Speaker 1: Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: No Risk, All Reward.
Speaker 1: Kamala Harris doing an interview on Fox with Brett Bhair
Speaker 1: Tomorrow Night, pushes all the fascist buttons, all at once,
Speaker 1: all on Trump, and she especially pushes the one button
Speaker 1: that proves that. Would you like me to give the
Speaker 1: direct quote? Yeah, please excuse my language, this is a
Speaker 1: direct quote. But Chrissy Teagan referred to Donald Trump as
Speaker 1: a pussy ass bitch. Harris goes on FNC, Trump is
Speaker 1: again a pab Thank you, MVP. Can you imagine Trump
Speaker 1: sitting down to be interviewed by Maddow or, for God's sakes,
Speaker 1: even Andrea Mitchell or the Midas Network guys or me.
Speaker 1: This is perfect. First of all, it will enrage Trump,
Speaker 1: not just now, not just tomorrow, but for the rest
Speaker 1: of the campaign, every moment. He cannot stop it. He
Speaker 1: cannot stop his own insanity, He cannot hope to contain it.
Speaker 1: There is an excellent chance it will literally push him
Speaker 1: fully over the edge and he will start dropping n
Speaker 1: words or speaking in a language of his own invention.
Speaker 1: I mean entirely of his own invention, not the thirty
Speaker 1: to thirty five percent unintelligible gibberish he speaks now. Trump
Speaker 1: only found out about this in late afternoon yesterday, and
Speaker 1: he promptly lost it. He attacked Fox as weak and soft,
Speaker 1: He called Brettbear fair and balanced, and meant it as
Speaker 1: an insult. On top of which Trump had already been
Speaker 1: raging about Fox, letting liberals on its network think of it.
Speaker 1: He wrote, I spend an hour with the wonderful Maria
Speaker 1: Bardawomo to a beautiful job. And then a followed up
Speaker 1: all day long by one sided negative Democrats, including Ian Sam's,
Speaker 1: who virtually owns the network. Quote, you don't know who
Speaker 1: Ian SAMs is? Do you? Well? You know who he
Speaker 1: is now. He's senior advisor to the Harris campaign and
Speaker 1: often the spokesperson, and he enrages Trump on top on
Speaker 1: top of which Trump had in the wee hours of
Speaker 1: Monday morning, at one twelve am on Columbus Day, he
Speaker 1: had attacked the Vice president for not doing interviews and
Speaker 1: not doing them well. I believe it is very important
Speaker 1: that Kamala Harris pass a test on cognitive stamina and agility.
Speaker 1: Her actions have led many to believe that there could
Speaker 1: be something very wrong with her even sixty minutes and
Speaker 1: CBS in order to protect Lion Kamalay illegally and unscrupulously
Speaker 1: replaced an answer she had given, which was totally bonkers,
Speaker 1: with another answer that had nothing to do with a question. Also,
Speaker 1: she is slow and lethargic and answering even the easiest
Speaker 1: of questions. I know, I know. Every Trump accusation is
Speaker 1: a confession, slow and lethargic. You say, Sonny, and the
Speaker 1: tell is always the same. It's usually everybody knows. But
Speaker 1: the secondary tell when he needs something a little darker
Speaker 1: and more mysterious and certainly more formal, is have led
Speaker 1: many to believe. Her actions have led many to believable
Speaker 1: there it is. Trump is so messing his pants that
Speaker 1: no diaper can save him. Now and now there is
Speaker 1: a chance that even the Washington Post in New York
Speaker 1: Times political reporters will skip whatever DC cocktail party they
Speaker 1: were going to on Wednesday nights in hopes of getting
Speaker 1: into Politico's spotted column and start asking the Trump mouthpieces
Speaker 1: and the Republicans why if she can go on Fox,
Speaker 1: he can't go on MSNBC or the Washington Post Live
Speaker 1: or to a New York Times cocktail party with Joe
Speaker 1: and ag. This also, I think, finally puts a stake
Speaker 1: through the she's not doing interviews Gnard. It's getting to
Speaker 1: be almost annoying. She's doing too many interviews. In any event,
Speaker 1: it transforms that entire issue into a journalistic bidding war. No,
Speaker 1: there has been no sit down with the Post or
Speaker 1: the New York Times editorial board or live with one
Speaker 1: of the Sunday shows. But she's going on Fox. One
Speaker 1: presumes editor con and publisher Salzburger of the Times are
Speaker 1: just now being resuscitated after an attack of the vapors.
Speaker 1: The approach to Vice President Harris now has to change
Speaker 1: from bullying her, which is what the media has been
Speaker 1: doing since the moment she became the nominee, to making
Speaker 1: the best offer and pleading. Whatever that is to the
Speaker 1: Harris campaign is almost irrelevant. She just accepted an interview
Speaker 1: on fixed news. How demanding could she possibly be? Ironically,
Speaker 1: there is a glimmer of sanity in the Trump response
Speaker 1: to this news. He writes that the vice president quote
Speaker 1: has wisely chosen Brent Baher. He's right, I'm not going
Speaker 1: to say that again. I know this man, like all
Speaker 1: of them, Brett Baar does not do his pretend newscast
Speaker 1: every night just for the money, not even just for
Speaker 1: the renown. He has a political agenda and the discovery
Speaker 1: in Fox's disastrous seven hundred and eighty seven million dollar
Speaker 1: dominion case, in which, for reasons of ratings and fascist waring,
Speaker 1: Brett Bhaar insisted that after Fox called Arizona for Biden,
Speaker 1: he demanded in a never denied email that it be rescinded.
Speaker 1: It's hurting us. The sooner we pull it, even if
Speaker 1: it gives us a major egg and put it back
Speaker 1: in Trump's column, the better we are, in my opinion.
Speaker 1: In other words, Bear wasn't just a contaminated ex journalist
Speaker 1: on election night. He was a conspiracy theorist who just
Speaker 1: knew Trump couldn't have lost Arizona and that Fox needed
Speaker 1: to put the state back in Trump's column, even though
Speaker 1: it had never been in Trump's column, no matter how
Speaker 1: many egg it produced. But as I say, I know
Speaker 1: this man. We have had conversations. He thinks he's Walter
Speaker 1: Cronkite offered a broadcast Network nightly newscast, if there still
Speaker 1: are any I didn't watch last night, he would leave Fox,
Speaker 1: so fast that his three piece suit would still be
Speaker 1: standing there on the Fox set in DC while he
Speaker 1: was getting into a cab naked. He thinks he's Walter Cronkite.
Speaker 1: He thinks he was viewed as Walter Cronkite, and then
Speaker 1: this email came out and now fewer people think he's
Speaker 1: Walter Cronkite. And interviewing the Democratic presidential candidate twenty days
Speaker 1: before the election will make more people think he's Walter Cronkite. No,
Speaker 1: by the way, the person Brett Bear most wants to think,
Speaker 1: Brett Behar is Walter Cronkite, is Brett bar He's not
Speaker 1: going to softball her, and he may QAnon her. But
Speaker 1: here's the other thing. He has spent twenty five years
Speaker 1: at Fox and fifteen years anchoring what the Foxes think
Speaker 1: is the evening news, and he wants to be seen
Speaker 1: as more presidential than Kamala Harris. He's Walter Cronkite, after all.
Speaker 1: He wants to be seen as fair, even if he
Speaker 1: doesn't know how to be fair. Plus twenty five years
Speaker 1: at Fox like being locked in a cave, Robinson Crusoe
Speaker 1: got home faster. How many times in twenty five years
Speaker 1: do you think Brett Bear has interviewed anybody, let alone
Speaker 1: a presidential candidate from the other party, who did not
Speaker 1: defer to him or at least to his network or
Speaker 1: pulled punches. I mean, it's one thing to juggle chainsaws.
Speaker 1: Live TV every night for years is juggling chainsaws. It's
Speaker 1: quite another thing to juggle chainsaws while they are on
Speaker 1: fire and somebody is trying to prevent you from catching them.
