Retro-Reinnasance

Yes, I agree with him, finally

2008-10-28T18:49:00.000-07:00

As some of ya'll who know me might be aware, I do not like Bud Selig. I think he has been greatly involved with the demise of baseball. He was hired by the owners, WHILE HE WAS AN OWNER, albeit as he sold his team, the Milwaukee Brewers TO HIS SISTER!!! They had a fellow named Fay Vincent who had the job thrust on him shortly after his predecessor, Bart Giamatti banned Pete Rose, for life, then died 8 days later. The owners locked out the players during spring training only to have Vincent step in and get both sides to iron out a deal, and it worked, So, the owners fired him. They then put one of their own in, and it has been nothing but Limberger-esque smelly ever since. He sided with the owners to the point that it cost us the 1994 World Series. I think he has just as much to do with the steroid epidemic as anyone else in baseball, cause chicks dig the long ball. But, for once, I am having to agree with him. I was driving pizzas around Salem Monday night, so I didn't see the game, but from what I can see, he did everything that should be done. The press asked him several times about ending the game as the score after 5 innings, and he stated that they cannot do that in the playoffs, but what if they could? Can you imagine the real black-eye if an entire baseball season that saw a permanent celler-dweller come from nowhere to get to the series just to be eliminated in a 5 inning game? Look, he did what he could to get the game done, but it just wasn't meant to be, but he tried. We can watch the rest of the game tomorrow night, or whenever, but the fans in the seats were sitting through this, and they deserved a chance to see the game. So, I think he did the right thing. He attempted to play the game, and waited to see if Mother Nature was going to let them get the game in, but it wasn't to be.
In short, I agree with your decisions Bud, no matter what the circumstances were. Only took you 16 years to do something I agree with, but you finally did. Try not to wait another 16 years to do something that makes sense.

20 years later

2008-10-15T15:13:00.000-07:00

Its been twenty years since Kirk Gibson hit his monster home run, and I still remember watching it, IN HORROR, as it happened. I have always been an Orioles fan, but also liked the Big Red Machine of the 70's Cincinnati Reds, so I automatically hated the Los Angeles Dodgers. I had moved to Mountain View CA (the southern tip of the San Francisco Bay, thus in that San Francisco-Oakland-San Jose traingle known as the Bay Area) in April of 1988, so I watched with excitement as the Oakland A's just plowed through the American League. I worked at a sporting goods store at the time, and recall putting a halloween decoration in the front corner window of the store, it was a ghost with a big green logo A on its front. It was the coolest thing to me being in a city while a championship caliber team was doing its thing. It would be commonplace for the two years I was there, between the A's (and the Giants in 89. Yes, we were there during the earthquake, but thats a different blog entry for another day) and the 49ers. I remember having just gotten home when game one came on. I watched with excitement as the game proceeded through 8 2/3rd innings, and thinking here comes Kirk Gibson, that fiery hot-headed jerk I remember watching just a few years before during the Detroit Tigers huge 85 season. But here he was, and his knees were shot, and he just couldn't run. It wsa Eck on the mound, which was as automatic as Mariano or Papelbon are today. Then he hit that home run, and while limping around the bases, all I could think was, this was going to be the Dodgers series, and Oakland would be lucky to win one game. Well they did, they won game 3, but that was it.
After having just watched this replayed on ESPN Classic this evening, I thought about it for quite some time, and I think this was the most amazing home-run in the clutch I ever personally watched. I remember watching some of the 1980 miracle on ice, and I watched the entire Miami-Boston College football game, hating Miami, and thinking this game is over, and then trying to decipher in my mind that Flutie actually completed that pass. I saw Les Hinson and Va Tech beat Florida State in basketball when I was in high school by hitting an 89.5 foot shot. But I am almost certain that this was the most clutch piece of hitting in baseball I ever saw as it happened. He hit it on a 3-2 pitch with two outs in the bottom of the ninth inning in a World Series game.
A current day afterthought. I have been rooting somewhat for the Dodgers this year, but only, and I truely mean only, to watch Manny beat the Red Sox, if the Sox make it, but fortunately it looks as if the Tampa Bay Rays will be ehading there to play the Phillies, unless LA or the Sox can overcome a 3-1 games deficit. GO RAYS

