Speaker 1: If you thought four hours a day, minutes a week
Speaker 1: was enough, I think again. He's the last remnants of
Speaker 1: the old republic a sole fashion of fairness. He treats
Speaker 1: crackheads in the ghetto Cutter the same as the rich
Speaker 1: pill poppers in the penthouse. The clearing House of Hot
Speaker 1: takes break free for something special. The Fifth Hour with
Speaker 1: Ben Maller starts right now Sunday. It is back the
Speaker 1: Fifth Hour with Ben Maller, hanging out four hours clearly
Speaker 1: not enough every night on the overnight. This is the
Speaker 1: eighth day of the week. The Sunday podcast will come
Speaker 1: right back Sunday night into Monday on the radio. On
Speaker 1: the radio will have a new show talking about all
Speaker 1: the playoff games today. But this is a mail bag
Speaker 1: podcast and yet again not joined by David Gascon. Gagon
Speaker 1: could not be bothered to do the podcast this week,
Speaker 1: So please tell a friend, Tell a friend. We need
Speaker 1: a lot of downloads here to annoy. Gascon could be
Speaker 1: very upset if the person filling in for him, Kevin,
Speaker 1: Who's who's running alongside me here, Kevin O'Connell. If we
Speaker 1: have as many or more downloads as we normally have,
Speaker 1: that will be a great blow to the ego of
Speaker 1: guess Gon. But we do thank you for supporting the podcast.
Speaker 1: This is a mailbag podcast, so you know what that means.
Speaker 1: Let's get right to the questions. We actually have some
Speaker 1: good questions, so we need to get into it, as
Speaker 1: we say. And but before we get into it, though,
Speaker 1: just I want to I want to thank Bruce Jacobs.
Speaker 1: If you didn't hear the Friday podcast. If you're a historian,
Speaker 1: if you open not a Laker historian, but if you're
Speaker 1: a historian of Fox Sports Radio, Bruce Jacobs is one
Speaker 1: of the greats. I love. This guy's one of my
Speaker 1: favorite people in radio. I love his style, bombastic, opinionated,
Speaker 1: passionate all that. He does a local show in Phoenix
Speaker 1: these days, Morning Drive Guy in Phoenix and Bruce spent
Speaker 1: a good chunk of time with us on the Friday podcast,
Speaker 1: catching up telling some old stories about radio. There's an
Speaker 1: any Garcia story in there, and so if you want
Speaker 1: to hear what that's all about the changing of the
Speaker 1: radio business, we talked about that, which we've both witnessed
Speaker 1: in our lives. Uh So that's available. And then yesterday
Speaker 1: just some some witty Q and a back and forth
Speaker 1: with pop quiz, and we also had Kevin on the
Speaker 1: hot seat learning about Kevin Who's in this week for
Speaker 1: a guest con But time now for the mail bag.
Speaker 1: These are actual questions sent in by actual listeners like yourself.
Speaker 1: Most of them have been submitted to the Facebook page
Speaker 1: Ben Mallard Show, or the Real Fifth Hour at gmail
Speaker 1: dot com. That's Real Fifth Hour at gmail dot com.
Speaker 1: Spell fifth f I F T H Real fifth Hour
Speaker 1: at gmail dot com. So the first question comes from
Speaker 1: Bill and Charleston, South Carolina. He says, Ben, could you
Speaker 1: please explain why West of the four oh five is important?
Speaker 1: Is East of the four oh five also a a
Speaker 1: phrase that you use? And how are the how are
Speaker 1: they distinct and different? The militia must know? All right?
Speaker 1: He says, he's listening in Charleston. Why I I wrote
Speaker 1: back to you, Bill, I hope you got it. But
Speaker 1: my my niece actually goes to college in Charleston, South Carolina,
Speaker 1: and she loves it. She loves it. She's from New York,
Speaker 1: she grew up in Manhattan, but she can't she loves Charleston,
Speaker 1: South Carolina. So that's a a feather in your cap
Speaker 1: as far as west of the four oh five. Alright,
Speaker 1: So here's the deal. This is really more of a
Speaker 1: local Southern California thing. But there's there's a point of
Speaker 1: the marcation where this generally speaking, the snobbyist, elitist people
Speaker 1: in the southern California area live in the west of
Speaker 1: the four oh five corridor. Uh. And that's where the
Speaker 1: beach cities are. That's that's where the a lot of
Speaker 1: the like Malibu and that type crowd, that's where they
Speaker 1: hang out. Uh, you know, west of the four h five.
Speaker 1: And so that is why we use the term. The
Speaker 1: people east of the four oh five generally more hard
Speaker 1: working people, blue collar people. They don't take themselves as
Speaker 1: seriously as the people west of the four oh five,
Speaker 1: who are generally a Hole's not all, but generally speaking.
Speaker 1: Uh So that's why we use the term west of
Speaker 1: the four or five. And plus it's gascon in a nutshell,
Speaker 1: he is west of the four or five. He's an
Speaker 1: a hole. So there you go, all right, Travis writes
Speaker 1: in from Parts Unknown. He says, if you're ever allowed
Speaker 1: back in studio to do the radio show, will you
Speaker 1: go or has the temporary set up become too comfortable.
Speaker 1: It seemed to be a mess when with the chemistry
Speaker 1: on the show and all that at first, but honestly,
Speaker 1: you're all back in top fom with the current situation. Well,
Speaker 1: thank you, Travis. Number one. Appreciate that I get my
Speaker 1: five thank you's in, so I appreciate that. Number two.
