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The Fifth Hour: "HEY PORTER" · The Ben Maller Show

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: In the air everywhere the fifth hour with me ben
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: maller and a happy friday to you a very important
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: day in the history of america uh very important day
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: to remember and we're certainly new to that we're gonna
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: have some fun though as well on this fifth hour
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: podcast And I'll start with this. So it is September
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: 11th as the podcast drops here early on a Friday.
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  Speaker 1: And like everyone, I've got my own memories connected to
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: that day. If you were around then and as time
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: goes on, this is the 25th anniversary, I believe now
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: of 9-11. And so over the years, if you're younger,
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: you might have been so little you don't remember. And
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: this these things happen. I was actually at the World
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: Trade Center about two weeks before 9-11. I was there
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: in late August with my brothers on vacation to see— we
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: were there to visit my younger brother, who lives in
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  Speaker 1: Wisconsin now. We were living in California. We flew out
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  Speaker 1: to New York to visit with my older brother, who
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: lived in the city and still lives in the city.
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  Speaker 2: And I wanted to go to the World Trade Center,
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  Speaker 2: and we went to the Statue of Liberty.
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  Speaker 1: We did all the tourist things, but one of the
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  Speaker 1: things to do was to go to the observation deck
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: at the World Trade Center. So I had never been.
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: We went down to the World Trade Center. We went
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  Speaker 1: into the lobby of the tower that had the observation deck.
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  Speaker 1: And we ended up getting there kind of late in
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  Speaker 1: the day. They were closing in about half an hour
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  Speaker 1: and it was expensive. And even the security guard down
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  Speaker 1: there in the lobby was like, listen, don't waste your money.
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: They're kicking everybody out right at five o'clock.
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  Speaker 3: Or whatever it was. And so.
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  Speaker 1: We didn't go up.
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: Two weeks later, September 11th happened, and that was that.
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: But that morning, I was doing sports updates.
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: Yes, I did sports updates from the Fox lot on
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: Pico in West L.A., working at Fox Sports Radio while
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: desperately trying to get a hold of my brother and
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: his pregnant wife at the time, that girl who was
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: still in the oven. is now out of college and
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: living her life in South Carolina.
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: And so my mom was freaking out.
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  Speaker 1: She couldn't get a hold of them, and she was
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: watching the news, and that was a debacle.
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  Speaker 2: The news was terrible. Cell service wasn't working. Nobody knew
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: what was going on.
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  Speaker 1: And we happened, as we said, we were at the
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: Fox lot, and we had access to the raw Fox
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: news feeds that on the satellite at the time. And
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: so we were seeing things that never made it onto
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: television and things you really didn't want to see images
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: that have stuck with me all these years later. And listen,
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: eventually some of that stuff got out, but my God.
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: And then a long time after nine 11, uh, W-E-E-I
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  Speaker 1: brought me to Boston to audition for the morning show,
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: and they put me up in this crappy hotel near Harvard.
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  Speaker 1: And it was kind of a rundown place that at
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  Speaker 1: one point had been okay, but not very good.
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  Speaker 2: When I got to the radio station.
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: Jerry Callahan, who was one of the hosts, and I've
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: had Jerry on this podcast before, but Jerry, he's become
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: a political pundit now. Jerry asked me, just bringing small talk,
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: he's asking me where I was staying and where the
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: station put me up, and I told him the name
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  Speaker 1: of the hotel, and I was like, whatever. And Jerry,
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: he got upset, and he says, you know, that's where
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: some of the 9-11 hijacking terrorists stayed the night before
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: the attacks. No, I thought originally, I thought, well, Jerry's
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: probably just making that up. That's probably not true. And
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: I did some research. We didn't have AI back then.
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: We had Google and other search engines. So I started
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: doing my research, and I discovered that not only was
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: this the same hotel, it was the same floor. My
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: room was on the same floor. And that shook me up. Like,
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  Speaker 1: I didn't know what room they were in, but I
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  Speaker 1: was in... Anyway, getting into the elevator after finding that out, realizing...
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  Speaker 1: What had happened in the hotel was, you know, it
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  Speaker 1: was a crap hole.
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  Speaker 2: I think they had.
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  Speaker 1: Renovated it since 9-11. They probably hadn't renovated it since
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: the 90s. By the way, they have since renovated and
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: changed the name of the hotel. Last time I was
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: in Boston, I looked it up. So that was where
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: these guys were the night, their final night alive when
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: they decided to go out and kill a bunch of
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: people and, you know, destroy society for years. They went
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: out to Logan Airport. And put evil in the world.
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  Speaker 1: But enough about that. Upward and onward. And I am
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: very excited to welcome back to this podcast somebody I
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: consider a friend.
• 5:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah, an actual friend.
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: How cool is that? Ben, you have friends?
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  Speaker 3: Well, yeah.
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  Speaker 2: Professional friend. Work friend.
• 5:19
  Speaker 3: Right?
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  Speaker 2: Work friend.
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  Speaker 1: And a gentleman who was a mentor to me, a
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: major influence in my broadcasting career, the man, the myth,
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: the legend, Ross Porter. Now, Ross, if you don't know
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: his story, he started calling professional baseball at the age
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: of 14 in Shawnee, Oklahoma, small town, later worked at
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: NBC television alongside legendary broadcasters of that era, Tom Brokaw,
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: Tom Snyder, covered the NFL on network TV in the
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: early 1970s, broadcast the Rose Bowl, major golf tournaments, college basketball.
