Speaker 1: Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. Reading
Speaker 1: the poll numbers just about now is like juggling flaming chainsaws.
Speaker 1: But there in between dismemberment and conflagration are the late deciders,
Speaker 1: and the late deciders are breaking for Kamala Harris. The
Speaker 1: Emerson College poll is forty nine, forty eight Harris, and
Speaker 1: two percent undecided. But Emerson reports that the late deciders,
Speaker 1: those who have made their choice in the last month
Speaker 1: or even the last week, have been breaking for Kamala
Speaker 1: Harris sixty to thirty six. Sixty percent of those deciding
Speaker 1: in real time right now are picking the vice president.
Speaker 1: And the math after that is pretty simple. If you
Speaker 1: have your own chalkboard. There's something like three and one
Speaker 1: quarter million people who will vote by two weeks from
Speaker 1: today who have not yet decided. If they break the
Speaker 1: same way those who have decided in the last month have,
Speaker 1: she gets a net of about six hundred and fifty
Speaker 1: thousand votes. I'm not saying she gets six hundred and
Speaker 1: fifty thousand more votes. I'm saying expect the probable Trump
Speaker 1: votes and the probable Harris votes. Subtract the probable Trump
Speaker 1: votes from the probable Harris votes, and she will add
Speaker 1: to her lead nationally by a net gain of six
Speaker 1: hundred and forty eight thousand votes six forty nine, six fifty.
Speaker 1: If they break this way in Pennsylvania sixty percent to her,
Speaker 1: she will add another twenty seven thousand, six hundred and
Speaker 1: sixty votes to her lead in Pennsylvania. Trump one Pennsylvania
Speaker 1: by a margin of forty five thousand votes. Biden won
Speaker 1: Pennsylvania by eighty thousand votes. Do you see it now?
Speaker 1: Sixty percent late breakers going to Harris, and her one
Speaker 1: or two point leads in the swing states become victories,
Speaker 1: and her one or two point deficits in other swing
Speaker 1: states can become victories as well. A little bit more subtle,
Speaker 1: the Emerson poll also says three percent of the decideds
Speaker 1: could still change their mind. That group is also favoring
Speaker 1: Harris by five points, and the impact of that number
Speaker 1: five points is a lot more dangerous to predict in theory,
Speaker 1: I mean, all the undecided decideds, including those now supporting Harris,
Speaker 1: could all go for Trump one hundred percent for Trump
Speaker 1: extraordinarily unlikely, obviously, just as it is extraordinarily unlikely that
Speaker 1: they would all go for her, But in any subset
Speaker 1: like this, late deciders might change their minds. Left handed voters,
Speaker 1: you want to be ahead today, not behind, and you
Speaker 1: want to be ahead by more than the national lead.
Speaker 1: If she's ahead in this group by five and leading
Speaker 1: in the polls by one or two, you are happy
Speaker 1: to be ahead by five points in the might change
Speaker 1: their mind demographic. You are ecstatic to be ahead by
Speaker 1: twenty four points in the late deciders. All right, stay
Speaker 1: with me here a little bit further on the numbers,
Speaker 1: because CNN has taken its average of polls and identified
Speaker 1: a Trump damn break in his core group. In twenty sixteen,
Speaker 1: Trump won non college white voters nationally by thirty three points.
Speaker 1: In twenty twenty, he won them by thirty one points.
Speaker 1: Right now he is winning them by twenty seven points.
Speaker 1: Doesn't sound like a lot of a difference there. It's
Speaker 1: still an extraordinarily large victory in this demographic. But once again,
Speaker 1: as CNN did, apply that damn break just to Michigan, Pennsylvania,
Speaker 1: and Wisconsin, and it could be suddenly decisive for Harris.
Speaker 1: Likely voters in those three states are fifty one percent
Speaker 1: non college whites. The core of Trump's voting block is
Speaker 1: a majority in those states. And again, the term likely
Speaker 1: voters is like the term chance of rain. But when
Speaker 1: you produce any number that big that it's like half
Speaker 1: of everybody, you pay attention because even close matters. Here.
Speaker 1: Half the voters in Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin are non
Speaker 1: college whites. Trump's support among non college whites is down
Speaker 1: four points since twenty twenty. It's down three points in
Speaker 1: just those three states since twenty twenty. That's a loss
Speaker 1: of thirteen percent of his support in that group, and
Speaker 1: that more than balances out any gains he makes in
Speaker 1: any of the demographic groups, particularly the ones that are smaller.
