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Speaker 1: Welcome to a brand new episode of Laugh with Me,

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Speaker 1: a podcast with Jeremy Otem. I'm your host, Jay Oh,

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Speaker 1: and I am not happy right now at all. You know,

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Speaker 1: I had other plans for this week, you know, not

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Speaker 1: just for the podcast, but just in general. You know,

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Speaker 1: it's Monday. I thought, you know, let's uh, let's have

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Speaker 1: good day work. That didn't happen. Yeah, thanks Shoannie, you know,

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Speaker 1: and then I gotta drag Johnny's ass in the studio

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Speaker 1: because we weren't. We weren't going to record today because

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Speaker 1: it just came out. And I sure a lot of

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Speaker 1: you are feeling the exact same way right now. The

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Speaker 1: MLB twenty twenty four Rookie of the Year was just announced,

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Speaker 1: and it's Pittsburgh Pirates right hander Paul Skeens. He's incredible.

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Speaker 1: In fact, I will say, and I'm trying to remember

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Speaker 1: if it was in May. I think it was in May.

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Speaker 1: I watched him pitch in Triple A. He visited Omaha,

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Speaker 1: pitched against us in a day game. I went to

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Speaker 1: the game. Why not, it's Paul freaking Skiens. At some

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Speaker 1: point we were like, all right, this guy is gonna

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Speaker 1: make the big league ball club. Right. It had to

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Speaker 1: be early May, late April, had to be early May.

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Speaker 1: And he did it. You know. It was Paul Skeens.

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Speaker 1: He looked great, look great against the Stormchasers. It makes

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Speaker 1: the big league ball club soon after and the rest

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Speaker 1: is history. He had a fantastic season. In fact, he's

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Speaker 1: a top three finalist for Cy Young for the now.

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Speaker 1: But the fella on the other side, the fella competing

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Speaker 1: with him for Rookie of the Year was center fielder

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Speaker 1: Jackson Merrill from your San Diego Padres. A guy he's

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Speaker 1: a shortstop, first of all, and I just said center fielder, right,

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Speaker 1: He's a shortstop that was asked to play center field

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Speaker 1: for this contending ball club. And not only did he

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Speaker 1: play a damn good center field, that guy was a

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Speaker 1: key player for a team that, in the second round

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Speaker 1: of the playoffs against the eventual World Series champions Dodgers,

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Speaker 1: were considered the favorites to win it all. The Padres

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Speaker 1: were the favorite, not just in that series, but for

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Speaker 1: the whole damn thing. And the Dodgers will tell you

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Speaker 1: the same thing. I mean, the Dodgers, even after winning

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Speaker 1: the World Series, were like, yeah, we beat the best

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Speaker 1: team in baseball. And they were for the entire second

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Speaker 1: half of the year. And why was that Jackson Merrill?

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Speaker 1: He had like four or five walkoffs alone. He's just clutch,

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Speaker 1: won a Silver Slugger, was an All Star, he was

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Speaker 1: All MLB Second Team. Who could have possibly been ahead

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Speaker 1: of him? Right? All MLB Second Team? That means there's

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Speaker 1: one center fielder ahead of him. Who do you think

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Speaker 1: that was? Oh, it's just a guy who's gonna win

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Speaker 1: the al MVP. Aaron Judge, What the hell the voting

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Speaker 1: for this was a joke? Twenty three first place votes

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Speaker 1: for Paul Skeins. Again, great player had a fantastic season,

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Speaker 1: deserves all of its flowers, not the Rookie of the

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Speaker 1: Year because the center fielder in San Diego outplayed him.

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Speaker 1: Twenty three first place votes for Paul Skeins Merrill seven.

