Latest / The Ben Maller Show / The Fifth Hour: Salute the Sarge & Big Easy

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The Fifth Hour: Salute the Sarge & Big Easy · The Ben Maller Show

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  Speaker 1: Kabbooms.
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  Speaker 2: If you thought four hours a day, twelve hundred minutes
• 0:05
  Speaker 2: a week was enough, think again. He's the last remnants
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  Speaker 2: of the old republic, a sol fashion of fairness. He
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  Speaker 2: treats crackheads in the ghetto gutter the same as the
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  Speaker 2: rich pill poppers in the penthouse. Wow to clearinghouse of
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  Speaker 2: hot takes, break free for something special. The Fifth Hour
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  Speaker 2: with Ben Maller starts right now in.
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  Speaker 1: The air everywhere, The Fifth Hour with me, Ben Mahler
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  Speaker 1: in Danny G Radio, as we kick off the weekend
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  Speaker 1: festivities here in the Magic pod Box. And you have
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  Speaker 1: become a p one by listening to the Fifth Hour podcast.
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: You are a higher level of audio consumer. So we
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  Speaker 1: thank you for that. And unfortunately there are days in
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  Speaker 1: this goofy, little wacky sports radio business that I've chosen
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  Speaker 1: to spend my life in that the sports take can wait. Now.
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  Speaker 1: We don't normally get real sporty on the Fifth Hour Podcast.
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  Speaker 1: It's more about just things that are out in my
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  Speaker 1: world that I share with you, and I thank you
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  Speaker 1: for putting up with that. So I'm not going to
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: sit here and talk about a quarterback controversy or a
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: coaching hot seed, or why this team stinks or that
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: team's good, or any of that background noise. It's all
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  Speaker 1: background noise because there's something much heavier that happened this week.
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  Speaker 1: And this is unfortunately one of those days where and
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  Speaker 1: I want to share this with you, and I was
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  Speaker 1: going to talk about it on the radio show and
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  Speaker 1: it didn't come up in conversation, and I thought this
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  Speaker 1: would be the perfect platform to talk about the events
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  Speaker 1: that took place this week. So earlier this week, I
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  Speaker 1: got a text from a number I did not recognize
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  Speaker 1: out of the four to one six that's the area
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  Speaker 1: code for Toronto. Now I have some friend in Toronto,
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  Speaker 1: people I've worked with over the years. Canadian mic comes
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  Speaker 1: to mind. But I didn't recognize this number and it
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  Speaker 1: wasn't in my phone, so I figured it was spam,
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  Speaker 1: And like any good red blooded American or Canadian for
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  Speaker 1: that matter, I just decided not to not to answer
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  Speaker 1: the thing. I said, I'm not going to respond to
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  Speaker 1: the text, and so I thought it was some bot,
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  Speaker 1: some spam bot say can I confirm your Costco executive
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  Speaker 1: membership number? Or telling me to pay a toll from
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  Speaker 1: a road trip I didn't take or warning me that
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: the Apple Pay is locked. I don't use Apple Pay,
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: but it's locked, you know the drill. So hours later
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  Speaker 1: now I got the text. I was sleeping hours later
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  Speaker 1: while I was out hustling doing the day to day adulting.
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  Speaker 1: I was at Costco, because that's what you do when
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  Speaker 1: gas is four ninety nine and you're trying to squeeze
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  Speaker 1: every penny until Lincoln screams no mob. So I get
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  Speaker 1: the call, the same number as before. I was like, well,
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  Speaker 1: that's probably not spam. And it wasn't spam. It was
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  Speaker 1: my past coming back. It was a voice from the
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  Speaker 1: Fox Sports Radio Alumni Association, my buddy Josh, one of
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  Speaker 1: the original expansion team guys from twenty five years ago,
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  Speaker 1: calling me out of the blue. This guy, Josh's father,
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  Speaker 1: was a legendary hockey announcer for the Columbus Blue Jackets
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  Speaker 1: who just retired maybe in the last ten years. He
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  Speaker 1: had worked for a bunch of other teams in the
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  Speaker 1: NHL as well, and so Josh worked at our place
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  Speaker 1: when we started up, and Josh had the kind of
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  Speaker 1: news that changes the temperature and the automobile the malamobile
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  Speaker 1: by twenty degrees. So one of our former teammates had
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  Speaker 1: died and Josh called me to share the news before
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: it got out in the media. And it was sudden.
