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So, last week I offered my wife's name for the Mike and Joe's dumb game. I lobbied for a non-European name to be included. But I didn't tell her that I did this.

1) My wife likes the Poscast. She doesn't listen on her own, but like to listen with me in the car. She loves the banter and the relationship. She sings the theme songs when comes up.

2) We were on a road trip to visit some friends over the weekend and I kept wondering...will they do it? Will they do it? She's listening. Will they do it? Joe picked her for the third name. Devjani Mishra. It was SO fun!

2) Non-European name, guys. She's not Serbian—as Serbia is in Europe.

3) Joe and Mike said her first name correctly EVERY SINGLE TIME. Not that hard. All the letters in order. Don't add any or take away any. Don't change the order. Nailed it. Every time. And listening to a podcast that repeated her name so many time...it was so cool. She never sees or hears her name anywhere.

4) Mike seems to have missed i) South Asian Bar Association OF NEW YORK and ii) Joe saying that she grew up playing on the courts here. She was born in NY, has lived like 1/3 of her life in NYC. She's as American as anyone.

5) Her only great sports love is the mid-late 90's Knicks. Charles Oakley is the King of Siam to her, and has a big place in her heart. If I say "Charles Smith," she hits me. (It doesn't even have to be THAT Charles Smith). So, picking her to be a basketball player was awesome. (And when I was teaching high school in Brooklyn, one of my students was the girls' team had a gritty point guard, Lakshmi Samlal. So, yeah, gritty American point guard daughters of Indian immigrants. Yeah.)

6) She will not f'ing shut up about her "great court vision," now. Was that an intentional pun, having seen that she is a lawyer? Let's give Joe and Mike credit for that. They are, after all, professional writers.

(A very junior colleague texted her over the weekend to ask her "if she listens to podcasts." Like there might be another Devjani Mishra, member of the South Asian Bar of New York. Heck, she's the only one in the whole country, regardless of profession.)

Thank you, Joe and Mike. She loved it. I loved it. It was great.

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1. Babe Ruth

2. Jason Kander

3. Willie Mays

4. Jason Kander

5. Shohei Ohtani

6. Jason Kander

7. Cool Papa Bell

8. Jason Kander

9. Bobby Witt Jr.

10. Jason Kander

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no u

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1. Hank Aaron

2. Tucker Barnhart

3. Joey Votto

4. Harmon Killebrew

5. Babe Ruth

6. Deion Sanders

7. Dustin Pedroia

8. Nolan Ryan

9. Ichiro Suzuki

10. Yadier Molina

11. Chris Sabo

You got an extra one in there.

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Tricia Tally Nociti - go

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In Nashville TN:

1. none (co-worker - 20s - male) he could not think of a single player. I am rethinking his employment.

2. Pete Rose (co-worker - 50s - male)

3. Hank Aaron (co-worker - 60s - male)

4. Albert Pujols (co-worker - 20s - male)

5. Shohei Ohtani (co-worker - 20s - male) - he actually said, "uh....Dasanti". I said, not looking for water recs, you mean Ohtani? He said, "yeah - him"

6. George Brett (my daughter, 20s)

7. Sammy Sosa (my son, 30s)

8. Bobby Witt Jr (my son, 15)

9. Ron Kittle (co-worker - 60s - male)

10. Jackie Robinson (co-worker - female - 30s)

bonus because I can't count: Roger Clemens (friend - female - 40s)

My answer: Cookie Rojas - I was 3 yrs old girl in Kansas City in 1974 and I remember hearing his name. What 3 yr old doesn't love a Cookie? I've had a heart for him ever since. My lifelong Royals affliction is what brought me to Joe P.

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I asked a handful of people (some fans, some not) to name a baseball player. No other guidlines.

These are the results

Babe Ruth

Steve Sax

Shohei Ohtani

Mookie Betts

Nomar Garciaparra

Billy Grabarkewitz (this was me. he was my first favorite player)

Kike Hernandez

Shoeless Joe Jackson

JT Snow

Bobby Witt Jr.

Clayton Kershaw

Juan Uribe

Sandy Koufax

Jim Abbott

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Another 60+ year old CT woman:

Ty Cobb

Joe DiMaggio

Ted Williams

Reggie Jackson

Jimmy Piersall

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16 year old.

Babe Ruth.

doesn't follow baseball. Doesn't know any others.

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Wesley Joseph Ewing

Go by Big Woes

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I work for a company that deals with mass text messaging (for legitimate purposes). We do not allow our product to be used for marketing.

The Report Spam does go to the carriers, BUT politicians exempted their campaigns and activities from being considered spam. So reporting the spam doesn't do nothing, but if you are reporting texts from a real PAC or political campaign, nothing will happen.

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I would like to put forward that the actual most fun Olympic sport is not an Olympic sport at all (yet), which is sepak takraw. It is all the fun things you mentioned about volleyball, except, to my mind, slightly more athletically impressive because it involves a smaller ball which you KICK. I humbly implore both of you to watch some sepak takraw highlights for the next episode.

Outside of sepak takraw, sport climbing, handball, pole vault, and table tennis round out my top five, with rugby as a narrow sixth.

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First of all, it was a real delight to hear one of my favorite podcasts talking all about my badass archery career.

Second, when I was a kid it was just plain Fitzgerald until my grandfather was looking at one of my school projects when I was around nine and said "this is great except you wrote your name wrong." Turns out my dad had made it one word out of expediency/to spite my grandfather. Anyway, among my siblings, aunts, uncles, cousins, etc, some go with Fitzgerald, some with Fitz Gerald, and some split the difference and go with FitzGerald. Inevitably, it becomes just Fitzgerald in any administrative setting. 🤷‍♀️

Finally, my selection for joyful Olympic Spirit is surfing. I watched basically all of the surfing in part because I found it really soothing because it was just hours of ocean wave sounds, often with long stretches where no one talked over it. But also anytime the very impressive camera operators caught the surfers' faces mid-wave, they seemed to be smiling from pure joy in what they were doing.

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Moshe Schorr, (pronounced like 'shore')

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Moshe Schorr, (pronounced like 'shore')

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Audrey Willa Marquardt Class (goes by Audrey Class)

(Pronounced “mar-kwart”)

Gave myself two middle names because I just couldn’t let my birth name go when I got married, but how could you pass up a clear upgrade like “Class”?

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