WEBVTT - A Cross Country Journey 0:00:02.720 --> 0:00:06.160 If you thought four hours a day, minutes a week 0:00:06.280 --> 0:00:09.680 was enough, I think again. He's the last remnants of 0:00:09.720 --> 0:00:13.360 the old republic, a sole fashion of fairness. He treats 0:00:13.400 --> 0:00:16.239 crackheads in the ghetto gutter the same as the rich 0:00:16.280 --> 0:00:20.319 pill poppers in the penthouse, the clearing house of hot 0:00:20.360 --> 0:00:24.160 takes break free for something special, The Fifth Hour, which 0:00:24.239 --> 0:00:29.640 Ben Maller starts right now. We are in the air 0:00:30.160 --> 0:00:34.240 everywhere the vast power of podcasting. It is, as you 0:00:34.320 --> 0:00:37.680 heard there, the Fifth Hour with Ben Maller, Because four 0:00:37.720 --> 0:00:40.720 hours on the overnight or not enough. And we do 0:00:40.800 --> 0:00:43.360 this podcast eight days a week, and you're in for 0:00:43.440 --> 0:00:47.280 a special treat. If you are a connoisseur of sports 0:00:47.360 --> 0:00:50.600 talk radio, we are going to give you, in a 0:00:50.640 --> 0:00:54.720 few minutes one of the legends, one of the Mount Rushmore. 0:00:54.760 --> 0:00:57.080 I hate doing Mount Rushmore type statements, but this is 0:00:57.080 --> 0:00:59.880 one of the legends of sports talk radio. We're gonna 0:00:59.880 --> 0:01:02.280 have on here in a couple of minutes. We'll we'll 0:01:02.320 --> 0:01:04.880 walk you through that we as always are joined for 0:01:04.959 --> 0:01:08.720 better or worse by the man affectionately known in the 0:01:08.800 --> 0:01:12.080 highway hallways of Fox Sports Radio as a gagon. Easaid 0:01:12.120 --> 0:01:17.000 for me to say David Gascon anthy more so better 0:01:17.280 --> 0:01:19.959 and uh, I don't know if you know this because 0:01:20.000 --> 0:01:22.520 you aren't in the hallways. But nobody's saying anything in 0:01:22.520 --> 0:01:25.440 the hallways these days, since it's a ghost down here. 0:01:25.800 --> 0:01:28.480 That is true. That is true. So I'm not gonna 0:01:28.880 --> 0:01:32.280 you know, do much ps here. This is an interview podcast, 0:01:32.520 --> 0:01:34.920 and we had a chance to catch up with someone 0:01:34.920 --> 0:01:39.039 who was very influential, uh in my career and Gascon, 0:01:39.360 --> 0:01:41.559 you're aware of this guy. I don't think you worked 0:01:41.560 --> 0:01:45.720 with him, but you you're aware of his his history here. Uh. 0:01:45.760 --> 0:01:49.080 The first sports talk radio station on the West Coast 0:01:49.160 --> 0:01:53.200 was the Mighty six ninety and the man that was 0:01:53.320 --> 0:01:55.880 the face of the mighty six ninety in San Diego 0:01:56.480 --> 0:02:00.160 was Lee hack Saw Hamilton's and if you listen to 0:02:00.240 --> 0:02:02.720 me b s. Over the years, I learned a lot 0:02:02.880 --> 0:02:06.560 about the business as an intern in San Diego at 0:02:06.560 --> 0:02:08.640 the mighty six ninety and then eventually I worked as 0:02:08.680 --> 0:02:12.720 a radio I was an engineer, board op, I worked 0:02:12.760 --> 0:02:14.440 my way up. I was a reporter, so I had 0:02:14.480 --> 0:02:15.920 a lot of different jobs. But I started as an 0:02:15.919 --> 0:02:20.560 intern for Lee Hacks on Hambleton's pulling carts, which this 0:02:20.680 --> 0:02:23.240 old technology but these commercials would be played on these 0:02:23.240 --> 0:02:26.519 little cassette machines, these these cart things, and I would 0:02:26.560 --> 0:02:28.640 pull those and I would have to go back and 0:02:28.720 --> 0:02:31.720 check the high speed sports wire and all that. But 0:02:31.800 --> 0:02:35.120 I didn't talked to to Lee Hamilton's in many, many years. 0:02:35.160 --> 0:02:37.880 He was the voice of the San Diego Charger with 0:02:37.960 --> 0:02:42.520 the Seattle Seahawks Arizona State back in the day. San 0:02:42.560 --> 0:02:47.560 Diego State at a bunch of great jobs in the business. 