June 25, 2024 • 48 mins
SERIES 2 EPISODE 199: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN
A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: Trump and his henchmen opened not one but two emergency exits for him to bail out of Thursday's debate against The President and blame it on Biden. And in doing so, his dumbest press secretary yet went on CNN and called Adolf Hitler "HILTER." H-I-L-T-E-R, Hilter.
I don't know if she should be fired for invoking HItler, or if she WILL be fired for getting the name of Trump's role model wrong.
It's Karoline Leavitt, the former centerfielder of the St. Anselm College softball team and the idiot who previously insisted the word 'damning' is correctly pronounced 'dammaning,' tried to filibuster CNN's Katie Hunt about how biased debate hosts Jake Tapper and Dana Bash really are. As Hunt cut first the answer and then the interview off, Leavitt insisted anybody could spend five minutes googling how many times Tapper had compared Trump to "Adolf Hilter." Bypassing the whole Hitler/Hilter stuff, "Damaning Hilter" Leavitt adopted the traditional pose of the Martyred Trump Huckster and did the rounds of the fascist media outlets. When she went on Steve Bannon’s outlet he said either CNN apologizes to her, or Trump should cancel the debate.
Hours later, Trump opened a second emergency chute, again demanding drug tests before the debate, as his personal quack Congressman Physician Prescribe Thyself Ronny Jackson wrote a long letter to the White House requesting such tests (and saying nothing about any stashes he may have left there).
Who knows if Trump really will bail. But he's got FOLAD (Fear Of Losing A Debate) all covered.
MEANWHILE: it's a long shot but I'm beginning to wonder if somebody on Jack Smith's side is laying the groundwork for indicting Trump anew - in New Jersey. There has been a second news leak in just three business days, about Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Espionage Scandal. Yesterday’s leak via ABC News did not resonate among American news media which can generally only BARELY handle one thing at a time – like the debate. The story itself – about Trump making an almost-secret special trip to Florida in July 2022 to make sure nobody had touched the documents he stole from the White House and hid from his own attorney - may not be much more than another one of those threads that you pull on and maybe it just comes off in your hand – or maybe it unravels the entirety of Trump’s size 62 suit. I don’t even think prosecutors know what they have here.
But he went down there two weeks after he had bankers' boxes shipped from Mar-a-Lago to the Bedminster Golf Course. They didn't contain Ivana.
B-Block (20:35) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: I have somehow forgotten, for years, maybe 35 years, the first and arguably the best joke I ever made about Trump. I'll correct that here. Not only are the British Conservatives on track for a historic loss in the July 4 election but two candidates, a party official, and a security guard have been caught allegedly wagering on which day their prime minister would select for Election Day! And the rare two-wins-in-a-row for Puck media guy Dylan Byers, carrying still more management water as he turns gutsy Washington Post reporting on the paper's ongoing management scandal into “a plan to dig for unflattering information.”
C-Block (27:20) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: How did I forget to tell you this one through the first 500 episodes of this podcast? How could I have missed the 24th anniversary last week? I'll just mention the principals: my mother, me, a former New York Yankees infielder named Chuck Knoblauch - and Babe Ruth.
.
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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. Trump's
latest official idiot press secretary has called Adolf Hitler quote
(00:27):
Adolph Hilter, and I don't know if this should get
her fired for being a historical idiot or if it
will get her fired for insulting Trump's role model. It
happened on CNN as the spokesperson Caroline Levitt began a
day in which elderly first offender Trump and his henchman
kicked open not one but two emergency exits to let
(00:50):
him back out of Thursday's debate and blameing President Biden
for it. Whether he actually chickens out or not, I'm
sure even Trump does not know his brain, after all,
is broken. Also, by the way, there's a small chance
Jack's is trying to get Trump indicted in New Jersey.
I'll get to that. Adolf Hilter first. Yesterday morning, the
(01:14):
dumbest of the idiot Trump spokespeople in an almost incomprehensible
descent from the stupidity of Sean Spicer, who now appears
to have been the Einstein of the group. Caroline Levitt,
the one who thinks the word is dammoning, went on
CNN and decided to try to fill the buster. Here
the host Casey Hunt with attacks on debate moderators Jake
Tapper and Dana Bash. Hunt threatened to cut the interview off.
(01:38):
Hunt called Levitt, who claims to be twenty five, ma'am,
She mammed her and then lost in the cross talk.
Listen carefully to Levitt. Trump's spokesperson claims that quote, it
takes someone five minutes to google Jake Tapper Donald Trump
to see that Jake Tapper has consistently compared Trump to
(01:59):
Adolf Hilter. What do you expect from Joe Biden.
Speaker 2 (02:05):
Well, first of all, it's so it takes someone five
minutes to google Jake Tapper Donald Trump to see that
Jake Tapper hes ma'am.
Speaker 1 (02:11):
Can christ is off for his interview? If colleidelf Hilter
sweet Jesus on Hockey skates, Trump's press secretary called him
Hilter christ is off for his interview. If colleidelf Hilter
like in the old Monty Python sketch. Back to the point,
Caroline damning Hilter. Levitt martyred herself on every right wing
(02:37):
outlet throughout the day yesterday when She went on Steve
Bannon's right wing outlet, the I'll be in jail next
Week outlet. Bannon said either CNN must apologize to her
and MAGA, or Trump should bail out of the debate.
Speaker 2 (02:52):
Cassie Hunt O June apology, CNN O Jun apology today,
and if we don't get that apology to Caroline Levitt
and to the Trump campaign to MAGA today, President Trump
should cancel this.
Speaker 1 (03:04):
Bannon also said the debate should be canceled because Joe
Biden is not going to be the Democratic nominee. He
also called CNN's Casey Hunt Cassie there, so put that
on the list right below Caroline Levitt calling Hitler Hilter. Well,
one thousand spaces below Caroline Levitt calling Hitler Hilter. But
(03:25):
you get the point. So that's the number one in
the event of full ad fear of losing a debate
Raking Glass in the emergency for Trump some rage against CNN,
which means he can cancel, which means he can say
he's canceled because CNN is sowing the tank for Biden
that had insulted his press secretary and wouldn't let her
(03:46):
talk about Adolph Hilter. Hours later, three forty two Eastern
Trump produced his second full lad emergency escape quote drug
test for Biden. I would come also immediately agree to one.
An oldie, but a goodie. Honestly, if you hired a
spokesperson who went on national television and thinks the name
(04:08):
is Hilter and said this, you needed the drug test
back then, Sparky, there has been a second news leak
(04:43):
about Trump's marri Lago espionage scandal, and I'm beginning to wonder,
and it is a long shot if this is not
some kind of laying of groundwork for a new prosecution
of Trump on the document's charges, on the espionage charges,
on the stealing secrets charges, but a new prosecution in
New Jersey. Yesterday's leak did not resonate among American news media,
(05:05):
which can generally only barely handle one thing at a time,
like the debate. The story itself about Trump making a
special trip to Florida to make sure nobody had touched
the documents he stole from the White House. That may
not be much more than another one of those threads
that you pull on and maybe the thread just comes
off in your hand, or maybe it unravels the entirety
(05:27):
of Trump's size sixty two suit. I don't even think
the prosecutors know exactly what they have here. But the
point is, in three business days there have now been
two leaks about the prosecution of Trump for violations of
the Espionage Act, and history teaches us that this almost
invariably means somebody inside is trying to make something happen
(05:49):
and somehow make this case come alive again. The first,
of course, was the leak that a year ago, a
senior judge in Florida had gently tried to get Trump's concierge,
Judge Eileen Cannon, to recuse herself from this case, and
when that did work, the senior federal judge, Warren Cannon
there would be held to pay if she stayed, and
(06:10):
that a year later, all the judges in the state
are still talking to each other about it, enough that
the New York Times got wind of the thing. The
new leak is that nearly two years ago, early July,
Trump stunned his own people by suddenly leaving New Jersey
for a crash trip to Florida in the middle of
the summer, and that his aid and chief marri A. Lago.
(06:33):
Igor Walt Nauda flooded the phones of staff down there
with texts about how Trump quote wants minimal people around
Mary Lago and keep it discreet and in case none
of that got the message across now to peppered the
messages with zippered mouthed emojis and shushing emojis. Apart from
(06:54):
the geography, Trump can't stand being in Florida in midsummer.
He never just goes there. Two years ago, his residence
at Mari Lago was being remodeled. Staffers did not think
there was any location at Mari Lago in which Trump
would be willing to stay. Yet, leaving an Alaska fascist
rally on July ninth, twenty twenty two, Trump directed he'd
(07:15):
be flown not back to New Jersey, but to Florida.
He stayed there, according to this report, on the down low,
for three days. Why did he go to literally check
all the boxes? ABC News, quoting sources familiar with the matter,
broke the story and says staffers say they were told
(07:35):
Trump wanted to make sure the boxes full of White
House documents, most of which were stolen and classified, were
still there. Remember this was in the middle of the
negotiations between Trump and the Government Records Office about trying
to get him to voluntarily return what he quote took
unquote before they had to go and search for it
(07:56):
and take it back involuntarily. It's important to consider the
timeline and where this new information fits. In January seventh,
twenty two, Trump returned fifteen boxes of documents. One hundred
and ninety seven of the documents had classification markings. May eleventh,
twenty twenty two, a grand jury hits Trump with a
subpoena for more material. It is convinced he is still concealing.
(08:20):
June one, twenty twenty two, Trump tells his attorney, Evan
Corkoran that all the remaining documents at marri Lago are
in a basement storage room. Also on June first, literally
minutes later, while Corkoran went to the basement and went
into the storage room to look for the documents, Trump
has the locks on a closet in his residence. Changed.
(08:43):
June three, twenty twenty two, the Feds come to pick
up the documents they're voluntarily giving back, and another Trump attorney,
Christina Bob, signs a document indicating that's it. That's all
we have also. June three to twenty twenty two, a
twenty year veteran Trump employee named Brian Butler says Walt
Nauda had him load a bunch of big white banker's
(09:05):
boxes that had been in mariy Lago and put them
on a Trump private jet headed for Trump's home at
the Bedminster Crapshack golf course and Cemetery in New Jersey.
