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http://chicagosports.chicagotribune.com ... me-utility Feuding hosts clash in air wars
They may work for the same radio station, but there's plenty of static between some of Chicago's sports-talk personalities
Teddy Greenstein
ON SPORTS MEDIA AND COLLEGES
April 10, 2006
It's a simple remedy at a radio station where horseplay is not unusual.
Whenever an on-air host at WSCR-AM 670 begins to gripe about one of his so-called teammates, program director Mitch Rosen points to a pair of blinders that hangs near his office door.
"Put them on," Rosen will say.
The message is clear: Focus only on the race, not the rest of the field.
Rosen ordered the blinders a few months ago from Arlington Park. He had them made in the Score's home colors: blue and orange with red trim.
Rosen wishes all his on-air talent got along; problems in the hallways, he says, "are not good for morale."
But he's also a realist.
"It's sports. It's guys. It's teams," he said. "It's emotions."
Dan McNeil and Chet Coppock can relate.
For years they worked together at WLUP. McNeil was the diligent producer, Coppock the demanding host.
"I was on the scrap heap in '88 when he hired me," McNeil recalled.
Shortly after a rejuvenated McNeil became one of the Score's original hosts in 1991, he and his old boss had a 10-year feud. After McNeil discussed Mark Grace's penchant for visiting Wrigleyville bars on the air, Coppock asked Grace in an interview: "Apparently someone within the confines of my profession has gone on the air and indicated you have been drinking heavily for an extended period of time in the Cubs' clubhouse. Where does a story like this get started?"
The Cubs temporarily boycotted the Score. McNeil, feeling sideswiped, began taking shots at Coppock on the air. Years later McNeil was riding the elevators of the John Hancock Center, where WLUP was located. It reminded him of his good times with Coppock.
"I picked up the phone and said: 'Look, we've wasted lot of years. Let's bury the hatchet,'" McNeil recalled.
And they did. Now they're friends again, and McNeil would like to help Coppock land a weeknight gig at WMVP-AM 1000, where McNeil is the highly paid host of the afternoon "Mac, Jurko&Harry" show.
Said McNeil: "You stick around long enough and you'll see everything in this business."
Maybe, but not all sports radio feuds have such a happy ending. Here are four that continue to brew:
Mike Murphy vs. Terry Boers
Before agreeing last year to have his "Boers and Bernstein" show moved from mid-days to afternoons, Terry Boers put forth a non-negotiable request: He would not take part in "transitions" with Mike Murphy, the Score's host from noon to 2. Rosen restored the transitions—segments in which the hosts gab freely with one another for 5 to 10 minutes—when he joined the Score last year. But there's no transition banter between the Score's afternoon shows.
"I'm not interested in speaking to him," Boers said. "Not on the air, not off the air, not anywhere."
The feud started in the early '90s after Murphy played a cut from a '69 Cubs reunion show. During an interview with second baseman Nate Oliver, Murphy said something that struck Boers and then-partner McNeil as a little odd.
"[Murphy] sounded like he was a charter member of the Village People," McNeil said.
McNeil approached his producer to make a cut of what Murphy had said. McNeil and Boers played it the next day on their show.
"[Murphy] came in giving Terry the finger, saying he's a cancer, all guns blazing," McNeil said. "I was just as guilty in trying to make [Murphy] look the fool. Terry didn't care one way or another."
But Murphy, for reasons that remain unexplained, took out all his ill will on Boers. The feud has not subsided. Boers occasionally mocks Murphy by playing less-than-flattering clips from his show.
And Murphy, whom some at the station describe as overly sensitive, once grew so annoyed that he waited in the studio to confront Boers, who had left for the day. Murphy declined to discuss the specifics of his feud with Boers, saying it has nothing to do with his show.
"I grew up listening to Wally Phillips on WGN," Murphy said. "He would never mention his wife, his family, what he liked to eat, who was coming on next and what so-and-so did or said. And I've always emulated Wally Phillips.
"My show is non-stop sports from the first inning to the ninth inning. I don't talk about where I eat dinner or where I buy my shoes."
Boers said that when he goes on remotes, Score listeners frequently ask him why he doesn't do transitions with Murphy.
Said Boers: "I don't want to start our show having spent a moment with him. I hope he feels exactly the same way."
Marc Silverman vs. Bruce Levine
WMVP morning host Marc Silverman and baseball reporter Bruce Levine swear they get along. But you wouldn't know it from some of their precious on-air squabbles.
Last month Silverman criticized Levine on the air for what he termed a "softball interview" with Cubs general manager Jim Hendry.
Said Silverman: "Listening to you with Jim Hendry, I felt you came across as a Cubs PR guy. You defended Hendry without him having to defend himself."
