SPEAKER_01 0:16

Welcome to Split the Corner. What can we get you?

SPEAKER_03 0:23

So funny story. Um when I was in college, I had a you know, back in the day when everybody had cell phones with voicemails and ringtones and things, right? Not nowadays when it's like text me or die. Um I did an entire uh voicemail message in a in a fake Irish accent, and I didn't think anything of it. And then two months or so later, my mom was like, Would you call your grandmother? She's pretty convinced she has the wrong number.

SPEAKER_00 1:00

With that being said, happy St. Patrick's Day to everyone at the Split the Corner podcast. Thank you very much for joining us here. Uh, I'm Kaz. This is Kyle. And uh, as always, we're we're gonna have a little bit of a bar conversation. So grab yourself again, and uh, we're gonna talk St. Patrick's Day because if I keep doing this accent, people are gonna get upset.

SPEAKER_01 1:28

Happy St. Patrick's Day, everybody. Kaz, I will be the one to break this down real quick. And I am not a fan of St. Patrick's Day.

SPEAKER_03 1:45

I was just gonna throw that to you because it's because it's a bit of a bar holiday, right? Like we say that you know, Valentine's Day is a you know a commercial holiday and gifts and flowers and cards and stuff, but St. Patrick's Day is especially in America, uh, is a holiday best spent at the bar, right? So does that is that what does it? Is it the is it the over commercialization? Is it the fact that you know you're working at triple shift that's gonna start at 7 a.m. with green beer and kegs and eggs?

SPEAKER_01 2:23

Yes, it's exactly what it is. The idea for me is that there are several holidays out there that bring out amateurs. I'm not talking about the people that go out regularly and have a good time. This is the people that come out and don't know how to behave in a bar. And I've worked many, many St. Patrick's Days, and the the other holidays include Cinco de Mayo, uh anything that has uh an express at the end of it. Uh for those in Philadelphia, there's the Santa Express, there's the Aaron Express, and it's just a bunch of people in costumes on a bus, and they come to your bar and they act like morons for about an hour and a half, then they move on. In your town, they might call it a stumble. Or a crawl. Yeah. But those are the holidays that always bring out the worst kind of bar patrons. There are people that come to bars and know how to behave and know that, hey man, the guy behind the bar is working, and there's a bunch of people here, and most of them are being dicks. Those aren't the people that come to St. Patty's Day and Cinco de Mayo and all these. It's a bunch of people that just act like morons and don't know how things are supposed to go. I would add New Year's Eve to that. 100%. Uh, the night before Thanksgiving is a big one. Is a big one.

SPEAKER_03 3:47

Yeah. And then and then on a tier just slightly below that, sort of a 1A, 1B, both Mother's Day, uh, brunch and Easter brunch. Just nightmare shifts. Just you are like you said, it is it is amateur hour. You are about to listen to 14 straight tables not be able to pronounce the word quiche. You know, like it, it's it's going to be one of those days guaranteed. I it wouldn't it be nice, right? To the the way that we pay all this extra money on New Year's to go to a nice quiet place, right? You know, like you're not gonna pay the the hundred bucks a head to go dance to some cool in the gang cover band. You're gonna go like spend the real money and have a nice, quiet, classy New Year's. It'd be really cool if one of our Irish bars would just, you know, like I could see like plowing stars doing it where they're just like, no, we're no, we're gonna do 50 bucks a head. There's gonna not even, not even an Irish band. We hired a storyteller. You can come and sip on some classic stuff and just have a nice quiet St. Patrick's Day. That that would be, I would spend money on that. That's a ticket I would buy.

SPEAKER_01 5:14

Yeah, yeah. I mean, especially now that we're older, but even when I was younger, I mean, you know, I started in the restaurant industry pretty young, so I don't recall very many instances where I wasn't working on a St. Patrick's Day or on a Cinco de Mayo or anything related to that. So I think I saw the other side of it before I saw the good side of it, you know? And perhaps that has jaded me a bit. But the fact of the matter is you go in on a St. Patty's Day at 7 a.m. You know you're not going home until probably close to three or four in the morning. Yeah, you might make a bunch of money, but you've also probably been hit or thrown up on, or you had to nimbly avoid stepping in someone else's bodily fluids at one point while you're on your way to the kitchen to try to get some haggis or whatever it is that your bar is serving to try to be culturally appropriate on that day. Corn beef and who cares? Yeah, there you go. It's just a really tough day for a bartender. And you might come in there with a bunch of energy and you might be rip-worn and ready to go. You might even have a leprechaun costume that you save for just that event and you go in. But I tell you what, man, if you're in there at 7 a.m. by about 10:30 in the morning, you've you've expended it. And those next 12 to 14 hours are going to be real miserable for you. It's true.