Speaker 1: I have a feeling that we will do a hybrid
Speaker 1: where I will. I don't think it'll ever go back
Speaker 1: to the way it was where I'm in the studio
Speaker 1: five nights a week. I don't think we'll get to
Speaker 1: that point. I envision a world where I do some
Speaker 1: of it from my home studio where I I broadcast
Speaker 1: from and then you know, maybe a couple of days
Speaker 1: a week I'll do it from the studio, uh, depending
Speaker 1: on what happens with some other stuff. So I think
Speaker 1: that's gonna be the way that it goes. But it
Speaker 1: will it be completely one way or completely the other. No,
Speaker 1: I like going to the radio station. I remember when
Speaker 1: this pandemic started and I got the call from from
Speaker 1: Scotch Yapiro or Boss and he's like, hey, we need
Speaker 1: you to do the show from home. Everyone's gonna be
Speaker 1: working remotely, And part of me was excited, but part
Speaker 1: of me was like I I remember telling him. I
Speaker 1: was like, you know, I I'd rather go to the
Speaker 1: radio station. I like going to the radio station and
Speaker 1: being part of that and all that stuff. But I've
Speaker 1: gotten used to not doing it. And like anything in life,
Speaker 1: whether you you start a new diet, it takes on
Speaker 1: average it is sixty six days. It takes a little
Speaker 1: bit over two months, and then a new behavior, new
Speaker 1: activity becomes normal, it becomes automatic. That's on average. I
Speaker 1: mean sometimes it's last, sometimes it's more, but on average
Speaker 1: it's about a little more than two months. And whatever
Speaker 1: is like you moved to a new new area. Um,
Speaker 1: you go to a new school, you go you start
Speaker 1: a new job. It takes about two months and then
Speaker 1: you're used to it and becomes just second nature and
Speaker 1: all that stuff. So yeah, I get back to going
Speaker 1: to the student get used to it. But I I,
Speaker 1: like I said Travil, I think it's gonna be uh
Speaker 1: some kind of split situation, all right, Chris writes in
Speaker 1: from Parts Unknown. He says, been how many hours a
Speaker 1: day of prep go into the show. He says, you're
Speaker 1: able to talk for hours and it just sounds me
Speaker 1: all right, Well, that's very kind of you to say, Chris,
Speaker 1: it is a talk show. If I'm not able to
Speaker 1: talk for hours, I probably should not be doing it.
Speaker 1: But it's a lot. You don't want to know how
Speaker 1: the hot dogs are made. I don't. I don't think
Speaker 1: you need to know how the hot dogs are made
Speaker 1: and all that, but there's a lot that goes into it.
Speaker 1: And it's it's my job, it's my career. And so
Speaker 1: if I, uh, you know, if I, if I want
Speaker 1: to keep doing it, you gotta put the work in.
Speaker 1: At least I have to put the work. And there
Speaker 1: are plenty of people that just show up, you know,
Speaker 1: two minutes before the show and just didn't prepare, and
Speaker 1: generally those people are exposed and they don't last that long,
Speaker 1: all right, But you're you're never supposed to see how
Speaker 1: they make the hot dogs. But yeah, it's it's an
Speaker 1: only thing. I'm always trying to find interesting things, uh
Speaker 1: you know that that I care about. I don't want
Speaker 1: to do stuff I don't really care about. And some
Speaker 1: days I might find a couple of stories that I'm
Speaker 1: really passionate about, but then I gotta do four hours
Speaker 1: and I don't like to repeat stuff. This is all
Speaker 1: inside baseball. But you know I'm looking, Aroun. I'm always
Speaker 1: always searching for the next good story. Right, where's the
Speaker 1: where's a good story that that's good radio? Like locker
Speaker 1: room drama, palace intrigue, guys saying something crazy, all that stuff.
Speaker 1: Chris also says, what are you going to put in
Speaker 1: a good word for ostrich An? Now? Ostro Jan is
Speaker 1: on twitters from the Washington, D C. Area. He says,
Speaker 1: I would love to see his art in the l
Speaker 1: A Times. Well, Chris ostro Jan is very talent. He's
Speaker 1: very kind. He writes these little cartoon drawings usually once
Speaker 1: a week about the show, and I enjoy them and
Speaker 1: I use them on Facebook and uh and I but
Speaker 1: I don't know anyone at the l A. Times. I
Speaker 1: can I can get him a job. But yeah, he's
Speaker 1: he's got a talent. He's very good. I can't draw
Speaker 1: like that. I can't draw a little cartoons like that.
Speaker 1: He's good. Kevin and Kansas writes in on the mail bag.
Speaker 1: He says, Ben, I heard you tell the story this
Speaker 1: summer of how you discovered on one of your long
Speaker 1: walks a laundry card. Can you please give us a
Speaker 1: status update on how that has worked out. Yeah, sure
Speaker 1: I can do that came so, yeah, during the the summertime.
Speaker 1: I just got a treadmill recently, but my the only
Speaker 1: exercise I could get for a while, for pretty much
Speaker 1: all of twenty I just got it, like right before
Speaker 1: my dad passed. But I uh so in my dad
Speaker 1: past earlier this year. So but I was walking, walking, walking,
Speaker 1: walk and walk and walk and walk ward and I
Speaker 1: was trying to like notice my be present right walking around.
Speaker 1: I had some some audio I was listening to. My
Speaker 1: headphones were in, but I was looking around observing. I
Speaker 1: don't want to get hit by car. So I found
Speaker 1: this deserted laundry cart and I kept you know, it's
Speaker 1: early in my walk. I kept walking, and then I
Speaker 1: made a deal with myself. I said, all right, when
Speaker 1: I get home, i'm gonna get in the car, and
Speaker 1: if that laundry cart is still there, I'm taking it
Speaker 1: because it's just trash. It was in a pile of trash.
Speaker 1: So I got home, I told the story on the podcast.
Speaker 1: I then what value was there? So I put in
Speaker 1: my car And to answer your question, Kevin, it's it's
Speaker 1: worked out well. But now instead of the laundry being
Speaker 1: on the floor, it's just in the laundry cart, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean. Like the dirty laundry is just
Speaker 1: in the laundry card. So it's it's made it look
Speaker 1: a little more aesthetically pleasing at the Mallard mansion. But
Speaker 1: it's just like the dirty laundry instead of being on
Speaker 1: the floor, is just in the in the cards. There
Speaker 1: is that. Alex writes in from Parts Unknown and asked
Speaker 1: the question, he says, Hey, Ben, who would win in
Speaker 1: an arm wrestling match between you and David Gascon? And
Speaker 1: why all right now? Rather than me answer this question,
Speaker 1: I think Kevin should answer this question. Kevin, you've met guests, gun,
Speaker 1: you know who I am. Who do you think would
Speaker 1: win an arm wrestling match? And this is being recorded
Speaker 1: for posterity's sake. Um, you know, I think Gascons all
Speaker 1: looks he may look the part, but I think you
Speaker 1: have that grown man strength. Ben. It's right, I have
Speaker 1: the old man strength. Yes, I think when you were yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: Gascons all about the vanity, right you did you see him?
