Hour 3: MLB's ABS System, Knicks Championship Hopes, & Dwight Howard Farting Rumors

Evan & Tiki

Audacy

Sports

4.2 • 988 Ratings

🗓️ 25 February 2026

⏱️ 48 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

MLB’s Automated Ball-Strike (ABS) system is here, and after seeing it up close in spring training, Evan is fired up. What’s supposed to make the game fairer is instead creating constant interruptions, delayed reactions to big moments, and a whole new layer of controversy. The biggest gripe? If the technology can get every call right instantly, why are players “challenging” pitches at all instead of just making the strike zone automatic? The guys break down the chaos of “infinite” successful challenges, why this could dominate the early weeks of the season, and how baseball may be overthinking a problem with a simple solution. Calls pour in comparing ABS to VAR in soccer, pitch framing, and even where an umpire should stand to get the best view of the zone. And because nothing stays on track for long, the conversation spirals into a hilarious hockey history mix-up involving Walter vs. Keith Tkachuk, an on-air apology challenge, locker-room prank stories, hotel room accusations, and a classic Cinco de la Show on the absolute worst parts of snow. A pure slice of late-winter sports talk chaos.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Aaron Judge made the trip to Dunedin yesterday. So Big Mac and I love spring training. And because of that, this isn't new to us what we're about to bring up. But it's new to you. Let's hear it. And it's new to Gio, who I heard this morning, and he effing nailed it. So I give him credit before I get into this. And that's ABS, the ABS system.
0:39.9	And that was instituted last year in spring training. And I remember noticing it. I had some opinions on it. But I kind of put it away because it wasn't going to happen in Major League Baseball. So I let it go. Like, okay, I have opinions on this. But I'm not going to bore you with it because it's not happening in 2025. This year we have the ABS system in spring training, but it's also for the regular season. And people who aren't watching spring training, I don't blame them for it. I am not
0:45.2	putting anyone down for it. You guys are smarter and healthier humans than me and Big Mac.
0:49.7	Welcome to hell! I mean, us sitting there watching spring training games has a lot about us.
0:53.4	But we are seeing it in action.
0:56.1	And what we saw yesterday in the midst of the Yankee game really pissed me off.
1:01.5	So if you missed it, there were not one, not two, not three, now, four, and five.
1:06.6	Ten.
1:07.7	ABS challenges.
1:09.2	Ten of them.
1:11.0	Because what you may not be aware of, and Sean admitted to me today, he was not aware of.
1:15.9	Was not.
1:16.4	Is that while you're given two challenges, as long as you get them right, it's infinite.
1:22.2	Get out of here.
1:23.4	See, Tiki didn't know.
1:24.7	It makes sense.
1:25.7	Infinite.
1:27.2	It makes sense. Of! It makes sense.
1:28.1	Of course it makes sense.
1:29.1	It's still too much.
1:43.6	It's too much. Because it's just 10 of them are too much. We got to constantly do this during the game. And now they're doing it quickly. Like, I'll give them that. It's not like that time. It is not time consuming. And I want to point that out right away. I heard a call or that's the best thing about it.
1:44.0	Of course.
	...

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