"Al Michaels"

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Speaker 1 Good morning. Good morning, listener.
Good morning, listener. It's crowded on the 605 and the weather looks balmy.
Bumper to pump. Well, what's it look like up in the copter?

Speaker 1 We're all all going to be here having yourself a great weekend. It's an all-new Smartless.
Smart.

Speaker 1 Smart.

Speaker 1 Smart.

Speaker 1 Jason, why do you look like you're skiing? You look like you're skiing.

Speaker 1 Well, because I just dropped the kids off at school. It's cold out.
You know,

Speaker 1 we're going to have

Speaker 1 temperatures below freezing here in Southern California this week. I heard that.
That's not below freezing, but it's going to be cold, right? Yeah, below freezing in parts of our great city. Wow.

Speaker 1 That's what they say. Wow.
I can't wait to see you. That's what the LA Times says.
I don't know if you guys read that, you Philistines. You know, first of all,

Speaker 1 I argue with Scotty all the time. He's like,

Speaker 1 I like when it gets super cold here because he's like, I hate it. Where's the sun? It's like, the sun's going to happen for eight months and it's going to be 110 degrees.
So keep me in joy.

Speaker 1 Like the day. No, I agree with you.
It's nothing worse than sweating on Christmas Day here in Los Angeles.

Speaker 1 Hey, Jay, did you get, you know, plus you get to accessorize when it's cold, like the little hat you guys just shamed me on. Yeah.
I didn't shame you.

Speaker 1 You were just wondering, you just looked like you were taking a break from the slopes.

Speaker 1 You just had a good run. It looks like you had a couple good runs.
You came in to warm up. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Hey, Jay, did you know it was Jason's birthday a while ago, as we all know

Speaker 1 back in January? Did you, and I finally sent you my presentation late. You got my present.

Speaker 1 So, you know, I often

Speaker 1 complain, and I'm always jealous of how much money Will has and then also how much he spends on himself.

Speaker 1 And particularly in fashion, he's fond of Laura Piano

Speaker 1 or Piana, whatever it is. Laura Piano, but that's okay.
I don't know who that is. Well, it's really expensive.

Speaker 1 And so he sends over

Speaker 1 two boxes of this.

Speaker 1 Oh, it was in those boxes. That's right.

Speaker 1 Beautiful brown, sort of that crispy. And I think, oh, well, this makes sense because he feels bad about flaking on my

Speaker 1 birthday dinner that you guys went to, back on your birthday. Because I was sick.
That's what he claims to be sick for because it still doesn't look or sound sick. And then he flaked again on

Speaker 1 golf yesterday morning. With Dandy's because he still doesn't look sick or sound sick.
I am sick.

Speaker 1 And by the way, it should be noted also, I had a year ago for Christmas, gave you something from Laura Piano. So let's just start with the nice part, which is, you know.
What was it? Was it sweater?

Speaker 1 It was a sweater. Thanks.

Speaker 1 Thanks. Yeah.
Probably returned it. Anyway, so I open up these things, and what's in the box, Sean? Three tubes of Pringles

Speaker 1 in one box. And then in the other one, there's

Speaker 1 just shit from his. terrible pantry, which is nothing but Oreos and Fritos.
And what else?

Speaker 1 And he said to me when he said he was going to send it to you, that he goes, and now it's fucking stuck in your house, and now you're gonna have to eat i know

Speaker 1 it's already out in the trash but i trojan horsed it i trojan horsed it into the house this is what you didn't factor in is that you you you got a grin out of me but you got you got rage and fire from my wife

Speaker 1 who you know is all about you know well listen if we got a gift for him he's got he's better get you a nice gift you know and then and so she saw the box she's like oh this is so good good for him you know what he's good for him and then she saw this just reround it to my house you've pissed off You've poked the bear.

Speaker 1 You know what? She sounds like she needs to lighten up, first of all. Well, she's

Speaker 1 talking my language. So,

Speaker 1 you know,

Speaker 1 right off the bat, she needs to lighten up. I did get you a nice

Speaker 1 gift. I got her a real nice gift for her birthday.
Well, we're not talking. Well, back up to me.
Where is my nice gift? It's, it's.

Speaker 1 Dude, it was mine.

Speaker 1 It was mine. It's from both of us.
Oh, I'm looking at it. You got it.
Oh, thanks.

Speaker 1 No, it's the gift of gift.

Speaker 1 I don't need gifts, actually. I'm just.

Speaker 1 You expressly said, you expressly said that. What did I get you, Jay? You got me a beautiful, beautiful spa day.
Massage, right?

Speaker 1 Yeah. And you know, I like to keep myself well massaged and hydrated.
Does it remind you of being on that school bus just cruising along LA City streets and giving each other massages?

Speaker 1 The massage bus. That guy's got to be in jail by now, right? The guy who ran that.

Speaker 1 Who ran the kitty massage bus? Yeah.

Speaker 1 I think that they might have taken a look at him. The guy who started the experimental school.
Who was the first red flag? Yeah.

Speaker 1 Hey, by the way, we should be pointing out, how excited are you guys about today? Is the big merch day opening? Yes.

Speaker 1 I think it's called Merch Day. Is it called Merch Day officially? It's called Merch Day.

Speaker 1 We should call it Merch Madness. Oh, God, that's so good.
Merch Madness is great. The Merch Madness is happening

Speaker 1 at the Wondry Shop, right? What is it? WWW. Do we still say www.wondery shop.com slash www.

Speaker 1 I think nowadays

Speaker 1 you can just click the address thing and just wondry shop

Speaker 1 dot com slash smartlist. Wondry shop.com.
Wondery shop. Wait, wait.
Say it one more time. What is it? Wondry shop.com slash smartlist.
So that would be W-O-N-D-E-R-Y-S-H-O-P.

Speaker 1 Yep.com.classless Dot slash.

Speaker 1 Smartless. Smartlash.
And that's where you get all like, what do you get? You get t-shirts,

Speaker 1 phone cases,

Speaker 1 water bottles. By the way, we have so many.
Look at this. We got this.

Speaker 1 Look at my new, look at the new phone. You can't.
Oh, is that awesome? We can't use any of this stuff. Imagine walking around with a Smartless phone case.
I wear a Smartless t-shirt all the time.

Speaker 1 He wears a phone. You can't do that.
Why? Because you're on Smartless.

Speaker 1 But let me tell you, everybody buys.

Speaker 1 Who's going to see him?

Speaker 1 He's in the living room and then the TV. The guys at Chin Chin will say, Hey, cheese bag, get out of here.
And he knows he pulls outside of Chin Chin. He doesn't even go and he honks three times.

Speaker 1 He has a special honk. Beep, beep, beep.
And then they'll be. And I raise my chair.
I raise my chair so they can see the Smartless logo on my t-shirt. No, license plate frame.
It says Smartless.

Speaker 1 I'll put it on. I know what I'm saying.
Sean puts it on the hood of his car and he put it backwards so people can see it in the rear views, you know, like an angel. But let me tell you something.

Speaker 1 I would buy this stuff if it had nothing to do with this.

Speaker 1 The t-shirts are great. There's It's pretty weird that we've got t-shirts and

Speaker 1 water bottles and stickers and what's going on. You know what are great are the hats? The hats, too, because as a

Speaker 1 hats are very

Speaker 1 hats are great.

Speaker 1 They're super cool. But let me tell you something really quick about the blankets.

Speaker 1 So when we were talking about it, they called it a throw blanket. And I was like, I don't understand a throw blanket.
Like it's a throw blanket is like the size of just one foot.

Speaker 1 Like it can make one foot warm. So it's like, can we do like full blankets? So we have full-size blankets that are Sherpa blankets.
They're super, They cover your whole body.

Speaker 1 You know what I like about those blankets is that they're quite, that they've got a little bit of weight to them. They're not weighted, but they're nice and big.
And

Speaker 1 on one side, it's that sort of

Speaker 1 softy fleece. And the other side, what is it? What is that on the other side? It's like a, I don't know.
It's another soft something. Yeah, it's a real soft.
Anyway,

Speaker 1 it's merch madness. It's merch madness.
It's www.wondery shop.com slash smartlist. You'll find some great stuff.
Please enjoy.

Speaker 1 Shall we?

Speaker 1 Let's do it, guys, because you're going to want to talk to this fella

Speaker 1 for this could be a double session.

Speaker 1 Tuck in. Okay.
Now, we've had some pretty fancy folks on here as guests, and even a few that are the undisputed best at what they do. Goats.
Sean, do you know what that acronym stands for?

