January 23, 2025 • 32 mins
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
It's that time, time, time, time, luck and load. The
Michael Varry Show is on the air. A number of
you reached out during the worst of the cold weather
(00:28):
and concerns over the roads and the infrastructure, noting that
you hadn't seen the Comandante, the corn Roll Comandante had
had gone missing, and that will remind you this is
not the first time the Corner Roll Comandante has gone missing.
The last time she went missing, we had to dedicate
(00:49):
a song for it from Chance McLean. Where are you?
Speaker 2 (00:59):
They say, left brom Texas, Blena Lena Boom.
Speaker 1 (01:04):
Where are you?
Speaker 2 (01:05):
It's always happened, bet with progresses every time a feeling
the rubber shades excuse they have depends off breakdown high
behind the guard of a victim card to avoid the
legal shakedown, and it's intainas in between a legal rock
can up. The are hard graves here going free and
(01:29):
Lena you can try.
Speaker 1 (01:30):
To ride behind and Reacciata.
Speaker 2 (01:32):
States, We'll wait recouper rate Blena Lena Boom, get the
betters the love dear an be rested.
Speaker 3 (01:42):
Theres as soon as.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
You get back, gonna hear the black over coast the
short arrested.
Speaker 1 (01:56):
I saw a report from Boston News federal agents conducting
raids and detaining individuals and apartments across Boston, a designated
sanctuary city. What's going to be interesting is public opinion
(02:16):
is going to take something of a wait and see approach.
While people want deportations, we've got a real serious what
I have referred to as the nice neighbor problem. Everybody's
been told to be nice. Mommy told you to be nice.
(02:37):
The woman teacher at school said to be nice. This
is why kids are prescribed all of these lower level,
otherwise hardcore drugs to keep them calm. Little boys, not girls.
Little boys because we don't want little boys to be
little boys. We don't want them fidgeting, wrastling, climbing stuff.
(03:02):
We'd rather they be zombies, because that's what women want
boys to be. They don't want boys growing into men.
They want boys to be just like little girls. Play
with the dolls over there and be soft and be quiet.
Little boys are different than little girls. There is no
(03:24):
doubt little boys are different than little girls. And so
you have this situation where the nice neighbor problem is.
You have a lot of people who've been raised this
is the boy who he's got his girlfriend. And on Saturdays,
you see these guys on Saturday, they're at bed bath
(03:45):
and beyond counting the thread count or comparing the thread
count in the sheets, and they have absolutely they have
absolutely fallen prey to the bridle registry and how many
items are going to be on there? And look at me,
and they've lost any testosterone that they otherwise would have had.
(04:07):
And they're still in their twenties. So these people are
perfect little corporate worker bees. These are people who learn
what word you can use and what word you can't.
They learn proper Twitter protocol, what to post and whatnot,
what to say. Always apologize for your white hood. Always
(04:29):
express the privilege that you have enjoyed, the guilt you
have over it. Be willing to promote other people who
don't look like you over the other person who looks
like you, because he still want to take care of yourself.
Be willing to talk about how racist your parents and
god knows your grandparents, Oh grandmother she was, you wouldn't believe, yes,
(04:50):
But here i am. Here, I am, I have persevered
beyond that. Look at me, I have arrived today. I'm
not like those people. This is what Obama preyed upon
when white kids would go home from college at Thanksgiving
to lecture their parents and grandparents to withhold the affection
(05:13):
that they live off of they live for unless they
voted the way you wanted them to vote. So what's
going to happen is as these deportations begin, the media
is not going to cover the fact that this guy
was pulled out and he's killed ten people, and this
guy was pulled out. He's a sex trafficker of eight
(05:36):
year old girls. And this guy was pulled out and
five people have died as a result of his Ventanyl
Street gang. No, none of that's going to be pointed out.
What's going to be pointed out is the lady who's
going to be crying that she just wants to live
here and she went and we're going to be told
that these people came here for asylum. You can't go home,
(06:01):
it's too dangerous. They can't go home. Well that's odd
because they went home at Christmas, and they went home
for a month the Christmas before you came here and
presented yourself and said, hey, I need all the free
stuff I was promised. I'm seeking asylum. I'm scared of
where I came from, and so all the goodies were
(06:24):
handed to them, and they would dutifully vote Democrat and
march in the protest, and then come Christmas they go
back and visit their relatives. What that's odd? I thought
that was the place you were fleeing because you were
being persecuted for being what Hispanic? Because there's a lot
(06:45):
of other ones there well, Catholic. What exactly were you
being persecuted for and what exactly are you running from?
Truth is, everybody knows somebody that you've met over the years.
It's a very nice person that came to this country illegally, right,
(07:07):
So what do you do? You make laws over the
long term that accommodate people who are checked, verified and
allowed to come here on work visus for a period
of time, and after that period of time, a certain
number will be given an opportunity of a pathway to citizenship.
(07:30):
But we can't have that system now because the system
has been so overwhelmed by people just crashing the gates
like Black Friday, that here we are, here, we are
with a broken system. The answer to that system is
not to go back now to what we should have
done on the front end and simply allow murderers, rapists,
(07:53):
traffickers to remain here. The American people and the polls
are showing ce Ann showed one yesterday, the American people,
including Democrats, do not want the illegal aliens here. They
do want the importations. But the Democrats and the media
(08:14):
and some of the bureaucrats who are part of all
this are going to do everything they can to change
public opinion that that time is now.
Speaker 4 (08:26):
It's a change.
Speaker 1 (08:28):
My wisdom.
Speaker 4 (08:34):
Can tell me.
Speaker 1 (08:39):
We had less lonely boys at the RCC, and I
think most people, I think a lot of people. Certainly
everybody that night knew this song, but maybe Senorita, maybe
maybe Senorita, maybe another for most people now there'll be
(09:02):
that it'll be a woman who I know all their songs. Michael,
you're wrong, Okay, great, but our folks didn't know their music,
just this song. So I can't remember who it was.
But somebody I know, Doug Trokin' Broad, Tim Holt, somebody
(09:25):
who was a very active member, finds out that their
gig somewhere up north wasn't Docy Dough, but it was
it might have been Doc Dough. Whatever happened that their
gig had been canceled the last minute, like the last
last minute, or Tuesday for a Friday night prins and bands.
