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____________________________________________________ MAY 10, 2009 Catching up on a whole bunch of things . . . I’ll try to incorporate your latest e-mails with some observations on the sports scene. So much has been happening, both on and off the field, that it seems like a good idea to include everything in one entry. The coaches – I’ve received a huge amount of feedback, pro and con, on my relentless assaults against the two drones who coach our winter teams, John Stevens and Tony DiLeo. And I plead guilty to the main charge: I’m a talk-show host, so it’s impossible for me to evaluate fairly any coach who is understated. Yes, it would be far more interesting for me and my show if the coaches were . . . . well, alive. But my criticism goes well beyond that. Stevens is a consummate loser. Just listen to him after a game. More times than not, he dwells on the good things his team has done, even if the Flyers lost, 5-1. After that meltdown in Game 6 of the first round, he didn’t talk about the stupid fight by Dan Carcillo or the porous goaltending of Marty Biron. He just kept saying the team had made great progress, even though they went two rounds farther in the playoffs last year. The Flyers will never win a Stanley Cup while John Stevens is coach. That’s all I’m saying. He is not a winner. Tony DiLeo is a daily insult to Philadelphia, and not just because he may be the most boring man in America. DiLeo was handed an NBA coaching job for no apparent reason. He is a personnel guy who last coached 18 years ago in a West German women’s league. In the words of announcer Tom McGinniss, “Are you kidding me?” The fact that the Sixers also fell apart in Game 6 of the first round only made his status more confounding. He cannot come back, but nearly two weeks after that loss, GM Ed Stefanski has decided to hide from the media rather than take action. He will eventually send DiLeo back to the front office because he has no choice. But Stefanski didn’t exactly cover himself in glory over this DiLeo mess or that idiotic signing of Elton Brand to an $80-million deal last spring. Finally, we have Andy Reid. All he has done this off-season is act like a lout. As I write this, I am preparing for his annual studio visit on May 12, and I honestly don’t know how to handle it. I have a policy of treating every guest with respect because they have agreed to come on our show. Yelling and screaming will only stop communication, not foster it. Still, this interview will be a real challenge because I am appalled at the way he has acted – especially his decision not to speak about losing Brian Dawkins to Denver. Andy Reid needs to know that his behavior has been unacceptable through much of this off-season. But how do I do it without being disrespectful? Stay tuned. The senator – If you’ve been listening to the show for the past 20 years, you know I’m not exactly a political animal. I hate politics – mostly because it is overrun by phonies and liars. The two exceptions I have made over the years have been Mayor and now Governor Ed Rendell and regular Monday guest Sen. Arlen Specter. Why? Well, Rendell is a terrific sports fan who also happens to be a post-game analyst for the Eagles. Specter constantly is at war with the NFL over cable TV, Spygate and the personal seat licenses. He is the best advocate for Philadelphia fans we have ever had in Washington. Anyway, I have taken a lot of heat for supporting Specter harder than ever since he flipped from Republican to Democrat last month. Hey, I’m not asking you to support him. I’m just telling you why I do. Sen. Specter has never allowed anyone – not his party, not the lobbyists, no one – to tell him what to think. I love that independence. I can relate to it because over the years I have faced the same kind of pressure from my bosses, the teams and many influential individuals to pull a punch, to soften my position. I have always disregarded that pressure – sometimes at risk of my own job – and I always will. If people would prefer a lackey, there are lots of political choices for you out there. In fact, most of these political hacks stand for nothing but what it takes to get re-elected. Not Specter. He does what he thinks is right. If that’s a problem for you, then vote for the other guy. The draft – I know, I know. The Eagles had the most amazing draft in NFL history, and I’m nothing more than a buzz-kill. I’ve heard the complaint many times. Here’s my counter-argument: No matter what the draft experts say, these young players still have to develop into NFL players. Sometimes they do, sometimes they don’t. That’s why I like to label all of them as Maybes. When a contending team has a chance to trade three Maybes for one Sure Thing, that team should make the deal. That’s why I didn’t fall head over heels in love with Jeremy Maclin or LeSean McCoy. I would trade both of them, and more, this minute for Anquan Boldin or Braylon Edwards. Because a Sure Thing is always better than a Maybe. Screaming – Yup, I’m a screamer. In fact, if my voice is cracking toward the end of a show, I usually realize that I’ve gone too far. The problem I have is, the minute I try to stop myself – and I have tried many times – I feel the passion of the moment seep out of me. I never get it back. So it’s a trade-off. Do I allow for a quiet exchange of ideas, or do I vent my opinion more loudly than I should? I’ve tried it both ways, and I have concluded that it’s best to just let the natural emotions flow. The one thing I have learned to do is, I never interrupt someone who is expressing themselves with the same kind of passion. I may be wrong, but to me emotion is the most compelling radio you can offer. Whether it’s coming from me, my co-hosts or the callers. Joe Banner – His recent appearance on our show – for an uninterrupted 25 minutes – generated a deluge of e-mail. The consensus was that we went too easy on him. That is usually the consensus. Listeners always would prefer a screaming match (Well, maybe not always. See above.) I figure we’ve been killing the guy every day for months, and he deserves a chance to response without interruption. Of course, it’s our responsibility to challenge him when he says something illogical, and I thought we did it extremely effectively in the most recent Banner appearance. At one point, I even said: “How could you be so dumb?” when he didn’t get a written agreement from Mayor John Street during his $8 million negotiation with the city. But the listeners wanted Banner to take a fall that day. And he didn’t. What can I say? I wouldn’t do that interview any differently if I had to do it all over again. Dan Leone – The disabled security worker who lost his job after he attacked the