Hey Hey Charley!

Maller starts right now in the air everywhere. We kick off the Fifth Hour Weekend Podcast with Ben Maller because hey, the overnight show four hours a night not enough and eight days a week double barrel action on a Friday in If you're listening to this show. If you're new, welcome. We always like bringing new people into the store. We need to have new customers in the store. It's good to have you. I'm not gonna blab that much because this is an interview conversation podcast. We like to bring

in ends to hang out and chat. And we're joined by a man, David Gascon, who's gonna be on with me here on the podcast. Gascon And I'm excited about this one because someone we wanted to get on and uh, finally we pulled the string on this and made it happen. We're gonna chat with the voice of the Los Angeles Dodgers, Charlie Steiner is gonna hang out with us. And I've known Charlie casually for you know, a number of years now, and I'll see him when I go to these Dodging games,

hanging out, schmoozing in the press box or whatnot. And I've actually known Charlie before he was the voice of the Dodgers. He's been the play by play guy for the Dodgers for the last I think seventeen seasons. I believe. I think he's heading into his seventeenth or eighteen season now as the voice of the Dodgers. He's a National Radio Hall of Famer. Charlie Stunner. Many people know him more as the Sports Center anchor, depending on how old

you are, right from back in the day. It was a legend in the in the heyday of ESPN when that was the place, the mecca of sports television before everything got watered down in sports media. And also a boxing guy. Charlie covered synonymous with boxing for so many years and all the big fights Charlie Stunner was reporting on and covering and whatnot, and so excited to have

him in here, just thinking about him. I don't know if you were like this when you were younger, but I felt like Sports Center when I was a kid was appointment TV. It was like finding him, finding you know, all these guys that were on there. I mean, Linda Cohnes, she did a lot of you know, stuff with hockey. But it's still is Keith Olberman, Um Dan Patrick, Tom Lee or it was a Tommyes was on there, Tommy's yes, Bobby. There's just guys that were on there from start, Chris

Berman obviously and Tom Jackson. You know, those guys are synonymous with the NFL. But yeah, sports that are back in the day that was like our our playground, you know as kids. Yeah, I mean it's you know, the stone age because you're doing it back in the day, story you're old, guest gun, you're proving you're old here. But yeah, I mean we were consuming sports. You Jonesing

as a kid, you were like, oh my god. I mean my experience not to go too long with it because I want to be Charlie in here, but my experience with sports consumption, like I had to watch this weekend baseball to get baseball highlights. I remember getting the Red and the Green book that they would give out before the season for the National and the American League. The American League was read, the National League was green. They gave these books that that's how you got the stats.

There was, you know, the the internet as it is today did not did not exist, and so but sports Center that was like you got everything in an hour. Sports Center. You get every highlight, every big story. And it was so important to watch that, you know, being on the West coast we had it. But I think the first sports Center was at four o'clock. I think our l a time, California time, and that was big. And then they'd have the the late Sports Center after

the games were over. So and Charlie was such a big part of that. So anyway, excited to have him on. Let's give it up now, the voice of the Dodgers. He got the call a final out of the World Series. We gotta bring that up. We'll get to that, uh, Charlie Steiner, And why don't we start with this, Charlie, you've been calling games from your house over the last the last baseball season. What is the experience been like

for you? Uh? And and how different obviously that has been for everybody, but for you, as a play by play guy in Major League Baseball, you're sitting in your home calling games. Tell me what that's been like. Well, go back to last July when we were all trying to figure out what the season was gonna look like, and we had a zoom call. And you're not a human being unless you've had at least one, uh with

the entire broadcast group in our bosses. Um. And it was that was three or four days before the first exhibition game. And upon the completion of the zoom call, I got a call from one of said bosses and he said he didn't look happy. I said, well, I don't know about happy, but I certainly am apprehensive. And you know I am of that age. Uh. I am diabetic in these days, who isn't um. So I talked to my doctor and I said, so, what do you think?

