January 17, 2026 • 29 mins
Ben Maller (produced by Danny G.) has a great Saturday podcast for you! There's old guy grocery drama & a modern medical marvel in Dallas!
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Kutbooms.
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 sol fashion of fairness. He
treats crackheads in the ghetto gutter the same as the
rich pill poppers in the penthouse. Wow to Clearinghouse of
hot takes, break free for something special. The Fifth Hour
(00:23):
with Ben Maller starts right now in the air everywhere.
Speaker 1 (00:31):
The Fifth Hour with Me, Ben Mahler and Danny g Radio.
I Happy Saturday to you, the seventeenth day of January,
and it is odd like Donkey Kong. There is still
time if you're listening early today to catch Benny Versus
the Penny the Saturday edition before kickoff from the Mile
(00:52):
High City the Broncos and the Buffalo Bills later today
and then tonight in Seattle the Seahawks and the forty
nine Ers. We have the Saturday episode of Benny Versus
the Penny for both those games on YouTube Benny Vspenny.
And if you miss that because you listen to this
podcast later, then you can go back and watch the
(01:13):
Sunday edition of Benny Versus the Penny for the games
involving the Rims and the Chicago Bears, and the Patriots
and the Texans. On this podcast today we have the
courtesy catastrophe, modern medical marvel, and some other things as
well mixed in, but we're gonna start with this. So
(01:35):
the price of a polite nod, it's really what this
is the price of a polite nod. So let me
take you behind the microphone for a minute, as we
like to do on the Saturday podcast here in behind
the scenes the life of Malor into the day to
day the Malar underground, if you will need some notes,
(01:55):
as I live my life as a pack mule out
in the north Woods. So when you're married, and I
say this with the utmost terrified respect of someone that
knows where my bread is buttered, you take on certain roles.
Think of this like the I think about like the
division of labor. It's like a maritime strategy to keep
(02:20):
the mallard dinghy from hitting an iceberg. So my role
in this, I'm like a Swiss army knife of this operation.
I get the large blade, you get the little small blade,
the tweezers, the toothpick of course, really big corkscrew, really
big corkscrew, a jack of all trades, a master of none,
which is really a polite way of saying, I'm the
(02:42):
guy who gets to shred the cheese. I'm the tree shredder.
That's one of my jobs. And you've heard the line
the butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker. Well I'm the baker,
the cook, the dishwasher, and the primary grocery shopper. So
I get to cook as a line cook, and then
I get to also buy my own groceries. So I'm
(03:04):
not complaining. By the way, this is not a complaint.
Of course, you would argue that I'm always complaining. You
might on the radio show. So all I do is
I did this marginal overnight talk show, and I am
somewhat busy during the week and preparing monologues. You have
to entertain people like blind Scott and hollering James and
Jed who fled and whatnot. So I have a schedule.
(03:26):
I have a schedule, somewhat loose schedule during the day.
So the other other day I head over to the
sticker shock superstores I like to call it, because every
time I go in there, the prices go up, up
and away. And now I have a short I do
not really a list. A big board, you know Terry
in England, I do not do list. So it's a
big board. It's Benny's big board. I needed three things
(03:49):
on my big board. Three that's it. Quick trip, ground, beef, bell, pepper,
and onion. That was what I needed to get. This
is a surgical strike. When I say surgical, like a
ninja rat tat tat in and out, commando style. Unfortunately,
the universe decided that yours truly needed a refresher course
(04:12):
on the old adage no good deed goes unpunished. So
I'm gonna give you the internal dialogue that was going
on in my head as I was making this quick
quick trip to the store to get a few items.
So I'm navigating the obstacle course the local five and dime,
(04:32):
heading to the finish line, and when I cross paths
with this older gentleman, Now I'm getting old. I guess
this guy was much older than I was, and we
were converging and it was gonna be a bottleneck situation
or going to the same location to the checkout counter. Now,
I was raised right by Mama Malar at least I
(04:54):
believe I was raised. Right, you'll have to be the
judge of that. But Mama Mallard taught me, and I
have muscle memory, and my brain said, all right, listen,
respect your elders, Benjamin, come on, respect your elders. Give
him the right away. Now, I did play peekaboo, I did.
I looked at this.
Speaker 3 (05:11):
Dude's basket and he had leafy greens, and I was like, oh, dude,
there might have been some kaling there, some spinach.
Speaker 1 (05:20):
It was a light load. There wasn't much there. So
I figured, listen, how much damage can this old guy
do with a salad bowl in his little handbasket thing
he's got. So I gave him the knod. I gave
this guy the nod. And then I realized shortly after
the price of that nod, right, the price of that nod.
(05:42):
It was a gesture for him to go ahead, now, listen,
I'm not sitting here taking a bow. I'm not a
prince among men. It was the right thing to do,
and at this moment, right in front of me, to
my dismay, the metamorphosis took place. And immediately this guy,
now he was not moving fast anyway, but the grandpad
juice kicked in the grandpad Juice kicked in. This guy
(06:05):
didn't just slow down. Let me tell you, he went
into a medically induced comb I thought that he was
a koala in a eucalyptus tree as well. He starts
that old guy wattle. Do we know when that starts?
Do I have that to look forward to? If I
live long enough, I'll get the old guy wattle. Back
(06:25):
in the day, when I was around the Dodgers a lot,
there a guy named Tommy Lasorda, and Tommy he had
both his knees replaced and his hips replaced, and it
was like a terminator, and he had the old guy wattle.
You know what I'm talking about, that rhythmic side decide
shuffle that It's like you're walking through waist deep molasses.
(06:45):
And suddenly my three item quick trip to the grocery
store is looking like a bumpy bumpy bumpy ride. And
then I went through these seven stages of grocery grief,
as I call it. I had full regret. And so
I I get to the checkout stand. He's in front
of me, this guy, and everything disintegrates. Number one, we
(07:09):
had the audio malfunction. So this poor Chap's hearing aid
decided to go on vacation, and the cashier, this woman,
she's shouting the price like five times. She rang everything
up and she had to shout the price five times.
