The Fifth Hour-Ted Sobel

Ben Maller and Ted Sobel have been friends since Ben was a teenager. They discuss Ted's stories about meeting legends such as Elgin Baylor, Sandy Koufax, Ted Williams and more.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
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of the old republic, a sole fashion of fairness. He

(00:43):
treats crackheads in the ghetto Cutter the same as the
rich pill poppers in the penthouse. Wow. The clearing House
of Hot takes break free for something special. The Fifth
Hour with Ben Maller starts right now. The light is flashing.
That on air light is flashing, and that means it

(01:04):
is time for another edition of the Fifth Hour with
Ben Miller, because four hours a night are not enough
eight days a week, and we thank you for subscribing
to the podcast. We're finding it first of all, listening
to it, telling friends about it. The only marketing budget
we have is none. We have no marketing budget. But

(01:25):
the way we promote the podcast is to make a
fuss about it, get you to tell friends, enemies. We
don't care anyone that might be able to download the podcast.
Spread the word, spread the gospel. And I like to say,
and I believe this is true, that if everyone listening,
if you listening and the other seven people listening, so
we have eight people that download the podcasts. But if

(01:46):
all eight people tell eight other people to listen to
the podcast, and then those eight people do actually download
the podcast, We've now doubled the audience. We've doubled the
market share. It's that simple. It's mallor math, and that's
the way we do things. But this week we start
the Friday podcast. I am very excited to talk to
somebody who has known me since I was a teenager

(02:09):
when I first started in radio, and has been very
kind me over the years as I navigated my way
as a radio reporters to hang out in press boxes
with this gentleman, and he has a new book out,
And I said, you know what, Ted I got to
promote this book your friend of mine. Now, normally I
don't do these book interviews. I don't normally do these
book interviews. But it's really just telling stories. That's all.

(02:31):
It is, telling stories. And that's always a good podcast.
That's solid podcasting, broadcasting in general, telling stories. And so
the name Ted Sobol, if you're in southern California, you'll
likely know who that is a staple of the LA
media scene. He worked in news radio at the iconic
KFWB as the sports director for many many years. Currently

(02:53):
he is nationally known as the studio host for the
Sports USA network. I think that's what it's called. But
he does the NFL and college football, and I believe
they've got the NHL rights now on radio, and he
is called minor league hockey. He lived in Wisconsin. I
did some University of Wisconsin hockey broadcast back in the day,

(03:15):
worked for the Mighty Ducks. He's been all over the place.
I've known him for a very long time. He's got
a new book out called Touching Greatness. And Ted has
had a very interesting life. He has met pretty much
everybody who's anybody in the sporting world. But it's not
just about sports, and more importantly for our purposes, Ted,
you are part of the FSR Alumni Association. We were

(03:38):
briefly teammates. How long it's been a while. How long
did you work? It wasn't long. How long did you
work at Fox Sports Radio, Ted? I was there Ben
at least two shifts. Seriously, I was there for a
handful of months. I don't remember exactly, but I left
around Thanksgiving after some things in the summer, So it

(04:01):
was just a handful of months there. It was just
bad timing, that's all. And plus I was only working
the very very late overnight shifts. And when I say overnight,
you were long gone. So you know, even the sun
was a rumor at the time, and that just didn't
work into My body was saying, what are you doing?
You're too old for that. Yeah, that's what I tried
to listen, Ted. And you've had prime radio jobs, right,

(04:25):
I remember you on KFWB and you were like the
primetime guy and all that. But three years but who's counting.
But the overnight, though, Ted, That's that's where you really
get your hands dirty in the overnight, and you are
insane to be of doing this all the I would
have been, I would have been laid out in a
casket decades ago. Well, we're all headed that way one

(04:48):
way or another. But too soon, you know what I mean. Yeah,
we wanted to delay that as long as possible. So
we now we have known each other. You have known
me Ted since I was a teenager, since I was
a teenager. Full disclosure. I would actually like to thank
you because you know a lot of you know, there
was some guy, not a lot, there were some guys
that kind of gave me the cold shoulder when I

(05:08):
started and I was out covering some dodgery games and
stuff around the town when I was nineteen, and you
were not. You were pretty cool all along, and I
love the way you say that. Not too cool, just
pretty cool. He remember, you sort of earned the cold
shoulder at times too, So let's let's be honest with
the folks out there. Well, I disagree with that, and

(05:30):
I do not have to agree with that position at all.
I was just because I got lost one time at
Dodger Stadium and I didn't know where to go, and
I followed somebody and they turned out to be the
biggest asshole that I had ever dealt with but other
but other than that, No, No, it was not you
with somebody else. I don't know. I had not been
in the bowels of Dodger Stadium before, so I had

(05:51):
I'd gotten lost, and I figured, well, there's another reporter,
so I just kind of follow them and they'll know
where to go and get out of here. And then
it turned out to be the one, the one guy
who hated me the rest of my life because of
that that activity. But but you have covered the LA
sports scene. I mean, you've seen and done it all.
I know you've got a book. We're going to talk
about that. But go in the book again. Oh it's

(06:13):
the I think it's called touching greatness. Is that right?
You have a great memory? Look a look at that.
I got it right, I got it right in front
of me here. But that But now, I started in
the nineties. You were you were covering the game's way
before that, and so what kind of paint the picture
for those that are wondering how much did it change
from the seventies eighties to the nineties there and obviously

(06:35):
today it's a totally different situation. But when you when
you were covering like the Dodgers, in the nineteen seventies
compared to covering the team's you know, the years for
what was it like then? Was it? It? Obviously was
a lot different. There wasn't the Internet and all that stuff,
So kind of paint the picture what that was like. Well,
first of all, not just the Dodgers, any team. They
wanted us there. Now they all even want to know

(06:57):
we exist. So it's a big difference, you know, just
the fact. Remember food was free to the media then
because they absolutely needed us in the house. Remember I
tell us to everybody and people never think of this,
but it is the most important thing when it comes
to promoting sports from a media standpoint. It is the

(07:19):
only business. And I mean you talk about movies, you
talk about anything else that gets free twenty four seven
publicity and they don't have to spend one penny, not
one penny. And it's the only business on the planet.
It probably in the universe, and maybe every universe. So
they wanted us there because if we're there, we're giving

(07:39):
them constant free publicity. By the second, Now, if you
were a shoe store owner and you had somebody from
the La Times, for example, say I'm going to come
over to your place every day at six o'clock, right
around the time you close, and just find out how
your sales went, and talk to your people and what
kind of what kind of patrons as you have today,

