Absurdity, Insanity... and the Dumbest Commercial on Television

Lots of goodies today. We’re talking an absurdly charmed Chiefs season (so far), the dumbest commercial going (not necessarily the worst or most annoying, but certainly the dumbest), a little MLB awards talk, and our first couple of Viable Insane Ideas to improve baseball.

But first… I’ll be in Dallas on Wednesday at the JCC Campus. The event starts at 7 p.m., and you can get your tickets here. We’ll talk some WHY WE LOVE FOOTBALL and anything else you want to talk about. I promise not to bring up the Cowboys if you don’t.

Speaking of WHY WE LOVE FOOTBALL, brilliant reader Shawn sent in this delightful image from a bookstore at LaGuardia.

I was actually at LaGuardia over the weekend and would have loved to see this—few things thrill me more than to see one of my books in an airport bookstore—but just after I got through security, they evacuated the entire terminal because of some suspicious package. We stood outside in the cold for like an hour, and I have to admit that all during that time shivering I couldn’t help but imagine a Mission Impossible/Lethal Weapon scenario of agents coming upon a bomb with a timer on it, and the timer was ticking down, and they had to decide whether or not to cut the red or yellow wire. Alas, real life is not as fun as the movies. Anyway, it all turned out fine, but once they let us back in, I didn’t have time to check out the bookstores.

The Undefeated Chiefs

So let’s see if I have this straight.

Week 1: The Chiefs beat the Ravens by a touchdown when, on the last play of the game, Lamar Jackson hit receiver Isaiah Likely for the score that would have given the Ravens the chance to win the game. The touchdown was overturned because Likely’s toe landed JUST on the end line.

Week 2: The Chiefs beat the Bengals by one on a Harrison Butker’s 51-yard field goal on the last play of the game. The game-winning drive just about ended with 53 seconds left after Patrick Mahomes’ deep pass for Rashee Rice fell incomplete. Pass interference was called.

Week 3: The Chiefs beat the Falcons by 5 when Atlanta’s attempt at a game-winning drive was shut down on fourth and 1 from the Kansas City 13 with less than a minute left.

Week 4: The Chiefs overcame a 10-0, first-quarter deficit against the Chargers and won by a touchdown. With the score tied in the fourth quarter, the Chargers decided to go for it from the Kansas City 3 rather than kick the go-ahead field goal. The Chiefs stopped them, and then Mahomes and newly acquired running back Kareem Hunt drove the team down the field for the game-winning touchdown.

Week 5: This was a relatively drama-free, 13-point victory over the Saints, though New Orleans did cut the margin to three in the fourth quarter.

Week 6: A solid 10-point win in a rematch of last year’s Super Bowl against San Francisco; the key on this one was a 33-yard scramble by Mahomes when the 49ers assumed he would be going out of bounds.

Week 7: The Chiefs trailed the Raiders early, but a big fourth quarter—which included a touchdown pass from Mahomes to speedy rookie Xavier Worthy—led K.C. to a 7-point win.

Week 8: The Chiefs came away with a six-point overtime victory over Tampa Bay when they won the OT coin toss and drove down the field for the winning touchdown.

Week 9: The Chiefs blocked a 35-yard-field goal attempt by Denver’s Wil Lutz as time expired to win by two.

It’s been a wild ride so far in K.C. (David Eulitt/Getty Images)

That is an unreal collection of victories. I’ve heard people talk about how the Chiefs are the “worst 9-0 team ever,” which I think is a pretty silly way to think about it. First of all, it ain’t true. They’re not even the worst Chiefs team to start 9-0—the 2013 Chiefs started that way, and they didn’t even win their division, and then they blew a 38-10 lead in their wild-card game against the Andrew Luck Colts. This Chiefs team is a lot better than that one and, I imagine, plenty of others.

