Ted Sobel

That that on air light is flashing, and that means it is time for another addition of the Fifth Hour with Ben Maller, because four hours a night are not enough eight days a week. And we thank you for subscribing to the podcast. We're finding it first of all, listening to it, telling friends about it. The only marketing budget we have is none. We have no marketing budget.

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But this week we start the Friday podcast. I am very excited to talk to somebody who has known me since I was a teenager when I first started in radio, and has been very kind me over the years as I navigated my way as a radio reporters to hang out in press boxes with this gentleman. And he has a new book out and I said, you know what, Ted, I gotta promote this book, your friend of mine. Not normally I don't do these book interviews. I don't normally

do these book interviews. But it's really just telling story worries. That's all it is, telling stories, and that's always a good podcast. That's solid podcasting, broadcasting in general, telling stories. And so the name Ted Sober, if you're in southern California, you likely know who. That is a staple of the l A media scene. He worked in news radio at the iconic KF WB as the sports director for many many years. Currently he is nationally known as the studio

host for the Sports USA network. I think that's what it's called. But he does the NFL and college football, and I believe they've got the NHL rights now on radio, and he is called minor league hockey. He lived in Wisconsin. Uh did some University of Wisconsin hockey broadcast back in the day, worked for the Mighty Ducks. He's been all over the place. I've known him for a very long time. He's got a new book out called Touching Greatness, and Ted has had a very interesting life. He has met

pretty much everybody who's anybody in the sporting world. But it's not just about sports, and more importantly for our purposes, Ted, you are part of the fs ARE Alumni Association. We were briefly teammates. How long it's been a while. How long did you work It wasn't long. How long did you work at Fox Sports Radio, Ted? I was there Ben at least two shifts. Seriously, uh I was there

for a handful of months. I don't remember exactly, but uh I left around Thanksgiving after I did some things in the summer, So it was just a handful of months there. It was just bad timing, that's all. And plus U, I was only working the very very late overnight shifts. And when I say overnight, you were long gone, so you know, even the sun was a rumor at the time, and it just didn't work into my My body was saying, what are you doing? You're too old

for That's what I tried to listen. And you've had prime radio jobs, right, I remember you on kf WB and you were like the prime time guy and all that. But three years but who's counting. But the overnight, though, Ted, That's that's where you really get your hands dirty. In the overnight you are insane. I would have been I would have been laid out in a casket decades ago. Well we're all headed that way one way or another. But uh, you know what I mean. Yeah, we wanted

to delay that as long as possible. So we now we have known each other. You have known me Ted since I was a teenager, since I was a teenager. Full disclosure. I would actually like to thank you because, uh, you know a lot of you know, there was some guys, not a lot, there were some guys that kind of gave me the cold shoulder when I started and I was out covering some Dodgery games and stuff around the town when I was nineteen, and you were not. You were pretty cool all along. And uh, I love the

way you say that. That too cool, just pretty cool. He remember, you sort of earned the cold shoulder at times too, So let's let's be honest with the folks out there. Well, I disagree with that, and I do have to agree with that position at all. I was just because I got lost one time at Dodger Stadium and I didn't know where to go, and I followed somebody and they turned out to be the biggest asshole that I'd ever done with. But other but other than that, no, no,

it was not you with somebody else. I don't know. I had not been in the bowels of Dodger Stadium before, so I had I gotten lost, and I figured, well, there's another reporter, so I just kind of follow them and they all know where to go and get out of here. And then it turned out to be the the one, the one guy who hated me the rest of my life because of that that activity. But but you have covered the l A sports scene. I mean, you've seen and done it all. I know you've got

a book. We're gonna talk about that, but go to book again. Oh it's the I think it's called touching greatness? Is that right? Look at look at that? I got it right, and I got it right in front of me here. But that But now, I started in the nineties, you were, you were covering the game's way before that, and so what kind of paint the picture for those that are wondering when the how much did it change from the seventies, eighties to the nineties there and obviously

today it's a totally different situation. But when you when you were covering like the Dodgers in the nineteen seventies, compared to covering the team's you know, the years for what was it like then? Was it obviously was a lot different. There wasn't the internet and all that stuff. So kind of paint the picture what that was like? Well, first of all, not just the Dodgers, any team. They

wanted us there. Now they don't even want to know we exist, So it's a big difference, you know, just the fact remember food was free to the media then because they absolutely needed us in the house. Remember I tell us everybody, and people never think of this, but it is the most important thing when it comes to promoting sports. From a media standpoint, it is the only business.

And I mean you talk about movies, you talk about anything else that gets free twenty four seven publicity and they don't have to spend one penny, not one penny. And it's the only business on the planet. It probably in the universe, and maybe every universe. So they wanted us there because if we're there, we're giving them constant

free publicity. By the second, Now, if you were a shoe store owner and you had somebody from the l A Times, for example, say I'm gonna come over to your place every day at six o'clock, right around the time you close, and just find out how your sales went, and and talk to your people and what kind of what kind of patrons did you have today? Blah blah blah, and we're gonna write a little story about you every single night. I would send a limo to that person.

And that's who we were for the sports, uh, for any club, whether it was college or pro. So again, now they don't need us as much. But in the seventies of bent, I started in nineteen seventy three, my first credential. Uh. It was it was to a point where if you had access to the room, they you were wanted in there, not by every player, but by the organization. And it was so different. It was it was accommodating. It was, Hey, what can we do for you now? Is say, how can we get you the

hell out of here? And maybe never give you a credential again. It's a whole different ball game. Yeah, and you you one of your good friends. And I was reading in the book. I knew you had known Paul old in a long time. I didn't realize you met him in school, which you talking about. Yeah, and l A City College. And for those who don't know, Paul Olden is the public address announcer for the New York Dickies. But I I for for me, for me, he's the

he's the Kingman rant guy. He's the guy that recorded, for posterity's sake, the Tommy sorta rant when he flew off the handle over Dave Kingman, Uh getting out. And and I've heard stories said that there's other rants that in those days that weren't recorded from Losorda. You you were there covering the Dodgers with Tommy? Is that true? Can you confirm deny that there were other rants that did not get saved, that we're actually better than the Kingman or the Bibacua. Well, let's put it this way.

