Speaker 1: Cutbooms.
Speaker 2: If you thought four hours a day, twelve hundred minutes
Speaker 2: a week was enough, think again. He's the last remnants
Speaker 2: of the old Republic, a sol fashion of fairness. He
Speaker 2: treats crackheads in the ghetto gutter the same as the
Speaker 2: rich pill poppers in the penthouse. Wow to Clearinghouse of
Speaker 2: hot takes, break free for something special. The Fifth Hour
Speaker 2: with Ben Maller starts right now.
Speaker 3: In the air everywhere. The Fifth Hour with Me, Ben
Speaker 3: Mahler and Danny g Radio, who will be producing this podcast,
Speaker 3: will join me at some point over the weekend, but
Speaker 3: we have made it into the first podcast of the
Speaker 3: month of May here and as we talked about on
Speaker 3: the Overnight Show last night promoting this, I am very
Speaker 3: excited because today is not your normal Friday Run of
Speaker 3: the Mill podcast where I start out talking about some
Speaker 3: dopey holidays and go through the week that was not
Speaker 3: a no no no by popular demand. A chance to
Speaker 3: catch up with a sports talk radio leg And I'm
Speaker 3: not blowing smoke when I say that, especially if you're
Speaker 3: from Chicago. But this guy worked at our place. He's
Speaker 3: part of the Fox Sports Radio Alumni Association. The Great
Speaker 3: Mike North is going to join us now. The reason
Speaker 3: we're having Mike on today is a I love him.
Speaker 3: He's one of the great characters in radio in my
Speaker 3: journey in radio that I've come across. And then also
Speaker 3: the fact that he has been honored one of the
Speaker 3: great accomplishments in his career. He's the godfather of Chicago
Speaker 3: sports radio and did our morning show at Fox Sports
Speaker 3: Radio for a number of years with Andy Furman. So
Speaker 3: Mike North has been given the Lifetime Achievement Award from
Speaker 3: Barrett Sports Media. And this is a big industry website
Speaker 3: that tracks the business and keeps up to date with everything.
Speaker 3: So next week, a week from today, on May ninth,
Speaker 3: there's a gala ceremony in Chicago and a sports radio
Speaker 3: legend from Chicago, Mike North, there will receive the Lifetime
Speaker 3: Achievement Award. So I thought, what better way to celebrate
Speaker 3: this than have the man on? And it's an excuse
Speaker 3: to him on. So I saw it, I said, I
Speaker 3: got to get this guy on. So I reached out
Speaker 3: to him and he now joins us right now. On
Speaker 3: the fifth hour we walk him in. He's still working,
Speaker 3: by the way, he's got his own show, on the
Speaker 3: ESPN station there in Chicago. So we walkme in the
Speaker 3: great Mike North. Mike, congratulations, what has it been like
Speaker 3: since you found out that you have been given the
Speaker 3: honor of a Lifetime Achievement Award for your radio career.
Speaker 1: How do you doing, Ben? That's great by talking to you.
Speaker 1: You're a legend. Come on, shocking to be honest with you,
Speaker 1: because you know, I won a lot of awards. I
Speaker 1: won four Talk Show host Awards in Chicago for local radio.
Speaker 1: I won two Emmys, and I won a Cleo Award
Speaker 1: even for a Best Commercial. But they were all voted
Speaker 1: from out of town. So because what they do is
Speaker 1: they don't want the locals voting for the people that
Speaker 1: are in Chicago. You like the Chicago radio people voting
Speaker 1: for Chicago personalities because then they'll be biased, they'll vote
Speaker 1: for their own and stuff like that. I don't know
Speaker 1: how Barrett came up with this, How Jason did it,
Speaker 1: I don't know, but he said by a landslide. And
Speaker 1: I mean, I know a lot of great radio sports
Speaker 1: radio people that came out of there. But I think
Speaker 1: the difference is that I started the whole thing basically
Speaker 1: off a lark, I had read in the sometimes that
Speaker 1: Dan Lee, the owner of w x R tier progressive
Speaker 1: rock station, was going to start a jazz station. And
Speaker 1: I saw that in Robert Feed's column in the Sun Times,
Speaker 1: and I said to my wife and we were working
Speaker 1: the hot dog stand, our hot dog stand at the time,
Speaker 1: we owned a hot dog stand in Chicago, Big One,
Speaker 1: and I said, you know what, Dan needs sports station
Speaker 1: in this town. Well, she says, well, I don't think
Speaker 1: you have much of a say in this. But what
Speaker 1: happened was some of the XRT people used to come
Speaker 1: in my stand, and I only had met Dan Lee twice.
Speaker 1: And Dan Lee, there was like a couple of sports
Speaker 1: shows on rock and roll stations, like The Loop and others,
Speaker 1: but there was no all sports station, not even the Fan.
