Speaker 1: Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. No
Speaker 1: One's pushing me out. I'm not leaving. The president yesterday
Speaker 1: on a conference call with his campaign staff and notably
Speaker 1: also with Vice President Harris. Let me say this as
Speaker 1: clearly and simply as I can. I'm running. I'm the
Speaker 1: Democratic Party's nominee. No one is pushing me out. I'm
Speaker 1: not leaving. I'm in this race to the end. The
Speaker 1: President's fundraising email last night, I had a bad night.
Speaker 1: I screwed up. The president to a radio interviewer last night,
Speaker 1: all of us said, we pledged our support to him,
Speaker 1: said Kathy Hokel. After twenty governors met with mister Biden
Speaker 1: last night. Is he fit for office? Somebody asked him
Speaker 1: Wallas on the way out. Yes, we would stand with him.
Speaker 1: Wes Moore says he told the President Joe Biden's had
Speaker 1: our back. Now it is our turn to have his,
Speaker 1: said Gavin Newsom. And I understand what the governor said
Speaker 1: and why, And I understand why the President said what
Speaker 1: he said, and I understand why the email reads as
Speaker 1: it does, and I understand he may fully or nearly
Speaker 1: fully believe all of that. And I do not understand
Speaker 1: what they are doing at the White House. I don't
Speaker 1: understand it. The New York Times led a succession of
Speaker 1: reports yesterday. The gist of all of them was President
Speaker 1: Biden had told an ally quoting The Times, that he
Speaker 1: is weighing whether to continue in the race, Although, perhaps crucially,
Speaker 1: after the White House issued a flat denial, the Times
Speaker 1: altered the hook in that story and the story itself,
Speaker 1: to focus on the idea that, instead, quote, he may
Speaker 1: not be able to salvage his candidacy if he cannot
Speaker 1: convince voters that he is up to the job, which
Speaker 1: sounds like what you do for you wigh whether or
Speaker 1: not to continue in the race, all of which I understand.
Speaker 1: I do not understand the litmus test the President and
Speaker 1: his advisors have apparently convinced themselves will be the magic
Speaker 1: wand I'll quote the Times again. Mister Biden's allies said
Speaker 1: that the President had privately acknowledged that his next few
Speaker 1: appearances heading into the duly fourth holiday weekend must go well,
Speaker 1: particularly an interview scheduled for Friday with George Stephanopoulos of
Speaker 1: ABC News and campaign stops in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. The
Speaker 1: interview with George is not live, it is taped. The
Speaker 1: campaign stops in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin seem to be the
Speaker 1: standard ones, presumably going to follow all the other campaign
Speaker 1: stops with teleprompters. If someone is telling the president the
Speaker 1: doing well in totally controlled, utterly contented hothouse environments is
Speaker 1: going to quell in the slightest the impact that continues
Speaker 1: to resonate from a week ago in Atlanta. They are crazy.
Speaker 1: And if the President thinks doing what amounts to canned
Speaker 1: events will quaill the impact, he is doomed. And between them.
Speaker 1: If he gets through a pre recorded sit down interview
Speaker 1: that gets cut up into parts for the various ABC
Speaker 1: News shows, which is what ABC says it is doing
Speaker 1: with mister Biden, and he gets through two speeches and
Speaker 1: there are not questions from reporters or at minimum questions
Speaker 1: from the crowd, and he and the campaign boast about
Speaker 1: all these events as some kind of triumph, then the
Speaker 1: outcome will be this President Biden will have forced himself
Speaker 1: off the ticket, not because of the debate, but because
Speaker 1: of the week after the debate. The way to steer
Speaker 1: out of the skid, the way to find the magic
Speaker 1: wand the way to salvage his candidacy, as The Times
Speaker 1: put it, save his reelection bid, as CNN put it,
Speaker 1: stay in the race, as ABC put it, was and
Speaker 1: perhaps still is to hold a news conference, and I
Speaker 1: mean call a news conference for twenty minutes for now.
Speaker 1: I'll be there in twenty minutes. You get there if
Speaker 1: you can not a news conference next week at the
Speaker 1: NATO summit in DC, but now, and take whatever they
Speaker 1: got for you. And then to do a town hall somewhere,
Speaker 1: or as Jim Clyburn says, a series of town halls,
Speaker 1: and if you want some comparatively comfortable exercise in the
Speaker 1: middle of that, that's Stephanopoulos interview has got to be live,
Speaker 1: and it would be best to do these things on
Speaker 1: consecutive days. I do not understand what they are doing
Speaker 1: at the White House. And let me say for the
Speaker 1: one thousandth time, I love Joe Biden. When it hit
Speaker 1: me Tuesday afternoon, that between the Pelosi remarks about the test,
Speaker 1: about the legitimacy of the questions, and the harrowing leaked
Speaker 1: Swing state internals, the God Helped Me vibe had just changed,
Speaker 1: and the tipping point had been reached. When I realized
Speaker 1: that my heart broke. I want Joe Biden to find
Speaker 1: the magic wand I want him to be the nominee.
