And I realized to myself, wait a minute, Dick Schaap was right there with everybody.

I agree.

I agree.

[laughs] And, and, uh, you know, I wish they would.

And, you know, a lot of it is because obviously, um, you know, my father got out of the world of general news reporting and writing general columns, and he was the city editor of The Herald Tribune, you know, when he was 29.

Um, you know, your, your, your dad in a way kind of installed him in that position.

Um, and, uh, and then he, he didn't like being a boss, so he went to, you know, um, the side writing columns exclusively on the same, you know, in the same pages with your dad and with Tom Wolfe.

Yeah.

I'm curious to know from your purview, what role do you think that sports played in the aftermath of 9-11? And what role do you think sports should have played given what our country had just experienced and gone through?

Yeah, it's interesting.

I remember that afternoon we'd had reports that the Chicago White Sox, they were in town to play the Yankees, were downtown and that they had seen Bates at the Towers.

And so in the afternoon, I went to the Grand Hyatt Hotel where the out-of-town team stayed.

and interviewed a bunch of the white socks.

And it was at that moment, I remember being up on the mezzanine of the grand Hyatt above grand central and talk to some of the white socks, um, players, uh, coaches, um, that president Bush appeared on the TV and everybody started cheering.

And it was, it was, it was kind of surreal, right? I, you know, at that point I was, I just turned 32.

How impressive was what President Bush did that day?

Now, I know you spoke to a lot of his family, and it's an emotional story, so walk us through what we're going to see tonight.

Yeah, so, you know, as you said, Michael was the starting right fielder of the Staten Island team that went all the way to the U.S. championship game before losing to California in 91.

He's 12 years old, and they come back to Staten Island, and, you know, they're local heroes, and they're celebrities, and they're meeting with the borough president and the mayor, and...

He would go on to really focus on hockey, and he was a terrific player at Wagner, led the team in college in scoring as a defenseman.

But his dream was to always join the FDNY, and he scored.

He got perfect scores on both the written and the physical exam.

The firefighter exam is one of the toughest civil service exams in the world.

How does the family still handle it these years later, and is it still something that tears at them and has just destroyed the fabric of the family?

I've read about the story, but you've now taken it to a whole nother level.

Yeah.

Well, um, thank you, Boomer.

And, uh, story really came to my attention from the director of the documentary who's on our staff at E:60, Gus Sister.

Uh, was a baseball guy, New York guy, and we were thinking about ways that we wanted to memorialize, uh, those who died on 9/11 for the 25th anniversary, and thinking of a story, um, that hadn't really been told.

And I didn't know the Michael Cammarata story, and I'm embarrassed to admit that because I think one of the things that strikes me from the doc is when his best friend says, "Every New Yorker should know the name Michael Cammarata, and if you don't, that's on you." So, um, that's how it came to my attention and, you know, we've been working on it since last year.

Um, Michael's brother, Joe, uh, who was also FDNY and NYPD, he wrote a book about, um, about Michael and about how hard it was to cope with his death, and that's what the story's about, right? It's about this selfless young man, played in the Little League World Series for Staten Island in 1991, and 10 years later, you know, sacrifices his life-

And-

I've read about the story, but you've now taken it to a whole nother level.

Yeah.

Well, um, thank you, Boomer.

And, uh, story really came to my attention from the director of the documentary, who's on our staff at E:60, Doug Sister.

Uh, was a baseball guy, New York guy.

And we were thinking about ways that we wanted to memorialize, uh, those who died on 9/11 for the 25th anniversary.

And thinking of the story, um, that hadn't really been told.

And-

I, how did you come about the story? I know the, I've read about the story, but you've now taken it to a whole nother level.

Yeah.

Well, um, thank you, Boomer.

And, uh, story really came to my attention from the director of the documentary who's on our staff at E:60, Doug Sister.

Uh, who's a baseball guy, New York guy.

And we were thinking about ways that we wanted to memorialize, uh, those who died on 9/11 for the 25th anniversary and thinking of a story, um, that hadn't really been told.

And I didn't know the Michael Cammarata story, and I'm embarrassed to admit that because I think one of the things that strikes me from the doc is when his best friend says, "Every New Yorker should know the name Michael Cammarata, and if you don't, that's on you." So, um, that's how it came to my attention and, you know, we've been working on it since last year.

And-

But before we do that, Jeremy, who was Bill Rasmussen?

Rasmussen?Oh, I mean, Bill Rasmussen was a remarkable, remarkable man, right? Who had this remarkable idea, along with his son, Scott.

Uh, I was fortunate to get to know him a little bit over the last few years.

Spent, uh, spent some time with him on a couple of different stories about ESPN history, about, um, you know, that eureka moment when he and Scott come up with the idea for this, uh, crazy sports network, which everyone said couldn't possibly work.

Uh, he was a dreamer.

