Episode 253: The Compelling Chaos of Women's College World Series, the Belmont Stakes and the French Open
In this episode, Brenda Elsey, Amira Rose Davis and Jessica Luther discuss the wonderful chaos of the Women's College World Series, horse racing and the Belmont Stakes and the French Open. But first they share their favorite twitter follows for levity.
With so many sports rolling full steam ahead, everyone shares what competitions they have been all in for. Amira discusses Oklahoma's incredibly dominant softball team, the possible outcomes of the semi finals between Oklahoma and UCLA, and Oklahoma State and Texas, and why this year's competition is getting more media coverage. Then, Brenda shares the latest on horse racing drama including the strangeness of Rich Strike not going for the triple crown, the sad death of last year's sensation Medina Spirit and why Bob Baffert is still the most villainous villain. Next, Jessica discusses the thrilling fortnight of the French Open, including Iga Swiatek and Rafael Nadal's incredible French Open singles' victories. They also talk about the conflicted way tennis is showing Ukrainian solidarity and gender disparity in the night match scheduling.
Following this conversation, you'll hear a preview of Brenda's interview with LA Times Sports Editor Iliana Limón Romero, the first Latina to head a newspaper of record’s sports’ section.
Next, they'll burn the worst of sports this week in the Burn Pile. Then, they will lift up those making sports better, including Torchbearer of the Week, Kat Craig, who won the integrity and Impact Award at last month’s Sports Industry Awards for her role in the evacuation of female Afghan athletes and others as Kabul fell to the Taliban last summer. The wrap up the show with What's Good in their worlds and What We're Watching in sports this week.
This episode was produced by Tressa Versteeg. Shelby Weldon is our social media and website specialist. Burn It All Down is part of the Blue Wire podcast network.
Transcript
Brenda: Welcome to Burn It All Down. It's the feminist sports podcast you need. I'm Brenda Elsey, and I'm joined today by my co-hosts Amira and Jessica, and we're going to hype all the sports we've been following, in this case: horse racing, tennis, and softball. And honestly, we could have picked five more with all that's underway in global sports right now. But before all that, it's been a very difficult couple of weeks, politically, news…Oh, it's tough, tough, tough stuff. On top of it, many of us are dealing with the fact that our children are now out of state control. They're out of school, it's rough. It’s rough stuff. So, I find myself between hustling looking at Twitter more often for levity than anything else since the attention span doesn't really work. What are you suggesting that people might follow for a little bit of levity in the world? Amira?
Amira: Yeah, I'm a sucker for all the content that the Las Vegas Aces put out, particularly Kelsey Plum, Dearica Hamby, these friendships, Colson of course, A'ja Wilson. All of them are hilarious, but most recently Kelsey took Dearica’s daughter Amaya for a play date, apparently. And instead of like taking her somewhere and playing with her, they rolled up on Dearica, who's supposed to be like child-free, with water balloons. And they bombed her with water balloons while she was eating brunch. And when she tweeted about it, a lot of people were like, LOL, but like also, did that really happen? And then Kelsey posted the video of them attacking her with water balloons, and it was hilarious. And their pretend enemy-frenemy status is always fun to follow on the interwebs.
Brenda: Oh, I like that. I like that a lot. I've been following Kevin Durant.
Jessica: You love him on Twitter.
Brenda: It is hilarious. I mean, the fact that he spends the off season doing this, like, really confronting people with just a few hundred followers and just like wanting to sincerely argue with them about basketball takes is amazing. Like, I've never quite seen a male athlete…I’ve seen women engage in maybe more deep ways, you know? And him going after Stephen A. Smith who had a tweet that, you know, perhaps Michael Jordan was bad for basketball, or maybe Steph Curry was bad for basketball. And Kevin Durant was like, you're what's bad for basketball! And that was so satisfying to me. I feel like Kevin Durant and I might be kind of friends now? Not clear. But I want to do like a basketball take that he responds to. So I'm just working at it in my head because that would be really exciting. But it's hilarious. You should go check it out. He has way too much time on his hands. I don't know why he's not on a yacht in Monte Carlo or something right now, but it's just so funny.
And then the other one is @UnionDrip. If you don't follow @UnionDrip, you have to. It is all the trade union organizers’ fashion choices around the country. So all the Staten Island Amazon workers, you know what I mean, that like organized recently. It follows all of their fashion choices, and then it historically like digs up photographs of unionists in the past and like what they've decided to wear. It's hilarious. Jessica, what about you?
Jessica: I want to give a shout out to Spencer Hall, whose handle on Twitter is @edsbs, Every Day Should Be Saturday, I think is what it stands for. That used to be the blog that he ran. And I just think Spencer in general is a funny guy. He also does these amazing threads on Twitter where he puts his favorite TikToks that he's been watching for enjoyment. So those threads are great. And then I just need to shout out this one specific tweet that gave me so much joy last weekend. Speaking of Monte Carlo, they did the Grand Prix, F1, and Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc is the Monaco hometown boy. And he was pole position and it's very, very hard – it’s a tight, tight track – very hard to pass. So like if you're in pole position, you are most likely to win. And then Ferrari just fucked up the pit stops. Like, I don't even know how to explain it. It doesn't make any sense.
Amira: It was so infuriating! Know that it was…Ugh.
Jessica: It was just a total mess up. And so Spencer tweeted this, that was mimicking a @dril tweet – hopefully people listening who @dril is – and it just read, “Ferrari budget: Car $100,000,000 Engineers $30,000,000 Logistics $75,000,000 Pit strategy $4 Coffee $40,000,000. Someone who is good at F1 please help me budget this. my race team is dying.” And I loved this so much that I took the time to explain the @dril tweet to Aaron so that I could then read this tweet to him so that we laugh about the bad pit strategy that Ferrari had after we watched that.
Brenda: And now we're going to pivot to a part of the show we might call, “make me care.” You know, we care a lot about sports, as a critical as we are, and there's so much going on right now. So sometimes with my co-hosts, I just want to hear more from them about what they're watching. And so I'm going to start with Amira and ask, what do you have your eyeballs on right now?
