The Fifth Hour: Radio Legend, Mike North - podcast episode cover

The Fifth Hour: Radio Legend, Mike North

May 02, 202533 min
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Episode description

Ben Maller (produced by Danny G.) has a fun Friday for you! Ben welcomes FSR Alumni member Mike North for some schmoozing about his career in sports radio. North is the godfather of Chicago sports talk and was recently named the recipient of the 2025 lifetime achievement award from Barrett Sports Media for his work as a trailblazer in the radio world. Settle in as Mike regales you with classic stories from his wild ride on the airwaves of America!

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Transcript

Speaker 1

Cutbooms.

Speaker 2

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 sol fashion of fairness. He treats crackheads in the ghetto gutter the same as the rich pill poppers in the penthouse. Wow to Clearinghouse of hot takes, break free for something special. The Fifth Hour with Ben Maller starts right now.

Speaker 3

In the air everywhere. The Fifth Hour with Me, Ben Mahler and Danny g Radio, who will be producing this podcast, will join me at some point over the weekend, but we have made it into the first podcast of the month of May here and as we talked about on the Overnight Show last night promoting this, I am very excited because today is not your normal Friday Run of the Mill podcast where I start out talking about some dopey holidays and go through the week that was not

a no no no by popular demand. A chance to catch up with a sports talk radio leg And I'm not blowing smoke when I say that, especially if you're from Chicago. But this guy worked at our place. He's part of the Fox Sports Radio Alumni Association. The Great Mike North is going to join us now. The reason we're having Mike on today is a I love him. He's one of the great characters in radio in my journey in radio that I've come across. And then also the fact that he has been honored one of the

great accomplishments in his career. He's the godfather of Chicago sports radio and did our morning show at Fox Sports Radio for a number of years with Andy Furman. So Mike North has been given the Lifetime Achievement Award from Barrett Sports Media. And this is a big industry website that tracks the business and keeps up to date with everything.

So next week, a week from today, on May ninth, there's a gala ceremony in Chicago and a sports radio legend from Chicago, Mike North, there will receive the Lifetime Achievement Award. So I thought, what better way to celebrate this than have the man on? And it's an excuse to him on. So I saw it, I said, I got to get this guy on. So I reached out to him and he now joins us right now. On the fifth hour we walk him in. He's still working, by the way, he's got his own show, on the

ESPN station there in Chicago. So we walkme in the great Mike North. Mike, congratulations, what has it been like since you found out that you have been given the honor of a Lifetime Achievement Award for your radio career.

Speaker 1

How do you doing, Ben? That's great by talking to you. You're a legend. Come on, shocking to be honest with you, because you know, I won a lot of awards. I won four Talk Show host Awards in Chicago for local radio. I won two Emmys, and I won a Cleo Award even for a Best Commercial. But they were all voted from out of town. So because what they do is they don't want the locals voting for the people that

are in Chicago. You like the Chicago radio people voting for Chicago personalities because then they'll be biased, they'll vote for their own and stuff like that. I don't know how Barrett came up with this, How Jason did it, I don't know, but he said by a landslide. And I mean, I know a lot of great radio sports

radio people that came out of there. But I think the difference is that I started the whole thing basically off a lark, I had read in the sometimes that Dan Lee, the owner of w x R tier progressive rock station, was going to start a jazz station. And I saw that in Robert Feed's column in the Sun Times, and I said to my wife and we were working the hot dog stand, our hot dog stand at the time, we owned a hot dog stand in Chicago, Big One, and I said, you know what, Dan needs sports station

in this town. Well, she says, well, I don't think you have much of a say in this. But what happened was some of the XRT people used to come in my stand, and I only had met Dan Lee twice. And Dan Lee, there was like a couple of sports shows on rock and roll stations, like The Loop and others, but there was no all sports station, not even the Fan. The fan had Imus in the morning, so they had it only for middays in the afternoon. So this long

