Speaker 1: If you thought four hours a day, minutes a week
Speaker 1: was enough, I 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 gutter the same as the rich
Speaker 1: pill poppers in the penthouse, the clearing house of hot
Speaker 1: takes break free for something special, The Fifth Hour, which
Speaker 1: Ben Maller starts right now. We are in the air
Speaker 1: everywhere the vast power of podcasting. It is, as you
Speaker 1: heard there, the Fifth Hour with Ben Maller, Because four
Speaker 1: hours on the overnight or not enough. And we do
Speaker 1: this podcast eight days a week, and you're in for
Speaker 1: a special treat. If you are a connoisseur of sports
Speaker 1: talk radio, we are going to give you, in a
Speaker 1: few minutes one of the legends, one of the Mount Rushmore.
Speaker 1: I hate doing Mount Rushmore type statements, but this is
Speaker 1: one of the legends of sports talk radio. We're gonna
Speaker 1: have on here in a couple of minutes. We'll we'll
Speaker 1: walk you through that we as always are joined for
Speaker 1: better or worse by the man affectionately known in the
Speaker 1: highway hallways of Fox Sports Radio as a gagon. Easaid
Speaker 1: for me to say David Gascon anthy more so better
Speaker 1: and uh, I don't know if you know this because
Speaker 1: you aren't in the hallways. But nobody's saying anything in
Speaker 1: the hallways these days, since it's a ghost down here.
Speaker 1: That is true. That is true. So I'm not gonna
Speaker 1: you know, do much ps here. This is an interview podcast,
Speaker 1: and we had a chance to catch up with someone
Speaker 1: who was very influential, uh in my career and Gascon,
Speaker 1: you're aware of this guy. I don't think you worked
Speaker 1: with him, but you you're aware of his his history here. Uh.
Speaker 1: The first sports talk radio station on the West Coast
Speaker 1: was the Mighty six ninety and the man that was
Speaker 1: the face of the mighty six ninety in San Diego
Speaker 1: was Lee hack Saw Hamilton's and if you listen to
Speaker 1: me b s. Over the years, I learned a lot
Speaker 1: about the business as an intern in San Diego at
Speaker 1: the mighty six ninety and then eventually I worked as
Speaker 1: a radio I was an engineer, board op, I worked
Speaker 1: my way up. I was a reporter, so I had
Speaker 1: a lot of different jobs. But I started as an
Speaker 1: intern for Lee Hacks on Hambleton's pulling carts, which this
Speaker 1: old technology but these commercials would be played on these
Speaker 1: little cassette machines, these these cart things, and I would
Speaker 1: pull those and I would have to go back and
Speaker 1: check the high speed sports wire and all that. But
Speaker 1: I didn't talked to to Lee Hamilton's in many, many years.
Speaker 1: He was the voice of the San Diego Charger with
Speaker 1: the Seattle Seahawks Arizona State back in the day. San
Speaker 1: Diego State at a bunch of great jobs in the business.
Speaker 1: And this is like to me, Gascon, this is gonna
Speaker 1: be sports talk radio. Porn is what this is gonna be. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And the best part about it is he's not a
Speaker 1: one trick pony, which is great. So you get a
Speaker 1: guy that has covered every board imaginable and he's got
Speaker 1: great context too. So it's not like the guy shooting
Speaker 1: from the hip it's twenty or thirty years old that's
Speaker 1: throwing hot takes out. There's a guy that's that built
Speaker 1: a career years and talked to a ton of athletes football, baseball, basketball, hockey, tennis,
Speaker 1: box thing like the whole the whole smash. So it's
Speaker 1: a lot of fun. Yeah, it's pretty cool. And the
Speaker 1: thing too about hacks, I am you always bust my balls,
Speaker 1: gas on about being overprepared and all this. If I learned.
Speaker 1: One of the people I learned from was Lee hack
Speaker 1: saw Hamilton's who would spend all day in his office
Speaker 1: preparing for that radio show and the play by play
Speaker 1: and all that, and I I saw how hard he
Speaker 1: worked and how successful he was. And then I saw
Speaker 1: some other people that didn't work hard, that just kind
Speaker 1: of showed up a minute before the show and didn't
Speaker 1: have any preparation. I saw how they failed, and so
Speaker 1: I made a correlation that you know, this is important.
Speaker 1: I figured, like, if I'm gonna make this my career,
Speaker 1: I gotta work at it. But one of the influences
Speaker 1: was hacked off. If Haxall had shown up two minutes
Speaker 1: before show and just started bloviating, I probably would have
Speaker 1: been more like that and just showing up and just
Speaker 1: said I don't care whatever, and I'd probably be doing
Speaker 1: something else right now then radio. But anyway, let's you
Speaker 1: don't want to hear this, you want to hear hacks All.
Speaker 1: Let's welcome in on the high Speed Sports Wire. Actually
Speaker 1: know that that that would be the hotline, right, what
Speaker 1: do you call it? Back in the the Hotline. How
Speaker 1: the Newsmaker Hotline? Yeah, the new the Newsmaker Hotline from
Speaker 1: Bah hot of the Canadian Rockies. My friend and one
Speaker 1: of my mentors in radio, Lee Hacksaw Hamilton's and Lee,
Speaker 1: why don't we start out with this For the people
Speaker 1: that are unaware of your history? I just gave a
Speaker 1: little bit of it. But how did you get the
Speaker 1: nickname hacks All? I still chat with you, Ben Well now.
Speaker 1: I started in sports talk radio in the early nineties
Speaker 1: in Phoenix. I had come to Phoenix from Cleveland, where
Speaker 1: had done hockey and some sports talk, went to Phoenix
Speaker 1: and kind of built a sports talk show empire over there.
Speaker 1: But the name actually was given to me in Cleveland
Speaker 1: when I was working in Cleveland before I went to Phoenix,
Speaker 1: because I did a rather outspoken sports talk show. I
Speaker 1: worked at a fifty thousand watch station three W. E
Speaker 1: worked with and for Pete Franklin, legendary sports stock host
Speaker 1: from way back in the day, and I was rather opinionated.
Speaker 1: And one night, after a particularly stormy night on the air,
Speaker 1: one of the newsmen came in and said, you know what,
Speaker 1: You're just like a hack Saw. I asked a question,
Speaker 1: get an answer clear cut through all the crap, right
Speaker 1: to the point, and that nickname stuck me, stuck with
Speaker 1: me from Cleveland to Phoenix and then Phoenix onto San Diego.
