Swell AI Transcript: The Sports Porch Pizza Edition

Steve:
I got an echo. Yeah. Well, that's all right. Let's roll. Everybody's muted. I don't hear it now.

null: You don't hear it now. I don't hear it.

Steve: OK, I'm checking the audio again.

Marc: Oh, yeah, we're good. No, that's great. Yeah, I think getting the podcast with the phone calls.

Chris: Oh, OK. All right. Welcome to the sports, sports, black and gold. It's an exciting night here on Facebook. We are live all over the world. Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, X, the gram. We are now officially live on the gram. And of course, we drop the podcast right after the show on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, Spotify or anywhere you get your friggin podcasts. That's right. And tonight we've got a special guest.

Marc: We've got a very special guest.

Chris: Yeah, we do. And I am hearing a little bit of an echo. Do you hear that?

Steve: I hear it. Yeah, I hear it now.

Chris: Yeah, I wonder what's going on with that. Let's play around here and let's make sure that we get this all sorted out because it doesn't make me happy when that happens. It really doesn't. And so anyway, we got a we got a very special guest tonight. Recently, everybody is known that, you know, there's been these reviews going all around the world, basically around the country.

Marc: Who I used to work with in the corporate world He decided to go out on his own and You know start a business. I know it is and that business is a pizza shop. It's not just any pizza shop. It is a pizza shop that has the finest ingredients and it just puts all the care and all the love into creating the best possible product you can find. And this buddy of mine is originally from New York. And as you know, the best pizza comes from New York. It's true. Yeah. He decided to bring to us Pittsburghers out here a slice of New York.

Chris: That's right. He did. And before we get there, now that I've sorted out the echo thing, it was a TD thing. So bring it on, guys.

Marc: You're a horrible technical director and we're looking for that's exactly what he had.

Steve: He had all day to prepare for this. He waits to the last five minutes and then he realizes there is an echo as we go live.

Chris: I'm going to ask Sean. I'm going to ask Sean how I mean, I'm sure the best pizza is made like on the fly. I'm sure it is. I mean, he'll answer when he gets here. Why don't we leave that? I hope he spanked you with that answer. OK, so anyway, what else are we going to do here? Of course, we're going to talk about the Steelers. They're 3-0 under Justin Fields. I put a Twitter poll out there yesterday. I hate using the term X. I wish they would just let us use Twitter. So I'm going to keep using Twitter. Say whatever you want to say. Will we ever see Russell Fields in a Steelers uniform on the field? So we'll talk about that. It's not Russell.

Steve: It's not Russell Fields. I like how you took Russell Wilson and Justin Fields and morphed them into one person. Maybe they really are one person. I love that idea.

Marc: Yeah, that is a great idea. Shall I take it from here again?

Chris: And H.J. Hockey Jesus is in the house. And of course, we had a hockey game. Yes, we had a hockey game and he's literally peeing his pants. He's so excited. I did have to change my shorts. And we're also going to do a little bit of what we're watching. And so Grant Schwabini, please take it away. Introduce a slice of New York.

Marc: All right, the owner, the creator of A Slice of New York, Shawn Jafarjan. Welcome to the show.

Sean from Slice of New York: Thank you. Very happy to be here.

Steve: Sean, welcome. Welcome to the porch.

Marc: We are very happy to have you here. And of course, everybody knows that, um, you know, your shop was highlighted by, you know, the world famous David Portnoy and, uh, well, I guess we'll get into the ratings and stuff in a little bit, but, um, Bottom line is you got a bang out awesome rating. So, uh, we're really, uh, really proud of you for that representing, uh, you know, Pittsburgh and, and so just tell us a little bit about, uh, I know that you started out, um, you know, like COVID, you just started making pizzas. Yeah. Right. And then you just decided, Hey, the heck with it, you know, I'm gonna, I'm gonna go for this. And I'm gonna, I'm gonna, you know, open up a shop. Just tell us a little bit about how it got started.

Sean from Slice of New York: Yeah. So obviously, we worked in the corporate world together. And in the role that I had latest in my career required a lot of travel, and COVID happened. And the travel stopped and i was bored out of my mind and especially upstairs where my office is in my house i'm listening to everybody else in my house having a great time and i'm working and it sucks and i need to be in front of people so i was just really really bored yeah and i just started tinkering with pizza i had reconnected with an old friend that is in the restaurant industry. And he kind of gave me my first like starter recipe. And I just started playing around. And then I started getting comfortable with it. And I would have these like driveway pizza parties. Okay, a lot of friends in the industry that would like, you know, pop over for my driveway pizzas. And then my one pizza shop buddy, was like, you know, I think you might have something here. So I started selling pizza boxes out of my house weekly, where you wouldn't buy a pizza, you'd buy a pizza box. But then when you came to pick up your pizza box, I happen to have a pizza, a full pizza.

Chris: And how do you how do you get people to just buy a pizza box?

Sean from Slice of New York: Well, I have a lot of Facebook friends, so that's kind of where it started. So I just put it out to my Facebook friends and then I would schedule them out. I would do about 50 a week. Just, just the box. Well, it would come with a pizza inside of it. Well, I know.

Steve: But he was selling the box. That would be like, that would be like if I sold my whiskey, but I was selling you the bottle. Right. Right. Yeah.

Marc: Kind of like, you know, a little bit different.

Steve: Gotcha. Not that I have whiskey for sale yet.

Chris: No, I understand.

Marc: Put the thinking cap on.

Chris: It's on.

Sean from Slice of New York: I mean, I think now with the statute of limitations, I think I could say I was just trying to skirt the system. Okay.

Chris: All right. That's what I thought. But you know, you never know. People knew what they were getting.

Sean from Slice of New York: Yeah. So that started to just catch on. And before we knew it, we were selling 50 pizzas like every week. So I started just kind of scouring these websites that would sell used restaurant equipment on these auction sites. And what happened in the beginning of COVID was a lot of restaurants, before they knew they were going to get help, they kind of panic went out of business. And not to say I took advantage of it, but I did kind of take advantage of the situation where I was able to purchase used equipment, smart, very, very inexpensive. So I just started filling my garage with stuff. And I was like, maybe I'll do something. Maybe I won't. So I bought like these 60 year old ovens for like 800 bucks. And I was like, I'll throw them in the garage. And then I got like a prep table for like 1000 bucks, threw it in the garage. And then before I knew it, I had a whole garage full of

Steve: pizza shop pizza equipment.

Sean from Slice of New York: And so then I had a conversation with my wife about quitting my job and just trying it out. And because there was so little money invested that it was like, if it fails, who cares? Right. We'll just move on to something else. So I found the worst location in the history of pizza shops. This place had been like 14 other pizza shops. OK. Oh, yeah. Like the most failed location ever. And I said, it's perfect. Because the price was right. Turns out it was. Yeah. I mean, the rent was like 700 bucks a month. I could do a short term lease. And the fact that it was already a pizza shop, it was plug and play. All I had to do was move my stuff in. So we took the gamble. I quit my job. And by September of 2020, we were open and then just kind of took off from there. And then I sold that shop a year and a half, two years later to open up my current shop, which is considerably larger now. Wow.

Marc: Awesome. Now let me ask you about this cause I know that, um, you're also kind of well known for, uh, having quite a personality, uh, online. Yeah. And I, I love it cause I think it's great. Um, you know, we both came from a place in the corporate world, Where I mean you couldn't do anything even slightly remotely You know Non PC or whatever. Yeah, right and and you just you just basically said hey I'm going all in here. I don't care what anybody thinks I'm being myself and I feel like I Do you think that that's also kind of contributed to a lot of the interest?

Sean from Slice of New York: A million percent, because again, with what we did, it was so heavily federally regulated, what we could say and what we couldn't say. So you always had these handcuffs on. So once I had this outlet and this following that started happening, I was like, well, there's no compliance here. And I could say whatever I want. But also what we found was that because in the beginning, I was a little bit more PC, like if you go back to some of my original videos, and what happened was once we started to get just like the slightest bit of trolling and the slightest bit of hate, what I noticed was that our ratings, you know, like our videos and stuff like that really shot through the roof. So then me and Mark, you know, me as a very analytical, like, you know, person. So I just started looking at the data and the data told me that I need to push the envelope and push it hard. Yeah. And so I started to become very, very controversial in my messaging. And as I did, that's how we went from 1000 followers to 5000 followers and then 5000 followers to 15,000 followers. It was almost like the Howard Stern effect where people just wanted to know what I was going to say next. And that's how we were able to get the platform that we got.

Marc: So tell me a little bit, because we're getting ready here. You brought in some pizzas. Thank you very much. You're welcome. Very nice. Very kind of you. I see a little saliva coming out of Mark's mouth. For those of you at home, I mean, I've been waiting to eat this pizza for quite some time. At least 42 minutes. I've been tortured by the technical director of the show, who has basically told me I'm not allowed to until it's on the show.

Chris: After all of this, I am still the boss.

Marc: But, but, but Sean, so.

Steve: Monks at St. Vincent College.

Marc: I mean, you can't mess with a pizza that's being milled by monks.

Steve: Yeah. There's your Steeler connection right there.

Sean from Slice of New York: That's right. Yeah, exactly.

Steve: It's basically a Steeler pizza during camp.