and behold. A day after the article is in the paper that they've bought the call letters to w jay z Z and they're going to go country. Dan Lee comes walking in and at that time you could only own two stations. He only owned one. Now you can own eight stations in a way which takes away a lot of the bargaining power of many radio people. But at that time, you know, you could only own two, so you had a lot of suitors. Well, I didn't have any suitors. Nobody even knew me. I was a

high school dropout. I owned a hot dog stand and I had a successful thing. And then he comes walking in and I asked him. I go, I hear you're going jazz and he says, uh yeah. I said you should go off sports, sir, And he goes, really, he goes why. I said, well, I think it's the next big thing. And there's only twelve of them in this country right now, the fan there's one in Denver, there's la and back then San Diego I think had one. Boston I think was strong, Philadelphia was strong. I said

you should try it. Well, he buys his hot dog himself. He goes, I'll think about it. He walks out. I chase him out. I go think about it, because jazz won't sell sports is a huge sports jump. He goes home that weekend and if you remember, Ben, they had the Tribune and Sun Times. Thick papers were one hundred and forty four pages. He bought the He looked at he bought the Bulldog editions of the Sun Times and Tribune and he looked at the entertainment section and saw

two or three jazz advertisements, advertisements for jazz. Then he went to the sports section. And back in the day, folks, thirty forty adds in these sports sections, and I mean twelve fourteen pages full with the standings and everything and what the players were hitting. It was so much bigger back then. He meets on Monday with his music people and they said, were ready to go. He goes, yeah, we're going to do all sports. They go, are you crazy? You're going to listen to that hot dog guy? And

he goes, I'm going to listen to him. And that's how it all started. And he started to score, and he as a music guy, Ben, and you know how it is to find people. He filled day day as music people. Put together a station that only last would the last twelve hours for four years until it got a full time license. And we ruled the airwaves on a twelve hour station. That's great.

Speaker 3

And those were the days right where there were like radio people that were making the decisions, right. I mean, it's not it's the business has changed, obviously, a ton. I'm younger than you, but there's so many people now that are not really like radio people that are making those decisions. Would that be the thing that's got to be the thing you're most proud of?

Speaker 1

Right?

Speaker 3

You went from running a hot dogs stand, which you were doing very well at, and then he became the godfather of Chicago sports radio. When you give your speech, will that be the lead of the speech? Is that going to be the.

Speaker 1

Well to the lead of the speech? Is I was basically a high school drop out. My own dad called me a bomb. I'd never amount to anything. I had a tense relationship with him, but he always put a rough over my head. He was a decent guy, but he if and if it wasn't for him, I wouldn't be here. But he wasn't happy with me. I dropped out of high school. I ended up going to the Service. I was going to have to go to Vietnam. I was drafted because I didn't have any schooling. I had

to go for my draft card. I went. My orders were canceled. I was supposed to go to Long being young wherever that was in Vietnam with a bunch of other goofy nineteen and twenty year old kids, and my Nixon canceled our orders because they were going through the Paris Peace talks. So that was a bit of luck. I come back and I meet my wife and from there on, she tried to change me for a long time,

and I finally changed. And I would say one day I was picking paper in a park working for the Chicago Park District and mark and ballfields, and the next day I was the biggest thing in radio. It was culture shock and day when I see twenty year olds go through it. I ended up making a lot of money in this business. And when I and I was thirty nine and I wasn't ready for it, but yeah, I'm going to it's a Rag's the richest type of situation for me. I went from nobody. I met a

beautiful lady. She helped guide me, helped fix me up, and I went to work every day. I've never missed a day of work in thirty three years. Never missed at Fox, never missed at ESPN, which I'm working at now one thousand, never missed at the Score where I worked for sixteen years. So I love it. It's in my blood. But I started talking sports on the street corner. And my uncle, who's ninety years old, told me the other day,

you're getting this because you were built for it. He says, I remember you talking circles around the older relatives when you were nine years old. So you were born. I was born to do it. You were born to do it.

