SPECIAL PREVIEW - The Fifth Hour with Ben Maller - A Dallas Star

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The drama in Dallas never rests and it certainly has increased thanks to Dak Prescott's season-ending injury. No better person to talk about all than to speak with Brad Sham, the longtime voice of the Dallas Cowboys.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Thunderstruck adjective shocked and amazed by the power of fun
on Carnival Riding Bolt, the world's first roller coaster would see.
Brian got funderstruck so hard his ninety three year old
grandmother felt it three thousand miles away in Nebraska and
immediately booked the cruise Get Funderstruck starting at nine Carnival

(00:21):
Shoose Fun Cruiser and you must als pro person, double documency,
Texas fees and port expense, additional restricts and apply for
detail on Carnival dot com ships Red Street, Bahamas, Panama.
Hi everybody, I'm Rachel Banetta and I have my very
own podcast called Bench with Banetta. You're kidding me. I'm
just here so I won't get fine. Every week, I'm
gonna be talking about all the things I find fascinating

(00:43):
about the NFL, and I'm doing something that has never
been done before. I'm opening my d m s. D
MS now open, listen every Tuesday and join me on
the Bench. Subscribe now and listen to the Bench with
Banetta podcast on the I Heart Radio app, on Apple Podcasts,

(01:03):
or wherever you get your podcasts. We've all felt left
out and for people who moved to this country. That
feeling lasts more than a moment. We can change that.
Learn how it Belonging begins with us dot Org. Brought
to you by the AD Council. Be sure to catch
live editions of The Ben Maller Show week days at

(01:24):
two am Eastern eleven pm Pacific. Thunderstruck adjective shocked and
amazed by the power of fun on Carnival Riding Bolt,
the world's first roller coaster, would see. Brian got funderstruck
so hard his nine three year old grandmother felt it
three thousand miles away in Nebraska and immediately booked the
cruise Get Understruck starting at two eight nine Carnival Shoes

(01:49):
on Cruiser in the US. I was pro person double documency,
Texas fees and port expense aditional restricts and apply for
details on Carnival dot com Ships Red Street, Bahamas, Panama.
Hi everybody, I'm Rachel Banetta and I have my very
own podcast called Bench with Banetta. You're kidding me. I'm
just here so I won't get fine. You may know
me from Game Debut or Game Day Morning on NFL Network.

(02:10):
Basically any shows with the word game in it. Odds
are you'll find me there every week. I'm gonna be
talking about all the things I find fascinating about the NFL,
like breaking down games, questioning Tom Brady, genetic makeup. It's
gonna be great. I'm also doing something that has never
been done before. I'm opening my DM DM s now open.

(02:37):
We want to hear from you, fans of the NFL.
And when I woke up this morning, I was feeling
pretty dangerous. Did you commit a misdemeanor crime when you
were twelve and need to tell somebody about it? Please,
for the love of Roger Goodell, do not tell me.
I can be held accountable. Listen every Tuesday and join
me on the Bench. Subscribe now and listen to the
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(02:59):
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Adoption of teams from foster care is a topic not
enough people know about, and we're here to change that.
I'm April Dinuity, host of the new podcast Navigating Adoption,
presented by adopt us Kids. Each episode brings you compelling,
real life adoption stories told by the families that lived them,

(03:19):
with commentary from experts visit adopt us Kids dot org,
slash podcast, or subscribe to Navigating Adoption, presented by adopt
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and the Act Council. If you thought four hours a
day dred minutes a week was enough, think again. He's

(03:41):
the last remnants of the old republic, a sole fashion
of fairness. He 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. Nine

(04:01):
that it does. We are in the air everywhere you
name it. We are here for you eight days a week,
because four hours obviously not enough the overnight. And we
do thank you for finding the Fifth Hour podcast. There
is no advertising budget. There is zero advertising budget. This
is a spinoff of the radio show which has heard

(04:22):
on Fox Sports Radio. It's part of the I Heart network.
But this is not a Fox Sports radio production. It
just sounds like a Fox Sports radio production unless it
does not. And the thing you can do to help
this podcast is to tell a friend, Tell a friend,
tell a friend, and hey, anywhere you get your podcast,
not just on the I Heart network, but anywhere you

(04:44):
get your podcast, you can here this show. And we
are joined yet again by the man, the myth, and
the legend in his own mind. David Gascon is here
west of the four oh five. He's coming in to
hang out with us here a little bit west four
or five. Look at that, going from hanging out west
the four five to indoors with you, because man, it's

(05:06):
getting little nippiots side these days. Come on, you know,
that's the people ripped Californy. It's a little it's in
the sixties, so people freak out, what's wrong with you?
Well know, it gets windy, and then obviously if you're
down near the water, it gets a little bit colder.
So I don't like working out in the cold. To you,
I actually I've been walking and it's been cold. I

(05:27):
don't really mind it. It's not like I got this
guy Mark the Walker in Rochester. That's cold. Yeah, that's
I mean, this is I mean, this is not We're
not exactly in Alaska here, No, you know, it's not
the Arctic. Yeah, if it gets below freezing we've got
a problem. But you know, I'll let you know when's

(05:48):
so cal moves to Siberia. But yeah, it's it's different
than it has been because before it was like a
hundred degrees where I live every day. Now you go outside,
you got goose bumps right now. There's two places, Chicago
and Philadelphy. Uh. Two years ago I went outside during
the wintertime and it was so cold. My my ears
were were in pain, Like the wind was piercing and