Speaker 1: He's all he's groomed and all that stuff. And but
Speaker 1: it's those guys usually the the what's the phrase the
Speaker 1: dog that barks the loudest doesn't bite, The barking dog
Speaker 1: doesn't bite. Something like that. Yeah, whoever barks a lot
Speaker 1: of Yeah, I think it's something like that. I don't
Speaker 1: know that we're close. Yeah, closet. Yeah, good answer. You
Speaker 1: can stay on the podcast. Jason in Rocky Mountain, Virginia
Speaker 1: rights and he says, Ben, you said in last week's
Speaker 1: podcast that you remember going to a Tiger's Angels game
Speaker 1: with your dad and a cigarette came flying down and
Speaker 1: hit you in the leg. When I was a kid,
Speaker 1: my dad took me to the two teams when they
Speaker 1: were when we were on vacation in California. It was
Speaker 1: a Saturday night, I believe in Jim Abbott pitched for
Speaker 1: the Angels. Cecil Fielder hit over fifty dingers for the
Speaker 1: Tigers that year in his return from Japan. Also, Chili
Speaker 1: Davis hit to home runs in that game. Could it
Speaker 1: be possible we were at the same game as kids?
Speaker 1: All right? So, first of all, I don't think it
Speaker 1: was that game. I might have been at that game.
Speaker 1: I went to a lot of Angels games in those days,
Speaker 1: so I might have been at that game. But that
Speaker 1: was not the day that the cigarette came flying down
Speaker 1: of the might have been a cigar that burned my
Speaker 1: leg when I was a kid, because I still remember
Speaker 1: the Tigers had several players who were on the eighty
Speaker 1: four Tigers, the great Tiger team that played the Padres
Speaker 1: in the World Series, and so I remember like chet
Speaker 1: Lemon and a few other players, and that was like
Speaker 1: a big deal when you're a kid, you know, you
Speaker 1: remember of the team winning a World Series, and then
Speaker 1: they still got players that were part of the World Series,
Speaker 1: like bigger than life. So I remember that. But Jason,
Speaker 1: it would be serendipity if we were at I think
Speaker 1: that's the right term, serendipity, right, if we were at
Speaker 1: the same game at the same time. And I love that.
Speaker 1: I love hearing the name Chili Davis because one of
Speaker 1: my favorite moments when I was a radio reporter in
Speaker 1: the mid nineties, I was a young guy just getting
Speaker 1: to my feet settled in the radio business, and the Angels,
Speaker 1: I think it so I'm still a young guy and
Speaker 1: the Angels had this big lead. They had like an
Speaker 1: eleven game lead in the American League West. It was
Speaker 1: in August, getting late in the baseball season, and they
Speaker 1: completely took a ride on the vomit commet. They sucked,
Speaker 1: and they blew the lead to the Seattle Mariners, and
Speaker 1: it was a stunning collapse. And I had to interview
Speaker 1: those idiots as they were losing every game, and they
Speaker 1: have a player by the name of Tony Phillips who
Speaker 1: was their best player and really the only guy that
Speaker 1: was still hitting when everyone else stopped hitting. The entire
Speaker 1: team could not hit. He couldn't punch their way out
Speaker 1: of a paper bag. And as the great line Losorda
Speaker 1: had the late Tommy Losorda, they couldn't hit water if
Speaker 1: they fell out of a boat. The Angels were so
Speaker 1: bad then anyway, So I had interviewed Tony Phillips, this
Speaker 1: guy and Tony, uh, let's just say he was not
Speaker 1: the most corrigible person. He did not have to get
Speaker 1: along with the media very much and didn't like me,
Speaker 1: and they were losing and he was in a bad
Speaker 1: mood and one time he wanted to fight me, and I,
Speaker 1: like Froze, I didn't know. I was much bigger than
Speaker 1: Tony Phillips. I could have kicked his ass, but he
Speaker 1: he was a obviously professional athlete and Uh, so, I
Speaker 1: like froze. I I at stage frined, I don't know
Speaker 1: what do And then Chili Davis came to my rescue,
Speaker 1: got in between me and Tony Phillips and uh and
Speaker 1: made sure that peace prevailed. So that that's a longer
Speaker 1: story than you asked for, Jason, but that the interaction
Speaker 1: with the great Chili Davis, who is a hitting coach
Speaker 1: I think for the Mets. He's been a hitting coach
Speaker 1: for a couple of different teams. Now I think he's
Speaker 1: with the Mets. Be sure to catch live editions of
Speaker 1: The Ben Meller Show weekdays at two am Eastern eleven
Speaker 1: pm Pacific on Fox Sports Radio and the I Heart
Speaker 1: Radio app. Mark writes in from Concord, New Hampshire. He says, hey, Ben,
Speaker 1: does Roberto serve the crew food during cooking with Roberto?
Speaker 1: Well Mark, he has done that, all right, he has
Speaker 1: done that, but not during the pandemic when we were
Speaker 1: all together. Now Eddie and Cooper are still going in.
Speaker 1: I'm obviously on remote from the remote studio. Um, but yeah,
Speaker 1: he would make you know, he'd makes some of the food.
Speaker 1: Usually like the next week, he'd make it. Sometimes he'd
Speaker 1: make it before and bring it in, and yeah, had
Speaker 1: some delicious food. Now, some of that stuff, like the Minuto,
Speaker 1: I wouldn't need, and some of this suff Roberto makes
Speaker 1: I want to want to barth, but a lot of
Speaker 1: it's very good, and the stuff I've eaten has been delicious.
Speaker 1: A berry from Nashville via email. Right, So, he says,
Speaker 1: I know you do, Benny versus the pain. I haven't
Speaker 1: done that. That's on hiatus because of my personal life situation.
Speaker 1: But anyway, Barry says, on a typical NFL Sunday, how
Speaker 1: many games and how much per game would you actually
Speaker 1: bet if it were legal in your state? Of course, well,
Speaker 1: very a couple of things. You will never reveal how
Speaker 1: much you bet. It's not a lot, though I'm not.
Speaker 1: I'm not a whale. You I was the size of
Speaker 1: a whale for a while, But I'm not a whale
Speaker 1: gambler that bets a ton of money. And the thing
Speaker 1: about it, I can lose a hundred bucks and be
Speaker 1: just as upset as if I lost a thousand bucks.
