Speaker 1: Be sure to catch live editions of the Ben Maller
Speaker 1: Show weekdays at two am Eastern eleven pm Pacific. If
Speaker 1: you thought four hours a day dred 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 Cutter the same as the rich
Speaker 1: pill poppers in the Penthouse, the clearing House of hot takes,
Speaker 1: break free or something special. The Fifth Hour with Ben
Speaker 1: Maller starts right now, and we are in the air
Speaker 1: everywhere the vast and ever expanding empire of podcasting as
Speaker 1: we are coast to coast, border to border and beyond.
Speaker 1: This is a full filipbuster on the Fifth Hour with
Speaker 1: Benn Maller, and we are joined for better or worse
Speaker 1: by David Gascony. Yes I'm still on furlough. This our
Speaker 1: Saturday podcast and another conversation podcast. Guest Gone Here is
Speaker 1: an an old friend comes back to hang out on
Speaker 1: the podcast. And this has been a weekend where yesterday
Speaker 1: we had Leo Terrell on. Leo has been on the
Speaker 1: podcast before he came back for his second appearance on
Speaker 1: the on the show, and now we're having another person
Speaker 1: on today that was on previously. Is this Are we
Speaker 1: rinsing and repeating? Is that what we're doing right now?
Speaker 1: I guess we've run out of friends that we have.
Speaker 1: Is that's essentially it. We've run out of people that
Speaker 1: we know that we can put on the podcast. And
Speaker 1: so now we're going back and and these these are
Speaker 1: guys that got big download numbers, right, Leo Terrell and
Speaker 1: and Lee hacks Hamilton, who's on today, both got a
Speaker 1: big numbers. Yeah, these are these are like the anti
Speaker 1: Tom Looney's of the world. You know, these are ratings
Speaker 1: driven bonanza. Now is that true? Is that Tom Looney?
Speaker 1: Because I'm gonna let him know that. Yeah, low download
Speaker 1: totals by Looney. Huh. Interesting. It was a brutal month
Speaker 1: of August for everything outside of of what we did.
Speaker 1: Tom Looney came him in extremely low bad showing by him. Wow,
Speaker 1: bad job by by Looney. And Looney likes to brag
Speaker 1: about how popular is. So that's that's all all right,
Speaker 1: before we get into hacks All, We're gonna have hacksall
Speaker 1: here hanging out with us. A cameo dot com cameo
Speaker 1: dot com type my name in Ben mall you want
Speaker 1: a birthday shout out, you want some big life event,
Speaker 1: you need a pep talk, I'll give you a mall
Speaker 1: or pep talk, whatever you might need there. It's not flee,
Speaker 1: but it's not that much. And so consider that a
Speaker 1: lot of p ones have gone down that road and
Speaker 1: you can do that as well. We are available on
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Speaker 1: on Sunday we're gonna do a mail bag and that
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Speaker 1: most delicious spicy Popeye's chicken sandwich ever made in the
Speaker 1: Mallard kitchen photographic evidence and on Twitter at Ben Mallard.
Speaker 1: If you'd like to be part guests gun, you're available
Speaker 1: on all those platforms except Facebook, yes, yes, yeah, divorced
Speaker 1: Facebook and two thousand and eleven, thankfully. So so I
Speaker 1: can take shots that you in Facebook and you'll never know. Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: you can't tag me on there, so you can take
Speaker 1: shots if you want, well you'll never see them. So
Speaker 1: I can take gratuitous cheap shots at Giest Scott. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but I mean, you don't want to be that big
Speaker 1: of a pussy to you or you gotta like take shots.
Speaker 1: And I'm not a radio What are you talking about?
Speaker 1: Your You're such a more sugar that I have to
Speaker 1: do this some time to time to keep you in
Speaker 1: line because you're a narcissist west of the four oh
Speaker 1: five talking about What am I talking about? I'm talking
Speaker 1: about reality. I'm I'm a man of the people out here,
Speaker 1: slaving away east of the four or five. You know badly,
Speaker 1: my air conditioned dies. I run in there. I do
Speaker 1: the show because I'm dedicated, and I'm languishing over here,
Speaker 1: and you're high forlutin walking across the Pacific Ocean like aristocrat.
Speaker 1: I'm floating on a gurney across the Pacific Ocean. Here
Speaker 1: we go, Here we go. Let me get my little
Speaker 1: violin out there. Let me get a little violin me
Speaker 1: out of the infirmary into the network studio. Keep in mind, Guesstcon,
Speaker 1: let me put something out. When I had my chest
Speaker 1: sliced open, you ab all right? No, no, I I
Speaker 1: have a bunch of scars all over my chest right now,
Speaker 1: my beautiful chest. I have a bunch of scars. As
Speaker 1: I was getting put under anesthesia. I'm getting f you.
