PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — The deadline of an assignment I’ve been given by Angelo Cataldi for his morning radio show is getting closer. It needs to be done and it needs to be excellent. Cataldi is counting on me. Do it right, or else.
Or else what?
Getting yelled at? Being in his bad graces?
I don’t want to find out.
All I know is the urge to live up to his expectations is strong. But time is running out. My heart is pounding. What am I going to do?
Then I wake up and the nightmare is over.
It’s just another in a series of dreams I’ve had sporadically over the years, anxiety in the dead of night even long after I stopped working on Cataldi’s show.
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Cataldi, 71, is retiring after 33 years as the lead host of the 94WIP Morning Show when the Philadelphia Eagles season ends. Profiles and farewell articles are piling up.
And for good reason. For more than three decades, he delivered excellent ratings during the most listened-to hours in radio. The success of his show was a testament to him and his teammates placing themselves in the shoes of the listeners – his fellow sports fans – by figuring out what was important to them. It took work ethic and dedication every day.
But that journey didn’t come without stress for staffers like me, and bumps in the road for the guy behind the mic.
In a recent sit-down exit interview, Cataldi and I talked about his drive for perfection, my recurrent nightmares, and details about the darkest moments of his career.
What was Cataldi like to work with?
I know the answer to that. I lived it.
For about a decade starting in 2009, I had a variety of behind-the-scenes roles with the Morning Show on WIP, a longtime sister station of KYW Newsradio.
I know Cataldi the radio host better than most.
So – already knowing the answer – I asked him: “What do you think it was like to work with Angelo Cataldi?”
“It was not easy,” Cataldi said. “And I’ll tell you exactly why: I’m demanding. I have an enormously high standard that I aspire to every day. And I hold the people that work with me to that standard, to the point where I can’t imagine some days what they’re saying after I walk out.”
His zero-tolerance for a product that was anything less than excellent was, for me, inspiring. He over-prepared for his show, began prep for the next day shortly after the previous program concluded, and arrived at the station a couple of hours before hitting the air.
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He expected the same from his staff. If you were getting information for him, he wanted it in a timely fashion. You couldn’t “hit and run” the assignment either, but it also couldn’t be a “book report.” It had to be concise enough to repeat on the air clearly.
If you were getting a soundbite for him, it had to start and end exactly where he felt was most effective.
If you were producing a piece of audio for him, like a highlight montage, you had to anticipate his sound design expectations.
If he went to a caller who wasn’t there, even though you did your job moments earlier to make sure the caller was there, he would be aggravated. It was an awkward moment in the show. That bothered him.
As a staffer, if you could manage to please Cataldi, it felt like you could manage to please anyone.
“I’m a Type-A,” said Cataldi, “and I’m a perfectionist.”
If 99% of a show went well, but one minute didn’t, Cataldi said he would take that minute home with him.
“And I go, ‘Why did that happen? How can that happen?’ And I lash out. I’ll say, ‘Why did you mess that up?’ And when it’s me, I’ll just kick my own butt for the next day,” he said.
The formula to getting by on the job was simple – work hard, be prepared, be energetic, show personality, bring ideas to the table, don’t overstep and don’t be annoying.
And, absolutely, positively don’t fall asleep.
“If you’re not helping the show, you’re hurting the show,” he explained. “And I protect it like it’s a kid.”
On my very first day as a morning show intern in May 2009, I walked into the station at Two Bala Plaza at 4:30 a.m. having not yet met Cataldi. I introduced myself and a second later he asked me to find Jimmy Rollins’ on-base percentage. There was no formal introduction, no pleasantries.
“I’ll tell you what’s going on in my head in that moment,” Cataldi said in our exit interview. “I’ve got a show to do in an hour and a half. I’ve got somebody here to help me with it. Let’s get to work.”
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Looking back now, Cataldi admits there were times he went too far.
“I had to understand these are human beings, and there are times when there are other things that take precedence over that. And that’s when I became ridiculous,” he said.
For as engaging and provocative as Cataldi was on the radio, he considers himself an introvert — a self-described “shut in” — when not on the job.
“The people that I work with – and I love them, and I love working with them – other than Rhea [Hughes], and only in the last five years, none of them are really friends of mine.”
Al Morganti and Cataldi have known each other since the 1980s when they both wrote for the Philadelphia Inquirer. And they were neighbors, but Cataldi said: “I don’t even have his number in my cell phone.” Of former Flyer Keith Jones, who Cataldi values enormously, he says “Outside of WIP, we don’t talk very much. There’s not really much there.”
‘It hasn’t been perfect in my life, because I’ve given so much of it over to the job.’
