Cutbooms.
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 soul 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 that means the weekend has arrived is We're hanging out with you all weekend long. You got fresh podcasts, your one stop pod shop. As myself, Ben and Danny g we form Voltron And this being the fifth day of April, we are united as one to celebrate National Deep Dish Pizza Day, fine holiday, one of those made up holidays. Danny and I deprived myself. I'd been to Chicago many times over the years, but it was only a couple years ago that I first
had Deep Dish pizza. And I was always against it because I saw the tomato on top. I said, who would want to eat a pie with the tomato? I thought it was just a tomato pie. I didn't realize I was so stupid that the cheese is under the tomato. I had no concept of that.
Dandy. Yeah, that tomato still grosses me out on top of that pizza. Otherwise, I like it. But we need room in our belly because we are fresh off of National Burrito Day, which was yesterday.
It's a big food week, big food week here in the month of April. And I learned, because this is the kind of crap that we need on this podcast, I learned that Deep Dish Pizza has only been around for a little over eighty years. It doesn't go back for that. Of course, I guess before that didn't didn't people you see leftovers and they just put a thing a dough over leftovers and they'd have that for breakfast.
But the Deep Dish Chicago pizza was invented in nineteen forty three by a guy named Ike Sewell, you familiar with Ike. You like Ike, Danny? No?
I like Mike and Ike.
Yeah. So this guy was the founder of UNO's Pizzeria, which is still around.
Oh yeah, well, I used.
To like in southern California, there was a place called Numero Uno. Dummy, like a ripoff, I guess of that. But you think of the history of deep dish pizza and right there in Chicago at the descendants of a famous Italian family cooked up on the North Side, not far away from Doc Mike or Mike North, any of our friends in Chicago. Oh, there's no question. Still, all these years later, Hey told stoall right.
Hey, speaking of food, did you see I know you're big on TikTok, so you probably saw this, the New Ballpark nine nine challenge. You have to stay at the game for nine innings and you have to down one hot dog and one beer per inning.
All right, so this is impossible. I'll tell you why. First of all, they close the beer stands in like the seventh inning, Right.
Well, I guess you got to get the last three ahead of time.
Yeah, but can't you most stadiums I've been to you can only get two at a time. So I think that's bull craft. I think that TikTok challenge unless you had to have somebody with you. Two guys is enough for me. Yeah, and who do they think they are? So it's it's a beer and what else per any.
One hot dog one beer per inning?
Yeah, that's listen, you've been to Dodger games. The guys pregame in the parking lot. I mean that's supposed to but they're they're they're pounded more than nine. You know, the hot dog. How is that gonna cost you, by the way, the hot.
Yeah, one hundred seventy five dollars at Dodger Stadium.
Yeah, you'll go out with some chains on your wrists, metal change. It's gonna be arrested. My god.
Oh the one seventy five is just for the Bruce Kis. Then you got to pay for the hot dogs.
Yeah, good luck.
I think I think you could do the liquid if they gave you nine bathroom breaks, But having all those hot dogs sitting in your belly, Yeah, that would be the hard part.
Yeah.
Like, I like a hot dog if it's well done, and a lot of the hot dogs you get the ballpark are barely cooked. It's just not ye not good.
Yeah. They used to grill them well when we were kids.
Yeah, it was wonderful. I love it grilled dog.
Yeah, that was the magic of a Dodger dog. Now they're lightly boiled and we're like, yeah, cat food.
It's like they're barely cooked. It's like just just enough. So the health department doesn't shut down the concession stand like just barely above that, but not much above it, just just a little bit like a whisker quin.
Breakfast spots bring you what they call toast piece of bread. That's all it is is a piece of bread. It seems like they had it in the toaster for ten seconds.
Yeah, well, last week I was we'll get to this during the podcast. I'm sure have you know tails from our weekend? And I was, I was in Vegas. I ended up in Vegas like you were in Vegas. I'm not. I didn't fly. I drove, but driving out through the desert. I've done that drive so much. We have our favorite spots that we stop in. In the last I guess the last year. There's there's a certain diner out there that we stop out quite a bit, and it's an old,
like nineteen fifties themed a diner. And they get they had my wife got something that I had toast on it, and you're right, it was just like it was like one slice of a bread cut in half and barely cooked with a little butter.
