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Speaker 1: Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. A

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Speaker 1: Democratic president, writes Will Salatan, whose brother and I co

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Speaker 1: wrote a book of poems when we were in the

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Speaker 1: fourth grade together, is standing up to Putin, and he's

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Speaker 1: facing a Republican who would rather attack Mickey Mouse. Brilliant,

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Speaker 1: Will Salatan, but unnecessarily narrow. The Republican, of course, is

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Speaker 1: Ran DeSantis, mister woke Finoki swamp, who was for Ukraine

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Speaker 1: before he was against it. And more importantly, DeSantis's naive, isolationist,

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Speaker 1: stupid claim that Ukraine is not among this country's vital

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Speaker 1: national interests. Who dismissed Russia's invasion of Ukraine as a

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Speaker 1: territorial dispute opened the door for even lesser men to

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Speaker 1: charge through. And what is clearly the next big fascist

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Speaker 1: push in this country, the attempt to get America to

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Speaker 1: betray Ukraine and serve Putin. Quote. The Ukrainians are being crushed,

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Speaker 1: the retired Army Colonel Douglas McGregor said on Fox last night.

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Speaker 1: Quote their casualties are horrific. We have effectively seen the

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Speaker 1: Russians destroy three separate armies built by the Ukrainians, and

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Speaker 1: everybody is beginning to wonder what's really happening, none of

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Speaker 1: which is true, but all of which lines up perfectly

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Speaker 1: with what is being broadcast in Russia on Vladimir Putin's

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Speaker 1: propaganda channel, and for which Colonel McGregor should be recalled

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Speaker 1: from retirement and court martialed as an unregistered foreign agent.

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Speaker 1: And it gets worse again, quoting this scum McGregor, the

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Speaker 1: truth is coming out that this war was not started

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Speaker 1: by Russia. What was it, Sir Lightning that Russia begged

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Speaker 1: us not to try and drag Ukraine into NATO? We

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Speaker 1: ignored Russia, and Russia made it very clear that they

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Speaker 1: were going to defend their national interest. All they wanted

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Speaker 1: was neutrality for Ukraine. I hope McGregor was paid for this.

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Speaker 1: I hope McGregor was paid for this by Putin. I

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Speaker 1: hope he was paid a lot. I hope he can

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Speaker 1: find somewhere to spend it all in hell. All of

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Speaker 1: this was said, of course too Tucker Carlson, who gave

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Speaker 1: it his perfected, perplexed look of the dog being shown

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Speaker 1: the card trick, and who, as I have noted previously here,

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Speaker 1: would probably be described as a Russian asset, except who

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Speaker 1: could ever think he's an asset to anybody. Carlson is

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Speaker 1: almost certainly not being paid to say these things. His

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Speaker 1: hatred of America as it is currently constituted, especially as

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Speaker 1: it is currently governed, is his only genuine emotion. He

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Speaker 1: harbors grudges untold against so many minority groups and so

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Speaker 1: many individual people that the only way he could fulfill

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Speaker 1: vengeance for them is if he were running this country

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Speaker 1: as dictator. And don't think he has not wondered about

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Speaker 1: how he might make that happen. And now we have

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Speaker 1: to ask ourselves about a future less than two years.

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Speaker 1: Hence not just Ukraine's part in that American future, but

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Speaker 1: the rest of Eastern Europe and thus the rest of

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Speaker 1: Western Europe and thus the rest of the West like us.

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Speaker 1: It is noon on January twenty, twenty twenty five. Trump

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Speaker 1: has been inaugurated by Hooker, by Krook or he hasn't,

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Speaker 1: and DeSantis has. Zelenski's resistance against the Russians is in

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Speaker 1: year three, and putin the Weekend continues to commit extraordinary

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Speaker 1: resources to his quote special military action. Several million Russian

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Speaker 1: servicemen are dead, but they control much of Ukraine and

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Speaker 1: as Trump or DeSantis or somebody else takes the presidential

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Speaker 1: oath of office. Here Putin now simultaneously bombs Poland, and

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Speaker 1: the new Republican president sends US military resources to Poland Putin.

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Speaker 1: This is not a randomly chosen nightmare scenario, the end

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Speaker 1: of a timeline that began with the form that mister

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Speaker 1: DeSantis filled out for Carlson the other day. Poland's internal

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Speaker 1: security agency has this week uncovered a network of Russian

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Speaker 1: agents inside its country. It says, who were installing hidden

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Speaker 1: cameras on those sections of Polish railway tracks that have

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Speaker 1: become the main transit point for the delivery of weapons

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Speaker 1: and ammunition bound for Kiev from its western allies. If

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Speaker 1: this report is correct, and the Russians are already even

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Speaker 1: game planning sabotage or a less subtle attack on Polish territory,

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Speaker 1: and Putin can only retain power by trying to rebuild

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Speaker 1: the Soviet Union. That theoretical about what we would do

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Speaker 1: should he actually attack a NATO country stopped being an

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Speaker 1: if and has started being a when, And suddenly it

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Speaker 1: doesn't matter that much whether Donald Trump is paying the

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Speaker 1: Russi back for the twenty sixteen election, or if they

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Speaker 1: did nothing about the twenty sixteen election, or if he

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Speaker 1: owes them billions, or if he's just doing it because

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Speaker 1: he admires murderous dictators like Putin and would like to

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Speaker 1: be one his own self. This country could wind up

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Speaker 1: allied with Russia in a war against Europe if the

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Speaker 1: Republicans ever regain power. Of course, the likelihood that money

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Speaker 1: is at the heart of this remains the likeliest bet.

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Speaker 1: Federal prosecutors have been investigating Trump's ironically named Truth Social Company.

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Speaker 1: Sure enough, what have they found? Two loans made to

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Speaker 1: the company, Trump Media wired through the Caribbean from two companies,

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Speaker 1: and to quote England's The Guardian, that both appeared to

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Speaker 1: be controlled in part by the relation of an ally

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Speaker 1: of Russian President Vladimir Putin. It is daunting to realize

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Speaker 1: that Trump's malign, disloyal, treacherous, treasonous, anti American influence will

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Speaker 1: not end with an indictment or a conviction or an imprisonment,

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Speaker 1: but only with a physical incompacitation or the fulfillment of

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Speaker 1: that wish that ex Republican Congressman Peter Meyer told The

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Speaker 1: Atlantic He's heard from countless nominal Trump's supporters, quoting Meyer,

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Speaker 1: I can't wait until this guy dies unquote. Even then,

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Speaker 1: of course, Trump will merely become the martyr of his

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Speaker 1: cult or knowing them, they will believe he's actually still

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Speaker 1: alive somewhere, and he's just a way for the moment

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Speaker 1: planning strategy with JFK Jr. And JFK and Jesus and

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Speaker 1: Princess Diana and Rush Limbaugh, it is almost impossible to

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Speaker 1: believe that at this late date there could still be

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Speaker 1: a new development in Trump's multi pronged plot to overturn

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Speaker 1: the twenty twenty election and overthrow democracy. Yet here it is,

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Speaker 1: and it's in Georgia too, where we have all heard

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Speaker 1: the tape of the phone call begging Brad Raffensburger quote

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Speaker 1: to find eleven thousand, seven hundred and eighty votes, as

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Speaker 1: if they were so many bottle of gold spray paint.

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Speaker 1: You may have heard about a second Georgia phone call

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Speaker 1: by Trump to the Speaker of the Georgia House, David Ralston,

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Speaker 1: to convene a special session in December twenty twenty, at

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Speaker 1: which Trump wanted Ralston to throw out George's election and

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Speaker 1: thus its electors, and thus steal them from Biden and

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Speaker 1: give them to Trump. It turns out that phone call

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Speaker 1: was recorded as well. Five of the members of the

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Speaker 1: extremely chatty special grand jury in Atlanta examining Trump's crimes

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Speaker 1: there have confirmed they heard it. We don't know what's

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Speaker 1: on it, but we do know the late speaker, Rawlston said.

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Speaker 1: The day after that, Trump demanded the special session, and

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Speaker 1: Rawlston said it would be very much an uphill battle

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Speaker 1: under Georgia law. And the question now is why have

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Speaker 1: we not heard this tape yet? And of course, if

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Speaker 1: we are back in Georgia, following my thread, we are

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Speaker 1: now back in the native territory of the first member

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Speaker 1: of the United States House of A Representatives, whom some

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Speaker 1: grand jury somewhere I'd actually be willing to indict purely

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Speaker 1: on the basis of incalculable stupidity. Yes, it is Marjorie

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Speaker 1: Trader Green again. And she went to the border for

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Speaker 1: a House Homeland Security Committee hearing, and then she leaked

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Speaker 1: classified material and when even it disagreed with her paranoid fantasies,

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Speaker 1: she decided the witness and her committee was lying about it.

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Speaker 1: In short, US Border Patrol Chief Raoul Ortiz said it

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Speaker 1: was alleged that his agents had found an explosive device

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Speaker 1: near the border with Mexico. He told the committee that

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Speaker 1: agents had in fact found a duct tape ball filled

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Speaker 1: with sand that was no threat to anybody unless you

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Speaker 1: were to sit on it while you were wearing a

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Speaker 1: bathing suit. A Fox quote news unquote contributor then explained

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Speaker 1: that on January eighteenth, it was believed that a quote

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Speaker 1: Mexican firecracker had been planted near the US border, presumably

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Speaker 1: by drug cartels. It turned out to be a duct

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Speaker 1: tape ball filled with sand that was not good enough

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Speaker 1: for Special Agent Marjorie Trader Green. If the devising question

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Speaker 1: was death filled with sand, then why would Chief Ortiz

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Speaker 1: tell me during his testimony that he was briefed about

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Speaker 1: it in a secure location and couldn't comment on classified information.

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Speaker 1: They don't brief the chief of Border Patrol in an

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Speaker 1: scif about a ball of sand that only brief us

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Speaker 1: about danger stayings in classifad briefings. It would be obvious

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Speaker 1: to anybody except Barney Rubble's body double that the briefing

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Speaker 1: and its classified nature was not to cover up the

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Speaker 1: sand bomb, but to protect border patrols detection abilities. And

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Speaker 1: its techniques, and see if this sounds familiar to protect

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Speaker 1: where our cameras are located. It is nice, however, to

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Speaker 1: note that, in her usual imbecilic, boastful way, she said

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Speaker 1: ed Ortiz couldn't comment on classified information, that Marjorie Taylor

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Speaker 1: Green just confessed to divulging classified information and she should

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Speaker 1: be arrested for that and have her security clearance permanently stripped. Today.

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Speaker 1: Of course, you're not going to hear any of this

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Speaker 1: on Fox quote news unquote, nor for that matter, on CNN,

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Speaker 1: And this is fascinating. Quinnipiac published a poll yesterday indicating

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Speaker 1: that the nation has very strong opinions on the Dominion

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Speaker 1: defamation case against Murdoch propagandists, and it's almost entirely in

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Speaker 1: one direction. Sixty five percent of everybody thinks Fox should

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Speaker 1: lose that suit and be punished for defaming Dominion. Ninety

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Speaker 1: three percent of Democrats feel so, seventy six percent of

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Speaker 1: people aged eighteen to thirty four, of all parties, sixty

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Speaker 1: seven percent of independence. Only one group disagrees, and you

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Speaker 1: knew which group that was about thirty forty seconds ago. Yes,

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Speaker 1: it's the Republicans. And he had forty one percent of

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Speaker 1: Republicans think Fox should lose the dominion case. Yet Fox

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Speaker 1: still is not the cable news outfit in the most trouble.

