The Fifth Hour: The Box Ben Was Raised In

takes break free for something special. The Fifth Hour with Ben Maller starts right now in the air everywhere, and a happy Saturday to you back in the podcast do Joe for another addition of the Fifth Hour with Ben Maller in Danny g Radio for all your podcast needs. Every single day there's some kind of audio content that we provide you well, very little of that, very little of that. But Danny here we are again on a

wonderful Saturday. This is the next to last Saturday in the month of April, and a year is flying by yet again, another year zooming past us here Danny. Was definitely a long work week, so it feels nice to get to the weekend right now. And I gotta thank everybody for the downloads, Ben, because we had some amazing

numbers last weekend. Yes, thank you for that. That the inspiration to continue talking and I want you to know that I only talk to you the podcast listener and when I'm not doing the podcast, and my wife can attest I very rarely even talked to her, Danny. I allow her to do all the talking, and I I point out, I'm saving my voice. I believe in silence.

You crickets. All we got on the weekends. I have nothing left to say other than the podcast and then that's it, and so it works out pretty well that way. I do have a a bit of a trip coming up, so I will have some silence, although I guess someone have to talk to my relative, so I don't think I'll be able to I wish I could, but I think I have to talk to them, So I'll be doing a different kind of show. They call it the

Selene Dion. You need that voice rest two diva move, but you can pull it as a way to not have to talk to certain people. Yeah. It's like Michael Kay, the Yankee broadcaster. He had a vocal cord injury, wow, and he literally could not talk for a while. So I could claim that I could claim I have a vocal cord injury. Although my problem, Danny, is even when I've had vocal cord injuries. I've still worked. I've had laryngitis multiple times over the years, and I've I've always worked.

And my my idea behind that, the reason I've always worked is because I've always thought, well, there's there's a big boss that's listening. I'm sure the big boss if I sound really bad, you know, the the phone, the phone will start ringing there and he'll say hey, yeah, and then they'll say hey, mall or get off the air and all that, and then it's never happened. I've never I've had laryngitis multiple times in the years I've

done radio. I've never had a program actor at any station I've ever worked at called me up and say, Ben, you probably shouldn't be on the air right now. How is that possible, Daddy. There were a few times when I did the live show with you, not only did you barely have a voice left, but we could smell you from down the hall. There comes the garlic. Oh yeah, yeah, well yeah, the garlic therapy, which the time tested from

the old Country, the garlic therapy. One time I was on the air and our our Sherman Oaks studios and it was during a commercial break, and I was feeling kind of sick, and I went in the in the hallway there and I puked, and then I came back and did another segment of Radio So Yeah, and it was like, you're Michael Jordan's flu game. I haven't puked very often. There's only a food poisoning. That's usually what

gets me from my most people. But I've been pretty good at holding my my puke anyway, On that positive uplifting note, the hell is going on here? What is going on? Well, let's take for that puke combo with some good drops right here. Yes, we're gonna take a ride on the vomit comment and bare now not the kind of balls I like. You pay me five thousand dollars, I'll endorse a game magazine. I have noticed that the bombit comment Danny gets a lot of play during the

playoff us. I use vomit comment much more during the NBA playoffs, the NFL playoffs, the baseball playoffs, then during the regular season. But on the menu today for your listening pleasure, you'll be the judge of that. We have feeling blue over under do the dip, the butter boner and backscratchers. So there's a lot of content to get to any very limited amount of time, a finite amount of time, so without further ado, and we don't need

to bleep anything unless we do so. Feeling moves. So this past weekend I made it back out the Dodgers state of my first trip on the first Dodger homestand it was last weekend to see the Cincinnati Reds the Cincinnati Bros, if you will. And I did put out a message at the very last minute on social media and I said, attention p Once on Twitter, Surprise, motherfucker, guess who's in the ballpark? And I actually did running. I was walking around Dodger Stam. I ran into a

few fans of the show. So that was encouraging, Danny, not discouraging considering that we've been on in l A. I've been on another for a long time, but been on the Dodger Station, the Overnight Show for many many years. And Dodger Stadium celebrating what sixty years there, big deal, sixty years. It looked great. I walked all around the ballpark and walked out to center field. They had renovated Dodger Stadium and it's completely done. They're ready for the

All Star Game, so that was cool. I didn't notice they renovated the press box. That is not done. I know you're very concerned about that. They have updated the press box, which is very odd because I've spent a lot of my life in there, and it's weird. They expanded the back area of the press box, in the back of the dining room. They added a new women's bathroom, which is very important me and where do white women at?