Butler later reveals that when he saw photos of boxes
photos included in the indictment of Trump, he said, Hey,
I know those boxes. I move those boxes. June twenty two,
(09:28):
twenty twenty two, the surveillance video at mary Laga is subpoened,
and now the new information comes. In July tenth, eleventh,
and twelfth, twenty twenty two, Trump suddenly and almost secretly
goes to mari Lago to make sure his boxes are okay,
and as the tag to this. August eight, twenty twenty two,
(09:51):
the FBI executes its search warrant of mari Lago and
it finds eleven thousand, two hundred and eighty two more
government documents and photographs that Trump has stolen. One hundred
and three of them have classification markings. Eighteen of them
our top secret. So wait, after Trump claimed he'd given
everything back to the Feds, he ships a bunch of
(10:14):
boxes from mary Lago to New Jersey. Five weeks after that,
we now know for some reason, he goes back to
marri Lago from Alaska one of the hottest times of
the year, to check on the boxes that are still
at mary Lago that apparently only he knows still are
at Marrilago. Presumably he goes back there to check on
(10:37):
what's still in the boxes at mary Lago. More obstruction
of justice or could there be a geographical surprise in here.
It's obvious now that no matter what the standard operating
procedure at the Department of Justice might have been about
how Custom dictated to Jack Smith that he had to
indict Trump in Florida because the crime was not stealing
(10:59):
the secret documents, it was refusing to give back the
stolen secret documents. That Florida could result in either the
actual random assignment of the case to a compromise corrupt
judge appointed by Trump, or the corrupting of the randomization
process to make sure the case was assigned to her
and that they should have indicted Trump instead, or also
(11:22):
not in Florida, but in Washington and or New Jersey.
This newly discovered secret kind of crazy trip by Trump,
after he's hidden thousands of classified documents from his own attorney,
after he has shipped countless other boxes full of something
to the golf course in Jersey. This crazy secret newly
(11:44):
revealed by Trump back to Florida trip in July to
check on his boxes. This really really smells. Could be
it smells of Trump's ever surprising insanity and paranoia, or
it could be its smells of an opportunity for Jack
Smith to break the Eileen Canon gridlock by indicting Trump
in a new case that ties the private plane shipment
(12:07):
from mary Lago and Trump's July tenth secret trip to
Mari Lago and indicts him as a result in New Jersey.
That's if Biden is reelected and the cases continue, Because
if the cases continue after January twentieth of next year,
there's still the small matter of Aileen Cannons slow walking
(12:30):
them in Florida. And even if it is not all that,
even if those boxes he flew to Florida to check
on were just full of I don't know. I think
it's something good. Condolence cards from when Ivanna died. Yeah,
that's it. Condolence cards from you know what's her name,
(12:50):
Zex's wife person her death. Between this story and last
week's leak about the warning to Eileen Canon of judge
not lest you be judged, somebody, somebody is clearly trying
to awake the Trump espionage trial from its coma. I
would say, to get it to come out of its
(13:12):
grave at the Bedminster golf Course, but that probably would
be in bad taste, like that ever stopped me before.
Briefly back to the debate, but the usually on the
losing side. Political consultant Liz Mayer is selling debate bingo
(13:37):
cards a pack of thirty for five dollars, which I
guess would be a business strategy and a business model
if she hadn't just tweeted one of the bingo cards
out where you could screenshot it and print it at
home for free. There are twenty five squares, and most
of the events on the squares are pretty mundane or hackneyed,
where they say more about the writer than the debaters.
(13:58):
Biden mentions, Trump indictments, no kidding, Trump says, black voters
empathize with his allege criminality. Why alleged he's convicted on
thirty four counts plus at the company fraud case in
three e Gene Carrol cases. Ah is Mayor's nominally a Republican,
but there are a couple of laughs on this. The
center square on the bingo card is Millennia shows up.
(14:22):
There's also anyone talks about sharks and question about Missus
Alito's flags and best of all, your dark horse big
money payoff quote Trump farts un quote one of the
twenty five squares ought to say. Debate actually happens, and
(14:47):
one way or another, there is debate counterprogramming. Robert F.
Kennedy Junior's running mate, Nikelle Nicole Many Nichols Nicole self
funding a hand has confirmed their campaign will be holding
its own debate at approximately nine o'clock Eastern Thursday night
(15:07):
and promises a few surprises. Kennedy is staging his own
debate with only one candidate himself present. Oh oh, I
get it. Robert F. Kennedy Junior is going to debate
against reality. A reminder that I'll be live on YouTube
(15:31):
for analysis. In a special live video edition of the
Countdown with Keith Alderman podcast Thursday night. Sounds like about
ten thirty pm Eastern or or Trump won't show up
and blame Biden, and maybe we can talk about that live.
We really haven't discussed the backup plan. We will not
be talking about Adolph Hilter. Also of interest here, By
(15:55):
the way, Trump would never make that mistake, would he?
Also of interest here on an all new edition of Countdown.
It was the greatest joke I ever did at Trump's expense.
It's thirty four or thirty five years old, and until
this past weekend I had forgotten it. So at one
end of the spectrum, I apologize for making you wait
so long to hear it. And on the other end
(16:17):
of the spectrum, I apologize because I'm about to reuse
material from early in the Bush presidency. The first Bush
that's next. This is Countdown. This his Countdown with Keith Oberman.
Oberman stell ahead of us on this all new edition
(17:00):
of Countdown. There's a reason that I chose, of all
of them, Larry David's impression of the Yankee Stadium announcing
all time great Bob Sheppard as the intro for this segment.
June seventeenth, two thousand, so I missed the anniversary by
a week for some reason. I have not told you
this story previously. The people involved in today's new edition
(17:24):
of Things I promised not to tell former New York
Yankees second Baseman Chuck Knoblock, my mother and Babe Ruth
stand by. But first, there are still more new idiots
to talk about. The daily roundup of the miss Grants,
morons and Dunning Kruger effects specimens who constitute two day's
(17:45):
worst persons in the world world the brons me. I
don't know why it took me so long to remember
this or to bring it back. I think it was
my first on air joke and insult about Trump, probably
my best, and it's either thirty four or thirty five
years old, with the irony that even then, in nineteen
(18:06):
eighty nine or nineteen ninety, Trump could not have gotten
up on a bicycle if they'd used a forklift and
two winches. For those two years, Trump sponsored an attempt
to make an American version of the Tour de France's
bicycle race work. It was called the Tour de Trump.
I showed highlights of the race on Channel two in
(18:30):
Los Angeles, either in eighty nine or ninety and I
said the race is called the Tour de Trump because
it's ten laps around Donald Trump's ego. The runner up worser.
I mean, that's pretty good. I was just a kid
(18:50):
of thirty at the time. The runner up worser the
United Kingdom's Conservative Party, which is not only expected to
get blown out of office on July fourth in a landslide,
but which is the only known major party in any
Western representative government to also have an apparent gambling problem.
Two of its candidates in the July fourth election and
(19:12):
one of the close aids to the Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak,
have been investigated for placing bets on which date Sunak
would choose on which to hold the snap election. One
of the candidates, Lauras Sanders, the Member of Parliament for Bristol,
is married to Sunak's campaign chief, and she put a
(19:33):
bet down, a legal bet down, on when they were
actually going to have the election. Hubby was the campaign
chief to the Prime Minister who would select it, so
the campaign chief and the close aid might have known
when Sunak was going to call the election. Campaign chief
Tony Lee has also taken a leave of absence after
(19:53):
it turned out a police officer was also arrested for gambling.
When it was revealed that cop was on Sunak's bodyguard detail,
he put a bet down on what date it was
going to be, And there was another candidate for office
who did the same thing. I mean, it's one thing
to lose and get your party thrown out of office
after fourteen years, but for people around you to try
to cash in a few hundred bob by betting on
(20:17):
which day you're going to lose and get thrown out
of office. Also to reprise an old Monty Python joke
with Sanders being investigated for gambling, the Conservatives won't hold Bristols.
Google it, it's worth your time, and two Monty Python
throwbacks in one episode of the show, mister Hilter, he
(20:37):
won't hold Bristols either, but our winner the worst. Remember
Dylan Byers, the puck news media guy through whom executives
everywhere get the coverage they would be happy to pay for.
I mentioned last Friday that a year ago he had
gratuitously trashed Howard Fineman's work as quote garbage, and then
after Howard died Buyers called him a giant and said
(21:01):
his funeral was a hero's farewell. Buyers may have topped
himself in this continuing Washington Post scandal over the corrupt
new British publisher and editor. And by the way, the
editor turns out, he's not leaving Blighty to go to
DC after all. Buyers wrote of this stuff at the
Washington Post quote inside the Post coup. Earlier this month,
(21:23):
journalists on the Foreign desk discussed a plan to dig
for unflattering information on their new publisher. Buyers has gotten
fried NonStop for having written that, and with total justification.
Post reporters have been, you know, reporting on a scandal
(21:43):
with the added degree of difficulty that the story is
in their own building and their bosses have tried to
bury that scandal and that story in this idiot, Buyers
can't stop fellating management long enough to think, even for
just a moment, that they deserve applause for their journalism
and courage and the meetings they've had to share, the
tips they have and how they're going to cover this story.
(22:05):
He calls that quote a plan to dig for unflattering information. Heh, boy,
that's called journalism. As my friend of half a century,
Will Bunch wrote, just wait until Dylan learns about the
Washington Post reporters who discussed a plan to dig for
unflattering information on Richard Nixon. Dylan, I'd also like to
(22:26):
point out that if any investigative reporters feel the need
to dig for unflattering information on him, all they have
to do is read his articles Buyers two days Worse,
Parson and I told this story over the weekend to somebody,
(22:55):
and it occurred to me for the first time on
this all new edition of Countdown that I had never
told this story on this podcast nearly two year years
of it, and I have not told what may be
the most famous story about me in sports anyway, to
the number one story on the Countdown at a story
(23:16):
that begins a little bit in the past nineteen thirty four.