Speaker 1: I want him to get up at his second inauguration
Speaker 1: and give all of us the finger and become the
Speaker 1: first American president to highlight his swearing in by swearing
Speaker 1: at everybody. And he can swear at me personally. And
Speaker 1: I don't think it's going to happen, because I don't
Speaker 1: understand what the hell they are doing at the White House.
Speaker 1: In response to a request for comment, White House spokesman
Speaker 1: Andrew Bates said that quote it is false to suggest
Speaker 1: there is any openness to ending the campaign. End quote
Speaker 1: that to CNN, and it's finesse, just enough to give
Speaker 1: a little wiggle room, because if the president retires from
Speaker 1: the ticket, I am sure the word openness will not
Speaker 1: have applied to the process. The polls are awful the
Speaker 1: New York Times poll. They were asked, do you agree
Speaker 1: with this statement quote Joe Biden is just too old
Speaker 1: to be an effective president? Eighty four percent of registered
Speaker 1: voters under the age of forty five said they agreed
Speaker 1: with that statement. Eighty three percent of Hispanic voters, sixty
Speaker 1: four percent of voters sixty five and over in the
Speaker 1: horse race. Three other new polls, and the time and
Speaker 1: the previous six taken since the debate have shown an
Speaker 1: average shift away from Biden of about one and a
Speaker 1: half points in a week. But the polls are not
Speaker 1: fatal because almost none of that Democratic loss went to Trump,
Speaker 1: Despite his opponent having as calamitous a one night event
Speaker 1: as any presidential campaign has had since Bob Dole fell
Speaker 1: off the stage into the crowd at a campaign rally
Speaker 1: in nineteen ninety six, Trump has still only picked up
Speaker 1: three tenths of one point since the debate, So the
Speaker 1: Democrats could regain that. They could regain the whole point
Speaker 1: and a half if Joe Biden proves the debate was
Speaker 1: an anomaly. And it's not as if proving that is impossible.
Speaker 1: If it is impossible for him, another Democrat could regain that.
Speaker 1: On that subject, I have to say, I think we
Speaker 1: can rule out the idea that if he leaves the ticket,
Speaker 1: he should also leave the White House. Though I watched
Speaker 1: the confirmation hearings for Nelson Rockefeller that went on through
Speaker 1: half of my senior year in high school, I had
Speaker 1: bluntly forgotten and I apologize to you. And new vice
Speaker 1: president has to be approved separately by the Senate and
Speaker 1: the House. And why would I think the House Republican
Speaker 1: majority might stonewall any vice presidential nominee sent in by
Speaker 1: a new president Kamala Harris, just because if the post
Speaker 1: were to remain open, this weasel speaker Mike Johnson would
Speaker 1: then be first in line for the presidency. Anyway, I
Speaker 1: have two other things to mention on this fourth of
Speaker 1: July that are either relevant or true. The first is
Speaker 1: the incident at the White House press room. My friend
Speaker 1: Kelly O'Donnell Tim Rosser used to call us well. She
Speaker 1: used to call her KO, and he used to call
Speaker 1: me KO number two. Kelly o'donald, now president of the
Speaker 1: Correspondence Association and still with NBC News, was asking for
Speaker 1: the President to himself come to the press room and
Speaker 1: tell reporters himself that he was still running, rather than
Speaker 1: have the press secretary do it. She was saying this
Speaker 1: and doing it very politely and professionally, when she was
Speaker 1: interrupted by somebody neither polite nor professional.
Speaker 2: She's absolutely running. Yeah, Well he's saying that, and I'm
Speaker 2: I'm sharing with you his view and we would invite
Speaker 2: the president to come here and tell noted directly noted
Speaker 2: kill one, as you heard on your colleague, the president
Speaker 2: of the WHA. That's an appropriate thank you, Kelly.
Speaker 1: A note about that idiot who said if he's a
Speaker 1: link that was identified as James Rosen. He used to
Speaker 1: be a big deal at Fox and then there was
Speaker 1: a sexual harassment saga and they fired him and he's
Speaker 1: at Newsmax now. And not to diminish the harassment, but
Speaker 1: this may even be more telling about how disconnected from
Speaker 1: reality this idiot is. I put him on the Worst
Speaker 1: Person's list years ago, something idiotic he said at Fox,
Speaker 1: and as I recall, we had two really good nominees
Speaker 1: on the list and we needed a third one, and
Speaker 1: I kind of stretched to put him in there, because
Speaker 1: who the hell is James Rosen? I swear to God.
