Latest / The Chuck ToddCast / NEW SHOW PREMIERE: "Dynastic" - Chuck Todd & J.A. Adande go inside the history of the Dodgers dynasty

Transcript

NEW SHOW PREMIERE: "Dynastic" - Chuck Todd & J.A. Adande go inside the history of the Dodgers dynasty · The Chuck ToddCast

• 0:02
  Speaker 1: I'm Chuck Todd, I'm Jade, and welcome to our new show, Dynastic.
• 0:09
  Speaker 2: What do you want to say about it?
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: Well, the title dynastic, you know, it's not limited, right,
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: So we're gonna be looking at the great dynasties in sports,
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: the great franchises in sports, the great teams in.
• 0:21
  Speaker 2: How they became dynasties, how they got there because most
• 0:24
  Speaker 2: of them, you're not You don't start a dynasty, right,
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: you know, and unless you really are born. I can't
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: think of one franchise that started a dynasty unless you're
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: actually born in New York City.
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: Maybe, So, yeah, how they became, what made them a dynasty,
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: what the enduring effects are afterwards, the legacy, which is
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: the most overworld used, most overused word in sports. But
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: it's also something that I think comes into play here.
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: Well, look at every franchise has a story that's just
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: like a human being, and in some ways that's that's
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: kind of what we want to do here.
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: So almost break it down to figure.
• 0:59
  Speaker 2: It's the biography, it's the it's the then the arc
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: of the life of this team. And because we know
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: for fans this is in some ways they themselves feel
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: it as almost like a person. The relationship is almost
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: the way you have a relationship with something you love.
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: So let's get into what the format is going to
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: look like. Okay, what our listeners can expect.
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: Look, we hope to begin and when we take a franchise,
• 1:24
  Speaker 2: so it may be an iconic baseball franchise, basketball, football, hockey,
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: we're going to go college, we're going to go pro.
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: But sort of like the and from Soup.
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: To Nuts, how they started, how they you know, what
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: were the pivotal moments. Every every franchise has that near
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: death experience. Believe it or not, every program as a
• 1:44
  Speaker 2: near death experience. The lows, the highs, the greatest names
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: associated you name it. And also just for fun.
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: At the end, for every franchise that we do, we'll
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: look at the Mount Rushmore. We'll give our out and
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: Rushmars and we encourage you. Course those are subject to
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: debate and lead to a lot of disagreement and arguments,
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: so we'll encourage you through social media, email, whatever platforms
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: you want to use to give us your Mount Rusher,
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: tell us how we got it wrong. And you know,
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: we want to try to be interactive here as well.
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: Now I know some of you may be thinking, what
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: the hell is Check Todd doing there? You may say, Jay,
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: all right, you're a sports guy, I get it, what
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: the hell, But that's the idea what we want to
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: marry here. If you will, you've you've been in sports,
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: You've been doing this, You've covered in some cases, you
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: will have covered some of these events that we're going
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: to talk about. You know some of the people firsthand.
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: I'm a history junkie and I'm coming at it sort
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: of the way I come at politics, sort of context,
• 2:42
  Speaker 2: sort of well, tell me more about this and who
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: were the personalities and who are the drivers. So we
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: thought this would be a unique way to tackle sports
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: history is have somebody who's sort of almost both fan
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: and historian on one end, reporter and fan on the
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: other end, and.
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: The professor angle of it too. I've been teaching for
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: the better part of twenty years, doing a full time
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: for a decade, and I always try to impart to
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: my students the history. And as a journalist and a
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: journalism professor, one of the most important things we do
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: is journalists is the context, right, So a lot of
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: this is going to be putting things in the context
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: of their time.
• 3:21
  Speaker 2: And look, and one of the things about sports is that,
• 3:24
  Speaker 2: in many ways are the most important cultural changes in
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: society started in sports. Sports is in some ways the
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: first place. So that's why I've always incorporated so much
• 3:37
  Speaker 2: of my political coverage. Why yes, I'm a sports fan,
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: but I've also seen it.
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: It is fused.
• 3:43
  Speaker 2: In the politics and history of this country in ways,
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: in the same ways that the founding fathers and the documents.
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: Are and then are increasingly fractured. And I'm not even
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: getting into the politics aspect. So just the media is fractured.
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: Everyone's watching different things on their own device, is But
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: sports are a time in a moment when millions of
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: people simultaneously are experiencing something. So that's another reason that
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: makes it so great to discuss our country, our our values,
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: our history through the lens of sports, because it is
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: simultaneous experience by millions of people.
• 4:21
  Speaker 2: So, look, we're gonna each episode's gonna be a couple hours,
• 4:25
  Speaker 2: and it's going to be one franchise a couple hours.
• 4:27
  Speaker 2: We know you're going to listen to all seventeen hours
• 4:30
  Speaker 2: that we know gidding in one sitting. No, we don't
• 4:33
  Speaker 2: expect you to hear at one sitting, but we're going
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: to break it up and you'll have it. But and
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: you know, once a month we will have a deep
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: dive on one franchise. Within that month, we'll have an
• 4:44
  Speaker 2: interview with an iconic figure from that franchise.
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: And we're looking forward to this.
• 4:50
  Speaker 2: We think that this is something that we hope we're
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: doing for the rest of our professional lives.
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: Right, okay, absolutely, Well, we just get through episode one.
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: We'll see how this episode goes, and we'll get back
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: to you on the rest of it.
• 5:03
  Speaker 2: And with that, the first franchise, we are tackling.
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: The Dodgers. As a Los Angeles native, I can only
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: say it that way when I see the names, you're
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: Vin Scully's boys saying, the Dodgers from their time in
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: Brooklyn to the transformative move across the country to Los Angeles.
• 5:25
  Speaker 2: Well, let's you know now that we're we've decided we're
• 5:27
  Speaker 2: starting with the Dodgers, Let's quickly do Dodgers buy the numbers,
• 5:30
  Speaker 2: let's put let's put their the franchise baseball card anyway,
• 5:34
  Speaker 2: right there.
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: We go, So the Dodgers nine World Series championships aid
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: in Brooklyn or one in Brooklyn eight in LA and
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: twenty seven National League pennants.
• 5:47
  Speaker 2: That's pretty good, pretty pretty a losing record in the
• 5:50
  Speaker 2: National League. Yeah, you know, I mean, you know.
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: The braves of Buffalo Bills, you know, like you get there.
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: That counts for something. You know.
• 5:57
  Speaker 2: It's worth noting that it's only in the last it's
• 6:01
  Speaker 2: only in this most recent era of the Dodgers that
• 6:03
  Speaker 2: they caught the Giants for most pennants of the nationally.
• 6:06
  Speaker 2: So you know, take that Giants fans, right, and they
• 6:09
  Speaker 2: still trail the simul those Cardinals for World Series in
• 6:12
  Speaker 2: the National League it is Yankees Cardinals, and one would
• 6:17
  Speaker 2: assume that by the end of the show Hey era,
• 6:20
  Speaker 2: maybe they end up grabbing the Cardinals. Here, they're only
• 6:23
  Speaker 2: two behind. They've got nine, they're only two behind, all right,
• 6:26
  Speaker 2: they have fifteen. The Dodgers have won fifteen MVPs by
• 6:31
  Speaker 2: thirteen different players, with obviously the repeat being show Hey
• 6:36
  Speaker 2: back to back and Roy Campanello with three. A lot
• 6:39
  Speaker 2: of individual ones on that one. They've had. They've had
• 6:43
  Speaker 2: the most cy Young Award winners in baseball history, twelve
• 6:48
  Speaker 2: of them. Don nukeom Don Drysdale, Sandy Kofax won three
• 6:54
  Speaker 2: Mike Marshall. No, not you Dodger fans are going no,
• 6:58
  Speaker 2: not that, Mike Marshall. Not eighties Mike marsh And no,
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: they were not related.
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: Fernando.
• 7:03
  Speaker 2: Of course in eighty one Oral Hrsteizer Eric Ganie can
• 7:07
  Speaker 2: decide whether it was an enhanced scion or not. And
• 7:11
  Speaker 2: of course Kershaw with three on that one. And there's
• 7:14
  Speaker 2: another fun fact, most Rookie of the Year awards in
• 7:17
  Speaker 2: Major League Baseball.
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: It makes sense for the Dodgers that I grew up
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: with in the seventies and eighties, So they have twelve
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: retired numbers number one of Pee re Rees, timerlswordis number two,
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: Duke Snyder's number four, Gil Hodges is fourteen, Jim Gilliams nineteen,
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: Don Sutton's twenty, Walter Austin's twenty four, Sandy Cofax's thirty two,
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: Fernando Valenzuala's thirty four, Roy Campanella's thirty nine, Jackie Robinson's
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: forty two, which was retired throughout baseball, and Don Drivesdale's
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: fifty three. Fernando's the exception among those group. Can you
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: understand what what is that exception?
• 7:53
  Speaker 2: It's the it's a it's a Burr in my You
• 7:56
  Speaker 2: know what, He's not only one not in.
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: The Hall of Fame, right you only yeah, because that
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: was ther and that was why for so long his
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: number had not been retired by the Dodgers, because they
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: have a requirement that you need to be in the
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: Hall of Fame Jersey. You know.
• 8:09
  Speaker 2: In our eighteenth episode on the Dodgers, I will make
• 8:11
  Speaker 2: an entire case of white Fernando and some of us,
• 8:15
  Speaker 2: some of us eighties Dodgers fans still blame Tommy Lasorda
• 8:18
  Speaker 2: for the for burning out Fernando's arm. But that's okay.
• 8:21
  Speaker 2: You know, Tommy was old school.
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: You know, we'll be talking Vealezuela later on.
• 8:28
  Speaker 2: This is the team of my youth. This is I
• 8:30
  Speaker 2: grew up a Dodger fan, Jay, did you.
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: Yes, although with some Giants fandom mixed in, believe it
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: or not. Because I grew up in La My grandparents
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: lived in San Francisco and they had a close family
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: friend by name of Franklin Lett, who was a Giant
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: season ticket holder. So you spend a lot of time
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: at Giants. I would go to Candlestick Park, But the
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: first game I ever went to, the first Major League
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: Baseball game I ever went to was a Dodger stadium.
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: That was the team of my youth. I was aposed
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: to them as I started getting into sports, and the
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: Dodgers were the team. And there's a moment where it
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: kind of all culminated to me. The moment that represented
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: the Dodgers and everything that they have done and accomplished
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: and what they mean to Los Angeles. Actually came in
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: New York, back in their ancestral homeland, after the Dodgers
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: beat the Yankees in the World Series in twenty twenty four,
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: and a rash Markazi posted this friend of mine, a
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: sports journalist, who posted it online social media. It's a
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: video in a subway station, I'm guessing the stop near
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: Yankee Stadium, and a bunch of Dodger fans celebrating the
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: World Series victory. Tupac's California Love is playing in the background.
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: And it starts off. You see a Japanese man. He's
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: got a fan with the Japanese flag on it, and
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: you know, clearly an a Tani fan who represent Otani.
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: And then there's a Latino man. It comes up, there's
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: a black woman, there's white people, there's this you know,
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: representative of the rich tapestry not only of Los Angeles,
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: but a Dodger fand of and what this franchise has
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: meant to so many people, from Jackie Robinson to Shoho Tany,
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: Fernando of Venezuela, and it all kind of comes together
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: in this moment across the country from where they are now,
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: but back in their ancestral homeland of New York.
• 10:24
  Speaker 2: Well, and what's great is they've kind of always been
• 10:26
  Speaker 2: the team of sort of.
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: New America, New Americans. Right.
• 10:30
  Speaker 2: Brooklyn at the time in the late nineteenth century is
• 10:34
  Speaker 2: a borough of immigrants, and so they were always sort
• 10:38
  Speaker 2: of in some ways the outsiders trying to push in
• 10:41
  Speaker 2: to become the insiders. Look at I'd say, this is
• 10:45
  Speaker 2: team my youth. I grew up in Miami, Florida. You
• 10:47
  Speaker 2: think what, we didn't have any professional baseball. My dad
• 10:50
  Speaker 2: was a Dodger fan because you met Roy Campanella as
• 10:53
  Speaker 2: a kid.
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: So of course doctor Ketchery.
• 10:57
  Speaker 2: Had great Dodger Ketcher met him right here in Chicago.
• 10:59
  Speaker 2: Actually when he was a kid. There's this great family
• 11:02
  Speaker 2: story about my dad went up to him because it
• 11:07
  Speaker 2: actually I think my grandfather recognized him. I don't think
• 11:09
  Speaker 2: my dad was like five or six, and he says,
• 11:13
  Speaker 2: why don't you go ask him why he's not eating
• 11:14
  Speaker 2: his wheaties because he had just won the MVP and
• 11:16
  Speaker 2: back in the back then you were on the cover
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: that was forget the cover of Sports Illustrated, the cover
• 11:21
  Speaker 2: of wheaties. That was a big deal if you were
• 11:23
  Speaker 2: a big gold medal winner and baseball MVP. So there's
• 11:27
  Speaker 2: Roy Campanella and he wasn't eating his wheaties. They go
• 11:30
  Speaker 2: on to loose to the Cubs that day. They're staying.
• 11:33
  Speaker 2: I believe it's a dre Cotel. Campanella goes up to
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: my father the next day and he says, hey, don't worry,
• 11:39
  Speaker 2: I'm eating my wheaties.
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: Tip.
• 11:42
  Speaker 2: So it is been family lore and it's one of
• 11:45
  Speaker 2: those you know you think, all right, is that too
• 11:46
  Speaker 2: good to check? But for what it's worth, I have
• 11:49
  Speaker 2: a second source on him. My dad's sister witnessed the
• 11:51
  Speaker 2: moment and she swears she's still alive today and my
• 11:54
  Speaker 2: dad's not with us. She swears it also happened too.
• 11:56
  Speaker 2: So that's how I came about my Dodger fandom. Brain
• 12:00
  Speaker 2: watched by a father, Because isn't that what fathers do
• 12:02
  Speaker 2: to sons.
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: Well, that is something that gets passed down. And you
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: know that the Dodgers have meant so much to so
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: many people. And it's funny how the Brooklyn people, the
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: New Yorkers can never quite let go.
• 12:17
  Speaker 2: Well think about this. I was thinking about this. What
• 12:20
  Speaker 2: other franchise has its previous identity still a part of
• 12:28
  Speaker 2: its tapestry?
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: Right?
• 12:30
  Speaker 2: There is something like you go to a Dodger game
• 12:33
  Speaker 2: in Dodger Stadium and you'll see almost as many hats
• 12:36
  Speaker 2: with bees on it as you do with.
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: La, right absolutely. And you you know the fact that
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: one thing that was seamless was Jackie Robinson, you know,
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: celebrated so much as an LA Dodger.
• 12:49
  Speaker 2: He never once played as an LA Dodg.
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: No, and but he feels very La. There's a statue
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: of from outside the park. I don't think you can
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: think of that for any other franchise that moved it.
• 12:58
  Speaker 2: But the other right, I mean think about it. Wait,
• 13:00
  Speaker 2: we have the Oakland A's, or the Sacramento A's, or
• 13:03
  Speaker 2: the Philadelphia A's or the Kansas City none of their
• 13:05
  Speaker 2: previous stops or that you kind of you don't feel
• 13:09
  Speaker 2: that way with the Braves. You don't think about even
• 13:11
  Speaker 2: though Hank Aaron's best stayer with Milwaukee. I can't think
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: any of these other French and none of them have
• 13:18
  Speaker 2: kept their old cities. Item means Arizona Cardinals have Chicago
• 13:21
  Speaker 2: in their DNA.
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: Not at all, right, not at all. So you know,
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: I think we'll get into what makes this team so special. Yeah,
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: how the Jackie Robinson identity could transfer to Los Angeles
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: even though he never played, even though he was mad
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: at them at the time they were leaving, because they
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: just traded him to the Giants and he wanted no
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: part of playing for their rivals. And yet they were
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: able to get over that. And you know, still Jackie
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: is very much a part of the identity of this
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: team in some ways that a lot of people think
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: of it as the foundational part of the team. No,
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: I mean to get into it goes back a lot
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: earlier there, and that's the thing I mean.
• 14:00
  Speaker 2: And you know, look, most people, most Dodger fans think
• 14:02
  Speaker 2: the Dodgers were born in nineteen forty seven, you know,
• 14:05
  Speaker 2: which is when. And look, for many people, baseball wasn't
• 14:08
  Speaker 2: competitive until nineteen forty seven. Baseball wasn't baseball until nineteen
• 14:12
  Speaker 2: forty seven, and that's a very fair way to look
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: at it. But ultimately the Dodgers' history, Yes, the franchise
• 14:19
  Speaker 2: began its march to Dynasts to dynasticdom in nineteen forty seven,
• 14:26
  Speaker 2: but they had a whole identity for fifty years that
• 14:29
  Speaker 2: was kind of fledgling.
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, they come up to me. I know
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: it starts earlier than this, but to me, you know,
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: the ebbitts Field era, you know, when I think of
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: the Brooklyn Dodgers, you think of ebbitts Field opened in
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: nineteen thirteen. And there was a great description of it
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: in the book Forever Blue, which is one of the
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: source materials we used for this. And the description makes
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: me think of that the Grand Ballroom in Titanic the movie,
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: and just that that's such a key part of it. And
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: you see it again at the end, right when you're
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: Roses envisioning her life. And so it's described as having
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: Evis Field described as having an ornate rotunda with a
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: sword dome ceiling, gilded ticket booths with a white Italian
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: marble floor inlaid with red tiles, and a pattern of
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: stitches on a baseball. They had chandeliers that looked like
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: bats and baseballs. They had vallet parking outside, so.
• 15:31
  Speaker 2: It's well, but there's a reason they had to have
• 15:33
  Speaker 2: valet parking because it was shoved into a city there
• 15:35
  Speaker 2: was no parking, which, by the way, is one of
• 15:37
  Speaker 2: the reasons why they moved is because the O'Malley's wanted
• 15:41
  Speaker 2: a parking revenue. But we will we will get into
• 15:43
  Speaker 2: that as we go, as we go further. So to you,
• 15:46
  Speaker 2: what's the early part of the Dodgers, Well, this is
• 15:48
  Speaker 2: the part that was a lot of fun when we
• 15:50
  Speaker 2: decided to do this, because you know, even as a
• 15:52
  Speaker 2: Dodger fan, both of us thought we knew a lot
• 15:55
  Speaker 2: and then you werealize, oh my god, there's so much
• 15:58
  Speaker 2: more in the early days. So I think the most
• 16:03
  Speaker 2: you can't lose sight of the fact that the Dodgers
• 16:06
  Speaker 2: are born in eighteen eighty three. They're not the Dodgers then,
• 16:08
  Speaker 2: they're just sort of this Brooklyn baseball team. The same
• 16:10
  Speaker 2: year that the Brooklyn Bridge is completed and the Brooklyn
• 16:13
  Speaker 2: Bridge open, So you want.
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: To pick your at least the Brooklyn Bridge is still there. Yeah,
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: Brooklyn Bridge.
• 16:19
  Speaker 2: As a writer who I have something, I have a
• 16:21
  Speaker 2: bridge to sign as a writer, right, could you think
• 16:24
  Speaker 2: of a better sort of parallel construction than the birth
• 16:28
  Speaker 2: of the bridge that connects Manhattan to Brooklyn and they
• 16:32
  Speaker 2: get a baseball team.
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: So it's just hard for me to imagine New York
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: without the boroughs being connected.
• 16:38
  Speaker 2: Brooklyn was even part of New York City at the time.
• 16:41
  Speaker 2: Brooklyn doesn't become New York City gets subsumed into New
• 16:44
  Speaker 2: York City in eighteen ninety eight, but that's it is.
• 16:48
  Speaker 2: You know, it's the borough of immigrants. It's let's just
• 16:51
  Speaker 2: say that the rich people in Manhattan weren't crazy about
• 16:53
  Speaker 2: the idea that, oh, these Brooklyn nights can come over here.
• 16:55
  Speaker 2: Now now of course it's all the Manhattan it's trying
• 16:58
  Speaker 2: to go to Brooklyn.
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: And just really kind of leaned into that identity. You know,
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: they were diverse, the crowds were diverse and reflective, and
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: you know, just like Broken probably wasn't acknowledged by the
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: Manhattanits right, you know, the Dodgers weren't acknowledged really, and
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: we weren't considered a worthy rival to the Yankees, who,
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: you know, by the nineteen twenties are really becoming the
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: New York Yankees, you know, the dynastic team that we
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: think of, you know, one of the major brands in
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: all this sport right now.
• 17:32
  Speaker 2: Most of you probably know some version of the Dodgers
• 17:34
  Speaker 2: are named after the for the trolley Dodgers and all
• 17:37
  Speaker 2: this stuff. But what was interesting in doing our research
• 17:40
  Speaker 2: here is that for essentially the first decade, they didn't
• 17:43
  Speaker 2: have a nickname. They just had whatever sports writers decided
• 17:46
  Speaker 2: to call them for one season. So one season they
• 17:48
  Speaker 2: were the Grays, they were the Atlantics.
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: I love.
• 17:52
  Speaker 2: One year seven players got married in the off season,
• 17:54
  Speaker 2: so they called them the Bridegrooms. How about that for
• 17:58
  Speaker 2: alternative uniform nite, Like let's have the rooms. Maybe we'll
• 18:01
  Speaker 2: have a wedding, you know.
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: When like a tuxedo, like our top.
• 18:04
  Speaker 2: Top hat tuxedo, right, that would be a fun. They
• 18:07
  Speaker 2: were the super Buzz whatever the heck that meant.
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: The Brooklyn Robbins, after the nickname of the manager, uncle
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: Robbie Robinson.
• 18:16
  Speaker 2: So in some ways they were a team in search
• 18:19
  Speaker 2: of an identity, just like Brooklyn was always constantly searching
• 18:22
  Speaker 2: for its identity. But that's kind of what made them
• 18:25
  Speaker 2: when you think of, you know, the Dodgers of the
• 18:27
  Speaker 2: fifties are seen as sort of the upstarts, the working
• 18:30
  Speaker 2: class team and all of this, and in many ways
• 18:33
  Speaker 2: that was their identity for fifty years now. Of course
• 18:36
  Speaker 2: their Hollywood, their glamor their glitz. They're everything the opposite
• 18:41
  Speaker 2: of what they were born.
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: They were. They were dem bums, right, which came from
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: a newspaper editoral cartoon I I think that's right. Paper
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: cartoonists came up with the dem bums nicknames. But you know,
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: they were hapless. One way to think of it is
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: that the Yankees had Babe Ruth. The Dodgers had Babe Herman,
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: whose pants once caught fire because he had put a
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: lit cigar in there during the game. So that was
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: the Dodgers. But EBITs Field was, you know, we talked
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: about the personality of the borough. It was kind of
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: a colorful, eclectic place that there was a woman who
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: rang a cow bell there during the games. There was
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: a band called the Dodgers Symphony that would play, so
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: you know, it wasn't a very sophisticated atmosphere despite the setting,
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: but it was kind of a rockous.
• 19:27
  Speaker 2: Every time you read about the Brooklyn Dodgers and the
• 19:30
  Speaker 2: community there. It actually strikes me the way minor league
• 19:35
  Speaker 2: teams today have a connection with their communities, meaning you know,
• 19:39
  Speaker 2: and that's the way baseball was, right they were. It
• 19:40
  Speaker 2: was both the only sport in town, but you were
• 19:43
  Speaker 2: constantly having to keep people's attention.
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: And at the ownership level it was kind of dysfunctional.
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: There was the Ebbitts family in the Kieber family, and
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: I love.
• 19:53
  Speaker 2: The Ebitts story though that he actually starts. He's not
• 19:56
  Speaker 2: the first owner. He starts by selling ticket. He got
• 19:59
  Speaker 2: the ownership the old fashioned way. He is a ticket
• 20:02
  Speaker 2: sales guy, cleaned the stand, uh, and then eventually it
• 20:05
  Speaker 2: becomes the owner in the early nineteen hundreds.
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: That's a little more romantic, i'd say than then the
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: Walter Mallet story, who was the lawyer before he took
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: over the team. But but yeah, the the and the heirs,
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: as as the original Evotts and the Kiver get older
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: and their their heirs kind of take over. They'd spend
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: meetings like just glaring at each other like that's how
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: dysfunctional it was. They couldn't even function. And after after
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: the original Evids died, col owner took control of the team.
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: But then he dies two weeks later after catching cold
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: at Evans's funeral, and I figured the historian you would
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: appreciate it. It's kind of like like President way Harrison, right, yeah,
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: cold at the inaugural after delivering the longest inaugural address
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: on record, the eyes of a cold And also kind
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: of reminded me of the popes in the nineteen eighties.
• 20:56
  Speaker 2: Remember how they had one, We had one, We had
• 20:58
  Speaker 2: one die immediately after they you know, a couple.
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: Weeks later, there's the conclave again we have the second Pope.
• 21:04
  Speaker 2: The other fun little fact that I wasn't as familiar with,
• 21:09
  Speaker 2: So the Dodgers, when you're counting up their World Series
• 21:11
  Speaker 2: appearances and the al pennants, they have one National League
• 21:16
  Speaker 2: pennant that does count in eighteen ninety, and they appeared
• 21:19
  Speaker 2: in a World Series that does not count in eighteen ninety.
• 21:23
  Speaker 2: So you're asking yourself, well, why is that. Well, it
• 21:25
  Speaker 2: turns out this World Series in eighteen ninety was between
• 21:28
  Speaker 2: the winner of the National League, this was the Brooklyn
• 21:31
  Speaker 2: team's first year in the National League, and the winner
• 21:34
  Speaker 2: of the American Association at the time, which is the
• 21:38
  Speaker 2: Louisville Colonels.
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: Louis Slugger.
• 21:43
  Speaker 2: I didn't either. So it is what's great about this
• 21:46
  Speaker 2: series is that it goes. It went seven games, but
• 21:50
  Speaker 2: one of the games, Game three, ended in a tie
• 21:52
  Speaker 2: darkness for darkness, and they figured they said, okay if
• 21:56
  Speaker 2: it was so after game seven they said, well, well,
• 22:00
  Speaker 2: the managers literally agreed before games something that whoever wins,
• 22:03
  Speaker 2: they'll just play a deciding game in the spring. Because
• 22:07
  Speaker 2: there was low attendance. There was also a third league.
• 22:09
  Speaker 2: There was a little bit of there was a player
• 22:11
  Speaker 2: revolt that we're arguing about the reserve clause landing. They
• 22:14
  Speaker 2: end up never resolving this world series. Louisville won three games,
• 22:17
  Speaker 2: the Dodgers won three games. One game ended in a
• 22:20
  Speaker 2: tie because the darkness and cold. They never resolve it.
• 22:23
  Speaker 2: The Dodgers do get credit for that pennant. But the
• 22:26
  Speaker 2: fun fact of that is actually what you just joked
• 22:28
  Speaker 2: about with the Louisville Slugger is that there was the
• 22:32
  Speaker 2: Louisville Star player was a guy named Pete Browning, and
• 22:35
  Speaker 2: he reportedly used a bat made by a young craftsman
• 22:38
  Speaker 2: named Bud Hillrich Brasby. There you go, and that bat
• 22:42
  Speaker 2: would eventually become the Louisville Slugger. So there's an accidental
• 22:46
  Speaker 2: piece of history that we ended up finding out digging
• 22:49
  Speaker 2: into that.
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: I was going to say, what's it sounds so Unamerican
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: to have the championship end in the tie, but yet
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: out of that comes one of the iconic American brands.
• 23:00
  Speaker 2: Right, But think about that first ten years, they don't
• 23:03
  Speaker 2: have a nickname. They're all over the place they end up.
• 23:06
  Speaker 2: They start with Brooklyn when it's his own city. By
• 23:10
  Speaker 2: the end of the nineteenth century they're part of New
• 23:12
  Speaker 2: York City. They're still in search of a name, they're
• 23:15
  Speaker 2: still in search of ownership. There's still kind of a
• 23:17
  Speaker 2: team in chaos, and you know.
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: It does come together somewhat and at least you get
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: a foundation at Ebsfield. But by the late thirties, already
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: the field is starting to fall into disrepair, and you
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: can say that's kind of the beginning of the end,
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: maybe the genesis of why they end up moving to
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: Los Angeles, because their stadium isn't top notch anymore. But
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: that starts to change in the late thirties when Larry
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: Fail as a team president and he comes in and
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: really starts to turn a franchise around, and that may be.
• 23:52
  Speaker 2: It's sort of like if you think about the Dodgers
• 23:54
  Speaker 2: and pivot points, I think Larry McPhail is probably the
• 24:00
  Speaker 2: first most important fork in the road moment for the franchise.
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: I mean, just to show how, you know, despondent things
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: have gotten. He gets in there the office telephones had
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: been shut off because they hadn't been paying the bills.
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: There was a great concern team to go out of business,
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: like that's how bad they later would play bankruptcy. But
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: that was a twenty per century problem. Yeah, yeah, twenty percent,
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: you know. But he's forward thing we think, think about
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: a lot of the innovative things, you know, and I think,
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: you know, one way to look at this is the
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: Dodgers are the most forward thinking franchise in sports history.
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: I think it's not too much of an exaggeration to
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: say that.
• 24:43
  Speaker 2: They always in some ways, whether it I mean, you know,
• 24:45
  Speaker 2: whether it's been in business. I mean, and that's really
• 24:47
  Speaker 2: one of the themes that we've we really want to
• 24:50
  Speaker 2: focus on ears how many different ways they change the
• 24:53
  Speaker 2: game so they get everybody knows about Jackie Robinson, but
• 24:57
  Speaker 2: whether it's making the making the player acquisitions, more international development,
• 25:03
  Speaker 2: you know, sort of perfecting the farm system, even Dodger
• 25:07
  Speaker 2: Town spring training doing what they did. What spring training
• 25:09
  Speaker 2: is today arguably was a creation of the Dodgers system.
