Speaker 1: Boom. If you thought four hours a day, minutes a
Speaker 1: week was enough, think again. He's the last remnants of
Speaker 1: the Old republic, a sole fashion of fairness. He treats
Speaker 1: crackheads in the ghetto cutter the same as the rich
Speaker 1: pill poppers in the penthouse, to clearing house 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. We kick
Speaker 1: off the Fifth Hour Weekend Podcast with Ben Maller because hey,
Speaker 1: the overnight show four hours a night not enough and
Speaker 1: eight days a week double barrel action on a Friday
Speaker 1: in If you're listening to this show. If you're new, welcome.
Speaker 1: We always like bringing new people into the store. We
Speaker 1: need to have new customers in the store. It's good
Speaker 1: to have you. I'm not gonna blab that much because
Speaker 1: this is an interview conversation podcast. We like to bring
Speaker 1: in ends to hang out and chat. And we're joined
Speaker 1: by a man, David Gascon, who's gonna be on with
Speaker 1: me here on the podcast. Gascon And I'm excited about
Speaker 1: this one because someone we wanted to get on and uh,
Speaker 1: finally we pulled the string on this and made it happen.
Speaker 1: We're gonna chat with the voice of the Los Angeles Dodgers,
Speaker 1: Charlie Steiner is gonna hang out with us. And I've
Speaker 1: known Charlie casually for you know, a number of years now,
Speaker 1: and I'll see him when I go to these Dodging games,
Speaker 1: hanging out, schmoozing in the press box or whatnot. And
Speaker 1: I've actually known Charlie before he was the voice of
Speaker 1: the Dodgers. He's been the play by play guy for
Speaker 1: the Dodgers for the last I think seventeen seasons. I believe.
Speaker 1: I think he's heading into his seventeenth or eighteen season
Speaker 1: now as the voice of the Dodgers. He's a National
Speaker 1: Radio Hall of Famer. Charlie Stunner. Many people know him
Speaker 1: more as the Sports Center anchor, depending on how old
Speaker 1: you are, right from back in the day. It was
Speaker 1: a legend in the in the heyday of ESPN when
Speaker 1: that was the place, the mecca of sports television before
Speaker 1: everything got watered down in sports media. And also a
Speaker 1: boxing guy. Charlie covered synonymous with boxing for so many
Speaker 1: years and all the big fights Charlie Stunner was reporting
Speaker 1: on and covering and whatnot, and so excited to have
Speaker 1: him in here, just thinking about him. I don't know
Speaker 1: if you were like this when you were younger, but
Speaker 1: I felt like Sports Center when I was a kid
Speaker 1: was appointment TV. It was like finding him, finding you know,
Speaker 1: all these guys that were on there. I mean, Linda Cohnes,
Speaker 1: she did a lot of you know, stuff with hockey.
Speaker 1: But it's still is Keith Olberman, Um Dan Patrick, Tom
Speaker 1: Lee or it was a Tommyes was on there, Tommy's yes, Bobby.
Speaker 1: There's just guys that were on there from start, Chris
Speaker 1: Berman obviously and Tom Jackson. You know, those guys are
Speaker 1: synonymous with the NFL. But yeah, sports that are back
Speaker 1: in the day that was like our our playground, you
Speaker 1: know as kids. Yeah, I mean it's you know, the
Speaker 1: stone age because you're doing it back in the day,
Speaker 1: story you're old, guest gun, you're proving you're old here.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I mean we were consuming sports. You Jonesing
Speaker 1: as a kid, you were like, oh my god. I
Speaker 1: mean my experience not to go too long with it
Speaker 1: because I want to be Charlie in here, but my
Speaker 1: experience with sports consumption, like I had to watch this
Speaker 1: weekend baseball to get baseball highlights. I remember getting the
Speaker 1: Red and the Green book that they would give out
Speaker 1: before the season for the National and the American League.
Speaker 1: The American League was read, the National League was green.
Speaker 1: They gave these books that that's how you got the stats.
Speaker 1: There was, you know, the the internet as it is
Speaker 1: today did not did not exist, and so but sports
Speaker 1: Center that was like you got everything in an hour.
Speaker 1: Sports Center. You get every highlight, every big story. And
Speaker 1: it was so important to watch that, you know, being
Speaker 1: on the West coast we had it. But I think
Speaker 1: the first sports Center was at four o'clock. I think
Speaker 1: our l a time, California time, and that was big.
Speaker 1: And then they'd have the the late Sports Center after
Speaker 1: the games were over. So and Charlie was such a
Speaker 1: big part of that. So anyway, excited to have him on.
Speaker 1: Let's give it up now, the voice of the Dodgers.
Speaker 1: He got the call a final out of the World Series.
