's a knot with a handle so it's
easier to pull down the garage door. It's a freaking

(36:11):
slip knot. Somebody said. Somebody said in the comments here,
uh that that I think is is a good one.
Um that this is just the most basic of knots
that you're learned and taught in the military. This is
I mean, people are sending me pictures of their garages

(36:35):
with similar setups because it's easier to put your hand
in if you have a rope to up to lift
up and down your garage door, it's easier to do
it with a handle with a loop than it is without.
I mean, this is crazy. It's like, it's like people
don't realize what ropes exist for. And Bubba Wallace to

(36:59):
go on CNN and continue to spread a falsehood even
after it's been debunked. And again, you guys agree with me.
It sounds like because he tried to say, oh, I
didn't know anything about this, this wasn't me, it sounds
like he's basically taking ownership of this report now, which
honestly makes more sense because if the black driver on

(37:22):
NASCAR says there's a noose in my garage and you
don't take it seriously, if you're NASCAR, then you get
called racist. So they have to call in fifteen FBI
agents to investigate a garage pulled door because Bubba Wallace
is saying that that is the truth. This is a

(37:43):
bad look for Bubba Wallace man. He is going full
Justse Smallett here, and he's not good enough for this
story to just disappear. This is, for most people who
care about NASCAR, going to define him for the rest
of his career as a race car driver. He's NASCAR's

(38:03):
own version of Jesse Smalllett. If he continues to lean
into this like he did last night with Don Lemon,
We'll take your calls eight seven seven six three six nine.
If somebody drops off, you can call in. Who's up first? Uh?
Danny G I'm used to say in Dub Dubs out today,
Greg and Florida? Greg, what do you think? Hey? First
and foremost you guys on an awesome show. Thanks for

(38:25):
for doing it right. Um, listen, I got a couple
of quick points. Number one, doesn't it seem like we're
living in a really bad movie that the National Enquiry
is directing or something? You know, the media is like
is trying to cut everybody's cohon age and saying this
is the way it has to be. If you don't
think this way, well then we're just gonna keep saying
whatever we want to say. Because they have no repercussions.

(38:46):
They answered to no one. And it seems like the
more shocked value jock garbage they get, they get promoted
for that, where they should be fired for not having
How do they how do they not look in the
mirror in the morning and not cut And now that's
where my biggest point is. But also a quick thing
on the on the race deal and Bubba, Oh my gosh,
he's gonna he's gonna take that line to his death.

(39:07):
He's going to defend it to the death. I mean,
it's unfortunate, but the ego and some of these sports guys,
you know, he's gonna take it to his death. He's
taking that route. But I was I was driving on
my car one day and way back to the day
I just real quickly, uh, the park Land thing had happened,
and I listened to stephen A. Do you know what
he said. He actually said, I can't believe he has
a jug. He said on the radio. You know when

(39:29):
they took that man out, that boy out that killed it,
he was a black man. He had been coming out
in a body bag, just keeping it real. Do you
know how racist and a hot hallful that is to
the police force, to anybody that has a soul? And
I'm thinking myself, this is a guy who's got a voice,
and how horrible that is. And there's no repercussions. Thanks

(39:49):
for the calling. Look, I think people need to vote
who they listened to and what content they consume based
on who they can trust, because I think we live
in a low trust society right now, where there are
a lot of people trying to manipulate you all day long.
And what I try to do, because I think it
really a hundred billion percent matters, is make sure that

(40:13):
the facts are right. And if that means that, I'm
not really going into the Bubba Wallace story in an
aggressive way with a really strong opinion until Wednesday, instead
of having one on Monday and Tuesday when everybody else
is rending their garments and screaming and yelling and having
strong opinions. I'm willing to take that risk because we

(40:35):
didn't know the facts. I mean, if you go back
and listen, and I'd encourage you to do it, go
back and listen to the podcast on Monday and Tuesday.
I wish there was somebody smart enough in the media
to write these stories and compare how people cover stories today.
I don't have egg on my face. I'm not coming
on saying hey, sorry about the two days of ranting