(09:50):
What bands draw is often more or less than you
would expect, but there's something of a science to it
because what happens is a band that goes on tour
for any length of time, you establish a price. It
becomes kind of a market for that band. And so
(10:13):
there are bands that you would think should be a
twenty five thousand dollars band, but they're ten. And that's
because while people like their music, people don't buy tickets
to go see them. And then there are bands that
you would think would be a five thousand dollars band
because they never had any big hits, but people love them,
(10:35):
so they become a twenty five thousand dollars band. But
my challenge was we weren't really an open to the
public per se, marketed to the public kind of place.
We were. We had our members and I had to
find things. I had to program for what our members
would like. And it taught me a lot about how
(10:55):
wrong you can be about what a band is quote worth.
A band's worth is not how good their music is.
A band's worth is their ability to draw people out
to come and see them. So those Lonely Boys, while
they didn't have a ton of hits, they have something
(11:15):
of a follow and then Grateful Dead would be the
best example of a band. They only had the one
number one hit and that made their fans mad because
they didn't want the public to know about them. So
here was a band who kind of became famous for
having this cult following. That's how a lot of people
outside the cult knew of the Grateful Dead was because
(11:37):
of the dead Heads. They became their marketing tool and
the Volkswagen vans and driving around the country following them
and the tie die and all that. So they could
command most any amount of money because you knew, especially
in a festival setting, you knew they were going to
be a massive draw. And then you would have other
bands they would have plenty of hits, but nobody really
(11:59):
wants to go see them. Not a knock on them.
It's just a difference. So anyway, Los Lonely Boys was
something like it was a lot. It was like thirty
five thousand. Well, there were big draws I could get
for thirty five thousand, and Low Lonely Boys wasn't going
to be one of them, but the show had canceled.
They had looked into us. They liked what we stood for,
(12:21):
they liked the way we ran the RCC. We always
treated the artists first class. We paid them before they arrived.
Nobody in the business did that. A lot of them
would finish their show and then they would have to
wait that night. They'd be in the bus and their
manager would be in there and they'd be counting out
the cash to pay them. They would argue over, well,
y'all had four waters and at twenty dollars a piece,
im a knock off eighty dollars, just really abusing the bands,
(12:44):
and we treated them like kings under the premise that
they would want to come back. So I think we
got them for something like five grand, which was an
absolute steal. But it also meant we had no time
to market. So my answer to that was, well, I
don't want to have ten people at this show, so
let's make the tickets insanely cheap, you know, two dollars
(13:06):
or whatever it was. And so because there's no value
to a free ticket. So I don't remember what we
did for a lot of our members. I think we
did it free. I don't the numbers escaped me, but
I'm pretty sure we got them for five thousand, which
the bar owners and concert venue owners listening are going
to No way you got them for five We did
because it was a last minute deal and we agreed
to take them, and they were routing through they played
(13:29):
that song. They were probably four or five songs in,
and there's an energy when the band first comes loose
Lonely Boys as a band that a lot of people
have heard of, but they don't know what their songs are.
So yeah, and everybody. The thing about concerts, it took
me a while to understands there are very few people's.
The same thing is true of NFL games. There are
(13:53):
very few people who were there because they want to
watch the quarterback try to connect with the wide receiver
while the defensive back stops him. There are a lot
of people who were there because for weeks before that
they can post on social media where they're going. They
go get their outfit for it. Here's the day of
oh we're going to go. You know, well, you know
I can't do it on Sunday because I'm going to
(14:13):
the game. We got tickets to the game. My husband
got tickets a game, and I've got this dress I'm
gonna wear. So a lot of it is the excitement
over the event, and there's nothing wrong with that. So
there were all these people who came for low lonely
boys in this insanely cheap ticket, and we promoted it
pretty hard within our email blast, and I probably mentioned
(14:35):
it on there thirty five times or so. The night comes,
they get on stage. Our people don't know their songs,
but you could not help but love these guys because
they were so classy and by which I mean they
were genuinely concerned with entertaining the audience. And they realized,
(14:55):
you know what, these aren't our typical fans. A little
bit older, it a bit whiter, because they're more of
a Chicano audience. So not Spanish language speaking primarily, but
you know people from the valley that live in this
country and speak English, and but their last name happens
to be Peine or Rodriguez. No, not Roebliss. You do
(15:18):
not qualify you the least you always try that. Anyway,
they start singing Heaven about five songs in and our
crowd realized, oh, I know this song. I swear they
had to do a twenty minute condition of the song
like they just like they gave a concert of that
(15:38):
song and nobody minded and it was just awesome. They
hung around afterwards, they signed every autograph, so low songios.
It comes up from me, Larry Derker, to talk about
Billy Wagner coming up drum and whole song. The son
came up today yesterday we celebrate the announcement the night before.
(16:02):
Billy Wagner was the ninth player to ever wear an
Astro's jersey at some point in his career, played over
half of his career in Houston to make the coveted
Hall of Fame. His coach for most of those years
while he was in Houston was mister Astro Larry Derker,
and he's our guest coach. Welcome to the program.
Speaker 3 (16:24):
Well, thank you, it's a good program. Thank you.
Speaker 1 (16:29):
What a nice thing to say. What was your reaction
to the news that Billy Wagner, in his tenth and
final year of eligibility made.
Speaker 3 (16:38):
It relief.
Speaker 4 (16:42):
Which is a funny word for her, not a funny
but a word.
Speaker 3 (16:44):
That goes along with relief pitchers. But it was his
last chance to make it without going to the Veterans Committee,
and I felt that he was deserving of going in
on the first round, but I knew that was doubtful
and the way things have gone in the past. But
after that, I think, other than Marianna Rivera, I don't
think there's another closer in the history of baseball that's
(17:07):
better than Billy Wagner. And I just couldn't believe the
year after year they passed him by.
Speaker 1 (17:12):
Why do you think that was? Was it playing in Houston.