Speaker 1: We gotta bring that up. We'll get to that, uh,
Speaker 1: Charlie Steiner, And why don't we start with this, Charlie,
Speaker 1: you've been calling games from your house over the last
Speaker 1: the last baseball season. What is the experience been like
Speaker 1: for you? Uh? And and how different obviously that has
Speaker 1: been for everybody, but for you, as a play by
Speaker 1: play guy in Major League Baseball, you're sitting in your
Speaker 1: home calling games. Tell me what that's been like. Well,
Speaker 1: go back to last July when we were all trying
Speaker 1: to figure out what the season was gonna look like,
Speaker 1: and we had a zoom call. And you're not a
Speaker 1: human being unless you've had at least one, uh with
Speaker 1: the entire broadcast group in our bosses. Um. And it
Speaker 1: was that was three or four days before the first
Speaker 1: exhibition game. And upon the completion of the zoom call,
Speaker 1: I got a call from one of said bosses and
Speaker 1: he said he didn't look happy. I said, well, I
Speaker 1: don't know about happy, but I certainly am apprehensive. And
Speaker 1: you know I am of that age. Uh. I am
Speaker 1: diabetic in these days, who isn't um. So I talked
Speaker 1: to my doctor and I said, so, what do you think?
Speaker 1: And he said, as as a fan, I love that
Speaker 1: view and bow back because this is what I what
Speaker 1: and who I listened to every summer as a friend,
Speaker 1: I'm not so sure. And as as your doctor, are
Speaker 1: you out of your mind? Um? And so it was like, well,
Speaker 1: that was a slap in the face of reality. Um.
Speaker 1: The next thing, I had spoken to Bow and I
Speaker 1: wasn't quite sure. Of course, we're going to do the
Speaker 1: games out of Dodger Stadium, even on the road, the
Speaker 1: sixty games all from there, and my doctor suggested, you know,
Speaker 1: you probably shouldn't. Just don't. Uh. And I called the
Speaker 1: next day and I said, I'm feeling really anxious about it,
Speaker 1: and and if it comes to I'm just gonna have
Speaker 1: to opt out this year. Um. And that was pretty
Speaker 1: much the end of the conversation. I'm thinking, well, gee,
Speaker 1: that's probably the end of my career. And I got
Speaker 1: knocked out by COVID. Next day. They doctors come back
Speaker 1: and said, well, what if you did it from home? Well, um, yes,
Speaker 1: you know, I didn't think it was technically or humanly
Speaker 1: possible to be able to do it, and we did it.
Speaker 1: They added two large monitors in what used to be
Speaker 1: my living room. It became the media room, and thankfully
Speaker 1: this year it has returned to being the living group
Speaker 1: as I ended up doing the games from home. UM
Speaker 1: and MO was at at Dodger Stadium along with Dwayne McDonald,
Speaker 1: our producer and engineer. And it took maybe four or
Speaker 1: five days, three of them being exhibition games. UM, to
Speaker 1: get it more technically and sentive. You know, MO and
Speaker 1: I when we're calling a game, we're not looking at
Speaker 1: each other. We're both looking at the field, and now
Speaker 1: our seventeen here we can fill each other's sentences. And
Speaker 1: so that was never going to be an issue. And
Speaker 1: slowly but surely it seemed to work. UM. And then
Speaker 1: fast forward to you know, the playoffs in the World Series.
Speaker 1: I finally got a chance to watch the World Series film,
Speaker 1: I guess in January. There was no hurry. I knew
Speaker 1: the outcome, But most importantly, I watched the highlight film
Speaker 1: from the very chair that I announced the World Series
Speaker 1: on the very screen that I watched it. And as
Speaker 1: I watched and listened to the highlight film, I could
Speaker 1: have sworn I was in Texas. So technically it worked.
Speaker 1: And I think what's gonna happen down the road in
Speaker 1: our industry in general and some teams in particular. I'm
Speaker 1: not entirely sure that announcers are necessarily gonna go on
Speaker 1: the road for every game. So I think it was
Speaker 1: it was weird. I understood the weirdness of it last
Speaker 1: year and still even this year, we have a giant
Speaker 1: asterisk about how we are living and conducting our lives.
Speaker 1: And that was just kind of part of the drill.
Speaker 1: And I'll finish up this endless answer with this. The
Speaker 1: very first game I ever called was a Brooklyn Dodger
Speaker 1: game in my basement in my home on Long Island
Speaker 1: when I was five. And the most some Dodger game
Speaker 1: that I broadcast was from my living room at my home,
Speaker 1: and they won the World Series and people actually heard it.
Speaker 1: So talk about what goes around comes, Yeah, the circle
Speaker 1: of the circle of life. I think we we all did.
Speaker 1: That is the same thing. I was like you, You're like,
Speaker 1: I'm doing play by playing my home and you know
Speaker 1: you're the final out of the World Series, and you
Speaker 1: called I want to bring that up, Charlie, because on
Speaker 1: the Dodgers flagship a M five seventy, the Dodger Network there, finally,
Speaker 1: after all these years, the long suffering Dodger fans got
Speaker 1: to hear a radio call of their team winning the
Speaker 1: World Series, and you had a great call. Uh, finally
Speaker 1: the weight is over. Tears of joy let them flow.
Speaker 1: I mean I remember a lot of it. And you
Speaker 1: mentioned eighty eight as well. Uh, you've you've had a
Speaker 1: lot of big moments. How concerned, how nervous were you?
