"Like knowing the flip side of a 45"

[seawolf17]

Very cool. I like Howie.

[Guest themetfairy]

Excellent stuff!

Who's on deck?

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

I'm trying for one more surprise guest but it's gonna be a stretch.

[Guest AG/DC]

Rogers wants more money, huh?

[Gwreck]

Surprise special guest odds:

Ron Darling 3-1
Keith Hernandez 5-1
Gary Cohen 7-1
Ralph Kiner 25-1
Davey Johnson 50-1
Charlie Samuels 75-1
Bobby V. 100-1
Omar 100-1
Jeff Wilpon 100-1

[Frayed Knot]

]I realize Howie's probably just being a pro and being kind to his colleagues in print, but how the heck are Mike and Mad Dog the gold standard?

Because they're 'Masterpiece Theatre' compared to much of sports talk radio

[Frayed Knot]

Listening to Howie in those last days of as a WFAN guy he barely disguised the fact that he was kind of fed up with talk radio by that point. Part of it was the shifts he used to draw, either getting stuck with the over-long 5-hour solo shifts on nights when there was no Met game, the kind of show where you run out of things to talk about and the topic of the day becomes so monotonous in all that time (more than 3 hrs for a solo host gets to be tough sledding for anyone) or - on game nights - drawing the other extreme of having the half-hour before the pre-game, then the official pre-game itself, then the post-game, and then an hour or so after the post-game. It was those back-and-forth between official NYM time and regular FAN time where he'd occasionally have to walk on thin ice. The pre & post was considered to be NYM time where the rules of what he was expected to do were more structured. But then, following a brief sign-off from the post-game and maybe a few commercials in between, he was expected to morph back into regular WFAN guy who suddenly had a bit more freedom to answer the same complaints from callers somewhat differently than he had just 15 minutes earlier. Trying to maintain that balancing act occiasionally ruffled a few feathers. You'll notice that the post-game show no longer takes calls.
Howie also made it clear he wanted a talk-show shift to include more interviews and other discussions while the station wanted phone calls and phone calls, followed by more phone calls. I'm not surprised he claims to be uninterested in going back.

[Guest AG/DC]

Phone calls: very free programming.