Angelo Cataldi

Angelo Cataldi, the bellicose morning host on WIP-AM (610), was suspended yesterday for two days without pay over a remark he made on his morning show last Tuesday, during a diatribe inspired by the Eagles' new policy prohibiting outside food at Lincoln Financial Field. During a rant over comments by team president Joe Banner, Cataldi said that if the team was responsible for picking the people running the security at the stadium, he expected the guards to be wearing swastikas.

"I'm excited! This is such an honor!" exclaimed Alexandra Warner, a raven-tressed 20-year-old from Allentown, after being named top Wingette this morning. She beat 105 other women, to also win a Harley Davidson during Wing Bowl XXI, held at a soldout Wells Fargo Center. Warner got 56 percent of the texted-in votes, according to 94 WIP blaster of ceremonies, Angelo Cataldi. And it was just her first trip to the annual gorge-aganza, which was won by James "The Bear" McDonald from Connecticut.

Miss Pennsylvania, Marla Wynne, who was dismissed by Miss America judge Larry King as the ugliest of the pageant's 10 finalists, got her chance to respond to the talk-show megalomaniac yesterday on The Joan Rivers Show. Frankly, she pulled her punches. "I think Larry King didn't understand what the pageant was about," said Wynne, who said she had been wounded by King's comments. "If he knew the work and hours and the blood, sweat and tears that went into it, he wouldn't have been so quick to be insensitive.

  J AKE TAPPER may be headlining his own CNN show, "The Lead," airing Monday through Friday at 4 p.m., but his news-watching habits began in his family's Queen Village home. His biggest local influences were guys like 6ABC's Jim Gardner and former ABC and CBS 3 reporter/anchor Marc Howard . "I knew who Jim Gardner was long before Peter Jennings ," Tapper told me. "One of the thrills of being at ABC was getting to know Jim Gardner. " Tapper doesn't stay nearly as niche as Gardner's local beat on "The Lead," saying his main goal as a newscaster is to bring front-page news to his viewers.

RE WHAT Mayor Street said the other day regarding the boos he received in Jacksonville. Just so the mayor knows, I cannot stand Angelo Cataldi. He is a knucklehead for doing what he did to my team's quarterback on draft day. Mayor Street is giving Cataldi too much credit for changing people's opinions. I made up my mind years before Street was even mayor. And the things I've seen on TV and read in the papers makes me want to boo him more. Example: the firefighter waiting for benefits and Hepatitis C care outside his office.

Cataldi vs. Verna. The Italian Stallion versus . . . better not go there. City Council President Anna Verna was getting roughed up on Sportstalk radio station WIP yesterday morning, and after getting calls from constituents, called in to the program to defend herself. Verna said later she was "personally insulted" by some of the banter among the morning yakkers, led by host Angelo Cataldi. "I insult everybody," Cataldi said later. "I did challenge her on the air. I felt somebody had to do that, since the woman's been walking around for two days ignoring what a lot of people believe is a surprisingly fair plan by the Eagles.

At WIP-AM radio, the 10 a.m. to noon host's chair is reserved for . . . Glen Macnow. Macnow told the Daily News last night that he has resigned as an Inquirer sports writer. Macnow is expected to succeed Chuck Cooperstein, who hosted the 10 a.m. to noon show for 16 months. Cooperstein is returning to Dallas to host the afternoon drive-time show on an all-sports station. Sources say Macnow could be paired with an on-air WIP personality in a 10 a.m. to mid-afternoon slot.

Personalities from WIP Radio will serve as guest hosts of "Daily News Live" on Comcast SportsNet beginning Tuesday. "Daily News Live" airs weeknights at 5 p.m. with sports writers from the Daily News. Here is the schedule: Tuesday: Rhea Hughes Wednesday: Al Morganti Thursday: Rob Ellis Friday: Glen Macnow Monday, July 11: Anthony Gargano Tuesday, July 12: Angelo Cataldi Wednesday, July 13: Rhea Hughes Also, CSN has compiled the stories of five high school stars who appeared on "Daily News Live" in May into a half-hour special called "High School Hot Shots.

Tom Bigby, who helped engineer the sports-talk format at WIP-AM (610) and as program director ran the station with an iron fist for 15 years, has announced that he is leaving later this month. Bigby, 61, will become program director at all-news KRLD-AM in Dallas, where his children and grandchildren live. Like WIP, KRLD is a property of Infinity Broadcasting. His last day in Philadelphia will be July 23. The move by Bigby was generally unexpected among the ranks but appears to be voluntary.

