Speaker 1: Kaboom. If you thought four hours a day, minutes a
Speaker 1: week was enough, I think again. He's the last remnants
Speaker 1: of the old republic, a sole fashion of fairness. He
Speaker 1: treats crackheads in the ghetto gutter the same as the
Speaker 1: rich pill poppers in the penthouse to clearinghouse of hot takes,
Speaker 1: break free for something special. The Fifth Hour with Ben
Speaker 1: Maller starts right now in the air everywhere. Welcome in
Speaker 1: the beginning of another edition of The Fifth Hour with
Speaker 1: Ben Maller Saturday, Saturday Saturday. Because four hours a night
Speaker 1: or not enough, We do this eight days a week.
Speaker 1: No need for the applause. But we are here eight
Speaker 1: days a week to provide you with marginal audio content.
Speaker 1: As you know, we do the radio show five nights
Speaker 1: a week on the overnight and on demand. Absolutely so
Speaker 1: for those of you that say there is too much Mallard,
Speaker 1: please never enough, never enough. So on this Saturday edition
Speaker 1: of The Fifth Hour, we we have breaking news, actually
Speaker 1: breaking news, the winds of change, a Fifth Hour with
Speaker 1: Ben mallor exclusive. You will not hear this content anywhere else.
Speaker 1: We will give you that coming up here in a bit.
Speaker 1: Also time snamp Madness under the covers No More and
Speaker 1: the Big Oh and whatever else we have time to
Speaker 1: get to. But let's begin with the winds of change.
Speaker 1: And they have affected our radio program. Uh, they have.
Speaker 1: And if you've listened to this show over the last
Speaker 1: probably month or two, you have heard a lot of
Speaker 1: me and not that much of the person that I've
Speaker 1: been doing the podcast with and uh and and for
Speaker 1: the past couple of months, it's kind of been like that,
Speaker 1: less and less of West of the four oh five
Speaker 1: David A. Gascon. But that was not by design. Uh,
Speaker 1: that was not by design. When this podcast started, it
Speaker 1: was a collaboration. We were both gonna be be available
Speaker 1: as much as we could. We make it a priority. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: because you know, some work assignments, which is really good
Speaker 1: news for for David. He's gotten a lot of play
Speaker 1: by play gigs. He's taken other side work, acting jobs,
Speaker 1: and you name it. And as a result of his
Speaker 1: other assignments, he has been unable to provide his time
Speaker 1: for this podcast on a regular basis. And he made
Speaker 1: the decision earlier this week that that's all he don't
Speaker 1: he don't and so no More, Uh, David Gascon on
Speaker 1: the fifth hour and Uh. Yes, I'm I'm bummed out.
Speaker 1: I was hoping we could work it out and David
Speaker 1: could be part of the podcast going forward. I think
Speaker 1: this thing is gonna be even bigger than it is
Speaker 1: right now. Uh and I truly believe that because of
Speaker 1: the the audience that has continued to go up. And
Speaker 1: we as you know, you complain about the commercials on
Speaker 1: the podcast, but that's a good problem to have, right
Speaker 1: The problem is when there are no commercials, right, that's yeah,
Speaker 1: that's that's when things are not going well. That's that's
Speaker 1: when you haven't done your job. When there are a
Speaker 1: lot of commercials, then you're winning. Yeah, stripe up the fans.
Speaker 1: It's a big deal. Uh. So the podcast is doing
Speaker 1: very well and uh and and we I'm really happy
Speaker 1: for David because he wants to play by play and
Speaker 1: he's not it's not really a podcast guy per se.
Speaker 1: And uh and he you know, he was unhappy with
Speaker 1: some things, and we don't need to get into all
Speaker 1: that here, but I am happy for him. I hope
Speaker 1: he becomes the play by play guy for a college
Speaker 1: or major college or an NFL team or NBA team.
Speaker 1: Someone should hire David Gascon as a play by play guy,
Speaker 1: and I'm hoping that he gets a big network job somewhere.
Speaker 1: As for the fifth hour going forward, is it going
Speaker 1: to be just a solo act, just me bloviating into
Speaker 1: a open microphone and sounding like a clown. Uh, well,
Speaker 1: there will be a lot of me going forward. But
Speaker 1: I have talked with management as a result of the
Speaker 1: events of the last week, and I am very excited
Speaker 1: to find out who is going to fill the number
Speaker 1: two chair on this podcast. I have already had several
Speaker 1: conversations with the big boss at the company. That's how
Speaker 1: important this podcast is. That management is like, all right,
Speaker 1: we gotta figure this out because they've got we've got
Speaker 1: good advertisers here, and they don't want to They don't
Speaker 1: want to have this thing up. They want this thing
Speaker 1: to get even bigger and better than it has been.
Speaker 1: So if you want to suggest someone who should be
Speaker 1: in the number two chair, who you think would be
Speaker 1: a great a sidekick someone writing shotgun with me, you
Speaker 1: can do that. I will tell you that the wheels
Speaker 1: are in motion. And we've already had conversations, as I said,
Speaker 1: myself and management, and we have had a couple of
Speaker 1: names that are at the very top of the list. People.
