This was not your usual on-air congratulatory baby announcement.
Mike Francesa managed to air WFAN’s dirty laundry at the beginning of his Tuesday show while congratulating his producer, Chris McMonigle, and his wife, Sara, for having a baby boy named Andrew, the couple’s second son.
“The reason we couldn’t get on the air at 3 o’clock is because McMonigle is not here because he was off having a baby,” an annoyed Francesa said. “Maybe they can schedule the right guys to come in and do the show at the right time. Maybe the program director can do that. Rather than have a guy who’s running from one show to the next one show to start the show. … I mean it’s a little ridiculous. It’s not the guy’s fault.”
The veteran WFAN host went on to blast the company for being cheap.
“But you should have somebody in here,” he said, continuing his rant. “They can’t pay two people. It’s the biggest show in the country, and they can’t pay someone to do the board by himself, separately. How ridiculous is this?”
It wasn’t until after all of this that Francesa congratulated his producer for the addition to his family, but he wasn’t done yet. He found some time to question paternity leave for fathers, which likely did not thrill the company’s HR department.
“These new rules you get a lot of time off. I don’t know when you’ll see the guy again,” said Francesa, who previously ripped former Mets second baseman Daniel Murphy for missing the team’s first two games in 2014 to be with his wife, Victoria, in Florida for the birth of their son, Noah. “I have no idea. Who knows. He’ll come back in a month, three months or four months. I don’t know how it works. There’s some ridiculous rules now that I just don’t understand. You get a lot of time. The groom … the male does.
“The female deserves all the time she wants. I mean she should get six months, but the male gets a lot of time off, so …”
And there you have it.