SCARBOROUGH'S SCUMBAG ATTACK ON FETTERMAN 10.27.22

EPISODE 63: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN

A-Block (1:46) I cannot be certain which scumbag I hate more today: Joe Scarborough or Samuel Alito. It's amazing that a shameless venomous opportunist, whose behavior for 30 years implies a damaged psyche, has the nerve to attack and not celebrate the recovery from stroke of an honest politician (5:30) Scarborough is the political whore who tried to mainstream Trump on MSNBC yet never once asked him "Why do you say things that make no sense?" or "Have you had an aneurysm or concussion?" or "Have you used drugs that can interfere with or damage your cognitive ability?" (7:27) His attack on Fetterman is worse than it seems because for every American recovering from injury or illness, it is a slap in their face from a creature not worthy of any position of influence in this business or this society (10:30) And "Justice" Samuel Alito, who has now failed mathematics, history, and ethics, may still be worse after his self-martyring speech to a fascist group (15:20) Perhaps Alito can resign and be replaced by an attorney who once defended the murderer of an abortion doctor. The attorney was named Joe Scarborough.

B-Block (18:15) EVERY DOG HAS ITS DAY: Kodah, in New York (19:00) POSTSCRIPTS TO THE NEWS: Surprisingly good news for Dems in early voting numbers and the generic Congressional Ballot; the implication Kash Patel is willing to testify against Trump; Kanye crashes Skechers and gets shown out by security; Musk tries to float a joke only to see it sink; Another Herschel Walker abortion story (23:00) IN SPORTS: Boone stays, the new NYC Marathon chief may have togo, and they're not booing, they're chanting "Potvin Socks" (26:07) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: NewsNation TV and Louis DeJoy compete with National Review Online publishing the rants of a Pennsylvania Republican who wants genocide against Democrats for the honors.

C-Block (30:33) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: Back 43 years ago today, they actually banned Willie Mays for promoting gambling (rather than give him a big paycheck). At age 20 I had to interview him, and the bizarre way he answered his phone still resonates me - as does the bizarre way he was drafted by the army right after his big league debut and how that might have cost him the all-time Home Run Record.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:04):
Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of I Heart Radio.

(00:25):
I cannot be certain which scumbag I hate more today,
Joe Scarborough or Samuel Alito. The grotesque on feeling in human, arrogant, condescending,
holier than thou attacks on John Fetterman for not healing
fast enough from a stroke to please the slime of
our society like Joe Goddamn Scarborough almost defies description. John

(00:50):
Fetterman's ability to communicate, Scarborough wrote, is seriously impaired. Pennsylvania
voters will be talking about this obvious fact, even if
many in the media will not. This is painful to watch,
regardless of one's politics. Who in the hell do you
think you are? Scarborough? Everybody who has ever known you,

(01:13):
anybody who has ever known any of the ten or
twenty different Joe Scarborough's who have darkened our horizons. Everybody
knows your ability to communicate has been seriously impaired for
thirty years. Never mind Joe Scarborough's impenetrable dialect and frequent mallepropisms.

(01:34):
What he has said through the length of his public
career has been painful to watch, regardless of one's politics,
and it has rarely been the same thing twice. Things
he has said have not been honest, they have not
been true, they have not been consistent, They have not
been anything but self serving and destructive. And unlike John Fetterman,

(01:55):
who in his debate Tuesday night, was about ten times
as coherent as herschel Walker and twenty times as coherent
as Donald Trump, and who was still less painful to
listen to than a mement oz claiming that a woman's
fundamental right to have an abortion should be decided by herself,
her doctor, and local political leaders. Unlike John Fetterman, who

(02:16):
has gotten better, is better, and who is getting better still.
There are no mitigating factors for the impenetrable unintelligibility of
Joe Scarborough and the fact that he has not been
the same person for three consecutive years running. At any
time in the last three decades, there are no mitigating

(02:36):
factors for whatever is going on in Joe Scarborough's mind
at the moment, or is not going on there. First,
Joe Scarborough was a doctrinaire prostitute for NEWT Gingrich, regurgitating
poorly memorized buzzwords on the house floor, pushing the Gingrich
contract on America and perpetrating the assault on democracy that