Speaker 3 (17:19):
I think it's a little bit more difficult to get
attention playing in Houston, But I'm not sure it was
that because there are other relievers that I think belonged
there that are not in there. And you know, I
hesitate to say this. It's like the Kansas City complaining
about the referrera of people complaining that the Chiefs get
(17:42):
a break from the referees. But I think relief pitchers
in general have more trouble cracking the Hall of Fame
criteria than any other position, the.
Speaker 1 (17:55):
Punter of baseball. It's a good point, very interesting point.
What were your thoughts on Billy Wagner as a coach
of him as a player.
Speaker 3 (18:08):
Well, he was terrific. You know, he didn't complain about anything.
He always wanted to pitch. He wanted to pitch in
some games that I didn't want him to pitch in
because he'd been throwing too much in previous games. And
there was, you know, one a couple of incidents where
(18:29):
I made a mistake and got him in a game
when I shouldn't have. But in general, what you like
to have is a guy that throws near one hundred
miles an hour and is ready to go every day
and able to throw strikes. And that's what he was.
Speaker 1 (18:46):
You were in the broadcast booth when he became an astro,
and then Collins is out. You're in visu and Bagwell
want you in. You're a player's coach. You're a real player.
You understand what they do when you went from the
broadcast booth to the dugout as a coach. How was
he different as a player than you had expected?
Speaker 3 (19:10):
Actually he was about what I expected. He wasn't as
good as he would become, because it's almost assured that
if you have a picture that throws that hard, that
when they're young, they'll have some control problems. I may
have had a couple of games myself where the ball
(19:32):
just just felt like I was jumping out of my
hand and I couldn't get it down. I couldn't I
couldn't throw a strike. And so Billy and Nolan and
those guys they.
Speaker 4 (19:42):
Throw like that every game, and so it takes a
while to zero in.
Speaker 3 (19:46):
And as he did, he kept getting better and better.
And one side comment that I would make is that
when I was a player and I was on the
mound and we were getting to the benninger, I would
look down to open and I think I'd better try
to finish this game. If Billy had been warming up,
(20:07):
I wouldn't have had that thought. So I probably would
have pitched fewer Complay games, and I probably would have
lasted a couple more years. But you know, that's that's
just speculation.
Speaker 1 (20:21):
What an amazing run you've had. I know we're talking
about Billy Wagner, but you're signed by the Colts at
seventeen in a bidding war. You pitch your first game
on your eighteenth birthday. You strike out Willie Mays. That's
what nineteen sixty three, and we're talking about you year
before sixty four, we're talking about you coaching a guy
(20:43):
almost forty years later who twenty years after that makes
the Hall of Fame. That's a pretty good ven diagram
of Larry Derker's career in life as a ballplayer, broadcaster, coach,
and now just a guy that loves life and offers
commentary over the course of sixty years. You're a lucky man.
Speaker 3 (21:04):
Yes, I have really been blessed, Michael. It's like one thing,
one door closed, and I prove a lot of innings
in my twenties, and I was finished pitching when I
was thirty. I wish I'd been able to go on
a little bit longer.
Speaker 4 (21:19):
But it seems like as soon as I got off
the mound, I got into.
Speaker 3 (21:24):
The broadcast mooove. And I love that I enjoyed it
more in those first few years than I did the
last few years of pitching, because the last few years
pitching was a challenge just because of arm injuries. And
so then Drayton McClain, who always liked to do things
that were unconventional, talked to Tal Smith about the possibility
(21:50):
that I could manage the team, even though I've never
even coached my son's little league team. Anyway, they interviewed
me and the.
Speaker 4 (21:59):
Next day I became the Astros manager, and that was
hardest job.
Speaker 3 (22:06):
There's a really hard job. One thing that I recall
and made a few notes as you have, I can
see you prepared, is that when we had a horrible
season in two thousand, the first year at the new ballpark,
and that new.
Speaker 4 (22:23):
Ballpark was n Ron Field, and what was going on
that year with Enron is.
Speaker 3 (22:29):
That they were about to implode. And so when I
think about how much trouble you had that first year
at Enron, I think, what is there at least part
of the blame.
Speaker 1 (22:43):
Anyway, And I guess the question as to how you did.
Four of your first five years the team finished in
first place, So I'd say you had a pretty good
run as coach.
Speaker 3 (22:54):
Coach. Oh yeah, yes I did. But in that year
two thousand, even Billy Wagner struggled and we were.
Speaker 4 (23:04):
Maybe in May, maybe thirty forty games.
Speaker 3 (23:07):
Into the season in last place, and he came in
to try to save a game against the Reds. At
that point, Ken Griffy Judy was playing for the Reds
and he hit a home run off Billy, and he
went from getting saved to getting a loss. And so
I always had my office taking questions after the game,
(23:27):
and somebody asked me what was wrong with Wagner, because
this wasn't the only problem he'd had, and so I said, well,
as far as I can tell, there's not anything wrong
with him. It's just that they seemed to be able
to square up his fastball and when usually they went
under it or fall it back. But when I called
(23:47):
down to the bullpen, he's ready in three minutes, just
like he always was. And then when it comes into
the game, the radar gun says he's.
Speaker 4 (23:54):
Strowing just as hard as he ever had, And so
I said.
Speaker 3 (23:57):
I don't know why they're able to to make good
contact against him. It doesn't make any sense. And so
they immediately run over to Billy.
Speaker 4 (24:07):
And they and one of them and I won't cast
any blak because I don't know who did it.
Speaker 3 (24:11):
But one of the members of the media said, Billy
Derker says, you lost your fastball.
Speaker 4 (24:18):
Well he thinks it's that easy.
Speaker 3 (24:20):
Let him come out and try it, you know, And
that's that's what I had. To go sit down with
him and just have a you know, his emotions got
back to normal and he was willing to talk about
all this, and I said, you just have to watch
the media because they're going to try to get you
(24:40):
to say things.
Speaker 1 (24:41):
Like that, and what I really, we love you, thank
you for being available, my friend. I never told you
the first time I met Mary so end Run was
(25:04):
maybe in its second year. It was early on, and
they had a little bar right there on Texas and
I think it was called Drkers or so Larry Durkers
or I don't remember. It was a kind of a
Hawaiian themed bar. Remember, he always wore a Hawaiian shirt.
