April 27, 2023 • 40 mins
EPISODE 188: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN
A-Block (1:43) SPECIAL COMMENT: All the details are leaked to The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Wall Street Journal. Rupert Murdoch did TOO fire Tucker Carlson personally, just weeks after meeting with him. Murdoch was furious at Carlson calling President Zelensky a "Ukrainian Pimp" and even joined a Fox editorial meeting to complain, and furious that Carlson had called a NewsCorp exec (presumably communications mogul Irena Briganti) a C-U-Later.
Worse still, the C-word insult appeared in the Dominion lawsuit discovery product. Fox attorneys managed to get it redacted, told Carlson. But he replied he didn't WANT it redacted: he wanted everybody to know he'd said it. And the Fox Board and some executives didn't know until the day before the Dominion trial was to begin - another reason Fox settled.
Bottom lines: Fox is clearly revealing everything it has in its Carlson closet in hopes of making him eternally unemployable. Oh, and about 25 days ago Murdoch had dinner at his home in Bel-Air with his fiancee and his top Fox anchor and before the month was over HE HAD FIRED THEM BOTH.
B-Block (19:33) IN SPORTS: Two weeks ago he tied the record for the longest hitting streak for any player 20 or younger. Today's he's in the minors. And it's the anniversary of Harry Chili, the guy who was traded for "A Player To Be Named Later" and then the "Player To Be Named Later." Except it never happened; it's just an urban legend (24:33) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Ronna McDaniel lies about Trump and debates; Ron Johnson may actually have a head made of cheese: he suggests Wisconsin will be a safer place to live after catastrophic climate change; and the Vanity Blue Checkmark guy on twitter trying to incite genocide against Trans people and allies.
C-Block (30:01) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: 90 years ago this month the most humble superstar I ever met, was born. Why I still miss my friend Elizabeth Montgomery and the extraordinary and hilarious advice she gave me within minutes of the day we met.
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. So
the dominion suit was settled by Fox in part because
(00:26):
of stuff discovered at the last minute, and that stuff
was Tucker Carlson texts, and Carlson was fired personally hands on,
not by Lachlan Murdoch and Suzanne Scott, but by Rupert
Murdoch and Carlson really did call a woman executive at
Fox the C word, and all signs point to that
(00:47):
executive indeed being the one I mentioned, Irena Braganti, and
it is pretty clear her response was to open up
the oppo research files Fox had on Carlson that I
told you about yesterday. And you know how I hate
to say I told you so, and am ever reluctant
to go when I'm proven correct. And when I say hate,
(01:07):
I mean love. And when I say reluctant, I mean
I'm the first two executives, maybe Murdoch and his son
and the operational CEO Scott and the Fox board really
did somehow miss until the day before the dominion trial
was to begin that under those black boxes and the
redacted portions of the texts and top lines and emails,
(01:28):
Fox it had to turn over to Dominion was a
trove of Tucker Carlson time bombs and F bombs and
C bombs, and nearly all of them directed at his
own bosses. The New York Times reported last night, quote,
private messages sent by mister Carlson showed him making highly
offensive and crude remarks that went beyond the inflammatory, often
(01:51):
racist comments of his primetime show and anything disclosed in
the lead up to the trial. Despite the fact that
Fox's trial lawyers had these messages for months, the board
and some senior executives were now learning about their details
for the first time, setting off a crisis at the
highest level of the company. Wait, it gets worse. The
(02:13):
Washington Post on what was in those Carlson messages, quote,
he referred to a woman who is a senior communications
executive for Fox as a sea Dash Dash Dash. The
Wall Street Journal, not coincidentally also owned by Rupert Murdoch,
added one final thrust of the sword through whatever was
left of Tucker Carlson's prospects of ever again being an
(02:35):
employee anywhere. Fox lawyers had found the sea text weeks earlier. Quote,
they presented Tucker Carlson with what they thought was good
news they had persuaded the court to redact from a
legal filing the time he called a senior Fox News
executive the sea word unquote. But Carlson quote wasn't impressed.
(02:57):
He told his colleagues that he wanted the world to
know what he had said about the executive in a
private message. How could this get any worse? Just wait again?
Quoting the Journal, mister Carlson said, comments he made about Trump,
I hate him passionately that were in the court documents
were said during a momentary spasm of anger, while his
dislike of this executive was deep and enduring. Unquote. Hooy okay.
(03:25):
Let's stitch together the reports from the Times, the Post,
and the Journal to recap just this part of this.
Weeks before the Fox dominion trial was to start, lawyers
found at least one text in which Tucker Carlson called
a communications executive the old see you later. They told
him they'd got in the court to let them redact it.
He said, I don't want you to redact it. That's
(03:47):
how I feel about her. And despite that, many senior
Fox executives and the whole board of directors knew nothing
of Carlson's oh say, can you see text? Until the
day before the trial was supposed to begin, and panic ensued.
Fox was already negotiating a settlement, so they got a
postponent and then they cut a deal the day after that,
(04:09):
at least in part out of the fear that these
messages would become public during that trial. And by the way,
they still could become public since the Associated Press NPR
and The Times have challenged their redactions and the Delaware
Court is going to rule on that and could still
release them. So point two who fired him? The Journal
(04:30):
says Rupert Murdoch and his not quite ninety day fiance
and Leslie Smith dined with Carlson quote a few weeks
ago at Murdoch's home in bel Air, California. The Post
says that dinner was two weeks ago. It can't be
the engagement ended on April fourth. Whenever it was, things
seemed good. But the Post says Murdoch in fact conveyed
(04:52):
to Carlson that he was disturbed that Carlson had gone
so anti Ukraine and so pro Russia. Particularly, Murdoch did
not like Carlson's reference to President Zelenski as a quote
Ukrainian pimp that was on Carlson's show. The Post even
claims that pro Ukraine Republicans had complained to Murdoch and
that last month Murdoch quote joined a Fox newsroom meeting
(05:15):
to loudly challenge Carlson's message and how much fun must
that meeting have been? The next meeting of note, as
we already knew, was just last Friday night, with Suzanne
Scott and Lachlan Murdoch opting to get rid of Carlson.
The Times says severing times with Tucker Carlson was made
by quote the father's son team of Rupert and Lochlan Murdoch.
(05:38):
The Washington Post ads Lachlan spoke to his father about
it on Saturday. According to two people familiar with the discussion,
you may recall I told you this on Monday afternoon,
and again, I am loath to toot my own horn
on stuff like this. And when I say loathe, I
mean I have a collection of different horns over there
in my music room. The La Times also reported also
(05:59):
on Monday, that it was Rupert who pulled that trigger. Okay,
so let's do the whole timeline. I find this endlessly
entertaining on Saturday the second or so, Murdoch and his
then fiance hosted Carlson for dinner. That week, lawyers went
to Carlson and said, hey, there's a text in here
in which you misspell Arena Bragante's name with a C,
(06:19):
not a G, but we've redacted it, and he said,
I don't want it redacted. On Sunday the sixteenth, everybody
who did not know found out that at trial, a
dominion lawyer would be asking Carlson on the stand why
he called a News Corp Vice president the sea Word.
On Tuesday the eighteenth, Fox settled the dominion suit. On
Friday the twenty first, Lachlan Murdoc and Suzanne Scott decided
(06:42):
they had had enough of Tucker Carlson. On Saturday the
twenty second, Rupert Murdoch concurred with them that Carlson should
be fired. On Monday, the twenty fourth, he was fired
by phone by Suzanne Scott, and on Wednesday, the twenty sixth,
Arena Bragante opened up the closet full of Tucker Carlson
skeletons they had at Fox and began parceling them out
to the Wall Street Journal. In the Washington post in
(07:03):
the New York Times. And by, by the way, there
are more. I guarantee you there are more. The bottom
line of the timeline Rupert Murdoch had dinner like twenty
five days ago with his fiance and his top Fox anchor,
and within three weeks he had fired both of them.
(07:25):
To me, there are three subtle lowercase headlines. First, this
whole scenario in which lawyers tried to save Carlson by
redacting his vulgarity towards Briganti or the off chance that
it was somebody else, and he defiantly said he meant
every word of that word. This is the Tucker Carlson
I knew at MSNBC, and later when he stole my
(07:48):
identity and opened a website with my name in it
and pretended to be me in an email interview with
a Philadelphia Daily News columnist. He's a petulant little boy,
A petulant little boy, unchanged since nineteen eighty three or so,
when he had to move from the boys department to
the men's at Jack Taylor Clothier's of Beverly Hills. Small petty,
(08:12):
incapable of learning the eternal lessons that objects in the
mirror are closer than they appear. It wasn't just that
he had to insult Briganti, He had to make sure
you knew he was insulting her. Just like at MSNBC,
he used to shout slurs against everybody but whites and
Asians and men, and people would tell him to keep
his voice down, and he wouldn't. Second replaces devoid of
(08:37):
moral force or ethics, as Fox, the number of times
they accidentally seem valiant or chivalrous is really surprising and
needs to be explained. Rupert Murdoch doesn't give a damn
whether or not Tucker Carlson calls Burgante the sea word.