Speaker 1: Did not screw up in that spot? I mean, you
Speaker 1: nailed it, But how concerned were you? Because you you
Speaker 1: can anticipate the Dodges like you're gonna win because of
Speaker 1: the lead they had at the time late in the game.
Speaker 1: But what was the what was going through your mind
Speaker 1: as it was getting closer to your You're gonna have
Speaker 1: to make that call at the end of the World Series.
Speaker 1: That morning I called Vin, who with whom we still
Speaker 1: have a wonderful friendship. He has been a mentor, a
Speaker 1: father like that, You're again the babe Ruth of our business.
Speaker 1: So I called him that morning. I said, so, I
Speaker 1: got this if they win to night, I had this
Speaker 1: great idea and he said, oh yeah, what's that? I said,
Speaker 1: I have had a line like in a year that's
Speaker 1: been so improbable. Uh and he said, I believe it's
Speaker 1: taken um and so, and I said, so, you know,
Speaker 1: it was one of those you just go you go
Speaker 1: to the Grand puba for just not advice. We just
Speaker 1: talked and who was not talking off the ledge, It
Speaker 1: was just going in before a big game and talking
Speaker 1: to a former player in this case. So what I've
Speaker 1: been thinking about. And one of the things you really
Speaker 1: don't want to do is uh prepare and write out
Speaker 1: a script any of that stuff. You just let it,
Speaker 1: let it rip from your head and your heart and
Speaker 1: your eyes. And the word that kept going through my
Speaker 1: head all day was joy and how much joy this
Speaker 1: would bring and how little joy any of us had
Speaker 1: experienced that year, And it just all came together. Um
Speaker 1: And I was, I was, And you're right, there is
Speaker 1: that nagging fear, old lord, please don't fuck it up.
Speaker 1: Um and and and I remember when I had the
Speaker 1: Aaron Boone call in two thousand and three, when he
Speaker 1: at the game winner and the Yankees walked off against
Speaker 1: the Red Sox would go to the World Series, remembers
Speaker 1: of the circling the basis, and I had made the
Speaker 1: call in the back of my head because it happened
Speaker 1: so quickly, I said, please, you know, finished the call cleanly.
Speaker 1: Um And I did with that, and I guess I
Speaker 1: did with this too. But you know, again, the story
Speaker 1: was obviously the Dodgers had won, and finally there was
Speaker 1: something for all of us to be happy about. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was. It was a great call. And you mentioned
Speaker 1: you did the Yankee games for for a few years
Speaker 1: back in the day. What's the biggest difference. These are
Speaker 1: the two biggest markets in the country, and you know
Speaker 1: you're on the on the radio doing Yankee games, you're
Speaker 1: doing Dodging games. You've been doing Dodging games for in
Speaker 1: almost twenty years now, But what's the what's the big
Speaker 1: difference between a Yankee broadcast and a Dodger broadcast or
Speaker 1: is it all the same? You know, at the end
Speaker 1: of the day, without sounding high falut the game is
Speaker 1: still a game. The moment is still a moment, and
Speaker 1: when you go and do what it is we do,
Speaker 1: all you can do is the best that you can.
Speaker 1: Um You know, in New York, I was working with
Speaker 1: John Sterling and it was really to play by play
Speaker 1: announcers and sometimes it worked and sometimes it didn't. But
Speaker 1: at the end of the day we had a pretty
Speaker 1: good broadcast and that was that. And then when we
Speaker 1: came out here to work with mo and this is
Speaker 1: you're right, it's gonna be my seventeenth year now, um
Speaker 1: are our roles were more clearly defined, and that I
Speaker 1: think makes for a cleaner broadcast and and we're very lucky.
Speaker 1: Mo and I we become friends, were family, um, and
Speaker 1: we're talking about it right after the that night, at
Speaker 1: the end of the post game coverage. UM. Because of
Speaker 1: the year that was, you know, so improbable. There's moat
Speaker 1: Dodger Stadium and I'm at home, and Dwayne is at
Speaker 1: Dodger Stadium. We didn't see one of them. Yet we are.
Speaker 1: Our bond, which was always strong, grew stronger because we
Speaker 1: persevered all this craziness together. And it was it was
Speaker 1: a It became a lot more meaningful than even just
Speaker 1: winning a World Series that we've managed to persevere like
Speaker 1: everybody else, like every Dodger, like every Dodger fans. Somehow
Speaker 1: we got through it. And uh and one, yeah, it was.
Speaker 1: It was great to listen to you. And I couldn't
Speaker 1: tell I did. I thought at one point I thought
Speaker 1: you were actually in Texas. It sounded it did sound
Speaker 1: like you were. You were there where the World Series
Speaker 1: was going on. But I here's the things I want
Speaker 1: to tell a story, Charlie. And you probably don't know
Speaker 1: this story because it's not important to you at all,
Speaker 1: but it's important to me. So when I first met you.
