August 12, 2023 • 46 mins
Turk Stevens is a proud member of the Fox Sports Radio alumni association. He worked with Ben in the early days of FSR, he was the original “coin” on what has become Benny vs. Penny. Turk also worked at the defunct NBC Sports Radio and Sporting News Radio. He was the play-by-play voice of the University of Vermont Catamounts and did minor league hockey play-by-play with the Macon Whoopee. You can follow Turk on Twitter/X @TurkStevens Follow Danny G Radio on Twitter/X @DannyGradio, Follow Big Ben on Twitter/X @BenMaller, and listen to the original "Ben Maller Show," Monday-Friday on 450+ terrestrial Fox Sports Radio affiliates, iHeart stream, and SiriusXM Radio channel 83, 2a-6a ET, 11p-3a PT!
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Kubbooms.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
If you thought four hours a day, twelve hundred minutes
a week was enough, think again. He's the last remnants
of the Old Republic, a soul fashion of fairness. He
treats crackheads in the ghetto gutter the same as the
rich pill poppers in the penthouse.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
The Clearinghouse of Hot takes break free for something special.
The Fifth Hour with Ben Mahler starts right now.
Speaker 1 (00:28):
In the air everywhere. Welcome in the Fifth Hour with
Ben Mahler and Danny g Radio. Danny still on assignment
fatherly duty for Danny. He should be back next weekend.
Congratulations again to Danny and his wife on the birth
of their son last weekend. We'll have all the details
(00:51):
when Danny returns. But we go back to the well
one more time. The Fox Sports Radio Alumni Association a
chance to catch up with one of my friends in
the radio business who's no longer in the radio business.
But if you've been a fan of talk radio sports
talk radio over the years, you know who this guy is.
(01:12):
He not only did a long stint at Fox Sports Radio,
he also worked at Sporting News Radio, which no longer exists,
and the fledgling NBC Sports Radio network, which also no
longer exists. There must be a pattern there, but it
is very exciting for me to welcome back to the microphones,
(01:35):
the man, the myth, the legend. He also was the
voice of the Make and Whoopee hockey team. We'll have
to get into that as well. The great Turk Stevens
joins us now on the fifth hour. Turk, welcome in.
And why don't we start with your timeline? How many years?
I forget? How many years were you at Fox Sports Radio?
Speaker 3 (01:59):
Ye? Yes, I went to a competing network. Well, actually
I was asked to go by a couple of people,
and then I landed at a different network. And then
they moved out of state, they left California, and so
by the good graces of one Dan Byer, I was
able to return to Fox Sports Radio for a couple
(02:21):
of years.
Speaker 1 (02:22):
Now, was that the sporting news radio that you went too?
Speaker 3 (02:26):
It was? It was sporting news radio and I did that.
Then they moved to Houston. After like three years, three
or four years they moved to Houston. I was actually
the last voice heard out of the Los Angeles studios
for Sporting news radio.
Speaker 1 (02:44):
Did they want you to go to Houston or did
they tell you that we're good, we don't need no.
Speaker 4 (02:49):
No, they actually did.
Speaker 3 (02:50):
They wanted me to go, but I was teaching full time.
I was teaching pe at a private school down in
Santa Monica, and so I didn't want to go, and
so they understood that, but they did want me to go.
Speaker 4 (03:03):
I didn't go.
Speaker 3 (03:04):
And then and then I ended up going to back
to Fox for a couple of years. And then NBC
Sports Radio moved in the now departed NBC Sports Radio
they're no longer in business, and they came in and
offered me a full time gig. So I left Fox
(03:24):
to go to NBC Sports Radio.
Speaker 1 (03:27):
Look at that the career path of the Turk. And
I remember you did the show with me on the
weekends back when you first started. We were together. We
did quite a bit of nonsense and you were one
of the You were one of the original guys that
Benny Versus the Penny. Although I think back then we
had a different name for it. In the early days.
We didn't call it Benny Versus the Penny. You called
(03:48):
it something else, Ben versus the Coin or whatever.
Speaker 3 (03:51):
Yes, I remember, I actually remember you.
Speaker 4 (03:54):
Coming to me one night.
Speaker 3 (03:56):
It was one of the overnights, and you saying, I
have this idea. And it was me and you, you know,
doing the show overnight, and you told me the idea.
I still remember that night and we talked about it
and we and then we put it together and I
had a quarter and we we did the flips live.
I actually did them live back then, and it was
(04:17):
Ben versus the Coin. Yeah, not a great name and
a good bit.
Speaker 1 (04:21):
Not a great name, but it was either that or
bringing a monkey or something like that.
Speaker 4 (04:26):
Yes, but those were our options.
Speaker 3 (04:28):
And yes, I'll blame you for the name because it
was your, your show.
Speaker 1 (04:32):
But eventually we got a good name though. Benny versus
the Penny was the name that it morphed into. And
my one of my favorite Turk memories is when you
were on vacation, you were out, you were out one
weekend and you were in Palm Springs or something, and
you still called in to do the do the bit
(04:53):
with the coin. Yes, it was hilarious because you were
like in a hot tub or something else.
Speaker 4 (04:58):
It was nuts. It was live, it was and it
really was live. That was no joke.
Speaker 3 (05:03):
I was I was live from a hot tub and
put the phone next to me and had a coin
I brought it. I brought a quarter just for it
and did flip it on the side of the hot tub.
And yes, we did it live from that was the
right around Christmas. We did it live from the hot tub.
Speaker 1 (05:21):
So you're ruining the illusion though it's penny versus the penny,
although at that time it was the coin, so you
could get away with the quarter.
Speaker 3 (05:28):
It was, yeah, because it wasn't It was a coin
back then, and we said it was a quarter. Yeah,
you you altered it to a penny. So it's a
little different now.
Speaker 1 (05:35):
Well, it's all for marketing reasons. It was all for
marketing reasons and somebody you.
Speaker 4 (05:40):
Just can't afford a quarter anymore.
Speaker 1 (05:42):
Well, yeah, working in the radio business, I can barely
afford a penny at this point. But that's a whole different,
different conversation. So you you would come, I remember you
came to Fox. You were from Vermont?
Speaker 3 (05:54):
Right?
Speaker 1 (05:54):
Is that where you would you were from there? You
had grown up there? Is that where you were working
before you came to Fox Sports Radio?
Speaker 3 (06:00):
No, I actually was working in Macon, Georgia. I was
the last radio voice for the East Coast Hockey League
minor league team called the Macon Whoopee.
Speaker 1 (06:10):
Oh yes, I remember that. We used to do jokes
about that to make it's correct.
Speaker 3 (06:15):
I still have clothing from that, because that's how they
paid us when they folded. They went out of business
and they, of course in sports, is called folding, and
I was out of work and they paid us basically
our last paychecks were here are some leftover clothes?
Speaker 4 (06:31):
Take them?
Speaker 1 (06:32):
Yeah? Is that stuff worth anything? That's kind of a no.
Speaker 4 (06:35):
I'm sure it isn't. I'm sure it is. Yes.
Speaker 3 (06:37):
My son is here pointing out I still have a
making whoopee notepad.
Speaker 1 (06:44):
Well, Trevor's your marketing guy. He's your marketing guy for sure.
Speaker 3 (06:49):
Yes, yes, so I actually this was in This was
summer of two thousand and two. I'm out of work
in Macon, Georgia, and I just saw an ad looking
for an update anchor for five Sports radio, which would
have been what just two years old? You guys would
have been about two years.
Speaker 1 (07:03):
Old then, right, yeah, exactly, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3 (07:05):
Because you're an original and they and I Smoky Gifford
is the one who hired me.
Speaker 1 (07:11):
Very Smoky Gifford.
Speaker 3 (07:13):
That's right of my Actually, I sent it in waited
a month, heard nothing, cold called him and he said,
oh yeh yeah, you know, gave me the usual, you know,
yeah whatever, And then the next day he called me.
I swear he had never listened to my seat. It
was CDs back then, he would you know, mail them,
and I'm swear he never listened to it.
Speaker 4 (07:34):
But then he must have pulled it out of the pile.
He told me there were one.
Speaker 3 (07:36):
Hundred and fifty CDs he got for this overnight opening,
and I ended up getting the gig. So I moved
from Georgia to LA Before that, I was in Vermont.
I had grown up in New York in Vermont, and
I had I was in Roswell and Albuquerque, New Mexico
in the mid nineties doing radio, making chances, you know,
(08:00):
very short money. I got called back to Vermont for
a job doing play by play, which is what I
love to do, doing college hockey and basketball. And I
did that for four years, and then went down to
Georgia to do the minor league hockey, which I love.
I enjoyed it thoroughly and then was disappointed when the
team went under, but then got lucky and got to
(08:22):
meet you, and you were one of my trainers in
LA when I first got there at Fox.
Speaker 1 (08:25):
It's a small world, and we might have ended up
working together earlier because I've told you the story before.
But when I was in San Diego at the mighty
six ninety, one of the first offers I got was
to do an afternoon drive show in Albuquerque at I
think a station you worked at. I think that was
one of the stations you worked at. It was this
Guy's Sports Animal. Yeah, the Sports Animal is the name
(08:48):
of the station. They approached me about doing a show
in the afternoon, but I saw how much money they paid,
and I decided, you know what, if I'm going to
leave Southern California, I got to get something that actually
pays some decent money. Otherwise it's just not gonna not
going to work out. The financial is not going to
work out. But I know you had, you know, you
had to take less money, and you're supposed to, you know,
(09:09):
it's cheaper to live in Albuquerque and all that stuff.
But I was like, I don't know. And I have
a friend of mine it's still does radio in Albuquerque,
and he likes it. He enjoys it.
Speaker 3 (09:19):
There.
Speaker 1 (09:19):
I've never been to Albuquerque, so I don't know you
missed out. I know it's one of the great vacation destinations.
If they actually have billboards around LA they have photos
of balloons, you know, those big giant him the hot
Air balloons, and they're like, this is what we consider traffic,
you know, try to get people done.
Speaker 3 (09:39):
Yes, they do a fall festival every October, the hot
Air balloons. It is actually pretty cool. If you get
Jess's Go Go, it's pretty fun to watch. It's early
in the morning. Now you'd have to do it after
your shift, and you know.
Speaker 1 (09:51):
I'd have to stay up. Yeah I can't. Yeah, getting
up early in the morning not my thing. So we
were traveling with the making whoopee turk. What was the
what were the common nations like when you're traveling with
a minor league hockey team, was it first class? Were
you staying at the Rich Carlton when you were on
the road traveling by chartered planes?
Speaker 3 (10:10):
Exactly?
Speaker 4 (10:11):
That's what double a hockey is. Yes, No, it was.
Speaker 3 (10:14):
Some of the hotels were not bad. It all depended
on when you booked them, and that was not my department. Unfortunately.
I remember one of our trips was to New Orleans.
It was the only time I've been in New Orleans.
That was one of the benefits. I got to see
the South, which I hadn't really seen much of. I
don't count Florida as the South, so I hadn't really
(10:35):
been through the South, and so it was fun to go.
Speaker 4 (10:38):
There was a team in New Orleans.
Speaker 3 (10:40):
Unfortunately, our crack administrative staff waited before booking the New
Orleans trip and we ended up in Metai, like twenty
miles out in this ramshackle, old brick motel. I think
it might have been a super at one time. It
might have been in a conoldge actually, and it was.
(11:03):
It was brutal. It was right across from where the
Saints used to train. I don't know if they still
train in Metaie, but it was across from that.
Speaker 4 (11:10):
It was not good, not.
Speaker 3 (11:11):
Good at The cockroaches were large, let me tell you that.