And this is a big one, Danny. They added an all gender bathroom in the press box at Dodger Stadium. It's so to do that. I always said for years when I was coming the Dodging So the one thing that's missing from this press box in all gender bathrooms. And now they've done it. Now they've solved that problem. So we're good to go on that. Uh and uh and laile blah. Now, meanwhile, I was on a wild goose chase to find an item is very important to me. Uh,

the popcorn machine, Danny. Now, it was not where it normally has been. They they just as I mentioned, they've done some work there in the press box and spoiler alert. Spoiler alert, much to my dismay, Danny. I looked in every nook and cranny of that press box and a major setback here. Yeah, no more, no more popcorn machine. Well the popcorn machine. It's very eighties and nineties. I feel like maybe they're trying to push into the future, even though the eighties was now what forty years ago.

I know what you think, it's like twenty years ago, but yeuh no. But for years that had been my go to staple, good good, bad ugly Dodger baseball didn't matter. I always had freshly made buttered popcorn and I probably gained I estimated over two hundred pounds just on popcorn alone. Take that for data. Uh and abracadabric gone in a jiffy the popcorn. But it wasn't the I enjoyed being out there and I got to cut up with it.

I catch up rather but not to kind of catch up on the table, but I got to chat with a bunch of people I hadn't seen a long time, so that was always cool. And I gotta tell you, though, it's weird being there because I have memories of great nights at Dodger Stadium and people I hung out with good friends of mine. Many of them are not dead or they're not working in the radio in radio business anymore, and everything's turned over like as you might imagine. I've

been doing this for a while. So there's a whole new generation of writers and broadcasters and not a lot of friendly faces. So I had I had to search. I had to go around Danny and try to find friendly faces. I found a few. So I you want the Mallard roll call, and can give you the Mallar rule call here, all right? So these are the people I actually know that's still cover the Dodgers. Now I miss some people here. But Himie Harin Hall of Fame, Spanish voice of the Dodgers sixty four seasons, and I

think he's retiring this year. I believe this is the last year calling Dodger baseball. But that's only three years less than Vince Scully because maybe Ben retired. How many years ago it had been retired? Was it twenty? I think it was before that. I'll check for you, all right, but he's been gone for a few years. That's Fertiliza.

And so Himie Harine, who took over as the voice of the Dodgers when a Spanish voice when they moved to l A. Uh and so he called games at the Colosseum in l a. He has been at Dodger Stadium since that place open and so I've known him for a long time. He looks great. I couldn't believe he's eighties six years old. Himie Harin. Vin retired at

the very end of the Steen season. Yeah, that sounds about right, because I recalled during the seventeen World Series when the cheating assholes won the World Series this podcast, we can call him what they are, assholes when they won the World Series, which they didn't actually win because they cheated. There were people demanding Vin call a game in the World Series and that never happened, and I don't think Vin wanted to do it, and so be it. I believe the offer was made by then Fox broadcaster

Joe Buck. So I caught with himy mareen, and he's actually watched me grow up over the years. Royals having their problems on the road. I'm Ben Mallick and I chatted with David Vasset. We've had him on the podcast, host of Dodger Talking. Was my producer back in the nineties at the old station. Yeah, he likes to bust your balls on the air. Yeah, he bust my balls off the here too known as the Youngster, although he's middle aged and has a family, but we we still

call him the youngster. And I saw Rick Monday who was at Paddle Brian dropping his but Rick Monday, who does admit Danny that he's a closeted Mallard militia guy, that he is a fan of the show. B o b uh no, No, Rick Monday po great Rick Monday. No, Pat doesn't. Pat hates my guests, but we have had him on the podcast. Uh, Pat offer every time I talked to Patty offers to take me to lunch, he offers to have me stay at a nice place in New York and all that. None of it ever happens. Not.