Speaker 1: And if you're wondering if Bear might trip up Harris,
Speaker 1: worry more about Harris tripping up Bear, Madam Vice President.
Speaker 1: If I may ask him some questions, what's he going
Speaker 1: to do? Stop the interview? Ask him where Fox is
Speaker 1: about covering the guys who joined Lara Trump's boat parade
Speaker 1: while flying Trump flags and Nazi flags with swastikas on them.
Speaker 1: Ask him where Fox is covering Trump's obvious mental decline,
Speaker 1: whether he's had a stroke or he has a tumor.
Speaker 1: Ask him where Fox is about Trump saying the military
Speaker 1: should be deployed against his enemies, and that the military
Speaker 1: should be deployed at the election three weeks from now.
Speaker 1: Ask him where Fox is covering Trump's promise to invoke
Speaker 1: the law that would let him imprison or expel all
Speaker 1: Hispanics in this country based only on their race, or
Speaker 1: imprison and expel all African Americans, or imprison and expel
Speaker 1: all German Irish Americans named Bear. Come on, have a
Speaker 1: little fun on behalf of the rest of us. Literally
Speaker 1: poke the bear. There's something else in play here too,
Speaker 1: in fascist world that Harris agreed to go on. Fox
Speaker 1: just does not compute spontaneous combustion, the theory of human
Speaker 1: spontaneous combustion. I'm betting by tomorrow we hear three hundred
Speaker 1: and seventy eight incidents of it nationwide, All of them Maga,
Speaker 1: the Jesse Waters and the gut Gregfelds of this world
Speaker 1: cannot process this. They have to sell Fox, no Fox,
Speaker 1: and they have no careers. I mean all the food
Speaker 1: carts around Fox headquarters on Sixth Avenue, all those who
Speaker 1: are already taken. There's nothing for Gutfeld or Waters to do.
Speaker 1: But can they promote this interview? Can they mock her
Speaker 1: without mocking Brett behar and the fabric of the network.
Speaker 1: Can they insult her without hurting the ratings? These idiots
Speaker 1: believe in dictatorship and in Trump, but not if it's
Speaker 1: going to cost them their car service. Trust me. MSNBC
Speaker 1: is full of these people too. They have to be
Speaker 1: on TV. It has yet to be recognized officially, but
Speaker 1: it is still an addiction. And as to their audience,
Speaker 1: another win for Kamala Harris. They either know the vice
Speaker 1: president is smart and quick.
Speaker 2: Or they believe the world.
Speaker 1: Has been fixed to make her look smart and quick. Fixed.
Speaker 1: All of it's fixed, including the weather being controlled, but
Speaker 1: only by the Democrats. The conspiracy theories were in full
Speaker 1: blossom yesterday, long before Trump so belatedly responded to the news.
Speaker 1: They'll give her the questions, she'll write the questions. There
Speaker 1: won't be any questions. It's a body double. No, it's
Speaker 1: a double of a body double. And Brett Bher that's
Speaker 1: not Brett bhar that's also a body double. It's a
Speaker 1: double body double. The likeliest outcome, of course, is that
Speaker 1: the fact of the interview will continue to exceed anything
Speaker 1: said in the interview. She went on Fox. Wow is fine.
Speaker 1: That still makes it a win win win win win
Speaker 1: win win win win win win win, And every minute
Speaker 1: leading up to it, and every minute for days and
Speaker 1: maybe weeks after it. We'll send us all back to
Speaker 1: February eighth, twenty twenty three, a date which will live
Speaker 1: in infamy if you're Trump. That was the day Congressman
Speaker 1: Maxwell Frost blew up the Jamie Comer Twitter censors Conservatives
Speaker 1: hearing starring Matt Freakin' Tayebi by making the unfortunate. Former
Speaker 1: Twitter Content Moderation team member Anika Collier Nabaroli confirm that
Speaker 1: within minutes of it being posted, Trump's White House demanded
Speaker 1: the Twitter take down a Chrissy Teagan tweet, which Chrissy
Speaker 1: Tagan tweet was that again, Chrissy Teagan referred to Donald
Speaker 1: Trump as a pussy, as bitch, wiss, as glitch. Trump
Speaker 1: also might be having some ground game problems. Hugo Lowell
Speaker 1: from The Guardian reports the campaign sidekick app, which is
Speaker 1: apparently what Trump ground game people are using, forces canvassers
Speaker 1: who have slow Internet to use quote offline walk books,
Speaker 1: which have no geo tracking feature. As a result, the
Speaker 1: Trump campaign and America Pack have little way to know
Speaker 1: whether canvassers are actually knocking on doors or cheating. Huh.
Speaker 1: Right wingers trying to get away with not doing work
Speaker 1: and claiming they did. That's unpossible and a slightly bigger
Speaker 1: problem if you missed it. George Conway has now posted
Speaker 1: the link to sign up to be admitted to Trump's
Speaker 1: rally at Madison Square Garden here in Fun City, a
Speaker 1: week from next Sunday. It would be a shame if
Speaker 1: all twenty thousand reservations were filled up by people who
Speaker 1: were then mysteriously and unanimously unavoidably detained and couldn't go,
Speaker 1: and they had five hundred people in the garden, when
Speaker 1: five hundred people in the garden looks like the raisins
Speaker 1: in rice pudding at a cheap diner. More importantly, The
Speaker 1: New York Times notes there is a reason Trump is
Speaker 1: going to be in the James Dolan German American Buned
Speaker 1: nineteen thirty nine Nazi Hitler Rally Memorial Garden a weekend
Speaker 1: two days before the election, when New York is not
Speaker 1: in play. No matter how often he says it, New
Speaker 1: York is not in play. Nuremberg Stock turns out not
Speaker 1: to just be for you, unwashed civilians. There is a
Speaker 1: Trump fundraiser within the Madison Square Nazi Garden rally, like
Speaker 1: special seats and potential access to his sharpness himself. And
Speaker 1: I mean, if you have to spend the day in
Speaker 1: a non competitive state two Sundays before the election fundraising,
Speaker 1: guess what you're losing plus these price points, Holy guacamole.
Speaker 1: Five thousand dollars for the President's Club experience so called
Speaker 1: because you get clubbed by the ex president, thirty five
Speaker 1: thousand dollars for the MAGA twenty four experience. You can
Speaker 1: talk economic anxieties with twenty three other magas and you
Speaker 1: can all tell each other that they are the fault
Speaker 1: of the brown people. Fifty thousand dollars or raising seventy
Speaker 1: thousand dollars for the Club forty seven experience. And this
Speaker 1: is what I almost feel sorry about for the ones
Speaker 1: who buy it. Sad to say, that's just a picture
Speaker 1: with the forty seventh President at her inauguration. One hundred
Speaker 1: thousand dollars per ticket, or twice that raised. Two hundred
Speaker 1: thousand dollars for Team America First Experience, Team America World
Speaker 1: Police ef Ye free humping Marionettes for the kids, two
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty thousand dollars, or twice that raised for
Speaker 1: Team Trump twenty twenty four experience. And remember Team Trump
Speaker 1: twenty twenty experience was the one Mike Pence bought. And lastly,
Speaker 1: nine hundred and twenty four thousand, six hundred dollars for
Speaker 1: the Ultramaga Experience, which lets you stand so close to
Speaker 1: Trump that you can actually see how badly the furor
Speaker 1: has put his makeup on. Also of interest here, so
Speaker 1: maybe you know the names of the National Football League
Speaker 1: teams in Pennsylvania, and maybe you don't. Maybe you know
Speaker 1: the Pittsburgh Steelers play in Pittsburgh and the Philadelphia Eagles
Speaker 1: play in Philadelphia. See how this works. But if you're
Speaker 1: the Republican nominee for the Senate in Pennsylvania, shouldn't you check?
Speaker 1: Shouldn't you be able to keep those two teams straight?
