The Fifth Hour: Dodger Double Down & Selling Seaweed

Kabooms.

If you thought four hours a day, twelve hundred minutes a week was enough, think again. He's the last remnants of the old Republic, a sole fashion of fairness. He treats crackheads in the ghetto cutter the same as the rich pill poppers in the penthouse.

Wow.

The Clearinghouse of Hot takes break free for something special. The Fifth Hour with Ben Maller starts right now.

In the air everywhere.

The Fifth Hour with Me, Ben Maller and Danny G Radio A happy college football kind of a Saturday, and we have baseball action today, the divisional round of the baseball Playoffs. Great planning by Major League Baseball, Danny G to have it on a college football Saturday. Really want that full spotlight all to yourself, and boy are.

They gonna get it. Absolutely yikes. We got action all day long.

Now we obviously here in SoCal in the LA area, and I think the first game is at eleven this morning, LA time.

So yeah, yeah, And I heard a promo on the network you dog in the Dodgers again saying they have no momentum going into this series.

Well, as you know, there is no such thing as momentum.

Wrong now I will address that a special emergency emergency Mallard monologue, and I will call it Danny the big Blue kool Aid.

Cult is what I'm going to call it.

But we'll get to that also the drop off and the seaweed standoff on this edition of The Fifth Hour. Now, I am planning on watching college football quite a bit today, but I like baseball obviously, so I'll be flipping around to check that out. So my remote control is going to be getting quite the workout today. And if you look at the gambling market, though, and you see who's favorite in these games. The first game today is the Brewers and the Cubs. And I was I was actually

Like you know, it's a short.

Trip from Chicago to Milwaukee, so I can only imagine what this is gonna be. Like Freddie Peralta versus Matthew Boyd, who's left handed on the Mountain for the Cubs, who'll be exactly the Brewers a minus one forty eight favorite with Freddie Parolt in that game. Then after that you got Toronto hosting the Yankees today Louis Heal and Kevin Gossman and the blue Jays minus one twenty.

I think you just made that name up right now.

Well, yeah, a lot of these pictures are like, how are they in the playoffs? Gosman though, is the blue Jays favored minus one twenty four although there is more money coming in on the Yankees. And then after that the game that we're most interested in, the Doyers and the Fighting Phills Christopher Sanchez versus show Hey O'tani.

Show, Hey Otani and the.

Dodgers and underdog the Phillies are the favorite to win that game at minus one fifteen. And then the nightcap in prime time at eight thirty eight Eastern five thirty eight in the West, when the Tigers and Mariners get together, Danny g you throw out the records.

You know why?

Why?

Because if you looked at the record now.

All right, the Robbie the Mariner fan, the big Dumper his Mariners with George Kirby minus two hundred favorites over someone named Troy Melton of the Tigers.

Wow, I don't know who that is.

I have no idea.

Well, let's get to this. You mentioned it.

You brought it up, Danny, the promos that have been running NonStop here and this has been going on for a couple weeks now ever since. Yours truly just a random overnight gas bag. I like to think of truth teller, an occasional agitator, like to stir the pot.

Now. I had the goal, I had the Hootzpa.

You're like the Manny Machado of radio.

I had the hoodspur to point out the obvious about the twenty twenty five Dodgers, and as I anticipated, the fanboys have been spitting nails my direction. So I did a couple of hour monologues recently on the Overnight Show, speaking the gospel, pointing out the frailties of this team. The twenty twenty five bullpen, I call it the Chevron bullpen, pumping gas and on fires and going the extra mile

You're a bad what's wrong with you?

All right?

So to me, it's nonsense, it's I've always been the same way. It's not like I haven't, It's just the way I'm wired. And the truth is, no one at Dodger Stadium they don't want to hear it.

They want guys like Vasay.

To get on the radio and lick their toes, and so nobody wants to hear in between the mariachi bands and the drone shows at Dodger Stadium what real fans are like, right, and what they should be like holding people accountable, not just nodding along because you're a three hundred and sixty five million dollars shortstop is batting two thirty eight after ninety four games?

