Crime in Sports - #215 - The Cocaine Hall Of Fame - The Quotableness of Micheal "Sugar" Ray Richardson

Episode Date: July 7, 2020

This week, we travel back in time for a super swingin', cocaine snortin', late 70's/early 80's good time! He overcame some odds with his immense talent, but hit a major stumbling block with drugs. He partook in everything the New York lifestyle had to offer. He had all the women, partied at Studio 54 & Plato's Retreat, and snorted millions of dollars up his nose. Did he ever come out the other side, or did the whole thing end in tragedy? Either way, he has some of the most hilarious quotes in history. This is a fun one!! Achieve the dream of making a better life for your family, discover the glory of freebasing cocaine, and throw away a potential hall of fame career with Micheal "Sugar" Ray Richardson!! (yes, that's how he spells it) Check us out, every Tuesday! We will continue to bring you the biggest idiots in sports history!! Hosted by James Pietragallo & Jimmie Whisman Donate at... patreon.com/crimeinsports or with paypal.com using our email: [e-mail] Get all the CIS & STM merch at crimeinsports.threadless.com Go to shutupandgivememurder.com for all things CIS & STM!! Contact us on... twitter.com/[e-mail]/Crimeinsportsinstagram.com/smalltownmurder#  See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hey Prime members, you can listen to Crime and Sports early and ad-free on Amazon Music. Download the app today. Discover all the best in audiobooks, podcasts, and originals featuring authentic Canadian voices and celebrity talent, like Brendan Fraser and Luke Kirby's latest sci-fi adventure, The Downloaded. A first listen is waiting for you when you start your free trial at audible.ca. on the Mr. Ballin Podcast, now available wherever you get your podcasts, you'll hear strange, dark, and mysterious stories about inexplicable encounters, shocking disappearances, true crime cases, and everything in between. So go listen to Mr. Ballin Podcast, Strange, Dark, and Mysterious Stories on Amazon Music or wherever you get your podcasts. Hello and welcome to Crime and Sports. Yay! Yay indeed, Jimmy. Yay indeed.

Thank you guys so much for joining us. My name is James Petragallo. I'm here with my co-host. I'm Jimmy Wissman. I'm telling you, if this is your first week of Crime and Sports, and we've had a lot of new small-town murder listeners have jumped on. That's nice. Something caught their attention.

Thank you. I think it was the Bernard Below story. There was so much of you guys talking about it on social media that people were like, all right, I'm finally going to try it and they've all liked it weird we only told you for three goddamn years to give it a shot but hey what are you going to do thank you for joining us though and if this is your first or second episode holy shit are you in for a treat because there's one thing that you're going to know about crime and sports if we take a week off because i think this year will probably be our only week off the one we just took and maybe

christmas if we take a week off that means the one this year will probably be our only week off, the one we just took and maybe Christmas. If we take a week off, that means the one that you're going to get when we come back is extra crazy. You get like an extra large insane edition. So, you know, to buckle up for that. And wow, do we have a crazy one for you? It's a 70s slash 80s, you know, basketball player who loved to free base. So that tells you a lot right there. It's going to be fun.

Put it that way. Going to have some good quotes. Very, very Sly Williams type of situation. Very Bernard King situation. Matter of fact, he was traded for Bernard King at one point. So he's on a parallel with Bernard King. And if you remember that episode, you know that this is going to be a treat. Trade a crackhead for crackhead?

Pretty much, yeah. That's just one crackhead. We just scored a little better. That's all. Bernard was a little better score but that's all right i hope you enjoyed the last few episodes if you have i hope you have gone to apple podcast that purple icon and given us five stars it helps a lot we don't have any idea why it's a thing it's not our platform no it's just that helps drive you up the charts we don't know why so do that give us five stars doesn't matter what you say you can say you're following instructions or following directions or whatever the hell you want to do it helps though thank you head over to shut up and give

me murder.com for everything crime and sports and small town murder related right and if you're not listening to small town murder you're you're seriously missing out start any of the last few weeks and you'll go back to the catalog very quickly because they've been insane. Check that out and do all of that stuff. You can get your merchandise, get your tickets to live shows, which, I mean,

we're rescheduling them for, you know, the ones that were... Yeah, we're having arguments and discussions. Oh, yeah. They're rescheduling them so if you buy tickets

to anything and it does get rescheduled, those tickets are still good so you'll have those tickets so if you want to go to a show, we don't know what date it'll be on. At some point in the future, go on there and buy a ticket and we'll uh we'll all roll the

dice together how do you say all right good deal if you so fucking annoying isn't it unreal uh also listen to ps i hate this movie on fridays because we make fun of bad romantic comedies uh also jesus christ i'm just that's the live shows are it's craziness it's craziness we want to do them too if you really bad you have no idea if you want to be a producer and a huge supporter of the show and have your name is mispronounced by jimmy at the end of the show and in addition to that get the access to all of our bonus material. And if you're either show you sign up for, it's all under one roof. So if you do the $5 thing,

you get crime and sports and small town murder bonus episodes. And there's a ton of them and they come out every week. This week we are going to do, because I've had a lot of people ask about books. People are constantly asking about books. So I'm going to do a bunch of talk about a bunch of like crazy sports kind of memoir books and uh do recommendations yes you do yeah you're gonna you're gonna discuss it with me and ask me questions and shit that's

how this works yeah that's our bonus episode they're not anything complicated they're about sports it's like sports like uh we can start with what are books what are what are books it's like an internet but with tree it's like an internet, but with trees. It's like the internet, but made of trees, I believe is how a family guy put it one time. Hilarious. You know, like the internet, but made of trees. So that's, yeah, it's pretty awesome, actually. I'm going to talk about some wild.

A lot of them are like, you know, exposes on shit. So we'll talk about that and give you guys some dirt to talk about. It kind of goes hand in hand with our episode this week. But you'll get access to all that stuff. That's patreon.com slash crime and sports. Or if you want to just be a nice person and have good karma and just want to donate some dollars without any of that, you can go over to PayPal and use our email address. Crime and sports at gmail.com. And you can do that.

That said, let's get into this shit because it's a deep and thick and fucking crazy one this is going to be an all-time classic i love i love when i'm when i'm half hour into research and i'm going this is an all-timer right here like that's when you know it's good there's been about 10 of those master jamis all right you know like when you're reading you know blood green and you're a half hour into it you're like oh this is going to be yeah they're going to want to hear this a couple of times good so let's talk about our man of the hour michael ray richardson michael richards poo no no no no that's poo no michael's real name michael ray richardson and michael by the way is m-i-c-h-e-a-l not a-e-l as normal spelling

yeah it's just wrong some people spell it like, but they misspell it like that because that's not how you spell Michael. Right, that's Michelle. That is not really. That's just nothing. No. That's Mike. It's Michael. Yeah, that's a different name.

Michael Ray Richardson, nickname of Sugar. Okay. It's Sugar Ray Richardson. What year was this? In the 70s, he gets this nickname. So, I mean, this is right around the time Sugar Ray Leonard was becoming a national star. And it was obviously Sugar Ray. A lot of sugars in this whole thing.

So he's so sweet, though. He can't help it, Jimmy. Of course. He's born April 11th, 1955 in Lubbock, Texas. And we'll let him give some quotes here. We have so many quotes from him. And they're all awesome and hilarious this is about growing up in lubbock this is about growing up his whole family and

this came out of a book i'll give you all the info at the end of it but it's called sugar it's like excess in the 80s and nba it's all about him and uh it's basically a kind of a biography of him but like with tons of it like almost an autobiography but written but in the third person it's really weird but it's not like a you know i did this and i did that someone else wrote the book and then just got all of his quotes on everything that's ever happened to him so it's very interesting he wrote it with a pen name he definitely didn't write it and we'll definitely not okay yeah that's that didn't happen so uh there's like a big there's a lot of historical shit this guy doesn't have the focus to where

to look up anything goes back to the 40s oh shit all right for some stuff but uh he's born in lubbock texas on april 11 55 he says that his father's name was billy jack richardson which is a tough sounding name yeah billy jack like the movie yeah the wrestler in the 80s he says since he was in the army throughout those early days he would come and go says when i was six he was gone for good his parents divorced and that was that and his mom apparently worked in like a hospital like a cafeteria in a hospital so you know not not a lot of money here sure and there's seven kids oh fuck yeah he's like in the middle of seven so it's it's you know it's tough going when dad leaves and it's not great he said it's almost as if you help the uh the uh the poor and the

downtrodden the people that don't have a lot of money uh get good access to to uh birth control you don't have these problems well yeah well the problem is no it's not even that sometimes because a lot of it could be the religion or you know because christians especially back then they wanted to have a lot of kids you know have as many as you could that was part of it and there's still religions now that do that i mean the mormons have as many fucking kids as they can regardless how much money they got that's the thing it's it's i mean that's i guess that's faith yeah i guess i'll make enough to take care of all these kids that's really showing them yeah yeah how much you believe but i mean the catholic church said that birth

control was a sin forever and there was italian and fucking irish families that were pumping kids out by the goddamn ton because they they weren't using birth control because they were listening to the church so that's probably that's possibly it right there you never know so uh he she says quote that's when my that's when luddy my mom decided to get us all out of lubbock a nowhere place that was all dirt roads and hot as hell he does not mince words no at all here love it should have that as their fucking town motto yep it's a nowhere place with all dirt roads and hot as hell on the sign welcome population fucking whatever center this way however many miserable people so he had two older brothers and three younger sisters that was still lived with the family here

and they ended up in denver oh yeah that's where the that's where mom takes him denver which is totally different from Texas. The scenery, the attitude. The climate. The climate. It's just a different place. And he said, quote, to get us a better life, she told us. He said that he was his mom's favorite.

Oh. And he's got personality, Michael. That's the thing. And being, I think he's the, yeah, he's the youngest boy. So a mother liking the youngest boy is her favorite kind of usual thing. It's universal. It's universal. So, yeah, she said that she was the sweetheart of his life, too.

She said that she always used to tell him, quote, I'm the mother and the daddy, too. And she said that she worked in a kitchen at Colorado General Hospital, always on her feet, and he said, quote, when she came home, I'd rub skin lotion onto her sore feet. Don't worry, Mama, I'd tell her. Someday I'm going to have lots of money. I'll buy you a house, and then your feet won't hurt anymore. So that's what he's saying. What a job.

You know what? Rubbing a 16-hour workday foot? That sounds terrible. That sounds terrible. But you know what? a 16 hour workday foot that sounds terrible that sounds terrible but you know what he's trying he's trying to be nice to his mom his dad left he's everybody says he's like the protector of the family even though he's like the youngest boy he's the one that's the most fiercely protective over everybody and things like that but he has a problem as a child and that is a serious stutter i mean he's got a really bad stutter and that's going to affect him his whole life and that's a that's a problem for him he says quote i also grew up with a serious speech impediment i pronounced lisp and stutter sometimes that's not great no sometimes it was impossible for anybody to understand what

i was trying to say. Because we moved into a black and Spanish section of Denver, the white kids had another reason to tease me and sometimes beat me up. God damn it. I tried getting back at them by laughing at this guy's big nose or that guy's bad skin. But what I was supposed to do was shuffle around and act like a darky. So making fun of them only brought more abuse my way. Yeah, he said they wanted him to be, you know, what they wanted him to be. And he's like, well, fuck you then.

He's got a lisp and a stutter. He can't even say stutter. Well, fuck you is what he said. And then they, yeah, and they stuttered punches off of his head, which isn't great at all. God damn it. And this will come in later on, as we'll talk about when he plays. He's got a certain chip on his shoulder for certain players. He has the best line I've ever heard about another human being.

We'll get to it. About Isaiah Thomas later on. Because everyone hates Isaiah Thomas. And wow, does he have the greatest fucking line I've ever heard in my life. I've never heard it said before, and it's wonderful. And I'm going to urge people to use it from now on. heard it said before yeah and it's wonderful and i'm going to urge people to use it from now on so he uh the mother ends up being very overprotective of him too because of his stutter and shit like that so that's a difficult thing and i found out from this book here that uh

basically 10 of preschool children stutter and 90 of them stop stop by the age of 12 right and basically it's like one percent of adult people who have a persistent stutter like that so that's a very small group did fine they said though uh george washington was a stutter really and thomas jefferson was a stutter really absolutely isaac newton was a stutter they said darwin was a stutter teddy roosevelt was a stutter which might talk teddy roosevelt was like a he has this image is like this outdoors guy, but he was like a sickly rich kid. Really? Yeah, he was a sickly rich kid that couldn't do shit when he was a kid because he was like this this fucking, you know, hemophiliac fucking spectacle wearing rich kid.

Yeah, that that's all an image that he made himself by big stick guy. Yeah, because he wanted he wanted to be the big guy but so he went out and did a lot of crazy shit and went and did a lot of outdoor shit to to show that he wasn't that but that's all that came from all that crazy attitude and racism and all sorts of shit came from fucking being a frail kid that couldn't do shit and fdr was in a wheelchair right fdr yeah he was in a wheelchair. So both Roosevelts were fucked up. Yeah, they were both fucked up. Jesus. Lenin, also, the Russian leader there, and also the king of France from 877 to 879 AD.

I'm trying to get this out, but I think I do today. Was named Louis the Stammerer. No kidding. So, yeah, I guess there was that there. So he was very much into basketball from a young age wasn't a you know didn't come up like kind of running the streets that wasn't his thing at all like he was into his family he'd have to take care of his sisters and he had his mom there and he was playing basketball not that great in school he's shy he has a stutter

Not that great in school. He's shy. He has a stutter. None of that is great. Basically, his sister, Anita, became kind of his translator, his mouthpiece, basically. He speaks English. Yeah. And he's got a translator. But if he wanted to relay something to somebody, he would have Anita say, hey, my brother says blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

It would just be easier than it would take him 10 minutes to get it all out. So that is how he met what will turn into his first wife in high school as well. Renee is through his sister, his sister. He said, I like her and blah, blah, blah. Would you like, you know, and he said, Oh, my brother likes you and kind of hooked him up in high school. That's okay. Given the circumstances he's got anyway, add in a little bit of stress of being able to talk to a girl for the first time. He's getting those words no no it's gonna be brutal she's just gonna be staring at him going what now that's his pants before she says yes lunch is over the bell rang i didn't even get my food yet so i'm gonna go now we sat here all night my parents

are gonna worry where i am and we are not making fun of stutters by the way at all that's a fucking that's an affliction i feel bad for anybody who's got to deal with that so uh yeah not at all making fun of that but he makes fun of his own self a lot this is why we're kind of there uh now he was always looking for a father figure always constantly in hunt of a father figure he finds his first father figure was the principal of his elementary school oh Oh, no. Which is anybody he could find, basically. Coaches all become... He tries to latch on to coaches, his father figures, and then he's disappointed in them when they don't reciprocate this to love kind of a thing.

When there's so many other kids to sprinkle that love on. Yeah, that's what I mean. So he'll have that problem a lot, too. And now this guy, or Michael, says, quote, he was the one who encouraged me and helped me to discover that playing basketball was the only way i could truly express myself he had problems you know expressing himself no so uh he ended up at manual high school in denver

which they said was totally well like 100 black school high school he was uh made the varsity team as a freshman which is uh obviously a really that's an accomplishment if you're 14 and you're playing against kids that are 18 they think that you can do that he says quote i didn't play much at first but while most of the kids were running around smoking reefer and drinking mad dog 2020 those were the days which was the cheapest wine they could get their hands on i was a good kid and totally focused on basketball so that's all he was looking at it like an opportunity like hey everyone else is trying as hard as me so i'll try hard and basketball he has no problem with basketball he's one of these guys that uh one of the books we'll talk about in the bonus episode is one called

ball four it's a book written by jim bouton it's about the 1969 season where he was like coming back with a knuckleball playing for an expansion team and it's like one of the first exposes of baseball where he talks about locker room shit and like beaver shooting he'll tell you all about that in the bonus episode but it's not beavers though is it no it's

it's all the locker room shit that no one had ever even heard about before and knew anything about. And he just exposed it all. And baseball was pissed at him for this fucking book. Super pissed. But he talks about in the book that he's not that great of a baseball player. He's like, I have to try really hard and whatever to be a great baseball player.

He goes, some of the guys are just instinctually great. They can't even tell you why they're good. He's like, Mickey Mantle and Willie Mays, unbelievable. They're just instinctually the they don't even they can't even tell you why they're good he's like mickey mantle and willie mays unbelievable they're just instinctually the best players and he said they don't even if you said well how do you hit they'd be like i don't know just fucking swing the bat they don't even know why they're just good at it he was talking about yogi barra once in a batting cage he was in a batting cage with yogi barra in the 50s when he was playing with him and yogi always he was a great hitter. And he was this little fat fucking, you know, guinea catcher. And he's raking.

And the guys are like, how the fuck do you do this? And he said he spent 10 minutes trying to explain, like, your wrists and your legs and your hips. And then finally he goes, ah, to hell with it. Just watch me do it. And that's how you do it. Like, he couldn't explain it because he just knew how to do it. Because he's Yogi Berra.

That's one of the things. Just instinctual. So it's one of those things. That's the type of player he is. he works really hard too and if you get a guy who's instinctual like that and they want to put the work in they're gonna be fucking awesome yeah that's when you get michael jordan that's when you get you know larry bird and guys like that so uh anyway he says that uh he's focused on basketball they said he would even he would even when it would snow he would shovel all the snow off the courts

outside so he could practice, which we did that when I was a teenager, too, in New York. I guess, I mean, if you got to, you got to. Yeah, otherwise you're going to play ball for a long time. It's going to be two months here where we're not playing ball. It's been snowing. Fucking Colorado, forget it. Yeah, there's always snow on the ground. I have no idea when it's going to snow, either.

It might snow constantly. He said he used to dream about playing in the nba oh my god yeah just attack chair just attacked me that's good jesus christ that was bananas wow i just jumped up my ass that chair my own chair just tried to try to eat me what the hell just happened a new fucking chair here so he said quote one night i had to wake everybody up to tell them that i just dreamt that I dunked over Julius Irving. I'm sure his mother working 16 hour shifts was thrilled to be woken up in the middle of the night to hear her son dreamed that he dunked on Julius Irving. And an excitable stutterer.

Yeah. To try to tell you that. So she woke him. He woke her up about 330. And then he was done telling her about 415. And she finally got back to sleep. He could have. He could have been in 10th grade and really dunked over Julia Serving, and I don't think she would have said, don't wake me up. Wait till tomorrow.

You can tell me in the morning. I don't need to know that shit. Fuck, man. So he's a great senior year, and he was doing really well. People started to notice him just you know because of his stats and he said all of a sudden i was a hero and the same people who tortured me now wanted to kiss my ass he said he even had girls that all wanted him even though he was sutter and everything else he's six five yeah he's a handsome now it's cute to him yeah well he's six five and

he's handsome and he's dunking on people and and you're like, well, I don't care what the fuck he says. Right. You know, that was pretty cool. Right. You know, in high school, that's just cool. So he only received one scholarship offer. Really? Yep, and he had to, it wasn't even really, they didn't really offer it to him. He had to.

