March 29, 2023 • 34 mins
EPISODE 164: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN
A-Block (1:42) Actually I have answers to this. Conflicting reports that the Manhattan District Attorney's Grand Jury looking into the Stormy Daniels payoff will be off until tomorrow - or next week. Either way, this likely has less to do with Trump or Pecker or Trump's Pecker, and more to do with the fact that the jurors have actual lives. There is good news from Special Counsel Jack Smith's Grand Jury in Washington: Mike Pence must testify after all (with limited exclusions). But does anybody remember that there's a THIRD Grand Jury out there? Anyone? Bueller?
B-Block (14:00) POSTSCRIPTS TO THE NEWS: Marjorie Barney Rubble Greene can't understand why Twitter suspended her just because she spat on the dead of Nashville by calling the shooting "the threat of Antifa driven trans-terrorism; and Dominion Voting System has just a few names on its witness list include multiple anchors and multiple Murdochs. (17:28) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Senator Tommy Tuberville is holding up military promotions cuz abortion and the top two REPUBLICANS on the Armed Services Committee are mad as hell about it. The head of the Chicago police union, who has been suspended for misconduct eight different times, threatens voters with "blood in the streets" if they vote for the black guy for Mayor; and Congressman Byron Donalds condescendingly dismisses the possible ban of the AR-15 Death Machine and the children it murdered as "politics."
C-Block (24:25) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: As Baseball's Opening Day looms, time to go back to a simpler, gentler era when a big league manager could lock his entire team in the trainers' room so that there wouldn't be a soul in the clubhouse and that would teach the obnoxious young anchor of SportsCenter a lesson. Me and Buck Showalter - 1993.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. The
Trump Pecker Cornstar Sex Payoffs saga. We'll drag on until
(00:28):
at least tomorrow or probably next week, depending on whether
you believe The New York Times or the Wall Street Journal. However, though,
like nature, political commentary abhors a vacuum and makes stuff
up to fill it, there is one good surmise to
offer here. The possible campaign finance and or business records
(00:49):
charges against Trump have almost certainly not been dropped from consideration.
And we know that again from the simple reality that
if they had, the Trump lawyers would know that, and
thus Trump would know that, and thus Trump would have
told everybody in the country that, even if he had
to stop passers in the street and tell them one
by one. I keep getting asked, though, why this delay,
(01:12):
Why that delay, why that other delay? Over there? Okay,
I've done some work. I have some answers to those
of us squirming in our seats waiting for a mug shot.
Since while I met Trump in nineteen eighty three, some
other things to remember, the prediction that Trump was going
to be arrested a week ago Tuesday was made by
(01:35):
Trump and his predictions do tend to be about to
one hundercent wrong. The Times also offers the helpful reminders
that grand juries are not sequestered, that they do not
always work on only one case at a time, and
that this one is clearly looking at least two, and
that while this one usually meets Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday,
(01:55):
it was not expected to meet today, and The Wall
Street Journal said its sources said it would also not
meet tomorrow, and that this could easily have nothing to
do with the case or the other case, or Trump
or brag or anybody else. The grand jurors have lives,
and they are not expected to show up every time
the grand jury meets. There are twenty three grand jurors,
(02:17):
and sixteen must be present to conduct any business at all.
And when the district Attorney wants to vote on an indictment,
the jurors in attendance on the day of that vote
must have all heard all the testimony of all the
previous key witnesses. It's a scheduling issue. We all know
(02:38):
Trump believes the sun and the planets revolve around him,
but the delays are less likely to have anything to
do with him, and much more likely to owe to
Grand Jury number seventeen's responsibility as a dental hygienist or
brain surgeon, or conductor on the railroad whatever. If you
have never been on a jury of any kind in
(02:59):
New York City and you are expecting something out of
inherit the wind or the Verde or even the New
York City situated twelve, angry men, forget it. Navigating the
jury system in New York is like going to Grand
Central Station at rush hour, only more crowded and with
more people talking all at the same time over a
(03:20):
PA system. You cannot understand since Trump's arrest announcement, which
in retrospect looks more and more like just another of
his fundraising gambits number eight hundred seventy four thousand, two
hundred and twenty six in his case. The only known
actual change to Alvin Bragg's schedule before this Grand Jury
(03:40):
was the Trump introduction of Robert Costello to rebut Michael Cohen,
and then the DA's introduction of David Pecker to rebut
Robert Costello and mister district attorney. Is that a pecker
in your pocket? Or are you just glad to see us?
(04:04):
Thank Q? Nancy Faust. There is one other relevant thought here,
but it is also speculative, and it has been touched
on by the former Obama Ethics Council Norm Eisen and
the former federal prosecutor Glenn Kirshner, and even the former
student in exactly one law class in college, Guy me.
It is possible that da Bragg has now asked his
(04:27):
grand jury to examine the possibility of additional charges against Trump,
particularly under New York Penal Code one ninety five point
zero five quote obstructing governmental administration in the second degree.
A person is guilty of obstructing governmental administration when he
intentionally obstructs a public servant from performing an official function
(04:50):
by means of intimidation, physical force, or interference, whether or
not physical force is involved. The code then has one
additional specific which I do not think apply, is here,
but who knows what's bouncing around in Trump's empty mind.
One ninety five point five also deems illegal quote releasing
(05:13):
a dangerous animal under circumstances evincing the actor's intent that
the animal obstruct governmental administration. I may have to spend
some time getting the backstory on that provision. Perhaps, Sir,
this Hyaena will remind you of what you did on
that night, or perhaps it's a reference to some of
(05:36):
Trump's creatures in Congress. CNN actually had a fascinating piece
on how Trump is manipulating Republicans in the House to
try to pressure the Manhattan DA, even though he can
rightfully ignore those Republicans, and so far, all these threats
got Jim Jordan was a note from the DA's general
counsel that basically said, mister Bragg is too busy to
deal with your nonsense himself, so I'm doing so moron
(05:58):
Trump's leading puppet, it is not Jim Jordan, but rather
Elise Stephanic, who sold her soul quite some time ago.
And to use a contemporary pop culture reference, quite a
rarity for me, is the Renfield to Trump's Dracula. Here,
CNN quotes three sources who say Stefanik reaches out to
Trump about once a week, and he also calls her irregularly.
(06:22):
They spoke several times last week and happily, quote, she
walked him through the GOP's plans for an aggressive response
to Bragg, which is sad on both ends because not
only did Republican after Republican ignore subpoenas from a Democratic House.
But this group would have to go to Merrick Garland
to get a contempt of Congress charge going against Alvin Bragg.