But Rick Monday was either the man that saved the American Flag game, the man that saved the flag from burning at Dodger Stadium, but was not a Cub or was not a Dodger. Was a cup round yeah, and then soon became a Dodger. Yeah. Shortly after that became a Dodger. But he was a Cub at the time, not a Dodger and that was back Who was that the nineteen seventies? Was then during the Vietnam era? Or was that before that? Was that even earlier? Had to

be Vietnam? Yeah, but it was like seventies, right, and then he came to the Dodgers and he played with them until the yearly eighties. I believe, but I don't. I don't have his stats in front of me. Ran into Charlie Steiner. We've had him on the podcast the radio voice of the Dodgers there and also part of

some of the great bloopers. If you're too young to remember when Charlie Steiner hosted Sports Center, Holy Cannoli, those are some the funniest bloopers ever on television on sports television, Charlie Steiner trying to get through the teleprompter. Have you you've seen those over the years, Daniel, he said, doing a boxing story and he starts cracking up and stopped laughing.

That's it's hilarious. One of the greatest laughs. Like it reminded me of when we were little kids at church trying not to laugh during the song or the prayer, and the more you try to not laugh, the more you wind up laughing, and that was Charlie Steiner in those clips. Yeah, it was. It was hilarious. Uh, and there were a few other people. Ed Munson, although he's not supposed to talk to the media. Ed Munson has been an official scorer at Angel and Doddery games since

nineteen eight. That's over forty years, Davy, this guy has been the official scorer and he's seen and done all kinds of nonsense out there, and so I was good to see him. And and then I made my my sojourn around Dodgers Stadium, walked around and was blown away by how awesome they did the reconstruction of center Field.

That entrance in center Field under stadium is an amazing visual, very very smart because they know we live in the age of social media and everyone's gonna want to take a photo in front of the signs and all the other crap they've got out there, and so they loaded up signs blue Heaven and uh and all that stuff. So they did a great job. Yeah, a ton of photo opportunities for everybody to post on the I g Yeah, alright, So that was my feeling blue trip to Chavez Ravine.

But I understand Danny you have your own, your own experience that you were there before I was there. You were there. I was there on opening night, and my experience was a lot different than yours. Okay, Um, you know, we figured that the tickets would be expensive because it's opening day slash night. I tried to take care of parking ahead of time. On the Dodgers website was how much does that say now Dodgers Stadium park For those not in l A, which is most of the people

listen to this, thirty bucks. Now, yeah, show up that day to pay for partum, it's thirty bucks, so you get it in advance on the website. It saves you a big whopping five dollars. That's it. That's it, that's it. Five bucks. Got the parking for did you consider one of the lots outside Dodgers and only have a cheaper lot down the hill near the fire Academy. People talk about parking outside of the stadium. The problem with that is it takes even longer to get out of there,

and then you wind up walking for two miles. It's not worth it at all. All right, Now, I disagree. I disagree. I'll tell you because during the playoffs, they don't let me park in the lot, so I have to park somewhere else. And my experience is if it's a sellout crowd, like it's a big crowd of Dodger Stadium, if you parked down the hill like in Chinatown or down to the Fire Academy, spending more money, you probably no I know you want. I'll tell you why, because

if you're take an uber only there. Let's say you get an uber near the the Gold Line station in Chinatown, down the hill and you take it up. What it is gonna cost maybe ten bucks, maybe twelve bucks maybe if you budgeted enough time to do something like that. But for convenience sake, I don't mind paying the twenty five for parking. For parking, and we got up close because we were there early enough, so that wasn't a

huge deal. What piste us off, Ben is we get inside the stadium and it was like being smacked right in the face. We got to Dodger dogs and a bear. How much do you think that costs? Right off the bat? Alright? So too dodge of dogs, he said, Normally on the dodge the traditional Dodging hot dog, which who knows who makes it? Because it's not Farmer John anymore. So two hot dogs and then one beer. Now there's all kinds of different beers. They have the regular beer, they have

the tall beer. I didn't do a complete inventory of how much. I know. There was like a bucket of a popcorn, which like seventeen bucks or something like that. Yeah, I'm gonna get to that. Okay, all right, because that was I couldn't believe it's popcorn. It's kernels in some oil. And I mean that's seven uh so okay, I'm gonna go, what do you think the dogs are eight bucks each? So that's I think they're eight bucks now, so sixteen bucks and then the beer twelve maybe? So what are