First of all, I love the way you said. Is that true? You said a little bit like Healey, But that's okay, Jim Healey. For those of you who don't know, classic legendary radio voice in l A and My Hero and My Hero, you know it? It uh that one was a classic because the way it happened, because of the timing of it, and because I always loved that. Tommy used to say I never used an F word in my life, and that was, like you mean, in the last five seconds, Tommy was. He was a classic.

He was unbelieved. You never knew what moods you're going to get him in, except for he was always in one specific type of mood, and that is I want the attention mood, and he got it at that time. I am sure he didn't do it intentionally, he just lost it. And by the way, in a future volume of Touching Greatness, there will be a chapter called what's your opinion of Kingman's performance, and I got the whole story exactly what happened and why it happened that day,

But no, I never heard any specific one. I mean I've recorded him a thousand times. He you know, he drew an F bomb in there, of course, whenever he was in the mood, but not like that. I never I don't recall anything being would have stood out to

this point. And remember in those days, there were times when maybe radio was not in the room at the time, so that would be a good question to ask uh newspaper writer who covered them regularly in the early days, because they may have gotten had a few really classic rants, but nobody was there to record it, so it didn't

really matter. Yeah, And what I remember from covering the sort, I was there at the end his last few years when he was managing the team, so he'd already established himself and he was this bigger than life personality, and which he always was. But having won the World Series a couple of times and having success and all that. But I remember ted when we would go into the locker room to interview him, and if the Dodgers had won, we'd get jolly happy Tommy. That would be bouncing off

the walls. They he was, you know, in his office there he'd be standing up in front of his desk and want to talk to everybody. And then when they lost, he would be downtrodden behind his desk and usually eating some kind of food that he had in his office and and spitting all over the microphe. I remember having to clean my microphone because Tommy spit. Yeah, there was a lot of garlic on my microphone. Freak. It was

like a red sauce. It was. It was wild and of course, of course I was sort of selling it back in the was the eighties, right, he sold pasta sauce at And then also he had a diet program that he was well sure, he also had his own wines too, you know, which was pretty pretty neat stuff. But that was that was much later on. Look, Tommy, if you didn't smell garlic, then Tommy was out of town. I mean, it was always classic to walk into that

room into his office after a game. You get the closure you got to him, the more you could smell his breath and uh, and you're right, there was something about him eating slowly in front of us after a loss. He seemed to be I'm going to enjoy the food more than your damn faces in this room, the way it always seemed to be. Yeah, Now, all I do

want to get to the book touching Greatness. And you've got some of the stories about all these you know, the sort all the great characters that you've covered over the years. Being around beginning. I am jealous, though ted I I'd love to write a book someday. But then I found out how much time you spent on this. You said three this is a three year project. How many hours do you think would you estimate that you put in? Because you didn't have a ghostwriter, I saw

this was all you cast for the friendly ghost. Unfortunately, No, you know what, I don't want to count the hours because if I do, I'll probably shoot myself that time back. All I know is that and and I and I thoroughly am prideful about doing this because it's not an easy thing. But remember, it depends on kind of book you're writing. I did something about literally decades of my life from the beginning and trying to remember stuff that I wanted other people to know of. And I've told

these stories forever and everything. But I should write a book. One day I finally have and I got to the point where there were so many things I had to look up. It took hundreds of hours, no exaggeration of research, because I wanted everything to be one thousand percent accurate, the date, the time, what exactly happened, if it had anything to do with the story. And that's what took as much time as just writing itself. I'm talking hundreds of ours. And how often was your memory a little off?

You have a very good memory, But I they I've read STA again exactly, but I read study. I read studies like that what we remember and then like the timing is usually awf a little bit like version of what we remember is not completely right. How accurate was the memory the mind of Sobel looking back? Keep your life in the damn good question? You know what? It

was actually very good. I'm a little surprised myself. Um, you know, I took some notes about twenty years ago, and I thought, Okay, if I'm ever gonna do this, let me write down a few things. And I literally had several just plain white sheets of paper where I would scribble a little note on just to remember something and throw it in a file and put it in the drawer and totally forget about it. And I literally

forgot about No. I remember he's good, but I could remember where the notes were and and and I finally found him. I was like, oh, yeah, here's the book, all these scribbles, and that's pretty much how I started. It was not some organized, great, perfect outline or anything. It was like, I want to write about Don Drysdale, I want to write about Lasorda, I want to write about Jerry West And it was whatever that little specific note was put on a scribble sheet and put away.

So um. But no, my memory was actually very good. But I want to pacifics where it would really because once you look it up you see a box score from fifty years ago, it brings back memories that you would never ever recall. Yeah, and I've known you for many years, but obviously I don't know your entire life

story and all that. And now you know I now I have the the full volume, which is like it or not, and it is appropriate me at the very beginning here, uh that you go in And I didn't know that Jim Tunney, the legendary referee when you were in high school in l A. He was your principal at Fairfax High School? That is uh, that is crazy. Did you know was he in official at the time he was the principal was of course yeah, oh he was the deed of NFL refs. He was our principal. Absolutely,

we used to talk. He would stop in the hallway in high school and every you know, a sports guys, other people who run into sports. I didn't even know what the NFL wasn't remember. It was not the NFL like it is now. It was it was not the national pastime like it is now. Every was baseball then and and everything else was okay whatever, if you enjoy it,

