April 17, 2023 • 39 mins
EPISODE 179: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN
A-Block (1:42) SPECIAL COMMENT: The Fox-Dominion Trial is delayed until Tuesday so the two sides can discuss settling out of court. DON'T SETTLE! I'm like everybody else who ever worked for Rupert Murdoch, dated Laura Ingraham, and was asked to co-host a show with Tucker Carlson! I need to see them all in the witness box, under oath, WEEPING.
Seriously, America could use the catharsis of an on-the-record verdict that Fox is not and never has been a news organization but even that isn't enough to destroy it. It needs juries doubling the demanded damages in this case AND Smartmatic to literally bankrupt the place (and survive appeals, including the Supreme Court, where Fox's lawyers think they'd win.
The late tea leaves aren't good. The delay and story of settlement discussions was broken by another Murdoch outlet, The Wall Street Journal, AND the promised Sunday night attack on Fox by Mark Levin against Dominion and the judge mysteriously never happened. We don't want them snatching peace from the jaws of war.
(8:20) Even when Clarence Thomas discloses something, he does it dishonestly. The latest revelations of his utter disregard for the Supreme Court's disclosure regulations. And could the vague precedent Richard Nixon used to force Abe Fortas to resign from SCOTUS in 1969 rather than face possible indictment, work with Clarence? In the interim, where is the Senate Judiciary hearing?
(16:25) Speaking of which: looks like the Texas judge in the appalling abortion pill ruling lied to the Senate during his confirmation process. Dick Durbin needs to get to work and get Matthew Kacsmaryk charged for perjury.
B-Block (22:51) IN SPORTS: The Oakland A's may not have much of a team, but they do provide every visiting team's television crew with the entertainment that is a live Possum living in the wall of the booth. And a wonderful farewell to Spencer, the official dog of The Boston Marathon (26:49) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: They'll be using Marjorie Barney Rubble Greene in a House campaign 1800 miles away. Turns out Nikki Haley's campaign doesn't know you can't count the same donation twice. And MAGA turns on Junior Trump. Remember, Buddy, this is how the French Revolution started.
C-Block (31:55) EVERY DOG HAS ITS DAY: Anastasia needs a foster near Devore, CA to save her life (32:55) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: There must be 10,000 ceremonial first pitches at baseball games all around the country every year, and 9900 of them must be bad. Here is the advice I was given 17 years ago that can save you from being one of the bad ones. Best of all, it involves CHEATING.
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 iHeartRadio. If
it had not already become clear how scared Fox is
(00:25):
of the Dominion defamation case, it became so last night,
as Day one of the trial was postponed from today
to tomorrow amid a one line rumor of a late
push by Fox to settle the thing, per the Wall
Street Journal, which is after all co owned with Fox
by Rupert Murdoch. There was also another tea leaf to
(00:46):
read to suggest this settlement talk is serious. The infamous
falsetto voice of Mark Levin had promised attacks on Dominion
and on the judge in the case, Eric Davis. On
his Fox show last night, Levin did not say a
word about either of them. Now now, I'm like everybody else here,
everybody else who has ever worked for Rupert Murdoch and
(01:09):
dated Laura Ingram and was asked to co host to
show on MSNBC with Tucker Carlson. I want to see
them on the stand under oath, weeping, weeping as their dishonest, unscrupulous, amoral, degraded, jaded, corrupt,
vile quotes are read back to them and a Dominion
lawyer holds up a big photo of the fired Lou
(01:29):
Dobbs and says, perhaps this will refresh your memory. Okay,
perhaps that's all a little specific to me. But America
could use five weeks of live coverage of Dominion versus
Fox Bullshit on trial, carried live on every other cable
(01:50):
network and every other streaming service, complete with primetime recaps,
hyperbole and revenge aside, though it would be an absolutely
cathartic experience for this country to have it on the
record and for all time, that Fox is not a
news organization, has never been a news organization, has no
journalistic standing, adheres to no ethics, and is programmed not
(02:15):
as any kind of reflection of reality, but merely as
the writers of the classic soap operas of the twentieth
century or the reality TV shows of the twenty first
century sketched out their plotlines to grab an audience and
hold it hostage with anything, any lie, any distortion, any
defamation necessary to retain one more viewer for one more second,
(02:38):
and to retain one more rupert Burdock dollar for one
more day. The problem is such a trial would make
little or no difference to the people who most desperately
need to process its testimony and learn something. The lunatic fringe,
for whom Fox has been the equivalent of the addictive
cola Slurm on Futurama, now has a bewildering choice of
(03:03):
different flavors and strengths of Slurm, Newsmax, One America News,
Real America's Voice, one Real America's Newsmax Voice, et cetera.
And if Fox is no longer a strong enough kick
for the fascist addicts, the others are happy to offer
a more potent and more addictive recipe. There are a
(03:25):
thousand places now for Fox viewers to go to hide
from reality, to be reassured that the lawsuit is just
the Deep States attempt to punish that happy guy Tucker
Carlson because he dared to show those exclusive January sixth
videos that showed nothing but their Facebook friends said showed everything.
And who you're gonna believe, Real American Maga, Patriot one, two,
(03:48):
three four, or your lying eyes. This is not to
argue that dominion should settle, not by a long shot.
In point of fact, Fox can lose this case and
lose big, and probably still survive relatively unscathed, even if
it somehow had to fire Carlson and Hannity and Ingram
as part of the deal. Carlson and Ingram were also
(04:12):
rans fill ins Weekend, people who everybody knew could never
carry Bill O'Reilly's water. And yet here we are in
a time when you often have to explain to Fox
viewers who Bill O'Reilly was. Fox could even use a
defeat at the hands of Dominion in court as an
excuse to cost cut. They are paying a lot of
cash to the primetime lineup, which is somewhat damaged after
(04:34):
all this already, and they could dirty up their reputations
on the way out the way they try to dirty
up everybody who ever leaves Fox and virtually dare the
Newsmaxes of this world to hire Carlson and Hannity and
Ingram while they poach the Newsmax stars or promote the
Pete Hegseth's and Dan Bongino's and Jesse Waters of this
(04:54):
Fox world to the front row for nominal raises. In
point of fact, the only fatal damaged Dominion and after
it Smart Mattock could do Fox would be to go
to trial, not settle and win and have the jury
come back and say a billion six for Dominion two
point seven billion for Smart Mattic. That's not enough. Let's
(05:16):
make it five billion each, and then Smartmatic and Dominion
would have to hope that the verdicts and the punishments
would hold up on appeal. That is just as important
a reason for Dominion to not settle with Fox as
is the prospect of an actual trial for the rest
of us. If Fox settles, it will not pay that
much money. It will not settle for enough money to
(05:38):
put itself out of business. And beyond that, Fox was
so worried that its attorney, Blake Roerbacher, had actually apologized
over the weekend to the judge Eric Davis for misleading
him and misleading the plaintiff by hiding the fact that
Rupert Murdoch actually has a title job inside Fox quote
news unquote. We understand the apology, read the Court's concerns, apologize,
(06:06):
and are committed to clear and full communication with the
court moving forward. I have been fighting Fox since nineteen
ninety seven and I have not once previously heard them
use on the record out loud the word apologize. That's
how worried they are about this case. The problem, though,
(06:28):
being that Murdoch's general counsel, a man named Viet Dinn,
not only thinks this case will eventually land at the
Supreme Court, but, quoting The New York Times, mister Dinn
has told colleagues privately that he believes Fox's odds at
the Supreme Court would be good unquote. I wonder why
he thinks that, all right, Harlan Crow and Clarence Thomas, ah,
(06:59):
and on top of everything else. Now, it turns out,
even when Clarence Thomas does disclose it, he's still lying.
