@SprtsRadioMongo, you know him as EliIsElite, takes a look at how it might play out that dark day that Mike Francesa retires. In depth. Excellent depth. Alt title: Mike's recurring dream...
Tuesday, February 4, 2020.
Chris “Mad Dog” Russo’s departure from WFAN, back in 2008, was a hellish nightmare. His former partner’s last show, however, was everything but that.
Mike Francesa, a legend in the radio industry, started his final day like he did the last 33 years. He left his house around 11:00 o’clock to go to the studio, which was his second home.
The driver of the black Mercedes wasn’t Mike. It was his longtime driver Julio Rosa. “It was emotional,” the former NYPD detective told the Magazine. “You knew this is the last time we make this drive from Long Island to Hudson Street.”
“Mike was quiet,” he continued. “He wasn’t on his phone monitoring the stocks like he always used to do. He sat there, quiet, and stared right into the skies.”
Little did he know what awaited him back at the shop.
Four weeks ago, when Mike – or The Pope as his fans like to call him - announced his retirement, the annual meeting known as FrancesaCon announced that they canceled this year’s event.
“We were very surprised and disappointed,” John Singer, a huge Francesa fan, and longtime FrancesaCon participant said. “You’re canceling this year’s event? The year Mike retires? It was very strange.” But John didn’t have to wait long to find out the reason behind the cancelation of this great event, which had more than 17,000 Francesa fans – or Mongos as some call them – pack Barclay’s Center the year before.
“We had a plan,” Nick Basciano, one of the FrancesaCon arrangers told us when reached on the phone. “We wanted to do something different this time, with Mike retiring.”
Canceling wasn’t easy. A lot of things were already planned and prepared for the yearly event, but the toughest part was informing Mr. Francesa himself that it was canceled.
“Mike started participating in 2015,” the other FrancesaCon arranger, Joey Handler, explained. “He first didn’t acknowledge it, but when he heard that there is a charity involved, he said he would come.”
His attendance raised a whopping $556,000 for charity just last year.
“When we called Mike to inform him about the cancelation,” Joey said, “He wasn’t pleased, to say the least. He was really disappointed.” But, little did Francesa know that FrancesaCon had another plan.
“So we get to Hudson Street,” Julio reflects, “and it’s shut down. We can’t get in. [There] was a lot of [police] activity there. Mike wasn’t pleased. He opened the window and demanded an explanation from that poor officer.”
“That was the first time I heard him talk all day,” Julio joked…
“When we were told that there is some event going on in front of the building, we turned around, and parked a couple of blocks away. Mike wasn’t happy… (chuckles)…”
“So I sat down with Nick,” Joey Handler tells us. “And we decided to surprise Mike, and move this year’s FrancesaCon to a different location.”
That location was in front of 345 Hudson Street.
“So we parked,” Julio recalled, “and we started walking towards the studio.”
“It wasn’t easy to hide everything from Mike,” Nick and Joey explained. “How do you inform everyone about the change, and keep Mike out of it?” So they called Roe Francesa, Mike’s wife, and asked her to make sure Big Mike doesn’t find out about the change in plans.
“Ha, [Mike] was this close from finding out,” Roe said laughingly. “One night, after a long day, Mike Breen – a family friend of the Francesas, who every now and then comes over to watch games with Mike – texted him about it. [Mike’s] phone was on the counter, so he didn’t see it. Lucky me… I called Breeny up from the other room and shushed him…”
“We were surprised to see the amount of people that turned out to bid Francesa farewell,” Dave Quinn, a NYPD cop, told the Magazine. “It was a mob!”
Says Julio: “We were anxious to find out what this unexpected event that kept us from parking in front of our building was all about."
“So we are walking down Hudson Street, and we started hearing these loud ‘NUMBAH ONE!! NUMBAH ONE!!’ chants. I had no idea if I am asleep or not. I thought I was in the middle of a dream!”