Speaker 3

And I think part of the key is like you're like a lot of the people in the business. Even when you were when you were starting out and I was listening, is you know, young guy, they were kind of program they were buttoned up.

Speaker 1

Yeah, you're just like a regular dude.

Speaker 3

Which that's at that time especially, I think even now, but at that time, there weren't a lot of people that were like you that were doing this.

Speaker 1

I give you a big advantage. I did have a huge advantage. It was different than ninety two. It was I mean, there was no social media. There was no Twitter, but there was phones in the cars. We didn't even have computer yet. Our producer, Jesse Rodgers was my producer. I had Abby Pulaski. Then I had a guy named Jesse Rodgers who's now number one baseball guy at ESPN. For seven years, we got the best guests. But when we had phone calls. They had to hold up the

sign with the guy's name on it. Joe from Tinley Park, Bill from Alsip, Illinois, Bob. You know, so there was no computers. You had to know what you were talking about without the use of a computer. What do I see now? I see scripts? I mean I broke it, broke my heart. I read on Twitter about a month ago. Hey, me and my three buddies are getting together. We're going to go to the bar, and we have a script that we're going to discuss each sport. That's not what

it was designed to do. Sports radio was designed around the way I wanted it. I was designed about around sports, alcohol, women, and entertainment. You want to talk about movies, that's fine. Even the little politics used to sneak in. But you could talk politics back then. Now you can't. As far as your other question, you know how great it was to walk in to a corner office and the boss was sitting there in the same building, and you didn't

have to call New York. You didn't have to call California. If you wanted to go to New York and see the Bulls and Knicks, you didn't have to call California, New York or some other place to see if you could go with the White Sox to Boston. We would

ask him. He'd go, yeah, And you know what, he was a music guy who four years later, Ben sold the station that he put a seven hundred thousand dollars investment with along with XRTI, because he already had the building and stuff for seventy seven million bucks.

Speaker 2

Wow.

Speaker 1

And it was a part time station until he went all time the final year and then Westinghouse came and bought. As far as who's running radio now, of course you need a radio guy to run radio. And as far as people that are running radio, most of them. I used to I called my boss back in the day. I said, you're not a sports guy. You're not a radio guy. You're a bean counter. That's what you are. And I said, don't try to pretend that you know

more about sports or anything else. Because the original boss left. And once the original boss left, it's an all new ball game. It's like getting a new manager. As you know, because you've been through a few in baseball.

Speaker 3

My favorite Mike Norss story, and there's bunch of them, though, is your confrontations with Ozzie Gian back in the day, and I saw I wanted to get your reaction. I'm sure you've talked about this in your show in Chicago, but I haven't heard your reaction. So the other day Ozzie and I guess I'm one of the local he does a White postgame or something like that. He said that doing sports radio is harder than managing in the

major leagues. And I agree with him, by the way, But what was your reaction, because you got you really got into a dust up, one of the famous sports radio dustups with us. So when you saw him say that, what was your reaction?

Speaker 1

Right? First of all, I haven't seen as he since I understand I came down after I had the argument with him. I was doing a remote from Wrigley Field. The argument was all about he wasn't going to start a J. Prazinski. Now, if you're playing like the Braves or somebody, that's fine. You're playing the White Socks, which was still a fevered pitch back in two thousand and six. The Cubs are coming off a World Series, I mean, the White Socks are coming off a World Series, and

he wanted to start. A guy named Toby Hall so I'm ranting and Raven, the guy's just coming off the disabled Listen. He's not a very good catcher and he can't how's he going to hit? And you're playing the White Socks on a Friday, it's the first game. Now I'm across the street in the place at a bar doing a remote filled with people, and all of a sudden, he calls up and he goes nuts and he starts swearing, and me and him went at it, and he wasn't happy, and I wasn't happy, And to be honest, Ben, I'm

tired of the cut. But this is the fun part. He's going to be at this thing. He's going to be at the ward and me and him are going to be together for the first time in hell twenty twenty five years, and they're probably going to play that cut. And I am so tired of it, and I'm sure he is too, So I might have to retire it, because you don't want to hear how you were twenty five years ago in d Vane. He was a great manager. Me and him at times are the same people, type

A personalities. We've both shot ourselves in the foot a couple of times, so we have a lot in common. And that day that he called, it wasn't a manager in a radio host. It was basically two Chicago neighborhood guys going at it. And it was admire him for calling, and I admire him for taking it down. But as it turned out, Toby Hall had two pants balls that day and he had just an awful outing and he was cut down the line. There you go.

