Don La Greca looks back at 20 years of 'The Michael Kay Show' on ESPN New York Radio
Michael Kay, left, and Don La Greca of ESPN New York radio in 2017. Credit: Joe Faraoni / ESPN Images/Joe Faraoni / ESPN Images
Twenty years? Don La Greca might have signed up for 20 months when his radio partnership with Michael Kay began, given the challenges they faced.
There were technical issues, including phone lines that would frequently drop off in mid-conversation.
There were logistical issues, with both working remotely and apart much of the time.
There was the reality of a sports talk radio startup taking on mighty WFAN, even if it did have the ESPN brand behind it.
But here they are, set to celebrate the 20th anniversary of ESPN New York’s “The Michael Kay Show” with a special program on Friday.
If you’re scoring at home, that is one year longer than WFAN’s famed “Mike and the Mad Dog” lasted.
“I thought the show was great and I thought it had the legs to have longevity,” La Greca told Newsday in a phone interview. “But when you consider everything we were up against and with Michael doing Yankees [on the YES Network], I figured at some point he would say, ‘I can't do it anymore,’ and he never did.
“So I'm really shocked. I would not have believed it if you told me that 20 years later, we'd be still together. I didn't think there was any chance of that at all.”
Don La Greca, left, and Michael Kay during a studio photo shoot for "The Michael Kay Show" on ESPN Radio New York in 2011. Credit: ESPN/Scott Clarke
La Greca has an ESPN New York radio history that predates Kay’s – and everyone else’s.
He was the first voice heard on the station when it launched on Sept. 3, 2001, with an update person’s dream topic: Mike Mussina’s near-perfect game for the Yankees against the Red Sox the night before.
La Greca initially did local updates for the national “Mike & Mike” morning show, then began working with Kay middays in 2002.
“I wasn't happy just doing updates and getting up at 3:45 in the morning, and I had one foot out the door,” La Greca said. “I was looking for other work.
“But then working with Michael, it really started to come together. I really started to enjoy it and he gave me the latitude to be more than just an update guy.”
The two quickly developed chemistry as La Greca was more and more integrated into the show.
“It wasn't like, ‘Don, you’re going to be the co-host of ‘The Michael Kay Show,’” La Greca said. “I am just the update guy. So it was able to grow organically. It wasn’t forced at all . . . Michael really allowed that to happen.”
When the show moved from middays to afternoon drive time in 2005, it added to Kay’s logistical complications.
The fact the two rarely were in the same location because of other duties forced them to listen to one another more carefully, La Greca said.
Their different areas of expertise also allowed them to complement one another.
“There was no ego of, ‘I know more than you and this is my department, this is your department,’” La Greca said. “We really were able to integrate it on a show together just out of necessity.”
Speaking of ego, La Greca acknowledged he would prefer to have his name on the marquee.
“I don't know if there's a show in this country that the co-host’s name is not in the show in some way, shape or form, but I understood it,” La Greca said. “Sometimes from an ego standpoint, for me, it does bother me.
“But at the same time, it really doesn't matter, because the work is so good. I enjoy working with him. I honestly to this day don't even know exactly why it's not. Is it management? Is it Michael?
“I wish my name was on the show, but at the end of the day, listen, it's always been this way and it just doesn't really matter to me that much.”
In 2015, the show added a third member in Peter Rosenberg, who brought a younger sensibility, with expertise in the worlds of hip hop music and pro wrestling.
Initially, Kay and La Greca were not fans of the move. La Greca was invited to talk about it with his boss at the time, Tim McCarthy.
“He says, ‘What do you think of Peter?’” La Greca recalled. “I said, ‘Well, I’ve got to be honest with you, I think Michael and I can do it ourselves, or we can get Dave [Rothenberg] or Ryan [Ruocco].’ . . . Tim goes, ‘Well, he's going to be on the show. If you don't like it, there's the door.’”
La Greca stayed, and now says Rosenberg has been a “wonderful” addition.
“We didn't think we needed it, and now we look back seven years later, and it was such a great idea,” La Greca said.
ESPN New York Radio's "The Michael Kay Show," featuring, from left, Peter Rosenberg, Michael Kay and Don LaGreca in 2015. Credit: ESPN Images/Lorenzo Bevilaqua
With Kay doing double duty on the Yankees and La Greca filling in frequently for Kenny Albert on Rangers radio, their schedules can be a grind.
How long can this continue? When Kay took most of last summer off, there was speculation the end could be near.
Both Kay, 61, and La Greca, 54, have a year left on their contracts. La Greca said they have not discussed the future.
“Right now, we're just focused on the task at hand,” La Greca said. “It’s still so far down the road that it's not anything that we’ve really had a conversation about.”
After finally climbing a long ratings mountain to defeat Mike Francesa in his final quarter at WFAN in 2019, Kay recently has been losing by significant margins to WFAN’s Craig Carton and Evan Roberts.
La Greca said he does not dwell on ratings ups and downs.
“I know Michael gets crazy about it, but a lot of people do, and rightly so, because it’s the way we keep score,” La Greca said. “But I've been in this business too long.
“The only thing you can control is the show that you do, and I'm proud of what we do. I think the show is good.”
For La Greca, the anniversary with Kay is just part of his broader career arc at the station.
“It’s amazing to me that I’m 54 years old and I've been in this business 30 years and 21 of them have been at this radio station,” he said.
“It's been so long it's like an appendage now. It's a part of who I am, because I've been at it for so long and there is immense pride that I feel that I was an original and started it up. To be able to look back at this body of work, it's a really cool thing.”
Neil Best first worked at Newsday in 1982, returned in 1985 after a detour to Alaska and has been here since, specializing in high schools, college basketball, the NFL and most recently sports media and business.