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: And then after being personally handpicked for the job by
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: the man himself, Ross spent 28 years alongside the great
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: Vin Scully on Dodger broadcast. And more importantly to me,
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: not to Ross, but more importantly to me, he was gracious.
• 6:18
  Speaker 2: Enough to be kind and let a young.
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: Gas bag named Ben Maller co-host Dodger Talk. And that
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: was way back in the late 1990s. He's 87 years young.
• 6:29
  Speaker 2: Ross is about to turn 88.
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: And he still sounds to me like he could walk
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: into that Dodger Stadium press box. and call nine innings
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: while playing baseball trivia. The great Ross Porter is back
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  Speaker 1: with us. Well, Ross, welcome. It's great to talk to you.
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: How have you been, Ross? How have you been? What
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: have you been up to?
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  Speaker 3: Ben, thank you very much for having me on. It's
• 6:56
  Speaker 3: such a pleasure to be with you, and I really
• 6:58
  Speaker 3: want to congratulate you on, gosh, 25 years. That's amazing
• 7:03
  Speaker 3: what you've done. I think that you were probably the
• 7:06
  Speaker 3: first sports blogger, weren't you, of all time?
• 7:10
  Speaker 2: I was one of the first. I was in early.
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  Speaker 2: But I want to thank you too, Ross, because I've
• 7:14
  Speaker 2: had you on before.
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  Speaker 1: But you put me and you had hosted Dodger Talk
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  Speaker 1: by yourself.
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  Speaker 2: For years and years and years.
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: And then some corporate weasel said, hey, you got to
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: put Mallor on.
• 7:26
  Speaker 2: And you were very kind to me. You didn't have
• 7:29
  Speaker 2: to be that way.
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: And I do appreciate it. I, of course, grew up
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: watching you on TV and all that and listening to
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: you call dodger games and then they they were like
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: hey you gotta put mallor on there but you couldn't
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: have been older and i i really do appreciate that
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: and i have so many fond memories of just watching
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: how you work the work ethic of of ross porter
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: and i think that's something that you know people 28
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: years with the dodgers who amazing all the other stuff
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: which we'll get to ross but the amount of work
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  Speaker 1: you put in in the days where it wasn't easy.
• 8:03
  Speaker 2: I remember you going over to the.
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: Sports ticker to try to get the news. It was
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: not easy to get information as it is today with
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: the internet when you were doing most of your run
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: with the Dodgers and all that.
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  Speaker 2: So I really do appreciate it. You showed me, hey, you.
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  Speaker 1: Got to work hard. You were at the very top
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  Speaker 1: of the broadcasting game doing Dodger games on the radio
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: and TV and all that with Vin. And yet, you
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  Speaker 1: still were busting it. You were not cutting any corners.
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  Speaker 1: And I appreciate you showing me how to work hard.
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  Speaker 1: And I've tried to continue that as I've done my
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: run at.
• 8:35
  Speaker 2: Fox Sports Radio over the years.
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  Speaker 3: But have you.
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  Speaker 1: Always had that?
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  Speaker 2: Is that an Oklahoma thing, Ross, that work ethic?
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  Speaker 3: Well, I started out, Ben, I think I was eight
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  Speaker 3: years old when I decided I wanted to be a
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  Speaker 3: sports announcer. And I got on the air because I
• 8:51
  Speaker 3: was on a small station in my hometown. I was
• 8:56
  Speaker 3: on at the age of 14 years old, which was unbelievable.
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  Speaker 3: Can you imagine a 14-year-old getting on in Los Angeles
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  Speaker 3: right now? No chance. Yeah. So it was interesting. I
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  Speaker 3: lived across the street from the local sportscaster. And he
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  Speaker 3: knew my interest. And at that time, of all things, Shawnee, Oklahoma,
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  Speaker 3: my hometown, was the Class D farm club of the
• 9:23
  Speaker 3: Brooklyn Dodgers in the Class D Sooner State League. And
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  Speaker 3: so he would say to me on occasion, hey, do
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  Speaker 3: you want to go out to the ballpark with me tonight?
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  Speaker 3: I said, sure. So we'd go out. And one night
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  Speaker 3: in the middle of a commercial, he said to me,
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  Speaker 3: how would you like to do some play-by-play? oh my
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  Speaker 3: gosh 14 years old so i probably did a half
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  Speaker 3: an inning and and it wasn't but a few months
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  Speaker 3: later we were turning into doing high school football for
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  Speaker 3: johnny and the station manager called me one thursday night
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  Speaker 3: and said are you going to the game tomorrow i
• 9:57
  Speaker 3: said yeah he said well learn all you can because
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  Speaker 3: the sports director just quit and next friday night you
• 10:05
  Speaker 3: got it all to yourself So two weeks before my
• 10:10
  Speaker 3: 15th birthday, I did my first full play-by-play of a
• 10:14
  Speaker 3: high school football game. That got it started. And, you know,
• 10:19
  Speaker 3: I went on to the University of Oklahoma. I spent
• 10:23
  Speaker 3: some time on the student station. Then I got a
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  Speaker 3: real good break when I got out of school. I
• 10:28
  Speaker 3: was employed by the radio and television stations in Oklahoma City.
• 10:33
  Speaker 3: at the number one station, which was WKY Radio and TV.
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  Speaker 3: I did news for 40 hours a week for quite
• 10:40
  Speaker 3: a while, maybe six or eight months. They knew I'd
• 10:43
  Speaker 3: like to do sports, and eventually it got around to
• 10:46
  Speaker 3: where they let me do sports, and then I got
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  Speaker 3: on television there to do sports on 10 o'clock news.