Speaker 3

But that's and it's nice that you know, when you run into him, he did say, you know, this is what we do. What you've done your whole you know, life is harder than managing in the major leagues, which I agree with that people you're talking about doing the job every day. And I often will say, Mike, like anybody could probably do what will you do? And what I do during football season when there's stuff going on.

But the problem is day in day out, like people don't realize, Like I'm sure there's some days, Mike, you go in there even though you have the gift for gatt, you're not really feeling it, but you still have to do the show. You have to present the show, and those are the days where I feel like you make their money. Anybody can go in there when there's a ton of stuff to talk about yes days when there's not much and you can create something out of nothing.

Speaker 1

That to me, that's what separates.

Speaker 3

And you've been doing it forever.

Speaker 1

So yeah, thirty three years. But I'll tell you, Ben, I know what you have to go through working overnights, and it's not easy. Some of the great overnight guys Chicago, Whity Schwartz, a lot of overnight guys I listened to in Chicago. It wasn't easy. Not less. Robstein a great a great voice and a good friend of mine back in the day, one of the great overnight guys. So what you do is not easy. But I'll be the first to tell you. In ninety two we were the

first of our kind, an all sports station. We never had a meeting, me and Dan Jiggets or our producers. We would write down who we want for the next day, whether it be Tom Glavin because the Braves are in town, bring on an Assie gee in, or bring on this guy or that guy. We never had a meeting. Jiggs Dan would get there about a quarter two. I'd get there a little bit more earlier. I was already prepared the night before, so if Dan came on and he said,

welcome to the scores. You know, sports radio ladies and gentlemen. I'm Dan Jiggets. We're the monsters of the mid midday. Mike is along with me. Mike, how you doing? Good Dan? But that cub game last night? Or good Dan? That Bear game? Boy? I'll tell you, I'll tell you what I mean. Irlacker just didn't get it done yesterday, and he was ready and I was ready. He led the show. I loved being a second banana because that's where you're you don't have to worry. And I did read commercials.

You do it all your solo a lot. That's tough. I did solo at Fox two on weekends, brutal, but going off of somebody, okay, is the best because we turned into and he was a He was a Harvard educated black man and I was a high school dropout white man. And do you want to know how many people thought it was reversed just because of the color of our skin until people found out. So it was a great thing. And Andy Furman was the same way. Andy is one of the greats, as you know how

I feel about him. And I think that Andy and I and Jonas Knox had one of the best shows ever. Unfortunately we weren't on Next Time like you guys are at the time. But I thought that was a great show. I just feel like I was like Hyman Roth then you know, all my partners are going to make money, you know, and.

Speaker 3

And and Jonas has followed in your footsteps.

Speaker 1

Oh yeah, morning guy, now the great. I am very proud of him. I do know this. If he asked me, I'd tell him our show was better. And that's nothing against Brady or or or or anybody else a lovar, nothing against them, nothing against Jonas.

Speaker 3

I love you and a couple of great radio characters because you're the Chicago guy, Andy Fight. It was fun and you just you really played well off each other. You mentioned though Less Cropsy. I know Less passed away a while back. But yeah he did, Yeah he did recorded and this is actually the week the anniversary the other day on this Yeah. I mean, did he ever get into that and tell you some of the behind the scenes.

Speaker 1

Oh absolutely, I mean, give me some That was.

Speaker 3

The greatest rant in the history of rants. I've never there's nothing that can match Lee Ilia attacking the cub.