Speaker 1: Some of them you would recognize other than other names, Uh,
Speaker 1: probably not so much. Uh. And these are people that
Speaker 1: I know in radio, people that you may know. Some
Speaker 1: have worked on the show in the past, some have not,
Speaker 1: some I've never worked with. And it's it's really a
Speaker 1: matter of the schedules lining up. Because of the overnight show,
Speaker 1: there's only certain windows that are available for me to
Speaker 1: put the podcast together, and as a result of that,
Speaker 1: I have a pretty unusual, pretty unusual schedule, and so
Speaker 1: we have to find someone that can accommodate that schedule,
Speaker 1: and we'll see if that person is out there. Hopefully
Speaker 1: it's one of the candidates that have already been mentioned.
Speaker 1: I can't name them here. I've been told by management
Speaker 1: not to do that. But we think of it like
Speaker 1: a Mallard fifth hour draft, right, and the fifth hour
Speaker 1: is on the clock, and the pick is in and
Speaker 1: the pick we don't have to pick. We don't We
Speaker 1: do not yet have the pick. But again, I have
Speaker 1: spoken to a couple of people that are interested in
Speaker 1: the job, and we will find out going forward. But
Speaker 1: I am looking forward to, uh to having uh, you know,
Speaker 1: someone here who's gonna be able to be part of
Speaker 1: it and bounce things off. Uh. And I think it'll
Speaker 1: be better that way, to have someone regularly here, and
Speaker 1: we'll get bigger and better guests and all that stuff.
Speaker 1: I I do hope you enjoyed one of the more
Speaker 1: wild hours that I have had doing conversation spoken word radio.
Speaker 1: It reverberated around the podcast world. John Ziegler who joined
Speaker 1: us on the Friday podcast. And I imagine my inbox
Speaker 1: is full right now. I've not checked with emails. I
Speaker 1: can't believe you'll put that guy on. I thought he
Speaker 1: was great. I thought he was interesting, and to me,
Speaker 1: the whole point of doing a podcast like this is
Speaker 1: to let interesting voices speak. And I was a fan
Speaker 1: John when he did radio at CALFI in l A
Speaker 1: back in the day. I do follow him on Twitter.
Speaker 1: He's a firebrand. Uh. He's a lightning rod guy, very enthusiastic,
Speaker 1: can talk and talk and talk. I wasn't even much
Speaker 1: on the podcast on Friday. It was. I asked a
Speaker 1: few questions and then I I got out of the
Speaker 1: way and I said, all right, let's get into it now.
Speaker 1: I know some of you are gonna be upset because
Speaker 1: political bullshit Yeah, there was some of that that was
Speaker 1: part of the podcast. But everything is political now and
Speaker 1: so just kind of get over It's okay, it's not
Speaker 1: that big a deal. Life will go on. Life will
Speaker 1: going But I thought John was wonderful, and you should
Speaker 1: check that out. You know, you've got to be open
Speaker 1: minded about things and say what you want about John
Speaker 1: and in his personality, and some don't like it. I
Speaker 1: think he's as I said, I think he's very good.
Speaker 1: But the thing about John is he has spent the
Speaker 1: better part of a decade as an investigative journalist tracking
Speaker 1: down just about everyone who's still alive tied to the
Speaker 1: penn State story. So he has not cut any corners.
Speaker 1: He is. He mentioned in the podcast, he's traveled back
Speaker 1: to State College, Pennsylvania, back to the prison in Pennsylvania
Speaker 1: where Jerry Sandusky is in jail. He's talked to him,
Speaker 1: he's talked to relatives, he's talked to people on all
Speaker 1: sides of the spectrum, and he determined, And we can
Speaker 1: go back and hear the Friday podcast if you want,
Speaker 1: but he mentioned that he he determined, with a thorough investigation,
Speaker 1: the outcome that he did not expect, even though he
Speaker 1: was open minded going into it, but that he determined
Speaker 1: he thinks the Penn State story is a fraudulent story,
Speaker 1: and yeah, it didn't happen. I don't know. I mean,
Speaker 1: that's what he said, and for many it's hard to believe.
Speaker 1: And uh I I have listened to some of the
Speaker 1: podcasts that John's done. He makes a very compelling argument.
Speaker 1: And as I told him in the podcast, is that
Speaker 1: if if this is all accurate, all the evidence that
Speaker 1: you have, you've pretty much laid out the roadmap for
Speaker 1: a an appeal, and what is a compelling case for
Speaker 1: a victory in an appeal? But it hasn't happened. And
Speaker 1: John mentioned there would be some documentaries that are that
Speaker 1: have been in the works about Joe Paterno about Penn State,
Speaker 1: So we'll see if anything comes to that. But I
Speaker 1: do recommend the The Friday podcast if you did not
Speaker 1: hear our conversation with John Ziegler. Now moving on the
Speaker 1: time stamp madness, the time stamp manage, and this is
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna geek out a little bit on broadcasting.
