Courtesy the San Francisco Chronicle

(January 21, 2011) For an interview with Brian Murphy and Paul McCaffrey - Murph and Mac to listeners of their morning show on KNBR (680 AM) - we use a spare studio, because we cannot use their office. In fact, they probably can't use their office, which is the size of a walk-in closet. Two desks, two chairs and a mess of sports memorabilia leave would-be visitors in an SRO situation.

They don't care. It's not as if they're there 9 to 5. (They're on the air 5 to 9 a.m.) Besides, says Murphy, "I think it goes back to Frank Dill and Mike Cleary, Steve McPartlin and John London. It's the office of a lot of ghosts." He adds: "We may be the longest-continuing occupants since Frank and Mike. It's been five years."

In recent months, Murphy and McCaffrey have settled into the upper echelons of the ratings, especially in KNBR's target demo, of men ages 25 to 54. The entire station rose to the top of the overall Arbitron ratings during the Giants' playoff and World Series run.

Giants fever resulted in new listeners to the morning show, which is a genial blend of knowledgeable sports talk (the pair regularly call on former athletes such as Ronnie Lott and Trent Dilfer) and a stable of local and national sportswriters) to lighthearted banter about just about anything.

The morning of the BCS college football championship, M&M predicted the winner by way of their "Pop Culture Showdown," which they've used to foretell the outcome of various major sporting events. McCaffrey and newscaster Dan Dibley voted for Oregon or Auburn based on their preferences in categories, dished up by Murphy, like more outrageous countercultural voice (Oregon's Ken Kesey or Auburn's Charles Barkley) and signature film associated with each campus (Eugene was the setting for "Animal House," while in "Return of the Swamp Thing," someone wore an Auburn T-shirt). In the end, the nod went to Oregon. But the game didn't.

The next morning, there was no mention of their wrong guess. "It's all in fun," Murphy says. "When we do it again for the Super Bowl, we'll claim that we're undefeated."

Such features, along with good chemistry among the team (including producers Patrick "P-Con" Connor and Rob Blach) have added up to an alternative to morning shows that feature crude humor and mean-spirited pranks.

"We don't need to be that wild or crazy," says Lee Hammer, operations manager of KNBR and its sister stations. "It's two guys talking sports, and talking lifestyle and culture. You can't talk sports 24/7 and break down X's and O's of the interior line, so there are times they talk about other things. They do a great job."

Murphy, 43, and McCaffrey, 42, are unlikely morning radio hosts, one being a former sportswriter; the other a rock fan with an affinity for the Grateful Dead.

Murphy, a Bay Area native and a UCLA grad, is the former scribe, writing about football, baseball and golf for the San Francisco Examiner and The Chronicle beginning in 1994. Shortly after he made a series of guest appearances on KNBR, he got a call from former station GM Tony Salvadore in the fall of 2004, inviting him to sub for the traveling Tom Tolbert on his afternoon show with Ralph Barbieri.

One stint led to another, and he wound up joining morning show anchor Tim Liotta. It wasn't easy switching from journalist to radio entertainer. "It felt like wearing someone else's shoes," he says. "But with each passing day and month, I became calmer and more attuned to the sound of the show." He credits Mac with his on-air ease.

McCaffrey, 42, was born in Queens, moved to San Francisco at age 7 and bounced from coast to coast until he moved back in 1996. He'd done radio at Curry College in Massachusetts. He got a writing job at KNBR's little sister station, then known as KTCT (the Ticket). (It now shares KNBR's call letters, but at 1050 AM.)

He drew GM Salvadore's attention with a couple of pop-ins to the morning show, but the station soon went all syndication, and McCaffrey left. But he was not forgotten. A year later, Larry Sharp, then PD at another sister station, KSAN, hired him as a DJ. He added a weekend show devoted to the Grateful Dead. He'd bump into Murphy once in a while and chat. When management decided to make a change in the KNBR morning show, moving Murphy into the anchor slot, McCaffrey got the call to join him.

Although both root for the hometown teams, they try not to be "homers," blindly devoted to them. "We're fans, not homers," McCaffrey says. But it was difficult not to become fanatic when the Giants made their run to and through the World Series.

"It was a significant moment in our show's history," Murphy says. "We got more feedback in those five weeks than ever. People felt connected by that experience. We went uninhibited into the experience, and I'm sure some people didn't like it. But a lot of people felt a connection to the fact that we let ourselves experience the ride emotionally."

They even had their own "Fear the Beard" campaign. Murphy explains: "Paulie, being the Deadhead on the show, invented a phrase. He said he felt 'particles of energy' in the Giants' corner. It started as a joke, but it turned into a thing. I was walking down the street three days after the Series and a burly construction worker went, 'Yay, Murphy! Particles!' " And at the celebration parade, they spotted signs reading "Holy Particles!" and "Particles Happen."

They'll be happening again on Feb. 5 at the Giants' 18th Fan Fest at AT&T Park, from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., when all the KNBR personalities will be broadcasting live, interviewing the world champs. The free-admission event usually draws about 20,000 fans. More than 40,000 are expected this year.

That'll be a lot of particles.

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