WFAN... What ever happened to?

49ersJetsfan · 03-27-2007, 10:01 AM

Bringing back some good memories of my two all-time favorite callers

Doris from Rego Park
Overnight loses family member

Saturday, November 15th, 2003

"Thank you for your time and courtesy."

That's how Doris From Rego Park ended all her telephone calls to radio sports talkies.

The depths of the night can be very daunting.

Especially if you are sick.

Especially if you are lonely.

Especially if you just want to talk to somebody.

That's when Doris did her best work. Sometime between 2 a.m. and 4 a.m. Usually it was with WFAN's Joe Benigno. The two of them talked like family. And all of us who are up and around at that hour were part of it, too.

Oh, it wasn't always smooth sailing. A few times Doris went wiggy on Benigno because he put her on too close to an update or commercial break. At those very cantankerous moments you knew Benigno was thinking about the many times he let Doris go on and on and on. His tone presented an image of a guy throwing his arms up in the air and saying: "Geesh, what do you want from me?"

That's okay. Families do have their moments.

For Doris, it was always about the Mets. She spoke as if they were family, too. We all knew what season ticket plan she had at Shea and what games she would be attending.

And after almost every Mets game, Doris would be on the air with some talkie. As she rehashed the game, always interrupted by a constant cough brought on by her battles with breast and lung cancer, the sheer intensity of her love for the Mets always came through.

That's what was so cool about Doris. She didn't have particularly startling insights, but man did she have passion. Day after summer day, night after summer night, she ground it out with her team.

Most fans are pretenders. They really aren't totally plugged into all 162. Doris was always there. Even in late September, long after the Mets lost all hope. There wasn't a phoney bone in Doris' body.

She liked Doc and Darryl, but she loved her Lenny.

Doris had her favorite talkies too.

Benigno.

Jody McDonald.

Suzyn Waldman.

Ian (The Bird) Eagle.

Don LaGreca.

Over the years, she would call me with questions, mostly about sports talk radio. The last time I spoke with Doris was in June. Fox Sports wanted her to read the Mets lineup prior to a Subway Series interleague game at Yankee Stadium. Doris said she was too sick to go to the Bronx.

I suspect she just didn't want to set foot in Yankee Stadium. If the game was at her beloved Shea, well, I still want to believe she would have been there, proudly reading the Mets lineup on TV.

Today, following a memorial service in Rego Park, they will bury Doris Bauer, who died last week at the age of 58. The cancer finally got her.

It took away a familiar voice.

A voice full of concern for her Mets.

It took away a piece of the radio night.

Thank you, Doris.

Thank you for your time and courtesy.

Jerome from Manhattan
From the NY Times:
Citypeople: Seventh-Inning Kvetch
October 24, 2004
By JOHN FREEMAN GILL

THE airwaves of WFAN, New York's oldest sports-talk radio station, are a hearty aural stew of regular-Joe voices calling in from the five boroughs and beyond to offer up analysis and attitude about local sports teams. But the sharpest, sauciest voice of all, that of the preternaturally peevish Yankee fan known to hundreds of thousands of listeners as "Jerome from Manhattan," has been strangely silent this fall as the Yankees' season built to its history-making showdown with the Boston Red Sox.

Jerome Mittelman, an only-in-New-York bundle of frenzied rage, frustration and sports opinions, typically calls WFAN three or four times a week during the baseball season, often to subject his Yankees to the sort of searing, hurt-tinged critique usually reserved for one's closest friends and family. "He is the most manic Yankee fan in New York, because manic runs both hot and cold, up and down," said Jody McDonald, co-host, with Sid Rosenberg, of the WFAN midday show. "He can be overjoyed and likes to rub it in when the Yankees do well, but when they do poorly - and poorly for the Yankees is a relative term - he can get annoyed-slash-belligerent quickly."

To many listeners, Jerome from Manhattan's unself-conscious, Jackie Gleasonesque tirades are some of the funniest segments on New York radio. Mr. Mittelman knows his team, and his calls often begin with a calm, reasoned observation before igniting, within just a few syllables, into ear-splitting, apoplectic fury. "In radio we have a decibel meter, and if you go over 10 you're in the red," said Steve Somers, a WFAN host. "Jerome is always in the red."