SPEAKER_03 6:41

Um, and the other side of it isn't great. I mean, I went to college up in the Poconos, and and Scranton has one of the biggest parade, the the biggest St. Patrick's Day parades in the country, um, you know, outside of Boston and all the obvious places. And we would just, you know, you'd you'd get someone to to designated drive you over to Scranton and drop you off, and and you come back a couple days later, and that's we're just gonna figure it all out. And it's it's messy. It it's one of those things. Uh like you said, uh, someone is cleaning up vomit. Someone. If it's if it's not you, then seniority is alive and well at your establishment, but someone is going to at some point. So that that beer you're making all day long, you are earning that money.

SPEAKER_01 7:37

And I hate to say this, but oftentimes vomit is probably the least disgusting thing you'll be cleaning up at some point during the day. Or as you said, someone will be cleaning up. It's just a rough, rough shift, man. And honestly, you know, you do make a bunch of money. Like, that's that's really nice. But I I can remember sitting there being like, was this worth it? You know, I smell like whatever I've had spilled on me multiple times that day. My feet hurt in places that I didn't know that they could. I'm like, I'm I'm I'm anxious for some reason, but I mean it doesn't suck to walk out with that lot of cash in your pocket.

SPEAKER_03 8:22

That kind of anxious you feel when there's a gunshot somewhere in your neighborhood. It's not an anxious as much as it's I'm just generally on edge and every nerve is fried.

SPEAKER_01 8:34

Yeah. Yeah. Well, how about from a historical standpoint? What do you do you know anything about was there actually a real St. Patrick? Was that story about the snakes actually being druids? Is that true? Do you know?

SPEAKER_03 8:48

That's the way I understand it. I haven't done an excessive amount of research into you know the the man, the myth, the legend. Um, but I understand it that Ireland never never really had snakes to begin with, and that that is all a big metaphor, right?

SPEAKER_01 9:07

So the story goes for those who don't know, the story is that St. Patrick, and I'm going to paraphrase greatly for this, but St. Patrick was in Ireland, and the story goes that there were snakes in Ireland, and he drove them all out somehow. And then you come to find out as his history goes on and more people are investigating the story for its historical accuracy, you find out that the snakes were a metaphor for druids. So that's pleasant.

SPEAKER_03 9:39

So he becomes a saint because he converted all of Ireland by driving out the pig and snakes. Right? But in my head, all I see is a cartoon leprechaun guy with a shillely hitting snakes in the head.

unknown 9:54

Right?

SPEAKER_03 9:54

Thank you, Looney Tunes. Running around in the in the clovers, whacking them in the dome, and and you know, one more down, and you know, he's just slinging it over his shoulder and moving on to the next one. He's regular Johnny Appleseed of the Isle of Ireland. I don't know, man. That's such a that's a wild story, though. It does make me think about how these things become socially acceptable through a giant game of telephone over the years and years and years, right? Like at some point we we just started accepting that like we're all gonna get really drunk because this guy got all the snakes off an island. And and everybody just went with it, right? Like like it it reminds me of like the the sporting events where where you can go and sit and like and like they play a song that you wouldn't normally sing along with, but it's become tradition that you go do this now. So you know, you're you're sitting at a basketball game and they do, you know, they do Sweet Caroline or something like that, and you're like, I don't even like this song, but I like this moment and I needed a reason to celebrate something, so I'm just gonna hop on board, right? Like we're we're just we're I don't want to say desperate for a need to celebrate, but boy, do we take any opportunity given. Right? Especially, especially as as drinking Americans that are like everyone's Irish on St. Patrick's Day, which is great because everyone's about to be Mexican in May. So, you know, we we are whatever culture is handing out free beer. That's what we're all gonna be German in September, right? Like that that's just what we do. We're just like, hey, your culture drinks. So uh what day? I didn't have anything going on. That's that sounds like fun.

SPEAKER_01 11:58

I'm going to choose a shirk all of my responsibilities on this one day and get plastered as a celebration of a culture that I don't belong to. Cheers.

SPEAKER_03 12:09

Right. What color are we wearing? And they'll and they'll have that at Walmart on it.

SPEAKER_02 12:14

It's funny though that if you go to Walmart to shop for clothing for specific holidays, like let's say Ireland or Mexico or whatever, it's St.

SPEAKER_01 12:24

Patty's Day or it's single de mayo, and everybody's like, let me gobble up all these clothes and things.

SPEAKER_02 12:29

But then it comes to Oktoberfest and it's Germany, so people are kind of hesitant to put on any kind of German wear.

SPEAKER_03 12:37

You get that one that one t-shirt that's actually Lederhosen that's but it's a t-shirt. Right. They don't want to put German flags on anything, right? Or other symbols. Uh yeah.

SPEAKER_02 12:50

So anyway.

SPEAKER_03 12:55

Can't Oktoberfest just be Austrian and we'll just do that instead.

SPEAKER_02 13:01

If we moved it to Finland, no one would have a problem.

SPEAKER_03 13:04

You know what Finland's not doing right now that we're that we just started? College basketball. Do you watch the tournament? Speaking of things that that are that are fun to do in bars.

SPEAKER_02 13:17

Watch college basketball.