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  Speaker 3: And I did that, I think, for, gosh, six years.
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  Speaker 3: Got a chance to come to L.A. and sit on
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  Speaker 3: an audition tape They approved it. They asked me to
• 11:03
  Speaker 3: come to L.A. They flew me out here and said,
• 11:07
  Speaker 3: we would like you to do the weekend sports. So
• 11:09
  Speaker 3: I did the weekend sports on Channel 4 for a
• 11:13
  Speaker 3: couple of years. And then my good friend, Rayford Johnson,
• 11:19
  Speaker 3: was there the night that Bobby Kennedy got shot. He
• 11:21
  Speaker 3: took the gun away from Sirhan Sirhan. And after that,
• 11:25
  Speaker 3: Rayford never came back to Channel 4. And I moved
• 11:29
  Speaker 3: up from the weekend to the 11 o'clock Monday through
• 11:32
  Speaker 3: Friday show with Tom Brokaw. And we were together about
• 11:36
  Speaker 3: four years. And then about a year into that, they said,
• 11:39
  Speaker 3: we'll put you on the six o'clock two with Tom Steiner.
• 11:43
  Speaker 3: So I had a good run there for 10 years.
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  Speaker 3: And then, as I say, went to the Dodgers for 28. Yeah.
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  Speaker 3: So it's been a long, long run.
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  Speaker 1: Well, you've been great. And how was that first broadcast
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  Speaker 1: as a young lad, what, 14 years old, Ross? Was
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: it good or was it just, hey, I'm on the air?
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: And do you recall, like, were you happy.
• 12:03
  Speaker 2: With the way it went?
• 12:05
  Speaker 3: I think so. My guess is I probably said, it's
• 12:08
  Speaker 3: the third inning. The score is 4-2.
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  Speaker 2: That's great.
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: And there's also a famous Jim Thorpe connection, right? Am
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: I correct on that?
• 12:19
  Speaker 3: Yeah. When I was about 12 years old, one night
• 12:24
  Speaker 3: my dad took me to a high school football game
• 12:27
  Speaker 3: in Israel. And we were walking up the steps to
• 12:30
  Speaker 3: our seats. And there was a guy sitting on the
• 12:33
  Speaker 3: end of the aisle with blankets wrapped all around him.
• 12:38
  Speaker 3: And Dad recognized him, and he stopped. He said, hey, Jim,
• 12:42
  Speaker 3: how are you? He said, Jim, I want you to
• 12:44
  Speaker 3: meet my son, Ross Jr. Ross is a Jim Thorpe. Wow.
• 12:50
  Speaker 3: And I shook his hand. And my dad wound up
• 12:54
  Speaker 3: being a pallbearer at his funeral, and he tried to
• 12:58
  Speaker 3: get the Jim Thorpe Museum in Shawnee. But the governor
• 13:01
  Speaker 3: of Oklahoma at the last minute vetoed a bill to
• 13:04
  Speaker 3: give him the money to do it. And so Thorpe's
• 13:08
  Speaker 3: wife at the time took him to Pennsylvania where they
• 13:11
  Speaker 3: had the museum and everything. But that was my encounter.
• 13:15
  Speaker 3: And then many, many years later, Ben, if you'll remember,
• 13:18
  Speaker 3: they decided to give Thorpe his medals back, which they
• 13:23
  Speaker 3: hadn't done in 1912 because they said he'd turned pro.
• 13:27
  Speaker 3: And so the governor of Oklahoma wrote me a letter
• 13:31
  Speaker 3: or called me and said, would you represent the state
• 13:35
  Speaker 3: the day they give Thorpe's family the medals back downtown?
• 13:39
  Speaker 3: And so I went down and did that. Nice.
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: You also, we'll get back to the Dodgers, but you
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: called the UNLV games, I remember, and that was back
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: in the glory days of Jerry Tarkanian and the running.
• 13:52
  Speaker 3: Oh, yeah.
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: I mean, those teams, I go to Vegas. Actually, I
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: was just in Vegas. I did an event with listeners, Ross,
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: and I drove. There's a road named after Jerry Tarkanian. Yeah,
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: Vegas and it brought back the maze like I was
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: a kid growing up. I grew up in Orange County
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: and in Irvine. And I remember when UNLV came to
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: the the arena there. on Campus Arena, it was like
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: the Beatles. They were like– to a little kid like me,
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: it was like NBA guys. It was wild. What was
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: it like being around the legend Jerry Tarkin? And you called–
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: you owned a big game for a number of years, basketball,
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: I think football too, right?
• 14:31
  Speaker 2: You did both, I think.
• 14:32
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I did a little football too later. I was
• 14:35
  Speaker 3: with him, I think, from– Gosh, I must have been
• 14:39
  Speaker 3: with them 15 years. And they went to three final
• 14:44
  Speaker 3: fours in a five-year span. And they won in 1990
• 14:49
  Speaker 3: in Denver. They beat Duke 102-72 or something like that
• 14:56
  Speaker 3: in the finals. But that was an unbelievably good college
• 15:01
  Speaker 3: basketball team. You know, it had Larry Johnson, Stacey Augman,
• 15:05
  Speaker 3: Greg Anthony, Anderson Hunt, David Butler. And they just blew
• 15:09
  Speaker 3: everybody away. And I'll tell you an interesting story about that, too, Ben.
