Hello, beautiful people, and welcome to our humble about the Thunderdome. On this ESPN, we're doing the news Thursday, March 12, 2006. This program begins now.

Sports! Are the greatest, we're so incredibly lucky that we get a chance to chat about it every single day. And obviously football is our sport that we cover the most,

but a sport that has come into our hearts and come into our minds and come into our lives

was almost eliminated. It was just in a blink of an eye until last night when the pizons of

America that represent Italy, obviously, and World Baseball Classic. Get a gigantic win over Mexico and secure

a spot in the quarterfinals for Team USA baseball. I knew fan to baseball. Obviously, I grew up in

Pittsburgh. The Pirates are ass. Maybe not this year. Optimism. Yeah. But for the last 50 years,

it felt like the Pir pirates have been asked.

So whenever you have the penguins in your city and you have the Steelers in your city and they're actually trying and they're winning, it's hard to kind of get caught up in baseball, especially when you have ADD and a dad who says, we're not doing baseball. It's disgusting. We're going to protest baseball because of the pirates. so I never played baseball, never got into baseball. Then we're starting to meet some of these

baseball players. Paul Skeen's played here in Indianapolis. Got a chance to go watch him live. It's like, wait a... That's a big monster of a man. Yeah. And boy, he's controlling his entire ballpark right now with that ball. And then you start seeing the talent. You start seeing the culture.

You start seeing what they do night in, night out, the travel, the rock star like lifestyle. There's a lot to like about baseball. But once again, unless you're kind of tied into it, it's hard to get into it. We got into it with America now with World Baseball Classic. They're incredibly hospitable to us. They're very nice to us. I even got a full inning against Clayton Kirshaw.

May contact a couple of times.

Got on base with an infield single, which... No, it's an infield single. Okay, yeah, right it out, whatever the case. Got a chance to play against him. Fell in love with this team. I mean, there's an Italian team. I didn't even know they did the baseball, Italy people. I had no idea. I know they did soccer. Incredible food. The Italians have incredible, incredible conversation too. The culture is obviously always alive. And then you don't even think about the history of baseball and the Italians. You go all the way back to the Marcia. That's right. I mean, there's a lot of Italians that are playing. They're a wagon.

They beat America.

America has no idea that they needed to win that game to kind of advance in quarterfinals that America was going to get eliminated after pool play. We weren't even going to get into the big dance of our own tournament that we were creating. I'm out on baseball. Plus, I bet $5,000 on a minus $1,100.

I'm out on baseball.

Last night, the Italians brought me right back in.

Yes,100 thing.

I'm out on baseball.

Last night, the Italians brought me right back in.

That's right.

They did.

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