Eagles – his employer – on Facebook has been an ongoing point of contention since Brian Dawkins left for Denver. The basic argument that the Eagles were right to dump him is that no company would tolerate that kind of public verbal assault from its employee. (Dan called the Eagles “retarted” for not re-signing Dawkins.) I don’t agree. If you heard our interview with Dan, you know just how contrite he is, and how important that job is to him. The Eagles love to portray themselves as community-oriented, and they are. No team does more for charity than they do. But their heavy-handed behavior in this case is one of the most appalling things I have seen in my 20 years at WIP. Dan Leone is a good guy who had a bad moment. He deserves his job back. Retiring – Thanks to the many, many e-mailers who responded to my comments at the end of 2008 about my future in radio. I can now say that retirement is not a consideration anymore, at least not yet. It’s strange how I came to this decision. I took a trip in March to Italy – my first visit to the homeland of my ancestors – and I gained a new perspective on what I do. The trip was spectacular, and I came back appreciating more what I get to do every day. The pressures and frustrations have probably never been higher at WIP, but I will not walk away now. I love this job, and I’m pretty sure there’s nothing else that could take its place. Negotiations have begun with WIP on a new contract. I sincerely hope I can finish my radio career right where it started, 20 years ago. -- Angelo Cataldi ____________________________________________________ MARCH 14, 2009 Catching up on a whole bunch of things . . . I’ll try to incorporate your latest e-mails with some observations on the sports scene. So much has been happening, both on and off the field, that it seems like a good idea to include everything in one entry. The coaches – I’ve received a huge amount of feedback, pro and con, on my relentless assaults against the two drones who coach our winter teams, John Stevens and Tony DiLeo. And I plead guilty to the main charge: I’m a talk-show host, so it’s impossible for me to evaluate fairly any coach who is understated. Yes, it would be far more interesting for me and my show if the coaches were . . . . well, alive. But my criticism goes well beyond that. Stevens is a consummate loser. Just listen to him after a game. More times than not, he dwells on the good things his team has done, even if the Flyers lost, 5-1. After that meltdown in Game 6 of the first round, he didn’t talk about the stupid fight by Dan Carcillo or the porous goaltending of Marty Biron. He just kept saying the team had made great progress, even though they went two rounds farther in the playoffs last year. The Flyers will never win a Stanley Cup while John Stevens is coach. That’s all I’m saying. He is not a winner. Tony DiLeo is a daily insult to Philadelphia, and not just because he may be the most boring man in America. DiLeo was handed an NBA coaching job for no apparent reason. He is a personnel guy who last coached 18 years ago in a West German women’s league. In the words of announcer Tom McGinniss, “Are you kidding me?” The fact that the Sixers also fell apart in Game 6 of the first round only made his status more confounding. He cannot come back, but nearly two weeks after that loss, GM Ed Stefanski has decided to hide from the media rather than take action. He will eventually send DiLeo back to the front office because he has no choice. But Stefanski didn’t exactly cover himself in glory over this DiLeo mess or that idiotic signing of Elton Brand to an $80-million deal last spring. Finally, we have Andy Reid. All he has done this off-season is act like a lout. As I write this, I am preparing for his annual studio visit on May 12, and I honestly don’t know how to handle it. I have a policy of treating every guest with respect because they have agreed to come on our show. Yelling and screaming will only stop communication, not foster it. Still, this interview will be a real challenge because I am appalled at the way he has acted – especially his decision not to speak about losing Brian Dawkins to Denver. Andy Reid needs to know that his behavior has been unacceptable through much of this off-season. But how do I do it without being disrespectful? Stay tuned. The senator – If you’ve been listening to the show for the past 20 years, you know I’m not exactly a political animal. I hate politics – mostly because it is overrun by phonies and liars. The two exceptions I have made over the years have been Mayor and now Governor Ed Rendell and regular Monday guest Sen. Arlen Specter. Why? Well, Rendell is a terrific sports fan who also happens to be a post-game analyst for the Eagles. Specter constantly is at war with the NFL over cable TV, Spygate and the personal seat licenses. He is the best advocate for Philadelphia fans we have ever had in Washington. Anyway, I have taken a lot of heat for supporting Specter harder than ever since he flipped from Republican to Democrat last month. Hey, I’m not asking you to support him. I’m just telling you why I do. Sen. Specter has never allowed anyone – not his party, not the lobbyists, no one – to tell him what to think. I love that independence. I can relate to it because over the years I have faced the same kind of pressure from my bosses, the teams and many influential individuals to pull a punch, to soften my position. I have always disregarded that pressure – sometimes at risk of my own job – and I always will. If people would prefer a lackey, there are lots of political choices for you out there. In fact, most of these political hacks stand for nothing but what it takes to get re-elected. Not Specter. He does what he thinks is right. If that’s a problem for you, then vote for the other guy. The draft – I know, I know. The Eagles had the most amazing draft in NFL history, and I’m nothing more than a buzz-kill. I’ve heard the complaint many times. Here’s my counter-argument: No matter what the draft experts say, these young players still have to develop into NFL players. Sometimes they do, sometimes they don’t. That’s why I like to label all of them as Maybes. When a contending team has a chance to trade three Maybes for one Sure Thing, that team should make the deal. That’s why I didn’t fall head over heels in love with Jeremy Maclin or LeSean McCoy. I would trade both of them, and more, this minute for Anquan Boldin or Braylon Edwards. Because a Sure Thing is always better than a Maybe. Screaming – Yup, I’m a screamer. In fact, if my voice is cracking toward the end of a show, I usually realize that I’ve gone too far. The problem I have is, the minute I try to stop myself – and I have tried many times – I feel the passion of the