Rich Eisen Show with Brian Webber Filling In Hr 3

Taste some of this. This O-M-G is the Rich Eisen Show. No other way to put it. With guest host, Brian Weber.

Oh my gosh. Live from the Rich Eisen Show studio in Los Angeles. I'm not talking to you. I talk to anybody out there. The haters. Rich Eisen. I talk to the haters right now.

And now, sitting in for Rich, here's Brian Weber. Final hour of the program. Got a ton to get to, but I'll always carve out time to hear from you. The goal is to be interactive, understanding holiday rules, but we're live on the 4th of July. Meaning, I'm going to have an opportunity to provide a Joey Chestnut update in moments. That'll grab ya. Remember to call us 844-204-7424. Conversation never stops on Twitter.

However, with two B's, Uncle Brian got lucky. I had already mapped out, with the content game plan, the notion in 40 minutes to take inside the world of competitive eating. That's going to pay dividends. I'll explain why in a minute. Jump right in. Talking much more NBA to start this final hour of the program. I'm doing my best to come up with creative ways of framing the different paths that could take Damian Lillard from Portland to Miami.

Although, as I'm going to tackle coming up, maybe we should be talking more about Damian Lillard to Philadelphia. That is on the agenda. And in 20 minutes, just to balance all of my upbeat positivity about baseball and enjoy the analysis provided by Adam Burke of Visa to wrap up the last hour of the program, I want to spend a little bit of time talking about the debacle that is the soon-to-be Las Vegas A's. And is baseball really going to work in Sin City?

That's coming up. Joey Chestnut, not only, according to many of you, is an American hero. And the audience is never wrong.

I find the whole notion of scarfing that many hot dogs down your gullet to be disgusting on some levels. And I'm not Jack LaLanne, another contemporary reference. I'm now the stage of my life where I continue to lift weight so I can be at least a sturdy fellow who could drop a pound or 15. But I've never fully understood, other than the spectacle side of it. And I'm not trying to come across in any way as being a highbrow sports fill-in host. When I was a kid, the primary passion I had was professional wrestling. I listened to more podcasts about how Ric Flair drank 75 tequila shots and then took on Nikita Kolov at the Great American Bash in 1985 than just about anything else. So I'm not saying I'm better than you.

I've always just found competitive eating to be, for lack of a better term, gross. We've got enough issues out there. But, as a veteran of July 4th, I've been tracking Joey Chestnut for years.

And I have newfound respect for your American hero. Because he's getting ready to dodge lightning bolts, apparently. And I'm glad at least I parsed my words because there were conflicting reports due to the long weather delay at Coney Island, primarily because of lightning, and that's no joke. Especially with crowds expecting up to 30,000 people gathering to watch Chestnut inhale all those hot dogs and all of those buns. Well, Chestnut is ready to get it on as we're just a few minutes across the top of the hour. Competition is going to resume. I'll read you a quote directly from an observer in Coney Island who overheard Chestnut talking to the rest of the field while they were waiting for the weather to improve. Quote, this is Joey speaking, I'm going to get the rest of the guys and we're going to do this blanker. And right now, if you have a moment, now multitask, continue to enjoy the program.

That is my priority. If you can get to Twitter or any other social media, Joey Chestnut is leading to meme mania. The look of determination as he came storming out of, I guess they don't have a locker room do they, wherever the competitors were taking shelter. Because not only was lightning a factor, it was a monsoon in Coney Island, but the look of fierce, rugged individualism on the face of Joey Chestnut tells the story. So once the competition is done, I'll give you the details. If you really care, prior to the rain coming, they had the women's competition and the great Mickey Sudo came up with 39 and a half hot dogs and buns eaten. And for Chestnut, he's looking to make more history. The record 73 dogs in 10 minutes. Can he shatter that today?

How about the humidity? Is that going to compress all the things he's eating? I can't believe I'm breaking this down like I'm getting paid to call it. Look, if I was there, it'd be a whole different approach, but the audience is never wrong.

