In a city thick with guess-again and newspaper-reliant radio blowhards — the looming cicada invasion might provide some audio relief — immodesty prevented Mike Francesa from mentioning that this week he made world history.
The Academie’ International le Radio et Buzzing Devices, headquartered in Vichy, France, announced Francesa is now the all-time leader in disseminating half-truths, non-truths, wishful fabrications and in treating both listeners and co-workers as “les miserables.”
The announcement further reads, “In so doing, Monsieur Francesa has surpassed Tokyo Rose.”
The statement later noted Francesa surpassed Tokyo Rose — no relation to Howie Rose — because she did make good on her promises to play popular music for Allied sailors and soldiers throughout World War II.
Wonder which one put Francesa over the top. Perhaps it was Tuesday’s bit when he knowingly declared John Tortorella’s job as Rangers coach was in no jeopardy, whatsoever. You know how he says such things, as if he actually knows.
Of course, Francesa knows as much about the few things he admits to not knowing well — hockey, Al Alburquerque — as he does about those he claims superior expertise — baseball, basketball, football, golf, horseracing and the absence of a sales tax in Connecticut (startling news to its residents). And the sum of that knowledge is nothing.
Yet, he declared Tortorella, known to hockey fans as divisive and abrasive — and coming off a five-game playoff loss — safe. As if he knew!
And he referred to Tortorella as “Torts,” another transparency to promote himself as a XXX-L big shot. “Torts” is among the legions of Francesa’s imaginary big-time buddies throughout sports, entertainment, global politics, waste management and those who employ drivers.
Given Francesa’s track record for being both colossally and immediately wrong — Volume Six is nearly complete — Tortorella was fired the next day. And then Francesa credited himself for breaking the story — the one he knowingly assured us, a day prior, would not happen!
If we were as arrogantly, consistently and sensationally wrong as Francesa, we either would have ceased making “superior knowledge-based” predictions or begun to have fun with our failures.
Either way, we would cease pretending to an audience that knows better, that we know better, and that our lowly listeners are lucky to share the air we breathe — at least after we exhale. But Francesa is all gall, no shame.
And he wasn’t done with the Rangers. An hour or so after Tortorella was sacked — as if on Francesa’s reverse-cue — he said, “The name I’m hearing” to replace Tortorella “is Lindsey Ruff.” Said it three times — “Lindsey Ruff.”
Fascinating. Lindy Ruff has been an NHL presence as a player then coach since 1979, but the name he “kept hearing” he likely never had heard of until it became easy, NHL-wide speculation, then he presented it as “what I’m hearing.”
Several times daily, Francesa, from behind his curtained lab in The Emerald City, tries to make a fool of someone — bullying and denigrating undeserving souls, in and out of the studio. That’s his sense of sport and good radio. But such misanthropic egomania invariably exposes him as dressed in the emperor’s old new clothes.
Perhaps Francesa surpassed Tokyo Rose on Tuesday, when he granted a peon a few seconds. The caller sounded like an elderly man with a point to make about a “a hitch” in Ike Davis’s swing. Francesa jumped him, cut him off, beat him up. He sarcastically, cruelly claimed that he, Mike Francesa, had no idea Davis is in a slump.
That Francesa’s unwarranted, schoolyard bully mistreatment was lost on the poor man, and that Francesa thought his audience would admire the way he belittled and big-timed this guy just for kicks, made Francesa the heel once again.
Anyone and everyone can be wrong, a lot, too. But Francesa speaks as if he 1) knows all, and 2) is never wrong, when both 1) and 2) are b) completely false. In fact he often is so wrong and so disinclined toward the honesty to acknowledge such, it’s funny! The only one left who takes Francesa seriously is Francesa!
Thus, when he pompously picked the elderly Spurs to lose in the first round of the NBA playoffs (they then beat the Warriors) then followed it with the Grizzlies breezing past the Spurs (the Spurs swept!) he again set himself up for the ridicule he pours on others, many of them only guilty of being foolish enough to wait to speak with him, make that, Him.
The all-knowing sage who mocked professional forecasters to instead predict Hurricane Sandy would be a mere passing rainstorm, could bring instant world peace, simply by expertly predicting World War III for this Tuesday.
CC Sabathia, not pitching well as of late this week, was given Francesa’s OK. “I’m not worried about Sabathia,” he declared, as if he were Yankees manager Joe Girardi. “Whew,” wrote reader Jim Atorino, “that’s a relief.”
than Kay. And the Billy Joel sign-off that Kay uses is only 2nd to the Flo progressive commercials in the "annoying things that make me switch the station category" I like Somers. He's a classic. I like Tony Page too. The national guys on ESPN are okay but whatever garbage CBS sports radio puts on will be garbage I'm sure. I remember the time WFAN put Ferrell's syndicated show on in the evenings - it was an unmitigated disaster and a short lived experiment. NY-area teams are not gonna wanna be on FM. Part of why these teams have bigger followings is because you can hear them far and wide. -QG