SPEAKER_03 13:18

Yeah, it it was always the time to have a game on, right? There's always a game on now, and and we got college basketball, and you and you're filling out your bracket for, you know, and everybody becomes an expert in February, and and all of a sudden we're, you know, we went from not knowing anything about college basketball to you know, Gonzaga is a hill that we will all die on, sort of thing, and and never again you do you get into it, right? You do you fill out a bracket?

SPEAKER_01 13:45

I fall squarely into the camp of people who could give two shits until about tournament time. Like I've started watching, you know, they're doing all the the the ACC tournament and the Big Ten tournament and all that. And I'm I'm watching here and there, but I think this goes down to another aspect of something that we talked about a couple episodes ago where if there's sports on and it's like the daytime, yeah. You know, I mean, if it's meaningful in some way, if it's a tournament game, if it's whatever, like yeah, I'm in, I'm in now. But I don't follow college basketball very closely throughout the year, and it's the same reason I don't follow college football that closely. It's because there's so many colleges and there's so many things going on, and it's impossible to keep up with, at least from my end, because in the time that I'm not you know focused on the Eagles, I'm focused on the Phillies. If I'm not focused on the Phillies, I'm probably focused on the Eagles, and back and forth and back and forth and back and forth it goes. But trying to put Iowa Votec College or whatever and their nationally ranked basketball team for the first time in 312 years into my brain and letting it stay there, I just don't think I have the capacity for it. I'm with you.

SPEAKER_03 15:02

I for me, I I thought it was more of a a basketball thing that you know I need I need sort of the the playoff atmosphere. I need the games to matter more. That's how I care about the first quarter, right? If I know that that that it's a winner-go home type game, then those first quarter points mean a lot more to me as opposed to a regular season where you know I'm pretty sure it's gonna come down to the the last five or six minutes anyway, so I'll be back. You know, like it if it's if it's a tournament and those points all matter. I know you can make the argument that, well, you know, in every game all the points matter, but you know, sometimes those regular season games are hard to focus on. Um once the tournament comes around, uh, you know, you put a bracket together, it gives you something to talk about, organizes a conversation a little bit more, and and and put something at stake, right? Because everybody, you know, it's like buying the squares at the at the Super Bowl party, right? For most people I don't even know if that's true anymore. I was gonna say for most people, that's kind of the height of your gambling, right? Like I might go to a Super Bowl party and and I'll give you four dollars for some squares on the on the poster board, you know, and then then the tournament rolls around and like, yeah, I'll I'll I'll buy a five dollar bracket, you know, and and see if I can win a couple bucks and how far I can get. But I do think I need the the stakes. I think I need it to mean something.

SPEAKER_01 16:37

Well, that's why the tournament's so much fun to watch, man. You know, there are the Cinderella stories to it. There's the the is the number one team gonna be able to finish their story, that kind of element. And I absolutely get heavily invested. And I do a bunch of research a couple days before the tournament starts, and I'll you know, look up stats and I'll do all of this, and I'll put my teams down and I'll die on hills for teams that I probably couldn't care about any less throughout the rest of the year. But for those two weeks, if I pick a number 12 seed to hit that final four and they do it, I've invested a lot of emotion into this team. I've a voted, I've I now know the guys on the squad, I know their weaknesses, I know their strengths. I know that in seventh grade they were nine feet tall and they could dunk. Those are things that I like to keep an eye on at that point. But up until then, I really don't care about it.

SPEAKER_03 17:35

You heard it here first, everybody. Kyle bases his bracket picks on how tall you were in seventh grade.

SPEAKER_01 17:40

So far, that strategy has been completely unsuccessful. I think my entire bracket was done last year by the first round.

SPEAKER_03 17:49

I don't think I did one last year. I gotta make sure I get one in this year. That way we can follow up on that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 17:57

On my on my on my height strategy. Basketball is is a game that I really enjoy watching. I really do enjoy the NBA. I've been a Sixers fan a very, very long time, even though over the last couple years I've been so disenfranchised with the state of that organization that it's been difficult to really get excited about anything. But basketball ranks ranks up there with me. I do enjoy watching it, and we've had a really good run of incredibly talented basketball players in the NBA over the last 15, 20 years, whatever it is. And we got to see a lot of people that I think will be considered all-time greats. So the NBA has been a lot of fun to watch. The officiating is trash, but that's a story for another time. Where does basketball rank among your uh favorites to watch?