He had to apply? Not apply, but we'll find out here. It was at the University of Montana, and their coach at the time judd heath coach heath coat was his name he basically he was trying to get a point guard on the team and uh he said that uh you know they were looking at him and one of the one of the coaches said quote the kid had a lot of family problems so he decided to go to a school that was closer to home looking at a different kid so they still had an opening on the team. They were looking at Richardson here a little bit. They found out he had one problem as a teenager with the law,

but it was not his fault at all. No, he was mistaken identity. A friend of his was stopped for traffic violation, and he didn't have his driver's license on him. So he gave his name as Michael Ray Richardson, which is a common thing that people do back in the day especially before the license photo would come up on their computer and he probably knew that his buddy didn't have anything uh outstanding no he just gave him his name if

you're the general weight and race of the person and they say of six four you know black male that sounds about right now it looks right you'd say all right uh so the friend never came to court he didn't show up so the police showed up at his house and were like uh hey you didn't go to court and then it turned out to be that the officer said that's not the guy i pulled over and that was that so right he ended up uh you know not getting in trouble but that's the only even hint of trouble and he used to get in trouble uh for sneaking out of church to play basketball on sunday mornings too thank God that cop was honest. Yeah, yeah.

He could have been like, yep, that's the guy. Oh, that's a dickhead cop? Jesus. No, that's not the guy. Missed him. A cop that doesn't want to feel like an asshole for getting the wrong guy? Exactly. So apparently then they were obviously trying to find the other guy.

So at this point, too, pretty soon here, he's getting serious with his high school sweetheart, Renee. Serious. Serious. Serious. So he says, quote, out of nowhere, this is the coach of Montana. Out of nowhere, I got a phone call from a guy who says, hi, I'm Michael Ray Richardson. Okay. He told me that he knew the guard I wanted had gone elsewhere and that he was a friend of so-and-so and that he heard Missoula was a nice place so he'd like to come up here no he didn't in here it's a nice place he's like i don't have any scholarship offers i know they have an opening i heard you have a scholarship you need yeah

you missed that one guy missoula sounds great great so heathcote said uh so i called my assistant coach jim bradenberg and asked who the hell michael ray richardson was and he said he's a 6-3 forward for Manuel High School in Denver. And I said, I'm not looking for any 6'3 forwards. And he says, well, maybe he can play guard. I don't know. He turns out to be like kind of a one-and-a-half. He's like a point guard that scores a lot there.

But this is also the point where they're giving out everything to players. This is the really bad times. Like the late in the mid seventies. This is before there was really any focus on, this is before the SMU scandal in the eighties and all that. This is when colleges were just fucking given suitcases full of cash and cars and houses and everything to players. Like it was a,

it was just free agency basically. So that's kind of a, that's kind of in there. And so they didn't know if they were going to have to pay this guy or what, so they were worried about that. And they snuck in to see him play pickup games back in Denver. That's what the coaches did. And Heathcote said to his assistant,

My God, he's got some quick hands. Let's give him a scholarship. And that was that. Done deal. Yeah, that was it. No house, no car, no suitcase. Let's give him a scholarship. And that was that. Done deal. Yeah, that was it. No house, no car, no... Let's give him a scholarship. Yeah, and he took it.

Yeah, think about how easy... You could never nowadays call a college and be like, hey, coach, how you doing? I'm Michael Ray Richardson. I'm a good player. And then they'd come watch you and be like, let's just throw a scholarship at him. They've had to study you since you're fucking four now

to give you a scholarship. And good luck getting a hold of that coach. Yeah's not gonna answer the goddamn phone he just called him but now he's in montana and i don't know if uh if you're aware of this if you live outside the u.s montana and a uh and a black neighborhood in denver are way different there is not a black neighborhood in montana no entire state the whole state's a white neighborhood a very large one it's it's a very large state with a very small white neighborhood it's not even a white neighborhood there isn't there's really just nothing there so if you're from kind of more of an urban area this is fucking culture shock and a half this is cold lubbock that's what it is cold lubbock yeah

nowhere middle of nowhere dirt roads and uh yeah he quote, living in Missoula was a shock, especially since I was the only black player on the team. Oh, my God. What? In the 70s? On a basketball team? Really? Wow.

Even Penn has a couple of black guys. You know what I mean? That explains why they suck. It's why they haven't been good. And he ends up being their all-time leading scorer. Shocking, isn't it? Hope they learn their lesson. Jesus Christ.

Next year, it's just 10 black guys. That's all it is. They're like, what the hell were we thinking? This is crazy. Get these fucking hicks out of here. 10 farm kids. They suck. People are dunking on them left and right.

What the fuck are we doing? We got 10 John Stockton. Yeah. The Stockton was good at least. Yeah, but he doesn't play center. farm kids they suck people are dunking on them left and right what the fuck are we doing we got 10 john stockton yeah the stockton was good at least he doesn't play center no they got 10 john concax is the problem probably just 10 concax running around nobody wants that jesus christ so uh he said quote but my mama had taught me to love people for what they were. So I learned to live with them and learned about who they were. My roommate was as country as cow pie. And so were most of my teammates. It took me about two months to make the adjustment.

This is fucking wild. This is so fun. Keg parties were the big deal on campus, and that was fine with me. Otherwise, I lived like a nerd. And I was so homesick that every other weekend i drove 1800 miles round trip to visit my family is it that fucking far it's 900 each way oh okay that makes sense yeah i was like wait 1800 miles that's a long that is a fucking long uh drive man so he's obviously homesick and the thing is i love this is what i love about this guy this guy is one

of the guys that i really like some of the guys you're like oh this guy sounds like a fucking asshole i wouldn't want to spend 10 minutes with this guy i want to hang out i just want to go around with this guy because he's fucking hilarious and he's fun he uh you know he's out of place as it is he feels so he grows a giant afro in his freshman year which i'm like fuck yeah good for you well if i'm out of place anyway check this out, motherfuckers. I love that attitude. And yeah, he does that.

His freshman year, he averages 7.5 points a game. He's a freshman, so they kind of work him into the system. And a freshman in college like that, too. They don't redshirt him or anything. He comes right in and plays. So just getting used to being away from home is hard enough. So, you know, not bad here. So the next year, though, he has a really good year. His sophomore year, he averages 18.2 points a game, almost six and a half rebounds.

So pretty decent. And Montana wins their first ever Big Sky Conference championship. Wow. And they get into the NCAA tournament. Really? Yeah, which wasn't 64 teams back then. It was 32 back then. And they reach the regional finals before they lose a close game to UCLA, which was John Wooden at the time.

And, you know, they won, like, I think, fucking nine out of 11 championships in a 12-year span or 11-year span or whatever. And so he says after that, though, there's a problem. He says, quote, his coach ends up leaving. Heathcote ends up having to go. And he says, I was very close to Heathcote. I came to him with all my troubles

and he was very supportive and helpful in many ways. Anyway, after my sophomore season, Heathcote left to take over at Michigan State where he'd be working with Magic Johnson. I was devastated.

Yeah, that's like national championship possibilities he said i was devastated don't go i pleaded you're like a father to me then i started crying my eyes out this is sad coach you can't leave me i don't have a father but there was nothing i could do jesus christ that's rough uh i thought you were saying that he left because he got fired i was like no doing that all that shit no no but he left because he got fired i was like no doing that all that shit no no but it's because he got a promote yeah they said holy shit he took this program he he figured out the formula don't have 10 white guys from the farm on your fucking team and have somebody who has unbelievable talent that we've got one come over here this talent look at talented person so he said that he was so dependent that he talked about transferring.

He's like, I'll transfer with you. And that the coach told him, quote, no, your place is here. And so Jim Bradenberg, the assistant, ended up succeeding Heathcote. And he said that he was very close to him, too. Michael was. He said, quote, I was so hungry for a father figure that almost any man who smiled at me and was nice to me would do. Jesus. That sounds like a different type of person in need of a father figure.

That sounds like a woman who's going over her life and saying, damn it, what was I thinking in my 20s? You look handsome. Yeah, that's a weird one. Jesus Christ. That's a bizarre statement from a man. It really is. So 1975 here, the sophomore year his coach is leaving there's some turmoil but he decides that he's gonna he's gonna lock something down and he decides to get

married so he marries his high school sweetheart here really during his sophomore season marries her so i don't know if that's a that's a little it's early they've met when they were 15 or something so that's a tough one here but uh he has a great junior season 19.2 points a game 8.6 rebounds fucking killing it doing really really well getting attention yeah uh bradenburg the head coach uh says quote uh michael was always a good kid a good practice player and a hard worker if we had featured him more he could have scored 30 or 40 points every game we knew we couldn't do that because our opponents would triple team him and he'd be totally out of the mix oh it seems like you'd they triple teamed him and the rest of the that's you should destroy four on two for the rest of the team i think that's a pretty good yeah that should be your

strategy if you don't get triple teams score and if you do give it to the guy who's standing all by himself that's a really good option as a team, I think, right? I think you just cracked the code and you're not even a coach. There we go. How did Brayden Berg not figure that out? Genius. Phil Jackson over here. Jesus Christ.

And he said that he started, this is when he started referring to himself as Sugar Ray Richardson because of Sugar Ray Robinson. Because at the time, Sugar Ray Leonard wasn't even a thing yet. So, yeah, this is when he starts doing that. So they were 20-9 in his last season here, so pretty good, pretty good. He says, let's see, his final season, his senior season, he's 24.2 points a game. My Christ. 6.9 rebounds. He's dishing assists all over the fucking floor.

Good Lord. He's crushing it. And it turns out to be Montana's all-time leading scorer. And yeah, he's doing well. He's having fun, too, in his senior season. By the way, he has a daughter around this time. I believe this is a daughter who will become a doctor later on. Wow.

One of his daughters becomes a doctor. Unbelievable. Tamara, I believe her name is. She becomes a doctor. I'm i believe her name is she becomes a doctor i'm like whoa holy shit not bad awesome yeah not bad good for you so he's away from his wife and newborn daughter are in denver yeah yeah so he's in missoula by himself and he says that he starts to have some fun yeah loosen up fuck yeah and you know he says adult no yeah and he says there's general managers scouts agents are crawling all over him.

And this is all new. All this attention. It's great. He loves it. Yeah. This is the fucking greatest. I did this. And this.

Oh, boy. This is his quote of this is his glory quote here. Quote, all of the agents. You know what? No, no, no. This isn't in their own words. Let's let's do this here. Let's do in their own words.

Quote, all of the agents use the same inducements, fixing us up with Hawaiian girls. Most of them were ugly bitches, but I was living in a fantasy world, so I fucked all comers. Ladies and gentlemen, Michael Ray Richardson. I was living in a fantasy world, so I fucked all comers. Ugly or not, I don't care. He said that to someone with a fucking tape recorder running. He was like, no, no, that's what I meant. Somebody penning a book.

He was like, yep, no, no, that's what I want you to write. I got something for you. Here's what you do. Put that in black and white. All right. The wait is over. So far, you're not losing. The only thing you're losing is my patience.

Quickly, I see that. Bing! The queen of the courtroom is back. I didn't do anything. You wouldn't know the truth if it came up and slapped you in the face. I see he's not intimidated by anything. I can fix that. New cases.

She wanted to fight me. Leave her. A long. She wanted to fight me. Leave her alone. Okay, so, um... This is not a so. This is a period. Classic Judy. Did you sleep with her? Yes, Your Honor. You married his cousin.

His brother. That's not him. Yes, ma'am. I would make a beeline for the door. The Emmy Award-winning series returns. How did I know that? I have a crystal ball in my head. It's an all-new season. It's streaming. You can say anything.

Judy Justice, only on Freebie. Taylor Swift is soaring high. Her every move captured in the news cycle and devoured by her devoted fans. She's broken billboard records and made Grammys history, not to mention becoming a billionaire in the process. But along the way, Taylor has had to wage war, first by taking on a very powerful, very famous manager, Scooter Braun, and then by going up against the biggest live events company, Ticketmaster. Hi, I'm David Brown, the host of Wondery's show, Business Wars. We go deep into some of the biggest corporate rivalries of all time. And in our latest season, Taylor Swift will shake up not only the

music business, but Hollywood and the NFL. Follow Business Wars wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen ad-free on the Amazon music or wondery app. That's fucking amazing. So, uh, yeah, he's, he's being highly touted and scouted here and you know,

he's, he's getting Hawaiian girls thrown at him from all over the place. Ugly ones too. Ugly ones, pretty ones. So the 1978 draft comes around and a number one overall, by the way, Michael Thompson,

Michael with a y oh y and no e m y c h a l oh no yeah uh not great number four overall michael ray richardson gets chosen really yeah so in the top five there's two people that spell their name wrong and it's michael that's amazing that's never happened in the history of sports ever never happened who else was drafted that well fifth overall was a guy named purvis short but number six is a guy you may have heard of named larry bird no kidding so yeah number six number six it shows this fuck over larry this guy yeah the uh the knicks here who picked him could have had Larry Bird, by the way. The Knicks have a history of just shit-piling themselves. It is just rich with bungling.

Somehow they fuck themselves in the ass. I don't know how they do it, but they figure out a way to get their dicks bent all the way up back and right up their own asshole. It's impressive. The Cleveland Browns of the NBA. It's wild, man. It's a wild scene. So, yeah, he's chosen by the New York Knicks. Fourth overall, like I said, ahead of Larry Bird.

Reggie Theus went number nine overall, who ended up being a big star. Got Billy Ray Bates in the third round. Yeah, Billy Ray is back Superman, as we might remember. He was chosen in the third round of this draft. Now, his pick, the pick that the Knicks picked him with, was passed around a little bit for some very interesting people. In 1976, the Rockets traded the pick with a 77 first round pick to the Buffalo Braves, which ended up trading that for Moses Malone, who was a big fucking star here.

And then later on, before the draft, the Nets ended up with this pick from another trade. And the Nets traded this pick. What did they do here? They traded this as a future pick with Vinnie Johnson, the microwave, to the Knicks for Phil Jackson. Oh, wow. Which is interesting. Coach Phil Jackson. So, yeah, he was traded for Phil Jackson before he was even in the NBA.

That's pretty awesome. Yeah. Moses Malone and Phil Jackson he was traded for before he was ever in the NBA. While he's having kids and fucking ugly Hawaiian girls. Ugly Hawaiian girls, all comers. So he's having a good time. Yeah. His first pro contract guaranteed him $909,000.

Wow. Which is big money in 1978. Holy shit. That's a lot of money in 1978 for four years. So that's great. He immediately bought a Mercedes 450 SL that was gold and had the word sugar embossed on the stick shift in large gold letters. Not on the license plate.

No. On the fucking stick shift. On the stick shift. Yeah. That's how you want to see it. You don't even care. All right. Fuck them. Yeah. I don't care about traffic. I want to see it you don't even care all right fuck them

yeah i don't care about traffic i want to see it from me it's me i'm a i am sugar god damn it sugar me that's awesome so they had a press conference for him at madison square garden and he says quote the first question they asked me was why my nickname was sugar well i was very nervous and with all my stuttering and all it took me about three or four minutes to answer. I knew it. Because my game's so sweet. That was his answer, and he couldn't get that out. He has so many S's in that sentence.

Yeah, it's a fuck. This is brutal. And the B's, too. He's got B's in it. That's rough. That's rough, man. God damn it. That's a rough.

He chose the wrong explanation. Yeah, that's tough. He should have said, ask my sister. That would have been harder. That's a rough. He chose the wrong explanation. Yeah, that's tough. He should have said, uh, ask my sister. So that would have been hard. It would have been great. I had her next to point at her. Same amount of sentences. Yeah.

And that's, and I feel, I feel fucking terrible for the guy standing up in front of, and the New York media is fucking brutal. Back then there was a dozen papers and all these radio shows and they were really up your ass a lot. And for a kid that came from fucking Montana, there's no attention up there. They have one newspaper, some guy with a fucking cowboy hat coming and asking, how'd you think of the game?

Good. Michael said he had a good game, and that goes in the fucking paper, and that's that. There's so few people he can handwrite the newspapers. Yeah, there you go. There you go. There you are. Have a good one there. He says, man, those New York media guys were looking at me like I was a leper, and the reports just ripped me up, down, and sideways.

And he said that he started to realize, quote, I simply wasn't ready for the NBA. And there's a reason for that also. Now, the Mercedes is what he ended up driving. But he bought that he bought a rolls royce what he bought a you don't have enough money for this man he bought a rolls royce and then returned it a couple days later because the next coach at the time willis reed basically told him you look like an asshole and he was like oh my bad that might be too much car for you and he took it back he was like dude the other players are looking at you like you're an asshole they've been playing five years they don't drive rolls who the fuck are you so he kind of took it as maybe i should bring that back and

i'll get a gold mercedes instead so he's fucking partying yeah he goes to the club studio 54 later on he's into the fucking uh plato's retreat all of these you know crazy yeah snorting coke off the table and you know doing a girl doggy style at the same time right style places right were his hangouts all the bgs are playing yeah he's there they're he's a new york knicks i mean you're you can go through that city with fucking impunity if you're on the knicks and especially too you can tell it's a dude as tall as shit and you know who the fuck is that i play for the knicks come on in sir sure that's it so he'd sometimes wake his roommate up a guy named mike glenn another player in the middle of the night and insist that he come with him to the disco come with me dancing

holy shit time to be alive you know this is amazing it's 2 a.m wake up we're going to the disco get your bell bottoms come on fucking pick your afro let's ride let's go tie that ascot on and let's do this shit shirt unbuttoned down to the navel and we're doing a weird thing like you're wearing a shirt for like the warmth right or are Or are you not? Just because it's required that you wear a shirt. You just open it up all the way. What a weird thing. He ends up having Porsches, Beamers, Jags, all this shit. He's known for driving insanely around Manhattan, which is a hard place to drive crazy.

And he said he would tell his roommate there, you've got to drive like this. If you don't, you won't get nowhere. He's just whipping around. He'd yell at cab drivers. They were driving like pussies cab drivers in new york don't drive like pussies they're insane it's not their car and they don't care so he's driving worse than cab drivers yeah that was it uh he borrowed 1500 from his first agent to make a down payment on a dotson 280z and he had that then he got a rolls and had to return that and ended up with the mercedes 280 was fine that was fine it's a fine car fine car little sports car good shit no you need a fucking rolls for that's what i'm saying so he he said he was having a really hard

time in his rookie year though he wasn't playing very well and uh he felt like shit he said that he would go to heathc for advice, his old coach, and he says, quote, I was still playing like a dud, so I didn't want to be seen in public. It was bad enough that the Knick fans at the Garden booed every time I stepped onto the court, but some of them even started throwing eggs at me.

