A Cross Country Journey

hours on the overnight or not enough. And we do this podcast eight days a week, and you're in for a special treat. If you are a connoisseur of sports talk radio, we are going to give you, in a few minutes one of the legends, one of the Mount Rushmore. I hate doing Mount Rushmore type statements, but this is one of the legends of sports talk radio. We're gonna

have on here in a couple of minutes. We'll we'll walk you through that we as always are joined for better or worse by the man affectionately known in the highway hallways of Fox Sports Radio as a gagon. Easaid for me to say David Gascon anthy more so better and uh, I don't know if you know this because you aren't in the hallways. But nobody's saying anything in the hallways these days, since it's a ghost down here. That is true. That is true. So I'm not gonna

you know, do much ps here. This is an interview podcast, and we had a chance to catch up with someone who was very influential, uh in my career and Gascon, you're aware of this guy. I don't think you worked

with him, but you you're aware of his his history here. Uh. The first sports talk radio station on the West Coast was the Mighty six ninety and the man that was the face of the mighty six ninety in San Diego was Lee hack Saw Hamilton's and if you listen to me b s. Over the years, I learned a lot about the business as an intern in San Diego at the mighty six ninety and then eventually I worked as a radio I was an engineer, board op, I worked my way up. I was a reporter, so I had

a lot of different jobs. But I started as an intern for Lee Hacks on Hambleton's pulling carts, which this old technology but these commercials would be played on these little cassette machines, these these cart things, and I would pull those and I would have to go back and check the high speed sports wire and all that. But I didn't talked to to Lee Hamilton's in many, many years. He was the voice of the San Diego Charger with

the Seattle Seahawks Arizona State back in the day. San Diego State at a bunch of great jobs in the business. And this is like to me, Gascon, this is gonna be sports talk radio. Porn is what this is gonna be. Yeah, And the best part about it is he's not a one trick pony, which is great. So you get a guy that has covered every board imaginable and he's got great context too. So it's not like the guy shooting from the hip it's twenty or thirty years old that's

throwing hot takes out. There's a guy that's that built a career years and talked to a ton of athletes football, baseball, basketball, hockey, tennis, box thing like the whole the whole smash. So it's a lot of fun. Yeah, it's pretty cool. And the thing too about hacks, I am you always bust my balls, gas on about being overprepared and all this. If I learned.

One of the people I learned from was Lee hack saw Hamilton's who would spend all day in his office preparing for that radio show and the play by play and all that, and I I saw how hard he worked and how successful he was. And then I saw some other people that didn't work hard, that just kind of showed up a minute before the show and didn't have any preparation. I saw how they failed, and so I made a correlation that you know, this is important. I figured, like, if I'm gonna make this my career,

I gotta work at it. But one of the influences was hacked off. If Haxall had shown up two minutes before show and just started bloviating, I probably would have been more like that and just showing up and just said I don't care whatever, and I'd probably be doing something else right now then radio. But anyway, let's you don't want to hear this, you want to hear hacks All. Let's welcome in on the high Speed Sports Wire. Actually know that that that would be the hotline, right, what

do you call it? Back in the the Hotline. How the Newsmaker Hotline? Yeah, the new the Newsmaker Hotline from Bah hot of the Canadian Rockies. My friend and one of my mentors in radio, Lee Hacksaw Hamilton's and Lee, why don't we start out with this For the people that are unaware of your history? I just gave a little bit of it. But how did you get the nickname hacks All? I still chat with you, Ben Well now. I started in sports talk radio in the early nineties

in Phoenix. I had come to Phoenix from Cleveland, where had done hockey and some sports talk, went to Phoenix and kind of built a sports talk show empire over there. But the name actually was given to me in Cleveland when I was working in Cleveland before I went to Phoenix, because I did a rather outspoken sports talk show. I worked at a fifty thousand watch station three W. E worked with and for Pete Franklin, legendary sports stock host from way back in the day, and I was rather opinionated.

And one night, after a particularly stormy night on the air, one of the newsmen came in and said, you know what, You're just like a hack Saw. I asked a question, get an answer clear cut through all the crap, right to the point, and that nickname stuck me, stuck with me from Cleveland to Phoenix and then Phoenix onto San Diego.