SPEAKER_03 18:48

Not particularly high, and I think that is tied into how hard it's been to be a Philadelphia basketball fan for the past however many years. Um I am not I'm not a big MB'd guy. Um, I was a big AI fan, so like, you know, I I did enjoy watching it more back then. Um but I think I think basketball lends itself to more personal dramas, right? More personal rivalries than you know, than uh football, it's it's there, but it's usually in the headliners, right? Where you'll have like a oh, this is you know Jalen Hurts versus Mahomes and you know Nick Foles versus Tom Brady, and like you they create these matchups where realistically Jalen Hurts and Patrick Mahomes are never on the field at the same time. So, you know, meanwhile, when it's AI versus Jordan or AI versus Kobe or Kobe versus Jordan or Steph Curry versus LeBron James, at some point those guys are looking eye to eye. You know, like you are playing defense against that person, and and I think it it lends itself to to very dramatic moments um in that way where you know you can see the faces, you can see you know the sweat pouring off the brow, and it you know, the reactions to every moment where you know hockey creates lots of drama, but everyone's in helmets and masks and skating very fast, and it's hard to see. And it you know, same thing with soccer. You have your you have your places on the field where you know people come together, but a soccer field for the most part, like a football field, is a lot of open space. You know, a basketball court is is compact, in your face, quick back and forth, and it it it creates a lot of drama. So uh to make a long story long, I need the Sixers to get better. Um but uh because they are where they are, and and Ben Simmons dragged us through the mud and and M B got us, you know, close and then got hurt, and then not close, but got hurt anyway, and all of the nonsense that we've been through as fans, I've drifted. So I would say I would say I'm I'm more likely to watch a basketball movie now than I am to watch actual basketball.

SPEAKER_01 21:43

You know, you brought up a really interesting point there. It really is the only game I can think of that is particularly skill versus skill on such a one on one basis. So yeah, that's a great point.

SPEAKER_03 21:55

Look at the you know, baseball is gonna say that the the Phillies are playing the Yankees. So it's Bryce Harper versus Aaron Judge. Not really. I mean, kind of, in like a side-by-side sort of thing, but at no point do Bryce Harper and Aaron Judge face off on the field.

SPEAKER_01 22:16

Yeah, those Kobe versus LeBron moments, you know, AI crossing up Jordan, that kind of stuff, that that is real drama. That is the stuff that legends get made out of. Bird versus Irving, you know? Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 22:31

Back and forth for an entire game where all the other players sort of fade away and and you're left with this, you know, this this Goliath versus Goliath moment, right? Like it it doesn't it it happens in baseball if you phrase it correctly, right? Like if you say the Phillies take on Paul Skeens, you know, like that, alright, yeah, yeah, we do. Um but it to to when you look at it like the the Jalen Hurts versus Patrick Mahomes example, you know, like okay, commanders of two offenses versus defenses versus like it's kind of a stretch to say these guys are gonna go up against each other.

SPEAKER_01 23:17

That's a really good way to put that. I've never really considered basketball like that, but you you talk about baseball as a team game, right? It's a team game, but baseball comes down to an individual's efforts versus another individual's efforts. And I think you can make that same argument for basketball. Either, you know, this guy's gonna dime you up and be able to cross you over and do all this good stuff, or you're gonna be able to get your hand in there and play a little defense. It doesn't matter if he passes to another guy, you're still on that guy. If he doesn't have the ball, you're still on him. Whereas in baseball, if you're the left fielder, yeah, you're worrying about the first the guy on first base, but you're worried more about the guy hitting the ball to you. So you're not necessarily concentrating on one person. In basketball, it is mono a mano. Let's see who's better.

SPEAKER_03 24:13

At all the same things, right? Because at any point in time, any person on a professional basketball court can put the team on their back, take over an entire game, and be the single and sole reason for a win. Right? And and we've seen it with the greats for years upon years, where you know, Kobe will put up 80, or it, you know, Jordan will get the flu, and all of a sudden, you know, he's a he's a force of nature that can't miss a shot, or you know, Bird calls the whole game playing left-handed because he was just that good. You know, like you see it in in basketball. It at no point in Jason Kelsey's career, which is a Hall of Fame career, and he is one of the greatest ever to play his position ever in the history of anything. At no point could Jason Kelsey put the Eagles on his back and win us a game. You know, at no point could Fletcher Cox put the team on his back and win us a game. You know, there there might be those moments, but it, you know, David Akers isn't going off for 80 because you know he felt some sort of way. And it, you know, like it just it gives such an opportunity for for you to have to play a complete game. You play offense, you play defense, and you do so at at a almost a twitch rate of switching back and forth. Right? It's not it's not even a a hockey where you're a defenseman that kind of gets up a little bit. Like, no, you you have a play in the offense and a play on defense, and you have to be equally as good at both, or we're gonna notice. You know, if you had a if we had a defender on the Flyers that didn't score a goal all season, would would we know? Is that is that a thing of note? But if there's any player on that basketball team that doesn't score a point all season, you don't you don't get to just be a defensive specialty. You know, even even the greatest defensive basketball players of all time have to go down and contribute to the offense. Right. Right? Dennis Rodman, Gary Payton, these guys that you know end up leading in uh John Stockton, they're they're not prolific scorers, they're more defenders, but they're getting rebounds, they're getting assists, they're getting you know, they're contributing to to both sides of the ball in in a way that we don't see in a lot of sports. All right, so now that I've waxed poetic about my deep love of the professional nature of competitive basketball, let's get to a more entertaining facet of basketball, and that is its ability to transform you as a viewer into those magic moments on screen, right? The the ability to capture that that last you know two minutes of of pure tension as the ball goes around and and hits the rim and and will it fall, and and then the sound of the net while you're looking at the face of the dad and the crowd that had never been to the game before, and and now that you know basketball is great for that. So let's let's in in honor of the tournament, let's give the people what they want and let's talk basketball movies.