Speaker 1: A couple of days later, I get at my office
Speaker 1: an angry, multi page letter from James Rosen explaining what
Speaker 1: a brilliant reporter he is and how many awards he
Speaker 1: has won and how dare I and Fox has better
Speaker 1: ratings than I do? And attached to this multi page, virulent,
Speaker 1: venomous letter is his resume Lastly, back to the current
Speaker 1: issue and a disease I have discussed here before called
Speaker 1: anosagnosia as the legend. David Dunning of the Dunning Krueger
Speaker 1: syndrome wrote once, an anosagnosic patient who is paralyzed simply
Speaker 1: does not know that he is paralyzed. If you put
Speaker 1: a pencil in front of them and ask them to
Speaker 1: pick up the pencil in front of their left hand,
Speaker 1: they won't do it. And you ask them why, and
Speaker 1: they'll say, well, I'm tired or I don't need a pencil.
Speaker 1: I don't think David Dunning made that pencil reference randomly.
Speaker 1: It mainlines back to the president who in his lifetime
Speaker 1: was actually credited with saving the pencil industry in this country,
Speaker 1: President Woodrow Wilson. Now, the experts, more than a century later,
Speaker 1: are still studying the stroke that Woodrow Wilson suffered while
Speaker 1: on his cross country tour to try to sell the
Speaker 1: League of Nations to America over the heads of a
Speaker 1: disapproving Senate. The deduction has been widespread in the ensuing
Speaker 1: decades that whether or not he had the disease earlier,
Speaker 1: because evidently he had had strokes earlier. After the stroke
Speaker 1: in nineteen nineteen, Woodrow Wilson showed all the signs of anosagnosia.
Speaker 1: In the nineteen seventies, the neuropsychiatrist Edwin Weinstein was granted
Speaker 1: access to the Woodrow Wilson papers, and he wrote, after
Speaker 1: reviewing them carefully quote following his stroke, the outstanding feature
Speaker 1: of the president's behavior was his denial of his incapacity.
Speaker 1: Denial of illness or anosagnosia literally lack of knowledge of
Speaker 1: disease is a Umman sequel of the type of brain
Speaker 1: injury received by Wilson. In this condition, the patient denies
Speaker 1: or appears unaware of such deficits as paralysis or blindness.
Speaker 1: To casual observers, anosegnosiac patients may appear quite normal and
Speaker 1: even bright and witty when not on the subject of
Speaker 1: their disability. They are quite rational, and tests of their
Speaker 1: intelligence may show no deficit unquote, Unfortunately, when you turn
Speaker 1: to the subject of his disability, President Wilson was anything
Speaker 1: but rational. His secretary of State was a man named
Speaker 1: Robert Lansing, and Lancing dutifully summoned the entire cabinet to
Speaker 1: a meeting to discuss the illness of Woodrow Wilson. After
Speaker 1: the stroke, President Wilson or his wife promptly forced the
Speaker 1: resignation of Secretary of State Lancing. Doctors who challenged Woodrow
Speaker 1: Wilson about his were dismissed. People who knew him before
Speaker 1: his stroke and knew there was a problem and knew
Speaker 1: there was a difference were eased out or denied access.
Speaker 1: Woodrow Wilson insisted until his death that while yes, he'd
Speaker 1: had a stroke, it affected only his walking, and it
Speaker 1: affected his walking only a little bit. It's terrifying disease.
Speaker 1: One of the supposed allies, and it looks like there
Speaker 1: were two of them, and they became sources between them
Speaker 1: for the Times and ABC and CNN stories on Joe Biden.
Speaker 1: One of the supposed allies insisted the President was not
Speaker 1: oblivious to his situation. So I am not saying that
Speaker 1: anosagnosia is part of this equation. Also, you do not
Speaker 1: have to have anosagnosia or anything else impairing your judgment
Speaker 1: to be unrealistic or to underplay your own health troubles
Speaker 1: or your own age troubles. I turned sixty five this year,
Speaker 1: and the last thing I want to deal with is
Speaker 1: the reality that I'm sixty five. I will see myself
Speaker 1: in the mirror and go, that can't be right. I'm
Speaker 1: twenty two. But as you consider what is happening, as
Speaker 1: this unfolds to whatever conclusion it unfolds, two, keep this
Speaker 1: or something else like it in the back of your mind.
Speaker 1: It may also be in play. Denial is a colloquial term.
Speaker 1: Annosugnosia is a medical term. Reality as usual probably lies
Speaker 1: somewhere in between. Me as a rapidly aging sixty five
Speaker 1: year old, I just wanted a day off. Well, maybe
Speaker 1: next year in the Trump re education camp. In the interim, hey,
Speaker 1: did you know it's July fourth? I have wanted to
Speaker 1: tell the story on a July fourth for a lot
Speaker 1: of July fourths. Now. The story is about how the
Speaker 1: media in real time mistreated someone famous associated with the
Speaker 1: holiday in a way that is now literally unbelievable to
Speaker 1: people who still respect the person in question. How newspaper
Speaker 1: columnists in nineteen thirty nine and nineteen forty insisted that
Speaker 1: the great and tragic Lou Garrick, the baseball player, was
Speaker 1: a faking his illness and b had infected all of
Speaker 1: his teammates with it. That's next. This discountdown now to
Speaker 1: July fourth, and some unexpected lessons, It's still topical. This
Speaker 1: is about what happens when you make the mistake of
Speaker 1: thinking that the media is not self serving, when you
Speaker 1: wrongly believe that it does not look for the negative,
Speaker 1: when you foolishly expect it to own up to its
Speaker 1: own disasters rather than try to bury them, and particularly
Speaker 1: relevant to this last week with President Biden and the media,
Speaker 1: whatever the outcome, whatever the truth here, there is a subtext.