Speaker 1 (11:14):
Yeah, everything's larger in the South though, all these animals.
Speaker 4 (11:18):
But New Orleans was awesome.
Speaker 3 (11:19):
I mean to get there and I got and to
get on the you know, to get out on Bourbon
Street and I interviewed, you know. We had a game
Friday night in minor league hockey. They usually do games
on the weekends. They'll go back to back games, and
so we had a game Friday night and I interviewed.
I always tried to interview the local beat writer for
the team during the first intermission of the first night
(11:40):
and then afterwards he talks to me, were you know
during the commercial break and he says, you know, are
you going to go down to Bourbon Street? I said yeah,
and he said, here's my card. Don't stray like ten
feet off of Bourbon Street. If you get in trouble,
call me. I'm thinking, oh boy, what am I getting
myself into? But but no, it was it was fine.
(12:02):
I mean it was I had to take a cab
all the way back to Metaie. That wasn't too pleasant,
but but it was. It was a lot of fun
and that was one of the nice things about it.
The travel was tough. We had a bus. It was
a sleeper bus that was on an eighteen wheeler rig
and it was like a flatbed rig and then it
was like a submarine with just bunks, three bunks on
(12:25):
each side, with a small road to walk down and
it slept about twenty two or twenty three people and
that's what we use. And the guy drove like a
like a maniac.
Speaker 4 (12:36):
It was.
Speaker 3 (12:36):
You'd be kind of kind of moving back and forth
down down the high We must have been doing eighty
five in the middle of the night, you know, down
the down the freeways and it and you'd be rocking
back and forth on this in this thing as you
tried to sleep.
Speaker 4 (12:50):
It was interesting, for sure.
Speaker 1 (12:52):
It sounds like the movie portrayals of minor league sport
like that.
Speaker 3 (12:57):
Yeah, like that's real life. And that's why I decided
to do it. I mean, I had done four years
in Vermonto in the University of Vermont sports. I was
the voice of the Catamounts. They didn't have a football team.
It's hockey and basketball with the big sports. And after
four years of that, I was getting toward my mid
thirties and I'm mean, well, you know, if I'm going
to do minor league sports, I got to try it
now because the travel is hell.
Speaker 4 (13:19):
And so I did it. And it took a while.
Speaker 3 (13:22):
I was taking the drama mean the first few road trips,
but then after that you got used to it and
it was and then you could sleep. It's kind of
amazing because after a while, you got used to it
and you could sleep overnight.
Speaker 1 (13:33):
So I've told you this in the past, but you
listening have no idea. But early on, I wanted to
be a play by plague. I didn't want to be
a talk show host. My goal was not to do
talk radio. I like talk radio, but I was like, ah,
I want to be play by play. I want to
be like Vin Scully. And then I started doing some
research about how difficult it is. And this is a
long time ago, but the career arc of a minor
(13:56):
league play by plague I A get terrible money, and
then b the lifestyles aread. You're traveling, as you said
you just described, you're you're not traveling well in weird
weird buses and whatnot. But then the other problem is
to move up the ranks the ladder to a higher
level is almost impossible. At that time. It was because
(14:19):
the guys in the in the big league jobs would
keep those jobs until they were eighty five ninety years
old in some cases, and so it was impossible. And
I remember I had an epiphany when I was starting
doing radio. I did talk radio. We were in Indianapolis,
and I went to an Indianapolis Indians game, the Triple
A team in Indianapolis, and the play by play guy
(14:42):
there had been there for twenty five years or something
doing Triple A baseball in Indianapolis, and I think the guys,
I think he's still there, by the way, I think
he's fifty.
Speaker 4 (14:54):
What's the name of the guy, Russ Langer.
Speaker 3 (14:57):
Yes, he was, he was. Where was he in vade
or Vegas? Albuquerque? He was in Albuquerque when I was there,
and you were almost there. Yeah, in the mid nineties
he was doing the Albuquerque Dukes, was the Dodgers Triple A.
Then they moved to Vegas. And in fact, when I
lived in Vegas, Uh what six five six years ago?
(15:19):
I lived in Vegas before I moved here to Phoenix. Uh,
he was there and he's done. He's been doing probably
thirty years. He's been doing Triple A baseball and he
just can never get that break. And super nice guy
and could never get that break to get into the
big leagues. And you're right, they would hold on him forever. Uh.
You made the right choice, by the way, going to
(15:40):
going to a talk show post, I think was the
right move for you. I don't see you as a
play by play guy.
Speaker 1 (15:46):
No, but you know me now, but you know you
know me. But early on I think I could do
I could have done the play by place though you
never got because you did.
Speaker 4 (15:56):
You did Dodger pre and posts.
Speaker 3 (15:58):
Right.
Speaker 1 (15:58):
I did do that for for a couple of years yet.
Speaker 3 (16:01):
Right, but you never got the break someone you know,
Vin didn't have a vaga or something. You couldn't go
on for him. Well.
Speaker 1 (16:08):
The funny thing is in those days it was that
was hallowed you know, Vin and Ross Porter and Rick Monday,
and they would not let any slums like me or
you do that. But in more recent years, like David
Vessy who does the Dodger stuff. Now he's been given
opportunities to do some stuff and some other people, But
(16:30):
in those days it was like, no, this is hallowed ground.
You have to be of a certain ilk to have
that microphone.
Speaker 4 (16:37):
And have the experience.
Speaker 3 (16:38):
You have to be of Yes, you had to have
paid your dues exactly exactly, and that's what.
Speaker 4 (16:43):
You talked about about going up the ladder.
Speaker 3 (16:45):
It was and I, you know, I could have gotten
another minor league hockey job. I hated doing the media
portion of you had to do media relations, you know,
the pr part, and I really hated it, and I
just wanted to do play by play. It's all That's
what I wanted to do. From being five or six
years old. All I ever wanted was play by play.
(17:06):
And I went to college, got a degree in broadcast journalism,
started in my hometown of ten thousand people, Saint Albans, Vermont.
Shout out to Saint Albans and and I started. And
but then this job came. You know, you when you're
unemployed in your mid thirties, sitting, you know, in a
in a small apartment in Macon, Georgia, you know you
got to take what you can get.
Speaker 4 (17:26):
And I said, okay, I'll apply to Fox, never thinking.
Speaker 3 (17:30):
I would ever get it, because you know, it's Los Angeles,
it's National network radio. I had done sports updates for
Burlington Vermont. You know I would never get none. I
got it, So I made the choice. And actually I
haven't done play by play since the make and Whoopie
was the last one. It's over twenty years now. It's
hard to believe it's been over twenty years now.
Speaker 1 (17:48):
Did any of those players make it, any of the
coaches make it to the higher level the NHL from.
Speaker 3 (17:54):
The Whoopee, I not from our team. Gord Dineen was
the co of the Make and Whoopee. I think I
got the job partly because he phoned me for an
interview and he said, hi, am Gordon Deneen, and I said,
I hated you as a player. I'm a Rangers fan.
And he laughed because he was an Islander and he
(18:16):
played for the Islanders for years, and so he laughed,
and I think that's probably one reason I got the job.
But so he was a pro player, you know, a
big league player that came down, but none of the
players made it to the NHL from our team. Jack Capuano,
who I actually went to college with at the University
of Maine, was in my dorm, was coaching the pd
(18:41):
Pride in South Carolina my year of doing ECHL, and
so he ended up making it to the New York
Islanders in fact, as a head coach for years. Most people,
most players in the East Coast Hockey League, they're lifers.
They're not getting out of the miners.
Speaker 1 (18:57):
Yeah, they are locked in. They're in a lifetime employment
kind of like me at Fox Sports Radio, lifetime employment plan.
But you're you're yeah, I'm.
Speaker 4 (19:04):
Trying to figure out how you got that.
Speaker 3 (19:05):
Ben.
Speaker 1 (19:06):
I don't I don't know. Don't don't jinxit turk, don't
jinx it. It might it might end at any moment.
So you did the show, you didn't stuff with me,
You went to your at Sporting News, you did NBC.
What do do you have a couple of favorite memories
of those days doing the radio stuff, doing the updates
and whatnot that stand out? I I love we talked
about the hot tub. That was great.
Speaker 3 (19:28):
That was one of the highlights.
Speaker 1 (19:29):
What are some of the other things that stand out
from those days?
Speaker 3 (19:33):
You know, my first time on on Sporting News radio,
I was supposed to I was supposed to go and
train for a little bit there, just you know, because
every network has different music, different ways that they throw
it to you. That's called the end, different ways. I
would get out and know the music. Everyone has different music.
(19:54):
And I was supposed to train on that. But then
I remember, actually I was at Santa Anito one day.
It was in February of seven. I was at Santa
Anita and they they called me and said, hey, we
need someone to fill in with Jeff Biggs. Of all
people someone who a lot of LA Sports radio fans
(20:15):
would know because he's worked for every single station. He
needed someone to work with him. Somebody dropped out. It
was on the Grammys night and we were doing some
kind of and it was some Sunday night show. So
that was my first time on Sporting News Radio and
I got to co host with the great Jeff Biggs
doing a show. I hosted college a college football show
(20:39):
for a couple of years on Saturday mornings for an
hour right before kickoff of all the of all the
games on Sporting News. I like doing that.
Speaker 1 (20:50):
A boy.
Speaker 3 (20:50):
What was my Oh, I know, my first my first
time on Fox Sports Radio.
Speaker 4 (20:58):
You were training me.
Speaker 1 (21:00):
Which is which is right there? A nightmare that I'm
training you should training anyone that I should have.
Speaker 3 (21:07):
It was intimidating, and I've told you this story. It
was intimidating because I get there and the studio. I'm
from a small town in Vermont and and the and
then I had done stuff uh in Albuquerque, but those
are small, you know, small.
Speaker 4 (21:20):
Little studios with old equipment.
Speaker 3 (21:23):
And I walk into the studios in Fox Sports Radio
and it's to me, it looked like the Starship Enterprise
I mean it was huge rooms. There were lights blinking
from everywhere, all kinds of tape decks and and mini
cassette things and god knows what, and computers everywhere, and
this huge board, which, by the way, you don't need
(21:45):
to use like ninety percent of it. It just looks huge.
It is huge, but you don't use any of the
dials except maybe two. And it was. And then you
get on the air and you do these brilliant updates
with almost no notes, and I'm thinking, oh boy, what
am I doing here? But you trained me? And who
else was someone else? That Tie works in Fort Myers
(22:05):
now and he crag Craig Sheman, and Craig Sheman also
super nice guy, very nice, and he I think Craig
just didn't want he didn't like doing updates, and you know,
he was more of a host like you, and both
of you graduated finally as you should have to become
hosts and not do updates. And Craig just didn't want
(22:28):
to do the updates. So I was supposed to train
for like a week, and I trained for two days
and it was like the nine o'clock update for JT
The Brick Show. And he says, Okay, you're gonna do
the nine o'clock you're ready. I'm like, oh no, I
don't think, Yeah you are. And so so that's how
I started on network, right I did Okay, I had
(22:48):
like two days of prep instead of a week, and
bam and I was on the air. And then I
did it ever since, and it was it was a
lot of fun.
Speaker 1 (22:56):
It really was the sink or swim technique.
Speaker 3 (23:00):
It definitely was. It was the I don't want to
do the updates, so I'm gonna let this guy do it,
and if he dies, he dies.
Speaker 1 (23:07):
It's funny you brought up when you walked into the studio,
because that's the most famous story from the early days
of Fox Sports Radio. There was a guy who shall
remain nameless. It was not you, but somebody that the
company had hired who had worked at some big stations.
He had a nice resume, and they brought him in.
