Friday, May 25, 2007

Mike and The Mad Dog- Laughing All the Way to the Bank

For those of you who don't know, pictured above are the "kings" of NY sports radio. The meatball-eating Italian on the right is Mike Francessa and the effeminate walking speech impediment on the left is Chris "Mad Dog" Russo. They have the highest rated sports radio talk show in the tri-state area, are carried on the YES television network, and make over $1M/yr to spout their opinions on sports.

So you would think that they actually watch sporting events, right? WRONG. Today they opened their show discussing the Mets-Braves game played last night. Neither of them had actually watched the game though. At least they admitted that, but on a relatively slow sports night they couldn't find time to watch just a few innings of the rubber match between the first place hometown team taking on their division rivals, who were just 2 1/2 games out of first when the game started? Mike's beloved and Russo's hated Yankees weren't even playing and neither them likes the NBA anymore (they think it's too thuggish) so what could they have possibly been watching? Furthermore, when Mad Dog was discussing the Braves lineup he lauded praise on Francoeur, "that second baseman, and the catcher." For chrissakes, it is his job to follow sports and he can't even call Kelly Johnson and Brian McCann (both all-stars if the game were played today) by their proper names.

Another pet peeve of mine is that they openly flaunt the fact that they don't watch basketball (college or pro) or hockey during the regular season, yet when the NCAA Tournament or NHL/NBA playoffs come around they believe their opinions are the gospel and pontificate as if they are on the summit of Mt Sinai. I really wouldn't have a problem with this if these guys were insurance salesmen or financiers, but they are paid to deliver analysis of sporting events . How can you be taken seriously when a when your opinions are based solely on Sportscenter highlights or NY Post articles. It's just plain lazy. OK, I will now get off my soapbox.

5 comments:

Charlie Hustle said...

That same rant must be exactly what my clients think when they leave my office after my business advisements.

Die Hungry said...

First of all, Mad Dog is an idiot. That's what makes him the Angry Puppy. "that 2b" is what you typically get with him. He once called Nick Saban, in trying to compare him to a traitor, "pontious Pilot".

As for college basketball, Francesa used to be an in studio guy for cbs or nbc when they had the ncaa tournament, sort of in the role of Clark Kellog. He knows his stuff, and i have never heard him admit he doesn't watch sports.

I do , however, hate when they talk about horse racing.

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Mookie said...

Tal, You've been down in ATL for too long. I've been listening fairly regularly since January and they often said they don't follow college basketball until March, thus they base their Tourney picks/analysis on the 2 weeks of basketball that they watched.

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