And he said, as as a fan, I love that view and bow back because this is what I what and who I listened to every summer as a friend, I'm not so sure. And as as your doctor, are you out of your mind? Um? And so it was like, well, that was a slap in the face of reality. Um. The next thing, I had spoken to Bow and I wasn't quite sure. Of course, we're going to do the games out of Dodger Stadium, even on the road, the sixty games all from there, and my doctor suggested, you know,

you probably shouldn't. Just don't. Uh. And I called the next day and I said, I'm feeling really anxious about it, and and if it comes to I'm just gonna have to opt out this year. Um. And that was pretty much the end of the conversation. I'm thinking, well, gee, that's probably the end of my career. And I got knocked out by COVID. Next day. They doctors come back

and said, well, what if you did it from home? Well, um, yes, you know, I didn't think it was technically or humanly possible to be able to do it, and we did it. They added two large monitors in what used to be my living room. It became the media room, and thankfully this year it has returned to being the living group as I ended up doing the games from home. UM and MO was at at Dodger Stadium along with Dwayne McDonald, our producer and engineer. And it took maybe four or

five days, three of them being exhibition games. UM, to get it more technically and sentive. You know, MO and I when we're calling a game, we're not looking at each other. We're both looking at the field, and now our seventeen here we can fill each other's sentences. And so that was never going to be an issue. And slowly but surely it seemed to work. UM. And then fast forward to you know, the playoffs in the World Series. I finally got a chance to watch the World Series film,

I guess in January. There was no hurry. I knew the outcome, But most importantly, I watched the highlight film from the very chair that I announced the World Series on the very screen that I watched it. And as I watched and listened to the highlight film, I could have sworn I was in Texas. So technically it worked. And I think what's gonna happen down the road in our industry in general and some teams in particular. I'm not entirely sure that announcers are necessarily gonna go on

the road for every game. So I think it was it was weird. I understood the weirdness of it last year and still even this year, we have a giant asterisk about how we are living and conducting our lives. And that was just kind of part of the drill. And I'll finish up this endless answer with this. The very first game I ever called was a Brooklyn Dodger game in my basement in my home on Long Island

when I was five. And the most some Dodger game that I broadcast was from my living room at my home, and they won the World Series and people actually heard it. So talk about what goes around comes, Yeah, the circle of the circle of life. I think we we all did.

That is the same thing. I was like you, You're like, I'm doing play by playing my home and you know you're the final out of the World Series, and you called I want to bring that up, Charlie, because on the Dodgers flagship a M five seventy, the Dodger Network there, finally, after all these years, the long suffering Dodger fans got to hear a radio call of their team winning the World Series, and you had a great call. Uh, finally the weight is over. Tears of joy let them flow.

I mean I remember a lot of it. And you mentioned eighty eight as well. Uh, you've you've had a lot of big moments. How concerned, how nervous were you? Did not screw up in that spot? I mean, you nailed it, But how concerned were you? Because you you can anticipate the Dodges like you're gonna win because of the lead they had at the time late in the game.

But what was the what was going through your mind as it was getting closer to your You're gonna have to make that call at the end of the World Series. That morning I called Vin, who with whom we still have a wonderful friendship. He has been a mentor, a father like that, You're again the babe Ruth of our business. So I called him that morning. I said, so, I got this if they win to night, I had this great idea and he said, oh yeah, what's that? I said, I have had a line like in a year that's

been so improbable. Uh and he said, I believe it's taken um and so, and I said, so, you know, it was one of those you just go you go to the Grand puba for just not advice. We just talked and who was not talking off the ledge, It was just going in before a big game and talking to a former player in this case. So what I've been thinking about. And one of the things you really don't want to do is uh prepare and write out

a script any of that stuff. You just let it, let it rip from your head and your heart and your eyes. And the word that kept going through my head all day was joy and how much joy this would bring and how little joy any of us had experienced that year, And it just all came together. Um And I was, I was, And you're right, there is that nagging fear, old lord, please don't fuck it up.

