Lars Anderson Interview: Inside Tom Brady’s Price of Greatness

Scott.

Our guest, Lars Anderson is a New York Times best selling author of 12 books including the Storm and the Tide and the Mannings.

Five of his books have been options for movies.

He's a 20 year veteran of Sports Illustrated.

Anderson wrote more than two dozen cover stories for the magazine.

The reason he's here today is his latest book is out now, wherever you get your books.

Brady An American Story and the Price of Greatness.

Lars, welcome to the mixtape.

Hey, thank you guys so much for having me.

Seriously.

So I want to start at the beginning, which is you get a call from your literary agent, Susan Canavan, I believe I'm saying that right.

Yep.

And she says, you've got to write, Brady, and you got to write it big.

So what lightning bolt hits you at that point?

Is it fear?

Is it excitement?

It's abject terror.

I mean, my first inclination was like, if we can speak freely.

What?

Yes, we can.

Are you talking about.

Because I, I, it's such a monumental project.

Right.

And I thought about it for a while.

I called, first thing I did, I think even before saying yes, was I called my friend Armin Katayan.

Okay.

I'm now writing a book with, But Armin, he worked at Sports Illustrated a long time.

CBS News, 60 Minutes, HBO Real Sports, which I don't think exists anymore.

Yeah, I don't think it does either.

Yeah, but, but anyway, Arm and I, we're working on a book on youth sports in America now.

Fantastic.

Yeah, just about in about how messed up it is.

And we're trying to come up with some prescriptive measures to try to keep hear what is all wrong.

I mean it's, as you guys know, it's bad.

Yes.

Anyway, I called Armin because he had co written a book on Tiger woods that I think reached number one on the times list.

Jeff Benedict.

I'm like, h, how do you start something like this?

He said, we spent a year just making a detailed timeline and just every significant event in Tiger's life made note of it year by year.

And so that's what I did with Tom after I told Susan, yes, I will accept this suicide mission.

If you.

Can get me enough money.

Right.

And, and yeah, so we got, got a great editor at Celadon Books and who believes in it.

And so I spent about a year just reading absolutely everything on Tom.

And then when Tampa won their super bowl with Tom.

Bruce and I worked together, although he didn't have, like a byline on the book, but he opened all the doors of access to me to Tampa for a book called A Season in the Sun.

And that was the first time I ever saw Tom through the eyes of the coaches, through the eyes of teammates, through the eyes of, you know, the cafeteria workers.

And immediately I thought that even then, that there was something a hell of a lot more to Tom Brady than people really understand, because there is.

For someone who is a self described loner introvert, when he walks into a room, man, you feel his presence before you even see him.

I mean, in.

You know.

I have.

Tom and I have been exchanging text messages because Bruce is basically forcing him to talk to me for Season in the sun, right?

And it's my 50th birthday.

I haven't seen my mom in, like, two and a half years because of the pandemic and all that stuff.

And she lives in D.C. and I'm in Birmingham, Alabama, which is a long story unto itself.

But.

I. I'm in my.

I'm sitting right where I'm sitting now, and I see my mom pulls into the driveway, and I'm like, oh, my God, my mom.

Right at that very second, this thing lights up with the name Tom Brady on it, right?

I was like, there's no way it could be Tom.

It just lit up again as I held it up.

I'm like, oh, my God.

So I'm faced with, like, this moral dilemma.

Like, most important person in my world is right there who I haven't seen, who I want to go hug.

Yeah, I got the hardest person in the world to get in touch with right here.

But it was an easy decision.

I told Tom, I'm sorry, brother, I gotta call you back.

Like, we can't do it right now.

And Tom was just.

He was very nice.

He said, lars, go be with your family.

Yeah, we'll figure it out.

Well, of course we never figure it out.

I never speak to him, actually, ever again.

But so I told Susan that story, and she's like, oh, you got into Tom, you know, that she thought about for a day.

So anyway, so.

Yeah, where do you start?

We started with the timeline.

And then I knew that I was going to need help.

And so I went back to, like, my SI days and when we would do A big profile or investigative piece, you'd have a, like the main senior writer.

And then you'd also sometimes attach one, two, even three reporters, younger reporters to help with the story.

And so at one point I had three young reporters working for me full time.

And I also brought in.

It used to be a guy named Tom Ehrenberg, used to be the top, used to be the sports [email protected] alabama.com news site.

And so there's five of us and we would have zoom calls like once a week, twice a week.

And the mandate was to work the fringes because again, that's what we did at Sports Illustrated.

I wanted to talk to anyone who had crossed paths.

And I referred to these as like the dinner party interviews, because the one question I wanted to ask and the one question I wanted the reporters to ask was if you were at a dinner party, what is the one Tom Brady story you're going to tell everyone?

Because even though the punter was only there two weeks, guarantee you he's got a Tom Brady story.

Absolutely right.

Because everyone is paying attention to Tom Brady.

Big Payton Manning fan, hates Tom Brady.

Grew up hating Tom Brady.

And you know, that that's a whole another issue of like why people hate Tom Brady so much or why, you know, you either love him or you hate him kind of thing.

But this guy, he gets to New England after the second game.

It's played at Gillette, as you guys know.

I'm sure that after the game, the players and family members, there's a cordoned off private area where there's refreshments and they all just kind of hang out and decompress a little bit.

And the tight end had his parents with him and he sees Tom talking to, to Giselle and wants to go introduce his parents to Tom, even though all of them, like grew up, you know, no.

Big Tom Brady fans.

Anyway, walking towards Tom, Tom sees him coming before the tight end can introduce his parents.

Tom turns around, extends his hand and says, nice to meet you, Mike.

Nice to meet you, Linda.

And it is blown away.

It's the most disarming thing.

It's the most disarming magic trick.

Blown away that Tom took the time to read up on the biography of this tight end who was on the team for just one more week.

Right.

He probably only got in just a handful of plays, whatever.

And you know what he told us was, I will do anything for Tom Brady for the rest of my life because I saw how he made my parents feel.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And I think it goes back to, Tom is a relationship driven leader.

And you can find the roots of that and the fact that he grew up in a household dominated by women.

Right.

Three older sisters.

Yeah.

Who are all superior athletes.

And so I think that Tom's leadership style is actually more feminine than traditionally masculine, as more than more traditionally has more traditionally feminine characterist than masculine characteristics.

And it's rare in the NFL.

Right.

And it worked for Tom.

And.

And this is the crazy thing.

And I got no skin in the fight here.

Right.

Or skin, like, I got.

I got no skin in the game in terms of, like, whether or not I had any preconceived notions of Tom.

I grew up in Nebraska.

I live in Alabama.

I didn't cover the NFL other than, you know, with Bruce Arans.

And I was just shocked to find that of everyone we interviewed, no one said a bad word about his character.

No one said, he's such a jerk.

You know, people disagreed with decisions he had made and.

But no one ever said that.

Oh, man.

This one time, Tom treated me so bad.

Yeah.

Like nothing.

Nothing.

Incredible.

I wanted to ask you about trying to find people.

Yeah, yeah.

And you couldn't find anybody.

That was the thing is.

Is like, there's a part in the book where a linebacker intercepts him in training camp.

And he comes back, Brady comes up to him on the walk into the locker room and says, that's that.

Great job, great play.

That will never happen again.