Speaker 1

No and to let people know, you could go to and then listen to the Yauzie in North tape and it's not close to what Lee Elia was with Les Grobstein. What happened was somebody asked him a question. I believe it was less. They had the gang of reporters down there. He had the tape recorder going and he just lost his mind. Unless was the first guy to put it out, and lee Elia went on a tirade, you're ten people are all fifteen percent of your unemployed. That's why you're

at the ballpark. You guys are a bunch of losers. You know. He was, you know, and so to nobody's surprised he didn't last long after that, but he he was a fiery guy, Lee Elia. He'll always be famous for that, and Les Cropstein will be famous for that. If you folks get a chance to listen to the Lee Ilia tyrae and you haven't heard it, it's up there with the Bobby Knight tirade? Did I used to play? Or the yazzie It's better than yes well? Which which no?

Speaker 3

Which Bobby Knight one? Because he had the one about Purdue and then he do you do it?

Speaker 1

I played it every day and then Jesse Rogers, my producer at the time, who's one of the great baseball guys, and we're still best friends. Indiana was playing Northwestern. At Northwestern, I said, and I used to make I used to give Jesse a bounty and I was making a lot of money, so I shared it because I was. Some of them didn't. So I used to put a bounty

on Jesse. If you can get Bobby Knight. Now this is like early nineties, if you get Bobby Knight on the radio with me tomorrow, I'll give you five hundred dollars. Five hundred dollars to a producer that was like twenty five years old back in the nineties. Okay. He goes to the game, Bobby Knight's coming out. They won. He goes, mister Knight, I worked for a host, Mike North and he goes, I know who he is. I heard the tape. Now Jesse's walking with him, and he goes, I'm not

doing it. I won't do it. That's it. I mean, but the guy loves you, Mike loves you. But it's an entertaining thing. He goes, yeah, well snuck in on me, you know. And I didn't appreciate it, and he keeps walking. Jesse follows him onto the bus. You gotta help me. I can make five. Anyone do it for him. But Jesse got thrown off the Indiana bus. He followed him in after night, told him fifty paces back. That's what's following.

Speaker 2

Yeah, yeah, that is outstanding.

Speaker 1

Well, hey, you gotta make the money man, that's even he was. I mean he it was like he found a gold mine and he wanted to mind it. But the gold mine was Bob was Bobby Knight. My favorite story, Ben and I don't even know if you know this. Dave Steep nineteen ninety three. Yeah, he got picked up by the White Sox.

Speaker 2

No, the White Sox got you.

Speaker 1

Okay, I'm on the radio and he hears me say he's washed up. I love the guy. He's a competitor, but he's not going to help this White Sox team. Period, end of story. Okay. I'm at Gibson Steakhouse that night. It was a hangout of mind. Who comes walking in just got in the day before, was told by the White Sox where I hung out, walks in to the bar, somebody says, somebody wants to see you. I walk into the vestibule of the place. He goes, I'm Dave Steep. You have a little problem with me. I go, I

have no problem with you, Dave. First of all, it's good to meet you. He goes, well, I heard about what you said on me on the radio. I said, Dave, nobody loves you as a competitor, one of my favorite role players. But you're you've got to know that what I was saying has to be half true. He goes, you know what he says to me. Then he says, well, why don't you try to help me? I go, what are you talking about? Well, the team's on the road. I go, yeah, and I need to throw tomorrow. I go,

where are you're going to throw? He goes, We'll find the park somewhere. He goes, I'm staying where the White Socks keep all the new players on the on Lake Shore Drive at this building. Can you come by tomorrow? I go, sure? What time? He goes seven o'clock? I go in the morning. Now it's already nine at night. He goes, yeah, and I've already had a few belts. I go, okay. He gives me the address. I get up. The rain's going sideways or I call them up. Dave,