Levine later took a shot at Silverman: "I heard you say to [co-host Carmen DeFalco]: 'You won't go after Levine; I will.' So you're telling Carmen he's soft as well. That's a good teammate right there."
Silverman also criticized Levine for ripping ESPN senior baseball writer Buster Olney. After Olney wrote on his blog that the Cubs' health reports on Kerry Wood and Mark Prior were on "top-secret status," Levine said Olney should "get into [Cubs] camp here and figure out what's really going on."
Silverman then played the clip on the air for Olney, who responded that Levine was entitled to his opinion.
Levine gave his permission to use the sound bite but clearly was annoyed that Silverman did.
Silverman: "Bruce, if you say something over the airwaves, you should be held accountable …"
Levine: "Who are you, Edward R. Murrow? I said it, but that doesn't mean it had to be replayed. How does it serve your listeners?"
Silverman said it was "stupid" of Levine to say that Olney, a highly regarded national reporter, had to be in Mesa to have an opinion about the Cubs.
Levine: "The point was that he's not here to see these guys. He's going by Internet reports. You call that stupid?"
Finally Silverman asked: "Can we get some info today?"
Replied Levine: "I would guess so. If you quit [insulting] me."
Silverman said that when he's out, people often ask if he and Levine hate each other. His response is always the same: "On the air."
"Off the air we get along great," Silverman said. "A lot of times it's the opposite with guys. When the red light goes on, they put on a happy face. If we're in a press box and he's loosened up, Bruce is really a good guy."
Levine said he has the "utmost respect" for Silverman: "My role is to supply information and his role is to stir it up and be compelling. That's why we sometimes end up on a collision course."
Mike Murphy vs. Mike Mulligan
Things went sour between Murphy and mid-morning Score host Mulligan days after Rex Grossman broke his left ankle in an exhibition game in St. Louis.
During a transition segment, Murphy said that a missed block had led to the injury. Then Murphy, by several accounts, contended that offensive coordinator Ron Turner, if asked, would refuse to answer a question about the play.
After Mulligan, who covers the NFL for the Sun-Times, protested, Murphy vented and eventually asked Mulligan why he wouldn't ask Turner the tough question.
"Why don't you get a press pass and go in there and ask him yourself?" Mulligan replied.
That set Murphy off.
"He was yelling: 'Go and do your job!'" Mulligan recalled. "If you hear [the tape], I'm just laughing while the guy is railing at me."
Mulligan and co-host Brian Hanley were doing their show from The Lodge, on Division Street, and Mulligan said he later heard Murphy gave the finger to the microphone during the quarrel.
"I called into the studio after the show and asked him: 'What was that about?' And he starts [cursing at] me," Mulligan said. "If he thinks I'm going to be bullied by him. … I grew up dealing with people a lot worse than this guy. This guy needs someone to sort him out."
As with the Boers incident, Murphy declined to discuss specifics of his rift with Mulligan.
After the Murphy-Mulligan incident, which observers described as "awkward" and "bad radio," the Score briefly suspended transitions between the shows.
"I don't have a feud with anybody. I really don't," Mulligan said. "But maybe Murphy has a feud with me. What happened happened, and it was bizarre. But I really don't have any ill will toward him. Maybe he views me an interloper because I'm a writer."
Dan McNeil vs. Harry Teinowitz
Remember Sonny and Cher in the early '70s? They were too good for each other to break up, but you knew things could go sour at any moment.
Fast-forward 30-plus years to McNeil and Harry Teinowitz. Their afternoon "Mac, Jurko&Harry" show on WMVP is a ratings monster in Chicago despite—or maybe because of—their occasional friction.
"After our ratings skyrocketed, I thought: Maybe people are [listening] to hear when we'll kill each other," Teinowitz said. "And one day we tried."
That 2002 incident stemmed from, of all things, a Web poll question about favorite memories of baseball home openers. Although Teinowitz said he offered a half-dozen recollections, McNeil accused him of trying to sabotage the poll.
"I was in a foul mood," McNeil said. "And he wanted to argue about it."
They were in the studio with just a minute to air time when Teinowitz got in McNeil's face, blasting him as an unprofessional and a bad teammate. McNeil finally shoved him.
The two were separated and went on with the show, albeit after a late start. But management was not amused and company officials suspended both men.
Five weeks later Teinowitz tried to explain why he would root for both the Cubs and the White Sox when they don't play each other. McNeil immediately questioned Teinowitz's "credibility" as a fan, and when Teinowitz demanded an on-air apology, McNeil turned off his microphone.
"It happens," McNeil said. "It's going to happen again. But because of our ratings success, we've come to trust each other. There must be something the other does that works."
Teinowitz agreed, saying: "It's a happy ending, but there are still land mines. I just hope we don't step on any of them."
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