Speaker 1: And as you may or may not know, one of
Speaker 1: the cool jobs that I had for very for a
Speaker 1: very brief time. Couple of years, I did Dodger pregame
Speaker 1: and postgame programming. Um, I was a phil guy for
Speaker 1: part of a year. I did uh travel briefly with
Speaker 1: the Dodgers, very briefly. I went on some road trips
Speaker 1: with the team, and I got to know Vince Scully
Speaker 1: a little bit. Vince and I cons all time great
Speaker 1: right is the the o G And Vinn was very
Speaker 1: nice to me. And just the fact that he knew
Speaker 1: my name uh as as a as a kid growing
Speaker 1: up listening to Vince Scully and watching him on TV,
Speaker 1: I was like, Wow, this guy, man, this guy knows
Speaker 1: me walking the footsteps of legends and Vinn. It's been
Speaker 1: retired and I haven't seen uh Mr Scully in many years.
Speaker 1: And I did see on his Twitter account. By the way, Vin,
Speaker 1: I think it's an open secret, not on Twitter, but
Speaker 1: there is someone that works for the Dodgers that provides
Speaker 1: content quasi from Vince Scully and so on the the
Speaker 1: Vince Scully Twitter account, Vinn shared an interview that he did.
Speaker 1: I believe it's for a documentary and I wanted to
Speaker 1: play the clip for you because it was is great
Speaker 1: and I love stuff like this. I love that so
Speaker 1: much of life is experimentation and just throwing spaghetti against
Speaker 1: the wall, and every once in a while, every once
Speaker 1: in a while, a bunch of that spaghetti sticks. And
Speaker 1: even the all time greats like Vince Scully, uh, they
Speaker 1: have this happened. So to set this up, Vin is
Speaker 1: doing an interview about sports commentary. It's called The Commentators,
Speaker 1: a hundred years of sports commentary and the the classic
Speaker 1: Vince Skully no hitter call and the Sandy Kofax perfect game,
Speaker 1: which is an all time great call. If you're a
Speaker 1: fan of radio play by play, you know exactly what
Speaker 1: I'm talking about, even if you're a young punk and
Speaker 1: you know, like Sandy Kofax is like a dinosaur to you,
Speaker 1: you know that call, And so I wanted to play this.
Speaker 1: This is from the again the Vin Scully Twitter account.
Speaker 1: Do Vince Scully and this has been and will react
Speaker 1: to it. This has been telling a story about what
Speaker 1: became his signature for no hitters and perfect games. Here's
Speaker 1: the greatest play by play man in baseball history, the
Speaker 1: Great Vince Scully. In his own words, you know when
Speaker 1: you do play by play every day, but just about
Speaker 1: sixty seven years. Once in a while, you get lucky
Speaker 1: when I say lucky. Let me explain. Whenever the Dodgers
Speaker 1: had a picture pitching a no hitter, or the opposing
Speaker 1: picture was pitching a no hitter, we would always tape
Speaker 1: the ninth inning and we would then give that picture
Speaker 1: with whatever team. As far as a record of the
Speaker 1: night or day that he pitched the no hitter takes
Speaker 1: Andy Kofax. Cofax had pitched three no hitters, and in
Speaker 1: the course of each of the three, I always made
Speaker 1: sure that I got the a of the no hitter,
Speaker 1: so that when Sandy would be walking out to the man,
Speaker 1: I would say, and so on this July Sandy co
Speaker 1: Fax heading for the man to try and pick up
Speaker 1: X number of victories and a no hitter against so
Speaker 1: and so. Well the night it is perfect game. In
Speaker 1: my mind was the fact, what else can I put
Speaker 1: on the tape so that thirty years from now, when
Speaker 1: he's playing it and reliving the moment, he'll have the date.
Speaker 1: All right, let's stop right there. So Vince Scully actually
Speaker 1: created the cameo. He gave Sandy ko Fax a cameo
Speaker 1: in any picture that threw a no hitter for the
Speaker 1: Dodgers or against the Dodgers. So he just mentioned the date,
Speaker 1: the origin of the date, and now he mentioned he
Speaker 1: wanted to add something different. And this is where it
Speaker 1: gets even more interesting. The great Vince Skule, He continues,
Speaker 1: go ahead, Mr Scully, and I thought, I know, I'll
Speaker 1: put the time on it down. The time is useless
Speaker 1: as far as baseball is concerned. It wasn't in the
Speaker 1: old days, but it is now. So I did the game,
Speaker 1: and I would start calling off the time, only thinking
Speaker 1: of Sandy Kofax and the kids listening about his perfect game.
Speaker 1: And so it was at nine he does this, at
Speaker 1: he does that, and he pitches the perfect game for
Speaker 1: the next few days. The only thing I heard about
Speaker 1: was how dramatic it was to have the time included
Speaker 1: on the game. Did I take about couldn't do it.
Speaker 1: I just happened to look out. Be sure to catch
Speaker 1: live editions of The Ben Maller Show weekdays at two
Speaker 1: am Eastern eleven pm Pacific on Fox Sports Radio and
Speaker 1: the I Heart Radio app. All right, so that's the
Speaker 1: sound bite from the great Vin School. A couple of thoughts.
Speaker 1: First of all, self deprecating, right, he just looked out
Speaker 1: but the story that Ben told is something that I've
Speaker 1: heard a lot in my life. I think it's a
Speaker 1: good lesson that just experimentation getting positive feedback. We're all
Speaker 1: wired the same way as human beings. We love positive feedback.