Speaker 1: And guess what. In Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, all other
Speaker 1: demographic groups are smaller, non college whites are majorities there.
Speaker 1: The Associated Press and NORK did an issues poll, and
Speaker 1: suddenly Harris is more trusted on economics, trusted by two
Speaker 1: points more on jobs and unemployment, trusted on housing costs
Speaker 1: by five points more than Trump, trusted on middle class
Speaker 1: taxes by ten points more than Trump. Even on the
Speaker 1: core issue cost of groceries and gas, he is favored
Speaker 1: over her, but by only two points If those numbers
Speaker 1: are even close to reality, Trump is in a world
Speaker 1: of hurt. And the other thing about the Emerson Interior
Speaker 1: numbers I wanted to come back to, and these other
Speaker 1: numbers threaded out by Harry Enton at CNN, is that
Speaker 1: they render the big national polls and even the big
Speaker 1: swing state poles even more fluid and even more good
Speaker 1: looking for Kamala Harris. The Washington Post, as I'm sure
Speaker 1: you saw, came out yesterday with Harris up by two
Speaker 1: in Georgia, two in Michigan, two in Pennsylvania, three in Wisconsin,
Speaker 1: tied in Nevada, trailing in Arizona, and North Carolina by
Speaker 1: three each. What do you suppose those numbers would look
Speaker 1: like if each state matches that key Emerson number, two
Speaker 1: percent undecided, sixty percent of late deciders breaking for Harris. Well,
Speaker 1: those numbers look nicer, much nicer, much much nicer. They
Speaker 1: look in fact, friendly and alluring and like they are
Speaker 1: baking us all apple pies for election Day. Also, Trump
Speaker 1: is crazy, and he does keep saying crazy things. Assassination
Speaker 1: attempt survivor. Trump yesterday endorsed the threatening of public officials
Speaker 1: by armed gunmen. Swanna Noah North Carolina, twelve thirty pm
Speaker 1: Eastern yesterday. I am Martin Gunman was arrested in charge
Speaker 1: of making friends It's FEMA workers Saturdays ago, Tema had
Speaker 1: a safety stand down here an incredible friends isn't helping
Speaker 1: to recovery up in North Carolina, complaining he's playing with Mima's.
Speaker 2: Not doing their job.
Speaker 3: Well, I think you have to let people know how
Speaker 3: they're doing. If they were doing a great job, I
Speaker 3: think we should say that too, because I think they
Speaker 3: should be rewarded. But if they're not doing does that
Speaker 3: mean that if they're doing a poor job, we're supposed
Speaker 3: to not say it. These people are entitled to say it.
Speaker 1: Yes, let them know they're doing a bad job with
Speaker 1: a gun. This is this lie that he keeps pushing,
Speaker 1: and they keep letting him push it, and they keep
Speaker 1: not saying it's a lie that FEMA money went to
Speaker 1: immigrants and that there's a big meeting. The big meeting
Speaker 1: would be the House of Representatives putting money into FEMA,
Speaker 1: which it is refusing to do. Trump encouraging North Carolinians
Speaker 1: to threaten FEMA employees overlies that McDonald's Trump tells and
Speaker 1: Trump cultists believe. While by the way, the Republican Congressman
Speaker 1: Chuck Edwards stands behind him at that news conference, hours
Speaker 1: after Edwards's latest statement praising FEMA and the Biden administration
Speaker 1: for the job it is doing in North Carolina. Trump
Speaker 1: then says guns, threats, shootings, Edward's silence and tell me,
Speaker 1: are we still waiting for Trump's post assassination attempt reset?
Speaker 1: By the way, raised not this congressman Edwards. He lied
Speaker 1: by omission because he owns a bunch of McDonald's. And
Speaker 1: after this latest photo op, Edwards presented Trump with a
Speaker 1: pin for his lapel signifying Trump's graduation from French fry
Speaker 1: School or Ronald McDonald clown College. I couldn't bear to
Speaker 1: look now. The likeliest explanation for this whole thing at
Speaker 1: Swannanoa is that Trump didn't hear or didn't remember the
Speaker 1: reference to armed gunmen in the question I'm betting on
Speaker 1: not remembered. I mean, I mean, hellot, it did happen
Speaker 1: nearly thirty seconds earlier, and it didn't have anything to
Speaker 1: do with him personally, So why would he remember something
Speaker 1: that happened thirty seconds ago? Oh yeah, and as the
Speaker 1: fake McDonald's employee, in the size xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx l apron in
Speaker 1: the closed McDonald's with the fake customers. As he was
Speaker 1: winched back into his car in North Carolina, somebody asked
Speaker 1: him about the Republican candidate for governor there, the one
Speaker 1: Trump endorsed, good old Mark Nude Africa Robinson. It is
Speaker 1: difficult to hear, but you will hear Natalie Allison of
Speaker 1: Politico asking Trump if North Carolinians should still support Mark Robinson.