(40:57):
I did. Turns out none of what I was talking
about was actually true. I'm willing, and I think most
audience members are willing to to wait. We got plenty
of time to figure out what happened. You don't need
to have an opinion. I mean, look, if you're teaching
the journalism course, go back and listen to our interview
yesterday with Shannon's fake I mean, Shannon was great on

(41:20):
the show. She covers NASCAR, But what I wanted to
talk about her talk about with her was the specific details.
What does the garage look like? What does the poll
rope look like? In this case, you go back and listen. Uh,
there was evidence out there that this was gonna be
a poll rope related incident. Um, you know what, how
do you determine what birth you get? Like? All as

(41:40):
a garage, all of these different questions that are important.
These are questions that lawyers would ask in a trial.
A good question, in my opinion, is better than a
good opinion, because a good question will make you think
about a variety of different angles. That's why I like
to put up the poll questions, and I always say, hey,

(42:01):
if we have a poll question that's almost fifty fifty,
like yesterday's poll question, thirty thousand of you voted what
was dumber renaming the Masters? Or Brett Farve comparing Colin
Kaepernick to Pat Tillman, it's nearly fifty fifty. A really
good question has equal parts on both sides. People are like, well,
now that you think about it that way, you can

(42:22):
make an argument on both sides. We're talking about a
lot of times hard choices, and the facts are important
and trust In an era when you can't trust people politicians, media,
people with public profiles, athletes, they often share falsehoods. And
I believe that trust is important for me to talk

(42:44):
to you every day and try to get my facts
wrong right. And sometimes I get facts wrong, but it's
never been a case where I've come on and had
to apologize for two days of my show because I
was completely wrong, like so many people in my industry are,
and I don't know how they come out and do
their show Wednesday. I don't know what do it feel
like to be that wrong? Who's up? Who's up? Next? Up?

(43:05):
I mean, d you'll get it by the next hour.
All right, let's go with Jermaine in North Carolina, Germaine.
What you got Hey, good morning man, Just first time calling. Man.
I'd be very quick. I'm gonna say first, Um, I
think I'm one of the best shows. Man. You do
everything you agree, but I've greely a lot of just
um you stay. But let me be real quick. First

(43:26):
commented question. My coming is as uh sentiol black man.
I think who've gotten gonna crazy? As far as always
going to jump to a conclusive far as racism? What
you say? Things you say this morning? Been on point
on that. But um, but the question I won't get
and now take off the air. Um, if you think
if NASCAR have had like better rates relations in the past,

(43:49):
they wouldn't have to be so reactionary. And now I
wanna take you out there, man, take can't God bless you? Man? Yeah, Well,
thanks for listening to Jermaine. Appreciate the feedback. Look, I
think that's a part of this. I do think if
NASCAR had had better race relations in the past. Maybe
they would if NASCAR had more black drivers, maybe they
wouldn't have felt the need to drastically overreact. Here's what

(44:10):
I think NASCAR did that was an overreaction. I think
calling in the FBI and investigating it, while it sounds ridiculous,
is smarter for NASCAR than doing their own investigation because
people could say, oh, of course NASCAR came up with
that conclusion. I think that was a super smart move.
Even though I find it a bit ridiculous that we

(44:30):
have fifteen different FBI agents our tax dollars investigating a
rope used to pull down a garage door. I mean
that that is kind of ridiculous. But from a NASCAR perspective,
I think that was smart. Where I think NASCAR aired
wasn't putting out that statement on Sunday night. Can one
of you pull up that statement on Sunday night and
read it, Because the way that NASCAR statement read on

(44:53):
Sunday night, it gave us a conclusion to an investigation
that had not yet been completed. That is the flaw
I think that NASCAR made was in believing, hey, this
is a noose the minute the complaint was made. If
they had come out on Sunday night and said, hey,
we're conducting an investigation. We read that statement to me