And the.

I believe the.

The way that you write that is that basically it was like, did you feel like he was being arrogant, that he was being braggadocious?

And.

And he was like, no, that's just.

He was just an honest communicator.

We all respected him.

We never felt he crossed the line.

And I mean, do you feel like that that's why his.

Those teams had those success, you know, had that success, why everybody was bought in was because of his communication skills.

It's a big part of it.

I think also, you know, Tom, when growing up in San Mateo, California, he was a little pudgy as like a third, fourth, fifth grader.

Like, yeah.

You know, a lot of kids are right.

You just haven't shed the baby fat yet.

And he would, he was also exquisitely slow, like even slower than he was in his career.

Right.

And so he'd be the last kid picked in neighborhood games.

There were times when, like kids would, older kids would tell little Tommy to run deep and then they would turn around and run the other way.

I mean, it's just like mild form bullying.

Right.

But that does something to a kid.

And had several offensive linemen tell me, I don't want to be like, say the politically incorrect thing, but that, that he still viewed himself as like a fat kid.

Yeah.

And when he, that's what he saw when he looked in the mirror.

Right.

And I always love talking to the O line.

Right.

Because those guys are generally the smartest dudes on the team and they'll give you like the real truth.

And there is so many guys who felt that like Tom was one of us, you know, and also another dynamic that went into the whole success was that because Tom was not a first round pick and he was a sixth round pick early on, Belichick just absolutely would light into him.

Yeah.

And in a way that there's no way he would ever have done that to Drew Bledsoe.

Right.

If Bledsoe had stuck, if Bledsoe had stuck around.

You know, number one overall pick, it's got the highest contract in, in the league and, but Tom would take it, and he would take it all throughout.

He took it for about 18 of his 20 years.

Yeah.

Right.

And then, you know, when you see that your quarterback is willing to take this sort of really, it was verbal abuse.

It was just, it's ridiculous, the stuff that Belichick did.

But Tom just waited.

You know, I, I, I specifically remember the scene in the book where it's like Randy Moss and Dante Stallworth, I think they signed on the same year.

In the very first meeting, Belichick is saying Johnny F. And Foxborough could have made that throw.

You know, it's a famous anecdote.

Right.

And it's like all of a sudden Randy Moss is like, oh, yeah, yeah.

They're, they're mouthing holy to each other.

Yeah, exactly.

Like, oh, this is different.

And so I, I, I think that helped the dynamic of the entire team.

But you know, when they ultimately, Tom and Giselle go over to Kraft's house, it's Giselle that does most of the talking.

And just saying that Belichick doesn't treat Tommy like a man.

Yeah.

And once you have your wife saying that, man, it's, yeah, yeah, it's done.

I, I, I was gonna Ask you if you at any point wanted to name the book Johnny Foxborough.

That was like I had.

Yeah, I was, I love that.

That was Belichick's go to insult whenever anything Brady did wrong in film that he would just.

I can go get Johnny Fox bro down the street to throw a better pass in that.

I, I don't want to step over Scott.

Scott's got some questions too.

But I am absolutely fascinated by the Giselle relationship.

Yeah.

And I'm curious.

I felt like in the book it's treated with delicacy.

Like you're, you're, you're.

I think that there is an easy way or, or maybe even a lazy way as a writer.

Thank you for saying that.

Because I am not a writer that wants to get into people's business.

Yeah, I don't.

But silly me, because of how I set the book up, like that question's got to be resolved.

Right?

Yeah.

Because I begin as.

Obviously you've read the book.

I begin with their.

Both of them kind of walking to the blind date in the West Village of Manhattan.

And you know, to understand Tom, you have to understand why it didn't work.

Yeah.

And I tried my best to keep the kids out of it.

I tried to be as sensitive as possible.

I mean, I've been through two divorces.

One of them in which like I still my kids, even though I'm 55.

I waited later in life thinking I was winning to have kids because I wanted to really have fun in my 30s and 40s.

But.

So I'm 55 and I have 11 year old son and 9 year old twin girls.

And you know, I went through a divorce when they were really little and it, it was absolutely devastating.

You know, my dad died when I was a lot younger and awfully, it was horrible, but it didn't compare to the pain of, of losing the ability to sleep under the same roof with your kids every night.

Yeah.

And so I think one of the reasons, to me, the, the most powerful part of the book is, is it's the day or the evening before the divorce is finalized.

Tampa loses a game and there's a scene of Tom just sitting in front of his locker, full uniform on, despondent, like in a catatonic state like this.

Like, never had Tom Brady looked less like Tom Brady.

Yeah.

At that moment.

I mean, he had been reduced to a broken man because of the decisions he had made.

Yeah.

Right.

And you have to understand, like, that's the reason I get into it.

Right.

Get into the nature of what went wrong between them because it is more complicated than just, oh, Tom kept playing.

You know, it was just that he wasn't around.

And I think Giselle wanted somebody who was around essentially.

And people told me stuff that I kept out.

You know, I just, I, the one thing, this was so important to me and I, I, I like hand on Bible guys, I did not know and I don't know if you guys have looked, but this was gone.

Around the world, like, you know, I'm getting calls from like, reporters in, in Brazil, Japan, India, Australia.

She's Germany.

Somebody in Germany wants to translate the book into German because they're just so.

And, and the funny thing is, it's not Tom Brady driving this.

Yeah.

It's g. Yeah.

Yeah.

And, and I, I, I reflect back on what David Nugent told me.

And David, you know, lived with Tom, I think, first three years in Foxborough at 9 Cherrywood Lane.

He said that.

And he's a really smart cat as well, that he worried about Tom when he started going out with Giselle because of the level of fame, that it was just going to go through the stratosphere, right.

And like the most recognizable couple in the world.

And Tom is, he's a shy introvert, you know, and yeah, it was, it was tough.

I mean, hall of fame was tough.

I mean, at the time, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a sports guy.

I'm not a fashion model, business understanding guy.

So, you know, at the time, she's making $50 million a year.

Like, you could argue she's the most desirable person in terms of advertising, marketing, whatever, branding.

At that time, I think you can.

Make the argument that she's the most beautiful woman by many metrics to ever walk the planet.

100% Magazine covers.

Yeah.

And the, the fame, you know, as popular as Brady is here in America, it's like you said.

And I, what's funny is I had texted Scott when all those stories started hitting three or four weeks ago about the Giselle stuff, and I went, oh, wow.

Like the, like, when I got to the Giselle part, it all clicked for me because it was just like, she is just this juggernaut.

And, you know, he is, he's coming off the field from the greatest comeback in NFL history, maybe sports history.

And the first thing out of her mouth is, this is a great way to walk off.

Like this is.

And she asks him several times during the night, and finally he turns and looks at her and basically he's like, I'm having too much fun.

Babe, it ain't happening.

And I'm just wondering, like, was that the beginning of the end?

Because she is.

When I say delicacy, like you are telling us, you know, I think you could.

She is a very new age.

She wants to be in nature.

She wants to.

She believes in healing rocks and things of that need, crystals and things of that nature.

And I think you can make her a caricature.

And I.

Home birth.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

He's like, we're absolutely.

What do you say?

We're absolutely not doing that.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So he's like, yeah, we are.

Yes.

Yeah.

Okay.

My.

My question, though, is.