Always ask for your toast toasted well please, And then they just bring it back normal like it's just normal toast. Same thing for a burger, right, you tell a medium, usually they'll bring it back medium well.
Or the key thing at McDonald's, as we've learned on this podcast that if you want fresh fries, say no salt on the fries. Yeah, and then they have to make a batch and then you add your own salt, which is a pain in the ass.
Like an animal, you pour a shit ton of your own salt onto it.
Yeah, can I get my fries? I want no salt? And can I have seventeen packets of salt? Can I get seventeen? Not sixteen, not fifteen? I need seventeen packets of salt to pour on my fries. That's what I need right there. I did get an email kind of late in the day here the news of the week, Danny the Athletics. We knew they were leaving Oakland, but now we know that the end is this year probably should have already happened, because no one's going to their games.
They're gonna be both moving a short trip away, a couple hours whatever depending on traffic, to Sacramento, yeah, Tomato. Yeah, so they'll be hanging out. And I've been to Sacramento in the summer. It gets a little toasty there in the summer.
Yeah. You know, I started my radio business in Stockton, California, which is right next door to Sacramento. They already have a good size amount of A's fans there because the A's are their closest pro team, and the city is really excited because they've wanted pro baseball there forever. Yeah.
So the email or was asking your thoughts, Danny, as somebody who was an A's fan. Right, you've said that, right, You used to go to A's games when you were little as a kid.
Yeah. I mean I wouldn't call myself an A's fan as an adult, but as a kid, my family moonlighted in the Bay Area. We spent half our time in the Bay the other half in LA So whenever we would be in the Bay, we would go to Oakland A's games and chair for Ricky Henderson and the last season for Reggie Jackson. He wore the A's uniform for his last season.
It was nineteen eighty seven, I think.
Yeah. In the late eighties saw the very beginning of Mark McGuire's career. Jose Canseco, so I very much was there around the Bash Brother time as a kid, so yeah, very familiar with the Oakland Coliseum when it came to A's games. That was the one ticket ben that my family could afford when it came to a sporting event in the Bay Area.
Yeah, we used to be able to get in cheap. I don't even know what the prices are for A's games now. Apparently they're so expensive no one can go.
All the boycotters are in the parking lot. They had more boycotting in the parking lot than the fans that actually went inside the gates.
Now, I've told this story in the past, and I don't need to get too far into it, but I actually one of my early jobs in radio, I got a check from the Athletics and it was like the coolest thing in the world. I was a radio reporter. I was a radio stringer, and the Athletics they in the days before the Internet, back in the Bronze Age, to get updates on other games during the game. They had this great idea because the A's used to really
have good teams, which was shocking. Danny. If you're a kid now, you know, if you're maybe twenty five or something like that, You're like, wow, they have sucked most of my life, right, But they used to consistently have good teams.
Oh, they were great back in the day. We're talking Carne Lanceford, hendu Uh. Let's see who else was on that team.
Bob welch Ye, Dave Stewart, Dennis Eckers.
One of the best. He was the best closer in baseball at that time.
They got Mike Diego. There were some solid players on the Oh was that short Geigo was second?
Yeah, second base, Carney Lanceford third base, Mark McGuire at first, and then yeah, Hindu out in the outfield. They had some great, great teams in the late eighties and early nineties.
Yeah, so it was it was around that time, early nineties, and I was a radio stringer and they would pay me to give updates on the Angels because the Angels and A's were often competing for positioning, and if if the Angels were bad, usually they were playing somebody who the A's were competing with in the division, whether it was the Mariners who like Griffy and guys like that, or you know, the Rangers had some good players in that time too, so they would they would call up No,
I'd call them in the fifth inning and it was really cool because the the play by play guy would whoever it was at the time, whether it was Bill King, who I had a good chance, a good opportunity of meeting and Ken Korak and they would toss to me and Ani. But they actually actually paid me for that, and they paid me. They'd send a check, like an actual check with the A's logo on it. It was like the coolest thing in the world. That is it was
pretty neat, you know. It was like I was like, I wanted to frame it, but then I'm like, well, I need the money, so I don't. I can't really, you know, I can't really frame it. I get a I'm a struggling radio guy.
