9-7-22 After Hours with Amy Lawrence PODCAST: Hour 1

Sometimes I like to let the music roll for a little bit just to freak you guys out. I know you're wondering, is she back yet? How long is this vacation going to last? Others of you are thinking, damn it, she's back. Crap, I wish she would go on an extended leave. Yeah, sorry to disappoint.

Here I am. I walked in the door downstairs and the security guard said to me, how is mom and how was your trip? I can't remember if I told him I was going to visit my mom either that or he heard me talking about it on the radio. And I said, mom is wonderful and the trip was boring as heck.

And he goes, whoa. And I said exactly what I wanted. So it was that. It was the most boring vacation ever. And yet it was exactly what I needed and definitely what I wanted in traveling to Houston to visit mom. Texas, you were always very good to me. Thank you. Thank you for hosting once again. And thank you for the calm, peaceful, absolutely stinking boring vacation.

When producer Jay asked me what I did, I said, Jay, nothing that you would find interesting, which is so true. Nobody would want the kind of vacation that I just had for the last five plus days. And yet after the summer that it's been and the kind of summer it's been for me and my family, we were, we were just thrilled to have the time to hang out. I went to school to see mom and her teacher friends. We went to church on Sunday. We went shopping a little bit. We, oh, we watched Serena Williams.

My mom gets into that kind of stuff. She gets into big events like that. And so we watched Serena's victory in the second round, which was phenomenal in three sets. And then we watched her loss in the third round.

And of course I was, was blubbering along with her, crying along with her. So we watched that. I got mom to watch Albert Pujols hit home run number 695.

She thought that was really cool. And I explained about him and his career arc and the fact that he's retiring. We did have some college football on the tube on Saturday, but you would have to thank mom's husband for that because that's not me. I was doing as much as I possibly could to get away from sports.

So I monitored headlines and I paid attention to what I needed to, and then did a bunch of catching up over the last, we'll call it 36 hours or so. We've got no time to ramp up. It's literally that time of year again. And as you all know, we're big into football here on the show, but it's not just football. It's now the stretch run for major league baseball and a lot happening on the baseball diamond. And we're seeing the WNBA postseason wrap up.

We're down to just a handful of teams. Why do you care? Well, because at 41 years old Sue Bird has finally played her last professional basketball game. And you will hear from her coming up, one of the greatest point guards that women's hoops has ever seen. And we talked about her during the Olympics. Of course, she's one of the only five time Olympic gold medalists in a team sport. She's a four-time WNBA champion with the Seattle Storm, two decades there. She won a couple of championships when she was with UConn at the college level. She played in the Euro leagues and five times was on a championship team there. The individual accolades are too numerous to list. She is again, one of the greatest to ever play on the women's side.

And the way that she's changed the game, she and some of her UConn teammates, that generation of basketball player is also part of her story and part of her legacy. So we'll hear from Sue Bird coming up. I think producer J told me there were four and only four, just kidding. There were four walk-offs in major league baseball and you will hear them.

And speaking of walk-offs, Coco Goff walked off without advancing in the U.S. Open quarterfinals on Tuesday. I got to remember it's Tuesday. It's not Monday, it's Tuesday, which would make this technically the hump show, except it's not my hump show.

And it's probably not your hump show either. Yes, middle show of the work week, but I'm willing to bet there's maybe four people in the entire country who listened to the first two shows of the week, considering that it was Labor Day. And I know for the first time in years, I did not labor on Labor Day, but I was actually really reflecting, even though I didn't work on Labor Day, at least not here, I did some work behind the scenes to kind of get ready for football season. But as I was thinking about returning from my sabbatical, my mini sabbatical, my hiatus, and getting back to work and what this next few months represent, because there are no more days off that this was it, unless something unexpected comes up, which I don't anticipate. But there are no more days off until the holidays. It's go time in our business.

There's a variety of ways that I could describe it to you, calling it the fall book, which is essentially the fall readings period. But it's also the most electric and important time of the year. If you are a sports broadcaster, if you're in sports broadcasting, whether TV, whether radio, people just don't take time off in the fall, again, unless something unexpected happens because of football, because of soon the baseball postseason.

