The Fifth Hour with Ben MallerBen Maller (produced by Danny G.) has a fun Friday for you! Ben talks tacos & for the second consecutive season the Los Angeles Dodgers have denied a season credential to cover the team on a daily basis in 2025. Plus, Maller goes Inside Baseball on this edition, & more!
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Kubbooms.
If you thought four hours a day, twelve hundred minutes a week was enough, think again. He's the last remnants of the Old Republic, a soul fashion of fairness. He treats crackheads in the ghetto gutter the same as the rich pill poppers in the penthouse. Wow to Clearinghouse of hot takes, break free for something Special. The Fifth Hour with Ben Mallard starts right now in.
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The Fifth Hour with Me, Ben Maller and Danny g Radio A Happy Friday to you. We have made it to the weekend, and that means we slide on over to the pod studio, not the regular radio studio. No, no, no, this is a podcast only. We thank you for being part of the Ultimate P one Club and listening here to the Fifth Hour Podcast with Me and Danny g Is. It's now Friday, the twenty first day of the month of March, and if my math is correct, this is the last Friday without Major League Baseball until October. I believe I'm correct on that right because I know the season starts next week and then every Friday, even though there's the All Star break that does not include Friday so we will have baseball every weekend between now and the World Series, which is exciting. And we actually have a baseball related story here on the fifth hour that we'll get to it a little bit and a lot to break apart, a lot to break apart.
It's been a very busy week.
We'll start with this though, on this National Crunchy Taco Day today. Yeah, somebody sent that to me and said you better mention this. I want to thank Steve in Arizona, a rather large state. I'm assuming Phoenix, but maybe not someone in the Phoenix area. Anyway, Steve rhad in and said, Ben, I know you do the you like to begin the podcast by saying, you know what you know, dopey days. It's National Crunchy doc Taco Day on Friday. That is correct, now, Steve, I have gotten into many arguments with some of our great Latin listeners who have the Latin blood that say that what I enjoyed the crunchy taco is not an authentic taco. And to those people, I say, FUOI I like what I like, and I like the crunchy taco. One of my great friends, he passed away a couple of years ago, this guy, Alex, who was a worked at a Mexican radio station in Los Angeles, did Mexican sports talk and just one of my great friends. I knew him since I was like a teenager, and he was always very supportive and he would always bust my balls. He said, gringo tacos racist, But they're actually called tacos dorado. And one of the great things about living in Los Angeles is not the traffic, it's not the politics.
It's the food. Amazing crunchy tacos.
A lot of plays not everywhere, a lot of the more authentic stick up that took his places. Oh, we don't serve loose, we only shift soft tacos. But I love a crunchy taco. So thanks to Steve for pointing out it is National Crunchy Taco Day, and I think later today I will eat crunchy tacos. But it has been a very busy extended dance remix on this show. I don't know how literally I've been yappy. I feel like I've been talking all week. I don't know whether or not you've been consuming all of this or not. I have no idea. We have been promoting it and not trying to provoke anyone, but we have been promoting it and I filled in not once but twice. In LA I worked with Jonas Knox, my guy Jonas who hosts the morning show on Fox Sports right now, on the pregame show for Jonas, and despite us working essentially both the overnight shift, regardless of that, we both formed Vulture during the day. So right now, I'm not looking for a purple heart. I'm not looking for some kind of star near my name. I just want to point out that in the last maybe twenty eight hours or so, give or take, starting on Wednesday night, So Wednesday night into Thursday, I did the overnight show, So that's four hours of live national talk radio. So I did that, and then I went to the gym, and then I went back. I went to sleep, and that was basically it. I slept for like four hours, and then I arose thanks to my watch waking me up. I then wandered into the studio disheveled, and I started talking and I was the connoisseur of some hot takes. So I did several hours of daytime talk radio. I think that was what we three hours there, so that's seven hours and then I had about an eight hour break in which time I was the artisan and I crafted together some malard monologues.
So I did that and watched some some random games or whatever.
I was watching some college basketball because it's college basketball season.
Uh.
And then I went back into the studio, wandered around into the studio and did one, two, three, four more hours of radio and not not copycat radio. This is our intellectual property, not looking for any kind of again award. So four hours and then I had a few hours off. I went to the gym for a little bit, and then I walked back in here to the podcast studio. I cranked on the mic and the underground mix. Here found the secret sauce, the secret blend of eleven herbs and spices, mixed that all together, and here we are. So the fifth hour pocast. So the math on that that is, by the time I get done with this, it's about twelve hours of talk radio in a day and a few hours.