9/11

2008-09-12T00:25:00.000-07:00

To Osama bin Laden,
I thought I would write you a letter and tell you how things are going. It's been seven years since your thug henchmen brought down the World Trade Center towers, along with a section of the pentagon. I thought I would update you on your progress.
I sat and watched a show on the History Channel tonight about that morning in New York City with my son. He stayed up an hour past his bedtime to watch, and he also saw a tear or two come to his father's eyes. You ruined alot of families and took alot of lives of people who had done nothing to you. You made it perfectly clear that your god told you to do this. I want to take issue with that statement. I believe that all religions who pray to a god pray to the same God. I think it would be ludicrous to think otherwise, or else alot of people in this world would rot in hell while they did their best to raise decent families by the values that their individual religion taught them. But my God would never tell anyone to kill thousands of people. When God wants to end my country and its people, he'll do things like erupt the volcano under Yellowstone and drop a 9.0 earthquake on the New Madrid Fault, bring hurricanes in, etc. Trust me, he doesn't need you to do that kind of work.
As for me versus you. You are very rich, so rich that you stay in a cave. You may have some sort of electricity there, but you live in a cave. I, on the other hand, am not so rich, actually going through an extremely tough time with money. I only live in a house, send my son to school, and I got in my truck today and drove to Salem to get a poorboy sandwich from O'Brian Meats. Iy's a great sandwich, about 10 different cuts of meat, mayo, mustard, all the vegatable trimmings, even had jalapeno peppers on it. Cost me 1.50. Got one for my son, who I then picked up from school. To recap, you live in a cave under constant surveillance, on the run from a powerful army, while I drive around my town and live life as I should. I think I'll keep my life.
Here's what I think we should do. Once we find you, and I bet we will, we will have a raffle, sell a bunch of tickets, and the winner gets to nail your scrotum to the floor of a barn, put a claw hammer about ten inches out of your reach, pour gas on the hay in the loft, and light it with a match. Should fry you in a pot with some fatback. Actually, we'll bury you with a pig. Castrate you before killing you so your 72 virgins will have a good laugh. Get this, I don't believe in the death penalty, but in your case, I can make an exception. Do the world a favor and just die you miserable son of a bitch

RIP Jerry Reed

2008-09-03T11:53:00.000-07:00

We lost one of the best guitar players to walk this earth Sunday, 31Aug. Jerry Reed was 71. I remember his radio hits from the 70's like Amos Moses and When You're Hot, You're Hot, but the one that always sticks out in my mind is Lord Mr Ford. A song about gas prices and polluting emissions and the problems with too many cars, and he did it in 1973, but it really rings true today. Jerry, you will certainly be missed.

Minor league baseball, still a good time

2008-08-24T08:37:00.001-07:00

I was fortunate to sit down last night with my son, my old buddy Paul, and one of his friends and his friend's two sons to watch our hometown Salem Avalanche play the Frederick Keys. It was a good game until the 7th inning. My son was dying to go get a hot dog during the 7th inning stretch. This is why I jokingly blamed him for what happened next. Frederick batted around and scored 7 runs, along with a pitching change, made for a long half-inning that blew out what was a tie ballgame after 6 innings. The thing I took away from the game, as far as the game itself, is one of the greatest catches I have ever witnessed live at the ballpark. IN the top of the 9th, the right fielder made a catch on the warning track at full speed, and instantly ran HARD into the wall. He got up after a tumble and recieved a standing ovation form most of the large crowd (reported by The Roanoke Times as 6,299).
Paul and I talked most of the game, and even made a comment jokingly about there being some ballgame interrupting our conversation. I had alot of fun hanging out with that Steeler Dirt Freak. Tonight is the last home game of the season in Salem. It's getting close to football season I guess. My wife asked me the other night if Obama had picked his running back yet, and YES, she does know what a running mate and running back both are.
Next year we invite the Red Sox back to the valley as the parent team. My son will wear all of his Yankee garb, and I guess I will have to stock up on some Orioles gear, thus making it a family distaste for those Red Sox

What civil liberties?

