Super Bowl Blog: What It's Like On Radio Row
INDIANAPOLIS (CBS) – Day Three in Indy was a whole lot of everything.
It was another early start, heading to Radio Row at 6:45am with 98.5 The Sports Hub's Marc Cappello. Cappello is a Mr. Everything for the Hub. All the postgame sound you hear from the Patriots and Bruins, that is his handy work. He's been doing it for 17 years, and is enjoying his seventh Super Bowl trip.
As many of you all over New England know, starting the morning with Toucher and Rich is never a bad thing.
They have fun, they talk sports, and most importantly, they have fun.
NFL Network's Rich Eisen and former Patriots linebacker Rosevelt Colvin were on to talk sports, and for the fun, T&R had some fun with the Giants at Media Day.
I saw them writing out the fake "scripts" for the unexpecting G-Men on Tuesday, and in listening to the finished product, you can understand why they were giggling like school girls.
Radio Row has evolved quite a bit over the last two days.
The conference room, with Super Bowl flags from each year covering the walls, was desolate and calm on Tuesday. T&R were one of maybe six radio shows to be broadcasting on Tuesday morning, and you could almost easily hear each of the other shows from across the room.
On Wednesday, EVERYONE arrived.
Now I can barely hear myself think, let alone Gresh & Zo who are only a few feet away.
It also doesn't help that fans are now allowed in. For a mere $25, they can walk around a designated area and soak in all the media madness.
NFL Network rules the room, with their set smack-dab in the middle of everything. They have a camera roaming around the room, which requires four guys to operate (one on the camera, and three for the 150 feet of cable).
The Sports Hub's broadcast table is in the middle of the left side, right under the Super Bowl XLVI flag.
Our neighbors for the week are Yahoo! Sports, 640 AM fromFlorida, and OCNN, otherwise known as the Ochocinco News Network.
Yahoo! Sports is home to Brooke Bentley, who has been very popular since Media Day, and now friends with Felger and Mazz after distracting viewers on their Comcast simulcast.
The funny thing is she wasn't even a guest (yet). I tried to snap a picture of the exchange, Felger actually got out of his seat for it, but all the other Hub guys boxed me out.
Felger's wife, Sara Underwood, wasn't thrilled with it.
OCNN is a production, with a set as big as the Hub's but double, and possibly triple, the crew.
None of us are quite sure how to find OCNN (nor did we really care to figure it out), but Jaguars running back Maurice Jones Drew was a guest for nearly three hours.
As for 640, as a Dolphins station it was easy to tell they are not rooting for the Patriots on Sunday. According to them, no "Dol-fan" (their word, not mine) should ever hope for a Patriots win.
The celebrities have also started to arrive, with Larry The Cable Guy the big hit of the day.
After a quick trip to Colvin's gourmet treat shop, it was back to Radio Row. One of the coolest things to see there, besides the Zataran's booth in the lobby leading to the conference room, is the Lego Lucas Oil Stadium.
It's creator, Brian Alano from Bloomington,Indiana, built it without ever seeing a blueprint, just artist renderings.
Three years, 30,000 bricks and 1085 Lego men and women later, Alano had a 1:250 scale replica of Indy's new stadium.
It takes up three tables, and even has a retractable roof.
The Lego stadium has been catching nearly everyone's eye as they walk by, including a famous Patriot hero now a member of the Colts.
Adam Vinatieri, a guest on Gresh and Zo on Wednesday, made a point to sign the roof.
After breaking down the Felger and Mazz set (well, watching people break down the Felger and Mazz set), it was back to our hotel for a quick 15 minutes.
Then, it was back to downtown Indy for dinner.
One thing that I've learned about this place is it is nearly impossible to get lost.
Of the seven times I've driven to the city and back to the hotel, I've gone six different ways.
Four of them were not by choice. Yet the best part is, in the end, you are only a slight turn away from getting to where you actually want to go.
Dinner was the best meal I've had since my honeymoon in August (not prepared by my wife, of course).
The voice of the Patriots, Gil Santos, Marc Cappello and myself went to Fogo De Chao, a Brazilian steakhouse.
Waiters were carrying around every kind of steak imaginable, and would come up to you until you flipped a little coaster over to "No Thanks." There was top sirloin, bottom sirloin, filet mignon, rib eye, lamb, and chicken.
Some even came wrapped in bacon too.
But the star of the meal was the fried bananas.
A sweet and tasting treat packed with potassium that, believe it or not, outshined the entire meat bombardment in my eyes.
I could have eaten three on my own, but I was too afraid of the repercussions and what it would mean for my impending food coma.
As I was laying in bad, wondering why I said yes to more Beef Ancho (the prime part of the rib eye), a small blessing came by way of text: our 7 a.m. departure turned into 8 a.m.
Some much-needed sleep was now a part of my night of digestion.
Follow Matt Geagan on Twitter @MattyGWBZ