• 15:13
  Speaker 3: They won that year in Denver. And the next year,
• 15:16
  Speaker 3: I think they were undefeated. And they went to Indianapolis.
• 15:21
  Speaker 3: And who were they going to play in the first
• 15:22
  Speaker 3: round but Denver? I mean, but Duke. And so we
• 15:27
  Speaker 3: went out the morning of the game to a high school,
• 15:30
  Speaker 3: and he had what they call a shoot-around, where you
• 15:33
  Speaker 3: take about 30 or 40 minutes to shoot free throws
• 15:36
  Speaker 3: and shoot layups, nothing very heavy. And I remember going
• 15:41
  Speaker 3: out with him on the bus, and he did this,
• 15:45
  Speaker 3: and then he blew the whistle after about 40 minutes,
• 15:48
  Speaker 3: and he called him into the midcourt area, and he
• 15:51
  Speaker 3: said to him, okay, you guys are going to lose tonight.
• 15:56
  Speaker 3: And everybody said, what? What? Come on. No, he said,
• 15:59
  Speaker 3: you don't respect Duke enough. You beat them badly last year.
• 16:04
  Speaker 3: You think you're going to make it easy. So just
• 16:06
  Speaker 3: go get on the bus.
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 16:09
  Speaker 3: And Duke beat them that night by three points.
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: What do you think Jerry Tarkanian would think about today, Ross?
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: With NIL, everything's out in the open. Players are getting
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: paid to play college sports. A lot of money. Guys
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: are making millions of dollars now to play college football now.
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: And some basketball players. And Jerry Tarkin was always fighting
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: the NCAA back in those days and all that. So
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: what do you think he would have thought? What do
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: you think of the times we're in now with the
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: NIL and all that?
• 16:37
  Speaker 3: Oh, I don't know how he would be able to
• 16:40
  Speaker 3: go exist right now the way it was going. And,
• 16:44
  Speaker 3: of course, I just think it's ridiculous, Ben, that some
• 16:47
  Speaker 3: of these players get six, seven, eight. Some guy in
• 16:51
  Speaker 3: Florida this year is getting his ninth year as a
• 16:54
  Speaker 3: college football player. I think it's ridiculous. And I also
• 16:59
  Speaker 3: think that, what do they call it, the portal?
• 17:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah, transfer portal.
• 17:05
  Speaker 3: They jump all over the world. And I don't understand
• 17:07
  Speaker 3: how that happens. A guy can go to three or
• 17:11
  Speaker 3: four colleges before he gets out.
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah, they get money.
• 17:14
  Speaker 2: They keep changing schools.
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: But you were– and I'm obviously younger than you, but
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: we were taught you've got to kind of be loyal
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: and stay and finish the job, right? I think today
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: it's just you go and get the money. And also,
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: I should point out the fun fact here, and I
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: love fun facts, Ross, that you are believed– I think
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: you are still the only person to call NCAA men's
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: basketball championship and a World Series championship, right, with your
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: UNLV connection and obviously with the Dodgers those years. when
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: they won back in the 80s, right? So there's a
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: little fun factoid About you, Ross. Now, as far as the–
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: I want to go back to baseball. We're talking with
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: the great Ross Porter, the legend. He's got a book,
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: by the way, a couple of books out. Ross, how
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: can people find– we're just going to scratch the surface
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: here in this conversation because the life and times of
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: my friend Ross Porter, who has seen and done just.
• 18:05
  Speaker 2: About every cool thing you can.
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: Do in sportscasting with the Dodgers and UNLV and all
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: the other stuff that we'll– we probably won't get to
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: a lot of it. that he's done with the news
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: back in the glory days of local news when everyone
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: was watching to see what was going on in the world.
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: You have a website, Ross, right? RossPorterSports.com is the website.
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: And what can people find on that website?
• 18:31
  Speaker 3: Well, I'll tell you, over the years, Ben, I kept
• 18:36
  Speaker 3: audio interviews. And it just built up and built up.
• 18:41
  Speaker 3: And five years ago, I had, I think it was
• 18:46
  Speaker 3: 220 interviews that I had done over a 15-year period.
• 18:53
  Speaker 3: And we changed homes and we moved from a larger
• 18:57
  Speaker 3: home to a smaller home. And whether or not it
• 19:01
  Speaker 3: had a room. And so we agreed, let's just throw
• 19:03
  Speaker 3: those tapes out. So one night I went out and
• 19:07
  Speaker 3: threw the tapes in the garbage can. Ironically, the next morning,
• 19:11
  Speaker 3: a guy called me from Nevada somewhere, and he said, Hey, Ross,
• 19:19
  Speaker 3: I have a radio website, and I used to live
• 19:23
  Speaker 3: in L.A., and I'm a big Dodger fan. would you
• 19:26
  Speaker 3: agree to do an interview with me on my website?
• 19:30
  Speaker 3: I said, sure, where do you want to do it?
• 19:31
  Speaker 3: He said, what are you doing right now? I said, well,
• 19:34
  Speaker 3: I can do it. Well, he interviewed me for, I think,
• 19:36
  Speaker 3: an hour and five minutes. And when it was over,
• 19:40
  Speaker 3: I said to him, it's interesting you called me because
• 19:45
  Speaker 3: of the lack of space in our new home. I
• 19:47
  Speaker 3: threw those tapes out last night. Ben, he screamed at
• 19:50
  Speaker 3: me as if I'd assaulted his wife. And he said,
• 19:56
  Speaker 3: you go out to that garbage can and you pull
• 19:58
  Speaker 3: all those tapes out and you send them to me.
