Darren you sound like you ate some of Carmen Defalco's bitter grapes.

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Is 600,000 a lot of money? Sure. But, for every Danny Mac there are about 20 guys that either tried to make big on air and failed and are doing something else, or guys that are making peanuts. I have a buddy that tried to break into the biz a few years ago. The guys is still trying, he has to work an office job all day and host a show at night. You say that there are a lot of guys that could do their job--I doubt Joe from Wheaton would get the ratings that Mac and North get.

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"YOU GOTTA BE BLEEPING ME"

I would agree that it's a difficult job to get, and you have to be fortunate enough to climb the latter in a lot of cases just to even have a chance of an opportunity at being heard on the air, much less getting a regular show.

Agree that you need a certain personality and the chance, which is rare.

I do give Mike North credit for taking the oppurtinity and running with it, he outshined every other guy 'in radio' because if it did not work, he goes back to a hot dog stand. So in a way, Mike had much less to lose than someone who has been doing updates on another stationa dn this is all they wanted to do and would never do something to risk it. Like go and ask Pat riley dumb questions.

So while I give North credit for making his own bed, it's not like he has some special talent that he should be paid for like he is a 'unique' talent.

If they want another Mike North just have some tryouts and I am sure you can find him, and maybe even a guy with a degree of intelligence that would have a wider appeal than just the idiots he grew up with.

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"Woof Woof"

North was one of four people who created sports talk radio in this city. Don't kid yourself, charisma is an incredibly unique gift.

I hate when anyone gives him credit for inventing sports radio. Chet Coppock, Chuck Swirsky, these guys created it and the guy from XRT saw the real oppurtunity to try it fulltime.

Charisma, is a trait Mike North has, but he is not the only one and every group of guys can come up with one friend I bet that could have done what Mike has done. One guy that is a loud mouth nut, that makes everyone else laugh.

Mike's show is far from entertaining, but as a great example when Monday rolls around and I want to hear some breakdown of the Bears game my options are limited. I can go to Mike and Mike and hear very limited Bear commentary or I can go to north and he can tell me everything he predicted and got right, everything he told Fred would happen and how smart he is.

I do then turn his show off, just out of disapointing information and know that I can listen to a disc in my car , go to my office, get some work done and then at 10 AM I can turn on Mulligan and hear someone that has something to really say, outside of what he ate during the game and how smart he is compared to the coaches.

to say Mike North invented Sports talk radio is like telling my Maury Povich is a great reporter and started shock talk shows.

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Think before you speak

I'm sure this will shock you , but I totally agree with you. While I don't care for what North has become, he certainly deserves tremendous credit for helping create sports talk in Chicago. I remember Swarsky's first show and Coppock in the early years, but North accelerated the growth. All the morons on now owe him a deep sense of gratitude.

Just think, without North that bedwetting pussy Bernstein would have had to use his expensive education.

Well as he told Harry, "I really have my heart set on being a newscaster."

Each of those deserve credit to an extent. Comparing those days of sports talk radio to today is like comparing pre Ruth era baseball to post Ruth era. The medium has progressed far past those shows.

For the record I believe "The Sports Writers" on WGN radio pre-dated both Swirskey & certainly Coppock. In fact despite what Chet would have you believe there were other less notable sports-talk figures on the air prior to his emergence.

Not that it really matters, but I believe North is actually taking home around $1.5 million.