July 25, 2023 • 38 mins
EPISODE 253: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN
A-Block (1:42) SPECIAL COMMENT: Trump may be indicted for the January 6th attemped coup – today. Or, not!
But clearly as of 1 PM eastern at the Prettyman Courthouse in DC, the window TO indict is open for the first time on this 10th day since Trump received Jack Smith’s 2nd Target Letter. The window from Target Letter to indictment last time might have been as short as 10 days, maybe as long as 20.
Plus what could be at the center of a THIRD set of indictments: more testimony from Trump staffers that he knew damn well that the election wasn’t stolen and that he didn’t win it. And that in February 2020 he even praised the improved election security and audit capability for paper ballots, nine months before the 2020 Presidential Election.
And Trump online: reposts Marjorie Pornography Greene’s “little bitch” quote about the Special Prosecutor, and a moronic poll over Republicans’ “Dream President”
Plus: obeying Supreme Court rulings is now optional. Who knew? That's the verdict from the Republican Governor of Alabama Kay Ivey, and the Republican Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy. So I guess Roe-V-Wade wasn’t overturned and that key 2nd Amendment case – Heller – doesn’t say anything about the right to own a gun after all.
B-Block (16:33) POSTSCRIPTS TO THE NEWS: Doug Burgum, your pro-vigilante presidential aspirant. Ben Shapiro on Barbie: Go Woke Go Broke. World on Barbie? $337 Million opening weekend. My late neighbor Tony Bennett. (23:00) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Fox blasts USA Women's Soccer team for not singing the national anthem while it NEVER PLAYS the national anthem on the games it televises. Elon Musk doesn't OWN "X" for social media (and no, he's NOT calling them 'Xeets') and the World Trade Center promotes itself with a photo of the building - and a passenger jet.
C-Block (28:00) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: In an all-new edition, I have two stories about baseball's newest Hall of Famers. Fred McGriff was drafted by the Yankees but traded away as a minor leaguer for garbage because an active Yankees player insisted to George Steinbrenner it was a great deal, and Scott Rolen insisted to me that the highlight of his 1996 season was the elaborate practical joke he, his minor league teammates, the manager, and the umpire concocted and played on me during a game - and he stuck to this even after I reminded him that 1996 was the year he began his Hall of Fame major league career,.
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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. Donald
Trump may be indicted for the January sixth coup attempt
(00:26):
today or not. But if Jack Smith repeats the timeline
from the stolen classified documents case with his Florida Trump
grand jury, when Smith's Washington Trump grand Jury meets today,
as it usually meets on Tuesdays, starting at one pm
at the E. Barrett Prettyman Courthouse in DC, that grand
(00:48):
jury will seemingly be just stepping into that part of
the timeline in which we can actually say the indictments
should be handed up anytime now. In fact, today could
be exactly the same day on that timeline that we
were on the first indictments timeline when the indictments actually happened.
With the understanding that this is academic, unless they are
(01:13):
taking bets on this in Vegas, I'll take the Mets
over the Yankees, Japan over Costa Rica at the World Cup,
and the Trump indictments today, and I'll take the over
With that understanding, let me walk you through my math.
It was two Sundays ago, the sixteenth, Trump says, anyway,
when his attorneys notified him they had received the target
(01:34):
letter for January sixth indictments, assuming that date is correct,
even though it was a Sunday, which would not seem
to make sense. We are now right now at the
start of day ten on this timeline. Fix that in
your mind day ten of this timeline. The timeline on
the first Smith indictments for the stealing of documents and
(01:57):
stashing them at Mari Lago is a little hazier because
Trump never said exactly when he got Target letter number
one for that first set of thirty seven counts. But
there has been a lot of source reporting as to
when that letter was received, and unfortunately dates barry. Some
real time reporting said the letter arrived in the last
few weeks. Other reporting said last week. If it was
(02:21):
in fact the preceding week, that was the week of
Memorial Day. So what if the letter had been received
on the first workday of that week, Tuesday May thirtieth.
Trump's lawyers met with the Smith team on Monday, June fifth.
News of the target letter leaked on Wednesday, June seventh.
Trump revealed he had been indicted on Thursday, June eighth.
Shortly thereafter, we learned that the grand jury had handed
(02:42):
up the indictments earlier that same day, June eighth. That
makes the time span from the first target letter to
the first indictments day ten of that timeline ten days.
As I mentioned, today is day ten of this timeline
many many caveats. Even if that timeline is exactly accurate,
(03:07):
he didn't have to stick to a timeline for this
second set of indictments or any other indictments. The span
between the first target letter and the first invitments could
have been amazingly fast. It could have happened far earlier
than May thirtieth. The span might have been seventeen days
or twenty four days, and just as dubious, the second
(03:27):
target letter arrived on a Sunday. A Sunday, what they
drove the letter from Washington to marri Lago. If the
second target letter actually got there earlier than Sunday and
Trump misled people I know, or for whatever reason they
delayed notifying him I know, then today is not day
(03:50):
ten of the second timeline. It could be day eleven
or day twelve. The only purpose to this silliness really
is to underscore what I said at the beginning today
that Jack Smith Trump DC grand jury seems to be
stepping into that part of the timeline in which the
actual second set of indictments seems possible, practical, doable, or
(04:12):
as I once heard it phrase by a long ago
anchor on the CBS All News radio station in New York,
in a statement that has literally stuck with me since
nineteen eighty one, quote, the next development in the baseball
strike negotiations could happen as early as today. And if
you think about that, you will recognize that not only
does that have to be true, it cannot possibly not
(04:35):
be true, because the next development in anything in the
universe could happen as early as today. If the next
development could happen as early as yesterday, we're all in
big trouble. So welcome to day ten. Maybe unless it's
really day eleven or day twelve. I was told there
would be no math. Just remember these other numbers. US
(04:58):
Code eighteen, section two four one. That is conspiracy against
rights that would be interfering with the counting of legitimate votes,
the post Civil War Law for Reconstruction voting against the
KKK with or without violence, US Code eighteen, section three
seven to one, conspiracy to defraud the United States, and
US Code eighteen Section one five one to two correctly
(05:19):
obstructing an official proceeding, and those indictments will happen today
or Thursday, or next Tuesday or next Thursday, but probably
earlier than two weeks from today, unless there are other
factors in developments that are slightly less like nailing jello
(05:44):
to the wall. NBC News says that Richard Donahue, the
former acting Deputy Attorney General, has met with the Special
Council's office. You may remember Donahue from the House Committee hearings.