Speaker 1: Shouldn't you be able to tell which is which? Shouldn't
Speaker 1: you make sure there's never any doubt that you can
Speaker 1: tell which team is which. Photos show the Eagles. Your
Speaker 1: text goes here and it's about the Steelers. Oops, that's
Speaker 1: next on this big show. I'm sorry, flashback, that's next.
Speaker 1: This is countdown.
Speaker 3: There's his countdown with Keith old Woman's.
Speaker 1: Telling ahead of us on this editionive countdown. While there
Speaker 1: is still a chance that there will be another Subway Series,
Speaker 1: another World Series of baseball between the New York Mets
Speaker 1: and the New York Yankees, even though America collectively yawned
Speaker 1: at the last one twenty four years ago when the
Speaker 1: World Series was still a thing. While there's still a chance,
Speaker 1: I'm going to tell the story now of my role
Speaker 1: at the perimeters of the most famous event of that
Speaker 1: last Subway Series, the night Roger Clemens of the Yankees
Speaker 1: through the razors sharp end of Mike Piazza's broken bat
Speaker 1: at Piazza in an attempt to kill him. That's if
Speaker 1: you're a Mets fan, or he did no such thing
Speaker 1: and simply mistook that piece of shattered bat for a
Speaker 1: baseball and was getting it out of the way. If
Speaker 1: you're a Yankee fan, or if like me, you were
Speaker 1: in the dugout and Clemens actually more or less through
Speaker 1: the bats straight at you, and then Piazza threatened to
Speaker 1: sue you over the bat. That's just the beginning coming up,
Speaker 1: the details in more things I promised not to tell. First,
Speaker 1: there are still more new idiots to talk about. The
Speaker 1: daily roundup of the mis grants, morons and Dunning kruegriff
Speaker 1: X specimens who constitute two days. Worst persons persons in
Speaker 1: the world. It's my impression of the PA announcer at
Speaker 1: Yankee Stadium. Get get out of the way, way the bronze.
Speaker 1: The British NHS, the National Health Service. There are bad
Speaker 1: ideas that can be explained, and bad ideas that can
Speaker 1: be finessed, and bad ideas that can be taken back
Speaker 1: to the drawing board and tried again. And then there
Speaker 1: are the bad ideas that are so bad that you
Speaker 1: have to stop them immediately, call a gigant antic news conference,
Speaker 1: publicly shame and fire everybody connected to them, and then
Speaker 1: stage a ceremonial bonfire in which you destroy all the
Speaker 1: evidence that your bad idea ever happened. This is one
Speaker 1: of the latter ones. King's College Hospital in Lambeth in
Speaker 1: London has given a contract to rent patience wheelchairs.
Speaker 2: You heard me.
Speaker 1: They are renting wheelchairs to patients at the hospital. If
Speaker 1: you come in in an ambulance you can use one
Speaker 1: of the hospital's wheelchairs, that's okay. But if you stagger
Speaker 1: in on your own, like after getting stabbed or shot
Speaker 1: or run over or I don't know too much. Sardonic
Speaker 1: British humor caused you to collapse or your neighbors drag
Speaker 1: you in and leave you there and you can't walk.
Speaker 1: They will not put you in a wheelchair. You get
Speaker 1: pointed to what looks like a bike rack from say
Speaker 1: City Bike in New York, or Bay Wheels in San Francisco,
Speaker 1: or the luggage cart rental outfits at airports only for wheelchairs.
Speaker 1: You have to have a credit card to unlock a
Speaker 1: wheelchair or guess what you're crawling first four hours if
Speaker 1: your wheelchair are free, but they do have your credit
Speaker 1: card number, after which it's two pounds per hour. Since
Speaker 1: after a fourteen year run of fascist rule in England,
Speaker 1: waiting times at the NHS at King's College are up
Speaker 1: to twelve hours. You are probably paying thirty two pounds
Speaker 1: for a wheelchair, or you're hijacking a gurnee or something,
Speaker 1: or buying one used on the street for thirty pounds.
Speaker 1: The company involved in this wheel share, if you're looking
Speaker 1: for them, it's wh e E l Share and the
Speaker 1: hospital and the NHS have come up with the perfect
Speaker 1: solution to the understandably bad publicity here. Wheelshare is letting
Speaker 1: it be known that it will soon be adding value
Speaker 1: to its pay or crawl service. It will soon be
Speaker 1: covering its rent to chairs with corporate advertisements and logos
Speaker 1: available at popular prices. As I said, fire everybody in public,
Speaker 1: refund every charge and burn all of it.
Speaker 2: Thrown her up.
Speaker 1: Worser Hockey's Ottawa Senators who let down an entire nation yesterday, Well,
Speaker 1: they only have partial responsibility for this. It's a doc
Speaker 1: strike in Nova Scotia, That's part of it. But Ottawa
Speaker 1: who told you to have your things shipped in from
Speaker 1: some foreign country rather than have them made in Canada.
Speaker 1: Yesterday was Canadian Thanksgiving because well, because our Thanksgiving is
Speaker 1: Canadian fourth of July or something. I don't know. I
Speaker 1: can't I can't keep it straight. And the Senators who
Speaker 1: had the lone matinee on the national holiday had promised
Speaker 1: their fans who went to their game a natural and
Speaker 1: lovely celebration of the true meaning of Thanksgiving. A gravy boat.
Speaker 1: A gravy boat that looks like the Ottawa senators Zamboni
Speaker 1: ice cleaning machine. You got the picture in your mind,
Speaker 1: like a Zamboni machine, A little Zamboni machine, only with
Speaker 1: a little, tiny handle, a little circular thing you could
Speaker 1: hold with your fingers and it's full of gravy. How Canadian.
Speaker 1: But the Senators missed the goddamned boat. Apparently this is
Speaker 1: a thing. It turns out NHL teams have been giving
Speaker 1: out gravy boats that look like Zamboni ice cleaning machines
Speaker 1: since at least twenty eighteen, when Chicago did it. There
Speaker 1: are also ones from Nashville, from Detroit, Anaheim, La Washington.
Speaker 1: But apparently this was going to be the first ever
Speaker 1: Canadian Zamboni gravy boat. Ten thousand Ottawa senators gravy boats
Speaker 1: are still in Halifax, sitting on the dock of the
Speaker 1: bay watching the promotional opportunities roll away. And this promotional
Speaker 1: opportunity ran aground, as it were, due to labor troubles.
Speaker 1: And that's labor with a U call me ishmael. My
Speaker 1: boat sank. The gravy boats didn't get there the end.
Speaker 1: The Senators say, if they arrive in time, they'll give
Speaker 1: them out for Christmas. But of course anything that soon
Speaker 1: would be gravy. Fans at yesterday's game got instead of
Speaker 1: the gravy boat a voucher for a coke and some popcorn,
Speaker 1: which bluntly.
Speaker 2: Is not the same goddamn thing.
Speaker 1: I mean, how am I supposed to use a coke
Speaker 1: and some popcorn to pour my gravy on top after
Speaker 1: I put the biscuit in the basket? But the winner
Speaker 1: worst also kind of SPORTSI ish Dave McCormick, the Connecticut
Speaker 1: guy who is somehow the republic candidate for the Senate
Speaker 1: in Pennsylvania, probably because their last candidate for Senate in
Speaker 1: Pennsylvania was doctor Oz, who lost over the issue of
Speaker 1: the crud Ye Tay vegetable plate and lost to the
Speaker 1: guy from the Twilight Zone episode Who's here to Serve Man.
Speaker 1: Like every candidate ever, McCormick has made a pitch for
Speaker 1: sports fans in his state, well the state he's running in,
Speaker 1: it's not his state, and it did not go well.
Speaker 1: Let me preface this in case you don't know, the
Speaker 1: state of Pennsylvania has two National Football League teams, the
Speaker 1: Philadelphia Eagles and the Pittsburgh Steelers. The Philadelphia Eagles play
Speaker 1: in Philadelphia. The Pittsburgh Steelers play right in Pittsburgh. And
Speaker 1: that's all you really need to know. I mean, maybe
Speaker 1: it's important that the Pittsburgh Steelers used to be the
Speaker 1: Pittsburgh Football Pirates. But not really. This is what David
Speaker 1: McCormick posted. Four photos of him at a time tailgate,
Speaker 1: you know, the real purpose of football, to go out
Speaker 1: and get drunk before the game in the parking lot.