(06:11):
it felt like I had immediate frostbite on my ears.
In Chicago and Philadelphia it was that cold. Yeah. Well,
my experience was in Stanford, Connecticut. Uh, when I was
doing television and we went out one of the guys
on the show. We all got together and had had
dinner at Bobby Vs. Bobby Valentine has got a restaurant.
Don't know if he still does. But it was in Stanford,

(06:32):
connecticuts we want to Air and it was like maybe
four blocks from the hotel I was staying at. It
was wintertime, you know, it was it was wintertime. So
I went there. Uh, I got a ride. The guy
was going a different direction than the hotel, so I said,
don't worry I got this, you know, and I thought,
you know, I walked back to the hotel. It was
ten thirty eleven o'clock at night, you know, something like that,

(06:55):
and as I remember it, and uh so I got
out of the restaurant and I started walking and I
knew where the hotel was. It was the biggest building
there in Stanford. And so I started walking and I
made it about half a block and oh my god,
this intense, this intense feeling just overwhelmed me of coldness.

(07:16):
And I kept going though, because I'm stubborn, all right,
So I kept going and it kept getting worse and
worse and worse. My nose starts running from the cold,
and it was just it was unbelievable. And I made
it to the hotel, but oh my, I was not prepared.
I didn't have the proper cold gear. And it was
one of the dumber things that I've done. Now, were

(07:38):
you wearing pants, slacks or or something else? No, No,
I had like just like pants on. I had a
lightweight jacket. I didn't have gloves. I didn't have a hat.
You know, things you're supposed to have a scarf, you know,
things that normal people who live in cold weather. Half,
What kind of socks did you have on? I said,
normal sucks. Yeah that's the other thing. My my brother

(08:00):
told me that that's a cheap code. Right, you go,
you live in cold whether you gotta get those wool socks, right,
those thick wool socks are amazing. And I didn't know that,
but now you know. Now that was a long time ago.
So now when I go back, I uh, I don't
mind going in the cold, and uh I love when
you fly into like JFK and you take the drive

(08:20):
in to New York City and you see all the
dead trees when you go in the wintertime and everything's dead,
everything's gray and dead. But yeah, so good times. That's
that's were rato right now. Like that's the distinct thing
about California. I don't know if you feel the same way,
but when I look at it, it's we go from

(08:40):
summer and there's no fall. It's just go right into winter.
At least it feels like, yeah, it's like a California
winter and it never rains, Like it rains for like
one month. Maybe maybe it'll rain for a month if
we have Elnino, then a little rain a lot and
then everything The good thing about is everything grows and
turn green and then everything's you know, primed to burn again.

(09:03):
So it's perfect. It's the circle of life on the
West Coast, is what it is. So anyway, this is is
this is a interview podcast, uh it is, and also
a bonus. Not only this is a two for one special,
by the way, because not only do you get to
hear one of the legends of the NFL who's slumming
with us, but also we'll have an exclusive story that

(09:26):
no one else has after we get done with our
our man here that's gonna be hanging out with us. Uh.
And I'll then lose him properly here in a second,
but we'll have you gotta be joking after we get
done with this conversation. This is a I Heart Podcast
fifth hour exclusive. But right now, though, let's begin our

(09:47):
conversation with the voice of America's team. This man has
been calling Dallas Cowboy football games since I was in
diaper Okay. His name is Brad Sham. He's also called
Texas Ranger games. Briefly, He's been with the Dallas Cowboys
for forty years when he started ed to Tall Jones,

(10:12):
Rogers star back all the legends of the Dallas Cowboys.
In the nineteen seventies, Tom Landry was the coach. When
Brad Sham started calling Cowboy games. He actually started as
the color commentator with Verne Lundquist, the legendary broadcaster Verne Lundquist,
who was the play by play guy for the Cowboys

(10:33):
at that time. But he's seen it all. He knows
where all the bodies are buried with the Dallas Cowboys. Uh.
And you know the star Bok Pearson to Tall Jones,
all the way through the glory days of the nineties
with Troy Aikman, Michael Irvin and Emmett Smith, the Tony
Romo years now that Dak Prescott here. He was there

(10:55):
before Jerry Jones, way before Jerry Jones became the Cowboy owner.
So he has been part of all of that. He
has seen the changing of the NFL. And I give
it up now for Brad Sham, the voice of America's team,
that Dallas Cowboys. And Brad, welcome and thanks for thanks

(11:16):
for doing this Number one, number two man, How how
has this been this year with COVID and all the change,
It's been a wonky year. How's it been for you? Oh,
it's ridiculous then, I mean there's but but it's the
same problem that that everyone's having in every sport. I mean,
we're we are not traveling, which is true for I

(11:37):
think twenty four of the thirty two radio crews, and
we don't have any personal access or contact any players
or coaches, which is true of all of the teams.
But the most important thing he's getting the games played
and not getting people sick. So um, we we sold
her on. We do the best we can and try

(11:59):
not to other the listening audience with our problems because
they don't care and they shouldn't. It's our job to
give them some respite from their own difficulties. So when
you're calling a game off a monitor, did you do
that back in the day when you were starting out,
like just messing around? I mean, well, I'm not that old, Ben,
Come on, I actually have done that. I've done some