Um and and and I remember when I had the Aaron Boone call in two thousand and three, when he at the game winner and the Yankees walked off against the Red Sox would go to the World Series, remembers of the circling the basis, and I had made the call in the back of my head because it happened so quickly, I said, please, you know, finished the call cleanly. Um And I did with that, and I guess I

did with this too. But you know, again, the story was obviously the Dodgers had won, and finally there was something for all of us to be happy about. Yeah, it was. It was a great call. And you mentioned you did the Yankee games for for a few years back in the day. What's the biggest difference. These are the two biggest markets in the country, and you know you're on the on the radio doing Yankee games, you're

doing Dodging games. You've been doing Dodging games for in almost twenty years now, But what's the what's the big difference between a Yankee broadcast and a Dodger broadcast or is it all the same? You know, at the end of the day, without sounding high falut the game is still a game. The moment is still a moment, and when you go and do what it is we do, all you can do is the best that you can. Um You know, in New York, I was working with John Sterling and it was really to play by play

announcers and sometimes it worked and sometimes it didn't. But at the end of the day we had a pretty good broadcast and that was that. And then when we came out here to work with mo and this is you're right, it's gonna be my seventeenth year now, um are our roles were more clearly defined, and that I think makes for a cleaner broadcast and and we're very lucky. Mo and I we become friends, were family, um, and we're talking about it right after the that night, at

the end of the post game coverage. UM. Because of the year that was, you know, so improbable. There's moat Dodger Stadium and I'm at home, and Dwayne is at Dodger Stadium. We didn't see one of them. Yet we are. Our bond, which was always strong, grew stronger because we persevered all this craziness together. And it was it was a It became a lot more meaningful than even just winning a World Series that we've managed to persevere like

everybody else, like every Dodger, like every Dodger fans. Somehow we got through it. And uh and one, yeah, it was. It was great to listen to you. And I couldn't tell I did. I thought at one point I thought you were actually in Texas. It sounded it did sound like you were. You were there where the World Series was going on. But I here's the things I want to tell a story, Charlie. And you probably don't know this story because it's not important to you at all,

but it's important to me. So when I first met you. You were doing Sunday Night Baseball for ESPN Radio with Kevin Kennedy. This isn't like the late nineties, and I actually did stats for you. I don't if you probably don't remember that, but I did stats for you a few times. And my shining moment, Charlie, was a Giant Dodger game on a Sunday night and Ellis Burks was playing.

I think he came up from the Rockies that year, was playing for the Giants and uh and uh this was like the Bonds Kent Giants and it was fact and Brian worked together. Yes, there you go. So Brian Bohanan was he had the Dodgers picked him up. He was the picture. So I found some stat about al Ellis Burks had this great career, you know, a bunch

of home runs against Brian Bohanna. So I handed you this like note, right, I gave you this note and uh, the like the next pitch after you had gave the stat, Ellis Burks hit a home run into the pavilion at Dodgers Stadium. That was a long time ago, but I bring that up because it makes me feel good because I remember it. And how have stats changed because there's so many more stats now, Charlie, and you're the play by play guy, and I think I out of baseball

on the radio is more telling stories. But there's a status of everything these days. So how do you handle that? Ben? You're absolutely right, Um. On radio it's a much more of a storyteller's medium. If you know, when you start talking about war and VIP and this and that, if you see it on your screen, okay, you kind of get it. And even then you need some interpreters say

what does this actually mean? Except some numbers on the radio, if you start running off numbers like this plus three minus two, somebody stuck in traffic, it's just gonna go either over their heads or through the ears from one side to the other. So for me and for Moe and again we're we're older. We are less in terms of broadcasters statistically driven than younger broadcasters. We still stick with the story, Um at the end of the day. And again, I'm proudly an old school baseball guy. Give

