This is on leash. Are you listening?
Can you hear me? Hear me.
This is on leash. Are you listening?
Can you hear me? Hear me.
This is on leash. Are you listening?
Can you hear me? Hear me.
This is on leash. Are you listening?
Can you hear me? Hear me.
This is. On leash are.
You listening? All right, what's going on,
everybody? BT unleashed with you on this.
What do we got today? J Rod, a little Tuesday and we
got a good one for you today. Donnie's going to join me in a
little bit. I'm looking forward to having
Don on the show. He's an absolute wild man.
Probably a little more calculated than you think.
I mean, these viral rants that Don has put out over the years.
But you know, he is, he's actually, he's really smart guy,
really funny guy, really good guy.
So we'll get into a bunch of things, maybe a Little Rock and
roll versus rap. Donnie's going to hit us
probably about 15 minutes or so. I can't wait.
So here I got, I got to tell you, man, I I just don't listen
to the radio that much anymore. And I don't say that as a knock
because I no longer work at WFANI.
Even when I was working at WFAN, when I would get in my car to
drive in and I've given you my routine, it's come up in the
past, but very quickly, you know, I would, I would not get a
cup of coffee. I would drive in.
I'd navigate the Holland Tunnel, complete pain in the ass.
And along the way I would always put on the station.
I would like to get Jerry's update that that was always
pretty good. And then, you know, bounce
around a little music, a little politics.
And then on the way home, you know, after emptying the tank
for four hours with with with with Lunatic Sal, you know, last
thing I wanted to do is really get into more sports radio.
You know, if there was a big interview coming up on Evan and
Tiki, whatever, I might keep them on for a little bit.
It was never a knock on the station.
I just, I wanted to detach myself a little bit and even
obviously a little bit more now, But I was running around
yesterday and I was flipping on both stations, right?
Oh my God almighty, the the amount of, of, of craziness and
idiocy from people is just off the charts.
And I'm not really even talking about the hosts.
I'm talking about the callers. All right, so big NFL day.
Obviously Malik Willis was never going to The Jets.
So the Dolphins get their guy and now 2 was going to Atlanta
and all these spinning wheels of, of, of football awesomeness
and craziness. It really was a fun day.
I heard so much yesterday. You, you, you started getting
now a lot of Geno Smith and Carson Wentz.
Carson Wentz and Geno Smith. Well, maybe The Jets bring in
both. Maybe they bring in one.
Maybe they draft Ty Simpson. Maybe they do what the Giants
did a year ago, which is what I mean by maybe bringing in both.
Either way, do you guys understand that the evaluation
of Geno Smith, which which I'm hearing now it's it's it's real,
it's embarrassing. It's it's ludicrous actually,
because so many of the people and now I'm talking to about a
couple of hosts, I won't mention the names, but now people who
are complaining about Gino right, all The Jets, do you
really think that they watched every snap when he was playing
for The Jets? Some of them they have.
But I can promise you that I did all right.
And I can also promise you and I had to write down the list.
It's not a short list here, guys, right.
How to write down a list here since Gino got popped in the
face by by IK and eventually was sent packing right?
I have watched these guys play football.
McCown, Bryce Petty, Young, Darnold, Falk, Trevor, Simeon,
Flacco. Of course he was watched with us
and then with other teams. He played well.
The circus that was Zach Wilson. Mike White can spin it, sure.
Jimmy Boyle can spin it, sure. A hobbled Aaron Rodgers, Justin
Fields who can't throw a 10 yard straight, Tyrod Taylor, capable
backup, whatever. And Brady Coke, who may be the
worst Jets quarterback that I've ever laid my eyes on.
Maybe I said it like a Brooks Bollinger back in the day.
And and why I preface it in the way I jump into the conversation
the way I did is because I think many of you are being led by
emotion. Those of you who are opposing
Geno Smith, I'm not hearing. At least I didn't hear
yesterday. I wasn't listening the whole
day. To be fair, I'm not hearing.
Well, he can't play. He's inaccurate.
He's horrendous. Even though he didn't have a
great season. Admittedly, what I'm hearing is
I can't do it again. Oh God, Gino, we already did
this. It is a it is a baseless
argument really to me to to look at Geno Smith and and his his
first little foray with The Jets and to use that as a deterrent
to not want him to come back. Because I promise you, I promise
you now I'm not getting on the top of the mouth and saying that
The Jets will suddenly be really good and that Gino's going to
throw 35 touchdowns. He's not He's not that guy.
But what Geno Smith would bring right away, I promise you this
is something outside of when Rogers was actually under center
would be capable, intelligent quarterback play.
And here's there's something you got to understand, right?
So I'll vote for it. I mean, if you can't figure this
out yet, I would love for Geno Smith to come here only because
of the options. Now, I told you Malik Willis to
me was much more interesting. I think he's going to be a star.
I want to know part of two, you know, Carson Wentz.
I mean, there's a chance he's going to be here.
I don't want him, but I think there's a chance he's going to
be here. Anyway, the point is there's a
dearth of options. There's just not really a lot of
stuff to do. So I've got to weigh that and my
energy about the entire Geno experience, and I've got to
strip away the emotion and I've got to come to the conclusion,
can he play or can he not? And Geno Smith is is at the very
least an average NFL quarterback.
He's going to throw a high completion percentage.
And Oh yeah, by the way, he's going to be playing behind a
much better offensive line. I was doing some digging this
morning, right? And there's a lot of different
outlets that do this. But so PFF last year had the
Raiders literally, literally graded as the worst offensive
line. Now The Jets lost Simpson ABT
has gone to the Pats. Of course.
I didn't think he was going to stay.
I was kind of hoping maybe they would figure out like a one year
deal. But if he got a lot of money,
you knew that he had to go and he was going to go.
I don't blame him. But where are the other options,
man? You want to watch?
Do you want to watch Derek Carr play football?
I don't want to watch Derek Carr.
I don't want to watch any of these guys.
I really don't even, I swear, don't even want to watch Geno
Smith. I don't but think about those
names. I just hit you with guys.
McCown, Petty, Luke Falk, Trevor Simeon, Come on.
I mean, Mike White, Timmy Boyle. Timmy can spin it.
How did I say that? You know, Brady Cook, I mean,
the guy's going to go under center, all right, with a good
old line if if he's the answer. And I actually think that he
will be right with a good running back, actually 2 good
running backs, a good offensive line, you know, Garrett Wilson,
pretty decent receiving tight end record.
And I'm again, I'm not saying that this is like going to get
The Jets from here to there, but to me, the gross
misrepresentation of of who Geno is.
I mean, sometimes I listen to some stuff.
I'm like, does anybody watch football anymore?
Like, does anybody know what they're talking about anymore?
My good God, like there's no other options.
The guy threw for 30 of what, 3000 yards?
67 ish percent percent completion percentage?
Compare that to what you watched last year.
He would be an upgrade. That's all I'm saying.
So I don't want to get preachy. I don't want to yell out of the
chute. I don't like to yell about
things that aren't really that important.
But I mean, this is kind of important because I think so
many of you are being LED around by like by the nose or by the
tail, by a narrative that I don't give a shit about.
I don't care that Gino wasn't that good with The Jets.
I don't care that a teammate came up and popped them in the
chin. I don't care.
What I care about is bridging the gap of probably one or two
more years of pathetic football, right?
Bridging the gap with somebody who could at least look at 11
guys in front of them and have a freaking clue in terms of
diagnosing what they're about to try to do to him.
So that's it. Again, he's not going for 35 T
DS and top five in the MVP. You know, he had a couple of
good years, but Seattle, no question.
And he rehabilitated his image. Evidently not enough for the Jet
fan to want him. So as I parse this and I get to
my guy, Donnie here, Can't wait to have Donnie on in a second.
the IT make me I want to make sure I'm clear.
It's not that I want Gino. It's not that I'm chasing Gino.
It's not that I'm craving Gino. I'm just waiting against the
other circumstance. I don't want to watch Carson
Wentz. I know, I know, I know that
Gino's better than Carson Wentz. So I start there.
Like if somebody else enters the hopper, then I'll say, all
right, is Gino better than like if somebody gets unexpectedly
cut, is Gino better than that guy?
Then I'll reevaluate. I'll reevaluate it that way, but
my God, I mean, everybody whining A bitching a Mona Gino
this, Gino that, please. He'd be like Joe Nevis compared
to some of the scrubs that we've watched for a while.
All right, without further ado. This guy's a legend, man.
It really is. And and I love him.
He's really good at his job. He's a really good dude.
He's absolutely out of his fucking mind that I say that in
a really good way. He's smart, you know, don't let
those rants fool you. This guy's a smart dude.
And he's now actually doing his dream job along with the radio,
the voice of the devils on TV. So it is an honor or welcome to
unleash what we got. We had Sal, we had K, we have
Pitino, my 4th guest, Donald, the Greg and Donnie.
Let's go look at this guy. What's up, Donnie?
How are you man? Good to see you again, brother.
Yeah, man. Good.
Good to have you. I appreciate you doing this.