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  Speaker 1: It was, you know, one of the are you telling
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: me the truth kind of thing. I mean that kind
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  Speaker 1: of thing. You know, this can't be real. There was
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: no warning shot, not even a whisper, and just that's it.
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  Speaker 1: You know, game over crossed the Great Divide and this one.
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  Speaker 1: This is one of the weird inconvenient truths about when
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: you get to the age I'm at your friends, your colleges.
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  Speaker 1: Like when I was younger, I lost relatives. I lost aunts, uncles, grandparents,
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  Speaker 1: things like that. It's a circle of life. And you
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  Speaker 1: get to my age. Now it's your friends, your colleagues.
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  Speaker 1: You're really the co stars in the documentary of your life.
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  Speaker 1: We're all doing our own documentary, our own life story.
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  Speaker 1: And in mind, this was one of the people that
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  Speaker 1: was a part of it. And these people start disappearing.
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  Speaker 1: You're like, where did that person go? What happened? In't
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  Speaker 1: heard from that person? Oh man, And it sneaks up
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  Speaker 1: on you, it's like, how did that happened? One day,
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  Speaker 1: you're all a bunch of kids trying to crack the
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  Speaker 1: code of sports talk radio, trying to make your mark
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  Speaker 1: in the media business, and you're cracking jokes and eating
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  Speaker 1: Denny's at five in the morning after you worked all night,
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  Speaker 1: and you're wandering around farting on each other in the hallways,
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: and you're doing two or three jobs or eating microwave
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  Speaker 1: hot pockets, and then suddenly, in my case, I'm still
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: holding down the overnight post. I haven't left. And the
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: other people I work with in those days, they've all
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: scattered all over the United States and Canada and in
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: countries around the world, and they're all building their own lives.
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  Speaker 1: Many of them already have chasing dreams, living their existence.
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  Speaker 1: And so this one hurt because the voice that we lost,
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  Speaker 1: a early Fox Sports Radio voice, belonged to Sarge. He
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  Speaker 1: was given the birth name Steven Charles Pickman Sarge. If
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: you don't know, if you're not familiar with his work,
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  Speaker 1: a comedian, a performer, and in my book, a Fox
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  Speaker 1: Sports Radio original. I don't know if he was there
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  Speaker 1: right when the network started, but he was a total
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  Speaker 1: mench in every sense of the word. He's born I
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: believe he was born like New York, but he was
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: I know he was raised on Long Island and had
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  Speaker 1: a very interesting childhood. We had him on the podcast
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  Speaker 1: last year. Sarge was adopted right after birth, and you know,
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  Speaker 1: he's a kid. He loved entertainment and all that knew.
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  Speaker 1: He wanted to be a guy holding a microphone and
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: told the story that when he was a kid, his
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  Speaker 1: grandfather took him to the Catskill Mountains where he would
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  Speaker 1: hang out and that was kind of his playground. And
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  Speaker 1: then growing up in New York, that's where you go
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  Speaker 1: and a lot of old school entertainers, the legend of
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  Speaker 1: the cat Skills, which I don't think is really a
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  Speaker 1: thing anymore, but back in the day, that was the spot.
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  Speaker 1: And he was like seven years old and he's sitting
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  Speaker 1: on a folding chair next to his grandpa watching these
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  Speaker 1: famous comedians perform. And he then eventually that would be
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  Speaker 1: his life, that would be his oxygen. And Sarge went
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  Speaker 1: to Boston University, the School of Public Communications. How about that?
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  Speaker 1: Look at that, smart, Serge, And and if the movie
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  Speaker 1: ended there, it's like, okay, well that's fine. You know,
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  Speaker 1: great kid, big dreams on the up and up, and
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  Speaker 1: his story and he's been he's very open about it.
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  Speaker 1: Serge the comedian that worked at our place, because his
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  Speaker 1: life was not a Disney movie. It was not a
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  Speaker 1: fairy tale. And that's the way life off it is. Right,
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  Speaker 1: there's plot twist, there's upstairs, downs, the rise, the fall,
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  Speaker 1: the rise again, and Sarge fell into a diction Hart
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  Speaker 1: like Serge. We talked off the air a few times like, well,
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  Speaker 1: you could have been one of my callers, like you
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: could have been mouthwash Mike, or beer drinking Ran or
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: keg drinking Steve or one of these characters that calls
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  Speaker 1: the show. He spent part of his young life Sarge homeless,
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  Speaker 1: literally sleeping in Manhattan under the Manhattan Bridge and doing
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: copious amounts of drugs and hovering in the shadowy no
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  Speaker 1: man's land where people pretend like they don't see you
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  Speaker 1: and they hope that you don't approach him because you
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  Speaker 1: look like you haven't showered since the nineties, and for
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  Speaker 1: many that's where it ends, unfortunately, and he just kind
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  Speaker 1: of fade out. Game over. Sarge, though, was able to
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  Speaker 1: pull off one of the great miracles. He back thirty
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  Speaker 1: some odd years ago. He was really down his luck
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  Speaker 1: and he had this lightning bolt epiphany the Holy Cow.