me the back of a baseball card. If I haven't seen a player before, then I can have at least a pretty good idea of what he is capable of doing. But you know, the defense of this and and offensive that. It's like it's still a game played by people. It's not like my Apple computer is better than your Mac or your your bell or whatever it is. Um and it's it's just for me. Let the players play and

how they play. It's up to us then to describe what they're doing well or not And does a guy make a catch or not make a catch based on some arbitrary statistics to me, not necessarily so. I again, most been around a long time. I've been around a long time, and we've seen a lot. Hopefully we can tell stories pretty well. Be sure to catch live edition so the Ben Maller Show weekdays at two am Eastern eleven pm Pacific. 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 f s R to listen live. And Charlie speaking of those stories and the history that you have for the game of baseball, what about when you're at the ballpark. I don't know if Ben wants me to bring this up, and I'll do it anyway. He hit outcasted me a few years ago to go to Bakersfield to call minor league baseball, and uh I did so, but con took some of his advice about

journaling everything that you do. It's about that story, right. Um, So it's fascinating to learn about these guys that are minor leaguers trying to get to the show. But when you're in the show, what about the interaction that you have with these players prior to first pitch, when they're stretching, throwing, limbering up up that it has changed dramatically over the years. It is and again now you're gonna hear some cranky old guys screaming, get off my law and you're rotting kid.

But the reality is the interaction between writers and broadcasters and players is so significantly different that it was certainly when I first started out and the years before I

got into it. That was in a day when you went back to the hotel after a game and you'd have a beer with a player who is relatively speaking of contemporary where the dollar disparity between players and those who cover them was not so vast, in a day when now players and their agents can control whatever it is they want to say or not say, through their

own social media accounts. So all of that has fundamentally changed, um and and and for us old guys, that's sad because part of what it was that drew us to calling games was to be able to paint the picture and get inside the heads of these guys, which doesn't frankly exist very much anymore now because of the pandemic

and zoom calls and all of that. You don't see or hear um no matter the newspaper or the radio station or the network anything different, They're all saying the same thing based on the limited availability that they have to the players. So there, it's fundamentally different. And so what what I'm trying to do, And as this technology evolves and how the game has changed, it has tried to reflect on players or instances that are similar to what the players are given players in this given play

might have been. So it is different, and I'm not entirely sure it's going to go back to what it once was because of the differences now in time. Then have you ever had or even recently, have you had one of those? David Price, Dennis Eckersley, I guess, uh, you know, And if I have, I don't care. You know, the player might you know, I can't. That's where it is fundamentally different. Um, when players tell you they don't watch, or they don't read, or they don't listen, they are

so full of it. Um, they just are. They know exactly what's been said and what I think. We all have to understand what you're doing, Ben, what I'm doing, what players are doing. We all live in this cohes system. The players play and we talk about it. May make an error and we have to mention it. Um. That's not to say we're not going to make a mistake or we're gonna blow a call. But we're all in

this giant ecosystem. And the more we all, all of us understand it, the better it is ultimately for the customer, and that's the fan who wants to learn as much as they can about the game, about a moment, about a player. But again, that's where it has fundamentally changed over the years, and and there's a greater distance between media and players, and I think that I've ever experienced,

and I've been doing this a long time now. Well with the reduction and travel that that's added some time onto the time stamp for you do you have an end date at all, Charlie or do you feel like you're well? You know, and the Doggers have been so unspeakably good to me. The fact that I am not traveling much anymore. Um, you know, I've been lucky enough in many ways to walk in the same path that then did, and then was the first one to start cutting back on schedule and travel and the road you

do it a lot. It beat you up, and at some point I just said, okay, I this is this is now not as much fun as it used to be. And as I say that, you don't have that much of a relationship anymore between players, whether it's a you know, a local bar and whatever it is now. Of course, with the pandemic, nobody's going anywhere anyway. So it's still fun to call a game, only the discipline has changed because the circumstances around us have changed. What's your favorite