I could have shouted it from the parking lot. And
(07:30):
so then the second thing was the wallet Safari. So
this fine gentleman starts looking for his wallet. Now generally speaking,
there's only two places the wallet could be the right
pocket or the left pocket. He's patting himself down like
he's at TSA. He's getting frisked at the airport, so
this is not good. Finally, he slowly finds the wallet.
(07:54):
And really that's the third part of this the seven
stages of grocery grief. Because you had the slow motion
REPLA thought. I was watching one of the NFL games
and we went to a booth review, but not an
expedite at booth review. So finally he finds the wallet.
He opens it up and again, as I was watching
an NFL replay under the hood and it was at
(08:16):
one one hundred speed, I'm waiting for the referee to
come out and overturn the call. I'm waiting for the referee.
I was like, maybe I should call JT. The wingman.
He can come and pick this guy up and give
him a ride somewhere because this is not going well. Now.
The fourth part of this the cash factor. So this
gentleman in twenty twenty six decided to pay with cash.
(08:37):
Of course he does.
Speaker 3 (08:38):
Credit cards are the devil's plastic, right, why would you
do that? So he decided to pay with the cause,
which normally would not be a problem.
Speaker 1 (08:45):
Normally wouldn't have to be a problem because it's okay,
you can pay with cash if you're quick, right, chat that.
So then the guy the fifth part of this is
the change futs around. So the cash here gives him
his change. There's some coins or whatever. Now most people
would just take that change and put it in their
(09:06):
pocket and move on, but not my old friend. No, no, no,
this gentleman, he had to methodically categorize every dime, every penny.
And I'm like, oh, so that was that was a pain.
And then the sixth thing was the logjam. So behind me,
and remember we got to the checkout stand. It was
(09:27):
just two of us. So this guy's taking so long
behind us. The line is growing. It's like a small mob.
It was the only checkout stand open. People are looking
at me like I'm the one holding things up. I'm like, dude,
just leave me alone, all right. Then it gets even better,
because then we have bagging. That's another ordeal. The cosmos
(09:49):
flips another page in its stone bound Sokka while this
gentleman tries to put the stuff in the bag the
seventh part. By the time the cashier starts scanning my item,
now keep in mind the guy's still standing there. I'm
a vibrating fireball. I quickly tap tap tap the credit
card little reader box thing. I hit it. Sorry, i
(10:13):
think I've broken the little plastic and I'm ready to bowl. However, again,
my friend, this older guy, the old geezer guy, is
still there, hovering over his kale, the leafy greens at
his snail's gallop. And I couldn't take anywhere. I went
Popeye the sailor man. That's all I can stand, and
(10:34):
I can't stands no more. So I tossed them aside.
And I didn't toss them aside. I channeled the Minister
of Defense, Reggie White. I went full Reggie White. I
used the hump move. You remember the hump move when
he was playing for the Green Bay Packers and the
Eagles back in the day. If you're old Reggie White,
great defensive player, It's a quick, powerful lateral shift, and
(10:55):
I was able to circumvent kind of a mix of
the swim move, and I exited the the store before
I lost with left of my mind. Now, Keemon, I
am somewhat of a nice guy. I'm not mister a
nice guy who used to contribute to show. I know
what happened to him for now at this moment, I
(11:16):
learned a life lesson. Again. If I am in the
same situation I see a nice guy, a older guy
with leafy greens and a hearing aid, or an older
woman in the same situation, I'm taking the hit. I'm
cutting the person off. I'm sorry, Grandpa or grandma the baboushka.
(11:37):
I got cheese to shred, I got things to do.
I'm out.
Speaker 3 (11:42):
I am out, skis see you later, Bye bye.
Speaker 1 (11:46):
That's how that's going now, turning the page. I planned
on talking about this on the previous edition of The
Fifth Hour, and then I got carried away on some
other stuff, so I didn't get to it. It's truly
one of my favorite stories of the week, and I
didn't have time to get to it on the radio show.
And the reason I did not have time to get
(12:07):
to it on the radio show is because something always
seemed to pop up in the NFL or Major League Baseball.
And just like yesterday on the podcast, we talked about
the college basketball scandal, the point shaving scan. Reason we
talked about that is because the Tucker's signing with the
(12:27):
Dodgers happened kind of late. The show was mostly put
to bed by then, and so we had to we
had to edit some stuff out and chop some things
away and all that, and so we did that and
then that was that, and so we didn't have time
to get to this particular story. It is amazing, though,
it is absolutely amazing. It's a basketball story, but it's
(12:49):
not really a basketball story. It's more of a medical story.
You feel me on that. It is more of a
medical story than it is a story. Worry about basketball,
all right, So when I say modern medical marvel, that
is not a compliment, that is a diagnosis. It's doctor Mahlor.
(13:12):
Doctor Mahlor is in the building, in the building here,
and so that's what we're gonna call this because at
this point, Anthony Davis is not a basketball player. We're
talking about AD. He is a roaming anatomy lesson with
multiple max contracts, multiple max contracts. He just just an
(13:37):
amazing accomplishment the amount of money that he's being able
to make. So the phrase day to day has shadowed
this man for so long it ought to be stitched
onto the back of his jerseys like an advertising patch.
Speaker 3 (13:49):
Not Davis, not AD, just day to day, day to day.
Speaker 1 (13:54):
And Charles Barkley, I believe, gave him the nickname street Clothes,
which is not trash talking. It is not trash talking.
That is branding. Okay, that is absolute branding is what
that is. It's so appropriate. So buckle up, buccaroo. Because
the Internet did what the Internet does best. It got
(14:15):
really really bored and started doing some math. Not malor math,
their math. It started counting. And the results sound for gayzy.