What? What the fuck? Man, that season I lived like a monk. Oh, that was brutal back then, yeah. They would egg the player on the court? Yeah, your own player. You have eggs in your pocket? to throw at players that you don't like yeah the yankees fans used to bring fucking batteries to the bleachers to throw at their own players if they were doing something that was the fucking it was crazy shit back then the 70s were not normal yeah there was

not just oh now if you threw an egg 45 security guards back then it was like nobody cared the guy next to you was smoking a joint you know this guy had nobody cared it took a germaine o'neill lay in the wood to a fat puerto rican in denver yeah in detroit yeah stop this whole that didn't do anything to him that was the problem that was the issue so yeah 78 79 the knicks aren't very good anyway they are 31 and 51 in the season so that's not good willis reed gets fired after 14 games so he did do one good thing though he got michael to return his rolls royce then he gets fired for a guy named red holzman who uh who michael hates yeah so yeah and he's very trusting is the other thing which he doesn't have that much life experience his college was in montana yeah he's kind of all he

did was kind of go home and play basketball so he's not like a he's not real streetwise is the problem and one time in new york while he's there the first couple years someone sold him what they told him was a brand new color television oh no which he was super excited about and he gave him the money and he put it in his trunk and he went home and he got home and opened it and found it was just the shell yeah of an old set with it didn't even have a screen or a picture tube oh my god just like a shell of a set with like a rock in it and you know for a wait that was what he bought and he was like oh oh boy i just bought a 400 rock that's what it was so yeah that's he's just that trusting, though.

He didn't even look in the box. Wow. He just trusted this guy when he said brand new TV. He was like, all right. Unbelievable. That guy must be honest. So his rookie season here, he scores 6.5 points a game, but he's playing under 17 minutes a game.

So he's a rookie. They're trying to get him in there. Now, 79-80, this is all under under red holtzman as the coach who he fucking hated as we'll talk about in a second here this team goes 39 and 43 and uh yeah he wasn't he wasn't happy with this so he said he was finally fed up with holtzman the coach and he says quote finally i couldn't take it anymore so on my own i called a press conference second year player who averaged 6.5 points a game in his rookie year. Oh, this is great.

This is awesome. My first announcement was that Holtzman didn't know what the fuck he was doing. Hello, gathered, assembled press. I would love to announce. I have an announcement to make. You know my coach, Holtzman. Yes, he does not know what the fuck he's doing. Everybody got that?

Okay, good night. Thank you. That's amazing. I'm averaging coming Okay, good night. Thank you. That's amazing. I'm averaging coming off the bench playing a third of the game, and I'd like to tell you. I'd like to tell you all about this. Professional sports.

My first announcement. I love the way he phrased that. My first announcement was that Hulsman didn't know what the fuck he was doing. My second announcement was that I wanted the Knicks to trade me and get me out of town as soon as possible announcement one announcement two now that the thing is to the fans to come out at the press conference and your team sucks and to say our coach doesn't know what the fuck he's doing that will endear you to the fans they'll be like yeah good yeah look i like that we've been saying that for the past couple of months yeah then when you say trade me to get me out of town as soon as possible what they'll do

is then torture you till you leave that's how that works you just set yourself up to be tormented for the rest of your days in town this guy sucks we love you i'm on out of here fuck you fuck you what what's wrong with us you got a fucking problem with us i threw fucking eggs at you that's not good enough for you what do you want fucking filet mignon you fucking asshole we fucking hate the guy too we're on your side i'm telling you what a fucking so i mean not helping himself much yeah that's uh that's the equivalent of saying fuck this team and fuck all of you yeah fuck all of you fuck you fuck you you're cool right fuck you i'm out so uh yeah he says that uh naturally that

didn't help my situation out at all i mean what did i know i was a young kid who never had a father to teach me how to be a man i was impulsive pig-headed and i didn't know what what was right and what was wrong not only did i feel unloved but i felt unlovable oh boy he sounds depressed here yeah sounds depressed well his second year though he has a this year he's doing really well which is i think why he did the press conference he uh plays in all 82 games averages 37.3 minutes a game he is now he's 15.3 points a game 10.1 assists he's doing great which leads the uh eastern conference and also 3.2 steals a game which leads the nba as well so i've learned that crushing everybody needs to call a press conference and tell their boss talk some shit

oh 6.6 rebounds as well for a fucking guard yeah so this guy is all over the floor he leads the nba with seven triple doubles this year what so i mean he's people are like who the fuck is that guy where'd he i mean he's the number four pick but jesus for christ's sake nobody expected this especially after bird oh yeah well i don't know about that but he's this year i think he is uh larry bird at one point calls him the best basketball player on the planet in the mid-80s. Really? Yeah. He says about this year, quote, I was flat out killing people.

I really used to get jacked up against the white guards because I didn't like the straight up and down way they played. Maybe they reminded me of the team that beat us for the high school championship. Or the crackers that used to bust my ass in Lubbock. They are crackers. In Lubbock, especially. It was a white world, and I was just another underdog. Here it is, Jimmy. And even though Isaiah Thomas was blacker than the inside of my ass,

he had a white game, so I went after him like he just slapped my mama. Ladies and gentlemen, Michael Ray Richardson. He drops the fucking mic and walks off. Ladies and gentlemen, Michael Ray Richardson. He drops the fucking mic and walks off. Blacker than the inside of my ass. I was just another underdog. And even though Isaiah Thomas was blacker than the inside of my ass, just real casual, I would encourage. I don't know.

Black people, I don't know if you're out there. Maybe that's like if you've heard like an old timey expression or something. But if you've never heard it, now that you have it, I expect you to use it. Use it every time. Because that's amazing. That is awesome. So, yeah, he had a white game. I hope that's not, I hope he created that. Blacker than the inside of my ass.

I've heard blacker than in body parts, but I've never heard the inside of my ass. That's a deep dark that is genius even though he was i mean that's just great i fucking love this guy he had a white game so i went after him like he just slapped my mama i wish i i want him to have paused there to like get the real sting and then be like what is blacker than oh the inside of my ass and everybody in the room paused and they were like genius that's amazing that's the best oh my god that's fucking awesome so he says quote that season in the next one were great times for this

poor black boy from pig shit texas i love this guy he's the greatest man i'm telling you he's the greatest quote yeah going his town was was more country than cow pies and cow but no his roommate was more country than cow pie but he was all right and he's from pig shit pig shit texas blacker than the inside of my ass he's great this guy is a quote machine i'm telling you he's fucking amazing he's so fun you know aren't you machine, I'm telling you. He's fucking amazing. He's so fun. He's so fun, you know? Aren't you rooting for him?

Don't you want him to do well? Don't you want the story to have, he got arrested twice for minor things and then went on to win the lottery and have $500 million because he's amazing.

I love this fucking guy. And write fortunes and fortune cookies. Yeah, fortunes and fucking get a gold Mercedes with sugar on the outside of it. Right.

Who cares? He's the guy that writes all the Snapple caps. Oh, he's the man. And we believe them, but we don't even know if they're true. Blacker than the inside of... That would be a great Snapple fact. Isaiah Thomas is blacker than the inside of Michael Ray Richardson's ass. Really?

I don't know if that's true. Great Snapple. I don't know how you prove that. It's a tough one. So, yeah, he said, now the New York fans and the New York press are on my side. I mean, I could take a bite out of the Big Apple anytime I was hungry, and I was hanging with celebrities like Reggie Jackson, nightclubs, women. I was living the high life and running wild all over town, like the song says, looking

for love in all the wrong places. And he went to that um yeah he then says that uh he loved new york but he would come home he used to go back to denver so they're still there yeah they're still in denver's family his mom and shit so he used to go home like if they had a few days off he'd go home for a day if in the off season you go home for weeks at a time but he's around 81 his sister said quote his visits to his visits decreased and decreased he only came home for games in denver or in the off season for maybe a week so he's busy now he's out there living the high life hanging out ready jackson yeah you know already felt that i was born

nearby yeah comparing people down in colorado That Whisman's down there. I don't want to go back there. Jesus Christ. Fuck that place. It's all trash. And then it's no good, man. It's no good. There's more pig shit there.

Man, I don't like it. Yeah. He's like, I can't do it. I mean, I'm here. Isaiah Thomas is blacker than the inside of my ass. I got to be here. What do you want? You're never going to see Isaiah Thomas and not think that again, by the way.

He's blacker than the inside of Michael Ray Richardson again by the way just he's black on the inside of michael ray richardson's ass even if he's not just say to yourself straight up and down white game straight up and down white game well he played for bobby uh bobby knight he's an indiana guy so there's uh they all had to play that fucking stiff game every guy that's ever come out of uh indiana has the same game that's a very, it's a stiff up and down game. Fundamentals. Yeah, it's a fundamental game. So 80-81 here, they are 50-32 this year. Now we're talking doing well that year, and they lose in the first round of the playoffs to Chicago.

But he has a great year like we talked about, and he said that he was always, he's very aggressive. Isaiah Thomas says, he doesn't mention his comparison to the inside of his ass, but Isaiah does say, quote, he talked plenty of trash, but he was always able to back it up. So that was... That was a guy that was stung by that line. Yeah. And Buck Williams, who played forever, he said that Richardson's ability in the clutch was unparalleled.

He was just amazing in great pressure situations. He said in the last two minutes, it's his game. And then he also, they talk about how Michael Jordan, in his first two years, he said that the only two players he hated to play against were two guys. One, Alvin Robertson, who's got an episode of his own that we've talked about, and Michael Ray Richardson. Really? Defense. 3.2 steals a game. guys one alvin robertson who's got an episode of his own that we've talked about and michael ray richardson really defense 3.2 steals a game michael ray is up your ass i mean he is a defender so i mean he's a good score he's a great passer he gets rebounds he is up your ass defensively

he's all energy he's everywhere he's uh he's a fucking great player i mean really is people compare magic johnson says he's got me and him have the same game like he compares him favorably to himself like it's it's pretty impressive uh and then uh the weekly soho news which was kind of an underground new york newspaper called him the great black hope it was because jerry cooney they were calling the great white hope so they were countering it at the time it was in context do. Yeah. Well, see if you're ragged. I call someone the great white hope either. I can't call someone any racial hope. It's kind of weird in 2020.

He ends up over this time. He blows through about six, seven agents, all sorts of agents. He bought 16 cars over this time period. He is selling them, getting rid of them. Yeah. Hanging out at Studio 54, doing his thing. This year, he is an all-star again yeah so two years in a row all-star 16.4 points a game 7.9 assists 2.9 steals per game 6.9 rebounds he's doing great he's fucking doing great he gets himself a new contract he's living lovely yeah he's like, this is amazing. They sign him for more money, the way he put it, than he'd ever seen in his life.

His first order of business was to buy his mom a house in a better neighborhood. He buys his mom a house in a better neighborhood. They said he surprised her one day by moving her old bedroom set, the one she had for years and and years to the garage and installing a new one with uh you know brand new one yeah the mother said she thought she was sleeping on bricks because she had the same bed for 30 years and it was like a fucking cave yeah it was like a goddamn air mattress by then so uh on every every uh visit home he would have something done to make his mother's house better when he was there you have he'd have a new paint, a new porch, paneling, some cabinets or something. He would always hook it up every time he went home because he had the money

and he was feeling good about himself for the first time in his life. Grace. Of course. This is Grace. God damn it. Doing well. Two-time All-Star. Mom's happy.

Thinks it's never going to end. Everything's going so well, Jimmy. So well. And all of this is the problem, though. This is the point when one of his teammates introduces him to cocaine. Yeah. Now, at the time, the Los Angeles Times, this was in 1982, found that 75% of NBA players were using cocaine. Of course.

75% is a shitload. Yeah. That's a lot. Larry Bird played in the nba though yeah yeah yeah 75 is a little wispy fucking red mustache i'm sure he had some there's a little frost some coke flex there so and he's and it made sense too because he's the most exuberant energetic guy there and the thing about coke is when you for athletes when they first start doing it like while they're playing and they're young, it helps their game.

It helps them. They're focused. It helps energy. Yeah. Faster, more aggressive. You don't think about shit as much. But the problem is that over time, you don't sleep a lot when you're on Coke. You party a lot.

Your lifestyle breaks your body down. And as you get older and your skills deteriorate and you weren't practicing as much because you were doing coke instead and the coke eats you up. But for the first two years or so, it's fucking paradise. You're playing your best. You're feeling your best. Everything's wonderful.

So, uh, yeah, he's doing all of his things. He says that, uh, quote one night I was with some women and some guys from Trinidad just drinking and partying

then one of them brought out a sack of coke I did some serious sniffing but to no effect it was simply some bullshit stuff two weeks later I came across the same folks again and this time they showed me had a free base man that shit was good with six O's. That's good. That's really good when you put six O's in it. That's a lot. That's Cousin Eddie eating the gel mold.

Yeah, that's good. That's what that is. That's good. A little more of that gel mold. Freebase, man. Woo-wee. Which, if you hear from people who freebase,

they really enjoyed it. Ask Richard Pryor. Or not ask him, but watch his old special. He said he loved it. It was wonderful. He never said it was bad. No.

He said he lit himself on fire. Then he was like, well, maybe I should be careful. I think he still liked it. He did. He said it was not the freebases' fault. He said that first hit felt like the best thing that ever happened to me and the best thing that could ever happen to me. Holy shit. That's a dude who found his calling here.

I was invincible. I was invisible and invincible on top of the world. Every worry that had been buzzing around my mind was instantly gone. Responsibility didn't mean a thing. It was a freaky drug experience with all of my fantasies becoming possible. I could get it on with three or four girls at a time and go at it all night long. Man, i barely knew who i was only that i only that whoever i was was the king of the fucking world uh make that the

king of the universe i spent the next seven years trying to duplicate that very first high that's a problem that's a problem that's he's chasing the dragon here and uh and from the get-go basketball didn't seem as important as getting off so yeah he says quote coming down was a bitch though i'd get depressed what the fuck did i do where the fuck was i how much money had i spent a gram cost a hundred dollars and would last you for about two hours yeah that's coke was expensive back in the early days there that's a tough way to do it that's a tough one he's in new york too so i mean it's that's you know it was cheapest there right so uh i remember when i was in school and i remember people used to sell coke and uh you'd go down to the city you could get coke for

like 30 bucks a gram so like you'd sell it for 100 so he's he's getting fucked here or he's getting really great or he's getting really great shit he said my only consolation was that about one uh out of every three players in the nba was also freebasing so the season started there were high time parties going on in every city in the league so there would be just freebase fucking nba parties going on and this was going on in all sports yeah i mean it's everywhere baseball players remember willie mays akins they'd go have these big coke parties and uh it was everybody and it was it was there was no that's unbelievable it's amazing that more i guess nah never mind it's just amazing that more didn't die of overdoses yeah you know what i mean yeah well it helps that they're all in amazed their professional athletes so their bodies yeah their bodies are in tremendous shape their cardiovascular

systems are good yeah it's amazing it is amazing that there wasn't a few more len bias situations going on you know where i i still feel like that's uh that robbed us all of like some really amazing stories oh fuck yeah len bias dying that that could have been fucking incredible to watch so many years yeah he would have been amazing he was a fucking great player so uh he said he began hanging out at crack houses yeah which is what you want to do. Quote, racing up flights of stairs past junkies, nodding on the landings, the people in the door, three guys sitting at a table, each one holding an Uzi. Then I'd make my transaction and they'd push me out the door. They knew who I was, but I didn't give a fuck.

They charged me even less. That's when I failed my first drug test. And's that's when he's he's just not even paying attention uh he was uh this under the rules at that point that was a called a first strike and uh basically another warning another positive test would have make him enroll in a in a rehab program but he said didn't give a shit kept free base and as much as he could so and it just wasn't considered that big of a deal at the time right it really wasn't uh ub brown comes in to coach the knicks and uh i don't know if you know who ub brown is the ugliest yeah he's got he looks like somebody's nan right somebody's like 78 yeah we have he's he has like penis skin face yeah yeah

he looks like an 86 year old woman he's got got like that, like wispy gray hair. He looks very sad. So he was talking about Hubie Brown was trying to figure this out because he had coached Eddie Johnson in Atlanta, too. So he was like, what the fuck is going on with this shit? And he says, quote, this is Hubie Brown, quote, I'm naive. I never smoked a joint or did coke. I never needed that stuff.

At the same time, one of the principal rules of leadership is to realize that you can't attack negative behavior without understanding it. So I paid $1,200 out of my own pocket to consult a pro. I thought he was going to say, I paid $1,200 out of my pocket to free base for three days. To find out what it's all about. Just to see what all the hubbub's about. I decided, I see what these guys got. I see what they mean. That would explain the bright red veins in his face.

That's fucking great. No, consult a pro. A $1,200 binge. I just decided to take $1,200. For the first time, I'm going to go crazy. Go in a hotel room and see what happens. You never know. What the fuck?

I'm going to un-arrest Thompson, this fucking thing. That's right. Fuck it. I'm going to under arrest Thompson. This fucking thing. That's right. Fuck it. I'm going to write it all down. He says, I didn't want to lose a damn ball game when I when I needed 32 minutes of an all out play from a guy who can only give me 24 because of drugs. So I learned the reasons and methods of drug use. So he said, most of all, I needed to recognize the symptoms of drug drug abuse. He learned that, you know, at first it would feel like that would make them sharper physically because it would.

It just makes you mentally you're honed in and shit like that. Mental awareness, all that shit. And also they liked it to party afterwards so they could have sex with like three, four women at a time. Right. All night. That was fun to them. Did Hubie pay like a crack at twelve hundred dollars who just I think he went to a counselor or something but he could have gotten this information for 50 bucks from anybody on the street probably 20 not even 50 he got ripped off

yeah he said as a result that uh you be here would confront players that he was positive were using coke he said at one point he went as far as grabbing one by the throat and shoving him against a locker, but he says the players just laughed at him there in Atlanta. And he said when he took his complaints to Ted Turner, who was the owner of the Hawks at the time, he downplayed it as that's a recreational thing. The guys are having fun blowing off steam.

Leave them alone. I am a billionaire, and they are my cash cow. Shut the fuck up. Plus, in 79 ish when that happened it's still every it's everyone still thought it wasn't addictive yet people used to say it's not addictive it's the greatest thing in the world it makes you feel like the greatest ever you have the most energy you're the most interesting and it's not even addictive who the fuck wouldn't take that if that was put before you yeah so it's the greatest thing in

the world and i won't have to do it and it'll just make me feel wonderful whenever i feel like i can do it terrific yeah whenever i feel really shitty i cannot feel really shitty or even great i'll feel even better right this is fucking tremendous so yeah but ted turner blew it off as a you know it's just recreational they're they're blowing off steam their kids what do you want okay whatever so the 81 82 season this is quite a disaster for the knicks they finished 33 and 49 i don't know how they didn't fire the coach here but this is the one in the middle of the season here there's a post-game interview and uh they start asking they're not going well so they ask michael what he thinks why and they say quote what do you think is happening to this team his answer is quote the ship be sinking it's like his most famous quote ship be sinking it was on the cover

of the newspaper the ship be sinking and then they said well how far can it sink i'm gonna let you guess what he said jimmy how far can it sink uh as far as deep as my black asshole. That's a good one. He went with the sky's the limit. Well, no, it's not. Which is the greatest answer to that question ever. That is brilliant. That's brilliant. How far can it sink?

