The conventional wisdom is that WIP will be 100% against a MLS team, but I think if you break it down, host by host, the picture is not nearly so grim. Angelo Cataldi -- Classic blowhard. Will rip soccer because he thinks that's what his audience wants to hear. Al Morganti -- As a suburban sports dad in South Jersey, and a fan of international hockey, I think Al knows more about soccer and its significance than he lets on. Keith Jones -- Canadian farm boy hockey player. Probably likes soccer about as much as Don Cherry does. Rhea Hughes -- No love; needs to rip soccer to prove her testosterone level. Anthony Gargano -- I love Ant and would hope he supports the game. He's a pretty positive, open-minded, worldy guy who loves all things Philadelphia but has also been all over, so until I'm proven wrong, I'm counting him as one of us. Steve Martorano -- Not a 100% sports guy, but old school and kind of grumpy. I could see him saying "not my kettle of fish, but respect those who love it." Howard Eskin -- No way. Needs to keep up his Jim Rome wannabe act. Glen Macnow -- Very publicly anti-soccer; I'm not sure way. John Smallwood -- Has always given soccer good coverage at the Daily News; it would be interesting to hear him talk about it on the radio. Sonny Hill -- Not likely to know much about it, but if there are African-Americans on the team, and the team reaches out to do clinics, donate tickets, etc. to North Philly and other poor areas, I'm sure he would publicize it. Now if we could find some old head 60-year old black soccer players to reminisce about how things were way back in the day, and complain about the young players of today not knowing the game, he would really be interested. Don McKee -- Curmudgeonly and you would think he is anti-soccer. But his columns in the Inky betray the fact that he knows the game (particuarly the Premiership) and is paying attention to MLS. If the team is good, I would expect him to give props. John Marzano -- Big baseball guy; probably fears soccer.
Rickster, if you can provide some kind of email address for these fellas, will include them in my spam...I mean announcement lists.
Good luck with these guys. I agree with your breakdown for the most part. As per my post in the other thread, I have no idea why glen would have such a hate for soccer. Blows my mind. CIM, that would an interesting experiment. Of course, as the WC approaches they could rip soccer all summer long because there is only one sport in season for them...
Who cares about the WIP people? Let them ignore it, its not a big deal. We don't need them to validate our enjoyment of soccer. If they rip the game, its just red meat for the knuckledragging listeners. There's no need to throw fuel on the fire.
I tend to agree, but we should try to get the good word out about soccer where we can. Besides WIP, is there any other sports radio ppl we can contact? Get me email addresses please!
Im pretty sure stan hochman has a show on Sportstalk 950 AM and so does Jody Mac. not sure on what their emails are though. check http://www.sportstalk950.com/ for more details.
also jamie yannacone at 950 might be receptive... honestly, when i saw this thread title i thought/hoped/prayed something at wip had actually broken. that would be so wonderful.
That list is pretty accurate, nice job Rickster. I still listen to WIP at times, especially if Hugh Douglas or Ray Didinger are on the air. Ant is a good guy, too.
Thats a pretty accurate list. The one guy who isn't mentioned because he's only an overnight on the weekends and fill-in guy is Paul Jolovitz. Jolovitz is prob our best shot. He doesnt talk about soccer too often, but when a caller wants to talk about it he is more than willing to share his feelings about it. I remember a couple of years ago him talking about who the best soccer player in the world is. I remembered because ya never hear any 610 guys talking about it. I think the station to lean more towards when getting a couple soccer guys in is 950 because they are a new station and they do have some niche shows (such as High School Sports) and they don't always talk eagles/phillies/sixers 24-7.
jolowitz is cool... of course i'm biased b/c he's a penn guy lol but he does seem to be pretty down to earth.
smallwood is from colombia maryland and played soccer with dante washington... later on he covered arena during his days at uva... july 2000 on a flight from sacramento to philly, I sat next to smallwood, and we talked about the recent usa two matches during qualifying for wcq 2002.... he was very articulate, pointing out while usa had a draw and a loss on the road, the usa was the ONLY ROAD team to net any points, meaning hold serve at home and things would work out... stan hochman is also VERY pro soccer, going back to the 1970's... the ethnic soccer scene post 1950 onward was huge in the city, and hochman grew up with the game too....
Fwiw, at about 12:45 somebody ("Chris" I think), called WIP and, among other things, asked Ant and Steve whether they would be rooting for the USA or Italy. They didn't hang up on the guy; Ant was kind of dismissive but Steve sounded quite interested. Btw, it's also worth noting that the WC talk came as a prelude to some fairly decent Phillies comments by Chris. That's the way to get it done, folks.
I cannot believe this. They are talking about the World Cup on WIP. And taking "correspondents" to call in about all the teams. Where are the pigs. Someone go tell me where the pigs are flying.
Everyone should definitely call in and post what happens. Btw, I don't believe this is an accident. All the signs are pointing to greater interest in the World Cup and some decent momentum for a Philly MLS team.
Nah, nah. If it's the mid-day guys, they are down with the WC. Was it steve and anthony, or did you hear Eskin speaking of soccer...
More World Cup talk today during the mid-day show. They are mostly asking for people who are going to Germany to be their "scouts" and to call in and report. Sounds like they plan on watching the games. I'm glad I hear no bashing of the sport.
Anyone have an email address for Cuz? I tried to write him via his website and it got bounced back to me.
I know that I'm probably in the minority but every time the midday guys talk about the WC, I tend to shake my head. The reason being that is that they converse in this sarcastic tone. Especially Gargano, who tries to portray himself as this open-minded person. Them having correspondents is more to do with them hearing people from other countries, the idea being that world cup is "foreign", talk about the game, then actually being interested in the game. For Chrissakes, they had some Randy Newman song as the fight song for the US team, which I must admit was pretty humorous.