But even if they ARE the worst 9-0 team—they do have the worst point differential out of the 34 teams that started 9-0—I mean, so what? Linkin Park might be the most mocked band to sell 100 million albums, but I think they’ll take the 100 million album sales. That you would rather be the worst 9-0 team a billion times more than the best 4-5 team is too obvious to say.

But I also think it’s better to look at it this way: The Chiefs are on an absurd, free-wheeling, Adam West-Batman/James Bond/Mr. Magoo-like string of good fortune, well-timed brilliance, and grand escapes. It’s truly bananas. Watching Patrick Mahomes running around after the blocked field goal—dancing like Grandpa Joe after Charlie got the Golden Ticket*—you could almost hear his brain shouting again and again, “I can’t believe this! I can’t believe this! I can’t believe this!” And now: People in Kansas City will be rooting for the Chiefs to keep finding new ways to win, and pretty much everyone else will be rooting for the Chiefs to finally get their comeuppance, and you just can’t wait to see what happens next because, you know, sports.

*Grandpa Joe really is the worst.

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“Ooh, yes please”

OK, I’m ready to call it: The dumbest commercial on television in the pre-holiday season—we’re still in the pre-holiday season, right?—is the one where the kids are standing uncomfortably and listening outside their parents’ bedroom as Mom and Dad use supposed double-entendres while talking about the new iPhone. I apologize in advance, but I’ve spent WAY too much time thinking about this commercial—perhaps because they play it roughly 400 times during every football game—and it’s just off-the-charts dumb.

Let’s go through it, shall we?

Mom and Dad are in bed, sitting on top of the covers, wearing what I can best describe as “fleecy outerwear with comfy socks.” She’s wearing a jacket for some reason. He’s supposedly reading a book, though I’m unconvinced, based on two facts: (1): The book is opened to the exact center, and (2) The page he’s looking at is kind of flapping around loose.

Mom turns to reach for a bag with AT&T on it. The plot begins!

Mom: “I have a surprise for you!”

Dad [while closing the book]: “Oooh, yes please.”

Nobody in the history of the world has ever said, “Oooh, yes please,” when told that someone has a surprise for them. But we’re now apparently supposed to believe that Mom and Dad, in their fleecy outerwear, are talking about sex. This leads to our crisis, as the camera then cuts to the daughter and son—also, for some reason, wearing fleecy outerwear—who are eavesdropping at the door. I presume we’re supposed to believe that they have a request of some kind but are now hesitating because they just heard Dad say, “Oooh, yes please,” which, again, nobody has ever said, ever.

Mom [pulling out the new iPhone]: Feast your eyes on this!

This isn’t a key point, but for some reason, the camera cuts to the BACK of the iPhone. Why the back? What are these cinematography choices?

Dad: That’s sexy! Feels so new!

This seems to be the point at which the writers of this commercial would have gone in a different direction, no? That’s sexy? What kind of lunatic would look at an iPhone and say, “That’s sexy?” Once you’ve written that line, don’t you just go, “Um, maybe this whole ‘let’s make the kids think their parents are doing kinky sex things,’ isn’t working.” And then, even more bafflingly, he says, “Feels so new!” What’s he even talking about? He isn’t feeling it. She’s the one holding it (as the kids will soon find out!). And it’s not new at all. It looks EXACTLY like last year’s iPhone, and the iPhone before that, and the iPhone before that. Is there any way Mom can say something more ridiculous than this to keep the nonsense going?

Mom: I want to feel this feeling again and again!

Yes! She can! These people are aliens. What feeling is she referring to? The feeling of holding an iPhone? She wants to feel that feeling again and again? Is she an 18th-century time traveler who has come upon the miracle of the ages? But let’s also get into this: How is this even sex talk? What sex toy are the kids supposed to believe their mother is now showing to their father?

Dad: Can I hold it?

Mom: How bad do you want to hold it?

Camera cuts to the horrified kids.

Dad: I’m not going to beg, but… pretty please?

What in the wide, wide world of sports is going on here? At this point, it SOUNDS like the son and daughter have an exchange:

Son: Are they?