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Speaker 1: I probably would have been like, okay, if it was more,

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Speaker 1: if it was even you know, if it came down

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Speaker 1: to it, and it was sixteen to fourteen, all right,

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Speaker 1: it was close, right, it was close. The entire last

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Speaker 1: two months of the season. Everybody talking about Rookie of

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Speaker 1: the Year, it was those two and they were the

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Speaker 1: only two to receive first place votes. But the fact

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Speaker 1: that it was twenty three to seven, we have to

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Speaker 1: receive some type of explanation from the folks who vote,

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Speaker 1: like what factors, what was put into this. On one hand,

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Speaker 1: you've got a starting pitcher who again is incredible. He

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Speaker 1: really is. He throws hard, and he throws hard, and

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Speaker 1: he throws even harder the later in the game it goes.

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Speaker 1: He was essentially unhittable for most of the season. You know,

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Speaker 1: every fifth day when he does pitch. Johnny, we have

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Speaker 1: what I found here, and I'm telling you, Johnny right now,

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Speaker 1: sit on your desk, sit on the bookshelf. I can

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Speaker 1: put my laptop on it. I can work on the show, Johnny.

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Speaker 1: I could be working. I could do your job frankly

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Speaker 1: and look like I got a little skateboard. I got

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Speaker 1: a little skateboard to work off of, which you know

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Speaker 1: are all out of the ordinary. Johnny, if you haven't

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Speaker 1: told everybody this is how you're doing your holiday shopping,

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Speaker 1: you really missed the vote. I mean, that's that's why

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Speaker 1: I told my family. Then you've got a guy playing

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Speaker 1: out of position on a team that a lot of

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Speaker 1: people didn't give much chance to heading into the year,

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Speaker 1: and he not only played well, he played well enough

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Speaker 1: to be to be considered the second best center fielder

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Speaker 1: in all of baseball for the entire year, and was

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Speaker 1: as clutch and as important of a player on the

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Speaker 1: best team in baseball in the second round of the playoffs.

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Speaker 1: Like I'm angry, I'm mad, It's how does stuff like

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Speaker 1: this happen. I mean, the only thing I can think

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Speaker 1: of is that jokers like me are getting a vote?

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Speaker 1: Are we getting a vote? Like? Or? All right, we

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Speaker 1: just had we just had the election. I don't want

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Speaker 1: to get too serious in that, you know how I roll, right,

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Speaker 1: I don't get too deep into the weeds and that

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Speaker 1: kind of stuff on the show. But we just had

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Speaker 1: the election, right, and the whole like deal the last

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Speaker 1: couple of months was, you know, old media versus new media.

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Speaker 1: Is the old media and it's got to be a

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Speaker 1: baseball right, old media is running this thing has to be.

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Speaker 1: For Pittsburgh Pirates starting pitcher Paul Skens to win Rookie

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Speaker 1: of the Year this year, it has to be old

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Speaker 1: media voting for a good twenty three of those voters.

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Speaker 1: It's has to be shout out Jackson Merrill, my guy, Gosh,

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Speaker 1: what a year he had. I feel bad for him.

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Speaker 1: I feel bad for his fan only you know, they

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Speaker 1: were probably looking forward to tonight. I would you would

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Speaker 1: think they probably had a heads up that the votes

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Speaker 1: were going their way. You would think, right, like, is

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Speaker 1: it possible that in this day and age there wasn't

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Speaker 1: somebody who could get some information to them, so they

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Speaker 1: didn't get their hopes up too bad, right, I would think,

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Speaker 1: I don't know. Ah, it's so frustrating. It's so frustrating.

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Speaker 1: A guy like him who goes all season, he plays

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Speaker 1: every single day. He doesn't pay play every fit day.

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Speaker 1: He plays every single day. And you could be like, oh, well,

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Speaker 1: you know a guy like him. He oh he won

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Speaker 1: the Silver Slugger, by the way, so it's not like,

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Speaker 1: oh well, he wasn't like one of the best hitters,

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Speaker 1: you know, like like Skeens is up there, you know,

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Speaker 1: top three right now, finalists for Cy Young. He could

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Speaker 1: win the Nlcy Young. You're right, he could, which would

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Speaker 1: mean he's one of the best pitchers. Doesn't mean he's

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Speaker 1: the overall best player as a rookie in Major League Baseball.

