January 24, 2023 • 35 mins
EPISODE 118: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN
A-Block (1:43) SPECIAL COMMENT: The Trump-Russia story roared back from the dead yesterday and basically nobody noticed. They've arrested retired FBI agent Charles McGonigal, of the lead FBI investigators of 2016 Russian Electoral Interference by Putin-friendly Russian oligarch Oleg Derpiaska. The allegation? That McGonigal has spent the last year secretly working FOR OLEG DERIPASKA. And if that doesn't make you scratch your head, remember that one of Deripaska's employees was a consultant named Paul Manafort and by total coincidence one of Trump's campaign managers was a consultant named Paul Manafort. Plus updates on Biden's documents (we're up to EIGHT different stories now) and how the Arizona Senate race just changed, activating Kyrsten Sinema's aversion to three-ways.
B-Block (16:28) EVERY DOG HAS ITS DAY: Robin; (17:42) IN SPORTS: Angels not for sale, Hall of Fame may not get any electees; Local newscaster struggles with the hockey name "Canucks." And "Boudreau." And "Tocchet." (23:27) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Mike Pompeo smears Jamal Khashoggi, Elon Musk again, and the M&M Nonsense fight for the honors.
C-Block (29:08) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: Since it's baseball Hall of Fame announcement day, the story of the time I was asked at age 20 to call Willie Mays after he was banned from the game. A woman answered. Or it sounded like a woman. But it also sounded like Willie. And that's when the fun began.
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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 I Heart Radio.
The Trunks Russia story roared back from the dead yesterday,
(00:25):
and basically nobody noticed, all too busy with the big
M and EM's news. It was the New York Field
Office of the FBI which handled most of the investigation
into Russia's interference in our two thousand sixteen presidential election,
and one of the FBI agents on that investigation was
the head of Foreign counter Intelligence, Charles mcgonaghal And one
(00:48):
of the putent linked Russian oligarchs McGonagall and the rest
of the bureau was investigating was named Oleg Deri Pasca.
And yesterday we found out that Charles McGonagall had been
indicted and arrested for secretly working full or Old Egg
Derrick Posca. Old Egg Derrick Posca, Why that's old Leg
(01:11):
Derrick Posca's name. McGonagall has spent much of the four
years since he retired from the FBI trying to covertly
get American sanctions against Derrick Posca lifted, and between that
and lying about it and taking money from another foreign
country while still working for the FBI. McGonagall could face
(01:31):
a maximum of seventy five years in prison. McGonagall on
Derrick Posca and oh, by the way, Derrick Posca's investment consultant,
Paul who is his name here? Mana Fort that if
somehow you have forgotten Paul man of Fort. He was
(01:53):
Donald Trump's second campaign manager in two thousand sixteen, the
one who just happened to work for free. Man of
Fort works for Derrick Poscac donegal investigates Derrick Posca, McGonagall retires,
and suddenly McGonagall works for Derrick Posca. Manaport works for Trump.
(02:14):
But Trump Russia is a hoax. The hoax, as we
all know, was Trump appointing an attorney general who would
bury not only the thinner parts of the Mueller Report,
but all of the Mueller Report. And now up pops
one of the lead FBI investigators into Russian interference in
the two thousand and sixteen election, who retires from the
(02:34):
bureau two years later, and we are expected to believe
the Russian Derrick Posca goes from viewing this McGonagall guy
as a man who's trying to put him into jail,
goes from that and becomes a valued comrade who can
get his sanctions lifted from him, just out of the blue.
He picked him out of the white pages in the
(02:54):
phone book. There is no connection between mcdonaghal investigates Derrick Posca,
and nothing happens to Derrick Posca. And five years later,
Derrick Posca hires McGonagall, and McGonagall breaks the law so much,
so fast that McGonagall could go to jail for seventy
five years. Even the Wall Street Journal actually saw some
(03:15):
of this. Let me quote its coverage from yesterday. Mr McGonagall,
who also supervised investigations into Mr Derrick Posca and other
Russian oligarchs before departing the FBI in two thousand eighteen,
began conspiring to provide services to Mr Derrick Posca. In
Prosecutors said he used shell companies and other means to
(03:40):
hide Mr Derrick Pasca's involvement in the work. They said, unquote.
The Washington Post did sum it up a little bit
more succinctly. It's headline, former senior FBI official accused of
working for Russian He investigated, you bet. Almost every news organization, however,
(04:03):
refused to put Trump's in their McGonagall Derrick Pasca story.
There is a reason Trump worked the refs on that
story for every minute it was in front of mind.
No refs can get worked as easily as American news
organization refs. They don't want any more of that abuse.
They have cocktail parties to go to with these peoples, Sonny. However,
(04:26):
the publication Insider got wind of the McGonagall Derrick Posca
scandal last September, and it named names, quoting their report
from then. A witness subpoena obtained by Insider seems to
indicate that the government and part was looking into mcgonagall's
business dealings with a top aide to Oleg Derrick Posca,
the billionaire Russian oligarch, who was at the center of
(04:49):
allegations that Russia colluded with the Trump campaign to interfere
in the two thousand sixteen election. Thank you very much, Insider.
We may never know exactly what Russia did for Trump
and what Trump knew about it in advance, and what
he solicited and what he didn't. But if not, it
will not be because there isn't evidence. It will be
(05:11):
because there isn't courage. The leads all remains sitting there
atop the table getting cobwebs on them, for sure, but
still atop the table where everybody can see them. And
you want one more lead besides McGonagall hereafter known as
the accused, besides the fact that he not only led
(05:33):
foreign counter intelligence and was a lead of the Russian
electoral interference case and was in charge of investigation of
Russian oligarchs. But in two thousand ten, guests, who was
in charge of the FBI task force investigating wiki leaks?
Was it the purple eminem? No, I'm sorry it was McGonagall.
(05:58):
But don't you dare say that any of this might
have anything to do with Trump, or that Mary Garland
should reopen the Muller investigation or publish the unredacted report,
because some Trumper is gonna yell at you. They'll either
discredit you're a news organization, or if you are independent,
they'll just discredit you. And if neither of those plays work,
(06:20):
they'll just scream about you enough and enough and enough
that you'll wind up on Caesar sayok, the mega bombers
list of the people he wanted to send the rest
of his pipe bombs too, only they caught him first
and put him in prison. Yeah, I was one of those.
How are you if that was not enough Trump for
(06:40):
you be turns out that golf tournament he quote one
at his golf course and boasted about the other day.