I mean just it blows me away. Is there any other job you can be that bad at for that long? And people are like, well, that's fine.

Imagine not showing up to work for four months, and you'll see how long your boss lets you before the security walks you out with a little cardboard box. I know I've been there, I've been there, but this is what the modern fan has become. It drives me bonkers, right, just mascots, cheerleaders, corporate dupes who think criticism is some kind of betrayal, and it drives me nuts. They don't they don't want reality, they want fairy tales. And they and I love Vin Scully. I knew vent a little bit.

I call it saint.

Because what the Dodgers have been this season is not dominance right to me, it's deja vu of some years gone by here and they were projected to win one hundred and five and a half.

Games this season.

This is going to be one of the all time great teams stack roster and because of Mookie Betts under achieving, the bullpen underachieving, this super team won ninety three games. Ninety three games is what the Dodgers won, and they had to play well the last couple of weeks to get to ninety three wins. Now that means on the Malord big board, not a list. Terry in England, not

So yeah, go ahead, I'm the bad guy.

You can call me a fraud of phone he send me your nasty emails and all that stuff. Anything to avoid confronting the Komodo dragon in the room, the fire breathing dragon the corner of the Dodgers. Listen, they floated along during the rest of it. Doesn't mean I don't want them to win. I hope they win. I'd love for this team to it. But even if they win the World Series, it does not change the fact that Mookie bets for ninety four games was terrible.

The bullpen was an embarrassment.

So go out, eat cheese steaks, enjoy the soft pretzels in Philadelphia, and slay the Phillies and have a great weekend.

And that's wonderful and all that.

However, again, just to put a ball on this Danny that the Dodger myth lives on is blind loyalty mixed with corporate spin and bots and all that online on social media, and then anyone who points it out like the other part of is oh you shouldn't do that. Oh my god, kay stop, I.

Just laugh at I think it's hilarious.

I look at their record.

I mean, Tanner Scott alone accounts for could have accounted for ten more wins worse.

I mean to have ten blown saved.

But that was their big pickup. That was the guy that everyone said is gonna put him over the top.

And the Bullen well looked. He looked good when he was a padre. In his case, he went backwards. I'm not sure why.

I know.

I read an article where he said he was just having the worst season of his career. And obviously there were injuries. They had to battle like a lot of other teams. But now you see Roki come in and close. He was hurt all throughout the season, so it looks like they have him closer right now. Against the Phillies. The Achilles heel is still the setup guys.

Yeah, the Phillies are much better than the Reds are, like a Triple A team. The Phillies are a big time team. The games are going to be close. I just don't see this bullpen being able to get it done. If you're the Phillies, you don't have to have a league going to the seventh inning. You can be down by two runs going to the seventh inning. Once Dave Roberts makes the walk of shame and says I really liked him in the spot, and they can know.

Guys like Vesia have been soon are inconsistent this season, Guys where you have no confidence when they walk in if you don't have a lead. If you're the Dodgers, you need a lead of five runs. That happened against the Reds, You're right, that's not going to happen against teams like the Phillies. There's going to be, you know, games that are three to one, three to two, and if you have one of those yakers come in and they vomit all over the mound, suddenly you're going to

Out of an abundance of caution, Danny, out of an abundance of caution, they will not do do that at this point. Again, We'll see, we'll watch later today. We'll see what the Dodgers do. See if they get to jump on the Phillies with Otani. What do you think Otani goes four innings today?

What do you think four?

Or five? Tops?

Probably five? But yeah, the Bats need to stay alive. They need to get on the board early, and often they need to take like a five to one lead in the game. If they get behind against a team like the Phillies, it's going to be a long night.

Well, maybe you can do the drop off, Danny and give them some relief pitchers. I don't think you're allowed to add relief pitchers, but you can possibly contact them and I think I know what hotel they're staying at in Philadelphia and you can go do your thing.

Yeah.

Well, Friedman didn't want to spend any more money this season. He at the trade deadline, they let the Padres and the Mets and other teams get the players that were out there available. Hey, remember that headline at the trade deadline that Padres and Mets won the trade deadline.

