50 Years in Sports Media, $700M Athletes & Cowboys Frustration | Just Wondering with Norm Hitzges

Celebrating 100 episodes with the Sunset Launch DFW, a look back at the best of just wondering with norm heads guess.
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I'm about to sound like an old man, but then I am 80.
Our internet service insert life crack here is optimum.
And for five years, we've been begging for them to come to our house and bury a cable that runs across our front yard.
Well, today our neighbor Andy took care of that problem.
He ran across the cable with his lawn mower.
Jerry Jones personally had talked to my compartments.
So what the hell is the hold up here?
I wouldn't send an old means-ridden dog to the Brooklyn Nets these days.
Mark is always, thank you so much for the time.
Of course, Normie, I owe a lot of this to you.
You know, when we started Broadcast.com, our first station was 570 K.I.F.
And people from around the world would literally download all the stuff that took in 1995 on the internet to stream before anybody called it streaming.
So they could listen to Dallas Sports from Norm Hitzkiss.
That's right.
So you literally, literally were the first sports broadcaster ever to stream on the internet.
It officially sucks.
They're bad people.
Do I like tanking?
No.
No.
But in systems like the NBA, do I understand why teams do it?
Yes.
And honestly, would I understand if the Mavericks did it this year?
Yes, again.
Me too.
You received a personal letter from John Henkley, the man who tried to assassinate Ronald Reagan in 1981.
I did.
First, widely right to you.
Because I wrote to him first.
Really?
I wrote a letter to him first just on a large.
He was in prison then.
And I was thinking, well, there's no way it will ever get to him.
And then one day at the station of letter, there's a letter in my inbox from somewhere in, I don't know, Virginia or somewhere like that.
And it had a kind of a official looking return address, but no name or anything.
So I got it and I took it in there and opened it up.
And I was just looking at it and the more the longer I looked at it, I started to realize what it was.
I just went, oh, man, he wrote me back.
In this country, tennis has lost something.
It's lost its TV airtime.
I'm old enough to remember that incredibly popular legal drama of the 50s and 60s Perry Mason, which spent 10 wonderful years on TV.
Each episode began with the name of the case, the case of the blonde bomb shell, something like that.
If Perry were still a TV staple, perhaps his next show could be the case of the accidental finger.
Is the cowboy front office so incompetent?
They can't negotiate multiple contracts at once.
Have an idea for a uniform number for the much talked about Cleveland Brown's rookie quarterback, Chador Sanders, who stunningly fell from the first round all the way to the fifth round in this year's NFL draft.
How about if Sanders wears number 101 this year?
That's where he was arrested for speeding a couple of weeks ago, going 101 miles per hour.
But if the NFL won't agree to a player wearing triple digits, then maybe he could wear number 95.
Because two weeks before being arrested for going 101, he was arrested for going 95.
So Hayatani was the nationally MVP in 2023.
And the next year later, he was the MVP again.
In 24, Otani led the majors in runs, homers, RBI's, on base percentage, slugging percentage, and OPS.
And this year, Otani hit 55 more homers, drove in another 100 plus runs,
drove 109 walks and led the league in slugging percentage, ops, and runs scored.
Otani signed a contract that most people shook their heads at, 10 years, 700 million dollars guaranteed.
How could any athlete be worth that much?
How can you look at Otani's record and not believe he's worth that much to a team?
Exactly 50 years ago today, I did my first sports talk show in Dallas, Fort Worth.
And happy birthday to my bride, Mary.
So I'm not going to tell you a rage, but you'd be surprised.
Next, YouTube influencer, you let's pardon me for this.
I'm pretty old school, well, pretty old and pretty old school.
YouTube influencer, anyway, Jake Paul has come up with an incredible dick.
Jake Paul began boxing.
And then he started scheduling fights against guys who are way, way, way, way, way over the hill.
But they still have big names like Mike Tyson in this fight we had in our city.
Tyson, quite honestly, looked like he'd taken four ambience just before the fight.
And it was ridiculously bad.
Anyway, but that's Jake Paul stick.
Find somebody to quote fight somebody with a big name.
Pay them a lot because these things take in giant money.
And then that older boxer pays just there for a payday.
And Jake Paul moves on to the next garbage fight.