It's not that long before we see basketball and hockey on the court and the ice, which I'm not ready for that. I'm going to have to tap the brakes there for a second. But as I was thinking about Labor Day, and my joke is that I usually labor on Labor Day, isn't that what it means? I was reminded of how much I love what I do for a living. And I was thinking about it, that as much as it is work, and it's long hours, on Sundays during the NFL season alone, we work 16 hour days. That's just how it goes from the times the games start until we get off the air on Monday morning. It's a 16 hour marathon. And there's really no break. You don't have time to tape a game and then go back and watch it. There's just not enough hours on a Sunday.

And so it becomes a completely different type of commitment during football season with everything that happens on Saturdays and Sundays. And yeah, there I was taking my five and a half days off. And believe you me, I enjoyed every bit of them. I think I was in bed, even if I wasn't asleep, I was in bed with my book before 11 o'clock every night, which was hallelujah. It was fantastic. I slept great.

You know what else? I've been struggling with this pain to the, let's see, it's to the right of my left shoulder blade. And my mom gets mad at me when I say it might be a tumor, but it's been this pretty consistent pain, ebbs and flows over the course of the last two months. And I've never had this before. I thought it was one of those kinks in my neck where you sleep wrong and then it goes away after a couple of days, but it hasn't to the point where I actually need to get a little treatment on it. Or I thought I did until, do you know what happened? I went away. I didn't drive all hunched over like I do in traffic in the New York City area and sleeping the way that I did over the last week. And plus I did a lot of swimming, which also helps. But it's dissipated.

I can barely feel it. So all that to say that there's a lot of stress associated with the job. And I did enjoy my time away and I never apologized for taking time off, nor would I expect anyone else to apologize for their time off. It gives me a renewed sense of how much I care about my job. And it also gives me new energy and here I am refreshed and rejuvenated and ready to go. And so I am reminded of, even when I'm away, how much I love what I do for a living. This career is now 27 years old. I have been working in radio for 27 years.

That's a long time. I've been working in sports radio specifically. So I've made the jump to full-time sports radio 20 years ago this year. 2022 is my 20 year anniversary in sports radio. At some point this year, I will get around to finishing the blog post that I started.

It's thinking about a dozen different directions and I just haven't finished it. But my career still pushes me and challenges me every single show. I'm not the kind of person who checks out.

I'm not the kind of person who mails it in. You don't get very far in this business if you do. There's always someone coming for your job who thinks they'll do it better. I mean, there's bazillions of people who think they could walk in a studio, sit down in the chair and do what I do and do it better and do it for less money. Oh my gosh, somebody called me a multi-millionaire today on Twitter. I almost dropped my drink.

I was like, what? Anyway, that's not why I do it. If I did it for money or fame, I would have gotten out of radio a long time ago. But after 25 years, my career still challenges me mentally and emotionally because it's heart and soul. It's not just my mind and creatively.

Yes, I have a right brain, which is extremely analytical to the point where sometimes I'm anoretentive. That perfectionist side of me, I've had to deal with that and wrestle with that over the course of an imperfect radio career because there's no such thing as perfect. So creatively, the other side of me is challenged every single day, especially during the fall and the winter time. I'm still learning. I don't have it all figured out.

I'm still searching for ways to grow and improve at my craft. And I'm definitely not done yet. It's funny to hear people talk about retiring, right, in their 40s, 50s, 60s. My mom's in her 70s and she still hasn't retired.

Though, funny thing is, there's not a snowball's chance in hell. I'm still doing this job in my 60s. There's no way. I don't even want to. By that time, I will have said everything I possibly want to say. And so I don't know that I'll retire then, but I definitely will be in a different phase in my career. I'm going to organize people. That's what I'm going to do. I'm going to organize people and then I'm going to bake for them.

That's just, that's really the only goal I have. Anyway, as long as I'm in radio, it will get all of me, right? It will get my heart, my soul, my mind, my body.

It will get all of me and I'm okay with that. It's a privilege. It's a blessing to be able to do what you love. And I've been doing it now for the better part of 30 years, even going back to my days in college and high school, when I already knew at 16 years old, I knew what I wanted to do for a living. I started telling all of my friends what I was going to do when I grew up, so to speak.

I'm still telling people what I'm going to do when I grow up. So I'm grateful and I'm grateful for the time away because it makes me recognize what a blessing it is to have this chair to come back to and this microphone to come back. So all of that to say, hi. I didn't miss you, but I am glad to be back. I know you didn't miss me either. It's totally fine. It's After Hours with Amy Lawrence on CBS Sports Radio and we are live from the Rocket Mortgage Studios. Do you need to know what it takes for a home to fit your budget and your family?