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Speaker 1: Just means he's one of the best pitchers. They have

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Speaker 1: their own category. This is what we're doing. We need

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Speaker 1: to have different categories. This is you know, first of all,

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Speaker 1: I just want to say this is not just me

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Speaker 1: as a Padres fan being like, oh, boo booo, my

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Speaker 1: guy didn't win. I've had guys up for awards before

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Speaker 1: and they didn't win, and I was like, yeah, that's

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Speaker 1: it sucks, but yeah, that makes a lot of sense.

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Speaker 1: This one, this one, this one was important, this one.

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Speaker 1: We knew he had earned that one. I guess it's

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Speaker 1: one of those deals were it wasn't meant to be,

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Speaker 1: you know what, And hopefully he can he can turn

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Speaker 1: it around. He can turn it around and put on

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Speaker 1: even better performance. He's a young kid. He's in his

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Speaker 1: early twenties. Okay, he's in his early twenties. He still

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Speaker 1: has his entire career ahead of him, and he's only

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Speaker 1: going to get better and better and better and better.

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Speaker 1: This is this is gonna be one of those stories

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Speaker 1: that makes me like post on Facebook and be like,

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Speaker 1: I really need to stay off Facebook because I saw

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Speaker 1: this story and I just didn't believe it. I saw

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Speaker 1: Paul Skeens won Rookie of the Year and I was like, well,

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Speaker 1: that can't be right. Paul Skeens winning Rookie of the

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Speaker 1: Year feels like a fake Facebook story should have been

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Speaker 1: Jackson Merrill. I'm not bitter. I'm not it happens, you

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Speaker 1: know what. This is me venting. I'm just venting. I'm

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Speaker 1: getting it off my chest. I just I wish it

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Speaker 1: was baseball season already. Like spring training. The weather's turning.

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Speaker 1: You know, it's probably because it rained all freaking day

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Speaker 1: here and it's cold. The wind picked up and it's

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Speaker 1: like rough day work. And then it's and then this

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Speaker 1: it's like when we need something good to happen, I did,

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Speaker 1: and last night was something good. How about them Chargers,

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Speaker 1: let's go bots beating the Bengals. I'll tell you what

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Speaker 1: the end of that game. So for those of you

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Speaker 1: that don't watch football, Sunday night football, last night, big

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Speaker 1: freaking game. Okay, Week eleven, Chargers for spangles. Chargers are

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Speaker 1: at home, Chargers US demolishing the Bengals. We're up by

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Speaker 1: twenty one at a half, right and you know, as

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Speaker 1: as the Chargers do, the Bengals come storming right back.

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Speaker 1: Tie game late in the fourth quarter. Late in the

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Speaker 1: fourth quarter, and then both team just kind of played

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Speaker 1: hot potato with the football, not wanting to win the game.

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Speaker 1: The Bengals had a couple miskicks. Chargers did what they do,

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Speaker 1: not wanting to win the game. Just three and out,

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Speaker 1: three and now three. Now, then we get the football,

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Speaker 1: you know, towards the end, last last drive, we scored

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Speaker 1: a touchdown and it's like all right, we're up by seven,

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Speaker 1: but there's eighteen seconds left. Like this goes to classic

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Speaker 1: Charger breakdown here, and it happened. You give up like

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Speaker 1: a twenty It was like a twenty twenty five yard pass.

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Speaker 1: We gave up. So now they're they're in the Bengals

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Speaker 1: are in position for the hill, Mary and he, you know,

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Speaker 1: Joe Burrow chucks it up, and I just knew this

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Speaker 1: was gonna be the latest way that we lose. It

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Speaker 1: said we won, So that was nice. If if the

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Speaker 1: universe is telling me right now that I had to

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Speaker 1: give up Jackson Merrill winning Rookie of the Year in

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Speaker 1: order for the Chargers to overcome charging, I'm gonna be

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Speaker 1: honest with I'm kind of kind of torn. If that's

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Speaker 1: let's go Bowls baby,