Gregg Giannotti regaled listeners with a Mike Francesa moment at the end of Tuesday’s edition of Boomer & Gio.
Giannotti was discussing televisions inside radio studios when he remembered how things played out inside WFAN on January 15th, 2009. US Airways Flight 1549, captained by Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger, collided with a flock of birds shortly after take-off and was forced to land in the Hudson River in Midtown Manhattan. As the news coverage played out, Giannotti said Francesa looked on with intrigue.
“The whole Mike thing — at the time — he was getting picks wrong, and everyone use to get on him for that and whatever else,” Giannotti pointed out. “So he walks out of the studio, he looks up at the news coverage of the plane sitting there in the Hudson (River). And the volume’s not up.
‘I’m familiar with this plane,’ Giannotti said while impersonating Francesa. “‘This is not good. I know that plane. There’s about 300 people on that plane, and they’re all dead. There’s 300 people in there and they’re all gone. This is not good.'”
The volume on the tv wasn’t on. So, according to Giannotti, Francesa walked up and turned the volume up so everyone could hear.
“The second that you can hear it ‘just confirmed 155 people…all alive!’ He hits the volume back down and walks back into the studio,” Giannotti said. “That was the hardest I had to try not to laugh, in my life. Ah, poor Mike.”
Giannotti — who isn’t afraid to point out he and Francesa don’t get along — and guest host Sal Licata then discussed each’s relationship with “the sports pope”.
“I would say that I still have a good relationship with Mike. He was great to me. I loved him,” Licata admitted.