I don't know who the player was.
You may know North, but he walked in and Vince LaBarty did the contract for the Packers back at that time.
War a lot of hats.
Player came in and said, I'm not doing my contract.
You can talk to my agent.
Vince LaBarty said, hang on a minute.
Went to the back room, came back out about 30 seconds later and said that you and your agent have just been traded to St. Louis.
So those days are over.
But you must hand it to Paul.
He's found a wonderful scheme.
Fight old guys who years ago had a big, very good name in boxing.
And he gets millions and millions and millions of dollars to do it.
Just as he did last Saturday.
If you watched the game on TV completely,
stayed right through the commercials and everything.
You did find out some facts about your cowboy franchise.
Like who the cowboy's official personal turning law firm is.
And who's their official egg and turf company.
And their official plumber.
Official oil.
And official shave.
And official energy provider.
And official grocer.
And we found out that the small Texas coast town of Porter Ranges is a proud partner of the Dallas Cowboys.
And one last thing.
We discovered that you could actually find to eat star shaped chicken nuggets.
Hey.
Jerry's got to pay the bills here.
They're big three of Jacob DeGrom and Nathan Uvalde and the now injured Tyler Molly.
Those three are a spectacular 20 and eight.
Fantastic.
All the other Ranger pictures.
24 and 37.
Freedom of speech in America.
It seems under attack.
Those who speak out are labeled criminals or terrorists or the target.
They are the target of revenge.
Now freedom of speech seems to be losing more ground in the NFL.
If young figures his way out of this box.
And creates a contender.
A playoff team for the Rangers next year.
He may well be the American League general manager of the year.
That you know, on this.
Oh, I've just seen a fin is a fin in front of me.
Wow.
Wow.
Let me stop right there.
Finns aren't necessary.
Good news.
That is huge.
Big old.
Big old barland behind us, Norm.
I wish I could turn around.
I wish I could show you.
That's huge.
Wow.
It's about five feet long.
That is a big fish.
Wow.
Oh, my goodness.
It's getting really close.
This is sorry.
Norm, this is a.
D railed.
This is D railed.
But yeah, we've actually.
Oh, wow.
That is.
That is huge.
Geez.
So these.
Norm, these fish are actually.
They have been known to attack rowing boats.
They.
My Marlin, you know, they've got a massive big long tusk coming out
from front of their face.
And this is a massive Marlin.
I've never seen anything like that.
But where might that be?
Fortunately, or unfortunately, depending on your viewpoint,
you can get odds on anything these days in America.
Some wagering sites have put out odds on who might be LeBron's next team
if he leaves L.A.
L.A., home of the Dodgers and Rams and Sunset Boulevard and ground
in Chinese theater.
And yes, the pink pony lounge.
As I search several internets, I ask this question.
What are the most popular pro sports in America now?
The composite of those answers shows NFL, of course, number one.
NBA number two, Major League Baseball number three, hockey four, soccer five, golf six,
motor sports seven, and then down their battling for spots eight through 11 were boxing, professional wrestling,
figure skating, and tennis.
What did that happen to tennis?
What do you want from your favorite restaurant?
Fantastic personal service, a cheery, welcoming, spotless atmosphere, and, of course, great food.
The primest of beef, wagoo, and lamb, incredibly fresh seafood, lobster, salmon, shrimp,
hall of fame, food from a hall of fame restaurant, two locations of Bob's steak and chappos,
the original Bob's Unlimin' Avenue, and the gorgeous new Bob's at Craig Ranch McKinney.
My wife marries the co-creator of Full Moon Healing Bomb, and I guess I'm the reason this terrific cream was developed.
A few years ago, I began getting these huge ugly blood blotches just beneath the skin of my arms and hands.
The conditions called senile purpora, and no, you don't have to be senile to experience this embarrassment.
It happens as you age, and then to cover it up, we begin wearing long sleeves, even when it's hot.
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Gently massage a very small amount into the skin, and within a day, the blotches begin to fade.
Senile purpora usually takes weeks to disappear, but this bomb cuts the timeline to about a week, and ordering so easy.
Just go to the website, fullmoonhealingco.com.
One huge problem here, and this is a problem for anyone.
You can be selling celery or men's shoes or jet plane engines.
