Just hours away from his final multi-hour Schmooze on WFAN (start time TBD, roughly 11 p.m., following Nets-Pelicans coverage), Steve Somers joined Carton & Roberts at the top of the 6 p.m. hour Friday as a preamble to his last show later in the shank of the evening.
“You realize, having me on could elevate both your male and female demographics,” Steve joked.
So, hours before the final show, has it hit Steve that tonight is the farewell?
“At the moment, it hasn’t really hit me that I’m going to be leaving something that was my life and breath and career, and it’s obviously going to be an adjustment going into the next chapter,” Somers said. “But, this is the cycle, in all businesses, and I’m very appreciative. How could you not be, being around WFAN in New York City for 34 years? I have to thank everyone who gave me that chance, that life and breath and career.”
But, in the vein of what Craig said earlier in the show about people not writing wonderful retrospectives of people until they come to an end, well, Schmooze had some thoughts on that.
“In a way, all this attention is so surreal, because I almost feel like I’m being eulogized,” Somers said. “It’s like we’re in the middle of a Shiva, where is the loss? Where’s the bagels and onions and tomatoes? It’s all very much appreciated, and listen, no one has made more mistakes than I have, but one thing I know: over the year, no one has been more forgiving and more loyal.”
Evan, who listened to Somers on overnights as a kid, admitted that his favorite Schmooze-ism is, despite his fandom, Steve calling Long Island’s sports team the “Icelanders” and their home arena the “Nassau Mausoleum.”
“Icelander fans hated me in the very beginning, but Ranger fans of course loved it,” Somers laughed. “In the very beginning, that really created a lot of static with Icelander fans, but at this point, it’s old hat.”
As for Craig, he revealed that Somers was the one on-air name who, when he and Boomer Esiason started their morning show run in 2007, reached out and was 100 percent supportive of them replacing Don Imus, and thanked Steve for that.
Steve, meanwhile, remembered how Craig returned the favor, a story Craig told on air this week.
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“It wasn’t hard, because when I was a kid, and I was just starting at various places, I remember mostly those people that extended their hand to me and offered if I ever needed help,” Somers said. “But, back in 2012, a bunch of us were at the New York Stock Exchange, and they wanted you and Boomer to ring the closing bell. You looked behind you, where I was standing, and said ‘Somers, come up here, you press this button, you’ve been here a long time.’ I only wish it helped some of my stocks rise, but I can’t forget that either when you were front and center.”
Steve then dropped a “Sacratomato” and a “THE Eddie Scozzare” when recalling his career highlights before heading to WFAN in 1987, and just how he got to THE FAN NEW YORK CITY!
“Luck, which is a combination of confidence and breaks! But if you looked at my high school yearbook, my dream was to be a New York sportscaster,” Somers said. “As a kid growing up on the west coast, this was the capital of the world to me, and when it came to sports, this was to me where it mattered more than anything. My agent at the time came close to getting me a job at Channel 4, and I also auditioned at WNBC-AM after Jack Spector died; the producer of all the auditions and Jack’s show was Mike Breen, and the guy who won the audition was Dave Sims, and a year and a half later, we both ended up here.”
Schmooze also dished on how he got his nickname and his relationship with Russ Salzberg on “The Sweater and The Schmoozer,” how he felt about doing middays instead of his usual evenings and overnights, and much, much more…and to cap it off, Steve told a story that encapsulates his 34-plus years in a nutshell.
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“The first night I was on the air I had on Ken O’Brien, Darryl Strawberry, and Warner Wolf, and I was getting feedback from callers!” he said. “And I remember saying on-air that if I fail here and get fired here, it ain’t gonna be because of lack of effort; I’m going to give it my all for every single program I do, and if it doesn’t work, I’ll live with it, but I reached my dream. It’s a six-hour flight from the west coast, but it took me 22 years to make that flight. This has been the greatest part of my life, because it wasn’t a job, it was a labor of love, and it was 100 percent a dream come true – and it wouldn’t be if it wasn’t for that audience that gave me a chance in the beginning, and I’ll never forget them.”
Unfortunately, it’s almost time to wake up from the dream; the final three-hour(ish) Schmooze runs 11 p.m. Friday to 2 a.m. Saturday, and then, from 1-2 p.m. Monday, Steve will take Moose & Maggie’s final hour to say his final goodbye as a full-time employee, officially ending a full-time run at 34 years, four months, 13 days, and 23 hours – check our math on that, but that seems to be the time difference from 3 p.m. July 1, 1987 to 2 p.m.
Nov. 15, 2021!
Both shows are sure to be jam packed with guests and callers saying goodbye to the Schmoozer, so tune in! Perhaps one final call from Jerome from Queens, for whom we finally got the genesis of the Somers-Seinfeld connection?
“I went to the bodega one night to get some ice cream. He had been at a comedy club with George Wallace, and they were there, and of course, looking in the cereal section. I did a double take as I was about to pay for the ice cream and leave, and I saw Seinfeld, also casually dressed and wearing a Mets hat. I thought about it for a second, going up to him, and I thought, well, the worst thing he could say was leave me alone! I gave him the first, last, and only business card I ever gave out, and he looked at the card, looked up, made eye contact, and said ‘you’re Steve Somers? I listen to you and you’re not too bad!’ I said I’d love to have him on, and that Monday was the first time I had him on.”
Follow WFAN's afternoon team on Twitter: @CartonRoberts, @EvanRobertsWFAN, @TommyLugauer, and @CMacWFAN
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