Is basically, you know, was that the.

Like, in that 28 to 3 comeback night?

Like, she's pleading throughout the book.

She's pleading for him to stop and to make this life with her.

And he can't do it.

He just can't turn it off.

And, like, do you feel like that was kind of the beginning of the end for them?

You know, I know it was death by a thousand cuts, but, yeah,.

Certainly.

And Giselle kept remarking on their first date and how Tom laid out this vision.

He had won two Super Bowls.

Yeah.

Hopefully I'll win one more super bowl, and then I'm done.

Right.

And that was, I think, right around the Atlanta comeback, you know, and his mom was there and beating the cancer, and just, like, it would have been a perfect time to.

To walk away for him.

But look, man, like, you guys know this.

Sports ends for all of us who love sports.

Right.

Who play sports, like, some ends in junior high, some in high school, some in college.

It is so difficult to let go.

And you just won a Super bowl, and you're telling me I gotta walk away.

I mean, I can see both sides of it.

I totally can see both sides of it.

But you gotta remember Giselle, like, you know, football to her involves a round sphere.

Yeah.

Not a.

Not a pig skin.

And I don't think she could just understand, like, why he couldn't just walk away and be with the family and just be a more present father.

But if you go back and you analyze Tom's childhood and, like, you know, his sisters were such good athletes.

He learned at a young age, like, the best way to get the attention of people who he loved was to succeed at sports.

And so this is, like, deeply ingrained, you know, like, he is not.

I. I just.

I just did an interview, and they asked, like, oh, what, was he like, Tom?

Or was he like Kobe Bryant?

Like, well, he's like Kobe Bryant and mentality, sure, but background, Hell no.

Like, there ain't nothing that came easy to Tom.

And I never.

That was another reason why I wanted to do this book, because it seems like there's this popular perception that Tom was born on third base with a silver spoon.

Yeah, that absolutely is not the case.

I mean, he has.

He grew up in this middle class and, you know, two loving parents and three loving sisters and really a great family.

But, man, like, nothing came easy for him, and it never was easy.

Right.

And.

And like, in the Drew Henson situation in, In.

In Michigan really messed with him, I think, psychologically, because even when he was winning super bowl after super bowl in New England, he always was worrying that Drew Henson's going to be walking through the door.

Right.

The next Drew Henson is going to be walking through the door.

And people have asked, oh, is Tom a good mentor to people?

Hell, no.

Because they could be a Drew Henson.

As far as he goes.

Right.

Yeah.

Lars, I absolutely love the book, and I think what.

I'm a sports biography junkie, and I think the reason being.

And what you do such a great job with this book of is like, I always look at it as what created this monster.

Right.

In this case, not monster, but competitive monster, I guess you could say, or what were the things.

And so often I feel like biographies don't paint that whole picture.

And you do a really good job of going all the way back to his household, how he was raised, and every step along the way.

And I think, you know, so many people, the initial thought is just that Bledsoe injury, that sliding door moment there.

But what were some of the.

And you've alluded to some of them already, but what do you think are, like, the two or three most important aspects, you know, you know, well, before that, that kind of created the Tom Brady that was able to then take advantage of that moment.

Thank you for saying that, because everything I.

That is of length, I always like mine.

The childhood.

To try to understand what elements of the childhood fostered the.

The environment or the.

The.

The conditions for the person to become that person.

And I mean, I. I think just the most.

One of the most significant events was at Michigan.

He's still a young man.

He's not, you know, he's like fifth string.

I'm sure you guys know this.

His first pass at Michigan was a pick six I'm actually working on a book on another, also another book on Patrick Mahomes.

Mahomes's first pick, first throw in college also was a pick six.

Interesting.

Not relevant to anything.

By the way, it's so fascinating comparing Mahomes, you know, son of major league pitcher to Tom.

I mean, they just could not have more different upbringing.

And like everything came natural to Pat.

Everything was easy for him.

Yeah.

But at Michigan, you know, I think it's at the end of his red shirt sophomore year, has an appendicitis, loses 20 pounds, feels like he's not getting treated fairly by the coaching staff, is psychologically in a bad place, and he does something that you see his father do.

Like I don't, I don't state this like explicitly, but I want the reader to know the fa.

His dad had to go seek psychiatric help after his Tommy went across the country, you know, but he had the awareness to go.

He like, knew that he needed to talk to somebody about his problems.

So what's the son do?

The son follows the father, the, the lead of the father.

And at Michigan he goes and meets with a guy named Greg Harden, who we talked to at length.

And sadly, Greg passed away like about a few months after we, we spoke to him.

But he started meeting with Tom and he described Tom as absolutely in a state of depression.

Like this is a depressed, young, really skinny kid.

And the number one thing or the first two important things emerged from Greg Hardin and their interactions.

One is sort of obvious and, and now it's sort of entered into our vernacular and is control.

The controllables, right?

If you're gonna get two reps, man, make those the best two reps you possibly can.

Don't worry about what anyone else is doing.

Just focus on those two reps. And then you fast forward all these years later when he was practicing at New England.

Man, practice was not a time to joke around, not even a time to smile really, man, it's, it's work, it's business.

And a lot of, a lot of guys really marveled and respected that.

But I think more importantly, Greg Harden asked him, what is it that you can do better than anyone else?

Tom thought about it, he's like, well, I'm certainly not the best athlete.

Frickin punters run faster than me.

And I don't necessarily have the strongest arm on the team.

And eventually gets to, well, I can, I can prepare better than anybody.

Yeah, you know, like he can watch film as if every play contains the secrets of the universe in it.

You know, and he can watch it.

He can sustain concentration for, like, six, seven, even eight hours at a time.

And I don't know if I believe that anybody has a photographic memory, but he's got something that's pretty dang close.

And, and he would always take notes and, and I know this works for me personally, but if I write something down, I'm gonna remember it better.

And so I think he did that.

And this eventually gives him, in my view, like, this six, sense, like, telepathic power to know where the 21 other guys on the field are going to move before the ball hits his hands.

And, you know, that all just goes back to knowing his limitations, masking his limitations, and really emphasizing his strengths.

And there's a lot to learn there for.

And there's so much in this book that I share with my own kids all the time.

All the time.

And, I mean, it's one of the great benefits of doing this.

Just like how Tom would tell himself he'd play this mind trick when he was really tired, you know, didn't want to get out of bed.

He's like, nope, my body is not beating my mind today.

Not today, not ever.

Get up, get up.

You know, and, like, it was like he's, he's fighting this contrasting battle within himself, but his mind was so strong that he always could get himself to the facility for that workout or, or to watch more film and, and, you know, I share that with my kids and so many other things.

And I'll just finally say on this, you know, I'm buddies with a lot of guys who do biographies, like, like this one.

And so often you end up absolutely hating the person you're writing about.

Right.

Like, you live in their head for three years, and you, you see this all the.

Right.

Yeah, I, and I'm not afraid to say this.

I admire Tom.

Yeah, I do.

I mean, would I have made some of the decisions he.

I probably would.

I mean, I, I, I, I, I'm.

And I have been accused of being, I've been accused of, like, everything, whatever, man, like, of being, of being, like, overly reverential.

But I call it the result of exhaustive search.

Yeah.

Because again, like, I, I had no preconceived notions going into this.

