Red, White & Blew It – July 7, 2026

**Brandon** (0:00)
Sitting around without power for any period of time absolutely sucks. What are you supposed to do without TV and the internet? Go outside?

**Tommy Lee** (0:11)
Oh, yeah.

**Drew Lane** (0:13)
Sorry about that.
Thank you, DTE. Thank you, well, I should thank The Storm. It's never DTE's fault, of course. They do a great job, and they got us back in power within what, three or four days, so that's pretty great.

**Eli Zaret** (0:27)
In perfect weather, no less.

**Drew Lane** (0:28)
Brandon and Trudi lost power, too.

**Marc Fellhauer** (0:31)
Elric lost power, too.

**Drew Lane** (0:32)
We have so much to cover now because we've been off for, what, five days. I think we'll just skip the power conversation and tell you, we're brought to you by Hall Financial. You know, Hall Financial, the ones that are providing Champions Club tickets for two people this month. All you have to do is call Hall. Well, you can enter at callhallfirst.com/baseball.
Entries are open until the 17th of July, or you can call 866-CALL-HALL. Win some tickets, assault the buffet, save money in your mortgage, just call Hall. Once again, that's 866-CALL-HALL, or go to callhallfirst.com/baseball to get entered. And I did promise whoever the first winner is, they'll have choice of, well, whatever game we work out, or you can have the Dodgers and the Tigers in late August. And if the first person doesn't want to go to that Dodgers series, then the second winner can go to that game. So, we got some...

**Roberto** (1:23)
And if the second winner doesn't want to go, Maz will go.

**Drew Lane** (1:27)
Absolutely, he'll go. He'll go in a second. I'm glad Tom's back from his vacation in Aruba, by the way.
Interesting to find out that you can vacation after only a week at Rock & Brews. Incredible.

**Marc Fellhauer** (1:40)
Hard work, man.

**Drew Lane** (1:40)
I had no idea our programs were so employee-friendly, I guess we'll say.

**Eli Zaret** (1:47)
Do you think Aruba is warmer than Michigan or not?

**Drew Lane** (1:52)
I bet it's very similar to what it was, really. God, it's hot there. All right, we got Eli, Dr. Yaldo, and let's see it his way on sports.
Eli?

**Eli Zaret** (2:02)
Well, okay, I thought there might be some theme music, but that's fine.

**Roberto** (2:05)
We cut that shit out.

**Drew Lane** (2:06)
Yeah, now we're confused because there isn't theme music. We're confused because there was theme music, now we're confused because there isn't.

**Eli Zaret** (2:12)
What I want to start with is saying that even if this wasn't the day when you let me come in here and bullshit about sports, you guys should be bursting at the seams with sports slash culture slash politics from that bullshit wedding at the ridiculous wedding at Madison Square Garden, to the Trump-infused World Cup reinstatement controversy, to the WNBA total implosion in the last week or two with lesbian politics and the ineptitude of leadership. So, but I'll tell you, start with US soccer and just the fact that, and I think you can agree, Marc, we're just not that good.
It just doesn't work in this country for many reasons, and they just looked awful, awful.

**Marc Fellhauer** (2:58)
We don't have the youth system that other countries have.

**Roberto** (3:01)
But every kid plays soccer, though, don't they?

**Eli Zaret** (3:04)
But no, but the good, but then when they get older, they play football, basketball or baseball. They don't grow up wanting to be soccer stars. It's a paid for sport from what I gather.

**Marc Fellhauer** (3:16)
Bingo, you hit the nail on the head right there.

**Eli Zaret** (3:17)
I will say this, though.

**Marc Fellhauer** (3:18)
It's all travel. If you don't want to travel, then who cares?

**Eli Zaret** (3:21)
So you're limited to families that make 100,000 plus. We don't have the development system that other countries have. That's why we can get clobbered by Belgium, which has got what? Maybe a tenth the population we do.

**Marc Fellhauer** (3:37)
Certainly nothing inner city in this country.

**Drew Lane** (3:39)
But for some reason, it got me watching. I don't know why the World Cup seemed bigger, bigger, bigger, but I was watching on a Monday night. I was disappointed the US law. I thought it was going to be a good game, and it really wasn't.

**Marc Fellhauer** (3:49)
Well, I think it just, I laid a fucking egg.

**Eli Zaret** (3:51)
It just revealed that we're behind. And our best player, Christian Pulisic, gave up the ball 11 times and then got hurt. So we're just not that good at it. And I don't really see the chances for it to get better, but the tournament has been fabulously exciting.