Speaker 1: Tweets that tweets text from Gascon. I'm in the hospital,
Speaker 1: I'm about to go under. I don't know if I'm
Speaker 1: gonna make it or not. And I've got Gascon who's
Speaker 1: harassing me via text message? Well, I mean this is
Speaker 1: something that you kicked down the you know, you kicked
Speaker 1: the can down the road a bit, and this is
Speaker 1: what happened to you. So I mean, had you not
Speaker 1: neglected your own body, I wouldn't have been violently in text. Well,
Speaker 1: I could say the same thing about you if you
Speaker 1: were like a normal human being and the two would
Speaker 1: have just left your body, you wouldn't have needed this.
Speaker 1: But obviously you're such a you're such a meathead that
Speaker 1: it can't even leave your body. It's a bad job
Speaker 1: by you. Yeah, I'm a hoard or what can I say? Yeah?
Speaker 1: There you go, you are you are a hoarder. That
Speaker 1: is your future. Right, Let's get to it. You want
Speaker 1: to get to it right now? Yes, all right, Well
Speaker 1: I am very excited. As many of you know, I
Speaker 1: got my start in radio at a college radio station
Speaker 1: at Saddleback College. But I got an internship as I
Speaker 1: was a college DJ at the mighty six ninety. This
Speaker 1: a seventy seven thousand WAT blow torch from Baha to
Speaker 1: the Canadian Rockies. In that phrase came from the man
Speaker 1: that I learned radio from. I watched Bias Moses. I
Speaker 1: learned from Hacksaw at Lee Hacksaw Hamilton's as he did
Speaker 1: his show. He is the patriarch of West Coast Sports Talk,
Speaker 1: the o G of San Diego sports Talk. He's seen
Speaker 1: and done it all multiple radio stations at the very
Speaker 1: popular Hasas Headlines. In fact, before we bring Leon, if
Speaker 1: you were a big fan of Hasas Headlines, you can
Speaker 1: still get his headlines. He updates them every day. He's
Speaker 1: really meticulous. On Lee hack Saw Hamilton's dot com, his website,
Speaker 1: He's on Twitter at hack Saw ten ninety. You can
Speaker 1: find him on there. But those Hacksaw headlines. He pretty
Speaker 1: much just puts the script up that he used for
Speaker 1: his radio show, and there's a lot of good information
Speaker 1: that is really what what Twitter has become. Hacks All
Speaker 1: was the original Twitter. But anyway, all right enough buttering
Speaker 1: the Biscuits of Lee has Hall with him. The reason
Speaker 1: we're having Leon is because San Diego the focus of
Speaker 1: the sporting world least in baseball trade deadline at the
Speaker 1: beginning of this week, and the Podres going bronkers at
Speaker 1: the trade deadline, wheeling and dealing. They made six trades
Speaker 1: involving over fifteen players. They acquired ten new players, including
Speaker 1: Mike Clevinger. They spent a lot of money. So leave
Speaker 1: let's walking in on this one. I guess the question
Speaker 1: is this is un This is unorthodox for the Padres.
Speaker 1: They don't normally do these kind of things. Where did
Speaker 1: this come from? Well, there's a memo that's going out
Speaker 1: to the Dodgers and the Cubs. San Diego's coming coming
Speaker 1: after you. October is going to be very interesting. Ben.
Speaker 1: They've been planning to be competitive in they had gone
Speaker 1: through more than a decade of losing baseball and not
Speaker 1: been in the playoffs since two thousand and six, spent
Speaker 1: any enormous amount of money UH in free agency, an
Speaker 1: enormous amount of money in the Latin American free ation area,
Speaker 1: and I've overpaid on a whole bunch of their real
Speaker 1: high draft up the excess to get them locked down.
Speaker 1: And as they were suffering all these ninety lost seasons
Speaker 1: the last couple of years, you looked, you looked down
Speaker 1: into the farm system and you saw kids having really
Speaker 1: good seasons at every level. You know, that starts with
Speaker 1: Fernando Tatis when they got at age seventeen. So we
Speaker 1: knew they were building, and they kept dropping hands. They
Speaker 1: hoped to be maybe on the periphery of the playoffs.
Speaker 1: But now with the shortened season and the fact that
Speaker 1: they made some offseason deals that really helped their pitching staff,
Speaker 1: and they've been able to stay for the most part
Speaker 1: free of any significant pitching injuries, and everybody else has
Speaker 1: fallen apart significantly. The Dodgers, the Cubs, and the Potteries.
Speaker 1: Right now the top three teams in the National League.
Speaker 1: And who could have ever imagined would be talking about
Speaker 1: Washington or Philadelphia or the St. Louis Cardinals just being
Speaker 1: an utter chaos because of all the injuries that have
Speaker 1: ripped their clubs up. They got to the trading deadline
Speaker 1: and they thought, hey, we've got a chance to do something.