And I, I, I just, I, I find him to be more fascinating now than I did when I started this whole thing.

I bet.

I, you know, one of the, one of the moments that really stuck with me, Lars, like, once, and I was bouncing in between reading it and listening to a little bit on the audible as well.

And I was on a run listening to the.

The I.

It's somewhere around chapter 20, 21, 22, something like that.

But it's the.

When the team is going to the barbecue joint and the inhale a beer moment.

And I was just.

I really.

That is also.

That's one of my favorite three scenes in the book.

It was amazing.

And I just stopped what I was doing because I.

And I almost wanted to cry kind of, because I was just like, who is this guy?

Because, I mean, he just read it perfectly that this is what I've got to do to unlock a whole nother level of camaraderie, build their faith in me, be with them, be one of them.

And at that point, he's already larger than life.

But just.

He knew exactly what to do in that moment.

And of course, it was something that.

Because you tell us from earlier in the book, he.

He.

He didn't shy away from a beer from time to time.

And he kind of.

You had kind of teed up that he had this secret ability to just unhinge his jaw or whatever.

But that stuck with me.

I mean, I just kept getting further and further in the book, but my mind would just keep drifting back to tying it back to this moment of.

This is a guy that understands the perception at all times of everyone around him, of that perception of him.

You know what I mean?

And just phenomenal.

Phenomenal.

Yeah.

Just.

I'll quickly.

Just.

That story.

It was after the win in Buffalo.

Nor' Easter is blowing into Boston, so they can't fly back.

The hotel they were staying in, you know, had been booked, and so now there's not rooms there.

They eventually find a.

A hotel where they all stay at.

They're staying the night, and there happens to be like, a barbecue joint close by, like, across the street.

They're all begging Tom to come, and he's like, I don't know.

I don't know.

But he.

He always does that.

And it's not because he doesn't want to interact.

It's just whenever Tom goes into a restaurant, it suddenly, it's all about Tom.

Sure, sure.

And.

And he hates that.

It's exhausting.

Absolutely hates that.

And I've seen it.

I mean, I've seen it many times with my own eyes.

Like, he hates that.

And so this night he arrives late and, you know, so there's some smack talk going on about who can drink a beer the fastest, who can chug a beer the fastest.

And Tom's finally kind of like playing it off and, you know, and.

And eventually he gets a beer.

And he can drink a beer faster than anybody I've ever seen.

Okay.

Like, it's.

He's got like these weird skills.

Yeah.

Like.

Like he.

He has like this trick shot in basketball where he's at this, like this impossible angle from the side and he banks it a three pointer in like all the time.

Bank, bank, bank.

And in.

In.

In that moment, like he just.

In, in.

In Buffalo, the snowstorm.

He absolutely just destroyed the offensive lineman.

Yeah.

Just takes it down, slams the beer down.

And I remember Ross Tucker saying it was just the most quintessential Tom Brady moment of all time and had nothing to do with sports.

Him just like, owning the room.

It also hearkened back to.

Because I believe in the book, it's mentioned that it's Todd Light who, when Brady walks in, claims the lineman will win.

No one can beat the lineman at this chugging beer.

And I'm drawn back to one of my other favorite parts of the book was when Light wears his cashmere sweater to do deadlifts in or whatever and then sends him the picture of it and says, hey, check your phone or whatever, you know, and it felt to me too, like in the really long game that is Tom Brady, I feel like there was just a little bit of a yeah, yeah, watch this, I still got you or whatever moment with even them, you know, a little bit of pulling rank and showing I am the man.

Yeah.

You know, I so appreciate, like, I've gotten killed by some reviewers and I don't even know why.

Like the New Yorker, they spent like four and a half, five pages just dumping on me.

And it's like, why, why, why, why, why even review it if you're just gonna take a big steaming on me?

And I, whatever.

But a John Bacon, who is.

Is a good dude, great writer, lives in Michigan and like, he.

He did a review for the Wall Street Journal and just this one line, just.

I. I rarely read reviews, but those two have stuck with me.

But, but John wrote, hey, this.

There's fun in this book.

Yeah, basically.

And there is fun.

Like, we.

It's so easy just to be like, negative about Tom and, And I didn't want to like, re.

Litigate, deflate gate.

I mean, that is like so incredibly uninteresting to me because I just, I wanted to get.

I wanted to get to know the.

The man.

Like the, the child and the man, so to speak.

And there is, There's a lot of fun in the book and I appreciate you bringing that up?

We talked to Alan Shipnock about three or four months ago for Rory.

He's one of my best friends.

Yeah, I would like to talk Sports Illustrated before we go, but he, and I'm sure you've heard this story, but he basically said that he was sitting down with a friend and he was like, hey, don't forget, we still need heroes.

And he's coming off the live stuff and it's like.

And I've, I felt like, I, I felt like that with the Brady, you know, with this book.

Like, I felt like, you know, you're basically saying, I can't find anybody that wants to call him a jerk.

Like, and, you know, you are giving us the, you know, meat and potatoes of what this success has come at, you know, and, and I know that it kind of maybe got away from me a little bit with the tabloid side wanting to pick up and glean things from it, but.

Well, I probably should have, I, I probably should have anticipated it because I love my publisher, right.

I'm on a three book deal with them.

But it was their decision to do the excerpt with the Daily Mail of London rather than say, yeah, I don't know, somewhere a little bit, yeah, less like them.

It's, it's still a game.

You still gotta.

We're, yeah, we're, we're still.

Yay, capitalism.

So, hey, don't.

We don't knock the hustle.

So I, I do want to segue real quick because the Giselle, we talked a little bit about Giselle wanting him to retire.

That wasn't the only person in his life towards the end that wanted him to retire.

Belichick wanted him to retire.

And, you know, I, I wanted you to kind of talk a little bit about the dynamic of their relationship as it went along and then deteriorated.

But you, you put it, you've got in the book that basically they never had lunch together.

And I'm just like, how do you win six Super Bowls together, have a 20 year relationship and not once do you share, you know, a plate of hummus or whatever Brady was eating towards the end.

So how does that, like, when you approach their relationship and what did you discover, you know, that interested you from that,.

You know, toward the end there it is fascinating to me that they never had dinner, never had lunch, never interacted socially.

And Tom, as we've talked about, he's a relationship kind of person, yet the one person that he needed to form the closest relationship with was unwilling to do that.

And I also thought it was interesting when Tom and Giselle end up going to Kraft's house.

Yeah, it's really Giselle.

Yeah, that, that, that does the, the, the hard talking where she's essentially saying that, that, that, that, that Bill doesn't treat Tommy like a man.

And even, you know, in, in harsher words than that.

And I think that right there, that's the end.

When your wife says to the, your boss that the, the guy who's in charge of you day in and day out doesn't treat you like a man.

Like, I.

There was just no going back from that.

And Bruce Arans is the absolute opposite of Belichick.

You know, he wants to be known as the cool uncle that you can go have a beer with.

Right.

And, and Bruce, I, I was on the business end of many sessions from Bruce and he, he can be tough on you, man, but he also will love you, you know, And I think Tom found something in Bruce that he never had in Belichick.

It's just a breath of fresh air.

Like from the jump, you could just tell that Brady was rejuvenated when he went to Tampa.

But.

We're about to have a three parter about the, the, the four zero suite.

