Lord of the Wings
"I would like to think," says Cataldi one weekday morning after wrapping his show, "that Al [Morganti], who came up with the original idea, had a blueprint." Cataldi turns to WIP morning show co-host Morganti, who’s sitting on the windowsill. "But you had no blueprint, right, Al?"
"No," says Morganti, shrugging. "I don’t even have a pen."
"It took on its own life," says Cataldi.
They’re being overly modest, of course. Their show, which airs from 6 a.m. to 10 a.m. each weekday, was recently named by Sports Illustrated one of the top dozen sports radio shows in the country, with a fiercely loyal listener base that’s at least as passionate about WIP as about Philly’s pro sports teams. And Wing Bowl is their crowning achievement, the thing that put their show — and the station — on the map, and that continues to fuel its impressive growth.
And it all started as a lark, born of desperation and cynical glee. Back in January of 1993, Morganti mused, on-air, about the hapless Buffalo Bills, who had been to the Super Bowl twice. "Buffalo kept losing the Super Bowl," says Morganti, "but at least they had a party." Since the Eagles weren’t going anywhere, that pre-Super Bowl week held out the prospects of a lot of dead air. So Morganti proposed a "Wing Bowl" to be held on the Friday before the Super Bowl.
Immediately, WIP’s listeners picked up the ball. Someone called in and donated the wings; WIP found two contestants and decided to hold Wing Bowl I on January 29th at the Wyndham Franklin hotel. Cataldi didn’t even bother to run his plans by the hotel, thinking no one would show. He was wrong, by 150 bodies. One of the competitors, Carmen Cordero, an overweight chain-smoker with a dirty mustache, showed up wearing a ratty old white t-shirt on which he’d written, in crude letters, BEAST FROM THE EAST. Carmen ate 100 wings, looked over at his opponent, realized he was far ahead, and then consummated the first great instance of Wing Bowl showmanship: He leaned back and lit up a cigarette.
It rolled. The second year, WIP drew 1,000 to the Main Event on Market Street. The third year they blew out Club Egypt, so they shifted to the Electric Factory, which was so unprepared, parking-wise, for the fan influx that dozens of people had their cars towed. Somewhere around Wing Bowl IV, Al and Angelo added the chicks. Wingettes. They needed someone to handle the plates of wings — why not make it babes?
"It was the defining moment," says Cataldi. "Because it took an event that was fun and goofy, and made it, ‘You should see the women at this thing!’"
Yes, many were strippers. But there was also Diane, pushing 40, from the district attorney’s office — "extremely scantily clad," says Cataldi, whose wife checks the girls every year to make sure they’re wearing underwear. Diane was proof of Wing Bowl’s class-spanning appeal. If you think it’s just a blue-collar event, well, pay closer attention to WIP’s commercials. Count the number of ads for luxury cars. "You know how many doctors call us and want to be the official doctor of Wing Bowl?" says Morganti. Indeed, at least two doctors have competed: Bruce "The Norseman" Wulfsberg, an orthopedist, and Ira "Dr. Kugel" Thal, a Jewish internist who entered the arena at Wing Bowl IX accompanied by a techno version of "Hava Nagila."