Speaker 1: You were doing Sunday Night Baseball for ESPN Radio with
Speaker 1: Kevin Kennedy. This isn't like the late nineties, and I
Speaker 1: actually did stats for you. I don't if you probably
Speaker 1: don't remember that, but I did stats for you a
Speaker 1: few times. And my shining moment, Charlie, was a Giant
Speaker 1: Dodger game on a Sunday night and Ellis Burks was playing.
Speaker 1: I think he came up from the Rockies that year,
Speaker 1: was playing for the Giants and uh and uh this
Speaker 1: was like the Bonds Kent Giants and it was fact
Speaker 1: and Brian worked together. Yes, there you go. So Brian
Speaker 1: Bohanan was he had the Dodgers picked him up. He
Speaker 1: was the picture. So I found some stat about al
Speaker 1: Ellis Burks had this great career, you know, a bunch
Speaker 1: of home runs against Brian Bohanna. So I handed you
Speaker 1: this like note, right, I gave you this note and uh,
Speaker 1: the like the next pitch after you had gave the stat,
Speaker 1: Ellis Burks hit a home run into the pavilion at
Speaker 1: Dodgers Stadium. That was a long time ago, but I
Speaker 1: bring that up because it makes me feel good because
Speaker 1: I remember it. And how have stats changed because there's
Speaker 1: so many more stats now, Charlie, and you're the play
Speaker 1: by play guy, and I think I out of baseball
Speaker 1: on the radio is more telling stories. But there's a
Speaker 1: status of everything these days. So how do you handle that? Ben?
Speaker 1: You're absolutely right, Um. On radio it's a much more
Speaker 1: of a storyteller's medium. If you know, when you start
Speaker 1: talking about war and VIP and this and that, if
Speaker 1: you see it on your screen, okay, you kind of
Speaker 1: get it. And even then you need some interpreters say
Speaker 1: what does this actually mean? Except some numbers on the radio,
Speaker 1: if you start running off numbers like this plus three
Speaker 1: minus two, somebody stuck in traffic, it's just gonna go
Speaker 1: either over their heads or through the ears from one
Speaker 1: side to the other. So for me and for Moe
Speaker 1: and again we're we're older. We are less in terms
Speaker 1: of broadcasters statistically driven than younger broadcasters. We still stick
Speaker 1: with the story, Um at the end of the day.
Speaker 1: And again, I'm proudly an old school baseball guy. Give
Speaker 1: me the back of a baseball card. If I haven't
Speaker 1: seen a player before, then I can have at least
Speaker 1: a pretty good idea of what he is capable of doing.
Speaker 1: But you know, the defense of this and and offensive that.
Speaker 1: It's like it's still a game played by people. It's
Speaker 1: not like my Apple computer is better than your Mac
Speaker 1: or your your bell or whatever it is. Um and
Speaker 1: it's it's just for me. Let the players play and
Speaker 1: how they play. It's up to us then to describe
Speaker 1: what they're doing well or not And does a guy
Speaker 1: make a catch or not make a catch based on
Speaker 1: some arbitrary statistics to me, not necessarily so. I again,
Speaker 1: most been around a long time. I've been around a
Speaker 1: long time, and we've seen a lot. Hopefully we can
Speaker 1: tell stories pretty well. Be sure to catch live edition
Speaker 1: so the Ben Maller Show weekdays at two am Eastern
Speaker 1: eleven pm Pacific. Fox Sports Radio has the best sports
Speaker 1: talk lineup in the nation. Catch all of our shows
Speaker 1: at Fox Sports Radio dot com and within the I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio app search f s R to listen live.
Speaker 1: And Charlie speaking of those stories and the history that
Speaker 1: you have for the game of baseball, what about when
Speaker 1: you're at the ballpark. I don't know if Ben wants
Speaker 1: me to bring this up, and I'll do it anyway.
Speaker 1: He hit outcasted me a few years ago to go
Speaker 1: to Bakersfield to call minor league baseball, and uh I
Speaker 1: did so, but con took some of his advice about
Speaker 1: journaling everything that you do. It's about that story, right. Um,
Speaker 1: So it's fascinating to learn about these guys that are
Speaker 1: minor leaguers trying to get to the show. But when
Speaker 1: you're in the show, what about the interaction that you
Speaker 1: have with these players prior to first pitch, when they're stretching, throwing,
Speaker 1: limbering up up that it has changed dramatically over the years.
Speaker 1: It is and again now you're gonna hear some cranky
Speaker 1: old guys screaming, get off my law and you're rotting kid.