we up to? Twenty? Is that twenty eight? And I at eight thirty eight, I was off by ten. I thought I was going high. No, So right off the bat we were like, okay, a little bit of inflation here going on. We'll make it through the night. Though you haven't even gotten your seats, and you're you're twenty five for the parking, you're out thirty eight for the food and the beer. The hot thought, that's just the starter, that's the appetizer, right, and you haven't even figured in

the tickets yet. We had four tickets, all right, hold on the met Ben's got his calculator now, and we've got thirty eight plus twenty five the tickets. Four tickets. Oh, no, reserve, so we had to take the elevator up to the seventh Okay, alright, so reserve level of Dodger Stadium. So but it was opening night. We got the tickets from Dodgers dot com. Okay, so you paid full price. You didn't pay a discount rate. You paid the full price and uh per ticket one hundred bucks. You're low, um low?

Oh no, we shuck again. What are we looking at here? Oh boy? So the tickets were one seventy each. Whoa wait a minute, hold wait, one seventy each times four, So that's six at eighty bucks just on four tickets, six eight plus the sixty three. So now you sat down at your seats, you've paid for parking, you have two hot dogs and a beer, but you have four people, so that's not gonna feed four people. So that's you're out seven hundred and forty three dollars. Yeah, that was

just a snack right before we found our seats. Now me and my girl's daughter were eating our Dodger dogs and my girls drinking her beer because she paid for that. So she's probably trying to wash that memory away that and she made a mistake. And I blame her son for this because her son was out there trying to, you know, bother the players for baseballs, uh not the kind of balls I like. He finally shows up to the seats, but now he's telling his mom, well, I

want to eat. At this point, her daughter can eat again, even you know, what's a Dodger dog gonna do for a growing kid, right, yeah, exactly. And it's not a thick dog. It's a skinny dog, right right. And that's exactly what she told her mom. You know, that's one of my complaints. It's not a big dog, it's a small it's a skinny dog. It's a petite dog. So she gets out of her seat and goes to one

of the concession stands. Now, I thought she had a little bit more time to work with what I didn't realize what she was gonna stand in a line that was gonna take a half hour though. Now she's missing the player introductions and the fireworks going off, which is the whole point of opening Day. That's what you get. We you don't normally get that, and in the game, in the playoffs, so that's why you're there. You paid the premium for the opening day experience. I've seen her

piste off a few times. Then. I wish I could have done something, anything to relieve the stress and put a smile on her face. There was nothing I could do, though. She got back. Not only was she mad because of everything she missed being in that line, but she ordered to to plates and two cokes. Okay, so that sounds expensive. Taketo plates sounds expensive. Yeah, there were cassadillas underneath the taketo's okay, two of these, two of these plates and

two cokes over under game? Alright, so I'm gonna say the plates are at least fifteen each, but I'm going low on that. And what else was it? And two cokes? Ok oh? Boy, coke should be like three bucks, but they're probably uh eight bucks. I'm gonna go uh, I'll say it's gonna blow your mind. Ben, eighty five freaking dollars. Wait wait, wait, hold on, two Taketo plates and two cokes is eighty cokes are ten bucks? Hold on sect. So let's do the math. So seven forty three plus

eighty three, we'll round up eighty five. We're now at eight hundred and twenty eight dollars for two Taketo plates, a couple of Dodger dogs, be tickets and four tickets. Yeah, and parking. So now you know, at least she got to see the first pitch, the first st at bat. But she was pissed. I get it. I understand watched the first couple of innings. Whether she's not talking to me,

she's talking to God. I said, um, and I'm like, you know, damn it, man, why did her kids take her to get food at that point of the game, Like, you don't get up at that time. It's a rookie. It's a rookie mistake. Danny. You gotta if you gotta, you know, they haven't been there before. The kids, they'll learn, they'll become veterans. You gotta wait till the game starts. You gotta pace yourself. You gotta eat a big meal before you go to the game, so you don't spend

eighty bucks on on food at the concession state. Seriously, let me go get her a beer. That old calmer down. That'll make her feel a little more festive. Here, it'll be your second one of the night. That's usually what she will have at a game, two drinks. So I'm like, let me go get her her second drink. So I get out of my seat in the third inning. Yeah, it took me until the top of the six to get back. Not only was this line just insanity. I brought the beer and sunflower seeds up to the guy.

