January 3, 2026 • 29 mins
Ben Maller (produced by Danny G.) has a great Saturday podcast for you! Ben shares the tales of his trip to Phoenix to see long lost cousins! Did he have to pay for parking? Plus, Fire the Cannons, tribute to Gene Deckerhoff who's retiring after 37 years calling Tampa Bay Bucs games on radio (Since 1989)!
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Kubbooms.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
If you thought four hours a day, twelve hundred minutes
a week was enough, think again. He's the last remnants
of the Old Republic, a soul fashion of fairness. He
treats crackheads in the ghetto cutter the same as the
rich pill poppers in the penthouse.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
The Clearinghouse of Hot takes break free for something special.
The Fifth Hour with Ben Maller starts right now.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
In the air everywhere. The Fifth Hour with Me, Ben
Mahler and Danny g Radio A Happy Saturday is Today's
the third day of January, our second podcast of the
brand new year, and it's an NFL Saturday. It is
on like Donkey Kong. Two games, one good, one bad.
(00:54):
The early game at four thirty Eastern one thirty in
the West, Carolina at Tampa Bay, which is supposed to
be the NFC championship game. However, it is not necessarily
a standalone championship game Carolina. If they win, they win
the NFC South. If they lose, meaning Tampa Bay wins
(01:16):
that game, then it comes down to the Atlanta Falcons
game on Sunday with New Orleans, and if Atlanta is
able to win that game, Carolina will still win the
division based on the tiebreakers, so Tampa Bay is really
up against it. That game getting the d level broadcast
(01:37):
crew of Chris Fowler, Dan Orlovsky and Lewis Riddick, which
means my remote controls mute button will be getting a
workout today from my right hand. And the late game
Seattle and San Francisco, which is for all the marbles
in the NFC West. You've got Joe Buck and Troy
Aikman in the seeding atop the NFC all that great
(02:01):
stuff on the line in that game. So those are
the two games today. Benny versus the Penny is up
and running if you want to check that out. We
have all the information you need on both those games
and the full episode for Sunday. As it is the
final weekend of the NFL regular season, which means a
(02:22):
lot of teams who are just trying to get the
heck out of Dodge and go on vacation. You have
a mix of that. You also have a mix of
teams that are scratching and clong trying to get in
the playoffs. On today's podcast, we have Malar Mitzvah Carbon Dating.
We'll get to those things. We begin though, by pointing
out it is National Drinking Straw Day today, so please,
(02:47):
when you have a beverage today, drink with a straw.
And I was blown away doing research for this podcast
when I found out that the straw goes back to
three thousand BC. Things tubes were used as ancient straws
and thin long metallic tubes to brew beer. The original straw.
(03:09):
In the eighteen eighties there was a patent filed for
paper drinking straws. A person that made them a guy
named Marvin Stone. I have no idea who that is,
but Marvin Stone did not like the rye straw aftertaste,
so he's like, I just come up with this paper straw.
So that was in the eighteen eighties. And then in
(03:31):
the nineteen thirties a guy filed a patent for a
bendable straw because his daughter was having issues. This young
lady there was having issues drinking with a straight paper straw,
which is completely understandable. And then it wasn't until the
nineteen sixties with the rise of the fast food industry,
(03:54):
the paper straw replaced by the plastic straw, and really
the superior straw. The plastic straw. I live in a
state which is outlawed the plastic straw. It is the
People's Republic of California. I stand with the plastic straw.
The paper straw is just a waste of time. It
(04:16):
is also today is the Festival of Sleep Day. Yeah,
the Festival of sleep Day, and celebrate appropriately.
Speaker 2 (04:27):
There.
Speaker 1 (04:27):
The first bed, the first bed. The earliest account of
a bed goes to the eighth century BC. Bed was
woven of rope. Sounds like a nightmare. Then in four
point fifty BC, you had a Greek physician who suggested
(04:50):
that sleep, the reason that we sleep is because of
a lack of circulation to the brain. So that was medicine.
That was modern medicine in four point fifty BC. So
you had that. Then in the twelve hundreds you had
people who tried to sleep while sitting up. Yeah. Yeah,
(05:13):
Well the beds were smaller because they used pillows and
other things, and that's how that operated back in the
twelve hundreds. And so you've got that. Then in the
sixteen hundreds you had the magical Tale of Sleeping Beauty,
(05:34):
which how much money has Disney made off that that?
That's a ton of money I mean the whole the
merchandise and the whole thing, the movie back in the day,
and Money, Money, Money that came out in sixteen thirty four, right,
sixteen thirty four, My goodness. All right. Meanwhile, let's get
to the meat of the matter here. Let's not mess
(05:56):
around the holiday hiatus which technically ended with Benny Versus
the Penny and the podcast which all popped up yesterday
back in the content business. But the holiday hiatus from
overnight Radio is supposed to be about rest. You're supposed
to recharge your batteries, powered down the vocal cords, pretend
(06:21):
for a fleeting moment that the rhythms of the brain,
Thesecanian rhythms, have not been permanently manipulated and hijacked by
the graveyard shift. That's what you people tell me. You
know who you are, experts, have all the answers, It
(06:42):
all sounds good. Nevertheless, somewhere between Christmas rainstorms in Socow
which we actually have had, and the itch to be
back behind the microphone, which I am now in the
podcast studio, the highlight of my break veiled itself, not
in a studio on asphalt, in a never before told story,
(07:09):
This is a global exclusive here on the Fifth Hour podcast.
Settle in for the details on a last minute desert dash,
a spontaneous pilgrimage across the American Southwest, the Great American Southwest.