Speaker 1: The fan had Imus in the morning, so they had
Speaker 1: it only for middays in the afternoon. So this long
Speaker 1: and behold. A day after the article is in the
Speaker 1: paper that they've bought the call letters to w jay
Speaker 1: z Z and they're going to go country. Dan Lee
Speaker 1: comes walking in and at that time you could only
Speaker 1: own two stations. He only owned one. Now you can
Speaker 1: own eight stations in a way which takes away a
Speaker 1: lot of the bargaining power of many radio people. But
Speaker 1: at that time, you know, you could only own two,
Speaker 1: so you had a lot of suitors. Well, I didn't
Speaker 1: have any suitors. Nobody even knew me. I was a
Speaker 1: high school dropout. I owned a hot dog stand and
Speaker 1: I had a successful thing. And then he comes walking
Speaker 1: in and I asked him. I go, I hear you're
Speaker 1: going jazz and he says, uh yeah. I said you
Speaker 1: should go off sports, sir, And he goes, really, he
Speaker 1: goes why. I said, well, I think it's the next
Speaker 1: big thing. And there's only twelve of them in this
Speaker 1: country right now, the fan there's one in Denver, there's
Speaker 1: la and back then San Diego I think had one.
Speaker 1: Boston I think was strong, Philadelphia was strong. I said
Speaker 1: you should try it. Well, he buys his hot dog himself.
Speaker 1: He goes, I'll think about it. He walks out. I
Speaker 1: chase him out. I go think about it, because jazz
Speaker 1: won't sell sports is a huge sports jump. He goes
Speaker 1: home that weekend and if you remember, Ben, they had
Speaker 1: the Tribune and Sun Times. Thick papers were one hundred
Speaker 1: and forty four pages. He bought the He looked at
Speaker 1: he bought the Bulldog editions of the Sun Times and
Speaker 1: Tribune and he looked at the entertainment section and saw
Speaker 1: two or three jazz advertisements, advertisements for jazz. Then he
Speaker 1: went to the sports section. And back in the day, folks,
Speaker 1: thirty forty adds in these sports sections, and I mean
Speaker 1: twelve fourteen pages full with the standings and everything and
Speaker 1: what the players were hitting. It was so much bigger
Speaker 1: back then. He meets on Monday with his music people
Speaker 1: and they said, were ready to go. He goes, yeah,
Speaker 1: we're going to do all sports. They go, are you crazy?
Speaker 1: You're going to listen to that hot dog guy? And
Speaker 1: he goes, I'm going to listen to him. And that's
Speaker 1: how it all started. And he started to score, and
Speaker 1: he as a music guy, Ben, and you know how
Speaker 1: it is to find people. He filled day day as
Speaker 1: music people. Put together a station that only last would
Speaker 1: the last twelve hours for four years until it got
Speaker 1: a full time license. And we ruled the airwaves on
Speaker 1: a twelve hour station. That's great.
Speaker 3: And those were the days right where there were like
Speaker 3: radio people that were making the decisions, right. I mean,
Speaker 3: it's not it's the business has changed, obviously, a ton.
Speaker 3: I'm younger than you, but there's so many people now
Speaker 3: that are not really like radio people that are making
Speaker 3: those decisions. Would that be the thing that's got to
Speaker 3: be the thing you're most proud of?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 3: You went from running a hot dogs stand, which you
Speaker 3: were doing very well at, and then he became the
Speaker 3: godfather of Chicago sports radio. When you give your speech,
Speaker 3: will that be the lead of the speech? Is that
Speaker 3: going to be the.
Speaker 1: Well to the lead of the speech? Is I was
Speaker 1: basically a high school drop out. My own dad called
Speaker 1: me a bomb. I'd never amount to anything. I had
Speaker 1: a tense relationship with him, but he always put a
Speaker 1: rough over my head. He was a decent guy, but
Speaker 1: he if and if it wasn't for him, I wouldn't
Speaker 1: be here. But he wasn't happy with me. I dropped
Speaker 1: out of high school. I ended up going to the Service.
Speaker 1: I was going to have to go to Vietnam. I
Speaker 1: was drafted because I didn't have any schooling. I had
Speaker 1: to go for my draft card. I went. My orders
Speaker 1: were canceled. I was supposed to go to Long being
Speaker 1: young wherever that was in Vietnam with a bunch of
Speaker 1: other goofy nineteen and twenty year old kids, and my
Speaker 1: Nixon canceled our orders because they were going through the
Speaker 1: Paris Peace talks. So that was a bit of luck.