sporting event to call? Oh, I guess the seventh game of the World series? Like take all that aside, Like a championship is one thing, but I mean, like if it's just a regular game or just a regular boxing match, Like, what is your favorite event? I've been so lucky. I covered boxing in theirs last Golden era. It began with Ali and ended with Tyson biting Holy Fields here and

pretty much every big fight in between. The night of a heavyweight championship, when you know there tens of thousands at the arena, millions watching around the world, the loneliness of the two fighters coming down from their respective locker rooms, in their in their satin robes, crowd going crazy. There's nothing quite like the adrenaline of that. And one of the reasons why I decided to get away from boxing,

it was because that wasn't existing much anymore either. So one of those or the end, it's a patient of a championship game. I did a bunch of rose bowls, and look, I've had a very gumpy and experience. I've been really lucky. I've covered a lot of big stuff. But you know, as crazy as it was, calling the World Series from my living room had the same adrenaline rush for me that night as uh, covering any of those championship fights. Charlie, it's time to get out the

crystal ball. You've mentioned that you don't think things are going to go back to the way they were. Uh, let me let me quiz you here, Now, what does that? What does that mean the locker room access? Do you do you believe that we will get back to non zoom calls once we move on from the pandemic? Or are they are they just gonna limit access to the locker room in general and just have the way it

is right now be the new normal. The answer is, I'm not sure, but I am reasonably sure that players are very happy not to have me media in their workspace. I think they've always treated it, even in less antagonistic days between media and players, as their workspace. It's their office, and they don't like people coming into their office. Um And I get that. Um so will it at some

point return to what it was? I don't know, Ben, you're down there before games, how many guys are actually in the club house when you go looking for room there in the quiet room, there, in the trainers room. It's not like, oh, hey, here's Ben, let's go talk. Yeah. No, exactly. And that's the big too, each because especially with these new locker rooms, well I guess they're not new anymore.

They're all old lock But remember the old days, they didn't have as many hiding places so the guys had to stay A lot of them had to stay in their lockers because there was there weren't a lot of places to go. But now and they and they rather

enjoyed it. I must tell you again, going back to years when I would be in a clubhouse with an old tape recorder over my shoulder and a little hand mike and all of that, there was a greater understanding of that ecosystem I was talking about earlier, where okay, this is part of the drill, and so after a game you might sit with a player, have a beer with him, and smoke a cigarette with him, and again showing how much how far back it goes, but it

was it was part of the understanding of their workspace, our workspace, and our mutual love for baseball. Uh. Now you've got players who've got their agents, they've got their their Twitter feeds, I've got all this other stuff that seems to take a greater priority for their time and space than players who preceded them by So it's it's different. So to answer the questions, they're gonna go back, it might will the relationships be what they once were? Not likely?

And then, as you also reference the play by play guys on the road, and that a lot. I understand a lot of teams this year also, at least at the beginning of the year, the broadcasters are not going to travel this this season in general. So is that something that you think the majority of the teams are just gonna avoid paying for. There's a lot of money to travel and stay at these hotels and it's a

big expense, absolutely right. I think that maybe I'm not saying definitively, but it may be a a by product of the post pandemic era. Um And again, if I can listen to the World Series films and I hear me and I know I'm in this room having broadcasts that yet watching it there and knowing that we're sounding like I was there when I wasn't, I think what will eventually happen to some degree it will cut down

on announcers traveling because they don't have to. Yeah. Well, and Charlie, just in general, you've had such a great run here with your many stops along the way. But there's people, some listeners, a little younger guys that they want to they want to be you, Charlie. They want to reach the heights of Charlie Stein, any pearls of wisdom you have for the younger generations that are listening, they want to follow in your footsteps. Don't be afraid

to fail, be available, Um, be prepared. There are no shortcuts. It's hard. It is Uh. It is a very subjective business. Some people may think you're wonderful, and different people here the same thing that the others heard. It's like chiefus, he's awful. Um. All you can do is the best you can um and and work real hard and be around. And as branch Rickey said, luck is the resident of design.