(12:23):
soccer games that way, and and it's really hard because
you can only say what the picture shows you, so
you can't see what's going on outside of camera arrange
and those are things that would normally be brought into
play to help paint the picture. And then this year

(12:46):
we throw in the addit COVID benefit of empty stadiums.
In most places that they've been. They've been to l A,
nobody there. They've been to Seattle, nobody there. I think
they were a smattering of people in Philadelphia. I don't
believe there was any buddy in Washington. So that's really eerie.
Even though they're mixing in crowd noise, I mean the

(13:07):
same thing people at home who are watching games are experiencing.
You kind of low yourself to sleep. You go along
with the crowd noise. They do their best to modulate it,
and then all of a sudden there's a wide shot
and there's nobody there. You go, oh, yeah, this is
a little different. Yeah, it's pretty it's pretty crazy this year.
And and how does I gotta you started in the

(13:28):
nineteen seventies doing the Cowboys. You've seen every you know,
all the secrets of the Cowboys or you like the
secret keeper for the Cowboys brand. With all the time
you spent in what was it like in the early
days that when you started back in the in the
seventies when Roger Staubach was the quarterback, right when you
where you started doing. Yeah, I got the end of
Roger's career. Um, there were so many things that were

(13:51):
different in every aspect of the sport that it would
it's way too numerable to mention. And that goes from
media access to the offensive and defensive rules and formations.
So it was the same sport, loving guys out of

(14:12):
side hundred yards length to the field. But there are
many ways in which the industry and the sport are
are vastly different. It was a lot more personal. The
relationship between any media, let alone a team broadcaster and
the and the players and coaches and front office was

(14:35):
a lot more personal before so many things in the
world changed. And I'm not talking about the pandemic of
just you know, I'm talking about money and social media.
All of those things have not necessarily money has been
great for the players. And free agency, I think is
something that they the rest of us have free agency.

(14:56):
Why shouldn't athletes have it? But it definitely all of
that stuff. It's a whole different culture than it was.
This is my forty second year, so than it was
all those years ago. And when back in the seven
I watched you know, NFL films, highlight videos and stuff,
and he talked about the violence of the NFL and
how it's a lot obviously a lot different now. But

(15:18):
when you were calling Cowboy games, did you have you
noticed a tangible difference in the way people tackle? And
so sure, yeah, you know when I when I started,
it was I think it was the head slap, for instance,
was still legal. That was something that Deacon Jones made
famous with the Rams and uh, and it became taught.

(15:39):
Ernie Stoutner, the Hall of Fame defensive lineman for the Steelers,
was the Cowboys defensive coordinator when I started, and that
was a technique, and he had guys like uh. He
got Randy White in seventy five, and Randy quickly became
a martial arts expert and learned all kinds of techniques

(16:00):
about slapping a guy in the head, and a lot
of a lot of that stuff's change. And I just saw.
I'm a Chicago kid, and I was in high school
when the Bears drafted Bukas and Sayers. And I just
saw on Twitter the other day a little montage of
maybe about a minute of Dick Mutkas tackles. The shoulder

(16:22):
pads are different, but the way they attack people, uh,
And whether it was Bukas or Nobis or niche Key
or all those great Steelers players, Um, the you know,
all of those guys just they just tackled differently, even
the even the Rams with with the fearsome forsome. Now

(16:44):
I didn't know him well, but I got to know
Merlin Olson a little bit, and he was such an
incredible gentleman that you had difficulty thinking of him as vicious.
But the young Bloods you could think of that way,
and and Merlin was a very physical It was all
just it was. It was just different than it is
now that and there were some of these rules are

(17:06):
better for the safety of the players, it will prolong
the game, but it was it was a different thing
to watch. Brad, What when you look at the state
of of the Cowboys right now, prior to a Dack
getting hurt, had you ever seen such a discrepancy wide
range from offense to defense or maybe vice versa defense
to offense and all the time you've been in Dallas, Well, yeah, they,

(17:29):
I mean, they they've had some years where there were
big discrepancy. Some of Tony Romo's best years as quarterback
to the defense was not very good. I don't think
I have ever seen the overall defensive performance be as
abject as it has been most of this year. The

(17:50):
I think that the worst Cowboys team I've ever seen
was Tom Landry's last one. They were three and thirteen.
They had gotten old. There was a strike in eighty
seven which kind of masked some of the aging of
some of the players, and some of them Tom uh

(18:11):
and Texts let hang around a little too long, and
so that manifested in and that was was a much
worse team than nine. That was Jimmy Johnson's first team,
and he was just churning people through that They could
have won more than one game if they wanted to,
but that wasn't the point that year, and the point
became very clear to three years later. But that eight

(18:32):
team was really horrible, and this one, defensively m is
as bad as anything I've ever seen. They really had
some terrible times. And I want to say twenty thirteen,
Monty Kiffin was the defensive coordinator and and it was
really really bad. But this there's a lot of reasons
for why they would have been so bad this year.