Sean from Slice of New York: We were picking up flour out there. Yeah, but they mill it on like a 200 year old stone. So there's no preservatives. It's very clean eating. The tomatoes are organic. Northern California tomatoes. Bianca DiNapoli on the hat. Very nice. Check them out. Um, the number one ranked tomato in the country, like five years running. And, uh, and that's not like opinion based. They use like rubrics to measure, you know, the quality of this stuff. Going back to our old rubric days, I use rubrics for everything. And then the cheese is handmade by Caputo brothers creamery, which is out in Spring Grove, PA. Somebody mentioned York. uh earlier yeah yeah i know spring grow yeah so um and that cheese so like with the way that we do the bread part of the pizza people that have gluten issues can eat this pizza with no problem so long as they're non-celiac and we have a 100 success rate there if you have acid issues with these tomatoes you'll have no acid reflux and then if you have dairy issues because of the way this cheese is made you can eat this pizza with no problem because they use like a bacteria culture that eats all the lactose real nerdy shit. But it's a safe pizza. Yeah, it's good for everybody but celiac. Yeah, and it's very so it's the healthiest version of a pizza that you can get while still tasting really good.

Marc: All right, Sean, I can't take it anymore. Let's let's let's dive in here. Yeah, let's do it. Got to give our own kind of ratings. Yeah.

Sean from Slice of New York: I mean, that needs a good hour and 15 minutes old for me.

Steve: Hey, I have a cold pizza.

Chris: I have a feeling I don't have a feeling this pizza, this pizza is going to be great or really fucking great. That's that's my feeling personally.

Sean from Slice of New York: How do you define how do you define now?

Marc: David Portney would say, oh, quality undercarriage.

Sean from Slice of New York: But I'll flop there because I don't like it. Yeah.

Steve: Well, I mean, you know, an hour and 45 minutes later. All right. Let me see what I can do here.

Chris: I'm gone. I'm gone for pepperoni. So you can just keep that up.

Sean from Slice of New York: I think I'm going to snag a pepperoni slice myself. I got a plate.

Marc: I got a plate for you here. This is exactly my kind of pizza.

Sean from Slice of New York: Say, but you got to give it even cold. Give it.

Steve: It's a giant slice, by the way. This is bigger than my head.

Sean from Slice of New York: You got to give it the fold.

Steve: Yeah, you got to give it like New York pizza. You got to you got to put a little fold in it, right? You got to give it some. OK, here here goes.

Marc: It's phenomenal.

Sean from Slice of New York: I love hearing you guys chewing in my ears. Yeah.

Chris: Greatest. OK. That's the best part of when we do a taste test. All right. I'm not going to show everybody the pizza because they've seen it now. Mm hmm. But I am an expert folder.

Sean from Slice of New York: Can I steal this plate here? Oh, yeah. I'm sorry. No, you're good. I'm a pro. I don't need a plate. Great hosting.

Steve: Well, I have to, I have to say, what are you doing?

Chris: That's your napkin.

Steve: The cheese. I don't need napkin. The cheese is nothing like I've ever had before. This is a very special cheese.

Sean from Slice of New York: The salt in the cheese is mined from an ocean underneath the mountains of West Virginia.

Chris: Wow. Now you're just fucking with us. I swear to God.

Sean from Slice of New York: Come on now.

Chris: I swear to God.

Steve: Google it. The best thing about this is you don't get that cheese where you have to go like this and then the cheese is all over the place or it's falling off. This cheese is not coming off this pizza. That's awesome.

Chris: No, this is truly a slice of New York. I get the name now.

Marc: It's awesome. Yeah, let me ask you a question before we get into some more Portnoy stuff. Just something that's kind of like been kind of, I don't know, it's not OK. So, you know, and I've watched many of these Portnoy reviews, right? And it's that's a damn good piece of pizza. One bite. Everybody knows the rules. He doesn't take one, correct? He takes numerous bites.

Steve: And the second bite is always off the crust. The second bite is always off the crust after he gets the front, and then he goes for the crust on the back. He eats like half the piece of pizza.

Marc: Right, right. But I guess the idea is he's really making that. rating off of that first bite. Well, what do you think?

Sean from Slice of New York: I think it's more shtick than anything else. As a guy that's kind of really studied shtick, I would, because what happens is if you look into the comments, you'll see like 20% of all the comments are like, one bite, everybody knows the rules, proceeds to take six bites. But the way the algorithms work is the more clicks, the more comments. So if 20% of your comments are coming from everybody just calling that out, boom, it makes the algorithm hit. Right.

Steve: You took three bites off of that one, right?

Sean from Slice of New York: Exactly. Yeah. And so I think he knows that that is part of the shtick. I mean, he's a smart guy, and you can tell even meeting him in person, you just know he knows what he's doing.

Chris: Yeah. Yeah. And I've been on these guys for years. about trying to, you know, be a little bit more edgy with things because I mean, you don't know me. You just met me. But correct. They know me and I can be as edgy as it gets. But, you know, they want to dial it back.

Steve: And there's a reason we call it the Klein line. Yeah, that's because when you go over the Klein line, you've gone into an orbit that never existed before.

Chris: Although you did hear the comment made before the show.

Marc: Right. earlier. We do different things before the show than during the show.

Chris: Yeah, for sure. Yeah. And I'm always telling them, save it for the show. Save it for the show. How do you feel about that once? Because, you know, Mark told me a little bit of your story. Sure. You know, weeks and months ago. Yeah. Because he was like, you know, I've got this guy I used to work with actually has a pizza shop out near you. And I was like, oh, my God, I've driven by it a million times. But I just. Yeah. When I'm driving by it, I'm not heading out to get food, you know, and I know where it is. And he said he he does these videos and he sent me the fav my favorite video that you did so far was the one where you threw the pineapple pizza in the garbage and said what you do with this now is you throw it in the fucking garbage because pineapple does not belong on a pizza. I love that.

Sean from Slice of New York: That one went insanely viral. That I think currently across all platforms has about 34 million views. But that wasn't by accident either. Because when I first posted that video on TikTok, because my kids were like, you got to do a TikTok, you got to do a TikTok. I'm like, I'm not doing TikTok, that's for kids. So the first TikTok I ever do, I do that video one take. I'm like, fine, we'll do one. Sent my son to the grocery store, grabbed a thing of tomatoes. Not tomatoes, a pineapple.

Steve: And you didn't use your good ingredients for the pineapple pizza.

Sean from Slice of New York: There was good ingredients on that. Oh, man. That was the first time calling out Portnoy to try to get them to if you watch. Oh, yeah. But it got like two million views. And then I became really good friends through this pizza circle that I'm in with the guy that runs the pizza Instagram account, like just the word pizza. So him and I were having a conversation and I was like, Oh, I went accidental viral once and now they have a million followers on Instagram. So he goes, send me the video. So I'm like, fine. I sent, so I send him the video and then he posted it and that's when it went viral. boom, went nuts, crazy viral. And that actually, and it goes through these weird resurgences. And I'm surprised nobody out there has put the Portnoy connection to that video yet. Cause I think once those things come together, that'll probably it'll boost it again.

Marc: By the way, we got Mike Lawrence asking for the address for slice of New York.

Sean from Slice of New York: It is 5656 William Penn Highway, Murrysville, PA 15632, which could also be considered export.

Chris: Yeah. And, and it's really easy if you know, if you know 22 out into out from Monroeville all the way into Murraysville, you just go right past Rick's sports bar and it's the very next little strip right there. So, I mean, that's everybody out here anyway in the East. They know where Rick's is.

Steve: Yup. Sean, I have to ask you about this crust. How do you get a crust that's like crunchy on the outside, but yet still in the middle? You can, you get, you get a little bit of dough. How do you do that?

Sean from Slice of New York: Well, that's where my son comes into play. So my son, he was a biology student. He's also studying like food science type stuff. And he really dives into the bread aspects of it. So he could probably answer that a little bit better. But it really all comes from the fermentation methods that we use, the heat that we cook at, you know, so It all kind of, everything that we do really boils down to color, flavor, texture.

Steve: So it's a combination of the recipe and how you cook it. It's got to be right on.

Sean from Slice of New York: Yeah. We cook a lot hotter than most traditional pizza shops. You know, most traditional pizza shops are cooking like 500, 550, we're at like 630. Really? So, which is, which is pretty high. Now you get any higher than that, you'll get mostly soft, like your Neapolitan pizzas, which are meant to be a little bit more on the softer side. Those are cooked at like 900.

Steve: The best part about the crust is you can taste, you can taste that it was cooked on the backside, but it's not burnt. You know what I mean? Little char. Yeah. Little char. It tastes, you taste a little char, but it's not burnt at all. It's got great flavor. Excellent. Excellent.

Sean from Slice of New York: Some people would call that burnt. And to them, I would say, no way. Don't buy pizza from us.

Steve: No way. That's, that's got some great flavor right on the backside.

Chris: What I have to say too is that there's an amount of- We're going to spend the whole show eating pizza.

Steve: You realize that. Well, I mean, come on. It's a pizza show. There's nothing wrong with that. No, we're going to get the distillers. Don't worry.

Marc: There is a little bit of- Hold on, people. There is a little bit of anger, though, building here towards you, Chris. Oh, really? Yes. Because this pizza shop here is in your backyard. And I mean, the, the, you know, there have been several times that we've been here and you've ordered pizza and it's just been God awful pizza in Monroeville. I don't know.

Sean from Slice of New York: Napoli Napoli's the pizza in Monroeville.

Chris: A lot of people like that. Have you ever had the Rosecliffs pizza before they changed their dough?

Sean from Slice of New York: No, I've had their burger, though, and their burger is spectacular.