He only cares about whether or not she'll be mad
enough about it to quit him or sue his company,
(08:58):
or both, or reveal his skeletons in her closet. And
Rupert Murdoch didn't give a day if somebody calls Vladimir
Zelenski a quote pimp. He just needs some of the
Republicans who were offended. He needs them for some scheme
he is working up for the next month, for the
next year, or the next lifetime. And the last sub
headline came at exactly eight pm last night. Good evening.
(09:24):
It's Tucker Carlson. One of the first things you realize
when you step outside the noise for a few days
is how many genuinely nice people there are in this country,
kind and decent people, people who really care about et cetera,
et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. I am the last
person to criticize somebody for doing a Twitter only version
(09:48):
of what had been his show at exactly the hour
of the show used to start at exactly eight pm
Eastern Time, from one of the sets I he used
to use. I mean, after NBC breached my contract and
before the settlement allowed me to act, we go on
TV again. At Current TV. I did a bunch of
commentaries from my living room on a website we called
(10:12):
Fox News FOK Friends of Keith that was actually secretly
run by Current TV, And when the show started on
Current TV in twenty eleven, we called it Countdown, and
though I resisted the name after that, starting in twenty twelve,
when we launched this podcast last year, yeah, what did
(10:36):
I call it again? Well, you know, long before I
finished the eight years of Countdown on MSNBC, I was
telling people that the problem with cable news is each
show you do requires you to do about three percent
more work per day than you can actually do. Sooner
(10:57):
or later, this will begin to affect your mind. It's
a kind of PTSD. And when suddenly you stop that show,
or as in Carlson's case, it is stopped for you,
part of you keeps working, keeps going, keeps going right
through the windshield. In that kind of sad Twitter video,
(11:18):
Tucker Carlson talked about having taken some time off. He
had been fired fifty six hours earlier. Fifty six hours
is not time off. Fifty six hours is a slightly
longer than usual weekend. Also, as you blithely try in
that situation to pretend things are just fine and you
didn't need that network and it's support staff of ooh,
(11:41):
two or three hundred people, you always forget to notice
something that the audience will not forget to notice. You
hit upload and they go uh oh. In Tucker's case,
it was the five speed bumps of those who have
claimed their independence from the crushing maw of cable news,
(12:01):
or as in his case, have had their independence handed
to them along with their head. One his prospects of
walking away with the forty million or so Fox owes
him clearly depend on him not actually doing a news
commentary of any kind. So in that thing I played
the clip from, he was not allowed to actually say anything,
(12:22):
and he didn't. There is not one name, not one location,
one news story mentioned in the whole two minutes and
fifteen seconds. Also, there's no microphone. Third, the lighting is
all wrong. Fourth, it is better to wear no makeup
at all than to do it incorrectly, And Carlston managed
(12:43):
to make himself look red while also forgetting to draw
in his eyebrows. Fifth, the angle at which he put
that camera made him look small, very very small. Or
maybe it's always been like that with him and the
rest of us just didn't notice. A couple of headlines
(13:09):
from the creature. Carlson and Murdoch have lied for Trump's
bid to stop Mike Pence's testimony to the Special Council's
January sixth grand jury, denied late yesterday by a three
judge federal appeals panel in the least convincing attempted slight
of hand by Trump's many lawyers, Tim Parlatour and James
Trusty have written to House Intelligence Chair Mike Turner and
(13:31):
professed to kind of false kumbayah, saying those classified documents
that Trump stole included notes that were given to him
for use during phone calls with foreign leaders, and thus
quote the stakeholders to these matters should set aside political
difference and work together to remediate the issue by thinking
(13:52):
carefully about these documents and not prosecuting Trump or Biden
or Pence who are suddenly in their mind all the
same here as usual, it is the Trump flunkies who
are actually going to prison. Brian Colpage and Andrew Batolado,
who worked with the scam, dressed up as a nonprofit
called We Build the Wall with Steve Bannon. The two
(14:13):
of them were sentenced yesterday, Battalado three years, Collfage four.
They spent the money on things like boat payments and
the Egen Carrol lawsuit started with her testifying for three
and a half hours in her rape and defamation lawsuit
against Trump. She said she was fired by l magazine
(14:33):
after she went public and she saw her career go away.
The day began with the judge warning Trump's lawyer about
Trump outbursting in absentia. Trump had posted on social media
in the morning, insulting everybody and calling the trial a scam,
and the judge's warning that this could open him up
to quote a new source of potential liability can be
(14:54):
easily translated, although maybe not if you have the personality
of a serial killer, as the defendant does. The translation
is this from the judge, shut the hell up, or
you will find your ass in contempt of court. Still
(15:23):
ahead on this ediative countdown. Residents of Wisconsin probably refer
to themselves as cheeseheads, but there is an excellent chance
that their Republican senator really has a head made out
of cheese. He explains, climate change will be great because
then it will be warmer in Wisconsin. It's the anniversary
of the famous story of the baseball player who gets
(15:44):
traded for a player to be named later, and when
the day comes, it turns out the player to be
named later was him. It's a great story and it
is one hundred percent not true. And she was the
most patient superstar I have ever met. And this month
is the ninetieth anniversary of her birth. How I missed
my friend Lizzie Montgomery Later in things I promise not
(16:06):
to tell. That's next. This is countdown. You know, this
is countdown with you know Keith Alberman.
Speaker 2 (16:31):
This is Sports Center. Wait, check that not anymore. This
is Countdown with Keith Alberman.
Speaker 1 (16:42):
In sports, it is a tradition as old as sports
and baseball themselves. A young baseball player has an explosive
spring training, unexpectedly cracks the starting lineup of his team,
goes on a tear to start the season, and then
something bad happens. The Saint Louis Cardinals have sent outfielder
Jordan Walker to Triple A. That name sounds familiar from
(17:06):
somewhere in your past. It should. He began this season
hitting in twelve consecutive games, tying the record for the
longest such streak at the start of a career by
any player aged twenty or younger as of April twelfth.
This April twelfth, Jordan Walker was hitting three nineteen. He
had an on base percentage of three sixty, had a
(17:28):
slugging average of four to eighty twelve games, two homers,
eight RBI. Since then, he's had four singles and a
double and a trip to Memphis, Tennessee. That streak tied
the young mark by Eddie Murphy of the nineteen twelve a's.
The longest streak ever to start a career was seventeen
games by Chuck Alano of the nineteen forty one Reds
(17:49):
and David Doll of the twenty sixteen Rockies, and you're
not going to find either of them in the Hall
of Fame either. But right now, Jordan Walker seems to
most closely match an outfielder from the nineteen sixty six
California Angels named Jackie Warner. At twenty two, Jackie Warner
was the Cherubs opening day right fielder. In just his
(18:10):
second game in the majors, he homered to beat Chicago
and Joe Horland, who would be the ERA champion the
next year. Two to one was the final score. Two
days later, he had another homer to beat the Twins
and Mudcat Grant, who had won twenty one games the
year before, three to two. A week later, he homered
in the eighth to beat the Twins again, four to three.
(18:31):
He had three game winning homers in three games decided
by one run. His home run in his first seven
games in the majors. After fifteen games in the Majors,
Jackie Warner had five homers, thirteen RBI and he was
batting three forty five and then he pulled something in
his back. He got seven more hits in his career.
(18:55):
He went to the miners on July twenty eighth and
never came back. And tomorrow is an anniversary of a
great baseball story that is, unfortunately justin urban legend. It
was the day a catcher named Harry Cheaty made his
debut for the infamous nineteen sixty two New York Mets
after they obtained him from Cleveland. You will still hear
Cheaty's story told this way. The Mets once traded a
(19:18):
player to be named later to the Indians for a
catcher named Harry Cheaty. Six weeks later, when it came
time to name the player to be named later, the
Mets named him Harry Cheaty. He was the player to
be named later in the deal in which the Mets
got him. It's a great story, it's not true. All
contemporary newspaper accounts from the wire services and from team
(19:40):
press releases indicate the Mets bought Harry Cheaty's contract from
Cleveland for twenty five thousand dollars on June fifteenth, after
Cheaty had complained about lack of playing time in New York,
and after the Mets privately complained that they had given
him too much playing time, the Mets sold Cheaty to
one of Cleveland's minor league teams. He was not the
(20:02):
player traded for himself. But where did that story come from?