I know you were running around this morning.
You had some appointments. So I appreciate you squeezing in
to me, Donnie. I don't, I don't look at this as
an interview. I look at this as a
conversation. I'd love to just kind of, you
know what I'm saying, catch up on stuff.
So I'm going to hit you with this.
You know, we talk about Donnie Baseball, right?
Donnie Bucks to me is one of the coolest nicknames that I feel
like it's gone away a little bit.
I think it was really used a lot back in the day.
Number one who gave that to? Was that K?
No, it was the Wally Matthews. It was Wally.
Yeah. Wow.
Oh my God, Wally, 50 days. Yeah, Wally's a great dude.
One of my favorite people. Me too, me too. 111 of the only
people that wanted to punch me in the face and I still love
him. What do you?
Well, listen, one thing about Wally, you know, if if he
threatens to punch you, there's a good chance he might.
Oh, listen, he's, you know, just ask you Jim Rome, right?
Like he's, he's at his moment. Well, we we had a contest back
in the day where it was, you know, like the morning show
would give a phrase those the phrase of the day, the.
Phrase that's original. Yeah, real original stuff.
And and then, and then you had to repeat the phrase in the
afternoon and Wally and the Keig was the show.
And so in the morning was Mike and Mike.
But the localization that I did, I was the one that had to read
the phrase and for whatever reason, I read the phrase wrong.
So I don't know why, because maybe it was 6:00 in the morning
and you know, I, I didn't go to bed till like 3:00 the night
before. And so when they read the
phrase, you know, the guy called up and read the phrase that I
had said. They said he was wrong.
And it caused the whole big controversy.
And and Kevin Graham, who was the program director of the
time. I love Kev, he hired me.
Instead of saying you screwed up, Yep, he humiliates me by
like putting the the paper in front of me says read this and I
read it and he's like, well, you read it wrong in the morning.
Oh. Boy.
So like, well, you could have done that nice or whatever.
But yeah, he got fired soon after he did.
And then and while he found out that I screwed up, he's like,
next time I see Donnie, I'm going to punch him right in the
face. He was a boxer, he was a gold
he. Was.
But, you know, then I saw him and we hugged it out.
But like, he's one of those guys, like, in the moment, yeah.
Yeah, for sure. A postscript to that story just
to show you like the loyalty of a wife.
To this day, my wife can't stand Wally Matthews.
For that, I long forgave him. I forgave him 20 years ago.
But Nancy wouldn't let it go. Oh my.
Well, listen. Hell, my wife holds grudges too.
I mean, who's up there? She she'd get everybody in WFAN,
slap them right now. I can, I can imagine she, but
you're like no, no, no, you imagine you just having to stop
her from getting mad, you know? I bet Toddie I'd be like this.
No, no, really, honey, don't. No.
No, go ahead. No, no, we don't want go go
good. Yeah, yeah, right.
All right, so the let let, let let me get let me go here.
So I and again, I know you for a long time.
You mentioned Nancy. I was at your wedding.
Was that O 505? Yes, it was O5I remember, you
had a big either a devil's logo or the Stanley Cup made out of
ice, Right the. Stanley Cup.
We had two ice sculptures. She had, I think it was a three
for like she loved Dale Earnhardt or, or and then there
was there was this the Stanley Cup?
Yeah. So we went all had had fun with
that. Yeah.
So early, Don and I've seen the pictures right when you do like
college radio, the long hair like it like to me, and now this
is it was a little different like in Brooklyn and Jersey.
And I love like Iron Maiden, Ozzie, you know that.
But I also listen to a lot of rap and I was maybe a little
more soft like with Def Leppard. You went to that hard stuff
growing up. But where I was from, the guy,
the guys that had the long hair and the dungaree jackets, they
were burnouts, bro. They, they, they were banging
back joints when they were in the 7th grade.
Seriously. And they were hammering beers.
You love the music. You look like a burnout, but you
weren't a burnout. You played baseball, right?
I played ball right up until I got cut from my college baseball
team, Ranfo College. I got cut.
I was just at Ramfo yesterday. They, they, the president of the
university interviewed me in front of students.
And I actually did Don Hunt and Rosenberg yesterday from the,
the radio station that I worked at when I went to school there.
It was really. That's cool, really emotional,
real. It was a real lot of fun.
Some stuff on social media about it.
Yeah. And I told the story.
I got cut and I walked right into the radio station after I
got cut. So I didn't get into because
because I, I was a jock, so I didn't smoke.
I didn't take drugs really, But I.
Really didn't take drugs, really.
I tried marijuana. I didn't get high and I didn't
like it. OK.
I tried a couple of other things and it wasn't for me.
I got you. I got.
You I tripped on acid once and I took mescaline.
And did that, did you actually trip a lot?
Like if the weed didn't hit you had a trip on that stuff.
Yeah, the, the, the, the Zodiac getting like stuck on this piece
of paper. And we went, we weren't roller
skating the Oakland roller rink. There was 1 moment where I was
like just skating in the corner because one of the disco balls
just had like a little tiny circle.
I can start skating there. And then there was a, there was
a, a game room and I played cuber.
Remember Cuber? I loved Cuber, right?
It was good. But instead of going, you know,
boink, boink, boink, boink, he's saying Don, Don, Don.
And I kept turning around like, who's calling my name?
I, I, but I just that I didn't even even drinking brain I, I
just don't like to not be in control.
And so I felt like that, you know, as fun as it might have
been, I'm like, you know, so listen, I was 1617 years old,
just trying different things and all that, you know, so as much
as I like to have a drink and all, I just, I, I, I never
really enjoyed like losing control like that.
Understood. And and it's funny, this kind of
kind of leads me here because you say you don't like to lose
control. And those of us who do what we
do, we understand this, right? And you and I have always been
high energy, you know, especially when we were a little
bit younger. But even still now, for sure,
like rifle those points. And when you're in a rant or I'm
in a tirade, right, People think like we we we lack clarity.
It I don't know if this applies to you.
And some of your rants are some of the best rants in the history
of the business. I think, yeah, it's going to
explode your red like a tomato. You're going absolutely freaking
crazy. But even in those wacky moments,
I guarantee that you time almost slows down and you almost have
clarity. Does that make sense?
Do you? Do you know what I'm saying?
Yeah, there's, there's a, there's that kind of a zone you
get into. You don't zone out, but you kind
of just become hypersensitive to it because like I said, you want
to be in control. So as much as I'm outraged and
I'm screaming and and I listen, I'm not going to try to defend
it because it is what it is. I never make them up because if
I can make them up and the reaction they get, I do it every
day. I can't do it.
It's just that there's special moments and, and, and, and at
the end of the day, you want, you don't want to sound like an
idiot. You want to be able to be clear,
but at the same time you want to ride that passion.
It's like a roller coaster, right?
You want to be able to ride the wave, but at the same time kind
of keep it on the tracks at the same time.
So, but I, I look back at them and I, I kind of laugh like,
boy, that was just stupid because you're out of the
moment. Like, because once you get it
out of your system, you look back at it and you're like, why
did I get so upset about that? But in the moment, it made
perfect sense. It does to get upset, but.
You'll be you like, oh, every talk show host has what you want
to call a rant, you know, lose control.
Whatever. We all do it because I think if
you, we both are cut from the same mold where we just wear our
heart on our sleeve, you know? And it's not even about the
fandom. It's just that when we have an
opinion, we're passionate about it and we just can't, we just
can't help but express our passion for it.
And sometimes if you poke the bear a little bit too much like
a caller or maybe a Co host. You'll go and you.
Kind of. And you kind of lose it and it's
fun. It's embarrassing at times.
Like I wish I was known for something else.
Why, though, I think it's a good thing.
I think it to me, it encapsulates everything about
certainly New York sports radio. Don and I I want to hear your
reasoning behind that, but from the outside looking in and I
don't think that you just known for that, but I but I hear I
know what you mean. Like, OK, so if you're going to
be known for something, you known for really caring about
stuff, you know, delivering, not that you're looking chasing
viral moments, but these, these packaged, you know, 1 or 1 1/2
minutes of, of combustible insanity that very few people in
our business can recreate because they either don't have
the talent, honestly, or the passion or both to do it.
So why don't you, why don't you like being associated with that
to an extent? Well, because I, I think with
that comes the, the allegations of all you're, you're just,
you're just making it up. You know, you're faking because
like you said, now listen, sports radio is is not what it
used to be, you know, and you see, it's more like fan driven.
And I'm not the way I ever consider myself a journalist.
But you took pride in a really good interview or breaking some
news or coming up with a point nobody else thought of.
I mean, to me, that's classic sports radio.
And then occasionally you get into a rant, you get into a
debate, something like that. And now it feels like sometimes
because of the reaction that gets, it's like a great
interview's not gonna go viral. A great point's not gonna go
viral. What's gonna go viral?
What's gonna go viral and be screaming Ed Crane Pool or, you
know, yeah, Yeah. And so I don't think it's the
best thing that I do, OK. But a lot of people seem to
think so. So I guess that's the
difference. But it OK Devil games people
scream at Ed Crane Pool and it's a cool, It's cool, it's fun, but
I don't want it to define me, I guess.