Speaker 1: I had been in Cleveland from and then went to Phoenix,
Speaker 1: spent seven years in Phoenix, and then went to San
Speaker 1: Diego to become the Voice of the Chargers and then
Speaker 1: the first Cornerstone talk show host and what would evolve
Speaker 1: into Extra Sports six ninety, which was a legendary sports
Speaker 1: talk station, one one of the earliest stations ever to
Speaker 1: hit the air waves, and the marketplace obviously was very different.
Speaker 1: And we're on a blowtorch seventy seven thousand watch signaled
Speaker 1: and you could hear from Baha to the Canadian Rocketies.
Speaker 1: That was one of my favorite phrases. And that thing
Speaker 1: took off and we had a tremendous run before ownership
Speaker 1: changed it screwed it all up in the station went away. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and you've had an amazing career and the talk show career.
Speaker 1: You were a writer, and also you mentioned the Charger thing.
Speaker 1: The Voice of the Chargers, and I remember being down
Speaker 1: in San Diego when they got to the Super Bowl
Speaker 1: back in the nineties and how excited. The whole town
Speaker 1: was how amazing it wasn't you were the voice of
Speaker 1: the team. And what what are you most proud of? You?
Speaker 1: Are you proud of the long career you won a
Speaker 1: lot of awards for hosting talk shows? Or is it
Speaker 1: the NFL stuff to play by play stuff that you
Speaker 1: appreciate the most? Everything on the men you've been playing
Speaker 1: and simple. Um, it's fun to think back because actually,
Speaker 1: I just did an interview with a guy on the
Speaker 1: East Coast last last week about the history of sports
Speaker 1: talk radio. And I've done sports talk radio my whole
Speaker 1: life and my whole career. But when we started the
Speaker 1: original Extra Sports six, we were the third all sports
Speaker 1: station in the country. W f A N in New
Speaker 1: York had just launched prior w i P and Philadelphia
Speaker 1: had launched, and then we launched. In fact, it's funny,
Speaker 1: the first Super Bowl that was played in San Diego,
Speaker 1: there are only three of us three stations, those three
Speaker 1: stations on what at that point was Radio Row, and
Speaker 1: we were broadcasting from the San Diego Hilton right down
Speaker 1: on the waterfront, and we're just three radio stations in
Speaker 1: the hallway. And obviously you're well aware now that you know,
Speaker 1: upwards a two stations find their way to radio row
Speaker 1: in big convention centers wherever the Super Bowl has held.
Speaker 1: So we're I think we're proud that we were the
Speaker 1: first one to do it. And sports talk radio became
Speaker 1: very gift when I first started this whole thing, and
Speaker 1: I started it in Phoenix and obviously came to San Diego.
Speaker 1: But when we first started this thing, the only thing
Speaker 1: was on sports talk radio, we're really mom and pop shows.
Speaker 1: Everything's nice, everything's beautiful, root root route for the home team.
Speaker 1: And when I was going to Phoenix to work at
Speaker 1: kt a R, which became a legendary news talk station,
Speaker 1: I was doing the nighttime sports talk show. As I
Speaker 1: was driving driving across the country from Cleveland to Phoenix,
Speaker 1: I tried to put in my mind how I would
Speaker 1: go on the air and what I would say on
Speaker 1: the air, and how I could separate myself from anything
Speaker 1: else that was on the air. And somewhere in the
Speaker 1: middle of on Interstate forty and Tulsa, Oklahoma, it dawned
Speaker 1: on me. Need catchphrases, you need as you would call
Speaker 1: it a stick, And that's where I came up with
Speaker 1: the the theory because it was such a blowtward signal
Speaker 1: I was coming to that it would be from Baha
Speaker 1: to the Canadian Rockies. And then I thought about, well,
Speaker 1: how am I going to announce myself on the air,
Speaker 1: And that's where that the phrase came. Here's what's going
Speaker 1: on in the world of sports, here's what Lee Hamilton's thinks.
Speaker 1: And I did stuff that nobody had ever done before,
Speaker 1: and then the format just it just took off because
Speaker 1: there were not a lot of people doing it. It's
Speaker 1: very different now than when it was back then. As
Speaker 1: as I said, we were the third one in at
Speaker 1: six and I was the first one in Phoenix that
Speaker 1: had really done this knockdown, drag out brawl sports talk style. Um.
Speaker 1: The funny story when I started in Phoenix, when I
Speaker 1: got there, they had done a nice mom and pop
Speaker 1: sports talk show and everything was beautiful, and at that
Speaker 1: point in time in the city of Phoenix, ben the
Speaker 1: two most important things there, in addition to the Sunshine,
Speaker 1: were the Phoenix Suns of the NBA and Arizona State football.
Speaker 1: And I just happened to get there the week the
Speaker 1: Sun's got knocked out of the play offs. They were
Speaker 1: the first seed in the league and lost on home
Speaker 1: court in the first round. And I also happened to
Speaker 1: get there the same time that Arizona State got nailed
Speaker 1: by the n C Double A for all types of violations.
Speaker 1: And the week I got there, also baseball went on
Speaker 1: strike in season. So I walked in the door facing
Speaker 1: a four hour talk show. Every night I did six
Speaker 1: to ten pm on a big signal in Phoenix, and
Speaker 1: right out of my mouth, I attacked the Phoenix Suns.
Speaker 1: How the hell could you ever lose in the first
Speaker 1: round when you're the number one seed in the entire league?
Speaker 1: And then I attacked Arizona State, How the hell can
Speaker 1: you cheat when you've got great facilities in a beautiful
Speaker 1: campus and pretty women and you can recruit anywhere. And
Speaker 1: then I went after Major League Baseball for shutting down
Speaker 1: the season. And what happened was because all these things
Speaker 1: kind of came together, intersected at the same point in time,
Speaker 1: and there was no baseball. We were the Dodger flagship
Speaker 1: from the state of Arizona, and it was big. It
Speaker 1: was a very pig because none of that was there.
Speaker 1: People in the Valley of the Sun been had four
Speaker 1: straight hours of me every night for fifty one nights
Speaker 1: in a row. Think about that. And I put all
Speaker 1: these topics on the table and the town went crazy.
