"John McEnroe"

Huh, this button is not working. What floor are you guys going to?

I'm going to three.

Oh, maybe I'll just press that button and we can just go there.

I'm not really going to a floor, I'm just here for the ride.

You're just riding the elevator, just trying to meet people? My name's Jason, and this is my friend, Sean. What's your name, friend?

My name's Will. Hey.

Yeah.

I'm sorry, I was not exercising, I'm just a heavy breather.

Are you, uh, are you hot today? Why are you not wearing anything but socks?

You guys looking for a friend?

We're busy, we gotta do a podcast. Welcome to...

Oh, welcome to SmartLess.

That's it. Smart.

Less.

Smart.

Less.

Smart.

Less.

I was just, uh, I just dropped Denny, sweet little Denny, who's, as you know, is three off at school. And on the way there, he starts telling me this story, he's wearing a shirt that's got an alien on it. He's going, I saw an alien. I said, you did? Yeah, last night.

He was done with the story.

Okay. And then, Jay, I started telling this story, cause he sees this building that, uh, one of the other boy's kid, uh, his buddy, lives in. And so we start getting into friends. and what's the name of Archie's friend and his mom. And I said, what's the name of Maple's daddy?

And I don't believe it.

I swear to God. And we go through, and then Amanda and Franny and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I go, yeah. And then, uh, remember, we were at our friend's house the other night for dinner, and then Abel's other friend, and then he goes, I don't like your story. I like my story better.

I'm still believing that there's an alien in the bathroom.

I know.

Did you see the photos from, from where was that? from Mexico?

Yeah. I mean, yeah.

Are those real? I mean, they're obviously can't be real, but why CBS and CNN and everyone's like reporting them and shit. Like? I thought that was like what news of the world used to do.

Yeah. I can't believe that Sean's not doing this episode from Mexico City.

I'm just realizing, I'm just realizing that when I rebooted, right before we started recording, I lost all my questions for my guest.

No way.

Yeah. Like what?

Did you find them now?

Why do you, why do you have more reboots than anybody?

I don't know. I guess I'm, uh, I'm technologically, uh, not gifted. I don't know what's going on, but you know what? I don't need them. I don't need them because where I, where I'm deficient in technology, in technology, I am gifted in, um, asking questions.

Not verbosity.

Okay.

Here we go.

Do you want me to tell you another story? I do still have my intro.

Sean. Sorry, Sean.

Sorry, Sean. Did you, are we on?

I was going to say, do you want me to tell you something while you look for them or no?

We can wait until we're done with your break.

Sean just found the drive-thru for Cinnabon, uh, right around the corner from his house.

Are we interrupting breakfast or anything? No? Is it really Cinnabon?

No, it's a peanut butter sandwich, peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

By the way, listener, we were on a Zoom yesterday, um, with about 20 people, and, um, Will, Will asked Sean, Hey, Sean, it's about five o'clock, are we close to dinner? He's like, yeah, let's go in and see what's, what's cooking. So he goes into the kitchen and there, on the, on the stove, is, I forget what you were talking about? that it was, it was some sort of a fish thing, but there's like a bacon is being fried to contribute to the sauce. There's some sort of a cheese dish.

Yeah, it was a lot of food.

So you have like a full, you have a full meal.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Just that's the only meal every night.

Yeah. Almost every night. Yeah. But, but, but that's because I don't usually eat like fish or something healthy. I'll eat like something healthy ish during the day so that I can have like spaghetti and meatballs or something at night.

Do you put bacon in that too?

No, no.

Were you so worried about the health content of the fish that you had to throw the bacon at it? Like you were, just like, by the way, Jay, when was the last time we got an invite for a dinner? I mean, he has a nice meal every night.

Every night.

I just kind of figure like y'all, want to go in your own corners.

You don't need to folksy that up to excuse your rudeness.

Folksy.

I'm so excited that we have one of the world's great talkers today. This is, I'm getting, I'm introing my guest.

Okay.

This man is electric with his words, his guitar, and his charisma. Today's guest is one of the most famous and successful athletes alive today. When he played, he was as dominant as he was compelling. He was fiercely competitive and never boring. He has an unbelievable amount of trophies and records in his sport, but what he's done for the Caucasian Afro and the on-court microphones will never be matched.

Oh, my gosh.

Mr. McEnroe.

Good morning, John. Wow.

Very nice, Jason. Thank you. Bravo.

That's a pretty good intro. Right? I shortened it a little for you because I knew Will was going to go, it's McEnroe.

And he did.

And he did. He beat me. It's a race with him. He's bright.

Once you said, once I knew about the curly hair, the guitar, when you said grand slams and guitar, I was like, yeah, it's got to be that.

I didn't know. you play guitar. Hi, John. Nice to meet you.

Nice to meet you.

Yeah. Yeah.

I loved you, by the way, and brought, I hadn't been to a play for years. Your performance was amazing.

You came to the show?

I did. They, I tried to come back to say hello. They wouldn't let me in.

No. Yeah.

He knocked loudly. That's very kind of you. Thank you, pal. Thank you for coming.