SPEAKER_01 28:01

We are throwing back to episode number one, where we looked at a list of the top 25 greatest sports movies of all time, as reported by the Hollywood reporter, and essentially thought it was garbage, hot, stinky garbage. Poppycock. I didn't think we were gonna use such colorful language on this show, but there you do it's poppycock. So Kaz and I have been thinking about how to go about perhaps putting our own bow on that conversation, and we couldn't think of a way to do it in one episode, therefore, we are going to do it in several.

SPEAKER_03 28:49

We've decided that our biggest issue with with the reporters list of the top 25 is that not everything was represented the way we wanted it to be, right? So what we're going to do is let's take a look at the sports represented by the movies that we love on a sport by sport basis. And what we'll do is by the end of the episode, we will have contributed our let's say five in no particular order basketball movies that are going to represent basketball in the split the corner podcast's top 25 all-time sports movies, right? So eventually we'll get to the point where we're looking at 25 movies that we feel encompasses uh a fair representation of all sports, and we believe that basketball and and to the other effects, football and baseball as of right now, uh each get five, right? And then we'll split ten by way of some other sports. We still have golf and hockey and soccer and bobsledding and figure skating and cheerleading and god knows whatever else. So let's start with basketball and let's see if we can pick out split the corner podcast's top five basketball movies. So in no particular order. Ground rules first. What is it that puts a movie on this list for you?

SPEAKER_01 30:26

I think basketball has to be the centerpiece. In doing a little research before we came on and just looking up lists of basketball movies in order to maybe refresh my memory on a few of them. There are several in these lists where basketball is sort of a side quest. So I'm gonna give an example of what I mean, and I want to know if you agree with me because I'm actually quite interested because it's something that I forgot about that I hate myself for because it's a great movie. But the movie in particular I'm talking about is Teen Wolf, starring the incomparable Michael J. Fox, to be replaced by Jason Bateman in the second one, if I'm not mistaken. Yeah, it's Bateman in two. But my point is that movie is not centered around basketball, but it contributes an awful lot to that plot. But if Teen Wolf is being discussed, is your first inclination gonna be, oh yeah, that basketball movie, Teen Wolf, or is it gonna be that one where that kid becomes a werewolf?

SPEAKER_03 31:33

See, I thought you were going in a different direction. I thought you were gonna say something like flubber, where Robin Williams creates bouncy goo and at some point in time puts it on the shoes of the basketball team. You know, I Teen Wolf, that's that's tough, man, because I do consider that a basketball movie. I the there just the amount of of screen time given to basketball in in that film, I I think it's he car surfs.

SPEAKER_01 32:08

He car surfs. Are we going to make it a surfing movie now, too? And by the way, the fact that you said Robin Williams and not Jerry Lewis when you were talking about Flubber is that's strike one today, buddy.

SPEAKER_03 32:19

Well, I said flubber, not not not what is it, nutty professor, but still still it's the same story.

SPEAKER_01 32:26

But that's strike one today.

SPEAKER_03 32:28

But Robin Williams. Anyway, I I think I think and we did this in we did this in episode one. I think is Teen Wolf in the top five anyway. No, I don't think so. All right, so so maybe that maybe that sits over on the side, and if it gets stirred into the pot later, we'll take a look at it. Um we're agreed no documentaries, right? That's the whole reason that we're doing this, is because a a list of movies is not a list of documentaries, we can do a separate list for that.

SPEAKER_01 33:03

Yeah, uh I I would be honored and happy to talk about documentaries as far as film uh sports go, but for this particular instance, we are talking strictly in written form stories. Does that mean but it can be based on a real story, that's fine, but we're not talking about documentary, we're talking about hey, somebody wrote a script.

SPEAKER_03 33:26

Right. So so shout out Michael Jordan's last dance, but this this ain't for you, right? Um, all right, made for TV movies. If you can think of one, uh Rebound, the story of Earl the Goat Manigult starring Don Cheadle. Um, yeah, man, that one might make my five. So I I need to know it was an HBO made for TV special, but it but that's not TV, it's HBO. If you want to throw that in there, later that way we can send it to them and see if they'll you know sponsor us. That's right.

SPEAKER_01 34:08

Okay. Well, what about there's an interesting one that came across because I never would have considered a basketball movie, but now that I've seen it in writing on a list of basketball movies, somebody put on their basketball. The guys from South Park, Matt Stone and Trey Parker, who turn a game of driveway hoops into an international sensation involving basketball but with baseball rules, and it's a whole thing, and it's one of my guilty pleasure, funny as crap movies. I think it's hysterical. Even today, it's still incredibly funny. But basketball is kind of at the center of it, even though they morph it into something else. Not unlike Teen Wolf.

SPEAKER_03 34:59

I think that has to be saved for whatever ends up being our miscellaneous category. All right, that's fair. Because I think I'm glad that we're talking about this. I think it can't take a spot in the basketball movies for the same reason it can't take a spot in the baseball movies. Right. So I I do think it is it is an interesting concept. Um eventually they're gonna make a movie out of the have you seen the new the new game where you like throw the football on the roof and it has to like go around the smoke stack and between the chimney, and then you have to catch it, and there's like a whole point system for it. And I've it's not just those old McDonald's commercials.

