It's been about 5 months since we started doing mornings on 790 and we feel like we are carving our own niche in this market. While most sports shows spend an inordinate amount of time breaking down sports we have taken the show in a little different direction. Not to say we don't do our fair share of analyzing the games because we do. Bernie Kosar, Gino Toretta, Mike Irvin and Adam Schefter do a terrific job talking football every week. And whether it's Jayson Stark talking baseball, Jacques Martin talking hockey or Pat Riley talking basketball we certainly do attack the action on the field. But what distinguishes this show from our competitors is when we delve into politics with Jay Severin, Borat with Sasha Cohen, Rock and Roll with Steven Van Zandt or the weeks top movies with Jeffrey Lyons. As one caller described it last week...."I tune into the Sid Rosenberg Show cause it's one stop shopping. I get EVERYTHING I need." Needless to say, that made all of us very proud.

Imus's long awaited return is only a few weeks away now and I'd be lieing if I said  I didn't care or follow the whole saga. For starters, Bernard McGuirk is a dear friend and guys like Lou and Charles are friends as well. But it goes beyond that. My 5 plus year stay on the Imus show was littered with controversy but it also gave me the exposure and confidence some never achieve in this business. Most people in this profession don't have the opportunity to be on television every morning all over the world (MSNBC) and air on over 150 radio stations nationwide (Westwood One). But there is also no doubt that it ended ugly for all of us. It had ended ugly for me before on the Imus show but I always ended up back. That's NOT going to be the case this time. At least not in the short run. Yet amazingly I am at peace with that. Maybe it took nearly 3 years to get here but I definitely do feel like I'm home. And this is where I need to be.

The listeners seem to be piling up and on most days somebody will stop me in Boca and tell me how much they love the show. Not gonna lie, I LIKE that! We did well in the ratings last time but that's not really indicative of anything. Whether our morning show gets the numbers or not doesn't really matter to me (it may matter to sales!) because I KNOW that nobody in this market gives a better effort and puts on a more informative and entertaining morning show than we do. Andy is there most mornings 3 hours before the show cutting up sound that Alex left from the night before. That is how we are able to play Letterman's Top 10 list, Conan's dialogue, Stewart's one liners, Jay Leno's fuckups or Chris Matthew's rants! It is the same philosophy that makes Dan LeBatard successful in the afternoons. That is you can discuss sports and be funny and creative at the same time.

The motivation behind this blog though was not to give you people a progress report on how I think the show is going. It is more to generate dialogue on what you people think of the show. We are VERY interested to hear your critique of the program. Be advised though that if you don't like something there is still VERY little chance that I adhere to your wishes. And let me thank you all again for help making this show fun every morning. God Bless!

When I turned on the ignition in my Volvo at 3:33 on Monday (July 9th) morning the first thing that popped into my head was...."here we go again" It had been a long time since I had a steady gig at that time of the morning. Sure I did about 20 Imus shows at that time in the last few months before his firing but nothing really on a regular basis. But this one also felt a little different than before. And the reason why is relatively obvious. This one is MINE!

In my 19 months at 790 The Ticket I have now worked 3 different shifts. My first opportunity was working alongside Dolphin great O.J. McDuffie from 10-1 and that was a VERY rewarding experience. Soon after the Colts beat the Bears the station moved me from 10-1 to 12-4. And now I find myself back in the slot that made me "infamous" (not famous!) up in New York City. Yep, good ole morning drive!

Now let's get one thing very clear here. The station management did not decide to replace Joe Rose with me. It was more of Joe Rose deciding to replace Joe Rose with me! But whatever the circumstances are it still feels real good to be back on a drive time show.

My philosophy is really very simple. I consider myself a rabid sports fan but I've always believed that "straight" sports talk can never really work in the mornings. When you consider WFAN's success it all started with Imus (not a sports show) and even WQAM has had Neil manning mid-morning for years. The show could still be mostly sports (even 85%!) but at some point you better keep the morning commuters abreast of the news and entertainment happenings along the way. My pledge to the South Florida audience is to do just that each and every morning.