0:02:48.639 --> 0:02:51.239 And this is like to me, Gascon, this is gonna 0:02:51.280 --> 0:02:54.079 be sports talk radio. Porn is what this is gonna be. Yeah, 0:02:54.200 --> 0:02:56.160 And the best part about it is he's not a 0:02:56.240 --> 0:02:58.240 one trick pony, which is great. So you get a 0:02:58.240 --> 0:03:02.120 guy that has covered every board imaginable and he's got 0:03:02.160 --> 0:03:04.760 great context too. So it's not like the guy shooting 0:03:04.760 --> 0:03:06.720 from the hip it's twenty or thirty years old that's 0:03:06.720 --> 0:03:09.200 throwing hot takes out. There's a guy that's that built 0:03:09.200 --> 0:03:16.560 a career years and talked to a ton of athletes football, baseball, basketball, hockey, tennis, 0:03:16.760 --> 0:03:19.400 box thing like the whole the whole smash. So it's 0:03:19.560 --> 0:03:21.880 a lot of fun. Yeah, it's pretty cool. And the 0:03:22.000 --> 0:03:24.799 thing too about hacks, I am you always bust my balls, 0:03:24.840 --> 0:03:28.120 gas on about being overprepared and all this. If I learned. 0:03:28.200 --> 0:03:29.919 One of the people I learned from was Lee hack 0:03:29.960 --> 0:03:33.000 saw Hamilton's who would spend all day in his office 0:03:34.040 --> 0:03:36.480 preparing for that radio show and the play by play 0:03:36.480 --> 0:03:38.680 and all that, and I I saw how hard he 0:03:38.720 --> 0:03:41.520 worked and how successful he was. And then I saw 0:03:41.560 --> 0:03:43.720 some other people that didn't work hard, that just kind 0:03:43.720 --> 0:03:45.880 of showed up a minute before the show and didn't 0:03:45.920 --> 0:03:48.720 have any preparation. I saw how they failed, and so 0:03:48.840 --> 0:03:51.720 I made a correlation that you know, this is important. 0:03:51.720 --> 0:03:53.760 I figured, like, if I'm gonna make this my career, 0:03:53.760 --> 0:03:55.880 I gotta work at it. But one of the influences 0:03:55.920 --> 0:03:58.880 was hacked off. If Haxall had shown up two minutes 0:03:58.920 --> 0:04:02.760 before show and just started bloviating, I probably would have 0:04:02.800 --> 0:04:04.800 been more like that and just showing up and just 0:04:04.840 --> 0:04:06.880 said I don't care whatever, and I'd probably be doing 0:04:06.920 --> 0:04:10.880 something else right now then radio. But anyway, let's you 0:04:10.880 --> 0:04:12.720 don't want to hear this, you want to hear hacks All. 0:04:12.800 --> 0:04:17.080 Let's welcome in on the high Speed Sports Wire. Actually 0:04:17.080 --> 0:04:18.920 know that that that would be the hotline, right, what 0:04:19.200 --> 0:04:22.240 do you call it? Back in the the Hotline. How 0:04:22.279 --> 0:04:26.640 the Newsmaker Hotline? Yeah, the new the Newsmaker Hotline from 0:04:26.760 --> 0:04:31.120 Bah hot of the Canadian Rockies. My friend and one 0:04:31.160 --> 0:04:35.560 of my mentors in radio, Lee Hacksaw Hamilton's and Lee, 0:04:35.760 --> 0:04:37.599 why don't we start out with this For the people 0:04:37.680 --> 0:04:40.240 that are unaware of your history? I just gave a 0:04:40.279 --> 0:04:42.479 little bit of it. But how did you get the 0:04:42.560 --> 0:04:46.400 nickname hacks All? I still chat with you, Ben Well now. 0:04:46.520 --> 0:04:50.760 I started in sports talk radio in the early nineties 0:04:51.000 --> 0:04:54.440 in Phoenix. I had come to Phoenix from Cleveland, where 0:04:54.440 --> 0:04:57.360 had done hockey and some sports talk, went to Phoenix 0:04:57.360 --> 0:05:00.760 and kind of built a sports talk show empire over there. 0:05:01.400 --> 0:05:03.760 But the name actually was given to me in Cleveland 0:05:03.880 --> 0:05:07.240 when I was working in Cleveland before I went to Phoenix, 0:05:07.360 --> 0:05:11.039 because I did a rather outspoken sports talk show. I 0:05:11.120 --> 0:05:14.560 worked at a fifty thousand watch station three W. E 0:05:14.760 --> 0:05:19.040 worked with and for Pete Franklin, legendary sports stock host 0:05:19.480 --> 0:05:23.560 from way back in the day, and I was rather opinionated. 