Sports Radio Gold

M & MD just did a half-hour guessing the relative TV ratings this weekend for the major markets, football vs. baseball.
Now they're talking about it.
Kill me now.

 

click

 

They do this all the time. It is one of the most boring aspects of their show. It is also one of the reasons why I have no problem switching on an internet stream of sports talk radio in Scotland during the day.

 

Did the lying, rumor-mongering, reputation-tarnishing duo talk about the ass-kicking Phil Mushnick gave them this morning?

Didn't think so.

 

For those you wondering what HB is talking about:

http://www.nypost.com/seven/10222007/sports/surprise__surprise__francesa__.htm


Great, great stuff from Mush

 

Of course, it would be easier to read if the NYP's web page wasn't scrawled on the back of a coal shovel.

 

SURPRISE, SURPRISE: FRANCESA, RUSSO BUTCHER TORRE STORY

By PHIL MUSHNICK

October 22, 2007 -- TOO bad. Not that we needed him to know it, but Joe Torre was so good at it. He routinely, perhaps unwittingly, exposed Mike Francesa and Chris Russo for the glad-handing, back-sticking phonies they are. And he did it right to the end, and even a day beyond.

Torre's paid WFAN/YES appearances made for so many unforgettable moments, so many good times.

There was the time, last year, when a caller said that the Red Sox, forced to play 21 games in 20 days, were at a great disadvantage. Francesa ripped that caller, belittled him, big-timed him, dumped him.

Later that show, Torre volunteered that the Red Sox's schedule puts them at a great disadvantage. Francesa, the big shot, said nothing.

Then there was the time Torre suggested that Hideki Matsui's ankle injury made him a better hitter, kept him more anchored. By week's end, Francesa was saying the same thing, as if it were his insight, his genius.

Friday, Francesa supported Torre by providing a primer on baseball: “Ya know what? Ya get to the postseason and anyone can win three of five."

No kidding? But we already knew that. Except one guy: Francesa.

Last fall, before the Yanks' best-of-five ALDS, Francesa declared, “I'll tell you this: This is the easiest Round 1 opponent in the Joe Torre Era. You could not have a duck in front of you, on one leg, worse than this Tiger team."

OK, so the Yanks lost in four. A published report then claimed that Torre is out, that he's about to be fired. Francesa didn't merely buy it, he endorsed it, adding that it was time for Torre to go.

But Torre wasn't fired. Two days later, in their next on-air chat, Francesa told Torre how pleased he is that he'll be back.

And this past Thursday and Friday, Francesa and Russo again proved that for colossal gall and dishonesty, they are unsurpassed. That they had no clear or privileged knowledge of the Torre story as it unfolded didn't prevent them from pretending that they did - and that listeners are too stupid to know better.

Thursday, when a report surfaced that Torre had accepted a one-year deal to return, terms included in that report, it all sounded good to Francesa and Russo. They had plenty of time, but they didn't even hint that the offer was an insult to Torre.

But when that report proved false - Torre had rejected that offer and was out - Francesa and Russo had to slither in a new direction. And Friday, after Torre's news conference, the same deal that Francesa and Russo had no problem with when they thought it had been accepted by Torre, become a raging “insult," one Torre was forced to reject.

Again working off guesswork and conclusion-jumping, they began to blow hard, identifying the bad guys among the Yankees' shot-callers, although they clearly had no idea who was who and who did or does what. Vague notions again served as their facts, slanders to follow.

And they trashed Bergen Record columnist Ian O'Connor. Torre, during his news conference, didn't mention him by name, but he implied that O'Connor had been “nudged" to conduct that interview with George Steinbrenner during the ALDS, the one in which Steinbrenner - and these are my words - briefly re-emerged from a mental health-restricted hibernation to resurrect one of his win-or-else decrees.

And after Torre went on with Francesa and Russo and said that O'Connor, this time by name, might have taken advantage of Steinbrenner, Gilligan and the Skipper took it from there: O'Connor, they hollered, was an obedient participant in a “set-up" orchestrated by team president Randy Levine to get Torre - in the midst of the playoffs, no less!

Hear that, New York? The conspiracy to undermine Torre included O'Connor, the newspaperman/henchman; he was in on it! And Russo, ever the sleuth, now knew this to be true because, as he figured out loud, how else would O'Connor have known where and when to reach Steinbrenner?

But when O'Connor called in to flatly deny the charges, claiming he scarcely knows Levine and that he called Steinbrenner at the Manhattan hotel at which he always stays - Francesa and Russo pretended to be surprised by O'Connor's defensive reaction. Both claimed they'd said nothing to impugn O'Connor's integrity. O'Connor must've been moved to call for no reason!

(By the way, the interviews Russo and Francesa conduct are never arranged by third parties and are always agenda-free? And if it was a scheme to get Torre, why was the paper with the region's sixth highest circulation chosen for the misdeed?)

And when O'Connor was gone, Russo tried to further distance himself from his own words, giving it his, “Good job by Ian O'Connor" treatment, as if O'Connor was refuting someone else's charges. No, it wasn't a good job by O'Connor; it was another rotten job by Francesa and Russo. Someone suggested smoke, and they screamed, “Fire!"

And when people are moved to defend themselves against Francesa and/or Russo's hopeful, guesswork-based charges, our heroic duo are in the habit of denying having made those charges. Or they ignore the rebuttal. Or they pretend that the big deal they made was no big deal.

And that last one was what they did next. Russo said the O'Connor angle was trivial, anyway, no big deal. “We're past that," Francesa agreed. Two stand up guys, two champs.

phil.mushnick@nypost.com

 

I have no idea how these guys have such a following. I saw them a couple of times when ESPN was trying to push them and it was just terrible.

 

ESPN? No. That would be Mike and Mike, Greenberg and Gollick, who are even worse than Russo and Fatcessa

 

Actually, a while back, they tried doing a half-hour best of show. It was at least a year ago now, but - as with the 2 live stews - they tried it to fill in a gap in the sked.

 

I swore off these dopes when they all but forced callers to swear allegiance after 9/11.

 

It does permit Fatso to avoid deigning to converse in a civil manner with common callers.

Must be why they do it.

Unless they're interviewing someone of legitimate interest, the show is a must-miss.