"THREATS TO DEMOCRACY" VOTERS' NEW TOP ISSUE
A BLOCK (1:51) 21% of voters polled by NBC say "threats to democracy" is their most important issue (2:08) Fascism Carries the Bible: Ron DeSantis again tells voters "put on the full armor of God" in speech for Doug Mastriano (2:42) whose security chiefs are an Evangelical minister and a former Oath Keeper (4:08) The NBC poll does not differentiate: there could be Republicans IN FAVOR of "threats to democracy" (5:45) Hatred, violence, and antisemitism now mainstreaming among GOP candidates after Pennsylvania Republican calls for "execution of Marxist/Communist Jews" (8:57) 24 hours after Oklahoma Republican says "I ain't owned by the Jews" and Arizona's Kari Lake hesitates to rescind her retraction of him (10:50) Secular stochastic terrorism on rise over weekend as Florida GOP House candidate says he'd have killed FBI agents (11:18) 24 hours after Florida State House GOP candidate says "his plan" would allow Floridians to shoot FBI, DOJ, IRS and ATF. Both men are still on the ballot Tuesday (13:40) All of this ties together in the "New Apostolic Reformation" whose members insist they "have been given legal power from heaven" to destroy all political enemies (16:14) What can we do? Take a page from Germany. You incite violence against public figures? You get arrested. Sadly, it's time.
B BLOCK (21:19) Every Dog Has Its Day, including updates on three dogs (22:30) Postscripts To The News: Sen. Graham gets his delay, FBI STILL sifting through recovered documents Trump stole; Republican Senatorial campaign seems to have spent all the money (25:06) Sports: Former Red Sox star Bill "Spaceman" Lee has a cardiac episode on what amounts to EMT Night at the ballpark; Yankees Manager Aaron Boone news permitting me to tell you how I met Boone when he was 13; Sue Bird sets a record; Yadier Molina bails out on pennant race (30:27) The New York Daily News, CNN President Chris Licht and writers of the LOL-worthy "World Climate Declaration" vie for Worst Person Honors.
C BLOCK (35:20) Things I Promised Not To Tell: 29 years to the day since Yankees Manager Buck Showalter locked his ENTIRE TEAM in the trainers' room to try to teach me some kind of lesson. And somehow we're friends anyway.
Countdown with Keith Oldman is a production of I Heart Radio. Finally, the week starts with new polling, finally showing that the number one issue for voters this fall is now threats to democracy. Unfortunately, it may be too late. That threat to democracy is here, and it is mainstreamed, and it is armed. Friday, for at least the second time in a month, Florida Governor Ron De Santis closed a political speech by telling a rabid theocratic crowd quote, put on the full armor of God, take a stand against the Left's scheme. But unlike to Satis's previous conflation of religion and politics, this was not in his home state. It was in Pittsburgh on behalf of the Republican nominee for Governor of Pennsylvania, Dug Mastriano. And Mastriano in turn, is being protected on the campaign trail by his own private security team, led by a self professed minister of the Lifegate Evangelical Church named James Emery. And James Emery in turn says one of the other members of the Mastriano guard is Scott Nagel, who was until recently listed as a regional leader of the Oath Keepers militia and this is just the beginning. The New Apostolic Reformation is bringing its reawakened America tour. Yes, the APT acronym is rated to Mannheim, Pennsylvania in October. And guess what They're not going to be there to support John Fetterman for governor. This is not just your average snakes and exorcisms religious nut crowd. This one has merged with the Trump nut crowd. Featured tours. Speakers for RAT run the gamut from the well known Cristo fascists like these new Apostles and Pastor Mark Burns and Pastor Phil Hodson Piller who says the Bible proves CNN is Chinese and Mike Lindell from them to General Michael Flynn to Alex Jones, to Roger Stone, to Ken Paxton to Cash Patel to Donald Trump Jr. It was not Sinclair Lewis who wrote when fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying across and also the quote leaves out the last element, it will be firing guns. Its ultimate target is the secular government of the United States. It's short term target is the Democratic Party and also members of other religions. The new polling of registered voters taken by NBC News after the search at Mari Lago, gives some hope that at least some people are beginning to at least recognize the danger most important issue, with percentages reading up crime six, abortion eight, climate change nine, immigration thirteen, jobs, slash economy fourteen, cost of living sixteen, threats to democracy one. Of course, there is an asterisk there at Yes, it is impressive that more than a fifth of all voters see threats to democracy as the biggest issue of the day, But in the mice type of the poll there is no party breakdown between Democrats and Republicans, so we don't know how many Democrats oppose threats to democracy as opposed to the Republicans who favor them. God knows. These threats are cascading down upon us, and to go all Biblical on