Latest / The Ben Maller Show / The Fifth Hour: Family Business

Transcript

The Fifth Hour: Family Business · The Ben Maller Show

0:00
Speaker 1: Cutbooms.
0:02
Speaker 2: If you thought four hours a day, twelve hundred minutes
0:05
Speaker 2: a week was enough, think again. He's the last remnants
0:09
Speaker 2: of the old republic, a sol fashion of fairness. He
0:12
Speaker 2: treats crackheads in the ghetto gutter the same as the
0:15
Speaker 2: rich pill poppers in the penthouse. Wow to clearinghouse of
0:19
Speaker 2: hot takes, break free for something special. The Fifth Hour
0:23
Speaker 2: with Ben Mahller starts right now.
0:28
Speaker 3: In the air everywhere, The Fifth Hour with Me, Ben
0:34
Speaker 3: Mahler and Danny g Radio and a Happy Friday to you.
0:38
Speaker 3: I realized I was away from my post. I was
0:42
Speaker 3: away from my post last night, the final rare and
0:46
Speaker 3: appropriate night off. As we have the NFL season starting
0:51
Speaker 3: in a couple of weeks, so it's the month of August,
0:54
Speaker 3: a time to enjoy some rest and relaxation. So on
0:59
Speaker 3: this August fifteenth, this Friday, here we are celebrating the
1:06
Speaker 3: National Day to chant at the Moon. Yes, one of
1:10
Speaker 3: those dopey holidays we love so much. You can howl
1:12
Speaker 3: at the moon if you want. It's an annual event
1:15
Speaker 3: inspired by a town in Washington, a fruit grower. According
1:20
Speaker 3: to local legend, harvesting cherries around the full moon makes
1:25
Speaker 3: them sweeter. It sounds like something our friend Andrea would
1:30
Speaker 3: be into. So grab your friends for a little late
1:33
Speaker 3: night picnic under the stars. If you live in Washington State,
1:38
Speaker 3: the town is Wenatchi, Washington, w e NA TCCHE and
1:46
Speaker 3: the legend is harvesting this growers cherries around the full moon.
1:51
Speaker 1: They're sweeter.
1:51
Speaker 3: The gravitational pull enhances the tree roots where the cherries
1:55
Speaker 3: are grown, and the rest is the stuff of legend.
2:01
Speaker 1: So on this podcast we'll leave that aside.
2:04
Speaker 3: We have family business and king Thing, King Thing.
2:10
Speaker 1: We'll begin with this.
2:12
Speaker 3: So it started, as these things often do, a random
2:16
Speaker 3: text message months ago and a calendar conflict. We're coming
2:22
Speaker 3: out your way, said my older brother, the one that
2:26
Speaker 3: lives in New York. No negotiation, There's not a lot
2:30
Speaker 3: of debate. We did give some dates, mentioned that it
2:36
Speaker 3: would be really great to have you visit on nights
2:39
Speaker 3: that I'm not doing the radio show, but it was
2:41
Speaker 3: mostly just a cheerful declaration that my brother and his
2:46
Speaker 3: wife and their two daughters would be descending upon our
2:49
Speaker 3: home from two different states, mind you, and camping out
2:55
Speaker 3: at the Malor Mansion the compound for not one, not two,
2:59
Speaker 3: but three days, that's seventy two hours, three full days
3:03
Speaker 3: at the Malor mansion. Now, my oldest niece, she lives
3:07
Speaker 3: in South Carolina and actually graduated college the reason we
3:10
Speaker 3: did the Mallard meet and greet in Charleston. So she
3:12
Speaker 3: still lives in South Carolina and the rest of the
3:14
Speaker 3: families in New York, and so they came down. Now,
3:17
Speaker 3: I am not anti family. Do I need to say that?
3:21
Speaker 3: Do I have to announce that I'm not anti family?
3:23
Speaker 3: I am pro family now in theory, I do enjoy
3:27
Speaker 3: the idea of family, and I don't get to see
3:29
Speaker 3: them very much. I have brothers in every time zu on.
3:31
Speaker 3: In fact, I was joking with my brother Joe. I said, listen,
3:34
Speaker 3: if we had one more brother, we could have somebody
3:36
Speaker 3: living in the Mountain time zone. We've got I'm in
3:39
Speaker 3: the Pacific in La my.
3:43
Speaker 1: Younger brother, I'm in the Middle.
