Francesa escalates radio feud with Kay

With five months left in his legendary WFAN career, Mike Francesa sure is getting caught up in trivialities.

The sports radio icon dedicated a portion of his Monday show to try to clarify the ratings battle between him and rival host Michael Kay, who last week questioned the popularity and attacked the quality of Francesa’s show. Days after the numbers came out for the spring months, which reportedly saw Kay’s ESPN show beat Francesa’s for the month of June (but not the overall three-month period), Francesa wanted his audience to hear the “truth” from him.

“You may have seen some stories that were fabricated, and I mean fabricated, that the other sports station somehow beat me in the ratings,” said Francesa, who returned to the airwaves Monday after a vacation and didn’t dare deign to use Kay’s name, via NJ.com. “As you know, they never have. They put out some information that they won the ratings. Well, that is a complete fabrication. I care because of this: Because it’s just a lie.”

Francesa, whose 30-year run at WFAN is set to come to an end on Dec. 15, was keen to point out his show maintained its ratings supremacy over Kay’s, finishing in fourth and thus two spots ahead for the three-month, spring book (April through June). Kay’s singular victory within that time frame wasn’t enough to impress the 63-yearold Francesa.

“They lost the game 48-20, and won the fourth quarter, 10-9, and declared victory,” Francesa said.

Kay reignited a long-standing feud last week when he called his show “quantifiably better” than Francesa’s. He admitted he was once a fan of “Mike and the Mad Dog” — which Francesa and former co-host Chris Russo celebrated last week with the release of ESPN’s 30 for 30 on the show — but that he wasn’t buying Francesa’s own WFAN show held a stranglehold on the current ratings.

hwithiam@nypost.com