I had been in Cleveland from and then went to Phoenix, spent seven years in Phoenix, and then went to San Diego to become the Voice of the Chargers and then the first Cornerstone talk show host and what would evolve into Extra Sports six ninety, which was a legendary sports talk station, one one of the earliest stations ever to hit the air waves, and the marketplace obviously was very different.

And we're on a blowtorch seventy seven thousand watch signaled and you could hear from Baha to the Canadian Rocketies. That was one of my favorite phrases. And that thing took off and we had a tremendous run before ownership changed it screwed it all up in the station went away. Yeah, and you've had an amazing career and the talk show career. You were a writer, and also you mentioned the Charger thing.

The Voice of the Chargers, and I remember being down in San Diego when they got to the Super Bowl back in the nineties and how excited. The whole town was how amazing it wasn't you were the voice of the team. And what what are you most proud of? You? Are you proud of the long career you won a lot of awards for hosting talk shows? Or is it the NFL stuff to play by play stuff that you appreciate the most? Everything on the men you've been playing

and simple. Um, it's fun to think back because actually, I just did an interview with a guy on the East Coast last last week about the history of sports talk radio. And I've done sports talk radio my whole life and my whole career. But when we started the original Extra Sports six, we were the third all sports station in the country. W f A N in New York had just launched prior w i P and Philadelphia

had launched, and then we launched. In fact, it's funny, the first Super Bowl that was played in San Diego, there are only three of us three stations, those three stations on what at that point was Radio Row, and we were broadcasting from the San Diego Hilton right down on the waterfront, and we're just three radio stations in

the hallway. And obviously you're well aware now that you know, upwards a two stations find their way to radio row in big convention centers wherever the Super Bowl has held. So we're I think we're proud that we were the first one to do it. And sports talk radio became very gift when I first started this whole thing, and I started it in Phoenix and obviously came to San Diego. But when we first started this thing, the only thing was on sports talk radio, we're really mom and pop shows.

Everything's nice, everything's beautiful, root root route for the home team. And when I was going to Phoenix to work at kt a R, which became a legendary news talk station, I was doing the nighttime sports talk show. As I was driving driving across the country from Cleveland to Phoenix, I tried to put in my mind how I would go on the air and what I would say on the air, and how I could separate myself from anything

else that was on the air. And somewhere in the middle of on Interstate forty and Tulsa, Oklahoma, it dawned on me. Need catchphrases, you need as you would call it a stick, And that's where I came up with the the theory because it was such a blowtward signal I was coming to that it would be from Baha to the Canadian Rockies. And then I thought about, well, how am I going to announce myself on the air,

And that's where that the phrase came. Here's what's going on in the world of sports, here's what Lee Hamilton's thinks. And I did stuff that nobody had ever done before, and then the format just it just took off because there were not a lot of people doing it. It's very different now than when it was back then. As as I said, we were the third one in at six and I was the first one in Phoenix that

had really done this knockdown, drag out brawl sports talk style. Um. The funny story when I started in Phoenix, when I got there, they had done a nice mom and pop sports talk show and everything was beautiful, and at that point in time in the city of Phoenix, ben the two most important things there, in addition to the Sunshine, were the Phoenix Suns of the NBA and Arizona State football. And I just happened to get there the week the

Sun's got knocked out of the play offs. They were the first seed in the league and lost on home court in the first round. And I also happened to get there the same time that Arizona State got nailed by the n C Double A for all types of violations. And the week I got there, also baseball went on strike in season. So I walked in the door facing a four hour talk show. Every night I did six to ten pm on a big signal in Phoenix, and right out of my mouth, I attacked the Phoenix Suns.

How the hell could you ever lose in the first round when you're the number one seed in the entire league? And then I attacked Arizona State, How the hell can you cheat when you've got great facilities in a beautiful campus and pretty women and you can recruit anywhere. And then I went after Major League Baseball for shutting down the season. And what happened was because all these things kind of came together, intersected at the same point in time,

and there was no baseball. We were the Dodger flagship from the state of Arizona, and it was big. It was a very pig because none of that was there. People in the Valley of the Sun been had four straight hours of me every night for fifty one nights in a row. Think about that. And I put all these topics on the table and the town went crazy.