They sound ridiculous. It sounds fake, It sounds made up.
Is it true? Across his long NBA career, Anthony Davis
(14:36):
has suffered how many injured You want to take a guess,
did you see this? You did not see this? Okay, good,
so take a guess. I didn't even know who Anthony
Davis is. I'm just listening because I need something going
on the background. Okay, take a breath, all right. So
again the question is how many injuries? This is the
(14:57):
most injury prone player in basketball Anthony Davis in his career.
And let me let me go and let me see
when did he start playing? Let me see this. So
Anthony Davis, remember but Kentucky back in the day. He
started his NBA career as the number one overall pick
(15:20):
in the NBA draft the unibrow. That was the twenty
twelve NBA Draft. So it's been almost fourteen years. Almost
fourteen years, Anthony Davis has suffered, according to Internet Sluice two,
one hundred and ninety six injuries. He has had injuries
that have spanned fifty one unique body parts fifty one.
(15:44):
That is not an injury history, that is a medical syllabus.
As he came into the NBA with the New Orleans Hornets,
they changed their name to the Pelicans. Then he was
given to the Lakers, who then gave him to Dallas.
He is currently Anthony Davis thirty two years old. He
turns thirty three in March. So we have a little
(16:07):
bit of time before that, and I wanted to highlight
this story because it is a humdinger. It is. They
don't even call him Anthony Davis anymore. No, no, no,
he's like the freak of nature or something like that.
It is wild, absolutely wild, what this guy has had
(16:28):
so the inventory on this and I'll give you I
don't know I have time to give you everything. It's
only a half an hour podcast. My god, imagine, if
you will, a doctor flipping through charts like he's shuffling
a deck of cards. He's had fifty five foot injuries,
fifty five twenty four ankle injuries, twenty achilles injuries, twenty
(16:54):
back injuries, the abductor, the knee, the calf, the shoulder,
the thumb, the wrist, the growing, the yel, the eye,
the finger, the rib, the glute. I mean, my god,
both sides, by the way, both sides of his tuckas
he's injured his tuckas his badonka donk. He's missed games
with random illnesses. I mean, I can't even some of
(17:16):
these things, I don't even know what they are. I
believe I have them, I don't know what they are.
So this thing, it's like a medical textbook. It's not
one weak areas. It's not like, well, I just got
a bad knee or my back, or it's all my
ache and back, my knee, my back, my back, my knee. No, no, no,
it's everything everywhere, all at once. And Anthony Davis is
(17:38):
a human version of a Jenga tower where every block
is loose, and you touch him, something slices that you
breathe on him wrong, and all of a sudden he
needs to go to the medical room for evaluation. He
has strained things again, people most people don't even know
could be strained. And at this point, if Anthony Davis
(18:02):
sneezes too hard, someone yells time out, time out, time out.
The trainers come sprinting out like their airport firefighters to
try to take care of Anthony Davis. You gotta take
care of this guy, you gotta you gotta take care
of him. And uh, I mean, was it a baseball
was it Sammy Sosa? There have been a few baseball
players over.
Speaker 3 (18:21):
The years that have been injured by sneezing, which is
always so embarrassing.
Speaker 1 (18:25):
So embarrassing. Anyway, here's the thing. All of these Anthony
Davis basketball injuries sound exaggerated until you see, until you
see everything waied out and it just keeps going and
going and going and going like the Energizer bunny. Uh
And it's just insane. It's not a career resumes, it's
a web md commercial and it's got a sneaker deal.
(18:49):
This has to be has to be the most unbreakable
record in NBA history. Not points, not reb not injuries
like day to day injuries. I'm talking about lifetime injuries
is what I'm talking about. Nobody is catting because guys
get hurt randomly. That's what I'm trying to say.
Speaker 3 (19:12):
But Anthony Davis, his body of work, it is the
Mona Lisa of injury, it really is. It's the Mona
Lisa of injury. Nobody is going to catch this.
Speaker 1 (19:25):
You'd have to actively try, and even if you were trying,
even if you know, even if you were doing that,
you wouldn't be able to go there. You would you'd
need to slip on the banana peel during warm ups,
fall down a ten flight of stair thing of a jig,
you know, right into the team bus, then get run
over by the team bus and then you get up,
(19:49):
you sit down and you're tying your shoes and you
pull a hamstring tying your shoes, and you have to
do all of that in the span of a couple
of hours.
Speaker 3 (19:56):
And then there's Dallas, Oh, Dallas.
Speaker 1 (20:01):
The mav Rex, the mav Rex, And of course this
was a orchestrated trade. They took Anthony Davis for Luka Doncic.
We think there was more to that story, much more
to that story that will come out over time. But
the Mavericks have experienced the full Anthony Davis package at
warp speed since arriving deep in the heart of Texas.
(20:25):
Anthony Davis has suffered are you ready for this? Eighteen
injuries in less than a year. He's missed forty two games.
He's played twenty nine for the MAVs in Dallas. That
is not load management, That is load avoidance is what
is what that is the groin, the abductor flares up,
the CAF issue, the achilles, you name it. And the
(20:48):
grand finale, a ligament injury to his left hand, which
is currently going on right now, which could that's always
a word, could sideline Anthony Davis for ones for months.
At this point, the Mavericks training staff is not taping ankles,
they're lighting candles and saying prayers. They're bringing in clergy
(21:11):
to try to figure this out. There's a lot going
on so Dallas, I guess they thought they were getting
a grand piano. I have to go with check in
on the old Mavericks GM there, see what he's up to.
But they thought they were get this grand piano, and
it turns out that half the keys are missing and
(21:31):
the bench collapses if you sit too hard. So it's
not about toughness. This is about physics. It's about biology.
The thing of a jig has a glitch in it.