Speaker 1: If Joe Biden retires from the ticket because he's old,
Speaker 1: or he has an illness, or for whatever reason, that
Speaker 1: would validate what the writers wrote, especially the writers in
Speaker 1: the New York Times and the seemi underbelly to dogged
Speaker 1: reporting is reporters like nothing better than to first catch
Speaker 1: crap for their story and then have their story proved
Speaker 1: true after all, even if it weren't true when they
Speaker 1: wrote it. So sometimes they write really really bad stories,
Speaker 1: unbelievable stories, stories that should be chiseled into their gravestones.
Speaker 1: This is not per se about Joe Biden, nor about politics,
Speaker 1: nor about twenty twenty four for that matter. It may, however,
Speaker 1: be a metaphor for all of the above. The further
Speaker 1: we have gotten from Tuesday, July fourth, nineteen thirty nine,
Speaker 1: the further it has been evident that this was probably
Speaker 1: the most poignant day in the history of American sports,
Speaker 1: and one of the most poignant days in the history
Speaker 1: of America. That day was when sixty one, eight hundred
Speaker 1: and eight people crowded into Yankee Stadium in New York
Speaker 1: to hear lou Gerrigg say goodbye. He had been stricken
Speaker 1: by als, and as much as everybody tried to pretend
Speaker 1: it was not a death sentence, or at least not
Speaker 1: likely to be a death sentence, it is in retrospect
Speaker 1: clear that nearly all the fans knew. It was in
Speaker 1: fact so clear at the time that the Yankees and
Speaker 1: even officials of the city of New York were insistent
Speaker 1: that during the ceremonies between games of that day's doubleheader,
Speaker 1: that lou Geig should not make a speech. They literally
Speaker 1: believed that the amount of grief in the ballpark among
Speaker 1: the fans and the employees and the players would somehow
Speaker 1: be too much for at minimum, the mental health of
Speaker 1: everybody there. They did not know how that much sadness
Speaker 1: could be handled in public. Of course, lou Gereg spoke anyway.
Speaker 1: All he did was give one of the bravest and
Speaker 1: most moving speeches in human history, one that is repeated
Speaker 1: word for word in ballparks and elsewhere every year on
Speaker 1: its anniversary, July fourth. So we view that July fourth,
Speaker 1: nineteen thirty nine as a day of grief and sorrow
Speaker 1: and love and of that rarest of emotions, of our
Speaker 1: shared awareness of the implacability of death, and that our
Speaker 1: victory is over death must be temporary and symbolic. We
Speaker 1: see through hindsight lou Garrig Day Yankee Stadium, the Bronx,
Speaker 1: New York, Tuesday, July fourth, nineteen thirty nine, as a
Speaker 1: unanimous gathering bathed in sympathy and empathy, representing the sympathy
Speaker 1: and empathy of a nation. And we do that because
Speaker 1: the baseball world and the media have spent the intervening
Speaker 1: decades burying the work of those in its ranks in
Speaker 1: nineteen thirty nine who approached lou Garegg's illness as either
Speaker 1: prepare yourself as either a fraud or a conspiracy. I
Speaker 1: am going to read you in full two articles about
Speaker 1: lou Gereg that must be tied for the all time
Speaker 1: worst pieces written in American media history, and on the
Speaker 1: list of the worst things ever written for publication in
Speaker 1: the English language. The second article is actually not from
Speaker 1: nineteen thirty nine. It's from August nineteen forty, and in it,
Speaker 1: the sports editor of the New York Daily News all
Speaker 1: but accuses lou Gereg of being what we would now
Speaker 1: call a super spreader and speculates that Gereg has infected
Speaker 1: all the other Yankee players with his disease. The first
Speaker 1: article actually ran in hundreds of American newspapers on the
Speaker 1: night of Monday, July third, nineteen thirty nine, but mostly
Speaker 1: the morning of July fourth. It was in a column
Speaker 1: distributed by United Press, the precursors to United Press International,
Speaker 1: where I made my full time professional debut forty years later,
Speaker 1: almost to the day, in July of nineteen seventy nine.
Speaker 1: When I worked there, I had never heard about this article.