“Mike took his right hand and put it around his right ear, as to make sure if the chant he is hearing is what he thinks it is.”
“Mike was shocked, speechless, and in awe. There were approximately 25,000 screaming New Yorkers in front of [CBS’] building screaming like a bunch of lunatics...”
“You got to be kidding me,” an emotional Mike told Julio. “This is unreal.”
At the scene, almost everyone held a Francesa sign, or wore a t-shirt that the FrancesaCon arrangers had given out before to those “Mongos” who froze their butts off in the 20 degree weather.
They were all yelling at the top of their lungs, as Mike slowly walked between the barricades while waving to the crowd.
“He meant a lot to me,” a guy who identified himself only as Joey, said. “I spent 3 years in hospital fighting cancer, and ‘Mike’s On’ was all I listened to. I couldn’t wait for 1 o’clock to come.”
“Thank you! Thank you!” Mike whispered as he made The Walk of Fame, while Julio was busy fighting off fans who tried getting into the barricades.
After 10 minutes, Mike walked up to the 10 foot podium that was beautifully designed by the FrancesaCon arrangers – to thank his fans.
“I made a living from talking five and a half hours every day,” Mike began, as he motioned everyone to quiet down, “but I am out of words right now.”
With New York City’s 109th second-term Mayor Bill de Blasio at his side, Mike thanked New York for being loyal to him and to his show for 33 years.
After a 5 minute speech, which was interrupted more than a couple of times by Francesa-looking people chanting ‘MIKE! MIKE! MIKE!’, the mayor took the microphone and gave Mr. Francesa a key to the city, and told Mike that they will plant a tree in his honor. “A big one,” the mayor joked…
Mike thanked the mayor, and told his fans that he’s got to go, because he has one more show to do, and Mark Chernoff, WFAN’s Program Director, will yell at him if he doesn’t make it on time.
“I want to say this again,” a choked-up Mike said. “You have no idea what you guys meant to me, and I will always remember the support you guys gave me throughout my years at FAN. I am humbled… I am… Thank you all for taking the time to come out today. I will never forget this. Thank you!”
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“From the studios of WFAN in New York, and simulcast across the country on FOX Sports 1, this is Mike’s On Francesa on the FAN….”
That’s how Mike kicked off his show every day since 2008, when his former partner Dog left. (It was tweaked a little bit in March ’14, when the simulcast moved from YES to FOX Sports 1. More on that later). But that’s not how his last show began.
After a spectacular tribute to Francesa’s 33 years at WFAN played at the top of the hour, Mike cleared his throat, took a sip of diet coke, and prepared to open like he always did. Until the door of the studio opened, and an overly-excited Chris “Mad Dog” Russo ran in yelling “Aaaaaaannnndd……..good afternoon everybody!! How are you today?!?!?”
That wasn’t the first time Mike and his former longtime partner Chris Russo, now doing overnights on 95.7 The Game in San Francisco after he failed at Sirius XM, reunited.
They did a couple of shows together years ago. But Mike and Dog haven’t talked since late ’13, when Dog publically ripped Francesa about an interview he did with former MLB star Alex Rodriguez.
“Wow! I wasn’t expecting you,” a happily-surprised Mike told Dog all excited.
“Remember me,” Dog asked? “I was your partner for 19 years!!!”
They both laughed like two old drunk friends who met in a bar for the first time in 10 years.
Mike then asked Dog his thoughts on last night’s Super Bowl, and tweaked each other like the good ole days.
They also touched on a report in the Daily News – who announced last week that they won’t publish its paper twice a week anymore and that it will only be a Sunday periodical - that Tom Thibodeau, who has been the Knicks head coach since 2015, is on his way out after the Knicks’ miserable 12-35 start.
Dog asked Mike about the ovation he got at Radio Row last week.