Speaker 1: Trump's answer is not Mark Robinson, Mark Robinson who? But
Speaker 1: it might as well have been, because what he did,
Speaker 1: in fact say was I'm not familiar with the state
Speaker 1: of the race right now. I haven't looked. I haven't
Speaker 1: seen it. Kind of a bigger traced that I was
Speaker 1: talking about him.
Speaker 2: Haven't seen it.
Speaker 1: Coincidentally, I believe quote I haven't looked, I haven't seen
Speaker 1: it was Lieutenant Governor Robinson's first response when they discovered
Speaker 1: he had figuratively added a porn wing to his home,
Speaker 1: and also that he was pro Jim Crow, pro slavery,
Speaker 1: and pro whipping. By the way, the reporter there, Miss Allison,
Speaker 1: I don't know her deal, but her story appeared in
Speaker 1: Dos Politico. The one that occurred after Trump pretended Mark
Speaker 1: Robinson wasn't one of his guys, and after Trump told
Speaker 1: more lies about FEMA and immigrants and money, and after
Speaker 1: Trump at minimum sloppily implied you should threaten government employees
Speaker 1: with a gun, even after somebody shot at him, and
Speaker 1: after Trump got some kind of memorial French fry lapel pin.
Speaker 1: Her story had this headline slapped on it. Back at
Speaker 1: DOS Politico headquarters, Trump strikes somber tone while touring storm
Speaker 1: ravaged North Carolina. Your daily reminder to dos Politico that
Speaker 1: you can sell your soul to Trump, like my one
Speaker 1: time co anchor, Sage Page Rage whatever her name was, Steel,
Speaker 1: Like Rage Steel found out on Sunday. If there's a problem,
Speaker 1: you can depend on him. He'll always pretend to not
Speaker 1: know you. Mark, who flick flick did you say? And
Speaker 1: your daily reminder that all the data and all the
Speaker 1: polling and all the interior numbers tend to discount the
Speaker 1: reality that Trump's decline is accelerating and his chances of
Speaker 1: saying exactly the wrong thing to the people who matter
Speaker 1: right now, the two percent undecided who are already breaking
Speaker 1: sixty to forty for Kamala Harris. Those chances are also
Speaker 1: accelerating the closer we get to election day. He's dead
Speaker 1: on his feet out there. Whether those people that two percent,
Speaker 1: whether they are agonizing over their decisions or are just
Speaker 1: more worried right now about which neighborhood kid to hire
Speaker 1: to rake the leaves, and they'll get to their decision
Speaker 1: about the election on the way to vote. They will
Speaker 1: still be influenced by the events of the next two weeks,
Speaker 1: like Trump's daily moment of stupid and yesterday's Trump Daily
Speaker 1: moment of stupid was in Greenville, North Carolina.
Speaker 3: I will invoke the Alien Enemies Act of eighteen to
Speaker 3: oh of seventeen ninety eight.
Speaker 1: Seven.
Speaker 3: Think of that seventeen ninety eight. That's when we had
Speaker 3: real politicians that said, we're not going to play games.
Speaker 3: We have to go back to seventeen ninety eight.
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, yes, we have to go back to seventeen
Speaker 1: ninety eight, when we had real politicians who weren't woke woke,
Speaker 1: which is what he called them the last time he
Speaker 1: harkened back to that wonderful year seventeen ninety eight. Where
Speaker 1: were you and what were you doing when laws went
Speaker 1: into effect making it a crime to go to size
Speaker 1: the federal government out loud or in print, and when,
Speaker 1: of course we still had slavery, And no, Trump did
Speaker 1: not just endorse slavery, but you know what he is
Speaker 1: at slavery endorsement adjacent And keep this in your heart
Speaker 1: going forward the next two weeks. Trump is just crazy enough.
Speaker 1: I'm not saying he's going to I'm saying he's crazy
Speaker 1: enough to maybe cross that street and come up upon
Speaker 1: slavery and before election day give slavery a big old hug.
Speaker 1: The only wild card is considering his base. Would that
Speaker 1: hurt Trump or help him? Also of interest here on
Speaker 1: this all new edition of Countdown, So Newsy got fired.