too bad? Huh. He goes, where are you coming or not? I go, what are you talking about? He goes, I need to throw because they're coming back, and I got to be ready. I need to throw sixty five sony pictures. I go, there's nothing open. It's born like that. He goes, well, find a viaduct. You know viaducts around here. I go in, know the whole city. So I go get him and I take him to Grand Avenue where there's a viaduct by the Chicago River. He stands on one side. I

stand on the other side. I got a catcher smid. He had a chest protector and a mask, okay, And he threw sixty five pitches between cars going by from one end, from one side to the other. And I caught all of them but three period. And the story, true, true story. It would never happen. I couldn't make that up. And it actually happened because the white Socks said no love for me, and they thought they could start something and it n ended up being a good thing. And Dave's one of the great guys.

Speaker 3

That's awesome, a great story.

Speaker 1

I always think about that yeah, that is.

Speaker 3

That is wonderful.

Speaker 1

I love the guys.

Speaker 3

Well, you know, a lot of them will say they don't listen. I had a guy years ago that was with the Dodgers who I was ripping, and then I was in the law. I was in the clubhouse the next like the next day, and the guy came up to me. He was ranting Mike. He's like, I don't listen to sports radio and I said, well, how do.

Speaker 1

You how do I know? How do you know that I said anything? He said, well, my wife does you know?

Speaker 3

And then he was giving me the whole, you know, the whole thing.

Speaker 1

About well, you know, Brian Harlan was the pr man for the White Sox for the Bears, and he's now an agent. And when we were rolling, uh, we ran into each other and he says to me, I heard the station didn't have that good of ratings. And I said, I heard your three and seven and we kept walking. I mean, that's how it used to be in Chicago. You know, a lot of ball busting going on. But it was the teams hated us because at the time we had no teams discourage of any local radio station.

If you want your people to be absolutely free is to have no teams, and we ended up getting the team and the station changed a little, but it's now. I was told we were going to last six months, and Dan Lee took my vision made it into something big and now the Chicago Cubs. When I'm I'd been in my car around that station. Yeah, I gotta ask you.

Speaker 3

I've been to Wrigley Field a number of times over the year there, but it seems last time I was there, it just felt like I was at Disney or something.

Speaker 1

Well, yeah, you should have been with me in the seventies.

Speaker 3

Well, I did get I didn't go in the seventies obviously, but I did go back in like the nineties. It was sure, sure the way it was, I guess then it wasn't as crazy, But.

Speaker 1

Are you kidding me? We could have bought the buildings across the street with the change we have in our pockets. Back in nineteen seventy, it was a heavily it was Hispanic, it was a mix white Hispanic. They had gang problems down farther down the street. But then it just changed.

Harry Carey came, okay from the White Sox, and as soon as Harry Carey came, and then they got some people who were Dallas Green came, and then Wrigley Field Old became cool like Fenway, and they lived off that, and then they lived off Harry And now when you go down there, I swear to god, I hadn't been down there for like ten years after, you know, because I live way out now. I went down there. You're right, I couldn't even recognize it. I didn't have a clue.

They used to have Murphy's Bleachers. Used to be a bar with twenty five stools at a pool table in the middle. So now it's this massive bar all there. You know what, I knew a guy that lived across the street. We took lawn chairs in the eighties and sat on top and watched the games. Now they got bleachers, you know, and they got clubs inside and everything. So it's just a gigantic difference.

Speaker 3

I think the Cubs, I think the ownership, like bought a lot of the land around there, and they just own like that that whole area. But it does feel very corporate, and that's to me, that's not the essence. Obviously, we're getting times right, Mike. But that's as you said when you were going there. Back in the day, it was just sodom and gomorra.

Speaker 1

Right, well, I was a vendor. I was a vendor in sixty nine and seventy. I told my father there's no way I'm going to school. I'm not tober. He goes, what are you talking about. We're having enough trouble getting you to school as it is. I go to, Cubs are going My dad wasn't really sports oint. I go to, Cubs are going to go to the World Series. I'm going to be making nothing but money. And I was when I was sixteen, making its where doubleheaders, forty Bucks,

selling cokes, twenty five cent cokes. Hey, coke, get your coke here, get coke care? I remember like it was yesterday. And then I remember to collapse, which I could not believe. The sixty nine Cubs, not that they played badly, but the Mets were just so good. So, you know, it's the greatest sports to me. I mean from the time I'm nine and I you know, Howard Stern said it best.

