But at least I won’t have to hear Petros and Money screaming any more, not regularly, anyway, even though they do come up with some good stuff when they aren’t playing frat boys with way too much time to kill.

Nor will I have to listen, as I wind my way home from work late at night, to Tony Bruno try to fill three hours of air time with three minutes or less of information or interesting viewpoints. I really don’t understand Bruno. The next significant thing I hear him say will be the first significant thing I hear him say. I keep hoping he’ll come up with something worthwhile during my 10-minute drive, and he never does. He seems to think he does. Maybe he does while I’m not listening. Very often, he talks about everything but sports, and, like Petros and Money, he sometimes pushes the good taste envelope until it rips out at the corners.

I’ll miss hearing Steve Hartman and Chris Myers on my drive into work. I used to flip between them and Fred Miller and Gene Conte on WIBX, depending on what was being discussed. Hartman gets a little wild at times and has some blind spots and shortcomings – everyone beat the Tiger Woods story to death, but he was the champ – but Myers, who gets mocked for his halting delivery, is a knowledgeable sports journalist with a reasonable attitude who tends to give things a second thought and get beyond the first layer of knee-jerk reactions on issues.

Strangely enough, I’ll miss Jim Rome, who I’ve been biased against ever since he got tossed across the set by quarterback Jim Everett in 1994, something he richly deserved and I’m sure wanted to happen – although I’m also sure he had no idea Everett could toss him that far. I am not young enough or cool enough or perhaps smart enough to appreciate Rome’s style or understand his jargon, but have to say he’s grown on me. That means I sometimes find him interesting. The best thing he does is get good guests, and he gets them to say interesting, revealing things. The other day I was lucky to hear him on WHEN talking to San Antonio Spurs star Manu Ginobili, a player I’ve always admired who came across on the radio as a smart, thoughtful, engaging, personable, modest, well-spoken guy with his feet on the ground who just happened to be a great basketball player and knew how to tell you about it. The great thing about it was that Rome, no dummy, sang Ginobili’s praises afterward. He knew he had a terrific interview from a terrific guy.

We’ll see what ESPN has to offer for when I’m driving the truck, which generally is the only time I have the radio on. If it isn’t better than the Fox lineup, there will be a lot of Patsy Cline, Johnny Cash and Buddy Holly playing on the ride to work and back.