Speaker 1: I come back and I meet my wife and from
Speaker 1: there on, she tried to change me for a long time,
Speaker 1: and I finally changed. And I would say one day
Speaker 1: I was picking paper in a park working for the
Speaker 1: Chicago Park District and mark and ballfields, and the next
Speaker 1: day I was the biggest thing in radio. It was
Speaker 1: culture shock and day when I see twenty year olds
Speaker 1: go through it. I ended up making a lot of
Speaker 1: money in this business. And when I and I was
Speaker 1: thirty nine and I wasn't ready for it, but yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm going to it's a Rag's the richest type of
Speaker 1: situation for me. I went from nobody. I met a
Speaker 1: beautiful lady. She helped guide me, helped fix me up,
Speaker 1: and I went to work every day. I've never missed
Speaker 1: a day of work in thirty three years. Never missed
Speaker 1: at Fox, never missed at ESPN, which I'm working at
Speaker 1: now one thousand, never missed at the Score where I
Speaker 1: worked for sixteen years. So I love it. It's in my blood.
Speaker 1: But I started talking sports on the street corner. And
Speaker 1: my uncle, who's ninety years old, told me the other day,
Speaker 1: you're getting this because you were built for it. He says,
Speaker 1: I remember you talking circles around the older relatives when
Speaker 1: you were nine years old. So you were born. I
Speaker 1: was born to do it. You were born to do it.
Speaker 3: And I think part of the key is like you're
Speaker 3: like a lot of the people in the business. Even
Speaker 3: when you were when you were starting out and I
Speaker 3: was listening, is you know, young guy, they were kind
Speaker 3: of program they were buttoned up.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you're just like a regular dude.
Speaker 3: Which that's at that time especially, I think even now,
Speaker 3: but at that time, there weren't a lot of people
Speaker 3: that were like you that were doing this.
Speaker 1: I give you a big advantage. I did have a
Speaker 1: huge advantage. It was different than ninety two. It was
Speaker 1: I mean, there was no social media. There was no Twitter,
Speaker 1: but there was phones in the cars. We didn't even
Speaker 1: have computer yet. Our producer, Jesse Rodgers was my producer.
Speaker 1: I had Abby Pulaski. Then I had a guy named
Speaker 1: Jesse Rodgers who's now number one baseball guy at ESPN.
Speaker 1: For seven years, we got the best guests. But when
Speaker 1: we had phone calls. They had to hold up the
Speaker 1: sign with the guy's name on it. Joe from Tinley Park,
Speaker 1: Bill from Alsip, Illinois, Bob. You know, so there was
Speaker 1: no computers. You had to know what you were talking
Speaker 1: about without the use of a computer. What do I
Speaker 1: see now? I see scripts? I mean I broke it,
Speaker 1: broke my heart. I read on Twitter about a month ago. Hey,
Speaker 1: me and my three buddies are getting together. We're going
Speaker 1: to go to the bar, and we have a script
Speaker 1: that we're going to discuss each sport. That's not what
Speaker 1: it was designed to do. Sports radio was designed around
Speaker 1: the way I wanted it. I was designed about around sports, alcohol, women,
Speaker 1: and entertainment. You want to talk about movies, that's fine.
Speaker 1: Even the little politics used to sneak in. But you
Speaker 1: could talk politics back then. Now you can't. As far
Speaker 1: as your other question, you know how great it was
Speaker 1: to walk in to a corner office and the boss
Speaker 1: was sitting there in the same building, and you didn't
Speaker 1: have to call New York. You didn't have to call California.
Speaker 1: If you wanted to go to New York and see
Speaker 1: the Bulls and Knicks, you didn't have to call California,
Speaker 1: New York or some other place to see if you
Speaker 1: could go with the White Sox to Boston. We would
Speaker 1: ask him. He'd go, yeah, And you know what, he
Speaker 1: was a music guy who four years later, Ben sold
Speaker 1: the station that he put a seven hundred thousand dollars
Speaker 1: investment with along with XRTI, because he already had the
Speaker 1: building and stuff for seventy seven million bucks.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 1: And it was a part time station until he went
Speaker 1: all time the final year and then Westinghouse came and bought.
Speaker 1: As far as who's running radio now, of course you
Speaker 1: need a radio guy to run radio. And as far
Speaker 1: as people that are running radio, most of them. I
Speaker 1: used to I called my boss back in the day.
Speaker 1: I said, you're not a sports guy. You're not a
Speaker 1: radio guy. You're a bean counter. That's what you are.
Speaker 1: And I said, don't try to pretend that you know
Speaker 1: more about sports or anything else. Because the original boss left.
Speaker 1: And once the original boss left, it's an all new
Speaker 1: ball game. It's like getting a new manager. As you know,
Speaker 1: because you've been through a few in baseball.