Speaker 1: Throughout the bulk of my career, I had never heard
Speaker 1: about this article. I did not know of this article
Speaker 1: until the microfilm files of newspapers migrated onto the Internet
Speaker 1: in the late nineties, and to this day, I have
Speaker 1: never found any indication that the writer ever apologized or
Speaker 1: ever admitted his stupidity and coarseness and insensitivity and awfully
Speaker 1: timed glibness. The writer's name was Jack Cuddy Jack Cutty
Speaker 1: c Uddy. He began as a news reporter for the
Speaker 1: Milwaukee Journal. After World War One, he worked for newspapers
Speaker 1: in Chicago, Miami, New Orleans, and then joined United Press
Speaker 1: in nineteen twenty six. He was a news reporter. He
Speaker 1: helped cover Lindbergh's solo flight over the Atlantic in nineteen
Speaker 1: twenty seven, and then in nineteen thirty two they made
Speaker 1: him their primary boxing reporter, and they also assigned him
Speaker 1: to write columns about all sports that would sent out
Speaker 1: on the up wire to all of the newspapers that subscribed.
Speaker 1: We don't know how many of them ran this. Their
Speaker 1: sports editors probably found out just how many of their
Speaker 1: readers actually read it, because by the time Jack Cutty
Speaker 1: wrote this, he had been a national sports reporter for
Speaker 1: seven years and a journalist a hard news reporter for
Speaker 1: about fifteen before that. This still is what untold readers
Speaker 1: of papers that carried the work of United Press read.
Speaker 1: Just hours four lou Geig gave his luckiest man on
Speaker 1: the face of the Earth speech in this corner Jack
Speaker 1: Cutty Rights on the retirement of lou Gereg by Jack Cutdy,
Speaker 1: New York. There's only one thing I see wrong about
Speaker 1: the celebration of the fourth of July, and that's the
Speaker 1: national shedding of tears about a husky named lou Gereg,
Speaker 1: which will be climaxed with a low Garreg Appreciation Day
Speaker 1: during the doubleheader between the Yanks and Washington at Yankee Stadium.
Speaker 1: The play rights for this gareg business at the stadium
Speaker 1: are making the affair so touching. I understand that even
Speaker 1: the little boys and gals of our vast land will
Speaker 1: be unable to set off firecrackers and things because of
Speaker 1: the tears that trickle down upon their matches and punks.
Speaker 1: The whole businesiness seems goofy and uncalled for. To me,
Speaker 1: I see no reason for pulling a pall over a
Speaker 1: holiday when everyone should be having lots of fun and peanuts, popcorn,
Speaker 1: cracker Jackson hot dogs. Particularly, I see no reason for
Speaker 1: pulling this Yankee publicity stunt about Gerreg, who was the
Speaker 1: last man in the world who would go for it.
Speaker 1: Unless the Yankee brass Hats and New York baseball riders
Speaker 1: snaffled him and forced him into it. Gerrek knows, and
Speaker 1: so should everyone else connected with baseball, that the thirty
Speaker 1: six year old first Basement of the Yanks was through
Speaker 1: with top flight play just as soon as he showed
Speaker 1: up at the Yanks training camp at Saint Pete. But
Speaker 1: because lou was the iron Horse, the man who had
Speaker 1: written into the records that all time mark of two
Speaker 1: one hundred and thirty consecutive championship games, his fade out
Speaker 1: had to be different from that of the ordinary player. Accordingly,
Speaker 1: Greg was sent to a nationally known center of health
Speaker 1: investigation to see what was wrong with him. I'll guarantee
Speaker 1: that if ninety percent of the men, women, and children
Speaker 1: in America were sent to that particular spot, we would
Speaker 1: learn that each and all had something wrong with them,
Speaker 1: even if it were only halatosis, athletes, foot warts, or
Speaker 1: bo I've forgotten exactly what they said was wrong with Greg. Oh, yes,
Speaker 1: I do recall that the first hospital report indicated infantile
Speaker 1: paralysis of a very vague breed, But later the experts
Speaker 1: explained it wasn't infantile paralysis at all, it was something else.
Speaker 1: The ailment had one of those high falutin names that
Speaker 1: only people with plenty of dough or prestige can have. Personally,
Speaker 1: I don't care what Garrek has got, but I'd like
Speaker 1: to exchange my body for his during the next forty
Speaker 1: or fifty years, let us say, And I'm pretty sure
Speaker 1: i'd do all right. Regardless of the expert's argument over
Speaker 1: the Latin or Greek declensions of what lariping Loo may
Speaker 1: or may not have, it seems to me that Greg
Speaker 1: was merely getting too old to play hell for leather baseball,
Speaker 1: and that the scientists of ailments or advertising gave him
Speaker 1: a graceful exit. But what really brings water to my
Speaker 1: eyes on this particular fourth of July is the plight
Speaker 1: of Monty Stratton, a lad who was right in his prime,
Speaker 1: only twenty five years old, a lad who never had
Speaker 1: the chance to amass the fortune that must be Garrick's
Speaker 1: gerreg too old for Championship Baseball will be out there
Speaker 1: tomorrow with his mysterious ailment, able to get about as
Speaker 1: actively as any one of his piano leg build should
Speaker 1: at thirty six. But poor Monty Stratton is hobbling about
Speaker 1: the coaches box of the Chicago White Sox with an
Speaker 1: artificial leg clinking about where his own right leg should be.