Oh well yeah, man, well that was the thing. But I still and I actually defended Danny. I defended aj Preller, the GM of the Padres like it obviously didn't work out for the Padres.

They got to end up losing the Cubs.

But I love the fact that the Padres threw caution to the win they traded. Was it eight of their top ten minor league players to get all these relief pitchers.

And build a super pin.

And then the great thing about baseball is the reason the pod his loss to the Cubs is because the guys they already had Fernando to thiast the peacock.

I think he batted like ninety three or something like that.

Manny Machado didn't hit and you Darvish you that was the you Darvers I saw in the twenty seventeen World Series in Game seven against the cheating as holes. We don't say that, you know, we can, we don't have to pause. But Game seven, well they were cheating, but still remember game something. It was over by the second inning. The cheaters had such a big lead because Darvers was so bad in that game.

So it was a.

Mess as far as a drop off, I know I talked about this a few weeks back, and there were a couple of comments about it in the mail bag. Sense, but good news and bad news. We finally found a pre school that CoA can attend.

I love my suit news. You remember we.

Took the tour of that monassory and everybody got sick just from being anywhere near their germs there. Brenda and I were almost like celebrating because it was amazing to find a place that wasn't two thousand dollars a month. Sure, now it's half that and it's part time, so it's still a lot of money. And any parent listening right now knows what we've been dealing with. We get to this school and a great location. It is connected to

Nice.

So the first picture I sent you is CoA a week ago day one at pre school.

Now, remember he's never been off his mom's.

Boob as far as being in the care of somebody else. Yeah, I'm with him every morning from you know, seven thirty am until I leave for Covino and Rich at one pm.

So this is a new thing.

And it's weird because, you know, the first day we'd take him for day one of school, he's in that picture I sent you smiling. We told him, Okay, we're going to go now, we'll pick you up after work, and he's like, no, no, no, but not because he didn't want us to leave. He thought we were trying to take him. He wanted to stay and.

Play good good.

Yes.

So we're like, oh, perfect, okay, he doesn't even care that we're leaving. Reality set in. We try to take him on day two, which now is a day later because he's Monday, Wednesday, Friday. So we try to take him back on Wednesday, and now he knows what's going to happen, because somewhere along the way on Monday he figured out where are they. Oh shit, I'm stuck here nap time for two hours. Look these adults at this place,

Are you nuts?

Wednesday, we try to do the drop off and Ben, there are other kids there who have just started at the preschool, and they're like whimpering, kind of clinging onto their mom or dad, a little bit of tears rolling down their cheek. They look depressed. That's not how CoA rolls. How can I even describe it? I guess he's a thespian. He is a future actor who he made the biggest scene at any of these schools. And remember, I've had my years at a lot of school campuses, so I've

Be at this preschool. He was screaming.

Mama, no, no, no, Mama no, and clinging onto her leg.

There's a side gate.

So when we left and I had to pull Brenda away, I'm like, come on, we gotta let him just go.

Through it.

He's having a meltdown. But they've you know, I'm sure that they've had this happen before, even though we didn't see any other kids doing this. So we're getting in the car and she goes to the side gate. It's like a movie.

Ben.

It looked like he was a prisoner trying to reach his hand through the gate and he is screaming.

No, Mama, don't leave.

No.

We're driving away from the preschool, and of course Brenda is plubbering in the car.

It has gotten no better.

Monday Wednesday again, and we held him back this past Friday because he was under the weather. Of course, he was a week and a half at a daycare or preschool. What do you think is going to happen. He's got a runny nose and a cold.

Yeah, it's like a wet market in China.

It's a lot of oh yeah, you know the college kids they have the frat flu.

Yeah, already he's got the kinder flu.

The question is, when we get out of this weekend and we get back to Monday, is he going to keep with the theatrics those meltdowns only intensified.

Yeah, he'll he'll get over it. It might be a month or two before he gets over, but I.

Guess he settles in after a half hour, calms down and he settles in.

But have you thought about bribing him? Is there a way you could bribe him?