Anybody can go to Amazon and be a podcaster. And this is nothing against podcasting, because I have a couple of great podcasts, and he says, but it takes unbelievable skill, and I don't always agreeing with Howard Stern unbelievable skill to do what any radio guy does, any radio guy does, And he's absolutely right, because I've had guys come into the studios you have that thought they could knock it down and get it down, and it didn't happen. Then

you know that as well as I do. And then there's others that it just flows, like yourself and like other people that we know and love. So yeah, it's true.

Speaker 3

And the other dudes. You'll see guys professional athletes or something. They'll come off the field and think they can just get on a microphone because they played and they can start yep, And it's not that easy. You gotta as you said, there's an art to it. There's you've got to know what you're doing.

Speaker 1

And if why doing two o'clock in the morning, if you're Ben mallor in July, in July, why do it? Why do it? Mike North while the Indianapolis Cults are playing the Packers at eight o'clock on Sunday, Okay on Sunday night. I had no problem when when I was with the team, you know, with Dan jiggots, and you had somebody to bounce off of. Okay, but doing what anybody does, I've had so many people think they can

do it and they can't. It's it's an art. It's it's how much work are you going to put into it? You have to come up with stuff. My buddy and you brought up a Dan Lee, the owner. He passed away, and before he passed away, I had a three hour contrave with you talking about the days, and he said the thing about you that set everybody apart, Mike, and it's the highest compliment that I could have been paid. You never had an offseason. If there was hockey, you

knew every black clock. If it was football, baseball, basketball, we didn't worry about you. We worried about the others. There was a couple of football players like you just said, a baseball player that worked with us, a couple of journalists. So that was probably one of the great things he ever said, amongst many things. He gave me changed my whole life. He was going to give me weekends and I said, I can do every day, and the other guy they were not going to give it to me.

And the one guy turned it down. They gave me a six month trial, and here I am thirty three years later, and you know, it's the roller coaster ride. Ben ups downs in all rounds. I mean, talk show hosts for the most part, folks, and even Ben, at some point we're wackos. We are. We're wackos, no doubt about it. But we put our heart and soul into entertainment, entertainment, and you get it for free.

Speaker 3

Well, and there are very few that I've met along my journey that have passion and energy, and you're one of a kind. My congratulations, you got that lifetime achievement of word, which will be next Friday. There's a big galo there in Chicago. Thanks for doing this, dude, I appreciate it.

Speaker 1

Thank you. You know what, Ben, I hope to see you soon the next time in Chicago. We got to hook up. I know you were in Chicago not too long ago. I believe if I'm not right, you want to that is true.

Speaker 3

But my brother lives in Wisconsin. My younger I do go. You know, I usually try to go through Chicago.

Speaker 1

You know what's funny. I live right by Wisconsin. I live right by Lake Geneva now, but I live in Illinois. But I'll tell you what. Yeah, when I see a picture of somebody and the first thing I said is boy, I'd like to see him and go to the ball game with him. Because if you've never been to Wrigley, folks, and you drive down the street, you go, where the hell is this park? And then all of a sudden, boom, Oh it's wonderful.

Speaker 3

Yeah, but I mean to go to That'd be awesome to go to a Cub game with Mike North.

Speaker 1

Now that's the most we will have to do it and say hi to everybody over there, and I will. I enjoyed being on and thanks so much.

Speaker 3

Now let me tell you I see jonas your old protege. I love them every day and we will occasionally randomly there'll be a Mike Norse story that we will tell and it's it's just a cluss. But but thanks to Thanks Mike, appreciate it.

Speaker 1

You're the best. Ben, thank you, and thank all the listeners. Thanks guys,

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