Speaker 1: But the reality is the interaction between writers and broadcasters
Speaker 1: and players is so significantly different that it was certainly
Speaker 1: when I first started out and the years before I
Speaker 1: got into it. That was in a day when you
Speaker 1: went back to the hotel after a game and you'd
Speaker 1: have a beer with a player who is relatively speaking
Speaker 1: of contemporary where the dollar disparity between players and those
Speaker 1: who cover them was not so vast, in a day
Speaker 1: when now players and their agents can control whatever it
Speaker 1: is they want to say or not say, through their
Speaker 1: own social media accounts. So all of that has fundamentally changed,
Speaker 1: um and and and for us old guys, that's sad
Speaker 1: because part of what it was that drew us to
Speaker 1: calling games was to be able to paint the picture
Speaker 1: and get inside the heads of these guys, which doesn't
Speaker 1: frankly exist very much anymore now because of the pandemic
Speaker 1: and zoom calls and all of that. You don't see
Speaker 1: or hear um no matter the newspaper or the radio
Speaker 1: station or the network anything different, They're all saying the
Speaker 1: same thing based on the limited availability that they have
Speaker 1: to the players. So there, it's fundamentally different. And so
Speaker 1: what what I'm trying to do, And as this technology
Speaker 1: evolves and how the game has changed, it has tried
Speaker 1: to reflect on players or instances that are similar to
Speaker 1: what the players are given players in this given play
Speaker 1: might have been. So it is different, and I'm not
Speaker 1: entirely sure it's going to go back to what it
Speaker 1: once was because of the differences now in time. Then
Speaker 1: have you ever had or even recently, have you had
Speaker 1: one of those? David Price, Dennis Eckersley, I guess, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, And if I have, I don't care. You know,
Speaker 1: the player might you know, I can't. That's where it
Speaker 1: is fundamentally different. Um, when players tell you they don't watch,
Speaker 1: or they don't read, or they don't listen, they are
Speaker 1: so full of it. Um, they just are. They know
Speaker 1: exactly what's been said and what I think. We all
Speaker 1: have to understand what you're doing, Ben, what I'm doing,
Speaker 1: what players are doing. We all live in this cohes system.
Speaker 1: The players play and we talk about it. May make
Speaker 1: an error and we have to mention it. Um. That's
Speaker 1: not to say we're not going to make a mistake
Speaker 1: or we're gonna blow a call. But we're all in
Speaker 1: this giant ecosystem. And the more we all, all of
Speaker 1: us understand it, the better it is ultimately for the customer,
Speaker 1: and that's the fan who wants to learn as much
Speaker 1: as they can about the game, about a moment, about
Speaker 1: a player. But again, that's where it has fundamentally changed
Speaker 1: over the years, and and there's a greater distance between
Speaker 1: media and players, and I think that I've ever experienced,
Speaker 1: and I've been doing this a long time now. Well
Speaker 1: with the reduction and travel that that's added some time
Speaker 1: onto the time stamp for you do you have an
Speaker 1: end date at all, Charlie or do you feel like
Speaker 1: you're well? You know, and the Doggers have been so
Speaker 1: unspeakably good to me. The fact that I am not
Speaker 1: traveling much anymore. Um, you know, I've been lucky enough
Speaker 1: in many ways to walk in the same path that
Speaker 1: then did, and then was the first one to start
Speaker 1: cutting back on schedule and travel and the road you
Speaker 1: do it a lot. It beat you up, and at
Speaker 1: some point I just said, okay, I this is this
Speaker 1: is now not as much fun as it used to be.
Speaker 1: And as I say that, you don't have that much
Speaker 1: of a relationship anymore between players, whether it's a you know,
Speaker 1: a local bar and whatever it is now. Of course,
Speaker 1: with the pandemic, nobody's going anywhere anyway. So it's still
Speaker 1: fun to call a game, only the discipline has changed
Speaker 1: because the circumstances around us have changed. What's your favorite
Speaker 1: sporting event to call? Oh, I guess the seventh game
Speaker 1: of the World series? Like take all that aside, Like
Speaker 1: a championship is one thing, but I mean, like if
Speaker 1: it's just a regular game or just a regular boxing match, Like,
Speaker 1: what is your favorite event? I've been so lucky. I
Speaker 1: covered boxing in theirs last Golden era. It began with
Speaker 1: Ali and ended with Tyson biting Holy Fields here and
Speaker 1: pretty much every big fight in between. The night of
Speaker 1: a heavyweight championship, when you know there tens of thousands
Speaker 1: at the arena, millions watching around the world, the loneliness
Speaker 1: of the two fighters coming down from their respective locker rooms,
Speaker 1: in their in their satin robes, crowd going crazy. There's
Speaker 1: nothing quite like the adrenaline of that. And one of
Speaker 1: the reasons why I decided to get away from boxing,
Speaker 1: it was because that wasn't existing much anymore either. So
Speaker 1: one of those or the end, it's a patient of
Speaker 1: a championship game. I did a bunch of rose bowls,
Speaker 1: and look, I've had a very gumpy and experience. I've
Speaker 1: been really lucky. I've covered a lot of big stuff.
Speaker 1: But you know, as crazy as it was, calling the
Speaker 1: World Series from my living room had the same adrenaline
Speaker 1: rush for me that night as uh, covering any of
Speaker 1: those championship fights. Charlie, it's time to get out the
Speaker 1: crystal ball. You've mentioned that you don't think things are
Speaker 1: going to go back to the way they were. Uh,
Speaker 1: let me let me quiz you here, Now, what does that?