you, it's time for the scales to fall from your eyes about them. The threat to democracy is groups like the New Apostles and their rat tour. They have declared war on this country and the only great replacement that Tucker jiminy Glick Carlson keeps repeating like a Sprinkler going off is actually a description of what the evangelicals want to do with and to the rest of us. And they are acting with impunity now and impunity imparted to them by Trump and the ancient creaking we have all the time in the world government that does not understand this threat nor its eminence. On Saturday night, a former candidate and a Republican primary for the House from the New Jersey third dropped out of the race for the school board of Hamilton's township that's next to Trenton, adjoining where else the Pennsylvania border. Nicholas Ferrara said only in light of recent events, I will be dropping out. Best of luck to the other candidates. Those quote recent events unquote were the uncovering by Politico of Ferrara's posts on the extremist site GAB from January. Quote, I'm all four in capital letters quote execution of the Marxist Communist Jews, who really are fake jew Loo Safarian Synagogue of Satan efforts. So a down and dirty assessment of each and every Jew and every person of every religion must be made on an individual basis to separate the wheat from the chaff. The chaff gets thrown into the lake of fire and psychotic quote. Take this man seriously. He is not some guy living in the woods burning his own excrement for fuel. He is a real estate agent and attorney. He claims to have finished second in his class at Rutger's Law School. He posted all of that about executing the Jews and then ran for the Republican nomination for the United States House of Representatives. There were thirty two votes. This pig got twenty eight hundred of them. When he dropped out of the school board race because he called for another holocaust. He didn't even try to apologize or instance himself. This is a man who should be receiving care somewhere. They are all men and women who should be receiving care somewhere. But in the last thirty years we have let down our guard and our understanding of how easily people will join cults and crackpot religions and authoritarian groups and the worshippers of one man rule. These people are the threats to democracy, and Doug Mascriano and Ron de Santis are ready to use these people to gain personal power. Roun de Santis as my friend of half a century, the Philadelphia newswriter Will Bunch noted, at five ft eight, Ron de Santis is the living embodiment of what a later friend of mine, the Great Jimmy Bresson, once wrote about Rudy Giuliani. He's a small man in search of a balcony. We must stop the small man now. We must destroy the balconies now before it is too late. And this Ferrara is just the worst of the ones from just this past weekend. Mark Fincham is the election denying Republican candidate for Secretary of State in Arizona. Carry Lake, the washed up newscaster from that state who saw a career opportunity in fascism and is now the Republican nominee for governor of that state. Fincham and Lake had each endorsed Jaren Jackson, one of the Republicans in the runoff for the seat in the Oklahoma State Senate race in District Too, that's just northeast of Tulsa. It turned out Friday that Jackson has said, quote, I'm not beholden to Jews or any other groups. I ain't owned by the Jews. All Jews will go to hell if they don't believe the Gospel of Jesus Christ, just like everybody else unquote. But wait, Jackson is an equal opportunity gutter snipe l G T b Q. He says, is using language designed by Satan. L G t b Q is the gateway to pedophilia unquote. When Harry Lake's endorsement of Jackson was called out by the Arizona Congressman Reuben Diego, carry Lake responded by attacking Diego. Finally, somebody with half a brain in her campaign convinced her to say something else. Quote. I obviously rescind my indorsement, she said, if his reported comments are true. If and as of Sunday night, Fincham has not only not rescinded his endorsement of this Jackson, he hasn't even addressed the vial bile. Not surprising, Fincham was endorsed by GABS CEO Andrew Torba, who claims America is run by a quote Judeo Bolshevik group. Fincham hasn't repudiated Torba either. Lake's action was almost a surprise. CNN reports that last November, she posed at a campaign event with Grayson Arnold, whom CNN and identified as a Nazi sympathizer who calls Hitler quote a complicated historical figure which many people misunderstand. As crazy as this sounds, if this were all somehow limited to religion and religious prejudice, we might still get a handle on it. America has ground religious prejudice into the dirt before, and we could do it again. But Saturday, in Florida, a Republican primary candidate for Congress from the sixteenth that's Sarasota, Florida, Martin Hyde, posted a video to YouTube saying that the FBI search for missing nuclear documents at Trump's crap shack was an assault on every American and quoting Hide, I wish they'd turn up at my home because they'd have gone home in a body bag. Nothing further from Hyde