Speaker 1 Yeah, it's good, all-time around, fun time. Pretty close.

Speaker 1 Greatest of all time. Our next guest is the goat of his field.
And if you love sports, Sean, I know you do, this is going to be a treat.

Speaker 1 And if you don't love sports, sit tight because you're going to love this man anyway.

Speaker 1 He's got a voice you've heard your whole life, a friendly face that's been on your TV your whole life, and a golf swing you don't need to see your whole life. He has eight Emmy Awards.

Speaker 1 He's in the Pro Football Hall of Fame,

Speaker 1 the Television Hall of Fame, the Sportscasters Hall of Fame. He's the only sportscaster to have called play-by-play for the championship series of all four major professional leagues.

Speaker 1 Six Super Bowls, eight World Series, two NBA Finals, three Stanley Cups. He's born in Brooklyn, started in Hawaii.
It's got to be. And now joins us here on SmartList.

Speaker 1 Folks, please welcome one of my favorite people, our national treasurer, Mr. Will Al Michaels.
No way. Let's bring him in.
No way. I knew it was going to be in.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 This man, he just brings a smile to my face. Very much good.
Hi, Al. Even my face.
You know, hi, Sean.

Speaker 1 You know, this is on one hand, a tremendous honor. I know it.
When I go back and I look at the fact that you guys have done Spielberg, you've done Bono,

Speaker 1 you've done the President of the United States, you've done Clooney, you've done Bradley Cooper,

Speaker 1 you've done my buddy Joe Buck. I mean, the truth has to be told, guys.
It took so long. So who got sick last night and who am I coming out of the bullpen? We couldn't make your deal, Al.

Speaker 1 We could not make your deal.

Speaker 1 Yeah, so listener, so we do play some golf together.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 oh, you and Al do? Oh, yeah.

Speaker 1 I've been threatening to pull him on this show for a while. And finally, our schedules collided because you are a little busy, Al.

Speaker 1 And let's talk a little bit about that. How do you,

Speaker 1 I mean, you must not mind travel that much. Now, I know

Speaker 1 you're not humping it

Speaker 1 on a steamer. 36J.
Yeah, you're not in the back of the plane often, but still, time zones and packing bags and leaving family and all that stuff. How do you do that all these years?

Speaker 1 You know, early on, I was so intent on, you know, doing, getting to the top of this business that

Speaker 1 I traveled a ton, didn't really think about the burden of traveling. You know, at a certain point, I think when you're young and you're going to new places,

Speaker 1 you're excited.

Speaker 1 And I'm not saying I'm not excited to go to Pittsburgh, but the first or second time I've been to Pittsburgh or was in Pittsburgh, it was fun because I like to get into what the city's all about and learn about the city and meet some people there.

Speaker 1 And then the eight, the, well, the 80th, the 80th time is

Speaker 1 a little bit different. Yeah, yeah.
The 80th time is, you know, make sure that you get a night turn down service. That's the important thing on the 80th trip.
So, yeah.

Speaker 1 This is part of, you know, if this is the worst part of the business, and I've been doing this for, well, 55 years now,

Speaker 1 starting in, you know, minor league baseball in Hawaii back in 1968. We're going to get it.
If this is the worst thing, this is one of the great jobs of all time.

Speaker 1 And believe me, I don't want to come back in the next life because if God wants to get even with me in my next life, I'll be working in a sulfur mine in Mongolia on the night shift. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Well, you know, Al, one of the things that's so striking about you, and it's so great to see you, man. And,

Speaker 1 you know, obviously obviously you've called so many iconic games over the years, maybe none more than the Miracle and Ice, do you believe in Miracles Call, which is so famous?

Speaker 1 And I, Al, I don't know if you remember last year when we played together.

Speaker 1 I gave you shit about it. And I said, as a Canadian, I feel like, you know, a lot of our pros, Gretzky at the time, they weren't playing on that team.
And you're like, just let us have this.

Speaker 1 Why do you have to? And you just basically in my face. You're like, shut up.

Speaker 1 But one of the things I love, Al, is that you obviously, and because I want to get into how you started doing this, you obviously have a love of sport.

Speaker 1 And the way that I confirmed your real love of it was the first time I went to, I used my buddy Louis K's tickets for a Kings game. And I go and I sit with my buddy.

Speaker 1 And who's sitting behind me but Al and his son? And I'm like, on his off nights. Just taking it in the game.
He's taking it in the game. He's at a Kings game and he's not calling the game.

Speaker 1 You're there as a fan. I'm like, this is a sports fan.
What if you turned around and he was calling the game from that seat?

Speaker 1 Just in his son's ear, just whispering.

Speaker 1 Will and I both both know that hockey is fantastic. And I'm sorry we had to take, you know, the gold medal.
And even though Canada may have had better players at that time,

Speaker 1 but Will, I mean, sooner or later,

Speaker 1 your ship's going to come in. The Toronto Maple Leaves will,

Speaker 1 in our lifetime, win a Stanley Cup. Yes.
Could be this year. That's been a, you're in a desert right now, but, but I'm feeling the oasis will, maybe this year.

Speaker 1 Now that Shanna hands up, you know, in charge.

Speaker 1 Our buddy Shanny, who we've had on the program, he's trying as hard as he can. Let's hope.

Speaker 1 But it is, and thank you, Al. I mean, to Leaf Nation, thanks you.
Gosh, maybe we get, maybe we need Al to come up and call some of the games in tandem with our great guys who do it.

Speaker 1 And that will be the magic touch. You know, like, do you believe in miracles for the Leafs? Would be incredible.
But Al, I do want to get back to you.

Speaker 1 You're just, your fandom is so deep that there are no off nights because you're always watching sports, right? It's your, it's, is that your true love? I mean, I don't want to put words in.

Speaker 1 Well, I've always loved sports. And my father, look, I grew up in Brooklyn.
And how many kids can grow up within walking distance of Major League Baseball?

Speaker 1 The Brooklyn Dodgers are playing about a 10-minute walk from my apartment.

Speaker 1 So my father walked me over there when I was a kid. It's the first thing I remember in life.
I walked into Ebbetsfield on a Saturday afternoon. The colors just blew me away.

Speaker 1 I mean, the green grass and the Dodger uniforms, which Vince Scully always described as wedding cake white, and the signage on the outfield fence, and the organ is playing and all of this, and Jackie Robinson is in the game and Duke Snyder and people like that.

Speaker 1 So right off the bat, I mean, I can imagine my tongue was out of my mouth, and I just wanted to be there every night. And that was the genesis.
That's where it started.

Speaker 1 I knew I wanted to do this forever. And, you know, you can dream about something as a kid when you're six or seven.
And then, you know,

Speaker 1 I was always confident that I'd be able to do it. And so I set my sights on

Speaker 1 doing this, getting to that point, and got there. But I will tell you this, though.
It's one thing to look at it from a kid's eyes and say, I can do this.

Speaker 1 And then when it happens, I look back and I go, holy mackerel, are you kidding me? You would listen. Naivete was a great thing because you're so naive, you think you can do it.

Speaker 1 And then I went, whoo, boy, then I need about 400 breaks along the way.

Speaker 1 But why, why, what, why was it about, why wasn't it the dream to play the game? Why was the dream to call the game?

Speaker 1 Well, it was both, actually. So I wound up playing.
Remember, in Brooklyn, there's not a lot of green grass to play. So our games were the street games, punch ball, stick ball, ring-alive,

Speaker 1 stoop ball, all that stuff. Ring-alive.
I didn't have access to

Speaker 1 real baseball. Ring-a-live is a game.
That's what Will has, right? It's a game where you have to.

Speaker 1 It's a

Speaker 1 You put people in jail, like in the basement of an apartment building,

Speaker 1 by bear hunging them, holding them for three seconds, count out cork, cork, ring a leave, one, two, three. They go into jail, and then everybody else has to extricate you from jail.

Speaker 1 So one day I extricated like all four guys on my team. I was the big hero, but I turned out to be the bump.
He said, Cost us the game in the end.

Speaker 1 But you should have joined the Navy SEALs or the Green Berets, it sounds like. Oh, but of course.

Speaker 1 That was my second dream. Trust me.
So then is it safe to say that Vin Scully was the first voice that really kind of sparked your passion for it? Without a doubt. Yeah.
So I listened.