Rocket can. You can find me on Twitter, A Law Radio. If you miss selfies with mom, they are there. In fact, I'll retweet selfies with mom just so you can see them because my mom is beautiful and you won't believe that she's in her mid-70s. Actually, not only is she in her mid-70s, but she's still teaching full-time. But if you look at her face, you will know. You will know that she has the energy to be able to do it. So I'm really proud of her. I always get to go to school and meet a bunch of her students and they always are blown away when I say she was my math teacher in high school.

What? So my mom, she pretty much, I could talk her into anything. I've almost talked her into an amazing trip in 2023.

I'm not going to tell you what it is, but it requires a lot of flying and she's just not big into flying. Anyway, I can talk her into almost anything, which includes selfies. We took selfies out by her pool right before the heavens opened up on Saturday.

I mean, we could hear thunder, we could hear lightning. I'm like, mom, let's get these selfies done. And so we took some with her phone and some with my phone. And it was just, it was nice to be able to hang out and do a whole lot of nothing with mom.

Seriously, boring stuff. Shopping, a thousand piece puzzle. We each read books. I baked for mom. I cooked for mom and baked for mom, which was kind of nice. She said we were going to bake together.

Nope, that didn't happen. Then she decided she had other things to do, but boy, does she like to eat what I bake. So it was good. It was a really good time. I hope that you all had a great Labor Day weekend as well.

I know that a lot of different people took time off and that's awesome. Refreshed, re-energized and ready to go, peeps. Ready to go. So again, on Twitter, ALawRadio, I promise I will put up those selfies with mom on our Facebook page. I can't do that without producer Jay's help. There's a lot of things I can't do here at work without producer Jay's help. And so now that we're back into the groove, there's a lot that he and I are having to catch up on behind the scenes, but we will do it. One of the things I have learned in the past 20 plus years is you don't need to be in a hurry in radio.

You just don't. You may not get to everything and that's okay, but hurrying just adds to this. Well, it adds to this idea that you don't have enough time to say what you want to say.

And that's just not true. Radio is this incredible format where you can take the scenic route. And I've been doing that for about 20 years. I meander.

You know me. I take detours. I go off on tangents and then I forget what it was that I was talking about in the first place. Jay, do I also do that on the phone? Have I ever, ever, never once that I could think of.

I feel like I did it just a few hours ago, actually during our three hour conversation. Hey, that's not my fault. I told you you could go because I had to walk the dog or get the dog out.

I'd give the dog a shot. Jay's like, nah, I got nothing else going on. Just sleep. Just put the phone down. I'll stay here. You can do whatever you want with you. I'm just going to hang out.

Jay has a fantasy football draft. I'm like, I can go now. It's fine.

I've got it on my computer. I was panicking. I needed someone to calm me down. Oh, you did. I don't think it worked. You did a little bit.

It's a good, palpitations through the phone. I actually haven't even done my fantasy football draft yet. This is, yeah, this is, uh, it's the, the next 48 hours are nuts. So right when it comes to football, we have fixed the issues with our survivor pool. We believe Jay, have we figured out how to get people onto survivor Island who didn't previously join us in the past?

Yes. So I made it like almost like a bonus pool, if you will. So now if you, a bonus Island, another Island. So if you had an issue where you clicked on the last link and weren't able to log into this Island, I think it's possible because it was full. So now we have, I put a new link up there with a, for a new Island where you'll definitely be able to get in.

It's still our after hours survivor Island. Okay. So what you want to do for a couple of reasons, you want to head to our show, Twitter after hours, CBS pinned to the top of our show, Twitter, wait, do we need to redo the tweet as well? Uh, well, right now it's actually pinned on the Facebook.

I have to put it on the show. Okay. So don't, don't go to our Twitter account yet, but you can find it on our Facebook account.

People were freaking out on Facebook and I did not know what to tell them, but I had told Jay that I wasn't really going to be doing any work while I was gone, that I was checking out from work. And for the most part I did, and I can't access the Facebook agent anyway, cause it's actually his. Uh, and so he's fixed it on our Facebook page. Right. Wait, you told me, right. Okay. So if you go to our Facebook page and you couldn't get into our survivor Island football pool before you can get into it now. So check it out on Facebook after hours with Amy Lawrence. And I promise, um, that you'll be able to access it now as opposed to complaining.

