Pablo Torre Finds Out

No, Travis Kelce and Taylor Swift are not a government psy-op. But Shaun Raviv from "Sports Explains the World" joins us to tell the story of a sports figure who actually was: The CIA sent Jay Mullen to Uganda, undercover, in the 1970s. His job was to spy on the Soviet Union. But when one of the most notorious dictators in world history made Mullen the head coach of the Ugandan national basketball team, a different mission presented itself. So did The Russian Hulk. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This episode is what happens when three X-Men superfans wait roughly three decades to devour a cake made of nostalgia. Unapologetic, horny nostalgia — with important lessons for the entire Marvel Cinematic Universe therein. Also: Casual Gambit, Magneto being right, adamantium strategy, thruples, and Metal Jason Whitlock. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Who's your oldest friend — and why isn't it one of your parents? What makes the ideal best man — and is it because you're actually proud of your friends? Do boring podcasts help you fall asleep — or just incept your dreams? En route to the White House in an allegedly badass cardigan, sockless Pablo visits the co-hosts of The Domonique Foxworth Show to discuss sports parenting, the Papi writers' room, situational wedding-speech awareness, the Laremy Tunsil Standard… and sh*t-inducing sit-ups. Further reading: Are You in an Age-Gap Friendship? (Deborah Netburn) Is This the Most Boring Man in the World? (Spencer Jakab) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Millions of us hide in a ubiquitous sorrow. And pretty much all of us are horrible at talking about it. But Michael Cruz Kayne, Peabody-award winning writer for "The Late Show with Stephen Colbert," has a theory about why death feels unspeakable. And how we can all get better at dealing with the most universal fact of life. In a behind-the-scenes look at his one-man show, "Sorry for Your Loss," Michael teaches Pablo about normalizing a taboo — and doing some seriously mind-blowing math in the process. Related links: "Sorry For Your Loss" (via Audible) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You might think that calling a game is easy. That Tom Brady can do this in his sleep. Jon "Boog" Sciambi, announcer for the Chicago Cubs and "MLB: The Show," teaches Pablo why the human voice is an instrument that requires restraint and distinction to record the first draft of sports history, then pass it down like an heirloom. Come for the PTFO dictionary's debut in the broadcast booth; stay for Nic Cage murdering Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg with a Toyota Outback at Wrigley Field. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It appears that, as a (crumbling) society, we have arrived at Peak Roast. With Tom Brady, Kendrick Lamar, Drake, and Taylor Swift all recording their own versions of diss tracks. And the viral messages are both conspicuous and — even better — concealed. So, are Swifties and Rap Geniuses the same? Is it impossible to be a pop star if you’re old? Are fish just a gateway pet? Also: compliment competitions, beta or betta, Charlotte’s Mario impression, and why octopuses are ideal sex partners. Further reading: Justin Timberlake’s Air of Desperation (Esther Zuckerman) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On the court, the Minnesota Timberwolves are making an astounding NBA Finals run, as Anthony Edwards becomes the next Michael Jordan before our very eyes. Behind closed doors, though, the sale of this skyrocketing franchise has devolved into civil war, as would-be owners Alex Rodriguez and Marc Lore get betrayed by a "bumbling" and "diabolical" 83-year-old incumbent. Pablo's month-long investigation gives a rare glimpse at a soap opera within the most exclusive club of American life — one that is equal parts Game of Thrones, Succession and Fargo... and straight-up torture for Wolves super-fan Zach Harper. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The MVP is obsessed with the ancient sport of harness racing — because it may be hiding in plain sight as more exciting than the NBA playoffs. Acclaimed documentarian Mickey Duzyj talks to a GOAT and plays stable boy, then heads to the track to root on the official stallion of the show. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Shea Serrano and Jason Concepcion are back! And this time they’re combing through all the NBA news from the past week and handing out six pop culture-themed trophies to six basketball-related activities. Every week, superlatives will reign down on basketball culture like Steph Curry threes when Jason and Shea dish out hoops honors like they’re Stockton to Malone running a pick & roll. Was that too many analogies for one sentence? Hell yes, but get used to it! In this NBA pop culture show from Wondery, the guys will honor the most magical and messy moments from the NBA and beyond by handing out hardware like “The Step Brothers Catalina Wine Mixer” Trophy for the matchup they’re most excited about. Or “The Liam Neeson ‘I Have a Very Particular Set of Skills’ Trophy given to an aging player who proves they still got it. And on and on. Till the break of dawn. Enjoy Six Trophies with Shea Serrano and Jason Concepcion wherever you get your podcasts, or listen here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Is Jerry Seinfeld complaining about the culture wars, or just the fallout of mid TV? What's the deal with books? And what happens if Charles Barkley becomes a free agent? Plus: machetés, memoir titles and the return of Dan's favorite tile-matching castle video game. Further reading: The Scholar of Comedy (David Remnick) No One Buys Books (Elle Griffin) Charles Barkley: The Richest Free Agent in Sports TV History? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jon Bois, the internet's most creative documentarian, somehow uses Google Earth to take you on a journey from Viking longships, to Bob Gibson, to Ross Perot. His new docu-series, REFORM!, is the forgotten story of political quacks, wonks and clown cars. Its lessons are just as relevant today as they were in the '90s — in large part because some of those same cranks are still around, daring us to remember how we got here... and why we can't escape. Watch REFORM! https://www.patreon.com/SecretBase Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In the early 1970s, two pitchers for the New York Yankees agreed to the wildest trade in sports history: They switched wives. And children. And furniture. And pets. But this sex scandal cut way deeper than the tabloid headlines. David Mandel — veteran writer for Seinfeld, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Veep and The Simpsons — laments his big-screen adaptation that never was... even though the ultimate passion project could have starred Matt Damon and Ben Affleck. And we go deep inside a story that's equal parts swinging and missing. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