moment seep out of me. I never get it back. So it’s a trade-off. Do I allow for a quiet exchange of ideas, or do I vent my opinion more loudly than I should? I’ve tried it both ways, and I have concluded that it’s best to just let the natural emotions flow. The one thing I have learned to do is, I never interrupt someone who is expressing themselves with the same kind of passion. I may be wrong, but to me emotion is the most compelling radio you can offer. Whether it’s coming from me, my co-hosts or the callers. Joe Banner – His recent appearance on our show – for an uninterrupted 25 minutes – generated a deluge of e-mail. The consensus was that we went too easy on him. That is usually the consensus. Listeners always would prefer a screaming match (Well, maybe not always. See above.) I figure we’ve been killing the guy every day for months, and he deserves a chance to response without interruption. Of course, it’s our responsibility to challenge him when he says something illogical, and I thought we did it extremely effectively in the most recent Banner appearance. At one point, I even said: “How could you be so dumb?” when he didn’t get a written agreement from Mayor John Street during his $8 million negotiation with the city. But the listeners wanted Banner to take a fall that day. And he didn’t. What can I say? I wouldn’t do that interview any differently if I had to do it all over again. Dan Leone – The disabled security worker who lost his job after he attacked the Eagles – his employer – on Facebook has been an ongoing point of contention since Brian Dawkins left for Denver. The basic argument that the Eagles were right to dump him is that no company would tolerate that kind of public verbal assault from its employee. (Dan called the Eagles “retarted” for not re-signing Dawkins.) I don’t agree. If you heard our interview with Dan, you know just how contrite he is, and how important that job is to him. The Eagles love to portray themselves as community-oriented, and they are. No team does more for charity than they do. But their heavy-handed behavior in this case is one of the most appalling things I have seen in my 20 years at WIP. Dan Leone is a good guy who had a bad moment. He deserves his job back. Retiring – Thanks to the many, many e-mailers who responded to my comments at the end of 2008 about my future in radio. I can now say that retirement is not a consideration anymore, at least not yet. It’s strange how I came to this decision. I took a trip in March to Italy – my first visit to the homeland of my ancestors – and I gained a new perspective on what I do. The trip was spectacular, and I came back appreciating more what I get to do every day. The pressures and frustrations have probably never been higher at WIP, but I will not walk away now. I love this job, and I’m pretty sure there’s nothing else that could take its place. Negotiations have begun with WIP on a new contract. I sincerely hope I can finish my radio career right where it started, 20 years ago. -- Angelo Cataldi ____________________________________________________ The passing of Harry Kalas on April 13 was the most emotional story I have handled in my 20 years at WIP. I have written two columns for The Metro that best express my thoughts.
April 14: The Phillies lost the most important member of their family yesterday, a man whose amazing voice took a simple game and turned it into a sweet song. Players come and go every few years, but Harry Kalas was the one constant in all of our baseball lives. And now, so suddenly, he’s gone. It’s impossible for me to write in a few paragraphs, or even a few pages, what this man meant to Philadelphia. In my 20 years on WIP radio, the only person who never received a single word of criticism was Harry Kalas. When there were rumors that he was being eased out of the broadcast booth a couple of years ago, the rage was unlike anything I have ever experienced. Mike Schmidt may have been the best third baseman who ever lived, and Steve Carlton, Tug McGraw and Robin Roberts may all have been legendary pitchers, but none of them was as loved here as Harry Kalas. To understand what he meant to this city, it was not enough to hear his silken voice punctuate a towering home run with his trademark “Outta Here!” No, to really grasp the hold that he had on Philadelphia, you needed to spend a few minutes with the man. At a time when so many of us in the media try to out-scream each other, he was the personification of dignity. When he appeared on my show last winter, I tried repeatedly to get him to explain his popularity. He wouldn’t. Maybe he couldn’t. By the end of his hour-long appearance, I really didn’t need him to explain it. Philadelphia loved Harry Kalas because he was genuine in his love for the game and for the fans who embraced his words for 38 years. The sense of loss today is almost too much to bear. Who will keep us company now on those lazy summer nights, when his voice was the soundtrack for so many of our lives? Who will call those final games in September and October, when each pitch could decide the fate of a season? Who will keep alive the memory of his closest friend, Richie Ashburn, the only person whose popularity ever rivaled his own? Now it is our turn to keep Harry’s memory alive, his final words of the 2008 season serving as the last crescendo for a broadcast virtuoso. “The Philadelphia Phillies are the world champions of baseball,” he boomed. It is so easy to rationalize that Harry Kalas went out the right way, as a champion, when the Phillies won the World Series last season. But there is no truth to that at all. Harry Kalas didn’t need the outcome of a ballgame to provide his legacy. He was a champion all along. April 21: Harry Kalas was the greatest sports broadcaster in Philadelphia history, but it wasn’t his deep voice or his tireless work ethic that created the phenomenon of the past week. The extraordinary urge to honor him after his passing was a result of his unrivaled humanity. This amazing man left behind a legacy that should resonate with every sports figure who ever achieves any measure of fame. Harry Kalas reached hundreds of thousands of fans every day with his voice, and yet that connection was only the beginning of his commitment to this city. Over his 38-year career here, he touched fan after fan individually by happily posing for a photo or merely extending his hand in friendship. While so many sports figures with barely a sliver of his acclaim refuse the most basic requests from their fans, Harry Kalas never said no. That’s right, never. I took over 100 calls from listeners on my WIP radio show in the past week, and the verdict was unanimous. Harry simply never turned his back on a fan. Not once. It would have been so easy