2008-08-17T14:55:00.000-07:00

I went to a beautiful music festival last weekend, same one I go to every year. My son (12 years old) and I went up Thursday to a beautiful hillside just outside Terra Alta WV. My wife had declined to go because she was afraid it would be too hot, it was 44 degrees at sunrise Saturday morning. Its the kind of festival where as long as your beer, or whatever you are drinking, isn't in a bottle, and you aren't doing hard drugs, no one will mess with you. Everything is peaceful and laidback. Bands from 4pm to 1am Friday, plus a band in the "barn", which is converted to a bar basically, until 5am. Saturday music was from about 1pm to 1am, again with a band in the barn afterward until 3am.
Well, here is where my rant begins. There is another festival each July just a few mountains over,and it draws big name bands and huge crowds. THe land is not as well groomed, and the crowds are filled with frat-boy partyers and outright crazies that word was caused some trouble, and thus the county, or the state as the case was, decided to just pull everyone for a time on Friday and hassle them. Try and make it a miserable weekend. There wasn't even any probable cause, just pulling people over as they turned into the private drive for the place. Thank you Preston County and/or the West Virginia police departments for putting the onus of other people's issues on these nice folks. Now for anyone who is asking what kind of people are at this location, yes there is some pot-smoking types there, but they are not crazy, belligerent, or generally obnoxious. I guess they think I should take my son to a football game, like say nearby in Morgantown on a single Saturday, for three hours, wade through the glass and litter of a asphalt parking lot, pay $5 at least for a hot dog that the bun is soft from one end to the other if I am darn lucky, and probably $5 for a 16 oz Pepsi, and if we get a souvenier, then I would have spent $50, at least. And I guess there are no people at a game who are drunk, beligernt, or throw crap when a referee gets a call wrong. Now don't get me wrong, I love football games, and would enjoy it. My reasoning is where is it that the football game is more of a wholesome family experience then the festival. I paid $90 at the gate to get in, although I could have early-bird for as little as $60, depending on how soon I order tickets, and my son is free. Yes, any child 15 or under is free. My son eats probably 10 grilled cheese sandwiches from the grill, and at $1.50, plus tipping the remaining 50 cents, I have spent twenty dollars all weekend. And what problem has this caused outside of the possible digestive issues of 10 grilled cheese sandwiches in 2 days? I have never been around a group of people who as a whole clean up after themselves more than this group.
TO Trip, Emily, and the Sunshine Daydream Campground family, thanks once again for a great place, and I hope that the crowd isn't pressured away becasue some group of "authorities" decided to blatently remove people's civil liberties.

Now don't get me started on the Patriot Act.....

Class, or the lack thereof, Part II

2008-02-04T19:21:00.000-08:00

My buddy Paul will freak becuase I have posted twice in a 24 hour period, but this second one provides me the chance to speak out for someone, and surely ALOT of people will disagree with me.

Coach Robert Knight, I will miss you. Although I have not always agreed with everything you did, I really enjoyed watching you coach. Three events come to mind, of which two were you directly.
The first was a game your Hoosiers were playing, in South Bend, against the Fighting Irish of Notre Dame. From an early age I have always been an Irish fan. Don't ask me why a boy raised Southern Baptist would root for the Irish, but I was from the days of Ara Parsegian. There are three basketball games the Irish played that I watched and remember vividly. I watched when they took down UCLA to end an 88-game winning streak. I watched them lose to Virginia Tech in the NIT finals (coached by Don DeVoe, whom was one out of the stable of coaches that was an assistant under you). But this story surrounds a game between Indiana and Notre Dame. It was early in the first half, and Bobby Knight was upset at the refs for bad calls on one end of the floor, and Digger Phelps, then the Irish coach, was upset at calls at the other end of the court. The two of them casually walked toward each other and started a conversation while the game went up and down the court, standing in front of the scorers table. This started some crazy fan reaction, and after one REALLY bad call, some trash was thrown onto the court by Irish fans. Coach Phelps got on the loudspeaker and demanded this behvior quit. I remember to this day thinking, "Wow, I wonder what those refs feel like right now."
The second was actually two events, one each of the summers of 1980 and 1981, in which I spent a week on campus of Indiana U, in Bloomington. I fell in love with the campus, and ultimately in love with the basketball team.
The third was watching a game one night in which you pulled a player off the court and chewed him out royally, on national television, and then sent him to the bench. After the game, when some reporter started harping on this player, you (in your usual press conference way) lit into this reporter saying what went on with you and the player was between you and him, and the team, and that was all that was said.

Granted, I have seen you do some things that even I questioned, the Jeremy Schaap interview actually being the worst, but they were few in my mind. I was very upset when you were let go in Indiana, and was happy to see you get hired by Texas Tech. I just wish you had gotten more of a chance to take that team to prominence, but I bet you laid some groundwork that will lead them to better times. If your son does not fare as well as you have, please remember the Schaap interview, although somewhere in my mind, I would bet that you have tried to discuss that one with Mr Schaap and put it behind the two of you.

Although most all of my friends have disagreed with me through the years, I think you were a class act, and I thank you for the great teams and games I got watch you coach. And for those friends who say "he wasn't class. Coach K, now thats class". Where do you think the Duke coach got his start?