He was one of the good guys. He and his boss,
Jeff Rosen, were the ones to whom Trump said, just
say the election was corrupt and leave the rest to
me and the Republican congressman, and to whom Trump insisted
(06:06):
there was a suitcase full of fraudulent ballots, and they
said no, they would not say that, and quote, no, sir,
there is no suitcase. Presumably Donahue would be supplying still
more grist for Jack Smith's mill on his central theme
that Trump knew damn well the election was not stolen,
but still pretended that it was. Section three seventy one
(06:29):
does say conspiracy to defraud the United States, and there
is that entire separate line of inquiry about literally defrauding
those who donated to his assorted packs and campaigns and
funds to audit votes and file for recounts, but otherwise
stop the steal that wasn't stolen. So would those who
(06:49):
were at a February twenty twenty Oval Office meeting that
CNN says has now become a subject of some fascination
among the prosecutors. Trump told election officials and his own
staffers at that meeting February twenty twenty how pleased he
was by improvements to the security of American elections, and
specifically improvements to the security of paper ballots and audits
(07:13):
of vote tallies. Within two months, of course, Trump would
be claiming that paper ballots, especially the ones that were
mailed in, were insecure and rife for fraud. By September
he was screaming that. By November he was insisting the
entire election had been compromised by that. And there's one
development which I actually think is less important than we
(07:34):
are being led to believe. The ex New York City
Police commissioner and also ex Cohn Bernie Carrick, has turned
over quote thousands of documents produced by Rudy Giuliani's team
as it tried to find or create non existent voting
fraud after the twenty twenty election. The same boatload has
also been turned over to Ruby Freeman and Shay Moss
(07:57):
in their suit against Giuliani. And I'd be a lot
more intrigued, and my mind would turn to the rhetorical
question did Carrick flip on Rudy if Carrick's lawyer Tim PARLATORI,
former Trump lawyer Tim PARLATORI, had not revealed that he
and Carrick had shown all of those two thousand or
so documents to the Trump legal team at one eight
(08:19):
hundred insurrection, and the Trumpers said they saw no need
to claim executive privilege on any of the documents. Parlatory
says he will sit down with the Special Counsel's office
in about two weeks to discuss, presumably with Bernie Kerrick
sitting there too, trying to remember where he is on
the Trump temperature front. Yesterday's social media posts were heavily
(08:41):
vainglorious boasting along with polling, plus one shot at Biden,
one reposting about Merrick Garland being guilty of collusion, and
one reposting of the standard brilliance of Marjorie pornography Green
from a week ago in which Green called Jack Smith
quote a weak little bitch for the Democrats unquote, which
I am putting on a post it for when Marge
(09:03):
gets indicted by Smith Lee this year. Am I guessing
on that? I'm guessing on that? Did the odds of
my being right just go up? The odds of my
being right just went up? But mostly it was Trump
posting moronic polls, moronic even for him, the exemplar of
which came from the British tabloid The Daily Mail, in
which New Hampshire voters were asked to select not just
(09:25):
their favorite for the Republican nomination or for the general election,
but quote, New Hampshire Republicans picked Donald Trump over Ronald
Reagan as their dream president. Trump thirty five percent, Dessantis
seven percent, Chris Sinunu six percent, Ramaswami three percent, Romney
three percent, Tim Scott three percent, Ronald Reagan three percent.
(09:50):
As you may know, I am no fan of Ronald Reagan,
but in his defense, I would like to point out
that even Republicans are smart enough to realize that he
is dead and that a dead president slow down those
cabinet meetings. I would also note here that over the
(10:12):
weekend it turned out that obeying rulings by the Supreme
Court has apparently become optional according to the Republican Party.
A federal court has ruled that the new congressional map
in Alabama had been drawn in a discriminatory way against
minority voters, and that two majority black districts would have
to be created. Alabama took that to the Supreme Court.
(10:33):
The Supreme Court upheld the lower court's ruling against Alabama
and for the two majority black districts. On Friday, the
Republican legislature approved a new Alabama congressional map one majority
black district, and Governor k Ivy signed the legislation quote,
the legislature knows our state, our people, and our districts
(10:56):
better than the federal courts or activist groups, and I
am pleased that they answered the call, remained focused, and
produced new discs ahead of the court deadline. The ante
was raised hours later when the state senator who sponsored
the new map, he is from Scottsborough, of all places,
broadened the list of elected officers who had just ignored
(11:17):
the Supreme Court from just the governor of the state,
and now to include Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy
to quote State Senator Steve Livingstone. I did hear from
Speaker McCarthy. It was quite simple. He said, I'm interested
in keeping my majority. That was basically his conversation. Well,
there you have it. I once suggested it was time
(11:40):
to ignore the Supreme Court, and Marco Rubio put out
a tweet implying I had just committed a federal crime.
And here the Republicans have beaten the Democrats to ignoring
the Supreme Court altogether. Supreme Court now optional. Roe v.
Wade not overturned. Elimination of affirmative action never happened. Clarence
(12:02):
Thomas have to lower his prices. Oh in the Second
Amendment case that etched it in Stone, even though the
Second Amendment doesn't have the word own in it or
any synonym for own, as in right to own a
gun District of Columbia versus Heller now optional. Thank you
k Ivy and Kevin McCarthy also of interest here, Yes,
(12:30):
Meta and not Elon Musk owns the rights to the
letter X for social networking, but the supposed replacement of
the tweet with the xeet presumably pronounced sheet, as in yeah,
I sent that out on social media. I just took
a sheet. Apparently that's not true. And also in a new,
(12:55):
all new edition of Countdown, Baseball's new Hall of Famers,
one of them was traded away by the New York
Yankees at the insistence of a Yankee player You've never
heard that's the before and the other one. Scott Roland
once told me that his highlight of the year nineteen
ninety six was an elaborate and superb practical joke that
he and his minor league teammates and managers pulled on
(13:18):
me in nineteen ninety six. And I said, wait, nineteen
ninety six was the year you made the major leagues,
whereupon Scott Rowland said, that's next. This is Countdown. This
is Countdown with Keith album postscripts to the news, some headlines,
(13:44):
some updates, some snarks, some predictions. Dateline Bismarck, North Dakota,
the sentient pair of eyebrows running for the Republican presidential
nomination has done it again. Governor Doug Bergham not only
offered anybody who donated a dollar a twenty dollars gift card,
but he put biden twenty dollars relief card on it
(14:05):
without every thinking that that might sound like Biden gave
you the twenty dollars, might it not. Now he is
selling t shirts for thirty five dollars that read Doug Bergham.
Try that in a small town if you don't get
that reference. That is the name of the Jason Alden
song banned from country music television because it basically says,
(14:27):
if you protest in a small town, you will be
and should be lynched. So that's Doug Bergham, your pro
lynching candidate. By the way, the small town Jason Aldean
grew up in Macon, Georgia, the metropolitan area of which
has nearly a quarter of a million residents, two sports franchises,
(14:47):
and a Division One football program. Dateline Barbie Land. I
don't care if you liked Oppenheimer or you didn't, or
you liked Barbie or you didn't, or you went to
Oppenheimer or Barbie or both, or you didn't. But when
did it become a law that every news organization in
this country had to take a cheesy stunt suggested by
(15:10):
pr people and run with it and run it into
the ground the Barbenheimer stuff, or if like me, you
prefer the other option, Openbee. The Wall Street Journal wrote
one article talking about the arrival of a beloved icon
in Pink and the article had the punchline, what we're
not talking about Barbie. And it also had another article
(15:32):
about a blockbuster movie about something explosive that was being
prepared in nineteen forty five, and that punchline was quote,
it's not Oppenheimer. The Washington Post offered sixteen ways we
think about Barbie. Post writers search for the meaning of
a toy that has fascinated Americans since nineteen fifty nine,
and the answer is there is no meaning. The meaning
(15:55):
is it's a toy, and the best or worst of
them all, right wing buffoon Ben Shapiro is now forever
linked tossing up in the same outfit Ken Wars in
the film, then burning the Barbie doll because it was
one of the most woke movies I have ever seen,
and noting go woke, Go broke, only to find out
(16:18):
a few days later that in its opening weekend, Barbie
made three hundred and thirty seven million dollars worldwide. Thank
(16:39):
you Nancy Faust and Dateline, New York. One of my
neighbors died on Friday. I met him six or seven
years ago in Central Park, not far from our homes. Actually,
our dogs met I had two then, one of them,
Rose does not like other dogs, so as we approached
a Maltese and its two humans near the waffle truck
(17:02):
in Central Park, I prepared for the worst, but Rose
liked Happy, as I soon learned the pup was named,
And as the three dogs played happies, Bipeds and I
started chatting about dogs and Malteses and the ages of dogs,
and what to do about red tear stains and the
neighborhood and who we knew in the place. And finally,
(17:22):
after about six or seven minutes of this, Happy's male
Biped and I realized simultaneously that we recognized each other.
I know you, he said, I miss your show. Tony
Bennett said, you're You're. I could see the look of
alarm as I began to tell Tony Bennett he was
(17:43):
Tony Bennett. Obviously, Tony Bennett did not want anybody announcing
his presence in the middle of a crowded part of
Central Park where there was a line to the waffle truck.