He didn't play the first round. He just swapped in
his score from some other round of golf earlier in
the week, so that c when play began Sunday at
the Trump International, I had nothing to do with Russia
golf course. The other golfers were surprised to find they
(07:03):
were all five strokes behind a guy who wasn't even
at the tournament Saturday because d he was at the
memorial service for Diamond of Diamond and Silk, explaining that
he only knew diamond, he didn't know silk, but she
seemed great and complaining they told him the service would
be fifteen minutes when it was already three hours. And
yet E Trump was at his Florida golf course long
(07:25):
enough at some point this month to pose for a
photo that found its way into the Philadelphia Inquirer yesterday
because one of the other two guys in the photograph
was Joseph Merlino, and Joseph Merlino used to be known
as Skinny Joey. I think you know where this is
going Skinny Joey when he was still a mom boss
(07:46):
in Philly, and nobody's saying if Merlino and Trump already
knew each other before the photo or even doing the photo,
because f that kind of stuff gets out and it
will do severe damage to the reputation of Skinny Joey. Also,
if you told me the third I in the photo
with Skinny Joey and Trump was Oleg Derri Pasca, I
(08:09):
wouldn't be one god damned bit surprised. Two other follow
ups today, which I must mention. You may remember my
complaint about Biden and the documents I said here yesterday.
I believe Joe Biden when he said there was no
there there because there wasn't. And in the non their
their space, there are now seven different stories and severn
(08:32):
different stories about how much the president is cooperating. Is
the same thing as seven different stories about exactly how
much the president donated to charity last year, And if
those numbers changed, they would get people scratching their heads.
And I don't know who thought this was a good idea,
and I'm hoping it wasn't President Biden, because if it wasn't,
he can fire everybody who did and he should do that. Well,
(08:53):
now it's eight stories, because what did somebody leak to
The New York Times quote. Biden's lawyers told the Justice
Department in November that they had no reason to believe
the copies of official records from his vice presidency had
ended up anywhere beyond the think tank in Washington, where
several classified documents had been found that month. Two people
(09:14):
familiar with the matter set on Sunday that assertion, the
people said, was based on interviews with former officials who
had been involved in the process of packing and shipping
such material. Unquote. Because sure, these are the people whose
word is gold on this, Because sure those people were
supposed to make sure there weren't any documents at the
(09:36):
Washington think tank either. But just because they were wrong
about that, that's no reason to suppose they're not right
about there being no documents anywhere else in the world.
President needs to fire his lawyers and anybody else connected
with this and get in some people who will doubt
(09:58):
more and assume less, because you want the doubt inside
the tent. And because each new version of this story
that comes out guarantees another week of coverage of this
meaningless trivial filing problem that is being turned into an
impeachment preamble simply because there are seven, no eight different
(10:23):
damned stories or maybe more by now, because I've been
in here in the studio for ten minutes and I've
been able to check Twitter. Lastly, because I need the
comic relief to Arizona, where the sitting senior senator from
(10:44):
that state is polling at thirteen percent, and the question
of if she tries to run as an independent in
four who she will damage more, the Democrat or the
Republican is now believed to be pretty much a toss up. Anyway,
(11:06):
the Democrat has now entered the chat, the real one,
and I'll just read the opening sentence from the Associated
Press bulletin yesterday. Quote Phoenix a p Democratic Representative Ruben
Diego to run for independent Arizona Senator Kirsten Cinema's seat,
setting up potential three way race unquote, which just on
(11:29):
a personal level is hilarious to me because when we
used to go out several times, Kirsten, unprovoked by anything
I said, insisted she had no interest in potential three
ways races, freeway races. What did you think I meant,
(11:59):
where is your mind today? Huh? Still ahead? The Baseball
Hall of Fame will announce its electees tonight, if any
I wonder if Mike Trout will ever get into the
Hall of Fame now that the lame team owner who
has made sure that Trout has never been to the
World Series has changed his mind and is not going
(12:20):
to sell the Los Angeles Angels team. After all, Mike
Pompeio knows who the real villain is in the murder
of Jamal Kashogi. It's Jamal Kashogi. Whereas person is ahead.
And the first rule of broadcasting from your high school
station to the upper most echelons of the business, the
rule is this, no matter how unimportant you think it is,
(12:44):
if you do not know how to pronounce it as
somebody who does newscaster who doesn't nukes the Vancouver Canucks,
that's next. This has countdown. This is countdown with Keith
(13:06):
Olberman still ahead. On countdown. I called Willie Mays at home.
The voice that answered kind of sounded like him, except
as a woman. And also in sports, how do you
pronounce c A n U c K s And if
you pronounce it wrong on TV? How do you pronounce
(13:28):
it an hour later when it comes up again? In
the script? First, in each edition of Countdown, we feature
a dog in need you can help. Every dog has
its day. We go to Conro Texas and Robin, a
sweet tempered staffy who was clearly used as a bait dog,
and then somebody apparently put a lit firecracker in her mouth. Amazingly,
(13:49):
while she has major facial wounds, there is great hope
for recovery, and Friends of Faye is doing its best
to make that happen. There's a fundraiser for the horrifically
abused Robin at Cuddley. You can find her there or
on my Twitter feeds. Your donations will be deeply appreciated,
so too will your retweets. I thank you, and Robin
(14:10):
thanks you. This is Sports Center. Wait, check that not anymore.
(14:46):
This is Countdown with Keith in Sports All bad news.
Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim in California baseball fans absentee
owner Artie Murno has changed his mind and will not
sell the moribund team after all. This means the odds
(15:07):
are now six to five that the fifteen plate appearances
Mike Trout got in the two thousand fourteen playoffs, will
be the only time he reaches the postseason. Commissioner Rob
Manfred's statement on Moreno's about face quote, despite strong buyer
interest in the Angels already, Moreno's love of the game
is most important to him. I am very pleased that
(15:28):
the Moreno family has decided to continue owning the team.
And if he's pleased, that should tell you just how
bad news this is for the team. Baseball's Hall of
Fame class of three will be announced tonight, if any
doesn't look like it. As of the last count of
publicly released ballots, about a hundred and eighty five of them,
former Phillies, Reds and Cardinals third baseman Scott Roland and
(15:51):
Rockies first baseman Todd Helton were both above percent threshold
required to get in, but invariably, when the ballots not
publicly released are then counted, all candidates percentages flat line,
meaning the likeliest outcome is even though Roland and Helton
are above, neither of them we'll get in tomorrow, not now.
(16:14):
Though everybody this close to election gets in eventually, that
would mean the only player at this summer's induction ceremony
would be long overlooked Blue Jays and Braves first baseman
Fred McGriff, totally fitting that he would get the stage
by himself for a change. Since the Hall of Fame
news comes up today, I thought it would be fitting
if today's things I promised not to tell is about
(16:34):
a day when, aged twenty, I had to interview a
Hall of Famer for a radio network about getting banned
from baseball, and he answered the phone in a falsetto
voice coming up speaking of announcing. When I did the
sports on local TV news in Boston and l A,
people new to the staff always looked twice at my
scripts and wondered why I spelled almost every proper name,
(16:59):
even the well known local ones phonetically. Catcher Mike Sosha
of the Dodgers, for instance, ce spelled it s c
I O s c I A. On my script, I
spelled it s O s h A Sosia. Well, if
they asked, I would explain it's to make sure I
don't screw it up, but that was only part of
the answer. At kt l A and Los Angeles, we
(17:20):
had a very nice lady who translated the newscast live
into Spanish and she knew nothing about sports, especially not
how to pronounce anybody's name, so the fonetics helped her.
