Howard Eskin is gone. Good.
The WIP broadcaster's departure was inevitable, and a long time coming.
Howard Eskin’s ejection from the Philadelphia sports media scene was only a matter of time.
The revelation Thursday, here in The Inquirer, that a recent confrontation with a female employee at WIP-FM (94.1) — a confrontation that turned physical — had led to a parting of ways between him and the station was hardly shocking. The ice below his feet had been spiderwebbing for months, ever since an Aramark employee had accused him of making an unwanted advance toward her, ever since the Phillies, in turn, had banned him from Citizens Bank Park. One slightly false move, and Eskin would be gone. Now he is, and more than inevitable, his departure is a long time coming.
As a cohost of a weekend show on WIP, I can tell you that the greatest challenge (at least for me and those hosts who approach the job in a similar manner) is not dealing with obnoxious callers or getting in and out of commercial breaks. It’s the balancing act you have to carry out — by the nature of talk radio itself and by the reality that WIP is an Eagles and Phillies broadcast rightsholder — to maintain credibility, consistency, and integrity in your commentary. To their credit, the station’s leaders have never told me what to say on the air, and while a WIP representative declined to comment Friday, he also didn’t object to my writing this piece. He understood that balancing act.
» READ MORE: Sources: Howard Eskin forcibly grabbed female Audacy employee during altercation
Eskin never bothered to scale the ladder to the high wire. His agendas were obvious and calculated, and he made no apologies for them. The Eagles were making either brilliant decisions or understandable, forgivable mistakes. The 76ers were dopes and dogs, no matter the truth or context or gray areas. Charlie Manuel was a marble-mouthed moron until Manuel, as he did with everyone, won him over.
Eskin’s praise or criticism of a particular franchise, coach, or athlete was based solely on whether that institution or individual served his needs: Did they give him access? Did they give him attention? Could he toady his way into their good graces? Put it this way: Had Sam Hinkie cozied up to him, had Hinkie done anything other than see him for the phony sycophant that he was, Eskin would have been one of The Process’s most passionate defenders instead of one of its loudest detractors.
His schtick was the precursor to the empty, attention-seeking economy that sprouted up in the age of social media: grandstanding displays at press conferences, questions intended not to gain insight but to generate extreme reactions and succulent sound bites, insults and false narratives and unethical, inappropriate conduct tolerated in the name of being relevant and moving the needle.
No multimillionaire athlete who has passed through Philadelphia over the last three decades, no spoiled child of the modern pro sports machine, operated with a more inflated sense of entitlement than Eskin did. And if the franchises here believed that they, like pet owners, could placate him by feeding him a few treats, they succeeded only in emboldening him, in encouraging the very behavior that brought his career to its humiliating end.
Twenty years ago — when I was writing columns for three suburban newspapers here and Eskin was working for a local TV station and, then as now, operating a handicapping website under his own name — I approached him one day at the NovaCare Complex and asked him a question on the record. There he was in the Eagles’ locker room every day, interacting with the players, finding out whose ankle was tender, who was playing through cracked ribs, who might have a family crisis weighing on his mind. How could he justify putting those athletes at risk of having the NFL fine or suspend them for interacting with a gambler?
» READ MORE: 94.1 WIP chooses Devan Kaney as Howard Eskin’s replacement on the Eagles’ sideline
He snickered at the suggestion that he was doing anything wrong.
“I never really thought about it,” he told me. “Actually, there’s nothing you learn in a locker room that can help you. It’s the biggest joke that people think you can benefit by being in a locker room. It’s a joke.”
Not anymore. Sooner or later, things were going to get serious for Howard Eskin, and they did, finally. No one should be surprised. No one should shed a tear.