You can't fix the what you might call it. It's
a bit of a problem. So this is the human
body that is just wired differently. There's a I remember
talking to a coach years ago, football coach about this,
(21:53):
and that's how some guys are always in the trainer's
room and other guys aren't. You know, some guys have
they're just wired where they're tough. And I think it's
a combination of that and also how you were how
you were raised. You know, some people were raised to
rub some dirt on it and get back out there
and do your thing, and then there's other people that
(22:14):
if you have a boo boo, you better sit out
and rest your booboo. You've got to rest your booboo.
And so I think that's part of it, I really do.
I mean, the biology is obviously something, but how many
of these injuries could Anthony Davis have actually played through right,
like a tougher person would have been able to play?
(22:34):
And then but his issue is the do hickey just
doesn't really really work and his body refuses to cooperate
with the basketball schedule. Anthony Davis ady does not just
break down. He decomposes again. Is wild? I keep going
back to modern medical marvel. Doctors should study him. Medical
(22:56):
students ought to rotate through the injury log. It's a syllabus.
Week one, foot, week two, other foot week three, ankle
week four, achilles tweak in the final exam everything. He
(23:18):
is a real life humpty dumpty humpy dumpty and you
know the rhyme we all grew up with it. Let
me update it for the NBA. Anthony Davis sat on
a wall. Anthony Davis had a great fall. All the
NBA's doctors and all the NBA's trainers couldn't put the
unibrow together again. I didn't really rhyme anyway. When availability
(23:40):
is the best ability Anthony Davis, think of him like
the abstract art exhibit of the NBA when he plays
brilliant when you see it, impossible to rely on and
always closed for maintenance. Now we do not doubt the talent.
We do not doubt the talent. Regardless. The universe is
(24:00):
not injury prone anymore. No, no, no, no, he is injury certified.
He is. At this point, Anthony Davis should be sponsored
by ice packs, pharmacy, great ibuprofen, MRIs and the words
day to day whispered softly into the night. All right. Now,
(24:21):
I was thinking, since I've seen these commercials for dose Eqes,
the beer with the most interesting man in the world,
I guess they brought that back. I've seen it watching
my sports Hunt at night, and so I don't know
a lot about it. I love those commercials back in
the day. So I thought, since this is a podcast
and we can have some fun, and not that we
(24:42):
don't have fun on the radio, I thought we kind
of futz around a little bit with this, and I
was inspired by watching those commercials for the beer and
then Anthony Davis, and I said, let's bring these two
worlds together. So I want to workshop this and see
if I can can give you a Anthony Davis voiced over.
(25:02):
I'll be the big voice guy. I'll be the big
voice guy for Anthony Davis, a very deep, dramatic, serious,
something that doesn't need to be serious here because we're
talking about sports. What do you do? It's sports, dummy?
What's wrong with you? All right? So here we go again.
This is the Anthony Davis. If you were making a
(25:24):
dose ECAs commercial for Anthony Davis of the Dallas Mavericks,
here's how it would go. Go everyone quiet on set.
We'll take it from the top three, two and one.
Speaker 3 (25:37):
He's not the healthiest man in the world, but when
injuries happen, they happened to him. Anthony Davis has suffered
two hundred and ninety six injuries spanning fifty one body parts,
including some doctors didn't even know existed. His medical chart
(25:57):
has its own table of contents. MRIs line up to
meet him, X ray machines, pre stretch when he falls down,
the arena gasps, and the trainer's sprint. His unibrow is
in facial hair.
Speaker 1 (26:16):
It's a warning label.
Speaker 3 (26:19):
He wants day to aid so hard. The calendar filled
a restraining order. I think I meant to say, file
the restraining order.
Speaker 1 (26:30):
Teammates stretch before warmups. He stretches the definition of questionable.
He can dominate a game for three quarters and dominate
the injury report in the fourth.
Speaker 3 (26:43):
He is the most injured man in the world.
Speaker 1 (26:49):
Stay injured, my friends. All right, screwed that up. But
you got the gist of it, right, You got the
gist of it. Yeah, okay, all right, there you go.
Why not? All right? Oh man? All right, well very good.
I did see there were a bunch of baseball signings yesterday,
(27:11):
and I was debating whether to do a malad monologue
about that. And I don't know, do I want to
do a deep dive on Boba Schett going to the Mets.
I do like that. The Mets snuck in there because
they didn't get Kyle Tucker, so they had to get somebody.
So they just threw a bunch of money at Boba Schett.
And then j t Ria Muto, who's supposed to leave
the Phillies. He agreed to a deal with the Phillies,
(27:31):
so I love all that stuff. Well, I think it's
hilarious the amount of money that's going around in Major
League Baseball every off season, and it doesn't matter. It's
just wild. And I got a bunch of angry emails
from people were like, oh, you know it always is.
I like your show, but as we know, the word
(27:53):
butt means everything you say before the word butt is
bull crap, and so getting messages I did not like
your rant about the Dodgers. You're a fanboy, you know
that whole thing. Well, no, I mean I'm not. I
like the Dodgers. I do. I wouldn't classic myself as
a fanboy. There are Dodger people still upset with me
that I absolutely slayed. I took a guillotine to Clayton
(28:15):
Kershaw and some of the Dodger nation. They are not happy,
not happy. And you know, let's say, by the way,
the Dodgers, there's a chance they still trade ti Oscar Hernandez.
I don't want to get too much into baseball here
at this point in the podcast, but they're not done
shifting things around, and they like to have they like
(28:37):
to have options. I know Andrew Freeman in some spots
they have a lot of one hundred million dollars play
eight hundred million dollar plus players, so there's not many
too many players or too many spots left where they
can rotate utility guys. Anyway, we'll get out on that.
Have a wonderful day today, Enjoy the NFL Playoffs. Two
games today, two tomorrow. Don't forget Benny Versus the Penny,
(28:58):
Benny Vspenny on YouTube. You can enjoy that. And whatever
you do is have a wonderful, wonderful day and we'll
chat with you tomorrow. Viopulation
Kutbooms.