And I think you actually might know this person because
I think the person was there while you were there,
(23:29):
although it might have been before you.
Speaker 4 (23:30):
No, it was before me, because you guys told me
all the story.
Speaker 1 (23:33):
Okay, all right, so we told you anyway, So the
guy came in and this guy walked around like he
was God's gift the radio. I mean, but he had
he walked into that studio you're referring to the update studio,
the news studio, and then they told him what he
had to do, and he said, what is this the
space shuttle? I'm supposed to run the space shuttle here?
(23:53):
And uh, it is one of the greatest stories because
Annie who you know, who is you know, one of
our bosses and a very interesting woman, nice woman, but
she she sold but they would hire people and she
she would be, oh, this guy's amazing, look at the
resume and all this stuff, and so we always kind
of took it with a grain of salt. But this
(24:14):
guy in particular, not only her, but several other people
at the company were selling this guy's resume and he
just was totally in over his head. And it wasn't.
Speaker 3 (24:25):
He the one who he wasn't ready to do the
update And the music came on. And when the music
comes on, folks, you're on. I mean, after the voice
guy says Fox Sports Update, you have to if you're
the update anchor, you have to go. And didn't he
like put his hand up playing he wasn't ready. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (24:41):
No, he told the board op to play more commercials.
That was what he told me. And I was like, Hey,
we're on a network. We can't not a local station.
We can't local station. You just keep playing extra spots.
But on the network you got to go and it's like.
Speaker 4 (24:55):
And tight on a clock.
Speaker 1 (24:57):
Yeah, it was such a debacle. Touch a total tobacco.
Speaker 3 (25:02):
It is a very beautiful studio for folks. If you
ever get there, go and visit Ben and.
Speaker 1 (25:09):
You'll be happy to know Trek next time you're in
Los Angeles. We a few months ago moved from the
studio we had been in for over twenty years.
Speaker 3 (25:18):
Twenty two years.
Speaker 1 (25:20):
We just moved across the hall. And you talk about
high rent real estate and radio, we moved across the hall.
Rush Limbaugh had his own LA studio When he would
come to LA for like two weeks a year. Rush
did a show from Florida, but he would do the
show from Los Angeles in the studio, so they kept
(25:42):
it only for Rush. It was the old rock Line studio.
And then the next studio over was Steve Harvey. He
had moved back to LA and he was doing his
show for a while, and then the pandemic when twenty
twenty came around that all stuff. He just did the
show from home, or I think he moved back to Atlanta.
(26:04):
But anyway, so they had these two massive, beautiful studios
that were first class. Everything was brand new for Limbaugh
who passed away, and Steve Harvey, and so they they
moved us across the hall and the h So we're
we're just across the hall from where.
Speaker 4 (26:18):
How was that?
Speaker 1 (26:19):
It's it's it's cool. I like it a lot, mostly
because the air conditioning works better than the old studio.
And I like I like to make it like an
ice box. Yes, I like I like it to be
like a freezer. When I'm in there and it's it's
really perfect, and everything's new. People haven't spilled coffee over everything.
And food you know you'll take care of that. Oh no, no,
(26:42):
I don't you know you know what mean these days? Turk,
I intermitted fasting. Man, I don't. I don't eat these guys.
Some of these guys go in there and they eat
like five meals during the show. It fascinates.
Speaker 3 (26:51):
That's great.
Speaker 1 (26:52):
What are you doing either, No, of course not. No,
it's it's disgusting.
Speaker 4 (26:58):
It's Alky Loco from right next.
Speaker 1 (27:00):
Yeah, the Crazy Chicken or whatever's there's a buffalo wild
Wings across the street at the mall doing that. But
so I want to know we are kind of close
to the same age. I was talking to t J. Simmers.
We had TJ Simer's on the show yesterday, very good,
the great to columnsts from the other time, and we
were talking about the way sports media operates and like
(27:25):
me and you, Turk, I think are on the same
page because we're around the same age, Like we grew
up and you grew up on the East Coast. I
grew up on the West Coast. But I always loved
the critical eye in the media, the columnists that would
attack the radio guy when warranted performance that was not
up to standard. And I told TJS, like, listen, you're
one of the last guys that did that in LA.
(27:47):
He's one of the only guys that ever did it.
Because LA is a pretty soft talent when it comes
to the media. They worshiped the athletes and TJ didn't
do that. And we were discussing, like will it ever
get back to the way it was? And he didn't
think it'll ever get back to the way it was.
I am skeptical as well, Turk, but the way sports
media operates now were if you are critical. I've noticed
(28:09):
people get upset a lot of be like, well, we're
using so critical, you shouldn't be so critical. What's your
take on that?
Speaker 3 (28:15):
I agree. I agree with you guys. Nobody's critical anymore,
and I hate it. I'll tell you when when I
was a teenager and into my college days and in
my twenties, I remember we'd watch hockey games and then
a goal would be scored, and what we did was
we wanted to see who the defenseman who was a
(28:35):
defenseman now skating into the picture after the goal scored
because it was his fault, so he was the one
with his head down. You know, we were critical. It's
like we're looking for who gave up the goal why?
And they don't do that anymore, and they I think
it's access. I think it used to be that way
back when it started twenties, thirties, forties, I mean, starting
with Babe Ruth and those guys, and going up through
(28:57):
when new sports came up, where the nobody said anything,
nobody dug for information, you know, like what Mickey Mantle,
Whitey for Billy Martin would show up drunk at games
and no one's you know, the reporters never say anything.
They were drunk from the night before and right, and
no one would no one would write about it. And
it was the same thing with presidents and no one
(29:17):
would say anything. And then Watergate happened, and I think
that changed it. From the seventies of the eighties and
nineties when we grew up where it became it was
now it was on and.
Speaker 4 (29:30):
Now you're now.
Speaker 3 (29:31):
Reporters were supposed to dig and supposed to get info
and be critical and not trust, you know, what the
teams were telling you, and not trust what the government
was telling you. And then for some reason in the
last twenty years, it's all swung back. And I don't
know what started it, but it's I think teams started
(29:51):
to started to like withhold access and hold that over
the reporters' heads. Do you think that's the case where
they say, look, you start being too critical of us,
you're not we won't let you in here.
Speaker 1 (30:04):
I have a theory on this, and my theory is,
and I had somebody when Major League Baseball started their
MLB dot com and they started hiring beat writers to
cover the teams, and that was that was to me,
that was the origin of it. I had somebody that
worked at baseball tell me that this is the future.
We're just gonna because they were upset with the negative media,
(30:24):
so we'll just hire the writers and then we'll kind
of be able to be in control of what's said
about the team. And he said, you know, given given
enough time, you know, this will become the way people
expect to get their news about their favorite team. And
it's been about a generation since MLB started that, and
we're now at that point where people, a lot of
(30:48):
younger people younger than us, just expect everything to be
sugarcoated about their favorite team. And I blame the team
website stuff, but you are right. A lot of it
also is hey, if you say something we don't like,
we're not going to give access. And we talked to
TJ yesterday and TJ pointed something out also. It says
(31:08):
like the beat writers in his day, when he was
a beat writer, if the team did not make somebody available,
he would just still try to track the guy down.
He's like, well, no, my job is to talk to
that person today, not tomorrow and so. But now a
lot of the media guys are just like, whatever the
PR people tell.
Speaker 4 (31:24):
Him, that's it.
Speaker 1 (31:26):
They just take it.
Speaker 3 (31:27):
Yes, that's what they do. I complain about it on
Twitter all the time. They know my team. I'm a
Mets fan and my condolences. Yeah yeah, oh boy that ship.
The last week has been brutal and uh I I
complain about it on Twitter. The Beat writers don't dig
for any information. I mean they now they don't have
(31:49):
and I think one of the reasons is because they
don't have to sell papers anymore because they know no
more newspapers, so they don't part of the job of
the beat writer. When TJ. Simers is doing it well,
he needed to sell papers, so he needed to beat
the other guy to the story because that's what sold papers.
The paper that broke stories was the one that people bought.
And that's not the case anymore. They're no more newspapers,
(32:12):
and the Beat writers aren't. I'm sure they're not being pushed. Clearly,
they're not to go get stories and go find information
that isn't out there yet because the fans want to
know it, so they don't have to do that.
Speaker 4 (32:22):
Anymore.
Speaker 3 (32:23):
So they don't I mean they literally don't don't don't
look for any information. It's what you just said. They
just let the pr people give them stuff and that's it.
And that's not what it was supposed to be. That's
not what journalism was when I got my journalism degree.
And it's unfortunate that that's what it is, because it's
just you don't know anything anymore.
Speaker 4 (32:42):
It's no fun.
Speaker 1 (32:43):
Yeah, TJ told me, he said, the thing that you
have to do now as a writer, they call it engagements,
where like they expect when people read your story. He said, like,
you're sorry about the La Times because he's still obviously
connected there with people at the Times, and they expect
certain number of engagements, like people to subscribe based on
reading Bill Plashki or somebody like that. So I don't
(33:07):
know how they keep track of who's actually subscribing based
on reading a column or not, but supposely that's the case.
But you mentioned you're a Mets fan. So at the
trade deadline this year, Verlander and Sure's are gone. There's
a big controversy whether or not the Mets are actually
going to try to win in twenty twenty. For what
(33:28):
say you, Turk as a long suffering Mets fan Stephen Cohen,
when this guy got hired as the owner, when he
bought the team, he get hired, people said, oh, this
is great, the greatest owner of all time. Blah blah
blah blah blah blah blah. He's a Mets fan. Not
going so well right now? What's your take on Cohen
and the Mets.
Speaker 3 (33:44):
Well, what I feel happened is it's a kind of
a three year process. In twenty twenty one, they had
the analytics department run the team and it was a
complete failure. And that was Cohen's he bought it team.
It didn't really change anything. Sandy Alderson was still in charge,
and it was Alderson's dream to have analytics do everything.
(34:06):
He's one of the fathers of analytics, going back to
the late nineties.
Speaker 4 (34:10):
And so it failed.
Speaker 3 (34:12):
So then last year they hired Buck show Walter for
twenty twenty two, and they hired some good coaches, and
they backed off the analytics and let the manager and
the coaches do their thing, you know, like it used
to be for one hundred and fifty years. And they
had a great year, won one hundred and one games,
they stumbled down the stretch, lost in the in the
wild card to the Padres. So then this year they
(34:32):
yet Cohen spends the big money, right, three hundred what
fifty three hundred and seventy million whatever it was, I
mean huge amounts of money, you know, like the Dodgers
did in the two thousands, you know when when they
got bought and they never won either. And then it
fell apart again. And it turns out that because Cohen
put the analytics department in charge again this year, and
(34:53):
it's been a disaster. Everyone has played worse than their
the back of their baseball card. And so, oh they
did the right thing. I think by selling off they
got a lot of good prospects. I know how you
let me let me say, do you still call prospects suspects?
Speaker 1 (35:08):
Yes? Yes, yes, because turk listen, you're all excited because
everyone does the same thing that, oh, this guy's gonna
be great. You know, those guy's gonna live up to
the scouting report.
Speaker 4 (35:17):
I've heard this for twenty plus years, folks.
Speaker 1 (35:19):
And I've been right, and I've been right more times
than i've been wrong. Because you look at the trades
and you can go back, and with very few exceptions
when you trade an established start player. In fact, I
praised the Angels Turk for not trading Otani because I
don't need I'd rather see Otani for two more months
with a team. If I'm an Angels fan, then trade
(35:40):
him for some minor league pitchers. Gonna have Tommy John
surgery in two years and some guy that's hyped up
the fifty home runs and then ends up batting you know,
one to ninety four with limited power. I don't need that.