(08:01):
blah blah blah, and we're going to write a little
story about you. Every single night. I would send a
limo to that person. And that's who we were for
the sports, for any club, whether it was college or pro.
So again, now they don't need us as much. But
in the seventies, Ben I started in nineteen seventy three.
My first credential. Uh. It was it was to a

(08:24):
point where if you had access to the room, they
you were wanted in there, not by every player, but
by the organization. And it was so different. It was
it was accommodating. It was hey, what can we do
for you? Now it's say, how can we get you
the hell out of here? And maybe never give you
a credential again. It's a whole different ball game. Yeah,

(08:47):
and you you one of your good friends. And I
was reading in the book, I knew you had known
Paul Old in a long time. I didn't realize you
met him in school, which you talking about college? Yeah,
in La City, College and for those no, Paul Olden
is the public address announcer for the New York Dickies.
But I I for me, for me, he's the he's
the Kingman rant guy. He's the guy that recorded, for

(09:10):
posterity's sake, the Tommy Losorda rant when he flew off
the handle over Dave Kingman, uh getting out. And and
I've heard stories said that there's other rants that in
those days that weren't recorded from Losorda. You you were
there covering the Dodgers with Tommy. Is that true? Can
you confirm or deny that there were other rants that

(09:32):
did not get saved that were actually better than the
Kingman or the Bavakua. Well, let's put it this way.
First of all, I love the way you said. Is
that true? You said a little bit like Healey, But
that's okay. Jimmy Healey. For those of you who don't
know classic legendary radio voice in LA and my Hero,
My Hero until you know it, Uh, that one was

(09:53):
a classic because of the way it happened, because of
the timing of it, and because I always loved that
Tommy to say I never used an F word in
my life, and that was like you mean, in the
last five seconds, Tom was he was a classic. He
was unbelieved. You never knew what moods you're going to
get him in, except for he was always in one
specific type of mood, and that is I want the

(10:16):
attention mood, and he got it at that time. I'm
sure he didn't do it intentionally, he just lost it.
And by the way, in a future volume of Touching Greatness,
there will be a chapter called what's your opinion at
Kingman's performance? And I got the whole story exactly what
happened and why it happened that day, But no, I
never heard any specific one. I mean I've recorded him

(10:40):
a thousand times. You know, he drew an F bomb
in there, of course, whenever he was in the mood,
but not like that. I never I don't recall anything
being would have stood out to this point. And remember,
in those days, there were times when maybe radio was
not in the room at the time, So that would
be a good question to add as a newspaper writer

(11:01):
who covered them regularly in the early days, because they
may have gotten had a few really classic rants, but
nobody was there to record, and so it didn't really matter. Yeah,
And what I remember from covering the Sword, I was
there at the end his last few years when he
was managing the team. So he'd already established himself and
he was this bigger than life personality, which he always was,
but having won the World Series a couple of times

(11:24):
and having success and all that. But I remember Ted
when we would go into the locker room to interview him,
and if the Dodgers had won, we'd get jolly happy
Tommy that would be bouncing off the walls. He was
in his office there, he'd be standing up in front
of his desk and want to talk to everybody. And
then when they lost, he would be downtrodden behind his

(11:46):
desk and usually eating some kind of food that he
had in his office and spitting all over the microphone.
I remember having to clean my microphone because Tommy spit. Yeah,
there was a lot of garlic on my microphone. It
was like a red sauce. It was. It was wild
and of course, of course the sort of selling it

(12:07):
back in the was the eighties, right, He sold pasta
sauce at it. And then also he had a diet
program that he was Yeah. Well, later he also had
his own wines too, you know, which was pretty pretty
neat stuff, but that was that was much later on. Look, Tommy,
if you didn't smell garlic, then Tommy was out of town.
I mean, it was always classic to walk into that

(12:28):
room into his office after a game. You get the
closure you got to him, the more you could smell
his breath and uh, and you're right, there was something
about him eating slowly in front of us after a loss.
He seemed to be I'm going to enjoy the food
more than your damn faces in this room, the way
it always seemed to be. Yeah. Now, all I do
want to get to the book Touching Greatness, and you

(12:50):
got some of the stories about all these you know,
the sort all the great characters that you've covered over
the years being around begin I am jealous though ted.
I'd love to book someday. But then I found out
how much time you spent on this. You said three
this is a three year project. How many hours do
you think would you estimate that you put in? Because
you didn't have a ghostwriter, I saw this was all

(13:12):
podcast for the Friendly Ghost. Unfortunately, now you know what,
I don't want to count the hours because if I
do I'll probably shoot myself that time back. All I
know is that I and I thoroughly am prideful about
doing this because it's not an easy thing. But remember,
it depends on the kind of book you're writing. I
did something about literally decades of my life from the

(13:36):
beginning and trying to remember stuff that I wanted other
people to know of. And I've told these stories forever
and everything, but I should write a book one day.
I finally have, and I got to the point where
there were so many things I had to look up.
It took hundreds of hours, no exaggeration of research, because
I wanted everything to be one thousand percent accurate. That

(14:00):
eight the time, what exactly happened if it had anything
to do with the story, And that's what took as
much time as just writing itself. I'm talking hundreds of ours.
And how often was your memory a little off? You
have a very good memory, But I they I've read
your stream again exactly, but I read study. I read
studies like that what we remember and then like the

(14:21):
timing is usually off a little bit, like version of
what we remember is not completely right. How accurate was
the memory the mind of sobel? Looking back at your
life and the things that I had damned good question,
you know what, it was actually very good. I'm a
little surprised myself, you know. I took some notes about
twenty years ago, and I thought, Okay, if I'm ever

(14:44):
gonna do this, let me write down a few things.
And I've literally had several just plain white sheets of
paper where I would scribble a little note on just
to remember something, and throw it in a file and
put it in the drawer and totally forget about it.
And I literally forgot about No. I remember he's good,
but I could remember where the notes were, and and
I finally found him. I was like, oh, yeah, here's

(15:06):
the book, all these scribbles, and that's pretty much how
I started. It was not some organized, great perfect outline
or anything. It was like, well, I want to write
about Don Drysdale, I want to write about Lasorda, I
want to write about Jerry West. And it was whatever
that little specific note was put on a scribble sheet
and put away. So um. But no, my memory was

(15:28):
actually very good, but I wanted specifics where it would
really because once you look it up you see a
box score from fifty years ago. It brings back memories
that you would never ever recall. Yeah, and I've known
you for many years, but obviously I don't know your
entire life story and all that. And now no, I
now I have the full volume, which is like it

(15:51):
or not, and it is appropriate. I mean at the
very beginning here, Uh, it's you go in. And I
didn't know that Jim Tunney, the legendary referee when you
were in high school in LA he was your principal
at Fairfax High School. That is crazy. Did you know
was he in official at the time? He was the
principal course. Yeah, Oh, he was the deed of NFL refs.