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Speaker 1: The New York Post gossip page put out what was

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Speaker 1: even for them a really squishy story that the new chairman,

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Speaker 1: Chris Licht, whom when we were at MSNBC together we

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Speaker 1: all thought eight paced might be fired by labor day.

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Speaker 1: Both the Post and the website puck now a report

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Speaker 1: that Licht had an unexpected guest and a meeting of

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Speaker 1: six hundred CNN managers the other morning, And by the way,

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Speaker 1: CNN six hundred managers, there's your problem right there. The

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Speaker 1: extra man at the meeting was David zaslov licks boss,

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Speaker 1: who reaffirmed his commitment to lickt. The Post's headline on

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Speaker 1: this story was originally quote boss of CNN parents says

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Speaker 1: execs are all effing behind network CEO Chris Licht, but

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Speaker 1: that headline was soon changed by the Post to quote

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Speaker 1: boss of CNN parent defends networks CEO Chris Licht, but

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Speaker 1: admits he's gotten a lot wrong. And for the Post

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Speaker 1: to back down on something like that, there was some

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Speaker 1: Grade four arm twisting somewhere late yesterday afternoon. Anyway, The

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Speaker 1: Puck Report quoted Lickt as asking these six hundred managers,

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Speaker 1: there's your problem right there, CNN asking the six hundred

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Speaker 1: managers to snitch on any employees who didn't like the

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Speaker 1: new CNN writer Dylan Buyer's quoting Lickt, it's incumbent on

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Speaker 1: us to unlock that potential, to give people a sense

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Speaker 1: of purpose, and if they don't take that, help them

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Speaker 1: find something else here or outside the company. Well that's

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Speaker 1: the Chris Lickt we all used to know. Hatchetman. Buyers

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Speaker 1: also reports the latest on CNN's new morning show, which

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Speaker 1: I believe is titled tire Fire with Don Lemon and

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Speaker 1: the reporter who used to be from The Daily Caller

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Speaker 1: who can't anchor, and the utility in fielder Hoppy Pardlow

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Speaker 1: or whatever her name is. This was what Licked broke

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Speaker 1: up one of his only two successful primetime shows. Four

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Speaker 1: It is failing miserably. Don Lemon is very unhappy and

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Speaker 1: making stupid mistakes on the air. The Daily Caller person

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Speaker 1: Caitlin Collins is dreaming of moving back from New York

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Speaker 1: to Washington and has fired her agent because she apparently

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Speaker 1: just realized he's also Don Lemon's agent, and yeah, I

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Speaker 1: fired him eighteen months ago too. Anyway, at a moment

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Speaker 1: where everything I've been talking about here cries out for fearless, interpretive,

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Speaker 1: analytical news, this Zaslov and Licked and CNN continue to

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Speaker 1: be hell bent on returning CNN to a kind of

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Speaker 1: video stenographer's role which it never had, but which they

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Speaker 1: have convinced themselves was its true time of greatness. Zaslov

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Speaker 1: says this is Licked's destiny and his moment or something,

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Speaker 1: and Puck quotes him as He's gotten a lot wrong.

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Speaker 1: We've gotten a lot wrong. We're all flawed. You bet

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Speaker 1: your ass, Sonny. How flawed is summed up by particular imagery, which,

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Speaker 1: after I questioned it last night, buyers insisted was chosen very,

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Speaker 1: very deliberately. Quote. Nearly one year in, it's clear that

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Speaker 1: zas Laugh still believes in his vision for CNN as

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Speaker 1: a non partisan broadcast style news digest, and still believes

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Speaker 1: that Licht is are you ready for the imagery and

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Speaker 1: still believes that Lickt is his captain. Ahab Now, I'll

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Speaker 1: confess that I have not read Moby Dick all the

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Speaker 1: way through since nineteen seventy five, I haven't even watched

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Speaker 1: the Gregory Peck movie where he's Captain Ahab in a

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Speaker 1: year or two. But if my memory serves me, Captain

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Speaker 1: Ahab finally finds moby Dick and harpoon him, but he

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Speaker 1: gets his foot caught in the harpoon rope, and before

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Speaker 1: you know it, he's pinned up against moby Dick's side,

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Speaker 1: and the whale goes underwater and drowns him, and then

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Speaker 1: turns around and accelerates straight towards the pea quad and

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Speaker 1: rams it and cuts it in half and sinks it.

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Speaker 1: And if this Zaslov is really out there with his captain,

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Speaker 1: and this version of the story is really called moby Licked,

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Speaker 1: then soon or late the great White whale will be

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Speaker 1: literally deep platforming Zaslov. And then when he and all

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Speaker 1: the other sailors fall into the sea, moby Dick will

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Speaker 1: come back and eat all of them. Or moby lickt

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Speaker 1: call me Ishmael, my boat sank. The end still ahead

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Speaker 1: on countdown slight format change for this edition, which I'll

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Speaker 1: explained press. But let me tell you something I promised

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Speaker 1: not to tell. First. One of the great scoops of

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Speaker 1: my sports career. One that my boss had insisted I

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Speaker 1: go get for him happened when I had given up

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Speaker 1: on the story, went to go get some pizza, and

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Speaker 1: on the way home, I literally saw the guys at

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Speaker 1: the center of the story yelling at each other about

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Speaker 1: the story on the street. First, in each edition of Countdown,

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Speaker 1: we feature a dog in need you can help. Every

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Speaker 1: dog has its day to DeVore, California, and this is

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Speaker 1: just terrible the high kill shelter there as a pair

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Speaker 1: of fourteen week old puppies, sisters gorgeous shepherd husky mixes

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Speaker 1: with haunting eyes, Banshee and Shenanigan. They have been there

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Speaker 1: nine days, but they're already on the kill list because

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Speaker 1: the shelter is full three month old puppies. They need

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Speaker 1: our pledges to help a rescue save them where they

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Speaker 1: need a foster or an adopter near DeVore. You'll see

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Speaker 1: them on my Twitter feeds, and your retweets alone could

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Speaker 1: save their lives. I thank you, and Banshee and Shenanigan,

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Speaker 1: thank you. Now from the files of things I promised

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Speaker 1: not to tell, and I recently went past the building

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Speaker 1: my second professional home, and I was flooded with my

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Speaker 1: memories of a place called the RKO Radio Network. This

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Speaker 1: is nineteen eighty and I'm nearing my twenty second birthday,

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Speaker 1: and I'm working real hard at one radio network run

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Speaker 1: by the United pres International Wire Service in my second

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Speaker 1: year and making around more nearly twenty thousand dollars a year.

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Speaker 1: And in September, a drunken manager had tried to get

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Speaker 1: me fired, tried to fire me himself for being young.

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Speaker 1: And I'll be damned if I can remember getting consecutive

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Speaker 1: days off there. This was UPI in a nutshell for

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Speaker 1: my first few weeks there. I thought whoever had decorated

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Speaker 1: the newsroom had found the floor tiles with the ugliest

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Speaker 1: design pattern in history, and they finally I saw a

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Speaker 1: colleague grind his lit cigarette into that floor, and only

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Speaker 1: then did I realize that was what the ugly design

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Speaker 1: pattern was. Hundreds of ground out cigarettes, years and years

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Speaker 1: of ground out cigarettes in the tiles. Anyway, the main

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Speaker 1: advantage to working at UPI was that everybody in what

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Speaker 1: was then a flourishing radio business knew UPI, and thus

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Speaker 1: they knew you, and they knew you were underpaid. The

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Speaker 1: top all news radio station in the country. WCBS in

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Speaker 1: New York had already asked if I might be a

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Speaker 1: candidate for a coming opening in their sports department. The

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Speaker 1: previous spring. I'd actually interviewed with two vice presidents at

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Speaker 1: this thing. The yachtsman Ted Turner, who owned the Atlanta Braves,

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Speaker 1: was going to try to start something he called cable

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Speaker 1: News Network, but they were not initially interested in me,

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Speaker 1: and after meeting with them, I was certain they would

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Speaker 1: never get it launched, let alone get an audience for it.

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Speaker 1: I was working there literally fourteen months later. I'd also

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Speaker 1: been flown to Boston, like they spent fifty five dollars

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Speaker 1: on me by a radio station that really wanted me

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Speaker 1: to do a morning sports shift for them, and they

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Speaker 1: were offering forty thousand dollars a year, twice my salary,

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Speaker 1: and I was ready to do it. And I was

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Speaker 1: sitting in the office in Boston trying to figure out

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Speaker 1: where I could live and how late I could sleep

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Speaker 1: and still get there in the morning. And then the

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Speaker 1: news director said, now, except if there's a big story,

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Speaker 1: you can do the afternoon sportscast from home over the phone,

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Speaker 1: which is when I realized I was supposed to do

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Speaker 1: the morning and the afternoon. I was essentially on the

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Speaker 1: clock from five am to six pm, and the forty

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Speaker 1: thousand dollars would have had to go to my sister

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Speaker 1: because the schedule would have killed me within three months.

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Speaker 1: And then there was this RKO radio network. Up I

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Speaker 1: was in the unique position of having RKO as a client,

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Speaker 1: so RKO heard and used ours stuff all the time.

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Speaker 1: And also they had from their beginning used our UPI

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Speaker 1: feed as a kind of twenty four seven constantly flowing

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Speaker 1: turned on spigot audition service. From the time I got

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Speaker 1: to UPI in July nineteen seventy nine, it seemed like

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Speaker 1: one radio person from UPI per month was hired away

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Speaker 1: by RKO. Sometime in the early autumn of nineteen eighty,

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Speaker 1: I was covering a New York Rangers game at Madison

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Speaker 1: Square Garden, and the guy next to me, smoking a

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Speaker 1: cigar inside the garden, right in front of all the fans,

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Speaker 1: turned out to be the sports director of this RKO network.

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Speaker 1: In fact, he was the entirety of the RKO sports department.

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Speaker 1: But we're doubling in size. I'm going to start doing

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Speaker 1: weekend sports cast, and I get to hire a new

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Speaker 1: person to do the weekends. It's a union shop, so

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Speaker 1: it's fifty one dollars a sports cast. After there's ten

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Speaker 1: a weekends, twenty two for any dollars to reports for

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Speaker 1: reports from the field, and you'd be my backup. Twenty

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Speaker 1: two bucks from the field and a guarantee of five

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Speaker 1: ten and a weekend, and you got to come in

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Speaker 1: one day a week to book the stringers for the

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Speaker 1: weekend games. That would be free, but the guarantee is

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Speaker 1: twenty six thousand dollars plus those twenty two dollars every

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Speaker 1: time you have file a report from the field. You're interested. Well,

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Speaker 1: I did some quick math. This was about forty percent

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Speaker 1: more money for about forty percent less work. And there

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Speaker 1: were no five am to six pm schedules. When the

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Speaker 1: sports director called me back a few weeks later to

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Speaker 1: offer me the gig, I did not hesitate. His name,

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Speaker 1: by the way, was Charlie Steiner. Charlie would later be

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Speaker 1: a colleague of mine at Sports Center, and then he

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Speaker 1: did the Yankees games, and now he does the Dodgers games,

340
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Speaker 1: and he's been a friend for forty two years. The

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Speaker 1: network itself was also space age, shiny and new and

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00:22:01,675 --> 00:22:06,275
Speaker 1: it had carpets where up I had the stubbed out

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Speaker 1: cigarettes decorps. RKO was literally the first radio network in

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Speaker 1: this country to deliver all of its programs to its

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Speaker 1: stations via satellite. No more scratchy, hyper expensive phone lines.

