You are dismissing it and explaining to people why they like it without the benefit of ever being a listener. You have no working knowledge of it at all. That really is quite an impressive skill.

I stopped listening around 2012. While you say that I am grasping at straws at least I can provide reasons as to why I feel the way that I feel. You haven't provided anything other people remembering things from their youth or whatever fondly. No I remember it as a better period for me based upon level of interest. I used to wake to the score and listen until they went off the air. I listened to every show including Murph's though I didn't particularly care for him. Its not necessarily remembering it fondly as much as it was me caring about it more then.

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I've acknowledged that it may have been the greatest radio ever done in history. I honestly don't know. However, if that is true, it doesn't make sense that the best show after 2000 was "tolerable at its best" when many of those same people stuck around and there is no reason it should have went from amazing to "tolerable at best" for one show.

I am not arguing about how good or bad that the 90s Chicago sports radio scene was. You are grasping at straws by trying to turn it into that.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

Dahl was great in the 80s and 90s but has sucked in the 2000s.

The talent isn't static even within the same person

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O judgment! Thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason.

That is a 20 year run though and we are talking about multiple people here.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

2000 isn't some magical point of delineation.

However, there isn't any young talent out there. I'm not stressing the word talent because it is probably out there. Stations don't seem interested in finding and fostering talent within the talk genre. Jason Goff is considered young but he is only starting at an age when guys like North and Mac were already established.

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O judgment! Thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason.

What do you mean?

ltg mentioned two shows(heavy fuel crew and North and Jiggetts) as the only two shows better than Boers and Bernstein while calling B&B "tolerable at its best".

I believe you like MJH a lot too. So did I. I just found B&B to eventually be the better show though it is not any more.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

I think another thing you are missing is that radio had a future to any guy getting into the industry prior to 2000.

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O judgment! Thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason.

That's essentially my point. Bernstein started at the score during the mid 90's and had his own show pre 2000. There hasn't been one guy post 2000 to reach the heights that North, Boers, MacNeil and even Jiggetts reached. That is quite telling.

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I'm countering your statement that those who were good pre 2000 couldn't be bad now.

I've liked lots of radio post 2000: MJH, occasionally B and B, drinky and Goff, Hood in his various forms.

One of my favorite sports talk radio shows of all time was a quirky show on an obscure station on Sunday nights called Bears-Packers Showdown.

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O judgment! Thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason.

My favorite talk show of all was Coppock on Sports. It's the main reason that I started listening to sports on the radio and I continued to listen once he was canceled. His shtick wasn't for everyone but it worked for me. It was also the first place that I got to hear Boers as he was a regular on the show.

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It wouldn't make sense that it all would be bad though, or at least the best being "tolerable at its best".

I think there has been plenty of good past 2000. It is ltg that says the best that we have had in the past 16 years is "tolerable at its best" while the first 8 years was some sort of amazing radio.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

You are overstating as you often do. I never said it was amazing, but it is considered the best Era in Chicago radio history. May not be saying much. I just find your ability to refute without the benefit of ever having given a listen to be quite the feat.

When I say tolerable I'm providing my opinion and it is strange that you take offense to me stating my opinion. I never thought that B&B was great radio even at its best. At least I actually listened and can provide a rationale. You have made it a 90's issue not me. I could care less about that. The fact that no one post 2000 has really risen to fill the void left by 3 of the 4 major yakkers from the 90's does say something about the state of radio in this city. It's weak and has been for a number of years.

Where is the good? M&J. Speegs/Mac Speegs/Goff. How about Carmen Jurko. Where is all of this compelling radio. MJH is the only other show that was ever really talked about on this board yet there was great radii taking place.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

I am also a long time guy so to speak as far as radio listening. I don't want to be a part of your talent post 2000 back and forth. My feeling or opinion on why some think sports talk is bad now versus earlier times is content or attitude. The idea back in what I think the heyday was that it was just some sports guys talking and shooting the shit. Taking calls and even some real oddball characters like North, Les or Murph. There did not seem to be some need to break news or in some cases make shit up to move the meters.

I really do not think the decision whenever it occurred to go TMZ or socially aware radio was a good one. This was started even before Penn State. The need to over analyze every aspect of the headlines especially ever arrest or scandal of athletics is boring and lazy. Outside of a 20 minute segment there really is zero reason to go wall to wall on some Jacksonville Jaguar's DUI or Baylor date rape unless there is a very strong and direct local angle.

There is little now at times to differentiate the score from any other national show or Extra TV show. Sure they have the local teams but there seem to keep going to some larger story or issue that isn't necessary. There is a very good reason why the score smoked AM1000 in the early days. It was local and it was simple. Not to much more to it that that I think.

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Elections have consequences.

Agreed mike.

Sports radio used to be the outsiders and had freedom. Since the corporatiztion, that isn't there anymore and it likely never will be again.