• 25:15
  Speaker 2: And even in business, right, the big business that is
• 25:18
  Speaker 2: the Dodgers today, moving to private equity doing all these
• 25:22
  Speaker 2: the idea of using a stadium to generate revenue and
• 25:25
  Speaker 2: value for your franchise, that's something Walter O'Malley envisioned, which
• 25:29
  Speaker 2: is why he left profile.
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: And you know, really mastering the regional sports networking. I
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: don't know how viable that is in the future given
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: the current state of regional sports networks, but that's been
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: a huge part of their success.
• 25:43
  Speaker 2: And yes they're a prolific spending in free agency.
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: But part of that is is because of the gigantic
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: regional sports network contract. But in fairness to the Dodgers that.
• 25:55
  Speaker 2: The iconic players don't really begin until after Larry McPhail.
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and but it starts with some of the innovations
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: he does, right, So they had a radio band. It's,
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: you know, another way we talk about the icons of
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: the Dodgers, from Red Barber to Vin Scully, these incredible
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: broadcasters that they've had, but they had a radio band
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: by the Dodgers, and they all three agreed teams.
• 26:22
  Speaker 2: Do you hate the blackout rule today in baseball? Well,
• 26:25
  Speaker 2: this was essentially the blackout rule for radio because all
• 26:28
  Speaker 2: the owners thought, if you put the game on radio,
• 26:30
  Speaker 2: people won't show up. Because all the revenue back then
• 26:34
  Speaker 2: was tickets.
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: There are no big you know, no televisions as national,
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: national TV revenue, even local TV revenue. Right. So McPhail
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: not only does he end that band, he puts the
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: Dodgers back on the radio, and he made Red Barber
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: the announcer of the all time greats. And he can
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: pick him there. Larry King once said about Red Barber,
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: Red Barber was an indelible part of my life. He
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: was the best sports announcer I ever heard. His voice
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: is the earliest memory of my life. Him and Arthur Godfrey.
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: I never heard anyone do a baseball game like him.
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: He was a journalist too.
• 27:09
  Speaker 2: Well, and this this is the thing, and I think
• 27:11
  Speaker 2: this is what most franchises learn, which is that's how
• 27:16
  Speaker 2: so many people that's the identity that that was their
• 27:20
  Speaker 2: connection to the team, listening to the radio and having
• 27:25
  Speaker 2: over time building that kind of stickiness actually allowed that
• 27:31
  Speaker 2: team to One could argue, if it isn't for McPhail
• 27:36
  Speaker 2: that that franchise fails. Yeah, Manchis has failed all the time. Yeah, yeah,
• 27:41
  Speaker 2: they're they're teetering. And he was an innovator even before
• 27:44
  Speaker 2: he got to the Dodgers. So when he was with
• 27:46
  Speaker 2: the Cincinnati Reds, they tried the first night game in majors.
• 27:50
  Speaker 2: Interesting enough as actually as an idea that came from
• 27:53
  Speaker 2: the Kansas City monitors of the Negro League.
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: So you know, well, obviously the Negro Leagues will have
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: a major impact on the Dodgers coming up. But that's
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: one thing Ebitsfield holds to the first night game in
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: New York, not the first overall.
• 28:04
  Speaker 2: And how about what's this was the accidental part of
• 28:09
  Speaker 2: history here, So the first night game in New York,
• 28:11
  Speaker 2: Ebbitts Field happens to take, happened to host perhaps one
• 28:18
  Speaker 2: of the most historic moments in the history of baseball.
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah, the date is June fifteenth, nineteen thirty eight. It
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: turns out to be the second of Johnny Vandermere's second
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: back to back no hitters, which to me, quick cyber
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: here shark, Yeah, the.
• 28:35
  Speaker 2: Most unbreakable record is Johnny Vadamer Cincinnati Red.
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: Right, we gotta make sure that right back to back
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: no hitters. Like to beat it, you gotta throw three
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: straight no hitters.
• 28:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and what manager today lets anybody go three straight
• 28:47
  Speaker 2: complete games?
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: Right?
• 28:48
  Speaker 2: If you don't pitch your no hitter and under one
• 28:50
  Speaker 2: hundred pitchers, you don't get a shot at your no
• 28:52
  Speaker 2: hitter anymore.
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: So we'll go through a few other things that that.
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: Mapeil added one of the first organs in a Major
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: League ballpark, an idea he got from Thedi Vigual Madison
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: Square Garden. First Night World Series game is played at
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: Bield in nineteen thirty nine.
• 29:07
  Speaker 2: Interesting to be August of that year.
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: In thirty nine, NBC it spent one hundred and twenty
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: five thousand dollars on the first mobile broadcast unit for
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: a televised game. It was a couple converted buses there
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: to game through cables that sent the signal to the
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: antenna's on top of the Empire State Building. So I
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: thought that was the Dodgers are linked to the Empire
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: State Building quite literally in that moment, at an innovative moment.
• 29:30
  Speaker 2: Not everything worked well. He had a yellow baseball that
• 29:32
  Speaker 2: they tried. He was kind of I mean, Larry McPhail
• 29:36
  Speaker 2: is Bill Veck before Bill Veck, And I'll be honest,
• 29:40
  Speaker 2: if we have to tell you who Bill Beck is,
• 29:41
  Speaker 2: then you're listening to a run podcasts. And I also
• 29:47
  Speaker 2: like this little fact about him. He was the first
• 29:50
  Speaker 2: one to use a plane to fly. He used to
• 29:53
  Speaker 2: have a team plane to allow his players to go
• 29:57
  Speaker 2: back and forth, and failed developed batting helmets after a
• 30:03
  Speaker 2: Dodger outfielder Joe Medwick was struck in the head by
• 30:05
  Speaker 2: a pitch. And I got to read you this one
• 30:07
  Speaker 2: quote from Leo Daroschia about Larry McPhail. There's a thin
• 30:11
  Speaker 2: line between genius and insanity, and in Larry's case, it
• 30:14
  Speaker 2: was so thin you could see him drifting back and forth.
• 30:17
  Speaker 2: But that is what you need in an innovator, right, Yeah,
• 30:19
  Speaker 2: not everything again, yellow baseball maybe not. The best idea
• 30:22
  Speaker 2: is forty one. You mentioned Demijo's inning Street forty one.
• 30:26
  Speaker 2: That's the year the hitting Street.
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: Ted William hits four oal six, the Dodgers win the
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: NL pennant, but they lose to the Yankees. And then
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: comes December seventh, nineteen forty one, the day that will
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: live in infamy. And McPhail actually joins the army even
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: though he's older, but he wanted to serve his country
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: at the time, which leads us to branch Rickey.
• 30:45
  Speaker 2: And that gets us a branch Rickey, who himself is
• 30:49
  Speaker 2: probably one of the you could argue he's one of
• 30:52
  Speaker 2: the four or five most important people in history of baseball, right,
• 30:56
  Speaker 2: I mean what he did with the car.
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: First of all, he builds the Cardinals. He is a bay.
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: I mean, that's the thing.
• 31:01
  Speaker 2: Branch Rickey and Walter O'Malley are the you know, it's
• 31:04
  Speaker 2: probably the first two people most people associate when they
• 31:07
  Speaker 2: think of Dodger history. But branch Rickey, he could have
• 31:10
  Speaker 2: never been with the Dodgers, and he'd have been considered
• 31:12
  Speaker 2: an iconic executive for everything he did with Saint Louis, Right.
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: But it's what he does with the Dodgers that you know,
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: enshrines him in the history of baseball.
• 31:20
  Speaker 2: All right, Before we leave the McPhail era, in some
• 31:22
  Speaker 2: ways as the general manager, his legacy was was more
• 31:28
  Speaker 2: everything around the field and inside business side, and and
• 31:33
  Speaker 2: and obviously it's branch Rickey that essentially makes them iconic
• 31:38
  Speaker 2: on the field, But there is an important legacy that
• 31:41
  Speaker 2: McPhail has that he turned the team called Dodger Blue
• 31:46
  Speaker 2: Wood does not originally Dodger blue. Larry McPhail brought us
• 31:49
  Speaker 2: Dodger Blue and the script Dodger logo, which is still
• 31:53
  Speaker 2: in use today. It's it's arguably as iconic now, probably
• 31:58
  Speaker 2: as iconic as the Yankee logo.
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: So that's his lasting gift, right, what a party is?
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: I mean, the Dodgers wouldn't be the least the name
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: wouldn't look the same.
• 32:08
  Speaker 2: We have so much change in our society all the time. Right,
• 32:11
  Speaker 2: the same Dodger logo in nineteen thirty eight is what
• 32:16
  Speaker 2: light tweak.
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: It's a little descript, but it is general with.
• 32:20
  Speaker 2: The swoosh and everything is basically the same.
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: You know.
• 32:25
  Speaker 2: You have teams like the Atlanta Falcons have change their
• 32:27
  Speaker 2: logo every other year.
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: When you're as iconic.
• 32:30
  Speaker 2: You know, that's another reminder if you want to be iconic,
• 32:33
  Speaker 2: don't mess around with your logo. Drege right classic and.
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: Certain things like the Coca Cola logo, which is kind
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: of similar. I wonder if you got the idea for it.
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: You know, it's the script logo. Yeah, with the with
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: the slush underneath and Coca Cola.
• 32:48
  Speaker 2: Halls is the dynamic ribbon. I think, oh, you're going
• 32:51
  Speaker 2: to make me go to mark device. You're gonna make
• 32:52
  Speaker 2: me it on a Coca Cola rabbit hole. One of
• 32:54
  Speaker 2: my favorite book business books I read of all time,
• 32:57
  Speaker 2: the Unauthorized Biography of Coca Cola. They invented Santa Claus
• 33:00
  Speaker 2: Red Santa Claus. Yeah, yeah, that's a whole other aspect
• 33:03
  Speaker 2: of it.
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: But the classic logos Coca Cola and you could associate
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: the Dodgers put them in that class, but they never
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: seem old someone.
• 33:12
  Speaker 2: Those start to look old and.
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: Outdated one hundred years later, and these great logos don't.
• 33:18
  Speaker 2: So we transition. Larry macphild World War Two starts. He
• 33:22
  Speaker 2: joins the army. He in some ways rescues the business
• 33:26
  Speaker 2: of the Dodgers and incomes branch Rickey.
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: And Ricky comes from the Saint Louis Browns, very virtuous guy,
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: right part of the temperance movement that led the prohibition.
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: He traded one future All Star because he heard a
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: rumor that he smoked marijuana. He actually wanted the team
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: to go back to the Bridegrooms now because he valued
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: merit so much that he thought, hey, we should go
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: back to the old name of the bridegrooms from when
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: the team had so many married players. Republican might in
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: this modern verse, Republican Party might seem as an unlikely
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: candidate for the one of the great moments of desegregation
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: in our country. But you know, this is closer to
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: the Abraham Lincoln mode of the Republican Party right than
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: maybe the modern group.
• 34:09
  Speaker 2: And he's the builder at the time he built the
• 34:11
  Speaker 2: he arguably built the Cardinals dynasty of the You know
• 34:15
  Speaker 2: the Cardinals, A lot of their stardom was in those
• 34:19
  Speaker 2: first fifty year gas House game.
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that era. That's a branch Ricky. You know, he
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: played at Ohio Wesleyan a nineteen fourth of Black teammate
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: named Charlie Thomas. And you know how did branch Ricky
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: become the way he did, right, and become one of
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: the principal figures of integration in the twentieth century. So
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: that their team went to South Bend to play Notre
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: Dame and they were told that his teammate Charlie Thomas
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: couldn't stay at the hotel you'd have to seek lodging elsewhere.
• 34:50
  Speaker 2: Ricky said, well, or Charlie.
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: Used to stay in my room. So it kind of
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: shows you that his integration of baseball was years in
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: the making, right, wasn't done in isolation and strictly at
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: that moment.
• 35:02
  Speaker 2: And it wasn't you know, some people thought it was
• 35:04
  Speaker 2: a business decision, and certainly acquiring better talent was obviously
• 35:10
  Speaker 2: a motivation, but clearly this was more embedded in who
• 35:14
  Speaker 2: he was.
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: And it's not just him, right, Like nothing happens, you know,
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: in a vacuum where with one individual, you know, mar
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: Lucy King gets a lot of credit. Like obviously it's
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: a whole you know, wave movement behind him. You know.
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: One of the.
• 35:30
  Speaker 2: One of my most iconic memories of being a White
• 35:32
  Speaker 2: House correspondent was being so in two thousand and nine,
• 35:37
  Speaker 2: Barack Obama is going to throw out the first pitch
• 35:40
  Speaker 2: at the All Star Game in Saint Lois. So the
• 35:44
  Speaker 2: way that used to work pool duty being an Air
• 35:47
  Speaker 2: Force one, you rotate, all the networks were rotated. Happened
• 35:52
  Speaker 2: to be NBC's turn. So I bigfooted our producer, I said, nope,
• 35:57
  Speaker 2: I'm going I went on this one because I had
• 36:00
  Speaker 2: heard we were going to pick up some special guests,
• 36:03
  Speaker 2: and so this was he had a We did a
• 36:05
  Speaker 2: stop in Detroit, and he did sort of a campaign,
• 36:07
  Speaker 2: you know, sort of your typical presidential talking about you know,
• 36:10
  Speaker 2: I think he was pushing his h he had an
• 36:13
  Speaker 2: economic plan then, but he picked up too, uh uh,
• 36:17
  Speaker 2: two gentlemen and one particular icon gentleman by the name
• 36:22
  Speaker 2: of Willie Mays. So we're begging Robert Gibbs, the press secretary,
• 36:26
  Speaker 2: bring Willie Mays back to the press cabin, and he
• 36:28
  Speaker 2: brings Willie Mayes back to the press cabin, and so
• 36:32
  Speaker 2: we're all everybody's peppering him with questions. By the way,
• 36:36
  Speaker 2: first guy, what was it like Dan against Kofax. It's
• 36:39
  Speaker 2: like literally the first question of like this one. And
• 36:41
  Speaker 2: I came up to him, I said, what's it like
• 36:43
  Speaker 2: to be on this plane right now? And Willie just
• 36:46
  Speaker 2: said something very simple to me.
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: He said that it was all worth it and him
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: not even being able to get housing in.
• 36:54
  Speaker 2: San Francisco and here he is flying on the plane.
• 36:58
  Speaker 2: He knew exactly what I was asking. I didn't have
• 37:00
  Speaker 2: to say. Riding on Air Force one with the first
• 37:02
  Speaker 2: black president I just said, that's all I said in
• 37:05
  Speaker 2: He Goes that everything I went through was worth wow,
• 37:07
  Speaker 2: and it was such It's one of the most powerful
• 37:10
  Speaker 2: memories I have of the sort of Hey, you know,
• 37:14
  Speaker 2: we're so cynical as reporters, right, You're probably cynical when
• 37:17
  Speaker 2: it comes to some of the sports guys you cover.
• 37:19
  Speaker 2: I get cynical with politics, But that moment, and I've
• 37:23
  Speaker 2: always thought that this is what makes the moment of
• 37:27
  Speaker 2: Jackie Robinson and what branch Ricky did. I mean, branch
• 37:32
  Speaker 2: Ricky helped set the country on a path to like
• 37:36
  Speaker 2: Barack Obama president, right, And so when you when you
• 37:39
  Speaker 2: realize that this is what this moment means and it
• 37:42
  Speaker 2: might go back to a guy at Ohio, Ohio westling Ear,
• 37:46
  Speaker 2: I mean, I just, I just this is why I
• 37:48
  Speaker 2: love doing from and why we wanted to do this
• 37:51
  Speaker 2: is that this all these threads all come together. This
• 37:55
  Speaker 2: is the American story, and this is why it's so
• 37:57
  Speaker 2: much fun to tell.
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: Us and so the America at this time, the mid forties,
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: you know, I'll go into historic mode for a moment here.
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: You know, we're coming out of World War Two and
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: so many black gis who had been to other parts
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: of the world, been to Europe, seeing how they were
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: treated there. They weren't discriminated against, you know, they were
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: considered American, they weren't considered negros as the term was
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: back then, and coming back and not feeling like they
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: wanted to accept the status quo anymore.
• 38:31
  Speaker 2: Hey, we've experienced fairness.
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: We've seen what it's like to be treated as a
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: full fledged person, human being, you know. So it starts
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: this animus, you know, as you get back home and
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: sort of this agitation and you know, refusal to kind
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: of go back to the way things were before they
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: had left for the war.
• 38:52
  Speaker 2: So that's out there.
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: You've got the black press, you know, sports writers like
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: Sam Lacy and Wendell Smith, who are you know, encouraging
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: baseball to integrate at his time. And you have the
• 39:05
  Speaker 1: communist press like the Daily Worker, who's in some ways
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: was ahead of the black press and wrote more stories
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: calling for integration than even the black press.
• 39:14
  Speaker 2: Well, you know, it's interesting about this, and I don't
• 39:16
  Speaker 2: you know, it's funny the word communism and what it
• 39:19
  Speaker 2: is seen as today. What people need to realize is
• 39:22
  Speaker 2: in the thirties and forties, the Communist party movement in
• 39:26
  Speaker 2: this country hadn't been dem Frankly, the Soviet Union discredited
• 39:32
  Speaker 2: the name right, But before the Soviet Union had fully
• 39:34
  Speaker 2: discredited the name, many what you would call progressives today
• 39:39
  Speaker 2: sort of affiliated with a lot of college professors. There's
• 39:42
  Speaker 2: a you know, the Oppenheimer, the great Oppenheimer Biger of
• 39:46
  Speaker 2: the movie that the book that the movie is based on,
• 39:49
  Speaker 2: gets into this, and it's sort of like when he's all,
• 39:51
  Speaker 2: you know, you know, when they're trying to go root
• 39:54
  Speaker 2: him out, aren't you a communist advisor? The fact is
• 39:56
  Speaker 2: in the thirties and most college professors were com and
• 40:00
  Speaker 2: a party sympathizes because they were the only party calling
• 40:03
  Speaker 2: for integration.
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: This is what it was about.
• 40:05
  Speaker 2: It was the only party in an American politics, in
• 40:08
  Speaker 2: the social justice movement. Now again, the Soviet Union discredits
• 40:12
  Speaker 2: the word down the road, which is why I think
• 40:15
  Speaker 2: sometimes history messes this up to be frank.
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: So, their their point at the time was that capitalism
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: work by fostering the scent between the black and the
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: white workers, you know, and they were they were looking
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: to advance the workers. Communism work by or it succeeded.
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: It gained power in the United States right by recruiting
• 40:34
  Speaker 1: oppressed workers regardless of race, you know. And here, you know,
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: we talked about market inefficiencies, right, So if you have
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: an ignored group of people and you're trying to advance
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: your cause, So appealing to black people was part of
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: the way to strengthen communism, right, And they were saying, hey,
• 40:52
  Speaker 1: you know, we can build a movement through having the
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: most amount of people. And they saw baseball as part
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: of the way to broaden the fel of communist If
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: we appeal of these folks, you know, through our message
• 41:04
  Speaker 1: that we welcome them, you know, we'll have a stronger movement.
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: Another person I talk about him in my class who
• 41:09
  Speaker 1: was at the forefront of this, Shirley Povich the Great
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: Washington Post, for his calmness. So I actually had the
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: privilege of working like it's amazing. So I'm referencing a
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: calm he wrote in nineteen thirty nine, amazing. I worked
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: alongside him at the Washington Post in the nineteen nineties.
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: You know Jerli Popric who was at the Dempsey Tunny
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: Long Count in Chicago. You know who was at the
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: Babe Ruth called shot game, Rickley Feel and he said,
• 41:33
  Speaker 1: Babe Ruth did not call a shot. He was pointing
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: at the picture, you know and calling him ALOUSI so
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: and so he wasn't calling at that right, I'm going
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: with Shirley Poprich's guy who was there. You can go
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: with the lore, with the mythology of the college shot.
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: Shirley Povich said he didn't call the shot. Well, and
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: this has been the struggle. You know, if Jay and
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: I have had one.
• 41:52
  Speaker 2: Struggle as we do this together, it's we don't want
• 41:55
  Speaker 2: to burst too many of your men bubbles. But you
• 41:57
  Speaker 2: know that's what happens. The more you the more you learn,
• 42:00
  Speaker 2: the learn.
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: So what he saw in this November seventh game, Shirley
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: provits and Walter Johnson the age rain another great Scholey
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: provids like he'll just chople on, like Walter Johnson wants
• 42:13
  Speaker 1: told me Walter Johnson. So in this case, Shirley and
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: his buddy Walter Johnson go to a Negro League game
• 42:19
  Speaker 1: in Orlando. It's a Homestead Grays versus Newer Eagles, and
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: Povish writes, there's a couple of million dollars worth of
• 42:25
  Speaker 1: baseball talent on the loose, ready for the big leagues,
• 42:28
  Speaker 1: yet unsigned by any major league clubs. They're pitchers who
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: would win twenty games this season for any big league
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: club that offer them contracts. And they are outfielders who
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: woud hit three fifty infilters, who could win quick recognition
• 42:38
  Speaker 1: of stars. Only one thing is keeping out keeping them
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: out of the big leagues the pigmentation of their skin.
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: They happen to be colored. That's their crime in the
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: eyes of big league owner.
• 42:48
  Speaker 2: This is Shirley Povich in nineteen thirty nine. So here
• 42:52
  Speaker 2: we are so a branch rickey. He signed these guys
• 42:55
  Speaker 2: in nineteen forty five. People forget and this was always
• 42:58
  Speaker 2: something to me. It's interesting. We talk about nineteen forty
• 43:00
  Speaker 2: seven and April fifteenth to nineteen forty seven, but he
• 43:05
  Speaker 2: does this two years earlier when he signs. When he signs,
• 43:09
  Speaker 2: three players are pretty quickly in succession, Robinson and Don Newcomb,
• 43:15
  Speaker 2: then Roy camping out.
• 43:16
  Speaker 1: And he's very purposeful. So he tells Red Barber, the
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: Dodger broadcaster in nineteen forty five, I'm going to bring
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: a Negro to the Dodger, to the Brooklyn Dodgers. So
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: again it's not yeah like in the movie, work.
• 43:31
  Speaker 2: Right, it's all just like happened. No, I mean this
• 43:33
  Speaker 2: was you know, look, this was carefully planned out. This
• 43:36
  Speaker 2: was signed in nineteen forty five, integrated into the minor
• 43:39
  Speaker 2: league system, so that there was essentially you know, this
• 43:43
  Speaker 2: wasn't just hurry up and expose these young men to
• 43:47
  Speaker 2: what was going to be a very hostile environment. And
• 43:50
  Speaker 2: it also say it helps because they died.
• 43:53
  Speaker 1: But the healthy Kennison Mountain liond this the longtime baseball
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: commissioner who was very anti integration.
• 43:59
  Speaker 2: He dies a hard disease.
• 44:01
  Speaker 1: Age seventy eight and nineteen forty four, right, so that
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: not his dead body.
• 44:05
  Speaker 2: Not a coincidence. It finds that it's nineteen forty five.
• 44:08
  Speaker 2: Kenna saw mad Lands has to die right for baseball
• 44:12
  Speaker 2: to integrate in nineteen forty five. I think what's interesting
• 44:15
  Speaker 2: is is is the the decision why Robinson versus Campanella
• 44:25
  Speaker 2: versus newcome right, and there was always been then there's
• 44:28
  Speaker 2: a lot of miss there's a lot of mythology and
• 44:31
  Speaker 2: lore about which, but ultimately with it makes a lot
• 44:37
  Speaker 2: of sense to me why Ricky thought Robinson was the
• 44:40
  Speaker 2: guy to handle the moment. He was college educated, he'd
• 44:42
  Speaker 2: gone to Ucla. He lived in a milder racially, right,
• 44:50
  Speaker 2: And you dug up a fun fact about because you know,
• 44:54
  Speaker 2: one of the things that doesn't it gets lost, is
• 44:58
  Speaker 2: that the NFL technically integrated before Major League Baseball. Yeah,
• 45:03
  Speaker 2: there was a specific law of why this happened.
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah. So, and it also goes to speak the place
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: of baseball and football. The reason why we think of
• 45:15
  Speaker 1: Jackie Robinson and we think about the Dodgers moving to
• 45:18
  Speaker 1: LA as being you know, this transformative moment in sports. Well,
• 45:22
  Speaker 1: the Rams had done it earlier, right on both counts,
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: but baseball was just so much more important that it
• 45:29
  Speaker 1: didn't matter as much until baseball did it. So the
• 45:32
  Speaker 1: Rams had integrated the NFL the year before, and they
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: moved to Los Angeles a decade before the Dodgers. First
• 45:38
  Speaker 1: of all, they integrated the NFL the year before Jackie
• 45:41
  Speaker 1: Robinson joins the Dodgers. They weren't as heralded, though. You
• 45:46
  Speaker 1: can make a case the Rams integrated because they moved
• 45:49
  Speaker 1: to Los Angeles. So they played in the coliseum, right,
• 45:51
  Speaker 1: it's still in use today by the USC. It was
• 45:55
  Speaker 1: publicly owned and California had anti segregation laws. So the Rams,
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: in order to play in the coliseum had to be integrated,
• 46:04
  Speaker 1: and so they signed the running back Kenny Washington with
• 46:07
  Speaker 1: Jackie's teammate, and.
• 46:10
  Speaker 2: So it is, and there's a by the way the
• 46:12
  Speaker 2: Rams will be. The Rams play an interesting role here too,
• 46:15
  Speaker 2: because the Rams initial struggle to just function as a
• 46:19
  Speaker 2: franchise and have to travel by train is why eventually
• 46:24
  Speaker 2: Walter O'Malley convinces the owner of the Giants toock on
• 46:26
  Speaker 2: West with him so they could have a slightly easier
• 46:29
  Speaker 2: time creating a Major League Baseball.
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: But you talked about Jackie as you know, the choice
• 46:35
  Speaker 1: and why, and so one thing that is, maybe it's
• 46:38
  Speaker 1: kind of true. We're not firsting a bit. But August
• 46:41
  Speaker 1: twenty ninth to nineteen forty five, Jackie goes to the
• 46:43
  Speaker 1: Dodgers offices and Ricky meets with them and hits him
• 46:47
  Speaker 1: with every racist tunt he can think of. Jackie stood
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: up and you know, a little bit contentious, but you know,
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: ranch Ricky made him promise not to retaliate, you know,
• 46:58
  Speaker 1: if you're subjected to these types of tons, and.
• 47:01
  Speaker 2: Well, we remember Robinson was actually had a little bit
• 47:04
  Speaker 2: of was known to have a temper. Odam Court martial
• 47:06
  Speaker 2: in the Army in nineteen forty four. So in some ways,
• 47:10
  Speaker 2: because of that moment, this was Ricky sort of saying okay,
• 47:13
  Speaker 2: and why was he court martial because he refused to
• 47:16
  Speaker 2: go to the back of a segregated army bus at
• 47:19
  Speaker 2: Fort Wood, Texas. And that's why Robinson was court martialed.
• 47:22
  Speaker 2: So he was very principled. We look back at it,
• 47:25
  Speaker 2: that would be a heroic move, but it wasn't treated
• 47:28
  Speaker 2: by an heroic move by our US government.
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: So Robinson passes the test in this moment, and then
• 47:35
  Speaker 1: our COVID twenty third nineteen forty five signs the contract
• 47:39
  Speaker 1: with Montreal Royals February tenth, and next year he marries
• 47:43
  Speaker 1: Rachel who was still with its twenty six just an amazing,
• 47:49
  Speaker 1: amazing book.
• 47:50
  Speaker 2: What's interesting is that what's funny about Jackie Robinson because
• 47:54
  Speaker 2: it you know, you look at his Major League baseball
• 47:58
  Speaker 2: playing career and you think, oh, was kind of a
• 48:00
  Speaker 2: short career, But he was twenty eighth nineteen forty cent. Yeah,
• 48:04
  Speaker 2: he was actually by the way, today, nobody would want
• 48:06
  Speaker 2: to sign a twenty eight year old. He don't give
• 48:08
  Speaker 2: him a long term contract. Is already passed his prime,
• 48:12
  Speaker 2: but in some ways that extra few years of maturity.
• 48:17
  Speaker 2: I mean, Campanella was twenty three and had only had
• 48:20
  Speaker 2: an eighth grade education, and that was something that Ricky thought.
• 48:24
  Speaker 2: He didn't want to put Campanella in that position. And
• 48:26
  Speaker 2: Nuklem was super young, he was nineteen.
• 48:28
  Speaker 1: It's interesting because I had thought of the drawbacks. You
• 48:32
  Speaker 1: know that the segregation, you know, denied the Dodgers, denied
• 48:36
  Speaker 1: Major League Baseball, denied Jackie these opportunities. But putting it
• 48:41
  Speaker 1: that way that you know, they might have benefited just
• 48:45
  Speaker 1: because of what they were going into, right, being better
• 48:50
  Speaker 1: prepared to deal with what they were about to face.
• 48:54
  Speaker 1: You know that they came along at the right time,
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: right they were born at the right time, because it
• 49:00
  Speaker 1: allowed them to face this moment at that age.
• 49:03
  Speaker 2: In you'll like, I have one more fun fact for you,
• 49:07
  Speaker 2: because as the sports writer of the two of us here,
• 49:09
  Speaker 2: you'll appreciate this. So brand Tricky was talking to various
• 49:13
  Speaker 2: people to get advice about which black players to sign,
• 49:17
  Speaker 2: and one guy he consulted was a gentleman by the
• 49:19
  Speaker 2: name of Wendall Smith, who was the writer for the
• 49:24
  Speaker 2: black weekly The Pittsburgh Courier and Bill Veck always claimed
• 49:29
  Speaker 2: that Wendall Smith should get credit for Jackie Robinson because
• 49:34
  Speaker 2: he reckoned he initially recoonsentid that Robinson had the right
• 49:37
  Speaker 2: combination of talent and temperament.
• 49:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so that's it's kind of being I don't know, corroborated,
• 49:46
  Speaker 1: but that's kind of become the accepted.