Speaker 1: And what they did was they had stockpiled so much
Speaker 1: in the farm system and they were facing the potential
Speaker 1: loss of some of these kids in the Rule five
Speaker 1: draft is coming near. Because you can't protect everybody. They
Speaker 1: decided we were going to start shopping and we're gonna
Speaker 1: put multiple kids into deals, so we're gonna try to
Speaker 1: get the right right guys. And you know, turned out
Speaker 1: to be a nine player deal with Cleveland to get
Speaker 1: my club Inert, which was huge. The Seattle deal is
Speaker 1: probably deliverable downroad. That's seven player transactions. So they think
Speaker 1: right now, Ben that they've got excuse me, every component set.
Speaker 1: They are deep in kitching, which is huge in the
Speaker 1: best of three or best of five series. Right now,
Speaker 1: they are red hot hitting the ball. You look, you
Speaker 1: look at their lineup, starting about with the Loodolf guy
Speaker 1: and then going through about six or seven in the
Speaker 1: batting order, and they they're all hitting better because they're
Speaker 1: all supporting each other. So they can't wait for October
Speaker 1: to come and you know, is it possible they could
Speaker 1: be a World Series team. I guess anything is possible.
Speaker 1: Tampa Bay and Oakland could be World Series teams too,
Speaker 1: but have to go through the Dodgers or go through
Speaker 1: the Cubs to get there. But the way this thing
Speaker 1: is built right now, and if you looked at their
Speaker 1: rotation on paper, and you looked at the depth of
Speaker 1: the bullpen on paper, and then you looked at that
Speaker 1: batting order, as I said, one through six or one
Speaker 1: through seven, that's pretty comparable to who the Dodgers are
Speaker 1: and what the Cubs are right now. So I'm gonna
Speaker 1: be a fascinating month of October and baseball for sure. Well,
Speaker 1: and and Lee, as you taught me back in the day,
Speaker 1: the baseball playoffs are such a crapshoot with the short
Speaker 1: series and all that. But let's break that. Clevinger is good.
Speaker 1: I'll give you Clevinger, but some of these other guys
Speaker 1: I only reworked the bullpen the Dodgers had at the
Speaker 1: time we're talking here, the top bullpen in baseball. Fact,
Speaker 1: they have the top pitching staff in baseball. Like a
Speaker 1: lot of some of these relief pitchers that the plotters got.
Speaker 1: I to me, they don't really move the kneel. You
Speaker 1: do you disagree with that? And you think these guys
Speaker 1: are actually going to make some impact because I I'm
Speaker 1: looking at you. You're raiding the Seattle Mariners bullpen and
Speaker 1: the and the Royals. This doesn't excite me very much. Lee, Well,
Speaker 1: they got role players. Granted, they lost Curby Yates with
Speaker 1: the bone ship surgery, but but they've got Drew tom
Speaker 1: Morans who's reinvented himself as a short reliever closer. And
Speaker 1: they got Matt Strong, who has really pitched well since
Speaker 1: he came from Kansas City more than a year ago.
Speaker 1: And they've got Trevor Rosenthal who has rediscovered a hundred
Speaker 1: mile an hour fastball and right now he's pitching like
Speaker 1: he pitched four or five years ago before he had
Speaker 1: the elbow problems in St. Louis. Uh And and they're
Speaker 1: deep and set up guys, and they still got young
Speaker 1: arms that they could call up and plug in. So
Speaker 1: I think collectively, you know, if they were Rolaids reliefaced
Speaker 1: guy in the pen, No, not at all, not even
Speaker 1: a Kenley Jansen. But I'll tell you what. They go
Speaker 1: to the bullpen in the fifth and said extending, they
Speaker 1: got role players and get you to the ninth and
Speaker 1: get you to whomever the new closer it's going to be.
Speaker 1: So I just think collectively, there's a lot of strength there,
Speaker 1: and they all throw the ball hard, so attempt Timmy.
Speaker 1: It's intriguing. And you know, I know from the outside
Speaker 1: looking in, you know people on Los Angeles, people in
Speaker 1: New York, But say, who are these guys? What do
Speaker 1: you think they're good? Well, we've sat here and watched
Speaker 1: this thing, you know, and I said, I thought they
Speaker 1: could go thirty five and this year, which we're getting
Speaker 1: in the playoffs, they might have an outside shot of
Speaker 1: winning forty games. Nobody would have ever expected that. So
Speaker 1: at the front of the rotation, you've got Clevinger, and
Speaker 1: you've got the kid Chris Paddock, and he set some
Speaker 1: up to send some downs, but the kids vibrant. And
Speaker 1: you've got Donelson Lamet, who might be the quietest number
Speaker 1: one starter on anybody's staff. And they still got other
Speaker 1: guys that they can plug in, and that does not
Speaker 1: We've had no conversation whatsoever yet about Mackenzie Gore or
Speaker 1: the really highly rated number one draft pick who's sitting
Speaker 1: on this taxi squad and roster, and Luis Patino who's
Speaker 1: found a role right now as a setup. So it's
Speaker 1: they got numbers and that's good pitching beats good hitting,
Speaker 1: especially in a scary short series. That's that's what really
Speaker 1: intreates me. Yeah, and Lee, we mentioned you can't mention
Speaker 1: the place you've mentioned for Nado t junior, but this
Speaker 1: guy I was trying to the last time we've had
Speaker 1: good young players in baseball over the years, and obviously
Speaker 1: Mike Trout's great near in judge, but the Razzle dazzle
Speaker 1: that for for Nato to these junior brings. Uh, you
Speaker 1: might have to go back to a rod to find
Speaker 1: a guy that brought that impact right away with the Razz.