0:05:23.800 --> 0:05:27.080 And one night, after a particularly stormy night on the air, 0:05:27.279 --> 0:05:29.240 one of the newsmen came in and said, you know what, 0:05:29.960 --> 0:05:32.320 You're just like a hack Saw. I asked a question, 0:05:32.440 --> 0:05:35.760 get an answer clear cut through all the crap, right 0:05:35.800 --> 0:05:38.600 to the point, and that nickname stuck me, stuck with 0:05:38.640 --> 0:05:42.000 me from Cleveland to Phoenix and then Phoenix onto San Diego. 0:05:42.680 --> 0:05:48.440 I had been in Cleveland from and then went to Phoenix, 0:05:49.080 --> 0:05:51.640 spent seven years in Phoenix, and then went to San 0:05:51.680 --> 0:05:54.839 Diego to become the Voice of the Chargers and then 0:05:54.839 --> 0:05:58.400 the first Cornerstone talk show host and what would evolve 0:05:59.080 --> 0:06:02.599 into Extra Sports six ninety, which was a legendary sports 0:06:02.600 --> 0:06:05.640 talk station, one one of the earliest stations ever to 0:06:05.720 --> 0:06:09.320 hit the air waves, and the marketplace obviously was very different. 0:06:09.800 --> 0:06:12.799 And we're on a blowtorch seventy seven thousand watch signaled 0:06:12.839 --> 0:06:15.799 and you could hear from Baha to the Canadian Rocketies. 0:06:15.839 --> 0:06:18.760 That was one of my favorite phrases. And that thing 0:06:18.880 --> 0:06:22.839 took off and we had a tremendous run before ownership 0:06:23.160 --> 0:06:27.120 changed it screwed it all up in the station went away. Yeah, 0:06:27.120 --> 0:06:30.479 and you've had an amazing career and the talk show career. 0:06:30.480 --> 0:06:34.160 You were a writer, and also you mentioned the Charger thing. 0:06:34.200 --> 0:06:36.720 The Voice of the Chargers, and I remember being down 0:06:36.800 --> 0:06:39.119 in San Diego when they got to the Super Bowl 0:06:39.160 --> 0:06:41.600 back in the nineties and how excited. The whole town 0:06:41.680 --> 0:06:43.479 was how amazing it wasn't you were the voice of 0:06:43.480 --> 0:06:46.240 the team. And what what are you most proud of? You? 0:06:46.279 --> 0:06:48.800 Are you proud of the long career you won a 0:06:48.800 --> 0:06:50.839 lot of awards for hosting talk shows? Or is it 0:06:50.920 --> 0:06:53.200 the NFL stuff to play by play stuff that you 0:06:53.560 --> 0:06:57.119 appreciate the most? Everything on the men you've been playing 0:06:57.120 --> 0:07:01.200 and simple. Um, it's fun to think back because actually, 0:07:01.240 --> 0:07:02.640 I just did an interview with a guy on the 0:07:02.680 --> 0:07:06.400 East Coast last last week about the history of sports 0:07:06.440 --> 0:07:09.000 talk radio. And I've done sports talk radio my whole 0:07:09.000 --> 0:07:12.800 life and my whole career. But when we started the 0:07:12.800 --> 0:07:16.840 original Extra Sports six, we were the third all sports 0:07:16.840 --> 0:07:19.320 station in the country. W f A N in New 0:07:19.400 --> 0:07:23.400 York had just launched prior w i P and Philadelphia 0:07:23.440 --> 0:07:26.160 had launched, and then we launched. In fact, it's funny, 0:07:26.840 --> 0:07:29.160 the first Super Bowl that was played in San Diego, 0:07:29.800 --> 0:07:32.280 there are only three of us three stations, those three 0:07:32.320 --> 0:07:35.560 stations on what at that point was Radio Row, and 0:07:35.800 --> 0:07:39.560 we were broadcasting from the San Diego Hilton right down 0:07:39.560 --> 0:07:41.840 on the waterfront, and we're just three radio stations in 0:07:41.880 --> 0:07:45.600 the hallway. And obviously you're well aware now that you know, 0:07:45.880 --> 0:07:49.120 upwards a two stations find their way to radio row 0:07:49.720 --> 0:07:52.240 in big convention centers wherever the Super Bowl has held. 0:07:52.320 --> 0:07:54.960 So we're I think we're proud that we were the 0:07:55.000 --> 0:07:59.400 first one to do it. And sports talk radio became 0:07:59.520 --> 0:08:02.960 very gift when I first started this whole thing, and 0:08:03.000 --> 0:08:07.280 I started it in Phoenix and obviously came to San Diego. 