Speaker 1: So that's the special skill that I have. But to
Speaker 1: answer your question, how many games I would bet on
Speaker 1: a given Sunday, it really depends on how I like
Speaker 1: the card like I do benny versus the penny. And
Speaker 1: typically there's two or three games that I really like,
Speaker 1: and everything else I don't have as strong an opinion about.
Speaker 1: So they say that you're really only supposed to bet
Speaker 1: on the games you got a good opinion on good
Speaker 1: knowledge of. But usually the numbers three, you want to
Speaker 1: bet an odd number. You don't want to bet an
Speaker 1: even number because then if you win two and lose too,
Speaker 1: obviously you've lost money on the juice. So you want
Speaker 1: to bet one, three or five somewhere. Usually I'm in
Speaker 1: the three category. There have been weeks where it's only
Speaker 1: a one game. Sometimes I've gone weeks where there's no games,
Speaker 1: so I don't like anything. Usually that's week seventeen of
Speaker 1: the regular season where I just don't want to bet
Speaker 1: because I don't know who's motivated, who's not motivated, who's
Speaker 1: gonna play, who's not gonna play, that kind of stuff,
Speaker 1: So I usually avoid those situations at all. Cant I'll
Speaker 1: costs alright? Next up Matt from Mansfield, Texas. Right soon,
Speaker 1: he says, Ben, you bring money line odds all the time.
Speaker 1: How are the relative percentages you mentioned calculated? Asking for
Speaker 1: a nerd Masses. Well, that's that's a decent question, Matt A.
Speaker 1: I have a computer like mind and I use mallard
Speaker 1: Mass skills to do it. Unless none of that is true. No,
Speaker 1: I I have a I have an odds calculator I
Speaker 1: use as a gambler that tells me the perceived odds
Speaker 1: based on a bet like so, and this is something
Speaker 1: that I I did years ago. Actually, I think it
Speaker 1: was R. J. Bell that that tipped me off to this,
Speaker 1: and so it's something when I make a bet, I'm like,
Speaker 1: all right, what is the gambling I would like to
Speaker 1: know what the gambling market says about something like what
Speaker 1: does the gambling markets say the odds of this happening?
Speaker 1: I think it's interesting. I think it's interesting to look
Speaker 1: at a line and say, okay, so the Chiefs are
Speaker 1: favored by this, and this is the money line. What
Speaker 1: does that mean? Like what percentage chance to the Chiefs
Speaker 1: have to win? Uh? So, I I asked, that's just
Speaker 1: been some of my michigas, and so I have that.
Speaker 1: Now I've done that enough. We're certain certain money line
Speaker 1: numbers I know just because they come up a lot,
Speaker 1: you know, like plus two thousand or minus two thousand.
Speaker 1: I know I know what those are. But that's that's
Speaker 1: generally speaking, how that works again, how how we make
Speaker 1: the hot dogs. But that's the beauty of the Fifth
Speaker 1: Hour podcast. You can ask those kind of questions and
Speaker 1: you can you can figure it out and all that stuff,
Speaker 1: and you can mock and criticize and all that stuff.
Speaker 1: All right, Kentucky Tay in Kentucky. J Right, and this
Speaker 1: is from Kentucky Tay. Our friends from Scottsville, Kentucky. They're
Speaker 1: lovely daughter there as well, she says, I honestly, UH
Speaker 1: don't have any interesting, witty questions for the show. Okay, However,
Speaker 1: Kentucky ke Tay says, I wanted to ask you how
Speaker 1: you're holding up. I'm hanging in there, Kentucky Tay, thank you,
Speaker 1: she says. Sorry for your loss. Jay and I, she says,
Speaker 1: both lost our fathers at a young age, and from experience,
Speaker 1: it is not something you completely recover from. But looking
Speaker 1: back at good memories, she says, she loves looking back
Speaker 1: at good memories. My favorite times, Kentucky Taste says, with
Speaker 1: my dad is us cooking breakfast together on Saturday mornings.
Speaker 1: What is your favorite memory of you and your dad. Well,
Speaker 1: I talked on some of that last week Kentucky Tabe.
Speaker 1: But I have a lot of membories, and you know,
Speaker 1: growing up, I was a mama's boy, and I really
Speaker 1: got a lot closer with my dad as my my
Speaker 1: mom got sick, and then you know, the last about
Speaker 1: ten years or so, came really close with my dad.
Speaker 1: But when were kids to go to baseball games or
Speaker 1: football games and you know, it's just family dinners. You know,
Speaker 1: lost both my mom and dad now, but I remember
Speaker 1: very especially the times where now where my mom was
Speaker 1: a Democrat liberal, my dad conservative Republican, and they would
Speaker 1: duke it out at the dinner table and they'd go
Speaker 1: back and forth about whatever the big stories of the
Speaker 1: day were, and then when it was over, they hug
Speaker 1: it out. And that's that's how I learned. I like that.
Speaker 1: I think you should be able to fight about different stuff.
Speaker 1: But then at the end it's just it's it's meaningless.
Speaker 1: It's politics. Who cares, you know, it's like all this stuff,
Speaker 1: what's the old? It's a I forget how you say,
Speaker 1: but as an expression in in in French, where you know,
Speaker 1: once you're gone, it all ends. So you know it's
Speaker 1: you know, you know who cares. Uh, you know, don't
Speaker 1: don't sweat the small stuff, but you know those kind
Speaker 1: of things. Pierre from Springfield, Massachusetts, the home of the
Speaker 1: Pro Basketball Hall of Fame rights and he says, Ben
Speaker 1: number one, do you think that theo epstein he's laying
Speaker 1: the groundwork to eventually be Uncle Rob's replacement. Yeah. Well,
Speaker 1: he's a a cunning individual. There's something going on. He's
Speaker 1: scheming theo Epstein. There's a couple of different theories. A
Speaker 1: the theory is that he's just using that because he's
Speaker 1: got his eye on a certain job that he wants
Speaker 1: to take over as a GM and so he's just
Speaker 1: hanging out getting a check even though he's got a
Speaker 1: ton of money theo epstein. Uh, but he's just hanging
Speaker 1: out of the commissioner's office. But eventually he wants a
Speaker 1: GM job with Team X, but he's waiting for that
Speaker 1: to open up, so he's just laying low like a
Speaker 1: snake in the grass at Major League Baseball. The other theory,
Speaker 1: which you referenced here is the possibility, as you you
Speaker 1: know this Pierre as a friend of Alfae alien O
Speaker 1: piner Uh, that there could be a hostile takeover, that
Speaker 1: Rob Manford is not that popular with the big shots
Speaker 1: who run these baseball teams, and theo Epstein is, and
Speaker 1: so yeah, there's certainly it's not that biggest stretch to
Speaker 1: imagine that this is all a facade and that theo
Speaker 1: is going to eventually replace Rob Manford as the commissioner.