If you're there, you might get lucky. But nobody's gonna knock on your front door and say, hey, would you like to come and be a Major League Baseball announcer. You kind of work your ass off to get there, and even then, there's no guarantee you're gonna get it. Yeah. Absolutely, And Uh you mentioned earlier social media. Uh, that is something that's changed in our lifetimes. Charlie A lot with the the importance the importance of social media. And I

have a love hate relationship with with social media. I'm on there because of the job and did a talk show. You need to be on there and whatnot. But it's I'm not a big fan, but how how has that entered into the equation because so many of the stories today in the sports news cycle seemed to come from Instagram or Twitter. It's, uh, it's a fascin any change that's taken place. I don't know if it's a change for the better. Do you think it's a change for the better? Not? Really? No, I do not have a

Twitter account. Um My feeling is if I have something to say, I will say it on Mike during a game or with you. Um, and that's as far as it goes. You know, I don't care much about what I think let alone. Uh do I necessarily want to share that with people that I do not know? So no, I'm not a fan of it. I do look at it on occasion just to get a sense of, you know, what fans are thinking about. But I would I would never engage in that because it's just not that's not

a neighborhood I want to live in. Now. You were the you were a big guy at ESPN when in the heyday I consider the heyday of ESPN. Uh, you know, it's still a monster, is probably bigger now than it was then, but as far as financially, but that matter, Charlie. In those days when you were doing Sports Center and there was no there wasn't social media and the Internet was still you know, in the early stages and it was archaic and and things like that. That Sports Center,

when you hosted that show, that was musty TV. That's how people got the sporting news. What was it like in those early days at ESPN when I mean all you guys became big stars, you know, in that time and then in the years that followed, but you guys have had great careers. But what was it like when you were doing that? And that was that was the epicenter of sports media. I was, I was so lucky. UM. I got hired in nineteen eight, never having had a

look of television experience. UM. But a fellow named John Walsh came in and his task was to turn Sports Center into something UH. And then they started to high or people UM and I was. I was the first of the new breed that they brought in as an anchor. And again I had to learn on the fly. UM. Peter Gammon's was just starting, Andrea Kramer was just starting UH,

and they had no television experience either. Uh. And then within a year year and a half, Dan Patrick came in, Keith Olberman came in, Robert Roberts came in, Young Mike Tarico came in UM and it was this surge of talent um and we were working in this little pip squeak town, Bristol, Connecticut. And it was in fact my agent at the time when when when they find they made an offer to me, they reached out and said, do you want to come here? Okay, he said he

didn't think it was a very good idea. It's a you know, it's a little cable station in Connecticut. I said, well, if ever I was gonna try television, this is as good as any and if it didn't work out, I could always go back to radio, where I had had some success. And so all of a sudden, this sports center thing is beginning to take off. And we were the last ones to realize. I mean, we just lifted Connecticut,

were playing TV and this thing. ESPN was coming on the air, MTV was coming on the air, CNN was coming on on the air. All in the late seventies early eighties, and it was like WHOA, so we got swept up on it, uh and in it had no idea, I mean, no idea that it would become the thing that it became. And then I think the thing that really kind of put us over the top ultimately, at least in terms of Sports Center personalities and all that, were the Sports Center commercials, which still have a pretty

good shelf life. So again we were the last ones to know. And the other thing I think that made it successful was the fact that we were in Bristol and we had nobody else except us, So it became this nuclear family inside this concrete building uh in Connecticut. And so we as a group grew up together and we as a group were watched by, you know, as it turned out, millions of people, and everybody was wondering how they got to sit twenty four hours a day