Speaker 1: But is this is he gonna be a Padre for
Speaker 1: the next ten years? I know he can't be a
Speaker 1: free agent, I think till he's gonna be in San Diego,
Speaker 1: certainly over the next few years. But is this a
Speaker 1: long term guy? Is he gonna have a career where
Speaker 1: he stays with the Padres? You think, you know, going
Speaker 1: down the line ten, twelve, thirteen years or is this
Speaker 1: once he's a free agent he's out of their situation
Speaker 1: now because this has become a really good place to play,
Speaker 1: and they got an ownership that's put a lot of
Speaker 1: money into this franchise and Petro Petco Park pretty good
Speaker 1: stadium to play in. It's a pretty good baseball city.
Speaker 1: If they win, they'll draw three million in that ballpark
Speaker 1: next to the gas lamp quarter. Says a lot of
Speaker 1: positives right now. And you know some of the guys
Speaker 1: in the media are just running rampant, Well, how are
Speaker 1: they going to resign them? Etceter with. These guys have
Speaker 1: paid money. These who would ever thought these guys would
Speaker 1: have paid Maddie Machado thirty million a year or paid
Speaker 1: our Cosmo thirty million a year, or dold Off the
Speaker 1: kind of contract they did to Willmeyer. So the ownership
Speaker 1: is there, Is it Dodger Rich? Is it Yankee Crazy? No?
Speaker 1: But it's it's pretty good. And in terms of Tatisa
Speaker 1: tell you the reason this team is right now in
Speaker 1: this funt to go deep into October is are these
Speaker 1: nicknames El Nino Las Alsa and the Swiss Army Knife,
Speaker 1: Elninios ct. He does everything. The only thing that scares
Speaker 1: me about him is he plays so hard. He's going
Speaker 1: to get himself hurt because he is reckless. Alas also
Speaker 1: is Machado now that that put good people around him
Speaker 1: in the batting order, is a very different ball player
Speaker 1: than the one that kind of dragged through last season.
Speaker 1: And and the Swiss Army knife is his kid. They
Speaker 1: scouted from Tampa Bay. Why the Rays would ever give
Speaker 1: up on him kind of stuns me. Jake Cronenworth, who
Speaker 1: plays first, second, third, left, center, and right. And by
Speaker 1: the way, dude is hitting three. So it's not like this.
Speaker 1: This is a guy who showed up in April and
Speaker 1: disappeared May. He's just he's hitting everybody and again red
Speaker 1: hot batting order. Short season, here comes the playoffs up. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's just really intriguing considering all the bad baseball,
Speaker 1: but fans in San Diego have had to live through
Speaker 1: and tolerate. Now, all of a sudden, this thing has arrived.
Speaker 1: I think the shame of it all then is if
Speaker 1: if fans were allowed in the stadium and we played
Speaker 1: a full season, they draw three million. Here. You know,
Speaker 1: the first half of last season with the arrival of Machado,
Speaker 1: and he hit early, he hit well, Myers said, well,
Speaker 1: Eric Hosmer hit, well, they got to the All Star
Speaker 1: break ATTT five and they punched the Dodgers in the
Speaker 1: mouth right before the All Star break. I'll tell you
Speaker 1: what the atmosphere a Petico Park was like going to
Speaker 1: an NFL football playoff game. I mean it was he elected.
Speaker 1: So the saddest part is no fans in the stands.
Speaker 1: Otherwise they draw three million in this place. Had just
Speaker 1: going crazy. Right now they're going crazy watching it on
Speaker 1: TV because they can't go to the yard. I'm happy
Speaker 1: is that I like the Dodgers. Actually, I'm happy for
Speaker 1: the plagect. When I was interning for you that that
Speaker 1: was around the time the Padres had that fire sale
Speaker 1: back in the nineties and they traded away a bunch
Speaker 1: of guys and they I would go to Jack Murphy
Speaker 1: Stadium and I would get a ticket, the cheapest ticket,
Speaker 1: and I would be sitting behind the dugout by the
Speaker 1: second inning because no one, no one was there. Stadium
Speaker 1: was empty when they got rid of all those guys.