Speaker 1: There is no question about what happened to Stratton. He
Speaker 1: shot himself in the leg accidentally while hunting down Texas
Speaker 1: Way last November, and the right leg had to be
Speaker 1: amputated at the knee. At the time this accident happened,
Speaker 1: Stratton stood out as one of the best right handed
Speaker 1: flingers in the American League. They gave him a Stratton
Speaker 1: Day in Chicago this season and he got about twenty
Speaker 1: grand out of it, about the same as his salary
Speaker 1: for a year. Gerrig has been named non playing captain
Speaker 1: for the All Star Interleague Game at Yankee Stadium a
Speaker 1: week from Tuesday, along with tomorrow's Garreg Day. But it
Speaker 1: seems to me that poor Monty Stratton could have been
Speaker 1: appointed batting practice pitcher at least for the All Star Game.
Speaker 1: And if we've got to shed tears tomorrow for some
Speaker 1: afflicted ballplayer, let's give them off for poor Monty instead
Speaker 1: of for lucky lou Jack Cutty everybody. Twenty three months later,
Speaker 1: lou Gereg was dead. Monty Stratton the innocent bystander in
Speaker 1: this hindenburg of a sports column who had been on
Speaker 1: a possible Hall of Fame trajectory, actually made a comeback
Speaker 1: on one leg, and seven years later in the low
Speaker 1: minor leagues, he won eighteen games pitching for the Sherman
Speaker 1: Twins of the East Texas League. He pitched sporadically thereafter
Speaker 1: until the age of forty one. By then a film
Speaker 1: version based on his life had been made. It starred
Speaker 1: Jimmy Stewart. Monty Stratton died in nineteen eighty two, seven
Speaker 1: years and one week after the writer, Jack Cutty died.
Speaker 1: Jack Cutty had himself died thirty four years after Lou
Speaker 1: Garrig died, and thirty six years after he had offered
Speaker 1: to trade bodies with Lou gereg Not only did mister
Speaker 1: Cutty never apparently correct the Garret article, but United Press
Speaker 1: apparently did not punish him in any way for having
Speaker 1: written it. He continued to cover boxing for UP and
Speaker 1: UPI for another twenty five years, and his obituary appeared
Speaker 1: in The New York Times. It did not mention his
Speaker 1: column about Lou Garrick, but a man named Jimmy Powers
Speaker 1: died in February of nineteen ninety five. He too got
Speaker 1: an oh bit in The Times, and it too did
Speaker 1: not mention his lou garret article, which is, believe it
Speaker 1: or not, probably much worse than Jack Cutties. Jimmy Powers
Speaker 1: article appeared on Sunday, August eighteenth, nineteen forty. It covered
Speaker 1: much of two pages in the New York Daily News.
Speaker 1: Powers was sports editor there from nineteen thirty six until
Speaker 1: his retirement in nineteen fifty nine. He would eventually grudgingly,
Speaker 1: sparingly apologize for this uneducated drek that he wrote. But
Speaker 1: I worked with people at the start of my career
Speaker 1: who had worked with him. It was only about twenty
Speaker 1: years between us. They said. It was clear that he
Speaker 1: continued to believe that it was likely that he was right,
Speaker 1: and that Greg had somehow infected his Yankee teammates with
Speaker 1: some kind of milder version of ALS that cost them
Speaker 1: the nineteen forty American League pennant No, I am not
Speaker 1: kidding The New York Daily News, August eighteenth, nineteen forty.
Speaker 1: The headline read, has Polio hit the Yankees? The Yankees, who,
Speaker 1: for the past four years have been one of the
Speaker 1: greatest baseball machines in history and almost universally selected to
Speaker 1: win the Pennet again have collapsed. Why has the mysterious
Speaker 1: polio germ which felled lou Geig also struck his former teammates,
Speaker 1: turning a once great team into a floundering non contender.