good for you. Um. It was so different. And he would stop, and sports guys would like to get him, like during a lunch break or whatever nutrition and he would stop and we'd just all be talking. He but do you covered the Packers Bears game yesterday? You know that kind of stuff? So absolutely, and I and I hate it up because I was totally into it more than most. And he invited us, and I was fortunate

to be one of them. And I basically wouldn't allow no answer to the fact that if you, if you, you might even be too young to remember Sports Challenge, the old dick Enberg Game Show. Do you remember that at all? I've seen clips on the internet, but it is before my time. That's what I thought, Well, not from a different generation, the classic show. I mean the first show. They had Joe DiMaggio and and and UH and Jerry West and el Jim Baylor and Duke Snyder

and it was unbelievable. Uh and those are the guys right. Well. I was invited by Mr Tunney as we called him of course then and Jim now that he's a friend, and he's I think he's ninety two years old now, and he's just a phenomenal guy. And he's one of the endorsers of the book, by the way, and he was the one to open the door to get my publisher. So that's a big deal of what he's meant to

my life. But at the time Jim invited me, as I almost insisted on it, to be one of UH six guys that from Fairfax High in l A. To sit down and be one of the the pretend UH superstars on the show. It was before the first airing of the show, and they had to do the angles and check out the video clips and make sure everything

was working perfectly. So it was the practice show that I was on, and I sat in Tommy Hendrick's uh seat at Former Yankee and he was there for the first game, and then after that we got invited to the actual taping of the first two shows, and it was it was just that that show was unbelievable. I mean it was because they had you know, almost everybody who was anybody was on that show, including Jackie Robinson

was on that show. Yeah, And I mean I like, I you told the story that in the book about when you were a kid meeting Ted Williams at a uh what a store somewhere he was a Sears Yeah he was. Was he signing autographs or something like that? Ted, This is like nineteen sixty one or two. Um, he had just retired and he was there to promote everything in those days. Been for a couple of years, maybe

five years, I don't know. He signed a contract with Sears around the time he retired, and everything said Ted Williams on it, and forget baseball. I mean we're talking like he was a big hunter and fisherman and stuff like that. So the entire sporting goods department at sears. It said that Ted Williams name and his signature was on everything. It was Ted Williams, barbecues, it was Ted Williams. Whatever's anything there. So my father heard he was gonna

be there. And this was in uh in Hollywood, here in l A. And he says, I want to take it and go meet Ted Williams. And I said that'd be great. And I was in a little league at the time. So we went there and as we're going through the store, um, my father looks at his watch. He goes, you know what, has run a little late. And we look over and Ted Williams is standing up and he's starting to walk out like he was done. And so whatever he was doing was he was finished

with his shift. And when he was finished, he was finished. And my dad hustled over and he was not exactly an athlete, and he hustled his ass over there and said, Mr Williams, please stop for one second. I want you to meet my son Teddy. And I and I hustled with him and and he looked down he goes, oh, it's very nice to meet you. Another Teddy ball game. He shook my hand and walked away. He wasn't rude. He was just leaving, you know. And to me that

was like that was the first touching Greatness moment. Even though he didn't sign an autograph for me. I didn't ask him. I mean, he was literally walking out the door and he was very nice. But but Kurt, you know, real quick and and I looked at my father and said, this is like the greatest thing of all time. I just shook Ted Williams hands and that gave me that feeling like, you know what, I don't want to hang out with Joe Smith on the on the street corner.

I'd rather hang out with Ted Williams. And that was the start of things, and touching Greatness is evolved decades later. Look at that, And that's cool because if we have heard stories that Ted's been gone for a while, what you've heard stories that he had been very aloof at times. So that's cool that he at least stopped to acknowledge a kid in the in the series the aloof Athletes, so we've all been around them, and you probably can write a book just on the aloof Appney, you know,

that would be a good, good one for you. By the way, write that down there you that could be thirty five volumes. But you know, one of the most aloof guys in the history of sports, maybe the history of the universe, is Joe Di Maggio and I have

a great story in the book. I always stuck into Dodger Stadium after Martin Luther King charity game in nineteen seventy and I just had a great, uh wonderful interaction with Roberto Clementi getting autographs at the team bus as they were leaving, and it was it's probably the greatest compilation of Hall of Famers on the field at one time in this one game that's almost forgotten in the history of of baseball. And when the game was over, it was late late in the afternoon. Um, I was

a teenager. I was ready. I wasn't ready to go home, and I just want to hang out at the Ravine and there's no security guys or anything in those days. I just wandered back into the stadium, looked around and thought, you know what, it would be sort of fun to

see if anybody's left. I started wandering downstairs, ended up at the Visitors Club, at the old Visitor clubhouse at the at the Ravine, and the door was slightly opened, and I looked inside and there was an old man sitting there in his uh, in his shorts and uh a tank top. And I looked a little closer. It was Joe f and DiMaggio sitting there all by himself,

staring at a wall, doing nothing. And I knocked down the old that giant if you remember the old visitor's locker, I'm sure you do that, that huge metal door when we walked in and I knocked on the thing, and he looked up and I said, excuse me, Mr DiMaggio, can I get your autograph? And instead of him being a jerk like I've heard he could be many many many times, he wasn't just a you know, really easy relaxed attitude. Ah, sure, kid, And then he said what

the hell are you doing here? How did you get in? And all that kind of stuff, And he signed my book, my my program and my autograph book, and we had a little small talk. He was very house school, all that kind of stuff, and then he said, sent me on my way. That was the end of it. But that was another neat time. Nothing like sneaking into the ravine and Joe DiMaggio is there and say, it's the only time to as you ever signed his autograph and

his underwear, including Marilyn Monroe. Be sure to catch live editions of The Ben Meller Show weekdays at two a m. Eastern eleven pm Pacific on Fox Sports Radio and the I Heart Radio app. Well that's great because when I was in high school, I tried to get to Maggio's autograph. I we found out he was appearing in San Diego at a card convention. The National Trading Card Convention was in San Diego. So a buddy of mine found out what hotel the Maggio was like, a lot of the