Later at k CBS, I found that occasionally they'd use
my sports scripts on the morning news, and often the
newscaster had no idea who Mike Socia was and would
see s c I O, s c i A, usually
(17:44):
only while actually live on the air. And then suddenly
an l A audience full of l A fans would
hear in l A newscaster referred to Mike Sioskia or
Mike shoo Shay. I mentioned all this because one of
the greatest arguments for doing it, and thus one of
the greatest train wrecks ever heard when the decision was
made to not do it, unfolded yesterday on the midday
(18:07):
news at a television station in Washington. Somebody copied a
paragraph of hockey news from the Associated Press wire and
handed it to the newscaster, who apparently had never heard
of hockey, or of Washington's hockey team, or of Canada,
or of looking at the script first and asking somebody,
how do you say this name? Let me read you
(18:28):
the script as it was written, then I'll play you
Her version of it quote. Former Washington Capital's coach Bruce
Boudreau has been fired by the Vancouver Canucks. The team
announced the change Sunday, less than a week after President
of Hockey Operations Jim Rutherford said major surgery was needed
to fix the Canucks. Rick Tockett was hired as Boudreau's
(18:49):
replacement or Former Washington Capital's coach Bruce Boudreau has been
fired by the Vancouver Canucks. The team announced the change Sunday,
less than a week president of Hockey Operation Jim Rutherford
said major surgery was needed to fix the Canucks. Rick
(19:10):
Tuki was hired as Bodrow's replaced. Boom goes the Dynamite,
or in this case, the Ken Nukes, which, given how
things went this week in Vancouver, is not a bad
new name for the team. They can't nukes. The thing
about local news these days is that it goes on
for an hour after hour after hour. So sure enough,
(19:30):
an hour later, same story, same newscaster. But clearly she
had asked or had been told that it wasn't bow Drow. Unfortunately,
that's where the learning curve flatlined, and former Washington Capital's
coach Bruce Drew has been fired by the Vancouver Canucks.
The team announced the change today. Rick Tucket was hired
(19:54):
as Drew's replacement. Poor Rick Tuckett. A word about Rick
Tacket T O C c h E. T. Tacket, an
Indies sports center anchor who also didn't know hockey, encountered
Rick Tockett's name when he was a star player, and
whereas the Washington newscaster wasn't smart enough to ask, the
(20:14):
ESPN one was too smart for her own good hockey,
she reasoned was Canadian. All the Canadians she knew were French. Therefore,
Rick Tockett t O c c h E t became
Rick Tosha. I inherited all of her notepads after she left.
(20:48):
Now to the daily roundup of the misgrants, morons and
Donning Kruger effect specimens who constitute today's worst persons in
the world. Le Bronze Mike Pompeio. Since the days when
he was one of the dumbest members of Congress, it's
been obvious that he's been a big, ugly boil on
the nation's back side. His boastful ineptitude and scumbaggery at
CIA and as Secretary of State legendary. But in his
(21:12):
new book, Pompeo, who will live his entire life never
understanding how stupid nor hated he really is, slams of
all people. Washington Post columnist Jamal Kashogi, who was murdered
and then chopped up at the behest of the new
dictator of Saudi Arabia, Mohammad been sold. He didn't deserve
to die, he writes, but we need to be clear
(21:33):
about who he was. Pompeo goes on to explain Kashoki
was not a real journalist, but an activist, and then
slanderously ties him to the Muslim brotherhood. Here's an idea, Mike,
we need you to go on a mission for this country.
Saudi consulate Nistan bowl your game, idiot thrunner up Elon Musk. First,
(21:54):
Leah Heil Pearn, who was an online bitcoin schill, tweeted quote.
Elon Musk says he had major side effects from his
second booster and felt like he was dying for days.
He also said his cousin was hospitalized with mile kardiitis.
Why are MSM and the politicians that forced this toxic
jab silent unquote? Well, first of all, because Musk owns Twitter,
(22:14):
and he kept mentioning his side effects, which a lot
of people had, and his alleged cousin, over and over
and over and over and over again, because he is
a drama queen who on a daily basis proves that
his word is not worth a bowl of warm spit,
and who will say anything for sympathy. And second, because
of that, because it probably didn't happen. Part two of
(22:37):
Elon Musk's tenure here. The New York Times reports that
last year, when Marjorie Trailer Park Green tweeted made up
stuff about the vaccine, Twitter suspended her account, and her
response was to talk Kevin McCarthy into trying to get
her unsuspended. McCarthy, then the minority leader in the House,
he used taxpayer dollars to have his general counsel, a
(22:58):
Federalist Society fraud named car, called Twitter and argue for
hours to get green reinsta did funny this attempt by
Republicans to bully Twitter wasn't in them Twitter files. Hi Ellen,
no comment, Matt Tiddy, no handwringing. Glenn Greenwald, but our
winners a five way tie. I don't recall ever having
(23:21):
a five way time. We started this in two thousand five,
starting with the Mars Company, makers of M and M's,
which announced yesterday at shelving all of its advertising featuring
its so called spokes candies anthropomorphic Eminem's, who had been
repeatedly trashed by Tucker Carlson because Mars had made some
of them in do lesbians, and this bothered Tucker because
(23:42):
he was clearly sexually attracted to the straight Eminem's. Putting
this side the company folding to mother Tucker's candy fetish.
Mars has now designated as its new spokesperson comedian Maya Rudolph,
who may regret this. Let's just hope she can maintain
her professional dignity in the next eminem commercials. In exactly
(24:03):
the same way the Paul Jamatti has doing those phone
ads in which we watch him bringing nuance and deep
feeling to the role of Albert Einstein, dead these sixty
eight years and now at three years old as he
faces his most terrifying dilemma poor cell phone reception at college.
(24:24):
The Mars Company and Eminem's and Tucker Carlson and Maya
Rudolph and Paul Jamati, Mine Cutier has gone caput. Today's
Where's persons and confections in the now to the number
(24:53):
one story on the countdown on my favorite topic, me
and things I promised not to tell him. This has
been a somewhat uh fierce edition of the program. So
let me do something here at the end of It's
a little lighter. October is the anniversary of one of
the damnedest interviews I ever did, and it was with
Baseball Hall of Famer Willie Mays. Every time Willie May's
(25:16):
name comes up, I think of two things. One is
that interview at my first job from my first radio network,
and like I wasn't scared enough, he did a bit
that if I would have done it, they would have
fired me on the spot. The other thing is an
amazing injustice that befell Willie Mays that nobody talks about. Okay,
(25:39):
So it's a Saturday afternoon, October nine, just forty three
years ago today, and Willie Mays has just been banned
from baseball because word has gotten out that he assigned
a contract to do promotional events for an Atlantic city casino,
and there's a press conference coming up on Monday. I know.