Speaker 1: That still blows me away because when I worked in
Speaker 1: San Diego at the mighty six ninety and I would
Speaker 1: occasionally go to Padre games and I'd sit in the
Speaker 1: press box at Jack Murphy Stadium. I recall the Padres
Speaker 1: had an intern by the name of theo Epstein. He
Speaker 1: was an intern. He got the press notes out for
Speaker 1: the the hack writers and the radio nerds in the
Speaker 1: press box. And then I just remember hearing the name,
Speaker 1: and he was an intern. You know, you don't spend
Speaker 1: a lot of time with the interns. And then like bam,
Speaker 1: a couple years later you got the Red Sox job.
Speaker 1: I'm like, what the hell? I crazy, crazy, crazy, crazy,
Speaker 1: all right? Another question from Pierre. He says, Ben, if
Speaker 1: you were given the opportunity to vote for the Baseball
Speaker 1: Hall of Fame, would you blank a ballot, and then
Speaker 1: he sent a screenshot here of this scribe who sent
Speaker 1: an entirely blank ballot. He says, it seems more like
Speaker 1: a gagon move to me, Yeah, Pierre, I would not
Speaker 1: I would not do that, although I understand the logic
Speaker 1: behind it. I mean, and the argument is a compelling
Speaker 1: one that there doesn't have to be a Hall of
Speaker 1: Famer every year, right that the standard to get in
Speaker 1: the Hall of Fame. Uh, it should have been the
Speaker 1: one percent of the Creme della Kreme. It's not like
Speaker 1: that anymore. The Hall of Fame is a it's like
Speaker 1: the way I would describe it, it's like an amusement
Speaker 1: park when times are normal, and so it's like, well, no,
Speaker 1: you don't have to be an uh only elitist and
Speaker 1: all that stuff. But it's it's now where they have
Speaker 1: to have a certain number of people in the Hall
Speaker 1: of Fame because it's they've got a business to run.
Speaker 1: They they wanna they wanna become rich and make money
Speaker 1: and prosper and all that stuff, and so to do that,
Speaker 1: you have to have a new class in the Hall
Speaker 1: of Fame every year, and you have to have a
Speaker 1: certain number of people Otherwise who's gonna go to the
Speaker 1: Hall of Fame. You know, it's uninteresting, people would be unmotivated,
Speaker 1: takes a lot of work to plan a trip when
Speaker 1: times are normal and all that. So so yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean Dion Sanders did it, ran about that a couple
Speaker 1: of years ago, about how there should only be you know,
Speaker 1: a certain percentage of players should get in and that's it,
Speaker 1: and I agree with And baseball had always been that
Speaker 1: sport where he had been like that. And then Harold
Speaker 1: Bane's got in the Hall of Fame or Bill Mazeroski
Speaker 1: because of one home run, and it changed. There you go.
Speaker 1: Chris writes in from Marr Cooke to Iowa. He says,
Speaker 1: life is short. What life goal or place to visit
Speaker 1: is at the top of your list right now? So
Speaker 1: you're talking about like a bucket list. Uh, you know,
Speaker 1: I don't really have a bucket list. My wife would
Speaker 1: like to travel a lot. I have a feeling that
Speaker 1: will be doing that in the future. I just want to,
Speaker 1: you know, a live a good life, hang out with people. Uh,
Speaker 1: you know, I love and I like and and friends
Speaker 1: and all that and enjoy as much of it. I
Speaker 1: love my job, which is cool. So I like doing that,
Speaker 1: and you know, I would like to travel. It's been
Speaker 1: a while everyone, you know, with the pandemic and all that,
Speaker 1: have been able to do stuff. And I really like
Speaker 1: traveling around America. Like to to check out some of
Speaker 1: the historic sites around the United States, the National parks,
Speaker 1: some of the Civil War monument areas, like the ones
Speaker 1: that haven't been torn down yet. I'm just I'm a
Speaker 1: big fan of American history, so I'd like to check
Speaker 1: some of that out. Like to go through Canada, that
Speaker 1: would be nice. Maybe a trip to the Bahamas. Uh,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of places. I'd like to get to.
Speaker 1: New Zealand. I've been the radio there in New Zealand
Speaker 1: for for years. In fact, I just went back on
Speaker 1: this week. On Friday, I returned. I was off the
Speaker 1: station I worked for in New Zealand went out of
Speaker 1: business during the pandemic. So now I'm on a news
Speaker 1: talk station as a weekly correspondent. So that's a lot
Speaker 1: of fun. I'd like to talk to Well, I talked
Speaker 1: to him everywhere. I'd like to meet the people I've
Speaker 1: talked to for years. That would be pretty cool. So
Speaker 1: that's all. That's all there. Carlos and Houston writes, and
Speaker 1: we're doing the mail back Carlos, and Houston writes, and
Speaker 1: he says, you had close to a month off. Did
Speaker 1: you eat that steak that the gas can gave you? Know?
Speaker 1: I did not, Carlos, did not eat the steak still
Speaker 1: in the freezer you wanted, I can sent it to you.
Speaker 1: Then he says, what's the origin story of Tammy in Montanah, yeah, Carlos.
Speaker 1: As far as Tammy and Montana, I don't know if
Speaker 1: there's any amazing story. Tammy has been a loyal minion.