3:44
Speaker 3: My younger brother's in the Midwestern time zone, Central time
3:47
Speaker 3: zone he's in Wisconsin, and my older brothers in New
3:51
Speaker 3: York the Eastern time zone. So we've got all the
3:53
Speaker 3: time zones other than the Mountain time zone. And no,
3:55
Speaker 3: I'm not Cony o'lasco in Hawaii. We've got those comforted anyway,
3:58
Speaker 3: back to the story, so not anti if family and
4:00
Speaker 3: all that again in theory, I like the concept of
4:05
Speaker 3: spending time with the family.
4:06
Speaker 1: Family is great, like a lot.
4:08
Speaker 3: Of things in measured doses, kind of like chyenne pepper.
4:12
Speaker 3: You don't want to put too much cayenne pepper on
4:15
Speaker 3: your chicken, or a blind Scott phone call, or a
4:18
Speaker 3: conversation with hollering James or jedho Fled or Mike the Leprechaun.
4:24
Speaker 3: But house guests now house guests kind of like as
4:28
Speaker 3: the line goes of fish right, you start to smell
4:31
Speaker 3: in this case after the second day. By the third
4:34
Speaker 3: you're questioning your life choices. Now, keep in mind, I
4:36
Speaker 3: love these people. These are my family.
4:37
Speaker 1: I love them so naturally.
4:39
Speaker 3: Though, we embarked on what I like to call the
4:41
Speaker 3: Malard staycation and experience because I took three nights off
4:45
Speaker 3: from the show last week and didn't go anywhere exotic,
4:50
Speaker 3: nowhere new.
4:51
Speaker 1: Now normally I don't like to take any time off.
4:54
Speaker 3: I just try to avoid that, and when I do
4:57
Speaker 3: take time off, I actually want to go somewhere new,
4:59
Speaker 3: experience something different, enlightened myself to a different part of
5:04
Speaker 3: the world, and in this case it was a staycation,
5:06
Speaker 3: a mallar staycation. It featured food, schmoozing, poor decisions masqueraded
5:12
Speaker 3: as like wholesome outdoor activities.
5:14
Speaker 1: More on that in a minute. So we mapped it out.
5:16
Speaker 3: Now one night, the night number one, we had chicken schwarma,
5:21
Speaker 3: delicious homemade chicken shwarma by yours truly, and we had
5:27
Speaker 3: some rice the Uncle Benny version marinated for twenty four hours,
5:32
Speaker 3: or some fried pita. But I made the chicken marinated
5:35
Speaker 3: twenty four hours in a bath of lemon and spices,
5:39
Speaker 3: cooked with love, a lot of garlic, and tossed this
5:43
Speaker 3: thing on a spit and then the cutting process one
5:48
Speaker 3: of my favorite parts. That I feel like I'm an
5:50
Speaker 3: exotic chef at some fancy restaurants somewhere.
5:53
Speaker 1: So that was night one.
5:54
Speaker 3: Night two we ventured out, because even the best home
5:59
Speaker 3: chef needs a break, So we went to where the
6:04
Speaker 3: cheesecake factory. Now why did we go to the cheesecake factory?
6:08
Speaker 3: That was not my choice. We went there because of nostalgia.
6:12
Speaker 3: And somewhere on the other side across the Pearly Gates,
6:15
Speaker 3: my dear old mom, dearly departed mother, had to have
6:19
Speaker 3: a huge smile, knowing that her influence as the grandma
6:24
Speaker 3: to my nieces and my mom's been gone for a
6:27
Speaker 3: long time now, but still the memory of her is
6:31
Speaker 3: alive and well. So my nieces requested to go to
6:35
Speaker 3: this cheesecake factory because that was the cheesecake factory my mom,
6:40
Speaker 3: their grandma, would take them to. Because my mom, much
6:44
Speaker 3: like me, I'm a night person. My mom was a
6:46
Speaker 3: night person, and so she'd eat late, and the only
6:48
Speaker 3: restaurant that was open late would be off in the
6:50
Speaker 3: cheesecake factory. So she'd take her grandkids out to the
6:54
Speaker 3: cheesecake factory, and that's what they associate and so they
6:58
Speaker 3: wanted to go there, and so it was great. Three
7:00
Speaker 3: we had Benny's burgers, Yum yum to my Tom Tom
7:05
Speaker 3: Bennie's burgers now smash burgers. I'm not talking about the
7:07
Speaker 3: crappy kind. I'm talking about the good kind, the crusty edges,
7:10
Speaker 3: the cheese that sticks to the grill, the buns that
7:14
Speaker 3: never had a chance. We made twenty seven of them.
