On The Ball with Andrew Maraniss | David Axelrod

welcome back to the Vanderbilt Sports and Society podcast I'm Andrew marinus and really delighted to have David Axelrod with us today David I've been looking forward to this conversation ever since I heard that could be a possibility uh David is a senior political commentator for CNN former senior adviser to President Obama and no stranger to podcast the host of the ax files podcast in ax on tap David thanks again uh for coming Vander Jo it's great to be here the as I've told you the marinus name is a big name in in my world so uh you're your dad was he was a young political journalist when I was an even younger political journalist and uh but his work all his Works were just fantastic so and he's just a great person as your mom is so awesome well thank you so much um all right so here's a big question for you here we are at the end of August in several weeks we'll have answer to a question that's on the minds of a lot of Americans right now and I think you're uniquely qualified to answer this and the question is of course who's worse 62 Mets or the 2024 white sock yeah this a painful question look I'm from New York first of all so I the New York Mets of 62 was my first team I mean I was a little boy and I would go to the Polo Grounds uh and watch the Mets play and of course Casey stangle the manager famously said I manage so good how come they play so bad uh but um uh I have to say and and Jerry reinsdorf who owns the white socks is a very very close friend of mine um but this is a painful painful year I mean I think they're well on their way to making the exact wrong kind of history and um and you know at least the 62 Mets had an excuse it was their first year of existence and they're uh and they had colorful characters you know when you start of an expansion team you get to dress so they had some old Dodgers and Giants and you know I think Don Zimmer may have been on that team he was or if he didn't he got there in 63 and they had these guys like Chuchu Coleman and pumpy green who if nothing else these kinds of players had great names yeah I saw that vinegar Ben miselle was on that team right I mean it's just like I think people got chosen just for their names on that team Coleman yeah Marv throneberry yeah yeah yeah Mar throneberry you know Marv throneberry uh was he he he could hit but he wasn't the brightest guy in the world and um made a lot of errors and stuff when he turned uh I I I was at a game where he missed first base several times when he was rounding the bases got called out on a PE I mean it's bad enough to do it once but multiple times in a game when Casey stangle turned 75 they brought out a big birthday cake for him you know and uh after the game um uh throneberry said skip how I didn't get a birthday cake on my birthday and stangle said yeah because you drop it so they were they were but they were fun in that way I mean they were fun they were you know lovable losers they were lovable and then of course when they won the World Series it was the the Miracle Mets it was the most incredible thing uh we should talk about that later but um but these white socks they're not lovable uh and um you know they have I mean it's it's painful it's been a painful painful season I will tell you it's the first time in all my years as a season's ticket holder for any team where the team offered you a 10% discount for The Following season right you know it's been a bad year when when that's the case yeah yeah but I mean I really hope they come out of it quickly because um uh the city deserves better I think Jerry deserves better and um I'm just hoping that uh I'm hoping for better things in the in the coming years yeah so you mentioned growing up in New York you were born I think as the Giants and Dodgers were just about to leave they yeah I was born and they they left I mean I was not aware right were you did you come from a Giants or Dodgers family yeah so my father was an immigrant from East Eastern Europe and I think he he arrived in the Bronx and I think that he learned how to play baseball before he learned English and he played uh with Hank Greenberg and uh some of the great old players of that day and he became an all City pitcher and actually got a college scholarship to Liu to pitch but he was a Giants fan he he hated the Yankees and like you would in New York you you know you choose your team and then you hate the others um I remember in the 60s he called them the portrait of corporate privilege which was really you know an advanced uh you know you can certainly append that to them now right but um uh but he was a Giants fan and then we became Mets fans uh but because he was a Giants fan and because I love baseball Willie Mays was my favorite player of all time and I have so many memories of going to see Willie at first at the polo grounds and then at Shay and then sadly at the end of his career when they brought him up when he just really wasn't right he wasn't equipped you know to be who people expect but absolutely the greatest player I ever saw I got to tell you a story about this when I was in the white house uh Ernie Banks came by and I had an autograph ball from Willie Mays in my office at the White House and he came in and Willie's signature is almost it's completely unrecognizable unless you knew him and he comes in sees Bo says Ah Willie May is the greatest of all time and I said Ernie I I was trying to be polite and I said Ernie I bet you there are people who say that about you and he was like he just B swatted that away he said listen he said I wasn't even in his League he said when he when Willie was on the field every other player uh was excited to see what he would do that day you know he was just in a Class by Himself but anyway yeah I dig that respect from other