(26:01):
Try explaining this concept to any current sports fan and
now used to seeing retired players on TV, not just
telling them to bet on games, but telling them how
to bet and who to bet on. Plus even then
this made no sense. It was like three months after
Willie Mays had been inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame.
(26:23):
Three months now he's being banned for life for something
that today the Commissioner Baseball would send him a note
of congratulations and a paycheck. So anyway, nobody has done
an interview with Willie yet because he has been traveling,
and my phone rings and my little cubby hole at
United pres Internationals Radio Network three months that coincidentally was
(26:47):
how long my full time broadcasting career had been to
this point. And on the phone is maybe the top
baseball reporter of his day, Keith, it's Milt Richmond. This
man once reported in July that if the Milwaukee Braves
didn't start winning that they would fire their manner. Exactly
one year later, they didn't start winning, and exactly one
(27:09):
year later to the day, they fired their manager. That's
how good Milt Richmond was. Keith, write this phone number down.
It's William Mays home. He's expecting your call for an
interview about this banishment story. I squeaked yes, sir, Yes, sir,
and I went into one of our recording studios and
(27:30):
I dialed the number. And I will not recreate the
voice that I heard answer William Mays's phone, because while
doing this voice was once considered to be a staple
of American humor, even American humor written or performed by
the liberals. James Thurber short stories are full of this voice.
The voice is wildly racist. It is racist enough that
if today you heard an African American man do this voice,
(27:54):
you might still say still racist. It is a voice
similar to that of the actress Hattie McDaniel, who won
the Academy Award in nine for Gone with the Wind,
who was a world class blues singer, a top patriotic
fundraiser during World War Two, who played maids, housekeepers, and
(28:15):
maybe two hundred films. She also played one on a
famous radio show, and was paid so little that while
she was performing her role of the maid, she had
to keep working as a real maid. Anyway, I'm twenty
years old and I have to interview Willie Mays about
him getting banned from baseball. By the way, getting banned
(28:37):
from baseball at the same time they were banning Mickey
Mantle from baseball for doing promotional announcements for a casino.
And I call Willie Mays's number and I'm shaking like
a leaf and the phone is answered, and a gravelly
but feminine voice that sounded exactly like Haddie McDaniel says hello,
Mr Mays's residence. And I am a little throne by this,
(29:04):
but I power through and I explain who I am,
and she says, uh huh. And I say where I'm
calling from and she says uh huh. And I say,
Milt Richmond said Mr Mays was expecting me. And she
interrupts me and says, this is Willie. The Hattie McDaniel
like impersonation was done by William Mays. Now I do
not have this on tape. Silly me. When they said
(29:28):
you could never start recording before you got expressed permission
from the interviewee to start recording, I believed them anybody
else would have a tape of the phone being answered
and that impression done by William Mays. I'm afraid you
will have to take my word for it, because why
would I make this up? October and honestly, I still
(29:55):
haven't recovered from Mr Mays's residence. Now. The injustice about
William May's that nobody talks about this something else no
fan believes today. The US military used to draft Major
League Baseball players and NFL players and NBA players and
other athletes and send them into the service in the
(30:17):
middle of their seasons, in the primes of their careers,
even if there was no war in progress. Now they
only did it a couple of times after nine, and
usually that was thinly veiled racist political pressure, like when
they drafted Muhammad Ali in nineteen sixty six, when he
was heavyweight champion of the world at an activist Muslim
(30:41):
and twenty four years old, when everybody else who was
getting drafted was eighteen. Remember, but in nineteen fifty two
they drafted Willy Mays. William Mays had come up from
the minors the year before and led the New York
Giants from thirteen games back to the National League pennant
and was the kind of all around rural wind of
a player nobody had ever seen before. And on May
(31:02):
twenty nine, thirty four games into his second season boom,
he was drafted and inducted, and he missed the rest
of that season, and he missed all of the nineteen
fifty three season. They didn't draft Mickey Mantle, who also
broke in also in New York, also in nineteen fifty one,
and to be fair, Mickey Mantle had about four hundred
(31:24):
medical problems. But they also didn't draft nineteen fifty one
American League Rookie of the Year Gil McDougald of the Yankees,
who was a white guy. Or Walt Dropo, who was
the Rookie of the Year in nineteen fifty and was
a white guy. Or Roy Sievers who was the Rookie
of the Year in nineteen nine and it was a
white guy, or or or you get the point. Now.
(31:46):
Trying to calculate should have beens and would have been
in sports as a risky business, but you can get
a statistical approximation. If a player hits twenty homers in
his first season, then misses two years, then comes back
and hits forty one homers in his first year back,
you can extra appell eight from that that he probably
(32:06):
would have hit twenty seven homers in the first missing
year and thirty four in the second missing year. Your
numerical sequences twenty homers, then twenty seven, then thirty four,
then forty one. You have to take her a little
bit with it in Mays's case, because he did not
miss all of nineteen fifty two, just from June on,
(32:27):
and he had a slow start. He only hit four
homers in the first two months of nineteen fifty two,
so instead of twenty seven that year, maybe he only
hits twenty four. So a good guess as to how
many homers William Hays did not hit because he got
drafted and all the other guys didn't. The good guess
is all told, he missed the chance to hit fifty
(32:49):
four homers that he probably would have hit in real life.
William Mays finished with six hundred and sixty career home runs.
For most of the nineteen sixties, it was thought he
was the man who would challenge Babe Ruth's career home
run record, not Hank Aaron, but Willie Mays. William Mays
(33:10):
hits six hundred sixty homers, but if you give him
the fifty four more homers he might have hit if
he hadn't been so curiously drafted in nineteen fifty two,
William Mays finishes with seven hundred fourteen home runs, which
is exactly how many Babe Ruth hit seven hundred, so
(33:31):
no drafting and maybe in seventy two and nineteen seventy
three and nineteen seventy four. We are seeing Willie Mays
hit his seven hundredth home run and challenging Babe Ruth
and coming down the stretch and tying and breaking Babe
Ruth's record, and then right behind him, Henry Aaron hits
his seven hundred and fifteen homer and then his seven
(33:54):
hundred sixteenth homer to break the all time record held
by Willie Mays. Mr Maze's Residence. Countdown has come to
(34:19):
you from the studios of Alderman Broadcasting Empire World Headquarters
in the Sports Capsule Building in New York. Thank you
for listening. Here are the credits. Most of the music,
including our theme from Beethoven's Ninth, was arranged, produced and
performed by Brian Ray and John Philip Chanelle. They are
the Countdown musical directors. All orchestration and keyboards by John
(34:39):
Philip Chanelle, guitars, bass and drums by Brian Ray, produced
by t k O Brothers. Other Beethoven selections of it
arranged and performed by No Horns Allowed. The sports music
is the Alderman theme for Me ESPN two, and it
was written by Mitch Warren Davis courtesy of ESPN, Inc.
