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New York - “Another night, another Met loss,” the caller sighed. “And it’s starting to be frustrating, as it was last year.”

It was late on a Saturday night on the Tony Paige show on the sports station WFAN-AM, and the guest was a longtime listener and regular caller: Gov. David A. Paterson.

The governor lamented that Oliver Perez’s fastball was “off four or five miles an hour” and that he was worried the left-hander could not make it as a location pitcher. For about 20 minutes he went on, talking about the team’s relief pitching and their sometimes agonizing base-running mistakes.

“You’re three runs down, you don’t advance any bases unless you’re absolutely sure you are going to get there,” Mr. Paterson said with exasperation.

New Yorkers do not see as much of their governor as they used to these days, as he enters the twilight of his term. But they can almost always hear him, as Mr. Paterson cannot resist the medium where he feels most comfortable: the radio.

The governor can be heard up and down the dial, on sports stations, news shows, black-themed programs and religious ones, showing the qualities that he struggles to demonstrate in other settings: confidence, persuasiveness and fluidity.

“I go places and people always stop and tell me, ‘I heard you on so-and-so’s show, and I really enjoyed it,’ ” Mr. Paterson said in a recent interview. “People actually tell me I should do it more.”

Mr. Paterson’s connection with radio is long and deep. He started listening as a boy. And because he is legally blind, radio was the best way for him to experience sports games and keep up with the news.

As governor, he has sometimes been mocked for his blindness, most notably on “Saturday Night Live,” which has portrayed him walking into cameras and holding charts upside down. But the governor said that on the radio, he was at ease because he was not anxious about how he looked.

“I don’t have to worry about looking at the camera, whether my tie is in place, whether my hands are flying in one direction,” he said. “I think it’s the reason my conversation is a lot more fluid. In TV interviews, I have difficulty relaxing, because I’m trying not to look to one side of the room.”

The radio, he added, “It’s sort of a perfect medium for me.”

Sometimes his appearances are scheduled; sometimes they are more impromptu. He has been known to dial up a station and ask to be put on the air to dispute something unflattering a guest has said about him. He calls a few stations so often that he has memorized the numbers. These days, he spends much of his time on the radio talking about the state’s dismal financial outlook and defending some of the more unpopular budget choices by his administration.

Joe Bartlett, a weekend morning host on WOR-AM, recalled that early one recent Saturday morning, the phone in his studio rang with someone on the line claiming to be the governor. At first, Mr. Bartlett thought it was a joke.

But it was not. Mr. Paterson had been listening to the show from home and decided to call in after hearing Bill de Blasio, the city’s public advocate, criticize him for failing to save St. Vincent’s Hospital Manhattan from closing.

Mr. Bartlett put the governor on the air to let him say his piece. But before Mr. Paterson expressed his outrage, he paused to reminisce - for nearly five minutes - about Ralph Snodsmith, the host of WOR’s Sunday morning program “The Garden Hotline,” who had just died. “It’s kind of like losing a friend,” the governor said.

Mr. Paterson typically begins his day listening to the radio, turning it on as soon as he wakes up. If he is at his home in Harlem, he will flip the dial back and forth between WOR, WNYC and WABC, where he can hear Don Imus, one of his favorites. Riding to and from events in the car, he often has his driver tune to the news stations WCBS or WINS. Before he goes to bed, he will turn on sports radio or the BBC.

A few radio hosts said they had been surprised to find out that the governor was a frequent listener to their shows.

“He would actually call me sometimes and tell me what I spoke about,” said the Rev. Al Sharpton, who is host of a radio show and has had the governor on as a guest. “He listens to talk radio - a lot.”

Mr. Paige said the governor once confessed to calling his show and using aliases like “David from Harlem” or “David from Manhattan,” so callers could not easily recognize him.

In May alone, the governor did about 20 radio appearances, and, in an interview, acknowledged that he had thought about a radio career. In addition to the WFAN sports show, Mr. Paterson appeared in May on “Religion on the Line” on WABC with Rabbi Joseph Potasnik and Deacon Kevin McCormack; WNYC public radio; and talk radio outlets in Schenectady and Syracuse.

The hosts who chat frequently with Mr. Paterson say he is relaxed and composed on the air.

“I’ve never heard him more at ease than when he’s just shooting the bull with me and Boom,” said Craig Carton, co-host of a talk show on WFAN with the former quarterback Boomer Esiason.

Mr. Paterson’s regular radio calls have set off speculation that he could be priming himself for a career as a host once he leaves office next year. He had a stint as a substitute host when he was a state senator, and he said he had later given serious thought to a permanent job.

“I would probably consider doing that,” he said.

His own show would, of course, have the added benefit of helping him resist impulses to pick up the phone and complain when he hears something on the radio he does not like.

Mr. Paterson said he often had to remind himself that it was probably unwise to call stations these days as “David from Harlem.”

“I’m listening to a sports station the other day,” Mr. Paterson said, recalling how he felt compelled to quibble with a caller’s analysis of how the Los Angeles Dodgers could have fared better in a recent game against the Mets. “I grabbed the phone and then said: ‘Nah, I can’t do it. They’ll know it’s me.’ ”

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