November 3, 2025 • 51 mins
SEASON 4 EPISODE 30: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN
A-Block (2:30) SPECIAL COMMENT: If Andrew can no longer be PRINCE because of Jeffrey Epstein, Trump can no longer be PRESIDENT because of Jeffrey Epstein.
I think Trump understands this. I have no doubt Mike Johnson understands this. I believe even large swaths of the otherwise imbecilic MAGA understand this. It is why Trump and Johnson and the others are starving the needy; dissolving Congress; destroying the domestic balance of power and gutting the work infrastructure at airports, government agencies, and services. It is why they are even cutting the legs out from under every Republican candidate in tomorrow’s handful of elections.
Andrew has been convicted of nothing; Trump has been convicted of nothing. There are no astounding legal findings against Andrew; there are no astounding legal findings against Trump. There are probably no smoking guns about Andrew in the Epstein files; there are probably no smoking guns about Trump in the Epstein files. The status of their scandals is roughly identical.
Just as importantly: the English monarchy wants to publicly atone for Andrew and based on heavy news reporting in the UK it is apparently pressing Andrew to reveal what he knows about Epstein – presumably about TRUMPStein. Meanwhile only Trump, would throw a Gatsby party with himself as Gatsby and scantily-clad women in giant Martini glasses, in the middle of his own sex ring crisis.
In any event: If Andrew can no longer be PRINCE because of Jeffrey Epstein. Trump can no longer be PRESIDENT because of Jeffrey Epstein.
B-Block (28:00) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: After O'Donnell flames him, Scott Jennings insists Lawrence O'Donnell, whose show is beating Jennings's CNN show in the ratings by 60%, is irrelevant. Karolyin Leavitt was appalled that there was a bathroom inside the White House. And before tomorrow's election, Andrew Cuomo has proclaimed himself "Mayor."
C-Block (36:00) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: Well the World Series ended just as I told you it would: With everybody demanding Fox never again interview a manager during Game 7. I was a Fox TV Baseball Dugout Reporter: Here's Why We Don't Need Them (except for emergencies; in 40 games in which I filled that role, there were maybe three emergencies. I'll recount the best of them - the on-field dispute that came this close to turning into a riot involving the New York Yankees, the Boston Cops, and thousands of drunken Red Sox fans. And it ended with me being ordered to sit, essentially, on George Steinbrenner's lap).
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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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
(00:26):
Andrew can no longer be Prince because of Jeffrey Epstein,
Trump can no longer be president because of Jeffrey Epstein.
I think Trump understands this. I have no doubt Mike
Johnson understands this. I believe even large swaths of the
otherwise imbecilic MAGA understand this. It is why Trump and
(00:47):
Johnson and the others are starving the needy, dissolving Congress,
destroying the domestic balance of power, gutting the work infrastructure
at airports, government agencies services. It is why they are
even cutting the legs out from under every Republican candidate
in tomorrow's handful of elections. Andrew has been convicted of
(01:09):
nothing relative to Epstein. Trump has been convicted of nothing
relative to Epstein. There are no astounding legal findings against Andrew.
There are no astounding legal findings against Trump. There are
probably no smoking guns about Andrew in the Epstein files.
There are probably no smoking guns about Trump in the
Epstein files. Nevertheless, if Andrew can no longer be Prince
(01:35):
because of Jeffrey Epstein, Trump can no longer be president
because of Jeffrey Epstein. Since May, we have known that
even Trump's own corrupt, servile Attorney General Pam Bondi, told
Trump that he is in the Epstein files. This was
reported by a Murdoch newspaper. Murdoch newspapers may only be
(01:57):
fifty percent true, but no Murdoch newspaper would ever print
anything false that would damage Trump. Trump's name is reportedly
even in the binders Bondie handed out to right wing
propagandists back in February, back when it served Trump to
pretend he was going to release the Epstein files. Trump
(02:20):
is in the Epstein files. Andrew Andrew Mountbatten Windsor is
in the Epstein files. Though the parallels are potent and meaningful,
there are actually developments that turn against both men and
involve both men In England. The idea, forgive me, the
(02:44):
vibe is growing that Andrew Windsor may somehow testify or
make a statement about what he knows about Epstein. And
let's not kid ourselves. What anybody knows about Epstein now
means what do you know about Epstein? And Trump? The
idea that he could compose a statement specifically for the
(03:05):
US Congress or somehow be interviewed by Congress. That was
the second lead story on BBC News all day Friday,
surpassed only by the hurricane devastation in Jamaica. The seemingly
preposterous idea is not preposterous. They are damned serious about this.
(03:28):
They are quoting obscure Democratic congressman pushing for something, anything,
to at least force the end of the Trump Mike
Johnson Maga cover up of Trump's connections to Epstein, and
more importantly, the BBC is quoting the King Charles's statement,
the one in which he essentially kicked his own brother
(03:49):
out of the family ended quote. Their majesties wish to
make clear that their thoughts and utmost sympathies have been
and will remain with the victims and survivors of any
and all forms of abuse. In the UK, it is
taken as almost a given that the most obvious and
influential way to turn those sympathies into something meaningful and
(04:12):
restorative is to have Andrew do something what could serve
justice and protect this king and the next one, and
yet not require Andrew to self immolate legally than for
Andrew to tell everything he knows or at least everything
(04:32):
he knows that won't get him jailed orsued again. This
sounds far fetched. It is not ideas like this. Things
extrapolated from news stories do not appear on the BBC
or the other British news networks spontaneously. They are floated.
There are people with more than a passing connection to
(04:53):
the royal family who are floating that idea. Have Andrew
reveal what he knows about others? Which other something else
that has just happened that has kicked this into high
gear shows the impunity with which Trump believes he is
(05:13):
acting when it comes to the fact that he is
in the Epstein files, and the likelihood that Andrew knows
something about those horrific details, that party Friday Night, that
great Gatsby Halloween party with nineteen twenties indulgences, while Trump
is cutting off snap funding to what he sees as
the meaningless rabble with dancing girls or if you prefer strippers,
(05:43):
maybe Massage givers one of them in a giant Martini
glass from the insipid Playboy cartoon of the sixties. The
imagery is amazing, and sometimes you think, God damn it,
Trump wants to get caught for now. It is Trump's
(06:05):
middle finger to all those who want him prosecuted for
the crimes of his presidency and the crimes of his
life before and for his cover up of Epstein. Now
that he realizes he is at risk, Trump's self awareness
of risk is a stunningly variable thing. Only he would
be stupid enough to throw a Gatsby party while his
(06:25):
Secretary of the Treasury is saying parts of our economy
are now in a recession. Only Trump would throw a
Gatsby party with himself as Gatsby in the middle of
his own sex ring crisis. I'm going way out on
a limb here. I'm guessing Trump never read The Great Gatsby.
I'm guessing Trump never found out what happens to Gatsby.
(06:52):
We don't know for certain. All the Epstein files contain
about Andrew or Trump. Inside the degraded, nauseating world of Trump.
The degree of difference between Andrew and Trump is largely
the fact that Andrew was sued by the late Virginia Geffray,
and he settled that case three years ago with no
admission of wrongdoing, and that Andrew had done a self
(07:14):
defenestrating television interview with the BBC in twenty nineteen, in
which his denial was based on the extraordinary claim that
when Virginia Geffray said she saw him sweaty at a nightclub,
it destroyed her credibility and proved her a liar because
he had literally lost the ability to sweat while he
(07:38):
was serving as a helicopter pilot during the Falklands War.
Of course, it was Falkland's disease. There are also legal
processes that differ. Obviously, Trump, whether he believes in checks
and balances or not, is protected by them. Andrew, meanwhile,
(08:00):
has been slowly shrunken by his own family and what
amounts to a monarchy that has absolute power only over
its own family members. There are virtually no checks or
balances in that regard in England. When in twenty twenty
two an American judge let the Giffray case against him continue,
the late Queen removed all of Andrew's military titles but one.
(08:23):
When this past January newly revealed text messages indicated Andrew
had kept in contact with Epstein months after insisting he
had cut Epstein off. Andrew's future was doomed when a
second scandal involving a Chinese spy swallowed up what was
left of Andrew's credibility. His brother, the King, first removed
his title Duke of York. That was two weeks ago,
(08:45):
then a week ago. Today he was heckled, apparently by
a member of the public about Andrew. Finally, last Thursday,
the King realized that was insufficient, took away his royal
status entirely. Apparently. He gets to stay in a royal home.
He is still in the line of succession, but even
that could change. He is no longer Prince Andrew. He
(09:06):
is Andrew Mountbatten Windsor now. But the only thing left
is to force him to change his name to what
the Windsors called themselves before the First World War, back
when they still didn't have to hide their German origins.
The only thing left is to force him to change
his name to Andy Sachs Coburg, or to prosecute him
in civilian court if he does not, somehow atone by
(09:31):
telling all he knows. The point is Trump neither has
to face the slow but absolute justice and anger of
a royal family. There is nobody to force him out.
It's hardly likely to ever come up, but even the
twenty fifth Amendment has a built in appeals process in
which a president deemed unfit by his own cabinet and
(09:52):
his own political party could still fight back against removal
and delay it for weeks or months, or who knows
how long by legal means through the House and Senate,
and presumably, given Trump's history of illegality and disrespect for
our system, by using the Supreme Court, and if that
somehow failed, Trump presumably could use the military against the House,
(10:16):
the Senate, the Supreme Court against JD. Vance, and the
Cabinet against you me. Whoever. Nevertheless, all of those nuclear
options that are available to Trump and not to Andrew,
would have been available to Nixon, or, had it come
to that, to Clinton or any other president. They all
(10:37):
had those choices. They did not have the evil and
the psychosis to use some of them, but Nixon came
surprisingly close. A president of the United States is simply
by dint of control of the military, and if he
ceases to believe in checks and balances, or is manifestly insane,
he is the most powerful man in the world to
(11:01):
a mad man. We have given that power. If we
survive our mistake, we might want to look into fixing this.