There's not a lot there. There's not a lot there. Now,
this was with no advanced notice. There was no RSVP,
(07:33):
none of that. Just me, my wife and the Maladmobile
pointing east away from southern California and the comforts of
the Malard Mansion towards the Valley of the Sun. Now,
if you've ever driven from Los Angeles to Fause, I've
talked about this a few times over the years, but
if you've ever driven from LA to Phoenix, you know
(07:55):
that that route is less a road trip and more
of a test of endurance. Once you clear what's known
as the Inland Empire, the civilization waves goodbye to you.
It's like a distant relative at a bus station, you know,
the Greyhound bus station. Now. Palm Springs a desert oasis
(08:18):
which was made famous by legends like Frank Sinatra and
Bob Hope and people like that back in the day.
So Palm Springs and its sister cities, which are just
wonderful places. They tease you though about twenty twenty five minutes,
most of them off the highway. It's a mirage of
(08:39):
golf courses and windmills and just really nice. But then
back to nothingness. And then you get to this town
called Blythe, which appears like a punctuation mark on the
California Arizona border. So you go through Blythe, you cross
the state line, you enter the Grand Canyon state which
(09:01):
is mostly sand cactus, and this unsettling feeling that you
missed and exit three hours ago. What's going on? Arizona
to its credit, I will give credit to Arizona. They
know who they are, and who they are is a
whole lot of nothing, and they lean into it. The
(09:24):
rest areas are outstanding, much better than California. In Arizona,
the rest areas are first class, five star oasis is
the wherry driver driving these desert roads. You've got relatively
clean bathrooms, shaded benches. Although I went this time of
the year it was not very warm, so you didn't
(09:45):
really need the shade, but it's there. You know, most
of the year it's pretty hot. You had those informational
plaques that quietly say, yes, this is all there is
for miles and miles and miles. You have this weird
pocket of Arizona, which is not on the local time.
It's a Native American land anyway, Listen, you give credit
(10:08):
where credits due. The first real sign of life as
you drive from state line of California and you get
into Arizona. The first town that really stands out is
called Buckeye, and there's construction everywhere, houses sprouting like weeds
after rain. Suburbia marching westward if you will. And then
(10:31):
you get to a town called Goodyear. I wonder what's
named after a spring training home of the Cincinnata Reds,
along with the team formerly known as the Cleveland Indians,
and thus the holy land for Dick from Dayton. From
there it is a conveyor belt of Phoenix suburbs until
you reach the main event. However, this trip wasn't about
(10:56):
the scenery, it wasn't about cactus. It was a mission,
a malar mitzvah. What is a malar mitzvah? So a
couple of weeks earlier, at a family gathering, I mentioned
this briefly. I believe here on this podcast it might
have been on the radio. So I think It was
the podcast that at this event. One of my uncles
had an event, a wedding anniversary. I attended, and the
(11:19):
only living uncle I have, by the way, and this
is the one where I had my relatives lecturing me
over a monologue I did about women's soccer three years earlier,
and this woman pulled me aside, a very nice woman,
in the most polite way, told me I was an
a hole, which I appreciated. So anyway, I was there
(11:39):
at that event. My beloved cousins Lynn and Jerry, both
in their eighties mid to late eighties. Jerry eighty seven,
I got eighty seven. So they invited me to their
daughter's birthday party that I was sixty. She's not a
little kid, obviously sixty in Phoenix. Another cousin obviously related,
(12:01):
and now I recognized at the time. I recognized at
the time immediately this was a token invitation. This is
the polite kind you extend, knowing full well that because
of travel and my job, there was no chance I
was going to show up. So naturally I just had
(12:21):
to show up. I said, oh, what the hell, I'm
off from work. I love these people, they're getting older.
I want to see them, so I didn't make an
announcement because I wasn't completely sure I was going to go.
There was a lot of weather. I don't drive unless
I have to in the bad weather. I've learned that lesson.
I almost died several times driving in rain, so I'm
like all, I picked my spots, so I wasn't sure
(12:45):
it was going to happen. I didn't tell them. I
didn't want to get their hopes up. Not that I'm
the end all be all, but I didn't make it
an announcement. There was no fanfare. I just got in
the car on Saturday. Six hour drive actually was over
that because we stopped a couple times and a bit
of a curveball. So Lynn and Jerry have lived in
the same house, my cousins for fifty six years. They
(13:08):
have watched Phoenix more from a one horse town filled
with tumbleweeds into a major league city home of the
MLB NFL Super Bowls. The whole deal, the whole deal.
They were once season ticket holders to the Suns back
when they played at the Mad House on McDowell, and
(13:31):
I learned when I went to their home just a
few miles from their home the Madhouse on McDowell. They
watched the legends like Kevin Johnson, thunder Dan Marley, the
Round Mound of Rebound, Charles Barkley dominate with Cotton Fitzsimmons
as the coach. Some of those great Sons teams back
in that era, and that building shaped generations of basketball fans.
(13:54):
It probably violated several fire codes being at the time
it was there, and as far as the trip now,
we did not factor in one rather important detail, one
rather important detail. Arizona does not mess with daylight savings time.
The Grand Canyon State is in open rebellion against the clock,
(14:15):
and I respect it now. As you know, I am
by the clock, for the clock, all about the clock.
I live by the clock. However, I respect Arizona and
their rebellions. I endorse it. I also showed up an
hour late because of it, so, not factoring in the
(14:36):
time we planned it all out. We would have left
an hour earlier if we had known about the time change.
We didn't factor that in. So my thought was, oh,
let's go straight to the party, you know, let's go straight.
We're gonna be late. My wife's like, let's go to
the hotel. First of course she won. She always does.
So we arrived at the party at seven pm sharp,
(14:57):
right in the middle of the birthday girl's speech. It
was a subtle entrance, like a marching band during a
eulogy at a funeral. It's like, what are we doing?
Very awkward, and then it happened, right, you know, cousins
in the air everywhere, faces people I had not seen
(15:20):
since I was a kid thirty forty years ago, people
who shaped my childhood when family functions were mandatory as
a little kid, I talked about weddings, bar Mitzvah's family reunions.