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Speaker 1: RKO came through crystal clear, and that was our pitch

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Speaker 1: to the stations. All the newscasts, all the sportscasts, all

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Speaker 1: the features ended with the same tagline, BIA satellite, This

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Speaker 1: is the RKO Radio Network, And then a spot for

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Speaker 1: Hubba Bubba Gum for my first few weeks there. Part

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Speaker 1: of the job also included doing two sportscasts today for

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Speaker 1: r ko's local station, Wo R. The first time I

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Speaker 1: went up in the elevator to their studio, it dawned

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Speaker 1: on me that it was the exact same studio where

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Speaker 1: seven years before I had been invited by the great

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Speaker 1: comedians Bob Elliott and Ray Goulding along with my dad

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Speaker 1: to sit and watch in amazed preciation as Bob and

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Speaker 1: Ray did their show on Wo R. So basically, as

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Speaker 1: of December nineteen eighty I had accomplished all of my

360
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Speaker 1: childhood goals. The only problem with the place was the location.

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Speaker 1: R KO was on the southeast corner of Times Square,

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Speaker 1: probably the low watermark in the history of Times Square.

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Speaker 1: It was in fourteen forty Broadway, at the corner of

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Speaker 1: fortieth Street. There was a backdoor at forty first Street

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Speaker 1: and sixth Avenue, right across from Bryant Park. On those

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Speaker 1: occasions when I filled in for Charlie Steiner on the

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Speaker 1: weekdays for his morning show, which they would tape overnight,

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Speaker 1: I would often be at the studios until two or

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Speaker 1: three am, and my walk home was a little sketchy.

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Speaker 1: In point, in fact, I would not walk home. I

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Speaker 1: would run, I mean run, run from that backdoor at

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Speaker 1: forty first and sixth. I'd pass Bryant Park on my

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Speaker 1: right as fast as I could, past all the drug

374
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Speaker 1: dealers and other folks, then dart on the north side

375
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Speaker 1: of forty second between sixth and fifth, and once you

376
00:24:03,675 --> 00:24:07,795
Speaker 1: got to that corner a fifth and forty second, you

377
00:24:07,835 --> 00:24:11,515
Speaker 1: were back in civilization, with good street lights and other

378
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Speaker 1: people on the streets, no matter how late the hour,

379
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Speaker 1: or as we called them in New York then witnesses.

380
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Speaker 1: Occasionally I might have to walk in Times Square itself,

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Speaker 1: usually when it was daylight. What surrounded me there was

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00:24:26,555 --> 00:24:31,155
Speaker 1: about as far from today's Disneyland East Times Square as

383
00:24:31,195 --> 00:24:34,355
Speaker 1: you could imagine. In fact, you could not imagine. There

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00:24:34,355 --> 00:24:39,155
Speaker 1: were porn theaters everywhere, and it wasn't just porn theaters.

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00:24:39,555 --> 00:24:43,435
Speaker 1: They were spaced apart and in between them. Other businesses existed,

386
00:24:44,035 --> 00:24:49,035
Speaker 1: porn peep shows, porn sex shops, and porn video rental stores.

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Speaker 1: I remember always making sure I was walking on the

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Speaker 1: outside edge of the street, nearest the gutter, on the

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Speaker 1: premise that in the event somebody tried to mug me,

390
00:24:57,755 --> 00:24:59,955
Speaker 1: I stood a much better chance by running right out

391
00:25:00,035 --> 00:25:03,915
Speaker 1: into automobile traffic. Besides which, I used to worry that

392
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Speaker 1: if I walked to close to the porn theaters and

393
00:25:06,035 --> 00:25:08,475
Speaker 1: the shows and the shops and the video stores one day,

394
00:25:08,475 --> 00:25:14,995
Speaker 1: I might just get stuck to the sidewalk. Times Square

395
00:25:15,075 --> 00:25:17,795
Speaker 1: was so different in nineteen eighty and nineteen eighty one

396
00:25:17,835 --> 00:25:22,155
Speaker 1: that I really can't imagine that the annual income made

397
00:25:22,235 --> 00:25:26,795
Speaker 1: there from anything but porn and the Arco Radio network

398
00:25:27,955 --> 00:25:30,355
Speaker 1: was more than twenty dollars a year. In total. There

399
00:25:30,435 --> 00:25:33,915
Speaker 1: was nothing else, I mean nothing. On weekends, walking over

400
00:25:33,955 --> 00:25:35,955
Speaker 1: from my home on the East Side, I would decide

401
00:25:35,995 --> 00:25:39,875
Speaker 1: which fast food place i'd be getting lunch from somewhere

402
00:25:39,915 --> 00:25:42,315
Speaker 1: on Fifth Avenue or Lex. I go to the nearest

403
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Speaker 1: pay phone. I'd call the RCAO newsroom desk, and I

404
00:25:44,795 --> 00:25:47,795
Speaker 1: would offer to bring in food for everybody, for the

405
00:25:47,835 --> 00:25:53,035
Speaker 1: simple reason that in Times Square forty years ago, there

406
00:25:53,035 --> 00:25:58,195
Speaker 1: were no restaurants open on weekends. I'll say that again,

407
00:25:58,795 --> 00:26:03,475
Speaker 1: in Times Square forty years ago, on the weekends, all

408
00:26:03,515 --> 00:26:08,915
Speaker 1: the restaurants that resisted there were closed during the day.

409
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Speaker 1: And forget public transportation to Times Square. I would finish

410
00:26:13,835 --> 00:26:16,315
Speaker 1: my brisk, twenty five minute walk to work one night

411
00:26:16,315 --> 00:26:19,435
Speaker 1: in that frigid winter of nineteen eighty eighty one and

412
00:26:19,635 --> 00:26:24,195
Speaker 1: see my colleagues looking unusually pasty and drawn. You didn't

413
00:26:24,235 --> 00:26:27,035
Speaker 1: take the subway in, did you, asked one of the editors,

414
00:26:27,035 --> 00:26:29,315
Speaker 1: Tom Ryan. I looked at him like it was crazy.

415
00:26:29,395 --> 00:26:32,515
Speaker 1: Well good, some guy got stabbed by the stairs closest

416
00:26:32,515 --> 00:26:35,755
Speaker 1: to our building. I asked if he was okay. No,

417
00:26:35,875 --> 00:26:38,515
Speaker 1: he's not okay, he's dead. But they got the guys

418
00:26:38,515 --> 00:26:43,875
Speaker 1: who did it. They arrested fifty one people. One guy

419
00:26:43,915 --> 00:26:46,875
Speaker 1: got stabbed to death, fifty one people were arrested. I

420
00:26:46,915 --> 00:26:49,875
Speaker 1: asked if they had been restaging a reenactment of the

421
00:26:49,875 --> 00:26:54,835
Speaker 1: assassination of Julius Caesar. Still, the equipment was brand new

422
00:26:54,915 --> 00:26:57,195
Speaker 1: and easy to use, and the staff was all young.

423
00:26:57,595 --> 00:27:00,115
Speaker 1: We all had fun, and we had parties, and everybody

424
00:27:00,195 --> 00:27:01,715
Speaker 1: lived in the city, and for the most part, it

425
00:27:01,755 --> 00:27:04,115
Speaker 1: was a pleasure to work there, and it was way

426
00:27:04,155 --> 00:27:08,075
Speaker 1: more creative even than Charlie Steiner had suggested. Those twenty

427
00:27:08,075 --> 00:27:12,715
Speaker 1: two dollars voice reports from the field, they piled up fast.

428
00:27:12,755 --> 00:27:16,155
Speaker 1: The baseball players went on strike that June nineteen eighty one,

429
00:27:16,595 --> 00:27:18,755
Speaker 1: and every time I covered a bargaining session I could

430
00:27:18,795 --> 00:27:20,875
Speaker 1: be certain of at least another forty four dollars. And

431
00:27:20,915 --> 00:27:23,355
Speaker 1: if that doesn't sound like much, the rent on my

432
00:27:23,515 --> 00:27:27,155
Speaker 1: very nice studio apartment never got higher than four hundred

433
00:27:27,155 --> 00:27:31,795
Speaker 1: and ninety eight dollars a month. R ko's location also

434
00:27:31,835 --> 00:27:35,395
Speaker 1: provided me with some wacky logistical problems. I filled in

435
00:27:35,435 --> 00:27:37,915
Speaker 1: for Charlie on most holidays, plus I did the same

436
00:27:37,955 --> 00:27:42,795
Speaker 1: thing at a local radio station WNW. This made the

437
00:27:42,875 --> 00:27:47,955
Speaker 1: actual Christmas into my metaphorical Christmas. If I had to

438
00:27:47,955 --> 00:27:50,995
Speaker 1: fill in for both of these operations on the same day,

439
00:27:51,075 --> 00:27:54,715
Speaker 1: my schedule went like this, get into RKO in Times Square.

440
00:27:54,715 --> 00:27:59,355
Speaker 1: It maybe two am. Tape Charlie's Morning Show by four am,

441
00:27:59,635 --> 00:28:04,195
Speaker 1: then walk Crosstown very quickly to wnw Over on Third

442
00:28:04,235 --> 00:28:08,155
Speaker 1: Avenue and do those sportscasts live between five thirty and nine,

443
00:28:08,155 --> 00:28:09,795
Speaker 1: and then go home and maybe take a nap, but

444
00:28:09,835 --> 00:28:11,635
Speaker 1: not a long one because I would have to be

445
00:28:11,675 --> 00:28:15,195
Speaker 1: back at RKO by one pm, tod Charlie's Afternoon Show,

446
00:28:15,755 --> 00:28:20,035
Speaker 1: rinse repeat a lot of work. On the other hand,

447
00:28:20,075 --> 00:28:22,075
Speaker 1: just one week of those days paid the rent for

448
00:28:22,075 --> 00:28:26,395
Speaker 1: two months. On a wet New Year's Eve nineteen eighty one,

449
00:28:26,395 --> 00:28:29,795
Speaker 1: I treated myself to a cab to go to RKO,

450
00:28:29,835 --> 00:28:32,435
Speaker 1: which put me in the bizarre position of getting into

451
00:28:32,435 --> 00:28:34,835
Speaker 1: a cab on the East Side at one thirty am

452
00:28:35,595 --> 00:28:38,555
Speaker 1: New Year's Morning and saying take me to Times Square

453
00:28:38,955 --> 00:28:41,035
Speaker 1: and the drivers saying you missed it, buddy, it's been

454
00:28:41,115 --> 00:28:44,315
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty two for an hour and a half. Nothing

455
00:28:44,435 --> 00:28:48,035
Speaker 1: like being the only person going into Times Square while

456
00:28:48,235 --> 00:28:54,555
Speaker 1: one million people are leaving it drunk. Most of the

457
00:28:54,555 --> 00:28:58,195
Speaker 1: sportscasts I did at r KO or pretty textbook, but

458
00:28:58,275 --> 00:29:00,275
Speaker 1: there did come the day that I walked in to

459
00:29:00,315 --> 00:29:02,475
Speaker 1: fill in for Charlie who was at Wimbledon. So this

460
00:29:02,515 --> 00:29:05,315
Speaker 1: is the summer of nineteen eighty one, and the wires

461
00:29:05,315 --> 00:29:08,795
Speaker 1: were full of this story of some unnamed American radio

462
00:29:08,875 --> 00:29:12,675
Speaker 1: reporter getting into a brawl with a London tabloid writer

463
00:29:12,755 --> 00:29:17,155
Speaker 1: at a Wimbledon press conference, and it slowly evolved that

464
00:29:17,275 --> 00:29:21,835
Speaker 1: the reporter was Charlie, my boss, and we were going

465
00:29:21,875 --> 00:29:23,515
Speaker 1: to have to figure out a way to cover this.

