Time for your weekly edition of the Defector Funbag. Got something on your mind? Email the Funbag. You can also read Drew over at SFGATE, and buy Drew’s books while you’re at it. Today, we're talking about crabs, eating butter by itself, living near a McStadium, and more.

PROGRAMMING NOTE: I'm currently locked into my Why Your Team Sucks duties, so you're getting a somewhat truncated bag today, plus a guest host in this space next week. Be sure to email them here with your deepest, darkest queries. Then I'll be back the week after to give you another helping of my endless bullshit. Got all that? Neato bobeato.

Your letters:

Brian:

To what extent is in-person sports attendance likely to fade away almost completely in American sports? Home field or home court advantage still seems to carry some weight, but within increasingly global revenue streams, in-person ticket revenue is a pretty small share.

There'll always be fans in seats. FIFA, with a big assist from the U.S. government, did virtually everything in its power to dissuade fans from attending the World Cup in person. They showed up anyway. Even with everything as fucked as it is now, people have the instinctive urge to gather, especially if they can get drunk. You can make the tickets expensive as shit and stage games that are a real slog to sit through in person, and it won't matter. It hasn't mattered. If it did, no one would go to see the Browns, not even if they were gifted luxury box seats, free beer, and a voucher to freely punch Drew Carey with his glasses still on. People wanna see the games, and they wanna see each other. That's the magic of sports, baby.

Just try not to look at the west side of the Niners stadium though, otherwise everything I said up above will be negated.

Beau:

I know/think you were a

PTIfan years ago but stopped watching because Wilbon is insufferable. I just wanted to let you know he still is. I enjoy the show and usually give him a pass or two per show, but today's episode was unusually bad. He compared his decision to stay at theWashington Postyears ago (versus moving to theChicago Tribune) to LeBron's current situation. He can name-drop Northwestern all he wants, but I think LeBron's decision is a little more important.

Unless you count glances at that show while strolling through an airport terminal, I haven't watched an episode of PTI in years. Decades, probably. As Beau noted, this is because Wilbon is an incorrigible starfucker, and Tony Kornheiser hasn't watched live sports since 1986. I can't imagine the show has improved since I last tuned in. Every time I see Wilbon's name out in the wild now, it's because he’s gifted us another surly old man take. These two may as well be broadcasting from the tomb.

In fact, it makes perfect sense that Wilbon and Kornheiser—who pioneered a format that ESPN has since replicated across all of its studio programming—are now inane enough to fit in perfectly with the four-letter's recent efforts to become Barstool But Somehow Less Interesting. Everyone left in Bristol is either stuck making minimum wage, or they get paid $40 million a year to laugh at their own farts on air. The good news is that I gave up on ESPN sometime around like 2003, so it's not like they could do anything in 2026 to break my heart. As we speak, every major media company is hellbent on becoming the worst possible version of itself right before Woke 2.0 hits. Men of true vision run these places, I tell you.

As for LeBron, his move to Philly was about as compelling as some talking head finding a different newspaper to keep them on salary. But I'm not gonna hand it to Wilbon there, because fuck that guy.

Pete:

My daughter is home with me this summer and discovered The Price is Right. It's fine. We watch together. Drew Carey looks miserable. Like I want to do a wellness check on him. Do you think he's happy?

As long as the checks cash, he is. Along with Jeopardy and Wheel, hosting TPIR is one of the most secure gigs in Hollywood, which is why Carey took the job 19 years ago(!). Making scripted TV shows and films takes a lot of work, whereas all you have to do when you host TPIR is report to the lot for a handful of hours each weekday, and then deranged contestants awkwardly hug you whenever they make it onto the stage. Drew Carey knew what was up. This job is his semi-retirement plan.

It shows on the camera. My man likes his job while also knowing that it's essentially disposable work. In fact, Carey's most memorable moment from his two decades in charge of TPIR was the time he expressed zero emotion when contestant Terry Kneiss nailed all of his bids to the exact dollar. It was only later that everyone learned that Carey had pulled a Joe Buck because he suspected (rightly) that Kneiss had done his analytics and knew the price of everything in advance. Otherwise, Carey isn't as good of a host as Bob Barker was. But it's clear that he accepted that fact before he even said yes to the job. So don't worry about him being unhappy. The second he leaves that set every day, he's clicking his heels on the walk to his Jaguar.

Joe:

Was LeBron a jerk for taking this long to make a decision or was he just taking this long to use his leverage?

Given that he took a minimum deal from Philly, he clearly wasn't angling for whoever would give him the biggest payday. LeBron took his time because he's old, because he put down roots in L.A. when he signed there, and because he's not the best player in the NBA anymore. You won't see me calling LBJ bad names this time for hemming and hawing a little. Shit, I take too long figuring out which flavor of yogurt to buy at the store these days. I've been right where LeBron is. In fact, his decision reminded me a lot of when the Chicago Sun-Times courted me recently…

Kyle:

Do you ever watch

Toy Storyand then feel really guilty the next time you do fall cleaning, because you might be separating clothes from their friends?

