Mike Francesa goes insane on Boomer, Gio over Corey Ballentine controversy

First time, long time … and unhinged.

An enraged Mike Francesa called into “Boomer & Gio,” WFAN’s morning show, after Boomer Esiason described Francesa as “idiotic” in reference to Francesa criticizing the Giants in the wake of the shooting of their sixth-round pick, Corey Ballentine. Ballentine’s best friend and teammate, Dwane Simmons, was killed in the incident.

When Francesa made his initial comments, there was no known reason for why Simmons and Ballentine were the victims. Francesa still used it as part of a diatribe against Giants GM Dave Gettleman and the franchise, describing them at the end of it as a “laughingstock.”

Reports so far indicate the two were innocent victims.

Francesa’s rage continues a sad spiral for him after he returned from a faux-retirement a year ago. It is becoming increasingly harder to imagine that the 65-year-old Francesa — who became a radio icon with his old partner, Chris Russo — doesn’t leave the station at some point on awkward terms.

On Tuesday, Boomer & Gio were talking about how Francesa has suddenly criticized the Giants after being supportive of them for years. The duo hypothesized that Francesa was not being fed information anymore, which is why he has hammered Gettleman. Eli Manning has also canceled his weekly paid spot with Francesa for this season.

Boomer & Gio discussed the clip of Francesa that has gained prominence, after being published by the Twitter account, @BackAftaThis, in which Francesa said the Giants talked about bringing in high character guys and then one of their new choices was shot. Esiason called it “idiotic” to link to the two things together.

Francesa’s big contention is that he said, “If,” during his criticism. During the clip, Francesa did couch it a little, but he was clearly making connections between the two, which is insensitive and irresponsible given his platform.

Francesa, who is routinely untruthful and has claimed in the past he never listens to “Boomer & Gio,” called into the station after hearing the back-and-forth and was on for a little over five minutes, most of it spent with Francesa yelling.

Morning co-host Gregg Giannotti finally got a word in and calmly said, “My contention would be the ‘If’ part of it is just unnecessary to bring up when we brought that up …”

“That’s fine,” Francesa interrupted and roared. “You do your show. I’ll do mine.”

Giannotti chose not to fight back at Francesa. The two have not gotten along as Francesa has said that Giannotti’s impersonation of him “stinks.” Giannotti has called Francesa, “narcissistic” and an “insecure bully.”

Francesa said, “You spend enough time talking about me. Sometimes imitating me. At least, get it right.”

When Giannotti tried to get Francesa to confirm his comments, Francesa said that Giannotti took his statements, “Completely out of context.”

Giannotti chose to stand down and not scream back at Francesa. After Francesa was off, Giannotti said he decided to let Francesa speak to allow him get his points out. Esiason and Giannotti later joked that Francesa would not have done the same if someone had called into his show. Francesa was trying to distance himself from what he said.

“When you finish your draft and stress how you went out of your way to take the right kind of guys, guys that you want on the team, guys that are going to be great character guys and you stress that as strongly as the Giants did, it looks pretty bad when one of them gets shot on a Saturday night,” Francesa said in his original comments. “It does not look good. It’s just more of the same for the Giants, who just can’t get out of their own way, no matter what they say.

“It is sad to see the Giants become a laughingstock around the league.”

Boomer and Giannotti were not the only ones who found Francesa’s comments inappropriate. Ballentine’s dad, Karl Vaughn, told The Post’s Kate Sheehy that the incident was, “just wrong place, wrong time” and Francesa wished he had a son like Ballentine.

Francesa could have simply apologized and said he was a little quick to judge. Instead he looked to blame anybody, flailing on Tuesday morning at “Boomer & Gio.”

Source: Read Full Article