But for the here and now, this is the relevant point.
The evidence against them both is about the same. The
shame of them both, were they capable of shame, would
be about the same. The shame we should feel that
(11:24):
the United Kingdom, no matter how slowly it moved, finally
moved to expunge its shame and began to try to
repair the personal damage its criminal has caused. While we
are stuck, still suffering at the whims of our criminal.
Our shame should be boundless. Because if Andrew can no
(11:44):
longer be prince because of Jeffrey Epstein, Trump can no
longer be president because of Jeffrey Epstein. And so Trump
(12:12):
continues his shutdown to make sure there is no vote
to release the Epstein files, to make sure there is
no Congresswoman Rehalva to be the last vote to force
the release of the Epstein files, because they will knock
at least one more support out from under Trump's ability
to stay in office if they are released, and they
(12:34):
will knock at least one more support out from under
his successors and enablers and apologists from staying in public life.
Don't take my word for this. Even the craziest of
Magan know what this is and why and what will
happen when the dam breaks, Because the dam will break,
(12:57):
because even a self denying puppet like Mike Johnson can't
keep it up forever. This is Congressman Thomas Massey. He's
calling it to Schumer shutdown, but I'm calling it to
Epstein recess. Not only are we shut down, we're in recess.
And that's unconventional, unprecedented. Gabby Massey is right. Holy cow,
(13:19):
I never thought I'd say anything close to that. Yes,
there are other games Republicans are playing. They have calculated
wrongly that they can damage the Democrats by in essence,
closing the gates and further converting the Trump administration into
just a theft ring that at this moment is doing
nothing for the citizens of this country and is in
fact simply stealing our money from us by literally continuing
(13:41):
taxation without representation. Note the New Jersey Democratic gubernatorial candidate
Mikey Cheryl actually says in an ad that it's time
for the state of New Jersey to claw back the
billions in federal tax money that it sends to Washington
and does not get back. She is threatening what I
(14:01):
keep talking about here a federal boycott to break this administration. Meanwhile,
back to the shutdown. You heard the Secretary of Agriculture right,
she confirmed the emergency snap funds, designed to be used
when regular funding is unavailable in an emergency, they can't
(14:22):
be used in this emergency because that regular funding is unavailable.
So no emergency funds, because it's an emergency, a Trump
fabricated emergency. She then issued what seemed to be at
least did it start a heartfelt conclusion that anybody who
(14:43):
needs snap benefits in this country that has hot and
cold running money in every building and goddamned President Gatsby
Halloween parties, anybody who needs snap benefits in a country
this rich is the victim of bipartisan failure.
Speaker 2 (15:01):
My message to America is first the fact that your
government is failing you right now. That poverty is not
red or blue. It is not a Republican or Democrat issue,
doesn't matter who you voted for, or even if you
voted that. If you are in a position where you
(15:24):
can't feed your family and you're relying on that one
hundred and eighty seven dollars a month for an average
family in the SNAP program that we have failed you.
Speaker 1 (15:35):
Then then Speaker Mike Johnson got off his anti porn
app for a second and came to the rescue with
one of the most singularly dishonest, non credible statements any
politician has made in my lifetime. It's up there with
that statement is no longer operative, and it's clarifying. When
(15:58):
she says we have failed you, she means we the Democrats. Okay,
he almost knocked down Secretary sugar Bake. I'm sorry, Secretary
Rowins to get to that microphone to say that courts
have ruled the SNAP benefits must be paid. Trump is
stalling now, using that ruling to stall further by asking
(16:18):
the courts, seemingly in great concern, to show him how
to not break the law. Scumbag. However, just as a
reminder that this country is not only a bunch of lemmings.
Following Trump off a moral cliff, even though real lemmings
don't commit mass suicide, that was literally a horrific Disney
(16:39):
stunt for a movie to counter our sometimes hopeless state.
There is the story of Manny's Deli on Jefferson in Chicago.
Starting today, Manny's Deli has promised a family sized meal
to anyone presenting a snap card this week. I suspect
(17:03):
they will be inundated. They have started a gofund me.
The title on the go fundme site is Snap Benefits
Relief Fund. So if you feel you need to do something,
there you go. Remember Mary Trump's question last week, why
(17:32):
do they keep giving her uncle cognitive tests? Why do
they keep giving him tests? Not why do they give
him tests? Why do they keep I wanted to reframe
that question in light of what to me is even
more relevant every time I think about this. The timing
(17:56):
six months between the tests and the MRI or MRIs
connected to the test. They're checking for physical deterioration and
cognitive deterioration in tandem connected. Those are Alzheimer's tests, aren't they?
Or something like that. It shouldn't be shocking, yet I
(18:22):
find it is. However, we phrase Mary Trump's question, why
do they keep giving Trump cognitive tests? Trump always provides
enough answers. It is evident he heard about Russia testing
a nuclear powered missile, and thanks to whatever is wrong
with him, he only heard testing nuclear missile and then
(18:44):
ordered testing of nukes by this country as dangerous and
useless a thing as we could do besides electing him twice.
He's also repeating himself worked really hard. Twenty four to seven,
took in trillions of dollars and truck. Schumer said trip
was a total dud, even though he knows it was
a spectacular success. Words like that are almost trees. This
(19:05):
exclamation point, exclamation point, exclamation point. I'm wondering if somebody
actually convinced him they're not the next post attacking Seth Myers,
no talent, no ratings, one hundred percent anti Trump, which
is probably illegal, so still a no. But now the
(19:31):
crime of criticizing Trump has been reduced from almost treason
to probably illegal. And then there was the one that
flashed back to the good old simple days of Kofeve
quote south card d d d D South c A
(19:55):
r e r d d d d south krd south carideh,
to which Gavin Newsom's social media whiz added the extra
des stand for dementia. And of course, Newsom was on
(20:16):
Meet the Press yesterday and the amazingly unqualified Kristin Welker
asked him if his running spoof of Trump's psychosis and
fragility served only to normalize Trump's behavior, and I think
he's done a marvelous job. He may have found his niche,
(20:38):
but I'm just sorry he didn't. Gavin Newsom just didn't
say what he could have said that would have caused
the cancelation of Meet the Press. He could have said, no, Kristin,
you doing softball interviews with Trump and his criminal gang.
That's what's serving to normalize Trump's behavior. One bit of relief,
(21:05):
unrelated to politics or Welker or Newsom or anybody else.
On social media, you may have seen it. Hope it
gives you a second laugh. Now. Someone posted two shots
of a men's room at the football stadium at Missouri
State where above a row of urinals are two windows
(21:30):
through which you can see the end zone of the
football stadium and the scoreboard of the football stadium, to
which photographer Andrew Stein writes, quote, you have a real
stadium naming rights opportunity here, P and C Bank. Oh
(21:55):
my god, P and C Bank also of interest here
In an all new edition of Countdown, the election is tomorrow,
but Andrew Cuomo has actually proclaimed himself Mayor of New
York already. Actually that's not a bad plan, considering nobody
else is going to. And yes, the Baseball World Series
ended exactly the way I said it would, with everybody
(22:19):
demanding that Fox never interview a manager in the middle
of a game ever. Ever Again, that used to be
my job. Well, everything used to be my job, but
that used to be my job. I have thoughts on
this and the story for you of a one time
the in game interviewer mattered, the riot that nearly ensued,
(22:43):
and how it all ended with me basically being ordered
to go sit on George Steinbrenner's lap. That's next. This
is Countdown, mean cea bank. This is Countdown with Keith
Olberman still ahead on this all new episode of Countdown.
(23:23):
The World Series proved the United States and Canada can
still agree on one thing. No more goddamned interviews of
the managers during Game seven, everybody in baseball please. In fact,
(23:44):
no interviews during games ever, or reports from the dugouts
unless they're really is news. And it's twenty five years
now since I did that job. But I did it
for forty games, and I think there were only three
times in like four years they really needed me in
the dugout to break news to the TV audience. On
the other hand, one of them was when only by
(24:05):
the slimmest of margins did Fenway Park not erupt in
a mid game riot involving the Yankees, angry Boston cops,
and all the drunken Red Sox fans in the stands,
And that led to me being ordered to sit virtually
in the lap of Yike's owner, George Steinbrenner. Yes, I'm
(24:27):
a dugout reporter. Here's why we shouldn't have dugout reporters
except once in a while. Next in things I promised
not to tell first of believe it or not, there's
still more new idiots to talk about. The roundup of
the miss Grants morons and Dunning Krueger effects specimens who
constitute today's other worst persons in the world at the
Bronze Worst. Scott Jennings. You know this fop. This is
(24:51):
the CNN guy who looks like Kermit the Frog and
spends three quarters of his time making faces to the camera.
And he was crowing about ending Jimmy Kimmel's career and
I wrote back on Twitter your next mf meaning his
career obviously, and he reported it to the FBI and
to director, I'll take it in cash Petel because I
(25:13):
threatened to harm his career. This self martyring paranoid idiot.
They put on CNN and he tries to beat up
liberals and they still can't get anybody to watch. Lawrence O'Donnell,
who I do not support, clocked this guy Jennings, who
I do not support on MSNBC, which I do not support.
(25:35):
And by the way, which is weirder the fact that
I retired from ESPN five years ago after all that
Sturmann drong, and I'm officially a Disney retiree, or the
fact that if I make it to a week from
this Saturday when they change to ms now, I will
have professionally and personally outlasted MSNBC. Anyway, Lawrence doesn't do
(26:00):
much on the air that somebody else didn't do first.