people were staying there. So I went down with some friends to try to get to matt. We were we were stalking the hotel, sitting in the lobby when when we wanted autographs, right, yeah, yeah, So I wanted to get to Maggio's autograph, and so I sat for as I remember now, it might not have been this long, but it felt like hours, as you know, sitting in the lobby and and uh and security tried to get us out of there, and then we came back and yeah, yeah,

so finally we to Magic. It was like the White whale, you know, I mean, how can we you know, it's elusive and all that. So I remember the Maggio. We saw him get off an elevator with like two other people. But he was supposed to we were We had it all planned out in her head. Tad that he was gonna walk right through the lobby and out to the front where the cars were, except he made a right turn and walked to a side door, and he walked

through the kitchen, and we weren't allowed. Fact, as he snug we saw I saw like a side shot of the Maggio, like the back of his head as he walked through the kitchen to get out of the hotel, to a voice like an idiot sitting there waiting for hours, of course, as we all did. But you got your little brief you of Joe di Maggio, And if it was today, you'd have your cell phone taking pictures. He say,

there he goes, it's also like the Suppruter film. After a while, exactly exactly now, I have not I have not read the entire book here, but the one. You know, certain things that stand out ted and we have we actually have a similar background. And the fact that you went to l A City College. I went to Saddleback

for radio and stuff. And you the chapter ten about radio one oh one in my d n A that if you're a radio kind of kind of nerd radio geek, we we have a lot of people that listen that love radio, and people do radio well yeah, exactly even on a podcast a rip off of radio live radio. But you go into great detail there and you're you got to go as a like a college kid. You got to go watch a broadcast of Dodger postgame program. That's pretty cool. Your was it your professor? That was

the guy that was doing it? Is that is that right? No? I mean all that stuff we did it on our own, and that was older than me, and we just we would go to games and literally sit and practice play by play. But I think one of the things you might be referring to was the nineteen seventy four World Series. Well, I was already out of l A City College by then about a year. Uh, and I was actually credential to the seventy four World Series. That's how long ago

that was. Uh. But No, what we would do is we would hang out in the press box area and wait for them to leave their notes, you know, whatever their reads were in their their assignments and all that stuff.

They would leave it on the desk because it was just trash when the game was over, and we would pick it up and read it, thinking that we just found gold as we were trying to figure out how to be broadcasters, and we just got Vince Scully's notes from his NBC broadcast with Joe Garagiola, and so that's what we would do, and then we would read it and pun and use it during our fake broadcast when he's sitting in the stands calling a game every damn night. So it was it was a blast. But uh, we

would do everything on our own. I mean literally, we went to like maybe fifty Dodger games a year, some Angel games too, not as much because it was a drive to Anaheim. And then we go to the Forum and we do thirty or so Lakers games and King's games, and we would have those notes from NBC, from the Dodgers, from the Lakers and bug the hell out of the p our guys. And they hated our guts after a while. So some of them actually got it and they knew that what we wanted to do, and we were sincere.

We weren't just messing around, and others used to be like, can you guys get the hell out of here? Your college students and you're bothering us, and so uh it was. It was fascinating, but again it was whatever it takes, right, give me notes. And if you're eighteen, nineteen, twenty years old and you're trying to get into the business and you've got Vince Scully's read on the air, I mean, please, I gotta have this. Did you keep any of that stuff? Do you have any of those? You know what? I didn't.

I have one thing I kept that the nineteen seventy four World Series notes. I still have because it was in a World Series MLB. He used to have it like a little folder and it would just say World Series on it or something, and it was the game notes. And I stuck some of the whatever I we took off the table we would put I put inside there and just put it away and totally forgot about. I found it about five years ago. It was sitting in a folder somebody gave to me and said, Roboski's name,

how's that for old? And he was the best reliever in the busines at that time. Uh so, yeah, there was some St. Louis stuff and uh and and then the seventy four World Series and we actually had Salve Bando if you remember that name. He was an All Star for the Oakland A's in nineteen seventy four, third baseman. And this is how it was been. How it's totally different. I don't think you ever lived this, because I think

it was gone by the time you showed up. We were literally in the A's dugout twenty minutes before the start of the World Series game because there's nobody here, I mean nobody cared. Yeah, the guys are coming off the field. We got sal Bando to come on our fake pregame show. He sare the World Series game started. He walked over, he was a guest. We got it for like two or three questions. He was fantastic. He

was a really nice guy. And then we said, well, okay, and we'll be back with the startup game one after this, and then we went upstairs and and practice in the stands. That's outstanding is that is a great story. So yeah, I I was there a little bit in those you know, it started to turn over around the time I started, unfortunately, so a lot of that stuff went away and I got away. A quick little note on the sal Bando thing.

That game is, that is the famous game when Reggie Jackson hit the fly ball to right field where Joe Ferguson ran in front of Jimmy Winn and made one of the greatest throws in the history of the World Series to throw a guy out of at the plate. Do you remember seeing the video on that thing, the toy cannon? Uh so not. Now we should point out here touching greatness that you both you and we mentioned Paul, you know, the Yankee guy, and he did play by.