And thank you for saying that. I didn't realize that you're that great a piano player, man. That was something at the end.

Wasn't that stunning?

Can you believe that he has talent?

I knew he had talent, but that was off the charts.

That's very sweet. Thank you.

Yeah. Classically trained pianist. Never, never, never knew it.

But this is about Mr. McEnroe. Thank you, John, for coming to the show.

This is about Mr. McEnroe. Now, now, John, do you play piano as well as guitar? No.

I do not. I don't play guitar, although Jimmy Webb, who is a famed songwriter and pianist, tried to teach me guitar a couple of times. We traded tennis lessons for piano lessons.

And it's just, it wasn't for you. It's easier on the fingertips, isn't it?

I love the piano, but I prefer the guitar. I try to get all my kids to play piano. They did, but they didn't stick with it. I said, stick with it. It'll be good for you.

Yes.

Winning Tonys.

But no. Yeah, exactly.

Maybe someday you'll be wearing two compression sleeves and icing your fingers every night.

Exactly.

John, don't the guitar strings hurt your fingertips? That was my problem with it.

And also, could you ever get carpal tunnel or any kind of tendonitis?

I've been lucky, actually. I probably don't play enough to get carpal tunnel, but you've got to build up the calluses, like you do with my tennis hand. You have to do the same thing when you grip a racket, so that takes a while, but I got over that, and at least this is one of the few things I'm improving at, at guitar playing.

Did you ever get tennis elbow?

I was about to ask the same.

Generally speaking, I had issues at times with the elbow, but never real bad, thankfully.

How about golf elbow? Have you been-?

I've not had golf elbow. I just have, why am I playing this dumbass game sometimes?

No, John, that's not true. You're a good golfer. We've played a couple of times, and not. unlike what you said about guitar, I feel like you're getting better at golf. I feel like you're more consistent.

Wait, do you guys always play together?

We have played a couple of times.

I have a video currently on my phone of John missing a putt on the ninth hole over at our place there, and he fell to the ground.

And took off all his clothes in protest.

That happens every time I play.

I don't like how much time you're spending in New York, though. It's not great for our golf outings.

Well, sometimes, Jason, I do have to work. The US Open was the big one for us, and hometown, it's great, but we missed you well at Augusta, though.

I know, I know. I wish I could have, as you knew, I had a dear friend of mine passed away, so I couldn't make it, but we're going to do it again, same crew, and we're going to do it up and get down there. I'm so excited.

Now, also, what's keeping you in New York is your great tennis academy. That started when?

I would say about 12 years ago, the last 10 of which we've also started a charity arm, which is called the Johnny Mac Tennis Project, which is, you know, we're constantly trying to raise money so we can get more kids to play this great sport. It's too unaffordable. It's not accessible enough. It's too expensive, especially in New York, so it's an ongoing battle, but we're making progress.

If somebody wanted to contribute to that, how would they go about doing something like that?

It's a 501c3.. Go on the web and internet and go to Johnny Mac Tennis Project, and anything you can give would be incredible, but we just had a pro-am, and we do a comedy night every year, which is great.

Jason should give 10 grand. Jason, give 10 grand right now.

I'll give 10 grand right now. Sean, Will, you going to match me? Let's go. That's 30 right there, John.

Come on, boys. Come on.

You're breaking up.

You're breaking up. But your tennis academy was...

Sean's going through a candy.

Your tennis academy is charitable in concept, and, I mean, you're already doing charity work there, basically, or philanthropic work, where you are identifying kids that wouldn't otherwise maybe be drawn to tennis or have access to tennis, and you're giving them that, right, through scholarships and whatnot?

Absolutely, and we have a lot of programs. We go to public schools, and we bring them in, but this is also a for-profit place. I work for someone. This is city-owned land, and the people put $20 million into it. We're putting an additional 15 to add another 10 courts, so this is an incredible place, but at the same time, there's 90%, I'd say, of the people or people that went to schools.

What was that, like, John, for you, speaking of high school? Because I know now, I mean, it kind of, and again, please correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems to me that kids who played tennis when they were growing up and they were young, the idea of going to like an all-tennis academy started with Nick Bolletieri, is that right? Sort of that dedicated thing where the kid you started to hear about, but for guys like you, who were like right on the, before, that, right before that generation, were you playing tennis every day on Long Island? Were you, or Queens? Or what was that like for you?

I grew up in Queens. The best thing that ever happened to me was not going to a Bolletieri's type camp. I would have quit the game when I was 16 or 17.. I loved to play other sports. All studies show, both physically and mentally, it's healthier for kids to play other sports.

You know what, you can say fucking bullshit.

Beautiful, I'll get to that shortly when you ask me a lousy question.

Oh, I got one for you.

But the truth is, is that what I base my beliefs on, or what this academy is all about, that you should play other sports and you should come to this a little later. Tennis players are peaking later than they ever did. I think college is an experience that not only you get to play as a team, potentially, if you're in a sport, but you get to grow up a little bit and also have some fun before you work your way into a profession, and you'll be more prepared to handle it. So I completely disagree with what they do most often.

