November 17, 2022 • 39 mins
EPISODE 78: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN
A-Block (1:45) SPECIAL COMMENT: 12 Republicans join the Democrats to give the codification of Marriage Equality a filibuster-proof majority. The Respect for Marriage Act will be law by Christmas (2:37) It seems so obvious; it is in fact breathtaking. 14 years ago a Democratic candidate could be elected POTUS without endorsing same-sex marriage. 26 years ago a Democratic president could sign legislation defining marriage as only between a man and a woman (4:02) And 14 years and exactly one week ago, I could startle viewers, my bosses, and some liberals by decrying the passage of Prop 8 in California - which TOOK AWAY Marriage Equality awarded by the courts - in a Special Comment called "A Question of Love" (12:15) This is how far we have come: Two months later I was approached by Sir Ian McKellan who said that the fact that I was able to incorporate those opinions into an American cable newscast meant "some of my hope for the future is restored." Today, with the path to codified Marriage Equality assured, some of MY hope for the future is restored.
B-Block (17:48) EVERY DOG HAS ITS DAY: Penny, in Missouri (18:50) POSTSCRIPTS TO THE NEWS: Mike Pence defies Congress (and logic), now it's Stu Varney trashing Trump (to Trump's daughter-in-law), and a Democrat beats a Faux Democrat in LA (20:22) IN SPORTS: Two unanimous Cy Young Winners for the first time since Bob Gibson's 1.12 ERA and Denny McLain's 31 wins, Virginia cancels its football game, Kyrie coming back - but why? (23:11) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Laura Ingraham continuing to try to make the fabricated Pelosi Conspiracy Theory happen and Chris Licht drowning at CNN, compete with the executives of MSNBC, NBC News, and NBC. After getting fricasseed for firing Tiffany Cross to appease fascists like Tucker Carlson, they knew what to do: Trash her anonymously in The New York Post.
C-Block (32:21) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: 30 years ago today, the Colorado Rockies and then-Florida Marlins were born in the baseball expansion draft which I anchored on ESPN. The draft followed one of the weirdest you're-gonna-die-on-THAT-hill things I ever witnessed in sports broadcasting. But most importantly: I can now confess that to get the scoop as to who would be the first pick, I did a terrible, terrible thing ;-)
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of I Heart Radio.
Twelve Republican Senators have voted yes to advance the Respect
(00:28):
for Marriage Act. It is full of loopholes which protect
religious prejudice, and it is flawed in a dozen ways,
and those who voted against it are dinosaurs. And yet
other Republicans House members had voted for it in July,
and Chuck Schumer said yesterday he thinks the final bill
will be formally passed after Thanksgiving. And I think it
(00:49):
is imperative to stop everything for a moment and reflect
on how heartening this really is, and not simply for
the subject of same sex marriage, but for the chance
that this country is still moving forward, still progressing, still
pushing the Donald Trump's and the religious fanatics further back
more frequently into the caves of history, no matter how
(01:12):
often and how loudly they managed to emerge. In six
President Clinton signed legislation defining marriage as being between one
man and one woman. As late as polling was consistent,
a majority of Americans believed same sex marriages should not
be legally valid, and on November four, two thousand eight,
(01:37):
just five thousand, one hundred and twenty six days ago,
voters in California approved Proposition eight, which not merely opposed
marriage equality, but rescinded it ended the right in that
state of same sex couples to marry, seven million votes
to six million, four hundred thousand votes. I was in disbelief.
(01:59):
The Obama McCain presidential election had taken up so much
oxygen that fall that I never for a moment thought
there was a chance Prop eight would pass. When it did,
I was stunned and guilt ridden for having not spoken out,
and so on November I did a special comment on Countdown,
and I would like to read most of it again
for you now, because obviously this country changed so much
(02:24):
in such a good way since that day, and because
I want to share with you one contemporaneous reaction to
what I said on that night fourteen Novembers ago. There
are some minor edits to this, just to avoid confusion. Otherwise,
this is it word for word. I said, this isn't
about yelling, and this isn't about politics, and this isn't
(02:45):
really just about Prop eight. And I don't have a
personal investment in this. I'm not gay. I had too
strange to think of one member of even my very
extended family, who is I have no personal stories of
close friends or colleagues fighting prejudice that still pervades their lives,
and yet to me, this vote is horrible, horrible, because
(03:10):
this isn't about yelling, and this isn't about politics. This
is about the human heart. And if that sounds corny,
so be it. If you voted for this proposition, or
support those who did, or the sentiment they expressed. I
have some questions, because truly I do not understand why
(03:33):
does this matter to you? What is it to you?
In a time of impermanence and fly by night relationships,
These people over here want the same chance at permanence
and happiness that is your option. They don't want to
deny you yours. They don't want to take anything away
(03:55):
from you. They want what you want, a chance to
be a little less alone in the world. Only now
you are saying to them, no, you can't have it
on these terms. Maybe something similar if they behave, if
they don't cause too much trouble, You'll even give them
all the same legal rights, even as you are taking
(04:17):
away the legal right which they already had. A world
around them still anchored in love and marriage, and you
are saying, no, you can't marry What if somebody passed
a law that said you could not marry I keep
hearing this term redefining marriage. If this country had not
(04:39):
redefined marriage, black people still could not marry white people.
Sixteen states had laws on the books which made that illegal.
In nineteen sixty seven, nineteen sixty seven, the parents of
the man who was on that day President elect of
the United States could not have married in nearly one
third of the states of the country. Their son would
(05:01):
grow up to lead. But it's worse than that. If
this country had not redefined marriage, some black people still
couldn't marry black people. It is one of the most
overlooked and cruelest parts of our sad history of slavery.
Marriages were not legally recognized if the people were slaves.
Since slaves were property, they could not legally be husband
(05:24):
and wife or mother and child. Their marriage vows were different,
not until death do you part, but until death or
distance do you part. Marriages among slaves were not legally recognized,
you know, just like marriages today in California are not
legally recognized if the people are gay. And uncountable in
(05:49):
our history are the number of men and women forced
my society into marrying the opposite sex, in sham marriages,
or marriages of convenience, or just marriages of not knowing.
Centuries of men and women who have lived their lives
in shame and unhappiness, and who have, through a lie
to themselves or others, broken countless other lives of spouses
(06:13):
and children, all because we said a man couldn't marry
another man, or a woman couldn't marry another woman. The
sanctity of marriage? How many marriages like that have there been?
And how on earth do they increase the sanctity of
marriage rather than rendering that term meaningless? What is this
(06:37):
to you? Nobody is asking you to embrace their expression
of love. But don't you, as human beings, have to
embrace that love. The world is barren enough. It is
stacked against love and against hope, and against those very
few and precious emotions that enable us, all of us,
(07:00):
to go forward. Your marriage only stands a fifty the
chance of lasting, no matter how much you feel and
how hard you work. And here are people overjoyed at
the prospect of just that chance and that work just
for the hope of having that feeling. With so much
(07:20):
hate in the world, with so much meaningless division, and
people pitted against each other for no good reason, This
is what your religion tells you to do with your
experience of life and this world and all its sadness
is This is what your conscience tells you to do
with your knowledge that life, with endless vigor seems to
(07:44):
tilt the playing field on which we all live in
favor of unhappiness and hate. This is what your heart
tells you to do. You want to sanctify marriage, You
want to honor your God and the universal love you
believe he represents. Then spread hap beginess, this tiny, symbolic,
(08:08):
semantical grain of happiness, share it with all those who
seek it. Quote me anything from your religious leader or
book of choice telling you to stand against this, and
then tell me how you can believe both that statement
and another statement, another one which reads, only do unto
others as you would have them do unto you. You
(08:31):
are asked now by your country, and perhaps by your creator,
to stand on one side or another. You are asked
now to stand not on a question of politics, not
on a question of religion, not on a question of
gay or straight. You are asked now to stand on
(08:53):
a question of love. All you need to do is
stand and let the tiny ember of love meet its
own fate. You don't have to help it, you don't
have to applaud it, you don't have to fight for it.