In like two thousand and seven, this was good. He
accused Scott Jennings of going crazy town maga for the money,
Scotty no like quote. There's this lunatic on MSNBC at
ten o'clock every night named Lawrence O'Donnell. I had sort
of forgotten that he was a thing, but I guess
(26:22):
he still has a show, and he went crazy on
yours truly. The other night he tweeted about this too.
Rule one, if you do a podcast or a radio show,
or a TV show or a tweet about somebody's irrelevance,
you just self owned they're relevant to you, aren't they.
I'm not saying Lawrence O'Donnell is irrelevant. I'm not saying
(26:44):
Scott Jennings is irrelevant by talking about them. I'm making
them relevant if they somehow were not relevant before. And
Scott Jennings when he says Lawrence U. Donald is irrelevant,
is lying because he's saying it. Secondly, Jennings claimed the
show he is on Abby Phillip platforms. Fascist is beating
(27:06):
Lawrence O'Donnell by thirty percent in the advertising demo. I
don't know where he got that number. But in October,
CNN and MSNBC for most of primetime programming, hit record
lows in all categories. So you're arguing about twelve viewers
or ten viewers. But MSNBC's total audience is still sixty
(27:27):
percent larger than CNN's and that applies for Laurence o'donald,
about sixty percent larger than Scott Jennings, who's irrelevant. Neither
of you is irrelevant. We're talking about you, the runner up,
also not irrelevant, also not truthful. Carolon Levitt, you saw
what Trump did to the Lincoln bathroom in which he
(27:51):
took out the sort of staid nineteen Forti's Art Deco
green tile style and said it was inappropriate for the
Lincoln era. And he put in statuary marble, and he
said this is very appropriate for the time of Abraham
Lincoln and in fact could be the marble that was
originally there. Because Trump, unable to process anything he did
(28:13):
not personally witness, thinks that Lincoln, who needed to borrow
money to get guns to try to defend Fort Sumpter,
he put marble in the White House. Trump thinks Lincoln
put marble in the White House. Trump thinks all the
other presidents are just like him, batshit crazy. But Caroline
(28:35):
lying Levitt, who is there to make Trump seem like
he's not trying to kill us all, looked at the
pictures and read. When I first learned a toilet like
that existed inside the White House, I was horrified. President
Trump is making the People's House more elegant and beautiful
for generations of Americans to come idiot, the next one
(28:59):
can just rip all the marble out and put in
I don't know Outthouse Brown Carolinon is upset because there
is indoor plumbing in the White House. I mean her job,
after all, her job is to throw Trump's poop at America.
But our winner, once again, it's Andrew Cuomo. I don't
(29:20):
need to go on forever about Andrew Cuomo, although I have,
although the chief apologist and retributionist from his governor days.
Melissa de Rosa she threatened a student at Cornell who
asked about Cuomo's sexual harassment history at a seminar there
per the Cornell Daily Sun, for which I worked for
one night. God forbid anyone in your family is ever
(29:41):
falsely accused. Who in Andrew Como's family was falsely accused?
God forbid anyone in your family is ever falsely accused?
And then someone runs around and calls them disgraced and
asked how you can stand by them. I hope you
don't have to deal with that moment. Watch yourself when
you say things like that in public, or if you
want to be taken seriously. Melissa DeRosa threatens a Cornell student.
(30:08):
God forbid, Melissa de Rosa, you find yourself on the
advisory board of Cornell's Department of Communications, and then you
threaten one of the Cornell's students and the most famous
graduate of the Cornell Department of Communication. Hi, Hello, how
are you? Calls his pals in the administration and says,
get rid of this clown. She's hurting the school and
(30:30):
threatening the students. But back to the main point, her
idiot boss. A New York Daily News reporter named Josie
Stratman caught this all credit to her. Cuomo did a
Google meet last week, and of course, like all zoom
like calls, you enter your name on a Google Meet
and it is superimposed above or over or below your image.
(30:54):
And what did Cuomo? Still losing the mayor election by
double digits? The election is tomorrow. What did he put
in as his name on the Google meet? Mayor Cuomo?
It says Mayor Cuomo in the lower left end of
corner of the picture of him staring daggers into the
(31:15):
camera as usual. Hope you framed a screenshot of that boy,
because that's the only time anybody's gonna call you that. Andrew,
of course, you could legally change your first name to
Mayor if it means that much to you. Cuomo, Today's
other worst person.
Speaker 2 (31:35):
And the.
Speaker 1 (31:49):
The World Series is over, and after the Jays somehow
managed to outworst the Dodgers in critical situations. The Dodgers
are the first repeat World champions since two thousand and
the first in the National League since nineteen seventy six,
and thus they almost guarantee that the owner will use
this as an excuse to again lock out the players
a year after next, or try to force the players
(32:11):
to strike in the owner's continuing hope to get a
hard salary cap, something they have been looking for longer
than King Arthur looked for the Holy Grail, and with
as much success see total lack of competitive balance. The
same team as won two in a row. Let's cancel
the twenty twenty seven season. It's the player's fault, all right.
(32:36):
There'll be plenty of time to talk about that later on.
Noting only that the Dodgers Yoshivo Yamamoto is expected to
pitch again tonight in Game nine. In our number one
story on the Countdown, I am a former Baseball Network
TV dugout reporter. Here's why we should eliminate interviews with
players and managers with dugout reporters during the game unless
(32:57):
there is really news, really really really really news. Having
watched all the World Series since nineteen sixty six, they
always teach us the same old things, but in new ways. First,
baseball played well can make for a boring World Series,
and baseball played badly can make for a thrilling One second,
(33:18):
those artifacts this guy's glove, that guy's shirt, the other
guy's jock, the ones that go to the Hall of Fame,
and they make a big deal about that. They may
go on display at the Hall of Fame for a while,
but in fact all of them soon or late wind
up on a shelf or in a drawer in a
giant subterranean storage vault. Almost nobody ever sees they have
(33:43):
like fourteen Pete Rose uniforms there. For all I know,
they have Pete Rose there. Third, there have never been
greater pitchers than today. There have never been greater hitters
than today. There have never been greater runners than today.
There have never been greater fielders than today. Yet, the
number of guys per team who can actually play baseball
(34:03):
without what are literally written instructions that they keep in
their back pockets of their uniforms. The number of those
guys is down to about three per team, and a
friend of mine, who has been a Major League play
by play announcer for decades, says, no, I'm wrong, it's
actually about two per team. And the other thing the
(34:24):
World Series teaches us year after year, don't do so
many interviews. In the sixties, they used to have people
doing interviews of celebrity fans during the games. They were pointless.
They wasted time. Now they interview managers and players during
(34:44):
the game. They're pointless. They waste time. You should have
a reporter in each dugout or next to each dugout.
You should go to them when there is news, not
while the manager is trying to signal to his players
where to play defensively, and you're going to interview him.
Then I was the dugout guy for twelve World Series
(35:06):
games and sixteen League Championship games on two networks, also
two All Star Games and in the All Star Games.
A dugout reporter is not only a good idea, but
an essential one. More interviews means less, meaningless commentary about
the meaningless All Star games. But in literally forty games
in dugouts on TV, I covered three actual stories three
(35:31):
the rest of the time, I didn't even need to
have a battery in my microphone. I could have pre
recorded my stuff in a studio somewhere. Three stories that
the viewer cared about, Three stories that I cared about.
The rest Heredia is warming up in the bullpen, Joe.
(35:53):
The rest was filler. Oddly, of those three, two of
them happened in the same weekend, and they will not
hang the nineteen ninety nine American League Championship Series in
any kind of sports art museum. There was bad pitching,
bad defense, bad hitting, and especially bad sportsmanship by players
(36:14):
and fans alike. But for me, covering the New York
Yankees through all five games from the unique vantage point
of a corner of their dugout, it was perfection. The
good stuff started in Game three on Saturday, October sixteenth,
nineteen ninety nine, and it featured the return of the
former Red Sox hero Roger Clemens in the uniform of
(36:35):
the hated Yanks to Fenway Park, Boston. I don't have
much time for Roger Clemens, but I was a witness
to two occasions, possibly the only two occasions of his life.
When he received the raw deal rather than dishing it out,
the fans at Boston's Fenway Park blamed Clemens for leaving
the old town team two years previously, when it was
(36:56):
a decision actually made by Red Sox management. So they
serenaded and booed him out of that game after just
fifteen batters and just over two and our Fox TV
cameras caught them tearing down Roger Clemens banners which hung
outside the park. Poor Roger completely rattled, fell apart like
a twelve dollars fake rolex, and from where I sat
(37:18):
between the third base camera and the Yankee dugout, you
could see he was ashen. The game got out of
hand quickly, a theme for the series. Boston led thirteen
to nothing in the seventh inning. One of the oddities
of my seat was that between me and the Yankee
bench was a low railing and very ancient chicken wire
fence that had been painted over annually for something like
(37:41):
since the First World War. But next to the fence
on the player's side was the dugout bathroom. It was
really just a door and a urinal, so at some point,
every Yankee player came down to that end of the dugout,
and almost always they said hi, and then excuse me.
A minute late in the game, as it got dark,
(38:02):
the Yankee superb Cuban Emmigray pitcher Orlando El Duque Hernandez
made that track and said hi, but did not go
into the tiny bathroom in the dugout at Fenway Park. Instead,
he sat down on the steps right next to the
little chicken wire fence, and he said, Kate, can I
ask you a question? I was startled. The official line
(38:22):
was El Duque Hernandez did not speak any English. I
pointed this out to him. He laughed, you'll keep my secret.
You know how much time I save not doing interviews
in English. He got an occasional conjugation wrong, Otherwise his
English was perfect. He got to his question, Keith, why
do you leave SportsCenter? You and Dan were so good
(38:44):
way downtown. Bang, they're not gonna get them. I suspect
anybody sitting in the stands in the ten rows nearest me?