But I just wanted you to talk a little bit about your memories cutting your teeth at Sports Illustrated, you know, kind of in that heyday.

I hope you're a Bengals fan too, because I'm the biggest Bengals fan.

My family's from Cincinnati and so my dad.

I always say my dad and grandfather molded me.

I live in Texas.

Born and raised in Texas.

This is the only Brady thing I've got in my house.

The closest I can get to Brady.

But yeah, I am a big Reds and Bengals fan,.

Man.

Going to si.

I was 23.

I'm from Nebraska.

I was the biggest, like, rube in the world.

I remember going through the Lincoln Tunnel the first time I was.

I'd never been to New York.

I, I went to Columbia for grad school and I'm with my college girlfriend.

Go through the Lincoln Tunnel.

It's a Sunday.

And going up Broadway, right north on Broadway, up to 116th street, where Columbia is.

And of course, there's like, people out on the street.

And I say, literally the dumbest thing I've ever said in my life,.

Said,.

Oh, my God, there must be a sale going on.

I had no idea, man.

Yeah, so I, I, I started there young.

I had written for one publication, which was the manito messenger at St Olaf College, Readership 5, which is where I went to school, St Olive.

So I was in a little bit over my head.

But, you know, I was able to just watch, really watch other people and, and learn and, and slowly work my way up the masthead.

But like, for the 90s sporting event that I will not, I'll never forget covering was Sugar bowl national championship between Florida State and Virginia Tech.

It was the first time I ever saw Michael Vick just go crazy.

They lost that game, but I've never seen a player as electrifying as Michael Vick was that night.

I could not believe it, like, just, it was just incredible.

And I had spent some time with Michael before that game and with his mom and, and it was just un, unbelievable seeing that.

And, and Peter Warwick had a big game that night.

But yeah, being on the field, standing with Nancy Osborne, Tom Osborne's wife.

And being with her as Tom won his third national championship.

And I'm from Lincoln, Nebraska.

I've known Nancy forever and just a special moment, you know, and there are just so many amazing things about Sports Illustrated back then.

Like, right when I started, we, the magazine was doing so well.

We took, they took the entire staff, I don't know if Shipnook told you about this.

Took the entire, entire staff down to Orlando.

And it was just like, we stayed at this beautiful hotel.

They rented out Universal Studios one night and it was like everything was free, like, including, like, playing all the, all the games.

I'm a big basketball player, so I won like, a bunch of big panda bears that night, you know, and man, it was a lot of fun.

A lot of fun.

A lot of fun.

Like, my office was on the 19th floor, overlooked radio City Music Hall.

And I remember one night, like, Beck would be warming up before, like, the Grammys on top of the marquee.

One time I rode elevator.

I, I get in the elevator, right?

And I'm going up to the 19th floor and suddenly just like, really quickly, like a group of like five come in and standing right in front of me is Fidel Castro in full Uniform.

And guess what?

He smelled like a freaking cigar.

Oh, that's how I want.

That's how I would want Fidel Castro to smell.

Exactly.

It was.

It was just.

And again, I mean, I'm the guy who said, oh, there must be a sale going on.

All.

Yeah, yeah.

It just.

We.

I.

And I don't want to make this an Allen Ship nut podcast, but when.

When we had him on, I had bought his first.

I had bought his first article, which was about Griffey and like, hey, you know what?

I remember the lead of that story.

Yeah.

The passing of the Mantle.

Yes.

Please tell me.

Tell me if that.

If that is true.

The passing of the Mantle is worth the first.

I'll read you the first six.

Passing of the mantle is worthy in a pageant is worthy of pageantry.

This is terrifying that you have this to memory.

A passing of the Mantle is an occasion deserving of some pageantry.

And so it was fitting that Ken Griffey Jr.

Confirmed his standing as the new image of baseball amid the.

Amid the banners and the ball balloon releases of this year's All Star Game in Pittsburgh.

All right.

Do you know how much it pissed me off when I read that?

Because I'm like, Alan and I are the same age.

Yeah.

And he was writing at that level.

Yeah.

And I would.

I couldn't even.

I didn't know what a complete sentence was.

Right.

But Alan, off the charts talent and a nice guy.

Just the fact, like, I. I hadn't held one of these from, like, the mid-90s, since when we like the fact that we got this every week to our mailbox and Walter iOS Jr. Is doing the portraits, and I'm like, we got this every week.

Like, it was.

It was.

It was incredibly special then.

But then to see it, like, now and just go, you know, I. I just can't believe we got that every week.

Like, it was.

It was literally the highlight of the week for me in high school was getting Sports Illustrated.

So there is a.

There is an oral history coming out of that.

Yeah.

And it's.

It's being written by two guys who are represented by my agent, Susan Canavan.

Two guys who are friends of mine.

You should have them on the podcast before it comes out.

It's 100.

Adam Duerson and John Walters.

Okay.

Offline.

I can give you guys their contact, but, yeah, it.

They.

They spent a lot of time on it.

They talked of everybody.

And, you know, there was.

There was a lot of really strange stuff going on, but it was.

It was wonderful.

And you Know, I played on the SI basketball team, Shipnuk.

You know, he was based on the west coast for the most part, but sometimes he would come in, he's got no game.

But no, it was just a.

It was a great time and so much fun.

Just being in New York when you're young and in your 20s, it's just.

It was beautiful.

Yeah, no doubt.

I was, I was curious if he had given you any kind of advice when you're, you know, when those excerpts started hitting and you started getting this attention with, you know, I mean, I, I can't imagine anybody getting caught in the tornado, in the hurricane like he did with Phil.

So I was curious if he had given you any, like, hey, this is what you're about to deal with.

Well, Ship, Knock and Phil have a really interesting background.

Right?

Yeah.

Like, I believe.

To say the least, I believe Phil.

Challenged him to a fight.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So, yeah, Tom and I. Tom's never challenged me to a fight.

He would absolutely kick my ass.

But.

I didn't talk to Alan about it, but I actually.

He may have texted me, but helped.

Well, I shouldn't say that, but I was not expecting it.

Like, hand on Bible truth.

I was not expecting it.

And it was somewhat.

Not somewhat, but like, very disappointing to me because I had worked so hard on this thing and everybody's focused on three pages in the back that is just like tabloid stuff.

And I only had it in there again.

And I appreciate how you phrased it.

I have it in there because you need to understand what happened to understand what the cost was for Tom.

Right.

And it just like, goes to show you that people just are so fascinated with celebrities and, and how they live and decisions they make.

But you know what?

They're all just like us.

Yeah, they're just like us.

Yeah.

Yeah.

My.

I just came back from New York for a handful of days and my favorite thing is going up to celebrities on the street and acting as if we're friends.

It's very.

It's always very entertaining because they're always very accommodating.

So my random and I hadn't told Scott this story, but my random was I ran into Anno Dowd.

You know, Anno Doubt is Leftovers, Handmaid's Tale.

She was walking on the street and I just went up to her and told her, you know, like, hey, we've met a couple times.

I think you're a national treasure.

And I got her to laugh and we had a 20 second conversation on street in New York.

But that's My favorite thing to do is to.

It's.

They all.

It, like, if you can get them to laugh, it's disarming and they'll sit there and.

And chat with you.

But anyway, bumped into Woody Allen once.

That was.

That was a pretty good, like, New York sighting.