Speaker 1: The phone lines lit up like Christmas tree. Nobody had
Speaker 1: ever done this, Nobody had ever ripped Arizona State, or
Speaker 1: taken on jury Colangelo and the Phoenix Suns or said
Speaker 1: what I said about the Dodgers and Fernando Allenzuela and
Speaker 1: all that I was fascinating. And that's sets where I
Speaker 1: made my name and reputation in Phoenix. And because you're
Speaker 1: on a big signal, people found out who I was,
Speaker 1: and I was also doing Arizona State football and and
Speaker 1: then I got a phone call one day to come
Speaker 1: to San Diego. And as I was coming here, I
Speaker 1: decided that I'm going to use the same style and
Speaker 1: the same approach to do in sports stalk radio. And
Speaker 1: when I got to San Diego, we were really a
Speaker 1: Southern California station because our signal was so big. And
Speaker 1: that's where the bahad to the Canadian Rock East thing
Speaker 1: fit and the fact that all they had was Dodger talk,
Speaker 1: and at that point it was a k ABC. There
Speaker 1: might have been a little bit of Angel talk maybe
Speaker 1: on k MPC and it was really nothing else. And
Speaker 1: we went on the air during four hours an afternoon drive,
Speaker 1: and you could hear us anywhere and everywhere, and at
Speaker 1: night you could hear us in Canada. Um it was.
Speaker 1: It just exploded and it took off. I had just
Speaker 1: a tremendous run doing it, so you know, I was
Speaker 1: excited to be the voice of an NFL team. We
Speaker 1: went through a lot of bad seasons and then we
Speaker 1: got good and went to the super Bowl, and I
Speaker 1: was kind of responsible for the L A. King's coming
Speaker 1: to our station as a flagship because of the our
Speaker 1: Monster signal. And we did a ton of stuff with
Speaker 1: hockey talk, and we went on the road from the
Speaker 1: Stanley Cup playoffs during the Kretzki era, and we did
Speaker 1: the same thing with the Anaheim Ducks. I mean, it
Speaker 1: was It was just a fascinating run for a long
Speaker 1: period of time. I did twenty two years of sports
Speaker 1: talk radio an afternoon drive at the legendary Extra and
Speaker 1: that's where you and I crossed paths before you became
Speaker 1: a star. And we had a tremendous run. Unsadly ownership
Speaker 1: screwed it up, wrecked it, get rid of the station,
Speaker 1: and now now it's terrible. I turned on sports talk
Speaker 1: radio in my old station. One of them, at six
Speaker 1: is doing Chinese Mandarin talk, and the other one at
Speaker 1: N ninety, which went out of business last year, is
Speaker 1: doing Spanish women's talk. It just absolutely drives me crazy.
Speaker 1: But that's a long answer how I got to where
Speaker 1: I got and what I'm so proud of. But I
Speaker 1: loved every minute of it. Wasn't easy because I did
Speaker 1: it all by myself. I booked all my own guests,
Speaker 1: and I did four hours a night, and I did
Speaker 1: twenty five guests a week, and we were doing anything
Speaker 1: and everything. But I just I had developed the philosophy
Speaker 1: that there's lots of ways to do this, and I'm
Speaker 1: going to try something very different, and very different turned
Speaker 1: out to be. I tend to think very good. Be
Speaker 1: sure to catch live editions of The Ben Maller Show
Speaker 1: week days at two a m. Eastern eleven pm Pacific
Speaker 1: on Fox Sports Radio and the I Heart Radio app.
Speaker 1: This is like a masterclass. I'm loving this. I'm eating
Speaker 1: I hope the list was eating this. I'm eating this up.
Speaker 1: If you love sports talk radio, Hack Saws, as as
Speaker 1: he's laid out here, has a legendary career, and I
Speaker 1: was lucky. As you mentioned, I learned from you as
Speaker 1: an intern. I pretty much by observation on how you worked.
Speaker 1: And I remember going in your office and you were
Speaker 1: always either on the phone or typewriter or both, and
Speaker 1: you're writing notes down and chicken scratch and all that stuff.
Speaker 1: And I think for the young guys that are doing
Speaker 1: sports talk that listen to me at night and and
Speaker 1: dabbling this, they have no idea what it was like
Speaker 1: in those archaic days before the internet really took over.
Speaker 1: And I remember when I worked at at the mighty
Speaker 1: six ninety. You had the news room with the you
Speaker 1: had the sports ticker in the AP news wire in
Speaker 1: the back, which is a real thing. When you said
Speaker 1: the high speed sports wire. They had the AP wire
Speaker 1: and the sports ticker. But what was your day like
Speaker 1: when you were preparing Because it wasn't like now where
Speaker 1: I can go on Twitter or you know, some social
Speaker 1: media platform there's like seven thousand different things I could
Speaker 1: talk about at any given time that they are being
Speaker 1: thrown out by different media. It was much harder to
Speaker 1: get information. So what was it like back in those days? Well,
Speaker 1: you're right, the landscape has drastically changed. I think back now,
Speaker 1: and I think I was the Internet Before the Internet.
Speaker 1: I just was consumed by information and and I wanted
Speaker 1: to know everything about everything so I could present everything
Speaker 1: to every one of the listeners. And again, it was
Speaker 1: very much a different era. I worked nine days a week.
Speaker 1: That's all I did was gather information. I mean, I
Speaker 1: was just an information hound, and I I just decided
Speaker 1: that I was going to do things very differently. When
Speaker 1: I was going to Phoenix. The one thing that dawned
Speaker 1: on me, because I had spent some time in Phoenix
Speaker 1: prior to getting hired. The one thing that dawned on
Speaker 1: me was that place is a melting pot of people
Speaker 1: from everywhere. And you know what, there's a ton of
Speaker 1: people who are from Chicago that relocated there, and there's
Speaker 1: a lot of people from Canada who relocated there. And
Speaker 1: I thought to myself, well, not everybody's going to be
Speaker 1: a Son's fan or a Sun Devil fan. But if
Speaker 1: I can structure a talk show that that appeals to
Speaker 1: everybody on the waterfront, they'll keep coming back to me
Speaker 1: every day for information. And that's what I started to do.