We had a lot of those, from ages zero to ten,
eleven twelve something along those lines. I was dragged to
(15:40):
all of them. And then around fifteen or so, my
mom's health really got pretty bad and she had rheumatoid
arthritis and all kinds of craps. She just did not
win the health lottery, and so travel slowed down and
the family circuit kind of faded away. And then at
age nineteen, I dove head first into radio. At the time,
(16:05):
it was like it was cool to be on the radar.
Now it's like, oh yeah, the radio, But at the
time it was really cool, so I dove into radio
and I dedicated my life to the profession of gas baggery.
And suddenly there they were, my cousin Brad, the guy
that gave me my first beer at a family reunion.
I was far too young. Statute of limitations safely expired,
(16:28):
safely expired. My cousin's Tammy and Karen. They were there,
my cousin Barbara ninety two, and this was very awkward.
I wanted to share this with you. So I get
to the party and it's bad timing and the birthday
girls speak and I show up. A lot of the
people have no idea who I am. Then there's some
people that did know who I was, and they were
(16:50):
kind of like, oh, excited to see me and making noises.
Well Barbara, God bless her. You know, she was a
friend of my mom's, older than my mom two and
she screamed when she saw me, and she started crying
when she looked at me, like I just walked out
of some kind of seance or something. And it was
(17:11):
very touching. It was really sweet, and it was very
emotional and deeply awkward. It happened right in the middle
of everything and everyone's trying to shush her, and she's like,
you know, when you're ninety two, you don't really give
a crap. You know, you're on borrowed time at that point.
And then just as suddenly, it was all over at
(17:32):
seventh and we got there about seven, right around seven,
at seven thirty local time, the mass exodus began at
this party. I'm not kidding. One by one we had
cousins departing. It was like a conga line of closure.
And by the ninety minute mark from the beginning, I
remember we got there about an hour late, but by
(17:52):
the ninety minute mark, the place was pretty much empty.
My wife was stunned. Her family gatherings are these people
on her family, They just keep going and it's like
the energizer Bunny and her grandparents have passed away now,
but when we used to go out with them. Luigi,
authentic Italian guy who ironically loved the Olive Garden and
(18:17):
his bride there and they be there for three or
four hours, minimum five hours. The Malor family treats events
like a Broadway show. Ninety minutes, brief intermission, curtain down,
go home, and still the love was real, the hugs,
(18:37):
the laughter, there was genuine joy. People seemed really happy
to see me. I was happy to see them, and
it was great. Mission accomplished, Mission accomplished. It was wonderful.
And unlike past Arizona trips where we just drove and
drove back, we stayed overnight at a boutique hotel my
(18:57):
wife picked out in the car on the way there,
and amazingly, this is gonna blow you out. There was
no resort fee. There was free parking. I imagine that
the people in Vegas. You can have a hotel with
no resort fee and free parking. It's a miracle. It's
proof that hotels can survive without nickel and diming you
(19:20):
through the Badonka donk like they do in Lost Wages, Nevada.
In Phoenix they had this was a nice hotel and
it was right in the central part of the action,
and it had no resort fee and free parking.
Speaker 2 (19:34):
It was wonderful.
Speaker 1 (19:36):
So then we say it was Saturday, so we stayed
Saturday night. Sunday morning brought breakfast in Scottsdale. I should
also point out we went to a tiki bar, because
when you think tiki, you think the greater Phoenix area.
But on Sunday morning, we had breakfast in Scottsdale. I'm
not a breakfast guy, my wife loves breakfast and we
went to this trendy breakfast spot in Scottsdale. Quick goodbye
(19:58):
visit with Lynn and Jerry. One final sacred stop. My
cousin Karen came by to say hello as well. But
on the way out of Dodge we went to Culver's,
the mecca of the cheese curd the in and out
of the Midwest. Butterburger, Wisconsin cheese curds. Oh my yum
yum to my tumb tum, delicious enough to be very dangerous,
(20:21):
very very dangerous if one ever opened near the Malar mansion.
And then it was back into the desert darkness, surrounded
by unseen critters, wandering spirits, things that go bumpitty bump
in the night, and probable extraterrestrial activity overhead. A lot
of extraterrestrials spotted in the desert Southwest. It was a
(20:43):
successful Malar mitzvah, A lot of miles on the odometer.
Time was bent, some love was delivered, a reminder that
sometimes the best part of stepping away from the microphone
is finding the people who helped shape the voice using it,
and that was those people, and it was grasping a
(21:04):
lot of time. Some of my fondest memories, the big memories,
were with them, and I haven't seen him in years.
It's bad job by me, but it was great to
see them now turning the page, I wanted to tell
another tale. A long time ago, when the world was
full of wonder, before GPS lied to all of us,
there was a voice, a voice that did not whisper,
(21:26):
a voice that did not mumble, didn't need closed captioning,
a voice that boom, A voice that could cut through
bad football like a chainsaw through wet cardboard. Just like
get a wet cardboard box like weed ban has on
a rainy day in Miami. You get a chainsaw, and
that voice could just cut through it like a chainsaw.
(21:49):
A Gene decker Off, the Buccaneers mentioned they played today.
The Buccaneers announced this week the Deckerhoff will retire at
the conclusion of the season, which will likely be today.
It's unlikely the Buccaneers are going to make the playoffs.
They have to win and get help. And if they
don't get that help, even if they win, they're not
in so we won't know until tomorrow unless they lose today.
(22:12):
So this is likely the last game that Deckerhoff will
call for the Buccaneers, closing the book on thirty seven
years of calling the Creamsicle football games on the radio.
That is not a career. That is a mortgage length sentence.
Is what that is? My God? The third longest active
(22:33):
tenure in the NFL right now, three quarters of all
Buccaneer games in franchise history, both Super Bowl runs, every era.