(18:53):
Everything from the absence of the off season two uh
O were evaluating some personnel to coaching mistakes. But this
has been abject, and the discrepancy was really it would
have even been more um in relief, It would have

(19:16):
been even even more harshly uh seen if they had
not turned the ball over so many times the first
few games before Dak Prescott got hurt. Elliott fumbled a
few times, and Dak fumbled two or three times, and
so they got themselves in a terrible hole. They put
their defense in horrible positions. And then they compounded that

(19:36):
by playing just as poorly as it was almost humanly
possible to play. And and still the the offense was
scoring points. And I mean, they've got some good personnel,
but now a lot of it's on the injured list
right now. But that's true of a lot of teams.
But there have been some years where there were discrepancies.
So this year just seems like everything said him at once.

(19:58):
With social media of being where it is right now,
can you take us through what it's like to work
for the Cowboys then, because get l a where it's
like a Lakers and Dodgers town, New York, with the
Yankees and the Knicks being in Chicago, obviously, got the Cubbies,
the Bears the whole nine yards. But Dallas is different,
especially because you have the ownership group and has still

(20:19):
hands on with the team and the personnel. Well, this
is a Cowboys town. It's a football town. I came here,
uh inn in seventy came to Tendon and start working
on Cowboys broadcast then, but I started I came town
college football was the biggest thing. Um, the Cowboys were

(20:40):
just starting to win. Football is always going to be
the biggest thing here when the Rangers are doing well,
which is a distant memory right now, even though it's
only been like ten years. Um, baseball is very popular
and the Mavericks are very popular. But in St. Louis,
for example, I don't care how the Stanley cups the

(21:00):
Blues when that's a Cardinalstown period and um, you know,
and you can have a debate in places like Chicago
and New York. I mean my feeling is that that
in l A, not living there, the Lakers and the
Dodgers are gonna split it up and everybody else is
gonna is gonna have what's left. And I don't care
how good the Rams are for how long. That's what

(21:22):
That's just how it is. And that's how it is here.
This is Cowboys town. Now the fandom will not show
up in person when they're not doing well. And once
upon a time it was phone calls to call in shows.
I did one for a long time. But now the
social media, as you say, everybody's everybody's a critic, and

(21:45):
everybody's got a form and um, whether you're a team
employee or an affiliate like I am, you just can't
look at that stuff. You can't pay attention to it
because all of us have in fans at one point
or another where if we haven't been fans, we shouldn't
be doing this. And as a fan, you react viscerally

(22:08):
and emotionally, and that's not conducive to running a business,
and that's what pro football is. But we do know
what the reactions are and people will react, So you
just have to ignore that stuff because everyone has a
single to hang out now thanks to Twitter and Facebook
and Brad, I'll go back in your your game prep.

(22:31):
I know, I've talked to guys that did talk radio
back in the day, and it's it's all different. How
you prepare for for show and all that. You've been
a radio guy your whole life. Which I like. I
love that your radio guy buddy, when you when you
prepare for a game. Back in the in the seventies
and the eighties, there wasn't that much information. You've got
everything out of newspapers. It seemed there was no internet obviously,
So how is it too much now? How much? How

(22:52):
much different is it and how much time do you
spend it? Any paralysis of analysis situation with all the
information that's available now, that's the guess danger that you
were on. I'll never forget Um. I want to say
it was in the late nineties when the Cowboys were
playing Um Seattle and Seattle was still in the a
f C. And one day they were getting ready to

(23:14):
play Seattle. It was like Wednesday, and I got an
envelope in the mail and there was a VHS tape
of Seattle's last game, so I could watch that game
to help prepare, and and I almost died of sheer delirium.
And then and then Denver did the same thing the

(23:35):
next week. And so watching tape or film that wasn't
something we did. And you're right, it was all out
of newspapers. It was clippings. People would make clippings and
facts you copies, or you would go to a bookstore
and get copies of out of town newspapers. And it

(23:55):
was culturally just as different as it could possibly possibly be.
And so you do run that risk of um paralysis
by over analysis. Since that day when those UH tapes
showed up, I've always said the good news about the
Internet is that there is an unlimited amount of information

(24:20):
available twenty four seven. The bad news is there's an
unlimited amount of information available twenty four seven. You have
to learn where to draw the line, what you can
really use, and what what rabbit holes. That takes some
learning in and of itself. But I'm much more prepared
to do a game now than I was then. I

(24:41):
just didn't know it then. Yeah, and UH, and what
do those guys are gonna be listening to this? And
women as well? I think I want to be a
play by play person someday. I want to be the
next voice of the Cowboys down the line. Any words
of wisdom, Brad that you have ship, you know you've
learned over the years, you can pass on to the
to the guys and the gals that are coming after you.
I want to do the play by play down the line. Well,

(25:02):
if if they are looking to do play by play
for the Cowboys, my advice is to wait about ten years, UM,
if I'm gonna try to keep the job that long. UM.
Generally speaking, yeah, I think that you have to learn
how to prepare and you have to be you have
to be ready for that preparation to be pretty much

(25:24):
all consuming. You're never done when the season starts. Really,
when the preseason starts, game passes another. It's a beauty,
it's a fantastic thing. I can watch any game all year,
any time. Um. But you there is literally work to
be done, different and specific work every single day of

(25:45):
the week. So there are no you know, the old
I guess it was originally a Belichick saying no days off,
but it's true. In the NFL during the season, there
are literally no days off and and that's okay. You
just have to be prepared for Well, Brady, I know
you gotta go, but I appreciate it coming on spending
a few minutes with us and the continued the success.