Speaker 1: What does that mean the locker room access? Do you
Speaker 1: do you believe that we will get back to non
Speaker 1: zoom calls once we move on from the pandemic? Or
Speaker 1: are they are they just gonna limit access to the
Speaker 1: locker room in general and just have the way it
Speaker 1: is right now be the new normal. The answer is,
Speaker 1: I'm not sure, but I am reasonably sure that players
Speaker 1: are very happy not to have me media in their workspace.
Speaker 1: I think they've always treated it, even in less antagonistic
Speaker 1: days between media and players, as their workspace. It's their office,
Speaker 1: and they don't like people coming into their office. Um
Speaker 1: And I get that. Um so will it at some
Speaker 1: point return to what it was? I don't know, Ben,
Speaker 1: you're down there before games, how many guys are actually
Speaker 1: in the club house when you go looking for room
Speaker 1: there in the quiet room, there, in the trainers room.
Speaker 1: It's not like, oh, hey, here's Ben, let's go talk. Yeah. No, exactly.
Speaker 1: And that's the big too, each because especially with these
Speaker 1: new locker rooms, well I guess they're not new anymore.
Speaker 1: They're all old lock But remember the old days, they
Speaker 1: didn't have as many hiding places so the guys had
Speaker 1: to stay A lot of them had to stay in
Speaker 1: their lockers because there was there weren't a lot of
Speaker 1: places to go. But now and they and they rather
Speaker 1: enjoyed it. I must tell you again, going back to
Speaker 1: years when I would be in a clubhouse with an
Speaker 1: old tape recorder over my shoulder and a little hand
Speaker 1: mike and all of that, there was a greater understanding
Speaker 1: of that ecosystem I was talking about earlier, where okay,
Speaker 1: this is part of the drill, and so after a
Speaker 1: game you might sit with a player, have a beer
Speaker 1: with him, and smoke a cigarette with him, and again
Speaker 1: showing how much how far back it goes, but it
Speaker 1: was it was part of the understanding of their workspace,
Speaker 1: our workspace, and our mutual love for baseball. Uh. Now
Speaker 1: you've got players who've got their agents, they've got their
Speaker 1: their Twitter feeds, I've got all this other stuff that
Speaker 1: seems to take a greater priority for their time and
Speaker 1: space than players who preceded them by So it's it's different.
Speaker 1: So to answer the questions, they're gonna go back, it
Speaker 1: might will the relationships be what they once were? Not likely?
Speaker 1: And then, as you also reference the play by play
Speaker 1: guys on the road, and that a lot. I understand
Speaker 1: a lot of teams this year also, at least at
Speaker 1: the beginning of the year, the broadcasters are not going
Speaker 1: to travel this this season in general. So is that
Speaker 1: something that you think the majority of the teams are
Speaker 1: just gonna avoid paying for. There's a lot of money
Speaker 1: to travel and stay at these hotels and it's a
Speaker 1: big expense, absolutely right. I think that maybe I'm not
Speaker 1: saying definitively, but it may be a a by product
Speaker 1: of the post pandemic era. Um And again, if I
Speaker 1: can listen to the World Series films and I hear
Speaker 1: me and I know I'm in this room having broadcasts
Speaker 1: that yet watching it there and knowing that we're sounding
Speaker 1: like I was there when I wasn't, I think what
Speaker 1: will eventually happen to some degree it will cut down
Speaker 1: on announcers traveling because they don't have to. Yeah. Well,
Speaker 1: and Charlie, just in general, you've had such a great
Speaker 1: run here with your many stops along the way. But
Speaker 1: there's people, some listeners, a little younger guys that they
Speaker 1: want to they want to be you, Charlie. They want
Speaker 1: to reach the heights of Charlie Stein, any pearls of
Speaker 1: wisdom you have for the younger generations that are listening,
Speaker 1: they want to follow in your footsteps. Don't be afraid
Speaker 1: to fail, be available, Um, be prepared. There are no shortcuts.
Speaker 1: It's hard. It is Uh. It is a very subjective business.
Speaker 1: Some people may think you're wonderful, and different people here
Speaker 1: the same thing that the others heard. It's like chiefus,
Speaker 1: he's awful. Um. All you can do is the best
Speaker 1: you can um and and work real hard and be around.
Speaker 1: And as branch Rickey said, luck is the resident of design.
Speaker 1: If you're there, you might get lucky. But nobody's gonna
Speaker 1: knock on your front door and say, hey, would you
Speaker 1: like to come and be a Major League Baseball announcer.
Speaker 1: You kind of work your ass off to get there,
Speaker 1: and even then, there's no guarantee you're gonna get it. Yeah. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: And Uh you mentioned earlier social media. Uh, that is
Speaker 1: something that's changed in our lifetimes. Charlie A lot with
Speaker 1: the the importance the importance of social media. And I
Speaker 1: have a love hate relationship with with social media. I'm
Speaker 1: on there because of the job and did a talk show.
