Long Range Baseball on the Radio

The FRS had an afternoon game in Seattle which started here on the east coast at 4:40 PM. Perfect timing for me as I could listen to the game while I put another coat of gloss white on the trim in the middle bedroom.

I fired up Gameday Audio, selected the Boston radio station that broadcasts the games and I was greeted by some inane sports talk show. At first I thought they might be in a rain delay, knowing the pacific northwest, but then remembered that the Mariners field had a retractable roof, so a little liquid sunshine wouldn’t halt play. I clicked on the link for the Seattle radio station’s broadcast and sure enough they were nearly through the top half of the first inning.

It was kind of neat to hear a different set of voices with a different perspective of the game. The roof was open and because the stadium is near the city’s rail yard there were quite a few times when you would hear train horns blasting in the background that, for me, added to the ambiance. Half way through the game the TV and radio broadcasts swapped play-by-play guys and I got to listen to their long time announcer, Dave Niehaus. He has been doing Mariner’s games for 32 years and you can hear why he has been doing it so long and is getting inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame this Sunday. A very nice listen even if his team loyalty is misguided.

During the breaks between innings there was sometimes silence and sometimes commercials. I remember when I first started to listen to the Red Sox games on the internet all I ever got was silence, but sometime in the last couple years I started hearing all of them. I wonder if it was because MLB.com blocked certain ads. That seems unlikely, because as much as baseball frowns on gambling (right Pete?) one of the sponsors I did hear from several times was the Swinomish Casino. A big sponsor of the Red Sox baseball games is Foxwoods Resort & Casino as well. The only thing I can come up with is the radio station has a two tiered sponsorship plan for advertisers, one cheaper one for local coverage and a more expensive one for the national coverage.

I stopped listening to eat dinner with the game tied at three runs apiece. When I came back I tried the Boston broadcast again and they were doing the game, so I stayed with the old familiar voices. The game was still tied, but the FRS finally won the game in the 12th inning earning a three game sweep of the Mariners (which took a little of the sting out of being swept by the Angels in the three games before.) Tomorrow is an off day before the dreaded MFY come to Fenway Friday for a weekend series which means I’ll probably get to see some of the games on TV.