(16:13):
He was our principal. Absolutely, we used to talk. He
would stop in the hallway in high school and every
you know, a sports guys, other people who weren't into
sports that didn't even know what the NFL wasn't remember.
It was not the NFL like it is now. It
was it was not the national pastime like it is now.
Everything was baseball then and everything else was okay, whatever,

(16:33):
if you enjoy it, good for you. Um. It was
so different. And he would stop and us sports guys
would like to get him, like during a lunch break
or whatever nutrition, and he would stop and we'd just
all be talking. A but you covered the Packers Bears
game yesterday, you know that kind of stuff, so absolutely,
and I and I hate it up because I was

(16:54):
totally into it, more than most and he invited us,
and I was fortunate to be one of them. And
I basically wouldn't allow no answer to the fact that
if you, if you, you might even be too young
to remember sports Challenge the old Dick Enberg Game Show.
Do you remember that at all? I've seen clips on
the internet, but it is before my time. Yeah, that's

(17:14):
what I thought. Well, I'm from a different generation the
classic show. I mean the first show they had Joe
DiMaggio and and and Jerry West and el Jim Baylor
and Duke Snyder and it was unbelievable. Uh, and those
are the guys, right. Well, I was invited by mister
Tunney as we called him of course then. And Jim
now that he's a friend, and he's I think he's

(17:35):
ninety two years old now, and he's just a phenomenal guy.
And he's one of the endorsers of the book, by
the way, and he was the one to open the
door to get my publisher. So that's a big deal
of what he's meant to my life. But at the
time Jim invited me as I almost insisted on it,
to be one of six guys that from Fairfax High

(17:55):
in LA to sit down and be one of the
end superstars on the show. It was before the first
airing of the show, and they had to do the
angles and check out the video clips and make sure
everything was working perfectly. So it was the practice show
that I was on, and I sat in Tommy Hendrick's

(18:17):
seat at Former Yankee and he was there for the
first game, and then after that we got invited to
the actual taping of the first two shows, and it
was it was just that that show was unbelievable. I
mean it was because they had you know, almost everybody
who was anybody was on that show, including Jackie Robinson
was on that show. Yeah, And I mean, like I

(18:39):
you told the story in the book about when you
were a kid meeting Ted Williams at ah what a
store somewhere he was a sears Yeah he was. Was
he signing autographs or something like that? He's promoting well, Ted, boy,
this is like nineteen sixty one or two he had
just retired and he was there to everything in those days,

(19:01):
been for a couple of years, maybe five years, I
don't know. He signed a contract with Sears around the
time he retired, and everything said Ted Williams on it,
and forget baseball. I mean we're talking like he was
a big hunter and fisherman and stuff like that. So
the entire sporting goods department at Sears it said to
Ted Williams name, and his signature was on everything. It

(19:22):
was Ted Williams. Barbecues, it was Ted Williams. Whatever's anything there.
So my father heard he was going to be there,
and this was in Hollywood here in LA and he says,
I want to take it and go meet Ted Williams.
And I said that'd be great. And I was in
a little league at the time. So we went there
and as we're going through the store, my father looks

(19:45):
at his watch. He goes, you know what has running
a little late? And we look over and Ted Williams
is standing up and he's starting to walk out like
he was done. And so whatever he was doing was
he was finished with his shift. And when he was finished,
he was finished, And my dad hustled over and he
was not exactly an athlete, and he hustled his ass
over there and said, mister Williams, please stop for one second.

(20:06):
I want you to meet my son, Teddy. And I
hustled with him and he looked down. He goes, oh,
it's very nice to meet you another Teddy ball game.
He shook my hand and walked away. He wasn't rude,
he was just leaving, you know. Yeah, And to me,
that was like that was the first touching greatness moment.
Even though he didn't sign an autograph for me. I

(20:27):
didn't ask him. I mean, he was literally walking out
the door and he was very nice. But but Kurt,
you know, real quick, and I looked at my father.
I said, this is like the greatest thing of all time.
I just shook Ted Williams hands and that gave me
that feeling like, you know what, I don't want to
hang out with Joe Smith on the street corner. I'd

(20:48):
rather hang out with Ted Williams. And that was the
start of things, and touching greatness is evolved decades later.
Look at that, and that's cool because if we have
heard stories that Ted's been gone for a while, but
we've heard stories he had been very aloof at times,
so that's cool that he at least stopped to acknowledge
a kid in the series. So the aloof athletes, we've

(21:10):
all been around them. And you probably can write a
book just on the aloof Avenue. You know, that would
be a good, good one for you. By the way,
write that down there you go. That could be thirty
five volumes. But yes, you know, one of the most
aloof guys in the history of sports, maybe the history
of the universe, is Joe DiMaggio and I have a
great story in the book. I always stuck into Dodger

(21:32):
Stadium after Martin Luther King charity game in nineteen seventy
and I just had a great, wonderful interaction with Roberto
Clementi getting autographs at the team bus as they were leaving,
and it was it's probably the greatest compilation of Hall
of Famers on the field at one time in this
one game that's almost forgotten in the history of baseball.

(21:57):
And when a game was over, it was late late
in the afternoon. I was a teenager, I was ready,
wasn't ready to go home, and I just want to
hang out at the ravine and there's no security guys
or anything in those days. I just wandered back into
the stadium, looked around and thought, you know what, it
would be sort of fun to see if anybody's left.
I started wandering downstairs, ended up at the Visitor's club

(22:20):
at the old visitors clubhouse at the at the Ravine,
and the door was slightly opened, and I looked inside
and there was an old man sitting there in his
shorts and a tank top. And I looked a little closer.
It was Joe Fan Demaggio, sitting there all by himself,
staring at a wall, doing nothing. And I knocked on

(22:42):
the old that giant if you remember the old visitor's locker,
I'm sure you do that, that huge metal door when
we walked in and I knocked on the thing, and
he looked up and I said, excuse me, mister DiMaggio,
can I get your rock? And instead of him being
a jerk like I've heard he could be many many

(23:03):
many times, he wasn't. Just a really easy, relaxed attitude. Yeah, sure, kid,
And then he said what the hell are you doing here?
How did you get in? And all that kind of stuff,
and he signed my book, my program and my autograph book,
and we had a little small talk. He was married, house, school,
all that kind of stuff, and then he said, sent

(23:23):
me on my way. That was the end of it.
But that was another neat time. Nothing like sneaking into
the ravine and Joe Damasu is there and I say,
it's the only time Damaso ever signed his autograph and
his underwear, including Marilyn Monroe. Be sure to catch live
editions of The Ben Maller Show weekdays at two am
Eastern eleven pm Pacific on Fox Sports Radio and the
iHeartRadio app. This episode is brought to you by Dexcom.