nor from the Republican Party. And Hide is on the ballot tomorrow. And it was the worst statement by a Florida Republican in nearly twenty four hours on Friday, Luis Miguel, the Republican running for the State House in Florida District twenty that's St. Augustine, tweeted, quote, under my plan, all Floridians will be able to shoot FBI, I R, S, A, T F, and all other federal troops on site. Twitter. Twitter immediately banned this idiot Luis Miguel the Republican Party. Luis Miguel is still on the primary ballot tomorrow. These are all from this past weekend. Only these people are the proverbial, clear and present danger to the country. They do not believe in democracy, they do not believe in elections, they do not believe in laws. They believe in authoritarian fascism. And if they give you a chance to ask why or on what basis, they will say God told me, or Trump told me, or Trump is God, or I don't have to answer your goddamn questions. What further evidence do any of us need? The New York Republican House candidates saying Merrick Garland quote should be executed and we could go, then saying, oh as just being facetious. The Nazi flags outside the Turning Point US a youth conference on July. The Ohio state representative who wants the Holocaust to be taught from all perspectives, including that of a Nazi soldier. The Alabama government ordering a reporter out of an official event because her skirt and her open toad shoes were too revealing, too revealing for her to report from and be a witness to an execution. The Texas State Republican Party adopting a plank reading quote homosexuality is an abnormal lifestyle choice on June eighth and calling for the repeal of the nineteen six Voting Rights Act and replacing the public vote in Texas with a Texas State Electoral College. The former Solicitor General of Texas trying to restrict anti HIV drugs because he thinks they quote encourage homosexual behavior, prostitution, sexual promiscuity. Senate candidate j D. Vans trying to limit divorce in Ohio last month, Senator Braun of Indiana saying interracial marriage should be left to the states. The Trump supporters buying CINN the richest of them, saying it should now model its programming after Brett Bear on Fox Nudes, or maybe we should go back to the source to original material from that group I mentioned first here, the New Apostolic Reformation. This is them in Atlanta in July, packed arena, thousands of people chanting with them New Apostolic Reformation and a R mixed with MAGA mixed with a thing called flashpoint and the turnaround. And this this nightmare, this ultimate threat to democracy, the recitation of something they call the Watchman decree. Where else we are where else have been given legal power from heaven and now exercise our foury Whereas we are gods and mesteners and spool. Whereas through the power of God we are the world influencers. Whereas because of our God, we are equipped and delegated by Him to destroy every attemptive events for the end we power decorations, we create, that second break, a costitution create. That's their leader. Dutch. Dutch goes on for nearly four minutes. Let me cut to the chase. We will live, we will That was worthy of Nuremberg rallies Dutch. The Watchman decree, people publicly announcing that the laws, the elections, the history of this country are no longer valid. That they believe God has anointed Trump. For they pretend to believe that God has anointed Trump and that they are in charge. That they quote have been given legal power from heaven and now exercise our authority. And what do we do now? On Thursday, a man named Oliver Yannick was arrested at a resort in Tablas in the Philippines. The government considered him a fugitive from justice in Germany and it acted in coordination with the German embassy. In April, a court in Munich had issued a warrant for Oliver Yannick for public incitement to commit criminal offenses. Specifically, this Oliver Yannick was charged with telling his social media followers to execute politicians. The Germans, with the help of the government of the Philippines not exactly liberal Land, have arrested him and he will be returned for trial in Munich. How many of these people here in America walking around free right now? How many of these threats to democracy that are finally perceived as the most important issue, not just in an election, but the most important issue of our time. How many of them have used social media or other public platforms to call for executions. It's called stochastic terrorism, terrorism by proxy. I say it, you do it. Eleven days ago, man had heard only a few days worth of these sirens calls, and he tried to get into the FBI headquarters in Cincinnati to kill FBI agents. I'm sorry, it is the last question I want to ask, it is the last step I want to contemplate. But as calls for executions, executions of religious minorities, that's what the candidates said, kill all of the Jews, executions of FBI agents, that's what the other candidates said, executions of the attorney general. As these calls ring out from people in every corner of this Christo fascist movement, where are the arrest warrants for those