Speaker 1: And then I did the exact same thing when I
Speaker 1: went to six ninety and and people would say, well,
Speaker 1: you got the Potteris and Chargers to talk about. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I know that we're going to talk about that in
Speaker 1: the hot button issues and all that. But you know
Speaker 1: how many people live in southern California who relocated from
Speaker 1: somewhere else. And I decided that I was going to
Speaker 1: start to do a lot of creative stuff across the board.
Speaker 1: And that's that's where the tour of the spring training
Speaker 1: camps came from. That's where the tour of the NFL
Speaker 1: training camps came from. That's where all these draft shows
Speaker 1: that we did. Uh, that's where NHL Draft shows and
Speaker 1: and the Pac ten skywriters. So I was doing all
Speaker 1: this stuff on a day by day basis. Why because
Speaker 1: I thought if I could hit everybody's hot button, Ben,
Speaker 1: he'd come back to my show every day because it's
Speaker 1: the only place to get information. Wasn't being done by
Speaker 1: any of these other guys who were quote gabbling in
Speaker 1: Mom and Pop talk show snapt that being said, it
Speaker 1: was unbelievably hard. I worked so many hours, and I
Speaker 1: look at it now in and I looked back and said,
Speaker 1: how the hell did I do all that? And and
Speaker 1: you know, I was doing all that, plus I was
Speaker 1: doing Chargers NFL football, and I ran the whole nine
Speaker 1: hour game day broadcast, which was a lot of prep.
Speaker 1: And I was doing San Diego State football. And then
Speaker 1: after the Chargers left our station and we all got screwed,
Speaker 1: I wound up getting a Seahawks job and I got
Speaker 1: the USC play by played job because they showed up
Speaker 1: on our station. So, like I said, I was working
Speaker 1: like nine days a week, but I'm a workaholic, and
Speaker 1: I loved it. I just looked back at it and
Speaker 1: sake my head said, boy, that was an awful lot
Speaker 1: of awful lot of time out of my life. But
Speaker 1: it was great, and uh, I wouldn't trade any of it.
Speaker 1: I wish you'd ended differently. I hated getting bought out twice,
Speaker 1: but that's the landscape of the industry that we are in.
Speaker 1: Um that It was funny because after I did two
Speaker 1: tours of duty and sports talk here, I went across
Speaker 1: the street into television for three years and love that
Speaker 1: had to blast as a TV anchor. And then I
Speaker 1: woke up one morning two years ago and they folded
Speaker 1: our news department. They put seventy seven of us on
Speaker 1: waivers in one day. It was just a terrible, terrible experience.
Speaker 1: But I wouldn't trade any of it. I just wish
Speaker 1: it had add a little bit different outcome. And I
Speaker 1: still like to work. You know, I have this huge website,
Speaker 1: Lee Hacksaw Hamilton's dot com. Now it's all written and
Speaker 1: we always tell people who listen to my if you
Speaker 1: like my talk show, I think you'll like what I
Speaker 1: do on my website because it's kind of the same thing.
Speaker 1: Hacksaws headlines in the Best fifteen Minutes in Sports and
Speaker 1: One Man's Opinion column. I wrote a column every day.
Speaker 1: Take that Bill plash ky l a times I saw.
Speaker 1: I'm still really, really active. It's just it's just a
Speaker 1: different venue now and I'm doing it what I like
Speaker 1: to still be doing it. Sure, Uh, whether it's in
Speaker 1: the jobs will ever change again? I don't know. The
Speaker 1: the industry issure change. I feel really bad. There's so
Speaker 1: many good people that I know in radio, uh, some
Speaker 1: on television, an awful lot in print or just throw
Speaker 1: all out of jobs right now. Just a sad time
Speaker 1: for our media industries. And you know that too, from
Speaker 1: all your friends, Lee, I guess the one question I
Speaker 1: want to ask you. With all the work that you
Speaker 1: have done, whether it's hosting, reporting, play by play, whatever
Speaker 1: it may be. Um, you know this, and you said
Speaker 1: this specifically, since you did a lot of your own legwork,
Speaker 1: being as you are, consider what we call talent being
Speaker 1: on air, did you ever have anyone upper management or
Speaker 1: even just a direct supervisor and said, hey, Lee, like
Speaker 1: lay off the gas on this or perhaps cut back
Speaker 1: a little bit on this, Like did anyone try to
Speaker 1: cut you off by the knees to make you do
Speaker 1: something you didn't want to do while being on the air.
Speaker 1: They've never interfered with the content because I told them
Speaker 1: my show is my show. If you want this to work,
Speaker 1: it has to be my show. But I never really
Speaker 1: had any problems with anybody until the end. I had
Speaker 1: a lot of problems at the end. Um, after the
Speaker 1: Chargers left our radio station, we all got screwed and
Speaker 1: then they want up leaving the community. Um, I've done
Speaker 1: a lot for them, and I love being the voice
Speaker 1: of the Chargers. I love game day in the NFL.
Speaker 1: We did a nine hour game day, we did nine
Speaker 1: hour NFL drafted, We did tremendous, tremendous radio. Everybody's trying
Speaker 1: to copy what we did, but we were the first
Speaker 1: to do it, and we did it really, really well.
Speaker 1: But they got upset as the franchise fall apart, and
Speaker 1: they had really dealt very unfairly with a lot of
Speaker 1: people in San Diego. I was of the opinion, screw you.
Speaker 1: I don't have to be nice to you anymore after
Speaker 1: what I've just witnessed what you did to our broadcast
Speaker 1: team with you did everybody in the community, and they
Speaker 1: moved the team and I so I let the fans
Speaker 1: just have at them. Of course, in the process, they
Speaker 1: were going through the Ryan Leaf here and one in
Speaker 1: fifteen and firing co choose and the ownership was incompetent
Speaker 1: and went on and on and they just raised Holy hell,
Speaker 1: and I didn't really care. And then then I got
Speaker 1: into a scrap with the Padres because they've been perennial losers,
Speaker 1: and they went through every general manager and every philosophy
Speaker 1: and all these ownership groups. And I just went on
Speaker 1: the year one night and said, period exclamation point. Doesn't
Speaker 1: the city of San Diego and Padre fans deserved better
Speaker 1: than this? And they went haywire, So too bad. You
Speaker 1: don't like what's being said on the air, do a
Speaker 1: better job, so we'll say better things about you on
Speaker 1: the air. But to spend back to your original question, no,
Speaker 1: not took a lot of heat. I took some crap
Speaker 1: from some people and has been and you guys will
Speaker 1: always attest there will always be haters out there. You
Speaker 1: can't please everybody. But if you're doing it right, and
Speaker 1: you're doing it honestly, and you can, you can back
Speaker 1: what you say with content and information. It works. It
Speaker 1: should work without any inference. And I just kept I
Speaker 1: remember telling an executive of the Padres, don't tell me
Speaker 1: how to do my job in radio. Do your job
Speaker 1: in baseball better, you know. And this is after all
Speaker 1: these damn last place finishes and mistakes on free agents
Speaker 1: and trades and and all that. There's probably a line
Speaker 1: of people outside my front door stretching down the street
Speaker 1: and down the bottom of the hill that don't like me.