A great example, the Angels have a guy, Mickey Moniac
or Mania, whatever his name is, who was the number
one overall pick from the Phillies. Yes, he's an average
(36:01):
major league player. Yeah, three hundred this year, but he's
an average major league player.
Speaker 4 (36:07):
He gave it below average until this year.
Speaker 1 (36:09):
Actually, so you think the Mets. One of the guys
they got was Ronald is his brother, right, and he's
a shortstop. Don't you have Francisco Indoor for the next
ten years or eight years at shortstop?
Speaker 3 (36:20):
Yeah, we have him for the rest of his life.
Speaker 1 (36:23):
And then even when he died, even when he dies,
he'll still be the shortstop.
Speaker 3 (36:26):
He'll still it's the Bobby Benia contract. No, yeah, he's
a kunya. He'll move to second base. But actually he
might play next year. He might make the team next year.
The Mets are in a different situation because Erlander and
schurz Or were not free agents, So I don't know
if I was the Angels, though, the Angels must think
(36:48):
they can resign Otani, because if you if you don't
think you can resign him, you had to trade him.
You just had to. I mean, you're gonna get nothing
for him if he's sign And of course you're a
Dodgers fan, you're hoping he goes, you know, up up
the frequently.
Speaker 1 (37:00):
No, no, not necessarily, because I will never be able
to go to another Dodger game in the press box
because it'll all be uh. Otani has twenty roughly twenty
writers and TV people that follow him around. I'm not kidding,
just a sign from Japanese media to cover him. When
he pitches it's it's It reminds me of a Dale nomo.
(37:22):
When I was covering the Dodgers back in the nineties,
they had a Dale Nomo and it was insane and
they had to have extra seats because there was so
much media from Japan. It's it's even bigger now because
Otani is the greatest player in the history of baseball
and all this, so it's insane. What's going on?
Speaker 4 (37:38):
Yeah, don't you have a name plate though?
Speaker 3 (37:41):
I mean you've been going to games there in the yeah, you.
Speaker 1 (37:44):
Know, and then I got married. I don't go. I go.
I don't go as much. I do go more now
than I did in the past. But yeah, I was
out there pretty much every night for twenty five years.
I was at every Dodger game and a lot of
Laker Clipper games things like that. Back in the but
I had no life and I had no no one
to spend time all that stuff.
Speaker 4 (38:04):
Yeah, see, now you have a life, so now you
can't go.
Speaker 1 (38:07):
As much exactly. You know, he's being grown up. I
guess that's what they call it, right, And then you're so,
you're you're okay, what you like the minor league players,
you buy into the.
Speaker 3 (38:17):
High Well here's the thing I'm not. I mean, look,
Sure's are I mean, look, Otani's still in his prime.
Sure's are and Verlander are not so. And in fact,
Sure's are gave up what three runs is? First inning
with the with Texas pitched well the rest of the way,
but uh, neither one of those guys is going to
get better next year, so I you know, that's why
(38:38):
I'm okay with it.
Speaker 4 (38:39):
That what the Mets gave up was just people who
are free agents or forty year olds.
Speaker 1 (38:44):
So well, and then it's also paid. Uh CO paid
a good amount of money, which is which is fine
with me because you know, you know, I don't I
live in Phoenix, so I'm not going to the game.
Speaker 3 (38:55):
So if he wants to raise you know, he wants
to raise ticket prices and rices for concessions, I'm okay
with that. If he wants to recoup some of that money,
it's not my money. So you know, he did the
right thing. He can afford it, and more power to him.
He actually took his money and bought minor league prospects.
It was an interesting theory, right, instead of the Mets
(39:17):
played the Oriols this weekend and got swept, and instead
of they talked about on the broadcast. Instead of tanking
for four years like the Oriols, the Oriels are winning
fifty two games a year for like four years. Right,
they were terrible. They were losing one hundred and ten
games a year to get high draft picks to rebuild.
(39:38):
So what Cohen did instead was instead of tanking like that,
he's going to use his money and bought prospects. So
he bought first round pick prospects and instead of tanking,
and so we'll see if it works.
Speaker 1 (39:52):
Yeah, well, you could never get away with what the
Orioles did or the Astros for years before they right
first right, and then they still had to cheat to
end up winning the World Chest.
Speaker 4 (40:06):
So that we're on the same page on that one.
Speaker 3 (40:10):
Yeah, yeah, all right.
Speaker 1 (40:11):
So we have a little time left. I know you're
in the NFL. You're a Giants fan, your family had
season tickets forever. But the Giants are an afterthought this
so far, in terms of publicity, it's all about the Jets.
Speaker 3 (40:24):
That's okay.
Speaker 1 (40:25):
That doesn't annoy you. You're not bothered by that. Aaron Rogers,
Aaron Rodgers takes a bottel movement and it's a front
page news on the Internet. You know, you're not worried
about that. You're fine with being in the background.
Speaker 4 (40:35):
Huh.
Speaker 3 (40:35):
The Giants have always been like that, So we're fine
with that. I mean, the Giants have won four Super Bowls.
The Jets haven't haven't even been in the Super Bowl
since sixty nine, so and meanwhile the Giants have won four.
So we're we're very happy with Let the Jets get
all that publicity. The Giants are back. They have a
great coaching staff. Daniel Jones. You're gonna love this one, bet,
(41:00):
I know you love this. Daniel Jones is looking great
in training camp.
Speaker 1 (41:03):
So oh yeah, I'm sure, yeah, yeah against against two
exactly against who is he always loving guys, no dominate practice,
you know, but let's see him in a game. It's
like it's like in Spimmer and spring training, guys would
hit a bunch of home runs in the Cactus League
and you're like, let's see, let's see what he does
at night at you know, not in that, you know,
not in the hot weather, just the normal weather, you know,
(41:25):
in the with a marine layer in LA or something
like that.
Speaker 3 (41:27):
But yeah, they're looking good. I mean, they have a
really good coaching staff with with Dable and and Mike
Kafka is the the coordinator, and then they've got Wink
Martindale as a defensive coordinator. They had that surprise team
last year that went to the playoffs and beat the
Vikings in the first round. I know, so they're gonna.
Speaker 1 (41:46):
Know what happens. Though, When you have that's turk. You've
been around enough. When you have a surprise season the
following year, it's the regression to the meet. So you
gotta be worried about that aggression.
Speaker 3 (41:57):
I'm looking at it as the eighties Giants where they
eighty four they came out of nowhere. It had a
nine to seven year, and then in eighty five they
got they went better, and then eighty six they won
it all. So that's that's the progression we're looking at here.
We think that that this team is going to make
the playoffs and they're going to be real solid. And
they got Darren Waller as a nice tight end receiver. Uh,
(42:20):
you know, one of the that's what they were missing.
Theydn't have anybody good to throw to, and now they've
got They've got that. They signed a couple.
Speaker 1 (42:27):
Of Is it that? Is it the people catching the
passes or is it the person throwing the pass?
Speaker 3 (42:32):
Oh? Are you an anti Daniel Jones? Guy?
Speaker 1 (42:34):
I'm I'm a truther. I'm a Dan is what I am?
The guy's abum but.
Speaker 3 (42:42):
It was last year was the first year he had
confident coaching and and he played well.
Speaker 1 (42:48):
The Giants where I believe twenty fifth in passing offense
last year, Well.
Speaker 3 (42:52):
They well, they did they well, but you know, they
rained it in and and Barkley did most of the work.
Speaker 4 (42:57):
Say kwon Barkley.
Speaker 1 (42:58):
But but is that because Brian able to not trust
Daniel Jones.
Speaker 4 (43:02):
At the beginning?
Speaker 3 (43:03):
Yes, and the first yes, the first half of the
year correct, And but he got better and better as
year went on.
Speaker 4 (43:08):
And now they're opening it up.
Speaker 3 (43:10):
I mean, if you if you count what they're telling
us in training camp, you know what the Beat writers do,
give you stuff in training camp for football, so they
you know, and and that it seems like they're opening
it up. They they actually went out and got some
receivers and got Waller, who's more of a receiving receiving
tight end. He's not a blocker, so uh and he's
been dominating in practice too. So well, you know, we
(43:32):
we have high hopes for the Giants this year, for sure.
Speaker 1 (43:35):
I got you all right, and you you've been out
of the radio business for a while, right sir, living
a normal life. What's it like living a normal life
in education.
Speaker 3 (43:45):
Uh yeah, I've been teaching. Well, I've been teaching pe.
This is my seventeenth year. What yeah, Well I started.
I started in six while I was still working at
Fox Okay, and that's when I shifted to weekend work,
so I would One of my high lights of working
at Sporting News Radio is I was working seven days
a week because I was teaching Monday through Friday, then
(44:06):
doing eight hour shifts Saturday and Sunday for the Sporting
News Network, and.
Speaker 4 (44:11):
So it was.
Speaker 3 (44:12):
It was a lot, but I loved it and I
miss it. I do miss being on the air. I
miss working with you for sure. It was a lot
of fun, keeping us keeping ourselves awake at three am,
and it was. It was a lot of fun. No,
we had a great time. And I remember I went
when you were coaching early on at.
Speaker 1 (44:32):
Very bougie school in Brentwood.
Speaker 4 (44:35):
I believe, Yes, are we allowed to name it? Can
I name it?
Speaker 3 (44:38):
Oh?
Speaker 1 (44:38):
You don't work there anymore? Not sure? Why not? Go ahead?
Speaker 4 (44:41):
Yes?
Speaker 3 (44:41):
I worked for a school called carl Thorpe, very fancy school,
private school some some celebt they don't actually go for
the celebs. The other private schools in the area kind
of catered to the celebs. We didn't, but we've had
we had a few there when I was there. Ben Affleck,
Jennifer Garner. When are they still together? I've lost the connection.
Speaker 1 (45:02):
I don't know if I'm pretty pretty sure they're not.
Speaker 4 (45:04):
They're not. They're not together.
Speaker 3 (45:05):
They were then and their kids were young, and so
they went there, and they're both very nice, by the way,
for the fans, and they were both very nice people.
Ben Affleck is tall man. He's six four.
Speaker 4 (45:16):
He's a tall dude.
Speaker 1 (45:17):
Yeah, Usually those guys in movies are very small, little
little people.
Speaker 3 (45:21):
Yeah, you don't realize how, you know, they're like basketball players.
Sometimes you don't realize how tall they are because they
put them with actors and actresses who were tall, you know,
and so you don't realize how it's like basketball. They
all look on TV, they don't look that tall because
they're all the same size. But then you meet them
in person and they're, you know, six ' nine. I mean,
they're huge. But yeah, I work for I work for
a bougie school. Yes, it's expensive. It's a private school
(45:44):
in Santa Monica, So yeah, it was.
Speaker 1 (45:46):
It was pr Now and now you're in Arizona where
it's one hundred and ten degrees every day of the year,
which must be make your job very easy, Turk when
you're out and you're gonna get kids to exercise when
it's a thousand degrees outside.
Speaker 4 (46:00):
But it's hot, and when there's no gym.
Speaker 3 (46:03):
I don't have a gymnasium. In fact, I was also
I taught in Vegas for six years as well before
I moved down here to Phoenix, and uh, and I
had no gym there either, So and it's hot in
Vegas too, so it's yeah, they it's hot. It's you
get I could say, you get used to it. You
just know it's there. So you're just like, Okay, this
is what it is, and you try to find shade
(46:23):
when you can. But I love it. I do miss radio.
I do miss working with folks like you who are
so good at it. It was always fun to work
with people who were good, and you're one of the best.
Speaker 1 (46:34):
Well, I love you and we want you back in radio.
