October 13, 2022 • 38 mins
EPISODE 53: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN
A-Block (1:47) SPECIAL COMMENT: The FBI has an informant! He's told them that after the subpoena, Trump ordered the boxes of documents moved, and it was all captured on Mar-a-Lago security video! He's the equivalent of Watergate's "Deep Throat" - let's call him "Deep STORAGE"! (2:25) But why does this Washington Post scoop sound so familiar? BECAUSE THIS ISN'T THE FIRST TIME THIS STORY HAS BROKEN (3:08) On August 10th, we learned there was an informant inside Mar-a-Lago, and a subpoena for security tapes. (3:41) Let me replay the relevant part of the August 11th Countdown commentary, to show that we first encountered "Deep Storage" that moment, and that the only true element to this story is WHAT the informant told the FBI about - moving the boxes. (11:45) So now we ask: did the informant tell the FBI anything that hasn't been reported? Is there more than one informant? But if there's only "Deep Storage" - WHO IS IT!?!?!?
B-Block (15:52) EVERY DOG HAS ITS DAY: Thor, in North Central L.A. (16:53) POSTSCRIPTS TO THE NEWS: That $1 Billion figure in the Alex Jones case? That's a minimum. There are still punitive damages to be assessed against the scum; Kanye does another "hate speech" and the show gets shelved; and another family member catches Herschel Walker in another lie. (19:54) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Joe Rogan, LibsOfTikTok and Tulsi Gabbard team up to battle Blake Masters and Chris 'I Used To Pretend To Have Hearing And Vision Problems To Explain My On-Camera Gaffes' Matthews - MSNBC's new undead guest - who trashed John Fetterman for using the equivalent of the text dictation device you have on your phone, during an interview.
C-Block (27:42) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: We're in the baseball post-season now so I'll take you back to 1999. In one Yankees-Red Sox series as the host and dugout reporter for Fox, I was a) caught in the middle of a bottle-throwing melee at Fenway Park b) witness to a Yankee swearing endlessly at a manager c) visited by a pitcher (El Duque Hernandez) who supposedly didn't speak English but had a bunch of questions about SportsCenter, and d) was also visited by Bernie Williams, who was so deeply worried that I might be a Red Sox fan that he kept asking me about it even while he was due in the on-deck circle during the 1st Inning.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of I Heart Radio.
(00:26):
Let's call him Deep Storage. Somebody snitched on Trump and
told the FBI that after the remaining documents were subpoena
at last spring, Trump instructed him, among others, to move
the document boxes out of storage at mari Lago and
into Trump's residents and their security video of the boxes
being moved, and this has been equated to finding Trump's
(00:47):
fingerprints on the boxes, and the order to move them
as obstruction of justice, and the presumed order not to
tell anybody they were moved as another count of obstruction
of justice. And it's all on video, and there's a
snitch called deep Storage. And why does this sounds so familiar?
Because two days after the search of Marilago, on Wednesday,
(01:11):
August tenth, a story broke. It was a huge story
for about a day, and then it got buried, as
huge Trump stories always get buried by the next one
and the one after that, and soon completely understandably, we
were sweating not about Deep Storage, but about the nuclear
documents Trump had stolen. And then we were sweating because
(01:33):
the nuclear documents were about another country's nuclear capability, and
the August tenth jaw dropper was not so jaw dropping
after all. But now we have circled back and the
jaws are freshly dropped. The story of the source, let's
call him Deep Storage, the FBI informant inside Marilago, and
(01:55):
the security video that confirmed him, is not new. One
detail only is new, what he told them and what
the video e O shows the boxes being moved. So
let's return to that original story. This is how Countdown
started on Thursday, August eleventh. Lordy there are tapes, and lordy, lordy,
(02:25):
there is an informant. Of course, Trump is silent. He
doesn't know what to do next, and given his paranoia
and his psychosis, he doesn't know how to stop thinking
about who has sold him out. Amid the continuing right
wing rage, the collective karen ing, the don't you know
who we are? Trump is now in at least his
(02:46):
second month wondering what the FBI has not in those boxes,
but on the mari Lagos surveillance video they subpoenaed and collected.
And more importantly, Trump is now in at least his
second day wondering who the FBI has in his family,
or in his staff, or in his companies were in
his trusted management at his Florida compound. Late last night,
(03:09):
Rolling Stone quoted two sources close to Trump is saying, quote,
he has asked me and others do you think our
phones are tapped? And has wondered aloud if there were
any Republicans visiting his clubs who could be quote wearing
a wire. This all started with Axios writing vaguely that
(03:30):
paranoia was rising at Marilago, and on Fifth Avenue quoting
them trump World is a buzz with speculation about which
close AID or AIDS has flipped and provided additional sensitive
information to the FBI about what former President Trump was
keeping at Marilago. Sources tell Axios the keyword in there
is flipped. Newsweek now is sometimes bizarrely far right shell
(03:54):
of its former great self, got to it first in
a piece by William Arkin, who was a trusted figure
at NBC News until three years ago. Newsweek reporting that
the FBI execution of its search warrant for mari Lago
was quote based largely on information from an FBI confidential
human source, one who was able to identify what classified
(04:16):
documents Trump was still hiding and even the location of
those documents, two senior government officials told Newsweek, and the
keyword in there is hiding. Finally, the Wall Street Journal
wrapped it up, quoting someone familiar with the stored papers
told investigators there may be still more classified documents at
(04:36):
the private club after the National Archives retrieved fifteen boxes
earlier in the year, Justice Department officials had doubts that
the Trump team was being truthful regarding what material remained
at the property, and the keyword in their keywords doubts
that the Trump team was being truthful. Donald Trump has
(04:58):
his own deep throat. Put all of these stories together,
and they are l Douche's biggest nightmare. Somebody close to him,
somebody who knows where the bodies and the stolen documents
are buried. Is an FBI informant, a mole, a rat,
a snitch who flipped. You want to know, I want
(05:19):
to know. Imagine how much he wants to know? Is
it Jared Kushner. Even though for every minute of kushner
six years in the public eye, he has projected guilt
and he has looked like the slightly weird guy in
every horror movie who turns out to be accountable, he
has apparently distanced himself from his father in law in
the last year, and is doubtful as a suspect. I
(05:40):
don't think it's Kelly an Conway, though she was the
primary league for most major newspapers and news networks, especially NBC, which,
if you had not figured it out, is why they
kept giving her platforms to bleat her pro Trump stuff,
because it helped tamp down any suspicions that she was
anybody's source. We could keep up the guessing game for hours.
(06:03):
Rolling Stone quoted one of its sources is saying, I'm
getting a lot of messages saying this guy must be
the informant, and others calling for Trump to start doing
phone checks on his staff. And Trump is never short
of staff. It could be some low level manager at
Mari Lago, somebody whose name we don't know, somebody whose
cloak and dagger work for the FEDS began and ended
(06:23):
with the tip that there were more stolen documents where
those came from. Regardless, you can be certain that Trump
has gone over every name of everybody he can think of,
and has probably decided he has figured it out at
least a dozen separate times, with a dozen separate names.
The only human emotions Trump seems to have understood in
his life are greed, fear, and what he considers loyalty,
(06:48):
which is actually just the self interest of others that
merely happens to coincide with what he wants. The absence
of quote loyalty unquote, really the absence of servitude must
be eating him alive. And then there is this Marilago
surveillance video. We don't know if the FBI went and
got a subpoena for that on its own, or because
(07:10):
the flipped snitch mole rat informant tipped them off about
that too, or most delightfully, if maybe there's more than
one flipped snitch mole rat informant and this one and
the boxes guy are different people. We also don't know
how much video the FBI has. The New York Times
had that element first, saying the Trump organization turned over
(07:33):
quote a copy of Marilago's surveillance tapes, which could be
anything or everything. I lived in a Trump building in
New York for many years, and they had twenty four
cameras just on the lobby alone. The Wall Street Journal
seems more narrow focused, reporting that the subpoena was received
(07:54):
on Janet June for quote, surveillance footage from cameras at
mari Lago and was turned over around then. That's six
seven weeks ago, and two must be eating away at
Trump's makeup soaked brain. Who's on the tapes? What are
they doing on the tapes? Is the snitch on the tapes?