You'll be able to access survivor Island. Now, do you want to know what's really funny? Some guy, there's a guy who is constantly trolling me on Facebook because he thinks I don't talk enough about sports. He responded on the link to survivor Island, which is in fact an NFL pool. What does this have to do with sports? I think I saw another comment.

It was like, does anyone still watch this show? What does it have to do with sports? It has everything to do with sports. You Nimrod. Oh, sorry. That's Cardinal rule. I do not call people names, at least not publicly. Uh, and so I apologize for that.

You're not a Nimrod, but you were acting like one. Uh, so check it out on our Facebook page. And while you're there, you'll see the bright orange box, which is your opportunity to ask Amy anything. And now on our show, Twitter as well, Jay, I'm going to retweet it to Jay has he's refreshed and updated survivor Island. So now there's a link for the new peeps and there's a link for the returning peeps.

How about that? We're still going to get questions. I felt kind of bad actually, because well, Jane, I were not doing work stuff while I was gone. So I didn't know how to answer people. And I mean, my desire to help you out was not as great as my desire to not help you out while I was on vacation.

Okay. We've got a lot to get to the Atlanta Braves, the world series champion, Atlanta Braves. We're looking up at the New York Mets for JDO know how many days in a row they've been looking up at the Mets.

You don't want to know. No, I do actually 147 days since April 12th, which by the way is the anniversary of the Titanic. April 12th was the last time the Mets were not in sole possession of first place in the NL East.

Yeah, that was fun. Not only did Jay have a fantasy draft that was giving him heart palpitations, but as a Mets fan, he's just, this is not his night. Plus he's sunburned and peeling. And he's all self-conscious about that.

I tried to tell him that no one could see him, but me, I mean, are you planning on putting a selfie up on social? No. Well then, okay. Don't worry. I'm sure they always want one.

Don't worry about it then. So funny. I dare you to like put something over your face so that I can't see you while we're talking like a paper bag from a long from the newsroom. Please do that. Please.

That would be amazing. Although I wouldn't put my head in a paper bag or any other bag from this newsroom. If someone paid me, it's very true. Check it out on our Twitter after hours, CBS or on our Facebook page pinned to the top of each of those social media sites is the Survivor Island link. Whether you're new, whether you're old, you can still join us on Survivor Island and your chance to ask Amy anything.

You probably have nothing to ask me. I know. I know you didn't even miss me. So Mets and Braves are now tied atop the NL East. We had count them one, two, three, four walk-offs in Major League Baseball.

Also the longest home run in four years in the big leagues. And then football. That's it. That's all I have to say, right? Football. Should I give you a countdown?

How many hours until the NFL season begins? Would you get mad at me if I did? I mean, you get mad at me for lots of things.

So I suppose you can get mad at me for that too. Thanks for hanging out with us. I hope that you enjoyed your Labor Day weekend.

If you're on vacation, seemed like millions of Americans were also on vacation. It's After Hours with Amy Lawrence on CBS Sports Radio. You are listening to the After Hours Podcast. Good hitters count. The 2-0. Swung on. Ripped to right field.

There's Brown in his tracks. He's got it. Tagging. Coming to the plate and scoring is Acuna. Sac fly for Austin Riley.

His 89th RBI of the year and the Braves back on top. 10-9. 1-2 pitch. Swung on.

Miss. Strike three. And with 26 games left in the season, the Braves have caught the Mets and are in a tie for first place in the National League East. For the Mets in the ninth, or for the A's in the ninth, no runs, no hits, no errors, none left. And the Braves win it by a final score of 10-9 as they put a very wild one in the win column and have finally caught New York.

This is After Hours with Amy Lawrence. That's a bit wacky there in Matt Olson's return to the Bay Area to Oakland and the Oakland Coliseum. Big picture though. The Atlanta Braves are now tied with the New York Mets atop the NL East. They win. The Braves are able to reel in the team they've been chasing now for 147 days, but the Mets have helped them out with a three-game losing skit against teams that have losing records, which is most of the month of September. Atlanta has 10 runs on 13 hits, which allows them to survive Kyle Wright's eight runs allowed. So no pitcher in this game had a performance worthy of worthy of a Cy Young.