But as the Yankees marched through the end of the regular season and the first round of the playoffs this month, into their decisive clash with the Red Sox, WFAN received just a single, short call from Mr. Mittelman, which he terminated abruptly. The station staff and callers alike found that his silence left a conspicuous hole in WFAN's programming. "A lot of people e-mail me, and call on the air on occasion, to ask where he is," Mr. Somers said.

Mr. Mittelman, it turns out, has been battling illness and is staying at his mother's Upper West Side apartment - located in the same building as his own - where he is caring for her. In a series of telephone interviews as brief and unpredictable as many of his on-air calls to WFAN, he explained that a recent bout of poor health (he suffers from epilepsy, diabetes and colitis) has kept him from calling.

But the mercurial 49-year-old fan expressed certainty, as the American League Championship Series got under way, that his beloved, accursed Yankees would soon fail. "I think they're gonna lose the whole thing," he said crankily, his voice coming in short, emphatic bursts. "Call me when they lose!"

A real-life caricature of Yankee Nation's anxiety, impatience and sense of entitlement, Mr. Mittelman can usually find something to fret about.

"There's very little that actually makes Jerome happy," said Mark Chernoff, the WFAN program director. "Even after the Yankees have won the World Series, Jerome would be on the air the next day saying he wonders which players are going to leave - so he's already looking at the negative side. One of our hosts' lines one year was, 'Jerome, can we have the parade first, before you're worried that they're not going to win the World Series next year?' ''

Mr. Mittelman's notoriety had already reached such heights a decade ago that a WFAN staffer put together a special introduction that Mr. Somers still plays before Jerome's every on-air call. A parody of "The Twilight Zone," the segment features an announcer who earnestly intones: "Picture a man sitting alone in his room: no family, no friends, just a phone and the sports section. A man obsessively pondering the fate of the Yanks, Jets and Knicks. His is a dimension of sight, of sound - but of no mind. There's a rubber room up ahead. You're entering ... The Jerome Zone."

ALTHOUGH WFAN maintains that it does not keep recordings of its programs, some of Jerome's classic calls give station employees such pleasure that they have kept them on their computers. In one much-replayed cut he screams with guttural, apocalyptic fervor that the Yankees are "done! D-O-E-N: DONE!"

On occasion, his molten ire has erupted into profanity, causing the station to ban him temporarily from its airwaves. "Then what Jerome does is call the newsroom constantly to talk sports," as often as eight times a day, Mr. Chernoff said.

"It almost doesn't matter if he's on the air or not," added Eddie Scozzare, a WFAN producer.

Rooting avidly for the Yankees provides Mr. Mittelman an escape from his day-to-day cares, said Sara Mittelman, a WFAN caller known as "Sara from the Bronx" who is a first cousin of Jerome from Manhattan. "It gives him something other than his own illnesses and his mom's illness to look forward to and to rally around," Ms. Mittelman explained. "He's a really good son and basically a really good, sweet person who loves sports."

Mr. Mittelman - who is about 5-foot-7 and balding, according to WFAN staffers who met him at a special broadcast from a Midtown bar last year - also possesses a raw, unaffected honesty that many find refreshing in an age of polished media personalities. "There is such a vulnerability there with him that you want to care about him," said Mr. Somers, who once sent Mr. Mittelman $60 to finance an imminent blind date.

"But he never had the date and never returned the $60," Mr. Somers recalled, laughing. "And I said, 'Jerome, what about my 60 bucks?' He said: 'No more!' ''

WFAN is such a big part of Mr. Mittelman's life that he has phoned even when hospitalized. On one such call, he interrupted himself to tell a nurse - and all New York - ''I need a gown, another gown, 'cause it's wet, and I'll put it on myself."

Given Mr. Mittelman's chattiness, his on-air silence during this fall's playoffs may underscore the severity of his health problems. Especially frustrating for such a die-hard fan, Mr. Mittelman said, was his doctor's decision to treat his epilepsy with a drug that hinders his watching the games on television. "I have to listen on the radio," Mr. Mittelman explained morosely. "Stupid doctor gave me a medicine. Making me see double. So stupid."