You needed it for your chili cheeseburgers.
Speaking of the A's, I fell down a rabbit hole, Danny, because I was thinking, the A's have that dopey elephant thing. You know, they got the elephant on the uniform and they've had that forever, They've always had Yeah.
Yeah, it was not a promotional gag from the owner back then.
No, I thought it was. I thought that was like something that Charlie and Finley came up with, but this is amazing. So this is one of those things. I fell down a rabbit hole and I was like blown away by this, and I was like, I gotta hear I gotta learn more about this. So that actually goes back. The origin of the elephant goes back to nineteen oh two. Think about this. Baseball at that time.
It was my freshman year of high school.
Baseball at that time was not that old a sport, right, And it started in the eighteen Maybe it did start in the eighteen seventies, but still I'd say thirty years. But the American League didn't start until I believe right around that time. But anyway, the story goes a long time ago in a land far far away, John McGraw had a news conference with the Riders. I'm sick and
tired of fricking Riders. So he had a news conference and he he was going to leave his position as the manager of the Baltimore Orioles to take the same job with the New York Giants. So A writers like, hey, hey, what are your thoughts on the Philadelphia's, because apparently the A's were like the Dodgers of today. Back then, the A's, it's made spent a lot of money. They brought up a bunch of contracts of top players that were in
the in the National League at the time. They brought them over, and guys that were Hall of famers, And you probably don't know who they are, because why would unless you're a baseball nerd like Rube Ridell, who yeah, good old Rube. So anyway, get to the point, please. So this guy, this guy John McGraw, who was I mean legends, had a lifetime employment. And so he responded with snark to the question. He said, the Philadelphia club will make no money. They have a big white elephant
on their hands, is what he said. Racist. And and so McGraw, that comment by John McGrath got back to Connie Mack, the legendary Connie Mack who wore isn't he the guy that wore the suits and the dugouts?
Yeah?
Yeah, yeah. So he was the owner of the A's and he liked the team so much he managed it. He was like the Jerry Jones of his day, and except I think I think they won occasionally. Anyway, he was so taken aback by the comment, Yeah this is great, right, So he made the white elephant the team's unofficial mascot, and three years later, the A's played the Giants and John McGraw in the World Series in nineteen oh five, and they had a white elephant statue that they presented
to John McGraw before Game one of the thing. Anyway, so it goes all the way back to.
The that is very baseball gangster.
Early mom and pop baseball, before baseball became a billion dollar corporate machine, the industrial complex of baseball. That's back when you could do crap like that, right, not now, it's when.
The announcers all had old timing voices too.
They didn't even have announcers, Right, there's no radio.
Been somebody there on a microphone, right, I the actual ballpark. No, I don't know.
Public address?
Yeah, what did they use, like public address GUYE? Maybe he had like one of those what are those things called that?
Oh you see the circus when they talk. Yeah, I don't know.
I don't know the name of that. But you know what we're talking about. We caught it to do when we were kids, old paper towel roll. Well, here's to.
Sum this up. To put a ball on this day because you're a program director is in radio like to say, put a ball on things. So the A's have come full circle. They were mocked in nineteen oh two for being, you know, the white elephant, right, that big white elephant, and now in twenty twenty four they are the white elephant. Right. They are the Booby Prize at this particular point. And they are making mistake. And I said this on the
Overnight Show last night, Danny, they're making a mistake. They should fully embrace Sacramento like it's like they're there, but they don't really want to be there. They're not going to use the Sacramento name on the jerseys or they're going to be called the athletics or the A's. That's
a bad job by them. You're gonna be there, Embrace it, enjoy it, yeah, because what you're doing, and I think I referenced this on the show last night, as you're just creating a great black market, an underground market for people to sell Sacramento A's stuff. Just embrace it. And why not put Sacramento on the road uniform. Man, Dude.
I would even go next level to stick it to Oakland and get one of the surrounding cities and put their name on everything, like the Elk Grove's I like it.