(23:47):
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here outside the Perez family home, just waiting for the

(25:37):
and there they go, almost on time. This morning. Mom
is coming out the front door strong with a double
arm kid carry. Looks like dad has the bags. Daughter
is bringing up the rear. Oh, but the diaper bag
wasn't closed. Diapers and toys are everywhere. Ooh, but mom
has just nailed the perfect car seat buckle for the toddler.

(25:58):
And now the eldest daughter, who looks to be about
nine or ten, has secured herself in the booster seat.
Tad zips the bad clothes and they're off. But looks
like Mom doesn't realize her coffee cup is still on
the roof of the car. And there it goes. Oh,
that's a shame that mug was a fan favorite. Don't
sweat the small stuff, just nail the big stuff, like

(26:20):
making sure your kids are buckled correctly. In the right
seat for their agent's eyes. Learn more at NHTSA dot
gov slash the Right Seat visits NHTSA dot gov slash
the Right Seat brought to you by NITZA and the
AD Council. Well that's great because when I was in
high school, I tried to get DiMaggio's autograph. We'd found
out he was appearing in San Diego at a card convention.

(26:44):
The National Trading Card Convention was in San Diego. So
a buddy of mine found out what hotel DiMaggio was like,
a lot of the people were staying there. So I
went down with some friends to try to get to matt.
We were we were stalking the hotel, sitting in the
lobby or we all sit then when we wanted an
autograp us, right, yeah, yeah, So I wanted to get
to Maggio's autograph, and so I sat for as I

(27:05):
remember now, it might not have been this long, but
it felt like hours, as you know, sitting in the
lobby and and uh and security tried to get us
out of there, and then we came back. Yeah. Yeah,
so finally we DiMaggio was like the white whale, you know,
I mean, how can we you know, it's elusive and
all that. So I remember DiMaggio. We saw him get
off an elevator with like two other people. But he

(27:29):
was supposed to we were We had it all planned
out in our head, sad that he was gonna walk
right through the lobby and out to the front where
the cars were, except he made a right turn and
walked to a side door, and he walked through the
kitchen and we weren't allowed back as he snuck. We
saw I saw like a side shot of Themaggio, like
the back of his head as he walked through the
kitchen to get out of the hotel, to a voice

(27:50):
like an idiot sitting there waiting for hours, of course,
as we all did. But you got your little brief
view of Joe DiMaggio. For it was today you'd have
your cell folks taking pictures and say, there he goes.
It's also like the Suppruter film after a while, exactly
exactly now I have I've not read the entire book here,
but the one. You know, certain things that stand out

(28:12):
ten and we have. We actually have a similar background
and the fact that you went to La City College.
I went to Saddleback for radio and stuff, and you
the chapter ten about radio one oh one in my
DNA that if you're a radio kind of kind of
nerd radio geek, we have a lot of people that
listen that love radio and people do radio. Well, yeah, exactly,

(28:34):
even though it's just a podcast, a rip off of
radio live radio, but you go into great detail there
and you're you got to go as a like a
college kid. You got to go watch a broadcast of
Dodger postgame program. That's pretty cool. Your was it your professor?
That was the guy that was doing it? Is that
is that right? Well? No, I mean all that stuff

(28:54):
we did it on our own and that was older
than me, and we just we would go to games
and literally sitting practice play by play. But I think
one of the things you might be referring to was
the nineteen seventy four World Series. Well, I was already
out of La City College by then, by about a year,
and I was actually credential to the seventy four World Series.

(29:17):
That's how long ago that was. But no, what we
would do is we would hang out in the press
box area and wait for them to leave their notes,
you know, whatever their reads were, and their assignments and
all that stuff. They would leave it on the desk
because it was just trash when the game was over,
and we would pick it up and read it, thinking
that we just found gold as we were trying to

(29:39):
figure out how to be broadcasters, and we just got
Vince Scully's notes from his NBC broadcast with Joe Garagiola,
and so that's what we would do, and then we
would read it and use it during our fake broadcast
when he's sitting in the stands calling a game every
damn night. So it was it was a blast. But
we would do everything on our own. I mean literally,

(29:59):
we went to like maybe fifty Dodger games a year,
some Angel games too, not as much because it was
a drive to Anaheim. And then we go to the
Forum and we do thirty or so Lakers games and
King's games, and we would have those notes from NBC,
from the Dodgers, from the Lakers and bug the hell
out of the PR guys, and they hated our guts

(30:19):
after a while. So some of them actually got it
and they knew that what we wanted to do, and
we were sincere. We weren't just messing around, And others
used to be like, can you guys get the hell
out of here? Your college students and you're bothering us,
And so it was. It was fascinating, but again it
was whatever it takes, right, give me notes. And if
you're eighteen, nineteen, twenty years old and you're trying to

(30:40):
get into the business and you got Vince Scully's read
on the air, I mean, please, I gotta have this.
Did you keep any of that stuff? Do you have
any of those? You know what? I didn't? I have
one thing I kept that the nineteen seventy four World
Series notes I still have because it was in a
World Series MLB. It used to have it like a
little folder and it would just say a World Series

(31:02):
on it or something, and it was the game notes.
And I stuck some of the whatever we took off
the table we would put. I put inside there and
just put it away and totally forgot about. I found
it about five years ago. It was sitting in a
folder somebody gave to me. It said al Roboski's name.
How's that for old? And he was the best reliever

(31:25):
in the busines at that time. So yeah, there was
some Saint Louis stuff and and then the seventy four
World Series, and we actually had sal Bando if you
remember that name. He was an All Star for the
Oakland A's in nineteen seventy four, third baseman. And this
is how it was been. How it's totally different. I

(31:45):
don't think you ever lived this, because I think it
was gone by the time you showed up. We were
literally in the A's dugout twenty minutes before the start
of the World Series game. Wow, because there's nobody here,
I mean, nobody cared. Yeah, yeah, yeah, the guys are
coming off the field. We got sal Bando to come

(32:07):
on our fake pregame show before the World Series game started.
He walked over, he was a guest. We got him
for like two or three questions. He was fantastic. He
was a really nice guy. And then we said, well, okay,
and we'll be back with the startup game one after this,
and then we went upstairs and practice in the stands.