And this thing gets a rating. So because traditions are important and we have so few of them left in a fractured world, I'm not trying to get deep, but we're all in our own silo, right? We're all on our phones.

People still care about this thing. So when I have a result, I'll pass it along and coming up, we'll have some fun to wrap up the program in 40 minutes, taking you deep, deep, deep into the world of competitive eating. The NBA keeps humming along and they done a magnificent job of making themselves extremely relevant in the summer, not only with the summer league, and I don't particularly care about what happened last night. Although I did spend some time in the first hour, just giving props to Chet Holmgren. Great to see him come all the way back after the number two overall pick, Adegan Zaga, and a quick little pronunciation key. Since I'm talking Las Vegas coming up in 20 minutes, I'm Brian Weber in for Rich Eisen, phone number 8442047424. You can slide in, not my DMs, but you can slide in my Twitter feed, BWWeber, Weber with two Bs, and this took me a long time to figure out when I first came to the West Coast.

It's Nevada, soft A, not Nevada, and Ginzaga, soft A, not Ginzaga. Holmgren, terrific big man when he played for the Zags, got to fill out clearly. He is certainly somebody who could stand to eat 20 or 50 or 70 hot dogs. He'll grow into his body, but the fact that he went down with a foot injury in a program last August and missed the entire year was real tough, bad luck. And the fact that Oklahoma City still snuck into the plane without him reflects just how much positivity there is surrounding that young roster. But when we get to the summer league that matters in Vegas, later this week, we're going to see Victor Wenbunyana, who wisely the Spurs aren't letting compete in the California version in Sacramento. We're also going to have a chance with all of the executives gathering in Las Vegas. I think by Friday, and I'm with you for the rest of the week, by Friday we'll have stronger takeaways as to how the framework of any deal that's going to send Damian Lillard from Portland to Miami is going to be constructed.

Now you could say, why do you keep saying Miami, whoever you are? Doesn't Portland have the ability to send Lillard wherever they want? Well, you're not wrong in the abstract. There's no obligation.

There's nothing in writing, I'm sure, and maybe not even a gentleman's agreement, although that would be pretty rough, right? Lillard has done all the right things. He's devoted over a decade to that franchise.

I think in retrospect, he was far too patient. He should have forced his way out if the goal is to win a title at least two years ago. So he has been loyal. He has shown his allegiance to the franchise that drafted and developed him. So at this point, I would hope that Portland takes his wishes into account, but O is a strong word, and I try to choose my words with precision. Well, after all, I speak allegedly for a living.

All we deserve can be tough words. So if we think about this proposition, does Portland owe it to Damian to send him where he wants to go? And I'm always supposed to give you a strong opinion, right?

You can't say yes, but let me tack on my opinion on the back end here. I can see it both ways, because if you're a Blazer fam, you're saying hell no. You're saying to management, ship him wherever we can get maximum value from, but I think you're not being a realist. You're not living in the actual NBA. It's a star-controlled league. What are the implications of that?

Well, it comes down to this. If Portland doesn't do the right thing for Damian Lillard, they're never getting another star to stay there. And they've had difficulties over the years getting players who want to go to the Northwest.

Now, that's myopic on the players viewpoint. Portland's a wonderful city, and just from a basketball standpoint, a great hoops town. Going back to the days of Rip City and what Bill Walton was doing in the mid-1970s and all of the quality teams, even with the off-the-court issues when they were the jailblazers, Portland has been a terrific basketball town for a very long time. This is the down cycle, but they're doing the right thing now, especially once they made the decision to draft Scoot Henderson, who's going to take some time to develop. But if you caught any of his highlights watching the NBA draft coverage, this guy is a phenomenal talent.

And wait until you see him in two years or five years. So Portland is following the right path. You've got to blow it up. You've got to obliterate everything because they've been stuck in the middle, not even the middle. They've been stuck in mediocrity for too long.