Right, because, John, the idea that like, not just as an athlete, but also as a person, as a human being, if you come in and you turn pro when you're 17 or something, and if maybe you have success, and again, like you said, you're not peaking yet, but you have success, all that kind of pressure, everything that goes along with that, the traveling, being away from home, being away from family, your support group, it seems to me, especially for tennis, it'd be pretty tough to deal with all that if you were young.

For every person you hear that succeeds, there's a million, that don't. You know, not everyone's. Carlos Alcaraz. He's one in a billion, and he's just a freak. He's an incredible player.

For the NIL stuff.

The NIL stuff. I mean, most of it obviously is going to football and basketball, but it at least allows kids that otherwise, you know, would have nothing in college to think, maybe I should wait a couple of years.

Yeah. John, why do you, what do you, do you attribute, like, you talk about Alcaraz, like, these guys are hitting the ball, and who is it, Medvedev played him, right? They hit the ball so hard. I have to, I mean, it's not like...

Not like us.

No, but I mean, like, well, that's like...

Way to insult John.

No, I'm just saying, like...

We were dinosaurs.

Well, but I mean, you guys were every bit as big and as strong. Is it just the racket? I mean, you guys were playing, I can't believe what you were able to do with the size of the racket that you guys were playing with.

Why, is it bigger now?

Oh, yeah, it's bigger now, it's lighter now.

I didn't know that.

Look at that thing. Yeah.

That's what I played with till I was 23,, which is, you know, about, you add another 40%, that's the difference in power and the size of it. So the sweet spot's a lot bigger, so that's allowed kids at my academy, I'm at my academy right now, that hit 12, 14-year-olds hit the ball harder than me.

John just showed us his wooden racket. Did you win Wimbledon with that racket? That kind of racket?

I did. I'm one of the only records I still have, and I think I will always have it, is I'm the last male player to win a major with a wooden racket.

Wow.

That's so rad. What if somebody made a storm, or came back onto the scene with one of those rackets? How long do you think they'd last? You just can't compete with one of those, right?

Well, if you played one event, Carlos Alcaraz could play with anything.

He is an amazing player. What about Federer? Whose game, yeah, Federer, it seemed to me, had like such, and I remember, I've, over the years, you know, watched a lot of matches of his that you've called many, many. He has, you really like the way he played, his style and his, he was so graceful, and he's, I don't know, how would you describe it?

He's the most beautiful player I've ever seen. You know, I idolize Rod Laver. He was awesome. He's like the Brezhnikov of tennis, is how I would describe him. Where, you know, you look at Rafael Nadal, that's not your typical, or prototypical tennis player.

Well, Jason got that same memo. Yeah, yeah. The same memo.

I was like, don't worry, you know.

Who do you think you'd match up best with today?

Oh, yeah.

If, I mean, like another lefty? No.

You mean who would I play like,

or who would I match up? Yeah, if apples were to apples today, as far as age goes and equipment goes, who do you think you'd have the most- Success. The most entertaining match with, like a good match.

The dream would be to play Roger Federer at Wimbledon. The nightmare would be to play Rafael Nadal at Roland Garros on clay, even though I grew up on clay, and that was my best surface, so I turned pro. But he's, you know, what he did was insane.

Why don't people still serve and volley like you used to? I used to find that, so, I feel like Becker was like the last one to do it, right?

That's correct. You know what, they changed the court speeds. They slowed it down at Wimbledon. They did the same at the, like Indian Wells, or the U.S. Open.

Right, of course.

So it's easier to serve big. These guys are bigger. Medvedev's 6'6". The average player's gone from, you know, when I was- 6'6"? He's 6'6".

Yeah, that was amazing.

And so it's tougher to get close to the net.

Right.

We'll be right back.

Nancy's love story could have been ripped right out of the pages of one of her own novels.

She was a romance mystery writer who happens to be married to a chef.

But this story didn't end with a happily. ever after. When I stepped into the kitchen, I could see that Chef Brophy was on the ground, and I heard somebody say, call 911. As writers, we'd written our share of murder mysteries. So when suspicion turned to Dan's wife, Nancy, we weren't that surprised.

We understand. that's usually the way they do it.

But we began to wonder, had Nancy gotten so wrapped up in her own novels? There are murders in all of the books. That she was playing them out in real life? Follow Happily, Never After Dan and Nancy. on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts.

up to 28 people.

With a touch of humor, I'd just like to go ahead and say that if there's no band called Malevolent Deity, that is pretty great. A dash of sarcasm and just garnished a bit with a little bit of cursing.

This mother liar lied like a liar.

Like a liar. And if you're a weirdo like us, I'd love to cozy up to a creepy tale of the paranormal. Or you love to hop in the Wayback Machine and dissect the details of some of history's most notorious crimes. You should tune in to our podcast, Morbid. Follow Morbid on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts.