The phone lines lit up like Christmas tree. Nobody had ever done this, Nobody had ever ripped Arizona State, or taken on jury Colangelo and the Phoenix Suns or said what I said about the Dodgers and Fernando Allenzuela and all that I was fascinating. And that's sets where I made my name and reputation in Phoenix. And because you're on a big signal, people found out who I was, and I was also doing Arizona State football and and then I got a phone call one day to come

to San Diego. And as I was coming here, I decided that I'm going to use the same style and the same approach to do in sports stalk radio. And when I got to San Diego, we were really a Southern California station because our signal was so big. And that's where the bahad to the Canadian Rock East thing fit and the fact that all they had was Dodger talk, and at that point it was a k ABC. There might have been a little bit of Angel talk maybe

on k MPC and it was really nothing else. And we went on the air during four hours an afternoon drive, and you could hear us anywhere and everywhere, and at night you could hear us in Canada. Um it was. It just exploded and it took off. I had just a tremendous run doing it, so you know, I was

excited to be the voice of an NFL team. We went through a lot of bad seasons and then we got good and went to the super Bowl, and I was kind of responsible for the L A. King's coming to our station as a flagship because of the our Monster signal. And we did a ton of stuff with hockey talk, and we went on the road from the Stanley Cup playoffs during the Kretzki era, and we did the same thing with the Anaheim Ducks. I mean, it was It was just a fascinating run for a long

period of time. I did twenty two years of sports talk radio an afternoon drive at the legendary Extra and that's where you and I crossed paths before you became a star. And we had a tremendous run. Unsadly ownership screwed it up, wrecked it, get rid of the station, and now now it's terrible. I turned on sports talk radio in my old station. One of them, at six is doing Chinese Mandarin talk, and the other one at N ninety, which went out of business last year, is

doing Spanish women's talk. It just absolutely drives me crazy. But that's a long answer how I got to where I got and what I'm so proud of. But I loved every minute of it. Wasn't easy because I did it all by myself. I booked all my own guests, and I did four hours a night, and I did twenty five guests a week, and we were doing anything

and everything. But I just I had developed the philosophy that there's lots of ways to do this, and I'm going to try something very different, and very different turned out to be. I tend to think very good. Be sure to catch live editions of The Ben Maller Show week days at two a m. Eastern eleven pm Pacific on Fox Sports Radio and the I Heart Radio app. This is like a masterclass. I'm loving this. I'm eating I hope the list was eating this. I'm eating this up.

If you love sports talk radio, Hack Saws, as as he's laid out here, has a legendary career, and I was lucky. As you mentioned, I learned from you as an intern. I pretty much by observation on how you worked. And I remember going in your office and you were always either on the phone or typewriter or both, and you're writing notes down and chicken scratch and all that stuff.

And I think for the young guys that are doing sports talk that listen to me at night and and dabbling this, they have no idea what it was like in those archaic days before the internet really took over. And I remember when I worked at at the mighty six ninety. You had the news room with the you had the sports ticker in the AP news wire in the back, which is a real thing. When you said the high speed sports wire. They had the AP wire

and the sports ticker. But what was your day like when you were preparing Because it wasn't like now where I can go on Twitter or you know, some social media platform there's like seven thousand different things I could talk about at any given time that they are being thrown out by different media. It was much harder to get information. So what was it like back in those days? Well,

you're right, the landscape has drastically changed. I think back now, and I think I was the Internet Before the Internet. I just was consumed by information and and I wanted to know everything about everything so I could present everything to every one of the listeners. And again, it was very much a different era. I worked nine days a week. That's all I did was gather information. I mean, I was just an information hound, and I I just decided that I was going to do things very differently. When

I was going to Phoenix. The one thing that dawned on me, because I had spent some time in Phoenix prior to getting hired. The one thing that dawned on me was that place is a melting pot of people from everywhere. And you know what, there's a ton of people who are from Chicago that relocated there, and there's a lot of people from Canada who relocated there. And I thought to myself, well, not everybody's going to be

a Son's fan or a Sun Devil fan. But if I can structure a talk show that that appeals to everybody on the waterfront, they'll keep coming back to me every day for information. And that's what I started to do. And then I did the exact same thing when I went to six ninety and and people would say, well, you got the Potteris and Chargers to talk about. Yeah, I know that we're going to talk about that in