(32:28):
That's outstanding. That is a great story. So yeah, I
was there a little bit in those you know, it
started to turn over around the time I started, unfortunately,
so a lot of that stuff, of course, went away,
and I got away. A quick little note on the
sal Bando thing that game is, that is the famous
game when Reggie Jackson hit the fly ball to right

(32:51):
field where Joe Ferguson ran in front of Jimmy Winn
and made one of the greatest throws in the history
of the World Series to throw a guy out at
the plate. Do you remember seeing the video on that thing,
the toy cannon. So now we should point out here
touching greatness that you both you and we mentioned Paul,
you know, the Yankee guy, and he did play by.
Both you guys you did play by play. You've done

(33:13):
play by playing for college and minor league hockey and
a bunch of stuff over the years, and now you're
a network. So both you guys made it. And you
would hang out in what the upper decade Dodger Stadium
doing mock broadcast the very time at Dodger Stadium, we
were at the field level. We thought in the same
seats almost every night. We got to know the ushers

(33:34):
at the Forum and Dodger Stadium, and if nobody showed
up with a season seat or a regular seat, they
let us sit on the last role behind home plate
in section five one oh five, and we would sit
there and it would be um, it would be next too,
because we needed this next to an electric plug so
we didn't have to use our batteries because we couldn't

(33:56):
afford them. Set player so we could plug into the wall,
you know, which they use basically for the clean up crew.
Afterwards we used it. We said, hey, this is great.
We get to use Dodger Stadium electricity for our cassette recorders.
And that's we sat the same seat almost every night,
and the same seats at the Forum as well, because
in those days the games weren't sold out, so we

(34:16):
sat up high at the Forum, but again right by
the place where we could plug in, and it was
our office and people knew us up there. The regulars
up there used to turn off Chickern and Bob Miller
and listen to us to the play by play, and
we ate it up. It was a blast. Well, I
was going to ask you that day because I've heard
stories back in the old days at Dodger Stadium, in particular,
like Vin Scully. Everyone was listening to Vin call the game.

(34:38):
It was like you didn't have to have headphones on.
So when you were doing the play by play in
the back there were people receptive and were like, hey,
it's shut up, I want to hear what Vin has
to say. What do you do? Great question? And there
was always every once in a while you get somebody like, hey,
I paid my four dollars or whatever the hell it
was in those days to come to this game. But

(34:58):
almost everybody, I guess we sounded good enough. They enjoyed it,
and they could see that we were we were just
screwing around. I mean, we were trying to be as
as keen a broadcaster as possible and just learned after
game after game after game, and almost everybody was nice
to listen. A lot of them say yeah, soon as
we come, we turned the radio off. We just listened

(35:19):
to you guys, and they were having a blastom. By
the way, nobody was wearing headphones in those days. Headphones
didn't exist. Earplug. All right, well fine, you called me off.
So now another thing that I had like a light
ball moment here because you na chapter of hanging out
with Elgin Baylor and we both have a mutual friend

(35:41):
who passed away a few years ago, Dave Stone, who
worked at Fox Sports Radio, who I always I remember
we were at his service like to me. He was
the biggest Elgin Baylor fanatic I had ever. He knew
everything about He used to tell me Elgin was better
than Michael Jordan or Kobe Bryant or any of these guys,
and it made the ways true. But go ahead, But

(36:02):
I didn't see I didn't see eld I only knew
Elgin as the Clipper GM. So that's the problem. Yeah,
people didn't see him, so they're all dead. Now what
can I tell you? But you saw him, and you
you became friends with him, right you you knew him? Yeah,
I stopped him. You stopped Joe tom Ashuel. But I
got to hang out with Elgin for fifty years, and Joe,

(36:23):
you're still waiting for Joe to sign your damn book.
The best difference. When I went to Fairfax High I
moved into a neighborhood that I had had no idea
where I was playing B and C basketball in school,
And one of the guys my first year says, hey,
you moved into a neighbor where Elgin Baylor lives. Remember
he was playing at that time. This is nineteen sixty eight.

(36:46):
I'm losing track of this here, So he was still
the superstar. I mean, he was Michael Jordan before Michael
Jordan was a sperm. I always say, you know, I
mean it was, it was that simple. And uh so
when he got to the point where I realized, gee,
if Elgrin really lives here, I gotta find this guy.
And I used to hitchhike up the hill. It was.

(37:08):
It was a very steep hill above Sunset Boulevard, and
I didn't drive yet, so I had to hitchhike to
get home, and it was too long to walk. And
one day in the story, in the chapter del Reese,
the the late Great Dela Reese, the actress, singer, she
used to pick me up regularly and drive me half
the way home. She lived up that hill and she

(37:30):
was really nice to me. And one day she dropped
me off and I'm walking the rest of the way
home and look, I look over as cars are coming by,
and I could have sworn that's that's gotta be Elgrim Baylor.
I couldn't believe it. He was driving an old giant Buick,
a brown one, and and I'm staring at the car, thinking,
I gotta find this carp And that was my whole life.
The next several weeks where the hell is this car?

(37:51):
And I walked up the hill, uh, and sideways and
every which way I was running into rattlesnakes. I was
past houses, just trying to find and one day I
it was only two blocks away from me, but it
was a hidden cold de sac that he lived at
the end of the col de sac and uh, and
he had to continually walk up this this grueling hill
and there was a house with that car sitting right

(38:14):
there in the driveway. And I said, I just found gold.
This is the greatest thing. Okay, now, what the hell
do I do? What am I going to do? Knock
on the door and say, hey, I'm here, I'm your
new best friend. You know, it's great. I found his car.
Who cares? Right? Anyway, I did knock on the door
and Missus Baylor Ruby, his first wife, answered the door.

(38:34):
She was so nice, and she says, Teddy's he's taken
a nap right now. And remember during the season while
he was playing, So I said, is there any chance
he goes, you know what, come back tomorrow about the
same time. He should be. Everything should be great, you
can be. They were very neighboring. All right, Yeah, it
was great. So I came back the next day. I
was so excited, and I write in the book how

(38:56):
nervous I was that if I was if I was
my age, then I would have keeled over. It would
have been all over. I would add cardiac arrest with
him saying I can feel my heart pounding out of
my chest. I was so nervous. And then finally I
got up enough nerve to hit the door again, and
she answered to hold on one second. Elgin came over
and he looked down at me, and you know, I'm
about three feet tall at the time, and I'm not

(39:17):
that much taller now. And he looked down him me
and he goes, hi, I'm Elgin, and I'm looking at
him like no shit anyway. So it was fantastic, and
he invited me into his his He had this trophy
room where he had the MVP and all these Seattle
University and unbelievable trophies everywhere. And this was towards the

