Kabbooms.
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 gutter the same as the rich pill poppers in the penthouse.
Wow.
The clearing House 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 Ben Mahler and Danny g Happy holiday weekend today the twenty second day of the month of December, a big weekend for people to go away. But we are here, Danny. We are here when many podcasts shut down. We are still bloviating and excited to be here because normally we don't do sporting. This will be the second consecutive week Danny on the Fifth Hour podcast.
We have become sporty. Yeah, making Fifth Hour history here Ben. Two first, Uh, It'll sounded like I said two first, which is fitting. Two first for the podcast. We're talking sports like heavy two weekends in a row and CoA. I mentioned to you off the air he's a little grumpy. The reason why his teeth are coming in.
Oh, that's a big that's a big moment.
There, not one, not two. We've counted six that are cutting through his gums right now, not two, not three, not four, not five.
Ah, it's great, Well, it'll be great, but it's not great now. This is the hard part. And then and then the baby teeth fall out, and then it sucks again.
He's chewing on his fingers so hard that he's making himself cry because he's hurting his fingers.
Oh man, the life of a kid. This life is not that easy. It is not that easy at all. But I'm far now. I was not at my watch post last night. I didn't do the overnight show. And why are you doing the pluggists. You didn't do the overnight show. You should do the podcast. Well, no, I'm doing the podcast because there's like big time sports news here. But I was away from my post, and I'll just
explain this, brotherly love. So I was not the graveyard watchtower, and it was It would have been a great night. We had the Ram game and the Rams won last night. They beat the Saints, that beat him handily, although the final score did not indicate how much of a rat kill that game was as the Rams dominated. Derek Carr, who did get some garbage time stats to make it
seem like he had a good game. We call those the guys the stat Vandito when they just like run up the stats and you're like, well, wait a minute, your team was down by twenty points when it mattered, you know, the game, when the game was really in the bounds. And then he gets a couple of plays on the fourth quarter, a couple of touchdown passes on the fourth quarter, Derek Carr. But anyway, just to wrap that up, So I was not on the radio last night. My older brother, but the one that lives in the
Big Apple there, stopped in La for one day. I had a stopover. He's on his way. He's on a flight today on Friday here to Vietnam, a family vacation with his wife's family, my sister in law, and they're going to Vietnam. And so I did the Raiders show Thursday, taped the TV show. More on that later, and then hung out with my brother at one of the iconic restaurants, one of my old stopping grounds, Danny El Coyote on Beverly,
which I used to go to all the time. I used to live right next to it in LA It's a famous, famous spot in Los Angeles for Mexican food. But so I was there hanging out with him, and then you know, went home, watched the RAM game, and then here we are on a Friday, and I don't think I got any.
Sleep last night. I text you as soon as the Dodger news broke.
Yeah. Now you were the one that actually let me know Danny that. And this is a massive, massive story which everyone I know is gonna be talking about all day today. And do we get a jump on it? The early bird gets the word. It happened right around the time the RAM game ended. It was a late night announcement that came down from the baseball insiders. But the sweepstakes are over for Yoshinobu Yamamoto, the Japanese phenom,
the next big thing in baseball. We are told the say, young king from Japan is gonna wear Dodger blue Danny twelve years. The numbers on this that are coming in. I saw report said three hundred twenty five million, But the Dodgers have to pay another fifty million because of the setup with the Japanese players. So they're actually hanging out over the next twelve years three point seventy five. I have a million, three hundred stick. I have million
dollars just for Yamamoto. Who better live up to the hype, Danny, I mean, I don't know. I've seen highlights. The guy looks great on YouTube videos. But it's a different animal in the biglies. But these guys from Japan, My first thought is, these guys from Japan have usually been pretty good. They've only been a couple that have sucked. Most of them that have dominated the Pacific League in Japan have been able to dominate the major leagues, and so that
is encouraging. But the second thought I had, Danny, is it is it is on. I mean, we're both Dodger guys, but the Dodgers, and I get it if I was not a Dodger fan. The Dodgers are dastardly. What they're doing here. They is demonical the money that they have spent there. They are the villains. The Dodgers are the evil Empire of baseball. It's wicked. I mean, it's nuts. Yeah, you're right to be.