Speaker 1: It keeps us going, right, was like, all right, you
Speaker 1: got some good feedback, you gotta you got something kind
Speaker 1: of working here, and let's do it. And you know
Speaker 1: the idea that the whole point of ven giving the
Speaker 1: date and giving the time was just a personal audio
Speaker 1: cassette to hand to Sandy Kofax or Don Drysdale or
Speaker 1: Bob Gibson or whoever was the great picture back in
Speaker 1: those old days. And uh, I have effort start. We
Speaker 1: had on this podcast, you know, a couple of months back,
Speaker 1: we had Ted Sobel's uh in l A sports media
Speaker 1: guy icon in l A Media for years, Ted Sobel,
Speaker 1: and he's told stories. He wrote a book about broadcasting
Speaker 1: and his experiences in l A and Brushing with Greatness
Speaker 1: or something along the lines of that. But Ted and
Speaker 1: and some other people would tell stories about going to
Speaker 1: dodge a stadium and you didn't even need to bring
Speaker 1: a radio because so many people had radios. That the
Speaker 1: soundtrack from the crowd was Vince Scully doing the play
Speaker 1: by play like the players on the field. Could hear
Speaker 1: Vin doing the play by play? He might as well
Speaker 1: have been on the public address system at Chavez Ravine.
Speaker 1: It was that that crazy. I guess that was the
Speaker 1: days before headphones and uh and whatnot. But I really secondly,
Speaker 1: I relate to this a little bit. One of the
Speaker 1: catchphrases that I fell into was in the air everywhere
Speaker 1: right kind of hockey, kind of cornball, and I just
Speaker 1: shouted it out one time when I first started Fox
Speaker 1: was fright. I didn't say that. I didn't really have
Speaker 1: much of anything. And one night, it was a Saturday night.
Speaker 1: If I remember as I remember it, if I'm remembering
Speaker 1: it accurately, and remember we as as we get older,
Speaker 1: our memory is a version of the truth, but not
Speaker 1: likely the whole truth, only part of the truth. But
Speaker 1: as I remember the story as I understand it, I drove,
Speaker 1: I was driving it. It was a Saturday night, overnight,
Speaker 1: and in those days it was like a six hour show,
Speaker 1: five hours live, one hour repeated, and occasionally we would
Speaker 1: actually do all six hours live. So it was a
Speaker 1: long road in the overnight, long time and so I
Speaker 1: came in there and I just started with my usual
Speaker 1: bull crab and I began there. I was like, we
Speaker 1: are in the air everywhere, and just like Vince Gully,
Speaker 1: not quite as much positive feedback, but I got a
Speaker 1: lot of positive feedback. People like, that's a good line,
Speaker 1: that's catchy. I like that, you should say that more.
Speaker 1: And thus here we are, many years later, and just
Speaker 1: about every hour of talk radio that I have done
Speaker 1: for probably the last ten years, I think it actually
Speaker 1: goes longer than that. I'm very bad at dates, but
Speaker 1: it goes longer than that. And sure enough, now if
Speaker 1: I begin an hour and I don't say in the
Speaker 1: air everywhere, someone inevitably will say, why didn't you say that? Well,
Speaker 1: it's up with that. How come you didn't say in
Speaker 1: the air everywhere? That's not right. You're supposed to say that.
Speaker 1: You're the in the air every week everywhere guy, and
Speaker 1: people people get upset, and I'm like, you know, quiet, quiet, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, listen, a trained seal here with a beach
Speaker 1: ball and I'm just bouncing it up and down? Is
Speaker 1: that what I am? How dare you? How dare you? All? Right?
Speaker 1: Moving on from the time stamp madis. Actually, before I
Speaker 1: move on, one of the thought I had to I
Speaker 1: wanted to add a post post note on the time
Speaker 1: stamp madness. Uh, something that radio people do, that news
Speaker 1: radio people do that becomes very important. When something either
Speaker 1: really good happens or really bad happens, it does make
Speaker 1: it more dramatic. For example, one of the worst days
Speaker 1: in my life September eleven, nine eleven, and I recall
Speaker 1: that day, and if you were alive then and you
Speaker 1: were old enough to remember, you also remember nine eleven.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's a historic person, you know, historic event
Speaker 1: in people's lives. But I remember listening to radio and
Speaker 1: the Emergency Broadcast System came on, and I thought, wow.
Speaker 1: I always thought I've been radio a long time at
Speaker 1: that point, already in two thousand one, I actually ain't
Speaker 1: been in for seven years or something like that. But
Speaker 1: I I was like, this is always no, they don't
Speaker 1: actually use the emergency broadcast system. That's just some kind
Speaker 1: of government thing that they're not ever going to actually
Speaker 1: use because they've never activated it in my lifetime. And
Speaker 1: sure enough, this is the emergency broadcast system. This is
Speaker 1: not a test, this is not a test, and they
Speaker 1: went through their whole thing, and and they but that
Speaker 1: and then going back in the documentary. Some of the
Speaker 1: documentaries that have been made about nine eleven, they used
Speaker 1: local New York news radio and they would say it's
Speaker 1: you know, seven on September eleven in New York, and
Speaker 1: then they give the weather and they talked about the headlines.