But after the Yankees bolted to a two-games-to-none series lead over the Sox, Mr. Mittelman's spirits perked up, even as he griped that the superintendent - the "stupid super" - was sending up heat into his mother's apartment. "I think the Yankees are gonna sweep 'em," he predicted.

Still, the long games seemed to take a toll on Mr. Mittelman. "I'm not feeling good," he groaned the day following the 12-inning Game 4. And finally, on Thursday, the day after the Yankees dropped their fourth straight game to cap the most colossal postseason collapse in baseball history, Mr. Mittelman grew downright bellicose. "The Yankees stink!'' he howled. "Get rid of Giambi! Get rid of the second baseman! Get rid of the whole team!'' Then, overhearing his mother talking on the telephone about his Social Security disability payments, he hollered: "Don't give me the check! Send it to the Yankees! Get more players!''

Despite Mr. Mittelman's animation at home, however, his on-air silence at WFAN has grown deafening. "We need Jerome here at the Fan because in the last 12 months we lost Doris from Rego Park," said Mr. McDonald, referring to the death of another well-known caller.

Indeed, Mr. Mittelman's caustic, top-of-the-lungs voice is as much a part of the aural texture of New York baseball history as the former Yankees announcer Phil Rizzuto yelling "Holy cow!" after a home run or Russ Hodges, the New York Giants radio announcer, shouting in 1951: "The Giants win the pennant! The Giants win the pennant!"

"There are probably a few hundred thousand listeners who know who Jerome is, and maybe some tens of thousands of those will remember him years from now," Mr. Scozzare said. "A small sample of humanity, but still, probably more than most of us are remembered by."

JumbalayaJet · 03-27-2007, 10:11 AM

They must've pissed Jerome off because I only hear him call 1050 now, but even that's rare. Back in the day I could've sworn he was part of the show. Fruitloops & Fatso wouldn't give better callers so much time. I wouldn't be surprised if he was paid entertainment.

Doris was a good caller, but her cough was irritating.

49ersJetsfan · 03-27-2007, 10:25 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JumbalayaJet

Doris was a good caller, but her cough was irritating.

I thought the same thing as well, mostly because it made it even more difficult to understand the great stuff she had to say... probably part of the (lung?) cancer I suppose.

Fishooked · 03-27-2007, 10:26 AM

Jerome is a psychopath!

WoodyPaige · 03-27-2007, 02:31 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fishooked

Jerome is a psychopath!

Jerome was amazing!

sneak · 03-27-2007, 02:54 PM

Doris was a kind lady. I hope she is resting well.

IRONFAN 40 · 03-27-2007, 06:20 PM

Whatever happened to the Prophet..

WoodyPaige · 03-27-2007, 07:08 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by IRONFAN 40

Whatever happened to the Prophet..

Who was that?

AJGunns · 04-08-2007, 11:32 PM

I was working at the SportsCenter at Chelsea Piers when I received a call from this woman who sounded a lot like Doris. The trademark cough gave it away. It turned out that the number for WFAN (937-6666) was very similar to the number for the SportsCenter.

At the time, I found it odd when a woman calling a gym, asked to speak about the Mets. It was moments later when I realized that Doris had called the wrong number.

SBIII · 04-09-2007, 08:45 AM

Jerome's doctors told him to stop...because he got too riled up. He was very funny. Dumb Yankee fan.

Doris was great caller. Her cough was trademark.

JumbalayaJet · 04-10-2007, 08:38 PM

Jerome called Benigno today. I just missed his call, but they mentioned that his mom had passed away, so that's why he hadn't been heard from.

WoodyPaige · 04-10-2007, 08:43 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SBIIICHAMPS

Jerome's doctors told him to stop...because he got too riled up. He was very funny. Dumb Yankee fan.

Doris was great caller. Her cough was trademark.

Jerome was the best.

HDCentStOhio · 04-10-2007, 10:27 PM

How about Eli from Westchester- banned from the station.

WoodyPaige · 04-10-2007, 10:31 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by HDCentStOhio

How about Eli from Westchester- banned from the station.