Daughter: Don’t!

I’m not 100% sure the son asks, “Are they?” But I want to believe that’s what he’s saying. I want to believe the writer(s) of this commercial was having the son ask his sister—in an iPhone commercial, remember—“Are they using a sex toy or looking at porn in preparation for making whoopie?” and the sister reply, “Don’t.” But wait, Mom and Dad aren’t finished with the zany innuendo!

Mom: Press the button!

Dad: It’s glowing!

Not that this matters, but can we also say that these are the least suggestive double entendres in the history of the world?

Here, believe it or not, comes the dumbest line in the entire dumb commercial, the line that separates it from the Liberty Mutual guy who has made a wax figure of himself, separates it from Paintin’ Manning, separates it from that Andy Samberg wannabe in the Geico commercials shooting fake phones at people.

Mom [whispering]: Apple Intelligence.

Yeah. She whispers “Apple Intelligence.” She whispers it because, no matter how inspired the writers might have been by the comedy of Mae West, even they know that you can’t turn “Apple Intelligence” into a euphemism. I have spent much too much time thinking about the writers’ room when they came upon this creative problem: “How do we bring up that the phone has ‘Apple Intelligence,’ without completely blowing the wholesome ‘the kids think she’s talking about a sex-toy-of-your-choice’ concept?”

And then one of them shouts out, “I’ve got it! She WHISPERS it!”

At this point, you know where this is going. The kids are going to walk away from the door disgustedly. There will be a glamour shot of the iPhone, and talk about some special AT&T deal. But before we go, we need a getaway line that sums up this astonishing commercial. And here we go:

Mom: We should do this more often!

We should do this more often. What a close. It’s like, “Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.” It’s like, “Well, nobody’s perfect.” “It’s like, “All right, Mr. DeMille, I’m ready for my closeup.” We should do this more often. It’s not enough to ask, “Do what?” I honestly think a random series of words—“Dogwood peppy kangaroo blanket hamburger”—would make more sense than “We should do this more often.”

I take back what I said about the writers’ room. There obviously was no writers’ room. This thing had to be written by Apple Intelligence.

MLB Awards Schedule

Before we get to your VIIs—Very Insane Ideas to make baseball more fun—let me give you the awards schedule for next week:

Monday: Rookies of the Year
Tuesday: Managers of the Year
Wednesday: Cy Young Awards
Thursday: MVP Awards

I don’t think there’s going to be much drama this year—I’m pretty sure I could nail all the awards easily, with the possible exception of Manager of the Year. But we’ll still talk here about each of the awards… and what they mean in 2024.

Viable Insane Ideas (Part 1)

OK, so here’s the concept: Tom Tango and I asked you to come up with zany ideas to improve baseball. You sent in hundreds of them. We’ll go through a bunch of them over the next little while. Let’s have some fun!

I’m only going to do two today, to sort of show you how the concept works. Tango and I (and later, I’ve got a few other special-guests judges) will rate your ideas based on three criteria:

Criteria 1: Insanity level. The idea here is simply to rank, on a scale from 1 to 10, “How insane is this idea?” You want a high number here; the point is for the idea to be really out there. We’re not going to spend a lot of time talking about basic, bland ideas that have been talked about again and again, such as automatic strike zones or reducing roster sizes.

Criteria 2: Viability. Here, we’re ranking just how viable an idea it is. Like, could it be accomplished? If the idea is: “What if we put special microphones/speakers on every baseball so that the sound of the ball hitting the bat is amplified and then you hear the baseball make the call?” that would have a viability of zero. But if you said, “What if we made it five balls for a walk instead of four,” well, that might not be a great idea, but it would probably be 10 in viability… it would simply require MLB changing the rule and it would happen.

Criteria 3: Better game? Here we rank the idea on its own merits. That is to say, if baseball somehow did it—no matter how insane or unviable it might be—would baseball actually be a better game?