The Washington Post reporting that the corrupt Supreme Court justice
has for fifteen years claimed that his family has been
getting income between two hundred and seventy thousand and three
(07:19):
quarters of a million dollars in total from a company
called Ginger Limited Partnership. The problem is the company has
not existed since the year two thousand and six. It
was a real estate firm in Nebraska opened by his
ex cult member wife and her family. And whether corruption
or mere sloppiness, Clarence Thomas has been so unconcerned with,
(07:43):
so disrespectful of this minimal, easy lip service level of
financial disclosure for a Supreme Court justice that he has
not bothered to get it right for fifteen consecutive financial
disclosure filings. The post points out this particular inaccuracy could
be a superficial and meaningless clerical error, but unfortunately it
(08:04):
now fits into an extraordinary pattern. Caught in twenty eleven,
leaving out his ex cult member's wife six hundred and
eighty six thousand dollars in income from the Heritage Foundation
that was supposed to be put in, thus being forced
by the group Common Cause to resubmit years of financial disclosures.
Clarence Thomas didn't disclose it. Caught checking the box for
(08:29):
her income marked none. Clarence Thomas didn't disclose it. Caught
again nine years later, leaving out the money he got
his reimbursements for traveling expenses to teach at the University
of Kansas, the University of Georgia, the law school at
Creighton University. Clarence Thomas didn't disclose it. Caught selling his
(08:49):
mother's home to a Nazi fanboy, billionaire funder of conservative
legal groups, constantly putting filings before the court on which
he sits. Clarence Thomas didn't disclose it. Caught claiming he
still owned part of his mother's home. Rather than acknowledging
he had sold it the year before while she still
lived there. Clarence Thomas didn't disclose it. Caught taking literally
(09:16):
millions of dollars in travel and gift and god knows
what else from the same Nazi fanboy billionaire activist Clarence
Thomas didn't disclose it, and may be worse, Clarence Thomas
issued a statement that colleagues told him he did not
need to report those vacations and other gifts which colleagues
(09:38):
Clarence Thomas did not disclose that either. Clarence Thomas is
a crook, and the Biden administration and the Democrats in
the Senate are letting Clarence Thomas get away with being
a crook. At some point this ceases to be exclusively
Clarence Thomas's fault. He is as corrupt and without morals
(10:01):
or conscience as anybody in this country. And one of
the great lessons of life is that people who act
that way tend to act that way time and time
again after they have realized they are going to get
away with it. It is the Democrats in the Senate,
the Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee led by its chairman,
Senator Richard Durbin of Illinois, who are sitting on their
(10:23):
hands while Clarence Thomas gets busy being a crook. It
is now eleven days since Pro Publica broke the most
massive financial scandal in the history of our Supreme Court,
the entire Harlan Crow luxury yachts and private jets, and
an eighteen hundred pounds statue of Clarence's favorite teacher story.
And all we have gotten out of Dick Durban is
(10:45):
a couple of statements and a couple of tweets, and
some not very pointed, hell not at all pointed warnings
to Chief Justice Roberts to clean up his house. As
if John Roberts had the guts to bring in a
packet of handywipes to the cesspool that is his Supreme Court.
You may now be saying, wait. Durbin and the Senate
(11:07):
Judiciary Committee sent the Court a letter saying the committee
would be conducting an investigation into Harlan Crowe's bribe gifts
and his gift bribes to Clarence Thomas. Oh no, he didn't.
Durbin said Roberts should conduct such an investigation. All Durban
promised to do was hold a hearing into quote restoring
(11:29):
confidence in Scotis ethical standards. And if you think John
Roberts or Clarence Thomas, or anybody who merely knows John
Roberts or Clarence Thomas is going to testify at that hearing,
you're crazy. You're likelier to get John Turley. Durbin phrased
it that way to make it sound like he is
doing something, when in fact he's doing nothing, and he
(11:49):
will do nothing unless we light his chair metaphorically on fire.
Dick Durbin needs to subpoena Clarence Thomas, get his sorry
corrupt ass in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee and
every camera in this nation and go over these gifts
line by line, and year by year and dollar by
daughter and break him. And you're damned, write the Senate
(12:11):
because subpoena a sitting Supreme Court justice. As the editor
of the New Republic Michael Tomaski noted, in nineteen fifty three,
a House committee issued a subpoena to Justice tom Clark,
and it managed to do so for a lot flimsier
reasons than Durbin has to issue one now for this giant,
one hundred piece brass band of corruption on parade called
(12:31):
Clarence Thomas. Even Justice Tom Clark was willing to answer
Committee questions in writing, and today even legal experts at
places like the Cato Institute believe judges at all levels
could be compelled to testify to the House or the
Senate compel him to testify, and before or after Durbin acts,
(12:55):
the Department of Justice needs to pursue indictments against Clarence
Thomas and Harlan Crow loudly and publicly. It is unclear
whether the DOJ can actually indict a sitting Supreme Court justice,
but it is clear that when Richard Nixon wanted to
force Justice Abe Fortis off the Supreme Court in nineteen
sixty nine, his henchmen, the Assistant Attorney General William Rehnquist,
(13:17):
found a possible precedent. As my friend John Deane wrote
in his book The Rehnquist Choice Quote, in seventeen ninety,
the First Congress, which included among its members James Madison
and other drafters of the Constitution, had passed a law
making it possible to prosecute federal judges for bribery. In addition,
Rehnquist found that six years later, seventeen ninety six, the
(13:40):
third Attorney General of the United States had quote held
that a judge could be called to account for unlawful
behavior by criminal indictment as well as by impeachment unquote
on May one, nineteen sixty nine, even though it was
hardly certain that what he had found was a precedent
about prosecuting judges and justices while they were still sitting
(14:04):
as a after they had been impeached and removed from
the bench, Rehnquist sent a memo to his boss, John Mitchell,
saying that this precedent was enough to threaten Fortis with
prosecution for taking twenty thousand dollars from a financier for
quote advice unquote his choice prosecution or resignation. Two weeks later,
(14:24):
Fordist chose resignation. That, by the way, was the last
day the court was made up of a majority of
justices appointed by Democratic presidents, and oh, by the way,
two years later, Nixon named William Rehnquist to the Supreme Court.
Twenty five years after that, Rehnquist was so nuts that
he added four gold stripes to his chief Justice's robes
(14:44):
because he'd seen them once in a Gilbert and Sullivan operetta.
Back to our current nut job, Clarence Thomas. This is
more than just appearances, more than Gilbert and Sullivan's stripes
on his robes. Since the story broke two weeks ago,
this coming Thursday, this Hitler collector, hate him, love his
landscape apes. Harlan Crowe has been almost universally described as
(15:08):
a Republican mega donor. It was Senator Chris Murphy of
Connecticut who pointed out that an article by Think Progress,
an article from twenty eleven, underscored that just one of
the many legal groups that Harlan Crowe finances, the Center
for Community Interest, had filed eight briefs to the Supreme Court.
(15:28):
Thomas voted on all eight cases and all eight times,
just as Thomas took the side advocated by Harlan Crowe's
Center for Community Interest. It is blank naked financial corruption.
It has to stop, and Clarence Thomas has to go.
And yes, by the way, Senator Chris Murphy is not
(15:52):
on the Senate Judiciary Committee. Senator Dianne Feinstein, She's on
the Senate Judiciary Committee. By the way, the Senate Judiciary
Committee has another judge it needs to subpoena and the
Department of Justice has another judge it needs to criminally investigate.
And his name is Matthew Kasmeric, and it's pretty clear
(16:14):
he lied to the Senate at his confirmation hearing. And
that is especially important today because it is this Sleezebag
Matthew Kasmeric who ruled against the abortion pill. Early in
twenty seventeen, when he was still just a Sleezebag lawyer
for a Sleezebag conservative group, Matthew Kasmeric submitted an article
to a Sleezebag publication he had led while he was
(16:38):
still a student, the Texas Review of Law and Politics,
and it criticized protections for those who needed abortions and
protections for transgender people. Chasmeric, it was his name on
the article argued that the Obama administration had ridden roughshod
over quote religious physicians who cannot use their scalpels to
(16:59):
make female what God created male, cannot use their pens
to prescribe or dispense of border fashion drugs designed to
kill unborn children. Yes, it's caveman lawyer come to life.