It's After Hours with Amy Lawrence here on CBS Sports Radio. So you hear the calls there on Braves radio. In the sixth inning, they break the tie. And as I say, it is now tied atop the NL East with the team they've been reeling in multiple times over the course of the regular season. We thought that they were going to be able to tie the Mets, maybe pass them. The Mets have had great staying power and I don't think this race is done, right? I've seen some Braves fans on social and even some who work in the business who've been talking smack about the Mets. I don't think this race is done and maybe, just maybe, we don't completely count out what the Phillies might do too and the fact that that division might produce three teams from the NL East that would head into the postseason.

So there's a lot that can still happen in the month of September. But as I say, Matt Olson returning to the Oakland Coliseum and he shells out three RBI for the Braves in their win, a three-run home run. A little different being on the other side, but we played a good game and it's a good win right there. I've been talking about us winning different ways and that was a good one. He's so understated, but Freddie Freeman was the same way too until he got all emotional about leaving Atlanta and going back to Los Angeles. But Matt's been, if you have to have a replacement, right?

If you have to replace a guy like Freddie Freeman, which is essentially impossible to do, to be able to put Matt Olson in that spot has been humongous for the World Series champs and now, of course, they have caught up with the New York Mets. It's nice that we're able to get some games away, but as far as right now, we got to worry about tomorrow and get the win. You know, kind of put the blinders on and keep just doing our thing and see where we're at at the end. They've been through a lot. These guys at a young age have been through a whole lot and they, you know, they know.

I think it's just, you know, I think as long as we've proved that, as long as we got a strike left, we got a chance. So, I mean, they just, I like the way they kind of just kept keeping even keel and going about their business to do that and it's, you know, testament to that group in there. I mean, it's all about them and how they just kind of keep everything even keel and do their job. They come, they prepare.

They're consistent in their work and they play the game to win and so that's good. We need this. We need this in Major League Baseball. We need some tight races because, let's be honest, if you look at the standings, there are a few races that are so far in the books that they're not even worth paying attention to. Other than potentially the race for best record, if we're talking National League, the Dodgers have a 19 game lead. A 19 game lead in the NL West. They're sitting on 93 wins. The only intrigue with the Dodgers is how many wins they amassed before the end of the regular season and a team with this much potential and so many wins will they get back to the promised land, but there are no more questions about the Dodgers in the month of September. They're not worth paying attention to right now. Even the St. Louis Cardinals.

Now, of course, you're paying attention to them. They've put together an awesome formula and they built a lead over the Brewers who got stunned tonight by the Rockies, but they've got an eight and a half game lead in that NL Central. You're paying attention to the Cardinals now because of Albert Pujols, not necessarily because of a pennant race and so in the NL East, you've got two teams with identical records and it's intriguing because one of them is the defending champion who's won, what is it, four division titles in a row? Don't quote me on that, but they're both 85 and 51 and it'll be fun to watch these two teams go at it through the month of September. We'll get to the American League, but the Astros are not going to be challenged anytime soon atop that AL West. The AL Central is still very much for grabs. The Cleveland Guardians have had great resiliency for a really young team and then Yankees raised Blue Jays a little closer than what the Yankees thought and what a lot of people thought, including me going back to the early stages of the regular season or even the All-Star break, but they've been abysmal since the All-Star break. So they were rained out on Monday night, which means the Rays and the Jays had an opportunity to pick up some ground.

That and the end of Sue Bird's illustrious and legendary career as the Seattle Storm bow out in the WNBA playoffs. In the meantime, you need to find us on Twitter after our CBS. Join us on Survivor Island and also send your questions for Ask Amy Anything. So check that out or if you're a Facebooker, I'm sorry, you know who you are. You can use our Facebook page. And again, the link to Survivor Island is pinned to the top of the page.

I think we're good. It's After Hours with Amy Lawrence. You are listening to the After Hours podcast. Here's that 3-2 pitch and driven to left field and deep.

This one is long gone. It hit the concourse. It's a three-run home run. It's a walk-off for Randall Grichuk. 10-7, the Rockies win it in 10 innings.

