Around 6:30 p.m. ET on Friday, a remarkable era in New York sports talk radio came to an end.

At that time, Mike Francesa signed off his final show on WFAN, 30 years after starting on the station. He said he was grateful to have had “the best job in the world for 30 years,” then thanked the city of New York, his family, the people he worked with and WFAN as a whole. Finally, in the waning seconds of his last show, he thanked his listeners:

“More than anything else, going out I want to thank you guys, the listeners, the audience. Because without you we don’t last a week, we don’t last a month. So what I want to say is I will miss you, I thank you, and from the bottom of my heart I love you. Good bye.

Friday represented one final turn at the wheel for Francesa before Chris Carlin, Maggie Gray and Bart Scott ease into his WFAN time slot next week. Francesa kicked off the show with the words, “One more time,” then thanked everyone who attended his guest-packed penultimate show Thursday at the Paley Center for Media.

(As always, thanks to @BackAftaThis for aggregating the best of Francesa.)

Having gotten all the guests out of his way Thursday, Francesa spent his entire show Friday taking calls and sharing his reflections.

One particularly touching (is that the right word?) call came from a listener and friend who said Francesa helped him clean up when his son threw up at a Yankee game.

Plenty of big names in sports media have acknowledged Francesa in recent days, but the most noteworthy tribute Friday came from his former partner-in-crime Chris Russo, who closed his MLB Network show by saying that he was “actually sad” to see Francesa leaving WFAN.

Francesa said Friday he will not go away completely, hinting at a future venture he will announce “in the weeks and months to come.”

You can listen to clips from Francesa’s final show, including his parting shot, right here.

About Alex Putterman

Alex is a writer and editor for The Comeback and Awful Announcing. He has written for The Atlantic, VICE Sports, MLB.com, SI.com and more. He is a proud alum of Northwestern University and The Daily Northwestern. You can find him on Twitter @AlexPutterman.