And some people like, oh, you're the rant guy, but I guess it's
better than not being known for anything at all, right?
Understood. OK, So all those years that you
worked with Michael, right? I I know a little bit, but I
haven't been around you day-to-day and forever.
I mean, we were at the same station for 10 years or so.
Listen, Full disclosure, if I and I love Michael, I had
Michael on the show the other day, as you know, right.
And if I was you and all those years I was contributing to a
show the way that you did. I mean, you, you carry the mail
a lot. Like, Michael's great and
talented, but he would leave early, do Yankee stuff.
And, you know, Donnie slid right in and kept things moving.
I know it bothered you that your name wasn't on the show.
How many times? How many times did you bang on
management's door or your agent? Do it, guys.
What are we doing here? Yeah, not enough.
Not enough regrets I have. Not enough I I should have made.
I brought it up. But I should have been a little
bit more aggressive about it. And I got, I really felt like I
got jerked around a lot. Cuz I would go and I'd go to
management and they go, yeah, that's a good point, Don.
We should do something about it. And then nothing would ever get
done about it. And I'd go to Michael and, you
know, he would say, my, my hands are tied.
They don't want to change the name of the show.
And then I and it just never happened.
I should have been more aggressive.
I should have put my foot down. But you're living in the moment
and yeah, I was very happy to be a part of the show, and the show
is doing well. Making good money.
I didn't want to make it about me.
I didn't want to disrupt anything.
Yep. And but our 20th anniversary, we
had a big, we got a big theater in in, in Manhattan and we had,
I think there was, it held like 250 people and we packed the
place and it was a big anniversary.
It's the 20th anniversary of the Michael Kay Show.
I saw, I saw the clips. Yep.
And it was really great and we had some great guests.
Joe Torre was there. Bob Costas did a video thanking
us. It was real.
I was really prideful to be a part of that, to be a first
voice of the station and also be on the K show from the very
beginning, 20 years together, and they got Chris Russo to host
it. And I love Chris.
I've known Chris for 30 years and Chris hosted it and three
separate occasions. During the event on Mike, he
would turn and go. Donnie, I had no idea you were
such a big deal on the show. Come on.
And come on. And I thought about it like,
listen, he was on. When we're on, he doesn't listen
to the show. Can anybody that listen to the
show? Brandon knew how significant I
was on that show. I agree.
But on the outside looking in, yeah, you know, it's the Michael
Kay show. There's no other show in the
country where there's a Co host whose name is it on the show.
I agree. When you did you know you know
Steven did the show with Sal. It wasn't the Brandon Tierney
show. No, it was BT and Sal.
Right. And it was Mike and Mike and it
was Mike and Chris and you know, it is.
That's always the way it was and anybody else it was always
looked at the sidekick or the update guy that talked, which is
how it started morphed into me being a Co host and I would not
have been a Co host if it wasn't for Michael Kay.
Michael Kay talking to me. Michael Kay having confidence in
me. Michael Kay fighting for me when
Bristol didn't think I was the right fit or.
One of the yo-yo. Program directors came in and
said, you know, I don't know, he's just a hockey guy.
Why do you letting Don talk? And he fought for me.
So this isn't about Michael. I know it's just about the name
of the show. But Donnie, let me ask you this,
though, I hear you and I know that you guys have a great,
great relationship. But do you think, say, if you
guys would have press management, your agent, press
management more and they would have consented, but it was
contingent upon Michael Green. Do you think Michael would have
been like, all right, let's change the name of the show,
honestly. Well, I mean, According to him,
he would have done it, but I I don't, I don't know.
That's a hard thing for him too, right?
Yeah. It's the Michael Kay Show.
And in the, you know, change the name, It's listen, whether it's
Michael, whether it's management.
I should have fought harder for it because I do think that
there's a lack of appreciation for what I did on that show from
the people outside, you know, this stuff like the the Carl
Ravage thing. I don't know if you ever heard
the thing with Carl Ravage. I don't know if I know Carl.
Ravage was on during the Bonnie Bernstein.
I call it the Bonnie situation, when Bonnie was there and they
weren't letting me talk. And with the the ridiculous
decision by management to say, well, if we get Bonnie to stop
talking, well, don't let Don talk.
So I was like, literally reading books on the air.
So the Yankees are in the World Series 2009.
We're at the dugout. Yeah, yeah.
You know, Carl Ravage is on and like, and he blew me off because
he's thinking like, who's this guy?
You know, he didn't know who I was.
And I don't, I blame him because it's fun to blame him, but it's
just like nobody there. How many people on the outside
did not know what I contributed to that show?
Did you snap on him, Ravage? Yeah, no, I just like, I was
just like, he blew me off and I've been got to him ever since.
But. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, it's kind of been fun, but it still bothered me because
even if he thought I was a a board opera producer, you can at
least shake my hand, acknowledge my existence.
But what's? Common courtesy, but it doesn't
matter what you're. Doing it was a long time ago.
I'm not going to, you know, freaked out, but those those
it's those little things that kind of bothered me.
So I never felt like I was fully appreciated on that show,
certainly by Michael and management and everybody and the
listeners. Because if you listen, you know,
you listened, you knew. But if you were somebody that
kind of parachuted in, there was a lot of interviews where, you
know, thanks Michael. Or if I ask a question, like
with Bill Parcells, we had them as a weekly.
Every time I ask the question, Bill Parcells, oh, I'm like.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So they're like, yeah.
Yeah, who's this other voice? Well, let's be honest and and
even if this isn't the intention, it's a shot to the
ego, you know? You know it was.
You're in the trenches, you're doing the work, and they call
you by Michael's name. That's happened to be not with
Sal, but like with Stephen A. Not that we sound the same, but
I I know what you mean. That's frustrating dude.
It's all ego because, because at the end of the day, I got paid.
The fans, the, the listeners appreciated me.
People in the business appreciated what I did.
I was proud of what I did. But at the end of the day, it's
an ego hit where it's like I'm really doing.
I, I, I think I deserve my name and I blame me because I, I
blame myself. I should have, I should have
demanded it. I should have threatened the
walk, something I should have, I should have fought harder for
it. I guess it's easy to say now
because, you know, I, I, I, I've moved on and in the moment it
was just, I, I probably lacked the confidence.
Maybe I felt like I didn't deserve it.
I don't know. But I looking back at it, it's
one of the regrets I should have fought harder for because I
thought I deserved it. Well, and I so did I and think,
and I think that they took you for granted.
I think they took me for granted early on as well.
But you, but you're, you've been there forever.
So it doesn't and it's not about me today for sure, but they kind
of did that. Like I, I remember, I'll tell
you a quick little story. I mean, listen, you, you
mentioned a couple of PDS. I've gotten along with every PD
that I've ever had, right, except Mike Thompson.
He couldn't stand up. The guy could and I don't know
why I never did anything to him, right?
So I don't know if you know this quite to this extent.
So I'm doing the show with Steven and you know, I'm doing
the updates and I'm doing weekend shows, whatever.
I'm doing hosting nights, Nick stuff while you're doing the
Rangers. I'm busy.
But I'm not at the official Co host.
And I'm fine with that because Steven Starr was just getting
ready to take off and they were trying to get OK.
So I think we had on Braden Looper of the Mets right when he
was the closer and he kept calling him either Brian or or
Brandon just kept messing up. Like Steven didn't know
baseball. He.
Didn't. He might still not.
He's got a little bit better at it, but he didn't know anything
about baseball at that point. And I kept writing down on a
piece of paper. It's Braden, BRADES.
Braden. It's Braden.
And then finally, like I may have like kind of kind of, but
smartly inserted myself into the conversation, right?
And now the, the control, maybe Winthrop was back.
There was now the PD obviously for Don and somebody, I think it
was Winthrop or maybe even Hurley Thompson's calling.
Tell that, tell that guy to shut the fuck up.
This is Steven Show shut the fuck up.
And I I had enough for this guy, man.
Like I I almost lost my mind on him.
And I really have had great relationships with everybody,
whether it's at the fan with spike and early all my bosses
nationally, everybody at at at 10:50.
Besides, he just didn't like me. And it's really frustrating when
you're putting out the effort and you think you're putting out
good work and you're either being marginalized or you're
actually being taken advantage of.
And I felt like that happened to you a little bit, as I said, and
it's crazy, Don, because on that we look back at the early
rosters of 10:50. I'm going to leave myself out of
it. I'm a nobody forget about me, UK
Stephen A Max. I mean, we had a roster where
our lineup was was freaking good.
Nobody could hear us. And I know that was incredibly
frustrating for me because that's we were never going to
beat the fan with with the 20 year head start and the legacy
and Mike and Chris. I get that.
But man, it was so hard to make a dent and it frustrated the
hell out of me and I had to drive you nuts because you were
there longer and you had to deal with it more.
Yeah, for sure. I I always thought that they
under appreciated especially, especially PDS that came in from
out of town. Like I'd always fight.
