The Score WSCR-AM 670
As the only remaining local 24-hour sports talk radio station, The Score always has callers. Wake up in the middle of the night with some major revelation about the future of the glass QB, Shane Matthews? This is who you can call up and let it out. And it's 100 percent sports, probably the only place in town where hardcore, detailed discussion is likely to go down. Want to get a round-robin going about what's really wrong with Kerry Wood's pitching arm, why Don Baylor keeps playing a catcher who can't catch (that's Todd Hundley) or why Chip Caray always sounding like a complete jerk? This is the place for you.

Tops on The Score are Terry Boers and Dan Bernstein, who run the weekday 8am-noon slot. This duo accomplishes a rarity sports talk radio—a show where you can call in and gripe, ask questions and have a conversation, without it all seeming like pointless yakking. Bernstein, particularly, shows himself to be savvy and smart—he's not afraid to tell a caller he simply doesn't know whether Jerry Manuel is the guy to lead the White Sox to the promised land. He and Boers don't pull their punches either, riffing on anything and everything and having fun doing it. Bernstein on the Bears: "Watching them makes me feel sick." This sense of enjoyment in sports suffering transfers over to listeners, who join in gleefully: "I'm so exhausted from the emotional rollercoaster the Cubs have had me on, I couldn't even watch the Saturday night game," one listener faxed in after the team's weekend cave to Arizona. "So I switched over to my Bears. I actually prefer the expected mental agony the Bears offer me."

Inhabiting The Score from noon to 4pm, Monday through Thursday, Mike North is a smart, down-to-earth fellow with a Chicago-guy voice and excellent guests. (Ex-Bear Gale Sayers will join him on Tuesdays during the NFL season). And while he's more likely to go off on a blustering tirade—great one this week about the Cubs bringing up 20-year-olds ("You're in a pennant race, ya idiots!") and the White Sox being, well, dumb ("We got some serious problems on both sides of town—it's call competency. Competency! And it's very important.")—this guy tells you when you're an idiot.

Weekdays from 4-8pm find ex Bears Dan Jiggetts and Doug Buffone with more stylized take on the sports of the day. As a duo, Dan and Doug tend to offer a reasonable voice on local football (a rarity, given the current state of the Bears), and, yes, they can talk just about any kind of football pretty damn well. Recent conversations regarding the death of Northwestern football player Rashidi Wheeler have been among the more useful on the airwaves. The 8pm-midnight spot finds the new Jonathan Hood show, and though it's still developing, signs are promising, as Hood is able to break down evening events with listeners. He had a prime spot for this week's Cubs/Brewers twi-night doubleheader, as he was able to spend hours talking with folks calling in to complain about the folly of playing Todd Hundley and Felix Heredia—at the same time.

An added treat this fall for The Score is the return of company line snowballing on "The Dick Jauron Show" (Mondays, 6pm), featuring Coach Dick and the great Bears announcer Hub Arkush. And while you're not likely to get much from this show—Hub tries, but what's Dick going to say, "Yeah, we suck"?—it's always great fodder for the next day's call in shows.

Sporting News Radio WCSN-AM 820
Though Sporting News Radio has sports talk all day, most of it isn't specifically local to Chicago, with the exception of Jay Mariotti, weekdays 10am-2pm. (Saturday and Sunday finds Chicago sports talk legend Chet Coppock on from 7-11pm.) And though the show is nationwide, Mariotti makes a ton of room for the major local stories. This week's great installment included sending someone out to the Michael Jordan prep sessions, to see who showed up to help old MJ get back in shape to return to the NBA: "Now I know what it feels like on a stakeout, sitting here waiting for players to show up," gripes reporter Cliff Saunders. All of this followed by ruminations on the number of Cadillac Esplanades ("Obviously the choice of the new millionaire draft pick," Mariotti says) in the parking lot.

In many ways Mariotti's show is sassier than his Chicago Sun-Times column, as he trots out regular-guy observations on Kerry Wood's arm: "Let's just stop this feel-good crap and realize that this guy has a problem with his arm. They're shutting the guy down until they know it's better... finally the voice of reason." Mariotti's strengths lie in his ability to send up radio—he is a writer on the air, which makes him a different animal—and to score killer interviews: Michael Jordan and Jesse Jackson this week alone. Of course, like many from the print realm unaccustomed to being challenged on the spot, Mariotti's listeners occasionally bear the brunt of his temper if they suggest something he doesn't like. Listeners (including at least one Northwestern alum) trying to defend the university in the Rashidi Wheeler death this week—suggesting that Mariotti had been somewhat two-faced on comments regarding NWU coach Randy Walker—found themselves yelled at and disconnected in prompt fashion.

ESPN Radio WMVP-AM 1000
The trio of Dan McNeil, former NFL-er John Jurkovic and Harry Teinowitz make up ESPN Radio's only local show, McNeil, Jurko & Harry, weekdays from 3-6pm. Here's your standard sports talk show—lots of arguing, lots of McNeil telling callers they're out of it, lots of random stories about what happened when the guys went out golfing. If you like this kind of superficial, full on, "I'm right, you're stupid" pointless gripe session, punctuated with comments about how great it is to be a man, you'll love this. This week featured drawn out discussion about McNeil's weekend golf trip, where a guy in front of him was tearing up the course with metal spikes. "Respect the course," McNeil says, right before noting that he stopped along the way to relieve himself. "That's the great thing about being a guy, the world is your outhouse."

Sports Central WGN-AM 720
WGN's Sports Central is a gem, concentrated by the fact that they're only on two hours a day. The teams of David Kaplan and Tom Waddle (weekdays 7-9pm) and Glen Kozlowski and Rob Goldman (Sat-Sun 3-5pm), offer insightful and, as timing requires, more focused sports talk. It is WGN, so there's a lot of Cubs chat, but after a game especially, it's the best place to go to hear where the tide has turned among fans, as well as to add your own two cents about the tally on that day's Don Baylor's managing mistakes.

Also by Elaine Richardson

MONEY TALKS
There's an embarrassingly large sign outside the Drake Hotel's Fountain Room, a blow up of MCW Ltd.'s marketing campaign for their "exclusive matchmaking service" proclaiming "YOUR MOTHER ALWAYS SAID IT IS JUST AS EASY TO MARRY A RICH MAN AS IT IS TO MARRY A POOR ONE. LISTEN TO HER."
(2001-08-16)

HOT AIR
Your whole life has been leading up to this, goes the tagline for HBO's mega-successful summer series "Six Feet Under." God, I hope not. Being bickered over by neurotic undertakers doesn't sound like a good way to spend the afterlife.
(2001-08-16)

HOT AIR
Chris O'Donnell executive produced a TV movie where Luke Perry and Dan Cortese get lost in the Bermuda Triangle... wishful thinking, perhaps? One has to hope, otherwise there's no excuse for this attack of the has beens.
(2001-08-09)

RITE OF PASSAGE
To say Foster, 32, is unique in the local pantheon of chefs is an understatement. As one of the few high-level African-American chefs in town, he's at the top of a field where blacks are not always seen, meaning he's frequently greeted with shock and commentary.
(2001-08-09)

HOT AIR
(2001-08-02)

ON THE HUNT
(2001-08-02)

BE PREPARED
(2001-08-02)

CRIMEWATCH
(2001-08-02)

RUN FOR THE BORDER
(2001-08-02)

WHAT TO PAY
(2001-08-02)

CAT POWER
(2001-07-19)

SUMMER DELIGHTS
(2001-07-12)