Speaker 1: She has been a p one fan of the show,
Speaker 1: and she's just you know, she called in back I
Speaker 1: don't know how many years ago, but she's been with
Speaker 1: the show for a long time. She's a bona fide
Speaker 1: certified p one and she's been very supportive. She does
Speaker 1: a lot of stuff that nobody knows about, very kind
Speaker 1: things that I know a little bit about that she
Speaker 1: does not promote um, but she's very concerned. We we
Speaker 1: have a very eclectic group of people that call the show,
Speaker 1: and quite frankly, some of the people that call the
Speaker 1: show or down on their luck and they're living in
Speaker 1: shelters and they're living in in bad situations and they've
Speaker 1: got medical issues, and it's just kind of gravitate to
Speaker 1: the show because the overnight and and we're there. We
Speaker 1: we have a rule. You take the Mallard Militia oath
Speaker 1: and all that and the motto that you know, everyone
Speaker 1: is welcoming every man, woman and child, and doesn't matter
Speaker 1: your politics or you're whether you're gay or straight or
Speaker 1: anything like that, whether you're you're bright, or you're stupid,
Speaker 1: or you've got medical problems. Right, we just we just
Speaker 1: bust each other's balls. And so anyway, the point of
Speaker 1: that is Tammy has been been very cool at reaching
Speaker 1: out like collering James for example. She she's she's really
Speaker 1: good at tracking tracking these people down, like I don't
Speaker 1: know if she's a private investigator or not, but she's
Speaker 1: able to take a little bit of information, just like
Speaker 1: little clues that certain people mentioned on the radio, and
Speaker 1: then be able to get ahold of them and help
Speaker 1: them out if they need some extra help. So so
Speaker 1: that's my my nutshell reference of the great Tammy in Montana.
Speaker 1: The other thing about Tammy, she's sneaky mean, sneaky mean,
Speaker 1: Like I think it was the the Octagon between Tammy
Speaker 1: and Montana. I think the one I remember is the
Speaker 1: one with Genie and Medford. If I recall correctly, it
Speaker 1: all runs together. But but I recall that specifically because
Speaker 1: it was it was an octagon, and we didn't expect Tammy.
Speaker 1: You know, Tammy a very very sweet woman, very nice woman,
Speaker 1: not really feisty at all, and so we just expected
Speaker 1: her to roll over and play dead, getting the fetal
Speaker 1: position and not put up any kind of a fight.
Speaker 1: And she came out throwing these amazing haymakers, right, just
Speaker 1: amazing haymakers. Uh. And it was it was awesome. She
Speaker 1: didn't have any kind of fatigue, she didn't get exhausted there,
Speaker 1: she was prepared, she had done her homework, and she
Speaker 1: came in there like Donkey Kongs, just crushing everything in
Speaker 1: the octagon. And it was it was pretty neat. So
Speaker 1: any wait, all right, next up on the mailbag, uh Vahed,
Speaker 1: I believe I'm saying that correctly. In the biou in
Speaker 1: New Orleans Saints Country, he points out, says Mr Miller, question,
Speaker 1: what is the biggest handyman job each of you did
Speaker 1: or planning on doing it? Okay? So I love the
Speaker 1: YouTube and I do a lot of cooking stuff off
Speaker 1: the YouTube. As far as like handyman stuff, I'm not
Speaker 1: good at it. I have tried some things off YouTube
Speaker 1: and it doesn't quite work for me. But I've I've painted,
Speaker 1: and I've done a few small repairs. I remember there
Speaker 1: was a door, you know those bathroom what do you
Speaker 1: call the kind of sliding doors that pocket doors? One
Speaker 1: of those got stuck and locked and I couldn't get
Speaker 1: it open. It was locked from the inside. I was
Speaker 1: in the outside, and I went on a YouTube video
Speaker 1: on how to hack into that, and I was able
Speaker 1: to do that with I got the device I needed.
Speaker 1: So but that's does that really count as a handy
Speaker 1: man job? Yeah, I'm not I'm not sure all right,
Speaker 1: But he does say, but he says, after a year
Speaker 1: of questioning myself, I did two bigger rooms. It worked perfect.
Speaker 1: There you go, whatever it might be, Yes, you can
Speaker 1: do it. Uh And then for somebody he loves the show,
Speaker 1: But he says, Mr Mallard, do you bring that slap
Speaker 1: dick in instead of guess? But I don't know what
Speaker 1: slap dick you're talking? Is he calling you a slap
Speaker 1: nick him? And I don't think he knows who you are.
Speaker 1: I think you must be he must be referencing somebody else. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I seem, I seem. So that's a good term though,
Speaker 1: slap dick. Can you ever use that term? Plenty of
Speaker 1: times with my friends? Yeah? Absolutely, Yeah, it's it's a
Speaker 1: term you can say on the radio, that's what. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so that's what I was wondering. As soon as you
Speaker 1: said it, I was like, oh, can you say that?
Speaker 1: And yeah, I mean obviously you would know more than me,
Speaker 1: so well, it's a podcast, you can say it on
Speaker 1: a pocket. But yes, the terms. I've used it on
Speaker 1: the radio and Eddie got all like upset, I can't
Speaker 1: believe you said slap dick. But it's actually you know,
Speaker 1: the origins of the term. You know what the meaning
Speaker 1: of it? I do not know. Let me here it is.
Speaker 1: It is actually an old Texas football term, like a
Speaker 1: coach ripping his players would be like, oh, you're a
Speaker 1: slap dick. You're a bunch of slap dicks. You know,
Speaker 1: like you're not You're like you're not focused? So what's
Speaker 1: great about that? And I'm really glad that's the origin
Speaker 1: behind it because I coached high school for six years
Speaker 1: and I would use that term all the time to
Speaker 1: the players, but I didn't no idea. That's where it
Speaker 1: stemmed from. There. You go, look at that. That's awesome.
Speaker 1: What high school did you coach your Belinda? Cool? Yeah,
Speaker 1: you're in high school? What's the map? What's the mascot
Speaker 1: of the mustang? Must Mustangs? And what did you freshman? Sophomore? Varsity? Like?
Speaker 1: What did they started? My first four or five years
Speaker 1: mainly j V, and then what you know, obviously helped varsity,
Speaker 1: and then my last couple of years I was assistant
Speaker 1: varsity defense coordinator. Do d line in linebackers? Cool? Yeah,
Speaker 1: we're good. We want to CEF And he done the
Speaker 1: sixteen too. It was fun. And why did you stop
Speaker 1: doing it? Because it didn't pay anything? Uh? And I didn't.
Speaker 1: I did. I didn't really want to be a teacher.