Hey, it's Guy Raz here, the host of How I Built This, a podcast that gives you a front row seat to how some of the biggest products were built and the innovators, entrepreneurs, and idealists behind them. Every week, I speak to someone new. Stories like Justin Wolverton's, a lawyer who just wanted a healthy alternative to ice cream, so he created Halo Top in his Cuisinart. Or Todd Graves, who grew his fried chicken restaurant, Raising Canes, into one of the most successful fast food chains in the US. All of these great conversations can help you learn how to think big, take risks, and navigate crises in life, and work from people who've done all of that and more.

All right, back to the show.

You know what's funny? You're talking about these guys who are coming on the scenes, Alcatraz, as I call him, because I just put a twist on it, you know what I mean, Jake? You're amazing, man. Sean's not with me.

You know, I'm right about that.

Since you started, I'm with you.

Sean, stay down. Alcatraz. You're talking about these new guys who come on, so Alcatraz has come on in the last two years and he's just been an absolute, he's exploded, like kind of seemingly out of nowhere, I mean, for us, for, you know, I'm not a huge fan, I don't follow the minutiae of tennis, but.

Well, he's number one in the world.

No, he is now, and I'm just saying, before I didn't watch, I didn't know about, I didn't know that he was the guy who was in the pipeline, who was coming. I just, all of a sudden he was there and he was incredible. But, John, you did the same thing. What I'm getting to is, I remember distinctly, I remember being up in Northern Canada watching you and Bjorn Borg play in those unbelievable, when I was a kid, those unbelievable matches from Wimbledon, and everybody's like, who's this guy? And you know all this stuff.

I partied with the pretenders. You partied, right?

Really?

Among other people. But the afro and the headband, though, was just so hostile.

Wait, I wanna hear about partying with the pretenders.

No, I, well, listen, who would you rather party with? A bunch of old farts at, you know, the dinner that we weren't sure I had to go to, or, you know, some rock stars. So I don't think that was a tough one.

Wow, that's crazy.

It's unheard of, if anyone's even above 500, so I felt like I wasn't ready emotionally and wanted to experience being part of a team and going to Stanford, and I think that was good for me in my career as it ended up, and then you fast forward a couple years. Those are the matches where I played Borg two years in a row, 80-81..

Incredible.

And so that was like the greatest, you know, a great time for tennis. I was lucky. I came into what turned out to be a really important time, where tennis was really growing. I mean, if you had told me that golf would outrate tennis the way it does now is on the networks, I would laugh at you in the 80s, and so we haven't done nearly enough. as a sport.

I'm gonna throw up. That was my question. I'm with you on the pickleball thing.

Yeah, that's your cue, Sean. Go for it, buddy.

I was just gonna say pickleball thought,

but you play a different kind of pickleball.

Oh, boy.

You know, I played a kind where I played tennis, you know, me and Andre Agassi played along with, you know, Michael Chang was on my team and Andy Roddick, so it was like tennis players playing, so it wasn't as painful as having to put up with a college player who didn't make it in tennis and now is one of the best pickleball players in the world and it's a wiffle ball. I agree. You ever played wiffle ball outside, and when you're a kid growing up? I did in Queens. It's not the same as baseball.

No, it's trash.

I think it's total trash.

I used to play paddle tennis in the beaches in Venice for years. That's a better game. At least you play with the tennis ball that's had the air taken out of it, but the fucking pickleball, I'm sick of it.

I like it.

Oh, of course you do. Everybody, it's like when people start getting the racquetball. Fat guys can stand in the middle and they don't even have to fucking walk. You can just watch it with racquetball. Pickleball's the fucking same.

Racquetball in the 80s out in the San Fernando Valley.

was incredible.

Everyone calm down.

I can't wait till all these fucking rich assholes have to pave over their stupid, what was that? over there? We have a fucking pickleball court.

I'll tell you who the happiest people around are, the doctors, because a lot of people have played. It's better to do something than nothing, so I'll go with that.

I did legs yesterday. What's that? I worked on my legs yesterday.

That means he squatted down to the stove, opened it up, pulled the pie out.

He had to get a good meal, yeah. No, he had to put his feet around a fucking huge, he had a 10 pound bag of Chex Mix and he had to use his feet to hold the ground. Now, as he opened it.

John, talk about what, I mean, obviously, winning, this is for the folks out there that don't play tennis, but something that you could talk to them about. that's applicable, the gain you'd get from winning versus losing, because everybody has experience with winning and losing. You probably had to develop a muscle early on that could turn a negative into a positive and try to gain from it. Was losing a tangible gain for you at times that you can speak about?

Well, obviously, as a father of six and having grown up being told that losing builds character and you learn more from losing than you do with winning, that there was something that was ingrained in me at a young age. And I do believe that it's true that you can sort of take a step back and that it does help you in a lot of ways, not just on a tennis court. So that's what I try to tell the kids that are at my academy, try to nurture them. It's hard, though, because you feel like the last place you want to be is on a tennis court when you're getting your ass kicked by someone. Especially if you ever got to the stage where you're playing a US Open in Arthur S Stadium, which would be like a dream come true for any professional tennis player.

Did you end up getting on top of that? Or is that still something that like, did you take that onto the golf course? You take that into, you know, experimenting with music? Like, have you gotten on top of it and factor in losing as an acceptable result?