Oh, yeah, it was a little weird, but yeah, just it would happen all the time.

Like, oh, my gosh.

Kevin Bacon, like, lived across the street from.

I got married to a girl in New York, and he lived on, really close to.

On 89th Center Park West.

And he would use the same subway stop as usual.

And my wife, Sarah, like, she would swear that Kevin was gawking at her all the time, staring and.

And like, you know, we lived in the neighborhood where I'd see Madonna every once in a while and I would have these, like, maybe we could be friends kind of thing.

Yeah, it's crazy.

It's.

It's a heck of a book.

Scott and I were talking about our favorite line, and I'm going to leave it with this.

But at the end of the 28 to 3 after party, the last line of that chapter is the price of staying in paradise.

A beautiful prison is never leaving it.

And I thought that was if you could.

If I, you know, Tom Brady in a nutshell, for good or for bad, that.

That's that beautiful prison, you know, like, I. I just can't believe he's as good as he is on TV right now.

After listening to him right out of the shoot, like, it's obvious he's gone right back to the box of yes.

Like, he's just so much better than he was in year one.

And, you know, I honestly look forward to listening to him.

Like, it's just crazy how this guy operates.

It is.

And, you know, he's had Jim Gray do his buddy broadcaster do a lot of critiques, and he.

He has gotten so much better.

I was watching him yesterday, too.

And by the way, it is really bizarre to write a biography on somebody who's still, like, so vibrant and, you know, right.

Not six feet under.

Right, right.

Like, he's still got more than half of it.

I mean, he's got a lot of life to live, and it will be interesting to see what he chooses to do.

But how much he has improved since year one is, like, the least surprising thing in the world.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, I think he's.

Because he's letting it rip.

Like, he's, he's calling throws on a, you know, on a line of piss missile and just things that you Know that the things that Romo did at the beginning a little bit, that.

That drew us to him before he just decided that he was just gonna.

You know, he might have some demons off to the side we don't have to get into.

But I just felt like that energy.

He's.

He's kind of the.

The guy in the room that you talk about in the book, you know, that can make a full locker room laugh, you know, that he's becoming.

We're seeing that guy.

He's not so rehearsed.

He's not.

So this is what I think a broadcaster is.

I'm just.

It feels like.

It feels like more authentic Tom, even, I think, in the.

In the cadence of his voice.

It just feels like this is.

You're really getting who Tom is.

Well, when.

When Jane Daniels dislocated his elbow and he went.

Oh.

And everybody else was saying the same thing.

Like, we.

We know you're not supposed to say that on tv, but we were all kind of saying it, too, at home.

So I really have enjoyed listening to him on the broadcast, but I want to thank you for your time.

It was a phenomenal conversation, and the book is phenomenal.

I. I can't recommend your books enough.

I. I think my favorite book viewers before this was the.

The Storm and the Tide.

I was very wrapped up in your reporting.

I know that was a very personal story for you, so I appreciate you.

I can't wait.

We're getting on my homes book, so, you know, so I can't wait to have you back on and talk about my homes.

Because we're.

Like I said, we're from Texas, so Mahomes has been in the fabric for a really long time.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I was like, I went for a run yesterday, and I. I don't run that much anymore.

I ran the New York City Marathon, and that about killed me.

I was like, I'm done with this.

But I was thinking about, like, what could a subtitle be for Mahomes?

And it's got to be like, I want to.

I want to keep it sort of light.

The Brady one.

Yeah.

And An American Story in the Price of Greatness.

And with Patrick, it's something in the Mystery of Greatness.

I was trying to come up with, like, a Texas term.

Right.

For the subtitle.

Mahomes blank.

Blank and the Mystery of Greatness.

Yeah.

You can't use gunslinger.

Pearlman kind of took that with the Farve book, But it would.

Yeah, it would definitely be something like that.

Yeah.

But.

Yeah, anyway.

Yeah.

It's.

It's very much a Texas story.

I can't wait.

Can't wait to read it.

And I can't wait to.

To talk to you again.

So thank you for your time, Lars, and have a great rest of the week.

All right, you guys, thank you so much.

Scott just concluded the Lars Anderson interview.

What a phenomenal conversation.

I feel like these opportunities to talk to these great authors just keep getting better and better every time.

Like, I feel like we go into every one of them, like, okay, well,.

Yeah, I could.

I mean, not that I could tell you were in a panic, but I could tell, like, you were definitely wanting to be prepared on top of this.

Yeah, yeah.

And then it's just like sitting down with just a really cool dude every time.

You know what I mean?

I'm sure at some point we're gonna come across someone that doesn't.

It's like he said in the interview, you know, it's the.

Fidel Castro's just like us, Scott.

Yeah, it's just another guy.

He's just another guy.

And that was the thing of it is, is like there was a twinkle in his eye when he started talking about New York.

And he did say with some, like, it was wistful, that's what I'm going to use when he said, being in my 20s and being in New York in the 90s was the best time of my life.

Yeah, like, every day something different had to happen.

He's working on at the biggest, you know, one of the biggest magazines at the time, you know, with probably an unlimited budget to go travel and interview and cover these events and cut his teeth.

He's in his early 20s.

Like, I mean, he absolutely should romanticize that portion of his life because guys like us, like, that's just the dream that would.

To me, when I was that age, that was the dream.

I wanted to do what he did.

The greatest era for sure of sports journalism.

In my mind, it's like just peak.

And then, I mean, again, every error has got its thing.

And even with us, I mean, the interesting thing is everyone has a voice.

Even Scott and Derek can just buy a microphone and start doing what we're doing.

But at the same time, I mean, not every era is great, but, man, that was just like this time for in.

You know, ESPN is very similar, I'm sure, in terms of the stories and stuff, but it is just like peeking.

And the thing that you brought up several times with me, and you brought it up with him, too, was.

I just remember every week looking forward to that magazine coming in the mail and then just devouring it.

But I remember it would come on Thursdays most days.

And if it didn't come on Thursday, I was mad.

I was angry.

Yeah, we probably.

And then, like, if it didn't show up on Friday, I'm, like, looking at my mom going, you gotta take me down to the post office.

Yes.

Like, I know it's down there.

Talk to somebody.

Yeah, Yeah, I need to.

I need one for three bucks.

But you wanted yours.

The.

The COVID story with Hakeem Olajuwon is sitting there waiting for.

For me.

And, you know, the thing I really kick myself over.

I've made some really bad mistakes in my life.

What.

What is it about to happen?

Ones that I think about every once in a while in these interviews have made it even worse was when I just made.

You know, I kept every one of those sports illustrators forever.

And they made the move with me from the house I grew up in to when Amy and I got married and moved to Keller.

They were there.

And they were literally boxes shaped exactly the eight and a half by 11.

And you could put about a hundred of them in there.

Right.

So you could almost get two years worth in there.

And I just had stacks of these heavy boxes.

Yeah.

And I want to say they even made the move into a storage unit when we moved to Bridgeport.

What am I doing?

You know, I'm literally having to move boxes and boxes of old sports illustrates.

And I did go through, and I think I pulled out maybe five or six, maybe 10, I don't know.

And they are in there.

And.

Yeah.

Some of them that were memorable to me or that were important like Pete or.

Or.

Sure.

Anything related to the.

The.

The moments, you know, or whatever.