Speaker 1: This is days after Cheryl Hines showed up at the
Speaker 1: Al Smith dinner with her husband, Robert F. The f
Speaker 1: is not for the future, mister Olivia Newsy Kennedy Junior.
Speaker 1: She's done. I mean, she can get some money for
Speaker 1: her memoir, but not if she struggles with acknowledging it
Speaker 1: it was not all a plot against her, and she
Speaker 1: struggles with that, You'll have to take my work for them.
Speaker 1: She factors into worse persons upcoming, but not actually in
Speaker 1: the way you would expect, sort of peripherally, and I
Speaker 1: should mention the comedian who actually did juggle chainsaws, Michael Davis. Also,
Speaker 1: I am so tired that yesterday I said it was
Speaker 1: only a week until the election. It's two weeks. So
Speaker 1: the good news is Kamala Harris has got two weeks
Speaker 1: to turn those late deciders going sixty four for her
Speaker 1: into a big win. The bad news is it's two weeks.
Speaker 1: I'm so tired. The other bad news, I think what
Speaker 1: I basically meant was it's only one week until the
Speaker 1: World Series finally starts. All of that's next. This is Countdown.
Speaker 1: This is Countdown with Keith Oberman, my crazy friend still
Speaker 1: ahead on this all new edition of Countdowns. Sportsball time.
Speaker 1: That's exciting baseball season now, rachels, it's climax with the
Speaker 1: World Series beginning only four days from now. Boy, have
Speaker 1: they screwed this up? The Dodgers and Yankees will play
Speaker 1: a World Series. It would take me literally eight minutes
Speaker 1: to walk to the subway and like twenty two minutes
Speaker 1: to get to the stadium on the subway, and it's
Speaker 1: not worth it. On the other hand, now I'll have
Speaker 1: to stay home and like listen to John Smoltz complain
Speaker 1: about how the pictures aren't as good as he was.
Speaker 1: Oh no, that's not gonna listen to my friend Boog
Speaker 1: Shambie on ESPN Radio instead. And I have a fact
Speaker 1: for you about how the pictures in this Yankees Dodgers
Speaker 1: World series are likely to be better than the pictures
Speaker 1: were in the nineteen fifty five Yankees Dodgers World series.
Speaker 1: And you can surprise your friends with this fact. Next. First,
Speaker 1: there are still more new idiots to talk about, the
Speaker 1: daily roundup of the miss Grants, morons and Dunning Kruger
Speaker 1: effects specimens who constitute two days where's paces in the word?
Speaker 1: Sorry to invoke my late friend Vin Scully, but it's
Speaker 1: a Dodger Yankees World series. The bronze worse, doctor said
Speaker 1: Newi of London, the old how it started, how it's
Speaker 1: going thing? Doctor Newi writes, I am a Muslim. Daily
Speaker 1: I treat Jews, and I have taken a hippocritical oath
Speaker 1: that outlines my responsibilities in the Buckingham Crew. However, I
Speaker 1: must admit that if I had the power, I would
Speaker 1: vanish every Jew. Okay, that's how it started. Now, he writes,
Speaker 1: I want to clarify that my apology is genuine and
Speaker 1: not motivated by fear of my position. Every organization, including
Speaker 1: NHS England, NHS UK and GMC UK, knows me and
Speaker 1: my commitment to providing compassionate care. I sincerely felt the
Speaker 1: impact of my words and recognize the need to apologize.
Speaker 1: My intention has always been to promote understanding and respect,
Speaker 1: and I will continue to strive for that in my work.
Speaker 1: Thank you for your understanding. Doctor Nouri, evidently still employed
Speaker 1: and evidently not some sort of troll fake account, tried
Speaker 1: a few more apologies, tried reaching out to a few
Speaker 1: people that he might have said he wanted to vanish,
Speaker 1: and when that didn't work, he started back on anti
Speaker 1: Semitic attacks, but with a twist. Yesterday he posted his
Speaker 1: own campaign ad for Trump and Elon Musk. Trump must
Speaker 1: connection is crucial. Must gives Trump media boost Ya exprooting
Speaker 1: free speech that's stupid. Musk gives Trump internationale business boost
Speaker 1: via Tesla Okay. Musk reigns in Trump on wars. Elon
Speaker 1: Musk wouldn't stop a war if it saved some of
Speaker 1: his children. Must gives Trump economic boost for American prosperity.