You know, I go by the belief now that it's better to try and fail than not try at all. Yeah. Early on, when I was doing commentary, I stopped playing. Boy, it was like 30 years ago, the main tour. I played as a champion seniors tour for 25 more years.

That's fucking bullshit.

It would really make me angry for quite a long time, for years. And then I realized, I thought to myself, I took a step back once and I said, wait a minute. If I, they think I'm a better commentator than I was a player.

They never saw you play.

Well, that'd be one possibility. Hey, maybe I am a pretty damn good commentator and I should take that as a compliment. So. You should. And I have, but it took a long time.

I love that.

I think that some of the things that I used to hide my fear of failure, which was showing anger instead of like sitting there, start crying. You know, that I don't think we were brought up to be, let's cry on the tennis court. So a lot of that time that was manifested in sort of turning into anger, or God forbid, I thought I had a decent sense of humor and I would think of something funny like that was going on in the court, but I felt like when I grew up, it was like, you gotta keep intense. You can't, you'll lose your edge if you do anything. Now you see guys that are out there.

Yeah.

Or, you know, Algaraz, the guy's smiling. I'm gonna, just you wait. Just give it a couple of years. You'll be miserable like the rest of us.

But I watched you, I think we talked about this once. I feel like, John, I wish that you would commentate on other sports, because I know you're a big sports fan. And I'm like, I wish you would go on and commentate on football and basketball and hockey. I know, you know, that would be, have you ever thought about that? Didn't you say once you were gonna, or you did do it for basketball?

It's like a simulcast, like Peyton and Eli do.

I did Peyton and Eli just this past Monday.

Yeah, they don't count. Peyton and Eli don't count.

They're pretty damn good. I love them.

I love those guys.

But I actually, last year, when I saw it, I was like, oh, my God, this is absolutely perfect for me and my brother to do on the tennis. Let's unleash us, let us do it. Oh, it's already been done. What? Okay, so what?

Yeah, proof of concept.

And as far as answering your question, yes, I was, a few years back, I was gonna do a Knicks game. Unfortunately, my dad passed away, like literally right around that time, so it wasn't able to happen. There was a time, I don't know if you remember this, it was probably 15 years ago, Dennis Miller ended up getting the job, but they said Monday Night Football, they want someone who's not a football player. And they want to maybe bring in three or four guys for three or four games each. And I go, oh my God, that's absolutely perfect.

What a guy, you got a deal on him, huh?

So he was done, so, even though he helped me.

initially with the TV deals, I'm like, what are you doing? But I'm not saying I would have gotten it anyway, but now, of course, you feel like in a certain way, I don't want to be like walk in and be like, yeah, here I am, I can do football and some football player who wants a job and needs it. I feel a little weird about that. So maybe the talk show format,

what I was going to do, radio.

I loved your talk show, by the way. You should do that again.

Thank you for both, you both came on it. You were awesome. It was 19 years ago. Unbelievable. Oh my God.

That was right when CNBC got started, right? Wasn't CNBC?

Yeah, they wanted to do, as a matter of fact, I followed Dennis Miller and they were trying to get, you know, usually people turn off CNBC at four o'clock.

Right? Tom Snyder and Charles Grossen, too.

Yeah, Sean, you should know when John did his program, our mutual friend, all four of us know Meredith. Walker? Yeah, who worked for John, yeah.

Oh, I didn't know that, I love Meredith.

And that's how we ended up doing it. And I still got, I think, I still got the racket. You gave everybody who was a guest a signed racket. Dunlop racket I got.

And just you guys. Just us.

Oh shit, just us?

Not me, but I'll check the mail again.

I'm fascinated by, John, you know, these guys know, I'm fascinated by medicine and medical things. And whenever an athlete comes on, I always ask what's the worst injury, because I'm, you know, the repetitiveness of, like Jason was talking about earlier, about just the repetitiveness, nature of, especially tennis, of the constant back and forth. What was your worst injury and what did you do to take care of it? Because it is like theater, I know these guys joke, but it is every single day. doing the same movements over and over again takes a toll on your body.

Well, first of all, I'm gonna knock on wood because I'm pretty lucky. I've never had a surgery. So that already is lucky when you hear these horror stories of the football players. I remember they asked Joe Montana recently, who's the greatest quarterback ever? He said, Dan Marino.

He did get injured, right? For a period there. that wasn't he quite?

He's been injured a handful of times, but he's got a great team around him that keeps him going. I don't know how he still does it at his age, but he's had numerous injuries. Boris Becker's had 12 surgeries. A lot of guys have a lot of surgeries and it's cost them. Hips is the worst part.

You've gotta be the only uber champion of any sport that has never had a surgery. That's an amazing thing. That's a new record by itself. That's unbelievable to me.

You and Cal Ripken.

No, I bet you, Cal Ripken's been cut.

I've had like 17 myself.

The only person ever that reached number one in the world who has the same size arm, left arm as right arm. I used to try to copy Rod Laver because his arm was like Popeye. Yeah. And I was like, I would squeeze balls like hours and hours a day when I was a kid and do any type of, anything I could do to, well.

