Baseball radio in the Northeast

[Mike Ward]

On Wed, Jul 13, 2011 at 9:21 AM, Scott Fybush <scott@fybush.com> wrote:

> We've seen teams come close. The Expos lost English radio for a while, and
> the As were on a college station at one point just to stay on the air
> somewhere. (That was in the late 80s or early 90s, if memory serves, but the
> As once again came close to losing radio this year when their previous
> flagship, KTRB 860, went bankrupt.)

The A's were on Cal-Berkeley's student station, KALX/90.7, for the
first month of the 1978 season.  The prevailing thought was that the
A's had one-and-a-half feet out the door to Denver, and the student
sports director cooked up the deal with Charlie Finley.  The A's
eventually landed on a commercial station, I believe KNEW/910.

http://kalx.berkeley.edu/full-and-unabridged-history-kalx

That KALX sports director is a top official of the crosstown San
Francisco Giants today.

This year, the new A's rights deal with the FM sports station at 95.7
was announced literally one night before Opening Day.

The A's were trying to buy KTRB out of bankruptcy, but the bankruptcy
trustee balked and raised the price, and the A's went away.  95.7 was
a country station until the A's deal...and IIRC did run a few games
under stunting after the country format, until Entercom had the sports
format ready.