• 49:50
  Speaker 2: Narrative of it, because, you know, if you just want,
• 49:53
  Speaker 2: we're saying who is the best of the three. Campanella
• 49:55
  Speaker 2: was the best player in the in in the Negro
• 49:58
  Speaker 2: leagues at the time of his signing, arguably.
• 50:02
  Speaker 1: But a lot of people credit Wendall Smith for just, yeah,
• 50:04
  Speaker 1: for making branch Ricky aware of Jackie Robinson right and
• 50:08
  Speaker 1: bringing him to his attention. So the players, supposedly, you know,
• 50:15
  Speaker 1: the white players on the Dodgers, there was stories that
• 50:18
  Speaker 1: they were going to sign a petition saying that they
• 50:20
  Speaker 1: didn't want to play with him. The rocher, the manager
• 50:24
  Speaker 1: was worried that he wouldn't get a World Series bonus
• 50:26
  Speaker 1: without Jackie, so he tells him they could take their
• 50:31
  Speaker 1: petition and wipe their asses with it. He said, I'm
• 50:34
  Speaker 1: the manager of the ball club and I'm interested in
• 50:36
  Speaker 1: one thing winning, So I guess that was the last revolt,
• 50:43
  Speaker 1: internal revolt that they get snuffed out, and then the
• 50:46
  Speaker 1: Dodge making official on April tenth, arguably the most significant
• 50:52
  Speaker 1: short statement. You know, we think a great short statements
• 50:55
  Speaker 1: like Mike Jordan, I'm back, Yeah, but the exact wording was,
• 50:58
  Speaker 1: the Brooklyn Dodgers today purchased the contract of Jackie Roosevelt
• 51:01
  Speaker 1: Robinson from the Montreal rot Royals. Report.
• 51:04
  Speaker 2: Immediately there you go with that. Baseball is changed forever
• 51:12
  Speaker 2: on that front. Jackie Robinson was never comfortable with the
• 51:15
  Speaker 2: position he was putting, was he, if you believe.
• 51:18
  Speaker 1: His memoir, Although he accepted it though you know he
• 51:25
  Speaker 1: did wear it. It was hard. It's hard to to
• 51:30
  Speaker 1: dispute or counter the notion that going through this led
• 51:34
  Speaker 1: to look at the constitution of his wife, Rachel.
• 51:38
  Speaker 2: She in some ways is and you know, it's just
• 51:41
  Speaker 2: a it's remarkable, demanding. I'm confessing my age. Jackie Robinson
• 51:46
  Speaker 2: died the year I was born, nineteen seventy two, and
• 51:50
  Speaker 2: here's Rachel Robinson and someone who's been alive longer and
• 51:54
  Speaker 2: has been missus Jackie Robinson's had She's had to be
• 51:58
  Speaker 2: this identity and that's not you know, that's that's that's
• 52:02
  Speaker 2: that's not a choice. That's just sort of in some
• 52:04
  Speaker 2: ways thrust upon her. But she has been in some
• 52:08
  Speaker 2: ways she's helped. I think, uh, just magnify the ways.
• 52:14
  Speaker 1: And magnifies great work because she's magnificent and regal.
• 52:19
  Speaker 2: And I had the privilege of interviewing her once I
• 52:22
  Speaker 2: meet the press with Ken Burns when they were doing
• 52:24
  Speaker 2: that updated version of Baseball and they updated it. Yeah,
• 52:26
  Speaker 2: he's just majestic. When you see her in the room,
• 52:29
  Speaker 2: there is it's a there's this feeling it's almost like
• 52:32
  Speaker 2: a grand dame. Like it's just like police part ways,
• 52:36
  Speaker 2: you know. And I don't want to say the word
• 52:38
  Speaker 2: diva to make it sound like a negative more of
• 52:40
  Speaker 2: in the no no, no, no, she is she is.
• 52:44
  Speaker 2: There's a feeling of royalty one.
• 52:46
  Speaker 1: Thing with Rachel while we're on here, you know, going
• 52:48
  Speaker 1: forward the legacy of Jackie, it was interesting, so it
• 52:52
  Speaker 1: became somewhat ironic as Jackie Robinson Day was celebrated and
• 52:56
  Speaker 1: bud Sea League and one of the great things he
• 52:58
  Speaker 1: did in the Senior's Commissioner, you know, retiring Jackie's number
• 53:01
  Speaker 1: throughout baseball and having everyone on April fifteen. All players
• 53:04
  Speaker 1: too out baseball. We're number forty two. And the sad
• 53:08
  Speaker 1: part though, was that there were some years in which
• 53:12
  Speaker 1: the Dodgers didn't have any black players on the roster
• 53:14
  Speaker 1: as they celebrated Jackie Robinson Day. That's always stuck with
• 53:17
  Speaker 1: me that you know, we can celebrate, you know, the
• 53:20
  Speaker 1: globalization of the game. And as we take this, we're
• 53:22
  Speaker 1: just coming off the fantastic you know, well Place Well
• 53:24
  Speaker 1: Baseball Classic, and you know, we see how much the
• 53:27
  Speaker 1: sport matters to so many places and how many people
• 53:29
  Speaker 1: are getting the chance to play, regardless of their background.
• 53:33
  Speaker 1: But let's not forget what Jackie Robinson fought for. You know,
• 53:36
  Speaker 1: the opportunities for black players have been denied until he
• 53:40
  Speaker 1: came around, and what he had to endure to keep
• 53:43
  Speaker 1: the dove for black players to polish.
• 53:45
  Speaker 2: No, it's been interesting as baseball came back to Washington,
• 53:47
  Speaker 2: and Washington is a largely African American city and to see,
• 53:57
  Speaker 2: I always say Washington and LA and New York and
• 54:01
  Speaker 2: there's only a handful of cities where the fan base
• 54:04
  Speaker 2: is as diverse as the players on the field. And
• 54:08
  Speaker 2: you see that and what the Nationals have done a
• 54:11
  Speaker 2: pretty good job of the James Wood c. J.
• 54:15
  Speaker 1: Abrams.
• 54:15
  Speaker 2: They're one of the few teams that have multiple African
• 54:17
  Speaker 2: American players starting.
• 54:20
  Speaker 1: But it is, it is.
• 54:21
  Speaker 2: It is still something that's in the single digits percentage wise,
• 54:24
  Speaker 2: and it's just it's it's it really bothers baseball. Have
• 54:28
  Speaker 2: you noticed that Baseball's leaders it's not something they're comfortable about.
• 54:31
  Speaker 1: It's kind of interesting, you know, we think at this
• 54:33
  Speaker 1: moment when I celebrate now full fifteen ninety forty seven
• 54:35
  Speaker 1: six thouts at emits Field, little mention of Jackie Robinson
• 54:40
  Speaker 1: in the New York Times, I've called up the column
• 54:43
  Speaker 1: and showed it to my classes before, Like it's like
• 54:45
  Speaker 1: the twentieth paragraph from the.
• 54:47
  Speaker 2: Calumnist or ano they're plane land safely at an airport
• 54:50
  Speaker 2: or something. As how they treated it.
• 54:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's basically like, yeah, you know, you know the
• 54:54
  Speaker 1: negro player did okay, and you know it didn't seem
• 54:57
  Speaker 1: to be at an issue. Fortunately, Sam Lacey was there
• 55:01
  Speaker 1: from the Baltimore Afro American and he actually rides home
• 55:06
  Speaker 1: with Jackie. He in Yeah, the only interview, so you know,
• 55:10
  Speaker 1: none of so the black sports writers weren't allowed in
• 55:13
  Speaker 1: the clubhouse. You know, the clubhouse is still and the
• 55:20
  Speaker 1: white writers weren't that interested. Well, first of all, they
• 55:22
  Speaker 1: didn't really go in the clubhouse a lot then anyway,
• 55:24
  Speaker 1: and quotes from players that kind of comes along later
• 55:27
  Speaker 1: in vinje's' sixties. But but Sam Lacy rides home with
• 55:31
  Speaker 1: him and and basically Jackie's thoughts, and he says, you know,
• 55:37
  Speaker 1: that went along swell, and he's very pleased that there
• 55:40
  Speaker 1: weren't that many issues with his teammates, and I think
• 55:42
  Speaker 1: he was bracing for some. But he's just kind of
• 55:44
  Speaker 1: satisfied and relieved, and thank goodness for Sam Lacey that
• 55:49
  Speaker 1: we have this, you know this, Really the only things
• 55:53
  Speaker 1: that we hear from Jackie on that day, on this
• 55:55
  Speaker 1: historic day are in the car ride home.
• 55:58
  Speaker 2: Let me throw something at just get in the Hall
• 56:00
  Speaker 2: of Fame without that moment with Jackie.
• 56:03
  Speaker 1: So, you know, Jonathan I, who wrote the book Opening
• 56:07
  Speaker 1: Day about Jackie's adamant about it, and it was kind
• 56:10
  Speaker 1: of debunked that the moment which the references, you know,
• 56:14
  Speaker 1: they're they're getting all kinds of cat calls and booze
• 56:18
  Speaker 1: and things in Cincinnati, I believe is where it's supposed
• 56:21
  Speaker 1: to have taken place. Right, and that pee Wee Reeves
• 56:23
  Speaker 1: goes over and puts his arm around Jackie Robinson. There's
• 56:27
  Speaker 1: no contemporary accounting for that in all the writing of
• 56:32
  Speaker 1: that season. There might have been a moment that happened later. Well,
• 56:36
  Speaker 1: Reece confirms the moment. He told Roger Kahn. He said,
• 56:39
  Speaker 1: I was just trying to make the world a little
• 56:41
  Speaker 1: bit better. That's what you're supposed to do with your life,
• 56:43
  Speaker 1: isn't it. And Rachel Robinson is quoted as saying, I
• 56:47
  Speaker 1: thought it was a very supportive gesture and very instinctive
• 56:50
  Speaker 1: of pee Wee's part. You shouldn't forget that pee Wee
• 56:52
  Speaker 1: was the captain, he led the way. Pee Wee was
• 56:54
  Speaker 1: more than a friend. Pee Wee was a good man.
• 56:56
  Speaker 1: And that's Rachel Robens. But if it did happen, it
• 56:58
  Speaker 1: didn't happen that a the way. Yeah, there might have
• 57:02
  Speaker 1: been a moment that happened later, and it wasn't quite
• 57:04
  Speaker 1: as dramatic. But Jonathan i Fol surprize winning biographer of
• 57:09
  Speaker 1: Martin Luther King with biographies of Ali in addition to
• 57:12
  Speaker 1: Jackie Robinson, he insists that it didn't happen is the
• 57:17
  Speaker 1: way it's gone down and right, and and you like
• 57:20
  Speaker 1: to have these Hollywood moments, right, we like to tell
• 57:23
  Speaker 1: ourselves these stories. And it didn't always play like you know,
• 57:29
  Speaker 1: one of the reasons. So for the book, Rachel kind
• 57:32
  Speaker 1: of pushes back on it out it's hissing. Both Jackie
• 57:35
  Speaker 1: and Rachel kind of came around to it. Pee Wee
• 57:37
  Speaker 1: Reese kind of.
• 57:38
  Speaker 2: Well, because it seems like they all wanted and clearly
• 57:42
  Speaker 2: pee Wee Reese played that role. Yeah, generally he was
• 57:46
  Speaker 2: the team captain. He made it clear, Hey, I'm okay,
• 57:49
  Speaker 2: so you better be okay. Right, So there's no doubt
• 57:52
  Speaker 2: that Rachel and Jackie are forgever grateful that Pee Wee
• 57:55
  Speaker 2: Reese played a leadership role, right, whether it was that
• 57:57
  Speaker 2: moment it is not.
• 57:59
  Speaker 1: They even made statue I think, you know they really Yeah. Well,
• 58:03
  Speaker 1: here's what Jackie wrote in his own memoir. This is
• 58:05
  Speaker 1: a good quote.
• 58:06
  Speaker 2: He wrote about a similar incident. Wasn't in the Cincinnati
• 58:09
  Speaker 2: in forty seven. He writes about an incident in Boston,
• 58:11
  Speaker 2: Auston in forty eight, and he says in Boston, during
• 58:13
  Speaker 2: a period when the heckling pressure seemed unbearable, some of
• 58:17
  Speaker 2: the key some of the players began to heckle Reese.
• 58:19
  Speaker 2: They were writing him about being a Southerner and playing
• 58:22
  Speaker 2: ball with a black man. Pee Wee didn't answer them
• 58:24
  Speaker 2: without a glance in their direction. He left his position,
• 58:27
  Speaker 2: walked over to me and put his hand on my
• 58:28
  Speaker 2: shoulder and began talking to me. His words weren't important.
• 58:31
  Speaker 2: I don't even remember what he said. It was the
• 58:33
  Speaker 2: gesture of comradeship and support that counted. So the point
• 58:39
  Speaker 2: was the Robinsons clearly knew that Peewee was in their
• 58:44
  Speaker 2: corner and he wasn't going to do se But he
• 58:46
  Speaker 2: grew up in Kentucky, which Kentucky border state as it's there.
• 58:50
  Speaker 1: Were a lot of Southern players that the Brooklyn Dodgers,
• 58:52
  Speaker 1: but a lot of their players came from the South,
• 58:55
  Speaker 1: and you know, not all of them were as welcoming
• 58:58
  Speaker 1: to Jackie.
• 58:59
  Speaker 2: And it is worth pe we reason never signed the
• 59:01
  Speaker 2: petition to say when the when the players were. When
• 59:03
  Speaker 2: there were some players circulating a position saying that they
• 59:05
  Speaker 2: wouldn't play with Robinson v was called out.
• 59:08
  Speaker 1: Pe We've refused to sign it.
• 59:09
  Speaker 2: So this is so regardless of the legend, this is
• 59:14
  Speaker 2: a case where maybe the maybe maybe the story itself
• 59:19
  Speaker 2: isn't true, but the spirit is factually true.
• 59:24
  Speaker 1: The Dodgers win a pennant that year, they lost to
• 59:26
  Speaker 1: the Yankees in the World Series, which this.
• 59:28
  Speaker 2: Really arguably begins the legend that is the Dodgers Yankees rivalry.
• 59:33
  Speaker 2: When you say that, you know that in some ways
• 59:36
  Speaker 2: forty three eight it like all they're more of a
• 59:38
  Speaker 2: legit rival to them, because it's finally the Dodgers actually
• 59:41
  Speaker 2: weren't that successful or a franchise really until yes, they
• 59:44
  Speaker 2: had a couple of pendants here there, but forty seven
• 59:47
  Speaker 2: is arguably the beginning of their march towards dynastic.
• 59:54
  Speaker 1: Kiss Jackie helps the National League attendance average one point
• 59:58
  Speaker 1: three million for team that year, which was a record.
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 1: So not only the Dodgers had twenty thousand distionale tickets sold,
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 1: that was ten percent of the boost that year. But obviously,
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 1: you know, we go on the road and you know,
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 1: black people around the country. Was to the extent that
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 1: they that they were not allowed to Yeah, yeah, it's
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 1: an extent that they could come. You know, they couldn't
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 1: sit everywhere in the ballpark for sure, but they uh,
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 1: you know, he was box office too.
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 2: The nineteen fifties Dodgers. It's a first of all. Campanella
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 2: wins three MVPs in five years, it feels like and then,
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 2: of course like the next big moment in Dodger history
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 2: is the loss of Campanella.
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 1: Arguably, Yeah, and in well before the loss of it,
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 1: there was a great victory in nineteen fifty five, right,
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 1: and that's what.
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 2: Makes it so much harder. Right, fifty five. By the way,
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 2: I love this. He was remember in the there was
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 2: about ten years it seemed like the Giants only could
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 2: win it even numbered years. Well, Camping only won MVPs
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 2: at not numbered Yeah, fifty one, fifty three, and fifty five.
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 2: I don't know why not fifty fifty two, fifty four
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 2: not so good. But fifty one to fifty three, fifty
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 2: five he wins the MVPs, and fifty five.
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 1: Is the one they finally break through, the final breakthrough
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 1: and win. Johnny Padras the winning pitcher and the championship
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 1: clinching game was seriously. My link to that came kind
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 1: of decades later. So. Kareem Abdul Jabbar, who grew up
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 1: in Harlem, was a Dodger fan, as most black fans were,
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 1: regardless of where you live, right, Black, We were rooted
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 1: for the Dodgers, right, a big Dodger fan from their
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 1: time in New York, and so the Lakers in nineteen
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 1: eighty five. So thirty years later we're the thing. It
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 1: seems like a short time now now back, But thirty
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 1: years later they finally beat the Celtics for the first
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 1: time in franchise history. Remember Kareem singing he felt like
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 1: Johnny Padre, you know, beat in the.
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 2: Yankees because he's an old Yeah he was, you know,
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 2: grew up in New York City.
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah, So I thought that it was an instant reference
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 1: for a basketball player in nineteen eighty five to look
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 1: back to nineteen fifty five and the Dodgers. But it
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 1: just showed you kind of the enduring impact of that moment,
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 1: and you know, the moment that the underdogs come out
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 1: on top.
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 2: And that's and that's their reputation. I will I will
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 2: admit that the Dodgers being the King of the King
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 2: of Baseball over the last few years is so weird
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 2: to me because the entire identity of the Dodgers has
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 2: always been the underdog, the other bureau burrow, the outsider,
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 2: the bombs right that, you know, they've always been the
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 2: you know, and and they couldn't buy their way in.
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 2: They weren't the rich guys. They were the working class guys,
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 2: you know. And so it is sort of strange for
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 2: me that now they're the Now they're the rich guys,
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 2: they're new money. You will Walter O'Malley in many ways,
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 2: he's probably, you know, we've got he's another one here.
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 2: You've got the We have Larry McPhail, you have branch Rickey,
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 2: and then you have Walter O'Malley and Walter O'Malley. What's
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 2: interesting about him is that he joins the Dodgers just
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 2: simply as legal counsel.
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah. He works with the Brooklyn Trust Company, which handled
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 1: a lot of the Dodgers financing, and he finds out
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 1: that the McKiever family wants to sell their shares in
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 1: the team because they notified.
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 2: The team lorder.
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 1: He's the team lawyer, and he winds up buying instead,
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 1: though the more valuable shared the average shares for a
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 1: million dollars in mid forties. There's a great what if
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 1: in the book Forever Blue about the Dodgers that Joseph Kennedy,
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 1: scion of the Kennedy family had considered buying a share
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 1: of the Dodgers for one point three million and installing
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 1: his son Jack Kennedy as a president of the team.
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 2: About that so over, George W. Bush, Yeah, Jack Kennedy
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 2: could have been the first baseball mana president.
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 1: Maybe he doesn't go into politics all those things. I mean,
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 1: that's a pivotal moment in the history of the country, right.
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 2: Well, what's interesting also is that he kind of out
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 2: maneuvers Branch Rickey their partners at first. But Branch Ricky
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 2: at the end of the day, cared about baseball. Walter
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 2: O'Malley was a businessman, and.
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah, there's a power struggle, and so O'Malley wants up
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 1: buying him out. And then after that he makes it
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 1: clear that in order to work for the Dodgers, you
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 1: have to wear a personal allegiance to him. So all
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 1: the Ricky loyalists would have to go. And then Ricky
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 1: gets hired to run the Pittsburgh organization, and the number
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 1: of his people and scouts, they in front office people,
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 1: they leave Brooklyn to join him. The ones who stayed
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 1: three noble ones stayed with O'Malley, Buzzy Bavas, Rescoe, Thompson,
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 1: and now Campani. The base in campanis in particular names
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 1: that stayed with the Dodgers and resonate for a decade.
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 2: Not to sort of go to the end before we
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 2: go to the beginning of the sort of the move
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 2: to La you know, spoiler alert, the Dodgers end up
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 2: moving to La here. But my favorite little nugget from
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 2: Buzzy Vives is that so they took a vote in
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 2: the Dodger organization about doing the move. It was eight
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 2: to one against moving, but there was one vote that
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 2: mattered the most. Let's just say it was Walter home
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 2: Alley's vote. Well, what's interesting is how look, O'Malley understood that.
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 2: And to me, this is what gets to our theme
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 2: of barrier breakers. Like okay, he was like, how do
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 2: I find more revenue? And he saw the stadium as
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 2: key to more revenue. State he'd love parking revenue, He'd
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 2: love so at first he was trying to figure out
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 2: how can he reconstruct Abbottsfield, How could he find a
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 2: way to you know, find more parking or find find
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 2: new ways Because we were seeing the suburbanization right after
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 2: World War Two, there was the suburbanization. Yeah, it's a
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 2: changing Brooklyn in the fifties.
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 1: Now post war, the white Brooklyn Nights are moving further out,
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 1: so they're losing the core of their fan base. The
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 1: Brooklyn Navy Shipbuilding Yard, which should you know peak during
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 1: the war effort that that's down literally by fifty one.
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 1: The black was chrolley that ran by ebbitts Field to
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 1: want to help give the team the nickname, right stopped running,
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 1: So how can you even be the Brooklyn Dodgers anymore?
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 1: And abts Field is.
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 2: You know, yeah, starting to fll apart and arguably you know,
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 2: so this is where this is why, this is frankly
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 2: why you and I joined forces. Right, I'm coming at
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 2: it in some ways as a political history buff. This
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 2: is the debate who lost the Brooklyn Dodgers. Do you
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 2: blame Robert Moses, you blame Walter O'Malley and I am?
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 1: I am sort of of.
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 2: The mindset that in some ways they just they just
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 2: had two different visions of what American city life was
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 2: going to look like. O'Malley assumed he wanted a stadium
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 2: that was urban. He wanted a stadium that was frankly
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 2: available on public transportation right, and Moses assumed that the
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 2: car was going to I mean, look, this is why
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 2: that he built all those horrible highways that exist.
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 1: Now to this day.
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 2: But he assumed everything was going to be suburbanization, which
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 2: is why he rejected every idea that Walter O'Malley had
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 2: for either building a new stadium or expanding in Brooklyn.
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 2: He desperately wanted to move the Dodgers to Queens.
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's kind of ironic that Dodger Stadium in la
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 1: becomes like a shrine to the automobile culture of the fifties.
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 2: Right when O'Malley actually was this guy. I mean, you know,
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 2: when we think about our debates today about suburbanization versus urbanization,
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 2: and you know, how reliant are we on the car,
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 2: it is ironic that the owner, the guy that was
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 2: on the side of no, no, no, no, we should make
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 2: it public available for public transportation, goes to the least
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 2: friendly public transportation community in America.
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 1: Well, it's instant that the book Forever Blue of that
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 1: side of the lot, it's pretty favorable to O'Malley that
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 1: it takes the stance that O'Malley did everything he could
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 1: to try to keep the Dodgs, that he was interested that,
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 1: you know, even while he's like flying to La for me,
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 1: like still advocating and keep the team in Brooklyn.
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 2: Now we should talk about the fact that La wanted
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 2: a team. LA was shopping for a team, and there
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 2: was a lot of Look, there was a time, I
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 2: think that Dodgers are the only team making money in
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 2: the National League at one point in the fifties. I mean,
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 2: baseball was not making money and you had you had
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 2: the Saint Louis Browns moved to Baltimore, you have the
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 2: Boston Brace movement in Milwaukee. There's there's everybody searching for
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 2: new revenue. And it wasn't the way moves are driven
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 2: today over stadium arguments. So supplans wasn't an option.
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 1: Not yet. Yeah, they weren't really thinking in terms of expanding.
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 1: And you had a glut, right you had three teams
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 1: in New York, had two teams in Philadelphia, two teams
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 1: in Boston, two teams in Chicago, two teams in Saint Louis.
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 2: It was an East Coast it was very, very sort
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 2: of dominant.
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 1: So moving teams kind of made sense if you think
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 1: about it that way.
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 2: What if O'Malley and Moses continued to negotiate, and the
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 2: New York Giants moved LA because the New York Giants,
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 2: I mean, look, the Dodgers were making money. They had it,
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 2: They had a devoted fan base, They were making money.
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 2: The Giants were not. The Polo grounds was as bad
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 2: a shape as abb Its Field was. The Polo Grounds
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 2: were worse. He was their ownership. He was looking at Minneapolis,
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 2: he was looking all around. He could have easily ended
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 2: up in LA at first, or you know, before the
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 2: Dodgers ended up making it.
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 1: See you talk about how it was more driven by
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 1: the LA people wanting the Dodgers to move more than
• 1:09:31
  Speaker 1: O'Malley wanting out of New York, like talking about how
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 1: he kind of had a lot of different options and
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 1: interests that he had things he wanted to do in
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 1: New York. But one of the people behind us was
• 1:09:41
  Speaker 1: Vincent X. Flaherty, the LA Examiner columnist, who was writing
• 1:09:46
  Speaker 1: letters to So not only was he writing about it,
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 1: you know, out there, but he was writing to O'Malley
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 1: trying to convince him to move the team or to
• 1:09:53
  Speaker 1: sell the team to someone who had moved into LA.
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 1: Kind of reminds me of like he's with the La Examiner,
• 1:09:59
  Speaker 1: but you know, like LA Times kind of in bed
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 1: with moholland the developer who eventually led to, you know,
• 1:10:07
  Speaker 1: the the annexation of the San Fernando Valley and water Wars,
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 1: and it's kind of fictionalized in the movie Chinatown. This
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 1: caused me to go down a Chinatown rabbit hole in
• 1:10:18
  Speaker 1: the research for this. But but the noson of a
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 1: newspaper columnist as a real advocate, you know, his name
• 1:10:26
  Speaker 1: pops up a lot in his flarities. It's like really
• 1:10:29
  Speaker 1: really pushing, you know, he had connections with the politicians,
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 1: and he was really pushing O'Malley to move the Dodgers
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 1: out THELA.
• 1:10:35
  Speaker 2: My favorite little nuggets basically thinks by the way to
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 2: that to that reporting, there's this great website, Walter O'Malley
• 1:10:43
  Speaker 2: dot com that that Vincent Flaherty's work is featured in.
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 2: But there's a few little, uh fun facts here that
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 2: any Dodger fan should know. And I didn't know this
• 1:10:54
  Speaker 2: that O'Malley actually had to purchase the rights essentially to
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 2: LA from the Chicago Cups and Philip Wriggley because there
• 1:11:07
  Speaker 2: was a Wrigley Field in LA and any kind of
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 2: in minor league team. So there's this great story, according
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 2: to Flaherty, that they're at the It's February third and
• 1:11:19
  Speaker 2: fifty seven, the New York Baseball Writer's Dinner at the
• 1:11:21
  Speaker 2: Astro Hotel, and O'Malley scribbles on the back of an
• 1:11:25
  Speaker 2: envelope to Philip Wrigley, and he says, how much will
• 1:11:28
  Speaker 2: you take for the LA Angels and Wrigley Field. Wrigglely
• 1:11:31
  Speaker 2: writes back two million for the real estate and ballpark
• 1:11:34
  Speaker 2: and one million for the franchise.
• 1:11:36
  Speaker 1: There you go, That's.
• 1:11:38
  Speaker 2: That's how business was done in New York City nineteen
• 1:11:42
  Speaker 2: fifty seven. He finally signs the deal with LA's negotiator
• 1:11:48
  Speaker 2: in August of fifty seven, just to technically two days
• 1:11:51
  Speaker 2: after the Giants announced that they're moving to San Francisco,
• 1:11:55
  Speaker 2: but it was but the National League owners vote unanimously
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 2: in May of fifty seven to allow both the Dodgers
• 1:12:00
  Speaker 2: and the Giants to basically give them permission to move.
• 1:12:04
  Speaker 2: But it was O'Malley that convinced the Giants owner Horace Stonem,
• 1:12:10
  Speaker 2: who was going to go to Minneapolis, to instead No no, no, no,
• 1:12:12
  Speaker 2: come out west with me. And again it goes back
• 1:12:14
  Speaker 2: why I wanted to bring up that La Rams moment.
• 1:12:16
  Speaker 2: It goes back to the frustration the Rams had in
• 1:12:20
  Speaker 2: trying to literally the closest franchise to the Rams in
• 1:12:23
  Speaker 2: the NFL in nineteen forty six was the Chicago Cardinals.
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 2: You know, how much of this do you put on.
• 1:12:32
  Speaker 1: Robert Moses, who had a lot of power existing because
• 1:12:35
  Speaker 1: he wasn't an elected official.
• 1:12:37
  Speaker 2: He's the most powerful, basically arguably the most powerful unelected
• 1:12:40
  Speaker 2: official in twentieth century politics, right, and how he chooses
• 1:12:46
  Speaker 2: to design cities and the whole highway culture. In some
• 1:12:49
  Speaker 2: ways you could argue that it actually influences the interstate
• 1:12:52
  Speaker 2: highway system too. His the theories of basically cities or
• 1:12:56
  Speaker 2: pass throughs for the suburbs, and look, there's.
• 1:13:01
  Speaker 1: I would.
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 2: I have acquired a negative view of mister Moses, so
• 1:13:07
  Speaker 2: I am inclined to his vision of the city is
• 1:13:14
  Speaker 2: turned out to be wrong. I mean, if you think
• 1:13:16
  Speaker 2: about what New York City is today, it is not
• 1:13:19
  Speaker 2: this suburban you know. So he so his theory of
• 1:13:23
  Speaker 2: the case was wrong. But if but to me, the
• 1:13:30
  Speaker 2: move west was inevitable for America, Let alone, right, Like,
• 1:13:34
  Speaker 2: so if it's not the Dodgers, somebody else goes this
• 1:13:37
  Speaker 2: doesn't like the move west was going.
• 1:13:39
  Speaker 1: To happen, just like baseball was going to integrate. Yes,
• 1:13:42
  Speaker 1: it was going to happen.
• 1:13:43
  Speaker 2: Somebody had to be first, right And if it wasn't
• 1:13:46
  Speaker 2: the Dodgers, it might have been you know, for all
• 1:13:48
  Speaker 2: we know, it might have been the Milwaukee Braves that
• 1:13:50
  Speaker 2: end up over there, or you know, I don't think
• 1:13:53
  Speaker 2: we fully appreciate that it there was a huge demand
• 1:13:57
  Speaker 2: out west to essentially linked, you know, to get the
• 1:14:01
  Speaker 2: culture of the East to come out west.