Is he Trump himself on the tapes? And overarching all this,
(08:18):
the Feds have a source near Trump, and news organizations
have a source almost certainly a different source in law
enforcement who has snitched on the snitch because Bill Arkin
had even more details in Newsweek that Attorney General Garland
knew of the grand jury looking into Trump violating the
(08:39):
Records Acts, but Garland did not know of the timing
of the FBI search and was not asked for his
approval of it. Arkin also quotes one of his own sources,
who he identifies as quote a senior Justice Department official
who is a thirty year veteran of the FBI, as
adding that the Bureau timed its search of Marilago to
(09:00):
be certain Trump would not be there, would not be
able to try to stop the search, and would not
be able to turn it into a public circus. This
whole secret mailstrom, which sounds like it could have fallen
out of a John Lacaraine novel or maybe Tom Clancy,
is of course a joy, and I really think it
(09:20):
has accomplished the impossible. It has shut Trump up, even
for only a couple of days when he would like
nothing better than to be paraded across America, lashed to
a phony cross and speaking for seventeen hours without a breath.
All of this, though, is not only shut up his
endless self pitying diarrhea, but it has kept him from
(09:42):
making the search warrant public. He has the perfect right
to make the search warrant public. He has the perfect
right to quote only the parts of the warrant that
spent it in his favor, and yet he has done
nothing like that. And last night his Florida Attorneys spokesmodel
Christina bob was asked, I assume you've seen the warrant,
will you make it public? And she answered, that's not
(10:03):
my call to make. I have seen the warrant. We
all know whose call it is to make. And he
can't say a word because he doesn't know who around
him is now informing on him. That was on August eleven.
(10:26):
The important questions now are one, did the FBI informant
tell them stuff that we don't even know about yet?
And two? Are there several informants or just one informant
about the boxes? About the video, About the possibility of
still unreturned documents, About the use of the word hiding
to describe the documents? Is Trump surrounded by informants? Those
(10:50):
are the important questions. The fun question is okay, who
is it? Who is deep storage? Deep Storage? Still ahead
(11:15):
on countdown the Alex Jones verdict, He owes the Sandy
Hook family's nearly a billion short answer not enough. More
anti semitism out of Kanye West so bad they would
not even air the interview and herschel Walker lies again.
This time he claims his grandmother was a full blooded Cherokee,
so he's a Native American. I guess what, No, and
no worse person's Chris Matthews. All I have to say
(11:38):
more than that you need details. He criticized John Fetterman
for needing help hearing questions when he used to feign
hearing loss at MSNBC to explain why he was ignoring
the producers talking to him through his earpiece. Great flaming
fraud Chris Matthews and it's baseball playoff time. Imagine my surprise.
A baseball playoff game between the Yankees and Red Sox
(12:01):
had just started when the star of the Yankees, who
was due to back two batters later, comes down to
where I am covering the game from as the Yankee
dugout reporter from Fox. He introduces himself and he asks, Keith,
are you a Red Sox fan? Things I promised not
to tell coming up? That's next. This is deep storage countdown.
(12:33):
This is Countdown with Keith Overman still ahead on Countdown,
Kanye West goes hate speech again. Herschel walker lies again,
and what is this two thousand and eight again? Chris
Matthews makes a fool of himself on MSNBC again. First
(12:56):
in each edition of Countdown, we feature a dog in
need whom you can help. Every dog has its day,
this time back to the North Central Pound in Los Angeles.
They may kill thor at any minute for being aggressive
when they brought him into the shelter. That he has
not been aggressive since doesn't matter. This floppy eared Gray
(13:16):
is handsome, affectionate, friendly, gives kisses. Looks like a mudhound
needs pledges to defray a rescues costs to get him
out of there before they kill him. Thor will be
in the pinned tweet at my account for dogs in
Need on Twitter at tom Jumbo Grumbo. If you can't pledge,
just retweeting his story will help, and thank you very
(13:39):
much for doing so. Those scripts to the news, some headlines,
(14:05):
some inside, some snark. Day Fine, Waterbury, Connecticut. You have
heard that the jury in the Alex Jones case awarded
the Sandy Hook families and an FBI agent nearly a
billion dollars in damages. Not entirely correct. It's a nearly
a billion for reputational damage and emotional distress. The judge
will decide on additional punitive damages next month against Jones,
(14:27):
and as much as Alex Jones boasted in real time
that they'll never see his money because he's made his
companies go bankrupt. Some legal analysts note that these damage
awards are unlikely to be discharged in any personal bankruptcy
because they are the result of what is called intentional
tortous conduct. He screwed Amen Dateline, Los Angeles, Spring Hill,
(14:50):
The production company run by Maverick Carter and Lebron James,
says it will not air its latest episode of its
program The Shop and will never show it. The episode
had special guests. Kanye West, said Mr Carter, I believe
he was capable of a respectful discussion and he was
ready to address all his recent comments. Unfortunately, he used
(15:11):
The Shop to reiterate more hate speech and extremely dangerous stereotypes.
Now we move on to the question of why West's
shoe deal has not yet been canceled by Adidas and why,
in fact, Adidas issued a new Kanye West shoe this
week and dateline Atlanta. Herschel Walker caught in another apparent lie.
(15:33):
A month ago, he announced he is Native American. Quote,
my mom just told me that my mom grandmother was
a full blooded Cherokee. He announced it a speech in Forsyth,
Georgia on septem Huffington's Post checked out the story with
herschel Walker's mother, who told them she has no idea
if an immediate ancestor was a full blooded Native American Christian.
(15:57):
Walker did tell the outlet that she grew up hearing
stories about her father's mother quote she was kin you
Cherokee back when I was a little child running around.
She was kin to the Cherokee. Asked to explain. Kristin
Walker could not see my grandmother. She passed when I
was quite young. I don't know too much about how
(16:18):
she was connected so herschel Walker is being attacked with
all these vicious liberal lies from his son and now
his mother. Coming up the baseball playoff game, during which
(16:45):
a New York Yankees pitcher who supposedly did not speak
English came up to me in the dugout and asked, Hey, Keith,
why did you leave SportsCenter things I promised not to tell. First,
the daily roundup of the miscreants, morons and Dunning Kruger
effects specimens who constitute today's worst persons in the world.
Lebronze Blake Masters, the fascist candidate for the Senate in Arizona,
(17:08):
the one who looks like he was hypnotized by some
guy at the county fair and never snapped out of it.
Fox Nudes pointed out that he has scrubbed his website
of the claim that quote, if we had a free
and fair election, unquote, Trump would still be in office.
His reply to Fox, I still believe it, but he's
now changed the explanation. It was not a free and
(17:28):
fair election because Hunter biden laptop. The runner up is
shared by Joe Rogan, who told this to Tulsey Gabbard,
with the clip tweeted by the account libs of TikTok.
This is the holy Trinity of stupid and did not happen.
Rogan quote my friend whose wife is a school teacher
(17:49):
and she works at a school that had to identify
a litter box in the girl's room because there is
a girl in a furry who identifies as an animal.
Gabbard then says, it's absolutely insane. Of course it is.
Of course it's insane because it never had been. Because
nobody who has ever told this same damn story about
the letter box has even provided a photo of a
(18:10):
letter box in a school, not even a fake photo
of a letter box and a school, because it never
freak it happened. And you would think by now that
even Joe Moron Rogan would know that every story that
you begin that begins with my friend his wife is
a school teacher, makes it sound like you're four years
old and a furry who identifies as an animal. That's
(18:33):
also nonsense. I mean, I know it sounds plausible. It's
as plausible as a Tulsey Gabbard who identified as a Democrat.