(39:41):
end of his career, but he was still playing, and
it was I was about to leave the house, so
I spent about fifteen minutes with him. He was really nice,
and Tommy Hawkins once told me the former Laker and
his one time roommate for a long time, said to me,
I'm surprised. Elgin's not usually like that, but I think
maybe his wife was a good influence on him in

(40:03):
that department. So he spent some quality time with me,
and then basically he said, hey, it was nice to
meet you, and now good luck to the rest of
your life. And as Missus Baylor was about to close
the door and I mean literally it was almost closed,
and saying thank you, it's nice to meet you and
you know, good luck, I turned around a light bulb

(40:24):
but off of my head Ben and I said to myself,
this can't be it. There's got to be more to this.
And I quickly turned around. Excuse me, Missus Baylor, would
it be possible for you guys to take me to
a game sometime? I don't drive yet He looked at
me like I was insane and didn't know what to say,
and she says, well, I don't know. I have to
ask Elsie, well, don't you come back another time and

(40:44):
we'll bring it up. And that's all. Oh, thank you,
And I walked away and I'm laughing running back down
the hill to my place. They can they just invited
me back. I'm on my way back, and I did,
and they did, and they took me. They started taking
me to games, and I used to hang out with
their kids at their house and shoot baskets in his backyard.
And the one time that Al and his son invited

(41:05):
me over, said let's shoot some baskets. Um Eldrim was
there practicing his free throws, and I thought I was
going to die anyway. It was just an incredible time.
And you can't do that anymore. You have to get
through the sixteen security guys with the machetes and the
machine guns and you know, all that stuff, get over
the moat and good luck. So yeah, imagine imagine a

(41:27):
kid today going up to Lebron because Lebron of his days.
Hey you go up to Lebron's house in bel Air. Hey, Lebron,
I want to hang out and see your trophies? Good luck? Yeah,
can you come up? Can you take me the games?
From now on? It's like now those days are over.
But that's it wasn't only amazing to me, but because
it's decades later and the world has changed so much,

(41:48):
I think it's it's sort of a time piece there
where I can say this is the way it used
to be, at least potentially. Not everybody went over to
eldrim Baker's house, I hope, But you know what I'm saying.
You know, you had that beach balls to do it
in the first place, and then it just worked out
so great. Well. And I remembered Tommy. He bought Tommy
Hawkins name up and he told, I love Tommy. He

(42:09):
told me his story one time when he was on
the Minneapolis Lakers when they came to LA and he said,
in the early days the Lakers. It's amazing to think
about this because I I'm surrounded by Laker here, historians
that love to brag about the Lakers in all this.
But when the Lakers moved from Minneapolis, basketball was not
very popular like pro basketball, and the Laker players, Tommy said,
would have to go out, but you know, the day

(42:31):
of games, they'd ride around in the back of trucks
or flatbed trucks and try to get people to come
to the game that night. I mean, that's that's insane
to think about now, considering how popular the Lakers were,
And and imagine if you had players today, Ted, if
you told again Lebron or these guys, can you go
out and promote the game that night so we can
sell some tickets before. I mean, it's insane to think about.

(42:54):
But they it's totally insane. I mean, as a matter
of fact, they would say, talk to the union. Get
I'll get back to it about twenty years when I'm
real hired. You know that not one person would do it,
and but you had to do it that. I mean,
remember these guys, a lot of them had jobs on
the side. This was not big money in those days,
so this was their seasonal job and then they go
back being a lifeguard in a car washer or something

(43:15):
after that, you know, until the next season. So it
was really a lot of amazing stuff in those days.
And I used to go to the sports Arena, not
your Clippers sports arena, but when the Lakers played there,
and it was a dump when it was new. I never,
how always thought the places that died that I was
there and was half full for a Lakers game. And
so yeah, it was just a different world people. Remember,

(43:39):
it wasn't the media wasn't what it is now, or
forget now, even thirty years ago, you couldn't there was
no important game of the week that was on all
the time. It was just so different. So of course
early on when they moved to LA, you had to
establish the fact that, hey, we got a professional basketball
team here, and you guys, if you don't read the

(44:01):
sports page, you're not going to know it exists. Yeah.
Why yeah, hawkeys to talk about that where they drive
up and down and it was also sometimes I think
was a convertible and they'd have their little megaphones out
and say, hey, where it's a seven thirty start tonight
at the sports arena. The New York Knickerbockers are in town.
And I love those stories. I think it's great because
it's it's it's impossible to imagine today, but it's the

(44:24):
way it was. Yeah, it's wild. So now you you're
a great storyteller, Ted, which is wonderful radio guy. No,
but we if somebody's still undecided Ted right now, listening
to this and this far into this podcast, I feel
sorry for them. But you've covered you've covered La obviously
mostly LA sports, but you worked in you were in
Wisconsin for a while at one point. You've traveled all

(44:47):
over the place. But why tell the guys sell the book, Ted,
Because I want to see this due. Well i'll tell
you why in a second. But Touching Greatness here, Uh,
somebody in Sheboygan or Punksitani or Springfield, like, why would
they want to read a book that's mostly about you know,
you know, Elgin Baylor in LA type sports. Why why
would they want to buy this book? Well, first of all,

(45:09):
it's not just LA. It happens to be my memoir
plus a lot of other stuff. But there is a
lot of people in Sheboygan, and not that I hang
out there, so I don't know for sure, but if
you're listening to this in Sheboygan, you're probably fascinated by
stuff that goes on in Los Angeles. That's why we
have too many damn people, because the second you come
here and visit, ten minutes later, you're living here. And

(45:31):
we got four billion people in one lane on the freeway.
This is part of the problem. Yeah, So remember I
used to live in Wisconsin, and there's there'll be a
future volume of Touching Greatness with some stuff about my
Wisconsin days. But there's also a football chapter right now
with a lot of Aaron Rodgers and Bart Star because
I grew up a Green Bay Packers fan, as a

(45:51):
little kid when they were great during the Vince Lombardi era.
So I talk about getting a chance to meet my idols,
and that's a lot of what this book is about.
It doesn't matter you're from la or from Mars. There's
a lot of I hopefully it'll be inspirational stuff, but
at the same time, just make you smile stuff, because
it's the kind of thing that the average person who

(46:12):
might be a sports fan walks down the street and
if they got a chance to meet Ted Williams or
Joe DiMaggio or anybody in between Colfax Drysdale from the
other era, or Kobe and Tiger Woods from this era,
you're gonna You're gonna love it. I mean this, it's
a moment you'll never forget. Well, I write about many, many,

(46:33):
many moments I never forgot in that vein, and it's
there's there's also music in here too. I talked about
being around There's a chapter called Laurel Canyon Days, and
I was there in the late sixties when I went
to Fairfax High School. I lived not far away from
Loyal Canyon. When it was the place it is, it
was the capital of music in the world. Everything was

