Tony Kornheiser (7:51)
Yeah, he was a swashbuckling guy and a guy. If you think that Rupert Murdoch is important, Ted Turner is more important. Yes, Ted Turner is largely, hugely important. About 15 years ago, I was walking on the west side of Manhattan near the New York times in the 40s, and I saw Ted Turner in the street. Ted Turner was just gazing up at buildings, looking at the architecture of buildings. He would stop and he would look up and up and up. And then he would move a little bit from another angle and look again. The reason I bring this up is because he was alone. He had no bodyguards, he had no people. He had nothing like that. He was alone. And he was one of the most famous, important, prestigious people in the country, if not the world. He could have been kidnapped for all we know, right? I mean, who knows? And he was completely alone. Two days later, I was on the west side as well, in a different spot up in the 60s, and I saw Donald Trump. This is long before Donald Trump became president. Long before that. Donald Trump was walking surrounded by about 50 people. That's how he did it. He had to have people around him. And Ted Turner didn't want anybody around him. And I have no point to make other than I have remembered this for quite some time. And about John Sterling. John Sterling, the Yankee announcer. I'll just read this first by Mark Feinsand. We lost a great one this week with the passing of John Sterling, the legendary radio voice of the Yankees, whom I had the privilege of calling a friend for the past 25 years. John was a true one of one. There have been many voices associated with teams throughout the years, but John was on that short list of broadcasters who transcended the team he called. Whether you were a Yankees fan or not, There was no more entertaining voice than John, who brought a Broadway flair to the booth. He was a showman. His home run call, it is High, it is Far, It Is Gone, was his trademark, though he added personalized calls over the years, such as Burn Baby, Burn for Bernie Williams or a Thriller by Godzilla for Hideki Matsui. When a new player joined the Yankees, there was always anticipation for what Jon's call would be, including from the player himself. I had the great honor of sharing the booth with John and Susan Walman for 10 years during my time at the Daily News, joining them in the fifth inning every night, a lot of folks called John a homer, but he was brutally honest about the team when they were playing poorly, often sounded like you complaining about the Nats bullpen. Perhaps more important than what he did in the booth, he called it his act. John was one of the kindest people you'd ever want to meet. His loss is enormous, not only for Yankees fans, but base and baseball fans, but for anyone and everyone who ever crossed paths with him. He was most famous, of course, for the call at the end of Yankee games, and he would go, the Yankees win. The Yankees win. He was the first person who ever put me on radio. It was in the 70s, it was at least 50 years ago. He was not a baseball announcer then. He was calling the Nets and the Islanders. He was a basketball and hockey announcer. I was working at the New York Times, and he said, do you want to go on at halftime? I'd love to go on with you at halftime. I was terrified. I'd never been on the radio. I mean, I'd been on the radio in college, but it's really different. It's really different. This is real radio going out to, I don't know, a million people or something like that where I live in New York. And I don't remember anything that was said, but I do remember that he was very kind to me during it. He didn't try to hang me out to dry, didn't know me well enough to, you know, to be confrontational. It was very nice. And at the end, I thought to myself, you know, I wasn't bad. I didn't think I could do it for a living. I didn't think I wanted to do it for a living. But I thought, you know, it wasn't bad, and I was very happy about it. That's my only thing I can say about John Sterling, he was very kind to me. We'll get off this topic and turn to the topic at hand, which is the death cruise, which I think is off the coast of Africa. Now, is that what it is?