But it's not. But our winner is Chris Matthews. If
you have not noticed, he has been exhumed and they
have put him back on MSNBC as an occasional guest
on the farcical spit show that is Morning Joe. This
(18:57):
is three years after MSNBC fired him for the last
of his many me too infractions, the last of his
many men many many many many many many many, many, many,
many many me too infractions. Now he's back because I
don't know, because it's Morning Joe, it seems like it's
(19:19):
a TV show. In fact, it's a portal to hell. Anyway. Yesterday,
Matthews slammed Pennsylvania sent It candidate John Fetterman for using
a captioning device while doing an interview with NBC News
because his hearing has yet to get back to full
speed after his stroke. So, like anybody else with a
hearing issue, he had her questions appear on a computer
(19:41):
in front of him, you know, exactly like when you, oh,
I don't know, dictate into your phone or laptop to
send an email or a text. Well, to Matthews, this
is a sign of danger, of unacceptability of political importance.
Now he wasn't the only one. Josh Crushower of Axios,
(20:01):
Ed O'Keefe of CBS, and Sanjay Gupta of CNN also
made jackasses out of themselves, treating this stuff with betterman
like it was the end of the world. But it
was Matthews who said of the reporter, she asked reasonable
questions of a guy who cannot answer the question because
he has to look at the monitor. How's this guy
going to debate for Pennsylvania on the Senate floor? A
(20:22):
couple of facts that slipped Chris's mind, which is full
of black ice potholes. Anyway, Chris Matthew spent twenty years
in TV reading scripts from the same visual aid that
we all used. It's called the teleprompter. Here, how's this
guy Matthew's gonna add Libby? He has to use a
teleprompter on the studio floor. He also used to pretend
(20:42):
to not understand what the words on the prompter meant.
This is literally true. If I was supposed to do
a segment that Chris wanted to do and the prompter
read Chris, throw to Keith. He would just blow through
the instruction and then do the segment I was supposed
to do. He did this once on election night when
John Kerry refused to do an interview with him. Only
(21:04):
with me would carry up here and then Matthews claimed
he had some sort of issue understanding what the prompter meant.
But even more to the point, for twenty years, Chris
Matthews war a hearing aid on TV. We all we're
hearing aids on TV. They're called i f B s,
and they let you hear the guests where the producer
(21:24):
or whoever while you were in the studio, and they
are not in the studio. How's this guy, Matthew's gonna
handle the world wearing an i FB On several occasions
like this, John carry nonsense, which was either two thousand
eight or two thousand ten. After Matthews pretended not to
be able to see properly, the producer shouted at him
through the earpiece throughout to Keith, Throw to Keith, Throw
(21:47):
to Keith. And he didn't. And when the segment was over,
Chris said in the commercial break, Oh, I'm real sorry,
but I have hearing loss in that here, sometimes I
can't hear what the producer is saying. And this idiot Matthews,
who faked having a hearing problem, slammed fed Erman for
using an ordinary dictation device like the one he has
(22:08):
on his own phone. And bigger picture, what the hell
is this with the able is um? Former Governor Patterson
of New York legally blind, Senator Leahy blind in one eye,
Former Senator Thomas Gore of Oklahoma blind from birth, half
a dozen members of the British Parliament deaf, former Senator
Kirk of Illinois stroke, Senator Van Holland of Maryland strokes,
(22:29):
Senator Lahan of New Mexico strokes. Shall we start insulting
the people in wheelchairs? Chris Matthews? I mean, Chris, what's
in a greater impediment? Double checking questions using a dictation
device while you're healing, or say, making lewd comments about
then Governor Jennifer Grandholme of Michigan while you are co
anchoring Gerald Ford's funeral alongside me MSNBC. Wherever you Doug
(22:54):
Matthews up from, send him back. Chris Matthews, Today's worst
parson and the old I'm sorry. I thought, yeah, I
was aboust to read, and I can't see it that
your right mark very read loud. Finally, to the number
(23:28):
one story on the countdown and my favorite topic me
and every time the baseball playoffs roll around, I am
flashback to one of the sixteen postseasons I have covered.
I am old five of them as part of the
actual game broadcasts, and they will not hang the American
League Championship Series in any kind of sports art museum.
(23:49):
There was bad pitching, bad defense, bad hitting, and especially
bad sportsmanship by players and fans alike. But for me,
covering the New York Yankees through all five games from
the unique vantage point of a corner of their dugout,
it was perfection. The good stuff started in Game three
on Saturday, October sixteenth, nine and featured the return of
(24:11):
the former Red Sox hero Roger Clemens in the uniform
of the hated Yanks, to Fenway Park, Boston. I don't
have much time for Roger Clemens, but I was a
witness to two occasions, possibly the only two occasions of
his life, when he received the raw deal rather than
dishing it out the fans at Boston's Fenway Park blamed
(24:31):
Clemens for leaving the old town team two years previously,
when it was a decision actually made by Red Sox management.
So they serenaded and booed him out of that game
after just fifteen batters and just over two innings, and
our Fox TV cameras caught them tearing down Roger Clemens
banners which hung outside the park. Poor Roger completely rattled,
(24:54):
fell apart like a twelve dollar fake rolex. And from
where I sat between the third base camera and the
Yankee dugout, you could see he was ashen. The ain
got out of hand quickly, a theme for the series.
Boston led thirteen nothing in the seventh inning. One of
the oddities of my seat was that between me and
the Yankee bench was a low railing and very ancient
(25:15):
chicken wire fence that had been painted over annually for
something like since the First World War. But next to
the fence on the player's side was the dugout bathroom.
It was really just a door and a urinal. So
at some point every Yankee player came down to that
end of the dugout, and almost always they said hi
(25:37):
and then excuse me. A minute late in the game.
As it got dark, the Yankee superb Cuban emigrave pitcher
Orlando el Duke Hernandez made that track and said hi,
but did not go into the tiny bathroom in the
dugout at Fenway Park. Instead, he sat down on the
steps right next to the little chicken wire fence, and
he said, Keith, can I ask you a question? I
(26:01):
was startled. The official line was l Duke Hernandez did
not speak any English. I pointed this out to him.
He laughed, you'll keep my secret. You know how much
time I save not doing interviews in English. He got
an occasional conjugation wrong, otherwise his English was perfect. He
got to his question, Keith, why do you leave Sports Center?
(26:22):
You and Dan were so good way downtown. Bang, they're
not gonna get them. I suspect anybody sitting in the
stands in the ten rows nearest me. Could hear my laughter? Orlando,
I left Sports Center before you left Cuba. How did
you see us? He said? We have nothing in Cuba,
but we have baseball fields and we have satellites. It's
deep and I don't think it's playable. I was stunned.
(26:45):
I had already discovered that nearly every American born Major
league player of knew me by voice, let alone by sight.
But this Cuba thing and l Duque reciting my old
Sports Center catchphrases was a genuine surprise. Oh yes, you
and Dan, you teach me a lot of my English.
What's the one for the hockey? And believe I shrunked
out guy's freaking hand. I love that. Why did you leave?
(27:09):
I tried to explain it was mostly geography. That if
when he had pitched briefly in the International League, he
ever faced the team in Pentucket, Rhode Island, that that
was kind of where ESPN was, only it was more remote,
much smaller town. Oh he'll do, Ka said, like Cuba,
but with snow. And I said, yeah, that was it exactly.
