Mike Francesa on the State of the Mike and the Mad Dog show

[apmorris]

in case you just missed it.

Sounds like its over.

Listen here

[Benjamin Grimm]

I hope so.

[Guest AG/DC]

Sounds like absolutely nothing new.

apmorris, go for their spot.

[Guest Kong76]

I think it would be hilarious if somehow we found out that they're in cahoots
to make it look like they can't take it no more and eek one more big contract
out of a panic stricken WFAN who will never fill that spot with the advertising
generating dough those two bucket heads must produce year after year.

[willpie]

Recap for those of us whose workplaces don't accommodate streaming audio?

[Guest AG/DC]

1) We don't know what's going to happen.

2) Whatever happens, "I would hope" wouldn't be based only on personal relationships.

3) Even our worst critics have to acknowledge our show is pretty special. (I guess that puts me even beyond their worst critics.)

4) It's been a nice run. Maybe we'll end up doing another 20 years. Who knows?

[Benjamin Grimm]

Francesa rambling about how they've done 19 years and maybe they'll do another 19 years and maybe they won't.

[G-Fafif]

Neil Best, who broke the story that the end might be night, offers a transcript. What it doesn't mention is the eerie silence between the end of Francesa talking and the Meet the Mets intro to Mets Extra.

If this be the end, good night funny man.

[apmorris]

Its the "we are at a crossroads" comment that makes it a little more profound, than the "could be over, could not be over" usual ambiguities.

[apmorris]

G-Fafif wrote: What it doesn't mention is the eerie silence between the end of Francesa talking and the Meet the Mets intro to Mets Extra..

great catch - it was almost a "Don't Stop Believin'" moment

[G-Fafif]

apmorris wrote: ="G-Fafif"]What it doesn't mention is the eerie silence between the end of Francesa talking and the Meet the Mets intro to Mets Extra.. great catch - it was almost a "Don't Stop Believin'" moment

I'm the last person to be making this crack, but...

Do ya think Francesa ordered onion rings for the table? Or just for himself?

[Frayed Knot]

The only reason Francesa even brought it up today was that it's the first day he's been on the air since Best "broke" the story so it's not suprisingly that he didn't let any bombshells loose.
Funny thing about both of them acknowledging that they were fueding and that it bled over into the show itself is that I didn't notice it and wouldn't have known unless they fessed up. Not that I'm an everyday listener but I have picked up on their tiffs in the past, just not this one.

Their usual summer schedule with vacations and all has them doing very few shows together anyway so it'll give everyone a cooling off period.
I'm just mostly afraid of what the mgmt who went out of their way to hire Sid Rosenberg and only got rid of him reluctantly after he committed a number of crimes and other slimy acts would replace them with.

[apmorris]

They had a screaming match on air over the validity of the DH. Yankee-apologist Mikey didn't have leg to stand on, tried in vain to defend the DH.

from the comments over on http://weblogs.newsday.com/sports/watchdog/blog/2008/06/mike_and_the_mad_dog_at_a_cros.html :

"Sad day for fans of the Clueless Racist Canine and the
Rotund Know-it-All!"

ha!

[Guest Vince Coleman Firecracker]

They're really gonna blow up their cash cow over a disagreement about sports? When I read a feud, I assumed it was business-related, like money or creative rights or, at least, parking spots or something. They're gonna kill their show, the only thing either of them is capable of doing, over a disagreement about sports? Isn't that the whole premise of the show? Sports debate?
What a pair of freaking amateurs.

[MFS62]

A few weeks ago, Mike was doing the show alone, and he mentioned that (I paraphrase) "Mad Dog gets to take a lot of vacation and I don't".

I guess nobody had told him that the dog also works a regular shift (alone) on weekends.

Anyhow, I thought at the time that he sounded like a little baby.
For all I know, that may have been the proverbial straw.

Later

[Frayed Knot]

]They had a screaming match on air over the validity of the DH. Yankee-apologist Mikey didn't have leg to stand on, tried in vain to defend the DH.

See I heard that discussion (or at least part of it) but was then surprised to hear them admit (Russo brought up that one specifically) that those kinds of arguments take on a personal animus above and beyond your normal sports-related disagreement - although it's possible that the personal stuff fuels the sports argument rather than the other way around.

In the past there have been spats about the sort of ego-related stuff that occurs whenever you've got a couple of high-paid prima-donnas sharing the same turf - and with those you could tell there were genuine bad feelings. And even when you couldn't Bob Raissman at the NYDN, who definitely had a spy somewhere at FAN, was only too eager to relate them in his columns.