OK, the source of this podcast is www.boobtoob.com, the web�s foremost provider of TV broadcast snippets. Today�s snippet features Waukesha Express�s MelMo who sat down with ESPNs Dick Vitale in a recent interview this December 2007
MelMo: hey Dickie V! ? I heard you met Uncle Greg when you visited Kraft. What do you think of him? Is he a prime time player?
�I don't think there's any doubt that he's among the 5000 top players in the history of Kraft pizza.� He is a prime time example of a complete geek . . . The first morning, Big Monday, when I was there, just after I got my Maxwell house coffee, (by the way that stuff really leaves a really bad taste in my mouth) we needed to go over to the main Kraft building. I asked for ride from Lefty and he didn't want me to see his Sable. So embarrassed by it, I thought it must be like the Oscar Mayer wiener mobile or something. I can just hear it whistling along. Full Power, first hour, baby.
Here's a guy who goes to school at madtown, the home of Bucky Badger, Camp Randall. Joins Delta Tau Delta and changes his major to social engineering. Couldn't cut it there and had to go Platteville, where you have some of those great Division 2 Dick Bennet basketball teams in the 80s. Other than that it is a real cow town. And I mean it! They say the Wisconsin farmers send their daughters to Madison and their cattle to Platteville.
I tell ya, �In my mind, Lefty�s done an amazing job, awesome baby, prime time player, blue chip, He�s living the American dream.� Once you see him get in the game baby, it�s Dish the Rock, PTPer, Slam, Bam, Jam, Dipsy Do Dunkaroo, Diaper Dandy, "Surf & Turfer", He�s on the "All Pizza Peel Team", a real "hardwood eater.� �An ass paddler� �When you can go on the road and get 3 mill at Medford with the rock-chalk Tombstone crowd going bananas and you make big plays to help your club leave with a win on the road like that, you've got talent. So, he's got talent.� I�m not sure what talent, but he�s got talent. Talent to fall in a pile of shit and come out smellin� like a rose. A Real gold bricker, baby!
MelMo: So he�s a great athlete, too?
Lefty was one helluva athlete as a kid: some of his best moments are well chronicled. In the early 70s he fell off a fence and broke his collarbone � I heard you rehabbed from your collarbone MelMo back in 02 and still made it to Zones; prime time! A couple years later, Lefty falls off the monkey bars and gets a concussion. All throughout his early playing days, he was best known for blocking his own jumpshots with his shirt. Had his neck wide open. Unbelievable, baby! His brother asked him over a hundred times - who was better, the great Babe Ruth or the ruthless Ty Cobb. He never could make up his mind. He used to wake up Thanksgiving morning and wonder why he couldn't have turkey bacon with his egg on a hard roll before playing in the turkey bowl. Then he would realize he hadn't invented it yet.
He played high school football, with Brown Deer�s Bubba Blanchard, a prime time head coach and a real behemoth in his time. Lefty never cared about the score of the game. Back in 81, he cared more about the team's operational equipment effectiveness than winning the game. Way ahead of his time � before Six Sigma and the Goal. Gary Peterson would have him practicing and Lefty would be doing time studies on the pulling tackle and end during the quick pitch. You could hear Lefty yelling at them to tighten their splits next time. What a captain. right now, dive right, nutcracker, 80 pop, run the mile, up-downs, run the hill, hit the sled, Ziebart, no quarter, break down, right now.
And then there�s baseball. So bad in high school, he made his little brother cry. Then the geek stinks it up his whole college baseball career. He waits until his family comes to see him play. Then he cranks one over the fence. A home run. Outta here, a real dinger, line shot, frozen rope, touch em all baby! A complete natural, but from the wrong side of the plate.
And then there�s Gregoosh, the Gay Geek golfer. Kid learned everything he knows from caddying for Ma Bates and Jerry Kloppenberg at Milwaukee Country Club. Down by the river. Hit so many balls in the water at 18 at Brown Deer park, he spent his nights running from the parkie while his bro fished Titleists out of the pond. Sold the good ones at the J. Got two holes-in-one in his lifetime, one on Wii against JT the day after Thanksgiving, and the other in his sock during gym class with Al Barry back in the 70s. Mr. Clean. Safety, Security and Fun, baby!