But it is not itself a crime, except that when
Kasmaric was nominated for a district judgeship by Trump in
(17:20):
twenty nineteen. Kasmeric was required to list that article and
all of his published work on a questionnaire required by
the Senate Judiciary Committee, and he left that one off
for some reason. He left it off because as it
was being ready for publication, he suddenly told the editors
to take his name off it and put others' names
(17:41):
on it. In short, Matthew Kasmerck, who just ruled that
the FDA's drug tests of two decades ago were dangerous
and wrong, even though they have since proved for two
decades neither dangerous nor wrong, perjured himself to the Senate,
should be impeached and removed from the bench, and should
go to prison. And once again we need Dick Durbin
(18:05):
to step up here. I understand he's composing the tweet
as we speak, still ahead of this initiative countdown. Well,
(18:25):
here it is. Finally a Democratic House candidate is going
to use the stench of his opponent's association with Marjorie
Barney Rubbell Green as a campaign issue in a congressional
race one eight hundred and forty five miles away from
Marjorie Barney Rubel Green. Speaking of campaigns, Nikki Haley's bid
(18:46):
for president has raised eleven million dollars. Oh sorry, they
added wrong, make it eight million dollars. And suddenly she
looks like a dope, which, by the way, she is.
Is that a possum in your baseball television booth? Or
are you just glad to see me? And the kind
of practical advice you are just not going to get
(19:06):
from any other podcast. What to do, whether it is
at the World Series or at a little league game
down the street from you. What to do if you
are asked to throw out a ceremonial first pitch at
a baseball game and you want it to go well,
Believe it or not, there is a secret life pack here.
(19:27):
That's next. This is countdown. You know. This is countdown
with you know Keith Olberman.
Speaker 2 (19:50):
This is Sports Senate. Wait, check that not anymore. This
is countdown with Keith Olberman.
Speaker 1 (20:01):
In sports. From nineteen fifty three through nineteen eighty two,
Jim Woods broadcast Major League Baseball games for the Pirates
or the Yankees, the Red Sox, the Giants, the Cardinals.
He was so good at it for so long that
he lasted from the time when the Big broadcast was
a network radio Game of the Day, to the time
when he was the play by play man on cable
(20:23):
on the USA Network Thursday Game of the Week. And
in nineteen seventy two and nineteen seventy three Jim Woods
did the games of the Oakland A's. The team won
the World Series both seasons, playing in the Oakland Coliseum,
and I mention all this. I mentioned the great Jim
Woods because he was known by and almost exclusively addressed
by a nickname poss It was short for possum, originally
(20:46):
referring to his haircut. And last Friday, baseball fans nationwide
discovered that in the same press box in which Jim
Possum Woods announced games to the Oakland A's, there is
now a real possum living in the wall of the
visiting team television booth. Seriously, the Oakland Colisee, and where
(21:06):
sewage has flowed freely through the dugout, but which ownership
expenditures have not, has its own in house possum. And Friday,
this possum, defying all known rules of animal decorum, relieved
himself inside his own den, and the smell was so
bad that the crew of the visiting New York Mets
chose to use a different TV booth. But that smell.
(21:30):
Are we sure it was the possum or it was
the cheap A's owners trying to make the place so
bad that Baseball would let them move the franchise to
Las Vegas. Thank you, Nancy Faust. Meanwhile, a little bit
(22:01):
more poignant confluence of sports and animals Boston Marathon Day,
but for some of us the Highland has already taken place.
At a downtown Boston park yesterday, the lives of the
official dog of the marathon, Spencer, and his niece Penny,
were celebrated. For a decade. Spencer and his humans, Rich
and Dory Powers, had greeted the Boston marathoners at mile three. Spencer,
(22:24):
a Golden Retriever, held a Boston Strong flag in his mouth,
and runner after runner would delay their race to take
a picture with him. Some years they were lined up
waiting to take a picture with him while they were
running the race. Spencer was thirteen when he died of
cancer in February. His niece Penny died not long after that,
and yesterday came the memorial. Friends of the Powers family
(22:46):
hoped a couple of Golden Retrievers would show up, maybe
a few dozen with their humans. In fact, the New
York Times estimates the number of dogs at the memorial
total two hundred and fifty. Rich Powers planned to be
at his usual spot at mile three for the twenty
twenty three marathon. No Spencer this time, sadly, but he
had lots of friends at the memorial. Yesterday. The Times
(23:06):
noted a few of them by name, Will Sammy, Mandy Cather, Lucy,
Frank Flynn, Lou Kona River, Miko Clementine, Lily Cedar Chester
and Maple Rip Spencer still ahead on this all new
(23:40):
edition of Countdown. This happens maybe ten thousand times a
year in this country. I got the life hack that
let me avoid the embarrassment that must happen in ninety
nine hundred of those ten thousand times. How to throw
a successful ceremonial first pitch, All you have to do
is cheat. I'll explain first time for the daily round
up the miscreants, morons and Dunning Kruger EFCT specimens who
(24:02):
constitute today's worst person in the world. The brons. Nicky
Haley Boy was at a big story when her presidential
campaign revealed it had burst out of the gate by
raising eleven million dollars. Yeah, actually not so much. Literally
not so much. The campaign transferred two million, seven hundred
(24:22):
thousand dollars among three different campaign subcommittees and counted all
of it going out and coming in, counted all that
money twice. So Haley raised eight point three million, not
eleven million, And ordinarily eight point three million would be
a great start, except when it turns out you artificially
inflated the number, something not even Trump does. How stupid
(24:43):
is this? Nicki Haley? As a side note stick a
fork in. The small man in high heeled shoes, the
best heeled of Ron Desanta's supporters, Florida's Thomas Petterfee, worth
about twenty six billion, says he will not be donating
any money to a Dessantis campaign because the candidate seems
to have lost some momentum. You think because he went
(25:06):
on of his stance on abortion and book banning. DeSantis
is too far to the right for this guy. Fetterfee.
The runner up, Marjorie Barney Rubbell Green, finally, finally, a
Democratic candidate, will make her part of his campaign, even
though he is in Arizona and she is in Georgia.
Andre Cherney, running for the Arizona House seat now held
(25:27):
by David Schweikert, tells Politico he will emphasize that Schweikert
took a campaign donation from Green's committee two thousand dollars.
One hopes he hits Green for being not just a
hallucinating fascist, but for being a cheap hallucinating fascist. Here's
two thousand dollars. It's as high as I can count.
(25:47):
But our winner Trump Junior. Oh, that terrifying moment has
arrived when you realize the monster you built is no
longer listening to you. The magas went nuts when bud
Light featured a trans person on a can of beer,
because beer is the one way they can tell themselves
they don't want to change genders, or wear a dress
(26:08):
or are gay. Junior took a moment off from his campaign.
You know things go better with Coke to tell them
to not boycott Anheuser Busch and bud Light and the
thirty two different anheuser Busch brands because Anheuser Busch was
one of the top corporate Republican donors. And the magas
went nuts. One wrote Trump's confirm Trader's status. Another more
(26:32):
proof that DJT is not going to save America. A
third says Junior is responsible for quote a masterclass in
becoming a rhino kiss A company's asked despite them doing
stuff that pisses you off, because they give your sides
politicians money, Junior Trump, Junior, Hey, Dandie better read up
(26:52):
on how that French revolution turned out, because this is
how it started. To Day's worst person in the world
(27:14):
stell ahead on Countdown. I'm not big into advice here,
but if one situation befalls you one particular situation, I
have your game plan next. First, in each tradition of Countdown,
we feature a dog ineed you can help every dog
has its day and to DeVore California. And it's not
merely that we have businesses that often make money killing dogs.