for him to adopt a defiant attitude after his harsh reception upon replacing the extremely popular Bill Campbell in 1971, but Harry tried a different approach. He weathered the initial storm, and then went beyond all of the other broadcasters who preceded him by reaching out to every fan who ever acknowledged him. Fourteen months ago, Harry appeared on my show and began to choke up when he recalled what the fans did for him in 1980, after they had been denied the chance to hear him call the last out of the Phillies’ first championship. Nine years after they had resisted his hiring, the same fans flooded the commissioner’s office with demands that local radio crews be allowed to broadcast the World Series to their own fans. In 1983, Major League Baseball finally agreed to the change, and it was that surge of support from the Philadelphia fans that allowed Harry to fulfill his last big dream, calling the pitch that won a championship last fall. That Harry Kalas was given an unprecedented send-off should be a surprise to no one. So many of those thousands of fans who walked past his casket on Saturday had their own personal story to tell about a man who left us with some of the greatest baseball calls we will ever hear, and an even more valuable lesson on how to handle fame. ____________________________________________________ MARCH 14, 2009 Rhea is going to become a Mom!
In the 12 years we have worked together, I have always assumed that Rhea Hughes would someday have a baby, and I have always dreaded it. Rhea does more of the heavy lifting on our show – the tough, behind-the-scenes work – than any of the rest of us. She books most of the guests, she constantly puts out fires that the other members of our show start, especially me. She finds great stuff on the Internet that we can use on the show, she handles a lot of the disputes between us and management, and she . . . . well, you get the idea. For the past three months, I’ve known about her pregnancy, and I have somehow managed to keep it a secret. Rhea wanted to wait until she was far along before the announcement because her late-30s age sometimes could lead to complications. But everything is great. She is primed for the big day around Aug. 1, and so is her husband, Joseph Cohn. They deserve our absolute best wishes. They will be awesome parents. Of course, my perspective – and that of the listeners, I’m guessing – is focusing on one simple question: How will her newfound status as a Mom affect the WIP Morning Show? Well, believe it or not, suddenly it’s not such a big deal to me. Rhea’s first priority should always be the boy. If she can’t help me in a crisis because the kid comes first, that’s the way it should be. I said this on the air, and I’ll put it in writing. That child will always come before our show. I would have it no other way. I know what you’re thinking. Yeah, right. Wait for the first problem, and this promise will vanish as quickly as a Brad Lidge slider. Wrong. Largely through my own five grandchildren, I have finally figured out that what we do on the radio is just a job. What Rhea does when she goes home to that little boy is what should matter most in her life, and it will. Just before we made the happy announcement on our March 13 show, WIP held an Internet poll to determine what our listeners thought would be the big news we had been promoting. Most of the voters thought I’d be announcement my retirement. No, not yet. But I can’t deny when I start seeing things the way I do now, that time must be getting much closer. I have been absorbed in this job for almost 20 years now, and suddenly I am finding things that are actually more important. Anyway, please join me in offering congratulations to the best co-worker I’ve ever had, Rhea Hughes. If her son is anything like his mother, he’ll have an amazing work ethic, a talent and versatility second to none, coolness under pressure and – above all – a patience to deal with really difficult people. --- Angelo Cataldi --------------------------------- FEBRUARY 15, 2009 I owe the visitors to this website a sincere apology for the long time span between entries. I’d like to tell you I was very busy, but I wasn’t. I’m just getting lazier as I get older. So I offer here a rant that should catch everyone up on what’s been happening . . . . Wing Bowl 17 – In my humble opinion, this was our best Wing Bowl ever, because it delivered in every respect. The processions were easily our most elaborate and creative ever, especially Gentleman Jerry’s tribute to the Spectrum, which won the annual Weachter Cup. The competition itself was so unpredictable, there was an element of drama that has often been missing in recent events. The emergence of a great local eater, Super Squibb, just made it all the better. Jonathan Squibb is a 23-year-old Berlin, N.J. resident who came out of nowhere to win the title and the car. The fact that four of our participants (including a Wingette) couldn’t hold down their wings somehow contributed to the wild atmosphere. And, of course, the Wingettes were as hot and as uncontrollable as ever. We set a new record for flashes, too – though I’m not sure that’s any real reason for pride. The big question now is whether to open the event back up to the professional eaters next year. I may not have to make that decision since my contract runs out before the next Wing Bowl, but my inclination right now is to keep them out. The pros contribute very little to the actual event. They rarely bother to prepare a procession, they have little or no personality, and they detract from the original intent of Wing Bowl, which is to turn an average Joe into Rocky Balboa for a day. Any input from the listeners and Wing Bowl patrons is welcome here. This issue will be debated either by us of by whomever replaces us at WIP as the date of the next Wing Bowl draws nearer. Mitch Williams – It has not escaped our many alert listeners that Mitch now has a full-time job on the new MLB TV network, and I have been getting more and more questions about his status on the WIP Morning Show. Nothing is official yet, but my best guess is that Mitch will not be making his weekly studio visit to our show for much longer. It is simply a matter of logistics. He cannot make five trips up to New York for the studio show at MLB every week and then get up by 5:30 a.m. for our show on Wednesdays. We’ve been trying to work something out with Mitch because he is terrific and offers so much to our baseball coverage. At the very least, we should be able to get his thoughts during weekly call-ins. Meanwhile, we will be looking for someone who can offer the same combination of knowledge and wit that Mitch has provided so brilliantly for the past two years. Spring Training – Yes, the WIP