Chris: Yeah. I didn't even know you were out here other than I didn't realize it until Mark said this is when I was like, oh, yeah, I do know where that place is. So it's actually Mark's fault because he knew all along. that you were out.

Marc: I'm holding you responsible.

Chris: Okay. You can, you can do it.

Marc: Okay. So let's, let's get into this just before we, we wind down with Sean here. So tell us about the Portnoy experience. What was it like having him come out to the store and everything?

Sean from Slice of New York: I mean, it was pretty surreal, even still reflecting back on it because I mean, that was one of our number one goals from starting the business.

Chris: And there he is. If you're watching, I've got it up on the screen there.

Sean from Slice of New York: Yup. You know, we had a little bit of a point to prove, you know, and Portnoy was our way to prove it. And then we finally got him and proved it, you know, and that. So, but the whole experience just from him, knowing he was going to be in Pittsburgh, making politics videos to try to entice him to come, you know, then to him calling, ordering the pizza under an alias. But nice, we knew the alias name going in. And because I have a lot of friends who have been portnoyed. So we knew what name they use. And we knew that they'd call from a Boston phone number. So we knew that that was right, right, the order. And but once we knew it was them, I might have had a mini panic attack, but just kind of managed to throw it because it was like, when that clicks in your head that this is going to be the most important pizza you ever make.

Steve: Yeah, you know, it's like, well, you said you would shut down the shop, right?

Sean from Slice of New York: If Yeah, if we scored in the sixes, I would shut down the shop. But I also used to tell people that if I scored anything in the eights, I would also shut down the shop and just ride off into the sunset a winner. Yeah.

Steve: Well, you know, that's not a bad way to go. But hey, you make a great pizza. You don't want to you don't want to you don't want to not give it to the fans.

Sean from Slice of New York: Right. Exactly. So do it for a little bit and then I'll I'll sell out because we are going to move south very soon.

Chris: And now how has how has it affected your sales since then?

Sean from Slice of New York: Double It's weird cuz like a normal days like we usually have a pretty busy lunch Then it dies down a little bit. Yeah, then we have a busy dinner We've been fully booked and when I say fully booked is like we know how many pizzas we can do per hour Hey mark, give me your crust accordingly. Mm-hmm. So we've been fully booked to close since the day he came not even since the review came out since the day he came and and people having word that he came, we've been fully booked every day.

Steve: That's awesome. Did you have to make more dough, of course?

Sean from Slice of New York: We do it. Yeah. Well, that's what's nice in the newer place that I'm at. Like dough is dough management isn't so much the issue as it is just time at this point. Gotcha. You know, because there's only so many hours in the day and there's so many people calling. And so like when people call at five o'clock and can't get a pizza in 20 minutes, like they're like, what do you mean? Right. What do you mean I can't get a pizza in 20 minutes? Right. And I'm like, oh, did you saw that thing like on the Internet? Yeah. That's why you're calling. Right. I'm like, so did everybody else.

Steve: Hey, what's it like working with your son?

Sean from Slice of New York: Oh, it's the best Yeah, it really it's my whole family. Really. My wife runs the front of the house my daughter who's away at college She she's getting out. Yeah, she When she's when she's not at school, she's working but I work side by side with my son like every day So he does most of the dough making I? I call him the alpha and the omega because he does all of the dough in the beginning. Then when I'm making all the pizzas, he's on the oven. He's doing the very, very beginning and the very, very end. Nice. It's an absolute joy. Sometimes I want to wring his neck. Sometimes I have, but we also have a lot of fun because we have great conversations about music, about all kinds of different things. He probably doesn't enjoy it as much as I do, but he will when he gets older, when he gets to reflect back.

Steve: All right. I hope you're going to stick around for some sports porch talk. I would love to. That'd be awesome. All right. Because we got some stiller news to get to.

Chris: We do. And before we do that, I want to remind everybody that if you're watching us live, you're watching us on Facebook, LinkedIn X. YouTube and Instagram. And of course, we dropped the podcast right after the show on the I heart radio app, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or anywhere you get your friggin podcast. So since john is going to stay here, and he admittedly, has said that with all of this pizza making and Rockaway pizzeria checking in. All right, let's see. Let's fucking go. Let's fucking go, Rockaway.

Marc: We're right there with you, baby. Let's go. There were two others in Pittsburgh that scored similar to you, right?

Sean from Slice of New York: Yeah, Rockaway, who is like my best pizza friend locally. Nice. We scored the same. So we're trying to market ourselves as like Canseco and McGuire. I like very nice. Very nice.

Steve: The bash brother, by the way, Sean only knows baseball, so he's not going to be able to throw out a football reference.

Sean from Slice of New York: I'm a little bit of football stuff, but, uh, and then pizza Lupo down at Lawrenceville, who I'm a big fan of. They also did, uh, an 8.2 as well, which were the highest in Pittsburgh, fourth highest in the state and the 85th in the country.

Chris: incredible yeah it's pretty good awesome and it is great pizza now now i do want to get to some of these comments because we've been getting comments coming in like crazy and and i'll go back a little bit um Amy, of course, she says bring me a piece home and CD wanted a slice sent to Hershey's Yeah, Kevin was telling us. It's 22 east side of Murraysville Mike's actually gonna be in the bird next week. So you're gonna get a customer out of that. He'll stop by he walked all the time. So CD wants a CD is Chris's brother. He's a doctor. We call him the doctor. Okay, you know, so Yeah, right. Yeah, did really? Oh, yeah. I

Marc: Yeah, but they had respect for me, unlike you.

Chris: The doctor of psychology. Yeah, I know. I remember when he was younger, he'd be like, yes, I'm a doctor.

Steve: Trust me, all his psychology happened when we were in college.

Chris: That's very true. I want to be in the pizza circle, he says, throwing a little WV salt over my shoulder for good luck. Is Penn State playing WVU? No, I think they… I don't know. He's drinking your whiskey. I hope he is. And Kevin says this guy was not afraid to share his full recipe and cooking technique. So that's some some props right there.

Sean from Slice of New York: There should never be secrets in your food ever.

Steve: Yeah, there shouldn't be. That's the way I feel about whiskey. Share your recipe. Go ahead. Try and make it better. I dare you.

Sean from Slice of New York: Well, and there could be secrets in process. There should never, ever be a secret in what you're eating.

Chris: No, uh, yo, carry your son on youtube says undefeated equals as long as a pizza break as you want. Uh, he's talking about he's right undefeated.

Steve: We can take as many pizza breaks as we want. We're three and oh baby.

Chris: Yeah. Uh, uh, jimmy hank pizza. Let's go sean. That's a philly guy. There you go. He should tune into the Philly sports porch when we get that back. Rockaway Pizzeria back. I'm the steroid abusing womanizer of the two.

Sean from Slice of New York: We were trying to decide who was conseco and who was not.

Chris: Okay. Well, so obviously he has some issues. Um, pizza guy needs to speak in the mic. So this is somebody's, yeah, you just got to hold it.

Sean from Slice of New York: Podcast rookie. That's all right. That's all right.

Marc: We'll get you there.

Chris: Jimmy Honk, NEPA pizza review. Check this out. Amy May. Mark only got me because he told me he was a doctor. Okay, so Sean's gonna stick around right now We're gonna move on to the Steelers right now. The Steelers are three, you know with fields at quarterback I want you to tell us why field should or should not be the quarterback going forward and you can always tell us at the sports sports one on Twitter, but as far as I'm concerned Saw progress and I think I texted you guys during the game. I saw some great progress yesterday Great, I know define great throwing the ball over the middle a touchdown pass, a touchdown pass, a long, no, no, a long touchdown touchdown pass. Yeah.

Marc: Which is mostly it was yak long in the air or the guy ran.

Chris: Yes. Yeah. The guy ran. Yes. Mark. But you're talking about, you're talking about multiple, multiple passes over the middle to Friar Muth and Pickens that passed to Austin was over the middle. Fields was not holding the ball too long. He was making quick decisions. The other thing is at one point in the third quarter, Najee only had what eight rushes for nine yards, but they didn't give up on that. They continued to wear them down so that near the end of the game, they couldn't keep up with it. And he ended up with what 60 yards or so. I don't remember.

Steve: Almost 70. So I mean, I actually probably should have had a touchdown too, but yeah, but he stopped not running up the score. And those of you who played the under were very happy.

Chris: Yes. And so what I see from game one, game two to game three is exactly what I've been talking about, which is once they knew that Wilson wasn't going to play, which I happen to think they never thought he was going to play, uh, because Tom and loves field so much, you saw fields come in and everything was very pedestrian. I mean, just hold your comments for a second. I know it's so hard. One, two, three games. The offense is slowly starting to come into play here and the defense looks fantastic. Not playing against the best teams, but when you're playing against bad teams with bad offenses, you should shut them down and they did. So I see a lot of progress. I think Justin Wilson stays in as the quarterback.

Steve: I love, I love, I love the fact that you say Justin Wilson. I love that so much. There's something. Yeah.

Sean from Slice of New York: there's something wrong with me somebody in that game did they really attempt a 62 yard field goal did that they did yeah yeah boswell you know what it's the record

Steve: Uh, 66. Yeah. Yeah. Tucker. What are your thoughts on that move? I loved it actually. Um, because it didn't really hurt them.

Marc: It was like at the end of the hand.

Steve: Yeah.

Chris: There was only like five seconds left.