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 sol fashion of fairness. He
treats crackheads in the ghetto gutter the same as the
rich pill poppers in the penthouse. Wow to Clearinghouse of
hot takes, break free for something special. The Fifth Hour
(00:23):
with Ben Maller starts right now in the air everywhere.
Speaker 1 (00:31):
The Fifth Hour with Me, Ben Mahler and Danny g Radio.
I Happy Saturday to you, the seventeenth day of January,
and it is odd like Donkey Kong. There is still
time if you're listening early today to catch Benny Versus
the Penny the Saturday edition before kickoff from the Mile
(00:52):
High City the Broncos and the Buffalo Bills later today
and then tonight in Seattle the Seahawks and the forty
nine Ers. We have the Saturday episode of Benny Versus
the Penny for both those games on YouTube Benny Vspenny.
And if you miss that because you listen to this
podcast later, then you can go back and watch the
(01:13):
Sunday edition of Benny Versus the Penny for the games
involving the Rims and the Chicago Bears, and the Patriots
and the Texans. On this podcast today we have the
courtesy catastrophe, modern medical marvel, and some other things as
well mixed in, but we're gonna start with this. So
(01:35):
the price of a polite nod, it's really what this
is the price of a polite nod. So let me
take you behind the microphone for a minute, as we
like to do on the Saturday podcast here in behind
the scenes the life of Malor into the day to
day the Malar underground, if you will need some notes,
(01:55):
as I live my life as a pack mule out
in the north Woods. So when you're married, and I
say this with the utmost terrified respect of someone that
knows where my bread is buttered, you take on certain roles.
Think of this like the I think about like the
division of labor. It's like a maritime strategy to keep
(02:20):
the mallard dinghy from hitting an iceberg. So my role
in this, I'm like a Swiss army knife of this operation.
I get the large blade, you get the little small blade,
the tweezers, the toothpick of course, really big corkscrew, really
big corkscrew, a jack of all trades, a master of none,
which is really a polite way of saying, I'm the
(02:42):
guy who gets to shred the cheese. I'm the tree shredder.
That's one of my jobs. And you've heard the line
the butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker. Well I'm the baker,
the cook, the dishwasher, and the primary grocery shopper. So
I get to cook as a line cook, and then
I get to also buy my own groceries. So I'm
(03:04):
not complaining. By the way, this is not a complaint.
Of course, you would argue that I'm always complaining. You
might on the radio show. So all I do is
I did this marginal overnight talk show, and I am
somewhat busy during the week and preparing monologues. You have
to entertain people like blind Scott and hollering James and
Jed who fled and whatnot. So I have a schedule.
(03:26):
I have a schedule, somewhat loose schedule during the day.
So the other other day I head over to the
sticker shock superstores I like to call it, because every
time I go in there, the prices go up, up
and away. And now I have a short I do
not really a list. A big board, you know Terry
in England, I do not do list. So it's a
big board. It's Benny's big board. I needed three things
(03:49):
on my big board. Three that's it. Quick trip, ground, beef, bell, pepper,
and onion. That was what I needed to get. This
is a surgical strike. When I say surgical, like a
ninja rat tat tat in and out, commando style. Unfortunately,
the universe decided that yours truly needed a refresher course
(04:12):
on the old adage no good deed goes unpunished. So
I'm gonna give you the internal dialogue that was going
on in my head as I was making this quick
quick trip to the store to get a few items.
So I'm navigating the obstacle course the local five and dime,
(04:32):
heading to the finish line, and when I cross paths
with this older gentleman, Now I'm getting old. I guess
this guy was much older than I was, and we
were converging and it was gonna be a bottleneck situation
or going to the same location to the checkout counter. Now,
I was raised right by Mama Malar at least I
(04:54):
believe I was raised. Right, you'll have to be the
judge of that. But Mama Mallard taught me, and I
have muscle memory, and my brain said, all right, listen,
respect your elders, Benjamin, come on, respect your elders. Give
him the right away. Now, I did play peekaboo, I did.
I looked at this.
Speaker 3 (05:11):
Dude's basket and he had leafy greens, and I was like, oh, dude,
there might have been some kaling there, some spinach.
Speaker 1 (05:20):
It was a light load. There wasn't much there. So
I figured, listen, how much damage can this old guy
do with a salad bowl in his little handbasket thing
he's got. So I gave him the knod. I gave
this guy the nod. And then I realized shortly after
the price of that nod, right, the price of that nod.
(05:42):
It was a gesture for him to go ahead, now, listen,
I'm not sitting here taking a bow. I'm not a
prince among men. It was the right thing to do,
and at this moment, right in front of me, to
my dismay, the metamorphosis took place. And immediately this guy,
now he was not moving fast anyway, but the grandpad
juice kicked in the grandpad Juice kicked in. This guy
(06:05):
didn't just slow down. Let me tell you, he went
into a medically induced comb I thought that he was
a koala in a eucalyptus tree as well. He starts
that old guy wattle. Do we know when that starts?
Do I have that to look forward to? If I
live long enough, I'll get the old guy wattle. Back
(06:25):
in the day, when I was around the Dodgers a lot,
there a guy named Tommy Lasorda, and Tommy he had
both his knees replaced and his hips replaced, and it
was like a terminator, and he had the old guy wattle.
You know what I'm talking about, that rhythmic side decide
shuffle that It's like you're walking through waist deep molasses.
(06:45):
And suddenly my three item quick trip to the grocery
store is looking like a bumpy bumpy bumpy ride. And
then I went through these seven stages of grocery grief,
as I call it. I had full regret. And so
I I get to the checkout stand. He's in front
of me, this guy, and everything disintegrates. Number one, we
(07:09):
had the audio malfunction. So this poor Chap's hearing aid
decided to go on vacation, and the cashier, this woman,
she's shouting the price like five times. She rang everything
up and she had to shout the price five times.