He said, your total is thirty two dollars, one beer, one bag of sunflower seeds. Was this the sunflower seed bag the size of potato sack or was it? So now another thirty two dollars, you're out. You add to the totally push you in the three too. I got the calculator going here, all right, So now you're up to eight hundred sixty, eight hundred and sixty dollars. I get back to the seat. She smiles when I hand her her sour beer made in San Diego. It's taking

the jo off of things a little bit. But now later into the game, her daughter is like, I want dipping dots because the stupid guy keeps coming up and down the rows with the dipping dots, So we don't know what this guy is charging, but he slides her card. She orders one last thing because she wanted the holder that it came in, and that's the tub of popcorn you mentioned. Oh no, yes, And on our credit card statement the next day that said sixteen dollars and forty

six cents. Alright, so well round up to seventeen. Don't let me had that. It's like your seventeen. So now we're eight hundred and eighty nine dollars. So when I said to start to show that it was a long week, it's because we saw a lawyer and we declared bankruptcy. Eight could you you could have how much is Disneylan?

Could you have gone to Disneyland for that much? Or and amuse me, we could have in the And it's funny you bring up Disneyland, because the irony is Dodger Stadium was modeled after Disneyland when they were planning it and building it. That's why a lot of those old school Dodger signs look kind of Disneyland style. That's why they wanted that southern Cali Disneyland vibe. Well they got the Disneyland prices. Now, yeah, it's bad. And I love the Dodgers to death, you know that, I bleed blue

and I'll continue to give them my money. But there's gotta be some sort of family night, family specials. There's got to be a deal where you could take a family of four for less than nine hundred dollars. Wow, that is insanity. I would never go to the If I spend nine hundred bucks in the game, I'm never going again. And I love the Dodgers and all that stuff,

but that is crazy, especially growing up dated. He were around the same age that the O'Malley family when they owned the team, you know, million years ago, back in my day. But they would always brag about being a great deal and wonderful situation. They wore that as a badge of honor that it was. It was a family situation. It was it was very cost effective to go to those games for years. But they know they have a good team. It seems like there's no limit. No matter

what they charge, people are still paying. I remember when I took a business class back in school. Isn't there a point where it suddenly becomes too expensive and people can't afford it? They haven't reached that point yet, but they don't. They have to be close, you would think, right. As far as the actual ticket prices go, I know they adjust the tickets based on who the Dodgers are playing against. So if you want to say, as you want to see the Dodgors play teams, you can go

for a reasonable amount of money. Right so at least those seats will be cheaper, so that fluctuates. But what doesn't change are those food and drink prices and all across the boarding life. Right now, we are getting screwed with no vasoline on gat selene and food right now. So for that to carry over into the stadium, it's

a bummer. Because I love going to Dodgers Stadium, but right now, unless we go on a date night and we bring our own food in a clear bag and do all the tricks, I don't see how anybody could really afford to go do that more than once or twice a year. Yeah, and I know it's not just Dodger Stadium. This is like Boston. I've been a Red Sox games and Finway Park is it's always been insane. I can't imagine what it's like at Finnway now with the price increases and all that. That's that's gone on.

And I know in New York it's it's craziness as well. Well. Listen, some some cities no one's going, like in Oakland, no one know what's going to those games. Yeah, they had a game where they were lucky to break four thousand in attendance, and then they moved to time based on whether a couple of days ago, and there were there were predictions that they would barely break a thousand. I do there's something about the A's having no fans that

go to these games now. It reminds me of when I covered the Clippers at the sports Arena in the nineties and sometimes we would be bored because they'd be getting boat raced, and we would play a game where we would count the fans at the sports arena, and because there were so few people you could do it. You could actually count the people in the arena. And I'd take one side, a friend of mine another reporter would take another side, and we would count the people.

