Title: Playoff Fever for New York Sports Fans [music]

Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC and we'll close the program today by saying and taking your calls on and talking to a guest about what a moment for New York sports fans. We've got October baseball with the Mets and now the Yankees making it to their league championship series. The Liberty are in the WNBA Championship series. The Giants and Jets are playing, the latter with some controversy. What else is new? Hockey season just started and the NBA is starting its preseason games.

Can you follow it all? Do you try? To end the show today, we are inviting you, the fans of the teams in the post-season in particular, with championships at stake. Liberty fans, call us up. I know last night was a bummer, but there's another game at home on Sunday, so it's far from over. 212-433 WNYC. Liberty fans, they don't take your calls much on the regular sports talk station, so we're inviting you here. 212-433-9692. Mets fans, too. It's been magical.

Yankees fans, here we go into the American League championship series without the Astros for once. Are you enjoying your sports maybe as a distraction from politics or keeping up with multiple teams at once? 212-433 WNYC. Jets fans, you can call us, too, on that quarterback who almost became RFK Junior's running mate and now is not winning most of his games so far. The coach got fired. Was it for wearing a Lebanese flag, he is Lebanese, on his shirt during last Sunday's game, or just for being a failing coach?

212-433 WNYC, 212-433-9692. The Brian Lehrer Show occasional sports section is open. 212-433-9692 especially for your Liberty, Mets, Jets, and Yankees calls, 212-433-9692, as we're joined by somebody who is following it all, Kavitha Davidson, sportswriter and host of the podcast Sportly. Hey, Kavitha, welcome back to WNYC.

Kavitha Davidson: Thank you so much, Brian. Good to be with you.

Brian Lehrer: Let's start with the Liberty. Amazing season. They blew a lead in game one last night. They were leading most of that game, ended up losing. It was exciting, but didn't go their way. What's your take? I'm seeing the word stunned in some of the headlines.

Kavitha Davidson: Stunned is definitely the word. As a native New Yorker and lifelong basketball fan, I had shades of Reggie Miller scoring eight points in nine seconds. The Liberty had such command of this game and gave up a 15-point lead with five minutes to go. It's the first time that's ever been done in WNBA history. This is a tough matchup, and obviously, the Liberty had the best record in the league this season, and there's championship vibes going on, but it was a really tough loss last night for these women.

Brian Lehrer: You want to go through some of the basics on the Liberty because sports talk shows, as I referred to before, and I listen sometimes to relax, they just don't talk about them hardly ever. Who are the stars? How dominant was the team this season?

Kavitha Davidson: This was a historic season that we've seen from a team that was in the championship last year. The stars on the Liberty are Sabrina Ionescu, who I would say was the Caitlin Clark before Caitlin Clark came around. She was a star in Oregon. She was the number one pick in the draft, was setting records all over the place. She is such an outside threat and scores at will, it almost seems and sets the point as well. You saw her impact in the Olympics.

Jonquil Jones is really, I think, the linchpin of this team. She's the big, she's the center. She had 24 points and 10 rebounds last night. I think as JJ goes, the rest of the Liberty goes. Then you have a generational future Hall of Famer in Breanna Stewart, which is a name I think everybody should know. Those are the stars on the Liberty to watch for.

Brian Lehrer: People who are paying any attention know that they made it to the finals last year, too, and lost the best three out of five series in four games to the Las Vegas Aces. Let's go to a Liberty fan. Minnie in Brooklyn, you're on WNYC. Hi, Minnie.

Minnie: Hi, Brian. Thanks so much for having me. Yes, I was at the game last night. It's my fifth game of the season. This was an incredible matchup, and this is exactly what people want. This is sports. Breanna Stewart got knocked down, but she will come back. She's won two championships already. The one thing that we should do is rely on Sandy Brondello. The Liberty know exactly how to pay attention to what happened, and I think game three on Sunday, 3:00 PM everyone should tune in. It's going to be a major, major day for everyone in New York City. When New York wins its sports, the whole world does better. I'm just telling you that. That's number one New York sports.

Brian Lehrer: It won't even conflict with the Mets game, which is Sunday night, or the Jets game, which is Monday night.

Minnie: Any New Yorker knows that you could go to both.

Brian Lehrer: Minnie, thank you very much.

Minnie: Any New Yorker knows you can watch both. That's New York. We've been doing this for hundreds of years. Let's go, New York.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you very much. Leslie in the Bronx, you're on WNYC. Hello, Leslie.

Leslie: Hi. I think it's absolutely terrific that the Liberty are playing at the Barclays Center. That puts them in the same big leagues as the men. I think it's fabulous.

Brian Lehrer: Leslie, thank you very much. Attendance has been rocking at Barclays this whole season. Right, Kavitha?

Kavitha Davidson: Yes, absolutely. I've been to every playoff game except for last night because I had a conflict, and I was, as one of your callers said, split-screening the Yankees and the Liberty on my phone. It's been rocking. The vibes are immaculate, to borrow a Knicks phrase, and the crowd really is incredible. I would say there have been bigger crowds for the playoffs for the Liberty than there are in some regular-season Nets games, and it's been really incredible to see.

Brian Lehrer: Sylvia in Manhattan is going to change sport. You're on WNYC. Hi, Sylvia. Oops. No, you're not. I have to go like this. Hang on. There you go. Now we have you. Hi, Sylvia.

Sylvia: Hi. Can you hear me?