• 20:00
  Speaker 3: I want to start a website for you. And so
• 20:04
  Speaker 3: I did. And we began at that time. We wound
• 20:09
  Speaker 3: up with two websites. We have the Ross Porter Sports
• 20:13
  Speaker 3: Facebook website. We have the Ross Porter Sports Videos website.
• 20:19
  Speaker 3: or slash YouTube website. And in fact, there's a third
• 20:24
  Speaker 3: one because you mentioned it, rossportersports.com. And so finally, about
• 20:32
  Speaker 3: a year or so ago, I said, you know what?
• 20:35
  Speaker 3: I think I'd like to try to make a book
• 20:37
  Speaker 3: out of this because I've got so many of these interviews.
• 20:40
  Speaker 3: So I started in doing it then, and I decided
• 20:43
  Speaker 3: for the first book, I would do all Dodgers. And
• 20:46
  Speaker 3: I took out 40 interviews of Dodger players, executives, anybody
• 20:53
  Speaker 3: associated with the Dodgers. I put it into a book
• 20:56
  Speaker 3: called The Ross Porter Chronicles, Volume 1, Dodgers. And I
• 21:02
  Speaker 3: did that one. And when I got through with that,
• 21:04
  Speaker 3: I said, you know, I've got a lot more that
• 21:07
  Speaker 3: I can do. I did 24 of them is what
• 21:11
  Speaker 3: I did. Okay. And so then I said, I'm going
• 21:15
  Speaker 3: to start a second book. So I started the second book,
• 21:18
  Speaker 3: and this one I put together people that were not
• 21:22
  Speaker 3: only Dodgers. There were a few Dodger players, but there
• 21:25
  Speaker 3: were other people who were involved in all kinds of sports.
• 21:30
  Speaker 3: I got George Foreman. I got Tom Brokaw. I got
• 21:35
  Speaker 3: President George H.W. Bush one day. Johnny Bench wrote the
• 21:40
  Speaker 3: foreword for me. Peter O'Malley had written the foreword for
• 21:43
  Speaker 3: the first book. So I put together at this time
• 21:46
  Speaker 3: 40 of those. And they came out, oh gosh, 10
• 21:52
  Speaker 3: days ago, I guess. And it's about, I don't know,
• 21:55
  Speaker 3: 289 pages of interviews. And I didn't have to do
• 22:01
  Speaker 3: anything but just put the interviews back to back to back.
• 22:04
  Speaker 3: with a lead into them. And so that's what I
• 22:07
  Speaker 3: got out there now. And I'm very proud of that.
• 22:10
  Speaker 3: I think that the second book is probably even better
• 22:13
  Speaker 3: than the first book, but you know, you can get
• 22:16
  Speaker 3: it at Ross Porter sports.com. All right.
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: So everyone pick up the book there and enjoy that. Now,
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: one of the things for those that, you know, I
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: think most people listening, remember you, but for some of
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: the younger people, right. That don't maybe remember Ross calling
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: the Dodger games. You were known as, as someone very
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: into statistics. And you were really ahead of your time, Russ.
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: I know I've told you this before, but because today
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: you watch a baseball broadcast and it's like, They've just
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: come up, since you stopped calling the Dodger games, they've
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: come up with like 8,000 new statistics for baseball.
• 22:51
  Speaker 2: It's wild.
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: I don't know how often you watch the games anymore,
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: but when you do watch a baseball game or else,
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: what do you think as a guy that was very
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: into statistics.
• 23:00
  Speaker 2: When you see the war and all this other stuff,
• 23:03
  Speaker 2: which they've come up with over the years, how do
• 23:06
  Speaker 2: you feel about all that stuff?
• 23:08
  Speaker 3: Well, I just kind of chuckled at myself and said,
• 23:12
  Speaker 3: you know, I really was. I'm kind of like Ben
• 23:16
  Speaker 3: Marler being one of the first bloggers. I think I
• 23:19
  Speaker 3: was one of the first statisticians to do it. And
• 23:23
  Speaker 3: my figuring was this, Ben. When I went to the
• 23:26
  Speaker 3: Dodgers in 1977, which was, by the way, the first
• 23:30
  Speaker 3: year Lasorda was the manager, I realized that there was
• 23:34
  Speaker 3: no way that I could have any kind of a
• 23:36
  Speaker 3: storytelling opportunity career because I had not had that much
• 23:43
  Speaker 3: experience with the baseball players on a daily basis. And
• 23:46
  Speaker 3: of course, Ned was the master of everything. So I said, well,
• 23:50
  Speaker 3: the only thing I can do is different is do
• 23:53
  Speaker 3: statistics on these guys. And so what I did was
• 23:57
  Speaker 3: I put together what I call the blue book. And
• 24:00
  Speaker 3: I started listing pitcher versus hitter stats and so on.
• 24:06
  Speaker 3: Like how's Pete Rose done against Don Sutton? And I
• 24:11
  Speaker 3: would keep that in the book. And then when they
• 24:12
  Speaker 3: would hook up, I would use that on the air.
• 24:15
  Speaker 3: And that got me started. And as you remember, Ben,
• 24:19
  Speaker 3: I took a lot of heat for that because they
• 24:21
  Speaker 3: said it's just statistics and nothing else. But I think
• 24:25
  Speaker 3: when you look at it, I appreciate you bringing it up.