Speaker 1: Two business geniuses vote Trump. It's unbelievable. You can talk
Speaker 1: about killing people and that turns out not to be
Speaker 1: your dumbest tweet of the week, Doctor Newry, trying to
Speaker 1: help tap down Trump's reputation as an anti Semite and
Speaker 1: Musks as a pro apartheid druggie. What's next trashing the
Speaker 1: World Series? Oh no, no, no, that's my department the runner
Speaker 1: up wor Sir, New York Magazine. I mean this is timing,
Speaker 1: This is all time great timing. Today it is devoted
Speaker 1: most of its issue that came out yesterday to a
Speaker 1: huge feature interviewing a bunch of people you never heard of,
Speaker 1: but not one progressive media critic. And the summary of this,
Speaker 1: can the media survive? Fifty seven of the most powerful
Speaker 1: people in media on its future? Big tech, feckless owners,
Speaker 1: cord cutters, restive staff, smaller audiences, and the return of print.
Speaker 1: By the way, New York Magazine thinks, Gail King is
Speaker 1: one of the fifty seven most powerful people in media,
Speaker 1: So they publish this joke with all these powerful people
Speaker 1: that no one knows because the media is about who
Speaker 1: can get the biggest salary before the whole thing goes
Speaker 1: under and hours after they published this, they fired Olivia Newsy.
Speaker 1: Last month, the magazine enlisted the law firm Davis Wright
Speaker 1: Tremaine to review Olivia Newsy's work during the twenty twenty
Speaker 1: four campaign. They reached the same conclusion as the magazine's
Speaker 1: initial internal review of her published work, finding no inaccuracies
Speaker 1: nor evidence of bias. Nevertheless, nevertheless, the magazine and Newsy
Speaker 1: agreed that the best course forward is to part ways.
Speaker 1: Newsy is a uniquely talented writer, and we have been
Speaker 1: proud to publish her work over her nearly eight years
Speaker 1: as our Washington correspondent. We wish her the best. No inaccuracies,
Speaker 1: no evidence of bias, no pants. Whatever you want to
Speaker 1: say about Olivia, and whatever you do want to say,
Speaker 1: get in line behind me. I helped negotiate her new
Speaker 1: job with New York Magazine her story and the fact
Speaker 1: that her personal relationship with Robert F. Kennedy Junior went
Speaker 1: on for a year during a presidential campaign without her
Speaker 1: employers at New York Magazine knowing about it or if
Speaker 1: they did, doing anything about it, and then her ex fiance,
Speaker 1: Ryan Liz's response to that, which may have been blackmail
Speaker 1: or may have been something that went on for at
Speaker 1: least half of that time without his employers at Politico
Speaker 1: knowing about it. This actually answers the question. Know our
Speaker 1: current form of media, news media in particular, cannot survive
Speaker 1: because it is run by idiots, idiots who do not
Speaker 1: understand that it could survive if it did one thing,
Speaker 1: if it rehired all the copy editors and producers it
Speaker 1: has laid off, fire reporters, fire anchors in particular, fire writers,
Speaker 1: cancel shows, cut back from five primetime news hours to three.
Speaker 1: You know, MSNBC made more profit off of a smaller
Speaker 1: investment when we had two shows on at night, only
Speaker 1: two shows, and we kept rerunning them than they do now,
Speaker 1: and I mean a lot more. Re hire your mistake finders,
Speaker 1: so you'd find mistakes like like Olivia, which brings us
Speaker 1: to the winner the worst one of the Hall of
Speaker 1: Famers of the Worst Person segment. Rich Lowry of the
Speaker 1: National Review Online, I offer you his detailed, heavily promoted
Speaker 1: online analysis of the WNBA Basketball Championship series. You ready,
Speaker 1: I'm going to read this in full? Have you got
Speaker 1: forty seconds? As I've mentioned before, I've acquired an interest
Speaker 1: in the WNBA after climbing aboard the Caitlin Clark bandwagon.
Speaker 1: So I did something I never would have done before
Speaker 1: and watched some of the WNBA finals last night, and man,
Speaker 1: it was bad. It was a very close to stay
Speaker 1: of Game five won by the Liberty. But the scoring
Speaker 1: is about what you'd expect to see from a first
Speaker 1: round game in the ACC tournament, with the number eleven
Speaker 1: and fourteen seeds futilely battling it out. That's that's it.
Speaker 1: Let me check on the back here? Is there more?
Speaker 1: Is that? All? Lowry? Oury? Okay? Now you can like
Speaker 1: the WNBA or hate the WNBA, and let me just
Speaker 1: say it correctly once WNBA. But that's the whole feast.
Speaker 1: They pay this man to do this. That's his entire analysis.