(27:29):
And now I was living in Los Angeles and I
owned a big house on the beach. Okay, I get it. Listen,
you see me in the park, you say Hi, there's
nobody around, we talk. Okay, If I say nothing, don't
be offended. I'm just making sure everybody still knows I
don't speak English. Orlando Hernandez did not get here until
he was thirty two years old. He pitched until he
(27:49):
was forty one. If he gotten here when he was
twenty two, he'd be in the Hall of Fame, and
then he would have been the color man on the
Game of the Week. He pitched three years for the
Yankees and two for the Mets while I lived in
New York, and it was always a pleasure to see him. Kaith,
you're still collecting baseballs? You want this one? I walked
by a Bonds with this one. So that was Game
three on the Saturday. On the Sunday, I awoke to
(28:12):
see my picture in the Boston Globe. In those days,
the newspapers all used to have columnists who wrote about
nothing but TV and radio sportscasts. No, seriously, I had
been a sportscaster on local TV in Boston fifteen years
earlier in four then I'd been to Fenway Park as
long before nineteen sixty six, and yet I had grown
(28:34):
up a Yankee fan in New York. I explained that
even then I was also a fan of the long
suffering Red Sox fans. Now, this was too complicated for
some people at the Boston Globe, which quoted me correctly
as saying I always felt an affinity with the fans,
but then under my picture in the article used the
caption Alberman, Red Sox fan. Still wondering how they got
(29:00):
that wrong, I did my pregame TV stuff for Fox,
then climbed over the little chicken wire ends back into
my spot for in game dugout reporting. And as the
top of the first inning began of the fourth game,
the Yankees leadoff man, Chuck knob Block moved towards the plate,
and as he did, it was the clean up hitter
Bernie Williams walking towards me, presumably to use that little
urinal in the closet. Wrong again. It's meet Keith Weekend.
(29:24):
Hey Keith, he said, in his lyrical voice, extending a
hand to shake Bernie Williams like I didn't know who
it was. Say listen, I was reading the paper. Are
you a Red Sox fan? For a moment, I put
aside the fact that the game, the playoff game, had
now started and the guy up three batteries from now
was asking me about a typo in the Boston Globe.
(29:46):
Bernie Williams was never accused of burning himself out with
too much competitive focus. That's just who he was. I
explained the mistake as quickly as I could. Oh, I thought, so, okay, good.
I'm glad because you can be a fan of anybody
you want. But I don't think it would be right
to have a Red Sox fan and our dugout. I
agreed with him. Just as Chuck Knoblock singled, and the
(30:06):
number two hitter, Derek Jeter, advanced to the plate, and
the third hitter, Paul O'Neill, went out to the on
deck circle. And that's when Bernie Williams surprised me more
than Orlando Hernandez had. Plus, Bernie went on, doesn't your
mom still have those seats like ten rows back of
our dugout at Yankee Stadium. This was before my mother
became famous for getting hit by a very badly thrown ball.
(30:30):
The next year. I asked Bernie Williams, how the hell
he knew where my mother sat. You've had seats there
since the seventies, haven't you. I just stared at him. Oh, Keith,
it's my job to know that, I said, no, it isn't.
It's your job to play center field for the Yankees.
This was just about the time Derek Jeter grounded out
(30:52):
and Paul O'Neill left the on deck circle, and Bernie
Williams was supposed to be in the on deck circle.
I know your mom, I see her, nice lady, So anyway,
I interrupted him. Bernie Jeter just grounded out and a
Black went to second and and O'Neil is up with
one out. Shouldn't you get out there? You look back
at the field of play. Oh yeah, you're right. He
(31:13):
stuck out his hand again. Nice visiting with you. Let's
talk more later, and just just double checking you. You're
not a Red Sox fan, right. Bernie Williams got three
hits in that game. Another New York sports reporter once
said that if he concentrated on baseball, really concentrated, Bernie
Williams would either be so good that he would hit
four hundred or he would be so stressed out that
(31:35):
he would become a serial killer. In this game, the
Yankees scored six runs in the ninth and there was
a place so controversial that when the Red Sox manager
got himself ejected over it, the home fans littered the
field with debris. Almost all of it was just plastic
soda bottles, but still there was a couple of flasks
thrown too. Yankees manager Joe Tory ordered his team off
(31:59):
the field and play was suspended as the plastic bottles
continued to fly and via my ear piece, which I
listened to, even if Chris Matthews never listened to his.
My producer ordered me onto the field, and I did
as I was told, and I set up in front
of the camera, right in front of the dugout full
of Yankee players. A plastic bottle whizzed past my head
and I half wondered if Bernie Williams had thrown it,
(32:21):
just in case I was a Red Sox fan. Almost immediately,
a Fenway Park security guy started swearing at me in
Boston and told me if I didn't get off the
field and into the seats immediately, he'd have me arrested.
This time, I could actually hear some of the Yankees laughing.
Get over that fence right now, sit your backside down
in that seat, and do not move. My producer heard
(32:42):
all this through my microphone and told me to comply.
I didn't even look around. I just went over the fence.
I sat down in the front row where I've been
ordered to, and that's when the guy sitting next to
me said, hi, and I realized the guy sitting next
to me was George Stunbrenner, the owner of the Yankees.
I said, Hi, you want to say something about this
on TV? And George, who loved me as I loved him,
(33:06):
said sure. And my producer heard all this through to
the microphone as well. The announcers immediately threw it to
me and I said seven words, George Steinbrenner, your thoughts
on all this? He proceeded to very pleasantly blame the
Red Sox fans for being drunk, blame Fenway security for
letting a riot start, blame baseball officials for not immediately
forfeiting the game to his club, and blame the Boston
(33:28):
manager for inciting the crowd. I had said to George,
I would ask a follow up, but you seem to
have covered everything, and so I threw it back to
the play by play booth. Steinbrenner's remarks made every newspaper
in the country, and in many accounts I was noted
as the interview and frankly, I didn't really do anything.
(33:49):
The next night, the Yankees won the series in five games,
and the fifth game was devoid of Cuban pitchers. Confiding
they were fans, or Bernie Williams quizzing me about my fandom,
or me being ordered onto the field during a riot,
only to be thrown off of it and directly into
the seat next to the owner of the Yankees. All
I had to do on this night was get into
the Yankee clubhouse two innings before the game ended, so
(34:10):
I could cover the celebrating players and the award presentation.
The excitement of the weekend clearly was over. I would
just say hi to these guys they throw champagne in
my direction, and then I'd throw it back to Joe Buck.
I was on a platform bleached in a camera light
as the technicians checked their stuff. The game was still
going on when the clubhouse door slammed open and in
(34:33):
strutted the Yankee second basement Chuck Knoblock. He was swearing profusely,
profoundly and proficiently. He had been having trouble throwing ground
balls away, and as the eighth inning started, the Yankee
manager Tory had removed him, denying him a chance to
be in the on field celebration of the pennant. Knoblock
(34:53):
was enraged, so enraged that he never saw me or
the platform or the camera lights. He used all the
known expletives and directed all of them all at his
own manager, The Yankees PR guy, a childhood friend of mine,
rushed over to insist that I could not report what
I had just heard. He was a little shocked when
(35:15):
I agreed with him. I'm here as a lighting prop.
I told him. Nablock has a perfect right to expect
there'd be no reporters in the clubhouse during the game.
If he says it again afterwards, I'll say I heard
it just now. Otherwise I'm not saying anything. There is,
of course, a punchline even to this and this extraordinary weekend.
(35:36):
The next summer, Chuck nab Block's career as a second
baseman ended because he completely lost the ability to throw
an ordinary, uncomplicated baseball to first base. Since similar cases
of the yips seemed to afflict players whose baseball centric
fathers had gotten sick or jailed or something, and Knoblock's
dad had just entered the final stages of Alzheimer's it
(35:57):
was probably that the last disastrous throw he made the
next year on June seusand bounced off the Yankee dugout
and spun weirdly and hit a woman in the box seats.
The woman was my mother, the one where Bernie Williams
knew where she sat, all the things that followed. Since
(36:20):
I was in the studio that day doing the highlights
for the Fox Game of the Week, they require their
own segment of this. But the one thing that has
always mystified me was how Chuck Nablock did not know
not to throw the ball where he did, because at
some point Bernie Williams must have warned him, Hey, hey, Chuck,
don't do it there. That's where Keith Olberman's mother sits.