Just don't put it out, just don't extinguish it. Because
(09:17):
while it may at first look like that love is
between two people you don't know, and you don't understand,
and maybe you don't even want to know, that love
is in fact the ember of your love for your
fellow person, just because this is the only world we have,
and the other guy counts too. I find myself concluding
(09:40):
by turning two of all things the closing plea for
mercy by Clarence Darrow in a murder trial. But what
he said fits what is really at the heart of this.
He said, I was reading last night of the aspiration
of the old Persian poet Omar Khyam. This is what
he told the judge. It appealed to me as the
(10:03):
highest that I can and vision. I wish it was
in my heart. I wish it was in the hearts
of all, so I be written in the Book of Love.
I do not care about that book above. Erase my
name or write it as you will, so I be
written in the Book of Love November two eight. On
(10:31):
November two thousand twenty two, the Senate voted sixty two
to thirty seven, beyond the grasp of any filipbuster, to
move forward with the Respect for Marriage Act. Marriage equality
will be the law of this nation within a month.
It is breathtaking. Of all the commentaries I have ever done,
(10:57):
of all the broadcasts I have ever done, the one
I have heard the most about from viewers and listeners,
and the one I still hear the most about from
viewers and listeners is that Prop eight special comment from
two thousand eight. Two months after I delivered it, I
was on a train to Washington to anchor the coverage
of the inauguration of Barack Obama as President of the
United States when he had not yet endorsed the same
(11:19):
sex marriage. When a man stood up from his seat
down the other end of the train and began to
walk towards me, and I immediately recognized him, and he
came up to me and asked me if I was
Keith Olverman, and he extended his hand and said, my
name is Ian. I am a gay man from England.
I want to thank you for speaking on my behalf.
(11:40):
It was the actor Sir Ian McKellan, and as moving
as his words were, I was smiling because he somehow
thought there was a chance I wouldn't recognize him. Then
he sat across the aisle from me for a few
moments and he said that since he had first seen
the video of the commentary on YouTube, he had been
unable to get one question about it. Answered. Did I
(12:02):
make that video especially for YouTube or did it originate
in some other venue? What was its origin? Ian McKellan
wanted to know. I explained that I did a nightly
news and commentary show on MSNBC. And he was startled.
This was on television, cable television. You said all that
(12:25):
on cable television in a news show. I explained, yes,
my good God, Ian McKellan said, some of my hope
for the future is restored. Twelve Republicans in the Senate
and forty seven in the House voted for the Respect
(12:46):
for Marriage Act yesterday and it will be law by Christmas.
And if you just heard that commentary from two thousand eight,
for the first time, and you're maybe less than thirty
years old, you might wonder how any of what I
said that night could have been considered controversial, let alone debatable.
And it makes me think right now, as Ian McKellen
(13:08):
thought on that train ride to d C, some of
my hope for the future is restored still ahead. After
(13:31):
two weeks of getting the crap rightly beaten out of
it for firing show host Tiffany Cross, MSNBC decides it
needed to smear her in public via Rupert Murdocks New
York Post. Eleven years ago. They tried the same thing
with me, because then, as now, the people who run
NBC are scumbags. More coming up. The knives continue to
(13:53):
come out for Trump and his dead in the Water
declaration speech, and they are almost all coming from the
far right. And Baseball's Colorado Rockies and Miami Marlins turned
thirty years old today. I know this because I was
the guy who announced their birth live on ESPN at
the expansion draft thirty years ago today, and to find
(14:14):
out who the first pick was going to be, I
did a terrible, terrible thing which I will finally confess to,
and things I promised not to tell about how terrible
the thing was that I did. That's next. This is countdown.
This is countdown with Keith Olberman still ahead on countdown.
(14:39):
It is a formula as old as time itself. Somebody
leaves MSNBC. MSNBC gets terrible publicity for it. So MSNBC
trash is the person who left anonymously, in this case,
the person who got fired. Tiffany Cross coming up first.
In each addition of Countdown, we feature a dog in
need whom you can help. Every dog has its day,
(15:01):
and this is a nightmare. In Missouri, a family dog
had puppies and the humans did not care. They did nothing.
All but one of the puppies starved to death, and
the mother, named Penny, was also starving with terrible infections
by the time saving St. Louis Pets rescued her. They
are running a fundraiser for Penny and her one surviving
(15:23):
pop on Cuddly. You can find them there and contribute,
and Penny will be in my pinned tweet at tom
Jumbo Grumbo and also with the Keith Alderman account on Twitter.
If you can donate, it'll be a big help. Obviously.
If you can't donate A retweet of Penny's sad story
can be nearly as invaluable. I thank you, and Penny
(15:43):
thanks you. Poscripts to the news some headlines, some updates,
some snarks, some predictions. Dateline, Washington, Mike Pence tell CBS
(16:05):
News that he will not testify to the January sixth Committee,
even though it is investigating the people that wanted to
hang him. Quote Congress has no right to my testimony. Ah,
it's bigger than the law. A reminder that this jackass
was just another right wing radio host in Indiana when
he developed the skill of looking profoundly thoughtful while staring
(16:26):
at a camera. The CBS interview was also Mike Pence's
sixth quote exclusive unquote. Since Monday, Dateline, New York, the
reviews of the Trump declaration speech continued to come in,
and they continued to be poor. My long ago colleague
Stewart Barney on Fox Business telling Lara Trump, the daughter
in law, it didn't seem that Trump had the old magic.
(16:48):
You know what I mean? Spoiler alert, Lara Trump didn't
know what he meant. And Dateline, Los Angeles, the vote
is finally in. Karen Bass is the new mayor elect
of l A, edging the Fox Democrat Rick Caruso, who
spent more than one and four million dollars to be
a loser. This is Sports Center. Wait, check that not anymore.
(17:26):
This is Countdown with Keith Alberman in sports Baseball Cy
Young Awards given out last night. Justin Verlander of the
Astros wins the third of his career as the American
League recipient. Sandy Alcantara of the Marlins takes the NL prize.
Both won unanimously, first time that's happened since ninety eight,
(17:47):
when the winners were Bob Gibson, who had an r
A of one point one two and Denny McClain, who
won thirty one games that year. The big stat for
al Contra, the NL winner, is that he threw six
complete games, more than any other team managed to amass.
This leads into what has happened to the complete game.
Nobody has thrown as many as ten of them in
a season since two thousand eleven. Nobody has thrown as
(18:09):
many as twenty since Fernando valenzwal in six In fact,
of the five hundred and twenty nine highest single season
totals for complete games in a season in baseball history.
Only one of them happened later the World War One.
That was the thirty three piled up by Robin Roberts
of the Phillies in nineteen three. And an unusual trade
(18:32):
in baseball last night, Thank you Nancy Faust, the teams
that met in the American League Wild Cards Series swapped
guys Seattle gets slugging outfielder Tayascar Hernandez who would not
sign a long term deal with Toronto, for pitchers Eric Swanson,
(18:53):
a good reliever and prospect Adam Macco. After an expert
junior football player shot and killed three current team members,
and we learned yesterday that a witness confirms the shooter
aimed at his victims that was not ran. Virginia has
canceled its scheduled Saturday game against Coastal Carolina. It's the
right call. Unfortunately, it's one a lot of schools probably
(19:13):
would not make. At the World Cup in Qatar, as
it looms the shame of a country in which homosexuality
is a crime hosting soccer's biggest event, the general repressiveness
of the place continues to come out. A Danish reporter
in a public place in Qatar Live from the World
Cup on TV was forced off the air without any
explanation by private security guards who threatened to break his camera,
(19:36):
and Kyrie Irving, suspended by the Brooklyn Nets after repeated
anti Semitic actions, could return to the lineup as early
as Sunday, according to my friend Woe j ESPN because
he's quote nearing completion on the process needed for a
return to play. Whatever that means. I had thirty years
(20:01):
since the expansion draft that created the Colorado Rockies and
the now Miami Marlins. I anchored the draft on ESPN
from like ten in the morning until ten at night
and to get the scoop as to who was going
to be chosen. First, I did a bad, bad thing.