Morning Show will be relocating to Clearwater for our shows on Feb. 26 and 27. We made this trek every year for a long time, but stopped a few years ago when some problems developed between our show and the Phillies. Well, nothing patches up a dispute better than a world championship. I have already made a very public vow that we will continue to visit the Phillies every spring after they win a World Series. Hey, we’re nothing if not front-runners. The Eagles – In my 19-plus years of talking sports on WIP, our commentary has never polarized the audience as dramatically as it has in the past few weeks. The Donovan McNabb fans are frustrated with our relentless criticism of the franchise quarterback. The McNabb bashers think our recent rips have been brilliant. Hey, this is the best reply I can offer to both sides: We offer our honest opinion, unhampered by any loyalties to individual players or members of any organization. What you are hearing on our show is something you will hear at very few other venues. You are hearing the sincere views of people who know a little something about football and a whole lot about Philadelphia fans. If we all agreed, WIP would never have become the revered national sports-radio station it is. The Phillies – Ah, something we can pretty much all agree on, for once. The Phils are the best team in baseball, even if the so-called experts don’t think so. My biggest complaint right now is that this team is not getting the national respect it earned for 162 regular-season games and 14 more in the post-season. The oddsmakers are listing as many as a half-dozen teams (including the Mets) ahead of them this season. My goal over the next month on our show is to activate the fan base to provide a strong defense for a team that has won over Philadelphia but – for some strange reason – not the rest of the country. Scarlett Johansson – I have stirred up a hornet’s nest recently by suggesting that she is the most overrated sex symbol in American history. In her latest movie (He’s Just Not That Into You), I have argued that she is nowhere near as attractive as the woman whose husband she steals, Jennifer Connelly. OK, I may have even called Scarlett the f-word – fat – once or twice, triggering a flood of angry e-mails, mostly by women. All I ask of all these dissenters is that they go see the movie. Those who have seen it are unanimous in support of my comments. Sometimes the truth hurts. Especially when it involves the weight of a no-longer-attractive woman. The winter teams – We have probably talked less about the Sixers and Flyers this winter than ever before, and there’s an obvious reason for that. They are not only mediocre, but they are something even worse for sports-talk radio. They are boring. Their respective coaches, Tony DiLeo and John Stevens, may be the least compelling public speakers in American pro sports. Their players are cliché machines. Their ownership is uninspired and decades removed from the kind of success experienced by the Phillies and, to a lesser degree, the Eagles. In other words, these winter teams are relentlessly boring, and we will not try to make them seem otherwise on our show. When something interesting happens, we’ll talk about it. Otherwise, what’s the point? Some idle thoughts while promising to post more entries on this website in the very near future . . .
--- Angelo Cataldi --------------------------------- DECEMBER 27, 2008 At the beginning of every new year, we all consider what we have accomplished, and where we are heading next. I find myself pondering those questions with more urgency than ever before as 2008 becomes 2009. My contract has finally reached its final year, which is something I haven’t been able to say for half a decade. I am 57 years old, and I’ve been doing the WIP Morning Show for 19 years. When I say this could be my last trip through the calendar in this grueling role, it is not a negotiating ploy. If I didn’t love the challenge of filling those four-and-a-half hours on the air every day and, yes, the money, I would probably announce right now that I’m walking away at the end of 2009. But there’s more to the decision than finding a proper goodbye. For me, it is also a question of why I came to Philadelphia 25 years ago, and how the sports media has changed in the quarter-century since then. I left my hometown of Providence, R.I. because I never felt comfortable there. It was just too small-town for me, too confining. Philadelphia always represented the ideal for me, a big city with well-entrenched pro sports teams and a media that covered them with the same scrutiny as City Hall. Back then, Philadelphia was the toughest sports media town in America, the prefect reflection of the most demanding fans in the nation. One of the best days of my life was the Monday morning when I walked into the sports department of The Philadelphia Inquirer to report for my first day of work. The city had the best baseball beat writer in the world, Bill Conlin, and columnists like Stan Hochman and Mark Whicker – brilliant wordsmiths who offered criticism equally effectively using a stiletto or a sledgehammer. My own colleagues at the Inquirer included take-no-prisoners beat writers like Bill Livingston and Chuck Newman, working the Sixers and college sports, respectively. The airwaves back then featured equally harsh critics like Steve Fredericks and, yes, Howard Eskin. As someone who had been banned from the press table at Boston Celtics games because of my relentless negativity and was persona non grata at Boston Red Sox games for a similar reason, I felt more at home in Philadelphia than I had ever felt in my own hometown. Today, on the back end of this experience, I feel a strange responsibility to weather the punishing pace of doing a daily radio show until the enforcements arrive – the next wave of Bill Conlins and Stan Hochmans and Bill Livingstons. The older I get, though, the less optimistic I am that they will ever get here. Listeners have always wondered why I wear my demanding nature as a badge of honor, and I have always offered what I believe is the perfect answer. I am proud of this attitude because it perfectly reflects that of my audiences – both as a writer in the 1980s and as a broadcaster in the 1990s and 2000s. Nothing has surprised me more in my 25 years here than the trend away from critical sports commentary in a town that has not changed its demeanor one iota in that time. Fans are every bit as demanding and critical today as they were when I started at WIP full-time in 1990. I should know; I’ve been talking to them every day since then. When I pick up the newspapers and read the spineless sports analysis offered on a daily basis by the Phil Sheridans and Rich Hofmanns, I cringe – not only