So how do they maximize their goal? How do they get the assets they need to give this team a shot, at least being competitive, and balance that by sending Lillard to a place he wants to go? Well, going to take several teams. So the reason this is going to take a while, beyond the fact it is a holiday and NBA GMs typically do more business face to face when you get to the Summer League in Vegas starting later this week.

This is also a layered, complicated deal. And I'm not going to go through all of the hypotheticals and I'm not whipping out the trade machine on Google, but I'm just giving you in broad strokes. I don't think it's a stretch to say this is going to be a four-team trade.

Ultimately, I still think Lillard's going to wind up in Miami. But it's going to be fascinating, and I think Portland is playing this right by playing it slowly, to see what the Blazers get in return. Can they actually duplicate the assets in the Gobert trade last year as Minnesota was able to get Rudy Gobert? I understand why they wanted him. They gave up way too much for first-round picks because Danny Ainge is brilliant in what he does in packaging players and handling negotiations.

So that's got to be the ask. That's got to be the minimum for Portland's outlook in what they want in total compensation. They made it clear that apparently Tyler Herro does nothing for them because the initial report, and Pat Riley is a smart negotiator as well, and he's done this for more than 10 minutes. The report about Miami's first offer, and it's a first offer.

That's why you go back and forth. Negotiating 101. First offer, never your best offer.

But I have no issue with Portland saying thanks but no thanks to this star-studded lineup. Tyler Herro, Duncan Robinson, a bunch of picks. You're giving up the face of the franchise, and the plan is to have as many options as you can because you don't know what the picks are going to turn out to be. You don't know what these young players are going to develop into. So it's just basic investment strategy, portfolio effect.

If you have more assets, you have a better chance on hitting on one of them. So Herro I think is definitely going to be gone from Miami, and where he goes is not that important because it's the endgame that we all have in mind. Lillard winds up in Miami. Jimmy Butler doesn't have to do it all.

And that's the right outlook for not only Butler but from the franchise's point of view because Butler's getting deeper into his 30s, dealt with more injuries in the postseason, he's played a ton of minutes in playoff basketball as of late, and at some point he's going to hit the wall. Well if he's the number two, if he's the complimentary talent, things get radically different for a Miami team that made history getting all the way to the NBA Finals as the eighth seed, just the second team we've ever seen to achieve the feat, as the Knicks did roughly 25 years ago as well. But what about Lillard and Philadelphia? Now Philadelphia might get involved in the deal for a couple reasons.

Namely, they have a similar goal. They're trying to ship a star and get as much as they can in return when they say goodbye to James Harden. And I do think it's going to happen because of the personal relationship between Harden and Daryl Morey going back to their time in Houston, plus history has demonstrated you do not want a disengaged James Harden. James Harden could come up with a TED Talk on how to effectively force your way out of a situation you don't want to be in. He did it in Houston. He did it in Brooklyn. He's trying to do it in Philadelphia.

And the destination, apparently, that he has in mind? LA Clippers. And I get it from a Clippers standpoint. If Harden becomes your third option behind, and this is all theoretical, I'll tell you why in a second, behind Kawhi and Paul George, that's a better fit than in Philadelphia where he was asked to be number two behind Embiid, but would have to step up as number one because Embiid, as we saw in Game 1 against the Celtics in the second round of the playoffs, unfortunately was not available again due to his latest knee injury. The problem with that theory for the Clippers comes down to this.

How can you rely on a healthy Kawhi Leonard, who was terrific against Phoenix and then fell apart because unfortunately he always gets hurt, and Paul George got banged up as well. So I get the mindset of the Clippers, especially because Steve Ballmer overpaid to buy that team. He's getting tired of them being less than relevant and not nearly generating the return on investment he's looking for, not that he needs more money. He wants to have a winning franchise that has a legitimate shot at competing for a title. But I think Philly's going to be involved because they see a path in which they can part ways with Harden, get more in return if we're talking about a deal that would have the framework of Portland, Miami, Philadelphia, the Clippers, and is there a chance we got the Nets also at the table? Well, there's an issue with that, and it's not illogical to include Brooklyn because they have all of those assets, right? Nobody has piled up more picks than Brooklyn once they said goodbye to Durant.