I could have shouted it from the parking lot. And
(07:30):
so then the second thing was the wallet Safari. So
this fine gentleman starts looking for his wallet. Now generally speaking,
there's only two places the wallet could be the right
pocket or the left pocket. He's patting himself down like
he's at TSA. He's getting frisked at the airport, so
this is not good. Finally, he slowly finds the wallet.
(07:54):
And really that's the third part of this the seven
stages of grocery grief. Because you had the slow motion
REPLA thought. I was watching one of the NFL games
and we went to a booth review, but not an
expedite at booth review. So finally he finds the wallet.
He opens it up and again, as I was watching
an NFL replay under the hood and it was at
(08:16):
one one hundred speed, I'm waiting for the referee to
come out and overturn the call. I'm waiting for the referee.
I was like, maybe I should call JT. The wingman.
He can come and pick this guy up and give
him a ride somewhere because this is not going well. Now.
The fourth part of this the cash factor. So this
gentleman in twenty twenty six decided to pay with cash.
(08:37):
Of course he does.
Speaker 3 (08:38):
Credit cards are the devil's plastic, right, why would you
do that? So he decided to pay with the cause,
which normally would not be a problem.
Speaker 1 (08:45):
Normally wouldn't have to be a problem because it's okay,
you can pay with cash if you're quick, right, chat that.
So then the guy the fifth part of this is
the change futs around. So the cash here gives him
his change. There's some coins or whatever. Now most people
would just take that change and put it in their
(09:06):
pocket and move on, but not my old friend. No, no, no,
this gentleman, he had to methodically categorize every dime, every penny.
And I'm like, oh, so that was that was a pain.
And then the sixth thing was the logjam. So behind me,
and remember we got to the checkout stand. It was
(09:27):
just two of us. So this guy's taking so long
behind us. The line is growing. It's like a small mob.
It was the only checkout stand open. People are looking
at me like I'm the one holding things up. I'm like, dude,
just leave me alone, all right. Then it gets even better,
because then we have bagging. That's another ordeal. The cosmos
(09:49):
flips another page in its stone bound Sokka while this
gentleman tries to put the stuff in the bag the
seventh part. By the time the cashier starts scanning my item,
now keep in mind the guy's still standing there. I'm
a vibrating fireball. I quickly tap tap tap the credit
card little reader box thing. I hit it. Sorry, i
(10:13):
think I've broken the little plastic and I'm ready to bowl. However, again,
my friend, this older guy, the old geezer guy, is
still there, hovering over his kale, the leafy greens at
his snail's gallop. And I couldn't take anywhere. I went
Popeye the sailor man. That's all I can stand, and
(10:34):
I can't stands no more. So I tossed them aside.
And I didn't toss them aside. I channeled the Minister
of Defense, Reggie White. I went full Reggie White. I
used the hump move. You remember the hump move when
he was playing for the Green Bay Packers and the
Eagles back in the day. If you're old Reggie White,
great defensive player, It's a quick, powerful lateral shift, and
(10:55):
I was able to circumvent kind of a mix of
the swim move, and I exited the the store before
I lost with left of my mind. Now, Keemon, I
am somewhat of a nice guy. I'm not mister a
nice guy who used to contribute to show. I know
what happened to him for now at this moment, I
(11:16):
learned a life lesson. Again. If I am in the
same situation I see a nice guy, a older guy
with leafy greens and a hearing aid, or an older
woman in the same situation, I'm taking the hit. I'm
cutting the person off. I'm sorry, Grandpa or grandma the baboushka.
(11:37):
I got cheese to shred, I got things to do.
I'm out.
Speaker 3 (11:42):
I am out, skis see you later, Bye bye.
Speaker 1 (11:46):
That's how that's going now, turning the page. I planned
on talking about this on the previous edition of The
Fifth Hour, and then I got carried away on some
other stuff, so I didn't get to it. It's truly
one of my favorite stories of the week, and I
didn't have time to get to it on the radio show.
And the reason I did not have time to get
(12:07):
to it on the radio show is because something always
seemed to pop up in the NFL or Major League Baseball.
And just like yesterday on the podcast, we talked about
the college basketball scandal, the point shaving scan. Reason we
talked about that is because the Tucker's signing with the
(12:27):
Dodgers happened kind of late. The show was mostly put
to bed by then, and so we had to we
had to edit some stuff out and chop some things
away and all that, and so we did that and
then that was that, and so we didn't have time
to get to this particular story. It is amazing, though,
it is absolutely amazing. It's a basketball story, but it's
(12:49):
not really a basketball story. It's more of a medical story.
You feel me on that. It is more of a
medical story than it is a story. Worry about basketball,
all right, So when I say modern medical marvel, that
is not a compliment, that is a diagnosis. It's doctor Mahlor.
(13:12):
Doctor Mahlor is in the building, in the building here,
and so that's what we're gonna call this because at
this point, Anthony Davis is not a basketball player. We're
talking about AD. He is a roaming anatomy lesson with
multiple max contracts, multiple max contracts. He just just an
(13:37):
amazing accomplishment the amount of money that he's being able
to make. So the phrase day to day has shadowed
this man for so long it ought to be stitched
onto the back of his jerseys like an advertising patch.
Speaker 3 (13:49):
Not Davis, not AD, just day to day, day to day.
Speaker 1 (13:54):
And Charles Barkley, I believe, gave him the nickname street Clothes,
which is not trash talking. It is not trash talking.
That is branding. Okay, that is absolute branding is what
that is. It's so appropriate. So buckle up, buccaroo. Because
the Internet did what the Internet does best. It got
(14:15):
really really bored and started doing some math. Not malor math,
their math. It started counting. And the results sound for gayzy.
They sound ridiculous. It sounds fake, It sounds made up.