Amira: The NCAA Division I softball tournament. So, last week was of course qualification, and this weekend we saw Arizona, Florida, Northwestern, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Oregon State, Texas, and UCLA qualify. It's a double elimination tournament, which means lots of chaos. It's like double the dose of chaos. You have to lose two games to get out of the tournament. So if you lose the first game, you still get to play again. And then today – we’re recording this on Monday – today is like an ultimate day of chaos. The last four teams standing right now are Oklahoma, UCLA, Oklahoma State, and Texas. So both Oklahoma and Oklahoma State are the top two seeds and they both went undefeated through the weekend, which means they have to lose twice to be out. So we could have two games today. We could have four games today. If Oklahoma, who's playing UCLA, loses that first game, they get a half an hour break and then they play a second game right on the heels of that game to see who advances to the final. Oklahoma State and Texas will play this evening. Same scenario exists. Out of these four teams, Texas is the only unranked team here, having a bit of a Cinderella run. But out of all of these teams, I really want to make sure we talk about Oklahoma. So, I’ll start by asking you guys, have you heard anything about Oklahoma softball this season?
Brenda: I feel like ESPN has really been pumping this program up, so I know that they have like an astonishing record.
Amira: They do have an astonishing record. And I should say, ESPN’s coverage of the entire tournament has increased. Lindsay has a great Power Plays newsletter out now about their ESPN softball coverage with ESPN VP Meg Aronowitz where they do a Q&A about the behind the scenes road to get this kind of historic coverage. The games that are played today will be the first time college softball is played on network TV, both games airing on ABC. So, absolutely you might have seen something about Oklahoma on ESPN properties, because they are getting more coverage. In fact, they just were on the cover of SI as well. SB Nation has a profile of their dominance. And they are in fact one of the most dominant teams in history. So if you like dominance, they are absolutely out of this world. They host a win percentage of 0.965. Their record this year is 55 and 2. [laughs]
Jessica: Why are they so good? Do they have players, or is this like a phenomenal coach, or?
Brenda: Did they abide by Title IX in 1973? [laughter]
Amira: So they have long, you know, it's a historic program. So they have had that for their advantage.
Jessica: Yeah, I know they've been good for a long time.
Amira: A while. But this year, one of the things that helps them is that their batting average is 0.69. They have three members of the lineup batting better than a 400. And they have three players who are in the top 15 in home runs. They are absolutely an offensive juggernaut, which is one of the things leading them to victory. In fact, 35 of their 55 wins have been by the mercy rule. [Jessica gasps] The mercy rule is invoked when you're up by more than eight runs after the fifth inning. And if you look at some of these most dominant wins, you'll see why. They beat, for instance, Santa Barbara 14-0 after five innings. Texas Tech, they were up 21-0 after five innings.
Jessica: Shut up. That’s a football score!
Amira: Yeah. And then in May, they beat Texas A&M 20-0 after five innings. [laughs] So, you know, there's like somebody at SB Nation crunched it and said, you have a 61% chance not of just being beaten by Oklahoma, but being mercy ruled by them! That's the type of dominance we're talking about. So it's absolutely an offensive-driven team, but their defense is really stellar as well. And if you're asking what still motivates a team that has lodged 55 now 56 wins, those two losses they're really hanging onto. [Jessica laughs] One of their two losses was a 4-2 upset at the hands of Texas. They snapped the Sooners’ at that point 40 game winning streak. Apparently this made Oklahoma very mad, and in the tournament this weekend, Texas faced Oklahoma again, and Oklahoma beat them 7-2. And Jocelyn Alo, who's their all star player, who’s I think first person in DI history to have three straight seasons of 30+ home runs. After beating Texas this weekend, she was like, “We were really fueled by that loss in April.” [laughter]
Brenda: Oh my god. That's like really intense, in terms of statistics. I am still absorbing like all of that information. And how petty and competitive they really are. I love that. There's like, forget it. Like, not once should we even expect to lose. [Amira laughs] Where's all this money going for these deals? Like this ABC and ESPN and stuff like that.
Amira: Yeah. That's a great question. Well, I have to say, so, if we all recall, softball has been a steadily growing if not the fastest growing revenue sport for a while. So there has been a lot of money flushed into this sport. But I think it's the same thing with the ESPN media rights deals. We know it doesn't go to the athletes. We know that first and foremost. And so you have a lot of the money going, of course to the conferences, and then all of the regular NCAA mess. But I think it's really interesting because I think we're still in the phase of reporting around this, which is the cycle of “this as historic, we haven't seen this before,” and I think we have yet to move to the point where we have that kind of same critical lens on it because it's new. But I think it's coming. And there's a lot of great softball coverage out there. I want to shout out 7Innings, this ESPN podcast which transitioned into a show for this. They have a wonderful team, including Beth Mowins and Michele Smith, Jessica Mendoza.
So I think that they have a lot of coverage and a lot of reporters dedicated to softball now that we'll start to kind of see the effects of this. But it's the 40th anniversary I think of the first college world series for softball. And so I think there's a lot of people reflecting on how much growth has happened. And I think the next step is exactly right, Brenda, is to be like, all right, so what does this mean now that we have the coverage? The audience has been steadily growing. This was the most watched season, not just the final, season. It's not just moving into that space, but it's setting a blueprint for women's college sports, especially in terms of media coverage.
Jessica: So at this point, Amira, you told us about Oklahoma. So, it's obviously theirs to lose, I think is probably fair, but so is Oklahoma State the next bet? Like, if Oklahoma doesn't win, is that who we should expect to win? Which is wild to think that their in-state rival would also be their national rival.
Amira: Yes, absolutely. Oklahoma State is the only other team that has beaten them. And so Oklahoma faces off against UCLA, right? We've got a lot of coverage this year of Maya Brady, Tom Brady's niece.
Jessica: All right.
Amira: Full of Black girl magic. She is tremendous. So, UCLA is a fifth seed. They're playing Oklahoma. They'll see if they can upset.
Jessica: Beat ‘em twice. [laughs]
Amira: Beat ‘em twice. Which is…Beating them once as a tall order! So, beating them twice is hard. But Oklahoma State does face Texas, which is a really interesting matchup. Both of those teams are the only two teams that have beaten Oklahoma this year. And so I would stand to think that whatever team advances from that matchup is at least in a position where they can say they have done it before. I would have to say Oklahoma State is of course the favorite to do that. They also went undefeated this past weekend. So, not only are they rested, but they can drop a game and still be in position to get to the final.
Jessica: But they probably want to not drop a game against Texas so they can go up against Oklahoma, both undefeated. Yeah.