So that's a fair amount. It's all right.
I love the job. And it was interesting being on the show that I fill in on on the local station, which is a five seventy in LA. Because the show went viral indirectly went viral. I sit in for Fred Rogan or Rodney Pete, depending on which one you want to choose. They were both off from their show this week, and Rodney Pete and Fred were in Japan at the Dodger Cub game in Tokyo, not your Cup games in Tokyo, and so.
They're, you know, doing their thing whatever.
And in the sixth inning of game two, Dodgers and Cubs. Bottom of the sixth inning, there's a foul ball and Max Munsey is playing third base. He goes over to try to make the catch right along the line there if you can kind of close your eyes and imagine over and left field. But months he's playing third base. So he goes over there, he puts the glove out and the ball is is grabbed snatched by Rodney Pete. Yeah, the same Rodney Pete that does the midday show. Rogan and Rodney used to play for the Lions. I saw a lot of stories, So why he's former Eagles quarterback. When I think of Rodney Pete, I think of him with the Lions. I actually think of him as a college quarterback at USC. But I guess that means I'm old. So anyway, this thing went virals. It was seen millions of times. A former NFL quarterback who does a sports talk radio show wearing full Dodger gear and he ends up stealing a foul ball for Max Munsey, who appeared to reprimand him and give him a tongue lashing. And some of you have messaged saying, well, you shouldn't be taking a glove. You're over a certain age, you should not take a glove and all that, and people complaining and all this stuff.
So that's that's the week.
I don't need to give a whole sermon on it, but that's the week that was. So the the Golden Pipes have gotten a heavy, heavy amount.
Of work this week.
And one of the things that I didn't want to mention and share with you, since this is for the super p Ones, a couple of you knuckleheads have said, well, this is going to be the year. You know, the Dodgers are going to take care of you now because last year they didn't take carry.
Well, we have an update.
I got an email from the Los Angeles Dodgers this week. The some pr weasel for the LA Dodgers emailed me and now that for the second conceived year after thirty well was it twenty nine years? Twenty nine or thirty years of covering the Dodgers in the media. For the second consecutive year, I have been asked not to.
Regularly cover the Dodger. I got an email.
I was saying, they've denied my mi crenation and you probably don't care, and you probably what who cares about you and your stupid cranchial And I totally get it.
I understand.
It's just very bizarre to me, and I know why they did it. I don't make them any money. I guess they don't need the overnight listener, but it's bizarre. The reason it's bizarre, first of all, is I've I know the people out there, many of them I've considered friends. I guess maybe I should revisit that. So I've been either I know the people involved. A lot of them have changed, and so that's part of the problem. A lot of the people I knew really well are dead or they're not working out there anymore. So the next people that took those jobs, they don't really appreciate at the work that we do here.
So that's part of the problem.
But the reason it's bizarro world to me is first of all, that I'm on the Dodger station I just mentioned. I filled in on the AM five to seventy airways that station. I'll let you in on a little inside radio. I'll get to the word of the week, by the way, or the word up today anyway, coming up in a little bit. But let me get in my soapbox. So when I fill in on AM five to seventy in LA, or when I do my own overnight show, those shows are broadcast on AM five to seventy, which is owned by about I think it's like forty nine point five percent or something like that. Somebody told me, I forget, it's a lot. Don't hold me to that about half the radio station. And it's a partnership with the parent company, which is the company.
That I work for. iHeart.
So I work not for the Dodgers, but I work on the Dodgers station. I've been out there. It's not like I need a seat. The thing that's that's bizarre. I usually my my strategy in recent years, I often don't even stay for the games because I need I need tunnel vision to lock in and put some notes together, bullet points for the Mallard monologues. Very long winded and all that stuff, as you know, and it takes time to, as we like to say, handcraft those prolonged Mallard monologues. And so if I'm at Dodger Stadium and I'm there for a long time and people like to talk to me, which I don't know why I'm an introvert, but people.
I say, how you doing? I heard the show? Or you know, what's this? Uh?
This guy that takes all the pills in Minnesota? Or who's the the you got?
He got? Alf? Is that an alien? He call?