I was not there for that part of it. But
in nineteen thirty four, my mother, who was five years old,
was sent over to her uncle's house or apartment for
the day. My grandparents needed the day off from her
for some reason, and I'm not sure what it was,
(23:38):
but her uncle, Willie, my great uncle Willie, took her
to Yankee Stadium along with a kid that he knew
who he used to push to Yankee Stadium because the
young man was in a wheelchair, and often before the
games in nineteen thirty four, the last season that the
legendary Babe Ruth played for the New York Yankees, Babe
Ruth would see this kid in a wheelchair and consistent
(24:00):
with the times, would come over and rub his back
for good luck, which seems to us to be very crass,
and also, if you're just looking at it from a
superstition point of view, how in the world would that
be good luck in any event. So one day, for
the first time, when she was five years old and
just turned five years old, her birthday was in June,
(24:21):
she goes with her uncle Willie and the boy in
the wheelchair to Yankee Stadium. They don't have the money
to go to the games. It's the middle of the depression,
but they live in the Bronx. They're a few blocks
away from the stadium, and they go to say hi
to the players on the way in, and sure enough,
Babe Ruth says hello to them and asks my mother,
(24:42):
at the age of five, what her name is now.
Her name was Marie, but because her mother's name was
also Marie. The family often referred to her as Babe.
I heard my grandmother referred to my mother as babe
when my mother was forty five years old. It was
rather extraordinary. In any events, she says, my name is Babe, Babe,
(25:05):
and Babe Ruth was so delighted by this that she
went back inside and got her a brand new baseball,
which he gave to my mother. The first day she
went to Yankee Stadium, she met Babe Ruth. She talked
to Babe Ruth, and Babe Ruth gave her a baseball.
Needless to say, in the ensuing sixty six years that
(25:25):
my mother was a Yankee fan, nothing of interest ever
happened to her at Yankee Stadium. She would eventually see
the Yankees win a couple of World Series, and eventually
she saw her own son reporting from the field after
the World Series games on the World Series broadcast. But
nothing like getting a baseball from Babe Ruth on your
(25:47):
first day as a fan and meeting Babe Ruth occurred
to her. There was a brawl once between Red Sox
and Yankees fans. I recall when I was ten or
eleven years old, beer was thrown, and she may have
gotten a few drops of beer on the shoulder of
her dress. I seem to recall that happening. That was it.
(26:07):
Nothing else of interest, Certainly, nothing difficult or untoward happened
to my mother at Yankee Stadium until the middle of
June in the year two thousand. The Yankees on that
Saturday afternoon had a second baseman named Chuck Knoblock, who
had been a great star for them in an extraordinary
addition to their team and set off the process by
(26:29):
which they won three consecutive World Series and four in
a span of five years, and almost five in a
span of six years. In any event, Knoblock unfortunately had
an issue throwing the ball to first base. Many second basemen,
many baseball players have developed this. It's somewhat consistent with
the idea of the yips in golf, where you can't
(26:52):
sink the putt even though it's two feet away. For
baseball players, it turns out to generally be an expression
of emotional distress. Your mind is sabotaging the most fundamental
thing in the game. It's stopping you from throwing the ball,
and the easier the play is, the more familiar you
are with it, the more difficult it suddenly becomes. It
(27:12):
happened at Chuck naw Block. It happened to another second
baseman named Steve Sachs, and they've all turned out. And
there was a pitcher minor league pitcher who became a
writer named Pat Jordan, and they all turned out. And
another one named Rick ang Keel, a pitcher for the
Saint Louis Cardinals, all of whom suddenly lost the ability
to throw the ball in the easiest way possible, in
(27:32):
the way in which they had the most control, couldn't
throw the ball over the baseman's head, over the catcher's
head into the stands. Well, that's where we joined Chuck
naw Block. As it later turned out, Chuck naw Block's father,
who had seen every one of his games from little league,
who had gone to all his high school games, who
had traveled the country when Chuck naw Block played in
(27:53):
the minor leagues, who'd gone to all the road games
of the Minnesota Twins and the Yankees. Chuck naw Block's
father had Alzheimer's disease and was in the final stages
of it, and sometime early in the two thousand season
lost the ability to recognize the Yankee second basement Chuck
now Block. Well. That accelerated a problem that would later
or shortly thereafter make Chuck now Block an x second Basement.
(28:17):
And on this day in June of two thousand, I
was completing the second year of a two year, not
particularly happy stint as the host of Fox Baseball Game
of the Week on the Fox Television network. I was
based in Los Angeles, and every Saturday, I spent the
whole day from six o'clock in the morning till six
o'clock at night in a studio in Los Angeles that
(28:40):
was kept down about thirty six degrees. Not my choice.
I had to wear a winter coat. Sometimes, when we
weren't on the air, we would do a pregame show, which,
because of the timing difference, started at ten am, and
they liked to rehearse their pregame shows madness. All the
good lines had been used and made stupid and not
funny by the time we got on the air. They
would rehearse this show two times, three times. An awful experience.
(29:04):
In my co was one of the worst persons in
the world, a man named Steve Lyons who made me
look like somebody who never complained once in his life.
That's the only good aspect of working with Steve Lyons.
He complained an average of three times a minute. All right,
So Lyons and I are there doing the game of
the week, and that day the broadcast was from Los
Angeles and it was a four pm Eastern start one
(29:26):
pm Pacific time, So the game and the show started
a little bit late, and we get there, started the
Dodgers and whoever. It was at Dodgers Stadium with Joe
Buck and Tim McCarver as the announcers and me in
the studio, and Lyons goes away and he won't be
back to the postgame show, so everybody's happier. Somewhere in
the middle of the game, I'm watching the bank of
(29:48):
televisions that's showing all the other games in progress, and
the Chicago White Sox are playing at Yankee Stadium in
New York. This is the remodeled Yankee Stadium that operated
between the year's nineteen seventy six and two thousand and eight.
I essentially grew up in Yankee Stadi, the original original
Yankee Stadium, and then this modified, reconstructed one that reopened
(30:09):
in nineteen seventy six, and I knew not only every
nook and cranny of the ballpark, but I knew every
camera angle, And we had had since nineteen seventy two
my family Yankee season tickets, which I had been paying
for since about nineteen ninety two, even though I did
not live in New York. They were for my mother,
who went forty fifty times a year. So by this point,
(30:30):
my mother has been to since that first game when
she was greeted by Babe Ruth at the front door
of Yankee Stadium. Here, welcome to your future. Here's a
baseball for me, Babe Ruth. She has been to at
least a thousand games. She went to more games in
her life than I have, actually literally true. And she
is seated in the seats, in our seats, which have
(30:52):
been the same one box forty seven E since the
stadium reopened in nineteen seventy six, and this is the
year two thousand, so she is in essence, celebrating her
twenty fifth anniversary in those seats. The Chicago White Sox
are playing the New York Yankees. They would rout the
Yankees that day, and the Yankees were in the middle
of a funk in the middle of the season, do not,
(31:13):
in small part to Chuck nw Block's sudden inability to
throw the ball successfully from second base to first base.
He would throw it past the first basement, over the
first basement, he would drop the ball as he threw it,
it would fly out of his hand. And of course
later it proved this was a psychological protest from deep
within his mind against playing baseball anymore. It was too
(31:33):
painful because his father was so sick, and his father
was so intimately connected to the game. So now Greg
Norton of the Chicago White Sox hits a fairly tough
play towards Chuck naw Block, grounds the ball to the
right of the mound. Chuck naw Block has to charge in,
pick the ball up bare handed, and while slightly off balance,
(31:53):
throw it backwards towards the Yankee first basement. Tino Martinez,
not an impossible play, and not an impossible play for
a good second basement, as Chuck naw Block had been.
But under the circumstance, nance is a disaster in the making,
which we then saw unfold. Chuck Nablock throws the ball,
it leaves his hand, not straight, but an angle to
(32:15):
the right of about I don't know, fifty sixty degrees.
The ball shoots out of his hand and goes nowhere
near first base. It goes into the stands behind first base,
and in fact, it goes to box forty seven E,
where my mother is seated with my high school friend
and his two kids. And my mother is sitting where
(32:36):
the incoming throw has just been launched. I am seeing
this unfold on a monitor, one of like nine with
different games going on. But I know Yankee Stadium, and
as I said, the camera angles intimately, so I know
immediately where the ball based on where it left now
Block's hand, where it has likely gone, and I say
that may have hit my mother. They then cut to
(32:58):
a shot of a woman being attended to and I
say that hit my mother and everybody in the room
because they assume I'm joking, Because what are the odds
that while I am in the studio hosting the game
of the week and doing the highlights of the games
in progress. You know, when they say, now let's go
back to the studio for a Fox game break, I'm
(33:18):
the guy doing the game breaks. That was my job
for two years, and sure enough, I say, that's my mother,
and everybody laughs, and then they cut to a tight
shot of a woman holding her head with a little
blood and her glasses have been broken, and she looks
kind of dazed and confused and they are leading her away,
and I went, that's mom. And now I call her
on my cell phone and you see her while she
(33:40):
is on camera on the local broadcast of the Yankee
White Sox game. You see her answering the phone. That's
when they stopped laughing in the studio. That's when they
realized it was really my mother. So I talked to
her and she said, I'm okay, it broke my glasses.
They think maybe I should go home. And Georgia and
George's kids they want to go home after that, and
(34:00):
I said, did you get the ball showing where my
level of concern? No, I'm sorry. I was like, oh,
for Christ's sake, mom, So she's fine, And otherwise I
wouldn't have asked that question. Probably anyway, now we're predicting
this sort of situation, what do we do with it?
And is it going to be a controversy? And I said,
we have to put the highlight on and I have
(34:21):
to mention that it's my mother. It's not like we're
not going to show. If it with some other woman,
we'd show it, wouldn't we It would be the biggest
story in baseball today. We have to do it, and
I just happen to know who it is. So we
throw to or we are thrown to buy. Joe Buck
and Tim McCarver t I'm for a Fox game break.
Here's Keaith Olderman in the studio, White Sox and Yankees.
