Francesa feels haunted by Lidle interview

Neil Best

October 12, 2006

Mike Francesa understands as well as anyone the rough-and-tumble reality of sports talk radio, where arguments often are just for fun and ratings, and quickly disappear into the ether.

Last night, though, as he drove home from Shea Stadium to Long Island after the Mets were rained out, he could not help but think back on one particularly strange, sporadically contentious interview.

"When you look at it today and you know what happened, you weigh every word, where normally you would just dismiss it as another athlete who was disgruntled," he said.

That's certainly what Cory Lidle appeared to be Monday afternoon when he called the popular WFAN show hosted by Francesa and Chris Russo to defend himself.

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A friend had tipped off Lidle that Francesa and Russo were harshly criticizing him for remarks he made Sunday. The hosts interpreted Lidle as having accused manager Joe Torre of not having the Yankees ready to play against the Tigers; Lidle insisted he is a strong supporter of Torre.

For 13 minutes, Lidle, Francesa and Russo awkwardly debated the pitcher's words and intent, the hosts mostly being respectful but persistent and Lidle growing increasing frustrated.

It was silly talk radio fodder, but in retrospect two sequences stand out and were difficult for Francesa to shake 31/2 hours after he and Russo initially told listeners of Lidle's reported death.

The first began with Lidle saying that he was "sitting here trying to enjoy my day in New York" when a friend's text message alerted him to the criticism. Russo's response to that was, "First off, no Yankee fan should enjoy the day in New York ... If I'm a Yankee right now I'm in hiding. I'm not enjoying any day in New York."

Lidle: "Hold on. I have friends in and I'm not allowed to go and enjoy this day in New York?"

Russo: "I don't know any Yankee fan who's enjoying the day, to be honest with you."

Lidle: "I want to win as much as anybody, but what am I supposed to do, go cry in my apartment for the next two weeks?"

Russo: "I know a lot of Yankees fans who are doing that, that's for sure."

Russo had been critical of Lidle previously, and got into a heated discussion about his merits (or lack thereof) with Yankees GM Brian Cashman the day after he was acquired from the Phillies.

Later in Monday's interview, Lidle told the hosts, "I'd like to meet you sometime and we can sit down and you guys can really get to know me instead of just what you think about me."

Said Francesa, "I haven't thought much about you at all, to be honest with you."

At the time both exchanges sounded more amusing than insensitive. Not anymore.

"If I knew he had two days to live, I would've told him to enjoy himself," Francesa said. "But you can't do interviews that way. No one in the world thinks that way.

"And then to think my last words to him were that I don't think about him very much. You just weigh it very differently now."

Francesa said he couldn't help thinking of Lidle "not going home to a 6-year-old. Being a father changes your perspective dramatically. You think about not going home to your own son."

After the story broke, Francesa, Russo and the staffs of WFAN and YES did a good job switching into news mode. The mood inside their booth at Shea was somber and focused as the rain pelted the field and the grim details poured in.

"I don't care if it was sunshine," Francesa said. "We weren't going back [to talking about] the game at that point."