He still does. And so I was down there and
(25:29):
I went into the bathroom and he would do a
broadcast from down there. And I go into the bathroom
and I'm standing at the urinal and some guy walks
in and says something about did you listen? Are you
listening to the show? And I said, yeah. I love
Larry Darker and I love that he's always wearing a
(25:52):
Hawaiian shirt. I think it's so cool. So fortunately, you know,
it's just as easy to talk bad about somebody and
not mean anything of it. You just it's kind of
you're in a mood. And I'm going on and on
about Larry Darker and it's very rare for me to
wash my hands after I pee because and I know
that grossest woman out study after study has told the
(26:14):
world that they refuse to understand it. The pepe's not dirty,
your hands are filthy, So you really ought to wash
your hands before you touch your pep instead of after
you do it. But there's this old idea that you know,
man's peepe is so dirty. It's clean, it's not nothing's
getting to it. Well, I'm washing my hands. And again
(26:35):
what makes this story so weird is I never wash
my hands, but I'm washing my hands and out of
the stall the second stall over, I believe there were
two stalls with the forestall. I didn't realize there was
somebody in there. And some dude walks out. Drker's tall.
Dirk is a big dude. Dude walks out and he's
wearing his Hawaiian shirt and he's got a smile from
(26:57):
ear to ear and I, oh, oh, he goes well,
I thank you, and I said, oh, it's a good thing.
I said nice things, huh, And I got a laugh
and I walked out. And it was one of those
who that could have been a very awkward if I'd
have said that's stupid Hawaiian shired it, but instead I went, yeah,
it was. That was my first time to meet him.
(27:18):
True story true story. June eleventh, two thousand and three,
a fascinating thing happened. Roy Oswald pitched one inning. He
had an injury. Pete Munroe would come in for two
and two thirds. Kirk Sarluis would come in for one
(27:41):
in one third inning, Brad Ledge would pitch two perfect innings.
Oktavio Dotell, Well his name I hadn't heard in a
long time, pitched one inning and Billy Wagner comes in
for an inning for the save. Is a very rare
(28:01):
occasion in Major League Baseball that you get a combined
no hitter, that is, a sixth pitcher no hitter. The
Astros would score more runs than the Yankees had base
runners six It was the franchise's largest margin of victory
in a no hitter. Since Oswald didn't complete enough innings
(28:21):
to qualify for the win, the official scorekeeper named Brad
Lidge the winning pitcher after tossing two perfect innings. Here
is that call.
Speaker 5 (28:33):
The Yankees are three outs away from being no hit
for the first time in forty five.
Speaker 1 (28:38):
Years Lydge Dotel and Wagner the two too. He he
struck them out swinging fastball away. It's almost impossible to
catch up with a fastball away from Wagner. It'll be
a one two to travel. Hey struck amout swinging ball,
flew them away at one hundred miles an hour. The
(28:58):
last man between the hes had a Houston no hitter.
Speaker 5 (29:02):
Everybody is standing insuring, and I'm just not entirely sure
for whom or for what, you know, because they're here
on an occasion, an event as a no hitter. Lofty
to Lofty, the pits has grouted the first backball fields
flips to Wagner in time a no hitter, A no
hitter for the Houston Astros, A combined no hitter from
(29:27):
roy Oswalt, Peter Monroe, Kirk Sarlous, Brad Lynch, Octavio Dotel,
and Billy Wagner.
Speaker 1 (29:35):
Baseball broadcasters are a breed apart, aren't they. Vin's Cully,
Joe Garagelo. I mean, those guys would make the game
come to life. Harry Carey with his drunk ass. I
mean Joe Buck's dad, which was the reason Joe Buck
got into the business or was given such because his
(29:56):
dad was so well respected. Those guys man they painted
a picture. Baseball was the sport to listen to on
the radio, and so many times did we. When I
first came in to run the AM stations for what
was then Clear Channel, we had nine to fifty which
we made into Radio Mojo, which is supposed to be
(30:18):
kind of a manly radio because you had to cross
program against Russi and Sean, so you didn't want to
and the news heritage news station. You didn't want to
do something that was just going to pull away the
same listeners. So the idea was to make it kind
of a cross between the Buzz and a talk radio show.
So that's what we did with Radio Mojo, another of
(30:41):
my brilliant ideas that didn't last. So there was nine
to fifty AM, there was seven ninety AM, which nine
to fifty was KPRC, which was Port Rail and Cotton
old station, heritage station. Then seven ninety am was KBME,
which was Best Music Ever, which was an oldies station
many many years before. But of course we had flipped
it to a sports station. It was a sports animal
(31:02):
when I took over, and I thought that was the
dumbest name ever. So we just called it sports radio
because that's what it was. And then of course the
Heritage station, the heritage blowtorch fifty dollars, fifty thousand watt blowtorch,
maybe fifty thousand dollars too. KTRH come to the right hotel.
I thought, hey, we should put more talk programming on
(31:23):
because you know, we could move the astros over and
the station would make a lot more money if we
maybe did a Rush rerun. You know, there's a there's
an endless appetite for Rush. What if we look at
doing Rush? So I go to Eddie Martinez and I said, hey,
let's move the astros over to the sports station. That's
where it belongs. And very wisely, he said, oh no, no, no,
(31:47):
there would be a riot. We took the astros off
of KTRH. That's that is a relationship, that is part
of our identity. And I didn't realize to what extent
that was true, but it is. You know, in those days,
you thought of k t r H as news, Rush,
Hannity Talk and the astros and weather and and uh
(32:11):
garden line on the weekend that and to a large extent,
it's still part of that whole. You know, there's still
a lot of our listeners for the kids of people
grew up on Dewey and and you know those folks
going back to Mylow Hamilton and and Dirk and Gene
Nelson and all. You know that whole history. Paul Harvey
five forty five and seven forty five, that's quite a heritage,
(32:35):
quite a heritage. We're lucky, Vermont we get to be
on this. It was a good Dirker story. I might
have taken too long to tell it.