• 1:14:04
  Speaker 1: So there was a Brooklyn Sports Authority that had been
• 1:14:06
  Speaker 1: formed to try to, you know, come up.
• 1:14:08
  Speaker 2: With the stadium solutions.
• 1:14:10
  Speaker 1: Doves. Remember they're playing in the smallest stadium in nationally
• 1:14:13
  Speaker 1: thirty two thousand.
• 1:14:14
  Speaker 2: But Robert Moses said no to every single Brooklyn He
• 1:14:17
  Speaker 2: just did not believe in Brooklyn. That's the story. And
• 1:14:20
  Speaker 2: I think that that's where I will I fall on
• 1:14:23
  Speaker 2: the side of its Moses' fault.
• 1:14:25
  Speaker 1: And he wanted Queens, which is eventually where the Mets
• 1:14:27
  Speaker 1: wound up.
• 1:14:27
  Speaker 2: It's where say stadium ends up. I mean, because he
• 1:14:30
  Speaker 2: saw Queens as the gateway to Westchester County and the
• 1:14:32
  Speaker 2: gateway to Long Island, and he assumed that that's where.
• 1:14:36
  Speaker 2: And by the way, that's who the Mets are. They
• 1:14:38
  Speaker 2: are this arguably the suburban New York team, and the
• 1:14:42
  Speaker 2: Yankees are the urban.
• 1:14:43
  Speaker 1: New York team.
• 1:14:43
  Speaker 2: You know, they're not physically that far. And that's yeah.
• 1:14:46
  Speaker 1: Of course the Mets color is made up of the
• 1:14:48
  Speaker 1: blue for the Dodgers, in the orange for the Giants.
• 1:14:50
  Speaker 1: Find the Mets colors for the two departed teams to
• 1:14:53
  Speaker 1: make up for that. So all right, so we go
• 1:14:56
  Speaker 1: to La a little bit of foreshadowing the Valle Ready, yeah,
• 1:15:01
  Speaker 1: we can get ready to leave Brooklyn. O'Malley went on
• 1:15:04
  Speaker 1: a trip with the Dodgers in Japan, came back, there's
• 1:15:09
  Speaker 1: no progress. He goes out to LA to look for
• 1:15:11
  Speaker 1: a new plane for the Dodgers again there earlier. That
• 1:15:15
  Speaker 1: goes up to La Flatty drives him around, including a
• 1:15:17
  Speaker 1: tour Chavez Ravine, which was the proposed spot for a stadium.
• 1:15:22
  Speaker 1: Right it's near two different freeways and two white built
• 1:15:25
  Speaker 1: uh bullvards. La Mayor. Mayor Poulsen had opposed public housing.
• 1:15:32
  Speaker 1: He considered the socials, so you know, communism and socialism
• 1:15:36
  Speaker 1: helps integrate baseball. But now well after the war, well
• 1:15:41
  Speaker 1: into you know, che was supposed to be a public housing. Yeah,
• 1:15:44
  Speaker 1: and he kills it because he considers the socialism, you know,
• 1:15:47
  Speaker 1: he's anti socialism. So there was a thirty three hundred
• 1:15:50
  Speaker 1: unit project proposed for Chevez Ravine and so so he
• 1:15:54
  Speaker 1: spikes that project, which leaves the area open for the Dodgers.
• 1:15:58
  Speaker 1: And so there's a lot of kind of blowback and
• 1:16:01
  Speaker 1: negativity towards the Dodgers or you know what wound up
• 1:16:05
  Speaker 1: happening like particularly with Mexican America. Yeah, you know, I mean,
• 1:16:08
  Speaker 1: because you know, houses are bulldoze. It picked literal people
• 1:16:11
  Speaker 1: being dragged out of the houses. Is yeah, there is
• 1:16:14
  Speaker 1: la country.
• 1:16:14
  Speaker 2: So there were only twenty families remaining living in Chavez
• 1:16:19
  Speaker 2: Ravine by by nineteen fifty nine. And literally the eviction,
• 1:16:24
  Speaker 2: the forcible eviction, was on television. It's known as black Friar,
• 1:16:29
  Speaker 2: Furniture hauled onto the street. News cameras were filming this,
• 1:16:32
  Speaker 2: so it is it is one of these black eyes
• 1:16:36
  Speaker 2: on the Dodgers. And the question is, so we go
• 1:16:38
  Speaker 2: to who do you blame O'Malley or Moses for Brooklyn?
• 1:16:42
  Speaker 2: How much blame do the Dodgers get for Chavez Ravine.
• 1:16:48
  Speaker 2: From the O'Malley point of view, he didn't really know
• 1:16:51
  Speaker 2: the history of this. He saw it as a map.
• 1:16:55
  Speaker 1: He was it's only been to La a couple of times, right.
• 1:16:59
  Speaker 2: But there was such steep opposition because first of all,
• 1:17:03
  Speaker 2: this is what makes this deal, I think so important,
• 1:17:06
  Speaker 2: because arguably what happened, the deal that Dodgers end up
• 1:17:10
  Speaker 2: getting from the city then frankly becomes what every owner
• 1:17:15
  Speaker 2: hopes to get from a city going forward, basically free land,
• 1:17:19
  Speaker 2: tax free for a period of time.
• 1:17:21
  Speaker 1: Here's this.
• 1:17:22
  Speaker 2: So here is the deal that O'Malley got at the time,
• 1:17:25
  Speaker 2: and this had never happened. Before he gets a city contract.
• 1:17:30
  Speaker 2: He has to privately financed, build and maintain a fifty
• 1:17:34
  Speaker 2: thousand seat stadium. He has to pay five hundred thousand
• 1:17:36
  Speaker 2: dollars to develop a youth rec center, sixty thousand dollars
• 1:17:39
  Speaker 2: annually for twenty years, and he has to put the
• 1:17:42
  Speaker 2: land on the property tax rolls beginning at three hundred
• 1:17:46
  Speaker 2: and forty five thousand, nineteen sixty two, all in exchange
• 1:17:48
  Speaker 2: for roughly three hundred acres. But he was but this
• 1:17:52
  Speaker 2: was valued about a little over two million dollars, I
• 1:17:55
  Speaker 2: mean in those dollars, which was a big deal. So
• 1:17:57
  Speaker 2: essentially it's what you've seen many today. Hey, this is commonplace,
• 1:18:01
  Speaker 2: right the sports owner in the city they're negotiating, you know,
• 1:18:04
  Speaker 2: can we get the land tax free, can we own
• 1:18:07
  Speaker 2: the land, you know, whatever it is, or you get
• 1:18:09
  Speaker 2: a one dollar lease if the city owns the land.
• 1:18:12
  Speaker 2: But in many ways, this is the origin story of
• 1:18:17
  Speaker 2: what now is commonplace in sports franchises.
• 1:18:19
  Speaker 1: Well another side note of this. You know you talked
• 1:18:22
  Speaker 1: about how you know the Angels and Rigley Field out there,
• 1:18:25
  Speaker 1: the Los Angeles Angels, So yeah, the Dodgers purchased them
• 1:18:30
  Speaker 1: in order to get the territorial rights to LA, you know,
• 1:18:32
  Speaker 1: to precede all this stuff. But something else that came
• 1:18:35
  Speaker 1: with that was they got the logo, so that interlocking LA.
• 1:18:38
  Speaker 2: Which has becomes originally the Angels logo.
• 1:18:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it was the LA Angels and the Dodgers
• 1:18:43
  Speaker 1: adopted that. So when they came out west.
• 1:18:45
  Speaker 2: So I mean, talk about stepbrother syndrome if you're the Angels.
• 1:18:51
  Speaker 1: Like this has been a constant.
• 1:18:52
  Speaker 2: The Dodgers are a constant thorn in the side of
• 1:18:54
  Speaker 2: the They steal their logo. Seventy years later, they steal
• 1:18:58
  Speaker 2: the most important player twenty first century in baseball at
• 1:19:01
  Speaker 2: Shoe Odi.
• 1:19:02
  Speaker 1: I mean, I mean, you know, if.
• 1:19:04
  Speaker 2: I were longtime Angels fan, my hatred for the Dodgers
• 1:19:08
  Speaker 2: would be at levels that would be you.
• 1:19:10
  Speaker 1: Know, what's instant. It wasn't that much of a rivalry though,
• 1:19:14
  Speaker 1: never have out there, Like nobody to me and my
• 1:19:16
  Speaker 1: friends were fans of the Dodgers and the Angels. You know,
• 1:19:20
  Speaker 1: it's sad, but true inter league play changed that a
• 1:19:23
  Speaker 1: little bit. But when they never used to play each other,
• 1:19:26
  Speaker 1: you could be a fan of both, Like, it didn't
• 1:19:28
  Speaker 1: interfere at all. I think, Yeah, there started to be
• 1:19:32
  Speaker 1: some resentment, and then you know when the Angels rebranded
• 1:19:35
  Speaker 1: themselves as Los Angeles Angels, and they didn't go over
• 1:19:38
  Speaker 1: very well. You know what what was interesting was that
• 1:19:43
  Speaker 1: the you know, they kind of the final straw was
• 1:19:45
  Speaker 1: that the fans weren't coming out to support it in
• 1:19:48
  Speaker 1: in Brooklyn. Still. Yeah, the you know, Flowerty really really
• 1:19:56
  Speaker 1: is behind this. Yeah, there's unanimous boat to let the dog,
• 1:20:00
  Speaker 1: and so there's no resistance you know, coming from the league.
• 1:20:04
  Speaker 2: Because they all know they're all having these financial troubles.
• 1:20:07
  Speaker 2: I mean, this is the dirty little secret, right, That's
• 1:20:09
  Speaker 2: why it was so important to remind people. The fifties
• 1:20:11
  Speaker 2: are seen as this golden age of baseball, and as
• 1:20:15
  Speaker 2: a business it was anything but.
• 1:20:18
  Speaker 1: So the interesting thing is that there's you know, there's
• 1:20:23
  Speaker 1: the go ahead right to come to LA, but it's
• 1:20:27
  Speaker 1: still not secured.
• 1:20:29
  Speaker 2: Well, they start right in the LA Coliseum, right, so
• 1:20:32
  Speaker 2: they have first of all, every attendance record in baseball
• 1:20:34
  Speaker 2: is still owned by the Dodgers in the LA Coliseum days, right, Yeah,
• 1:20:38
  Speaker 2: ninety thousand to see this, ninety thousand, to see that.
• 1:20:42
  Speaker 1: They had to There was there was pushback, There was
• 1:20:45
  Speaker 1: there was challenge to the deal that had been arranged.
• 1:20:48
  Speaker 1: So there's actually a referendum on the ballot for June
• 1:20:51
  Speaker 1: of fifty eight challenging this whole deal is in place.
• 1:20:56
  Speaker 1: And they wound up having a funding telecast l fashion.
• 1:21:00
  Speaker 1: They have a telethon at the vote, the passage of it.
• 1:21:02
  Speaker 2: The Dodger Thon and kt TV. It is a Who's
• 1:21:06
  Speaker 2: Hollywood of the nineteen fifties.
• 1:21:09
  Speaker 1: Jerry Lewis, de Wie Reynolds, Dan Martin, George Burns, Jack Benny,
• 1:21:12
  Speaker 1: five hour broadcast.
• 1:21:14
  Speaker 2: Hey wait, you left out what Ronald Reagan. Ron Reagan
• 1:21:17
  Speaker 2: was on a Ronald Reagan as well.
• 1:21:19
  Speaker 1: They get lobbied in favor of by Bob Cobb, who's
• 1:21:22
  Speaker 1: the owner of the famed Brown Derby restaurants. The voter
• 1:21:24
  Speaker 1: sentiment was against the stadium actually before the telethon. Yeah,
• 1:21:28
  Speaker 1: per the polling and reporting of that time. But thanks
• 1:21:31
  Speaker 1: some parts of the telethon, sixty two percent voter turnout.
• 1:21:35
  Speaker 2: It's the largest non presidential election turnout in LA history
• 1:21:39
  Speaker 2: at the time, by the way you talked to it.
• 1:21:41
  Speaker 2: LA had to change when they hold mayor's races because
• 1:21:44
  Speaker 2: nobody was voting in them these days, right, But back then,
• 1:21:47
  Speaker 2: this was some serious interest in the community. They cared
• 1:21:51
  Speaker 2: about this issue. And it passes literally by twenty five
• 1:21:54
  Speaker 2: thousand votes. To turnout of over six hundred thousand people
• 1:21:57
  Speaker 2: came three percentage points, by the way, not uncommon. Look,
• 1:22:02
  Speaker 2: arguably this sort of this tension about do you use
• 1:22:09
  Speaker 2: public funds to do this? And this goes back you
• 1:22:12
  Speaker 2: go back to the debate about Moses versus O'Malley. I
• 1:22:15
  Speaker 2: will say I take Moses's side on one issue, which
• 1:22:20
  Speaker 2: is the stadium is a public good. Who does the
• 1:22:23
  Speaker 2: stadium belong to Is the stadium belonged to the public,
• 1:22:27
  Speaker 2: Does the stadium belong to the franchise? And I think
• 1:22:30
  Speaker 2: Moses ultimately believed it should be a public facility that
• 1:22:35
  Speaker 2: a private group paid to have access to, versus I
• 1:22:40
  Speaker 2: think O'Malley said no, no, no, no, no, it's partly find
• 1:22:43
  Speaker 2: privately finding.
• 1:22:44
  Speaker 1: He was very proud of the fact that this was
• 1:22:45
  Speaker 1: the first privately financed stadium since Yankee Stadium. The Yankee
• 1:22:49
  Speaker 1: Stadium and I think nineteen twenty three, right, and so yeah,
• 1:22:52
  Speaker 1: that Baltimalley dot com website points that out very pridefully.
• 1:23:00
  Speaker 1: But first they're in the coliseum, you know, like you said,
• 1:23:05
  Speaker 1: seventy thousand come out to watch their first game against
• 1:23:07
  Speaker 1: the Giants. When they're playing against the White Sox and
• 1:23:10
  Speaker 1: World Series in nineteen fifty nine, more than ninety thousand
• 1:23:12
  Speaker 1: people come out. They you know, you have an oval,
• 1:23:17
  Speaker 1: you know, so traditional kind of track. Remember there used
• 1:23:20
  Speaker 1: to be a track around it because they built for
• 1:23:21
  Speaker 1: the Olympics, right, So there's oval track shape football primary stadium.
• 1:23:28
  Speaker 1: They had to configure it into a baseball diamond. They
• 1:23:31
  Speaker 1: had right handed power hitters and their rosters, so they
• 1:23:34
  Speaker 1: made the left field the closer one, Dodge Stadium gets passed.
• 1:23:39
  Speaker 1: It opens in nineteen sixty two at a cost it
• 1:23:40
  Speaker 1: twenty three million dollars. What's interesting, it's the oldest modern
• 1:23:45
  Speaker 1: stadium and it's the newest old stadium.
• 1:23:47
  Speaker 2: It's the third oldest stadium in the Big leagues right now.
• 1:23:50
  Speaker 1: Benway Park nineteen twelve Wrigley Field nineteen fourteen are the
• 1:23:53
  Speaker 1: only two that are older.
• 1:23:54
  Speaker 2: Yeah, here's a fun here, Well to hit you with
• 1:23:56
  Speaker 2: a trivia quesh right now, what's the what's the of
• 1:24:00
  Speaker 2: the Dodgers. So Wrigley Field and the Dodgers are the
• 1:24:02
  Speaker 2: two oldest stadiums of.
• 1:24:03
  Speaker 1: The National League. What's third? Third after that?
• 1:24:10
  Speaker 2: Because it will it actually only underscores your point.
• 1:24:13
  Speaker 1: The third oldest.
• 1:24:15
  Speaker 2: No, it's Course Field, the third oldest stadium in the
• 1:24:18
  Speaker 2: National League. Now is actually Course Field?
• 1:24:21
  Speaker 1: Wow?
• 1:24:22
  Speaker 2: And it's that just shows up in Denver, Colorado, which
• 1:24:25
  Speaker 2: opened in the early nineties. But that is how much
• 1:24:28
  Speaker 2: the stadiums have turned over you now have, and that's
• 1:24:32
  Speaker 2: why the Dodgers Stadium, it's funny, it's you're right about it.
• 1:24:35
  Speaker 2: It still feels modern. It's considered one of the first
• 1:24:39
  Speaker 2: new stadiums, and it is now a bridge between the
• 1:24:44
  Speaker 2: old and what is today's modern ballpark.
• 1:24:48
  Speaker 1: So it's fortuitous because it's built before the rise of
• 1:24:51
  Speaker 1: the multipurpose stadiums in the sixties, and that's one of
• 1:24:53
  Speaker 1: the reasons it's aged so well. So later you know,
• 1:24:59
  Speaker 1: you know, you if these students are designed the comedy
• 1:25:01
  Speaker 1: book football and baseball and winds up being bad for both, right,
• 1:25:05
  Speaker 1: And this didn't have that horrible stadiums, And you're right.
• 1:25:08
  Speaker 2: I remember first time I moved to DC in nineteen
• 1:25:11
  Speaker 2: ninety and first time I go to RFK, which was
• 1:25:14
  Speaker 2: the first of these multi purpose stadium correct, And I realized, oh,
• 1:25:17
  Speaker 2: and I'd already been to Veterans and I had been
• 1:25:20
  Speaker 2: to Shay, and You're like, good God, these stations are terrible.
• 1:25:25
  Speaker 2: And the Bush was this way. There was a version
• 1:25:29
  Speaker 2: of Saint Louis had one, Cincinnati had one, Pittsburgh had one,
• 1:25:33
  Speaker 2: Philadelphia had one. Shay Stadium and they were just Fulton
• 1:25:37
  Speaker 2: County Stadium was this, Yeah, they.
• 1:25:40
  Speaker 1: Were Candlestick Park gets redesigned and Anaheim Stadium because reconfigured
• 1:25:44
  Speaker 1: to accommodate both and one of the King the Royals,
• 1:25:47
  Speaker 1: I think too no, no, no, they were said, yeah, yeah,
• 1:25:52
  Speaker 1: so they're they're kind of the angels.
• 1:25:53
  Speaker 2: One that was there right right, But the r was
• 1:25:57
  Speaker 2: another one. Yeah, it was terrible.
• 1:25:58
  Speaker 1: Actually was the last of these to still be used.
• 1:26:00
  Speaker 1: It was the last one when the A's and Raiders
• 1:26:02
  Speaker 1: were still there. One of the keys that dodgors steam
• 1:26:05
  Speaker 1: was the club level because that allowed it to be
• 1:26:08
  Speaker 1: converted to.
• 1:26:08
  Speaker 2: Luxury suites in the nineties.
• 1:26:11
  Speaker 1: So you know, one reason some of those old things
• 1:26:14
  Speaker 1: got small data is that one went toward luxury seats
• 1:26:16
  Speaker 1: and premium seating and you just couldn't accommodate those in
• 1:26:19
  Speaker 1: the old like like Qualcom. Another one, you know San
• 1:26:21
  Speaker 1: Diego Jack Murphy Stadium as it was named for a
• 1:26:23
  Speaker 1: while after the great sports writer out there, only after
• 1:26:26
  Speaker 1: at sports writer.
• 1:26:28
  Speaker 2: It was just hard to adapt these.
• 1:26:30
  Speaker 1: But but Dodda Stadium with Justin Bray where we feel
• 1:26:32
  Speaker 1: actually justin well. They put the suites in there and
• 1:26:34
  Speaker 1: they fit in pretty well.
• 1:26:35
  Speaker 2: And even benway with what they've done with the state
• 1:26:39
  Speaker 2: the seats.
• 1:26:39
  Speaker 1: I love the fact that Dodgers Stadium still looks the same.
• 1:26:42
  Speaker 1: So I was watching that. There's a DVD that had
• 1:26:45
  Speaker 1: some of their early Dodgers World Series just highlight films,
• 1:26:49
  Speaker 1: and you watch it and you're watching the Sandy Kofax
• 1:26:52
  Speaker 1: pitch in the nineteen sixties, and it's the same setting
• 1:26:54
  Speaker 1: that we saw sho hal Tany pitch, you know. Currently.
• 1:26:57
  Speaker 2: The only real difference is that they didn't have the
• 1:26:59
  Speaker 2: two scoreboards taglat right. They had one for the longest time.
• 1:27:03
  Speaker 2: And then so when.
• 1:27:05
  Speaker 1: We talk about, you know, the Dodgers being innovators, so
• 1:27:08
  Speaker 1: really the first stadium, certainly in baseball, the first stadium
• 1:27:11
  Speaker 1: big screen was Dodger Stadium in nineteen eighty they got it.
• 1:27:15
  Speaker 1: They were hosting the All Star Game then. And it's
• 1:27:18
  Speaker 1: funny because it was called Diamond Vision. I always thought
• 1:27:20
  Speaker 1: it was called diamond vision because you were looking at
• 1:27:22
  Speaker 1: the Baseball doc. It's actually called diamond Vision because it
• 1:27:25
  Speaker 1: was built by Mitsubishi, which you know the Loco dim
• 1:27:28
  Speaker 1: the diamond, and so it was Diamond vision, same as
• 1:27:31
  Speaker 1: how you know everyone of he first to the scoreboards
• 1:27:33
  Speaker 1: now it was the Jumbo Trons. That was because Sony
• 1:27:36
  Speaker 1: built the Jumbo Tron. They had the Trendi Tron was
• 1:27:38
  Speaker 1: their television back then. The stadium version of that that
• 1:27:41
  Speaker 1: they built was the Jumbo Tron. The Jumboton kind of
• 1:27:43
  Speaker 1: went out over Mitsubishio, though Mitsubishi built the Cowboys Stadium,
• 1:27:47
  Speaker 1: the giant that was actually Minsbshi too, the first one.
• 1:27:50
  Speaker 1: Yeah no, no, no, the big one now the Jerry
• 1:27:54
  Speaker 1: World is now at and T Stadium. Mins Abishi built that,
• 1:27:58
  Speaker 1: but the Sony Jumbo try kind of became the.
• 1:28:02
  Speaker 2: Generic name for these stadium scoreboards.
• 1:28:05
  Speaker 1: The original one, the first that we've seen in these stadiums,
• 1:28:09
  Speaker 1: was a Dodger Stadium in nineteen eighty. And this gets
• 1:28:11
  Speaker 1: into this incredible like sort of tapestry for the Dodgers,
• 1:28:14
  Speaker 1: right that they still have this identity that's in Brooklyn.
• 1:28:17
  Speaker 2: The be still matters so much. And yet Dodger Stadium,
• 1:28:21
  Speaker 2: like you know it is, it is now iconic and
• 1:28:25
  Speaker 2: and in fact you don't hear Ebitts Field the way
• 1:28:28
  Speaker 2: you used to. Like even now, I feel like Dodger
• 1:28:30
  Speaker 2: Stadium has somehow pivoted from being seen as just a
• 1:28:34
  Speaker 2: modern thing.
• 1:28:35
  Speaker 1: Too. It hasn't itself.
• 1:28:37
  Speaker 2: It's not a landmark, all right, So forgive my dad
• 1:28:40
  Speaker 2: pun here ja, but there are two important Brooklyn bridges
• 1:28:45
  Speaker 2: to la yeah really grown all right right, all right,
• 1:28:51
  Speaker 2: But we had there had to be this and if
• 1:28:54
  Speaker 2: we didn't have them. And one is on the field
• 1:28:58
  Speaker 2: and one is off the field. One is a wild
• 1:29:03
  Speaker 2: left hander who in some ways probably would have become
• 1:29:07
  Speaker 2: an icon and still is an icon in Brooklyn. And
• 1:29:09
  Speaker 2: it's so funny to me how important this person is
• 1:29:13
  Speaker 2: to Brooklyn natives, like Larry King back in the day
• 1:29:16
  Speaker 2: when he never had success in Brooklyn, and that's Sandy Kofax.
• 1:29:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and he remains this iconic, is still with us
• 1:29:25
  Speaker 1: and is just such a revered figure. So you know,
• 1:29:29
  Speaker 1: he's before my time as Heyday was in the nineteen sixties.
• 1:29:33
  Speaker 1: And but every time you would show up at Dodger
• 1:29:36
  Speaker 1: Stadium for anything, just people would just fondow. The whole
• 1:29:40
  Speaker 1: stadium went crazy, and you can tell Dad's pointing to
• 1:29:43
  Speaker 1: their kids. You know.
• 1:29:44
  Speaker 2: It's sort of like and it's the same thing the
• 1:29:46
  Speaker 2: way Willie Mays and Hank Aaron were later in life too,
• 1:29:48
  Speaker 2: because you're like they've touched history right right, They're You're like,
• 1:29:53
  Speaker 2: wait a minute, you're you're the connection to Jackie and
• 1:29:55
  Speaker 2: you're the connection of this you you know, it's it's
• 1:29:58
  Speaker 2: right there. So the other bridge would be the.
• 1:30:02
  Speaker 1: Voice of the Dodgers pull up a chair Vin Scully,
• 1:30:04
  Speaker 1: who takes over for Red Barber.
• 1:30:06
  Speaker 2: While they're still in Brooklyn and.
• 1:30:10
  Speaker 1: Proceeds to become the voice of the Dodgers for generations
• 1:30:13
  Speaker 1: up until he retires in twenty sixteen. Follow in the
• 1:30:16
  Speaker 1: twenty sixteen season. And it's so important a bit of
• 1:30:20
  Speaker 1: fortuitous timing that as the Dodgers come to La it's
• 1:30:24
  Speaker 1: the late fifties, right after the invention of the transistor radio,
• 1:30:29
  Speaker 1: and so now radio is portable, easily portable, so you
• 1:30:32
  Speaker 1: can listen to Vin Scully at the beach, you can
• 1:30:35
  Speaker 1: listen to him at the stadium.
• 1:30:37
  Speaker 2: Or it's more importantly, you can listen to him when
• 1:30:40
  Speaker 2: you're stuck in traffic.
• 1:30:43
  Speaker 1: As the car became a big part of it. But
• 1:30:45
  Speaker 1: the Dodgers fans really popularized listening to the game. That's
• 1:30:48
  Speaker 1: because they wanted the best of both worlds. You want
• 1:30:50
  Speaker 1: to go to the game, but you don't want to
• 1:30:52
  Speaker 1: miss out on hearing Vin Scully. That's how much you
• 1:30:54
  Speaker 1: meant to people, and that's how much authority that he brought,
• 1:30:57
  Speaker 1: so he instantly legitimized the Dodgers. Also hope that they
• 1:31:00
  Speaker 1: were really good, they win the World series their second
• 1:31:03
  Speaker 1: year out there. I don't know if this was because
• 1:31:05
  Speaker 1: cause or effect that you have to win in LA,
• 1:31:08
  Speaker 1: but the Dodgers winning in their second year in LA.
• 1:31:10
  Speaker 2: That is a fascinating thing. What if the Dodgers don't
• 1:31:12
  Speaker 2: win right away? What if they're the Mets right which
• 1:31:15
  Speaker 2: has a decade of just laughable play until they become
• 1:31:19
  Speaker 2: the miracle Mets. Right in that first decade.
• 1:31:21
  Speaker 1: Well, it was such a big thing. They were the
• 1:31:24
  Speaker 1: only showing talent. Everyone talks about all you got to
• 1:31:26
  Speaker 1: compete with it. That matters.
• 1:31:27
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that matters. I mean, the Rams were there, but
• 1:31:28
  Speaker 2: they weren't. Look, we go back even in the sixties,
• 1:31:31
  Speaker 2: the NFL wasn't the NFL.
• 1:31:33
  Speaker 1: And then the Raider I'm sorry, the Lakers come out
• 1:31:37
  Speaker 1: and they moved there right after the Dodgers, right after
• 1:31:39
  Speaker 1: the Dodgers. Right, so they're in the sixties. It was
• 1:31:42
  Speaker 1: funny to talk about winning right away. The Raiders come
• 1:31:44
  Speaker 1: in the mid eighties and they win the Super Bowl
• 1:31:46
  Speaker 1: right away, which helped and to this day quick that version. Yeah, right,
• 1:31:51
  Speaker 1: you know, people still love the Raiders in LA. I
• 1:31:54
  Speaker 1: used to get asked all the time when I was
• 1:31:55
  Speaker 1: the columnst at the LA times when the Raiders come
• 1:31:58
  Speaker 1: over coming back even though they left.
• 1:31:59
  Speaker 2: They don't get me started on that ridiculous LA football
• 1:32:02
  Speaker 2: situation because I to this day, I think the two
• 1:32:08
  Speaker 2: most popular teams in LA, only one of them's in LA, right,
• 1:32:11
  Speaker 2: the Rams, and the other one is now in Las Vegas. Yeah, right,
• 1:32:14
  Speaker 2: And the Raiders being in Vegas actually has only amplified
• 1:32:19
  Speaker 2: a little bit of that old of that old LA.
• 1:32:21
  Speaker 2: But winning right away the Dodgers, if you think about it,
• 1:32:24
  Speaker 2: it's not just they went right away in the sixties
• 1:32:27
  Speaker 2: and seventies. I mean, they're just constantly in contention.
• 1:32:30
  Speaker 1: And what's interesting is that they're winning and their popular.
• 1:32:35
  Speaker 2: They're pretty black lineup.
• 1:32:37
  Speaker 1: You know, this is the nineteen sixties. You know, certainly
• 1:32:40
  Speaker 1: the attendance. But again those old World Series DVDs, I said,
• 1:32:43
  Speaker 1: you see some black people in the crowd at the
• 1:32:44
  Speaker 1: coliseum and at Dodger Stadium when they're there. But you've
• 1:32:47
  Speaker 1: got Jim Gilliam, You've got Tommy Davis, You've got Willie Davis,
• 1:32:53
  Speaker 1: and you have Morey Wills, who is another person that
• 1:32:55
  Speaker 1: puts the Dodgers at the forefront. Once again in this case,
• 1:32:58
  Speaker 1: it's the kind of the innovation, basion of speed in
• 1:33:02
  Speaker 1: the stolen base. And I'm not going to say the reinvention.