I know you You're You're Happy's dad, he laughed. We shook hands.
He introduced me to his wife, and now I noticed
he had grown a mustache. Always wanted to try one.
What do you think I think I should have had
(18:05):
one all these years? Now we talked about mustaches. At ninety,
Tony Bennett was growing a mustache. From what he said,
it was for the first time, and he was thinking
that the previous seventy years without having a mustache were
flawed in some way, and anybody who can be as
forward looking at age ninety as to reassess something as
(18:27):
fundamental as facial hair had my eternal respect. Well, it
turned out we lived a block apart. His friend, her
name was Gaga, I think, used to live in the
apartment above mine. I used to see him periodically in
the years afterwards in the park, and I made a
big deal about Happy. Tony always showed up on Twitter
(18:48):
with his dog Happy. You know by now about his
having been one of the American soldiers at the liberation
of Dacau, and how he recovered from drug abuse in
a time when it killed musicians' careers and killed musicians
and his participation in the Selma marches, and that the
singular voice of his was just one part of an
extraordinarily multifaceted life. And now you know about him and
(19:11):
his malteses and me and my mal teses, and how
one of my favorite neighbors to run into was probably
the most famous person in the neighborhood in either role.
I will miss him very much. Still ahead on an
(19:38):
all new edition of Countdown. There are two new Baseball
Hall of Famers this week. One of them hit four
hundred and ninety three home runs, not one of them
for the team that originally signed him, the New York Yankees.
Fifteen years ago. I was told a franchise secret as
to how the Yankees managed to trade Fred McGriff and
got nothing for him. Basically, an active Yankees player made
(20:02):
the trade happen, unbeliev I will tell this story in
Things I promised not to tell first time for the
daily roundup of the miss Grants, morons and Dunning Kruger
effects specimens who constitute two days worse persons in the world.
The Bronze Fox quote news unquote. It has run countless
segments plus several website stories about how the American Women's
(20:24):
World Cup soccer team mostly did not sing the national
anthem as it played before the first match of their tournament.
Fox even showed a picture of Megan Rappino taking a
knee during an anthem at a game seven years ago.
A that's what we have our military do, stand in
(20:44):
respectful silence, especially at international events during our anthem. B
Fox's broadcast network and its sports network claim to carry
something like seven thousand hours of live sporting events annually.
And ask yourself this question. How many times a year
does Fox televise the national anthem? Once at the Super Bowl?
(21:07):
So why does Fox hate our national anthem? The runner
up Elon Musk, Yeah, you know already what he did.
He took a business that had its own proprietary verb
to tweet, and he threw it away because the name
Twitter was not something he could take credit for. And
taking credit for the work and creativity of others is
(21:29):
all Elon Musk can do. He tried this before when
one of his companies merged with PayPal, and he wanted
the name PayPal removed even though people used it as
a verb too, and he wanted to call it x
or x PayPal because again, if he can't claim credit
for it out it goes one joke and one PostScript
to Twitter X or ex Twitter. Musk had the name
(21:52):
Twitter stripped off its headquarters in San Francisco yesterday, but
he failed to get approval from the city first for
the heavy equipment to do that, so the cops stopped
it after the first five letters had been pulled down,
so now it just reads er. Also the joke, he's
calling it X because Putin already took Z. But the
(22:16):
winner the One World Observatory, which is the observation deck
atop the World Trade Center in New York. It has
a Twitter account which basically exists to try to sell
you tickets that cost as much as seventy four dollars
to go to the observatory, and it does this by
showing you photos taken from the top of the building
or photos of the top of the building. Its latest
(22:36):
is the latter, a photo of the building captured quote
captivating moments in broad daylight at One World Observatory. The
image is of the World Trade Center in daylight. At
about two inches to the right of the building in
the photo is a passenger jet. So the advertisement to
get you to go to the World Trade Center Observation
(22:59):
deck is a photo of the World Trade Center with
a plane next to it. The folks at one World
Observatory at the World Trade Center never forget, except you
forgot Today's worst persons in the world. Shoe the number
(23:30):
one story on this all new edition of Countdown and
my favorite topic, me and Baseball's new Hall of Famers
inducted Sunday. And even though Fred McGriff and Scott Roland
are the Hall of Famers, remember this segment is about me.
Fifteen years ago or so, I was having dinner in
the press room at Yankee Stadium in New York with
(23:52):
the then vice president of the Yankees in charge of
keeping all the other vice presidents from screwing things up,
the man who was their former general manager, their former
field manager twice, and in my youth, their starting shortstop,
Jean stick Michael. Of all the hundreds of people who
worked for George Steinbrenner when he lived and owned the Yankees,
(24:15):
none has ever been more undisturbed by the experience. Geen
Michael took the abuse, Jean Michael took the money. Jean
Michael took the plane out of town, and when George
offered him more money to come back, Jeene Michael took
the plane back into town. He was also a delightful man,
possibly the nicest man to work for the Yankees under
George Steinbrenner, and he continuously, for the length of time
(24:39):
I knew him, tried to coach me on how to
improve something from the TV show, the bit at the
end when I would crumple up a piece of copy
paper and throw it at the camera. If you just
tighten up that wadded up piece of paper, it'll move better,
You'll have more control of it. You'll actually hit that camera.
As I said to him, stick, you understand, this is
the shortstop of the Yankees from when I was a kid,
(25:01):
from when I was nine until when I was fifteen,
and he's explaining to me how to improve my throwing.
This is surreal anyway. For whatever reason, that night we
started talking about terrible trades made by the Yankees, and
lord knows there were enough of them, and Gene confirmed
that most of them, when he was nominally in charge,
(25:22):
were foisted on him by that singular owner, George Steinbrenner.
When George got suspended from baseball for paying a small
time hood for blackmail against one of his own players,
Dave Winfield. And by the way, it was a small
timehood whom I once employed as a radio stringer, a
guy named Howard Spira. George, being suspended, was unable to
(25:43):
make any more of those terrible trades, which were always
young players like Jay Buhner for gaudy baubles like Ken Phelps.
You may have heard about that one on Seinfeld, or
there were trades he wanted to make, like sending a
pitcher named Marianna Rivera to Seattle again for a shortstop
named Felix for mean, because George did not think his
(26:03):
rookie shorts s eye that year was going to make it.
His rookie shortstop that year was named Derek Jeter. So
within a few years, the players that Steinbrenner could not
trade won four World's Championships in five years, including fourteen
consecutive World Series games. And I don't think we'll ever
see anything like that again. So, talking about those terrible trades,
(26:28):
without which the Yankees might have won ten World's Championships
over fifteen years, we naturally came to the Fred McGriff trade.
On December ninth, nineteen eighty two, the Yankees traded Fred
McGriff to the Toronto Blue Jays with outfielder Dave Collins
and pitcher Mike Morgan for a relief pitcher named Dale Murray.
(26:49):
Fred McGriff went on to hit four hundred and ninety
three home runs plus two more against the Yankees in
the nineteen ninety six World Series and reached the Hall
of Fame and never play one day with the team
that drafted him. Dale Murray pitched in sixty two games
for the Yankees and got a save one save. The
(27:11):
McGriff trade Stick said that one was Lou. I was
very confused, Lou Stick, You mean George, right, Lou, I
said Lou Panella. He wasn't general manager. Then he wasn't
general manager for another five years, exactly, said Gene Michael,
matter of factly. That was the problem. Lou was still
(27:32):
a player. He took a bite out of his meal.
Blue Jays went around Bill Burgish. I think Bill was
the general manager and I was the vice president, or
the other way around, I don't remember. And he went
around me, and he went to George and he offered
to take Dave Collins off his hands and give him
Dale Murray, and all they wanted was his minor league
(27:52):
kid named McGriff or something. So naturally, George didn't tell
Bill or me because he knew if there was a
minor leaguer involved, we'd try to stop it. He just
called Lou Panella instead. Now, look, the first rule of
trades is never ask a player about a trade, because
what can happen next is, well, what actually happened next?