(45:16):
right now. Late this afternoon, NASCAR was made aware that
a noose was found in the garage stall of the
forty three team. We are angry and outraged and cannot
state strongly enough how seriously we take this heinous act.
We have launched an immediate investigation, and we'll do everything
we can to identify the person or persons responsible and
eliminate them from our sport. As we have stated, there

(45:40):
is no place for racism in NASCAR, and this act
only strengthens our resolved to make the sport open and
welcoming to all. Yes, so they in their statement on
Sunday night, tell us what happened? Right? I read that
first like two sentences again from that statement. They don't say, like,
what's the purpose of an investigation if you already know

(46:02):
what happened? They put the cart way before the horse.
That would be the flaw here. NASCAR statement is now
we know rooted in a lie, And if you're an organization,
you can't put out a statement like this before you
even know what happened. Read that opening again late this afternoon,
NASCAR was made aware that a noose was found in
the garage stall of the forty three team. We are

(46:23):
angry and outraged and cannot state strongly enough how seriously
we take the famous act. We have launched an immediate investigation,
and we'll do everything we can to identify the person
responsible and eliminate them from the sport. Yeah. So, I
mean that is basically telling us this was a racist
act without ever knowing that that was the case at all,

(46:46):
which sets in motion all of the ridiculousness that now
NASCAR has to wear. And that's their fault. But the
the investigation. If they had just come out and said, hey,
we've been made aware of a alleged racial act involving
Bubba Wallace. We are making sure that he's safe, and

(47:06):
we are conducting an investigation into whether or not it
is true. We will update you at some point in
the future when the investigation is correct. NASCAR condemns all hate.
Whatever you know you want to say at the end.
I don't know why the statement wouldn't say that if
you fill the need to put out a statement now.
Jason Whitlock, in his column yesterday at OutKick raised a
good point, which is why in the world would NASCAR

(47:29):
put out a statement before they even have conducted any
of the investigation at all. And the answer is, I
think NASCAR, to Jermaine's point, who just called the NASCAR,
is so afraid of being called racist that they're gonna
go way over the board in the opposite direction. But
that's why I think, as a group on the show,
if we were casting who's the most to blame here?

(47:52):
I think Bubba Wallace and his crew is to me
starting to look like the most blame worthy. Based on
his comments to Don Lemon, it sounds like he legitimately
believes this was a noose and that he looked at
images of it and he wanted this story to be
put out there. So to me, it starts to feel
like Bubba Wallace and his crew are the biggest blame

(48:13):
worthy here. But certainly we know the sports media is
because most people in the sports media didn't wait for
the facts. They went ahead and ran right to the
right to the reaction. And that's a big problem that
goes on in America today right because of social media,
which I think has accelerated our news cycle. People want
to react to a story before they even know what

(48:35):
the story is. Until you know what the facts are,
it's hard to have a smart and intelligent opinion about things.
And I always say that in every case you know,
but athlete gets accused of of a crime. Remember Ezekiel
Elliott I. I was probably the biggest defender of Ezekiel
Elliott in the entire sports media. Guy gets accused of
domestic assault, investigation takes place, charges aren't brought, he still

(49:01):
gets suspended by the NFL. I'm sitting around saying, wait
a minute, did you look at this evidence. I think
the guy, I think the girl lied. One of the
big flaws we have is based on identity. People decide
whether or not they believe someone before they even know
the facts. It's like, right now, in this Me Too era,
woman comes out and says, hey, I was sexually harassed

(49:24):
or I was I was sexually assaulted. People believe the
woman immediately because she's a woman. And I'm like, wait, wait, wait,
wait a minute, that's fundamentally wrong me. As a warrior,
you can't believe anyone that women lie, men lie, humans lie.