Sky's the limit. All righty. The other way, sir. All righty. The depths of my black asshole. Wow. That's the only how far i can sing jesus christ so far up my asshole they'll find isaiah thomas there he is hi how you doing isaiah fucking asshole shit coach he is

fucking hate isaiah thomas a fucking douche so there's a possible explanation and we don't know if this is true or not uh the fbi is a possible explanation of why the Knicks are so bad this year. And one of them is, and this is documents cited by an author, FBI documents, an author named Brian Tuohi. It's a book called Larceny Games, Sports Gambling, Game Fixing, and the FBI. And the FBI investigated suspicions that three nicks were shaving points that season oh no for gamblers um all three were described as heavy users of cocaine which i mean if there's 10 players fucking seven if there's 12 you're gonna get eight players that are you know on coke so that could be anybody and were suspected of being in

league with their coke supplier who was one of the biggest dealers on the east coast they said which a nick player could easily make friends with sure and apparently the dealer was also a serious gambler right who would bet about three hundred dollars a game on games and uh the informants were telling fbi this but in january 82 all the sudden out of nowhere he started laying out ten thousand dollar wagers on nick's opponents right so very specific ones and winning all the bets oh that's even more that's even more suspicious yeah so by march 25th of that year the coke dealer won six of his seven uh six of his seven bets that he had made in high dollar figure bets, all against the Knicks,

while continuing to make normal $300 wagers on all the other NBA games. So he's got a little something. What do you know? Well, the FBI informants told the FBI that one of the Knicks owed a pretty large gambling debt to the Lucchese crime family, a bookie that worked for them so you got to pay that that's a debt you need to pay in 1981 in new york if you want to not end up in a car trunk yeah that's how that works so at the same time fbi agents began to suspect that in the

latter part of the season that three knicks had bet several games uh quote against themselves too knicks players were getting against the Knicks. And their suspicion was validated by a source, an informant, who reported that in each game, the Knicks trio had bet on their opponents. The Knicks did lose or failed to cover the point spread in all of those games. Now, obviously, Richardson was a main suspect in this. I mean, he was, if you want three guys that are probably in coke debt and shit the guy who's going around to nightclubs driving crazy cars and blowing coke

like crazy is probably a good candidate um he says though they asked him in uh that book was released in 2013 and he says hell no we never did anything like that which i mean obviously he's not gonna say it if it did so we don. Which I mean, obviously, he's not going to say it if it did. So we don't know. That's all alleged. But that's an answer that you would expect from somebody that did it. Yeah. If you don't know when Crystal Pepsi was discontinued, what was in Al Capone's vault,

or which famous meteorologist is Lenny Kravitz's second cousin, then you haven't spent enough time on Wikipedia. But that's okay. I am here for you. I'm Darcy Carden, and I'm inviting you to listen to my new podcast, WikiHole from SmartList Media. Discover the craziest rabbit holes on Wikipedia with me and my funny friends as we bring the cyber frontier directly to your tympanic membrane. And if you listen to my podcast, you'd learn that that's the sciencey

term for eardrum. We embark on a hyperlink rollercoaster as we start out on a Wikipedia page and go from link to link to link to link, careening through trivia, oddities, and unexpected connections until we collectively shout, how the hell did we get here? Follow WikiHole on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to WikiHole ad-free by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts you can listen to wiki hole ad free by joining wondery plus in the wondery app or on apple podcasts oh shit uh there's no confessions though and the fbi ended up closing the investigation in 1986 without making any arrests because a couple of the informants had died and you know whatever so uh the fbi uh basically and the nba initiated the sports presentation program, sending agents to teams to warn the players of the dangers of gamblers doing

this to them. Basically, that's how that works. Now, 1981, 82, terrible year for the Knicks. Fine year for old Michael here.

17.9 points a game. That's up from last season. Seven assists a game, 2.6 steals per game five 6.9 rebounds and he's an all-star again doing his part three straight years as an all-star yeah can't beat that uh doing great now then there's a problem in 82 83 here uh he says quote we were playing a sunday afternoon home game against hou. I'd gotten so high that I completely forgot about the game. Oh, no.

That's not good. No. He said, I'd been up all night, and I'd just smoked a bowl at 8.35 a.m. When I suddenly remembered that in less than five hours, I'd be playing a nationally televised game. Fuck me. So I took a long hot shower, since freebasing is very dehydrating. I drank a quart of orange juice.

I got down to the garden at 10.30, took another hot shower, dehydrating i drank a quart of orange juice i got down to the garden at 10 30 took another hot shower gulped down another quart of orange juice ate two bacon egg and cheese sandwiches and suddenly it was time to start our warm-ups while i was loosening up i kept telling myself that i'd never do this again please god get me out of this one and i'll go cold turkey i'll check into a rehab clinic i'll do anything then i went out and had me a triple double wow so i got stoned for the next 24 hours it's like well shit i'm all right also god don't let me shit in my pants yeah that would be the all this juice inside juice and eggs and bacon oh fucking oh it's a cocktail shit's coming out of shit coming out so uh yeah

he goes out and does that so he basically figured to to himself that, well, I can do this. Yeah. I don't even need to. I can do coke before the game. I'm fine. Like, it doesn't even matter. Vitamin C is the solution? So I'll get a hot shower.

I got it. Some eggs. No worries. So October 22nd, 1982, he is traded by the Knicks. Knicks decide to trade him. He's been in a little bit too much trouble. With a 1984 fifth-round draft pick to the Golden State Warriors. The other side of the country.

All the way over there for Bernard King, a crime and sports alumni, and a hell of an episode on that guy as well. He is coming to New York to pass out in Brownsville. To pass out in Brownsville while buying crack. That's exactly what he's doing. Behind the wheel of an unbelievable... Was it a Caddy or was it a Corvette? I think it was a Caddy.

Was it a Cadillac? No, it was a Corvette. It was a Corvette, wasn't it? Yeah, it was a Corvette. That's what he did. So, yeah. Now, his sister says that when he was traded there, that's when I noticed a breakdown.

You could see the change. So, he was just a mess and out and in golden state everybody said that he was just not a good fit there hated it didn't know what he was doing not any better of a fit than bernard king in new york that's the thing well bernard was a great player in new york at least he scored fucking 60 that one game so uh sports illustrated at the time reported that richardson missed an east coast trip with the Warriors that season because, quote, he owed a lot of money back east and there were people looking for him. They couldn't let him. So he stayed in California.

Oh, my God. To not go to New York to play a game. So, yeah, we don't know why he got traded or what the fuck was going on, but it's not great. Right. This is bad stuff. Now, a future teammate of him and really good friend, I think to this day, Otis Birdsong, who was a player with the Nets, he said, quote, at some point it went from snorting to freebasing. I remember the first time I saw that I was at a teammate's house

and guys kept walking in and out of the kitchen. And I poked my head in and said, that's what they're doing. It's amazing to me that guys could do that and perform. But I never knew Michael had those problems until the problems arose. That stuff just got the best of him. And it has a lot of people as well. Yeah. So February of 1983, just in a few months, he's traded by the Warriors again, this time to New Jersey.

Back across. Put him back where he's comfortable there for Sleepy Floyd and Mickey Johnson here. So this year, I mean, he's bounced all over the place uh he ends up 12.6 points a game 6.8 assists 4.6 rebounds and he leads the league and steals with 2.8 again so not too shabby doesn't make the all-star team but he's back and forth between the two conferences so i don't even know who he would have played for so may 1983 though is his first time checking into drug treatment in jersey checks in it's right after the season uh he checks in at fair oaks hospital in summit new jersey there and uh yeah uh leading up to that for the last month people had been basically been telling the team that he's basically seen in

every crack house in town all the time. So maybe they should look into that shit. And they said that he's obviously has a pretty bad drug problem. And then six weeks after that, he fails another drug test. And that's when he enters rehab. That's when he fails a second drug test. And this was supposed to be a seven week program, which sounds like that's a lot.

That's because almost two months. But he only stayed in for 13 days you know i mean two months how about two weeks and i'm out of here no less than two weeks he says quote i checked myself out because the program was bullshit they had locked doors like a prison and there was nothing for any of us to do except have group therapy sessions sounds Sounds like rehab. That sounds like rehab to me. I don't know what he wants. Give it a run, sir. That sounds like rehab. Later on, he'll go to one that a bunch of players go to,

and they have a basketball court. That's why it doesn't work. No, it doesn't. That's why they keep coming back. That's why it doesn't work. You've got to be locked down. Yeah, he's like, I don't want to do any of this stuff. I'm leaving.

I'm not going to lock down and talk about my fucking problems. Oh, Jesus, that could lead to solving them. I've got to get out of of here i don't want that he says that's where everybody's supposed to talk about their problems but all everybody did was blame somebody else for their addiction their parents their bosses and their jobs shit when i said that i did drugs because i like it they all thought that i was crazy he's like i fucking just like it they're great like every other drug rehab center i've ever been in this one was really all about making money when someone's insurance ran out they boot them back to the streets whether they were ready or not wow oh yeah that's what they do that's fucked up you can't pay for it you know that's the old

i mean run a charge on them you know what i mean the old sam kinnison joke yeah the betty ford center costs fourteen thousand dollars if i have fourteen thousand dollars i don't have a fucking coke problem that's the point i don't need you yeah exactly so august of 1983 guess what what back in rehab as you might expect yeah this time it's the hazelden foundation in minnesota and then he comes back yeah and he goes to Nets training camp, and everything looks beautiful. It's like Pauly telling Henry to go back to Karen. It's going to be beautiful.

It's going to be like when he was first married. So, yeah. October 4th, 1983, though, he disappears from Nets training camp in Princeton. Just takes off, doesn't show up, and they can't get a hold of him. He's just gone. Doesn't pop up again until October 7th. So he's missing for three days. And then he comes in, talks to the team, admits he's got a drug problem again.

He's doing drugs and he agrees to enter rehab again. Four days later, he says he's not going to rehab. He's fine. Changed my mind. You know what? The last four days since I talked to you last, I've been doing coke and I realized it's a lot of fun. You know, when I talked to you last, I was sober.

Yeah. Today I'm high. This isn't a problem. I kind of like what I'm doing right now. I feel better. I'm going to go ahead and keep this. I feel a lot better. Feeling good right now.

I'm good now. It's fine. So the Nets wave him. Oh. They say, fine. We wave you then. This is a great player. He actually clears waivers.

So the Nets can keep him if they want him. But he's there. So October 14, 1983, this is after they wave him and he clears waivers. I think that's a wake-up call that this team doesn't want you and no one else wants you either. That's how much of a disaster you are. He finally says, okay, fine, I'll go back to rehab. October 14. So it took three days for all that to happen then he's ready to go again so he's had a crazy week the last week he disappeared came back admitted it said he needed help then he said he was fine then he needs help again and he was waved and went through

waivers and cleared it all in one week it's a busy fucking week and that's to show you what your worth is that's got a sting man i and that's to show you what your worth is that's got a sting man i think that's what it was i think i'm worth this then it goes all the way through and then you go i'm worth nothing yep i think they said we'll show you exactly what you're this is about because he probably said trade me and they went tell you what we'll waive you right no one claimed you right no one's going to give us anything for you they won't take you for nothing wants you we'll show you they won't take you for the waiver cost free yeah fucking crazy so this is at regent hospital in manhattan he goes there and uh this this final treatment here was during the amnesty period this is when

the nba was building their drug policy it kicks in right at the end of 1983 where they have the strikes and then the you know you're banned after a certain amount of time so people kind of got grandfathered in but because he didn't come forward with his problem they had to catch him this is considered his first offense by the league so he's got a strike now and uh he he was the one by the way a couple months later after the agreement was signed for you know with the with the players about the drug policy that uh he was the one who was urging players uh to seek help he came out for for that uh he said quote rules won't do it it's an illness and only the player can cure it the big problem is that people who are on drugs are ashamed to admit it they have this terrible fear of getting up in the morning and seeing a newspaper headline and so on and so on so yeah that's that's true so uh november 1st

1983 checks out of rehab so he's only in there for two and a half weeks and uh december 21st 1983 he has to be at this point drug tested three times a week by the team. So December 21st, 83, they reinstate him. They think he's okay. He's fine now. They arrange also, at this point, for a local psychiatrist, a guy named Dr. Russell Furstendig, to conduct Richardson's outpatient program. Now, he was very enthusiastic.

He said, quote, great. The shrink was going to help me stay straight, right? No. Okay. Well, let's see here. That's your job, motherfucker. Now, this is his claims. And this doctor ended up in prison, I believe, too.

So it could be true. Yeah. He says he was optimistic. And then his preliminary interview with this doctor, he said he was optimistic, and then his preliminary interview with this doctor, he said it was disturbing. Michael says, quote, the first thing he does is to give me 100 bucks. Then he tells me to go into New York right away and buy the same stuff that I was using. What?

He said he was going to test the drugs on himself in order to get a full understanding of what was going on. What? Yeah, UB Brown didn't do that. He went to a drug counselor and asked, this guy's like, go get me a bunch of cocaine. I'd like to see how you feel. I'd like to be drooling high with a... Can you bring three or four girls with you?

And then we'll talk. Yeah. So he said he had a full understanding of what was going on. Michael says, quote, what the fuck? But even if that's what he wanted, who was I to tell him no? So I went and got the drugs and brought them back to him. What the fuck's But even if that's what he wanted, who was I to tell him no? So I went and got the drugs and brought them back to him. What's he going to do?

As long as he was buying drugs again, he decided that he might as well get some for himself. Yeah, going to a drug dealer is a fucking completely different goddamn thing here. So the next day, he's supposed to start his first official session. That was a preliminary getting to know you. First session the next day. And Michael says, quote, he came in for it. At the session, he says, quote, the guy was sitting in his chair wearing the same clothes as the day before and stoned out like a zombie. Sounds like that guy became a doctor just to get high.

To get free Coke. I'm a nerd. People that can get him Coke. Where do you get Coke? I don't know where to get it. I don't know how to get it. I know how to do it. I'm going to counsel drug dealers. Where do you get Coke? I don't know where to get it. I don't know how to get it. I know how to do it. I'm going to counsel drug dealers.

Where do you get coke? Where would you find such a thing? Go get coke. So he said he was stoned out. Bring it here. Stoned out like a zombie. Unfucking believable. Even so, I was anxious to stay with the program.

So we did our fucked up therapy sessions a few times. Then two weeks later, for a first stand dig, the doctor got busted buying drugs in Greenwich village. He's just not great. So yeah, that's what I mean. Awesome. So they gave him another psychiatrist.

How about this one? Maybe this guy's not a crack. He's not a crackhead, but Michael says, quote, but it was already too late because even after I returned to the Nets, I started dipping and dabbing again. This new guy, Dr. X, didn't help matters when he agreed to hide my positive drug tests for a fee of about $200 each. So the Nets think he's perfectly clean.

And instead, he's actually just paying 200 bucks to fucking to be able to blow drug drug tests. So unbelievable. That's fucking crazy. So 83-84 season. The Nets are 45-37 here. They actually go to the playoffs. They beat, wow, they actually beat the Sixers in the first round and then lose to the Bucks in the second round.

But he sets, Michael sets an NBA playoff record for a five-game series with 21 steals versus philly in five games that's fucking awesome i bet that stands today i don't know anyone who's got 20 maybe that's five games five game series 21 steals four steals a game in a playoff series too and things are tight like you gotta play some d that's gotta stand today well that's why i don't think they even have five game series anymore right didn't they switch the first round to seven now i thought again i like the five better than the first round to seven now, I thought, again? I think it's all seven.

I like the five better than the first round. The first round should be five. It's nice and quick. What are you doing? Get it over with. There's fucking teams that are under 500 in these games. That team is the eighth seed playing a one seed who has 62 wins. Why are they playing seven games?

Five is plenty. This isn't going to be close. Yeah. If you wanted to play seven, you should have been better and made it to the next round. going to be close. If you wanted to play seven, you should have been better and made it to the next round. So this sets up that,

and then he's on the Nets now. This is where Otis Bird's song comes in, and Daryl Dawkins becomes his buddy as well. Really? Yeah, this is, oh yeah. Daryl Dawkins is hilarious. Was he a co-cat? We'll talk about it.

He did some stuff. He said he was from the planet Lovetron, if that helps any. I probably don't know a little bit of this or that. He was awesome was awesome daryl dawkins is awesome one of the best players ever oh man so good mike jeminski on this team big fucking bearded white guy there and uh yeah buck williams was on this team and a guy who i'd never heard of honestly named foots walker foots foots okay that better be a nickname from somebody dumb foots walker so he goes i really hope his mom did not name him foots you know he's got two of them so uh 83 84 has kind of a rough year here and we know because he's doing coke like crazy this year uh 48 games he's playing

only starts 25 12 minute 12 points a game 3.6 rebounds 4.5 assists 2.1 steals so all of his numbers are pretty much career lows this year besides his rookie season of course so not great no not wonderful but the next year 84 85 is is a different thing completely. 84-85, the Knicks are 42-40. On Christmas Day in 84, they play Bernard King, who's on the Knicks here. They play the Knicks, who he always has a special, always wants to beat the Knicks. This is the night he scores 36, Michael Ray, and Bernard King scores 60. So between the two of them, they put on a fucking clinic out there. I'd love to see that game.

Between the two of these crackheads? I'd love to watch that game. My God. That'd be a great game. But that's a big famous performance, that 60-point Bernard King performance there. Poor Michael had 36, but it was just overshadowed by a guy having 60. So December 26th, the next day, there's a fluff piece coming out about him, of course. And I love the headline here.

Big letters. Richardson winning battle with drugs. Others still struggling. Everybody else is in the shit, but he's doing great. They said he's fighting a day-to-day battle, but he appears to be winning. And they go into other players who are losing, John Lucas and guys

like that and uh he says i have to battle myself every day is what michael says uh now the executive vice president of the nets says michael's gone through it all he's been to the bottom of the pit he's aware of his problem what he has to do the best we can do for him is to let him know that we care about him he said every day is a nervous one for me about Richardson. He says, I'm always concerned for Michael. I hope so much that he makes it because I look like a dick if he doesn't. I need it. That and he also at the same time, he participates in an NBA anti-drug video called Cocaine Drain.