And again, I I got along with Mike Thompson, I got along with
Kevin Graham. But you know, sometimes the guys
came in and they would always want to just cookie cutter
sports radio. And I try to tell them this is
New York and they'd always misunderstand when I'd say that,
that I was saying New York was better even though deep down I
felt it was. But that wasn't my point.
My point is it's different, all right?
It's different. We've got 9 professional sports
franchises and they all have a place and all four sports can be
talked about and we have a competition, not just a a
flamethrower and WFAN is our competition, but this place that
invented the media. And what happened was, and I get
I got told this, the fan doesn't work because it only works in
New York because they tried to copycat the fan around the
country and all of them failed because New York's different.
You can't do a New York show in Dallas.
You can't do a New York show in San Francisco.
Different. It's a different world.
You were there, you know, you did in San Francisco, you did.
Guys came from different places. It's just different.
You can go to Dallas, you can talk Cowboys all day, you know,
but here you got to talk Yankees, we got to talk match,
you got to talk Knicks, you got to talk Giants, you got to talk
to Jets. You got to be well versed in
everything and you got to you got to be passionate and you got
to be from here or at least be somebody that cares about New
York. And when you start cookie cutter
it, it's not going to work. And I think they always looked
at us. Now they're they're New York.
They're 2 fan. I was told that you're 2 WFANI.
Me too. Me too, meanwhile when they
would say that I'm like good let me get over there and leave this
shit hole for. Now and, and you know what, and,
and your experiment with these different things.
And again, I, I believe they're all, they all tried, they all
wanted to win. I I give credit for that.
Yep, Yeah, they did. I agree with.
That and as much as I, as much as I butted heads with him, Tim
McCarthy, I, I love him. I miss him.
Because the thing with Tim was that he was, he was, I always
felt like he was New York and it was family and he wanted to see
it. I always felt this.
Everybody else was kind of an outsider trying to spoon feed us
their way. And I think I, I think I still
stubbornly felt that our way was ultimately the way that it
works. I I agree and by the way,
because I want to move on. I think that Tim the best thing
about Timmy and and Kay spoke, you know, glowingly about him,
as we all do. If you worked for Tim McCarthy,
the thing you know, he had our back like he had your back come
contract time. If you know, Raisman or somebody
wrote something about us or something went down like Tim
would, you knew that he was going to run you over.
And you know, I don't I don't know that everybody that's done
what we've done for as long as we've done it always had that
feeling. All right, let let me get to
this here. So I would say maybe, maybe,
definitely once, maybe twice with Sal, maybe once or twice
with Tiki. And with Tiki it was because I
was just he wasn't giving me an answer and I was I was like
getting I don't mean this the wrong.
I was getting bored of his non answer.
So I had to get an answer from him.
So I would push him and push him and finally the Pitbull would
bite back. So you know, Oh my God, I'm
getting I'm getting to the Rosenberg stuff, but I got to
set it up. So when you do this for a long
time, there are times when an opinion and a take and a debate
gets a little real. Now I didn't see it.
Somebody texted me. They're like, hey, you see what
happened with your boy, the Gregor and Rosenberg.
I'm like, no. So of course I jump online.
I watch it. I've known you a long time.
You're an incredible pro and you're great at what you do.
But there is no doubt that you are, you are.
That was real. That was real on his.
From my interpretation in the moment, he was real.
You were real. If you were in the same studio,
which I don't believe that you were, would that have gone
another step or where? Where is that going?
Well, I, I think if we were in the same studio, it would have
never happened. OK, I think that's being
separated. Escalated it because now you,
even though I could see him just like I can see you on the
computer, it's not the same, you know, and I, the two we got into
it like when he first started we had we've had we've had two blow
ups and both of them were we were separated.
He he was, he was at like a wrestling event and I was in the
studio and then it was Friday, Fridays we work from home and we
were separated there. So I think if we were together
it would have never happened, so I don't.
Think well, well, why though? Why?
Why do you say that before? Because I just think that when
you're I I think we would have been able to communicate our
points better. OK, because in that moment and
and listen, I could I've lost in with people in the room, but I
just think it's a it's a different intensity.
I think they would it would have de escalated a lot quicker.
Alan would have been able to get, I think more involved.
We had all been in the room. So I don't think it would have
happened. OK, but I I was just making the
point. We love we talk a lot of music
on our show because we're all very passionate about music and
and if you if you don't mind the quick.
History there are great. Songs about fathers and
daughters. But are there any great songs
about fathers and sons? The great song Father and Son by
Cat Stevens. You know it, I love Cat Stevens.
And so it's a great song. And so Alan wanted to stir it
up. Peter brought it up is that
maybe being the only really great song about fathers and
sons that makes you cry, make makes you emotional.
And Alan wanted to be that guy, said he didn't like the song.
So Alan thought we were going to jump him and then it just
occurred to me and I and I said, and I was trying to stir it too.
I said, well, quick hot take. I don't think you could have a
hip hop song that could hit like a Cat Stevens song.
So meaning like I just don't. And then if I was allowed to
continue and I could see like metal, like you're not going to
have a a heavy metal song about it doesn't doesn't work.
I love. My song or you know, like a
candle. It doesn't I said it doesn't
work. He's a hip hop guy.
He for some reason took offense to that and he's like you're
crazy. There's point starts to rattle
off a bunch of songs that I don't know and I'm like, I just
don't. I didn't think it's different.
And then he he called me a moron and so that you know, that got
and and he didn't mean anything by we've talked a lot off the
air about it. And that's when I was like,
dude, we're just having fun here.
And now you're going to like name call and and you know me, I
don't I'm I'm I'm really difficult to work with.
I will. I refuse to lose an argument.
I I don't believe in tanking. I'm still throwing bombs up 30
points. I never dribble out the clock.
I fight till the clock zeroes out.
Once we start fighting, you know, to the death man, I'm not
letting it go. And that's sometimes it's good
and sometimes it's really bad. In this case, it was really bad.
And now we're going at it and he immediately text me in the next
break and we're cool and we talked about it on the air
yesterday. Oh, you did OK, I.
Don't know how you feel? I believe the best, most
passionate fights are with people you care about and know.
Absolutely, I totally agree with that.
There's. A line in Reservoir Dogs, I mean
Reservoir Dogs, they're, they're fighting over, you know, because
he doesn't want to be Mr. Pink. It's great movie by the way,
and. And and The thing is like, no.
And then the captain, there's like no, no, no.
He's like, because we tried in another job, people don't know
each other. They start fighting because they
don't know each other and they don't get I I found that to be
the opposite. I think when you don't know
somebody, you're more willing to tap out.
You're not going to go there because there's that unknown.
But when you care about somebody, that's when you
unleash because you know at the end of the day that it's going
to be cool and you kind of let loose.
And I think that's what happened and and we're both passionate
about the subject that got out of control it.
Happens whatever and. And, and, and honestly, it's all
cool because the, the, the first time we got into a fight, it was
me reaching out immediately, almost like before the break
ended, saying listen, sorry. My bad, my bad.
You. Know so and honestly, I'm not
just saying it, it was there wasn't an ounce of performance
in it. It was real.
I know, I, I know, but it happened, no doubt that that was
real. Hey, it was real.
And you were real that you guys were.
You guys were pissed. Nobody I I love Ryan Hurley.
Yeah, good guy. We have had in the times that I
knew him, when he was my producer, when he was my boss,
we would have it out and always hugged it out after.
But you just, you go there with the people you care about.
So it's all. Good.
I didn't appreciate being called a moron, but it's been pointed
out to me. I've thrown that out to a few
callers. You have.
You, yes.
You have man but but not any Co hosts.
I mean, I did take my game was crossed.
But, you know, watch out Ellen Hahn.
Habitual line stepping is a good radio sometimes.
I hear you now. So, so, so think about this,
Donnie. So I'm trying to put myself in
your shoes and I'm like, all right, let me unpack this.
Like I I just I know you go to break you wound up like you're
incensed and you're almost maybe a little embarrassed, but it
incensed, right? Does Winthrop like what happens
in the after? I know Allen was in the middle,
unfortunately, and I love Allen. I've known Allen for every
square guy, man talented too. I'm happy for him with the
Knicks. Awesome dude.
And does Winthrop want somebody call like what, what, what
happens for management anything? No, but I, I think his, I've
known John Winthrop for 20 plus years.
Yeah, he. Was my old producer 25 years?
They know me. He was my old producer Don for
a. Little bit and no he's and he's
a he's a great guy. He's got a little bit of a
Disney issue where he's he's addicted to the the years and
it's. Still.
Well, he's like he, he didn't call me because he's, he's on a
cruise right now, a Disney cruise.
He goes, are you? Kidding.
More times a year get the it's a problem, it's a problem.
Wow, you know, but. He needs to work.
He's working for the right company, I'll just say that.
OK, Yeah, yeah, there's no. So keep coming in.
But I think the people that knew me, Alan, Anthony Pusick, my
producer, no one reached out immediately.