the hot button issues and all that. But you know how many people live in southern California who relocated from somewhere else. And I decided that I was going to start to do a lot of creative stuff across the board. And that's that's where the tour of the spring training camps came from. That's where the tour of the NFL training camps came from. That's where all these draft shows that we did. Uh, that's where NHL Draft shows and and the Pac ten skywriters. So I was doing all

this stuff on a day by day basis. Why because I thought if I could hit everybody's hot button, Ben, he'd come back to my show every day because it's the only place to get information. Wasn't being done by any of these other guys who were quote gabbling in Mom and Pop talk show snapt that being said, it was unbelievably hard. I worked so many hours, and I look at it now in and I looked back and said,

how the hell did I do all that? And and you know, I was doing all that, plus I was doing Chargers NFL football, and I ran the whole nine hour game day broadcast, which was a lot of prep. And I was doing San Diego State football. And then after the Chargers left our station and we all got screwed, I wound up getting a Seahawks job and I got the USC play by played job because they showed up on our station. So, like I said, I was working like nine days a week, but I'm a workaholic, and

I loved it. I just looked back at it and sake my head said, boy, that was an awful lot of awful lot of time out of my life. But it was great, and uh, I wouldn't trade any of it. I wish you'd ended differently. I hated getting bought out twice, but that's the landscape of the industry that we are in. Um that It was funny because after I did two tours of duty and sports talk here, I went across the street into television for three years and love that

had to blast as a TV anchor. And then I woke up one morning two years ago and they folded our news department. They put seventy seven of us on waivers in one day. It was just a terrible, terrible experience. But I wouldn't trade any of it. I just wish it had add a little bit different outcome. And I still like to work. You know, I have this huge website,

Lee Hacksaw Hamilton's dot com. Now it's all written and we always tell people who listen to my if you like my talk show, I think you'll like what I do on my website because it's kind of the same thing. Hacksaws headlines in the Best fifteen Minutes in Sports and One Man's Opinion column. I wrote a column every day. Take that Bill plash ky l a times I saw. I'm still really, really active. It's just it's just a different venue now and I'm doing it what I like

to still be doing it. Sure, Uh, whether it's in the jobs will ever change again? I don't know. The the industry issure change. I feel really bad. There's so many good people that I know in radio, uh, some on television, an awful lot in print or just throw all out of jobs right now. Just a sad time for our media industries. And you know that too, from all your friends, Lee, I guess the one question I

want to ask you. With all the work that you have done, whether it's hosting, reporting, play by play, whatever

it may be. Um, you know this, and you said this specifically, since you did a lot of your own legwork, being as you are, consider what we call talent being on air, did you ever have anyone upper management or even just a direct supervisor and said, hey, Lee, like lay off the gas on this or perhaps cut back a little bit on this, Like did anyone try to cut you off by the knees to make you do something you didn't want to do while being on the air.

They've never interfered with the content because I told them my show is my show. If you want this to work, it has to be my show. But I never really had any problems with anybody until the end. I had a lot of problems at the end. Um, after the Chargers left our radio station, we all got screwed and then they want up leaving the community. Um, I've done a lot for them, and I love being the voice of the Chargers. I love game day in the NFL. We did a nine hour game day, we did nine

hour NFL drafted, We did tremendous, tremendous radio. Everybody's trying to copy what we did, but we were the first to do it, and we did it really, really well. But they got upset as the franchise fall apart, and they had really dealt very unfairly with a lot of people in San Diego. I was of the opinion, screw you.

I don't have to be nice to you anymore after what I've just witnessed what you did to our broadcast team with you did everybody in the community, and they moved the team and I so I let the fans just have at them. Of course, in the process, they were going through the Ryan Leaf here and one in fifteen and firing co choose and the ownership was incompetent and went on and on and they just raised Holy hell,

and I didn't really care. And then then I got into a scrap with the Padres because they've been perennial losers, and they went through every general manager and every philosophy and all these ownership groups. And I just went on the year one night and said, period exclamation point. Doesn't the city of San Diego and Padre fans deserved better than this? And they went haywire, So too bad. You don't like what's being said on the air, do a better job, so we'll say better things about you on

the air. But to spend back to your original question, no, not took a lot of heat. I took some crap from some people and has been and you guys will always attest there will always be haters out there. You can't please everybody. But if you're doing it right, and you're doing it honestly, and you can, you can back what you say with content and information. It works. It should work without any inference. And I just kept I remember telling an executive of the Padres, don't tell me