SPEAKER_01 35:43

Isn't that just the McDonald's commercials with Jordan and Bird?

SPEAKER_03 35:47

The nothing but net ones.

SPEAKER_02 35:49

No, there's this new like off that guy's face, off the scoreboard.

SPEAKER_03 35:53

There's like a driveway game where like you you throw a football onto a roof and it and it has to be laid out a certain way to be regulation, and there's like points scored. It it reminds me of basketball. It's got very basketball kind of me and my friends started this in our in our front yard kind of vibes. Um it's not as funny yet, but it might get there.

SPEAKER_02 36:18

Wait till the blooper reel comes out. Be like nine-year-olds taking football to the face. It'll be hilarious.

SPEAKER_03 36:25

All right.

SPEAKER_01 36:25

So is there is there anything that's guaranteed to be on this five? See, I'm glad that you brought that up because I I've been thinking about how we were gonna do this, and I think we need to knock this out because I truly think we'll be we'll probably have two or three that we'll agree on, and then perhaps those last two slots will be up for debate. But let me get this ball rolling. I think we have to say Hoosiers. Hoosiers, yes, is 100% on the list. And and just to let our listening audience know, I'm gonna write these down. They're gonna get a place of honor in the little notebook that I keep here on the side of the of the microphone. So Hoosiers is going on the list in ink, so it cannot be erased. Yeah, everyone listen to the ASMR of his pen writing. If you can hear it, that'd be awesome. I don't think the mic is that powerful, though.

SPEAKER_03 37:15

All right, so Hoosiers on the list. Our first spin-off are the sounds of podcasting. Just me writing. Move the microphone around a little bit, see if there's feedback. Just you want to can you hear me? Is this can you hear me? Some poor listener out in Oregon with headphones on just almost fell down. Sorry, dude. All right, what else is on that list? Uh, white men can't jump. Yes, but it's gotta be the original one.

SPEAKER_01 37:53

Oh, absolutely. I forgot that they had remade it. Completely. Oh, didn't you try your best? Alright, so we're agreed on that one too. Yes. Hoosiers, white men can't jump. Space jam?

SPEAKER_03 38:18

I think so. It was a cultural phenomenon.

SPEAKER_01 38:22

And it involved the greatest basketball player of all time. And Bill Murray. And Bill Freaking Murray, dude. And Larry Bird and Muggsy Bogues, and the Sixers even had a guy in there. Do you remember his name? Sean. Sean Bradley was seven foot three or something. He weighed as much as I do. I think Space Jam has to.

SPEAKER_03 38:48

It's just it's it's it's a moment in time, right? Like I'm thinking the debate would be on where, not if, right? So it's definitely in there. Alright, so there's two, there's two left, and this is this is where it gets real tricky.

SPEAKER_01 39:06

My next one would be uh He Got Game with Denzel Washington and Ray Allen. That takes it in a real serious direction. It does. It does. But I mean that's a phenomenal movie. And I think overall you can say that that's that basketball isn't the main main focus. I think it's relationship between father and son, and overcoming uh difficulties and overcoming uh parts of your life that maybe you weren't super proud of and trying to do better, even selfishly sometimes. But I mean, it's all about basketball. So I think it meets the criteria.

SPEAKER_03 39:51

It definitely meets the criteria. I just don't know if it makes my five.

SPEAKER_01 39:56

And we we we're agreeing that we need to try to come up with a consensus here, right? We do, we do. We need a we need an exit at at five. Okay. Um well give me give me one. I think I've I think I dropped the first four, so why don't you give me one?

SPEAKER_03 40:11

I would counter he got game with Coach Carter. I think the the Samuel L. Jackson based on a true story, it it's it's real basketball centered. Um it not to not to knock he got game. I I definitely put it just outside of my five, but I I think Coach Carter, as far as as far as what I'm more likely to go grab out of the DVD cabinet and watch on a rainy Saturday, I think Coach Carter is the move for me. While he's thinking, I'm going to I'm gonna implore our listeners to try this next time you're out at a bar. Just try it, just bring it up to the bartender. You're listening to a podcast, they were talking about top five greatest basketball movies, and watch this conversation spread like wildfire. It is crazy how often these conversations start at bars and end with just the whole world talking about sports. Just just everyone has seen sports movies. You just want to chime in and agree, that's all. So we're making a five, sure. You'll have a five. It might be the same, it might be different. That's not the point. Point is have the conversation.

SPEAKER_01 41:37

Isn't Coach Carter just a sports equivalent of dangerous minds? Because Dangerous Minds is about someone trying to improve the lives of inner city kids through education. Coach Carter is trying to improve the lives of inner city kids through athletics. So if you're going to call Coach Carter a basketball movie, then wouldn't you call Dangerous Minds an education movie? Kind of missing the point about what it's all about.