(02:58):
was the Clinton impeachment. Then Joe Scarborough suddenly and without explanation,
quit Congress. Then Joe Scarborough resurfaced on MSNBC spewing the
standard diseased mind garbage of an antidemocracy Republican on television,
while off television, constantly lobbying management for favors for Republican friends,

(03:21):
calling the Democrats quote the party on the side of
death unquote, interfering with what was said, and who appeared
on other shows on his network, threatening to accuse his
own employers of prejudice against him because he was a Conservative,
attacking his co workers in public and getting away with
it though it was a violation of NBC rules. Then

(03:42):
he stopped thinking that way too. Suddenly, and without logic
or explanation, Joe Scarborough morphed overnight again from right wing
primetime firebrand to calm and sage mourning. Both sides are
the transformation defied logic and defied the orderly processes of
an uninjured mind, and it was not the last transformation.

(04:04):
Sudden Scarborough re re reinvented himself as the man who
was going to mainstream Donald Trump to the MSNBC audience
in two thousand fifteen and two thousand sixteen, and in
that whitewashing of Trump, Scarborough never once addressed the obvious
fact that Donald Trump's brain has never worked correctly, and

(04:24):
whatever has been secretly wrong with it for decades, it
worsened perilously no more than ten years ago. Joe Scarborough
never once asked Trump, why do you say things that
make no sense? He never asked have you had an
aneurysm or concussion? He never asked have you used drugs,
Mr Trump that can interfere with or damage your cognitive ability?

(04:48):
Scarborough never once said Donald Trump's ability to communicate is
seriously impaired. Voters will be talking about this obvious fact,
even if many in the media will not. Then, after
months of desperately positioning t as a realistic candidate for
president and not insane, nor dictatorial nor threat to everything

(05:11):
America stands for, after months of seeing Trump in private,
after months of advising Trump in secret, suddenly and without explanations,
Scarborough's mind abruptly changed again, a re re re re
reinvention as a fervent never Trumper, and just as quickly
as if there were no copies of his fawning interviews

(05:33):
with Trump, or his vacuous wife's fawning interviews with Trump,
or their sycophatic visits with Trump, or the infamous photo
of Scarborough and Trump both doing Trump's inane thumbs up gesture.
Scarborough tried to pretend, believed in his own dubious mind
that nobody would ever remember that during the critical months
in which the media transformed Trump from an unacceptable destroyer

(05:56):
into just an eccentric rule breaker, that he Scarborough had
been one of Trump's many media whore And Joe Scarborough's
attack on John Fetterman is somehow even worse than it seems,
because for every American, every human being recovering from any illness,
any injury, any physical problem, any emotional problems, but especially

(06:20):
as stroke or an aneurysm or Alzheimer's or just a concussion,
Joe Scarborough's attack on John Fetterman was a slap to
all their faces. The brain is fragile, incredibly precise, incredibly resilient,
and John Fetterman's performance Tuesday Night was miraculous and inspirational,

(06:45):
especially if you have ever been touched, even in the
mildest of ways by head trauma. I have told this
story before. At the age of twenty one, I stupidly
ran headfirst into the side of a New York City
subway train. Fortunately I escaped with nothing more than a
serious concussion. Nearly all the symptom is cleared within six months,

(07:06):
but some pertaining to depth, perception and vision are now
in their forty second year. And I do ocular muscle
exercises that helped considerably. In fact, I did them this morning,
but less than an hour after I hit my head.
At the emergency room in Elmhurst Hospital in Queens, I

(07:27):
was asked at the desk to provide a family contact.
I selected my father. I gave them his likely whereabouts
with no problem. I gave them his phone number with
no problem. I gave them his name, Theodore, with no problem.
And then the nurse asked me for my full name,
and I could not, for the life of me remember

(07:47):
my middle name Keith something. My middle name is Theodore.
The brain is so fragile and its functions so delicate
and so precise, that I could, immediately after a series
is concussion remember that my father's name was Theodore. But

(08:08):
it took me literally hours before it came back to
me that my own middle name was Theodore. And instead
of looking at John Fetterman and saying he's still fighting it,
but god damnit, his recovery is astonishing. Joe wholier than
thou Scarborough, Joe quit congress Scarborough, Joe break up other
people's marriages Scarborough, Joe, don't ask Trump I be stoned