He just doesn't call, but he sends him. He asked me random questions. And I'm honored that they listen. You know, we have a lot of a lot of the listeners in the the media in LA and a lot of the baseball people because they'll listen on their way home. I'm on in LA, our shows on after Dodger Talk most of the time when they're on the West Coast, they play a night game, so a lot of them will hear the beginning of our show and whatever we're ranting about, and sometimes they'll hear the the end of the show when they're playing an early game on the East Coast, so people ask questions. Fine, but the fact that they they wouldn't let me out there, it's you know, idealy and they'll say, well, you just still go out there occasionally, you know, I have to to get approval. It's just a it's a giant inconvenience, and I guess I'm at the point now where I've done this for so long, I don't need to go out there in terms of actually watching the games. I need to go out there to network, to to talk to the guys during batting practice, to you know, kind of get stories the story when the story you talk to some of the Dodger players during batting practice, some of the coaches, some of the broadcasters, and that's where you get a lot of stuff you don't get it during the game.
During the game.
It's great, And I certainly don't dislike watching the Dodger games. I watched them all the time. But as I said, you know, getting ready for the show, people past you and bought you know, kind of badgie and it's tough to stay focused, and so that ends up provoking me at some point. So the whole point of it is to be out there and just kind of get those stories. And then I'll often leave early in the game and then go to the mother Ship and I go to the very back and get ready for the show. I put the monologue together and all the monologues and that's that. But will not be at Dodger Stadium. I don't know if I'll go out there at all. I went one time last year. It was again very frustrating thing. And it's funny. I last year I visited the great t J Seimer's who died. He had terminal care answer and TJ was a friend of mine and I was able to see him several times in hospice and right up until the end. TJ was a total firecracker. And I remember one of the conversations we had. TJ was bedridden and he was talking about his career and some of the great moments in his writing career. At the La Times and some other places in San Diego he worked, and he was on ESPN on the show that's about to be canceled.
I think it's called Around the Horn. I think something like that.
He was one of the original panels on the show. Anyway, we talked about TEJ. I talking to TJ. I remember one of the things TJ told me before he checked out, he I'd mentioned to him. We talked about the Dodgers and some of the old stories back when Davy Johnson was the manager and Kevin Malone was the GM and trading stories. And there was this great uprising, this insurgency when TJ took over, because the La Times had always been a safe space for the Dodgers, like they just lick the toes, right. It was full throttle propaganda for the Dodgers, and because they were one of the big advertisers, they bought a lot of newspaper space.
And when TJ took over.
He came in there and he was a fire hose and he was a flamethrower and you know all that, and I mean, just whatever adjective you want to use. He was throwing razor blades all over the place, and there was a rebellion. There was anarchy among the media, the other writers at the La.
Times because TJ was such.
A muckraker, if you will, and he would call the Dodgers out and they hadn't won in a fair amount of years at that time, and so it was very awkward. It was a mutiny on the Dodger bounty. But eventually things calmed down and TJ continued. He was a great columnist and did a wonderful job, but there were people that wouldn't like sit. They board cutted the manager's news conference because they were so upset with TJ.
And they went on and anyway.
So I remember talking to TJ at the end of his life and I told him, I said, TJ, listen.
He asked me something about going to the games. I said, I'm not going to the games.
And I said, TJ, I I I'm not going because the Dodgers did not give me a season credit. He said, what are you talking about? And he then explained to me, said you shouldn't. You should raise holy hell. He says, if that happened to me, I would write about it every single column in the La Times, back when people actually read the La Times, and uh there would be a complete I would. I would raise you a massive amount of noise. He my word is Hulda blue. He didn't use the word Hulda blue. I used the word Hulda blue. So I'm not necessarily going to do that. I'm mentioning it here and I'm mention it on the radio show at some point. But like I said, I can watch the games. I have access to everything I need. It was just more of I felt like to make the show a little bit better. I always got a lot of good stuff because baseball people love to talk, and some of those cats I've known for many, many years, Like I said, the people that work kind of behind the scenes and they just tell you stuff, and a lot of the time it's stuff that is not mainstream, and it's usually pretty good. I can get some scoops. I've found some stuff out, We've broken some stories over the years because of that interaction during batting practice with players and coaches and people that work for the team. And so it's disappointing that the Dodgers don't do that. It's also kind of frustrating because if I feel like if I worked for a radio station in Tokyo, i'd get a credential.
I guess season credential.
And actually I told one of my buddies, who is a sports writer and longtime sportswriter who I will not name because they're still employed, one of the few that are employed, and I told him by this and I said, I said, what should I do?
And he said, you know what you should do? Ben. This was his idea.
Contact the radio stations in Japan and tell them you want to be their US correspondent, and they'll probably just give you a credential because they'll see they'll see like Radio Tokyo or something like that.
And you're good.