Speaker 3: My favorite Mike Norss story, and there's bunch of them, though,
Speaker 3: is your confrontations with Ozzie Gian back in the day,
Speaker 3: and I saw I wanted to get your reaction. I'm
Speaker 3: sure you've talked about this in your show in Chicago,
Speaker 3: but I haven't heard your reaction. So the other day
Speaker 3: Ozzie and I guess I'm one of the local he
Speaker 3: does a White postgame or something like that. He said
Speaker 3: that doing sports radio is harder than managing in the
Speaker 3: major leagues. And I agree with him, by the way,
Speaker 3: But what was your reaction, because you got you really
Speaker 3: got into a dust up, one of the famous sports
Speaker 3: radio dustups with us. So when you saw him say that,
Speaker 3: what was your reaction?
Speaker 1: Right? First of all, I haven't seen as he since
Speaker 1: I understand I came down after I had the argument
Speaker 1: with him. I was doing a remote from Wrigley Field.
Speaker 1: The argument was all about he wasn't going to start
Speaker 1: a J. Prazinski. Now, if you're playing like the Braves
Speaker 1: or somebody, that's fine. You're playing the White Socks, which
Speaker 1: was still a fevered pitch back in two thousand and six.
Speaker 1: The Cubs are coming off a World Series, I mean,
Speaker 1: the White Socks are coming off a World Series, and
Speaker 1: he wanted to start. A guy named Toby Hall so
Speaker 1: I'm ranting and Raven, the guy's just coming off the
Speaker 1: disabled Listen. He's not a very good catcher and he
Speaker 1: can't how's he going to hit? And you're playing the
Speaker 1: White Socks on a Friday, it's the first game. Now
Speaker 1: I'm across the street in the place at a bar
Speaker 1: doing a remote filled with people, and all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: he calls up and he goes nuts and he starts swearing,
Speaker 1: and me and him went at it, and he wasn't happy,
Speaker 1: and I wasn't happy, And to be honest, Ben, I'm
Speaker 1: tired of the cut. But this is the fun part.
Speaker 1: He's going to be at this thing. He's going to
Speaker 1: be at the ward and me and him are going
Speaker 1: to be together for the first time in hell twenty
Speaker 1: twenty five years, and they're probably going to play that cut.
Speaker 1: And I am so tired of it, and I'm sure
Speaker 1: he is too, So I might have to retire it,
Speaker 1: because you don't want to hear how you were twenty
Speaker 1: five years ago in d Vane. He was a great manager.
Speaker 1: Me and him at times are the same people, type
Speaker 1: A personalities. We've both shot ourselves in the foot a
Speaker 1: couple of times, so we have a lot in common.
Speaker 1: And that day that he called, it wasn't a manager
Speaker 1: in a radio host. It was basically two Chicago neighborhood
Speaker 1: guys going at it. And it was admire him for calling,
Speaker 1: and I admire him for taking it down. But as
Speaker 1: it turned out, Toby Hall had two pants balls that
Speaker 1: day and he had just an awful outing and he
Speaker 1: was cut down the line. There you go.
Speaker 3: But that's and it's nice that you know, when you
Speaker 3: run into him, he did say, you know, this is
Speaker 3: what we do. What you've done your whole you know,
Speaker 3: life is harder than managing in the major leagues, which
Speaker 3: I agree with that people you're talking about doing the
Speaker 3: job every day. And I often will say, Mike, like
Speaker 3: anybody could probably do what will you do? And what
Speaker 3: I do during football season when there's stuff going on.
Speaker 3: But the problem is day in day out, like people
Speaker 3: don't realize, Like I'm sure there's some days, Mike, you
Speaker 3: go in there even though you have the gift for gatt,
Speaker 3: you're not really feeling it, but you still have to
Speaker 3: do the show. You have to present the show, and
Speaker 3: those are the days where I feel like you make
Speaker 3: their money. Anybody can go in there when there's a
Speaker 3: ton of stuff to talk about yes days when there's
Speaker 3: not much and you can create something out of nothing.
Speaker 1: That to me, that's what separates.
Speaker 3: And you've been doing it forever.
Speaker 1: So yeah, thirty three years. But I'll tell you, Ben,
Speaker 1: I know what you have to go through working overnights,
Speaker 1: and it's not easy. Some of the great overnight guys Chicago,
Speaker 1: Whity Schwartz, a lot of overnight guys I listened to
Speaker 1: in Chicago. It wasn't easy. Not less. Robstein a great
Speaker 1: a great voice and a good friend of mine back
Speaker 1: in the day, one of the great overnight guys. So
Speaker 1: what you do is not easy. But I'll be the
Speaker 1: first to tell you. In ninety two we were the
Speaker 1: first of our kind, an all sports station. We never
Speaker 1: had a meeting, me and Dan Jiggets or our producers.
Speaker 1: We would write down who we want for the next day,
Speaker 1: whether it be Tom Glavin because the Braves are in town,
Speaker 1: bring on an Assie gee in, or bring on this
Speaker 1: guy or that guy. We never had a meeting. Jiggs
Speaker 1: Dan would get there about a quarter two. I'd get
Speaker 1: there a little bit more earlier. I was already prepared
Speaker 1: the night before, so if Dan came on and he said,
Speaker 1: welcome to the scores. You know, sports radio ladies and gentlemen.