Speaker 1: It was bad. Gee, thanks Rich, Thanks for your insight.
Speaker 1: It was bad. You got anything else on this? No,
Speaker 1: it was bad. Plus anytime Rich Lowry writes about women,
Speaker 1: this requires one to go back and reread the worst
Speaker 1: political column ever written Rich Lowry, October three, two thousand
Speaker 1: and eight, after the Vice presidentidential debate, also writing for
Speaker 1: the National Review. Because what in sixteen years you think
Speaker 1: he's going to get a real job after writing crap
Speaker 1: like this quote. A very wise TV executive once told
Speaker 1: me that the key to TV is projecting through the screen.
Speaker 1: Hits one of the keys to the success of Sayah
Speaker 1: Bill O'Reilly, who comes through the screen, comes through the
Speaker 1: screen and grabs you by the throat. Sarah. Palin too
Speaker 1: projects through the screen like crazy. I'm sure I'm not
Speaker 1: the only male in America who when Palin dropped her
Speaker 1: first wink, sat up a little straighter on the couch
Speaker 1: and said, Hey, I think she just winked at me.
Speaker 1: And her smile by the end, when she clearly knew
Speaker 1: she was doing well, it was so sparkling it was
Speaker 1: almost mesmerizing. It sent a little starbushs through the screen
Speaker 1: and ricocheting around the living rooms of America. This is
Speaker 1: a quality that can't be learned. It's either some thing
Speaker 1: you have her you don't, and men, she's got it.
Speaker 1: I mean, the masturbatory quality of that from Rich Lowry
Speaker 1: is one thing. I don't know if I've ever mentioned that,
Speaker 1: the masturbatory quality. I don't think I've ever mentioned that
Speaker 1: more than one or two thousand times. But in focusing
Speaker 1: on the Bobby Kennedy Junior Mark Robinson quality to the story.
Speaker 1: We lose sight of the utter lack of political insight
Speaker 1: and foresight that is hiding right there in plain sight.
Speaker 1: His comp for Sarah Palin was Bill O'Reilly. It is
Speaker 1: presumed the very wise TV executive he quotes is Roger Ales,
Speaker 1: who's now broadcasting live from Hell. And the point of
Speaker 1: the piece is how much better Palin did that her
Speaker 1: opponent in the two thousand and eight vice presidential debate?
Speaker 1: What was his name again? Oh yeah, Joe Biden. Whatever
Speaker 1: happened at Joe Biden? I mean, besides him saving democracy
Speaker 1: at least once rich maybe if the WNBA players stared
Speaker 1: into my living room and sent little starbursts through the
Speaker 1: screen ricocheting into my pants lowry two days why by.
Speaker 2: Sending this is sports Center Wait, check that not anymore.
Speaker 2: This is Countdown with Keith.
Speaker 1: Ulberman and from the sports Ball Central Center newsdesk tonight, dateline,
Speaker 1: Los Angeles and New York. We are on the eve
Speaker 1: of the World Series. Are on the eve of the
Speaker 1: eve of the eve of the World Series. Because if
Speaker 1: nothing else, one hundred and fifty four seasons of professional
Speaker 1: baseball has proved that the more time you give the
Speaker 1: players off during the Championships in October and November, and however,
Speaker 1: the hell late they hope to play this, the better
Speaker 1: the games are. I'm being facetious. Hitters and particularly bullpen
Speaker 1: pitchers get stale fast, so fast you wouldn't believe it,
Speaker 1: especially in the postseason, especially in October on the East Coast.
Speaker 1: By the time they play game one Friday night here,
Speaker 1: the New York Yankees will have been off for five
Speaker 1: days and the Los Angeles Dodgers off for four. The
Speaker 1: Dodgers and the Yankees used to face each other all
Speaker 1: the time in the World Series, six times in fact,
Speaker 1: in the ten years ending in nineteen fifty six, eleven
Speaker 1: times over forty years, almost two more times in that
Speaker 1: forty year span, but this is the first one since
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty one, when the Yankees blew a lead of
Speaker 1: two games to none, just as the Dodgers had blown
Speaker 1: a two games to none lead in nineteen seventy eight.