(06:43):
And as we all know, if you want to make
sure somebody is not charged with anything, the man you
want to see is Merrick Garland. The other Trump water
carriers Marjorie Green. Not a surprise Jordan, of course, though
a Jordan's spokesman tried to give him a climb down
by downplaying the idea that Jordan was talking to Trump
(07:03):
just about the storm. Daniel's case, Jamie Comer went even further,
insisting he has not talked to Trump since Trump's term ended. Trump, though,
has Henchman also reaching out to members of Congress. Joey Tax,
that's Joe Takapina to you who have not anchored shows
on MSNBC in this end of previous century. Joey Tax
(07:25):
wrote Jim Jordan a letter about Alvin Bragg, and Boris
Epstein talks to others in the House. Then there are
the nut jobs floating in the middle between Trump and
the House, outsiders like Tom Fitton from Judicial Watch and
Mike Davis of the Article three Project, who are tired
of all these pesky hearings and want to move directly
to Congress, burning people at the stake. No, sorry, I
(07:47):
misread that last sentence. They are tired of all these
pesky hearings and want to move directly to subpoenas and
criminal referrals and staring daggers at Democrats. The news out
of the Special Counsel's grand jury. I presume you already
know a federal district yesterday ordered Mike Pence to testify
to that grand jury. He broadly turned down the Trump
(08:10):
attempt to invoke executive privilege to block the testimony, but
the judge did give Pence some wiggle room about testifying
specifically on his role in the actual congressional certification from
January six, twenty twenty one, the so called speech and
debate exception. Pence does not have to talk about any
of that. But whatever Pence witnessed Trump doing that, Pence
(08:34):
can be made to testify to. Lastly, don't know if
anybody remembers this, but a special grand jury in Fulton
County in Georgia took testimony on Trump's attempt to get
state officials there to falsify the election outcome. In twenty twenty,
the grand jury listened to seventy five witnesses and issued
a report and said some of its witnesses seemed to
(08:55):
be lying, and District Attorney Fannie Willis was deciding whether
or not to go use it as the basis for
convening a regular grand jury and go for indictments when
Trump filed a motion to quash the special report and
hold onto your hats. The judge in the case has
asked for the DA's response there in Fulton County no
later than May first, May first, because take your time.
(09:21):
It's not like Trump isn't exploiting the slow moving bureaucracy
in Atlanta, and the slow moving bureaucracy in Washington, and
the slow moving bureaucracy in New York at all the while.
It's not like he's running to regain power and turn
all of you courts into rubber stamps for whatever. Villainy
Stephen Miller and the rest of the Trump undead dream
(09:43):
up at night, still ahead of us. In this edition
of Countdown, Marjorie Taylor Green's congressional Twitter account has been
suspended for a week just because while the fascists like
(10:07):
Senator John Kennedy of Louisiana. Wonder if they can charge
the dead shooter from Nashville with a hate crime because
it was at a Christian school. It's suspended just because
she referred to Antifa driven trans terrorism f her and
the head of the Chicago police union is blunt. If
(10:28):
you vote for the black guy for mayor, a thousand
of US cops will quit and there will be quote
blood in the streets. Seems like there already is in Chicago.
And the Chicago police are so bad nobody would notice
if a thousand of them quit. We'll examine in worse persons.
And on the eve of the new baseball season, all
the good old days when a team manager could order
(10:50):
all of his players into a tiny trainer's room at
the side of the clubhouse in order to teach a
lesson to some obnoxious anchor from Sports Center. That's next
this discountdown. This is countdown with Keith Olberman I with
(11:14):
scripts to the news, some headlines, some updates, some snarks,
some predictions, dateline, Twitter surprising blowback in Elon musk Land.
The congressional account of Marjorie Barney rubble Green has been
suspended for seven days she is livid. All she did
was described the mass shooting at the Nashville Covenant School
as quote, the threat of Antifa driven trans terrorism, and
(11:38):
she accused others of politically motivated violence. Green also demanded
that Musk restore her account immediately. As always with Twitter suspensions,
it is at the moment that you agreed to delete
the tweets that we're in violation of Twitter rules that
your account goes from on hold indefinitely to on hold
for seven days. But green thinks the rules don't apply
(12:01):
to her. You will remember, those are the rules that
applied to me. The rules not applying to her is
the story of Marjorie Barney Rubbell Greene's life. On Monday,
this was the first of her two anti American events
since that shooting. She tried to interfere with ATF agents
inspecting a murder store in Smyrna, Georgia, then claimed to
(12:22):
have the right to do so because she's on the
House Oversight Committee. Thank you, Nancy Faust Dateline Wilmington, Delaware
(12:48):
News from the Dominion Voting System's lawsuit against Fox quote
news unquote. In a filing this week, the plaintiffs in
the one point six billion dollar defamation suit submitted their
witness list. They want CEO Suzanne Scott of Fox and
network president Jay Wallace to testify. Also former politics editor
Chris Stirewalt and a former executive named Bill Salmon, Owen
(13:09):
anchor Brett Bear and Sean Hannity and Laura Ingram and
Maria bardar Romo and Tucker Carlson and the ex Carlson
producer who sued Fox, Abbey Grossberg, Owen, Lachlan Murdoch, and
Rupert Murdoch. At a virtual trial hearing yesterday, Fox's attorneys
filed objections to every exhibit that dominion asked to use
(13:33):
at trial. The judge Eric Davis was outraged, quoting Davis,
if I think you're just trying to interrupt testimony out
of gamesmanship, you may have a problem. Be careful, people,
keep your powder dry on this stuff. This isn't a game.
This is a trial, and you're going to be presenting
to a jury still ahead. So Baseball's opening day is tomorrow,
(14:08):
and there's so much they've screwed up. I find myself
getting all nostalgic for the good old days, Like thirty
years ago this August when a current major league manager
forced all of his players, in the middle of a
tense pennant race to go and hide in the tiny
trainer's room adjacent to the team clubhouse, just to try
(14:29):
to teach me a lesson. I don't learn lessons. That's
next on things I promised not to tell first time
for the daily roundup of the miss grants, morons, and
Dunning Kruger effect specimens who constitute today's worst parsons in
the world. The Bronze Tommy Tuberville, the half wit football
(14:50):
coach we all continue to pretend is actually qualified to
be senator, even senator from Alabama. He is blocking more
than one hundred and fifty military promotions people who would
be in command positions in the Middle East, at NATO,
in the Indo Sific, some flag officers and such. Tuberville
is blocking them over abortions. Huh, Well, the Pentagon has
(15:14):
increased access to abortions for military personnel and Tuberville is
one of those theocrats. Yesterday he got slammed about this quote.
It's a tactic that he chose to use. He has
that right as a senator. It's not one that I
would use. Well, who said that Senator deb Fisher of
Nebraska Are Nebraska. She's a Republican. She's the number two
(15:35):
Republican on the Armed Services Committee, and she's pissed, so
is the lead Republican on that committee, Roger Wicker. And yesterday,
Defense Secretary Austin said Tuberville was undermining absolutely critical military readiness.
Tuberville is a religious zealot and he needs to get
the f out of the way. Speaking of which, our
(15:56):
runner up, John Cantanzara, president of Chicago's Fraternal Order of
Police katsan Zara is a racist and the January sixth denier,
and he's now decided to wade into the Chicago mayoral race.