(36:51):
I've done all the damage I can do here. Help
me out. Subscribe to this podcast, or a costa random
passer by, or give it five stars or clapped like
a seal or something. Most of the music, including our
theme from Beethoven's Ninth, was arranged, produced, is then performed
by Brian Ray and John Philip Chanelle, who are the
Countdown musical directors. All orchestration and keyboards by John Philip Chanelle. Guitars,
(37:13):
bass and drums by Brian Ray, produced by t Ko Brothers.
Other Beethoven selections have been arranged and performed by the
group no horns allowed. The sports music is the Olberman
theme from ESPN two, which was written by Mitch Warren
Davis Fierce courtesy of ESPN, Inc. Musical comments from Nancy Faust.
The best baseball stadium organist ever our announced you today
(37:33):
was Stevie vanz Ant. Everything else was pretty much the
fault of deep storage. That's countdown for this the sixty
six day since Donald Trump's first attempted coup against the
democratically elected government of the United States. Arrest him now
while we still can. A new episode tomorrow Till then
on Keith Olderman. Good Morning, good afternoon, goodnight, and good luck.
(38:05):
Countdown with Keith Alderman is a production of I heart Radio.
For more podcasts from I heart Radio, visit the i
heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of I Heart Radio.
(00:26):
Let's call him Deep Storage. Somebody snitched on Trump and
told the FBI that after the remaining documents were subpoena
at last spring, Trump instructed him, among others, to move
the document boxes out of storage at mari Lago and
into Trump's residents and their security video of the boxes
being moved, and this has been equated to finding Trump's
(00:47):
fingerprints on the boxes, and the order to move them
as obstruction of justice, and the presumed order not to
tell anybody they were moved as another count of obstruction
of justice. And it's all on video, and there's a
snitch called deep Storage. And why does this sounds so familiar?
Because two days after the search of Marilago, on Wednesday,
(01:11):
August tenth, a story broke. It was a huge story
for about a day, and then it got buried, as
huge Trump stories always get buried by the next one
and the one after that, and soon completely understandably, we
were sweating not about Deep Storage, but about the nuclear
documents Trump had stolen. And then we were sweating because
(01:33):
the nuclear documents were about another country's nuclear capability, and
the August tenth jaw dropper was not so jaw dropping
after all. But now we have circled back and the
jaws are freshly dropped. The story of the source, let's
call him Deep Storage, the FBI informant inside Marilago, and
(01:55):
the security video that confirmed him, is not new. One
detail only is new, what he told them and what
the video e O shows the boxes being moved. So
let's return to that original story. This is how Countdown
started on Thursday, August eleventh. Lordy there are tapes, and lordy, lordy,
(02:25):
there is an informant. Of course, Trump is silent. He
doesn't know what to do next, and given his paranoia
and his psychosis, he doesn't know how to stop thinking
about who has sold him out. Amid the continuing right
wing rage, the collective karen ing, the don't you know
who we are? Trump is now in at least his
(02:46):
second month wondering what the FBI has not in those boxes,
but on the mari Lagos surveillance video they subpoenaed and collected.
And more importantly, Trump is now in at least his
second day wondering who the FBI has in his family,
or in his staff, or in his companies were in
his trusted management at his Florida compound. Late last night,
(03:09):
Rolling Stone quoted two sources close to Trump is saying, quote,
he has asked me and others do you think our
phones are tapped? And has wondered aloud if there were
any Republicans visiting his clubs who could be quote wearing
a wire. This all started with Axios writing vaguely that
(03:30):
paranoia was rising at Marilago, and on Fifth Avenue quoting
them trump World is a buzz with speculation about which
close AID or AIDS has flipped and provided additional sensitive
information to the FBI about what former President Trump was
keeping at Marilago. Sources tell Axios the keyword in there
is flipped. Newsweek now is sometimes bizarrely far right shell
(03:54):
of its former great self, got to it first in
a piece by William Arkin, who was a trusted figure
at NBC News until three years ago. Newsweek reporting that
the FBI execution of its search warrant for mari Lago
was quote based largely on information from an FBI confidential
human source, one who was able to identify what classified
(04:16):
documents Trump was still hiding and even the location of
those documents, two senior government officials told Newsweek, and the
keyword in there is hiding. Finally, the Wall Street Journal
wrapped it up, quoting someone familiar with the stored papers
told investigators there may be still more classified documents at
(04:36):
the private club after the National Archives retrieved fifteen boxes
earlier in the year, Justice Department officials had doubts that
the Trump team was being truthful regarding what material remained
at the property, and the keyword in their keywords doubts
that the Trump team was being truthful. Donald Trump has
(04:58):
his own deep throat. Put all of these stories together,
and they are l Douche's biggest nightmare. Somebody close to him,
somebody who knows where the bodies and the stolen documents
are buried. Is an FBI informant, a mole, a rat,
a snitch who flipped. You want to know, I want
(05:19):
to know. Imagine how much he wants to know? Is
it Jared Kushner. Even though for every minute of kushner
six years in the public eye, he has projected guilt
and he has looked like the slightly weird guy in
every horror movie who turns out to be accountable, he
has apparently distanced himself from his father in law in
the last year, and is doubtful as a suspect. I
(05:40):
don't think it's Kelly an Conway, though she was the
primary league for most major newspapers and news networks, especially NBC, which,
if you had not figured it out, is why they
kept giving her platforms to bleat her pro Trump stuff,
because it helped tamp down any suspicions that she was
anybody's source. We could keep up the guessing game for hours.
(06:03):
Rolling Stone quoted one of its sources is saying, I'm
getting a lot of messages saying this guy must be
the informant, and others calling for Trump to start doing
phone checks on his staff. And Trump is never short
of staff. It could be some low level manager at
Mari Lago, somebody whose name we don't know, somebody whose
cloak and dagger work for the FEDS began and ended
(06:23):
with the tip that there were more stolen documents where
those came from. Regardless, you can be certain that Trump
has gone over every name of everybody he can think of,
and has probably decided he has figured it out at
least a dozen separate times, with a dozen separate names.
The only human emotions Trump seems to have understood in
his life are greed, fear, and what he considers loyalty,
(06:48):
which is actually just the self interest of others that
merely happens to coincide with what he wants. The absence
of quote loyalty unquote, really the absence of servitude must
be eating him alive. And then there is this Marilago
surveillance video. We don't know if the FBI went and
got a subpoena for that on its own, or because
(07:10):
the flipped snitch mole rat informant tipped them off about
that too, or most delightfully, if maybe there's more than
one flipped snitch mole rat informant and this one and
the boxes guy are different people. We also don't know
how much video the FBI has. The New York Times
had that element first, saying the Trump organization turned over
(07:33):
quote a copy of Marilago's surveillance tapes, which could be
anything or everything. I lived in a Trump building in
New York for many years, and they had twenty four
cameras just on the lobby alone. The Wall Street Journal
seems more narrow focused, reporting that the subpoena was received
(07:54):
on Janet June for quote, surveillance footage from cameras at
mari Lago and was turned over around then. That's six
seven weeks ago, and two must be eating away at
Trump's makeup soaked brain. Who's on the tapes? What are
they doing on the tapes? Is the snitch on the tapes?
Is he Trump himself on the tapes? And overarching all this,
(08:18):
the Feds have a source near Trump, and news organizations
have a source almost certainly a different source in law
enforcement who has snitched on the snitch because Bill Arkin
had even more details in Newsweek that Attorney General Garland
knew of the grand jury looking into Trump violating the
(08:39):
Records Acts, but Garland did not know of the timing
of the FBI search and was not asked for his
approval of it. Arkin also quotes one of his own sources,
who he identifies as quote a senior Justice Department official
who is a thirty year veteran of the FBI, as
adding that the Bureau timed its search of Marilago to
(09:00):
be certain Trump would not be there, would not be
able to try to stop the search, and would not
be able to turn it into a public circus. This
whole secret mailstrom, which sounds like it could have fallen
out of a John Lacaraine novel or maybe Tom Clancy,
is of course a joy, and I really think it
(09:20):
has accomplished the impossible. It has shut Trump up, even
for only a couple of days when he would like
nothing better than to be paraded across America, lashed to
a phony cross and speaking for seventeen hours without a breath.