Brian Lehrer: Yes.

Sylvia: I'm a Mets fan. I live in Northern Manhattan, so I do have to battle a little bit with Yankees fans, but I'm just so happy that both teams are in the postseason and fighting as well as they are, but for the Mets, my God. I've been a fan since the early '80s, and I've never seen a team like this. Carlos Mendoza, he came over from the Yankees as an-

Brian Lehrer: The manager.

Sylvia: -assistant coach and he's just been wonderful. He's so calm, cool, and collected. He's so honest with the players, and it's so exciting. The thing about the Mets this year is that every single person on that team can contribute. They can all hit or field like devils. It's an amazing team, and they've been really the best team in baseball since June, which no one had said before, but are saying a lot now. I'm very excited. It's definitely a mental health break from the politics. I just can't emphasize how much fun it is right now. I even have friends in Cleveland that are texting me about Lindor's work here in New York. It's an incredible moment in New York sports. that's true.

Brian Lehrer: Thanks, Sylvia.

Sylvia: We can watch more than one game at the same time.

Brian Lehrer: Absolutely. Francisco Lindor used to play for the Cleveland team before coming to the Mets. Kavitha, maybe we have a new Mr. October in New York. Once upon a time, it was Reggie Jackson of the Yankees. Maybe now it's Francisco Lindor the several unbelievable clutch, dramatic, high-drama-moment home runs that he's hit, but also he keeps getting on base and setting up for other people to drive them in.

Kavitha Davidson: That really is the key. I think Reggie might have some issue with the Mr. October [unintelligible 00:08:35], but no, Francisco Lindor has been absolutely clutch. I think that word is thrown around too much in sports, but I think it applies here. That grand slam that he hit to clinch the NLDS against the Phillies was one of the greatest moments as a Yankee fan, I will say that I have ever seen in New York sports. Your last caller was absolutely right. The tenor of the city is different when both teams are doing well. October, it feels like the '90s again if anybody is still around from that time.

Brian Lehrer: Let's see. We've had all women callers so far on this sports call-in, so let's take a token mail. Michael in Montclair, you're on WNYC. Hi, Michael.

Michael: Hey, Brian. How are you? I've been a baseball fan forever, going back to the late '60s, and my wife was very indifferent to the whole thing over the years, but over the last couple of years, it's appointment TV for both of us now to the point where several games ago, we switched seats in our living room and they proceeded to have a beautiful comeback. Now we only use those seats when we're watching Met games going forward. She's totally bought into the sport and the Mets and the excitement of it, and it's just a lot of fun to watch together.

Brian Lehrer: Michael, thank you very much. I actually take personal credit for the Mets' turnaround this season. I went to Citi Field for a game on June 2nd, which was at their low point. They lost that game. They had been losing and losing and losing going up to that day. As soon as I left Citi Field, they started winning for the rest of the baseball season. I don't know, maybe they purged their demons through me somehow.

Hey, I got to get you on the Jets, Kavitha. Owner Woody Johnson abruptly fired the head coach, Robert Saleh, after the team lost a game played in London last week. There are all kinds of theories, like Aaron Rodgers, the star quarterback, who's not everybody's favorite person in the world who isn't even playing that great is wielding too much influence over who runs the team. There was also that Saleh, who is of Lebanese origin, was wearing a Lebanese flag on his shirt, which he's done before, but it was happening at a time when Israel was bombing Lebanon as there was a war going on from both sides of that border at that moment. Do you have anything on this?

Kavitha Davidson: Yes. I did immediately notice that the timing of this was very suspect given that Saleh was wearing the Lebanese flag. As you said, he has done this before. He did it a year ago. The NFL, which is not the most progressive league out there, has made it a point to encourage players and coaches to wear flags of their country of origin. If you know my coverage, I am very critical and I take a particular political stance on certain things, but everybody that I've talked to believes that this was an Aaron Rodgers-led decision. This was not about him wearing the Lebanese flag.

Now that in itself should be a controversy. I think the talk out there is that Aaron Rodgers did not want the offensive coordinator, Nathaniel Hackett, to be fired and that Saleh was on his way to do that. After all of this, after Saleh getting fired, Hackett was demoted by the interim coach. There's some drama there, but it does seem that Aaron Rodgers has an outsized amount of power on this team and that should be addressed.

Brian Lehrer: The other thing about Aaron Rodgers, and we just have 20 seconds left, is that for all, he will no doubt be a Hall of Fame quarterback after his career, first ballot, and all of that. A lot of Jets fans were hoping he was going to be a magician once he healed from his injury, and it looks like the 40-year-old guy that he is.

Kavitha Davidson: He does. The thing about Aaron Rodgers is, and I will be the first to say, put his politics aside, he is one of the greatest quarterbacks we have ever seen. He needs receivers that he trusts, and I don't think that he has that on this team right now.

Brian Lehrer: Kavitha Davidson, sportswriter and host of the podcast Sportify. Go teams. Kavitha, thanks a lot.

Kavitha Davidson: Thank you.

Brian Lehrer: That's the Brian Lehrer Show for today, produced by Mary Croke, Lisa Allison, Amina Srna, Carl Boisrond and Esperanza Rosenbaum, Shayna Sengstock, and Milton Ruiz at the audio controls. Sports fan or not, have a great weekend, everyone. Brian Lehrer on WNYC. Stay tuned for Alison.

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