7:17
Speaker 3: Twenty seven, not that I was counting, not that I
7:20
Speaker 3: was twenty seven burgers, five pounds of meat. We had
7:23
Speaker 3: hot dogs. Now that wasn't just for my brother's family.
7:26
Speaker 3: My cousin and her husband and kids came over, so
7:31
Speaker 3: we had we had a fair amount of people. But
7:33
Speaker 3: in between meals there was some talking. They're not too
7:38
Speaker 3: much talking on my end. I am an introvert. I
7:41
Speaker 3: am an introvert. Now my niece is lovely young women.
7:44
Speaker 3: It's wild to me that I'm so old. I've seen
7:47
Speaker 3: these little kids grow up.
7:48
Speaker 1: Now.
7:48
Speaker 3: I don't see them that often because they grew up
7:50
Speaker 3: on the East Coast, but I saw them a couple
7:51
Speaker 3: times a year. And now they're all growing up. And
7:53
Speaker 3: we went from the stage where we would go to
7:55
Speaker 3: the park and they would bury my ass and sand,
7:59
Speaker 3: and now they're all growing up. They're smart, they're funny,
8:03
Speaker 3: whip cracked, fast on the comebacks, all that good stuff.
8:06
Speaker 3: So that my brother Joe, his wife, of course, was there,
8:08
Speaker 3: a very nice woman, very mellow, calm, loving woman, which
8:13
Speaker 3: is being mellow and all that requirement when you're married
8:17
Speaker 3: to a guy who runs for fun. And my brother Joe,
8:22
Speaker 3: Joe is Joe. Let me tell you about my brother,
8:25
Speaker 3: my older brother, my big brother. So we were side
8:28
Speaker 3: by side growing up. We were a few years aparties
8:32
Speaker 3: a little older than I am, but we would play
8:34
Speaker 3: the neighborhood whiffle ball a game out in front of
8:39
Speaker 3: the house.
8:40
Speaker 1: We'd be fighting over the last pop part.
8:43
Speaker 3: He'd be a drinking tang because that's what the astronauts drank,
8:47
Speaker 3: not realizing it's just orange sugar. And I would chase
8:50
Speaker 3: my brother through the orange grows and injured myself jump
8:55
Speaker 3: trying to jump over fences as a fat kid.
8:58
Speaker 1: And we grew up in the age where there.
9:00
Speaker 3: Was no internet, and I grew up in an area
9:02
Speaker 3: where ninety percent of the area I lived in was
9:05
Speaker 3: actual farming land. It was orange groves and other kinds
9:08
Speaker 3: of walnut groves and whatnot.
9:12
Speaker 1: So that was my childhood. However, at some point, at
9:16
Speaker 1: some point, my older brother decided he wanted to be
9:18
Speaker 1: a runner. He wanted to be a runner, not like run,
9:23
Speaker 1: hey I got to catch the bus. No, no, no.
9:27
Speaker 1: He became one of.
9:28
Speaker 3: Those people in quotes who lace up the expensive shoes
9:33
Speaker 3: and trot around Central Park like its normal behavior on
9:38
Speaker 3: a random Wednesday. And to give you some back context,
9:43
Speaker 3: my brother has run the New York City Marathon multiple times,
9:48
Speaker 3: not watched it, not stood on the side and clapped
9:52
Speaker 3: for the people running by no, no, no no, he ran
9:56
Speaker 3: it on purpose, twenty six point two miles on purpose
10:01
Speaker 3: for fun, not a half marathon, not thirteen point one miles,
10:05
Speaker 3: twenty six point two.
10:07
Speaker 1: Hell yeah, now me, I think you know this if
10:11
Speaker 1: you listen to the show and you're obviously doing that
10:13
Speaker 1: right now.
10:13
Speaker 3: My idea of fun, and if you've met me, you
10:17
Speaker 3: know is sinking into a nice a nice sofa with
10:22
Speaker 3: a mountain of pillows, a nice cold drink.
10:26
Speaker 1: Back in the day, lemonade now ice water. In one hand, I.
10:29
Speaker 3: Got the remote control. On the other, I'm flipping between
10:31
Speaker 3: ball games. Maybe I have a bet on the game,
10:33
Speaker 3: maybe I don't. And that's it, and I am running.
10:38
Speaker 1: Is what I do.