No.

Steve:

My wife is from Maryland. Every time we go to visit family they go ape shit over eating some crabs. I can't tell her, but in my opinion the crabs are expensive, messy, and ravage your fingers; you must take particular caution to avoid crab offal, and you do one-hour worth of work per 1.5oz of crab meat. Are crabs bullshit?

They are not, but I'm not gonna shit on you for your attitude. Despite the fact that I’ve lived in Maryland for nearly half my life, I also went through a phase here where I believed that crabs weren't worth the effort. I became disillusioned after going to a crab house on the Eastern Shore with my extended family. My dad and I were the only ones at the table who ordered whole crabs. They took so long to arrive that, by the time they did, everyone else at the table had already finished their meals. So my dad and I picked through the crabs as fast as we could, and afterward my old man was like, "I'm just gonna get crabcakes from now on." I followed his lead and adopted the same attitude.

Two crab feasts in the years afterward changed my mind. The first was when I ordered them with my sons at the beach a couple of years ago. If you get GOOD whole crabs, suddenly you're not as testy about all of the physical labor involved. In fact, the work is what makes the experience memorable, especially if you're with your kids and you get to watch their eyes light up when they get their first taste. Because these were top of the line crabs, my friend. And the brains are the best part. If crab offal scares you off, then this job isn't for you to begin with.

The second feast that put me back on Team Whole Crabs was at Four Kings in San Francisco last year. That restaurant gave me gloves with our crab, which made the table work a zillion times easier. It was so easy, in fact, that I could pick out all of the meat before even taking a bite. I didn't have to eat as I went along. Instead, I cracked and picked for a few minutes and then had a full plate of fresh crab meat at my disposal. Ask for gloves the next time you eat any cumbersome shellfish. You'll be glad you did.

Jay:

Before settling into the three-hour

Odysseymarathon, there was a preview for another one of those Fockers movies. Why the hell are we being subjected to another idiotic version of this franchise? We all get the joke. It wasn't even funny in the first one. And does Owen Wilson have the most punchable face in Hollywood?? I vote yes!!

Whoa hey, we don't have to do a drive-by on Owen Wilson when we're complaining about IP abuse. Owen Wilson makes everything he's in better. This is why Shanghai Knights is a better movie than Rush Hour (I don't actually remember either movie all that well). And you know how happy I was that he showed up in Loki? Felt like someone had tossed me a life raft. Didn't convince me to stick around for Season 2 of that show, but Owen Wilson is a net good for pop culture.

I also saw that Fockers preview and summarily ignored it. These are sitcom movies that make the studios easy money, so it makes perfect sense that they'd make another one, and that everyone in the cast would re-up for the easy payday. I can't hate Ben Stiller anymore, because he gave us Severance. And I can't call Robert De Niro washed up anymore, because his last two movies with Martin Scorsese represent some of the best work both men have ever done. So if Stiller and De Niro, plus Owen Wilson, feel like doing the proverbial "one for them" in between better projects, they have my blessing. I'd rather watch Joe Biden cut his toenails than see Focker In-Law, but thankfully this country is still free enough for me to ignore both options.

HALFTIME!

Joe:

Your bagel/cream cheese question last week needed to go one step further. For those who eschew cream cheese for butter on a bagel: If you still have some left on the knife, do you eat it? A tablespoon of butter and an ounce of cream cheese are about the same in terms of calories. Is eating butter straight so much worse? Because if you lay down Kerrygold and Philadelphia in front of me, I am not gonna be in a Philly mood that's for sure.

Oh, if it's Kerrygold? Yeah I'm not letting any of that go to waste. Normal butter doesn't have enough flavor on its own to make me wanna lick the knife. But fancy salted butter? Shit man, I could eat a stick of that like it's a Snickers bar. That's good living.

Josh:

The timeouts submission from last week got me thinking about why the end of a basketball game is always so frustrating. Here is a solution: Any non-shooting foul in the last two minutes of a half becomes "shoot till you miss" rather than a one-and-one or two-shot foul. What do you think?

We don't need to do anything that drastic. The NBA already solved their timeout problem by instituting a rule that teams can't use more than four timeouts in the fourth quarter, and no more than two in the final three minutes of regulation. College basketball lets you carry just three timeouts into the second half, but every coach hoards those for the endgame. That wouldn't be a big problem if not for the advent of replay. Both the NBA and CBB have done little to speed up the replay process, which is why the final two minutes of the average ACC tournament game takes 45 minutes to play. It's fucking agony, and no tweaks to the rulebook will fix the problem until the people in charge either ditch replay or figure out how to expedite it.

[NBA announces all replay reviews will now be powered by AI]

No, not like that. NOT LIKE THAT!!!