(34:43):
Joe and Chuck now blocks throwing problem is now getting
personally picks up the Greg Norton bounder from the White
Sox Yankees in the Bronx and throws it into the
stands where right on the edit it hits my mother.
Mom's okay, I called her. She's a gamer. She'll be
back tomorrow. She just got her lens is broken. Joe,
(35:05):
Tim back to you. Silence from Dodger Stadium. In the broadcast,
you just hear like birds in the background from Dodger Stadium.
For the first time in their lives. Joe Buck and
Tim McCarver have between them nothing to say. I don't
know what to say, says Joe Buck is Keith kidding?
Is that one of Keith jokes? Says Tim, who was
(35:26):
an old friend of mine, Keith, are you still there?
I'm still here, Timmy, Are you kidding? Why would I
kid about something like that? Was that really your mother?
What are the odds against that? And I said, well,
she's been going to game since nineteen thirty four, that
first game she ever went to, Babe Ruth gave her
a baseball. Nothing bad has happened in the ensuing years,
So I'd say the odds were probably about six to
(35:47):
five in favor. And he goes, I guess you're right.
I can't believe that was Keith's mother that got hit
by the throw by Chuck no Block. Well, give us
an update later on how she is. We'll do, Tim. So,
now the story is out. It's my mother who got
hit by the balloon seventeenth eighteenth, one of the two days,
(36:09):
the Saturday of that weekend two thousand. Only the kind
of thing that could happen to my mother. But again, truly,
the odds were not that impossible. The ball is thrown
behind first base. Here's a woman who's gone to an
average of forty to fifty games a year in that
stadium for twenty five years. The odds are pretty good
it's going to hit her. And if you're getting meta
(36:29):
and like, what are the universal odds, what are the
metaphysical odds that she gets hit? As I said, nothing
of interest has happened to her since nineteen thirty four,
she's due in any event. Just to add to this,
two of my best friends in the world worked for
the Yankees. One was the manager, Joe Tory. The other
was the head of publicity, Rick Sarone. Not the catcher,
(36:51):
Rick Serone, but the head of publicity, Rick Serone. So
I call Rick Sarone in the office at Yankee Stadium
in the press box, because I figure he's already figured
this out and I want to give him a heads
up that I had no choice but to mention that
it was my mother, since it was my broadcast. I
call him up. I said, did you see the now
block throw? Now? I heard about it. I've been here
(37:12):
in the back. I didn't see who it hit. I said,
do you have any idea who it was? He said no,
Why would I have any idea who it was? I said,
why would I be calling you? I don't know, Keith?
Why would you be calling me. I said, how many
times have you sat behind first base with me and
somebody else? And he goes, wait a minute, what are
you saying? I said, how many times did you and
(37:34):
I go as teenage friends in the seventies and sat
behind first bait? And he goes, oh god, no, I said, yep.
He said that hit your mother. I said yep, And
he said, First off, he said, did you get the ball?
And I went, no, she didn't. Oh for crying out loud,
Well what you didn't say anything about it, did you?
I went, of course, I said something they showed her
(37:54):
on your broadcast. And he goes, oh god no. I said,
what other choice did I have? He goes, no, you're right,
You're right, all right. I better get out there. We're
going to start getting phone calls about this, if we
haven't already. Thanks for the heads up, so now. The
next day, the newspapers of New York front and back
page of the New York Post, the New York Daily News,
and the Long Island Paper News Day front and back
(38:16):
page some reference to my mother. Photographs in the Daily
News of her being led away. Chuck Nablock hits sportscaster's mother,
and the day after that they're still telling the story,
and there are wire stories, and it is everywhere, And
of course we mentioned it maybe once or twice an
hour on Fox Sports and on cable and on broadcast.
(38:38):
So now Mom is a celebrity. And I must confess
to you. Mom really liked being a celebrity. Mom was
appreciative of my success in my career. But Mom had
wanted to be a ballerina. Apparently. She told me that
I don't really buy it, but that was her story.
And she was a little jealous, resentful, just in a
(39:02):
manageable way most of the time. But I don't want
to bore you with my developmental problems. Emotionally, Mom was
a little jealous of not being in the spotlight, and
she gloried in this, among other things. Mom wound up
being interviewed on the pregame show for the next Saturday's
(39:22):
Game of the Week, and for various reasons, we could
not do a live remote interview with her. So we
sat down and I recorded the questions in Los Angeles
and on the phone asked her the questions while she
was in our ancestral home in the suburbs of New York. City,
and Mom didn't really have any good answers, So I said,
(39:43):
why don't you just repeat the answers that I give you.
I'll give you good snarky answers, real quick ones that
we can do this and you can make fun of me. Okay.
She had a little trouble delivering the lines, and we
actually did several takes. So if anybody wants to call
the FCC and say that interview was not what it
seemed in two thousand, go right ahead. I don't know
what you're going to do to us about it, but gorite. Aha.
(40:04):
There were some elements of fakery to this, like I
wrote her answers for her, but there was one answer
to one of my six or seven questions that she
gave completely authentically and we did not need a second take.
And this may tell you the nature of the complicated
relationship between me and my mother and baseball and Chuck Knoblock.
(40:25):
I said, are you surprised that everybody's so interested in this?
And I wrote for her as an answer, No, but
I'm surprised they keep mentioning you. She had no trouble
giving that line whatsoever. She really bought into that answer.
You could see from the tape when I eventually saw
the tape that she was smiling during that one. So
(40:46):
in any event, Mom becomes a celebrity for several months.
This is June of two thousand. Come October, when the
Yankees and Mets played in the World Series and she
was in the stands number one. My employers had given
her a Fox Sports cap to where and they repeatedly
showed her during the games of the World Series at
(41:06):
Yankee Stadium. So Mom became a celebrity and became very
well known for getting hit in the head with Chuck
Knoblock's throw. Joe Tory, who I mentioned, was an old
friend of mine, the first person I ever interviewed in television,
and a colleague in local sports in television in LA
when I worked there in the eighties and nineties. Joe
Tory called me up right afterwards and asked how she was,
(41:27):
and I said, she's fine. How's your second basement? He
acts like he got hit in the head with a
throw too. He's very worried. You think he did it deliberately,
And I said, Joe, you have to tell him that
I'm confident he did not do it deliberately. If he
was aiming at my mother, he would have missed. Joe
Tory laughs, And later he tells me he told Noblock that,
(41:48):
and it was no Block's first laugh of the year.
All right, So moving ahead on this story, it continued
for many years, for at least ten years, Once or
twice a month, somebody in baseball would say, was it
your mother who got got hit by Chuck Knoblock's throw? Memorably,
in the year two thousand and five, the year that
(42:10):
the Hall of Famer Randy Johnson, the big left hander
of the mostly of the Arizona Diamondbacks and the Seattle
Mariners in the Montreal Expos. He pitched one season for
the Yankees, and the Yankees got blown out in the
playoffs that year. And before the last game of the season,
and this is one of my favorite moments in the
history of baseball. Before that last game, I walk out
(42:33):
into the Yankee dugout and there is al Lighter who
was a friend of mine then and now he is
telling the story of my mother and Chuck Knoblock to
two other Yankee pitchers, Scott Proctor and Randy Johnson. And
I walk in and he goes and then Alderman's mother
gets hit in the head and he says on he's
doing the highlights on TV on the game of the week,
(42:55):
and he said, and I walk out, and he goes,
did you hear that I was telling the story about you?
And I said, well, only the last couple of steps.
This is a coincidence. Finish the story yourself. So now
I got the three of them, and they're all in hysterics.
Yankees lose that last game of the playoffs. I don't know,
it seemed like it was one hundred and fifty to nothing.
And I go into the clubhouse after the game to
say goodbye for the off season to the few players
(43:17):
that I knew on the team, including Al Lighter, and
to Randy Johnson and Randy Johnson in his own deep
voiced way, thank good to see you have a good winter.
And he leaves with his little carrying case with his
little wheels on it and looks like a toy. He's
six foot ten and he has a roller case designed
for maybe his daughter. It looks like a toy. And
(43:39):
he leaves, and about five minutes later, I see the
door to the Yankee clubhouse open up, and in walk
Randy Johnson, and he comes over to me and he said,
I forgot to say something. I was already out to
my car, and I thought I better come back in
and say goodbye to Keith and tell him, I mean,
this was a really bad week this last week, as
we've been losing and the season ended, and I just
(44:00):
wanted to say that telling that story about your mother
really was the highlight of the whole thing and made
me smile for the only time this month. So thank you.
Have a great winter. So that's my mother and Randy Johnson,
five years after she got hit in the head with
a throw by Chuck Knoblock the second basement of the Yankees,
one of the more remarkable moments in the history of
(44:22):
Major League Baseball, at least as it pertains to the
Olderman family, and a kind of bookend. Mom stopped going
to the games about two thousand and five. She physically
could not do it, but she had a good run
as a Yankee fan of about seventy seasons that essentially
bookended by getting hit in the head with a throw
that made her famous within baseball circles and began with
(44:44):
her being handed to baseball at her first game ever
by Babe Ruth, who was charmed by the fact that
my mother's nickname was Babe punchline to this to me,
is one of the most avid collectors of sports memorabilia
and particularly game used baseballs. I didn't get either of
those baseballs from my mom. I've done all the damage
(45:18):
I can do here without hitting somebody in the head
with a baseball. Thank you for listening. Countdown. Musical directors
Brian Ray and John Phillip Schanel arranged, produced, and performed
most of our music. Mister Ray was on the guitars,
bass and drums, and mister Shanelle handle orchestration and keyboards
produced by Tko Brothers. Other music, including some of the
Beethoven compositions, were arranged and performed by the group No
(45:41):
Horns Allowed Sports music is the Old Woman theme from
ESPN two, written by Mitch Warren Davis courtesy of ESPN, Inc.
And that reminds me the story is ongoing with my
mother and the baseball. In twenty and eighteen, I did
play by play of the New York Yankees New York
Mets game at Yankee Stadium, and needless to say, we
(46:03):
showed the highlight of my mother getting hit in the
head with the baseball thrown by Chuck Nablock, to the
delight of my fellow announcers Tim Kirkchin and Eddie Perez,
who could not stop laughing about it for about an
inning and a half. Mom is eternally part of baseball history.
