The Washington Nationals have arrived. The red "W" cap has replaced Redskins burgundy as the sports geek status symbol in the Nation's Capital. Names like [Brad] Wilkerson, Livan [Hernandez], and [Chad] Cordero are starting to work their way into everyday conversation. The Nats are now the lead story on the 11 PM sportscast, the top of the fold in the Washington Post — save for those days in which the improbable appearance of the Washington Wizards in the NBA playoffs takes top billing.
It's amazing how popular the Nationals are, considering how badly their electronic media marketing has been botched. The team is in a television quagmire, thanks to cable network deal Major League Baseball gave to Peter Angelos — a sweetheart for the Orioles owner, but a bitter pill for Washingtonian fans who won't even be able to see two-thirds of the Nats games on television this season under the current deal.
The team is paying to have its games on two local radio stations: 1050 AM, a federal news talk station, and Z104, a "hot" adult contemporary station on the FM dial. Neither station is exactly a blowtorch when it comes to signal strength; many fans have complained to yours truly that Z104 and tall buildings aren't exactly on the best of terms.
For me, the bigger issue is that the Nationals are putting their games on FM radio. It's the first time I've listened to a baseball game in that format.
I'm not a fan.
Baseball is perfect on AM radio. It's a leisurely game, with announcers who don't have to be staccato machine guns like hockey and basketball play-by-play yakkers. The volume is lower. You can count the seconds between sentences. The subtle static of the AM band covers the broadcast like a sweet syrup, filling in the gaps in which the announcers aren't speaking and the crowd isn't murmuring loudly enough.
On FM, the silence is deafening. You almost wish the announcers would talk more, because those pleasant gaps of serenity on AM seem like a waste of technology on FM — like projecting a Super 8 film on a HDTV flatscreen. Baseball on FM radio sounds like those shows on C-SPAN, where the crowd is rustling in its seats before some guy who wrote a book about William Howard Taft steps to the mic.
Maybe I'm a little biased towards AM radio. I've got some vivid sports memories with it.
I remember sneaking my grandfather's old transistor radio under my pillow as a kid to listen to Steve "Captain Midnight" Somers on WFAN in New York. His show would run from midnight, and usually featured an eclectic collection of callers who were either custodians, insomniacs, or bitter listeners who could never get through to “Mike and the Mad Dog” in the afternoon.
I remember listening to Bob Murphy call the Mets and Marty Glickman call the Jets. I remember listening to Chris Moore, now an ESPN Radio host, do the Devils games for WABC in New York with a winking sardonic humor that was a perfect fit for the then-struggling franchise.
I remember hearing that the Mets got Brett Saberhagen on AM radio. I remember hearing the Devils were awarded Scott Stevens by an arbitrator on AM radio. I remember raking the leaves on my front lawn the day Magic Johnson announced he was HIV-positive. It was very cold that day.
I have a lot of memories of the Devils in the Stanley Cup playoffs when it comes to AM radio. When I was a senior in high school, I worked at Burger King. They had me making the food, but being a social butterfly didn't exactly translate into the kind of consistent productivity they expect at the Home of the Whopper. So they moved me to the drive-thru window and made me mop up at night.
It was 1995, and the Devils were tied with the Penguins in Game 2 of their second-round series. I listened to most of the third period while mopping up, using the soggy cloth and the wooden shaft as a pseudo-hockey stick to mimic the plays I'd been hearing.
I nearly snapped that damn stick in half when Jaromir Jagr scored to tie the game with 1 minute, 15 seconds left on a cheap goal off the skate of defenseman Tommy Albelin.
With 39 seconds left in regulation, Scott Stevens collected a Penguins' dump-in at his own blueline and skated in a large crescent back out of the zone. Just before reaching the Pittsburgh blueline, Stevens gave everything he had to a slapshot that went off goalie Ken Wregget's blocker and rebounded into the left face-off circle. Here's where the Devils' reputation as a trapping team served them well — the Penguins weren't expecting Stevens to be pressing on the play. None of the Pittsburgh players picked him up as he skated into the zone, crossed over, and backhanded the puck past a stunned Wregget for the game-winning goal.
I threw the mop in the air and did a victory lap around the restaurant, carefully avoiding an embarrassing spill on the newly clean floor. At this point, I was pretty sure my manager was aware of the small earpiece I had connected to that old transistor radio in my pants pocket. But I didn't care. And besides, I was one of the few employees who could both close the store and legally drive a car — I was indispensable.
I remember passing a walkman back and forth between myself and a prom date so we could keep track of the NHL playoffs: her Rangers, my Devils. (It's amazing what kind of irreconcilable differences you can bridge with a lovely corsage.)
Most of all, I remember all of those times I've driven around Maryland and Virginia, doing my damnedest to find a radio signal from New York to hear a Mets, Jets, Nets, or Devils game. Specifically, one night in June of 2000, when I was covering a high-school state championship soccer match in Richmond. The Devils were playing the Dallas Stars in Game 6 of the Stanley Cup Finals, one win away from their second championship. I was driving home to Rockville, Maryland — about two hours away – listening to the game on a radio station of New York. The signal was going in and out. Shots were taken, and static would distort whether the puck ended up in the back of the net or the goalie's glove.
I sped home as quickly as I could, fully aware that a few points on my license would dampen even the sweetest Cup celebration. I reached my apartment in Rockville just as overtime was starting. Twenty-eight minutes and 20 seconds into overtime, Jason Arnott ended the game and gave the Cup to the Devils.
That part, I watched on television.
What Are Your Favorite Sports Radio Moments as a Fan?
Send them over to [email protected] and we'll publish the best ones in a later column.
Greg Wyshynski is also a weekly columnist for SportsFan Magazine. His columns appear every Saturday on Sports Central. You can e-mail Greg at [email protected].
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