Speaker 1: And that time stamp became a big part of many
Speaker 1: of the documentaries telling the story of September eleven because
Speaker 1: they took the radio broadcast count obviously you know where
Speaker 1: this is going, and to build up the drama of
Speaker 1: how the world changed when we found out about the hijacking,
Speaker 1: the plane that hit the World Trade Center tower, the
Speaker 1: first tower, and then the second plane, but the time
Speaker 1: stamp before it. There was a time stamp after the
Speaker 1: first planet hit, and then another one after or you know,
Speaker 1: in between, and then uh one after and that became
Speaker 1: a big part of telling that story. And it was
Speaker 1: giving a time stamp, which you actually do in radio,
Speaker 1: which has often been a courtesy right now, there there
Speaker 1: is a little inside radio stuff that it used to
Speaker 1: be uh the diary format in terrestrial radio, where you
Speaker 1: would have to fill out a diary and physically right
Speaker 1: down the time that you were listing, like pen paper,
Speaker 1: the whole thing. You'd have to log that you were
Speaker 1: listening to a station. I think I think they don't
Speaker 1: do that anymore. I believe it's on the internet. I
Speaker 1: don't know. I don't think I'm supposed to know how
Speaker 1: they keep track of radio ratings. We have We have
Speaker 1: many more ways to track audiences now than we did
Speaker 1: in the early days with my career because we have internet.
Speaker 1: We I'm doing a podcast now, we know exactly how
Speaker 1: many people listen to this podcast. We can tell advertisers
Speaker 1: X number of people listen to the podcast. The cool
Speaker 1: thing about being on the radio show during the week,
Speaker 1: you know, as a as a radio geek, one of
Speaker 1: the one of the things is that we not only
Speaker 1: have the live audience, the overnight worker that people working
Speaker 1: in factories, driving trucks, making food in kitchens or just
Speaker 1: dealing with insomnia, but then we have people that listen
Speaker 1: only to the podcast. So it's like double dipping, which
Speaker 1: is kind of cool, right. It's like, you know, some
Speaker 1: nights on the overnight there's not as many people listening.
Speaker 1: Might be a might be a holiday, which I think
Speaker 1: more people listen on the holiday is there kind of
Speaker 1: bummed out by themselves or whatever. But there are nights
Speaker 1: is a little slow, and we know when we're doing
Speaker 1: the show that, yeah, you know, the live audience it
Speaker 1: might not be really clicking, but the podcast they're there.
Speaker 1: They'll be there in the podcast. So that's that's kind
Speaker 1: of cool. But but that's one of the timestamp thing
Speaker 1: in radio. I remember I had a program director when
Speaker 1: I first got into the business who's like, every time
Speaker 1: you open up the microphone, you give the name of
Speaker 1: the station and the time you're listening to Extra Sports
Speaker 1: six ninety it is four fifteen in the afternoon, you know.
Speaker 1: So that's what we're supposed to say. Alright, So under
Speaker 1: the covers, no more, Under the covers, no more. Uh,
Speaker 1: this is a tribute, if you will. We don't know
Speaker 1: when to do tributes. But I read a story the
Speaker 1: other day and I guess this guy radio legend, his
Speaker 1: final broadcast as a regular employee was on Friday night.
Speaker 1: So last night Steve Summers Steve Summers his final night
Speaker 1: hosting at w FAN. Now you if you're not a
Speaker 1: radio geek or a big radio fan, you might not
Speaker 1: know that, but I feel like we have a fair
Speaker 1: amount of people that like this, maybe you who love
Speaker 1: radio and appreciate the ancient art of spokes spoken word broadcasting.
Speaker 1: And I I bring this up because Steve Summers was
Speaker 1: an original. He was hired at w f A N
Speaker 1: in New York City in its inception in nineteen seven
Speaker 1: I and he has worked there ever since then. So
Speaker 1: he is done skis now and I wanted to take
Speaker 1: a couple of minutes to celebrate the career of Steve
Speaker 1: Summers thirty four years. Thirty four years mostly as a
Speaker 1: night guy. Most he has an overnight guy, and his
Speaker 1: stick was the Schmooze. He was known as the Schmooze
Speaker 1: and he had his own catch phrases that he would
Speaker 1: he would say at the beginning of every hour. That
Speaker 1: was his his touch doing radio and made him distinctive,
Speaker 1: made him stand out right talked about schmoozing. He called
Speaker 1: him the Schmooze and he would spell out sports and
Speaker 1: that was that was his stuff. And he had nicknames
Speaker 1: for all the New York teams in the Tri state
Speaker 1: area and all that. So here's how I relate to
Speaker 1: Steve Somers. Years ago in the late nineties, I was
Speaker 1: doing local radio in l A. And in fact, I
Speaker 1: remember the year. It was the reason I remember that
Speaker 1: I'm always positive as night. It was either night now
Speaker 1: now I'm not now, I'm second guest. He was either
Speaker 1: ninety eight or ninety nine, but I think it was
Speaker 1: the Dodgers had traded Mike Piazza. So I remember that
Speaker 1: trade happened in if I remember correctly, it had happened
Speaker 1: pretty early in the baseball season, and Mike Piazza was
Speaker 1: traded to the Marlins, and he was a big star.