how to do my job in radio. Do your job in baseball better, you know. And this is after all these damn last place finishes and mistakes on free agents and trades and and all that. There's probably a line of people outside my front door stretching down the street and down the bottom of the hill that don't like me. But that's okay because on top of the hill on the freeway there's everybody lined up. They probably liked what we did. Uh So I had a good time. I

always try to be fair. I felt at times I really had to be tough on people, and I was not. I was not afraid because tough was honest, and honest was based on information that I knew and I had in sources, etcetera. Be sure to catch live editions of The Ben Maller Show weekdays at two am Eastern eleven pm Pacific. And and that's uh, not to make this all about me, but one of the reasons I was excited to talk to you is you were a big

influence on my career. I inserned in the in the mighty six ninety back in the day in the nineties. And blame me. That's okay, Ben, just blame me for what turned out to me. I'm gonna blame you when I lose my job. But but uh, but no, I mean you were a great influence. Watching you work and all that one of the reasons I wanted to keep going and I recently want to be a play by play guy. And then I saw you did the talk show and all that. But where do I rank on

Hacksall's big board of interns you had? You had a lot of internsally over the years. I'm sure I was just one of the minions that followed you around. So so where am I on your your big board there. You've probably been the most successful, well any of the guys that came through the building in terms of what they turned out to be, because you're now on network radio, and that's really really cool. By the way, you got the job that I probably should have had a Fox

Sports Radio. And the next question, I guess at least I gotta ask you this because you're you're definitely not aware of this. But much like you and much like Ben, I got into the industry and I worked from the ground up, but my first way into the building was actually with thirteen sixty in San Diego, and so when I first started, I worked as a board op and then eventually as a producer and then an anchor and

then some filling stuff. But I don't know if you are aware of this, and I don't know if you know this, but if you don't, I'm gonna shed a little bit of light inside that building at least what

it was before some remodels um. A few of the on air talent that is still there actually showed me at the time when I worked there, old cassette tapes of segments and interviews and everything that you did while on air and it was all archived inside some cabinets and said some containers, Um, are you aware of that at all? Those are like that Indiana Jones right there,

like the relics of lost arc. Well, you know, I would I was there were twenty two years and I got I got bought out, and I guess there was two thousand eight. I was shocked because we had tremendous radiance. But at that point in time, Clear Channel was firing everybody that was making a lot of money. It was terrible what they did, and it was terrible what they did to a legendary station. And they want up given up the signal, like I say, it's now, it's got

Chinese talk on it. Can you believe that? And the station was successful, But I had had a good parting with them. It wasn't angry. I just didn't agree with what they did. But they gave me a week to clean out my archives. So you can understand. I'm not gonna say rat pack, but you can understand when you have twenty two years of archives, and I had twenty two years of media guides, and I had twenty two

years of historic interviews. So I packed a pickup truck with what I felt was the most important stuff I had from my career at the old Extra six ninety and I brought it home in a large chunk of It's still in my garage here in San Diego. I don't have any room for my house, and I've never really had the urge to go back and find it. But yeah, there was a lot of stuff, and there's

a lot of great historic interviews. And of course that was back in the day before digital, and that was when everything was on reel to reel and some of was on cassettes and stuff. And I took what interviews

I could, but I couldn't take them all. But and I regret that now because I mean, if you look back, I've interviewed just an absolute ton of great sports people and I was I was able to keep interviews with Mickey Mantle, Henry Aaron, the late Arthur Ash but but some of the ones, the Branco, Nagurski and John mckin was some of the others great ones. I just I didn't have space a room to take everything with me, which is too bad. But yeah, there was a lot of stuff there and I got as much out there.

They were very good to me in addition to giving me a buy out. But they let me just work through the process of how do you unpack twenty two years of memories? And I brought a chunk of at home. It's in my garage. And then sadly, I was victimized by the terrible fires in San Diego County and everything around me burned down. My house did not burn down, which stunned me because my whole neighborhood burned to the ground.

But yeah, I know that if somebody walked into one of those corner offices, probably some that stuff is still there, because I did leave behind a lot of stuff. But that, you know, guys, it's the most people ask me about that, and and I tell people I'm not I'm not bitter. I'm disappointed the way it ended, and you know, maybe there'll be another opportunity. But you know, life is about memories.