Speaker 1: I'm Dan Jiggets. We're the monsters of the mid midday.
Speaker 1: Mike is along with me. Mike, how you doing? Good Dan?
Speaker 1: But that cub game last night? Or good Dan? That
Speaker 1: Bear game? Boy? I'll tell you, I'll tell you what
Speaker 1: I mean. Irlacker just didn't get it done yesterday, and
Speaker 1: he was ready and I was ready. He led the show.
Speaker 1: I loved being a second banana because that's where you're
Speaker 1: you don't have to worry. And I did read commercials.
Speaker 1: You do it all your solo a lot. That's tough.
Speaker 1: I did solo at Fox two on weekends, brutal, but
Speaker 1: going off of somebody, okay, is the best because we
Speaker 1: turned into and he was a He was a Harvard
Speaker 1: educated black man and I was a high school dropout
Speaker 1: white man. And do you want to know how many
Speaker 1: people thought it was reversed just because of the color
Speaker 1: of our skin until people found out. So it was
Speaker 1: a great thing. And Andy Furman was the same way.
Speaker 1: Andy is one of the greats, as you know how
Speaker 1: I feel about him. And I think that Andy and
Speaker 1: I and Jonas Knox had one of the best shows ever.
Speaker 1: Unfortunately we weren't on Next Time like you guys are
Speaker 1: at the time. But I thought that was a great show.
Speaker 1: I just feel like I was like Hyman Roth then
Speaker 1: you know, all my partners are going to make money,
Speaker 1: you know, and.
Speaker 3: And and Jonas has followed in your footsteps.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, morning guy, now the great. I am very
Speaker 1: proud of him. I do know this. If he asked me,
Speaker 1: I'd tell him our show was better. And that's nothing
Speaker 1: against Brady or or or or anybody else a lovar,
Speaker 1: nothing against them, nothing against Jonas.
Speaker 3: I love you and a couple of great radio characters
Speaker 3: because you're the Chicago guy, Andy Fight. It was fun
Speaker 3: and you just you really played well off each other.
Speaker 3: You mentioned though Less Cropsy. I know Less passed away
Speaker 3: a while back. But yeah he did, Yeah he did
Speaker 3: recorded and this is actually the week the anniversary the
Speaker 3: other day on this Yeah. I mean, did he ever
Speaker 3: get into that and tell you some of the behind
Speaker 3: the scenes.
Speaker 1: Oh absolutely, I mean, give me some That was.
Speaker 3: The greatest rant in the history of rants. I've never
Speaker 3: there's nothing that can match Lee Ilia attacking the cub.
Speaker 1: No and to let people know, you could go to
Speaker 1: and then listen to the Yauzie in North tape and
Speaker 1: it's not close to what Lee Elia was with Les Grobstein.
Speaker 1: What happened was somebody asked him a question. I believe
Speaker 1: it was less. They had the gang of reporters down there.
Speaker 1: He had the tape recorder going and he just lost
Speaker 1: his mind. Unless was the first guy to put it out,
Speaker 1: and lee Elia went on a tirade, you're ten people
Speaker 1: are all fifteen percent of your unemployed. That's why you're
Speaker 1: at the ballpark. You guys are a bunch of losers.
Speaker 1: You know. He was, you know, and so to nobody's
Speaker 1: surprised he didn't last long after that, but he he
Speaker 1: was a fiery guy, Lee Elia. He'll always be famous
Speaker 1: for that, and Les Cropstein will be famous for that.
Speaker 1: If you folks get a chance to listen to the
Speaker 1: Lee Ilia tyrae and you haven't heard it, it's up
Speaker 1: there with the Bobby Knight tirade? Did I used to play?
Speaker 1: Or the yazzie It's better than yes well? Which which no?
Speaker 3: Which Bobby Knight one? Because he had the one about
Speaker 3: Purdue and then he do you do it?
Speaker 1: I played it every day and then Jesse Rogers, my
Speaker 1: producer at the time, who's one of the great baseball guys,
Speaker 1: and we're still best friends. Indiana was playing Northwestern. At Northwestern,
Speaker 1: I said, and I used to make I used to
Speaker 1: give Jesse a bounty and I was making a lot
Speaker 1: of money, so I shared it because I was. Some
Speaker 1: of them didn't. So I used to put a bounty
Speaker 1: on Jesse. If you can get Bobby Knight. Now this
Speaker 1: is like early nineties, if you get Bobby Knight on
Speaker 1: the radio with me tomorrow, I'll give you five hundred dollars.