They let me cool off. I didn't hear from Alan until
the next day. He text me you good because I
and and it was because I was home.
I walked upstairs and it's going to sound weak, but the, the kids
were upstairs. So you go upstairs, you see the
kids and it's like, you know what, relax.
It's only, it's only radio and then you keep the kids playing.
It's like, listen, you know, that's the one thing that I, I,
I, I feel like I've calmed down since the, since the kids
because it's just, I don't want to say it's not important
anymore. Sports is still very important,
still passionate, but like, it's it's definitely fell a couple of
rungs because, you know, you got family, you got kids.
And and so you realize at the end of the day, what am I
getting upset for? You know, let's relax.
And so no, it's and it really is fine.
But yeah, you know, you hate getting into it like that.
But at the same time, it just lets people know that they still
care. They're not just punching the
clock. I give a shit, you know, and,
and this is what happens when you care.
Honestly, bingo. That's why I can't fake a rant,
because if I fake the rant, I'd sound I'd look like a bad actor,
you know? I don't know.
With that hair, you might look like a very distinguished actor.
Look at this guy's hair. Look at the beard, I mean.
I know. Look at this.
You look. Good baby, you still look pretty
good. No, you, you have not changed
the bound or whether it's because of the, the bald or
whatever, but you, you, you have aged terrific.
And listen, I'm 58 years old. I, I, I, I had, I had a mole
removed today. That's why I wasn't sure what
time I get there because that's where at.
But that bowl doesn't look good, Don.
We better get to better take a look at it.
This was it. Like Jenny Sack.
Was it a Jenny Sack bowl on the ass or no?
No, no, no. It was just right on the side,
but it's all right. But no, I can't kickbox for a
week, though. That's driving me crazy.
So. Oh yeah.
You were saying that you got into that now or do we have a
belt yet or are we just doing some workouts?
No, no, it's just a workout. There's no belt.
But but I've I've gone it'll be three years in in May wow and
I've gone to over 500 classes. It's it's awesome.
You know, you know, you're we're around the same.
It's. You know, you're taking towards
60. I kind of just kind of just
turned 50. Give me a little room here,
Dottie. Well, we're close.
I'm just fucking with you. I'm just messing around with you
said you're 50. Once you get past 50, what's 5
years I. Mean not much.
Nothing, you know. And we're and and we're both the
same. We were both athletes.
We both played ball and then you start to slow down and we have a
job where you sit for hours and hours, right?
So it's probably good to get into a little something, got to
get the blood flowing. If if somebody and I'm not even
talking about Alan and and Peter, I'm talking about just
general theory applied to our industry pertaining to you
program director X says, all right, Don, we want you to do a
show two person or three person. You got to want to do the two
person show. Three people's tough, right?
Or three people's tough. The reason it works for us is
because we've known each other so long.
I've worked with Peter for for over a decade and I've worked
with Alan. I've known Alan since when he
covered the Islanders when we opened the radio station back in
2001. Newsday, right?
Yeah, covered it for Newsday. Yeah, listen, I always was.
I always wanted to do a show by myself.
I I didn't like working with anybody.
Me. Me too for a while.
But then I realized I don't think it sounds great.
I think you want to be able to have different voices, different
opinions, bounce things off each other and all that.
And plus they did a lot of those shows by myself in the infancy
of the station where there's like no calls and I got to be
really creative and come up with a stuff and yeah, two man show
to me. I think it's perfect with the,
you know, like we did with with Michael where Peter was the 3rd
wheel. I think he even admit that it
wasn't like he wasn't he was like more like, I don't want to
say 2 1/2 men, but it was like he he parachuted in and out kind
of like with more Ashes with the afternoon show on the fan.
I think that works pretty well. Sean's good, talented.
Oh yeah, very. Very.
He's a funny, I love Sean. And I, I reached out to him when
I heard, I heard him on CBS like one Sunday night, whatever.
And I'm like, I love the passion of this kid.
He's he's nuts. And we've stayed, we've stayed
in touch, you know, DM and back and forth because I think we're
all kind of a fraternity. I never ever, ever looked at
WFAN, his arrival. I never did because I work
there. I know people, you know, So I
feel like we're all in the same fraternity, right?
Like. Yeah, well, I'm, I'm, I'm in
none, right? Now you know no.
No, I'm in no fraternity because I'm sitting in my home doing a
show. I don't.
I'm not playing for team exceptionally.
Complete bullshit. And I'm glad you heard.
Let me go off on that. I did.
That wasn't that and that. And that was and that whole deal
bothered me because it was it was set up as me taking a shot
at carton, which I wasn't. I was just taking a shot at two
really talented people being out of the job, which is complete
bullshit. Yeah.
No, I appreciated that. And all because you guys did.
You guys had great chemistry. It was a hell of a show.
I really enjoyed listening to you, not just because we were
friends, but because I just think you guys did a really good
show and I knew Sal too, but it was a good show.
And I just thought it sucked that you guys were in the
position that you're in. But you you're both
exceptionally talented. You'll land on your feet.
It just sucks that you had to you have to do that.
But to answer your question, I think 2 is perfect.
Three it it's, it's a lot. You know, it, it's, it's a lot
for the for the person that's running .2 of getting everybody
involved. So ideally it would be two, but
but three is necessary because again, you know, you don't want
to see anybody not working. And Alan's got to leave early
for Nick's. I got to leave early now for
devils. So it's a necessity.
But I think we've developed the chemistry where it works.
But you know, ideally having to I think is a heck of a lot
easier for sure. We've both been around radio
long enough where I think not that we would ever want to do
this, but if somebody said, hey, I'm starting a station and I
want either Don or me to be the PD program it right.
Like I think we I'm not saying we'd be great at it, but we'd
have enough of a rudimentary field because we've been in a
forever how to structure things and get things going.
I'll tell you what I would implement my first thing, I
would no longer have 4 hour radio shows.
I think it's a waste of time. And I think what happens now, I
know economically it might not be feasible because you'd have
to pay for more shows. I get that.
So I'm going to suspend that reality for a moment.
But to me, one of the main problems with our business now
is there's so much air time to fill that.
That's when the hot takes and the stupidity, and I don't mean
having fun and being dopey. That's that's good.
You need to do that, be a little bit of reference here and there,
but the longer show the more runway.
You have to either be repetitive, boring or dumb.
I would get rid of every 4 hour show.
I really would. Well, it makes sense because
you're fighting against yourself, right?
Like the big thing when you, when you're a rated radio
station is you want time spent listening.
So you want people to listen for as long as possible.
But at the same time, you know how hard that is to be able to
keep people interested when there's a day where it's a it's
a Yankee day. Yes, you know, and well, every
day is a Yankee day, Donnie. You know, no, that's true.
But that. But not everybody wants to hear
Yankees for four hours. Like, I don't care how big a
story is, if I'm going to do it for four hours, I'm probably
ticking somebody off. So if I'm going to try to keep
people listening, I got to change it up.
I got to change some opinions. I've got to change the subject.
But every time you change the subject, you take the chance of
alienating a bunch of people. Or like, I don't care about the
Knicks. I used to used to drive me
crazy. Tease, tease, tease, tease.
Coming up, I'm like, why am I going to let people know that
I'm going to talk about something they don't care about?
Leave it to be a mystery. Right.
Yeah, yeah, yes, Keep going. I'm going to keep going.
I'm going to pick. You up because you know, it's
New York. So listen, there's there's not a
lot, like there's a lot of Ranger fans, but compared to the
other sports, there's not as many.
But those people still need to have their time, especially if
the Rangers are in the playoffs or something big happens, a big
trade or whatever. Yeah, but you always run the
risk of alienating an audience that doesn't care about hockey
or doesn't. I'll give you an example,
whether it's hockey, take St. John's, it's it's a niche thing.
Even with Patino who get they get covered like the Knicks.
But I know not everybody's following St.
John's. So if I was on the fan and I was
doing, you know, if I was still there and I'm doing 2 hours on
Saint John's, you know, at what risk of business am I basically
inviting or opening the door for other people to just say it's a
cool story Pitino, but I'm not really that interested.
Click it. It's it's a tough game to play.
Well, let me ask you this, since terrestrial radio is dying.
Yep, and absolutely dying. And between the competition of
satellite radio and what you're doing right now, the people can
go. It's like, hey, I'm a Ranger
fan. I don't have to listen to Don
Han Rosenberg. I don't have to listen to
Brandon Tierney. I can go, I can do there's a
Ranger podcast I can listen to. I can listen to I can listen to
the NHL channel on SiriusXM and get my hockey.
So I just wonder that if and, and spend a lot of the things
that we're doing now are for like we're on YouTube.
So it's for the reaction. So we do a great segment, we
post it and then that can be monetized because now people
can, can get, get the hits of, of my rant or get the hits of,
of an interview that we do at all.
And I, I get more of a reaction. I don't know if you had this
when you were on the fan. I will do something and get
nothing in real time, wake up the next day and be flooded with
people who watched it later. It happened, yeah.