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  Speaker 1: As we say. The term we use on the show
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  Speaker 1: a lot is they come to Jesus meeting with himself.
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  Speaker 1: And he decided, it's not Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving has already happened
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  Speaker 1: back a month ago. It's late December. I'm going to
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  Speaker 1: have you know, I'm going to have some turkey. I'm
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  Speaker 1: gonna have a cold turkey. No rehab, no halfway house.
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  Speaker 1: They don't tell you to do this, no supervised program.
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  Speaker 1: He just made a decision one day, the day after
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  Speaker 1: Christmas nineteen ninety he said, that's it. I'm done. I'm
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  Speaker 1: done living this life. I want to do something else.
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  Speaker 1: And he never looked back. Thirty years of sobriety for
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  Speaker 1: my man Sarge and just a great mitzvah that that
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  Speaker 1: he pulled that off. And from that point forward it
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  Speaker 1: did become a Disney movie. It was. It was someone
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  Speaker 1: who had turned on the stage lights and yell, all right, serge,
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  Speaker 1: you're up. And he wrote, produced, performed on the best
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  Speaker 1: damn sports show period if you remember that show, very
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  Speaker 1: popular show at the time, and he worked at our
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  Speaker 1: place at Fox Sports Radio. That's why he was an
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  Speaker 1: alumni member. He hosted a show, actually did a show
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  Speaker 1: with Jason Smith in the early and I sat in
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: on that show a few times, and we talked a
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  Speaker 1: lot in the hallways back in the wild early two
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: thousands what we call now looking back, we call the
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: expansion era of Fox Sports Radio because it started out
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  Speaker 1: of nowhere, and this is when ESPN Radio was the
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  Speaker 1: Roman Empire and we were the barbarian tribe trying to
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  Speaker 1: scale the walls, and we didn't have any weapons. We
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  Speaker 1: just had duct tape and a couple of microphones and
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: a VU meter. And the roster back then feels like
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  Speaker 1: a mythological group of people. We had Kevin Frazier who's
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  Speaker 1: gone on and done great things in entertainment, Chris Myers
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  Speaker 1: who does NFL games, the Hall of Famer, the goat
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  Speaker 1: of sports radio, Tony Bruno, Bob Golick, who was the
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  Speaker 1: more famous Goliic, more famous than his brother, who would
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  Speaker 1: be part of the Mike and Mike and rich Arera,
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: the great Rich Arero did Tampa Bay Rays baseball for
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: years period post Kevin Kylie who Chuck Booms comedian that
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  Speaker 1: did a lot of great stuff. Andrew Cecilian who's the
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: voice of the Cleveland Browns now Steve Zabin, Zabe's an
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  Speaker 1: all time great what a peach Zabe is And that
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: was the kind of line up you look back at
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: it now, I was like, Wow, how do we all
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: work in the same building and then we violate some
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: kind of fire code or something like that. But this
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  Speaker 1: is about not about those people. It's about Sarge. Sarge
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  Speaker 1: was right in the middle of all of it. He
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  Speaker 1: wasn't loud off the air. He had a great shtick,
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: not overbearing. He was just present. He was his study, heartbeat,
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  Speaker 1: a guy very funny obviously as a comedian, and a
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: guy whose talent didn't need you know, the loud volume,
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  Speaker 1: you know all that stuff. His impersonations were legendary, like
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: Mike Tyson, marv Albert, Gilbert Godfrey. There's some great stories
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: about Gilbert Godfreed Kermit the Frog. He could do it all,
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: and he went from being homeless. He performed worldwide. He
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: performed at the iconic Radio City Music Hall in Manhattan.
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: The Major League Baseball All Star Game, they brought Sarge
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: out to perform late night TV back when that matted.
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  Speaker 1: People watch that with Craig Ferguson. There were clubs, theaters,
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  Speaker 1: cruise ships. He told me his life on the cruise ship.
