Classic 'Giants picnic' call to Mike Francesa on WFAN was a prank, 'Dan in Warwick' says

“Dan in Warwick” was kidding.

So he insisted on Monday in a brief phone interview with WFAN’s Sal Licata after Dan’s infamous 2015 call to the station begat a viral social media event.

When asked by Licata whether his long-ago call was a prank, Dan said, “Of course, it was. What do you think?”

In fact, most folks did not know what to think then and still don’t know for sure. But either way, Monday brought new life to the story and new attention to Dan, who seemed a reluctant star.

In 2015, he called into Mike Francesa’s WFAN afternoon show to ask whether the baseball Giants from San Francisco ever get together with the football Giants from New York when they visit one another’s areas.

Francesa was baffled, then jokingly imagined an annual Giants picnic in Totowa, New Jersey, when the baseball Giants visit to play the Mets.

The football Giants turned the infamous incident into a 30-second promo for “The Eli Manning Show” that featured real-life baseball Giants Logan Webb and Matt Chapman having breakfast with former Giants Manning and Shaun O’Hara. It posted on Monday morning, as did a behind-the-scenes story in Newsday about the production.

In the teaser, Francesa comes upon the four athletes by accident and says, “They really do get together.”

Until Monday, no one publicly had asked Dan whether his original call was serious or not.

He said he had “heard through the grapevine” from a cousin that WFAN was looking to talk to him, so he called into the midday show. But he said he did not have much time to talk, since he was in the process of “leaving Vermont.”

Dan initially called Sal “Evan,” as in afternoon co-host Evan Roberts, then said he was unaware of Monday’s internet stir.

“I’m not on social media much,” he said.

Was he at least aware that his call had become one of the most popular in WFAN history?

“I heard that was a pretty famous call,” he said. “I saw the old cartoon where I had a bottle of bleach and computers in the background.”

That was an apparent reference to a 2018 “Mike-i-Mation” animated video spoofing the call.

Dan has called WFAN since 2015, but only occasionally, according to both him and the station.

Sal offered to replay the original call for him, but Dan repeated that he did not have much time to chat.

Then Licata bade him farewell and hung up.