Speaker 1: Is the biggest star of the Dodgers had had since
Speaker 1: Sandy Kolfax. The guy was an icon in l A.
Speaker 1: And in those years that the Lakers were terrible and
Speaker 1: and the Dodgers ruled the roost in l A sports.
Speaker 1: And so we were on the local l A show
Speaker 1: and Piazza got traded to the Marlins. He spent a
Speaker 1: week or something like that in Miami, and then he
Speaker 1: got repackaged to the Mets. And so Piazza was about
Speaker 1: to play the Mets. I think I'm pretty sure it
Speaker 1: was ninety eight, and so after the trade, it was
Speaker 1: gonna his first games against the Dodgers. So I hopped
Speaker 1: he hopped and scdadle off to New York. What happened
Speaker 1: to my brother happened to be, you know, living there,
Speaker 1: had been there a few years at that point, so
Speaker 1: I was like, all right, I'll stay with my brother
Speaker 1: and do the night show. Back to l A. And
Speaker 1: I need a studio. So they hooked us up at
Speaker 1: w F A N which was at the Queen's Story
Speaker 1: of Movie Studio, TV and Movie Studio in queens In
Speaker 1: and I did it from the w FAN Studio in
Speaker 1: the back their their production studio, and Steve Somers had
Speaker 1: been working at that station at He did the night
Speaker 1: show when I came in, and then Joe Boningo was
Speaker 1: was also doing some stuff he had he had been
Speaker 1: there so so away I ran into Steve Somers. I
Speaker 1: didn't really talk much, but I remember him at that time.
Speaker 1: You know, he was beloved and fellow. You know New
Speaker 1: York night owls there the insomniac crowd, we're we're big
Speaker 1: fans of the Schmooz. It is relatable ties into the
Speaker 1: story we told about Vin Scully and Vin mentioning. The
Speaker 1: reason that whole time stamp thing pig came a thing
Speaker 1: was as a result of good feedback. Right. Originally it
Speaker 1: was just kind of a cameo and he was like
Speaker 1: doing a shout out, you know, co Fax or Drysdale
Speaker 1: or whoever throws the no header or the perfect game
Speaker 1: or whatever. And then it just became what he was
Speaker 1: known for. Give the time and you got tremendous feedback.
Speaker 1: So Steve Summers said the same thing. I saw an
Speaker 1: interview that he did, and he had said that one
Speaker 1: night on w f An. He just started saying that
Speaker 1: he was schmoozing, which is a good Yiddish term, the schmooze,
Speaker 1: and that became his thing. He became known as the schmooze.
Speaker 1: That became his stick a law for the rest of
Speaker 1: his time at w fans. So good luck to Steve Summers.
Speaker 1: How about that seventy four years old? And I was wondering,
Speaker 1: that's a that's a pretty long way way. I'm getting
Speaker 1: up there in age now. I feel I don't feel it,
Speaker 1: but people tell me, oh, man, you're you're a dreaded
Speaker 1: middle age guy. And I'm like, yeah, I guess i am.
Speaker 1: How the hell did that happen? But then I'm thinking,
Speaker 1: how many more years am I gonna do this? And
Speaker 1: will I even have a choice. Will I have the
Speaker 1: carpet pulled out from underneath me, or will I have
Speaker 1: an opportunity to pick my end date? In radio, it's
Speaker 1: the great mystery, right, the great mystery of life. As
Speaker 1: Aaron Rodgers said, it's a beautiful mystery. But Steve Summers
Speaker 1: is seventy four years old and has continued to work
Speaker 1: mostly nights, mostly overnights, weekends and all that, and he's
Speaker 1: continued in the business into his mid seventies. What a
Speaker 1: tremendous run in radio. And without w f a N succeeding,
Speaker 1: there's likely no Fox Sports Radio. There's none of that.
Speaker 1: Like f a N. When it started, that was the
Speaker 1: guinea pig, and it turned out the guinea pig worked.