10:39
Speaker 3: When I'm being chased by an apex predator, I will
10:44
Speaker 3: try to run away from the apex predator. Or if
10:48
Speaker 3: back in the day, I heard the music because there
10:51
Speaker 3: was an ice cream truck and I wanted to get
10:54
Speaker 3: a nice ice cream sandwich, I would run toward the
10:56
Speaker 3: ice cream truck to try to get the driver's attention.
11:00
Speaker 3: So when my brother suggested a little short hike before dinner,
11:04
Speaker 3: a sunset hike, it's just a little sunset stroll. He
11:08
Speaker 3: said that'd be a quick walk. It's like four minutes.
11:12
Speaker 3: You sit up there and you watch the sunset. But
11:14
Speaker 3: when we go to dinner, I should have known that.
11:18
Speaker 1: Something was off.
11:20
Speaker 3: Sunset strolls, in my head, are supposed to be flat, concrete, nice,
11:26
Speaker 3: gentle leisurely stroll Sash Shane your way, not a search
11:32
Speaker 3: and rescue scenario. So we drove out to the base
11:36
Speaker 3: of this. I say this in quotes Hill for our
11:40
Speaker 3: blind listeners. Let me be clear here now this was
11:44
Speaker 3: not a quote Hill. Let me paint a picture a
11:48
Speaker 3: little bit better for you. It was a frickin' mountain.
11:52
Speaker 3: It looked like something that goats would side eye before deciding,
11:58
Speaker 3: you know, maybe not today, maybe tomorrow.
12:02
Speaker 1: I feel like doing it today.
12:03
Speaker 3: You know, mountain goats are not human beings in a
12:07
Speaker 3: mountain goes I think he knew that. They have special
12:10
Speaker 3: bodies designed to walk on the mountain, special hooves. They
12:15
Speaker 3: are built to grip those rocky ledges with the precision.
12:21
Speaker 3: It's like a like a Swiss time piece with the precision.
12:25
Speaker 3: And even those mountain goats, every once in a while
12:27
Speaker 3: they make a wrong step and that's it.
12:29
Speaker 1: Game over.
12:30
Speaker 3: You know what we had, We had sneakers tennis shoes
12:35
Speaker 3: back in the day. They call them clod hoppers. Now,
12:37
Speaker 3: my older brother out there bounding up the trail like
12:40
Speaker 3: he's filming a Gatorade commercial or he's, you know, David
12:45
Speaker 3: Goggins or something like that. Now, my wife, God bless her,
12:48
Speaker 3: she was not interested. She was she was not interested.
12:53
Speaker 3: She took a couple of steps and said.
12:54
Speaker 1: What are we doing. My older niece, the one who lives.
12:57
Speaker 3: In South Carolina, also, she was dressed up, she was
12:59
Speaker 3: all look good. She didn't want to wander up the mountain,
13:04
Speaker 3: so she wasn't doing it. Now, my other niece, she's
13:06
Speaker 3: in still in college, and she gave it the old
13:08
Speaker 3: college try.
13:09
Speaker 1: And my brother's wife also attempted.
13:11
Speaker 3: And what about me? Now, I made it up about
13:14
Speaker 3: eighty five percent. I made it u about eighty five percent.
13:18
Speaker 3: And then I hit that zone. I like to call
13:22
Speaker 3: it the nope zone. You know that moment when your
13:26
Speaker 3: legs turn into question marks and you start feeling it
13:30
Speaker 3: in your calves a little bit, and your brain starts
13:33
Speaker 3: running through different scenarios of how this is going to end,
13:38
Speaker 3: and many of them involve you in the back of
13:41
Speaker 3: an ambulance being taken to the hospital or being driven
13:46
Speaker 3: to the emergency room in the family vehicle, some kind
13:49
Speaker 3: of injury montage.
13:51
Speaker 1: So that was me.
13:52
Speaker 3: Now coming down, I did make it eighty five percent
13:54
Speaker 3: of the way up there, So coming down I looked
13:57
Speaker 3: like a cartoon character trying to slow down on roller skates.
14:01
Speaker 1: That my arms are flailing.
14:03
Speaker 3: One wrong move, And if I was famous enough, I
14:07
Speaker 3: would have started some kind of viral TMZ video titled
14:10
Speaker 3: Uncle Benny wipes out on family hike.
14:14
Speaker 1: Here's the video. Now, my brother, my older brother.