Turns out it came from Harry Cheaty as he was
packing his stuff in the met clubhouse. Harry Cheaty told reporters.
When I was notified that I was sold by Cleveland
to the Mets back in April, I was told it
was for cash or a player to be named later.
(20:24):
Now it turns out that I'm the player delivered later.
Didn't happen, Thank you, Nancy Faust. No, that did not happen,
but this just did. This year, those same Mets hired
(20:44):
a new bullpen coach, a man who's done that job
for four franchises over three decades. His name is Dom Cheaty.
He is, in fact, the sun of Harry Cheaty, still
(21:09):
ahead on countdown. Elizabeth Montgomery would have just turned ninety
years old. She has been gone nearly three decades. She
was my friend and I feel like I just talked
to her yesterday and the last episode of her most
famous TV show was filmed in nineteen seventy two and
it is running right now on five streaming services. And
(21:31):
this would delight her, especially the checks the story of
my friend Lizzie and one of the best pieces of
advice I was ever given by her, coming up first
time for the daily roundup of the miss Grants, morons
and Dunning Kruger effects specimens who constitute today's worst persons
in the world. The runner up, Republican National Committee Chairwoman
(21:51):
Ronald McDaniel. Trump, is already saying he has not agreed
to any Republican primary debates. And while it is obvious
why he would have to answer questions about, you know,
his arrest and his rape trial and a special Council
and the Georgia indictments and the coup, and he's scared,
the Republican machinery continues to prostitute itself for him. Ronna
(22:14):
Romney McDaniel predicts Trump will participate in the debates, and
she told Foxes Brian, I'm the only one left here,
aren't I kill Mead? That quote. Trump never shies away
from a debate, to which, to his credit, kill Mead replied, yes,
he does. He skipped hours in twenty sixteen, and McDaniel
(22:34):
just smiled and said he did he skipped one, as
if she had not just been caught in a lie.
The bronze Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin. This time, it's
not because he's not loyal to the United States of America.
Because he's not. It's not because he's dead behind the eyes,
nor that he's a compulsive liar, because he is. This time,
it's because he is more stupid than any of us
(22:56):
could have ever imagined. At a Senate Budget Committee hearing yesterday,
he Ron splained to economist and global energy expert Michael
Greenstone that climate change is good because it will make
Wisconsin warmer. Quote in my own state, your study shows
(23:17):
that we would have a reduction of mortality of somewhere
between fifty four to fifty six people for ten thousand.
Why wouldn't we take comfort in that according to your study.
You're concerned if you're really in the hot region in Africa,
But in terms of the United States and most of Europe,
we're in pretty good shape. We're all blue. We have
reduced risk of death. Greenstone replied with the meta facts here,
(23:41):
rising seas more frequent and dangerous storms and cataclysms, and
thousands dying unnecessarily economic hardships to states other than Wisconsin.
But these were too tough for Johnson to process. He
came back and said everything all over again. The answer
that he needed to give to Johnson was, so, Senator,
have you thought about what happens to all those people
(24:03):
you mentioned in Africa or anywhere else that suddenly becomes
uninhabitable when they find out that it's just a little
bit nicer in Wisconsin and they all try to get
to Wisconsin. Moron, But the winner, Jake shield sees one
of the vanity blues on Twitter, the ones who paid
Elon Musk eight dollars. Shields is some kind of a
(24:27):
fighter boxer, rock paper scissors champion or something. I don't know.
He has a bit of a sanity problem and he
ONTs encouraged violence on there against Greta Tunberg. So this
Jake Shields tweets yesterday quote, would you support public executions
of anyone who helps a child transition? This would include doctors, therapists, teachers,
guidance counselors, et cetera. Twitter actually, to its credit, took
(24:51):
that tweet down, but not before it, and the incitement
to violence by this Shield's idiot had been seen more
than one hundred thousand times. And by the way, the
answer is no. No public execution of those counseling kids
in trans pysician now public executions of people who incite
violence against vulnerable children. Jake, you do know blue check
(25:13):
marks are now a desperate attempt to compensate for having
a small penis Shields today's worst person in the world. Well,
I probena see the number one story on the countdown
(25:36):
and my favorite subject, me and things I promised not
to tell. I have found myself telling her story three
times in the last ten days. I just bought a
new copy of the movie in question, and so I
thought I would tell you the story. Do you know
her name? Elizabeth Montgomery, one of the most famous actresses
of the nineteen sixties and nineteen seventies, star of the
(25:59):
TV series Bewitched, daughter of a famous actor, Robert Montgomery,
and my friend from early on the morning of January fourteenth,
nineteen ninety two, until she died in the spring of
nineteen ninety five. Our friendship happened only because of one
thing my sister had given me a book about one
of our favorite topics, the never to be solved mystery
(26:21):
of Lizzie Borden and the Borden family axe murders of
eighteen ninety two in Fall River, Massachusetts. Yes, We're weird,
and also the fact that Elizabeth Montgomery had played Lizzie
Borden in a TV movie. So on January fourteenth, nineteen
ninety two, as I sat waiting for our flight to
leave ICJFK Airport in New York from my then home
in Los Angeles, then I began to read from my
(26:44):
airplane seat my sister's gift from the aisle from the
last one to board, I hear the voice of Elizabeth
Montgomery saying to me, ooh, Keith, you're reading about me.
She was a gas my brief but eternal friendship with
Lizzie Montgomery, and the eternal lesson she taught me in
(27:05):
one moment. Please while I first explained what I was
doing on that flight. A month or two earlier, I
had agreed to join ESPN to co host Sports Center
with Dan Patrick starting in late March nineteen ninety two.
I had just finished up three financially rewarding but souls
sucking years at Channel two in Los Angeles, and I
was going to go to Hawaii for three months and
(27:26):
just live air until I felt better. On Monday, December thirtieth,
nineteen ninety one, I had literally just opened my address
book to find the number of a travel agent I
knew to make the Hawaii arrangements. I was reaching for
the phone when the phone rang. It was my business
agent who had just gotten off the phone with my
new ESPN boss, John Walsh. He and they were launching
(27:48):
a new radio network in five days. I found this
interesting but not particularly relevant. ESPN was one thing then
it was one TV network, no magazine, no radio, No
ESPN the Oho. So this was their first big move outwards.
Radio network would start with only two seven hour shows
on Saturday and Sunday nights. And Walsh explained to my
(28:10):
agent that everything was going great and they were right
on target, and they had great guests lined up for
the first weekend, like Ronald Reagan, and they only had
one tiny problem. They needed three hosts, and they had
two terrific hosts, just terrific hosts, one Keith worked with
named Tony Bruno, and another terrific, just terrific host from
Providence named Chuck Wilson. And they tried this guy as
the third host, and that guy, and this guy and
that guy, and all told forty different people had tried
(28:30):
out to be hosts. They had nobody, nobody to be
the third host. Who was any good? Good? Keith? Just
come here just for the first weekend, just to get
it off the ground. Then he can go back to
LA and come back here in March takeover Sports Center.
Please please please get Keith help us, please, because if
he Canada, what on earth they're going to do it? Please?
Please please. As I said to my agent, well all right,
I suppose at least way, at least a ESPN will
(28:54):
always think of me as a team player. So instead
of going to Hawaii in January, I go to Bristol,
Connecticut in January and I go stay at my folks
house outside New York City. And a friend I had
recommended to help ESPN launch their radio network offers me
(29:14):
a ride up to ESPN for the weekend. And it's
like twenty degrees and we get out of his car
and his parking lot and three spots over getting out
of his car in the parking lot is Chris Berman,
who I went to high school with, and already in
January nineteen ninety two, when I'm not quite thirty three
years old, I already know Chris for twenty years. And
before I can say hey, he screams, listen, we have
(29:36):
a good thing going here, don't f it up. And
I say, good to see you too, Chris, And I
remind myself it's only till Monday. And I meet the gang,
and then I go to the hotel and the hotel
is beige. The walls are beige, the carpets are beige,
the guests are beige, the food is beige. The only
thing that isn't beige is the six inches of snow
(29:59):
that falls overnight. And remind myself it's only till Monday.
The launch of the network on saturd he goes, well,
they have me interview Ronald Reagan about something in football.