Will's got jokes.

I'm not even going where you're going.

Will's got jokes.

No, I'm just saying, it's nice that you can, now Sean can finally relate.

Yeah, shut.

I'm just saying.

Squeeze balls and I just perk up.

But most athletes, anyone, especially if you're doing something with one arm, you know, 95% of the time or more, I had a one handed backhand. I could not figure out why nothing changed. So it's bizarre, but.

Yeah, that's wild.

But the body was pretty resilient. all in all.

I never, I played tennis off and on and I don't really play that much anymore, but I used to and I used to love playing some, for various stages. And I always prided myself because you would talk about, I always pride myself on having a one handed backhand. Cause I grew up in an era when everybody wanted to have, like. in the eighties, everybody was trying to get that, you know, two handed backhand and Prince rackets and all that kind of shit. And I was like, no, I want to play a more graceful game.

Go ahead, Jason. The bad news is that if I had a young kid now and said, should you do one or two? I would tell them two.

Of course, it's more.

Well, you can, and the way they hit off the back foot more, and obviously you can take balls up higher and especially when you're younger, but even as you're older, cause there's so much spin that it makes more sense to use the two hands. It's actually better for you physically, cause you're using both sides of the body more.

Just doesn't look as cool. And the other thing is, one hand backhand looks so graceful. But I will say, it's funny. if all this sort of, you know, years of playing and taking tennis lessons when I was a kid and whatever, then when you watch these guys, the way they play now, I'm like, what game are they playing? Because the way they hit their body, where they're at, with relation to the ball, where their grip now, all that stuff is so different.

Absolutely. I mean, I played with one grip. Now these guys, you know, have huge changes on their backhand and forehand grip. They seem to do it effortlessly. And it's like learning a language.

They're moving the racket as they play. That's funny.

And what did I see during the US Open? One of the players actually took his racket, walked it up to his coach, handed it to him and asked him to restring it while he continued playing with a different racket.

Well, they bring six or eight rackets on the court and then they're always complaining like the coach fucked up. It's their fault. You know, you gotta blame someone other than yourself. So you give it to him. You told me it should be 52..

But did you ever hand a racket to a coach and ask him to restring it during one of your matches? No.

Well, first of all, I didn't travel with a coach back when I played. But, second of all, I brought like six rackets in a bag, but I'd have like four different tensions to sort of have available in case it was humid, in case the ball was flying, heavy, whatever. These seemed to bring all these same tension, which I don't quite understand. And the stringers are like millionaires now. We didn't restring rackets every five seconds.

Why do you think most sports are more tolerant of players having outbursts than tennis is? I feel like you kind of got the short string on that to go back to strings. Obviously, things are a bit, it's more accepted now, but, like at the time, people were looking at you like, oh my God, what is he doing? complaining about that call? It's so not okay.

Well, first of all, if you put a microphone in the middle of the field in a football game, something tells me they're not saying, hello, how are you?

I'm good.

And basketball, they control it. In baseball, we used to love when the manager would go up to the umpire, kick dirt in his pants. That was incredible. Then I go out there and I go, you missed a call. And I'm like, tell her to hunt all of a sudden.

And we will be right back.

And now back to the show.

How do you like that new thing now? where, am I wrong? Or there are no more umpires calling lines. It's now computer, yet they put in a speaker of somebody, like a audio of somebody saying out or whatever, right? Isn't it, it's new, it's automated now, isn't it?

I don't mean to be a cynic, but I'd like to know how accurate it was. But having said that, it is actually, if you knew that you had to have a chance to sort of double check, a call, I went to Wimbledon the first year. I played there and I'm playing a match and I look over and the guy's sleeping, one of the linesmen, and I'm like, he's probably seeing the ball better.

now that he's asleep,

because they can't see a damn thing.

I always dreamed about being one of those guys.

Did you?

Yeah, I wanted, as a kid, I watched you, I'd watch tennis and I'd watch you and I'd be like, I wanna be the kid who runs across and catches the ball.

That's, yeah, that's a cool.

It's actually a tough gig to get, apparently.

I ball boyed, I ball boyed for a handful of years at the US Open, so now you get close to it, it's awesome.

At Forest Hills? At Forest Hills.

At Forest Hills.

The old Forest Hills.

And, by the way, to answer your question, the electronic equipment, I would have been, you see, my hair might have been closer to your color, Jason, or Will, and I would have won more, but maybe I wouldn't have been on your amazing podcast.

That's true. No, you still would be.

So I gotta look at the bright side that, you know.

Your game was better than your outburst.

I would have been more boring.

No, your game was better than your outburst. Did you ever look back on some of those old?

That's what I tell myself.

No, but do you ever?

Something tells me it might not have been quite 100%, but there was that call, you know, the ball was in, you know, Chalk flew up. I did that one. And 30 years later, we literally did it. last year. I played the, or it was two years ago, because it was 81 that it happened.

So in Wimbledon, you can challenge a call because there's still people calling the lines, but the US Open, it's automated, right? That's correct.