on behalf of the rapidly dwindling number of customers to the Inquirer and Daily News, but also in memory of the truly great sports media people who came before them in Philadelphia. Why has this happened? Why are there now so few voices that speak to the fans, and for the fans? Is the atmosphere in the locker room just too uncomfortable for most columnists to write something compelling like Andy Reid Must Go!, even though that opinion clearly represents the majority of the fans right now? I’ve told this story many times before, but I find myself coming back to it more and more as I get older. I was at Columbia University, working for my master’s degree in 1976, when I revealed to my advisor that I planned to become a sports writer, not a foreign correspondent or the managing editor of The New York Times. He made me promise that day that I would bring the same scrutiny to sports that my fellow students would bring to politics and foreign affairs. He told me that day why the media is called The Fourth Estate – because it is part of the check-and-balance system under which our nation was created. Newspapers and broadcast entities are supposed to question and challenge, regardless of whether it is the government they are covering, or a football team. Somewhere along the way, that lesson stopped getting through to the sports voices who work in our city. Turn on one of the local TV stations now, and you would think the sports anchors and reporters were being paid by the teams. The younger the media person, the more derelict they seem. Is this the observation of someone who hates change, or is it the typical complaint of someone who is getting older and increasingly bitter? I can’t answer that question – or maybe I don’t want to answer it. All I know for sure is that I really do see myself as one of the last lines of defense against this nauseating rah-rah journalism that I absolutely know is not welcome to the sports fans in Philadelphia. Still, the urge to walk away is becoming stronger every day for me. I cannot begin to express to you how appalling it is to hear advertisements on my own show for Howard Stern – not because I don’t respect him (actually, I do) but because a decade ago his name was treated like a swear word at WIP. We were told then to hit the dump button and cut off the caller. Now we are taking ads for his show and his satellite-radio service, even though he is in direct competition with my own show. If there is a purer example of disrespect by a corporation, I have yet to experience it. There are countless other complaints I could offer about life at WIP these days, but it serves no purpose to vent them. After all, I have a great job at a terrible time in our world. I should be the last one whining. My only point is, all of these issues figure in the big picture of what I should do after 2009. Should I make it a nice, even 20 years and walk away, or should I try to extend my run – and the legacy of demanding sports commentary that I feel I represent – into my 60s? I honestly don’t know the answer to that question, but I’ll know it sometime in the next 12 months. Just in case, I am approaching 2009 as if it is my farewell tour. So, this is my last Wing Bowl. My last Super Bowl. My last spring training. My last baseball season. My last training camp. My last everything. It is more than a little ironic to me that, while I ponder the imminent departures of Andy Reid and Donovan McNabb, I must also consider a similar fate for myself. -- Angelo Cataldi ---------------------------------
Wing Bowl lost its best friend and biggest fan on Dec. 4, 2008, when St. George Hunt suddenly passed away. He was as unusual as his name, our official Wing Bowl veterinarian for the past decade and a man who best embodied the wacky spirit of our annual event. He was an extremely young 59 when he died. In the course of the last decade, St. George conned me into adopting the best two pets I’ve ever had, my cats Barnum and Bailey. He got me to assign Wingettes to him ever year, even though he served no actual function at Wing Bowl. And he showed up several times unannounced at our show, accompanied either with the testicles of my cats, his dilapidated Eagles bus, his antique fire engine or – in his most memorable appearance – a stripper named Ginger. He was funny, he was spontaneous and he was crazy. At his funeral on Dec. 6, his daughter Hillary said that, above all, he was embarrassing. She meant it in the most loving way. St. George was a man who simply didn’t play by life’s rules. He once snuck into the middle of a chorale group in Baltimore and sang the national anthem before a Phillies-Orioles game. By all accounts, he displayed no singing ability at all that day. One of the madcap rituals I shared with him was our annual parade down Broad Street in his fire engine. He would always schedule it a few hours before an Eagles home game – he was a huge Eagles fans – and every year I would sheepishly climb onto the back of the truck and wave to the bewildered fans who unwittingly lined our parade route. Every year we would stop traffic and annoy the early-arriving fans. And every year St. George’s bright red face would light up like Santa Claus – to whom, in fact, he bore a startling resemblance. What very few people outside of his hometown of Wayne, Pa. knew about St. George was that he was much more than a goofball who would don a white coat and patrol the stage of Wing Bowl every year proclaiming “I’m Wing Bowl happy!” He was an extraordinary veterinarian, a skilled surgeon with a bedside manner that any physician would envy. He loved people and animals equally, and I have never met anyone who loved either as much. In keeping with his unique nature, St. George’s funeral was like none ever held. The speakers recounted so many hilarious stories that it rivaled the best hour of entertainment at any comedy club. Out of all those laughs – and, of course, tears – emerged the picture of a man who meant so much to so many people. I have rarely felt the sense of loss after a death that I feel right now about St. George. The other amazing thing about the funeral was the turnout. Although only two days had passed since his fatal heart attack, the St. David Episcopal Church Chapel in Wayne was filled way, way beyond capacity. I was standing in the vestibule, about 20 deep from the back entrance to the church, and there were at least another 10 rows of people crammed in behind me. Many of his well-wishers never made it into the building at all. There was simply not enough room to accommodate all of the people who loved him. During a brief on-air tribute to St. George Hunt on Dec. 5, I said: “No one who touched so many lives, and was so full of life, can ever really die.” St. George will live