Actually, Durant said goodbye to them once they parted company with both Katie and Kyrie. But as we put a button on this, the report this morning to make things even more complicated is that Brooklyn certainly wants to be involved, but here's the sticking point. They'll only play ball if somebody takes Ben Simmons from them. Speaking of a distressed asset, so I realize if I was mapping out the old word cloud here, I covered a lot of ground, and it's important to drive home the ultimate takeaway. Lillard, I think, is going to wind up in Miami. You can make a strong case. Philadelphia also makes a lot of sense from a basketball standpoint and to appease Joel Embiid, because depending on what Philadelphia winds up with, Embiid plus Tobias Harris plus Maxey is a good team, but not getting past the second round in the postseason, and that's been the dilemma for Embiid throughout his career.

So if we're just talking basketball fit, Lillard winding up in Philadelphia makes a ton of sense, but if Dame doesn't want to go there and Portland, quote unquote, is going to do the right thing and stars always win in the NBA, I think it's much ado about nothing. I'm Brian Weber, Infra Rich Eisen. You can chime in, 844204, 7424, hit me up on Twitter, BWWeber, Weber with two Bs, as Joey Chestnut tries to do his thing after the long rain delay in Coney Island, we'll talk competitive eating in 20 minutes straight ahead, a little more baseball.

The A's have made it clear they want to declare independence from Oakland and head to Las Vegas, but is baseball in Sin City really going to work? That's coming up. Thank you for spending part of your Independence Day with us. I'm Brian Weber, Infra Rich. It's the Rich Eisen Show. Here we go. Welcome back to the Rich Eisen Show Radio Network. Brian Weber with you. I'm sitting at the Rich Eisen Show desk, furnished by Grainger with supplies and solutions for every industry. Grainger has the right product for you.

Call clickgrainger.com or just stop by. Heading towards the business end of the program, a lot more to get to. Joey Chestnut is eating hot dogs as I speak. I'll give you the final tally coming up in less than 15 minutes.

We'll take you inside the world of competitive eating. We'll talk more baseball straight ahead. But because I've given out the phone number with regularity, not just to be a carnival barker at 844-204-7424, let's hit the phone lines. Here's Robin in Ventura, California. Robin, I appreciate you taking the time. How are you on the 4th of July? How are you today, Brian? I appreciate you doing the show.

I was telling Art there that I love this show. You're all over the place this morning, and I like that when people jump from, you know, we're watching Damian Lillard, we're watching Mike Trout. And I remember you for the Bay Area, even though I live in Southern California. I'm a giant fan.

Don't cringe, everybody. And I remember your name and your voice from the Bay Area. Well, thank you, Robin. I appreciate the kind words. And you should thank Rich, because Rich runs his own program.

This is a small business as well. And it sounds like you listen to a lot of sports talk radio. I'm one of those very few females that love sports 24-7. And we love that you appreciate it. A lot of shows play best of or classic interviews.

Yes, they do. Rich understands. I'm like, I love sports. I love sports. I love sports. And you love sports. I love sports. I love sports. I love sports. I love sports. I really appreciate it. I love sports. I really appreciate it.

A lot of shows play best of or classic interviews. Rich understands. On the 4th of July, there's a lot going on. So, I really appreciate him. I'm going to three quick topics if you don't mind the Lillard thing. I just hope he can stay wherever he ends up. I hope he can stay healthy because I was going to move to Oregon right before the pandemic and that didn't happen. So I was watching Lillard and he's been missed a few games the last couple of years, you know, fair point fair point and he is getting older now because he's been there for 11 years.

Yeah, yeah. And as far as baseball goes, I really feel sorry for the A's fans. They've losing everything. They lost their football team, their basketball team moved to the other side of the bay. Now their teams go into Las Vegas. I'm thinking wow, that's a big hit for Oakland.