The Yankees and now Yankees fans are pissed about this. Because he had visited New York and there was a story that Coveno shared on Thursday Afternoons Covino and Rich Show that Aaron Boone gifted Yamamoto a jersey and they were doing everything they could think of to butter this guy up. I'm gonna go with my homie in La Me and Otani are going to take over so Cow.
After I texted you, I texted Coveno with a picture of him in a Dodger jersey that somebody photoshopped, and Covino's reply was, oh geez, with a mad Emoji face.
No, this thing's been going on for like a month, at least a month. We've talked about it, I've done. I did a couple of monologues this week because of the public courtship, and I was waiting for something to happen in baseball, right and Yamamoto and his representation they were playing foot seat with the Mets and the Yankees, as you said, the Red Sox, the Giants, and the Dodgers, and I was like, it's one of those things. I didn't really expect the Dodgers to get him because they
had gotten these other guys. But the fact that they did. Is just it's it's nuts to me. I mean, especially living through different years of Dodger baseball. When Frank McCord owned the team, when the O'Malley family owned the team, it was always built through the minor league system. They did spend some money in the nineties of that twenties plus years ago, and that didn't work out.
That Kevin Brown era was a long time ago.
Yeah, that was when I did Dodger talk and yeah.
Oh I remember, I remember. You were really hard on the team at the time because they were middle of the pack, but way up high on the payroll department. And it's funny because Bob Nightingale, he tweeted last night that the Dodgers have spent more than one point one billion dollars this winter with the signings of Yamamoto, Otawani and Glass. Now the other teams in baseball combine nine hundred million dollars, so the Dodgers have outspent every other MLB team combined.
Yeah, And people were sending me messages like, wow, are they doing it well? Are they cheating? You know? Well, no, they obviously have deep pockets. And it's a really weird time in baseball because the way the cable industry has
gone and the Bally sports thing. It seems like the Padres, the Diamondbacks, the Mariners, a lot of these teams are in a holding pattern because either they lost their cable television deal or they're about to lose their cable television deal and it's a hot mess, and so they don't have the revenue. I mean, the whole system on baseball has been built behind television. But the Dodgers, the reason they're a super heavyweight is because they own their cable channel.
It ain't going anywhere. I mean, it's like another twenty years of this, and they're guaranteed the revenue, assuming you know, the cable television thing continues on. But they're not going to lose that revenue. And they the people over there with the Dodgers are like, well, okay, we're in the
thick of things for everything. But the Japanese market, they they just think they can make this money back on these two guys in Otani and Yamamoto with a belly full of cash from from the Japanese market and from Tokyo and and all that. And I mean that we know baseball's from what I've I've never been to Japan, but from people tell me it's the most popular sport in Japan is baseball. It's not you know, they don't have the NFL there. It's baseball, and and there's other
things that are popular too, but baseball is at the top. So, uh it is. You talk about Robber Barron and all that, it is, it's great, and it's it's it's great to win the offseason. I don't think they give you a trophy for that. Maybe maybe they do. I don't know, but we'll see what happens. I mean, we don't know if these guys. Otani's ever been in a playoff game, and Yamamoto has never been in a big league game. But I want these guys to have that fire in
their belly when they get to play. And one of the problems, Danny and you know this watching ball over the years, these guys get the big contract and they don't necessarily care as much.
Otani doesn't strike me as that sort of guy or player, and the way he deferred his money was yeah, for his interests also, but also for the Dodgers to be able to put guys like this around him, which is awesome. Yeah, you don't see a lot of American ballplayers, you know, they want the money right now in their pocket, in their bank account.
We don't know about Yama Moto. I'm sure the details. Maybe they're out now. I haven't seen them. Maybe they'll come out later today. I would assume, based on the taxation in California that Yamamoto, if he's wise, would have done the same thing that Otani did. That is just I'll defer most of the money. And it's gonna be one of these things, Danny, when we're like really old guys.
The Dodgers will be paying one hundred million dollars to players not on the team from this this offseason, you know, and then a lot of rookie bets all so on. Freddie Freeman.
I wonder if at that point though, a lot of players will be getting five hundred million dollar contracts and we'll just think that this is not a lot of money.