Could hear my laughter? Orlando, I left Sports Center before
you left Cuba. How did you see us? He said?
We have nothing in Cuba, but we have baseball fields
and we have satellites. It's deep, and I don't think
it's playable. Stunned, I had already discovered that nearly every
(39:07):
American born Major League player of nineteen ninety nine knew
me by voice, let alone by sight. But this Cuba
thing and el Duque reciting my old sports center catchphrases
was a genuine surprise. Oh, yes, you and Dan, you
teach me a lot of my English. What's the one
for the hockey? Can't believe I shrunk that guy's freaking hand.
I love that. Why'd you leave? I tried to explain
(39:30):
it was mostly geography, that if when he had pitched
briefly in the International League, he ever faced the team
in Patucket, Rhode Island, that that was kind of where
ESPN was, only it was more remote, much smaller town. Oh,
el Duque said, like Cuba, but with snow, And I said, yeah,
that was it exactly. And now I was living in
(39:50):
Los Angeles and I owned a big house on the beach. Okay,
I get it. Listen, you see me in the park,
you say Hi, there's nobody around, we talk, Okay, if
I say nothing, don't be offended. I'm just making sure
everybody still knows I don't speak English. Orlando Hernandez did
not get here till he was thirty two years old.
He pitched until he was forty one. If he got
(40:10):
in here when he was twenty two, he'd be in
the Hall of Fame, and then he would have been
the color man on the Game of the Week. He
pitched three years for the Yankees and two for the
Mets while I lived in New York, and it was
always a pleasure to see him. Kase you're still collecting baseballs,
you want this one. I walked by Ray Bonds with
this one. So that was Game three on the Saturday.
On the Sunday, I awoke to see my picture in
(40:33):
the Boston Globe. In those days, the newspapers all used
to have columnists who wrote about nothing but TV and
radio sports casts. No, seriously, I had been a sportscaster
on local TV in Boston fifteen years earlier, in nineteen
eighty four. Then I'd been to Fenway Park as long
before as nineteen sixty six, and yet I had grown
(40:54):
up a Yankee fan in New York. I explained that
even then I was also a fan of the long
suffering Red Sox fans. Now it was too complicated for
some people at the Boston Globe, which quoted me correctly
as saying I always felt an affinity with the fans,
But then under my picture in the article used the
caption Ulberman, Red Sox fan. Still wondering how they got
(41:19):
that wrong, I did my pregame TV stuff for Fox,
then climbed over the little chicken wire fence back into
my spot for our in game dugout reporting, And as
the top of the first inning began of the fourth game,
the Yankees leadoff man Chuck Knoblock moved towards the plate,
and as he did, it was the cleanup hitter Bernie
Williams walking towards me, presumably to use that little urinal
in a closet. Wrong again. It's meet Keith Weekend. Hey Keith,
(41:45):
he said in his lyrical voice, extending a hand to
shake Bernie Williams like I didn't know who it was. Say, listen,
I was reading the paper. Are you a Red Sox fan?
For a moment, I put aside the fact that the game,
the playoff game, had now started, and the guy up
three batters from now was asking me about a typo
in the Boston Globe. Bernie Williams was never accused of
(42:08):
burning himself out with too much competitive focus. That's just
who he was. I explained the mistake as quickly as
I could. Oh, I thought, so, okay, good. I'm glad
because you can be a fan of anybody you want.
But I don't think it would be right to have
a Red Sox fan in our dugout. I agreed with him.
Just as Chuck Knoblock singled, and the number two hitter,
Derek Jeter advanced to the plate, and the third hitter,
(42:30):
Paul O'Neill went out to the on neck circle. And
that's when Bernie Williams surprised me more than Orlando Hernandez had. Plus,
Bernie went on, doesn't your mom still have those seats
like ten rows back of our dugout at Yankee Stadium.
This was before my mother became famous for getting hit
by a very badly thrown ball. The next year, I
(42:52):
asked Bernie Williams how the hell he knew where my
mother sat. You've had seats there since the seventies, haven't you.
I just stared at him, Oh, Keith, it's my job
to know that. I said, no, it isn't. It's your
job to play center field for the Yankees. This was
just about the time Derek Jeter grounded out and Paul
(43:12):
O'Neill left the on deck circle, and Bernie Williams was
supposed to be in the on deck circle. I know
your mom, I see her, nice lady, So anyway, I
interrupted him. Bernie Jeter just grounded out, and now block
went to second and and O'Neill is up with one out.
Shouldn't you get out there? He looked back at the
field of play. Oh, yeah, you're right. He stuck out
(43:34):
his hand again. Nice visiting with you. Let's talk more later,
and just double checking you're not a Red Sox fan, right.
Bernie Williams got three hits in that game. Another New
York sports reporter once said that if he concentrated on baseball,
really concentrated, Bernie Williams would either be so good that
he would hit four hundred or he would be so
(43:55):
stressed out that he would become a serial killer. In
this game, the Yankee scored six runs in the ninth
and there was a place so controversial that when the
Red Sox manager got himself a jack did over it.
The home fans littered the field with debris. Almost all
of it was just plastic soda bottles, but still there
was a couple of flasks thrown too. Yankees manager Joe
(44:18):
Torre ordered his team off the field and play was
suspended as the plastic bottles continued to fly and via
my earpiece, which I listened to, even if Chris Matthews
never listened to his, my producer ordered me on to
the field, and I did as I was told, and
I set up in front of the camera, right in
front of the dugout full of Yankee players. A plastic
bottle whizzed past my head and I half wondered if
(44:39):
Bernie Williams had thrown it, just in case I was
a Red Sox fan. Almost immediately, a Fenway Park security
guy started swearing at me in Boston and told me
if I didn't get off the field and into the
seats immediately, he'd have me arrested. This time, I could
actually hear some of the Yankees laughing. Get over that
fence right now, sit your backside down in that seat,
(44:59):
and do not move. My producer heard all this through
my microphone and told me to comply. I didn't even
look around. I just went over the fence. I sat
down in the front row where I'd been ordered to,
and that's when the guy sitting next to me said hi,
and I realized the guy sitting next to me was
George Steinbrenner, the owner of the Yankees. I said, Hi,
(45:20):
you want to say something about this on TV? And George,
who loved me as I loved him, said sure, and
my producer heard all this through to the microphone as well.
The announcers immediately threw it to me, and I said
seven words, George Steinbrenner, your thoughts on all this. He
proceeded to very pleasantly blame the Red Sox fans for
(45:41):
being drunk, blame Fenway security for letting a riot start,
blame baseball officials for not immediately forfeiting the game to
his club, and blame the Boston manager for inciting the crowd.
I had said to George, I would ask a follow up,
but you seem to have covered everything, and so I
threw it back to the play by playbooth. Steinbrenner's remarks
made every newspaper in the country, and in many accounts,
(46:03):
I was noted as the inner, and frankly, I didn't
really do anything. The next night, the Yankees won the
series in five games, and the fifth game was devoid
of Cuban pitchers confiding they were fans, or Bernie Williams
quizzing me about my fan dumb, or me being ordered
onto the field during a riot, only to be thrown
off of it and directly into the seat next to
the owner of the Yankees. All I had to do
(46:26):
on this night was get into the Yankee clubhouse two
innings before the game ended, so I could cover the
celebrating players and the award presentation. The excitement of the
weekend clearly was over. I would just say hi to
these guys. They'd throw champagne in my direction, and then
I'd throw it back to Joe Buck. I was on
a platform bleached in a camera light as the technicians
(46:48):
checked their stuff. The game was still going on when
the clubhouse door slammed open and in strutted the Yankee
second basement Chuck Knobloch. He was swearing profusely, profoundly and proficiently.
He had been having trouble throwing ground balls away, and
as the eighth inning started, the Yankee manager Tory had
removed him, denying him a chance to be in the
(47:10):
on field celebration of the pennant Nblock was enraged, so
enraged that he never saw me, or the platform or
the camera lights. He used all the known expletives and
directed all of them all at his own manager. The
Yankees PR guy, a childhood friend of mine, rushed over
(47:31):
to insist that I could not report what I had
just heard. He was a little shocked when I agreed
with him. I'm here as a lighting prop. I told him. Now,
Block has a perfect right to expect there'd be no
reporters in the clubhouse during the game. If he says
it again afterwards, I'll say I heard it just now.
Otherwise I'm not saying anything. There is a course, a
(47:52):
punchline even to this and this extraordinary weekend. The next summer,
Chuck Knobloch's career as a second baseman ended because he
completely lost the ability to throw an ordinary, uncomp lollicated
baseball to first base. Since similar cases of the yips
seemed to afflict players whose baseball centric fathers had gotten
sick or jailed or something, and Knoblock's dad had just
(48:16):
entered the final stages of Alzheimer's. It was probably that
the last disastrous throw he made the next year, on
June seventeenth, two thousand, bounced off the Yankee dugout and
spun weirdly and hit a woman in the box seats.
The woman was my mother, the one where Bernie Williams
(48:36):
knew where she sat, all the things that followed. Since
I was in the studio that day doing the highlights
for the Fox Game of the Week, they require their
own segment of this. But the one thing that has
always mystified me was how Chuck Nabloch did not know
not to throw the ball where he did, because at
some point Bernie Williams must have warned him, Hey, hey, Chuck,
(48:59):
don't do it there. That's where Keith Olberman's mother sits.
I've done all the damage I can do here. Thank
you for listening this close to a riot. My god,
(49:22):
I don't know what would have happened. They were all
totally drunk and the Yankee players were ready to go.