Do you have any buyers?
So does Kelly replace someone, or do the Rangers to give their starters more rest, go with a six-man rotation?
Well, I've been pestering Bruce Bochy about a six-man rotation here for about a month, and he's pretty much kind of sloughed it off each time.
The crime, and you've all been right now, are the heart of this team.
The cowboys are going to need some serious help with their butt bruises.
Let's compare the way the cowboys do business, with the way the Eagles do business.
Now, coming off a Super Bowl, you'd think that that would cause the Eagles real money problems.
Hey, we won! Show me the money!
Well, I don't mean this as a terrible knock on the cowboys, but I'm sure they'll take it that way.
Eagles are really sharp. The Eagles look down the road a couple of years.
They try to prepare for situations like this.
They try to figure out who they're going to keep from going out to free agency and signing with another team, or who they're going to pay the money to.
They want to avoid cap hell. They have a plan!
I'm going to apologize in advance. I know a lot of numbers give you tired head.
Put up with me today. Please forgive me, because these numbers actually have a real place to go in our story today.
Oxnard, and babe, thank you for yours a friendship, for your time, and for your insights.
Oh, thank you, Norman. I will tell you. You know we're coming from Oxnard, because you hear mowing the lawn behind me.
So I apologize for all that.
Let's just think again.
Jones dismissed the notion that he had to talk to a person's agent to get the deal done.
What are you freaking crazy? And they wanted to make all sorts of changes.
So they fired a bunch of us.
I thought it was incredibly unfair to me. I'm still hacked about this.
50 years later, I'm still pived.
The Rams second string is a lot better than the Cowboys second string.
And the Rams third string is better than the Cowboys third string.
And by the way, earlier last week, the Cowboys and Rams had one of those control scrimmages.
And in that scrimmage, the Rams first team was better than the Cowboys first team.
And the Rams second team. Well, you get the picture under Cooper flag.
Expectations for him are through the roof.
Let's put him in the hall of fame right now. Wait, wait a minute.
Tap the brakes. He's a terrific young player.
But he's 18. Carl, thank you. It's nice to meet you even from thousands of miles away.
First of all, I guess I should ask after a 27-year journey, are you well?
I am very good, thank you. Yes, thanks very much for the invite as well.
And the more people tell you that it cannot be done, the faster that ball will roll.
Especially a young paratrooper has been told he can't do something.
And then he's definitely going to go and do it when the world challenges him.
The word fan is actually a shortened version of the word fanatic.
Fanatic being, of course, a crazy supporter of something.
And make no mistake.
Jerry Jones of the Cowboys is both a fan, probably the biggest fan,
and a fanatic for the Cowboys.
The unthinkable grief happening for Pat Green now.
For dozens and dozens and dozens of other families.
For hundreds and hundreds and hundreds and thousands of people,
the sadness just reaches out and grabs them.
And it's not going to let go for a long time.
With some of them, it may not let go forever.
Do you realize how close you came to dying?
Yeah, I realize it now, but at the time, I just know I was feeling bad.
And as an athlete, sometimes when you feel bad, you figure if you fight through the day, it goes away.
So I had three days that was pretty bad in New York, and I thought them.
And the third day, I decided to let the trainers in on how I felt.
And that's how I found out that this was wrong.
Got a legal pad out and said, all right.
I want you to tell me everything that you remember about what we've talked about.
Let's just go back and go through those conversations.
And we spent the next two hours with me talking and him writing.
And that is on a legal pad somewhere.
In fact, this was done at the Dixie House in Lakewood.
And that would down on a legal pad somewhere.
And I would love to have that legal pad.
I don't know where it is or if it even exists.
But if you want the first tangible thing that would one day turn into the start of the ticket, that was it.
That's the very genesis of it.
Hello, it's Mike Riner of your dark companion here.
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That is poppycock.
That is the leaving of a large farm animal.
What about text in his later years had the shakes?
Yeah.
His hands shut.
And he looked at me and he pointed a shaking finger at me and said,
I don't need your kind of forum.
And what passed?
And Mike, I believe it was more than two years before he spoke to me again.
Mike, he was a corn cob.
Honestly, I would have thought it would have been more than that.
He was known to hold some grudges with people.
Oh, yes.