Steve: I think they got the run one play didn't they? They did. Because there was like one second left. Yeah. Cause they threw it in the end zone. Remember they threw the end zone and actually they probably should have completed that pass in the end zone. That was poorly covered.

Marc: The technical director is all in on Justin Fields.

Steve: Justin Fields. Justin Fields Wilson. Justin Fields Wilson.

Marc: I like that. Okay, so Steve, you go in the front.

Steve: Here's the thing. Justin Fields has played better. But I mean, it doesn't matter who the friggin quarterback is. I don't I don't know. I don't know how many times I'm going to have to say this, but I guess I'm going to have to say it until they actually do play Russell Wilson, because I think Russell Wilson does a better job than Justin Fields does of managing the game when he's in. We'll never see that if he never gets a chance to do it. And I do agree that Justin Fields has done a good job of protecting the ball, which has been incredible because he was a he was fumble itis guy, interception turnover machine. And he has what that one interception was that really it was the way the way it was bouncing around. It still goes as an interception, but I think he's done a good job of protecting the ball But I don't think that's enough to keep him in the quote-unquote pole position That was Russ's to begin with now that is unless of course our coach coach T Just lied to Russell Wilson and said you're the number one guy and he wanted to play Justin Fields all along We don't know that And if that's the case, I don't think you'll see Russell Wilson come in until, you know, fields gets hurt. And I think he probably, I think one of these two guys is going to get hurt throughout the season though, just because it's the nature of what they do, the way they run the ball. Um, I think the offensive line is really been doing a great job knowing that say Amalu has been out and now, uh, Kiyomoto is gonna probably be out for the season. He's definitely not to film on to film on to yeah We can't get any names right around here He'll be he'll be out for four weeks, but they're saying that he probably has a tear in his MCA He's out for the regular season could be back for the playoffs Yeah, so then Jones is just gonna stay it right now.

Chris: They might as well leave him there then

Steve: Well, that's his position. He's the right tackle guy because Dan Moore can't play right tackle. Right. And we've already gone through that. I don't really feel like swearing again about that today, but I will if you want me to. I'm sure it's coming. Um, so, so my, my, my contention is that Russell Wilson will be a better quarterback when he has to play. I just don't know when he's going to play, to be honest.

Chris: I don't think he's going to, I just, I, I think that Tomlin, um, Tomlin's always been in love with fields. People knew that when fields was drafted, they had him number one on their draft board, but they knew they weren't going to get him. And I just think this is all playing out the way Tom Lim wants it to.

Marc: If they stick with Justin Fields, it will be a horrible mistake. Do you think so? Thank you. Absolutely.

Chris: Do you know anything about Justin Fields? I don't.

Marc: You can't be saved.

Chris: You can't be saved by Sean.

Marc: He's too busy making pizza now. Here's the bottom line. The best thing you can say about Justin Fields right now is he's not turning the ball over. I don't think so. He's basically gone from a turnover machine to he's not turning the ball over, which allows the Steelers in their run focused offense and their, you know, great playing defense approach to the game allows them to stay in these games and win these games. However, When you're going to be playing against the better competition in the league, it won't be enough. And Russell Wilson gives you a better chance to have more of an offense. You know, like, okay, so Justin Fields, he's only throwing for, what, seven yards a clip? He's doing nightly, it's like 25 for 32 or something, but no, they're only seven, seven yards a pop. Uh, and what is it like a hundred and some yards, 171 yards. Why don't I, why don't I give you his statistics currently?

Chris: And his completion rating is 73.3% and he's averaging about seven yards per attempt. Um, and his quarterback rating is 95.3. I mean, I think that's pretty damn good.

Sean from Slice of New York: Would some say that his style though is a little bit similar to Russell Wilson, the way he kind

Steve: Yeah, the younger Russell Wilson. Yeah, that's why I don't think it matters who really plays. And I think you're better off with Russell Wilson in there because I just feel like he can make quicker decisions and will be able to hit the open man quicker than Justin Fields. However, if you run into a situation where you need to run the ball, Russell's not going to be your guy. He can't really run the ball that well. So I think it's a, honestly, I would, I don't really, this is the one place where actually I kind of feel that coach T has a, has a problem. And the thing is, we don't even really know if Russell Wilson wants to play. Maybe he's okay with being the backup. He might, he's not going to come out and say that he's not going to come out and say it. But what I'm saying is, is that. Eh, it's okay if I'm waiting until, you know, let's say his calf still is hurt. And by the way, CMC's calf was the problem, but then it turned out to be his Achilles. So who's to say it's not something other than his calf? It could be. You know, so it could be a bigger injury than we really know, and they're just going to let it heal. Why not just let fields in there until it's healed? They can hide behind that all they want as long as Russell Wilson's okay with them hiding behind it.

Marc: Right. So I just think the bottom line is, is that, you know, he's just, he's just not enough. I mean, look, now I look at things as a completely different way. Okay. I'm not looking at, can the Steelers, you know, improve upon last year. Can they make the playoffs and win a playoff game? I mean, if you're asking me, can they do that right now? I'd say maybe, but, but, but, but if you're asking me, can they win the super bowl? Not even close.

Chris: I mean, I'm with you on, I'm with you on that call now. A real doctor here says you're making the wrong call on fields and he's going to take your doctor license away. And this is a real medical doctor. This guy's like the CFO of Hershey Medical System.

Marc: And he knows nothing about sports psychology. That's right.

Chris: So take that doctor. I guess where I'm coming from on fields is that I believe this was the plan all along. Somebody.

Steve: No, I don't think so. I know. Why do you think that? Because they got fields after Ken, Big Ken said through his hissy fit and said, I want out. Right. That's the only reason they went to get fields. They never were going to go after him if they had Big Ken in the mix. That's why I don't understand. I agree with you if they would have went and got Fields first, but they didn't. They got Russell Wilson first.

Chris: Well, I think what happened is they were panicking on Pickett. They picked up Wilson for nothing. Fields became available. They could get him for what it amounted to nothing.

Steve: No, no, that's not true. They could have gotten Fields at any time. And they decided to wait until after Big Ken was here. I don't think there's any conspiracy about Justin Fields. Justin Fields just happened to be at the right place at the right time when he, you know, Russell Wilson pushed on that sled and said, ow, my leg.

Chris: Well, somebody in Denver has also said that and I was I was reading this on a couple other pages that are Denver related, that Wilson was actually dealing with his calf injury through most of last year as well. And it was reported in the Denver media. So this this injury isn't new. It isn't. I mean, you've been banging on the conditioning people for the Steelers and new people. Yeah, but he's had, of course, but he's had this injury for a while. And I think the Steelers knew that going

Steve: So he had an injury and he said, okay, go ahead and push a sled. How smart is that? I'm not saying you're wrong. That's when I'm banging on the, on the conditioning people. If they knew he had a leg injury, they say like you bypass the sled and you walk around it. You're going to be our starting quarterback. I don't think you need to show us you can push a sled. Yeah.

Chris: Yeah. Do people talk about the jets this way?

Sean from Slice of New York: No. And actually,

Chris: I want I wanted to bring our guests back here. It's much more tiring.

Sean from Slice of New York: He's a Jets fan. As an outsider, and I've lived in Pittsburgh now 24 years, and I do still consider myself an outsider. I can honestly say so New York even with two football teams is not a football town. Right.

Chris: I think you're right. It's a baseball.

Sean from Slice of New York: It's a baseball town. And I'll never forget my first Steeler game. And I was, and I've been to tons of jets games, tons of giants games growing up. My first Steeler game I always think about as my first real football game. There you go. Because I have never ever, like I do all of my grocery shopping during Steeler games because nobody's there because it's empty. Right. So we're in New York. If there's a Jets game going on, there's still everybody everywhere, right? Yeah. So here, like the whole city shuts down for a game like a good time to go for a drive on the parkway. And I don't think anywhere else in the country can maybe like Green Bay, like I think the city that right. But even in Philly, like, they're not shutting things down for Eagles games. Like, there's a big following there, obviously. But I think Pittsburgh is unique in the fact that, like, it's almost like how the Yankees are for baseball in New York. Like, the Yankees are in the World Series, the city shuts down, everybody's paying attention.

Steve: And I think that's probably… Well, let's hope that doesn't happen this year. Yeah. Yeah, let's hope.

Chris: But I, I agree with you. I moved here in 93 and growing up where I grew up in central PA in the seventies, the Steelers were big there because it was the seventies Steelers PA team. But then, then I was a Redskins fan as a kid cause my dad was from DC. Interesting.

Marc: So, um, but fast forward to the weekly Redskins rant.

Chris: I'm not going to rant on that. No, no, I will not. I will not subject into that. Where I was going with this is when I moved here when I met Steve in Philly in school He was the first like diehard Semi grown-up Steelers fan I had ever met.

Steve: Thank you for that semi grown-up.

Chris: Yeah. Well, I mean, we're still semi grown-up But still semi grown-up every race still or still or still so move out here to Pittsburgh and I noticed the same thing I I would be driving around on a Sunday and And now, of course, I watched football, but if I went outside, literally I could hear if it was a fall game, the windows are open across the street. I lived in the city in Shadyside and then in Bloomfield. I could hear the neighbor's TV. And if I was outside, you know, cracking a beer at the grill and I missed a play. I didn't really miss it because I would hear them screaming their heads off, you know, the whole town just shuts down. And it's so the Steelers are so interwoven into the fabric of this city that it's just hard to get away from.

Steve: Well, we're in every city.

Chris: And that's the other thing. Yeah.