Speaker 1: I was actually a sub for a year and try
Speaker 1: to test those waters. And I love coaching, but I
Speaker 1: didn't want to be a teacher. That's there was a
Speaker 1: guy one of our old interns in the nineties was
Speaker 1: this guy named Tom. Tom the intern. He's like a
Speaker 1: boardop guy, and he loved coaching high school football like you.
Speaker 1: He was He working at the radio station coaching football,
Speaker 1: and then he decided to fully go into coaching and
Speaker 1: he became the head coach at the University of Texas.
Speaker 1: He was just let go a couple of weeks ago.
Speaker 1: Tom Herman. Tom Herman was Yeah, Tom Herman worked at
Speaker 1: a radio station I worked at in the nineties and
Speaker 1: he was like a board op intern guy. And then
Speaker 1: he decided he loved coaching and he just dedicated his
Speaker 1: life to it and he moved all over the place
Speaker 1: to different cities and all that. Yeah, he was going
Speaker 1: to like cal Lutheran out here and uh yeah, then
Speaker 1: he ended up ended up moving around. He was cal
Speaker 1: Lutherans in the Thousand Oaks out in the Yeah, far,
Speaker 1: I had no idea at that. I didn't know that
Speaker 1: about him. Yeah, I was really I was really pulling
Speaker 1: for him. Unfortunately it didn't go his way there at Texas.
Speaker 1: He he already got he got sent the sent the
Speaker 1: walking papers. But yeah, that's pretty good though, just to
Speaker 1: get to that job. He made a ton of money too,
Speaker 1: absolutely on the top notch programs. Obviously, he made He
Speaker 1: made more money in one year than I probably made
Speaker 1: my entire career in radio. And then what with his bio,
Speaker 1: probably twenty million or something, um like, oh yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's the oah, yeah, he's yeah, he's getting paid for
Speaker 1: several more several more years for sure, ahead and take off.
Speaker 1: We'll give you all this money. Okay, yeah, yeah, he
Speaker 1: did a little He's like he worked a little bit
Speaker 1: in television, kind of like an intern. But he was
Speaker 1: also behind the scenes intern guy producer at Extra Sports
Speaker 1: eleven fifty, the l a version of the of the
Speaker 1: station back in the day. So and he'll he'll get
Speaker 1: like a bunch of coaching. That gotta be in coaching
Speaker 1: the rest of his life. He's not he's not that
Speaker 1: old guy. I think he's I guess he's getting older.
Speaker 1: He's he's a mid forties. But he'll coach like I
Speaker 1: don't twenty years if he wants, oh yeah, absolutely an
Speaker 1: assistant somewhere. Yeah, if you know he's not a head
Speaker 1: coaching somewhere else at some point. Yeah, you know, when
Speaker 1: you get in that racket, it's the good old boys network.
Speaker 1: He just keep getting gigs, you know. Yeah. Yeah, Well
Speaker 1: he's seen like as Steven Starcasion. I mean, I know,
Speaker 1: from getting fired for being alcoholic and I'm being speaking
Speaker 1: of Texas. Right, that's right, he's the guy who replaced herman. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's right. Yeah. Be sure to catch live editions of
Speaker 1: The Ben Maller Show weekdays at two am Eastern eleven
Speaker 1: pm Pacific. All right, marking Ottawa writes in he says, Hey, Ben,
Speaker 1: what is your favorite part of the chicken eat? Is
Speaker 1: it the wing, the thigh, the breast, the leg and
Speaker 1: cooked which way? Well, I'm a breast man. Uh that's
Speaker 1: a drop. I would say anything fried. I like the
Speaker 1: chicken strips are my favorite meal. So fried chicken is amazing.
Speaker 1: But I've eaten more grilled chicken recently, but I preferred fried.
Speaker 1: R J in San Antonio, long time p one of
Speaker 1: the Mallard Show says, uh, see here go to flavor
Speaker 1: of chicken strips besides raising canes. So I don't know
Speaker 1: if you mean flavor or what you said flavor. I
Speaker 1: think you mean other chicken strips I'll eat other than
Speaker 1: raising canes. That's how I'm interpreting the question. I think
Speaker 1: that's what you implied. So I would say Popeye's chicken
Speaker 1: strips pretty good. I've heard amazing things this placed. It's
Speaker 1: a Midwestern chain called Culver's. I've never been there, so
Speaker 1: I don't know. I don't know. The gold standard, the
Speaker 1: magnum opus, right, the tore the force of the chicken
Speaker 1: strip was this place called DULs in Burbank, right across
Speaker 1: the street from Warner Brothers. And when I worked, I
Speaker 1: worked at a radio station across the street. We used
Speaker 1: to go there when I was, you know, single guy,
Speaker 1: nobody would date me. I would go there five nights
Speaker 1: a week at happy hour and eat chicken strips and
Speaker 1: it was awesome. But that place is closed. And then
Speaker 1: I would also say the I think they're called chicken
Speaker 1: crispers at Chili's pretty good. Have you ever had those?
Speaker 1: You're a chicken strip guy. Yeah, I don't know if
Speaker 1: I've had those ones, though, but you have you haven't
Speaker 1: had the Chili's chicken cristpers, I don't know. Not pretty good? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't think so. I do like chili So, you know,
Speaker 1: maybe if I could never go there again, I'll definitely
Speaker 1: get them. Yeah, you should get them their solid Yeah.
Speaker 1: But raising Keynes is there, Yeah, that's the that's the
Speaker 1: top Ali in the Valley of the Sun. Right, So,
Speaker 1: and he says he is COVID negative. He had the
Speaker 1: COVID like you Kevin did in Phoenix, and he's over it. Now.
Speaker 1: Welcome Lee, Welcome, Welcome to the club there. Eventually we'll
Speaker 1: all be in apparently, uh Lee, And the Valley of
Speaker 1: the Sun says, did you have a toy collection or
Speaker 1: some other collection when you were growing up? And what
Speaker 1: is it or what is it right now? Yeah? Lee,
Speaker 1: I collected baseball cards and they did that a lot
Speaker 1: when I was a kid. And by the way, I'm
Speaker 1: I'm letting go. I'm gonna I'm gonna get rid of
Speaker 1: the baseball card. So if anybody wants my yeah, I
Speaker 1: want to make a couple of bucks if I can
Speaker 1: off it. So if anybody knows how I can sell
Speaker 1: the cards make some money without having to go to
Speaker 1: a card show because all of those have been canceled.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I have a fair amount from what I was.
