Two Philadelphia sports radio hosts went scorched earth on Angelo Cataldi and Howard Eskin over the weekend after the retired radio legends trashed the current state of 94 WIP. Spike Eskin, who co-hosts WIP’s afternoon show, and Jon Marks, now the midday host at rival station 97.5 The Fanatic, both posted scathing responses defending WIP’s current lineup and accusing the former hosts of disrespecting the people who replaced them.
“I stopped listening,” Cataldi told Eskin on his eponymous show. “I don’t listen at all anymore. The reason is because I would hear something that I would go, ‘Well, no, that’s not the way you should do it.’ I did it for 33 years. I know how to do it. It got to the point where it was just so frustrating for me that I don’t listen.”
Cataldi’s biggest complaint seemed to be that WIP moved away from the tough-guy Philly sports talk he built his career on, while Eskin claimed radio is dying and the talent pool dried up. He gave WIP credit for having some good people, but said they don’t have enough, and that no one else in sports talk radio does either.
Spike Eskin — Howard’s son and WIP’s afternoon drive co-host — fired back on social media, calling the comments “disappointing and embarrassing.” Spike wrote that WIP’s current staff is the most talented the station has ever had, that their ratings crush the competition, and that everyone gets along instead of backstabbing each other like the previous generation did.
Spike also took a shot at Cataldi’s dismissal of podcasts, pointing out that WIP hosts produce some of the biggest sports podcasts in Philadelphia.
“Also comical to hear them laud how great podcasts are,” Spike wrote. “Rights To Ricky Sanchez, High Hopes, and Go Birds are all giants. Guess where those guys work? I told him to do a podcast ten years ago and he looked at me like a had lobsters crawling out of my ears.”
Jon Marks went even further, posting a nearly four-minute video directly addressing Cataldi’s comments. Marks left WIP’s afternoon show in late 2023 to spend more time with his family and now hosts middays at 97.5 The Fanatic, WIP’s biggest competitor in Philadelphia sports radio. But Marks said he went to WIP in 2017, not liking Angelo personally, or his radio show, and that opinion didn’t change after working there, but he respected the success and preparation Angelo brought every day for 33 years.
“With that being said, I don’t have respect for his comments, and I’ve lost a lot of respect for him based on what he said about his former colleagues and his former radio station,” Marks said. “He essentially has his number retired by WIP. 33 years, the franchise player for so many years, and he was treated very, very well. He made a lot of money. He made a lot of money for the station. Everybody had great success, and his ass was kissed by management, by everybody, by the colleagues.”
Marks pointed out that Joe DeCamara, Jon Ritchie, and James Seltzer took over one of the toughest spots in radio — replacing a legend — and the show is now performing better than Angelo’s did, which makes Angelo’s lack of respect toward his former colleagues even more frustrating after everyone spent years treating him well
“Everybody kissed your ass and treated you so well, and you never reciprocated that towards anybody,” Marks said. “It’s been about you always. Really disappointing to hear these comments that you had. I thought you had more respect for the station. I thought you had more respect for Joe and John and Joe Giglio and Spike and Jack and Ike and everybody at the station right now. They deserve more respect than you gave them.”
Cataldi retired in 2023 on his own terms with his legacy intact. Eskin’s exit last December was considerably less clean, coming after he was banned from Citizens Bank Park following an alleged unwanted advance toward an Aramark employee and revealed to have made physical contact with a female WIP employee during a remote broadcast — an incident that Cataldi himself made public. They are now doing a podcast together and lamenting the state of the station they left behind, and the people still there are not particularly interested in hearing it.
About Sam Neumann
Since the beginning of 2023, Sam has been a staff writer for Awful Announcing and The Comeback. A 2021 graduate of Temple University, Sam is a Charlotte native, who currently calls Greenville, South Carolina his home. He also has a love/hate relationship with the New York Mets and Jets.