Sean from Slice of New York: Yeah, everywhere I travel, I always see a Steeler bar. Yeah, you know, Charleston's an area we where we've been spending a lot of times there's there's Pittsburgh pizza down there. There's Steeler bars down there. Like, it's everywhere.

Chris: Yeah, I mean, there's Steeler bars in Italy. There's I mean, there's Steeler bars in every single country, basically, except maybe Cuba. I don't know. My son was at that bar, by the way, in Italy. In Italy at the Steelers bar. Yeah. And then I saw it posted again. Somebody else was there too. Yeah. Was it in Florence?

Steve: No, it's in Rome. It's in Rome.

Chris: Yeah, it's in Rome. Yeah.

Marc: It's hard to get into the Steeler bar in Cuba.

Chris: Yeah. So, but okay. So, a few more comments on the Steelers. I myself think I saw a lot of progress. I think the defense played fantastic. I think Nick Herbig is going to be something special. I mean, I know he has T.J. Watt on the other side, and Highsmith went down.

Steve: Highsmith went down.

Chris: Next man up, Tomlin. But he looks to have the speed. And that first, when he went in, that first play he went in, and that sack, when he took the edge, I thought to myself, that looks exactly like T.J. Watt. On the other side, yeah. Because he's learned from T.J. Watt. So I think there's some really good… natural speed to be able to do that. But what's teaching him, you know, he's, he's, he's getting coached by wad on how to do this. He's, he's asking the right questions and liberate. I really think our defense is, is, is looking good so far. It's number one in the NFL, but it's only three games.

Marc: Her big situational pass.

Chris: Nick, Nick. Nate's the center that went.

Marc: Nice, nice job. Maybe we'll get the 10 sacks this year. Congratulations. Okay. There you go.

Steve: Well, he will, he will get the 10 sacks now that, uh, now that, uh, Smith is out. What do they say on his groin? He's, he's getting an MRI today on his groin.

Chris: So we got at least another week, if not longer.

Steve: So if you got an MRI on your groin, it would come back blank.

Chris: All right. CD says Herbig is a, uh, is, is a mini watt. Yellow Sun on YouTube says every town, every country went in Rome drinking iron. Um, they do. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Let's move on from the Steelers to our week three NFL predictions. We're going to talk about this past week. Then we'll go on to week four. So this past week, uh, Mark ended up actually three and Oh, three and Oh, again. Yeah. So he is now six last year's.

Steve: Well, he is the great Chwabini six and Oh yes.

Chris: Steve had the Jets, the Chiefs, and the Cowboys. I went out on a limb there. You were two and one.

Steve: I was really rooting against Baltimore. That was that pick.

Chris: And I had the Patriots, the Chiefs, and the Cowboys, so I was one and two. So, A, consistency. You're always getting one right. I always suck. So there was a couple years ago where I was killing it. So the total I don't ever remember.

Sean from Slice of New York: I don't ever. Well, you're undefeated. So take standings like throughout the whole year. Yeah.

Steve: He's six and oh, I'm four and two. You're two and four.

Sean from Slice of New York: So there you go. What does the winner get? Nothing.

Chris: Absolutely nothing. Well, there was supposed to be something. But these guys pussy out all the time. They don't want it. They don't want to do it. You know what I mean? I'm always like, we got to make it something embarrassing. so that we get people who the algorithm kicks in right now. You don't don't in your life. Don't embarrass the doctor. You can't be embarrassed. Steve, on the other hand, I think would be up for it.

Steve: Oh, yeah. Yeah. I've embarrassed myself many times. I had to I had to eat wings. These very, very, very, very hot wings. And it was painful.

Marc: Well, I mean, but being embarrassed, it's natural for you. I know. It comes easy. Exactly.

Steve: I don't know. Mark, you would never get embarrassed because you would win every one of these.

Chris: Yeah, I don't know what's I don't know what the problem is.

Marc: I don't get it. Make it whatever you want it to be. I'm just going to win.

Chris: You can't have any shame in your game. You heard that. That's exactly right. No shame in your game.

Steve: We'll get Sean to make us a pineapple pizza that you have to eat. Pineapple and anchovies. That sounds terrible. You don't?

Chris: I don't think I could eat that. Do you think you'd throw up? Would you gag and throw up? Mark would be able to eat it. He can eat anything.

Sean from Slice of New York: That's true. So true story. We had anchovies on our menu our first week we were open. And everybody was ordering them and I was dry heaving over every single piece that I was making. I took them off the menu immediately. So when people would order them, I would just give them the can and just say, you do it. Oh, that's great.

Steve: I can never figure out the anchovy and pizza thing either. Well, Tom, it's the saltiness, right? So it's salty.

Sean from Slice of New York: It's it smells bad. Oh, yeah. They smell. I don't like them at all. I don't know how any human being could think that's appetizing.

Chris: Yeah, I don't either. I never got that. I agree with that. OK, so what are the games this week? Thursday night, Thursday night, Thursday night, we got the Cowboys.

Marc: Thanks, Mark. We got the Cowboys at the New York Giants. All right.

Steve: Oh, the Cowboys at the New York Football Giants.

Marc: That's an interesting game.

Steve: This is easy. Cowboys. See, Sean knows. I don't even have to say it. The Cowboys.

Chris: Okay. Well, we're going to, we're going to, we're going to put New York pizza guy in here.

Sean from Slice of New York: Yeah. Put the pizza guy in there. I'm going to, as a non football guy, I'm going to make rando picks and see if that's the way to do it and watch it.

Chris: Yeah. And then, then maybe we'll have, I'll have to do something embarrassing for him and I'll do it.

Marc: I'm going to take the New York football giants in a surprise. They did beat, they did beat Cleveland back to back, back to back wins that Malik neighbors. He's good looking like he's a baller.

Steve: Yeah. Yeah. Anybody can make Daniel Jones look good.

Marc: I mean, you know, the, the Cowboys are kind of down right now. They are. They can't stop anybody. Yeah. Okay. I say New York giants. All right.

Steve: I told you, you know, the Cowboys, I'm definitely going with the boys. Always taking the girl.

Chris: Always got the girls. I'm going to go with Mark. I'm going with the giants. I love it. Yeah.

Steve: I see. This is an opportunity.

Chris: I'm just trying to stick with you. All right. Sunday night. Bill's at Ravens.

Marc: Bill, this is a tough one.

Steve: At Ravens. Now, this is easy. All right, Steve, go ahead. Baltimore.

Chris: Steve, New York pizza?

Sean from Slice of New York: I'll go Ravens.

Chris: All right.

Marc: Grand Schwabini? I think I'll take the Ravens as well.

Chris: Oh, I put you on the bills, Mark.

Steve: It was a nice win they had, even though they almost blew it again. They really suck in the fourth quarter. You pick the bills? No, it's a Raven sweep.

Chris: It's a Raven sweep. Okay. New York pizza. Okay. Well, then I have to go to the bills. I'm going to go to the bills. Okay. Rando game on Sunday.

Marc: Rando game, the Sunday at 1.30 game, the one and two bowl. Who's going to win? The Browns at the Raiders.

Chris: I love these games.

Marc: I'm gonna, I know this is a good one. This is a good one. I'm going to take the Raiders. All right. Schwaber takes the Raiders. I think they're going to name a new quarterback this week. That's what I'm guessing.

Steve: Wait, they're playing in Vegas? In Vegas. Yep. Yep. They just lost in Vegas.

Chris: Yep. Come on, H J. Come on.

Steve: It's a tough one.

Chris: It's not that hard.

Steve: It's just one name. I'm going with the brownies in the elf on the shelf.

Chris: All right. New York pizza. What do you got?

Sean from Slice of New York: I'm going to go with the better uniforms. I'm going with the Raiders. That's the Raiders.

Steve: Definitely. New York pizza. Nobody has worse uniforms in the brown.

Chris: Right. I'll tell you what, I, I, um, I hate the Browns. I just think, I just think they're a pathetic franchise. They are.

Marc: Even more, even as pathetic as the Commanders. Do you see a lot of yourself in them? Yes, I do.

Steve: I look in the mirror and I see Browns.

Sean from Slice of New York: Did you know that the Browns are the only team that isn't an actual thing? Yeah.

Steve: Everything else is a thing.

Chris: Yeah. It's a name. It's the Paul Brown. The Paul Browns.

Steve: Right. Yeah.

Chris: But you know, we had this argument, Steve and I had this, this, well, I wouldn't call it an argument. I would call it a debate in college. Philosophical. It was very philosophical. We, we went back at the time and looked at previous Superbowl winners.

Steve: We didn't go,

Chris: We always have a debate around here about the Super Bowl age, because during the modern age, the Eagles have only won one Super Bowl, you know. But we have four championships. Yeah, but that doesn't count. It doesn't count.

Steve: Stop with the pre-Super Bowl championship.

Marc: 59 and 60.

Steve: I mean, we weren't even alive.

Chris: concrete charlie i know nothing counts before 1970 get it in your head i know so so uh our our whole debate was was centered around the only teams that have won super bowls are teams that have logos that are actually real things right like the dallas cowboys logo is a star and cowboys are real

Steve: No, but it also had to do with the eagles, but they were green.

Chris: There's no such thing as a green eagle, right? You know, right. The Redskins had won Super Bowls and they had like a Redskin Indian and he represented a real Indian. Uh, who else did we get? The Patriots. Native American police. Yeah. That's a horrible term. It's a horrible term. They hate that term.