This is After Hours with Amy Lawrence. Why do you care that the Rockies won a game in 10 innings? Well, maybe you don't specifically care about the Colorado baseball team as you hear there on the Rockies radio network, but it comes in a fairly wild rally after Christian Yelich tattoos a ball. 499 feet. The longest home run in the majors going back to blah, blah, blah. I think it was 2016, the longest home run in the major since then. So it's been a few years. Third longest home run since Statcast started tracking them in 2015. So that's your nerd alert. Welcome back, Amy.

Nerd alert. It's After Hours with Amy Lawrence on CBS Sports Radio. So Yelich puts Milwaukee in this great spot. He launches a ball into the third deck at Coors Field.

499 feet. And here are the Brewers who are fighting not only to try to pick up some traction on the Cardinals who lost on Tuesday, but Milwaukee's also struggling, scratching, fighting, clawing with San Diego for the final National League wildcard spot. And they end up with a pretty nice lead going into the late stages, but it does not last. A five run eighth inning for the Rockies and then the walk off in the 10th by Randall Grechuck. So that's a painful one for the Brewers. It's not the end of their run. It's not the end of their story, but it's that time of the year where these losses, they hurt a little more. Baseball sometimes sucks.

Yeah, there's less time to recover. So the Brewers don't lose any ground in the NL Central, but the Cardinals have done the work to build themselves a really nice cushion there. As the Rockies rally and they come back, well then it's the Brewers watching what's happening with the Padres. First pitch on the way and Alfaro swings. It's a ground ball up the middle into center field and a base hit.

That will do it. Both runs score. Cronenworth first, now Myers and Alfaro walks it off again. For the second time this year, he gets Kennedy in the D-backs and the Padres are racing early five nothing deficit to come all the way back and win the game six to five.

It was Jesse Agler on Padres radio. And so with the Padres winning and the Brewers losing, they fall three games back for that final wildcard spot in the National League and are also not picking up any ground on the Cardinals. Brewers have got some work to do. We'll get to plenty more baseball, including Albert Pujols, and the fact that every single home run from this point forward is amazing history. He's marching toward baseball immortality and the fact that he hit his latest home run in front of Cardinals fans is amazing. Although I think at this point aren't we all Cardinals fans?

You can find me on Twitter, ALawRadio, I'd love for you to join us on Survivor Island whether you are a veteran or whether you are a newbie. And there's also the opportunity to ask Amy anything. That's part of what we call the hump show. I feel a little bit like a fraud calling it the hump show this week because very few of us have actually or are actually going to work an entire week. But that's okay though, we deserve it. It's called Labor Day and it's an ah, it's a nod.

I was gonna say it's an ah, I was gonna say it's an odd, it's a nod. I mean you knew it was gonna happen my first night back. It's a nod to hard-working Americans all over the country and a lot of us log a lot of hours in very different ways.

Some more mentally than physically. Some of you are out there burning calories like nobody's business regardless of what you do. It's, I think it's a really neat day every year as we go into what is a long stretch until the next holiday. And no Halloween doesn't count and furthermore Halloween is on a weekend this year so it really doesn't matter whether or not it's a holiday. It's a long stretch now.

We've got Veterans Day in there and then we have to hang on until Thanksgiving and on into Christmas. So find us on our show Twitter or on my Twitter. You want to send your questions for Ask Amy anything because we're going to do it anyway and then also you want to sign up for Survivor Island you can do it on Facebook too. There's just a lot happening. We actually, producer Jay, he's on the phone right now so I can talk about him because he can't hear me. We, and I know I told you about this, we recorded a new prototype if you will for a special series on YouTube and here I was going away on my vacation thinking that producer Jay would have that all edited, cut, ready to go.

I thought it would be something fun that we would share with you over Labor Day weekend. Nope. Monday night I'm like where's producer Jay? I have not heard from him. I don't know what's happening with the YouTube video.

No idea. This was his idea actually. I only went along with it because Jay wanted to do it.

That's the kind of host I am. I want my producer to be happy so I bring him gifts when I go on vacation and I do these crazy ideas, these things that he comes up with. Now Jay is done on the phone so he knows I'm talking about him and I go on vacation. What happens? Jay stops working.

He just stopped working. The video is done. When was the video done, Jay? Finished it on Monday. Monday or Tuesday? Monday. Oh, all right. How many days was I gone by then?

Four, five. Don't let Jay fool you. Don't let his injured air make it sound like he's working his ass off the entire time I was gone. Fingers were bleeding because of all the editing.