Life is about collecting memories. If if this newsmaker calls with Alt Michael's, could you imagine all the great things he could tell you places he's been, things he's done, and he's just one of the legendary broadcasters of all time. UH and Bob Costas and those guys are all friends of mine, so I uh, you know, I have great memories and flashbacks whish I was still doing some of it.

I don't know how the hell I did it for all those years, but it's it's just kind of cool the road we've traveled, and I it's weird because I came from really unique roots and I tell us people all the time. I don't know if you guys are hockey fans, but this is the forty five anniversary of the release of the movie Slap Shot Paul Newman, the

Hanson Brothers, Charleston Chiefs, and all that. While I was working in upstate New York, I was a young broadcaster and my final year in the minor leagues before I went to the major leagues, before I went to Cleveland, was in a place called Mohawk Valley in Utica, New York, and I broadcast hockey. That's where that's where I played by play roots actually started think about this in that league, and we were all twenty one year olds riding busses

drinking beer with the boys in that league. I was in Utica, became the voice of the Chargers and the Seahawks and did all these great things on Sports Dog Radio. Bob Costas was in Syracuse, and we know what his career became. And there was a guy there was a voice of the Long Island Ducks. He like gold. He's the voice of the Alabama Crimson Tidan has done NASCAR. Uh. There was another guy in Binghamton who went on to

do Cincinnati Reds baseball. We had, we had. There were a total of five of us, all about the same age, all in the lower minor leagues, in one league, which each other all the time. And I laughed now because this last week is anniversary of slap Shot. And I'll tell you, guys, everything in that movie, percent of that movie is true. I lived in that bus. That bus was our bus in Mohawk Valley, and I live with those players, and I drank all those players, and I

slept on the bus with those players. And all the junk that happened when those players getting arrested, that happened in our building in Utica. So it's it's funny where where the road leads you in your career. And I and I stay in contact with the hockey friends, and I made back when I was just a young punk in the nineties seventies, and I stay in contact with him still, and I emailed a whole bunch of people a whole bunch of things about slop Shot that was

just that was sent to me just last week. So it's it's it's fun to reflect back on where you were. And I'm sure it's the same for if you were to interview the Los Angeles legend Jim Healy. The stories he could tell, what the people he crossed paths within that major market would be spectacular. And you know, here I am, all these years later having interviewed great, great people. Remember Howard Cosell. I interviewed him in spring training when I was in Cleveland. I went to the Indian spring

training camp for the first time. He kept calling me, young man, young man, let me tell you about this with Steinbrenner, a young man, let me tell you about Ali. It was so funny and so historical. So yeah, it's it's neat to think back, and I'm kind of proud

of the junk we did and what we accomplished. You mentioned the memories and the roads that you have taken, and I bring that up because, oddly enough, there was a point in my career that Ben gave me some nice professional advice and there was an opportunity that presented itself with the Seattle Mariners and their High A affiliate, and they had an opening and I told that and talked to him about and he said, yeah, you should

take the job. You should take the job right down as much as you possibly can, um and just chat this up as memories and so lo and behold in seen. I left Los Angeles and went to Bakersfield, and I was stuck in Bakersfield Lee for about six months, and Ben and his entire show, the entire Mallary militia came up to visit and uh he threw the first pitch out leave and oddly enough the franchise after two more months closed down for good. So so we know all

about the memories. But I bring that up because of this, Like, you had such a long career. You know, we poke and joke you know on the air off there with with with Ben about just certain stuff on the show. But has there ever been a moment in your career early on middle or towards the tail end that you said, you know what, like I regret that I shouldn't have done that or shouldn't have said that or shouldn't have acted that way. I don't know if i'd call it

real deep regret. Um at the height of our popularity at Extra six, uh, you know, and we had a pretty good group that was put together with the ownership. Will tell you look what we discovered. Well, I know that the real truth. He stumbled on these guys and they became stars. But um, I got a lot of job offers, and it started when I was in Phoenix and I had a chance to go it can be or in San Francisco when they were just becoming what they were going to become, and I just didn't feel

comfortable and I didn't want to. I didn't want to give up the Arizona State Sundaval's job just to be a talk show host in San Francisco. So I said no. And I got a call one night at eleven PM in Phoenix as deep voice as on the other end of the line. I was half asleep, and it was really funny because my my wife was pregnant, and you know who calls us at eleven o'clock at night and guy on the other end of the line says, this is Lee Hamilton. I said yes, So this is Robert