This would please her greatly a little bit more if
(46:26):
my name were not connected to it. Our satirical and
musical comments are by Nancy Fauss. The best baseball stadium
organists ever was her. Chicago White Sox were there, although
she was not. Our announcer was my friend Larry David.
Everything else was pretty much my fault, Larry David, who's
mentioned the Yankees once and again and with whom I've
also conversed about my mother getting hit in the head
(46:47):
with a throw from Chuck Knoblock. Let's countdown for this
to one hundred and thirty fourth day until the twenty
twenty four presidential election, and vice presidential candidate Chuck Knoblock
has just now and sixty eighth day since convicted felon
Donald Trump's first attempted coup against the Democrat radically elected
government of the United States use the July eleventh sentencing hearing,
(47:09):
use the mental health system, use presidential immunity if it happens,
to stop him from doing it again while we still can.
A reminder will be live again on YouTube after the
debate Thursday night. Join me and send your link to
this podcast to somebody who does not already listen. Remember
(47:32):
it is free. The next scheduled countdown is tomorrow. Bulletins
is the news warrants till the next one. I'm Keith Oldreman.
Good morning, good afternoon, goodnight, avoid getting hit in the baseball,
and good luck to call adelf Filter Countdown with Keith
(47:58):
Oldreman is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio,
visit the iHeartRadio, your Apple, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
get your podcasts.
Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. Trump's
latest official idiot press secretary has called Adolf Hitler quote
(00:27):
Adolph Hilter, and I don't know if this should get
her fired for being a historical idiot or if it
will get her fired for insulting Trump's role model. It
happened on CNN as the spokesperson Caroline Levitt began a
day in which elderly first offender Trump and his henchman
kicked open not one but two emergency exits to let
(00:50):
him back out of Thursday's debate and blameing President Biden
for it. Whether he actually chickens out or not, I'm
sure even Trump does not know his brain, after all,
is broken. Also, by the way, there's a small chance
Jack's is trying to get Trump indicted in New Jersey.
I'll get to that. Adolf Hilter first. Yesterday morning, the
(01:14):
dumbest of the idiot Trump spokespeople in an almost incomprehensible
descent from the stupidity of Sean Spicer, who now appears
to have been the Einstein of the group. Caroline Levitt,
the one who thinks the word is dammoning, went on
CNN and decided to try to fill the buster. Here
the host Casey Hunt with attacks on debate moderators Jake
Tapper and Dana Bash. Hunt threatened to cut the interview off.
(01:38):
Hunt called Levitt, who claims to be twenty five, ma'am,
She mammed her and then lost in the cross talk.
Listen carefully to Levitt. Trump's spokesperson claims that quote, it
takes someone five minutes to google Jake Tapper Donald Trump
to see that Jake Tapper has consistently compared Trump to
(01:59):
Adolf Hilter. What do you expect from Joe Biden.
Speaker 2 (02:05):
Well, first of all, it's so it takes someone five
minutes to google Jake Tapper Donald Trump to see that
Jake Tapper hes ma'am.
Speaker 1 (02:11):
Can christ is off for his interview? If colleidelf Hilter
sweet Jesus on Hockey skates, Trump's press secretary called him
Hilter christ is off for his interview. If colleidelf Hilter
like in the old Monty Python sketch. Back to the point,
Caroline damning Hilter. Levitt martyred herself on every right wing
(02:37):
outlet throughout the day yesterday when She went on Steve
Bannon's right wing outlet, the I'll be in jail next
Week outlet. Bannon said either CNN must apologize to her
and MAGA, or Trump should bail out of the debate.
Speaker 2 (02:52):
Cassie Hunt O June apology, CNN O Jun apology today,
and if we don't get that apology to Caroline Levitt
and to the Trump campaign to MAGA today, President Trump
should cancel this.
Speaker 1 (03:04):
Bannon also said the debate should be canceled because Joe
Biden is not going to be the Democratic nominee. He
also called CNN's Casey Hunt Cassie there, so put that
on the list right below Caroline Levitt calling Hitler Hilter. Well,
one thousand spaces below Caroline Levitt calling Hitler Hilter. But
(03:25):
you get the point. So that's the number one in
the event of full ad fear of losing a debate
Raking Glass in the emergency for Trump some rage against CNN,
which means he can cancel, which means he can say
he's canceled because CNN is sowing the tank for Biden
that had insulted his press secretary and wouldn't let her
(03:46):
talk about Adolph Hilter. Hours later, three forty two Eastern
Trump produced his second full lad emergency escape quote drug
test for Biden. I would come also immediately agree to one.
An oldie, but a goodie. Honestly, if you hired a
spokesperson who went on national television and thinks the name
(04:08):
is Hilter and said this, you needed the drug test
back then, Sparky, there has been a second news leak
(04:43):
about Trump's marri Lago espionage scandal, and I'm beginning to wonder,
and it is a long shot if this is not
some kind of laying of groundwork for a new prosecution
of Trump on the document's charges, on the espionage charges,
on the stealing secrets charges, but a new prosecution in
New Jersey. Yesterday's leak did not resonate among American news media,
(05:05):
which can generally only barely handle one thing at a time,
like the debate. The story itself about Trump making a
special trip to Florida to make sure nobody had touched
the documents he stole from the White House. That may
not be much more than another one of those threads
that you pull on and maybe the thread just comes
off in your hand, or maybe it unravels the entirety
(05:27):
of Trump's size sixty two suit. I don't even think
the prosecutors know exactly what they have here. But the
point is, in three business days there have now been
two leaks about the prosecution of Trump for violations of
the Espionage Act, and history teaches us that this almost
invariably means somebody inside is trying to make something happen
(05:49):
and somehow make this case come alive again. The first,
of course, was the leak that a year ago, a
senior judge in Florida had gently tried to get Trump's concierge,
Judge Eileen Cannon, to recuse herself from this case, and
when that did work, the senior federal judge, Warren Cannon
there would be held to pay if she stayed, and
(06:10):
that a year later, all the judges in the state
are still talking to each other about it, enough that
the New York Times got wind of the thing. The
new leak is that nearly two years ago, early July,
Trump stunned his own people by suddenly leaving New Jersey
for a crash trip to Florida in the middle of
the summer, and that his aid and chief marri A. Lago.
(06:33):
Igor Walt Nauda flooded the phones of staff down there
with texts about how Trump quote wants minimal people around
Mary Lago and keep it discreet and in case none
of that got the message across now to peppered the
messages with zippered mouthed emojis and shushing emojis. Apart from
(06:54):
the geography, Trump can't stand being in Florida in midsummer.
He never just goes there. Two years ago, his residence
at Mari Lago was being remodeled. Staffers did not think
there was any location at Mari Lago in which Trump
would be willing to stay. Yet, leaving an Alaska fascist
rally on July ninth, twenty twenty two, Trump directed he'd
(07:15):
be flown not back to New Jersey, but to Florida.
He stayed there, according to this report, on the down low,
for three days. Why did he go to literally check
all the boxes? ABC News, quoting sources familiar with the matter,
broke the story and says staffers say they were told
(07:35):
Trump wanted to make sure the boxes full of White
House documents, most of which were stolen and classified, were
still there. Remember this was in the middle of the
negotiations between Trump and the Government Records Office about trying
to get him to voluntarily return what he quote took
unquote before they had to go and search for it
(07:56):
and take it back involuntarily. It's important to consider the
timeline and where this new information fits. In January seventh,
twenty two, Trump returned fifteen boxes of documents. One hundred
and ninety seven of the documents had classification markings. May eleventh,
twenty twenty two, a grand jury hits Trump with a
subpoena for more material. It is convinced he is still concealing.
(08:20):
June one, twenty twenty two, Trump tells his attorney, Evan
Corkoran that all the remaining documents at marri Lago are
in a basement storage room. Also on June first, literally
minutes later, while Corkoran went to the basement and went
into the storage room to look for the documents, Trump
has the locks on a closet in his residence. Changed.
(08:43):
June three, twenty twenty two, the Feds come to pick
up the documents they're voluntarily giving back, and another Trump attorney,
Christina Bob, signs a document indicating that's it. That's all
we have also. June three to twenty twenty two, a
twenty year veteran Trump employee named Brian Butler says Walt
Nauda had him load a bunch of big white banker's
(09:05):
boxes that had been in mariy Lago and put them
on a Trump private jet headed for Trump's home at
the Bedminster Crapshack golf course and Cemetery in New Jersey.
Butler later reveals that when he saw photos of boxes
photos included in the indictment of Trump, he said, Hey,
I know those boxes. I move those boxes. June twenty two,
(09:28):
twenty twenty two, the surveillance video at mary Laga is subpoened,
and now the new information comes. In July tenth, eleventh,
and twelfth, twenty twenty two, Trump suddenly and almost secretly
goes to mari Lago to make sure his boxes are okay,
and as the tag to this. August eight, twenty twenty two,
(09:51):
the FBI executes its search warrant of mari Lago and
it finds eleven thousand, two hundred and eighty two more
government documents and photographs that Trump has stolen. One hundred
and three of them have classification markings. Eighteen of them
our top secret. So wait, after Trump claimed he'd given
everything back to the Feds, he ships a bunch of
(10:14):
boxes from mary Lago to New Jersey. Five weeks after that,
we now know for some reason, he goes back to
marri Lago from Alaska one of the hottest times of
the year, to check on the boxes that are still
at mary Lago that apparently only he knows still are
at Marrilago. Presumably he goes back there to check on
(10:37):
what's still in the boxes at mary Lago. More obstruction
of justice or could there be a geographical surprise in here.
It's obvious now that no matter what the standard operating
procedure at the Department of Justice might have been about
how Custom dictated to Jack Smith that he had to
indict Trump in Florida because the crime was not stealing
(10:59):
the secret documents, it was refusing to give back the
stolen secret documents. That Florida could result in either the
actual random assignment of the case to a compromise corrupt
judge appointed by Trump, or the corrupting of the randomization
process to make sure the case was assigned to her
and that they should have indicted Trump instead, or also
(11:22):
not in Florida, but in Washington and or New Jersey.