0:08:08.040 --> 0:08:10.760 But when we first started this thing, the only thing 0:08:10.840 --> 0:08:13.680 was on sports talk radio, we're really mom and pop shows. 0:08:14.360 --> 0:08:18.680 Everything's nice, everything's beautiful, root root route for the home team. 0:08:18.720 --> 0:08:21.600 And when I was going to Phoenix to work at 0:08:21.680 --> 0:08:24.440 kt a R, which became a legendary news talk station, 0:08:24.480 --> 0:08:27.480 I was doing the nighttime sports talk show. As I 0:08:27.560 --> 0:08:31.600 was driving driving across the country from Cleveland to Phoenix, 0:08:31.640 --> 0:08:34.320 I tried to put in my mind how I would 0:08:34.360 --> 0:08:36.160 go on the air and what I would say on 0:08:36.240 --> 0:08:38.760 the air, and how I could separate myself from anything 0:08:38.760 --> 0:08:41.800 else that was on the air. And somewhere in the 0:08:41.880 --> 0:08:45.560 middle of on Interstate forty and Tulsa, Oklahoma, it dawned 0:08:45.600 --> 0:08:49.760 on me. Need catchphrases, you need as you would call 0:08:49.800 --> 0:08:52.880 it a stick, And that's where I came up with 0:08:52.920 --> 0:08:56.440 the the theory because it was such a blowtward signal 0:08:56.480 --> 0:08:58.320 I was coming to that it would be from Baha 0:08:58.320 --> 0:09:01.559 to the Canadian Rockies. And then I thought about, well, 0:09:01.600 --> 0:09:03.760 how am I going to announce myself on the air, 0:09:03.880 --> 0:09:06.080 And that's where that the phrase came. Here's what's going 0:09:06.120 --> 0:09:08.640 on in the world of sports, here's what Lee Hamilton's thinks. 0:09:09.280 --> 0:09:12.160 And I did stuff that nobody had ever done before, 0:09:12.880 --> 0:09:15.480 and then the format just it just took off because 0:09:15.520 --> 0:09:17.160 there were not a lot of people doing it. It's 0:09:17.280 --> 0:09:20.240 very different now than when it was back then. As 0:09:20.360 --> 0:09:23.320 as I said, we were the third one in at 0:09:23.360 --> 0:09:26.960 six and I was the first one in Phoenix that 0:09:27.080 --> 0:09:33.120 had really done this knockdown, drag out brawl sports talk style. Um. 0:09:33.440 --> 0:09:37.200 The funny story when I started in Phoenix, when I 0:09:37.240 --> 0:09:40.560 got there, they had done a nice mom and pop 0:09:40.960 --> 0:09:44.280 sports talk show and everything was beautiful, and at that 0:09:44.320 --> 0:09:47.560 point in time in the city of Phoenix, ben the 0:09:47.559 --> 0:09:51.119 two most important things there, in addition to the Sunshine, 0:09:51.160 --> 0:09:54.160 were the Phoenix Suns of the NBA and Arizona State football. 0:09:54.880 --> 0:09:57.960 And I just happened to get there the week the 0:09:58.040 --> 0:10:00.800 Sun's got knocked out of the play offs. They were 0:10:00.840 --> 0:10:03.840 the first seed in the league and lost on home 0:10:03.880 --> 0:10:06.760 court in the first round. And I also happened to 0:10:06.800 --> 0:10:09.959 get there the same time that Arizona State got nailed 0:10:09.960 --> 0:10:13.599 by the n C Double A for all types of violations. 0:10:14.120 --> 0:10:16.600 And the week I got there, also baseball went on 0:10:16.800 --> 0:10:22.120 strike in season. So I walked in the door facing 0:10:22.160 --> 0:10:24.400 a four hour talk show. Every night I did six 0:10:24.440 --> 0:10:27.760 to ten pm on a big signal in Phoenix, and 0:10:27.880 --> 0:10:31.240 right out of my mouth, I attacked the Phoenix Suns. 0:10:31.280 --> 0:10:33.560 How the hell could you ever lose in the first 0:10:33.640 --> 0:10:35.839 round when you're the number one seed in the entire league? 