Chris Russo missed ‘First Take’ with a case of the hiccups

Christopher “Mad Dog” Russo just gave NBA players a new excuse to sit out a game for load management: hiccups.

Russo was noticeably absent from his SiriusXM radio show Wednesday afternoon, he also missed his weekly appearance on First Take. Something had to be up to keep Russo from mixing it up on First Take in the middle of the NFL playoffs. And that something was a bad case of the hiccups.

After a brief absence, Russo was back on his radio show Thursday afternoon, where he revealed to a caller that it was chronic hiccups that kept him away from all microphones on Wednesday.

“I was out of it,” Russo said. “I get these chronic hiccups which I got Tuesday night when I got home for dinner. And when I get those hiccups, it can sometimes be an hour of hell. And in this particular case, it kinda led to something where, I thought it was acid reflux, I don’t know if I want to call it that, but I basically gagged for the next 13 hours without throwing anything up. It was really a rough 15, 18 hours.”

Maybe Russo should talk to Mad Dog Sports Radio and WFAN update anchor Chris Lopresti, who battled the hiccups on and off for more than three days last year.

Russo said he informed ESPN he wasn’t going to make it to First Take just a few hours into his case of the cups Tuesday night, quickly recognizing he was in for a rough bout.

It sounds terrible. Forget about 15 hours, 15 minutes of the hiccups can be brutal. And no one wants to listen to Dog on the radio or on TV hiccupping and gagging for hours at a time. So, thank you for not trying to play hero ball. But imagine Russo, who detests load management and pro athletes needing rest, learning LeBron James, Luka Dončić or anyone else was set to miss a game because of the hiccups? The next time Russo rips the modern athlete for being too soft, remember the day he was sidelined by hiccups.