So if you ever want to get back, it pays
no money in the hours suck, but we'd love to
have you back at so much.
Speaker 3 (46:42):
How can I refuse right with an offer like that.
Speaker 1 (46:45):
It's a great offer, but but I'll let you go.
Thank you so much, Turk, you're the man. We'll have
you on again at some point. I appreciate it. Thanks man, Hey,
I loved it. Thank you so much.
Kubbooms.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
If you thought four hours a day, twelve hundred minutes
a week was enough, think again. He's the last remnants
of the Old Republic, a soul fashion of fairness. He
treats crackheads in the ghetto gutter the same as the
rich pill poppers in the penthouse.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
The Clearinghouse of Hot takes break free for something special.
The Fifth Hour with Ben Mahler starts right now.
Speaker 1 (00:28):
In the air everywhere. Welcome in the Fifth Hour with
Ben Mahler and Danny g Radio. Danny still on assignment
fatherly duty for Danny. He should be back next weekend.
Congratulations again to Danny and his wife on the birth
of their son last weekend. We'll have all the details
(00:51):
when Danny returns. But we go back to the well
one more time. The Fox Sports Radio Alumni Association a
chance to catch up with one of my friends in
the radio business who's no longer in the radio business.
But if you've been a fan of talk radio sports
talk radio over the years, you know who this guy is.
(01:12):
He not only did a long stint at Fox Sports Radio,
he also worked at Sporting News Radio, which no longer exists,
and the fledgling NBC Sports Radio network, which also no
longer exists. There must be a pattern there, but it
is very exciting for me to welcome back to the microphones,
(01:35):
the man, the myth, the legend. He also was the
voice of the Make and Whoopee hockey team. We'll have
to get into that as well. The great Turk Stevens
joins us now on the fifth hour. Turk, welcome in.
And why don't we start with your timeline? How many years?
I forget? How many years were you at Fox Sports Radio?
Speaker 3 (01:59):
Ye? Yes, I went to a competing network. Well, actually
I was asked to go by a couple of people,
and then I landed at a different network. And then
they moved out of state, they left California, and so
by the good graces of one Dan Byer, I was
able to return to Fox Sports Radio for a couple
(02:21):
of years.
Speaker 1 (02:22):
Now, was that the sporting news radio that you went too?
Speaker 3 (02:26):
It was? It was sporting news radio and I did that.
Then they moved to Houston. After like three years, three
or four years they moved to Houston. I was actually
the last voice heard out of the Los Angeles studios
for Sporting news radio.
Speaker 1 (02:44):
Did they want you to go to Houston or did
they tell you that we're good, we don't need no.
Speaker 4 (02:49):
No, they actually did.
Speaker 3 (02:50):
They wanted me to go, but I was teaching full time.
I was teaching pe at a private school down in
Santa Monica, and so I didn't want to go, and
so they understood that, but they did want me to go.
Speaker 4 (03:03):
I didn't go.
Speaker 3 (03:04):
And then and then I ended up going to back
to Fox for a couple of years. And then NBC
Sports Radio moved in the now departed NBC Sports Radio
they're no longer in business, and they came in and
offered me a full time gig. So I left Fox
(03:24):
to go to NBC Sports Radio.
Speaker 1 (03:27):
Look at that the career path of the Turk. And
I remember you did the show with me on the
weekends back when you first started. We were together. We
did quite a bit of nonsense and you were one
of the You were one of the original guys that
Benny Versus the Penny. Although I think back then we
had a different name for it. In the early days.
We didn't call it Benny Versus the Penny. You called
(03:48):
it something else, Ben versus the Coin or whatever.
Speaker 3 (03:51):
Yes, I remember, I actually remember you.
Speaker 4 (03:54):
Coming to me one night.
Speaker 3 (03:56):
It was one of the overnights, and you saying, I
have this idea. And it was me and you, you know,
doing the show overnight, and you told me the idea.
I still remember that night and we talked about it
and we and then we put it together and I
had a quarter and we we did the flips live.
I actually did them live back then, and it was
(04:17):
Ben versus the Coin. Yeah, not a great name and
a good bit.
Speaker 1 (04:21):
Not a great name, but it was either that or
bringing a monkey or something like that.
Speaker 4 (04:26):
Yes, but those were our options.
Speaker 3 (04:28):
And yes, I'll blame you for the name because it
was your, your show.
Speaker 1 (04:32):
But eventually we got a good name though. Benny versus
the Penny was the name that it morphed into. And
my one of my favorite Turk memories is when you
were on vacation, you were out, you were out one
weekend and you were in Palm Springs or something, and
you still called in to do the do the bit
(04:53):
with the coin. Yes, it was hilarious because you were
like in a hot tub or something else.
Speaker 4 (04:58):
It was nuts. It was live, it was and it
really was live. That was no joke.
Speaker 3 (05:03):
I was I was live from a hot tub and
put the phone next to me and had a coin
I brought it. I brought a quarter just for it
and did flip it on the side of the hot tub.
And yes, we did it live from that was the
right around Christmas. We did it live from the hot tub.
Speaker 1 (05:21):
So you're ruining the illusion though it's penny versus the penny,
although at that time it was the coin, so you
could get away with the quarter.
Speaker 3 (05:28):
It was, yeah, because it wasn't It was a coin
back then, and we said it was a quarter. Yeah,
you you altered it to a penny. So it's a
little different now.
Speaker 1 (05:35):
Well, it's all for marketing reasons. It was all for
marketing reasons and somebody you.
Speaker 4 (05:40):
Just can't afford a quarter anymore.
Speaker 1 (05:42):
Well, yeah, working in the radio business, I can barely
afford a penny at this point. But that's a whole different,
different conversation. So you you would come, I remember you
came to Fox. You were from Vermont?
Speaker 3 (05:54):
Right?
Speaker 1 (05:54):
Is that where you would you were from there? You
had grown up there? Is that where you were working
before you came to Fox Sports Radio?
Speaker 3 (06:00):
No, I actually was working in Macon, Georgia. I was
the last radio voice for the East Coast Hockey League
minor league team called the Macon Whoopee.
Speaker 1 (06:10):
Oh yes, I remember that. We used to do jokes
about that to make it's correct.
Speaker 3 (06:15):
I still have clothing from that, because that's how they
paid us when they folded. They went out of business
and they, of course in sports, is called folding, and
I was out of work and they paid us basically
our last paychecks were here are some leftover clothes?
Speaker 4 (06:31):
Take them?
Speaker 1 (06:32):
Yeah? Is that stuff worth anything? That's kind of a no.
Speaker 4 (06:35):
I'm sure it isn't. I'm sure it is. Yes.
Speaker 3 (06:37):
My son is here pointing out I still have a
making whoopee notepad.
Speaker 1 (06:44):
Well, Trevor's your marketing guy. He's your marketing guy for sure.
Speaker 3 (06:49):
Yes, yes, so I actually this was in This was
summer of two thousand and two. I'm out of work
in Macon, Georgia, and I just saw an ad looking
for an update anchor for five Sports radio, which would
have been what just two years old? You guys would
have been about two years.
Speaker 1 (07:03):
Old then, right, yeah, exactly, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3 (07:05):
Because you're an original and they and I Smoky Gifford
is the one who hired me.
Speaker 1 (07:11):
Very Smoky Gifford.
Speaker 3 (07:13):
That's right of my Actually, I sent it in waited
a month, heard nothing, cold called him and he said,
oh yeh yeah, you know, gave me the usual, you know,
yeah whatever, And then the next day he called me.
I swear he had never listened to my seat. It
was CDs back then, he would you know, mail them,
and I'm swear he never listened to it.
Speaker 4 (07:34):
But then he must have pulled it out of the pile.
He told me there were one.
Speaker 3 (07:36):
Hundred and fifty CDs he got for this overnight opening,
and I ended up getting the gig. So I moved
from Georgia to LA Before that, I was in Vermont.
I had grown up in New York in Vermont, and
I had I was in Roswell and Albuquerque, New Mexico
in the mid nineties doing radio, making chances, you know,
(08:00):
very short money. I got called back to Vermont for
a job doing play by play, which is what I
love to do, doing college hockey and basketball. And I
did that for four years, and then went down to
Georgia to do the minor league hockey, which I love.
I enjoyed it thoroughly and then was disappointed when the
team went under, but then got lucky and got to
(08:22):
meet you, and you were one of my trainers in
LA when I first got there at Fox.
Speaker 1 (08:25):
It's a small world, and we might have ended up
working together earlier because I've told you the story before.
But when I was in San Diego at the mighty
six ninety, one of the first offers I got was
to do an afternoon drive show in Albuquerque at I
think a station you worked at. I think that was
one of the stations you worked at. It was this
Guy's Sports Animal. Yeah, the Sports Animal is the name
(08:48):
of the station. They approached me about doing a show
in the afternoon, but I saw how much money they paid,
and I decided, you know what, if I'm going to
leave Southern California, I got to get something that actually
pays some decent money. Otherwise it's just not gonna not
going to work out. The financial is not going to
work out. But I know you had, you know, you
had to take less money, and you're supposed to, you know,
(09:09):
it's cheaper to live in Albuquerque and all that stuff.
But I was like, I don't know. And I have
a friend of mine it's still does radio in Albuquerque,
and he likes it. He enjoys it.
Speaker 3 (09:19):
There.
Speaker 1 (09:19):
I've never been to Albuquerque, so I don't know you
missed out. I know it's one of the great vacation destinations.
If they actually have billboards around LA they have photos
of balloons, you know, those big giant him the hot
Air balloons, and they're like, this is what we consider traffic,
you know, try to get people done.
Speaker 3 (09:39):
Yes, they do a fall festival every October, the hot
Air balloons. It is actually pretty cool. If you get
Jess's Go Go, it's pretty fun to watch. It's early
in the morning. Now you'd have to do it after
your shift, and you know.
Speaker 1 (09:51):
I'd have to stay up. Yeah I can't. Yeah, getting
up early in the morning not my thing. So we
were traveling with the making whoopee turk. What was the
what were the common nations like when you're traveling with
a minor league hockey team, was it first class? Were
you staying at the Rich Carlton when you were on
the road traveling by chartered planes?
Speaker 3 (10:10):
Exactly?
Speaker 4 (10:11):
That's what double a hockey is. Yes, No, it was.
Speaker 3 (10:14):
Some of the hotels were not bad. It all depended
on when you booked them, and that was not my department. Unfortunately.
I remember one of our trips was to New Orleans.
It was the only time I've been in New Orleans.
That was one of the benefits. I got to see
the South, which I hadn't really seen much of. I
don't count Florida as the South, so I hadn't really
(10:35):
been through the South, and so it was fun to go.
Speaker 4 (10:38):
There was a team in New Orleans.
Speaker 3 (10:40):
Unfortunately, our crack administrative staff waited before booking the New
Orleans trip and we ended up in Metai, like twenty
miles out in this ramshackle, old brick motel. I think
it might have been a super at one time. It
might have been in a conoldge actually, and it was.
(11:03):
It was brutal. It was right across from where the
Saints used to train. I don't know if they still
train in Metaie, but it was across from that.
Speaker 4 (11:10):
It was not good, not.
Speaker 3 (11:11):
Good at The cockroaches were large, let me tell you that.
Speaker 1 (11:14):
Yeah, everything's larger in the South though, all these animals.
Speaker 4 (11:18):
But New Orleans was awesome.
Speaker 3 (11:19):
I mean to get there and I got and to
get on the you know, to get out on Bourbon
Street and I interviewed, you know. We had a game
Friday night in minor league hockey. They usually do games
on the weekends. They'll go back to back games, and
so we had a game Friday night and I interviewed.