Most of our Countdown music was arranged, produced and performed
by John Phillip Chanelle and Brian Ray. Our musical directors
have Countdown and produced by Tko Brothers. Mister Chanelle handled
orchestration and keyboards. Mister Ray was on guitars, bass and drums.
(49:45):
Our satirical and pithy musical comments are by the best
baseball stadium organist ever, Nancy Faust. The Olderman theme from
ESPN two, written by Mitch Warren Davis Piers courtesy of ESPN, Inc.
It's the sports music. Other music arranged and performed by
the group No Hornes allowed. My announcer today was my friend.
Since I was talking about Fenway, I thought he was
(50:05):
the right choice, Dennis Leary. Everything else was, as always
my fault. That's countdown for today, Day two hundred and
eighty eight of America held hostage again, but just seventy
five days until the scheduled end of his lame duck
and lame brained term unless he is removed sooner by
(50:27):
MAGA and Epstein, or that patch of pavement on his hand,
or a stuck escalator or some tile and all, or
his jet made out of poop, or or the Alzheimer's
test six months from now. The next scheduled countdown will
be Thursday till then. I'm Keith Olberman. Good morning, Good afternoon,
(50:49):
good Night, and good Luck. Countdown with Keith Olderman is
(51:11):
a production 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
(00:26):
Andrew can no longer be Prince because of Jeffrey Epstein,
Trump can no longer be president because of Jeffrey Epstein.
I think Trump understands this. I have no doubt Mike
Johnson understands this. I believe even large swaths of the
otherwise imbecilic MAGA understand this. It is why Trump and
(00:47):
Johnson and the others are starving the needy, dissolving Congress,
destroying the domestic balance of power, gutting the work infrastructure
at airports, government agencies services. It is why they are
even cutting the legs out from under every Republican candidate
in tomorrow's handful of elections. Andrew has been convicted of
(01:09):
nothing relative to Epstein. Trump has been convicted of nothing
relative to Epstein. There are no astounding legal findings against Andrew.
There are no astounding legal findings against Trump. There are
probably no smoking guns about Andrew in the Epstein files.
There are probably no smoking guns about Trump in the
Epstein files. Nevertheless, if Andrew can no longer be Prince
(01:35):
because of Jeffrey Epstein, Trump can no longer be president
because of Jeffrey Epstein. Since May, we have known that
even Trump's own corrupt, servile Attorney General Pam Bondi, told
Trump that he is in the Epstein files. This was
reported by a Murdoch newspaper. Murdoch newspapers may only be
(01:57):
fifty percent true, but no Murdoch newspaper would ever print
anything false that would damage Trump. Trump's name is reportedly
even in the binders Bondie handed out to right wing
propagandists back in February, back when it served Trump to
pretend he was going to release the Epstein files. Trump
(02:20):
is in the Epstein files. Andrew Andrew Mountbatten Windsor is
in the Epstein files. Though the parallels are potent and meaningful,
there are actually developments that turn against both men and
involve both men In England. The idea, forgive me, the
(02:44):
vibe is growing that Andrew Windsor may somehow testify or
make a statement about what he knows about Epstein. And
let's not kid ourselves. What anybody knows about Epstein now
means what do you know about Epstein? And Trump? The
idea that he could compose a statement specifically for the
(03:05):
US Congress or somehow be interviewed by Congress. That was
the second lead story on BBC News all day Friday,
surpassed only by the hurricane devastation in Jamaica. The seemingly
preposterous idea is not preposterous. They are damned serious about this.
(03:28):
They are quoting obscure Democratic congressman pushing for something, anything,
to at least force the end of the Trump Mike
Johnson Maga cover up of Trump's connections to Epstein, and
more importantly, the BBC is quoting the King Charles's statement,
the one in which he essentially kicked his own brother
(03:49):
out of the family ended quote. Their majesties wish to
make clear that their thoughts and utmost sympathies have been
and will remain with the victims and survivors of any
and all forms of abuse. In the UK, it is
taken as almost a given that the most obvious and
influential way to turn those sympathies into something meaningful and
(04:12):
restorative is to have Andrew do something what could serve
justice and protect this king and the next one, and
yet not require Andrew to self immolate legally than for
Andrew to tell everything he knows or at least everything
(04:32):
he knows that won't get him jailed orsued again. This
sounds far fetched. It is not ideas like this. Things
extrapolated from news stories do not appear on the BBC
or the other British news networks spontaneously. They are floated.
There are people with more than a passing connection to
(04:53):
the royal family who are floating that idea. Have Andrew
reveal what he knows about others? Which other something else
that has just happened that has kicked this into high
gear shows the impunity with which Trump believes he is
(05:13):
acting when it comes to the fact that he is
in the Epstein files, and the likelihood that Andrew knows
something about those horrific details, that party Friday Night, that
great Gatsby Halloween party with nineteen twenties indulgences, while Trump
is cutting off snap funding to what he sees as
the meaningless rabble with dancing girls or if you prefer strippers,
(05:43):
maybe Massage givers one of them in a giant Martini
glass from the insipid Playboy cartoon of the sixties. The
imagery is amazing, and sometimes you think, God damn it,
Trump wants to get caught for now. It is Trump's
(06:05):
middle finger to all those who want him prosecuted for
the crimes of his presidency and the crimes of his
life before and for his cover up of Epstein. Now
that he realizes he is at risk, Trump's self awareness
of risk is a stunningly variable thing. Only he would
be stupid enough to throw a Gatsby party while his
(06:25):
Secretary of the Treasury is saying parts of our economy
are now in a recession. Only Trump would throw a
Gatsby party with himself as Gatsby in the middle of
his own sex ring crisis. I'm going way out on
a limb here. I'm guessing Trump never read The Great Gatsby.
I'm guessing Trump never found out what happens to Gatsby.
(06:52):
We don't know for certain. All the Epstein files contain
about Andrew or Trump. Inside the degraded, nauseating world of Trump.
The degree of difference between Andrew and Trump is largely
the fact that Andrew was sued by the late Virginia Geffray,
and he settled that case three years ago with no
admission of wrongdoing, and that Andrew had done a self
(07:14):
defenestrating television interview with the BBC in twenty nineteen, in
which his denial was based on the extraordinary claim that
when Virginia Geffray said she saw him sweaty at a nightclub,
it destroyed her credibility and proved her a liar because
he had literally lost the ability to sweat while he
(07:38):
was serving as a helicopter pilot during the Falklands War.
Of course, it was Falkland's disease. There are also legal
processes that differ. Obviously, Trump, whether he believes in checks
and balances or not, is protected by them. Andrew, meanwhile,
(08:00):
has been slowly shrunken by his own family and what
amounts to a monarchy that has absolute power only over
its own family members. There are virtually no checks or
balances in that regard in England. When in twenty twenty
two an American judge let the Giffray case against him continue,
the late Queen removed all of Andrew's military titles but one.
(08:23):
When this past January newly revealed text messages indicated Andrew
had kept in contact with Epstein months after insisting he
had cut Epstein off. Andrew's future was doomed when a
second scandal involving a Chinese spy swallowed up what was
left of Andrew's credibility. His brother, the King, first removed
his title Duke of York. That was two weeks ago,
(08:45):
then a week ago. Today he was heckled, apparently by
a member of the public about Andrew. Finally, last Thursday,
the King realized that was insufficient, took away his royal
status entirely. Apparently. He gets to stay in a royal home.
He is still in the line of succession, but even
that could change. He is no longer Prince Andrew. He
(09:06):
is Andrew Mountbatten Windsor now. But the only thing left
is to force him to change his name to what
the Windsors called themselves before the First World War, back
when they still didn't have to hide their German origins.
The only thing left is to force him to change
his name to Andy Sachs Coburg, or to prosecute him
in civilian court if he does not, somehow atone by
(09:31):
telling all he knows. The point is Trump neither has
to face the slow but absolute justice and anger of
a royal family. There is nobody to force him out.
It's hardly likely to ever come up, but even the
twenty fifth Amendment has a built in appeals process in
which a president deemed unfit by his own cabinet and
(09:52):
his own political party could still fight back against removal
and delay it for weeks or months, or who knows
how long by legal means through the House and Senate,
and presumably, given Trump's history of illegality and disrespect for
our system, by using the Supreme Court, and if that
somehow failed, Trump presumably could use the military against the House,
(10:16):
the Senate, the Supreme Court against JD. Vance, and the
Cabinet against you me. Whoever. Nevertheless, all of those nuclear
options that are available to Trump and not to Andrew,
would have been available to Nixon, or, had it come
to that, to Clinton or any other president. They all
(10:37):
had those choices. They did not have the evil and
the psychosis to use some of them, but Nixon came
surprisingly close. A president of the United States is simply
by dint of control of the military, and if he
ceases to believe in checks and balances, or is manifestly insane,
he is the most powerful man in the world to
(11:01):
a mad man. We have given that power. If we
survive our mistake, we might want to look into fixing this.
But for the here and now, this is the relevant point.
The evidence against them both is about the same. The
shame of them both, were they capable of shame, would
be about the same. The shame we should feel that
(11:24):
the United Kingdom, no matter how slowly it moved, finally
moved to expunge its shame and began to try to
repair the personal damage its criminal has caused. While we
are stuck, still suffering at the whims of our criminal.
Our shame should be boundless. Because if Andrew can no
(11:44):
longer be prince because of Jeffrey Epstein, Trump can no
longer be president because of Jeffrey Epstein. And so Trump
(12:12):
continues his shutdown to make sure there is no vote
to release the Epstein files, to make sure there is
no Congresswoman Rehalva to be the last vote to force
the release of the Epstein files, because they will knock
at least one more support out from under Trump's ability
to stay in office if they are released, and they
(12:34):
will knock at least one more support out from under
his successors and enablers and apologists from staying in public life.