MelMo: Of all the places Uncle Greg has lived and worked, what is your favorite city?
I like �em all. It�s hard to have a favorite. Where ever he goes, his teams win. Prime time players in every town. Starts out in Madison and Bucky Badger goes to the Rose Bowl in 94. Moss and Fletcher, a real one two punch. Prime time players. Then he goes to Connecticut, right by New York. And the Yankees don their pinstripes and win the Series. He goes to Danville, right by Oakland. And the A�s win the Series. You could hear the crazies all the way to Alcatraz, baby!
Then he moved to the flatlands with the family and Kari Lee. JT's Mom, she�s a gutter mom baby. To Barrington, and the Bears show up on Super Sunday. Devin Hester, a real prime time player, a little Dipsy Do and he�s gone. Just don�t kick it to him. To the house baby!
Then Lefty starts to spend time in Little Chute and Medford. Back home in Wisconsin � where they cut the cheese, home of the cheeseheads. And Brett Favre, what can you say, breaks all the records, the iron man. Hasn�t missed a start since 92. Since the Majik man. At 38, still prime time baby. If it wasn�t for Tom Brady, number 4 would have number 4. MVP baby!
MelMo: Is DiGiorno your favorite Pizza? Do you . . .
Did I tell you that I represent DiGiorno! I really wanted to "Be A DiGiorno Delivery Guy" �It�s not delivery, it�s DiGiorno�s� Oh I don�t know if it�s my favorite though. How about that Jack Eldrich, baby, who put the village of Little Chute on the map in the mid-60�s when he founded the original Jack�s Frozen Pizza Inc. making fresh pizzas in his garage. Forty years later, Jack�s Pizza is a real cornerstone with a 379,000 square foot facility and some of the world�s best-known brands. In 92, Kraft took Jack�s Frozen Pizza to a whole new level and has made Little Chute the pizza-making capital of the world.
And also in the 60s, you had brothers Joseph "Pep" and Ronnie Simek, two prime time players who ran a neighborhood tavern called the Tombstone Tap on the outskirts of Medford, Wisconsin. They sold beer at a dime a glass, right across from a cemetery. One night, Pep let�s loose to the "Peppermint Twist" on the jukebox, way before the iPOD. He gets carried away, and slam, bam, jam - falls right on his prat; breaks his leg. Six weeks to heal, before ESPN HD. Before the dish. Nothing to do. So he hobbles on crutches and perfects his pizza in the backroom for Tombstone Tap's patrons. Next thing you know he�s going prime time. The rest is history, baby.
I also really like that California Pizza Kitchen. They put a West Coast twist and a dipsy do on an old favorite. A true Favorite of mine. It�s not from California, but neither then is Lefty.
So, back in 96, Kraft invents DiGiorno, a made up brand. From absolutely nothing, no history. Mostly packaging, baby. Cracked crust. They say it�s the Ultimate. I say it�s expensive, too many calories, baby! That same year, 96, in the final four, March madness baby, Kentucky�s Tony Delk tied a championship game record with seven three-pointers. What a prime time player! Rick Pitino�s Wildcats held off the Orangemen of Syracuse to win Kentucky�s sixth national title. The Big Dance. That Continental Airlines Arena at the Meadowlands was going bananas baby.
MelMo: And what is with that G daddy?
I don�t get it. A real imposter, baby. What was he thinking? Send him back to the farm club; to the showers baby! I�ve never seen anything like it! That G must stand for Geek, baby!
Maybe he got messed up real early as a kid from that concussion. Maybe it is what he ate back then. I know Lefty was destined to be in charge of Kraft frozen pizza when he had to eat those Jeno's frozen pizzas back in the 70s. Mama Mo made �em on a cookie sheet � 4 or 5 of �em at a time. A real Rachel Ray in her day. They just wolfed �em down. Ate her out of house and home. Washed it down with some 2% milk, baby. Enough calcium to become a prime time player. That was ancient history baby, way before the wooden pizza peel, the real seal, or the Naturally rising crust. But most importantly, he remembers where he came from. It is absolutely wacky, baby!�
MelMo: Thanks, Dickie V!