14:16
Speaker 3: Meanwhile, you know, he's running back and forth again like
14:20
Speaker 3: he's on this trail, like he's a motivational speaker. I
14:23
Speaker 3: mentioned David gogin Too Much Free Time, and he was
14:27
Speaker 3: born to chase the horizon. I was older than me
14:30
Speaker 3: right up the till now. I was born to find
14:32
Speaker 3: the best seat on the couch. And I have a ability,
14:36
Speaker 3: a god given ability, to find the perfect spot on
14:39
Speaker 3: the sofa. And yet there is something about big brothers.
14:45
Speaker 3: I don't know if you got a big brother or not.
14:47
Speaker 3: Maybe you are a big brother, but you never really
14:49
Speaker 3: stopped chasing her. I know that as the middle child
14:51
Speaker 3: with a younger and older brother, even when you know better,
14:54
Speaker 3: even when you know you should know better.
14:58
Speaker 1: You know, here I am.
15:00
Speaker 3: I'm a middle aged man, maybe older than that now
15:02
Speaker 3: I don't know. And my brothers pull me up a
15:04
Speaker 3: mountain that I have no business walking up.
15:07
Speaker 1: But I followed because you know, that's what you did.
15:10
Speaker 1: That's that's how it works. That's always been the way
15:13
Speaker 1: it is.
15:13
Speaker 3: He's always been a few steps ahead of me, and
15:16
Speaker 3: you still want to see if you can catch him
15:18
Speaker 3: and all that stuff. So, yeah, we didn't make it
15:21
Speaker 3: to the top. I didn't make it at the top.
15:22
Speaker 3: My brother did. But good memory, good memory. And the
15:25
Speaker 3: good news is the story had a happy ending. No
15:28
Speaker 3: one had to call nine to one one, which is
15:31
Speaker 3: a win in my book. So it turns out, with
15:35
Speaker 3: apologies to Fats in Philadelphia, the Brotherly Loved Thing not
15:38
Speaker 3: only a Philadelphia story, all right. Meanwhile, now turning the
15:42
Speaker 3: page on that, a king thing, he said, a king thing.
15:50
Speaker 1: It was hot. Let me set the scene.
15:52
Speaker 3: So I'm talking hot, like if you've ever been inside
15:56
Speaker 3: a black car where there's there's a lot of sunlight,
16:01
Speaker 3: no sunshield in late July or August, that kind of
16:04
Speaker 3: hot yeah, hot enough to make one question life decisions
16:11
Speaker 3: and for a second to wonder if maybe maybe we
16:16
Speaker 3: should have gone into selling air conditioners rather than selling
16:20
Speaker 3: sports takes for a living, just for a second, like,
16:24
Speaker 3: let's give that a shot. And then out of nowhere,
16:29
Speaker 3: phone buzzes and amazingly, this was not a spam text.
16:34
Speaker 3: I always when I get a text, I'm like, oh,
16:36
Speaker 3: that's probably spam. It was not my dentis reminding me
16:39
Speaker 3: I'm overdue for a cleaning, or my I doctor telling
16:41
Speaker 3: me that you have insurance benefits that you can use
16:44
Speaker 3: to get new glasses. No, it's a name I have
16:48
Speaker 3: not seen in years. King Felix pops up on my phone. Now,
16:54
Speaker 3: if you're relatively new to the Overnight Show, you probably
16:57
Speaker 3: don't know this is. It's not the picture for the Mariners,
17:00
Speaker 3: although I bet that this Felix, the Great Felix Gonzales,
17:04
Speaker 3: could throw a pretty mean batting practice fastball if he
17:07
Speaker 3: had to. But this was the King Felix who was
17:09
Speaker 3: my producer years ago at Fox Sports Radio and his
17:13
Speaker 3: Fox Sports Radio run. He left to work at Radio Disney,
17:17
Speaker 3: which went out of business, and now he's doing some
17:18
Speaker 3: other stuff. But one of my favorite people to walk
17:22
Speaker 3: the hollowed hallways in the building, and not just me.
17:25
Speaker 1: I've been there a long time. And in Fox Sports.
17:27
Speaker 3: Radio studios, Felix King, Felix likes Switzerland.
17:32
Speaker 1: Everyone likes him. Everyone likes King Felix and the kind
17:36
Speaker 1: of guy you could talk to him.
17:38
Speaker 3: We did have these conversations about the Dodger minor league system,
17:41
Speaker 3: or the bullpen, or he'd ripped the manager. And we'd
17:45
Speaker 3: also talk about where to get the best donuts in town,
17:48
Speaker 3: and all those conversations equally entertained.
17:51
Speaker 1: Just good. So get back to the story.
