John Feinstein never will consider himself to be a radio guy. As he established in part 1 of our interview, he is a writer first and foremost.

However, since radio now occupies four hours of his day, Feinstein wants to be good at it. In his mind, it means doing some things that break from the tradition of sports talk radio.

In part 2 of our Q/A, he discusses his relatively new show with co-host Bruce Murray, Beyond the Brink (Mad Dog Radio, 10 a.m.-2 p.m. ET). He talks about differences in approach with Murray, boring guests, and Tony Kornheiser, whose radio show serves as a blueprint for Feinstein.

What has it been like doing a daily radio show?

I haven’t found it that hard. I can talk for four hours with taking a breath.

It took a while for Bruce and I to adjust. He had been doing it alone. We have different ideas for what makes good sports talk radio. Bruce is more traditional. He focuses on games, NFL, NBA, baseball. We had an argument on a Monday about what was the big story: Tiger Woods winning the Memorial or Celtics-Heat. I thought it was Tiger. He thought it was Celtics-Heat.

Tiger Woods, for better or worse, is the best-known athlete in the world. I tend to talk about people, tell stories about people. Bruce likes to break down the games. It’s OK to get two different guys. Over the course of four hours, you don’t want to sound the same.

Is it possible to do a successful sports talk show without a lot of bluster?

Tony Kornheiser has shown you can be successful by doing a smart show. A lot of what I do comes from him. His philosophy is that you don’t have people on just because they are big names. A couple of times, they came to me and said, ‘We can get so and so.’ I said, ‘He’s terrible.’ Tony has a no athletes rule. I don’t think I can get away with that, but I’d rather have on a smart TV commentator or journalist or a coach willing to talk.

They booked (Baltimore GM) Dan Duquette. The Orioles have had a lot of success. Dan came on for 15 minutes and it was physically painful. Then I booked (Baltimore baseball writer) Peter Schmuck. He was great. Peter’s going to be honest, while GMs are paid to hide stuff.

Whether or not we can succeed this way, I don’t know. I’m going to try to do it.

What is your view on callers?

If you get a smart caller, that’s fine. Let him make a few points. But if you get someone who is screaming, get him off. Bruce said, ‘Oh no, you can’t do that.’ I said, ‘Not only can you do that, but you should.’

We had a cadre of callers who were pissed when I first got here. Part of it was people reacting negatively to change and part of it was people who felt it was their show. One day, we had a guy who was screaming because he was put on hold. I said, ‘Fine, don’t call.’

Some of those callers have gone away, and we’ve replaced them with some quality callers. We have 6-8 regular callers where I’m kind of interested in what they have to say.

What do you bring to the show?

I think I’m able to add some things because of my background. Because of what and who I’ve covered through the years. Sometimes I tell stories about people I know. Like when Casey Martin qualified for the U.S. Open. I talked about being in the Supreme Court when they heard his case, and then talking about it to Casey later. I talked about some of the arguments I witnessed in the locker room. I told the story of Fred Couples arguing with Payne Stewart. Fred thought he should get a cart because he had a bad back. Your typical sports talk host doesn’t know this.

What kind of feedback have you gotten thus far?

It’s been positive. But you know in TV and radio, you’re great until the day they fire you.