I'll confess to it next. First, the daily roundup of
the misgrants, morons and Donning Kruger effect specimens who constitute
(20:24):
today's worst persons in the world and all media edition
see if you can spot the theme the bronze Laura
Ingram of Fox News and Charlie Kirk the kid who
looks like a badly drawn version of Charlie Brown. They
are still pushing the homophobic and more importantly fabricated conspiracy
(20:44):
theory about the attempted assassination of Nancy Pelosi by a
MAGA nuts and the attack on Paul Pelosi their current
obsession quote media mystery now at center of Paul Pelosi attack.
What they mean by that is that NBC News reporter
Miguel al mcgare put on a provably false story ten
days ago, one so bad that NBC had to formally
(21:06):
retract it, and al mcgare was then suspended. Ingram and
Kirk insists almaghar might have been right, and he's being silenced,
and if the story was inaccurate, NBC should just specify
the mistake and move on. Hell if Fox did that,
they have to start a second channel just to list
all their mistakes. How much more do you need? They
(21:26):
retracted the story. It was all wrong. Runner up chairman
and chief executive officer of CNN Worldwide, who when we
were at MSNBC together I thought, used to eat paste.
Chris licked Puck News reporting it's not a hockey publication.
I told them, don't call it that. Everybody will think
it's a hockey publication. Puck News reporting that after signaling
(21:48):
he would not implement layoffs, licked has now announced it
a CNN town hall that he is implementing layoffs beginning
next month. But it's worse than that. Licked also froze
nearly all of CNN travel. Now it turns out he
has headed to Abu Dhabi this weekend and is expected
to attend the Formula one Grand Prix race there, probably
(22:09):
with his family on the trip with him, and Puck reports.
Lickt also seems to be burying CNN veteran Wolf Blitzer
prediction Chris Licht is not going to last on that job,
but our winner, speaking of not lasting much longer. MSNBC
two weeks ago it fired weekend host Tiffany Cross to
appease the right wing after she referred to Clarence Thomas
(22:32):
as Justice pubic hair and was attacked by Tucker Carlson
and MSNBC, NBC News and NBC Universal Live in abject
terror of any criticism from the political right. Well, MSNBC
president Rashida Jones and NBC News president saysar Conde, I
guess he's chairman whatever, and NBC Universal chairman Jeff Shell
(22:52):
got Frick a seed for caving and firing Cross, and
rightly so so a little late, they've turned to page
one in the MSNBC Screw Him Playbook. They have smeared
Tiffany Cross as a veteran of that particular page in
the MSNBC playbook. They did it to me when I left,
when I left in two thousand eleven, and after the
(23:12):
negotiations to go back there last year turned out to
go nowhere. Let me explain this as I tell you
what they've done. Somebody leaked to The New York Post,
and remember that's the same corporation that employs Tucker Carlson
that Cross had called, quote other journalists, media executives, and
social activists and made calls saying I'm going out in
(23:33):
a blaze and I'm taking down the network and going
after Rashida, meaning the president of MSNBC, Rashida Jones. Now
the NBC motive for making up that quote is not
only does it make Cross look bad, but it makes
Rashida Jones, the president of the network, look like a victim.
And it undermines anybody who criticized NBC for firing Cross,
(23:54):
because it looks like they're just rallying to a friend's aid. Also,
that phrase social activists when used by the New York Post.
That's shorthand for back people. Wait, there's more, and it's
classic media management smear quoting The Post has learned that
she had also been under fire for racking up as
much as one hundred thousand dollars and expenses for five
(24:15):
star hotels days she took trips to Los Angeles and
the Super Bowl, positioning them as work trips. Unquote, A
couple of things wrong here. Racking up as much as
one hundred thousand dollars as much as well, two dollars
in fifteen cents is as much as a hundred thousand dollars.
Then nobody on any network has an expense account. You
(24:38):
can't just spend the company's money. Either you stay at
the hotel the network selects because they have a deal everywhere,
or you stay somewhere else and you put in for expenses,
and if NBC doesn't approve, they don't cover your expenses.
You're saddled with the bill. And also, wait, this is
about a trip to the super Bowl. She was fired
in November for a trip to the Super Bowl. Last February,
(25:00):
quote Cross irked colleagues as she demanded more office space
despite the fact she was only on the air once
a week. So does that mean she wanted her own
floor at thirty Rock or her own building in Midtown Manhattan,
Or does it mean that they gave her a cubicle
and she asked for a small office with a door
so she could write her scripts and piece and have
meetings and stuff. Or was she asking for more office
(25:23):
space for her producers and staff. The premises make Tiffany
Cross look like an elitist of Prima Donna, an open
money spigot. When Current TV breached my contract in two
thousand twelve and tried to blame me because they decided
they just didn't want to pay anybody the eight million
dollars they owed me that year, they hired a former
White House spin doctor to plant stories in the New
(25:45):
York Post and elsewhere that I was irking colleagues by
constantly changing the car service that picked me up and
took me to the studio and back every day, and
I said mean things about the driver's while I was
constantly changing the car service. But they left this part out.
I was doing so because Current TA had stopped paying
(26:06):
its car service bills among most of its other bills,
and every other day, we had to find a new
car service who the company had not stiffed yet. Eventually,
the only company that would pick me up was run
by a guy who used to smoke in the car
and MSNBC, in particular, will smear anybody who leaves. When
(26:27):
I left there in two thousand eleven, there was a
written agreement, and a key element in that agreement was
no smearing. Two days after I left, here comes the stories,
which eventually got around too. I swear a story that
claimed that everybody on my staff was put off and
hated me because I used to wear running shoes into
the office. I swear MSNBC smeared me so often, always anonymously,
(26:52):
always as a source to places like The New York Post,
that the issue was taken to a mediator and NBC
was ordered to pay me thousands in penalties. I hope
Tiffany Cross got that deal. Broadly speaking, nobody should cry
for people on TV for all the downsides. You're paid
ridiculously well, and there's somebody to comb your hair for you.
(27:14):
But the smearing is a way to manipulate the audience,
to damage the employee, and to protect the company's reputation.
When the company's reputation should be crap like NBC's MSNBC
and NBC News and NBC have always been good at
smearing and not good at much else. Them and MSNBC
president Rashida Jones, NBC News Chairman Caesar Conde, and NBC
(27:37):
Universal Chairman Jeff Shell will show them. We'll trash er
and that will show them what lousy judges of talent
we are. Hey, who you are? Who thought this plan?
Up today's worst persons in the world to the number
(28:06):
one story on the Countdown in my favorite topic, me
and things I promised not to tell, And for the
first time that really applies to this, I have a
confession to make. Thirty years ago today, November, Baseball's Colorado
Rockies in Florida now Miami Marlins were born by an
expansion draft, the first in baseball in sixteen years in
(28:28):
New York, and I anchored it on ESPN all day
and before it started, I was able to figure out
who the first pick in the draft was going to be.
And then, as now, I wasn't proud of how I
confirmed that story, but I did it anyway. It wasn't planned,
it didn't do any real harm. And what followed. It
(28:50):
was one of the weirdest things I've ever experienced in broadcasting.