(26:06):
You're great man. We love listening to you on the
play by play calls. I appreciate it. Thank you very much.
Everybody's stayed safe, and healthy. Alright, awesome, thank you Brad
Sham again the voice of the Dallas Cowban. You already
knew that you've been listening to this podcast and he
had to go. He's a very busy man. The man
is the voice of the Dallas Cowboys. He can't be
slumming too long on a random podcast. We gotta we

(26:29):
gotta get him back because I I only guess gon
I just barely put my toe in the water. Like
I have so many questions, uh, from different eras of
the NFL that I would like to get into if
we can have Brad on again, because he is a walking,
talking encyclopedia of the NFL. And uh, I touched on

(26:49):
a little bit there about the nineteen seventies and watching
NFL films and stuff, But like, what was it like
with the Cowboys when he was traveling with the team
back when you remember how how big the cow Boys
were with Emmett and Aikman and Irvin that era. I mean,
they were rock stars at that time. Yeah, I was
gonna ask you before we got on, and and we

(27:10):
can ask Brad when we come back. Because you always
get broadcasters that have been with an organization and years
that have those those catchphrases, and so I guess I
could ask you now, but in the NFL, do you
have another call that's as good as his when he
says walking the dog? Uh? Well, the one the NFL

(27:32):
call that pops into my head when you say something
like that would be the Bill King Holy Roller call,
right remember that? Uh it was a Raider Charger game,
and I think it was um and that was that
was ridunculous um. But you know, off the top of
my head, no, man, there's some guys like I love

(27:55):
the guy in Kansas City touchdown cans. Oh you know,
but that's just the touchdown. What about your boys and
uh your boys in Minnesota when Dalvin Cookie is like
he is loose? Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. The Vikings, absolutely,
that's a that's a good one. In fact, we we

(28:15):
have a lot of drops in the system from outtakes
of Viking games. Uh when Christian Ponder was the Viking
quarterback and uh yeah, let's just say that was not
um the smoothest era of Viking football. Yes, and that's

(28:36):
like shades of Ryan Linley at Arizona with the Cardinals
when he had to play a playoff game. And had
a like a completion percentage of twenty. Yeah. But Paul Allen,
who we should I gotta get, we gotta get. We
were talking about having him on the podcast from Minnesota.
We would I love to get Paul Allen on and
break it down. But Paul Allen his call was why
why would you even ponder passing? It was hilarious, it

(28:59):
was it was so. And then the other one, um,
I think it was I'm pretty sure this was Paul Allen.
The Vikings were playing the forty Niners. This is actually
a few years back, not that long ago, and the
Niners the big story. They signed a guy from the
Aussie League, an Australian league football guy, remember, and he
was the punt returner. Yeah, and so it was like

(29:21):
a Monday night or a Thursday night game. I forget which,
but it was his first game and he the Vikings
punt the ball the guy and he drops it and
Paul Allen screams, the Aussie must it. It was perfect.

(29:45):
It was so and for years we played that. Unfortunately,
were Burts new and so like every time I change engineers,
like all the old drops vanish because that's the previous
engineer and so then we have to you know, you
have it's like their own fingerprint on the show where
they play their own drops. And like we lost a
lot of the Genie and Medford stuff, but but in

(30:05):
Robertos put some new things and we've got some new
toys that we play with, which I'm fine with because
that keeps the thing fresh. Right. We can't you can't
keep playing the same drops that I played with Art
Martinez in Tree. You can't do it now because stuff changes.
And I mean back then we were playing the drops
were like Jeff Garcia Crisp was a drop Alan Iverson practice,

(30:29):
it was what was the his mom's name? I forget
his mom, but did you want to tell you that
screaming into the microphone? That was a funny drop that
we played a lot. There was an incident with Iverson
and his girlfriend at the time, and yeah, so uh
so all that, but yeah, I mean, listen, Sham's an
all time great He's done a bunch of other stuff too.
We didn't get into it, like he actually left the

(30:50):
Cowboys for a couple of years to do the Texas Rangers. Yeah,
he was a tech. So he's done both the NFL
and major League baseball, done a bunch of college games,
uh and so, and it was great to talk to him. Yeah,
and I like the fact because he's he's seen the
top of the mountain and also the basement in the
years that that Trey Aikman was there in Dallas. I mean,

(31:12):
obviously they won a couple of Super Bowl three super Bowls,
but that team was also dreadful prior to that. I
think they were one in fifteen, the year prior than
going on that run. So he's seen some some god
awful football and then he's seen the best of the best. Yeah,
and you know, you do it and we're gonna get
to this too. Like it's it is different. It's obviously

(31:32):
different when you're calling. You're supposed to say wow, it's
the same, you know, and all that stuff when you
when you're calling it. But but it's a lot more
fun when the team's good. Yeah, you know, when you're
polishing turds. It's it does not it's not as he's
like the old line. I loved Ralph Lawler back in
the day in his computer like mind, the great Ralph Lawler.
But you know, when you're calling the Clippers and they're terrible,

(31:56):
and then when they're good, it's it's obviously a lot
more fun. But you're it's like you're the VTE of doom, right,
you know, it's like when you're calling and it's like
the exact opposite for sports talk radio because you want
chaos and ma'ham oh hell, yes, yes, yes, yes, absolutely no.
I've always said the greatest sports talk radio is teams losing.

