Watchdog

No kidding - it seems whenever I'm in South Jersey and tune in to WIP, they're still parsing Andy Reid's decision to punt on 4th-and-long late in the playoff game against the Saints, almost 2 years ago.

Which is why I live in the Philly suburbs and listen to WFAN more often.

Same here, Jim. I've lived in Philly all my life, but the nonstop football talk is hard to take, particularly during the NFL offseason. When they do talk about the Phils, it's usually to trot out the same tired old rants about ownership, etc.; almost never about what's happening on the field. But that's what management says fans in Philly want, and with recent hires like Hugh Douglas and Ike Reese, it's laughable hearing them try to talk about anything other than pro football.

Now that the Eagles are several years away from their last serious run, it's almost sad hearing people in April dissecting who the third- string tight end will be, for example.

Both are CBS Radio stations, and since WFAN comes in well throughout the Philly area, maybe they realize that serious sports fans -- particularly baseball fans -- can jump up the dial to get their fill. Thankfully!

Philly sports fans should make the move to 950 AM ASAP. It has Jodie Mac and Mike Missinelli and another show hosted by some guys I don't know.

They certainly have their Eagles talk but they have a LOT more Phillies/Sixers/Flyers/Big 5 college hoops talk. In fact, I would def. say that in the baseball-season months there is way more Phillies talk on the station.

WIP 610 is for bozos. Angelo Cataldi and Howard Eskin are amongst the worst broadcasters in the world. The 950 guys actually treat callers w/ respect.

The only problem w/ the station is it's also an ESPN station, so far a large portion of the day you have to listen to that. It's not bad but it's pretty generic.

One of the all-time most surreal nights of my life came when listening to WIP's weekend overnight show hosted by the completely ignorant Paul Jollowitz. I listen to this show whenever I can because when the show gets more and more insane when more and more people leave the bars.

On this show in particular, Jolly didn't want to talk sports. Instead, the topic was "Who interests you the most." The rule was you could not mention anyone in sports. Also, he wanted people to guess who he thought was the most interesting.

Emotionally-stunted WIP listeners kept on saying things like "Andy Reid" or "Andy Reid. When Jolly asked them to say someone outside of sports, awkward silence followed before a nervous hang-up.

Jolly kept on saying how no one would guess who his most interesting person was. The second caller guessed Warren Buffet and was right. There went Jolly's bit for the next seven hours!

The week of the very first interleague series between the Mets and the Yankees, I had to go to State College for a conference. The first part of the trip, I listened to FAN talking about how wonderful the game the previous night had been. Then, when FAN stopped coming in, I switched to WIP, and listened to the callers complain that the Eagles' season was OVER (mind you, this was before training camp had begun!). The host tried to work up some Flyers talk, but all the callers wanted to talk about was that the Eagles' season was OVER.

Let's face it, the screeners on these talk radio shows determine what the subject(s) will be discussed. If the hare-brained WIP hosts wanted to talk about anything other than the Eagles, they would. When I go back there to visit my family (I was born and raised in Philly but moved away in 1987 due to a job promotion and transfer), I listen to 950 instead of 610. I couldn't stand Howard Eskin when I lived there, and he's only gotten worse. He's become his own caricature!H eloves nothing more than the sound of his own voice.