Speaker 1: And it's McCormick with a bunch of people in Eagles
Speaker 1: green T shirts and Eagles dark green uniforms, and there're
Speaker 1: men and their women, and there's him waving in him
Speaker 1: wearing a Maga cat. Well, I met Maga cap. But
Speaker 1: it could be he's wearing a Maga cat. These guys
Speaker 1: would wear dead cats on their heads, wouldn't they. Anyway,
Speaker 1: Pictures of him with Eagles fans, smiling and being an
Speaker 1: Eagles fan, and he's wearing an Eagles fleece of some sort,
Speaker 1: and it says fun tailgate in Philly today football emoji
Speaker 1: excited to watch the Steelers throttle the Raiders. Well that's
Speaker 1: the Philadelphia Eagles. The Steelers play in Pittsburgh. I just
Speaker 1: told you this. You said you understood McCormick. Now, this
Speaker 1: is as stupid as it sounds, but perhaps not for
Speaker 1: the reasons that first come to mind. It is possible
Speaker 1: that this latest idiot fascist McCormick thinks he was at
Speaker 1: a Philadelphia Steelers game. It's possible, I don't know. He
Speaker 1: later finessed this to suggest he was going to go
Speaker 1: tailgate with the Eagles fans and then go watch the
Speaker 1: Steelers on TV in their game at Las Vegas. The
Speaker 1: timing of his tweet actually supports this. He tweeted those
Speaker 1: photos and the reference to the wrong team at four
Speaker 1: thirty six pm Eastern. The Eagles had played at one
Speaker 1: pm in Philadelphia and the Steelers were playing in Nevada
Speaker 1: at four pm Eastern time. But the point is, even
Speaker 1: if you aren't such a carpetbagger who isn't actually from
Speaker 1: Pennsylvania that you think that the Pittsburgh team is the
Speaker 1: same as the Philadelphia team and it's all sports ball,
Speaker 1: why would you be so stupid as to post a
Speaker 1: bunch of pictures with Eagles fans and not mention the
Speaker 1: Eagles but only the Steelers. I mean, among other things,
Speaker 1: Eagles fans hate Steelers fans. Even if you're not a moron,
Speaker 1: you'll look like a moron. Republican Pennsylvania Senate candidate from
Speaker 1: Connecticut David by the way, for next time. The Steelers
Speaker 1: and Eagles merged during World War two and they spent
Speaker 1: the nineteen forty three season as the Steegles. So whatever
Speaker 1: you do, don't call either one of the teams the Steegles.
Speaker 1: And there used to be NFL teams in the Frankfort
Speaker 1: section of Philly, and there was another one in Pottstown, PA.
Speaker 1: And the bankrupt nineteen fifty two Dallas Texans eventually moved
Speaker 1: their base of operations to Hershey, Pennsylvania. So don't mention
Speaker 1: any of them. Please. How about this. How about when
Speaker 1: you're unfamiliar with the state as you are with Pennsylvania,
Speaker 1: next time you run in the damn state in which
Speaker 1: you actually live. McCormick two days worse, Parson, And it
Speaker 1: started on the night of October twenty second, two thousand
Speaker 1: and it ended well, I'll let you know if and
Speaker 1: when it ever ends. I was enjoying the second night
Speaker 1: of one of my childhood dreams come true. I was
Speaker 1: the host, not just of the telecast of the world series,
Speaker 1: but it was an all New York City series, a
Speaker 1: Mets versus Yankee series, a Subway series. I'd literally dreamt
Speaker 1: of it since nineteen sixty seven. The manager of the
Speaker 1: Yankees had been the first person I ever interviewed on
Speaker 1: TV fifteen years earlier. I had worked with him in TV.
Speaker 1: He was a friend of mine. I had just covered
Speaker 1: the Mets through their playoff run and knew all of
Speaker 1: their players. My face had been on an advertisement in
Speaker 1: dead center field in the Mets Stadium for the entirety
Speaker 1: of the year before, and the players.
Speaker 2: All knew me my name.
Speaker 1: Where we were that night, Yankee Stadium was not only
Speaker 1: where I saw my first baseball game, but was about
Speaker 1: seven eighths of a mile from the the hospital in
Speaker 1: which I had been born, and my first home was
Speaker 1: four subway stops away. The night before this event, as
Speaker 1: I hosted the start of the first game of this
Speaker 1: Keith of palooza, I was supposed to introduce the public
Speaker 1: a dress anouncer of Yankee Stadium, Bob Sheppard, whose voice
Speaker 1: I had heard nearly every day since I was eight
Speaker 1: years old, so he could then introduce the players and
Speaker 1: this epic world series would begin. And it dawned on
Speaker 1: me in the seconds before I was supposed to do
Speaker 1: this that I literally had the power to stop the
Speaker 1: two thousand World Series from ever happening if I just
Speaker 1: kept talking and never actually said here is Bob Shephard, Well,
Speaker 1: I could delay it briefly until they cut my mic
Speaker 1: off and then fired me on the spot. Anyway, this
Speaker 1: was Game two, and now that our pregame show was over,
Speaker 1: and I had waved to my mother, who had seen
Speaker 1: her first game at Yankee Stadium just ooh sixty six
Speaker 1: years previously, and she was seated in the family seats
Speaker 1: that were just nine rows up from our on field set.
Speaker 1: I had crawled into the position I would assume for
Speaker 1: the entire game as the dugout reporter. I was hunched
Speaker 1: over on a stool squeezed between the far end of
Speaker 1: the Yankee dugout and our Fox Sports first base camera.
Speaker 1: A thin chicken wire fence separated me from the dugout himself.
Speaker 1: In fact, it was a formality. I was more or
Speaker 1: less in the dugout players, coaches, and that night, as
Speaker 1: I settled in, my friend, the Yankee manager all came
Speaker 1: over to say hello, Roger Clemens of the Yankees, who
Speaker 1: I had also known since we were both rookies in
Speaker 1: Boston Sports in nineteen eighty four. He lasted, I didn't.
Speaker 1: Roger Clemens had struck out the first two Mets hitters,
Speaker 1: Clemens was a strange man about whom I had heard
Speaker 1: a strange tale of teammates in a college summer baseball
Speaker 1: league who were all wearing their wallets in their uniform
Speaker 1: pants back pockets during a game, because one of them
Speaker 1: explained to a friend of mine, we have this crazy
Speaker 1: kid Clemens from Texas on this team, and we don't
Speaker 1: trust him. In I had found him a little nervous,
Speaker 1: little standoffish, but doing his best to be professional. But
Speaker 1: by now there were rumors swirling around Roger Clemens about
Speaker 1: amphetamines and performance enhancing drugs, and you knew not to
Speaker 1: talk to him before or after a game unless you
Speaker 1: had to, and if you had to, you chose your
Speaker 1: words very carefully, then made sure that whatever you did,
Speaker 1: you had to start with something mundane, like the score
Speaker 1: of the game, and if you could let him bring
Speaker 1: up anything controversial or complex, he would then probably do it.
Speaker 1: So now, as this game continued, after two batters had
Speaker 1: struck out, Lee Mazilli, the former Mets star now Yankees coach,
Speaker 1: another friend of mine was on the other side of
Speaker 1: a little fence, and as Mets superstar Mike Piazza stepped
Speaker 1: in as the third batter of the game, Mozilly leaned
Speaker 1: in and said, conspiratorily, let's see if Roger flips him again.