• 1:33:05
  Speaker 1: I'd say because Tyk Hobb. You look back in the days,
• 1:33:08
  Speaker 1: was still a lot of bases, but Kyle fell out
• 1:33:10
  Speaker 1: of vogue. I will make a confession. Look, as a
• 1:33:12
  Speaker 1: as a kid being a.
• 1:33:14
  Speaker 2: Dodger fan, you get you know, you gotta father brainwashes
• 1:33:17
  Speaker 2: you and Dodgers and you learn all the sort of
• 1:33:19
  Speaker 2: mythologies and some of the myths are true, right Jackie
• 1:33:23
  Speaker 2: Robinson stealing home and you know that it is like
• 1:33:28
  Speaker 2: it's almost the first on field story as a kid
• 1:33:30
  Speaker 2: that I learned was about Jackie Robinson stealing home in
• 1:33:32
  Speaker 2: the World Series, which to me is still the most famous.
• 1:33:35
  Speaker 2: I would argue it's the most famous stolen basin in
• 1:33:38
  Speaker 2: baseball history.
• 1:33:39
  Speaker 1: The only one that rivals it is Dave Roberts to
• 1:33:42
  Speaker 1: steal against the Yankees that started former Dodger and now.
• 1:33:47
  Speaker 2: That but in that moment, you didn't know that was
• 1:33:49
  Speaker 2: a famous stolen base when you steal home in the
• 1:33:52
  Speaker 2: World Series, and the picture is Yogi Barrett tried to
• 1:33:55
  Speaker 2: tag kind of tend to tag out.
• 1:33:57
  Speaker 1: Jackie Robinson lumping around after he doesn't get the call right.
• 1:34:00
  Speaker 1: But but more, Wills doesn't have a singularly iconic zone
• 1:34:04
  Speaker 1: based like that. But he's still one hundred and four
• 1:34:06
  Speaker 1: bases in nineteen sixty two. When's the MVP. Yeah, I
• 1:34:08
  Speaker 1: mean think about it. This is a guy.
• 1:34:10
  Speaker 2: We don't give MVPs to people that only steal bases very.
• 1:34:13
  Speaker 1: Often, and you know, so it's kind of it's the
• 1:34:16
  Speaker 1: same time Louis Aparicio and lou Rock, you know. And
• 1:34:19
  Speaker 1: then of course I think it, well, this is the
• 1:34:20
  Speaker 1: Ara Rickie Henderson.
• 1:34:22
  Speaker 2: This is the era of baseball when I mean I
• 1:34:24
  Speaker 2: always love looking you know, when I was a kid,
• 1:34:26
  Speaker 2: and you know, being a Dodger fin they didn't win
• 1:34:29
  Speaker 2: until eighty one, and so they all they did was
• 1:34:31
  Speaker 2: lose World Series in the seventies and I'd have to
• 1:34:34
  Speaker 2: look up those sixties World Series and you'd see, well.
• 1:34:36
  Speaker 1: They were so low scoring.
• 1:34:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah, the Dodgers were basically speed pitching and defense.
• 1:34:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and Kofax, you know, not only obviously his greatness
• 1:34:45
  Speaker 1: on the field. Well, one last thing on Will's you know,
• 1:34:49
  Speaker 1: they brought us would bring him back to talk about
• 1:34:51
  Speaker 1: base stealing and have him in like spring training.
• 1:34:53
  Speaker 2: So now that base stealing is back.
• 1:34:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, but Kofax, I don't want to omit that
• 1:35:00
  Speaker 1: fact that he was a leader in the baseball labor board, right,
• 1:35:04
  Speaker 1: which really comes to the forefront in the nineteen seventies,
• 1:35:07
  Speaker 1: and Kirk Flood and Marvin Miller, but you know Cofax
• 1:35:11
  Speaker 1: and the partner Don Drysdale's the pitcher.
• 1:35:13
  Speaker 2: They were going to hold out together, right yeah, yeah, Well.
• 1:35:15
  Speaker 1: I think there's seeking one hundred thousand dollars each, like
• 1:35:18
  Speaker 1: the astronomical sum of one hundred thousand dollars. But you
• 1:35:21
  Speaker 1: know they they they said, hey, strengthen numbers and the
• 1:35:24
  Speaker 1: two of us. What are the Dodgers without the two
• 1:35:26
  Speaker 1: of us? So we'll give Copax credit there. And of
• 1:35:28
  Speaker 1: course you know the iconic moment, the conviction of not pitching.
• 1:35:33
  Speaker 2: Those serious because of his religious beliefs and look for
• 1:35:37
  Speaker 2: for for young Jewish kids. That like that was Cofax?
• 1:35:42
  Speaker 2: Is Is this iicon wesk in some ways? Yeah, it is,
• 1:35:46
  Speaker 2: And I don't I don't use the comparison because I
• 1:35:50
  Speaker 2: don't want it.
• 1:35:50
  Speaker 1: That's it's not the same.
• 1:35:53
  Speaker 2: But it is the moment to have the person that
• 1:35:57
  Speaker 2: it keeps you identity, right, yeah, there is. We all
• 1:35:59
  Speaker 2: are certain for identity, right, and it is an important
• 1:36:03
  Speaker 2: identity and it still is to this day to the
• 1:36:05
  Speaker 2: Jewish community. I mean, Cofax is this he is you know,
• 1:36:10
  Speaker 2: there's Moses and there's Sandy. Okay, you know, I mean,
• 1:36:14
  Speaker 2: you know, and you could argue about everybody else in between,
• 1:36:16
  Speaker 2: but that's you know, there you go. J Yeah, the
• 1:36:19
  Speaker 2: Jewish you know, we're only going to put Moses in
• 1:36:21
  Speaker 2: Sandy on there. Everybody else is going to have to
• 1:36:23
  Speaker 2: get out of the way. But that's but you know,
• 1:36:27
  Speaker 2: this is it is they they really do. They win
• 1:36:32
  Speaker 2: two World Series in the sixties, they get to three
• 1:36:34
  Speaker 2: in the seventies, and you know, the seventies really, you know,
• 1:36:38
  Speaker 2: they become I feel like the reputation of the Dodgers
• 1:36:42
  Speaker 2: was they were always the great pitching team. And I
• 1:36:45
  Speaker 2: guess you have to say that, do you do? You
• 1:36:47
  Speaker 2: start with Nukem, right, then you get Cofax and Drysdale.
• 1:36:51
  Speaker 2: Then it comes up to the first winner, right, first
• 1:36:54
  Speaker 2: ever for the Dodgers, right, So you get Nukem. Be
• 1:36:56
  Speaker 2: does that if Kofax and Drysdale goes right into Don Sutton,
• 1:37:01
  Speaker 2: Bob welps Y.
• 1:37:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, But the seventies really become known for that
• 1:37:07
  Speaker 1: iconic field. Yes, Steve Garvey, Davy Lows, Bill Russell is
• 1:37:11
  Speaker 1: short Ron say at third base. And by the way,
• 1:37:14
  Speaker 1: maybe the greatest nickname in baseball, there's two. I love nicknames.
• 1:37:17
  Speaker 2: But the Penguin, I mean, that's it's such a great name.
• 1:37:20
  Speaker 2: But my only other favorite one was Mike Hargrove. He
• 1:37:23
  Speaker 2: had the nickname the human reign Delay because of how
• 1:37:26
  Speaker 2: often he took him before he got ready for it
• 1:37:28
  Speaker 2: at that that that might be my favorite. But Penguin's
• 1:37:31
  Speaker 2: pretty close.
• 1:37:32
  Speaker 1: Penguin is pretty cool. But you know, they come up
• 1:37:36
  Speaker 1: and they just anchor that team wherever, you know, and
• 1:37:40
  Speaker 1: the stability and also at a time when baseball is
• 1:37:43
  Speaker 1: starting to become.
• 1:37:44
  Speaker 2: Unstable with the free agency agency, you've.
• 1:37:46
  Speaker 1: Got Rady Jackson going from Oakland to Baltimore to the Yankees,
• 1:37:49
  Speaker 1: and the Dodgers just become this pillar of stability throughout
• 1:37:53
  Speaker 1: the seventies year in year out gaming games.
• 1:37:56
  Speaker 2: They get a very by the way, miss speaking of
• 1:37:58
  Speaker 2: barrier breakers, the Dodgers of the first ever relief pitcher
• 1:38:01
  Speaker 2: when I signed out in seventy four with Mike Marshall.
• 1:38:04
  Speaker 1: Wow, so you know, and then they goes back to
• 1:38:08
  Speaker 1: back World Series against Yankees, And that's kind of where
• 1:38:11
  Speaker 1: my interest in baseball fandom begins is so we're actually
• 1:38:15
  Speaker 1: so I was brought I seventy seven, I.
• 1:38:19
  Speaker 2: I was five, or when Reggie Jackson cheated in the
• 1:38:22
  Speaker 2: World I mean, when Reggie Jackson duck the tag in
• 1:38:25
  Speaker 2: the World Series. But I pretend I remember the moment myself.
• 1:38:28
  Speaker 2: But what I really remember was my father yelling at
• 1:38:31
  Speaker 2: the TV.
• 1:38:32
  Speaker 1: Now he's out.
• 1:38:33
  Speaker 2: When Reggie Jackson gets out of the way of that tag.
• 1:38:37
  Speaker 1: I think it's in game. Is a game I can't Yeah, I.
• 1:38:40
  Speaker 2: Don't remember watching it.
• 1:38:41
  Speaker 1: You know, you have the iconic but I remember is
• 1:38:43
  Speaker 1: my dad yelling about it. The three swings, three at bads,
• 1:38:47
  Speaker 1: three homers with Welch checking them out right, you know.
• 1:38:51
  Speaker 1: So you have these moments. I'm kind of vaguely aware
• 1:38:55
  Speaker 1: of them. I'm just coming into my sports awareness sports
• 1:38:59
  Speaker 1: fandom into like one game with the boys Club Dodgers
• 1:39:02
  Speaker 1: dat we said at like the very top of the stadium.
• 1:39:06
  Speaker 1: But yeah, you know, as I'm becoming aware of what
• 1:39:09
  Speaker 1: major League Baseball is, it's simultaneous with Dyaks and the Dodgers,
• 1:39:13
  Speaker 1: you know, And so you're just associating the Dodgers with
• 1:39:15
  Speaker 1: being this great team, and of course it's our introduction
• 1:39:18
  Speaker 1: in the national stage. It's time of dissorder. There's that
• 1:39:21
  Speaker 1: great clip of him going out and just you know,
• 1:39:24
  Speaker 1: half of its bleep, like you makes the visits to
• 1:39:26
  Speaker 1: the mound in that world series and you can still
• 1:39:29
  Speaker 1: find it somewhere on YouTube probably where it's just everything's.
• 1:39:32
  Speaker 2: Bleep, bleep, bleep.
• 1:39:33
  Speaker 1: Please.
• 1:39:34
  Speaker 2: The biggest downside of now doing everything with replay and
• 1:39:37
  Speaker 2: we're going to automate balls and strikes is Timulus sort
• 1:39:41
  Speaker 2: of Earl Weaver, the great like angry manager moments, like
• 1:39:45
  Speaker 2: we're just not going to have them anymore. We just
• 1:39:49
  Speaker 2: you just won't get a character like a Sorder never again.
• 1:39:52
  Speaker 1: Right. I mean, it's so it's so top down now, right,
• 1:39:55
  Speaker 1: like everything's coming down where you know that you've got
• 1:39:58
  Speaker 1: the bull paying game, this game and so you know,
• 1:40:00
  Speaker 1: pitch counts, you know all this stuff is do the.
• 1:40:02
  Speaker 2: Managers run the teams as much as they used to
• 1:40:04
  Speaker 2: write or gms control the lineup cards?
• 1:40:06
  Speaker 1: And you know, certainly you know, Lasorda just really popularized
• 1:40:10
  Speaker 1: Dodger Blue and have we have like Frank Sinatra come
• 1:40:14
  Speaker 1: and hanging out in the clubhouse with the dog.
• 1:40:15
  Speaker 2: Just gets back to something else you said. You know here,
• 1:40:17
  Speaker 2: here's so free agency comes to baseball. Everybody's moving around.
• 1:40:22
  Speaker 2: The Dodgers with a stable team. Here's Tommy Lasorda when
• 1:40:26
  Speaker 2: he becomes manager in seventy seven. He actually takes over
• 1:40:29
  Speaker 2: a couple of games in seventy six. He'd been with
• 1:40:32
  Speaker 2: the organization as a player. My favorite nugget about him
• 1:40:36
  Speaker 2: as he was he got front. He did not make
• 1:40:39
  Speaker 2: the World Series roster at fifty five because the Dodgers
• 1:40:42
  Speaker 2: decided this young left handed pitcher ought to be on
• 1:40:45
  Speaker 2: the roster just in case they needed him in Sandy Gobac.
• 1:40:47
  Speaker 2: So at least Losorta has been quoted as saying, it
• 1:40:50
  Speaker 2: took the greatest left handed pitcher of all time to
• 1:40:52
  Speaker 2: get me off of a World Series roster. But he
• 1:40:54
  Speaker 2: then he doesn't make it as a pitcher, and he
• 1:40:57
  Speaker 2: just works his way up. He pretty much has ever
• 1:41:00
  Speaker 2: reposition you could have as a coach before he finally
• 1:41:03
  Speaker 2: becomes manager.
• 1:41:05
  Speaker 1: There's a story that he used a rifle to defend
• 1:41:07
  Speaker 1: his teammates in Cuba during the revolution. You know, whether
• 1:41:12
  Speaker 1: it's true or not, I took it to check. You know,
• 1:41:15
  Speaker 1: his encounters with like pidel Castro all this stuff. So
• 1:41:20
  Speaker 1: it's funny for a decade in which they didn't win
• 1:41:23
  Speaker 1: the World Series. Yeah, you really think of the Dog
• 1:41:26
  Speaker 1: of the seventies as a high point for the Dodgers.
• 1:41:28
  Speaker 2: Well, and you know, this is a stat that nobody
• 1:41:30
  Speaker 2: cares about now because the home run has changed so much.
• 1:41:34
  Speaker 2: But I believe it's the seventy eight Dodgers that is
• 1:41:38
  Speaker 2: the first ever team to have four different four guys
• 1:41:40
  Speaker 2: on the same team hit thirty or one hold runs. Yeah,
• 1:41:44
  Speaker 2: I think the each thirty that season. The Garby hit thirty,
• 1:41:48
  Speaker 2: Baker hit thirty at the Smith, Reggie Smith hits thirty.
• 1:41:51
  Speaker 1: And yeah, so there was a photo that they took.
• 1:41:56
  Speaker 1: They told me the story actually where they posed for
• 1:42:01
  Speaker 1: a photo with the scoreboard in the back that said
• 1:42:03
  Speaker 1: like thirty right to all the four members of the
• 1:42:06
  Speaker 1: team that hit thirty. But they actually did it before
• 1:42:09
  Speaker 1: the final guy. I don't know if the Baker, so
• 1:42:10
  Speaker 1: someone still had that twenty hit the thirty and they
• 1:42:13
  Speaker 1: go on the road to the Astrodome, but they're not
• 1:42:16
  Speaker 1: an easy place. They don't run back then. But but
• 1:42:19
  Speaker 1: whoever it was that needed the thirty hit, it there,
• 1:42:21
  Speaker 1: but they actually took the photos pretty I have a
• 1:42:24
  Speaker 1: I have a bobblehead that they made out of it.
• 1:42:25
  Speaker 1: As wow, it's a pretty famous photo at out of
• 1:42:27
  Speaker 1: the stadium. But say told me that, yeah, we actually
• 1:42:30
  Speaker 1: took it before all of us hit the thirty on
• 1:42:32
  Speaker 1: Mons because this is their last home stand before they
• 1:42:34
  Speaker 1: went on the road.
• 1:42:35
  Speaker 2: So these are this is my teams. These are the
• 1:42:40
  Speaker 2: teams that I grew up with. Steve Garvey was the
• 1:42:42
  Speaker 2: guy and before we before Steve Garvey's personal life became public,
• 1:42:49
  Speaker 2: let's just say, my mom and dad loved that I
• 1:42:51
  Speaker 2: was looking up Steve Garvey was mister clean.
• 1:42:54
  Speaker 1: Like changes Jersey if you got any dirt, right, And.
• 1:42:56
  Speaker 2: He was mister Dodger. And you know, there was the
• 1:42:58
  Speaker 2: whole His father drove the hem bust and he was
• 1:43:00
  Speaker 2: a kid. I mean, that was my point, the whole
• 1:43:04
  Speaker 2: the Dodgers were. You were a Dodger man, You were
• 1:43:08
  Speaker 2: a Dodger for life, right Garvey as a kid, he
• 1:43:11
  Speaker 2: was groomed to be a Dodger, right, Lasorda all the
• 1:43:14
  Speaker 2: way through. And so it was always it was actually
• 1:43:17
  Speaker 2: always unsettling as a Dodger fan when some outsider would
• 1:43:20
  Speaker 2: come in what are they doing signing a free agent?
• 1:43:21
  Speaker 1: Who is this ken Lan Drew?
• 1:43:23
  Speaker 2: You know type of thing, because the Dodgers always found
• 1:43:25
  Speaker 2: people in their farm system.
• 1:43:27
  Speaker 1: You know.
• 1:43:27
  Speaker 2: That's why it is weird to see even today's Dodgers,
• 1:43:30
  Speaker 2: which are made up of players that were brought up
• 1:43:33
  Speaker 2: from other teams.
• 1:43:34
  Speaker 1: Right, you know, but even by the eighty eight World Series,
• 1:43:36
  Speaker 1: I mean Kurt Gibson, yeah, you know, you know, the
• 1:43:38
  Speaker 1: MVP of the league, and you know, the pivotal moment
• 1:43:42
  Speaker 1: in the World Series that year, So they had already changed.
• 1:43:45
  Speaker 1: But like again, the seventies Dodgers, for a team that
• 1:43:47
  Speaker 1: didn't win a World Series, they feel like wanted a franchise,
• 1:43:50
  Speaker 1: Like I think of them more than the A's, you know,
• 1:43:52
  Speaker 1: maybe because I grew.
• 1:43:53
  Speaker 2: Up the A's win three, yeah, yeah, but the big
• 1:43:56
  Speaker 2: Red Machine is in three in a row and win two, right.
• 1:43:59
  Speaker 1: You know, Red Sox in the World sty sego back,
• 1:44:01
  Speaker 1: he's went back to back, go to three, And I
• 1:44:03
  Speaker 1: feel like the Dodgers belonged in the conversation with all
• 1:44:05
  Speaker 1: of them, even though they didn't win. You know, that's
• 1:44:07
  Speaker 1: how iconic.
• 1:44:08
  Speaker 2: Well, I would argue they got their seventies World Series
• 1:44:11
  Speaker 2: in eighty one. Yeah, right, because it's really that team
• 1:44:14
  Speaker 2: in the seventies.
• 1:44:15
  Speaker 1: With a notable edition, one notable edition, Chuck. On September
• 1:44:20
  Speaker 1: twenty fourth, nineteen eighty my friend and his family took
• 1:44:23
  Speaker 1: me to a game Red Dodger Stadium. We sat out
• 1:44:25
  Speaker 1: in the leftfield pavilion. They don't call him the bleachers,
• 1:44:28
  Speaker 1: the billions, he said, in the pavilion below the diamond vision.
• 1:44:33
  Speaker 1: I had to turn around to see it. And I
• 1:44:36
  Speaker 1: remember a player entered the game. There's a September caller
• 1:44:41
  Speaker 1: put you by the name of Fernando Valenz Whaler. It
• 1:44:44
  Speaker 1: was nineteen years old. He's making his fourth appearance and
• 1:44:46
  Speaker 1: he'd already generated some buns. I remember Bannando Valenz Whale
• 1:44:50
  Speaker 1: was chic.
• 1:44:51
  Speaker 2: Well, Mexican baseball player in LA. Yeah, there hadn't been
• 1:44:54
  Speaker 2: a lot of Mexican success stories in Major League Baseball, No, right,
• 1:44:58
  Speaker 2: And to have this happen.
• 1:44:59
  Speaker 1: And you know, became a you know, full fledged phenomenon
• 1:45:04
  Speaker 1: the next year. But you know, this guy pitches one
• 1:45:07
  Speaker 1: or two thirds inning reliefs or the no hits, no
• 1:45:09
  Speaker 1: runs when walked too strikeouts.
• 1:45:12
  Speaker 2: Part of the seventeen plus innings he pitched that month.
• 1:45:14
  Speaker 1: Without allowing an earned run, so we got a little
• 1:45:17
  Speaker 1: taste of what to come. Uh. The other memory thing
• 1:45:20
  Speaker 1: that night was Manny Mota, forty two years old, who
• 1:45:23
  Speaker 1: had already retired, and he kind of comes out of
• 1:45:26
  Speaker 1: he was a coach and then it kind of comes
• 1:45:29
  Speaker 1: back in as a pinch hitter, one of the all
• 1:45:30
  Speaker 1: time great pinch hitters. He had the game winning RBI
• 1:45:34
  Speaker 1: as a pinch hitter in the bottom of the twelfth.
• 1:45:36
  Speaker 2: The Dodgers beat the.
• 1:45:37
  Speaker 1: Giants five to four, So Mota ties you into the Dominican.
• 1:45:43
  Speaker 2: Republic aspect of the Dodgers. They were one of the
• 1:45:47
  Speaker 2: first ones to ye at a camp set up there.
• 1:45:50
  Speaker 1: You know, they had some great Dominicans. Pedro Guerrero came
• 1:45:53
  Speaker 1: up at the end of the nineteen seventies. Mariona Duncan,
• 1:45:56
  Speaker 1: Alejandro Pena were some some early Dodgers from the Dominican.
• 1:46:00
  Speaker 2: In They had this young picture in the early nineties
• 1:46:03
  Speaker 2: named Pedro Martinez. Yeah, too bad, that didn't work about him.
• 1:46:05
  Speaker 2: They liked his older brother at the time. They kept
• 1:46:08
  Speaker 2: the older brother who was a pretty good picture and
• 1:46:11
  Speaker 2: get other than Pedro at the time, but it was
• 1:46:13
  Speaker 2: at the top. Yeah, yeah, that that is one of
• 1:46:15
  Speaker 2: those paidful at least, and Dad's got the line on
• 1:46:17
  Speaker 2: the shields so far. Yeah, that the pay Pedro Martinez
• 1:46:21
  Speaker 2: is one of the more painful ones. But look, Fernando,
• 1:46:24
  Speaker 2: Fernando was to say it was a phenomenon as an understatement,
• 1:46:28
  Speaker 2: it really, and it took the this was look, I'm
• 1:46:31
  Speaker 2: in Miami, obviously, I'm a I'm a Dodger fan. As
• 1:46:34
  Speaker 2: a kid, we subscribed to both the morning and afternoon papers.
• 1:46:38
  Speaker 2: And you know why we subscribed to the afternoon paper
• 1:46:40
  Speaker 2: for the West Coast box score. It was the only
• 1:46:42
  Speaker 2: way you could get a Dodger box score was was
• 1:46:44
  Speaker 2: for that. But Fernando was everyone.
• 1:46:46
  Speaker 1: So you know.
• 1:46:47
  Speaker 2: Another picture dot a stadium, and especially.
• 1:46:50
  Speaker 1: In the eighties was guy named Mike Brido and you'd
• 1:46:52
  Speaker 1: see him, you watch the game, sit the guy with
• 1:46:54
  Speaker 1: the door on my head and the radar gun and
• 1:46:58
  Speaker 1: he'd be he was iconic. Yeah, yeah, unlit cigar in
• 1:47:01
  Speaker 1: his mouth. So he was a guy in nineteen seventy eight,
• 1:47:05
  Speaker 1: he was scouting in Mexico. He's down there to see
• 1:47:07
  Speaker 1: a shortstop and in the fifth inning of reliever comes
• 1:47:09
  Speaker 1: in the pitch and it was Fernando Venezuela, and in
• 1:47:13
  Speaker 1: the scouting report from nineteen seventy nine, Brita wrote he
• 1:47:16
  Speaker 1: called Fernando a good major league prospect, strong, left handed
• 1:47:19
  Speaker 1: with a lot of toois. Fernando's a guy from a
• 1:47:22
  Speaker 1: farming town of a few hundred people in Mexico, Etchiwaquia, Mexico,
• 1:47:28
  Speaker 1: the youngest of twelve children. The daughters bought his contract
• 1:47:31
  Speaker 1: for one hundred and twenty thousand dollars. Another picture in
• 1:47:35
  Speaker 1: that game in September twenty four to nineteen eighty was
• 1:47:38
  Speaker 1: a guy named Bobby Kristiobabo Christillo as they called him,
• 1:47:42
  Speaker 1: and in the minor leagues he taught Fernando the screwball,
• 1:47:46
  Speaker 1: which became his go to signature pitch.
• 1:47:49
  Speaker 2: Well, there was two things about Fernando and it's what
• 1:47:52
  Speaker 2: it actually ties in. I remember it was this idea
• 1:47:56
  Speaker 2: of who was he looking at before he would touch
• 1:47:58
  Speaker 2: the ball.
• 1:47:58
  Speaker 1: You'd see these eyes and it.
• 1:48:00
  Speaker 2: Was like and and it almost made it fitting when
• 1:48:04
  Speaker 2: they got the tornado from Japan and Nomo, who also
• 1:48:07
  Speaker 2: had the same thing, You're like, how is it that
• 1:48:08
  Speaker 2: if you don't look at the batter you can somehow
• 1:48:10
  Speaker 2: watch better.
• 1:48:12
  Speaker 1: So the last time into that that late season game
• 1:48:15
  Speaker 1: in nineteen eighty that went to the starting pitcher that
• 1:48:17
  Speaker 1: night was with Jerry Rook's great Dodger pitcher. He was
• 1:48:21
  Speaker 1: scheduled to be the opening day starter in nineteen eighty one,
• 1:48:24
  Speaker 1: but he pulls a calf muscle while running, you know,
• 1:48:28
  Speaker 1: to get in shape before the season, and Tom Lasorda
• 1:48:32
  Speaker 1: decides to go with Fernando and he throws a shutout,
• 1:48:35
  Speaker 1: complete game the next game, nine innings, one run. The
• 1:48:40
  Speaker 1: next game, complete game, shutout, the game after that, complete game, shutout,
• 1:48:43
  Speaker 1: same thing the next game, and so Fernando Mania is born.
• 1:48:49
  Speaker 1: He winds up being the Rookie of the Year and
• 1:48:51
  Speaker 1: the sly young winner, leads the league and complete Gamebody's
• 1:48:53
  Speaker 1: ever done that again.
• 1:48:54
  Speaker 2: I don't know if I doubt that happens again because
• 1:48:57
  Speaker 2: of the way again you go back to how rookie
• 1:49:00
  Speaker 2: pitchers are treated. Trust me as now a transplant Nationals fan,
• 1:49:05
  Speaker 2: and the Steven Straussburg debacle that I still consider a debacle,
• 1:49:09
  Speaker 2: you know who was probably not since Fernando had a
• 1:49:14
  Speaker 2: you know that people were so anxious to see and
• 1:49:16
  Speaker 2: they shut him down. So we'll never see a Rookie
• 1:49:19
  Speaker 2: of the Year scient.
• 1:49:20
  Speaker 1: And you could argue that maybe it kept him from
• 1:49:24
  Speaker 1: the sustained greatness, right, I mean, the way they really
• 1:49:27
  Speaker 1: use it.
• 1:49:27
  Speaker 2: It is, but I just want to I want to
• 1:49:30
  Speaker 2: just just to remind people how baseball was so different
• 1:49:33
  Speaker 2: even in the eighties. So you know, I have a
• 1:49:37
  Speaker 2: it is a real, it is a real, it sticks
• 1:49:41
  Speaker 2: in mind, whatever you want to call it. That Fernando's
• 1:49:43
  Speaker 2: out in the Hall of Fame, and it really is
• 1:49:45
  Speaker 2: a bummer. He will get in the Hall of Fame,
• 1:49:47
  Speaker 2: either as an announcer or as a player both. I'm
• 1:49:50
  Speaker 2: sorry it's going to be posthumously that we don't get
• 1:49:53
  Speaker 2: to have that. He doesn't get to to have this moment.
• 1:49:57
  Speaker 2: But when you think about what he did in his
• 1:50:00
  Speaker 2: seven years. So, first of all, so he leads the
• 1:50:02
  Speaker 2: league in complete games in eighty one with eleven.
• 1:50:04
  Speaker 1: In eighty two, he.
• 1:50:05
  Speaker 2: Is eighteen complete games. That didn't lead the league by
• 1:50:08
  Speaker 2: the way. Okay, he had nine and eighty three complete games.
• 1:50:12
  Speaker 2: Twelve and eighty four complete games, mind you, eighty five,
• 1:50:15
  Speaker 2: fourteen and eighty six, he is twenty complete games.
• 1:50:17
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 1:50:18
  Speaker 2: In eighty seven he is twelve complete games. Okay, Now
• 1:50:22
  Speaker 2: let me tell you about justin Verlander. Okay, who's you know, sustained.
• 1:50:26
  Speaker 2: You know, the most complete games he's ever had in
• 1:50:29
  Speaker 2: a season was in twenty twelve and it was six. Okay,
• 1:50:33
  Speaker 2: So it's just we've just entirely changed. And a theory
• 1:50:39
  Speaker 2: I've always had on if if Fernando is if Fernando
• 1:50:43
  Speaker 2: is protected the way we protect pitchers today. You know,
• 1:50:48
  Speaker 2: did he do fifteen years in eight is sort of
• 1:50:51
  Speaker 2: the you know, it's not quite that when you look
• 1:50:53
  Speaker 2: at any's pitched. There's more innings pitched, you know, but
• 1:50:57
  Speaker 2: his seven years, that's seven years. It's not quite Sandy,
• 1:51:01
  Speaker 2: but it's pretty it's pretty impressive, and if you extrapolated
• 1:51:05
  Speaker 2: it over a twelve or thirteen year career probably.