Speaker 1: I was doing some research and it seems like the
Speaker 1: ones that are worth the most money are actually the
Speaker 1: basketball cards, which is very odd because I was looked
Speaker 1: at as the biggest heathen and like I was like
Speaker 1: I was an ogre because I collected basketball cards and
Speaker 1: everyone was in like baseball cards and I liked the
Speaker 1: basketball cards, and I was like, what are you doing
Speaker 1: while are you collecting the basketball cars? Nobody cares about
Speaker 1: basketball cards? And it was like, but now because nobody
Speaker 1: cared about them, they're actually worth a decent amount of money,
Speaker 1: which is which is interesting to me. But yeah, I
Speaker 1: gotta get rid of a lot of that stuff. My
Speaker 1: my dad collected stamps because his dad collected stamps, and
Speaker 1: he collected some coins. But I haven't really gone through
Speaker 1: all that. There's a lot of stuff that I'm still
Speaker 1: That's why I've been able to do Benny versus the Penny.
Speaker 1: So I'm still going through through a lot of that stuff.
Speaker 1: Patricia in Vegas now she's she's a p one. She's
Speaker 1: listening for more than fifteen years. In fact, that Patricia,
Speaker 1: you were back in in the northeast, right, you were
Speaker 1: in the Boston area, I believe, I think when you
Speaker 1: started listening to the show. She's referencing this picture, which
Speaker 1: is on the Facebook page. More of a visual thing
Speaker 1: than an audio thing. Ostrich Aunt sent this in. She says,
Speaker 1: why is the cow in the picture wearing your pj's. Alright,
Speaker 1: well let me answer that, Patricia. Listen you never question art. Right,
Speaker 1: it's like that, Andy. I love Andy Warhol. Andy warhol quotes.
Speaker 1: I use those a lot. He's had a lot of
Speaker 1: good lines. He passed away a long time ago to
Speaker 1: young age. But Andy Warhol, as he pointed out, anything
Speaker 1: and everything can be art. So even a cow laying
Speaker 1: down wearing pajamas art uh. And then also one of
Speaker 1: Andy Warhol's lines is that art is never finished. It's
Speaker 1: it's only abandoned. So Ostrich Chant probably got busy and
Speaker 1: he didn't write it the way you wanted and all that.
Speaker 1: Why why do you contact him? He's on Twitter. He's
Speaker 1: a good dude. He's a big stud writer. There an
Speaker 1: artist in Washington, d C. All right, last one on
Speaker 1: the mailback Glenn from Carmichael. Boy, that's a beautiful place
Speaker 1: on God's Green Marthe says, Ben, do you support Barry
Speaker 1: Bonds entering the Baseball Hall of Fame? Well, that's a
Speaker 1: very sporty question to end, Glenn. But I will I
Speaker 1: will take the bait. I will answer the question. First
Speaker 1: of all, for a long time I did not. I
Speaker 1: died on the mountain that Bonds and all those steroid
Speaker 1: guys should not be in the Hall. Of Fame. No no, no,
Speaker 1: no no. But then I had an epiphany. All right,
Speaker 1: I had a come to Jesus moment with the Hall
Speaker 1: of Fame. And the issue is this. When I was
Speaker 1: covering baseball games in the nineties, I was relatively aware
Speaker 1: of a few guys that were doing the steroids that
Speaker 1: I I knew beyond a reasonable doubt. And since then
Speaker 1: I've learned from other people, uh things about certain players.
Speaker 1: When those guys started getting in the Hall of Fame,
Speaker 1: I changed my position. I evolved. I said, listen, you're
Speaker 1: telling me that Bonds can't get in and Clemens can't
Speaker 1: get in because they did steroids. But people that we
Speaker 1: suspected steroids, like Jeff Bagwell or Pudge Rodriguez or Mike Piazza,
Speaker 1: those guys can get in. Like what are we doing here?
Speaker 1: Like that? The whole selective enforcement thing rubbed me the
Speaker 1: wrong way. So my position. I did monologues in this
Speaker 1: back when this was a big hot button issue, back
Speaker 1: in the early two thousand's. Other but none of these
Speaker 1: guys are ever gonna get in. But since you started
Speaker 1: letting them in the open the floodgates, let them all in.
Speaker 1: Let's get it's make it like Ringling Brothers and Barnum
Speaker 1: and Bailey Circus, and just make it the big Top
Speaker 1: back in the day, and they bringing the elephants and
Speaker 1: bringing the donkey's in the clown car. And you're a
Speaker 1: hall of famer. You're a hall of famer. Everybody is
Speaker 1: a hall of famer, all right. That is it. Have
Speaker 1: a wonderful rest of your Sunday. Hopefully you are enjoying
Speaker 1: or have enjoyed, depending on when you're listening to this,
Speaker 1: the a f C and NFC championship games. And if
Speaker 1: you listen to this after those games are over, you
Speaker 1: already know who's in the Super Bowl. We're gonna talk
Speaker 1: about all that on the radio show tonight or tomorrow,
Speaker 1: depending on how you look at it. Eleven pm eleven
Speaker 1: pm in the West on Sunday night, and that is
Speaker 1: very early two am in the East, two am in
Speaker 1: the East on Monday. We catch and thank you Kevin,
Speaker 1: by the way, good job this weekend, appreciate it. Thank you, Ben.
Speaker 1: I had a good time. And anytime you know you
Speaker 1: want to replace Gagan, just let me know. Can you
Speaker 1: come here next week and the week after and the
Speaker 1: week after that and if you wanna, are you Twitter?
Speaker 1: Can people find you on Twitter if they want to
Speaker 1: say hello and they either praise you or rip you? Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: do either or I am on Twitter at k V
Speaker 1: as in Victor O'Connell O C O N N E
Speaker 1: L L. It's k V O'Connell on Twitter. Not too active,
Speaker 1: but you know, I got to be there for work.
Speaker 1: So if you need if you're in l A and
Speaker 1: you need your air conditioning fixed, O'Connell heating there you
Speaker 1: go check it out. All right, all right, thank you Kevin,
Speaker 1: all right, thanks Ben