The Fifth Hour with Ben MallerBen Maller (produced by Danny G.) has a fun Friday for you! He talks: Opening Day, Death of the Circus, Word of the Week, MLB Player Props, Foodie Fun, & more!
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If you thought four hours a day, twelve hundred minutes a week was enough, think again. He's the last remnants of the old republic, a sol fashion of fairness. He treats crackheads in the ghetto gutter the same as the rich pill poppers in the penthouse. Wow to clearing House of hot takes, break free for something special. The Fifth Hour with Ben Maller starts right now.
In the air everywhere.
The Fifth Hour with me, Ben Mahler and Danny g Radio, who is producing this podcast, and he'll be with me hopefully over the weekend for the Saturday and Sunday podcast. But happy Friday. It is day two of the Major League Baseball season.
But you knew that already. The twenty seventh day of the month of March.
The final Fifth Hour podcast here in the month of March. And the thing that I always get a kick out of is we spend so much time us with opening Day in Major League Baseball. If you heard the Overnight Show, we talked a lot of ball, a lot of baseball on the Overnight Show. And today it's like, yes, it's the day after, it's like the second day of school.
You get all worked up.
I remember as a kid, my mom would Every mom is pretty much the same, right, or your dad or whatever. Maybe you have an uncle whoever you're with when you were a kid, and they take you out shopping. You got the clothes, you got the backpack, you got all the crap for school back when we had backpacks.
I think some schools band backpacks.
And then you get all worked up all and I never liked school, but you get all worked up for the first day of school. And the first day of school is usually pretty easy. The teachers are trying to get on your good side. There's not a lot of work to do. And then where the rubber meets the road is day two. And in Major League Baseball, I know the Dodgers and Cubs played those fugazy games in Japan, which Baseball sold to Japan and they made a lot of money on that. But the US opener and Day two and then baseball falls off a cliff. Now I'm still watching. I'll watch the game today. I don't know obviously, March Madness. I don't know how much of that I'm gonna watch actually today because by the time I get back on the regular radio show on Sunday night in the Monday. The games that are played tonight, I don't think are going to be really that much to talk about. Now I might if something's crazy going on, I might flip over. So anyway, this's day two of the baseball season today. It is also one of my favorite characters in American history.
It is a day for them. And you say, well, what is that.
It's Barnum and Bailey Day, which is actually two people.
It's not one. It's not one.
And and that's to appreciate the day Barnum and Bailey Day for Phineas Barnum and James Bailey of the Barnum and Bailey circus that thrilled millions and millions of our relatives back in the day and came up with one of the wonderful marketing terms of all time. That marketing term the Greatest Show on Earth, which has been ripped off by NFL teams.
Who were the Rams.
If you're old enough, when they had some really high powered teams in Saint Louis, they called themselves the greatest show on turf, which was which was pretty cool. But Barnum and Bailey, the Barnum and Bailey circus which later became known. When I was a kid growing up, I remember coming to town it was the Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus. They these two big circus outfits combined together. But that actually went back to eighteen eighty one, the Barnum and Bailey Ringling Brothers Circus eighteen eighty one, and it ran for.
Over a century. In fact, it in and that's been been a few years since.
It ended twenty seventeen, and they had the title they were self proclaimed the greatest show on Earth, and that was back back. And then the only reason they got rid of that, well, there were two reasons. First was sales weren't great. People's taste changed people because of social media and things. Not just social media, but people were not going out as much and they just weren't into it. They could see any kind of animal they wanted, do any kind of stupid trick they wanted, and they could see clowns at a moment's notice, and their attention span was pretty short, so attendance started away. And then you also had these activists, these wackadoodles that were going crazy about oh my hear abusing the animals. This, that and the other thing, and so you can buy those two things and that's it. And usually in business. I was reading about this the other day, I fell down a rabbit hole. It actually started on.
AI.
I was on one of the search engines that uses AI, and I was, I.