Marc: Yeah, you know all we're we're not having this debate.

Chris: You can't see that You know all about it. You can't see that looks like an angry white man. Anyway, so I am an angry I'm a very angry white man. Okay, we got a whole lot of comments coming in here and then we got to move on. So everybody's picking with us. The doctors picking the Cowboys, the Bills, the Browns, Yo-Ho Sun. The Panthers are the Southern Browns. Okay. Yeah, that's true. But they have better uniforms at least. Here it is. Mike Lawrence says, the loser should buy everybody dinner. at a slice in New York. How about that?

Steve: Oh yeah, that sounds sure.

Chris: Do you think you can manage to scrape up like a few bucks for a couple pizzas for us when you lose?

Marc: I'm just eating free.

Sean from Slice of New York: Well, if I lose, it doesn't cost me really anything.

Chris: Yeah, you come on every week and try. You'll probably overtake me sooner rather than later anyway. Yeah, probably this week. Okay. Alright, so we got our predictions in. Now, the Grand Schwabini has a prediction. Oh, that's right. Do you have a prediction?

Marc: Yes. So, for Sean who doesn't know, the Grand Schwabini is a name, you know, obviously 6-0. I won the predictions last year. I am the predictor, right? And, uh, you know, I refer to the spirits, the spirits that land in the lamp. Right. And they fester in the lamp and then they come up and poof, there it is right there in my brain.

Chris: Okay. So I need to type it in. So I need to get it here.

Marc: So the question was how many games will Russell Wilson play for the Pittsburgh Steelers this season as a starting quarterback? as a starting quarterback. Okay. And the answer is seven. Ooh, that's a big number. Seven is magic.

Steve: Seven.

Marc: Lucky number seven.

Steve: It just comes to him. Hey, you can't deny it. I don't know how, but it's there.

Chris: Okay. Okay. How did you do on the Paul Skeens prediction?

Marc: Uh,

Steve: The spirits were tricking him.

Marc: Well, I mean, the spirits are different this time of year. Yeah. The Paul schemes. I said he wouldn't win more than 10 games. Oh, and he did.

Sean from Slice of New York: He did. He's a beast. Yeah, he is a beast.

Chris: He's fun to watch. It's a shame that the franchise is in such shambles.

Sean from Slice of New York: I lost a lot of bets because as an outsider looking in on the pirates, I really thought they had something special this year and I thought that they were gonna

Steve: Well, they were supposed to, but I think next two years is when you really want to cash in on that.

Chris: Now, how many years have you been here? 20 some?

Sean from Slice of New York: 24.

Chris: Okay. You haven't learned your lesson yet?

Sean from Slice of New York: Well, and that's the thing I've always watched, but this season there was some different stuff happening that they've never done in my time here where they're signing free agents. Yeah. you know, they're, they're signing players to a longterm deal. Well, they did do that. So there's things happening within that organization that I think are very positive for the future. So as an outsider looking in just as a baseball guy, yeah, I think there's a lot to look forward to if you're a pirate fan.

Chris: Yeah. Uh, no,

Steve: Uh, I want to be optimistic again, but every time I do, I, all I can, all I can do is see Sid Bream sliding across town and then suddenly I'm just blown up is with skeins.

Sean from Slice of New York: If you're not going to hold onto them, abuse the shit out of them. Excuse my language, right? Right. Like, cause if he's going to be a Yankee in three years anyway, right, right. Why put innings limits on them? Maybe in two years and just go out there and destroy them.

Chris: Yeah. Right. They tried to with Garrett Cole, but they couldn't get it done. Yeah. But that's the thing about the pirates. And they pull you in with talk, talk, talk, and then they get off to a quick start. And then they regress to the mean, and then they do what the pirates always do.

Sean from Slice of New York: But I think you take away that 110 game losing streak that they had. You take that out of the equation, and they're right back in it.

Chris: Yeah, I think you're right, but they just don't have the personality to do it.

Steve: But that always happens every year with them, and that's also the problem. Yeah, but usually it's a lot worse.

Chris: Yeah. Are you going to bet on the pirates again a lot next year?

Sean from Slice of New York: Probably. I mean, I owe a lot of people money. He's a glove. And I have them written on my cash register.

Steve: So when they come in for the pizza, they get the discounted rate. Here's your pizza. Can you forget about that line? You also have a banned list in your shop, right? People who can't buy pizzas. We do. Yeah, we are. That's impressive.

Chris: There is somebody on your board that when I was watching the review with Portnoy and you pointed them out, my wife knows I'm going to say them because I don't want to give away gender or the person.

Sean from Slice of New York: Yeah, I already know who it is based on that comment. Yeah. But we are extremely anti-entitlement. So if you come into our shop with any level of entitlement or attitude of any kind, we just don't want you. And your name goes up.

Chris: Give me an example of entitlement that you would witness, because we all get entitlement, we know, but how does it affect you at a pizza shop?

Sean from Slice of New York: Okay, so it's five o'clock on a Friday night after Portnoy comes out. And we tell you that your pizza will be ready tomorrow at 1130. Yeah. And you're like, are you serious? I know who that is. We don't want you. Or, but then you have the people that are like, Oh my God, that's amazing. That's so great that that gave you such a boost to your business. They go on the wall of fame, right? But if your first reaction is you're kidding me. Oh my God. Like get out. Yeah. I don't even want to talk to you. Yeah. Right. We don't want you like, but the thing is so many businesses are so desperate for that customer that they just let that go and kiss their ass. And we just, We just won't do that.

Chris: I see that. I see that where I work. I do. I see it.

Sean from Slice of New York: It's disheartening is what it is. And I get deemed the jerk, you know, because we tell it how it is, but I would never act that way anywhere else. Like I'm the first person to wait in the longer line if the food is good. Right. Right. There's a reason why some places have no line and some places have a long line. Yeah. And I'd much rather wait in the long line. Same, same thing at Kennywood, right? The steel phantom always has the longer line, but you can get on the enterprise in two seconds. Right. Right. Why? The same thing, right? One's more popular and a little better than the other.

Chris: Well, and when it comes to, when it comes to like a small business, It's not like you're cranking pizzas out of, out of, uh, an AI machine or a, or a laser. What are those things called? Uh, you know what I'm talking about?

Sean from Slice of New York: The conveyor belt pizza. Yeah.

Chris: Yeah. It's not like you're pumping that stuff out. You put, you put work into it. Yeah. And people don't appreciate the fact that there's hard work goes behind it.

Sean from Slice of New York: So I think it's great. I blame Amazon. Yeah. Cause everybody just wants it and they want it now. Yeah. You know, and it's, uh,

Steve: Not me. I want my pizza to be right. I'll wait for whatever long it takes. Yeah. Yeah. Five minutes next day. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. No problem.

Chris: Well, unless it's like, unless it's, unless you've, unless you you're dumpster diving and you order dominoes in a pinch. And they're like, we can't get your pizza there. And you're just like, well, you know, screw you. I don't want your pizza.

Sean from Slice of New York: Why did I not get it? Domino's though. I'm not going to lie. Really? I crushed some Domino's. You like Domino's?

Steve: That's all we ate in college.

Marc: I had some Domino's in my time.

Sean from Slice of New York: In college we ate.

Steve: Wow. We ate a lot of Domino's in college.

Chris: Well, yeah, we did. I'm just saying that I am not a Domino's fan anymore.

Steve: Think about how much pizza we ate in college.

Chris: I do. I think about it every freaking day.

Steve: It's still there.

Chris: Um, okay. Uh, Yoho Sun says, Hey, technical director, the Redskins just got a TD. Um, Yoho Sun is not the Redskins. It's the commanders. He's trying to make you feel better. I don't give a shit about them anymore.

Sean from Slice of New York: I still call them the Redskins. Yeah. Well, I mean, you haven't watched football in 20 years, so they were back then. Indians are still the Indians. Yeah.

Marc: You don't belong to the Guardians. The big thing that gets me is like, OK, but if they're going to change, like, why are the brave still the brave? Why are the chief still the chief? Yes. Yeah. That's what doesn't make any sense.

Sean from Slice of New York: If it's going to be for one, it has to be for all. Right. Yeah.

Chris: And I don't think other than other than Cleveland's logo, Chief Yahoo, which was seriously disrespectful. I don't see anything wrong with any of those other names or you don't like Chief Wahoo. What do you have against Chief Wahoo? I have nothing personally against Chief Wahoo, but I can understand how some people would look at that and be like, I look at that and I think of Bugs Bunny.

Steve: I look at that and I think of Bugs Bunny. It's like a cartoonish character.

Marc: This is a big step for you showing a little bit of, you know, compassion for other people.

Chris: I have no compassion for anyone. None. Zero. All right. You make your bed. You, you stink it up yourself.

Steve: All right. All right. That's why you're not laying it.

Chris: We're moving on. We're moving on to, no, we're moving on to stump the Yenzer and right into, right into hockey. Jesus. After I check these comments, um, Yeah, shit, it will always be the Redskins. And Micah Cordera, anyone say Sean is the best yet? Do you know Micah?

Sean from Slice of New York: Micah Cordera? Yeah, he's a long time customer of ours. There you go.

Chris: Sean is the best.

Steve: We took the first 20 minutes of the show to say how great Sean is. You have to go back and watch it.