He touched, every era, every uniform, the throwback uniforms were
the uniforms that weren't throwback uniforms, every quarterback experiment that
came with an instructional manual written in crayon. Jane was
(22:57):
there for all of it, the good, the bad, and
the think about that. Coaches came and went. Owners shuffled
through like bad renters. Quarterbacks rotated like spared tires, temporary, unreliable,
many of them. And there was Gene. He was the
load bearing wall who documented all of that. Remove him
(23:20):
and the whole thing collapses. And here's the part where,
of course I insert myself, because that's what we do
in radio. How do I relate to this story. The
reason I wanted to talk about Gene decker Hoff is
it reminded me of one of my favorite memories in
recent years. Thanks to my friendship with Fox Sports Radio
alumni member Buck's sideline reporter TJ. Reeves, I got to
(23:44):
meet Jean a few years ago, and not just meet him,
I got to help him out, which frankly, is now
going to go on my resume. Hopefully I don't need
my resume, but I'll put that under public service. So
the Buccaneers were in Los Angeles for their first trip
or Jane's first trip to Sulfi statem. I think they
(24:04):
might have come to LA during the pandemic, but Gene
didn't go, and so whatever I was told, it was
his first time at Sofi Stadium. And if you know Sofi,
this shiny billion dollars like a sci fi movie prop
that looks like it landed from another planet. And it's
got the footprint I want to say, it's big. It's
(24:24):
the footprints of the size of Texas and the navigational
clarity of a corn maze mixed with a crossword puzzle
while you've had too much whiskey. It's just a mess.
And so TJ. I ran into him, and TJ mentions, Hey,
you know, Gene is trying to find his way to
the press box. We're all trying to find Gene. We
(24:44):
can't find Gene decker Off. The game's going to start
in like an hour and a half. Can we find Gene?
So we need your help. So I said, no problem.
I got nothing else going on, so I am. Now
I'm walking around the state. I find myself in one
of the elevators near the press box, minding my business,
embracing my inner introvert, where I don't talk to anybody.
(25:06):
When I hear a short, portly, older gentleman say he's
lost and going to be late. And I recognized right
away the golden pipes. The light bulb didn't just flicker.
This wasn't just a guy. This was the guy. This
was the man, the myth, the legend, Gene Deckerhoff. I
introduced myself, I said, hello, mister Dekerhoff, and suddenly I'm
(25:29):
not a radio guy. I am a pace car. I
remember this is how I remember it. I'm leading the
broadcast field safely through the turns, sirens blaring, mission, Get
Jean to the booth, Get Gene to the booth. That's
the mission, and we did mission accomplished. It felt like
(25:50):
guiding the Pope through Times Square or helping Santa Claus
find the chimney. You don't forget. You don't forget. What
a run. A congrat to Geen Dekkeroff. Since joining the
Buccaneers in nineteen eighty nine, you had Hugh Culverhouse, the
menacing owner. At the time. Ray Perkins was the coach
(26:10):
of the Bucks. In eighty nine, Vinnie Testaverdi was the
starting quarterback. Joe Ferguson, who is thirty nine years old,
was the backup quarterback. He's now seventy five. Time goes
quick and Gene has been the constant. He's now Jean's
eighty and he's called over seven hundred and fifty games,
screaming touchdown Tampa Bay more than a thousand times. The
(26:32):
phrase is stitched into the DNA of the franchise. Same
with Fire the Cottons, which is in Raymond James Stadium.
That's not just the catchphrase, that's the dagger, the final nail,
the Mike drop before mike drops were cool. And let's
not forget forty two years as the voice of the
Severnoles of Florida State football forty two. That is not longevity.
(26:55):
That is carbon dating. What this man has been able
to do forty two years at Florida State and then
the thirty seven with the Buccaneers. I didn't grow up there, obviously.
I didn't grow up listening to Jeen Deckerhoff on the radio.
I have heard his calls for over twenty five years.
I've been in radio. I've been in radio longer than that,
(27:15):
but I've heard his calls, like Florida State back when
they had great teams and the Buccaneers where they've had
some pockets of good teams. And you don't last that
long unless you're really great. You don't, or unless somebody
wants you know, I guess if nobody wants your job,
then maybe you can stick it out. Or you're the
son or the daughter of the owner of the team.
(27:37):
But trust me, trust me, bro. Everyone wanted Jeen decker
Hoff's job. Those are those are great jobs. They pay
very well. You have to travel with the football team.
You want those jobs. They just couldn't touch the skill
level that Jeen decker Hoff had. And he wasn't flashy,
he didn't chase the trends. He didn't try to sound
like he was auditioning for TikTok. You morons, these older guys,
(28:03):
they don't get loud enough for me. Come down. He
just called the damn game, clean, loud, honest, proud professional.
In a business where voices change faster than coaching philosophies,
they change a lot they do, especially now these days.
Gene Deckerhoff was the lighthouse. He was the same beam,
the same and cadence, the same conviction, all of that.
(28:26):
So you tip the headphones in this case, you fire
that cannons one last time later today, and then the
voice fades away and the echo will stay. We'll still
have those calls, those clips on NFL films from back
in the day. What a hell of a legacy for
the great Gene Deckeroff, a career that is one of
(28:49):
the greats. So congratulations to Gene Deckeroff, and enjoy your
final broadcast later today. Unless you hear this after the game,
and then hopefully Gene already enjoyed his final broadcast, we'll
get out on that. We've got the mail bag, which
should be yours on Sunday, unless there's some kind of
snaffu like something gets deleted and then you won't hear
the mailbag. But other than that, the plan is we
(29:11):
will give you the mailbag, have a wonderful rest of
your day if you're listening when this thing immediately drops,
and enjoy the football today. If you listen two days
later or three days later, hopefully everything we said is
completely accurate, and if not, just blame I guess we'll
blame Danny, who me, I don't know who else, but
(29:32):
blame somebody. Blame whatever you want. But on that note,
we'll catch you next time. Later, skater asta pasta Now
I think so, my Felisia
Kubbooms.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
If you thought four hours a day, twelve hundred minutes
a week was enough, think again. He's the last remnants
of the Old Republic, a soul fashion of fairness. He
treats crackheads in the ghetto cutter the same as the
rich pill poppers in the penthouse.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
The Clearinghouse of Hot takes break free for something special.