Highland from cam O X in St. Louis. I was fell out of bed because I knew who Robert Highland was. He was one of the greatest influential broadcasters on RADI oh an all time. He was an icon and CBS and they wanted me to come there, and I went to visit him and interviewed. I spent a day and a half in St. Louis and had a blast. And but then again, you know, I've given up the play by play, which I really loved, and removed my eight month pregnant wife, and we had just bought a house.

I didn't know if it was going to work out. And then Costas called me because he worked at Cama Wicks. And then Jack Buck called me he worked at Cama Wicks. And Garagiola called me because he used to New Cardinal Baseball, and I just I turned it down. And I always always wonder what if what if I had gone there? And then on the West Coast the exact same thing happened.

I did not know these people. And George Green, who ran k ABC during the houcy on days of the Dodgers, called me and I went up and visited with him, and as Ben would know KMPC, the old seven ten had gone sports, and he asked Autrey's people asked me to come up, and I talked and talked, but at those times I did not want to give up the opportunity to do the NFL as a voice of the Chargers.

And We're doing really well, and I had had a couple of kids here, and I I had always been very cautious about wanting to not wanting to drag my family all over the place, and I, you know, I've been very stable and had worked a lot of a long time at just a couple of stations. I'm kind

of the exception of the rule. So and maybe the only real significant regret is I had a chance to be the voice of the Anaheim Ducks and go back and do hockey, which was my roots where I came from, and I love the sport and I'm married to a Canadian and all that um, and I turned it down because I was right in the middle of negotiating to go to Seattle to do the Seahawks, and I didn't think it was right that I screwed the Seahawks this

late in the game to take the Duck's job. That's probably the only one that I really regret, because I had had taken it, and I hired a really good guy and his friend of mine, Steve Carroll. If I had taken it would probably still be there and still be in the NHNEL. But I think that's that's the only real regret that I turned that one job down.

And then and the Rep. Denny reputation and comes, well, he he is where he is, and he's not going to leave and he's got family roots in San Diego now, etcetera, etcetera, And and then the offers just kind of went away, and then the landscape of our industry are really changed to so the Ducks thing and maybe the St. Louis thing, I reflect back and say, wow, but it's been hard. Uh. I went through a them. My minor league hockey team was on the brink of folding, and we put together

a drive to save the team for the community. And then I went to the and went to Cleveland. I was in the w h A, and we thought we were all going to the NHL and the merger, and we all got screwed and got knocked out of there. And then obviously the chargers left our station, and the chargers left our community, which just really upset everybody. So, uh yeah, you have to you have to kind of walk down the road, and you may step on a few land mines, You've got a few hand grenades tossed

at you. You just got to be able to bounce back from it. Fox Sports Radio has the best sports talk lineup in the nation. Catch all of our shows at Fox sports Radio dot com and within the I Heart Radio app. Search s are to listen live. Yeah, and Lee, that's I didn't know about that duck's job. That's an interesting story. So let's let's go back to the days in San Diego when you were at the Mighty six night, the peak of your superpowers, and listeners

love hearing about radio wars. So who is who would you consider your biggest rival? You had Joe McDonald in l A, had Ted Lightner your rival in San Diego. Who who did you consider your biggest I don't know threats the right word, but but who are you competing against the most in those days? Although little sound egotistical, but it really wasn't competing against anybody because we were on the blowtorch signal uh, and and everybody else was just kind of doing mom and pop sports talk or

padre talk or whatever. Um Joe, Joe had a nice reputation in La Joe and I were not friends because he said a lot of cruel, mean, on fair things about me on the air, which was cheap um lightning as a TV guy who doesn't like me. But I I just thought he was a fraud. He's had a really good career doing what he did, but I happen to think I've had a really good career, and I

never never really got any any positive vibes out of him. Uh. I didn't know Jim Healey very well, talked to him a couple of times before he passed on, but in great regard for his style and his stick and his substance and what he accomplished in a very very very different era. But I wasn't really competing against anybody because we you know, we kind of wound it. Uh, we we are stationed. I didn't find this out till a couple of years ago. Might this is when Clear Channel