And according to net officials, passed every one of his drug tests mandated mandated by his contract or he had two hundred dollars one of the two but uh yeah he's doing coke like crazy doing videos having fluff pieces written about him in the fucking paper who wrote that shit what is this it's an ap article associated press free basin looking on the camera and going this shit's terrible this don't do this shit. See this shit right here? Don't do it. He ducks out of frame for a second. This stuff is terrible.

I'm telling you, man, this shit is fucking bad. Just take it from me, okay? And if you have it, you know what I mean? If you find it, kids, kids, if you find it, your parents have some in the house, don't throw it out because then a baby could get it.'s my call me send it to me i'll come pick it up dispose of it properly personally and i'll dispose of it in a correct location in a receptacle that it means so uh they lose uh they get swept by detroit in the playoffs that year but uh this year he's an all-star again he has his best season this year yeah 20.1 points a game broke the 20 point barrier uh 8.2 assists which is great three

steals a game leads the league and steals again again 5.6 rebounds he's fucking killing it yeah he wins nba comeback player of the year? And he's an all-star. Yeah. So, top of the world. I mean, from the depths of nobody wants you, the clear waivers to a year later, he is one of the best in the league. And he's high. This is the time when Larry Bird calls him the best basketball player on the planet.

Wow. In this season, he has. He said he's the best. He's just all around the best player there is um yeah he's doing wonderfully he and he says at the end of this year quote i'll be playing basketball until you know until the day they kick me out that's his quote yeah very prescient of course that's coming pretty soon here 85 86 season here uh november 10th 1985 he misses the team flight to san antonio really but nothing crazy's happened but this is like the very beginning of the season

uh he arrives just before game time the next day which is not good no they don't like that they tend to like to know who's who's available to play yeah uh he says it was car troubles and personal problems which one of your cars right did your mercedes break down yeah you know do you not have triple a i think you do probably i woke up from a drug stupor tried to start the car it didn't start so i did more drugs you know how that goes did more drugs fought with my wife for a while she doesn't like it when i do that so drugs fought about drugs. This is holiday season 85. The next month and a half goes by. Nothing, no problems.

He doesn't get suspended or anything like that. But then December 27th, 1985 comes around. Two days after Christmas. Two days after Christmas. And he's in the middle. He's in the second season of a four-year, $3 million contract that he just signed, which is amazing. They just had a baby boy with his wife, so he's got two kids. When they had the baby, he gave her a brand-new silver Mercedes-Benz convertible as a baby present.

He was a four-time All-Star. They're looking at him like he's got the Hall of Fame coming up here. And this is when Larry Bird said he's the best basketball player on the planet. He says that he learned his lesson. He's telling everybody that he's cured of cocaine addiction. He's cured. He's doing videos, all that. He says to a reporter that he's, quote, cleaner than Mr.

Clean and playing the best basketball of my career. Everything's going so fucking well. So what does he do? The best basketball of my career. Everything's going so fucking well. So, what does he do? He disappears for three days and misses two practices and a game. Oh, that's not good. You can't miss a game. No, no, no. Unless you have aggressively nasty anal warts, which we've talked about.

But at least he called in ahead of time and told them about it. Or you won't get on a plane because I ain't getting in no time machine. I ain't getting in no time machine. Those are two different people, but they should be the one person they should be so uh that'd be a great i'd love to voltron put them all together yeah their worst quotes and our best they get like eight of our eight or nine of our best like crime and sports people that have crazy all together dotsic in there and so yeah the crimes of bruno yeah exactly so where the fuck was he? Where was he? For three days. Well, they were at a Christmas party thrown by the owner of the Nets.

Oh, that's a long Christmas party. They're at a party on the 27th, and apparently there's a holiday party, and it's him and the players. He's hanging out with Daryl Dawkins, and he's hanging out with a rookie, and they overhear the Nets player tell a secretary who is going home to make sure to take this route and not this route because this is a bad neighborhood. And if you get stopped at a light, just gun it through the light. You're going to get mugged. These people are animals.

He heard him saying shit like that. So this pissed off the players. They were like, yeah, what do you mean? The fucking black neighborhood, you mean? So they were pissed off that he was like, just don't go through. These people are animals. So they were like, let's get the fuck out of this party. This isn off that he was like just don't go through those people are animals so they were like let's get the fuck out of this party this isn't our scene which you know I don't blame them.

By the way they were talking about Isaiah Thomas and what an asshole he was before they left. Daryl Dawkins says quote if you're driving down the lane and he's right there that little shit will step on your plant foot something the three blind mice never see meaning the refs something that can fuck up your knee and end your career in a hurry so when you get a chance to foul

the fucker lay him lay the wood to him no matter how hard you hit him they can only give you one foul yes it's true that's the truth and uh yeah he's michael richardson said yeah make him pick his black ass off the floor and hit two free throws. Was his response to that? Get the black part in there. Well, he really wants to. Just drive home the point. Yeah, he is black. That's it.

Even though he's not. He's not. Apparently, according to him and blacker than me. So anyway, eventually they decide that Dawkins and this rookie guy are going to go out and do something else they're going to go to a bar they're going to get out of the scene now Michael claims he said he was going to go home he's like no I'm going to go home and hang out with the family and they said come on come out for a couple of drinks they said where are you going Dawkins said they're quote the sports bar at the Sheraton it's not a place where you'd go if you're a place to hang out

no then he turned to Richardson and said, you coming, sugar? And he said, no, I'm going straight home. He said that his wife just had a baby and his sister had just flown in from Denver and, you know, it's the holidays. I've got a drug problem. You know how that goes. So he said after that, quote, it was snowing

like we were at the North Pole. So that was just cocaine. And it reminded me of better days. He said, so I was in kind of a hurry to get home. But on the way there, I had to pass the hotel anyway. So I thought, what the hell? I just stopped by for a few minutes. It was on the way.

It's on the way. It's a say hi. Quote, it was one of the worst decisions I've ever made. Yep. Yeah. It had a mirrored snack bar several wall and this was the sports bar here pillar mounted tv sets and sports are on highlights all that kind of shit that's a sports bar big space for dancing a separated bar from a small dining room like every other sports bar but the thing about this sports bar that they loved the most was that it had a

shitload of young women there hanging out because they knew players hung out there so it's you know that's how it goes so uh yeah they like to go where the players are players like to go where they are it's pretty works out well mutually beneficial here so uh they said that they were you know doing all this now dawkins says that he loves to uh he loves to to uh womanize basically he's saying you look you get lonely on the road you're looking for for girls he said quote you get lonely and then he says quote then you cast about for redheads with her titties up or big ass blondes or skinny brunettes or sisters with this or that. So it's loneliness that leads to lust. With her titties up.

I got a craving for a redhead with her titties up. I don't know why. Just swimming the mood for this tonight. Not the one with her titties down. No, no. Perky. So Dawkins said, quote, Then, now, and forever, the NBA's pussy heaven is Salt Lake City. That's one of the main reasons.

I've heard this from everybody. Athletes have said this throughout the years. Pussy heaven is Salt Lake City. That's one of the main reasons. I've heard this from everybody. Athletes have said this throughout the years. That's one of the main reasons why blacks want to play with the Utah Jazz. The second best pussy capital is Atlanta, with New Orleans a close third. By far the worst place to get laid is New York City, only because the girls there can't be trusted. A little too worldly. They're not just happy with.

There's plenty of celebrities. They want something out of you. He's saying, whereas if you go to Salt Lake City, they're not just happy with there's plenty of celebrities they want something out of you with he's saying whereas if you go to salt lake city they're so fucking repressed there and you're so different you are going to plow through everything well how the fuck would he know what's in new orleans no when if you were in if the jazz was in utah by then there was no fucking team in new orleans what's he going down there for he was probably there for that oh maybe yeah because he was. Dawkins was around for years. Oh, yeah. This was Daryl Dawkins, not Richardson, talking about that. And yeah.

So Michael says of the sports bar, quote, this is the story. Quote, it was a real hot spot. A lot of the guys would go there after games. And it was also a favorite after practice destination for the New York Giants. Oh, so this is, you know, you get the Knicks and the Giants. Yeah. Fuck anybody. So you're going gonna have young women hanging out there uh so the single on the make women knew where the rich athletes would be normally though i stayed away from there he said once he gets in the sports

bar he said he lingered to he did some dancing signed a couple autographs and he said he put threw down some bourbon shots by the way through all his rehab he drinks like a fish it's not back then they didn't even think there was a difference some people can do that uh he said quote that was the start of it all i was feeling good real good oh no yeah meanwhile dawkins he said had a date with a beautiful white skin girl to do some hot and heavy mattress bouncing that's what how he put it in the book there uh now he but sugar didn't give a shit he was drinking having a good time dancing and all that shit dawkins knew that richardson wasn't supposed to be out drinking because of the whole drug thing he's supposed

to be clean as shit uh but he seemed to be under control just having a drink and so he's like all right well i'm not going to go up and play fucking babysitter to the guy he wants to have a drink he's an adult looks like he's not tearing the place up or anything so what the fuck so he does that so uh dawkins went over and uh said that he went over to the rookie they were hanging out with and said that he was taking the girl and going we're gonna do some mattress said tell you what keep an eye on sugar for me yeah and he said no problem yeah so after a few drinks they said uh good looking blonde approaches richardson uh-oh uh he'd seen her there a couple of times he said but they never spoken or anything like that but now she's coming on to him and uh anyway she said she'd fuck him

like he'd never been fucked before that was the come on so shooting a shot you know what i'm saying i mean that's a tough one there it's a good one so uh it's a hell of a challenge uh he says in his words as far as i was concerned pussy was pussy he didn't care about what the chick was he said uh didn't care about race of anybody he liked women uh he said though uh you know he said though he didn't like white people he didn't like, but women he didn't really care about was basically what it was here. So he said that he took this made him have a certain relish in fucking white chicks because they would have nothing to do with him back then. So now he's like, now you like me because I'm famous. Very Richard Pryor.

Yeah. He says also, he said, unlike this is his thing that he said that no uh no white chick ever called him the n-word he goes i know they always were nice to me so he said fine that's cool i guess white chicks are okay those guys have said it to me but never been called that by a woman but i assume that's probably a turnoff and if she wants to have sex with you yeah you're probably not gonna you're not gonna get that yeah no. You're not going to get that. Yeah. No. Walk up to a woman and call her a cunt and try to fuck her. I'll tell you this.

He's still alive today. Yeah. So there's plenty of white women that would be willing to call him that, I'm sure, if he just goes basically anywhere out of your house nowadays. He'll find a white woman willing to point a gun at him while calling him that, I'm sure. Good point. So, yeah. he'll find a white woman willing to point a gun at him while calling him that i'm sure so uh yeah he uh he was also he said his wife at the time was having some postpartum depression so instead of going home and being there for her he says that she was super sensitive and

didn't want to go near him and all this shit so he says you know what the fuck basically like what am i doing monogamy isn't my thing anyway. Let's get it on. I have a crack head. What does she expect? That's what I mean. So the rookie, he says, quote, I turned away from Sugar for about a minute, right? And when I turned back, he was gone.

I ran outside just in time to see him drive off with some white girl in a gold-colored Mercedes. It was snowing like crazy, but he had the top top down and nobody saw him for another three or four days what the fuck are you doing i don't know the last time i saw him he was driving through a blizzard with the top down snorting coke off of white woman's titty i don't know in public i I'm not sure. That's amazing. So this is pretty fucking amazing here. Sugar says, quote, she was a businesswoman. She was attracted to me and was just out for a good time. I never did find out what her name was, and I can't even exactly remember what she looked like. Wow. That's how fucked up they got.

He said they drove to her apartment, what he called a nice, classy place. Then she pulled out a bag out of a drawer in the bedroom. Tons of coke. Coke to smoke. She had shit cooked up already to smoke. Coke to snort. Everything. He said that he figured he could handle just a little sniff so that he could really have some fun with this woman.

Right. And he said, quote, but I was wrong as that happened. i did a three four day coke yeah right well he said that the first round was great yeah of sex he said quote we were banging away and howling with pleasure gross he sounds like danny devito and always sunny so we were banging away and howling with pleasure right i told charlie he had to leave the room. No? So he says, but the second dose wasn't as good as the first, and every hit from then on had less and less effect.

Yeah, you know, drugs. That works with everything. Don't drink for a month and then have two beers. You'll be like, hey, I'm buzzed. Holy shit, I should do this more often. This is pretty cool. And then drink for a week, and you and you're like oh two beers doesn't do shit so that's called tolerance so he said that yeah that that didn't wasn't as good he said still a druggie winds up chasing a ghost doing it just to do it and we were still uh oh my god and we

were still heavy into our fuck-a-thon that's a good phrase this guy is great a fuckathon a fuckathon so uh he said the coke i think i've ever had a fuckathon a fuckathon let's do some coke get back into it that's wild yeah not like this i don't think i don't think you've had a fuckathon like this this is like wow they need like an iv and then do more coke to do coke and then get back into it again that's crazy that's wild yeah that's that's crazy he says that uh he didn't even realize the time was passing because he was doing so much coke i mean yeah when you're having fun yeah the only things that mattered were the drugs the sex and the paranoia the fucking paranoia got worse and worse because i knew i shouldn't be doing what i was doing

but man i was so motherfucking high so wrapped up in the drugs so he's jesus what a fucking mess isn't it disaster fucking unbelievable how much sex uh absolute messes have yeah oh yeah people that have their lives together don't fuck like this i know it's unbelievable i know it's sad isn't it it's a strange yeah it's very depressing it makes you want to get a coke you have to be a lunatic and this is when all the women will let you in on a secret out there guys yeah certain guys like a certain type of crazy chick for the reason of the sex is amazing yeah that's a weird thing but we they've noticed it is what i mean it's a thing just making you aware of it so you know what we're out there yeah exactly jesus christ so meanwhile he said the tv in the hotel or in her apartment

was always on never off just always on to the background and he says quote but it was just uh background stuff that we didn't pay attention to looking without seeing hearing without listening but then on the third day the third day of just coke and fucking looking without seeing hearing without listening but then on the third day the third day of just coke and fucking looking without seeing listening hearing about what a fucking quote he's a quote machine beautiful this guy he's like ah that's just beautiful he's a fucking poet he says but then on the third day which is insane i couldn't help noticing my own picture on the screen and a voiceover that said michael ray richardson was missing no i'm not right here they said it was feared i'd been kidnapped and i might even be dead whoa so i shouted at the tv hey motherfucker i ain't missing

i'm right here which is helpful hey motherfucker nah ted cop Nah, Ted Koppel, I'm fine. Listen, Dan Rather, you punk bitch. I'm right here. Jesus Christ. He said that's when he kind of snapped into reality of, I've been gone for days. Holy shit. I missed two practices and an entire game, which you cannot do. How's his dick not waterlogged at this point?

Fucking just pruned up and fucking raw. Like it's been in a bathtub. Layers of skin are going to peel off of this fucking thing. He should be sloughing by now. Yeah, like he was burned with hot oil. It's going to fall off of him. If he wasn't circumcised, he is now. That's right.

It was raw. He burned it right off. Smoke was coming off of that thing. And the poor woman, Jesus Christ. Oh, Christ. I guess the coke will numb it so uh he says he didn't know what to do so what he does is trying to cover his own ass he calls the nets and said i just escaped from the kidnappers that's what he said literally i was

kidnapped i just escaped from the kidnappers i'm going home right now ted copple's right he's right that's it so that's fucking amazing and his mom says quote during christmas i thought it would happen again when they couldn't find him i said to myself michael ray is on that stuff again which sounds like an old woman that's pretty that's heartbreaking as shit so his only contact for these this time was a couple of telephone calls to his wife and his sister because his sister was in town from denver so he was called calls to his wife and his sister. His sister was in town from Denver. So he was called home and his wife and sister were there. And both of them urged him to, you know, not do this and come home.

And yeah, so finally he contacted the team and said, I got to escape from the kidnappers. And then a couple hours later he was like, yeah, I was on a coke binge. So that's what happened. Because then you realize then you have to go to the cops and give a description and make up a whole story. That's a lot of work. Just say you did coke.

His wife heard the screams of passion from his kidnapper. Yeah. Oh, God. My pussy hurts. It's been three days. So December 31st, 1985, New Year's Eve, he is suspended without pay. He's a second-time drug user here. He's then sent to the league's drug rehab center in California.

This is the one where they play basketball at and all the guys go to. It's great. Yeah, they all say it's just great. It's awesome. Because the one guy they were talking to is like, you know, I mean, it's one of those places where it's like, it's kind of shitty because some of the places you just can't do anything. It's one of those places where it's like it's kind of shitty because some of the places you just can't do anything here. You can like you can talk and you can go around and play basketball and stuff and you can't do stuff like go shopping like you want to do. But it's still, you know, it's great, though.

Yeah, it's a vacation is what it is. The fucking resort that happens to be kind of away from other stuff. That's all it is. So he goes there three weeks of treatment. He returns home January 17th, and three days later, he joins the Nets again. Okay. So while he's in there, though, Larry Doby, who's the Nets director of community relations, and is that Larry Doby, the baseball player? I don't know.

Like, the second black player ever to play? Is it? Like, he's the... Larry Doby was the first black player in the American League. He followed Jackie Robinson for like three fucking weeks, went through the same shit, got none of the credit. He's a great player, and he played for the Newark Eagles before that, the Negro League team.

That's, by the way, completely in contact. There's really nothing else you can call the league because that's what it's called. But he played for the Newark Eagles there, so I'm wondering if he worked for the Nets later on. Different guy? Is it D-O-B-Y? D-O-B-Y. D-O-B-Y. Wow.

It's the same spelling and everything. Wow. Interesting. And it shows nothing about... What year was that? 86. Well, he was... Director of Community Relations for the Nets.

I don't know if he was getting into stuff after that. I don't know if it's the same guy. I don't know. I have to look into that. He died in fucking 2003. So I don't know if it's the same guy. So anyway, he had a great quote. He said, Michael Ray Richardson is not a problem child. He's a child

with a problem. I think that's a pretty good goddamn quote here. One of Dobie's jobs was to keep an eye on Richardson, and he was doing a good job right up until he disappeared. Oh my God, James. It's the same guy. Motherfucker, Larry. I knew it, because he played for Newark, so I thought maybe he had a Jersey connection.

After retiring from baseball, Dobie was named Director of Communications for the National Same guy. Motherfucker. Larry, I knew it because he played for Newark, so I thought maybe he had a Jersey connection. That makes sense. After retiring from baseball, Dobie was named director of communications for the National Basketball Association's New York Nets. That is crazy. And then he moved to Jersey. For nine years he did that shit. Okay. I'm glad it's him.