• 24:29
  Speaker 3: I think in the long run, it worked out as
• 24:32
  Speaker 3: to I wasn't as crazy as everybody thought.
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah, as you said, you were ahead of your time.
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: I can't watch a baseball. I watch a lot of
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: baseball games, Ross, and it's graphics on the TV. It's
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: the announcers saying the stats and all that. And you
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: were that guy before these things were easily available back
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: in the days before the Internet really took off. I
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: also wanted to mention we lost Fernando Valenzuela a couple
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: years ago.
• 24:59
  Speaker 2: You were there for Fernando Mania.
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: I maintain, Ross, here's my hot take, that there is
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: no single player.
• 25:07
  Speaker 2: In the history of the L.A.
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: Dodgers more important for the growth of the fan base
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: than Fernando Valenzuela.
• 25:13
  Speaker 2: We're still seeing it all these years later.
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: What was it like being around Fernando when he hit
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: it and he took off and he was Mr. Everything
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: when he came to the Dodgers in.
• 25:23
  Speaker 3: The early 80s? Well, you raise a very good point,
• 25:27
  Speaker 3: and I want to give you a statistic on that
• 25:30
  Speaker 3: that was given to me by Jaime Jorin, who, of course,
• 25:34
  Speaker 3: is a Hall of Fame Spanish Network broadcaster for the Dodgers,
• 25:38
  Speaker 3: and he went 64 years before he retired a couple
• 25:42
  Speaker 3: years ago. Ben went 67, which, when you think about it, Ben,
• 25:46
  Speaker 3: is just amazing. Anybody, any of them can go that long,
• 25:50
  Speaker 3: but they did. Jaime one day said to me, you know,
• 25:54
  Speaker 3: Before Fernando came to the Dodgers, our listed audience among
• 26:00
  Speaker 3: Latin fans was like 6%. And when Fernando had his
• 26:07
  Speaker 3: terrific year and then the years to follow, we suddenly
• 26:12
  Speaker 3: bolted to where we had 46% of the Latin audience
• 26:16
  Speaker 3: was our audience. And I thought that told it all. And,
• 26:21
  Speaker 3: you know, you probably remember this, you know, Fernando knew
• 26:25
  Speaker 3: more English than he let on. Jaime was his interpreter,
• 26:29
  Speaker 3: but he was a very quick learner. And finally, after
• 26:33
  Speaker 3: a few years, you know, he just started doing it
• 26:36
  Speaker 3: in English. Yeah, I do.
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: I do remember that he did know he did know
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: a lot of English, but he liked to have the
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: interpreter and all that and whatnot. But his impact just
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: Just crazy for sure. We're talking with the great Ross
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: Porter here. And, Ross, I want to also mention you
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: have one of, I'm going to say right now, I'm
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: going to declare on the record right now, and I
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: think you know this because you used to talk about
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: this back in the day.
• 26:59
  Speaker 2: We talked about it together many times.
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: You have what I believe in the current state of
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: baseball is an unbreakable record.
• 27:06
  Speaker 2: It's an obscure record, but it's an unbreakable record because.
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: Baseball added now in the last handful of years, extra
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: inning games.
• 27:14
  Speaker 2: They have a ghost runner, which I hate, but you.
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: Call the game in Montreal against the old Expos there
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: back in the late 80s, and you did the entire broadcast.
• 27:25
  Speaker 2: You have a record for the longest.
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: a one-man broadcast of a game which went hours and
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: hours and hours. Can you walk us back through that?
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: Because I don't think this will ever happen again. You
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: can't have a 22-inning game. And certainly the odds of
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: having a 22-inning game and having one person call the game,
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: it's impossible. So to me, that's an unbreakable record that
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: you own, Ross. So congratulations on that.
• 27:50
  Speaker 3: Thank you, Ben. Let me explain that to you. The Dodgers,
• 27:53
  Speaker 3: this was August of 1989, and the Dodgers were about
• 27:58
  Speaker 3: to leave on a four-city road trip. They went to
• 28:01
  Speaker 3: San Francisco, then they went to Philadelphia, New York, and Montreal.
• 28:06
  Speaker 3: And Ben was with us on the first three cities.
• 28:10
  Speaker 3: Don Drysdale was with us all the way. And because
• 28:14
  Speaker 3: there were no telecasts going to be done in Montreal,
• 28:18
  Speaker 3: Then went home after the games, I think, in New York.
• 28:22
  Speaker 3: And Don and I went on to Montreal to do
• 28:24
  Speaker 3: three games on radio. And we did the first game.
• 28:28
  Speaker 3: We did the second game. And at the end of
• 28:31
  Speaker 3: the second game, Don got a call. And his wife, Annie,
• 28:36
  Speaker 3: was in labor with her second child. And so he said,
• 28:40
  Speaker 3: I got to go. I got to get to the
• 28:42
  Speaker 3: airport and go. So I'll see you tomorrow night at home.