(46:54):
based on a Laurel Canyon. You know, the Birds and
the Beach Boys and everybody were living there, and the
and the bands like the Eagles and all those guys
were formed there. And I have stories about I break
a couple of stories on how two of the songs
from the Eagles, New Kid in Town and Tequila Sunrise

(47:14):
were written by around the guy that is a former
LA King's player, Jean Carr. And Jean gave me an
exclusive story that's something he's never told anybody else before,
and he just thought he felt comfortable with me, and
it was great. He's a super guy and he told
me the history New Kid in Town was written about
him when he got traded to la from the New

(47:36):
York Rangers, and he and Glenn Fridy became extremely close friends.
Glenn fry the Eagles, who passed away a couple of
years ago, and Glenn Frye You probably ever seeing him.
He's always at Laker games and Kings games and stuff
like that. He was a season ticket holder. He's a
big sports fan, and I loved to play golf regularly.
So a lot of that stuff is in the book,

(47:58):
and it's unusual old stuff. I mean, you just don't
see this anywhere, and I just happened to live through it.
And again I've told people's stories forever about this and that,
but I go into literally there's a where were you
when JFK was shot? Well, I know where you were.
You didn't exist yet, right, A lot of people still

(48:18):
ask that question, who were around today? Where were you?
It's one of these It's one of the events of
all time, of course, negative or positive. And it got
to the point where, you know what, I remember that
moment like it was yesterday, and I thought it was
an interesting thing to recall. And I tied it in
around my favorite baseball player, Don Drysdale, who was just

(48:40):
a phenomenal guy and became just an icon around here
and the Drysdale Cofax hold out of the sixties and
how much that meant. So there's a lot more than
just because it's La. But I talk about Tiger Woods
and covering him at at the British Open at Saint
Andrew's and and uh and Kobe this first game and
he played his first I should say his first season

(49:02):
that he played, and his last game of his first
season was his air ball game when he shot four
air balls in the last few minutes, and he looked
like the worst player who ever lived. I just happened
to be in Utah that night because I was announcing
a minor league hockey game the night before and the
night after, so I got a credential to cover that
game and I was there. I ended up winning a
Golden Mic for the damn thing, and I talk about

(49:23):
that story. So look, there's just tons of stuff. It's
not just La It's mostly icons that I discussed, and
even Vegas the rat back era. I mean, even Ben
Maller knows of the rat back line. Yeah, they were
all ninety years old by the time you showed up.
That is true. I remember Sinatra occasionally going to a
Dodger game when I first started during the Luthornia era. Yeah, yeah, exactly.

(49:45):
But even to seen him a few times over there,
I did, right, I did. Yeah, it was why I
remember the last time I remember him showing up, there
was a rumor in the press box that he was
going to be there, and then like it was yeah
at that time, he was bigger than life by the
end of his career and stuff. But exactly, you exactly, exactly,
exactly couldn't sing like he used to. It all like us,

(50:07):
but he's Frank Sinatra, so don'body cared exactly. Uh, and
you I also love and this is how I consume
books dead. You know, I don't read too many books,
but I love the fun facts. And did you know,
because you know I I those are right in my wheelhouse,
little nuggets that you can, you know, kind of wrap
your mind around. One of them that stood out to

(50:27):
me in touching greatness. I did not know as my
mom was a huge Sandy Cofax fan used to regale
me with stories about Sandy coo Fax and all that.
But he he actually owned he owned a hotel in
that Laurel Canyon, uh, chapter of Santa Monica Boulevard, right
down the street from the Troubadour. He owned a little
kind of roots like roots sixty six hotel type thing
is that it was just it was literally like a

(50:50):
motel motor in kind of a place. It was a
sort of a cheap old place. But uh, for a while,
his name was not on it, and then it became
the Sandy Coats whatever it was, I can't remember anymore.
Something in it was only for a few years, maybe
five years or something like that. But that's where the
bands used to stay and party and do whatever the

(51:12):
hell they did back in the sixties. Who played at
the Troubadour and the Whiskey a Go Go. Someone were there,
including Jim Morrison was a regular. He used to stay
at that hotel all the time. And I have a
fun interview and they're a little quick Q and A
with Robbie Krieger, who was the guitar player for the Doors,
who was also a golfer, and I've known him for
a little bit for several years. He's a really good

(51:34):
guy and he loves talking about the old days. And
he gave me the answer. I said, did you guys
know the Sandy Kofax on this? And what would Jim
Morrison have said? And it's in the book. I mean,
when's the last time he read anything with Jim Morrison
and Sandy Kofax's name in the same damn sentence. It
ain't never gonna exist again, No, no, it's it's a
tremendous I really stuck with me as a fun factor.

(51:57):
He's sure to catch live editions of The Ben Maller Show.
Week said two am Eastern eleven PM Pacific. Hey, I'm
Doug Gotlieb. The podcast is called All Ball. We usually
talk all basketball all the time, but it's more about
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and all the interesting interactions along the way. We talked

(52:18):
to coaches, we talked to players, We tell you stories.
You download it, you listen to it. I think you
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(54:05):
We need this book to do well because I need
the second I need the second edition of Touching Greatness
because Ted, one of the cool things about knowing you,
you worked with one of my idols, one of my
inspirations to get into radio, Jim Heally, and you knew
him and you were around him. And it's not in
this book. But you've told me that if there is

(54:28):
a second book, that if this does want I believe
it will do well. Ted, You're going to write an
entire chapter about Jim healely, my radio hero. So I
can't written, by the way, so oh good, Okay. I
don't know if you got a chance to even glance
at it yet. Now I'm trying to get people to
buy the book, Ted, so I want you to get
the second book. So that's it, yes, exactly. But I

(54:50):
did write it already, and maybe it's I set you
the unedited version. If you haven't listened to Jim Heally
and you're too young, or you just didn't know of him,
or you certainly if you're not from La there's a
good chance you've ever heard of him. There's stuff online
and I'm sure that you could pass people, send them
to links and whatever. Listen to these shows. There's a

(55:13):
million stuff out there. He was unbelievable, he was. But
I started when he started, when I was in college
in nineteen seventy three is when he started doing his
stick on the air. That way, and Paul Olden the
following several months after that worked at KLAC in LA

(55:34):
in the news department there while he was still going
to college. It was like they found an opening there
and it wasn't just an internship, it was actual job
in the news department. And he started getting this sound
off the newsreels for Healy to use, and he started
using them. And one of the early things was there