It's gonna be all automated within a few years.

I think baseball's doing the same thing.

Are they?

Maybe they should, because if you play baseball, just think about this, and you know, the umpire calls a ball. that's clearly outside the plate. Why is that a strike? I don't give a damn who you are. It's the plate.

Yeah, exactly.

But meanwhile, they're like, well, that's the umpire. He's, you know, he's giving the pitcher a little extra, you know, a couple extra inches. Why, would be my question.

Yeah, it should be, without opinion or nuance at all.

Let me say this, and this might be controversial. I've felt, and I'm serious. I've felt like, with all the instant replay and shit, and especially when you have VAR and soccer, which, you know, every goal they look at, I feel like it's taken a little bit of, it's just, it's not opinion, it's just nuance. And the human error should be part of kind of everything.

I think so too.

I liked it. It made a story when they get the wrong call.

That's drama. Well, until you're on the wrong side of it. Right? If you're on the wrong side of it, then it's like, why is that a part of the game? Why shouldn't that stuff be taken out, and what is left is just pure execution by the athletes?

I think that what you're saying about the human element, there's some truth to that. But as an ex-athlete, if you know that the call could be corrected properly.

I get that.

And that could be the difference between winning a Wimbledon and losing.

I get that.

I mean, that would be hard to argue, if you're an athlete at any point, to say that you should have that.

I totally get that. And obviously I'm not an athlete. And so I can see, yeah, the injustice of it.

So wait, so Jason, in baseball, they would just get rid of the umpire then?

No, the umpire would still be there to make a call as it plays on the plate. I mean, I'm not positive about this.

And to sweep the plate.

And yeah, yeah, you need to have a little brush. Yeah, that's very important.

Yeah, very important. To sweep the plate.

John, let me ask you something about, and we've asked other folks that are incredible champions, that are no longer playing their sport, where they scratch that old itch of competition and challenging yourself and seeing what you got week in and week out. Was that something that was an easy adjustment for you? Is it a current adjustment for you? Or where do you sit with all that?

Yeah, actually it's a constant thing, and I've tried to sort of taper off slowly. What happens if no one wanted me to play tennis anymore? You know, I've been asked this a lot. Do you love tennis? And my answer to it is, I don't know if I love it because I've never played it where I played it for nothing.

Yeah. Are your kids in sports?

It depends how loosely you define sports. They did play high school basketball and high school tennis, and one of my boys played college for a year. Nice. But you need that, like, fire in the belly if you really wanted to do it, you know, in a serious way. And I don't know, I think my, I love my kids, and, you know, thankfully, knock on wood, they're doing well, all of them right now.

Yeah, sure.

You know, maybe, you know, they're that hunger that maybe you need to succeed at, you know, a professional level.

Sean's got that hunger, that fire in the belly. But it's for a foot-long sub.

But, you know, they, but, John, your kids, like everyone else on the planet, always, is probably looking for something that they fit with and can excel in, or at least put themselves in a situation to see what they've got. And it sounds like, while it was pretty clear what you had with tennis, you know, the father clock, or father time doesn't stop, sorry. And, you know, everybody ages out of everything. It sounds like you have found the other things that you can see, what have I got? You've become, like, the best announcer ever in tennis, and will probably be equally good in any other sport.

No, no, I feel like I'm in a, you know, I've worked at this for 40 years, you know, literally. And I feel like I've found that sweet spot and been able to appreciate more the things that I enjoy doing and wanna do them as often as possible. And to enjoy, you know, one of the reasons why I love commentary work still is I only were doing the majors. You know, I didn't wanna go on tour and do it all the time, so I get super pumped up for the eight weeks of the majors, do some stuff here and there, and maybe 10 weeks, and I was still playing, because, you know, there's never anything that will duplicate. being on the center court at Wimbledon.

And I'm like, what? You gotta be kidding me.

So, you know, you never know. So who would have thought?

So, thank you, Mindy Kaling. Yeah, no, no, no. But that's, look, we, I understand that. We never thought that we'd be doing this thing, this podcast, before, three years ago. And it was just like on a lark.

Yeah, Sergio Takini, back in the day, Fila, Alessi would be best. You know, they're quality, made in Italy.

Beautiful clothes. I got some nice, Alessi.

By the way, I'm the longest serving. I'm still, believe it or not, Phil Knight still has me under contract with Nike. I've been signed with them since May of 1978.. So I'm 45 years. Wow.

When is the next McEnroe tennis shoe coming out?

It came out. I just did a little spot. It's on the internet. Check it out. Me and Travis Scott.

John, you used to have, your first one. was the McEnroe Allcourt, right? Was that the first one?

It was like the Wimbledon. You know, it was the original, sort of, like this version of Stan Smith, what he did with Adidas. And then I went to sort of like the three quarters, which was actually like a racquetball, which is now everyone pretty much uses. And then the McAttack. So it was nice that they reintroduced that.

I'm like, does he know who I am?

I think he knows who I am, right? She'd do a golf shoe.

She'd do a golf shoe with him too. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

I don't know, but I'm open for suggestions.