Class, or the lack thereof

2008-02-03T20:27:00.000-08:00

Watched the big game tonight. Finally, a Super Bowl that went the way I wanted. Haven't been too many of those lately. Kind of goofy at times, but it was a great game. So, who will quarterback the next NFL championship team, Archie Manning? All joking aside, I was stunned by something I saw at the end of the game tonight. Because of their "dynasty" status, and not being a team I loved all my life, the New England Patriots were put instantly into my "can't stand" catagory over the last few years. You know, you may have watched them when they first came up, but now they are wearing thin, having been that team for years now. Anyway, it comes down to the end of the game, and there is that debacle of one (or really should have been two) seconds on the clock, and they need to run a play, but both coaches are running out on the field to shake hands. The referee is between them and is trying to stop this, but Bill Belicheck is having no part of it. He grabs Tom Caughlin's hand, says great game and runs off. Now there has to be several people who are telling him the game is not over yet, but he just runs off the field, doesn't care. I understand its no fun losing, but you have been there three times before as the winner. How would you have felt if Mike Martz, John Fox, or Andy Reid had done that to you? Mr. Belicheck, that was about as classless as you can get. You have shown signs of being a jerk before, but this is beyond comparison. There are arguments for your ways before, but I cannot find one for this. Please, in the future, unless you decide to step down, try being above all that picture you portrayed tonight.

Calling it America's game may be closer to the truth then we realize

2007-12-10T19:49:00.000-08:00

I was watching ESPN Classic's year in review SportsCenter tonight and when they got to the number 1 storyline of the year, I figured I had just about had enough. We have become a society that wants action now, and will not rememer the action we wanted when the reaction has hit the fan. We the fans have suffered through a few decades of sports riddling us occasionally with player strikes or owners locking the players out. They bicker and argue about the money they make, but we the "not-so-rich" are the ones who pay the price. Besides the movie The Replacements, what good has come from this. Hockey has hope in Crosby (sorry, that pun has wallowed in my brain for years, waiting to comeout). Basketball is surely glad the Celtics are good, because when the Northeast big 3 (Boston, NY, and Philly) along with my beloved Lakers don't make the playoffs, the ratings are worse then the normally bad ones. And why is Isiah still at Madison Square? Football seems to do good, but its top story was about a quarterback who's game, and life, has gone to the dogs.
And then there's baseball. It seems that our national pastime has gone to the bottom of the well over steroids. Now that a federal grand jury has indicted Barry Bonds, we are now all forced to listen, AGAIN, to whether the record is tainted. Sure its tainted, all of the records of the last twenty years are tainted by what it looks like. But lets look at the blame game that we are now all embroiled in. It needs to be shared. The players are to blame because they wanted to make more money. If you hit 50 home runs instead of 40 on a "contract year", you can increase the amount you make over the next several years by 5 million dollars or more a year. Now if you walk into work every day, and you saw all of your associates in the job doing some drug, and it increased their performance, and you saw that the coaches, managers, team doctors, and owners were very much aware of this, and did nothing, or worse encouraged it, or even worse, bought the supply, then what would you do? Heck, just think of the doghouse out back you could have with a theatre room, mega surround sound, fridge full of great beer, and three bathrooms in it for when the wife is mad at you. Almost be worth starting a spat on that Sunday morning when the Packers play the Bears. So you go for it, and you make a fortune, and you help pull your industry out of financial ruin after a pathetic 1994 season that came to a bizarre and early demise because you and your buddies and your bosses just couldn't seem to agree on money, even though you are all richer than anyone who truly takes care of this country. And then you set some records, and names like Aaron and Maris (and Ruth for that matter) get thrown in, and now everyone doesn't like you anymore. You made the money, and your bosses knew what you were doing, and they encouraged it. Then there is the writers who we were getting sick and tired of reading the same old sports story about the lockout, and how they needed baseball to survive. Oh, a few could do other things, but most needed this game, and they knew it. Now we turn to a year where everyone is going crazy about Sosa and McGwire and the home run record, and baseball is better than ever. Then we get some guy who sees this, and he starts making a name for himself, and he goes on a one man pilage of the home run records. We no longer are worried about saving baseball from itself, so now we have to save baseball from its back-turners.
I sit and wonder sometimes if steroids made Barry Bonds the guick-tempered man he is. I acknowledge that his records are to some degree tainted, but I refuse to throw him under the bus, at least alone. We need to assess this as a whole.