Yeah, and I'm going to talk about that in detail coming up. It is tough and look, you know, and this is national platform for a lot of reasons. There never should have been two teams in the Bay Area. That was a historical accident. The population really is better suited to one team. But when the A's were winning and before the Coliseum got ruined when the Raiders came back, it was one of the best stadiums in all of baseball and you know how good those teams were. But you're a giant fam.

What do you want to talk about today? Well, I wish the Giants would move their manager and their general manager, but the other team to Las Vegas. I know we got a lot of injuries right now, but I don't like the analytics that are going on in the Bay Area with that team right now.

Robin, I appreciate the phone call and I'll talk about it now, but thanks so much. Yeah, the Giants have become, for lack of a better description, the Tampa Bay Rays of the Bay Area and I agree and I don't want to be more of a contradictory person than I am. Occasionally I use a couple big words. I had a lot of education in the past, so I am not quote unquote anti smart. I think in most walks of life smart wins, but I do think in baseball the slavish devotion to analytics can become myopic. That's the issue with the Giants and then speaking to my time in the Bay Area, that is a town that needs at least a star or two for people to show up now for years. It was the ballpark, understandably so, especially because Candlestick Park was such a pit.

Now it was our pit. We loved it, but that place was a rough experience to watch many years of terrible Giants baseball before Barry Bonds showed up and saved the franchise. Well, you move to the city proper, and that's a glittering ballpark. If you ever have a chance to do a tour of MLB, I can't recommend the experience in San Francisco enough. You have a wonderful view of the Bay, you're right adjacent to the Bay Bridge, but you also want to watch a baseball game. The problem for the Giants is Logan Webb, terrific on the mound, but if I stop somebody wandering past the studio, now that would be weird on July 4th, but if I crowdsource it and said, how many members of the San Francisco Giants can you name? We're not getting past two or three, and unless you really care about baseball still, who comes to mind now?

Are you talking, what, JD Davis or Conforto? They just don't have the star power that they need in a town like that that shows up to back big names and names that they feel like have a connection to the community. And that's why, in my opinion, the Warriors are sticking with their core group because, remember, and we'll talk about the A's briefly coming up, the Warriors left Oakland to come to San Francisco in the midst of some of the most expensive season tickets out there, in part because of the glittering new arena, but they need butts in seats. Now, there's no reason to have a bake sale for most Warrior fans. The Bay Area is still very affluent, and you have to have a few bucks to live there because the cost of living is so high, but the Warriors, in my estimation, also have made a business decision. They need Steph there, they need Klay, if you're going to have those two guys, they're running with Draymond as well, because they need people to show up, and they're going to be in business with Steph Curry as long as he is physically capable of dribbling a basketball.

I don't blame them. If you think about somebody who has a connection with fans, can you give me somebody who brightens a child's life in basketball more than Steph Curry? If you've ever seen him warm up, or the video they show on national TV coverage, Steph has legions of kids out there because they look at him and say he's a big kid. Obviously, he's an amazing athlete, but they can identify with somebody who's not 6'11", and does not rely on throwing it down in the paint.

Now, we're never going to be Steph Curry because we don't have his innate talent, nor did we spend the thousands of hours that made him the greatest shooter we've ever seen, but I don't think it's far-fetched to say Curry draws a reaction from kids in a far more fundamental and different way than just about anybody else, perhaps in all of sports. I'm Brian Weber, in for Rich Eisen. We took a phone call today. Let's see if I duplicate that the rest of the week. If you're enjoying the act, here's the good news. I'm back with you coming up Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday.

If you're not a fan, the good news is I'll be done on Friday and probably not back until Labor Day. I'll squeeze in a little bit of Las Vegas baseball analysis because I don't want to be too focused on places I've worked or places I've grown up, but as Robin, and thanks again for the phone call laid out, even if you don't care that much about the details of what's going on with the A's, just as a sports fan, you have to have a degree of empathy for Oakland because it could be your town next. Now, the demographics of Oakland are challenging in part, and I'm not going to get into a whole deep census analysis here, but the Bay Area really never should have had two baseball teams.