• 1:51:07
  Speaker 1: Would have been just as psychonics. So the other significant numbers,
• 1:51:11
  Speaker 1: in addition to the complete games and the strikeouts and everything,
• 1:51:14
  Speaker 1: the attendance. You look at Dodger state, forty six thousand fans,
• 1:51:18
  Speaker 1: forty nine thousand fans, fifty three thousand fans when he
• 1:51:21
  Speaker 1: pitched fifty to sixty percent of the TVs in use
• 1:51:24
  Speaker 1: in LA, the share is a call or lots of
• 1:51:27
  Speaker 1: the Dodgers. That was the type of impact zone. But
• 1:51:30
  Speaker 1: also like they're making songs about him. In La. There
• 1:51:33
  Speaker 1: was a radio a pair of radio guys in LA
• 1:51:36
  Speaker 1: morning show. They came up with proposal. They wanted to
• 1:51:39
  Speaker 1: rename the San Fraanana San Fernando Valley the San Fernando
• 1:51:42
  Speaker 1: Valley ands Whala, Yeah, Like that's how popular it was,
• 1:51:45
  Speaker 1: and it's just a cultural earthquake.
• 1:51:47
  Speaker 2: Latino fans returned unmost to shop.
• 1:51:49
  Speaker 1: I believe, And.
• 1:51:51
  Speaker 2: You know, this is another one of those I will
• 1:51:52
  Speaker 2: confess to the two good to check because I couldn't
• 1:51:55
  Speaker 2: find I couldn't verify this, but I believe. I remember
• 1:51:58
  Speaker 2: reading this years ago that the Dodgers made more money
• 1:52:01
  Speaker 2: on their Spanish language media rights in the eighties because
• 1:52:04
  Speaker 2: of Fernando then like the Minnesota Twins did for all
• 1:52:07
  Speaker 2: their TV right in Minnesota. That that's how valuable the
• 1:52:11
  Speaker 2: Spanish language TV rights. And it just added, you know,
• 1:52:14
  Speaker 2: we're sort of when does a franchise become a dynasty?
• 1:52:17
  Speaker 1: Right?
• 1:52:18
  Speaker 2: And in many ways this is the exercise we want
• 1:52:20
  Speaker 2: to try to get at.
• 1:52:21
  Speaker 1: For the Dodgers.
• 1:52:22
  Speaker 2: The dynasty does seem to begin in La even though
• 1:52:25
  Speaker 2: it was this is a team born in Brooklyn. It's
• 1:52:28
  Speaker 2: sort of you see that it begins in LA and
• 1:52:30
  Speaker 2: it's because of this sustained they immediately they have stars
• 1:52:34
  Speaker 2: immediately right then Scully's the off field star and Sandy
• 1:52:38
  Speaker 2: Kofag's the on field star that we immediately go to Drysdale.
• 1:52:42
  Speaker 2: And then you have Garvey who's himself Hollywood. His wife
• 1:52:45
  Speaker 2: is an actress, and you know he's a star. And
• 1:52:48
  Speaker 2: then Fernando's this big stars. It's a team of stars.
• 1:52:52
  Speaker 2: They're not quite winning the World Series enough to say
• 1:52:54
  Speaker 2: they're the number one baseball team, but they're on their
• 1:52:57
  Speaker 2: way to donastic. Yeah, they're getting there.
• 1:53:00
  Speaker 1: And uh, the impact of Fernando it still fell to
• 1:53:05
  Speaker 1: this day and it just changes the tone and the
• 1:53:07
  Speaker 1: tenor of the Dodgers. So the fact that you know
• 1:53:09
  Speaker 1: we have Mariacci bans on opening day now, but remember
• 1:53:12
  Speaker 1: how Dodger Stadium was born.
• 1:53:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it is born as a way placing Mexican America.
• 1:53:19
  Speaker 2: There's anger, there were there were You talk to old
• 1:53:21
  Speaker 2: timers in LA and they'll say there were many, uh
• 1:53:26
  Speaker 2: Mexican Americans who refused to root for the Dodgers, mad
• 1:53:30
  Speaker 2: and angry about it because of what happened to Chevez,
• 1:53:33
  Speaker 2: Rotine and Fernando read series. I think it was the
• 1:53:36
  Speaker 2: forty Fannibursary of Fernando Mania.
• 1:53:38
  Speaker 1: They went, they looked back and great video series actually,
• 1:53:41
  Speaker 1: and Fernando's in it's speaking a lot of English actually,
• 1:53:44
  Speaker 1: you know. But yeah, you have people in that saying
• 1:53:47
  Speaker 1: that they just had Harvard this resentment, but Fernando brings
• 1:53:51
  Speaker 1: them back. And then to this day, the amount of
• 1:53:53
  Speaker 1: Latino fans that you see Mexican Americans and it's still
• 1:53:56
  Speaker 1: Fernando Stadium. Yeah, and they're wearing brown zuela.
• 1:53:59
  Speaker 2: It is just like what I was saying, what it
• 1:54:01
  Speaker 2: is for many Jewish Americans about sandy from Mexican Americans.
• 1:54:06
  Speaker 2: That's Fernando, isn't it.
• 1:54:07
  Speaker 1: And he was such a big figure, and so you know,
• 1:54:10
  Speaker 1: I'd go to Doughter games, covering Dodger games. In the
• 1:54:12
  Speaker 1: press box, you'd see Fernando walking in there. He was
• 1:54:14
  Speaker 1: the Spanish language. Yeah, he brought broadcaster for decades. Yeah,
• 1:54:18
  Speaker 1: so he's there. And it's not that he was unfriendly,
• 1:54:23
  Speaker 1: but I just felt I didn't want to take any
• 1:54:26
  Speaker 1: of his time. I didn't want to talk to him,
• 1:54:28
  Speaker 1: ask him a bunch of questions because I just felt
• 1:54:29
  Speaker 1: like I could only begin to imagine the pressure that
• 1:54:34
  Speaker 1: this iconic figure anytime you stepped out of the house
• 1:54:37
  Speaker 1: in La and so I figured he didn't need me,
• 1:54:40
  Speaker 1: He didn't need a single additional person coming up to him. Hey, Fernando,
• 1:54:43
  Speaker 1: tell me about the time, you know. So it's just
• 1:54:47
  Speaker 1: the amount of pressure he must have felt, the way
• 1:54:49
  Speaker 1: he carried himself, you know, the way he was looked
• 1:54:52
  Speaker 1: up to the way. I mean, it's funny he was
• 1:54:56
  Speaker 1: the franchise to a significant portion in Los Angeles, Fernando
• 1:54:59
  Speaker 1: violence was the Dodgers, and to never have any type
• 1:55:05
  Speaker 1: of downfall, no major scandal, you know, but the way
• 1:55:09
  Speaker 1: that you know, the only scandal is did Tommy burn
• 1:55:11
  Speaker 1: out his arms?
• 1:55:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah? I mean I say this with love with Tommy,
• 1:55:14
  Speaker 2: because Tommy did do something that no manager in their
• 1:55:18
  Speaker 2: right mind would have done. Is he left him in
• 1:55:19
  Speaker 2: the World Series after he gave up all. And you
• 1:55:22
  Speaker 2: know what when he when he left him in, Fernando
• 1:55:24
  Speaker 2: became unhittable.
• 1:55:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah. So he you know, he they win the World
• 1:55:30
  Speaker 1: Series a year, perfect year, but looks in fact, that
• 1:55:33
  Speaker 1: was the strike year Strikeshow crazy?
• 1:55:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Rember, there's this fun trivia question that the team
• 1:55:39
  Speaker 2: with the best record in baseball never made the play
• 1:55:41
  Speaker 2: never made the playoffs.
• 1:55:42
  Speaker 1: And they split the season that yet into the first
• 1:55:45
  Speaker 1: half and the second half, and so the winner of
• 1:55:46
  Speaker 1: the first half played the winner.
• 1:55:47
  Speaker 2: The first division series. Yeah, and in fact that, oh,
• 1:55:52
  Speaker 2: there were two moments the Dodgers shouldn't have gotten out
• 1:55:56
  Speaker 2: of the Division series with the Astros. Then they play
• 1:55:59
  Speaker 2: this young team Montreal and it's Rick Monday who does
• 1:56:03
  Speaker 2: the saving home run.
• 1:56:05
  Speaker 1: But that was that.
• 1:56:07
  Speaker 2: There were a lot of pitfalls for that eighty one
• 1:56:09
  Speaker 2: Dodger team. And then they go down to zero in
• 1:56:11
  Speaker 2: the World Series and win for straight to win.
• 1:56:14
  Speaker 1: The whole thing. They win again in eighty eight. Of course,
• 1:56:18
  Speaker 1: the horse a year to kind of conclude that era
• 1:56:22
  Speaker 1: of the Dodger, and it really does.
• 1:56:24
  Speaker 2: It's the end of tom I mean, it's not Tommy's last.
• 1:56:26
  Speaker 1: Year, because he goes all the way to ninety six.
• 1:56:28
  Speaker 2: But it felt like the beginning of the end.
• 1:56:32
  Speaker 1: Well similarly, how you know, Fernando probably burned out overuse,
• 1:56:38
  Speaker 1: right and didn't get the.
• 1:56:39
  Speaker 2: He really wasn't a factor in the eighty eight Yes, yeah,
• 1:56:41
  Speaker 2: the way he was.
• 1:56:42
  Speaker 1: Although he sticks around throws no hitter in nineteen ninety,
• 1:56:45
  Speaker 1: which I was at by the way, so he did
• 1:56:46
  Speaker 1: that for the Oils. No no for that one was
• 1:56:48
  Speaker 1: for the It was nineteen ninety, so I was actually
• 1:56:50
  Speaker 1: I think it was funny. So former Dodger Dave Stewart
• 1:56:53
  Speaker 1: it pitched a no hitter earlier the day in Toronto,
• 1:56:55
  Speaker 1: and They're showing the highlights on the scoreboard and I'm thinking, man,
• 1:56:59
  Speaker 1: it would be great to be there for a no
• 1:57:01
  Speaker 1: hitter or something. And literally that game, Fernando throw's no hitter?
• 1:57:04
  Speaker 2: Is that your only no hitter? Only no hitter I've
• 1:57:06
  Speaker 2: ever seen in person. So it's funny because even as
• 1:57:10
  Speaker 2: a sports writer it's still very common to be in
• 1:57:13
  Speaker 2: I can.
• 1:57:13
  Speaker 1: Still hear Vin Scully's callow. That's how ingrained he is.
• 1:57:16
  Speaker 1: Like the call, is I the aba sombrero, throw it
• 1:57:20
  Speaker 1: in the air, you know? Yeah, yeah, So that's that.
• 1:57:23
  Speaker 1: That was when he said it was after the last
• 1:57:25
  Speaker 1: I was a groundball by Paedrick Garrever, former Dodger. We
• 1:57:28
  Speaker 1: hit a grounder up the middle for the final out.
• 1:57:31
  Speaker 1: But as we getting into the nineties, another sort of players.
• 1:57:35
  Speaker 1: So we have the eighty eight. There's what eighty eight
• 1:57:38
  Speaker 1: for Gibson. I mean, it is such a it's is it.
• 1:57:42
  Speaker 1: You know, it's funny.
• 1:57:43
  Speaker 2: The Dodgers are arguably have three or four of the
• 1:57:46
  Speaker 2: most famous playoff walkoffs ever. The negative the shot were
• 1:57:52
  Speaker 2: heard around the world. Ye Gibson, Freddie Freeman.
• 1:57:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I love the fact that Joe Davis Echode Ye
• 1:58:05
  Speaker 1: Ben Scully's call, she is gone, he used the exact same,
• 1:58:10
  Speaker 1: probably the three most beloved words in Dodger fan history,
• 1:58:14
  Speaker 1: she is gone. It just still gives me goosebumps every
• 1:58:17
  Speaker 1: time I watch that. Clay and I still laugh every
• 1:58:20
  Speaker 1: time I see the parking lights. So the break lights
• 1:58:23
  Speaker 1: come on out be on the right field pavilion as
• 1:58:26
  Speaker 1: soon as people realize, oh my god.
• 1:58:28
  Speaker 2: One of my favorite things that you know, the internet's
• 1:58:30
  Speaker 2: terrible for a lot of reasons, but one of the
• 1:58:32
  Speaker 2: great things the internet does let us have is you
• 1:58:35
  Speaker 2: can watch the entire bottom of the night. Yeah, and
• 1:58:39
  Speaker 2: Scully's call for the entire bottom of the night.
• 1:58:41
  Speaker 1: It is still there.
• 1:58:43
  Speaker 2: I implore you, if you've never I made my son
• 1:58:45
  Speaker 2: watch it to just try to understand how improbable this was.
• 1:58:49
  Speaker 2: How many times that the weak foul tip that almost
• 1:58:54
  Speaker 2: stays fair and it's like, well, he's just going to
• 1:58:56
  Speaker 2: get tagged out games over. You know, I have this
• 1:59:00
  Speaker 2: weird memory. I was at a high school football game.
• 1:59:02
  Speaker 2: I'm playing, I was, I was attending and it's in Miami,
• 1:59:06
  Speaker 2: and over the speaker they go update from the World
• 1:59:11
  Speaker 2: Series Miami's own Jose Conseco, because Jose Canseco was this
• 1:59:16
  Speaker 2: new up and coming superstar at the time, and so
• 1:59:19
  Speaker 2: and everybody's cheering for the A's in Miami because of Konseko.
• 1:59:24
  Speaker 1: And this is before we know all the other stuff
• 1:59:26
  Speaker 1: about him. But he's just you know, the bash brothers
• 1:59:29
  Speaker 1: that it's such an exciting thing. And I'm just all depressed.
• 1:59:31
  Speaker 1: Oh man, I'm missing this. And I didn't get home and.
• 1:59:37
  Speaker 2: And so you hear the Kinseco and then and I
• 1:59:41
  Speaker 2: actually happened to be I heard Jack Bucks call because
• 1:59:45
  Speaker 2: I was in a car or a radio going going
• 1:59:48
  Speaker 2: home after the game. And that's so I never I
• 1:59:51
  Speaker 2: ended up seeing the Scuts.
• 1:59:53
  Speaker 1: I didn't hear either, lie because I was working that night.
• 1:59:56
  Speaker 1: I was a freshman here in Northwestern and I had
• 1:59:58
  Speaker 1: worked that night in my.
• 1:59:59
  Speaker 2: Room just outed. Our ages are pretty close.
• 2:00:03
  Speaker 1: So my roommate called over and you know, gave me,
• 2:00:07
  Speaker 1: told me what happened. I also missed Freeman's home run Live.
• 2:00:11
  Speaker 1: I saw it on that app. I just see that
• 2:00:13
  Speaker 1: everyone all of a sudden going around the pages. Yeah,
• 2:00:16
  Speaker 1: go ahead. So the other thing with that is you
• 2:00:18
  Speaker 1: mentioned Kinseko, so Jim Murray the Great feel surprised when
• 2:00:21
  Speaker 1: in sports comments at the other day Times Kincico just
• 2:00:24
  Speaker 1: hit a bomb, hit a grand slam bag. I believe
• 2:00:27
  Speaker 1: it was a grand slam. And so like Murray's has
• 2:00:30
  Speaker 1: his whole comrade like this is one of the great
• 2:00:32
  Speaker 1: home runs and went through fourth and it's going to
• 2:00:34
  Speaker 1: be a fourth run. Yeah, so he's got his whole
• 2:00:36
  Speaker 1: story written. And then for Gibson seeing the story.
• 2:00:38
  Speaker 2: So for me, the eighty eight my my father died
• 2:00:41
  Speaker 2: in November of eighty eight. He was in the hospital
• 2:00:43
  Speaker 2: for a long time, for fifty to fifty two days.
• 2:00:46
  Speaker 2: And I see you we watched that. Well that's the
• 2:00:48
  Speaker 2: last thing we got to do together. He was watched
• 2:00:51
  Speaker 2: that World Series. So it's for you know, and this
• 2:00:54
  Speaker 2: is what why we want, why why do we love sports,
• 2:00:57
  Speaker 2: Because they're really about helping us mark time in our
• 2:01:00
  Speaker 2: own lives. And so for me, I know we're going
• 2:01:03
  Speaker 2: to the eighty eight World Series is just just forever memorialized,
• 2:01:08
  Speaker 2: and it's like, I always want to go up to
• 2:01:11
  Speaker 2: Kirk Gibson and thank him for giving my dad a
• 2:01:14
  Speaker 2: great memory before it before Literally one of the.
• 2:01:17
  Speaker 1: Last big memories last day grandmother's life, and she was
• 2:01:21
  Speaker 1: a big Laker fan, was the comeback of the Game
• 2:01:24
  Speaker 1: seven come back for the Lakers in the Western Conference
• 2:01:27
  Speaker 1: Finals against Portland. Oh my goodness. Yeah, and yeah, that
• 2:01:31
  Speaker 1: h that that whole finals that year. My mom passed
• 2:01:35
  Speaker 1: a few days after the NBA Finals that year, so
• 2:01:37
  Speaker 1: one of the last things she did was went to
• 2:01:39
  Speaker 1: Game seven or a game it was Game six for
• 2:01:41
  Speaker 1: the Lakers to see that. So yeah, I think of
• 2:01:43
  Speaker 1: that two thousand Finals. Yeah, the same way you think
• 2:01:46
  Speaker 1: of that nineteen eighty eight World Series.
• 2:01:48
  Speaker 2: So when you when you look at the Dodgers now,
• 2:01:50
  Speaker 2: when we look backwards, right eighty eight is this, Yeah,
• 2:01:54
  Speaker 2: there's I remember so Bob Costas I think said it
• 2:01:56
  Speaker 2: was the worst World Series lineup in the history. Yeah, Tom,
• 2:01:59
  Speaker 2: it was sort of about one of the great upsets. It's
• 2:02:01
  Speaker 2: oh still one of the most remarkable. Everything about it.
• 2:02:03
  Speaker 2: That team had no business. Mickey Hatcher hit more home
• 2:02:06
  Speaker 2: runs in the World Series than he did all year
• 2:02:08
  Speaker 2: two and the World Series won.
• 2:02:10
  Speaker 1: During the season, right Mickey Hatcher was started.
• 2:02:14
  Speaker 2: Mickey Atcher was a great, you know, sort of utility bed,
• 2:02:16
  Speaker 2: but Mickey Atcher had to start right.
• 2:02:18
  Speaker 1: For the World Series champions So decades later, I'm in
• 2:02:21
  Speaker 1: the green room at ESPN and all Herstizer is there.
• 2:02:24
  Speaker 2: Ye world's heies, and you said.
• 2:02:26
  Speaker 1: Here, like try it on, and like, you know, I'd
• 2:02:29
  Speaker 1: actually held championship rings before, but like that was like
• 2:02:34
  Speaker 1: his ring, Like he won that ring like single handedly,
• 2:02:37
  Speaker 1: almost like he was the world. He was the MVP,
• 2:02:39
  Speaker 1: like pitches in relief in the UH in the League
• 2:02:42
  Speaker 1: Championship series against the Mets, like like it was.
• 2:02:45
  Speaker 2: You now that we see now when you see whether
• 2:02:49
  Speaker 2: it's Max sus or with the with the Nats or
• 2:02:51
  Speaker 2: or what we saw with Yamalodo.
• 2:02:53
  Speaker 1: You know, uh ties or breaks down Dryses, shut out
• 2:02:57
  Speaker 1: Inning Street during the during the down the stretch to
• 2:03:00
  Speaker 1: get the Dodgers into the playoffs. So like he's single
• 2:03:03
  Speaker 1: handedly I felt like, you know, with one swing of
• 2:03:05
  Speaker 1: the bat from Gibson.
• 2:03:07
  Speaker 2: Well, trust me, there's Mets fans in my life that
• 2:03:09
  Speaker 2: are bitter about that eighty eight season because they're like,
• 2:03:11
  Speaker 2: you guys had no business winning the NLCY.
• 2:03:13
  Speaker 1: Yes, you're right, yeah, yeah, really one of the great upsets.
• 2:03:16
  Speaker 2: But it is really the end it from when you
• 2:03:19
  Speaker 2: look at the Dodgers between eighty nine and arguably the
• 2:03:25
  Speaker 2: turmoil begins, right the O'Malleys have to sell you know, let's.
• 2:03:30
  Speaker 1: All later though, but I would say first, it's not it.
• 2:03:34
  Speaker 1: Maybe we didn't realize it at the time. Somewhat though,
• 2:03:36
  Speaker 1: but in the nineties where they all Nomo yes, you
• 2:03:42
  Speaker 1: know so, which in some ways continues the you know, the.
• 2:03:46
  Speaker 2: Path before there's e chier Row. People forget this before
• 2:03:49
  Speaker 2: there's e chier Row. Yeah, there's Nomo and the importance
• 2:03:52
  Speaker 2: of Nomo Nomo in some ways the Kirk flood.
• 2:03:54
  Speaker 1: Of Japanese baseball players.
• 2:03:55
  Speaker 2: Yeah, because he gets the Japanese Baseball League eventually didn't
• 2:04:01
  Speaker 2: take a Supreme Court rule no no, but he essentially
• 2:04:04
  Speaker 2: forces the hand of Japanese baseball leagues to loosen their
• 2:04:07
  Speaker 2: rules about how long before you get to before you
• 2:04:12
  Speaker 2: get to leave, and Nomo sort of he retires.
• 2:04:16
  Speaker 1: There was a rule that you had to play ten
• 2:04:18
  Speaker 1: years in Japan before you could leave unless you retired,
• 2:04:20
  Speaker 1: Unless you retired. Yeah, so it actually his hand was
• 2:04:24
  Speaker 1: forced in this regard. So the leverage Japanese League teams
• 2:04:28
  Speaker 1: had was they could force players on.
• 2:04:29
  Speaker 2: Something called the volunteer retired list.
• 2:04:31
  Speaker 1: So they had made an offer, well that Nomo and
• 2:04:36
  Speaker 1: his agent made. It proposed of a six year, thirty
• 2:04:38
  Speaker 1: six million dollar contract demand considered not raizised at that time,
• 2:04:41
  Speaker 1: right force the team's hands. So they said, we're not
• 2:04:44
  Speaker 1: being that. You know, we're gonna don voluntary retired list.
• 2:04:47
  Speaker 1: So they said, okay, if that's how you feel, well,
• 2:04:54
  Speaker 1: we're retired. That means we can go to Yeah, yeah,
• 2:04:56
  Speaker 1: we go to La So interesting. Peter O'Malley, who had
• 2:04:59
  Speaker 1: taken over for his father Walter at the time, is
• 2:05:01
  Speaker 1: owning the Dodgers. He was worried that sani No would
• 2:05:03
  Speaker 1: actually ruin the Dodgor's reputation in Japan, which went back
• 2:05:06
  Speaker 1: to the nineteen fifties. There's actually a Japanese stone lantern
• 2:05:11
  Speaker 1: that was given the Dodgers by Japanese sports writers in
• 2:05:13
  Speaker 1: nineteen sixty five that's recently been restored and put outside
• 2:05:16
  Speaker 1: the stadium, but it was a reflection of the relationship
• 2:05:20
  Speaker 1: between the Dodgers in Japan, and he's like, well, if
• 2:05:21
  Speaker 1: we start taking their players they're not going to love us.
• 2:05:24
  Speaker 1: But he actually almost went to the Mariners first, but
• 2:05:28
  Speaker 1: he didn't pass the physical. Then the kind of giants,
• 2:05:30
  Speaker 1: and then the Dodgers wound up with them. The agent,
• 2:05:35
  Speaker 1: well arn't Tellham was the agent who worked with Normal's
• 2:05:39
  Speaker 1: agent Don de Moura, And he actually mentioned the Dodgers'
• 2:05:43
  Speaker 1: history of diversity and the large Japanese population. So this
• 2:05:47
  Speaker 1: kind of goes into theory. Don't be talking in to it.
• 2:05:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, he wasn't really with it, but another
• 2:05:53
  Speaker 2: barrier broke, yeah, And it kind of.
• 2:05:55
  Speaker 1: Goes into the notion markin Gladwell talked about an outliers
• 2:05:59
  Speaker 1: that sometimes things are a result of they could only
• 2:06:03
  Speaker 1: happen because of a certain place, right, So it's not
• 2:06:06
  Speaker 1: just nature versus nurture, but it's kind of that the
• 2:06:08
  Speaker 1: environment dictates what happens. In this case, the Dodger's history
• 2:06:13
  Speaker 1: of diversity and the move to LA and the large
• 2:06:17
  Speaker 1: agent population in LA and the diverse population in LA
• 2:06:20
  Speaker 1: helped facilitate or maybe bring brought about this Normal signing
• 2:06:24
  Speaker 1: in nineteen ninety five.
• 2:06:26
  Speaker 2: It could have easily been San Francisco. It is interesting
• 2:06:28
  Speaker 2: that that LA is the one because they've constantly, They've
• 2:06:32
  Speaker 2: consistently done that.
• 2:06:35
  Speaker 1: This kind of funny side one of this Nomo with
• 2:06:38
  Speaker 1: the big Japanese media crowd falling around in spring training
• 2:06:41
  Speaker 1: that year, they're playing the Yankees and it catches Geordan
• 2:06:45
  Speaker 1: steinbren his attention. Yes, he does. So he calls in
• 2:06:48
  Speaker 1: Derek Hall, who was in with the Dodgers, and he asks, Hey,
• 2:06:52
  Speaker 1: who is this guy? So Hall told him two years
• 2:06:57
  Speaker 1: later the Yankees had to Beckie Robins.
• 2:06:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Steinbrenner, he didn't like that there was more media
• 2:07:02
  Speaker 2: covering the Dodgers than there was covering the Yankees.
• 2:07:06
  Speaker 1: Let's get these guys. Yeah, let's let's get these guys
• 2:07:09
  Speaker 1: over here. The toad.
• 2:07:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah, there was some terrible, terrible dick day for him.
• 2:07:16
  Speaker 2: You know, Nomo has one of these. You know, he's
• 2:07:18
  Speaker 2: a guy that is I think he's definitely a Dodger icon.
• 2:07:23
  Speaker 2: You know, he does not have Hall of Fame stats,
• 2:07:25
  Speaker 2: but he's he still has I mean, he's a no
• 2:07:27
  Speaker 2: hitter in each lead. Yeah, you know, and is no hitters.
• 2:07:30
  Speaker 1: It's no hitters are.
• 2:07:32
  Speaker 2: One's a course field and the others at Camden Yards. Okay,
• 2:07:36
  Speaker 2: this is not like he's doing it at the old
• 2:07:39
  Speaker 2: you know at the Tiger Stadium, which is the big
• 2:07:41
  Speaker 2: Pitchers Ballpark, or even pack Bell or the old Yeah,
• 2:07:45
  Speaker 2: you know, these are these are all considered hitters parks.
• 2:07:48
  Speaker 2: I mean, I'm sorry. I remember when he had I
• 2:07:50
  Speaker 2: saw a one hitter at Coursefield, and I thought I
• 2:07:52
  Speaker 2: had seen history. Nomo gets a no hitter at Coursefield.
• 2:07:55
  Speaker 2: I remember when that happened. It felt like, well, that's
• 2:07:59
  Speaker 2: that extra special for that race.
• 2:08:01
  Speaker 1: I remember, like, they don't. I won't do no hitter
• 2:08:05
  Speaker 1: at corse Field. Right, It's like it's like scoring three
• 2:08:08
  Speaker 1: points bam out of byo. Right, It's like to say,
• 2:08:10
  Speaker 1: think you're like corse Field. So normal of that first
• 2:08:12
  Speaker 1: year sixteen strikeouts in the game, finishes the season with
• 2:08:15
  Speaker 1: a league leading towards the thirty six strikeouts and three shutouts.
• 2:08:19
  Speaker 1: Not quite the same tennis impact as Fernando, but he
• 2:08:23
  Speaker 1: did have a fifty three thousand and an average almost
• 2:08:26
  Speaker 1: forty nine thousand a game over a six start stretch
• 2:08:29
  Speaker 1: at Doutch STATEUM.
• 2:08:30
  Speaker 2: But it was the beginning of the Dodgers sort of.
• 2:08:33
  Speaker 2: I mean, look, we'd see it. You had Channel Park
• 2:08:35
  Speaker 2: was the first Korean player, but you had Ryu Boy
• 2:08:39
  Speaker 2: when he would come. Those were automatic sellouts of Koreatown
• 2:08:43
  Speaker 2: would just come too, so.
• 2:08:44
  Speaker 1: You know, bringing them to mind, you know, the off
• 2:08:46
  Speaker 1: overlook Korean population in LA. But like if you go
• 2:08:50
  Speaker 1: to Dodger Stadium through Surface Street, you try to avoid
• 2:08:52
  Speaker 1: the freeway, you go right through Koreatown. You know, it's
• 2:08:55
  Speaker 1: like unavoided on Ryu pitching Knights. Yeah, right, like right,
• 2:08:58
  Speaker 1: you know, to be able to actnovate. You know this
• 2:09:01
  Speaker 1: this fan base in addition to the Japanese fan base
• 2:09:03
  Speaker 1: now right, and so yeah, Channah Park from Korea. Uh,
• 2:09:09
  Speaker 1: he stopped Troy another big slugger that that the Dodgers signed.
• 2:09:14
  Speaker 1: I would say if Jackie, if the Jackie or someone
• 2:09:20
  Speaker 1: like him was inevitable. I mean, you know, Larry Dobe
• 2:09:22
  Speaker 1: was eleven weeks after Jackie Robinson, right, So like that
• 2:09:26
  Speaker 1: breaking of the color line was inevitable, right, nomal not
• 2:09:30
  Speaker 1: necessarily right, you know, like I'm not sure that Dale
• 2:09:34
  Speaker 1: Nomo or you know, or Irabu or you know, any
• 2:09:40
  Speaker 1: any likeevitable. I could argue Jackue and we talked, we
• 2:09:44
  Speaker 1: talked about them, just the movement and the time in
• 2:09:47
  Speaker 1: but if the actually states in the nineteen forties, right,
• 2:09:50
  Speaker 1: that was not what was going on in the US
• 2:09:51
  Speaker 1: in the nineteen ninety No, but.