466
00:29:24,395 --> 00:29:27,315
Speaker 1: At first, Charlie wanted to do it in the third

467
00:29:27,395 --> 00:29:30,315
Speaker 1: person and say the reporter did this, and the reporter

468
00:29:30,435 --> 00:29:31,875
Speaker 1: said that, And I said, you know, I really don't

469
00:29:31,875 --> 00:29:34,435
Speaker 1: think we're going to get away with that. Given how

470
00:29:34,515 --> 00:29:37,595
Speaker 1: much wire copy I'm seeing here, Charlie, this is probably

471
00:29:37,635 --> 00:29:38,955
Speaker 1: gonna be on the front page in the New York

472
00:29:38,955 --> 00:29:41,675
Speaker 1: Times in the morning. Sure enough, it was above the fold.

473
00:29:43,235 --> 00:29:46,035
Speaker 1: We're still unbeknownst to Charlie, his fight took place in

474
00:29:46,035 --> 00:29:49,435
Speaker 1: a corner of the Wimbledon press room, right under the

475
00:29:49,475 --> 00:29:51,835
Speaker 1: camera that fed out a shot of that room twenty

476
00:29:51,875 --> 00:29:56,035
Speaker 1: four to seven to every television network in the world.

477
00:29:57,435 --> 00:30:01,155
Speaker 1: Sure enough, the last item on ABC's six thirty newscast

478
00:30:01,235 --> 00:30:05,435
Speaker 1: that night with Peter Jennings was a feature on Charlie

479
00:30:05,435 --> 00:30:08,155
Speaker 1: Steiner fighting with the British over how they broke up

480
00:30:08,195 --> 00:30:11,595
Speaker 1: the John McEnroe postmatch press conference, and he was pissed

481
00:30:11,595 --> 00:30:14,275
Speaker 1: off because that many wouldn't get any soundbites from McEnroe.

482
00:30:15,515 --> 00:30:18,475
Speaker 1: I managed to run home from RKO and record the

483
00:30:18,515 --> 00:30:21,275
Speaker 1: report by Dick chap and when Charlie got back from London,

484
00:30:21,595 --> 00:30:25,075
Speaker 1: I loaned it to him. This was in July nineteen

485
00:30:25,155 --> 00:30:29,675
Speaker 1: eighty one. Charlie still hasn't given me the tape back.

486
00:30:30,595 --> 00:30:32,715
Speaker 1: Every time I see him, he swears he's still looking

487
00:30:32,755 --> 00:30:35,275
Speaker 1: for it. It's in a box somewhere. But I'm beginning

488
00:30:35,315 --> 00:30:37,355
Speaker 1: to think he may not be telling me the whole

489
00:30:37,395 --> 00:30:42,715
Speaker 1: truth about what happened to my video cassette. But my

490
00:30:42,835 --> 00:30:47,355
Speaker 1: favorite RKO story is about Charlie's sudden and inexplicable obsession

491
00:30:47,395 --> 00:30:50,435
Speaker 1: with the story. During that nineteen eighty one baseball strike

492
00:30:50,515 --> 00:30:52,995
Speaker 1: I mentioned in the middle of this thing which stopped

493
00:30:52,995 --> 00:30:56,435
Speaker 1: the season for fifty days and was really the beginning

494
00:30:56,475 --> 00:30:59,795
Speaker 1: of the end of that time when baseball truly mattered

495
00:30:59,795 --> 00:31:03,675
Speaker 1: in this country. When every day in that strike, somebody

496
00:31:03,755 --> 00:31:06,475
Speaker 1: on all the team newscast set and the baseball strike

497
00:31:06,595 --> 00:31:11,115
Speaker 1: is in its twenty third day, a story broke that

498
00:31:11,235 --> 00:31:13,435
Speaker 1: George Steinbrenner, the owner of the Yankees, was going to

499
00:31:13,435 --> 00:31:15,675
Speaker 1: meet with Baseball Commissioner Boy Qune and a couple of

500
00:31:15,675 --> 00:31:18,755
Speaker 1: other owners who realized that the work stoppage was financial madness.

501
00:31:19,555 --> 00:31:23,595
Speaker 1: As George told me years later, he was losing about

502
00:31:23,675 --> 00:31:27,195
Speaker 1: a million dollars in revenue every day so that the

503
00:31:27,235 --> 00:31:33,635
Speaker 1: Milwaukee Brewers could save five thousand dollars in salaries every year. Well,

504
00:31:33,715 --> 00:31:35,995
Speaker 1: my boss, Charlie Steiner decided he was going to scoop

505
00:31:36,035 --> 00:31:39,235
Speaker 1: the world about this secret Steinbrenner Qune meeting. So he

506
00:31:39,315 --> 00:31:41,555
Speaker 1: told me to come into the office on one of

507
00:31:41,595 --> 00:31:45,275
Speaker 1: my off days and worked the phones. Work the phone son.

508
00:31:46,115 --> 00:31:48,475
Speaker 1: Two of us, me and the newly hired producer, my

509
00:31:48,515 --> 00:31:51,635
Speaker 1: friend John Martin, were supposed to call everybody we knew

510
00:31:51,715 --> 00:31:54,755
Speaker 1: and find out for Charlie when these guys were meeting

511
00:31:54,755 --> 00:31:57,115
Speaker 1: and where and who would be there, and to not

512
00:31:57,355 --> 00:32:02,515
Speaker 1: go home until we had nailed it down. Well, it

513
00:32:02,635 --> 00:32:07,075
Speaker 1: was madness. I didn't know anybody in baseball, let alone

514
00:32:07,115 --> 00:32:09,635
Speaker 1: anybody who knew where the owner of the Yankees it

515
00:32:09,675 --> 00:32:11,955
Speaker 1: was going to meet in secret with the Commissioner of baseball,

516
00:32:12,555 --> 00:32:15,595
Speaker 1: let alone, who knew all that and would tell me.

517
00:32:16,715 --> 00:32:19,795
Speaker 1: But I tried everybody I could think of, and had

518
00:32:19,835 --> 00:32:21,915
Speaker 1: already suggested to John Martin that I was just going

519
00:32:21,955 --> 00:32:24,955
Speaker 1: to start dialing ten digits at random and asking whoever

520
00:32:24,995 --> 00:32:28,475
Speaker 1: answered if they knew. When after about eight hours of

521
00:32:28,515 --> 00:32:31,395
Speaker 1: this well passed my dinner time, I was on the

522
00:32:31,395 --> 00:32:34,195
Speaker 1: phone with some executive of some West Coast team when

523
00:32:34,195 --> 00:32:36,275
Speaker 1: he said hold on a minute. I got another call,

524
00:32:36,915 --> 00:32:39,555
Speaker 1: and a moment later from the adjoining room in my office,

525
00:32:39,595 --> 00:32:42,795
Speaker 1: I heard John Martin say, at mister Smith, high, this

526
00:32:42,915 --> 00:32:46,275
Speaker 1: is John Martin from the RKO Radio network, and yes,

527
00:32:46,435 --> 00:32:51,435
Speaker 1: RKO Radio Network, Yes, I'll hold sir. Mister Smith picked

528
00:32:51,475 --> 00:32:54,035
Speaker 1: up my call again and said is this really two

529
00:32:54,075 --> 00:32:56,275
Speaker 1: of you calling me about this crap at the same

530
00:32:56,315 --> 00:32:59,395
Speaker 1: time from the same network, And I said yes, and

531
00:32:59,475 --> 00:33:01,915
Speaker 1: I apologized, and I told him I was going home.

532
00:33:03,275 --> 00:33:05,795
Speaker 1: If Charlie doesn't like it, I told John he can

533
00:33:05,875 --> 00:33:10,595
Speaker 1: fire me, so follow me on this because I had

534
00:33:10,675 --> 00:33:13,395
Speaker 1: missed dinner. When I got back to my street on

535
00:33:13,435 --> 00:33:16,355
Speaker 1: the East Side, I was famished. I don't know nine o'clock,

536
00:33:16,395 --> 00:33:19,235
Speaker 1: ten o'clock. The last two blocks of my walk home

537
00:33:19,315 --> 00:33:22,155
Speaker 1: was always identical. I'd come up Third Avenue and then

538
00:33:22,235 --> 00:33:24,875
Speaker 1: hang a right at the southeast corner of Third Avenue

539
00:33:24,915 --> 00:33:26,795
Speaker 1: and fifty fifth Street. I lived at the other end

540
00:33:26,795 --> 00:33:29,755
Speaker 1: of fifty fifth Street, in your second avenue. But now

541
00:33:29,995 --> 00:33:32,715
Speaker 1: I was going to go pick up some pizza in

542
00:33:32,795 --> 00:33:35,355
Speaker 1: a very nice place on the northwest corner of this

543
00:33:35,475 --> 00:33:39,675
Speaker 1: same lock. I got the slices, the lights changed. Now

544
00:33:39,715 --> 00:33:42,915
Speaker 1: I was crossing towards the northeast corner of fifty fifth

545
00:33:42,915 --> 00:33:45,395
Speaker 1: and Third, which itself was the home of a famous

546
00:33:45,435 --> 00:33:49,395
Speaker 1: New York bar, P J. Clarks. Ordinarily I would never

547
00:33:49,435 --> 00:33:51,915
Speaker 1: have been on that side of the street at that hour,

548
00:33:51,995 --> 00:33:54,715
Speaker 1: but there I was. And as I slipped past the

549
00:33:54,795 --> 00:33:57,715
Speaker 1: ancient front door, I saw the side exit open and

550
00:33:57,835 --> 00:34:00,915
Speaker 1: a burst of bright yellow light, like in an Edward

551
00:34:00,955 --> 00:34:06,915
Speaker 1: Hopper painting shoot out onto a waiting on fifty fifth Street. Then,

552
00:34:06,995 --> 00:34:09,875
Speaker 1: as I walked, carrying my box of pizza and wearing

553
00:34:10,275 --> 00:34:15,715
Speaker 1: my RKO Radio Network black jacket, who emerges from that

554
00:34:15,835 --> 00:34:19,075
Speaker 1: light of that side door at PJ. Clark's but George

555
00:34:19,075 --> 00:34:26,195
Speaker 1: Steinbrenner in a tux I gasped. I tried to summon

556
00:34:26,235 --> 00:34:28,955
Speaker 1: the courage to approach Steinbrenner as he walked towards his

557
00:34:28,995 --> 00:34:32,595
Speaker 1: limo and ask him about his planned meeting with Commissioner Kuhne.