Yeah, you might be right. And the argument to do this is, hey, you know, we'll just get more money. It's but I hate to say this, but it's kind of what the US government did, Like, well, you know, we'll push these things down the road and then eventually we'll be okay. And I don't know if you've looked at the national debt. I don't want to be a gloomy guss here, but that's what the you know, the US government's like, ah, we'll push things down the road.
God, that's America.
We started off talking about your Rams. How about when they showed Otani in attendance at so Far and crowd went nuts.
What a kick to the nuts to the Angels that was. I mean, the guy's been playing down the road in Anaheim and no one gave a rats ass about Otani. Where's Dodger blue? All of a sudden he's being you know, the the red carpets being rolled out at RAM games and it's just hilariu. I mean, the guy's been in the market, he's been part of the LA sports scene.
You know, technically LA, but it's Orange County. And it just shows you the dicotomy, the difference between playing for a team like the Angels and playing for the Dodgers. And yeah, Tani got the heroes welcome. How about my I know you're a raider guy, but you got a little a little love, give a little love to the Rams. You can ram it all day, you can ram it all night that they got they found two ballplayers. They found two ballplayers out of the dumpster fire, like the
mid rounds of the NFL draft. Kyron Williams is a big time running back. He's a top five running back in the NFL.
I think you got two really good receivers who kind of came out of nowhere.
Yeah, well, I think you're talking about Robinson, right. Robinson was great, but he's bounced around. He's been played with Kansas City Hooka Nikua though. I mean, I'm loving pool.
He got hit like a missile, bounced right off of it when they needed a first down to seal the victory. And he trudged forward for that first down after getting hit by a missile a rocket. That was an amazing play. I love watching that guy ball. He's a big receiver, but he's also fast and shifty. What a combination of skills that dude has.
Yeah, and I would like to concede that I had a take that died. One of my takes died Danny from earlier in the year. I was convinced everything I had heard was Matthew Stafford. His body was broken. I thought he wasn't even going to play this season. I thought, well, this guy's not going to play. Everything I was told from the people that I trust with Stafford was beat up. The Rams wanted to get rid of him, they were ready to trade him, they wanted to eat the contract.
And right now, Matthew Stafford the last month or so has been playing. I don't say that he's not rock Party because Brock's got better weapons around, but the Rams weapons are not that far behind some of the forty nine weapons. But I'm a little giddy because they won.
I know I was gonna say, don't get too carried.
Away, ah, but they did.
Yeah, they did exceed expectations. A lot of people counted your favorite team out before the season even started, and then a few games in most people are like, yeah, Rams are underwhelming. They're gonna be under five hundred, and now look at what's going on, they're probably gonna sneak their way into the playoffs.
Yeah. Well, they won five of six. The loss they had was a special teams boner and overtime to the Ravens, who supposed the other top team in the AFC, And before that they lost to Green Bay. But that's pretty much. They gave that game away because they started ripping who can't play? I just can't play. They really haven't played a bad game where they've had their guys since they played the Cowboys when they just got torched by Dallas back in Week eight. But I throw away the Green
Bay game because they had no quarterback. They had no chance in that game, and they lost close to The Rams lost close games to the Steelers. I was at that game. They had the lead, they blew that, and they had a shot with Philadelphia. They didn't show up in the second half. So obviously see Apsen Boughts, Kenny and nuts and all that. But the Rams are in a good spot at eight wins. And this is the best kind of years a fan, because you don't expect anything and then it turned out to be pretty good.
No, you gotta be happy. And then for me, I'm also pleased because who would have thunk it? Who would have thought that Aidan O'Connell would have a better primetime game than Derek Carr.
Well, yeah, exactly. Derek Carr. What an enigma, you know what it is like he's the same guy he was with the Raiders. He hadn't change he's the same guy. He's going to be that way the rest of his career.
Why does he have so many excuse makers on social media?
Yeah, it's one of life's great mysteries. I can't I can't explain it. I mean, I've seen the guy. I know. You know, I work with Eddie on the overnights and Eddie's a Fresno State guy, so he doesn't really want to be too critical of Derek Carr. But I mean, these kind of.