(08:32):
or brain damaged. Scarborough, Joe, my brain won't let me
be the same person. Three years in a row. Scarborough
attacked Vetterman, attacked people who criticized him for attacking Fetterman,
attacked the media who would not attack Vetterman, and then
welcomed as a guest on his show a man who
used to literally pretend to have hearing and vision problems

(08:55):
in order to get away with interrupting his guests, sabotaging
his co hosts, and making inappropriate remarks to women. Chris
Matthews scumbag. Joe Scarborough scumbag, and I'm still not certain
he's worse than Samuel Alito addressing the Heritage Foundation and

(09:20):
what in the hell is a Supreme Court justice or
a part time judge in the smallest county in this
country doing Addressing a right wing semi fascist advocacy group.
Addressing the Heritage Foundation, Justice Alito revealed he is not
merely the most dishonest man in America, but potentially the stupidest.

(09:42):
The leak of his draft, in which he lied and
overturned Roe v. Wade anyway quote, was a grave betrayal
of trust by somebody. The leak also made those of
us who were thought to be in the majority in
supportive overruling Row and Casey targets for assassination, because it

(10:02):
gave people a rational reason to think they could prevent
that from happening by killing one of us. Putting a
sign for the moment, the fact that the only individual
whoever took any steps towards that calamity stopped himself, called
the cops, told them he was suicidal, and asked them

(10:22):
to come get him before he did a terrible thing,
Putting that aside for a moment. The vote in the
court was six to three if any one of the
six had stopped being a Supreme Court justice by dint
of death, resignation, impeachment, fleeing the country over his wife's
role in the coup. Whatever the vote, would still have

(10:46):
been five to four unless Sam Alito, you know something
about that vote and the leak and who leaked it
and why that you are not telling us, like if
the leak came from your clerk's office or Thomas's clerk's
office or coney Arit's clerk's office. And Alito has also

(11:09):
lied again. He said he welcomed criticism of the Court's decision.
That's why he gave the speech in Rome, trying to
humiliate everybody who criticized the Court's decision. I guess, but
quote to say that the Court is exhibiting a lack
of integrity is quite different. That goes to character, not
a disagreement with the result or the reasoning. It goes

(11:30):
to character. Someone also crosses an important line when they
say that the Court is acting in a way that
is illegitimate. That's not just ordinary criticism. If you tell
the Senate you believe in precedent and privacy, and you
tell Ted Kennedy to his face to ignore your previous
memos attacking Roe v. Wade because you were just ambitiously

(11:51):
angling for promotion in the Reagan administration, and then you
overturn Roe v. Wade. You don't have any character, you
don't have any legitimacy, you don't have any integrity. You
have have what were your words, Justice Alito, you have
a grave betrayal of trust. There is, in fact, no

(12:15):
excuse to permit the Supreme Court, excuse me, the Supreme
Republican Religious Court, to continue in its present form, nor
for Alito to continue to serve on it. Maybe he
can resign and we can replace him with Joe Scarborough.
You didn't know Scarborough was a lawyer. Sure, he was

(12:37):
the lawyer from Michael Frederick Griffin. And it was on
March that Michael Frederick Griffin went to the Pensacola Women's
Medical Services Clinic in Florida and waited for an abortion
provider named Dr David Gunn to walk past him, and
then he shot him three times with a shotgun in

(12:57):
the back. And the lawyer who defended Michael Frederick Griffin
was Joe Scarborough. Scumbag in the law, scumbag in Congress,
scumbag on television, to John Fetterman and to every American
who is differently abled. I'm not sure did I get

(13:34):
my point across there about him being a scumbag? Still
ahead uncountdown, Speaking of which herschel Walker pressured another woman
for another abortion. As a mock sign, somebody put up
yesterday says, if you're here for the herschel Walker rally,
please wait in the line on the left. If you're
here because herschel got you pregnant, please wait in the
line on the right. You know that supposedly neutral TV

(13:58):
network News Nation, the one Chris Cuomo washed up on,
just fired a reporter for asking the boss why they
carried a two hour Trump rally. Yeah, that's neutral. A
little problem for the new chief of the New York
City Marathon. She was once testing positive for performance enhancing drugs.