Hall of Famers I mean that that it says a yeah absolutely my grandfather uh grew up in Coney Island and was a Brooklyn Dodgers fan and The Story Goes that he was watching the famous Bobby Thompson yeah game holding my dad who was an infant at the time and was so upset when that shot around the world was hit that he threw my dad to the ground and so we pretty much blame that for all of his he th he became a journalist right that serious head injury so I did a podcast so the first a files podcast I'm coming up on my 600th episode but the first one was with Bernie Sanders and I asked him about growing up in Brooklyn and I said where you you were a Dodgers fan he said absolutely I was a Dodgers fan and I said um you must have been pretty upset when they left he said there were three names you could not mention in my household there was Hitler there was Stalin and there was Walter omal and he says I'm not even going to tell you which order which order right that's great um all right so moving on to the late 60s uh you mentioned the Miracle Mets in 69 I know before that you were you know a teenager that was excited about RFK yes um I'm I'm doing a book now on the first Special Olympics which took place in Chicago in 1968 I'd love to talk to you about that I know a lot about that okay I have a child who participates in the Special Olympics to this day my daughter Lauren has special needs and she's a proud special Olympian if those gold medals they gave out were actually gold uh we could melt them down and we'd be the wealth we'd be wealthier than Elon Musk but um uh just been but I knew uh I I'm obviously friend I'm friend not obviously I'm friendly with the Shrivers okay but also this wonderful woman uh an Burke in Chicago and I got some great stories about that so oh I'd love to talk to you about that I've been up to Chicago to to meet an um one of the nicest people you'll ever meet one of the greatest people you'll ever meet and so in working on that book and just thinking about the context in which it took place you know 1968 such a tumultuous year so much uh violence and um assassinations protests a lot going on in society and yet at around the same time year later 69 your team is having the season of a lifetime like what was it like to be a sports fan at that time did it seem like irrelevant to what was going it was a great escape I mean you know I mean that's the great thing about sports it's something you can feel passionately about and no one dies you know uh and you know and um but I'll tell you something I mean and I shouldn't give this away perhaps because maybe there's another documentarian out there who will steal this idea but it is my hope to do this project uh because there were two parallel stories in 1969 in the series in the city of New York and I'll get to the other teams the Knicks and the Jets as well because it was like the trifecta in that oneyear period but um but uh in the 60s we already covered the fact that the Mets were abysmal for the first till you know until later in the decade but uh in New York elected a mayor in 1965 named John Lindsay John Lindsay was a liberal Republican who defeated the Tam Hall machine if you want to know what a liberal Republican is for our listeners go to a like a museum of natural history and they usually have one stuffed and on display but got extinct huh but Republican politics changed radically in the in the late 60s after the passage of the Civil Rights Acts and there was a real backlash to those by the time Lindsay ran for reelection in 1969 he was actually defeated in the Republican PR primary but was still a candidate on the Liberal Party Line in New York um his some AIDS in his office had this notion that he should start going to Mets games because something was happening and he should be associated with what was happening and so he'd go to games he wasn't really a baseball fan and he would get impatient and he'd want to leave no we're going to stay so on but he became it became known that he was going to the Mets games I think and I I'm asserting this but I think it's true that the next day in the I think the daily news but one of the papers there was a after they won the World Series there was a picture of Lindsay in the clubhouse and the players pouring champagne over his head John Lindsay won a three-way race on the Liberal Party Line in 1969 and this wasn't the only reason but it was one of the reasons that the city was so swept up in Euphoria about the N Mets that a lot of other pain and a lot of other concerns faded away and I think that he was part partly swept Along by that and his association with the Mets was meaningful wow that's that's really fascinating um thinking about that game when they win the World Series yeah uh Cleon Jones makes the catch the game's over game five um I'm a Milwaukee Brewers fan I was 12 years old the one and only time they went to the World Series I remember crying when Gorman Thomas struck out against Bruce suder to end the game seven like where were you uh when the Mets won the World Series what what was the story at your house watching on I was watching on TV and uh yeah it was like unbelievable I mean i' had gone to a bunch of games during the year and I went to I guess a playoff game I that was the first year of the playoff the division yes it was yes and um and uh so you know I I was really emotionally invested in this and it was it felt like a miracle uh I mean first of all the way they won the series they had the greatest young pitching staff and but they were also just fun they were like you know one of the reasons I wanted to do this documentary is um in a way um it was uh maybe the end of an era of Innocence but they were just a bunch of kids playing baseball and uh you know Tom sver and who was I think one of the absolute greatest