SPEAKER_03 42:06

But I mean, maybe that's not a very close comparison, but I mean, no, I would definitely consider Dangerous Minds an education movie. I would think that there are teachers out there that definitely look up to Michelle Pfeiffer in the way that coaches look up to Coach Carter and, you know, hope that they can get their team to act accordingly. I think you're exactly hitting the point. But I think if you start breaking it down like that, then isn't it all just you know, like wasn't gridiron gang just Coach Carter with the rock for football? And wasn't Big Green just soccer with Coach Carter but an English kid teacher in the suburbs? And wasn't it like it just yes? If you want to get into the redundancy of Hollywood, then then yeah, the whole sweater unravels. But if we're talking about basketball movies, I think Coach Carter's a great basketball movie.

SPEAKER_01 42:56

Coach Carter is a great basketball movie. I will not take anything away from Coach Carter, but that was just it was a thought that struck me, and I thought maybe I'm maybe I'm not too far off here.

SPEAKER_03 43:08

But well, I mean, isn't it just isn't isn't isn't Samuel L. Jackson just Gordon Bombay in the inner city? Isn't Gordon Bombay just Gordon Bombay in the inner city? Yeah. Exactly. Inner city Minneapolis. How about yo, do you remember the movie Eddie? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 43:29

With Whoopi Goldberg?

SPEAKER_03 43:31

Yeah, and okay. So, all right, so if that's maybe we should have tears. Um, because we cause he got game and coach Carter might be just outside the five. Eddie is a little further down, probably with uh Juwanaman and um Juanaman. The air up there with Kevin Bacon. Do you remember that one? Yeah, plays plays in Eddie Point. Yeah, Jimmy Dolan teaches him the Jimmy Dolan shake. And bake with Manute Bowl. It is Manute Bowl, former Sixer. So yeah, there's definitely a whole nother tier.

SPEAKER_02 44:08

Um it's gotten so much more problematic.

SPEAKER_03 44:12

So so does Space Jam cross off the kid box? Do we get rid of do we do we eliminate like Mike and Airbud?

SPEAKER_01 44:22

If they were better movies, I don't think we would be talking about crossing them off. I just watched Airbud again with my kids, and it it had been since I was probably their age since I'd seen it. And it isn't it is incredible how hard that movie stole from Harry and the Hendersons. I thought you were gonna say it holds up.

SPEAKER_02 44:42

I don't know, man. Even by 90 standards, man. But he's like, got the dog in a swamp. Get out of here! I don't like you anymore. I'm like, oh my god, dude. My kid started crying. He's like, why is he being so mean to the dog?

SPEAKER_03 44:56

Don't worry, he'll be back for 14 sequels. He plays everything and has puppies that save Christmas at least three times.

SPEAKER_02 45:06

They were too lazy to even have it do different equivalents of Christmas. It wasn't Air Mud saves Hanukkah, it was just Air Mud saves Christmas like four through four times.

SPEAKER_03 45:17

Yep, yep. By the end of the fourth one, Santa's just like, oh, puppies.

SPEAKER_00 45:23

It ruined everything.

SPEAKER_02 45:25

It's them rolling around in hot cocoa mix for 45 minutes. That's the entire premise of the movie. They just got real lazy.

SPEAKER_03 45:35

So Airbud is out. Um in spite of his versatility.

SPEAKER_02 45:42

You know that nine dogs played that freaking thing.

SPEAKER_03 45:46

All right, here's a here's an interesting poll for five, right? What about semi-pro.

SPEAKER_01 45:58

I think that movie gets not enough credit. It checks off all the boxes that we've talked about for criteria in terms of what qualifies and what doesn't. I mean, it is centered around a basketball team. It is centered around playing. It's it's centered, I mean, the premise is great. It's a great premise for a movie. Is it Will Farrell's best vehicle? No. Is it better than he got game? No. But I would have a hard time not at least discussing its place in the five. However, you did say something interesting earlier that I think we can bring back into this. And we were talking about the drama of the basketball court and how it is such a personalized thing, and how you know it lends itself to higher drama than other sports. And maybe having a comedy element in there is a good thing because everything that we've talked about outside of that has been very heavy stuff. I mean, you can argue white men can't jump has some funny moments, but ultimately that's a pretty serious movie about you know overcoming stereotype and and uh finding common ground with people that you don't necessarily think you would have common ground with. I'm dealing with Rosie Perez. And dealing with Rosie Perez. Although, as we said before, she's so good in that movie.

SPEAKER_03 47:39

What is a quince So if it's so if it's Hoosiers and White Men Can't Jump, and then it's Space Jam. I think I can I think I can give it to He Got Game and Semi Pro to fill out the five. Again, no particular order. I I I think you're I think you're right in in He Got Games ability to translate basketball to life lessons. Right? Like it it's a basketball movie because basketball is the language that they're using to explain the life experience through. Right. Something like like uh like love and basketball, where where basketball is the language that they're using to to speak the romance into existence, which again probably goes outside my five, but inside my ten. Because again, it you you end up oversimplifying these things, right? Because then hoop dreams just becomes a a childhood coming of age story through the lens of basketball, right? But so what? Don't you need that? Isn't that the point?