(28:13):
Lou said, George, you mean to tell me you have
the chance to get Dale Murray. Dale Murray is the
toughest relief pitcher in the American League, George, and you
get rid of that terrible contract you signed Dave Collins too.
Don't hesitate. Take it before they change their minds. That's
what George did, Stick said, I found out about it
(28:35):
when I heard about it on the radio. I sat there,
unable to speak. Finally, I asked Jean Michael why Penella
thought Dale Murray was the toughest relief pitcher in the
American League, when in fact, he was not even the
toughest relief pitcher in the American League named Dale. See,
that's why you don't ask a player about a trade.
(28:56):
Dale Murray was tough on only one hitter in the
entire American League, and the hitter was Lou Panella. Lou
could not buy a hit off of him, could never
pick up the ball in Dale Murray's delivery. There was
only one guy Dale Murray could get out. It was
Lou Panella. Of course, lou Panella thought he was the toughest.
He was the toughest on Lou Penella. And that's why
(29:17):
Fred McGriff went into the Hall of Fame with a
plaque on which he is not wearing a New York
Yankees cap on his head. The player Fred McGriff was
inducted into the Hall of Fame with Scott Rowland him
I have a far more personal connection to. In the
summer of nineteen ninety six, I got a note from
Bill Robinson like Panella, a long ago New York Yankees outfielder,
(29:41):
who I had met as a kid, and who I
gotten to know a little bit when he was with
the Pittsburgh Pirates, and who I got to know a
little bit better when he was a terrific coach with
the New York Mets. In nineteen ninety six, Robbie was
trying his hand at managing in the minor leagues. He
was managing the Phillies, second level farm club, the one
that played at Reading, Pennsylvania in the Eastern League. The
Eastern League had a team in New Britain, Connecticut. Let
(30:04):
me say that correctly in the local vernacular, New Britain,
and it's ballpark which looked like something out of the
seventeenth century, but in fact had been built like two
years earlier. It was literally fifteen minutes from my house
and thirty minutes for my office at ESPN. Boy, we
go buy that exit for ESPN. Every time we go
(30:25):
to New Britain, Bill Robinson said, players all say, why
don't we get off here and go see their studios.
So Bill offered me a deal. If I would take
his team on a tour of ESPN, he would have
me join the Redding Phillies for one day as a coach.
I would get a uniform, spikes defensive charts to keep
to fill out during the game, and I would sit
(30:47):
on the bench with him during it. Guys will get
a kick out of it. Plus you get to meet
our top prospect, this kid, Scott Roland. So we made
that deal. We did the ESPN tour. I went over
to the New Britain Ballpark late one afternoon, and sure
enough they had a uniform that'd fit a pitcher named
Wayne Gomes loaned me a pair of his size fourteen shoes,
(31:09):
and they gave me the defensive chart book and showed
me how to use it. And there I was, for
one day the bench coach of the Redding Phillies of
the Eastern League. Somewhere it would say Olderman was in
professional baseball for one day as a coach. This kid
Roland was cordial, very nice, but he was so far
(31:30):
out in front of everybody else on that team and
in that league that he barely had to pay attention.
He spent much of his time in the dugout practicing
his golf swing with imaginary clubs, and then he'd go
up to the plate and hit the ball off the
outfield fence. Bill Robinson told me stories of breaking into
the majors as a rookie as a teammate of Mickey Madtle,
(31:51):
so I told him stories about Mickey Maddle asking me
for advice on how to do interviews. The players were great,
We all had a good time, and around about the
seventh inning, I found myself sort of pinned between two players.
I don't have any notes or photos from this game.
To my surprise, I did not even write down what
number was on my uniform, which leads me to think
(32:14):
the uniform may have been blank without a number. But
I look at the roster of your nineteen ninety six
Reading Phillies, and I am certain one of the guys
wedged next to me was a baseball lifer named Matt Giuliano,
and the other guy on the other side wedged next
to me was a utility player named Doug Angeli. So
(32:35):
the three of us, Matt and me and probably Doug,
were immersed in a conversation about something when one of
them suddenly shouted towards the home played umpire hunter Wendelstett,
Hey blue, Where the hell was that? Pitch? Blue? Not
an uncommon event at a baseball game, nor an uncommon quote.
(32:55):
What happened next was uncommon. The umpire hunter Wendelstett took
off his mask and walked towards our dugout who said that,
and the two guys on either side of me, the
two Redding Phillies, both immediately simultaneously pointed at me, him Hunter,
(33:18):
and Hunter Wendelstett promptly threw me out of the game.
The Redding bench cracked up. There were players doubled over
in laughter. I thought it was funny, but I also
assumed it was a gag within a gag, and they
had not really set me up to be ejected from
(33:39):
my only game that might be registered somewhere as my
day as a baseball coach in uniform for a professional team.
So I just sat there on the bench. Come on,
con Wendelstett shouted at me. Now. The manager Bill Robinson
came back over. He said, you better go. He's serious,
and so I decided, well, I better get my money's worth.
(34:00):
I ran out of the dugout towards Hunter Wendelstett and
started screaming at him. But I switched up. Everything I
said was a compliment. Your strike zone has been superb tonight,
and then you'll make it to the majors and won't
beat just because your father is an umpire. And now
he's telling me to stop complimenting him because he's about
to bust out laughing. So I said, all right, try
(34:20):
this instead, and I re enacted something I had read
years before in Jim Boughton's Matchless Baseball book Ball four,
something that had been done by the manager of the
Seattle Pilot's team, Joe Schultz, when he was arguing balls
and strikes with an umpire. I took off my glasses
and I offered them to the umpire, and he threw
(34:44):
me out of the game again. To their credit, after
the little thing with the glasses, the Reading Phillies, who
had with Bill Robinson and Hunter Wendelstead and Scott Roland
all been in on it, stood and applauded my gag.
As I walked off, I shook a few hands as
I did, rolling included seeing the big leagues. Rolling off,
(35:05):
I went, I changed out of the uniform. I went
home my career over keeping my Redding Phillies game. Used
hat as my only souvenir of my only game in baseball, well,
my only seven ninths of a game in baseball. Years later,
(35:26):
I got Wendelstett back. He was umpiring home plate in
a game at Yankee Stadium, and I was in my
seats right behind home plate, and in that moment between
the anthem and the first pitch, he was scanning the
stands and doing the whole. I'm the empire, I'm in charge,
I'm cool bit And as he swept the stands with
his gaze, just as he reached my spot, I screamed,
(35:48):
when does that revenge? And now he's cracking up. Only
it's the start of a big league game. We're not
in New Britain anymore. He came over between innings. He
handed me a couple of Baseball's as souvenirs, and then
he invited me out for a drink. We had a
great visit. Roland, who was called up by the Big
League Philadelphia Phillies no more than six weeks after this
(36:10):
happened in nineteen ninety six and one Rookie of the
Year and then eight Gold Gloves and finally went into
the Hall of Fame comes back into this story eight
or ten years after the incident with the yelling at
the umpire stuff. The next time I saw him was
eight or ten years later. He was with the Saint
Louis Cardinals then, and I spotted him on the field
(36:31):
in New York and I went over to say hello,
and he beat me to it. Where was it? He said?
When we punked you? And Wendelstett threw you out of
the game. Were we with Reading or Scranton? I said,
it was reading at New Britain. That's right, we got
the ESPN tour. The look on your face, the look
on your face was the highlight of my year. And
(36:54):
I looked at him really quizzically and I said, Scott,
the highlight of your year that was nineteen ninety six.
That was the year you got called up to the
majors and the now Hall of Famer. Scott role and
laughed and he said, I stand by what I said.