(49:44):
Why in the world would you believe someone based on
their identity as opposed to what the facts are. So
I don't care what race you are. I don't care
what religion you are. I don't care what sex you are.
I don't care whether you're rich or poor. The law,
if you study it, tells tests, tells us over and
over and over again that you have to wait on

(50:06):
the facts and not just believe someone because they look
like you or because you want their story to be
true because it confirms your worldview. The sports media has
fallen into this trap where they believe someone because they
want the story to be true. That's what I said

(50:26):
about the sports to me, and they want awful things
to be true. Let me try to get to a
bunch more of your calls here. Who's up next? Brent
in Kentucky? Brent, what you got, what's going on? Play A?
I've got a lot going on in my head right now.
I'm piste off about all this. I hadn't heard that
take uh that comment that you made, Lemon, so I'd
like to change my vote. But um, one of the

(50:48):
things that really aggravates me is the fact that they
say that that doorpool had been there since what last October?
That's right, at least since lots of last October. It
might have been there longer, but they have evidence that
it was there at least in October. So all this was,
you know, first happen in decent I mean, I'm sorry
on Sunday, and then it got rained out and delayed

(51:10):
till Monday, and then they pulled this spectacle with all
of these garage guys and all these drivers pushing his
car out two you know, into the front for his
little selfie. What adriage mean is you're gonna try to
tell me that not one of those griage guys, if
not multiple griage guys, hadn't seen that before. And they
just go along with this spectacle and doesn't call out

(51:33):
say hey, no, no, no no, no, we're not doing this.
We're not going along with this. This was not directed
at him. This has been here for eight months, so
we're not going to be a part of this spectacle
going out here and having a selfie. To me, it
feels like now I may be way off here. You know.
The him being compared to Justice Smolette is I think

(51:55):
almost accurate, simply because you've got a D list actor
that wasn't getting enough at end and now you've got
a third rate driver that couldn't finish in the top
I think he finished seventh at Daytona last year or
year and four I think in eighteen or nineteen. And
it almost seems like he is gonna take this, like
the other guy said, as hard as he can and possibly,

(52:17):
I don't know, come become the Colin Kaepernick of Nascar.
I don't know what his his motives are here, but
NASCAR needs to have some backbone and say, hey, listen,
our investigation has been completed, it wasn't directed. You Quit
going on major networks and trying to make this look
like somebody in NASCAR's racist, and I'm gonna get off

(52:39):
here and listen to what's get things. It's a good
call on so many different levels. Uh, And I think
the analogy of the guys not a good enough race
car driver, so he wants to get attention and sponsorship dollars. Remember,
I mean NASCAR is a sport driven by sponsorship dollars.
There's probably a lot of companies that want to sponsor
Bubba Wallace now because he's more well known. I mean, heck,

(53:01):
he's getting talked about on this radio program and we
haven't talked about a NASCAR driver on this radio program
hardly at all regularly as a lead story. What do
you think Danny g in five years? Yeah, not since
you interviewed that one. But I'm saying we've had interviews
with NASCAR, but I'm talking about like we come on
and our lead story. Yeah, just as a headline story.

(53:23):
I don't think we've done it in five years. So
I mean, he is relevant, even if he's relevant for
a bad reason, and he might lean into that. Who's
up next? Alright, Mike in Maryland? Mike, what you got
going on? I'm a black guy, I'm a former prosecutor,
so obviously I have my own my own stance. But
but what's actually just what said? I think it's actually

(53:44):
ironic because Jolin Kaepernick the whole issue with him. It's
not because I'm a totally a First Amendment guy kind
of like you in that respect. But when sins are
based on content is where I have my issue of
Colm kaepotic with Neel and because he was anti abortion,
the people who support him with a totally flipped and
this is a great argument. I'm glad you called in
as a lawyer. That's that's what people who say a

(54:06):
lot of times people say I'm a First Amendment absolutist.
That's what I say, but they immediately then back off
if somebody says something else. So you're right. If Colin
Kaepernick neils because he's against abortion, or if Colin Kaepernick
neils because he's opposed to gay marriage, the same people
who are like, thank god he's using his voice to
speak out would be like, no, no, no, this guy
can't do that in uniform at work. The NFL has

(54:29):
to has to blame him, has to do something too.
I'm sorry to cut you off, but it's a really
good point. Yeah, and put. The only thing I think
is interesting is I don't know how many garages there
are if there's been an investigation to see if there's
also a similar like tyrope on other garages. Because I
get that there's a likely there's a likelihood that this

(54:50):
was not a racialist that's problem, that's what's spent time
the FBI. But if there's no other garages that have
a similar tyrope, it could be obviously misinterpreted, which obviously
lead to this result. And it's not illogical. But I'm
not going to say that there's a racial incident. Um.
But there was also racial incidence with people find Confederate
flags and having the Confederate flag rally before that race.

