One of the most legendary names in sports radio and one of the pillars of WFAN was inducted into the Radio Hall of Fame on Tuesday night.
Chris "Mad Dog" Russo, the other half to the legendary "Mike and the Mad Dog," was enshrined as one of the legends of radio, and of course had to look back on his early days at the FAN, and what eventually led to the groundbreaking and industry-defining radio show that was heard on afternoons on WFAN for nearly two decades.
"My agent at the time got me a little spot at WFAN which just started," Mad Dog said during his enshrinement speech. "I screamed and yelled about that, 'Queensboro Bridge, Mets can't win a game, I'm sick of the Yankees.' All of a sudden, the great Don Imus got a hold of it, the great Don Imus. 'Who is this Mad Dog that I'm hearing on weekends screaming and yelling?' He puts me on the updates, screaming and yelling."
Eventually, an opportunity opened up to start a new daytime show with Mike Francesa.
"Mark Mason, the program director, decided, 'We've got Mike Francesa over here, this Russo is a lively son of a gun, let's try them,'" Mad Dog recalled. "It was Labor Day 1989. Nineteen years later, five hours a day…did World series shows in every ballpark you can think of. NBA Finals, Knicks were good then. The '94 Rangers won a Stanley Cup. Bulls/Suns, NBA Finals.
"We did that show five hours a day, five days a week, for nineteen years. That's a lot of sports talk."
Mad Dog's radio career has spanned four decades now, and has spread to other platforms, but radio will always be home.
"Radio is what I enjoy most," Mad Dog said. "Radio brings out personality. You can be you….radio is a personality medium."
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