The Fifth Hour with Ben Maller starts right now.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
In the air everywhere. The Fifth Hour with Me, Ben
Mahler and Danny g Radio A Happy Saturday is Today's
the third day of January, our second podcast of the
brand new year, and it's an NFL Saturday. It is
on like Donkey Kong. Two games, one good, one bad.
(00:54):
The early game at four thirty Eastern one thirty in
the West, Carolina at Tampa Bay, which is supposed to
be the NFC championship game. However, it is not necessarily
a standalone championship game Carolina. If they win, they win
the NFC South. If they lose, meaning Tampa Bay wins
(01:16):
that game, then it comes down to the Atlanta Falcons
game on Sunday with New Orleans, and if Atlanta is
able to win that game, Carolina will still win the
division based on the tiebreakers, so Tampa Bay is really
up against it. That game getting the d level broadcast
(01:37):
crew of Chris Fowler, Dan Orlovsky and Lewis Riddick, which
means my remote controls mute button will be getting a
workout today from my right hand. And the late game
Seattle and San Francisco, which is for all the marbles
in the NFC West. You've got Joe Buck and Troy
Aikman in the seeding atop the NFC all that great
(02:01):
stuff on the line in that game. So those are
the two games today. Benny versus the Penny is up
and running if you want to check that out. We
have all the information you need on both those games
and the full episode for Sunday. As it is the
final weekend of the NFL regular season, which means a
(02:22):
lot of teams who are just trying to get the
heck out of Dodge and go on vacation. You have
a mix of that. You also have a mix of
teams that are scratching and clong trying to get in
the playoffs. On today's podcast, we have Malar Mitzvah Carbon Dating.
We'll get to those things. We begin though, by pointing
out it is National Drinking Straw Day today, so please,
(02:47):
when you have a beverage today, drink with a straw.
And I was blown away doing research for this podcast
when I found out that the straw goes back to
three thousand BC. Things tubes were used as ancient straws
and thin long metallic tubes to brew beer. The original straw.
(03:09):
In the eighteen eighties there was a patent filed for
paper drinking straws. A person that made them a guy
named Marvin Stone. I have no idea who that is,
but Marvin Stone did not like the rye straw aftertaste,
so he's like, I just come up with this paper straw.
So that was in the eighteen eighties. And then in
(03:31):
the nineteen thirties a guy filed a patent for a
bendable straw because his daughter was having issues. This young
lady there was having issues drinking with a straight paper straw,
which is completely understandable. And then it wasn't until the
nineteen sixties with the rise of the fast food industry,
(03:54):
the paper straw replaced by the plastic straw, and really
the superior straw. The plastic straw. I live in a
state which is outlawed the plastic straw. It is the
People's Republic of California. I stand with the plastic straw.
The paper straw is just a waste of time. It
(04:16):
is also today is the Festival of Sleep Day. Yeah,
the Festival of sleep Day, and celebrate appropriately.
Speaker 2 (04:27):
There.
Speaker 1 (04:27):
The first bed, the first bed. The earliest account of
a bed goes to the eighth century BC. Bed was
woven of rope. Sounds like a nightmare. Then in four
point fifty BC, you had a Greek physician who suggested
(04:50):
that sleep, the reason that we sleep is because of
a lack of circulation to the brain. So that was medicine.
That was modern medicine in four point fifty BC. So
you had that. Then in the twelve hundreds you had
people who tried to sleep while sitting up. Yeah. Yeah,
(05:13):
Well the beds were smaller because they used pillows and
other things, and that's how that operated back in the
twelve hundreds. And so you've got that. Then in the
sixteen hundreds you had the magical Tale of Sleeping Beauty,
(05:34):
which how much money has Disney made off that that?
That's a ton of money I mean the whole the
merchandise and the whole thing, the movie back in the day,
and Money, Money, Money that came out in sixteen thirty four, right,
sixteen thirty four, My goodness. All right. Meanwhile, let's get
to the meat of the matter here. Let's not mess
(05:56):
around the holiday hiatus which technically ended with Benny Versus
the Penny and the podcast which all popped up yesterday
back in the content business. But the holiday hiatus from
overnight Radio is supposed to be about rest. You're supposed
to recharge your batteries, powered down the vocal cords, pretend
(06:21):
for a fleeting moment that the rhythms of the brain,
Thesecanian rhythms, have not been permanently manipulated and hijacked by
the graveyard shift. That's what you people tell me. You
know who you are, experts, have all the answers, It
(06:42):
all sounds good. Nevertheless, somewhere between Christmas rainstorms in Socow
which we actually have had, and the itch to be
back behind the microphone, which I am now in the
podcast studio, the highlight of my break veiled itself, not
in a studio on asphalt, in a never before told story,
(07:09):
This is a global exclusive here on the Fifth Hour podcast.
Settle in for the details on a last minute desert dash,
a spontaneous pilgrimage across the American Southwest, the Great American Southwest.
There's not a lot there. There's not a lot there. Now,
this was with no advanced notice. There was no RSVP,
(07:33):
none of that. Just me, my wife and the Maladmobile
pointing east away from southern California and the comforts of
the Malard Mansion towards the Valley of the Sun. Now,
if you've ever driven from Los Angeles to Fause, I've
talked about this a few times over the years, but
if you've ever driven from LA to Phoenix, you know
(07:55):
that that route is less a road trip and more
of a test of endurance. Once you clear what's known
as the Inland Empire, the civilization waves goodbye to you.