558
00:34:32,635 --> 00:34:35,755
Speaker 1: And just before I admitted to myself that no, at

559
00:34:35,755 --> 00:34:38,235
Speaker 1: the age of twenty two, I did not have such courage.

560
00:34:38,715 --> 00:34:41,795
Speaker 1: I saw Steinbrenner stop at the limo, and I heard

561
00:34:41,875 --> 00:34:44,235
Speaker 1: him yell back towards the light shining through the still

562
00:34:44,235 --> 00:34:48,435
Speaker 1: open side door to Clark's Eddie, Eddie, And with that

563
00:34:48,955 --> 00:34:52,515
Speaker 1: Edward Bennett Williams, the owner of the Baltimore Orioles, leaned out,

564
00:34:53,115 --> 00:34:57,915
Speaker 1: also in a tucks and said, with evident exasperation, what now?

565
00:34:57,995 --> 00:35:01,435
Speaker 1: George Steinbrenner shouted, what time are you and I and

566
00:35:01,635 --> 00:35:06,995
Speaker 1: Child's meeting with Bowie tomorrow. I couldn't believe it. I

567
00:35:07,035 --> 00:35:11,395
Speaker 1: couldn't believe my luck. Williams had not seen me. Steinbrenner

568
00:35:11,435 --> 00:35:15,035
Speaker 1: had not seen me. Williams sighed again for the tenth time.

569
00:35:15,155 --> 00:35:19,715
Speaker 1: Charge nine thirty, nine thirty in the morning, George, nine

570
00:35:19,835 --> 00:35:24,675
Speaker 1: thirty Booie's condo. I now plastered myself against the wall

571
00:35:24,675 --> 00:35:27,115
Speaker 1: of Clarks. I hope they had not seen me at all.

572
00:35:27,395 --> 00:35:29,755
Speaker 1: Without so much as asking the question, I had learned

573
00:35:29,755 --> 00:35:32,755
Speaker 1: that the Orioles owner and Childs Eddie Childs, the owner

574
00:35:32,795 --> 00:35:35,875
Speaker 1: of the Texas Rangers. They would be accompanying Steinbrenner to

575
00:35:35,955 --> 00:35:38,155
Speaker 1: the meeting and it would begin at nine thirty at

576
00:35:38,195 --> 00:35:40,875
Speaker 1: the condominium of Commissioner Bowie Kune And I was wondering

577
00:35:40,875 --> 00:35:44,675
Speaker 1: if I could try to fake Steinbrenner's voice and shout, Eddie,

578
00:35:44,715 --> 00:35:49,275
Speaker 1: where's Booe's condo again? When suddenly I heard Steinbrenner say, Eddie,

579
00:35:49,875 --> 00:35:54,675
Speaker 1: where is Booie's condo again? By now, Edward Bennett Williams

580
00:35:54,715 --> 00:35:58,515
Speaker 1: had re lit a cigar he was holding. George write

581
00:35:58,515 --> 00:36:06,955
Speaker 1: it down this time five seventy five, Park five seven five.

582
00:36:09,395 --> 00:36:12,195
Speaker 1: I could barely breathe. Good God. They had handed me

583
00:36:12,235 --> 00:36:16,315
Speaker 1: everything but the cross street. Eddie, Eddie, what's the cross street?

584
00:36:17,355 --> 00:36:20,395
Speaker 1: Williams now swore, Oh, for f's sake, George sixty third,

585
00:36:20,635 --> 00:36:23,475
Speaker 1: sixty third in Park five seventy five Park at nine

586
00:36:23,555 --> 00:36:28,435
Speaker 1: thirty in the morning. Okay, Steinbrenner got into the limo.

587
00:36:28,515 --> 00:36:31,315
Speaker 1: It's squealed off. The door closed. I wrote what I

588
00:36:31,355 --> 00:36:33,395
Speaker 1: had heard on the top of the pizza box and

589
00:36:33,475 --> 00:36:35,275
Speaker 1: took off at a dead run to my apartment at

590
00:36:35,315 --> 00:36:37,475
Speaker 1: the corner of fifty fifth and Second, pausing only to

591
00:36:37,515 --> 00:36:39,515
Speaker 1: take a quick bite of pizza. I called John Martin

592
00:36:39,755 --> 00:36:43,515
Speaker 1: back at the RKO Radio network. I got it, John, said,

593
00:36:43,515 --> 00:36:46,915
Speaker 1: you got what I got. Everything about the meeting, John said,

594
00:36:46,995 --> 00:36:50,315
Speaker 1: I'll get the Boss soon. All three of us were

595
00:36:50,355 --> 00:36:53,275
Speaker 1: on the phone. Charlie did not believe I had gotten

596
00:36:53,355 --> 00:36:58,355
Speaker 1: him any information, so I laid it on Thick. You're

597
00:36:58,395 --> 00:37:02,635
Speaker 1: right in this down Boss, nine thirty tomorrow morning. It's

598
00:37:02,675 --> 00:37:06,595
Speaker 1: at Bowie Kune's condo at five seven five Park that's

599
00:37:06,635 --> 00:37:10,555
Speaker 1: the corner of sixty third, of course. Then there was

600
00:37:10,635 --> 00:37:13,675
Speaker 1: silence at Charlie's end of the phone. Oh and h

601
00:37:14,235 --> 00:37:16,435
Speaker 1: Edward Bennett, Williams of the Orioles, and any childs of

602
00:37:16,475 --> 00:37:19,475
Speaker 1: the Rangers. They'll be there too. I don't know, Charlie,

603
00:37:19,515 --> 00:37:23,395
Speaker 1: if it's just them or there are others, but but

604
00:37:23,635 --> 00:37:27,355
Speaker 1: those four will certainly be there. Booi's condo five seventy

605
00:37:27,395 --> 00:37:32,835
Speaker 1: five Cross Street is sixty third. Charlie started to make

606
00:37:32,875 --> 00:37:36,555
Speaker 1: a kind of but but noise, But but but how

607
00:37:36,555 --> 00:37:38,795
Speaker 1: did you find out? Howlen? And hell did you actually

608
00:37:38,795 --> 00:37:43,075
Speaker 1: find out? Why do you think it's true? I had

609
00:37:43,115 --> 00:37:47,195
Speaker 1: been waiting for this for several moments, and my answer

610
00:37:47,235 --> 00:37:50,915
Speaker 1: had been rehearsed in my mind at least as far

611
00:37:50,955 --> 00:37:53,875
Speaker 1: back as my elevator ride up to my apartment with

612
00:37:53,915 --> 00:37:57,595
Speaker 1: the most nonchalance I had ever mustered in my life,

613
00:37:58,075 --> 00:38:05,155
Speaker 1: I answered Charlie Steiner. Well, Charlie, I am ran into

614
00:38:05,195 --> 00:38:23,315
Speaker 1: Steinbrenner at Clark's. As I mentioned earlier, slight change in formats. Today,

615
00:38:23,315 --> 00:38:25,035
Speaker 1: I'm a little under the weather. So the rest of

616
00:38:25,035 --> 00:38:27,715
Speaker 1: the show is reruns. If you want to bail out now,

617
00:38:27,755 --> 00:38:29,355
Speaker 1: I will not hold it against you. I think I'll

618
00:38:29,355 --> 00:38:31,755
Speaker 1: be fine tomorrow. It's just a nasal thing. But since

619
00:38:31,795 --> 00:38:34,555
Speaker 1: we're on this topic of career highlights from the nineteen eighties,

620
00:38:34,595 --> 00:38:39,515
Speaker 1: the reason I am not now retiring after like forty

621
00:38:39,595 --> 00:38:43,755
Speaker 1: years as the top sportscaster in Boston television is contained

622
00:38:43,755 --> 00:38:47,355
Speaker 1: in another saga, fulfilling that old saw about the anticipation

623
00:38:47,435 --> 00:38:52,635
Speaker 1: being greater than the event, much much greater. That's next.

624
00:38:52,675 --> 00:39:04,315
Speaker 1: This is countdown to the number one story on the

625
00:39:04,435 --> 00:39:07,875
Speaker 1: count done in my favorite topic, Me and Things I

626
00:39:07,955 --> 00:39:11,355
Speaker 1: promised not to tell. Thirty eight years ago this week

627
00:39:11,715 --> 00:39:14,795
Speaker 1: I turned in my resignation at Channel five in Boston.

628
00:39:14,875 --> 00:39:17,195
Speaker 1: I stayed there almost two months more at their request,

629
00:39:17,555 --> 00:39:20,075
Speaker 1: but it still meant I had tried to get a

630
00:39:20,275 --> 00:39:24,235
Speaker 1: job the one there for twice as long as I

631
00:39:24,315 --> 00:39:28,115
Speaker 1: actually worked there. At Boston Red Sox spring training in

632
00:39:28,195 --> 00:39:30,955
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty three, a fellow named Bob Clark introduced himself

633
00:39:30,995 --> 00:39:33,835
Speaker 1: as the sports producer at this Boston station and said

634
00:39:33,875 --> 00:39:35,995
Speaker 1: they were all fans of my CNN work and that

635
00:39:36,075 --> 00:39:39,315
Speaker 1: there would be a job opening that summer as sports anchor,

636
00:39:39,355 --> 00:39:41,155
Speaker 1: and could he go to his bosses and say I

637
00:39:41,195 --> 00:39:42,995
Speaker 1: was interested? And I said sure, And in fact, if

638
00:39:42,995 --> 00:39:44,995
Speaker 1: he wanted me to go with him to tell his

639
00:39:45,035 --> 00:39:47,035
Speaker 1: bosses that, or if he needed me to carry him

640
00:39:47,075 --> 00:39:50,435
Speaker 1: to go tell his bosses that, I was ready. Things

641
00:39:50,435 --> 00:39:54,235
Speaker 1: advanced so quickly that by Monday, July eighteenth, nineteen eighty three,

642
00:39:54,275 --> 00:39:57,555
Speaker 1: I found myself flying up from New York with my agent,

643
00:39:57,715 --> 00:39:59,955
Speaker 1: and as Boston appeared out the window of the plane,

644
00:40:00,035 --> 00:40:04,395
Speaker 1: she said, you will own this town. Not so much

645
00:40:05,235 --> 00:40:08,395
Speaker 1: maybe Later. I went out to the station's headquarters in

646
00:40:08,435 --> 00:40:13,115
Speaker 1: a barren suburb called Needham, and interviewed with everybody, sports producers,

647
00:40:13,115 --> 00:40:16,555
Speaker 1: the news director, finally the general manager. Everybody beamed at

648
00:40:16,595 --> 00:40:20,275
Speaker 1: me and all was going great, having laughed at several

649
00:40:20,275 --> 00:40:22,635
Speaker 1: of my jokes and told me he loved my tape.

