Left-handed compliments
One of my favorite Giants blogs, El Lefty Malo, has a Q&A with me in which we discuss Horace Stoneham, Darryl Spencer, Barry Bonds, and more. It’s a lot of fun, check it out!
Me and the Mad Dog
Dan Fost, Christopher "Mad Dog" Russo, Harry Barker-Fost
Last week, I received something precious in my e-mail: A digital recording of the half-hour I had spent on the radio with Christopher “Mad Dog” Russo. You can listen to it here (look for the link to Mad Dog on that page), and I figure with the Giants ready to take on the Mets in New York – the city of the Giants’ birth and their greatest successes, and home base of one of their most avid fans – it would be appropriate to recount in greater detail that marvelous experience.
I have had some great radio experiences since my book was published, but none quite like the half hour I spent with Russo on “Mad Dog Radio” in New York in April. True to his nickname, Russo is a rabid Giants fan, with a deep knowledge that he can summon at a rapid rate.
Russo told me he became a Giants fan when he was eight years old. His father, a jeweler, took him to see the Giants play the Phillies in Philadelphia – this would have been around 1970 – and they went to the Giants’ hotel. “I got all of their autographs, except Willie Mays,” he told me. “Mays wouldn’t sign.”
Of such encounters, fandom begins, even for a kid on Long Island – even for someone who rose to become a kingpin of New York sports talk radio. Kudos to Russo for staying true to his team, in the face of all those Yankees and Mets fans! His Giants cred was sealed after the 2003 season, when he was still on WFAN on the “Mike and the Mad Dog” show; he went on a beautiful rant after that never-shoulda-happened loss to the Marlins, culminating in, “Just one lousy goddamn time!”
We had a spirited conversation, going through Giants history from John McGraw, through Bill Terry, Mel Ott and Leo Durocher, and through the 1960s, the Arctic years of the 1970s and ‘80s, and the return to glory with Will Clark and then Barry Bonds. We picked the 1962 Giants as the best team ever in San Francisco, although we also liked 1993 and 2002. He blamed Horace Stoneham for the failures in San Francisco; I agreed, but spread it a little wider.
We capped it off with a fantastic exercise, where Russo asked me to name my top 10 Giants of all time. With his help, our list: Mays, Christy Mathewson, Bonds, Willie McCovey, Juan Marichal, Buck Ewing, Ott, Carl Hubbell, Orlando Cepeda (questionable only for the duration of his Giants’ tenure) and Terry. We think Tim Lincecum is heading there, but hasn’t played long enough to earn the spot.
We agreed that Willie Mays was the best Giant of all time. I pick him as best player of all time; Russo says that’s Babe Ruth, because he could pitch as well; and that Joe DiMaggio was a better hitter.
Russo was also a generous host, and allowed my wife and son into the small Sirius studio; that’s my son, Harry, in the photo with me and the Mad Dog. (Footnote to a near close-encounter: As we signed in at the Sirius studios on the 36th floor of the McGraw Hill building in midtown Manhattan, I could see that a few minutes earlier, author Kitty Kelley – touting her new book on Oprah Winfrey – had signed in on the same ledger.)