Fell down this rabbit hole. I was like, I was.
It started out with second generation sports ownership, because we have a lot of that. We have we have families that got into the NFL or Major League Baseball eighty years ago or whatever it was, and then they just.
Keep passing the team down to generation to generation.
Great examples of that would be the Raiders, the Las Vegas Raiders, right Mark Davis who just happened to win the genetic lottery and he happens to run.
The Raiders, even though he has no business running the Raiders.
But his father Al actually had some some perseverance and some gusto and made something for himself. And then Mark Davis just got to ride the gravy train. Same thing about the Steinrenner family in New York. And you know there's a bunch of teams Genie Buss with the Lakers, people that are in the right position because of genetics, not necessarily anything that they did.
So I fell down this rabbit hole.
And most businesses do not make it to the third generation.
Second.
Yeah, but normally in sports are a little different because it's a fool proof business. It's a fool proof business. You're guaranteed to make money. Now you're not gonna make as much.
Men.
I got a call a couple of nights ago from a guy in Cleveland who was ranting and raving about another caller.
You know, this being the first week of baseball.
Yeah, was going on and on, ranting and raving about the salary structure and it's not fair, you know, this whole thing.
Going on and on and on and on and on.
And he annoyed me because I thought a lot of what he was saying was just talking points from teams that don't want to spend a.
Lot of money.
But if you own a professional sports team, you're making money.
Now you might not be making a lot of money.
And I've heard from people that work in the business who have told me they make projections. Every business makes projections. We're going to sell this many cans a soup now. Obviously, it's a lot different when you run a professional sports team. There's a lot of hidden costs. There's also a lot of hidden revenue that you can make. And if you say your team X and you're projecting, you're going to make and we do last year as an example, because this year's who knows. But in twenty twenty four, at the end of twenty twenty three, going into twenty twenty four, you did the books and you looked at everything. You had your spreadsheet out, and you said, listen, if we take the TV revenue, the national money, the merchandise opportunities, and we put all of these things together, we are going to make profit. Once we give out all the expenses, we're going to be sitting on a pile of ten million ten million in profit, which.
Is not that much. That's not that much.
So then they play out the twenty twenty four season and a few things go wrong and you only make a profit of six million dollars. You then announced that you lost four million dollars, that you're in.
The red for the year twenty twenty four.
When you actually made money, you just didn't make enough gemstones because you thought you were going to make more gemstones and you didn't. And so therefore you say well, we were supposed to. I looked at the spreadsheet and I crunched the numbers and I used the math, and the math ain't mathing. And we were supposed to make this amount of money.
We did not.
And so there you go. So again, boy, I went way off, way off the reservation. But Wringling Brothers, Arnham and Bailey circus lasted from eighteen eighty one all the way.
To twenty seventeen. Amazing.
Now, the modern circus began in the seventeen hundreds in England. A guy named Philip Astley is the first person to create a one stop show. And the original circus in England had horseback riding or tricks.
Rather that riding. You watch people write horses anywhere.
The automobile was not a thing in the seventeen hundreds, but they had horse riding tricks, so like some dude on a horse juggling.
They had acrobats, clowns and other entertainment. And so that was back in the seventeen hundreds and then P. T.
Barnum and Bailey got together and the circus started.
The US version of the circus. The PD.
Barnum was the first ever freak show and that that is a wild story. P. T. Barnum figuring out that people would pay good money to watch things that were different, things that were different and whatnot.
But P. T.
Barnum he partnered with William Cameron Coop after he retired.
After his retirement and the P. T. Barnum Museum.
Menageree and circus, and that was where they came up with the marketing term the greatest show on turf, and so a major tip of the cap. And that actually leads us to the word of the week. That's right, the word of the week. We'll do it earlier this week, on this Friday. So the word of the week is circus in honor of P. T. Barnum and the Barnum and Bailey circus and all of that in the Hippodrome.
But the word of the week is, as we said, circus.