(55:12):
I believe in Talladega, which in itself could have been
a justificate justification for them having the whole little pit crew. Um.
I don't know selfislogy, right, but I don't really watched NASCAR.
I'm not gonna start watching NASCAR because it's not gonna lie.
But I think that saying the NASCAR does not have
a Confederate flag or or racial issue because I mean, honestly,

(55:33):
my issue is the Confederate flag is a flag of treasons, um,
and there's just no other way to look at it.
So I don't really understand the justification of why a
flag that's basically saying I'm anti American is it's something
that people would, uh would be trying to espouse. But
thanks for taking my call. Yeah, it's a it's a
smart calling a lot of different levels. The Confederate flag
is an interesting Uh. We could probably do an entire

(55:55):
show on the Civil War. And my position on the
Confederate flag is you should have to have basic Civil
War knowledge in order to fly it. And and what
I mean by that is most people who are involved
in arguing one side or the other don't have very
much historical knowledge. And I'm a Civil War buff so
one of the things I like to do is read

(56:16):
about American history. Be sure to catch live editions about
Kicked the coverage with Clay Travis week days at six
am Eastern, three am Pacific. John Morossi our Major League
baseball insider and expert. John I I just, first of all,
the positive is baseball player is gonna be back July one. Theoretically,
the game gonna be back July. What actually happened? What

(56:38):
have we done over the last couple of months. Why
couldn't the commissioner have just mandated a sixty game season
a long time ago? Or even more, what take us
behind the scenes here? How did we get to this resolution? Yes,
it is a good morning for baseball. The sport is
coming back. And and your question is a very important

(57:01):
one because I really believe that in many cases both
sides had points they wanted to make over the course
of bargaining that pertained largely to the next c b
A in the future labor relations as it's going to
be constructed in two and beyond. So really Unfortunately, it

(57:21):
was a matter of staking out some of those positions
and and communicating those messages and principles to one another.
And you're right that certainly, had things unfolded differently than
in many cities in the country at the moment, that
it would have been safe to play. But at the certainly, uh,
at the way things unfolded, that that was not meant

(57:43):
to be in this particular circumstance. But at the very least,
we will have sixty games, and sixty, my friend, is
better than zero. That's right into your credit. You ever,
remained optimistic that this was going to get worked out
on this show for the past several months. So let's
go to those sixty games. Do we know where the
games will be play right now, Clay? According to the manual,

(58:04):
reportedly that's been circulated among teams and the union and
decided upon by the union and in MLB. Initially, the
plan will be for teams to begin their seasons in
their home ballparks, So wherever you play your regular season games,
you will be starting a week from now. However, MLB

(58:25):
does reserve the right to move those teams and those
games to neutral sites or alternate sites if it is
deemed to be necessary because of laws or local ordinances
as it pertains to COVID nineteen. Well, we don't know
at the moment, Clay the on. The one team that
I really don't know what's gonna happen with is the

(58:46):
Toronto Blue Jays because we still have have obviously a
lot of the international border restrictions at the moment, and
it's unclear if the Jay's are going to be able
to be in Toronto travel in and out because of
the moment, there's there are two week quarantines mandatory there
as it pertains to the Canadian border, so that that
is a massive question mark. But the other teams play,

(59:06):
I think the simple answer is that if it is
safe to play and to abide by the regulations as
set forth in the manual, as it pertains to getting
to the ballpark and safely, safely being there, safely having
a gathering even of the size that requires to play
a major league game within your own team, as long
as those rules are able to be followed. In the

(59:29):
context of baseball, I think we are going to see
a majority of teams, uh and maybe even a strong
majority of teams playing their games during the regular season
at their home ballpark. That's quite a bit different than
the NBA because the NBA is basically setting up this
quarantine bubble. How will Major League Baseball respond in the
event players test positive? Will they be testing every day?

