If there’s one thing about Dan Bernstein that everyone can agree on, it’s that he’s crazy.
Not crazy like certifiably crazy. Not crazy like he’d stick a sharp metal object in your head for no reason, although that northern pike he caught at Northerly Island might beg to differ.
He’s crazy intense. Not about everything but certainly too many things for his own good. It got the best of him last week when an exchange on X about that fish went south and he threatened to dox the person and involve his kids.
That led to The Score essentially suspending him for a week, followed by his ouster Friday, as announced in a brief statement on the air by station vice president Mitch Rosen. It ends a 30-year run at the station in which Bernstein became one of the best sports-talkers in town, if not the country.
“I’m sad for Dan and for the radio station,” said Dan McNeil, another sports-talk great whom The Score fired in 2020, also for an inappropriate social media post. “They had no choice because the mighty X is America’s human-resources department. People are gonna be mad at Mitch. He had no choice.
“People are mad at Dan for being stupid, and he knows he was stupid. I exchanged brief texts with him earlier in the week. He works hard at him, and he’s not getting many miles per gallon lately. I hope that changes, and I think he’ll put in the work to do that, as I have.”
But Bernstein’s intensity made him must-listen radio. His sports thoughts weren’t just fire and passion, they were articulate and well-informed. He was the only host at the station who could speak with authority about every major team in town. The Score often eschews hockey talk, but when the Blackhawks were winning, Bernstein could talk about them knowledgeably.
His strongest subjects were basketball, which he could break down tactically like a coach, football and baseball analytics. He was on top of it all, somehow turning myriad pieces of information into succinct, digestible soundbites. He didn’t just spew hot takes, he made an argument and backed it up. Like him or not, he’s a special talent.
But as talented as he is, he can be reckless. The incident last week was the latest in a yearslong series in which Bernstein put himself in hot water. Last year, he came under fire for his poor reaction to being called by his last name on the air, which was caught on video. He never went off the air, but he took a beating on social media.
In 2015, Bernstein drew ire for a lewd remark on Twitter about a former Comcast SportsNet Chicago reporter’s appearance. He angered listeners for mockingly referring to late Cubs Hall of Famer Ron Santo’s amputated legs as stumps. Bernstein often attacked callers he found to be incapable of making suitable arguments, which rubbed some listeners the wrong way.
The nastiness, though, is somewhat part of the sports-radio genre. “Fan” is short for “fanatic,” which is defined as “a person filled with outsized and single-minded zeal.” When such people call into a sports-talk show, things can get ugly, and that’s supposed to be part of the fun. Sometimes it just comes off as mean. But that didn’t lead to Bernstein’s downfall.
“Dan’s strongest convictions weren’t in line with the station’s mission statement at the beginning,” McNeil said. “We wanted to be a place where people could get away from the ways of the wicked world. And Penn State [sexual-abuse revelations] was the beginning, then came [Donald] Trump and [Colin] Kaepernick.
“That fraternity house became a think tank, and we lost something. I wasn’t there for all of it, and then the pandemic and George Floyd. The climate in the country has sullied sports talk. And Dan was a part of that side that was screaming. We make our own beds in this world.”
The station couldn’t save Bernstein this time, despite three decades of service and strong ratings. When the situation called for him to lower the intensity, he raised it, another self-inflicted wound that was entirely avoidable. He should’ve learned by now. But the smartest person in the room doesn’t always make the smartest decisions.