(27:35):
It's that they can be this unfeeling about it. They
are ready to kill two year old Anastasia because she's
quote aggressively fixating on food, even though one look at
Anastasia's photos and her videos show she is terrifyingly underweight
and malnourished. Fixated on food, good God, Anastasia is said
(27:57):
to be sweet and easygoing and needs a foster in
the DeVore, California area, someone who will feed her to
a rescue saves her from starvation followed by execution. You
can find Anastasia on my Twitter feeds. I thank you
and Anastasia thanks you to the number one story on
(28:36):
the Countdown and my favorite topic me and you'd be
surprised how often this happens. But literally ten days ago,
I was asked for advice by several people about to
do this, the kids of the great New York Mets
baseball announcer Bob Murphy, and they wanted to know how
to go about throwing out the ceremonial first pitch at
(28:59):
a baseball game. I don't know what the odds actually
are that you will ever be asked to throw out
a ceremonial first pitch at a baseball game. Not counting
spring training and the postseason, and not discounting double headers,
there are two thousand, four hundred and thirty Major League
baseball games played every year. There is not always a
(29:19):
ceremonial first pitch before each of them, but the number
seems to grow annually. Throw in the minor leagues, and
there are roughly nine, six hundred and thirty professional games
a year. I don't know how to begin to count
all the college games and even high school or other
amateur games where they start with somebody throwing out a
ceremonial first pitch. But I don't think that ten thousand
(29:40):
ceremonial first pitches a year is off by a crazy amount,
which means in ten years there are one hundred thousand
of them, and all of a sudden, your chances of
getting to do this or having to do this quickly
get wildly better than your chances of winning even a
small prize in a lottery or a free ham somewhere.
My number first came up on September fourth, two thousand
(30:02):
and six. I was on the stage Satan Island Ferry,
one of the most underrated transportation experiences in the world,
by the way, going to see the old Staten Island
Yankees played in the New York Pennsylvania League. My cell
phone rang. It was the general manager of the team
who had given me a press credential for that game.
Because yes, I was and am too cheap to spring
for a twelve dollars baseball ticket. The general manager asked
(30:25):
me if I wanted to throw out the ceremonial first
pitch that night, and I kind of had to say
yes because I was saving twelve dollars, so I said sure,
and he said great, And after we hung up, I
briefly thought my best bet was to jump off the
Staten Island ferry and take my chances swimming back to Manhattan.
Consider it. The odds that you will someday throw out
the ceremonial first pitch at a baseball game may be small,
(30:48):
but the odds that you will do so and be
any good at it are even smaller. You will be
asked to throw a baseball from a distance of roughly
sixty feet with your arm on a straight line, to
a professional catcher while all the fans watch, and often
while all the players and cameramen and TV cameras watch,
(31:12):
And ultimately it does not matter if it is fifty
fans or fifty thousand, and whether the cameras are Fox
and ESPN, are two friends of yours with old iPhones
or two enemies of yours with old iPhones. You will
get that rarest and most disturbing of sensations not only
that you are being watched, but that you are the
(31:34):
only thing being watched. All these thoughts played through my
head that Labor day so long ago, followed by memories
of the last time I actually tried to pitch. Eighth grade.
I did not get anybody out in the eighth grade.
I did not throw any strikes. I did not get
all of my pitches even to reach the catcher on
(31:55):
less than thirty one bounces. I was an okay hitter.
I had surprising power, I was not a pitcher, and bluntly,
since the eighth grade, I had only gotten worse. The
next set of thoughts was a quick, vivid personal replay
of every bad ceremonial first pitch I had ever seen.
It hadn't happened as of that day on the way
(32:16):
to Staten Island, but the one in New York with
the rapper fittycent that may come to your mind. That's
where Fitdty sent got on the mound before a Mets game,
and he let her rip and off went the ball
at an angle of fidty degrees. Call me, maybe, girl
got a first pitch in Tampa literally spiked the ball,
as did Mariah Carey in Japan, as did basketball's John
(32:37):
Wall in Washington. Actor Jordan Leandre took the mound at
Fenway Park in Boston in front of a line of
former Red Sox pitchers there for a reunion, and disaster struck.
Not only did he overthrow the catcher by twenty or
thirty feet, but his pitch ultimately hit the team photographer
in the groin. These and other first pitches gone bad,
(32:59):
all of them on video somewhere, will loom up in
front of you like the specters of dead people to
whom you owe money. At roughly this stage in my
two thousand and six panic, my phone rang again. It
was a former major league pitcher, a friend of mine,
and within moments I had explained the mistake I had
just made, and he said, to my surprise, easy fix.
(33:21):
And I said, I'm about to jump off the Staten
Island ferry, and he said, very easy fix. First thing,
he said, as soon as you get to the ballpark,
get a baseball, get the baseball, get their baseball, ask
them for a baseball. Steal a baseball, buy a baseball,
and every moment you have that baseball, take your fingernails
(33:43):
and just kind of pull up on the red stitches.
Just try to loosen them with your fingers. It will
seem as if nothing is happening. But if you just
pull out those stitches with your nails in ten or
fifteen minutes, essentially what you'll have is a scuffed baseball.
And I said nah, And he said, why do you
(34:06):
think I threw so many first pitch strikes in my
starts in my home ballpark Because I got the ball
and pulled at the stitches. Then they changed the rules
on me. But trust me, if you do this, it
will drop like a stone. It will drop in front
of the catcher, like it's Mariano Rivera's cut fastball. I sighed,
(34:29):
I said, all right, what else? He said, do not,
under any circumstances actually go up onto the mound. He
sounded stern and annoyed, and as if he had been
annoyed for decades. You were not a pitcher. You are
not used to throwing off an irregular sloped hill. All
you can do from on top of the mound is
(34:49):
fall off the top of the mound. Just go to
the very front. We call it the skirt of the mound.
Think skirts. You're far enough away, you're standing on the
mound sort of. Nobody's going to criticize, you do not
die on that hill. Well, that made sense. Anything else.
What happens, he asked, rhetorically and pleasantly, what happens when
(35:12):
you see a ceremonial pitch hit the ground or drop
in the dirt in front of the catcher? I replied,
everybody goes boo Exactly, he said, what happens when you
see a fair ceremonial first pitch go over the catcher's head?
I replied, everybody laughs. Which do you prefer? He asked,
(35:33):
do you prefer to be booed or to get a laugh.
He did not wait for my reply. Aim at the
catcher's head. Worse things happen. It goes over his head,
You get a big laugh. You can laugh with them. Plus,
if you have been picking at the stitches, when you
aim at the catcher's head about ten fifteen, twenty feet
(35:54):
before the ball gets to him, the ball will drop
like a stone for a strike, like your Mariano Rivera,
and they will cheer you. Those were his in stro ductions.
Actual professional Major league pitcher pitched in a World Series.
Immediately get a baseball, doesn't matter which one pick at
the stitches, never go on to the mound and aim high.
(36:20):
Fifteen minutes later, I was in the beautiful Staten Island
Ballpark with its startling vista of Manhattan and the westernmost
edges of the Atlantic Ocean, and within seconds of getting
on the field, I had accomplished the first task. I
found a ball just sitting there in the third base dugout,
and immediately I grabbed it and began pulling at the
stitches with my fingernails. And of course nothing happened. Two
hours to game time, and I had people to say
(36:41):
hello to and things to see in, food to buy,
and yet I kept picking at the stitches with my fingernails,
And within minutes I was firmly convinced my quote friend
unquote had played me just to see if I would
be stupid enough to actually pick at the stitches with
fingernails that could not possibly alter those stitches in the
trial of ten thousand years. As the time for the
(37:04):
first neered, life itself accelerated. Before I knew it, I
was walking out from the dugout with the Staten Island
catcher Francisco Cervelli, who later made the Majors and was
briefly a Yankee fan favorite, and then in Pittsburgh too,
and I said to him, be prepared. I'm gonna aim
high so they laugh when it flies over your head.
He backed up to the plate. I walked to the
(37:25):
mound and did not go on it. I was still
picking at the stitches on the baseball and swearing oaths
of vengeance at my pitcher friend. Suddenly I saw ten
million people staring at me, even though there were only
about fifteen hundred of them actually in the ballpark. I
made a stilted and awkward wind up of a sort.
I concentrated on hitting my catcher, Sirvelli, in the head
(37:47):
with it. The ball came out of my hand with
surprising ease. It shot directly towards the catcher's helmet, and,
as God is my witness, fifteen feet from the plate,
the damn thing dropped like a stone and thunked into
Cervelli's glove for a perfect strike. There were laughs of surprise,
(38:07):
many of them were mine. There were some roars of
approval and even applause. I stood stunned and motionless. The catcher, Survelli,
was running towards me while laughing, and when he got
to me before he handed me the baseball as a souvenir.