SPEAKER_01 48:57

How about this one? And that this is uh this is a tough one. How about basketball diaries? With Leonardo DiCaprio, he's the star basketball player and gets into drugs and things and it goes on a very dark turn.

SPEAKER_03 49:15

But isn't it just school ties with basketball? Like I you know what I mean? Like we could just we could just keep doing that over and over again. I I do think uh it's got a young Mark Wahlberg in it, too. Um I I do think I think it has more of a place in in sort of a list of coming of age teen movies for me than it does on the on the basketball movies. It's just not one of those movies that ever made me want to go outside and grab a basketball.

SPEAKER_01 49:55

I wonder how much that should have to do with the choices.

SPEAKER_03 50:00

I definitely think that affects something like Space Jam's legacy. You know, Space Jam got everybody out playing basketball. Yeah, Hoosier's m maybe not so much, but again, that was a little before my time in terms of you know having an effect on the culture that I was a part of.

SPEAKER_01 50:25

So to put a put a cap on it, you'd be willing to go he got game and semi-pro more so than he got game and coach Carter. I mean, Coach Carter is a fantastic basketball movie. That's the thing, though. If we're talking about the best basketball movies of all time, I think we need to stop talking about whether or not the movie like we need to have a comedy involved. And I know that I'm the one that brought it up, so I know that I'm kind of reprimanding myself in this moment. But no, I think it needs to What's the better movie though? Is is semi-pro a better movie than Coach Carter?

SPEAKER_03 51:00

For the casual fan, I think so. I I think so. I think after semi-pro came out, you were more likely to see someone on the local courts throwing up a free throw underhanded, yelling out Jackie Moon, than you were seeing someone throw up a three-pointer yelling out Timo Cruz after Coach Carter came out. Right? And I do think that plays into it. You know, I I do think the fact that it it does try to tell so many basketball stories at the same time, right? You you've got the the creation of the alley oop in that movie, you've got the underhanded free throw in that movie, you've got uh it's a comedy, but it's a love letter to basketball. The creation of the NBA. Right. So, you know, it it is it is kind of and that's when you get into these movies like you know, we'll well Mel Brooks incorporated so many things that are that are done deliberately to pay tribute. Like semi-pro was was done deliberately to pay tribute to basketball. So I I don't know, I I think it belongs in the list. Um you know, I the only debatable one for me here is is he got game, and are you switching that out for coach Carter, or you know, do you have something more sentimental or close to your personal heart and your your childhood story? Because they say, right, you can't so you can't separate a millennial from the from the bad B movie that their parents had on VHS when they were a child, you know. So some of these things, it's like, nah, man, that's what we had. I watched it every day. That's and and it just burns its way in. There are plenty of bad movies that I've I fell madly in love with because we had them on VHS and I've watched them till they wore out.

SPEAKER_01 53:06

That was Mr. Mom for me.

SPEAKER_03 53:09

There's a lot of movies. There we go. I just remember that one specific.

SPEAKER_01 53:14

So right now as it sits, we are looking at in no particular order Hoosiers, White Men Can't Jump, Space Jam, He Got Game, and Semi Pro. Yes. Okay.

SPEAKER_03 53:29

I think I can live with that.

SPEAKER_01 53:31

I think I can live with that.

SPEAKER_03 53:32

I I think if if if you feel strongly enough out there in listener land and you want to call me out on this, I feel like I can defend all five of those choices. So we are going. I know we're missing some. I know we didn't talk about blue chips and Shaquille O'Neal's acting debut with Nick Nolte. I know I know there's quite a few we didn't we didn't talk about. I know that. Um but I think in terms of cultural relevance and just good basketball movies, I I think these are the five that that go to the dance, right? These are the five that get placed somewhere in the split the corner top 25 sports movies of all time, right? Anything that is not included in those five would not make the top 25 sports movies of all time, anyway. Except for maybe Coach Carter. And that's maybe, maybe we have to circle back around to like an honorable mention category and something gets pushed through, but we'll play that by ear. Weird. I I'm happy to stamp this as we are done with basketball movies.

SPEAKER_01 54:48

So, what we are going to do is in a few weeks, after we've compiled or a few months, whatever it is, we'll after we've compiled our list, we'll go back off air because I don't know if we necessarily need to debate for four and a half hours on the order of these movies, but we'll come back with our list and we will broadcast it to the world. But to put the split the corner stamp of approval on basketball movies, we have gone with officially Hoosiers, White Men Can't Jump, Space Jam, He Got Game, and Semi Pro. I can live with that. Same. This also lends itself to a good amount of debate. We would love to hear back from you about how we have completely destroyed every single shred of credibility we've had with our listeners with this list. What did we miss? Let us know. Tell us why we're dumb, tell us why you agree. Hit us up on social media. Feel free to email us. Make sure you're listening in each and every week to the Split the Corner podcast. And as always, the next round is on us. Cheers, guys.