Both of you guys, you did play by play. You've done play by playing for college and and minor league hockey and a bunch of stuff over the years. And you're a network. So both you guys made it and and you would hang out in what the upper decade Dodger Stadium doing mock broadcast the very time at Dodger Stadium, we were at the field level. We sat in the

same seats almost every night. We got to know the ushers at the Forum and Dodger Stadium, and if nobody showed up with a season seat or a regular seat. They let us sit on the last role behind home plate in section five O five and we would sit there and it would be um, it would be next to because we needed this next to an electric plug so we didn't have to use our batteries because we couldn't afford them for our set player. So we could plug into the wall, you know, which they use basically

for the clean up crew. Afterwards we used it. We said, hey, this is great. We get to use Dodger Stadium electricity for our cassette recorders. And that's we sat the same seat almost every night, and the same seats at the Forum as well, because in those days the games weren't sold out, so we sat up high at the Forum, but again right by the place where we could plug in, and we it was on office and people knew us

up there. The regulars up there used to turn off Chickern and Bob Miller and listened to us to the play by play, and we we ate it up. It was a blast. Well, I was gonna ask you that because I've heard stories back in the old days it like a Dodger stadium in particular, like Vince Scully, everyone was listening to Vin call the game. It was like you didn't have to have headphones on. So when you were doing the play by play in the back, there were people receptive and we're like, hey, it's shut up.

I want to hear what Vin has to say. What do you do a great question? And there was always every once in a while you get somebody like, hey, I I paid my four dollars or whatever the hell it was in those days to to come to this game. But almost everybody, I guess we sounded good enough. They enjoyed it and they could see that we were we

were just screwing around. I mean, we were trying to be as as keen a broadcaster as possible and just learned after game after game after game, and almost everybody was nice to listen. A lot of them say yes, soon as we come, we in the radio off. We just listen to you guys, and they were having a blastom By the way, nobody was wearing headphones in those days. Headphones didn't exist. All right, well, fine, you called me on.

So now another thing that I had like a lightbulb moment here because you you and a chapter of hanging out with Elgin Baylor and we both have a mutual friend who passed away a few years ago, Dave Stone, who worked at Fox Sports Radio, who I always I remember we were in his service. Like to me, he was the biggest Elgin Baylor fanatic I had ever. He knew everything about el He he used to tell me Elgin was better than Michael Jordan's or Kobe Bryant or

any of these guys. And and but I didn't see I didn't see el I only knew Elgin as the Clipper GM. So that the problem. Yeahn't see him. So they're all dead. Now what can I tell you? But you saw him, and you you became friends with him, right you you knew him them you stopped Joan Masual. But I got to hang out with Elgin for fifty years. And Joe, you're still waiting for Joe to sign your damn book. Difference. Uh. When I went to Fairfax High

I moved into a neighborhood that I had had no idea. Uh. When I was playing B and C basketball in school, and one of the guys my first year says, hey, you moved into a neighbor where Elgin Baylor lives. Remember he was playing at that time. This is nineteen sixty eight. I'm losing track of this year. So he was still the superstar. I mean, he was Michael Jordan before Michael Jordan was a sperm. I always say, you know, I mean,

it was, it was that simple. And uh so when he got to the point where I realized, g I, if Elgin really lives here, I gotta find this guy. And uh, I used to hitchhike up the hill. It was. It was a very steep hill about Sunset Boulevard, and uh, I didn't drive yet, so I had to hitchhike to get home, and it was too long to walk. And one day, uh, in this story, in the chapter Dela Reese, the the late great Dela Reese, the actress, singer. She used to pick me up regularly and drive me half

the way home. She lived up that hill and she was really nice to me. And one day she dropped me off and I'm walking the rest of the way home and I look, I look over as cars are coming by, and I could have sworn that's that's gotta be Elgian Baylor. I couldn't believe it. He was driving an old giant Buick, a brown one and and I'm staring at the car, thinking, I gotta find this car I have And that was my whole life the next

several weeks, Where the hell is this car? And I walked up the hill, uh, and sideways and every which way I was running into rattlesnakes. I was past houses, just trying to find and one day I finally it was only two blocks away from me, but it was a hidden could de sac that he lived at the end of the cul de sac and uh, and he had to continually walk up this this grueling hill and there was a house with that car sitting right there in the driveway. And I said, I just found gold.

This is the greatest thing. Okay, now, what the hell do I do? What am I gonna do? Knock on the door and say, hey, I'm here. I'm your new best friend. You know, it's great. I found his far who cared right anyway, I did knock on the door, and Mrs Baylor Ruby, his first wife, answered the door. She was so nice and she says, Teddy's um, he's taking a nap right now. And Reverence during the season while he was playing, So I said, uh, is there any chance he goes? You know what, come back tomorrow

about the same time. He should be Uh, everything should be great. You can be just They were very neighboring. All right, it was great. So I came back the next day. I was so excited. And I write in the book how nervous I was that if I was if I was my age, then I would have keeled over. It would have been all over. I would add cardiac arrest with him saying I can feel my heart pounding out of my chest. I was so nervous. And then finally, Uh, I got up enough nerve to hit the door again,

and she answered to hold on one second. Elgin came over and he looked down at me, and you know, I'm about three ft tall at the time, and I'm not that much taller now. And he looked down him and he goes, hi, I'm Elgin, and I'm looking at him like no ship, I guess anyway, So it was fantastic, and he invited me into his his He had this trophy room where he had the m v P and all these Seattle University and unbelievable trophies everywhere. And this was towards the end of his career, but he was

still playing, and it I was. I was about to leave the house, so I spent about fifteen minutes with him. He was really nice, and Tommy Hawkins once told me the former Laker in his his his one time roommate for a long time, said to me, I'm surprised Elgin is not usually like that, but I think maybe his wife was a good influence on him in that department. So uh. He spent some quality time with me and then basically said, hey, it was nice to meet you, and now good luck to the rest of your life.