(14:18):
And it is the forte anniversary of the day. I
had to call a Hall of Fame athlete for an interview,
and he answered the phone in a falsetto voice, pretending
to be one of his own employees. That's next. This
is countdown. This is countdown. With Keith still ahead on countdown,

(14:50):
how many women did herschel Walker impregnate? Or to cut
to the chase. Next, The National Review Online quotes a
dr OZ voter whose male partner then says, all the
Democrats will be killed and they publish it anyway, waiting
for the Yankees to fire their manager. Keep waiting and

(15:11):
speaking of how many how many home runs would Willie
Mays have hit had he not been drafted in his
second season. First, In each edition of Countdown, we feature
a dog in need whom you can help. Every dog
has its day. Forgive me for fixating on the heartbreaking
news that the kill list at the New York Pound
has twenty five dogs on it, But can you help Coda?

(15:34):
Coda needs pledges to help a rescue save her in time.
After seven years, this playful and energetic forty pounder got
a little sick, wouldn't eat, so naturally, her humans took
her to the shelter to let her die. There. She's
recovered physically, and now she needs a bunch of angels.
Coda will be in the pinned tweet on my account
for Dogs in Need, Tom Jumbo Grumbo. Your donation, big

(15:56):
or small will be gratefully welcomed, as will your retweet
of Coda's story, and thank you very much. Poe. Scripts
to the news, some headlines, some inside, some snark. Dateline
Early voting headquarters The nd nd thank I Think Tank

(16:17):
reports early voting is sixteen percent higher than the surge
that led the Democrats to upset wins back in two
thousand eighteen. Than nationally, the early votes are even more
democratic than in it was fifty two percent Democrats it's
thus far this year. The state by state numbers are

(16:38):
also hopeful. In Texas, early voting in was in favor
of Republicans. This year, it's three in favor of Democrats.
Also morning consults Wednesday, Generic congressional ballot for Politico Democrats
forty seven, Republicans forty five. Dateline Washington, clarification on what

(17:00):
the Department of Justice wants out of Cash Patel testimony
about Trump's claims that he declassified all the stolen documents.
More importantly, The New York Times reports Patel's attorneys want
immunity for that, which means Patel is willing to testify
against Trump. Dateline Mari Lago Political reports they finally found

(17:22):
some Trump lawyer to accept the subpoena to testify before
the January six committee. Dateline Atlanta. Trump chief of staff
Mark Meadows, the human Voicemail of January six, has been
ordered to testify to the Georgia grand jury investigating Trump's
attempt to subvert the election outcome there via the Eastman coup.
Dateline Salt Lake City guests. The first Utah Senate debate

(17:45):
did not go so well for Senator Mike Insurrection Lee.
Fox News proposed a second debate between Lee and Evan McMullen,
and Lee has runaway hiding. Dateline Manhattan Beach, California. Boy,
were they surprised At the headquarters of Sketchers yesterday, Kanye
West walks in with cameraman recording, apparently looking for a

(18:08):
new shoe company to sell his sneakers after Adidas dumped him.
The Sketcher's people had him escorted out of the building
by guards. Obviously this ends with Kanye selling shoes door
to door, now what? Dateline San Francisco and at Twitter headquarters,
Elon Musk spotted apparently on the verge of finally sealing

(18:30):
that deal. He was videoed in the lobby saying, quote,
let that sink in while he was carrying a sink
because he's funny, or at least that's what the sick
offense around him tell him. Sure, Boss, carry a sink
into Twitter. That'll that'll be epic, dude, Boss and Dateline Dallas.

(18:52):
That is where an anonymous woman. Another anonymous woman says
herschel Walker urged her to abort their pregnancy. In she
says she didn't want to. She says he insisted and
drove her to the clinic. He says it's not true.
Quote I've moved on, just as he did as a father. Bizarrely,

(19:13):
even for herschel Walker added quote, I also want to
let you know I didn't kill JFK either. So far,
every other defense he's offered for his count with scandals
has been a lie. On. Suddenly I'm not so sure
about the jfk assassination and Dateline right wing echo chamber
while interviewing Senator Rick Scott, commentator Hugh Hewitt says of Walker,

(19:36):
he does better and better. He's gotten so good unquote,
gotten so good at what insemination? This is sports Senate? Wait,