Amira: Exactly. Texas beat UCLA. The beginning of the tournament, they went through Arizona. They went through a lot of big teams as an unranked team. They had a really disastrous loss at the beginning of the year that was kind of like a humiliating tournament run to kick off the season that turned a lot of heads. And everybody said, what has become of this program? This is Cat Osterman's program, right? They weren't jelling together. I follow their TikToks. They are absolutely bonded now. And it's showing up on the pitch. And so I wouldn't count them out, but we are in for either a two game or a four game or three game treat today. And certainly it looks like I would take an OK State-Oklahoma final. I think it would be fascinating.
Brenda: Oh, now I'm all excited. That's all it takes for me, is my co-hosts talking for like 30 seconds about any sport, you know, much less some minutes. So, I am excited about horse racing.
Jessica: I love this for you, Bren. [laughter]
Brenda: It’s so silly. It's the things that you like in life. So funny. Basically, there's no shot at a Triple Crown this year. The three races – the Kentucky Derby, Preakness and Belmont Stakes are what makes the Triple Crown, for people who aren't super into horse racing already. The first two races, the Kentucky Derby and Preakness, have already been run, but this weekend, so the Saturday, June 11th, is Belmont Stakes in Elmont, New York. And I am really excited about it, because actually there's something cool in like a Triple Crown and wanting them to win. But there's also something really cool in just having no idea what's going to happen. And I can tell you why I care about it a little bit. I mean, last season, if you remember, there was the big doping cases involving Kentucky Derby winner Medina spirit, the horse that surprisingly won and then tested positive for the banned substance betamethasone. We did a whole episode on that exactly a year ago actually on Burn It All Down.
And I'm very sad to report that three and a half years old Medina Spirit died of a heart attack this past year after a workout. It is unclear if it was related to any substance in his body. The autopsy – which is called a necropsy or something with horses, it's got a slightly different name – didn't come back definitive. So that's obviously been very upsetting to lots of people in this community. And this community, doing that episode, I realized how sort of drama filled this community really is. And so since I got all wrapped up in that world, I've just started following it with a lot more intensity. I just want to say that there's still hundreds of horse deaths from racing every year. In qualifying for these, it's gotten better, you know, since last year, and the year before, and the way in which there's been some scrutiny and some regulations. But it's certainly not perfect.
So, just really quickly, Kentucky Derby, won by Rich Strike. That was an 80 to 1 odds. That’s because Rich Strike wasn't supposed to be in the race at all. It comes off of the scratch, which, there's whole glossaries. And what this means is like one horse didn't run. So, Rich Strike wasn't supposed to be in there. It's a really ironic and perfect name. You couldn't write it any better. But then strangely, Rich Strike’s owner decided not to enter him into Preakness. And so at that point, then there's no Triple Crown. Yeah. I guess he needed to “rest him.” And I have big air quotes because I mean, remember that these are like very young horses that typically don't really want to be rested. And on top of all that, it seems very contrary to what we've seen from owners and their relationship to their horse.
Jessica: Why have a racing horse if you're not…That’s very interesting.
Brenda: [laughs] It’s very interesting. It almost feels like really interesting. So we will just sit back and wait and see if anything comes out about that. That horse was jockeyed by Venezuelan Sonny Leon. And I just want to say all these jockeys come from these particular places in Latin America. Will I write a chapter on it in my next book? Probably. It is a fascinating thing. So, this Venezuela jockey had never ridden a horse. So that’s that.
Jessica: He had never never…What?
Amira: He had never ridden a horse!?
Brenda: No, ridden a horse in this stake. Sorry, in this category. [laughter] Like, he's never done a ride like this.
Amira: [laughs] I was like, I’m gonna need a little bit more on that.
Brenda: Like, no, no, no. Yeah. That would be amazing. Good point.
Jessica: So this horse that was only in because of a scratch had a jockey who had never run a race at this level before?
Brenda: Right.
Jessica: And won the Kentucky Derby. And then didn’t run the Preakness. Okay. [laughs]
Brenda: And didn't run the Preakness. And here's the one thing, is that like Joe Drape at the New York Times who we interviewed for that episode and all of these other experts, Melissa Hoppert, who also writes with him, were like, you know, one of the reasons that this horse even won is it was a perfect ride. So, Sonny Leon, you know, this Venezuelan rider who had, yes, ridden a horse before, but never at this level [laughter] – thank you, Amira, for correcting that – did this perfect ride. And so that's partly why Rich Strike is actually not the favorite going into Belmont Stakes.
Jessica: Okay. So he is back for Belmont with the same jockey.
Brenda: Well, you never really know for sure what the jockeys, but probably. So that's part of the drama, right?
Jessica: That's drama.
Brenda: Yeah. And like, a lot of these jockeys are related to each other.
Amira: Ooh! Give me family drama.
Brenda: Oh yeah. They're brothers. They get like picked at the last minute.
Amira: You know what? I have an idea. Because obviously me and Jess got into Formula 1 because of Drive to Survive. So clearly Netflix needs to do a Ride to Survive.
Brenda: Yes. Yes.
Amira: I feel like you didn't appreciate that pun as much as I wanted.
Brenda: I do. I am! I’m saying yeah. [Jessica laughs] How could I more emotively respond? I think it's an amazing idea. I think that, you know, I'm your person, if you want to deeply delve into the history of these academies of jockeys. I am fascinated. Like, there are Puerto Rican, Venezuelan, Nicaraguan, the Dominican Republic also has a key one. And when I asked last year in our episode, why are they coming from Latin America? The answer was they're shorter there? [laughter] Which is just untrue when racist. [laughs] Like, I'm very short, for people who don't know, and I most definitely cannot do this. So it’s…Come on. I know they need to be light, but…
Amira: Well, now I care. So this worked.
Brenda: Good! And yeah, I just quickly also want to add that at Preakness, which took place in Baltimore and was won by Early Voting, which another lovely name that we should all be happy about, Megan Thee Stallion, did perform.
Jessica: Aww.
Brenda: [laughs] Thee Stallion!
Amira: Yes, that’s right. Horses. I get it.
Brenda: I love it. I love it.
Jessica: Bren, will you tell me what happened to Bob Baffert, the guy that doped Medina Spirit, like, is he still around?
Brenda: Yeah. Bob Baffert is your textbook villain throughout all of this.
Jessica: He really is.
Brenda: And has gotten so many different horses, jockeys, owners in trouble related to banned substances. He is out of the sport, but only through next year, meaning he'll be able to raise horses in the next Triple Crown. That is really upsetting to a lot of people. But remember, Sepp Blatter is about to be able to come back and govern FIFA again in like another year and a half.