0:10:35.840 --> 0:10:38.520 And then I attacked Arizona State, How the hell can 0:10:38.559 --> 0:10:41.800 you cheat when you've got great facilities in a beautiful 0:10:41.800 --> 0:10:44.720 campus and pretty women and you can recruit anywhere. And 0:10:44.760 --> 0:10:47.040 then I went after Major League Baseball for shutting down 0:10:47.080 --> 0:10:50.760 the season. And what happened was because all these things 0:10:50.960 --> 0:10:54.040 kind of came together, intersected at the same point in time, 0:10:55.280 --> 0:10:57.480 and there was no baseball. We were the Dodger flagship 0:10:57.480 --> 0:10:59.400 from the state of Arizona, and it was big. It 0:10:59.480 --> 0:11:01.920 was a very pig because none of that was there. 0:11:02.480 --> 0:11:04.360 People in the Valley of the Sun been had four 0:11:04.400 --> 0:11:07.520 straight hours of me every night for fifty one nights 0:11:07.600 --> 0:11:10.240 in a row. Think about that. And I put all 0:11:10.240 --> 0:11:14.439 these topics on the table and the town went crazy. 0:11:14.600 --> 0:11:17.280 The phone lines lit up like Christmas tree. Nobody had 0:11:17.320 --> 0:11:20.679 ever done this, Nobody had ever ripped Arizona State, or 0:11:20.800 --> 0:11:24.120 taken on jury Colangelo and the Phoenix Suns or said 0:11:24.160 --> 0:11:27.439 what I said about the Dodgers and Fernando Allenzuela and 0:11:27.440 --> 0:11:30.800 all that I was fascinating. And that's sets where I 0:11:30.800 --> 0:11:33.720 made my name and reputation in Phoenix. And because you're 0:11:33.720 --> 0:11:36.440 on a big signal, people found out who I was, 0:11:36.600 --> 0:11:39.760 and I was also doing Arizona State football and and 0:11:39.760 --> 0:11:41.200 then I got a phone call one day to come 0:11:41.240 --> 0:11:45.000 to San Diego. And as I was coming here, I 0:11:45.080 --> 0:11:47.880 decided that I'm going to use the same style and 0:11:47.920 --> 0:11:52.200 the same approach to do in sports stalk radio. And 0:11:52.280 --> 0:11:54.120 when I got to San Diego, we were really a 0:11:54.160 --> 0:11:58.160 Southern California station because our signal was so big. And 0:11:58.200 --> 0:12:00.400 that's where the bahad to the Canadian Rock East thing 0:12:00.480 --> 0:12:04.240 fit and the fact that all they had was Dodger talk, 0:12:04.320 --> 0:12:07.240 and at that point it was a k ABC. There 0:12:07.320 --> 0:12:09.280 might have been a little bit of Angel talk maybe 0:12:09.280 --> 0:12:12.439 on k MPC and it was really nothing else. And 0:12:12.600 --> 0:12:15.240 we went on the air during four hours an afternoon drive, 0:12:15.280 --> 0:12:17.560 and you could hear us anywhere and everywhere, and at 0:12:17.679 --> 0:12:20.480 night you could hear us in Canada. Um it was. 0:12:20.559 --> 0:12:23.640 It just exploded and it took off. I had just 0:12:23.720 --> 0:12:26.520 a tremendous run doing it, so you know, I was 0:12:26.559 --> 0:12:28.600 excited to be the voice of an NFL team. We 0:12:28.640 --> 0:12:31.120 went through a lot of bad seasons and then we 0:12:31.200 --> 0:12:33.800 got good and went to the super Bowl, and I 0:12:33.880 --> 0:12:36.760 was kind of responsible for the L A. King's coming 0:12:36.800 --> 0:12:39.480 to our station as a flagship because of the our 0:12:39.559 --> 0:12:42.280 Monster signal. And we did a ton of stuff with 0:12:42.360 --> 0:12:44.400 hockey talk, and we went on the road from the 0:12:44.400 --> 0:12:47.319 Stanley Cup playoffs during the Kretzki era, and we did 0:12:47.320 --> 0:12:49.080 the same thing with the Anaheim Ducks. I mean, it 0:12:49.160 --> 0:12:52.560 was It was just a fascinating run for a long 0:12:52.640 --> 0:12:55.160 period of time. I did twenty two years of sports 0:12:55.160 --> 0:12:58.400 talk radio an afternoon drive at the legendary Extra and 0:12:58.400 --> 0:13:00.880 that's where you and I crossed paths before you became 0:13:00.920 --> 0:13:04.480 a star. And we had a tremendous run. Unsadly ownership 0:13:04.720 --> 0:13:07.080 screwed it up, wrecked it, get rid of the station, 0:13:07.880 --> 0:13:11.760 and now now it's terrible. I turned on sports talk 0:13:11.840 --> 0:13:13.840 radio in my old station. One of them, at six 0:13:14.440 --> 0:13:17.880 is doing Chinese Mandarin talk, and the other one at 0:13:18.000 --> 0:13:20.560 N ninety, which went out of business last year, is 0:13:20.600 --> 0:13:24.880 doing Spanish women's talk. It just absolutely drives me crazy. 