Speaker 1 Vinny was 21 or 22 when he took over. That was right when Vin Scully started.
How long did he, did he, what was he doing, the Dodger stuff? 60 years. 67 years.
67 years. And one of the great...

Speaker 1 thrills and honors for me in my career was when they asked me, Vinny was going to do his last season season in 2016,

Speaker 1 and they called me to MC at Dodger Stadium before a packed house on opening day, the tribute to Vinny.

Speaker 1 And all of the old Dodgers, the guys that I'd grown up watching play were there. And of course, Vinny came out of the crowd, went crazy.

Speaker 1 And a great thrill, obviously, for me was not only to hear Vinny early on, to listen to him as a kid, to hear him all the way through when I first got into do,

Speaker 1 got to do Major League Baseball. But knowing him, knowing him for so many years, and

Speaker 1 he was special. He was one of a kind.
He was the greatest that ever lived, and nobody will ever exceed that. And when you think about it, how many guys have 67-year careers in anything?

Speaker 1 And the thing about Vinny too,

Speaker 1 till the very end of his life. I mean, I used to drive around in 2014, 15, 16, when he's coming down the stretch of his career.
And I'd be listening to the game.

Speaker 1 And the game, we really wouldn't be that interesting, but Vinny would make it 10 times more interesting.

Speaker 1 And if he was telling a story and I pulled into the driveway before I opened up the garage door, I had to sit in the car, letting it idle, and let me hear Vin finish that story. He was phenomenal.

Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah. Nobody like him.
And it occurs to me, you must have played a ton of golf with him, right? Because you were all up at the same

Speaker 1 golf course. Was he much of a golfer? i play i i i i hacked it around with vinny yeah when i first joined the club in 93 vinny was still playing a lot at that time and

Speaker 1 one time on number 10 uh and you guys know you have to hit it across the ravine about 120 yards and so many balls wind up not going over and you know i hit a terrible shot went about 40 yards and right down into the gully and vinny said they write songs about that swing you know so

Speaker 1 they're usually sad country songs.

Speaker 1 Right. Right.
No, he was a wonderful man to play golf with, wonderful man to know, wonderful man to have a meal with.

Speaker 1 And I'm so thrilled and honored to have been a part of, you know, a part of an industry that he really sits at the top of. Yeah, he'll always be my favorite, Dodger.

Speaker 1 We'll be right back.

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Speaker 1 All right, back to the show.

Speaker 1 So you're you're a kid from Brooklyn playing all these games, playing extract or whatever, the ringleader extract and Ring Levio. Ring Levio.

Speaker 1 But then, so you're there and you're doing all this stuff and you have a love for sports and a love for calling sports and you know, how do you make that leap?

Speaker 1 How do you, how does a kid from Brooklyn become Al Michaels? What's the first thing that you go, I got to take this step? Yeah, what got you out to Hawaii? You started in Hawaii, right?

Speaker 1 Calling minor league baseball out there? Before that, I went to Hamilton High School here in Los Angeles. Okay.
Oh, wow.

Speaker 1 Met a girl named Linda in the 10th grade. Loved Linda.
Okay.

Speaker 1 Yep, you love Linda. You know Linda.
She all knew Linda. She loved my life.
Right.

Speaker 1 And we. Oh, Linda from Hamilton.
Linda Hamilton. Oh, right.
Remember Tyson? Right. We were

Speaker 1 Tyson's 10th grade.

Speaker 1 And then

Speaker 1 my father loved sports as well. And so when I was ready to go to college,

Speaker 1 we looked up some schools that, remember, this is in the 60s. Every school right now has a radio and TV program.
And you can major in it.

Speaker 1 Not in those years. No, there were only a a couple of schools that had had

Speaker 1 that type of program. And we had moved from New York to Los Angeles in 1958 when I was in the 10th grade.
So that's what got me here. Wow.

Speaker 1 And so we looked at all of the schools and I liked it out west. I didn't want to go back east, loved the weather.
So there were only two schools that had that sort of a program at that time.

Speaker 1 One was USC.

Speaker 1 and one was Arizona State. And USC was going to be a commute for me.
Live at home, go to school, you know, 10 miles away. No,

Speaker 1 I wanted to have the full experience. So we went down to ASU in Tempe,

Speaker 1 met with some people. I said, I want to broadcast sports.
They said, well, you come down here. We have a campus radio station and we broadcast the games with students.

Speaker 1 So if you come down, maybe, you know, by your third year, we can get you into that mix. I go down there and within six days, within six days, guys, I'm on the air.

Speaker 1 I'm doing Arizona State, Colorado State, because somebody dropped out on a campus radio station.

Speaker 1 It was known as a carrier current in those days, which meant you could pick up the signal in the women's boiler rooms, perhaps, and maybe a block and a half away. That's as far as it went.

Speaker 1 But I wound up doing games.

Speaker 1 And of all things, I wind up going to school with a national championship baseball team, a guy named Sal Bando, who 10 years later I announced in a World Series when I'm with the Reds and he's with Oakland.

Speaker 1 Rick Monday comes in. Rick is still on the Dodger broadcast.
And

Speaker 1 when I'm a junior, we have a freshman by the name of Reggie Jackson. So Reggie comes in.
That's crazy. We had great football teams.
Charlie Taylor, Curly Culper in the Hall of Fame.

Speaker 1 And I wound up doing football, basketball, baseball. I probably announced 200 baseball games going nowhere on the campus station at Arizona State.

Speaker 1 And that helped me get my first professional job, which was in Hawaii, because I at least had a tape to give to the general manager, a man named Jack Quinn, to whom I own

Speaker 1 everything,

Speaker 1 for giving me the opportunity to come over to Hawaii in 1968, do minor league baseball. And by the time that was all said and done, I was doing everything over there.
Basketball.

Speaker 1 uh baseball volleyball you name it i'm on television twice a day what is it it was crazy

Speaker 1 size of minor league Hawaii baseball. I mean, is that more than 100 people? No, no, they were in the Pacific Coast League.
So we were playing at teams like Phoenix and Tucson and traveling.

Speaker 1 And Seattle did not have a major league team at that time.

Speaker 1 Neither did San Diego.

Speaker 1 Denver's in that league. So the Pacific Coast League teams would come over.
and play Hawaii. So our big rival was the Spokane Indians.
And Spokane in those years was the Dodger Farm Club.

Speaker 1 They were the president was Peter O'Malley. They were managed by Tommy Lasorda.
No. The players included Steve Garvey, Davey Lopes, Bill Russell, Bobby Valentine,

Speaker 1 Bill Buckner.

Speaker 1 Bill Buckner. And I'll just give you one quick story from Lasorda.
Because Lasorda always took credit for my career. So our big rival is Spokane.
So in 1970, we're over there and because of travel

Speaker 1 expenses and restrictions, teams would come over not for three days or four days, but for seven days. They spend the whole week there.
So I got to know these teams very well.

Speaker 1 So in the third game of a seven-game series between Hawaii and Spokane, Lessorda gets thrown out of the game in the third inning. You know Tommy.
Tommy's all over the place.

Speaker 1 Now in Hawaii, there's no dugout. access to a clubhouse.
You walk 480 feet throughout through this out the center field fence, and the clubhouse is 100 feet beyond that.

Speaker 1 So you can't sneak back into the game like a lot of managers used to do. So Lasorda is gone.
He's out in the clubhouse. He can't be seen.

Speaker 1 The next night, he's so angry that he comes out and as he exchanges lineup cards with of all people, Bruce Freming, who would go on to like a 37-year career as a Major League Umpire, he gets thrown out of the game.

Speaker 1 with the exchange of lineup cards before the game serenades him before the game starts. So there he is.
He makes that walk again. The crowd is singing to him.
He lasts one more game.

Speaker 1 Now the sixth game, he gets thrown out again in about the sixth inning. Okay.
He's been thrown out of three games in six nights.

Speaker 1 He always tells the story about how

Speaker 1 he calls Al Campanis, who's the general manager after every game to report. Campanis, the GM of the LA Dodgers at that point, to tell him how the guys did.
Valentine went two for four.

Speaker 1 Buckner did this. So-and-so pitched six innings, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Speaker 1 So Lasorda tells, according to Lasorda, tells Campanis in one of those calls: hey, you know, hey, Al, I know you got Vince Gully. Vinny's great.
He's going to be there a long time.

Speaker 1 But there's this kid over here. There's this kid.
He's announcing baseball. And this kid is, this kid's, this kid's really good.
His name is Michaels. It's Al Michaels.

Speaker 1 You should keep an eye on this kid. Conversation goes on.
They're ready to end the conversation. Campanis says to Lasorda, hey, Tommy,

Speaker 1 this guy, Michaels, this kid you're talking about? How do you know he's any good? Tommy said, I've been thrown out of the last four games. I'm sitting down in the clubhouse listening to him.

Speaker 1 So

Speaker 1 Lasorda dimed out on that story. You know, it's a little bit of an embellishment, but a lot of truth to it.
I love that he got thrown out

Speaker 1 with the lineup cards. I don't wonder if that's ever happened again.
Unbelievable. Speaking of being thrown out, and you just mentioned Bobby Valentine, one of the all-time great throwouts.

Speaker 1 Bobby Valentine, Sean, I don't know if you know this. When he was the manager of the Mets, he got thrown out of the game and he came back in in disguise.
He wore a fake mustache and glasses.

Speaker 1 True story in Major League Baseball, like in the 90s, right Al?

Speaker 1 For sure. I remember that very well.
You know, it's so funny because on that Dodger team, which was so good.

Speaker 1 This is the team of Garvey and Russell and Buckner and Lopes. And they'd go on to, you know, in championships when they all got called up.
I thought,

Speaker 1 and I think Tommy did, and I think a lot of the Dodger organization people people felt Valentine was the best of the players.

Speaker 1 But Bobby kept getting hurt. Bobby's whole career was injury prone.
So Bobby had, you know, five or six very significant injuries.

Speaker 1 And so he never quite lived up to what was expected of him as a player. He's a great athlete, though.

Speaker 1 And then he becomes a great manager. So, so, Al, so you're there and you're in Hawaii.
You're calling all these games. You've had all this experience.

Speaker 1 Kind of goes to that idea of like the 10,000 hours. You're calling,

Speaker 1 you're talking into a vacuum at Arizona State. There's nobody listening.

Speaker 1 But you're getting those hours under you. And then you go and you and you're calling minor league games and you're getting more experience.

Speaker 1 So then what is the big break moment where you start going on a national stage? What's that first gig? Three years in Hawaii. So it's the end of the 1970 season.
We had had a very successful year.

Speaker 1 We launched the Spokane in the championship series, but we drew over 400,000 people in Hawaii. So we were at, we, you know, we were putting a lot of people in that stadium every night.

Speaker 1 And it was a big, big deal. And the sporting news did a big story on Hawaii baseball.
And the Cincinnati Reds were looking for a new announcer.

Speaker 1 I don't know what happened to the guy who was there before, but somebody in Cincinnati, somebody, the man's name was Dick Wagner.

Speaker 1 who was in charge of trying to find somebody to come in and be the broadcaster. And he had called somebody at NBC who knew about me and said, you should look at this kid.

Speaker 1 So I get a call from the Reds in November of 70.

Speaker 1 It's a weekend when I'm doing five football games. I'm doing four high school games in the University of Hawaii.
I'm doing five games in a weekend.

Speaker 1 But now they put me on a red eye after the fifth game on that Saturday night. They fly me to Cincinnati to be interviewed for the Reds job.
Now, this is the Reds coming into the 1971 season.

Speaker 1 They had just been in the World Series. They lost to Baltimore.
That's the Brooks Robinson series where Robinson's fantastic. So all of a sudden, I'm in Cincinnati.

Speaker 1 I'm 26 years old and I'm going to get the Cincinnati Reds' number one job.

Speaker 1 I'm going to a team with Pete Rose in his prime, Johnny Bench coming into his prime, Tony Perez in his prime, Davey Concepcion, Joe Morgan getting traded over the next year, and Sparky Anderson Hall of Fame manager.

Speaker 1 I'm coming to that team. Wow.

Speaker 1 So it was kind of crazy because, you know, it was really weird, though.

Speaker 1 I go, you know, in Cincinnati, it's like November the 16th, and I meet the team, or I meet the brass in an office downtown of the Central Trust Tower.

Speaker 1 And I walk outside, and it's like, you know, 38 degrees, and it's sleeting. And I'm walking back to Stouffer's Hotel, which is about three blocks.
I love that piece.

Speaker 1 And Linda's in Hawaii, and we have our son, our baby, is a year or two old at that time. And I walk by, standing on the corner waiting for the light to change.
I'm freezing to death.

Speaker 1 And, you know, the colors in Cincinnati at that time of year are, they're two colors. They're brown and gray.
That's it.

Speaker 1 And I'm thinking of Hawaii, where it's all, you know, blue and green and beautiful and flowery. And I look into the window of a travel agency and I can see my apartment at Diamond Head in the poster.

Speaker 1 And I'm looking now, I look across the street. I look back at this.
I'm going, huh?

Speaker 1 I'm making a leap.

Speaker 1 Of course, I had, you know, so I'm lying in bed that night. They're going to announce the thing the next day.
Joe Knuxall is going to be my partner. I can't sleep at all, at all.

Speaker 1 But I'm thinking to myself, at about five in the morning, you know what?

Speaker 1 I'll get up. I'll do this press conference.
I'll get on the plane. They'll never see me again.
I'm going back to Hawaii and I'm not coming back. But of course, you know, it all worked out well.

Speaker 1 I got on the plane and then I get off in Hawaii and I go by one of those racks. You know, seven or eight hours later, I land in Honolulu and one of the newspaper racks is there.

Speaker 1 And there's the Honolulu star of Bolton. And there I am on the front page, Islanders losing their voice to Reds.
And I'm going,

Speaker 1 I got to go. I can't stop now.
Anyway, you can't go now. You can't go.
No,

Speaker 1 I could not. That would have been the end of my career.
But talk about two opposites. Yeah.
From Hawaii to Cincinnati.

Speaker 1 Now, speaking of Cincinnati, Jason, did you notice something, though, before you said, did you notice something great that Al just did in that story?

Speaker 1 He remembered the month he remembered the day who does that that's what i that's what sounds like mary lou henner no uh al i do the same thing i can remember dates and i can remember the actual day of the month i do this one trick pony guys so al my next question um

Speaker 1 hey wait a minute wait before we get off mary lou henner because this reminds me i've never met her Jimmy Burroughs is a great friend of all of ours. Another guy you've had.

Speaker 1 The great, the good, the great, the fantastic, the over-the-moon, Jimmy Burrows. We all love Jimmy.
Been a longtime friend of mine. You guys know him well.

Speaker 1 So his book party, and you guys had him on to promote his book, Fantastic Book.

Speaker 1 And he wanted me, he always wanted me to meet Mary Lou Henner, who was there, but I had to be back in New York for a wedding that weekend, so I couldn't do that.

Speaker 1 But it reminded me of, you know, one day I've got to meet Mary Lou. I think she...

Speaker 1 She's deeper into this thing than me because she seems to remember like everything she was doing every minute of the day. I'm only good for about three hours each day.

Speaker 1 Just tell my sister Tracy, Mary Lou Henner, and now Will Arnett are famous for this kind of date recall. Recalling days and dates.
I can't do it on the same level, obviously, that Mary Lou can.

Speaker 1 And I don't even know if I can do it the way Al did. Like, Al just said the date, November 16th, Stouffer Hotel, 38 degrees, walking three blocks to the theater.
And I know that detail is important.

Speaker 1 I love the way Al paints the picture. And when he puts those details in, they make it more complete rather than you two schmoes who go like, yeah, I was there the other day, whatever.

Speaker 1 And that's why nobody's interested when you talk. Because you guys are just these boring and you're so self-involved that you don't paint a picture.

Speaker 1 If you're a real schmo, though, you've got an incredible talent and you haven't figured out how to monetize it. You know, I mean, Al's making money with it.
You're just wasting it.

Speaker 1 That's true. That's fair.

Speaker 1 Hey, Will, I messed up. I looked it up.
It was 37 degrees that day.

Speaker 1 Wow, now it's all out the window. The whole thing falls apart.

Speaker 1 Anyway, so Mary Lou reminded me of Jimmy Burrows. And I wanted to talk about Jimmy because I talked to Jimmy yesterday and I told him I'm coming on the show.
Oh, that's cool.

Speaker 1 And he described you guys as

Speaker 1 my three sons

Speaker 1 is what he said. He said, those guys.
Yeah. Meanwhile, you know, Sean, you're going to be.
He really is like a father. He's like a father to me.

Speaker 1 Well, I said to him, and Sean was excited about this, but I said, you know, I said, are they in your will?

Speaker 1 And the phone line went dead. Yeah.

Speaker 1 There's enough room for us in that will. I always tease those.

Speaker 1 By the way, you know what Jimmy was doing yesterday? He was out. He was putting in a new mailbox because the old one, there was such spillover from the residuals and the royalties

Speaker 1 that they were dropping into the street.

Speaker 1 All right. Now,

Speaker 1 this is going to be one in a series of questions that you're so tired of answering. I apologize, but I have to do it.
That's probably questions I have, too. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Are you off at dinner?

Speaker 1 Well, so you know,

Speaker 1 how about your favorite sport to call or the hardest sport to call? Your choice there. I'll bet the hardest is hockey just because of all the shift changes.

Speaker 1 Absolutely. See, because in every other sport,

Speaker 1 somebody has the ball and the other team's on defense.

Speaker 1 And that is the case, obviously, in baseball. That's the case in football.
For the most part, it's the case in basketball. basketball, there are takeaways and turnovers.

Speaker 1 But in hockey, you could have a change of possession six, seven, eight times in a minute.

Speaker 1 So to do hockey on radio to me is like impossible because your brain can't work around. Wait, wait, who has the puck? And then in a league where

Speaker 1 your team may play Carolina once a year or Florida, you don't really know those players. Wait, who has the puck? Where is the puck? So hockey on radio, on radio is by far the toughest.
TV's

Speaker 1 hard, but better.

Speaker 1 The reason it's harder on radio is because you have to say where the puck is and who's got it at all times. With television, you can assume they can see it.
Right.

Speaker 1 And in basketball, it's only 94 feet. Hockey's 200 feet.
In baseball, there's a pitch and something happens after the pitch. In football, there's a play.
They are easy to describe in terms of

Speaker 1 where they are relative to the field of play.

Speaker 1 In hockey, neutral zone, just across the blue line, I mean, behind the net, I mean, you're trying to describe as the puck. The puck is forever going to somebody else's stick.

Speaker 1 You have so many shots on goal that are blocked by 18 guys. Well, only, you know, only 10 guys, obviously, with two goals.
Anyone just tell the audience, just turn your TV on.

Speaker 1 Just turn your television on.

Speaker 1 Is it easier for you to keep track of it by actually looking at the ice or are you looking at the television like we are? What gives you the best view of tracking the puck?

Speaker 1 Well, I've only called, you know, probably 25 hockey games in my life, most of them in the Olympics in 80, 84, and 88.

Speaker 1 A couple of any shows.

Speaker 1 Including the most famous hockey game, a couple of Stanley games. Well, yeah, I mean,

Speaker 1 that should have been the one and done. I mean, believe me, that was

Speaker 1 you talk about, I have 18 rabbits' feet dangling from my pants during that game.

Speaker 1 That was the one game to call.

Speaker 1 But with hockey, you pretty much have to call it with your naked eye. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Where football,

Speaker 1 I set it up so that the monitor is right in front of me and I can look over the top of the monitor. So I want to see as much as I can with the naked eye.

Speaker 1 But every time there is a shot change on television and that's what the viewer is seeing, I want to know what is he seeing in that shot change. So I've trained myself.

Speaker 1 I've been doing this for so many years that I know how to do it. It comes to me as second nature.

Speaker 1 Baseball is so vastly different because there's so much dead time that enables you to tell all these great stories.

Speaker 1 I think about so many stories. Yeah, that's what I have.
Someone wants to know about the stories.

Speaker 1 No, no, I have a question, Al, because I have a question about the art of what you do. Because I, believe it or not, I love watching football.

Speaker 1 I think it's like a super entertaining, fast-paced, it's a great show to watch. It is.
And

Speaker 1 so, what's that? Sorry, you said believe it or not. So, I just said or not.
not sorry but go ahead

Speaker 1 no i do no but the the the art of what you do is i i assume this is why there's not a lot of al michaels and there's only one because the way your brain functions to to your point what you just said which is to fill the space like in baseball if there's a lot of space or in even in football if there's like a long you know delay and whatever um it it's kind of mind-blowing that you can endlessly have this information in your head to fill the space for the audience at home.

Speaker 1 I mean, that's got to be like a skill not a lot of people have. It's a ton.
I mean, I liken it really to taking a final exam every week.

Speaker 1 And in the old days, old days, 20, 30 years ago, whatever, you had maybe

Speaker 1 15% of the information that's available to you now.

Speaker 1 What's happened now with analytics and all the rest, there are too many pieces of information.

Speaker 1 So, you know, it's wonderful to start, you know, go

Speaker 1 the average depth of target and all that. Whoa, whoa, whoa.

Speaker 1 I think you have to back off. I don't think too many people in an audience of 20 million are sitting there concerned about the average depth of target.
Oh, right, right.

Speaker 1 I mean, that is that's deep, deep, deep inside. Has there ever been a time where you couldn't, you didn't fill the space and you're just like, I have nothing left.
Like,

Speaker 1 it's so long. Like, it's five minutes.
I have nothing else. I have nothing else.
I'm out.

Speaker 1 Right now? Yeah.

Speaker 1 But Al, I'm interested that you said that because I was watching the game the other day,

Speaker 1 one of the playoff games, and NFL playoff games. And, you know, I watch a lot of hockey and I watch a lot of European, I watch a lot of soccer.
And

Speaker 1 one of the differences I know, and I was thinking, like, is this because of the Madden football games or, you know, the video games, et cetera?

Speaker 1 The way that, not just in the game, but in the breakdown in between at halftime when they go back to the studio for all the networks and all the different stuff, the way they break down, they talk about the nickel defense or what these guys are doing.

Speaker 1 And they break it down in this way that I'm like, at a certain point, I'm like, hey, man,

Speaker 1 I just want to watch the game. Why are you telling me about the package and the guys coming into the sausages made? Yeah, I don't care.
I don't, who gives a shit. I mean, it's good.

Speaker 1 It's cool, but I don't need to know. That's why I didn't become a football coach because I didn't want to have to listen to that.
Oh.

Speaker 1 Will you, you're, you know, you're preaching to the choir. I mean, to me,

Speaker 1 I believe in the less is more theory, especially on television. You're seeing it.
You don't have to scream the game at people. You don't have to yell the game at people.
You don't have to holler.

Speaker 1 You don't have to do it. To me, I always try to, if I can, speak in captions and ellipses.
You don't need full sentences to describe what people are seeing. You don't do...

Speaker 1 On radio, a completely different animal. You have to describe everything because nobody can see it.
On television, you can see it. And so

Speaker 1 I've always been of that mindset to try to call a game that way. Something fantastic happens.
Say what you have to say with an economy of words and get out of there.

Speaker 1 I mean, in Lake Placid, you know, I luck into the greatest moment in American sports history. So the game ends and I had six words.
Do you believe in miracles? Yes.

Speaker 1 And I'm the hell out of there for the next minute because the pictures were so good.

Speaker 1 All you do is you just, it's like throwing junk at the wall to try to overwhelm or to be even in concert with those pictures. You can't let it play.
Let people exult.

Speaker 1 Let people enjoy what they're seeing.

Speaker 1 I think that that's why, first of all, I mean, obviously for years on Sunday night, when you started doing Sunday night football years ago, it was just the perfect way to end the week because you called it, it was the classiest game of the week, always with Al calling it.

Speaker 1 And now you're on Thursday nights, and it's the same deal.

Speaker 1 You finally make Thursday night a night I really like it. You just got this, like you said, this economy of words.

Speaker 1 And you don't, and you, when an incredible play happens, you're not like freaking out. You're like, what an unbelievable catch.
And then that's it, because it's an unbelievable catch.

Speaker 1 Now, which, which, so there's two months that are the great, great sport months every year, right? Isn't it October? And then I want to say

Speaker 1 February, maybe? Where well, January, February,

Speaker 1 it's a mix because the Super Bowl is normally in February, but all the games that lead up are in January.

Speaker 1 But there's also other sports that are either starting or ending in both of those two months there, that October and February, I think, right? Right. Basketball and hockey start in October.
Right.

Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah, yeah. Baseball finishes.

Speaker 1 Football is in, you know, the fourth or fifth or sixth week. Right.

Speaker 1 And college football is going full blast. Right.
I know the baseball months because of the musical Damn Yankees. April, May, May, June, July, August, September.

Speaker 1 That's right. Six months.

Speaker 1 We'll be right back.

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Speaker 1 Back to the show.

Speaker 1 Now, what stadium do you love visiting the most, and what city do you love visiting the most?