Speaker 3 (32:43):
High left them
It's that time, time, time, time, luck and load. The
Michael Varry Show is on the air. A number of
you reached out during the worst of the cold weather
(00:28):
and concerns over the roads and the infrastructure, noting that
you hadn't seen the Comandante, the corn Roll Comandante had
had gone missing, and that will remind you this is
not the first time the Corner Roll Comandante has gone missing.
The last time she went missing, we had to dedicate
(00:49):
a song for it from Chance McLean. Where are you?
Speaker 2 (00:59):
They say, left brom Texas, Blena Lena Boom.
Speaker 1 (01:04):
Where are you?
Speaker 2 (01:05):
It's always happened, bet with progresses every time a feeling
the rubber shades excuse they have depends off breakdown high
behind the guard of a victim card to avoid the
legal shakedown, and it's intainas in between a legal rock
can up. The are hard graves here going free and
(01:29):
Lena you can try.
Speaker 1 (01:30):
To ride behind and Reacciata.
Speaker 2 (01:32):
States, We'll wait recouper rate Blena Lena Boom, get the
betters the love dear an be rested.
Speaker 3 (01:42):
Theres as soon as.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
You get back, gonna hear the black over coast the
short arrested.
Speaker 1 (01:56):
I saw a report from Boston News federal agents conducting
raids and detaining individuals and apartments across Boston, a designated
sanctuary city. What's going to be interesting is public opinion
(02:16):
is going to take something of a wait and see approach.
While people want deportations, we've got a real serious what
I have referred to as the nice neighbor problem. Everybody's
been told to be nice. Mommy told you to be nice.
(02:37):
The woman teacher at school said to be nice. This
is why kids are prescribed all of these lower level,
otherwise hardcore drugs to keep them calm. Little boys, not girls.
Little boys because we don't want little boys to be
little boys. We don't want them fidgeting, wrastling, climbing stuff.
(03:02):
We'd rather they be zombies, because that's what women want
boys to be. They don't want boys growing into men.
They want boys to be just like little girls. Play
with the dolls over there and be soft and be quiet.
Little boys are different than little girls. There is no
(03:24):
doubt little boys are different than little girls. And so
you have this situation where the nice neighbor problem is.
You have a lot of people who've been raised this
is the boy who he's got his girlfriend. And on Saturdays,
you see these guys on Saturday, they're at bed bath
(03:45):
and beyond counting the thread count or comparing the thread
count in the sheets, and they have absolutely they have
absolutely fallen prey to the bridle registry and how many
items are going to be on there? And look at me,
and they've lost any testosterone that they otherwise would have had.
(04:07):
And they're still in their twenties. So these people are
perfect little corporate worker bees. These are people who learn
what word you can use and what word you can't.
They learn proper Twitter protocol, what to post and whatnot,
what to say. Always apologize for your white hood. Always
(04:29):
express the privilege that you have enjoyed, the guilt you
have over it. Be willing to promote other people who
don't look like you over the other person who looks
like you, because he still want to take care of yourself.
Be willing to talk about how racist your parents and
god knows your grandparents, Oh grandmother she was, you wouldn't believe, yes,
(04:50):
But here i am. Here, I am, I have persevered
beyond that. Look at me, I have arrived today. I'm
not like those people. This is what Obama preyed upon
when white kids would go home from college at Thanksgiving
to lecture their parents and grandparents to withhold the affection
(05:13):
that they live off of they live for unless they
voted the way you wanted them to vote. So what's
going to happen is as these deportations begin, the media
is not going to cover the fact that this guy
was pulled out and he's killed ten people, and this
guy was pulled out. He's a sex trafficker of eight
(05:36):
year old girls. And this guy was pulled out and
five people have died as a result of his Ventanyl
Street gang. No, none of that's going to be pointed out.
What's going to be pointed out is the lady who's
going to be crying that she just wants to live
here and she went and we're going to be told
that these people came here for asylum. You can't go home,
(06:01):
it's too dangerous. They can't go home. Well that's odd
because they went home at Christmas, and they went home
for a month the Christmas before you came here and
presented yourself and said, hey, I need all the free
stuff I was promised. I'm seeking asylum. I'm scared of
where I came from, and so all the goodies were
(06:24):
handed to them, and they would dutifully vote Democrat and
march in the protest, and then come Christmas they go
back and visit their relatives. What that's odd? I thought
that was the place you were fleeing because you were
being persecuted for being what Hispanic? Because there's a lot
(06:45):
of other ones there well, Catholic. What exactly were you
being persecuted for and what exactly are you running from?
Truth is, everybody knows somebody that you've met over the years.
It's a very nice person that came to this country illegally, right,
(07:07):
So what do you do? You make laws over the
long term that accommodate people who are checked, verified and
allowed to come here on work visus for a period
of time, and after that period of time, a certain
number will be given an opportunity of a pathway to citizenship.
(07:30):
But we can't have that system now because the system
has been so overwhelmed by people just crashing the gates
like Black Friday, that here we are, here, we are
with a broken system. The answer to that system is
not to go back now to what we should have
done on the front end and simply allow murderers, rapists,
(07:53):
traffickers to remain here. The American people and the polls
are showing ce Ann showed one yesterday, the American people,
including Democrats, do not want the illegal aliens here. They
do want the importations. But the Democrats and the media
(08:14):
and some of the bureaucrats who are part of all
this are going to do everything they can to change
public opinion that that time is now.
Speaker 4 (08:26):
It's a change.
Speaker 1 (08:28):
My wisdom.
Speaker 4 (08:34):
Can tell me.
Speaker 1 (08:39):
We had less lonely boys at the RCC, and I
think most people, I think a lot of people. Certainly
everybody that night knew this song, but maybe Senorita, maybe
maybe Senorita, maybe another for most people now there'll be
(09:02):
that it'll be a woman who I know all their songs. Michael,
you're wrong, Okay, great, but our folks didn't know their music,
just this song. So I can't remember who it was.
But somebody I know, Doug Trokin' Broad, Tim Holt, somebody
(09:25):
who was a very active member, finds out that their
gig somewhere up north wasn't Docy Dough, but it was
it might have been Doc Dough. Whatever happened that their
gig had been canceled the last minute, like the last
last minute, or Tuesday for a Friday night prins and bands.