who threaten American leaders and American FBI agents and ordinary American citizens with death? Yeah, still ahead on countdown. Tough to come down from that, but worse persons is always a good cheery segment this time around. Yes, time again for the blooper of the year. Another judge Reinhold sighting in sports. I suppose baseball Hall of Famer skips his team's weekend games in the middle of the race for the pennant to go watch the basketball team he owns play. And this is the anniversary of the day the manager of the New York Yankees locked all of his players in the trainer's room to punish me for the jokes I used to make on Sports Center. That's next. This is what this is countdown. This is Countdown with Keith Olberman coming Bun Countdown the New York Yankees baseball manager who locked his players in the trainer's room rather than let them talk to me. The anniversary of that. Plus there's news if you had another New York Yankees baseball manager whom I met when he was thirteen years old. First, in each edition of Countdown, we feature a dog in need whom you can help. Every dog has its day some updates. Bip Bippa data from New Jersey adopted. He now owns his own little boy, Sweetheart. Last Monday's dog from Riverside, California, rescued and she had her litter six healthy pups, But the beautiful Siberian Husky Tilly, also at Riverside, was killed at age seven. We'll try again. At the Baldwin Park shelter outside l A. Bobby is two years old, a handsome Achita mix eighty six pounds. He was in rough shape when they brought him in. He's much healthier now and very friendly, but he's running out of time at Baldwin Park in southern California. To find out about Bobby, go to my Twitter feed for dogs in need at Tom Jumbo Grumbo. There you will find the tweet about Bobby and see photos and email addresses and links everything you need. You can also help by retweeting my biography of Bobby. Just spread the word at Tom Jumbo Grumbo on Twitter. Thank you coming up here. Judge Reinhold. A World Climate declaration that denies there's a climate crisis that was not written by climate scientists and CNN's new president ying for worse persons honors first postscripts to the news, some headlines, some thoughts, some snark, dateline, Clarence Thomas's backside. I'll say it again. Whatever they have on Lindsay Graham would make for the greatest series Netflix could ever produce. The Senator got to stay on his testimony to the grand jury that's investigating his attempts on behalf of Donald Trump to pressure Georgia's secretary of State to you know, overrule all of George's presidential voters. He was supposed to testify tomorrow the Eleventh Circuit Appeals Court that Clarence Thomas from the Republican Supreme Religious Course that's the mascot of this particular appeals court, the Eleventh Circuit. The Circuit Court said there might be enough merit to Graham's bs excuse that asking about a different outcome more favorable to Donald Trump, which just part of his legislative investigative duties. And clearly whatever they've got on the Eleventh Circuit Appeals Court will make for the second best series Netflix could ever produce. Date Line Washington. Trump's team spent the weekend hinting it will soon file something asking for something with somebody someday about the Mari Lago search. Turns out, the dimensions of what was reclaimed by the FBI may be so much larger than we thought because the FBI team that double checks every document, the filter team that makes sure the Feds don't have something they should not have, is still sifting through the stuff Trump stole that they recovered. And also Dateline Washington, something has gone horribly wrong or horribly right at the National Republican Senatorial Committee. It has canceled ten million dollars worth of TV and radio ads around the country, including for the Senate races in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, in Arizona. And now there's another report that says that while the various Democratic group spent a total of sixty three million on Facebook ads in the last two weeks, their GOP equivalents went silent. They spent nothing. The Washington Post quotes an unnamed Republican consultant who says, if they were a corporation, the CEO would be fired and investigated. This money has been squandered. It's a rip off. Oh that's a damn shame. Oh that's just the worst thing. That's horrible, What a terrible thing to happened. In the Republican story, I'm gonna fan does complain here, Converse spent its upping. What's in the world? This is sports Senate? Wait, check that not anymore? This is Countdown with Keith. I'm sorry the new segment kind of got away from me. There from the world of Wide Sports. Former Boston Red Sox All star pitcher Bill Lee is still recovering at a hospital in Savannah, Georgia. This story ends with him posing for a photo in an emergency room gown with electrodes stuck all over his half naked body, holding his pitching glove in his other hand. Friday, Bill, the spaceman, my brother from a different mother, was warming up in the bullpend to come in and pitch for the Savannah Bananas, who play a kind of streamlined baseball