Don't take my word for this. Even the craziest of
Magan know what this is and why and what will
happen when the dam breaks, Because the dam will break,
(12:57):
because even a self denying puppet like Mike Johnson can't
keep it up forever. This is Congressman Thomas Massey. He's
calling it to Schumer shutdown, but I'm calling it to
Epstein recess. Not only are we shut down, we're in recess.
And that's unconventional, unprecedented. Gabby Massey is right. Holy cow,
(13:19):
I never thought I'd say anything close to that. Yes,
there are other games Republicans are playing. They have calculated
wrongly that they can damage the Democrats by in essence,
closing the gates and further converting the Trump administration into
just a theft ring that at this moment is doing
nothing for the citizens of this country and is in
fact simply stealing our money from us by literally continuing
(13:41):
taxation without representation. Note the New Jersey Democratic gubernatorial candidate
Mikey Cheryl actually says in an ad that it's time
for the state of New Jersey to claw back the
billions in federal tax money that it sends to Washington
and does not get back. She is threatening what I
(14:01):
keep talking about here a federal boycott to break this administration. Meanwhile,
back to the shutdown. You heard the Secretary of Agriculture right,
she confirmed the emergency snap funds, designed to be used
when regular funding is unavailable in an emergency, they can't
(14:22):
be used in this emergency because that regular funding is unavailable.
So no emergency funds, because it's an emergency, a Trump
fabricated emergency. She then issued what seemed to be at
least did it start a heartfelt conclusion that anybody who
(14:43):
needs snap benefits in this country that has hot and
cold running money in every building and goddamned President Gatsby
Halloween parties, anybody who needs snap benefits in a country
this rich is the victim of bipartisan failure.
Speaker 2 (15:01):
My message to America is first the fact that your
government is failing you right now. That poverty is not
red or blue. It is not a Republican or Democrat issue,
doesn't matter who you voted for, or even if you
voted that. If you are in a position where you
(15:24):
can't feed your family and you're relying on that one
hundred and eighty seven dollars a month for an average
family in the SNAP program that we have failed you.
Speaker 1 (15:35):
Then then Speaker Mike Johnson got off his anti porn
app for a second and came to the rescue with
one of the most singularly dishonest, non credible statements any
politician has made in my lifetime. It's up there with
that statement is no longer operative, and it's clarifying. When
(15:58):
she says we have failed you, she means we the Democrats. Okay,
he almost knocked down Secretary sugar Bake. I'm sorry, Secretary
Rowins to get to that microphone to say that courts
have ruled the SNAP benefits must be paid. Trump is
stalling now, using that ruling to stall further by asking
(16:18):
the courts, seemingly in great concern, to show him how
to not break the law. Scumbag. However, just as a
reminder that this country is not only a bunch of lemmings.
Following Trump off a moral cliff, even though real lemmings
don't commit mass suicide, that was literally a horrific Disney
(16:39):
stunt for a movie to counter our sometimes hopeless state.
There is the story of Manny's Deli on Jefferson in Chicago.
Starting today, Manny's Deli has promised a family sized meal
to anyone presenting a snap card this week. I suspect
(17:03):
they will be inundated. They have started a gofund me.
The title on the go fundme site is Snap Benefits
Relief Fund. So if you feel you need to do something,
there you go. Remember Mary Trump's question last week, why
(17:32):
do they keep giving her uncle cognitive tests? Why do
they keep giving him tests? Not why do they give
him tests? Why do they keep I wanted to reframe
that question in light of what to me is even
more relevant every time I think about this. The timing
(17:56):
six months between the tests and the MRI or MRIs
connected to the test. They're checking for physical deterioration and
cognitive deterioration in tandem connected. Those are Alzheimer's tests, aren't they?
Or something like that. It shouldn't be shocking, yet I
(18:22):
find it is. However, we phrase Mary Trump's question, why
do they keep giving Trump cognitive tests? Trump always provides
enough answers. It is evident he heard about Russia testing
a nuclear powered missile, and thanks to whatever is wrong
with him, he only heard testing nuclear missile and then
(18:44):
ordered testing of nukes by this country as dangerous and
useless a thing as we could do besides electing him twice.
He's also repeating himself worked really hard. Twenty four to seven,
took in trillions of dollars and truck. Schumer said trip
was a total dud, even though he knows it was
a spectacular success. Words like that are almost trees. This
(19:05):
exclamation point, exclamation point, exclamation point. I'm wondering if somebody
actually convinced him they're not the next post attacking Seth Myers,
no talent, no ratings, one hundred percent anti Trump, which
is probably illegal, so still a no. But now the
(19:31):
crime of criticizing Trump has been reduced from almost treason
to probably illegal. And then there was the one that
flashed back to the good old simple days of Kofeve
quote south card d d d D South c A
(19:55):
r e r d d d d south krd south carideh,
to which Gavin Newsom's social media whiz added the extra
des stand for dementia. And of course, Newsom was on
(20:16):
Meet the Press yesterday and the amazingly unqualified Kristin Welker
asked him if his running spoof of Trump's psychosis and
fragility served only to normalize Trump's behavior, and I think
he's done a marvelous job. He may have found his niche,
(20:38):
but I'm just sorry he didn't. Gavin Newsom just didn't
say what he could have said that would have caused
the cancelation of Meet the Press. He could have said, no, Kristin,
you doing softball interviews with Trump and his criminal gang.
That's what's serving to normalize Trump's behavior. One bit of relief,
(21:05):
unrelated to politics or Welker or Newsom or anybody else.
On social media, you may have seen it. Hope it
gives you a second laugh. Now. Someone posted two shots
of a men's room at the football stadium at Missouri
State where above a row of urinals are two windows
(21:30):
through which you can see the end zone of the
football stadium and the scoreboard of the football stadium, to
which photographer Andrew Stein writes, quote, you have a real
stadium naming rights opportunity here, P and C Bank. Oh
(21:55):
my god, P and C Bank also of interest here
In an all new edition of Countdown, the election is tomorrow,
but Andrew Cuomo has actually proclaimed himself Mayor of New
York already. Actually that's not a bad plan, considering nobody
else is going to. And yes, the Baseball World Series
ended exactly the way I said it would, with everybody
(22:19):
demanding that Fox never interview a manager in the middle
of a game ever. Ever Again, that used to be
my job. Well, everything used to be my job, but
that used to be my job. I have thoughts on
this and the story for you of a one time
the in game interviewer mattered, the riot that nearly ensued,
(22:43):
and how it all ended with me basically being ordered
to go sit on George Steinbrenner's lap. That's next. This
is Countdown, mean cea bank. This is Countdown with Keith
Olberman still ahead on this all new episode of Countdown.
(23:23):
The World Series proved the United States and Canada can
still agree on one thing. No more goddamned interviews of
the managers during Game seven, everybody in baseball please. In fact,
(23:44):
no interviews during games ever, or reports from the dugouts
unless they're really is news. And it's twenty five years
now since I did that job. But I did it
for forty games, and I think there were only three
times in like four years they really needed me in
the dugout to break news to the TV audience. On
the other hand, one of them was when only by
(24:05):
the slimmest of margins did Fenway Park not erupt in
a mid game riot involving the Yankees, angry Boston cops,
and all the drunken Red Sox fans in the stands,
And that led to me being ordered to sit virtually
in the lap of Yike's owner, George Steinbrenner. Yes, I'm
(24:27):
a dugout reporter. Here's why we shouldn't have dugout reporters
except once in a while. Next in things I promised
not to tell first of believe it or not, there's
still more new idiots to talk about. The roundup of
the miss Grants morons and Dunning Krueger effects specimens who
constitute today's other worst persons in the world at the
Bronze Worst. Scott Jennings. You know this fop. This is
(24:51):
the CNN guy who looks like Kermit the Frog and
spends three quarters of his time making faces to the camera.
And he was crowing about ending Jimmy Kimmel's career and
I wrote back on Twitter your next mf meaning his
career obviously, and he reported it to the FBI and
to director, I'll take it in cash Petel because I
(25:13):
threatened to harm his career. This self martyring paranoid idiot.
They put on CNN and he tries to beat up
liberals and they still can't get anybody to watch. Lawrence O'Donnell,
who I do not support, clocked this guy Jennings, who
I do not support on MSNBC, which I do not support.
(25:35):
And by the way, which is weirder the fact that
I retired from ESPN five years ago after all that
Sturmann drong, and I'm officially a Disney retiree, or the
fact that if I make it to a week from
this Saturday when they change to ms now, I will
have professionally and personally outlasted MSNBC. Anyway, Lawrence doesn't do
(26:00):
much on the air that somebody else didn't do first.
In like two thousand and seven, this was good. He
accused Scott Jennings of going crazy town maga for the money,
Scotty no like quote. There's this lunatic on MSNBC at
ten o'clock every night named Lawrence O'Donnell. I had sort
of forgotten that he was a thing, but I guess
(26:22):
he still has a show, and he went crazy on
yours truly. The other night he tweeted about this too.
Rule one, if you do a podcast or a radio show,
or a TV show or a tweet about somebody's irrelevance,
you just self owned they're relevant to you, aren't they.