All of this, though, is not only shut up his
endless self pitying diarrhea, but it has kept him from
(09:42):
making the search warrant public. He has the perfect right
to make the search warrant public. He has the perfect
right to quote only the parts of the warrant that
spent it in his favor, and yet he has done
nothing like that. And last night his Florida Attorneys spokesmodel
Christina bob was asked, I assume you've seen the warrant,
will you make it public? And she answered, that's not
(10:03):
my call to make. I have seen the warrant. We
all know whose call it is to make. And he
can't say a word because he doesn't know who around
him is now informing on him. That was on August eleven.
(10:26):
The important questions now are one, did the FBI informant
tell them stuff that we don't even know about yet?
And two? Are there several informants or just one informant
about the boxes? About the video, About the possibility of
still unreturned documents, About the use of the word hiding
to describe the documents? Is Trump surrounded by informants? Those
(10:50):
are the important questions. The fun question is okay, who
is it? Who is deep storage? Deep Storage? Still ahead
(11:15):
on countdown the Alex Jones verdict, He owes the Sandy
Hook family's nearly a billion short answer not enough. More
anti semitism out of Kanye West so bad they would
not even air the interview and herschel Walker lies again.
This time he claims his grandmother was a full blooded Cherokee,
so he's a Native American. I guess what, No, and
no worse person's Chris Matthews. All I have to say
(11:38):
more than that you need details. He criticized John Fetterman
for needing help hearing questions when he used to feign
hearing loss at MSNBC to explain why he was ignoring
the producers talking to him through his earpiece. Great flaming
fraud Chris Matthews and it's baseball playoff time. Imagine my surprise.
A baseball playoff game between the Yankees and Red Sox
(12:01):
had just started when the star of the Yankees, who
was due to back two batters later, comes down to
where I am covering the game from as the Yankee
dugout reporter from Fox. He introduces himself and he asks, Keith,
are you a Red Sox fan? Things I promised not
to tell coming up? That's next. This is deep storage countdown.
(12:33):
This is Countdown with Keith Overman still ahead on Countdown,
Kanye West goes hate speech again. Herschel walker lies again,
and what is this two thousand and eight again? Chris
Matthews makes a fool of himself on MSNBC again. First
(12:56):
in each edition of Countdown, we feature a dog in
need whom you can help. Every dog has its day,
this time back to the North Central Pound in Los Angeles.
They may kill thor at any minute for being aggressive
when they brought him into the shelter. That he has
not been aggressive since doesn't matter. This floppy eared Gray
(13:16):
is handsome, affectionate, friendly, gives kisses. Looks like a mudhound
needs pledges to defray a rescues costs to get him
out of there before they kill him. Thor will be
in the pinned tweet at my account for dogs in
Need on Twitter at tom Jumbo Grumbo. If you can't pledge,
just retweeting his story will help, and thank you very
(13:39):
much for doing so. Those scripts to the news, some headlines,
(14:05):
some inside, some snark. Day Fine, Waterbury, Connecticut. You have
heard that the jury in the Alex Jones case awarded
the Sandy Hook families and an FBI agent nearly a
billion dollars in damages. Not entirely correct. It's a nearly
a billion for reputational damage and emotional distress. The judge
will decide on additional punitive damages next month against Jones,
(14:27):
and as much as Alex Jones boasted in real time
that they'll never see his money because he's made his
companies go bankrupt. Some legal analysts note that these damage
awards are unlikely to be discharged in any personal bankruptcy
because they are the result of what is called intentional
tortous conduct. He screwed Amen Dateline, Los Angeles, Spring Hill,
(14:50):
The production company run by Maverick Carter and Lebron James,
says it will not air its latest episode of its
program The Shop and will never show it. The episode
had special guests. Kanye West, said Mr Carter, I believe
he was capable of a respectful discussion and he was
ready to address all his recent comments. Unfortunately, he used
(15:11):
The Shop to reiterate more hate speech and extremely dangerous stereotypes.
Now we move on to the question of why West's
shoe deal has not yet been canceled by Adidas and why,
in fact, Adidas issued a new Kanye West shoe this
week and dateline Atlanta. Herschel Walker caught in another apparent lie.
(15:33):
A month ago, he announced he is Native American. Quote,
my mom just told me that my mom grandmother was
a full blooded Cherokee. He announced it a speech in Forsyth,
Georgia on septem Huffington's Post checked out the story with
herschel Walker's mother, who told them she has no idea
if an immediate ancestor was a full blooded Native American Christian.
(15:57):
Walker did tell the outlet that she grew up hearing
stories about her father's mother quote she was kin you
Cherokee back when I was a little child running around.
She was kin to the Cherokee. Asked to explain. Kristin
Walker could not see my grandmother. She passed when I
was quite young. I don't know too much about how
(16:18):
she was connected so herschel Walker is being attacked with
all these vicious liberal lies from his son and now
his mother. Coming up the baseball playoff game, during which
(16:45):
a New York Yankees pitcher who supposedly did not speak
English came up to me in the dugout and asked, Hey, Keith,
why did you leave SportsCenter things I promised not to tell. First,
the daily roundup of the miscreants, morons and Dunning Kruger
effects specimens who constitute today's worst persons in the world.
Lebronze Blake Masters, the fascist candidate for the Senate in Arizona,
(17:08):
the one who looks like he was hypnotized by some
guy at the county fair and never snapped out of it.
Fox Nudes pointed out that he has scrubbed his website
of the claim that quote, if we had a free
and fair election, unquote, Trump would still be in office.
His reply to Fox, I still believe it, but he's
now changed the explanation. It was not a free and
(17:28):
fair election because Hunter biden laptop. The runner up is
shared by Joe Rogan, who told this to Tulsey Gabbard,
with the clip tweeted by the account libs of TikTok.
This is the holy Trinity of stupid and did not happen.
Rogan quote my friend whose wife is a school teacher
(17:49):
and she works at a school that had to identify
a litter box in the girl's room because there is
a girl in a furry who identifies as an animal.
Gabbard then says, it's absolutely insane. Of course it is.
Of course it's insane because it never had been. Because
nobody who has ever told this same damn story about
the letter box has even provided a photo of a
(18:10):
letter box in a school, not even a fake photo
of a letter box and a school, because it never
freak it happened. And you would think by now that
even Joe Moron Rogan would know that every story that
you begin that begins with my friend his wife is
a school teacher, makes it sound like you're four years
old and a furry who identifies as an animal. That's
(18:33):
also nonsense. I mean, I know it sounds plausible. It's
as plausible as a Tulsey Gabbard who identified as a Democrat.
But it's not. But our winner is Chris Matthews. If
you have not noticed, he has been exhumed and they
have put him back on MSNBC as an occasional guest
on the farcical spit show that is Morning Joe. This
(18:57):
is three years after MSNBC fired him for the last
of his many me too infractions, the last of his
many men many many many many many many many, many, many,
many many me too infractions. Now he's back because I
don't know, because it's Morning Joe, it seems like it's
(19:19):
a TV show. In fact, it's a portal to hell. Anyway. Yesterday,
Matthews slammed Pennsylvania sent It candidate John Fetterman for using
a captioning device while doing an interview with NBC News
because his hearing has yet to get back to full
speed after his stroke. So, like anybody else with a
hearing issue, he had her questions appear on a computer
(19:41):
in front of him, you know, exactly like when you, oh,
I don't know, dictate into your phone or laptop to
send an email or a text. Well, to Matthews, this
is a sign of danger, of unacceptability of political importance.