How are so many people still falling in love with fake people online? What happened to all the sh*thead kids? And is cable TV somehow making a comeback? Plus: poopy, boobies, Billy Koch and flipping the puck to the fat kid. Further reading: The TV Show That Predicted America's Lonely, Disorienting Digital Future (Maya Salam) The Undertaker: A Seven-Year-Old Named Bjorn Threatened to Shoot Me in the Face and Called Me a Democrat (Jeremy Lambert) Americans' New TV Habit: Subscribe. Watch. Cancel. Repeat. (John Koblin/Goblin) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We find ourselves at a rare moment in human history, facing an undefinable industry worth trillions, which happens to be concentrated in the hands of a few billionaire stewards like the doomsayer Elon Musk, the evangelist Sam Altman and MMA enthusiast Mark Zuckerberg. Are they just super-villains plotting our own destruction? Washington Post columnist Josh Tyrangiel’s entire beat is artificial intelligence. So we ask him to contemplate the odds of extinction — and why A.I. might just cure James Harden's addiction to strip clubs. Further reading: How A.I. Could Transform Baseball Forever Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A viral video of a weeping Caleb Williams, the top prodigy in this week’s draft, “scares the sh*t out of a lot of NFL teams.” So correspondent Dave Fleming breaks out the tissues — and a stack of research — to discover what the science of crying disproves about the pseudo-science of scouting; why a Super Bowl locker room was like a scene out of “The Notebook”; and how even the Darth Vader of football (allegedly) choked up. Plus: Domonique Foxworth names names — and changes our basic understanding of the most masculine of sports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Comedian Dan Soder has come a long way since the seeds-and-stems days of kitty-litter gravity bongs. After quitting drinking and cigarettes and tethering many super-high people back to Earth, he has — at least temporarily — taken a weed sabbatical, ahead of the amateur holiday for dorks. His fiancée and Pablo... not so much. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

If you want to trace the normalization of weed in sports and America, there is no better ambassador than NBA champion and "All The Smoke" host Matt Barnes. Taking gravity-bong rips to go full "Teen Wolf" in high school? Check. Beating drug tests in college and, uh, having a narc watch him pee — and poop! — during a test in the NBA? Yeah. Smoking with Woody Harrelson on his head coach's balcony, during the playoffs? Really. But the NBA came late to the cannabis party, as "more than half the league… from the superstars to the rookies" got caught in pro basketball's race-baiting, steroid-fearing war on drugs. In a new era of acceptance, marijuana might just help hoopers stop the next Kobe. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Pablo has unearthed a long-rumored, previously unpublished, for-your-eyes-only video from the summer of 2010, featuring a committee of A-list New Yorkers recruiting free agent LeBron James to the Garden. It may feature one of the biggest revelations in TV history, but let's just say — between a couple former politicians and another convicted rapist — that this tape has aged very, very poorly. Knicks superfans Jason Concepcion (@netw3rk) and Rob Perez (@WorldWideWob) gaze into the ark of the covenant... and cringe. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It's one of the greatest TV shows in America right now: The Caitlin Clark effect of being David and Goliath at the same time. Angel Reese's ability to provoke and emote. The wisdom and 4D chess of Dawn Staley. And yet, for a TV writer and stand-up comic who's been evangelizing the women's game for decades, this season has been like showing a friend The Sopranos for the first time. Having witnessed March Madness and in anticipation of next week's WNBA Draft, Morgan Murphy and Pablo determine that the ensuing hot takes from sports media's "empire of garbage" may signal that normalization is here to stay. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Should you believe astrologers who only say what you want to hear? Is there a better way to enjoy life with Gmail, if you're not at Inbox Seven? And what happens when you stop "living nowhere"? Plus: The Strip-Mall Chain Institution Draft, deodorant, Brozempic, tree-knocking, and Other Pablo. Further reading: Sports Astrology (Andrea Mallis) Happy 20th Anniversary, Gmail. I'm Sorry I'm Leaving You. (Ezra Klein) What the Suburb Haters Don't Understand (Julie Beck) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices