Bob Costas | Club Random with Bill Maher
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There, that's correct. You have that picture I gave to you in your... Not only do I have it. I gave Bob a picture. You mentioned it to Stephen A. I did? Yeah. Right. Well, I'll mention it again because I had it for 50 years. I cut it out of TV Guide. It was an ad for ABC News, like on at 6.30 local in New York. Right.

Eyewitness News. Eyewitness News. And it had the picture of the two news twinks or the weather guy. Yeah, I guess the two news guys. And then Howard Cosell.

Oh, no, no, no. I'm sorry. It was Jim Bouton, Frank Gifford, and Howard Cosell. It was the two athletes. Yeah. And it said two guys who got there because they played ball and one guy who got there because he never played ball. And you said to Stephen A. Smith that you gave it to me, which I appreciated very much. It was a lovely touch after a taping of real time. After 50 years in my file. And you said that you've regretted it ever since. Yes.

So, here it is. No, no, I don't. No, no. Oh, there it is. Yep. I don't regret it at all. It has a place of honor in my office. You have to put it back there. Oh, that's where it's going. Crack this over your head. It's only a fake handoff. It's so awesome. You know what that reminds me of, though, when you almost did a spit take?

When you were on later, this is like 30 years ago on NBC. 94 almost. Yeah. After David Letterman on NBC. And we scarcely knew each other then. Right. We had a very good show. And somehow we're talking about these old comedy tropes, one of which was the spit take.

And Danny Thomas was famous for the spit take. Never funny. So, no, we agreed. The spit take is not Danny Thomas. Never funny. Right. But I then think I'll demonstrate a spit take. Oh, yeah. Danny Thomas. And I say, and about 1% of the people watching this will get this reference. You know, Uncle Tannous is coming from Toledo on Tuesday. And I take a swig. But it was orange juice. Fuck the whole thing up.

Well, it's good to hear you say fuck. There you go. I feel like you're liberated here. Are you drinking? Can I fix you? What are you having? I have some Cabernet. I was going to go. Cabernet? Yeah. It was in the green room. I didn't even know you were gay, Bob, but that's fine. I like all. I'm trying to be as open-minded as I can. It's a very diverse. Oh, by the way, I was reading Richard Belzer's obituary. Yeah. And they actually quoted in the New York Times. I love this. And

I mean... This is a deep chair. That paper is horrible to me, but they got this right. Those are, you know...

was my mentor when I started at Catch a Rising Star. And so it kind of hit me hard when he died. I should have talked about this with Deepak. And they wrote about him being Detective Munch on all those shows, and that's how people knew him. But what they didn't know was that was not Belzer. That's what he did. He fell into something like let him buy a house in France. That's right. It's wonderful. But he was the...

black night of comedy. You know, when I was at Catch a Rising Star. The bells. I mean, he never was able to like get it, find a way to get it out of that little rat skeller called Catch a Rising Star and have it translate to the rest of the world very well. But in his element, he was amazing. And it's, it quoted one night, the guy,

Don't, it would said, you know, you didn't want to heckle Bells. I remember Bells are one saying it's, Hey, it's like kissing a Cobra Bay. And a guy said, nice jacket. And then Bells are said, apparently, thanks. I got it on sale in your mom's vagina. Classic comeback.

Well, it's not something you'll hear from, you know, Uncle Miltie. Who actually, he was kind of funny. He could be funny. Miltie could be funny. Um...

Should I tell a Miltie story? When I was 13, he was funny. If kids don't know Milton Berle, who was he, Bob? Mr. Tuesday Night. He dominated early television in the 50s. Right. Even before our time. I don't remember him except when he was a little over the hill, but he was still famous. And he'd be doing things like the Hollywood Palace. Right. You know, he'd be like guest hosting. You know, there's an arc to show business. And boy, the ride down is less fun than the ride up. Right.

And he went down hard. He did? Well, he did. He wasn't ushered out with his full blessing. Well, no, very few are. I mean, show business is addictive, and you have to often drag people off the stage. There are very few Greta Garbos who quit early. Or Johnny Carsons.

Johnny Carson, yeah. Never looked back. No, no. Remember the last show he said, maybe someday when I find something I'd like to do, I'll be talking to you again. And he never did. Right. Well, he died. So that kind of puts an end to it. Yes. Yeah. But not immediately. But yeah, he had maybe another eight, nine years of life. Something like that.

But I bet you he wasn't well because he was like a four-pack-a-day Paul Moll smoker. I mean, he wouldn't be playing tennis. Right. But, you know, not too long ago, like your guys on the Mets, Keith Hernandez was going to be in the corner of the dugout taking a drag. You know what? There was a cover of Sports Illustrated. I don't know why I saw it because we didn't get Sports Illustrated because it probably cost a dollar to get it.

But there was a cover in 1972. I bet you I still have that too, but you're not getting that one. I think I saved all these years because I thought it was the coolest thing. Richie Allen. You remember Richie Allen? Right. Dick Allen. Dick Allen. He was a...

I thought he was the baddest dude in the world because he was a bad boy. He was. But he was great when he played, right? Okay, what was he on, the Indians? He started with the Phillies in 64, and then he was with the Cardinals and with the White Sox. Okay, so in his prime, there he is on the cover of Sports Illustrated batting helmet on,

juggling two baseballs in the dugout with a cigarette in his mouth. Yeah. You remember that? Yep, I do. I just thought, I want to be that guy. Yeah, he was, you know, he's one of those guys, and there's a long list, and we've talked about baseball a lot, guys who are better than guys who are in the Hall of Fame, but somehow they're not. Like? Don Mattingly, Dave Parker.

Keith Hernandez, if... Are all not in? All not in. If Keith Hernandez, who doesn't have enormous batting statistics because of a different era, but he's the greatest defensive first baseman ever. Brooks Robinson's the greatest... Is that right? Yeah, I think so. And Brooks Robinson's the greatest defensive third baseman ever, and he was by acclamation a Hall of Famer. I have no problem with that, but if he's in, then Keith Hernandez should be in. And Dick Allen is certainly better and was a more feared hitter than many of his contemporaries who wound up in the Hall of Fame. That's the end of that.

People can hear me say that anywhere. You don't have to belabor that in club random. What they can't hear is that I heard Keith Hernandez was what? What? I don't know where you're going with this. In his heyday, he was just like the ultimate dog. I am not going to contradict that. I'm not going to elaborate on it necessarily, but I will not contradict it. I mean, Keith Hernandez with the cocaine...

And he just had this kind of like, you know, swagger. He brought the swagger to the Mets, right? I mean, they really, he was kind of like the Dave DeBuscher of that team. Like he was this guy who comes in and gives them a kind of a grit, right? He knew how to win.

And he would hold other players to account. You look at that team, a lot of teams in sports now, even if they're good, they don't have a vivid team personality. You think of that Met team, Strawberry and Gooden, both dynamic, sort of poignant, because if you asked any general manager in the game, you could pick one pitcher and

and one position player for the next 10 years, almost unanimously they would have said Gooden and Strawberry, and both of them seemed bound for the Hall of Fame, and neither fulfilled their potential. But they're unforgettable. They weren't just dynamic. They were beautiful to watch. And you had Gary Carter, and you had Ray Knight, and you had Keith Hernandez. That team had personality to it. Yeah. Mookie. Mookie Wilson, right?

Yeah, I remember watching it in the bar at the Improv, the 86 World Series. I was only out here a few years and just I think Seinfeld was there and like all the New York guys. Seinfeld loves Mets. Yeah. No, I've been to games with them. You know where I was when the ball went through Buckner's legs?

Calling it? In the Red Sox clubhouse. No, Vin Scully's calling it. Oh. Red Sox clubhouse. Oh, yeah, because they were going to win. They were going to win for the first time since 1918. There had never been an interview of a winning Red Sox team because even radio didn't exist then for the World Series. And I'm up on a platform and the cameras are in place and they...

put the plastic over the lockers anticipating the champagne spray, and in comes the commissioner, who was you, Rothman, and frail Mrs. Yawkey, Tom Yawkey's widow. She looked like a stiff breeze would blow her from Queens to the Bronx. And she comes in, and here's the trophy on the stand, and there's two outs and nobody on base, and the Red Sox are up by two, and it all unravels.

And by the time the ball goes through Buckner's legs, they'd broken the whole thing down. It was like changing a set on a Broadway show. They broke the whole thing down in like what seemed to me like a minute. I slide out the door because I say to Mike Weissman, who's the producer, what do I do if the Mets tie the game? And he says, get the hell out of there as fast as you can. And I get out and I'm standing in the hallway while the Red Sox are coming down the tunnel and not a word is spoken.

Until one guy crashes a bat against the concrete wall and only one word punctuates this entire scene. And I'll say it again. Fuck! And that was it. It was complete ashen-faced silence. Well, they probably didn't want to make their teammate Buckner feel worse than he did, but...

Well, they all respected him. He was a gamer. He was gritty. And he was a very, very good player. Yeah. I mean, that just shows the, wow, life can be just a brutal mistress. Because, like, one mistake...

And that's just, I mean, he will always be, he could find the cure for cancer tomorrow. It would be Bill Buckner, cancer cure, let the ball go through his legs. He got two hits in game seven. After that came six. He had like 2,700 hits in his career. He was a near Hall of Fame player. Why are pitchers today, I guess all athletes to a degree, but especially I see it with pitchers.

Like, why are they so much more frail? If we're so much more advanced, now we have better nutrition. Like, when you read about pictures of yesteryear, shall we say, like, I believe in the 1905 World Series, I'm recalling this from...

Either George Will or the... Or from Club Random with Stephen A. Smith only about a month ago. I mentioned that? Yeah, Christy Mathewson in 1905. Three complete game shutouts. Yes. Okay. So how is that possible that he could have done that

And today's pitchers can't go seven innings. Well, I'm watching you with Stephen A. Smith. I'm thinking of what my answer is. Part of it is the size of the contracts and both the player and the team don't want to risk injury. So they protect them. The analytics say that even the best pitchers third time through the lineup, they lose something.

used to pace themselves, even the best pitchers, pace themselves through the course of a game. I remember Tom Seaver saying to me late in his career, I can still throw 95, but I can't

but I've only got about six or seven of them per game, and I'm not going to waste them on the number eight hitter in the fourth inning with two outs and nobody on base. I'm saving it for when I need it, but they don't know when I'm going to use it. Now the average pitcher, and certainly a relief pitcher, comes out and just lets the throttle out for 90 pitches, 100 pitches if you're a starter, for that one inning if you're a reliever. That's why so many guys, that and improved biomechanics, why so many guys are thrown in the high 90s, even the low 100s.

And so that's what the managers and the front office want them to do. Another part of it, though, is this. This is true in the early stages of any sport.

The greatest players are more dominant against the average player because the overall quality has not caught up. The mechanics of the game, the approach of the game. So Christy Mathewson, let's say Christy Mathewson is a rough equivalent of Justin Verlander today. Justin Verlander is facing better competition than Christy Mathewson faced in 1905. Right.

Right. Well, it was all white. All white. Yes. But also the game itself. The techniques of the game itself have not developed. I must say, I'm sorted down on sports because of like, I mean, we can talk about this over reffing. But what what makes me up about what I love about sports is I feel like in a society that is increasingly full of bullshit. Yeah.

It is the last place where I know I trust merit winning out, which is kind of connected to why I hate reffing mistakes so much. But it is the last place where merit will always win out. I have complete trust that with all the bullshit and corruption going

Those are the 12 best basketball players that team could find. Or the 25 best. The best. There's no such thing as a nepo baby in sports. There are certainly the scion of players, right? Yes. Of course. Right. But they had to be good. If Bronny James can't play, he's not going to be in the NBA very long. Dale Barra.

Right. Dale Barra, as opposed to Ken Griffey Jr., who was better than Ken Griffey Sr. Right. Now, of course, if your father was a great player, you have advantages like DNA and the genes. And also, you've been around the game. They were the bat boy or something. So they're not like, oh, my gosh, I'm on a major league field. They grew up with it. All that is an advantage. But you still have to have the goods and the discipline and lots of other things. Yes.

there are no nepo babies which is you know this term they have now for like which i look i have i'm agnostic on liking them i don't dislike them i just always want to say to them just don't say you had to work harder or uh you know it really wasn't an advantage or once you get the job you have to do the work most of show business is getting the job so okay fuck nepo babies but

Well, they can open the door for you, but eventually, if you've got the goods or not, it's going to be exposed. But opening the door is not that hard. I mean, opening the door is hard. The work is not that hard. Acting is not that hard. I could act right now. I could be mad at you, Bob. That was a little kid in there. Or I could be very upset. I'm...

Meryl Streep, you have been exposed. You have been outed. Anybody can do what you do. No, not anybody can do what she does, but anybody can do what like 95% of them do.

Fair enough. Yes, on the top level, you're right. I couldn't think of a lot of people who could do Sophie's Choice or in comedy. I don't think anybody else but Jim Carrey could have done Ace Ventura, for example. Well, that's a wild kind of talent. Yes, there are certain things. But in general, it's a bunch of bullshit. Anyway, what was my point? I don't know. We were talking about how you like sports because it's a meritocracy, which is why...

A person who's willing to shrug their shoulders about manifest injustice in society will become all bonkers over something that shows on replay that by a micro-millimeter, that guy should have been safe instead of out. See, this just drives me crazy because, again...

It's so great to have some place in society where you have this trust. Like, we don't have it in government. I don't trust government. I don't trust, you know, religion. Come on, I gave up on that a million years ago. You did? I didn't know that. Yeah, I'm trying to keep it quiet. Yeah.

You know, I trust some friends, close friends, but trust is not a big thing. But I trust those are the best players they can find. And it cuts across. There's no equity. There's no, you know, racial, whatever, wherever in the world you are. I mean, basketball has a lot of European players now and Africa, everywhere. You know, it's like wherever you are, we will find you.

That's why when people say about Major League Baseball, which once had a much larger African-American presence than it does now, now it's in single digits, I don't know, 8%, something like that. But...

players of color, there's a huge number of players of Hispanic background and increasingly pairs of Asian background. So you can't make a plausible case that the reason there are relatively few black players compared to generations ago is because baseball doesn't want them. Baseball wants whoever can play best wherever they can find them. See, and this is the kind of thing I think you and I are eye to eye on. We're old school liberals. Yes. You know, we were always there for the cause and

But then there's people now who just want to like always make a thing where there isn't a thing. I had somebody try to tell me that this was a thing, and it is for a lot of people, a project they should work on getting more African-Americans to play baseball. It's like, why? If they want to play baseball, it would be a problem if there was a law against them playing as there once was.

That would be a problem. But they are free to play baseball if they want or to choose another sport or no sport at all. It's not a problem. And gifted black athletes by and large are migrating toward basketball and football. But baseball has made efforts to involve, you know, inner city academies, that sort of thing. The RBI program reviving baseball in the inner cities, that sort of thing, because they want talent. I want to fight.

I don't want to fight non-problems masquerading as racism. That's... You know I'm with you on that. That's the commissioner's ruling on that. I don't think that...

in order to prove that you're down with a cause that we basically have been down with since childhood and millions of people like us, that in order to prove that, you have to nod in solemn assent or at the very least keep quiet over any assertion, even if that assertion is fact-challenged

disproportionate or illogical. But Bob, we can't even be having this conversation because we're two white men. Right. You're not allowed. So before we're even, that's, of all the ways of shutting off debate, you got to give the credit to that one. You know, I heard, I heard someone, I can't remember where, this was maybe three or four years ago, and you were the subject of

It happened to be a black woman with some sort of academic credentials. And they said, if you took any 11-year-old African-American child off the street by their lived experience, they have more credibility to address any racial issue than Bill Maher. As if intelligence, familiarity with the world itself, including literature of the past, as if being a sentient human being with an observant eye doesn't count for anything.

Yeah, I can't even, Bob. Yeah. I mean, am I supposed to nod in assent to something that profoundly stupid just to prove that I'm down with the general cause? I can answer that, yes. All right. You are supposed to. I stand corrected. You are supposed to, but I'm glad that you don't. But yeah, I mean, it's galling. I think a lot of the younger people, they just don't

You know, they shut off at their white or their older, which is ironic because that itself is a prejudice. Like when people come after me, it's very often, especially on, you know, Twitter and that kind of stuff, which is younger voices, it's just they don't ever engage with the argument. It's just you're old. It's like, okay, I'm...

I could be a thousand, but am I right? Because you're not even engaging with that because they can't, because they usually don't have an argument, which is it's hard to make an argument when you don't know anything. So often they just don't know anything. You're not going to engage in the argument on its merits. You're just looking for something that you can put out as a disqualifier. You're done. Don't have to consider it.

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Stream Be My Guest with Ina Garten on Discovery Plus and check out Be My Guest with Ina Garten wherever you get your podcasts. Sports, the best place to feel good about race in America, I feel. Again, sports, that's another big check in their favor. When you see the guys on the team, I don't think they're acting for the camera. I don't think they're faking it. The camaraderie? Yes. Yes.

I also talked about that with Aaron Rodgers in these very chairs. And he was like, absolutely. You know, they, you can see guys on the team and of course they're young guys. And, uh, we're not in a, of course, a post race, racial era, or even a post there's racism era, but we are in an era where if you're 22 years old, racism is about the uncoolest thing in the world.

Yes. Which was not the uncoolest thing in the world when we were 22. That's a huge difference.

So I just think there's a reason why those locker rooms look as chummy as they do on hard knocks and, you know, and on the field. They're not faking it. Also because you have to prove yourself. Right. You really can't fake it. There's no Nepo stuff there. You can't fake it. It's where that Venn diagrams with the merit thing because it's when the guy who's not your race but still got the big hit. Yeah.

And has the goods. Run the game for you. Exactly. They have such respect for each other. When you hear someone who's, and now maybe we sound like geezers, but someone who follows sports closely, maybe they're on...

some platform or other. They're 30 years old. Larry Bird was pretty good, but he was overrated. Why was he overrated? Because he was white. Okay. This is when Dominique Wilkins and Charles Barkley and every black player who played against him says, shut the F up. You have no idea what you're talking about. This guy not only was good, he

He was tough. We look at him as an individual. Are the vast majority of modern NBA players who are great black? Yes. But isn't the idea to look at somebody as an individual? Somebody could be black and they could be a nerd, but a good nerd. A good nerd. They become a scientist. Why can't a white guy be an exception to be a really good basketball player? So why did you go back to saying the Fs?

I don't know. I don't know. You got two fucks in and you gave up? Well, I figured my limit was three and I want to save one for when it really counts. There's no limit. All right, then fuck it. Exactly. Good. There you go.

You realize what happens here. Not to you, but to me. This will be like, it'll be somewhere on YouTube. Let's watch Bob Costas say fuck for a minute. And it'll be fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck. But you sat down and said, I'm 70. I don't give a fuck anymore. Okay, so like, what is it? Are you going with that or not? Because I think you've got nothing to lose. What are they going to do? Throw you off Major League? Put me in TV jail? Are they...

Like, do the people who are listening to you and I listen to you, I mean, you're one of the few, maybe the only guy I've ever, oh, Tim McCarver I used to love too. But like, we'll have a game on just to hear the announcer.

You know, I think Vin Scully was like that for a lot of people. Vin Scully, I never liked him. Ooh, there's a bold statement. I didn't. I'm sorry. I didn't like that voice. It just grated on me. See, most people found it melodic. Melodic? No, he was not my favorite. I know. Rest in peace. Let's not have a feud about fucking

89-year-old. To the memory of Vin and to his family. I was close to him. I loved him. I revered him. But you know what? It's a matter of taste. Exactly. Not everybody's my fan either. Even the most popular are not universally popular.

And he's not here anymore to be insulted by it. And he shouldn't be insulted anyway, because I'm allowed not to like him. Did he watch every episode of real time? I doubt it. He might not have watched one. Fuck Vince. Oh, stop. I can't. I can't be in proximity to this kind of sacrilege. Oh, fuck it, guy. I'm 70. He is apologizing on to camera. OK, but but you I will listen to again. You know, you've really are you going to get in trouble?

About Vin? No, about anything. No. No. No, just people will have fun with it. If they think somebody can call a game better than you, that's what I always say to these people who are like, you're old. Yeah, then do it better.

That's what you can't do. Well, you're old. Yeah. Well, a couple of things, a couple of things. You've always been very kind about this. I was doing a game a few years ago in Chicago, Cub game at Wrigley Field. And I got texts during the game, which I'll look at them sometimes during a commercial session.

Like within five minutes of each other from you and from George will saying how much they enjoyed the broadcast. Um, because when I get it right, I hope it has a certain texture. Oh, it's, you know, you can make an apple pie with basic ingredients, right? Or you can have a recipe that has a few additional ingredients. But sometimes when you try that, you don't get it exactly right. And since you brought this up and this is always something that you have to be careful about if you care at all, which is this.

You say something, no matter how well you say it, and then somebody takes it and either knowingly misrepresents it or just through their own clumsiness, you get a version of it that makes it seem as if it's not worth the effort that it took to say it. But since we're sitting here and we're talking about baseball for the moment, this past October, I did the Yankees and the Guardians in the division series, and I felt like I was off my game.

Sort of like a pitcher who still has good stuff, but somehow, as they say, he didn't have command that night. And I could feel it. Like in the first five or six innings of the first game, it's the same philosophy, same approach, but I wasn't nailing it. It didn't have the same flow and rhythm to it. There were a few awkward moments. I hadn't worked that much with Ron Darling, only two or three games. Very smart guy, a guy I really like. You must like him. I like him. I do like Ron Darling. On the Mets broadcast with Keith Hernandez and Gary Cohen. They're a terrific group. Okay, so.

Not Vin Scully, though. Stop with Vin. Now, I don't place much stock in what two or three people say on Twitter or something, because on Twitter there's no misdemeanors, there's only felonies. But when I knew myself that it just wasn't what I've generally been able to do,

And I wasn't comparing myself to 1995 when I'm doing the World Series. I was comparing myself to August and September of last season when things were as they usually were. And somehow it might have gotten a little better as the five games went along, but it wasn't what I intended to do. Now, why do I care about that? In answer to your question, I'm back if I want to be back to do it. I'm only doing as much as what I want to do. I did a dozen Olympics. It's time to leave that.

All most of what I've done is in the past, but I only want to do a handful of things. And one of the things I want to do is a little bit of baseball. Why? Because I've always liked it. And because it's gratifying to me when people say the sort of things you say where you do it differently. And I appreciate that. I don't need a parade. I just like that. So I felt like I dropped the ball on that. And so I feel bad about it for that reason.

Right. Well, first of all, I don't know what the fuck you're talking about. Because I watched that series and because I watched the playoffs in baseball, I don't watch a lot of regular season, but...

Occasionally, if you're doing one, if I see it's on, yeah. Especially if it was the Mets. But I never, I'm trying to think back to, it's only October. I did not have that thought in my head. Oh, Bob's off his game. Yeah, I had a few missteps, but just uncharacteristic. Well, first of all, you know,

Don't flatter yourself. We're watching the game. I know. I know. We're making a sandwich. You know, we're not. It's not like an episode of FAUDA. You know, we're not hanging on every. It's not the Bourne identity. You're right. So, like, do I. Does the average person notice if you're off your game a little bit? You know, you're the kind of pro who Carson was like this, like.

I try to be like this. I don't know if I am, but my goal is when I'm at my best, I'm at 100. And when I'm at my worst, I'm at 95.

And I don't think you were too far off that. I don't know what you're talking about. I just feel like there's only one reason to do it now. I'm not trying to build a career. I'm not doing it for the money. The only reason to do it, you enjoy it and you want to get into the bullseye or close to it for the people who always have appreciated your work. So I don't want to let anybody down. Okay. Everybody goes through this in every...

of life. We're athletes. Exact same thing is what we're talking about. I feel it on real time. There are some nights where I'm like, I don't have my good fastball, okay, but I can get batters out with junk. Yeah.

You're right. That's an apt analogy. It really is. Oh, the analogy I always use is to fucking. That and pitching. I've had that. I put it in my novel, I think. But it always made so much sense to me that pitching was like fucking. Like, you

You want to be a power, you start out as a power pitcher and like, and then at some point you're like, you're like Tom. I can throw seven good fastballs and wait for it. And I gotta be honest, I'm working on a knuckle curve.

Change the subject. You know who doesn't get enough credit? Your writers are great. The people who write the captions underneath the new rules. It's so funny. You've said this before, and this is so funny to me because I am a micromanager. I'm essentially my own

I mean, I have a wonderful head writer, Billy Martin, who does amazing things, but I have to, it's my voice. I have to like. It has to sound like you. Yes. I mean, I'm a, I don't like some guys have the head writer read stuff from the other writers and then get a version of their, I read every word everybody writes. Sure. Okay. So what was my point? New rules, captions. Yes. The one part of the show.

I have no part of is your favorite part of the show. That's not my favorite part, but it's a part I like. It's a quirky thing. I love it. And you know what I used to I used to do? I dropped the ball on this. But for years, I would actually phone in my choice for the best caption. And they had a little trophy that they passed around. Really? This week, you, Bob Oshak, had the best.

And next week it's Billy Martin or whatever. Right. And they pass the trophy around. They called it the cost of something or other. I don't know what it was. I mean, I have been so lucky with my writing crew. I've said this before, but I'm going to say it again. Paul McCartney once said that he would rather have a band than a Rolls Royce.

And I so feel that way about a writer's room. Of course. Some of these guys, we've been together for, I mean, Chris Kelly's been there 30 years. I mean, since day one, since I laid the foundation with my tomahawk. But Billy, you know, a lot of these guys, Brian, I mean, just long, some people 20 years. And it's like,

When I did my, I think it was my 60th birthday show, it was when I was like begging Obama to finally come on. Which he did. Which he did. And I was like, family? I don't have time for a family. This is my family, you know? My relationship with my life is with my audience. Yeah, I get that. And these are the people who are like in on that relationship. You know, it's a...

You know, we, I'm not the kind of person who ever wants to look back because it scares me. I was talking to Deepak Chopra about it. The monster that's chasing me. So I only look forward. So we don't get sentimental because I, I feel like you can't afford to get sentimental because then you're looking back and then you're kind of dead already. I know Deepak has a different approach for me, but I don't know if I can handle that one. Um,

But, you know, so we don't like tell each other we love each other, but like it's a long-term family style relationship. We have little fights, but we never really turn our back on each other. You know, it's special. You know, it was, now I'll get a little sentimental, a blessing for me.

You may remember this. You were appearing in St. Louis, where I lived most of my adult life. Yeah, I remember being at your house. Yeah. Came to the house. It was a Sunday, so we were watching some football. And my son, Keith, who's now a producer at the Major League Baseball Network, is probably eight years old. Right. And he's walking through the house. And...

You famously do not have much affinity for kids, but you recognize what a joy he and his sister were for me. And at that, and he said something to that effect. I can't remember exactly what it was like. It works for you. Works for you. So right around that time, Letterman goes to CBS when he doesn't get The Tonight Show and Jay Leno does. And David controlled the hour after his.

And he offered me, based on my having done later following him on NBC, he offered me that hour. And to sweeten the pot, CBS offered me a correspondent spot on 60 Minutes. So there's nothing more prestigious than that. Yeah. You could have been a 60 Minutes correspondent? Yes.

You're not old enough now. Right. I would have been really the new kid on the block. Hello, Morley. Are you kidding? Hello, Andy. Hello, Mike. Oh, my God. The average age of the CBS correspondent is between 65 and decolored. And they've tried to add some new blood now, you know.

John, John Wertheim, Anderson Cooper, you know, whatever. So anyway, but part of my thinking was my kids under seven and four, you can say to a kid, Hey,

Let's go to the Bulls game, which I could be calling. You'll meet Michael Jordan. Let's go to the Olympics. Let's go to the ball game. We'll hang around. I had the privilege of access. So my kids had access to all this. You can't say to a kid, I'm interviewing the Secretary of State. You want to come with me? And that was a big part of the decision. So you made that decision based on your kids? In part, in large part, yeah.

Wow, this kid thing, it's really something. I mean, I always say, you know, like, well, marriage, first of all, like, I understand why poor people do it, but celebrities? It just doesn't make any sense to me. And it's sort of the same with kids, but like, it's just, it's such a universal thing, but I don't feel it at all.

We know that. So why should you even worry about it? No, no, no, absolutely. No, I mean, I'm sure Deepak's going to try to change me. Yeah, exactly. It's everything. And, you know, you're happily remarried, right? Yeah. I mean, that's been a long running Broadway show, right? Yep. How long has that been going on? That is that will be 19 years in a couple of weeks. Wow.

You got to do something big for 20, don't you? Yeah. Yeah, 20 will be a big thing. I mean, you got to go out of town. No, really. I remember Bob... Out of town or out of the country? I remember Bob Newhart once on The Tonight Show telling Johnny Carson about, I think it was their 25th anniversary and flying to San Francisco or something. And he said, you know, you just can't go to Chasen's. Ha ha ha!

It's such an inside West Coast showbiz thing. Chaston's was, yes, it's been gone for many years now, but I was, even I was too young. I remember it existed. I don't think I was there but one time because I remember like they did not take credit cards. Wow. Chaston's only took cash. Usually that's a mafia operation. Now it would be almost the reverse.

You know, they're definitely going to try to get rid of probably currency. Right. You know, everything will be digital, which, you know, I don't want to be one of those conspiracy theorists, but it is a level of government control. They'll have everything on you. What? They'll have everything on you. They will, and they'll be able to shut things off automatically. There's going to be lots of, you know,

Shut off without you being in your car can already be shut off. Sure. By the robot, our overlords who are going to be taking over very soon. Are you are you particularly bothered by the GPT chat GPT thing where the robot is actually a robot?

adult teenager who says, I love you. And you saw that story. Basically you could, I guess in theory, write a memoir, just talk to them and they'd rearrange your words and they'd give you at least some version, at least the first draft that you could work with. Right. Are you plugging anything? No, no. Cause anyone who knows me knows how technophobic I am. I had a flip phone until like five years ago.

So, you know, I'm not really. Oh, yes. You know, I remember I didn't I still don't email you. No, but I can get emails now. But I used to go through my assistant. Exactly. Yeah. The world go through my assistant. It's like bumming a cigarette. It's gross. No, I have an iPad now and I have an iPhone. I have an iPhone right here. Congratulations. Look at that. Welcome to the 90s. Yeah. OK, so you're good at texting.

Yes. These are my dates. Okay. I'm going to be March 11th. Oh, Tahoe. Lake Tahoe. March 11th. March 12th at the Golden Gate Theater in San Francisco.

And April 22nd. Oh, I can't. San Francisco. I'm so anxious to go back there. I haven't been there in so long. April 22nd, the theater at MGM National Opera. Washington, D.C. Oh, that should be good. Okay. Oh, and by the way, March 12th, San Francisco, that's the night of the Oscars. So if you want to laugh, don't stay home.

You know what the problem is with the Oscars? I mean, there's not an original observation. Just as sitting at home and getting all excited about the Oscars, there's so much spread out in so many niches on so many platforms. Much of it is very good, but the average person can't say, I saw all these movies or I know all these stars. I have a feeling about it. It's...

Okay, but it's a lot that it's also movies we don't want to watch because I did an editorial about this last year.

They used to know how to make movies that were about something, something real, something important, not something frivolous, and also make it entertaining. It wasn't just the lady shitting in the bucket or the Korean grandma burns down the house. These are just like scoldy, like virtue signaling, we're on the right side of this issue. They're just sad. And we call them the downers. They shouldn't be the Debbie downers or the Debbies. Right.

I have the Debbies. So this is not Sounder from a long ago era. No, but they used to know how to make a movie that was about something, and it was still in- This is not Norma Rae, which had a message, but it's a great movie. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah, Three Days of the Condor. I mean, I could name a million. The Godfather. I mean, there's just lots of them. Anyway, there's one more podcast. I never-

plug other people's podcasts, but my friend Barry Weiss, I'm with the Free Press, and I totally want to support him. Frequent real-time guest. And fantastic that she and Nellie Bowles, her wife, have started this fucking great organization that is, you know, this is what we're always talking about. These are basically liberal people who somehow have been cast out. They were cast out of the New York Times as conservatives.

everybody who doesn't agree with the farthest fringy thing of the woke is not a conservative or Republican anyway. Correct. So the free press and they, they have this amazing podcast. Now the, um, which trials of JK Rowling, we don't have to talk about it, but I mean, I read, I mean, even the New York times found the guts, uh, which is to print a piece from, uh, one of their Pamela Paul, I think wrote it. And it was, if you just read the quotes, uh,

Forget her opinion if you want. If you just read the quotes from J.K. Rowling, you would be hard-pressed to say, "Oh, this is a person who hates trans people." She doesn't hate trans people.

Everybody has to stop saying they hate the thing that they don't hate. Like pro-life people don't hate women. That's another one. They hate women. They don't hate women. They think it's murder. And it kind of is. I'm just okay with it. I'm totally okay with that kind of murder. But it is kind of, it's becoming a lie. But they don't hate women. That's not why pro-life people are against abortion. They think it's murder. And J.K. Rowling doesn't hate women.

Trans people. I don't know why I'm yelling at you. I'm yelling at you like you're Jerry Falwell. Let's move it into a specific area where...

And I've seen you address this many times and you always put in all the provisos about, yes, of course, trans is a thing. Of course it's a thing. And we have to be understanding and respectful and a certain percentage. And protection of the law. Yes. And dignity, of course. That's the old school liberal point of view. Correct. Way back when.

It seems like way back when. I don't know, maybe seven, eight years ago. Yes, that's all. At the ESPY Awards, there's something called the Arthur Ashe Courage Award. Okay. All right. And they awarded it to Caitlyn Jenner seemingly only moments after she had transitioned. And I'm on the Dan Patrick radio show. And I'm not riding in on a white horse looking to make a proclamation. It's about the fifth or sixth topic he brings up.

up and he says, I'm not blaming Dan. Dan's great. He's what, what do you make of Caitlyn Jenner getting the Arthur Ashe courage award? And I take every precaution you can take. I stipulate everything. We need to be understanding. You're the best at it. I did all, all the stuff. Okay. However, the disclaimer. Yes. I kind of protect my own ass here. So what I said, but I say, look, Arthur Ashe,

exuded class. Arthur Ashe seems to me to be at odds, or the person who until two minutes ago was the father of the Kardashian family, that seems to kind of be at odds with what Arthur Ashe represents. Plus,

Bruce Jenner's sports exploits are in the 70s at the Olympics, and now we're into someplace in the 2000s, 2012 or whatever, whatever it was. So it seems to me that this is a tabloid play.

Does that make me transphobic? I later said, you know what they can do if you want the eyeballs, because after all, it is television. Why don't you have Caitlyn Jenner present the award to Renee Richards, who once was Dr. Richard Raskin? Of course. And this is not irrelevant when.

He, Richard Raskin, Dr. Richard Raskin, was playing on the pro tour. He was like the 400th ranked player. When he became Rene Richards, don't ask me, ask Martina Navratilova. She was like the 10th or 12th best. And Martina says she could beat her, but it was tougher than she would have thought. This is a reality that has nothing to do with phobia whatsoever.

or bigotry or unkindness in any way. And we're not, we're not denigrating these people who made their change, which obviously takes balls. Takes balls away. Yes. I'm so glad you brought this up because go ahead. So, so I didn't, I have, I didn't know Bruce Jenner that well, but likable enough guy talked to him a few times and I have no problem with Caitlyn Jenner other than maybe her politics in some respects. But I,

There's no problem here. Here's an adult. She made a decision. She has all the autonomy to make that decision. No problem.

Dan's question was, what do you make of her receiving the Arthur Ashe Courage Award? Am I not allowed to make a distinction here, even with all the stipulations, without being called transphobic or a hater? Apparently not. Bob, you're an idealist, Bob. That is your problem. You're like Humphrey Bogart in Casablanca. And all of this doesn't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world. No, tough exterior, but you're a sentimental, wishy-washy idealist.

So I have never once brought anything into Club Random, including a thought. No, really. Congratulations. I've made this point many times. But when I asked HBO if I could do this, they graciously said yes. And I said, I promise you it will be nothing like my real job, which I treasure the most.

But, and I will not take one minute away from what I normally work. I would normally take a break in the middle of the week. It's Wednesday for a couple of hours to get high with friends. Now I'm just doing it with a camera somewhere. So like there is no preparation. I've never once brought a piece of paper into Club Random. But because you're so special to me, I thought I would break my rule and I have a piece of paper. Okay.

Peace in our time. I have talked with Herr Hitler and... That's a Neville Chamberlain joke. I didn't know you did magic, Bob. I thought it was going to be like Ed McMahon for Karnak. I hold in my hand the envelope. That was the shittiest dove I've ever seen. Okay.

So I brought this in because we cover this on our show. Yeah. And it's, of course, I did because I thought of you in sports, but also because we see so eye to eye on this, like,

Old school liberal versus woke insanity. And there's this article in the Atlantic, which is, you know, look, the Atlantic has broken a lot of great stories and they have great writers. I'm not going to shit on the Atlantic. I mean, I think I made a snarky joke about them at the time, but I couldn't believe that they printed a article called separating sports by sex doesn't make sense. Let me say, first of all, yes, it does. Yes, it does.

It sure as hell does. And I thought, no, this is a nightclub. This is club random. We don't do anything. But I just wanted to get these quotes right. So I brought this in. The people actually printed this in this serious magazine. First it talks about this woman who was trying to join a boys' sport

The panel then set out to determine whether Mendel Zee was essentially strong development athletic enough to play a contact sport with boys, even though those boys needed to prove no such thing. Yes, they did when they tried out for the team. That's right.

That's why I didn't make my high school basketball team. Right. And you were 6'8 at the time. At the time, yes. It's a tragic thing that's happened to you. Bob Costas, diminutive, vituperative, iconic. Don't let me leave here without giving you the Cosell story.

We'll circle back to it, but you're doing the Cosell here a little bit. Oh, I... When you use the word truculent... I'm doing Billy Crystal's Cosell. Right. That's what people who are not impressionists do. They do impressionist impressions. We can't do it for real. Of course. We can only fucking bite the...

You're doing Frank Gorshin's Jimmy Cagney. Exactly. For the 80-year-olds in the audience. But when you use the word truculent, I'll take you off course here. This is a famous moment. Monday Night Baseball on ABC. And Euchre's in the booth with Cosell. Bob Euchre. Bob Euchre. I loved him. He's still doing Brewers games on the radio. I thought he was dead. No, he's 89 years old. Euchre, I'll be texting you tomorrow. God.

He's alive and Vin Scully's dead. That's just wrong. Continue with your story. Anyway, so Uke is sitting alongside Cosell. And Cosell says something that Uke finds questionable about strategy. And Uke challenges him. And Cosell says, Uke, you're awfully truculent tonight. But then you probably don't know what truculent means. And Uke says, yes, I do, Howard.

If you had a truck and I borrowed it, that would be a truck you lent. Which proves he's way smarter than Howard Cosell. I mean, I loved Howard Cosell. I gave you that whole thing. But, I mean, that's just a level that... Above. Although, I will say this. My father was in radio, okay? Yeah. And he had to do... This was the era when every radio station had news at the top of the hour. And you ripped the news off the wire, there was no, you know...

We used to call it Rip and Read. Rip and Read. And he had to do a newscast that came in at five minutes. I think I mentioned this on CNN the other night. And it had to come right in on time. And I remember my father talking approvingly and admiringly of the fact that Howard Cosell used to do his Speaking of Sponsors on ABC. This was the station I listened to because it was the rock and roll station. It was Cousin Brucie and Dan Ingram. Dan Ingram. OK.

Okay, so all these guys and the music, but then there was speaking of sports, and it was the same thing. He had to do three minutes. It had to come in right on time. He had never done it before. And it was a commentary. It wasn't just reading facts.

That is kind of a special skill. Cosell was incredible with that. The Monday night halftime highlights, which really were much more meaningful than because there's no ESPN. There's no highlights everywhere. That's what you waited for on Monday night for kind of your capsule of what happened over the weekend, the best moments. And he did all of that without a script. Right.

I'm I was when I did it on a regular basis, pretty good at that, the kind of clock in the head. But the two best that I'm aware of were Cosell and Bryant. You know what? Bryant was great at that, too. Bryant Gumbel is a giant talent. Yes, he is. Anyway, coward Cosell. Yeah. Something that I think really is interesting about cancel culture, because you reminded me of something that was a long time ago before we even had the term cancel. I think I know where you're going.

He used the term monkey. Little monkey. Okay, he just made it worse. But he did not mean it racially about a running back who... And like my father used to say, call me a little monkey. Yeah. It was like a term of a certain generation. My grandparents would say to me and my sister, come on, you little monkeys. Exactly. Little monkey. It was in no way intended nor...

And Howard Cosell was a very – he was a liberal New York Jewish – Defended Muhammad Ali. Yes. Defended Tommy Smith and John Carlos at the 68 Olympics. He was a real New York liberal. Yes, he was. And they did not give him the benefit of the doubt, as I recall. And that – Many didn't. If I had to, like, make a – okay.

moment where it began. It's probably not that exact moment, but that's close. That's a long time ago. And it was exactly what is characteristic of today, which is no, no grace, no sense of you made an honest mistake. We understand that's not what's in your heart. We're not stupid. We get it. No, today it's just like, I'm going to fake it.

Being very outraged at that, even though I know I'm not really not. And I'm not going to take into account the massive amount of evidence there is about you and your life prior to this. Well, that would take work looking into the past. Or just honesty, because in Cosell's case, it was pretty well known, at least in a general sense, where his sympathies were. Even in the late 1970s or whenever it was, that was a pretty clumsy thing to say. He should have been more aware. But he should also have been granted...

understanding. Hey, that was wrong. I'm sorry. It was a bad choice of words. But it says nothing about his motivations because he's got all kinds of merit badges on the other side of the thing. But it's kind of a precursor, don't you think? Yeah, I do. And you know what? Here's something you'll be interested in. Years later, HBO does a documentary about Cosell.

And somehow Ross Greenberg and his people at HBO found an obscure broadcast of a Northwestern football game that Mike Adam Lee was playing in. Mike Adam was like a five foot nine running back white guy.

And Cosell said that little monkey is really deceptively fat or something. OK, so which indicates, look, it's just a dopey, anachronistic thing that he said. Well, on behalf of all white people, I'm offended and I would like to start a lawsuit.

Now back to the Atlantic. I'm running from my paper. Joe McCarthy? No, I'm Neville Chamberlain in Munich. Herr Hitler promises me Germany is only interested in peace. What could go wrong if we trust Hitler?

No, that's not what this paper is. This is an Atlantic article. Okay. Gen Zers are more likely than members of previous generations to reject a strict gender binary altogether. True that. Yep. That was me talking. True that. Maintaining this binary in youth sports reinforces the idea, the idea.

That boys are inherently bigger, faster, and stronger. Yeah, that's just a notion. A crazy notion somebody had. In a competitive setting. A notion that's been challenged by scientists for years. Where? Where are these scientists? Professor Pepperwinkle from Superman? Where are the scientists? I mean, again, Atlantic...

Everybody, we were just, Bob and I were just talking about the fact that you can have a bad day. Sometimes you just don't have your fastball. I'm working on the knuckle curve. But seriously, you printed this on paper, like you typeset this and you looked at it, and you weren't high. May I continue? Decades of research have shown that sex is more complex than we may think. Okay, again, starting off with a banality no one disagree with. And those sex differences in sports show advantages for men, right?

Researchers still don't know how much of this is due attributable to biological difference versus the lack of support provided to women athletes to reach their highest potential. Right. I bring this paragraph up because in 2002, you were doing your show on HBO, the first version of it. Yep.

I did a piece for it on Title IX. Yes, you did. Title IX. Would you like to explain Title IX, Bob Costas? Well, Title IX, which was a progressive piece of legislation in the best sense of the word. Again, progressive. In the old sense. In the Nixon administration. The old bad progressives. Basically created equality in scholastic sports. What? What?

that funds and resources would go towards girls' and women's sports in equal measure to men. It was 1971, Nixon was president, and it basically said you have to... Now, there was a downside to it, which is part of my piece I did on your show in 2002. By saying that you have to devote equal...

funding to women's sports as well as men's, there's a lot of women who didn't want to wake up at 5 a.m. to row in a canoe. So they would just get rid of the men's team because you had to have equal. That was a consequence. It was sort of a precursor of what equity is. It's not the same thing as equality. Equity is this, like, okay, well, we have to be equal so we get rid of... Here's what we have. In one generation,

I wasn't the world's greatest athlete, a little better than some people might assume. I wasn't a bad street, you know, stickball player or basketball in the backyard. Yeah. But but clearly I wasn't going to get a college scholarship. But the point is that I played lots of organized sports. My sister, two years younger than me, played none.

I have a son and a daughter, and my daughter played pretty much the same number of organized sports within a school setting as my son did. That's in one generation. That's real progress. That's a great thing. No one can say it isn't a great thing. It's just, I mean, women just don't want to do the exact same things as men. The fact that we have to explain this. As a group. Just...

The fact that we have to explain this to children who have taken over the Internet is ridiculous. Let's take the Atlantic's position, or at least that writer in the Atlantic's position, to its logical conclusion. Then it should be this. Hey, why don't we just have one basketball team at Ohio State or at UCLA, and everybody goes out for the team? Can you imagine what would happen if the worst NBA team... And again, this is...

if you think this is some sort of put down of women, it's a put down of God or whoever created this species, you know, and women obviously have other attributes that we don't have. Hopefully it evens out. This is just one where it's undeniable. We're different. We are stronger and bigger and taller. And if LeBron James team, which is not even in the playoffs yet played against the best team in the WNBA, it would be,

Stop the fight. Yes. I mean, what would the score be? Yes, this is just reality. It's just reality. Maybe the better example to give is an individual sport. And even Serena Williams, I believe, has acknowledged this. She has. Serena Williams has said... Serena Williams, the greatest female tennis player, arguably, in history, would not be among the 50 best men among her contemporaries. Maybe that's generous. McEnroe said the best 700. You know, McEnroe sometimes makes...

provocative statements, but we like John. Hey, we own a pot store together. Don't you talk to him. No, no. Last time I saw him was backstage at your show at the Hulu Theater at Madison Square Garden. The Woods. Woody Halton's going to love me for this. But yes, I do have a pot store. And I mean, we share it. It's mostly his. I'm trying to get more. But the Woods. You know, look, distinctions matter. So here's an issue related to that.

The women's soccer team, the U.S. women's soccer team, has for a long time lobbied for equal resources and equal pay. And the reflexive argument coming from the right or anti-Wolksters is to say, wait a minute, they're not as good as the men. And the men's World Cup generates X times more money than the women's World Cup. Yes, this would be a good argument in Brazil. This would be a good, really. But it's not a good argument here.

because it's a pretty simple Google search if you haven't been paying attention. The U.S. men can't even get into the quarterfinals. The women win the World Cup, and they win the Olympic gold medal on a regular basis. Even if you think Megan Rapinoe is at times a little obnoxious, that has nothing to do with it. In this particular context...

They deserve to be compensated. Who's Megan Rapinoe? Megan Rapinoe is the most prominent player on the women's team. Purple hair, you know, very outspoken. I knew that, Bob. I was testing you. Yeah. So, you know. I don't watch women's sports. And if you think that's sexist, let me put this into the mix. I also don't watch college sports.

I watch pro sports. I already think that I spend too much time watching. You're not going to watch the final four? I don't watch any basketball. Did you watch Bird and Magic when they were in college? Absolutely not. You waited for them to get to the NBA. You didn't even know who they were. Who's this guy on the Celtics and who's this guy on the Lakers? When I already feel I waste too much time watching sports and have wasted too much of my life watching sports, the last thing in the world I want to do is increase my

my amount of sports I have to monitor. I watch the American sports, not hockey, not soccer. I watch baseball, football, and basketball, and only the playoffs in each one, really. Well, football I watch on Sunday, but it's only... You watch the Mets. It's only once a week. You watch the Mets. Plus Monday, plus Thursday.

Right. Sometimes on Saturday. But other than that, it's only one per week. By the way, at the Olympics, which I know a bit about. By the way. At the Olympics, I'm watching the women's track and field. I'm watching the women's gymnastics. I'm watching the women's soccer in that context. That's you. I'm me. I don't. I watch. I only. I want to watch less. So I'm only going to watch the toppity top of the best. The playoffs of the best players. Okay. That's what I'm going to watch. And.

I'm sorry, that does not include college. The best players from college will make it to the pros, and then I'll watch them. And women's sports is very good for, you know, but it's a different level. And I'm used to the NBA level, and it's different, and I'm allowed to make that choice without being the bad guy. I am glad. There's lots of people who don't watch my show. What's your fucking excuse?

I'm glad that there's a WNBA because these women deserve a place to play and be rewarded to whatever extent. They deserve a place to play beyond college, and there's an audience for it. But no one should apologize or scold somebody because the audience for that is not as large as for the NBA because, as Bill Burr has pointed out, the female audience for the WNBA is not as large as the female audience for the NBA. That's right.

That's just in the stands. All right, let me finish here on this. The strict segregation we've instilled in sports at all levels gives the impression that men and women have completely different capabilities. Again, this is a quote from someone, but obviously someone they find credible. The fact that you would write this down on a piece of paper just astounds me. The strict segregation gives the impression

These are ideas, impressions. How about this one? The researchers hypothesize that the gap they did find between girls and boys was likely due to socialization. Yeah. Socialization. That's why the NBA and the WNBA are so different. It's what happened in high school. We're talking about also at the elite level. Alison Felix, fastest woman in the world,

runs faster than 99.999% of all men, but not as fast as Usain Bolt. Not as fast as high school runners who are men. Well, she's pretty, you know, some of them, some of them. Maybe that's not right, but I've heard people in the know, maybe they don't know, tell me that that's the case, that male, the top male high school runners, and I don't know why they wouldn't, because you're probably the best you are when you're in high school, I mean, you're 18.

Yeah, you get additional training, whatever.

Alison Felix would not have a gold medal. She wouldn't even be in the field. But how can we solve our problems when we're like stuck debating things that shouldn't be debatable to begin with? Right. Like you can't like we it's like being stuck in that place in a relationship where like we can't get back to the bliss because we're still arguing about what happened in the diner.

But look, if I have to restipulate this, then I will. I am really glad that my daughter got to play. It was a great, she had a great time. It's a socialization thing. It was fun. And there are levels of skill. She got coaching. She got better at it. This is a good experience. And I'm glad that there's a place at the Olympic level and at the professional level for people to pursue it. I applaud it. I admire it. And I watch a fair amount of it. But

If we're going to go where this wants us to go, then women's sports is dead because they'll be playing against boys and men. Well, it's the opposite of Title IX, which was the reason I brought. Yes. And then that it just epitomizes that here I am in 2002 doing this thing about on your show about Title IX. I remember. Which at the time all liberals thought was the greatest thing in the world. And I still think it's great. I do, too. And but what the woke again, not what liberalism is.

So you can have your thing. Just don't take our word because you are a different thing. You are not the same thing. So you can't have the word. It's I can name 10 different examples of this where woke is not building on liberalism. It's the opposite of liberalism.

Yeah, it's not by degree. It's different in kind. Elizabeth Warren or Bernie Sanders may be by degree further along a certain track than other liberals. But a lot of what we now call woke is an entirely different mindset. It's entirely different. I saw LZ Granderson the other night. I don't know him, but I've read a lot of his stuff in the L.A. Times and I've seen him on television. And generally, I certainly respect him.

But he was making the point that the meaning of woke has been distorted. And what woke used to mean was a certain awareness. So if you were a woke white person. Alert to injustice. Alert to injustice. The woke white person was aware that with the Civil Rights Act, racism didn't end.

was aware and empathetic and observant to all these little nuances. That was woke. But now, despite LZ's protestations, it's been hijacked to mean something else. And he can't pull it back. So when you say woke,

We know you're not talking about that. We're good with the original definition, but we're somewhat at odds with those who claim now to be woke. And this is why when you call a game, it is different because you use words like protestations and like the combination of like a baseball game, which is very old school.

And then somebody who's like debonair and sophisticated and bringing that to a baseball game is just, it's just, it's just one of those do-si-dos that its days are numbered because people are, people just get continually less sophisticated, less intelligent.

And, you know, I mean, I'm hanging on to my audience, but it's not, it doesn't, it doesn't not worry me that the country, people coming out of school get dumber and dumber and know less and less and can read less and don't read. They only scroll. And this is just not good for people who like want to like engage people on this sort of level, which you engage them on, like somebody like me is your perfect audience member.

for calling a baseball game because I'm getting a baseball game, but I'm also getting these sort of witty repartee. It's like Cary Grant is doing the baseball game, you know, or Noel Coward or something. Yeah, that's a little much. Even your partner in the broadcast booth doesn't know what you're talking about. You're making these jokes and these references and he's like, yeah, Bob,

Well, that's why I specifically wanted to work with Ron Darling, Yale graduate. He is good. Roughly of my generation. Yes. We get each other's references. The thing is, we need to do a few more games together to fall into a rhythm. I always say that one of the ways you can tell if your relationship is working

is if you can watch a movie with your partner in bed, preferably after you've had sexual intercourse, because then you're in a good mood. Nobody's crabby. Unless you have to go to the knuckle curve too often. I know.

Bob, as long as you can get battered out. Okay. All right. All right. Who's that man who won the Cy Young and then they traded him to Trey? R.A. Dickey. R.A. Dickey. Dickey. Okay. But he was a right-hander, not a left-hander. His name is Dickey. I think I've made my point. But if you can watch a movie with someone and...

Now, one of the joys of watching a movie with someone as opposed to alone is that you can comment on it. If it's terrible, you can share laughs about how funny it is and how superior you are to the people who wrote this movie. And it becomes a very bonding experience. I mean, if you're newly bonding or if you have bonded for a while, this is like, hey, we are laughing at the same piece of shit. Yeah.

Don't you remember, especially when you were younger, the movie you took someone you were dating to, the first movie you saw with that girl? Not so much a thing now because you're getting Netflix and everything else. But, you know, when you're 20 years old and you're taking a girl out on a date, you remember what movie you took her to. The French Connection. I remember it. It was January 7th, 1972.

I remember it was my first date. I won't say the girl's name because she probably wants to hide from fame. But I haven't talked to her really since we broke up. I would love to connect people who are like in the 21st century or on Facebook and do this. But, you know, you never forget your first love.

So I'm just putting it out there in a bottle in the oven. You know, let me say this, Bill. If she wants to find you, you're findable. Yeah, she doesn't want to find me. Yeah. But we had a wonderful year in three months. And then I guess the acting is so...

Not hard, Bob. But what was I talking about before that? I really wanted, it was very important to me. Oh, a frame of reference and whatnot. And the point that I was going to make is there are a lot of people out there now that, you know, references and something I said or a word that I used. There are a lot of people now, if it's not in their frame of reference,

They resent it. It's not just I don't get it. Wait a minute. He referred to something. Absolutely. I'm 25 years old. He referred to something that's pertinent and connected. But it happened in 1956. Not only am I not engaged by that, but it's stupid that he said that. This is always happening on TMZ where I get all my news. Oh, well.

All my TV news. I stopped watching cable news, basically. It's just too, it's too, it's too, it's too much. But TMZ, I love. I love Harvey. He's going to be on this show soon. Really? Yes. And I feel like it engages me with exactly what, like, the average person would.

Yes, they're mostly interested in gossip, but they will cover stories that bleed over into the popular culture. They break some stories. And it's Harvey who is like, he's the character in the play who I relate to. And then there's like all these millennials who are his reporters. And like, they just say some very stupid things. You know, it's exactly what you were talking about. And like, I just want to shout at the TV when Harvey knows something that they don't. And they're like,

You're the asshole. And I exactly say, wait, I'm the asshole because I know something you don't that makes me the asshole. And you resent it or you feel challenged by it. But look, this has to be somewhat generational. It's totally generational. The way a lot of this stuff has rewired people's minds and sensibilities, because if it's 1965 and I'm 13 years old and you say to me, who was Rudolph Valentino? I knew. I mean, I might not have known as much as.

as much as Mankiewicz on Turner Classic Movies does. And it interested me. Yes. And by the way, to the 15% or 20%, if I'm lucky, of young people who find a show like this engaging and interesting,

It's not everybody. Most of them are like that, but there's a certain percentage of kids who are the same as we were, which is when we heard something we didn't know, it didn't make us go, what stupid thing that could be. I don't know about it. It made us go, what's that?

and want to know more. And I looked up to people who knew more than I did, who were older than me. You wanted to be around them. You don't want to be some fucking other 17-year-old loser masturbating in his bedroom. You want to be around them. You remember how every family, if they could, every striving middle-class family,

had the Encyclopedia Britannica or the Collier's Encyclopedia. World Book. We had the World Book. You spent the 300 bucks or whatever it was of your dad's hard-earned money. Yes, it was a big expenditure. But it was there. Right. And so your dad would say, if you asked a question, he didn't know the answer. Go look it up.

Go look it up. That was our Google. Yes. But you had to work a little bit. Right. And see, the stupid young people look at that and go, oh, my God, that's so hard. Yeah, well, it was life. You know, things happen before you were born. And, you know, but the smart kids are like, oh, that's interesting. Well, how about this? And it's interesting that they got smarter than we did without Google.

Yeah. Yeah. Maybe just something to look into. Or at least in their self-contentment, they can think that. Here's an example. Game one of the series we were talking about, Yankees-Guardians, happened on October 11th last year. 74 years to the day. Mm-hmm.

that Cleveland last won the World Series in 1948. So I'm making a larger point. Here are the Yankees. They've won the World Series 27 times. They've won the pennant 40 times. Here is Cleveland. Now that the Red Sox, White Sox, and Cubs have broken through in the 21st century, Cleveland has waited the longest. Next year, it'll be three quarters of a century if they don't win this year. What did they win, 1948? 1948. So I say it's 74 years ago today that they last won the World Series.

And who was a rookie on that team? Ray Boone. He's Aaron Boone's grandfather. And there's Aaron Boone managing the Yankees. Now, to me, those are the kind of things when we were kids. Those are little baseball things that were interesting. That's what an announcer does. That's right. That's right. If somebody says, I don't care about the 1948 Indians. Yes. Then I kind of watch the game with some moron. I kind of think that's their problem. So what happened?

Then I moved on to the next thing. Oh, that's your story? And then a guy hit a ground ball to second base. That's all I had. So, listen, before I let you go, and I could do this all night, but I probably will do this all night. But I have to, because you're Mr. Sports. This has been mostly all sports. You're Mr. Sports and I'm Mr. Smoke. Mr. Sports and Mr. Smoke have to talk about this.

Okay, I was apoplectically angry at the end of the Super Bowl. I mean...

I know it's not something that should engage me for even two seconds because, again, I wish I could watch zero sports because I feel like it's an addiction that was put into me as a kid. You know what? I also did this feeling about it. You need things that are completely mindless, that don't mean anything to de-stress you and relax you. So, okay, I'm not that – On the other hand, at its best, it's a showcase of excellence. I –

That too. And it's just interesting. It's programming. It's a drama without a script. It's a drama. It's great. And it's from my childhood and whatever makes me feel good. I'm not getting rid of it, no matter what deep acts it. I'm just not. And I feel like I have... Do I watch nearly as much as a sports nut? No, but I watch a lot. So I don't really want to watch a lot, but football...

It'd be hard to give up. So I'm not going to like sit here and pretend. I'm going to stop watching because some things you do annoy me. But could I just tell you? Yes. Some things that really annoy me. One, this rule about a guy makes an incredible catch on the sidelines. I mean, just this amazing ballet in motion move.

And they have to Zapruder film it and watch it nine times. And if the ball moves like an angstrom unit while he's holding on to it,

Close enough. And so they nullified this gorgeous athletic play that no one could ever do any better. And it just makes me fucking hate football, hate Roger Goodell, hate every... It just makes me hate for a minute until the commercial... What instant replay in all sports was originally designed to do was to correct egregiously missed calls.

which you could see were missed on the first replay, especially in the most important games. Tell that to Kentucky, egregiously. Yeah. You know what I love? One of the things I love about you is like, you'll say that and then you'll say, and I'm in Birmingham, Alabama tomorrow night. Actually, did I read my plugs? I guess I did. Okay. All right. Yeah. Complaint two. Yes. The end of the Super Bowl. The holding call?

I just, I, you know, I did not go to any Super Bowl parties that had nothing to do with the fact that I was not invited to any. I could have shoved my way into a number of Super Bowl parties. I chose not to. Okay. But I was super happy to be home because, you know, when you go to a party and I've been to two Super Bowls in person and it's like,

You don't really watch the game. It's about... We watched it with another couple. It's about shrimp. We had a nice dinner. The guy, though, is a huge Phillies, Philadelphia fan, so he was unhappy about the Eagles, but okay. If you're eating shrimp and watching a game, you're not watching a game. You're eating shrimp. You can't do both. So, okay. So I'm watching at home, thrilled about that, and...

you know it was 35 35 so like something like unlike some super bowls which are blowouts which are uninteresting it's a great game it's a it right just what you want like i have no rooting interest in either of these cities i could give a fuck the giant if the giants or the jets aren't in it i don't give a shit who wins i just want to see a good game and what one team like oh we're down we're going to come back and that's what happened and the jets haven't been in it since 1969

Yeah. And we're not hopeful. Joe Namath. Yeah. Anyway, where were you? So the last play comes and they just took away a great dramatic ending because some dick...

in his zebra outfit thinks that he is more important or like the letter of the law. I don't know what was going through this guy's mind, but this is the, the ultimate, the penultimate moment of the big game of the year. All these people have set aside this day. We've all invested this much time in the game. You know, it's, it's,

Of course, if it's an egregious, as you say, foul, but at that moment, at that time, and why the other refs couldn't have said, you know what?

We all get it wrong. We all sometimes don't have our good fastball. We're all working on a knuckle curve. He got it wrong. And let's play the rest of the game as it should be played, fair and square between the gladiators who are doing the job. A general rule in sports has been for officials, umpires, that you try to let the players decide the game. Exactly. Block or charge could be called on a huge number of plays, a guy driving through the lane in the NBA. Right.

In the fourth quarter, again, unless it's obvious, you want to let them play. You don't want the game decided at the foul line.

You don't want to call a balk in the ninth inning of the seventh game of the World Series unless it's a blatant balk. Correct. I remember a game, and this may lose a portion of your audience, but you remember it because it involved the Mets. Who lose my audience? How bad is the story? 1999, LCS. I'm doing it with Joe Morgan on NBC. It's the Braves and the Mets. Okay. Game six, the Mets come back from a big deficit. Game goes to extra innings.

The Braves load the bases in the bottom of the 10th or 11th. Kenny Rogers is pitching for the Mets. Kenny Rogers. Andrew Jones is up for the Braves. Not the gambler guy. No, not that guy. Not the gambler guy. Not the Kenny Rogers and the first edition guy. No, this is the left-hander. This guy was pitching for the Mets? With the Texas Rangers. Oh, that Kenny Rogers. Yeah. Was with the Rangers. Now he's with the Mets. Okay. And so Andrew Jones is up.

And the count goes to three balls and either 3-0 or 3-1. I think maybe 3-0. And the next pitch is a little bit high and a little bit outside. And it's called a strike. It's the right thing to do. The ump does not want the pennant decided on a walk in that situation. It's a little bit. I mean, you could have called it a strike. You could have called it a ball. I see. It looked to me like a ball.

a pitch that would be called a ball most of the time. But he's going to let the players decide. And then Kenny Rogers, given that reprieve, threw one way out of the strike zone on the next pitch and the season was over for the Mets. And he walked in the winning run and that was the end of it. But at least you didn't

feel like something that was marginal took it away. When these two teams had gone to the wall all season long and all series long, let them decide it. That's an interesting... That holding call was the only holding call in the whole game against either team, offense or defense, and it had no effect on the play. I would have felt so much better if I could have called you and heard that Kenny Rogers... You have my number. I don't know.

I know, but like, Bob, could you comfort me at the end of the Super Bowl with a Kenny Rogers story? I mean, it's no gift of the Magi, but I feel like it really helps me. Kenny Rogers. Remember Kenny Rogers on the first edition? Ruby, don't take your love to town. Oh, yes. There's an extraneous reference. Yes, I know it very well. We're deep in the minutia now. It was a Vietnam song. Yeah, that's right. The soldier's gone off to war. Comes back.

I definitely had that taped on my little Wallensack tape recorder that I could tape songs off the radio. That's how I listened to music. I taped them off the radio. Yeah. Even though Cousin Brucie was more famous, Dan Ingram was the best talkover guy ever. I know. He would hit the instrumental butting up against the vocal for the millisecond. And he was witty. Yes, he was very witty. Even as a child who was looking to be a comedian, I knew, and I say child, I was like 12 when I started listening to the radio.

I gravitated toward Dan Ingram. He was sardonic. Anyway, did you have a good time here at Club Random? I did. It was everything I thought it would be. As long as you set the bar at medium height, it was probably everything you thought it should be. Do you have anything to plug? No, I have nothing to plug. I had a whole Fox News CNN thing that I was going to load up on, but it can wait.

Let's hear it. What do you mean? What are you talking about? Now I'm intrigued. It's a false equivalency. Fox News, CNN? Yeah. Who makes that equivalent? Usually it's Fox News, MSNBC. That's an equivalency. False, yes, false. Even there, MSNBC, while they're certainly ideological, they're much more fact-based. There's a much more journalistic ethos there. I've made the same point. Absolutely. And CNN, for whatever its flaws and flaws,

blind spots might be. And there are certain things that don't fit a narrative that they're not comfortable introducing, even though they're factual and pertinent. That happens sometimes at CNN. But if you watched, if you were someone from outer space and somehow you understood English and you watch CNN for a week,

and you watched Fox for a week, you'd have a much better understanding of what was happening in the world from watching CNN than from watching Fox. And what's happened lately with the Dominion thing and the lawsuit and all this stuff that's come out, all that is is what has been obvious to any reasonable person all along writ large. Right.