0:13:24.920 --> 0:13:26.920 But that's a long answer how I got to where 0:13:26.920 --> 0:13:28.880 I got and what I'm so proud of. But I 0:13:28.920 --> 0:13:31.439 loved every minute of it. Wasn't easy because I did 0:13:31.480 --> 0:13:33.480 it all by myself. I booked all my own guests, 0:13:33.480 --> 0:13:35.120 and I did four hours a night, and I did 0:13:35.120 --> 0:13:37.840 twenty five guests a week, and we were doing anything 0:13:37.840 --> 0:13:40.520 and everything. But I just I had developed the philosophy 0:13:40.559 --> 0:13:42.719 that there's lots of ways to do this, and I'm 0:13:42.720 --> 0:13:45.000 going to try something very different, and very different turned 0:13:45.000 --> 0:13:47.200 out to be. I tend to think very good. Be 0:13:47.280 --> 0:13:49.760 sure to catch live editions of The Ben Maller Show 0:13:49.760 --> 0:13:52.600 week days at two a m. Eastern eleven pm Pacific 0:13:52.920 --> 0:13:56.079 on Fox Sports Radio and the I Heart Radio app. 0:13:56.520 --> 0:13:59.000 This is like a masterclass. I'm loving this. I'm eating 0:13:59.040 --> 0:14:01.240 I hope the list was eating this. I'm eating this up. 0:14:01.240 --> 0:14:04.559 If you love sports talk radio, Hack Saws, as as 0:14:04.600 --> 0:14:07.120 he's laid out here, has a legendary career, and I 0:14:07.200 --> 0:14:10.640 was lucky. As you mentioned, I learned from you as 0:14:10.640 --> 0:14:14.120 an intern. I pretty much by observation on how you worked. 0:14:14.120 --> 0:14:15.800 And I remember going in your office and you were 0:14:15.840 --> 0:14:19.680 always either on the phone or typewriter or both, and 0:14:19.720 --> 0:14:22.800 you're writing notes down and chicken scratch and all that stuff. 0:14:23.160 --> 0:14:25.320 And I think for the young guys that are doing 0:14:25.360 --> 0:14:28.800 sports talk that listen to me at night and and 0:14:28.880 --> 0:14:32.080 dabbling this, they have no idea what it was like 0:14:32.120 --> 0:14:35.120 in those archaic days before the internet really took over. 0:14:35.200 --> 0:14:37.080 And I remember when I worked at at the mighty 0:14:37.120 --> 0:14:39.360 six ninety. You had the news room with the you 0:14:39.400 --> 0:14:42.280 had the sports ticker in the AP news wire in 0:14:42.320 --> 0:14:44.240 the back, which is a real thing. When you said 0:14:44.240 --> 0:14:46.560 the high speed sports wire. They had the AP wire 0:14:46.640 --> 0:14:49.040 and the sports ticker. But what was your day like 0:14:49.160 --> 0:14:51.040 when you were preparing Because it wasn't like now where 0:14:51.040 --> 0:14:53.640 I can go on Twitter or you know, some social 0:14:53.640 --> 0:14:56.920 media platform there's like seven thousand different things I could 0:14:56.920 --> 0:14:59.560 talk about at any given time that they are being 0:14:59.560 --> 0:15:01.920 thrown out by different media. It was much harder to 0:15:01.920 --> 0:15:05.040 get information. So what was it like back in those days? Well, 0:15:05.080 --> 0:15:08.840 you're right, the landscape has drastically changed. I think back now, 0:15:08.920 --> 0:15:11.720 and I think I was the Internet Before the Internet. 