I always tried to interview the local beat writer for
the team during the first intermission of the first night
(11:40):
and then afterwards he talks to me, were you know
during the commercial break and he says, you know, are
you going to go down to Bourbon Street? I said yeah,
and he said, here's my card. Don't stray like ten
feet off of Bourbon Street. If you get in trouble,
call me. I'm thinking, oh boy, what am I getting
myself into? But but no, it was it was fine.
(12:02):
I mean it was I had to take a cab
all the way back to Metaie. That wasn't too pleasant,
but but it was. It was a lot of fun
and that was one of the nice things about it.
The travel was tough. We had a bus. It was
a sleeper bus that was on an eighteen wheeler rig
and it was like a flatbed rig and then it
was like a submarine with just bunks, three bunks on
(12:25):
each side, with a small road to walk down and
it slept about twenty two or twenty three people and
that's what we use. And the guy drove like a
like a maniac.
Speaker 4 (12:36):
It was.
Speaker 3 (12:36):
You'd be kind of kind of moving back and forth
down down the high We must have been doing eighty
five in the middle of the night, you know, down
the down the freeways and it and you'd be rocking
back and forth on this in this thing as you
tried to sleep.
Speaker 4 (12:50):
It was interesting, for sure.
Speaker 1 (12:52):
It sounds like the movie portrayals of minor league sport
like that.
Speaker 3 (12:57):
Yeah, like that's real life. And that's why I decided
to do it. I mean, I had done four years
in Vermonto in the University of Vermont sports. I was
the voice of the Catamounts. They didn't have a football team.
It's hockey and basketball with the big sports. And after
four years of that, I was getting toward my mid
thirties and I'm mean, well, you know, if I'm going
to do minor league sports, I got to try it
now because the travel is hell.
Speaker 4 (13:19):
And so I did it. And it took a while.
Speaker 3 (13:22):
I was taking the drama mean the first few road trips,
but then after that you got used to it and
it was and then you could sleep. It's kind of
amazing because after a while, you got used to it
and you could sleep overnight.
Speaker 1 (13:33):
So I've told you this in the past, but you
listening have no idea. But early on, I wanted to
be a play by plague. I didn't want to be
a talk show host. My goal was not to do
talk radio. I like talk radio, but I was like, ah,
I want to be play by play. I want to
be like Vin Scully. And then I started doing some
research about how difficult it is. And this is a
long time ago, but the career arc of a minor
(13:56):
league play by plague I A get terrible money, and
then b the lifestyles aread. You're traveling, as you said
you just described, you're you're not traveling well in weird
weird buses and whatnot. But then the other problem is
to move up the ranks the ladder to a higher
level is almost impossible. At that time. It was because
(14:19):
the guys in the in the big league jobs would
keep those jobs until they were eighty five ninety years
old in some cases, and so it was impossible. And
I remember I had an epiphany when I was starting
doing radio. I did talk radio. We were in Indianapolis,
and I went to an Indianapolis Indians game, the Triple
A team in Indianapolis, and the play by play guy
(14:42):
there had been there for twenty five years or something
doing Triple A baseball in Indianapolis, and I think the guys,
I think he's still there, by the way, I think
he's fifty.
Speaker 4 (14:54):
What's the name of the guy, Russ Langer.
Speaker 3 (14:57):
Yes, he was, he was. Where was he in vade
or Vegas? Albuquerque? He was in Albuquerque when I was there,
and you were almost there. Yeah, in the mid nineties
he was doing the Albuquerque Dukes, was the Dodgers Triple A.
Then they moved to Vegas. And in fact, when I
lived in Vegas, Uh what six five six years ago?
(15:19):
I lived in Vegas before I moved here to Phoenix. Uh,
he was there and he's done. He's been doing probably
thirty years. He's been doing Triple A baseball and he
just can never get that break. And super nice guy
and could never get that break to get into the
big leagues. And you're right, they would hold on him forever. Uh.
You made the right choice, by the way, going to
(15:40):
going to a talk show post, I think was the
right move for you. I don't see you as a
play by play guy.
Speaker 1 (15:46):
No, but you know me now, but you know you
know me. But early on I think I could do
I could have done the play by place though you
never got because you did.
Speaker 4 (15:56):
You did Dodger pre and posts.
Speaker 3 (15:58):
Right.
Speaker 1 (15:58):
I did do that for for a couple of years yet.
Speaker 3 (16:01):
Right, but you never got the break someone you know,
Vin didn't have a vaga or something. You couldn't go
on for him. Well.
Speaker 1 (16:08):
The funny thing is in those days it was that
was hallowed you know, Vin and Ross Porter and Rick Monday,
and they would not let any slums like me or
you do that. But in more recent years, like David
Vessy who does the Dodger stuff. Now he's been given
opportunities to do some stuff and some other people, But
(16:30):
in those days it was like, no, this is hallowed ground.
You have to be of a certain ilk to have
that microphone.
Speaker 4 (16:37):
And have the experience.
Speaker 3 (16:38):
You have to be of Yes, you had to have
paid your dues exactly exactly, and that's what.
Speaker 4 (16:43):
You talked about about going up the ladder.
Speaker 3 (16:45):
It was and I, you know, I could have gotten
another minor league hockey job. I hated doing the media
portion of you had to do media relations, you know,
the pr part, and I really hated it, and I
just wanted to do play by play. It's all That's
what I wanted to do. From being five or six
years old. All I ever wanted was play by play.
(17:06):
And I went to college, got a degree in broadcast journalism,
started in my hometown of ten thousand people, Saint Albans, Vermont.
Shout out to Saint Albans and and I started. And
but then this job came. You know, you when you're
unemployed in your mid thirties, sitting, you know, in a
in a small apartment in Macon, Georgia, you know you
got to take what you can get.
Speaker 4 (17:26):
And I said, okay, I'll apply to Fox, never thinking.
Speaker 3 (17:30):
I would ever get it, because you know, it's Los Angeles,
it's National network radio. I had done sports updates for
Burlington Vermont. You know I would never get none. I
got it, So I made the choice. And actually I
haven't done play by play since the make and Whoopie
was the last one. It's over twenty years now. It's
hard to believe it's been over twenty years now.
Speaker 1 (17:48):
Did any of those players make it, any of the
coaches make it to the higher level the NHL from.
Speaker 3 (17:54):
The Whoopee, I not from our team. Gord Dineen was
the co of the Make and Whoopee. I think I
got the job partly because he phoned me for an
interview and he said, hi, am Gordon Deneen, and I said,
I hated you as a player. I'm a Rangers fan.
And he laughed because he was an Islander and he
(18:16):
played for the Islanders for years, and so he laughed,
and I think that's probably one reason I got the job.
But so he was a pro player, you know, a
big league player that came down, but none of the
players made it to the NHL from our team. Jack Capuano,
who I actually went to college with at the University
of Maine, was in my dorm, was coaching the pd
(18:41):
Pride in South Carolina my year of doing ECHL, and
so he ended up making it to the New York
Islanders in fact, as a head coach for years. Most people,
most players in the East Coast Hockey League, they're lifers.
They're not getting out of the miners.
Speaker 1 (18:57):
Yeah, they are locked in. They're in a lifetime employment
kind of like me at Fox Sports Radio, lifetime employment plan.
But you're you're yeah, I'm.
Speaker 4 (19:04):
Trying to figure out how you got that.
Speaker 3 (19:05):
Ben.
Speaker 1 (19:06):
I don't I don't know. Don't don't jinxit turk, don't
jinx it. It might it might end at any moment.
So you did the show, you didn't stuff with me,
You went to your at Sporting News, you did NBC.
What do do you have a couple of favorite memories
of those days doing the radio stuff, doing the updates
and whatnot that stand out? I I love we talked
about the hot tub. That was great.
Speaker 3 (19:28):
That was one of the highlights.
Speaker 1 (19:29):
What are some of the other things that stand out
from those days?
Speaker 3 (19:33):
You know, my first time on on Sporting News radio,
I was supposed to I was supposed to go and
train for a little bit there, just you know, because
every network has different music, different ways that they throw
it to you. That's called the end, different ways. I
would get out and know the music. Everyone has different music.
(19:54):
And I was supposed to train on that. But then
I remember, actually I was at Santa Anito one day.
It was in February of seven. I was at Santa
Anita and they they called me and said, hey, we
need someone to fill in with Jeff Biggs. Of all
people someone who a lot of LA Sports radio fans
(20:15):
would know because he's worked for every single station. He
needed someone to work with him. Somebody dropped out. It
was on the Grammys night and we were doing some
kind of and it was some Sunday night show. So
that was my first time on Sporting News Radio and
I got to co host with the great Jeff Biggs
doing a show. I hosted college a college football show
(20:39):
for a couple of years on Saturday mornings for an
hour right before kickoff of all the of all the
games on Sporting News. I like doing that.
Speaker 1 (20:50):
A boy.
Speaker 3 (20:50):
What was my Oh, I know, my first my first
time on Fox Sports Radio.
Speaker 4 (20:58):
You were training me.
Speaker 1 (21:00):
Which is which is right there? A nightmare that I'm
training you should training anyone that I should have.
Speaker 3 (21:07):
It was intimidating, and I've told you this story. It
was intimidating because I get there and the studio. I'm
from a small town in Vermont and and the and
then I had done stuff uh in Albuquerque, but those
are small, you know, small.
Speaker 4 (21:20):
Little studios with old equipment.
Speaker 3 (21:23):
And I walk into the studios in Fox Sports Radio
and it's to me, it looked like the Starship Enterprise
I mean it was huge rooms. There were lights blinking
from everywhere, all kinds of tape decks and and mini
cassette things and god knows what, and computers everywhere, and
this huge board, which, by the way, you don't need
(21:45):
to use like ninety percent of it. It just looks huge.
It is huge, but you don't use any of the
dials except maybe two. And it was. And then you
get on the air and you do these brilliant updates
with almost no notes, and I'm thinking, oh boy, what
am I doing here? But you trained me? And who
else was someone else? That Tie works in Fort Myers
(22:05):
now and he crag Craig Sheman, and Craig Sheman also
super nice guy, very nice, and he I think Craig
just didn't want he didn't like doing updates, and you know,
he was more of a host like you, and both
of you graduated finally as you should have to become
hosts and not do updates. And Craig just didn't want
(22:28):
to do the updates. So I was supposed to train
for like a week, and I trained for two days
and it was like the nine o'clock update for JT
The Brick Show. And he says, Okay, you're gonna do
the nine o'clock you're ready. I'm like, oh no, I
don't think, Yeah you are. And so so that's how
I started on network, right I did Okay, I had
(22:48):
like two days of prep instead of a week, and
bam and I was on the air. And then I
did it ever since, and it was it was a
lot of fun.
Speaker 1 (22:56):
It really was the sink or swim technique.
Speaker 3 (23:00):
It definitely was. It was the I don't want to
do the updates, so I'm gonna let this guy do it,
and if he dies, he dies.
Speaker 1 (23:07):
It's funny you brought up when you walked into the studio,
because that's the most famous story from the early days
of Fox Sports Radio. There was a guy who shall
remain nameless. It was not you, but somebody that the
company had hired who had worked at some big stations.
He had a nice resume, and they brought him in.
And I think you actually might know this person because
I think the person was there while you were there,
(23:29):
although it might have been before you.
Speaker 4 (23:30):
No, it was before me, because you guys told me
all the story.
Speaker 1 (23:33):
Okay, all right, so we told you anyway, So the
guy came in and this guy walked around like he
was God's gift the radio. I mean, but he had
he walked into that studio you're referring to the update studio,
the news studio, and then they told him what he
had to do, and he said, what is this the
space shuttle? I'm supposed to run the space shuttle here?