Speaker 1 Well, as a homebody,

Speaker 1 there's no greater game for me to do than a Raider or a Charger game. Right.
Because they can go down to the 405. Or

Speaker 1 you need Rams.

Speaker 1 You said Raiders. Rams.
I said Raiders. No.
Well, the Raiders at the Rams. That's what I meant to say.
Raiders at the Rams. There goes my memory.
Already it's shot. You see, it's the offseason.

Speaker 1 You're going to Vegas soon. Yeah.
Right. I'm going to think about that.
Of course I am.

Speaker 1 Are the A's going to move to Vegas? They probably should.

Speaker 1 That has been going on for 30 years. Oh, really? 30 years.
It's a horrible ballpark. It's the worst ever.
Yeah. The worst ever.
The oldest. One of the oldest.

Speaker 1 And they've been talking about this for years.

Speaker 1 And, you know, it's kind of funny how the Giants, and remember, I left the Reds to do the Giants in 74, 5, and 6.

Speaker 1 And that ballpark was the worst ever, Candlestick Park. Just a complete garbage dump.

Speaker 1 And the Giants threatened twice to move out. Once, Will might remember, to Toronto.
They were going to go to Toronto in 1976.

Speaker 1 The Bats was going going to buy the team, the brewery, before the Blue Jays got the expansion franchise. Wow, I did not know that.

Speaker 1 There's something Will didn't know. So they almost did.
They were saved by a guy named Bob Lurie. And then in 93,

Speaker 1 St. Petersburg came in before the Tampa Bay Rays got their team.
And they almost bought the team. And it was saved by a guy named Peter McGowan from Safeway Stores.
Wow.

Speaker 1 Then they went ahead and they built the stadium in downtown San Francisco, which is beautiful, fantastic. You have a view of the Bay Bridge.

Speaker 1 It changed everything. They went from the worst stadium where you couldn't draw flies to the best stadium where they're sold out every night.
This was Pac-Bell and now Levi's, right?

Speaker 1 Well, whatever it is.

Speaker 1 They changed it. I can't keep track of the rides everywhere.

Speaker 1 So would that be, was that, is that your, do you think that's the best stadium currently right now?

Speaker 1 It's all

Speaker 1 a matter of, you know, choice, and you can argue it. But yeah, I mean,

Speaker 1 it's in the conversation as a place you love to watch a baseball game. And great.
Let's put it that way.

Speaker 1 Oh, yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah, whatever it is.
Quiche.

Speaker 1 Now,

Speaker 1 with the newest one is what SoFi, right? And I feel like there's another one being built too.

Speaker 1 Anyway. What do you think of the SoFi's in these stadiums, these incredible sort of like shopping malls that host sporting events? I think SoFi is terrific.
I think they did a fantastic job there.

Speaker 1 And of course, you know, living in this city as we do,

Speaker 1 we had old and decrepit facilities. The Coliseum has been around 100 years.
The Rolls Bowl has been around for more than 100 years.

Speaker 1 Dodger Stadium has held up. At Dodger Stadium is almost 60 years old.
Third oldest.

Speaker 1 We needed a facility.

Speaker 1 And Stan Crocky built it.

Speaker 1 And this is how all of these stadiums are now being built these days, because they they try to take all of the land around it and then build up you know either retail or housing right or other you know or other entertainment venues I mean you go down to Englewood right now it's kind of crazy you got so fi and they can do not only concerts in sofi they have a smaller addition to that building where you can do them the forum still exists across the parking lot Steve Balmer is building a place for the Clippers across Century Boulevard they're going to have concerts So that's going to become like

Speaker 1 the entertainment. I don't want to say the entertainment capital of the world, but boy, oh boy, there's going to be something going on there every night.
Looking forward to the traffic.

Speaker 1 Now, what happens when you're

Speaker 1 spoken like a true Angelino while you're thinking about

Speaker 1 traffic? Now, what happens when

Speaker 1 you're calling a game for a team that you love?

Speaker 1 Who's your favorite sports team? I mean,

Speaker 1 is it the Reds because you started back with them? No.

Speaker 1 No. No.

Speaker 1 I have an affinity with, remember, the Dodgers were my team as a kid

Speaker 1 and were until I got the Reds job. I had the Reds for three years.
I had the Giants for three years. You know, I'm really kind of an impassive observer.

Speaker 1 Maybe in my heart of hearts, I want to see one win over the other, but I'm really not a fan fan, except as Will knows.

Speaker 1 And since they have nothing to do with it, the Kings.

Speaker 1 When I go to a hockey game, I am all in on the Kings, and when the Kings won the cup in 12 and 14.

Speaker 1 And, Will, it's an amazing thing when your team gets to lift the cup, just in case you're wondering. I know.

Speaker 1 I was surprised.

Speaker 1 By the way, I was there when the Kings won. You know, I'm such a fan in general, so I was there.
I wanted to burn it into my memory so that I can get ready for what was to come. But

Speaker 1 you don't have to give extra thought to hiding your bias when you're calling a game, right?

Speaker 1 You're too much of a pro for that. You can't.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I mean, Bisa.

Speaker 1 the only thing I'm rooting for when I go out to do a game is drama. Right.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 I want drama. I want a game to go to the end of the game.

Speaker 1 I want there to be a lot of excitement. I want to be able to do that.
And I love how unapologetic you are, too, when there isn't drama.

Speaker 1 Because you know the audience knows that there's no drama going on right now. And you're not insulting their intelligence by pressing and forcing some drama in that.

Speaker 1 You're just like, boy, this game sucks.

Speaker 1 And it makes it worth watching. Yeah.
No, no, no, no. You're selling a bad bill of goods if you're trying to do that.

Speaker 1 Fans know.

Speaker 1 They know when the game is good. They know when the game is great.
They know when the game is average. They know when the game is terrible.

Speaker 1 And I know, you know, there was a lot of talk about the way I did the Denver-Indianapolis game, which was a very bad football game in weeks before last year. It was awful.
Terrible, terrible.

Speaker 1 I mean, every part of the game was awful. Tons of penalties, no scoring.

Speaker 1 And, you know, I just, I couldn't help myself at the end of the game when uh fred gedelli our producer punched up a shot of the crowd is leaving before overtime and uh and then there was a shot there was a shot from outside of the stadium in denver and you saw another thousand people streaming into the parking lot and uh My partner Kirk Herbstreet, who I'd only worked with a few weeks, you know, and Kirk was still learning my sense of humor, said, I can't believe, you know, they're leaving.

Speaker 1 It's overtime. I said, they'd seen enough.
Sometimes you just got to beat the traffic. I mean, which I think, which I think, I think reflected

Speaker 1 the view of the fans at that point. What are you going to say?

Speaker 1 That's why we love you. Al, you've called games with so many of the great, you've had so many great co-conspirators with you in the booth over the years.

Speaker 1 I mean, the greatest, and I don't want to ask you to pick favorites, but if you have any

Speaker 1 highlight guys or moments over the years that just, you know, I don't know. I mean, you've had the greatest.
Yeah, I don't know, you know.

Speaker 1 Well, you've had them all, or they've all learned something from you. Um, you know, I mean, who's who's had more partners broadcasting than you? Probably no one.
Well,

Speaker 1 I probably, I probably had over a hundred because I've done things like motorcycles on ice and all that other stuff that you know

Speaker 1 are done with different people. But yeah, but I never got to do a game with Vince Scully,

Speaker 1 but I, you know, heard Vinny

Speaker 1 thousands of times. I loved Kurt Gowdy, yeah, who was back in the 70s.
And I got to do the World Series with Kurt on NBC Beast when the Reds won the pennant.

Speaker 1 And I'm there in those years, the local team's number one announcer, which I was, got to work with Kurt on the World Series. So here I am, a kid, and I'm doing the World Series with Kurt Gowdy.

Speaker 1 And we're coming on the air,

Speaker 1 you know, in October of 1972, Saturday afternoon.

Speaker 1 It's the Reds and the A's in the World Series. And guys, when the camera came on and I'm sitting with Kurt, and it's a one-shot of Kurt, and they're going to pan out

Speaker 1 and bring me in. And all I could think in my brain was, please, God, please, God, when I open my mouth, let air come out.
That's how nervous,

Speaker 1 that's how nervous I was. But sure enough, and then once he introduced me and away we went.
And then it's like, wow, this is the greatest thing of all time.

Speaker 1 God, you can take me now, but at least wait till a week from Wednesday Sunday, would you? Oh, man.