17:53
Speaker 3: So the text one line, one line text, Now how
17:59
Speaker 3: many but how many words were in the text? They
18:01
Speaker 3: say one, two, three, four, five six, I'm looking at
18:03
Speaker 3: my phone one two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve,
18:08
Speaker 3: thirteen thirteen words thirteen words. The text read, I'm gonna
18:12
Speaker 3: read it to you right now off my phone. I'm
18:13
Speaker 3: holding my iPhone right now. The text reads, want you
18:17
Speaker 3: to know that I've come around to your way of thinking.
18:22
Speaker 1: Period.
18:24
Speaker 3: That's it. That's the text. Not a lot of context here. No,
18:29
Speaker 3: I'm looking here. It doesn't say how's the family? Miss you?
18:32
Speaker 3: You know, been a long time. Are you still alive?
18:35
Speaker 3: None of that, just a cryptic little note. And then
18:39
Speaker 3: there was a screenshot of a roster move in baseball.
18:44
Speaker 3: Now I went back and I look. The last time
18:46
Speaker 3: that we had text each other Felix was twenty twenty three.
18:50
Speaker 3: I used to invite Felix to my holiday parties every year,
18:53
Speaker 3: and he never went. So I stopped inviting him because
18:56
Speaker 3: if you don't go for a couple of years, I
18:57
Speaker 3: get the message it's not that important to you. So
18:59
Speaker 3: I stopped invite people. But I love Felix. I wish you,
19:02
Speaker 3: you know, we could hang out. But you know, he's
19:04
Speaker 3: married now, he's got kids and all that stuff. He's
19:06
Speaker 3: a family guy, and he's got no time to do
19:08
Speaker 3: that stuff. So anyway, there's a there's a certain thrill.
19:12
Speaker 3: And I don't know if you're like me, maybe you're not.
19:14
Speaker 3: Maybe you're not like me, But to me, there's a
19:15
Speaker 3: certain thrill getting a message like that. And it's like,
19:19
Speaker 3: you know, in theory, if somebody from high school suddenly
19:22
Speaker 3: venmoed you five bucks out of the left field with
19:25
Speaker 3: the note.
19:26
Speaker 1: Hey, you were right. You know that's it.
19:28
Speaker 3: Now you don't really know what they're talking about but
19:31
Speaker 3: you're you're thinking, yeah, that's right. I am right, of course,
19:34
Speaker 3: I'm right. My take, that's take validation. What do I
19:36
Speaker 3: love take validation? I love take validation. So here's the backstory.
19:42
Speaker 3: When I was a kid, as you may or may
19:45
Speaker 3: not know again depending on how much you consume The
19:48
Speaker 3: Overnight Show and this podcast, which makes you a true
19:50
Speaker 3: p one.
19:52
Speaker 1: Growing up, I loved prospects. I love them. I worshiped that.
19:56
Speaker 1: I did.
19:56
Speaker 3: I worship that. I worship prospects.
20:00
Speaker 1: I've changed.
20:01
Speaker 3: There was a time in my life that the NFL
20:03
Speaker 3: Draft was one of my favorite weekends of the year.
20:06
Speaker 1: The NBA Draft I could not wait for.
20:09
Speaker 3: I loved the lottery and then the draft. I looked
20:14
Speaker 3: forward to getting Baseball America's top one hundred minor league players.
20:19
Speaker 3: I was the guy who had to search for that.
20:23
Speaker 3: Back in those days, you got the Red Book and
20:26
Speaker 3: the Green Book from Sporting News, and you had to
20:29
Speaker 3: scramble to find out who these minor league players were.
20:33
Speaker 3: They were not publicized like they are today. Back on
20:35
Speaker 3: my day, I memorized that I knew At one point
20:39
Speaker 3: in my life, I knew the Dodger double a backup
20:44
Speaker 3: catcher in San Antonio. I knew the mop up relief
20:47
Speaker 3: pitcher in Albuquerque.
20:50
Speaker 1: Just in case, and I wasn't working in the media.
20:53
Speaker 3: I could tell you the vertical leap on that guard
20:56
Speaker 3: from Fresno State who might go fifty eighth. Overall, the
21:00
Speaker 3: Clippers had the fifty eighth pick in the draft, and
21:02
Speaker 3: they were thinking about drafting this guy, and so I
21:04
Speaker 3: knew about him.
21:06
Speaker 1: I knew he couldn't really shoot.
21:07
Speaker 3: The ball, but he's really quick and he could dunk.