Amira: Wow, already?
Brenda: It’s like something ridiculous. And so he started out with this big ban, then it goes down and down and down. And the thing about horse racing is it's totally governed state by state. So he has like a zillion lawsuits against every state association for banning him, and they have lawsuits against him. And so it's all this litigious nightmare with these beautiful horses and their talented jockeys and the people who really take care of them day to day being just kind of victims of this ridiculousness.
Amira: Wow. This is a lot of drama. I wanted to know…So, I know the Triple Crown itself is pretty uncommon, but I wanted to know how rare it was for it not to even be competed for, like, how often does a winning horse from one of the early derbies just like…I mean, I could see through like injury, but how wild is it to not have it in play?
Brenda: Yeah. The last time that a Kentucky Derby winner passed up Preakness was 1985, right?
Amira: Oh, I wasn’t alive!
Jessica: Whoa.
Brenda: Right.
Jessica: Oh, that makes it even more interesting! Huh.
Brenda: Thank you. I'm glad you're just as skeptical as I am of that decision. But we shall see. Yeah, it's pretty rare. And of course, the Triple Crown in general…So, these races have been around for, I think these are like the 149th, 155th iteration of these races, you know, right around 150 years. And there's only 13 Triple Crown winners. And a lot of people don't appreciate, I think, Secretariat, who still–
Amira: There’s a movie about that.
Brenda: Right. But I mean like, how many people–
Amira: No, I just recognized the name. I felt knowledgeable.
Brenda: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Like, I feel like not that many people are like watching that movie.
Amira: No, not me.
Brenda: [laughs] Exactly. Especially ones not alive in ’85 are like not watching it. But Secretariat has the record in all three races and has since 1973. And so in most sports we look and we say to ourselves, oh, you know, people are getting better and better at this. Faster and faster. And this isn't the case in horse racing. And I just want to add one more thing that we learned from that episode: female horses are not as profitable, but just as fast. And they're being pushed out of the Triple Crown.
Amira: Misogyny in…Horse misogyny?!
Brenda: Exactly.
Amira: Horsogyny?!
Brenda: Exactly. And because they can't go around spreading their sperm a thousand times, that they have to actually, you know, foal these horses and they can only do that so many times in their lives, they are not as expensive, and thus they are not run, even though they're often faster. So we aren't even seeing necessarily the fastest horses in the world. We are seeing the fastest male horses in the world. And anyway, you hate to call a horse a GOAT, but the Secretariat is a fascinating story. 1973 was the record.
Amira: [laughs] Horse GOAT.
Brenda: I know, right. [laughs] We are full of puns today. [laughter] Okay. So, thank you so much for putting up with that…Horseplay.
Jessica: That was fascinating – oh, no. [laughs]
Brenda: Oh, it’s so bad, so bad. So bad. I'm so sorry.
Amira: [laughs] That was good. “Oh, no.”
Brenda: Okay. Let's go back to people sports. And we're going to talk with one of our resident tennis experts, Jessica! The French Open.
Jessica: Yeah. It ended yesterday, as of this recording. So, it was a fun fortnight. You have to use that word when you talk about tennis.
Brenda: [laughs] Fortnight.
Jessica: That’s how I know what a fortnight is, [laughs] because I love tennis. Really excited for Coco Gauff. She made the final for the women's tournament, which was her first grand slam final, massive breakthrough for her. She's only 18 years old. She also made the women's doubles final. She was the runner up in both of them. And you could tell how upset she was to have lost that match to Iga Swiatek, which is like, it was Iga's to lose. This woman is incredible. Swiatek beat her 6-1 6-3 in just over an hour, which is a route. But it was Iga’s second major title, so her second time winning the French Open, but it was her 35th straight victory this year. She now has tied Venus Williams for the longest WTA winning streak of this millennium. She hasn't lost a match since the middle of February, and it is early June. This is bonkers. She took over the number one ranking in April. So when you play all these different tournaments – this'll come back in a little bit – you earn points the further up you go in the tournament, and you have to then defend those points the next year. So, she's going to have a hell of a time defending all these points next year when she comes around.
But she took over #1 in April when Ash Barty retired. Iga takes over in April. She now has nearly twice as many points as anyone else on the women's side, which is just wild. So, I mean, Iga is just out here being phenomenal. And then of course we have to mention the great, the GOAT on clay, Rafael Nadal, this old man who is battling like a chronic foot injury, apparently, like, would guess that he won this French Open in a lot of pain, but he won it. It was his 14th, his 14th French Open! Which is like, that’s how many grand slam titles Pete Sampras had when he held the record for grand slam titles in general. Nadal now has 14 just on clay in Paris. He is phenomenal. He beat Casper Ruud, this Norwegian young man, 6-3 6-3 6-0. Bageled him in the third set. It was just over two hours. It was…I don't even know what you say about Rafa Nadal at this point in time. But the important thing is he beat Djokovic on the way there, and now holds the overall grand slam title record at 22, which is two more than both Federer and Novak. So, we like that. [laughs]
Brenda: I was on the phone with you the other day and you were like, he is just the best that clay will ever see in the men's game! So, like, what makes him so good on that surface?
Jessica: Yeah. Well, apparently – I had to look this up so I would get it right, because I'm not so great on all the technicality stuff – but apparently he has this incredible forehand and then just like, he's so good on clay. Like, if you watch him move…Movement is everything in tennis, right? And he can just move on clay. He slides really well on clay. And one of the things about clay is that it attaches to the ball as you're playing. So it actually will slow the play down. And Nadal is able to use that to get in position in order to use his forehand, which is incredibly accurate. And he does this thing where he like hooks his arm when he does it. I don't even know how to explain sort of what it looks like, but he can get the ball to spin. And also he's a lefty, and there are very, very few lefties in tennis. So, Federer became very famous for hiring left-handed tennis players to practice against in order to try to beat Nadal on all the different surfaces, including clay. So the ball spins differently when you play Nadal because it's spinning in a different direction. And so kind of all of that combined has just made him…He is just the best. I don't think we'll ever see anyone like this again.