Speaker 1: But that's okay because on top of the hill on
Speaker 1: the freeway there's everybody lined up. They probably liked what
Speaker 1: we did. Uh So I had a good time. I
Speaker 1: always try to be fair. I felt at times I
Speaker 1: really had to be tough on people, and I was not.
Speaker 1: I was not afraid because tough was honest, and honest
Speaker 1: was based on information that I knew and I had
Speaker 1: in sources, etcetera. Be sure to catch live editions of
Speaker 1: The Ben Maller Show weekdays at two am Eastern eleven
Speaker 1: pm Pacific. And and that's uh, not to make this
Speaker 1: all about me, but one of the reasons I was
Speaker 1: excited to talk to you is you were a big
Speaker 1: influence on my career. I inserned in the in the
Speaker 1: mighty six ninety back in the day in the nineties.
Speaker 1: And blame me. That's okay, Ben, just blame me for
Speaker 1: what turned out to me. I'm gonna blame you when
Speaker 1: I lose my job. But but uh, but no, I
Speaker 1: mean you were a great influence. Watching you work and
Speaker 1: all that one of the reasons I wanted to keep
Speaker 1: going and I recently want to be a play by
Speaker 1: play guy. And then I saw you did the talk
Speaker 1: show and all that. But where do I rank on
Speaker 1: Hacksall's big board of interns you had? You had a
Speaker 1: lot of internsally over the years. I'm sure I was
Speaker 1: just one of the minions that followed you around. So
Speaker 1: so where am I on your your big board there.
Speaker 1: You've probably been the most successful, well any of the
Speaker 1: guys that came through the building in terms of what
Speaker 1: they turned out to be, because you're now on network radio,
Speaker 1: and that's really really cool. By the way, you got
Speaker 1: the job that I probably should have had a Fox
Speaker 1: Sports Radio. And the next question, I guess at least
Speaker 1: I gotta ask you this because you're you're definitely not
Speaker 1: aware of this. But much like you and much like Ben,
Speaker 1: I got into the industry and I worked from the
Speaker 1: ground up, but my first way into the building was
Speaker 1: actually with thirteen sixty in San Diego, and so when
Speaker 1: I first started, I worked as a board op and
Speaker 1: then eventually as a producer and then an anchor and
Speaker 1: then some filling stuff. But I don't know if you
Speaker 1: are aware of this, and I don't know if you
Speaker 1: know this, but if you don't, I'm gonna shed a
Speaker 1: little bit of light inside that building at least what
Speaker 1: it was before some remodels um. A few of the
Speaker 1: on air talent that is still there actually showed me
Speaker 1: at the time when I worked there, old cassette tapes
Speaker 1: of segments and interviews and everything that you did while
Speaker 1: on air and it was all archived inside some cabinets
Speaker 1: and said some containers, Um, are you aware of that
Speaker 1: at all? Those are like that Indiana Jones right there,
Speaker 1: like the relics of lost arc. Well, you know, I
Speaker 1: would I was there were twenty two years and I
Speaker 1: got I got bought out, and I guess there was
Speaker 1: two thousand eight. I was shocked because we had tremendous radiance.
Speaker 1: But at that point in time, Clear Channel was firing
Speaker 1: everybody that was making a lot of money. It was
Speaker 1: terrible what they did, and it was terrible what they
Speaker 1: did to a legendary station. And they want up given
Speaker 1: up the signal, like I say, it's now, it's got
Speaker 1: Chinese talk on it. Can you believe that? And the
Speaker 1: station was successful, But I had had a good parting
Speaker 1: with them. It wasn't angry. I just didn't agree with
Speaker 1: what they did. But they gave me a week to
Speaker 1: clean out my archives. So you can understand. I'm not
Speaker 1: gonna say rat pack, but you can understand when you
Speaker 1: have twenty two years of archives, and I had twenty
Speaker 1: two years of media guides, and I had twenty two
Speaker 1: years of historic interviews. So I packed a pickup truck
Speaker 1: with what I felt was the most important stuff I
Speaker 1: had from my career at the old Extra six ninety
Speaker 1: and I brought it home in a large chunk of
Speaker 1: It's still in my garage here in San Diego. I
Speaker 1: don't have any room for my house, and I've never
Speaker 1: really had the urge to go back and find it.
Speaker 1: But yeah, there was a lot of stuff, and there's
Speaker 1: a lot of great historic interviews. And of course that
Speaker 1: was back in the day before digital, and that was
Speaker 1: when everything was on reel to reel and some of
Speaker 1: was on cassettes and stuff. And I took what interviews
Speaker 1: I could, but I couldn't take them all. But and
Speaker 1: I regret that now because I mean, if you look back,
Speaker 1: I've interviewed just an absolute ton of great sports people
Speaker 1: and I was I was able to keep interviews with
Speaker 1: Mickey Mantle, Henry Aaron, the late Arthur Ash but but
Speaker 1: some of the ones, the Branco, Nagurski and John mckin
Speaker 1: was some of the others great ones. I just I
Speaker 1: didn't have space a room to take everything with me,
Speaker 1: which is too bad. But yeah, there was a lot
Speaker 1: of stuff there and I got as much out there.
Speaker 1: They were very good to me in addition to giving
Speaker 1: me a buy out. But they let me just work
Speaker 1: through the process of how do you unpack twenty two
Speaker 1: years of memories? And I brought a chunk of at home.
Speaker 1: It's in my garage. And then sadly, I was victimized
Speaker 1: by the terrible fires in San Diego County and everything
Speaker 1: around me burned down. My house did not burn down,
Speaker 1: which stunned me because my whole neighborhood burned to the ground.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I know that if somebody walked into one
Speaker 1: of those corner offices, probably some that stuff is still there,
Speaker 1: because I did leave behind a lot of stuff. But that,
Speaker 1: you know, guys, it's the most people ask me about that,
Speaker 1: and and I tell people I'm not I'm not bitter.