And as I pointed out before, back back then, there would be more people that would show up in the second half. Because the Donald Sterling Clippers in the nineties, they would just open up the doors at halftime so people that didn't have tickets could come in. A lot of the homeless people to get out of the cool night air would come into the sports arena to watch the second half, and it made for some interesting times. I got a couple of things real quick. We had

do the dip. So after the dodging game, I, of course I I did not spend nine dollars, but I was by myself. My wife was out with her her friends, so I was out schmoozing, meeting, playing grab bass with the media, and so I wanted some some postgame food. Now I ran into West of the four oh five, who used to co host this podcast. He was out there, and so I scooted over to Culver City. I wanted some gringo tacos, so I went to Tito's Tacos and no dice, that place was pad locked. They lock up

at eight o'clock, now my favorite taco place. Uh and they used to be open to eleven o'clock or midnight on the weekends, but after COVID they just everything shuts down earlier. So I pivoted to Plan B and I went across the parking lot and I did the do the dip. Have you ever been to Johnny's Pastrami? That's pretty good, Lo, cases an old old place, been around for a long time, I don't know, sixties seventy or

something like that. And for the second consecutive weekend, I was schmoozing with someone eating pastrami by fire and uh, and I paid. I want you to know that that pompous, arrogant s O b Mr. West of the four or five, I'm no one. I am the one that paid for that. For that particularly and uh and a quick butter boner's story. So last weekend around going to the baseball game, I was back in the kitchen Danny as Benny the Baker,

and I decided to make some chocolate chip cookies. And I've made this recipe before, but this time I made a fatal mistake. I attempted to crank up the degree of difficulty. I made these cookies while I was half asleep. Oh no, yeah, yeah yeah. So in my haste to get the cookie dough made, I pulled out the Kirkland brand butter and I ended up with a colossal butter boner.

I doubled. Actually, no, I think I put four times the amount of butter in this recipe and it was supposed to be in there, and uh yeah, it turns out when you put too much butter in the recipe, if you don't follow the recipe properly, you end up getting these weird, paper thin cookies where they're all oily. And I was pissed. So then I was like, I'm gonna remake the batch of cookies. But and they came out all right, but they were still not restaurant quality.

So I've decided that this weekend, maybe even today, around the podcast stuff, I will remake a different recipe. I must perfect the chocolate chip cookie. It has to happen. So I'm gonna make another batch, a third batch of of cookies. Here. Last weekend, you were listing off all the cookies that you've made so far. Yeah, I don't think you mentioned peanut butter cookies. No, I've not made peanut butter cookies yet. I'm not opposed to the peanut butter cookie, but I'm a look anto, I made him

steak with the chocolate chip. The chocolate chip is a classic cookie. You can't f up the chocolate chip. That's a staple cookie. Everyone loves the chocolate chip Nobody I know doesn't like chocolate chip cookies. And I messed up the chocolate chip cookie. So that's a bad job by me. All right, real quick, we're sure on top of the backscratcher. We promised if you scratch our back, we'll scratch your

backs over on the Apple podcast page. So podcast dot Apple dot com and search the Fifth Hour with Ben Maller. You can find our podcast page and give us a nice review that would help us out a lot of five stars. You can also review the radio show podcast page if you want, but this is where the Fifth Hour podcast. And if you write something nice, you probably think who cares? Nobody reads that? Trust me management at I heart reads it. It helps us out. So we

have two reviews here, Danny. First one is from burgerby I Believe Berg Say Burg. It says podcast porn. The headline te Dawn, and the meat of the review says other kind of addiction. This would be podcast porn. Can't wait for the next podcast. Amazing job, b M and d G. So there's a fan thank you, and Buddy Dog Earth Buddy Dog rights and says headline the best. Well, you know how I feel about the word best Danny. That means as good as anyway the best. I absolutely

enjoy each episode. The different topics and formats make the show hey joy to listen to each weekend. I look forward to each and every episode. Well, thank you, Buddy Dog, Thanks buddy. He had a lot of momentum in that review. He's just trying to hit my buttons here. We gotta get out of here. We get another podcast on Sunday. Any of Promote Danny, any kind of gig, any appearances, any comedy acts you've got coming up, you're gonna be doing an open mic night, anything at all, Go ahead

right now, Promote, Promote, Promote. I will be telling Zingers live on Fox Sports Radio as I produced Steve Hartman and Jeff Schwartz this afternoon, and then of course the No Show on the weekend Brian No and E from Salam on Saturday evening. Yes on your local Fox Sports Radio affiliate or on the I Heart Radio app just type in fs R or Fox Sports Radio. Have a wonderful rest of your day and wait for the mail bag. Yeah, the mail bag coming up. We'll catch you next time.

See you Aloha, Bye bye later skater, gotta murder, Gotta go