[On Friday, Mike’s last day on Radio Row, every single radio show – besides ESPN, of course -- simulcast Francesa’s opening monologue, to honor the guy who invented Radio Row.]
“Oh, it was nice. It was very nice. I mentioned you, Dog. I am sure you were listening…”
After yapping about last night’s Super Bowl for over 10 minutes, Russo, now in a serious voice, congratulated Mike on what he accomplished throughout the 33 years at the FAN.
Dog teared up when he started saying goodbye.
“You are not gonna make me cry on TV,” Mike jokingly barked at the Dog. “You tried doing that in ’08 when you came on after you left! Not again!”
As Mike threw it to John Minko – who retired in 2018, and came back to do the updates one more time in honor of Mike - Dog was seen hugging his old partner as if he was Bruce Springsteen.
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As anyone who is on Twitter knows, Mike Francesa has a huge following on the social media behemoth.
There is a guy impersonating Mike, another one posting “interesting” audios of the Big Guy, and hundreds regurgitating his daily quotes.
At first, Mike wasn’t a big fan of Twitter in general.
In fact, he famously threatened to reveal the names of the people who are behind the fake Mike Francesa (@MikeFrancesaNY) account. Years ago, the Daily News used to put some of the fake Mike Francesa tweets in its paper without a disclaimer mentioning it was a "parody" account.
So when the guys behind those popular Francesa-related twitter accounts received a phone call from Francesa’s longtime producer Brian Monzo, who also hosts his own show every Saturday night on WFAN, inviting them to come in studio on Mike’s last day, they were very surprised.
“I was hesitant at first,” Jack, who runs the popular @WFANAudio account, told the Magazine via email. “I didn’t want my bosses to see me live on TV and find out that I tweet all day…”
“Yeah, I was also concerned about that,” Steve Martin, aka @MikeFrancesaNY told us when he heard what Jack’s concern was. “My boss follows me. But he would’ve killed me if he found out it’s me who is running it…”
“Ha. I wasn’t worried about all that s---,” Bill Buchanan, the guy behind all those hilarious Mike Zaun videos, said. “I am exposed to the public every year at FrancesaCon. I am not worried about that…”
For Mike, this was all a surprise. He has met Bill before at the FrancesaCons, but he never met the guys who gave him a cult following via Twitter before.
“Oh God,” Mike laughed when he came back from the break. “Look who’s here. The tweeters… Now I can flush my whole career down the toilet”
Mike asked the guys to explain him how Twitter works. “Do people who follow you have to pay to get the stuff you write about me?”
When he was told it’s free, Mike sarcastically tweaked them about spending so much time tweeting about him without making money.
Feverishly, the guys tried convincing Mike to open a twitter account, so his fans could keep up with him after his radio days ended.
With the shocker of the day, Francesa took a moment, thought about it, and said: “Ya know? I might do it. I might do it. Maybe I will have Jack Twitter … is it Twitter? Tweet? …. Who the hell cares… maybe I will have him tweet for me after a big game. We’ll see. I don’t know. Ugh… I gotta take a shower after saying that… Never thought I would ever utter such words… Me? On Twitter? … Ugh… Good seeing you guys. I appreciate what you guys have done for me. Thanks. Back after this.”
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On Friday, he promised his loyal listeners that he will make time for them on Monday, his last day on the air.
So when Francesa came back from the break, he went to the phones.
As an “outsider” who always knew Mr. Francesa as this jerk-to-the-callers kind of guy, I was pleasantly surprised to hear callers - young, old, men and women - give Mike such a warm goodbye. A few even chocked up while thanking the veteran WFAN talkie.
“Mike,” Lisa in Whitestone said in a broken voice. “I will miss you. Radio will never be the same. I hate to say goodbye, Mikey. Good luck to you and your family. Thanks for the memories.”
Long time callers such as Mike in Montclair, Ira in Staten Island and Steve in Bayside all made it on the air.