Speaker 1: Five hundred dollars to a producer that was like twenty
Speaker 1: five years old back in the nineties. Okay. He goes
Speaker 1: to the game, Bobby Knight's coming out. They won. He goes,
Speaker 1: mister Knight, I worked for a host, Mike North and
Speaker 1: he goes, I know who he is. I heard the tape.
Speaker 1: Now Jesse's walking with him, and he goes, I'm not
Speaker 1: doing it. I won't do it. That's it. I mean,
Speaker 1: but the guy loves you, Mike loves you. But it's
Speaker 1: an entertaining thing. He goes, yeah, well snuck in on me,
Speaker 1: you know. And I didn't appreciate it, and he keeps walking.
Speaker 1: Jesse follows him onto the bus. You gotta help me.
Speaker 1: I can make five. Anyone do it for him. But
Speaker 1: Jesse got thrown off the Indiana bus. He followed him
Speaker 1: in after night, told him fifty paces back. That's what's following.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, that is outstanding.
Speaker 1: Well, hey, you gotta make the money man, that's even
Speaker 1: he was. I mean he it was like he found
Speaker 1: a gold mine and he wanted to mind it. But
Speaker 1: the gold mine was Bob was Bobby Knight. My favorite story,
Speaker 1: Ben and I don't even know if you know this.
Speaker 1: Dave Steep nineteen ninety three. Yeah, he got picked up
Speaker 1: by the White Sox.
Speaker 2: No, the White Sox got you.
Speaker 1: Okay, I'm on the radio and he hears me say
Speaker 1: he's washed up. I love the guy. He's a competitor,
Speaker 1: but he's not going to help this White Sox team. Period,
Speaker 1: end of story. Okay. I'm at Gibson Steakhouse that night.
Speaker 1: It was a hangout of mind. Who comes walking in
Speaker 1: just got in the day before, was told by the
Speaker 1: White Sox where I hung out, walks in to the bar,
Speaker 1: somebody says, somebody wants to see you. I walk into
Speaker 1: the vestibule of the place. He goes, I'm Dave Steep.
Speaker 1: You have a little problem with me. I go, I
Speaker 1: have no problem with you, Dave. First of all, it's
Speaker 1: good to meet you. He goes, well, I heard about
Speaker 1: what you said on me on the radio. I said, Dave,
Speaker 1: nobody loves you as a competitor, one of my favorite
Speaker 1: role players. But you're you've got to know that what
Speaker 1: I was saying has to be half true. He goes,
Speaker 1: you know what he says to me. Then he says, well,
Speaker 1: why don't you try to help me? I go, what
Speaker 1: are you talking about? Well, the team's on the road.
Speaker 1: I go, yeah, and I need to throw tomorrow. I go,
Speaker 1: where are you're going to throw? He goes, We'll find
Speaker 1: the park somewhere. He goes, I'm staying where the White
Speaker 1: Socks keep all the new players on the on Lake
Speaker 1: Shore Drive at this building. Can you come by tomorrow?
Speaker 1: I go, sure? What time? He goes seven o'clock? I
Speaker 1: go in the morning. Now it's already nine at night.
Speaker 1: He goes, yeah, and I've already had a few belts.
Speaker 1: I go, okay. He gives me the address. I get up.
Speaker 1: The rain's going sideways or I call them up. Dave,
Speaker 1: too bad? Huh. He goes, where are you coming or not?
Speaker 1: I go, what are you talking about? He goes, I
Speaker 1: need to throw because they're coming back, and I got
Speaker 1: to be ready. I need to throw sixty five sony pictures.
Speaker 1: I go, there's nothing open. It's born like that. He goes, well,
Speaker 1: find a viaduct. You know viaducts around here. I go in,
Speaker 1: know the whole city. So I go get him and
Speaker 1: I take him to Grand Avenue where there's a viaduct
Speaker 1: by the Chicago River. He stands on one side. I
Speaker 1: stand on the other side. I got a catcher smid.
Speaker 1: He had a chest protector and a mask, okay, And
Speaker 1: he threw sixty five pitches between cars going by from
Speaker 1: one end, from one side to the other. And I
Speaker 1: caught all of them but three period. And the story, true,
Speaker 1: true story. It would never happen. I couldn't make that up.
Speaker 1: And it actually happened because the white Socks said no
Speaker 1: love for me, and they thought they could start something
Speaker 1: and it n ended up being a good thing. And
Speaker 1: Dave's one of the great guys.
Speaker 3: That's awesome, a great story.
Speaker 1: I always think about that yeah, that is.
Speaker 3: That is wonderful.
Speaker 1: I love the guys.
Speaker 3: Well, you know, a lot of them will say they
Speaker 3: don't listen. I had a guy years ago that was
Speaker 3: with the Dodgers who I was ripping, and then I
Speaker 3: was in the law. I was in the clubhouse the
Speaker 3: next like the next day, and the guy came up
Speaker 3: to me. He was ranting Mike. He's like, I don't
Speaker 3: listen to sports radio and I said, well, how do.