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It is not even a 90's 2000's thing for me either. Brick attempted to make it about that. There were a lot of terrible shows back then also. I didn't care for Murph, Shaer, Bull and the Bear, either. Memolo was always cool to me and I was a big JHOOd fan. I think that I have evolved as a person more than anything and that is probably the single biggest reason for me. You get older and develop different interests. I do hate to turn on the radio and hear stuff not related to sports though.

as far as the TMZ stuff I didn't want even if there is a local angle. I think that is best left to news shows. I hated the Rodman stuff. The gossipy soap aspect of sports has been building for a long time now. Its one of the reasons couldn't get into Mariotti. I liked shows like the sportswriters. They just simply talked sports. They didn't concentrate on side shows. Now the side show has morphed into the sports side of things to the point where that is all you hear about.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

The Score- at least until this most recent round of management changes- was still a lot looser than ESPN. The thing is though, the station has been completely bernsteinized, and bernstein is nothing if not a corporate lackey.

It's funny how much management and the sponsors really don't know or understand their customers/targets. Mac is constantly getting suspended, yet all you have to do is read this board and you'd know that bernstein offends and upsets far more people than Mac ever has and he's a teflon host. Hell, I might even buy some unlabeled wine if Mac was selling it.

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Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Elon, Tulsi, and Don

Which shows would you consider to be good right now?

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B&B is still good. It's not great any more though.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

There's also really no young(ish), fresh talent waiting in the wings to take The Score to 2020 and beyond. If either Mulley or Hanley don't have another 4+ years of morning talk radio in them, the station will need to re-tool its programming with...Jay Zawaski, Jordan Bernfield and/or Nick Shepkowksi in key positions? Jay is a stammering fool, Nick is "meh", I guess, and while Jordan is a tremendous voice, he's the most milquetoast of the bunch in capacity as a "personality".

Of all the talent I know of on the Score roster looking for on-air gigs, there's nobody I can really think of that has much of anything worthwhile to say. They may sound great reading me sports scores, but either they have no interesting perspective that I can discern, or their perspective is taken in whole from some combination of Dan Bernstein and Tumblr.

While that's somewhat true, I am one of those that knows better as far as SNL is concerned

The reason I contend that the earlier years of Chicago sports radio (The Score, mainly) were the best was that while the shows themselves weren't nearly as polished as today, the personalities were allowed to be who they were, as well as the fans. Those were the best days of TB, DMN, Nort, Jiggs, etc. Sure, "The Bull and The Bear" was not a great show overall, but it had loveable lunkheads Buffone and Van Lier, and it was hysterical radio at times. There was much more spontaneous interaction between the shows, before it became a sponsored, forced thing that only certain shows agree to do. Hell, even recently, people were crushed when Doug died, as besides not having him around, it marked the end of the Bears post-game shows with Doug and OB. While those shows weren't great, it was appointment radio for MANY, as you just loved the off-the-cuff, meatbally reactions from those two.

Once the "talent" decided they were above the fans' level, that's when it started going downhill.

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Not a mult.

Now that is a good answer.

I still maintain that B&B has done some of the funniest and best radio ever. It's probably the only radio show that has ever made me laugh out loud though I've never really listened to some of the other supposedly hilarious radio shows like Dahl, Stern, or Limbaugh.

The OKC youtube channel alone is proof that it is more than "tolerable at its best".

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

The earlier version of the B&B show was personal appointment radio for me - I loved that show the first several years.

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Not a mult.

I guess I will ask a "good" question. Using your logic, shouldn't B&B still be appointment radio since both hosts are still "in place"?

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I still like the show but it isn't as good as it once was.

I also never said that shows stay good forever.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

The implications were fairly evident. The 90's guys were expected to remain the same but B&B was not. You stated that they were still in place thus there shouldn't have been a dropoff. The tandems from the 90's were gone by 2000 yet you had no problem expecting the product to remain the same. Ok this same sort of logic should be applicable to B&B. If they were ever as great as you state then the drop off should not have been as precipitous as it was. For me they were always the best of a bad lot. That may very well be the case now.

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We are 5 pages in and you haven't gotten anything close to the point I was making. I will just accept that you flat out won't get it.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

As you haven't about the point that I attempted to make. You really had a problem with me referring to the show as tolerable. To most people that post here the show isn't even that anymore, yet you were perturbed that I characterized it as tolerable at best. You spent 3 of the 5 pages debating a very valid opinion for what? All I did was employ the same sort of tactics that you typically use.

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This is exactly what I am talking about. The discussion is if the show was ever good to great. Not what it is right now. Yet here we are, with you saying things like this.

I just have to accept it that you won't ever get the actual point.

It is my opinion, that there was a time when MJH was good to great, and a time when B&B was better than MJH and it was great. When you are responding please keep that in mind.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!