650
00:40:22,675 --> 00:40:25,195
Speaker 1: The general manager, a man named Copper Smith, who was

651
00:40:25,235 --> 00:40:27,155
Speaker 1: about to usher me out of his office with a

652
00:40:27,355 --> 00:40:30,675
Speaker 1: big hand on my shoulder, when I made a terrible,

653
00:40:31,035 --> 00:40:35,675
Speaker 1: terrible mistake. I told him we had met before when

654
00:40:35,755 --> 00:40:38,155
Speaker 1: I was a TV intern and he was the general

655
00:40:38,195 --> 00:40:42,195
Speaker 1: manager of his parent company's station in New York. I

656
00:40:42,235 --> 00:40:44,635
Speaker 1: remember him looking at me quizzically, and only later did

657
00:40:44,635 --> 00:40:47,155
Speaker 1: I find out that all of his people had lied

658
00:40:47,315 --> 00:40:50,195
Speaker 1: to him without telling me, and they had told him

659
00:40:50,875 --> 00:40:53,595
Speaker 1: I was twenty eight years old. They did not tell

660
00:40:53,595 --> 00:40:58,835
Speaker 1: me that since I was twenty four years old. Coppersmith's

661
00:40:58,875 --> 00:41:02,035
Speaker 1: last year at Channel five in New York had been

662
00:41:02,115 --> 00:41:04,995
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy eight, and even giving me the fit of

663
00:41:05,035 --> 00:41:07,915
Speaker 1: the aged out, he decided I was no longer anything

664
00:41:08,035 --> 00:41:11,475
Speaker 1: older than twenty six, and ultimately he thought that was

665
00:41:11,515 --> 00:41:13,355
Speaker 1: too young to be a sports anchor in a major

666
00:41:13,395 --> 00:41:17,235
Speaker 1: television market, back when those used to be important jobs

667
00:41:17,275 --> 00:41:21,155
Speaker 1: that paid important money. They're sportscasters. Since the station had

668
00:41:21,155 --> 00:41:23,115
Speaker 1: gone on the air in the nineteen fifties, had been

669
00:41:23,155 --> 00:41:26,435
Speaker 1: an avuncular, pleasant, gifted man named Don Gillis, but he

670
00:41:26,475 --> 00:41:29,435
Speaker 1: was cutting back where they had decided to cut him

671
00:41:29,435 --> 00:41:33,115
Speaker 1: back two special feature duty. The next day, back in

672
00:41:33,155 --> 00:41:34,955
Speaker 1: New York City, I went out to find out if

673
00:41:34,955 --> 00:41:39,355
Speaker 1: the Boston newspapers had found anything out about my surreptitious

674
00:41:39,435 --> 00:41:42,595
Speaker 1: trip there I went to a place so wonderful and

675
00:41:42,635 --> 00:41:45,955
Speaker 1: now so impossible to explain to anybody, the out of

676
00:41:45,955 --> 00:41:49,155
Speaker 1: town newspaper and magazine shop in the lobby of the

677
00:41:49,235 --> 00:41:53,355
Speaker 1: pan Am building, adjacent to the Grand Central train station.

678
00:41:54,195 --> 00:41:56,315
Speaker 1: This was one of the smaller of the out of

679
00:41:56,315 --> 00:41:59,115
Speaker 1: town news stands in New York. It carried about two

680
00:41:59,275 --> 00:42:03,155
Speaker 1: hundred different American newspapers, dozens more from around the world,

681
00:42:03,555 --> 00:42:08,755
Speaker 1: and every imaginable international magazine. It was always packed. Its

682
00:42:09,075 --> 00:42:13,395
Speaker 1: entire glory has been wiped out by the Internet. Anyway.

683
00:42:13,435 --> 00:42:16,195
Speaker 1: I bought the Boston Globe and the Boston Herald from

684
00:42:16,235 --> 00:42:18,795
Speaker 1: the same day, and there it was on page thirty

685
00:42:18,835 --> 00:42:21,195
Speaker 1: two of the Globe, a headline over a feature by

686
00:42:21,195 --> 00:42:26,595
Speaker 1: the TV sports columnist Jack Craig. Gillis departing soon on Horizon.

687
00:42:26,955 --> 00:42:33,035
Speaker 1: Olberman's credentials good young. Keith Olberman of Cable News Network

688
00:42:33,115 --> 00:42:36,475
Speaker 1: CNN reported he was very favorably interviewed at Channel five yesterday,

689
00:42:36,635 --> 00:42:39,235
Speaker 1: possibly signaling the end of the Don Gillis era more

690
00:42:39,315 --> 00:42:44,995
Speaker 1: quickly than anticipated. I was young then, but look credentials good,

691
00:42:45,035 --> 00:42:48,795
Speaker 1: it said in the headline. This was it the start

692
00:42:48,795 --> 00:42:51,955
Speaker 1: of my TV career for real, no more having to

693
00:42:51,995 --> 00:42:57,875
Speaker 1: explain to doubting athletes, doubting colleagues, doubting relatives, doubting team

694
00:42:57,875 --> 00:43:01,475
Speaker 1: executives that there really was a TV place called Cable

695
00:43:01,635 --> 00:43:05,795
Speaker 1: News Network parenthesis CNN, money in, big fame and one

696
00:43:05,835 --> 00:43:08,435
Speaker 1: of the best sports cities in the nation. As even

697
00:43:08,475 --> 00:43:11,755
Speaker 1: the Globes article noted, there is a hitch. Alberman's contract

698
00:43:11,755 --> 00:43:13,955
Speaker 1: with CNN does not expire until next May, and whether

699
00:43:13,995 --> 00:43:16,475
Speaker 1: he would be let out for Channel five is uncertain. Well,

700
00:43:16,555 --> 00:43:20,355
Speaker 1: sure it was, but CNN would be nice guys about it, right.

701
00:43:20,675 --> 00:43:24,875
Speaker 1: This was real TV, not some perpetual verge of bankruptcy

702
00:43:24,995 --> 00:43:27,915
Speaker 1: cable thing. It was really just a big delusion by

703
00:43:27,955 --> 00:43:31,115
Speaker 1: Ted Turner. And they needed eight cameras in New York,

704
00:43:31,155 --> 00:43:33,475
Speaker 1: but they could only afford seven, So after being used

705
00:43:33,475 --> 00:43:36,315
Speaker 1: in the field for ten hours, one cameraman would have

706
00:43:36,355 --> 00:43:39,475
Speaker 1: to lash his camera to a tripod for the wide

707
00:43:39,475 --> 00:43:43,195
Speaker 1: shot shot for the nightly Sandy Freeman audio talk show.

708
00:43:44,195 --> 00:43:47,355
Speaker 1: Even after the inevitable occurred one night and the overworked

709
00:43:47,395 --> 00:43:51,875
Speaker 1: camera burst into flames on live TV, CNN would understand

710
00:43:56,635 --> 00:43:58,835
Speaker 1: by the way, Sandy Freeman was replaced about a year

711
00:43:58,915 --> 00:44:01,555
Speaker 1: later by Larry King. That's how long ago this actually

712
00:44:01,755 --> 00:44:07,315
Speaker 1: was anyway. CNN's less and happy reaction to this was academic.

713
00:44:07,675 --> 00:44:10,595
Speaker 1: I had unwittingly blown it when I revealed to that

714
00:44:10,635 --> 00:44:13,155
Speaker 1: guy Coppersmith that I was not twenty eight years old.

715
00:44:13,515 --> 00:44:18,355
Speaker 1: Sure enough, on August fifteenth, WCBB Channel five Boston announced

716
00:44:18,395 --> 00:44:21,595
Speaker 1: the hiring of a Miami sportscaster named Lee Webb to

717
00:44:21,755 --> 00:44:24,875
Speaker 1: succeed Don Gillis. Webb was a lot of things, and

718
00:44:24,955 --> 00:44:27,435
Speaker 1: he wasn't a lot of other things, but hot damn.

719
00:44:27,435 --> 00:44:29,355
Speaker 1: He was thirty years old, and that made him the

720
00:44:29,515 --> 00:44:32,035
Speaker 1: man in the eyes of the general manager, mister Coppersmith.

721
00:44:33,435 --> 00:44:35,875
Speaker 1: On the other hand, Coppersmith thought his station should still

722
00:44:35,915 --> 00:44:39,435
Speaker 1: hire me as a reporter. The news director, a man

723
00:44:39,435 --> 00:44:42,275
Speaker 1: who went by the imposing name of Philip Scribner Balboni,

724
00:44:42,715 --> 00:44:45,875
Speaker 1: offered me a spot as a feature news reporter a producer,

725
00:44:45,875 --> 00:44:49,115
Speaker 1: and I would look for offbeat, on usual, unique stories

726
00:44:49,155 --> 00:44:52,235
Speaker 1: and go cover them. It was not the sports anchor's job,

727
00:44:52,275 --> 00:44:56,555
Speaker 1: but it wasn't CNN either. WCBB would also wait until

728
00:44:56,635 --> 00:44:59,755
Speaker 1: CNN finally accepted that it was over between the two

729
00:44:59,755 --> 00:45:03,595
Speaker 1: of us. Whenever that was then, three more things happened

730
00:45:03,595 --> 00:45:07,155
Speaker 1: in quick succession. Channel five hired a new sports director,

731
00:45:07,195 --> 00:45:09,355
Speaker 1: a producer who would run the department and set its

732
00:45:09,475 --> 00:45:13,435
Speaker 1: editorial tone. His name was Mike Fernandes, and even after

733
00:45:13,475 --> 00:45:15,275
Speaker 1: working with him for six months, the only thing I

734
00:45:15,315 --> 00:45:17,475
Speaker 1: knew about him was that he had no sense of humor.

735
00:45:18,395 --> 00:45:20,835
Speaker 1: He understood that I was making jokes, but he never

736
00:45:20,835 --> 00:45:23,755
Speaker 1: got one of them. And his principal interest in sports

737
00:45:23,795 --> 00:45:27,715
Speaker 1: was apparently determining which players were don juans, so he

738
00:45:27,755 --> 00:45:31,715
Speaker 1: could refer to them endlessly in the office as quote swordsman.

739
00:45:33,275 --> 00:45:35,955
Speaker 1: The second thing that happened was that the sports reporter

740
00:45:35,995 --> 00:45:38,435
Speaker 1: at Channel five, Bob Ryan, already very famous at the

741
00:45:38,435 --> 00:45:42,035
Speaker 1: Boston Globe later even more so nationally at ESPN, told

742
00:45:42,075 --> 00:45:44,315
Speaker 1: management he just could not do both the TV and

743
00:45:44,355 --> 00:45:47,715
Speaker 1: newspaper jobs anymore and he needed to quit. Mind you,

744
00:45:48,555 --> 00:45:51,355
Speaker 1: this was how important sports was on local TV in

745
00:45:51,435 --> 00:45:54,075
Speaker 1: Boston in nineteen eighty three. They had an on air sportscast,

746
00:45:54,115 --> 00:45:57,355
Speaker 1: You're a weekend sportscast, You're a sportscast, You're emeritus, and

747
00:45:57,635 --> 00:46:01,515
Speaker 1: an on air sports reporter, plus all the producers and

748
00:46:01,595 --> 00:46:04,915
Speaker 1: the off air sports director. Often the sports cast in

749
00:46:04,955 --> 00:46:07,395
Speaker 1: the hour long six o'clock news, and there was only

750
00:46:07,395 --> 00:46:10,835
Speaker 1: the one hour of news the sportscast lasted ten minutes.