But I just wish I still had him because now I kind of want to go back when you pulled that one up and showed it to him.

It just makes me want to have one in my hand so bad, you know?

Well, that's the thing is like, it's been sitting here for four months on the desk.

Yeah.

And I. I continually go back to it.

I've got it.

And I'll.

And I'll read it.

I'll just read it for five minutes.

The fact that he knew the lead to that story.

Yes.

And it's been 33 years.

32 Years.

Unbelievable.

Because he was jealous.

Like, I couldn't.

I was Struggling to read the sentence because I was laughing.

Like, I was just like, how do you.

He was just like that effing guy.

I knew that.

I was so jealous of him.

Yeah.

When you gave him the quote about his own quote from the Brady Book about prison, you know, in the paradise that becomes your prison or whatever, I almost said, but I stopped myself because I was like, well, that's, like, almost insulting was to say, yeah, you finally got your ship knuck line.

Yeah.

Yeah, it's true.

Like, it took you this long.

But no, and that's not it.

I'm sure he's had thousands of similar great lines.

Yeah, no, he's a phenomenal writer.

It just.

I've been reading him for a very long time, and everything he does is worth your time.

It's just, you know, those guys, like, you know, I didn't want to consistently.

What's the word I'm looking for?

Like, I don't want to.

I don't want to make it the Chris Farley Show.

Like, I.

Do you remember writing about Dink Saban?

That was awesome.

And dude.

But, like, literally, the fact that he and Ship Nuk and there's a handful of guys.

Pearlman, the fact that all those guys came from that factory at the same time is such a gift to the sports fan.

Like, it's just such a gift to us.

And I'm.

I'm so enamored with those guys for.

For better or for worse, just the work that they've done, the stories they've told, and the fact that they're all just phenomenal riders.

Like, it's just so much fun getting to talk to them and reminisce.

I mean, that's the point of.

The point of our podcast.

You know, we want to go through these events in the 90s and talk about the things that we remember and the things that.

That, you know, made us as die hard as we've become.

And I honestly think that that is what makes us different in these interviews with them and maybe even puts them at ease a little bit.

Is that.

Oh, yeah, this bigger picture thing that is, you know.

Yeah, we want to hear about this book and love it.

But in the end, also, Brady doesn't have a huge presence in the 90s, you know what I mean?

But, yeah, no time.

Yeah.

That tie back to it and knowing it doesn't, you know, we could talk about whatever, but it's more about him and that, yeah, he got to live through this amazing moment in time.

And I think.

I'm sure they Just all love seeing someone that appreciates that, you know, like.

Yeah.

You know, they talk to so and so wherever.

Who was it the New York Times that gave him Gruff or whatever?

Yeah, the New Yorker.

I'm really curious as to why, but it.

You know, the guy he ended up referencing after that, John Bacon is written several books about Michigan football.

Yeah.

And he's a phenomenal writer.

He's very much, very much writes these kind of sprawling, epic books about, you know, a variety of things.

But I'm real curious.

I'm real curious as to what.

Thanks, buddy.

I'm real curious as to what they had to say.

I just.

I. I doubt I will agree with their.

With their criticisms.

I just felt like you're just.

You know, those guys have been right for 30 years.

You just.

It's like Tim Brown.

It's like Alan Shipnock.

They know how to do this blind backwards and forwards, and you can still see that they've still got their fastballs.

I don't.

I don't feel like anything's been lost.

Like, hey, we're definitely covering these moments.

I mean.

Oh, yeah, for sure.

Anyways.

But the Osborne thing is also equally brilliant, I think.

And I was just like, can we get one from, like, 91, 92, so we can talk to you again pretty soon?

Well, that was the thing.

He would have been.

He's, what, four, three or four years older than us?

Five years older than me.

Okay.

So, like, 71, you know, when he started talking about Vic, and I just had that vision of Vic with the football.

You know, as Pacino says in any given Sunday, he's holding that thing like a loaf of bread.

Like, I just had the image immediately of Vic running, and it would.

To me, it was like.

I've never seen anybody fly before.

No.

Like, he.

He looked like he was flying when he was in the open field.

And the way he could.

The way he could cut and make, you know, tacklers miss.

Like, he just.

Every play was electric.

That game.

He went into Lambeau and beat far.

Like, I think it was on.

It was snowing, I think, at Lambeau.

Like.

Yeah, that's one of the greatest things I've ever seen from an athlete, you know?

Yeah.

But he.

Awesome, awesome, awesome time he was.

And after we got done with the interview and it was just us talking like he was so generous.

I think we sat there and talked another 10, 12, 15 minutes.

Yeah.

And I.

The book and I mean, I want to make sure like, you know, the thing I would like.

And he kind of alluded to.

To it or you did too, a little bit.

And I almost said it, but I was not a Tom Brady fan before this.

It's similar to me.

I look at Brady and Jordan and I wasn't a fan.

I recognized the greatness and I admire it.

And it's a great part of the sports history of their sport and everything.

I finished this book a Tom Brady fan and I know, yeah, again, maybe there was a clamoring for more dirt and all that kind of stuff.

I don't care.

I don't need it.

And everyone's gonna have some skeleton their closet, I'm sure or whatever.

But I just left it feeling like this is a guy that just understands it, you know, and also values the right things.

And I don't know.

He made me a Tom Brady fan.

That's why I wore my expos Hat.

So that was the other thing too.

At one point I said, this is the only thing I have.

Tom Brady realizing we're on a podcast.

No one can see him wearing a expose hat.

Mine's actually sitting over here on the table.

So I should have run and got it real quick and put it on.

Yeah.

Anyway, but I don't know if you noticed this, Lars.

I mean, immaculately shaved, clean shaven for a home interview on Zoom Scott.

Yeah, I've never consummate professional through the camera more and touch another man.

No, we need to not.

No, we do not need to.

You admit this out loud.

It just looks recordings.

We won't get any more guest, Scott.

No, he was awesome.

But you know what makes me think of a clean, freshly shaven face.

Yeah, I do know what it is.

Well, tell me.

Soaps are good.

That's right.

Soap dot com.

You gotta go check them out.

They've got nothing but great products.

They.

They sent Derek and I both a little intro some goodies.

I am.

I just officially knocked down the end of the decaf coffee they sent me.

Oh man, that coffee's so good.

It is really good.

I'm.

I've.

I'm glad we're talking about it now because I'm being reminded that I need to order some more.

And I'm also going to snag a few other things.

The other item I've really liked Derek and I think we've talked about it from them, but it's the shampoo bar, which at first I didn't.

I didn't get one of those.

I don't know why, but I really like it and I feel like it kind of lathers up better.

I was about to say there's a lot of people, though, that do like the shampoo bar.

Yeah.

I need to give that a rock and roll, especially since I'm turning.

I'm turning my pillowcases orange.

Yes.

Lots of good stuff there.

They got lots of shave kits, but just anything you think of in terms of soap, shampoos, conditioners, after shaves, stuff like that.

And then the, The.

Like, to me, the hidden gem on their site because it's called Sterling Soaps, but it's the coffee stuff.

Did you get any coffee when you did yours?

I didn't.

I.

No, because I. I got additional, like, I. I got additional shaving stuff.

I asked for the shaving stuff for my.

To maintain my beard.

The coffee was great.