We've already lined up an impressive stable of weekly and monthly guests for the upcoming football season that includes Tiki Barber, Phil Simms, Jim Nantz, Terry Bowden, NFL Network's Adam Schefter, Michael Irvin, Bernie Kosar and some of your favorite Dolphin players. We will also continue to cover the pennant races on a weekly basis with ESPN's Jayson Stark and some Marlin players as well.

That's just the beginning. If you're a fan of the Sid Rosenberg Show you know that anybody from Steven Van Zandt to Artie Lange is capable of popping up at anytime as well.

Enjoy, the pool's warm!

Watching MSNBC on Wednesday afternoon brought back some chilling memories of a Tuesday morning over five years ago. Airplane hits high-rise building in New York City was the line that ran along the screen. What would you think? Yeah, that's what I was thinking too. But as afternoon turned to early evening the details began to surface and the terrorism conclusion was proven wrong. Instead it was an accident. A trip that started out as as an enjoyable sightseeing mission ended in two fiery deaths. But what seperates this tragedy from most others was the occupation of one of the deceased. Cory Lidle, 34, was a major league baseball pitcher who had pitched just a few nights before for the New York Yankees. And while people die everyday in car crashes, fires and other horrible scenarios Lidle's death will stay with us for some time. And the purpose of this blog is to simply ask the question why?

Lidle's unfortunate and tragic death occured on 10/11/06 but I can go back to 8/02/79 when a Yankee captain died piloting his plane as well. He was the heart and soul of the Bombers and was considered to be in the same class as Johnny Bench and Carlton Fisk. Thurman Munson never hit 50 homeruns, never knocked in 120 runs, and never won an American League MVP. But the day he died marked the first time I ever saw grown men sobbing uncontrollably. Some were diehard New York Yankee fans and some weren't. Thurman Munson was not the first 34 year old to die but you wouldn't know that from a city's reaction. Is it because pro athletes seem so strong and indestructable? Is it because he brought out the boy in all of us? The Yankees still fielded a baseball team the next day and there have been many catchers that Yankee fans have grown to love since. So I ask you why did some cry harder for Thurman than for some of their own relatives that they readily admit they loved? Why?

12/8/90....Unlike Munson, when this man was taken away from us he was part of quartet that could not be replaced. That quartet was no longer making music together but John Lennon would always be a Beattle. Murdered outside his apartment building in NYC 26 years ago I can still remember Howard Cosell's spine tingling declaration of "Lennon, dead on arrival" during a Monday Night Football game. A whole generation of music lovers continue to mourn his loss every year in Stawberry Fields. Mark David Chapman, like David Berkowitz or Jeffrey Dahmer, has become a household name. Was John Lennon the only person in the world who longed for peace? Was John Lennon the only person in the world who "imagined?" You would think so. So I ask you again. Why?

8/31/97....That was the day the world said goodbye to Princess Diana. For the next few weeks I had to ask myself more than once what was the matter with me. While you never want to see a young woman, and a mother of two, ever pass away I did not share the same  sorrow the rest of the civilized world did. Over 2 billion watched Di's funeral and I must admit that I was relatively disinterested. Maybe it's because I'm an obnoxious American that's not overly impressed with European royalty. I don't know but I do know that again people all over the globe have marked this day down as a day of remembrance. Was Princess Di the only woman to work with poor and starving 3rd World countries? Was Princess Di the only woman to show genuine concern over HIV patients around the world? I feel confident the answer is no. So I ask you again. Why?

3/05/82 John Belushi

12/18/97 Chris Farley

3/04/94 John Candy

8/16/77 Elvis Presley

5/20/89 Gilda Radner

And of course these 3 very memorable dates...

11/22/63 John F. Kennedy

7/16/99 John F. Kennedy Jr.

6/05/04 Ronald Reagan

I do not have the universal answer as to why we allow people we've never met affect us so dramatically when they die. I think it's fair to say that some of these people remind us of our own frailties and strengths. But next time you find yourself really bummed out over the loss of a celebrity ask yourself why that should bother you more than the 34 year old guy that lived on your block that just perished as well.