He looked at it quickly and then up at me,
and he said, you've been picking at the stitches. Good job.
(38:45):
I've done all the damage I can do here. Thank
you for listening. Here are the credits. Most of the
music was arranged, produced, and performed by Brian Ray and
John Phillip Shanell. The Countdown musical directors. All orchestration and
keyboards by John Phillip Shanell, Guitars, bass and drums by
Brian Ray, and it was produced by Tko Brothers. Other
Beethoven selections been arranged and performed by the group No
(39:06):
Horns Allowed. Sports music is the Oulderman theme from ESPN
two and it was written by Mitch Warren Davis courtesy
of ESPN, Inc. Musical comments by Nancy Fauss. The best
baseball stadium organist ever I announced you today was Richard Lewis,
And everything else is pretty much my fault. So that's
countdown for this, the eight hundred and thirty second day
since Donald Trump's first attempted coup against the democratically elected
(39:29):
government of the United States. Don't forget keep arresting him
while we still can. The next scheduled countdown is tomorrow.
Until then, I'm keith Olraman. Good morning, good afternoon, good night,
and good luck. Countdown with Keith Oldraman is a production
(39:51):
of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. If
it had not already become clear how scared Fox is
(00:25):
of the Dominion defamation case, it became so last night,
as Day one of the trial was postponed from today
to tomorrow amid a one line rumor of a late
push by Fox to settle the thing, per the Wall
Street Journal, which is after all co owned with Fox
by Rupert Murdoch. There was also another tea leaf to
(00:46):
read to suggest this settlement talk is serious. The infamous
falsetto voice of Mark Levin had promised attacks on Dominion
and on the judge in the case, Eric Davis. On
his Fox show last night, Levin did not say a
word about either of them. Now now, I'm like everybody else here,
everybody else who has ever worked for Rupert Murdoch and
(01:09):
dated Laura Ingram and was asked to co host to
show on MSNBC with Tucker Carlson. I want to see
them on the stand under oath, weeping, weeping as their dishonest, unscrupulous, amoral, degraded, jaded, corrupt,
vile quotes are read back to them and a Dominion
lawyer holds up a big photo of the fired Lou
(01:29):
Dobbs and says, perhaps this will refresh your memory. Okay,
perhaps that's all a little specific to me. But America
could use five weeks of live coverage of Dominion versus
Fox Bullshit on trial, carried live on every other cable
(01:50):
network and every other streaming service, complete with primetime recaps,
hyperbole and revenge aside, though it would be an absolutely
cathartic experience for this country to have it on the
record and for all time, that Fox is not a
news organization, has never been a news organization, has no
journalistic standing, adheres to no ethics, and is programmed not
(02:15):
as any kind of reflection of reality, but merely as
the writers of the classic soap operas of the twentieth
century or the reality TV shows of the twenty first
century sketched out their plotlines to grab an audience and
hold it hostage with anything, any lie, any distortion, any
defamation necessary to retain one more viewer for one more second,
(02:38):
and to retain one more rupert Burdock dollar for one
more day. The problem is such a trial would make
little or no difference to the people who most desperately
need to process its testimony and learn something. The lunatic fringe,
for whom Fox has been the equivalent of the addictive
cola Slurm on Futurama, now has a bewildering choice of
(03:03):
different flavors and strengths of Slurm, Newsmax, One America News,
Real America's Voice, one Real America's Newsmax Voice, et cetera.
And if Fox is no longer a strong enough kick
for the fascist addicts, the others are happy to offer
a more potent and more addictive recipe. There are a
(03:25):
thousand places now for Fox viewers to go to hide
from reality, to be reassured that the lawsuit is just
the Deep States attempt to punish that happy guy Tucker
Carlson because he dared to show those exclusive January sixth
videos that showed nothing but their Facebook friends said showed everything.
And who you're gonna believe, Real American Maga, Patriot one, two,
(03:48):
three four, or your lying eyes. This is not to
argue that dominion should settle, not by a long shot.
In point of fact, Fox can lose this case and
lose big, and probably still survive relatively unscathed, even if
it somehow had to fire Carlson and Hannity and Ingram
as part of the deal. Carlson and Ingram were also
(04:12):
rans fill ins Weekend, people who everybody knew could never
carry Bill O'Reilly's water. And yet here we are in
a time when you often have to explain to Fox
viewers who Bill O'Reilly was. Fox could even use a
defeat at the hands of Dominion in court as an
excuse to cost cut. They are paying a lot of
cash to the primetime lineup, which is somewhat damaged after
(04:34):
all this already, and they could dirty up their reputations
on the way out the way they try to dirty
up everybody who ever leaves Fox and virtually dare the
Newsmaxes of this world to hire Carlson and Hannity and
Ingram while they poach the Newsmax stars or promote the
Pete Hegseth's and Dan Bongino's and Jesse Waters of this
(04:54):
Fox world to the front row for nominal raises. In
point of fact, the only fatal damaged Dominion and after
it Smart Mattock could do Fox would be to go
to trial, not settle and win and have the jury
come back and say a billion six for Dominion two
point seven billion for Smart Mattic. That's not enough. Let's
(05:16):
make it five billion each, and then Smartmatic and Dominion
would have to hope that the verdicts and the punishments
would hold up on appeal. That is just as important
a reason for Dominion to not settle with Fox as
is the prospect of an actual trial for the rest
of us. If Fox settles, it will not pay that
much money. It will not settle for enough money to
(05:38):
put itself out of business. And beyond that, Fox was
so worried that its attorney, Blake Roerbacher, had actually apologized
over the weekend to the judge Eric Davis for misleading
him and misleading the plaintiff by hiding the fact that
Rupert Murdoch actually has a title job inside Fox quote
news unquote. We understand the apology, read the Court's concerns, apologize,
(06:06):
and are committed to clear and full communication with the
court moving forward. I have been fighting Fox since nineteen
ninety seven and I have not once previously heard them
use on the record out loud the word apologize. That's
how worried they are about this case. The problem, though,
(06:28):
being that Murdoch's general counsel, a man named Viet Dinn,
not only thinks this case will eventually land at the
Supreme Court, but, quoting The New York Times, mister Dinn
has told colleagues privately that he believes Fox's odds at
the Supreme Court would be good unquote. I wonder why
he thinks that, all right, Harlan Crow and Clarence Thomas, ah,
(06:59):
and on top of everything else. Now, it turns out,
even when Clarence Thomas does disclose it, he's still lying.
The Washington Post reporting that the corrupt Supreme Court justice
has for fifteen years claimed that his family has been
getting income between two hundred and seventy thousand and three
(07:19):
quarters of a million dollars in total from a company
called Ginger Limited Partnership. The problem is the company has
not existed since the year two thousand and six. It
was a real estate firm in Nebraska opened by his
ex cult member wife and her family. And whether corruption
or mere sloppiness, Clarence Thomas has been so unconcerned with,
(07:43):
so disrespectful of this minimal, easy lip service level of
financial disclosure for a Supreme Court justice that he has
not bothered to get it right for fifteen consecutive financial
disclosure filings. The post points out this particular inaccuracy could
be a superficial and meaningless clerical error, but unfortunately it
(08:04):
now fits into an extraordinary pattern. Caught in twenty eleven,
leaving out his ex cult member's wife six hundred and
eighty six thousand dollars in income from the Heritage Foundation
that was supposed to be put in, thus being forced
by the group Common Cause to resubmit years of financial disclosures.