Christian:

I live near where they'll plop the new Commanders stadium in D.C. I know there's a lot of negatives with living next to or near a major sports stadium: traffic, drunk people, stadium noise, opposing shithead fans, your team's shithead fans, etc. ALL THAT SAID, it's going to be good to walk to a game right out of your house, right?

If your stadium is located in the city proper, sure. I'd have zero complaints about living near the Pirates or Padres ballparks, because both of those stadiums are so well situated. It's a much bigger problem living next to a stadium that, like the Commanders' current dump, has been plunked down in a suburban dead zone. If there's no mass transit around, and the restaurants and shops nearby are located inside the retail Disneyland now grafted onto every new stadium build, then you're living in hell. I remember staying in a hotel right by the Arizona Cardinals stadium many years ago, and there was fucking NOTHING there. I may as well have been staying on an unmanned film set.

That's the real scam behind the spate of new stadiums about to spring up around the NFL. When you visit the new Bills stadium this year, or the new Browns and Chiefs stadiums in the near future, there won't be fuck-all to do outside of whatever developers there have given you to do. There won't be any culture, there'll just be one shitty chain restaurant after another. So even if these stadiums boost their respective local economies (ha!), they won't be adding any of the intangible elements that make one city or neighborhood distinct from another. Unless you have the brainpower of Cam Skattebo, these are not places you want to live near.

Carson:

Is it acceptable to dip sandwiches and burgers directly in sauce? As long as it's not loaded up with condiments and toppings that can fall out, you're guaranteed a saucier bite every time.

Oh shit yeah, it's acceptable. Why do you think BIG BIRRIA TACO is currently taking over our cities? Once you give people a nice little tub of jus to dip their food into, they never wanna go back. I know I don't. That's why I always order French dip if it's on a restaurant menu. It's also why, in addition to loading up my burger with ketchup, I also make a separate pool of ketchup on my plate, just in case I missed a few spots with the top coat. I will wipe my plate clean with whatever sandwich is in my hand. That's how I recover any shreds of lettuce/tomato/bacon that fell out of the original sandwich. My loved ones tell me they love watching me eat like this. It's their favorite thing in the whole world, it is!

Matt:

In a world where pork rinds are an available snack food, how the HELL are chicken skins not? Please explain.

I got news for you, Matt. There ARE chicken-skin snack foods available on the open market. Does this company tout their chicken rinds as having lots of protein? You know they do. I have no idea if Flock Foods is onto something with these chicken rinds, but I'm willing to test them out if I see them at a rest stop one day.

As to why chicken skins haven’t been more widely sold as packaged food, my guess is that megafarms never had enough stray skin lying around on the killing floor to repurpose as a new product. Think about it. When you buy chicken, it usually still has the skin on it. Not true of bacon. No chance our pork lobby will throw out those potential chicharrónes when they can fry them up and charge you a buck a bag. Yesterday's hamburgers are today's sloppy joes, etc.

Austin:

How many suits does Trump own? I'd believe any number between three and 3,000.

Trump wears the same color navy suit every goddamn day. If he ever walked out in a charcoal suit randomly, the world would stop on its axis. In theory, he could own three of these suits and cycle them out easily. But that wouldn't fit his personality, so here's what I think happens instead: Trump wears his one boring navy suit and then, at the end of that day, he throws it out. Then he wakes up the next day and wears an entirely new, boring navy suit. He never owns more than one suit at a time, but he's also never worn the same suit twice. That's my answer. This man lives to waste things, so ritualistically burning each of his Jos. A. Bank getups would fit the pattern.

Brian:

Would you rather shit out your mouth or eat through your ass? Assuming you can taste in both directions in both ports.

Oh, I'd rather shit out my mouth. Think about the logistics of eating with your ass. You'd have to spread your cheeks for every bite. Plus you wouldn't even be able to look at your food while you're doing the claw machine thing with your anus. What a disaster. Much easier to eat with your mouth and then shit right back out of it. Gimme a steady supply of Listerine and I can deal.

Email of the week!

Eric:

This past weekend my wife and I were at a very nice resort in Orlando. Mouse Ears were involved. One afternoon after a long day of park hopping, we came back to the room. My wife went to shower and clean up. I really had to pee, but as this was a one-bathroom hotel room and my wife is not cool about me using the toilet while she's in the shower, I didn't have any place to go.

So I grabbed one of those plastic-wrapped styrofoam cups that hotels give you to drink their shitty coffee and went to town. It's the only one, but whatever, we had a suite and had real glasses so I didn't think much of it. When I'm done I dump the contents down the kitchenette sink, rinse the cup and the sink, and throw the cup into the pristine trash can.

Fast forward to later that night when we're winding down for the day. I'm changing the channels to watch some baseball and my wife walks into the room. Holding the styrofoam cup. Full of water.

"Why'd you throw this out after drinking some water? It's still clean." She takes a gulp and walks off.

Do I tell her? Do I just not say anything, and take this to my grave? Run away to Canada?

Say nothing. You'll get away with it.