in the Coastal Playing League. Billy is seventy five years old. He made his Major League debut for the Red Sox in his catcher threw the ball back to him, saw Bill Catchett, and then saw Bill toppel backwards. He had what they are calling a cardiac episode, and he stopped breathing, and as a local politician noted, that only ends one way normally, but sometimes you get lucky, and sometimes you get a little lucky, and then sometimes you get Bill Lee. Lucky. Bill had his cardiac episode on the night that the Bananas were holding employee night for the town of Thunderbolt, Georgia, so virtually the entirety of Thunderbolt George's emergency medical team was in the stands. The place was stinking with e m t s and firefighters when Bill went down. The teammate catching Bill Lee in the bullpen was an e MT. That's Bill Lee through and through. The New York Yankees beat Toronto for to two yesterday, ending a slide in which they had lost down of eleven games and six consecutive series. Things got so bad for the Yankees that at his postgame press conference Saturday, manager Aaron Boone had slammed the table, making his water bottle jump several inches in the air. It's now a meme. This is just an excuse for me to mention that in when I did the sports on k t l A Channel five in l A and we carried the California Angels game ames at spring training that year in Arizona, Angels catcher Bob Boone took me aside, introduced himself and said, I'm not a fan of yours. An odd introduction, but of course not the only time I've ever heard that. But Bob Boone quickly explained that he was doing that. He wanted to be honest with me because he was about to ask me for a favor. My son is a fan of yours. He's a good kid, but he's a fan of yours. Would you be, I don't know, willing to meet him, I said, of course. Bob Boone was shocked. I said I should punish him because he's a fan and you're not. Bob Boone laughed and shouted, Aaron, go over here. Aaron Boone was standing behind a tool shed. He was thirteen years old. Nice to meet Mr Olverman. He has now been the manager for the Yankees for five years. I once asked him if he remembered any of it, every humiliating second irony. After that, Bob Boone became a fan of mine women's hoops. It's nice to know that going forward, a future basketball fan will say Bird was the best, and another will ask Larry or Sue. Sue Bird recorded eighteen points and tennisists in Seattle's eighty four win over Washington Sunday. She is the oldest player in w NBA history to record a double double. She is forty one. And here is the obligatory Howard Stern w n b A. Sue Bird is a year older than Yadda or Molina, who over the weekend did the damnedest thing I've seen in sports in a long time. This is supposed to be the last of his nineteen seasons as the capture of the St. Louis Cardinals. Teams in road cities have been honoring him. Phoenix Arizona Diamondbacks was to wish farewell to him and teammate Albert Pooholes yesterday. Molina did not show up for the game, took the weekend off as the last quarter of the baseball season began, he told the Cardinals he had to leave. It was for business reasons. He went back to Puerto Rico to watch the basketball team he plays try to clench the title. St. Louis media reports every once in a while, ends in a particular sport in a particular city will decide that a player from their team is a Hall of Famer, no doubt, and they will be incensed when it turns out that people in other places do not think so. Yadi Molina of the St. Louis Cardinals is one of those players. Cardinals fans, a lot of St. Louis media think he is a first ballot Baseball Hall of Fame electee. I think not only will he be elected, but he may not get enough votes to make it to a second ballot. War wins above replacement is the all encompassing baseball stat. It has its flaws, but it's useful for comparisons. Molina has been on two World Championship teams and averaged a war of three point one per one and sixty two games season. Compare that to former Yankee catcher Jorge Posada's three World championships and a three point eight war or former Yankee and Red Sox catcher Elston Howard's four World championships and at two point seven war, or former Yankee catcher Thurman Munson's two World championships and a five point two and wild war. What the Arizona Diamondbacks should have given Yadier Molina as a farewell gift yesterday was a memorial wreath for his Hall of Fame chances still ahead. Buck Showalter locks the Yankees in the trainer's room to teach me a lesson on this day twenty nine years ago. First the daily roundup of the miscreants, morons and Dunning Kruger effects specimens who constitute today's worst persons in the world. The Bronze two c ann president Chris lick I was reminded yesterday that he is the evil corporate butt kisser. Frank Hatchett from the classic movie network Come to Life. Thursday Licked let it leak that he was canceling CNN's thirty year old media show Reliable Sources and firing its host Brian Stelter, who was a bettona are of the fascist crowd. Friday, Licked complained the story leaked and he also told staffords quote, there will be more changes, and you might not understand