A computer issue during the first hour of Boomer & Gio on WFAN brought up memories of Mike and The Mad Dog for Gregg Giannotti Friday morning.
The call screening software on Boomer Esiason’s in-studio computer wasn’t working, and was told the computers “weren’t talking with each other”. That triggered Esiason’s mind to ask Giannotti about his former on-air cohorts.
“Have you ever worked with a guy that you’ve ever not spoken to outside of the studio and you come back in and everything seems fine? You ever have a problem with anybody?,” Esiason asked.
“Yes. I did. There was a guy I worked on the air with that we did not speak off the air, only on the air,” Giannotti revealed.
“And how did that go?”, questioned Esiason.
“Not great. Not great at all,” Giannotti said. When asked if it was during his time in Pittsburgh, Giannotti confirmed that was the case. Esiason then asked if Giannotti was the offending party, which he denied. “I think it was sort of the opposite.”
Boomer then brought up he had heard that Mike Francesa and Chris “Mad Dog” Russo wouldn’t speak to each other at times, which update anchor Jerry Recco confirmed.
“I worked with them in one of those terrible periods where they did not speak a word to each other off the air,” Recco said.
“But could you tell when they were on the air?”, Esiason asked.
“Yes and no,” Recco admitted. “You could tell because there was — so I was on the board at that time and (Chris) Carlin was the producer — there was a period of time where Chris would open up the show and say ‘Good afternoon, Mike. How are you?’ and he would say ‘I’m fine, Dog. How are you?’ and Chris would do the whole thing, and Mike would just go into sports and not acknowledge him.”
“There was a period, too, where I was working there as the midday producer and they were still there together,” Giannotti reminisced. “Dog would be in the studio, Mike would leave, and Mike would wait outside of the studio until the on-air light would come on to go back into the studio so there wasn’t any time they were together off the air.”
“I just can’t imagine working with someone that I couldn’t just come in and totally feel relaxed with,” Esisason said.
“It’s not a great environment,” Recco admitted.
“I’m very fortunate for 16 years to not have that happen to me,” Esiason concluded. “What were they fighting about?”
“That I don’t know,” Recco said.
Boomer then asked if the disagreements were over money or sports, and Giannotti remembered a specific fight.
“There was a whole — Dog had a problem one time that Mike wasn’t pay as much attention as he should have. I remember that,” said Giannotti. “I saw that fight. It was just me and (John) Minko in the newsroom. I remember they were going at it. They were fighting off the air.”
“Going as hard as they could?”, Boomer asked.
“Yeah, as hard as they can,” Giannotti remembered. “I remember Dog kicking the studio door open and screaming. It was intense. And the way you could tell they were fighting off the air — on the air — was like the littlest arguments or disagreements would turn into these huge debates. Like the one about the Fenway Stadium (sic) bathroom. Do you remember this? Oh my god. It was like a throwaway line one of them had. I think it was Mike saying it wasn’t that difficult to get in and out of the bathrooms in Fenway. And Dog was like ‘ARE YOU ABSOLUTELY CRAZY? IT’S 45 MINUTES OF STANDING OUTSIDE!’,” Giannotti said as he impersonated both former WFAN hosts.
“‘No you’re crazy, Dog’, it was just back and forth screaming at each other about the Fenway Stadium (sic) bathrooms. And you’re like ‘Why?!’ I remember going over and turning the speaker up in the newsroom thinking ‘Woah! This is great!’ Unbelievable.”