And, you know, I honestly believe this.
Mike, he died without telling anyone where all the bodies were buried.
Yes, he did a lot of stuff with him.
This was cream puff weekend and the cream puffs got creamed.
But overall, this is refreshing.
The cobwears are being aggressive.
They're trying to save some cap money by not letting free agents get away
or by signing them early to bargain contracts.
We can only wish that it would have happened sooner.
But let's all thank the gods of football,
at least it's begun happening.
In my estimation, we went out.
The Dallas defense was atrocious.
I really like golf.
When I was able to play it, I wasn't any good.
But I really like golf.
I like watching golf on TV.
And I love the Ryder Cup.
It's a shame.
It's only every other year.
I wish it were every year.
I wish it were every week.
It's the Europeans versus the Americans.
The 14 best players from Europe.
And the 14 best players from America.
And basically, that's the sum total of the best players in the world.
It is passionate.
It is really contentious.
It's prideful.
Austin Street is an incredible place.
That's why we keep doing this.
That's why I keep doing this.
It's a place of love and patience and dignity.
And last year alone, Austin Street moved over 500 people out of homelessness,
into a stable job and into a stable place to stay.
For our 24 years, in cash alone, we've raised $10.1 million.
Well, Professor, it's good to have you with us.
It is, I'm going to bore you for a minute.
So, when I moved here in 1996, I moved here from the Midwest.
And one of my first memories when I moved to Texas, Norm,
was listening to you on your show.
And my familiarity with you.
That's 40 years ago.
It isn't long time ago.
It was 30 years ago.
It was the first year.
And here's the fun part about this.
I turn it on and I hear your voice.
And I was like, why do I know this guy?
Now remember, 1996, there's no internet.
There's just cable television, right?
There's newspapers and cable television and sports talk radio
was certainly becoming more of a thing.
But where I grew up, we really didn't have that much access to it
on a bounce at night.
So, I know my familiarity with you was when you called
ESPN baseball games as a color analyst.
Right.
And you would get on there and you would just fireball statistics
like I had never heard before.
And I remembered it.
And I was in high school or college when I heard you
because you did, I think, you did one of the big Nolan Ryan games.
You know, 300 wins or 5,000 strikeouts.
It was the one against the Yankees where the lead off hitter
was Deon Sanders.
And I think Deon let off with a double.
I can't believe I remember that.
So anyways, Norm, I'm listening to you.
And, you know, to your credit, I think you were in a three-member booth.
And I heard all these statistics that you were just firing away.
I'm like, who the hell is this guy?
I had no idea.
I'm like, I know.
Because you stood out.
At the time, sports TV, sports media really only had two people like you.
It's you and Mike Francesca.
Mike Francesca and Mike was doing CBS college telecasts
and people hating him.
Remember how much Norm people hated Mike?
Oh my God, yes.
He made people so mad.
He was so brash and he was so New York and he was so arrogant.
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But instead, he said rather than having his thumbs up, he inadvertently shot the middle finger.
He called it accidental, saying,
I put up the wrong show of hand.
Say what?
So, how many of you wishing to show the thumbs up sign have accidentally shot your middle finger instead?
I'm just wondering, now that I've reached anyone years old,
will I be alive still the next time the Cowboys figure out a way to beat the Denver Broncos?
Now that he's finally, as a Los Angeles Laker this past summer,
decided he would dedicate himself into getting in the top shape.
The sky is the limit for Luca Donsic's career.
Oh, yes, he still leads the NBA in turnovers per game by a wide margin.
And yes, he's still a below average free throw shooter for the point guard position.
And yes, he's a below average three point shooter, but you know what?
None of that would have mattered to Dallas.
Dallas would have accepted all that.
They'd have given him his money.
They'd have made him an MFFL,
Mav's fan favorite for life.
If he had just cared about getting himself in shape while he was here,
he'd have never been traded.
But no one ever seems to mention that.
Two final topics for you, Mark.
First, you still own a solid piece of the Dallas Mavericks.
Would you ever consider selling that?
Yeah, I mean, I would consider selling a piece of it.
I'd probably end up keeping the way the contract structure
that I can still make more money off of it and still sell that piece.
But I'd probably keep at least 7%.