Speaker 1: In Midsummer two thousand, Roger Clemens had beamed Mike Piazza
Speaker 1: with a fastball. There was a hospital visit involved. Nobody
Speaker 1: was convinced it had not been intentional, or that Clemens
Speaker 1: would not do it again, even though it was the
Speaker 1: World Series. Mozilli and I leaned forward. Piazza was a
Speaker 1: deeply complicated guy too. During the playoffs, he had walked
Speaker 1: up to me and asked me if it was true
Speaker 1: I was from New York, and then he quizzed me
Speaker 1: about the relative merits of the suburbs, and then he
Speaker 1: wanted to know if I had really taken up residence
Speaker 1: in his favorite southern California hotel. And we talked for
Speaker 1: fifteen minutes about that. The next night I saw him, smiled,
Speaker 1: said hello, and he looked at me like I had
Speaker 1: just sworn a vendetta against his family. For a long
Speaker 1: time I thought it was me, until about ten years later,
Speaker 1: the great Vin Scully said that Piazza was with the Dodgers,
Speaker 1: and when they were both together there in Los Angeles,
Speaker 1: Vin had had the identical experience with Piazza. Best friends
Speaker 1: on the team bus one day, and then no indication
Speaker 1: Piazza remembered even meeting him the next I mean that
Speaker 1: was Ben Scully. Clemens, as it turned out, did not
Speaker 1: throw a baseball at Piazza, but instead pitched him inside
Speaker 1: in on his hands, and Piazza tried to stop a
Speaker 1: swing that was half self defense, but instead the odd
Speaker 1: angle and the force of the pitch shattered Piazza's bat.
Speaker 1: The ball veered to the right, describing a circle into
Speaker 1: foul territory. The head of the bat shot out towards
Speaker 1: Clemens on the mound. A second piece flew briefly into
Speaker 1: the infield. Piazza was left holding just the handle. And
Speaker 1: it looked as foolish as that sounds, but lost in
Speaker 1: this descriptions the fact that that all happened at once,
Speaker 1: and even from our sign angle in the Yankee dugout,
Speaker 1: it looked a mozillion me as if Piazza's bat had
Speaker 1: simply exploded, like it was a trick device of some sort.
Speaker 1: I saw Clemens reach for the baseball. I thought it
Speaker 1: was the baseball right in front of him, and then
Speaker 1: just as quickly, He and I at the same moment,
Speaker 1: realized it was not the baseball. It was the barrel
Speaker 1: of the bat, which was slightly rounded, just a little
Speaker 1: darker than a baseball, but could in the heat of
Speaker 1: an instant following a bat explosion, it could be mistaken
Speaker 1: for a ball. So far, so good. But right then Clemens,
Speaker 1: realizing it was part of a bat and not a ball,
Speaker 1: promptly threw that part of the bat at me. Jesus Mas,
Speaker 1: I said to Mizilly, why did Clemens throw that bat
Speaker 1: barrel at me? The Yankee coach looked incredulously at me.
Speaker 1: He didn't throw it you. He throw it at me.
Speaker 1: That's what it looked like. We were lined up perfectly.
Speaker 1: If Roger Clemens had thrown the barrel of Mike Piazza's bat, say,
Speaker 1: one hundred and twenty feet instead of just six or
Speaker 1: seven feet, he would have hit either me or Lee Mozilly.
Speaker 1: In the Yankee dugout. As it was, since nobody knew
Speaker 1: exactly what was happening, Piazza had started to run down
Speaker 1: to first base in case the ball was fair. He
Speaker 1: didn't know where the ball was either. For that initial
Speaker 1: split second, you really couldn't tell which flying object was
Speaker 1: the ball, and also whether the ball was fair or foul.
Speaker 1: So Roger Clemens's throw certainly looked like it was aimed
Speaker 1: at Piazza as Piazza went down the first baseline, and
Speaker 1: Piazza took umbrage, And there was another split second of
Speaker 1: confusion when it looked like Piazza might charge out to
Speaker 1: the mound to try to sock Clemens for this and
Speaker 1: for the Midsummer beating. I said to Missilly, wait, did
Speaker 1: he throw that bat at Piazza? Misilly just shook his head.
Speaker 1: I don't think so. Hun Hell knows he's been here
Speaker 1: two years. I haven't figured out anything he's done so far.
Speaker 1: As the umpires then got involved, Clemens repeatedly tapped his
Speaker 1: own chest, and not in a bragging way, but in
Speaker 1: a kind of what looked like that's on me way.
Speaker 1: Two bat boys collected the three main pieces of the
Speaker 1: bat and a bunch of smaller shards, some of them
Speaker 1: smaller than a toothpick. The Fox play by play man
Speaker 1: threw it to me in the dugout well. I said,
Speaker 1: I can tell you the Yankee dugout doesn't know what
Speaker 1: happened or why Joe. Missilly laughed quietly and then hit
Speaker 1: me in the arm. While I was on the air,
Speaker 1: I postulated that Clemens was looking for a ball hit
Speaker 1: back to him, instead found the piece of the bat
Speaker 1: and then discarded that piece of the bats so we
Speaker 1: could keep looking for the ball that he discarded, it
Speaker 1: kind of where Piazza was running, might have been delivered,
Speaker 1: might have been a coincidence. I do remember suggesting that
Speaker 1: if Clemens had really aimed the bat at Piazza, that
Speaker 1: from that distance, with the strength and accuracy of a
Speaker 1: major league pitcher, he clearly would have hit him with it.
Speaker 1: Piazza then promptly grounded out to end the inning, and
Speaker 1: as Clemens came back towards the Yankee dugout where Mozilli
Speaker 1: and I were, he again stopped to talk to the umpire,
Speaker 1: who was Charlie Reliford. Over the noise of fifty six
Speaker 1: thousand fans at Yankee Stadium, I couldn't hear a damn thing,
Speaker 1: but it sure looked like Clemens was again saying that
Speaker 1: was on me. I asked missillly if he could find
Speaker 1: out if that's what Clemens was doing, and half an
Speaker 1: inning later, Missilly reported that Clemens indeed thought for a
Speaker 1: second it was the ball, and that he threw it
Speaker 1: and then it was on him, and that it was
Speaker 1: not intentional and it was not directed at Piazza. Now
Speaker 1: I did something kind of stupid. I suggested to my
Speaker 1: bosses that I should go ask the commissioner Baseball, who
Speaker 1: in a World Series game had the power to eject
Speaker 1: any place for any reason, although that power had not
Speaker 1: actually been used since nineteen thirty four. What he thought
Speaker 1: of all this? The producer said yes, And I thought
Speaker 1: me and my big mouth, I now had to crawl
Speaker 1: out of that little space between camera and dugout, and
Speaker 1: I mean literally crawl hands and knees to exit back
Speaker 1: into the seats via where the groundskeepers kept all the
Speaker 1: extra dirt. I knew where in the stands the commissioner
Speaker 1: was sitting. I went there. I got to him, I
Speaker 1: asked him. He assured me there was no discipline coming
Speaker 1: for Clemens, and they'd look at the tape of the
Speaker 1: game again that night or in the morning, but he
Speaker 1: really didn't think Clemens had tried to hit Piazza with
Speaker 1: the bat. Well, they would look at the tape, and
Speaker 1: they decided both that Clemens did not try to hit
Speaker 1: Piazza with the bat, and that he should be fined
Speaker 1: fifty thousand dollars for I don't know, not trying to
Speaker 1: hit him with the bat. So I made it back
Speaker 1: to the dugout, reversing my crawl like I was recreating
Speaker 1: the movie The Great Escape. As it turned out, Piazza's
Speaker 1: little squib shot that caused all the trouble with the
Speaker 1: exploding bat was about the hardest thing they hit off
Speaker 1: Clemens all night. Over eight innings, he struck out nine
Speaker 1: Mets batters, he walked none, he gave up only two hits,
Speaker 1: and he only hit one batter. And then, incredibly, after
Speaker 1: Clemens left the game, the Yankees almost blew a six
Speaker 1: to nothing lead. In the ninth inning, a Met outfielder
Speaker 1: named Jay Payton hit a three run homer off future
Speaker 1: Hall of Famer Mariano Rivera, and the Mets had a
Speaker 1: chance to tie the game or go ahead off Rivera
Speaker 1: in the top of the ninth And then he got
Speaker 1: out of it, and the final score was six to
Speaker 1: five Yankees. And with the game over now it was
Speaker 1: Keith interviews Clemens' time. I went to the pre arranged
Speaker 1: spot at the other end of the Yankee Dugout, where
Speaker 1: another friend of mine, the Yankees pr director, had guaranteed
Speaker 1: me he would go and get Clemens and they would
Speaker 1: emerge after Clemens left the clubhouse to do what was
Speaker 1: a contractually obligated interview with Fox and me. Aparently, Roger
Speaker 1: Clemens started making his way towards me the moment the
Speaker 1: Yankees finally won that game. Unfortunately, at that exact moment,
Speaker 1: security closed the only runway from the Yankee Dugout to
Speaker 1: the clubhouse so that a dignitary could use it as
Speaker 1: an exit from his seats. The dignitary was Mayor Rudolph Giuliani,
Speaker 1: noted front running Yankees fan and ticket freeloader. And while
Speaker 1: Fox literally delayed the start of every newscast on every
Speaker 1: one of its stations in the country, even on the
Speaker 1: West Coast, and Joe Buck and Tim McCarver kept showing
Speaker 1: replays again and again and promising my interview with Roger Clemens,
Speaker 1: Rudy Giuliani took his goddamn time leaving the field. His
Speaker 1: idiot son Andrew grabbed some dirt from the field. I
Speaker 1: half expected him to eat it. Instead, he stuffed it
Speaker 1: in his jacket pockets. Juliani now waited for his entire entourage,
Speaker 1: one of his wives, some of his I guess they
Speaker 1: were friends, assorted political riff raff, and as my producer
Speaker 1: screamed in my ear, where is Clemens? Giuliani waited until
Speaker 1: they were all together on the field, and finally he
Speaker 1: marched them down into the dugout and up through the runway.
