Re: WHIL and country

["Kevin Vahey" <kvahey@mediaone.net>]

I double checked the date with a few boxing sites on the web. Ali ( then
Clay) first beat Liston in Miami in 1964. the rematch was supposed to take
place in Boston around October, but Ali was rushed to Boston City Hospital
for a hernia operation delaying the fight a few months. The rematch was then
set for the following spring when the DA started asking questions, and the
promoters bailed to Maine.

It may be one of the first times the live gate was sacrificed to keep the
closed circuit revenue intact. St. Dominic's Arena probably could not seat
anymore than 5,000 people, but the real money was to be made on the closed
circuit.

It may have been the last great radio sporting event as well, as after this,
promoters did not want live radio to hurt the closed circuit gate.



----- Original Message -----
From: <dan.strassberg@att.net>
To: "Kevin Vahey" <kvahey@mediaone.net>
Cc: <DonKelley@aol.com>; <Dan.Strassberg@worldnet.att.net>;
<boston-radio-interest@bostonradio.org>; <dlh@donnahalper.com>
Sent: Tuesday, August 29, 2000 7:11 PM
Subject: Re: WHIL and country


> Are you sure you're not off by a year? I can picture the
> little kitchen in our apartment in Belmont in my mind's
> eye and I can hear Schwartz saying that he was going to
> Lewiston tomorrow night for the fight and somebody (Bill
> Hahn?) would be filling in for him. He sounded very
> dejected, and we would later learn that he had been
> fired. One of the boxers in the heavyweight title bout
> was Sonny Liston, but who was the other one?
>
> The deed to my house proves that we really did pass
> papers in November of 1964. And we started moving in on
> the day we passed papers. If I recall, the car was
> loaded with some of our posessions when we went to the
> bank in Harvard Sq for paper passing that Tuesday
> morning. I'd never do that today for fear that when I
> got back to the parking space the car would have been
> towed or stolen--or at least broken into.
>
> As vivid as these memories are, I suppose I could be
> wrong. Maybe the picture and the sound have gotten out
> of sync.
>
> By the way, I do now remember the name of the guy who
> ran the awful talk show on WHIL-FM when the station was
> just starting out. (I posted about the show yesterday.)
> It was Marvin Burack. Marvin and his wife must surely be
> the least-remembered and least-talented husband-and-wife
> on-air duo in the history of Boston radio.
>
> They were immeasurably worse than Howard Kaplan and
> Patricia Davidson, the couple (he's a conservative
> Republican; she's a liberal Democrat) that has been
> doing Sunday mornings on WMEX. At least K&D sound half-
> way intelligent. But the tendency of Davidson's voice to
> climb to a supersonic squeak when she becomes agitated
> is unbelievable. It sets my teeth on edge--like
> fingernails on a blackboard. If anybody knew who K&D
> are, some female comedian could really break people up
> with an imitiation of Davidson. I wonder whether Prozac
> might help.
>
> > The fight in Lewiston, Maine happened on May 25, 1965.
> >
> > My dad was working for ATT long lines then, and this fight a logistical
> > nightmare. Back then it was a major feat to get live pictures into the
> > system north of Portland, there simply were not the facilities in place.
> > Plus all the extra audio hookups and phone lines for the print media was
a
> > nightmare for New England Telephone in a small Maine city.
> >
> > Why the fight ended up in Maine is one of Boston's great mysteries. It
was
> > supposed to be at the Boston Garden, but then Suffolk County DA Garrett
> > Byrne implied it was fixed and the promoters scrambled to find a high
school
> > hockey rink in Lewiston at the last minute. Based on what happened in
the
> > ring, the Suffolk DA was properly correct.
>