Mike breaking down the AL East at the top of the show today. Talking about the Sox, "they got Varitek to catch sometimes, the kid Bard will back him up."
Uhhhhh, Mike.
I don't really understand why you're so down on Francesca. Sports talk radio is a smoking ruin of a wasteland for the most part, and he's clearly one of the bright spots.
He talks sports, and mostly only sports. Once in a while he talks movies or restaurants, and very rarely politics, but mostly it's just sports. He never does any of the stupid guy talk schtick a lot of hosts like.
And he actually does know a lot, and is willing to be educated. When callers propose silly lineups with some fast guy at the top, Mike's the guy who says that nope, that can't work because he just doesn't get on base enough, that his OBP is too low.
Just yesterday, he spent a little time talking about Schilling, Pedro Martinez, and Nolan Ryan. He mentioned Schilling's BB-K ratio, and how important that was. He offered a very sensible comparison of Pedro and Ryan, pointing out that Ryan is very over-rated, and that Pedro was on a different plane as a pitcher, going back to citing Pedro's 1999 stats and comparing them to Ryan ca. 1974. He compared their ERA records to their league averages, and even mentioned ERA+ in talking about Pedro. Of course, idiot callers call up defending Ryan, and Francesca explains pretty coherently why Pedro is much greater than Nolan Ryan.
He can be pompous and he's not always right, but he's right more than almost anyone else on the radio, does a great job with the interviews, and is a fairly calm and sensible guy who pretty much just straightforwardly talks sports.
Who's better than Francesca? No one at all on WEEI probably. Dale and Holley are inoffensive I guess, but not that interesting. Pretty much everyone else is a joke. On WFAN there's really no one. Boomer and Carton are fun, but not at all comparable. Roberts and Benigno are no good. Schmoozer is hit or miss and lately mostly miss. Malousis is awful. Mike and Mike, eh, not so much for me. There's Mad Dog, who's fun, but he's on Sirius which I don't get, and honestly I think as a single host Mike is probably better.