That was Charlie Finley being a shrewd businessman. He was able to get the good people in the Oakland Alameda County leadership to come up with a park for the franchise, and the A's, I don't have to do the full history lesson, but had a dynasty, 72, 73, 74, and they come back with the Bash Brothers. When I started there in the early 90s before the Raiders came back in the mid 90s, that was a gorgeous ballpark. The most expansive foul ground in all of baseball. It was a gem.

Everything changed. Vegas and baseball is going to be a tough sell, especially with this ownership group. Now, if you're, and it's always interesting to me that people line up on the side of billionaires because we lionize these folks just because they have a lot of money. Just because you have multiple zeros in your bank account doesn't mean you're a genius. There's a lot of different ways of making a buck.

In fact, most rich people are born rich, and that's a nice head start. When you're born on third base, you didn't have to leg out that triple. John Fisher, the owner of the A's, is extraordinarily wealthy, and the fact that he has not spent a dollar on his team is a sports crime.

I'm not being over the top. In the context of professional sports, what he has done is abysmal. A's have won 23 games. They are trotting out a team that would have a challenge winning, not only on the AAA level, but the AA ranks. And it's a lack of willingness to spend. It's baseball's economics because Fisher gets a lot of cash coming in through revenue sharing, and it was all part of a grand plan, in my opinion, to get to Vegas because the franchise value will appreciate hugely.

And that's the endgame. That's how Fisher becomes richer whenever he decides to sell, or is theirs. A team in Oakland is worth X. A baseball team in Vegas is worth multiples of that, based on perception. You're only worth what someone wants to pay you.

Your house is only worth what somebody's willing to write a check for to take it off your hands. But just from a standpoint of the daily rhythms of baseball, I'm not sold on MLB in Vegas. Now, I'm going to be wrong. It's going there. I'm not trying to say, wait, there could be a holdup. Although the A's, knowing how poorly run the organization is, they'll find a way to make this more difficult than need be. They'll have construction delays. They'll go cheap on infrastructure.

Whenever we get a timeline, tack on another year. And then there'll be more of a vagabond franchise playing in Sacramento for a year, or going to Reno as they wander across the West Coast. But unless you put out a team that is going to draw casual fans on vacation in Las Vegas, you're going to have challenges.

Vegas is not a big market. You got to sell tickets to 81 home games in baseball, and the Yankees don't show up as much as you need them to. You got to get people interested in interleague play when the Brewers, who aren't a bad team, I'm just picking on them, come to town. Or when the Guardians, and you can't name one player in Cleveland right now, arrive on a Tuesday in May for a three game set, and May will be nice. Only going to be 95 degrees.

Wait until late August in the middle of the desert. And I know they're going to have the retractable roof. You get hopefully the point I'm making. So I'm not trying to claim that baseball is not going to Nevada. I'm just following the money.

I know its destination. But when it gets there, yes, they're going to draw better than Oakland because Oakland fans only had one way of protesting other than the reverse boycott. They stayed away because the product was so abysmal. But I don't think it's going to be that much better in Vegas, and I'm not convinced the whole business model of MLB in a marketplace of that size makes any sense. Still, Fisher's going that way for one reason and one reason only to jack up the value of his franchise.

Coming up, I've avoided it for the entire show, plus Mother Nature got involved, but we'll finally talk about Joey Chestnut and his heroics, potentially, depending on how things have played out in Coney Island. We'll expand our focus, though. We're going to pose a bigger question. How many tamales could you eat in five minutes?

What about shrimp cocktail? Got to eat the tails as well, my friend. We're going to investigate the world of competitive eating.

I hope you're not having lunch anytime soon. I'm Brian Weber in for Rich Eisen. It's a July 4th edition of the Rich Eisen Show. Brian Weber back with you, enjoying every minute of this July 4th edition of the Rich Eisen Show. Winding down today, that means we're warming up for tomorrow's program. Glad we took a call. Appreciate Robin from Ventura, lovely part of California, checking in, and I wanted to give you a proof of concept.