(32:17):
The better stories in the losing locker room. That's where
the stories. It is, absolutely where the stories. And because
uh and I know this and I have lived it,
because I was able to do Dodging Talk very lucky
in my career and also, believe it or not, remotely,
I did the Red Sock Review Show, which is their
version of Dodger Talk, and I noticed the same tendencies
in l A and Boston, thousands of miles apart, that

(32:40):
when the hometown team won, not a lot of excitement,
not a lot of buzz right when things were going well,
But when they lost, all right, oh my god, you
gotta fire the manager, the pitching coaches a bum. You
gotta trade this guy, Joe Blow, get him out here,
bring in Johnny expact. You know, the whole thing, and uh,

(33:03):
and I love the the chaos and the reason for
that is actually a great John F. Kennedy quote, right,
that victory has a thousand fathers, but defeat isn't orphaned.
And that's right. It is because you know anybody, and
when you win, everyone wants to kiss your ass and
tell you how great you are. So that's why the
better stories and losing locker room because then you gotta

(33:23):
answer questions and then you gotta get surly, right, you
get upset and all that. So and I thought, I
love it. I thought Brad made an interesting point, and
you know this obviously from doing a four hour talk
radio show, is that it's a wonderful thing that we
have information at our fingertips, but it's also a horrible
thing that we have information at our fingertips because it

(33:44):
messes with the nuance of telling a story and painting
a picture, as opposed to just reading line line line, copy,
line line line. You get some guys are so robotic,
especially in baseball, Like I know, the game of baseball
is is made up now of saber metrics, and guys
weren't about launch angles and exit velocity. But if you
don't tell the story. And if you don't have history

(34:06):
behind players and games, then then you lose the context
of it and you're better off just watching the game
on on game cast or something of that nature. Yeah,
I agree, and I worked, uh did Dodging talk with
Ross Porter, who we gotta get him on this podcast
to at some point the great Ross Porter talking to
Dodger Baseball Baseball trivial. I love ross Man, He's great

(34:27):
and I haven't seen him in a while, so we
should give him buzz, get him on. But Ross was
like early in on that analysis stuff. He and but
he it was back in the Stone Age where it
was hard to get those numbers, but he found them.
I'm not sure how he found them, but he knew.
You know, he'd go like, you know, Dale Murphrey, he's
bad in three seventy on a Tuesday afternoon in July.

(34:48):
You know, historically he'd have all that, he'd be able
to explore that. But yeah, Sham was absolutely correct. The
epidemic of information, right, the infodemic were you just you
oh for you overindulge. It's kind of like a fat
guy and all you can eat restaurant. You know, you
go a little you go a little too much. You

(35:08):
you over over eat, I've done it right, and you
go Joey Chestnut. And then you're like, I gotta go
to the fat farm because I've had too much information here.
But yeah, it is. It is something man and and
kissing about of seventies. And I remember when I got
even I and I don't think I'm that old, but
apparently I am. I'm becoming old. But I remember when

(35:29):
I got into radio talk radio and I watched through
I learned by as Moses how Hacks did his thing,
and he gave me some pointers. But Hack saw in
those days the internet was I was. It was just
stone age. She didn't have what it was. It was
the early days of the internet. We still had at
at the mighty six nine in San Diego, we had
the sports ticker in the AP news Wire, and that

(35:51):
was really the way we got the information. There'd be
a breaking news bulletin on the AP sports Wire, and
you wait for that news bulletin, and then sports ticker
for the scores, and and then Hacks that would be
he would be reading the newspapers like the Milwaukee Journal,
Sentinel or whatever, trying to get information out of it
for his fifteen minute open. Now you go anywhere and

(36:14):
it's it's NonStop. You can wolf down seven sevent thousand
newspapers and some of them charge, which you know, who
pays for that on the internet. But but yeah, it's
it's it's crazy that that was back that was back
in the day when breaking news was actually breaking news. Yes, yes,
Now stuff happens and then you know, you don't even

(36:36):
know when it first starts. You know, it's like everyone's
eating magic mushrooms these days, and it's like, did that
was that new? Or is that two days old? Or
I'm not sure what's going on? And you know, and
then the other thing is like, what is what is really?
Everyone's got an agenda, Everyone's always had an agenda, but
just maybe i'm because you know, back in the good
old days, it seems like even people at agendas then

(36:58):
and they had bias is but it just seems like
it's so if people live in their own boxes, right,
if you're a Democrat, you only listen to people that
tell you what to do. If you're Republican, the same thing.
But it's it's it's just an all not just political stuff.
I think it's everything's kind of slanted depending. You know,
it's the same thing in sports, because if you love

(37:18):
the Cowboys, you only want to get positive Cowboys stuff, apparently,
so you'll go read Cowboys dot Com. You know, we're
not gonna hear a lot of negative stuff on Cowboys
dot Com or any of those teams that have their
own websites. And you get information, but it's just completely
filtered information. Yeah. And the other thing too is now
that agents have an extension of the media, they're able

(37:42):
to leak content to reporters or news agencies if there's
a client that they have that's on the fence about
an extension or a new contractor wants to be traded.
So there's ways to manipulate and funk with the market. Though.
Way well, we had that. You know, who knows if
it's true or not, but we believe you. Our guy Holiday,
who is related to Michael Thomas of the Saints, and