pitchers of all time but you know they had a whole bunch Jerry Ryan on thatan Ryan was a you know a spare part in the b in the pen uh but um you know they just there was this sense of joy around that team that uh was just completely enchanting and I always remember them appearing on The Ed Sullivan show after they won the World Series and they were they sang you got to have heart from Damn Yankees which was all about miracles and uh it was just a really joyful thing and then you know I was also a huge basketball fan the Knicks won the title The the first the Jets win another miraculous the Super Bowl in' 69 and then in SE in 70 the Mets the the Knicks went so that was happening within it was like you know it was I was in sports Heaven during that period of time and the world was completely messed up and I was very consumed by that on the one hand on the other hand I was living a dream to see all my teams none of whom were complet were particularly good for a lot of my childhood all of a sudden New York was the sports Mecca of the world which New Yorkers always believe but right but it actually was at that time well uh Bill Bradley's book was a sense of where you are that's one of my favorite sports books of fantastic fantastic I you know I I've gotten to know him and I did a couple of podcasts uh with him and to hear him sort of talk about basketball and you know he said I talked to him during his about his he has there's a new uh documentary like a onean show Bill Bradley talking about his life seems It's engaging but he says in the doc and he said on my podcast like that was the greatest experience of his life to be part of that team there is something and I feel this way about a great campaign you know one my Obama campaigns to be a part of something where you work communally toward a great goal where everybody counts and you're relying on your teammate and you You're great because all the parts are great you know Phil Jackson used to tell the Bulls that he used to share this old Native American uh saying which is the strength of the wolf is the pack and the strength of the pack is the wolf and uh so Bill Bradley really understood that those Nicks teams understood that as the great Bulls teams did of course Phil Jackson was on the Knicks teams um that uh it's all about how you play together it's like a great band you may be a bunch of great musicians but if you don't play together it's not good music if you play together it can be great so would you say that some of your uh ability as a campaign strategist would do you credit any of it to sports like watching these teams or did you play on team to have great coaches yourself I I would I wouldn't say I had great coaches and I wouldn't say that I was a great player uh but I was a great student of great players and great coaches is and later on I I did a piece uh for the New Yorker about the 2016 Cubs and I spent a lot of time with Joe Madden when he managed those teams and you know his philosophy of leadership and creating Community was um really um really meant something to me I mean obviously I did the Obama campaigns before that um but I'm influenced by you know John Wooden by uh Bill Walsh and the way he built something great in San Francisco and their philosophies um I think there is a you know uh Jimmy bresin once said that Sports political writing is the first cousin of sports writing um political campaigns are the first cousin of uh Sports campaigns okay and I think success you can learn a lot from watching uh how great teams succeed uh when you're building campaigns um you've written about uh losing your father uh to suicide and when I think about my relationship uh with my grandfather with my dad probably 80 90% of our conversations are about the Brewers or Packers like how much was Sports a part of your relationship with your dad and how did your relationship with sports change after you lost him that's such a great question um I um uh we were my parents split up when I was young and I spent all my weekends with my dad um and uh we had two teams in New York the Mets and the Yankees and unless it was raining we spent every weekend at the ballparks and um you know now I have sons and grandchildren and um we have the same relationships you do as I as I did I mean we talk about a lot of things but we always end up talking about sports and when I go to a ball game with my sons I kind of feel my dad sitting there uh it's like it's a thing that connects us uh and it's really important to me and now I'm breaking in my grandkids and so to have my grandkids taking my grandkids to ball games they're still very young they you know they like the spectacle more than the the uh uh the spectacle more than the uh they understand the event although they pay attention um so it's it's really really important and um yeah it's it's it was a huge bond between my dad and me I told you you know baseball to him was so fundamental and um uh but the great thing about baseball you know my wife Susan she we met on a b we playing co-ed basketball ask you about that yeah did you impress her with a Euro Step or some sort well I was basically I had a pretty my game was fairly onedimensional but it was pretty effective which I had a very weird shot but I could shoot it from very long distances and uh on the other she is the other on the other hand was a great athlete and um she was just live and you know fun to watch out there and she was smart knew how to play the game it's one of the reasons why by the way I really like women's basketball I'm a Seasons ticket holder of the Chicago sky and I and I love watching Kate Caitlyn Clark who I think is one of the great players that I've ever seen honestly uh but the women because they can't overpower each other uh really play the game the way the game is supposed to be