I read the number frequently. I'm a radio guy. I can't help traffic and weather together, but you want to be a part of the show tomorrow. I am open to maintaining our momentum there.

844-204-7424. I'll read your tweets coming up after the program. B.W. Weber, Weber with two B's, and because a la Joey Chestnut, I'll give you the grizzly particulars of what went down moments ago in Coney Island straight ahead. I did my best to supersize the format. If Rich is going to be kind enough to bring me in on a holiday, I'm not just rolling calls and bludgeoning you with guests. We only had one guest along the way, and it was a, I thought, intelligent and well-framed conversation.

Talking baseball with Adam Burke of V-Sin. We'll sprinkle in a couple additional guests tomorrow, but the format will not change too much, and hopefully by now you know my approach. We're going to hit the big topics hard. Talking more NBA free agency, which is effectively done, other than some moves on the margins. Roster composition, though, still going to be largely at this point due to the trades we've been talking about.

Damian Lowert, James Harden, other big names could be on the move, and because Otani is getting the baseball coming up in a few hours in San Diego, anytime Otani's on the mound, I'm talking about a transcendent talent who still deserves much more national recognition. Plus, by the time I'm back with you tomorrow, we're going to have more clarity as to the status of Mike Trout after he left the ballgame last night in America's finest city with the wrist injury, so we'll talk plenty of baseball as well. We will not be talking competitive eating, and I tried to line this up in a way that made sense. Now, I wasn't going to ignore Joey Chestnut, and that long lightning delay actually worked to my advantage, because I can let you know, let me be the first to tell you, if you were not enjoying every delectable moment on television, Chestnut did it again, defending his championship at Coney Island, but he settled for a pedestrian. 62 hot dogs won, plus the buns, to give you context, his record, 73 dogs devoured in 10 minutes.

That's not even close to record-setting productivity. Now, I can't believe I'm breaking this down, we do have to factor in the long lightning delay. Maybe he lost his focus. I hazard a guess about the impact of humidity on the dogs and the buns. Maybe he wasn't feeling great. If you've ever been to a swampy kind of atmosphere on the East Coast that doesn't sit right with your stomach, I don't know what was going on, but since everything's about sports investing now, wagering, the over-under was 72 and a half.

So if you had the under, you're getting paid. Joey Chestnut continues to build his legacy. Another mustard yellow belt, 16 overall, nine in a row, but not the kind of day we as a nation were hoping for. We had pinned our hearts to Joey Chestnut a long time ago.

What was the song? Where have you gone? Joey Chestnut, and why did you only scarf down 62 dogs? But as I was thinking about how I wanted to approach this, because there has to be a topic. I just can't say, that's cool, and then tell you how many McRibs I once ate.

And the answer is a lot. I had a McRib issue. Now in fairness, and this is good scarcity lessons here, if you're a business person, remember less can be more. The whole notion of the McRib, McDonald's scrumptious rib-like offering, comes down to this.

It's only available for a limited time. So if you're inclined to have one, maybe you should have two, because you might drive by your local Mickey D's next time, and it's gone, and it's not coming back for a year. And there's the whole retirement campaign, which I don't believe. I think that's just McRib mania running wild. I'll believe it when I see it next year. When I'm filling in for Rich on Thanksgiving Day, coming up, and the McRib is not available, I might not be able to be here.

We should have the best of Rich Eisen standing by, because I may need to find a counselor. But the more interesting component to what Joey Chestnut accomplished today, and I'm not trying to diminish putting away 62 dogs and the buns, you need that element, is the versatility, the resume that has been developed by the greatest eater we've ever seen. Were you aware that Joey Chestnut has 55 world records for eating?

Are you aware of something called Major League Eating? I'm not going to get my agent on the phone. I'm sure he'd love it on July 4th. Well, hopefully he'd be working for me for once. I, and I do my best to be upfront with you, never want to come across as a snob, even if I use a couple of polysyllabic wards along the way, because I like to work, and I have done virtually everything. I have done arm wrestling in Las Vegas, and I got an extra 500 bucks to get a crew cut, so I'd look, quote unquote, more like The Room to appear on TV. I've done water polo by myself. Should I continue?