751
00:46:11,715 --> 00:46:14,635
Speaker 1: So now having already offered me the feature news reporting job,

752
00:46:14,635 --> 00:46:18,235
Speaker 1: news director Philip Scribner Belboni offered me my choice of

753
00:46:18,275 --> 00:46:22,195
Speaker 1: that job or Bob Ryan's sports reporting job. And while

754
00:46:22,235 --> 00:46:26,035
Speaker 1: I was debating that, I managed to resist all efforts

755
00:46:26,035 --> 00:46:29,315
Speaker 1: to turn me into a newsman for fifteen years. While

756
00:46:29,355 --> 00:46:33,795
Speaker 1: I was debating that, another Boston station suddenly jumped into

757
00:46:33,835 --> 00:46:37,395
Speaker 1: the fray. Channel seven was a perennial also ran compared

758
00:46:37,435 --> 00:46:39,715
Speaker 1: to Channel five, whose newscasts were among the best, if

759
00:46:39,715 --> 00:46:42,235
Speaker 1: not the best, in the country. Without as much as

760
00:46:42,275 --> 00:46:45,595
Speaker 1: asking me to even come visit, Channel seven offered me

761
00:46:45,715 --> 00:46:49,155
Speaker 1: the job as its sports director, anchored the sports at

762
00:46:49,195 --> 00:46:51,835
Speaker 1: six and eleven, run the department, and get much more

763
00:46:51,875 --> 00:46:55,675
Speaker 1: money than Channel five. It offered me, and I turned

764
00:46:55,675 --> 00:46:59,515
Speaker 1: it down out of loyalty to Channel five because they

765
00:46:59,555 --> 00:47:06,115
Speaker 1: asked first. I turned it down moren Channel five was

766
00:47:06,115 --> 00:47:10,035
Speaker 1: out in the as I said Barren Suburbs. Channel seven

767
00:47:10,115 --> 00:47:13,395
Speaker 1: was in downtown Boston. I would be making like one

768
00:47:13,435 --> 00:47:17,555
Speaker 1: hundred thousand a year at age twenty five, with no responsibilities,

769
00:47:17,595 --> 00:47:22,675
Speaker 1: living and working in downtown Boston in nineteen eighty four. Moron,

770
00:47:24,395 --> 00:47:26,395
Speaker 1: So anyway, I get to Boston at the end of

771
00:47:26,435 --> 00:47:30,235
Speaker 1: April nineteen eighty four at Channel five, and on my

772
00:47:30,275 --> 00:47:32,555
Speaker 1: first day out in the barren suburbs, I walk up

773
00:47:32,555 --> 00:47:35,715
Speaker 1: a circular staircase to the sports department office and I

774
00:47:35,835 --> 00:47:38,555
Speaker 1: hit my head on the staircase and bled so much

775
00:47:38,595 --> 00:47:41,355
Speaker 1: they all thought I was going to need stitches. And

776
00:47:41,435 --> 00:47:43,275
Speaker 1: I went back to the half a house I had

777
00:47:43,315 --> 00:47:46,795
Speaker 1: moved to, one of exactly two rental properties in the

778
00:47:46,955 --> 00:47:50,195
Speaker 1: entire town of Nida, Massachusetts, and I thought, what in

779
00:47:50,235 --> 00:47:54,875
Speaker 1: the hell have I done? No things improved. I was

780
00:47:54,915 --> 00:47:56,755
Speaker 1: not just in the field. I did a lot of

781
00:47:56,755 --> 00:47:59,635
Speaker 1: substitute anchoring, especially on weekends. And the first time I

782
00:47:59,715 --> 00:48:03,155
Speaker 1: did that, Susan Warnick, one of our reporters and the

783
00:48:03,195 --> 00:48:05,955
Speaker 1: wife of the big sports aster in town, Bob Lobell

784
00:48:06,035 --> 00:48:08,835
Speaker 1: from Channel four. Susan came up to me in the

785
00:48:08,875 --> 00:48:11,635
Speaker 1: office on Monday and gave me a big wet kiss

786
00:48:11,635 --> 00:48:14,515
Speaker 1: on the lips and said, you were terrific. Lobell is

787
00:48:14,595 --> 00:48:19,075
Speaker 1: scared crapless. I love you. The first time I did

788
00:48:19,115 --> 00:48:21,755
Speaker 1: a live shot before a Celtics game at Boston Garden,

789
00:48:21,795 --> 00:48:24,675
Speaker 1: I wandered around the arena without being recognized. Once two

790
00:48:24,755 --> 00:48:27,115
Speaker 1: weeks later, I went back to the garden and I

791
00:48:27,155 --> 00:48:29,675
Speaker 1: went to get a hot dog and turned to find

792
00:48:29,675 --> 00:48:32,475
Speaker 1: a crowd of several dozen viewers, all shouting at me

793
00:48:32,555 --> 00:48:36,475
Speaker 1: in the singular language of the Boston sports fan. On Monday,

794
00:48:36,555 --> 00:48:39,355
Speaker 1: June nineteen eighty four, Balboni, the news director, called me

795
00:48:39,355 --> 00:48:41,795
Speaker 1: in and said he wanted me to start anchoring every

796
00:48:41,875 --> 00:48:45,035
Speaker 1: night on the eleven o'clock news. Lee Webb would continue

797
00:48:45,035 --> 00:48:47,875
Speaker 1: on the six but the intimation was if it went

798
00:48:47,915 --> 00:48:49,675
Speaker 1: the way he thought it was going to, I would

799
00:48:49,675 --> 00:48:54,395
Speaker 1: get that show too. But the problem was, and I

800
00:48:54,395 --> 00:48:57,195
Speaker 1: don't know if you've noticed this, but occasionally I like

801
00:48:57,275 --> 00:49:01,155
Speaker 1: to make jokes, Okay, I need to make jokes, And

802
00:49:01,195 --> 00:49:04,275
Speaker 1: several of the executives at the station were real fans

803
00:49:04,355 --> 00:49:07,635
Speaker 1: of the Red Socks and Celtics and Patriots and Bruins,

804
00:49:08,115 --> 00:49:11,995
Speaker 1: and they did not like the jokes. And even if

805
00:49:11,995 --> 00:49:16,195
Speaker 1: the viewers liked the jokes, they didn't. One day, I

806
00:49:16,195 --> 00:49:18,835
Speaker 1: was supposed to go with a cameraman to shoot a

807
00:49:18,835 --> 00:49:21,675
Speaker 1: piece in which I pretended to interview the Green Monster,

808
00:49:21,755 --> 00:49:24,155
Speaker 1: the famed left field wall at Fenway Park. The punchline

809
00:49:24,275 --> 00:49:27,155
Speaker 1: was it would turn out the Green Monster didn't like baseball,

810
00:49:27,595 --> 00:49:30,875
Speaker 1: not a bad idea for nineteen eighty four. Just as

811
00:49:30,875 --> 00:49:34,035
Speaker 1: we're leaving the station, the sports director Fernandy said, change

812
00:49:34,075 --> 00:49:37,115
Speaker 1: of plans, needs you to go to Smithfield. That was

813
00:49:37,155 --> 00:49:41,395
Speaker 1: where the football team held its training camp. Patriots just

814
00:49:41,395 --> 00:49:44,795
Speaker 1: put their backup middle lineback on waivers, go get some sound.

815
00:49:45,635 --> 00:49:48,475
Speaker 1: He didn't need any sound. The executives who didn't like

816
00:49:48,555 --> 00:49:50,675
Speaker 1: my jokes had gotten the executive who didn't get my

817
00:49:50,755 --> 00:49:53,075
Speaker 1: jokes to stop giving me the chance to do my jokes.

818
00:49:53,555 --> 00:49:55,555
Speaker 1: It was an hour and a half to Smithfield. I

819
00:49:55,595 --> 00:49:59,035
Speaker 1: was done for the day. I went home for a

820
00:49:59,035 --> 00:50:01,595
Speaker 1: little trip to New York in early September, met with

821
00:50:01,635 --> 00:50:03,595
Speaker 1: my agent, told her that after all the time and

822
00:50:03,635 --> 00:50:05,755
Speaker 1: all the energy we had to get that job, this

823
00:50:05,835 --> 00:50:08,155
Speaker 1: was the most impossible to imagine an outcome. But it

824
00:50:08,235 --> 00:50:11,115
Speaker 1: was the wrong station, in the wrong suburb, in the

825
00:50:11,275 --> 00:50:14,555
Speaker 1: right town, and I didn't know how we could ever

826
00:50:14,635 --> 00:50:18,155
Speaker 1: fix it. She agreed. She said I should go in

827
00:50:18,195 --> 00:50:19,755
Speaker 1: and tell the news director I wanted to quit, and

828
00:50:19,795 --> 00:50:21,755
Speaker 1: then I'd stay as long as he needed me, but

829
00:50:21,835 --> 00:50:23,635
Speaker 1: that if they weren't going to let me do the jokes,

830
00:50:23,635 --> 00:50:26,875
Speaker 1: what was the point. I was an okay reporter. I

831
00:50:26,915 --> 00:50:29,755
Speaker 1: was an okay, sportscaster, but only with the jokes was

832
00:50:29,795 --> 00:50:33,955
Speaker 1: I me so September tenth, nineteen eighty four, a Monday,

833
00:50:34,035 --> 00:50:36,795
Speaker 1: the news director was not happy. He offered, in fact,

834
00:50:36,795 --> 00:50:39,155
Speaker 1: to fire Lee Webb on the spot and give me

835
00:50:39,195 --> 00:50:42,515
Speaker 1: the six o'clock show immediately, like that night, like lead

836
00:50:42,595 --> 00:50:45,275
Speaker 1: Lee Webb out of the building that minute. But I

837
00:50:45,275 --> 00:50:47,355
Speaker 1: told him that would mean he would be keeping somebody

838
00:50:47,355 --> 00:50:50,435
Speaker 1: who wanted to leave and firing somebody who wanted to stay.

839
00:50:51,395 --> 00:50:54,555
Speaker 1: He angrily agreed, and I became a secret lame duck,

840
00:50:54,555 --> 00:50:56,955
Speaker 1: and I stayed on getting fewer and fewer chances to

841
00:50:56,955 --> 00:50:58,835
Speaker 1: be me, although they stuck to their end of it.

842
00:50:59,155 --> 00:51:01,075
Speaker 1: They sent me to cover the World Series in San

843
00:51:01,115 --> 00:51:04,035
Speaker 1: Diego and Detroit, where the guy next to me in

844
00:51:04,035 --> 00:51:06,635
Speaker 1: the press by covering it for Channel seven. The place

845
00:51:06,635 --> 00:51:09,755
Speaker 1: I should have gone to work was their new sports reporter,

846
00:51:09,835 --> 00:51:12,475
Speaker 1: a just retired Red Sox Hall of Fame player named

847
00:51:13,075 --> 00:51:16,115
Speaker 1: Carl Yastremsky. I hit a ball over hit, I hit

848
00:51:16,155 --> 00:51:18,675
Speaker 1: a ball over there. I hit three balls over that roof.