Speaker 1: I'm disappointed the way it ended, and you know, maybe
Speaker 1: there'll be another opportunity. But you know, life is about memories.
Speaker 1: Life is about collecting memories. If if this newsmaker calls
Speaker 1: with Alt Michael's, could you imagine all the great things
Speaker 1: he could tell you places he's been, things he's done,
Speaker 1: and he's just one of the legendary broadcasters of all time.
Speaker 1: UH and Bob Costas and those guys are all friends
Speaker 1: of mine, so I uh, you know, I have great
Speaker 1: memories and flashbacks whish I was still doing some of it.
Speaker 1: I don't know how the hell I did it for
Speaker 1: all those years, but it's it's just kind of cool
Speaker 1: the road we've traveled, and I it's weird because I
Speaker 1: came from really unique roots and I tell us people
Speaker 1: all the time. I don't know if you guys are
Speaker 1: hockey fans, but this is the forty five anniversary of
Speaker 1: the release of the movie Slap Shot Paul Newman, the
Speaker 1: Hanson Brothers, Charleston Chiefs, and all that. While I was
Speaker 1: working in upstate New York, I was a young broadcaster
Speaker 1: and my final year in the minor leagues before I
Speaker 1: went to the major leagues, before I went to Cleveland,
Speaker 1: was in a place called Mohawk Valley in Utica, New York,
Speaker 1: and I broadcast hockey. That's where that's where I played
Speaker 1: by play roots actually started think about this in that league,
Speaker 1: and we were all twenty one year olds riding busses
Speaker 1: drinking beer with the boys in that league. I was
Speaker 1: in Utica, became the voice of the Chargers and the
Speaker 1: Seahawks and did all these great things on Sports Dog Radio.
Speaker 1: Bob Costas was in Syracuse, and we know what his
Speaker 1: career became. And there was a guy there was a
Speaker 1: voice of the Long Island Ducks. He like gold. He's
Speaker 1: the voice of the Alabama Crimson Tidan has done NASCAR. Uh.
Speaker 1: There was another guy in Binghamton who went on to
Speaker 1: do Cincinnati Reds baseball. We had, we had. There were
Speaker 1: a total of five of us, all about the same age,
Speaker 1: all in the lower minor leagues, in one league, which
Speaker 1: each other all the time. And I laughed now because
Speaker 1: this last week is anniversary of slap Shot. And I'll
Speaker 1: tell you, guys, everything in that movie, percent of that
Speaker 1: movie is true. I lived in that bus. That bus
Speaker 1: was our bus in Mohawk Valley, and I live with
Speaker 1: those players, and I drank all those players, and I
Speaker 1: slept on the bus with those players. And all the
Speaker 1: junk that happened when those players getting arrested, that happened
Speaker 1: in our building in Utica. So it's it's funny where
Speaker 1: where the road leads you in your career. And I
Speaker 1: and I stay in contact with the hockey friends, and
Speaker 1: I made back when I was just a young punk
Speaker 1: in the nineties seventies, and I stay in contact with
Speaker 1: him still, and I emailed a whole bunch of people
Speaker 1: a whole bunch of things about slop Shot that was
Speaker 1: just that was sent to me just last week. So
Speaker 1: it's it's it's fun to reflect back on where you were.
Speaker 1: And I'm sure it's the same for if you were
Speaker 1: to interview the Los Angeles legend Jim Healy. The stories
Speaker 1: he could tell, what the people he crossed paths within
Speaker 1: that major market would be spectacular. And you know, here
Speaker 1: I am, all these years later having interviewed great, great people.
Speaker 1: Remember Howard Cosell. I interviewed him in spring training when
Speaker 1: I was in Cleveland. I went to the Indian spring
Speaker 1: training camp for the first time. He kept calling me,
Speaker 1: young man, young man, let me tell you about this
Speaker 1: with Steinbrenner, a young man, let me tell you about Ali.
Speaker 1: It was so funny and so historical. So yeah, it's
Speaker 1: it's neat to think back, and I'm kind of proud
Speaker 1: of the junk we did and what we accomplished. You
Speaker 1: mentioned the memories and the roads that you have taken,
Speaker 1: and I bring that up because, oddly enough, there was
Speaker 1: a point in my career that Ben gave me some
Speaker 1: nice professional advice and there was an opportunity that presented
Speaker 1: itself with the Seattle Mariners and their High A affiliate,
Speaker 1: and they had an opening and I told that and
Speaker 1: talked to him about and he said, yeah, you should
Speaker 1: take the job. You should take the job right down
Speaker 1: as much as you possibly can, um and just chat
Speaker 1: this up as memories and so lo and behold in seen.
Speaker 1: I left Los Angeles and went to Bakersfield, and I
Speaker 1: was stuck in Bakersfield Lee for about six months, and
Speaker 1: Ben and his entire show, the entire Mallary militia came
Speaker 1: up to visit and uh he threw the first pitch
Speaker 1: out leave and oddly enough the franchise after two more
Speaker 1: months closed down for good. So so we know all
Speaker 1: about the memories. But I bring that up because of this, Like,
Speaker 1: you had such a long career. You know, we poke
Speaker 1: and joke you know on the air off there with
Speaker 1: with with Ben about just certain stuff on the show.
Speaker 1: But has there ever been a moment in your career
Speaker 1: early on middle or towards the tail end that you said,
Speaker 1: you know what, like I regret that I shouldn't have
Speaker 1: done that or shouldn't have said that or shouldn't have
Speaker 1: acted that way. I don't know if i'd call it
Speaker 1: real deep regret. Um at the height of our popularity
Speaker 1: at Extra six, uh, you know, and we had a
Speaker 1: pretty good group that was put together with the ownership.
Speaker 1: Will tell you look what we discovered. Well, I know
Speaker 1: that the real truth. He stumbled on these guys and
Speaker 1: they became stars. But um, I got a lot of
Speaker 1: job offers, and it started when I was in Phoenix
Speaker 1: and I had a chance to go it can be
Speaker 1: or in San Francisco when they were just becoming what
Speaker 1: they were going to become, and I just didn't feel
Speaker 1: comfortable and I didn't want to. I didn't want to
Speaker 1: give up the Arizona State Sundaval's job just to be
Speaker 1: a talk show host in San Francisco. So I said no.