Captain Zarah told The New York Times about candidate Brandon Johnson,
quote if this guy gets in, we're going to see
an exodus like we've never seen before, and there will
(16:19):
be quote blood in the streets unquote because as many
as a thousand Chicago police officers, he says, will resign
as a Chicago police officer. This scumbag canton Zara has
been named in fifty different misconduct complaints. He's been suspended
eight times, for a total of one hundred and thirty
one days in one stretch. Complaints were filed against him
(16:42):
in twenty out of twenty six years. He's posted on
social media calling Muslims quote savages. He's answered people on
Facebook by threatening them. He's called Senator Diane Feinstein of
California a quote bitch unquote. He's insisted Michelle Obama is
a man, and he's attacked trans and gay people and
(17:03):
ethnic minorities, and hosted a meme of a police officer
with the caption if we really wanted you dead, all
we'd have to do is stop patrolling your neighborhoods and wait.
And now he's threatening Chicagoans with bloodshed if they vote
for an African American for mayor. What the current mayor
should do is rush the training of a thousand new
(17:25):
Chicago cops and fire the thousand who canton Zara says
will quit, and then fire him and let them all
try to sue their way back onto the job. They
have fewer lawyers than the City of Chicago does this.
Canton Zara is as dangerous as any of the corrupt
Chicago cops of the Capone era. But our winner hard
(17:47):
to top these two losers. But Florida Congressman Byron Donalds
has done it. After the latest school shooting, Donald's not
only lived up to his reputation for imbecility and condescension,
but he literally scolded a reporter for having dared to
suggest a ban of the AR fifteen murder machine that
the Republicans treat as if it were the christ Child quote.
(18:08):
If you're going to talk about the AR fifteen, you're
talking politics. Now, let's not get into politics. Let's not
get into emotion, because emotion feels good, but emotion doesn't
solve problems. He then walked away from the interviewer. Well,
Byron Donalds doesn't solve problems either. This jackass latched onto
the tea party and wound up in the house two
(18:29):
years ago, even though he was arrested in nineteen ninety
seven for distribution of illegal drugs, and he got away
with it via a pre trialed diversion program. In two thousand,
Donalds was charged with felony bribery as part of a
scheme to defraud a bank. That record was later sealed
and expunged, and donald says he was just a young
(18:49):
kid who made mistakes. Back then, Donald's was twenty one
or twenty two at the time. Now he is forty four,
and he's just dismissed any talk about controlling AR fifteens.
AR fifteens are more important to Donald's and his death
cult than are the lives of kids, or, as the
right has kept emphasizing for the last three days, the
(19:10):
lives of Christian kids. He dismissed them as politics. Well,
politics is your job, asshole. Do it Start serving the country,
not just yourself and your bloodthirsty Republican Party. Congressman Byron
Donalds of Florida, Today's worst person in the world? Final ways,
(19:53):
who are Number One? Story on the count own and
my favorite topic, me and things I promised not to tell.
The New York Yankees were in their first Pennant race
in five years. They had reeled off eight wins in
ten games to reach a first place tie with the
defending world champion Toronto Blue Jays. It was Sunday, August
twenty second, nineteen ninety three, and I was at Yankee
(20:14):
Stadium just because we were about to start a month
of intensive preparations for the launch of the ill fated ESPN. Two.
Good evening and welcome to the end of our careers.
That one, and this was probably going to be my
last chance to go to the city, visit my folks,
see a ballgame, whatever till further notice. And here was
my childhood team, the Yankees, with a lineup that now
(20:37):
included friends of mine like Danny Tartibill and Mike Diego
and Don Mattingley against the Royals, for whom my friends
Whiley Joiner and David Khne played, and a seat awaiting
me in the press box on a beautiful late summer
Sunday afternoon with just the earliest hint of fall in
the air and Bobby Darren singing on the PA system,
(20:59):
and the Yankees got crushed. Kansas City started a pitcher
named Chris Haney, who was much less successful than his
mediocre five point four seven r A implied he would
somehow last for eleven seasons, had become statistically one of
the worst pitchers of a generation. And that day, the
(21:19):
Yankees got at least one base runner on in eight
of the nine innings against Chris Haney, and he still
shut them out seven to nothing. And you could sense
right then that whatever it was that a team needed
to have to hold its own down the stretch, the
nineteen ninety three New York Yankees did not have it. Still,
(21:41):
it was fun to visit with reporter friends, some of
whom I'd known since i'd broken in fourteen years earlier,
and some I hadn't seen since then. The only oddity
was that at some point during the game one of
the kids from the Yankees media relations department came over
and asked me for my ID, and when I showed
him my ID, he asked me if I was planning
(22:01):
to go into the Yankee clubhouse afterwards. I said, funny
you s to ask that I am headed downtown for dinner.
But I missed my friend Danny Tartible before the game
for some reason, and I just want to pop in
and say hello. And the kid said thanks, sorry to
trouble you, and he left, and the radio reporter I
was sitting next to Don Gould, said that that was
(22:22):
one of the strangest things he had seen in that
press box. And he added, and nowadays all you see
up heerious strange things. As the Yankees went out limply
in the ninth, leaving Bernie Williams stranded on first, naturally,
I waited until all the reporters with real deadlines had
taken the first couple of elevator trips down to the
Yankee Clubhouse in the basement. Then then I leisurely made
(22:44):
my way downstairs. I navigated the catacombs of the stadium
basement as I had since it had opened in nineteen
seventy six, and felt warm and nostalgic and at peace.
I showed my pass to the guard at the clubhouse
door and walked into the clubhouse to find the Yankee
Clubhouse lacking the one thing it had literally always featured
(23:05):
in each of the dozens and dozens of times I'd
previously entered it since I was seventeen years old. Players.
There were no Yankee players in the Yankee Clubhouse. No Yankees,
no Yankees still in uniform, no Yankees half dressed, no
Yankees not dressed, no sounds of other Yankees in the
(23:29):
showers off to the left. Nothing. Well, that wasn't quite right.
I realized something after about a minute of walking slowly
from locker to locker, thinking, isn't this where they used
to be? Maybe Mattingly is crouching out of sight over here,
and maybe Tartible is hiding behind his suit. After that, oh,
(23:52):
for three I realized that while there were no Yankees
in the Yankee Clubhouse, there were reporters in the Yankee Clubhouse,
and they were all staring at me, and angrily staring
at me. I said to them, might have been my
friend from upstairs, Don Gould, what the hell is going on?
And he said testily, I don't know. Why don't you
(24:13):
tell us. The reporters around him, who had never taken
their eyes off me, now murmured quietly but with a
subtext of threat and menace and vengeance in their indistinct gurgling.
Just at this point, Arthur Richmond, who had been the
Mets public relations man forever and was now a Yankees
(24:36):
vice president of something for some reason, and more importantly,
was the surviving brother of the great baseball reporter Milt Richmond,
who had so helped me at the start of my
career at UPI, Arthur tapped me on the shoulder and said,
you a keith oldwoman, right, And I said, yes, we've
met before. I used to work with your brother. And
he did not look happily at me, and I asked
(24:59):
him if he wanted to see my pass or my
ID or my identifying birthmarks Arthur not smile. The manager
would like to see you in his office. I still
didn't have the faintest idea what was going on. Have
I been sent down to the miners, Arthur, I asked jauntily. Yes, yes,
you have, Richmond answered with utter seriousness. Arthur Richmond escorted
(25:23):
me to the little room on the home plate side
of the clubhouse, in which I had once seen the
late Billy Martin shout at a coach, two pitchers, three writers,
and a clubhouse attendant who had been with the team
since nineteen twenty seven. The current occupant of that tiny office.