I like it. Just go a next level troll. And that guy John Fisher who is totally totally ob twos right. And I saw that the headlines yesterday about he was talking about watching Aaron Judge hit a home run in Sacramento and people were having a field day with that. So he was trying to paint an image of how exciting it's going to be to watch other players on other teams hit home runs against the Atletics, which is
about right because the A's don't have anybody. But I watched some of that ads series with the Red Sox this week. Oh my god, that is hardly anyone that you can recognize. It is it is not so so this past weekend at a quick trip to Vegas, and it was because of my odd success. I'm not going to give out my one nine hundred number to get my picks or whatever. Dude, I've done.
Boats, I'm gonna put one in your driveway.
I'm gonna get you a brand new yacht. No, but I've done pretty well. I've been to Vay, I guess a bunch this year. We went for a friend's birthday, went for the Super Bowl, and then there was a third trip that we made, and each time on my way out of Sin City, I would put a couple of bets down, just saying, you know, what the hell, I'll have some action when I get back to La So I'd put the bets down and I kept winning. All three trips. I won, but I had to collect
the money. And now we were talking in our production meeting Danny, how you can send them in certified mail and they'll supposedly give you the money. But I don't trust that. I want the money in my hand.
I got you. You seem like the kind of guy that trusts everybody.
Yeah, I wanted the money, so I was like, I got put it in my palm, show me the money. Anyway, So we went to Vegas. It was like a one day trip and we stayed at my wife's favorite hotel, which I'm gonna say is currently my favorite hotel because it's a great it's a great compromise for both of us. We stay it at the Virgin in Vegas. I didn't see a lot of virgins there, but it is called the Virgin, and the reason you know why we love that hotel. We've talked about it in the past.
Think and that's where you should have went in your early twenties in radio.
Up until my thirties probably, But no. The thing about the version which is great is my wife loves the beds because they've got these memory foam beds, and most hotel beds are terrible.
Yeah, you're not kidding.
She complains every time we travel somewhere is oh the beds there my back and all this stuff in them. But that's the one hotel she doesn't complain about because they have good beds. And then for me, you know, I am El Chipo. That was my name in the Mexican cartel, El Chipo, and I like free Park. That's one of the few hotels that has free Park. It's off the strip a little bit, but it's close enough if you're motivated, if the weather's not bad, you can walk or take a cheap uber ride to the strip
and walk around. So it's it's a good compromise. But no, I know it's it was. It was good and so we had a fun time and I went around, did our did our thing, went a little gambling. It's some good food again in Henderson, by.
The way, gotta go to that sourdough place.
That sourdough place is amazing. We tried a new pizza place which was pretty good as well. Let me so if I can find the name of it here it was. It was also in Henderson. Had a Philly cheese steak pizza. They're like a cheese steak pizza place. And that was pretty good. That was not bad either. Enjoyed that. We went to Eenie Meenie miney mo h. Those guys pies. Those guys pies, I well, something like that. That is
a lot of meat. So I walked in there, Danny right, and like, these guys have commercials on TV and stuff, and so I walk in. They had a TV above where you order, and it was the commercial they were showing. They had the commercial from the restaurant and the guy on the commercial was the guy that said what do you want? He was like he was there taking the order. So as I was in the commercial, I was like, Wow,
I'm in the commercial for the pizza place. It's the guy I think he was the owner, and it was it was.
Really kind of like if he was an actor. He's working overtime all.
Right, it was like a surreal situation. Phrase of the week, Phrase of the week. It's the phrase of the week, as requested by Alf the Alien Opiner. Our friend Alf said, I I want to know one of the origin of this phrase, since it's early in the baseball season. A
Texas leaguer. A Texas leaguer. You've heard that term before, right, Yeah, that's one of those blue pits that falls between the outfielder and the infielder, just like just out of the reach of the infielder, but just in front of the outfielder. Texas leaguer. It's been around forever.
I haven't heard anybody say that recently though.