The draft and our interminable broadcast I got on the
set before it was light and left after it got
dark took place in the Marriott Marquis Telling Times Square
in New York on November. And not only were we
on the air, Peter Gammon's and Ray Night and me
(29:12):
at the anchor desk from like ten in the morning
until ten at night, but the three of us plus
dozens of staffers had been sequestered to prepare in that
hotel for almost the entirety of the previous week. They
didn't even want us leaving the hotel. Moreover, Gammons and
I and others had been meeting for an hour or
so every Tuesday since August to go over the thousands
(29:35):
of possibilities of who would be eligible for this draft,
who would not, and who would likely to be taken.
Our preparation was like a real life version of the
apocryphal story of the ancient king assembling scholars to study
for years to find him one phrase that was true
and usable in any circumstance. Well, by the time November
(29:56):
rolled around, we had had so many of these meetings
that I was dreaming the names of one d possible
minor leaguers they might draft off the New York Mets
future Hall of Famer Trevor Hoffman was selected in that draft.
We talked about him, so we're later Yankees and Phillies
manager Joe Girardi and two other future major league managers,
Brad Ausmus and Eric Wedge. Then it's a pretty quick
(30:19):
fall off to the Ryan Hallblitzel's and Andre's Barrowman's who
were selected in the draft. Anyway, maybe on the Sunday
before the actual draft, which was on a Tuesday that year,
Peter Gammon's found out that the guy the Florida Marlins
really wanted was a minor league outfielder who had been
left exposed by the Toronto Blue Jays named Nigel Wilson.
(30:42):
But the number one pick by the Colorado Rockies was
still uncertain. Since August, we had figured the Rockies would
take the best picture available, and that that would be
whichever one of three or four guys the Atlanta Braves
did not protect then as now they had a lot
of good young pictures. The two likeliest possibilities that they
were gonna have to expose were named Kent, Mrker David Need.
(31:07):
So early on Monday, somebody I knew in the Rockies
organization confirmed to me off the record that their franchise
had decided on taking the Atlanta picture. And when I
said which one, he laughed and said, scap for it,
which was something we used to say on the playground
when I was a kid, when we wanted the other
kid to have to search for something like a dropped
(31:28):
coin or a marble or the homework answers. Then another
source told me that the Braves in deciding on the
Atlanta picture, well, they had chosen to protect Kent Mrker,
but not to protect David Need. And so I asked
our searcher at the draft, Vinnie va salo Vin. He's
a statman who I mentioned ten days ago after he
(31:49):
passed away. I asked Vinnie to see if there was
some way he could find the phone number for David
Needs family in Texas I think it was, And of
course Vinnie found the number, and I knew the Rockies
were going to have to have who ever they were
going to pick first in New York with us for
the announcement on Tuesday morning, so if David Need was
(32:13):
still at his parents home in Texas or wherever it
was at five pm Monday local time, he was really
unlikely to be in New York before ten am Tuesday.
They would not cut it that close. So I took
the phone number of then he got for me, and
I called and a young voice answered, his younger sister,
(32:33):
maybe maybe a tween ten eleven, something like that, And
I asked, is David there? And she said, no, he's not.
Can I take a message? And that's when it came
to me, some kind of evil repertorial instinct which made
me say, oh, I'm sorry I missed him. Did he
already get on the plane for New York? And she
(32:53):
said yes. Before I had finished thanking her, I began
to feel a guilt that I have retained to this day. Still.
A scoop is a scoop. We were there to cover
the expansion draft, and I sure had covered it. A
Rocky source said they were taking the Atlanta picture, and
Atlanta source said the Braves had not protected David Need.
(33:15):
A Need family source had said he was already on
the plane to New York at the last big staff
meeting in a conference room in the hotel just before
dinner on Monday, we all agreed ESPN had learned that
David Need would be the first player chosen in the
expansion Draft and Nigel Wilson would be the second, And
(33:35):
this being thirty years ago, we sat on all that
there was no internet. There was no value in putting
it on the eleven PM Sports Center because the only
suspense we had for the actual broadcast of the draft
the next day was letting people wonder if maybe some
of the wilder rumors were correct and the first guy
chosen in the draft the next day wouldn't be some
obscure prospect like David Need, but would be a big
(33:58):
name like Eddie Murray or Lee Smith or some other
high price guy. Edis are to believe. But we kept
these two scoops to ourselves for sixteen hours. Nobody knew
until we signed on the next morning. That used to
happen all the time. I confirmed the trade of Wayne
(34:20):
Gretzky to the l A. Kings in August about five
PM Pacific time. It was still at breaking news exclusive
when we led with it on the Channel five News
at ten. However, there was a fairly new ESPN correspondent
who was with us in the New York hotel representing
ESPN Radio. And I think she is still with the company,
so I will leave her name out of it, because
(34:42):
I really think in retrospect, she just had no idea.
This wasn't what all of ESPN management had wanted her
to do. And she listened very carefully to Gammon's reporting
to the group that he'd figured out and figured out
and was going to report that Nigel Wilson was the
first choice of the Marlins, and me reporting to the
(35:02):
group that I'd figured out and had figured out was
going to report by deceiving David needs Kids sister. And
then she said this reporter did excuse me, I don't
want to just walk out of the room, but I'm
just leaving to go back to my room and phone
all this into ESPN Radio so we can put it
on the air right away, as in a movie. Several
(35:25):
dozen heads turned towards her, each with a look of
astonishment on it, except for one or two guys who
just assumed she was kidding. They laughed. I laughed. I
was one of the hosts song ESPN Radio. Hell. I
was one of the founding hosts of ESPN Radio. So
I said, what do you mean we're embargoing this. We're
(35:46):
not even running it on Sports Center. We're gonna lead
the draft coverage with it tomorrow. And she smiled pleasantly
and said, well, that might be what they told you
to do, but I was told to report any breaking
news immediately, and and this is breaking news at this point.
Peter Gammon's got very red. The hell you are, he said,
(36:06):
and she said pleasantly, yes, the hell I am, and
she got up and left. I wasn't quite as mad
as Peter, or as our executive producer, or as any
of the other dozen producers or anybody else in the room, because,
as I said, I worked for ESPN Radio too. I
knew something the others in the room did not, And
more importantly, I knew something the reporter who had just
(36:28):
left the room intending to scoop us and her own
employers did not. But I had to make sure. As
the producers began to say things like follow her and
stop her and fire her, I said, just just wait.
Let me let me call the general manager of the
radio network first I did. He was in the hotel.
(36:49):
He never missed an opportunity like that. I explained the
situation to him. I'll talk to her, he sighed, she's
just being overly enthusiastic. I didn't tell her to do that.
Nobody told her to do there, and I asked him
if there were any special report or anything that she
could be filing somewhere. In other words, she went back
to her room to call this in, to go on
(37:10):
the ESPN Radio network and report it before we could Nope,
said the general manager. Same schedule as ever, We're dark
until tomorrow afternoons, extra point commentary at five m. Well,
there was now ugly murmuring in the room, and I
told them all to relax. What had just been confirmed
(37:31):
by the general manager of the radio network, which had
only been on the air for ten months and was
anything but full time, was that there was nothing on
ESPN Radio right now. There was no place for their
reporter to scoop us on ESPN Radio was off the air,
literally silent, until four pm the following afternoon. I know
(37:54):
people at ESPN who still hold grudges against her for this,
though I've done all the damage I can do here.