Speaker 1: According to overwhelming opinion of the medical profession, poliomylitis, similar
Speaker 1: to infantile paralysis, is communicable. The Yanks were exposed to
Speaker 1: it at its most acute stage. They played ball with
Speaker 1: the afflicted Garrig, dressed and undressed in the locker room
Speaker 1: with him, traveled, played cards and ate with him. Isn't
Speaker 1: it possible some of them also became infected. It's hard
Speaker 1: to believe mere coincidence can explain away the wholesale failure
Speaker 1: of the individuals. In Gerreg's case, one of the most
Speaker 1: prominent symptoms was loss of muscular power. The same symptom
Speaker 1: can be found in many of the Yanks today. So far,
Speaker 1: no one has been able to advance a satisfactory reas
Speaker 1: it not without precedent. The possibility of wholesale team infection
Speaker 1: is not entirely without precedent. Last fall, the Loyola University
Speaker 1: football team was faced with the same menace from infantile paralysis,
Speaker 1: A greatly similar disease communicated in the same manner. A
Speaker 1: player collapsed in the dressing room was rushed to a hospital,
Speaker 1: where it was determined he had developed paralysis. The entire
Speaker 1: squad was quarantined and examined. Two other players were discovered
Speaker 1: bearing the germ, caught from their unfortunate teammate. Luckily, the
Speaker 1: infection was detected at the earliest stage. Injections killed the
Speaker 1: germ and brought complete recovery. In the Textbook of Nervous
Speaker 1: Disorders by Robert Bing, professor of neurology at the University
Speaker 1: of Basel in Switzerland, are found the following pertinent facts. One,
Speaker 1: the disease appears in a majority of cases between the
Speaker 1: ages of thirty and fifty five. Most of the players
Speaker 1: with the Yanks are in their thirties, with the exception
Speaker 1: of Gordon, the others are close to them. Two. Among
Speaker 1: causes found for the disease are over exposure to cold
Speaker 1: and exhausting disease or capital letters over exertion. Ballplayers certainly
Speaker 1: are called upon for more than normal exertion, as were
Speaker 1: the Yanks at a time when they were exposed to
Speaker 1: the germ. Three, Regarding the effect on the legs, where
Speaker 1: it probably would be most noticeable in ballplayers for a
Speaker 1: comparatively long period of time, the lower extremities remain normal,
Speaker 1: except for marked exaggeration of their reflexes. Atrophy of the
Speaker 1: leg muscles may not occur until the late stages of
Speaker 1: the disease. Thus a player might be able to run
Speaker 1: and move as well as ever while the germ was
Speaker 1: sapping his strength less noticeable parts such as hands, arms,
Speaker 1: and shoulders. Club players worried. Club officials and players have
Speaker 1: been worried that such a general infection existed. They took
Speaker 1: special precautionary measures to prevent it. Individual drinking cups were provided.
Speaker 1: Each player took care to use only his own towel.
Speaker 1: Special provisions were made for laundering uniforms and underclothing among
Speaker 1: the players. Bill Dickey last winter made a special trip
Speaker 1: to the Mayo Brothers Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota for a
Speaker 1: thorough physical checkup. This coming winter Atlee, Donald rad Ralph
Speaker 1: and several others are considering similar checkups. The fear of
Speaker 1: the disease had a psychological effect. It preyed on the
Speaker 1: minds of the athletes. Exaggerated minor aches, pains, and ailments,
Speaker 1: which ordinarily they would have ignored. Practically, the entire club
Speaker 1: had noticed Gareg's symptoms, became aware of and worried about
Speaker 1: nervous and muscular reactions they had never been conscious of previously.
Speaker 1: Club officials believe they have finally defeated this psychological sword
Speaker 1: of damocles. These nervous and muscular reactions could always be
Speaker 1: traced to an injury, a slight bump or bruise. This
Speaker 1: apparently was the savior for in Greg's case, no injury
Speaker 1: could be traced down to explain his early symptoms. However,
Speaker 1: the shadow of doubt must still linger, for in the
Speaker 1: same volume by Professor Byng is this quote, I have
Speaker 1: described a case of traumatic median neuritis which later developed
Speaker 1: into a typical lateral ammiothrophic sclerosis. The note the latter
Speaker 1: is the medical term for Garrig's ailment, and indicates that
Speaker 1: the particular form of paralysis which afflicted Gerrig might develop
Speaker 1: from neritis Alderman note no, not quite. Doctor Robert F. Walsh,
Speaker 1: Yank physician and surgeon, and Earl V. Painter, Yank trainer,
Speaker 1: each nationally famous in his profession, are the men closest
Speaker 1: to the physical well being of the players. They answer
Speaker 1: emphatically that no such condition exists on the club. Here
Speaker 1: is doctor Walsh's opinion. Quote. Though at first there was
Speaker 1: a very definite possibility of the entire team becoming afflicted,
Speaker 1: there is now no indication of it. Had the disease stricken,
Speaker 1: there would have been a noticeable change in the physical
Speaker 1: appearance of those to whom the disease had been communicated.
Speaker 1: There would not be the slightest doubt remaining that the
Speaker 1: stricken individual or individuals were infected. Unquote. Medics support Walsh.
Speaker 1: Doctor Walsh's statement is supported by the current medical belief
Speaker 1: that the infection will reveal itself within six weeks of
Speaker 1: the time of contact. However, with the medical profession admitting
Speaker 1: a meager knowledge of the disease, there is the possibility
Speaker 1: a lingering means of infection exists, that the disease may
Speaker 1: be communicated in a different form, and that it may
Speaker 1: be chronic as well as acute, as in Garrig's case. Thus,
Speaker 1: the possibility that the Yanks are so infected still exists.
Speaker 1: Doc Painter, in an equally definite denial, takes a different slant.