Musical comments from Nancy Fauss the best baseball stadium organist ever.
(35:01):
Our announcer today was my friend Kenny Maine. Everything else
this is pretty much my fault. So let's countdown for this,
the seven ord and forty nine day since Donald Trump's
first attempt at coup against the democratically elected government of
the United States. Arrest him now while we still can.
The next scheduled countdown tomorrow. Till then, I'm Keith all Reman.
(35:22):
Good morning, good afternoon, goodnight, and good luck. Countdown with
Keith ol Woman is a production of I heart Radio.
(35:42):
For more podcasts from I heart Radio, visit the i
heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of I Heart Radio.
The Trunks Russia story roared back from the dead yesterday,
(00:25):
and basically nobody noticed, all too busy with the big
M and EM's news. It was the New York Field
Office of the FBI which handled most of the investigation
into Russia's interference in our two thousand sixteen presidential election,
and one of the FBI agents on that investigation was
the head of Foreign counter Intelligence, Charles mcgonaghal And one
(00:48):
of the putent linked Russian oligarchs McGonagall and the rest
of the bureau was investigating was named Oleg Deri Pasca.
And yesterday we found out that Charles McGonagall had been
indicted and arrested for secretly working full or Old Egg
Derrick Posca. Old Egg Derrick Posca, Why that's old Leg
(01:11):
Derrick Posca's name. McGonagall has spent much of the four
years since he retired from the FBI trying to covertly
get American sanctions against Derrick Posca lifted, and between that
and lying about it and taking money from another foreign
country while still working for the FBI. McGonagall could face
(01:31):
a maximum of seventy five years in prison. McGonagall on
Derrick Posca and oh, by the way, Derrick Posca's investment consultant,
Paul who is his name here? Mana Fort that if
somehow you have forgotten Paul man of Fort. He was
(01:53):
Donald Trump's second campaign manager in two thousand sixteen, the
one who just happened to work for free. Man of
Fort works for Derrick Poscac donegal investigates Derrick Posca, McGonagall retires,
and suddenly McGonagall works for Derrick Posca. Manaport works for Trump.
(02:14):
But Trump Russia is a hoax. The hoax, as we
all know, was Trump appointing an attorney general who would
bury not only the thinner parts of the Mueller Report,
but all of the Mueller Report. And now up pops
one of the lead FBI investigators into Russian interference in
the two thousand and sixteen election, who retires from the
(02:34):
bureau two years later, and we are expected to believe
the Russian Derrick Posca goes from viewing this McGonagall guy
as a man who's trying to put him into jail,
goes from that and becomes a valued comrade who can
get his sanctions lifted from him, just out of the blue.
He picked him out of the white pages in the
(02:54):
phone book. There is no connection between mcdonaghal investigates Derrick Posca,
and nothing happens to Derrick Posca. And five years later,
Derrick Posca hires McGonagall, and McGonagall breaks the law so much,
so fast that McGonagall could go to jail for seventy
five years. Even the Wall Street Journal actually saw some
(03:15):
of this. Let me quote its coverage from yesterday. Mr McGonagall,
who also supervised investigations into Mr Derrick Posca and other
Russian oligarchs before departing the FBI in two thousand eighteen,
began conspiring to provide services to Mr Derrick Posca. In
Prosecutors said he used shell companies and other means to
(03:40):
hide Mr Derrick Pasca's involvement in the work. They said, unquote.
The Washington Post did sum it up a little bit
more succinctly. It's headline, former senior FBI official accused of
working for Russian He investigated, you bet. Almost every news organization, however,
(04:03):
refused to put Trump's in their McGonagall Derrick Pasca story.
There is a reason Trump worked the refs on that
story for every minute it was in front of mind.
No refs can get worked as easily as American news
organization refs. They don't want any more of that abuse.
They have cocktail parties to go to with these peoples, Sonny. However,
(04:26):
the publication Insider got wind of the McGonagall Derrick Posca
scandal last September, and it named names, quoting their report
from then. A witness subpoena obtained by Insider seems to
indicate that the government and part was looking into mcgonagall's
business dealings with a top aide to Oleg Derrick Posca,
the billionaire Russian oligarch, who was at the center of
(04:49):
allegations that Russia colluded with the Trump campaign to interfere
in the two thousand sixteen election. Thank you very much, Insider.
We may never know exactly what Russia did for Trump
and what Trump knew about it in advance, and what
he solicited and what he didn't. But if not, it
will not be because there isn't evidence. It will be
(05:11):
because there isn't courage. The leads all remains sitting there
atop the table getting cobwebs on them, for sure, but
still atop the table where everybody can see them. And
you want one more lead besides McGonagall hereafter known as
the accused, besides the fact that he not only led
(05:33):
foreign counter intelligence and was a lead of the Russian
electoral interference case and was in charge of investigation of
Russian oligarchs. But in two thousand ten, guests, who was
in charge of the FBI task force investigating wiki leaks?
Was it the purple eminem? No, I'm sorry it was McGonagall.
(05:58):
But don't you dare say that any of this might
have anything to do with Trump, or that Mary Garland
should reopen the Muller investigation or publish the unredacted report,
because some Trumper is gonna yell at you. They'll either
discredit you're a news organization, or if you are independent,
they'll just discredit you. And if neither of those plays work,
(06:20):
they'll just scream about you enough and enough and enough
that you'll wind up on Caesar sayok, the mega bombers
list of the people he wanted to send the rest
of his pipe bombs too, only they caught him first
and put him in prison. Yeah, I was one of those.
How are you if that was not enough Trump for
(06:40):
you be turns out that golf tournament he quote one
at his golf course and boasted about the other day.
He didn't play the first round. He just swapped in
his score from some other round of golf earlier in
the week, so that c when play began Sunday at
the Trump International, I had nothing to do with Russia
golf course. The other golfers were surprised to find they
(07:03):
were all five strokes behind a guy who wasn't even
at the tournament Saturday because d he was at the
memorial service for Diamond of Diamond and Silk, explaining that
he only knew diamond, he didn't know silk, but she
seemed great and complaining they told him the service would
be fifteen minutes when it was already three hours. And
yet E Trump was at his Florida golf course long
(07:25):
enough at some point this month to pose for a
photo that found its way into the Philadelphia Inquirer yesterday
because one of the other two guys in the photograph
was Joseph Merlino, and Joseph Merlino used to be known
as Skinny Joey. I think you know where this is
going Skinny Joey when he was still a mom boss
(07:46):
in Philly, and nobody's saying if Merlino and Trump already
knew each other before the photo or even doing the photo,
because f that kind of stuff gets out and it
will do severe damage to the reputation of Skinny Joey. Also,
if you told me the third I in the photo
with Skinny Joey and Trump was Oleg Derri Pasca, I
(08:09):
wouldn't be one god damned bit surprised. Two other follow
ups today, which I must mention. You may remember my
complaint about Biden and the documents I said here yesterday.