(37:23):
I've done all the damage I can do here. Thank
you for listening. Here the credits. Most of the music
was arranged, produced and performed by Brian Ray and John
Phillip Shanel, who are the Countdown musical directors. Tars based
and drums by Brian Ray, All orchestration and keyboards by
John Phillip Shanel, produced by Tko Brothers. Other Beethoven selections
have been arranged and performed by the group No Horns Allowed.
(37:43):
The sports music is the Olderman theme from ESPN two,
when it was written by Mitch Warren Davis. Courtesy of ESPN, Inc.
Musical comments by Nancy Faust the best baseball stadium organist ever.
Our announcer today is my friend Larry David, and everything
else was pretty much my fault. Remember. Countdown is now
also available on YouTube if you want to visit with
an animated version of me. Anyway, that's countdown for this
(38:07):
the nine hundred and thirty first day since Donald Trump's
first attempted coup against the democratically elected government of the
United States. Arrest him again while we still can. Would
today be convenient? The next scheduled countdown is tomorrow. Bulletin
says the news warrants till then. I'm Keith Olreman. Good morning,
good afternoon, good night, and good luck. Countdown with Keith
(38:37):
Olreman is 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. Donald
Trump may be indicted for the January sixth coup attempt
(00:26):
today or not. But if Jack Smith repeats the timeline
from the stolen classified documents case with his Florida Trump
grand jury, when Smith's Washington Trump grand Jury meets today,
as it usually meets on Tuesdays, starting at one pm
at the E. Barrett Prettyman Courthouse in DC, that grand
(00:48):
jury will seemingly be just stepping into that part of
the timeline in which we can actually say the indictments
should be handed up anytime now. In fact, today could
be exactly the same day on that timeline that we
were on the first indictments timeline when the indictments actually happened.
With the understanding that this is academic, unless they are
(01:13):
taking bets on this in Vegas, I'll take the Mets
over the Yankees, Japan over Costa Rica at the World Cup,
and the Trump indictments today, and I'll take the over
With that understanding, let me walk you through my math.
It was two Sundays ago, the sixteenth, Trump says, anyway,
when his attorneys notified him they had received the target
(01:34):
letter for January sixth indictments, assuming that date is correct,
even though it was a Sunday, which would not seem
to make sense. We are now right now at the
start of day ten on this timeline. Fix that in
your mind day ten of this timeline. The timeline on
the first Smith indictments for the stealing of documents and
(01:57):
stashing them at Mari Lago is a little hazier because
Trump never said exactly when he got Target letter number
one for that first set of thirty seven counts. But
there has been a lot of source reporting as to
when that letter was received, and unfortunately dates barry. Some
real time reporting said the letter arrived in the last
few weeks. Other reporting said last week. If it was
(02:21):
in fact the preceding week, that was the week of
Memorial Day. So what if the letter had been received
on the first workday of that week, Tuesday May thirtieth.
Trump's lawyers met with the Smith team on Monday, June fifth.
News of the target letter leaked on Wednesday, June seventh.
Trump revealed he had been indicted on Thursday, June eighth.
Shortly thereafter, we learned that the grand jury had handed
(02:42):
up the indictments earlier that same day, June eighth. That
makes the time span from the first target letter to
the first indictments day ten of that timeline ten days.
As I mentioned, today is day ten of this timeline
many many caveats. Even if that timeline is exactly accurate,
(03:07):
he didn't have to stick to a timeline for this
second set of indictments or any other indictments. The span
between the first target letter and the first invitments could
have been amazingly fast. It could have happened far earlier
than May thirtieth. The span might have been seventeen days
or twenty four days, and just as dubious, the second
(03:27):
target letter arrived on a Sunday. A Sunday, what they
drove the letter from Washington to marri Lago. If the
second target letter actually got there earlier than Sunday and
Trump misled people I know, or for whatever reason they
delayed notifying him I know, then today is not day
(03:50):
ten of the second timeline. It could be day eleven
or day twelve. The only purpose to this silliness really
is to underscore what I said at the beginning today
that Jack Smith Trump DC grand jury seems to be
stepping into that part of the timeline in which the
actual second set of indictments seems possible, practical, doable, or
(04:12):
as I once heard it phrase by a long ago
anchor on the CBS All News radio station in New York,
in a statement that has literally stuck with me since
nineteen eighty one, quote, the next development in the baseball
strike negotiations could happen as early as today. And if
you think about that, you will recognize that not only
does that have to be true, it cannot possibly not
(04:35):
be true, because the next development in anything in the
universe could happen as early as today. If the next
development could happen as early as yesterday, we're all in
big trouble. So welcome to day ten. Maybe unless it's
really day eleven or day twelve. I was told there
would be no math. Just remember these other numbers. US
(04:58):
Code eighteen, section two four one. That is conspiracy against
rights that would be interfering with the counting of legitimate votes,
the post Civil War Law for Reconstruction voting against the
KKK with or without violence, US Code eighteen, section three
seven to one, conspiracy to defraud the United States, and
US Code eighteen Section one five one to two correctly
(05:19):
obstructing an official proceeding, and those indictments will happen today
or Thursday, or next Tuesday or next Thursday, but probably
earlier than two weeks from today, unless there are other
factors in developments that are slightly less like nailing jello
(05:44):
to the wall. NBC News says that Richard Donahue, the
former acting Deputy Attorney General, has met with the Special
Council's office. You may remember Donahue from the House Committee hearings.
He was one of the good guys. He and his boss,
Jeff Rosen, were the ones to whom Trump said, just
say the election was corrupt and leave the rest to
me and the Republican congressman, and to whom Trump insisted
(06:06):
there was a suitcase full of fraudulent ballots, and they
said no, they would not say that, and quote, no, sir,
there is no suitcase. Presumably Donahue would be supplying still
more grist for Jack Smith's mill on his central theme
that Trump knew damn well the election was not stolen,
but still pretended that it was. Section three seventy one
(06:29):
does say conspiracy to defraud the United States, and there
is that entire separate line of inquiry about literally defrauding
those who donated to his assorted packs and campaigns and
funds to audit votes and file for recounts, but otherwise
stop the steal that wasn't stolen. So would those who
(06:49):
were at a February twenty twenty Oval Office meeting that
CNN says has now become a subject of some fascination
among the prosecutors. Trump told election officials and his own
staffers at that meeting February twenty twenty how pleased he
was by improvements to the security of American elections, and
specifically improvements to the security of paper ballots and audits
(07:13):
of vote tallies. Within two months, of course, Trump would
be claiming that paper ballots, especially the ones that were
mailed in, were insecure and rife for fraud. By September
he was screaming that. By November he was insisting the
entire election had been compromised by that. And there's one
development which I actually think is less important than we
(07:34):
are being led to believe. The ex New York City
Police commissioner and also ex Cohn Bernie Carrick, has turned
over quote thousands of documents produced by Rudy Giuliani's team
as it tried to find or create non existent voting
fraud after the twenty twenty election. The same boatload has
also been turned over to Ruby Freeman and Shay Moss
(07:57):
in their suit against Giuliani. And I'd be a lot
more intrigued, and my mind would turn to the rhetorical
question did Carrick flip on Rudy if Carrick's lawyer Tim PARLATORI,
former Trump lawyer Tim PARLATORI, had not revealed that he
and Carrick had shown all of those two thousand or
so documents to the Trump legal team at one eight
(08:19):
hundred insurrection, and the Trumpers said they saw no need
to claim executive privilege on any of the documents. Parlatory
says he will sit down with the Special Counsel's office
in about two weeks to discuss, presumably with Bernie Kerrick
sitting there too, trying to remember where he is on
the Trump temperature front. Yesterday's social media posts were heavily
(08:41):
vainglorious boasting along with polling, plus one shot at Biden,
one reposting about Merrick Garland being guilty of collusion, and
one reposting of the standard brilliance of Marjorie pornography Green
from a week ago in which Green called Jack Smith
quote a weak little bitch for the Democrats unquote, which
I am putting on a post it for when Marge
(09:03):
gets indicted by Smith Lee this year. Am I guessing
on that? I'm guessing on that? Did the odds of
my being right just go up? The odds of my
being right just went up? But mostly it was Trump
posting moronic polls, moronic even for him, the exemplar of
which came from the British tabloid The Daily Mail, in
which New Hampshire voters were asked to select not just
(09:25):
their favorite for the Republican nomination or for the general election,
but quote, New Hampshire Republicans picked Donald Trump over Ronald
Reagan as their dream president. Trump thirty five percent, Dessantis
seven percent, Chris Sinunu six percent, Ramaswami three percent, Romney
three percent, Tim Scott three percent, Ronald Reagan three percent.