Chris: You have to go back and watch it. Tune in, Micah. All right, what is Stump the Yinzer? Well, every week our resident Yinzer, Steve, who has DNA Has Yinzer DNA all throughout his family. He has pierogi blood. We try to stump him with a question that's sports related. Our resident Philadelphian here will answer it as well. If Steve gets it wrong and Mark gets it right.

Steve: I guess Amy didn't take the challenge this week.

Chris: Well, she's on, she's watching, so she might, but I don't know if she's going to get it.

Marc: Maybe show yourself. She may have fallen asleep.

Steve: Yeah. Yeah. She tends to do that. Unless she's still cheering for that touchdown. She could be. Hopefully Daniel's through it.

Chris: By the way, the stuff the answer question is on the ticker right now. How many seasons did it take the Penguins to make the playoffs after Mario joined the team?

Steve: Playoffs? Yes. Okay. Well, let's see. He was in 1984. They didn't make the playoffs until the 90s, so six years. Schwaber?

Marc: That is incorrect. Five years.

Chris: We have ourselves a new Yinzer.

Marc: Oh!

Chris: You looked at the answer. You looked at the answer.

Marc: No, he just was like, that's too long.

Chris: It's got to be shorter. Yeah. It is five years. Very good. Excellent. Okay.

Steve: We're going to move on to something that's actually the sixth year, but you know, we won't go in the technicals.

Chris: Okay. So hockey Jesus is in the house. And in case you don't know this, you can catch hockey Jesus on the sports porch after every single fricking penguins game, he gets on and he pontificates on where the penguins are going from there. He hasn't missed a game in two years, every single hockey game. He watches every game. Even when he's on the other side of the world, he somehow finds a way to like put up the rabbit ears. So, Hockey Jesus, you said there was a game. There was a preseason game. We talked about Sydney signing last week. Sydney signed last week. Alright, so lay it on us.

Steve: Here's the deal. Are you ready? No. Hockey is back, baby, and I love it. Unfortunately, the Penguins did lose their first preseason game, 7-3. It was a bloodbath. Actually, it was 1-1 after the first period. They scored six goals in the second period. Ouch. Well, yeah, it was ugly. Who was who was in goal? So this is what I want to talk about briefly, because I know, you know, we don't have a lot of time. We want to get to what we're watching and stuff like that. But Bloomquist was in goal. He was the guy that everybody was like, bring him up. The guy looks so small in goal. He looks like the goal is up here, you know, like the peewee. And it's just like he can't even stand tall enough to like block the whole goal.

Chris: So they have a midget goaltender. Seriously, that's a little extreme. Well, that's the way you made it sound. I mean, if you but yes, I think yes, little person.

Sean from Slice of New York: Yeah.

Steve: little person.

Marc: What's the difference? Vertically challenged. Yeah.

Steve: I mean, so it just, it just looks weird. Like, you know, when you saw Magnus last year, that guy was huge, right? Let's like his torso was like below the goal, right? And his body was like this. So when he, when he got down in the squat, he was basically like that walrus and that commercial just covering the whole net. Yeah. Bloomquist isn't this guy but he is fast. So it's it's interesting like like Dominic Hasek wasn't a big goalie, right? But he one of the best goalies ever the play of the game so he could be like that, but he's not like that yet He's definitely not like that yet. He needs a lot more work. I like his mechanics look good to me, but I Let's face it, Buffalo had basically their starting lineup in, and the Penguins took all their rookies and played them.

Marc: So, I mean, anytime that happens… So, essentially you're saying that Bloomquist needs to bloom.

Steve: He does need to bloom in the minors, down in Wilkes-Barre. Blossoming has yet to occur. Yes. I think he will, but he definitely did not. He was not blooming on Saturday. No, he actually got got kicked out.

Chris: OK, so in the whole grand scheme of things, this really means nothing.

Steve: No, it doesn't mean anything. But what I did notice was Rutger McGrory, their their guide, they got the guy you were right. Yeah. He is not going to fit in well with the Penguins. And I'm going to tell you why real briefly. He has no speed and Sullivan will not play him if he doesn't have any speed. Now, I like what he did in the offensive, in the defensive zones, in the corners. I thought he was really good at getting to the puck and getting the puck out. But the kid has no speed skating up and down the ice. Can you say fourth line? Yeah, right. That's exactly who he is. He's a mucker and a grinder on the fourth line. Are you a hockey fan at all?

Sean from Slice of New York: I used to be a massive hockey fan.

Chris: Rangers or Islanders? Devils.

Steve: Oh, he likes that trap game in 1995.

Sean from Slice of New York: The trap game in 95. I was actually at the game when they hoisted their first cup ever.

Steve: Yeah, that's good for you. I've never been at a hoisting of a cup.

Sean from Slice of New York: Yeah, it was a cool experience. But I used to go to a lot of Flyers games, too, because we lived during my teenage years in central Jersey. My dad used to just get tickets from work. So we would get either get to get more Flyers tickets. So we but I used to go to a lot of Flyers Penguins games back in the day. Oh, yeah, great rivalry.

Steve: Oh, my God, just a bloodbath.

Chris: We had a good, we had a good time at a Flyers Canadiens playoff game. We did. Yeah. We met Tommy Lasorda. Oh nice. Yeah. It was a, it was a drunken night.

Steve: No, we were actually, we were actually at the Phillies game.

Chris: You were at the Phillies game. We got kicked out of the Phillies game. Drank another half keg and then snuck into the Flyers game.

Steve: Hey, everybody's leaving the Flyers game.

Marc: Let's see if we can get in. What actually happened was Tommy Lasorda left the game He walked right out as we were trying to walk in. He said, here, take these tickets. No way. And so then we were right behind the glass of the Canadians bench. That's cool. And this was the game where Hextal came out the center ice. And tried to beat the hell out of Chelios.

Chris: He didn't actually do it, but yeah, no, no. And that's back in the day when you could go back in cause they have one, two sides of the ticket stuff. Right. Right. Yeah. So we got a bunch, people were giving us our tickets, but they didn't have both sides on it. But Lasorda and I got Tommy Lasorda to sign my pledge book. Yeah. As he was getting into his limo, I was like, Tommy, Tommy, you gotta sign my pledge book. And I gave, we had to use fountain pens and he pulled the fountain pen out and the ink went all over his hand. And I was like, Oh my God, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I was like, don't worry about a kid.

Steve: In the limo and off he went so after Brodeur retired I kind of fell off a hockey a little bit because that was just oh Yeah, and then after that it wasn't the same and I just can't well I promise I promise my disciples that will not happen when Sidney retires I will be in it for the he was before during after all of it So yeah, it's gonna be it's it's I I haven't put together my preseason spectacular But I can tell you the first 10 games for the for these Pittsburgh Penguins are gonna be rough Peace be with you. Thank you. And also with you, Mark.

Chris: All right. You can find the Hockey Jesus on the Sports Porch podcast on YouTube at the Sports Porch podcast. After every single Penguins game, subscribe, leave us a review. Regular season, whatever.

Steve: I didn't do a pre-season.

Chris: Yeah, not gonna do that. So, last thing of the evening, and maybe Sean will join us, and maybe he can think on his feet here. He seems to be able to do that. This is something we call what we are watching. And what is that? Well, there are millions of streaming services out there, it seems like anyway. And there's all kinds of different things that you can find that you want to watch, that you might not want to watch. You could spend a whole day looking for stuff. I mean, I've spent literally probably weeks of my life looking for something to watch. Watching trailers. Started watching shit, stopped watching shit. So what do we do? We tell you what you should watch and what you shouldn't watch. And lately we've had a couple things we've said not to watch. Yeah, don't watch.

Marc: It's really a good service.

Chris: Yeah, it is. And it's free right now. So yeah, absolutely. So we're going to start with the Grand Schwabini. He watched a movie called

Marc: bottoms that looks awful i have to say this this is one i i got news for you this is probably oh it's on prime okay i just watched it yesterday all right but i'm guessing i'm guessing that this is in the midst of becoming a cult classic oh Kind of kind of like in the realm of like a Napoleon dynamite cult classic.

Steve: Yeah, I love that movie.

Marc: It's uh, it's really It's really fucked up That's good. I like it what it is. So basically it's like okay. There's these two girls who are in high school and they're lesbians. All right.

Chris: I'm liking it even more now. All right.

Marc: I mean, what's the hate here? And they're, they're both really attracted to cheerleaders and the cheerleaders just won't give them the time of day.

Steve: Got it. It's better and better. It sounds like Mike. Oh no, I dated a cheerleader.

Marc: One of them is the, uh, one of them is like the sous chef in the bear. Okay. Um, so like, you know, she's pretty big now and believe it or not, it's a great show by the way. Yeah. Yeah. Believe it or not, there's a, uh, sort of like a guest sort of appearance, but he's in it like throughout the movie. Marshawn Lynch, he plays a teacher. Right. He's actually pretty good at it.

Chris: Yeah. Okay. It's surprising. Does he play a serious teacher? No.

Marc: So basically this is basically what happened. Nobody's noticing these girls and they're kind of like losers and they're like, we have to do something to get noticed. Right. So, you know, Amy's already disagreeing with you.

Steve: But we would expect that, by the way.

Marc: So basically some rumor kind of gets out there that like over summer they were in juvie. And so they kind of got caught up like in like, you know, telling the lie. And so then what they do is they form a girls fight club. Oh, my gosh. Nice. Marshawn Lynch is like, you know, their advisor.

Chris: This is. This is clearly this is clearly something that's on late night show time. I love this.

Steve: This is this sounds great.