And as Mrs Baylor was about to close the door and I mean literally it was almost closed, and saying thank you, it's nice to meet you, and you know, good luck, I turned around. A light bulb went off my head Ben and I said to myself, this can't be it. There's got to be more to this than that. And I quickly turned around. Excuse me, Mrs Baylor. Would it be possible for you guys to take me to a game sometime? I don't drive you. He looked at me like I was insane, and I didn't know what

to say, and she says, well, I don't know. I have to ask Elsie watch you come back another time and we'll bring it up. And that's all. Oh, thank you, And I walked away and I'm laughing running back down the hill to my place. They can they just invited me back. I'm on my way back, and I did, and they did, and they took me. They started taking me to games. And I used to hang out with their kids, uh at their house and shoot baskets in

his backyard. And the one time that Al and his son invited me over and said, let's shoot some baskets. Um Elgin was there practicing his free throws and I thought I was gonna die. So anyway, it was just an incredible time. And you can't do that anymore. You you have to get through the sixteen security guys with the machetes and the machine guns and you know, all that stuff, get over the moat and good luck. So I imagine imagine a kid today going up to Lebron,

because elm was like the Lebron of his days. Hey, you go up to Lebron's house in bel Air. Hey, Lebron, I want to hang out and see your trophies. Good luck? Can you come up? Can you take me the games? From now on? It's like now those days are over. But that's it wasn't only amazing to me, but because it's decades later and the world has changed so much, I think it's a it's sort of a time piece there where I can say, this is the way it

used to be, at least potentially. Not everybody went over to Aldam Baker's house, I hope, But you know what I'm saying. You know, you had that beach balls to do it in the first place, and then it just worked out so great well. And I remember ted Tommy, you bought Tommy Hawkins name up and he told I

love Tommy. He told me a story one time when he was on the Minneapolis Lakers when they came to l a and he said, in the early days the Lakers, it's amazing to think about this because I I'm surrounded by Laker area historians that love to brag about the Lakers and us. But when the Lakers moved from Minneapolis, basketball was not very popular like pro basketball, and the Laker players, Tommy said, would have to go out, you know,

the day of games. They'd ride around in the back of trucks or flatbed trucks and try to get people to come to the game that night. Uh, I mean, that's that's insane to think about now, considering how popular the Lakers were and and imagine if you had players today to if you told again Lebron or these guys, can you go out and promote the game that night,

said we can sell some tickets before. I mean, it's it's it's insane to think about, but then it's totally a sane I mean, as a matter of fact, they would say, talk to the union, get I'll get back to you about twenty years when I'm retired. You know that not one person would do it. And uh, but you had to do it that I mean, remember these guys,

a lot of them had jobs on the side. This was not big money in those days, so this was their seasonal job and then they go back being a lifeguard in a car wash or something after that, you know, until the next season. So it was really a lot of amazing stuff in those days. And I used to go to the sports Arena, not your Clippers sports arena, but when the Lakers played there, and it was a

dump when it was new. I never how we thought in places it died that I was there and was half full for a Lakers game, and so yeah, it was just a different world. Uh people, remember it wasn't. The media wasn't what it is now, or forget now, even thirty years ago. Uh, you couldn't. There was no important game of the week that was on all the time.

It was just so different. So of course, early on when they moved to l A, you had to establish the fact that hey, we got a professional basketball team here. And you guys, if you don't read the sports page, you're not gonna know it exists. So yeah, hawkey to talk about that where they drive up and down, and it was also sometimes I think it was a convertible and they'd have their little megaphones out and say, hey, well it's a seven thirty start tonight at the sports Arena.

The New York knickerby hers are in town. And I love those stories. I think it's great because it's it's it's impossible to imagine today, but it's the way it was. Yeah, that's wild. So now you you're a great storyteller, Ted, which is wonderful radio guy. No, but we if somebody's still undecided Ted right now listening to this and and this far into this podcast. Well, I know, but you've covered You've covered l A obviously mostly l A sports, but you worked in with you were in Wisconsin for

a while at one point. You've traveled all over the place. But why tell the guy sell the book ted? Because I want to see this do well, I'll tell you why in a second. But touching greatness here, Uh, somebody in Sheboygan or Punksitani or Springfield, like, why why would they want to read a book that's mostly about you know, you know, el Jin Baylor in l A type sports.

Why why would they want to buy this book? Well, first of all, it's not just l A. It happens to be my memoir plus a lot of other stuff. But there is a lot of people in Sheboygan, and not that I hang out there, so I don't know for sure. But if you're listening to this in Sheboygan, you're probably fascinated by stuff that goes on in Los Angeles.

That's why we have too many damn people, because the second you come here and visit, ten minutes later you're living here and we've got four billion people in one lane on the freeway. This is part of the problem. So remever, I used to live in Wisconsin, and there's uh, there'll be a future volume of Touching Greatness with some

stuff about my Wisconsin days. But there's also a football chapter right now with a lot of Aaron Rodgers and Bart Star because I grew up a Green Bay Packers fan as a little kid when they were great during the Vince Lombardi era. So I talked about getting a chance to meet my idols, and that's a lot of what this book is about. It doesn't matter you're from l A or from Mars. There's a lot of um.

I hopefully it'll be inspirational stuff, but at the same time, just make you smile stuff, because it's the kind of thing that the average person who might be a sports fan walks down the street and if they got a chance to meet Ted Williams or or Joe them as you or anybody in between, Colfax Drysdale from the other era, or Kobe and Tiger Woods from this era, Um, you're gonna you're gonna love it. I mean this, you're it's

a moment you'll never forget. Well. I write about many, many, many moments I never forgot in that vein, and it's There's there's also music in here too. I talked about being around. There's a chapter called Laurel Canyon Days, and I was there in the late sixties when I went to Fairfax High School. I lived not far away from Loyal Canyon. When it was the place it is, it was the capital of music, Uh in the world. Everything

was based on a Laurel Canyon. You know, the Birds and the Beach Boys and everybody was living there, and and the and the bands like um, like the Eagles and all those guys were formed there. And I have stories about I break a couple of stories on how two of the songs from the Eagles, Uh, New Kid in Town and Tequila Sunrise were written by around the guy that is former l A King's player Geane Carr, and Jean gave me an exclusive story that's something he's

