The Mike Francesa Podcast has turned into a cross between sports talk and story time. Whenever Francesa opens the floor to listener emails, he finds himself oscillating between commenting on New York’s biggest teams and stories and sharing insight from his time at WFAN.
On Thursday’s episode, an emailer named Frankie asked about the best and worst experiences that Mike Francesa had as an interviewer.
The Sports Pope revealed that confrontational guests never bothered him. He was happy whenever a guest would push back against him or Chris “Mad Dog” Russo.
“I like that,” he said. “You know, I always thought give and take was fair.”
What Francesa really hated were guests that would not answer simple questions. That is what made the late Don King his least favorite radio guest.
“It was so hard to get him to be quiet, to get a question in, to actually keep him on track,” Francesa said.
He said it was “a pain in the neck” trying to get Don King to simply answer the question he was asked.
“It was like dealing with a politician. He would answer the question and take it off in a tangent that had nothing to do with the question you were asking him.”
Mike Francesa gets to be a lot pickier about who he talks to these days. His podcast features more reactions than interviews. When he does welcome guests to the show, they are usually longtime friends from the New York sports scene.