It's like a distant relative at a bus station, you know,
the Greyhound bus station. Now. Palm Springs a desert oasis
(08:18):
which was made famous by legends like Frank Sinatra and
Bob Hope and people like that back in the day.
So Palm Springs and its sister cities, which are just
wonderful places. They tease you though about twenty twenty five minutes,
most of them off the highway. It's a mirage of
(08:39):
golf courses and windmills and just really nice. But then
back to nothingness. And then you get to this town
called Blythe, which appears like a punctuation mark on the
California Arizona border. So you go through Blythe, you cross
the state line, you enter the Grand Canyon state which
(09:01):
is mostly sand cactus, and this unsettling feeling that you
missed and exit three hours ago. What's going on? Arizona
to its credit, I will give credit to Arizona. They
know who they are, and who they are is a
whole lot of nothing, and they lean into it. The
(09:24):
rest areas are outstanding, much better than California. In Arizona,
the rest areas are first class, five star oasis is
the wherry driver driving these desert roads. You've got relatively
clean bathrooms, shaded benches. Although I went this time of
the year it was not very warm, so you didn't
(09:45):
really need the shade, but it's there. You know, most
of the year it's pretty hot. You had those informational
plaques that quietly say, yes, this is all there is
for miles and miles and miles. You have this weird
pocket of Arizona, which is not on the local time.
It's a Native American land anyway, Listen, you give credit
(10:08):
where credits due. The first real sign of life as
you drive from state line of California and you get
into Arizona. The first town that really stands out is
called Buckeye, and there's construction everywhere, houses sprouting like weeds
after rain. Suburbia marching westward if you will. And then
(10:31):
you get to a town called Goodyear. I wonder what's
named after a spring training home of the Cincinnata Reds,
along with the team formerly known as the Cleveland Indians,
and thus the holy land for Dick from Dayton. From
there it is a conveyor belt of Phoenix suburbs until
you reach the main event. However, this trip wasn't about
(10:56):
the scenery, it wasn't about cactus. It was a mission,
a malar mitzvah. What is a malar mitzvah? So a
couple of weeks earlier, at a family gathering, I mentioned
this briefly. I believe here on this podcast it might
have been on the radio. So I think It was
the podcast that at this event. One of my uncles
had an event, a wedding anniversary. I attended, and the
(11:19):
only living uncle I have, by the way, and this
is the one where I had my relatives lecturing me
over a monologue I did about women's soccer three years earlier,
and this woman pulled me aside, a very nice woman,
in the most polite way, told me I was an
a hole, which I appreciated. So anyway, I was there
(11:39):
at that event. My beloved cousins Lynn and Jerry, both
in their eighties mid to late eighties. Jerry eighty seven,
I got eighty seven. So they invited me to their
daughter's birthday party that I was sixty. She's not a
little kid, obviously sixty in Phoenix. Another cousin obviously related,
(12:01):
and now I recognized at the time. I recognized at
the time immediately this was a token invitation. This is
the polite kind you extend, knowing full well that because
of travel and my job, there was no chance I
was going to show up. So naturally I just had
(12:21):
to show up. I said, oh, what the hell, I'm
off from work. I love these people, they're getting older.
I want to see them, so I didn't make an
announcement because I wasn't completely sure I was going to go.
There was a lot of weather. I don't drive unless
I have to in the bad weather. I've learned that lesson.
I almost died several times driving in rain, so I'm
like all, I picked my spots, so I wasn't sure
(12:45):
it was going to happen. I didn't tell them. I
didn't want to get their hopes up. Not that I'm
the end all be all, but I didn't make it
an announcement. There was no fanfare. I just got in
the car on Saturday. Six hour drive actually was over
that because we stopped a couple times and a bit
of a curveball. So Lynn and Jerry have lived in
the same house, my cousins for fifty six years. They
(13:08):
have watched Phoenix more from a one horse town filled
with tumbleweeds into a major league city home of the
MLB NFL Super Bowls. The whole deal, the whole deal.
They were once season ticket holders to the Suns back
when they played at the Mad House on McDowell, and
(13:31):
I learned when I went to their home just a
few miles from their home the Madhouse on McDowell. They
watched the legends like Kevin Johnson, thunder Dan Marley, the
Round Mound of Rebound, Charles Barkley dominate with Cotton Fitzsimmons
as the coach. Some of those great Sons teams back
in that era, and that building shaped generations of basketball fans.
(13:54):
It probably violated several fire codes being at the time
it was there, and as far as the trip now,
we did not factor in one rather important detail, one
rather important detail. Arizona does not mess with daylight savings time.
The Grand Canyon State is in open rebellion against the clock,
(14:15):
and I respect it now. As you know, I am
by the clock, for the clock, all about the clock.
I live by the clock. However, I respect Arizona and
their rebellions. I endorse it. I also showed up an
hour late because of it, so, not factoring in the
(14:36):
time we planned it all out. We would have left
an hour earlier if we had known about the time change.
We didn't factor that in. So my thought was, oh,
let's go straight to the party, you know, let's go straight.
We're gonna be late. My wife's like, let's go to
the hotel. First of course she won. She always does.
So we arrived at the party at seven pm sharp,
(14:57):
right in the middle of the birthday girl's speech. It
was a subtle entrance, like a marching band during a
eulogy at a funeral. It's like, what are we doing?
Very awkward, and then it happened, right, you know, cousins
in the air everywhere, faces people I had not seen
(15:20):
since I was a kid thirty forty years ago, people
who shaped my childhood when family functions were mandatory as
a little kid, I talked about weddings, bar Mitzvah's family reunions.