Thank you for listening. If you're not following, were subscribed
(38:16):
or whatever, please do so, and also please stop a
passer by on the street and get them to follow
as well. Here are our credits. Most of the music,
including our theme for Beethoven's Ninth, was arranged, produced, and
performed by Brian Ray and John Philip Chanelle. They are
the Countdown musical directors. All orchestration and keyboards by John
Philip Chanelle. Guitars based and drums by Brian Ray, produced
(38:38):
by T k O Brothers brother Beethsoven selections have been
arranged and performed by No Horns Allowed. The sports music
is the Olberman theme from ESPN two, and it was
written by Mitch Warren Davis courtesy of ESPN, Inc. Musical
comments from Nancy Faust, the best baseball stadium organist ever.
Our announcer today fitting with the ESPN story was Kenny Maine.
(38:59):
That story played out before Kenny worked for ESPN. In fact,
it played out before there was an ESPN two. Everything
else pretty much my fault. So let's countdown for this
the six and eighty first day since Donald Trump's first
attempted coup against the democratically elected government of the United States.
Arrest him now while we still can a new episode tomorrow.
Until then, I'm Keith oll. We're in good morning, good afternoon, goodnight,
(39:22):
and good luck. Countdown with Keith old Woman is a
production of I heart Radio. For more podcasts from I
heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you get your podcasts.
Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of I Heart Radio.
Twelve Republican Senators have voted yes to advance the Respect
(00:28):
for Marriage Act. It is full of loopholes which protect
religious prejudice, and it is flawed in a dozen ways,
and those who voted against it are dinosaurs. And yet
other Republicans House members had voted for it in July,
and Chuck Schumer said yesterday he thinks the final bill
will be formally passed after Thanksgiving. And I think it
(00:49):
is imperative to stop everything for a moment and reflect
on how heartening this really is, and not simply for
the subject of same sex marriage, but for the chance
that this country is still moving forward, still progressing, still
pushing the Donald Trump's and the religious fanatics further back
more frequently into the caves of history, no matter how
(01:12):
often and how loudly they managed to emerge. In six
President Clinton signed legislation defining marriage as being between one
man and one woman. As late as polling was consistent,
a majority of Americans believed same sex marriages should not
be legally valid, and on November four, two thousand eight,
(01:37):
just five thousand, one hundred and twenty six days ago,
voters in California approved Proposition eight, which not merely opposed
marriage equality, but rescinded it ended the right in that
state of same sex couples to marry, seven million votes
to six million, four hundred thousand votes. I was in disbelief.
(01:59):
The Obama McCain presidential election had taken up so much
oxygen that fall that I never for a moment thought
there was a chance Prop eight would pass. When it did,
I was stunned and guilt ridden for having not spoken out,
and so on November I did a special comment on Countdown,
and I would like to read most of it again
for you now, because obviously this country changed so much
(02:24):
in such a good way since that day, and because
I want to share with you one contemporaneous reaction to
what I said on that night fourteen Novembers ago. There
are some minor edits to this, just to avoid confusion. Otherwise,
this is it word for word. I said, this isn't
about yelling, and this isn't about politics, and this isn't
(02:45):
really just about Prop eight. And I don't have a
personal investment in this. I'm not gay. I had too
strange to think of one member of even my very
extended family, who is I have no personal stories of
close friends or colleagues fighting prejudice that still pervades their lives,
and yet to me, this vote is horrible, horrible, because
(03:10):
this isn't about yelling, and this isn't about politics. This
is about the human heart. And if that sounds corny,
so be it. If you voted for this proposition, or
support those who did, or the sentiment they expressed. I
have some questions, because truly I do not understand why
(03:33):
does this matter to you? What is it to you?
In a time of impermanence and fly by night relationships,
These people over here want the same chance at permanence
and happiness that is your option. They don't want to
deny you yours. They don't want to take anything away
(03:55):
from you. They want what you want, a chance to
be a little less alone in the world. Only now
you are saying to them, no, you can't have it
on these terms. Maybe something similar if they behave, if
they don't cause too much trouble, You'll even give them
all the same legal rights, even as you are taking
(04:17):
away the legal right which they already had. A world
around them still anchored in love and marriage, and you
are saying, no, you can't marry What if somebody passed
a law that said you could not marry I keep
hearing this term redefining marriage. If this country had not
(04:39):
redefined marriage, black people still could not marry white people.
Sixteen states had laws on the books which made that illegal.
In nineteen sixty seven, nineteen sixty seven, the parents of
the man who was on that day President elect of
the United States could not have married in nearly one
third of the states of the country. Their son would
(05:01):
grow up to lead. But it's worse than that. If
this country had not redefined marriage, some black people still
couldn't marry black people. It is one of the most
overlooked and cruelest parts of our sad history of slavery.
Marriages were not legally recognized if the people were slaves.
Since slaves were property, they could not legally be husband
(05:24):
and wife or mother and child. Their marriage vows were different,
not until death do you part, but until death or
distance do you part. Marriages among slaves were not legally recognized,
you know, just like marriages today in California are not
legally recognized if the people are gay. And uncountable in
(05:49):
our history are the number of men and women forced
my society into marrying the opposite sex, in sham marriages,
or marriages of convenience, or just marriages of not knowing.
Centuries of men and women who have lived their lives
in shame and unhappiness, and who have, through a lie
to themselves or others, broken countless other lives of spouses
(06:13):
and children, all because we said a man couldn't marry
another man, or a woman couldn't marry another woman. The
sanctity of marriage? How many marriages like that have there been?
And how on earth do they increase the sanctity of
marriage rather than rendering that term meaningless? What is this
(06:37):
to you? Nobody is asking you to embrace their expression
of love. But don't you, as human beings, have to
embrace that love. The world is barren enough. It is
stacked against love and against hope, and against those very
few and precious emotions that enable us, all of us,
(07:00):
to go forward. Your marriage only stands a fifty the
chance of lasting, no matter how much you feel and
how hard you work. And here are people overjoyed at
the prospect of just that chance and that work just
for the hope of having that feeling. With so much
(07:20):
hate in the world, with so much meaningless division, and
people pitted against each other for no good reason, This
is what your religion tells you to do with your
experience of life and this world and all its sadness
is This is what your conscience tells you to do
with your knowledge that life, with endless vigor seems to
(07:44):
tilt the playing field on which we all live in
favor of unhappiness and hate. This is what your heart
tells you to do. You want to sanctify marriage, You
want to honor your God and the universal love you
believe he represents. Then spread hap beginess, this tiny, symbolic,
(08:08):
semantical grain of happiness, share it with all those who
seek it. Quote me anything from your religious leader or
book of choice telling you to stand against this, and
then tell me how you can believe both that statement
and another statement, another one which reads, only do unto
others as you would have them do unto you. You
(08:31):
are asked now by your country, and perhaps by your creator,
to stand on one side or another. You are asked
now to stand not on a question of politics, not
on a question of religion, not on a question of
gay or straight. You are asked now to stand on
(08:53):
a question of love. All you need to do is
stand and let the tiny ember of love meet its
own fate. You don't have to help it, you don't
have to applaud it, you don't have to fight for it.
Just don't put it out, just don't extinguish it. Because
(09:17):
while it may at first look like that love is
between two people you don't know, and you don't understand,
and maybe you don't even want to know, that love
is in fact the ember of your love for your
fellow person, just because this is the only world we have,
and the other guy counts too. I find myself concluding
(09:40):
by turning two of all things the closing plea for
mercy by Clarence Darrow in a murder trial. But what
he said fits what is really at the heart of this.
He said, I was reading last night of the aspiration
of the old Persian poet Omar Khyam. This is what
he told the judge. It appealed to me as the
(10:03):
highest that I can and vision. I wish it was
in my heart. I wish it was in the hearts
of all, so I be written in the Book of Love.