never told anybody else before. And he just thought he felt comfortable with me, and it was great. He's a super guy and uh he told me the history New Kid in Town was written about him when he got traded to l A from the New York Rangers. Uh. And he did, and Glenn Friday became extremely close friends. Glenn fry the Eagles, who passed away a couple of years ago. And Glenn Fried. You probably ever seen him. He was always a Laker games and King's games and

stuff like that. Um, he was a season ticket older. He's a big sports fan and and I love to play golf regularly. So a lot of that stuff is in the book. And it's unusual stuff. I mean, you just don't see this anywhere. And I just happened to live through. And again I've told people's stories forever about this and that, but I go into uh, literally, there's a where were you when JFK was shot? Well, I know where you were. You didn't exist yet, right, A

lot of people will still ask that question. We're still were around today. Where were you? It's one of these It's one of the events of all time, of course, negative or positive. And it got to the point where, you know what, I remember that moment like it was yesterday, and I thought it was an interesting thing to recall.

And I tied it in around my favorite baseball player, Don Drysdale, who was just a phenomenal guy and became just an icon around here, and the Drysdale Cofax hold out of the sixties and how how much that meant.

So there's a lot more than just because it's l A. But I talked about Tiger Woods and UH covering him at the at the British Open at St. Andrews, and and UH and Kobe this first game that he played, his first I should say, his first season that he played, and his last game of his first season was his air ball game when he shot four air balls in the last few minutes and he looked like the worst

player who ever lived. I just happened to be in Utah that night because I was announcing a minor league hockey game the night before and the night after, so I got a credential to come for that game, and I was there and I I ended up winning a Golden Mite for the damn thing, and I talked about that story. So look, there's just tons of stuff. It's not just l A. It's mostly icons that I discussed, and even Vegas the rat pack era. I mean, even Ben Mallard

knows that the rat back. Yeah, they were all ninety years old by the time you showed up. That is true. I remember Sinatra occasionally going to a Dodger game when I first started. Yeah, yeah, exactly. But even have seen him a few times over there. I did, right, I did. Yeah, it was why I remember the last time I remember

him showing up. There was a rumor in the press box that he was going to be there, and then like the it was at that time he was bigger than life by the end of his career and stuff. But exactly you exactly, exactly exactly thing like you used to it all. But he's Frank Sinatra, so that nobody cared exactly. Uh. And you I also love and this is how I consume books dead. You know, I don't read too many books, but I love the fun facts.

Did you know? Because you know I those are right in my wheelhouse, little nuggets that you can, you know, kind of wrap your mind around. One of them that stood out to me in touching great because I did not know. My mom was a huge Sandy Kofax fan used to regale me with stories about Sandy Kofax and all that. But he he actually owned He owned a hotel in that Laurel Canyon, uh chapter of Santa Monica Boulevard,

right down the street from the Troubadour. He owned a little kind of roads like roots sixties six hotel type thing is that it was just it was literally like a motel motor in kind of a place. It was sort of a cheap, old place. But uh, for a while, his name was not on it, and then it became the Sandy co Fax whatever it was, I can't remember anymore. Something in it was only for a few years, maybe

five years or something like that. But that's where the bands used to stay and party and do whatever the hell they did back in the sixties. Who played at the Troubadour and the Whiskey a Go Go Someone were there, including Jim Warrison was a regular. He used to stay at that hotel all the time. And I have a fun interview and they're a little quick Q and A with Robbie Kreeger, who was the guitar player for the Doors, who was also a golfer, and I've known him for

a little bit for a several years. He's a really good guy and he loves talking about the old days. And he gave me the answer. I said, did you guys know the Sandy Kofax on this? And what would Jim Morrison have said? And it's in the book. I mean, when's the last time you read anything with Jim Morrison and Sandy Kofax's name in the same damn sentence. It ain't never gonna exist again. No, it's it's a tremendous I I really stuck with me as a fun factory.

Sure to catch live editions of The Ben Maller Show weekdays at two am Eastern eleven pm Pacific, Ha and Dou got the The podcast is called All Ball. We usually talk all basketball all the time, but it's more about the stories about what made these people love their sport and all the interesting interactions along the way. We talked to kill we talked to players, We tell you stories. You download it, you listen to it. I think you

like it. Listen to All Ball with Doug Gotlieb on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or ever you

get your podcast. So now full disclosure. We need this book to do well because I need the second I need the second edition of Touching Greatness because Ted, one of the cool things about knowing you, you worked with one of my idols, one of my inspirations to get into radio, Jim Healy, and you knew him and you were around him, and uh, it's not in this book, but you've told me that if there is a second book,

that if this does want, I believe it will do well. Ted, You're gonna write an entire chapter about Jim Healey, my my radio hero. So I can't written, Oh good, Okay, I don't know if you got a chance to even it yet. I'm trying to get people to buy the book, Ted, so I I want you to get the second book so that yes, but I did write it already, and

maybe it's I sent you the unedited version. If you haven't listened to Jim Healy and you're too young, or you just didn't know of him, or you certainly if you're not from l A. There's a good chance you've never heard of him. There's stuff online and I'm sure that you could pass people send him to links and whatever. Listen to these shows. There's a million stuff out there. He was unbelievable, he was. But I started when he started, when I was in college in nineteen seventy three is

when he started doing his stick on the air. That way, and Paul Olden the following several months after that worked at k l a C in l a UH in the news department there while he was still going to college, it was like, hey, they found an opening there. And it wasn't just an internship, it was actual job in the in the news department. And he started getting this sound off the newsreels for Healey to use, and he

started using them. And one of the early things was there was a there was a sound effect album, one of many, many, many volumes where there was a sound effect of a man falling down the stairs. You can hear them hitting the stairs, each stair and every time he hit him. All right, uh, do you remember that

at all? So yeah, he would use that when like let's say, for example, Uh, in those days, let's say Ali punched out Joe Frazier and he went down, and he would play that sound effect as a guy falling down and getting the crap beat out of him. Well, that sound effect came from me because I heard that when I was a kid on the Dave Hole Show. Was my radio idal as a non sports radio aonal one of the great DJs in the history of l A. The hullabalooor and Dave used to play that all the time.