You know, and Greg Gutfeld may be a very nice guy. I saw his club random with you. Maybe a nice guy to hang around with. But I heard him say once with a straight face, the difference between us and CNN is we apply the same principle no matter what the situation is.

Want to talk about a moment for a spit take? Are you kidding me? Are you kidding me? You who not only covered for Donald Trump, not you, Greg Gutfeld, but you and the whole thing, not only covered for Donald Trump, but demonized anyone who dared to criticize him, even when they had all the evidence at hand. I couldn't agree more. You guys are so in the bag and such a propaganda outfit that the idea that, as you know, one of the kind of articles of faith

with Fox and their viewers is the mainstream media, the mainstream media. The mainstream media is flawed and could use a course of correction. But the idea that you're getting this instruction from Fox News is perverse. Yeah. Oh, I agree with all that, Bob. There you go. So we end on a note of agreement. No, I do. When they came into existence in the mid-90s, they had a chance.

You remember Bernie Goldberg? He used to be on CBS News and for a long time was on Real Sports with Brian Gumbel. Yeah, yeah. A thoughtful conservative. Bernie wrote a book called Bias back in the 90s. And his premise was that there were good journalists, Dan Rather, Walter Cronkite, people he worked with at CBS, people at 60 Minutes. But there was an implicit leaning left bias at CBS and other places.

He didn't think it was malicious, but he thought that it got in the way of bullseye journalism. And he tried to present a corrective. If that was the guiding principle of Fox News when they came into existence in the mid-90s, that not only would have been okay, that would have been a great thing. Here's a thoughtful, honest answer.

journalistically responsible right of center alternative. This is the wall street journal of the air, but it's gotta be entertaining because it's television. So we'll have some lively personalities. That's not the way it went. There's a new phrase. They use advocacy journalism. Have you heard that? Yes. And so it's just another example of them saying the quiet part out loud that like, we're not, I mean, the New York times, uh,

used to try to be right down the just the facts and the news that fits the print. And now it's like the people in that newsroom who are of a different generation than us and just think we're wrong automatically because we're not in their generation because obviously younger people know more than older people. That only makes common sense. But they...

Like, they're not trying not to be advocacy journalism. They see that as the paper has a mission, and it's advocacy journalism. Okay, that's fine, but it's not what you... But that's what the op-ed page is for. Right, exactly. That's how it used to be. And by the way... And on the right, they have long been doing this. You know, I mean, the New York Post and, you know, it was just...

It's entertaining, and I think sometimes they have things in there that are more accurate than the New York Times. But they also are reflectively, everything Biden does is horrible, and it's just so boring and tedious to be that way. It's just so obvious and predictable. It's completely predictable. Everything he does is horrible. One of the reasons why, and I'm not saying this because I'm sitting here,

You and I have been on the same page basically for a long time. We have. And we've commiserated about it on many occasions. And one of the reasons why I think that you're an important social commentator is that we cannot predict where you're going to come down except that where you're going to come down is in opposition to stuff that is just not common sense. Exactly. That is just at odds with common sense. There are people who are very funny, who I admire.

Um, who I can tell you, if you said this is their topic this week, I know what their take is. And some of them are, and it's very, some of them are people we both would admire for their careers. We won't mention names, but I would say the main difference between me and everybody else who does this kind of thing is,

I am willing to lose audience. And they are not. I think that is actually whatever you've lost has also in turn drawn audience to you. This is what they're looking for. You've got to stick with your brand. The people that used to groan when you occasionally went off kind of the liberal gospel. Yes.

they're now gone and they've been replaced by people who applaud yes not reflexively because they're your fans but because they get your point yes exactly you know so that this this fox news fox news could have been a really good thing and i'm not saying that over time there weren't people there who said worthwhile things and there's so much idiocy on the left the

the extreme left, that it feeds them material on a daily basis. That's always my thing when people say, you know, why do you make fun of the left more? Because I'm a comedian and you're giving me material. Okay, pregnant men is funny. Right. You didn't used to give me material.

OK, a comedian is a guy with a divining rod and it's going to go where the comedy is. And this this is why the conservatives have to if this crowd has to recognize this. Yeah. Trump was unique.

Trump provided so much material. You can't expect Saturday Night Live. He's not gone. He's not gone. No, he was. But you can't expect Saturday Night Live or Jimmy Kimmel or whatever to do as much anti-Democrat stuff as anti-Trump stuff. Trump isn't Bob Dole. He isn't Mitt Romney. He was a comedy bonanza. Exactly. As tragic and awful as it was. Right. He was everything. A comedy bonanza. Stupid and crazy and racist and...

And horny. And fucking his daughter. Mushroom dick. Whatever. Those were the jokes. And Melania was like, I always tell my writers, you know some of my writers. Yeah, I do. There's a thing called, I call it writer's room disease, where they do a joke and maybe it works or something because we explained enough to make it work. And then they take it as a premise that now everyone understands. For example, Melania. Yeah.

came in a crate. In their world, everyone understands the concept that she can... I understand where it comes from. She's the bar and mail order bride. But then they start doing jokes on jokes. We all know it's a crate. Right.

But we don't all know it's a crate. You're the goalie. You've got to make sure that what gets through is what will resonate with enough of the audience. I'm sure you've heard this. You want to get up and end this, but now I'm on a roll. Five minutes and we're done. It's my show now. It's all random. The idea... I wish I was on your later...

Boy, when I think of how much that meant to me in 1994, I felt like I'd more than even the Tonight Show. I really arrived because it was like a, you know, it was a very prestigious thing. It was a one on one. It was it was shows like that anymore. I don't know if it would be successful anymore. I've never missed an episode.

Especially the rock stars. YouTube. You put in Bill Maher on Later. It's on YouTube. Oh, I can't. The first time I spoke with you was after I interviewed Paul McCartney. And you called me to tell me how much you admired it. But you were such a Beatles expert that you started pointing out things that I'd missed.

I don't remember that. Yeah, but it was an appreciative call. I don't even remember Paul McCartney. I remember you talking to Glenn Frey. Yeah. I don't know why I remember this, but I remember you asking him, like, John Henley, and he...

it was like so diplomatic, you're an important artist. Right. And like, wow, that's, that's where they are in their relationship. But it was, I think right before they got back on tour, maybe that was to promote the tour. Cause 94, the Eagles got back together right around there. Hell freezes over tour. Right. That's right. Um, but I remember Paul Simon. Yeah. We did three with Paul. That they were awesome. I mean, I remember him saying, uh,

you said like, what songs do you, you know, do you not want to do anymore? It's like, well, I don't think I'd like to be singing Feeling Groovy in Las Vegas. And I Am A Rock. In whatever, you know. Yeah. I actually made a,

friendships grew out of that. People I had never met before sat down and it was a different kind of program. That's why we're friends. Right. Lasting friendships decades later came out of later. One of the great perks of doing a talk show is that you get to meet almost everybody. And the secret though, is to make sure that if friendships do grow out of them, they grow organically.

Yes. Not like the first time, hey, what's your number? Let's have dinner and I want to meet your wife. It's like, it takes years. If you like them, they come on your show again. And then over time, it's like, I don't know, things just happen. I mean, I remember Salman Rushdie and I were once at a bar and somebody came up to us and said, hey, it's great to see you guys. I'm a fan of you both. And like, how long have you been friends? And we went,

You know, neither one of us could come up with the answer because it was organic. Now, I don't know. I shouldn't even say this, but that kind of ties into something we were talking about a while ago. In 1989, Blue Jays are playing the A's in the American League Championship Series, and the Blue Jays lose the first two games in Oakland. And

They're down by four runs, and Eckersley comes in in the ninth inning. And I say, they put his stats up on the screen and the microscopic ERA and all the rest. And I say, boy, all things considered, Elvis has a better chance of coming back than the Blue Jays. So now the Toronto fans are nuts. Toronto fans are nuts. They already think the American announcers are against them. And I get off the plane in Toronto, and it's like that scene in King Kong where the old-time photographers are...

Stop, stop. He thinks you're trying to hurt the girl. And so there's on the back page of the tabloids the next day, it's an off day in the series, Jays hater Bob Costas disembarks in Toronto. Okay, so game three, the new SkyDome.

Radio station passes out 40,000 Bob Costas masks and they hold them up and they're supposed to poo me and the whole thing. Okay. And now I have to, I have to register under an assumed name at the hotel because they're going to get the getting death threats. And Tony Kubik says,

Boy, it's really reached a boiling point when you have to register under an assumed name. And I said, yeah. And when you feel safer registering as Salman Rushdie, things have taken an ugly turn. Tony Kubik said that? Yeah. No, I said the Salman Rushdie part. Kubik had the setup unwittingly. Tony Kubik was an announcer?

Tony Kubik was great. He was? Yes. I remember when I was a kid, he was the shortstop for the New York Yankees when I was a New York Yankee. He worked with Kurt Gowdy, Joe Garagiola, and then me at NBC. Tim McCarver was kind of an amalgam of Garagiola and Kubik, analyst and anecdotal guy. I remember in the Beatles documentary, they interview the, I forget, the publicity guy, I think, and he's talking about when Paul and John went to New York to...

Apple Corp was forming Apple. They had the word before the other Apple company, by the way. And he says, oh, and he went on The Tonight Show and Johnny Carson wasn't there that night. It was Joe DiMaggio. It was Joe Garciola. To a British guy, Joe DiMaggio. All right. I got to go. I got to go back to work.

Do we have an exit? Is there like a theme song? No, there's nothing. There's nothing.