I do not care about that book above. Erase my
name or write it as you will, so I be
written in the Book of Love November two eight. On
(10:31):
November two thousand twenty two, the Senate voted sixty two
to thirty seven, beyond the grasp of any filipbuster, to
move forward with the Respect for Marriage Act. Marriage equality
will be the law of this nation within a month.
It is breathtaking. Of all the commentaries I have ever done,
(10:57):
of all the broadcasts I have ever done, the one
I have heard the most about from viewers and listeners,
and the one I still hear the most about from
viewers and listeners is that Prop eight special comment from
two thousand eight. Two months after I delivered it, I
was on a train to Washington to anchor the coverage
of the inauguration of Barack Obama as President of the
United States when he had not yet endorsed the same
(11:19):
sex marriage. When a man stood up from his seat
down the other end of the train and began to
walk towards me, and I immediately recognized him, and he
came up to me and asked me if I was
Keith Olverman, and he extended his hand and said, my
name is Ian. I am a gay man from England.
I want to thank you for speaking on my behalf.
(11:40):
It was the actor Sir Ian McKellan, and as moving
as his words were, I was smiling because he somehow
thought there was a chance I wouldn't recognize him. Then
he sat across the aisle from me for a few
moments and he said that since he had first seen
the video of the commentary on YouTube, he had been
unable to get one question about it. Answered. Did I
(12:02):
make that video especially for YouTube or did it originate
in some other venue? What was its origin? Ian McKellan
wanted to know. I explained that I did a nightly
news and commentary show on MSNBC. And he was startled.
This was on television, cable television. You said all that
(12:25):
on cable television in a news show. I explained, yes,
my good God, Ian McKellan said, some of my hope
for the future is restored. Twelve Republicans in the Senate
and forty seven in the House voted for the Respect
(12:46):
for Marriage Act yesterday and it will be law by Christmas.
And if you just heard that commentary from two thousand eight,
for the first time, and you're maybe less than thirty
years old, you might wonder how any of what I
said that night could have been considered controversial, let alone debatable.
And it makes me think right now, as Ian McKellen
(13:08):
thought on that train ride to d C, some of
my hope for the future is restored still ahead. After
(13:31):
two weeks of getting the crap rightly beaten out of
it for firing show host Tiffany Cross, MSNBC decides it
needed to smear her in public via Rupert Murdocks New
York Post. Eleven years ago. They tried the same thing
with me, because then, as now, the people who run
NBC are scumbags. More coming up. The knives continue to
(13:53):
come out for Trump and his dead in the Water
declaration speech, and they are almost all coming from the
far right. And Baseball's Colorado Rockies and Miami Marlins turned
thirty years old today. I know this because I was
the guy who announced their birth live on ESPN at
the expansion draft thirty years ago today, and to find
(14:14):
out who the first pick was going to be, I
did a terrible, terrible thing which I will finally confess to,
and things I promised not to tell about how terrible
the thing was that I did. That's next. This is countdown.
This is countdown with Keith Olberman still ahead on countdown.
(14:39):
It is a formula as old as time itself. Somebody
leaves MSNBC. MSNBC gets terrible publicity for it. So MSNBC
trash is the person who left anonymously, in this case,
the person who got fired. Tiffany Cross coming up first.
In each addition of Countdown, we feature a dog in
need whom you can help. Every dog has its day,
(15:01):
and this is a nightmare. In Missouri, a family dog
had puppies and the humans did not care. They did nothing.
All but one of the puppies starved to death, and
the mother, named Penny, was also starving with terrible infections
by the time saving St. Louis Pets rescued her. They
are running a fundraiser for Penny and her one surviving
(15:23):
pop on Cuddly. You can find them there and contribute,
and Penny will be in my pinned tweet at tom
Jumbo Grumbo and also with the Keith Alderman account on Twitter.
If you can donate, it'll be a big help. Obviously.
If you can't donate A retweet of Penny's sad story
can be nearly as invaluable. I thank you, and Penny
(15:43):
thanks you. Poscripts to the news some headlines, some updates,
some snarks, some predictions. Dateline, Washington, Mike Pence tell CBS
(16:05):
News that he will not testify to the January sixth Committee,
even though it is investigating the people that wanted to
hang him. Quote Congress has no right to my testimony. Ah,
it's bigger than the law. A reminder that this jackass
was just another right wing radio host in Indiana when
he developed the skill of looking profoundly thoughtful while staring
(16:26):
at a camera. The CBS interview was also Mike Pence's
sixth quote exclusive unquote. Since Monday, Dateline, New York, the
reviews of the Trump declaration speech continued to come in,
and they continued to be poor. My long ago colleague
Stewart Barney on Fox Business telling Lara Trump, the daughter
in law, it didn't seem that Trump had the old magic.
(16:48):
You know what I mean? Spoiler alert, Lara Trump didn't
know what he meant. And Dateline, Los Angeles, the vote
is finally in. Karen Bass is the new mayor elect
of l A, edging the Fox Democrat Rick Caruso, who
spent more than one and four million dollars to be
a loser. This is Sports Center. Wait, check that not anymore.
(17:26):
This is Countdown with Keith Alberman in sports Baseball Cy
Young Awards given out last night. Justin Verlander of the
Astros wins the third of his career as the American
League recipient. Sandy Alcantara of the Marlins takes the NL prize.
Both won unanimously, first time that's happened since ninety eight,
(17:47):
when the winners were Bob Gibson, who had an r
A of one point one two and Denny McClain, who
won thirty one games that year. The big stat for
al Contra, the NL winner, is that he threw six
complete games, more than any other team managed to amass.
This leads into what has happened to the complete game.
Nobody has thrown as many as ten of them in
a season since two thousand eleven. Nobody has thrown as
(18:09):
many as twenty since Fernando valenzwal in six In fact,
of the five hundred and twenty nine highest single season
totals for complete games in a season in baseball history.
Only one of them happened later the World War One.
That was the thirty three piled up by Robin Roberts
of the Phillies in nineteen three. And an unusual trade
(18:32):
in baseball last night, Thank you Nancy Faust, the teams
that met in the American League Wild Cards Series swapped
guys Seattle gets slugging outfielder Tayascar Hernandez who would not
sign a long term deal with Toronto, for pitchers Eric Swanson,
(18:53):
a good reliever and prospect Adam Macco. After an expert
junior football player shot and killed three current team members,
and we learned yesterday that a witness confirms the shooter
aimed at his victims that was not ran. Virginia has
canceled its scheduled Saturday game against Coastal Carolina. It's the
right call. Unfortunately, it's one a lot of schools probably
(19:13):
would not make. At the World Cup in Qatar, as
it looms the shame of a country in which homosexuality
is a crime hosting soccer's biggest event, the general repressiveness
of the place continues to come out. A Danish reporter
in a public place in Qatar Live from the World
Cup on TV was forced off the air without any
explanation by private security guards who threatened to break his camera,
(19:36):
and Kyrie Irving, suspended by the Brooklyn Nets after repeated
anti Semitic actions, could return to the lineup as early
as Sunday, according to my friend Woe j ESPN because
he's quote nearing completion on the process needed for a
return to play. Whatever that means. I had thirty years
(20:01):
since the expansion draft that created the Colorado Rockies and
the now Miami Marlins. I anchored the draft on ESPN
from like ten in the morning until ten at night
and to get the scoop as to who was going
to be chosen. First, I did a bad, bad thing.
I'll confess to it next. First, the daily roundup of
the misgrants, morons and Donning Kruger effect specimens who constitute
(20:24):
today's worst persons in the world and all media edition
see if you can spot the theme the bronze Laura
Ingram of Fox News and Charlie Kirk the kid who
looks like a badly drawn version of Charlie Brown. They
are still pushing the homophobic and more importantly fabricated conspiracy
(20:44):
theory about the attempted assassination of Nancy Pelosi by a
MAGA nuts and the attack on Paul Pelosi their current
obsession quote media mystery now at center of Paul Pelosi attack.