(09:50):
As you may know, I am no fan of Ronald Reagan,
but in his defense, I would like to point out
that even Republicans are smart enough to realize that he
is dead and that a dead president slow down those
cabinet meetings. I would also note here that over the
(10:12):
weekend it turned out that obeying rulings by the Supreme
Court has apparently become optional according to the Republican Party.
A federal court has ruled that the new congressional map
in Alabama had been drawn in a discriminatory way against
minority voters, and that two majority black districts would have
to be created. Alabama took that to the Supreme Court.
(10:33):
The Supreme Court upheld the lower court's ruling against Alabama
and for the two majority black districts. On Friday, the
Republican legislature approved a new Alabama congressional map one majority
black district, and Governor k Ivy signed the legislation quote,
the legislature knows our state, our people, and our districts
(10:56):
better than the federal courts or activist groups, and I
am pleased that they answered the call, remained focused, and
produced new discs ahead of the court deadline. The ante
was raised hours later when the state senator who sponsored
the new map, he is from Scottsborough, of all places,
broadened the list of elected officers who had just ignored
(11:17):
the Supreme Court from just the governor of the state,
and now to include Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy
to quote State Senator Steve Livingstone. I did hear from
Speaker McCarthy. It was quite simple. He said, I'm interested
in keeping my majority. That was basically his conversation. Well,
there you have it. I once suggested it was time
(11:40):
to ignore the Supreme Court, and Marco Rubio put out
a tweet implying I had just committed a federal crime.
And here the Republicans have beaten the Democrats to ignoring
the Supreme Court altogether. Supreme Court now optional. Roe v.
Wade not overturned. Elimination of affirmative action never happened. Clarence
(12:02):
Thomas have to lower his prices. Oh in the Second
Amendment case that etched it in Stone, even though the
Second Amendment doesn't have the word own in it or
any synonym for own, as in right to own a
gun District of Columbia versus Heller now optional. Thank you
k Ivy and Kevin McCarthy also of interest here, Yes,
(12:30):
Meta and not Elon Musk owns the rights to the
letter X for social networking, but the supposed replacement of
the tweet with the xeet presumably pronounced sheet, as in yeah,
I sent that out on social media. I just took
a sheet. Apparently that's not true. And also in a new,
(12:55):
all new edition of Countdown, Baseball's new Hall of Famers,
one of them was traded away by the New York
Yankees at the insistence of a Yankee player You've never
heard that's the before and the other one. Scott Roland
once told me that his highlight of the year nineteen
ninety six was an elaborate and superb practical joke that
he and his minor league teammates and managers pulled on
(13:18):
me in nineteen ninety six. And I said, wait, nineteen
ninety six was the year you made the major leagues,
whereupon Scott Rowland said, that's next. This is Countdown. This
is Countdown with Keith album postscripts to the news, some headlines,
(13:44):
some updates, some snarks, some predictions. Dateline Bismarck, North Dakota,
the sentient pair of eyebrows running for the Republican presidential
nomination has done it again. Governor Doug Bergham not only
offered anybody who donated a dollar a twenty dollars gift card,
but he put biden twenty dollars relief card on it
(14:05):
without every thinking that that might sound like Biden gave
you the twenty dollars, might it not. Now he is
selling t shirts for thirty five dollars that read Doug Bergham.
Try that in a small town if you don't get
that reference. That is the name of the Jason Alden
song banned from country music television because it basically says,
(14:27):
if you protest in a small town, you will be
and should be lynched. So that's Doug Bergham, your pro
lynching candidate. By the way, the small town Jason Aldean
grew up in Macon, Georgia, the metropolitan area of which
has nearly a quarter of a million residents, two sports franchises,
(14:47):
and a Division One football program. Dateline Barbie Land. I
don't care if you liked Oppenheimer or you didn't, or
you liked Barbie or you didn't, or you went to
Oppenheimer or Barbie or both, or you didn't. But when
did it become a law that every news organization in
this country had to take a cheesy stunt suggested by
(15:10):
pr people and run with it and run it into
the ground the Barbenheimer stuff, or if like me, you
prefer the other option, Openbee. The Wall Street Journal wrote
one article talking about the arrival of a beloved icon
in Pink and the article had the punchline, what we're
not talking about Barbie. And it also had another article
(15:32):
about a blockbuster movie about something explosive that was being
prepared in nineteen forty five, and that punchline was quote,
it's not Oppenheimer. The Washington Post offered sixteen ways we
think about Barbie. Post writers search for the meaning of
a toy that has fascinated Americans since nineteen fifty nine,
and the answer is there is no meaning. The meaning
(15:55):
is it's a toy, and the best or worst of
them all, right wing buffoon Ben Shapiro is now forever
linked tossing up in the same outfit Ken Wars in
the film, then burning the Barbie doll because it was
one of the most woke movies I have ever seen,
and noting go woke, Go broke, only to find out
(16:18):
a few days later that in its opening weekend, Barbie
made three hundred and thirty seven million dollars worldwide. Thank
(16:39):
you Nancy Faust and Dateline, New York. One of my
neighbors died on Friday. I met him six or seven
years ago in Central Park, not far from our homes. Actually,
our dogs met I had two then, one of them,
Rose does not like other dogs, so as we approached
a Maltese and its two humans near the waffle truck
(17:02):
in Central Park, I prepared for the worst, but Rose
liked Happy, as I soon learned the pup was named,
And as the three dogs played happies, Bipeds and I
started chatting about dogs and Malteses and the ages of dogs,
and what to do about red tear stains and the
neighborhood and who we knew in the place. And finally,
(17:22):
after about six or seven minutes of this, Happy's male
Biped and I realized simultaneously that we recognized each other.
I know you, he said, I miss your show. Tony
Bennett said, you're You're. I could see the look of
alarm as I began to tell Tony Bennett he was
(17:43):
Tony Bennett. Obviously, Tony Bennett did not want anybody announcing
his presence in the middle of a crowded part of
Central Park where there was a line to the waffle truck.
I know you You're You're Happy's dad, he laughed. We shook hands.
He introduced me to his wife, and now I noticed
he had grown a mustache. Always wanted to try one.
What do you think I think I should have had
(18:05):
one all these years? Now we talked about mustaches. At ninety,
Tony Bennett was growing a mustache. From what he said,
it was for the first time, and he was thinking
that the previous seventy years without having a mustache were
flawed in some way, and anybody who can be as
forward looking at age ninety as to reassess something as
(18:27):
fundamental as facial hair had my eternal respect. Well, it
turned out we lived a block apart. His friend, her
name was Gaga, I think, used to live in the
apartment above mine. I used to see him periodically in
the years afterwards in the park, and I made a
big deal about Happy. Tony always showed up on Twitter
(18:48):
with his dog Happy. You know by now about his
having been one of the American soldiers at the liberation
of Dacau, and how he recovered from drug abuse in
a time when it killed musicians' careers and killed musicians
and his participation in the Selma marches, and that the
singular voice of his was just one part of an
extraordinarily multifaceted life. And now you know about him and
(19:11):
his malteses and me and my mal teses, and how
one of my favorite neighbors to run into was probably
the most famous person in the neighborhood in either role.