(38:04):
we asked Holiday, what's going on. You know, it's because
Thomas was in the doghouse and he wasn't playing and
he was hurt. But people think he was being benched
and they claimed he was hurt and that whole thing
and Holidays said that it was Michael Thomas who got
upset with the Saints and went to his agent, and
then the agent is the one that contacted the NFL

(38:25):
insider crowd to toss Michael Thomas's name out in the
you know, the rumor mill, right, you know, to give
the the rumor out there. And so he had an agenda.
He wanted to, you know, let the Saints know, Hey,
I can go play somewhere else. And so some NFL
insider said there was a mounting belief, you know, or
some of the one and whatever we as a word

(38:45):
you know that you want to throw out there. Um, So, yeah,
a lot of that stuff does come from agents. But
back I'd also like to point out when I was
around the Dodgers, and I was around baseball in general,
a lot of the stuff would come from the people
that worked behind the scenes, the support staff, the locker
room attendance, people like that, because and I know this

(39:09):
to be true when when free agency was coming around
in baseball, and I don't know that they still do this,
but the general manager of the front office would call
down to the equipment guy and say, hey, um, you've
got to get you know X y n Z jersey
ready because we might sign this guy and we're gonna
have a news conference and we need the jersey for

(39:30):
the photo op. And I remember that might or might
not have been the way that some of the free
agents the Dodgers were interested in got out. Uh. One
of the most famous stories. I guess I can tell
because I think this is on the public record. I
don't want some of these people. I still know, and
he still work there, so I don't get in trouble.
But Randy Johnson was he signed with Arizona, but he

(39:56):
the thought was he was gonna go to the Dodgers,
so they had a jersey made. They anticipated they're gonna
get Randy Johnson before he went to Arizona. How would
that have changed things? Maybe not at all, who knows,
But but Randy so cow guy. But he signed with Arizona.
The reasons. The legend is he walked into the old
Raggedy Dodger clubhouse, the same clubhouse that Sandy Kofax had

(40:16):
been in back in the day or whatever, and he's
too small. I'm out now. The clubhouse at Dodger Stadium
is like the taj Mahal. They redid that the Googenheim
partners that on the Dodgers man they went all in
on that. They lay loaded up, loaded up. That is
a country club. Yeah, that's what that is. Speaking of,

(40:37):
which that was pretty interesting that what Brad had mentioned
with with the way that they're actually calling games and
he's looking at that giant screen in Jerry's world to
call action um as opposed to maybe necessarily being live
at a venue nowadays. Yeah, you know, I know, I
was playing around with Brad and Brad get little defensive

(40:58):
on that. I was, okay, did you to call games before?
But I did when I was a kid, and I
was like, hey, I would like to do this someday.
I originally wanted to be a play by play guy.
So I think most kids my age, maybe not now,
we would would do it, you know. And that's how
they you know, they would they would call games and stuff.

(41:20):
It's like you go full, you go full. Ronald Reagan,
right full. Ronald Reagan was a w h O in
Des Moines, Iowa, would call cub games and uh, you
know the famous story about Reagan and I read this
and it's it's a great story because having worked in broadcasting,
you love when crap goes wrong and you have to

(41:41):
you have to improvise. But one time, so he was
calling the game off He wasn't even calling it off
TV because this is back before before TV was regularly consumed.
So Reagan was doing radio calling CUB games, recreating them,
but he was doing it off the teletype the ticker,
so the wire bra weeks, right, So this is the

(42:03):
only way that then just civilian Ronald Reagan was able
to call CUB games and so he has no information.
So so, uh you know, he's like, what are we
gonna do here? And uh so he then he would
he would talk about the batter keeping He said that
the batter would keep fouling off the pitch until the

(42:24):
ticker came back. He would just you know, like there
would be a million foul balls and there's still two strikes.
Uh yeah, So it was it was pretty funny back
back in the day. Back in the day, it's great
to hear like like guys like Brad, guys like Scully,

(42:47):
guys that have gone through those different stages. And I mean,
I know, obviously he's make believe, but Bob Yuker when
he played Harry Doyle, that's That's what I thought of
sportscasters when I grew up, Like, Okay, there's a guy
getting himself loose by drinking some jack getting a guest gun.
Let me tell you, when I first started, some of

(43:08):
those guys did get loose. Jack Harry Carry Callis had
a few pops from time at the time, Harry Callis,
Harry Harry Harry Carry. I'm Harry Carry a legendary of course. Yeah,
Harry didn't even hide it. He bragged about it. Who was?
Who was? Uh? I forget his name? Trait Tigers, Ernie Harwell, Yeah,

(43:31):
Ernie Harwell, there you go. I don't know that he did.
Ernie was a pretty straight laced guy. Made him obviously
near the end of his career there. But Ernie was great,
very nice guy. I always say he wore the same
hat I wear. Now you know that he wore the
paper boy hat. Yeah, yeah, which I guess as an
old guy's hat. But I like it. It's a good,
good thing. Ernie was. Yeah, I got I feel like

(43:52):
I got to meet Ernie Harwell, Harry Carry, Harry Callis, Scully, Uh,
the mets legend Alf Kiner who did it? Did the
Mets on television. Met him for a good stretch. Just
keep carry the Braves guy. I grew up watching him
on TBS, the superstation Atlanta Braves baseball. They were terrible.