We had a lot of those, from ages zero to ten,
eleven twelve something along those lines. I was dragged to
(15:40):
all of them. And then around fifteen or so, my
mom's health really got pretty bad and she had rheumatoid
arthritis and all kinds of craps. She just did not
win the health lottery, and so travel slowed down and
the family circuit kind of faded away. And then at
age nineteen, I dove head first into radio. At the time,
(16:05):
it was like it was cool to be on the radar.
Now it's like, oh yeah, the radio, But at the
time it was really cool, so I dove into radio
and I dedicated my life to the profession of gas baggery.
And suddenly there they were, my cousin Brad, the guy
that gave me my first beer at a family reunion.
I was far too young. Statute of limitations safely expired,
(16:28):
safely expired. My cousin's Tammy and Karen. They were there,
my cousin Barbara ninety two, and this was very awkward.
I wanted to share this with you. So I get
to the party and it's bad timing and the birthday
girls speak and I show up. A lot of the
people have no idea who I am. Then there's some
people that did know who I was, and they were
(16:50):
kind of like, oh, excited to see me and making noises.
Well Barbara, God bless her. You know, she was a
friend of my mom's, older than my mom two and
she screamed when she saw me, and she started crying
when she looked at me, like I just walked out
of some kind of seance or something. And it was
(17:11):
very touching. It was really sweet, and it was very
emotional and deeply awkward. It happened right in the middle
of everything and everyone's trying to shush her, and she's like,
you know, when you're ninety two, you don't really give
a crap. You know, you're on borrowed time at that point.
And then just as suddenly, it was all over at
(17:32):
seventh and we got there about seven, right around seven,
at seven thirty local time, the mass exodus began at
this party. I'm not kidding. One by one we had
cousins departing. It was like a conga line of closure.
And by the ninety minute mark from the beginning, I
remember we got there about an hour late, but by
(17:52):
the ninety minute mark, the place was pretty much empty.
My wife was stunned. Her family gatherings are these people
on her family, They just keep going and it's like
the energizer Bunny and her grandparents have passed away now,
but when we used to go out with them. Luigi,
authentic Italian guy who ironically loved the Olive Garden and
(18:17):
his bride there and they be there for three or
four hours, minimum five hours. The Malor family treats events
like a Broadway show. Ninety minutes, brief intermission, curtain down,
go home, and still the love was real, the hugs,
(18:37):
the laughter, there was genuine joy. People seemed really happy
to see me. I was happy to see them, and
it was great. Mission accomplished, Mission accomplished. It was wonderful.
And unlike past Arizona trips where we just drove and
drove back, we stayed overnight at a boutique hotel my
(18:57):
wife picked out in the car on the way there,
and amazingly, this is gonna blow you out. There was
no resort fee. There was free parking. I imagine that
the people in Vegas. You can have a hotel with
no resort fee and free parking. It's a miracle. It's
proof that hotels can survive without nickel and diming you
(19:20):
through the Badonka donk like they do in Lost Wages, Nevada.
In Phoenix they had this was a nice hotel and
it was right in the central part of the action,
and it had no resort fee and free parking.
Speaker 2 (19:34):
It was wonderful.
Speaker 1 (19:36):
So then we say it was Saturday, so we stayed
Saturday night. Sunday morning brought breakfast in Scottsdale. I should
also point out we went to a tiki bar, because
when you think tiki, you think the greater Phoenix area.
But on Sunday morning, we had breakfast in Scottsdale. I'm
not a breakfast guy, my wife loves breakfast and we
went to this trendy breakfast spot in Scottsdale. Quick goodbye
(19:58):
visit with Lynn and Jerry. One final sacred stop. My
cousin Karen came by to say hello as well. But
on the way out of Dodge we went to Culver's,
the mecca of the cheese curd the in and out
of the Midwest. Butterburger, Wisconsin cheese curds. Oh my yum
yum to my tumb tum, delicious enough to be very dangerous,
(20:21):
very very dangerous if one ever opened near the Malar mansion.
And then it was back into the desert darkness, surrounded
by unseen critters, wandering spirits, things that go bumpitty bump
in the night, and probable extraterrestrial activity overhead. A lot
of extraterrestrials spotted in the desert Southwest. It was a
(20:43):
successful Malar mitzvah, A lot of miles on the odometer.
Time was bent, some love was delivered, a reminder that
sometimes the best part of stepping away from the microphone
is finding the people who helped shape the voice using it,
and that was those people, and it was grasping a
(21:04):
lot of time. Some of my fondest memories, the big memories,
were with them, and I haven't seen him in years.
It's bad job by me, but it was great to
see them now turning the page, I wanted to tell
another tale. A long time ago, when the world was
full of wonder, before GPS lied to all of us,
there was a voice, a voice that did not whisper,
(21:26):
a voice that did not mumble, didn't need closed captioning,
a voice that boom, A voice that could cut through
bad football like a chainsaw through wet cardboard. Just like
get a wet cardboard box like weed ban has on
a rainy day in Miami. You get a chainsaw, and
that voice could just cut through it like a chainsaw.
(21:49):
A Gene decker Off, the Buccaneers mentioned they played today.
The Buccaneers announced this week the Deckerhoff will retire at
the conclusion of the season, which will likely be today.
It's unlikely the Buccaneers are going to make the playoffs.
They have to win and get help. And if they
don't get that help, even if they win, they're not
in so we won't know until tomorrow unless they lose today.
(22:12):
So this is likely the last game that Deckerhoff will
call for the Buccaneers, closing the book on thirty seven
years of calling the Creamsicle football games on the radio.
That is not a career. That is a mortgage length sentence.
Is what that is? My God? The third longest active
(22:33):
tenure in the NFL right now, three quarters of all
Buccaneer games in franchise history, both Super Bowl runs, every era.