it or like it at all. Plus there's Licks boss David Zaslav, who previously said America needs a news network where everybody can come and be heard, Republicans, Democrats. The stupidity of that, of course, is that Republicans long ago rejected CNN, MSNBC, NBC, ABC, CBS, Washington Post, New York Post, Associated Press, Jean France Press. They've even now begun to reject Fox. These are the viewers Zaslov and Licked are seeking. The imaginary audience lebrons. The frauds behind the World Climate Declaration pushed out over the weekend by right wing climate deniers as drought covered two continents and the Yancey River in China disappeared. Turns out this World Climate Declaration is the product of the Climate Intelligence Foundation. It starts with there is no climate emergency and reminds us that carbon dioxide is quote plant food, the basis of all life on Earth. The declaration is six four words long words. There is no research sited at all, and no climate scientists signed it. However, eight former employees of the Shell Oil Company signed it but our winners. The New York Daily News. First it was Alena Habba, Trump's lawyer talking about the Marilago warrant, and the Judge Bruce Reinhardt listened carefully. As far as Judge Ryanhold, I still have this burning question as to why he felt he needed to refuse himself. Yes, well that was earlier Friday. It was the New York Daily News. Quote Federal Magistrate Judge Bruce Rye and Hold ordered prosecutors to seek a formal agreement. Reinhold may rule to immediately unseal the documents. A two fur again Judge Bruce Rheinhart, Edward Ernest Judge Reinhold from Fast Times at Ridgemont High The New York Judge Bruce Reinhold, I love doing sixteen candles, Today's worst parsons in the world. Finally, who are number one? Story on the count? And and my favorite topic me and things I promised not to tell. The New York Yankees were in their first pennant rate in five years. They had reeled off eight wins in ten games to reach a first place tie with the defending world champion Toronto Blue Jays. It was Sunday August, and I was at Yankee Stadium just because we were about to start a month of intensive preparations for the launch of the ill fated ESPN. Two. Good evening and welcome to the end of our careers that one. And this was probably going to be my last chance to go to the city, visit my folks, see a ball game, whatever untill further notice. And here was my childhood team, the Yankees, with the lineup that now included friends of mine like Danny Tarti, Bill and Mike Diego and Don Mattingley against the Royals, for whom my friends while we Joiner and David Cohne played, and a seat awaiting me in the press box on a beautiful late summer Sunday afternoon with just the earliest hint of fall in the air and Bobby Darren singing on the p A system, and the Yankees got crushed. Kansas City started a pitcher named Chris Haney, who was much less successful than his mediocre five point four seven e. R A implied he would somehow last for eleven seasons and become statistically one of the worst pictures of a generation. And that day the Yankees got at least one base runner on in eight of the nine innings against Chris Haney, and he still shut them out seven to nothing. And you could sense right then that whatever it was that a team needed to have to hold its own down the stretch, the New York Yankees did not have it. Still, it was fun to visit with reporter friends, some of whom I had known since I had broken in fourteen years earlier, and some I hadn't seen since then. The only oddity was that at some point during the game, one of the kids from the Yankees media relations department came over and asked me for my I D. And when I showed him my I D he asked me if I was planning to go into the Yankee clubhouse afterwards. I said, funny you said to ask that I am headed downtown for dinner. But I missed my friend Danny Chartable before the game for some reason, and I just want to pop in and say hello. And the kid said thanks, sorry to trouble you, and he left, and the radio reporter I was sitting next to Don Gould, said that that was one of the strangest things he had seen in that press box, and he added and nowadays, all you see up here is strange things. As the Yankees went out limply in the ninth, leaving Bernie Williams stranded on first, naturally, I waited until all the reporters with real deadlines had taken the first couple of elevator trips down to the Yankee Clubhouse in the basement. Then then I leisurely made my way downstairs. I navigated the catacombs of the stadium basement as I had since it had opened in the nineteen seventy six, and felt warm and nostalgic and at peace. I showed my past to the guard at the clubhouse door and walked into the clubhouse to find the Yankee Clubhouse lacking the one thing it had literally always featured in each of the dozens and dozens of times I'd previously entered it since I was seventeen years old. Players. There were no Yankee players in the Yankee Clubhouse. No Yankees, no Yankees still in uniform, no Yankees half dressed, no Yankees not dressed, No sounds of other Yankees in the showers off to the left. Nothing. Well, that