(55:56):
was a there was a sound effect album, one of many, many,
many volumes, where there was a sound effect of a
man falling down the stairs. You can hear them hitting
the stairs, each stair and every time he hit him
all right up up. Do you remember that at all? So, yeah,
he would use that when like let's say, for example,

(56:17):
in those days, let's say Alie punched out Joe Frazier
and he went down, and he would play that sound
effect as a guy's fallen down and getting the crap
beat out of him. Well, that sound effect came from
me because I heard that when I was a kid
on the Dave Hole Show. Was my radio Idyl as
a non sports radio ATOL, one of the great DJs

(56:38):
in the history of La the Hullabalour, and Dave used
to play that all the time. So when I got
into radio, and I forget professionally, when I got into
the radio department at La City College. I looked everywhere
for that sound effect. I couldn't find it. And we
finally went to a library one where where they had
old albums of sound effects, and I went to dozens

(57:01):
of them, and I finally found it. And I didn't
know that it was labeled as man Falling Downstairs. That
was the title of it. I mean, at last, like
four seconds, and we're not talking about a whole album here.
And so I found it and I said, Paul, I said,
you got to give this to Healy. I know he
can use it a million times. The next night it

(57:21):
was on the air and he used it for the
next twenty years. So that was my first contribution to
his show. And then I did a thing where when
Walt Alston was the manager of the Dodgers, we used
to be sitting in the stands doing our practice play
by play, and there was one game where I was
just fed up. Alston was almost literally falling asleep in
the dugout. I mean it was just you could see

(57:43):
his head like nodding off. It was embarrassing, and we
had good seat, so I was close enough to tell
and I think he was half asleep when he left.
Whoever was in the game at the time, these guys
getting bombed, and we're saying what they we're doing our
practice play by played, What is he doing you? How
do you not have any believer? Bring him in off
the bus? Stop anybody right now getting his ass kick?

(58:05):
And finally he brought somebody in and Allston's walking out
to the mound after way too many runs were scored,
and I stood up and I yelled, You're stupid Allston.
And because where we were, the whole the hall was
right behind us at the stadium, it was this incredible
like an echoing sound. And we would listen to our

(58:26):
broadcast every night on the cassette tape, and Paul listened
back and he goes, wow, I shut up. Just happened
to be you yelled, you're stupid Alston. That came out
so good. I'm giving that to Healey and Jim used
that for years seven time at Dodgers screwed up, you're
a stupid Alston, and he would and that would be me,
although my name wasn't on it. He called it. He
called the voice of that man, the irate fan. And

(58:51):
now the irate fan is all over Allston again that
night Boom, You're a stupid Allston And that was the
start of a lot of other stuff. We were totally
involved in that show. That's awesome. And yeah, Jim, here
there's a bunch of Jim Healey clips on YouTube. There's
actually if you google the right words, there's a Jim
Jim Healy. There's a web page that still exists that

(59:12):
has a lot of his old sounds, right. Yeah. You
know when Kirk Gibson at the big home run in
eighty eight and then the following year, I remember that
was the last at bat that he had for many
many months because he went and he had surgery on
his I think it was his knee at the time,
and when he came back the following season, I was

(59:32):
there that night working for the Dodgers audio wire. You
might remember the name Jimmy Pell's You know him, right, Yeah? Yeah,
I did, Yeah, absolutely so. Jimmy ran the Dodger audio
wire and I used to fill in for him a
lot whenever he just needed an extra body or he
was on vacation. And that night happened to be the
night that Kirk Gibson made his comeback. First game since

(59:52):
the eighty eight home run. It's an eighty nine. Of course,
it's like around I don't know, mid season or something.
He missed a lot of the early part of the
season in eighty nine, so he came back and he
didn't do that much and the Dodgers lost, so it
wasn't a big deal. But the story was he's back,
So I've besides the fact I'm working for whoever I
was working for, maybe ap or up, I getting my

(01:00:15):
twelve second sound bites, I needed something for the Dodger
audio wire. So we waited and waited for him. He
finally showed up. Never forget he had the big, giant
white towel wrapped around him, and he's just the typical
pissed off Kirk Gibs and he was possible to deal with.
He was a total jerk to most of us on
a regular basis. I know he's a lot of people's
idols and hero but if you had to deal with him,

(01:00:38):
he would be off that list pretty quick anyway. So
I got to the point where we were waiting for
him to give us a five seconds, so we just
get a couple of questions. So one of my questions
was Hey, I just spoke to Kenny Howell, who was
a former Dodger pitcher who's pitching for the Phillies that night.
And I said, because I ran in there first, got

(01:00:58):
Howell sound and he's so that I didn't have my
best stuff blah blah blah, but you know, figured out
a way to win that kind of junk. So I
came back in there and I said, I just spoke
to Kenny Allen. He said, didn't have his best stuff,
and he went all over He starts cussing me out.
It's a rant that ended up on Jim Healy Show,
and it was there weren't a lot of f bombs

(01:01:19):
or anything, but there are a couple of little ones,
but it was his attitude. It was like, gee, what
it's great to have you back. You haven't played since
the big home running. The total jerked everybody and Healy
was all over him. Yeah, and that thing is posted
online somewhere. You can find that and you can hear
me answer the question, it's not again, not as famous.
Is what's your opinion a Kingma's performance? And it's not

(01:01:39):
about being famous, And basically, Healy said, the guy's working
for the Dodger Audio Wire and he's still ripping it.
That's outstanding. Well, yeah, we got we gotta have this
up there. But the book Touching Great is where can
people find it everywhere? Or is this available all over
the place? Do you want to direct people to a
certain website or just direct people to Amazon. That's the

(01:02:01):
easiest place. It's also on Coach's Choice and that's plural coaches,
coah e S Choice. That's the publisher, and you get
it directly from them. But it's on Amazon right now.
It is not in bookstores yet. It's very new. Not
sure when it will be because that's a whole political
thing on how to get your book from a smaller
publisher into the bookstore. So it may or may not

(01:02:22):
ever get into any of the big bookstores. Well that's
all to be determined. But just go to Amazon, Touchy
Great instep sobel it's right there, and I hope you
and check it out for whatever reason. If you're into sports,
if you're into music, if you're just into the history
of southern California the way it was in the sixties.
I go back and talk about growing up in Culver
City with restaurants, the way it was my favorite food.

(01:02:45):
Then MGM Studios and how it used to be, and
I used to sneak in there, and my favorite shows
like Superman and the Andy Griffith Show and all that stuff.
We're all recorded down the street from where I live,
and we tried to sneak into the studios and it
was just a lot of fun stories like that. No,
it's a great book, Ted, Thank you so much. We'll
hang out at some point again. I appreciate I'll see

(01:03:06):
it a game or something. Thank you, you got it.
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