Good morning everyone and welcome to first things first. I'm Jenna Wolf alongside Nick

Wright, Kevin Welts. Tom Verducci is with us. We made it America. Sports are good today. We made it.

It's so exciting. I can't believe it, Jenna. We made it. You know why Verducci is here. We're going to get to him in a second. It is a good day for us. We do have a lot to talk about finally. Coming up, Clippers made their bubble debut last night. One star stood out. We'll let you know who. What do you want to see from LeBron in the Lakers' debut in the bubble tonight? And Saints Pro Bowl quarterback Janores Jankens will join us.

Talk some Brady, talk some breeze.

We got a lot to talk to him about.

But we have to start this morning, as Nick mentioned, with the return of baseball.

And the big headline, the Dodgers signing mookie bets to a 12-year, $365 million extension. The mega deal

tops Mike Trout money and includes a record $65 million signing bonus. So Tom, let's start there.

Mookie hasn't played a game yet for the Dodgers. You surprised they gave him such a large contract before he's even taken the field?

I'm not really surprised. This is equivalent if you go to buy a new car and you take a test drive and you love it so much.

You're sold before you even leave the dealer's lot.

That's what happened with the Dodgers and bets. Once this guy got in their camp, I'm talking about spring training in March and certainly recently in summer camp. They just loved everything about Mookie Betts. Yeah, they knew he was a good player, but seeing him up close every day, they were so impressed. This guy's bat to ball skills are freakishly good. Other than that, he's just a good teammate. He's working with the young hitters there. He's a great defender. They feel like he can play multiple positions anytime down the road. So this made a lot of sense for a team that tried to step up, remember, and sign Garrett Cole. I know the Dodgers until this point had not given out a $100 million deal, which is kind of

crazy when you think about their market. But they did try to get called. Call had his heart set on the

Yankees. This was plan B, bets, to go get Mookie in the trade. And I think all along they wanted to

extend him. But again, once they had him in their camp and saw the kind of person and player he is,

done deal.

Tom, shortly after the dust settled on the bets trade, there were these, I don't even want to call him rumors.

Murmurs all call him.

Yeah, listen, the Red Sox traded him, but he's going to come back.

He's going to play one year for the Dodgers, and he's going to come back, sign's going to play one year for the Dodgers.

He's going to come back, sign with Boston.

That's a valid thought.

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