Speaker 1: He says quote In view of the circumstances, I can
Speaker 1: understand how one might be led to a plausible hypothesis
Speaker 1: that the team has been stricken with this disease. However,
Speaker 1: I have absolutely no belief in it. There is no
Speaker 1: similarity between the symptoms of these individual cases and Garrigs
Speaker 1: Lou suffered from deterioration of the nervous system. The trouble
Speaker 1: with these other boys is something entirely different. To point
Speaker 1: out one example, Ralph suffers from a blood rather than
Speaker 1: a nervous disorder. Are Yanks infected? Nevertheless, there is another
Speaker 1: point to be remembered. Gerg slipped perceptibly as a ballplayer
Speaker 1: about mid season in nineteen thirty eight. Almost a year later,
Speaker 1: when he reported for spring training, there was still no
Speaker 1: suspicion he was afflicted by this disease. In fact, not
Speaker 1: until June, when he visited the Mayo clinic was his
Speaker 1: ailment definitely determined. All of which apparently leaves a complete
Speaker 1: and final answer still to be made. Something has happened
Speaker 1: to the Yanks If Greg passed through a stage in
Speaker 1: which the cause of his ineffectiveness was undetermined, isn't it possible?
Speaker 1: Such is also the case with many of the Yanks today.
Speaker 1: Jimmy Powers article nineteen forty, accompanying that, by the way,
Speaker 1: which I have spared you, was a sidebar, a two
Speaker 1: or three line analysis of the underperformances of ten specific
Speaker 1: Yankee players, ending in bold faced print with this final
Speaker 1: word from Jimmy Powers. Can coincidence explain these simultaneous ailments?
Speaker 1: Couldn't the polio germ be the common cause? No, it couldn't,
Speaker 1: you idiot, that morning that that was published, lou Gegg
Speaker 1: who did not have polio, who did not have the
Speaker 1: other disease described by doctor Bing. Lou Gereg had amiotropic
Speaker 1: lateral sclerosis, and he had two hundred and eighty nine
Speaker 1: more days to live. Jimmy Powers was not suspended by
Speaker 1: the New York Daily News, not demoted, not fired, not
Speaker 1: branded with a scarlet letter a for asshole or anything else.
Speaker 1: In fact, he became one of the first sports writers
Speaker 1: to move into television as a commentator on NBC's Friday
Speaker 1: Night Fights in the fifties. I did not read you
Speaker 1: these to spoil your July fourth, nor any other of
Speaker 1: your days, nor to darken the commemorations and remembrances of
Speaker 1: lou Garrick. I read them just to provide a little
Speaker 1: perspective on media and opinion and the strongest, most unstoppable
Speaker 1: force in the world, a journalist who thinks he's right
Speaker 1: even though everybody else around him begs him to realize
Speaker 1: that he's wrong. Occasionally, that motivation gives us things like
Speaker 1: Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein and Watergate reporting. Occasionally it
Speaker 1: gives us Bob Woodward sitting on tapes of Trump admitting
Speaker 1: as it began that COVID would be airborne and a disaster,
Speaker 1: sitting on those tapes until Woodward could get himself a
Speaker 1: book deal. And occasionally it gives us Jack Cutty implying
Speaker 1: lou Gegg has a cold, and Jimmy Powers insisting lou
Speaker 1: Gegg had irresponsibly infected his teammates with the disease he
Speaker 1: didn't have, but Powers thought he did because part of
Speaker 1: the original diagnosis included a reference to another disease with
Speaker 1: the word polio in it. I've done all the damage
Speaker 1: I can do here, but not as much as Jack
Speaker 1: Cutty and Jimmy Powers. And how many Jack Cutties and
Speaker 1: Jimmy Powers do we read every day? On power? Politics?
Speaker 1: In this country and enjoy July fourth. I've done all
Speaker 1: the damage I can do here. Thank you for listening. Countdown.
Speaker 1: Musical directors Brian Ray and John Phillip Schaneil arranged, produced,
Speaker 1: and performed most of our music. Mister Ray was on guitars,
Speaker 1: bass and drums, and mister Shaneil handled the orchestration and
Speaker 1: the keyboards, and it was produced by Tko Brothers. Other music,
Speaker 1: including some of the Beethoven compositions, were arranged and performed
Speaker 1: by the group No Horns Allowed. The sports music is
Speaker 1: the Olberman theme from ESPN two, written by Mitch Warren
Speaker 1: Davis Curtisy vespn inc our satirical and pithy musical comments
Speaker 1: are band Nancy Faust, the best baseball stadium organist ever.
Speaker 1: That's countdown for this the one hundred and twenty fifth
Speaker 1: day until the twenty twenty four presidential election. The two
Speaker 1: hundred and seventy seventh day since convicted fellon Donald J.
Speaker 1: Trump's first attempted coup against the democratically elected government of
Speaker 1: the United States. Use the July eleventh sentencing hearing, use
Speaker 1: the mental health system, use all of it to stop
Speaker 1: him from doing it again. While we still can. The
Speaker 1: next scheduled countdown is Tuesday bulletins as the news warrants
Speaker 1: until the next one. I'm Keith Olderman. Happy July fourth,
Speaker 1: good morning, good afternoon, good night, and good luck. Countdown
Speaker 1: with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. For more
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