The manager rose from his desk, Keith high Buck Showalter.
I'm the manager here. I reminded him that we had
done a lengthy interview for ESPN Radio the year before.
(25:45):
That's right, I had forgotten. I apologized. Listen, I wanted
to tell you. I think you brought something refreshing and
fun to Sports Center. I watch you all the time,
especially when we're on the road. You know the game too,
That's important. But I have to tell you my players
have a problem with what you do. No on that surprise,
players were like that. Nineteen ninety three, very few sportscasters
(26:06):
said anything negative about players. They certainly did not make
jokes or puns about them. I saw you on the
field before the game. I heard some of our guys,
show Walter continued, like Paul O'Neal and Wade Boggs and
Joe Girardi. They were talking about how they were thinking
about going out there on the field and punching you
in the head. I flashed back suddenly to nineteen eighty nine,
(26:32):
when Boggs went on Haraldo Rivera's show and announced he
was a sex addict, and how after checking with a
few of his Red Sox teammates whom I knew from
the year I worked in Boston, who said that was nonsense.
I went on the air on my sportscast on the
local station in LA, having intercut Boggs's weepy comments to
Haraldo with the music video from Robert Palmer's Addicted to Love.
(26:55):
I had to say it was pretty funny and also
might have been the meanest thing I ever did on TV.
Boggs wanted a hunched me in the head on the
field a Yankee stadium. That checked out, go on, I
said to Buck show Walter, In fact, the players are
all staying in the training room in the back until
(27:15):
they've been assured you've left the clubhouse and you won't
be returning. They voted unanimously. I thought about this, When
did they vote unanimously while they were getting shut out
by the worst picture of a generation that did not
check out? Now? Like I said, person, I like what
you do, but I think you may want to consider
the implications of what not having any access to players
(27:37):
ever again will have on your career, especially in such
a high profile program as Sports Center. I thought about
it briefly, and I smiled at Buck Show Walter, none whatsoever. Actually,
I'm a studio guy. I never have to go to games.
And more to the point, I've just left Sports Center
for this new ESPN two network because my boss has
said it's basically going to be a network that's designed
(27:58):
around my sense of humor. Buck Show Walter was thirty
seven years old then, and at the end of his
second year as a major league manager. His team, having
just achieved a tie for first place, had just gotten
the air let out of its balloon by an epically
bad pitcher on a not so good team. Plus they
were due on a flight for Chicago and the bus
was supposed to leave in an hour, but Paul O'Neill,
(28:21):
Wade Bogs, and Joe Girardi were worried about some dumb
sportscaster making jokes. I knew they were doomed. And if
manager Buck Showalter actually let Paul O'Neil, Wade, Bogs, and
Joe Girardi worry about some dumb sportscaster and his jokes,
Buck show Walter two was doomed. And sure enough they
(28:43):
would lose twenty of their last thirty seven games after
that day and not make the playoffs, or two years
and not actually get anywhere in the playoffs until after
show Walter was fired and replaced by my friend Joe Tory.
Right around then after the firing, I was part of
the annual ESPN Awards show the SPS. It was the
post SP's party, and I went to get a drink
(29:04):
and turn into corner and they're coming toward me were
Paul O'Neill, Wade Bogs, and Joe Girardi. I was just
about to gulp when O'Neill shouted, there, he is our
favorite ESPN guy. Handshakes all of them. Girardi said he
was amazed every time I ripped a player, he said
(29:24):
it was somebody he also didn't like. How did I know?
Bog said, somebody told me that you put my Haraldo
appearance into that Robert Palmer's song. If you got a
tape of that, I'd like to see it. I told
them the Buck Showalter story immediately. Oh god, I remember that,
said O'Neill. He was pissed. You were in the ballpark
and we got shut out, and he made us stay
in the trainer's room and not come out till after
(29:46):
you left. And god, it was terrible. The smile vanished
from Joe Girardi's face. Buck did stuff like that all
the time. We should all have a drink and talk
about it. We all had a drink and we talked
about it. Years later, I was telling my late friend
Pedro Gomez of ESPN the story, and he said, Shoe
Walter used to do this to him when Shoe Walter
(30:08):
was managing the Arizona Diamondbacks and Pedro was a beat
reporter for a newspaper in Phoenix. You know, Colburn wants
to beat you up, but I stopped him. He quoted
Showalter as saying Greg Colburn was a six foot one
hundred ninety pound weightlifter from California's Inland Empire who seemed
to play baseball in his spare time. So Pedro said,
(30:31):
I confronted him one day and he said, dude, what
are you talking about. You know, Buck just makes this
crap up. The Yankees fired Buck Showalter in nineteen ninety five,
as I mentioned, and won the World Series in nineteen
ninety six. The Diamondbacks fired him in two thousand and
won the World Series in two thousand and one. Then
he went to work in of all places, the studio
(30:52):
at ESPN for two years. Then he got another managing
job in Texas, got fired from there, went back to
ESPN for three more years, and then became the manager
at Baltimore in twenty ten. I was at the Baltimore
spring training camp one day that March and I see
walking toward me from the other side of the field
trying to capture my attention, Buck show Walter. I am
(31:15):
now fifty one years old. He is now fifty three
years old. It is nearly seventeen years since the day
he locked his entire team in the trainer's room in
the middle of a Pennant race. In a complicated ritual
that would have been too labyrinthine, a plot for Tom
Clancy just to express some cheesy grudge against the way
I did sportscasts. Hey, Joe Walter said when he finally
(31:38):
reached me, when I pulled that stunt on you in
Yankee Stadium was at ninety three, we're ninety four. We
shook hands as I laughed, and I told him it
was August of nineteen ninety three. I can get you
the exact date if you needed. I'm sorry. I had
not been in television yet. I didn't get any of it.
I just thought you guys came in and shouted your
heads off and then went home. I didn't get it, obviously.
(32:02):
Why didn't you tell me off or something? Yeah? I shrugged.
I said, well, there was you. There were six coaches,
twenty five players there versus me, plus all the reporters
who were angry at me, who were on deadline. What
if you were telling the truth now? Buck laughed and
apologized again. We have been professional friends ever since. Whenever
(32:24):
I have seen him, we compare the cruelties of aging
and talk about politics and television. I saw him two
Saturdays ago, after four more years in TV when it
looked like his managing career might be over. He is
back running the New York Mets at the age of
sixty six and doing a damn fine job of it.
And every once in a while I bring up the
trainer's room full of Yankees, and he flinches and says,
(32:45):
you know, there's one last thing about it that now
I cannot possibly understand that trainer's room that was really tiny?
How did the players all fit in there? I've done
(33:13):
all the damage I can do here. Thanks for listening.
Here are the credits. Most of the music was arranged,
produced and performed by Brian Ray and John Philip Chanel,
who are the Countdown musical directors. All orchestration and keyboards
by John Philip Channel, guitars, bass and drums by Brian Ray,
produced by Tko Brothers. Another Beethoven selections have been arranged
(33:33):
and performed by the group No Horns Allowed. The sports
music is the Olderman theme from ESPN two and it
was written by Mitch Warren Davis courtesy of ESPN Inc.