Speaker 1: Nineteen eighty one was the year Yankee owner George Steinbrenner
Speaker 1: ordered his public relations director IRV k Is, a friend
Speaker 1: of mine, to read a public apology for how the
Speaker 1: Yankees had done that year, and IRV read it and
Speaker 1: then got out of New York as fast as he
Speaker 1: could after that was also when the Yankees benched Reggie
Speaker 1: Jackson in the middle of the World Series, and when
Speaker 1: Steinbrenner showed up at Dodger Stadium, one hand bandaged and
Speaker 1: the other cut up with a fat lip, claiming that
Speaker 1: two Dodger fans had accosted him in a hotel elevator
Speaker 1: and he'd had to clock both of them, and almost
Speaker 1: nobody believed him forty three years later, and there's no
Speaker 1: evidence that it didn't happen that way. All the cynics
Speaker 1: me included, who believe the somebody's Husboden theory or the
Speaker 1: George punched a wall theory or the George had a
Speaker 1: fight with his players theory have never been supported by
Speaker 1: any evidence whatsoever. The George punched a wall theory also
Speaker 1: could never explain the fat lip. Then again, the two
Speaker 1: alleged Dodger fans never came forward either, and there were
Speaker 1: lots of outlets willing to pay them to unless George
Speaker 1: didn't just fight them, but he killed them anyway. Lots
Speaker 1: of amazing things have happened in Yankee Dodger World Series.
Speaker 1: Don Larson's perfect game for the Yankees in nineteen fifty six.
Speaker 1: The Mickey Owen dropped third strike in nineteen forty one,
Speaker 1: which should probably now be reclassified as the Hugh Casey
Speaker 1: spitball broke so sharply nobody could stop it missed third
Speaker 1: strike in nineteen forty one. There were Reggie Jackson's three
Speaker 1: homers in Game six in nineteen seventy seven, and Sandy
Speaker 1: Kofax's fifteen strikeouts in Game one in nineteen sixty three.
Speaker 1: But here are my favorite stats that you can actually
Speaker 1: use and pressure friends with them. The first is from
Speaker 1: nineteen fifty five. Today we rightly bellyate that starting pitching
Speaker 1: is crap, and the whole premise of baseball, the stout
Speaker 1: hearted whirler stopping good hitting, especially in the World Series,
Speaker 1: that is as forgotten and as lost as alchemy. In
Speaker 1: the nineteen fifty five World Series, however, the first one
Speaker 1: the Dodgers ever won, after five straight losses to the Yankees,
Speaker 1: there were seven games, and the starting pitching was so
Speaker 1: bad on both teams that the Yankees and the Dodgers
Speaker 1: in those seven games used eleven different starting pitchers between them.
Speaker 1: The Dodgers in a seven game World Series used six
Speaker 1: different starting pitchers. They did not call them bullpen games then,
Speaker 1: but that's what they were. Moreover six times in that
Speaker 1: World Series the starting pitcher did not record an out
Speaker 1: in the fifth inning, the second stat you can use this.
Speaker 1: The famous Yankees and Dodgers are actually two of the
Speaker 1: most disastrously underperforming franchises in sports. If you consider the
Speaker 1: year two thousand as the last year of the twentieth
Speaker 1: cente the Yankees have won won World Series in this century.
Speaker 1: Even if you don't, they've won one World Series since
Speaker 1: two thousand. The Dodgers have won one World Series in
Speaker 1: a full season since nineteen sixty five. Yeah, they won
Speaker 1: in nineteen eighty one when the season was only one
Speaker 1: hundred and ten games long because of the player strike.
Speaker 1: They won in nineteen eighty eight, which was the legit year.
Speaker 1: Then they didn't win again until twenty twenty, the COVID year.
Speaker 1: They're all championships, but those two are championships with asterisks.
Speaker 1: Then again, all baseball championships have asterisks now because they've
Speaker 1: so screwed up the point, which was that the long
Speaker 1: regular season and the quick playoffs were designed to establish
Speaker 1: which team was best that year. You played, and you played,
Speaker 1: and you played from spring through summer into fall, and
Speaker 1: you beat everybody in your league, and then you face
Speaker 1: the team that had played and beaten everybody in their league,
Speaker 1: and the result was a series that was always novel
Speaker 1: and fresh and exciting, and faced pitchers against hitters they'd
Speaker 1: never seen before. The number is somewhat conjectural, but it
Speaker 1: is believed that about sixty million people watched Game seven
Speaker 1: of the nineteen eighty six World Series on television. If
Speaker 1: sixty million people watch the entirety of this World Series
Speaker 1: on television, if that's the total audience for seven games,
Speaker 1: they will hold two parades afterwards, one for the winning
Speaker 1: team and one for all the TV and advertising executives.
Speaker 1: And by the way, if they get sixty million total
Speaker 1: audience on TV, the ad executives and the TV executives
Speaker 1: will get drunker than the winning players do. I don't
Speaker 1: know what's going to happen in this World Series. I
Speaker 1: loved working in Los Angeles. I loved going to Dodger Stadium.