The word circus, if you go way back in the hot tip time machine, the roots of the word circus, it's Latin and Old English mixed together, but it comes from the Latin word of circus, which means circle or ring. But in ancient Rome, the term circus cir cus it referred to a large open air venue used for public events. Now, back in ancient Rome they had chariot races and gladiators in combat.
Who were slaves, by the way, gl ideas were.
Slaves, and they also had the circus maximus, and so those those venues in ancient Rome were typically circular oval. Thus the origin of the word. Now we move ahead in this Word of the week word circus. So by the late fourteenth century the term entered what was English, but now we call it Old English, and it evolved from the fourteenth century further on in the late eighteenth century, the modern concept of what you and I call a circus, right, it is a circus in that modern version of circus, which features the clowns, the acrobats and the animals, all of that. That was pioneered by someone named Philip Astley in England. Now most people don't know who that is because he's not as famous as P. T.
Barnum and the Barnum and Bailey circus and all that.
But Philip Astley in that period in England was the first one to use that term in relation to what is still known as what we think of as a circus. Right, and so this usage hating the idea that the circular performances. Remember that you go to you used to go to the circus. You had round tents or rings and under the big top and all that.
So there you go.
The word of the week. The word of the week is circus. I know, so exciting, all right, So turning the page from the word of the week, we go, I want to go back to baseball.
And I didn't mention this.
I did the Bennies Baseball Bonanza, the big opening Day show the other night, did a monologue about baseball and the storylines of baseball. One thing I did not get into that I wanted to do here on the pod is the exotic player prop bets. Now I love these, absolutely love them. And the twenty twenty five season is now underway. We're off to the races and you can bet the normal thing. You should not gamble. You should not gamble if you can't control yourself, right, it's obvious, right A lot.
Of people can't.
Many of us can, and like anything everything within moderation, even moderation. But in honor of the start of the baseball season on this State two today, I thought we'd look at some of the more interesting exotic player prop bets. And again not your normal over under or strikeouts or any of that stuff. So we'll start with the face of Major League Baseball show, Hey Otani, So Otani the one prop bet. There's a bunch of Otani prop bets, because you gotta get that money. You gotta get that money. The one that I'm gonna use for this is will Otani hit forty or more home runs and pitch enough to win ten or more games?
So that is the question.
Now Otani, keep in mind, is not even yet in the Dodger pitching staff.
He's he's coming back. Their slow rolling him.
He's I think I read the other day Otani's they think you'll pitch maybe sometime in May.
I believe. I mean they're going very slow, very slow.
I might be wrong on that, but I think I read that somewhere anyway, shoe A Otani will he had forty or more home runs and pitch ten or more wins this year.
So I would go know on this. I would go know on this because you have and I don't know if you can bet No.
All right, Otani is supposed to be pitching, but he had major elbow surgery. That is his second major elbow surgery. You combine that with the fact that he's likely going to pitch maybe once every five every six days, and he'll skip some starts, so he's not going to get that many starts.
And when he does pitch, is he going to go five six? Now? Is he gonna get enough innings to get wins? Now?
The offensive number, I think it would be surprising assuming all these things, Assuming hell, forty home runs. Absolutely, he's already got, you know, he's already got a good start to that. So he is projected to hit the odds estimate, he is projected to hit about forty plus home runs. The thing that's the wild card is the ten wins, right, because not only do you have to pitch enough, you got to be healthy.
Obviously with all this stuff.
But Otani's coming off a fifty to fifty season with fifty four home runs and fifty nine stolen bases, and he's a much better, much better offensive player. Obviously, an MVP level offensive player is a generational offensive player.
He is not a generational pitcher.
The reason that Otani is so especially he's not terrible, but it's.
The uniqueness of it. Like there have been.
Players who have futched around with pitching and hitting, and they're usually really bad at one and okay at the other. Otani is elite. He's omni present when it comes to hitting the baseball, but pitching, based on what I saw in Anaheim, he was, Okay, there'll be some good starts, and there'd be a lot of crappy starts. But the fact that he's just doing it at all, it's like, Wow, that's like really cool.