The Sunday Night Show is going well too, and we're
trying to figure out where the big baseball free agent
of that winner, Danny Tartable, is going to sign. And
we're interviewing Bobby Valentine, who was the manager of the
Texas Rangers, and they were one of the team's rumored
(30:21):
to be a likely landing for Tartable, and I asked Valentine.
He says, no, not anymore. They just canceled their trip.
I was supposed to go meet them at the airport tonight.
I think he signed with somebody else. And the alarm
bells go off in my head and I tell the producer,
let's call everybody we know in baseball and put them
on and figure out where Danny Tartable is going. I
have a source who knows his agent. Let me call him.
(30:41):
We'll go story chasing. So we spend four hours following
the story in real time, and it's great radio, and
we're coming up on the last hour and our guests
have helped us eliminate like thirty teams out of twenty eight.
But we're not sure where Tartable is going still, and
the producer says, if only we had his home phone number.
And I look at the producer and go, oh crap, sorry,
(31:03):
and I grab my address book. I explain he was
my co host, Tartabule was on some of our baseball
postgame shows in La last I'm sorry, I forgot I
had his number all this time. Hang on, So I
called Danny tartable, And just as our last hour on
Sunday night is starting, he calls me back and I
say to him, look, we know you've decided it's all
(31:24):
over baseball. It's got to be the Phillies, the Mets,
or the Yankees. And he's saying, correctly, I can't tell you.
And I said, give me one guess and just tell
me if I'm wrong, and I will call you a
source close to the negotiations, that's all. And he says okay.
And I say, is it a team that wears pin stripes?
And of course the Phillies, the Mets, and the Yankees
all wear pinstripes, so he laughs and he says yes.
(31:44):
And I say, is it the team I grew up
a fan of? And he says what team did you
grow up a fan of? And by the way, the
phone call is taking place with me on the floor
of the studio in which the other two hosts are
live on the new radio network. So I whispered a
tartable if I say it to the Yankees, am I wrong?
(32:05):
And he says, I can't tell you and starts whispering,
but off the record. The press conference is Wednesday at
Yankee Stadium. Is that enough for you, you bastard? And
of course I said no, come on the show and
tell us come on, and he laughs and says I'll
see you Wednesday and hangs up. And I get up,
and I sit in the vacant chair and I can
say breaking news. ESPN report now that the free agent
outfield or Danny Tartable has agreed to a multi year
(32:27):
deal with the New York Yankees. Sources close to the
negotiations say there will be a press conference Wednesday at
Yankee Stadium, and the other hosts are trying not to
crack up because they know I've just been talking too
Tartable from the phone in the same room with them. Well,
this story explodes way more than it deserved. It's a
(32:47):
dull Sunday night. It's still early enough in the evening
that the story makes all the Monday newspapers, and it's
attributed not to ESPN or to Sports Center, but to
the brand new ESPN Radio network on its second day
in business. And it's on the front page of USA
Today and the New York Times. A new ESPN radio
network makes splash with tartabules scoop the next morning, and
(33:08):
I can't tell you how big a deal that was
back then in nineteen ninety two. So now, instead of
going back to LA on Monday and maybe to Hawaii
on Tuesday, as I had planned, I have to go
to the press conference at Yankee Stadium to say hi
to Tartable on Wednesday and sort of thank him for
this scoop. And on Tuesday, this guy, John Walsh from
ESPN calls me, and my agent says, look, we have
(33:31):
to take advantage of this. It's the best possible start
we could have hoped for for the radio network. Keith
has to stay with us for the next three months.
Why doesn't he stay in and do this weekend and
then go back to LA and pack up his apartment
and then come back here the weekend after that. And
and I say again to my agent, well, at least
ESPN will always think of me as a team player
(33:52):
if I do this. So I am not in Hawaii
and instead I am on board this flight. When Elizabeth
Montgomery walks down the aisle and sees my Lizzie Borden
book given to me by my sister and says, ooh, Keith,
you're reading about me. Hi, I'm Lizzie Montgomery, I'm a
big fan of yours. Is that seat taken? And I say,
(34:13):
the hell if I care? Sit down? And the only
time we're not talking for the next six hours is
when we are drinking. I believe if I remember this correctly,
they had to send up a champagne refueling flight halfway
to LA And she's a huge sports fan. Her father
was a founder of one of the southern California horse
racing tracks, and she loves the Lakers. And she thinks
(34:34):
she was related to Lizzie Borden. Did I ever see
the European version of her Lizzie bordon film where they
show the wide shots where they make it look like
she's nude, And I say, I'm absolutely certain I have not.
And her son and her driver and her rolls Royce
meet us at Lax and she wants me to see
her house, and then her driver and her rolls Royce
will give me a lyft home. And oh, by the way,
she's flying back to New York in a week. Should
(34:56):
we become flying buddies. On that trip, our flight gets
canceled and we have to find a new one, and
I'm hand carrying a lot of more valuable baseball cards,
including like five hundred different from the year nineteen oh nine,
and she wants to see them, and she wants me
to tell her something about each player while we drink again,
and we land and she says, how you getting to
(35:17):
your folks house? And I say, well, I'm going to
get a car here or something, and she says, no,
you're not. I'll give you a lift in my limo
going right past your house. And sure enough we get there.
And as Lizzie Montgomery's limo is taking me to my
folks house at ten o'clock at night, she says, will
they still be up? Your folks want to play a
practical joke on them. So two minutes later, I knock
(35:39):
on the door of my childhood home and my father
opens it instead of seeing me, it's her in the doorway,
and she says, Hi, mister Olverman, I'm Lizzie. I'm a
friend of Keiths. Can he come out and play? And
my dad goes silent for the only time I in
my life. And now my mother appears so Lizzie can
pull the same routine on her. Hi, missus Olverman, I'm Lizzy.
(36:00):
I'm a friend of Keiths. Can he come out and play?
And now my mother is silent for the only time
in my life life, I might add, I thought Lizzie
looked fabulous, and I looked her up in Hallowell's film Guide,
and I saw she was forty eight, and I thought, boy,
she looks fabulous for forty eight. Then I realized my
math is wrong. She was fifty eight, and she was
a joy. We talked my phone every couple of weeks
(36:21):
after that, and she died three years later of colon cancer.
But she is with me always, and not just as
the proverbial force of nature. Within minutes of that day
we met, January fourteenth, nineteen ninety two, she bestowed upon
me a lesson, an eternal lesson. We were a little
late taking off, and since she had just loudly introduced
(36:44):
herself to me like I didn't know who she was,
anybody on the plane who wasn't sure it was her
was now sure. As we waited to taxi, every man
on that plane came over and did the same thing.
Oh hi, miss Montgomery, excuse me, And they give me
some sort of nodding acknowledgment like, hey, how you doing,
As they lean in past me I was a big
(37:05):
fan of Bewitched. I know you must get asked this
a million times a day, but is there anything I'm
so sorry to ask? Could you do that little nose
twitch you used to do in the show? And she
would say, of course, and then she'd do it, and
these men, age twenty two one hundred all then giggle
like schoolboys. After the thirtieth or thirty first time this happened,
I say to her, Lizzie, I don't know you, but
(37:27):
I like you a lot already, and your attitude towards
your fans and the nose twitch is wonderful. And I
have to tell you I certainly hope that was the
last of them, because the next one who comes over,
I'm gonna have to strangle him with my bare hands
because I can't take it anymore. And for the only
minutes of all the time I knew her, Elizabeth Montgomery
(37:48):
got very serious and said, oh, no, Keith, that is
not the attitude you must have about this. Remind me
what year did Bewitched go off the air. I had
to guess, nineteen seventy two, and she said, exactly, good, correct,
twenty years ago. These people have remembered that nose twitch
for twenty years at least. Bewitched. Keith is not Hamlet,
(38:13):
it is not Arthur Miller, it is not the Godfather.
But they remembered it. This is why you and I
both do what we do for a living. We have
transcended time with what we do for a living, something artistic,
something creative. No matter how small that we have done,
they have remembered it. People do it with you, I'm sure,
and I'm sure they'll continue to. And what you do
(38:35):
then is you say thank you for remembering, as if
they were the only one who ever remembered. Because that's
why we do this. Because they remembered me from twenty
years ago for a stupid little nose twitch. Duly chastised,
I apologized, and the huge, welcoming, conspiratorial, permanent friendship sexy
(39:00):
smile of Elizabeth Montgomery broke across her face like that sunrise,
and she whispered either that Keith or they saw Bewitched
on cable last week, which means Lizzie gets another check
next week. And she twitched her nose at me, and
I will always love her. I've done all the damage
(39:38):
I can do. Here. Here are the credits most of
the music was arranged, produced, and performed by Brian Ray
and John Phillips Shanelle, who are the countdown musical directors.