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  Speaker 1: And I've repeated that story a few times over the years,
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: but how depressing that was. On the cruise ship. You think, Okay,
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  Speaker 1: I'm on the ocean, I've got my own plays, i
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  Speaker 1: have to perform a couple shows a night, I've got
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: free food and all. That's kind of depressing. And he'd
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: performed at cathedrals, temples, retirement communities. He had told me
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: his niche was the retirement communities of South Florida. Not
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: only retirement hoa's, the Jewish community centers, the condo places
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: where audiences really loved this comedian went in and telling
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: jokes and gags and all that, and Serge gave them
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: what they wanted. It wanted somebody who was warm and
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: fun and was a storyteller, and he gave gave that
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: to them and anybody that came across Serge. And so
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: here's what I want to remember most. Last year I
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: had him on this podcast, the Fifth Hour podcast, and
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: it was great to catch up and it was one
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: of those conversations when you blink and you know, time
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: just disappears right. And he told the story about cold calling.
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: This is back when you could do this and like
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: the I guess the early nineties, he cold called television
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: executives because he wanted to work at CB I think
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: it was CBS, and he ended up getting the job.
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: He it was wild, like classic Sarge hustle move off
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: the air years when we worked together, he was good
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: friends with Gilbert Godfrey. They were all coming up as
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: comedians together, Gilbert, Sarge, there were a couple of other
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: big names comedians, and Sarge told the story about how
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: he and Gilbert were on the boats, the cruise ships,
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: and they were all single, and they were trying to
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: get Gilbert to hook up with the ladies, unsuccessfully, by
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: the way, to try to get Gilbert Godfried, the iconic
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: commedey who also just passed away not that long ago,
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: to flirt with women. And it went about as well
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: as you'd expect. Godfreed, that twitchy, nervous comedic genius. It
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: just did not, shall we say, translate into becoming Don
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: Juan of the Open Seas, just did not. And I
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: still smile when I hear Sarge describing what the lengths
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: these guys went to try to get Gilbert Godfried to
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: have some fun with the ladies. But after we wrapped
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: up the pod. That was usually that's it, you know,
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: you go your separate way. But Sarge hit the road
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: and there was I forget the town. He was in
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: the boondocks outside Boston and he was eating eggs and
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: pancakes at some rusty roadside diner and it was during
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: football season and they had the TV on and kind
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: of flickering behind. He was sitting at the bar and
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: they had the TV on. It was an old TV
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: and they had they had Benny Versus the Penny, and
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: he recognized me, and he didn't know about the show
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: because he lived in Miami. We wereent on in Miami,
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: and so Sarge's having breakfast at the diner that's probably
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: like late at night, and and then he sends me
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: a message. He reaches hey, I saw your TV show.
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: It's like the absurdity of life. And it was really
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: cool that he reached out to me. And I was
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: excited that he seemed excited about that. And I was like, oh, yeah,
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: I'm a little embarrassed by that, but I don't look
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: good on TV. And he's like, yeah, I don't worry
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: about it. But that's who he was. He would travel
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: as a comedian you travel all over a performer. He
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: survived a very hard beginning to his life, well actually
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: not even the beginning. He's a good childhood, and then
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: went through some stuff, as we all do. But he
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: stared down the darkest alley imaginable and walked out the
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: other side. It wasn't bitter about it. He used that
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: as a launch pad and spent a lot of his
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: life giving back to people that were also fighting the demons.
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: His last Sergeant's last Facebook post was November twenty seventh.
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: He was wishing everyone a happy Thanksgiving. He's got a son,
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: I was married, obviously, all that, and he said, see
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: as soon, Sarge, And that's it, just like that. There
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: will not be another post there. There won't be another
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: gig in Boca, another impersonation, you know, playing the piano,
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: any of that stuff. He won't be able to tell
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: the stories he told about when he was homeless and
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: the things that he had to do in Manhattan and
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: all that stuff, and all that that ends with what
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: I mean, I guess that's just it. And you know,
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: a life like Sarge is doesn't vanish. It kind of echoes, right,
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: And for those that he came across and in every
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: comic who got a break because Sarge encouraged them, and
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: people that liked his comedy, the Jewish community centers in Boca,
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: in every Fox Sports Radio alum who remembers hanging out
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: in the Expansion era as chaotic and messy and hilarious
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: and unforgettable, with Sarge being part of that. It's because
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: of people like him. And what am I going to
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: remember about Sarge? I'm gonna remember everything. And I wanted
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: to do this podcast in part so I could put
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: my thoughts together about Sarga. The fact that he was
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: very tough overcoming the homelessness, his talent as a comedian
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: doing impersonations, his kindness, the stories he told me, many
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: of them cannot be repeated even in death, from what
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: he saw on the road traveling around with other comedians,
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: and these were some of the people like became huge stars,
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: like Kilbert Godfrey was a megastar, and Sarge was. He
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: never got to that level, yet he was around all
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: of those people. You know, he was in that. And
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: there's these cliques and comedy. You hear comedians talk about
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: this all the time, like this group that you're together
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: with and your ride and Die group. You all come
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: up together as comedians and and so he had that group.
