Mark Grote plays How Many Bears? for A.J. Pierzynski's Vatican visit and Caleb Williams' gift for Pope Leo XIV
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Why does the show open with the 'How Many Bears?' bit and what does it mean?
Bears.
It's time for How Many Bears?
Brandon Johnson was on here and he admitted to the following.
Getting in and out of Soldier Field is an absolute nightmare. Let me tell you how bad it is. Bears versus Packers. I'm at the game. We're losing. I decide to leave to beat the traffic. Before I get out of the footprint, the Bears had come back to win.
For admitting it on a 50,000 watt AM FM station that he left a Bears-Packers playoff game, which the Bears won early. He lost 10 bears.
He is at negative five bears. How many bears? I said it was going to be controversial. On 104.3 The Score.
You know that music. That's Anthony Rizzo's music.
Turn it up if you're in your car.
What incident involving Brandon Johnson and Soldier Field led to 'negative bears'?
Just crank that. It's also Mark Brody's music. And you know what's funny is that Lovable Reunion live podcast is next week. So maybe you get to combine the walk-up musics of you and Anthony Rizzo.
Over-stimulation.
Absolutely. That's going to be a fun show. And in the meantime, it's time for another episode of How Many Bears? You heard the intro, and you probably know why we decided to revisit it on this Friday. Because A.J. Perzynski got to meet Pope Leo. Now, Mark, I know that you and I discussed, were we going to do it? Were you going to award bears to A.J. on the air? And you ultimately decided that you were. So let's listen back.
Well, this is going to be life-changing for you as well, A.J. You don't know this about me, but I do a scale of 1 to 10, but I use bears as the scale, 1 being poor, 10 being excellent. So I give out bears to people if they do very Chicago things like you, A.J. Brzezinski. Congratulations. This is a 9.4 bears situation. Wow. A 9.4. Congratulations. How humbled are you at this moment?
I'm even more humbled than when I got to meet the Pope. Aww.
That's beautiful. 94, Robert Quinn.
AJ was in on the bit.
He was. I love that he rolled with it because you just never know. You just never know. So that is since we... Actually, you're right. The Pope has had the highest amount of bears.
14.
Yeah, 14. I feel like it probably should have been higher.
And looking back at it, Mark, did you ever think that you would be joining AJ Pierzynski on a radio show? Like when you were covering the White Sox for the score.
Correct.
And that you would be awarding him Bears. And that he would agree to the concept and yes and you on the air.
No, I didn't. Nor did I think that A.J. Pruszynski of the 2005 White Sox team, which I did cover, as you said, would be the representative to meet the Pope.
And that the Pope's like, oh, I know who you are.
I know who you are. Yeah, because he's a White Sox P1.
I feel like we're getting a little desensitized to it at this point, the meetings of the Pope. Because now it's just like, I feel like it's such a, think about before he became the Pope. Bob Prevost.
Yeah, yeah, Bob. He was Bobby from the block.
Right.
How did the hosts set up AJ Pierzynski's Vatican meeting and introduce the replay?
Before this, the Pope was just... He was a larger-than-life character who was seemingly untouchable. And you had... There was... To meet a Pope, you had to be a dignitary or someone of incredible importance to the world. And now it's like, guys we know are meeting the Pope.
So we've dumbed it down.
We do have to ask... And we're trying to give him every piece of sports memorabilia that exists. Like...
By the way, we do have to ask Ponsednik. Write that down of our list of Ponsednik questions. When you have him on at one o'clock, we definitely have to ask him about AJ being the representative to meet the Pope.
Yes. Yes. And AJ said it was the greatest experience of his life. Yeah. Which, understandably so. He was humbled. Has he gotten too accessible?
I think I know you're right. He has. He is down. He is in the sandbox with us.
How did Mark explain his 'bears' rating scale and why did AJ get 9.4 bears?
I don't know if he should be there.
As a Catholic, you know, we say, like, I'm not worthy to receive you. And I'm like, I don't really know that we are in these cases, actually.
I think we need to send Grody to the Vatican to meet the Pope and give him his bears.
But the fact that we could just conceptually do this.
We need to make it happen. Does my Cubs stink? Is that going to hurt?
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Chapters
5 chapters
1
Why does the show open with the 'How Many Bears?' bit and what does it mean?
0:00–0:54
2
What incident involving Brandon Johnson and Soldier Field led to 'negative bears'?
0:54–3:12
3
How did the hosts set up AJ Pierzynski's Vatican meeting and introduce the replay?
3:12–4:05
4
How did Mark explain his 'bears' rating scale and why did AJ get 9.4 bears?
4:05–6:17
5
What stories and reactions did the hosts share about AJ meeting Pope Leo XIV?
6:17–7:01
Speakers
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