on in the hearts of everyone who ever met him. Wing Bowl 17 on Jan. 30, 2009 will be dedicated to the memory of this great man. -- Angelo Cataldi --------------------------------- WING BOWL 17 INFORMATION!!! DECEMBER 1, 2008 It is with great pride and anticipation that I unveil the new plans and dramatic changes for the latest installment of the biggest radio promotion in America, Wing Bowl 17. This year will be our best Wing Bowl ever because we are making a renewed effort to return to the roots of the event. We are giving every Philadelphia-area competitor a real chance to win Wing Bowl. In many ways, we are bringing 25 Rocky Balboas to the table for this epic showdown. So mark your calendars now. The main event will be Jan. 30 at the Wachovia Center. Doors open at 5 a.m. Tickets will go on sale on Dec. 15 at 10 a.m. through Comcasttix.com. A series of wing-offs will be held in the next few weeks throughout the area to establish our neighborhood theme. The biggest change is that, for one year only, we are declaring ineligible any contestant who has ever competed in a professionally sanctioned eating contest. This means all members of the Major League Eating organization (formerly IFOCE) are not welcome to participate, including our reigning two-time champion, Joey Chestnut. All of the other great pro eaters of the past – Sonya Thomas, Patrick Bertoletti, Don “Moses” Lerman, and even five-time champ El Wingador – are out for Wing Bowl 17. We made this decision for one reason: We want to find the absolute best new eater in the Delaware Valley, and we believe opening it up to the Average Joes out there will attract some contestants who have never before tried competitive eating. Next year, our Wing Bowl 17 champion will have to defend his title against the best eaters in the world. The prize remains the largest in an annual radio promotion in the United States, a brand new 2009 Mini Clubman from Mini of the Main Line to the contestant who eats the most wings. The top Wingette will get a 2009 Harley Davidson 883 Sportster Motorcycle from Barb’s Harley Davidson and a pair of one-carat diamond earrings from Steven Singer Jewelers. The best entourage will receive an Apple Vacation to Cancun for 12. That’s right – 12! With amazing prizes like these in an event that anyone truly can win, I only ask that contestants call in quickly – immediately – and propose an on-air eating stunt that will secure one of the spots in the event. The same goes for beautiful, sassy women who would like to serve as wing-counters and eye candy for this world-media extravaganza. They must call in to have a chance. When we began Wing Bowl in 1991, one of the great appeals of the event is that it gave the average working man a chance to experience the thrills usually associated with star athletes. For one crazy morning each year anybody could become Mike Schmidt or Bobby Clarke or Julius Erving. Ten years ago a toll-taker named Tollman Joe made the front page of the Philadelphia Daily News and received a standing ovation from thousands of fans by winning Wing Bowl. We want that feeling back. We also want to bring back the neighborhood allegiances that were so much a part of our earlier Wing Bowls. Remember the victory of Paulsboro’s Big Rig many years ago? He remains a town hero for that incredible upset. We want another Big Rig this year. That’s why we are encouraging all of our neighborhoods to pick their best eater and enter him. We want South Philly facing off against the Northeast, Cherry Hill against Mullica Hill, the Main Line versus Olney. The first step is to identify the best eater in your neighborhood and to have him call in with an eating stunt. If Al Morganti approves the stunt, the eater will be assigned a time to come in and try it on the air. If he succeeds, he’s a contestant in Wing Bowl. It’s that simple. The other way to qualify is to win one of eight wing-offs this year. They will be held throughout the area and will serve as a great warm-up for the main event. A full listing of where and when those events will be held should be available soon at 610WIP.com. We are all extremely proud of what a popular annual event Wing Bowl has become in Philadelphia, but we are all very aware of how important it is to keep the feeling that has made our stupid little wing-eating contest into the incredible tradition it has become. Many of the changes this year were a direct result of feedback we got from our listeners, including many who took time to offer me some new ideas on this website. Thanks to all of you. Now get ready for a Wing Bowl none of us will ever forget. -- Angelo Cataldi --------------------------------- November 3, 2008 Because so many of my e-mailers have requested that I add my weekly Metro column to the site, I figured this was a great week to start. I hope you enjoy reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it. Right now, a Phillies fan is richer and happier than he ever thought possible. He is better looking, smarter and more focused. He is something he hasn’t been in 28 long years. He is a winner. When two million of us were pressed together on a sunny, warm Halloween afternoon last Friday, honoring a magical ballclub as it took its final bow, it became clear why we go through all of the heartaches and headaches of rooting for our home team. In the end, it’s not about the thrill of a single play or the fantasy of being able to accomplish these superhuman feats ourselves. It’s about the way a group of athletes can bond an entire region of our country regardless of who we are. Doctors and janitors are dressing alike these days, in Phillies red. Little kids and old men are talking about the same thing – the Phillies. We won. We are one. The best thing about the championship that we all just shared is that it met or exceeded our expectations in every possible way. The division title was sealed by an unforgettable double play engineered by Jimmy Rollins. The first round of the playoffs featured a series-defining at-bat by a terrible hitter, Brett Myers. The second round offered the heroics of a journeyman slugger named Matt Stairs, swinging from the heels and launching a dream. And the World Series was a hodgepodge of rain delays, a sweet dribbler down the third-base line, controversial calls, big pitches, an unprecedented suspension, a three-inning exercise in pure torture, and, finally, a slider for the ages by Mr. Perfect, Brad Lidge. “The Philadelphia Phillies are the world champions of baseball,” boomed Harry Kalas. At the rally two days later, Lidge said he was channeling the energy in the ballpark when he uncoiled that hellacious final pitch. In fact, the central theme was the electricity generated by the fans. Jamie Moyer spoke about being on both sides of the