Sunday was tough to swallow.

It was déjà vu all over again for Pats fans, and for listeners of WZID.

Mike Morin and Tracy Caruso, the venerable morning-show hosts that they are, had bet former afternoon host and current Lite FM New York morning-show host Bob Bronson over the Superbowl. Bronson was also the operations manager, and in that capacity, Mike and Tracy's boss when he was in Manchester.

“We are going beyond the clam chowder or Carnegie Deli cheesecake,” Morin said on the air last week.

“Any good bet is either money or shame,” Bronson stabbed back. “We're both broke, so we can do shame.”

And the bet was on. Unfortunately on.

If the Pats won, Bronson was going to stand in Times Square with a Patriots jersey and get his picture taken with the Naked Cowboy.

“My former boss was good to me, but resented my popularity in Manchester,” Morin told me, jokingly. “To put a football analogy to it: I was Tom Brady; he was Brett Favre who defected to New York. So very sad that Bronson's career is ending like Favre's.” Perhaps, but Bronson isn't ending his career in exile in Minnesota.

On Thursday, Mike settled his half of the bet by parading down Elm Street with a Giants jersey, doing Morin's “version” of the Macarena, the “Mike-arena.”

“I think Mike has a secret desire to be on ‘Dancing with the Stars,' ” Bronson shot back. “So maybe this will launch that goal for him.”

It will be priceless, if not sad. Not that Mike's dancing is bad, ahem, but the game's lingering effects have lasted longer than the Monday-after hangovers. This one stung.

It was all there. The fourth-quarter comeback, the David Tyree-like catch — almost too much to take. Again.

I guess it's probably time to get over it. A nice, funny distraction like dancing in Veterans Park is much healthier than the themes coming from ESPN and the like. Brady this, Welker that, and worse, Mrs. Tom Brady, Gisele Bundchen, being called the new Yoko Ono. Yikes.

“By the way, what is Tracy's end of the bargain? Nice to see she hasn't changed!” Bronson said.

“Mike is just better at being humiliated than I am,” Caruso said. “I'm more of a bask-in-the-glory-of-victory kind of girl.”

I worked with her, so I can attest to that. Typical Tracy.


► Video: 'WZID's Mike Morin is a man of his word'



For what it's worth, Bronson may not tell his listeners on Lite FM in New York, but I know for a fact that he's a Pats fan at heart.

“OK, if you can guarantee my safety, yes, of course, I'm still a Pats fan,” Bronson told me when pushed on the issue. “My family would throw me out if I became a Giants or Yankees fan”

While Sunday still stings for Pats fans, it's nice to know that life moves on. The coda in the song for fans of any New England sports is “there is always next year” or perhaps four years from now. Revenge is always lurking around the corner.

For me, well, I'm a Packers fan. I know the pain the Pats are feeling firsthand. Not only did we lose to the Giants, but the same pattern happened the last time the Giants upset the Pats in the Superbowl. I was secretly hoping for a Packers / Patriots Superbowl, just so I could be “that guy.” Or maybe so I could place a friendly wager.

“You're on. I'll put up a 30-pound wedge of Wisconsin cheddar for the used Jacuzzi you bought last year,” Morin told me. Well, it beats dancing on Elm Street.

Adam McCune is the author of “Funny Man Down.” “McCune's Manchester” appears Thursdays in the New Hampshire Union Leader. You can email Adam at amccune@gmail.com.