Speaker 1: But I guess gott this year as well, and he
Speaker 1: wanted to yap away and he had some things he
Speaker 1: wanted to say. Yes, guess count well I was kind
Speaker 1: of curiously just because of you mentioned the organization and
Speaker 1: the franchise and ownership group. Do you think they make
Speaker 1: a move or any moves like this if we're playing
Speaker 1: a hundred and sixty two games as opposed to something
Speaker 1: condensed like this. Well, i's this. We're August thirty one
Speaker 1: and it was the middle of a hundred sixty two
Speaker 1: game drive and there are only four games out of
Speaker 1: first place, and in the wild card situation, yeah, they
Speaker 1: probably would have. But here they are and they're not
Speaker 1: going anywhere in the final twenty three or twenty four
Speaker 1: games that are left in this season. And that the
Speaker 1: one thing that's different about Padre baseball now than we've
Speaker 1: seen in a long time. It's not one or two
Speaker 1: players man roster that contributes, and they are. They are
Speaker 1: deep and starting pitching. And now they've got the plethora
Speaker 1: of guys out of the bullpen, and they've got a
Speaker 1: couple of kids sitting on the stack squad that a
Speaker 1: champion of the bid for the next of their opportunity
Speaker 1: to come be part of this. So now this is
Speaker 1: this is the real deal. You know, you compare this too, sadly,
Speaker 1: what's happened in Anaheim where they have Mike Trout and
Speaker 1: they don't have an awful lot around him. That's what
Speaker 1: pottery baseball used to be. One player out of the
Speaker 1: farm system, you hope it's going to be a star,
Speaker 1: but there never ever was enough around him. But this
Speaker 1: is this is the electric and the fact that we're
Speaker 1: looking at the at this makeup of the postseason. We're
Speaker 1: best of three, and everybody plays the best of three,
Speaker 1: and I don't care how good you are, you get
Speaker 1: scared if you've got to match up with San Diego
Speaker 1: in the best of three, first round of the best
Speaker 1: of fives, and then and going from there. So now
Speaker 1: this is the real deal. And this ownership has spent
Speaker 1: a lot of money, They burned through a lot of money,
Speaker 1: that made some mistakes on money, and yet they've gone
Speaker 1: back and they've given this general manager of the green
Speaker 1: light to do this. And so I mean, it's it's
Speaker 1: really interesting to see how aggressive A. J. Prelor was
Speaker 1: at the trade deadline, But the fact of the matter
Speaker 1: was it signed an awful lot of players over about
Speaker 1: a four year window. In the minor leagues. They had
Speaker 1: a lot of bargaining ships and and the unique thing
Speaker 1: to me is after making six trades right wrapped around
Speaker 1: the deadline, and after moving out about fifteen total players,
Speaker 1: they still have all the blue chips at the top
Speaker 1: of the board in the farm system that are still
Speaker 1: owned by San Diego. So it's kind of cool compared
Speaker 1: to where we're then in the past summers for the
Speaker 1: last decade plus. Do you proceed with any caution though,
Speaker 1: because when you look at the divisions and how the
Speaker 1: alignment is right now, you're obviously looking at the National
Speaker 1: League West and outside the Dodgers, San Francisco is a
Speaker 1: punching bag. Colorado is a punching bag, and the same
Speaker 1: thing with Arizona. And then you look at the American
Speaker 1: League East as well. You mentioned with Anaheim Oakland is
Speaker 1: there Houston's teetering on five hundred, But outside of that,
Speaker 1: it really is anyone's in one's game. So if ever
Speaker 1: there was a year for San Diego to get fatten
Speaker 1: off a mystic, why don't you agree that this is
Speaker 1: the year? Well, yeah, because, like I said, they've been
Speaker 1: building towards this and understand this four years ago when
Speaker 1: they decided to go on this unbelievable spending spree. Uh,
Speaker 1: to sign all these Latin American players. What they had
Speaker 1: plotted out was the Yankees are over the luxury tax,
Speaker 1: the Cubs have spent over the luxury tax, the Red
Speaker 1: Sox are taxed out. They're not going to be players
Speaker 1: for any of these players in Cuba or possibly out
Speaker 1: of Mexico. Uh and a select odd one or two
Speaker 1: in the Pacific Rim. And they said, this is the
Speaker 1: year June one, four years ago, we're gonna go on
Speaker 1: a spending spree and we're gonna sign all these guys.
