CQ CQ CQ (anyone listening?)

Baseball is a radio game. I grew up with Lon Simmons and am just old enough to remember Russ Hodges as well. KSFO was the Giants station "back in the day" and like many my age I can still sing "When the Giants Come to Town, it's Bye-Bye Baby!" Jon Carroll of the SF Chronicle wrote a great piece the other day about the joys of baseball broadcasts. Check it out HERE. Thanks, Nancy for sending it my way. Last night we listened to the Giants beat the Dodgers, a tense game that involved a Barry homer (741) and a quick, easy Benitez save. We were settling down on the couch around 10 p.m. for a long, drawn-out, agonizing Armando Benitez 9th-inning nail-biter, when he fooled us all and blew through the Smogsuckers with ease. Ah, baseball, it never gives you what you expect! Nowadays baseball on the radio requires a subscription to MLB audio for 15 bucks per season. (My local Giants "affiliate" station also plays the A's along with its predictable line-up of whining reactionaries, and I can't count on them to carry every game.) I can get the radio over my DSL-internet connection and play it on the computer. I have a little gizmo used with mp3 players that plugs into the speaker port of the computer and sends out an FM signal. I tune my home stereo in to that frequency and PRESTO! Baseball on the radio! The best part? I can use my remote to mute the commercials. I can't mute out the pointless, hyperactive chatter of the announcers, and long for the days of relaxed, slow-talking Lon, but you take the good with the bad. Yesterday was, in the Roman Catholic Church, the Feast Day of St. Mark the Evangelist. Thus April 25th is my "Namesday." A Giants victory over the Dodders ain't a bad way to celebrate it!