So, to start with, let’s pick two ideas—Tom and I will take our first from Brilliant Reader James—and see how this works. It’s important to remember, as we go through this, that no insane idea is a bad idea! Here we go!

The idea: Remove the outfield fences. Baseball was always meant to be played on open ground, and removing the walls would make the game better as well as truer to its origins. Let’s reward speedy batters who hit line drives into the gaps instead of hulking sluggers who blast 450-foot moon shots. A good outfielder can camp under the latter, and it’s going to be a hell of a lot more exciting to see one chase down the former. And just imagine seeing someone get thrown out at home after three relays.

• Insanity level: 6

• Viability: 2

• Better game?: 2

This is kind of an insane idea… but not entirely. That is to say, this is one of the, “Let’s take baseball to what it used to be in the early 20th century” concepts that come up now and again.

Obviously, this is not especially viable. The reason it’s not a zero on the viability scale is that it’s physically possible to do it in most places (but not everywhere; like you couldn’t do this at Fenway). But, I mean, there are smart people in baseball who have been trying for YEARS to expand the size of ballparks to bring back doubles and triples and batting averages and bring back a specialness to home runs… but there’s absolutely no way that owners are going to give up the seating.

That leads to the question: Would baseball be better without fences? There would be some benefits, for sure. You’d get a lot more triples and inside-the-park home runs and stuff like that. Outfield defense would be more at a premium. And it would be funny to see outfielders go after fly balls the way Bugs Bunny goes after that last fly ball hit by the Gas-House Gorillas.

But, let’s not kid anybody: For the vast majority of fans, the home run is still the single most thrilling play in baseball. It might sound romantic to go back to the days of Cobb and Wagner, but there’s a reason that baseball went to a different place in the American consciousness after Ruth started mashing the ball out of the park.

Our next idea comes from Brilliant Reader Brian:

I need to preface this by saying that I HATE this idea. But if we want to increase contact and reduce the all-or-nothing approach, how about all runs scored on non-home runs count double? So a single with second and third that scores two, counts as four runs, but a home run would only count as three. In just about any situation, a base hit would be more valuable than a home run. Completely alters the approach of hitters, what front offices value in terms of ability/scouting.

• Insanity level: 8

• Viability: 7

• Better game?: 3

Now we’re talking—this is getting pretty insane: We count non-home run runs double? I love it. Let’s get wild.

And it’s totally viable. Again: It would only take a rule change.

But better game? Let’s let Tom Tango talk about this:

An over-the-fence hit would be more costly for the runners already on base. You could make it more viable by allowing the batting team to decide if the batter will score a run or not, and pushing the runners over just enough so they can remain on base.

In other words: say you have runners on 2B+3B. The batting team can either put the batter on 1B and get the bases loaded, or score all three runs. Batting team can decide to cash in on the three points (like a FG) or go for the touchdown (and get up to six points on the now-three runners). It certainly gives you a great strategy. I think this proposal pushes the Insanity score to a 9 or 10, but the better-game score up to 4 or 5.

That said: There are two kinds of plays that lead all highlight packages: strikeouts and home runs. The two things that are supposedly “too much” are really what the fans WANT to see ALL THE TIME. They go crazy for these two plays. I think that’s what an odd part of so many of the “let’s improve baseball” suggestions being made over the years. People love Sale and Skubal and Skenes. They want the K. They also love Judge and Ohtani. They want the home run. I think this is something that we are having a hard time wrapping our heads around.

I agree with Tom. Here’s how I would describe the conundrum: Strikeouts and home runs are GREAT. There are just too many of them now. They’re too common. They’ve lost much of their specialness. How do we get that specialness back? I think the answer is we want to make strikeouts and home runs harder to achieve. What I don’t think we want to do is discourage pitchers from trying to get strikeouts or discourage batters from trying to hit home runs. That’s getting away from key things that make baseball so joyful in the first place.

OK! We have lots and lots (and lots) more VIIs. I’ll figure out how to roll them out during the long, cold off-season!