Is it true? Across his long NBA career, Anthony Davis
(14:36):
has suffered how many injured You want to take a guess,
did you see this? You did not see this? Okay, good,
so take a guess. I didn't even know who Anthony
Davis is. I'm just listening because I need something going
on the background. Okay, take a breath, all right. So
again the question is how many injuries? This is the
(14:57):
most injury prone player in basketball Anthony Davis in his career.
And let me let me go and let me see
when did he start playing? Let me see this. So
Anthony Davis, remember but Kentucky back in the day. He
started his NBA career as the number one overall pick
(15:20):
in the NBA draft the unibrow. That was the twenty
twelve NBA Draft. So it's been almost fourteen years. Almost
fourteen years, Anthony Davis has suffered, according to Internet Sluice two,
one hundred and ninety six injuries. He has had injuries
that have spanned fifty one unique body parts fifty one.
(15:44):
That is not an injury history, that is a medical syllabus.
As he came into the NBA with the New Orleans Hornets,
they changed their name to the Pelicans. Then he was
given to the Lakers, who then gave him to Dallas.
He is currently Anthony Davis thirty two years old. He
turns thirty three in March. So we have a little
(16:07):
bit of time before that, and I wanted to highlight
this story because it is a humdinger. It is. They
don't even call him Anthony Davis anymore. No, no, no,
he's like the freak of nature or something like that.
It is wild, absolutely wild, what this guy has had
(16:28):
so the inventory on this and I'll give you I
don't know I have time to give you everything. It's
only a half an hour podcast. My god, imagine, if
you will, a doctor flipping through charts like he's shuffling
a deck of cards. He's had fifty five foot injuries,
fifty five twenty four ankle injuries, twenty achilles injuries, twenty
(16:54):
back injuries, the abductor, the knee, the calf, the shoulder,
the thumb, the wrist, the growing, the yel, the eye,
the finger, the rib, the glute. I mean, my god,
both sides, by the way, both sides of his tuckas
he's injured his tuckas his badonka donk. He's missed games
with random illnesses. I mean, I can't even some of
(17:16):
these things, I don't even know what they are. I
believe I have them, I don't know what they are.
So this thing, it's like a medical textbook. It's not
one weak areas. It's not like, well, I just got
a bad knee or my back, or it's all my
ache and back, my knee, my back, my back, my knee. No, no, no,
it's everything everywhere, all at once. And Anthony Davis is
(17:38):
a human version of a Jenga tower where every block
is loose, and you touch him, something slices that you
breathe on him wrong, and all of a sudden he
needs to go to the medical room for evaluation. He
has strained things again, people most people don't even know
could be strained. And at this point, if Anthony Davis
(18:02):
sneezes too hard, someone yells time out, time out, time out.
The trainers come sprinting out like their airport firefighters to
try to take care of Anthony Davis. You gotta take
care of this guy, you gotta you gotta take care
of him. And uh, I mean, was it a baseball
was it Sammy Sosa? There have been a few baseball
players over.
Speaker 3 (18:21):
The years that have been injured by sneezing, which is
always so embarrassing.
Speaker 1 (18:25):
So embarrassing. Anyway, here's the thing. All of these Anthony
Davis basketball injuries sound exaggerated until you see, until you
see everything waied out and it just keeps going and
going and going and going like the Energizer bunny. Uh
And it's just insane. It's not a career resumes, it's
a web md commercial and it's got a sneaker deal.
(18:49):
This has to be has to be the most unbreakable
record in NBA history. Not points, not reb not injuries
like day to day injuries. I'm talking about lifetime injuries
is what I'm talking about. Nobody is catting because guys
get hurt randomly. That's what I'm trying to say.
Speaker 3 (19:12):
But Anthony Davis, his body of work, it is the
Mona Lisa of injury, it really is. It's the Mona
Lisa of injury. Nobody is going to catch this.
Speaker 1 (19:25):
You'd have to actively try, and even if you were trying,
even if you know, even if you were doing that,
you wouldn't be able to go there. You would you'd
need to slip on the banana peel during warm ups,
fall down a ten flight of stair thing of a jig,
you know, right into the team bus, then get run
over by the team bus and then you get up,
(19:49):
you sit down and you're tying your shoes and you
pull a hamstring tying your shoes, and you have to
do all of that in the span of a couple
of hours.
Speaker 3 (19:56):
And then there's Dallas, Oh, Dallas.
Speaker 1 (20:01):
The mav Rex, the mav Rex, And of course this
was a orchestrated trade. They took Anthony Davis for Luka Doncic.
We think there was more to that story, much more
to that story that will come out over time. But
the Mavericks have experienced the full Anthony Davis package at
warp speed since arriving deep in the heart of Texas.
(20:25):
Anthony Davis has suffered are you ready for this? Eighteen
injuries in less than a year. He's missed forty two games.
He's played twenty nine for the MAVs in Dallas. That
is not load management, That is load avoidance is what
is what that is the groin, the abductor flares up,
the CAF issue, the achilles, you name it. And the
(20:48):
grand finale, a ligament injury to his left hand, which
is currently going on right now, which could that's always
a word, could sideline Anthony Davis for ones for months.
At this point, the Mavericks training staff is not taping ankles,
they're lighting candles and saying prayers. They're bringing in clergy
(21:11):
to try to figure this out. There's a lot going
on so Dallas, I guess they thought they were getting
a grand piano. I have to go with check in
on the old Mavericks GM there, see what he's up to.
But they thought they were get this grand piano, and
it turns out that half the keys are missing and
(21:31):
the bench collapses if you sit too hard. So it's
not about toughness. This is about physics. It's about biology.
The thing of a jig has a glitch in it.