Speaker 1: And they signed all these Cubans. And now not all
Speaker 1: of them have gotten there yet. They've used a couple
Speaker 1: in his bargaining ships. But they had they had pre
Speaker 1: planned because of the paralysis with the luxury tax and
Speaker 1: the limits and signing pools for the Red Sox and
Speaker 1: the Yankees and the Cubs and a few others, that
Speaker 1: was the or they were going to do it. And
Speaker 1: they did it, and they got them all signed, and
Speaker 1: they overpaid for a couple of their draft picks to
Speaker 1: convince these kids to leave college and and to sign
Speaker 1: to sign a fodder contract. So you know, here, here's
Speaker 1: where they are. Because now they've got good young players
Speaker 1: in the system. They've used some as as assets to
Speaker 1: make these six trades. Thought they executed, you know, and
Speaker 1: they convince convince the free agents to come, so hey,
Speaker 1: it's it's right there. And they think because Machado is
Speaker 1: still young, Hosmer still got miles left on him, Trent
Speaker 1: Grisham is young, Myers is at the midpoint of his
Speaker 1: career and is having a nice first half of the season.
Speaker 1: They think this is not a one time thing. They
Speaker 1: think because of the numbers that the Puddlers having a system,
Speaker 1: that they're going to be able to win and stay
Speaker 1: competitive if they stay injury free on the pitching staff,
Speaker 1: stay competitive for a bunch of years. Now. Whether or
Speaker 1: not they're going to be able to go back into
Speaker 1: the marketplace another summer from now and sign a whole
Speaker 1: pile more of the next wave of free agents, that's
Speaker 1: that's debatable. But they haven't made a lot of mistakes
Speaker 1: on the kids that they've drafted high, and they've had
Speaker 1: a lot of eye draft bricks because they haven't made
Speaker 1: made any mistakes or have guys blow off their arms.
Speaker 1: So strength of numbers and they seem to have them,
Speaker 1: and they used some of them, and I still got
Speaker 1: more coming. I want to get off the padres here
Speaker 1: and Uh, you are the former voice of the San
Speaker 1: Diego Chargers. Did a great job, wonderful NFL play by
Speaker 1: play run there and it is amazingly. The Charges have
Speaker 1: been in l A a a few years now and all
Speaker 1: of San Diego has essentially turned their back on the Charges,
Speaker 1: which I didn't think was having. I don't think the charge.
Speaker 1: I talked to some of the people with the Chargers
Speaker 1: lead and they they thought that a certain percentage of
Speaker 1: San Diego fans We're gonna drive up and back when
Speaker 1: fans were allowed to go to games and attend Charger games.
Speaker 1: And it hasn't happened. It has been unreal. Uh, what
Speaker 1: is the NFL fan in San Diego doing that? The
Speaker 1: old Charger fans, if they have they picked a different team.
Speaker 1: What's the pulse of the people there in San Diego
Speaker 1: as far as NFL It's a it's a real viable question. Ben. Uh.
Speaker 1: This is a melting pot of people from everywhere, and
Speaker 1: I think that's the intangible thing to make San Diego
Speaker 1: different from any place else is that you have fans
Speaker 1: who have moved here who are Patriot fans, or Bear fans,
Speaker 1: or Seahawk fans or Dallas Cowboy fans or whomever. So
Speaker 1: they have a lot of rooting interest about the team
Speaker 1: back home. And if this team here was good as
Speaker 1: the old San Diego Chargers became in my era when
Speaker 1: I was the voice of the Chargers, and then what
Speaker 1: they became in the Marty Schottenheimer era. For a short
Speaker 1: period of time, you could not buy a ticket to
Speaker 1: a Charger game. Now when they got bad, and then
Speaker 1: when the ownership made a lot of mistakes in terms
Speaker 1: of running off the original successful coach, Bobby Ross and
Speaker 1: then firing and running out Marty Schottenheimer, they turned on
Speaker 1: the Spoutos family and then the team started fall apart.
Speaker 1: Philip Rivers was the last linkage between Charger football and
Speaker 1: San Diego and what is up there in Los Angeles.
Speaker 1: He has gone and now the Chargers will not be
Speaker 1: on anybody's radar at all. And I, you know, I
Speaker 1: thought it was ridiculous for Spanos his people to keep
Speaker 1: making these public pronouncement. So Charger fans will follow us, well,
Speaker 1: the hell they will can compare to what they did
Speaker 1: to this community. After fifty five years of loyalty, The
Speaker 1: TV ratings were cut in half. Where they used to
Speaker 1: get thirty shares on Sunday, they're getting fourteen shares now,
Speaker 1: and out of that fourteen shares watching Charger football on
Speaker 1: TV and San Diego's hate watching hoping they lose, hoping
Speaker 1: their guys get hurt. I mean, is the anger here
Speaker 1: has just never ever subsided. Uh. It is interesting to
Speaker 1: me though that the Rams have made no inroads at
Speaker 1: all in San Diego. And I thought the Rams might
Speaker 1: try to do some marketing, considering how they got so
Speaker 1: quickly gar A Golf, Sean McVeigh, etcetera. But it's like
Speaker 1: they've they've kind of ignored the marketer, have not made
Speaker 1: much of an effort. But the fans here watched the games,
Speaker 1: they'll watch the Chargers, they watch all the other NFL
Speaker 1: games on on Direct TV and Sunday Ticket and all that.