I'm not saying Lawrence O'Donnell is irrelevant. I'm not saying
(26:44):
Scott Jennings is irrelevant by talking about them. I'm making
them relevant if they somehow were not relevant before. And
Scott Jennings when he says Lawrence U. Donald is irrelevant,
is lying because he's saying it. Secondly, Jennings claimed the
show he is on Abby Phillip platforms. Fascist is beating
(27:06):
Lawrence O'Donnell by thirty percent in the advertising demo. I
don't know where he got that number. But in October,
CNN and MSNBC for most of primetime programming, hit record
lows in all categories. So you're arguing about twelve viewers
or ten viewers. But MSNBC's total audience is still sixty
(27:27):
percent larger than CNN's and that applies for Laurence o'donald,
about sixty percent larger than Scott Jennings, who's irrelevant. Neither
of you is irrelevant. We're talking about you, the runner up,
also not irrelevant, also not truthful. Carolon Levitt, you saw
what Trump did to the Lincoln bathroom in which he
(27:51):
took out the sort of staid nineteen Forti's Art Deco
green tile style and said it was inappropriate for the
Lincoln era. And he put in statuary marble, and he
said this is very appropriate for the time of Abraham
Lincoln and in fact could be the marble that was
originally there. Because Trump, unable to process anything he did
(28:13):
not personally witness, thinks that Lincoln, who needed to borrow
money to get guns to try to defend Fort Sumpter,
he put marble in the White House. Trump thinks Lincoln
put marble in the White House. Trump thinks all the
other presidents are just like him, batshit crazy. But Caroline
(28:35):
lying Levitt, who is there to make Trump seem like
he's not trying to kill us all, looked at the
pictures and read. When I first learned a toilet like
that existed inside the White House, I was horrified. President
Trump is making the People's House more elegant and beautiful
for generations of Americans to come idiot, the next one
(28:59):
can just rip all the marble out and put in
I don't know Outthouse Brown Carolinon is upset because there
is indoor plumbing in the White House. I mean her job,
after all, her job is to throw Trump's poop at America.
But our winner, once again, it's Andrew Cuomo. I don't
(29:20):
need to go on forever about Andrew Cuomo, although I have,
although the chief apologist and retributionist from his governor days.
Melissa de Rosa she threatened a student at Cornell who
asked about Cuomo's sexual harassment history at a seminar there
per the Cornell Daily Sun, for which I worked for
one night. God forbid anyone in your family is ever
(29:41):
falsely accused. Who in Andrew Como's family was falsely accused?
God forbid anyone in your family is ever falsely accused?
And then someone runs around and calls them disgraced and
asked how you can stand by them. I hope you
don't have to deal with that moment. Watch yourself when
you say things like that in public, or if you
want to be taken seriously. Melissa DeRosa threatens a Cornell student.
(30:08):
God forbid, Melissa de Rosa, you find yourself on the
advisory board of Cornell's Department of Communications, and then you
threaten one of the Cornell's students and the most famous
graduate of the Cornell Department of Communication. Hi, Hello, how
are you? Calls his pals in the administration and says,
get rid of this clown. She's hurting the school and
(30:30):
threatening the students. But back to the main point, her
idiot boss. A New York Daily News reporter named Josie
Stratman caught this all credit to her. Cuomo did a
Google meet last week, and of course, like all zoom
like calls, you enter your name on a Google Meet
and it is superimposed above or over or below your image.
(30:54):
And what did Cuomo? Still losing the mayor election by
double digits? The election is tomorrow. What did he put
in as his name on the Google meet? Mayor Cuomo?
It says Mayor Cuomo in the lower left end of
corner of the picture of him staring daggers into the
(31:15):
camera as usual. Hope you framed a screenshot of that boy,
because that's the only time anybody's gonna call you that. Andrew,
of course, you could legally change your first name to
Mayor if it means that much to you. Cuomo, Today's
other worst person.
Speaker 2 (31:35):
And the.
Speaker 1 (31:49):
The World Series is over, and after the Jays somehow
managed to outworst the Dodgers in critical situations. The Dodgers
are the first repeat World champions since two thousand and
the first in the National League since nineteen seventy six,
and thus they almost guarantee that the owner will use
this as an excuse to again lock out the players
a year after next, or try to force the players
(32:11):
to strike in the owner's continuing hope to get a
hard salary cap, something they have been looking for longer
than King Arthur looked for the Holy Grail, and with
as much success see total lack of competitive balance. The
same team as won two in a row. Let's cancel
the twenty twenty seven season. It's the player's fault, all right.
(32:36):
There'll be plenty of time to talk about that later on.
Noting only that the Dodgers Yoshivo Yamamoto is expected to
pitch again tonight in Game nine. In our number one
story on the Countdown, I am a former Baseball Network
TV dugout reporter. Here's why we should eliminate interviews with
players and managers with dugout reporters during the game unless
(32:57):
there is really news, really really really really news. Having
watched all the World Series since nineteen sixty six, they
always teach us the same old things, but in new ways. First,
baseball played well can make for a boring World Series,
and baseball played badly can make for a thrilling One second,
(33:18):
those artifacts this guy's glove, that guy's shirt, the other
guy's jock, the ones that go to the Hall of Fame,
and they make a big deal about that. They may
go on display at the Hall of Fame for a while,
but in fact all of them soon or late wind
up on a shelf or in a drawer in a
giant subterranean storage vault. Almost nobody ever sees they have
(33:43):
like fourteen Pete Rose uniforms there. For all I know,
they have Pete Rose there. Third, there have never been
greater pitchers than today. There have never been greater hitters
than today. There have never been greater runners than today.
There have never been greater fielders than today. Yet, the
number of guys per team who can actually play baseball
(34:03):
without what are literally written instructions that they keep in
their back pockets of their uniforms. The number of those
guys is down to about three per team, and a
friend of mine, who has been a Major League play
by play announcer for decades, says, no, I'm wrong, it's
actually about two per team. And the other thing the
(34:24):
World Series teaches us year after year, don't do so
many interviews. In the sixties, they used to have people
doing interviews of celebrity fans during the games. They were pointless.
They wasted time. Now they interview managers and players during
(34:44):
the game. They're pointless. They waste time. You should have
a reporter in each dugout or next to each dugout.
You should go to them when there is news, not
while the manager is trying to signal to his players
where to play defensively, and you're going to interview him.
Then I was the dugout guy for twelve World Series
(35:06):
games and sixteen League Championship games on two networks, also
two All Star Games and in the All Star Games.
A dugout reporter is not only a good idea, but
an essential one. More interviews means less, meaningless commentary about
the meaningless All Star games. But in literally forty games
in dugouts on TV, I covered three actual stories three
(35:31):
the rest of the time, I didn't even need to
have a battery in my microphone. I could have pre
recorded my stuff in a studio somewhere. Three stories that
the viewer cared about, Three stories that I cared about.
The rest Heredia is warming up in the bullpen, Joe.
(35:53):
The rest was filler. Oddly, of those three, two of
them happened in the same weekend, and they will not
hang the nineteen ninety nine American League Championship Series in
any kind of sports art museum. There was bad pitching,
bad defense, bad hitting, and especially bad sportsmanship by players
(36:14):
and fans alike. But for me, covering the New York
Yankees through all five games from the unique vantage point
of a corner of their dugout, it was perfection. The
good stuff started in Game three on Saturday, October sixteenth,
nineteen ninety nine, and it featured the return of the
former Red Sox hero Roger Clemens in the uniform of
(36:35):
the hated Yanks to Fenway Park, Boston. I don't have
much time for Roger Clemens, but I was a witness
to two occasions, possibly the only two occasions of his life.
When he received the raw deal rather than dishing it out,
the fans at Boston's Fenway Park blamed Clemens for leaving
the old town team two years previously, when it was
(36:56):
a decision actually made by Red Sox management. So they
serenaded and booed him out of that game after just
fifteen batters and just over two and our Fox TV
cameras caught them tearing down Roger Clemens banners which hung
outside the park. Poor Roger completely rattled, fell apart like
a twelve dollars fake rolex, and from where I sat
(37:18):
between the third base camera and the Yankee dugout, you
could see he was ashen. The game got out of
hand quickly, a theme for the series. Boston led thirteen
to nothing in the seventh inning. One of the oddities
of my seat was that between me and the Yankee
bench was a low railing and very ancient chicken wire
fence that had been painted over annually for something like
(37:41):
since the First World War. But next to the fence
on the player's side was the dugout bathroom. It was
really just a door and a urinal, so at some point,
every Yankee player came down to that end of the dugout,
and almost always they said hi, and then excuse me.
A minute late in the game, as it got dark,
(38:02):
the Yankee superb Cuban Emmigray pitcher Orlando El Duque Hernandez
made that track and said hi, but did not go
into the tiny bathroom in the dugout at Fenway Park. Instead,
he sat down on the steps right next to the
little chicken wire fence, and he said, Kate, can I
ask you a question? I was startled. The official line
(38:22):
was El Duque Hernandez did not speak any English. I
pointed this out to him. He laughed, you'll keep my secret.
You know how much time I save not doing interviews
in English. He got an occasional conjugation wrong, Otherwise his
English was perfect. He got to his question, Keith, why
do you leave SportsCenter? You and Dan were so good
(38:44):
way downtown. Bang, they're not gonna get them. I suspect
anybody sitting in the stands in the ten rows nearest me?
Could hear my laughter? Orlando, I left Sports Center before
you left Cuba. How did you see us? He said?
We have nothing in Cuba, but we have baseball fields
and we have satellites. It's deep, and I don't think
it's playable. Stunned, I had already discovered that nearly every
(39:07):
American born Major League player of nineteen ninety nine knew
me by voice, let alone by sight. But this Cuba
thing and el Duque reciting my old sports center catchphrases
was a genuine surprise. Oh, yes, you and Dan, you
teach me a lot of my English. What's the one
for the hockey? Can't believe I shrunk that guy's freaking hand.
I love that. Why'd you leave? I tried to explain
(39:30):
it was mostly geography, that if when he had pitched
briefly in the International League, he ever faced the team
in Patucket, Rhode Island, that that was kind of where
ESPN was, only it was more remote, much smaller town. Oh,
el Duque said, like Cuba, but with snow, And I said, yeah,
that was it exactly. And now I was living in
(39:50):
Los Angeles and I owned a big house on the beach. Okay,
I get it. Listen, you see me in the park,
you say Hi, there's nobody around, we talk, Okay, if
I say nothing, don't be offended. I'm just making sure
everybody still knows I don't speak English. Orlando Hernandez did
not get here till he was thirty two years old.