(09:50):
What bands draw is often more or less than you
would expect, but there's something of a science to it
because what happens is a band that goes on tour
for any length of time, you establish a price. It
becomes kind of a market for that band. And so
(10:13):
there are bands that you would think should be a
twenty five thousand dollars band, but they're ten. And that's
because while people like their music, people don't buy tickets
to go see them. And then there are bands that
you would think would be a five thousand dollars band
because they never had any big hits, but people love them,
(10:35):
so they become a twenty five thousand dollars band. But
my challenge was we weren't really an open to the
public per se, marketed to the public kind of place.
We were. We had our members and I had to
find things. I had to program for what our members
would like. And it taught me a lot about how
(10:55):
wrong you can be about what a band is quote worth.
A band's worth is not how good their music is.
A band's worth is their ability to draw people out
to come and see them. So those Lonely Boys, while
they didn't have a ton of hits, they have something
(11:15):
of a follow and then Grateful Dead would be the
best example of a band. They only had the one
number one hit and that made their fans mad because
they didn't want the public to know about them. So
here was a band who kind of became famous for
having this cult following. That's how a lot of people
outside the cult knew of the Grateful Dead was because
(11:37):
of the dead Heads. They became their marketing tool and
the Volkswagen vans and driving around the country following them
and the tie die and all that. So they could
command most any amount of money because you knew, especially
in a festival setting, you knew they were going to
be a massive draw. And then you would have other
bands they would have plenty of hits, but nobody really
(11:59):
wants to go see them. Not a knock on them.
It's just a difference. So anyway, Los Lonely Boys was
something like it was a lot. It was like thirty
five thousand. Well, there were big draws I could get
for thirty five thousand, and Low Lonely Boys wasn't going
to be one of them, but the show had canceled.
They had looked into us. They liked what we stood for,
(12:21):
they liked the way we ran the RCC. We always
treated the artists first class. We paid them before they arrived.
Nobody in the business did that. A lot of them
would finish their show and then they would have to
wait that night. They'd be in the bus and their
manager would be in there and they'd be counting out
the cash to pay them. They would argue over, well,
y'all had four waters and at twenty dollars a piece,
im a knock off eighty dollars, just really abusing the bands,
(12:44):
and we treated them like kings under the premise that
they would want to come back. So I think we
got them for something like five grand, which was an
absolute steal. But it also meant we had no time
to market. So my answer to that was, well, I
don't want to have ten people at this show, so
let's make the tickets insanely cheap, you know, two dollars
(13:06):
or whatever it was. And so because there's no value
to a free ticket. So I don't remember what we
did for a lot of our members. I think we
did it free. I don't the numbers escaped me, but
I'm pretty sure we got them for five thousand, which
the bar owners and concert venue owners listening are going
to No way you got them for five We did
because it was a last minute deal and we agreed
to take them, and they were routing through they played
(13:29):
that song. They were probably four or five songs in,
and there's an energy when the band first comes loose
Lonely Boys as a band that a lot of people
have heard of, but they don't know what their songs are.
So yeah, and everybody. The thing about concerts, it took
me a while to understands there are very few people's.
The same thing is true of NFL games. There are
(13:53):
very few people who were there because they want to
watch the quarterback try to connect with the wide receiver
while the defensive back stops him. There are a lot
of people who were there because for weeks before that
they can post on social media where they're going. They
go get their outfit for it. Here's the day of
oh we're going to go. You know, well, you know
I can't do it on Sunday because I'm going to
(14:13):
the game. We got tickets to the game. My husband
got tickets a game, and I've got this dress I'm
gonna wear. So a lot of it is the excitement
over the event, and there's nothing wrong with that. So
there were all these people who came for low lonely
boys in this insanely cheap ticket, and we promoted it
pretty hard within our email blast, and I probably mentioned
(14:35):
it on there thirty five times or so. The night comes,
they get on stage. Our people don't know their songs,
but you could not help but love these guys because
they were so classy and by which I mean they
were genuinely concerned with entertaining the audience. And they realized,
(14:55):
you know what, these aren't our typical fans. A little
bit older, it a bit whiter, because they're more of
a Chicano audience. So not Spanish language speaking primarily, but
you know people from the valley that live in this
country and speak English, and but their last name happens
to be Peine or Rodriguez. No, not Roebliss. You do
(15:18):
not qualify you the least you always try that. Anyway,
they start singing Heaven about five songs in and our
crowd realized, oh, I know this song. I swear they
had to do a twenty minute condition of the song
like they just like they gave a concert of that
(15:38):
song and nobody minded and it was just awesome. They
hung around afterwards, they signed every autograph, so low songios.
It comes up from me, Larry Derker, to talk about
Billy Wagner coming up drum and whole song. The son
came up today yesterday we celebrate the announcement the night before.
(16:02):
Billy Wagner was the ninth player to ever wear an
Astro's jersey at some point in his career, played over
half of his career in Houston to make the coveted
Hall of Fame. His coach for most of those years
while he was in Houston was mister Astro Larry Derker,
and he's our guest coach. Welcome to the program.
Speaker 3 (16:24):
Well, thank you, it's a good program. Thank you.
Speaker 1 (16:29):
What a nice thing to say. What was your reaction
to the news that Billy Wagner, in his tenth and
final year of eligibility made.
Speaker 3 (16:38):
It relief.
Speaker 4 (16:42):
Which is a funny word for her, not a funny
but a word.
Speaker 3 (16:44):
That goes along with relief pitchers. But it was his
last chance to make it without going to the Veterans Committee,
and I felt that he was deserving of going in
on the first round, but I knew that was doubtful
and the way things have gone in the past. But
after that, I think, other than Marianna Rivera, I don't
think there's another closer in the history of baseball that's
(17:07):
better than Billy Wagner. And I just couldn't believe the
year after year they passed him by.
Speaker 1 (17:12):
Why do you think that was? Was it playing in Houston.
Speaker 3 (17:19):
I think it's a little bit more difficult to get
attention playing in Houston, But I'm not sure it was
that because there are other relievers that I think belonged
there that are not in there. And you know, I
hesitate to say this. It's like the Kansas City complaining
about the referrera of people complaining that the Chiefs get
(17:42):
a break from the referees. But I think relief pitchers
in general have more trouble cracking the Hall of Fame
criteria than any other position, the.