(20:01):
check that not anymore. This is countdown with Keith Alberman
in sports. There are three stories. They are all from
New York. Honestly, I didn't plan it. I don't even
like it this way. They're just the three most interesting stories.
Aaron Boone, whom I met for the first time when
he was thirteen years old, is apparently going to return

(20:25):
as manager of the New York Yankees, even though they
were just eliminated for the fourth time in eight years
by the Houston Astros, and they have one exactly one
World Series and played in only three World Series since
the year two thousand. The Associated Press quotes owner hal
Steinbrenner is saying, I believe he is a very good manager.
I don't see a change there. About ten years ago,

(20:46):
the Yankees banned me from their press box after I
wrote that I would not be convinced that hal Steinbrenner
was actually the son of my friend, the voluable and
successful Yankee owner George Steinbrenner, until I saw the results
of a paternity test. It was a huge move for
the people who run the New York Marathon. Chairman George
Hirsch is stepping down, so Nana Lynch was stepping in.

(21:10):
She would become the first woman chief of the New
York road Runners, and the first African American chief and
the first former Star Runner chief, and, as The New
York Times now reports, the first chief who would be
barred from running in the marathon because she once tested
positive for performance enhancing drugs. The New York Marathon has

(21:31):
a zero tolerance policy for dopers, although they do listen
to appeals. Lynch was busted in for asthma meds that
could double as stimulants. No comment from Lynch yet, but
the Roadrunner statement indicates this info is new to them,
which is a bad look on top of another bad look.

(21:51):
And this is especially tough for me to say since
I was a New York Rangers hockey fan from through
But congratulations to the Long Island Islanders. Since I was
in college, Rangers fans have chanted something about Islander Hall

(22:11):
of Famer Dennis pot Fan. They chanted it when he
played for the Islanders, they chanted it when he no
longer played for the Islanders, they chanted it when the
Rangers weren't even playing the Islanders. And now Dennis pot
Fan has turned it into a merchandise gimmick with ten
percent of proceeds going to charity. The product he is
selling is called pot Fan Socks. Think about it coming up?

(22:44):
So I had to call Willie Mays to ask him
about him getting banned from baseball for working for a casino. No, seriously,
and it was a long time ago when that used
to be an issue. The thing is the voice that
answered his phone sort of sounded like him, only it
also sort of sounded like a woman. Things I promised

(23:06):
not to tell. Coming up first, the daily roundup of
the miscreants, morons and Dunning Kruger effects specimens who constitute
today's worst persons in the world. Le Bronze, Lewis DeJoy,
the schnook Trump appointed to destroy the post office and
derail voting by mail, finally has forty three scalps on

(23:26):
his belt. The U S mail truck, the size of
a small jeep caught fire near Albany, Georgia. Nobody hurts,
but the truck is a total burnt out shell, and
so is the mail inside it, and authorities believe among
the male forty three mail in ballots. Fox News is
panicking over this and election security, and suddenly Marco Rubio

(23:50):
from his Florida debate doesn't sound quite so crazy after all,
does he. There's danger involved in drop boxes. People need
to think about it. Okay, imagine if someone decides, oh,
there's a drop box, I'm just gonna put some explosive
and then blow it up and burn all of those
us and now those votes don't count at all, wrote him,
up good, blow them up real good. Wait, how did

(24:12):
Marco Rubio know that they were going to be burned ballots?
The runners up News Nation that he self proclaimed centrist
TV news operation now in its second year and having
gotten absolutely no traction or audience. Yet despite having hired
Dan Abrahams and now Chris Cuomo and being so centrist

(24:35):
that they run Trump rallies live for two hours at
a time. In a press conference call with News Nation
president Michael Corne, News Nations owned New York reporter Paul
Gurky got on and Paul Gurky asked Corn about why
his network covered a Trump rally while it advertises itself
as unbiased, and yet it ran the thing raw, no host,

(24:58):
no analysis, no correction of Trump lies. So naturally, President
Michael Corn of this neutral, objective, centrist News Nation network
responded to reporter Gurky's great questions by firing him. But
our winner n r OH National Review Online, you think
Joe Scarborough's John Fetterman coverage was reprehensible? I'm just gonna

(25:22):
read part of this n r O report about the
Pennsylvania Senate race from Duncanon p a verbatim quote registered
Republican Cathy Louch also said she plans to vote for
Oz and cited crime as her top concern. National Reviews
discussion with Louch was cut short when a man she