Speaker 1 And out of all of those people that you've announced with or called games with, is there one moment that stands out as either like the funniest

Speaker 1 mishap or just the funniest person that you've called a game with?

Speaker 1 Well, yeah. I mean,

Speaker 1 I just want to go to a couple of partners that I want to mention that, and then I got that funny story for you. But Ken Dryden, who, of course, was

Speaker 1 an iconic hockey figure, the great Ken. Ken and I did three Olympics together.
He was with the Miracle on Ice was great.

Speaker 1 By the way, Al, Al, do you want to know one thing quickly about Ken Dryden? Here's a stat. Went to Cornell, was drafted by the Canadians, by the Habs.

Speaker 1 So he joined the Habs in the spring after Cornell's hockey season, goes to the players,

Speaker 1 wins the Stanley Cup, and wins the ConSmyth MVP of the playoffs before he's played a regular season game, and then wins the Calder next year for Rookie of the Year.

Speaker 1 The Reds were in Montreal during that period. I saw Ken Dryden with my own eyes as a rookie at the forum.
Yes, I did. So

Speaker 1 there he was. Eight years later,

Speaker 1 we'd be together. I did baseball with Jim Palmer and Tim McCarver.
Loved it. Wow.
I had football with Frank Gifford and Dan Deardor for years.

Speaker 1 Then I had football with John Madden for seven years.

Speaker 1 I had Chris Collinsworth for 30 years. I mean, I have had some fantastic partners.

Speaker 1 But Sean asked the question about funny, Bob Euchre.

Speaker 1 Bob Euchre may have been the second funniest man of all time, topped only by Don Rickles.

Speaker 1 And Don was a great friend and loved Don. Never did a game with Don, but we loved him.
Mr. Belvedere.
Anyway, so Bob Belvedere. I did an episode.
I was going to mention Belvedere, by the way.

Speaker 1 With him? Here we go.

Speaker 1 Oh, my God. He was fantastic.
So Euchre and I are doing a game in Houston with Howard Kosell, another one I forgot to mention. Wow.
The one and only. And we are

Speaker 1 we're trying to um you know talk howard out of what howard was was talking about because howard always thought baseball was such a simple game they make it so complicated but howard really never understood the game and howard in this game is calling for a bunt in a situation where where nobody in the world the manager if he called for a bunt in that situation would get fired bases loaded no outs and you know

Speaker 1 what whatever it was it was just a ridiculous situation. And Euchre, Euchre and I are trying to, you know, kind of

Speaker 1 ease it down a little bit from where Howard's going, you know, and Yuki says, well, Howard, you know, I understand what you're saying. He really didn't.

Speaker 1 But, you know, you got this thing and that thing, and he's in the bullpen, and blah, blah, blah. He cites about eight examples.

Speaker 1 So Howard, you can picture Howard. Howard says, he's going to play with Euchar now.
He goes, okay, Yuki, I get your point. You don't have to be so truculent.

Speaker 1 You do know what truculent means, don't you?

Speaker 1 And without hesitation, Euchre says, Howard, of course. If you had a truck and I borrowed it, it would be a truculent, right?

Speaker 1 That was Bob Euchre. And then the only other one was,

Speaker 1 remember, baseballs are horse hides, right? Or they used to be now the cow hides, but they're horse hides in those years.

Speaker 1 And we're talking about Charlie Finlay wanted to have the alert orange baseball. Fans could see it easier, much like the tennis ball.
And this became a

Speaker 1 topic of conversation. So one night, Euchre and I are doing a game, and it's

Speaker 1 an eight-run game, or

Speaker 1 it's over. And we start to fill time talking about that.
And Euchar says, well, you know, at the end of the day, that could never be done. And I said, well, why not?

Speaker 1 He said, you couldn't find enough diseased horses. So, I mean, this was Bob.

Speaker 1 This was Yuki,

Speaker 1 who was off the off the house.

Speaker 1 Are you talking to anybody specific in your mind when you're calling a game?

Speaker 1 Are you kind of having a conversation with

Speaker 1 your color announcer?

Speaker 1 Or do you think that you're talking to all of America?

Speaker 1 Is there a perspective

Speaker 1 that you're in

Speaker 1 when you're talking?

Speaker 1 That is a great question, which I've thought about a lot.

Speaker 1 And I still don't have the exact answer to it because there are times when you don't it's not like you have a megaphone and you're talking to a hundred million people yeah you really have to think more in line of I'm talking to one person right and I've tried to think that way because I've done 11 Super Bowls and I know you have an audience over a hundred million people watching

Speaker 1 and you can choke to death when you come on the earth thinking about I'm talking to 100 million people. But I try to think to myself, I'm talking to one.

Speaker 1 And I'm also saying to myself, you play mind tricks here.

Speaker 1 You have 330 million people who live in the United States of America. 100 million are watching.
230 million don't give a damn. Right.

Speaker 1 Yeah, half full or half empty.

Speaker 1 Mind games. Now, do you get to keep all those handsome clothes you get to wear? I mean, every time they put the dream on you guys,

Speaker 1 you look like Will Arnett up there with the Bruno Bruno Cuccinelli and the Buckingham Piano. I mean, you guys are wearing like $3,000 outfits every day.
You don't get to take it home.

Speaker 1 No, because I buy my own clothes because the clothes they gave us for the last couple of years have been not, you know, look like Army, Navy fire sales surplus.

Speaker 1 So I'm not going that way. So you're packing a nice garment bag every game.
I pay. What can I tell you, man? You know, that's it.
I go out and I buy a couple of, you know, sport coats and away I go.

Speaker 1 Hal, speaking of sport coaches, the one thing I want,

Speaker 1 you can't make this promise to me, but I'd love to come over one day and just do you keep all the blazers with the various insignias from all the networks and stuff in the wide world of sports over there.

Speaker 1 Oh, these

Speaker 1 football one. Oh, I love those.
No, I had one, I had one yellow one. We tried to find it.
We were going to go to a Halloween party or something, and I couldn't fish it out of the out of the closet.

Speaker 1 Imagine that. You're at a Halloween party, and Al Michael shows up on Monday night football blazers.

Speaker 1 ABC sports. We look like a bunch of canaries.

Speaker 1 Who's got the best dog? Or meal. The best hot dog? Yeah.

Speaker 1 The best hot dog. Dodger Stadium sells the most.
People will be surprised. They do, but

Speaker 1 frankly, to be honest with you,

Speaker 1 the old Dodger dogs were fantastic. Thank you well.
The Farmer Jadon. They're okay right now.

Speaker 1 Thank you.

Speaker 1 Oh,

Speaker 1 as Vinny would say,

Speaker 1 I'm not sure. Farmer John, all beef wieners, Easternmost in quality, westernmost in flavor.

Speaker 1 I make a good hot dog. I cut it up and put it in mac and cheese.
It's good. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Do you really? Yeah, sometimes. What about a, you know, to me, there's nothing better than a big, juicy steak.
Nothing more. Well, what's stadium service? And I don't eat, you know, it's well known.

Speaker 1 I don't eat vegetables. I just eat, you know, I eat meat.
I eat meat. I eat chicken.
I ate fish. I eat any vegetables.
Some starches. Zero.
What's the matter with you? Zero.

Speaker 1 I'm notorious.

Speaker 1 I've heard that about you. Yeah.

Speaker 1 You and Sean are going to get along marvelously. Splendidly.
Why don't you eat vegetables? I hate them. I don't like to look at them.
I don't like to smell them. Hang on.
A gun's to your head.

Speaker 1 You have to have one vegetable. Which one would it be if you had to have one?

Speaker 1 A steak. A steak.
Wait, wait, wait. Wait, Al,

Speaker 1 I bet you I'm ready. Al, would you eat a wedge salad like at the palm? Would you have the wedge? Oh, hell no.

Speaker 1 No. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

Speaker 1 No. Your body's kind of easy.

Speaker 1 You could probably sneak something into the middle of pasta, maybe. You're right.
Some tomatoes. Maybe.

Speaker 1 But that's a fruit. Well, I like tomatoes.

Speaker 1 I like tomatoes are fruit, and I'll eat potatoes. That's a starch.
But everything else. Now, the only time I came close is Michelle Tafoya, our sideline reporter for years.

Speaker 1 We're in Baltimore one night.

Speaker 1 We had a couple of nights off. We'd had a long day and everything, and everybody has about, you know, four or five martinis.