Amira: So, at the time where we have folks like Rafa still here, being great–
Jessica: The olds. [laughs]
Amira: We have the olds. We also have the teens. There's so many teenagers who are like, good. Why? [laughs]
Jessica: I don’t know. I mean, historically on the women's side, there's always been a bunch of teens, right? I think the women's game in general tends to skew young when you think about it. It feels different right now because we have Serena and Venus and some older ladies hanging around. But in general you know, Coco made it to the final this year as an 18 year old. Leylah Fernandez made it to the quarterfinals. Everyone will remember that Canadian sensation, I think she's 19. But we also saw it on the men's side, which there was this…The French Open had a blog post that was like, “Day 9 diary: Tsitsipas vows payback against teens!” [laughter] Because like, the men's side has these teenagers. So, it was Holger Rune, who went on to play Casper Ruud, which must have been terrible to listen to. I didn't actually watch that match.
Amira: That would’ve been impossible.
Jessica: I know. [laughs] But Rune is only 19 and he's the one who beat Tsitsipas in the fourth round. And when he did that, he then joined his fellow 19 year old, this like phenom that everyone is so interested in right now, Carlos Alcaraz, who also made the quarterfinals. People thought if Nadal couldn't do it this year, that it would actually be Carlos Alcaraz, this other Spaniard, who would be the one to be able to take this title, which would be incredible on the men's side. You just don't see teenagers like that. So, I don't know if it's just where the men's game is at this point that we are finally seeing what will happen once the big four all retire – which is Federer, Nadal, Djokovic and Murray. And there is just kind of a hole there. And it is really fascinating to see these teenagers coming up. It just makes you very excited for like where the future of tennis is going.
Amira: So, my second question is like, so, one of the things that happened were a huge disparity in scheduling, particularly night matches. And I wonder if you had thoughts… [laughs] Jessica’s face said yes, I have thoughts.
Jessica: Well, it was a bummer, because Amélie Mauresmo is the tournament director this year, this famous female French player. She coached Murray for a little bit, which was a big deal that Murray had a female coach. And so she was the one in charge of deciding who was going to do these night matches. And she said, “In this era that we're in right now, I don't feel, and as a woman, a former women's tennis player, I don't feel bad or unfair saying that right now, you have more appeal,” is what she's talking about, that the men's game has more appeal. And it was actually Swiatek who came out and said that she was disappointed and surprised that Mauresmo would actually like say this out loud. To which then of course Mauresmo had to apologize.
She says that her quote was taken out of the wider context and that she feels bad that she said this, but then gave this like really weird answer, which I would imagine is the actual pressure for tournament directors. But said, “Because we have one match only, the ticket holders, I feel that it's really tougher to schedule a women's match because we have to take into consideration the length of the match, I feel. I feel that it's the fair kind of thing to do for the ticket holders.” So the men play longer matches, and so the ticket holders deserve to have longer matches, apparently, is what Mauresmo was saying. It makes me…It bums me out. It bums me out that it came from a woman. It bums me out to hear her talk about women's tennis this way. And this is not a problem just with the French Open, like, this kind of inequity and gender scheduling at the grand slams happens a lot. It just shows you sort of how on surface the sexism can be in this sport. And it just continues to rear its head.
Brenda: This weekend we saw a lot of sporting events, as we have in the last few months, with expressions of solidarity with Ukraine. Did we see that in the French Open?
Jessica: Yeah, we saw a huge one actually. So, Iga Swiatek is Polish, and Poland has obviously taken in now at this point millions, over something close to 4 million refugees from the Ukraine. And so Iga played the final, she had a ribbon on her hat, and I thought, oh, that's nice. And then she did her speech after winning. And this is how she ended it.
Iga Swiatek: I wanted to at the end say something to Ukraine to stay strong, because the war is still there. And since my first speech in Doha, basically, I was hoping that when I'm going to do the next one the situation is going to get better, but I'm still gonna, you know, have hopes and try to support. So, thank you guys, and see you next year.
Jessica: You know, the crowd was very righteous about it and clapped for a very long time in response to those comments. But yeah, it was really powerful. The French Open allowed Russian players to play, but they would not allow flags. They wouldn't play the anthem for them. Like, they tried to limit the Russianness of it, even though the Russian players were there. I will say, on this front, the most interesting thing is about to happen, which is Wimbledon. It's taking place starting on June 27th. So, end of the month. Wimbledon announced a while ago that they would not allow Russian and Belarusian players to be at Wimbledon, and this was hugely controversial. And so at the very beginning of the French Open, the ATP, the WTA and the ITF, which are the tours and the overall organization for international tennis, announced they were upset at Wimbledon for this decision and in response would not be giving anyone ranking points for playing at Wimbledon, which I cannot express how major this is. Wimbledon responded by saying they were disappointed in the tours, but they're a British institution and Britain has decided to do everything in its power to put Russia on its back foot, and so they're going to stick to their guns. But this means that both Naomi Osaka, Iga Swiatek, they have said they may not play at Wimbledon if they cannot get ranking points. You know, people already disagreed with Wimbledon's decision, and now the idea that you will not get points for playing there has made Wimbledon an exhibition match.
Amira: It's wild.
Jessica: It is wild. It is such a huge, huge decision on the part of the tours. And so we have no idea at this point who's going to show up to Wimbledon, what they're going to say about Ukraine, about Russia, any of it. It’s going to be super fascinating in the tennis world when we get to what is arguably the biggest event every single year for that sport.
Brenda: Wow.
Jessica: Like, one of the first Russian athletes to speak out against the war was Andrey Rublev, who is a top 10 Russian tennis player. And he won a thing, and they write on the camera after they win, and whatever tournament he was at, he wrote, like, “no war,” like immediately after the invasion. So, it will be very fascinating when we get there.
Brenda: This week, I interview LA Times sports editor, Iliana Limón Romero, the first Latina to head a newspaper of record sports section about how she got where she is and how having diverse voices in the newsroom changes the way that we tell the most important stories.
Iliana Limón Romero: I do not let my friends and allies, older white male journalists, or, you know, white women or fellow women who are non-Black journalists, non-queer journalists, all of those. Like, we don't get to opt out of the conversation. It's not that we're not covering those topics. You have an obligation. It shouldn't just be like, oh, you're the Latinx journalist, you’re just covering all the Latinx issues, we're just gonna put it over there. Not doing that. Although you do bring a powerful voice, nobody gets the opt out of the conversation of accurately and fully representing the community that you're in. But inherently, based on your experiences, you decide who you interview. You decide the questions that you ask. You decided the framing of those questions. And even well-intended people who don't come from diverse backgrounds don't understand how to ask that array of questions or how to connect and relate and put people in positions to feel comfortable to truly share their stories.