He was, you know, kind of the epitome of one of those people, you tell 'em no, and they just keep trying and trying and trying harder until they can make it work.

I mean, the whole idea, right, that, you know, they come up with this sitting in traffic, uh, in May of 1978, and on September 7th, 1979, it's on the air, you know, with Getty Oil and Budweiser, these huge sponsors, and it's all come to fruition in the face of so much skepticism and so many technical difficulties, financial difficulties, all of that.

Who was Michael Cammarata in 1991, and who did he become, Jeremy?

Mm-hmm

... because he was FDNY, because his brother was a, a New York City police officer.

And, and the story is about, um...

You know, as I said, it's about his death.

It's about, uh, the aftermath, and it's also about, you know, the, the ways in which the biggest things that happen, life and death things, you know, they, they can feel so random.

Um, you know, his brother, Joe, who's a big part of this story and who wrote a book about coping with his brother's death, essentially, his younger brother's death, he was at the time, uh, a Staten Island police officer, and he's on the Staten Island Ferry coming over, uh, to Lower Manhattan across New York Harbor, um, at 9:59.

I think it's 9:59 AM when the South Tower collapses.

Uh, can you explain exactly what this is and how you came into possession of it? Uh, because I am quite certain you never heard of this thing before somebody told you about it.

What were you thinking at that point when Carl was like competing, he was out buzzing you here and there?

Yeah, I was thinking, You know imposter syndrome, right? I mean, that's a thing, right? Like, you know, it plagues me in my daily life.

And here I was again in the middle of Double Jeopardy! thinking like, this is it, you know? And, you know, I felt I had a good command of the categories that were still on the board.

And I knew there was plenty of time.

And with Triple Jeopardy!, there's so much on the board.

There's so many points.

And I was like, okay, maintain your composure.

How did it change? Well, it changed.

Mm

...

but they weren't telling me because there wasn't an announcement.

So the only Jeopardy! that I could be competing for at that point was some form of Celebrity Jeopardy!.

And they had, uh, asked a few years ago, and I had been, uh, too cowardly to take part.

And this time I'm like, "Nah, I'm gonna do it." You know, charity, money, all, you know, all that stuff.

And so I was operating under the, uh, misapprehension for a number of weeks that this was [laughs] like Celebrity Jeopardy!.

Could you share us what that story is?

... uh, the reversal of the red card and the fact that Balogun is going to be playing tonight? What do you make of that?

I, I mean, it's stunning.

Um, I had taped...

We do, uh, United Sports Reporters now.

It's like a YouTube show.

And we'd done one yesterday with Kasey Keller, you know, the great US, uh, goalkeeper of the past, Taylor Twellman, another, you know, stalwart from USMNT from a generation ago, talked about, you know, how they were going to have to, um, play without Balogun, what that meant, uh, you know, for their chances against Belgium.

We tape the show, uh, hang up, and then 10 minutes later, Taylor texts me, "Balo- Balogun news," so we re-tape the top of the show.

Yeah.

[laughs]

But, you know, Americans love a big event.

They love the best.

The World Cup is the best teams in the world.

It's the biggest event in the world.

Not just sports event, right? It's the biggest event in the world.

So just like '94 when fewer Americans knew anything about soccer, you know, couldn't name any of the top players in the world, the average American sports fan, to now, 32 years later, I knew they would start embracing it.

But if you compare it to US squads of old who are kind of held in lore, especially as to what they were able to do back in '94, how would you compare this team to them?

It

would have been the first game four years later in Paris when they got hammered by Germany at the Parc des Princes, the smaller football stadium in Paris.

But I feel like, Rich, I actually go back to the very beginnings.

You know, the U.S. qualified in 1989 for the 1990 World Cup.

That was the first time in 40 years they reached the World Cup final.

Yeah.

And my father was the host of the going away party for the U.S. team as it was heading off to Italia 90.

And they were – They

Yeah.

He, he won the Silver Spikes as a freshman at Michigan.

A- and, and at the same time, as he was doing all these remarkable things from the mound, he was...... a, a true inspiration.

And that's, that's what the documentary is about too.

It- it's, it's really two stories.

It's the story of Jim Abbott, his rise, his success, and, and I think it's brilliantly told by our director, Mike Farrell, who, who uses the no-hitter on September 4th, 1993 as the spine of the story, coming back to, you know, inning after inning, and, and going back into his story between the innings.

But it's also the story of the impact he's had on so many lives.

Yeah.

What's the real person?

I mean, that's a good question.

I mean, you've known him a long time.

I've known him a long time.

You know, when I think about Dan Hurley, this is what we really explore in this new documentary.

It's, you know, this journey, right? I mean, there aren't too many people who have been in his position in life.

He is the son of a legend, a legend in coaching, right? A basketball Hall of Famer, Bob Hurley Sr., 28 championships at St.

He has surpassed them in his accomplishments.