Say if you're you know, you're good today, we'll give you something extra after school or something like that.

They have the mail bag.

I mentioned that he loves Disney's cars right now and he's been collecting all the characters.

Yeah, so his mom has been trying that.

He loves those mini cars and she's like, if you're good after school, I'll take you to Target to get some more minis and he says men. So he's excited about that, but it doesn't help at the drop off. Like at that drop off, you could tell him Mickey Mouse himself is you know there on the playyard, and he won't give a shit. He's just when he gets focused on something or he's upset about something, that's just it.

Sure, let's see.

There's one other picture I'm gonna send you really quick, and it's a prison photo. I don't think they intended it to be a prison photo. The picture they took of him on the playyard to put at his cubby and it looks like a mug shot.

Yes, it does.

It appears that he has been arrested. He is being processed. Did they take his fingerprints? What was his crime, Danny?

His crime.

Like you raised hell here for the first hour. Yeah, it looked like he did some hard time, like some hard labor that day, chain gang.

It is holding up what a period? Is that an orange he's holding up or an orange ball? I can't He's holding something up with his right hand. I'm not sure what that is, but that that does look like a muckshot.

That's funny. I think it's the gag that they took out of his mouth. That's hilarious.

We've all been there. But yeah, yeah, good luck.

I drove my parents and I hated, Oh god, I couldn't stay my entire education.

I hated hated it, hated it, hated it.

Uh. One more thing here, and it's I wanted to tell this because the other day I went to costco oh oh with a very simple mission, Danny. I had shampoo on my mind, body wash, iced coffee for the wife, A couple of berry container strawberry raspberry, BlackBerry, in and out. That's what a trip to Costco is all about clinical precision. Had it all planned out, of course, that is not how Costco works. That's not how any of this works

Right, it's impossible.

You end up no a fifty planned fifty dollars trip usually costs two hundred.

Dollars minimum two hundred dollars.

You end up wandering those airplane hangar aisles like Magellan and and pretty soon you know you've got olive oil the size of a fire ex thing. We're sure you've got a palette of eggs. I don't need that many eggs. I'm not running a breakfast that place. You've got chicken bouyon cubes that could you could make a soup for the United States Marines.

You know, it's just out of control.

So I'm there the other day, and and then and that's even before like you kind of get grazing. Once you start get grazing, now that's it because because Costco is it's it's it's an American midway, right, the gauntlet free samples. Now sometimes it's the little corn dogs. Sometimes it's little cheese cubes they have, and sometimes it's something you didn't know you needed, like like aros and uh, you know, some kind of frozen ice cream sandwich that

Oh I hate it, I have I just wave them all off. Yeah.

My thing is I sidestep.

I go to the middle part of Costco to avoid that part I've learned, I just don't want to deal with people. So you walk down this aisle and they're on the air conditioning, solar panels, the whole thing, and

Would you like to try one of my samples?

Uh?

He asked, kind of leaning forward, like you know, he's letting me in on this little secret.

You know.

I was like, Oh, this is gonna be good, right, and said, I'm in, I'm down, you know, I'm here, and uh so I turned and kind of moved my card over there, and there it was a little table filled a little red tray filled with seaweed, not sushi, not not you know, some people like the sushi Krispy rice roll seaweed flat green salty sheet.

Oh yeah, you're talking about the stuffed kids take to school as a snack.

Well, I never took it to school, so it's not.

Well, no, we didn't. I'm talking about kids nowadays.

I don't know. I don't know who knows.

It's gross, it's in their teeth, it's yeah, I can smell it. I smelled it on the kids I used to take care of.

So nasty.

So I'm looking, I'm looking at this table, and I'm like, you gotta be joking, right, I'm like, you know who I am, even of course you don't know who I am. But I'm like, I mean, just by my even if you don't know who I am, just by looking at me, I don't look like a seaweed eater.

I don't you know.

I don't like things that are green anyway, flat, green, salty, the whole thing.

I mean, seaweed is.

Just horrid, you know, It's just I can't. I hate it when I'm going walking on the beach.