played and I really enjoy but anyway yeah so I I digress again um but um Susan hates baseball because she says it's too slow and that's not an uncommon complaint and I always say to her you know you go to a a basketball game a hockey game a football game when you go to a baseball game say I'm going to the ballpark there's something more than just the game it's sitting outside with someone you love and just sharing an afternoon and the game is I I love the game and I pay attention to the game but I also appreciate the the moments in between now I think speeding up the game was a smart thing for baseball to do but there's something magical about just being at the Ballpark and I try and get there as much as I possibly can still we have a goal with our kids who are now 13 and 11 to get them to every Major League Stadium by the time they're out of the house so as a family we've been to 22 stadiums now wow that's great it's been like you say though we try to get there as soon as the gates open Watch batting practice experience the whole stadium it's a great way to see the country but it has been definitely passing down that's a gift not only now but that'll be a gift that because this is like it is something you hand off to your kids and uh yeah I'm grateful to my dad for uh the time we spent together and the time we spent together at the Ballpark so you have Cubs White Socks bulls and Sky season tickets right I I I have Bulls Cubs White txon Sky yes but the only ones I don't I don't I'm not a hockey fan because my dad wasn't a hockey fan so I rarely go to a Blackhawks game uh I do go to Bears games but I usually uh kind of you know scam off friends because they're yeah as aack going to be great this year by the way the Bears are on the cusp of becoming something really really great this kid Caleb Williams is the real deal I've only I I was at the last preseason game where he played and there were just a couple of plays where you saw wow this guy is going to be something special I get it right like once out of every 39 quarterbacks I feel like exactly yes yes no I think he's the next Sid Luckman okay so speaking of the Bulls uhhuh uh you had a magic yeah uh front row seat to watching one of the alltime dynasties and one of the alltime icons of the game and of course I'm talking about will Purdue yes Vanderbilt alone we are so grateful to the commodor for making will Purdue available to us yes he was an integral part of our great teams he's still an announcer up there I was at a game last year he was judging the halftime Dunk Contest um you I see him broadcasting and he's and I I guess I didn't pay enough attention to how he gestures a lot and he's got enormous hands it reminded me of what Ray Meyer once said about Mark aguire they said well how does he have such control of the ball and Ray Meer said he's got hands like toilet seats and uh same as he's got like hands that are so enormous you used to go games um did you you went to the depal games when I was when I you know eventually I had kids and I had to make some sacrifices to the realities of life but also depal became was a great team when I was a a kid reporter in the 70s and I had the money to buy a bunch of season tickets when they still were affordable yeah and uh so the mark aguire teams yeah I I watched depal yeah those are great teams Terry Cummings was I was a fan of him as a Bucs Fan yeah um all right so back to the actually Michael Jordan was maybe a little bit better than will Purdue but both key cogs on those teams I would think Michael would say he learned a lot from W okay um one political type of question for you so Jordan criticized especially in retrospect that here he is best player in the game and didn't really speak out do do you feel like athletes especially extremely high-profile athletes like that have any obligation to speak out on issues or is that not an obligation that any individual person has I think they have an obligation to um contribute to um Society to contribute to communities in whatever way they seem they deem possible you know what happened with Michael was Harvey Gant was running for the senate in North Carol Olina mhm um you know he would have been the first African-American senator since uh well Ed Brook but one of the first since reconstruction and uh he was running against Jesse Helms and so people were like how could you not take a position on this and you know Michael ascribed to him I don't know if it's true or not you know said you know even Republicans wear shoes but I guess what I say is um I never went to B I never went to watch Michael Jordan play because of his political views uh I went to watch him play because he was the greatest player of all time and I was privileged to watch him play because he was the greatest player of all time and um uh you know I don't think he was under obligation to be the political figure I wanted or in any you know and I wasn't I that wasn't you know so I used to tell my friends when they'd bring that up listen I'm that's not why I root for Michael Jordan and you know I'm not going to root against him because of it either that was I used to take my boys to those games you know and I would say guys they were young and say guys you should pay attention CU this is the Babe Ruth of basketball there'll never be another one like him and I think they look back at and they realized that but then it was just like his extraordinary extraordinary play seemed ordinary it's like of course we're going to win Michael's on the court you know of course we're going to be playing in June they wouldn't make plans in June you know they didn't want to go to camps in June because well we'll miss the playoffs it's like you know it's not guaranteed that dad you know Michael's going to get us there uh so um but I you know listen I admire