• 28:46
  Speaker 3: So off he goes. Well, that leaves me with my wife, Lynn,
• 28:50
  Speaker 3: who was with me on the trip. And we go
• 28:53
  Speaker 3: into Olympic Stadium, and when we walk in the press box,
• 28:56
  Speaker 3: you've got the Spanish-speaking Dodger announcers to my right. We
• 29:01
  Speaker 3: have the French-speaking Montreal announcers to my left. We're in
• 29:06
  Speaker 3: the middle during the American-English broadcast. And so we start
• 29:11
  Speaker 3: the game, and it's nothing, nothing for seven minutes. pascal
• 29:16
  Speaker 3: perez uh against oral herschhauser and uh as we went
• 29:21
  Speaker 3: along lid wrote me a note said do you want
• 29:23
  Speaker 3: a coke and i said no i wouldn't have time
• 29:27
  Speaker 3: to get back from the restroom during the commercial so
• 29:31
  Speaker 3: the game the game goes on uh people later said
• 29:35
  Speaker 3: to me what would have happened if you got in
• 29:37
  Speaker 3: a short throat or you couldn't have continued i said,
• 29:40
  Speaker 3: then Lynn Porter would have made her major league debut
• 29:42
  Speaker 3: announcing that game in Montreal. Anyway, she's sitting in the
• 29:48
  Speaker 3: front row with me and she's reading a book on
• 29:50
  Speaker 3: the Lennon sisters. We knew one of the Lennon sisters, Kathy.
• 29:54
  Speaker 3: So she was really involved in this book. And it
• 29:58
  Speaker 3: went on, nothing, nothing, 12 innings, 14 innings, 16th inning,
• 30:05
  Speaker 3: Montreal got a man at third, Larry Walker won out,
• 30:08
  Speaker 3: fly ball to right, Mickey Hatcher catches it, Walker comes home,
• 30:13
  Speaker 3: they throw, too late, game over, Montreal wins, right? They're
• 30:16
  Speaker 3: jumping up and down celebrating. However, somebody on the Dodgers
• 30:20
  Speaker 3: dugout said, wait a minute, he left early. So they
• 30:23
  Speaker 3: throw the ball to third base. And Bob Davidson, the
• 30:27
  Speaker 3: umpire who didn't shy from publicity, if you remember, said, yeah,
• 30:32
  Speaker 3: he left early. He's out. No run. Game continues. They
• 30:36
  Speaker 3: went six more innings to the 22nd inning. No score.
• 30:42
  Speaker 3: Mike Sochi had started the game, but he got a
• 30:44
  Speaker 3: cramp in the eighth inning. He had to leave. So
• 30:47
  Speaker 3: Rick Dempsey came in to catch. Rick Dempsey comes to
• 30:50
  Speaker 3: the plate in the 22nd inning. He looks out on
• 30:54
  Speaker 3: the mound, and who's going to throw to him but
• 30:56
  Speaker 3: his former battery mate in Baltimore for 10 years, Dennis Martinez,
• 31:01
  Speaker 3: who at that time was something like 13-3. Dempsey hit
• 31:05
  Speaker 3: one home run all year. He hit a low-line drive
• 31:09
  Speaker 3: that just took off and went over the left field fence, upstairs,
• 31:13
  Speaker 3: home run. Dodgers lead 1-0. They get to the bottom
• 31:17
  Speaker 3: of the 22nd. Rex Utler gets a two-out single. He
• 31:21
  Speaker 3: had stolen about 40 bases this year. So they decided
• 31:24
  Speaker 3: he'd try to steal a second. And Dempsey threw him out.
• 31:28
  Speaker 3: And the game was over. Six hours, 14 minutes, 1-0 Dodgers.
• 31:35
  Speaker 3: And they looked it up and said, yep, that's the
• 31:39
  Speaker 3: record for one person doing a broadcast that long all
• 31:43
  Speaker 3: by himself. And gosh, man, look at that now. That's what,
• 31:47
  Speaker 3: 37 years ago. Yeah.
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: The thing that's most amazing to me is you remember
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: in the amount. Do you have a photographic memory, Russ?
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: You named all these players and these moments and a
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: game that was played in 1989.
• 32:01
  Speaker 2: That is unbelievable that you remember all that.
• 32:04
  Speaker 3: And I'll tell you something else. We then went to
• 32:07
  Speaker 3: the airport to fly back to L.A. And I didn't
• 32:10
  Speaker 3: have a sore throat. I never had a sore throat.
• 32:14
  Speaker 3: And so we fly back, and I think we stopped
• 32:16
  Speaker 3: in Kansas City for a refuel. And I had my
• 32:20
  Speaker 3: little radio with me, my little transistor. And on that flight,
• 32:24
  Speaker 3: they announced that Pete Rose had just been banned from baseball. Wow. Crazy.
• 32:30
  Speaker 3: That was the day. Yeah. That was the day. Yeah.
• 32:33
  Speaker 2: All right. So let's play. I'm going to play a
• 32:34
  Speaker 2: game here, Ross. Do you like it or do you not?
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: There have been a lot of new rules in baseball
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: in the last handful of years or whatever from when
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: you were calling the games and when I was around
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: you and all that.
• 32:44
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 32:45
  Speaker 2: Let's see.
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: Do you like it? Do you not like it? The
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: one that annoys me, I don't know what you feel
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: about this, and it does relate to you because you're
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: going to have this record forever, the 22-inning game, but
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: the ghost runner rule, which was.
• 32:58
  Speaker 3: I hate that rule. I hate that. Okay. I hate that.
• 33:01
  Speaker 3: I think that's terrible.
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: I agree.
• 33:03
  Speaker 3: And, you know, the idea was to make baseball a
• 33:06
  Speaker 3: faster-moving game and get it over with. But I just
• 33:11
  Speaker 3: think there's a bonus. And I'm not real sure about
• 33:18
  Speaker 3: a pitcher, a relief pitcher, has to face three guys either.