You can't fix the what you might call it. It's
a bit of a problem. So this is the human
body that is just wired differently. There's a I remember
talking to a coach years ago, football coach about this,
(21:53):
and that's how some guys are always in the trainer's
room and other guys aren't. You know, some guys have
they're just wired where they're tough. And I think it's
a combination of that and also how you were how
you were raised. You know, some people were raised to
rub some dirt on it and get back out there
and do your thing, and then there's other people that
(22:14):
if you have a boo boo, you better sit out
and rest your booboo. You've got to rest your booboo.
And so I think that's part of it, I really do.
I mean, the biology is obviously something, but how many
of these injuries could Anthony Davis have actually played through right,
like a tougher person would have been able to play?
(22:34):
And then but his issue is the do hickey just
doesn't really really work and his body refuses to cooperate
with the basketball schedule. Anthony Davis ady does not just
break down. He decomposes again. Is wild? I keep going
back to modern medical marvel. Doctors should study him. Medical
(22:56):
students ought to rotate through the injury log. It's a syllabus.
Week one, foot, week two, other foot week three, ankle
week four, achilles tweak in the final exam everything. He
(23:18):
is a real life humpty dumpty humpy dumpty and you
know the rhyme we all grew up with it. Let
me update it for the NBA. Anthony Davis sat on
a wall. Anthony Davis had a great fall. All the
NBA's doctors and all the NBA's trainers couldn't put the
unibrow together again. I didn't really rhyme anyway. When availability
(23:40):
is the best ability Anthony Davis, think of him like
the abstract art exhibit of the NBA when he plays
brilliant when you see it, impossible to rely on and
always closed for maintenance. Now we do not doubt the talent.
We do not doubt the talent. Regardless. The universe is
(24:00):
not injury prone anymore. No, no, no, no, he is injury certified.
He is. At this point, Anthony Davis should be sponsored
by ice packs, pharmacy, great ibuprofen, MRIs and the words
day to day whispered softly into the night. All right. Now,
(24:21):
I was thinking, since I've seen these commercials for dose Eqes,
the beer with the most interesting man in the world,
I guess they brought that back. I've seen it watching
my sports Hunt at night, and so I don't know
a lot about it. I love those commercials back in
the day. So I thought, since this is a podcast
and we can have some fun, and not that we
(24:42):
don't have fun on the radio, I thought we kind
of futz around a little bit with this, and I
was inspired by watching those commercials for the beer and
then Anthony Davis, and I said, let's bring these two
worlds together. So I want to workshop this and see
if I can can give you a Anthony Davis voiced over.
(25:02):
I'll be the big voice guy. I'll be the big
voice guy for Anthony Davis, a very deep, dramatic, serious,
something that doesn't need to be serious here because we're
talking about sports. What do you do? It's sports, dummy?
What's wrong with you? All right? So here we go again.
This is the Anthony Davis. If you were making a
(25:24):
dose ECAs commercial for Anthony Davis of the Dallas Mavericks,
here's how it would go. Go everyone quiet on set.
We'll take it from the top three, two and one.
Speaker 3 (25:37):
He's not the healthiest man in the world, but when
injuries happen, they happened to him. Anthony Davis has suffered
two hundred and ninety six injuries spanning fifty one body parts,
including some doctors didn't even know existed. His medical chart
(25:57):
has its own table of contents. MRIs line up to
meet him, X ray machines, pre stretch when he falls down,
the arena gasps, and the trainer's sprint. His unibrow is
in facial hair.
Speaker 1 (26:16):
It's a warning label.
Speaker 3 (26:19):
He wants day to aid so hard. The calendar filled
a restraining order. I think I meant to say, file
the restraining order.
Speaker 1 (26:30):
Teammates stretch before warmups. He stretches the definition of questionable.
He can dominate a game for three quarters and dominate
the injury report in the fourth.
Speaker 3 (26:43):
He is the most injured man in the world.
Speaker 1 (26:49):
Stay injured, my friends. All right, screwed that up. But
you got the gist of it, right, You got the
gist of it. Yeah, okay, all right, there you go.
Why not? All right? Oh man? All right, well very good.
I did see there were a bunch of baseball signings yesterday,
(27:11):
and I was debating whether to do a malad monologue
about that. And I don't know, do I want to
do a deep dive on Boba Schett going to the Mets.
I do like that. The Mets snuck in there because
they didn't get Kyle Tucker, so they had to get somebody.
So they just threw a bunch of money at Boba Schett.
And then j t Ria Muto, who's supposed to leave
the Phillies. He agreed to a deal with the Phillies,
(27:31):
so I love all that stuff. Well, I think it's
hilarious the amount of money that's going around in Major
League Baseball every off season, and it doesn't matter. It's
just wild. And I got a bunch of angry emails
from people were like, oh, you know it always is.
I like your show, but as we know, the word
(27:53):
butt means everything you say before the word butt is
bull crap, and so getting messages I did not like
your rant about the Dodgers. You're a fanboy, you know
that whole thing. Well, no, I mean I'm not. I
like the Dodgers. I do. I wouldn't classic myself as
a fanboy. There are Dodger people still upset with me
that I absolutely slayed. I took a guillotine to Clayton
(28:15):
Kershaw and some of the Dodger nation. They are not happy,
not happy. And you know, let's say, by the way,
the Dodgers, there's a chance they still trade ti Oscar Hernandez.
I don't want to get too much into baseball here
at this point in the podcast, but they're not done
shifting things around, and they like to have they like
(28:37):
to have options. I know Andrew Freeman in some spots
they have a lot of one hundred million dollars play
eight hundred million dollar plus players, so there's not many
too many players or too many spots left where they
can rotate utility guys. Anyway, we'll get out on that.
Have a wonderful day today, Enjoy the NFL Playoffs. Two
games today, two tomorrow. Don't forget Benny Versus the Penny,
(28:58):
Benny Vspenny on YouTube. You can enjoy that. And whatever
you do is have a wonderful, wonderful day and we'll
chat with you tomorrow. Viopulation
Host
Ben Maller
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