I believe Joe Biden when he said there was no
there there because there wasn't. And in the non their
their space, there are now seven different stories and severn
(08:32):
different stories about how much the president is cooperating. Is
the same thing as seven different stories about exactly how
much the president donated to charity last year, And if
those numbers changed, they would get people scratching their heads.
And I don't know who thought this was a good idea,
and I'm hoping it wasn't President Biden, because if it wasn't,
he can fire everybody who did and he should do that. Well,
(08:53):
now it's eight stories, because what did somebody leak to
The New York Times quote. Biden's lawyers told the Justice
Department in November that they had no reason to believe
the copies of official records from his vice presidency had
ended up anywhere beyond the think tank in Washington, where
several classified documents had been found that month. Two people
(09:14):
familiar with the matter set on Sunday that assertion, the
people said, was based on interviews with former officials who
had been involved in the process of packing and shipping
such material. Unquote. Because sure, these are the people whose
word is gold on this, Because sure those people were
supposed to make sure there weren't any documents at the
(09:36):
Washington think tank either. But just because they were wrong
about that, that's no reason to suppose they're not right
about there being no documents anywhere else in the world.
President needs to fire his lawyers and anybody else connected
with this and get in some people who will doubt
(09:58):
more and assume less, because you want the doubt inside
the tent. And because each new version of this story
that comes out guarantees another week of coverage of this
meaningless trivial filing problem that is being turned into an
impeachment preamble simply because there are seven, no eight different
(10:23):
damned stories or maybe more by now, because I've been
in here in the studio for ten minutes and I've
been able to check Twitter. Lastly, because I need the
comic relief to Arizona, where the sitting senior senator from
(10:44):
that state is polling at thirteen percent, and the question
of if she tries to run as an independent in
four who she will damage more, the Democrat or the
Republican is now believed to be pretty much a toss up. Anyway,
(11:06):
the Democrat has now entered the chat, the real one,
and I'll just read the opening sentence from the Associated
Press bulletin yesterday. Quote Phoenix a p Democratic Representative Ruben
Diego to run for independent Arizona Senator Kirsten Cinema's seat,
setting up potential three way race unquote, which just on
(11:29):
a personal level is hilarious to me because when we
used to go out several times, Kirsten, unprovoked by anything
I said, insisted she had no interest in potential three
ways races, freeway races. What did you think I meant,
(11:59):
where is your mind today? Huh? Still ahead? The Baseball
Hall of Fame will announce its electees tonight, if any
I wonder if Mike Trout will ever get into the
Hall of Fame now that the lame team owner who
has made sure that Trout has never been to the
World Series has changed his mind and is not going
(12:20):
to sell the Los Angeles Angels team. After all, Mike
Pompeio knows who the real villain is in the murder
of Jamal Kashogi. It's Jamal Kashogi. Whereas person is ahead.
And the first rule of broadcasting from your high school
station to the upper most echelons of the business, the
rule is this, no matter how unimportant you think it is,
(12:44):
if you do not know how to pronounce it as
somebody who does newscaster who doesn't nukes the Vancouver Canucks,
that's next. This has countdown. This is countdown with Keith
(13:06):
Olberman still ahead. On countdown. I called Willie Mays at home.
The voice that answered kind of sounded like him, except
as a woman. And also in sports, how do you
pronounce c A n U c K s And if
you pronounce it wrong on TV? How do you pronounce
(13:28):
it an hour later when it comes up again? In
the script? First, in each edition of Countdown, we feature
a dog in need you can help. Every dog has
its day. We go to Conro Texas and Robin, a
sweet tempered staffy who was clearly used as a bait dog,
and then somebody apparently put a lit firecracker in her mouth. Amazingly,
(13:49):
while she has major facial wounds, there is great hope
for recovery, and Friends of Faye is doing its best
to make that happen. There's a fundraiser for the horrifically
abused Robin at Cuddley. You can find her there or
on my Twitter feeds. Your donations will be deeply appreciated,
so too will your retweets. I thank you, and Robin
(14:10):
thanks you. This is Sports Center. Wait, check that not anymore.
(14:46):
This is Countdown with Keith in Sports All bad news.
Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim in California baseball fans absentee
owner Artie Murno has changed his mind and will not
sell the moribund team after all. This means the odds
(15:07):
are now six to five that the fifteen plate appearances
Mike Trout got in the two thousand fourteen playoffs, will
be the only time he reaches the postseason. Commissioner Rob
Manfred's statement on Moreno's about face quote, despite strong buyer
interest in the Angels already, Moreno's love of the game
is most important to him. I am very pleased that
(15:28):
the Moreno family has decided to continue owning the team.
And if he's pleased, that should tell you just how
bad news this is for the team. Baseball's Hall of
Fame class of three will be announced tonight, if any
doesn't look like it. As of the last count of
publicly released ballots, about a hundred and eighty five of them,
former Phillies, Reds and Cardinals third baseman Scott Roland and
(15:51):
Rockies first baseman Todd Helton were both above percent threshold
required to get in, but invariably, when the ballots not
publicly released are then counted, all candidates percentages flat line,
meaning the likeliest outcome is even though Roland and Helton
are above, neither of them we'll get in tomorrow, not now.
(16:14):
Though everybody this close to election gets in eventually, that
would mean the only player at this summer's induction ceremony
would be long overlooked Blue Jays and Braves first baseman
Fred McGriff, totally fitting that he would get the stage
by himself for a change. Since the Hall of Fame
news comes up today, I thought it would be fitting
if today's things I promised not to tell is about
(16:34):
a day when, aged twenty, I had to interview a
Hall of Famer for a radio network about getting banned
from baseball, and he answered the phone in a falsetto
voice coming up speaking of announcing. When I did the
sports on local TV news in Boston and l A,
people new to the staff always looked twice at my
scripts and wondered why I spelled almost every proper name,
(16:59):
even the well known local ones phonetically. Catcher Mike Sosha
of the Dodgers, for instance, ce spelled it s c
I O s c I A. On my script, I
spelled it s O s h A Sosia. Well, if
they asked, I would explain it's to make sure I
don't screw it up, but that was only part of
the answer. At kt l A and Los Angeles, we
(17:20):
had a very nice lady who translated the newscast live
into Spanish and she knew nothing about sports, especially not
how to pronounce anybody's name, so the fonetics helped her.
