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When Mike North wasn't on air on Monday, it seemed like the typical negotiating ploy that stations use against on-air talent as contract renewals approach. Instead North found out on yesterday, via e-mail, that The Score (670AM) rescinded their last offer and he's finished with the station after 16 years.
North believed he might be on the way out at The Score—management was openly exploring other options, and there have been rumors for a while that he'd be losing his morning slot. After a Friday meeting in which North refused WSCR's offer once again, they benched him and then cut him loose.
Without a chance to say goodbye to his listeners on-air, he posted his farewell on his website.
One of the original voices of the station, he helped build The Score into a sports radio powerhouse that competes head-to-head with ESPN Radio (1000AM) for listeners in Chicago. North is synonymous with Chicago sports talk, so we don't expect him to be off air for very long. Longtime rival ESPN Radio seems like the logical place for him to land. They could add him in their midday slot between Mike & Mike and the Mike Terico Show to give their listeners nine hours of Mikes. He's certainly be an upgrade on the current Waddle & Silvy show.
And how does The Score replace a legend like North? Phil Rosenthal thinks that the Sun-Times's Jay Mariotti would be a natural. We can only imagine the number of time the "dump button" gets used as callers tell Jay what they really think about him.
Photo via NorthtoNorth.com
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Mike North is an upgrade? Mike North is an upgrade over nothing, he only makes things worse. The only reason he's still around after years of racist bullshit comments is because no one even knows him outside of Chicago. Time for him to go back to running numbers out of his hot dog stand
Woo-Hoo!
One less old racist white guy on the radio.
Lawrence Holmes would be a great replacement for the racist asshole.
Lawrence Holmes...also an asshole. A poor man's Stephen A. Smith, who's also an asshole. Sports talk radio: an asshole's paradise. The Score is really the dumping ground for radio's assholes. Lawrence Holmes, Mike North, Bored & Bernstein, Chris Rongey...smirking assholery at it's finest.
He looks like a trouble maker.
I would pay money to hear Jay Mariotti have to take phone calls for 3 hours a day. I've never heard a grown man sob uncontrollably on radio.
I WANT THAT T-SHIRT!
I'm sure you can purchase Mike's shirt in the "Papi Wear" section of his website. Also available there, Papi Wear Zubazz
i miss monsters of the midday.
This was LONG over due.
Mike North, tell me how my ass tastes?
I don't care who they put on or when, just about anybody is better than that old d-bag.
Mike North is a jag bag.
It's about damn time. North has been a plague on that station for too many years. Now what they need to do is give Mulligan and Hanley the 6-10 slot full-time, get rid of Mike Murphy, and put Laurence Holmes, Zach Zaidman and Matt Abbatacola on from 10-2.
F Mariotti
I can handle Murphy but I'd be very happy if Bores and Bernstein were shown the same door as North.
Matt Abbatacola. What a name.
replace North with Mariotti? that's like going around your elbow to get to your asshole. Seriously, while North offered relatively no insight on the air in terms of sports, I don't see how Mariotti would be a better fit.
Thank god. Mike and Mike are ok, but I want to hear local news in the morning and North makes my ears bleed.
If Mike North was a woman, there would no need to wear that t-shirt, it would be known right away.
JG: I never understood why people like Mike Murphy. And I'm not saying that to be snarky; it's that I seriously don't get it and nobody has ever given me any sort of explanation. So if you can explain it to me, I'm all ears.
Boers and Bernstein, while assholes, are fairly intelligent, which is more than I can say about Mike Murphy. Yes, they've taken the asshole thing to some new extremes lately - a friend of mine suggests they've perhaps gone feral - but I find them infinitely more listenable than Murphy or North.
The problem with Mike North, Boers and Bernstein, Jay F-ing Mariotti, and some of the rest is that being a tool has become an end in itself. They are not being smart-assed commentators. They are just being smart-asses. It gets so tiresome to listen to. It's like spending too much time with a bunch of 15 year old boys.
Boers and Bernstein's demolition of the Vinnie del Negro press conference was a great example of this. Vinne del Negro has not coached a second in Chicago. He may be in over his head. He may not be. However, B&B just added a bunch of snarky bitchiness to the press conference, not insight.
I hope Rick Telander et al. catch Jay F-ing Mariotti in an alley behind the Mart and whip his little monkey ass.
I don't really care one way or another for Mike Murphy but how can you put Boers and Bernstein above anyone else? The disdain I hear in their voices is ASTONISHING. I mean real hatred and disdain for whatever they're talking about or whichever caller they're talking to. Bernstein is more guilty than Bores but they're both very hateful people.
sports, radio. each brings joy.
add them up and you will find
a wealth of jag bags.
