3-STARRED MONTE
WFAN trio burned by their own scams
IT’S CALLED gaming the game. And sometimes — as in inevitably — the gamers are left gamed by their own games.
In classical TV terms, think of “Leave It To Beaver’s” Eddie Haskell, teenage con man who thought he was conning everyone when he was only gaming himself, much like the adult Mike Francesa, only Eddie was fictional — and funny.
“Gaming the Game,” a dark, at times perversely comical drama, is now appearing in and around WFAN with three actors — Craig Carton, indicted as a cash-desperate point man in a $5.6 million fraud, Weekday Boomer Esiason, the coarse-mouthed, trash-talking radio man not to be confused with the well-comported gent who appears Sundays on CBS, and “Let’s Be Honest” Francesa.
Carton: This week, in a statement released by a publicist, he declared his innocence, adding, “As you can imagine, it’s been incredibly hard to be silent while there is an endless stream of vitriol being hurled my way.”
Unless Vitriol is a liquid laundry detergent, I’m not sure how a stream of it can be hurled. But it’s both fascinating and unsurprising that Carton, whose stock in radio trade and ascension to WFAN drive-time was predicated on his eagerness to hurl streams of vitriol at anyone and everyone for the entertainment of the easily entertained, that he now chooses the path of self-sympathy. Or is that more gaming the game?
Only the wrong-headed would relish the colossal fall of the father of four, but the only significant vitriol Carton has suffered since his Sept. 6 arrest appears in the 26-page federal indictment that details charges of operating a Ponzi scheme to service “millions of dol- lars of gambling-related debts to casinos and other third parties.”
Interesting, too, is that one of Carton’s co-conspirators, Joseph Meli, in January was indicted for a tickets resale fraud similar to the charges against Carton. Perhaps, then, Carton expected this hammer to drop for months. Perhaps those pillow ads heard on WFAN in which Carton modestly revealed, “As most of you know, I have trouble sleeping,” weren’t a complete con.
Wednesday, Carton was still gaming his own game, releasing another statement, this one declaring he has “resigned” from WFAN in the selfless, noble interests of what’s best for the station — as if the CBS-owned station otherwise wanted him to remain at the wheel while under a federal indictment for a $5.6 million scam.
Esiason: Declaring that his heart breaks for his now-former radio partner and that he’s pulling for him to beat these gambling-tethered raps, Esiason the Sensitive, the morning after Carton was arrested, read a promo for a fantasy sports gambling operation that seeks to lure young and younger male suckers with get-rich-quick payouts.
But Carton and Esiason steadily filled the ears and vulnerable senses of their young male demographic target audiences with point-spread gambling come-ons, while even mocking destitute compulsive gamblers — as if it were all fun and gaming, as if Carton didn’t know better and Esiason still doesn’t.
Francesa: This week, in a maudlin imitation of both Jimmy Stewart and Gary Cooper as the one man in Tombstone to turn to, the lastchance bastion of altruism, kindness and self-sacrifice, Francesa volunteered to The Post that he volunteered to ride in — or have his driver, Julio, drive him — to save CBS Radio from ruin, thus he may delay his December departure and firstballot Sainthood.
Francesa: “The only thing I said [to management] is that I would not turn my back on the company if I thought it was in trouble.”
Thus the future of CBS Radio awaits Francesa’s decision as to whether he’ll dam the flood, rescue the lowlanders, save the crops and the cattle. “Aw, shucks, if they need me to keep the town from collapsin’, I reckon I might stick around a spell longer.”
No matter the time of day, the circumstances, including a federal indictment, and the ability to hear and see right through them, these people believe they’re special, so special they’re to be taken seriously.
And let the permanent record show that hired gamer of the games, Roger Goodell, made his outrageously, demonstrably false claim that PSLs are “good investments” on the “Boomer & Carton Show.”