Speaker 1 (17:55):
Punter of baseball. It's a good point, very interesting point.
What were your thoughts on Billy Wagner as a coach
of him as a player.
Speaker 3 (18:08):
Well, he was terrific. You know, he didn't complain about anything.
He always wanted to pitch. He wanted to pitch in
some games that I didn't want him to pitch in
because he'd been throwing too much in previous games. And
there was, you know, one a couple of incidents where
(18:29):
I made a mistake and got him in a game
when I shouldn't have. But in general, what you like
to have is a guy that throws near one hundred
miles an hour and is ready to go every day
and able to throw strikes. And that's what he was.
Speaker 1 (18:46):
You were in the broadcast booth when he became an astro,
and then Collins is out. You're in visu and Bagwell
want you in. You're a player's coach. You're a real player.
You understand what they do when you went from the
broadcast booth to the dugout as a coach. How was
he different as a player than you had expected?
Speaker 3 (19:10):
Actually he was about what I expected. He wasn't as
good as he would become, because it's almost assured that
if you have a picture that throws that hard, that
when they're young, they'll have some control problems. I may
have had a couple of games myself where the ball
(19:32):
just just felt like I was jumping out of my
hand and I couldn't get it down. I couldn't I
couldn't throw a strike. And so Billy and Nolan and
those guys they.
Speaker 4 (19:42):
Throw like that every game, and so it takes a
while to zero in.
Speaker 3 (19:46):
And as he did, he kept getting better and better.
And one side comment that I would make is that
when I was a player and I was on the
mound and we were getting to the benninger, I would
look down to open and I think I'd better try
to finish this game. If Billy had been warming up,
(20:07):
I wouldn't have had that thought. So I probably would
have pitched fewer Complay games, and I probably would have
lasted a couple more years. But you know, that's that's
just speculation.
Speaker 1 (20:21):
What an amazing run you've had. I know we're talking
about Billy Wagner, but you're signed by the Colts at
seventeen in a bidding war. You pitch your first game
on your eighteenth birthday. You strike out Willie Mays. That's
what nineteen sixty three, and we're talking about you year
before sixty four, we're talking about you coaching a guy
(20:43):
almost forty years later who twenty years after that makes
the Hall of Fame. That's a pretty good ven diagram
of Larry Derker's career in life as a ballplayer, broadcaster, coach,
and now just a guy that loves life and offers
commentary over the course of sixty years. You're a lucky man.
Speaker 3 (21:04):
Yes, I have really been blessed, Michael. It's like one thing,
one door closed, and I prove a lot of innings
in my twenties, and I was finished pitching when I
was thirty. I wish I'd been able to go on
a little bit longer.
Speaker 4 (21:19):
But it seems like as soon as I got off
the mound, I got into.
Speaker 3 (21:24):
The broadcast mooove. And I love that I enjoyed it
more in those first few years than I did the
last few years of pitching, because the last few years
pitching was a challenge just because of arm injuries. And
so then Drayton McClain, who always liked to do things
that were unconventional, talked to Tal Smith about the possibility
(21:50):
that I could manage the team, even though I've never
even coached my son's little league team. Anyway, they interviewed
me and the.
Speaker 4 (21:59):
Next day I became the Astros manager, and that was
hardest job.
Speaker 3 (22:06):
There's a really hard job. One thing that I recall
and made a few notes as you have, I can
see you prepared, is that when we had a horrible
season in two thousand, the first year at the new ballpark,
and that new.
Speaker 4 (22:23):
Ballpark was n Ron Field, and what was going on
that year with Enron is.
Speaker 3 (22:29):
That they were about to implode. And so when I
think about how much trouble you had that first year
at Enron, I think, what is there at least part
of the blame.
Speaker 1 (22:43):
Anyway, And I guess the question as to how you did.
Four of your first five years the team finished in
first place, So I'd say you had a pretty good
run as coach.
Speaker 3 (22:54):
Coach. Oh yeah, yes I did. But in that year
two thousand, even Billy Wagner struggled and we were.
Speaker 4 (23:04):
Maybe in May, maybe thirty forty games.
Speaker 3 (23:07):
Into the season in last place, and he came in
to try to save a game against the Reds. At
that point, Ken Griffy Judy was playing for the Reds
and he hit a home run off Billy, and he
went from getting saved to getting a loss. And so
I always had my office taking questions after the game,
(23:27):
and somebody asked me what was wrong with Wagner, because
this wasn't the only problem he'd had, and so I said, well,
as far as I can tell, there's not anything wrong
with him. It's just that they seemed to be able
to square up his fastball and when usually they went
under it or fall it back. But when I called
(23:47):
down to the bullpen, he's ready in three minutes, just
like he always was. And then when it comes into
the game, the radar gun says he's.
Speaker 4 (23:54):
Strowing just as hard as he ever had, And so
I said.
Speaker 3 (23:57):
I don't know why they're able to to make good
contact against him. It doesn't make any sense. And so
they immediately run over to Billy.
Speaker 4 (24:07):
And they and one of them and I won't cast
any blak because I don't know who did it.
Speaker 3 (24:11):
But one of the members of the media said, Billy
Derker says, you lost your fastball.
Speaker 4 (24:18):
Well he thinks it's that easy.
Speaker 3 (24:20):
Let him come out and try it, you know, And
that's that's what I had. To go sit down with
him and just have a you know, his emotions got
back to normal and he was willing to talk about
all this, and I said, you just have to watch
the media because they're going to try to get you
(24:40):
to say things.
Speaker 1 (24:41):
Like that, and what I really, we love you, thank
you for being available, my friend. I never told you
the first time I met Mary so end Run was
(25:04):
maybe in its second year. It was early on, and
they had a little bar right there on Texas and
I think it was called Drkers or so Larry Durkers
or I don't remember. It was a kind of a
Hawaiian themed bar. Remember, he always wore a Hawaiian shirt.