I will miss him very much. Still ahead on an
(19:38):
all new edition of Countdown. There are two new Baseball
Hall of Famers this week. One of them hit four
hundred and ninety three home runs, not one of them
for the team that originally signed him, the New York Yankees.
Fifteen years ago. I was told a franchise secret as
to how the Yankees managed to trade Fred McGriff and
got nothing for him. Basically, an active Yankees player made
(20:02):
the trade happen, unbeliev I will tell this story in
Things I promised not to tell first time for the
daily roundup of the miss Grants, morons and Dunning Kruger
effects specimens who constitute two days worse persons in the world.
The Bronze Fox quote news unquote. It has run countless
segments plus several website stories about how the American Women's
(20:24):
World Cup soccer team mostly did not sing the national
anthem as it played before the first match of their tournament.
Fox even showed a picture of Megan Rappino taking a
knee during an anthem at a game seven years ago.
A that's what we have our military do, stand in
(20:44):
respectful silence, especially at international events during our anthem. B
Fox's broadcast network and its sports network claim to carry
something like seven thousand hours of live sporting events annually.
And ask yourself this question. How many times a year
does Fox televise the national anthem? Once at the Super Bowl?
(21:07):
So why does Fox hate our national anthem? The runner
up Elon Musk, Yeah, you know already what he did.
He took a business that had its own proprietary verb
to tweet, and he threw it away because the name
Twitter was not something he could take credit for. And
taking credit for the work and creativity of others is
(21:29):
all Elon Musk can do. He tried this before when
one of his companies merged with PayPal, and he wanted
the name PayPal removed even though people used it as
a verb too, and he wanted to call it x
or x PayPal because again, if he can't claim credit
for it out it goes one joke and one PostScript
to Twitter X or ex Twitter. Musk had the name
(21:52):
Twitter stripped off its headquarters in San Francisco yesterday, but
he failed to get approval from the city first for
the heavy equipment to do that, so the cops stopped
it after the first five letters had been pulled down,
so now it just reads er. Also the joke, he's
calling it X because Putin already took Z. But the
(22:16):
winner the One World Observatory, which is the observation deck
atop the World Trade Center in New York. It has
a Twitter account which basically exists to try to sell
you tickets that cost as much as seventy four dollars
to go to the observatory, and it does this by
showing you photos taken from the top of the building
or photos of the top of the building. Its latest
(22:36):
is the latter, a photo of the building captured quote
captivating moments in broad daylight at One World Observatory. The
image is of the World Trade Center in daylight. At
about two inches to the right of the building in
the photo is a passenger jet. So the advertisement to
get you to go to the World Trade Center Observation
(22:59):
deck is a photo of the World Trade Center with
a plane next to it. The folks at one World
Observatory at the World Trade Center never forget, except you
forgot Today's worst persons in the world. Shoe the number
(23:30):
one story on this all new edition of Countdown and
my favorite topic, me and Baseball's new Hall of Famers
inducted Sunday. And even though Fred McGriff and Scott Roland
are the Hall of Famers, remember this segment is about me.
Fifteen years ago or so, I was having dinner in
the press room at Yankee Stadium in New York with
(23:52):
the then vice president of the Yankees in charge of
keeping all the other vice presidents from screwing things up,
the man who was their former general manager, their former
field manager twice, and in my youth, their starting shortstop,
Jean stick Michael. Of all the hundreds of people who
worked for George Steinbrenner when he lived and owned the Yankees,
(24:15):
none has ever been more undisturbed by the experience. Geen
Michael took the abuse, Jean Michael took the money. Jean
Michael took the plane out of town, and when George
offered him more money to come back, Jeene Michael took
the plane back into town. He was also a delightful man,
possibly the nicest man to work for the Yankees under
George Steinbrenner, and he continuously, for the length of time
(24:39):
I knew him, tried to coach me on how to
improve something from the TV show, the bit at the
end when I would crumple up a piece of copy
paper and throw it at the camera. If you just
tighten up that wadded up piece of paper, it'll move better,
You'll have more control of it. You'll actually hit that camera.
As I said to him, stick, you understand, this is
the shortstop of the Yankees from when I was a kid,
(25:01):
from when I was nine until when I was fifteen,
and he's explaining to me how to improve my throwing.
This is surreal anyway. For whatever reason, that night we
started talking about terrible trades made by the Yankees, and
lord knows there were enough of them, and Gene confirmed
that most of them, when he was nominally in charge,
(25:22):
were foisted on him by that singular owner, George Steinbrenner.
When George got suspended from baseball for paying a small
time hood for blackmail against one of his own players,
Dave Winfield. And by the way, it was a small
timehood whom I once employed as a radio stringer, a
guy named Howard Spira. George, being suspended, was unable to
(25:43):
make any more of those terrible trades, which were always
young players like Jay Buhner for gaudy baubles like Ken Phelps.
You may have heard about that one on Seinfeld, or
there were trades he wanted to make, like sending a
pitcher named Marianna Rivera to Seattle again for a shortstop
named Felix for mean, because George did not think his
(26:03):
rookie shorts s eye that year was going to make it.
His rookie shortstop that year was named Derek Jeter. So
within a few years, the players that Steinbrenner could not
trade won four World's Championships in five years, including fourteen
consecutive World Series games. And I don't think we'll ever
see anything like that again. So, talking about those terrible trades,
(26:28):
without which the Yankees might have won ten World's Championships
over fifteen years, we naturally came to the Fred McGriff trade.
On December ninth, nineteen eighty two, the Yankees traded Fred
McGriff to the Toronto Blue Jays with outfielder Dave Collins
and pitcher Mike Morgan for a relief pitcher named Dale Murray.
(26:49):
Fred McGriff went on to hit four hundred and ninety
three home runs plus two more against the Yankees in
the nineteen ninety six World Series and reached the Hall
of Fame and never play one day with the team
that drafted him. Dale Murray pitched in sixty two games
for the Yankees and got a save one save. The
(27:11):
McGriff trade Stick said that one was Lou. I was
very confused, Lou Stick, You mean George, right, Lou, I
said Lou Panella. He wasn't general manager. Then he wasn't
general manager for another five years, exactly, said Gene Michael,
matter of factly. That was the problem. Lou was still
(27:32):
a player. He took a bite out of his meal.
Blue Jays went around Bill Burgish. I think Bill was
the general manager and I was the vice president, or
the other way around, I don't remember. And he went
around me, and he went to George and he offered
to take Dave Collins off his hands and give him
Dale Murray, and all they wanted was his minor league
(27:52):
kid named McGriff or something. So naturally, George didn't tell
Bill or me because he knew if there was a
minor leaguer involved, we'd try to stop it. He just
called Lou Panella instead. Now, look, the first rule of
trades is never ask a player about a trade, because
what can happen next is, well, what actually happened next?
(28:13):
Lou said, George, you mean to tell me you have
the chance to get Dale Murray. Dale Murray is the
toughest relief pitcher in the American League, George, and you
get rid of that terrible contract you signed Dave Collins too.
Don't hesitate. Take it before they change their minds. That's
what George did, Stick said, I found out about it
(28:35):
when I heard about it on the radio. I sat there,
unable to speak. Finally, I asked Jean Michael why Penella
thought Dale Murray was the toughest relief pitcher in the
American League, when in fact, he was not even the
toughest relief pitcher in the American League named Dale. See,
that's why you don't ask a player about a trade.
(28:56):
Dale Murray was tough on only one hitter in the
entire American League, and the hitter was Lou Panella. Lou
could not buy a hit off of him, could never
pick up the ball in Dale Murray's delivery. There was
only one guy Dale Murray could get out. It was
Lou Panella. Of course, lou Panella thought he was the toughest.