Speaker 1: And after all this delay, Clemens came out and finally
Speaker 1: I could ask him about throwing the bat shard at
Speaker 1: or near piazza. And at that moment I remembered what
Speaker 1: I had learned about Clemens in Boston. If you started
Speaker 1: an interview with something controversial, he might very well walk away. If,
Speaker 1: on the other hand, you did the boring game outcome question,
Speaker 1: he would answer anything you asked, and he might even
Speaker 1: bring up anything controversial himself. But you had to do
Speaker 1: the stupid game stuff first, So which was harder work?
Speaker 1: Roger I asked eight innings of two hit ball or
Speaker 1: watching the Mets nearly tie it in the ninth. His
Speaker 1: answer was not bad, but he did not bring up
Speaker 1: the bats. So I asked another question about what he
Speaker 1: thought of his performance in that game. Well, that did it.
Speaker 1: He started talking about having to overcome his emotions in
Speaker 1: the first inning, and I could say, well, since you
Speaker 1: brought up the emotions the bat throwing incident, did you
Speaker 1: throw that piece of broken bat at Mike Piazza. There
Speaker 1: is a freeze frame from that interview in which Roger
Speaker 1: Clemens eyes are bugged wide open. Well, Glemmons basically confirmed
Speaker 1: what the guys in the dugout had told me. He
Speaker 1: had told them. You can believe him or not, but
Speaker 1: he thought the thing he grabbed was the ball, and
Speaker 1: when it wasn't, he threw it away just in case
Speaker 1: the ball was somewhere else near him and he had
Speaker 1: to have a free hand with which to pick it up.
Speaker 1: He explained the chest taps. He was indeed saying to
Speaker 1: the umpire Umpire Charlie, as Clemens called him, accompanying his
Speaker 1: apologies to the umps for throwing the bat. He said
Speaker 1: he didn't even know where Piazza was at the point
Speaker 1: he threw the bat. It was as straight and nonpartisan
Speaker 1: and frankly as informative an interview as I've ever conducted. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: everybody else in that stadium, everybody else in that city,
Speaker 1: everybody else in the Tri State area was convinced of
Speaker 1: one of only two things. Roger Clemens had tried to
Speaker 1: impale Mike Piazza with a shard of his own bat,
Speaker 1: or the Mets were crybabies who could not tell that
Speaker 1: Clemens obviously did not try to impale Mike Piazza with
Speaker 1: his own bat. There was no middle ground. I found
Speaker 1: this out specifically the next day when the TV sports
Speaker 1: columnist of the New York Times, Rich Sandomir, who was
Speaker 1: a friend of mine, called to interview me about the interview.
Speaker 1: Why didn't you ask him about the bat first? Nobody
Speaker 1: cared about how he pitched? He threw a bat at Piazza.
Speaker 1: I said, you're a Met fan, and I explained the
Speaker 1: theory of not making Clemens end an interview before he
Speaker 1: said what you needed to know. I went through the
Speaker 1: whole thing I just recited here. It was amazing to
Speaker 1: see those few days how every sports reporter and columnist
Speaker 1: in New York self identified as either a Met fan
Speaker 1: or ex Met fan, or a Yankee fan or x
Speaker 1: Yankee fan. And you can still see it today, as
Speaker 1: this story from twenty two years ago is recollected by
Speaker 1: others they wrote what they felt as kids Clemens was
Speaker 1: the victim, or Clemens tried to kill Mike Piazza like
Speaker 1: he was a dracula, and they had the wooden steak
Speaker 1: to go through his heart. Meanwhile, we learned recently from
Speaker 1: Joe Torre, the Yankee manager, another one of my friends,
Speaker 1: that they all hid something from us that night, the
Speaker 1: thing about emotions. After the incident in the first inning,
Speaker 1: Roger Clemens went back to the Yankee clubhouse and started
Speaker 1: to cry. This might have had something to do with
Speaker 1: embarrassment or grief, But since he had noted that he
Speaker 1: had had to check his emotions, I always thought, well,
Speaker 1: he might have been a little overamped for that game,
Speaker 1: naturally or otherwise. All right, So before I present anything
Speaker 1: else out of chronological order, let me go back to
Speaker 1: the moment. I thanked Roger Clemens for the interview and
Speaker 1: threw it back to Joe Buck and Tim McCarver in
Speaker 1: the Fox booth. Because this is when the real trouble started.
Speaker 1: They were pretty much done for the night, but I
Speaker 1: had another two hours to go in a live postgame
Speaker 1: show on Fox's cable sports network. We had about four
Speaker 1: minutes until that show started and it suddenly occurred to
Speaker 1: me that although this was not the most important event
Speaker 1: in the history of the World Series, the bat would
Speaker 1: become part of the iconography of baseball. I had been
Speaker 1: at Yankee Stadium often enough over the years to know
Speaker 1: the two kids who ran the visiting clubhouse, and right
Speaker 1: then they were still packing up the Mets bats and
Speaker 1: equipment and the Mets dugout. So I ran over and
Speaker 1: asked the senior of them what happened to the pieces
Speaker 1: of the piazza bat well. The guy explained that Bobby Valentine,
Speaker 1: the Mets manager, had asked that one of the pieces
Speaker 1: go to a friend of his in the stands, and he,
Speaker 1: the clubhouse attendant, had handed it to the guy. A
Speaker 1: second piece he believed was kept by the Yankees. He
Speaker 1: wasn't sure about that. The third piece, the handle was
Speaker 1: where was it? Where is it? He asked the other attendant.
Speaker 1: It's here in the garbage, the kids said. I did
Speaker 1: a double take. Garbage, Yeah, the kid said, under the
Speaker 1: dugout bench, and there it was, stuffed in amid all
Speaker 1: the empty bags of sunflower seeds and the crushed gatorade cups.
Speaker 1: I said, what happens to it now gets thrown out.