Speaker 1: You how do I know? How do you know that
Speaker 1: I said anything? He said, well, my wife does you know?
Speaker 3: And then he was giving me the whole, you know,
Speaker 3: the whole thing.
Speaker 1: About well, you know, Brian Harlan was the pr man
Speaker 1: for the White Sox for the Bears, and he's now
Speaker 1: an agent. And when we were rolling, uh, we ran
Speaker 1: into each other and he says to me, I heard
Speaker 1: the station didn't have that good of ratings. And I said,
Speaker 1: I heard your three and seven and we kept walking.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's how it used to be in Chicago.
Speaker 1: You know, a lot of ball busting going on. But
Speaker 1: it was the teams hated us because at the time
Speaker 1: we had no teams discourage of any local radio station.
Speaker 1: If you want your people to be absolutely free is
Speaker 1: to have no teams, and we ended up getting the
Speaker 1: team and the station changed a little, but it's now.
Speaker 1: I was told we were going to last six months,
Speaker 1: and Dan Lee took my vision made it into something
Speaker 1: big and now the Chicago Cubs. When I'm I'd been
Speaker 1: in my car around that station. Yeah, I gotta ask you.
Speaker 3: I've been to Wrigley Field a number of times over
Speaker 3: the year there, but it seems last time I was there,
Speaker 3: it just felt like I was at Disney or something.
Speaker 1: Well, yeah, you should have been with me in the seventies.
Speaker 3: Well, I did get I didn't go in the seventies obviously,
Speaker 3: but I did go back in like the nineties. It
Speaker 3: was sure, sure the way it was, I guess then
Speaker 3: it wasn't as crazy, But.
Speaker 1: Are you kidding me? We could have bought the buildings
Speaker 1: across the street with the change we have in our pockets.
Speaker 1: Back in nineteen seventy, it was a heavily it was Hispanic,
Speaker 1: it was a mix white Hispanic. They had gang problems
Speaker 1: down farther down the street. But then it just changed.
Speaker 1: Harry Carey came, okay from the White Sox, and as
Speaker 1: soon as Harry Carey came, and then they got some
Speaker 1: people who were Dallas Green came, and then Wrigley Field
Speaker 1: Old became cool like Fenway, and they lived off that,
Speaker 1: and then they lived off Harry And now when you
Speaker 1: go down there, I swear to god, I hadn't been
Speaker 1: down there for like ten years after, you know, because
Speaker 1: I live way out now. I went down there. You're right,
Speaker 1: I couldn't even recognize it. I didn't have a clue.
Speaker 1: They used to have Murphy's Bleachers. Used to be a
Speaker 1: bar with twenty five stools at a pool table in
Speaker 1: the middle. So now it's this massive bar all there.
Speaker 1: You know what, I knew a guy that lived across
Speaker 1: the street. We took lawn chairs in the eighties and
Speaker 1: sat on top and watched the games. Now they got bleachers,
Speaker 1: you know, and they got clubs inside and everything. So
Speaker 1: it's just a gigantic difference.
Speaker 3: I think the Cubs, I think the ownership, like bought
Speaker 3: a lot of the land around there, and they just
Speaker 3: own like that that whole area. But it does feel
Speaker 3: very corporate, and that's to me, that's not the essence. Obviously,
Speaker 3: we're getting times right, Mike. But that's as you said
Speaker 3: when you were going there. Back in the day, it
Speaker 3: was just sodom and gomorra.
Speaker 1: Right, well, I was a vendor. I was a vendor
Speaker 1: in sixty nine and seventy. I told my father there's
Speaker 1: no way I'm going to school. I'm not tober. He goes,
Speaker 1: what are you talking about. We're having enough trouble getting
Speaker 1: you to school as it is. I go to, Cubs
Speaker 1: are going My dad wasn't really sports oint. I go to,
Speaker 1: Cubs are going to go to the World Series. I'm
Speaker 1: going to be making nothing but money. And I was
Speaker 1: when I was sixteen, making its where doubleheaders, forty Bucks,
Speaker 1: selling cokes, twenty five cent cokes. Hey, coke, get your
Speaker 1: coke here, get coke care? I remember like it was yesterday.
Speaker 1: And then I remember to collapse, which I could not believe.
Speaker 1: The sixty nine Cubs, not that they played badly, but
Speaker 1: the Mets were just so good. So, you know, it's
Speaker 1: the greatest sports to me. I mean from the time
Speaker 1: I'm nine and I you know, Howard Stern said it best.