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: Many of them went on to these amazing things. And
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: he had a great run too. He had a great run.
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: And he lived essentially three lives in one. He was
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: the beloved kid has adopted but memories of the catskills
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: growing up, and then he had the really tough part
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: of his life when he was a young adult, and
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: then the sober, reborn entertainer who found a way to
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: bring joy and did TV and radio and all this stuff.
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: And most of us one act. Serge got three and
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: should have had a fourth act. And as far as
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: I'm concerned, he landed every time. He stuck the landing
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: every time. And again he was a mens that's a
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: word I guess I've used already, but he's a men's
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: that's what he was. And he was one of us,
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: you know, he got he loved the radio stuff and
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: it was it was fun for him to talk sports,
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: and he did it his way. And I just imagine
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: now he's performing for the audience beyond the Pearly Gates,
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: probably doing a Marv Albert impersonation for Don Rickles. While
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: some angels are in the background trying to keep a
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: straight face and all that stuff. And so we'll miss
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: your Serge. But I'm glad that our lives crossed. Path
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: our paths crossed in life, I should say, And and
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: what a life you lived. And my condolence is to
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: your son and your your wife and everyone that is
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: closer than I am to you. But I'm really really
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: happy I had you on the podcast, and rest in
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: peace to the great Serge. So turning the page on
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: that listen, there's no good transaction or transition, I should say,
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: or transaction, but we lose people every year in sports
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: as well. It's the rhythm of time, right, the drum beat.
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: This is very depressing podcast, but just bear with I
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: don't think it's that depressent because this is part of life, right,
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: You live, you die, That's how it goes. So the
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: drum beat that none of us can muffle, even though
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: we all try to muffle it, you know. I was like, Oh,
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: it's not going to happen to me. It happens to you.
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: And sometimes the news comes in bunches, they say in Hollywood,
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: it happens in threes. Well, this is sports and this
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: is entertainment. And you know, these things roll in like
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: waves and refuse to stop crashing. So this week it
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: wasn't just Sarge. The last like two weeks, it wasn't
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: just Serge the Fox Sports Radio original. We just talked
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: about who crossed the invisible boundary. There were two men
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: that I was not friends with, but professionally I talked
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: to them quite a bit. They were playing a sport
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: I was a young reporter. These are two men who
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: we covered two fixtures from the years when the NBA
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: still smelled like rosin and adrenaline and they didn't do
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: load management and all that, and when the forum buzzed
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: even during lean times. We lost Elvin Campbell and also
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: a player that he played against who spent a lot
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: of time at the LA Memorial Sports Arena with the
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: people's team, the Clippers, Rodney Rogers. Two entirely different spirits
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: tied together now by memory, and I wanted to give
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: a mention. I figured, hey, we're talking about Serge, and
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: these things came across Elden Campbell. His death was like,
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: wait a minute, he wasn't sick or anything like. He drowned.
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: And we found out this week that Elvin drowned. He
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: was fifty seven, born in Inglewood, went to Clemson, played
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: for the hometown team from his childhood, the Lakers, and
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: we covered Eldon at a time when the Lakers were
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: stuck in NBA purgatory. The historians it was like this
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: dead zone between the Magic showtime Lakers with Kareem and
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: Worthy in those guys and the volcanic arrival of Shaq
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: and Kobe, and the Forum in those years wasn't quite
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: as Hollywood. You still had Jack and Diane. Cannon was
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: out there in a few of the celebrities, but it
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: was pretty much at a holding pattern. You had Eldon
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: and Club said, Cedric Sabalos was there, and they were
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: the Constance and Nick van Exell, and so they had
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: some anchors. They weren't great, they were mediocre, and Elvin
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: was the guy that they thought was going to be
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: really good. He was a gentle, giant seven footer, built
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: like a bank vault, and his temperament was not alpha.
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: He was pretty pretty mellow. More than once. You'd walk
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: into the form locker room, I go there do the
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: pregame stuff, and Elden would be sitting at his locker
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: in full uniform, sleeping, sitting up. I still remember that.