(59:51):
Do we know what that process will look like? Well,
there will be the temperature checks every day, and and
that that level of testing. We don't know if it's
going to be that the sort of the still in
the process of of innovating some of the rapid testing
that is really just under development as we speak today. Um,
that part is unclear. But there will be testing done

(01:00:13):
of various kinds every day, including of course temperature checks
at the very at the very least UM. And then
in terms of whenever a player test positive, the the
hope will be that if if there's not a massive
team wide outbreak, and this has not been deliberately spelled
out from what I can ascertain yet, but if there's

(01:00:34):
not a team wide outbreak where you've got all of
a sudden ten players both testing positive and symptomatic, that
you can probably still continue playing. And there is a
player pool of up to sixty people, which is intentionally
larger than the normal forty man roster that you would see. UH,
they're gonna begin the season with thirty players actively Reportedly,

(01:00:55):
according to Joel Sherman yesterday, there's not going to be
a minimum number of days or max number of days
set on being on the injured list for COVID reasons.
That's almost gonna be a separate list where if you
test positive and and and you're you're gonna have to
be on the COVID UH restricted list or whatever it's
going to be called for a period of time. You

(01:01:16):
don't necessarily have to stay there for a sixed number
of days, nor is there a minimum maximum number of
days that you could be there. So their baseball is
going to do I think a very comprehensive job of
making sure that the very uh that that every health
detail is being abided by to ensure that there is
as low of a chance of an outbreak within the

(01:01:37):
unbelieved population as possible. There's gonna be d H universal Right,
Why is that a big deal? What have you heard
fans in terms of responding? Obviously, the big difference between
the American League and the National League has been UH
that the National League continues to have a picture and
pictures have to bat. Is this a long term change.
What's the reaction been that you have seen from fans? Well, Claire,

(01:01:59):
I I believe you have seen the last of the
NL rules and that that's a very For as many
times as you and I have had conversations about baseball
in the past, that is always a hot button issue.
You probably gonna have people calling it on both side
that issue today, but here it's probably topic number five
or six in the overall um situation of baseball coming back.

(01:02:19):
But I I do believe we have seen the last
of it. I really do. I think that the union
likes it in general because dhs tend to be better
paid than than your average last pitcher on the roster
or your average last position player on the roster. So
in that situation, I think you're gonna see higher salaries,
higher payrolls UH, and it will actually be a positive

(01:02:42):
change from the standpoint of the players. And I think
to mL being has generally been of the mind that
that having a universal d H gives you more flexibility
and scheduling if if you want to have a different
structure to your divisions where you've got tighter geography UH.
And also as you look to the future. I know
it's still off there in the distance, but the possibility

(01:03:05):
of expansion your hometown Nashville has been mentioned in that
conversation too, So the if you expand to thirty two teams,
it makes everything a lot easier if you have a
universal DH and you can align divisions that way. What
will the schedule look like when it comes out? There
was initially this idea of these different pods where everybody
was going to be traveling and playing local teams. We

(01:03:26):
might do away with American and National leagues for purposes
of this season. What have you heard about that it's
gonna be a high bred reportedly Clay of those two
circumstances where you would have uh forty games within your division,
so you would play ten games apiece against your four
divisional opponents, of course each division still based on not

(01:03:47):
as five teams, and then you would play the remaining
twenty games of the sixty games schedule against the opposite
division within your own third of the country. So you
are right in that we we are going to see
largely divisional play and then crossover play, and we will
not be seeing the Yankees play the Angels or the