Why?

03-27-2007, 10:01 AM	#1
49ersJetsfan All Pro Join Date: Aug 2006 Location: NYC Posts: 5,836	WFAN... What ever happened to? Bringing back some good memories of my two all-time favorite callers Doris from Rego Park Overnight loses family member Saturday, November 15th, 2003 "Thank you for your time and courtesy." That's how Doris From Rego Park ended all her telephone calls to radio sports talkies. The depths of the night can be very daunting. Especially if you are sick. Especially if you are lonely. Especially if you just want to talk to somebody. That's when Doris did her best work. Sometime between 2 a.m. and 4 a.m. Usually it was with WFAN's Joe Benigno. The two of them talked like family. And all of us who are up and around at that hour were part of it, too. Oh, it wasn't always smooth sailing. A few times Doris went wiggy on Benigno because he put her on too close to an update or commercial break. At those very cantankerous moments you knew Benigno was thinking about the many times he let Doris go on and on and on. His tone presented an image of a guy throwing his arms up in the air and saying: "Geesh, what do you want from me?" That's okay. Families do have their moments. For Doris, it was always about the Mets. She spoke as if they were family, too. We all knew what season ticket plan she had at Shea and what games she would be attending. And after almost every Mets game, Doris would be on the air with some talkie. As she rehashed the game, always interrupted by a constant cough brought on by her battles with breast and lung cancer, the sheer intensity of her love for the Mets always came through. That's what was so cool about Doris. She didn't have particularly startling insights, but man did she have passion. Day after summer day, night after summer night, she ground it out with her team. Most fans are pretenders. They really aren't totally plugged into all 162. Doris was always there. Even in late September, long after the Mets lost all hope. There wasn't a phoney bone in Doris' body. She liked Doc and Darryl, but she loved her Lenny. Doris had her favorite talkies too. Benigno. Jody McDonald. Suzyn Waldman. Ian (The Bird) Eagle. Don LaGreca. Over the years, she would call me with questions, mostly about sports talk radio. The last time I spoke with Doris was in June. Fox Sports wanted her to read the Mets lineup prior to a Subway Series interleague game at Yankee Stadium. Doris said she was too sick to go to the Bronx. I suspect she just didn't want to set foot in Yankee Stadium. If the game was at her beloved Shea, well, I still want to believe she would have been there, proudly reading the Mets lineup on TV. Today, following a memorial service in Rego Park, they will bury Doris Bauer, who died last week at the age of 58. The cancer finally got her. It took away a familiar voice. A voice full of concern for her Mets. It took away a piece of the radio night. Thank you, Doris. Thank you for your time and courtesy. Jerome from Manhattan From the NY Times: Citypeople: Seventh-Inning Kvetch October 24, 2004 By JOHN FREEMAN GILL THE airwaves of WFAN, New York's oldest sports-talk radio station, are a hearty aural stew of regular-Joe voices calling in from the five boroughs and beyond to offer up analysis and attitude about local sports teams. But the sharpest, sauciest voice of all, that of the preternaturally peevish Yankee fan known to hundreds of thousands of listeners as "Jerome from Manhattan," has been strangely silent this fall as the Yankees' season built to its history-making showdown with the Boston Red Sox. Jerome Mittelman, an only-in-New-York bundle of frenzied rage, frustration and sports opinions, typically calls WFAN three or four times a week during the baseball season, often to subject his Yankees to the sort of searing, hurt-tinged critique usually reserved for one's closest friends and family. "He is the most manic Yankee fan in New York, because manic runs both hot and cold, up and down," said Jody McDonald, co-host, with Sid Rosenberg, of the WFAN midday show. "He can be overjoyed and likes to rub it in when the Yankees do well, but when they do poorly - and poorly for the Yankees is a relative term - he can get annoyed-slash-belligerent quickly." To many listeners, Jerome from Manhattan's unself-conscious, Jackie Gleasonesque tirades are some of the funniest segments on New York radio. Mr. Mittelman knows his team, and his calls often begin with a calm, reasoned observation before igniting, within just a few syllables, into ear-splitting, apoplectic fury. "In radio we have a decibel meter, and if you go over 10 you're in the red," said Steve Somers, a WFAN host. "Jerome is always in the red." But as the Yankees marched through the end of the regular season and the first round of the playoffs this month, into their decisive clash with the Red Sox, WFAN received just a single, short call from Mr. Mittelman, which he terminated abruptly. The station staff and callers alike found that his silence left a conspicuous hole in WFAN's programming. "A lot of people e-mail me, and call on the air on occasion, to ask where he is," Mr. Somers said. Mr. Mittelman, it turns out, has been battling illness and is staying at his mother's Upper West Side apartment - located in the same building as his own - where he is caring for her. In a series of telephone interviews as brief and unpredictable as many of his on-air calls to WFAN, he explained that a recent bout of poor health (he suffers from epilepsy, diabetes and colitis) has kept him from calling. But