ESPN 950 vs. WIP 610

A Thanksgiving night game for the Eagles was nice, but the 10 days in-between games hasn’t left much to get excited about. With the Giants coming up on Sunday and one of their starting wide receivers being done for the year after he was carted away in handcuffs, Philadelphia would normally be frothing at the mouth.

Instead, a fair amount of fans, including yours truly, are actually worried that the Birds might win. The last thing I want to see is this team once again get hot, win out, squeak into the playoffs, and lose some time in mid-January. That would give the front office yet another chance to trot out their ridiculous notions that they are a championship caliber team, which will likely happen even if the Eagles lose out. They simply are not a championship caliber team. They’re not even good, mostly because Andy Reid’s play calling is absurd, but I’m sure that all will get rehashed Sunday night into Monday.

So, I thought I’d look at the two most popular venues Philadelphia fans use to complain about their favorite teams – sports talk radio. That basically boils down to ESPN 950 versus 610 WIP.

From the dearth of news I’ve been able to find on the subject, ESPN (which still uses WPEN at times) has made modest ratings gains on WIP in recent months. Mike Missanelli constantly claims to be gaining on Howard Eskin in the drive-time slot, but I can’t find anything in the news on it. (Granted, my efforts amounts to a quick Google and philly.com search.)

I made the switch fairly permanently to 950 after they booted Jim Rome, so I admit I’m not completely up to date on WIP. That was mostly their own doing though, as the station had become more guy talk than sports talk. However, they have clearly felt ESPN’s presence as the interviews that they once shunned as boring now seem to be a regular part of their programs when I check in.

Show for show, I think ESPN wins out as the better station, though they are slipping a bit lately – or maybe they’re just wearing on me a bit. The rare occasions that I’m up early enough to catch something before 9 AM, I take Mike & Mike over Angelo Cataldi every time. This may have changed, but even before 950 bounced their hideous morning team that included the former NY Jets quarterback Glenn Foley, Cataldi just wasn’t tolerable any more.

He was clearly trying to emulate Howard Stern and just couldn’t pull it off. His penchant for talking about his own life or the “inside radio” stuff about how the show evolved was just mind numbing. And when the Eagles Super Bowl appearance didn’t put Wing Bowl on the back burner, well, not much was left to be said. Self-promotion had clearly usurped everything else.

It’s not even that Mike & Mike is a great show. Along with the Mike Tirico and Scott Van Pelt show on mid-days, the ESPN “we invented sports” mentality can get draining. Van Pelt is the worst offender. It’s not necessarily what he says, but how he says it. He just goes too in-depth on how guys feel leading up to the big game or the like, as if he has personal knowledge via the ESPN mountain top. Or they – meaning all of the ESPN national guys – also do a lot of the inside radio garbage that just seems self-serving.

That said, I do like the national perspective that WIP wasn’t even attempting to offer, including games that you can now actually find on Philly radio if you’re stuck in the car. There really are big games and stories outside of Philadelphia that matter to many people. Sports fans in this city are often criticized for having no interest in sports outside of our teams. I’ve never really bought that we were any worse in our hometown bias than any other town. And, bottom line, there was never an outlet for those fans that wanted more than WIP offered.

ESPN backed into a good situation when they paired Harry Mayes with Jody MacDonald after the latter returned from a heart attack. Alone, MacDonald was still better than the end of Cataldi and the first half of 610’s mid-day show, currently Glen Macnow and Anthony Gargano. But Jody Mac could get a little too into being the radio personality, or, maybe a better way of putting it, the sports aficionado. It never got too bad, but Mayes adds just enough levity and other opinions to keep MacDonald away from the rare trek into the obnoxious. Mayes also offers just a little bit of room for the younger viewpoint in my opinion.

I’ve always liked Macnow, and he makes Gargano almost tolerable. In fact, I’m listening just a little bit now when Tirico is on, but I’m always waiting for Anthony to go off on how he authored some book or to try to sound profound while maintaining the South Philly mentality. He was probably one of the biggest reasons I tuned WIP out, and I just don’t trust that he won’t eventually irritate the hell out of me so I never last long.

Finally – since I rarely listen at night – there’s Eskin versus Missanelli. Mikey Miss seems to be much more mellow than he was on WIP, except for his disdain for his former partner Eskin. Sometimes he’s actually too mellow, and it was a relief when the station squashed his weekly call from his other former partner – Steve Fredericks – after the old guy proved he just couldn’t sensor himself.

Overall, Missanelli’s just better than what Eskin was when I bailed on him. Seeing him weekly on NBC10’s Sports Final, I doubt Eskin’s changed much. When he does talk sports its all about what his sources told him, and he clearly allows what he says to be dictated by those sources. I can remember commuting home from my old job for 40 minutes and not hearing a word from Eskin on sports. Missanelli keeps it moving, rarely goes off on his former tangents, and does real interviews. He would hate hearing it, but he’s what Eskin was at his best. He’s doing a little too much promotional stuff lately and needs to give up his favorite “he can’t play” line about players he dislikes, but he is definitely the better choice.

I guess this reads like a 950 love fest, but I welcome other opinions. For me, 950 simply offers better sports talk than WIP.