Well, according to Alf, it's a big thing. That's what That's what Elf said, Texas leaguer. But here's another one that goes back to the early nineteen hundreds, and is it true that you can thank Ollie Pickering for the term of Texas leaguer. Do you know who Alli Pickering is, Danny g No, of course not. Because you have a life, you have a family, Yeah, you're married, you have a job. Of course you wouldn't know who Oli Pickering is. Never
heard of them. So let's take you back in the Hot Top time Machine to nineteen oh one, so this predates that white elephant thing for the Athletics, but the term Texas Leaguer dates back to nineteen oh one. There was a guy named Ollie Pickering who made his debut with a team called the Cleveland Blues. Give me the Blues, not the Saint Louis Blues, the Cleveland Blues, and that franchise would become the Cleveland Indians before the Wokesters got
all upset and now they're named after a bridge. But anyway, this guy Pickering, Ollie Pickering, had become a icon in the Texas League in minor league baseball, and they put him right at the very top. He was the leadoff guy for the Cleveland Blues. And as the legend goes, he gets called up and dominates right. He just is amazing. He's like, the guy's the greatest player they've ever seen before. And he actually had the first at bat in the
history of the American League. There's another fun fact. I'm gonna have to save that for a future who am I game that no one will get, right, Ollie Pickering the first at bat in American League history. Anyway, this guy was so great, Danny, so memorable that his first seven play appearance has all resulted in a little blue pit just over the head of the infield and in front of the outfield, and his teammates said, Okay, this guy's from the Texas League. That's a Texas leaguer. And
that term lasted. Although it's not it's a colloquial term. It hasn't been used much, as you've said recently, but it stuck for over one hundred years. The term Texas leaguer named after Ollie Pickering, a phenom of the bluep pit from back back in the day. So thanks to Alf for recommending the phrase of the we you want some foodie fun.
Danny, let's do it. We started the podcast by talking food, Let's end it by talking food.
Yeah, come full circle, come full sir. Now you actually sent me a food story. I was unaware of this that I was excited about. Our favorite sandwich shop is branching out and right there they're expanding.
Yes, yeah, fat Seals, which you hear Ben and the whole crew talk about often on the Live Overnight show. They have a brand new location that's inside the Woodland Hills Mall at the Topanga Westfield location and it's inside this fancy food court there. They call it the Topanga Social Straight Cash Home.
That's pretty cool. So if you're ever in southern California, fat Soals. There's locations of fat Cells in what Austin, Texas, I believe, and a few other places.
It's not just in La Nope. It's that kid from Entourage who started fat Seals, yeah and making a killing right, Yeah, he's doing really well.
Hey we're making sandwiches over here. Yeah, that's their slogan.
I'd but to see it inside a very fancy Beverly Hills type mall was really cool.
That is that is pretty neat. That's cool. So I'm glad. Maybe they'll put one near my house here in the north Woods. That would be ideal. So we have a few stories. We'll just kind of bounce around here. Foodie Fun seven eleven has declared this is a big event on my calendar. I check my phone every year, I say, when is the start of slurpey season? Well, good news, April thirteenth. April thirteenth coming up is the start of slurpey season. And they have a promotion where you can
bring your own cup. So here's my question, Danny, I'm not that smart. If I got a cup the size of a bathtub, would seven eleven allow me to fill it up with delicious slurpy?
I'm gonna guess that an employee there would stop you.
Probably, probably, so right, Probably So. McDonald's is launching in All cap a new surf and turf burger, and so the speculation in the foodie world is that if it is successful in Canada, where do you think it's going to end up America? That's right right here in the old US of A, right here in America. So good luck to our Canadian brothers and sisters eating the surf in turf. I don't see a lot of surf in Canada,
although there is more. I think there's more coastline in Canada than just about any other country in the world. But you don't think of it for surf. You don't. Don't do that. Windys in Canada has launched a new white chocolate strawberry frosty. Does that do anything for you, Danny?
Do their prices surge on that or they stay? Do they stay? Five kid size?
Yes, the white chocolate, because it's a little bit different than regular chocolate that'll cost you an extra eight hundred dollars. KFC has introduced new apple pie poppers. That sounds pretty good.
It does sound it sounds fried, so well anything.
Yeah, how's your diet going good?
I've stayed away from the fried food. Yeah, yeah, and I still haven't. The only sugar I had in Vegas with Covino and Rich we ate at a restaurant there inside the MGM called Crush, and they ordered one big slice of cheesecake at the end of the meal, and they said one slice, four spoons. So I took a couple of bites off the back end of the cheesecake.
And was it worth it?
I think it was worth it because it was a really good cheesecake.
All right.
Rand in the bathroom and threw it all up.