the mercurial 49-year-old fan expressed certainty, as the American League Championship Series got under way, that his beloved, accursed Yankees would soon fail. "I think they're gonna lose the whole thing," he said crankily, his voice coming in short, emphatic bursts. "Call me when they lose!" A real-life caricature of Yankee Nation's anxiety, impatience and sense of entitlement, Mr. Mittelman can usually find something to fret about. "There's very little that actually makes Jerome happy," said Mark Chernoff, the WFAN program director. "Even after the Yankees have won the World Series, Jerome would be on the air the next day saying he wonders which players are going to leave - so he's already looking at the negative side. One of our hosts' lines one year was, 'Jerome, can we have the parade first, before you're worried that they're not going to win the World Series next year?' '' Mr. Mittelman's notoriety had already reached such heights a decade ago that a WFAN staffer put together a special introduction that Mr. Somers still plays before Jerome's every on-air call. A parody of "The Twilight Zone," the segment features an announcer who earnestly intones: "Picture a man sitting alone in his room: no family, no friends, just a phone and the sports section. A man obsessively pondering the fate of the Yanks, Jets and Knicks. His is a dimension of sight, of sound - but of no mind. There's a rubber room up ahead. You're entering ... The Jerome Zone." ALTHOUGH WFAN maintains that it does not keep recordings of its programs, some of Jerome's classic calls give station employees such pleasure that they have kept them on their computers. In one much-replayed cut he screams with guttural, apocalyptic fervor that the Yankees are "done! D-O-E-N: DONE!" On occasion, his molten ire has erupted into profanity, causing the station to ban him temporarily from its airwaves. "Then what Jerome does is call the newsroom constantly to talk sports," as often as eight times a day, Mr. Chernoff said. "It almost doesn't matter if he's on the air or not," added Eddie Scozzare, a WFAN producer. Rooting avidly for the Yankees provides Mr. Mittelman an escape from his day-to-day cares, said Sara Mittelman, a WFAN caller known as "Sara from the Bronx" who is a first cousin of Jerome from Manhattan. "It gives him something other than his own illnesses and his mom's illness to look forward to and to rally around," Ms. Mittelman explained. "He's a really good son and basically a really good, sweet person who loves sports." Mr. Mittelman - who is about 5-foot-7 and balding, according to WFAN staffers who met him at a special broadcast from a Midtown bar last year - also possesses a raw, unaffected honesty that many find refreshing in an age of polished media personalities. "There is such a vulnerability there with him that you want to care about him," said Mr. Somers, who once sent Mr. Mittelman $60 to finance an imminent blind date. "But he never had the date and never returned the $60," Mr. Somers recalled, laughing. "And I said, 'Jerome, what about my 60 bucks?' He said: 'No more!' '' WFAN is such a big part of Mr. Mittelman's life that he has phoned even when hospitalized. On one such call, he interrupted himself to tell a nurse - and all New York - ''I need a gown, another gown, 'cause it's wet, and I'll put it on myself." Given Mr. Mittelman's chattiness, his on-air silence during this fall's playoffs may underscore the severity of his health problems. Especially frustrating for such a die-hard fan, Mr. Mittelman said, was his doctor's decision to treat his epilepsy with a drug that hinders his watching the games on television. "I have to listen on the radio," Mr. Mittelman explained morosely. "Stupid doctor gave me a medicine. Making me see double. So stupid." But after the Yankees bolted to a two-games-to-none series lead over the Sox, Mr. Mittelman's spirits perked up, even as he griped that the superintendent - the "stupid super" - was sending up heat into his mother's apartment. "I think the Yankees are gonna sweep 'em," he predicted. Still, the long games seemed to take a toll on Mr. Mittelman. "I'm not feeling good," he groaned the day following the 12-inning Game 4. And finally, on Thursday, the day after the Yankees dropped their fourth straight game to cap the most colossal postseason collapse in baseball history, Mr. Mittelman grew downright bellicose. "The Yankees stink!'' he howled. "Get rid of Giambi! Get rid of the second baseman! Get rid of the whole team!'' Then, overhearing his mother talking on the telephone about his Social Security disability payments, he hollered: "Don't give me the check! Send it to the Yankees! Get more players!'' Despite Mr. Mittelman's animation at home, however, his on-air silence at WFAN has grown deafening. "We need Jerome here at the Fan because in the last 12 months we lost Doris from Rego Park," said Mr. McDonald, referring to the death of another well-known caller. Indeed, Mr. Mittelman's caustic, top-of-the-lungs voice is as much a part of the aural texture of New York baseball history as the former Yankees announcer Phil Rizzuto yelling "Holy cow!" after a home run or Russ Hodges, the New York Giants radio announcer, shouting in 1951: "The Giants win the pennant! The Giants win the pennant!" "There are probably a few hundred thousand listeners who know who Jerome is, and maybe some tens of thousands of those will remember him years from now," Mr. Scozzare said. "A small sample of humanity, but still, probably more than most of us are remembered by."