Brenda: And now it’s everybody's favorite part of the show, the burn pile, where we take all of the things that have made us angry in sports for this week and put them on a metaphorical – for now – burn pile, where we can set them ablaze. I am going to start because I have a petty burn, and my petty burn is Christian Pulisic, US men's national player. And he had a really nice assist this week. It goes around Twitter, his kind of take down of this ball. It's very good. He's a very solid player of the sport of soccer. And when interviewed about the game – this was against Morocco – when interviewed, people were like, hey, what's it like being back in the US? They say America, but again, hi, imperialism. They say, what's it like being back in the US and playing for US audiences? And he says, you know, I guess for whoever's here, it's good, but numerically there weren't many people here, and I don't know why.
Okay. So, I want to burn his reaction. There are a ton of amazing US men's national team fans that they do not deserve, okay? And to then say that about them really makes me mad. Trust me. I fight with these people all the time about the US men's team, and they defend their team. They show up in wide numbers. US Soccer Federation has made men's matches prohibitively expensive in places that are prohibitive to get to with very poor public transportation. Not every time! Hi, Austin, you're coming up. But you know, much of the time. And on top of it, these poor saps love you. They do. I don't know why, but they do. And so how ungracious to get up there and say that you are disappointed in them. You didn't even make the last fucking World Cup. So, what about that? And you're in the easiest confederation in existence with the most amount of support. So, please. These are great fans. Appreciate them and stop whining, Christian Pulisic. I want to burn his reaction to his fans. Burn.
All: Burn.
Amira: Brenda, in defense of the US men's soccer team! [laughs]
Brenda: There are fans. There are fans! [laughs] Amira?
Amira: There are fans. Okay. Hi, buckle up. I have a tri-burn of people who I want to shut the fuck up. [Brenda laughs] Okay. I want to start with Herschel Walker, former NFL player, now inexplicably Senate candidate in Georgia, running off with Reverend Raphael Warnock, of course. There are so many things that I want Herschel Walker to stop talking about, but most recently of course was gun violence. He rambled on and on – nothing he says is coherent. It's awful. We've been through this already. I can’t. My brain literally cannot function dealing with this ineptitude again, most recently with his response to gun violence was like, “We have to get back into prayer.” And then he rambled for a little bit and he was like, “Look, Cain killed Abel. So this is all because people won't let us pray anymore.” None of it makes any sense. It's a disaster. But if you've heard his answers on anything else, like for instance, the mist that he says cures COVID, then you would know this is just right up his alley.
He also won't show up to debate. He’s ghosted on five different debates. A super PAC and/or his campaign where like giving out gas coupons in Georgia, which by the way is illegal, for votes. But probably the thing that I hate most about Herschel Walker’s candidacy is that it means that it gives his son Christian Walker this huge platform. And if you don't know Christian Walker, and now you do, I'm sorry. He has a huge TikTok following. He's basically, in his words, “not gay, he just likes men.” But he spends most of his time on TikTok, making TikToks about Black people and gay people being terrible. One of his favorite lines is, “you have your rights, so shut up.” He's ranting right now about pride month. I just want all of the Walkers right now to just like go away and be quiet.
But joining him over there of course is Governor DeSantis in Florida. Most recently he used his honorary seat on the Special Olympic Committee and hosting the Special Olympics in Orlando to threaten $27.5 million in fines to the Special Olympics for their vaccination and masking requirements for the Special Olympics. Again, Special Olympics include many people who are immunocompromised, many people who are more susceptible to effects from COVID. And here you have a governor threatening $27.5 million in fines. The Special Olympics conceded, dropped a lot of their vaccination mandates along with some masking stuff, saying they want to play, they don't want to fight. So if you're keeping score, here's a governor who has gone after books, gone after saying gay, gone after trans youth, gone after Disneyworld, gone after the Special Olympics, and also denied funding for a spring training facility for the Tampa Bay Rays, coincidentally right after they spoke out and donated money to gun violence and gun reform organizations.
But those Tampa Bay Rays do make an appearance on wrapping up the three groups of people who I want to shut the fuck up, because the Rays just hosted pride night, which was a wildly successful event. It netted 3000 more fans through their pride celebrations than their regular games. They wore patches, had flags, et cetera. But not everybody on the Tampa Bay Rays opted into this, and it was made an opt in decision. In fact, pitchers – five of them – opted out of wearing the patch. Jason Adam, Jalen Beeks, Brooks Raley, Jeffrey Springs, and Ryan Thompson. That alone joins a long list of people opting out of pride jerseys and things like that. It always is eye-roll inducing. It's always ridiculous. But it's their statement that's particularly galling. Adam, speaking on behalf of all of these pitcher dudes, said, “It's a faith-based decision.”
And this grumbled statement said, “Ultimately, we want them to know they're all welcome and loved here, but when we put it on our bodies, I think a lot of guys decided it's a lifestyle that maybe not that they look down on or anybody or think differently. It's just that we don't want to encourage it because we believe in Jesus.” It's not judgmental though. They want you to know that. Then somehow, in that word vomit, circled back to say, “But again, we love these men and women. We care about them, and we want them to feel safe and welcome here.” It's appalling that we're still having these “lifestyle” conversations. It's appalling that you put out a statement so chock-full of stereotypes, inaccuracies, straight out homophobia, and then call it “based on your faith.” All of this is just galling. From Herschel Walker, from Governor DeSantis, to these five pitchers on the Tampa Bay Rays and this word vomit statement, I just want everybody to shut the fuck up, please. It hurts my brain. Burn.
All: Burn.
Brenda: That's very high flames. Jessica, take us home.
Jessica: So last week, the Ohio House passed a bill that I can barely bring myself to talk about, forget that it could become law in the state. The bill, a horrific evolution and the anti-trans sports bills that we've discussed repeatedly on the show, would ban transgender girls from playing on girls and women's sports teams in grade schools, state institutions of higher ed, and private colleges. If the bill becomes law, it would take precedence over all current policies by high school and college sports associations in the state. Beyond that though, there's this shit in the bill, and I'm going to literally quote the bill here: “If a participant's sex is disputed, the participant shall establish the participant’s sex by presenting a signed physician statement indicating the participant’s sex based upon the following. One, the participant's internal and external reproductive anatomy. Two, the participant’s normal endogenously produced levels of testosterone. Three, an analysis of the participant’s genetic makeup.”