Speaker 1: You need to be on there and whatnot. But it's
Speaker 1: I'm not a big fan, but how how has that
Speaker 1: entered into the equation because so many of the stories
Speaker 1: today in the sports news cycle seemed to come from
Speaker 1: Instagram or Twitter. It's, uh, it's a fascin any change
Speaker 1: that's taken place. I don't know if it's a change
Speaker 1: for the better. Do you think it's a change for
Speaker 1: the better? Not? Really? No, I do not have a
Speaker 1: Twitter account. Um My feeling is if I have something
Speaker 1: to say, I will say it on Mike during a
Speaker 1: game or with you. Um, and that's as far as
Speaker 1: it goes. You know, I don't care much about what
Speaker 1: I think let alone. Uh do I necessarily want to
Speaker 1: share that with people that I do not know? So no,
Speaker 1: I'm not a fan of it. I do look at
Speaker 1: it on occasion just to get a sense of, you know,
Speaker 1: what fans are thinking about. But I would I would
Speaker 1: never engage in that because it's just not that's not
Speaker 1: a neighborhood I want to live in. Now. You were
Speaker 1: the you were a big guy at ESPN when in
Speaker 1: the heyday I consider the heyday of ESPN. Uh, you know,
Speaker 1: it's still a monster, is probably bigger now than it
Speaker 1: was then, but as far as financially, but that matter, Charlie.
Speaker 1: In those days when you were doing Sports Center and
Speaker 1: there was no there wasn't social media and the Internet
Speaker 1: was still you know, in the early stages and it
Speaker 1: was archaic and and things like that. That Sports Center,
Speaker 1: when you hosted that show, that was musty TV. That's
Speaker 1: how people got the sporting news. What was it like
Speaker 1: in those early days at ESPN when I mean all
Speaker 1: you guys became big stars, you know, in that time
Speaker 1: and then in the years that followed, but you guys
Speaker 1: have had great careers. But what was it like when
Speaker 1: you were doing that? And that was that was the
Speaker 1: epicenter of sports media. I was, I was so lucky. UM.
Speaker 1: I got hired in nineteen eight, never having had a
Speaker 1: look of television experience. UM. But a fellow named John
Speaker 1: Walsh came in and his task was to turn Sports
Speaker 1: Center into something UH. And then they started to high
Speaker 1: or people UM and I was. I was the first
Speaker 1: of the new breed that they brought in as an anchor.
Speaker 1: And again I had to learn on the fly. UM.
Speaker 1: Peter Gammon's was just starting, Andrea Kramer was just starting UH,
Speaker 1: and they had no television experience either. Uh. And then
Speaker 1: within a year year and a half, Dan Patrick came in,
Speaker 1: Keith Olberman came in, Robert Roberts came in, Young Mike
Speaker 1: Tarico came in UM and it was this surge of
Speaker 1: talent um and we were working in this little pip
Speaker 1: squeak town, Bristol, Connecticut. And it was in fact my
Speaker 1: agent at the time when when when they find they
Speaker 1: made an offer to me, they reached out and said,
Speaker 1: do you want to come here? Okay, he said he
Speaker 1: didn't think it was a very good idea. It's a
Speaker 1: you know, it's a little cable station in Connecticut. I said, well,
Speaker 1: if ever I was gonna try television, this is as
Speaker 1: good as any and if it didn't work out, I
Speaker 1: could always go back to radio, where I had had
Speaker 1: some success. And so all of a sudden, this sports
Speaker 1: center thing is beginning to take off. And we were
Speaker 1: the last ones to realize. I mean, we just lifted Connecticut,
Speaker 1: were playing TV and this thing. ESPN was coming on
Speaker 1: the air, MTV was coming on the air, CNN was
Speaker 1: coming on on the air. All in the late seventies
Speaker 1: early eighties, and it was like WHOA, so we got
Speaker 1: swept up on it, uh and in it had no idea,
Speaker 1: I mean, no idea that it would become the thing
Speaker 1: that it became. And then I think the thing that
Speaker 1: really kind of put us over the top ultimately, at
Speaker 1: least in terms of Sports Center personalities and all that,
Speaker 1: were the Sports Center commercials, which still have a pretty
Speaker 1: good shelf life. So again we were the last ones
Speaker 1: to know. And the other thing I think that made
Speaker 1: it successful was the fact that we were in Bristol
Speaker 1: and we had nobody else except us, So it became
Speaker 1: this nuclear family inside this concrete building uh in Connecticut.
Speaker 1: And so we as a group grew up together and
Speaker 1: we as a group were watched by, you know, as
Speaker 1: it turned out, millions of people, and everybody was wondering
Speaker 1: how they got to sit twenty four hours a day
Speaker 1: of sports. Wow, they did. And we were just all
Speaker 1: very fortunate. I got to work with Bob Lee for
Speaker 1: every day for twelve of my fourteen years there, and
Speaker 1: Bob and Robin Roberts and either three of us were
Speaker 1: together every day for about seven years. So we're just
Speaker 1: lucky and it worked out. You know, luck is the
Speaker 1: residue of design. Yeah, and and even all you know
Speaker 1: these years later, since you've been doing the baseball those
Speaker 1: those highlights on on YouTube. Some of your the commercials
Speaker 1: are still popular, the blooper videos that I gotta ask
Speaker 1: you about that now. You mentioned you have not done
Speaker 1: TV before. Your laugh so infectious. My My favorite was
Speaker 1: you were doing the Mitch blood Green uh story, and
Speaker 1: that was what was it like? Like? What were the
Speaker 1: people like around the camera and the support staff and
Speaker 1: the people you're working with, because you you lost it
Speaker 1: a couple of times on it was great television. But
Speaker 1: what was were they busting your chops while you were
Speaker 1: doing that? What was that like? The first time I
Speaker 1: lost it was Carl Lewis and his wretched rendition of
Speaker 1: the national anthem um. And at that point that was so,
Speaker 1: I'm I'm on the air maybe three years. I'm still
Speaker 1: trying to get my uh my, shea legs under me.