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: I can close my eyes and see that grabbing a
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: cat nap before the night shift. And he treated the
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: NBA pregame like a Sunday afternoon siesta and that mellow vibe.
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: The Lakers always wanted him to be a more aggressive player,
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: but that was just not his personality. It wasn't. And
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: the greatest Elden Campbell quote was when somebody interviewed him
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: and he asked Eldon. They said, hey, Eldon, did you
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: earned a degree there at Clemson? And in that slow,
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: kind of bashful tone, he delivered one of the all
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: time great lines. Elden Campbell, when asked about his degree
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: from Clemson, said it has to be earned it he said, nope,
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: but they gave me one anyway. That's pretty good. That's
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: a Hall of Fame quote right there. That is it's
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: a malarism waiting to happen, and that's that's Eldon. And
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: I did that dead, dead pan comedy and delivered. You know,
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: he had some big nights and the he played fifteen
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: years in the NBA. But he leaves behind a wife
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: and four kids and a bunch of siblings and all
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: that and an entire generation of historian Laker historians who
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: will not put him on murals like Kobe and all that, obviously,
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: but they remember those years and Eldon wasn't flashy, and
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: he wasn't It wasn't Neon, wasn't Hollywood, even though he
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: grew up in Inglewood. He was studying and he had
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: some he had good numbers, but not great numbers as
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: a player. And then there's Rodney Rogers, and I was
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: around Rodney a lot too. Rodney came to La like
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: a kid walking into Disneyland holding the Golden ticket. You
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: got a golden ticket. He didn't know he had the
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: golden ticket, but boy was he happy with it. Fresh
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: off the plane from Denver, he played for the Nuggets,
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: eyes wide open. I remember they had a news conference.
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: The Clippers had traded Antonio mcdice the number two pick
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: to Denver. They got Brent Barry. He was part of that.
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: Brian Williams, who would be murdered on a boat I believe,
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: was also on that trade. And then Rodney Rogers and
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: Rodney I remember they had a news comers at a
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: hotel in downtown LA and he was so you know,
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: eyes wide open. It's like he'd just seen the Pacific
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: for the first time. I was like, dude, you've been
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: in the NBA for a couple of years, you've seen LA.
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: And he was like a small town guy. He's from
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: North Carolina, and you know, North Carolina does produce some
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: tough people, grounded people, and LA is a different solar
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: system when you're from North Carolina. And Rodney looked around
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: like he had been launched into orbit. I remember the look,
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: and very nice man, built like a Donnis kind soul
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: player that could bulldoze you like like a runway shopping
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: cart one minute and then stretched the floor the next.
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: And there was not a lot of arrogance. There was
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: no pretense. He was appreciative of the moment and the
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: journey and all that. And he had a very difficult life. Also,
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: you know, he got a tough hand Rodney. After he
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: I think he was already out of the NBA, but
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: he had an ATV accident and he was paralyzed and
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: from the neck down. He was paralyzed, confined to a wheelchair.
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: And most people would crumble and be like, oh man,
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: I can't, I can't go on, But Rodney didn't. He
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: radiated positivity and became a beacon for people that went
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: through a similar situation. And he had really a lousy
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: hand of cards tossed at him, you know, twos and
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: threes across the board. It was not good there, and
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: still found a way to smile. And that's the kind
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: of internal wiring that you can't teach, right, You can't
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: coach that that and you don't know that you have it,
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: or you don't have it until something happens. So, couple
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: of guys, couple of stories I wanted to share with you,
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: And you know, I wasn't friendly with these guys, but
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: I ask him, Hey, what happened on that play in
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: the fourth quarter? Why'd you guys lose the game? That
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: kind of bull crap. And in the days before social
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: media and all that good stuff. So rest rest easy,
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: Eldon Campbell, Rest easy, Rodney Rogers. The scoreboard of life
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: does not tell you the whole story. The people who
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: knew you will tell the whole story. So on that
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: will put the baby to bed. And I think I've
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: done enough eulogies for the year, so let's try out
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: to have anyone remember last year we had a bunch
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: of callers die at the end end of the year. Man,
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: it was very depressing, and so Sarge Eldon Campbell, Rodney
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: Rogers a melancholy edition of the Fifth Hour. But we'll
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: have some fun on the Saturday Pod. Hopefully you can
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: join us for that. Have a great rest of your day.
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: Aloha mahalo Later skater, Did I get that right? Danny? Now?
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: Is it? Osta pasta? Now? All right? Osta pasta? Boom?
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: You fired? Got a murder. I gotta go.