(25:42):
was with began ranting the January six was not an
insurrection and that seven million Americans will eventually rise up
and kill Democrats. National Sure, her guy promised to kind
of genocide against Democrats, but her quote was too good
not to use. Review Today's worst part singing is in

(26:06):
the world. Now to the number one story on the
countdown on my favorite topic, me and things I promised
not to tell. And this has been a somewhat uh
fierce edition of the program. So let me do something

(26:29):
here at the end that's a little lighter. October is
the anniversary of one of the damnedest interviews I ever did,
and it was with Baseball Hall of Famer Willie Mays.
Every time Willie May's his name comes up, I think
of two things. One is that interview at my first
job from my first radio network, and like I wasn't

(26:49):
scared enough, he did a bit that if I would
have done it, they would have fired me on the spot.
The other thing is an amazing injustice that befell Willie
Mays that nobody talks about. Okay, So it's Saturday afternoon,
October nine, just forty three years ago today, and Willie

(27:12):
Mays has just been banned from baseball because word has
gotten out that he has signed a contract to do
promotional events for an Atlantic city casino and there's a
press conference coming up on Monday. I know, try explaining
this concept to any current sports fan now used to
seeing retired players on TV, not just telling them to

(27:34):
bet on games, but telling them how to bet and
who to bet on. Plus even then this made no sense.
It was like three months after Willie Mays had been
inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame. Three months now
he's being banned for life for something that today the

(27:55):
Commissioner Baseball would send him a note of congratulations and
a paycheck. So anyway, nobody has done an interview with
Willie yet because he has been traveled, and my phone
rings and my little cubby hole at United President Nationals
Radio Network three months that coincidentally was how long my
full time broadcasting career had been to this point. And

(28:16):
on the phone is maybe the top baseball reporter of
his day, Keith. It's Milt Richmond. This man once reported
in July that if the Milwaukee Braves didn't start winning
that they would fire their manager. Exactly one year later,
they didn't start winning, and exactly one year later to
the day, they fired their manager. That's how good Milt

(28:37):
Richmond was. Keith, write this phone number down. It's William
Mays home. He's expecting your call for an interview about
this banishment story. I squeaked, yes, sir, yes, sir, and
I went into one of our recording studios and I
dialed the number. And I will not recreate the voice
that I heard answer William Mays' phone, because while doing

(29:01):
this voice was once considered to be a staple of
American humor, even American humor written or performed by the liberals.
James Thurber short stories are full of this voice. The
voice is wildly racist. It is racist enough that if
today you heard an African American man do this voice,
you might still say still racist. It is a voice

(29:24):
similar to that of the actress Hattie McDaniel, who won
the Academy Award in nine for Gone with the Wind,
who was a world class blues singer, a top patriotic
fundraiser during World War Two who played maids, housekeepers, and
maybe two hundred films. She also played one on a
famous radio show and was paid so little that while

(29:46):
she was performing her role of the maid, she had
to keep working as a real maid. Anyway, I'm twenty
years old and I have to interview Willie Mays about
him getting banned from baseball. By the way, getting banned
from baseball at the same time they were banning Mickey
Mantle from baseball for doing promotional announcements for a casino.

(30:09):
And I call Willie Mays's number and I'm shaking like
a leaf and the phone is answered, and a gravelly
but feminine voice that sounded exactly like Addie McDaniel says hello,
Mr Mays's residence. And I am a little throne by this,

(30:29):
but I power through and I explain who I am,
and she says uh huh. And I say where I'm
calling from, and she says uh huh. And I say,
Milt Richmond said Mr Mays was expecting me. And she
interrupts me and says, this is Willie. The Hattie McDaniel
like impersonation was done by Willie Mays. Now I do
not have this on tape. Silly me when they said

(30:53):
you could never start recording before you got expressed permission
from the interviewee to start recording, I believed them. Anybody
else would have a tape of the phone being answered
and that impression done by William Hays. I'm afraid you
will have to take my word for it, because why
would I make this up October nineteen seventy nine, And honestly,

(31:19):
I still haven't recovered from Mr Mays's residence. Now. The
injustice about William Hay's that nobody talks about this is
something else no fan believes today. The US military used
to draft Major League Baseball players and NFL players and
NBA players and other athletes and send them into the