All right.
Some of the other exotic props for baseball this year, how about Elie Dela Cruz, another dynamo for the Cincinnati Reds, Elie Dela Cruz, who's now got a real manager in Terry Francona. I would keep an eye on the Reds now. They don't have enough if you look at a depth chart pitching wise. But Terry Francona, and I didn't think much of him when he was in Philadelphia and the Red Sox had loaded teams when he managed there, they with Manny Ramirez and David Ortiz, so I thought, well, he's all right, but really they've got tremendous talent. But the crafting of Terry Francona managing a team, I thought in Cleveland. They used to be just called a team called the Indians, and to me, that was where Terry Francona just crafted these amazing teams that overachieved. Now, some of that was.
The division and there weren't that many good teams in the division.
But I thought that the Cleveland Indians and now they're the Guardians with Francona, overachieved. They in and underachieved. They overachieved based on what they I thought the talent level was, and they were able to play off the radar. There wasn't a lot of hype about their young players, and they.
Pulled it off.
And Francona played it off and pulled it off, and so now he's in Cincinnati anyway, So this is not about Terry Francona, but La did and the Cruz. The prop bet is will he lead Major League Baseball in stolen bases and triples? So leading the league in two categories that involved speed is this is not that easy, my friend. Now, last season Dela Cruz led major League baseball. He had sixty seven sixty seven stolen bases and he had ten triples. That was tied for second. But keep in my playing in Cincinnati. That is a band box. It's not a great Triples ballpark. You're more likely to hit a home run than have the ball bounce off the wall at the Great America Ballpark, which I think it's still called, and then roll around. In order to get that amount of triples, like where you're leading baseball, there has to be like weird bounces and yeah, yeah, it's like trick shot.
It's like your trick shot artist when you're doing that.
And anyway, so I would I would say, yeah, stolen bases if you just bet that your eye the triples is like total toss up right, You're just you're grabbing out of thin air. Another prop bet for the Pittsburgh Pirates. It's Paul Skeens and pray for Raid, this phenom who will be in Pittsburgh for a couple more years and then play for the Yankees or the Dodgers and the Red Sox or wherever he's from. Southern California. Actually Paul Skeins. Fun fact, fun fact about Paul Skeins. He grew up not that far away from where I grew up in Orange County. In fact, he went to Eltoral High School in Orange County. And when I was in high school, we played against his obviously like a.
Million I'm a dinosaur compared.
To him, but we played against the high school where he went, and so he does have ties to southern California. But Paul Skeins pretty straightforward this exotic prop bet for the baseball season.
Will he throw a no hitter? Will Paul Skeins throw no hitter?
So on this one, the odds are plus twenty five hundred, and much like leading the league in triples, it's impossible. I don't care what kind of algorithm you have. You can't just type it into some deep search engines said, well, that's going to be the answer. No, because no hitters are endangered species. They are a throwback to an era when pictures had hair on their chest and the world was not run by cowards, and pitchers could stay in games and you were actually shamed. It's one of these things that's changed in my lifetime. There was a time when you were shamed if you came out of a game early, and then at some point in the last about fifteen years or so, it changed and now, well, you're really letting the team down if you go too far into the game because you got to save those bullets for.
Later in the year.
Now, my favorite example of that is a couple of years ago, Clayton Kershaw was pitching a perfect game, not a no hitter, not a no hitter, a perfect game against the Minnesota Twins. It was like it was like April or May. It was early in the year. Kershaw was dealing and they took him out of the game. Dave Roberts took him out. They had a perfect game. And the argument the Dodgers made was they had to save Kershaw because they're not worried about a perfect game. They had to save him for the playoffs. And I believe if I'm right, and I know if I'm wrong, you'll correct me.
You'll send me a nast email.