wasn't quite right. I realized something after about a minute of walking slowly from locker to locker, thinking, isn't this where they used to be? Maybe Mattingly is crouching out of sight over here, and maybe Tartable is hiding behind his suit. After that, oh for three, I realized that while there were no Yankees in the Yankee Clubhouse, there were reporters in the Yankee Clubhouse, and they were all staring at me, and angrily staring at me. I said to them, might have been my friend from upstairs, Don Gould, what the hell is going on? And he said testily, I don't know. Why don't you tell us? The reporters around him, who had never taken their eyes off me, now murmured quietly, but with a subtext of threat and menace and vengeance in their indistinct gurgling. Just at this point Arthur Richmond, who had been the Mets public relations man forever and was now a Yankees vice president of something for some reason, and more importantly, was the surviving brother of the great baseball reporter Milt Richmond, who had so helped me at the start of my career. At u p I, Arthur tapped me on the shoulder and said, you are Keith Ald woman right, and I said, yes, we've met before. I used to work with your brother. And he did not look happily at me. And I asked him if he wanted to see my pass or my eye d or my identifying birthmarks. Arthur did not smile. The manager would like to see you in his office. I still didn't have the faintest idea what was going on? Have I been sent down to the miners, Arthur, I asked jauntily. Yes, yes you have, Richmond answered with utter seriousness. Arthur Richmond escorted me to the little room on the home plate side of the clubhouse, in which I had once seen the late Billy Martin shout at a coach, two pitchers, three writers, and a clubhouse attendant who had been with the team since the current occupant of that tiny office. The manager rose from his desk, Keith high Buck Showalter, I'm the manager here. I reminded him that we had done a lengthy interview for ESPN Radio the year before. That's right, I had forgotten, I apologized. Listen, I wanted to tell you. I think you've brought something refreshing and fun to Sports Center. I watch you all the time, especially when we're on the road. You know the game to that that's important, But I have to tell you my players have a problem with what you do. And on that surprise, players were like that. In very few sportscasters said anything negative about players. They certainly did not make jokes or puns about them. I saw you on the field before the game. I heard some of our guys show, Walter continued, like, like Paul O'Neal and Wade Boggs and Joe Girardi. They were they were talking about how they were thinking about going out there on the field and punching you in the head. I flashed back suddenly to nine when Boggs went on Heraldo Rivera's show and announced he was a sex addict, and how after checking with a few of his Red Sox teammates whom I knew from the year I worked in Boston, who said that was nonsense. I went on the air in my sports cast on the local station in l A, having inter cut Boggs's weepy comments to Haraldo with the music video from Robert Palmer's Addicted to Love. I had to say it was pretty funny and also might have been the meanest thing I ever did. On t V. Boggs wanted to punch me in the head on the field Yankee Stadium. That checked out? Go on, I said to Buck show Walter. In fact, the players are all staying in the training room in the back until they've been assured you've left the clubhouse and you won't be returning. They voted unanimously. I thought about this. When did they vote unanimously while they were getting shut out by the worst picture of a generation that did not check out? Now, Like I said, person, I like what you do, but I think you may want to consider the implications of what not having any access to players ever again will have on your career, especially in such a high profile program at Sports Center. I thought about it briefly, and I smiled at Buck show Walter, none whatsoever. Actually, I'm a studio guy. I never have to go to games. And more to the point, I've just left Sports Center for this new ESPN two network because my boss has said it's basically going to be a network that's designed around my sense of humor. Buck show Walter was thirty seven years old then, and at the end of his second year as a major league manager, his team having just achieved a tie for first place, had just gotten the air let out of its balloon by an epically bad picture on a not so good team. Plus they were due on a flight for Chicago and the bus was supposed to leave in an hour, but Paul O'Neill, Wade, Boggs, and Joe Girardi were worried about some dumb sportscaster making jokes. I knew they were doomed. And if manager Buck Showalter actually let Paul O'Neil, Wade, bogs and Joe Girardi worried about some dumb sportscaster and his jokes Buck show Walter two was doomed. And sure enough they would lose twenty of their last thirty seven games after that day and not make the playoffs for two years, and not actually get anywhere in the playoffs until after show Walter was fired and replaced by my friend Joe Tory. Right