The fact that you're in the backyard, you're too close, they're too comfortable with you. They can screw you over. But I get I understand the economics. And there were twenty five million people that watch watch the Dodger cub opener the other day this week on TV, and you know, that's an insane amount of people. And the amount of people that watch regular season baseball in America is a fraction of that. And the Dodgers in Major League Baseball are complete whores when it comes to making money in Japan. And I don't disagree with that. I would do the same thing. I mean, and they are completely pillaging the pockets of baseball loving fans in Japan, and that's what they should be doing, right. They're selling a bunch of jerseys and a bunch of knick knacks and all that stuff and slapping the Dodger logo on it. People are buying it and they can't sell enough, so they're allowing every newspaper and all these people to get the creditors. I just think you shouldn't forget the people in your backyard. But you know, maybe I'm wrong, Maybe I'm what do I know? I just do the overnight show, so who knows?
Anyway?
Moving on from that, I want to spend the whole time yapping. I feel like I have spent the whole time yapping about that time. Now for the I guess we'll call this the phrase all the week, the phrase all the week, and I feel it's appropriate. This being the unofficial soft launch of the Major League Baseball season. The phrase of the week on this Friday heading into the weekend, the last Friday without baseball, is inside baseball. That is the fresh all the week praise Lee. All right, so the week inside baseball. Now, this goes all the way back. Believe it or not to they say eighteen ninety two, Say why yes? The man credited as the pioneer, the forefather of inside baseball is a guy named Ned Hamlin, who the f is ned at and ned Hamler's been dead longer than dead. But this goes way back to the late eighteen hundreds. He was the manager, he was a player, and he had he had the Raleigh fingers mustache. I've seen a photo of him, had the Raleigh fingers mustache, you know, the handleball mustache. And they played baseball with ties in the eighteen eighties. They had ties and very bizarre. But anyway, I don't need to get in that here, so get to the point, please. So this guy Net Hamlin was a former professional player in the eighteen eighties. He became the manager of the Baltimore Orioles, yep, the Orioles in eighteen ninety two, and they were in the National League and they were very good. They supposedly, as legend goes, they won a bunch of pennants and in the decade they were like the Dodgers of that time. And this guy need Handling came up with all these different ways to play baseball that nobody prior in the eighteen seventies of the eighteen eighties had.
Come up with.
The Orioles are the team that gave us the Baltimore chop. And if you're a baseball nerd, you know the Baltimore chop. When I was a kid, if I hit a ball right into the ground in front of home plate, it was the coach would be the you hit the Baltimore chop? I said, what they have is the Baltimore chop? Is that like a pork chop? Is that something I know? That is where the batter tries to hit the ball almost straight down and it results in a giant bounce and the ball will stand in there long enough where the runner will reach for a space.
And the story. I remember hearing stories about the.
Orioles, even like the nineteen eighties when Earl Weaver was trying to hit home runs all the time, but they would at the old Memorial Stadium in Baltimore. The legend is they would make the ground in front of home plate very hard, like rock hard, because they still up to like the nineteen eighties, would hit them. They called the Baltimore chop. So in order to have the Baltimore chop, you got to have the ground in that area. So by the early twentieth century, as we continue the long winded version of the phrase of the week, inside Baseball, the Dictionary says that inside baseball is anything known or understood only by a small group of people. But again, this guy Ned good old Ned, the manager Ned Hamlin of the Orioles is supposedly the guy that had inside baseball first, and they actually called it early on scientific baseball, which is what interesting.
And then we move on.
The Chicago Hubs also developed a kind of a nuance to that in terms of communication between the fielders. If fielders knew what kind of pitch to expect, they could better predict where to play and they could adjust. And so that was part of inside baseball as well. The first time the phrase was used in print was by a writer named Sai Sanborn. Doesn't that sound like a newspaper man from the nineteen tens. Yeah, So this guy, Sai Sandburn or Sanborn worked at the Chicago Tribune. He wrote about it in the Chicago Tribune. And it all started again with this guy Ned Reagan, the guy from the Orioles, back back in the day. But the term inside baseball, now, of course you got like the moneyball, and you got nerd Army. It is interesting how life repeats itself though over and over, and the fact that baseball you got the same two arguments in baseball over the years have been, well, baseball is dying, it's not as popera as it used to be. You get a lot of that that's been going on for over one hundred years, and you get the nerd ball. What is annoying the people that like baseball a certain way? And then it changes and all that Now in terms of the phrase in a political sense, there's a guy named Thomas L. Stokes, no relation to former NFL receiver JJ Stokes, So Thomas L.