You had it here a couple times.

They do great work.

I'm excited to order some more stuff from them and I would encourage everyone to go check them out and thank them for supporting the Sports History Network and.

And us.

It.

They.

They've been phenomenal, very generous, and I highly, highly endorse their products.

Yeah.

So, Scott, we.

That was.

We've been looking forward to Lars.

We're supposed to do Lars interview like, two weeks ago, and I'm super glad that we didn't.

Yes.

It worked because we.

We were only going to get 20 to 30 minutes of his time because he's in such a crunch.

So to get him at home enjoying Indigenous Peoples Day and.

Or Columbus Day, where wherever you're.

Or whichever you support, whoever you side with, Whoever you side with.

We.

Thumbs up for both.

We.

He basically opened and just said, hey, guys, like, y' all want to rip?

Let's rip.

And then he was super complimentary after it was over.

So that's all we can ask for.

I feel like if we're going to take an hour of these gentlemen's time or gentlewoman's time, that we need to bring it.

And I felt like, especially maybe out of all three, we brought it the best this episode.

Or maybe we're just getting better.

Yeah.

We definitely had a little technical breakup on your end just then.

Oh, did we?

Yeah, we'll.

We'll fight through.

We'll fight through.

Yeah.

Can you still hear me?

I mean.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Now it's back.

Perfect.

It was right when you were basically just saying how much.

How good.

How good this went.

Sorry.

Yeah, I don't want to slap ourselves on the back, but great job by you, buddy.

Yeah, good job by you as well.

And now we've got another guest coming up, and just in a couple days, we're going to be talking.

We're going to.

Are we ending the podcast after the 90s World Series, was my question to you.

I feel like this is the height of your Reds fandom.

This is the podcast.

Yeah.

Are we just gonna walk off?

I feel like we just did our best interview ever.

No way.

There's so many more moments coming in the 90s that I have swept that.

Oakland's diet, that Oakland A's dynasty.

Scott.

Like, it's just got to be like, the most giddy you've ever been.

It's great.

But we're gonna have Jeff from the Two Strike Noise podcast join us.

It was a podcast that I found several months ago, but they do nothing but baseball history, and they really don't contain themselves to any era.

They go pretty far back and pretty current as well sometimes.

But we're just.

Is a big A fan.

Big A's fan.

Big A's fan.

Okay.

Ricky, favorite player of all time.

You.

You.

You can probably pick any random episode of their 2, 300 and something, and that's gonna come up.

And I'm just looking forward to kind of hearing it from Oakland guy's perspective.

When you said that you had invited him on this is who you wanted, I went and started listening to some of their work.

And at the 334 podcasts, seems real daunting.

What are we on, like, third?

We're on like 13.

I'm like, that's.

And they're doing one a week.

They do quality, quality stuff.

Yeah.

I go out of order.

And so I just listened to number 200 a couple days ago.

Okay.

And they kind of talk about how they really never even thought they'd make it to a hundred, much less 200, and how it's just become like every week now.

You know, they just.

It's part the routine.

But I don't know.

It should be fun.

At the very least, a good.

A guy that loves talking baseball has a tie to those great Oakland A's teams of the late 80s and early 90s.

So it should be a lot of fun.

It's going to be a blast and we hope that you will tune in because we're going to do that first and then we're going to do the reds and the World Series in the, in the second part, right?

Yeah, yeah.

And.

And hope.

And hopefully we're gonna do it with our dear friend Alan who's about to finish up fall golf.

Yeah.

And then we're also gonna have.

Just to kind of wrap up.

Yeah, we're gonna do it here.

Here.

Are we doing a drink?

Have we decided what we're doing?

Are we doing a draft?

Well, that's.

I think we could have that built in.

But also remember Alan told us he's got kind of a game trivia for us.

Yeah, we're gonna do a game.

We're gonna do bits.

Yeah.

People love bits, Scott.

People love them.

And, and I mean that'll probably end up being like a seven hour episode.

I hope so.

I can't, I can't wait.

We're gonna have.

You need to order some calf coffee from Sterling Soap, not decaf calf.

So we can go for seven hours.

Half now.

So what?

Yeah, just.

Yeah, pretty much full fledged.

Like I'm back to where I have a full blown problem again.

Probably.

It didn't take very long.

Oh no, Scott, man.

I mean you, you just keep drinking it until you feel like you could run through a wall.

And that amount gets bigger every day.

That's the problem.

I don't, I don't know what it is about.

I don't know if you do this when you go somewhere or you know, whatever.

Like I always feel like.

And I think everybody does this or if.

Or you just blend in.

Like when we went to New York, I would get up and immediately seek out the closest place where I could just go get coffee and walk around.

Yeah.

Like, I don't know if it's an old man signal now.

And you would just see other old men out with their favorite cups of coffee.

Yeah.

Walking around.

Yeah.

Like, is it just like our form of being zombies?

Well, probably that mixed with.

It's an addictive drug and your body's.

Yeah.

It's delicious.

Let's go.

Wake up, bro.

Delicious.

It is.

But the fact that you can just like drink it and then like throw it away and then turn and there's four more coffee shops.

Yes.

Right there next to you.

Where you could just reload and then keep going on your way, like, that's so appealing to me.

And this is going to sound contradictory just after talking about how great the Sterling Soap coffee tastes, but I've always Been of the belief that coffee doesn't taste that good.

Oh, wow.

Obviously that your body just starts to say, we want more of that.

Right, Man, Scott, I don't know, dude.

You think?

Give me.

Give me the coffee.

Give me heavy whipping cream, and then give me the sugar in the raw.

Yeah.

And you're in heaven, and it's just like.

It's just.

It is heaven.

Yeah.

All right, buddy.

We will.

Two days.

Get this up soon, and then.

Yeah, let's.

Let's talk some Oakland A's baseball.

That's right.

Looking forward to it.

But once again, want to thank Lars Anderson for coming along with us again.

Get the book.

I listened to a lot of it.

The audible book version of it is.

Is good.

I think there's a little bit of ridicule in some of the reviews you'll see, but in the end, it doesn't matter.

I mean, the story is outstanding.

He does a great job with it, and just a.

A real.

Real treasure, for sure.

Yeah.

Well, I've got his phone number, so he and I are about to become best friends, whether he knows it or not.

Yeah.

You're just gonna start sending him, like, random pics.

Yeah, well, I'm just gonna, like, take selfies.

I'll just start taking selfies.

Like, it's.

Hey.

Hey, buddy.

Just enjoying some.

This is my cousin's son.

He's a golfer.

What if I just take his Brady book everywhere and I just set up shop and I'm like, hey, at the Denton Mall today, trying to sell Brady.

Yes.

I'm taking a loss.

I bought copies.

I'm just sitting up at a table taking a loss.

Just for you, buddy.

Gosh, this could be good.

I feel like it's kind of almost a movie script, you know, like a.

Like a cable guy type thing or whatever, where you're just gonna become infatuated with them.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

And he's looking through.

Looking through the peephole in Birmingham, Alabama, and I just show up with a duffel bag.

I don't know if sports riders have stalkers.

I'm curious.

Might have to go deep diving now.

You're it, probably right.

Yeah.

I don't want to be known as the first sports rider stalker.

All right, buddy, we'll talk to you soon.

All right, buddy.

Sam,.