What they mean by that is that NBC News reporter
Miguel al mcgare put on a provably false story ten
days ago, one so bad that NBC had to formally
(21:06):
retract it, and al mcgare was then suspended. Ingram and
Kirk insists almaghar might have been right, and he's being silenced,
and if the story was inaccurate, NBC should just specify
the mistake and move on. Hell if Fox did that,
they have to start a second channel just to list
all their mistakes. How much more do you need? They
(21:26):
retracted the story. It was all wrong. Runner up chairman
and chief executive officer of CNN Worldwide, who when we
were at MSNBC together I thought, used to eat paste.
Chris licked Puck News reporting it's not a hockey publication.
I told them, don't call it that. Everybody will think
it's a hockey publication. Puck News reporting that after signaling
(21:48):
he would not implement layoffs, licked has now announced it
a CNN town hall that he is implementing layoffs beginning
next month. But it's worse than that. Licked also froze
nearly all of CNN travel. Now it turns out he
has headed to Abu Dhabi this weekend and is expected
to attend the Formula one Grand Prix race there, probably
(22:09):
with his family on the trip with him, and Puck reports.
Lickt also seems to be burying CNN veteran Wolf Blitzer
prediction Chris Licht is not going to last on that job,
but our winner, speaking of not lasting much longer. MSNBC
two weeks ago it fired weekend host Tiffany Cross to
appease the right wing after she referred to Clarence Thomas
(22:32):
as Justice pubic hair and was attacked by Tucker Carlson
and MSNBC, NBC News and NBC Universal Live in abject
terror of any criticism from the political right. Well, MSNBC
president Rashida Jones and NBC News president saysar Conde, I
guess he's chairman whatever, and NBC Universal chairman Jeff Shell
(22:52):
got Frick a seed for caving and firing Cross, and
rightly so so a little late, they've turned to page
one in the MSNBC Screw Him Playbook. They have smeared
Tiffany Cross as a veteran of that particular page in
the MSNBC playbook. They did it to me when I left,
when I left in two thousand eleven, and after the
(23:12):
negotiations to go back there last year turned out to
go nowhere. Let me explain this as I tell you
what they've done. Somebody leaked to The New York Post,
and remember that's the same corporation that employs Tucker Carlson
that Cross had called, quote other journalists, media executives, and
social activists and made calls saying I'm going out in
(23:33):
a blaze and I'm taking down the network and going
after Rashida, meaning the president of MSNBC, Rashida Jones. Now
the NBC motive for making up that quote is not
only does it make Cross look bad, but it makes
Rashida Jones, the president of the network, look like a victim.
And it undermines anybody who criticized NBC for firing Cross,
(23:54):
because it looks like they're just rallying to a friend's aid. Also,
that phrase social activists when used by the New York Post.
That's shorthand for back people. Wait, there's more, and it's
classic media management smear quoting The Post has learned that
she had also been under fire for racking up as
much as one hundred thousand dollars and expenses for five
(24:15):
star hotels days she took trips to Los Angeles and
the Super Bowl, positioning them as work trips. Unquote, A
couple of things wrong here. Racking up as much as
one hundred thousand dollars as much as well, two dollars
in fifteen cents is as much as a hundred thousand dollars.
Then nobody on any network has an expense account. You
(24:38):
can't just spend the company's money. Either you stay at
the hotel the network selects because they have a deal everywhere,
or you stay somewhere else and you put in for expenses,
and if NBC doesn't approve, they don't cover your expenses.
You're saddled with the bill. And also, wait, this is
about a trip to the super Bowl. She was fired
in November for a trip to the Super Bowl. Last February,
(25:00):
quote Cross irked colleagues as she demanded more office space
despite the fact she was only on the air once
a week. So does that mean she wanted her own
floor at thirty Rock or her own building in Midtown Manhattan,
Or does it mean that they gave her a cubicle
and she asked for a small office with a door
so she could write her scripts and piece and have
meetings and stuff. Or was she asking for more office
(25:23):
space for her producers and staff. The premises make Tiffany
Cross look like an elitist of Prima Donna, an open
money spigot. When Current TV breached my contract in two
thousand twelve and tried to blame me because they decided
they just didn't want to pay anybody the eight million
dollars they owed me that year, they hired a former
White House spin doctor to plant stories in the New
(25:45):
York Post and elsewhere that I was irking colleagues by
constantly changing the car service that picked me up and
took me to the studio and back every day, and
I said mean things about the driver's while I was
constantly changing the car service. But they left this part out.
I was doing so because Current TA had stopped paying
(26:06):
its car service bills among most of its other bills,
and every other day, we had to find a new
car service who the company had not stiffed yet. Eventually,
the only company that would pick me up was run
by a guy who used to smoke in the car
and MSNBC, in particular, will smear anybody who leaves. When
(26:27):
I left there in two thousand eleven, there was a
written agreement, and a key element in that agreement was
no smearing. Two days after I left, here comes the stories,
which eventually got around too. I swear a story that
claimed that everybody on my staff was put off and
hated me because I used to wear running shoes into
the office. I swear MSNBC smeared me so often, always anonymously,
(26:52):
always as a source to places like The New York Post,
that the issue was taken to a mediator and NBC
was ordered to pay me thousands in penalties. I hope
Tiffany Cross got that deal. Broadly speaking, nobody should cry
for people on TV for all the downsides. You're paid
ridiculously well, and there's somebody to comb your hair for you.
(27:14):
But the smearing is a way to manipulate the audience,
to damage the employee, and to protect the company's reputation.
When the company's reputation should be crap like NBC's MSNBC
and NBC News and NBC have always been good at
smearing and not good at much else. Them and MSNBC
president Rashida Jones, NBC News Chairman Caesar Conde, and NBC
(27:37):
Universal Chairman Jeff Shell will show them. We'll trash er
and that will show them what lousy judges of talent
we are. Hey, who you are? Who thought this plan?
Up today's worst persons in the world to the number
(28:06):
one story on the Countdown in my favorite topic, me
and things I promised not to tell, And for the
first time that really applies to this, I have a
confession to make. Thirty years ago today, November, Baseball's Colorado
Rockies in Florida now Miami Marlins were born by an
expansion draft, the first in baseball in sixteen years in
(28:28):
New York, and I anchored it on ESPN all day
and before it started, I was able to figure out
who the first pick in the draft was going to be.
And then, as now, I wasn't proud of how I
confirmed that story, but I did it anyway. It wasn't planned,
it didn't do any real harm. And what followed. It
(28:50):
was one of the weirdest things I've ever experienced in broadcasting.
The draft and our interminable broadcast I got on the
set before it was light and left after it got
dark took place in the Marriott Marquis Telling Times Square
in New York on November. And not only were we
on the air, Peter Gammon's and Ray Night and me
(29:12):
at the anchor desk from like ten in the morning
until ten at night, but the three of us plus
dozens of staffers had been sequestered to prepare in that
hotel for almost the entirety of the previous week. They
didn't even want us leaving the hotel. Moreover, Gammons and
I and others had been meeting for an hour or
so every Tuesday since August to go over the thousands
(29:35):
of possibilities of who would be eligible for this draft,
who would not, and who would likely to be taken.
Our preparation was like a real life version of the
apocryphal story of the ancient king assembling scholars to study
for years to find him one phrase that was true
and usable in any circumstance. Well, by the time November
(29:56):
rolled around, we had had so many of these meetings
that I was dreaming the names of one d possible
minor leaguers they might draft off the New York Mets
future Hall of Famer Trevor Hoffman was selected in that draft.