Players -- You are the ones who took the stuff to make your production higher. You knew that this could someday be a problem, but you wanted to make more money. If you cannot survive on 4 million dollars a year for 10 years and then retire comfortably, then you have issues. I know you have this competitive spark, but dammit leave that on the ballfield. I am trying to raise a son in this world, and trust me I am far from a perfect father. But at least he looks up to Derek Jeter as a ball player he likes. MY SON IS A YANKEES FAN, but at least he found someone who is worth looking up to. These last two thought make me damn glad that Charles Barkley made that Nike commercial about "I am NOT a role model". Funny thing is, through all of the things that Sir Charles did on the court, that man will tell you what he believes is the truth, no sugar coating, no what it is you want to hear, he tells you what he thinks, and for that, I can only hope that my son does grow up with that, except the political belief.
Anyway, ya'll need to get your act together and get by this issue. It will hopefully go away someday. Lets just hope that the decrease in home runs doesn't lose fans

Owners -- I really detest ya'll the worst. Ya'll have aided and abetted in this issue, you want that ring, you want more money, and you want the fans in the seats. Now there are a few who may go about this in a strange way (Current starting lineup for the Florida Marlins will make just above 8 million dollars, for the ENTIRE lineup, for the ENTIRE year), but you are all to blame for this. Fay Vincent will go down in the annals as one of the not so popular commisioners, but he got the entire game through what could have been a nasty strike, and had all teams play all games, started only one week late, and ended the season in only three extra days. The World Series ended on October 20th that year. We can't get them done now before November. (FYI, for what its worth, you bums who try to argue there is one extra series now, its a five game series, and there were still 11 days in October, so get a life). So you get all upset and whine like little immature brats (and you thought it was the players who were that) and you decide to fire the commisioner and you hire one of your own. Now I want you to tell me how that lets the players know you want a man in charge who has ONLY the best interests of baseball on his mind. He sells his team, the Brewers, TO HIS SISTER, and now does not have a conflict of interest. Lets see one of you, just one of you, grow some cahones and escort Barry Bonds into the court room, and testify that you helped create this mess, and that he need not be the only one to blame. Yes, he lied to some federal investigators, but what are the circumstances that led to it? You know that you need to sahre in the blame. And I want every one of the owners, managers, and team doctors and their associates to go in front of this same grand jury, and under oath, tell the court that you never told a player about this performance enhancing drug, and what it will do for the player and team. When that is done, then lets see what happens. We will need to build another Medium Security "country club" correctionl facility to house those guys in prison for perjury. These guys saved this game from what they, but mostly ya'll, did in 1994, and you turn your backs and run, you rich, spineless, gutless, bastards.

Writers -- Oh come on, you think you had nothing to do with it? Mark McGwire helps to literally put baseball back into the spotlight, along with Sammy and Cal, and he smashes the single season home-run record. He owns the rookie home run record, and only 23.5 percent of the voters for the hall of fame (128 of 545) voted for him. Lets see all of you go into that same courtroom and tell the same panel under oath that you did not make any money off of the home run chase, that you never submitted a story that oozed the excitement of watching the fans crowd the bleachers of visiting stadiums when Big Mac took batting practice. My God, when Maris had to deal with it, he lost his hair and chained smoked during interviews, and this was way before the ESPN/CNN era. I am a liberal who believes in freedom of the press and what a good press can prevent happening, but geez guys, this man made your life great after that 94 strike. He saved alot of your jobs, and now you cannot vote him into the hall of fame. At the time of your balloting, there was no evidence of any illegal substance abuse. He was using that andro stuff that at the time was legal. He told ya'll up front it was there and it was legal. Lets face it, you too, when all is said and done, are as gutless and as spineless as previously mentioned owners.

In short, baseball has a serious problem, and its not steroid use anymore. Its an image problem, and instead of cleaning it up the right way (or the write way), you decided to try and duck and run. You are all to blame, but only the player will take the fall, and its real easy to pick someone that no one likes. Too bad you didn't have these kinds of troubles to put fall guy status on for Ty Cobb. But then again, we were much smarter then.

One final note, I think whoever wins the next presidential election needs to ask Greg Anderson to be a confidant and advisor. Any man who spends that much time in prison for not running his mouth can probably be trusted

BCS. What does the C stand for?