You're like an old school Hollywood starlet. Yeah, just put your finger right down your throat. A wiener snitsel bringing back chili cheese fries, the burrito version. So okay, last time you ate it wiener schnitz.
Oh, since I was a kid.
Yeah, that's the only German word I really know, wiener stittle. That's about That's about it. What else is going on in the foodie on a lot of new items. Jack of the Box bringing back popcorn chicken chicken intry. I got so fat on popcorn chicken from KFC when they debuted that. I thought that was like the greatest thing ever Mang bang. I would get these giant boxes of it. They've also Jack in the Box. I love it Jack in the Box. It isn't even pretending like they're not
trying to appeal to the late night munchie. The weed crowd, a Pineapple Express shake coming to Jack in the Box, smoke weed every day are coming back to Jack in the Box. So they've got that. Your friends at Arby's are giving away one free samwich a week here in the month of April. I know you will take full advantage of that.
So only time they're open, actually because they're up front for a big drug operation.
Every time I see Arby's, I think of you saying that. As I saw in Arby's, I was driving back out in the desert in between LA and Vegas, and we drove by in Arby's, I said, oh, that's probably if Danny was here, he'd say that's a money laundering yep, place right there. What a job, bunny. Two more quick things that we'll get out on this. So McDonald's they went back and looked at the data going back to twenty fourteen. Take that for data. McDonald's has doubled its
prices is twenty fourteen. Shocker, they have app And that's not my opinion. Okay, it's a fact.
All right. So there's one more challenge that's been going around on TikTok in thirty six hours? Could you spend and eat one thousand dollars at McDonald's.
How many hours?
Thirty six?
Yes, I could.
With inflation the way it is, I said on the air that I think you could do it. We keep trending this direction with inflation, we could do this in a few months. Easy.
Yeah, they say, I love this a news story from scripts. But they're like McDonald's is double its prices, but the other fast food restaurants they have increased their prices by sixty percent. So McDonald's is still they're still better than everyone else can in comparison. Like okay, yeah, right, that's
the that's the ticket. Now, speaking of increased prices and how you are manipulated by the matrix, these fast food restaurants, especially in California now, because they're paying fast food workers twenty dollars an hour, and if you have a certain number of restaurants to know they're making more than us pretty much, that's pretty wild. So of course what they've done is the fast focompis have just started firing people because they don't want to pay too many people that money.
Is Ama Robot and I now run Wendy.
Yeah. So if you've been to these fast food restaurants recently, Dania, ye, a lot of them have kiosks. They've had these for a while, but it's even more now. And they did some research and determined that the fast food industry loves the kiosk. Not because they save money, that's part of it, but they actually get you to spend more money. About that,
they used mind tricks while you are ordering. They know that if they show you, you know, hey, you place your order and they say would you like to add a drink with that? Or would you like to add fries with that?
What the upsell is? And I saw this inside the Tepango mall. I had to order on a kiosk there in the food court, and all the sides that you normally would just ask a live person for like, oh could I get some ranch please? Or some of your barbecue sauce. They charge for all of that on the Kiosk screen. A bunch of bastards.
Terrible, terrible, terrible, terrible terrible. Yeah. So this guy that runs Shakeshack, the CEO, did this interview and he was talking. Actually I think this is from he's trying to investors. It wasn't even from an interview. They just recorded him talking to the people that were investing, and he said that people who ordered at Kiosk rather than at cashier's
spent about ten sent more on average. And they said that is because sometimes the people working, the actual human beings would forget to ask would you like to add so and so and so and so because they were so busy there was a long line. But the digital kios they don't care whether there's a line or not. They try to upsell you, get you to buy a larger item, bigger fries, bigger drink, all that. All right, we'll get out on that, have a great Friday. You'll be back Danny with Covino and Rich.
Yes, yeah, you're done with your broadcasting for at least the live radio show. This week, I'm going to be having some Friday fun with weekend hob Nobbin and more with Covino and Rich. That's this afternoon, two to four pm on the West Side, five to seven pm in beautiful Philly. Is one of those birds going.
Is it beautiful?
There's beautiful parts of Philadelphia.
Not the parts I've been to. We have a great day. Lader Skater got a murder.
I gotta go.