Good for him, man. That's amazing. Good for him for sure. Fuck yeah. He did a lot after that too. He did. Dobie had a great life, a very interesting career in life. What a fascinating man. Fascinating. And yeah never real never got the credit he deserved no he's a great player too

he wasn't just there he was a great player it's a fucking shame man there's gonna be a uh a stamp uh there is one i have a newark eagles hat because he played on their team he has there are only four players from the uh mlbs that are getting stamps it is uh Ted Williams, Joe DiMaggio, Willie Stargell, and Mr. Dobie. That's why. I would probably replace Stargell with Willie Mays. Maybe. And I'd be happy. That'd be good.

But otherwise, that's a decent fucking list. That's not bad. And Larry Dobie gets one. I love Willie Stargell. I guess he got kind of a payback for i mean yeah he got it right yeah he got he had to put up with so much he had to put up with so much yeah and they didn't make a million movies about him and have there's no larry doby day right does everybody wear everybody wear 42 everybody wear his number anytime i bet larry doby would rather

have had eggs thrown at him than whatever the fuck else he had probably thrown at him. Oh, God, yeah. He would rather be Michael Ray Richardson. Yeah, he went through a lot of shit, Larry Doby. Yeah, absolutely. Well, that's him. That's him. Good deal. I'm happy to do it.

Happy to find out. So he says, to be honest, this is one Nets player under anonymity here. He says, to be honest, I figured it would happen sooner or later he says um it just it seems like nobody ever makes it just look at john lucas and john drew both of which will have episodes look at football players and basketball players there's always a slip or a fall it's almost like heart disease or cancer it's it's a disease and there's no cure for it you can arrest it but it always seems to come back you can't arrest a disease no so uh the nets coach here he's this is uh dave wall who is this is his first year he said things were going so well for him i

can't really understand why he did that well yeah because you're not a coke head but if you've never been addicted to it you can't understand the gravitational pull it must have it would be nice to still have him here but this thing is affecting someone's life. It's life or death in a way. It's far more important for him just to get healthy and for him to think good for himself and then to have him make a jump shot. So there's that. His mom said, quote, he came home in January. This is Luddy.

And before he got ready to leave, I said to him, Michael Ray, you won't talk to me about it, but you can't talk to me about it but you can't fool me baby if you're doing it please stop well he turned around grabbed me hugged me and said mama i don't mess with that dope and i said you remember this i still love you just because you're you so his mom tried to put him on the path but once he's out there and the cars and the women and the coke it's a little different. When mom's not around. Yeah. I bet if mom was there the whole time, he'd never do Coke and have three-day fuckathons, I'm sure.

With a white woman he doesn't know. She is. With the top down. She'd at least tell him, put the top up, goddammit. Backhand him and shit. Get all this snow in here. You stupid son of a bitch. So, February 10th, 1986, he calls in sick to the NBA. You can't do that.

To a team practice and a doctor's appointment that he had that day, too. You can't call in sick to your doctor's appointment. Yeah, as a team doctor. That's where you got to show up. So the league ordered him to be tested to see if his disappearance was because of drugs, but the tests were negative. They do come back negative here. February 20th, 1986, he misses two shots in the final 34 seconds of a loss to the Bulls. So not good.

He's not feeling good. Several hours later, he arrives at a place where he shouldn't be. He arrives at the two-story townhouse where his wife lives, and now they're separated, and she's got a restraining order on him. Oh, you can't do that. He shows up at the townhouse to have a fight with her there. Yeah, he doesn't reside there. This is his wife, Leah. This is his second wife.

He's got a new life here. She's got a court order barring him from the residence. It's in Mahwah. Mahwah? How the fuck? I don't know what that one is. New Jersey. And yeah, he used to live there.

So this is 1 a.m in the morning of february 20th he ends up uh trying banging on the door and when she won't let him in he breaks glass and breaks into the house she can't do and they get in a huge fucking argument obviously and uh she calls the police and the police come and rich And Richardson said that he was unaware of the restraining order, which they serve you with that. So you're aware of it. You knew about that. And yeah. And immediately after his release, the NBA mandated a drug test because they released him from jail that night and he failed his drug test.

Yeah. She telephoned police. The wife at 1249 a.m. said he broke in, broke a pane of glass to get entry, and he is charged with criminal mischief as well as some other shit here. At some point, this big argument broke out and they took him to headquarters, issued a summons and released him. So, yeah, he's under arrest under the Domestic Violence Act and he's released. He arrives at practice later the next day with a minor cut on his left hand, and he can't participate in drills. And the police said they didn't believe the cut was arrest-related.

They didn't cut him, they said. We didn't fucking cut him. He says, quote, we do know he was brought in here and he was arrested, and it had to do with a domestic dispute. But if he had a cut, we would have never kept him here. I assume the cut came from the glass he broke. So they probably just ignored that, it seems like. They would have brought him there because it sounds like he did.

Yeah. Unless he found a way to cut himself in jail. Right. Which would be. Or on his way out. Or on his way out. I don't know. I would say if you've been around for a day and one of your activities were breaking a

pane of glass to break in a house and you have a cut. Yeah. Odds are that's where it came from. It's usually uh through a punch yeah something there so uh apparently richardson was very quote very angry at his wife according to the police they said that he uh did not strike her that he made a verbal threat and raised his hand like he was gonna strike her said i'll fucking i will hit you and doing this shit but he didn't actually hit her so uh the uh reports said

that he went to the residence to receive to retrieve his mercedes after his wife switched cars in the meadowlands parking lot during wednesday's game oh that's shitty so he came out and his car was gone she switched cars with him shitty silver one there yeah and he said the police said there was nothing in our report about the cars they didn't bring that up to the to the police officers so it's uh assault criminal mischief and disorderly conduct stemming from this and uh he maintains he was cut while washing dishes so sometime from being released from jail to going to practice he decided to do the dishes okay uh he says quote nothing happened i have no comment when they asked him about it so there's that the they asked the nets director of media relations whose hair is turning silver by the

moment he says quote we have no comment on his personal life not my problem it's not our shit silver son of a bitches so uh yeah he's ended up gets he gets charged uh michael ray's sister here anita says quote when i read about his arrest, I thought, what are we dealing with? How far have drugs taken him? What kind of a monster is this? Michael was never in trouble with the law. Well, February 26th, 1986, the NBA bans him from the league. This is technically a banning for life.

Is this the first guy to get it? I think Drew got it before him. I think he's the second guy. Or maybe Lucas, one of the league. This is technically a banning for life. Is this the first guy to get it? I think Drew got it before him. I think he's the second guy. Or maybe Lucas, one of the two. But he is banned for life, which you can apply for reinstatement after two years. But you're technically banned for life. I think it just sounds good.

He's banned for life. Pretty rad. I've never been banned from anything like that. Not for life. That's pretty cool. You could probably go back now if you could find one. I bought a fridge from them. Oh, did you?

Yeah. That's amazing. So, David Stern made an announcement saying that he received the... He's the commissioner, by the way, if you don't know. He received the results of the test and has to ban him. He said, quote, it's a tragic day for michael ray richardson nothing less than than the destruction by cocaine of a once flourishing career yep uh he can be appealed in two years like i said his agent charles grantham at the time uh he's he's also the

executive vice president of the players union he says that michael denies using drugs. Really? He says, quote, Michael said the tests were incorrect. Okay. What was that NASCAR guy that did that? Come on, man. Jeremy Mayfield. Yeah. Come on, man. He tested like three times in two days. He says, sugar says he's clean and that he didn't use drugs.

Okay. Yeah. You need to start selling scrap metal now, bro. You know, that's what I'm saying, man. He said that it's not that it is, quote, within the it's it's not within the realm of impossibility that the first tests were wrong. We'd like to have them verified. Too many things are inconclusive. Now, according to David Stern, it was two separate tests and they both came up positive.

Yeah, that sounds pretty conclusive. So, yeah, the league's director of security they all assigned they had a drug counselor assigned to richardson and all this type of shit he's supposed to go for adult substance abuse program in california so uh yeah he ends up leaving for 10 30 in the morning that day to go to rehab um the owner of the team said he was upset and stunned. He kept repeating, it's not so. Well, there's that. Now, yeah, Stern said the Nets had been paying all the rehab costs since 1983, and they offered to continue to keep paying for them.

Louis Schaffel, the vice president, said, Speaking for the organization, we're saddened. It's a very, very sad day. He's a person we feel very much a saddened it's a very very sad day he's a person we feel very much a part of he's a human being we will we want to do whatever is possible to support him even if he can't play for the team we'll pay for counseling for rehabilitation simply because he's not playing we have playing we haven't forgotten about him that's nice i mean but you know it's kind of what vince mcmahon does sending him to rehab with no, no, like no follow up.

Yeah. And plan to stay on the path. So, yeah, he said, we try. We tried to do anything and everything over the last three years to help. We paid for different rehabilitations at the best substance abuse centers in the country. We tried to find the best counselor, psychiatrist. That didn't work. We consulted experts.

We tried everything to help him through this problem it's always going to be said that we could have done more but i don't know what more we're not professionals we don't have all the answers but we tried you're not but uh it's your job to find them i mean i guess so uh he ends up playing 47 games that year uh 15.7 points a game 7.2 assists 2.7 steals 5.3 rebounds plays great playing great uh that's he'll never play in the nba again that's it that's it for his career totally done um it's fucking sad of shit how much coke money did he make oh my god well we don't know because the beginning of his contract was it seems like it's about five million ish which is still a shitload of money put away

and coke oh you can piss that away real quick um his agent said quote michael ray is not a unique case here's a kid who right out of college was chased by agents probably offered large sums of money by them is approached by people with drugs to give him and really just finds himself in a different world this isn't an excuse michael ray did this to himself but when you look at it i see a lot of potential michael ray richardson's out there not just in the pros now but guys in college and high school yeah he said it's obviously clear that michael ray has an illness this may be the first time he can spend some time singly and fully working out his problem there won't be basketball to go back to during his treatment if he can get his personal life back in control then maybe we'll think about continuing his basketball career maybe in europe but we just have to get his life in order then he says he's

going to struggle financially he won't be able to live like he's been but losing material things and money at a time when your life is falling apart and you're trying to put it back together becomes pretty insignificant if michael ray doesn't play basketball at all for two years it will be terminal to his career however i have no doubt in my mind that Michael Ray can play the game. So he's going to be poor. So here is some stuff that his mom says on March 5th, 1986. Well, he's still in rehab. This is in the Austin American Statesman newspaper.

She says, I want him to go to a hospital and stay there, not one week or two weeks or at least three weeks. But if it takes a year then stay a year wow luddy jesus mom you said what we put him in prison can we just lock him up what's he gonna do back here if he takes the whole two years he's banned that's okay i believe if you're hooked on the stuff two or three weeks won't do nothing but dry you out he has to want help it's he has to want help it's out there yeah i would fucking say so i guess his wife they've kind of uh his wife realized she couldn't abandon him while he was going through this so they reconciled um his sister says basketball has been his life now that he's not

playing anymore there's no telling what he'll do i don't want to read any more stories about michael ray missing that story's played out it's happened a lot so yeah something something has happened to Michael Ray over the last four years that he hasn't let anybody know about. It's a personal war within himself. Until he can see that, he can't overcome it. He's headed for personal destruction. Yeah, he's living like a fucking lunatic. I mean, he honestly, he is living crazy right now.

I mean, it's crazy, but not as crazy, Jimmy, as the sales. 86? Oh, the sales, Jimmy. Oh, my goodness. March 5th, 1986. If you happen to be in Austin, Texas, might I invite you down for some sales? Number one, down to the Lamar Bookstore, where there's an adult video sale. Oh, hey. 1,001 adult videos.

Oh. Sale, rent, or exchange. rent or exchange 15.95 each god that's a disgusting want to trade porn this one's real dirty it's a filthy one austin texas porn jesus that's where the college is there's so much tugging going on there's just dust clouds around people fucking around there just fucking in the dust good lord head on down to the uh where the hell is this i don't even fucking know the book's uh leasing specialists somewhere i don't know lease a fucking car okay you can get a jeep cherokee for 245 a month you can get a mazda 626 for 210 a month. 300 ZX for $295 a month. Hell yeah. Nice little car. Lincoln Town Car, $335 a month.

Holy shit. Porsche 944, $395 a month. What? Not bad. Or get a Toyota Tercel for $128 a month. Your pick.

Yeah. Head on down there. Now that you have this new car. I got your budget car. You got your car. Either your Porsche or your Tercel. Whichever you choose.

One of the two. Head on down to uh telfer which is a store where they say you have three professional ways to stay in touch get yourself a car phone oh from 1985 how much was this shit uh here it is as you can see it it comes in a suitcase where it sits atop it now god damn it whose idea was that it says nec intel air team up to bring you the ultimate in car phones nec means crisp clear transmissions every time now just 799 same price same price yep same price as an iphone it's that much heavier yeah the nec portable cellular phone with four hour battery gives you total freedom with no loss

in quality. That's a cell phone. The first one was a car phone. Right. This is a cell phone. $1,995 for the fucking... It's a suitcase with a phone receiver sitting on top of it. It weighs 30 pounds.

$1,995. Very convenient. Two grand. Wow. I just watched Hot to Trot convenient. Two grand. Wow. I just watched Hot to Trot recently. Four hours of battery. And Bobcat answers the phone in the car, and he's like, it's got a cord on it and everything, and he's like, I'm in the car!

Oh, yeah. Boy, that is not impressive, Bobcat. No. Well, this is even less impressive if you slam your suitcase full of phone on there and be like, hold on. I have four hours of battery. Let me make this phone call. It'll cost me $6,000. Jesus Christ.

You better be making a million dollar business deal with that. That's what I mean. Otherwise, why do you need it? Two grand and 85 money. 86 money. That is like, you is like eight grand today. That's crazy. So, Tellair also carries a complete line of tone and digital pagers starting at only $15 per month.

That sounds right. You need that. And then you can take your car and your car phone and your porn and drive on. You're going to be hungry after all that jerking. phone and your porn and drive on you're gonna be hungry after all that jerking so what i say is you head on down to bill miller barbecue oh boy uh where is this bill miller barbecue down on oh they have three locations 8103 burnett road uh 5100 balcones wood in 1930 was that woman can canon i don't know what the fuck that is what do you want to bet that's still open? It probably is. New evening special.

Two pieces of fried chicken, baked potato, coleslaw, tea, and dessert. Tea? Tea. I don't know why. Sweet tea. Got it. Oh, yeah. It's Texas.

Yeah. $1.95. Oh. $1.95? Two pieces of chicken, baked potato, coleslaw, tea, and dessert. $1.95. That's a deal. Holy shit. You're going to be bargain shopping for food when $1.95. That's a deal. Holy shit.

You're going to be bargain shopping for food when you're paying two grand for a phone. Oh, shit. A buck ninety. Regular 304. It's on sale here. Served in dining room nightly from 5 p.m. to close. Ask for the dinner special through March 9th, all this week. And it says on this, on all around it it all four borders of this ad quote nobody makes

bbq like bill miller all right so now that you know that get on down there jesus christ so michael says about getting kicked out of the nba quote getting kicked out of the nba was the lowest point of my life i was a punk ass kid from nowhere so the nba thought i was expendable there's a double standard in the league believe Believe me, when I got kicked out, all them white druggies threw away their pipes and got clean in a hurry. The NBA got exactly what they wanted. There's no question in my mind that

there was a double standard. If they found positives with Larry Bird and Michael Ray Richardson, they're like, who are we going to make an example of? It ain't going to be Larry. Who's throwing their pipe out and who's being thrown out of the way. Exactly. Exactly.

Or who makes it look like we're tough on those druggies. That's what it is there. So, yeah. Buck Williams, who's one of his friends there, he says he loves him, though. He said, quote, about Michael, he's one of the nicest guys I've ever met. And I'm not saying that just to sound like I care. If you needed anything from him, he'd give it to you. The last dollar out of his pocket. Maybe he wanted to be liked too much maybe he was too nice if you were

one of the low lives who got him involved with drugs he wanted you to like him too i don't care what he's done i know him and i still love him good for you june 17th 1986 he's arrested again he is charged here with taking nine thousand,748 from the State Farm Insurance Company and depositing the bulk of the money in a bank account he holds with his wife. Oh, took a settlement? It was money that was supposed to be turned over to H&Z Auto Body Service based on repairs to his Mercedes, and instead he took the insurance money and pocketed it and stiffed these fucking guys.

I feel you, man. So now it's insurance fraud. Yeah. So the check had his signature and an H&Z stamp on the back. And H&Z called State Farm to collect its money after not receiving the amount due. Yeah.

So there's that. Now, July 8th, 86, a few weeks later, he has a busy day here. Oh, yeah. This is where he gets arrested twice in 24 hours. This is always fun when people get arrested twice in a day. So he first gets arrested here. They find him in a running car sleeping behind a building.

Not sleeping, passed out. Knotted out. So they arrest him for that there. They said he appeared to be under the influence of drugs or alcohol. They didn't smell any alcohol. They assumed it was drugs. They said he looked thin and gaunt and not good. Basically like a crackhead, you know, like he's been smoking crack and passing out in his car.

Right. So, uh, yeah. So what ends up happening is they arrest him and then he is released from jail. And then once he's released from jail and then once he's released from jail he's like i should go to my wife's house and fuck with her even though i'm not allowed to be there again so he does he goes uh he ends up well he first he uh jesus christ first they take him with the uh they take him for the being high and sleeping in the car they take him instead of to jail they take him to a detox center at the bergen pines hospital okay he escapes there oh boy he

just walks out of there yeah okay obviously so then he leaves hitchhikes out of the place yeah hitchhikes like fucking bode in the wire escaping jail he hitchhikes uh and ends up going all the way to his wife's house again where he banged on the door and banged on the door uh apparently she called the cops they came he fled on foot oh no so he ran away uh several cop cars followed him he went through some woods popped out the other side ended up uh hitchhiking another ride away from the cops. And then finally, he was turning into a convenience store in a town near there. And they went to a convenience store. He saw the cops come in, so he ran into the woods.

And finally, the cops arrested him behind the store in the woods. Have we ever had anybody whose getaway car was hitchhiking? Hitchhiking and then their feet in the woods. Not good. That's a bad getaway car. Yeah. So, clearly, that's a bad day. Yeah.

That's twice in a day. So, he gets brought back and now he's got leaving the rehab center and going back and violating a restraining order, domestic violence. He's got all this fucking shit. A judge set his bail for 2,500 bucks. He's got all this fucking shit. Judge set his bail for $2,500. He says, oh, by the way, law enforcement officers at this point say that he has been, quote, writing bad checks all over Bergen County as well and was unable to make bail there because he doesn't have $2,500.

He's out of cash. And he was jailed at the Hackensack facility there. He told officers that gross. He told officers there that Daryl Dawkins would be going to come bail him out. Eventually, he did. Apparently, they really eventually. That's awesome. Daryl Dawkins came.