Speaker 1: They clean out the dugouts first. So I said, look,
Speaker 1: can I borrow it? This would make a great prop
Speaker 1: for our postgame show. And the attendant says sure, and
Speaker 1: he pulls it out of the pile and hands it
Speaker 1: to him, just about seven inches of a baseball bat,
Speaker 1: and all there is is Piazza's uniform number thirty one
Speaker 1: written in magic marker on the bottom. Listen. I said,
Speaker 1: I won't be able to bring this back to you
Speaker 1: for like two hours. We're on for two hours. Will
Speaker 1: you still be in the clubhouse? And he said, are
Speaker 1: you kidding? We have to be here at eight He
Speaker 1: and I'll be out of here in ten minutes. And
Speaker 1: I said, you want me to bring it back to
Speaker 1: you for Game three? And he says, garbage. You're going
Speaker 1: to bring back garbage, throw it out, keep it whatever,
Speaker 1: what do I care? So I use the bat fragment
Speaker 1: as a prop in the show repeatedly, and I stuck
Speaker 1: it in my shoulder bag and I thought, I'm not
Speaker 1: a scround, but this is a valuable piece of memorabilia
Speaker 1: and I'd like to keep it. So either I'll auction
Speaker 1: it off for charity and bid against myself or something,
Speaker 1: or I'll make a donation to a baseball charity and
Speaker 1: I'll keep it. And that was it. And two days later,
Speaker 1: as the World Series shifted from Yankee Stadium to Shaye Stadium,
Speaker 1: I got a phone call from one of the PR
Speaker 1: guys at Fox Sports. Did you see the paper? And
Speaker 1: I said, no, not yet, And he says, Piazza told
Speaker 1: the guy from Newsday that you stole his back and
Speaker 1: he wants it back. And I said, what if I
Speaker 1: hadn't asked about it, it would be on a garbage scale
Speaker 1: right now, being towed out to be dumped in the
Speaker 1: Atlantic Ocean. And he says maybe, but Piazza told this
Speaker 1: John Hayman, he's going to sue you to get it back.
Speaker 1: So now I go to the ballpark with extra excitement
Speaker 1: on my plate. I'm waiting for Mike Piazza to tell
Speaker 1: me he's going to sue me. So I go out
Speaker 1: onto the field. I'm wondering how long it's going to
Speaker 1: be before I run into Piazza. And like two minutes
Speaker 1: after I step on the field, I turn around and
Speaker 1: he's walking towards me, and he looks at me and
Speaker 1: he says, hey, wild one the other night. Huh, say, listen,
Speaker 1: when you lived at Shutters, did you ever eat at
Speaker 1: Ivy at the Shore in Santa Monica? Nothing about the bat.
Speaker 1: We're talking about restaurants in Santa Monica, California. And I say, well, yeah,
Speaker 1: but did you ever eat at Shae Jay's. And a
Speaker 1: big smile from Piazza. Oh, man, I love Shade Jay's.
Speaker 1: I love Jay. Give me your number this winner. When
Speaker 1: I'm home, let's go eat at Shaye Jay's. And I said,
Speaker 1: I'll pay for it and I'll order the sand dabs.
Speaker 1: Now we're talking about sand dabs, how to prepare sand
Speaker 1: dabs at a restaurant. And then he says, hey, sorry,
Speaker 1: I gotta go ahead, have a good show. That was it.
Speaker 1: He's in the paper threatening to sue me. We see
Speaker 1: each other on the field, he starts the conversation. No
Speaker 1: mention of suing me, not one word. Next day in
Speaker 1: the paper, more Piazza quotes about how he's going to
Speaker 1: sue me for stealing his bat. Next night, Game four
Speaker 1: of the World Series, We're just about to go on
Speaker 1: the air at the pregame show, and now Piazza comes
Speaker 1: over again, coming in from the outfield. To the dugout,
Speaker 1: and he says, Hey, this must be really cool to
Speaker 1: do what you got are doing. Have a great show,
Speaker 1: and by now the only thing I can think of.
Speaker 1: He does not know I'm the same Keith Olderman. He
Speaker 1: keeps threatening to sue. So the World Series ends and
Speaker 1: the Yankees beat the Mets, and if you look for it,
Speaker 1: there's this photo of the traditional postgame awarding of the
Speaker 1: World Series Trophy and the Most Valuable Player award and
Speaker 1: its commissioner, Bud Selig and Derek Jeter, the Yankees and me,
Speaker 1: and just before it happened, George Steinbrenner was the owner
Speaker 1: of the Yankees. He's crying, leans in and I give
Speaker 1: him a hug and reassure him. And he asked me
Speaker 1: if my mother went to the game, and I said,
Speaker 1: you know my mother, she'd never come to Shay Stadium.
Speaker 1: She hates it more than you do. And he says,
Speaker 1: I love her more than ever before.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 1: So the series ends, and it's not been that greatest series,
Speaker 1: but it's been exciting, and it was the dream from
Speaker 1: my childhood. And the Yankees have won and my friends
Speaker 1: are happy, and I've not heard another word about this lawsuit.
Speaker 1: Nothing for Mike Piazza. And I told the Fox people, well,
Speaker 1: if I'm not going to hear anything more from that,
Speaker 1: it's easy. I'm going to keep the bat and I'm
Speaker 1: going to donate twenty five thousand dollars to this charity,
Speaker 1: the Baseball Assistance Team, which helps ex ball players in
Speaker 1: financial need, because A I'm not a scrounger. B it's
Speaker 1: a great cause. C that's actually much more than the
Speaker 1: bat handle would be worth on the open market. And
Speaker 1: D the acronym for the Baseball Assistance Team is bat
Speaker 1: bat and that's perfect. It's about Piazza's bat, you get it.
Speaker 1: And then nothing for a month, whereupon Fox gets another letter,
Speaker 1: now from Piazza's agent fellow named Monzon, and he threatens
Speaker 1: to sue again, and that's the end of it. Never
Speaker 1: heard from him again. So now it's the next year,
Speaker 1: two thousand and one, and I'm back in New York
Speaker 1: working for CNN doing the news, and I go to
Speaker 1: a Mets game and I see Piazza and I give
Speaker 1: him a big smile and I offer my hand and
Speaker 1: I say, still any of those sand dabs from shayj
Speaker 1: And he just stares at me and walks right past me,
Speaker 1: and I see a cop I know who works next
Speaker 1: to the Mets dugout, and the cop says, Mike has
Speaker 1: been asking him about me, Zach Keith Olderman, the one
Speaker 1: who stole my bat. So now I'm not just keeping
Speaker 1: the bat. I want to sue Mike Piazza for being
Speaker 1: a pain in the ass. And then nine to eleven happens,
Speaker 1: and ball players are doing charity things, and sportscasters and
Speaker 1: newscasters are doing charity things, and I think, well, this
Speaker 1: is the time when the baseball season resumes. I throw
Speaker 1: the bat handle in my bag and I go out
Speaker 1: to a Mets game and I go up to Piazza's
Speaker 1: locker before the game and I pull the bat chard
Speaker 1: out and I say, take this, Mike, auction it off
Speaker 1: for charity. Let's do some good with this. Or if
Speaker 1: it's too much trouble, you sign it and I'll auction
Speaker 1: it off. We can leave my name out of it,
Speaker 1: whatever you want, however you want to do it. And
Speaker 1: he looks at me like I've just insulted his mother
Speaker 1: and says, no, it's too complicated, and he turns away,
Speaker 1: and I think to myself, this is the strangest athlete
Speaker 1: I have ever met. And just before the season ends,
Speaker 1: I go to another Mets game. Now, this time it's
Speaker 1: one of his teammates who takes me aside and says,
Speaker 1: you know, Piazza never stops talking about you stealing his
Speaker 1: bat from the Clemens game last year. He says, he
Speaker 1: still wants to sue you. Didn't you try to give
Speaker 1: him the back back in the clubhouse to auction off.
Speaker 1: Didn't I see that? And I say, yeah I did,
Speaker 1: and he refused to take it, And the guy laughs
Speaker 1: and he says, great player, excellent catcher. I love him,
Speaker 1: strangest player I have ever met. Comes two thousand and two,
Speaker 1: nothing happens. See Piazza at several Mets games. Nothing happens.