Speaker 1: It went really well, uh and people loved it, and
Speaker 1: it built up an audience in w f AN is
Speaker 1: at different points than the number one radio station in
Speaker 1: New York City in all formats, and it's been consistently
Speaker 1: a top ten station. But in the coveted demographic that
Speaker 1: advertisers really want, the fifty four thirty four whatever it
Speaker 1: might be, whatever picked any demographic you want. They they
Speaker 1: do very well with dudes. But as I have said
Speaker 1: on the radio show The Terrestrial Radio Show many times,
Speaker 1: the twenty four hour sports radio format began because of gambling,
Speaker 1: because of illegal gambling. You know the stories about the
Speaker 1: NFL game with gamblers, and you know the original NFL
Speaker 1: owners were involved in horse racing in different gamblings, some
Speaker 1: of it legal, some of it illegal. NASCAR started with
Speaker 1: illegal activity. Well, twenty four hour sports radio. The premise
Speaker 1: of it was you had to wait to get scores
Speaker 1: the following morning, or you could turn on a news
Speaker 1: station and get scores, but you didn't get a lot
Speaker 1: of information, and they will only give you a select
Speaker 1: number of scores at fifteen and forty five past the
Speaker 1: hour on a seven news radio format. Be sure to
Speaker 1: catch live editions of the Ben Meller Show week days
Speaker 1: at two a m. Eastern eleven pm Pacific, And so
Speaker 1: they wouldn't you wouldn't get the context that you needed
Speaker 1: if you were a gambler. So if you had a
Speaker 1: neighborhood bookie and and you wanted to put a bet down,
Speaker 1: you would have to wait to get the score. And
Speaker 1: the big problems you've lived on the East Coast was
Speaker 1: the West Coast games would make the newspaper. The paper
Speaker 1: would go to bed and they would say, you know, Mets, Mets, Dodgers,
Speaker 1: Mets Giants, Mets Padres would be in progress in the
Speaker 1: seventh innings, so you might have to wait a couple
Speaker 1: of days to find out if you want your bet
Speaker 1: or not. And there were these things called score phones
Speaker 1: that you could call up and they would just they
Speaker 1: would give you the scores. Of course, they would give
Speaker 1: you like seven or eight minutes of commercials. And by
Speaker 1: the way, the scores are four, three, six, five and
Speaker 1: three to two, and those are your baseball scores from
Speaker 1: the West Coast, and blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.
Speaker 1: And oftentimes when you call those things, they would then
Speaker 1: call you back, auto'dal you back and harass you as
Speaker 1: I remember, as I remember, But so w f AN
Speaker 1: worked and as a result that led to other stations.
Speaker 1: The first twenty four hour sports station on the West
Speaker 1: Coast was the mighty six nineties in sun Diego, which
Speaker 1: was actually in bo Ha, California and booming from Baja
Speaker 1: to the Canadian Rockies, and so f AN started on
Speaker 1: the East coast, and Extra Sports six nineties started I
Speaker 1: think in eighty nine or ninety. It was within a
Speaker 1: couple of years. Within a couple of years, Extra Sports
Speaker 1: six nineties started and it did well, and then we
Speaker 1: were off to the races, and slowly and surely there
Speaker 1: are hundreds and hundreds of stations that carry the sports
Speaker 1: radio format. Tony Bruno launched ESPN Radio, which became the
Speaker 1: first twenty four hour outlet, and there were some other
Speaker 1: ones along the way. There was Sports Fan Radio Network,
Speaker 1: there was one on one Sports out of Chicago, big
Speaker 1: twenty four hour network. Uh, there's a guy, Ron Barr
Speaker 1: that did a syndicated overnight show talking sports. And then
Speaker 1: eventually Fox Sports Radio started in the early two thousands
Speaker 1: with Tony Bruno, the man who starts all the big
Speaker 1: sports networks, the o G who we've had Tony on
Speaker 1: the podcast, the great Tony Bruno. And so that's a
Speaker 1: little sports radio one on one. I not quickly, We
Speaker 1: don't have a lot of time, but as far as
Speaker 1: the Big Oh is concerned, and this is the life
Speaker 1: of Maller, the life of Maller. So after several weeks,
Speaker 1: after several weeks, I finally finally visited the Big Oh. Uh.
Speaker 1: Now not not not that not not that big oh,
Speaker 1: the big Oh. I had my trip to the optometrist. Now,
Speaker 1: as you may or may not remember from a previous
Speaker 1: episode of the Fifth Hour, I was talking about a story.
Speaker 1: I was in studio after Dodger playoff game. So I
Speaker 1: was back in the mother Ship and I took a
Speaker 1: photo with Eddie and while taking the photo, I always
Speaker 1: take my glasses off when I take a photo because
Speaker 1: I'm self conscious. I don't like the way I look
Speaker 1: in glasses. So I took the photo off. I took
Speaker 1: the glasses off, I took the photo. There you are
Speaker 1: talked that way up. So I took the glasses off
Speaker 1: to take the photo. I placed the glasses in my pocket. Uh.
Speaker 1: And then Roberto was like, hey, you gotta get back
Speaker 1: and start talking. So in the rush, in my haste
Speaker 1: to get back and start talking on the on the show,
Speaker 1: I sat down and I didn't even realize at the time.
Speaker 1: I was like, wait a minute, I need my glasses.
Speaker 1: So I'm sitting down, I'm talking talk talk talk, talk talk.
Speaker 1: It was before the top of the hour, and I
Speaker 1: reached down to get my glasses and abracadabra, hocus pocus,
Speaker 1: much to my dismay. Much to my dismay, my glasses.
Speaker 1: I grabbed the glasses, I pulled them out, and I said,
Speaker 1: wait a minute, my glasses seem a little soft, you know,
Speaker 1: a little lighter, a little lighter. Here, what is the
Speaker 1: us all about? And uh I looked down and there
Speaker 1: it is a half half of my glasses. And of
Speaker 1: course I start, I start, I'm I'm just I'm you know,
Speaker 1: I turned the mic, I'm cursing up a storm and
Speaker 1: all that stuff, and uh, Roberto and the guys they're
Speaker 1: doing the old Nelson from the Simpsons, and everyone's like,
Speaker 1: oh my god, how does that happen? These are expensive glasses.
