Hello Sunshine, I'm Alexi Lallis and welcome to the State of the Union Hot-Pockets.

When we look at the beautiful game on and off the field through the lens of red, white and blue-colored glasses,

this episode will be talking the Balagon Watch, Gone Girl, World Baseball, Classic,

Brazilian Food, Top Five U.S. men's national team coaching candidates, a messy night out, and much more. But first joining me as always my friend

my colleague my guiding light David Mossy a soccer savant and a fox soccer

researcher and writer extraordinary Extra-Anab!

Mossy, how are you doing on this Wednesday, March 22nd in the year

2023?

I'm doing well, you mentioned the World Baseball Classic.

I'm still buzzing over that final game

everybody is buzzing about the the American pastime that has been exported to the

world and the world is taken it with with both hands as if fielding a ball and made the, you know, the double play.

Did you check this out? People have been watching it. The numbers have been great from a Fox perspective,

broadcasting this event and we're leaning into big events and obviously events that have nations behind them and

America behind it and all that kind of stuff so this was right up our alley and

the baseball players and teams involved they delivered.

Yeah so Japan defeated the U.S. in the final with Ottani striking out Mike Trout for the final

out and my big takeaway here is that even people who don't like soccer dig the World Cup, love

the pageantry of it and would love for their sport to have an equivalent to that.

Bill Simmons for years has been trying to cultivate this

dynamic in basketball where he wants people to care more about

international basketball and he gets mad at NBA players when they set out these

...