Now he wasn't the only one. Josh Crushower of Axios,
(20:01):
Ed O'Keefe of CBS, and Sanjay Gupta of CNN also
made jackasses out of themselves, treating this stuff with betterman
like it was the end of the world. But it
was Matthews who said of the reporter, she asked reasonable
questions of a guy who cannot answer the question because
he has to look at the monitor. How's this guy
going to debate for Pennsylvania on the Senate floor? A
(20:22):
couple of facts that slipped Chris's mind, which is full
of black ice potholes. Anyway, Chris Matthew spent twenty years
in TV reading scripts from the same visual aid that
we all used. It's called the teleprompter. Here, how's this
guy Matthew's gonna add Libby? He has to use a
teleprompter on the studio floor. He also used to pretend
(20:42):
to not understand what the words on the prompter meant.
This is literally true. If I was supposed to do
a segment that Chris wanted to do and the prompter
read Chris, throw to Keith. He would just blow through
the instruction and then do the segment I was supposed
to do. He did this once on election night when
John Kerry refused to do an interview with him. Only
(21:04):
with me would carry up here and then Matthews claimed
he had some sort of issue understanding what the prompter meant.
But even more to the point, for twenty years, Chris
Matthews war a hearing aid on TV. We all we're
hearing aids on TV. They're called i f B s,
and they let you hear the guests where the producer
(21:24):
or whoever while you were in the studio, and they
are not in the studio. How's this guy, Matthew's gonna
handle the world wearing an i FB On several occasions
like this, John carry nonsense, which was either two thousand
eight or two thousand ten. After Matthews pretended not to
be able to see properly, the producer shouted at him
through the earpiece throughout to Keith, Throw to Keith, Throw
(21:47):
to Keith. And he didn't. And when the segment was over,
Chris said in the commercial break, Oh, I'm real sorry,
but I have hearing loss in that here, sometimes I
can't hear what the producer is saying. And this idiot Matthews,
who faked having a hearing problem, slammed fed Erman for
using an ordinary dictation device like the one he has
(22:08):
on his own phone. And bigger picture, what the hell
is this with the able is um? Former Governor Patterson
of New York legally blind, Senator Leahy blind in one eye,
Former Senator Thomas Gore of Oklahoma blind from birth, half
a dozen members of the British Parliament deaf, former Senator
Kirk of Illinois stroke, Senator Van Holland of Maryland strokes,
(22:29):
Senator Lahan of New Mexico strokes. Shall we start insulting
the people in wheelchairs? Chris Matthews? I mean, Chris, what's
in a greater impediment? Double checking questions using a dictation
device while you're healing, or say, making lewd comments about
then Governor Jennifer Grandholme of Michigan while you are co
anchoring Gerald Ford's funeral alongside me MSNBC. Wherever you Doug
(22:54):
Matthews up from, send him back. Chris Matthews, Today's worst
parson and the old I'm sorry. I thought, yeah, I
was aboust to read, and I can't see it that
your right mark very read loud. Finally, to the number
(23:28):
one story on the countdown and my favorite topic me
and every time the baseball playoffs roll around, I am
flashback to one of the sixteen postseasons I have covered.
I am old five of them as part of the
actual game broadcasts, and they will not hang the American
League Championship Series in any kind of sports art museum.
(23:49):
There was bad pitching, bad defense, bad hitting, and especially
bad sportsmanship by players and fans alike. But for me,
covering the New York Yankees through all five games from
the unique vantage point of a corner of their dugout,
it was perfection. The good stuff started in Game three
on Saturday, October sixteenth, nine and featured the return of
(24:11):
the former Red Sox hero Roger Clemens in the uniform
of the hated Yanks, to Fenway Park, Boston. I don't
have much time for Roger Clemens, but I was a
witness to two occasions, possibly the only two occasions of
his life, when he received the raw deal rather than
dishing it out the fans at Boston's Fenway Park blamed
(24:31):
Clemens for leaving the old town team two years previously,
when it was a decision actually made by Red Sox management.
So they serenaded and booed him out of that game
after just fifteen batters and just over two innings, and
our Fox TV cameras caught them tearing down Roger Clemens
banners which hung outside the park. Poor Roger completely rattled,
(24:54):
fell apart like a twelve dollar fake rolex. And from
where I sat between the third base camera and the
Yankee dugout, you could see he was ashen. The ain
got out of hand quickly, a theme for the series.
Boston led thirteen nothing in the seventh inning. One of
the oddities of my seat was that between me and
the Yankee bench was a low railing and very ancient
(25:15):
chicken wire fence that had been painted over annually for
something like since the First World War. But next to
the fence on the player's side was the dugout bathroom.
It was really just a door and a urinal. So
at some point every Yankee player came down to that
end of the dugout, and almost always they said hi
(25:37):
and then excuse me. A minute late in the game.
As it got dark, the Yankee superb Cuban emigrave pitcher
Orlando el Duke Hernandez made that track and said hi,
but did not go into the tiny bathroom in the
dugout at Fenway Park. Instead, he sat down on the
steps right next to the little chicken wire fence, and
he said, Keith, can I ask you a question? I
(26:01):
was startled. The official line was l Duke Hernandez did
not speak any English. I pointed this out to him.
He laughed, you'll keep my secret. You know how much
time I save not doing interviews in English. He got
an occasional conjugation wrong, otherwise his English was perfect. He
got to his question, Keith, why do you leave Sports Center?
(26:22):
You and Dan were so good way downtown. Bang, they're
not gonna get them. I suspect anybody sitting in the
stands in the ten rows nearest me. Could hear my laughter? Orlando,
I left Sports Center before you left Cuba. How did
you see us? He said? We have nothing in Cuba,
but we have baseball fields and we have satellites. It's
deep and I don't think it's playable. I was stunned.
(26:45):
I had already discovered that nearly every American born Major
league player of knew me by voice, let alone by sight.
But this Cuba thing and l Duque reciting my old
Sports Center catchphrases was a genuine surprise. Oh yes, you
and Dan, you teach me a lot of my English.
What's the one for the hockey? And believe I shrunked
out guy's freaking hand. I love that. Why did you leave?
(27:09):
I tried to explain it was mostly geography. That if
when he had pitched briefly in the International League, he
ever faced the team in Pentucket, Rhode Island, that that
was kind of where ESPN was, only it was more remote,
much smaller town. Oh he'll do, Ka said, like Cuba,
but with snow. And I said, yeah, that was it exactly.
(27:29):
And now I was living in Los Angeles and I
owned a big house on the beach. Okay, I get it. Listen,
you see me in the park, you say Hi, there's
nobody around, we talk. Okay, If I say nothing, don't
be offended. I'm just making sure everybody still knows I
don't speak English. Orlando Hernandez did not get here until
he was thirty two years old. He pitched until he
(27:49):
was forty one. If he gotten here when he was
twenty two, he'd be in the Hall of Fame, and
then he would have been the color man on the
Game of the Week. He pitched three years for the
Yankees and two for the Mets while I lived in
New York, and it was always a pleasure to see him. Kaith,
you're still collecting baseballs? You want this one? I walked
by a Bonds with this one. So that was Game
three on the Saturday. On the Sunday, I awoke to
(28:12):
see my picture in the Boston Globe. In those days,
the newspapers all used to have columnists who wrote about
nothing but TV and radio sportscasts. No, seriously, I had
been a sportscaster on local TV in Boston fifteen years
earlier in four then I'd been to Fenway Park as
long before nineteen sixty six, and yet I had grown
(28:34):
up a Yankee fan in New York. I explained that
even then I was also a fan of the long
suffering Red Sox fans. Now, this was too complicated for
some people at the Boston Globe, which quoted me correctly
as saying I always felt an affinity with the fans,
but then under my picture in the article used the
caption Alberman, Red Sox fan. Still wondering how they got
(29:00):
that wrong, I did my pregame TV stuff for Fox,
then climbed over the little chicken wire ends back into
my spot for in game dugout reporting. And as the
top of the first inning began of the fourth game,
the Yankees leadoff man, Chuck knob Block moved towards the plate,
and as he did, it was the clean up hitter
Bernie Williams walking towards me, presumably to use that little
urinal in the closet. Wrong again. It's meet Keith Weekend.