Marc: Actually, it's actually it's actually pretty frickin funny. I thought it was pretty.

Steve: But now one hour, 20 minutes.

Marc: Yeah. Like the parts of this are totally idiotic. Right. Like the guys on the football team go to class in their entire football uniform with their shoulder pads. I mean, it's insanely stupid, but it's like so stupid. It's actually fucking fun.

Steve: Yeah, I mean, I'm in on this. I'm in on this. Yeah, you got it. I owe you one.

Chris: I owe you one. Okay, well, you can pay all you want for that. Bottoms movie.

Steve: I got prime. It's not going to cost me anything.

Chris: Hj is watching something on Netflix.

Steve: This is called the circle. And the circle is, of course, a reality show. And the reality show goes like this. People come in and out, but you can only interact through the screen. You don't actually get to see who is on the other side of the screen. So you have to create a profile and you can say certain things about yourself. And you can either be that person or not be that person. But what you want to do is you're trying to create a person that somebody would like. So they vote for you so you can vote other people out of this house. And they all have their own rooms. And it's really kind of kitschy. And honestly, it has seven seasons, believe it or not. It sounds like a dating app. It is. Yeah. And, and it's like, I, this is season four. I have watched the other three seasons. So actually I could give a review of the other ones, but they're all the same. There are some people come in and have a fake profile. They're like a hot, a hot girl. And they're just like, maybe you and me. Right. Right. And then like, Oh, I'm starting to like this actually. And then, and then what can happen is like, after you get voted out, like you can, you have to visit somebody and you have to, I, I, you have to say, this is my true identity and people get blown away. They're like, Oh my God, I never thought you were a 40 year old woman.

Chris: So you can actually, you can, you, you go into these rooms, virtual rooms. Yeah. Well, you're here. I think I saw you have your own room, but you're communicating via a computer only through the computer with no no photograph.

Steve: They do. They do kitschy things like like last year. Oh, like this in this season, the Spice Girls brought it. Oh, right. And they weren't they weren't themselves. They weren't the Spice Girls. But what ended up happening was they ended up if they couldn't guess who the Spice Girls were from all the profiles, then they added like $50,000 to the pot. It's like $100,000 that you win. So they ended up not guessing who the Spice Girls were. So they ended up winning $150,000 at the end of this season, as opposed to $100,000. I like Posh Spice. This is that posh wasn't in it it was uh uh baby spice and uh the one that does the uh athletic spice scary spice scary yeah yeah scary it sounds like like a like an aol chat room from it's really nice that's kind of that's kind of the way it is that's how that's the only way you can know who these people are and like people come in and come out. So it's like some people aren't there the whole time. Like there are six people and then like two people get voted out and then they bring four people in. And then sometimes you can like look at somebody's profile and you don't get voted on, but you can vote somebody out. So you kind of have an advantage. It's, it's interesting, but trust me, after four seasons, like I'm, I'm done with it.

Marc: I can't, I can't do what I want, what I really want.

Steve: It's over.

Marc: Trust me, it's over.

Chris: Zig-a-zag-a-zag. So, it strikes me though that Steve has a pattern to his watching.

Marc: It's a lot of reality.

Chris: Yeah, it's a lot of like, want to be away from this life that I actually love stuff.

Steve: Don't we all when we watch shows? I mean, Mark was thinking he was a football player like 30 seconds ago. He was, yeah. Or a lesbian. I'm not sure which one.

Marc: I just like hanging out with all the girls. All right, you're up.

Chris: Okay.

Marc: Uh, Chris, now Chris is, you know, his thing is it's almost always a documentary. It's almost always about, it's almost always a conspiracy theory. Like those two. Now are we right on target today?

Steve: Crime and misdemeanor.

Chris: Well, your TD is watching something called what? Love has won the cult of mother God.

Steve: Oh, whoa. I wasn't expecting that.

Chris: Well, it is a documentary in three parts. Yes. And apparently it is about a woman whose real name was Amy Carlson. And at some point in her life, she decided that she just needed to get away. So she went, she got away. And she also at the same time decided that God was a woman and it was her. Hmm. And three could be, can't say not through the internet. She found followers. Okay. Okay. And these people flocked to her.

Marc: I think that's a flop. Because she's a god.

Chris: I'm gonna bottom line this for you. It's really simple. alcoholism, weird, uh, silver colloidal silver. Have you ever heard of that? All right. I can tell you a little bit about it. She basically surrounded herself with like-minded people who believe that she was also mother God and was going to ascend into heaven and then drank herself to death. That's pretty much what it was. Yeah. That's a plot twist. Did you like Like it actually, the first episode started to drag a little bit where I was kind of like, all right, I get the premise. Okay. Let's, let's, let's spice it up. Let's get to whatever. But at the very end of it, they're like, and then this is when the money started to come in. And I was like, ah, there's the hook. It's either money or sex. I'm one of the two moving on. And I thought we were going to go down the road of money, sex abuse, you know, all the great things in life that a cult has to offer. Absolutely. the reason you sign up and don't drink the Kool-Aid at the end. We didn't get there, though. But but so so I do have to say, out of respect for the people who are still around, that there was no there was no sexual abuse. There was no pedophilia. There was no any any violence or anything. It was basically these people were just Blank with their lives and they had nowhere to go and they found her online and they started this community and they were Helping mother god because mother god is the god of all earth and she's taking She's taking on all of this pain for all of mankind and womankind and she's gonna ascend So they basically assisted her in drinking herself to death.

Marc: She did a scent. I think after hearing this review I've seen most of it you have. Yes. Thank you. You're welcome

Chris: But here's the really weird thing. Here's the weird thing. There's more. Well, there was, there was, he always does this to me. This is, this is, this is par for the course. So now the really weird thing was she was taking this supplement called colloidal silver. I have no idea what it is. I literally finished this documentary today around two in the afternoon. So I'm going to look it up cause I'm curious, but, but it's touted as like these faith healing people as a supplement that you can drink that is all powerful and healing. And apparently it's like as poisonous as cyanide, you know, like it's like not good for you at all, but it takes a long time. over this time as she was getting her liver was going into cirrhosis and organ failure over years and years and years of drinking and drinking and drinking and smoking pot and all that other kind of stuff. She slowly started to turn silver.

Sean from Slice of New York: Interesting.

Chris: And when she died, like they show they have in real time actual videos because this cult documented this stuff. I'm telling you, she looked like the Silver Surfer. I swear to God, it was the weirdest, oddest thing ever.

Marc: Are you sure these weren't the same people that did Alien Autopsy? Yes, I'm positive.

Chris: Which is another true story. Okay. It's a true story. All right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Marc: So thinking on your feet, you got a good show to recommend. I do have a good show.

Sean from Slice of New York: All right. Lay it on us. I'm watching industry HBO. Yeah. I heard that's good. And it is, it's almost like, I think the best way to describe it would be if succession love it. He loves succession and billions.

Steve: Oh, See, I didn't watch billions. Billions was awesome.

Sean from Slice of New York: If they had a baby. Oh, no. Okay. All right. You would, you would have industry, but it may actually exist. This is not confirmed. It may actually exist in the same world as succession.

Steve: Oh, right.

Sean from Slice of New York: That would make sense.

Chris: So, so they haven't had any crossover.

Sean from Slice of New York: There was one thing said one time, but it, but it could mean that it's in the same world or it could mean that they watched the show in that world. So, yeah.

Chris: Was that like all over the internet? Like, Oh my God, they said this.

Sean from Slice of New York: I'm not sure people caught it. Like I caught it. Right. Basically somebody showed up and somebody was like, why are you dressed up like Kendall Roy? Yeah. You know, but that can mean a lot of different things. But the show is fantastic. Also, if you're watching, there's these reviews on YouTube on, uh, with a one bite app where they do pizza reviews. Those are really good to watch. All right. Nice.

Marc: Awesome slice of New York.

Sean from Slice of New York: Yeah. Yeah, there was an episode on them. Yeah recently. It was pretty good. Yeah slice in New York.

Steve: Yeah 8.2. I've heard 8.2 get your pizzas now order now for for Friday.

Sean from Slice of New York: We are taking pre-order starting tomorrow through the rest of the week

Chris: There you go. Pre-order. Unbelievable. Slice of New York pizza. Sean, there he is right there. If you're watching us live on Facebook or watching the video, cranking out some pizza in his shop out there in Murraysville slash export. Um, that's the logo. You can look them up online, right? Yep. Slicenewyorkpizza.com.

Sean from Slice of New York: Slicenewyorkpizzeria.com or on Instagram with underscores in between each word, but New York and. all over Facebook mostly.

Chris: All right, well, listen, Sean, thanks so much for the pizza. It really is fantastic. There's no joke there at all. Thank you. It is the best pizza I've had in Pittsburgh, and I've been here a long time.

Sean from Slice of New York: I appreciate you guys having me. This was a lot of fun, and maybe we can do a return and guest appearances.

Chris: We would love that. Well, you've got to come back and make predictions again. We'll get you back into football. You'll enjoy it. You'll enjoy it.

Sean from Slice of New York: I need a reason.

Chris: All right, boys. Well, listen. If you're watching this right now on Facebook, on LinkedIn, on YouTube, on X on the gram. And of course, I'm going to drop the podcast right after the show, right after the show on the I heart radio app, Apple podcast, Spotify, or anywhere you get your frigging podcast for the grand 12 beanie for hockey Jesus. Thank you again to Sean at a slice of New York pizza. All right, Sean, I'm your technical director and I am out.