And that's right, I just kind of mispronounced my own name.
That OLB combination has been given me. Hell for like
sixty two years. Anyway, musical comments by Nancy Fauss. The
(33:55):
best baseball stadium organist ever. Our announcer today was Tony Kornheiser.
Everything else was pretty much my fault, me Keith. That's
countdown for this the eight hundred and thirteenth day since
Donald Trump's first attempted coup against the democratically elected government
of the United States. Arrest him now while we still can.
(34:15):
The next scheduled countdown is tomorrow. Until then, I'm Keith Olderman.
Good morning, good afternoon, good night, and good luck. Countdown
with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. For more
podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
(34:40):
wherever you get your podcasts.
Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. The
Trump Pecker Cornstar Sex Payoffs saga. We'll drag on until
(00:28):
at least tomorrow or probably next week, depending on whether
you believe The New York Times or the Wall Street Journal. However, though,
like nature, political commentary abhors a vacuum and makes stuff
up to fill it, there is one good surmise to
offer here. The possible campaign finance and or business records
(00:49):
charges against Trump have almost certainly not been dropped from consideration.
And we know that again from the simple reality that
if they had, the Trump lawyers would know that, and
thus Trump would know that, and thus Trump would have
told everybody in the country that, even if he had
to stop passers in the street and tell them one
by one. I keep getting asked, though, why this delay,
(01:12):
Why that delay, why that other delay? Over there? Okay,
I've done some work. I have some answers to those
of us squirming in our seats waiting for a mug shot.
Since while I met Trump in nineteen eighty three, some
other things to remember, the prediction that Trump was going
to be arrested a week ago Tuesday was made by
(01:35):
Trump and his predictions do tend to be about to
one hundercent wrong. The Times also offers the helpful reminders
that grand juries are not sequestered, that they do not
always work on only one case at a time, and
that this one is clearly looking at least two, and
that while this one usually meets Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday,
(01:55):
it was not expected to meet today, and The Wall
Street Journal said its sources said it would also not
meet tomorrow, and that this could easily have nothing to
do with the case or the other case, or Trump
or brag or anybody else. The grand jurors have lives,
and they are not expected to show up every time
the grand jury meets. There are twenty three grand jurors,
(02:17):
and sixteen must be present to conduct any business at all.
And when the district Attorney wants to vote on an indictment,
the jurors in attendance on the day of that vote
must have all heard all the testimony of all the
previous key witnesses. It's a scheduling issue. We all know
(02:38):
Trump believes the sun and the planets revolve around him,
but the delays are less likely to have anything to
do with him, and much more likely to owe to
Grand Jury number seventeen's responsibility as a dental hygienist or
brain surgeon, or conductor on the railroad whatever. If you
have never been on a jury of any kind in
(02:59):
New York City and you are expecting something out of
inherit the wind or the Verde or even the New
York City situated twelve, angry men, forget it. Navigating the
jury system in New York is like going to Grand
Central Station at rush hour, only more crowded and with
more people talking all at the same time over a
(03:20):
PA system. You cannot understand since Trump's arrest announcement, which
in retrospect looks more and more like just another of
his fundraising gambits number eight hundred seventy four thousand, two
hundred and twenty six in his case. The only known
actual change to Alvin Bragg's schedule before this Grand Jury
(03:40):
was the Trump introduction of Robert Costello to rebut Michael Cohen,
and then the DA's introduction of David Pecker to rebut
Robert Costello and mister district attorney. Is that a pecker
in your pocket? Or are you just glad to see us?
(04:04):
Thank Q? Nancy Faust. There is one other relevant thought here,
but it is also speculative, and it has been touched
on by the former Obama Ethics Council Norm Eisen and
the former federal prosecutor Glenn Kirshner, and even the former
student in exactly one law class in college, Guy me.
It is possible that da Bragg has now asked his
(04:27):
grand jury to examine the possibility of additional charges against Trump,
particularly under New York Penal Code one ninety five point
zero five quote obstructing governmental administration in the second degree.
A person is guilty of obstructing governmental administration when he
intentionally obstructs a public servant from performing an official function
(04:50):
by means of intimidation, physical force, or interference, whether or
not physical force is involved. The code then has one
additional specific which I do not think apply, is here,
but who knows what's bouncing around in Trump's empty mind.
One ninety five point five also deems illegal quote releasing
(05:13):
a dangerous animal under circumstances evincing the actor's intent that
the animal obstruct governmental administration. I may have to spend
some time getting the backstory on that provision. Perhaps, Sir,
this Hyaena will remind you of what you did on
that night, or perhaps it's a reference to some of
(05:36):
Trump's creatures in Congress. CNN actually had a fascinating piece
on how Trump is manipulating Republicans in the House to
try to pressure the Manhattan DA, even though he can
rightfully ignore those Republicans, and so far, all these threats
got Jim Jordan was a note from the DA's general
counsel that basically said, mister Bragg is too busy to
deal with your nonsense himself, so I'm doing so moron
(05:58):
Trump's leading puppet, it is not Jim Jordan, but rather
Elise Stephanic, who sold her soul quite some time ago.
And to use a contemporary pop culture reference, quite a
rarity for me, is the Renfield to Trump's Dracula. Here,
CNN quotes three sources who say Stefanik reaches out to
Trump about once a week, and he also calls her irregularly.
(06:22):
They spoke several times last week and happily, quote, she
walked him through the GOP's plans for an aggressive response
to Bragg, which is sad on both ends because not
only did Republican after Republican ignore subpoenas from a Democratic House.
But this group would have to go to Merrick Garland
to get a contempt of Congress charge going against Alvin Bragg.
(06:43):
And as we all know, if you want to make
sure somebody is not charged with anything, the man you
want to see is Merrick Garland. The other Trump water
carriers Marjorie Green. Not a surprise Jordan, of course, though
a Jordan's spokesman tried to give him a climb down
by downplaying the idea that Jordan was talking to Trump
(07:03):
just about the storm. Daniel's case, Jamie Comer went even further,
insisting he has not talked to Trump since Trump's term ended. Trump, though,
has Henchman also reaching out to members of Congress. Joey Tax,
that's Joe Takapina to you who have not anchored shows
on MSNBC in this end of previous century. Joey Tax
(07:25):
wrote Jim Jordan a letter about Alvin Bragg, and Boris
Epstein talks to others in the House. Then there are
the nut jobs floating in the middle between Trump and
the House, outsiders like Tom Fitton from Judicial Watch and
Mike Davis of the Article three Project, who are tired
of all these pesky hearings and want to move directly
to Congress, burning people at the stake. No, sorry, I
(07:47):
misread that last sentence. They are tired of all these
pesky hearings and want to move directly to subpoenas and
criminal referrals and staring daggers at Democrats. The news out
of the Special Counsel's grand jury. I presume you already
know a federal district yesterday ordered Mike Pence to testify
to that grand jury. He broadly turned down the Trump
(08:10):
attempt to invoke executive privilege to block the testimony, but
the judge did give Pence some wiggle room about testifying
specifically on his role in the actual congressional certification from
January six, twenty twenty one, the so called speech and
debate exception. Pence does not have to talk about any
of that. But whatever Pence witnessed Trump doing that, Pence
(08:34):
can be made to testify to. Lastly, don't know if
anybody remembers this, but a special grand jury in Fulton
County in Georgia took testimony on Trump's attempt to get
state officials there to falsify the election outcome. In twenty twenty,
the grand jury listened to seventy five witnesses and issued
a report and said some of its witnesses seemed to
(08:55):
be lying, and District Attorney Fannie Willis was deciding whether
or not to go use it as the basis for
convening a regular grand jury and go for indictments when
Trump filed a motion to quash the special report and
hold onto your hats. The judge in the case has
asked for the DA's response there in Fulton County no
later than May first, May first, because take your time.