“We tried putting the regulars up first,” said producer Brian Monzo. “We thought it’s only fair to let those who called on a regular basis say goodbye.”
But Jim from Brooklyn had a different theory. “Monzo only let the regulars through because he was afraid of prank calls on such a special day,” the 26-year-old told the Magazine. “How would a Jason Giambi prank call on a day like that look like?”
“That’s ridiculous,” Brian Monzo responded via email. “We weren’t afraid of that. We just thought it’s the right thing to let them through after being regular caller for 33 years. Some people think way too much…”
Mike took calls for almost 2 hours. The highlight was a call he took from Emily in Long Island.
Emily, Mike’s daughter, always listened to her dad.
“She would take chips, soda, and her iPad, and go sit on the couch and watch her dad,” her mom said.
“Daddy, I will miss you on TV. I am happy that you will be around more, but I will miss coming home from school and putting you on and seeing you yell about the Mets’ lineup… I love you dad. You were always number one. And you will always be my number one.”
Mike couldn’t hold it in. He went to break with tears in his eyes.
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After the 4 o’clock update, another surprise awaited Mike.
When he came back from the bathroom, he found every WFAN talkie in his studio. Boomer and Carton, Evan and Sid, Steve Somers, the night guys, weekend guys; every on-air guy/gal.
Also there, was former WFAN host Joe Benigno, who came from Florida, where he lives now, since retiring in 2018.
“I was surprised when I saw Boomer and Carton,” Neil Best from Newsday told me on the phone. “They didn’t exchange words for over 7 years. It’s very nice of them for putting ego aside, and doing what was right to do.”
“Hey, listen; Mike is WFAN,” Carton said the next morning on his popular morning show. “We didn’t even think twice. Everybody knows that we don’t exactly like each other, but the man accomplished a lot here. We wouldn’t be here without him.”
Evan Roberts, who Mike liked the most of anyone at WFAN, took the mic and thanked Francesa in the name of all WFAN employees.
“So we thought, what would be a great gift for Mike, the guy who can buy whatever in the world he wants,” Evan Roberts told Mike after showering him with praises for three minutes. “So we came up with something…”
In came yet, another surprise.
Led by WFAN’s Program Director Mark Chenoff, Bob Gelb, Chris Carlin, Marc Malusis, Sal Licata, and Ray Martel – who all produced for Mike – slowly made their way in, while Mark holds a “Francesa” jersey in his hand.
“What the hell is this?” Mike wondered out loud.
“Wait a second, wait a second,” Chernoff replied.
Chernoff turned the jersey around.
“Number one,” Mike asked?? “What am I going to do with this??”
Mark didn’t answer. Instead, he pulled out a posted note from his pocket, and started reading.
“In the name of everyone at CBS and WFAN, we are here to retire the great Mike Francesa’s number.”
Mike shook his head, as if to say, “You guys are nuts…”
“Unlike athletes,” Mark continued. “Our talkies don’t have numbers. But, there was one number that was in back of Mike’s name wherever he went. And that was number one. Mike was the number one sports talk host for 33 years. That’s amazing. So to honor this huge accomplishment, we are here to retire his number.”
Claps everywhere.
So who will raise the jersey?
Enter John Donald Imus.
“You wouldn’t have made it in this business without me, Fatso,” Don yelled at Mike. “And you two, yeah, Boomer and what’s his name, whatever, you wouldn’t have been here if not for me….and those Rutgers girls…”
Laughs everywhere.
“Alright, let me out of here,” Imus told Chernoff after finishing raising the banner. “I did what you asked, crack head.”
“I appreciate you coming down here,” Mike told Imus. “It means a lot.”
Imus, who was on the way out, stopped, walked back to the set, and sat down.