Clarence Thomas didn't disclose it. Caught checking the box for
(08:29):
her income marked none. Clarence Thomas didn't disclose it. Caught
again nine years later, leaving out the money he got
his reimbursements for traveling expenses to teach at the University
of Kansas, the University of Georgia, the law school at
Creighton University. Clarence Thomas didn't disclose it. Caught selling his
(08:49):
mother's home to a Nazi fanboy, billionaire funder of conservative
legal groups, constantly putting filings before the court on which
he sits. Clarence Thomas didn't disclose it. Caught claiming he
still owned part of his mother's home. Rather than acknowledging
he had sold it the year before while she still
lived there. Clarence Thomas didn't disclose it. Caught taking literally
(09:16):
millions of dollars in travel and gift and god knows
what else from the same Nazi fanboy billionaire activist Clarence
Thomas didn't disclose it, and may be worse, Clarence Thomas
issued a statement that colleagues told him he did not
need to report those vacations and other gifts which colleagues
(09:38):
Clarence Thomas did not disclose that either. Clarence Thomas is
a crook, and the Biden administration and the Democrats in
the Senate are letting Clarence Thomas get away with being
a crook. At some point this ceases to be exclusively
Clarence Thomas's fault. He is as corrupt and without morals
(10:01):
or conscience as anybody in this country. And one of
the great lessons of life is that people who act
that way tend to act that way time and time
again after they have realized they are going to get
away with it. It is the Democrats in the Senate,
the Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee led by its chairman,
Senator Richard Durbin of Illinois, who are sitting on their
(10:23):
hands while Clarence Thomas gets busy being a crook. It
is now eleven days since Pro Publica broke the most
massive financial scandal in the history of our Supreme Court,
the entire Harlan Crow luxury yachts and private jets, and
an eighteen hundred pounds statue of Clarence's favorite teacher story.
And all we have gotten out of Dick Durban is
(10:45):
a couple of statements and a couple of tweets, and
some not very pointed, hell not at all pointed warnings
to Chief Justice Roberts to clean up his house. As
if John Roberts had the guts to bring in a
packet of handywipes to the cesspool that is his Supreme Court.
You may now be saying, wait. Durbin and the Senate
(11:07):
Judiciary Committee sent the Court a letter saying the committee
would be conducting an investigation into Harlan Crowe's bribe gifts
and his gift bribes to Clarence Thomas. Oh no, he didn't.
Durbin said Roberts should conduct such an investigation. All Durban
promised to do was hold a hearing into quote restoring
(11:29):
confidence in Scotis ethical standards. And if you think John
Roberts or Clarence Thomas, or anybody who merely knows John
Roberts or Clarence Thomas is going to testify at that hearing,
you're crazy. You're likelier to get John Turley. Durbin phrased
it that way to make it sound like he is
doing something, when in fact he's doing nothing, and he
(11:49):
will do nothing unless we light his chair metaphorically on fire.
Dick Durbin needs to subpoena Clarence Thomas, get his sorry
corrupt ass in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee and
every camera in this nation and go over these gifts
line by line, and year by year and dollar by
daughter and break him. And you're damned, write the Senate
(12:11):
because subpoena a sitting Supreme Court justice. As the editor
of the New Republic Michael Tomaski noted, in nineteen fifty three,
a House committee issued a subpoena to Justice tom Clark,
and it managed to do so for a lot flimsier
reasons than Durbin has to issue one now for this giant,
one hundred piece brass band of corruption on parade called
(12:31):
Clarence Thomas. Even Justice Tom Clark was willing to answer
Committee questions in writing, and today even legal experts at
places like the Cato Institute believe judges at all levels
could be compelled to testify to the House or the
Senate compel him to testify, and before or after Durbin acts,
(12:55):
the Department of Justice needs to pursue indictments against Clarence
Thomas and Harlan Crow loudly and publicly. It is unclear
whether the DOJ can actually indict a sitting Supreme Court justice,
but it is clear that when Richard Nixon wanted to
force Justice Abe Fortis off the Supreme Court in nineteen
sixty nine, his henchmen, the Assistant Attorney General William Rehnquist,
(13:17):
found a possible precedent. As my friend John Deane wrote
in his book The Rehnquist Choice Quote, in seventeen ninety,
the First Congress, which included among its members James Madison
and other drafters of the Constitution, had passed a law
making it possible to prosecute federal judges for bribery. In addition,
Rehnquist found that six years later, seventeen ninety six, the
(13:40):
third Attorney General of the United States had quote held
that a judge could be called to account for unlawful
behavior by criminal indictment as well as by impeachment unquote
on May one, nineteen sixty nine, even though it was
hardly certain that what he had found was a precedent
about prosecuting judges and justices while they were still sitting
(14:04):
as a after they had been impeached and removed from
the bench, Rehnquist sent a memo to his boss, John Mitchell,
saying that this precedent was enough to threaten Fortis with
prosecution for taking twenty thousand dollars from a financier for
quote advice unquote his choice prosecution or resignation. Two weeks later,
(14:24):
Fordist chose resignation. That, by the way, was the last
day the court was made up of a majority of
justices appointed by Democratic presidents, and oh, by the way,
two years later, Nixon named William Rehnquist to the Supreme Court.
Twenty five years after that, Rehnquist was so nuts that
he added four gold stripes to his chief Justice's robes
(14:44):
because he'd seen them once in a Gilbert and Sullivan operetta.
Back to our current nut job, Clarence Thomas. This is
more than just appearances, more than Gilbert and Sullivan's stripes
on his robes. Since the story broke two weeks ago,
this coming Thursday, this Hitler collector, hate him, love his
landscape apes. Harlan Crowe has been almost universally described as
(15:08):
a Republican mega donor. It was Senator Chris Murphy of
Connecticut who pointed out that an article by Think Progress,
an article from twenty eleven, underscored that just one of
the many legal groups that Harlan Crowe finances, the Center
for Community Interest, had filed eight briefs to the Supreme Court.
(15:28):
Thomas voted on all eight cases and all eight times,
just as Thomas took the side advocated by Harlan Crowe's
Center for Community Interest. It is blank naked financial corruption.
It has to stop, and Clarence Thomas has to go.
And yes, by the way, Senator Chris Murphy is not
(15:52):
on the Senate Judiciary Committee. Senator Dianne Feinstein, She's on
the Senate Judiciary Committee. By the way, the Senate Judiciary
Committee has another judge it needs to subpoena and the
Department of Justice has another judge it needs to criminally investigate.
And his name is Matthew Kasmeric, and it's pretty clear
(16:14):
he lied to the Senate at his confirmation hearing. And
that is especially important today because it is this Sleezebag
Matthew Kasmeric who ruled against the abortion pill. Early in
twenty seventeen, when he was still just a Sleezebag lawyer
for a Sleezebag conservative group, Matthew Kasmeric submitted an article
to a Sleezebag publication he had led while he was
(16:38):
still a student, the Texas Review of Law and Politics,
and it criticized protections for those who needed abortions and
protections for transgender people. Chasmeric, it was his name on
the article argued that the Obama administration had ridden roughshod
over quote religious physicians who cannot use their scalpels to
(16:59):
make female what God created male, cannot use their pens
to prescribe or dispense of border fashion drugs designed to
kill unborn children. Yes, it's caveman lawyer come to life.
But it is not itself a crime, except that when
Kasmaric was nominated for a district judgeship by Trump in
(17:20):
twenty nineteen. Kasmeric was required to list that article and
all of his published work on a questionnaire required by
the Senate Judiciary Committee, and he left that one off
for some reason. He left it off because as it
was being ready for publication, he suddenly told the editors
to take his name off it and put others' names
(17:41):
on it. In short, Matthew Kasmerck, who just ruled that
the FDA's drug tests of two decades ago were dangerous
and wrong, even though they have since proved for two
decades neither dangerous nor wrong, perjured himself to the Senate,
should be impeached and removed from the bench, and should
go to prison. And once again we need Dick Durbin
(18:05):
to step up here. I understand he's composing the tweet
as we speak, still ahead of this initiative countdown. Well,
(18:25):
here it is. Finally a Democratic House candidate is going
to use the stench of his opponent's association with Marjorie
Barney Rubbell Green as a campaign issue in a congressional
race one eight hundred and forty five miles away from
Marjorie Barney Rubel Green. Speaking of campaigns, Nikki Haley's bid
(18:46):
for president has raised eleven million dollars. Oh sorry, they
added wrong, make it eight million dollars. And suddenly she
looks like a dope, which, by the way, she is.
Is that a possum in your baseball television booth? Or
are you just glad to see me? And the kind
of practical advice you are just not going to get
(19:06):
from any other podcast. What to do, whether it is
at the World Series or at a little league game
down the street from you. What to do if you
are asked to throw out a ceremonial first pitch at
a baseball game and you want it to go well,
Believe it or not, there is a secret life pack here.