Speaker 1: It's just it's just a very very different time. It's
Speaker 1: a very empty feeling. There's still a lot of anger
Speaker 1: in the community. Um, you know, I did sports talk
Speaker 1: radio here, Ben, as you know, for twenty eight years,
Speaker 1: and and NFL football on radio and conversations on talk shows,
Speaker 1: and the Chargers and the Raiders just absolutely drove the
Speaker 1: content of what we did on the air. A lot
Speaker 1: of that has gone away. The sports stalk stations here
Speaker 1: are really staggering and struggling because we've kind of become
Speaker 1: a one franchise town. We've kind of become Jacksonville, will
Speaker 1: kind of become Port Loan, And that's sad considering how
Speaker 1: big San Diego County is. Uh. I will say this
Speaker 1: going forward that as as hard as Tom Talasco has tried,
Speaker 1: it just can't get a break. Uh. You know, now
Speaker 1: now losing Derwin James, their heart and soul safety who's
Speaker 1: just a big time, big time player, is going to
Speaker 1: hurt that defense. And that defense was slated to have
Speaker 1: to carry this team because I think the Chargers have
Speaker 1: become a very pedestrian offensive football team. They said goodbye
Speaker 1: to Philip Rivers. He said goodbye to them. I was
Speaker 1: disappointing that this guy could not finish the season here.
Speaker 1: This was not so much on Rivers as it was
Speaker 1: the organizations. I think let that really great quarterback down.
Speaker 1: And I know a segment of the media would talk
Speaker 1: and write extensively about turnovers and interceptions, But when you
Speaker 1: got a superstar quarterback, thrown for yards was having to
Speaker 1: do it on a wing and a prayer because his
Speaker 1: offensive line as a disaster, or he doesn't have enough receivers,
Speaker 1: or everybody's hurt. Uh. Rivers did as much as when
Speaker 1: human being could do. And I was hopeful that Philip
Speaker 1: would finish up here, but they just elected not to
Speaker 1: do it. But by doing what they did, now they've
Speaker 1: got but they hoped would be a very good defense.
Speaker 1: Now it's dinged up with Derwin James gone for the year,
Speaker 1: UH at a very pedestrian offense. And you guys know,
Speaker 1: I know everybody who's covered these teams on the West
Speaker 1: Coast knows you need star power to draw fans in
Speaker 1: Los Angeles. And I'll tell you Tyrod Taylor, who's not
Speaker 1: star power and I need a kid is Austin necklar
Speaker 1: As he's not star power. And now Mike Williams is hurt,
Speaker 1: and Keenan Allen is a year away from free agency
Speaker 1: where he could walk. Uh. And if you don't have
Speaker 1: star power a k A Jared Golf or prior to that,
Speaker 1: Todd Gurley, or you don't have star power Lebron and
Speaker 1: a D and Kawai Leonard Uh you're in trouble in
Speaker 1: terms of how you can draw. And I think this
Speaker 1: this would be an utter embarrassment of a season if
Speaker 1: if stadiums were open and the rams were drawn, there's
Speaker 1: sixties six to seven or two thousand and the charges
Speaker 1: were drawn twenty one, because that's what I think would
Speaker 1: have happened had we not had the shutdown of most
Speaker 1: of these stadiums around the NFL. So a long answer,
Speaker 1: but there's a lot of bitterness and disappointment here because
Speaker 1: the NFL ownership in rocher Gardell let that family take
Speaker 1: this team out of the city after this city, in
Speaker 1: this county had put together a massive financing plan to
Speaker 1: build a shiny new stadium in a market in which
Speaker 1: they were king and they owned, and now they've gone
Speaker 1: to a market where they are on the utter outside
Speaker 1: looking in, on the periphery. They're not going to win
Speaker 1: this year, Yeah, they're not. And Lee, I I know
Speaker 1: you're short, so we got one more. I got one
Speaker 1: more for you. And you mentioned the fact and it's
Speaker 1: it's got to be tough for the guys doing sports
Speaker 1: talk now with only one team in San Diego, and
Speaker 1: and you have mentioned and you got a great website.
Speaker 1: Lee Hack saw Hamilton's dot com, the old headline segment
Speaker 1: which you dominated radio with you. You update that thing
Speaker 1: every day. It's it's really impressive the amount of work
Speaker 1: you put in that website. But the chances of an
Speaker 1: NBA or NHL team coming to San Diego, there's something
Speaker 1: going on with an arena? Is that right? What's the
Speaker 1: latest one that way? And we'll leave you on this note.