You said that on the podcast, and you were right, and I don't like that you were wrong, and I got to correct it.
Anyway.
So I think that was the year that Kershall went out in the playoffs against the Diamondbacks and he did pitch and he vomited all over the mountain. He was in the vomit comet in that first start. I'm pretty sure that was it. So but anyway, get back to Paul Skins, so will he throw a no hitter? No hitters are again, like it's like seeing if you're in California seeing a bald eagle. Now, I know on the East Coast, I've seen some bald eagles out and about, but very rare. In California you will see a bald eagle.
Okay. Anyway, last season, you know how many no hitters there were?
You got a number? How about three? In all of baseball? Three happened.
I'm surprised there were that many.
Now Paul Skins is electric, all right, this guy is bananas.
He was the an L Rookie of the Year, had an ERA under two. Keep in mind, though, for a no hitter, you actually have to have help. What are you talking about? If they make an error, then that's not you know, that doesn't count as hit. Well, I understand that. Okay.
The issue though, is if it's a fifty to fifty defensive play, they might give it as a hit or they might give it as an error. But if they give it as a hit, there goes you're no hitter. But is Paul Skins capable throwing? You know, yeah, one hundred miles an hour. He's got this killer slider that falls off the plate and all that. But I wouldn't bet on that because of the fact that he's likely not going to pitch that deep into games and he's playing for a suck bag Pittsburgh Pirates team.
He's just terrible all right. Now.
Meanwhile, how about the Royals. Now, I was getting messages from my guys in Kansas City. My friend Bob Fesco was at the Royals opening game yesterday and some of my other friends in Kansas City.
They were like, well, wish you were here.
I was like, yeah, By the way, my friend Bob Fesco has a awesome powder blue nineteen eighties Kansas City Royals jersey, which I want. I'm not even a Royals fan, but that is a smooth, smooth looking jersey.
Really nice, really nice.
Anyway, get back to the exotic prop bets. Bobby Witt Junior will he hit three hundred and steal forty or more bases this season for Cans City, So I'm actually gonna go yes on this.
I'm gonna go yes. And here's why.
He hit three point thirty two last season, had thirty one steals, so he's got a lot of wiggle room, a lot of wiggle room with the batting average. Even if he goes down twenty points, he bats three ten or three twelve or whatever.
That's fine and the steals.
The thing you worry about is if he's out for a couple of weeks because of injury, or even if he plays. But let's say he tweaks something Bobby Witt Jr. And he stays in the lineup, Well, the Royals are not gonna run him. But this is what I would actually bet yes on this because the three hundred average, I believe is a guarantee this guy's elite the steals. It'll come down to the final couple weeks of the season. The Royals are one of those fringe teams. Do they make the playoffs?
Again? Do they not? But I would bet yes on that.
Well, Aaron Judge hit a five hundred foot home run or the New York Yankees that old Captain El Capitan. So Aaron Judge is one of the largest human beings ever on a baseball field, and it's it's such.
A crazy thing.
I've seen Judge play in person a few times when the Yankees and Dodgers have played in LA and Most baseball players are petit there. They're not big dudes. And Aaron Judge is like a monster. He's the snowman. He's a sasquatch compared to these other mere mortals. Now that being said, if you look at Judge last season, his longest home run was four hundred.
And seventy three feet.
So the last time someone hit a five hundred foot home run, do you know what it was? It was Gean Carlos Stanton, who's hurt right now for the Yankees, and that was years ago when he was in his prime for the Marlins. I think they were called the Florida Marlins then before.
They became the Miami Monas.
But John Carlos Stanton is the last one to do it in baseball. And the other issue, when you look at Yankee Stadium, you don't have to hit the ball five one. It's like williamsport Pa. There at Yankee Stadium. You can just tap the baseball and it'll go in that short porch and you're just licking your chops.
You're like, oh man, that's awesome. Anyway. All right, Moving on from.