Later at k CBS, I found that occasionally they'd use
my sports scripts on the morning news, and often the
newscaster had no idea who Mike Socia was and would
see s c I O, s c i A, usually
(17:44):
only while actually live on the air. And then suddenly
an l A audience full of l A fans would
hear in l A newscaster referred to Mike Sioskia or
Mike shoo Shay. I mentioned all this because one of
the greatest arguments for doing it, and thus one of
the greatest train wrecks ever heard when the decision was
made to not do it, unfolded yesterday on the midday
(18:07):
news at a television station in Washington. Somebody copied a
paragraph of hockey news from the Associated Press wire and
handed it to the newscaster, who apparently had never heard
of hockey, or of Washington's hockey team, or of Canada,
or of looking at the script first and asking somebody,
how do you say this name? Let me read you
(18:28):
the script as it was written, then I'll play you
Her version of it quote. Former Washington Capital's coach Bruce
Boudreau has been fired by the Vancouver Canucks. The team
announced the change Sunday, less than a week after President
of Hockey Operations Jim Rutherford said major surgery was needed
to fix the Canucks. Rick Tockett was hired as Boudreau's
(18:49):
replacement or Former Washington Capital's coach Bruce Boudreau has been
fired by the Vancouver Canucks. The team announced the change Sunday,
less than a week president of Hockey Operation Jim Rutherford
said major surgery was needed to fix the Canucks. Rick
(19:10):
Tuki was hired as Bodrow's replaced. Boom goes the Dynamite,
or in this case, the Ken Nukes, which, given how
things went this week in Vancouver, is not a bad
new name for the team. They can't nukes. The thing
about local news these days is that it goes on
for an hour after hour after hour. So sure enough,
(19:30):
an hour later, same story, same newscaster. But clearly she
had asked or had been told that it wasn't bow Drow. Unfortunately,
that's where the learning curve flatlined, and former Washington Capital's
coach Bruce Drew has been fired by the Vancouver Canucks.
The team announced the change today. Rick Tucket was hired
(19:54):
as Drew's replacement. Poor Rick Tuckett. A word about Rick
Tacket T O C c h E. T. Tacket, an
Indies sports center anchor who also didn't know hockey, encountered
Rick Tockett's name when he was a star player, and
whereas the Washington newscaster wasn't smart enough to ask, the
(20:14):
ESPN one was too smart for her own good hockey,
she reasoned was Canadian. All the Canadians she knew were French. Therefore,
Rick Tockett t O c c h E t became
Rick Tosha. I inherited all of her notepads after she left.
(20:48):
Now to the daily roundup of the misgrants, morons and
Donning Kruger effect specimens who constitute today's worst persons in
the world. Le Bronze Mike Pompeio. Since the days when
he was one of the dumbest members of Congress, it's
been obvious that he's been a big, ugly boil on
the nation's back side. His boastful ineptitude and scumbaggery at
CIA and as Secretary of State legendary. But in his
(21:12):
new book, Pompeo, who will live his entire life never
understanding how stupid nor hated he really is, slams of
all people. Washington Post columnist Jamal Kashogi, who was murdered
and then chopped up at the behest of the new
dictator of Saudi Arabia, Mohammad been sold. He didn't deserve
to die, he writes, but we need to be clear
(21:33):
about who he was. Pompeo goes on to explain Kashoki
was not a real journalist, but an activist, and then
slanderously ties him to the Muslim brotherhood. Here's an idea, Mike,
we need you to go on a mission for this country.
Saudi consulate Nistan bowl your game, idiot thrunner up Elon Musk. First,
(21:54):
Leah Heil Pearn, who was an online bitcoin schill, tweeted quote.
Elon Musk says he had major side effects from his
second booster and felt like he was dying for days.
He also said his cousin was hospitalized with mile kardiitis.
Why are MSM and the politicians that forced this toxic
jab silent unquote? Well, first of all, because Musk owns Twitter,
(22:14):
and he kept mentioning his side effects, which a lot
of people had, and his alleged cousin, over and over
and over and over and over again, because he is
a drama queen who on a daily basis proves that
his word is not worth a bowl of warm spit,
and who will say anything for sympathy. And second, because
of that, because it probably didn't happen. Part two of
(22:37):
Elon Musk's tenure here. The New York Times reports that
last year, when Marjorie Trailer Park Green tweeted made up
stuff about the vaccine, Twitter suspended her account, and her
response was to talk Kevin McCarthy into trying to get
her unsuspended. McCarthy, then the minority leader in the House,
he used taxpayer dollars to have his general counsel, a
(22:58):
Federalist Society fraud named car, called Twitter and argue for
hours to get green reinsta did funny this attempt by
Republicans to bully Twitter wasn't in them Twitter files. Hi Ellen,
no comment, Matt Tiddy, no handwringing. Glenn Greenwald, but our
winners a five way tie. I don't recall ever having
(23:21):
a five way time. We started this in two thousand five,
starting with the Mars Company, makers of M and M's,
which announced yesterday at shelving all of its advertising featuring
its so called spokes candies anthropomorphic Eminem's, who had been
repeatedly trashed by Tucker Carlson because Mars had made some
of them in do lesbians, and this bothered Tucker because
(23:42):
he was clearly sexually attracted to the straight Eminem's. Putting
this side the company folding to mother Tucker's candy fetish.
Mars has now designated as its new spokesperson comedian Maya Rudolph,
who may regret this. Let's just hope she can maintain
her professional dignity in the next eminem commercials. In exactly
(24:03):
the same way the Paul Jamatti has doing those phone
ads in which we watch him bringing nuance and deep
feeling to the role of Albert Einstein, dead these sixty
eight years and now at three years old as he
faces his most terrifying dilemma poor cell phone reception at college.
(24:24):
The Mars Company and Eminem's and Tucker Carlson and Maya
Rudolph and Paul Jamati, Mine Cutier has gone caput. Today's
Where's persons and confections in the now to the number
(24:53):
one story on the countdown on my favorite topic, me
and things I promised not to tell him. This has
been a somewhat uh fierce edition of the program. So
let me do something here at the end of It's
a little lighter. October is the anniversary of one of
the damnedest interviews I ever did, and it was with
Baseball Hall of Famer Willie Mays. Every time Willie May's
(25:16):
name comes up, I think of two things. One is
that interview at my first job from my first radio network,
and like I wasn't scared enough, he did a bit
that if I would have done it, they would have
fired me on the spot. The other thing is an
amazing injustice that befell Willie Mays that nobody talks about. Okay,
(25:39):
So it's a Saturday afternoon, October nine, just forty three
years ago today, and Willie Mays has just been banned
from baseball because word has gotten out that he assigned
a contract to do promotional events for an Atlantic city casino,
and there's a press conference coming up on Monday. I know.
(26:01):
Try explaining this concept to any current sports fan and
now used to seeing retired players on TV, not just
telling them to bet on games, but telling them how
to bet and who to bet on. Plus even then
this made no sense. It was like three months after
Willie Mays had been inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame.
(26:23):
Three months now he's being banned for life for something
that today the Commissioner Baseball would send him a note
of congratulations and a paycheck. So anyway, nobody has done
an interview with Willie yet because he has been traveling,
and my phone rings and my little cubby hole at
United pres Internationals Radio Network three months that coincidentally was
(26:47):
how long my full time broadcasting career had been to
this point. And on the phone is maybe the top
baseball reporter of his day, Keith, it's Milt Richmond. This
man once reported in July that if the Milwaukee Braves
didn't start winning that they would fire their manner. Exactly
one year later, they didn't start winning, and exactly one
(27:09):
year later to the day, they fired their manager. That's
how good Milt Richmond was. Keith, write this phone number down.