You know, when I kept the 27%,
I would be running basketball and it'd be beneficial to me
to have that bigger percentages of people would perceive it.
But I'm not running basketball.
So, you know, I don't have that necessity anymore.
So I could sell it.
And obviously, if I bought another basketball team,
then I'd have to sell it.
And I'm not saying I will.
But if I did.
Does that still bother you that what you thought was going to be your role
running basketball didn't wind up being that?
Yeah, of course it does.
And the people who kind of undermined me bother me even more.
But, you know, I didn't get along great with Ross Perot
when I first bought the team for a variety of reasons.
But I don't dislike him or don't hate anybody.
And, you know, there's people now that are in the basketball side
that I don't have a great, I don't have any relationship with.
But I don't hate them.
But I'm disappointed, I guess, is the best way to put it.
In an interview with the Wall Street Journal,
Jerry, who's invested heavily in the drilling company Comstock resources,
told the Wall Street Journal, and this is a quote,
there's a hundred billion dollar present value in gas out there.
That's why I'm talking to you on the phone,
rather than trying to fix our defense with the Dallas Cowboys.
You know, that's going to do very, very little to dismiss the opinion
that's been floating around out there for some time
that Jerry's more interested in making money than he is in being a GM.
Six, six, and one.
And the script would be obvious.
When they're last four games, and hope, hope, hope,
they get a lot of help beating Philadelphia.
Issy Kerry Jones is unhappy.
He's unhappy with the defense.
So he's really happy with the offense.
Who wouldn't be?
There's currently 30 points of game number four in the lead.
Very unhappy with the defense.
Now, before we talk about that defense and what he's particularly unhappy with,
let's talk about why Jerry may be frustrated.
It's now 30 years and counting since the last time the Cowboys made it to the NFC championships.
No one else in the NFC has had a longer dry spell than the Cowboys.
If you're under 30 years old, you don't remember when this team was really good.
But age, that's Jerry's problem.
You see Jerry is 83.
And Jerry understands the actuarial tables as they call them in the insurance business.
He understands how long people are likely to live.
And for him, for me also, we can hear the clock ticking a little louder.
And that's what frustrates Jerry.
He looks at a team that has a Super Bowl offense.
And then he looks at a team whose defense might be the worst defense.
We're talking chaos here.
But then this is what happens in college sports when no one's in charge.
The NCAA is a toothless tiger.
And university presence and coaches and conferences will not step in and stop things like this.
There's all other topic they won't stop.
And that's tempering with players to talk them into the transfer portal.
But this is just one more example of college sports where nobody's in charge and control was lost years ago.
Everything I'm about to tell you about Jarelle Big Baby Miller is true.
But Saturday night gave us a moment that boxing will always remember.
And Big Baby will want to forget.
In the second round, an uppercut from his opponent dislodged big babies to pay.
It was dangling off the back of his head.
He went back to his corner after the round, snatched the two pay off his dome and tossed it into the crowd.
Miller explained afterward why in the world he was wearing a two pay to fight.
But he didn't have to have hair to fight.
Miller said he got a hair piece after he lost his hair two days ago when he said he mistakenly used ammonia bleach instead of shampoo to wash his hair.
Pardon me.
When you take your cap off the shampoo and it actually smells like ammonia bleach.
Shouldn't you be at least a little bit alerted here?
Wouldn't your nose tell you something?
But then, I guess at some point, boxers and noses, they don't tell them anything because the noses get beaten up so badly that the noses don't smell right anymore, so to speak.
Hey, I'm sorry to give you this guy's whole checkered career.
But let me tell you something.
I can't wait for the next time big baby, drill Miller fights and again appears somewhere in the headlines.
Pick a phone.
Let the damn thing done.
Pure dumb luck is sometimes what you need in life.
And now a word from our title sponsor.
Today's episode has been brought to you by Fluent Financial.
Retire earlier live better.
And by Bob's steak and chop house on lemon and Dallas and in Craig Ranch in McKinney.
Bob's a Dallas tradition for more than 30 years.
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Thanks for listening to today's episode of Just One Ring.
I'm Norm Hitzkiss and know that every day I'll be just wondering about something.
And I'm Mary Hitzkiss and I'll just be wondering too.
This is a stolen water media production.