(09:21):
It's not like Trump isn't exploiting the slow moving bureaucracy
in Atlanta, and the slow moving bureaucracy in Washington, and
the slow moving bureaucracy in New York at all the while.
It's not like he's running to regain power and turn
all of you courts into rubber stamps for whatever. Villainy
Stephen Miller and the rest of the Trump undead dream
(09:43):
up at night, still ahead of us. In this edition
of Countdown, Marjorie Taylor Green's congressional Twitter account has been
suspended for a week just because while the fascists like
(10:07):
Senator John Kennedy of Louisiana. Wonder if they can charge
the dead shooter from Nashville with a hate crime because
it was at a Christian school. It's suspended just because
she referred to Antifa driven trans terrorism f her and
the head of the Chicago police union is blunt. If
(10:28):
you vote for the black guy for mayor, a thousand
of US cops will quit and there will be quote
blood in the streets. Seems like there already is in Chicago.
And the Chicago police are so bad nobody would notice
if a thousand of them quit. We'll examine in worse persons.
And on the eve of the new baseball season, all
the good old days when a team manager could order
(10:50):
all of his players into a tiny trainer's room at
the side of the clubhouse in order to teach a
lesson to some obnoxious anchor from Sports Center. That's next
this discountdown. This is countdown with Keith Olberman I with
(11:14):
scripts to the news, some headlines, some updates, some snarks,
some predictions, dateline, Twitter surprising blowback in Elon musk Land.
The congressional account of Marjorie Barney rubble Green has been
suspended for seven days she is livid. All she did
was described the mass shooting at the Nashville Covenant School
as quote, the threat of Antifa driven trans terrorism, and
(11:38):
she accused others of politically motivated violence. Green also demanded
that Musk restore her account immediately. As always with Twitter suspensions,
it is at the moment that you agreed to delete
the tweets that we're in violation of Twitter rules that
your account goes from on hold indefinitely to on hold
for seven days. But green thinks the rules don't apply
(12:01):
to her. You will remember, those are the rules that
applied to me. The rules not applying to her is
the story of Marjorie Barney Rubbell Greene's life. On Monday,
this was the first of her two anti American events
since that shooting. She tried to interfere with ATF agents
inspecting a murder store in Smyrna, Georgia, then claimed to
(12:22):
have the right to do so because she's on the
House Oversight Committee. Thank you, Nancy Faust Dateline Wilmington, Delaware
(12:48):
News from the Dominion Voting System's lawsuit against Fox quote
news unquote. In a filing this week, the plaintiffs in
the one point six billion dollar defamation suit submitted their
witness list. They want CEO Suzanne Scott of Fox and
network president Jay Wallace to testify. Also former politics editor
Chris Stirewalt and a former executive named Bill Salmon, Owen
(13:09):
anchor Brett Bear and Sean Hannity and Laura Ingram and
Maria bardar Romo and Tucker Carlson and the ex Carlson
producer who sued Fox, Abbey Grossberg, Owen, Lachlan Murdoch, and
Rupert Murdoch. At a virtual trial hearing yesterday, Fox's attorneys
filed objections to every exhibit that dominion asked to use
(13:33):
at trial. The judge Eric Davis was outraged, quoting Davis,
if I think you're just trying to interrupt testimony out
of gamesmanship, you may have a problem. Be careful, people,
keep your powder dry on this stuff. This isn't a game.
This is a trial, and you're going to be presenting
to a jury still ahead. So Baseball's opening day is tomorrow,
(14:08):
and there's so much they've screwed up. I find myself
getting all nostalgic for the good old days, Like thirty
years ago this August when a current major league manager
forced all of his players, in the middle of a
tense pennant race to go and hide in the tiny
trainer's room adjacent to the team clubhouse, just to try
(14:29):
to teach me a lesson. I don't learn lessons. That's
next on things I promised not to tell first time
for the daily roundup of the miss grants, morons, and
Dunning Kruger effect specimens who constitute today's worst parsons in
the world. The Bronze Tommy Tuberville, the half wit football
(14:50):
coach we all continue to pretend is actually qualified to
be senator, even senator from Alabama. He is blocking more
than one hundred and fifty military promotions people who would
be in command positions in the Middle East, at NATO,
in the Indo Sific, some flag officers and such. Tuberville
is blocking them over abortions. Huh, Well, the Pentagon has
(15:14):
increased access to abortions for military personnel and Tuberville is
one of those theocrats. Yesterday he got slammed about this quote.
It's a tactic that he chose to use. He has
that right as a senator. It's not one that I
would use. Well, who said that Senator deb Fisher of
Nebraska Are Nebraska. She's a Republican. She's the number two
(15:35):
Republican on the Armed Services Committee, and she's pissed, so
is the lead Republican on that committee, Roger Wicker. And yesterday,
Defense Secretary Austin said Tuberville was undermining absolutely critical military readiness.
Tuberville is a religious zealot and he needs to get
the f out of the way. Speaking of which, our
(15:56):
runner up, John Cantanzara, president of Chicago's Fraternal Order of
Police katsan Zara is a racist and the January sixth denier,
and he's now decided to wade into the Chicago mayoral race.
Captain Zarah told The New York Times about candidate Brandon Johnson,
quote if this guy gets in, we're going to see
an exodus like we've never seen before, and there will
(16:19):
be quote blood in the streets unquote because as many
as a thousand Chicago police officers, he says, will resign
as a Chicago police officer. This scumbag canton Zara has
been named in fifty different misconduct complaints. He's been suspended
eight times, for a total of one hundred and thirty
one days in one stretch. Complaints were filed against him
(16:42):
in twenty out of twenty six years. He's posted on
social media calling Muslims quote savages. He's answered people on
Facebook by threatening them. He's called Senator Diane Feinstein of
California a quote bitch unquote. He's insisted Michelle Obama is
a man, and he's attacked trans and gay people and
(17:03):
ethnic minorities, and hosted a meme of a police officer
with the caption if we really wanted you dead, all
we'd have to do is stop patrolling your neighborhoods and wait.
And now he's threatening Chicagoans with bloodshed if they vote
for an African American for mayor. What the current mayor
should do is rush the training of a thousand new
(17:25):
Chicago cops and fire the thousand who canton Zara says
will quit, and then fire him and let them all
try to sue their way back onto the job. They
have fewer lawyers than the City of Chicago does this.