owned it. At its height was billing eleven million dollars a year, which is a phenomenal amount of money in a fairly small market. Is not a big market here, eleven million. But we were doing that because our blow towards signal was part of Orange County. They had me up once a week doing remote in afternoon drive in Orange County. And then we went up to Los Angeles

and we're doing stuff at casinos up there. So we were doing really well and Clear Channels screwed that whole thing up and I could never ever forgive them for what they did, wrecking a station that a whole bunch of us dedicated our lives too. Um, And it's really sad. Now it's very different. I mean, Los Angeles has got un ESPN and they keep changing parts trying to find something. They don't do much in the ratings and k l a C which evolved after they destroyed six nine. They

finally finally went ahead and put sports talk. It's very different style of sports talk on five seventy. Um. It was funny because I had a chance in the in the dark days when Clear Channel was was doing away with six. They came to me and I was under contract. There are only two of us that survived the purge, me and Steve Hartman, and they came and came to me and said, would you come to l A, move to l A and be part of what we do

in l A? And I I thought about it. So they sent they sent their vice president of programming down to see me, and he was great guy. I get along great with. Let me still there and we had a dialogue about their vision for what they wanted to make A five seventy become and my history and all that that you guys have alluded to and I've talked about. And then I said to him, I said, Greg, can you can you tell me what you're your mortgage payment is every month? He lives in the rich section of

Hollywood Hills or something. He said something like a month. I pulled out my mortgage payment that I happened to have in my in my wallet. My mortgage payment at that time was eleven dollars a month in San Diego because I paid off my house. And I said, do you realistically think I'm going to move somewhere a half a five dollar mortgage payment when down here I have

an eleven dollar mortgage payment a month. He laughed. And they let me stay on the air and I did my show on the original kale I see I did it U the San Diego studios, but I did it also, but it was l A topicated. I mean, we would lead with the Lakers, and we would lead with the Dodgers and the Angels and the Raiders. And I was doing as many l A triggered interviews there as I

was in terms of San Diego content. But eventually every everything changed along the way, and you know, people make changes, sometimes good and a bunch of times, at least to my industry, pretty bad. And it's just got to be able to get through it, survive and hope you bounce back. Yeah, all right, and and leave. They're kicking us out of the studio here. But I wanted to wrap up. And you've got a lot of fans. I get messages. People know my history with you when I learned the business

from you, and they asked me questions about you. What's he doing, what's he up to? And I've directed some people to your Twitter. But and you plugged your website, which is great. It is It is the best fifteen minutes in radio. It's the best fifteen minutes on the internet, which is pretty much. It just seems like your monologues that you would do. Your opening segment is available on the internet every day. As you said, you updated multiple times, so kind of real quickly we got about a minute

and a half your hacks about promote everything. How can the fans of yours reconnect with you here on the internet. I write every day of the week, Monday through Friday. It's Lee Hack saw Hamilton dot com. There's four or five different pages on their best fifteen minutes in sports, he saus headlines, my one man's opinion column. Uh, it's it's just I cover anything and everything. It's kind of the Rick version of the talk show. And it's free on top of that, so you got a chance check

it every every week. I guarantee of this, Ben, if you listen or if you read what I write on my website, I guarantee you you'll be the second smartest man in Southern California aside from me, because you'll know everything that I know, and I know everything about everything of course. All right, Lee, I love you man. Thanks for all the help you've given me over the years and continued the success with the website and whatever comes

next for you. Thank you well. I appreciate it. We had a really good run and I think fondly of all the strange stuff. I mean radio stations, for the launching point, for the great success that Jim Rome had, for what Mason and Ireland became, what Steve Hartman, Philly Billy Warndell, the loose Cannons, chet forty. But we had something really really unique. That's it's great to think that we we are remembered by the fans up and down the West coast. And then, don't blame me for what

you become, but I salute you for what you become. Awesome, Thank you, Lee. That was great, man. I loved it. Some wonderful stories and uh, and take care of yourself, all right. And all right, dude, stay in touch here. And if they ever let your dude guests give me on some middle of the night, we'll argue you about some of the sports stories. All right. I'll make that's a deal. All right. Thank you, Lee, take your man great, my pleasure. Take care, Benny. Bye,