21:11
Speaker 3: The jump shot was not there. They thought they could
21:14
Speaker 3: develop him into a shooter. Now, in that chapter of
21:16
Speaker 3: my life, I was mainlining hope. I was Benny Brightside
21:22
Speaker 3: in the purest form.
21:25
Speaker 1: Let me tell you something. Here's what happens, though.
21:27
Speaker 3: When you've seen how they make the hot dogs, when
21:30
Speaker 3: you've been in sports media for as long as I've
21:32
Speaker 3: done it, you start seeing.
21:35
Speaker 1: Reality.
21:36
Speaker 3: You see the angles, you start to understand the hustle.
21:40
Speaker 3: If you will, you realize that the word prospect is
21:44
Speaker 3: a weasel word. It is just another way to say
21:50
Speaker 3: we can sell you tomorrow because today isn't really working.
21:56
Speaker 3: We suck, but stay with us tomorrow, better days ahead,
22:02
Speaker 3: Better days ahead, Tomorrow. Tomorrow is another day, and slick
22:08
Speaker 3: teams market these kids, these minor league players, or the
22:14
Speaker 3: NFL draft picks, NBA draft picks like time shares. The
22:18
Speaker 3: analogy I will use. It's like a time share. I
22:20
Speaker 3: got dragged to a timeshare once in Vegas because I
22:22
Speaker 3: want We wanted to get like free tickets to a show,
22:25
Speaker 3: and they dragged us to a timeshare. We were health captive,
22:28
Speaker 3: against our will. They took our driver's license.
22:30
Speaker 1: It was a nightmare. And so like time shares, they'll
22:34
Speaker 1: sell you.
22:35
Speaker 3: It's like, oh yeah, this place, it's not ready yet,
22:37
Speaker 3: it's in construction, it's in development, but you wait until
22:41
Speaker 3: you see the view. We need your money now, prompt
22:44
Speaker 3: just trust me, bro, Trust me Bro. That open which
22:49
Speaker 3: brings us back to Felix. So Felix, the lovable Felix,
22:53
Speaker 3: the cat, big Dodger guy, loves minor league players, developmental players,
22:59
Speaker 3: and we would spar as I remember, as I remember,
23:02
Speaker 3: we would spar where I wanted to trade every one
23:05
Speaker 3: of these.
23:05
Speaker 1: Dodger minor league players. I didn't care.
23:07
Speaker 3: I want the big league team to be good. Felix
23:11
Speaker 3: believed every one of these minor league players was going
23:13
Speaker 3: to live up to the scouting report and be amazing
23:16
Speaker 3: and great and all this stuff. And listen, he knows
23:19
Speaker 3: the pharmacist, all right, this man Felix knows the farm
23:24
Speaker 3: system better than most family farms. He sends me this
23:29
Speaker 3: link to It was like a screenshot from a story
23:33
Speaker 3: a few weeks back about this kid named Diego Kartaya.
23:36
Speaker 3: I believe this is how you pronounced his name. He's
23:38
Speaker 3: a Venezuelan catcher. He was the former number one prospect
23:43
Speaker 3: for the Doyers and at the time, a couple of
23:45
Speaker 3: years back, untouchable capital U untouchable. So a few years
23:50
Speaker 3: back to Dodgers would not even consider trading him for
23:53
Speaker 3: a major.
23:54
Speaker 1: League All Star.
23:55
Speaker 3: Now now he this season batting he had I've been
24:00
Speaker 3: let go a couple of years ago.
24:02
Speaker 1: I guess last year. I think it was to the Twins.
24:04
Speaker 3: It was, it was somewhat recently, so he's win the
24:06
Speaker 3: Twins organization. He hit eighty five in the minors for
24:10
Speaker 3: the Minnesota Twins organization and was unceremoniously fired, dumped, designated
24:14
Speaker 3: for assignment. And here's the lesson the thing that Felix
24:19
Speaker 3: was tipping the cap to in that particular text, which
24:23
Speaker 3: was take validation. It was old school take validation, which
24:26
Speaker 3: I will take. Take validation anytime anywhere. I love take validation.
24:31
Speaker 3: So a prospect is a suspect until that's right proven otherwise.
24:36
Speaker 3: A prospect is a suspect until provene otherwise.
24:40
Speaker 1: That's it. That's the lesson. That's the entire sermon.