Speaker 1: And that morning, uh, driving to work, I listened on
Speaker 1: the radio and they had about a ten second clip
Speaker 1: of Carl Lewis butchering the anthem. It was the Nets
Speaker 1: and Bulls in Jersey And so we had a production
Speaker 1: meeting every day about ten ten thirty for our seven
Speaker 1: o'clock show, and I said, I heard the damnedest thing
Speaker 1: on the radio today, Carl Lewis doing the anthem, and
Speaker 1: it wasn't very good. Maybe the tape room has it
Speaker 1: from last night. We fift twenty minutes later, they come upstairs,
Speaker 1: back when there were cartridge tapes, put it in, and
Speaker 1: the entire anthem is in there, and oh this is gold. Um.
Speaker 1: And they always would give me the kicker, the final
Speaker 1: story of the of the night. You know, something stupid
Speaker 1: that I was. I was good at stupid. So now
Speaker 1: we decided that's gonna be the last story of the day. Um.
Speaker 1: And throughout the day people keep hearing about this Carl
Speaker 1: Lewis thing. And they came by and and and where
Speaker 1: I sat. Long before we had offices, we had little pods. Um.
Speaker 1: They kept they popped in the Carl Lewis anthem and
Speaker 1: it it was awful. And every time I heard it,
Speaker 1: I laughed. And I'm figuring by seven o'clock, having heard
Speaker 1: it maybe twenty or twenty five times that day, I
Speaker 1: would have been laughed out raw. Um. So he sings
Speaker 1: and I'm gonna make it up to you and all
Speaker 1: of that, and it was historically bad, and I got lucky.
Speaker 1: I gotta as I'm losing it now. Um that popped
Speaker 1: into my head Francis Scott off Key. I don't know
Speaker 1: where it came from, but I'm glad that it did
Speaker 1: so anyway, So now I have thoroughly lost it. I'm
Speaker 1: on the air for about thirty seconds and bookers are
Speaker 1: flying out of my nose and spits coming out of
Speaker 1: my mouth. And I go back upstairs when the day
Speaker 1: has done, put my earpiece in my desk and all that,
Speaker 1: and I'm thinking, I'm I'm done, I'm fired. This is
Speaker 1: this is not gonna this is not gonna last. When
Speaker 1: I go up into the newsroom, everybody is still laughing, hysteric.
Speaker 1: I'm thinking, Okay, well, maybe I can survive this thing.
Speaker 1: That night, at the eleven o'clock show, Keith and Dan,
Speaker 1: I think the first and only time they ever re
Speaker 1: aired an entire segment from the seven o'clock show of
Speaker 1: me and Carl Lewis, and and then the reaction was
Speaker 1: such and it became in many ways kind of liberating
Speaker 1: that if I could survive that, and I wasn't worried
Speaker 1: about what the camera was seeing because I had lost it.
Speaker 1: Then it just naturally loosened me up on television, and
Speaker 1: so it was it was therapeutic for me as a broadcaster,
Speaker 1: and so then when I saw funny and stupid stuff,
Speaker 1: it was easy you for me to just let it go. Charlie,
Speaker 1: what's your favorite ESPN commercial that you ever did? Ben
Speaker 1: and I were talking about an off air, so kind
Speaker 1: of curious to what you thought. I guess followed me
Speaker 1: to Freedom only because works. You know. I did one
Speaker 1: with Melrose Place. It was Bobby the pool Boy, and
Speaker 1: again they gave me a lot of you know, punch
Speaker 1: line that was a walking punch line for fourteen years there.
Speaker 1: But I guess followed me to Freedom, which is now
Speaker 1: more than twenty years old, still works. Yeah, it does that. Hey, Charlie,
Speaker 1: thank you so much. I appreciate it. I hope to
Speaker 1: see you at the ballpark when things get back to
Speaker 1: some sense of normal there. I haven't seen you in
Speaker 1: a while, but thanks for coming on and continued domination
Speaker 1: on the Dodge and broadcast. I hear you all the time,
Speaker 1: and you're you're doing a great job. So thank you
Speaker 1: so much, and thank you so much for having to
Speaker 1: appreciate it. Be sure to catch live editions of The
Speaker 1: Ben Miller Show weekdays at two am Eastern eleven pm Pacific.
Speaker 1: Fox Sports Radio has the best sports talk lineup in
Speaker 1: the nation. Catch all of our shows at Fox sports
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Speaker 1: search f s R to listen live.