See, I don't see it that way, Mike, though I see how one could.
The problem I have with Mike Murphy and Mike North is that both allowed stupid people to prattle endlessly. Boers and Bernstein don't, and personally, I dig that. Yes, they take it to extremes at times and make very liberal use of the caller cutoff button, but 9 times out of 10, it's warranted, at least in my mind.
Besides, while B&B may be the angriest, they are definitely not the only ones to show an active disdain for stupid callers. Laurence Holmes, who I think very highly of, does it. Chris Rongey, who I can take or leave, also does it.
The other thing that Boers and Bernstein do that comes off as hatred/disdain is force people to stick to the topic and back up their opinions. If a caller suggests something they disagree with, they make said caller back it up with facts and if the caller can't do that, they call him/her out.
Don't get me wrong, Mike, B&B are very *angry* people. But hateful? I don't think so.
thoms, true there is such disdain in bernstiens voice it's ridiculous. he's has been so bad lately. it sounds like he's not enjoying his cushy ass job. he gets so bent out of shape when he doesn't like what a caller is saying. i can barely listen to them anymore.
Sports talk radio: an asshole's paradise.
Been spendin' most our lives livin' in an asshole's paradise.....
The Score should be put down. This, as least, is a good first step.
The comments in this posting demonstrate the fine minds you find among sports fans.
The man got paid a million dollars a year to criticize other millionaires playing a childrens game owned by billionares and he still didn't think that was enough?
Pro sports is a massive waste of time.
"Pro sports is a massive waste of time."
I agree with you. They should shorten the breaks between innings/halves/quarters/bathroom breaks.
.
.
.
.
Oh, that's not what you meant. You were being a snob. Sorry for the misunderstanding.
I usually switch off Murphy but I find him tolerable, probably because he's not a prick. Bores and Bernstein just come off as smug pricks. I do appreciate that they push their callers but their snarky attitudes just kill me. Overall you're dealing with a lower common denominator with sports radio but I do like to keep up with what's going on sportswise in the city. I guess the embrace of the lower common denominator is the appeal of Mac, Jurko and Harry. Those guys can be pretty funny sometimes and I don't feel the need to jump through the radio and rip their smug tongues out of their heads.
"Pro sports is a massive waste of time."
Translation: I'd rather spend my time reading Pitchfork and being told what new bands are cool.
HA!
See how simple your thinking is? Someone who doesn't like pro sports must be a hipster with Sigur Ros blaring while he writes Jim Dero another love/hate twitter.
No, I'd rather PLAY softball than spend 100 bucks to go watch a bunch of over-paid steroid jockeys. Millionaires owned by Billionaires gouging the fans.
Hell, go watch a Schaumburg Flyers game. Players who are there for the love of the game (most of them are holding down other jobs), cheap seats and food and great atmosphere. Modern sports is about the spectacle, the argument and the great glowing god of television.
And calling up a radio station and speaking in the royal "We" ("We got a tough road trip coming, we gotta hold our own") is pretty sad guys.
As sad as berating other people for their hobbies?
"Modern sports is about the spectacle, the argument and the great glowing god of television."
Yes. What's your point? That's fun to some of us.
I could mount a very detailed argument about how professional sports teams bilk billions out of local and state governments for stadiums. Money better spent...well...anywhere, but you'd simply rebut that shoring up the financial concerns of the Reisndorf's is a good use for tax dollars.
Not to mention all the other attendant costs that come with professional sports. A private enterprise that gleefully sucks down tax money while adding nothing of any real value (employment for millionaire ballplayers? Andy Frain and concessions?) to their communities. Wrigleyville is a drunken cesspool 90 odd days a year and Sox Park might as well be a sealed enviornment into which white people are funneled like hamsters then trundled back to their homes.
But when you say this.
Yes. What's your point? That's fun to some of us.
I realize that you've come to a battle of wits unarmed and call it a day.
I may have come back to this too late, but the fact that "Wrigleyville" exists puts paid to your argument that professional sports is a mere drain on the public. That entire neighborhood, with the entertainment employment, home prices, etc. is driven by proximity to Wrigley Field, home of a professional baseball team.
This is the great failure of the Cell. It has never been leveraged into a community driver. The United Center is also lagging in this regard.
Now dump the other bigot, T.B. and I will listen much, more. D.B. used to be great but too much time teamed with T.B. has soured him. When D.B. works with anyone else...he improves a bunch. L.H. is real good. SCORE should get J. Hood back!
I dont mind disagreeing with the sports radio personalities, but M.N., T.B., J.M. suck right over the edge, as in turn the radio off.