(19:27):
That's next. This is countdown. You know. This is countdown
with you know Keith Olberman.
Speaker 2 (19:50):
This is Sports Senate. Wait, check that not anymore. This
is countdown with Keith Olberman.
Speaker 1 (20:01):
In sports. From nineteen fifty three through nineteen eighty two,
Jim Woods broadcast Major League Baseball games for the Pirates
or the Yankees, the Red Sox, the Giants, the Cardinals.
He was so good at it for so long that
he lasted from the time when the Big broadcast was
a network radio Game of the Day, to the time
when he was the play by play man on cable
(20:23):
on the USA Network Thursday Game of the Week. And
in nineteen seventy two and nineteen seventy three Jim Woods
did the games of the Oakland A's. The team won
the World Series both seasons, playing in the Oakland Coliseum,
and I mention all this. I mentioned the great Jim
Woods because he was known by and almost exclusively addressed
by a nickname poss It was short for possum, originally
(20:46):
referring to his haircut. And last Friday, baseball fans nationwide
discovered that in the same press box in which Jim
Possum Woods announced games to the Oakland A's, there is
now a real possum living in the wall of the
visiting team television booth. Seriously, the Oakland Colisee, and where
(21:06):
sewage has flowed freely through the dugout, but which ownership
expenditures have not, has its own in house possum. And Friday,
this possum, defying all known rules of animal decorum, relieved
himself inside his own den, and the smell was so
bad that the crew of the visiting New York Mets
chose to use a different TV booth. But that smell.
(21:30):
Are we sure it was the possum or it was
the cheap A's owners trying to make the place so
bad that Baseball would let them move the franchise to
Las Vegas. Thank you, Nancy Faust. Meanwhile, a little bit
(22:01):
more poignant confluence of sports and animals Boston Marathon Day,
but for some of us the Highland has already taken place.
At a downtown Boston park yesterday, the lives of the
official dog of the marathon, Spencer, and his niece Penny,
were celebrated. For a decade. Spencer and his humans, Rich
and Dory Powers, had greeted the Boston marathoners at mile three. Spencer,
(22:24):
a Golden Retriever, held a Boston Strong flag in his mouth,
and runner after runner would delay their race to take
a picture with him. Some years they were lined up
waiting to take a picture with him while they were
running the race. Spencer was thirteen when he died of
cancer in February. His niece Penny died not long after that,
and yesterday came the memorial. Friends of the Powers family
(22:46):
hoped a couple of Golden Retrievers would show up, maybe
a few dozen with their humans. In fact, the New
York Times estimates the number of dogs at the memorial
total two hundred and fifty. Rich Powers planned to be
at his usual spot at mile three for the twenty
twenty three marathon. No Spencer this time, sadly, but he
had lots of friends at the memorial. Yesterday. The Times
(23:06):
noted a few of them by name, Will Sammy, Mandy Cather, Lucy,
Frank Flynn, Lou Kona River, Miko Clementine, Lily Cedar Chester
and Maple Rip Spencer still ahead on this all new
(23:40):
edition of Countdown. This happens maybe ten thousand times a
year in this country. I got the life hack that
let me avoid the embarrassment that must happen in ninety
nine hundred of those ten thousand times. How to throw
a successful ceremonial first pitch, All you have to do
is cheat. I'll explain first time for the daily round
up the miscreants, morons and Dunning Kruger EFCT specimens who
(24:02):
constitute today's worst person in the world. The brons. Nicky
Haley Boy was at a big story when her presidential
campaign revealed it had burst out of the gate by
raising eleven million dollars. Yeah, actually not so much. Literally
not so much. The campaign transferred two million, seven hundred
(24:22):
thousand dollars among three different campaign subcommittees and counted all
of it going out and coming in, counted all that
money twice. So Haley raised eight point three million, not
eleven million, And ordinarily eight point three million would be
a great start, except when it turns out you artificially
inflated the number, something not even Trump does. How stupid
(24:43):
is this? Nicki Haley? As a side note stick a
fork in. The small man in high heeled shoes, the
best heeled of Ron Desanta's supporters, Florida's Thomas Petterfee, worth
about twenty six billion, says he will not be donating
any money to a Dessantis campaign because the candidate seems
to have lost some momentum. You think because he went
(25:06):
on of his stance on abortion and book banning. DeSantis
is too far to the right for this guy. Fetterfee.
The runner up, Marjorie Barney Rubbell Green, finally, finally, a
Democratic candidate, will make her part of his campaign, even
though he is in Arizona and she is in Georgia.
Andre Cherney, running for the Arizona House seat now held
(25:27):
by David Schweikert, tells Politico he will emphasize that Schweikert
took a campaign donation from Green's committee two thousand dollars.
One hopes he hits Green for being not just a
hallucinating fascist, but for being a cheap hallucinating fascist. Here's
two thousand dollars. It's as high as I can count.
(25:47):
But our winner Trump Junior. Oh, that terrifying moment has
arrived when you realize the monster you built is no
longer listening to you. The magas went nuts when bud
Light featured a trans person on a can of beer,
because beer is the one way they can tell themselves
they don't want to change genders, or wear a dress
(26:08):
or are gay. Junior took a moment off from his campaign.
You know things go better with Coke to tell them
to not boycott Anheuser Busch and bud Light and the
thirty two different anheuser Busch brands because Anheuser Busch was
one of the top corporate Republican donors. And the magas
went nuts. One wrote Trump's confirm Trader's status. Another more
(26:32):
proof that DJT is not going to save America. A
third says Junior is responsible for quote a masterclass in
becoming a rhino kiss A company's asked despite them doing
stuff that pisses you off, because they give your sides
politicians money, Junior Trump, Junior, Hey, Dandie better read up
(26:52):
on how that French revolution turned out, because this is
how it started. To Day's worst person in the world
(27:14):
stell ahead on Countdown. I'm not big into advice here,
but if one situation befalls you one particular situation, I
have your game plan next. First, in each tradition of Countdown,
we feature a dog ineed you can help every dog
has its day and to DeVore California. And it's not
merely that we have businesses that often make money killing dogs.
(27:35):
It's that they can be this unfeeling about it. They
are ready to kill two year old Anastasia because she's
quote aggressively fixating on food, even though one look at
Anastasia's photos and her videos show she is terrifyingly underweight
and malnourished. Fixated on food, good God, Anastasia is said
(27:57):
to be sweet and easygoing and needs a foster in
the DeVore, California area, someone who will feed her to
a rescue saves her from starvation followed by execution. You
can find Anastasia on my Twitter feeds. I thank you
and Anastasia thanks you to the number one story on
(28:36):
the Countdown and my favorite topic me and you'd be
surprised how often this happens. But literally ten days ago,
I was asked for advice by several people about to
do this, the kids of the great New York Mets
baseball announcer Bob Murphy, and they wanted to know how
to go about throwing out the ceremonial first pitch at
(28:59):
a baseball game. I don't know what the odds actually
are that you will ever be asked to throw out
a ceremonial first pitch at a baseball game. Not counting
spring training and the postseason, and not discounting double headers,
there are two thousand, four hundred and thirty Major League
baseball games played every year. There is not always a
(29:19):
ceremonial first pitch before each of them, but the number
seems to grow annually. Throw in the minor leagues, and
there are roughly nine, six hundred and thirty professional games
a year. I don't know how to begin to count
all the college games and even high school or other
amateur games where they start with somebody throwing out a
ceremonial first pitch. But I don't think that ten thousand
(29:40):
ceremonial first pitches a year is off by a crazy amount,
which means in ten years there are one hundred thousand
of them, and all of a sudden, your chances of
getting to do this or having to do this quickly
get wildly better than your chances of winning even a
small prize in a lottery or a free ham somewhere.
My number first came up on September fourth, two thousand
(30:02):
and six. I was on the stage Satan Island Ferry,
one of the most underrated transportation experiences in the world,
by the way, going to see the old Staten Island
Yankees played in the New York Pennsylvania League. My cell
phone rang. It was the general manager of the team
who had given me a press credential for that game.