• 2:09:53
  Speaker 2: I actually would argue in the nineteen nineties this is
• 2:09:55
  Speaker 2: just now to bring it back a little bit, to
• 2:09:56
  Speaker 2: to sort of my terrain, this is the beginning of globalization, right,
• 2:10:00
  Speaker 2: this is the beginning of free trade agreements everywhere NAFTAS
• 2:10:04
  Speaker 2: puts place. We're opening the doors with China, We're having
• 2:10:06
  Speaker 2: all this trade, so we're already moving goods globalization. So
• 2:10:11
  Speaker 2: in some ways, of course, sports is going to globalize,
• 2:10:14
  Speaker 2: and I think now you look back on it, well, yeah,
• 2:10:19
  Speaker 2: it's inevitable. Globalization allowed for that to happen, and somebody
• 2:10:23
  Speaker 2: had to be first.
• 2:10:23
  Speaker 1: You know.
• 2:10:24
  Speaker 2: What's funny is that, you know, Ichiro was playing professionally
• 2:10:26
  Speaker 2: starting in nineteen ninety three when Nomo came over, eachier
• 2:10:29
  Speaker 2: Ro was was was already playing professional ball, you know,
• 2:10:33
  Speaker 2: and you know, my goodness, he was a Hall of
• 2:10:35
  Speaker 2: Famer while here imagine Eddie started.
• 2:10:38
  Speaker 1: Imagine Eddy came over with Nomo. Yeah, at that time.
• 2:10:42
  Speaker 2: But it is I think now when you look at
• 2:10:44
  Speaker 2: it and you look at the larger what was happening
• 2:10:47
  Speaker 2: around the world, it actually also just seems as just
• 2:10:50
  Speaker 2: as inevitable.
• 2:10:52
  Speaker 1: You know, and then I think the I'm still I
• 2:10:56
  Speaker 1: don't know. I don't know if i'd give the because
• 2:10:59
  Speaker 1: because I think a lot of that had preceded in
• 2:11:03
  Speaker 1: some ways, especially like like Japanese business investment in Los
• 2:11:06
  Speaker 1: Angeles was peak eighty, no doubt. But I guess that's
• 2:11:10
  Speaker 1: the thing, Like first you had to come with the money, right,
• 2:11:12
  Speaker 1: then you come with the culture. But the fact that
• 2:11:15
  Speaker 1: Jackie precedes the civil rights movement in right, But does
• 2:11:19
  Speaker 1: Jackie happen without World War Two? No? Right?
• 2:11:22
  Speaker 2: And I think that, you know, because black Americans were
• 2:11:25
  Speaker 2: so important to the fight in World War two. Right,
• 2:11:29
  Speaker 2: you do have Truman, you know, desegregating the military.
• 2:11:32
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 2:11:32
  Speaker 2: That is, so one could argue that the civil rights
• 2:11:36
  Speaker 2: movement was really taking it that the what would culminate
• 2:11:41
  Speaker 2: in the sixties was percolating right around direct with World
• 2:11:45
  Speaker 2: War with the end of World War two, so.
• 2:11:49
  Speaker 1: Easier to look backwards. So you know, just like everything
• 2:11:53
  Speaker 1: after Watergate was Gates, yes, every scandal. So everything after
• 2:11:58
  Speaker 1: Fernando Mania was Mania. So they began, you know, they
• 2:12:02
  Speaker 1: were similar in that. You know, again it was just
• 2:12:04
  Speaker 1: take the wind up. You know, they called him the tornado,
• 2:12:07
  Speaker 1: right because he had that big twisting thing he turns back.
• 2:12:11
  Speaker 1: But yeah, I and I think it does take us
• 2:12:14
  Speaker 1: all the way to show right. And I think the
• 2:12:18
  Speaker 1: fact that Normo and the Dodger's success with with Otani,
• 2:12:21
  Speaker 1: when does Otani become a Dodger? You know what I
• 2:12:24
  Speaker 1: mean by that? Is he a Dodger? Dodger?
• 2:12:27
  Speaker 2: Is he? Because I go back and I struggle with
• 2:12:29
  Speaker 2: this with with the this version of the Dodgers, because
• 2:12:32
  Speaker 2: the only thing with with today's dot with the with
• 2:12:35
  Speaker 2: the modern Dodgers is is that they they they always
• 2:12:41
  Speaker 2: began as Dodgers. They're stars normally, right, and Otani is
• 2:12:44
  Speaker 2: the first one that's bought purchase from somebody else.
• 2:12:48
  Speaker 1: Well, here's the thing. He I think he becomes a
• 2:12:51
  Speaker 1: Dodger his first postseason at bat. Yeah, we didn't get
• 2:12:57
  Speaker 1: to see him in the postseason when we're right, great
• 2:13:00
  Speaker 1: failure to the Angels. They have Trout and Otani to
• 2:13:03
  Speaker 1: all time greats and we never get And so just
• 2:13:06
  Speaker 1: thick Williams right into these moments that we've seen that
• 2:13:12
  Speaker 1: on a national stage, international stage, really with Otani, the
• 2:13:17
  Speaker 1: fact that the Dodgers made it possible, so like we
• 2:13:20
  Speaker 1: should all be thankful if you're a baseball fan, you
• 2:13:22
  Speaker 1: should be thankful for the Dodgers spending these you know, ludicrous,
• 2:13:26
  Speaker 1: outrageous contracts.
• 2:13:27
  Speaker 2: And is any any you know, first thing he does
• 2:13:29
  Speaker 2: as a Dodgers something nobody's ever done before a fifty
• 2:13:32
  Speaker 2: to fifty season, and it's something nobody knew that Otani
• 2:13:35
  Speaker 2: was going to. Oh, you're going to steal bases.
• 2:13:37
  Speaker 1: Right, which doesn't go for if he's pitching, But because
• 2:13:40
  Speaker 1: he's out for the year as a pitcher because of
• 2:13:43
  Speaker 1: his shoulder injury, he's like, hey, why not go for
• 2:13:45
  Speaker 1: fifty to fifty? You know, I'm sure on his to
• 2:13:49
  Speaker 1: do list is win Cy Young and MVP the same year,
• 2:13:52
  Speaker 1: you know, as a true baseball MVP, you.
• 2:13:55
  Speaker 2: Know, like not winning like Clinton Clinton Kershaw has won
• 2:13:58
  Speaker 2: both a SION and an MVP.
• 2:13:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah, as the same it's strictly for his pitching, right,
• 2:14:02
  Speaker 1: Like Otani could do it like winning the Cy Young
• 2:14:05
  Speaker 1: and also winning that, it'd be like alsome. You know,
• 2:14:07
  Speaker 1: he's MVP the league. He's like you know, in some cases,
• 2:14:10
  Speaker 1: like with Curse, I like, oh, you know, he's the MVP,
• 2:14:13
  Speaker 1: is the most valuable because he's that good of a picture.
• 2:14:16
  Speaker 2: I could be on both sides of that argument about
• 2:14:17
  Speaker 2: whether pictures should be eligible for the MVP or not.
• 2:14:20
  Speaker 2: I think you have your own award.
• 2:14:21
  Speaker 1: Right you picture, If you're the most valuable, you know.
• 2:14:25
  Speaker 2: Then we need to have a separate hitter award if
• 2:14:27
  Speaker 2: you're going to do that.
• 2:14:28
  Speaker 1: I just think in some cases the picture is the
• 2:14:29
  Speaker 1: most but like the batters have more opportunity, more valuble
• 2:14:32
  Speaker 1: because they're playing more often. But sometimes the picture is
• 2:14:35
  Speaker 1: the most valuable, like you single handly drag your team,
• 2:14:38
  Speaker 1: like just like you know, Paul our Sauser was the
• 2:14:43
  Speaker 1: most valuable player for the Divers down that stretch through
• 2:14:46
  Speaker 1: his pitching in eighty eight. Well, in some ways, the the.
• 2:14:53
  Speaker 2: So nomo is this is the bridge between sort of
• 2:14:58
  Speaker 2: the eighties Dodgers and the Dodgers we know today, Right,
• 2:15:02
  Speaker 2: if you would be on the field, he I guess
• 2:15:05
  Speaker 2: maybe you'd throw Mike Piazza in there as sort of
• 2:15:07
  Speaker 2: a bridge person, ya, Eric Hills.
• 2:15:09
  Speaker 1: So they also continue this might be a good time
• 2:15:11
  Speaker 1: to talk about just that Rookie of the Years. Yeah,
• 2:15:13
  Speaker 1: the run of Rookie of the Years where I think
• 2:15:15
  Speaker 1: they had Foster Rookie of the Years in there.
• 2:15:18
  Speaker 2: They went seventies to the eighty well culminating with the
• 2:15:21
  Speaker 2: year after Fernando was was that the Rick Steve Sacks
• 2:15:24
  Speaker 2: was eighty two. Maybe Rick Suckcliffe was eighty earlier than that,
• 2:15:28
  Speaker 2: or was Cuckcliff?
• 2:15:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah, anyway where and then they have forced You've got
• 2:15:33
  Speaker 1: like Eric Carroll's Piazza and you got another run you know,
• 2:15:39
  Speaker 1: in the nineties too, so it's kind of the the
• 2:15:43
  Speaker 1: the end of that era.
• 2:15:46
  Speaker 2: But those that string of rookies, so if you think
• 2:15:48
  Speaker 2: about it, right, they have these incredible the farm system
• 2:15:51
  Speaker 2: produces these incredible players in the seventies that do produce
• 2:15:54
  Speaker 2: two World Series winners right in the eighties they get this,
• 2:15:58
  Speaker 2: they have another run in the in the nineties, and
• 2:16:01
  Speaker 2: those guys they don't quite get them there, They don't
• 2:16:04
  Speaker 2: get them all the way there, right, they don't get them.
• 2:16:07
  Speaker 1: You have.
• 2:16:09
  Speaker 2: Caros Piazza, Raoul Mandasi and Nomo hollands Worth one, two, three,
• 2:16:16
  Speaker 2: four five. It was five in a row, Todd hollins Worth,
• 2:16:19
  Speaker 2: that's the one you forgetting. Yeah, that's the way you
• 2:16:21
  Speaker 2: forget ninety six. But those five in a row, I
• 2:16:23
  Speaker 2: think the assumption was, I know, as a Dodger fan
• 2:16:26
  Speaker 2: in the nineties, I thought, this's like, when is this
• 2:16:27
  Speaker 2: team going to win the whole thing? When is this
• 2:16:29
  Speaker 2: team going to take the next step?
• 2:16:31
  Speaker 1: And they were all this. This team seemed to streusstead
• 2:16:33
  Speaker 1: They go on and on their that you know, since
• 2:16:35
  Speaker 1: that Kirk Gibson moment in that eighty eight World Series, yea,
• 2:16:38
  Speaker 1: you know, they just struggle to duplicate it. I would
• 2:16:41
  Speaker 1: say the Nomo signing was the last legacy moment for
• 2:16:43
  Speaker 1: the O'Malley family. So you know, Peter had taken over
• 2:16:47
  Speaker 1: from his father in nineteen seventy nine two World Series
• 2:16:49
  Speaker 1: during his tenure the explosion, So it's interesting what makes
• 2:16:54
  Speaker 1: them sell in the end of the O'Malley ownership era
• 2:16:57
  Speaker 1: is they become too valuable and it was tax law, yes, yeah,
• 2:17:01
  Speaker 1: because he's afraid he wouldn't be able to pass along
• 2:17:03
  Speaker 1: with his kids. So they were worth two million dollars
• 2:17:05
  Speaker 1: in the nineteen sixty they were valued at or they
• 2:17:09
  Speaker 1: wound up being sold in nineteen ninety eight for three
• 2:17:11
  Speaker 1: hundred and eleven million dollars. It's a lot of attacks
• 2:17:13
  Speaker 1: that Fox Company brought buys him and things starts a change.
• 2:17:18
  Speaker 1: So the Dodgers had had two managers from nineteen fifty
• 2:17:21
  Speaker 1: four to nineteen ninety six Walter Alston and time of Lesorda.
• 2:17:24
  Speaker 1: After the sale of the Fox, they fired Bill Russell
• 2:17:26
  Speaker 1: in the second year. The franchise went through six managers
• 2:17:28
  Speaker 1: in eighteen years. Over the next eighteen years, they traded
• 2:17:31
  Speaker 1: the team's most popular player, Mike Piazza, who was you
• 2:17:34
  Speaker 1: know this this beloved member of the Dodgers drafted in
• 2:17:37
  Speaker 1: the sixty second round.
• 2:17:39
  Speaker 2: Well, and he had he was a connection to Tommy, Yeah,
• 2:17:41
  Speaker 2: because it was the family. It was a family friend
• 2:17:43
  Speaker 2: of tom God said, He's like, sure, draft him back and.
• 2:17:47
  Speaker 1: Then becomes this just you know, one of the great
• 2:17:49
  Speaker 1: power hitting catchers of all time.
• 2:17:52
  Speaker 2: Right, he's a bit bitter. There's a little bitterness still
• 2:17:55
  Speaker 2: with peoples because he he doesn't feel like his career
• 2:17:58
  Speaker 2: is respected enough because it always had a look, look,
• 2:18:01
  Speaker 2: every success story in the nineties has the cloud. There's
• 2:18:05
  Speaker 2: that cloud cloud sits over you on that fair unfair.
• 2:18:09
  Speaker 2: It is about the only person that the cloud is
• 2:18:11
  Speaker 2: not there.
• 2:18:11
  Speaker 1: For the night. But also Piazza should have been a
• 2:18:16
  Speaker 1: beloved It should have been a Dodger. They just kind
• 2:18:18
  Speaker 1: of trade them overnight.
• 2:18:20
  Speaker 2: You know, if you talk to Mets fans, they would
• 2:18:22
  Speaker 2: argue Piazza is one of their most iconic guys.
• 2:18:25
  Speaker 1: Well, I mean because he meant a lot to.
• 2:18:26
  Speaker 2: Them, and especially in that post, you know, nine to eleven.
• 2:18:30
  Speaker 1: That was an important moment. And then what you did
• 2:18:32
  Speaker 1: for them that moment's there.
• 2:18:33
  Speaker 2: So this is, by the way, an interesting period with
• 2:18:37
  Speaker 2: media companies and sports, yes, because you have Disney and
• 2:18:40
  Speaker 2: the Anaheim Mighty. Literally they invent a franchise out of
• 2:18:44
  Speaker 2: a movie, right, the Anaheim Mighty Ducks, and.
• 2:18:46
  Speaker 1: Then they buy the Angels, right, you know from Gene Autry,
• 2:18:49
  Speaker 1: you know.
• 2:18:49
  Speaker 2: Beloved country music figure, right, and then the Fox decides
• 2:18:53
  Speaker 2: to buy the Dodgers.
• 2:18:54
  Speaker 1: Do you think what's going on here? So it's a medium,
• 2:18:56
  Speaker 1: so it's interesting, but it fails really quickly. It's companies realized.
• 2:19:01
  Speaker 2: The time Warner merger, maybe this isn't a good idea.
• 2:19:03
  Speaker 1: So Disney had hoped to create their own regional sports
• 2:19:06
  Speaker 1: and they were going to create a Disney Sports West basically,
• 2:19:10
  Speaker 1: and then then never got off the ground, and so
• 2:19:12
  Speaker 1: they wind up bailing on the Ducks and the and
• 2:19:15
  Speaker 1: the Angels, and then you.
• 2:19:16
  Speaker 2: Know Fox, they were thinking that the Dodgers as content yep,
• 2:19:19
  Speaker 2: you know, and they were thinking of the same thing.
• 2:19:21
  Speaker 2: Yea Gaking built something and they had they already had
• 2:19:24
  Speaker 2: the uh, the the the.
• 2:19:27
  Speaker 1: The regional sports networks in the place, you know, the
• 2:19:29
  Speaker 1: Fox Sports West, Fox Sports West two. Uh. The problem
• 2:19:32
  Speaker 1: was they didn't run the Dodgers well and they just
• 2:19:34
  Speaker 1: came along in a time when the contracts were exploding
• 2:19:38
  Speaker 1: and the Dodgers became a losing proposition for them. They
• 2:19:41
  Speaker 1: couldn't wait to sell them. So kind of one of
• 2:19:43
  Speaker 1: my favorite moments. Uh, this kind of just shows the boxization.
• 2:19:47
  Speaker 1: So they brought in Bob Graziano, who's a former countant,
• 2:19:49
  Speaker 1: made him the president CEO, and then later they bring
• 2:19:52
  Speaker 1: in Bob Daily from Warner Brothers make him the chairman
• 2:19:54
  Speaker 1: of the CBO. So I used to call them corporate
• 2:19:57
  Speaker 1: Bob and show biz Bob in print. Yeah, I refer
• 2:20:01
  Speaker 1: to them in the La Times the corporate Bob and
• 2:20:03
  Speaker 1: shows Pop. But like it felt like it had nothing
• 2:20:05
  Speaker 1: to do with baseball, right, and it was pretty clear. Yeah,
• 2:20:08
  Speaker 1: I felt like, yeah, you know, they throw out one
• 2:20:10
  Speaker 1: hundred five million dollar contract to Kevin Brown the picture
• 2:20:13
  Speaker 1: that include a personal use of the team Jets, so
• 2:20:15
  Speaker 1: he could go back and forth to Georgia when he
• 2:20:17
  Speaker 1: wanted they fired Davy Johnson's manager. But like they said, well,
• 2:20:21
  Speaker 1: we'll hold off till when you want to leave. But
• 2:20:23
  Speaker 1: the word gets out, so they're they're losing. They can't
• 2:20:27
  Speaker 1: wait to sell the team. So they're so desperate that
• 2:20:30
  Speaker 1: they sold the team to frame m Court. Well, but
• 2:20:33
  Speaker 1: based literally they borrow money right them. Court said they
• 2:20:37
  Speaker 1: didn't if the Courts didn't have the money to purchase
• 2:20:41
  Speaker 1: them box seat alone. In my chuck, if you're selling
• 2:20:44
  Speaker 1: me a house, but I got to borrow money from
• 2:20:46
  Speaker 1: you to buy your house, would you sign off on that?
• 2:20:50
  Speaker 2: I know if I were on the other side of it,
• 2:20:52
  Speaker 2: I would like that be a hell of a deal.
• 2:20:55
  Speaker 1: So the McCord, who had made his money in parking lots.
• 2:20:58
  Speaker 2: Oh, this is where by you had an old colleague
• 2:21:00
  Speaker 2: named T. J.
• 2:21:01
  Speaker 1: Sneimer park a lot of tender and he used to
• 2:21:04
  Speaker 1: just refer to them Courts as the parking lot attendant
• 2:21:06
  Speaker 1: and as a Dodger fan at the time, it was
• 2:21:08
  Speaker 1: angry at the Dodgers' lack of spending and stuff.
• 2:21:13
  Speaker 2: He sometimes spoke for the angry fan.
• 2:21:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, there was another guy in town, raider guy McDonald,
• 2:21:18
  Speaker 1: who would call mccortm mac bankrupt because he was like,
• 2:21:20
  Speaker 1: he didn't have the money, and it turned out didn't the.
• 2:21:22
  Speaker 2: Dodgers with bankrupt at least. So by the way, for
• 2:21:24
  Speaker 2: the mc courts, it was a great deal they made any.
• 2:21:27
  Speaker 1: Money, yeah, because they borrowed two hundred million dollars for
• 2:21:30
  Speaker 1: the purchase price of four hundred million dollars. So you know.
• 2:21:37
  Speaker 2: A lot of those sideways when mcorts.
• 2:21:39
  Speaker 1: Get divorced and a lot comes out about the Labbas
• 2:21:42
  Speaker 1: lifestyles of liming, like they're they're and they're using the
• 2:21:44
  Speaker 1: Dodgers to help Fundi's labast lifestyle. They buy a house
• 2:21:46
  Speaker 1: in Malibu. You know, they have somebody that.
• 2:21:50
  Speaker 2: By the way, in politics that we have politicians sometimes
• 2:21:53
  Speaker 2: do the same thing. They use the money they raise
• 2:21:56
  Speaker 2: and they use that money to fund their lifestyle, not
• 2:22:00
  Speaker 2: their actual Yeah, and that's illegal and scandalous. Here it was,
• 2:22:04
  Speaker 2: I guess legal, but it was scandalous, right, So.
• 2:22:09
  Speaker 1: The most outrageous thing it wasn't the most expensive, but
• 2:22:12
  Speaker 1: the most outrageous day. They had someone on a six
• 2:22:14
  Speaker 1: figure retainer, someone in Boston, back in Boston, which is
• 2:22:18
  Speaker 1: where they came from, and his role was to send
• 2:22:22
  Speaker 1: good vibes to the Dodgers telepathically from Boston, and they're
• 2:22:26
  Speaker 1: paying them over hundred thousand dollars a year to just
• 2:22:28
  Speaker 1: send positive vibes out to the team from across the cup.
• 2:22:32
  Speaker 2: Well, they did make a couple. McCourt can say that
• 2:22:35
  Speaker 2: on the field, he left the team in fairly good ship.
• 2:22:39
  Speaker 1: Somewhat. They I mean, ye had back camp some players
• 2:22:42
  Speaker 1: that did well. They made a couple nlcs. Yeah, they won,
• 2:22:46
  Speaker 1: They reached the playoffs, so they won. In the first
• 2:22:49
  Speaker 1: nineteen seasons after winning the eighty World Series, the Dodgers
• 2:22:53
  Speaker 1: only reached the plaoffs four times, a single playoff game
• 2:22:56
  Speaker 1: rest in Peace. Jose Lima a time was a winning
• 2:22:59
  Speaker 1: pitcher in that So the attendance numbers looked similar because
• 2:23:04
  Speaker 1: people kept their season tickets. They weren't going to the game, no,
• 2:23:07
  Speaker 1: and like you you could just cruise on in. And
• 2:23:09
  Speaker 1: now we talked about parking lots of Dodgers saying like
• 2:23:12
  Speaker 1: they were empty and there was nobody going to the games.
• 2:23:15
  Speaker 2: When the Lakers took over LA for a while. Yeah,
• 2:23:18
  Speaker 2: so when you say LA was a Laker time, more than.
• 2:23:20
  Speaker 1: Absolutely because again, so both the Lakers and the Dodgers
• 2:23:23
  Speaker 1: winning eighty eight, and it felt like the Lakers may
• 2:23:26
  Speaker 1: be kind of pulled even. But then, yeah, the Dodgers
• 2:23:28
  Speaker 1: fall off, and then Kobe and Shad come to the Lakers,
• 2:23:31
  Speaker 1: and then they're winning five championships in the two thousands,
• 2:23:34
  Speaker 1: and the Dodgers again are have this long drought without
• 2:23:37
  Speaker 1: winning playoff series. So but sealing forces the team to
• 2:23:41
  Speaker 1: So it's funny. McCourt thought he had a lifeline, he
• 2:23:43
  Speaker 1: had a he had a yeah, like three billion dollars
• 2:23:47
  Speaker 1: for seventeen years. But of course like, yeah, no, it
• 2:23:50
  Speaker 1: was leveraged up. Yeah, it's like, you guys aren't making
• 2:23:54
  Speaker 1: paybroll right now, you're struggling to make payroll. Like, no,
• 2:23:57
  Speaker 1: you don't have the right to sign this deal divorce.
• 2:24:00
  Speaker 2: He had to sell the team in order to fulfill
• 2:24:03
  Speaker 2: the divorce proceed and part.
• 2:24:05
  Speaker 1: Of the problem was, like half the money we're gone
• 2:24:07
  Speaker 1: directly to McCort, not to the Dodgers. So celig Nix
• 2:24:10
  Speaker 1: is the deal.
• 2:24:12
  Speaker 2: The Dodgers go single now might be the single most
• 2:24:15
  Speaker 2: important moment in making the Dodgers a dynastic Yeah, because
• 2:24:19
  Speaker 2: it's bankruptcy and.
• 2:24:21
  Speaker 1: It took control out of the hands of the Dodgers
• 2:24:25
  Speaker 1: in the McCort and now it goes through the bankrupt
• 2:24:28
  Speaker 1: court and MLB has final say. And so yeah, in
• 2:24:33
  Speaker 1: comes with Walter and Google and IM.
• 2:24:35
  Speaker 2: And I'm going to rant a second here on budd Selig.
• 2:24:37
  Speaker 1: So bud Selig.
• 2:24:39
  Speaker 2: At first was obsessed with always finding family owners He
• 2:24:43
  Speaker 2: did this he never wanted He didn't want these big partnerships.
• 2:24:46
  Speaker 2: He he worried it would fuel free agent spending. He
• 2:24:50
  Speaker 2: was a family owned brewers, and so he was always
• 2:24:54
  Speaker 2: constantly looking for ownership groups. I know this because he lobbied.
• 2:24:58
  Speaker 2: He wanted the mccurt to take This happened with the
• 2:25:00
  Speaker 2: Nationals when they moved the expost. There were two competing groups.
• 2:25:05
  Speaker 2: One had more money, but it was a partnership. It
• 2:25:08
  Speaker 2: was a couple of managing partners, by the way, very
• 2:25:10
  Speaker 2: similar to what the Dodgers ownership structure now looks like today.
• 2:25:13
  Speaker 2: This was one idea. The other was a family real
• 2:25:16
  Speaker 2: estate empire, but it was family.
• 2:25:19
  Speaker 1: Well.
• 2:25:20
  Speaker 2: They didn't have quite as much money, but they had enough.
• 2:25:23
  Speaker 2: And cause Celig always was looking for he wanted family
• 2:25:27
  Speaker 2: owned teams because he thought it would It was essentially
• 2:25:30
  Speaker 2: a way to restrict spending without formally trying to restrict spending.
• 2:25:35
  Speaker 2: The MC court thing is such a disaster. Selig finally
• 2:25:38
  Speaker 2: gives up on that and allows what we now have today.
• 2:25:41
  Speaker 2: And now what I think sports ownership is going to
• 2:25:43
  Speaker 2: be all over the country, which is these massive sort
• 2:25:47
  Speaker 2: of private equity partnerships, sovereign wealth funds, all sorts of things.
• 2:25:52
  Speaker 2: But in some ways CELIG was trying to prevent this.
• 2:25:56
  Speaker 2: It went so bad with the MC courts that it
• 2:25:59
  Speaker 2: opened into the door to the modern ownership structures we're
• 2:26:02
  Speaker 2: saying today.
• 2:26:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so an inadvertent way that the Dodgers become another
• 2:26:07
  Speaker 1: Baron Laker here in barrier breakers here, I would argue,
• 2:26:11
  Speaker 1: I mean, certainly Dodger fans will tell you this is
• 2:26:13
  Speaker 1: being good for them, but I think it's good for
• 2:26:16
  Speaker 1: the sport. Again, the fact that we get to see
• 2:26:18
  Speaker 1: Shoho Tani in the playoffs, in the postseason, on this
• 2:26:22
  Speaker 1: national stage perform putting out some historic performances, right and then,
• 2:26:27
  Speaker 1: but also the fact that they almost locked within inches
• 2:26:32
  Speaker 1: and single pitches here of losing the Blue Days. So
• 2:26:34
  Speaker 1: it's not like the Dodgers are just walking their way
• 2:26:37
  Speaker 1: too Well.
• 2:26:37
  Speaker 2: That's the beauty of baseball, right, is it the randomness
• 2:26:40
  Speaker 2: of baseball at times allows for an underdog to win
• 2:26:44
  Speaker 2: a game in any given moment see Team Venezuela, Team USA,
• 2:26:49
  Speaker 2: or even a serious You know, it's harder to do
• 2:26:52
  Speaker 2: that in football. It's hard to do that in basketball.
• 2:26:54
  Speaker 2: But it's interesting you say that that the Dodgers. That
• 2:26:56
  Speaker 2: might be good for the game, because here's your Is
• 2:27:01
  Speaker 2: it good for your sport if you run football, baseball,
• 2:27:04
  Speaker 2: or basketball or hockey right, any of these major sports
• 2:27:07
  Speaker 2: or soccer if you have two or three teams dominating
• 2:27:09
  Speaker 2: that are dynasties, or that you have a level playing
• 2:27:12
  Speaker 2: field every year. So I've argued this with a silver
• 2:27:16
  Speaker 2: that the NBA the peak of the NBA.
• 2:27:19
  Speaker 1: If you have funess with the NBA in the eighties
• 2:27:21
  Speaker 1: and nineties, yeah, well in the eighties and Lakers in
• 2:27:23
  Speaker 1: the Celtics in the nineties literally from ninety one to
• 2:27:27
  Speaker 1: ninety eight, it was literally the Bulls with the rehiatus
• 2:27:30
  Speaker 1: when the Rockets won too, So you know it, it
• 2:27:33
  Speaker 1: was extremely top heavy and not open to all. And
• 2:27:38
  Speaker 1: you know what we have now in the NBA is
• 2:27:40
  Speaker 1: we've had a different champion like each of like the
• 2:27:42
  Speaker 1: last seven years. I don't think you can say this
• 2:27:45
  Speaker 1: is a golden era of NBA basketball.
• 2:27:46
  Speaker 2: Well, I always talk about this is what makes the
• 2:27:48
  Speaker 2: NFL unique. The NFL has pulled this off. And I
• 2:27:51
  Speaker 2: always use the example of the twenty fourteen World Series.