Canton Zara is as dangerous as any of the corrupt
Chicago cops of the Capone era. But our winner hard
(17:47):
to top these two losers. But Florida Congressman Byron Donalds
has done it. After the latest school shooting, Donald's not
only lived up to his reputation for imbecility and condescension,
but he literally scolded a reporter for having dared to
suggest a ban of the AR fifteen murder machine that
the Republicans treat as if it were the christ Child quote.
(18:08):
If you're going to talk about the AR fifteen, you're
talking politics. Now, let's not get into politics. Let's not
get into emotion, because emotion feels good, but emotion doesn't
solve problems. He then walked away from the interviewer. Well,
Byron Donalds doesn't solve problems either. This jackass latched onto
the tea party and wound up in the house two
(18:29):
years ago, even though he was arrested in nineteen ninety
seven for distribution of illegal drugs, and he got away
with it via a pre trialed diversion program. In two thousand,
Donalds was charged with felony bribery as part of a
scheme to defraud a bank. That record was later sealed
and expunged, and donald says he was just a young
(18:49):
kid who made mistakes. Back then, Donald's was twenty one
or twenty two at the time. Now he is forty four,
and he's just dismissed any talk about controlling AR fifteens.
AR fifteens are more important to Donald's and his death
cult than are the lives of kids, or, as the
right has kept emphasizing for the last three days, the
(19:10):
lives of Christian kids. He dismissed them as politics. Well,
politics is your job, asshole. Do it Start serving the country,
not just yourself and your bloodthirsty Republican Party. Congressman Byron
Donalds of Florida, Today's worst person in the world? Final ways,
(19:53):
who are Number One? Story on the count own and
my favorite topic, me and things I promised not to tell.
The New York Yankees were in their first Pennant race
in five years. They had reeled off eight wins in
ten games to reach a first place tie with the
defending world champion Toronto Blue Jays. It was Sunday, August
twenty second, nineteen ninety three, and I was at Yankee
(20:14):
Stadium just because we were about to start a month
of intensive preparations for the launch of the ill fated ESPN. Two.
Good evening and welcome to the end of our careers.
That one, and this was probably going to be my
last chance to go to the city, visit my folks,
see a ballgame, whatever till further notice. And here was
my childhood team, the Yankees, with a lineup that now
(20:37):
included friends of mine like Danny Tartibill and Mike Diego
and Don Mattingley against the Royals, for whom my friends
Whiley Joiner and David Khne played, and a seat awaiting
me in the press box on a beautiful late summer
Sunday afternoon with just the earliest hint of fall in
the air and Bobby Darren singing on the PA system,
(20:59):
and the Yankees got crushed. Kansas City started a pitcher
named Chris Haney, who was much less successful than his
mediocre five point four seven r A implied he would
somehow last for eleven seasons, had become statistically one of
the worst pitchers of a generation. And that day, the
(21:19):
Yankees got at least one base runner on in eight
of the nine innings against Chris Haney, and he still
shut them out seven to nothing. And you could sense
right then that whatever it was that a team needed
to have to hold its own down the stretch, the
nineteen ninety three New York Yankees did not have it. Still,
(21:41):
it was fun to visit with reporter friends, some of
whom I'd known since i'd broken in fourteen years earlier,
and some I hadn't seen since then. The only oddity
was that at some point during the game one of
the kids from the Yankees media relations department came over
and asked me for my ID, and when I showed
him my ID, he asked me if I was planning
(22:01):
to go into the Yankee clubhouse afterwards. I said, funny
you s to ask that I am headed downtown for dinner.
But I missed my friend Danny Tartible before the game
for some reason, and I just want to pop in
and say hello. And the kid said thanks, sorry to
trouble you, and he left, and the radio reporter I
was sitting next to Don Gould, said that that was
(22:22):
one of the strangest things he had seen in that
press box. And he added, and nowadays all you see
up heerious strange things. As the Yankees went out limply
in the ninth, leaving Bernie Williams stranded on first, naturally,
I waited until all the reporters with real deadlines had
taken the first couple of elevator trips down to the
Yankee Clubhouse in the basement. Then then I leisurely made
(22:44):
my way downstairs. I navigated the catacombs of the stadium
basement as I had since it had opened in nineteen
seventy six, and felt warm and nostalgic and at peace.
I showed my pass to the guard at the clubhouse
door and walked into the clubhouse to find the Yankee
Clubhouse lacking the one thing it had literally always featured
(23:05):
in each of the dozens and dozens of times I'd
previously entered it since I was seventeen years old. Players.
There were no Yankee players in the Yankee Clubhouse. No Yankees,
no Yankees still in uniform, no Yankees half dressed, no
Yankees not dressed, no sounds of other Yankees in the
(23:29):
showers off to the left. Nothing. Well, that wasn't quite right.
I realized something after about a minute of walking slowly
from locker to locker, thinking, isn't this where they used
to be? Maybe Mattingly is crouching out of sight over here,
and maybe Tartible is hiding behind his suit. After that, oh,
(23:52):
for three I realized that while there were no Yankees
in the Yankee Clubhouse, there were reporters in the Yankee Clubhouse,
and they were all staring at me, and angrily staring
at me. I said to them, might have been my
friend from upstairs, Don Gould, what the hell is going on?
And he said testily, I don't know. Why don't you
(24:13):
tell us. The reporters around him, who had never taken
their eyes off me, now murmured quietly but with a
subtext of threat and menace and vengeance in their indistinct gurgling.
Just at this point, Arthur Richmond, who had been the
Mets public relations man forever and was now a Yankees
(24:36):
vice president of something for some reason, and more importantly,
was the surviving brother of the great baseball reporter Milt Richmond,
who had so helped me at the start of my
career at UPI, Arthur tapped me on the shoulder and said,
you a keith oldwoman, right, And I said, yes, we've
met before. I used to work with your brother. And
he did not look happily at me, and I asked
(24:59):
him if he wanted to see my pass or my
ID or my identifying birthmarks Arthur not smile. The manager
would like to see you in his office. I still
didn't have the faintest idea what was going on. Have
I been sent down to the miners, Arthur, I asked jauntily. Yes, yes,
you have, Richmond answered with utter seriousness. Arthur Richmond escorted
(25:23):
me to the little room on the home plate side
of the clubhouse, in which I had once seen the
late Billy Martin shout at a coach, two pitchers, three writers,
and a clubhouse attendant who had been with the team
since nineteen twenty seven. The current occupant of that tiny office.
The manager rose from his desk, Keith high Buck Showalter.
I'm the manager here. I reminded him that we had
done a lengthy interview for ESPN Radio the year before.
(25:45):
That's right, I had forgotten. I apologized. Listen, I wanted
to tell you. I think you brought something refreshing and
fun to Sports Center. I watch you all the time,
especially when we're on the road. You know the game too,
That's important. But I have to tell you my players
have a problem with what you do. No on that surprise,
players were like that. Nineteen ninety three, very few sportscasters
(26:06):
said anything negative about players. They certainly did not make
jokes or puns about them. I saw you on the
field before the game. I heard some of our guys,
show Walter continued, like Paul O'Neal and Wade Boggs and
Joe Girardi. They were talking about how they were thinking
about going out there on the field and punching you
in the head. I flashed back suddenly to nineteen eighty nine,
(26:32):
when Boggs went on Haraldo Rivera's show and announced he
was a sex addict, and how after checking with a
few of his Red Sox teammates whom I knew from
the year I worked in Boston, who said that was nonsense.
