Chris Russo - The Mad Dog 100: The Greatest Sports Arguments of All Time

CHRISTOPHER RUSSO

WITH ALLEN ST. JOHN

DOUBLEDAY

NEW YORK LONDON TORONTO SYDNEY AUCKLAND

CONTENTS

To my parents, who spent a lifetime trying to
make me a well-rounded individual.
What they got instead was a sports nut.
C. R.
In loving memory of my brother-in-law, John Esposito,
who bought me my first baseball glove and
took me to my first baseball game.
A. S. J.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Christopher Russo's Acknowledgments

When you do a sports talk showor write a sports bookit's a job you prepare for your whole life, so I've got to start by acknowledging some old friends: Grant Napear, Phil Taylor, and Fred Leinfuss, who taught me how to think, talk, and play sports. I can't forget my college advisor, Dr. Charles Edmondson, now the president of Alfred University, or Andy Kowalsky, the best first baseman Rollins College ever produced. Thanks to all the good people who gave me a start in radio at WEXI in Jacksonville, WKIS in Orlando, and WMCA in New York: Pat Hayes, Wayne Mashburn, Mark Davis, Larry Kahn, Jim Philips, Gene Burns, the late Mike Gaier, and the late Rick Sklar. Lee Corso and Pat Williams helped make Orlando a big-time sports town during my stay there. Special thanks to Bob Raissman of the Daily News, who gave me the nickname Mad Dog.

My deepest gratitude to everyone who helped bring me to WFAN and helped shape The Mike and the Mad Dog Show: Don Imus, Bernard McGuirk, Scott Meier, Mark Mason, Joel Hollander, Bob Gelb, and the good folks at Emmis Broadcasting. What can I say about Mel Karmazin? If there's a more supportive titan in broadcasting, I haven't found him. Giant thank-yous to the rest of my current WFAN radio family, especially general manager Lee Davis, program director Mark Chernoff, marketing director Connie Fitzgerald, and my producer Chris The Continent Carlin. Props to all the sports junkies in the WFAN bullpen including Marc Malusis, John Minko, Rich Ackerman, Joe Tolleson, and Bob Heussler. And I can't say enough about Mike Francesa, who's been my on-air partner every afternoon for fourteen years, a great student of so many games who has made me think about sports in a totally different way. And of course thanks to all the listeners, callers, and guests over the years.

On a personal note, I'd like to thank Pat Cosgrove, who has been a faithful listener and confidant, and my friend and agent Sandy Montag of IMG, who encouraged me to do this project. And the biggest thanks of all goes to my wife, Jeanne, and my three children, Timothy, Kiera, and Colin, who have put up with me watching a thousand Giants games.

Allen St. John's Acknowledgments

Thanks to all the good people at Doubleday who made the hard work of turning a manuscript into a book look easy, especially senior editor Jason Kaufman, who's been the Magic Johnson of The Mad Dog 100, the guy with the big smile who makes everyone around him better. Thanks also to my agent, Mark Reiter of IMG Literary , who puts together deals like a latter-day Red Auerbach. Karen Brown, Elena Perez, and Francie Hughes deserve a medaland a bottle of Advilfor transcribing the hundreds of hours of tape that are the backbone of this book. Thanks to WFAN's John Schweibacher, who helped to research this manuscript, and all the good people at the station who made me feel welcome and who helped shape this book in a thousand ways large and small. I have to mention my great friend Allen Barra, who is the Barry Bonds of sports arguments. Thanks to all my magazine and newspaper editors past and present, including Jim Kaminsky, Michael Anderson, Hugo Lindgren, Kyle Crichton, Don Forst, Ward Harkavy, Jonathan Duhl, Erin Friar, Dennis Drabelle, Mark Woodruff, Stephen Tignor, James Martin, Brian Duffy, Martin Hollander, Jerry Beilinson, Jeff Csatari, Alex Straus, Albert Baime, Perkins Miller, and Helen Olsson, who've kept me in business by printing my stories. And finally I thank my wife, Sally, my son, Ethan, and my daughter, Emma, for, well, everything.

INTRODUCTION

W elcome to the candy store. Is there anything more fun and exciting in the world of sports than a good, juicy difference of opinion? No. (Well, except maybe a Barry Bonds homer in the bottom of the ninth.) How do I know? Because for five and a half hours every afternoon, that's what I do. I talk sports. I argue sports. I live sports.

Every afternoon, on the Mike and the Mad Dog show on New York's WFAN, the highest rated sports talk program in the nation's largest market, my partner Mike Francesa and I take dozens of phone calls from listeners, and debate everything under the sun having to do with sports.

A lot of the things we talk about are important todaywho's going to win the Super Bowl?and irrelevant tomorrow after the game is over. Other arguments are evergreen, cropping up week after week, month after month, and year after year. The Mad Dog 100 takes the best of these classic arguments and puts them in a package you can stuff into your briefcase or take with you to the beach.

I hope you'll get three things out of this book. The first is entertainment. Sports are fun. Sure, the World Series is important and I take it very seriously, but I also realize that we're not mapping the human genome or trying to bring peace to the Middle East. I hope these arguments will make you smile, laugh, and remember some great games and great players.

Second, I hope you learn something from this book. I know I did. Over the years, I've watched thousands of games, talked to hundreds of athletes and coaches, but as I researched this book, I remembered some things I'd forgotten and uncovered some bits of sports history that slipped under my radar.

But most of all I hope this book encourages you to think. This book asks one question over and over again: Why? Why did these teams win? Why is Bill Russell a better player than Wilt Chamberlain? Why should we ban the DH in Major League Baseball?

I don't expect that you'll always agree with me. But in tossing these questions around, and coming up with the rebuttal, the counterargument, you'll get your brain going in ways that'll make you a better, smarter sports fan.

So when you're done with a chapter, sometimes you'll want to say, Great job there, Dog. Or you may want to say, Aw, c'mon, Chris. But either way, if you're a sports fan, I don't think you'll want to put the book down.

The Slammer of '41

Which feat was more formidable, Joe DiMaggio's 56-game streak, or Ted Williams's .406 season?

It was one of the most remarkable summers baseball had ever seen. Every day for two months, Joe DiMaggio woke up, put on his sanitary socks and his Yankee cap, and got a hit. And on the last day of the season, Ted Williams wouldn't take a seat even with his .400 average at stake. Sixty years later Mad Dog dissects two of baseball's classic accomplishments.

.406 or 56 games? Two of baseball's magic numbers. They're both amazing featsmade all the more remarkable by the fact that they both happened in the same year. But which feat is really greater?

More than sixty years later, I think baseball fans look on both of these accomplishments with almost equal reverence. But to really compare them, first I think you have to transport yourself back before World War II.