If that sounds like sex testing on children, that's because that's what that would be. This fucking bill is, of course, named the “Save Women's Sports Act.” According to Equality Ohio and the Ohio High School State Athletic Association, there is only one transgender athlete in the entire state who is participating in high school sports at this moment. That is out of more than 350,000 high school students in Ohio. One, we all know very well which girls will be most likely to be questioned on their gender: the ones who win, Black and brown girls, those who present as more masculine, or whose muscles are “too big,” and of course as the bill intends ones that people suspect are non-binary, intersex or trans. In 2016, the New York Times ran an article about Dutee Chand, an intersex female runner from India, who underwent sex testing in 2014 after she did well in competitions. And according to the Times, that “prompted competitors and coaches to tell the federation that her physique seemed suspiciously masculine.”
I'm now going to describe what Chand underwent in the sex testing. And I will just say, this is incredibly upsetting to her. So just, here we go. Shortly after receiving a letter saying that she needed to do a “gender verification test,” quote, “Chand says she was sent to a private hospital in Bangalore where a curt woman drew her blood to measure her level of natural testosterone, though Chand had no idea what was being measured. Chand also underwent a chromosome analysis, an MRI, and a gynecological exam that she found mortifying. To evaluate the effects of high testosterone, the international athletic association's protocol involves measuring and palpitating the clitoris, vagina, and labia, as well as evaluating breast size and pubic hair, scored on an illustrated five grade scale.”
That's horrific to imagine happening to an 18 year old, which Chand was at that time. This Ohio bill could force this on young girls. We're talking about like 11 year olds who will have to undergo sex testing in order to compete. This is all in the name of “protecting women's sports.” The people who say they are doing this to protect girls and women in sport are willing to literally serve up the bodily autonomy and the bodies of cis girls and women in order to possibly catch and punish a trans girl or woman who is just trying to play a fucking game.
It's a great reminder that these legislators and everyone else supporting these anti-trans sports bills, they don't actually care about girls or women, or girls’ and women's sports. They just happen to hate them a little bit less than they hate people who push on the gender binary. If you are at all on the side of telling trans girls that they can not compete in sport, you were on the side of these people whose logical end is sex testing these children. It’s disgusting. It's immoral, it's unethical. And I fucking hate it so much. The measure next goes to the Senate in Ohio after lawmakers return from their summer recess. That might not be until November. So there is time here. There's time to lobby hard in Ohio against the state-sanctioned child abuse that they are asking for. But we're going to start today by burning this. So burn.
All: Burn.
Brenda: Well, one solve on these types of things is to think about those who are making changes for the better. So, let's try to phoenix from the ash here and celebrate some of the torchbearers from this week. Jessica, who has really shown up for the French Open?
Jessica: Yeah. We have so many people that did so well. Congratulations to the winners. On the men's and women's singles tournaments, of course we’ve mentioned them already. Iga Swiatek and Rafael Nadal, but also Caroline Garcia and Kristina Mladenovic – the two French women won their second doubles title together at Roland Garros. Marcelo Arévalo
of El Salvador became Central America's first grand slam champion ever when he won the men's doubles with his partners, Jean-Julien Rojer. Wesley Koolhof and Ena Shibahara, a former UCLA Bruin, won the mixed doubles title. I love their story. They paired up after Koolhof sent Shibahara a DM on Instagram and was like, hey, do you want to pair up in Paris? And so this was their first tournament together and they won.
Diede de Groot won her seventh consecutive grand slam women's wheelchairs singles titles, while Shingo Kunieda won his 27th singles major in the wheelchair category. De Groot and Aniek van Koot, both of the Netherlands, won the wheelchair women's doubles championship, while British pair – this is like the most British name, it's so adorable – Alfie Hewett and Gordon Reed won the men's doubles, and their 10th consecutive grand slam crown. Hewett and Reed, the last time they lost in a grand slam was Wimbledon of 2019. [laughter] So congratulations to all these remarkable athletes.
Brenda: Wow. Amira, who else do we have outside of tennis?
Amira: Yeah, I got some more torchbearers for you. Minjee Lee won the US women's open golf championships, finishing four strokes ahead of the runner up. She received $1.8 million for her victory, the largest prize ever in women's golf history. Also, the first paid women's basketball league in Toronto, HoopQueens summer league started this past weekend at Toronto Metropolitan University. It will be four teams comprising 10 players each, and they'll play games every Sunday afternoon through July 3rd. Also, you know we love our spellers in here. San Antonio's own Harini Logan, who is just 14, won the first ever spell-off at the 2022 Scripps national spelling bee contest. For the spell-off, they had to spell it as many words as they could correctly in 90 seconds. It was wild to watch. Go watch it if you haven't seen it. Harini spelled 21 out of 26 words right to win. And Lucas McAneney won the Buffalo marathon with a time of 2 hours, 33 minutes and 29 seconds, which would be impressive all by itself, but he did it pushing his two year old son Sutton in the stroller for the full 26.2 miles. He was trying to set the world record for pushing a stroller during the marathon, but he missed out on it by only about two minutes. Sutton, for his part, slept through most of the race. Congratulations to both Lucas and Sutton.
Brenda: Cool. Oh, I love that one. Can I have a drumroll please?
[drumroll]
Our torchbearer of the week goes to Kat Craig, who won the integrity and impact award at last month's sports industry awards for her role in the evacuation of women Afghan athletes, particularly soccer players, and others as Kabul fell to the Taliban. Craig asked actually that the Afghan women's team founder Khalida Popal, who's been on the show, be awarded the honor, but Popal explained to Craig that she had in fact nominated her. Craig described herself as a “not terribly athletic, nerdy lawyer.” She has however founded a community-owned football club with her partner called Camden and Islington United. And I absolutely loved her quotes about rescuing the Afghani women athletes: “It won't always work, but we'll all give it a go. And if any team can do it, I believe our team can. This comes from trying to fight impossible odds, and not being reckless, but not being so afraid of failure that it paralyzes you and prevents you from trying. That is a lesson that the sports industry needs to learn.” I couldn't agree more. Congratulations to human rights lawyer Kat Craig.
Brenda: Okay. And in trying times, we like to celebrate what's good in our world every week and talk a little bit about that. Jessica, start us off.