He pitched until he was forty one. If he got
(40:10):
in here when he was twenty two, he'd be in
the Hall of Fame, and then he would have been
the color man on the Game of the Week. He
pitched three years for the Yankees and two for the
Mets while I lived in New York, and it was
always a pleasure to see him. Kase you're still collecting baseballs,
you want this one. I walked by Ray Bonds with
this one. So that was Game three on the Saturday.
On the Sunday, I awoke to see my picture in
(40:33):
the Boston Globe. In those days, the newspapers all used
to have columnists who wrote about nothing but TV and
radio sports casts. No, seriously, I had been a sportscaster
on local TV in Boston fifteen years earlier, in nineteen
eighty four. Then I'd been to Fenway Park as long
before as nineteen sixty six, and yet I had grown
(40:54):
up a Yankee fan in New York. I explained that
even then I was also a fan of the long
suffering Red Sox fans. Now it was too complicated for
some people at the Boston Globe, which quoted me correctly
as saying I always felt an affinity with the fans,
But then under my picture in the article used the
caption Ulberman, Red Sox fan. Still wondering how they got
(41:19):
that wrong, I did my pregame TV stuff for Fox,
then climbed over the little chicken wire fence back into
my spot for our in game dugout reporting, And as
the top of the first inning began of the fourth game,
the Yankees leadoff man Chuck Knoblock moved towards the plate,
and as he did, it was the cleanup hitter Bernie
Williams walking towards me, presumably to use that little urinal
in a closet. Wrong again. It's meet Keith Weekend. Hey Keith,
(41:45):
he said in his lyrical voice, extending a hand to
shake Bernie Williams like I didn't know who it was. Say, listen,
I was reading the paper. Are you a Red Sox fan?
For a moment, I put aside the fact that the game,
the playoff game, had now started, and the guy up
three batters from now was asking me about a typo
in the Boston Globe. Bernie Williams was never accused of
(42:08):
burning himself out with too much competitive focus. That's just
who he was. I explained the mistake as quickly as
I could. Oh, I thought, so, okay, good. I'm glad
because you can be a fan of anybody you want.
But I don't think it would be right to have
a Red Sox fan in our dugout. I agreed with him.
Just as Chuck Knoblock singled, and the number two hitter,
Derek Jeter advanced to the plate, and the third hitter,
(42:30):
Paul O'Neill went out to the on neck circle. And
that's when Bernie Williams surprised me more than Orlando Hernandez had. Plus,
Bernie went on, doesn't your mom still have those seats
like ten rows back of our dugout at Yankee Stadium.
This was before my mother became famous for getting hit
by a very badly thrown ball. The next year, I
(42:52):
asked Bernie Williams how the hell he knew where my
mother sat. You've had seats there since the seventies, haven't you.
I just stared at him, Oh, Keith, it's my job
to know that. I said, no, it isn't. It's your
job to play center field for the Yankees. This was
just about the time Derek Jeter grounded out and Paul
(43:12):
O'Neill left the on deck circle, and Bernie Williams was
supposed to be in the on deck circle. I know
your mom, I see her, nice lady, So anyway, I
interrupted him. Bernie Jeter just grounded out, and now block
went to second and and O'Neill is up with one out.
Shouldn't you get out there? He looked back at the
field of play. Oh, yeah, you're right. He stuck out
(43:34):
his hand again. Nice visiting with you. Let's talk more later,
and just double checking you're not a Red Sox fan, right.
Bernie Williams got three hits in that game. Another New
York sports reporter once said that if he concentrated on baseball,
really concentrated, Bernie Williams would either be so good that
he would hit four hundred or he would be so
(43:55):
stressed out that he would become a serial killer. In
this game, the Yankee scored six runs in the ninth
and there was a place so controversial that when the
Red Sox manager got himself a jack did over it.
The home fans littered the field with debris. Almost all
of it was just plastic soda bottles, but still there
was a couple of flasks thrown too. Yankees manager Joe
(44:18):
Torre ordered his team off the field and play was
suspended as the plastic bottles continued to fly and via
my earpiece, which I listened to, even if Chris Matthews
never listened to his, my producer ordered me on to
the field, and I did as I was told, and
I set up in front of the camera, right in
front of the dugout full of Yankee players. A plastic
bottle whizzed past my head and I half wondered if
(44:39):
Bernie Williams had thrown it, just in case I was
a Red Sox fan. Almost immediately, a Fenway Park security
guy started swearing at me in Boston and told me
if I didn't get off the field and into the
seats immediately, he'd have me arrested. This time, I could
actually hear some of the Yankees laughing. Get over that
fence right now, sit your backside down in that seat,
(44:59):
and do not move. My producer heard all this through
my microphone and told me to comply. I didn't even
look around. I just went over the fence. I sat
down in the front row where I'd been ordered to,
and that's when the guy sitting next to me said hi,
and I realized the guy sitting next to me was
George Steinbrenner, the owner of the Yankees. I said, Hi,
(45:20):
you want to say something about this on TV? And George,
who loved me as I loved him, said sure, and
my producer heard all this through to the microphone as well.
The announcers immediately threw it to me, and I said
seven words, George Steinbrenner, your thoughts on all this. He
proceeded to very pleasantly blame the Red Sox fans for
(45:41):
being drunk, blame Fenway security for letting a riot start,
blame baseball officials for not immediately forfeiting the game to
his club, and blame the Boston manager for inciting the crowd.
I had said to George, I would ask a follow up,
but you seem to have covered everything, and so I
threw it back to the play by playbooth. Steinbrenner's remarks
made every newspaper in the country, and in many accounts,
(46:03):
I was noted as the inner, and frankly, I didn't
really do anything. The next night, the Yankees won the
series in five games, and the fifth game was devoid
of Cuban pitchers confiding they were fans, or Bernie Williams
quizzing me about my fan dumb, or me being ordered
onto the field during a riot, only to be thrown
off of it and directly into the seat next to
the owner of the Yankees. All I had to do
(46:26):
on this night was get into the Yankee clubhouse two
innings before the game ended, so I could cover the
celebrating players and the award presentation. The excitement of the
weekend clearly was over. I would just say hi to
these guys. They'd throw champagne in my direction, and then
I'd throw it back to Joe Buck. I was on
a platform bleached in a camera light as the technicians
(46:48):
checked their stuff. The game was still going on when
the clubhouse door slammed open and in strutted the Yankee
second basement Chuck Knobloch. He was swearing profusely, profoundly and proficiently.
He had been having trouble throwing ground balls away, and
as the eighth inning started, the Yankee manager Tory had
removed him, denying him a chance to be in the
(47:10):
on field celebration of the pennant Nblock was enraged, so
enraged that he never saw me, or the platform or
the camera lights. He used all the known expletives and
directed all of them all at his own manager. The
Yankees PR guy, a childhood friend of mine, rushed over
(47:31):
to insist that I could not report what I had
just heard. He was a little shocked when I agreed
with him. I'm here as a lighting prop. I told him. Now,
Block has a perfect right to expect there'd be no
reporters in the clubhouse during the game. If he says
it again afterwards, I'll say I heard it just now.
Otherwise I'm not saying anything. There is a course, a
(47:52):
punchline even to this and this extraordinary weekend. The next summer,
Chuck Knobloch's career as a second baseman ended because he
completely lost the ability to throw an ordinary, uncomp lollicated
baseball to first base. Since similar cases of the yips
seemed to afflict players whose baseball centric fathers had gotten
sick or jailed or something, and Knoblock's dad had just
(48:16):
entered the final stages of Alzheimer's. It was probably that
the last disastrous throw he made the next year, on
June seventeenth, two thousand, bounced off the Yankee dugout and
spun weirdly and hit a woman in the box seats.
The woman was my mother, the one where Bernie Williams
(48:36):
knew where she sat, all the things that followed. Since
I was in the studio that day doing the highlights
for the Fox Game of the Week, they require their
own segment of this. But the one thing that has
always mystified me was how Chuck Nabloch did not know
not to throw the ball where he did, because at
some point Bernie Williams must have warned him, Hey, hey, Chuck,
(48:59):
don't do it there. That's where Keith Olberman's mother sits.
I've done all the damage I can do here. Thank
you for listening this close to a riot. My god,
(49:22):
I don't know what would have happened. They were all
totally drunk and the Yankee players were ready to go.
Most of our Countdown music was arranged, produced and performed
by John Phillip Chanelle and Brian Ray. Our musical directors
have Countdown and produced by Tko Brothers. Mister Chanelle handled
orchestration and keyboards. Mister Ray was on guitars, bass and drums.
(49:45):
Our satirical and pithy musical comments are by the best
baseball stadium organist ever, Nancy Faust. The Olderman theme from
ESPN two, written by Mitch Warren Davis Piers courtesy of ESPN, Inc.
It's the sports music. Other music arranged and performed by
the group No Hornes allowed. My announcer today was my friend.
Since I was talking about Fenway, I thought he was
(50:05):
the right choice, Dennis Leary. Everything else was, as always
my fault. That's countdown for today, Day two hundred and
eighty eight of America held hostage again, but just seventy
five days until the scheduled end of his lame duck
and lame brained term unless he is removed sooner by
(50:27):
MAGA and Epstein, or that patch of pavement on his hand,
or a stuck escalator or some tile and all, or
his jet made out of poop, or or the Alzheimer's
test six months from now. The next scheduled countdown will
be Thursday till then. I'm Keith Olberman. Good morning, Good afternoon,
(50:49):
good Night, and good Luck. Countdown with Keith Olderman is
(51:11):
a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit
the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Host
Keith Olbermann
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On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!