That, Roiki Sazaki, the next great Dodger phenom who made his debut in Japan last week. There's a prop bet will Roki Sazaki strikeout fifteen or more batters in a game? The latest addition from Japan. And again, I think those of you that reached out to me, I complained on this podcast.
That the Dodgers.
After thirty years of covering the Dodgers, the last two years I have been denied from daily access to the Dodgers because of the Japanese media that is covering Otani and I do appreciate it, and I am considering your offers.
My favorite offer was that.
I should quit the overnight show and work for Radio Tokyo or something like that. I get a job for a radio station in Tokyo, the Dodgers will give me the access that I had. The fact that I worked for their own station and whatnot is not good enough.
It is not.
But anyway, as far as this prop is concerned, roy Ki Sazaki willie strikeout fifteen over batters in a game. Now, he debuted in in Japan and has a really it's like a gimmick pitch. They say it's a splitter, but some of the baseball nerds sits more than that. There's something else going on, and he throws consistently over one hundred.
Miles an hour.
In Japan a couple of years ago, he had nineteen nineteen strikeouts in a perfect game in Japan. So that's pretty good. But here's the problem, the math on this, the malor math. Last season. Last season he all of baseball, all baseball, we had eight pitchers that struck out fifteen or more batters. So again, he's untested, and there's a learning curve.
Now.
Some guys get off to a good start and then the league catches up to them. So I would bet no on this. If you're able to a lot of these prop bets, you can't bet know. You just can't do it because most people would bet know and they'd win, and so you can only bet yes. And that's that anyway. All right, that's enough of that. We also have some time for some food. He fun, holl ry for food, he fun. Try to help you guys out. You boys, I know, working your ass off. You don't want to sit home and cook when you're done. You're not like my fat ass, where I have nothing but time. I do a four hour show a day. So anyway, all right, little Caesars now I'm bringing this. I've not eaten Little Caesars in years pizza pizza, but they have two items that caught my attention.
Little Caesar's introduced.
A five ninety nine large two topping pizza deal. Now that is available, of course, always only on the app, only on the app till April sixth, so you have a little time on that.
That's that's a pretty good deal, large two topping pizza five ninety nine.
You also have, now this got my attention more, the all new stuffed pizza with pretzel crust. Yeah, that's the petzel pretzel crust pizza.
And I saw a photo. This actually looks pretty good.
It's available for a limited time now. It starts March thirty first, so we still have to get through the weekend. Starts next week, nationwide availability in store and online, and it'll go.
I guess it. It says it starts March thirty first.
But then there's another note on this this story that I have that says April seventh to June twenty second, that'll be that'll be going on. There's there's also a story about who's got the greatest burger? And there was a recent survey that was done from Delish, and shockingly it said, in and out, in and out, that's what a Hamburger is all about. The greatest fast food burger. Yes, absolutely, and it's good.
You know it's good.
I've had I've had some. I like five guys. I used to be able to afford five guys, but they priced me out.
I can't. I can't afford that. What else do we have? Subway? Are people still eating at Subway?
Subway has debuted a new Hot Honey Pepperoni and Hot Honey Chicken sandwiches featuring their all new.
Hot Honey sauce.
Okay, bo Jangles Solid chicken fingers at bo Jangles underrated. When I go to the South, I go bo Jangles. Bo Jangles really a new item strawberry cobbler.
I'm good on that. I don't think I need that. I'm all right.
Pizza Hut has introduced the Cheesy Bites pizza, which I'm in on until they added the Ranch Lover's Flight, which is different. I don't want anything to do with that at all. All right, we'll get out on that note. Danny should join me at some point this weekend.
Hopefully he'll be with me. Tomorrow, enjoy your.
Day two of the baseball season US style, and also watch I will check out the college basketball. I'll watch some of that stuff. Have a wonderful rest here Friday. Thank you for supporting the radio show, the podcast, all this crap, and we'll catch you next time.
Got a murder. I gotta go,