(23:53):
And uh, it is one of the greatest stories because
Annie who you know, who is you know, one of
our bosses and a very interesting woman, nice woman, but
she she sold but they would hire people and she
she would be, oh, this guy's amazing, look at the
resume and all this stuff, and so we always kind
of took it with a grain of salt. But this
(24:14):
guy in particular, not only her, but several other people
at the company were selling this guy's resume and he
just was totally in over his head. And it wasn't.
Speaker 3 (24:25):
He the one who he wasn't ready to do the
update And the music came on. And when the music
comes on, folks, you're on. I mean, after the voice
guy says Fox Sports Update, you have to if you're
the update anchor, you have to go. And didn't he
like put his hand up playing he wasn't ready. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (24:41):
No, he told the board op to play more commercials.
That was what he told me. And I was like, Hey,
we're on a network. We can't not a local station.
We can't local station. You just keep playing extra spots.
But on the network you got to go and it's like.
Speaker 4 (24:55):
And tight on a clock.
Speaker 1 (24:57):
Yeah, it was such a debacle. Touch a total tobacco.
Speaker 3 (25:02):
It is a very beautiful studio for folks. If you
ever get there, go and visit Ben and.
Speaker 1 (25:09):
You'll be happy to know Trek next time you're in
Los Angeles. We a few months ago moved from the
studio we had been in for over twenty years.
Speaker 3 (25:18):
Twenty two years.
Speaker 1 (25:20):
We just moved across the hall. And you talk about
high rent real estate and radio, we moved across the hall.
Rush Limbaugh had his own LA studio When he would
come to LA for like two weeks a year. Rush
did a show from Florida, but he would do the
show from Los Angeles in the studio, so they kept
(25:42):
it only for Rush. It was the old rock Line studio.
And then the next studio over was Steve Harvey. He
had moved back to LA and he was doing his
show for a while, and then the pandemic when twenty
twenty came around that all stuff. He just did the
show from home, or I think he moved back to Atlanta.
(26:04):
But anyway, so they had these two massive, beautiful studios
that were first class. Everything was brand new for Limbaugh
who passed away, and Steve Harvey, and so they they
moved us across the hall and the h So we're
we're just across the hall from where.
Speaker 4 (26:18):
How was that?
Speaker 1 (26:19):
It's it's it's cool. I like it a lot, mostly
because the air conditioning works better than the old studio.
And I like I like to make it like an
ice box. Yes, I like I like it to be
like a freezer. When I'm in there and it's it's
really perfect, and everything's new. People haven't spilled coffee over everything.
And food you know you'll take care of that. Oh no, no,
(26:42):
I don't you know you know what mean these days? Turk,
I intermitted fasting. Man, I don't. I don't eat these guys.
Some of these guys go in there and they eat
like five meals during the show. It fascinates.
Speaker 3 (26:51):
That's great.
Speaker 1 (26:52):
What are you doing either, No, of course not. No,
it's it's disgusting.
Speaker 4 (26:58):
It's Alky Loco from right next.
Speaker 1 (27:00):
Yeah, the Crazy Chicken or whatever's there's a buffalo wild
Wings across the street at the mall doing that. But
so I want to know we are kind of close
to the same age. I was talking to t J. Simmers.
We had TJ Simer's on the show yesterday, very good,
the great to columnsts from the other time, and we
were talking about the way sports media operates and like
(27:25):
me and you, Turk, I think are on the same
page because we're around the same age, Like we grew
up and you grew up on the East Coast. I
grew up on the West Coast. But I always loved
the critical eye in the media, the columnists that would
attack the radio guy when warranted performance that was not
up to standard. And I told TJS, like, listen, you're
one of the last guys that did that in LA.
(27:47):
He's one of the only guys that ever did it.
Because LA is a pretty soft talent when it comes
to the media. They worshiped the athletes and TJ didn't
do that. And we were discussing, like will it ever
get back to the way it was? And he didn't
think it'll ever get back to the way it was.
I am skeptical as well, Turk, but the way sports
media operates now were if you are critical. I've noticed
(28:09):
people get upset a lot of be like, well, we're
using so critical, you shouldn't be so critical. What's your
take on that?
Speaker 3 (28:15):
I agree. I agree with you guys. Nobody's critical anymore,
and I hate it. I'll tell you when when I
was a teenager and into my college days and in
my twenties, I remember we'd watch hockey games and then
a goal would be scored, and what we did was
we wanted to see who the defenseman who was a
(28:35):
defenseman now skating into the picture after the goal scored
because it was his fault, so he was the one
with his head down. You know, we were critical. It's
like we're looking for who gave up the goal why?
And they don't do that anymore, and they I think
it's access. I think it used to be that way
back when it started twenties, thirties, forties, I mean, starting
with Babe Ruth and those guys, and going up through
(28:57):
when new sports came up, where the nobody said anything,
nobody dug for information, you know, like what Mickey Mantle,
Whitey for Billy Martin would show up drunk at games
and no one's you know, the reporters never say anything.
They were drunk from the night before and right, and
no one would no one would write about it. And
it was the same thing with presidents and no one
(29:17):
would say anything. And then Watergate happened, and I think
that changed it. From the seventies of the eighties and
nineties when we grew up where it became it was
now it was on and.
Speaker 4 (29:30):
Now you're now.
Speaker 3 (29:31):
Reporters were supposed to dig and supposed to get info
and be critical and not trust, you know, what the
teams were telling you, and not trust what the government
was telling you. And then for some reason in the
last twenty years, it's all swung back. And I don't
know what started it, but it's I think teams started
(29:51):
to started to like withhold access and hold that over
the reporters' heads. Do you think that's the case where
they say, look, you start being too critical of us,
you're not we won't let you in here.
Speaker 1 (30:04):
I have a theory on this, and my theory is,
and I had somebody when Major League Baseball started their
MLB dot com and they started hiring beat writers to
cover the teams, and that was that was to me,
that was the origin of it. I had somebody that
worked at baseball tell me that this is the future.
We're just gonna because they were upset with the negative media,
(30:24):
so we'll just hire the writers and then we'll kind
of be able to be in control of what's said
about the team. And he said, you know, given given
enough time, you know, this will become the way people
expect to get their news about their favorite team. And
it's been about a generation since MLB started that, and
we're now at that point where people, a lot of
(30:48):
younger people younger than us, just expect everything to be
sugarcoated about their favorite team. And I blame the team
website stuff, but you are right. A lot of it
also is hey, if you say something we don't like,
we're not going to give access. And we talked to
TJ yesterday and TJ pointed something out also. It says
(31:08):
like the beat writers in his day, when he was
a beat writer, if the team did not make somebody available,
he would just still try to track the guy down.
He's like, well, no, my job is to talk to
that person today, not tomorrow and so. But now a
lot of the media guys are just like, whatever the
PR people tell.
Speaker 4 (31:24):
Him, that's it.
Speaker 1 (31:26):
They just take it.
Speaker 3 (31:27):
Yes, that's what they do. I complain about it on
Twitter all the time. They know my team. I'm a
Mets fan and my condolences. Yeah yeah, oh boy that ship.
The last week has been brutal and uh I I
complain about it on Twitter. The Beat writers don't dig
for any information. I mean they now they don't have
(31:49):
and I think one of the reasons is because they
don't have to sell papers anymore because they know no
more newspapers, so they don't part of the job of
the beat writer. When TJ. Simers is doing it well,
he needed to sell papers, so he needed to beat
the other guy to the story because that's what sold papers.
The paper that broke stories was the one that people bought.
And that's not the case anymore. They're no more newspapers,
(32:12):
and the Beat writers aren't. I'm sure they're not being pushed. Clearly,
they're not to go get stories and go find information
that isn't out there yet because the fans want to
know it, so they don't have to do that.
Speaker 4 (32:22):
Anymore.
Speaker 3 (32:23):
So they don't I mean they literally don't don't don't
look for any information. It's what you just said. They
just let the pr people give them stuff and that's it.
And that's not what it was supposed to be. That's
not what journalism was when I got my journalism degree.
And it's unfortunate that that's what it is, because it's
just you don't know anything anymore.
Speaker 4 (32:42):
It's no fun.
Speaker 1 (32:43):
Yeah, TJ told me, he said, the thing that you
have to do now as a writer, they call it engagements,
where like they expect when people read your story. He said, like,
you're sorry about the La Times because he's still obviously
connected there with people at the Times, and they expect
certain number of engagements, like people to subscribe based on
reading Bill Plashki or somebody like that. So I don't
(33:07):
know how they keep track of who's actually subscribing based
on reading a column or not, but supposely that's the case.
But you mentioned you're a Mets fan. So at the
trade deadline this year, Verlander and Sure's are gone. There's
a big controversy whether or not the Mets are actually
going to try to win in twenty twenty. For what
(33:28):
say you, Turk as a long suffering Mets fan Stephen Cohen,
when this guy got hired as the owner, when he
bought the team, he get hired, people said, oh, this
is great, the greatest owner of all time. Blah blah
blah blah blah blah blah. He's a Mets fan. Not
going so well right now? What's your take on Cohen
and the Mets.
Speaker 3 (33:44):
Well, what I feel happened is it's a kind of
a three year process. In twenty twenty one, they had
the analytics department run the team and it was a
complete failure. And that was Cohen's he bought it team.
It didn't really change anything. Sandy Alderson was still in charge,
and it was Alderson's dream to have analytics do everything.
(34:06):
He's one of the fathers of analytics, going back to
the late nineties.
Speaker 4 (34:10):
And so it failed.
Speaker 3 (34:12):
So then last year they hired Buck show Walter for
twenty twenty two, and they hired some good coaches, and
they backed off the analytics and let the manager and
the coaches do their thing, you know, like it used
to be for one hundred and fifty years. And they
had a great year, won one hundred and one games,
they stumbled down the stretch, lost in the in the
wild card to the Padres. So then this year they
(34:32):
yet Cohen spends the big money, right, three hundred what
fifty three hundred and seventy million whatever it was, I
mean huge amounts of money, you know, like the Dodgers
did in the two thousands, you know when when they
got bought and they never won either. And then it
fell apart again. And it turns out that because Cohen
put the analytics department in charge again this year, and
(34:53):
it's been a disaster. Everyone has played worse than their
the back of their baseball card. And so, oh they
did the right thing. I think by selling off they
got a lot of good prospects. I know how you
let me let me say, do you still call prospects suspects?
Speaker 1 (35:08):
Yes? Yes, yes, because turk listen, you're all excited because
everyone does the same thing that, oh, this guy's gonna
be great. You know, those guy's gonna live up to
the scouting report.
Speaker 4 (35:17):
I've heard this for twenty plus years, folks.
Speaker 1 (35:19):
And I've been right, and I've been right more times
than i've been wrong. Because you look at the trades
and you can go back, and with very few exceptions
when you trade an established start player. In fact, I
praised the Angels Turk for not trading Otani because I
don't need I'd rather see Otani for two more months
with a team. If I'm an Angels fan, then trade
(35:40):
him for some minor league pitchers. Gonna have Tommy John
surgery in two years and some guy that's hyped up
the fifty home runs and then ends up batting you know,
one to ninety four with limited power. I don't need that.
A great example, the Angels have a guy, Mickey Moniac
or Mania, whatever his name is, who was the number
one overall pick from the Phillies. Yes, he's an average
(36:01):
major league player. Yeah, three hundred this year, but he's
an average major league player.
Speaker 4 (36:07):
He gave it below average until this year.