Speaker 1: And I got a call one night at eleven PM
Speaker 1: in Phoenix as deep voice as on the other end
Speaker 1: of the line. I was half asleep, and it was
Speaker 1: really funny because my my wife was pregnant, and you
Speaker 1: know who calls us at eleven o'clock at night and
Speaker 1: guy on the other end of the line says, this
Speaker 1: is Lee Hamilton. I said yes, So this is Robert
Speaker 1: Highland from cam O X in St. Louis. I was
Speaker 1: fell out of bed because I knew who Robert Highland was.
Speaker 1: He was one of the greatest influential broadcasters on RADI
Speaker 1: oh an all time. He was an icon and CBS
Speaker 1: and they wanted me to come there, and I went
Speaker 1: to visit him and interviewed. I spent a day and
Speaker 1: a half in St. Louis and had a blast. And
Speaker 1: but then again, you know, I've given up the play
Speaker 1: by play, which I really loved, and removed my eight
Speaker 1: month pregnant wife, and we had just bought a house.
Speaker 1: I didn't know if it was going to work out.
Speaker 1: And then Costas called me because he worked at Cama Wicks.
Speaker 1: And then Jack Buck called me he worked at Cama Wicks.
Speaker 1: And Garagiola called me because he used to New Cardinal Baseball,
Speaker 1: and I just I turned it down. And I always
Speaker 1: always wonder what if what if I had gone there?
Speaker 1: And then on the West Coast the exact same thing happened.
Speaker 1: I did not know these people. And George Green, who
Speaker 1: ran k ABC during the houcy on days of the Dodgers,
Speaker 1: called me and I went up and visited with him,
Speaker 1: and as Ben would know KMPC, the old seven ten
Speaker 1: had gone sports, and he asked Autrey's people asked me
Speaker 1: to come up, and I talked and talked, but at
Speaker 1: those times I did not want to give up the
Speaker 1: opportunity to do the NFL as a voice of the Chargers.
Speaker 1: And We're doing really well, and I had had a
Speaker 1: couple of kids here, and I I had always been
Speaker 1: very cautious about wanting to not wanting to drag my
Speaker 1: family all over the place, and I, you know, I've
Speaker 1: been very stable and had worked a lot of a
Speaker 1: long time at just a couple of stations. I'm kind
Speaker 1: of the exception of the rule. So and maybe the
Speaker 1: only real significant regret is I had a chance to
Speaker 1: be the voice of the Anaheim Ducks and go back
Speaker 1: and do hockey, which was my roots where I came from,
Speaker 1: and I love the sport and I'm married to a
Speaker 1: Canadian and all that um, and I turned it down
Speaker 1: because I was right in the middle of negotiating to
Speaker 1: go to Seattle to do the Seahawks, and I didn't
Speaker 1: think it was right that I screwed the Seahawks this
Speaker 1: late in the game to take the Duck's job. That's
Speaker 1: probably the only one that I really regret, because I
Speaker 1: had had taken it, and I hired a really good
Speaker 1: guy and his friend of mine, Steve Carroll. If I
Speaker 1: had taken it would probably still be there and still
Speaker 1: be in the NHNEL. But I think that's that's the
Speaker 1: only real regret that I turned that one job down.
Speaker 1: And then and the Rep. Denny reputation and comes, well,
Speaker 1: he he is where he is, and he's not going
Speaker 1: to leave and he's got family roots in San Diego now, etcetera, etcetera,
Speaker 1: And and then the offers just kind of went away,
Speaker 1: and then the landscape of our industry are really changed
Speaker 1: to so the Ducks thing and maybe the St. Louis thing,
Speaker 1: I reflect back and say, wow, but it's been hard. Uh.
Speaker 1: I went through a them. My minor league hockey team
Speaker 1: was on the brink of folding, and we put together
Speaker 1: a drive to save the team for the community. And
Speaker 1: then I went to the and went to Cleveland. I
Speaker 1: was in the w h A, and we thought we
Speaker 1: were all going to the NHL and the merger, and
Speaker 1: we all got screwed and got knocked out of there.
Speaker 1: And then obviously the chargers left our station, and the
Speaker 1: chargers left our community, which just really upset everybody. So,
Speaker 1: uh yeah, you have to you have to kind of
Speaker 1: walk down the road, and you may step on a
Speaker 1: few land mines, You've got a few hand grenades tossed
Speaker 1: at you. You just got to be able to bounce
Speaker 1: back from it. 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 s are to listen live. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and Lee, that's I didn't know about that duck's job.
Speaker 1: That's an interesting story. So let's let's go back to
Speaker 1: the days in San Diego when you were at the
Speaker 1: Mighty six night, the peak of your superpowers, and listeners
Speaker 1: love hearing about radio wars. So who is who would
Speaker 1: you consider your biggest rival? You had Joe McDonald in
Speaker 1: l A, had Ted Lightner your rival in San Diego.
Speaker 1: Who who did you consider your biggest I don't know
Speaker 1: threats the right word, but but who are you competing
Speaker 1: against the most in those days? Although little sound egotistical,
Speaker 1: but it really wasn't competing against anybody because we were
Speaker 1: on the blowtorch signal uh, and and everybody else was
Speaker 1: just kind of doing mom and pop sports talk or
Speaker 1: padre talk or whatever. Um Joe, Joe had a nice
Speaker 1: reputation in La Joe and I were not friends because
Speaker 1: he said a lot of cruel, mean, on fair things
Speaker 1: about me on the air, which was cheap um lightning
Speaker 1: as a TV guy who doesn't like me. But I
Speaker 1: I just thought he was a fraud. He's had a
Speaker 1: really good career doing what he did, but I happen
Speaker 1: to think I've had a really good career, and I
Speaker 1: never never really got any any positive vibes out of him. Uh.
