On days like today, people turn to sports as a way to escape the harsh realities of life. Even if it only is a few brief moments, they want to hear about the Yankees, Kobe, Tiger…

So it shouldn’t come as a surprise that Mike Greenberg said some listeners were upset with him and co-host Ryen Russillo (filling in for Mike Golic) for focusing much of the Mike & Mike Show on the Boston Marathon tragedy this morning.

After the sports update at 9 a.m. ET, Greenberg and Russillo explain why they went in that direction. Transcript courtesy of ESPN PR.

Mike Greenberg: I would say the reaction I’m getting is something in vicinity of 50/50 on Twitter and in our mailbox of people saying they appreciate the coverage we are doing versus others saying they wish we had spent this morning talking about sports. And I understand that, I fully do.

We spent probably an hour, an hour and a half on the phone last night – all of us on show staff and members of our management – trying to make up our mind on what the right thing to do is. Nine out of ten times when there have been significant news events in our country – including the day after a presidential election – Mike and I talk about sports because we just feel like if you’re coming to us, you’re going to be looking for that.

On a day like this, I’ll tell you the honest reason that we didn’t do it – I did not feel like we could. My heart would not have been into anything we would have been talking about this morning if it wasn’t this – this is all that’s on my mind. I feel like it’s all that’s on many people’s minds, and if you didn’t appreciate what we did today, I understand, we’ll be back, probably, to our normal stuff tomorrow and I look forward to that and I appreciate everybody’s feedback one way or the other

Ryen Russillo: I just hope people realize how much we struggled with the decision.

We sit here and say, are we doing the right thing? I know that in times past, I’ll look to sports, sports radio as an escape. But sometimes it just doesn’t feel right.

And by the way, if you were going to compare it to what other topics are out there right now, it doesn’t make any sense. And trust me, no one goes, Hey I want to go do this for four hours. I can’t wait to talk about this.

. . . It felt like the right thing to do and I heard other stations yesterday afternoon doing things not related to Boston and it just didn’t feel right to me.

This isn’t fun today.