Philadelphia —
There aren’t many days that Angelo Cataldi wishes he still had to go to work. For 30-plus years, Cataldi anchored Philadelphia’s morning sports talk radio show, his daily dose of unfiltered honesty giving voice to a fan base that could never be accused of being a little bit sunny.
Cataldi retired in 2022, at the end of an uncomfortably blissful year in which the Phillies made the World Series and the Eagles went to the Super Bowl. The sports world went on without him, and he happily went on without it, doting on his grandkids and enjoying his time on the Jersey Shore.
And then on an otherwise obscure Friday morning, Cataldi’s son, Neil, called to tell his pop that LeBron James ended his free agent roadshow to announce he was coming to Philadelphia. As he always did in his radio days, Cataldi immediately put his finger on the pulse of the city’s reaction. “You’re kidding, right?” Cataldi told Neil. “That didn’t really happen, did it?”
That is it entirely. The Chosen One chose Philly, a city that nearly prides itself on not being choosable. The long-suffering geographic middle child stuffed between New York and Washington, DC, Philadelphia does not do bougie because bougie doesn’t do Philly.