Speaker 1: I didn't know Jim Healey very well, talked to him
Speaker 1: a couple of times before he passed on, but in
Speaker 1: great regard for his style and his stick and his
Speaker 1: substance and what he accomplished in a very very very
Speaker 1: different era. But I wasn't really competing against anybody because
Speaker 1: we you know, we kind of wound it. Uh, we
Speaker 1: we are stationed. I didn't find this out till a
Speaker 1: couple of years ago. Might this is when Clear Channel
Speaker 1: owned it. At its height was billing eleven million dollars
Speaker 1: a year, which is a phenomenal amount of money in
Speaker 1: a fairly small market. Is not a big market here,
Speaker 1: eleven million. But we were doing that because our blow
Speaker 1: towards signal was part of Orange County. They had me
Speaker 1: up once a week doing remote in afternoon drive in
Speaker 1: Orange County. And then we went up to Los Angeles
Speaker 1: and we're doing stuff at casinos up there. So we
Speaker 1: were doing really well and Clear Channels screwed that whole
Speaker 1: thing up and I could never ever forgive them for
Speaker 1: what they did, wrecking a station that a whole bunch
Speaker 1: of us dedicated our lives too. Um, And it's really sad.
Speaker 1: Now it's very different. I mean, Los Angeles has got
Speaker 1: un ESPN and they keep changing parts trying to find something.
Speaker 1: They don't do much in the ratings and k l
Speaker 1: a C which evolved after they destroyed six nine. They
Speaker 1: finally finally went ahead and put sports talk. It's very
Speaker 1: different style of sports talk on five seventy. Um. It
Speaker 1: was funny because I had a chance in the in
Speaker 1: the dark days when Clear Channel was was doing away
Speaker 1: with six. They came to me and I was under contract.
Speaker 1: There are only two of us that survived the purge,
Speaker 1: me and Steve Hartman, and they came and came to
Speaker 1: me and said, would you come to l A, move
Speaker 1: to l A and be part of what we do
Speaker 1: in l A? And I I thought about it. So
Speaker 1: they sent they sent their vice president of programming down
Speaker 1: to see me, and he was great guy. I get
Speaker 1: along great with. Let me still there and we had
Speaker 1: a dialogue about their vision for what they wanted to
Speaker 1: make A five seventy become and my history and all
Speaker 1: that that you guys have alluded to and I've talked about.
Speaker 1: And then I said to him, I said, Greg, can
Speaker 1: you can you tell me what you're your mortgage payment
Speaker 1: is every month? He lives in the rich section of
Speaker 1: Hollywood Hills or something. He said something like a month.
Speaker 1: I pulled out my mortgage payment that I happened to
Speaker 1: have in my in my wallet. My mortgage payment at
Speaker 1: that time was eleven dollars a month in San Diego
Speaker 1: because I paid off my house. And I said, do
Speaker 1: you realistically think I'm going to move somewhere a half
Speaker 1: a five dollar mortgage payment when down here I have
Speaker 1: an eleven dollar mortgage payment a month. He laughed. And
Speaker 1: they let me stay on the air and I did
Speaker 1: my show on the original kale I see I did
Speaker 1: it U the San Diego studios, but I did it also,
Speaker 1: but it was l A topicated. I mean, we would
Speaker 1: lead with the Lakers, and we would lead with the
Speaker 1: Dodgers and the Angels and the Raiders. And I was
Speaker 1: doing as many l A triggered interviews there as I
Speaker 1: was in terms of San Diego content. But eventually every
Speaker 1: everything changed along the way, and you know, people make changes,
Speaker 1: sometimes good and a bunch of times, at least to
Speaker 1: my industry, pretty bad. And it's just got to be
Speaker 1: able to get through it, survive and hope you bounce back. Yeah,
Speaker 1: all right, and and leave. They're kicking us out of
Speaker 1: the studio here. But I wanted to wrap up. And
Speaker 1: you've got a lot of fans. I get messages. People
Speaker 1: know my history with you when I learned the business
Speaker 1: from you, and they asked me questions about you. What's
Speaker 1: he doing, what's he up to? And I've directed some
Speaker 1: people to your Twitter. But and you plugged your website,
Speaker 1: which is great. It is It is the best fifteen
Speaker 1: minutes in radio. It's the best fifteen minutes on the internet,
Speaker 1: which is pretty much. It just seems like your monologues
Speaker 1: that you would do. Your opening segment is available on
Speaker 1: the internet every day. As you said, you updated multiple times,
Speaker 1: so kind of real quickly we got about a minute
Speaker 1: and a half your hacks about promote everything. How can
Speaker 1: the fans of yours reconnect with you here on the internet.
Speaker 1: I write every day of the week, Monday through Friday.
Speaker 1: It's Lee Hack saw Hamilton dot com. There's four or
Speaker 1: five different pages on their best fifteen minutes in sports,
Speaker 1: he saus headlines, my one man's opinion column. Uh, it's
Speaker 1: it's just I cover anything and everything. It's kind of
Speaker 1: the Rick version of the talk show. And it's free
Speaker 1: on top of that, so you got a chance check
Speaker 1: it every every week. I guarantee of this, Ben, if
Speaker 1: you listen or if you read what I write on
Speaker 1: my website, I guarantee you you'll be the second smartest
Speaker 1: man in Southern California aside from me, because you'll know
Speaker 1: everything that I know, and I know everything about everything
Speaker 1: of course. All right, Lee, I love you man. Thanks
Speaker 1: for all the help you've given me over the years
Speaker 1: and continued the success with the website and whatever comes
Speaker 1: next for you. Thank you well. I appreciate it. We
Speaker 1: had a really good run and I think fondly of
Speaker 1: all the strange stuff. I mean radio stations, for the
Speaker 1: launching point, for the great success that Jim Rome had,
Speaker 1: for what Mason and Ireland became, what Steve Hartman, Philly
Speaker 1: Billy Warndell, the loose Cannons, chet forty. But we had
Speaker 1: something really really unique. That's it's great to think that
Speaker 1: we we are remembered by the fans up and down
Speaker 1: the West coast. And then, don't blame me for what
Speaker 1: you become, but I salute you for what you become. Awesome,
Speaker 1: Thank you, Lee. That was great, man. I loved it.
Speaker 1: Some wonderful stories and uh, and take care of yourself,
Speaker 1: all right. And all right, dude, stay in touch here.
Speaker 1: And if they ever let your dude guests give me
Speaker 1: on some middle of the night, we'll argue you about
Speaker 1: some of the sports stories. All right. I'll make that's
Speaker 1: a deal. All right. Thank you, Lee, take your man great,
Speaker 1: my pleasure. Take care, Benny. Bye,