This newly discovered secret kind of crazy trip by Trump,
after he's hidden thousands of classified documents from his own attorney,
after he has shipped countless other boxes full of something
to the golf course in Jersey. This crazy secret newly
(11:44):
revealed by Trump back to Florida trip in July to
check on his boxes. This really really smells. Could be
it smells of Trump's ever surprising insanity and paranoia, or
it could be its smells of an opportunity for Jack
Smith to break the Eileen Canon gridlock by indicting Trump
in a new case that ties the private plane shipment
(12:07):
from mary Lago and Trump's July tenth secret trip to
Mari Lago and indicts him as a result in New Jersey.
That's if Biden is reelected and the cases continue, Because
if the cases continue after January twentieth of next year,
there's still the small matter of Aileen Cannons slow walking
(12:30):
them in Florida. And even if it is not all that,
even if those boxes he flew to Florida to check
on were just full of I don't know. I think
it's something good. Condolence cards from when Ivanna died. Yeah,
that's it. Condolence cards from you know what's her name,
(12:50):
Zex's wife person her death. Between this story and last
week's leak about the warning to Eileen Canon of judge
not lest you be judged, somebody, somebody is clearly trying
to awake the Trump espionage trial from its coma. I
would say, to get it to come out of its
(13:12):
grave at the Bedminster golf Course, but that probably would
be in bad taste, like that ever stopped me before.
Briefly back to the debate, but the usually on the
losing side. Political consultant Liz Mayer is selling debate bingo
(13:37):
cards a pack of thirty for five dollars, which I
guess would be a business strategy and a business model
if she hadn't just tweeted one of the bingo cards
out where you could screenshot it and print it at
home for free. There are twenty five squares, and most
of the events on the squares are pretty mundane or hackneyed,
where they say more about the writer than the debaters.
(13:58):
Biden mentions, Trump indictments, no kidding, Trump says, black voters
empathize with his allege criminality. Why alleged he's convicted on
thirty four counts plus at the company fraud case in
three e Gene Carrol cases. Ah is Mayor's nominally a Republican,
but there are a couple of laughs on this. The
center square on the bingo card is Millennia shows up.
(14:22):
There's also anyone talks about sharks and question about Missus
Alito's flags and best of all, your dark horse big
money payoff quote Trump farts un quote one of the
twenty five squares ought to say. Debate actually happens, and
(14:47):
one way or another, there is debate counterprogramming. Robert F.
Kennedy Junior's running mate, Nikelle Nicole Many Nichols Nicole self
funding a hand has confirmed their campaign will be holding
its own debate at approximately nine o'clock Eastern Thursday night
(15:07):
and promises a few surprises. Kennedy is staging his own
debate with only one candidate himself present. Oh oh, I
get it. Robert F. Kennedy Junior is going to debate
against reality. A reminder that I'll be live on YouTube
(15:31):
for analysis. In a special live video edition of the
Countdown with Keith Alderman podcast Thursday night. Sounds like about
ten thirty pm Eastern or or Trump won't show up
and blame Biden, and maybe we can talk about that live.
We really haven't discussed the backup plan. We will not
be talking about Adolph Hilter. Also of interest here, By
(15:55):
the way, Trump would never make that mistake, would he?
Also of interest here on an all new edition of Countdown.
It was the greatest joke I ever did at Trump's expense.
It's thirty four or thirty five years old, and until
this past weekend I had forgotten it. So at one
end of the spectrum, I apologize for making you wait
so long to hear it. And on the other end
(16:17):
of the spectrum, I apologize because I'm about to reuse
material from early in the Bush presidency. The first Bush
that's next. This is Countdown. This his Countdown with Keith Oberman.
Oberman stell ahead of us on this all new edition
(17:00):
of Countdown. There's a reason that I chose, of all
of them, Larry David's impression of the Yankee Stadium announcing
all time great Bob Sheppard as the intro for this segment.
June seventeenth, two thousand, so I missed the anniversary by
a week for some reason. I have not told you
this story previously. The people involved in today's new edition
(17:24):
of Things I promised not to tell former New York
Yankees second Baseman Chuck Knoblock, my mother and Babe Ruth
stand by. But first, there are still more new idiots
to talk about. The daily roundup of the miss Grants,
morons and Dunning Kruger effects specimens who constitute two day's
(17:45):
worst persons in the world world the brons me. I
don't know why it took me so long to remember
this or to bring it back. I think it was
my first on air joke and insult about Trump, probably
my best, and it's either thirty four or thirty five
years old, with the irony that even then, in nineteen
(18:06):
eighty nine or nineteen ninety, Trump could not have gotten
up on a bicycle if they'd used a forklift and
two winches. For those two years, Trump sponsored an attempt
to make an American version of the Tour de France's
bicycle race work. It was called the Tour de Trump.
I showed highlights of the race on Channel two in
(18:30):
Los Angeles, either in eighty nine or ninety and I
said the race is called the Tour de Trump because
it's ten laps around Donald Trump's ego. The runner up worser.
I mean, that's pretty good. I was just a kid
(18:50):
of thirty at the time. The runner up worser the
United Kingdom's Conservative Party, which is not only expected to
get blown out of office on July fourth in a landslide,
but which is the only known major party in any
Western representative government to also have an apparent gambling problem.
Two of its candidates in the July fourth election and
(19:12):
one of the close aids to the Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak,
have been investigated for placing bets on which date Sunak
would choose on which to hold the snap election. One
of the candidates, Lauras Sanders, the Member of Parliament for Bristol,
is married to Sunak's campaign chief, and she put a
(19:33):
bet down, a legal bet down, on when they were
actually going to have the election. Hubby was the campaign
chief to the Prime Minister who would select it, so
the campaign chief and the close aid might have known
when Sunak was going to call the election. Campaign chief
Tony Lee has also taken a leave of absence after
(19:53):
it turned out a police officer was also arrested for gambling.
When it was revealed that cop was on Sunak's bodyguard detail,
he put a bet down on what date it was
going to be, And there was another candidate for office
who did the same thing. I mean, it's one thing
to lose and get your party thrown out of office
after fourteen years, but for people around you to try
to cash in a few hundred bob by betting on
(20:17):
which day you're going to lose and get thrown out
of office. Also to reprise an old Monty Python joke
with Sanders being investigated for gambling, the Conservatives won't hold Bristols.
Google it, it's worth your time, and two Monty Python
throwbacks in one episode of the show, mister Hilter, he
(20:37):
won't hold Bristols either, but our winner the worst. Remember
Dylan Byers, the puck news media guy through whom executives
everywhere get the coverage they would be happy to pay for.
I mentioned last Friday that a year ago he had
gratuitously trashed Howard Fineman's work as quote garbage, and then
after Howard died Buyers called him a giant and said
(21:01):
his funeral was a hero's farewell. Buyers may have topped
himself in this continuing Washington Post scandal over the corrupt
new British publisher and editor. And by the way, the
editor turns out, he's not leaving Blighty to go to
DC after all. Buyers wrote of this stuff at the
Washington Post quote inside the Post coup. Earlier this month,
(21:23):
journalists on the Foreign desk discussed a plan to dig
for unflattering information on their new publisher. Buyers has gotten
fried NonStop for having written that, and with total justification.
Post reporters have been, you know, reporting on a scandal
(21:43):
with the added degree of difficulty that the story is
in their own building and their bosses have tried to
bury that scandal and that story in this idiot, Buyers
can't stop fellating management long enough to think, even for
just a moment, that they deserve applause for their journalism
and courage and the meetings they've had to share, the
tips they have and how they're going to cover this story.
(22:05):
He calls that quote a plan to dig for unflattering information. Heh, boy,
that's called journalism. As my friend of half a century,
Will Bunch wrote, just wait until Dylan learns about the
Washington Post reporters who discussed a plan to dig for
unflattering information on Richard Nixon. Dylan, I'd also like to
(22:26):
point out that if any investigative reporters feel the need
to dig for unflattering information on him, all they have
to do is read his articles Buyers two days Worse,
Parson and I told this story over the weekend to somebody,
(22:55):
and it occurred to me for the first time on
this all new edition of Countdown that I had never
told this story on this podcast nearly two year years
of it, and I have not told what may be
the most famous story about me in sports anyway, to
the number one story on the Countdown at a story
(23:16):
that begins a little bit in the past nineteen thirty four.
I was not there for that part of it. But
in nineteen thirty four, my mother, who was five years old,
was sent over to her uncle's house or apartment for
the day. My grandparents needed the day off from her
for some reason, and I'm not sure what it was,
(23:38):
but her uncle, Willie, my great uncle Willie, took her
to Yankee Stadium along with a kid that he knew
who he used to push to Yankee Stadium because the
young man was in a wheelchair, and often before the
games in nineteen thirty four, the last season that the
legendary Babe Ruth played for the New York Yankees, Babe
Ruth would see this kid in a wheelchair and consistent
(24:00):
with the times, would come over and rub his back
for good luck, which seems to us to be very crass,
and also, if you're just looking at it from a
superstition point of view, how in the world would that
be good luck in any event. So one day, for
the first time, when she was five years old and
just turned five years old, her birthday was in June,
(24:21):
she goes with her uncle Willie and the boy in
the wheelchair to Yankee Stadium. They don't have the money
to go to the games. It's the middle of the depression,
but they live in the Bronx. They're a few blocks
away from the stadium, and they go to say hi
to the players on the way in, and sure enough,
Babe Ruth says hello to them and asks my mother,
(24:42):
at the age of five, what her name is now.
Her name was Marie, but because her mother's name was
also Marie. The family often referred to her as Babe.
I heard my grandmother referred to my mother as babe
when my mother was forty five years old. It was
rather extraordinary. In any events, she says, my name is Babe, Babe,
(25:05):
and Babe Ruth was so delighted by this that she
went back inside and got her a brand new baseball,
which he gave to my mother. The first day she
went to Yankee Stadium, she met Babe Ruth. She talked
to Babe Ruth, and Babe Ruth gave her a baseball.