Speaker 1: Two thousand and three, nothing happens.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 1: I can't pin the year down on this. It's one
Speaker 1: of the Red Sox Yankees playoff series, either two thousand
Speaker 1: and three or two thousand and four. And I'm leaving
Speaker 1: the field as they're clearing the media off just before
Speaker 1: the game starts, and I'm going out through the Red
Speaker 1: Sox dugout literally at the same spot where the kid
Speaker 1: handed me Piazza's bat handle. Three or four years earlier
Speaker 1: where the trouble all began. And I see the new
Speaker 1: owner of the Red Sox team approaching from the other
Speaker 1: end of the dugout Keith John Henry, Nice to meet you.
Speaker 1: Have you got a minute? And I said, well, yeah,
Speaker 1: they're kicking the media off the field, so and he
Speaker 1: laughs and he says I can take care of that,
Speaker 1: and he yells at the plane closes cop and he
Speaker 1: says he's with me, and the cop nods and John Henry,
Speaker 1: the owner of the Red Sox, and I sit down
Speaker 1: on the Red Sox bench before the start of a
Speaker 1: Red Sox Yankees playoff game, and there are no other
Speaker 1: reporters out there, and I think, Okay, what did I
Speaker 1: say about the Red Sox? What is he pissed off about? Instead?
Speaker 1: John Henry says, can I ask you about Mike Piazza?
Speaker 1: And I laugh and I say, sure, what about him?
Speaker 1: And he says, you have part of his bat from
Speaker 1: the World Series with Clemens right, And I say yeah,
Speaker 1: and he says, tell me the whole story. So I
Speaker 1: do what you've just heard, and John Henry says, that's
Speaker 1: what I was told, Thank you, Huh. I thought it
Speaker 1: was me, so that other piece of the bat that
Speaker 1: was handed to a friend of Bobby Valentine's during that game.
Speaker 1: That friend is a great friend of mine, and after
Speaker 1: nine elevee and he said, wouldn't it be great to
Speaker 1: get Mike Piazza to sign this and then we can
Speaker 1: auction it off for the victims' families or the cops
Speaker 1: or some other charity. And he gives me the bat,
Speaker 1: and I call the Mets and they approach Mike and
Speaker 1: they call me and they say, Mike loves the idea
Speaker 1: and I should come to one of the spring training
Speaker 1: games and he'll sign it. So the next March, I
Speaker 1: go to one of the Mets spring training games and
Speaker 1: I go up to him in the clubhouse and I
Speaker 1: introduce myself and he looks at me like I'm from Mars,
Speaker 1: and I say, well, I brought the bat, and he says,
Speaker 1: what bat? And I explained that we had arranged to
Speaker 1: have him sign the bat from the World Series for
Speaker 1: a nine to eleven charity and he erupts at me,
Speaker 1: I'm not signing that bat sure for charity? You think
Speaker 1: I was born yesterday? And now I say something to
Speaker 1: John Henry, owner of the Red SOX like, welcome to
Speaker 1: the club. Did he threaten to sue you too? And
Speaker 1: he laughs and says yes. That's the next part of
Speaker 1: the story. So while we're trying to straighten that out,
Speaker 1: his agent calls me and asks if I will give
Speaker 1: them the bat to auction off for charity. And I
Speaker 1: say sure, and I go to another Mets game and
Speaker 1: I go to the club and I have the bat again.
Speaker 1: Now Piazza says, no, I can't take the bat because
Speaker 1: of pending litigation, but if I want him to, he'll
Speaker 1: sign it for me. All I have to do is
Speaker 1: come back a couple of weeks later. So this is
Speaker 1: what I wanted to ask Keith. Is he the strangest
Speaker 1: ballplayer you've ever met? Or is it just me? There's
Speaker 1: one more part to this. Flash forward to twenty fourteen.
Speaker 1: I still have the Piazza batthandle the one I unsuccessfully
Speaker 1: tried to give back to Piazza. The middle portion, the
Speaker 1: one John Henry unsuccessfully tried to give back to Piazza,
Speaker 1: has been sold, with the proceeds going to charity. So
Speaker 1: where is the third piece, the barrel of the bat,
Speaker 1: the part that Clemens threw at Piazza if you're a
Speaker 1: Met fan, or was unfairly accused of throwing at Piazza
Speaker 1: if you're not a Met fan, And the answer finally
Speaker 1: arrives in a sports memorabilia auction catalog that year, while
Speaker 1: one of the visiting bat boys was handing the middle
Speaker 1: part of the bat to a friend of Hobby Valentine
Speaker 1: and John Henry's in the stands, the barrel, which landed
Speaker 1: near the Yankee dugout, was scooped up by the Yankee
Speaker 1: bat boy who put it in the pile of Yankee
Speaker 1: broken bats. And as it turned out right at that point,
Speaker 1: the Yankee strengthened conditioning coach Jeff Mangold, who was on
Speaker 1: the bench, said, wait a minute, that's the pile of
Speaker 1: broken bats they're going to throw out. They shouldn't throw
Speaker 1: it out. It's history. And he grabs that part of
Speaker 1: the Piazza bat and puts it up in his home office.
Speaker 1: And now it's fourteen years later and he wants to
Speaker 1: auction it off for charity. So he auctions it off,
Speaker 1: and I think, well, hell, it should be alongside the
Speaker 1: other piece of the bat. My other piece of the bat,
Speaker 1: the handle, So I win the auction. There it is
Speaker 1: on my wall, complete with a baseball card showing Roger
Speaker 1: Clemens about to throw the barrel. Reasons left to your imagination.
Speaker 1: Two thirds of the famous bat. I'll sell it someday,
Speaker 1: I'm sure, but I'll always have the memories, my memories
Speaker 1: and John Henry's memories. And if you're wondering, No, unlike
Speaker 1: John Henry and I, that Yankee strength coach, Jeff Mangold
Speaker 1: never tried to give it back to Piazza or get
Speaker 1: it signed by Piazza or auctioned off for charity with Piazza,
Speaker 1: which means that, on top of everything else, Jeff Mangold
Speaker 1: is smarter than John Henry and I put together. 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. Yeah, I still have
Speaker 1: the bat. Follow me for the podcast promo videos on TikTok, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, x, Instagram,
Speaker 1: and face twit. Once again, there is a Monday countdown
Speaker 1: to write that down and please send this edition to
Speaker 1: the podcast to somebody who does not know that they
Speaker 1: need to listen, but they need to listen Brian Ray
Speaker 1: and John Phillip Shaneil. The musical directors have Countdown, arranged, produced,
Speaker 1: and formed most of our music. Mister Chanelle was on
Speaker 1: orchestration and keyboards. Mister Ray was on guitars, bass and drums.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure who did the typewriter. It was produced
Speaker 1: by Tko Brothers. Our satirical and pithy musical comments are
Speaker 1: by the best baseball stadium organist ever, Nancy Faust. The
Speaker 1: sports music is the Olderman theme from ESPN two and
Speaker 1: it was written by Mitch Warren Davis courtesy of ESPN Inc.
Speaker 1: I mean the composition is Curtesy of ESPN Inc. I
Speaker 1: don't think Mitch Warren Davis is courtesy of ESPN Inc.
Speaker 1: AnyWho other music arranged and performed by the group No
Speaker 1: Horns Allowed. My announcer today was my friend Jonathan Banks.
Speaker 1: Everything else was pretty much my fault. So that's countdown
Speaker 1: for today. Three weeks until the twenty twenty four presidential
Speaker 1: election and the seventy ninth day since convicted felon dementia
Speaker 1: J Trump's first attempted coup against the democratically elected government
Speaker 1: of the United States. Use the election, use the mental
Speaker 1: health system, use presidential community to keep him from doing
Speaker 1: it again while we still can. The next scheduled countdown
Speaker 1: is tomorrow. Bulletin says the news requires till then, I'm
Speaker 1: Keith Olberman. Good morning, good afternoon, goodnight, and good luck.
Speaker 1: Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. For
Speaker 1: more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you get your podcasts.