Please, please. Also, did you recognize me? I got my hair cut.

Yes. Not just cut but that's, stop it. Not just cut but chop it but I didn't know if you recognized me. I guess you'd recognize me when I started talking. The guy downstairs, I don't think he recognized me.

Who is this girl? I got it chopped, you guys, like four and a half inches chopped. It was a little bit dramatic and then it was fantastic and then I decided that's good. I needed to change. So that was something else that came out of vacation. That has nothing at all to do with the YouTube video only that in the YouTube video should you ever see it which you may not. I have much longer hair than I do now.

It's After Hours with Amy Lawrence here on CBS Sports Radio. I work with a bunch of dudes. Nobody gives a crap if I got my hair cut, like literally nobody. That's the one drawback of working with guys is like they never notice if you got a haircut, if you're like wearing a new pair of shoes, if you, I don't know, lost a bunch of weight. Like no, guys do not care at all. So I've missed out on that part of working with, working with women because I, there are no other full-time women here that I work with. I don't see them on a regular basis and for the most part, I've worked with 98% men in my career. Guys just don't, they don't notice nor do they ever say anything even if they do notice because sometimes they're probably wondering like, wait a minute, when did she get her hair cut?

Shoot, it looks different but I don't actually know. That's how it goes, right Jay? Just admit it. No, not at all. I would have noticed but is it better to notice later and say something or to not say something after at that point? You tell me, Jay. Oh, I don't know.

We've been working together for over a year. No, no, no, not me to you, I'm saying just in general. Guide a guy or guide a girl?

I guess either way. Do you have other female friends? I do. You've had girlfriends in the past? Yes. Wait, do you have a girlfriend now that I don't know about?

I don't currently. So I don't think you need to ask me that question. I just think you need to think about the fact that a girl likes when a guy notices that she like did this big drastic change.

What if that was like four days ago? I noticed your red nose and you didn't even notice my hair. It's pretty obvious. I noticed your hair and you told me about it. Well, I told you about it because I was looking in the mirror and was like, whoa, I forgot I got my hair cut. But even so, because I told you about it before you saw me, that means you can't say anything? I suppose you're right. No, I'm just, I'm asking you a question by, it's an opinion thing. It can't be right or wrong. No, I could have said something.

Sure. This is what I mean about dudes. They don't say, they, they may even notice and they still don't say anything. It sucks working with a bunch of boys.

It's after hours on CBS Sports Radio. That's all I'm going to say about that is it's a sacrifice I've made in my career. It sucks because they always think of me as a boy. I never ever get treated like I'm a girl. I get treated like I'm a boy.

And then they don't notice things like girls do. Make a point to say something about it, but it's totally fine because the hair got cut either way. Little known fact about Sue Bird, she does not like it when you touch her ponytail. I swear, I know this because I've covered her career. She does not like it when you touch her ponytail.

I don't think it's just on the basketball court, but of course, we've seen that ponytail for the better part of 30 years between her college and now her WNBA career that is done and the emotions of being in her final game bowing out as a member of the Seattle Storm against the Aces. Definitely surreal. I think initially you feel sad about the season and the game or I felt sad about the season and the game. And I then think as the emotions started to come to the surface, you know, that's also what I know deep down.

And then that was my last game. It was really neat, of course, to see the fans give her a standing ovation to chant her name. We knew this was coming. It's not like it was a big surprise, but one last opportunity for those people who really appreciate her career. I didn't really want to leave the court. It felt like that's where everybody was going.

I just followed it first. But I also wanted to kind of have one last moment to say thank you to, you know, soak it all in because in some ways it is a happy thing. You know, I'm proud of everything we've accomplished here. And of course, I'm sad, but there's happiness, too, to be able to have a moment like that with the fans to have them chant the way they did. I know the tears don't look like happy tears, but there's a lot of happiness. For sure. And you know what?

It was the same way with Serena Williams when she bowed out in the third round of the U.S. Open. Was it? I don't even know what day it was Sunday. Now Friday.

I'm not sure. My vacation days all blend together. But when she finally bowed out, she was balding on the court, of course. The emotions come pouring out. And yet they're not sad tears. They're happy tears. They're grateful tears. They're wow, overwhelmed tears. You'll hear from her next. It's After Hours on CBS Sports Radio.