“Listen to me,” he told all the WFAN-ers in the room. “They always credit me for building this station. I will gladly take all the compliments. But this guy deserves all the credit. When I was here we had no competition. The only one who was gonna bring me down was me, which is exactly what happened. That [bleeped out] ESPN station was a disaster. Their signal was weaker than Metro PCS’ signal in upstate New York. Now, they have a strong signal and a good lineup. Mike still finished number one without that meathead co-host he had for 19 years. That’s amazing, Mikey. That’s amazing. I am proud of you. And you should all be kissing his tuches, not throw darts at him! Do you hear me, Boomer and whatever-your-name- is???”
“It’s all good… it’s all good…” Francesa said. “It’s all good…”
Mike thanked everyone in the room again, and threw it to The Mink Man.
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“Monz is telling me that FOX Sports 1 has a video tribute from someone. Alright. Let’s all watch it together.”
“I didn’t expect that,” Mike told the Magazine. “I didn’t expect that at all.”
On the screen was the guy who went up against Mike every day from 3-7 p.m.
Michael Raymond Kay.
“To be honest with you,” Brian Monzo told us, “I was also surprised when I saw it. I didn’t know about it. Mark [Chernoff] told me to play this short video, but I had no clue what it is.”
Francesa and Kay never liked each other. They exchanged many jabs over the years.
After 12 years on the YES Network, Kay replaced Mr. Francesa.
Mike told his audience back then that it was about editorial control, which they didn’t have over him.
Kay’s years at YES were rocky, to say the least.
He started off strong thanks to a “classless” act - as Mike called it - he pulled the first day on the YES Network.
Kay, and his sidekick Don La Greca, dumped a Diet Coke – Francesa’s signature drink, into a trashcan as a not so friendly parting shot.
It worked. With Francesa’s fans blasting the Yankees play-by-play man on Twitter, the host trended locally in New York, and #ThingsBetterThanKay – a popular trending topic which is used whenever Francesa fans are mad at Kay – trended nationwide.
He got a lot of eyeballs thanks to that stunt.
But it didn’t help in the long run.
After scoring a 0.62 rating the first day thanks to that Francesa spiel, The Michael Kay Show averaged only a 0.1 rating over the next two years, until YES pulled the plug in March, 2016.
“It was the week of the Super Bowl,” Chernoff tells us, “I am in my office, and I get a call from ESPN. It was Justin Craig. ESPN New York’s Program Director.”
“’How can I help you?’, Mark recalls asking him. ‘I need a small favor from you, Mark’ he said. ‘What is it?’ ‘You probably have a big show planned for next Monday, Mike’s last day. We want to be a part of it. Kay recorded something for Mike, and we would appreciate if you could play it on the air.’”
“I sat there, with the phone in my hand, for probably another hour,” Mark continues. “I couldn’t believe it. That was very nice and thoughtful of Kay, and Justin.”
“Good afternoon Mike,” the voice on the video said. “This is Michael Kay.”
“When I saw Kay on my screen,” Joey Klein, a 38-year-old Francesa fan from Brooklyn, told us. “I wanted to puke! I hate the guy! I still can’t forgive him for what he did back in 2014 with that diet coke nonsense, even though they canceled his low-rated show!”
“We at ESPN New York want to congratulate you on the success you had over the years at WFAN. We didn’t get along that well, as everyone knows, but we wanted to say how much we respect what you have accomplished here. Thirty-three years is no joke. We wish you well in your future endeavors. By the way Mike,” Kay said in the short video. “That’s how it feels to be on a number one show? … Good luck Mike.”
“I gained a lot of respect for the man,” Mike told his listeners after the Kay video. “That was very, very nice of him.”
“It was a no-brainer,” Kay told the Magazine. “That was the right thing to do.”
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The show was almost over, but the guys behind the glass had one other surprise lined up for Mike.
Rex Ryan.
Like Kay and Mike, Rex and Francesa never saw eye-to-eye. After going on with Mike the first two years as the head coach of the Jets, Rex hasn’t made another appearance ever since.
“Hello Mike,” the ex-Jet and current NFL Network analyst told Mike. “Long time no speak!”