(29:24):
Hey Keith, he said, in his lyrical voice, extending a
hand to shake Bernie Williams like I didn't know who
it was. Say listen, I was reading the paper. Are
you a Red Sox fan? For a moment, I put
aside the fact that the game, the playoff game, had
now started and the guy up three batteries from now
was asking me about a typo in the Boston Globe.
(29:46):
Bernie Williams was never accused of burning himself out with
too much competitive focus. That's just who he was. I
explained the mistake as quickly as I could. Oh, I thought, so, okay, good.
I'm glad because you can be a fan of anybody
you want. But I don't think it would be right
to have a Red Sox fan and our dugout. I
agreed with him. Just as Chuck Knoblock singled, and the
(30:06):
number two hitter, Derek Jeter, advanced to the plate, and
the third hitter, Paul O'Neill, went out to the on
deck circle. And that's when Bernie Williams surprised me more
than Orlando Hernandez had. Plus, Bernie went on, doesn't your
mom still have those seats like ten rows back of
our dugout at Yankee Stadium. This was before my mother
became famous for getting hit by a very badly thrown ball.
(30:30):
The next year. I asked Bernie Williams, how the hell
he knew where my mother sat. You've had seats there
since the seventies, haven't you. I just stared at him. Oh, Keith,
it's my job to know that, I said, no, it isn't.
It's your job to play center field for the Yankees.
This was just about the time Derek Jeter grounded out
(30:52):
and Paul O'Neill left the on deck circle, and Bernie
Williams was supposed to be in the on deck circle.
I know your mom, I see her, nice lady, So anyway,
I interrupted him. Bernie Jeter just grounded out and a
Black went to second and and O'Neil is up with
one out. Shouldn't you get out there? You look back
at the field of play. Oh yeah, you're right. He
(31:13):
stuck out his hand again. Nice visiting with you. Let's
talk more later, and just just double checking you. You're
not a Red Sox fan, right. Bernie Williams got three
hits in that game. Another New York sports reporter once
said that if he concentrated on baseball, really concentrated, Bernie
Williams would either be so good that he would hit
four hundred or he would be so stressed out that
(31:35):
he would become a serial killer. In this game, the
Yankees scored six runs in the ninth and there was
a place so controversial that when the Red Sox manager
got himself ejected over it, the home fans littered the
field with debris. Almost all of it was just plastic
soda bottles, but still there was a couple of flasks
thrown too. Yankees manager Joe Tory ordered his team off
(31:59):
the field and play was suspended as the plastic bottles
continued to fly and via my ear piece, which I
listened to, even if Chris Matthews never listened to his.
My producer ordered me onto the field, and I did
as I was told, and I set up in front
of the camera, right in front of the dugout full
of Yankee players. A plastic bottle whizzed past my head
and I half wondered if Bernie Williams had thrown it,
(32:21):
just in case I was a Red Sox fan. Almost immediately,
a Fenway Park security guy started swearing at me in
Boston and told me if I didn't get off the
field and into the seats immediately, he'd have me arrested.
This time, I could actually hear some of the Yankees laughing.
Get over that fence right now, sit your backside down
in that seat, and do not move. My producer heard
(32:42):
all this through my microphone and told me to comply.
I didn't even look around. I just went over the fence.
I sat down in the front row where I've been
ordered to, and that's when the guy sitting next to
me said, hi, and I realized the guy sitting next
to me was George Stunbrenner, the owner of the Yankees.
I said, Hi, you want to say something about this
on TV? And George, who loved me as I loved him,
(33:06):
said sure. And my producer heard all this through to
the microphone as well. The announcers immediately threw it to
me and I said seven words, George Steinbrenner, your thoughts
on all this? He proceeded to very pleasantly blame the
Red Sox fans for being drunk, blame Fenway security for
letting a riot start, blame baseball officials for not immediately
forfeiting the game to his club, and blame the Boston
(33:28):
manager for inciting the crowd. I had said to George,
I would ask a follow up, but you seem to
have covered everything, and so I threw it back to
the play by play booth. Steinbrenner's remarks made every newspaper
in the country, and in many accounts I was noted
as the interview and frankly, I didn't really do anything.
(33:49):
The next night, the Yankees won the series in five games,
and the fifth game was devoid of Cuban pitchers. Confiding
they were fans, or Bernie Williams quizzing me about my fandom,
or me being ordered onto the field during a riot,
only to be thrown off of it and directly into
the seat next to the owner of the Yankees. All
I had to do on this night was get into
the Yankee clubhouse two innings before the game ended, so
(34:10):
I could cover the celebrating players and the award presentation.
The excitement of the weekend clearly was over. I would
just say hi to these guys they throw champagne in
my direction, and then I'd throw it back to Joe Buck.
I was on a platform bleached in a camera light
as the technicians checked their stuff. The game was still
going on when the clubhouse door slammed open and in
(34:33):
strutted the Yankee second basement Chuck Knoblock. He was swearing profusely,
profoundly and proficiently. He had been having trouble throwing ground
balls away, and as the eighth inning started, the Yankee
manager Tory had removed him, denying him a chance to
be in the on field celebration of the pennant. Knoblock
(34:53):
was enraged, so enraged that he never saw me or
the platform or the camera lights. He used all the
known expletives and directed all of them all at his
own manager, The Yankees PR guy, a childhood friend of mine,
rushed over to insist that I could not report what
I had just heard. He was a little shocked when
(35:15):
I agreed with him. I'm here as a lighting prop.
I told him. Nablock has a perfect right to expect
there'd be no reporters in the clubhouse during the game.
If he says it again afterwards, I'll say I heard
it just now. Otherwise I'm not saying anything. There is,
of course, a punchline even to this and this extraordinary weekend.
(35:36):
The next summer, Chuck nab Block's career as a second
baseman ended because he completely lost the ability to throw
an ordinary, uncomplicated baseball to first base. Since similar cases
of the yips seemed to afflict players whose baseball centric
fathers had gotten sick or jailed or something, and Knoblock's
dad had just entered the final stages of Alzheimer's it
(35:57):
was probably that the last disastrous throw he made the
next year on June seusand bounced off the Yankee dugout
and spun weirdly and hit a woman in the box seats.
The woman was my mother, the one where Bernie Williams
knew where she sat, all the things that followed. Since
(36:20):
I was in the studio that day doing the highlights
for the Fox Game of the Week, they require their
own segment of this. But the one thing that has
always mystified me was how Chuck Nablock did not know
not to throw the ball where he did, because at
some point Bernie Williams must have warned him, Hey, hey, Chuck,
don't do it there. That's where Keith Olberman's mother sits.
(36:51):
I've done all the damage I can do here. Help
me out. Subscribe to this podcast, or a costa random
passer by, or give it five stars or clapped like
a seal or something. Most of the music, including our
theme from Beethoven's Ninth, was arranged, produced, is then performed
by Brian Ray and John Philip Chanelle, who are the
Countdown musical directors. All orchestration and keyboards by John Philip Chanelle. Guitars,
(37:13):
bass and drums by Brian Ray, produced by t Ko Brothers.
Other Beethoven selections have been arranged and performed by the
group no horns allowed. The sports music is the Olberman
theme from ESPN two, which was written by Mitch Warren
Davis Fierce courtesy of ESPN, Inc. Musical comments from Nancy Faust.
The best baseball stadium organist ever our announced you today
(37:33):
was Stevie vanz Ant. Everything else was pretty much the
fault of deep storage. That's countdown for this the sixty
six day since Donald Trump's first attempted coup against the
democratically elected government of the United States. Arrest him now
while we still can. A new episode tomorrow Till then
on Keith Olderman. Good Morning, good afternoon, goodnight, and good luck.
(38:05):
Countdown with Keith Alderman is a production of I heart Radio.
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