So if. We, if we, and now with the AM
is dying, FM sticks are too expensive, Are we ever going to
get to the point where terrestrial radio is almost like
ESPN, where hey, maybe maybe Michael Kay's on for two hours
and that's the Yankee report, you know, and maybe there's a
football show and maybe there's a basketball, probably.
And, and, and you leave the morning and afternoon drives to
be a little bit more eclectic because people are in their
cars. But to your point of shortening
shows, is it a matter of shortening shows or is a matter
of specializing? Yeah, diversifying.
That's a good, that's a good point.
I don't know, I would still lean toward the shortening Like what?
Again, I got to make sure that I could I could make a living
doing this. And so far so good.
But you know, I'm not saying it's perfect, man.
But the one thing that I, one of the many, not one, one of the
many things that I truly love about this platform, man, is
that I don't have to drag. And with Sal, it was easy
because Sal's a communicator like me, were revved up and four
hours would go. I would be exhausted, but it
would fly by. But if I want to go on for now,
now I've got to, I've got to end it early.
Today I got to go to Saint John's to record the TV show.
But I can go for two hours some days.
I have if I don't have much to say.
Well, I mean, I've always got something to say.
But if if it's a little shorter than the previous day, rather
than droning on and being boring and just trying to stretch it
out. Hey, hour 15.
See you tomorrow. And to me, that's so much more
appealing because I think it enables me to deliver my best
stuff rather than searching and trying to fool people with these
stupid teases. Yeah, I I love.
It now, now you're live right now, right?
We're live, but you I can watch it later.
Oh yeah, so have. You been able to figure out how
many like the percentage of people that watch it live as
opposed to people that watch it after the?
Fact, I've got all, I've got all the analytics.
Yeah, I'm 100% yeah. Oh yeah, yeah.
By the way, Donnie, we're we're this week we're going to hit
1,000,000 views. No, listen, this I, I love the
attention that it's getting and I'm, I'm glad it's building, but
this, this is where it's at right now.
So it, it becomes a challenge when you do a radio show live.
Now we're not rating it anymore, no, which which was a a
financial decision because people won't realize how
expensive it is to get rated. What Dottie's saying is you have
to basically subscribe to the to to the Nielsen rating.
And then you pay to get the information and very, very
expensive. I notice.
And so, and a lot of the reason is cause again, we're, we would
rather measure it. We're, we're heading towards
apps, we're heading towards on demand, we're heading towards
YouTube. So now that's a way of being
able to see how many people are watching.
And a lot of people are watching at their convenience.
We found that out during COVID. You know, they weren't in their
car, so they were watching stuff from the day before or they're
watching stuff from a week before, you know.
So we're right now in that very interesting time where ideas
like what you have and I have I think are on the table.
Because the. Old way of doing sports radio.
I think is is is done? It's always.
Yes, I I agree, unfortunately, and I love it and it's afforded
me and you to build beautiful homes and have a lifestyle.
I mean not not many more, but I, I love it and it's what I always
wanted to do and I'm never going to disrespect it.
But the reality of it is it's changed wildly.
And before I forget, I want to get to some devil stuff and I
don't want to keep you old even though I could.
I'd love to. You can't, the mother can.
I'm having a blast dude. I really appreciate you coming
on So what Don's talking about with the TS is like coming up
next. I'll tell you why so and so
right so FAN didn't really care about that as much like they
didn't want you to just throw out the number lazily, which I
never did and end on the number you want to give somebody
something has to rattle all around the brains of the
audience so that they could compelled to stick around.
I know you know that I'm just talking to the audience, right?
But when I was with ESPN and I'm not going to name names great
people and I'm not just saying that really good men and women
who on on a broader national scale, they were right, but they
would come in once a month with their little notepad on.
Remember the little notepad and hey, we have to do this and we
got to write that. And Brandon, when you go to
break, you have to tease. And they're like you, you know,
And so they would they an idea like an example would be like
this. Coming up next on coming up next
on 1050. You know why the next move by
The Jets will be the one move that will elevate them to the
Super Bowl. Like it's so contrite.
Fucking hated doing that. I can't tell you how much I I
detested it. I loathed it.
You know why? Because to me it was not
congruent with the radio that I grew up with on the fan.
I'm like, this is hokey. This is corny.
And I'll be honest with you, I didn't do it.
And when I did do it, I did it half ass or I didn't do it that
well. And I think it hurt me.
Like I just I was very young, little roll around the edges
like you as well, little cavalier with certain things
kind of stuck in our old ways, in the ways we thought it would,
it would be better. And and that was the one thing
many great things like, you know, going on cold pizza and
and doing the games like ESPN was great to me.
But those teases I couldn't stand.
Them I know I could. God Almighty, I hated them.
And and it really was a problem. There was 1 summer and I didn't
last long. They they gave me a Saturday
network show. I remember that.
And I hated it because the show would be presented to me the
night before in an outline. Here's the show.
Oh. God.
And I'm like, what do you mean the games aren't even over?
Like I don't know what I'm going.
To be feeling. Tomorrow, I don't know.
What's going to be on my mind when I wake up tomorrow?
But here's what you do with the rundown, by the way.
Yeah, that's good talking to you guys.
Go ahead and. It got me, you know, so they're
they're doing outlining everything.
And then finally, it was one day.
It was when it was to 2014. So it was the Olympics and the
US didn't do great hockey wise. But there was that moment.
You probably remember TJ Oshi, Oshi Oshos in in the shootout.
And it was in real time was happening.
And I went in and Obama tweeted him and I, I did like an hour on
it. And their heads exploded like
it's happening in real time. I'm not ignoring this.
This is who I am. This is what I'm passionate
about. Yeah.
Oh, but no. But you got to tease, you got to
tease the Giants Rays game that's going to be on later and
we're going to have Chris Singleton on to promote it.
And I'm like, OK, Chris. It's just that because you know,
like ESPN Radio exists to promote TV.
I've always understood that. I know it.
And and again, it's I'm I'm in my man cave now because of it.
Yep, I hear you. It's.
Not how we grew up. It's not how we roll.
And I just want to be able to be me.
I think people listen because they love me, because they hate
me, because they want to know what I'm going to say.
I don't think you have a lot of what Alan's going to say.
I don't think you have a lot of hate.
Well, maybe you don't, but I think you've got a lot of
respect. Hate.
Listen. I think people enjoy listening
to shows because they hate the guy, you know?
Certain shows, yes. Yeah, yeah.
Absolutely. I mean, I'm sure that happens a
lot, but. People.
Some people hate being saddled, but they still listen.
And I used to have a thing is a phrase I use you you were around
for it. I would say hide the host.
Oh, the host, Yeah. Whenever they would have like,
oh we've got like 7 guests today, oh we're going to do
this. I would all hide the host
because God forbid if we let the host have an opinion.
God, I know let. The host show some personality,
you know, God forbid if the host goes off the rails and maybe
entertains the audience for 15 minutes, you know, so those like
little, little things that and I, and to this day I'm not, I'm
not a huge fan of guests unless they're pertinent because I
always felt like guests sometimes are like segment
killers. You know, it's like, Yep, let's
just let's put a guest on so I don't have to think for that
segment. Correct.
It's lazy. It's just a lot of times, if you
don't believe in me, let me go. But if you believe in me and you
like me, you like Brandon, you like Kay, you're like, let us
roll, man. Let us be who we want to be.
It's and then and and what drives like, listen, you know,
and you know Steven well, nobody's listening to Steven A
for information he's given on the NBA, No.
Not a. Stephen A because he's an A+
personality. Bingo.
And he's going to have hot opinions and when he messes up,
it's going to be a dumpster fire, which is entertaining.
Or he's going to do something that's going to be really
compelling because he's being himself.
It really doesn't even matter what he's saying.
It matters that he's saying it because that's the guy that they
love. And the way he says it his.
Oh yeah, that's part. Of it.
He's coming on the show. He's coming on the show, by the
way. No, he's that's going to be
good. Oh, yeah, I can't.
I can't wait. I was getting, It's funny you
mentioned Steven and he, you were there a couple of years and
then he came in. I was there about a year after
him. Did you think he was going to be
a big *? I was, you know, I I thought so.
And then, remember, he left, he went to Fox.
And I thought, all right, this is this is it, this is.
And then when he came back, then I started to see it grow.
But no, I, I, I knew he was a big personality, but that I
think he would be, you know, of because I guess what's the big
four now at ESPN? It's Steven, it's McAfee.
It's. Greenie.
It's Van's health, right? It's those 4.
Schefter. Schefter, yeah.
But but you know, Schefter's got a a job, right?
He's got a job to cover the NBNNFL.
But when you talk about the guys that do a lot of other things
besides their one sport and chef.
I got you. Does some basketball, but those,
I think those are the four guys. I don't know this for a fact.
I also think they're the four most highest.
Paid guys got to be. Even though, and should I think
he would reach that level? No, I I thought he would be
because I guess the bigger surprise to me, Brandon, is that
he's branched away from basketball, that he's not just
the NBA that he's asked to do and have an opinion on.