He touched, every era, every uniform, the throwback uniforms were
the uniforms that weren't throwback uniforms, every quarterback experiment that
came with an instructional manual written in crayon. Jane was
(22:57):
there for all of it, the good, the bad, and
the think about that. Coaches came and went. Owners shuffled
through like bad renters. Quarterbacks rotated like spared tires, temporary, unreliable,
many of them. And there was Gene. He was the
load bearing wall who documented all of that. Remove him
(23:20):
and the whole thing collapses. And here's the part where,
of course I insert myself, because that's what we do
in radio. How do I relate to this story. The
reason I wanted to talk about Gene decker Hoff is
it reminded me of one of my favorite memories in
recent years. Thanks to my friendship with Fox Sports Radio
alumni member Buck's sideline reporter TJ. Reeves, I got to
(23:44):
meet Jean a few years ago, and not just meet him,
I got to help him out, which frankly, is now
going to go on my resume. Hopefully I don't need
my resume, but I'll put that under public service. So
the Buccaneers were in Los Angeles for their first trip
or Jane's first trip to Sulfi statem. I think they
(24:04):
might have come to LA during the pandemic, but Gene
didn't go, and so whatever I was told, it was
his first time at Sofi Stadium. And if you know Sofi,
this shiny billion dollars like a sci fi movie prop
that looks like it landed from another planet. And it's
got the footprint I want to say, it's big. It's
(24:24):
the footprints of the size of Texas and the navigational
clarity of a corn maze mixed with a crossword puzzle
while you've had too much whiskey. It's just a mess.
And so TJ. I ran into him, and TJ mentions, Hey,
you know, Gene is trying to find his way to
the press box. We're all trying to find Gene. We
(24:44):
can't find Gene decker Off. The game's going to start
in like an hour and a half. Can we find Gene?
So we need your help. So I said, no problem.
I got nothing else going on, so I am. Now
I'm walking around the state. I find myself in one
of the elevators near the press box, minding my business,
embracing my inner introvert, where I don't talk to anybody.
(25:06):
When I hear a short, portly, older gentleman say he's
lost and going to be late. And I recognized right
away the golden pipes. The light bulb didn't just flicker.
This wasn't just a guy. This was the guy. This
was the man, the myth, the legend, Gene Deckerhoff. I
introduced myself, I said, hello, mister Dekerhoff, and suddenly I'm
(25:29):
not a radio guy. I am a pace car. I
remember this is how I remember it. I'm leading the
broadcast field safely through the turns, sirens blaring, mission, Get
Jean to the booth, Get Gene to the booth. That's
the mission, and we did mission accomplished. It felt like
(25:50):
guiding the Pope through Times Square or helping Santa Claus
find the chimney. You don't forget. You don't forget. What
a run. A congrat to Geen Dekkeroff. Since joining the
Buccaneers in nineteen eighty nine, you had Hugh Culverhouse, the
menacing owner. At the time. Ray Perkins was the coach
(26:10):
of the Bucks. In eighty nine, Vinnie Testaverdi was the
starting quarterback. Joe Ferguson, who is thirty nine years old,
was the backup quarterback. He's now seventy five. Time goes
quick and Gene has been the constant. He's now Jean's
eighty and he's called over seven hundred and fifty games,
screaming touchdown Tampa Bay more than a thousand times. The
(26:32):
phrase is stitched into the DNA of the franchise. Same
with Fire the Cottons, which is in Raymond James Stadium.
That's not just the catchphrase, that's the dagger, the final nail,
the Mike drop before mike drops were cool. And let's
not forget forty two years as the voice of the
Severnoles of Florida State football forty two. That is not longevity.
(26:55):
That is carbon dating. What this man has been able
to do forty two years at Florida State and then
the thirty seven with the Buccaneers. I didn't grow up there, obviously.
I didn't grow up listening to Jeen Deckerhoff on the radio.
I have heard his calls for over twenty five years.
I've been in radio. I've been in radio longer than that,
(27:15):
but I've heard his calls, like Florida State back when
they had great teams and the Buccaneers where they've had
some pockets of good teams. And you don't last that
long unless you're really great. You don't, or unless somebody
wants you know, I guess if nobody wants your job,
then maybe you can stick it out. Or you're the
son or the daughter of the owner of the team.
(27:37):
But trust me, trust me, bro. Everyone wanted Jeen decker
Hoff's job. Those are those are great jobs. They pay
very well. You have to travel with the football team.
You want those jobs. They just couldn't touch the skill
level that Jeen decker Hoff had. And he wasn't flashy,
he didn't chase the trends. He didn't try to sound
like he was auditioning for TikTok. You morons, these older guys,
(28:03):
they don't get loud enough for me. Come down. He
just called the damn game, clean, loud, honest, proud professional.
In a business where voices change faster than coaching philosophies,
they change a lot they do, especially now these days.
Gene Deckerhoff was the lighthouse. He was the same beam,
the same and cadence, the same conviction, all of that.
(28:26):
So you tip the headphones in this case, you fire
that cannons one last time later today, and then the
voice fades away and the echo will stay. We'll still
have those calls, those clips on NFL films from back
in the day. What a hell of a legacy for
the great Gene Deckeroff, a career that is one of
(28:49):
the greats. So congratulations to Gene Deckeroff, and enjoy your
final broadcast later today. Unless you hear this after the game,
and then hopefully Gene already enjoyed his final broadcast, we'll
get out on that. We've got the mail bag, which
should be yours on Sunday, unless there's some kind of
snaffu like something gets deleted and then you won't hear
the mailbag. But other than that, the plan is we
(29:11):
will give you the mailbag, have a wonderful rest of
your day if you're listening when this thing immediately drops,
and enjoy the football today. If you listen two days
later or three days later, hopefully everything we said is
completely accurate, and if not, just blame I guess we'll
blame Danny, who me, I don't know who else, but
(29:32):
blame somebody. Blame whatever you want. But on that note,
we'll catch you next time. Later, skater asta pasta Now
I think so, my Felisia
Host
Ben Maller
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