He was the toughest on Lou Penella. And that's why
(29:17):
Fred McGriff went into the Hall of Fame with a
plaque on which he is not wearing a New York
Yankees cap on his head. The player Fred McGriff was
inducted into the Hall of Fame with Scott Rowland him
I have a far more personal connection to. In the
summer of nineteen ninety six, I got a note from
Bill Robinson like Panella, a long ago New York Yankees outfielder,
(29:41):
who I had met as a kid, and who I
gotten to know a little bit when he was with
the Pittsburgh Pirates, and who I got to know a
little bit better when he was a terrific coach with
the New York Mets. In nineteen ninety six, Robbie was
trying his hand at managing in the minor leagues. He
was managing the Phillies, second level farm club, the one
that played at Reading, Pennsylvania in the Eastern League. The
Eastern League had a team in New Britain, Connecticut. Let
(30:04):
me say that correctly in the local vernacular, New Britain,
and it's ballpark which looked like something out of the
seventeenth century, but in fact had been built like two
years earlier. It was literally fifteen minutes from my house
and thirty minutes for my office at ESPN. Boy, we
go buy that exit for ESPN. Every time we go
(30:25):
to New Britain, Bill Robinson said, players all say, why
don't we get off here and go see their studios.
So Bill offered me a deal. If I would take
his team on a tour of ESPN, he would have
me join the Redding Phillies for one day as a coach.
I would get a uniform, spikes defensive charts to keep
to fill out during the game, and I would sit
(30:47):
on the bench with him during it. Guys will get
a kick out of it. Plus you get to meet
our top prospect, this kid, Scott Roland. So we made
that deal. We did the ESPN tour. I went over
to the New Britain Ballpark late one afternoon, and sure
enough they had a uniform that'd fit a pitcher named
Wayne Gomes loaned me a pair of his size fourteen shoes,
(31:09):
and they gave me the defensive chart book and showed
me how to use it. And there I was, for
one day the bench coach of the Redding Phillies of
the Eastern League. Somewhere it would say Olderman was in
professional baseball for one day as a coach. This kid
Roland was cordial, very nice, but he was so far
(31:30):
out in front of everybody else on that team and
in that league that he barely had to pay attention.
He spent much of his time in the dugout practicing
his golf swing with imaginary clubs, and then he'd go
up to the plate and hit the ball off the
outfield fence. Bill Robinson told me stories of breaking into
the majors as a rookie as a teammate of Mickey Madtle,
(31:51):
so I told him stories about Mickey Maddle asking me
for advice on how to do interviews. The players were great,
We all had a good time, and around about the
seventh inning, I found myself sort of pinned between two players.
I don't have any notes or photos from this game.
To my surprise, I did not even write down what
number was on my uniform, which leads me to think
(32:14):
the uniform may have been blank without a number. But
I look at the roster of your nineteen ninety six
Reading Phillies, and I am certain one of the guys
wedged next to me was a baseball lifer named Matt Giuliano,
and the other guy on the other side wedged next
to me was a utility player named Doug Angeli. So
(32:35):
the three of us, Matt and me and probably Doug,
were immersed in a conversation about something when one of
them suddenly shouted towards the home played umpire hunter Wendelstett,
Hey blue, Where the hell was that? Pitch? Blue? Not
an uncommon event at a baseball game, nor an uncommon quote.
(32:55):
What happened next was uncommon. The umpire hunter Wendelstett took
off his mask and walked towards our dugout who said that,
and the two guys on either side of me, the
two Redding Phillies, both immediately simultaneously pointed at me, him Hunter,
(33:18):
and Hunter Wendelstett promptly threw me out of the game.
The Redding bench cracked up. There were players doubled over
in laughter. I thought it was funny, but I also
assumed it was a gag within a gag, and they
had not really set me up to be ejected from
(33:39):
my only game that might be registered somewhere as my
day as a baseball coach in uniform for a professional team.
So I just sat there on the bench. Come on,
con Wendelstett shouted at me. Now. The manager Bill Robinson
came back over. He said, you better go. He's serious,
and so I decided, well, I better get my money's worth.
(34:00):
I ran out of the dugout towards Hunter Wendelstett and
started screaming at him. But I switched up. Everything I
said was a compliment. Your strike zone has been superb tonight,
and then you'll make it to the majors and won't
beat just because your father is an umpire. And now
he's telling me to stop complimenting him because he's about
to bust out laughing. So I said, all right, try
(34:20):
this instead, and I re enacted something I had read
years before in Jim Boughton's Matchless Baseball book Ball four,
something that had been done by the manager of the
Seattle Pilot's team, Joe Schultz, when he was arguing balls
and strikes with an umpire. I took off my glasses
and I offered them to the umpire, and he threw
(34:44):
me out of the game again. To their credit, after
the little thing with the glasses, the Reading Phillies, who
had with Bill Robinson and Hunter Wendelstead and Scott Roland
all been in on it, stood and applauded my gag.
As I walked off, I shook a few hands as
I did, rolling included seeing the big leagues. Rolling off,
(35:05):
I went, I changed out of the uniform. I went
home my career over keeping my Redding Phillies game. Used
hat as my only souvenir of my only game in baseball, well,
my only seven ninths of a game in baseball. Years later,
(35:26):
I got Wendelstett back. He was umpiring home plate in
a game at Yankee Stadium, and I was in my
seats right behind home plate, and in that moment between
the anthem and the first pitch, he was scanning the
stands and doing the whole. I'm the empire, I'm in charge,
I'm cool bit And as he swept the stands with
his gaze, just as he reached my spot, I screamed,
(35:48):
when does that revenge? And now he's cracking up. Only
it's the start of a big league game. We're not
in New Britain anymore. He came over between innings. He
handed me a couple of Baseball's as souvenirs, and then
he invited me out for a drink. We had a
great visit. Roland, who was called up by the Big
League Philadelphia Phillies no more than six weeks after this
(36:10):
happened in nineteen ninety six and one Rookie of the
Year and then eight Gold Gloves and finally went into
the Hall of Fame comes back into this story eight
or ten years after the incident with the yelling at
the umpire stuff. The next time I saw him was
eight or ten years later. He was with the Saint
Louis Cardinals then, and I spotted him on the field
(36:31):
in New York and I went over to say hello,
and he beat me to it. Where was it? He said?
When we punked you? And Wendelstett threw you out of
the game. Were we with Reading or Scranton? I said,
it was reading at New Britain. That's right, we got
the ESPN tour. The look on your face, the look
on your face was the highlight of my year. And
(36:54):
I looked at him really quizzically and I said, Scott,
the highlight of your year that was nineteen ninety six.
That was the year you got called up to the
majors and the now Hall of Famer. Scott role and
laughed and he said, I stand by what I said.
(37:23):
I've done all the damage I can do here. Thank
you for listening. Here the credits. Most of the music
was arranged, produced and performed by Brian Ray and John
Phillip Shanel, who are the Countdown musical directors. Tars based
and drums by Brian Ray, All orchestration and keyboards by
John Phillip Shanel, produced by Tko Brothers. Other Beethoven selections
have been arranged and performed by the group No Horns Allowed.
(37:43):
The sports music is the Olderman theme from ESPN two,
when it was written by Mitch Warren Davis. Courtesy of ESPN, Inc.
Musical comments by Nancy Faust the best baseball stadium organist ever.
Our announcer today is my friend Larry David, and everything
else was pretty much my fault. Remember. Countdown is now
also available on YouTube if you want to visit with
an animated version of me. Anyway, that's countdown for this
(38:07):
the nine hundred and thirty first day since Donald Trump's
first attempted coup against the democratically elected government of the
United States. Arrest him again while we still can. Would
today be convenient? The next scheduled countdown is tomorrow. Bulletin
says the news warrants till then. I'm Keith Olreman. Good morning,
good afternoon, good night, and good luck. Countdown with Keith
(38:37):
Olreman is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio,
visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get
your podcasts.
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