Me a nice guy. That's great, But you see with your own eyes he throws picks fumbles constantly. I mean, I guess he doesn't have as many interceptions this season as he did, you know, when he was a Raider, but still enough to change games for the Saints. And he's been so inconsistent. One week, like last week, for instance, what he had three touchdowns and no picks, and the Saints were like, Yeah, this is the guy we wanted. But then you know that's not the guy you're gonna get the following week.
Yeah. Well, and you know, any road game hostile environment, even the Rams. I'm a Rams fan, it's not a very hostile environment. But Derek Carr on the road normally melts. It's like putting a sugar cube into water and watching it disintegrate. Any pressure situation the guy he plays that or cold weather, well yeah, cold weather, hostile environment, pressure situation. He's got a terrible record as a road favorite. But hey,
it ain't my problem. The Rams are eight and seven and they've got Tommy Cutlets in week seventeen, which, assuming they don't just poop the bed, that should be a show up and win game to get you to nine wins, which should be enough to get to the playoffs. But they will see me. It's conceivable some other crazy things will happen. But either way, I like the Rams. I had zero expectations. I was like, well, that's gonna suck
this year, but they've been pretty good. I had a couple other things I wanted to get to, and we'll get out because I wanted to talk about an interesting week on the TV show, dann You know, I can't do a podcast without pouring out the TV show. So Andrea the astrology Lady would say mercury is in retrograde because it started out harmlessly. I have a routine. I'm a creature of habit, and I normally you know, do some manscaping, some trimming, get ready for the show pretty up,
you know, and all that stuff. Before the taping of Benny Versus the Penny, I realize I'm ugly, but I try to limit the damage, and so I shave and do all that stuff. So I plug the razor in per normal, get that razor juiced up to trim my facial hair, and so do that, and then I go back to after about an hour, I go back to grab the shaver. It's an electric going to shave my beard, and I turn it on and there's nothing. And then I start shaking it, you know, and I was like, well,
maybe the plug's wrong. So I plugged in a different, different outlet and then I walked away and I came back and the thing's not working. Uh, And I kept Then I started hitting the thing of a jig and that didn't work. And so that was just the warm up act. I couldn't shave before, and I was like, well, boy, everything gonna say the horrible. And then after doing the radio show Wednesday and the Thursday, you know, I had
some downtime. Eventually I drive over in a monsoon to Universal Studios and the broke on News Center, West Coast hub of NBC News. That's where we do the show from. So I park in the Abbott and Costello parking garage, her and on. But I realized there's no walk. We have to walk outside to get to the building. And so I'm like, I need an umbrella. So I start digging around the car. IF's like, wow, everyone's got an umbrella in their car. Couldn't find the umbrella in the malamobile.
Uh oh im porked. So now I'm like, well, should I wait till the rain dies down? And I looked at my weather app on my phone. I was like, well, it says it's going to keep raining. I'm screwed. It's just going to keep rain. So I'm like, I just got to go. I just got to Maybe I'll walk fast, but so I want to paint the picture for a blind listener. So I start walking. It starts raining harder. There's like a cloud burst, right, oh is I only where I was. I don't think it was raining that
hard anywhere else in La. So I'm holding my laptop like briefcase that I have with my my computer and some notes for the show. I've got a garment bag because I have to dress up as an adult. I have a box with my dress shoes on. I'm wearing sandals, okay, in sweatpants because I was just gonna casual at the radio station. By the time I made it from the parking garage to the BROCA News Center, which is about two blocks about two blocks, I was completely and I
want to exaggerate here, Danny completely waterlogged. I was soaking wet, I was sopping, I was totally submerged in water and in that cartoon bubble over my head. As I'm walking to the door, I'm thinking, you know, here I am. I feel like I'm at the peak of my career right now. You know, things have really come together. I've got the radio shows going well, the podcast we've used going great, got a TV show now, national TV show.
Like I'm rolling in to Universal Studios here and I look like a swamp creature, like I'm totally drenched, and I was so embarrassed. I actually walked through the underground entrance to avoid the overnight security guard, who I know a little bit, because I didn't want anyone to see me. Even though I was a camera. I was that embarrassed. So welcome to the exciting, sexy world of big time
sports media. What a You know, it never rains in La Danny, but when it does rain, you need an umbrella, and I didn't have an umbrella.
There were tornado warnings going off at two in the morning on our phones.