Stokes a political journalist.
He's the first person, at least in a published article to combine inside baseball and politics. He said, there's such a thing as inside politics, in which folks in the grand stands and the bleachers seldom see and rarely understand, just as crowds watching the great national pastime missed the fine points of what it's called inside baseball. He wrote that in nineteen fifty one, so it's been seventy seventy five years or so almost since then. And I talked about inside politics and the way that lobbyists work and the clever operators of the political world and all that. So that was at that particular point, of course, over the years now political or inside baseball, inside baseball. It just means anything where a very small amount of people have inside information. So the phrase of the week again, the phrase of the week is inside baseball, inside baseball. And that is a long winded boy.
I went a little long on that. We do have time though, for some food. He fun. Hooray for food, he fun. It's all about that food, he fun. I know, I know you're excited. I know. Try to stick. Come all right, So here's some foody fun. We have a few stories for you.
Is we continue this fifth hour podcast trying to help you boys out. Another story that popped up on the food blogs, and we talked about this on the Fifth Hour podcast any previous episode. The reason McDonald's is anti onion ring. They don't mind onions, They have the little chopped onions on the burgers, but they do not like the onion ring.
And it's all about mount of many. Yeah.
They did a cost benefit analysis back in the day and they determined it is bad for business that the cost of the onion ring to mass produce the onion ring, the amount of people that would buy onion rings does not match the effort for the onion rings, and they mark up their fries so much. Those McDonald's French fries are the jack you and so because of that, they're like, we're making so much money on the fries. If we start selling onion rings, then people will buy those. Maybe we'll sell some, but we're not going to be able to make the amount of money that we make. You know, we make at that point, you know the price points, so it's not even a profitable. So I saw that story again. I thought, if you missed that episode of the podcast Carl's Junior, that is, what is that west of the Mississippi. East of the Mississippi's Harty's Carls Junior indescing the new Triple Burger and Tropicali refresher. It's some kind of Fugeese lemonade. They've got that heart Ease, which is east of the Mississippi. They've got the new chicken Cordon Blue sandwich in select market that's not everywhere limited time on that quiz Nos the sandwich shop has gluten free bread options. They've also got this new Buffalo Chicken Club that doesn't really look like my kind of thing.
My wife has the gluten analogy, so I'll let her know.
We usually eat at home though most of the time, so I don't think we'll be hitting.
The Quiznos gluten free situation.
Crumble Boy, they're really good, and man are the expensive Crumble baking new chocolate mint cake through March twenty second, So you got till that's kind of odd Toillmorrow, Like, why would you stop on a Saturday. I don't get it, but wouldn't you at least stop on Sunday? Yeah, so they have that looks really good and I'm sure it'll cost you like an arm and a leg and all that. Dominoes, they've got a fifty percent off pizza deal. It is back for a limited time. It's available. You have to order, of course, through the app. All these things through the app. And it ends on Sunday, so that makes sense. You don't end it on a Saturday like the people over it Crumble you ended on a Sunday. So you've got that. KFC has launched a new dunk It bucket. Gee, I wonder why could that be because of March Madness which is going on. Yeah, I got mashed potato poppers available for a limited time. Wall supplies last, so there is there's that and anything else that really stands out. There was a bunch of stuff this week because of Saint Patrick's Day and all that. I think that's enough enough for now. We will have new podcasts all weekend. My god, unbelievable, what are we doing. We'll have the Fifth Hour with me and Danny g hopefully back with me on the Friday Pod, and then we'll have or the Saturday Pod.
Rather, this is today's the Friday Pod. I've been talking so much, I don't even know what DAT is.
But but Danny will be with me tomorrow on the Saturday Pod, and then we'll have the mail bag on Sunday.
So if you want.
To sneak a question in and be part of the drama of the podcast, send a question in care of Real fifth Hour at gmail dot com. Reeal fifth Hour at gmail dot com. Put your name in city A lot, do you knuckleheads? Send me email and you don't put what city you're in, so we have to say parts unknown or whatever. You know, you're not proud of where you live. You don't want us to give you a little love. I mean, come on anyway, I don't care as long as you contact us but have a wonderful rest of your Friday. I'm gonna go shut up for a few hours, maybe even take a nap, who knows. And yeah, I watched college basketball. When I wake up, I'll do that. Riveting, absolutely riveting. I have a wonderful rest of your day. And was Danny say asta pasta stop later?
Skater?
Oh oh reaver, darja aloha nah?
Now all right, well whatever, have a good day. Got a murder, I gotta go.