Speaker 1: We've been plagued in San Diego ben by really poor
Speaker 1: governmental leadership for decades. The prime example, the Podres a
Speaker 1: decade ago, twelve years ago, decided they were going downtown
Speaker 1: because San Diego's check Murphy Stadium, as it was known then,
Speaker 1: who's falling down? And the Padres decided, we're going downtown
Speaker 1: and we're gonna build in the old East Village downtown
Speaker 1: where all these warehouses used to be near the shipping factories.
Speaker 1: And they had to fight through twenty two lawsuits, but
Speaker 1: they got Petco Park built, and Petco Park led to
Speaker 1: the retuber nation of the gas Lamp Quarter. And I
Speaker 1: saw you sitting in a bar drink and I know
Speaker 1: because I was there too, And now we know how
Speaker 1: vibrant that gas lamp quarter cat Go Park Convention Center
Speaker 1: area is but it was a terrible fight to get
Speaker 1: anything accomplished. They finally got it done. The Chargers had
Speaker 1: an opportunity to to be co owners of the shiny
Speaker 1: new stadium on the big parking lot air Qualcomm Stadium,
Speaker 1: which was the ideal location because it's central to all
Speaker 1: the highways, and they refused to negotiate and they walked
Speaker 1: away in the league let them go to l A.
Speaker 1: It's left behind San Diego State. San Diego State is
Speaker 1: in the process that just turned the first shovel of
Speaker 1: dirt last week in building a thirty five thousand seat
Speaker 1: football soccer stadium on the Qualcom site. San Diego State
Speaker 1: has purchased the entire tract of land and that's that's
Speaker 1: gonna be at what they call an East Village campus
Speaker 1: UH for expansion. That that's a thirty year project. The
Speaker 1: stadium is the first thing that's going to be done
Speaker 1: in two years now in the center of San Diego,
Speaker 1: the Midway District, the Sports Arena district ban They have
Speaker 1: just gotten city Council of approval and they've just picked
Speaker 1: a developer to build a state of the art entertainment
Speaker 1: district on the sports arena property in San Diego, and
Speaker 1: that will include the sixteen thousand state of the art
Speaker 1: arena in addition to entertainment venues, restaurants, office building, some housing, etcetera. Now,
Speaker 1: I don't in all honesty, we needed a new arena
Speaker 1: and I had chirped and written about it when I
Speaker 1: was doing talk radio and writing on my website. You
Speaker 1: gotta be progressive, You've gotta build a new sports arena
Speaker 1: as part of this Midway district. Well, the mayor said, yes,
Speaker 1: it has to be part of the package, and they
Speaker 1: finally got it done. In fact, the people who built
Speaker 1: Staples Center, l A Live, the London Arena in England,
Speaker 1: the Kansas City Arena, the one in Berlin. This is
Speaker 1: a e G subsidiary. They are going to build this
Speaker 1: arena in San Diego now as part of the entertainment district. Now,
Speaker 1: whether not it it leads us to an NBA franchise
Speaker 1: or an NHL franchise, that might be a bit of
Speaker 1: a reach, but you know what, sports changes, and as
Speaker 1: markets explode and grow, you know this, this is the
Speaker 1: eighth biggest city in America right now, so this thing
Speaker 1: will continue to grow. Because of who we are and
Speaker 1: where we are and by the way, what's the weather outside.
Speaker 1: So so then I think down road anything is possible.
Speaker 1: You could get franchises that want to relocate out of
Speaker 1: where they are, and if you've got a shiny new
Speaker 1: arena here, then that becomes a landing spot maybe for
Speaker 1: an NBA or even an NHL team, because this is
Speaker 1: a melting pot of people. The saddest part of this
Speaker 1: whole thing is we have such a great city with
Speaker 1: football tradition that the Spanels family turned its back on,
Speaker 1: and we don't have a football stadium, and we don't
Speaker 1: have the real estate now at the clocom site where
Speaker 1: we could have built a stadium, or somebody from the
Speaker 1: outside who want to move a franchise here could have
Speaker 1: built a stadium. That real estate has gone. That's the
Speaker 1: only negative that we've lost that entity. But we're going
Speaker 1: to have a basketball, hockey and nan who knows what
Speaker 1: that's going to go once they get it up. It's
Speaker 1: not going to happen in fifteen minutes, but it's you know,
Speaker 1: it's going to happen. Yeah. Awesomely, thank you for your time.
Speaker 1: I appreciate what have you on again and have a
Speaker 1: great day today. Good Ben, my pleasure. Always glad to
Speaker 1: talk to you. Keep up the good work on the network.
Speaker 1: Too nice to shout with you again. Guys, be sure
Speaker 1: to catch live editions of The Ben Maller Show weekdays
Speaker 1: at two am Eastern eleven pm Pacific