MIKE & THE MAD DOG
I'm pretty down about the end of Mike & The Mad Dog on WFAN in New York. I'm also disappointed that I just missed catching the beginning of today's show on YES - I was putting my daughter down for a nap and just caught a phone call between Mike Francesa and Chris Russo ending. Hopefully that gets played again.
Mike & The Mad Dog is what I pretty much grew up listening to as far as sports radio goes (actually, any radio - I didn't get into FM radio until much later in life). I always enjoyed the show, and like I do often with my sports teams, I defended Mike Francesa and Chris Russo when people put them down, even though I knew the person might have been right about what they were saying. Older now, I see their faults, but I still think they provided quality radio. (And having to listen to sports radio in Boston now, I realize how far and away better WFAN does things than other markets in the country - or, at least, better than Boston.) I'm 30, the show's been on for 19 years. I've spent a sizable chunk of my life listening to Mike & The Mad Dog...I'll miss it.
I'm sure Mike Francesa's show will continue to be fine on WFAN, and I'm sure Chris Russo will do fine wherever he goes (rumors are Sirius). And I'm sure they'll both be good shows to listen to - but it won't be the same.
UPDATE: Awful Announcing has the YES video of Chris Russo's phone call to Mike Francesa at the top of the show Friday. I listened to a couple of hours of the show, it was good stuff. A lot of the callers directed their affections, though, at Francesa - I thought it should have been more of an appreciation for Russo. Whatever.
The other thing, while I'm on the topic of media, is that www.awfulannouncing.com does a great job critiquing the media. I have a link to it on the right-hand side of the page - check it out every so often if you're interested.
OLYMPICS
I don't really have much to say about the Olympics coverage in general, though it seems that NBC is doing a fine job.
What I want to comment on is how much I enjoy watching Cris Collinsworth these days. I have come totally full circle on him. I used to strongly dislike anything he did - mostly from his work on 'Inside the NFL' on HBO. Maybe he said something bad about the Jets once that I held against him - I don't know. Maybe he came off as arrogant...I think it's a bit of both.
But ever since he started doing NFL Network games, he's started to grow on me. Maybe it's because he was the good alternative to Bryant Gumbel, who was just awful (and now gone), but he was flat out great, not just good compared to his partner. And now, whenever I watch the Olympics (I'm not watching a ton, but I catch the studio stuff every now and then), I'm happy when I see Collinsworth on - he's doing a great job there too.
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