All orchestration and keyboards by John Phillip Shanelle, guitars, bass
and drums by Brian Ray, produced by Tko Brothers. Other
Beethoven selections have been arranged and performed by No Horns Allowed.
The sports music is the Olberman theme from ESPN two,
(40:00):
and it was written by Mitch Warren Davis courtesy of ESPN, Inc.
Musical comments from Nancy Faust, the best baseball stadium organist ever,
and our announcer today was my friend Richard Lewis. Everything
else is pretty much my fault. So that's countdown for
this the eight hundred and forty second day since Donald
Trump's first attempted coup against the democratically elected government of
(40:21):
the United States. Don't forget to keep arresting him while
we still can. The next scheduled countdown is tomorrow. Until then,
I'm Keith Olderman. Good Morning, good afternoon, good night, and
good luck. Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio.
(40:44):
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. So
the dominion suit was settled by Fox in part because
(00:26):
of stuff discovered at the last minute, and that stuff
was Tucker Carlson texts, and Carlson was fired personally hands on,
not by Lachlan Murdoch and Suzanne Scott, but by Rupert
Murdoch and Carlson really did call a woman executive at
Fox the C word, and all signs point to that
(00:47):
executive indeed being the one I mentioned, Irena Braganti, and
it is pretty clear her response was to open up
the oppo research files Fox had on Carlson that I
told you about yesterday. And you know how I hate
to say I told you so, and am ever reluctant
to go when I'm proven correct. And when I say hate,
(01:07):
I mean love. And when I say reluctant, I mean
I'm the first two executives, maybe Murdoch and his son
and the operational CEO Scott and the Fox board really
did somehow miss until the day before the dominion trial
was to begin that under those black boxes and the
redacted portions of the texts and top lines and emails,
(01:28):
Fox it had to turn over to Dominion was a
trove of Tucker Carlson time bombs and F bombs and
C bombs, and nearly all of them directed at his
own bosses. The New York Times reported last night, quote,
private messages sent by mister Carlson showed him making highly
offensive and crude remarks that went beyond the inflammatory, often
(01:51):
racist comments of his primetime show and anything disclosed in
the lead up to the trial. Despite the fact that
Fox's trial lawyers had these messages for months, the board
and some senior executives were now learning about their details
for the first time, setting off a crisis at the
highest level of the company. Wait, it gets worse. The
(02:13):
Washington Post on what was in those Carlson messages, quote,
he referred to a woman who is a senior communications
executive for Fox as a sea Dash Dash Dash. The
Wall Street Journal, not coincidentally also owned by Rupert Murdoch,
added one final thrust of the sword through whatever was
left of Tucker Carlson's prospects of ever again being an
(02:35):
employee anywhere. Fox lawyers had found the sea text weeks earlier. Quote,
they presented Tucker Carlson with what they thought was good
news they had persuaded the court to redact from a
legal filing the time he called a senior Fox News
executive the sea word unquote. But Carlson quote wasn't impressed.
(02:57):
He told his colleagues that he wanted the world to
know what he had said about the executive in a
private message. How could this get any worse? Just wait again?
Quoting the Journal, mister Carlson said, comments he made about Trump,
I hate him passionately that were in the court documents
were said during a momentary spasm of anger, while his
dislike of this executive was deep and enduring. Unquote. Hooy okay.
(03:25):
Let's stitch together the reports from the Times, the Post,
and the Journal to recap just this part of this.
Weeks before the Fox dominion trial was to start, lawyers
found at least one text in which Tucker Carlson called
a communications executive the old see you later. They told
him they'd got in the court to let them redact it.
He said, I don't want you to redact it. That's
(03:47):
how I feel about her. And despite that, many senior
Fox executives and the whole board of directors knew nothing
of Carlson's oh say, can you see text? Until the
day before the trial was supposed to begin, and panic ensued.
Fox was already negotiating a settlement, so they got a
postponent and then they cut a deal the day after that,
(04:09):
at least in part out of the fear that these
messages would become public during that trial. And by the way,
they still could become public since the Associated Press NPR
and The Times have challenged their redactions and the Delaware
Court is going to rule on that and could still
release them. So point two who fired him? The Journal
(04:30):
says Rupert Murdoch and his not quite ninety day fiance
and Leslie Smith dined with Carlson quote a few weeks
ago at Murdoch's home in bel Air, California. The Post
says that dinner was two weeks ago. It can't be
the engagement ended on April fourth. Whenever it was, things
seemed good. But the Post says Murdoch in fact conveyed
(04:52):
to Carlson that he was disturbed that Carlson had gone
so anti Ukraine and so pro Russia. Particularly, Murdoch did
not like Carlson's reference to President Zelenski as a quote
Ukrainian pimp that was on Carlson's show. The Post even
claims that pro Ukraine Republicans had complained to Murdoch and
that last month Murdoch quote joined a Fox newsroom meeting
(05:15):
to loudly challenge Carlson's message and how much fun must
that meeting have been? The next meeting of note, as
we already knew, was just last Friday night, with Suzanne
Scott and Lachlan Murdoch opting to get rid of Carlson.
The Times says severing times with Tucker Carlson was made
by quote the father's son team of Rupert and Lochlan Murdoch.
(05:38):
The Washington Post ads Lachlan spoke to his father about
it on Saturday. According to two people familiar with the discussion,
you may recall I told you this on Monday afternoon,
and again, I am loath to toot my own horn
on stuff like this. And when I say loathe, I
mean I have a collection of different horns over there
in my music room. The La Times also reported also
(05:59):
on Monday, that it was Rupert who pulled that trigger. Okay,
so let's do the whole timeline. I find this endlessly
entertaining on Saturday the second or so, Murdoch and his
then fiance hosted Carlson for dinner. That week, lawyers went
to Carlson and said, hey, there's a text in here
in which you misspell Arena Bragante's name with a C,
(06:19):
not a G, but we've redacted it, and he said,
I don't want it redacted. On Sunday the sixteenth, everybody
who did not know found out that at trial, a
dominion lawyer would be asking Carlson on the stand why
he called a News Corp Vice president the sea Word.
On Tuesday the eighteenth, Fox settled the dominion suit. On
Friday the twenty first, Lachlan Murdoc and Suzanne Scott decided
(06:42):
they had had enough of Tucker Carlson. On Saturday the
twenty second, Rupert Murdoch concurred with them that Carlson should
be fired. On Monday, the twenty fourth, he was fired
by phone by Suzanne Scott, and on Wednesday, the twenty sixth,
Arena Bragante opened up the closet full of Tucker Carlson
skeletons they had at Fox and began parceling them out
to the Wall Street Journal. In the Washington post in
(07:03):
the New York Times. And by, by the way, there
are more. I guarantee you there are more. The bottom
line of the timeline Rupert Murdoch had dinner like twenty
five days ago with his fiance and his top Fox anchor,
and within three weeks he had fired both of them.
(07:25):
To me, there are three subtle lowercase headlines. First, this
whole scenario in which lawyers tried to save Carlson by
redacting his vulgarity towards Briganti or the off chance that
it was somebody else, and he defiantly said he meant
every word of that word. This is the Tucker Carlson
I knew at MSNBC, and later when he stole my
(07:48):
identity and opened a website with my name in it
and pretended to be me in an email interview with
a Philadelphia Daily News columnist. He's a petulant little boy,
A petulant little boy, unchanged since nineteen eighty three or so,
when he had to move from the boys department to
the men's at Jack Taylor Clothier's of Beverly Hills. Small petty,
(08:12):
incapable of learning the eternal lessons that objects in the
mirror are closer than they appear. It wasn't just that
he had to insult Briganti, He had to make sure
you knew he was insulting her. Just like at MSNBC,
he used to shout slurs against everybody but whites and
Asians and men, and people would tell him to keep
his voice down, and he wouldn't. Second replaces devoid of
(08:37):
moral force or ethics, as Fox, the number of times
they accidentally seem valiant or chivalrous is really surprising and
needs to be explained. Rupert Murdoch doesn't give a damn
whether or not Tucker Carlson calls Burgante the sea word.
He only cares about whether or not she'll be mad
enough about it to quit him or sue his company,
(08:58):
or both, or reveal his skeletons in her closet. And
Rupert Murdoch didn't give a day if somebody calls Vladimir
Zelenski a quote pimp. He just needs some of the
Republicans who were offended. He needs them for some scheme
he is working up for the next month, for the
next year, or the next lifetime. And the last sub
headline came at exactly eight pm last night. Good evening.
