WFAN ("the FAN", the NYMets radio station)

[Laurence Horn]

At 11:21 AM -0400 8/5/04, Alice Faber wrote:
>George Thompson said:
>>My previous adventure into Mets Land was in early July, when I
>>caught the broadcasters passing the time during a rain delay.  It
>>was about the time of the 25th (?) anniversary of the conversion of
>>an earlier station with different call letters and a different
>>format to WFAN, a 24 hour sports talk station.  One of the
>>broadcasters had in fact been with the earlier station, recalling
>>having participated in the mournful get-together of the broadcasters
>>laid off from the old station, then walking down the hall to join
>>the celebration of the broadcasters hired by "the FAN".
>>
>>His recollections of the earliest months of the FAN was that it
>>achieved direction and acceptance among NYC listeners when it made
>>it a policy that all its on-air moderators should be from NYC.
>>(Presumably this involved firing some of the celebrants of a few
>>months before.)  The new policy was based on the thought that when
>>NYC sports fans heard NYC accents they would accept that this
>>moderator understood their fanaticism for their local teams.
>>
>>Those of you who come unglued when you hear an interesting regional
>>accent ought to check it out.  I suppose that the broadcasts, except
>>for the game broadcasts, are to be heard through the web.
>
>Last I checked, FAN wasn't on the web. But I've pretty much stopped
>listening to them, for a variety of reasons, mainly that their
>competition is better. But the best regional accents were always from
>the callers, not the hosts, and I'd imagine that's true for any local
>call-in station. And it helps that callers typically identify
>themselves as, e.g., "Joe from Floral Park" or whatever.
>
I was just discussing off-line with Alice my impression, which she
confirms and extends, that several current and past WFAN hosts have
indeed been non-New Yorkers, including at least Eddie Coleman and
Suzyn Waldman (Boston) and Steve Somers (San Francisco).  Presumably
Mike Francesa and Chris (Mad Dog) Russo, both from Long Island, count
as New Yorkers, although the latter is from Syosset, which is a ways
out (unlike Long Beach, Mike's hometown).  I've always been partial
to Mad Dog's malaprops, proper name manglings, and set expressions
(e.g. "until the absolute cows come home").

I'm sure the FAN hasn't logged 25 years yet; I remember when they
debuted, replacing an old country AM station (up the dial at 1050),
and I've only been in range since '81.  Maybe it was a 15 year
anniversary.

My favorite NY-dialect-bearing-host moment on the FAN came after a
typically up-and-down Knicks game in March 1997, which they
eventually (barely) won.  The speaker was Joe Benigno, the overnight
host who started out as "Joe from Saddle River", before winning his
job through a competition among callers.  Imagine this passage (which
I was fortunate enough to capture on tape and have playing in class
during discussion of "positive _anymore_" ever since) spoken with a
heavy New York Metro accent

"Another agita special.  The Knicks are a different team from quarter
to quarter [KWAWduh duh KWAWduh] anymaw."

When I first posted this here in '97, I commented 'Somehow the
combination of the indigenous
vocalic clusters and the very much non-indigenous use of "anymore" struck me as
particularly incongruous', but since then I've heard (on 10/4/01)
another positive "anymore" from another WFAN host whom Alice informs
me is also a native (albeit rhotic) New Yorker, Jody McDonald.  Jody
Mac's reference was to the Mets' pitcher Steve Trachsel:

"He's getting three, three and a half mil, that's what you've got to
pay for a fifth starter anymore."

Larry