So when I got into radio, and I forget professionally, when I got into the radio department at l A. City College. I looked everywhere for that sound effect. I couldn't find it, and we finally went to a library one where where they had old albums of sound effects, and I went through dozens of them and I finally found it. And I didn't know that it was labeled as man Falling down stairs. That was the title of it. And it last like four seconds and we're not talking about,

you know, a whole album here. And so I found it and I said, Paul, I said, you gotta give this to Heally. I know he could use it a million times. The next night it was on the air and he used it for the next twenty years. So that was my first contribution to his show. And then I did a thing where um, when wald Alston was the manager of the Dodgers, Uh, we used to be sitting in the stands doing our practice play by play and there was one game where I was just fed up.

Alston was almost literally falling asleep in the dugout. I mean it was just you could see his head like nodding off. It was embarrassing. And we had good seat, so I was close enough to tell and uh, and I think he was half asleep when he left whoever was in the game at the time, these guys getting bombed, and we're saying what they we're doing our practice play if I played, what is he doing? How do you not have any believer? Bring him in off the bus?

Stop anybody right now getting his ass kick? And finally that he brought somebody in and Allston's walking out to the mound after way too many runs were scored and I stood up and I yelled, your stupid Allston. And it because where we were, the whole the hall was right behind us at the stadium. It was this incredible like an echoing sound. And we would listen to our broadcast every night on the cassette tape, and Paul listened back and he goes, wow, I shut up. Just happened

to be you yelled your stupid Alston. That came out so good. I'm giving that to Healey and Jim used that for years seven every time a Dodgers screwed up, You're stupid Alston, and he would and that would be me, although my name wasn't on it. He called it. He called the voice of that man, the I rate fan, And now the irate fan is all over Austin again that I Boom, You're stupid all and that was the start of a lot of other stuff. We were totally

involved in that show. That's awesome. And yeah, Jimmy, there's a bunch of Jim Healy clips on YouTube. There's actually if you google the right words, there's a Jim Jim Healy. There's a web page that still exists, has a lot

of his old sounds. Right. You know when Kirk Ipson at the big home run, uh, and then the following year, I remember that was the last at bat that he had for many many months because he went and had surgery on his I think it was his knee at the time, and uh, when he came back the following season. I was there that night working for the Dodgers audio wire. You might remember the name Jimmy Pell's. You knew him, right, Yeah, yeah, yeah,

absolutely so. Jimmy ran the Dodger audio wire and I used to fill in for him a lot whenever he just needed an extra body or he was on vacation. And that night happened to be the night that Kurt Gibson made his comeback first game since the home run. It of course, it's like around I don't know, mid season or something. He missed a lot of the early part of the season in eighty nine, so he came back and and uh he didn't do that much and the Dodgers lost, so it wasn't a big deal, but

the story was he's back. So I besides the fact I'm working for whoever, I was working for maybe a P or U P. I getting my twelve second sound bites. I needed something for the Dodger audio wire. So we waited and waited for him. He finally showed up. Never forget he had the big, giant white towel wrapped around him. And he's just the typical piste off Kirk Gibson. He was possible to deal with. He was a total jerk

to most of us on a regular basis. I know he's a lot of people's idols and hero but uh, if you had to deal with him, he would be off that list pretty quick. Anyway. Uh So I got to the point where we were waiting for him to give us a five seconds, so we just get a couple of questions. So one of my questions was, Hey, I just spoke to Kenny Howell, who was a former

Dodger pitcher who's pitching for the Phillies that night. And uh, and I said, because I ran in there first, got howl sound, and he said that I didn't have my best stuff. Blah blah blah blah. You know, figured out a way to win that kind of junk. So I came back in there and I said, I just spoke to Kenny Allen. He said he didn't have his best stuff, and he went all over He starts cussing me out. It's a ramp that ended up on Jim Healy Show.

And uh, it was. There weren't a lot of f bombs or anything, but there are a couple of little ones. But it was this attitude. It was like, gee, what it's great to have you back. You haven't played since the big old running. The total jerked everybody and Healy was all over him. And and that thing is posted online somewhere. You can find that, and you can hear me answer the question. It's not again, not as famous as what's your opinion the King's performance, And it's not

about being famous. Basically, Healy said, the guy's working for the Dodger audio wire and he's still ripping it. That's outstanding. We got we gotta have this up there. But the book Touching Great is where can people find is everywhere? Is this available all over the place? Do you want to direct people to a certain website or just direct people to Amazon. That's the easiest place. It's also on Coaches Choice and that's plural Coaches CEO, A, C. H. E. S. Choice.

That's the publisher and you get it directly from them. But it's on Amazon right now. It is not in bookstores yet. It's very new. Not sure when it will be because that's the whole political thing on how to get your book and from a smaller publisher into the bookstore. So it may or may not ever get into any of the big bookstores. Will that's all to be determined.

But just go to Amazon Touching Great instead. Sobel it's right there, and uh, I hope you and check it out for whatever reason, if you're into sports, if you're into music, if you're just into the history of southern

California the way it was in the sixties. I go back and talk about growing up in Culver City with restaurants the way it was my favorite food then MGM Studios and how it used to be and I used to sneak in there and my favorite shows like Superman and UH and the Andy Griffith showing all that stuff. We're all recorded down the street from where I lived, and we tried to sneak into the studios and it was just a lot of fun stories like that. No,

that's a great book, Ted, Thank you so much. We'll hang on at some point again, I appreciate I'll see it a game or something. Thank you, you got it, Thanks be. I appreciate it.