Mike Francesa returned to his podcast for the first time in a long time, to dispel the rampant rumors and confirm he is in fact still living.

Francesa went nearly two weeks without a podcast or any public statement. And it’s one thing if Francesa takes a two-week break over the summer, but this was an unannounced two-week break during a busy time on the sports calendar. Francesa missed Knicks’ playoff games, he missed the Mets’ 12-game losing streak, he missed the NFL Draft, he even missed out on the entire Mike Vrabel-Dianna Russini story.

As listeners began to wonder where Francesa was, there were rumors on Reddit about his BetRivers podcast coming to an end, there was even speculation about his health. But rumors be damned, Mike Francesa is back.

“I’d like to say hello and clear up a couple of things that have been rampant everywhere,” Francesa began during his Monday evening show. “All you crazies on the internet who came up with every possible reason, including my death, as to why I have been away during this time – it was planned.”

Francesa was referring to his time away as being planned, not his death.

“I’m like, ‘Hey, I had a good run. I had a nice life,’” Francesa joked before revealing the absence was due to a planned knee replacement surgery. And Francesa said the surgery went well, it just took a lot longer to recover than when he had the same procedure on his other knee 25 years ago.

Last October, Mike Francesa underwent emergency surgery to have his gallbladder removed, and was back on-air the next day. Francesa similarly wasn’t expecting his knee replacement to cause such a prolonged absence, which is why he didn’t make any sort of announcement prior to the procedure. And while he returned home after just one night in the hospital, the grueling recovery made it quite a bit longer before Francesa was able to get behind the mic.

“Here’s the amazing thing: Everybody at Special Surgery knew I was there,” Francesa said. “Everybody at BetRivers knew I was doing this…My whole family knew about it. A million of my friends knew about it. And not one person leaked a thing about it.”

Francesa said he was being sent all of the rumblings on Reddit about his absence, with friends, family, and even BetRivers urging him to make a statement. But once the speculation started to go awry, Francesa opted to let it ride until he was ready to return.

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