Jessica: I feel like mine is all… [Brenda laughs] I’ve watched so much television recently, so just go with it. The Great Pottery Throw Down on HBO Max is almost exact same format as The Great British Bake Off, except they're doing pottery. So it has all the same warm, fuzzy feels and like amazing revelations at the end. And everyone loves everyone else. And I just love it. And there's this male judge who cries whenever someone perseveres through something that they find difficult, or he thinks the pottery is so beautiful. He cries about it. We watched season two of Hacks, which is just the very best show. Jean Smart deserves all the things in the world. Season two is remarkable and is hilarious. And Laurie Metcalf does the most amazing short cameo as a tour manager named Weed. It's wonderful.
And the other thing, Aaron deeply loves Stranger Things, so we watched season four. It was my favorite one since season one. I liked it a whole lot, even though I was distracted by how old all the kids are, because they're like way too old for what they're playing at this point in the storyline. But Kate Bush’s Running Up That Hill is prominent in this season, and all the young kids out there are hearing it for the first time and so it pushed it to number one, like on all the streaming services, because it's a magic, beautiful, perfect song. And so all the young people now are in love with it. And so that is good.
Brenda: Stop. Yeah.
Amira: I finally understand your tweet, because Samari said, mom, you don't know my favorite song, so you would not be able to save me. And I was like, is this a Stranger Things thing? And she was like, yeah. I was like, oh, that's what Jessica was tweeting about.
Jessica: Yes, you have to know…So, that's part of what's happening with Kate Bush in the show. Her song helps save someone from demonic possession. And I was very relieved that Aaron knew what my song would be, which is Closer to Fine by Indigo Girls. So, he could save my life if it comes down to it.
Brenda: Amira?
Jessica: It was Amira's birthday! And Tressa’s birthday! Happy birthday!
Amira: [laughs] It was my birthday. Thank you. And Tressa’s birthday. Jessica made me Formula 1 cookies. They are so cute. And they’re trophy themed.
Jessica: I bought a trophy cookie cutter to make Amira trophy cookies.
Amira: I have trophies, two of them, and they say my name and number one, although Aaron Luther wanted to, as a joke, write number two on the trophy. [laughs]
Brenda: Oh no.
Jessica: I wouldn't do it. I was like, she would not think that’s funny. [laughter]
Brenda: Oh no, no, no. I might think that's funny, but Amira, oh, I’m glad they know you.
Amira: So yeah, so they were delicious. And it was super cute and lovely to have that. I spent most of my weekend being an Uber driver for my kids and solo parenting, which was not as fun. But Samari is wonderful, and we went to lunch together and then we did an escape room at 11:55 while it was still my birthday, and we escaped and they were so impressed with our communication and positive reinforcement and how fast we got out of the room with only a 10% chance of escape. And it was just the two of us. And it made me really proud of her, because she's a really cool kid, and I did that. So, my other what’s good is my Formula 1 romance novels that Jessica put into my life. And I've just been in those worlds.
Jessica: Ransom, Kat Ransom. That's her name.
Amira: Yes.
Jessica: If you're looking for that.
Amira: Yes. That has been what I did for most of the weekend. [laughs] And oh, last thing. I'm really excited because I'll be heading to Houston next weekend to celebrate my baby sister’s birthday, but also to see Sam Coffey, who is a former student, dear friend, who plays for the Portland Thorns, because they'll be coming into play the Dash. And I'm very excited.
Jessica: And the Dash are on the run, it should be a good game.
Brenda: Very nice. My what's good is hate-watching Top Gun: Maverick. Sorry, Shireen, who actually thought it was a good movie. She can come on and debate that. It’s as horrible as the first one. It's, you know, the most racist, sexist fantasy of old white dudes who are like, who really believes? And people will be like, oh Brenda, you just have to suspend your reason and watch movies. And it's like, you know, shut up. I do not, okay? This is a white fantasy, a white dude fantasy. You're telling me someone in their mid fifties – I’m the oldest person on this show – is more suited to fly a billion dollar plane in terms of hand eye coordination, vision, and ability to sustain G-force than the best six fighter pilots that are 22? You're just stupid.
Jessica: I love that this is Brenda’s what's good, is shitting on Top Gun! [laughs]
Brenda: Right! Right. Fuck that movie.
Amira: And I like how she's like enthusiastically hate watching, what’s good! And let me tell you all the ways I hate.
Brenda: Yeah. And the number one movie in America is why we don't have gun control.
Amira: Oh, good point.
Brenda: The theme of the entire movie is I can be a white savior and I am Die Hard, and the theme is “dad, talk to me, talk to me, don't think, you're thinking, just do, just do, stop thinking!” That is the point of the movie. And like, I felt like, yup, this is Reagan. I am back in Reagan's America. Don't think, just do. I'm in a Nike commercial. Where am I? Nowhere that can think hard enough to pass gun regulation. So, it's a terrible movie. I'm glad it's terrible. I'm glad I couldn't get sucked in. It proves to me that I'm just as smart as I was in 1986, though I could not fight a fighter pilot jet thing as good as I could then. Ahh! Go and see it, but please be like critical. I enjoyed watching. I was laughing so hard, but people next to me thought I was crying. So they weren't mad at me, because I had my mask on. It's fun to go see, because it's just I like knowing what other people are talking about, even if I'm going to be like the mean person that looks for the dog poop at the picnic. And I sit right next to it. [Amira laughs] Yep. That's me.
What are we watching this week? As we've discussed, there is a ton of sports. College softball world series, obviously. The finals game will one is Wednesday, tomorrow, June 8th at 8:30pm. Then Thursday, June 9th, 7:30pm eastern time is game two. Game three if necessary is 8:30pm on Friday, June 10th. We've already discussed that the Belmont Stakes is June 11th, Saturday. And NBA finals. For our own Amira Rose Davis, go Celtics!
That's it for this episode of Burn It All Down. This episode was produced by Tressa Versteeg. Shelby Weldon is our web and social media wizard. Burn It All Down is part of the Blue Wire podcast network. Follow Burn It All Down on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Listen, subscribe, and please, please, please rate the show on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify, Google Play, and TuneIn. For show links and transcripts, check out our website, burnitalldownpod.com. You'll also find a link to our merch, which is at our Bonfire store. And thank you as always to our patrons. Your support means the world to us. If you want to become a sustaining donor to our show, visit patreon.com/burnitalldown. I'm Brenda Elsey, on behalf of Jessica Luther and Amira Rose Davis, burn on and not out.