(09:24):
It's Tucker Carlson. One of the first things you realize
when you step outside the noise for a few days
is how many genuinely nice people there are in this country,
kind and decent people, people who really care about et cetera,
et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. I am the last
person to criticize somebody for doing a Twitter only version
(09:48):
of what had been his show at exactly the hour
of the show used to start at exactly eight pm
Eastern Time, from one of the sets I he used
to use. I mean, after NBC breached my contract and
before the settlement allowed me to act, we go on
TV again. At Current TV. I did a bunch of
commentaries from my living room on a website we called
(10:12):
Fox News FOK Friends of Keith that was actually secretly
run by Current TV, And when the show started on
Current TV in twenty eleven, we called it Countdown, and
though I resisted the name after that, starting in twenty twelve,
when we launched this podcast last year, yeah, what did
(10:36):
I call it again? Well, you know, long before I
finished the eight years of Countdown on MSNBC, I was
telling people that the problem with cable news is each
show you do requires you to do about three percent
more work per day than you can actually do. Sooner
(10:57):
or later, this will begin to affect your mind. It's
a kind of PTSD. And when suddenly you stop that show,
or as in Carlson's case, it is stopped for you,
part of you keeps working, keeps going, keeps going right
through the windshield. In that kind of sad Twitter video,
(11:18):
Tucker Carlson talked about having taken some time off. He
had been fired fifty six hours earlier. Fifty six hours
is not time off. Fifty six hours is a slightly
longer than usual weekend. Also, as you blithely try in
that situation to pretend things are just fine and you
didn't need that network and it's support staff of ooh,
(11:41):
two or three hundred people, you always forget to notice
something that the audience will not forget to notice. You
hit upload and they go uh oh. In Tucker's case,
it was the five speed bumps of those who have
claimed their independence from the crushing maw of cable news,
(12:01):
or as in his case, have had their independence handed
to them along with their head. One his prospects of
walking away with the forty million or so Fox owes
him clearly depend on him not actually doing a news
commentary of any kind. So in that thing I played
the clip from, he was not allowed to actually say anything,
(12:22):
and he didn't. There is not one name, not one location,
one news story mentioned in the whole two minutes and
fifteen seconds. Also, there's no microphone. Third, the lighting is
all wrong. Fourth, it is better to wear no makeup
at all than to do it incorrectly, And Carlston managed
(12:43):
to make himself look red while also forgetting to draw
in his eyebrows. Fifth, the angle at which he put
that camera made him look small, very very small. Or
maybe it's always been like that with him and the
rest of us just didn't notice. A couple of headlines
(13:09):
from the creature. Carlson and Murdoch have lied for Trump's
bid to stop Mike Pence's testimony to the Special Council's
January sixth grand jury, denied late yesterday by a three
judge federal appeals panel in the least convincing attempted slight
of hand by Trump's many lawyers, Tim Parlatour and James
Trusty have written to House Intelligence Chair Mike Turner and
(13:31):
professed to kind of false kumbayah, saying those classified documents
that Trump stole included notes that were given to him
for use during phone calls with foreign leaders, and thus
quote the stakeholders to these matters should set aside political
difference and work together to remediate the issue by thinking
(13:52):
carefully about these documents and not prosecuting Trump or Biden
or Pence who are suddenly in their mind all the
same here as usual, it is the Trump flunkies who
are actually going to prison. Brian Colpage and Andrew Batolado,
who worked with the scam, dressed up as a nonprofit
called We Build the Wall with Steve Bannon. The two
(14:13):
of them were sentenced yesterday, Battalado three years, Collfage four.
They spent the money on things like boat payments and
the Egen Carrol lawsuit started with her testifying for three
and a half hours in her rape and defamation lawsuit
against Trump. She said she was fired by l magazine
(14:33):
after she went public and she saw her career go away.
The day began with the judge warning Trump's lawyer about
Trump outbursting in absentia. Trump had posted on social media
in the morning, insulting everybody and calling the trial a scam,
and the judge's warning that this could open him up
to quote a new source of potential liability can be
(14:54):
easily translated, although maybe not if you have the personality
of a serial killer, as the defendant does. The translation
is this from the judge, shut the hell up, or
you will find your ass in contempt of court. Still
(15:23):
ahead on this ediative countdown. Residents of Wisconsin probably refer
to themselves as cheeseheads, but there is an excellent chance
that their Republican senator really has a head made out
of cheese. He explains, climate change will be great because
then it will be warmer in Wisconsin. It's the anniversary
of the famous story of the baseball player who gets
(15:44):
traded for a player to be named later, and when
the day comes, it turns out the player to be
named later was him. It's a great story and it
is one hundred percent not true. And she was the
most patient superstar I have ever met. And this month
is the ninetieth anniversary of her birth. How I missed
my friend Lizzie Montgomery Later in things I promise not
(16:06):
to tell. That's next. This is countdown. You know, this
is countdown with you know Keith Alberman.
Speaker 2 (16:31):
This is Sports Center. Wait, check that not anymore. This
is Countdown with Keith Alberman.
Speaker 1 (16:42):
In sports, it is a tradition as old as sports
and baseball themselves. A young baseball player has an explosive
spring training, unexpectedly cracks the starting lineup of his team,
goes on a tear to start the season, and then
something bad happens. The Saint Louis Cardinals have sent outfielder
Jordan Walker to Triple A. That name sounds familiar from
(17:06):
somewhere in your past. It should. He began this season
hitting in twelve consecutive games, tying the record for the
longest such streak at the start of a career by
any player aged twenty or younger as of April twelfth.
This April twelfth, Jordan Walker was hitting three nineteen. He
had an on base percentage of three sixty, had a
(17:28):
slugging average of four to eighty twelve games, two homers,
eight RBI. Since then, he's had four singles and a
double and a trip to Memphis, Tennessee. That streak tied
the young mark by Eddie Murphy of the nineteen twelve a's.
The longest streak ever to start a career was seventeen
games by Chuck Alano of the nineteen forty one Reds
(17:49):
and David Doll of the twenty sixteen Rockies, and you're
not going to find either of them in the Hall
of Fame either. But right now, Jordan Walker seems to
most closely match an outfielder from the nineteen sixty six
California Angels named Jackie Warner. At twenty two, Jackie Warner
was the Cherubs opening day right fielder. In just his
(18:10):
second game in the majors, he homered to beat Chicago
and Joe Horland, who would be the ERA champion the
next year. Two to one was the final score. Two
days later, he had another homer to beat the Twins
and Mudcat Grant, who had won twenty one games the
year before, three to two. A week later, he homered
in the eighth to beat the Twins again, four to three.
(18:31):
He had three game winning homers in three games decided
by one run. His home run in his first seven
games in the majors. After fifteen games in the Majors,
Jackie Warner had five homers, thirteen RBI and he was
batting three forty five and then he pulled something in
his back. He got seven more hits in his career.
(18:55):
He went to the miners on July twenty eighth and
never came back. And tomorrow is an anniversary of a
great baseball story that is, unfortunately justin urban legend. It
was the day a catcher named Harry Cheaty made his
debut for the infamous nineteen sixty two New York Mets
after they obtained him from Cleveland. You will still hear
Cheaty's story told this way. The Mets once traded a
(19:18):
player to be named later to the Indians for a
catcher named Harry Cheaty. Six weeks later, when it came
time to name the player to be named later, the
Mets named him Harry Cheaty. He was the player to
be named later in the deal in which the Mets
got him. It's a great story, it's not true. All
contemporary newspaper accounts from the wire services and from team
(19:40):
press releases indicate the Mets bought Harry Cheaty's contract from
Cleveland for twenty five thousand dollars on June fifteenth, after
Cheaty had complained about lack of playing time in New York,
and after the Mets privately complained that they had given
him too much playing time, the Mets sold Cheaty to
one of Cleveland's minor league teams. He was not the
(20:02):
player traded for himself. But where did that story come from?
Turns out it came from Harry Cheaty as he was
packing his stuff in the met clubhouse. Harry Cheaty told reporters.
When I was notified that I was sold by Cleveland
to the Mets back in April, I was told it
was for cash or a player to be named later.
(20:24):
Now it turns out that I'm the player delivered later.
Didn't happen, Thank you, Nancy Faust. No, that did not happen,
but this just did. This year, those same Mets hired
(20:44):
a new bullpen coach, a man who's done that job
for four franchises over three decades. His name is Dom Cheaty.