“I never hated Rex,” Mike told the Magazine from his car phone. “I just didn’t like the way he went about doing things when he was here in New York.”
If you didn’t know the history between those two, you wouldn’t know that there was bad blood between them years ago.
Rex, jokingly, gave Mike some tips on how to handle retirement. “I had a lot of extra time on my hands when I was fired after the 2015 season,” he told Mike. “It’s not easy. There are only so many feet you can lick per day…”
It was a very friendly conversation. Both poked fun at Woody Johnson, the Jets’ owner, who boycotted his players from going on Mike’s show.
Before hanging up, Rex told Mike that his “I have won more champions than Rex” line was pretty funny…
“You liked it, huh? You liked it… Thanks, Rex. Thanks for calling in. Good luck.”
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The clock showed 6:00 p.m. Which meant there were only 25 minutes left of the Mike Francesa era on WFAN.
“Those were the toughest 25 minutes of my career,” Mike told us. “I didn’t come prepared, I didn’t write anything down before I came back on the air; nothing. I wanted to say goodbye from my heart.”
And so he did.
“I was on my way home,” Steve Santiago, a longtime Francesa listener tells us. “And I got a call from my dad. ‘Steve! Are you in your car?’ my dad asked me. ‘Mike is saying goodbye! Turn the radio on!’ So I ran to my car, jumped in, turned the radio on, and just stared right into the dark skies above our great city.”
“And let me tell you something,” he tells us. “I am glad I didn’t miss it.”
Mike looked back at the early days. Thanking everyone who gave him a chance, and everyone who believed in him.
Mike then thanked his wife and kids for keeping up with him all those years, even though it wasn’t always easy.
“I am sorry for all the crap you had to go through in school for being my kid,” he joked.
After a quick break, Mike finished his final show by thanking the “most important part of this show,” the callers.
“I was always attacked for being rude to callers,” Mike told his listeners. “But that couldn’t be further from the truth. I love my listeners. I love my callers. I love all of you. I wouldn’t be able to be who I am without you guys. I just held the callers to a higher standard. I looked at them as performers. So, when I felt they are not making sense, I was a little harsh on them. Not in a bad way. I love all of you who took time over the past thirty-three years to call in. I do.”
He then spent a couple of minutes thanking his good friend John Minko, who “came out of retirement to do today’s show…”
“Alright. This is it, I guess,” Mike nervously said. “I am starting to have second thoughts about this… I don’t know what I will do tomorrow come 1 o’clock… I might just call [Mark] Chernoff and tell him that I was just messing around and I didn’t really mean this whole retiring thing… I might.”
“As my loyal listeners know,” Mike said after he sat there quiet for a full minute. “I was a bad closer. I never had a punch line at the end of the show. I don’t have one today either. I don’t know how to say goodbye. I just…can’t. So, to all of you who listened all these years; Thanks again.”
For a guy who said he doesn’t know how to close a show, Mike Francesa had a pretty funny line the final time he had to do it.
“One more thing,” he said. “I won’t be back after this… Good night.”
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Mike Francesa was an icon.
So how do you replace someone of that stature?
“That is the million dollar question,” Mark Chernoff, WFAN’s Program Director, told us.
There are a lot of people rumored to be on WFAN’s list. But this “replacement” surprised me…
“Some people brought this up to me” Mark says with a straight face, “and we are considering it.”
What is it?
Dead air until they find a replacement, in honor of Mike.
“Yeah, we might actually do that,” Chernoff told me when he saw my ‘ummmm-what??’ face. “I am serious, man. We are seriously considering doing that.”
“The FAN has been number one here for 20 years. And it’s going to be number one long after I am gone. But while I am sitting here, you can be damn sure it’s going to be number one.”
That’s what Mike Francesa said back in 2009.
11 years later, love him or hate him, we can all agree on this: He was damn right.
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