Field hockey? Getting the gist here? I will do anything, A, because I like to work, B, because there's a check involved. And if I'm going to be authentic, when I'm engaged, I can sell a little bit, so I could see myself bellowing, he's at 61, I'm really selling it, but I have not gotten the call yet in a 5 billion channel universe to participate in the world of Major League Eating.

But since my interest was piqued, I decided to do further research. In addition to his brilliance at Coney Island, it's become an annual ritual. Were you aware that Joey Chestnut also holds world records in these categories? Big Macs consumed, gumbo, mmm, tacos, okay, I can see that, deep fried asparagus, and funnel cake. I'm just letting that wash over you. And because I have no life, and I wanted to be comprehensive with my analysis, I actually went to the Major League Eating website and jotted down some other things.

If you're looking to have fun with the family, or if you're a lonely person like yours truly, you can do this all by yourself. And prep, and get ready for future competitions. Because among the 70 events annually on the Major League Eating circuit, they include butter, onions, chicken fried steak. Now a lot of this actually sounds good, but I don't want to eat prodigious portions of it. Gelatin dessert, which just doesn't even make sense. And you're scooping up jello and shoving it down your pie hole. Shrimp cocktail, now again if I'm going to be upfront with you, I could put a lot of shrimp cocktail away. And, this is grotesque, but it's just me and you, we're friends on the 4th of July.

My grandfather blamed it on the Depression, which obviously happened, and our family went through tough times. Whenever they would be lucky enough to have any shrimp, my family would consume the tails as well, because quote unquote, that's the crunchy part. And I'm aware of what's in the tail.

But maybe I would have a competitive advantage, because I could also easily devour the tails. We continue, these are all events comprising Major League Eating. How about mayonnaise? The record is 4 32-ounce bowls put away in 8 minutes. Pork pulled sandwiches.

Spam. Cheesecake. And that just sounds ridiculous.

And at some point you'd have to go directly to the emergency room, I would believe. Cheesecake might be in that category. Baked beans, write your own joke there or go watch Blazing Saddles.

Peas. Corn beef hash. Again, it's an acquired taste. My old man used to cook it on special occasions.

I don't even know what's in that. And it was gross when I was a kid. And then finally, the steeplechase, as it's spelled here.

Shrimp, pralines, hot dogs, nachos, chased by gelato. And now you know the rest of the story. Well, I'm glad at least Joey Chestnut was able to shine through the raindrops in Coney Island. And I'm glad I did my job and didn't mail it in.

20 years ago, I might have thought, all right, July 4th, I'm talking Chestnut for three solid hours. I would have been in a gym, but that is not how we handle our business. So as we get set for tomorrow, going to have the latest on Mike Trout's. Just as a baseball fan, I'm hoping that the injury was not as significant as it appeared in real time last night, awaiting the results of the x-rays that he needed after he immediately winced in pain, fouling off a pitch last night. In San Diego, his teammate Shoei Otani gets the ball. We're going to put Otani in context, not just in baseball, but overall, clearly he deserves more attention.

Is he the most underrated athlete we've ever seen? Who else belongs in that conversation? And I don't just do topic radio.

We're going to spend a lot more time on Damian Lillard, where would be the best destination, not only based on his desire to go to Miami, but would Philadelphia or another place make more basketball sets? Thanks, as mentioned, to Adam Burke of Eason for handling our baseball analysis. Thanks to Rich Eisen, Bruce Gilbert, all the good people at Westwood won another magnificent job by our technical producer, Art Martinez. I'm Brian Weber. We'll do it again tomorrow. Happy July 4th from all of us here on the Rich Eisen Show! CM Punk. I said he was going to be the biggest financial flop in wrestling history and I think I'm being proven right every minute of the day. 83 weeks on YouTube or wherever you listen.