Speaker 1: Anybody can go to Amazon and be a podcaster. And
Speaker 1: this is nothing against podcasting, because I have a couple
Speaker 1: of great podcasts, and he says, but it takes unbelievable skill,
Speaker 1: and I don't always agreeing with Howard Stern unbelievable skill
Speaker 1: to do what any radio guy does, any radio guy does,
Speaker 1: And he's absolutely right, because I've had guys come into
Speaker 1: the studios you have that thought they could knock it
Speaker 1: down and get it down, and it didn't happen. Then
Speaker 1: you know that as well as I do. And then
Speaker 1: there's others that it just flows, like yourself and like
Speaker 1: other people that we know and love. So yeah, it's true.
Speaker 3: And the other dudes. You'll see guys professional athletes or something.
Speaker 3: They'll come off the field and think they can just
Speaker 3: get on a microphone because they played and they can
Speaker 3: start yep, And it's not that easy. You gotta as
Speaker 3: you said, there's an art to it. There's you've got
Speaker 3: to know what you're doing.
Speaker 1: And if why doing two o'clock in the morning, if
Speaker 1: you're Ben mallor in July, in July, why do it?
Speaker 1: Why do it? Mike North while the Indianapolis Cults are
Speaker 1: playing the Packers at eight o'clock on Sunday, Okay on
Speaker 1: Sunday night. I had no problem when when I was
Speaker 1: with the team, you know, with Dan jiggots, and you
Speaker 1: had somebody to bounce off of. Okay, but doing what
Speaker 1: anybody does, I've had so many people think they can
Speaker 1: do it and they can't. It's it's an art. It's
Speaker 1: it's how much work are you going to put into it?
Speaker 1: You have to come up with stuff. My buddy and
Speaker 1: you brought up a Dan Lee, the owner. He passed away,
Speaker 1: and before he passed away, I had a three hour
Speaker 1: contrave with you talking about the days, and he said
Speaker 1: the thing about you that set everybody apart, Mike, and
Speaker 1: it's the highest compliment that I could have been paid.
Speaker 1: You never had an offseason. If there was hockey, you
Speaker 1: knew every black clock. If it was football, baseball, basketball,
Speaker 1: we didn't worry about you. We worried about the others.
Speaker 1: There was a couple of football players like you just said,
Speaker 1: a baseball player that worked with us, a couple of journalists.
Speaker 1: So that was probably one of the great things he
Speaker 1: ever said, amongst many things. He gave me changed my
Speaker 1: whole life. He was going to give me weekends and
Speaker 1: I said, I can do every day, and the other
Speaker 1: guy they were not going to give it to me.
Speaker 1: And the one guy turned it down. They gave me
Speaker 1: a six month trial, and here I am thirty three
Speaker 1: years later, and you know, it's the roller coaster ride.
Speaker 1: Ben ups downs in all rounds. I mean, talk show
Speaker 1: hosts for the most part, folks, and even Ben, at
Speaker 1: some point we're wackos. We are. We're wackos, no doubt
Speaker 1: about it. But we put our heart and soul into entertainment, entertainment,
Speaker 1: and you get it for free.
Speaker 3: Well, and there are very few that I've met along
Speaker 3: my journey that have passion and energy, and you're one
Speaker 3: of a kind. My congratulations, you got that lifetime achievement
Speaker 3: of word, which will be next Friday. There's a big
Speaker 3: galo there in Chicago. Thanks for doing this, dude, I
Speaker 3: appreciate it.
Speaker 1: Thank you. You know what, Ben, I hope to see
Speaker 1: you soon the next time in Chicago. We got to
Speaker 1: hook up. I know you were in Chicago not too
Speaker 1: long ago. I believe if I'm not right, you want
Speaker 1: to that is true.
Speaker 3: But my brother lives in Wisconsin. My younger I do go.
Speaker 3: You know, I usually try to go through Chicago.
Speaker 1: You know what's funny. I live right by Wisconsin. I
Speaker 1: live right by Lake Geneva now, but I live in Illinois.
Speaker 1: But I'll tell you what. Yeah, when I see a
Speaker 1: picture of somebody and the first thing I said is boy,
Speaker 1: I'd like to see him and go to the ball
Speaker 1: game with him. Because if you've never been to Wrigley, folks,
Speaker 1: and you drive down the street, you go, where the
Speaker 1: hell is this park? And then all of a sudden, boom,
Speaker 1: Oh it's wonderful.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but I mean to go to That'd be awesome
Speaker 3: to go to a Cub game with Mike North.
Speaker 1: Now that's the most we will have to do it
Speaker 1: and say hi to everybody over there, and I will.
Speaker 1: I enjoyed being on and thanks so much.
Speaker 3: Now let me tell you I see jonas your old protege.
Speaker 3: I love them every day and we will occasionally randomly
Speaker 3: there'll be a Mike Norse story that we will tell
Speaker 3: and it's it's just a cluss. But but thanks to
Speaker 3: Thanks Mike, appreciate it.
Speaker 1: You're the best. Ben, thank you, and thank all the listeners.
Speaker 1: Thanks guys,