To all the people I mentioned in this blog....Rest In Peace and may your families garner love and strength from your memories...

"America loves life. We love death. That is the difference between us." Those were the chilling words from Osama Bin Laden to a reporter in the mountains of Pakistan just about two months after the horrific day back in 2001 known simply as "9-11." I remember that morning very vividly and with the five year anniversary just two days away I find myself right back on 3rd avenue on a beautiful Tuesday morning.

The 2001 NFL season kicked off on Sunday, September 9th and New York Football Giant fans like me were still feeling the effects of an embarassing Super Bowl loss to the Ravens. My wife was on her way to my cousin's bridal shower while I was packing up my stuff at Chelsea Piers and heading over to Hooters on West 57th for a full day of football. The Jets were the early game that day and the Giants were out in Denver for a Monday Night matchup with the Broncos. I spent five and a half hours that day watching football as an appetizer for the only game I really cared about...Giants and Broncos on Monday Night!

My wife and I lived in a small apartment on West 21st and 8th avenue, the Chelsea section of Manhattan, back in 2001. We watched the game that Monday night in cramped quarters and the Giants got whacked. Brian Griese had a big night for Denver and the only bad news for the Broncos that night was a severe leg injury to starting wideout Eddie McCaffrey. In the end the Giants were 0-1 and I thought that was a big deal. That was until about nine hours later.

Like I did every day I parked my car in the WFAN parking lot and headed across the street for my daily appearance on the "Imus in the Morning Show." The sky was a perfect azure that morning, not a cloud. My buddy and Executive Producer Bernard McGuirk was doing interviews on the street because of the mayoral primary and Program Director Mark Chernoff assumed the duties of producer that fateful morning. It was about 7:45 a.m. and it was time for my bi-hourly sports update. Imus was pounding me because he knew how much I loved the Giants and they got demolished the night before. He was asking me why I would wear a football jersey to work or to a game if there was no chance of me playing. In essence, he was exposing me for the sports geek that I am. That's when Mark Chernoff put up on the small tv screens in front of me and Imus...."fire at the World Trade Center....we'll have more details." Back to talking Giant football. That didn't last very long.

I remember Warner Wolf, one of the nations most prominent sports anchors, calling us from his building in Battery Park alerting us that a second plane had just hit the tower that wasn't burning. I remember Warner's heart breaking second call that one of the towers had just crumbled to the ground right before his very eyes. I remember calling my wife and telling her to get the fuck out because she was working across the street from the Empire State Building at the time and I thought for sure that was the next target. I remember waiting hours for a 4 train to take me uptown to wait with a very close friend for a call from her boyfriend's brother that never came. I remember too much about that day....that's the problem.

I make my home now in South Florida and I think it's become obvious that my family and I enjoy it down here and this is a place we have no problem calling home. But no matter where I live the rest of my life I am and always will be a New Yorker. You see folks it goes beyond the Mets, Giants, Rangers and Knicks. I walked up and down the West Side Highway the morning of September 12th, 2001 and cheered the firemen and police on their impossible rescue task. I gazed at the thousands of pictures of the missing and the presumed dead on the hospital walls that were walking distance from my apartment. I took the phone call just days prior from my friend Ari Jacobs inviting me to his 30th birthday party. He went for a business breakfast at the famous "Windows of the World" restaurant that morning. His son Gabriel was born just six days after 9-11. That boy will never meet his father. I knew and liked a bunch of people who went to work in those buildings on September 11th and NEVER walked out. I remember too much about that day....that's the problem.

It's five years later and I think we can all readily admit that the terrorists accomplished what they set out to do. They killed over 3,000 people that day between New York, Pennsylvania and Washington D.C. and more importantly changed our whole perspective on homeland security. Do we have it?

Let me say this to the countless murderers out there that wake up every day envisioning ways to destroy our freedoms. Fuck you. Say what you want about George Bush and the countless mistakes this administration has made since that day but we still live in the greatest country in the world and there's nothing a murdering terrorist could ever do to change that. 

