Craig Carton was once stopped from punching Phil Mushnick in the face, and it sounds like he’d still like to take his shot.
Friday afternoon, Carton released some pent-up anger during his WFAN radio show with co-host Chris McMonigle after a caller referenced Mushnick and the New York Post.
In June 2024, Carton was the keynote speaker at a banquet honoring recovering compulsive gambler Arnie Wexler, who has long been celebrated for his work as a gambling addiction counselor. Carton is similarly a recovering gambling addict. And in his recovery, Carton has worked to bring awareness to the addiction since being released from prison in 2020 after being found guilty of fraud for a ticket-selling scheme that was used to pay gambling debts. According to Carton, he arrived at the banquet and saw Mushnick there.
“I had a real problem that he was at the event. Because he’s not a guy that supports recovery,” Carton said of Mushnick on WFAN. “He’s not a guy that feels for you when you succumb to an addiction, he has gone after me because I’m an addict. And I found it very offensive that he would now show up to an event that I’m the keynote speaker at to honor someone who’s a part of my personal recovery. So, I’m walking in, and I was gonna punch him in the face, and had to be separated from him because I didn’t think he belonged in that room. And not only does he go to the room anyway, and I told him he did not belong in that room, it was wrong for him to be there…and he sat in that room with an evil smirk on his ugly fat face. And a week or two later, he wrote a column attacking me, suggesting my recovery was a scam. I never said a word about it publicly until right now in this moment, but it bothered me to the core.”
Carton said Mushnick has access to his phone number and email, but the New York Post columnist never once contacted him to ask about his bout with gambling, continued recovery, and attempts at helping others who have struggled with the same addiction. Instead of asking about his gambling addiction, Mushnick heard Carton reference a point spread on his since-canceled FS1 morning show last year, and used that as fuel to question his recovery.
“I don’t gamble, I don’t encourage you to gamble, but part of my job talking sports on TV and on the radio, I have to be aware of the point spread cause sports fans are. And while I don’t encourage anybody to gamble, I acknowledged the spread of a game,” Carton said. “And 24 hours later, a scathing column that my recovery is bogus, that I’m a fraud when I talk about my recovery. It’s so personally offensive to me that a guy that has my number, has my email, saw my speech that night for Arnie Wexler, has the opportunity to talk to me about my recovery and the bad things I did pre-recovery, and instead, took one small moment when I acknowledged the point spread on a TV show, and accused me of lying about my recovery.
“That’s the type of scumbag this guy is. And I don’t wish bad things on anybody, I don’t. I used to, I don’t. But if I woke up tomorrow and Phil Mushnick wasn’t on this planet, that would be a better day for the planet. Because he’s an awful, hateful, despicable, angry, small-minded douchebag who does not deserve to breathe the same air that the rest of us breathe.”
Since returning to sports media upon his release from prison in 2020, Carton has been very open about his addiction and recovery. He references his addiction almost daily on WFAN, where he also hosts a weekly show on the topic titled Hello, My Name is Craig. If you’re going to question his addiction or question how genuine Carton is in his attempt to erase the stigma around addiction, making a phone call first seems fair. Although based on these comments, it’s hard to imagine Carton taking that phone call from Mushnick.