Yeah, that's when I was out about a little bit after that, a few hours after that, I was out and about. It was nuts, crazy, dude.
If you've seen the pictures of West Ventura County, ox start in Ventura was underwater, cars stuck, people's houses flooded. And you know, obviously we're not used to that sort of thing here in southern California.
No, not at all. And you know, it happens the La River, which is not really a river, it's just you know, it's a concrete thing. And that thing was just move. It goes right by.
Universal and yeah, that's a skate park usually.
So one other thing before we get out, we'll get out on this. So it turns out I wasn't the only person having issues for the TV show this week. My comrade and campadre, Tom Looney. I don't know if he wants me to tell this story, but he didn't listen to the podcast. Who cares it no matter? So I, as I told you, I ran into you know, the building there covered in water. So I then had to go to a bathroom and drive myself off and change into my church clothes to go on television in my temple,
no clothes whatever. So then I'm walking around. I did a little prep and I walk into the like I don't even know what to call the NBC commissary, but it's like they don't break room where they have, you know, some food or whatever. So I go over there, there's a coffee machine. Looney's over there getting a free moocha on the peacock's dime. And he then informs me that he had one of his pets had I guess, uh cat scratch fever while he was sleeping. He was clawed
in the forehead. Oh no, yeah, yeah yeah, So the right side of his forehead I'm standing right in front of it looks like Frankenstein, like it believe. But I'm like, we have to tape the TV show. The record time is in an hour, like less than an hour at this point, right because we're both there getting ready, and the call time was like half an hour and Looney Looney uses his clandestine Uh did I say that rightdys clandestine? Right, that's the word I think I'm saying.
Uh.
Anyway, he used his knee, I'll use ninja and his ninja ability. It's early in the morning to slither in to a back room. He found the NBC makeup depot, which I didn't even We didn't even know where this was. I didn't know. He asked somebody who led him this direction, and he his forehead by the time he got done. You probably can't tell on the TV show, but when you watch Betty versus The Penny, let me know. He looked in person like a gaudy woman painted in makeup.
You know.
We both, right, Dad, You know women that just put.
Instead of cake face, he was cake kead.
Yeah, yeah, exactly, So he just yeah, he had you know, cake. It was like frosting on his forehead, like a wedding cake. And I think he pulled it up because at least in the monitors in our studio it looked fine. I don't think you know. You might know now because I told you, but none of our producers in Boston. The director, our guy Vinnie, who puts the show together. None of
these guys noticed it. So that is a real miracle before Christmas that Looney was able to have one of his pets scratch his forehead where he looked like Frankenstein a monster, and then put enough makeup on to just cover it up. And you don't even know.
Don't do a lost cat magnet pencil.
Next, It's wild and please watch Benny Versus the Penny. It's on today all weekend. I know it's a holiday weekend. You're probably with family and whatnot, but you're listening to this podcast. You must have some free time. I do. I can't say we have some of the showings I know for today on Friday, NBC Sports Boston, we'll be on at seven thirty Tonight nine pm tonight NBC Sports Philadelphia,
late night showing at eleven. In Chicago, we'll be on after the Canadians Blackhawks post game on NBC Sports Chicago at ten thirty. Benny Versus the Penny no airings today on NBC Sports Bay Area. Will be on a couple of times on Saturday. There's some games in the Bay Area that preempted us, but we are on today on
NBC Sports California, which is the Sacramento Kings home. We'll be on after the Sacramento Kings Suns broadcast on actually I think before I think we might actually be on before that, the pre game, Yeah, six pm in NBC Sports California, and then we'll be on several times on Saturday Tomorrow on Spectrum Sports Net, which is Danny's favorite channel because they have some basketball team on their pop.
Yeah, that's the Lakers channel. That's how I see you and Looney.
Yeah, so we'll be on their six am, Saturday, three pm, and eleven pm all Pacific time. We'll get out on that. Danny, are you doing any working today? Are you what you got going on?
I am working because we're doing the fun Friday edition of Covino and Rich before we have a couple of days off for the holiday. So two to four pm on the West Coast, and that is five to seven pm in Vermont where Arnie is.
Yeah, the great stinking genius. All right, have a wonderful Friday. We'll have another fresh podcast for you on Saturday, and we will talk to you then later.
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