Needless to say, in the ensuing sixty six years that
(25:25):
my mother was a Yankee fan, nothing of interest ever
happened to her at Yankee Stadium. She would eventually see
the Yankees win a couple of World Series, and eventually
she saw her own son reporting from the field after
the World Series games on the World Series broadcast. But
nothing like getting a baseball from Babe Ruth on your
(25:47):
first day as a fan and meeting Babe Ruth occurred
to her. There was a brawl once between Red Sox
and Yankees fans. I recall when I was ten or
eleven years old, beer was thrown, and she may have
gotten a few drops of beer on the shoulder of
her dress. I seem to recall that happening. That was it.
(26:07):
Nothing else of interest, Certainly, nothing difficult or untoward happened
to my mother at Yankee Stadium until the middle of
June in the year two thousand. The Yankees on that
Saturday afternoon had a second baseman named Chuck Knoblock, who
had been a great star for them in an extraordinary
addition to their team and set off the process by
(26:29):
which they won three consecutive World Series and four in
a span of five years, and almost five in a
span of six years. In any event, Knoblock unfortunately had
an issue throwing the ball to first base. Many second basemen,
many baseball players have developed this. It's somewhat consistent with
the idea of the yips in golf, where you can't
(26:52):
sink the putt even though it's two feet away. For
baseball players, it turns out to generally be an expression
of emotional distress. Your mind is sabotaging the most fundamental
thing in the game. It's stopping you from throwing the ball,
and the easier the play is, the more familiar you
are with it, the more difficult it suddenly becomes. It
(27:12):
happened at Chuck naw Block. It happened to another second
baseman named Steve Sachs, and they've all turned out. And
there was a pitcher minor league pitcher who became a
writer named Pat Jordan, and they all turned out. And
another one named Rick ang Keel, a pitcher for the
Saint Louis Cardinals, all of whom suddenly lost the ability
to throw the ball in the easiest way possible, in
(27:32):
the way in which they had the most control, couldn't
throw the ball over the baseman's head, over the catcher's
head into the stands. Well, that's where we joined Chuck
naw Block. As it later turned out, Chuck naw Block's father,
who had seen every one of his games from little league,
who had gone to all his high school games, who
had traveled the country when Chuck naw Block played in
(27:53):
the minor leagues, who'd gone to all the road games
of the Minnesota Twins and the Yankees. Chuck naw Block's
father had Alzheimer's disease and was in the final stages
of it, and sometime early in the two thousand season
lost the ability to recognize the Yankee second basement Chuck
now Block. Well. That accelerated a problem that would later
or shortly thereafter make Chuck now Block an x second Basement.
(28:17):
And on this day in June of two thousand, I
was completing the second year of a two year, not
particularly happy stint as the host of Fox Baseball Game
of the Week on the Fox Television network. I was
based in Los Angeles, and every Saturday, I spent the
whole day from six o'clock in the morning till six
o'clock at night in a studio in Los Angeles that
(28:40):
was kept down about thirty six degrees. Not my choice.
I had to wear a winter coat. Sometimes, when we
weren't on the air, we would do a pregame show, which,
because of the timing difference, started at ten am, and
they liked to rehearse their pregame shows madness. All the
good lines had been used and made stupid and not
funny by the time we got on the air. They
would rehearse this show two times, three times. An awful experience.
(29:04):
In my co was one of the worst persons in
the world, a man named Steve Lyons who made me
look like somebody who never complained once in his life.
That's the only good aspect of working with Steve Lyons.
He complained an average of three times a minute. All right,
So Lyons and I are there doing the game of
the week, and that day the broadcast was from Los
Angeles and it was a four pm Eastern start one
(29:26):
pm Pacific time, So the game and the show started
a little bit late, and we get there, started the
Dodgers and whoever. It was at Dodgers Stadium with Joe
Buck and Tim McCarver as the announcers and me in
the studio, and Lyons goes away and he won't be
back to the postgame show, so everybody's happier. Somewhere in
the middle of the game, I'm watching the bank of
(29:48):
televisions that's showing all the other games in progress, and
the Chicago White Sox are playing at Yankee Stadium in
New York. This is the remodeled Yankee Stadium that operated
between the year's nineteen seventy six and two thousand and eight.
I essentially grew up in Yankee Stadi, the original original
Yankee Stadium, and then this modified, reconstructed one that reopened
(30:09):
in nineteen seventy six, and I knew not only every
nook and cranny of the ballpark, but I knew every
camera angle, And we had had since nineteen seventy two
my family Yankee season tickets, which I had been paying
for since about nineteen ninety two, even though I did
not live in New York. They were for my mother,
who went forty fifty times a year. So by this point,
(30:30):
my mother has been to since that first game when
she was greeted by Babe Ruth at the front door
of Yankee Stadium. Here, welcome to your future. Here's a
baseball for me, Babe Ruth. She has been to at
least a thousand games. She went to more games in
her life than I have, actually literally true. And she
is seated in the seats, in our seats, which have
(30:52):
been the same one box forty seven E since the
stadium reopened in nineteen seventy six, and this is the
year two thousand, so she is in essence, celebrating her
twenty fifth anniversary in those seats. The Chicago White Sox
are playing the New York Yankees. They would rout the
Yankees that day, and the Yankees were in the middle
of a funk in the middle of the season, do not,
(31:13):
in small part to Chuck nw Block's sudden inability to
throw the ball successfully from second base to first base.
He would throw it past the first basement, over the
first basement, he would drop the ball as he threw it,
it would fly out of his hand. And of course
later it proved this was a psychological protest from deep
within his mind against playing baseball anymore. It was too
(31:33):
painful because his father was so sick, and his father
was so intimately connected to the game. So now Greg
Norton of the Chicago White Sox hits a fairly tough
play towards Chuck naw Block, grounds the ball to the
right of the mound. Chuck naw Block has to charge in,
pick the ball up bare handed, and while slightly off balance,
(31:53):
throw it backwards towards the Yankee first basement. Tino Martinez,
not an impossible play, and not an impossible play for
a good second basement, as Chuck naw Block had been.
But under the circumstance, nance is a disaster in the making,
which we then saw unfold. Chuck Nablock throws the ball,
it leaves his hand, not straight, but an angle to
(32:15):
the right of about I don't know, fifty sixty degrees.
The ball shoots out of his hand and goes nowhere
near first base. It goes into the stands behind first base,
and in fact, it goes to box forty seven E,
where my mother is seated with my high school friend
and his two kids. And my mother is sitting where
(32:36):
the incoming throw has just been launched. I am seeing
this unfold on a monitor, one of like nine with
different games going on. But I know Yankee Stadium, and
as I said, the camera angles intimately, so I know
immediately where the ball based on where it left now
Block's hand, where it has likely gone, and I say
that may have hit my mother. They then cut to
(32:58):
a shot of a woman being attended to and I
say that hit my mother and everybody in the room
because they assume I'm joking, Because what are the odds
that while I am in the studio hosting the game
of the week and doing the highlights of the games
in progress. You know, when they say, now let's go
back to the studio for a Fox game break, I'm
(33:18):
the guy doing the game breaks. That was my job
for two years, and sure enough, I say, that's my mother,
and everybody laughs, and then they cut to a tight
shot of a woman holding her head with a little
blood and her glasses have been broken, and she looks
kind of dazed and confused and they are leading her away,
and I went, that's mom. And now I call her
on my cell phone and you see her while she
(33:40):
is on camera on the local broadcast of the Yankee
White Sox game. You see her answering the phone. That's
when they stopped laughing in the studio. That's when they
realized it was really my mother. So I talked to
her and she said, I'm okay, it broke my glasses.
They think maybe I should go home. And Georgia and
George's kids they want to go home after that, and
(34:00):
I said, did you get the ball showing where my
level of concern? No, I'm sorry. I was like, oh,
for Christ's sake, mom, So she's fine, And otherwise I
wouldn't have asked that question. Probably anyway, now we're predicting
this sort of situation, what do we do with it?
And is it going to be a controversy? And I said,
we have to put the highlight on and I have
(34:21):
to mention that it's my mother. It's not like we're
not going to show. If it with some other woman,
we'd show it, wouldn't we It would be the biggest
story in baseball today. We have to do it, and
I just happen to know who it is. So we
throw to or we are thrown to buy. Joe Buck
and Tim McCarver t I'm for a Fox game break.
Here's Keaith Olderman in the studio, White Sox and Yankees.
(34:43):
Joe and Chuck now blocks throwing problem is now getting
personally picks up the Greg Norton bounder from the White
Sox Yankees in the Bronx and throws it into the
stands where right on the edit it hits my mother.
Mom's okay, I called her. She's a gamer. She'll be
back tomorrow. She just got her lens is broken. Joe,
(35:05):
Tim back to you. Silence from Dodger Stadium. In the broadcast,
you just hear like birds in the background from Dodger Stadium.
For the first time in their lives. Joe Buck and
Tim McCarver have between them nothing to say. I don't
know what to say, says Joe Buck is Keith kidding?
Is that one of Keith jokes? Says Tim, who was
(35:26):
an old friend of mine, Keith, are you still there?
I'm still here, Timmy, Are you kidding? Why would I
kid about something like that? Was that really your mother?
What are the odds against that? And I said, well,
she's been going to game since nineteen thirty four, that
first game she ever went to, Babe Ruth gave her
a baseball. Nothing bad has happened in the ensuing years,
So I'd say the odds were probably about six to
(35:47):
five in favor. And he goes, I guess you're right.