(44:13):
And you met you met Sterling too? Write Yeah, John Stow.
I met him at the the Yankees came in to
play the Dodgers in the press box. There's very nice.
Was the other one. It just passed away a couple
of years ago in San Diego? Is it last year? Oh,
dick Enberg? Do you have a great dick Enberg? Yeah?
He was fantastic. It was great, very smooth. Yea smooth delivery,

(44:38):
and he was. He was good across everything, football, baseball, tennis, golf.
I feel like I'm doing my Pat O'Brien where I'm
just dropping names. Now, I feel like I'm doing my
p o b It's a little bit different because you're
not like in Brentwood right now, eating a burrito and
just casually talking. I still haven't called Pat to follow
up because I pat off for to take me out

(45:00):
to lunch, but I haven't. Everything in California is all
left up now, so I'm gonna wait. See here's my
move on this? All right? Let me tell you this
is a veteran move. So I'm I'm hoping that by
April of stuff will be open back up, you know,
because I'll even have a magic pill or something like that,
or uh, this thing will take its course the corona.

(45:22):
So then I'm gonna wait, and then I'm gonna hit
Pat up, and knowing Pat, he'll take me to some
steakhouse in Beverly Hills or something like that, and and
I'll get to enjoy a nice meal if I go. Now,
I'm gonna eat a box lunch outside my burrito with
Pat on the street in Beverly Hills. Who wants to
do that? Why don't you invite him over? And you
can cook a steak? Here we go? All right? Just you,

(45:42):
you brought it up. You brought it up. All right? Yeah,
we done. I'm done, by the way. You gotta tonight,
you gotta, you gotta listen to a special special edition
of Benny Versus Pain. This is the week I'm actually
gonna try to get the pics right. Uh, this is
we I'm gonna actually try to do well. I was sandbagging,

(46:04):
but now it's now it's winning time. I can salvage
the season. I can salvage it. Uh, you know, last
week was to take your trash out week. But I
will be back. I will be back tonight at nine thirty,
nine thirty in the West, and that's twelve thirty in
the Witching Hour in the East. We'll have Benny Versus

(46:25):
the Penny and that's on Friday night in the Saturday.
A little depressing because that that also means that we're
officially halfway home with the NFL regular season. Well, that's
a blessing and a curse because that means no more
Benny Versus the Penny unless we have a spin off,
which we we've talked about, but who knows. Yeah, we'll
see if you keep going. Now, we asked a couple

(46:47):
of weeks ago for for tickets for anyone that um
took a five team parlay, anything of that nature as
we were doing some of the Benny Versus the Penny
games and then also the presidential stuff. Did you get
any pictures twittered to you, d m to you anything. No,
I got none. No one took us up on that guest,

(47:09):
and there was Monday to be made. We got the
guaranteed we got right now. I think your boy Steve
in Seattle. I think he did do some pro games though. Yeah,
I don't know if he did political, but I know
he did some programs well the pro see the political stuff.
You're not technically allowed to bet as an American on
the election, but as we know, the off shore books

(47:29):
kind of like they have more loose They're fast and
loose with the rules, so there are ways you could
have done it. It's it's more it's not like you
can go into your local sports book if you're in
Jersey or something like that and say, hey, I want
to put a couple of bucks down on you know,
I Trump winning Mississippi or something like. You can't. You're
not allowed to do that. So I feel like in

(47:50):
in the next in the next four years, when we
have our next presidential election, the elections should be started
off with a musicians singing the national anthem. That way,
we can bet on the time of it and then
get the election underway. I feel like that's the way
that we do with the Super Bowl and then everything
else follows after that. Yeah, well, eventually they're doing mail
and voting now, but I'm guessing like ten fifteen years

(48:12):
from now, they'll just have like a text voting. You know,
just text your vote, you know, name the name the
candidate texted in. You know what could go wrong, what
could possibly grow up? Well that's the evolution, right you think?
You know? He just keep moving it forward and forward
and forward and forward and forward. And then I would guess,
depending on what happens with the elections in January. Not
to get too political, we'll have we could have Puerto

(48:36):
Rico become a state, right are they talking about adding
another couple of states? Puerto Rico, d C. There you go,
So there would be fifty two states, which how about Guam?
Can we make Guama states? About Guam territory? Why? Yeah?
Making a state? Come on out there in the middle

(48:57):
of the Pacific. Oh man, it's like a way point
but between Hawaii and the and the Asian countries. It
took you a while to climb to that third rail.
But but you're there. Thank you. I appreciate that. I
gotta get I gotta get out of I got things
to do. I dare you. We want podcasts on Saturday
and Sunday and uh an exclusive. So I saved this

(49:20):
story we're gonna talk about on Saturday for this podcast.
I was gonna do a bit on the radio show,
but I wanted to give this some time. It's about
another sports icon and I happened to cras Cross Pass
with this icon. But thanks to Brad Sham who was
on earlier. Here and have a great day. Remember Benny
versus the Penny tonight nine thirty in the West and

(49:45):
just midway through the witching hour of twelve thirty in
the morning on early Saturday Friday in the Saturday in
the East, We'll catch you then. Understruck adjective shocked and
amazed by the power of Carnival riding boat the world's
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(50:10):
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Cruiser ust was pro person, double documency, Texas fees and
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(50:30):
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