Tony Bruno knows how it feels to be wanted. Really wanted. Since February 1992, Bruno has been part of WIP-AM's five-days-a-week morning fraternity party. For more than two years, he also has worked weekends for ESPN Radio and ESPN2. When Bruno agreed to join ESPN Radio full-time at the beginning of this month, he thought his seven-day grinds were over. Wrong. As his WIP contract was expiring, the station decided it wanted to keep its popular morning show intact. "The day I was leaving," Bruno said, "(WIP)

  J AKE TAPPER may be headlining his own CNN show, "The Lead," airing Monday through Friday at 4 p.m., but his news-watching habits began in his family's Queen Village home. His biggest local influences were guys like 6ABC's Jim Gardner and former ABC and CBS 3 reporter/anchor Marc Howard . "I knew who Jim Gardner was long before Peter Jennings ," Tapper told me. "One of the thrills of being at ABC was getting to know Jim Gardner. " Tapper doesn't stay nearly as niche as Gardner's local beat on "The Lead," saying his main goal as a newscaster is to bring front-page news to his viewers.

Part 3 of a series about Philadelphia sports fans. Do the Eagles really have the most fans of any franchise in Philadelphia? "There is no question - none - that the Eagles rule the city," says Angelo Cataldi, lead talker mornings at SportsRadio 94 WIP. "Even in 2008 [when the Phillies won the World Series], the Eagles were a notch above the Phillies in fan interest. It changes according to the fortunes of the teams, but never to the extent where the Phils surpass the Eagles.

"I'm excited! This is such an honor!" exclaimed Alexandra Warner, a raven-tressed 20-year-old from Allentown, after being named top Wingette this morning. She beat 105 other women, to also win a Harley Davidson during Wing Bowl XXI, held at a soldout Wells Fargo Center. Warner got 56 percent of the texted-in votes, according to 94 WIP blaster of ceremonies, Angelo Cataldi. And it was just her first trip to the annual gorge-aganza, which was won by James "The Bear" McDonald from Connecticut.

FIVE-TIME Wing Bowl champ Bill "El Wingador" Simmons will not be part of this year's 21st annual celebration of gluttony and strippers Feb. 1, says 94 WIP morning host, Angelo Cataldi. Simmons is awaiting trial on a charge of cocaine distribution following his arrest last June in Gloucester County. "We all owe a debt to Bill for what he has done for our event," Cataldi said Tuesday. "But I think for his benefit that his role be downplayed while he's working things out with the courts," continued Cataldi, who wrote a letter on behalf of Simmons for his bail hearing.

IT WAS THE winter of our discontent. Let history show our beloved Eagles had reached a 14-year low. Our equally beloved Phillies were 4 months away from taking the field at Citizens Bank Park and, worse still, we had just learned that our most beloved player, Carlos "Chooch" Ruiz, had been suspended for the first 25 games of the season because of substance abuse. Our not quite so beloved Sixers were not reaching anywhere near their full potential, because their newly acquired savior, Andrew Bynum (for whom we paid a king's ransom)

The shock waves in the sports community suggest that the Eagles cutting Joe Banner loose is a matter of cosmic proportions. "There is a God," was one Philly.com comment. "WE ARE DOOMED!!!" a fan posted on the Eagles message board. "No one in Philly could have envisioned Andy Reid outlasting Joe Banner w/Eagles but it's happened. End of world next," tweeted Tim Panacchio of Comcast SportsNet. The news was broken overnight by The Inquirer's Jeff McLane that Banner was out as team president after 18 years.

BEST WISHES to 94WIP morning host Angelo Cataldi, who will undergo surgery for diverticulitis Thursday at Virtua Hospital in Voorhees.   Cataldi was off the air Monday, and doctors have advised he stay out of work for three weeks, Cataldi's wife, Gail, told us Monday afternoon. "He's such an embellisher so I don't think people took this serious, but he was really sick," Gail said of Cataldi's bout with the digestive disease, which affects the bowels. She doubts her husband will listen to his doctors and stay out of work for three weeks, but Gail said she will encourage him to get all the rest he needs.

At this point in time, it's almost beside the point to refer to WIP-FM (94.1) as a mere "radio station. " Sure, that's what it is, technically speaking. But a quarter-century after it first got involved with sports-related programming (while it was still on the AM dial), the outlet has established itself as something more than just another over-the-air outlet. Instead, it can be argued that WIP has become so embedded in the culture of the Delaware Valley that it has taken on the status of a public utility.

SHANE VICTORINO was in Waynesville, Mo., yesterday, shooting an episode of ABC's "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition," along with Red Sox pitcher Clay Buchholz and Mets infielder Daniel Murphy . The Phillies outfielder tweeted yesterday about how excited he was to work with show host Ty Pennington . (The show, we must add, regularly makes Daily News Tattle columnist Howard Gensler cry.) Singer Jewel was also involved in yesterday's shoot at Waynesville High School.

Just a few months after the Eagles drafted Donovan McNabb, another thing happened to Angelo Cataldi that infuriated him for years. McNabb is long gone, but bring up beach tags and the longtime 610-AM sports personality's bitterness over his 1999 beachfront brouhaha with Avalon comes surging back. "I try to avoid Avalon whenever I can," Cataldi said yesterday. "I am one of the top enemies of Avalon, and I am proud of it. " Cataldi was renting a home in Avalon in August '99 that came with beach tags.