0:15:12.800 --> 0:15:17.600 I just was consumed by information and and I wanted 0:15:17.640 --> 0:15:21.200 to know everything about everything so I could present everything 0:15:21.560 --> 0:15:24.440 to every one of the listeners. And again, it was 0:15:24.560 --> 0:15:28.600 very much a different era. I worked nine days a week. 0:15:28.800 --> 0:15:31.920 That's all I did was gather information. I mean, I 0:15:32.000 --> 0:15:36.600 was just an information hound, and I I just decided 0:15:36.640 --> 0:15:39.160 that I was going to do things very differently. When 0:15:39.200 --> 0:15:41.440 I was going to Phoenix. The one thing that dawned 0:15:41.480 --> 0:15:43.640 on me, because I had spent some time in Phoenix 0:15:43.680 --> 0:15:46.520 prior to getting hired. The one thing that dawned on 0:15:46.600 --> 0:15:49.640 me was that place is a melting pot of people 0:15:49.720 --> 0:15:53.040 from everywhere. And you know what, there's a ton of 0:15:53.080 --> 0:15:56.360 people who are from Chicago that relocated there, and there's 0:15:56.400 --> 0:16:00.680 a lot of people from Canada who relocated there. And 0:16:00.720 --> 0:16:03.360 I thought to myself, well, not everybody's going to be 0:16:03.400 --> 0:16:06.160 a Son's fan or a Sun Devil fan. But if 0:16:06.160 --> 0:16:08.360 I can structure a talk show that that appeals to 0:16:08.400 --> 0:16:10.960 everybody on the waterfront, they'll keep coming back to me 0:16:11.200 --> 0:16:15.320 every day for information. And that's what I started to do. 0:16:15.520 --> 0:16:17.400 And then I did the exact same thing when I 0:16:17.440 --> 0:16:20.720 went to six ninety and and people would say, well, 0:16:20.880 --> 0:16:23.360 you got the Potteris and Chargers to talk about. Yeah, 0:16:23.400 --> 0:16:24.880 I know that we're going to talk about that in 0:16:24.920 --> 0:16:27.120 the hot button issues and all that. But you know 0:16:27.120 --> 0:16:30.040 how many people live in southern California who relocated from 0:16:30.080 --> 0:16:33.440 somewhere else. And I decided that I was going to 0:16:33.520 --> 0:16:36.680 start to do a lot of creative stuff across the board. 0:16:37.640 --> 0:16:40.280 And that's that's where the tour of the spring training 0:16:40.320 --> 0:16:42.600 camps came from. That's where the tour of the NFL 0:16:42.640 --> 0:16:46.200 training camps came from. That's where all these draft shows 0:16:46.280 --> 0:16:50.200 that we did. Uh, that's where NHL Draft shows and 0:16:50.200 --> 0:16:52.800 and the Pac ten skywriters. So I was doing all 0:16:52.800 --> 0:16:56.080 this stuff on a day by day basis. Why because 0:16:56.120 --> 0:16:58.400 I thought if I could hit everybody's hot button, Ben, 0:16:59.280 --> 0:17:01.000 he'd come back to my show every day because it's 0:17:01.000 --> 0:17:03.000 the only place to get information. Wasn't being done by 0:17:03.040 --> 0:17:05.159 any of these other guys who were quote gabbling in 0:17:05.200 --> 0:17:09.520 Mom and Pop talk show snapt that being said, it 0:17:09.600 --> 0:17:13.240 was unbelievably hard. I worked so many hours, and I 0:17:13.880 --> 0:17:16.920 look at it now in and I looked back and said, 0:17:16.960 --> 0:17:19.920 how the hell did I do all that? And and 0:17:20.080 --> 0:17:22.399 you know, I was doing all that, plus I was 0:17:22.480 --> 0:17:25.480 doing Chargers NFL football, and I ran the whole nine 0:17:25.480 --> 0:17:27.800 hour game day broadcast, which was a lot of prep. 0:17:28.240 --> 0:17:31.000 And I was doing San Diego State football. And then 0:17:31.080 --> 0:17:33.880 after the Chargers left our station and we all got screwed, 0:17:34.680 --> 0:17:37.000 I wound up getting a Seahawks job and I got 0:17:37.000 --> 0:17:39.159 the USC play by played job because they showed up 0:17:39.160 --> 0:17:41.440 on our station. So, like I said, I was working 0:17:41.480 --> 0:17:45.000 like nine days a week, but I'm a workaholic, and 0:17:45.040 --> 0:17:46.680 I loved it. I just looked back at it and 0:17:46.960 --> 0:17:49.479 sake my head said, boy, that was an awful lot 0:17:49.520 --> 0:17:51.639 of awful lot of time out of my life. But 0:17:51.680 --> 0:17:54.639 it was great, and uh, I wouldn't trade any of it. 0:17:54.920 --> 0:17:58.760 I wish you'd ended differently. I hated getting bought out twice, 0:17:58.800 --> 0:18:01.240 but that's the landscape of the industry that we are in. 0:18:02.240 --> 0:18:05.160 Um that It was funny because after I did two 0:18:05.160 --> 0:18:08.320 tours of duty and sports talk here, I went across 0:18:08.320 --> 0:18:11.080 the street into television for three years and love that 0:18:11.240 --> 0:18:13.359 had to blast as a TV anchor. And then I 0:18:13.520 --> 0:18:17.119 woke up one morning two years ago and they folded 0:18:17.160 --> 0:18:19.600 our news department. They put seventy seven of us on 0:18:19.680 --> 0:18:23.560 waivers in one day. It was just a terrible, terrible experience. 