(01:04:09):
Yankees playing the White Sox this year, We're we're gonna
see teams stay within their geographic third, which makes sense.
It's less expensive, um when you stay within that group.
Theoretically from a standpoint of infection control, it's it's a
it's a little bit of a safer endeavor from from
that standpoint with travel that you're staying within your same
geographic third of the country. So I think that makes

(01:04:32):
intuitive sense and it's gonna be a little bit easier
from a travel standpoint as well. How many players are
going to sit out and will any of them be
quote unquote superstars. That's a great question. We don't know.
The first answer is with with with the information being
so fresh just from yesterday, we don't know. I think
there is going to be a number of players who
do sit out play, but I don't think it's going

(01:04:54):
to be huge. What we we saw Terry Ferry ConA
say on FS one in an interview with our colleagues
from UH and they'll be around there recently that he
had not spoken with a single player in the Cleveland
organization or coaching staff member who had said at that
point in time that they plan to not play so
that's just one team, one data point, But I think

(01:05:16):
that probably contradicts some of the thought that you that
you would have players in large numbers across the sport
deciding not to play. The interesting question, Clay is going
to be for the players who that they received their
advanced money earlier on the season. If you're making under
a million dollars per year in terms of your initial salary,

(01:05:38):
so basically now we're down to a little more than
a third. If you're making a million, of course now
you're down to you know, around the three grand range,
the three under grand range, but whatever would be. And
and you're now, uh, that player is basically going to
be playing for a very very small amount of additional
salary this year, based on the pro rated portion of it.

(01:05:59):
But I wonder play that a lot of those players
will probably still play because they have to set themselves
up for their future career. We we're seeing a time
where the league is is somewhat The spending I believe
will be somewhat depressed this winter for obvious reasons because
teams revenues are gonna come down, and and you are
now fighting for your spot in the league and your

(01:06:22):
future paychecks, which which I think will be enough. Even
if the players are only going to get an additional
grand for the balance of the year or a little
more than that, I still think a lot of those
players are gonna want to be part of it and
set themselves up for the future home cities home stadiums.
Will there be fans present at all? So that is

(01:06:42):
a great question, And to you the example of of
Texas right now. Obviously for a while they were allowing
gatherings of of recent days, there have been a spike
in COVID nineteen cases in Texas um so that for now, Clay,
it appears that it's going to be largely a subject
of the local ordinances and and laws in those areas.

(01:07:05):
That I think MLB has has structured the league right
now in a fashion that that they will not be
expecting that they're going to be fans, at least that
they're not counting on that. But I don't think we're
gonna see an express prohibition against that, at least as
we get underway. And of course the important thing to
point out is we are still a month away from

(01:07:26):
regular season games, and as we have seen with COVID nineteen,
a lot can change in the span of a month.
Final question for you. We're talking John Morosey. Go follow
him on Twitter. Are major League Baseball insider as we
look ahead, one being the least contentious, tend being the
most contentious. What is the relationship like now between the

(01:07:46):
Major League Baseball Players Association and the owners. I think
it's still at about a seven play it is. I'm
encouraged that they were able to to come together on
some details of the return to play last night, and
in fact I was even and told by one source
that perhaps some issues that were not dealt with constructively
in the course of the last several months may still

(01:08:09):
be dealt with in a positive way in the in
the next forts as as everybody gets a handle on
what the season is going to be. So I think
there there is more conversation than not. I think that's
very good, but it's certainly still contentious, and it would
be disingenuous on my part for me to say, though
we've got a deal and everything is back to being

(01:08:30):
great and where there's there's zero acrimony, now, that's that
is not where we're at, unfortunately, And I still think
we've got a lot of difficult conversations in the months
to come as it pertains to what the sport is
going to look like after season, but at least for now, Clay,
my friend, the reality is we're going to have, in
all likelihood season and that is worth celebrating here this morning. Amen,

(01:08:54):
thank you for joining us, Thank you for staying strong
and staying optimistic. Baseball is back. John Morosie, we'll talk
to you next way. That was freak, Clay, thanks so much,