• 2:27:54
  Speaker 2: Twenty fourteen World Series was between San Francisco Giants in
• 2:27:58
  Speaker 2: the Kansas City Royals, one of the lowest radero boat
• 2:28:01
  Speaker 2: series ever. We've had a Super Bowl in the last
• 2:28:04
  Speaker 2: ten years between the San Francisco forty nine ers and
• 2:28:06
  Speaker 2: the Kansas City Chiefs. Entirely different spectacle, right, you know,
• 2:28:11
  Speaker 2: literally the same two markets. Okay, just two different sports
• 2:28:15
  Speaker 2: and just sort of how Now, part of that is
• 2:28:16
  Speaker 2: baseball's very local.
• 2:28:17
  Speaker 1: It's popular locally.
• 2:28:19
  Speaker 2: And other than and the only teams you follow outside
• 2:28:23
  Speaker 2: of your own are the super teams. And that's why
• 2:28:25
  Speaker 2: in a weird way, and I think basketball is the
• 2:28:27
  Speaker 2: same way you follow your local team plus the super teams,
• 2:28:30
  Speaker 2: and I think with football it's just it's just different.
• 2:28:35
  Speaker 1: So one of the things that is interesting because the
• 2:28:37
  Speaker 1: terms of the TV deal and when the Dodgers took over,
• 2:28:43
  Speaker 1: it was going through bankruptcy court and not Major League Baseball,
• 2:28:48
  Speaker 1: It's a different revenue share than it would be otherwise.
• 2:28:52
  Speaker 1: So it's based on a fixed amount currently said on
• 2:28:55
  Speaker 1: one hundred and thirty million dollars. That's the amount that
• 2:28:57
  Speaker 1: is eligible for the revenue sharing portion. Even though the
• 2:29:00
  Speaker 1: deal is currently worth three hundred and thirty million dollars
• 2:29:02
  Speaker 1: a year, it could go up to five hundred million
• 2:29:03
  Speaker 1: dollars a year. So the Dodgers can thank Frank McCord
• 2:29:07
  Speaker 1: in some ways for sending this up.
• 2:29:08
  Speaker 2: They have a better deal, and yeah, they're sharing less
• 2:29:11
  Speaker 2: revenue than they should. Well, let's just say if they
• 2:29:15
  Speaker 2: the Baseball Players Union is paying attention. Yeah, and this
• 2:29:19
  Speaker 2: is going to be a unique you know, we're not
• 2:29:20
  Speaker 2: going to get into that in this episode, but this
• 2:29:23
  Speaker 2: is going to be a unique challenge.
• 2:29:24
  Speaker 1: So even with that, so let's look at kind of
• 2:29:26
  Speaker 1: the modern Dodgers. Now, the twenty five to five payroll
• 2:29:28
  Speaker 1: was almost born to million dollars, one hundred and sixty
• 2:29:30
  Speaker 1: nine million dollars luxury tach.
• 2:29:32
  Speaker 2: Okay, just think about that. Put a pin in that
• 2:29:34
  Speaker 2: because you just how much did Piero Maalley sell they
• 2:29:38
  Speaker 2: Dodgers for two hundred right?
• 2:29:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah, think about it.
• 2:29:42
  Speaker 2: So the payroll of the Dodgers in twenty twenty five
• 2:29:45
  Speaker 2: just the payroll for that one year through three hundred
• 2:29:46
  Speaker 2: I think, and they were sold is more for four hundred, right,
• 2:29:49
  Speaker 2: is more than what they sold for in nineteen n
• 2:29:53
  Speaker 2: about what mc court paid for the bottom seventy.
• 2:29:56
  Speaker 1: Half of it. The Dodgers of the warning side, they
• 2:30:02
  Speaker 1: have more than a billion dollars in deferred salaries going
• 2:30:05
  Speaker 1: into the twenty forties.
• 2:30:07
  Speaker 2: Sorry, if the United States government can handle thirty nine
• 2:30:10
  Speaker 2: trillion dollars in debt, maybe the Dodgers can handle them.
• 2:30:12
  Speaker 1: But will the will the regional sports network model even
• 2:30:16
  Speaker 1: exist by the twenty forties exists by the end of
• 2:30:19
  Speaker 1: this podcast? Yeah, what will the national TV deals? Said? So,
• 2:30:23
  Speaker 1: the National TV it just went from five hundred million
• 2:30:26
  Speaker 1: in twenty twenty five to around two hundred and twenty
• 2:30:28
  Speaker 1: five million dollars in twenty twenty six. So what was
• 2:30:30
  Speaker 1: the nationals? So some red lights down down the road,
• 2:30:34
  Speaker 1: and this kind of gets us into some of the not.
• 2:30:37
  Speaker 2: So great things about the Dogs. Well, and I was
• 2:30:39
  Speaker 2: just going to say, look, we're not here and we're
• 2:30:41
  Speaker 2: going to do this. When we do these, we're not
• 2:30:43
  Speaker 2: here to smear any teams. We're not here to say
• 2:30:47
  Speaker 2: here's why you should hate Team X and whatever. But ever,
• 2:30:51
  Speaker 2: just like every human being has good days and bad days,
• 2:30:54
  Speaker 2: every dynasty has some low points, and there's a few
• 2:30:57
  Speaker 2: low points, broke a lot of barriers. There's one barrier.
• 2:31:01
  Speaker 2: Not only have they not broken, they've actually been a
• 2:31:05
  Speaker 2: bit uh retro to be polite, to be fair or polite.
• 2:31:12
  Speaker 2: Sports in general lags as opposed.
• 2:31:16
  Speaker 1: To leaves when it comes to LGBT issues.
• 2:31:18
  Speaker 2: Almost every other thing on diversity, sports leads for sports leads.
• 2:31:23
  Speaker 2: And look at women in baseball executive positions. We've got referees, umpire,
• 2:31:28
  Speaker 2: all these places and sports. The impact that's had in
• 2:31:32
  Speaker 2: a society overall. Right, LGBT No, all of sports struggles
• 2:31:36
  Speaker 2: with this. Yeah, and the Dodgers are no exceptions.
• 2:31:39
  Speaker 1: Going back to Glenn Burt, player in the team in
• 2:31:42
  Speaker 1: the nineteen serenties, credit with helping event the high five.
• 2:31:45
  Speaker 1: By the way, another innovation we canker the first bak. Yeah,
• 2:31:51
  Speaker 1: but also you know early gay player, though not openly gay.
• 2:31:58
  Speaker 1: In fact, the Dodgers offered him seventy five thousand dollars
• 2:32:01
  Speaker 1: bonus if he got married, so that they could adamantly
• 2:32:05
  Speaker 1: say that he wasn't getting right. He refused the doctors
• 2:32:08
  Speaker 1: traded him, you know, and he was deeply hurt by
• 2:32:10
  Speaker 1: that and it ruined his care. Yeah, you know, he
• 2:32:13
  Speaker 1: was never the same. The fact that Tim of the
• 2:32:16
  Speaker 1: sorta refused a knowledge that his son diabate and that
• 2:32:20
  Speaker 1: his son.
• 2:32:21
  Speaker 2: Was gay, and he just painful articles I've ever read
• 2:32:24
  Speaker 2: as a story of Tommy, I think squire, yeah, called
• 2:32:27
  Speaker 2: Tangled Up and Blue, Tangled up in Blue, and it's look,
• 2:32:29
  Speaker 2: it's a tortures, it's a father and son relationship that
• 2:32:32
  Speaker 2: it's not that there's not about the Dodgers. But and
• 2:32:35
  Speaker 2: you know, this is generational, this is cultural. There's a
• 2:32:37
  Speaker 2: lot of things, this is religious. You know, we know
• 2:32:40
  Speaker 2: all this stuff. But it's all part of the story,
• 2:32:43
  Speaker 2: in it, in it, right, you know, because.
• 2:32:44
  Speaker 1: And he loved his son. He did sound like he
• 2:32:46
  Speaker 1: dishoned him, just the opposite. He just was in knowledge,
• 2:32:49
  Speaker 1: He was in denial the reality of who is done,
• 2:32:51
  Speaker 1: what right?
• 2:32:52
  Speaker 2: He would not refuse to have it.
• 2:32:54
  Speaker 1: In two thousand was an instant. Two women were kicked
• 2:32:57
  Speaker 1: out of the ballpark after they kissed and another fan
• 2:33:01
  Speaker 1: complaining and women were simarily escorted out of the ballpark.
• 2:33:05
  Speaker 1: The Dodgs apologized they wound up give them five thousand
• 2:33:08
  Speaker 1: tickets to LGBT groups. But again they were put on
• 2:33:12
  Speaker 1: their heels, and you know their initial reaction was not
• 2:33:15
  Speaker 1: the right reaction. There was a twenty twenty three Sisters
• 2:33:18
  Speaker 1: of Perpetual Indulgence, Yes, searing trans people who addresses nuns
• 2:33:23
  Speaker 1: were invited to an evented Dodger Stadium. There are some
• 2:33:25
  Speaker 1: back class and they were disinvited. There was backlash about
• 2:33:28
  Speaker 1: the back class. They were invited. Again. It was a mess.
• 2:33:31
  Speaker 1: And again, either have a conviction or have awareness and
• 2:33:37
  Speaker 1: avoid these temperrists. So let's see if they can kind
• 2:33:39
  Speaker 1: of move to the forefront of these which is kind
• 2:33:41
  Speaker 1: of the discrimination of our time. I mean, if we
• 2:33:44
  Speaker 1: are literally having their identities taken away from them and
• 2:33:48
  Speaker 1: in certain states, in the state of Kansas and can't
• 2:33:50
  Speaker 1: be allowed to have driver's license right ds, you know,
• 2:33:54
  Speaker 1: erasure basically, which you know in a state where you
• 2:33:57
  Speaker 1: need an idea to vote, So you know, there's an
• 2:34:00
  Speaker 1: opportunity to be had for some team in sports to
• 2:34:03
  Speaker 1: take the lead on.
• 2:34:04
  Speaker 2: And one of the things out you know, there's this
• 2:34:07
  Speaker 2: here the debate and maybe some of you are going
• 2:34:09
  Speaker 2: to say, hey, stick to sports, guys, and it's like, well,
• 2:34:11
  Speaker 2: that's the whole point of the sports culture.
• 2:34:14
  Speaker 1: Politics.
• 2:34:14
  Speaker 2: It's all under woven. And by the way, we celebrate
• 2:34:17
  Speaker 2: Jackie Robinson. Right, Well, that was a political decision that
• 2:34:21
  Speaker 2: was made by branch Ricky. Yes, it was about an
• 2:34:24
  Speaker 2: on the field product, but it was a political decision too.
• 2:34:27
  Speaker 2: So and if it one would argue sports playing politics
• 2:34:31
  Speaker 2: only helped society. So let's not pretend, you know, stick
• 2:34:35
  Speaker 2: to sports. Well, sports is life, so yeah, I'll stick
• 2:34:38
  Speaker 2: We'll stick to life.
• 2:34:40
  Speaker 1: So we'll stick to sports here. We'll get into quintessential
• 2:34:43
  Speaker 1: sports argument.
• 2:34:44
  Speaker 2: We will in a minute, but we probably ought to. Look,
• 2:34:46
  Speaker 2: there's a few other warts that that are. You can't
• 2:34:48
  Speaker 2: tell the full Dodger story without the infamous Nightline incident
• 2:34:52
  Speaker 2: without Campanis then GM where he had a here's here's
• 2:34:58
  Speaker 2: a team that is essentially is to commemorate, commemorate Jackie Robinson,
• 2:35:02
  Speaker 2: and he's on Nightline to commemorate. And the question was
• 2:35:05
  Speaker 2: about the lack of black front office, black managers and
• 2:35:08
  Speaker 2: black general managers.
• 2:35:09
  Speaker 1: I believe and incredible phrase that Campanis said as he
• 2:35:14
  Speaker 1: did disappearance alive from the field at the Astrodome is
• 2:35:19
  Speaker 1: that black black the necessities, you know, and then he
• 2:35:22
  Speaker 1: doubles down and says, black good swimmers, they're not buoyant.
• 2:35:26
  Speaker 2: I mean, Copple literally couldn't believe what he heard and
• 2:35:29
  Speaker 2: sort of he wasn't following his garbage, right, he was like,
• 2:35:32
  Speaker 2: that was like, wait a minute, did you say what
• 2:35:33
  Speaker 2: I think you said?
• 2:35:34
  Speaker 1: Gives him the opportunity to clean get out, right, and
• 2:35:38
  Speaker 1: then that's when he doubles down and talks about swimmers
• 2:35:40
  Speaker 1: and stuff like that. So well, I would say the
• 2:35:43
  Speaker 1: Dodgers did what they had to do and they let
• 2:35:45
  Speaker 1: him go, you know, immediately. Yeah, this lengthy tenure that
• 2:35:48
  Speaker 1: dated back to the Jackie Robinson era, and that's the
• 2:35:50
  Speaker 1: already he came from Brooklyn Campanis was a was a
• 2:35:54
  Speaker 1: was an all time.
• 2:35:54
  Speaker 2: Was basically a lifer, a Dodger lifer.
• 2:35:58
  Speaker 1: So you know, that was a moment that kind of
• 2:36:01
  Speaker 1: you know, but again, I think they more than made
• 2:36:03
  Speaker 1: up for it though, when you know this is coming.
• 2:36:05
  Speaker 1: It's just a few years after Fremando Mania, right, but
• 2:36:08
  Speaker 1: no more mania is still the Contill Channel Park and
• 2:36:11
  Speaker 1: again the leadership that they showed in those areas.
• 2:36:15
  Speaker 2: So now we're going to end with the quintessential debates
• 2:36:19
  Speaker 2: that everybody likes to have, and that is your various
• 2:36:23
  Speaker 2: Mount rushmares, and I will I will confess I advocated
• 2:36:28
  Speaker 2: that we should have multiple mount Rushmares that I could have.
• 2:36:31
  Speaker 2: It's cheating, like, let's have the mount rushmore the Dodger pitchers,
• 2:36:36
  Speaker 2: you know, because then I could have my my all
• 2:36:38
  Speaker 2: time top four pitching staff. Let's have the top four
• 2:36:42
  Speaker 2: And you're like, no, you just got to pick four.
• 2:36:44
  Speaker 1: To quote John Tanny, we got to do it this
• 2:36:45
  Speaker 1: way because it is hot. Kennedy's advocacy for going to
• 2:36:50
  Speaker 1: the moon, because it is odd.
• 2:36:52
  Speaker 2: So look, I think there's a lot. Look if so
• 2:36:54
  Speaker 2: we only have four slots, we're going to do this hot.
• 2:36:57
  Speaker 2: We have four slots. Now we will acknowledge that they're is.
• 2:37:00
  Speaker 1: There's one.
• 2:37:01
  Speaker 2: There's one no brainer, that's an automatic that you have
• 2:37:04
  Speaker 2: to it's Jack Jack Robinson, right, So neither one of
• 2:37:06
  Speaker 2: us argued about that.
• 2:37:07
  Speaker 1: So you put him there.
• 2:37:08
  Speaker 2: So you have three others agreement and other ones we do.
• 2:37:11
  Speaker 2: Let's not give it away. Yeah, come on, let's not
• 2:37:12
  Speaker 2: spoiler alert because there are multiples. So we have three slots,
• 2:37:16
  Speaker 2: so you have plenty of candidates. We've talked about a
• 2:37:19
  Speaker 2: bunch of them.
• 2:37:20
  Speaker 1: You know.
• 2:37:20
  Speaker 2: Look you've got Look, we got two pictures who won
• 2:37:25
  Speaker 2: three ns Kershaw and Kofex, so they have to be considered.
• 2:37:29
  Speaker 2: Ro Campanella won three m vps, all right, like you
• 2:37:33
  Speaker 2: got to consider him show, hey already has two. You
• 2:37:37
  Speaker 2: can't not put him in the pool of people we
• 2:37:40
  Speaker 2: put in. You got to put in Fernando a little
• 2:37:42
  Speaker 2: more longevity, right, that's right, you got Fernando in there. Hey, man,
• 2:37:46
  Speaker 2: Steve Garvey was my icon, and there's still a bunch
• 2:37:49
  Speaker 2: of us still pining for the day that Steve Garvey
• 2:37:51
  Speaker 2: will get where the lead the Veterans Committee will put
• 2:37:55
  Speaker 2: him in. Uh uh, and at some point maybe we'll see.
• 2:37:59
  Speaker 2: I guess all depends if Mattingly ever gets in, then
• 2:38:01
  Speaker 2: Garby better. Who else is in our in our group?
• 2:38:06
  Speaker 2: You gotta you'd have Tommy less order, you'd have Vin Scully,
• 2:38:09
  Speaker 2: you'd have maybe Walter Alston, who's I guess was he.
• 2:38:12
  Speaker 1: Manager longer than Tommy? Did he end up four years
• 2:38:15
  Speaker 1: right around the ceth not the same on that truck?
• 2:38:20
  Speaker 2: So Don Rivesdale, That's why I wanted, That's why I
• 2:38:25
  Speaker 2: wanted more than you know, one male Rushmore.
• 2:38:28
  Speaker 1: We have witching round much more.
• 2:38:29
  Speaker 2: We could have off Field, I mean branch Ricky, Right,
• 2:38:33
  Speaker 2: that's somebody you'd have to consider.
• 2:38:35
  Speaker 1: That's that's too easy, all right. So we had Jackie
• 2:38:38
  Speaker 1: is one is hard? Jackie is one?
• 2:38:40
  Speaker 2: Who else is to you?
• 2:38:41
  Speaker 1: A no brainer? To me? It's no brand. That's Vin Scully.
• 2:38:44
  Speaker 1: You know we talked about the impact. Is that the
• 2:38:46
  Speaker 1: fact that he was foundational for generations of Dodgers, that
• 2:38:49
  Speaker 1: he helped legitimize the Dodgers as they came to l A.
• 2:38:53
  Speaker 2: I think the rule we we came up with it's
• 2:38:55
  Speaker 2: sort of like if you say the name and the
• 2:38:56
  Speaker 2: first thing you think of as Dodgers, they belong to
• 2:38:58
  Speaker 2: the Mount rushbo right, jack Robinson?
• 2:39:01
  Speaker 1: Or if you say Dodgers, one of the first people
• 2:39:02
  Speaker 1: people you take of, Right.
• 2:39:04
  Speaker 2: So Jackie and Vin probably are one two. You can't
• 2:39:07
  Speaker 2: really you start there. I had to argue the next
• 2:39:11
  Speaker 2: two or there we could This is where you would
• 2:39:13
  Speaker 2: I don't think anybody's going to debate us on Jackie
• 2:39:15
  Speaker 2: r Ben. Now you've got I know where I'd go next.
• 2:39:21
  Speaker 2: You got I would go Kofax next. But I'm mindful
• 2:39:25
  Speaker 2: that it is a little more meaningful to Jewish Americans,
• 2:39:27
  Speaker 2: So I accept that premise, and it's a short career,
• 2:39:31
  Speaker 2: it's all of those things. But he is I mean,
• 2:39:36
  Speaker 2: I think when you say the word Sandy Kofax, there's
• 2:39:38
  Speaker 2: only one team you think of.
• 2:39:39
  Speaker 1: I'm actually with you on this, just because you know,
• 2:39:43
  Speaker 1: help make the Dodgers what they were in the sixties.
• 2:39:48
  Speaker 1: To me, it's more people that are older than me.
• 2:39:51
  Speaker 1: The way they look at Kofax. I honor and respect
• 2:39:54
  Speaker 1: their reverence for him, So therefore I revere him. And
• 2:39:59
  Speaker 1: I've seen the reaction to him. If you had been
• 2:40:01
  Speaker 1: an LA sports writer, do you think you'd feel this? No?
• 2:40:07
  Speaker 2: Okay no, but see seeing what he meant, I will
• 2:40:14
  Speaker 2: say that I'm gonna argue with myself here, right the
• 2:40:17
  Speaker 2: argument against is well, that's not just long enough. But
• 2:40:21
  Speaker 2: I think about my eighteen year old son. I have
• 2:40:25
  Speaker 2: to explain who co faxes. I don't have to explain
• 2:40:26
  Speaker 2: your Jackie is, and I even don't have to explain who,
• 2:40:31
  Speaker 2: but I actually do have to tell him the story I.
• 2:40:33
  Speaker 1: Got to tell him.
• 2:40:33
  Speaker 2: Oh, there's not a lot of highlights of Kofax, right,
• 2:40:36
  Speaker 2: there's less TV, there's less of everything.
• 2:40:38
  Speaker 1: But the beauty of this exercise is your amount, right,
• 2:40:41
  Speaker 1: more so you get to competer that are the most dodgerrific. Yes, right,
• 2:40:48
  Speaker 1: And so our first three were actually in alignment on Yeah,
• 2:40:51
  Speaker 1: we've spoiler alert. We we don't have the same before
• 2:40:56
  Speaker 1: my fourth the time of the story. Yeah, because he
• 2:41:02
  Speaker 1: just helped make you know, Dodger blue. It was just
• 2:41:05
  Speaker 1: such an advocate for the Dodgers and for baseball. And
• 2:41:08
  Speaker 1: he's the one that used the expression, I believe Dodger blue,
• 2:41:11
  Speaker 1: the blue Dodger blue. Wasn't that the big Dodgers, you know,
• 2:41:15
  Speaker 1: all those things like he just helped the way he
• 2:41:17
  Speaker 1: talked about the Dodgers made them feel like much bigger.
• 2:41:21
  Speaker 1: They weren't just a sports brandch right, and we know
• 2:41:25
  Speaker 1: they mean more than sports. And we talked about how
• 2:41:27
  Speaker 1: the Lakers that kind of surpassed them. Well, these last
• 2:41:30
  Speaker 1: few years, the Dodgers have their mad after that, they
• 2:41:32
  Speaker 1: are Los Angeles team. They were there before the Lakers.
• 2:41:35
  Speaker 1: They are the foundational team.
• 2:41:37
  Speaker 2: Now that you've Angelinos can see him on TV again,
• 2:41:40
  Speaker 2: that helps, right, not being on TV for that for
• 2:41:43
  Speaker 2: that eight what was it about three or four year period.
• 2:41:45
  Speaker 1: There quite that long. That was another knock against the
• 2:41:48
  Speaker 1: Dodgers when they went to this new cable or regional
• 2:41:52
  Speaker 1: sports network and it wasn't available. He couldn't get on DirecTV,
• 2:41:54
  Speaker 1: you couldn't get on some of the biggest cable providers
• 2:41:56
  Speaker 1: in LA.
• 2:41:56
  Speaker 2: And that was like the like I said, my buddies
• 2:41:59
  Speaker 2: woul buying VP in order to watch it an extra
• 2:42:02
  Speaker 2: MLB extra?
• 2:42:03
  Speaker 1: So what would be counter argument against Tommy? So the
• 2:42:06
  Speaker 1: counter against Tommy for me would be maybe argument for
• 2:42:09
  Speaker 1: someone else, Well, it's more of a four. And why
• 2:42:11
  Speaker 1: wouldn't put Tommy is actually has to do with the
• 2:42:16
  Speaker 1: guy I put in fourth, which is, you.
• 2:42:18
  Speaker 2: Know, Tommy's managing decisions when it came to pictures weren't
• 2:42:22
  Speaker 2: always the greatest. And did he cost pictures? Their careers?
• 2:42:26
  Speaker 2: Did some of their careers get cut short? And my
• 2:42:29
  Speaker 2: biggest one is Fernando. Now, for me, I put Fernando
• 2:42:31
  Speaker 2: in the Mount Rushmore And that's why it really bothers
• 2:42:35
  Speaker 2: me he's not in the Hall of Fame because here
• 2:42:36
  Speaker 2: you have the Dodgers who have plenty of Hall of famers,
• 2:42:39
  Speaker 2: and it's hard to say, well, the most iconic people,
• 2:42:43
  Speaker 2: how come one of them's on the Hall of Fame.
• 2:42:46
  Speaker 2: That's how important I think Fernando is now the only
• 2:42:49
  Speaker 2: thing I will put on both of us, is you covered.
• 2:42:52
  Speaker 2: You know, your your formative years for Tommy, my formative
• 2:42:55
  Speaker 2: years for Fernando, like you know, are people going to
• 2:42:59
  Speaker 2: feel this way?
• 2:42:59
  Speaker 1: Fernanda is another one.
• 2:43:01
  Speaker 2: Hard to explain to my son, hard to explain to
• 2:43:04
  Speaker 2: the eight you know, the twenty first century Dodger fan,
• 2:43:06
  Speaker 2: how important and how iconic he was.
• 2:43:10
  Speaker 1: So that would be.
• 2:43:10
  Speaker 2: But I would Fernando for me because he healed a
• 2:43:15
  Speaker 2: big part of the city. And I think the value
• 2:43:18
  Speaker 2: to the Dodgers as being Latin America's team right first.
• 2:43:22
  Speaker 1: You know, that's that's a big deal. I mean, you
• 2:43:26
  Speaker 1: can make the argument, for example, Dave Roberts is one
• 2:43:30
  Speaker 1: more world series of the Dodgers, that's the manager, right So,
• 2:43:35
  Speaker 1: but it speaks to I think of when I think
• 2:43:39
  Speaker 1: of Dodger manager, I'm going to think of Tommy.
• 2:43:42
  Speaker 2: Over over there, just just but the third City.
• 2:43:45
  Speaker 1: Here's what I when I think of a manager of
• 2:43:47
  Speaker 1: the Dodgers, because he was the manager of the Dodgers
• 2:43:50
  Speaker 1: from before I started watching them, up until nineteen ninety six.
• 2:43:53
  Speaker 2: When when the when the AI versions of us do
• 2:43:55
  Speaker 2: this show in fifty years and go back and do
• 2:43:57
  Speaker 2: the Dodgers again. The way we've changed managing, and the
• 2:44:02
  Speaker 2: way that if they don't that they aren't the lead
• 2:44:06
  Speaker 2: personality of the team.
• 2:44:07
  Speaker 1: Anymore dictated by the bombers.
• 2:44:10
  Speaker 2: We will probably have a hard time explaining how important
• 2:44:14
  Speaker 2: managers were in the twentieth century. They're just less They're
• 2:44:17
  Speaker 2: less important than the twenty per century.
• 2:44:18
  Speaker 1: Even though you can make the case that Dave Roberts
• 2:44:21
  Speaker 1: a better manager than time of Disorda certainly hasn't blown
• 2:44:24
  Speaker 1: through picture's arys. He's not a bigger personality than tom
• 2:44:29
  Speaker 1: I mean that that's part of what this is about,
• 2:44:31
  Speaker 1: is the fact that Tommy just had this, you know,
• 2:44:35
  Speaker 1: oversized personality that just made the Dodgers, made the Dodgers
• 2:44:40
  Speaker 1: seem bigger than you know, he was larger than life
• 2:44:42
  Speaker 1: figure and as a result, the Dodgers were a larger
• 2:44:45
  Speaker 1: than life franchise in part because of him.
• 2:44:47
  Speaker 2: And you know, in many ways they weren't as successful
• 2:44:51
  Speaker 2: as as they should have been in his era, but
• 2:44:54
  Speaker 2: he made them seem bigger because I.
• 2:44:56
  Speaker 1: Mean we talked earlier. I put them on the same
• 2:44:58
  Speaker 1: plane as the the Big Red Machine and all those
• 2:45:01
  Speaker 1: great they did with these teams. They know, they didn't
• 2:45:03
  Speaker 1: win a World Series in a decade, and that's partly
• 2:45:06
  Speaker 1: Tommy salesmanship.
• 2:45:08
  Speaker 2: That's that's a great the great way.
• 2:45:10
  Speaker 1: To put it. But you know the legacy of Fernando,
• 2:45:12
  Speaker 1: I mean, what hurts him? He only won one hundred
• 2:45:14
  Speaker 1: and seventy three games. Yeah, you know, and baseball is
• 2:45:16
  Speaker 1: so numbers oriented. You know, we've talked off air about
• 2:45:20
  Speaker 1: now there's a space in the Basketball Hall of Fame
• 2:45:22
  Speaker 1: for Yao Ming because of what he meant, you know,
• 2:45:25
  Speaker 1: for opening the NBA, for THEA and you know what
• 2:45:29
  Speaker 1: he's meant, you know.
• 2:45:30
  Speaker 2: For basketball in Asia. So baseball doesn't look at.
• 2:45:34
  Speaker 1: It that way.
• 2:45:36
  Speaker 2: So that's our case, the Los Angeles Dodgers, who you
• 2:45:40
  Speaker 2: got that, that's our that's our Mount Rushmore. This is
• 2:45:43
  Speaker 2: now a dynasty, and I really think the last twenty
• 2:45:46
  Speaker 2: the last ten years has cemented them because they have
• 2:45:48
  Speaker 2: finally done something that they arguably spent the entire twentieth
• 2:45:52
  Speaker 2: century trying to do.
• 2:45:53
  Speaker 1: And never got there. They caught the Yankees. It's amazing
• 2:45:57
  Speaker 1: when you travel now around the world and this is
• 2:46:01
  Speaker 1: a show hate phenomeni.
• 2:46:03
  Speaker 2: You see that La cap now more than you see
• 2:46:06
  Speaker 2: the NY Cap.
• 2:46:07
  Speaker 1: Harris in Vancouver to Australia, that La Dodger.
• 2:46:12
  Speaker 2: And it used to be the NY Cap. Yes, and
• 2:46:15
  Speaker 2: now you see the La Cap. It's fascinating.
• 2:46:18
  Speaker 1: That's end of our episode one.
• 2:46:19
  Speaker 2: We are the next episode and the next dynasty where
• 2:46:23
  Speaker 2: you're going to tackle is going to be in the
• 2:46:24
  Speaker 2: NFL and it is Pittsburgh Stealer. I'm looking forward to
• 2:46:28
  Speaker 2: this dymnastic that'll be coming up on our next episode.
• 2:46:33
  Speaker 2: Thanks for giving us a chance here in episode one,
• 2:46:35
  Speaker 2: we will have an icon of the Dodgers helping to
• 2:46:40
  Speaker 2: talk a little bit more and unpack some of these
• 2:46:42
  Speaker 2: stories for you. But when we see you next time
• 2:46:45
  Speaker 2: with a big deep dive, it'll be about the Pittsburgh Steelers,