around then after the firing, I was part of the annual ESPN Awards show the SPS. It was the post SP's party, and I went to get a drink and turned a corner and they're coming towards me. Were Paul O'Neill, Wade, Boggs and Joe Girardi. I was just about to gulp when O'Neill shouted, there he is our favorite ESPN guy. Handshakes all of them. Girardi said he was amazed every time I ripped a player, he said it was somebody he also didn't like. How did I know? Bog said, somebody told me that you put my Heraldo appearance into that Robert Palmer song. If you got a tape of that, I'd like to see it. I told them the buckshow Walter story. Immediately. Oh god, I remember that, said O'Neill. He was pissed. You were in the ballpark and we got shut out, and he made us stay in the trainer's room and not come out till after you left. And god, it was terrible. The smile vanished from Joe Girardi's face. Buck did stuff like that all the time. We should all have a drink and talk about it. We all had a drink and we talked about it. Years later, I was telling my late friend Pedro Gomez of ESPN the story, and he said, show Walter used to do this to him when Shoe Walter was managing the Arizona Diamondbacks. And Pedro was a beat reporter for a newspaper in Phoenix. You know Colburn wants to beat you up, but I stopped him. He quoted show Walter as saying Greg Colburn was a six ft nine pound weightlifter from California's Inland Empire who seemed to play baseball in his spare time. So Pedro said, I confronted him one day and he said, dude, what are you talking about. You know, Buck just makes this crap up. The Yankees fired Buck show Walter in as I mentioned, and won the World Series. The Diamondbacks fired him in two thousand and won the World Series in two thousand one. Then he went to work in of all places, the studio at ESPN for two years. Then he got another managing job in Texas, got fired from there, went back to ESPN for three more years, and then became the manager at Baltimore in I was at the Baltimore spring training camp one day that March and I see walking towards me from the other side of the field trying to capture my attention. Buck show Walter. I am now fifty one years old. He is now fifty three years old. It is nearly seventeen years since the day he locked his entire team in the trainer's room in the middle of a Pennant race in a complicated ritual that would have been too labyrinthine, a plot for Tom Clancy just to express some cheesy grudge against the way I did sportscasts. Hey, Joe Walter said when he finally reached me, when I pulled that stunt on you in Yankee Stadium is at ninety three, We shook hands as I laughed, and I told him it was August. I can get you the exact date if you needed. I'm sorry I had not. I had not been in television yet. I didn't get any of it. I just thought you guys came in and shouted your heads off and then went home. I didn't get it, obviously. Why why didn't you tell me off or something? He asked. I shrugged. I said, well, there was you. There was six coaches players there versus me, plus all the reporters who were angry at me, who were on deadline. What if you were telling the truth now? Buck laughed and apologized again. We have been professional friends ever since. Whenever I have seen him, we compare the cruelties of aging and talk about politics and television. I saw him two Saturdays ago, after four more years in TV, when it looked like his managing career might be over. He is back running the New York Mets at the age of sixty six and doing a damn fine job of it. And every once in a while I bring up the trainer's room full of Yankees and he flinches and says, you know, there's one last thing about it that now I cannot possibly understand that trainer's room that was really tiny. How did the players all fit in there? I've done all the damage I can do here. This is where I ask you to rate and review the podcast. Lie tell them it's outstanding, and you don't want to hit me in the head like the Yankee players did. Only that they did, And that's right. It was Buck show Alter making it all up. The Countdown theme from Beethoven's Ninth arranged, produced and performed by Countdown musical directors Brian Ray and John Philip Chanelle. All orchestration and keyboards by John Philip Chanelle. Guitars, bass and drums by Brian Ray. Produced by t Ko Brothers. The other Beethoven selections have been arranged and performed by the group No Horns Allowed. Our sports music, the Olberman ESPN two theme, written by Mitch Warren Davis courtesy ESPN, incorporated musical comments here and there by Nancy Faust, the best baseball stadium organist ever. Our announcer today was my friend Tony Kornheiser announcing his his full time job. He's Michael Wilbon's announcer on ESPN. Let's countdown for this day since Donald Trump's first attempted coup against the democratically elected government of the United States. A new episode tomorrow till then. I'm Keith all Reman. Good morning, good afternoon, good night, and good luck. Countdown with Keith all Reman is a production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts from I heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.