So I remember texting you, I didn't want to get up in your
business, but I remember texting you when there was some, you
know, rumblings out there publicly, newspapers, clicks,
whatever, you know, Hey, Don might not re sign.
How close were you to not re signing with a with ESPN?
I wouldn't say it was close, but there was there was conversation
that this, this might be it. And it was early, so I wasn't
sure what was going to happen. And hold that just for clarity
when you say conversation them communicating to you, you to
them or both ways not? Sure.
Well, them community to me that you know, we'll see.
You know, I thought it was the other way around.
I really thought it was you, like, not sure if you wanted to
really do it. The kids, the devils like, OK,
go. Ahead.
Well, no. This is before this.
This even before the Devils. Before the Devils.
That's true. That's true.
Then the Devils came and I'm like, whoa.
See ya. All right, now I started
thinking, yeah, because when the, because I, I Full
disclosure, I've told him this. I, I interviewed for the devil
job three years prior and I, I lost out to Bill Spaulding.
They told me that I'd have to leave ESPN.
Really. When I interviewed for it, yeah.
And I'm like, OK, I was, I was going to do it.
Why would they say that they let Michael do the games?
Well, that's yes MSG we didn't want me to I got you.
I get it. Listen, listen, it's a lot
because. And then, all right, so I don't
get the job. Then they then they approached
me three years later. So I'm thinking I'm going to
have to leave and I and I'll tell you I would have left.
I'm not passing this job. And I'll tell you it would have
been it would have been a significant financial hit.
OK, I'm. Sure.
But I am not passing up my dream job.
I mean, this is something I dreamed of forever, to be a
voice of a team and then to be a voice of the Devils.
You know, you told the you know, 20 year old Don Lagreco watching
John Mcclane score to get him into the playoffs.
Gary Thorne. Think of the big names, Gary
Thorne, Mike Emerick, you know, Steve Kangelosi, big names done
the the devil's I would never think I'd get a chance to do.
I'm not passing that up and my wife's like.
How much are they going to pay you?
Like she's like, wait a minute. Now the now the wife's got to
enter the chat. But they were like, they, and I
was like jumped out of my shorts when they said, no, we want, we
want you to do both. You could do both.
And it's a lot, you know, and I'm sure things that I have to
get cuz there's meetings that I miss and stuff.
But they're, they're very, very cool with it.
And it's and, and everybody Roland Dratch, who's the
producer, amazing guy. He helps me through and and and
Tom Meiberg every everybody works to make sure that I I'm
able to get the game, even though I'm doing the show.
But so it worked out. But there was that moment like,
am I now going to be like goodbye?
But now listen, I just in September, September 3rd or this
coming September 3rd will be 25 years.
I I will get. I will.
Get my. Tinkerbell statue which?
Give me a bonus, you know, screw the the costumes in.
The and it's in my blog. And everything so.
So I wouldn't say it was close Brandon, but there were there
were moments where I started to think about, you know, life
after ESPN, but it came together.
I resigned, you know, multi year contract.
So I'm not going anywhere. And and the devil's same thing.
So we've been able to make it work.
It hasn't been the season I was hoping for after an 8 one start,
but still it's been, it's been so much fun.
Where were you when you found out that you got the devil's
job? I the, the couple of years I
started losing the Ranger games because they started
incorporating Alex Faust in and so I went from doing like 40
games and the year, the last year I did Rangers, I think I
did like 13. I wasn't.
Oh wow, they they were phasing you out?
Yeah, that's what it felt like. And there were things going on,
Alex, because Sam was leaving and Kenny was going to go.
And I think they they, they wanted to bring it and and I was
happy for Alex. He lost his job with the Kings
and, and he's a local kid and I was really happy for him.
So I wasn't bitter about it all. I was really, I always looked at
the Ranger gig as I was just very fortunate to have it.
We, we both got it, You know, you got the Knicks, I got the
Rangers same time. We both started doing play by
play at the same time. My mind grew because Kenny was
never available. So I started doing a ton of
games And, and I was, I was, I really, I always felt found
myself to be very fortunate. So I was disappointed, but not
angry at anybody. Sure.
So I get the call from Kevin Meininger June 12th.
All right, come back from kickboxing, see a message from
Kevin and I kind of like, I don't know.
Yep. So I call him back, he's like,
is he going to tell me I'm done? I really thought he was going to
call me and tell me, Don, you know, Alex is in now and we're
good and you could still do pre and post, which I did when I
wasn't doing play by play. And he's like gone.
There's some things, some balls and airs, like here comes brace
myself and he goes, how would you feel about doing the Devils?
And it was like it was the scene from Castaway when she gets the
phone call that he's still alive.
I almost dropped the phone and just passed out.
I loved her by the way. Down, down, down, down low hot.
Yes, down low hot. No, it's it's no, I'm with you.
And so, he says, don't tell anybody.
But. All right, so you got to sit.
So I can't tell anybody I told, I told my wife.
That's it. Went into the kitchen.
I'm flipping out now. I got to sit on it for two
weeks. Don't tell anybody.
Didn't tell a soul. Wow, No.
OK. Not even your brother.
No one. I I know part of it was not a
lack of trust, it was just I don't want to jinx this.
Man, I got you. Cuz I still can't believe it.
I still think somebody's going to call and say, listen, we
meant to call somebody else, sorry.
Yeah, they meant to call Rosenberg.
Actually, yeah. And so then it was like
literally 2 weeks to the day and then the ball started rolling
and next and it was just then they're working on a press
release and working out the details with the contract.
And I'm like, I can't, this is amazing.
This is unfrigging real. And I'm I'm still pitching
myself that it happened. It's it's, it's pretty
incredible. I'm sincerely happy for you.
No, I I really am, dude. It's, it's awesome, man.
You've worked so hard. You've been a grinder.
You, you've been everything from a grinder to like the 3-4
hitter, you know, like you've done everything, dude.
So massive respect. And I got to tell the audience
real quick. So you mentioned this before.
So what? Maybe it was about 05:00, if
that sounds about right. Right. 10:50 At that point,
still 1050 gets the Knicks and the Rangers and we're like, I'll
never forget Pete Doherty, who I know you know very well.
Good dude, but sales, I'm in Pitt to do to do with St.
John's Pitt game, University of Pitt when Pitt was still in the
Big East. Anyway, I'm walking to get
coffee. Pete calls me.
Hey, off the record, we just got the Knicks and the Rangers.
It's going to it's going to be awesome.
I'm like, wow, this is going to really legitimize the station.
So we're all pumped up. Very Long story short, somehow
they come and approach me to do Knicks stuff, Don to do Ranger
stuff. And I remember liked it.
Now the Rangers season starts before the Knicks.
So you were the Guinea pig, you were the lab rat here.
And I remember like before, like basically the first game,
they're like, alright, let's let's maybe have a meeting.
It wasn't radio. It was also a TV component and
you and I hadn't done a lot of TV at that point.
So I remember sitting in my apartment in Manhattan, right?
I had just ordered food and you were up first and you were at
the play by play, right? Play by play restaurant up at
the Garden. And I'm sitting there, stuff in
my face and I'm saying, thank fucking God, it ain't me.
Thank God it's him who's out there because this is a shit
show. Not that you didn't do a good
job, but like, I barely had a producer.
I barely had a director. I was, it was anarchy, man.
After Nick games, I would do the post game show from the play by
play. And one time a drunken dude
wandered on the set. I honestly thought I was going
to drop him because he was he was like talking smack.
I'm like, is this what's going on with this?
It was very, very humble beginnings and you were on there
first. And I just remember sitting on
my couch saying, hey, better him than me.
Work out the kinks. Go get him, Donnie.
You know, it's so surprising. See if you agree with this,
they've got in this business how often they just throw you into
the walls like people might think that you go through some
like training let's do some practice stuff no more more
times than not it's like here you go go do it Yep.
What am I going to do? You know, just go there to
hockey here, here's the here are the guests coming up and here's
what you say when you go to break, go and and it would and
the rain do. I was really lucky because
coming out of the lockout the Rangers were supposed to be the
worst team of the league. Oh, the Knicks were terrible.
There's Larry Brown was doing it.
But the Rangers, and this is when Henrik Lundquist emerged
and all of a sudden they made the playoffs.
So they became a good team. So everybody was kind of
rallying around that. And it ended up being a really
fun gig. But yeah, and and we would do
the pre and post, right? And this is when we were above
the Garden. Oh yeah, take the elevator.
Down. So what I would do is I'd be at
the game, yeah. And then right up midway, midway
through the third period, late the third period, I'd go to the
studio, Me Too, host game, Me too.
And then we would do a show till midnight.
And then so when the Knicks played.
I love doing that. It would be you until midnight
when the Rangers play. Be me till midnight.
I forget. I think you.
It was probably you on when they were off, when the both teams
were off because I think that. Was.
Yeah, yeah. But I, I, I did it and and
because it was still, I would just do, I would just talk
hockey till midnight. I think we probably just talk
Knicks until midnight. And we saw.
I did. Yeah, I did.