Speaker 1 and she sneaks me some french fries which turned out to be brussels sprouts that were so deep fried they might as well have been so i actually put that down into my body and you know that's the closest i've ever come

Speaker 1 the trojan horse uh-huh

Speaker 1 by the way that's the second trojan horse i've heard during the uh i know this i mean this is the trojan horse episode uh i got i'm here for i'm here for I'm here for quality control. You know that.

Speaker 1 Well, Al, Jason, Jason, Jason and his wife are like living up in this castle, and they've eliminated all food, and all they do is think about is eating nuts and cardboard and such. Yeah, I know.

Speaker 1 And so I sent Jason, you heard the story, I sent him all this junk food because I know how much he loves it. It's all good.

Speaker 1 He'll come into my house every once in a while. He'll walk in and he'll go straight to the pantry and he starts going, who bought this? As he's eating it.
I just shovel as much junk as I can get in.

Speaker 1 And I'm like, I got two, I got three boys here who live here, four, actually. So

Speaker 1 anyway,

Speaker 1 Al, boy.

Speaker 1 we could just talk to you forever. It's like hanging out with it.
Well, it is hanging out with an old buddy. We really appreciate your time.

Speaker 1 It's really cool to meet you, Al. Al, you're the best.
Thank you. Yeah, you are the best.
You're a legend.

Speaker 1 Sean, I even got you into this thing.

Speaker 1 I was worried. I was concerned.
I didn't know how much you liked sports.

Speaker 1 Sean's become a huge football fan. You should be aware of that.
Yeah, I'm a big football fan. He and Scotty are watching football every weekend then.
Yeah, but

Speaker 1 it's an honor to meet you. I mean, there's no one bigger in your field.

Speaker 1 Let me get your question on this. And And if it's too controversial, we can cut it.
You can tell us. But talking about the Reds, and we've got all this

Speaker 1 gambling now that has become legalized, right? In fact, they're even making you guys give plugs to the DraftKings and all this other stuff on air. You're telling these guys to go ahead and gamble.

Speaker 1 Now that gambling is kind of a partner of professional sports. Do you see any path to Pete Rose finally being led into the Hall of Fame with a little bit of a sort of a,

Speaker 1 well, I guess the past gambling is not that big of a deal anymore.

Speaker 1 Where do you stand on that? Does he have your vote? That's such an interesting question. I mean, now that you say that.
I look at it this way.

Speaker 1 And I saw Pete for three years, every at-bat, have known him for years. What he did, I mean, he broke a record that couldn't have been broken.
In my mind, he's in my hall of fame. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Let's put it that way. I mean, he's one of the greatest players of all time.
So I know there is a real hall of fame, and then there's the Hall of Fame of Your Mind.

Speaker 1 And I don't know if he ever gets to the one in Cooperstown.

Speaker 1 You know, people say it's tragic. It's not tragic.
It's sad. It's just a sad situation.

Speaker 1 And will Pete ever get in? You know,

Speaker 1 I don't know, but I'm afraid that if he does, it's going to be posthumously.

Speaker 1 They'll put him in. These things will change.

Speaker 1 The mores will be different. They've started to become different right now.
But, you know, to me, if I'm as a fan, who's in your hall of fame? He's in mine. For sure.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 It should just be based on what you did when you were there, when you were playing.

Speaker 1 Did you have that record? Yeah, you did. Did you do the great, you know, incredible thing? Yeah, you did.
Okay, great.

Speaker 1 And that's what he should be on. And that's why other players are not because of stuff that they did while they were playing that affected their play.
And we don't want to get into that.

Speaker 1 Well, but there's also like, we don't want to get in this either. There's a lot worse crimes that we can all think of that would, you know, justify.
Are you talking about murder, Sean? Fuck you.

Speaker 1 Here he goes with murder again. Yeah, he gets such a bad rap.

Speaker 1 God, he just loves getting into murder.

Speaker 1 Al,

Speaker 1 a big, huge thank you.

Speaker 1 Thank you, Al. And really

Speaker 1 we could do a two-parter on this. I know we could.
You're the greatest. We're going to have you back at some point, Al.
You're the greatest. The greatest of all time.
Al Michaels. G-O-A-T.

Speaker 1 We're back on Thursday. I'll see you guys there.

Speaker 1 All right. On to Bel Air now, right? Yes, sir.
Let's do it. Let's see you there.
I loved it, guys. I loved it.
And by the way,

Speaker 1 I'm spending the rest of the day I'm going over and rifling Jimmy Burrows' mailbox. Yeah, yeah.
Get us some. Spare us some.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 All right. Thanks, Al.
Thanks, Al. Have a great day.
Bye.

Speaker 1 See you guys. Bye.
Bye-bye.

Speaker 1 That was really interesting. I mean, the greatest.

Speaker 1 I mean, are you as calm, settled, and comforted by his voice as I am?

Speaker 1 Yeah, I was going to say, sitting here, just listening to him tell a story, and you're like, you just sort of think, just keep talking, Al. I just want to hear you talk.
But I've touched on it before.

Speaker 1 It's like, he's a savant. Like, it's crazy.
So then he goes, he goes, and he goes, like, you know, in June 1994, he's making a date. And I was thinking, and he goes, yeah.

Speaker 1 And I didn't want to embarrass because he was

Speaker 1 like, June 94, I was in L.A. because that was the same month that O.J.
went on that crazy ride in this Bronco. And I was here staying at my friend Rob's place.

Speaker 1 And that was also the Knicks were in the playoffs. And the Rangers won after a 40-year drought in June 94 the Stanley Cup.
That's all that shit came into my head. I think it was 94.

Speaker 1 There's a pill for that guy.

Speaker 1 Just elevate your feet. Lay back flat.
It's like I'm doing, it's like I'm living in Bradley's movie.

Speaker 1 What was the movie he did? Limitless. Limitless, but like I don't have to take the pill.
You know what I mean? Right. No, I know.
You're already broken.

Speaker 1 So wait, so but but I can't believe how long Al Michaels has been doing it and still is doing it. And like at the top of it.

Speaker 1 Yes, for how many decades?

Speaker 1 That's crazy and not sick of it like he's like yeah let's go let's like every week how many shows do you think he does a week uh shows like well i mean games well he's got the matinee right sean um he does he does well now he does in football in his regular sketch now he's moved over he does 17

Speaker 1 does he or do they do 18 on

Speaker 1 amazon i think they only do one a week don't they anyway yeah but i think that the last week or two they don't anyway he could he could do he could do three a day i mean he's yeah nothing's slowing him down.

Speaker 1 We played in this golf tourney last week, short for tournament, and we, he and I, yeah, yeah. And

Speaker 1 I got to play with Al and our buddy Skip, Bronson, who's getting another mention on the podcast. This guy, Jason Kochra, and Kokrak, who's a great guy and hits the ball a million miles.

Speaker 1 But Al is the guy that everybody wants to see.

Speaker 1 And we're out there walking the course and everybody, and you just realize everybody, man, woman, child, grandpa, everybody, everybody wants to talk to Al Michaels because he's been in their homes their whole life.

Speaker 1 He's been your tour guide for some of your favorite moments. He does.
And Jason. He's stuff that you enjoy.

Speaker 1 You said that. You said when you hear his voice, it's like, yeah, it's like warm and cozy and his characterizes you being a kid.
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah.
It's great. I love him.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 You know, I think, like you said, you could hear him do anything. He's such an icon.
Here comes

Speaker 1 that anything. I'm not going to one right now.
Yeah. Go ahead, Will.
I got one. I wish somebody would play him.
Go ahead, Sean. And like

Speaker 1 that beach. And some like movie.
Yeah. And what would, you know, those movies that are like, you know, when they play somebody famous, they're called like

Speaker 1 autographic films,

Speaker 1 kind of.

Speaker 1 He just hijacked my vibe for that. Oh, sure.
Wait, no, no, no. Well, you had one.

Speaker 1 No, let's hear yours. Let's hear yours.
I just think

Speaker 1 you'd listen to anything that was narrated by

Speaker 1 Michael. Pretty decent.

Speaker 1 Pretty decent.

Speaker 1 Maybe there's a way we can combine those. Oh, nice.
Combine.

Speaker 1 Maybe there's a way to combine. There's a way to combine.
See, again, I go up and I put my body in a vice. Why do I have to go up high? Because that's what people, that's how you do it.

Speaker 1 You accused us of doing it. Now you're doing it.
I know. It's natural.
It's natural. It's just what people do.
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