Somebody bailed his ass out. We don't know. They said that Daryl Dawkins didn't arrive that night, but somebody did. Who the fuck knows? But he gets out, actually. Yeah. So, Jesus Christ. He ended up giving a Fort Lee lee new jersey motel is his address to the police by the way damn it told the cops he went to pick up his mother and sister who had

arrived from colorado to see what was wrong with him that's what he told the cops and so somehow that ended up he decided to pull over and take a nap in his car he was i don't know uh he admitted that he continued to use cocaine since his banishment from the nba he told the cops that um yeah because when he was arrested they said what are you on he's like what do you think i'm on have you read the fucking paper i'm clearly on coke dude just i know there's no google uh yeah read any newspaper that says that i'm banned no yeah and he was parked behind a realty office, too. So they tend to notice that sort of shit at like a realty office. Right.

Not wonderful there. They saw him. Also, he threatened his wife when he was there and ran away. And we told you about all of that. So he agreed to enter a detox center after that again for the second time. Maybe not walk out this time. So July 26, 26 1986 just a couple weeks later domestic violence charges are dismissed against him as uh the judge dismissed the

charges of threatening his wife and afterwards he and his wife walked from the judge's chamber hand in hand after the hearing he got his wife to drop the fucking charges basically and they said we're doing so much better now and it was a drug thing and now he's in rehab and we're just it's wonderful they hugged for the reporters outside the courthouse what a roller coaster then left separately with their lawyers it was for yeah it's all publicity yep um they they said the couple could be back together as early as thursday if financial and other conditions could be agreed upon what is this, a team? What financial?

He's trying to sign her to the team if we could reach an agreement on the financial things. So, yeah, her lawyer says they believe he's been off drugs for about three weeks. So, at this point, he's allowed to get a $60,000 contract in October of 86 to play with the Hopal Ramit Gan, a team in Tel Aviv in Israel. He's going to go over there. Yeah, but he never ends up going there for some reason. It never ends up happening.

He signs the contract and then it never comes to fruition. There was an argument. I know with his immigration status to Israel basically like he's a criminal well not even that he had to do be some contributing something educational or something like that and he wasn't the team tried to say he was and they told him he couldn't bring him in i don't know plus he's a criminal which is probably what it was a fucking drug addict we don't need him here i think generally that's what it was here um so uh and then in, uh, in 1987, the, uh, Munich based international basketball association here, uh, their governing body refused to approve his contract there as well,

given the reason of his history with drug abuse. And the ban was, there was no official document indicating Richardson was released from an amateur team he used to play for in Denver, which is not, that's bullshit. It's fine. So early 1987, he's facing those charges for defrauding an insurance company. They're coming to fruition now. He's facing prosecution in Bergen County on charges he defrauded this company. It's, like we said, a little under $10,000.

He pleads innocent to these charges. There, he says he's been banned from the nba and uh you know he doesn't have money for bail and all that kind of shit but they let him out on a personal recognizance bond so there's that uh he could face a maximum of six years in prison if he is convicted of charge of theft by deception and forgery not wonderful for him so, 1987, he's playing for the USBL, US Basketball League, the Long Island Knights. There was a shitload of minor league basketball back then. ACPBL, CBA, as we know about, CBPL, Canadian League,

the EBL, the Eastern League, Global Basketball League, Independent Basketball, Iowa Basketball Exposure League. Exposure? They play with their balls swinging. Balls swinging, Jimmy. The IBL International League. Show us how black your asshole is. Yeah, we'd like to see it.

On a scale of Isaiah Thomas to Larry Bird, where does it fall? So Kentucky Basketball Developmental League, Metro East Basketball League, National Rookie League, National NABL also, Tobacco Road Basketball League. Jesus Christ. World Basketball League, West Coast Professional League. He's cut by the USBL after a while. There's some problems basically here. Yeah, he wasn't doing anything with the plays.

He was just doing what he felt like doing. And they released him saying that he was disruptive doing what he felt like doing and they released him saying that he was disruptive to the team and disrespectful to the coach he's playing pickup basketball in our professional league pretty much yeah uh he told the he responded by telling the press that the knights bounced paychecks to him and ran an unprofessional organization so yeah for uh two days later though he's signed by the Jersey Jammers. And Henry Bibby's his coach. Mike Bibby's dad.

Yeah. After two weeks, Bibby said, I'm happy with his attitude. Wherever he goes in the NBA, he'll have to fit into a structured system. He's shown me that he's trying to do that here. He's doing okay. It's at this point where he sues his old psychiatrist. Oh, the drug dealer guy? Yeah. The drug dealer guy.

sues his old psychiatrist oh the drug dealer guy yeah doer guy he announced that he's uh filing a 3.5 million dollar suit against him blaming the doctor for continued cocaine abuse that resulted in his expulsion from the nba that's a little it's a stretch that's a stretch he's trying to go with detriment to my career yeah which is probably true but not to say that that led to yeah he's still got to make the decision. Yeah. The doctor at this point was already serving one year probation after pleading guilty to purchasing six vials of crack in Greenwich Village. Like he said here, Richardson was treated by him in 1986, and then he tested positive and did all of his things that we know about here. The suit was filed and his wife was there with him filing the suit and having a press conference.

Remember when he said people in rehab blame other people for their problems? Yeah. And I just like drugs? Yeah, I just like them. I mean, that phrase, that sentence is kind of biting him in the balls right now. Yeah, that's about $3.5 million. Now, the doctor told prosecutors, by the way, when when he was arrested he told police and then prosecutors he purchased the crack to check whether it is really a derivative of cocaine

is what he said okay um but then they found a whole bunch of people that said they would sell him coke all the time and shit he knew fine also mine encyclopedia or something yeah uh an associate uh here said quote he was should be better known as Dr. Feelgood. As you can imagine, his aftercare treatment was not exactly helpful. That's fantastic. No shit. It said that the suit claims that his treatment did not meet the standards of acceptable medical practice. And as a result, that's fine.

I could see that as a medical malpractice thing. malpractice thing richardson seeking lost wages of 725 000 plus 50 000 for two years worth of lost product endorsement contracts and compensation of two million dollars in future wages and punitive damages so january 1988 he goes to the cba to play for the albany patroons oh boy uh they said his coach said michael's at the point where he knows he's got to prove that he's going to stay straight no fucking shit he's got to patroon it he's got to patroon it he receives 560 a week as his pay wow there and uh uh what else is and they stay at a quality in oh no that's where they stay so it's a very different it's like he's getting paid the same as a mechanic at this point. Yeah. That's exactly.

Yeah. He's weekly living in a quality. And so, yeah, he said he talks with his old teammates once a week. He says he wants to come back to the NBA if he could. He said, quote, I had a lot of problems there, so I feel like they owe me something. But if they decide they don't want me, I'll move on. So here he is. He's in Albany now.

He's playing for the Patroons. Not something you want when you want to play in the NBA. I mean, what? He's in Montana, Albany. He's used to bad places. He tries to find people to hang out with. He doesn't know what to do with himself. He's trying not to do drugs.

You're in the middle of Albany. He's in limbo. Yeah, so what he ends up doing is to replace the drug. He puts on a little bit of weight from just trying to get off the drugs and that sort of thing like people that make 520 a week and that's the thing and the thing he finds though the best meal he can get for this is this shawarma shop yeah he opens the door who is it there yeah it's the shwarmer man jimmy and he says how is it you've come to arrive here yeah why'd you come why you go you in albany but what the fuck name of your team i don't know patroon what is that what what fuck patroon mean what is that is it something blacker than inside of asshole of you? I don't know. I don't know.

You come in here, but I can see cocaine. It's on you. It's all over your face. Not even your nose. By your eyes, cocaine. It's everywhere. Why you go? You don't have any extra.

No, no, no, no. Shwarmer man had a bit of a problem. But no, you can't stay. You go. No. Sign say closed. You go. You go.

I no make for you. You go. I can't be around. Can't be You go. I no make for you. You go. I can't be around. Can't be around. And then poof. The shawarma shop is gone. Michael's very confused. I can't believe that was... Inspired by a guy who rented an apartment.

Just somebody. She says she have money. Then she no give to us. That's what he said. That was his quote in the paper. He said it right in the paper. Then she no give to us. You're like, you know who that guy is, right?

She say she have money, then she no give to us. The hairiest shoulders. Fucking bitch. Bitch. She's a bitch. So, uh... Ah. 1980, 80 goes to... this bitch so uh 1980 80 goes to jesus christ every time you do it i see the terrorist that was plucked out of the hole khalid sheikh muhammad you see i know exactly with the ron jeremy looking guy with the

cut off sleeves on his sweatshirt hairy shoulders the hairy shoulders. Yeah, hairy shoulders. Stretched out neck. Yep, that's the one. That's who you picture. That's, I don't know why. That's my guy. That's the guy. I see him saying, she says she have money.

She says she have money, then she not give to us. Why? Why she do that? She liar. Holy shit. She liar. Deserve to be raped by dave maggot multiple time

that's what it was from yeah it was she was he was literally besmirching a rape victim in the paper justifying her she's a liar and she say she have money then she don't give to us because she's the landlord justifying a woman being unbelievable it was a smear piece on a rape victim so unreal man so holy shit 1988 michael goes to play in italy yeah uh he goes to joins the basketball team nor k-n-o-r-r which is the food group right they're all all the teams are owned by food companies over there it's the most stereotypical hot dogs yeah most stereotypical fucking shit ever so we played for the norrs here the norrs yeah so uh yeah frank johnson was there as well no kidding yeah they uh ended up the

problem is he ends up being suspended because he starts a huge brawl that leads to the ejection of a record 12 players and seven team officials. It had to be broken up by riot police. A fucking giant brawl that he started on the court. Oh, I want to see that. Yeah, it involved Frank Johnson was in that. Kevin Johnson's brother there, who we've talked about. Wait, Kevin Johnson's brother or Eddie Johnson's brother? Eddie Johnson's.

I say Kevin. Jesus Christ. They played on the same team. That's why. I meant Eddie. I didn't realize Kevin. Jesus Christ. They played on the same team. That's why. That's why. I meant Eddie. I didn't realize he played over there. No, yeah.

He played. We didn't go do Frank. But yeah, Frank, at the end of his career, he went and played in Italy. He was a marginal guy, Frank. What year is this? This was 88. Oh. So he was over there in 88.

So it was at the beginning of Frank's career. I think so, yeah. He probably went over there to earn. Yeah, he went over there to earn. How about that? A lot of guys started like that. So the Italian teams are not okay with this uh basically it occurred during the closing minutes of a game that was 91 to 73 already not even close nor was left with only three players

to finish the game so very similar to the malice at the palace yeah that was a blowout too this was ridiculous it's at this time that he is reinstated to play in the nba he's eligible to play in the nba if somebody will sign him he is reinstated he replies david stern reinstates him uh the 76ers are interested with the brawl and really everything they don't care uh michael richardson tells the press that he will sign with the 76ers unless his italian team matches the offer basically here uh he will sign with the 76ers unless his Italian team matches the offer basically here he met briefly with the team officials he said quote the fan shouldn't worry I'm thinking about staying the club knows I want to stay here if Philadelphia matches the offer

I stay if I don't I go so if they don't I go so hey you know what are you gonna do if they match the Philadelphia offer so uh he was he's under a two-year contract that paid him $550,000 a year over there. Wow. He made some bank over there. That's not bad. And the 76ers guaranteed him a two-year deal worth $800,000 a season. Oh. You just got to match it.

But, yeah, the Sixers owner said that the team would be interested in him. Didn't know if they were going to sign him. He says he wants a two-year deal from the Sixers. They pull the two-year deal and offer him a one-year deal, and he says he'll only play for a two-year deal, and they never come to an agreement, and he never plays in the NBA again. Stays in Italy.

Stays in Italy. So rather than come over and show that he was back in the league and looking good and drug-free and wait a year and then get another big deal. He's doesn't get there. He doesn't trust himself. Weird thing is when he speaks Italian, zero stutter does not stutter at all when he speaks Italian.

What is that? Don't understand it. Don't understand it. There's a country singer that stutters like a motherfucker. And when he sings, he does not stutter. Yeah. I mean, it was James Earl Jones is a stutter. Really? Yeah. Not when he's acting. A lot of actors of actors are like that singers i know singers that are stutters they don't stutter when they sing yeah it's weird so strange thing so uh in

1989 here he ends up again adele doesn't sound british when she sings either no neither does anybody british really for the most except for oasis they sound the most british very british no matter what so after uh uh he he's in 89 he ends up working also for a sports management firm uh the one run by uh roger staubach's company at the time keeps playing in italy uh fails a drug test around 91 of course uh plays in europe all through the 90s. Really? I mean, he is playing up until 2001 in Italy. Really? Which is fucking crazy.

That's an almost 60-year-old man. Yeah. Oh, he was playing old as fuck, man. He said that he was going to play for somewhere in Croatia, but he said the competition in Italy is better, and so was the money. He was 43 in 1998-99. He's's 43 years old he is 22 years older than his youngest teammate wow so he's it's fucking crazy he's almost doubled the guy's age more than just throws on a jersey yeah coming out there by the way manute bull uh it came out that the guy

who found him came i don't know if you saw this today, came out this, or no, it was not today. It was a while ago. He said that he made up Manute Bull's birthday. What? Manute Bull was like 50 when he played in the NBA. Get the fuck out of here. Manute Bull was in his late 40s and early 50s when he was playing in the NBA.

He said, I just made up a birthday. He said he didn't know his actual birthday, but we knew he was 20 years older than we were saying he was. What the shit? We just told everybody he was 23. That makes so much sense. That's why he looked 100, because he was in his 50s. He was like 55 years old.

Shave his head because it's fucking gray. Yeah, he was in his 50s. That's why. He was old as shit. That makes so much sense. Is that crazy? Why he couldn't fucking move? Yeah.

Why he was so unathletic. He was a 7'7 man who was in his 50s. I mean, think about the arthritis and shit, but he was fucking amazing that he could do that so young yeah that he wasn't he wasn't that young he was like 90 he was in his 60s i think when he died which for a guy that tall is fine that's wild that's unbelievable yeah it's a there's a criminal athlete who was the guy who found him really he was a guy a coach that we'll talk about his own episode great so uh yeah he ended up staying overseas he played 14 seasons in italy france

and croatia uh he was moving around at that point he was playing pro ball in italy and living in the south of france killing it killing it he says the fuck he says of the french countryside quote i like it there it's away from the hustle and bustle i would say you know it's the french countryside yeah you're failing upward you're failing upward? You're failing upward, yeah. He says that he had to say during his last season at that point, he was done. He said, I was put out of the NBA because of drugs, but you know what? I always wake up and kiss my blessings. Here I am 16 years later and I'm still playing professional ball, still doing my thing.

So I ain't mad at nobody. All I ask is that you be real. Don't paint me out to be no choir boy because I wasn't. Just judge me for what I was able to do on the basketball court. Nothing else. That's all I ask because where there's motherfucking shit,

there's always some motherfucking sugar. What? I love it. Where there's some motherfucking shit, there's always some motherfucking sugar. I wish that could be the title of the episode. That is amazing. That's wild. So 2006-7 he ends up coaching the albany patroons uh they hire him as a coach he uh i guess he's just always yelling at the officials and shit like that but

he's a great coach i'm sure he's winning games and shit like that at one point though he uh his one of the team owners said quote sugar simply disappeared for a few days a few days leaving me to coach the team for a couple of games the owner when he came back he offered no excuses and i guess we were all too afraid to ask him where he'd been and what he'd been doing free basin yeah we don't want to hear that you imagine jerry jones coaching and that god damn wandering back on the field sorry i missed a couple. I'll be all right. He also missed two games to work in a fantasy camp in Las Vegas with Daryl Dawkins during an NBA's All-Star weekend.

They're still friends. They were pissed at him. And then in 2007, when talking about his contract, he said some stuff that just doesn't sound very good. Let's see here. He is discussing general manager, offered him Monday to coach his team and he said quote i've got big this is michael quote i've got big time lawyers i've got big time jew lawyers boy okay then the reporter said hey that might be offensive to some

people what you said do you really want us to write that he said are you kidding me they're the best lawyers quote are you kidding me they are they've got the best security system in the world have you ever been to an airport in tel aviv they're real crafty listen they're hated all over the world so they've got to be crafty oh no no he's saying shut up yes he's saying that there's a lot of people that are after them you know know, are all around them where they live. So they have to be crafty. But that just didn't sound good. Then he continued under houses and shit.

They're crap. Oh, he continued. He says they got a lot of power in this world. You know what I mean? Which I think is great. I don't think there's nothing wrong with it. If you look in most professional sports, they're run by Jewish people. If you look at a lot of most successful corporations and in most professional sports, they're run by Jewish people.

If you look at a lot of most successful corporations and stuff, more businesses, they're run by Jewish. It's not by Jewish. It's not a knock, but there's some crafty people. Unbelievable. Yeah. Then two days later, a fan was heckling him and he said, shut the fuck up. And then called him. He said, shut the fuck up, faggot into the thing said, shut the fuck up, faggot, into the thing.

And that's just, I don't know, I didn't know how else to say that. So there it is. That's what you say. Yeah, that's what he called him. It's the sports. It's an old black man yelling at somebody in the crowd. That's what he said. That's the fucking quote. So between those two things in a couple of days, the Albany team's like, what do we do here?

He says that if anything, he should be called anti-black, not anti-Semitic. Michael, that's what he says. He says his ex-wife is Jewish. His kids are being raised Jewish. And he tells that his lawyer, who really is Jewish, called and laughed when he heard the quotes and said that his wife's father couldn't believe the controversy. And then David Stern actually also came to his aid as well. They were like, he didn't.

It's he doesn't. It's just he's he here to some of the stuff blacker than the inside of his ass. You know what I'm saying? He just says stuff. He just says stuff. We don't know. He said, well, there's shit. There's sugar.

There's shit. There's sugar. Motherfucking sugar. Yeah. So. Yeah. It's awesome richardson said quote it was totally blown out of proportion it's over life goes on you know what i mean it was totally totally totally false albany decides not to renew his contract he's gone so now he's fucked he's pissed people off he's his kids are got to be embarrassed like Like, Jesus Christ, Dad, don't do shit like this.

We're Jewish. Come on, man. I have it hard enough. I'm a half black Jew. What do you want from me? Jesus Christ, man. Calm down with the words. I feel bad for all these people, Jimmy.

Yeah. But not nearly as I feel bad for Michael Ray Richard, Michael Richardson, vice president of publisher products at Zander, an AT&T company in Portland. CEO at Merchant Fee Removal Service in Austin. What? Michael Richardson, CEO at Newest Capital in Denver. He's in Denver. Yeah. And Michael Richardson, business development manager at Aqua Logics, Inc. in Lakeland, Florida.