Because yes, I was and am too cheap to spring
for a twelve dollars baseball ticket. The general manager asked
(30:25):
me if I wanted to throw out the ceremonial first
pitch that night, and I kind of had to say
yes because I was saving twelve dollars, so I said sure,
and he said great, And after we hung up, I
briefly thought my best bet was to jump off the
Staten Island ferry and take my chances swimming back to Manhattan.
Consider it. The odds that you will someday throw out
the ceremonial first pitch at a baseball game may be small,
(30:48):
but the odds that you will do so and be
any good at it are even smaller. You will be
asked to throw a baseball from a distance of roughly
sixty feet with your arm on a straight line, to
a professional catcher while all the fans watch, and often
while all the players and cameramen and TV cameras watch,
(31:12):
And ultimately it does not matter if it is fifty
fans or fifty thousand, and whether the cameras are Fox
and ESPN, are two friends of yours with old iPhones
or two enemies of yours with old iPhones. You will
get that rarest and most disturbing of sensations not only
that you are being watched, but that you are the
(31:34):
only thing being watched. All these thoughts played through my
head that Labor day so long ago, followed by memories
of the last time I actually tried to pitch. Eighth grade.
I did not get anybody out in the eighth grade.
I did not throw any strikes. I did not get
all of my pitches even to reach the catcher on
(31:55):
less than thirty one bounces. I was an okay hitter.
I had surprising power, I was not a pitcher, and bluntly,
since the eighth grade, I had only gotten worse. The
next set of thoughts was a quick, vivid personal replay
of every bad ceremonial first pitch I had ever seen.
It hadn't happened as of that day on the way
(32:16):
to Staten Island, but the one in New York with
the rapper fittycent that may come to your mind. That's
where Fitdty sent got on the mound before a Mets game,
and he let her rip and off went the ball
at an angle of fidty degrees. Call me, maybe, girl
got a first pitch in Tampa literally spiked the ball,
as did Mariah Carey in Japan, as did basketball's John
(32:37):
Wall in Washington. Actor Jordan Leandre took the mound at
Fenway Park in Boston in front of a line of
former Red Sox pitchers there for a reunion, and disaster struck.
Not only did he overthrow the catcher by twenty or
thirty feet, but his pitch ultimately hit the team photographer
in the groin. These and other first pitches gone bad,
(32:59):
all of them on video somewhere, will loom up in
front of you like the specters of dead people to
whom you owe money. At roughly this stage in my
two thousand and six panic, my phone rang again. It
was a former major league pitcher, a friend of mine,
and within moments I had explained the mistake I had
just made, and he said, to my surprise, easy fix.
(33:21):
And I said, I'm about to jump off the Staten
Island ferry, and he said, very easy fix. First thing,
he said, as soon as you get to the ballpark,
get a baseball, get the baseball, get their baseball, ask
them for a baseball. Steal a baseball, buy a baseball,
and every moment you have that baseball, take your fingernails
(33:43):
and just kind of pull up on the red stitches.
Just try to loosen them with your fingers. It will
seem as if nothing is happening. But if you just
pull out those stitches with your nails in ten or
fifteen minutes, essentially what you'll have is a scuffed baseball.
And I said nah, And he said, why do you
(34:06):
think I threw so many first pitch strikes in my
starts in my home ballpark Because I got the ball
and pulled at the stitches. Then they changed the rules
on me. But trust me, if you do this, it
will drop like a stone. It will drop in front
of the catcher, like it's Mariano Rivera's cut fastball. I sighed,
(34:29):
I said, all right, what else? He said, do not,
under any circumstances actually go up onto the mound. He
sounded stern and annoyed, and as if he had been
annoyed for decades. You were not a pitcher. You are
not used to throwing off an irregular sloped hill. All
you can do from on top of the mound is
(34:49):
fall off the top of the mound. Just go to
the very front. We call it the skirt of the mound.
Think skirts. You're far enough away, you're standing on the
mound sort of. Nobody's going to criticize, you do not
die on that hill. Well, that made sense. Anything else.
What happens, he asked, rhetorically and pleasantly, what happens when
(35:12):
you see a ceremonial pitch hit the ground or drop
in the dirt in front of the catcher? I replied,
everybody goes boo Exactly, he said, what happens when you
see a fair ceremonial first pitch go over the catcher's head?
I replied, everybody laughs. Which do you prefer? He asked,
(35:33):
do you prefer to be booed or to get a laugh.
He did not wait for my reply. Aim at the
catcher's head. Worse things happen. It goes over his head,
You get a big laugh. You can laugh with them. Plus,
if you have been picking at the stitches, when you
aim at the catcher's head about ten fifteen, twenty feet
(35:54):
before the ball gets to him, the ball will drop
like a stone for a strike, like your Mariano Rivera,
and they will cheer you. Those were his in stro ductions.
Actual professional Major league pitcher pitched in a World Series.
Immediately get a baseball, doesn't matter which one pick at
the stitches, never go on to the mound and aim high.
(36:20):
Fifteen minutes later, I was in the beautiful Staten Island
Ballpark with its startling vista of Manhattan and the westernmost
edges of the Atlantic Ocean, and within seconds of getting
on the field, I had accomplished the first task. I
found a ball just sitting there in the third base dugout,
and immediately I grabbed it and began pulling at the
stitches with my fingernails. And of course nothing happened. Two
hours to game time, and I had people to say
(36:41):
hello to and things to see in, food to buy,
and yet I kept picking at the stitches with my fingernails,
And within minutes I was firmly convinced my quote friend
unquote had played me just to see if I would
be stupid enough to actually pick at the stitches with
fingernails that could not possibly alter those stitches in the
trial of ten thousand years. As the time for the
(37:04):
first neered, life itself accelerated. Before I knew it, I
was walking out from the dugout with the Staten Island
catcher Francisco Cervelli, who later made the Majors and was
briefly a Yankee fan favorite, and then in Pittsburgh too,
and I said to him, be prepared. I'm gonna aim
high so they laugh when it flies over your head.
He backed up to the plate. I walked to the
(37:25):
mound and did not go on it. I was still
picking at the stitches on the baseball and swearing oaths
of vengeance at my pitcher friend. Suddenly I saw ten
million people staring at me, even though there were only
about fifteen hundred of them actually in the ballpark. I
made a stilted and awkward wind up of a sort.
I concentrated on hitting my catcher, Sirvelli, in the head
(37:47):
with it. The ball came out of my hand with
surprising ease. It shot directly towards the catcher's helmet, and,
as God is my witness, fifteen feet from the plate,
the damn thing dropped like a stone and thunked into
Cervelli's glove for a perfect strike. There were laughs of surprise,
(38:07):
many of them were mine. There were some roars of
approval and even applause. I stood stunned and motionless. The catcher, Survelli,
was running towards me while laughing, and when he got
to me before he handed me the baseball as a souvenir.
He looked at it quickly and then up at me,
and he said, you've been picking at the stitches. Good job.
(38:45):
I've done all the damage I can do here. Thank
you for listening. Here are the credits. Most of the
music was arranged, produced, and performed by Brian Ray and
John Phillip Shanell. The Countdown musical directors. All orchestration and
keyboards by John Phillip Shanell, Guitars, bass and drums by
Brian Ray, and it was produced by Tko Brothers. Other
Beethoven selections been arranged and performed by the group No
(39:06):
Horns Allowed. Sports music is the Oulderman theme from ESPN
two and it was written by Mitch Warren Davis courtesy
of ESPN, Inc. Musical comments by Nancy Fauss. The best
baseball stadium organist ever I announced you today was Richard Lewis,
And everything else is pretty much my fault. So that's
countdown for this, the eight hundred and thirty second day
since Donald Trump's first attempted coup against the democratically elected
(39:29):
government of the United States. Don't forget keep arresting him
while we still can. The next scheduled countdown is tomorrow.
Until then, I'm keith Olraman. Good morning, good afternoon, good night,
and good luck. Countdown with Keith Oldraman is a production
(39:51):
of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Popular Podcasts
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations.
The Nikki Glaser Podcast
Every week comedian and infamous roaster Nikki Glaser provides a fun, fast-paced, and brutally honest look into current pop-culture and her own personal life.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.