And, and then we would do that when they were on the road.
It was yes, we were doing for the studio.
It was so funny talking about like just being thrown to the
wolves without without a compass or a road map.
They literally now the difference for me is that the
Knicks I don't think that you had this the Knicks.
The pregame was outside in front of thousand 2000 people.
Like do you remember where I would do it?
On the stairs leading into the old garden?
All right. And then the post game was up at
the bar and that was kind of quiet because the Knicks were
terrible and everybody just left at that point.
But it was a big crowd and I remember you.
You know what a jib, A jib camera is like the jib that I'm
not telling you, I'm telling the audience.
That kind of swings and it's got the aerial, you know, the aerial
shot. And I'm, I'm up there, but like
Jerome Williams, a former Nick out of somebody else.
I forget who it is, People yelling at me, people at MSG in
a good way. And then some guy in my ear
goes, all right, hey, we're going to start in 30 seconds.
We're going to use the jib camera just fine.
They just let him know what's going on.
I have no idea. I don't even know what a fucking
gib camera is. I swear I have no idea what this
camera is. And I'm looking around.
I'm looking around like I'm I'm on in 12 seconds.
I have no idea what I'm going to do.
So finally somebody points because they see that I'm not
even looking at it. And I'm like, oh, that's got to
be the gym camera. I say that to myself and by the
grace of God, and I mean this sincerely, thank you.
I see a shot of 7th Ave. and somehow the words come to me.
Something along the lines of here's a look at 7th Ave.
Busy times as we open up the Knicks tonight.
Larry Brown era places packed welcome in the show's underway.
I guess. I guess we're on the air.
It it it is funny though, how when you you get a chance to do
something that you're probably I wasn't ready to do that and
probably you weren't either. But you figure it out because
you love what you do and you appreciate our job And and you
know, I I think good people get rewarded.
I'm not talking about me. I'm talking about you in this
case. I think at the end of the day,
Don, I think good people who respect this business, who work
diligently and genuinely try to entertain and put out a great
product, they're going to get they, they're going to, it's
going to work out for them. Yeah, when I when I when I spoke
to the students at RAM play yesterday, I said I use that
old. It's a sign at the in the
kickboxing Dojo of, you know, hard work beats talent every
time. It's it's true.
You got to put in the work now and and the problem in our
business is that you put in the work in the hope that you get
the opportunity. You're not guaranteed.
It's not like all right, you do this for five years and then you
do this and then you do this for another five years and you get
here. You might put in the hard work
and not get it. True, You don't know.
It's all on spec. I hope it works out.
I know I one thing I guarantee you, if you don't put in the
work, you're definitely not going to get there.
Amen. I always tell students, I do a
lot of motivational speak. I'm a matter of fact, I'm
speaking at Verizon on Thursday. I won't necessarily, you know,
tell them this because they're not students, they're
executives. But like one of the things that
that, that, you know, I remember saying a long time ago was, you
know, if you're not willing, that you didn't have to do this
luck you. But if you're not willing to get
in your in your car and make the sacrifice.
I was in Allentown, I was in Detroit, you know, I was in
Vegas. I was all over trying to get
back home. It's a little bit of a different
grind. But if, if you don't love the
business, don't waste your time because there's a good chance
you're going to be broke for a while and there's a decent
chance you're going to be broke forever.
There's a lot of people we know who are still scrapping and
clawing, you know, trying to make it a little bit and it, it
is a very unforgiving business. But you know, you've been
blessed and you've earned it. And I'm, I'm really happy for
you. I'm proud of you.
I, I got to roll in 2 minutes to go out to St.
John's. I want to hit you with a couple
of don't think about it. Just give me a first answer, OK?
Yeah. Who's The Jets quarterback Week
1? I think it's, I think it's going
to be Carson Wentz. You do.
OK How many games? OK, Yeah, I got you.
How many games did the Giants win this year?
Eight. OK.
Does Mendy make it through the whole season for the Mets?
Yes. Over under 40 bombs for Soto.
Under. Another MVP for Judge.
Yes. How many years before the
Rangers are back in the Eastern Conference finals?
5. Knicks win the championship this
year. No.
I agree you need a Co host. That's the last.
Question well, bring in four why not I I honestly seriously, man,
I I don't I I'd love I'd love to work with you again, man.
I I mean this is what about the difference?
People will people awful announcing will put this out is
Don takes shot at Brandon. This is actually a a compliment.
I felt like every time I did a show with you, I was doing 100
yard dash. Like I felt it was a race to
see, you know who was yo, who won the segment, who was because
we were both because that's all we were doing, man.
Every time we ever work together, it was trying to show
management F you, we should be doing this more.
So I always felt like when I did a show with you, it was like we
were both, we were both doing 100 yard dash and only one of us
was going to make the team, right.
You're right, I do take that as a.
So I I would be actually looking forward to doing a show with you
where I wouldn't feel that pressure of having to win every
segment, although I am very competitive.
So me too, you know, that, that listen, there's only it's funny,
as you said, that's it. That's an interesting example
that the, the, the race, right, Because there really is, I think
about this and I've had, I've had a decent amount of partners,
you know, well, Stephen, I put him in a separate category, but
Tiki's a very different personality.
Eric Davis, who I was doing Anthony Drive with in San
Francisco, a little bit more like Tiki.
So like that race, that constant churning to try to stay ahead or
get ahead or keep up. I felt that with you and I felt
that with Sal. And that's it.
That's kind of rare. So I I I do take that as a
compliment. Thank you.
I, I put Sal in our category of very competitive wanting to be
right, because I think we all kind of took the same path,
right, of just wanting to do this and starting at the, in the
bowels of it because just, and just climbing and fighting.
So I hope he's, I hope he's doing well.
I haven't had a chance to speak to him in a while.
It's crazy. I saw him at a devil game just
like a few days before. You guys were like, oh, and he's
like, yeah, my contract's up, but he didn't seem like he was.
Working. I was.
Is that what? Didn't you meet his nephew Joey?
I remember. Seeing the pic, yeah, I thought
that Joey was like I, I, I think I called him a fraud too, if I'm
not mistaken, because I called. Sal or Joey?
Joey. Because I because he was like,
Oh yes, yes, he was wearing like a devil jersey, but he was
really. He loves shoes.
Yeah, he loves shoes, but he's not a devil fan.
He's no, he's not. No, he's not.
So, but that you know me, I can't help myself.
Now listen, that, that is part of the Dottie's vernacular.
Forever Fraud, Tomato Patch, Eddie Crane Pool, you've done a
ton in this business, man. And again, I'm going, I'm going
to say goodbye Now. Really, it's very rare when I
see somebody get a job and #1I, I know what it means to them.
And #2 I've known that person long to really, truly know what
it means to them. So when I saw that you got the
devil's gig, I was, I was genuinely, I was so happy.
Keep crushing it, bro. Thank you.
I mean that. Keep crushing it.
I'll get you back on at some point because I want to talk
about fatherhood. Some other stuff I know.
You little guys. Play we've we've looked at
videos looking at the swing and looking at the baseball stuff.
How? Old are the kids now for.
You My son just turned 11. My daughter's 9.
OK so they both my my twins are 8 already.
I know, I know man, and we both got into fatherhood late.
Which I which mentally I think is is better?
Yes it it takes a toll physically though.
Little bit, especially when you try to pay bills, Help.
I know, man. All right.
I love you, man. Thanks for thinking to me.
You're the best, dude. You got it, man.
Dottie pucks. Dottie pucks.
Look at that. Dottie pucks in the house.
J Rod, what's up, what's up? That was awesome.
I mean, that was incredible. I feel like just a great
breakdown, great insight on like a side of sports you don't
really, you normally don't really get the background in on,
you know, for sure, just great talk on, you know, something you
both are knowledgeable on and like you 2 are some of the only
guys who are knowledgeable on it, which is experience in New
York sports radio in the scene. So thought that was awesome.
That was fun, man. So I got to clip it here.
I got to bounce. J Rod's going to get all this up
for you. Social media.
I got to get out to Santa last Red storm report.
So I did have Rick on the show yesterday.
Little bit more of a wide-ranging conversation.
It's up on the YouTube channel like subscribe, pound this, let
everybody see the conversation we just had with Don.
I knew you guys would enjoy that and and I was looking forward to
getting Donnie on. So he was money as as I fully
expected, one of the great guys, one of the great talents.
Just a dudes dude. No false pretense.
Even you know, you make a few bucks and you get these good
jobs. He's never changed.
Some people change. Don has never changed and I love
him for that. I really do So I got a roll.
I I can't look at the text now because I really do have to get
out to Queens, but I'll check when I get back.
You know, drop the comments, you know, like it, subscribe and all
that good stuff and I will catch you guys tomorrow at 10 right
here on Unleashed Peace. This is on leash Are you
listening? Can you hear me?
Hear me? This is on leash.
Are you listening? Can you hear me?
Hear me? This is on leash Are you
listening? Can you hear me?
Hear me? This is on leash Are you
listening? Can you hear me?