He is, in fact, the sun of Harry Cheaty, still
(21:09):
ahead on countdown. Elizabeth Montgomery would have just turned ninety
years old. She has been gone nearly three decades. She
was my friend and I feel like I just talked
to her yesterday and the last episode of her most
famous TV show was filmed in nineteen seventy two and
it is running right now on five streaming services. And
(21:31):
this would delight her, especially the checks the story of
my friend Lizzie and one of the best pieces of
advice I was ever given by her, coming up first
time for the daily roundup of the miss Grants, morons
and Dunning Kruger effects specimens who constitute today's worst persons
in the world. The runner up, Republican National Committee Chairwoman
(21:51):
Ronald McDaniel. Trump, is already saying he has not agreed
to any Republican primary debates. And while it is obvious
why he would have to answer questions about, you know,
his arrest and his rape trial and a special Council
and the Georgia indictments and the coup, and he's scared,
the Republican machinery continues to prostitute itself for him. Ronna
(22:14):
Romney McDaniel predicts Trump will participate in the debates, and
she told Foxes Brian, I'm the only one left here,
aren't I kill Mead? That quote. Trump never shies away
from a debate, to which, to his credit, kill Mead replied, yes,
he does. He skipped hours in twenty sixteen, and McDaniel
(22:34):
just smiled and said he did he skipped one, as
if she had not just been caught in a lie.
The bronze Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin. This time, it's
not because he's not loyal to the United States of America.
Because he's not. It's not because he's dead behind the eyes,
nor that he's a compulsive liar, because he is. This time,
it's because he is more stupid than any of us
(22:56):
could have ever imagined. At a Senate Budget Committee hearing yesterday,
he Ron splained to economist and global energy expert Michael
Greenstone that climate change is good because it will make
Wisconsin warmer. Quote in my own state, your study shows
(23:17):
that we would have a reduction of mortality of somewhere
between fifty four to fifty six people for ten thousand.
Why wouldn't we take comfort in that according to your study.
You're concerned if you're really in the hot region in Africa,
But in terms of the United States and most of Europe,
we're in pretty good shape. We're all blue. We have
reduced risk of death. Greenstone replied with the meta facts here,
(23:41):
rising seas more frequent and dangerous storms and cataclysms, and
thousands dying unnecessarily economic hardships to states other than Wisconsin.
But these were too tough for Johnson to process. He
came back and said everything all over again. The answer
that he needed to give to Johnson was, so, Senator,
have you thought about what happens to all those people
(24:03):
you mentioned in Africa or anywhere else that suddenly becomes
uninhabitable when they find out that it's just a little
bit nicer in Wisconsin and they all try to get
to Wisconsin. Moron, But the winner, Jake shield sees one
of the vanity blues on Twitter, the ones who paid
Elon Musk eight dollars. Shields is some kind of a
(24:27):
fighter boxer, rock paper scissors champion or something. I don't know.
He has a bit of a sanity problem and he
ONTs encouraged violence on there against Greta Tunberg. So this
Jake Shields tweets yesterday quote, would you support public executions
of anyone who helps a child transition? This would include doctors, therapists, teachers,
guidance counselors, et cetera. Twitter actually, to its credit, took
(24:51):
that tweet down, but not before it, and the incitement
to violence by this Shield's idiot had been seen more
than one hundred thousand times. And by the way, the
answer is no. No public execution of those counseling kids
in trans pysician now public executions of people who incite
violence against vulnerable children. Jake, you do know blue check
(25:13):
marks are now a desperate attempt to compensate for having
a small penis Shields today's worst person in the world. Well,
I probena see the number one story on the countdown
(25:36):
and my favorite subject, me and things I promised not
to tell. I have found myself telling her story three
times in the last ten days. I just bought a
new copy of the movie in question, and so I
thought I would tell you the story. Do you know
her name? Elizabeth Montgomery, one of the most famous actresses
of the nineteen sixties and nineteen seventies, star of the
(25:59):
TV series Bewitched, daughter of a famous actor, Robert Montgomery,
and my friend from early on the morning of January fourteenth,
nineteen ninety two, until she died in the spring of
nineteen ninety five. Our friendship happened only because of one
thing my sister had given me a book about one
of our favorite topics, the never to be solved mystery
(26:21):
of Lizzie Borden and the Borden family axe murders of
eighteen ninety two in Fall River, Massachusetts. Yes, We're weird,
and also the fact that Elizabeth Montgomery had played Lizzie
Borden in a TV movie. So on January fourteenth, nineteen
ninety two, as I sat waiting for our flight to
leave ICJFK Airport in New York from my then home
in Los Angeles, then I began to read from my
(26:44):
airplane seat my sister's gift from the aisle from the
last one to board, I hear the voice of Elizabeth
Montgomery saying to me, ooh, Keith, you're reading about me.
She was a gas my brief but eternal friendship with
Lizzie Montgomery, and the eternal lesson she taught me in
(27:05):
one moment. Please while I first explained what I was
doing on that flight. A month or two earlier, I
had agreed to join ESPN to co host Sports Center
with Dan Patrick starting in late March nineteen ninety two.
I had just finished up three financially rewarding but souls
sucking years at Channel two in Los Angeles, and I
was going to go to Hawaii for three months and
(27:26):
just live air until I felt better. On Monday, December thirtieth,
nineteen ninety one, I had literally just opened my address
book to find the number of a travel agent I
knew to make the Hawaii arrangements. I was reaching for
the phone when the phone rang. It was my business
agent who had just gotten off the phone with my
new ESPN boss, John Walsh. He and they were launching
(27:48):
a new radio network in five days. I found this
interesting but not particularly relevant. ESPN was one thing then
it was one TV network, no magazine, no radio, No
ESPN the Oho. So this was their first big move outwards.
Radio network would start with only two seven hour shows
on Saturday and Sunday nights. And Walsh explained to my
(28:10):
agent that everything was going great and they were right
on target, and they had great guests lined up for
the first weekend, like Ronald Reagan, and they only had
one tiny problem. They needed three hosts, and they had
two terrific hosts, just terrific hosts, one Keith worked with
named Tony Bruno, and another terrific, just terrific host from
Providence named Chuck Wilson. And they tried this guy as
the third host, and that guy, and this guy and
that guy, and all told forty different people had tried
(28:30):
out to be hosts. They had nobody, nobody to be
the third host. Who was any good? Good? Keith? Just
come here just for the first weekend, just to get
it off the ground. Then he can go back to
LA and come back here in March takeover Sports Center.
Please please please get Keith help us, please, because if
he Canada, what on earth they're going to do it? Please?
Please please. As I said to my agent, well all right,
I suppose at least way, at least a ESPN will
(28:54):
always think of me as a team player. So instead
of going to Hawaii in January, I go to Bristol,
Connecticut in January and I go stay at my folks
house outside New York City. And a friend I had
recommended to help ESPN launch their radio network offers me
(29:14):
a ride up to ESPN for the weekend. And it's
like twenty degrees and we get out of his car
and his parking lot and three spots over getting out
of his car in the parking lot is Chris Berman,
who I went to high school with, and already in
January nineteen ninety two, when I'm not quite thirty three
years old, I already know Chris for twenty years. And
before I can say hey, he screams, listen, we have
(29:36):
a good thing going here, don't f it up. And
I say, good to see you too, Chris, And I
remind myself it's only till Monday. And I meet the gang,
and then I go to the hotel and the hotel
is beige. The walls are beige, the carpets are beige,
the guests are beige, the food is beige. The only
thing that isn't beige is the six inches of snow
(29:59):
that falls overnight. And remind myself it's only till Monday.
The launch of the network on saturd he goes, well,
they have me interview Ronald Reagan about something in football.
The Sunday Night Show is going well too, and we're
trying to figure out where the big baseball free agent
of that winner, Danny Tartable, is going to sign. And
we're interviewing Bobby Valentine, who was the manager of the
Texas Rangers, and they were one of the team's rumored
(30:21):
to be a likely landing for Tartable, and I asked Valentine.
He says, no, not anymore. They just canceled their trip.
I was supposed to go meet them at the airport tonight.
I think he signed with somebody else. And the alarm
bells go off in my head and I tell the producer,
let's call everybody we know in baseball and put them
on and figure out where Danny Tartable is going. I
have a source who knows his agent. Let me call him.
(30:41):
We'll go story chasing. So we spend four hours following
the story in real time, and it's great radio, and
we're coming up on the last hour and our guests
have helped us eliminate like thirty teams out of twenty eight.
But we're not sure where Tartable is going still, and
the producer says, if only we had his home phone number.