It's William Mays home. He's expecting your call for an
interview about this banishment story. I squeaked yes, sir, Yes, sir,
and I went into one of our recording studios and
(27:30):
I dialed the number. And I will not recreate the
voice that I heard answer William Mays's phone, because while
doing this voice was once considered to be a staple
of American humor, even American humor written or performed by
the liberals. James Thurber short stories are full of this voice.
The voice is wildly racist. It is racist enough that
if today you heard an African American man do this voice,
(27:54):
you might still say still racist. It is a voice
similar to that of the actress Hattie McDaniel, who won
the Academy Award in nine for Gone with the Wind,
who was a world class blues singer, a top patriotic
fundraiser during World War Two, who played maids, housekeepers, and
(28:15):
maybe two hundred films. She also played one on a
famous radio show, and was paid so little that while
she was performing her role of the maid, she had
to keep working as a real maid. Anyway, I'm twenty
years old and I have to interview Willie Mays about
him getting banned from baseball. By the way, getting banned
(28:37):
from baseball at the same time they were banning Mickey
Mantle from baseball for doing promotional announcements for a casino.
And I call Willie Mays's number and I'm shaking like
a leaf and the phone is answered, and a gravelly
but feminine voice that sounded exactly like Haddie McDaniel says hello,
Mr Mays's residence. And I am a little throne by this,
(29:04):
but I power through and I explain who I am,
and she says, uh huh. And I say where I'm
calling from and she says uh huh. And I say,
Milt Richmond said Mr Mays was expecting me. And she
interrupts me and says, this is Willie. The Hattie McDaniel
like impersonation was done by William Mays. Now I do
not have this on tape. Silly me. When they said
(29:28):
you could never start recording before you got expressed permission
from the interviewee to start recording, I believed them anybody
else would have a tape of the phone being answered
and that impression done by William Mays. I'm afraid you
will have to take my word for it, because why
would I make this up? October and honestly, I still
(29:55):
haven't recovered from Mr Mays's residence. Now. The injustice about
William May's that nobody talks about this something else no
fan believes today. The US military used to draft Major
League Baseball players and NFL players and NBA players and
other athletes and send them into the service in the
(30:17):
middle of their seasons, in the primes of their careers,
even if there was no war in progress. Now they
only did it a couple of times after nine, and
usually that was thinly veiled racist political pressure, like when
they drafted Muhammad Ali in nineteen sixty six, when he
was heavyweight champion of the world at an activist Muslim
(30:41):
and twenty four years old, when everybody else who was
getting drafted was eighteen. Remember, but in nineteen fifty two
they drafted Willy Mays. William Mays had come up from
the minors the year before and led the New York
Giants from thirteen games back to the National League pennant
and was the kind of all around rural wind of
a player nobody had ever seen before. And on May
(31:02):
twenty nine, thirty four games into his second season boom,
he was drafted and inducted, and he missed the rest
of that season, and he missed all of the nineteen
fifty three season. They didn't draft Mickey Mantle, who also
broke in also in New York, also in nineteen fifty one,
and to be fair, Mickey Mantle had about four hundred
(31:24):
medical problems. But they also didn't draft nineteen fifty one
American League Rookie of the Year Gil McDougald of the Yankees,
who was a white guy. Or Walt Dropo, who was
the Rookie of the Year in nineteen fifty and was
a white guy. Or Roy Sievers who was the Rookie
of the Year in nineteen nine and it was a
white guy, or or or you get the point. Now.
(31:46):
Trying to calculate should have beens and would have been
in sports as a risky business, but you can get
a statistical approximation. If a player hits twenty homers in
his first season, then misses two years, then comes back
and hits forty one homers in his first year back,
you can extra appell eight from that that he probably
(32:06):
would have hit twenty seven homers in the first missing
year and thirty four in the second missing year. Your
numerical sequences twenty homers, then twenty seven, then thirty four,
then forty one. You have to take her a little
bit with it in Mays's case, because he did not
miss all of nineteen fifty two, just from June on,
(32:27):
and he had a slow start. He only hit four
homers in the first two months of nineteen fifty two,
so instead of twenty seven that year, maybe he only
hits twenty four. So a good guess as to how
many homers William Hays did not hit because he got
drafted and all the other guys didn't. The good guess
is all told, he missed the chance to hit fifty
(32:49):
four homers that he probably would have hit in real life.
William Mays finished with six hundred and sixty career home runs.
For most of the nineteen sixties, it was thought he
was the man who would challenge Babe Ruth's career home
run record, not Hank Aaron, but Willie Mays. William Mays
(33:10):
hits six hundred sixty homers, but if you give him
the fifty four more homers he might have hit if
he hadn't been so curiously drafted in nineteen fifty two,
William Mays finishes with seven hundred fourteen home runs, which
is exactly how many Babe Ruth hit seven hundred, so
(33:31):
no drafting and maybe in seventy two and nineteen seventy
three and nineteen seventy four. We are seeing Willie Mays
hit his seven hundredth home run and challenging Babe Ruth
and coming down the stretch and tying and breaking Babe
Ruth's record, and then right behind him, Henry Aaron hits
his seven hundred and fifteen homer and then his seven
(33:54):
hundred sixteenth homer to break the all time record held
by Willie Mays. Mr Maze's Residence. Countdown has come to
(34:19):
you from the studios of Alderman Broadcasting Empire World Headquarters
in the Sports Capsule Building in New York. Thank you
for listening. Here are the credits. Most of the music,
including our theme from Beethoven's Ninth, was arranged, produced and
performed by Brian Ray and John Philip Chanelle. They are
the Countdown musical directors. All orchestration and keyboards by John
(34:39):
Philip Chanelle, guitars, bass and drums by Brian Ray, produced
by t k O Brothers. Other Beethoven selections of it
arranged and performed by No Horns Allowed. The sports music
is the Alderman theme for Me ESPN two, and it
was written by Mitch Warren Davis courtesy of ESPN, Inc.
Musical comments from Nancy Fauss the best baseball stadium organist ever.
(35:01):
Our announcer today was my friend Kenny Maine. Everything else
this is pretty much my fault. So let's countdown for this,
the seven ord and forty nine day since Donald Trump's
first attempt at coup against the democratically elected government of
the United States. Arrest him now while we still can.
The next scheduled countdown tomorrow. Till then, I'm Keith all Reman.
(35:22):
Good morning, good afternoon, goodnight, and good luck. Countdown with
Keith ol Woman is a production of I heart Radio.
(35:42):
For more podcasts from I heart Radio, visit the i
heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Host
Keith Olbermann
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