03-27-2007, 10:11 AM	#2
JumbalayaJet done with NMS Jets Insider VIP Charter JI Member Join Date: May 1999 Posts: 14,869	They must've pissed Jerome off because I only hear him call 1050 now, but even that's rare. Back in the day I could've sworn he was part of the show. Fruitloops & Fatso wouldn't give better callers so much time. I wouldn't be surprised if he was paid entertainment. Doris was a good caller, but her cough was irritating.

03-27-2007, 10:26 AM	#4
Fishooked dealin' out shithands Hall Of Fame Join Date: Sep 2006 Location: teh interwebz Posts: 24,725	Jerome is a psychopath!

03-27-2007, 02:54 PM	#6
sneak All League Join Date: Feb 2004 Location: nyc Posts: 629	Doris was a kind lady. I hope she is resting well.

03-27-2007, 06:20 PM	#7
IRONFAN 40 All Pro Join Date: Apr 2006 Location: Section 105 all day ,everyday Posts: 5,963	Whatever happened to the Prophet..

04-08-2007, 11:32 PM	#9
AJGunns Say no to Chicken Little. Veteran Join Date: Jan 2007 Posts: 2,450	I was working at the SportsCenter at Chelsea Piers when I received a call from this woman who sounded a lot like Doris. The trademark cough gave it away. It turned out that the number for WFAN (937-6666) was very similar to the number for the SportsCenter. At the time, I found it odd when a woman calling a gym, asked to speak about the Mets. It was moments later when I realized that Doris had called the wrong number.

04-09-2007, 08:45 AM	#10
SBIII JetsInsider.com Legend Join Date: Aug 2005 Location: in the 90's Posts: 28,006	Jerome's doctors told him to stop...because he got too riled up. He was very funny. Dumb Yankee fan. Doris was great caller. Her cough was trademark.

04-10-2007, 08:38 PM	#11
JumbalayaJet done with NMS Jets Insider VIP Charter JI Member Join Date: May 1999 Posts: 14,869	Jerome called Benigno today. I just missed his call, but they mentioned that his mom had passed away, so that's why he hadn't been heard from.

04-10-2007, 10:27 PM	#13
HDCentStOhio longing for the days of Ronald Reagan Hall Of Fame Join Date: Jan 2006 Location: Long Island & Section 337 Posts: 4,859	How about Eli from Westchester- banned from the station.