I can't believe that was Keith's mother that got hit
by the throw by Chuck no Block. Well, give us
an update later on how she is. We'll do, Tim. So,
now the story is out. It's my mother who got
hit by the balloon seventeenth eighteenth, one of the two days,
(36:09):
the Saturday of that weekend two thousand. Only the kind
of thing that could happen to my mother. But again, truly,
the odds were not that impossible. The ball is thrown
behind first base. Here's a woman who's gone to an
average of forty to fifty games a year in that
stadium for twenty five years. The odds are pretty good
it's going to hit her. And if you're getting meta
(36:29):
and like, what are the universal odds, what are the
metaphysical odds that she gets hit? As I said, nothing
of interest has happened to her since nineteen thirty four,
she's due in any event. Just to add to this,
two of my best friends in the world worked for
the Yankees. One was the manager, Joe Tory. The other
was the head of publicity, Rick Sarone. Not the catcher,
(36:51):
Rick Serone, but the head of publicity, Rick Serone. So
I call Rick Sarone in the office at Yankee Stadium
in the press box, because I figure he's already figured
this out and I want to give him a heads
up that I had no choice but to mention that
it was my mother, since it was my broadcast. I
call him up. I said, did you see the now
block throw? Now? I heard about it. I've been here
(37:12):
in the back. I didn't see who it hit. I said,
do you have any idea who it was? He said no,
Why would I have any idea who it was? I said,
why would I be calling you? I don't know, Keith?
Why would you be calling me. I said, how many
times have you sat behind first base with me and
somebody else? And he goes, wait a minute, what are
you saying? I said, how many times did you and
(37:34):
I go as teenage friends in the seventies and sat
behind first bait? And he goes, oh god, no, I said, yep.
He said that hit your mother. I said yep, And
he said, First off, he said, did you get the ball?
And I went, no, she didn't. Oh for crying out loud,
Well what you didn't say anything about it, did you?
I went, of course, I said something they showed her
(37:54):
on your broadcast. And he goes, oh god no. I said,
what other choice did I have? He goes, no, you're right,
You're right, all right. I better get out there. We're
going to start getting phone calls about this, if we
haven't already. Thanks for the heads up, so now. The
next day, the newspapers of New York front and back
page of the New York Post, the New York Daily News,
and the Long Island Paper News Day front and back
(38:16):
page some reference to my mother. Photographs in the Daily
News of her being led away. Chuck Nablock hits sportscaster's mother,
and the day after that they're still telling the story,
and there are wire stories, and it is everywhere, And
of course we mentioned it maybe once or twice an
hour on Fox Sports and on cable and on broadcast.
(38:38):
So now Mom is a celebrity. And I must confess
to you. Mom really liked being a celebrity. Mom was
appreciative of my success in my career. But Mom had
wanted to be a ballerina. Apparently. She told me that
I don't really buy it, but that was her story.
And she was a little jealous, resentful, just in a
(39:02):
manageable way most of the time. But I don't want
to bore you with my developmental problems. Emotionally, Mom was
a little jealous of not being in the spotlight, and
she gloried in this, among other things. Mom wound up
being interviewed on the pregame show for the next Saturday's
(39:22):
Game of the Week, and for various reasons, we could
not do a live remote interview with her. So we
sat down and I recorded the questions in Los Angeles
and on the phone asked her the questions while she
was in our ancestral home in the suburbs of New York. City,
and Mom didn't really have any good answers, So I said,
(39:43):
why don't you just repeat the answers that I give you.
I'll give you good snarky answers, real quick ones that
we can do this and you can make fun of me. Okay.
She had a little trouble delivering the lines, and we
actually did several takes. So if anybody wants to call
the FCC and say that interview was not what it
seemed in two thousand, go right ahead. I don't know
what you're going to do to us about it, but gorite. Aha.
(40:04):
There were some elements of fakery to this, like I
wrote her answers for her, but there was one answer
to one of my six or seven questions that she
gave completely authentically and we did not need a second take.
And this may tell you the nature of the complicated
relationship between me and my mother and baseball and Chuck Knoblock.
(40:25):
I said, are you surprised that everybody's so interested in this?
And I wrote for her as an answer, No, but
I'm surprised they keep mentioning you. She had no trouble
giving that line whatsoever. She really bought into that answer.
You could see from the tape when I eventually saw
the tape that she was smiling during that one. So
(40:46):
in any event, Mom becomes a celebrity for several months.
This is June of two thousand. Come October, when the
Yankees and Mets played in the World Series and she
was in the stands number one. My employers had given
her a Fox Sports cap to where and they repeatedly
showed her during the games of the World Series at
(41:06):
Yankee Stadium. So Mom became a celebrity and became very
well known for getting hit in the head with Chuck
Knoblock's throw. Joe Tory, who I mentioned, was an old
friend of mine, the first person I ever interviewed in television,
and a colleague in local sports in television in LA
when I worked there in the eighties and nineties. Joe
Tory called me up right afterwards and asked how she was,
(41:27):
and I said, she's fine. How's your second basement? He
acts like he got hit in the head with a
throw too. He's very worried. You think he did it deliberately,
And I said, Joe, you have to tell him that
I'm confident he did not do it deliberately. If he
was aiming at my mother, he would have missed. Joe
Tory laughs, And later he tells me he told Noblock that,
(41:48):
and it was no Block's first laugh of the year.
All right, So moving ahead on this story, it continued
for many years, for at least ten years, Once or
twice a month, somebody in baseball would say, was it
your mother who got got hit by Chuck Knoblock's throw? Memorably,
in the year two thousand and five, the year that
(42:10):
the Hall of Famer Randy Johnson, the big left hander
of the mostly of the Arizona Diamondbacks and the Seattle
Mariners in the Montreal Expos. He pitched one season for
the Yankees, and the Yankees got blown out in the
playoffs that year. And before the last game of the season,
and this is one of my favorite moments in the
history of baseball. Before that last game, I walk out
(42:33):
into the Yankee dugout and there is al Lighter who
was a friend of mine then and now he is
telling the story of my mother and Chuck Knoblock to
two other Yankee pitchers, Scott Proctor and Randy Johnson. And
I walk in and he goes and then Alderman's mother
gets hit in the head and he says on he's
doing the highlights on TV on the game of the week,
(42:55):
and he said, and I walk out, and he goes,
did you hear that I was telling the story about you?
And I said, well, only the last couple of steps.
This is a coincidence. Finish the story yourself. So now
I got the three of them, and they're all in hysterics.
Yankees lose that last game of the playoffs. I don't know,
it seemed like it was one hundred and fifty to nothing.
And I go into the clubhouse after the game to
say goodbye for the off season to the few players
(43:17):
that I knew on the team, including Al Lighter, and
to Randy Johnson and Randy Johnson in his own deep
voiced way, thank good to see you have a good winter.
And he leaves with his little carrying case with his
little wheels on it and looks like a toy. He's
six foot ten and he has a roller case designed
for maybe his daughter. It looks like a toy. And
(43:39):
he leaves, and about five minutes later, I see the
door to the Yankee clubhouse open up, and in walk
Randy Johnson, and he comes over to me and he said,
I forgot to say something. I was already out to
my car, and I thought I better come back in
and say goodbye to Keith and tell him, I mean,
this was a really bad week this last week, as
we've been losing and the season ended, and I just
(44:00):
wanted to say that telling that story about your mother
really was the highlight of the whole thing and made
me smile for the only time this month. So thank you.
Have a great winter. So that's my mother and Randy Johnson,
five years after she got hit in the head with
a throw by Chuck Knoblock the second basement of the Yankees,
one of the more remarkable moments in the history of
(44:22):
Major League Baseball, at least as it pertains to the
Olderman family, and a kind of bookend. Mom stopped going
to the games about two thousand and five. She physically
could not do it, but she had a good run
as a Yankee fan of about seventy seasons that essentially
bookended by getting hit in the head with a throw
that made her famous within baseball circles and began with
(44:44):
her being handed to baseball at her first game ever
by Babe Ruth, who was charmed by the fact that
my mother's nickname was Babe punchline to this to me,
is one of the most avid collectors of sports memorabilia
and particularly game used baseballs. I didn't get either of
those baseballs from my mom. I've done all the damage
(45:18):
I can do here without hitting somebody in the head
with a baseball. Thank you for listening. Countdown. Musical directors
Brian Ray and John Phillip Schanel arranged, produced, and performed
most of our music. Mister Ray was on the guitars,
bass and drums, and mister Shanelle handle orchestration and keyboards
produced by Tko Brothers. Other music, including some of the
Beethoven compositions, were arranged and performed by the group No
(45:41):
Horns Allowed Sports music is the Old Woman theme from
ESPN two, written by Mitch Warren Davis courtesy of ESPN, Inc.
And that reminds me the story is ongoing with my
mother and the baseball. In twenty and eighteen, I did
play by play of the New York Yankees New York
Mets game at Yankee Stadium, and needless to say, we
(46:03):
showed the highlight of my mother getting hit in the
head with the baseball thrown by Chuck Nablock, to the
delight of my fellow announcers Tim Kirkchin and Eddie Perez,
who could not stop laughing about it for about an
inning and a half. Mom is eternally part of baseball history.
This would please her greatly a little bit more if
(46:26):
my name were not connected to it. Our satirical and
musical comments are by Nancy Fauss. The best baseball stadium
organists ever was her. Chicago White Sox were there, although
she was not. Our announcer was my friend Larry David.
Everything else was pretty much my fault, Larry David, who's
mentioned the Yankees once and again and with whom I've
also conversed about my mother getting hit in the head
(46:47):
with a throw from Chuck Knoblock. Let's countdown for this
to one hundred and thirty fourth day until the twenty
twenty four presidential election, and vice presidential candidate Chuck Knoblock
has just now and sixty eighth day since convicted felon
Donald Trump's first attempted coup against the Democrat radically elected
government of the United States use the July eleventh sentencing hearing,
(47:09):
use the mental health system, use presidential immunity if it happens,
to stop him from doing it again while we still can.
A reminder will be live again on YouTube after the
debate Thursday night. Join me and send your link to
this podcast to somebody who does not already listen. Remember
(47:32):
it is free. The next scheduled countdown is tomorrow. Bulletins
is the news warrants till the next one. I'm Keith Oldreman.
Good morning, good afternoon, goodnight, avoid getting hit in the baseball,
and good luck to call adelf Filter Countdown with Keith
(47:58):
Oldreman is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio,
visit the iHeartRadio, your Apple, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
get your podcasts.
Host
Keith Olbermann
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