Speaker 1 (36:09):
Actually, so you think the Mets. One of the guys
they got was Ronald is his brother, right, and he's
a shortstop. Don't you have Francisco Indoor for the next
ten years or eight years at shortstop?
Speaker 3 (36:20):
Yeah, we have him for the rest of his life.
Speaker 1 (36:23):
And then even when he died, even when he dies,
he'll still be the shortstop.
Speaker 3 (36:26):
He'll still it's the Bobby Benia contract. No, yeah, he's
a kunya. He'll move to second base. But actually he
might play next year. He might make the team next year.
The Mets are in a different situation because Erlander and
schurz Or were not free agents, So I don't know
if I was the Angels, though, the Angels must think
(36:48):
they can resign Otani, because if you if you don't
think you can resign him, you had to trade him.
You just had to. I mean, you're gonna get nothing
for him if he's sign And of course you're a
Dodgers fan, you're hoping he goes, you know, up up
the frequently.
Speaker 1 (37:00):
No, no, not necessarily, because I will never be able
to go to another Dodger game in the press box
because it'll all be uh. Otani has twenty roughly twenty
writers and TV people that follow him around. I'm not kidding,
just a sign from Japanese media to cover him. When
he pitches it's it's It reminds me of a Dale nomo.
(37:22):
When I was covering the Dodgers back in the nineties,
they had a Dale Nomo and it was insane and
they had to have extra seats because there was so
much media from Japan. It's it's even bigger now because
Otani is the greatest player in the history of baseball
and all this, so it's insane. What's going on?
Speaker 4 (37:38):
Yeah, don't you have a name plate though?
Speaker 3 (37:41):
I mean you've been going to games there in the yeah, you.
Speaker 1 (37:44):
Know, and then I got married. I don't go. I go.
I don't go as much. I do go more now
than I did in the past. But yeah, I was
out there pretty much every night for twenty five years.
I was at every Dodger game and a lot of
Laker Clipper games things like that. Back in the but
I had no life and I had no no one
to spend time all that stuff.
Speaker 4 (38:04):
Yeah, see, now you have a life, so now you
can't go.
Speaker 1 (38:07):
As much exactly. You know, he's being grown up. I
guess that's what they call it, right, And then you're so,
you're you're okay, what you like the minor league players,
you buy into the.
Speaker 3 (38:17):
High Well here's the thing I'm not. I mean, look,
Sure's are I mean, look, Otani's still in his prime.
Sure's are and Verlander are not so. And in fact,
Sure's are gave up what three runs is? First inning
with the with Texas pitched well the rest of the way,
but uh, neither one of those guys is going to
get better next year, so I you know, that's why
(38:38):
I'm okay with it.
Speaker 4 (38:39):
That what the Mets gave up was just people who
are free agents or forty year olds.
Speaker 1 (38:44):
So well, and then it's also paid. Uh CO paid
a good amount of money, which is which is fine
with me because you know, you know, I don't I
live in Phoenix, so I'm not going to the game.
Speaker 3 (38:55):
So if he wants to raise you know, he wants
to raise ticket prices and rices for concessions, I'm okay
with that. If he wants to recoup some of that money,
it's not my money. So you know, he did the
right thing. He can afford it, and more power to him.
He actually took his money and bought minor league prospects.
It was an interesting theory, right, instead of the Mets
(39:17):
played the Oriols this weekend and got swept, and instead
of they talked about on the broadcast. Instead of tanking
for four years like the Oriols, the Oriels are winning
fifty two games a year for like four years. Right,
they were terrible. They were losing one hundred and ten
games a year to get high draft picks to rebuild.
(39:38):
So what Cohen did instead was instead of tanking like that,
he's going to use his money and bought prospects. So
he bought first round pick prospects and instead of tanking,
and so we'll see if it works.
Speaker 1 (39:52):
Yeah, well, you could never get away with what the
Orioles did or the Astros for years before they right
first right, and then they still had to cheat to
end up winning the World Chest.
Speaker 4 (40:06):
So that we're on the same page on that one.
Speaker 3 (40:10):
Yeah, yeah, all right.
Speaker 1 (40:11):
So we have a little time left. I know you're
in the NFL. You're a Giants fan, your family had
season tickets forever. But the Giants are an afterthought this
so far, in terms of publicity, it's all about the Jets.
Speaker 3 (40:24):
That's okay.
Speaker 1 (40:25):
That doesn't annoy you. You're not bothered by that. Aaron Rogers,
Aaron Rodgers takes a bottel movement and it's a front
page news on the Internet. You know, you're not worried
about that. You're fine with being in the background.
Speaker 4 (40:35):
Huh.
Speaker 3 (40:35):
The Giants have always been like that, So we're fine
with that. I mean, the Giants have won four Super Bowls.
The Jets haven't haven't even been in the Super Bowl
since sixty nine, so and meanwhile the Giants have won four.
So we're we're very happy with Let the Jets get
all that publicity. The Giants are back. They have a
great coaching staff. Daniel Jones. You're gonna love this one, bet,
(41:00):
I know you love this. Daniel Jones is looking great
in training camp.
Speaker 1 (41:03):
So oh yeah, I'm sure, yeah, yeah against against two
exactly against who is he always loving guys, no dominate practice,
you know, but let's see him in a game. It's
like it's like in Spimmer and spring training, guys would
hit a bunch of home runs in the Cactus League
and you're like, let's see, let's see what he does
at night at you know, not in that, you know,
not in the hot weather, just the normal weather, you know,
(41:25):
in the with a marine layer in LA or something
like that.
Speaker 3 (41:27):
But yeah, they're looking good. I mean, they have a
really good coaching staff with with Dable and and Mike
Kafka is the the coordinator, and then they've got Wink
Martindale as a defensive coordinator. They had that surprise team
last year that went to the playoffs and beat the
Vikings in the first round. I know, so they're gonna.
Speaker 1 (41:46):
Know what happens. Though, When you have that's turk. You've
been around enough. When you have a surprise season the
following year, it's the regression to the meet. So you
gotta be worried about that aggression.
Speaker 3 (41:57):
I'm looking at it as the eighties Giants where they
eighty four they came out of nowhere. It had a
nine to seven year, and then in eighty five they
got they went better, and then eighty six they won
it all. So that's that's the progression we're looking at here.
We think that that this team is going to make
the playoffs and they're going to be real solid. And
they got Darren Waller as a nice tight end receiver. Uh,
(42:20):
you know, one of the that's what they were missing.
Theydn't have anybody good to throw to, and now they've
got They've got that. They signed a couple.
Speaker 1 (42:27):
Of Is it that? Is it the people catching the
passes or is it the person throwing the pass?
Speaker 3 (42:32):
Oh? Are you an anti Daniel Jones? Guy?
Speaker 1 (42:34):
I'm I'm a truther. I'm a Dan is what I am?
The guy's abum but.
Speaker 3 (42:42):
It was last year was the first year he had
confident coaching and and he played well.
Speaker 1 (42:48):
The Giants where I believe twenty fifth in passing offense
last year, Well.
Speaker 3 (42:52):
They well, they did they well, but you know, they
rained it in and and Barkley did most of the work.
Speaker 4 (42:57):
Say kwon Barkley.
Speaker 1 (42:58):
But but is that because Brian able to not trust
Daniel Jones.
Speaker 4 (43:02):
At the beginning?
Speaker 3 (43:03):
Yes, and the first yes, the first half of the
year correct, And but he got better and better as
year went on.
Speaker 4 (43:08):
And now they're opening it up.
Speaker 3 (43:10):
I mean, if you if you count what they're telling
us in training camp, you know what the Beat writers do,
give you stuff in training camp for football, so they
you know, and and that it seems like they're opening
it up. They they actually went out and got some
receivers and got Waller, who's more of a receiving receiving
tight end. He's not a blocker, so uh and he's
been dominating in practice too. So well, you know, we
(43:32):
we have high hopes for the Giants this year, for sure.
Speaker 1 (43:35):
I got you all right, and you you've been out
of the radio business for a while, right sir, living
a normal life. What's it like living a normal life
in education.
Speaker 3 (43:45):
Uh yeah, I've been teaching. Well, I've been teaching pe.
This is my seventeenth year. What yeah, Well I started.
I started in six while I was still working at
Fox Okay, and that's when I shifted to weekend work,
so I would One of my high lights of working
at Sporting News Radio is I was working seven days
a week because I was teaching Monday through Friday, then
(44:06):
doing eight hour shifts Saturday and Sunday for the Sporting
News Network, and.
Speaker 4 (44:11):
So it was.
Speaker 3 (44:12):
It was a lot, but I loved it and I
miss it. I do miss being on the air. I
miss working with you for sure. It was a lot
of fun, keeping us keeping ourselves awake at three am,
and it was. It was a lot of fun. No,
we had a great time. And I remember I went
when you were coaching early on at.
Speaker 1 (44:32):
Very bougie school in Brentwood.
Speaker 4 (44:35):
I believe, Yes, are we allowed to name it? Can
I name it?
Speaker 3 (44:38):
Oh?
Speaker 1 (44:38):
You don't work there anymore? Not sure? Why not? Go ahead?
Speaker 4 (44:41):
Yes?
Speaker 3 (44:41):
I worked for a school called carl Thorpe, very fancy school,
private school some some celebt they don't actually go for
the celebs. The other private schools in the area kind
of catered to the celebs. We didn't, but we've had
we had a few there when I was there. Ben Affleck,
Jennifer Garner. When are they still together? I've lost the connection.
Speaker 1 (45:02):
I don't know if I'm pretty pretty sure they're not.
Speaker 4 (45:04):
They're not. They're not together.
Speaker 3 (45:05):
They were then and their kids were young, and so
they went there, and they're both very nice, by the way,
for the fans, and they were both very nice people.
Ben Affleck is tall man. He's six four.
Speaker 4 (45:16):
He's a tall dude.
Speaker 1 (45:17):
Yeah, Usually those guys in movies are very small, little
little people.
Speaker 3 (45:21):
Yeah, you don't realize how, you know, they're like basketball players.
Sometimes you don't realize how tall they are because they
put them with actors and actresses who were tall, you know,
and so you don't realize how it's like basketball. They
all look on TV, they don't look that tall because
they're all the same size. But then you meet them
in person and they're, you know, six ' nine. I mean,
they're huge. But yeah, I work for I work for
a bougie school. Yes, it's expensive. It's a private school
(45:44):
in Santa Monica, So yeah, it was.
Speaker 1 (45:46):
It was pr Now and now you're in Arizona where
it's one hundred and ten degrees every day of the year,
which must be make your job very easy, Turk when
you're out and you're gonna get kids to exercise when
it's a thousand degrees outside.
Speaker 4 (46:00):
But it's hot, and when there's no gym.
Speaker 3 (46:03):
I don't have a gymnasium. In fact, I was also
I taught in Vegas for six years as well before
I moved down here to Phoenix, and uh, and I
had no gym there either, So and it's hot in
Vegas too, so it's yeah, they it's hot. It's you
get I could say, you get used to it. You
just know it's there. So you're just like, Okay, this
is what it is, and you try to find shade
(46:23):
when you can. But I love it. I do miss radio.
I do miss working with folks like you who are
so good at it. It was always fun to work
with people who were good, and you're one of the best.
Speaker 1 (46:34):
Well, I love you and we want you back in radio.
So if you ever want to get back, it pays
no money in the hours suck, but we'd love to
have you back at so much.
Speaker 3 (46:42):
How can I refuse right with an offer like that.
Speaker 1 (46:45):
It's a great offer, but but I'll let you go.
Thank you so much, Turk, you're the man. We'll have
you on again at some point. I appreciate it. Thanks man, Hey,
I loved it. Thank you so much.
Host
Ben Maller
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