And then finally, co-CEO at Banner Oil and Gas, LLC in Oklahoma City, which is right where he is. Really? Where he moved to Lawton, Oklahoma in 2007. Oh, no. Because he signs to coach the Oklahoma City Cavalry of the CBA. That's not the Thunder. That's not the Thunder. June of 2011, he went to coach a team in Thailand, the Chang Thailand Slammers.

That sounds offensive it's very racist and offensive that's worse than his jew quote is the name of the fucking rant and the jews they control everything you know what i'm saying and i like it they're crafty like that's that was like a weird i'm gonna go holy shit wow i'm choked in the ching changs over there and i don't know what the fuck country i'm at i don't know wow so uh yeah he says right now i'm pretty happy i mean there's some things i could i would do over if i could yeah but i can't worry about now that now it's over and done 2011 he takes a job as the coach of the london lightning this is in canada london ontario

of the newly formed national Basketball League of Canada. He wins two titles in three years with this team. What? Absolutely here. Two titles in three years. Crushes. And then the third year, they lost in the finals to another team. He has done great.

Great team. What the shit? June of 2013, he and, who was it? Birdsong, I think. Yeah. Yeah. June of 2013, he and, who was it, Birdsong, I think? Yeah, Birdsong and a few others do a big charity thing at elementary schools that were destroyed by the big tornado in May of 2013. In Joplin?

I don't know exactly where here. Fifty students were there to participate. These are kids that lost their homes and shit like that. So he was doing that. He said, if I thought there was anything I could do to help, I'm going to do it. The tornado killed 24 people, including 10 children, and injured more than 300. I think it was Joplin. Yeah, seven of the, that's Missouri, though.

This is Oklahoma. It might be the same storm system. Seven of the children who died were crushed when the tornado slammed the Plaza Towers Elementary School. Oh, my God. Yeah, so that's bad. Jesus. That's rough uh 2014 he leaves

the london lightning he said it was a lot of fun it was exciting it was something new to the to the country he said it was great um wonderful um he said but they're letting him go and he says it's a business i enjoyed it there i made a lot of friends i hope to keep them as friends and all this type of shit uh by the way when he was in Albany, there was a big controversy over referees that were like fixing games and shit. Not that he was doing it, but that was at that time period during his games. He had disagreements with the owner here of this team is the problem, the London Lightning. And he says that he didn't like the owner's increasing involvement with how he handled the team and all of that sort of thing. His team's lost only 19 games in his first two years of play.

His final coaching record with London was 101-42 and was selected Coach of the Year and Co-Coach of the Year. Unbelievable. They don't want him. Wow. So, yeah. That's how much of a pain in the ass he is. I guess.

Yeah, the owner wants to be. He wants control. And this guy, he's going to do what he wants. I guess. Yeah, the owner wants to be, he wants control. And this guy, you know, he's going to do what he wants because he played. Right. Like, you don't know what the fuck you're talking about, you know, rich Canadian person. I played in the fucking NBA. I'm an all-star, you dumb shit. So, goddammit.

I can coach this bouncing hockey. Fuck him. I know how to do this. I can do it. So, he goes back to Oklahoma there in 2016, does basketball camps with Otis Birdsong and other people here. He's also a substitute teacher of pre-kindergarten kids, as he says. And, yeah, he says that he also likes teaching the game to three- and four-year-olds. Oh, boy.

He likes teaching them the basics, tells them, see this ball? There's only one name on it, and it's Spalding, so that means you pass it. It doesn't belong to you. Okay? I like that. He's's only one name on it and it's spalding so that means you pass it doesn't belong to you okay i like that i only got one name he really says that yeah he says that to the kids he goes this ball only got one name on it and it's none of yours it's spalding so that means you pass that thing around wow don't be a ball hog he's teaching him not to be a ball hog he's so good with the quotes he is he's very quotable um he says i hey i got my certificate and want to do a little more of that. Talking about teaching kids.

I've been working to get it for four or five years. It's really the young kids. I'm certified for older kids, too, but I don't have the patience for the older kids. So I have attitudes and shit. Also, in 2016, he was hired by the NBA. He called David Stern, saw him at a camp, sat next to him, and they spoke. And David Stern vouched for him, and he ended up hired by the NBA to conduct basketball camps for kids in India, Indonesia, and Africa to teach them the game because he loves teaching the game. 2018, he is with the Nuggets, helping out the Nuggets.

He got a call from Kiki Vanderwey, who's an old Knicks player. And he said, quote, he told me to give me a call from Kiki Vanderway, who's an old Knicks player, and he said, quote, he told me to give me a call if I decided to come back. I came back because my sister was getting married, gave him a phone call, and he said that he could try to find something for me to do, and he called me back, told me he wanted to give me a job,

and I accepted it. And it's a job because he grew up there, so he thinks it's awesome. He was a fan of the Denver Rockets when he was growing up and shit like that. So he'll basically help young players and possibly do some overseas scouting. Basically, he just wanted to bring him into the fold and make sure he's not smoking crack. So also, his job is primarily focused on aiding Denver area youth

from following in the footsteps that killed his career here. So they send him out as a representative of the team to talk to kids and do all that. That's exactly symposium. That's exactly right. Symposium. I don't know. I just married two words together.

Terry, whatever he says, when asked about it, he said, quote, it's going real, real well. It's going to be a lot bigger and more satisfying than I thought it would

be. I'm getting a lot of positive feedback. I think I'm already affecting lives. The kids I've spoken to are very excited. I'm ready to begin to reach out and touch a lot of people. Oh, boy. Hopefully not in their black assholes. Let's hope not.

Can't get enough of Michael Ray? Oh, boy. Oh, you can read Sugar, Michael Ray Richardson, 80s Excess, and the NBA by Charlie Rosen, which is where probably 80% of his quotes came from. Very good book. Awesome stuff there. Get that. You can go on eBay.

Autographed jersey starting at only $85 for the bidding. Yeah, I saw one for sale. Buy it now for like less than $150. So you can get an autographed jersey for pretty cheap from this guy here. Also, goldinauctions.com 1981 82 michael richardson game used uh nick's uniform full uniform game used shorts jersey the whole deal tiny tiny there's there's no price that's an auction so tiny tiny tiny shorts dude fucking out nut hugging daisy dukes shit yeah so uh yeah i kind of that. That's pretty wild stuff. Probably expensive,

but not that expensive. 500 bucks, you think? I don't know, maybe. Game worn, probably. It's not like he wore it in the NBA Finals or anything, so who cares? He might have some

coke residue on it. Probably. That is Michael Ray Richardson, everybody. Wow. That's quite the tale. It really is. That was one I was saving

for after a week off because I figured you'd need it. I'd never heard of him. That's what I mean because he disappeared in 86 and went overseas unless you were a big fan in the early 80s you wouldn't nobody would know who the fuck he was and he was so good so good i mean michael jordan magic johnson larry bird they all compared him favorably to themselves they all said he was the best bird said he was the best jordan says one of the two guys he hates playing against

you know magic said his's just like mine. Can't get any better than that. He threw it all away. So that's how it works. That's how good Coke is. That's how amazing Coke is, apparently. So if you think Coke is amazing or you just like the show, what you can do is let us know. Get on Apple Podcasts, that purple icon, and give us five stars.

It's very important to do, and we don't know why, but it helps drive you up the charts. So please do that. Head over to shutupandgivememurder.com for all of your crime and sports and your small town murder needs. Of course, I know you have needs and we're going to meet them for you.

We'll do our best. All sorts of merchandise, all sorts of stuff there. Listen to Small Town Murder if you haven't every Thursday wherever you listen to podcasts. Listen to PSA Hate This Movie every Friday

wherever you listen to podcasts. Please do all of that stuff. If you want to be, well, you know what? Follow us on social media first. First, we'll be friends, and then we'll talk about intercourse in a second here. Follow us on social media. Follow us.

We're at Murder Small on Twitter, at Small Town Pod on Facebook, at Small Town Murder on Instagram. Then, if you're into us. That's all for Small Town Murder. What about Crime and Sports? If you're into us that's all for small town murder what about crime and sports you want to do that but what about it yeah crime and sports you can follow that too did you give that one i did not because we're doing this show but it's all at crime and sports crime and sports everywhere right i did small town murder and we're doing

crime and sports i don't know what i'm doing why did i do that one because i just mentioned small town murder i don't know what the fuck I'm doing. I free based a lot. You know what I mean? So I don't know what I'm doing here. So yeah, crime and sports, crime and sports at crime and sports on Instagram. It's at small town murder. That's where that's why I was starting with Instagram and then I fell apart.

Wheels came off of that shit. So wow, like what's happening? So follow us there. Do all of that. If you want to be a producer, have your name mispronounced and have access to all of our wonderful Patreon bonus stuff, which is all sorts of good stuff. This week, we're going to be going over all sorts of like kind of expose kind of sports books and give you some reviews and some information and some neat little little controversial shit and some books for you guys to check out that are kind of weird and funny. So check that out. You can do all of that very easily at patreon.com slash crime and sports. And like I said, anything over the $5 level, you're going to get access to everything,

not only from this year, but even last year's bonus shit. Everything. There's a ton of stuff up there. It'll take you a while to catch up. So get on there and do that. And if you just want to be a good nice person and have good karma and just give us a few bucks because you like the show and you appreciate what we do you can do that as well over at paypal and use our email address crime and sports at gmail.com if you want to get

a hold of us there and i don't know jimmy i need it it's been a wild episode it's been a whole lot of crazy talk and awesome quotables oh boy quote me the names of the best goddamn people on the face of the earth. Hit me with them, Jimmy. This week's executive producers are Christopher Dobronsky, Sarah Surridge, Jackie Sukup, Karen Lewis, Zachary Villanova, Anna Nanashi, Chrissy Zivenhoven, Chrissy Ann Castaldi, Lori Peitz, Ava Green, Alicia Belcher, Marie Kirkland, Rob Lanto, Doug and Steph Urban, Cheryl Shine, Erica Silberstein, Laurel Paquin, Ayn, I think, Jill Knapp, Mark Peralta, Christian Wall, Mallory Crow, Daniel Barbier, Penny Payne, she's a tattoo artist in Saskatoon, go see her uh megan silvers sammy uh messerly jacob dockery amy uh amy hyler andrea stone allison ramos happy sixth shithead i don't

know okay cool and give his name well you know what happy and jordan bennett thank you guys so much for everything you do we can't do without it without you. Other producers this week are Jules Harris. Her daughter, Ugga, is turning three, so happy birthday. Jack Britton, Jonathan Parker, and their crew over at Artisan Cannabis, CAP department. They all listen every week. Awesome. Alex with no last name. Kit Gaston, Rob Gibson, Lindsey Greer, Kayvon Bierman, Matt Hughes, Layla Binger, Bungard, Bungard, David Bangler, Brian Fisher,

Warren with no last name, Josh Larson, Morgan Grant, Graham Wilson, Clayton Lovelady, Jerome Henry, Scott Stevens, Ash B., Rommel Santos, Tessa Andrasik, Andrasik, Andrasik, I think, probably not. Brandon Day, Jeff Chaos, Callie Weenum kate katel kate l uh no it's kate's birthday happy birthday caitlin uh she's up in uh nova scotia uh jenny uh bukowski andrea stone said that tori would know last name casey weatherly amber leverick laverick uh lisa cone alan fewer laura steel josh guido that one's so much fun to say harrison lee ian c ava m ashley elliott emily marie uh anthony shiani elizabeth davy giovanni brazel

no kyle ruest uh ralph snart i think it's snart jism no that. No, that can't be right. Jizzem. Yali Pepper. I apologize. Jesse Lawson. Courtney Chaney. Isabelle and Gary Pickering. Chris Cleveland. Brent Crider. Kristen Richards.

Kristen Kilgore. Jennifer Nance. Eric Thompson. There you go. Luke Bayless. Got a role. Yeah. Joe Bellahem.

And he donated so many different. Thank you, Joe. Thank you. Ray Sanders. Roxanne Peterson. Katie Pugh. You guys are hot. bella hem and he donated so many different thank you joe uh ray sanders roxanne peterson katie pew you guys are hot and i think i don't know if that's two people uh yeah yeah yeah i should oh what did i tie tight tie shara jones i think i'm sorry benjamin weisner uh preston shut david stuck michael gruner bryce brunecki, Daniel, no, Daniel Kleeman,

Morgan Schwartz, Jennings Shore, what did I say? Skolor, Skolor, Skor, McCoy, McCoy? That's not right. Tay Schofield, Jack Occhio-Grosso, probably not, Mike Thomas, G. Jones, Lacey Paxton, so probably not mike thomas g jones lacey paxton uh nicole evans ariel ortiz lisa gibson sydney vittori vittori vittori obviously hey stacy gillen uh misty everett's leilani mara pedro gonzalez janelle boyd christian matt bodko i think uh probably not connie smith tristan rias nathaniel russell beth casto stephanie paul steven with no last name ashley hamilton bradley I think probably not Connie Smith Tristan Reyes Nathaniel Russell Beth Castro Stephanie Paul Stephen would know last name Ashley

Hamilton Bradley Dooley Megan Steinberg Donna Burnett Sarah fuck I'm tall I it's not a last name Stefan or Stephen Cloutier Ariel Teague KS Sherry Brickbill probably not Chris Ringland

Angela Katrix. Shay. Is that Shay? Oh, it's Thea S. Vicki Morley. Vincent with no last name. Dustin Van Dyke. Obviously, what is it?

Dicks. Dick. Dick and Jerry's. Obviously. Emily with no last name. Stacey Manley. Erin Presley. Verena Hutter.

Erica with no last name. Tia Hall. Lisa Smith. Marcy Disoteli, no, Ashton Trammell, Katie Somerville, Kimberly Sharp, Wayne Davis, John Vought, Shane Sullivan, June Johnson, Lucille87, Jason Wright, Haley with no last name, Lexi Posh, Alyssa in chains, well done, Jennifer Silva, Hogan's Heathens, whoever they are. David Aller, Kate LaRue, Cherise, I think, Epps, Chris Reisenbeck, Jen Hardman, Alabama

Sassafras. Nice. Jim E. Can't Read. Ah, you fucker. Stephan with no last name. Ruby Schaefer. Kristen Payne. Danielle Moorish.

Christy with no last name. Ed Soderstfer. Kristen Payne. Danielle Moorish. Christy with no last name. Ed Soderstrom. Court of Public Opinion Podcast. April Carrillo. Anne Nico. Gary with no last name. Michelle Hansen. Karina Lutmers.

Maddox McCullough. Crystal Rolfe. Michelle Duncan. Derek Harding. Tasha Harmon. Sal with no last name. Sandy Ebsen. Adam Chichi.

Sam Hartrup. James Dewey. Fuck. Terry Collier, Aiden Smith, Teresa Schnell, Steve Hinkle, Stevie Hinkle, Andrew Cowboy. What did I do? Combus? Probably not.

Annie Franken, Ivana Torres, Monica Rodriguez, Denise Poorboy, Cam Smith, Scott Solos, Carly McGillivray, probably. Joey Image, he's a wrestler, and he sends me messages about our wrestling episodes and adores you. So thank you, Joey. Well, thank you. He has to bring Sonny to one of our shows. That's great.

If you show up with her, Joey, I'll cry ugly tears. Johnny Crable, Steve Strickland, I said that. Snuggle Love, Rose Wiener Spofford, no. Judy Jennings, Beth Burke, Matthew Quick, Milva 12, Dante DiValli, J.B. Wallace. Oh, it's J.J. Wallace. What an email. Thank you very much, J.J. Hang in there, man. Seriously, keep going. Rem Dem, Ashley Rowland, Elizabeth Zarkos, Robert Magruder, Josh Johnson, Mariah Jensen,

James with no last name, Will with no last name, Joanna Gillis, Callie Baldridge, Melissa Tulini, Daniel Griffin, Romina Gnico, Gnero. I don't know if that's an RRK. Thomas Slater, Norib with no last name. Clayton Treble. Danielle Rogers. Wade Blaine. Sarah with no last name. Anne with no last name.

Tyler Carr. Jody with no last name. Owen Paratus, I think. Jordan Harbin. Trish, no, Trish Murley. What does this say? Making, oh, she makes COVID masks. Oh, cool.

Thank you, Trish. Hang in there. Keep going. Keep making those. Andrew Welmers. Christina Horton-Morris. Eder Zamoa. Stacey Holtz, Penny Carver, Eddie Sanchez, Anus. No, it's not. What?

Anuj Jamiri? Bong Bong, another man, Anus. Gamir. Gamiri. Thank you. Kendra Helm. I don't think it says anus. I think that's a J.

Oh, okay. It might be anus. I think that's a J. Okay. It might be an S. Alex Gannetti, Dylan Eide, Jesse Pitts, Sean Stevens, Quincy Moe, Liz Nelson, Jules Harris, Dominique Basoma. She lost a stray. Sorry, Dominique. Hang in there. Amanda Yates Garcia, Sharon Jernigan, Sarah Bell Wumers, Naomi McCarthy, Stephen Rood. Thanks, Stephen.

Naomi McCarthy, Steven Rood, thanks, Steven, Dana Riley, Steven Whitmore, Jake Medder, Gino Golan, Jack Hicks, Larry Blunk,

Karen with no last name, James Hooper, Jenny Shader, HJC, Molly McCarthy, Peyton Meadows, Mackenzie Asprey, Phil, no, Re, that's Re Rendeau,

SoundCloud Bliss, Dion Horn, James Marder. Homestretch. Charlotte Hill. Amanda Dixon. Milagros Gonzalez. That is the whitest that's ever been said.

Dr. Steve Schnell. Congratulations, brother. He finished his PhD program and passed his test. Way to go, buddy. Natalie Howe. Tracy Renninger. Jude Kendall. Tara Gilchrist.

Stacey Rae Boardman. Margaret Lubert. Janice Hill. Ashley Veo, Holly Davidson. Holly Davidson. Stephen Tucker, Amanda Knight, Autumn Kia, Brendan Abel, Stephen Mace. Happy birthday, Big Dick Boo from Gigi. Weird. Kira Donahue is the Empress of Heirlooms. And all of our patron supporters, you guys really change lives.

Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you, everybody, so much. Honestly, from the bottom of our hearts for everything you do for us. And we will keep trying to put out the best Patreon stuff we can for you guys. Just a variety is what we're looking for. Different stuff as long as it's funny. That's all we're trying to do.

Jimmy, what if they wanted to get a hold of you and tell you that you were funny how could they do that find me at wisman sucks whisman sucks on twitter and instagram what about you you can find me over uh at jimmy p is funny or just copy and paste my name so you don't have to try to spell it that said it's been a fucking what a story it's been a wild episode so absorb all of that shit have a good time and live from the crime and sports studios we will see you next week bye hey prime members you can listen to crime and Sports early and ad-free on Amazon Music. Download the Amazon Music app today, or you can listen early and ad-free with Wondery Plus and Apple Podcasts. Before you go, tell us about yourself by completing a short survey at wondery.com slash survey.