2007-12-02T20:04:00.000-08:00

The last time my buddy Paul and his wife were in town, as you may have read on his blog, we got together and had some serious laughs. On Saturday night we went to a local sports bar, All Sports Cafe, and had dinner. This place is greatly noted for housing a West Virginia Mountaineers fan club on Saturdays during the fall. Well, I am an avid hater of those bums, and am proud to say I went there with a friend who is a big Pittsburgh freak, so whether he's a Pitt Panthers fan or not, he is in this blog. HA HA got bounced by a 28 point underdog. Amazing how a nail-biter turns into a holy roller healing room. Wannstedt came off those crutches real quick in the 4th quarter. Anyway, this weekend now leaves us with the BCS. First off, what does the C stand for in the middle? If they took that C out, it would make complete sense. Now I understand that there is big money in the bowl games, and there is a history. And we all know that its the only way the 2nd largest metropolis in this country (LA) is going to see a meaningful football game in January. But that aside, we still don't know who will be the best.
Will the Georgia Bulldogs figure out a way next year to let their Mark Richt talk to his alma mater, Miami, and then announce before their last game that he is staying, and then go out a win a thriller. Now in all seriousness, I feel that LSU may be the better team. It took 6 overtimes to hand them two losses, and they shlacked the Hokies, which is now ranked 3rd (GO HOKIES), so they probably deserved it; but you can't tell me that somebody somewhere knew how to get some writers to think about it.
Giving these arguments for this years BCS, there is still a need for a playoff. Hawaii never played a huge contender, but if beating the big teams counts, then why aren't they inviting North Texas, which racked up 62 points against Navy (and LOST), which is a team that beat Notre Dame. Oh wait, Hollins University could have beaten Notre Dame this year (for those who don't know, Hollins University is an all female {except for the occasionally accepted post-grad male, lucky dog} small college in North Roanoke County). It would settle the debate each year. Sure, it might mean that the two teams that had the best season against the hardest schedule may not play, but it would be because one, or both, of them lost a playoff game. Have them play a playoff, and then have the two remaining teams play in one of the big bowl games. You have 8 teams and they play two weekends in mid December. Or even go 12 and have them play over three weeks. Whichever, you have those eight teams play someone they didn't play in the playoffs in a bowl game. Four losers of the quarter finals play each other (have the same number of weeks off), then the two losers the next week play each other, (again, same number of weeks off). But what do I know, I am just a fan who cares about the game
Anyway, GO HOKIES, make those other birds know that they are just a basketball school. And now, bring on one of my favorite times of the year in college sports, March freekin Madness
Later Daze

FM -- No static at all

2007-11-13T20:18:00.000-08:00

I first of all want to thank my great friend Paul for telling me I would enjoy this form of written expression. I had been toying with the idea of a blog, but tonight the right moment of thought about one of the things that I am passionate about really came to light, and it was all because of a comedy.
FM is a rock comedy (complete with a pretty good collection of music, and two concert scenes that include skinny Linda Ronstadt and Jimmy Buffett when he had a full head of hair) made in 1978 about a radio channel that had made it all the way to the top, and how its owning company had decided to "conglomerate" it. They had decided to force certain commercial spots onto the number one station in Los Angeles because it was number one, but it got to number one by not being a corporate sellout. When the station manager refuses, it turns into a rebellion of sorts. I don't want to tell you the entire movie, but wanted to talk about what this movie tried to tell us would happen 29 years ago, when it came out.
It is now the latter half of the "20 oughts" or whatever they call the decade after the 90's, and my hometown, Roanoke VA, has a station that has been around longer than my 44 years on this earth. It was an AM station (Oh Lordy 12-40) that began just before Christmas 1946 (for those interested, check out http://www.wrovhistory.com/main.htm) and it was the one station that played the music that mattered while I was growing up in this town. I can remember listening to Stairway late at night as a kid and could hear vague radio signals through the static before Mr Plant hit his final "to heaven". But then came the 89, and the station moved to FM. This was quite a good change for awhile, but then things went the way of...well, THAT way. Yes they were bought by that great satan of mass radio negligence, Clear Channel.
WROV, I will always think highly of you as a whole, but your Clear Channel years suck. I have become a subscriber to Sirius Sattelite radio, and you only have Clear Channel to blame. If you, or any other radio channels come around that are for the listener in Roanoke (as opposed to the person who has the most money), let me know, and I will give it a shot, but suffice to say, I think those days are long gone. Oh, I am sure these things are blamed on lack of local monies, or downloading, or whatever they say is robbing the industry of money, but thats what any big business does these days. They only want you as a customer, but once you are they could care less about service to you (this is also another blog another day).
Well, I can see where getting this stuff out is therapeutic. I'm outta here, and in the words of Bart Prater (long before Jim Croce said it), Have a good night and don't spit into the wind.

Later Daze