24:44
Speaker 3: Now I do these monologues, and I got to do
24:47
Speaker 3: fifteen or twenty minutes, so I got to do more
24:49
Speaker 3: than A prospect is a suspect until proven otherwise. But
24:52
Speaker 3: that's my position. You can frame it in a gold leaf.
24:56
Speaker 3: The truth does not change. And when you get to
24:59
Speaker 3: the e age of reason and you realize what has
25:02
Speaker 3: been going on, you look at sports in a much
25:05
Speaker 3: different lens. Baseball, basketball, and football, it is all the same.
25:11
Speaker 3: Prospects are a renewable resource. Say it with me, They
25:14
Speaker 3: are a renewable resource. There's always another can't miss kid
25:18
Speaker 3: right around the corner, right coming around the mountain. When
25:21
Speaker 3: they come coming around the mountain, when they come the
25:25
Speaker 3: moment you fall in love with one of these minor
25:28
Speaker 3: league players, the organizations already making eye contact, playing foot
25:34
Speaker 3: seat with a sixteen year old shortstop in the Dominican
25:36
Speaker 3: summer league.
25:38
Speaker 1: They move on, they do.
25:40
Speaker 3: And it's like a farmer falling in love with the
25:44
Speaker 3: crop and be like, I don't want to sell the corn.
25:48
Speaker 1: I love this corn.
25:49
Speaker 3: It's so well. No, there'll be another thing a corn
25:53
Speaker 3: a few months down the line. And so my man Felix,
25:57
Speaker 3: here we are years later.
25:58
Speaker 1: He saw the.
25:58
Speaker 3: Light, my light, Benny, the Buddha's light. And I have
26:03
Speaker 3: to admit to you, it did feel good. It's like
26:06
Speaker 3: being told you were right about a restaurant you recommended
26:09
Speaker 3: five years ago, and then you text a buddy of
26:12
Speaker 3: yours that lives in a different town and they finally
26:15
Speaker 3: tried it and now they can't stop going and everyone
26:18
Speaker 3: loves it.
26:19
Speaker 1: It's it's amazing, and now that has happened.
26:23
Speaker 3: That has happened, and it's nice when the universe, the
26:27
Speaker 3: cosmic powers of the universe send you a little bit
26:30
Speaker 3: of validation, a little hot take validation, even if it's
26:34
Speaker 3: wrapped in a random cryptic text from someone that you
26:38
Speaker 3: worked with in radio years earlier, and it's you know,
26:42
Speaker 3: it's a hot day, and you know, like you thought
26:45
Speaker 3: it was spam and all that stuff.
26:46
Speaker 1: Even with all of that, even with all of that,
26:50
Speaker 1: it is it's still pretty cool.
26:52
Speaker 3: So it was great to hear from Felix and the
26:55
Speaker 3: flaying to Also, I text him back and I sent
26:58
Speaker 3: him like this three part text and I covered all
27:03
Speaker 3: my thoughts that I've covered here in the in the
27:06
Speaker 3: fifth Hour podcast, and you know, I said, great to
27:09
Speaker 3: hear you, Great to hear from you. And then I
27:11
Speaker 3: made a joke about him getting old, realizing what a
27:14
Speaker 3: hustle this is, and I gave him my whole line
27:18
Speaker 3: and I sent him that on Monday, and we are
27:23
Speaker 3: on Friday and I'm looking at my phone. He did
27:25
Speaker 3: not write back, so I couldn't even get him to
27:28
Speaker 3: write back on that. But anyway, there it is all right.
27:31
Speaker 3: We'll put the baby to bed. Danny g should be
27:34
Speaker 3: joining me for this Saturday podcast. I've got a few
27:38
Speaker 3: other things from the Mallard staycation that I can share
27:42
Speaker 3: with the class. Also, there's a story I want to
27:45
Speaker 3: get to at some point this weekend about a new
27:48
Speaker 3: experience that let's just say it was a wild, eye
27:53
Speaker 3: opening experience to the power of the United States military
27:58
Speaker 3: industrial complex.
28:00
Speaker 1: It was impressive.
28:01
Speaker 3: Well, we'll get to that story at some point, probably tomorrow,
28:03
Speaker 3: probably tomorrow on Saturday, Anyway, I have a wonderful rest
28:06
Speaker 3: of your Friday, and we will yap at you tomorrow.
28:13
Speaker 3: Tomorrow tomorrow aasta pasta rivadece. Aloha means goodbye. I think
28:25
Speaker 3: I got them all in, Danny, did I miss any Yes, really.
28:32
Speaker 1: Got a murder. I gotta go.