We still watch "Entourage." There is still a "Miss Miami Contest" on the Sid Rosenberg Show. We will still host Super Bowl 41 right here in our very own backyard. My daughter will grow up and become a huge success while you guys sit in your caves flicking flies out of your nappy beards.

God Bless our kids that are still sacrificing their lives every day in Iraq and all around the world for this country (whether you believe in the war or not!). God Bless the countless mothers, fathers, sisters and brothers that lost loved ones back on September 11th. You see.....I remember too much about that day....and the more I think about it....maybe that's a good thing.

There have been two very poignant and memorable moments over the past eleven months that really make me think about where I am now. I will never forget that early Saturday morning back on September17th, 2005 when I pulled out of my driveway in New Jersey and refused to look back in the rear view mirror. That was the day I left nearly 5 years of WFAN history behind and headed for I95 south and a very unpredictable journey. I distinctly remember driving through the hills of North Carolina with my wife and daughter asleep in the car thinking...."holy shit, I really fucked up this time." I wiped a tear from my eye and continued the trek to South Florida.

About two months later I came to an agreement with the powers that be at 790 The Ticket to start co-hosting a mid-day show with former Dolphin great O.J. McDuffie. I had spoken to OJ twice before I relocated to South Florida. I was a guest on his show with Marc Eisenberg live from Madison Square Garden the day that Larry Brown took over as head coach of the New York Knicks. He was on my show with Joe Benigno on WFAN the week of Dan Marino's induction into the Pro Football Hall of Fame. That was it. Needless to say the initial reception from the South Florida listening audience was tepid at best. Bullshit. It sucked. They hated me and call after call was another unhappy listener. I was on my way to the studio, filling in for Boog that day, wondering what the hell I'd gotten myself into. That was then. This is now.

For nearly 9 months I had the fortunate opportunity and luxury to work alongside O.J. McDuffie. And even though we had our own misunderstanding early on what transpired was (and is) a relationship that blossomed both professionally and personally. There is no doubt that O.J. made it much easier and there's also no doubt that he helped smooth over the transition. There is also little doubt that we worked very well together and put on a damn good radio show. But back in July O.J. decided he'd had enough and left the show with nothing but good memories.

Since that time I've been the lone host and I have to say that I've enjoyed the back and forth with the callers immensely. I know there are still some dickbags out there that hold the "New York" thing against me but I refuse to let those people bother me. They're a bunch of dopes who for the most part are just miserable under their own skin. The overwhelming majority of the people down here get it and make my job easy on a daily basis.

In case you haven't noticed I do NOT do the traditional sports talk show you've heard your whole life. And I'm a guy that really was trained on the job at the grand daddy of 'em all WFAN. Why? Because it's boring. I know the stats and I'm as die-hard as any fan out there. But when I get bored speaking about something I can just imagine how the listener feels. Whether it's my critique of the government, a Miss Miami pagaent, a serious conversation with a prominent attorney or an intellectual conversation with a porn star you know that anything can happen at any time on the program. I think that a lot of my philosophy derives from listening to Howard Stern, working with Imus and Mike and the Mad Dog, watching Jon Stewart and even the View. When asked recently by a New York paper what my show is like I described it by saying "take a minute from 60 Minutes, a minute from SportsCenter, a minute from Access Hollywood and you've got the Sid Rosenberg Show!" In essence, it's a jumbled fucking mess and I wouldn't have it any other way. I had a buddy tell me just yesterday that he appreciates the sports banter but the reason he listens to our show is because it sounds like you're having fun in there. His quote was "often times I wish I could leave work and just hang out with you in the studio." That's what I'm talking about. That's FUCKING entertainment!

In closing I really do want to thank the South Florida listening audience for making me feel at home. This has not been easy but I can honestly say that I look forward to spending 10-1 with you everyday. If you like our show, that's great. If you don't like the show then go kill yourself! Take this time to send us some remarks (positive or negative!) and hopefully you'll keep listening. As the Carpenter's once said so eloquently, "We've only just begun!" Thanks for reading my blog. Now go get laid or something!