Anyway. So I did what any red blooded American would do. I declined. I said, no way, I'm good.

I don't need to I don't need to snack on the kelp that was brushed up against my leg the last time I swam, you know.

Over in Newport. But then, of course fate happened.

Danny.

I looped around the.

Store and I passed this gabbroni again and the poor guy doubled down. I guess he forgot he had already had this conversation with me.

He gave me the full elevator pitch again.

Oh yeah, and now we know why he was seeking people out, because who the hell wants seaweed?

Exactly, That's what I'm saying. So he somehow.

Believed in this seaweed, or at least he was being quite the thespian as you said, your son, you know, cause a festment. He wanted me to believe again and again I refused. And here's the thing. I was not alone, Danny, And you pointed out nobody, and I mean nobody was taking the seaweed, not kids, not parents, not even the old people that are scavengers who normally hawks. It was the costco version of chernobyl. They finally found a sample that was abandoned.

It was radioactive, and that's it.

And I've seen people take the crappiest samples, like recently they had a table where they had like two broken tortilla chips in each cup. People were reaching for these damn things.

Uh yeah, And so that tells you everything.

People don't turn down free food, as you know, and I know we all know that they don't. They'll eat your chicken nuggets that are half cooked on a toothpick. They'll they'll eat heated ravioli which is still kind of cold in the middle. As you said, the chips that they'll eat whatever's on the train. Seaweed, though, that is a point of demarcation. That is where the American public

They can't do it. And I just thought it was hilarious.

I mean, I've been going to cost for my my tire adult life. I love Costco and I've never seen that before. And meanwhile, two miles over right there's the Little corn Dogs. There's a line that looked like it was for Space Mountain at Disneyland.

Right, freaking talk about competition.

It's like people were camped out ready for waiting for fifteen minutes for a stupid f and litle piece of hot dog.

And they were smiling, you know, freebie and all that. But there you go.

So that's that's my weekly Costco story. You walk in with a plan, you leave with a shopping cart of you know, the stuff you didn't need and regret that you purchased. And somewhere in the middle there your face with the great existential question of our time, seaweed or no seaweeds? But no, you need this. Let me make my pitch. No, I don't need your elevator pitch for me.

And the women don't know what they're going to when they show up to work.

Like this guy was really into the job, and I'm sure he's not making a lot of money, that doesn't pay a lot, and yet he's still he's pitching that thing like he's trying to you know, he's working for bm trying to sell you on a BMW or something wild.

It's the equivalent of you and Rob Parker's selling really bad hot takes.

How dare you listen?

Rob's the og he's gotten the weekend, He's getting the press box named after him.

I know it's coming up.

Yeah, he's in New York right now as we speak, and I guess they're going to have a little little get together for him at our studios on Monday evening.

That's great.

I was actually going to try to get back to I guess it's Connecticut, Central Connecticut or something.

I forget what school says. School in Connecticut's naming their press box after Rob. And I love Rob.

I don't get to see him much as we worked different hours, and actually was gonna he invited us to me and my wife to go back to the event, but unfortunately we couldn't make the travel.

The travel happened. But anyway, we'll get out on that, Danny.

Hopefully the Dodgers do not let us down today and win and all that.

And let's go.

Oh yeah, let's hope that we can string together a couple of really good pitchers after Otani.

They got to have a seven run league going to the eighth inning.

I'll feel pretty good. Seven second book, pretty much. I have a Dodger stress ball, and I'm not making that up.

Well, I will, I will, I'm expecting.

See.

The good thing about this is I've already determined they're not good enough to win, so if they win, I'll be happy. I've created in my own head nanny sports fan insurance. I've already gone the arithmetic, I've done the Mather math. They're not good enough to win, so if they win, I'll be pleasantly surprised. I'll be pleasantly surprised.

Anyway. All right, as you're hedging your bets.

I'm not hedging my bets. I'm just calling like it is. All right, having a wonderful rest of your Saturday.

Here, we'll be back.

We get the mail bag on Sunday. Sunday, Sunday later. Skater got a murder.

I gotta go,