• 33:22
  Speaker 3: What do you think about that?
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I know why they did it, because the pitching
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: changes were bad for the game, as far as the
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: product watching it. But I tend to agree. What about
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: the pitch clock, Ross? Baseball is a time sport now.
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: Your thoughts on the pitch clock?
• 33:38
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah. I think that has worked out better, Ben,
• 33:41
  Speaker 3: than I thought it would. You know, you'll see very
• 33:45
  Speaker 3: rarely the violation of that. But I think for the
• 33:48
  Speaker 3: most part, that's been okay. I don't know also about
• 33:54
  Speaker 3: the shift. What do you think about the shift?
• 33:56
  Speaker 2: I don't like the shift.
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: To me, and you know this from all those years
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: being around baseball, there is a way to beat the shift.
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: If you bunt, you can do certain things. You should not...
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: have to have a rule that they have as far
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: as the ship because if you as a hitter you
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: should be able to adjust and that's the other thing
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: the players today i just will complain a little bit
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: why not uh what happened to choking up on the
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: bat and just putting the ball in play everyone's still
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: trying everyone's swinging from their heels ross and there's hardly
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: any there's like a handful of players in baseball that
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: kind of play the old school way and i know
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: things change things evolve but but to me, you should
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: be able to adjust a little bit. And, you know,
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: as you know, you.
• 34:39
  Speaker 2: You were with Rick Monday a lot. He used to
• 34:41
  Speaker 2: talk about that.
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: You got to choke up on the bat with two
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: strikes and that, that was the way the game was played,
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: but now they don't do that at all, which drives
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: me nuts.
• 34:49
  Speaker 3: Right. Well, you know what I do, Ben, if I
• 34:52
  Speaker 3: were a batter, I would month, month, the third base,
• 34:56
  Speaker 3: but you know, the difference is they don't want a single.
• 34:59
  Speaker 3: Too many of them are trying to hit the three-run homer,
• 35:01
  Speaker 3: like Earl Weaver wanted them to.
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure, for sure, for sure.
• 35:05
  Speaker 2: What about the– we have replay now, Ross.
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: We have the ABS challenge, which I also was– I
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: was like, replay, this is going to suck. It's actually–
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: it hasn't been that bad. It's pretty quick. I think
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: they should actually have more– give teams– I think they have–
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: each team has two options of that, the automated ball
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: strike thing.
• 35:23
  Speaker 2: Where are you at on the ABS system.
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: Ross Porter?
• 35:27
  Speaker 3: I think it's okay. In fact, there was a big
• 35:29
  Speaker 3: story yesterday on the Internet about that, and it was interesting.
• 35:34
  Speaker 3: They put together all the numbers of not only the
• 35:37
  Speaker 3: teams and how they have fared when they've challenged, but
• 35:41
  Speaker 3: it also put together the catchers when they challenged, put
• 35:45
  Speaker 3: together the hitters when they challenged, and the one thing
• 35:48
  Speaker 3: that stuck out, the Dodgers were the ninth most successful
• 35:54
  Speaker 3: team of the 30th, when it came to challenging, the
• 35:57
  Speaker 3: Angels were 18th. But Cincinnati, it is. Cincinnati was number
• 36:03
  Speaker 3: one in all three categories, challenged by hitters, by pitchers,
• 36:09
  Speaker 3: and overall success. And they had it up, gosh, 87%
• 36:14
  Speaker 3: or something.
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 36:16
  Speaker 3: There you go.
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: Terry Francona, the manager of the Cincinnati Reds, getting it
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: done there for sure. Absolutely.
• 36:23
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 36:23
  Speaker 2: Well, Ross, I thank you so much for doing this.
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: I love you. You've been very kind to me over
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: the years, and I'm so happy you're still working. How
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: does it feel? You're almost 88, right? You got a
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: birthday coming up here.
• 36:35
  Speaker 3: I think? I'll be 88 in November.
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: Happy early birthday, if I don't talk to you before then.
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: And how's your health?
• 36:42
  Speaker 2: You feeling good? You sound great.
• 36:44
  Speaker 3: I'm feeling great.
• 36:45
  Speaker 2: You sound like you did.
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: When you were doing the Dodger game. You haven't changed
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: at all, Ross.
• 36:50
  Speaker 2: You sound great. What's the secret to your success?
• 36:53
  Speaker 3: Well, you know, I also was able to do season
• 36:56
  Speaker 3: of baseball, the home games for five years. And that was,
• 36:59
  Speaker 3: that was fun. But, uh, Yeah, no, it's still been
• 37:04
  Speaker 3: a labor of love. But, Ben, I'm really proud of
• 37:07
  Speaker 3: what you've done, and I congratulate you on your longevity
• 37:11
  Speaker 3: and being one of the successful stories when it comes
• 37:13
  Speaker 3: to talk radio.
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: Well, thank you, Ross.
• 37:16
  Speaker 2: I love you, man.
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: Be good, and hopefully we'll catch up.
• 37:19
  Speaker 2: I'm going to take you out to lunch.
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: That's my goal, Ross. I'm going to take you out.
• 37:22
  Speaker 2: I don't know if you want to even eat lunch,
• 37:23
  Speaker 2: but I'm going to take you out to lunch one
• 37:24
  Speaker 2: of these days. But thank you, Ross.
• 37:26
  Speaker 3: Okay.
• 37:26
  Speaker 2: Appreciate it.
• 37:27
  Speaker 3: Thanks a lot, Ben.