Let's do the smart list. Can we do the smart list? McEnroe golf shoe? Can we do this?

There we go, a little collab.

Let's do that.

What, before we let you go, what's the thing that people will be most surprised that you do? We know about tennis. We know about music, know about golf. Is there a hobby that you just can't live without? or a little pastime, even if it's just watching TV or maybe even reading?

A lot of people don't.

I'm pretty much an open book, more or less. What you see is what you get. I do have a passion. Thankfully, I love music. It keeps me humble in a way, because I've obviously been around so many great rock guys and seen so many shows, and it was like, who the hell?

I was gonna say, your marriage to Patti.

And so that's, you know, she said to me way back when, I said, cause she was disillusioned. She had sold a couple million records, but it wasn't, you know, felt like she was treated fairly enough as a woman and she was disillusioned. So I'm coming in and I'm like, hey, why don't we have a band together? I'll join your band. I've got a lot of energy.

And I go,

I go, you don't play tennis. And she goes, exactly. So that was 28 or nine years ago. So my, you know, it's kept me, my perspective there. I still love it.

Yeah, yeah. Actually.

You know, cause you look at me and the way I played, and obviously the people saw that I was pretty competitive. So they're always, you know, if God forbid, I don't scream or fall over on the golf course, they're like upset at me. now. You guys say like, we're not gonna invite you to Bel-Air unless you fall over. At least once you scream and skip.

And skip Bronson, skip Bronson. We only mentioned skip every fourth episode. Hey, do you know, do you know, John, I will say this as this is not a question, it's a compliment of all the times I've met you over the last 20 years, you're so consistently yourself. And I think that, and it really shows it. Like you said it, what you see is what you get.

Yeah, it never seems insincere. Like you're not doing a thing. It's true. You enjoy being you, and that's infectious. I do.

And I want to thank my wife, Patty Smythe, for, cause. the greatest thing you can have in a relationship, it's been 29 years now, is to let the person be the person you want to be. And she's allowed me to do that. So love you, baby. Thank you.

Hey, what band are you loving listening to right now? Off the top of your head.

I'm more of like the grunge guy. I'm looking for new stuff.

Wait, grunge. So you're into Pearl Jam and Soundgarden and Alice in Chains.

Those guys, I'm going to go see those. Foo Fighters. Yeah, sure. All that stuff.

So good.

You know, I love Kings and Leon too. But there doesn't seem to be like, the new rock stars are the rap guys.

Yeah. Or it's all electric or something, yeah.

Rock is sort of a little like tennis, you know? I mean, we got to get our act together.

Yeah, yeah. All right. Well, John, thank you for spending some time with us, buddy. Please come back to Los Angeles soon, so we can go play some golf.

Love to, man. Thanks for having me. I appreciate it and awesome.

Thank you, buddy.

Thank you very much.

All right, can't wait to see you again. All right, John, thanks. Thanks, John.

Bye, buddy.

All right, man. Bye.

Yeah. Oh, sorry.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

He's the same when you, if you're having something to eat with him, or remember. we played with him at Riv, we played in the Pro-Am. If he's teeing off in front of 100 people, if he's walking to the thing, if you're grabbing, he's the same.

He seems like he talks the same way in the supermarket and the checkout line.

He's just him, and when he's in the booth, too, right? When you listen to him on the broadcast.

I wanted to tell him, I wanted to tell him I played tennis when I was a kid a lot. I took tennis lessons.

Oh, he would have loved to hear that. Jesus. Are you back? You're snacking again.

I love when you save, I love when you save some of your best moments for after the guest is gone.

What else would you have put him to bed with?

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

Hey, hey. No, wait, so wait.

Sure, go ahead. Yeah, yeah, so.

So my brother used to ride me on his 10-speed bike to tennis practice. I used to sit in the bar in the middle of the bike. Sure. Like side saddle, and he would ride his bike all the way across town, and then on the way home, he crashed, and I blacked out, and I got a super fat lip, and the ambulance had to came, and I was sitting on my neighbor's porch.

Ambulance had to came was the sentence.

Go ahead. Ambulance had to came.

The ambulance had to came.

Ambulance had to come. It's just peanut butters get stuck in your teeth. I'm really standing there with the silver in our hands. Well, I was at the pickup truck. nearly, this sounds like the lyrics for Stone Me by Van Morrison.

I thought he was just trying to back into a buy here, but no.

No, there is no buy.

No, I thought.

Sean, what are you eating? Tell us what you're eating.

I just put a grape in my mouth.

Okay. A grape, is it green or red?

Hey guys, let me ask you this. Do you think that?

Oh, it's red.

Do you think that, I want to know where you guys stand on, because it happened, and then we kind of let it go. Where you guys land on, Father Clock, because.

Father Clock.

That was a low point for me. That was real, you know, the brain just doesn't fire like it used to.

I never forget.

Father Clock is a name of my high school band.

We're going to make Smartless Father Clock sweatshirts.

Yeah.

And then Father Clock, you know, when you watch the Father Clock, you just watch time. go. Bye.

Very nice.

Smart. Less.

Smart.

Less.