I went on the air on my sportscast on the
local station in LA, having intercut Boggs's weepy comments to
Haraldo with the music video from Robert Palmer's Addicted to Love.
(26:55):
I had to say it was pretty funny and also
might have been the meanest thing I ever did on TV.
Boggs wanted a hunched me in the head on the
field a Yankee stadium. That checked out, go on, I
said to Buck show Walter, In fact, the players are
all staying in the training room in the back until
(27:15):
they've been assured you've left the clubhouse and you won't
be returning. They voted unanimously. I thought about this, When
did they vote unanimously while they were getting shut out
by the worst picture of a generation that did not
check out? Now? Like I said, person, I like what
you do, but I think you may want to consider
the implications of what not having any access to players
(27:37):
ever again will have on your career, especially in such
a high profile program as Sports Center. I thought about
it briefly, and I smiled at Buck Show Walter, none whatsoever. Actually,
I'm a studio guy. I never have to go to games.
And more to the point, I've just left Sports Center
for this new ESPN two network because my boss has
said it's basically going to be a network that's designed
(27:58):
around my sense of humor. Buck Show Walter was thirty
seven years old then, and at the end of his
second year as a major league manager. His team, having
just achieved a tie for first place, had just gotten
the air let out of its balloon by an epically
bad pitcher on a not so good team. Plus they
were due on a flight for Chicago and the bus
was supposed to leave in an hour, but Paul O'Neill,
(28:21):
Wade Bogs, and Joe Girardi were worried about some dumb
sportscaster making jokes. I knew they were doomed. And if
manager Buck Showalter actually let Paul O'Neil, Wade, Bogs, and
Joe Girardi worry about some dumb sportscaster and his jokes,
Buck show Walter two was doomed. And sure enough they
(28:43):
would lose twenty of their last thirty seven games after
that day and not make the playoffs, or two years
and not actually get anywhere in the playoffs until after
show Walter was fired and replaced by my friend Joe Tory.
Right around then after the firing, I was part of
the annual ESPN Awards show the SPS. It was the
post SP's party, and I went to get a drink
(29:04):
and turn into corner and they're coming toward me were
Paul O'Neill, Wade Bogs, and Joe Girardi. I was just
about to gulp when O'Neill shouted, there, he is our
favorite ESPN guy. Handshakes all of them. Girardi said he
was amazed every time I ripped a player, he said
(29:24):
it was somebody he also didn't like. How did I know?
Bog said, somebody told me that you put my Haraldo
appearance into that Robert Palmer's song. If you got a
tape of that, I'd like to see it. I told
them the Buck Showalter story immediately. Oh god, I remember that,
said O'Neill. He was pissed. You were in the ballpark
and we got shut out, and he made us stay
in the trainer's room and not come out till after
(29:46):
you left. And god, it was terrible. The smile vanished
from Joe Girardi's face. Buck did stuff like that all
the time. We should all have a drink and talk
about it. We all had a drink and we talked
about it. Years later, I was telling my late friend
Pedro Gomez of ESPN the story, and he said, Shoe
Walter used to do this to him when Shoe Walter
(30:08):
was managing the Arizona Diamondbacks and Pedro was a beat
reporter for a newspaper in Phoenix. You know, Colburn wants
to beat you up, but I stopped him. He quoted
Showalter as saying Greg Colburn was a six foot one
hundred ninety pound weightlifter from California's Inland Empire who seemed
to play baseball in his spare time. So Pedro said,
(30:31):
I confronted him one day and he said, dude, what
are you talking about. You know, Buck just makes this
crap up. The Yankees fired Buck Showalter in nineteen ninety five,
as I mentioned, and won the World Series in nineteen
ninety six. The Diamondbacks fired him in two thousand and
won the World Series in two thousand and one. Then
he went to work in of all places, the studio
(30:52):
at ESPN for two years. Then he got another managing
job in Texas, got fired from there, went back to
ESPN for three more years, and then became the manager
at Baltimore in twenty ten. I was at the Baltimore
spring training camp one day that March and I see
walking toward me from the other side of the field
trying to capture my attention, Buck show Walter. I am
(31:15):
now fifty one years old. He is now fifty three
years old. It is nearly seventeen years since the day
he locked his entire team in the trainer's room in
the middle of a Pennant race. In a complicated ritual
that would have been too labyrinthine, a plot for Tom
Clancy just to express some cheesy grudge against the way
I did sportscasts. Hey, Joe Walter said when he finally
(31:38):
reached me, when I pulled that stunt on you in
Yankee Stadium was at ninety three, we're ninety four. We
shook hands as I laughed, and I told him it
was August of nineteen ninety three. I can get you
the exact date if you needed. I'm sorry. I had
not been in television yet. I didn't get any of it.
I just thought you guys came in and shouted your
heads off and then went home. I didn't get it, obviously.
(32:02):
Why didn't you tell me off or something? Yeah? I shrugged.
I said, well, there was you. There were six coaches,
twenty five players there versus me, plus all the reporters
who were angry at me, who were on deadline. What
if you were telling the truth now? Buck laughed and
apologized again. We have been professional friends ever since. Whenever
(32:24):
I have seen him, we compare the cruelties of aging
and talk about politics and television. I saw him two
Saturdays ago, after four more years in TV when it
looked like his managing career might be over. He is
back running the New York Mets at the age of
sixty six and doing a damn fine job of it.
And every once in a while I bring up the
trainer's room full of Yankees, and he flinches and says,
(32:45):
you know, there's one last thing about it that now
I cannot possibly understand that trainer's room that was really tiny?
How did the players all fit in there? I've done
(33:13):
all the damage I can do here. Thanks for listening.
Here are the credits. Most of the music was arranged,
produced and performed by Brian Ray and John Philip Chanel,
who are the Countdown musical directors. All orchestration and keyboards
by John Philip Channel, guitars, bass and drums by Brian Ray,
produced by Tko Brothers. Another Beethoven selections have been arranged
(33:33):
and performed by the group No Horns Allowed. The sports
music is the Olderman theme from ESPN two and it
was written by Mitch Warren Davis courtesy of ESPN Inc.
And that's right, I just kind of mispronounced my own name.
That OLB combination has been given me. Hell for like
sixty two years. Anyway, musical comments by Nancy Fauss. The
(33:55):
best baseball stadium organist ever. Our announcer today was Tony Kornheiser.
Everything else was pretty much my fault, me Keith. That's
countdown for this the eight hundred and thirteenth day since
Donald Trump's first attempted coup against the democratically elected government
of the United States. Arrest him now while we still can.
(34:15):
The next scheduled countdown is tomorrow. Until then, I'm Keith Olderman.
Good morning, good afternoon, good night, and good luck. Countdown
with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. For more
podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
(34:40):
wherever you get your podcasts.
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