LeBron for not just for the stances that he takes so most of which I am in accord with but uh more than that for what he's meant to his hometown in Ohio acan and uh you know and I think Michael actually has done a lot that doesn't get publicized in terms of philanthropy uh and I kind of admire him for that for not having it publicized that's right uh so there are all kinds of ways uh I'm doing a podcast I hope in September with dear D roen who just left the Bulls uh who's doing a lot on Mental Health he's had struggles with depression and it's really helpful when people who are prominent are willing to talk about that and you know this is a big issue in my life because my dad did uh die by Suicide and so I talk a lot about that and about depression so athletes can if they want to be a real Force because they are celebrities and they have a platform and they can use the platform that way but they're not under obligation to and I don't think Michael was under obligation to um you know like I said I think it's good to contribute back by the way I ran into at the convention uh Joe Keem Noah oh yeah who was a great great side of the commodor when he I know he was I know he was mostly everybody who played against him hated him because he played with such ferocity uh everybody who was on his side loved the joy of him but more than that U he started antiviolence programs in Chicago including this peace tournament every um every summer and he has gang members come from different gangs and they are assorted randomly on teams and um it's it's really a great excise but he have he has art and M an art and sports program that his mother uh helped develop with him that he still runs in Chicago doesn't live there anymore but he's kept that up and you know I'm just so proud of him uh for the the leadership he's provided so it's good when athletes make their make that that kind of an impact and more of them do than don't but that's not why you should root for an athlete you should root for an athlete because they're great at what they do and and they they entertain us and they thrill us and so um I try and take a light sure touch on it yeah no I'm really interested in that topic I have a series of books for little kids like first second and third graders called beyond the game yeah about athletes that do step up and do something Beyond so LeBron and what he's done in acran is a subject of one Maya Moore who worked free Jonathan irons um doing one on a Native American woman now that raises awareness of murdered and missing indigenous women so maybe Joe Kim Noah could be the next he's worthy he's worthy of it yeah um so you just you're arriving in Nashville after having been at the Democratic Convention in Chicago um Tim Walls a lot made of him being a former High School football coach although Trump was quick to say he was only an assistant coach yeah right which he riled up uh thousands of assistant coaches around the country by saying that well everybody on that team seems to credit him with being the spirit behind the team I guess he was the linebacker coach but if you were uh ad a campaign and there was a I what does it mean to be a high school coach it seems like that's something that so many people can relate to you know in their town and yeah um listen if I were if I were the campaign I'd be sending him every weekend I'd I'd have them at a at a high school football game on Friday night I'd have them do color on a college game on Saturday yeah it's so you know the great thing about sports is we can have really really deep differences about politics and find kinship around Sports and in that sense I think Sports reminds us that there actually are other things than politics that unite us as human beings you know as Americans uh Sports is one of those things so I think that that is a great asset that they should make use of uh so debate's coming up soon um the day before my sister got married my future brother-in-law had um his b party which was to play paintball and someone shot him in the forehead and so at his wedding he had a giant welt on his face and I was reading a story that the day of a presidential debate you almost caused an injury to President Obama that was bad yeah we were in Philadelphia it was a primary debate actually but an important one it was in the fall of 2007 and uh we always used to play pickup ball before uh debates just to get him loose and you know uh it was a tension relaxer and um somehow on a switch I ended up covering him uh which U was a bit of a mismatch we are not um of what in what way well in the way that he's slim and live and quick and I'm a little bit on the heavier Set Side slow footed and so on uh so uh he did what he sensibly should have and he tried to slash right by me and I did what I do instinctively and I raked him across the nose as he passed and um oh and he went down and there were Secret Service guys there they run over there I thought they were going to taser me uh and I was so after a while he uh you know he got he said axe you you almost you almost broke my nose on the day of a big debate and I that I not only did not only I me my first concern was worry for him and my second was I kind of saw my career Flash before my eyes right there I don't think it's ever been done before and I hope no one ever tries that again well that's a great story to end on David thank you for taking the time to do this we're really excited you're here at Vanderbilt to talk about uh maybe some more important topics but no more interesting topics tonight listen you I could talk for hours with you on on this particular topic Sports has been such such an such a for reasons I hope are clear such an important part of my life and so many people's lives so um happy to happy to sit with you all right thank you so much take care [Music]