Growing up, newspapers were the medium of choice for Cataldi, a graduate of the Columbia University School of Journalism. In no way was Cataldi naturally a radio guy. Most of his early years on air were about learning how to put the reporting and journalism aside to become an entertainer.
His first couple of years full-time at WIP, Cataldi was paired with Eagles Hall of Famer Tom Brookshier in “Brookie and the Rookie.”
Brookshier, in addition to being a champion with the 1960 Eagles, was an established broadcaster with CBS calling NFL games. Cataldi said Brookshier was his backbone.
Then, Brookshier retired – turning the lead chair to Cataldi.
“And a year into that,” he admitted, “the pressure was building and building and building.”
His commitment to the show was affecting his personal life, so much so that he says it’s one of the main reasons he got divorced from his first wife.
“Over the course of the first five years I did it, it totally took over my existence,” Cataldi said.
“Three years in, I was in a bad spot … I wasn’t sure I was going to be able to do it. And I ended up getting some help. I was off for three weeks when I was in a clinical depression because I couldn’t deal with the pressure of doing a show.”
He said he needed therapy and antidepressants.
“I really had to deal with it,” Cataldi said. “And my marriage didn’t survive. It was too much pressure. It was too much stress, and I had a period there of transition … The people around me understood that I was probably paying more attention to that job than I was to anything else. And that has been the way it’s been. It hasn’t been perfect in my life because I’ve given so much of it over the job.”
He said he was able to get through that difficult period after receiving enough positive feedback on the show and leaning on the people around him.
“By the fifth or sixth year, I started to get enough confidence to think I could do it.”
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‘I’m sorry for all of you … You deserve better’
Cataldi was not a caricature. I never saw fake outrage. Yes, he yelled, screamed and shouted on-air, but those were his true opinions and personality amplified through a microphone, “for theatrical purposes because we’re on a radio station, “ he said. “But it is absolutely who I am.”
That doesn’t mean there weren’t things he didn’t regret when it came to radio career.
Cataldi said the biggest regret he ever had was something he said in 1993 during a break to a Philadelphia Magazine reporter who was in studio. He remembers suggesting Phillies right fielder Jim Eisrenreich, who has Tourette Syndrome, was ridiculing manager Jim Fregosi.
That quote was included in the article.
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“What am I doing? What’s wrong with me? Why would I do something like that?” Cataldi remembers himself thinking when he read the piece. “And it was being swept up in the moment trying to be funny, when it wasn’t funny. And that one’s always carried with me. I’ve carried that with me all these years.”
He admitted he deserved to be fired then, but “people were more accepting and they shouldn’t have been.”
Cataldi loved “the pulpit” of talk radio, but acknowledged there’s also the “bully pulpit, and you’re screaming at somebody because you don’t like what they said. And they’re not able to defend themselves. And you’ll go to break after you did it – you really call him an idiot, jerk, all this stuff – you go to a break and go, ‘Why did I do that? What was the point? Oh, boy, what a tough guy I am. I was able to out-talk somebody else.’ No.
“I still do it,” he said. “I would love to say I learned from all of it, but you get swept up in the moment and you’re trying to perform at the same time and there’s plenty of those that I’d love to have back. I wish … I’ll use this as an opportunity. I’m sorry for all of you. I was trying to do my job and got too swept up in it. You deserve better.”
‘It’s all about what the next game is.’
While there are regrets, Cataldi listed many things he is proud of – from his work ethic, to being a training ground for others to have successful media careers, to getting through the pandemic with several months without sports.
He’s proud they kept WIP going, especially in the early years when he says there were rumors it was going to be changed to a religious station, but they made enough money to keep the sports format.
Over 30 years in the same time slot in sports media is rare. But as much attention as he’s getting now, Cataldi doesn’t believe he’ll be remembered for very long.
“It’s always who the next guy is, and the next guy will come in. In my case, it will be Joe DeCamara and that crew and I think they’ll do fine. And I think a year from now, people will go, ‘Oh yeah, I remember he did it,” he said.
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“But I don’t think it’ll leave a major impression. I don’t think it should. I think in our job, it’s all about what the next game is and what the next opportunity to challenge is, and I’m not going to be in that loop anymore. So, I accept that. I understand it. The fact that I got 33 years in this arena is pretty good. I’ll take it.”
For many sports fans in the Philadelphia region, Cataldi has provided a three-decade-long forum to complain, celebrate, cheer and dissect what happens with our favorite teams.
For me, I credit Cataldi and his team for welcoming me into the business and confirming for me the type of work ethic needed to be the best.
So, nightmares and all, I’ll take it too.