849
00:51:19,595 --> 00:51:21,835
Speaker 1: Then when I got back from the World Series, it

850
00:51:21,995 --> 00:51:26,195
Speaker 1: happened on Friday October nineteenth, nineteen eighty four, that TV

851
00:51:26,355 --> 00:51:29,955
Speaker 1: Sports columnist from the Boston Globe, Jack Craig called me

852
00:51:30,035 --> 00:51:32,715
Speaker 1: up at home and told me Channel five was firing

853
00:51:32,795 --> 00:51:36,795
Speaker 1: me because of bad ratings at eleven o'clock. I didn't

854
00:51:36,835 --> 00:51:38,795
Speaker 1: have bad ratings at eleven o'clock. In fact, I had

855
00:51:38,835 --> 00:51:41,595
Speaker 1: great ratings, and six weeks earlier they'd offered me the

856
00:51:41,635 --> 00:51:44,315
Speaker 1: six o'clock show as well. I hung up with Craig

857
00:51:44,355 --> 00:51:46,515
Speaker 1: to call my agent, and instead of a dial tone,

858
00:51:46,555 --> 00:51:48,555
Speaker 1: I heard the voice of the TV sports columnists from

859
00:51:48,555 --> 00:51:51,875
Speaker 1: the Boston Harold Jim Baker. I had answered his call

860
00:51:52,035 --> 00:51:54,955
Speaker 1: fort rang. He told me Channel five was firing me

861
00:51:55,155 --> 00:51:58,435
Speaker 1: and Lee Webb so it could instead hire Ken the

862
00:51:58,595 --> 00:52:02,595
Speaker 1: Hawk Harrelson, the former Red Sox star and TV announcer

863
00:52:02,635 --> 00:52:06,835
Speaker 1: who had moved to Chicago. So now I call my agent.

864
00:52:06,955 --> 00:52:09,915
Speaker 1: She says, your deal with Channel five is off. They

865
00:52:09,955 --> 00:52:12,115
Speaker 1: want to make it look like you stink. They want

866
00:52:12,115 --> 00:52:13,835
Speaker 1: to make it look like they just fired you. You

867
00:52:13,875 --> 00:52:16,075
Speaker 1: call Jim Baker and Jack Craig right now and tell

868
00:52:16,115 --> 00:52:18,235
Speaker 1: them the whole story. Wherever you go next, it has

869
00:52:18,275 --> 00:52:20,475
Speaker 1: to be clear that you weren't fired, you quit, and

870
00:52:20,555 --> 00:52:24,595
Speaker 1: you stayed on because you're a pro, which you know

871
00:52:24,875 --> 00:52:29,035
Speaker 1: was true. So I called. I told both writers everything,

872
00:52:29,115 --> 00:52:30,875
Speaker 1: and two minutes after I got off the phone with

873
00:52:30,955 --> 00:52:33,475
Speaker 1: Jack Craig from The Globe, the phone rang and it

874
00:52:33,515 --> 00:52:35,995
Speaker 1: was Jim Baker from The Harold calling back, and he says,

875
00:52:36,035 --> 00:52:40,155
Speaker 1: you'll never believe this. Their negotiations with Hawk Harrelson are dead.

876
00:52:40,715 --> 00:52:45,395
Speaker 1: Apparently he wanted four hundred thousand dollars a year and

877
00:52:45,475 --> 00:52:47,875
Speaker 1: to guarantee that he only had to come in five

878
00:52:47,915 --> 00:52:50,715
Speaker 1: minutes before each show to get makeup and then read

879
00:52:50,755 --> 00:52:54,675
Speaker 1: the script that somebody else wrote. So you are now

880
00:52:54,795 --> 00:52:58,755
Speaker 1: our lead story, sure enough. Back page of The Boston

881
00:52:58,835 --> 00:53:02,195
Speaker 1: Harold Saturday, October twenty, nineteen eighty four. Above the masthead,

882
00:53:02,555 --> 00:53:07,355
Speaker 1: Olverman quits Channel five. At the same hour, I was

883
00:53:07,395 --> 00:53:11,635
Speaker 1: supposed to go to Morgantown, West Virginia, the place that

884
00:53:11,755 --> 00:53:15,915
Speaker 1: was designed simply to make that lovely town of Naham, Massachusetts,

885
00:53:15,995 --> 00:53:19,555
Speaker 1: look like I don't know, the riviera. I was supposed

886
00:53:19,595 --> 00:53:21,995
Speaker 1: to go to Morgantown to cover Doug Flutie and Boston

887
00:53:22,035 --> 00:53:24,955
Speaker 1: College against the University of West Virginia. Since I lived

888
00:53:25,515 --> 00:53:28,795
Speaker 1: between the television station and the airport, the cameraman was

889
00:53:28,835 --> 00:53:30,755
Speaker 1: going to swing by my house to pick me up.

890
00:53:31,475 --> 00:53:34,515
Speaker 1: Do it like seven am. He never showed. By this point,

891
00:53:34,555 --> 00:53:38,155
Speaker 1: I'm thinking I just had to call my lying boss's

892
00:53:38,235 --> 00:53:41,395
Speaker 1: liars in both Boston newspapers that are on every news

893
00:53:41,395 --> 00:53:44,035
Speaker 1: stand in the city and the surrounding area. Why am

894
00:53:44,115 --> 00:53:46,675
Speaker 1: I going to race the clock to get to the

895
00:53:46,675 --> 00:53:50,195
Speaker 1: airport on my own when this idiot cameraman forgot to

896
00:53:50,195 --> 00:53:53,275
Speaker 1: come get me When we had made the arrangements the

897
00:53:53,355 --> 00:53:55,515
Speaker 1: day before, the cameraman had gotten my name wrong and

898
00:53:55,555 --> 00:53:58,795
Speaker 1: called me Dick. At least that's why I thought he'd

899
00:53:58,835 --> 00:54:03,675
Speaker 1: called me Dick. Anyway, I was twenty five. I went

900
00:54:03,715 --> 00:54:06,155
Speaker 1: back to bed, and while I was asleep, Channel five

901
00:54:06,235 --> 00:54:08,475
Speaker 1: fired me from a job that I had not only quit,

902
00:54:08,515 --> 00:54:11,115
Speaker 1: but I had quit twice, including on the front page

903
00:54:11,115 --> 00:54:14,955
Speaker 1: of the newspapers that morning. The Channel five people were furious.

904
00:54:15,275 --> 00:54:17,355
Speaker 1: I put up a brave front, but beneath the surface,

905
00:54:17,395 --> 00:54:20,475
Speaker 1: I was a little scared until two more things happen

906
00:54:21,075 --> 00:54:23,475
Speaker 1: before I could move back to New York. The news

907
00:54:23,475 --> 00:54:26,555
Speaker 1: director Phil Balboni told Craig of The Globe that it

908
00:54:26,595 --> 00:54:30,275
Speaker 1: was all too bad because quote Keith was potentially such

909
00:54:30,315 --> 00:54:36,235
Speaker 1: a major talent. Oh and then the general manager, Coppersmith,

910
00:54:36,315 --> 00:54:39,395
Speaker 1: was so angry that he told my agent, he will

911
00:54:39,475 --> 00:54:44,075
Speaker 1: never again work in this business. I am not a

912
00:54:44,115 --> 00:54:49,915
Speaker 1: big believer in motivational quotes, but two those really worked

913
00:54:50,155 --> 00:54:53,595
Speaker 1: number one and two on my all time list, and

914
00:54:53,715 --> 00:54:57,875
Speaker 1: as always, beyond that, there's a punchline. In two thousand

915
00:54:57,915 --> 00:55:01,075
Speaker 1: and seven, an email popped into my inbox at MSNBC.

916
00:55:01,835 --> 00:55:05,995
Speaker 1: It was glowing and warm and lovely, and it indicated

917
00:55:06,035 --> 00:55:08,795
Speaker 1: the writer was a huge fan. It was signed your

918
00:55:08,875 --> 00:55:14,555
Speaker 1: old Channel five news director Phil Balboni. His email did

919
00:55:14,555 --> 00:55:18,355
Speaker 1: not mention that I was potentially such a major talent.

920
00:55:27,595 --> 00:55:29,675
Speaker 1: I've done all the damage I can do here. Thank

921
00:55:29,715 --> 00:55:31,955
Speaker 1: you for listening. Here the credits. Most of the music

922
00:55:32,035 --> 00:55:35,275
Speaker 1: was arranged, produced and performed by Brian Ray and John

923
00:55:35,315 --> 00:55:38,955
Speaker 1: Philip Channel, who are the Countdown musical directors. All orchestration

924
00:55:38,995 --> 00:55:42,075
Speaker 1: and keyboards by John Philip Channel. Guitars based on drums

925
00:55:42,075 --> 00:55:46,835
Speaker 1: by Brian Ray, produced by t Ko Brothers. Other Beethoven selections,

926
00:55:46,835 --> 00:55:49,155
Speaker 1: such as this one here which You're rarely here, have

927
00:55:49,275 --> 00:55:52,075
Speaker 1: been arranged and performed by the group No Horns Allowed.

928
00:55:52,875 --> 00:55:54,875
Speaker 1: The sports music when we play it is the Old

929
00:55:54,875 --> 00:55:57,835
Speaker 1: Woman theme from ESPN two. It's written by Mitch Warren Davis,

930
00:55:57,835 --> 00:56:01,595
Speaker 1: Curtisy VESPN inc musical comments by Nancy Faust, the best

931
00:56:01,635 --> 00:56:04,835
Speaker 1: base ofball stadium organist ever, and we didn't have an

932
00:56:04,875 --> 00:56:07,595
Speaker 1: announcer today, so I'm not going to credit him. Everything

933
00:56:07,635 --> 00:56:10,915
Speaker 1: else was pretty much my fault. So let's countdown for this,

934
00:56:11,035 --> 00:56:14,155
Speaker 1: the eight hundredth day since Donald Trump's first attempted coup

935
00:56:14,155 --> 00:56:17,355
Speaker 1: against the democratically elected government in the United States. Arrest

936
00:56:17,435 --> 00:56:20,435
Speaker 1: him now while we still can. The next schedule countdown

937
00:56:20,555 --> 00:56:22,915
Speaker 1: is tomorrow, hoping for a full new episode after this

938
00:56:22,995 --> 00:56:27,635
Speaker 1: little cold or whatever it is. Wayne's thanks for bearing

939
00:56:27,675 --> 00:56:30,395
Speaker 1: with me since I really couldn't read aloud today, which

940
00:56:30,995 --> 00:56:34,195
Speaker 1: interferes with stuff till then. I'm Keith Allerman. Good morning,

941
00:56:34,235 --> 00:56:39,075
Speaker 1: good afternoon, goodnight, and good luck. Countdown with Keith Allerman

942
00:56:39,275 --> 00:56:43,715
Speaker 1: is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio,

943
00:56:43,915 --> 00:56:47,915
Speaker 1: visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get

944
00:56:47,955 --> 00:56:48,835
Speaker 1: your podcasts.