We talked about him, so we're later Yankees and Phillies
manager Joe Girardi and two other future major league managers,
Brad Ausmus and Eric Wedge. Then it's a pretty quick
(30:19):
fall off to the Ryan Hallblitzel's and Andre's Barrowman's who
were selected in the draft. Anyway, maybe on the Sunday
before the actual draft, which was on a Tuesday that year,
Peter Gammon's found out that the guy the Florida Marlins
really wanted was a minor league outfielder who had been
left exposed by the Toronto Blue Jays named Nigel Wilson.
(30:42):
But the number one pick by the Colorado Rockies was
still uncertain. Since August, we had figured the Rockies would
take the best picture available, and that that would be
whichever one of three or four guys the Atlanta Braves
did not protect then as now they had a lot
of good young pictures. The two likeliest possibilities that they
were gonna have to expose were named Kent, Mrker David Need.
(31:07):
So early on Monday, somebody I knew in the Rockies
organization confirmed to me off the record that their franchise
had decided on taking the Atlanta picture. And when I
said which one, he laughed and said, scap for it,
which was something we used to say on the playground
when I was a kid, when we wanted the other
kid to have to search for something like a dropped
(31:28):
coin or a marble or the homework answers. Then another
source told me that the Braves in deciding on the
Atlanta picture, well, they had chosen to protect Kent Mrker,
but not to protect David Need. And so I asked
our searcher at the draft, Vinnie va salo Vin. He's
a statman who I mentioned ten days ago after he
(31:49):
passed away. I asked Vinnie to see if there was
some way he could find the phone number for David
Needs family in Texas I think it was, And of
course Vinnie found the number, and I knew the Rockies
were going to have to have who ever they were
going to pick first in New York with us for
the announcement on Tuesday morning, so if David Need was
(32:13):
still at his parents home in Texas or wherever it
was at five pm Monday local time, he was really
unlikely to be in New York before ten am Tuesday.
They would not cut it that close. So I took
the phone number of then he got for me, and
I called and a young voice answered, his younger sister,
(32:33):
maybe maybe a tween ten eleven, something like that, And
I asked, is David there? And she said, no, he's not.
Can I take a message? And that's when it came
to me, some kind of evil repertorial instinct which made
me say, oh, I'm sorry I missed him. Did he
already get on the plane for New York? And she
(32:53):
said yes. Before I had finished thanking her, I began
to feel a guilt that I have retained to this day. Still.
A scoop is a scoop. We were there to cover
the expansion draft, and I sure had covered it. A
Rocky source said they were taking the Atlanta picture, and
Atlanta source said the Braves had not protected David Need.
(33:15):
A Need family source had said he was already on
the plane to New York at the last big staff
meeting in a conference room in the hotel just before
dinner on Monday, we all agreed ESPN had learned that
David Need would be the first player chosen in the
expansion Draft and Nigel Wilson would be the second, And
(33:35):
this being thirty years ago, we sat on all that
there was no internet. There was no value in putting
it on the eleven PM Sports Center because the only
suspense we had for the actual broadcast of the draft
the next day was letting people wonder if maybe some
of the wilder rumors were correct and the first guy
chosen in the draft the next day wouldn't be some
obscure prospect like David Need, but would be a big
(33:58):
name like Eddie Murray or Lee Smith or some other
high price guy. Edis are to believe. But we kept
these two scoops to ourselves for sixteen hours. Nobody knew
until we signed on the next morning. That used to
happen all the time. I confirmed the trade of Wayne
(34:20):
Gretzky to the l A. Kings in August about five
PM Pacific time. It was still at breaking news exclusive
when we led with it on the Channel five News
at ten. However, there was a fairly new ESPN correspondent
who was with us in the New York hotel representing
ESPN Radio. And I think she is still with the company,
so I will leave her name out of it, because
(34:42):
I really think in retrospect, she just had no idea.
This wasn't what all of ESPN management had wanted her
to do. And she listened very carefully to Gammon's reporting
to the group that he'd figured out and figured out
and was going to report that Nigel Wilson was the
first choice of the Marlins, and me reporting to the
(35:02):
group that I'd figured out and had figured out was
going to report by deceiving David needs Kids sister. And
then she said this reporter did excuse me, I don't
want to just walk out of the room, but I'm
just leaving to go back to my room and phone
all this into ESPN Radio so we can put it
on the air right away, as in a movie. Several
(35:25):
dozen heads turned towards her, each with a look of
astonishment on it, except for one or two guys who
just assumed she was kidding. They laughed. I laughed. I
was one of the hosts song ESPN Radio. Hell. I
was one of the founding hosts of ESPN Radio. So
I said, what do you mean we're embargoing this. We're
(35:46):
not even running it on Sports Center. We're gonna lead
the draft coverage with it tomorrow. And she smiled pleasantly
and said, well, that might be what they told you
to do, but I was told to report any breaking
news immediately, and and this is breaking news at this point.
Peter Gammon's got very red. The hell you are, he said,
(36:06):
and she said pleasantly, yes, the hell I am, and
she got up and left. I wasn't quite as mad
as Peter, or as our executive producer, or as any
of the other dozen producers or anybody else in the room, because,
as I said, I worked for ESPN Radio too. I
knew something the others in the room did not, And
more importantly, I knew something the reporter who had just
(36:28):
left the room intending to scoop us and her own
employers did not. But I had to make sure. As
the producers began to say things like follow her and
stop her and fire her, I said, just just wait.
Let me let me call the general manager of the
radio network first I did. He was in the hotel.
(36:49):
He never missed an opportunity like that. I explained the
situation to him. I'll talk to her, he sighed, she's
just being overly enthusiastic. I didn't tell her to do that.
Nobody told her to do there, and I asked him
if there were any special report or anything that she
could be filing somewhere. In other words, she went back
to her room to call this in, to go on
(37:10):
the ESPN Radio network and report it before we could Nope,
said the general manager. Same schedule as ever, We're dark
until tomorrow afternoons, extra point commentary at five m. Well,
there was now ugly murmuring in the room, and I
told them all to relax. What had just been confirmed
(37:31):
by the general manager of the radio network, which had
only been on the air for ten months and was
anything but full time, was that there was nothing on
ESPN Radio right now. There was no place for their
reporter to scoop us on ESPN Radio was off the air,
literally silent, until four pm the following afternoon. I know
(37:54):
people at ESPN who still hold grudges against her for this,
though I've done all the damage I can do here.
Thank you for listening. If you're not following, were subscribed
(38:16):
or whatever, please do so, and also please stop a
passer by on the street and get them to follow
as well. Here are our credits. Most of the music,
including our theme for Beethoven's Ninth, was arranged, produced, and
performed by Brian Ray and John Philip Chanelle. They are
the Countdown musical directors. All orchestration and keyboards by John
Philip Chanelle. Guitars based and drums by Brian Ray, produced
(38:38):
by T k O Brothers brother Beethsoven selections have been
arranged and performed by No Horns Allowed. The sports music
is the Olberman theme from ESPN two, and it was
written by Mitch Warren Davis courtesy of ESPN, Inc. Musical
comments from Nancy Faust, the best baseball stadium organist ever.
Our announcer today fitting with the ESPN story was Kenny Maine.
(38:59):
That story played out before Kenny worked for ESPN. In fact,
it played out before there was an ESPN two. Everything
else pretty much my fault. So let's countdown for this
the six and eighty first day since Donald Trump's first
attempted coup against the democratically elected government of the United States.
Arrest him now while we still can a new episode tomorrow.
Until then, I'm Keith oll. We're in good morning, good afternoon, goodnight,
(39:22):
and good luck. Countdown with Keith old Woman is a
production of I heart Radio. For more podcasts from I
heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you get your podcasts.
Host
Keith Olbermann
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