0:18:23.600 --> 0:18:25.640 But I wouldn't trade any of it. I just wish 0:18:25.680 --> 0:18:27.359 it had add a little bit different outcome. And I 0:18:27.359 --> 0:18:30.280 still like to work. You know, I have this huge website, 0:18:30.359 --> 0:18:33.280 Lee Hacksaw Hamilton's dot com. Now it's all written and 0:18:33.520 --> 0:18:35.840 we always tell people who listen to my if you 0:18:36.000 --> 0:18:38.520 like my talk show, I think you'll like what I 0:18:38.560 --> 0:18:40.560 do on my website because it's kind of the same thing. 0:18:40.680 --> 0:18:43.840 Hacksaws headlines in the Best fifteen Minutes in Sports and 0:18:43.960 --> 0:18:47.040 One Man's Opinion column. I wrote a column every day. 0:18:47.160 --> 0:18:49.960 Take that Bill plash ky l a times I saw. 0:18:50.359 --> 0:18:52.679 I'm still really, really active. It's just it's just a 0:18:52.800 --> 0:18:56.280 different venue now and I'm doing it what I like 0:18:56.359 --> 0:18:59.439 to still be doing it. Sure, Uh, whether it's in 0:18:59.480 --> 0:19:02.280 the jobs will ever change again? I don't know. The 0:19:02.280 --> 0:19:05.200 the industry issure change. I feel really bad. There's so 0:19:05.320 --> 0:19:08.280 many good people that I know in radio, uh, some 0:19:08.440 --> 0:19:11.440 on television, an awful lot in print or just throw 0:19:11.480 --> 0:19:14.120 all out of jobs right now. Just a sad time 0:19:14.280 --> 0:19:17.320 for our media industries. And you know that too, from 0:19:17.440 --> 0:19:21.240 all your friends, Lee, I guess the one question I 0:19:21.240 --> 0:19:22.919 want to ask you. With all the work that you 0:19:23.040 --> 0:19:26.720 have done, whether it's hosting, reporting, play by play, whatever 0:19:26.760 --> 0:19:30.480 it may be. Um, you know this, and you said 0:19:30.480 --> 0:19:33.080 this specifically, since you did a lot of your own legwork, 0:19:33.960 --> 0:19:36.880 being as you are, consider what we call talent being 0:19:36.920 --> 0:19:41.840 on air, did you ever have anyone upper management or 0:19:41.960 --> 0:19:45.040 even just a direct supervisor and said, hey, Lee, like 0:19:45.160 --> 0:19:48.359 lay off the gas on this or perhaps cut back 0:19:48.359 --> 0:19:50.399 a little bit on this, Like did anyone try to 0:19:50.920 --> 0:19:53.800 cut you off by the knees to make you do 0:19:53.880 --> 0:19:55.760 something you didn't want to do while being on the air. 0:19:56.560 --> 0:20:01.080 They've never interfered with the content because I told them 0:20:01.080 --> 0:20:03.680 my show is my show. If you want this to work, 0:20:03.720 --> 0:20:06.520 it has to be my show. But I never really 0:20:06.520 --> 0:20:09.919 had any problems with anybody until the end. I had 0:20:09.920 --> 0:20:12.639 a lot of problems at the end. Um, after the 0:20:12.720 --> 0:20:16.560 Chargers left our radio station, we all got screwed and 0:20:16.560 --> 0:20:19.880 then they want up leaving the community. Um, I've done 0:20:19.920 --> 0:20:21.640 a lot for them, and I love being the voice 0:20:21.640 --> 0:20:23.760 of the Chargers. I love game day in the NFL. 0:20:23.800 --> 0:20:25.640 We did a nine hour game day, we did nine 0:20:25.640 --> 0:20:29.760 hour NFL drafted, We did tremendous, tremendous radio. Everybody's trying 0:20:29.800 --> 0:20:31.680 to copy what we did, but we were the first 0:20:31.680 --> 0:20:33.440 to do it, and we did it really, really well. 0:20:34.240 --> 0:20:37.480 But they got upset as the franchise fall apart, and 0:20:37.920 --> 0:20:41.080