(31:41):
service in the middle of their seasons, in the primes
of their careers, even if there was no war in progress.
Now they only did it a couple of times after,
and usually that was thinly veiled racist political pressure, like
when they drafted Muhammad Ali in nineteen sixty six when

(32:01):
he was heavyweight champion of the world at an activist
Muslim and twenty four years old, when everybody else who
was getting drafted was eighteen. Remember but in nineteen fifty
two they drafted Willy Mays. William Mays had come up
from the minors the year before and led the New
York Giants from thirteen games back to the National League
pennant and was the kind of all around rural wind

(32:24):
of a player nobody had ever seen before. And on
May twenty nine, thirty four games into his second season boom,
he was drafted and inducted, and he missed the rest
of that season, and he missed all of the nineteen
fifty three season. They didn't draft Mickey Mantle, who also
broke in also in New York, also in nineteen fifty one,

(32:46):
and to be fair, Mickey Mantle had about four hundred
medical problems. But they also didn't draft nineteen fifty one
American League Rookie of the Year Gil McDougald of the Yankees,
who was a white guy. Or Walt Dropo who was
the Rookie of the Year in nineteen fifty and was
a white guy. Or Roy Sievers who was the rookie
of the Year in nineteen forty one, and it was
a white guy or or or you get the point now,

(33:11):
trying to calculate should have beens and would have been.
In sports is a risky business, but you can get
a statistical approximation. If a player hits twenty homers in
his first season, then misses two years, then comes back
and hits forty one homers in his first year back,
you can extrapolate from that that he probably would have

(33:32):
hit twenty seven homers in the first missing year and
thirty four in the second missing year. Your numerical sequences
twenty homers, then twenty seven, then thirty four, then forty one.
You have to take her a little bit with it.
In Maizees case, because he did not miss all of
nineteen fifty two, just from June on, and he had

(33:52):
a slow start. He only hit four homers in the
first two months of nineteen fifty two, so instead of
twenty seven that year, maybe he only hits twenty four.
So a good guest as to how many homers William
Hays did not hit because he got drafted and all
the other guys didn't. The good guess is all told,

(34:12):
he missed the chance to hit fifty four homers that
he probably would have hit in real life. William May's
finished with six hundred and sixty career home runs. For
most of the nineteen sixties, it was thought he was
the man who would challenge Babe Ruth's career home run record,
not Hank Aaron, but William Mays. William Hays hit six

(34:35):
hundred and sixty homers, but if you give him the
fifty four more homers he might have hit if he
hadn't been so curiously drafted. In nineteen fifty two, William
Mays finishes with seven hundred fourteen home runs, which is
exactly how many Babe Ruth hit seven hundred fourteen, So

(34:56):
no drafting, and maybe in nineteen seventy two and nineteen
seventy three and nineteen seventy four, we are seeing William
May's hit his seven hundred home run and challenging Babe
Ruth and coming down the stretch and tying and breaking
Babe Ruth's record, and then right behind him, Henry Aaron
hits his seven homer and then his seven homer to

(35:20):
break the all time record held by Willie Mays. I've
done all the damage I can do here. Since you've

(35:42):
listened this far, please help me outspread the word. Tell
somebody about this podcast and get them to subscribe. Here
are our credits. Most of the music concluding our theme
from Beethoven's Ninth was arranged, produced and performed by Brian
Ray and John Philip Channel the Countdown musical directors, all
orchestration and keyboards by John Philip Chanelle, guitarist, bass and

(36:03):
drums by Brian Ray, and produced by t k O Brothers.
Some other betsoven selections have been arranged and performed by
No Horns Allowed. The sports music is the Olderman theme
from ESPN two, and it was written by Mitch Warren
Davis and appears courtesy BESPN, Inc. Musical comments from Nancy Faust,
the best baseball stadium organist ever, and our announcer today

(36:25):
was Larry David. Everything else is pretty much my fault.
So that's countdown for this the six hundred and sixtieth
day since Donald Trump's first attempted coup against the democratically
elected government of the United States. Arrest him now while
we still can a new episode tomorrow. Until then, I'm
Keith old Woman. Good Morning, good afternoon, goodnight, and good luck.

(36:53):
Countdown with Keith old Woman is a production of I
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