Mad Dog Russo's Likes and Dislikes

Barely able to contain himself during Imus’s introduction, Chris “Mad Dog” Russo, host of Mad Dog Radio on Sirius XM, finally blurted out, “How about those San Francisco Giants, Donnie?”

A native New Yorker who has been a diehard Giants fan since the age of 8, Russo marveled at the prospect that his team, which has never won a World Series in San Francisco and hasn’t won one at all since 1954, was headed for the playoffs.

“I don’t want to say this is the year they’re going to do it,” Russo said. “But you have to make the playoffs to have a chance at that, and they’re going to make it, so I’m very excited.”

Russo first fell for the Giants at a jewelry convention in Philadelphia, where his parents had dragged him one weekend when the Giants happened to be in town playing the Phillies. “I was in the lobby every morning for three days, and I got all the Giant autographs, except for Willie Mays, who wouldn’t sign,” Russo said, and recalled how Mays ran into his chauffeured Cadillac with 100 kids on his trail, pad and pencil in hand.

“Not a good one for Willie,” Imus observed.

And Derek Jeter didn’t do much better last month when he exaggerated being hit by a pitch at the plate, when video replay showed he was not hit at all. In Imus’s view, Jeter should have taken the high road and told the umpire he didn’t need to take first base.

“I’ll go halfway with you on that,” Russo, a notorious Yankees hater, said. “You have to expect him to go to first base, but he really overreacted, he made that out to be a much bigger deal than it should have been.”

Russo’s real beef with Jeter over the summer was that the Yankees shortstop blew off the funeral for 99-year old Bob Sheppard, the longtime Yankees announcer whose recorded voice Jeter still uses to announce his appearances at the plate.

“You have to show up at the man’s funeral!” Russo said, adding, “That was a disgrace. Then to say, ‘Well you can honor a man in other ways than going to his funeral.’ No, you can’t!”

Though Imus suggested, “Send him a postcard, maybe?”

Naturally, Russo also took issue with LeBron James choosing to play for the Miami Heat with his buddies Dwayne Wade and Chris Bosh. “For them to come up with an ESPN TV show, it was a disgrace,” Russo said. “The way they did that—to bail out on the city of Cleveland like that! Oh my god.”

Interestingly, Russo has no problem with Michael Vick playing football, even though he killed some dogs. “He went 22 months in jail,” Russo pointed out.

But this wasn’t enough for the I-Man. “The dog’s still dead,” he told Russo.

-Julie Kanfer