of sports. Wow, they did. And we were just all very fortunate. I got to work with Bob Lee for every day for twelve of my fourteen years there, and Bob and Robin Roberts and either three of us were together every day for about seven years. So we're just lucky and it worked out. You know, luck is the residue of design. Yeah, and and even all you know these years later, since you've been doing the baseball those

those highlights on on YouTube. Some of your the commercials are still popular, the blooper videos that I gotta ask you about that now. You mentioned you have not done TV before. Your laugh so infectious. My My favorite was you were doing the Mitch blood Green uh story, and that was what was it like? Like? What were the people like around the camera and the support staff and the people you're working with, because you you lost it

a couple of times on it was great television. But what was were they busting your chops while you were doing that? What was that like? The first time I lost it was Carl Lewis and his wretched rendition of the national anthem um. And at that point that was so, I'm I'm on the air maybe three years. I'm still trying to get my uh my, shea legs under me. And that morning, uh, driving to work, I listened on the radio and they had about a ten second clip

of Carl Lewis butchering the anthem. It was the Nets and Bulls in Jersey And so we had a production meeting every day about ten ten thirty for our seven o'clock show, and I said, I heard the damnedest thing on the radio today, Carl Lewis doing the anthem, and it wasn't very good. Maybe the tape room has it from last night. We fift twenty minutes later, they come upstairs, back when there were cartridge tapes, put it in, and

the entire anthem is in there, and oh this is gold. Um. And they always would give me the kicker, the final story of the of the night. You know, something stupid that I was. I was good at stupid. So now we decided that's gonna be the last story of the day. Um. And throughout the day people keep hearing about this Carl Lewis thing. And they came by and and and where I sat. Long before we had offices, we had little pods. Um. They kept they popped in the Carl Lewis anthem and

it it was awful. And every time I heard it, I laughed. And I'm figuring by seven o'clock, having heard it maybe twenty or twenty five times that day, I would have been laughed out raw. Um. So he sings and I'm gonna make it up to you and all of that, and it was historically bad, and I got lucky. I gotta as I'm losing it now. Um that popped into my head Francis Scott off Key. I don't know where it came from, but I'm glad that it did

so anyway, So now I have thoroughly lost it. I'm on the air for about thirty seconds and bookers are flying out of my nose and spits coming out of my mouth. And I go back upstairs when the day has done, put my earpiece in my desk and all that, and I'm thinking, I'm I'm done, I'm fired. This is this is not gonna this is not gonna last. When I go up into the newsroom, everybody is still laughing, hysteric. I'm thinking, Okay, well, maybe I can survive this thing.

That night, at the eleven o'clock show, Keith and Dan, I think the first and only time they ever re aired an entire segment from the seven o'clock show of me and Carl Lewis, and and then the reaction was such and it became in many ways kind of liberating that if I could survive that, and I wasn't worried about what the camera was seeing because I had lost it.

Then it just naturally loosened me up on television, and so it was it was therapeutic for me as a broadcaster, and so then when I saw funny and stupid stuff, it was easy you for me to just let it go. Charlie, what's your favorite ESPN commercial that you ever did? Ben and I were talking about an off air, so kind of curious to what you thought. I guess followed me to Freedom only because works. You know. I did one

with Melrose Place. It was Bobby the pool Boy, and again they gave me a lot of you know, punch line that was a walking punch line for fourteen years there. But I guess followed me to Freedom, which is now more than twenty years old, still works. Yeah, it does that. Hey, Charlie, thank you so much. I appreciate it. I hope to see you at the ballpark when things get back to some sense of normal there. I haven't seen you in a while, but thanks for coming on and continued domination

on the Dodge and broadcast. I hear you all the time, and you're you're doing a great job. So thank you so much, and thank you so much for having to appreciate it. Be sure to catch live editions of The Ben Miller Show weekdays at two am Eastern eleven pm Pacific. 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 f s R to listen live.