Showing posts with label Chris Russo. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Chris Russo. Show all posts

Friday, August 15, 2008

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Osh41 on Mike & The Mad Dog Split

Frequent contributor Osh41 is on the road today but sends the post below.   Mets Police add that it was classy of WFAN to allow Russo to say goodbye on the air....listening now and he is crying.   19 years on the radio is a hell of a good job out of them.

Here's Osh...

Martin and Lewis, Sonny and Cher, Sean Penn and Madonna. Let's add another pair to the pantheon of 'famous break-ups'.
 
Mike and the Mad Dog
 
My reaction - I will miss them - they were a good listen.  Sometimes you got sick of them but the beauty of it was you could turn it off and come back the next day and they would be there - 19 years is a staggering amount of time to be paired with another person who you aren't married to.
 
Russo could be so over the top and Francesa would be so condescending you'd want to throw the radio through the wall.  But you kept coming back, because they were good radio.
 
As a Met fan you felt like you got short shifted with Mike being a die hard obnoxious Yankee fan and Russo with his SF Giants fan but regardless they really were the place to go for baseball talk radio in this town.  When they started 19 years ago baseball wasn't what it was today.  WFAN could conceivably spin off a channel and do 24/7 Mets/Yankees all year round. 
 
Some highlights for me: 
 
- them dissecting movies around Oscar time - its early March in the dead sports zone, no football, baseball spring training etc.  I liked the Oscar talk - Russo breaking down movies was hysterical - his famous quote about 'Saving Private Ryan' - "Hey Mike, war is bad".  Francesa acted like he was Orson Wells breaking down film in front of a classroom.  He thought he was an expert - just like he thinks he knows it all about everything else.  I never thought them straying from sports hurt the show - it was something that filled air time, was entertaining and more interesting than the NBA/NHL regular season that was going on
 
- Red Sox coming back from 3-0 down in 2004.  May have been some of the best stuff they ever did.  The show the morning after the Yankees lost it was a classic.  The played clips of Mike saying 'all is well, they won't blow it' and then Russo came on screaming 'WELCOME TO RED SOX NATION IN THE BRONX !!!!!'  I left work at 5 to 1 and sat outside my office building to listen.  Honestly, how many radio shows would you do that for?
 
- Scott Boras as a guest - this was after the 1998 season - they had him on about Bernie Williams potentially leaving NY as a free agent.  Great stuff, they were a voice for fans that day.  Nailed Boras regarding greed, what's best for players, who works for who etc.
 
I feel about them like I felt about Howard Stern when he left the air  - they were better than everything else on at the same time so I will suffer from their loss.  If you liked sports talk they were the place to go.

Monday, May 19, 2008

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Who Cares About The Fans

According to Chris Russo on WFAN, players on both the Mets and Yankees were told at 6:15 pm Friday evening that the game was going to be postponed. Russo himself found out and had left at 6:50.

Meanwhile the fans were the last to find out, not being told until after the scheduled 7:05 pm start.

How much money was collected by the Yankees in concessions to fans who braved the elements? How about the money from the limited parking?

And what about all the parents with children that sat in the rain while the players they look up to were already getting dressed and on their way home.

Once again we have another example of how the owners and management really don't give a damn about the fans.

Monday, May 19, 2008

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Neuter The Dog!

I enjoy comedy radio. I also enjoy a good practical joke from time to time. But what Christopher "Mad Dog" Russo did on Saturday morning went beyond what anyone should consider acceptable.

Shortly after 10 am Russo, hosting on WFAN in New York, announced that the Mets-Yankees game scheduled for 1:05 that afternoon was being moved up to 11 am because of a threat of severe thunderstorms moving into the area at 4 pm. Given that they already had a rain-out the previous night that had to be made-up, the teams had to get Saturday's game in.

Russo continued to assert that the game was going to start early, giving stats and info on the games starters. He wasn't acting like Mad Dog (yelling, throwing out obviously absurd details, etc.) - he sold it very well.

As 10:30 approached Russo announced that Howie Rose had not arrived yet so he would host the pre-game Mets Extra. At 10:30 he played the intro to Mets Extra and went into a pregame show.

After dragging this on for over a half hour in total Russo finally admitted it was a hoax, but not before ESPN Radio had picked up the story and announced that the game was being moved up.

Now, the initial reaction may be to laugh and say that this was funny - however think about all the people that were going to be going to the game that day. I personally know several people that panicked when they heard the news, realizing they had paid a ridiculous amount of money for tickets to a game that they might not get to see. I received emails and text messages from at least half a dozen others. Who knows how many more ran out of the house in a frenzy trying to get to a game they were told was starting early on the OFFICIAL FLAGSHIP STATION of the Mets.

Seriously, Russo crossed a line on Saturday morning and on Monday he should be called on the carpet for it.