Speaker 1: I loved working in New York. I grew up in
Speaker 1: the Yankee Stadia and I covered Dodger Yankees World Series
Speaker 1: when I was eighteen and nineteen years old, and I
Speaker 1: own Reggie Jackson's third home run ball, and I own
Speaker 1: two baseballs pitched in Don Larson's Perfect Game by Don Larson.
Speaker 1: But baseball has gradually pissed away my love of it.
Speaker 1: The new rules are stupid. This obsession with the forty
Speaker 1: seventy club or the one point six two hundred and
Speaker 1: twenty nine b club, it's ridiculous. The game has been
Speaker 1: dumbed down. The regular season is virtually as meaningless as basketball,
Speaker 1: and this utterly tedious season goes on forever, and then
Speaker 1: the teams that do best in it, they don't do
Speaker 1: very well in the postseason. We're just amazed that the
Speaker 1: two best teams on paper are actually in the World Series.
Speaker 1: And how did they get there? They beat the wild
Speaker 1: card teams. The athletes have never been better in baseball,
Speaker 1: never been better, and their ability to actually play baseball,
Speaker 1: to do what to do and when to do it
Speaker 1: other than to swing or to throw, that has never
Speaker 1: been worse. I asked a friend of mine, who covers
Speaker 1: a major League team and has done so for nearly
Speaker 1: all of his life, how many, I said, there's like
Speaker 1: two or three guys on each team that actually could
Speaker 1: play baseball without written instructions, And he said, you're exaggerating.
Speaker 1: I went, no, I think it's only two or three.
Speaker 1: He went, that's not what I meant. I think it's
Speaker 1: only one or two per team. I did not go
Speaker 1: to a game this year, and after forty years as
Speaker 1: a Yankee season ticket holder, I long ago vowed to
Speaker 1: never again pay my way into that ballpark until a
Speaker 1: paternity test is produced proving that hal Steinbrenner is actually
Speaker 1: the son of my friend George Steinbrenner. I mean, I
Speaker 1: might go if somebody invites me and pays for the
Speaker 1: ticket and covers the five dollars and eighty cent round
Speaker 1: trip on the subway. I'd have gone if the Mets
Speaker 1: had beaten the Dodgers and the Mets we're in it,
Speaker 1: or if that Steinbrenner paternity test had come back. I've
Speaker 1: done all the damage I can do here. Thank you
Speaker 1: for listening. We're now back to five episodes a week,
Speaker 1: posting nightly just after midnight Eastern. Follow me for the
Speaker 1: podcast promo videos too on TikTok, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, x, Instagram,
Speaker 1: and facetick. Once again, there is a Monday Countdown. Please
Speaker 1: send this podcast to somebody who doesn't know that they
Speaker 1: need to listen, but should. Brian Ray and John Phillips Chanel,
Speaker 1: the musical directors, have Countdown, arranged, produced, and performed most
Speaker 1: of our music. Mister Chanelle handled the orchestration and keyboards.
Speaker 1: Mister Ray was on the guitars, bass and drums. It
Speaker 1: was produced by Tko Brothers. Our satirical and pithy musical
Speaker 1: comments are by the best baseball stadium organist ever, Nance Faust.
Speaker 1: The sports music is the Olderman theme from ESPN two,
Speaker 1: written by Mitch Warren Davis courtesy of the ESPN Inc.
Speaker 1: Don't forget to listen to the Baseball World Series on
Speaker 1: ESPN Radio, where the broadcast is likely to be better
Speaker 1: than the game. Other music arranged and performed by the
Speaker 1: group No Horns Allowed. My announcer today was by coincidence,
Speaker 1: ESPN's Tony Korneiser. Everything else was pretty much my fault.
Speaker 1: Let's countdown for today, two weeks until the twenty twenty
Speaker 1: four presidential election. I think I have that right, and
Speaker 1: the three and eighty six day since convicted felon dissociative
Speaker 1: fugue j Trump's first attempted coup against the democratically elected
Speaker 1: government of the United States. Use the election, use the
Speaker 1: metal health system, use presidential immunity to keep him from
Speaker 1: doing it again while we still have a chance. The
Speaker 1: next scheduled countdown is tomorrow. Bolton says, the news requires
Speaker 1: till the next one on Keith Olderman good Morning, good afternoon,
Speaker 1: good night, and good Luck. Countdown with Keith Olderman is
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Speaker 1: the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.