story, as a fan in 1980 and as a player in 2008. Ryan Howard stopped during his remarks and said he just wanted to soak in the joy of the fans. And manager Charlie Manuel, 64, said the parade was probably the most amazing thing he had witnessed in his life. The perspective of this equally-grizzled writer and broadcaster is identical to Manuel’s, even though we have rarely seen eye to eye during the turbulent past four years. I was doing my WIP radio show at Broad and Samson before the parade, and it was my responsibility to get to the ballpark to help broadcast the rally several hours later. As I left the Union League building and swam into an ocean of people en route to my ride several blocks away, I received a valuable reminder about what sports is really all about. In the course of 10 precarious minutes, I met hundreds of people, up close and personal. Many were young and hadn’t even been born the last time Philadelphia honored a champion. Some were with their dads and their grandfathers, three generations joined by one sports experience. All were jubilant. I spoke to hundreds of fans in the past week – all ages, all races, both genders. I took one call from Iraq, another from Tokyo, several from the West Coast, many from the home of the World Series losers, Tampa, and the rest from every neighborhood in the Delaware Valley. All of the fans had their own unique account of what they did when that final pitch eluded the bat of Eric Hinske and landed in the glove of Carlos Ruiz. And every story involved sharing the moment with someone they loved. That is the lesson of this great experience we have all just shared. We are sports fans because our parents handed down their love of the experience, as we have done or will do with our kids. Sports is not about the bat and the ball, and it’s not about the people holding them, either. It is about the people who waited all day to gather up the family and head out to the ballpark. It is about the talk the next morning at the water cooler, and the next night at the bar. What the Phillies just accomplished is an amazing feat, emerging from a group of 30 teams and proving to be the absolute best. But their greater accomplishment was bringing an entire city together, and making us all so much richer for the experience. Angelo Cataldi --------------------------------- October 26, 2008, 3:30 AM As I write this, the outcome of the 2008 World Series is still in doubt, but I simply cannot wait until it is decided. What I witnessed during Game 3 at Citizens Bank Park was simply the greatest display of determination and dedication that I have ever seen a city give to one of its sports teams. Bravo, Philadelphia. No city ever deserved more a championship more than you do. If you followed the WIP Morning Show in the days leading up to Game 3, you probably still aren’t sure that I actually paid $1,600 on tickets for the game. Well, I really did. My wife, Gail, had never seen a World Series game, and I figured it was a once-in-a-lifetime thing. It sure was. The game was delayed for 90-plus minutes because of a driving rain and blustery conditions, so we waited forever in the concourse behind Section 117, where we were sitting. There were hundreds and hundreds of kids, thousands of grizzled baseball veterans and even a nice bevy of attractive women – all bundled in bulky rain gear. Even though the game was moving deeper into the night – that 8:30 start time is late enough, especially for the kids – there was no whining to be heard (except mine, of course). Those fans were so thrilled to be at the World Series, they didn’t care when the game started, as long as it eventually did. Shortly after 10, when the rain clouds finally parted, the sense of hunger in the stands was palpable. I’ve been pontificating about the desire for a championship pretty much since I got to Philadelphia a quarter-century ago, but I actually underestimated the zeal of these people. Every pitch of a tense and often-frustrating night was underscored by the sounds of emotion in the crowd. Whenever young Tampa third baseman Evan Longoria would arrive at the plate, a piercing chant “E-va!” would rock the house – an obvious reference to his near-namesake on Desperate Housewives, Eva Longoria. For every two-strike pitch against a Rays batter, the crowd of 46,000 would rise and frantically wave their white towels, even though the likelihood of soft-tossing Jamie Moyer recording a strikeout was slim. The back-to-back home runs by Chase Utley and Ryan Howard in the sixth inning shook South Philadelphia, just as a horrible call at first base triggered a vicious verbal attack on umpire Tom Hallion one inning later. For the entire ebb and flow, for each of the 296 pitches thrown by nine different pitchers, it was an honor to be among these sports fans of Philadelphia. My only regret is that I haven’t made the effort to sit among them more. I also learned something about the quiet times at big games like these. I have taken countless calls from fans telling me how “flat” the crowd was at the most important contests, and often I would agree. But sitting in those stands in the largely uneventful middle innings of Game 3, I can now say with conviction that the fans were not flat. They were scared. They still reacted to every pitch, but it was with a sense of dread that something terrible was about to ruin their dream. Of course, nothing ruined the dream in Game 3 – not the rain and the wind, not the bad umpiring, not the inept base-running, not the unlucky bounces, nothing. When Carlos Ruiz’s dribbler down the third-base line scored the winning run as the clock neared 2 a.m., the scene was something that we will all carry with us forever. After nearly six hours, those fans – still filling every single seat – let out a gasp that was equal parts relief and joy. At that moment, $1,600 seemed like a bargain to me. Philadelphia was one step closer to the ultimate goal, the only goal. If I had one wish, it would be that all of the lazy writers and broadcasters who routinely bash Philadelphia sports fans for their negativity and their occasional acts of stupidity could experience what I experienced first-hand during Game 3. Yes, we are a demanding sports town. Yes, sometimes our passion takes us beyond the limits of logical behavior. And yes, we do not take losing with grace and humility. But no city cares more about its teams and no city wants to win more intensely than Philadelphia. The Phillies are two wins away from a championship as I pound these keys, but it will not be the city’s first championship in 25 years if they make it. The fans in this city have been champions – the absolute best in sports – for a very long time. Angelo Cataldi
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