Speaker 1: And so anyway, as a result, I needed a new
Speaker 1: pair of bifocals I had I had in the past,
Speaker 1: I had in the past kept a backup pair, which
Speaker 1: I'm glad I did, and so obviously I used those.
Speaker 1: And but from my old pair of glasses, it was
Speaker 1: turned out the lots the parties over. So I finally
Speaker 1: had my first appointment new eye doctor. I did not
Speaker 1: go to Costco. They were booked up. Plus my wife.
Speaker 1: I said, no, no, you gotta go like the traditional
Speaker 1: eye doctor. I said, who cares all it's the same
Speaker 1: thing they when they went to the same optometry school.
Speaker 1: But anyway, she wanted to go to the local eye doctor. Uh.
Speaker 1: So we finally got an appointment with the new doc.
Speaker 1: Full battery of eye test my eyes, all the usual stuff,
Speaker 1: all the hoops you have to jump through to get
Speaker 1: new glasses. And I'm happy to report I passed my exam.
Speaker 1: My hearing is all left up, but my vision, they
Speaker 1: told me, are aging. My eyes are aging at a
Speaker 1: normal rate. I am in the proper percentile for someone
Speaker 1: my age. I don't know if that's good or bad.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure if that's good or bad. But I
Speaker 1: knew when I was a kid, based on common sense,
Speaker 1: I was gonna need glasses because my mom and my papa,
Speaker 1: my mom and dad both wear war glasses, and so
Speaker 1: I knew the odds, based on the genetic makeup and
Speaker 1: me being a direct result of half of them, that
Speaker 1: I would need glasses. Now spoiler alert, here's here's where
Speaker 1: it gets even more interesting. The big Oh. So I
Speaker 1: go to the Thomas Stress to get the glasses, and
Speaker 1: then I get the exam to give me the prescription,
Speaker 1: and the spoiler alert, I go to check out the glasses.
Speaker 1: We find a pair of glasses that I allow my
Speaker 1: wife to pick out. And the reason I do that,
Speaker 1: and the reason I allow my wife to pick out
Speaker 1: the glasses is because A I don't really care, and
Speaker 1: be I can't see myself. I don't have eyes looking
Speaker 1: at me. And no matter what pair of glasses you pick,
Speaker 1: I'm going to say, boy, look at that four eyes nerd.
Speaker 1: What a poindexter. So I don't even worry about it.
Speaker 1: I'm like, Okay, I I know who I am. Uh,
Speaker 1: And there's no there's no need to get all sappy
Speaker 1: about it and all that stuff. No, I mean, listen.
Speaker 1: So anyway, anyway that we go to pick out the glasses,
Speaker 1: I find a pair that my wife likes, I approve,
Speaker 1: So we give the glasses to the person behind the counter.
Speaker 1: They then say, well, unfortunately, your dome is so big.
Speaker 1: How big is it that the glasses will not fit?
Speaker 1: Your head is too big? You have a melon head.
Speaker 1: And this is what's known as big skull problems. So
Speaker 1: now I am on the prowl for some spectacles that
Speaker 1: I will will find it will fit my large cranium.
Speaker 1: I have considered going online. I found a couple of websites.
Speaker 1: If you have a suggestion, you have helped me out tremendously.
Speaker 1: You helped me out. I had an out aunt problem
Speaker 1: with the Malo Mansion. Listeners to this show, the Ben
Speaker 1: Mallory Radio Show and the podcast have given me the
Speaker 1: solution the Toro Aunt traps that I always use when
Speaker 1: we have an aunt infestation, and you have helped me
Speaker 1: now with the mosquitoes, I have used a couple of
Speaker 1: different options that fans of the show have recommended, and
Speaker 1: I've had different levels of results with that. So now
Speaker 1: I'm asking if you have a big head and you
Speaker 1: wear glasses. This is a very small percentage of those listening,
Speaker 1: but I'm trying to only talk to you right now.
Speaker 1: Please please uh send a link if you have a
Speaker 1: suggestion some place that's got a reasonable reasonable price, that
Speaker 1: would be great, That would be absolutely wonderful. Anyway, I
Speaker 1: have a wonderful rest of your Saturday. We will have
Speaker 1: a mail bag, a wonderful, glorious mail bag on Sundays
Speaker 1: Sunday Sunday, and don't forget cameo dot com if you
Speaker 1: would like to have a personalized video message, cameo dot
Speaker 1: com and you can check that out also on Twitter
Speaker 1: at Ben Mallard, Instagram, Ben Maller on Fox, Ben Maller
Speaker 1: on Fox, the Facebook page. A lot of content for
Speaker 1: this podcast, in fact the mailbag. Some weeks we get
Speaker 1: a lot of questions, some weeks we don't get that many.
Speaker 1: And it's really dependent on your contributions whether the mailbag
Speaker 1: continues week after week. But we usually get enough for
Speaker 1: the mailbag, but we can always use more. We always
Speaker 1: want new people to add content, get some new voices.
Speaker 1: Heard Ben Maller show again on the show facebook page.
Speaker 1: Have a great rest of your day. We will catch
Speaker 1: you next time.