And I look at the producer and go, oh crap, sorry,
(31:03):
and I grab my address book. I explain he was
my co host, Tartabule was on some of our baseball
postgame shows in La last I'm sorry, I forgot I
had his number all this time. Hang on, So I
called Danny tartable, And just as our last hour on
Sunday night is starting, he calls me back and I
say to him, look, we know you've decided it's all
(31:24):
over baseball. It's got to be the Phillies, the Mets,
or the Yankees. And he's saying, correctly, I can't tell you.
And I said, give me one guess and just tell
me if I'm wrong, and I will call you a
source close to the negotiations, that's all. And he says okay.
And I say, is it a team that wears pin stripes?
And of course the Phillies, the Mets, and the Yankees
all wear pinstripes, so he laughs and he says yes.
(31:44):
And I say, is it the team I grew up
a fan of? And he says what team did you
grow up a fan of? And by the way, the
phone call is taking place with me on the floor
of the studio in which the other two hosts are
live on the new radio network. So I whispered a
tartable if I say it to the Yankees, am I wrong?
(32:05):
And he says, I can't tell you and starts whispering,
but off the record. The press conference is Wednesday at
Yankee Stadium. Is that enough for you, you bastard? And
of course I said no, come on the show and
tell us come on, and he laughs and says I'll
see you Wednesday and hangs up. And I get up,
and I sit in the vacant chair and I can
say breaking news. ESPN report now that the free agent
outfield or Danny Tartable has agreed to a multi year
(32:27):
deal with the New York Yankees. Sources close to the
negotiations say there will be a press conference Wednesday at
Yankee Stadium, and the other hosts are trying not to
crack up because they know I've just been talking too
Tartable from the phone in the same room with them. Well,
this story explodes way more than it deserved. It's a
(32:47):
dull Sunday night. It's still early enough in the evening
that the story makes all the Monday newspapers, and it's
attributed not to ESPN or to Sports Center, but to
the brand new ESPN Radio network on its second day
in business. And it's on the front page of USA
Today and the New York Times. A new ESPN radio
network makes splash with tartabules scoop the next morning, and
(33:08):
I can't tell you how big a deal that was
back then in nineteen ninety two. So now, instead of
going back to LA on Monday and maybe to Hawaii
on Tuesday, as I had planned, I have to go
to the press conference at Yankee Stadium to say hi
to Tartable on Wednesday and sort of thank him for
this scoop. And on Tuesday, this guy, John Walsh from
ESPN calls me, and my agent says, look, we have
(33:31):
to take advantage of this. It's the best possible start
we could have hoped for for the radio network. Keith
has to stay with us for the next three months.
Why doesn't he stay in and do this weekend and
then go back to LA and pack up his apartment
and then come back here the weekend after that. And
and I say again to my agent, well, at least
ESPN will always think of me as a team player
(33:52):
if I do this. So I am not in Hawaii
and instead I am on board this flight. When Elizabeth
Montgomery walks down the aisle and sees my Lizzie Borden
book given to me by my sister and says, ooh, Keith,
you're reading about me. Hi, I'm Lizzie Montgomery, I'm a
big fan of yours. Is that seat taken? And I say,
(34:13):
the hell if I care? Sit down? And the only
time we're not talking for the next six hours is
when we are drinking. I believe if I remember this correctly,
they had to send up a champagne refueling flight halfway
to LA And she's a huge sports fan. Her father
was a founder of one of the southern California horse
racing tracks, and she loves the Lakers. And she thinks
(34:34):
she was related to Lizzie Borden. Did I ever see
the European version of her Lizzie bordon film where they
show the wide shots where they make it look like
she's nude, And I say, I'm absolutely certain I have not.
And her son and her driver and her rolls Royce
meet us at Lax and she wants me to see
her house, and then her driver and her rolls Royce
will give me a lyft home. And oh, by the way,
she's flying back to New York in a week. Should
(34:56):
we become flying buddies. On that trip, our flight gets
canceled and we have to find a new one, and
I'm hand carrying a lot of more valuable baseball cards,
including like five hundred different from the year nineteen oh nine,
and she wants to see them, and she wants me
to tell her something about each player while we drink again,
and we land and she says, how you getting to
(35:17):
your folks house? And I say, well, I'm going to
get a car here or something, and she says, no,
you're not. I'll give you a lift in my limo
going right past your house. And sure enough we get there.
And as Lizzie Montgomery's limo is taking me to my
folks house at ten o'clock at night, she says, will
they still be up? Your folks want to play a
practical joke on them. So two minutes later, I knock
(35:39):
on the door of my childhood home and my father
opens it instead of seeing me, it's her in the doorway,
and she says, Hi, mister Olverman, I'm Lizzie. I'm a
friend of Keiths. Can he come out and play? And
my dad goes silent for the only time I in
my life. And now my mother appears so Lizzie can
pull the same routine on her. Hi, missus Olverman, I'm Lizzy.
(36:00):
I'm a friend of Keiths. Can he come out and play?
And now my mother is silent for the only time
in my life life, I might add, I thought Lizzie
looked fabulous, and I looked her up in Hallowell's film Guide,
and I saw she was forty eight, and I thought, boy,
she looks fabulous for forty eight. Then I realized my
math is wrong. She was fifty eight, and she was
a joy. We talked my phone every couple of weeks
(36:21):
after that, and she died three years later of colon cancer.
But she is with me always, and not just as
the proverbial force of nature. Within minutes of that day
we met, January fourteenth, nineteen ninety two, she bestowed upon
me a lesson, an eternal lesson. We were a little
late taking off, and since she had just loudly introduced
(36:44):
herself to me like I didn't know who she was,
anybody on the plane who wasn't sure it was her
was now sure. As we waited to taxi, every man
on that plane came over and did the same thing.
Oh hi, miss Montgomery, excuse me, And they give me
some sort of nodding acknowledgment like, hey, how you doing,
As they lean in past me I was a big
(37:05):
fan of Bewitched. I know you must get asked this
a million times a day, but is there anything I'm
so sorry to ask? Could you do that little nose
twitch you used to do in the show? And she
would say, of course, and then she'd do it, and
these men, age twenty two one hundred all then giggle
like schoolboys. After the thirtieth or thirty first time this happened,
I say to her, Lizzie, I don't know you, but
(37:27):
I like you a lot already, and your attitude towards
your fans and the nose twitch is wonderful. And I
have to tell you I certainly hope that was the
last of them, because the next one who comes over,
I'm gonna have to strangle him with my bare hands
because I can't take it anymore. And for the only
minutes of all the time I knew her, Elizabeth Montgomery
(37:48):
got very serious and said, oh, no, Keith, that is
not the attitude you must have about this. Remind me
what year did Bewitched go off the air. I had
to guess, nineteen seventy two, and she said, exactly, good, correct,
twenty years ago. These people have remembered that nose twitch
for twenty years at least. Bewitched. Keith is not Hamlet,
(38:13):
it is not Arthur Miller, it is not the Godfather.
But they remembered it. This is why you and I
both do what we do for a living. We have
transcended time with what we do for a living, something artistic,
something creative. No matter how small that we have done,
they have remembered it. People do it with you, I'm sure,
and I'm sure they'll continue to. And what you do
(38:35):
then is you say thank you for remembering, as if
they were the only one who ever remembered. Because that's
why we do this. Because they remembered me from twenty
years ago for a stupid little nose twitch. Duly chastised,
I apologized, and the huge, welcoming, conspiratorial, permanent friendship sexy
(39:00):
smile of Elizabeth Montgomery broke across her face like that sunrise,
and she whispered either that Keith or they saw Bewitched
on cable last week, which means Lizzie gets another check
next week. And she twitched her nose at me, and
I will always love her. I've done all the damage
(39:38):
I can do. Here. Here are the credits most of
the music was arranged, produced, and performed by Brian Ray
and John Phillips Shanelle, who are the countdown musical directors.
All orchestration and keyboards by John Phillip Shanelle, guitars, bass
and drums by Brian Ray, produced by Tko Brothers. Other
Beethoven selections have been arranged and performed by No Horns Allowed.
The sports music is the Olberman theme from ESPN two,
(40:00):
and it was written by Mitch Warren Davis courtesy of ESPN, Inc.
Musical comments from Nancy Faust, the best baseball stadium organist ever,
and our announcer today was my friend Richard Lewis. Everything
else is pretty much my fault. So that's countdown for
this the eight hundred and forty second day since Donald
Trump's first attempted coup against the democratically elected government of
(40:21):
the United States. Don't forget to keep arresting him while
we still can. The next scheduled countdown is tomorrow. Until then,
I'm Keith Olderman. Good Morning, good afternoon, good night, and
good luck. Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio.
(40:44):
For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio, app, Apple Podcasts,
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