He still does. And so I was down there and
(25:29):
I went into the bathroom and he would do a
broadcast from down there. And I go into the bathroom
and I'm standing at the urinal and some guy walks
in and says something about did you listen? Are you
listening to the show? And I said, yeah. I love
Larry Darker and I love that he's always wearing a
(25:52):
Hawaiian shirt. I think it's so cool. So fortunately, you know,
it's just as easy to talk bad about somebody and
not mean anything of it. You just it's kind of
you're in a mood. And I'm going on and on
about Larry Darker and it's very rare for me to
wash my hands after I pee because and I know
that grossest woman out study after study has told the
(26:14):
world that they refuse to understand it. The pepe's not dirty,
your hands are filthy, So you really ought to wash
your hands before you touch your pep instead of after
you do it. But there's this old idea that you know,
man's peepe is so dirty. It's clean, it's not nothing's
getting to it. Well, I'm washing my hands. And again
(26:35):
what makes this story so weird is I never wash
my hands, but I'm washing my hands and out of
the stall the second stall over, I believe there were
two stalls with the forestall. I didn't realize there was
somebody in there. And some dude walks out. Drker's tall.
Dirk is a big dude. Dude walks out and he's
wearing his Hawaiian shirt and he's got a smile from
(26:57):
ear to ear and I, oh, oh, he goes well,
I thank you, and I said, oh, it's a good thing.
I said nice things, huh, And I got a laugh
and I walked out. And it was one of those
who that could have been a very awkward if I'd
have said that's stupid Hawaiian shired it, but instead I went, yeah,
it was. That was my first time to meet him.
(27:18):
True story true story. June eleventh, two thousand and three,
a fascinating thing happened. Roy Oswald pitched one inning. He
had an injury. Pete Munroe would come in for two
and two thirds. Kirk Sarluis would come in for one
(27:41):
in one third inning, Brad Ledge would pitch two perfect innings.
Oktavio Dotell, Well his name I hadn't heard in a
long time, pitched one inning and Billy Wagner comes in
for an inning for the save. Is a very rare
(28:01):
occasion in Major League Baseball that you get a combined
no hitter, that is, a sixth pitcher no hitter. The
Astros would score more runs than the Yankees had base
runners six It was the franchise's largest margin of victory
in a no hitter. Since Oswald didn't complete enough innings
(28:21):
to qualify for the win, the official scorekeeper named Brad
Lidge the winning pitcher after tossing two perfect innings. Here
is that call.
Speaker 5 (28:33):
The Yankees are three outs away from being no hit
for the first time in forty five.
Speaker 1 (28:38):
Years Lydge Dotel and Wagner the two too. He he
struck them out swinging fastball away. It's almost impossible to
catch up with a fastball away from Wagner. It'll be
a one two to travel. Hey struck amout swinging ball,
flew them away at one hundred miles an hour. The
(28:58):
last man between the hes had a Houston no hitter.
Speaker 5 (29:02):
Everybody is standing insuring, and I'm just not entirely sure
for whom or for what, you know, because they're here
on an occasion, an event as a no hitter. Lofty
to Lofty, the pits has grouted the first backball fields
flips to Wagner in time a no hitter, A no
hitter for the Houston Astros, A combined no hitter from
(29:27):
roy Oswalt, Peter Monroe, Kirk Sarlous, Brad Lynch, Octavio Dotel,
and Billy Wagner.
Speaker 1 (29:35):
Baseball broadcasters are a breed apart, aren't they. Vin's Cully,
Joe Garagelo. I mean, those guys would make the game
come to life. Harry Carey with his drunk ass. I
mean Joe Buck's dad, which was the reason Joe Buck
got into the business or was given such because his
(29:56):
dad was so well respected. Those guys man they painted
a picture. Baseball was the sport to listen to on
the radio, and so many times did we. When I
first came in to run the AM stations for what
was then Clear Channel, we had nine to fifty which
we made into Radio Mojo, which is supposed to be
(30:18):
kind of a manly radio because you had to cross
program against Russi and Sean, so you didn't want to
and the news heritage news station. You didn't want to
do something that was just going to pull away the
same listeners. So the idea was to make it kind
of a cross between the Buzz and a talk radio show.
So that's what we did with Radio Mojo, another of
(30:41):
my brilliant ideas that didn't last. So there was nine
to fifty AM, there was seven ninety AM, which nine
to fifty was KPRC, which was Port Rail and Cotton
old station, heritage station. Then seven ninety am was KBME,
which was Best Music Ever, which was an oldies station
many many years before. But of course we had flipped
it to a sports station. It was a sports animal
(31:02):
when I took over, and I thought that was the
dumbest name ever. So we just called it sports radio
because that's what it was. And then of course the
Heritage station, the heritage blowtorch fifty dollars, fifty thousand watt blowtorch,
maybe fifty thousand dollars too. KTRH come to the right hotel.
I thought, hey, we should put more talk programming on
(31:23):
because you know, we could move the astros over and
the station would make a lot more money if we
maybe did a Rush rerun. You know, there's a there's
an endless appetite for Rush. What if we look at
doing Rush? So I go to Eddie Martinez and I said, hey,
let's move the astros over to the sports station. That's
where it belongs. And very wisely, he said, oh no, no, no,
(31:47):
there would be a riot. We took the astros off
of KTRH. That's that is a relationship, that is part
of our identity. And I didn't realize to what extent
that was true, but it is. You know, in those days,
you thought of k t r H as news, Rush,
Hannity Talk and the astros and weather and and uh
(32:11):
garden line on the weekend that and to a large extent,
it's still part of that whole. You know, there's still
a lot of our listeners for the kids of people
grew up on Dewey and and you know those folks
going back to Mylow Hamilton and and Dirk and Gene
Nelson and all. You know that whole history. Paul Harvey
five forty five and seven forty five, that's quite a heritage,
(32:35):
quite a heritage. We're lucky, Vermont we get to be
on this. It was a good Dirker story. I might
have taken too long to tell it.
Speaker 3 (32:43):
High left them
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If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Special Summer Offer: Exclusively on Apple Podcasts, try our Dateline Premium subscription completely free for one month! With Dateline Premium, you get every episode ad-free plus exclusive bonus content.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!