Flashes of Panic

It’s still the seventh inning, but I’m back in Somerville. I hopped from FM station to FM station tracking first five innings; as the Maine affiliate started to flicker, I picked up New Hampshire. That worked well for a while, but as I got closer to Boston they started flickering as well. Eventually, after 95 joined 128, I found myself unable to pick up the game on FM.

So I flipped to AM. I’d caught a few innings of Game 1 on AM on my way out to Amherst last weekend, so I was still on a baseball station, and the game was there… but something was odd. The announcer was strangely elated about Manny striking out at the bottom of the fifth. Then the ads came on, and I realized: I was listening to a Cleveland station.

So I listened to the sixth inning from Cleveland. I realize I probably could’ve gone down to 680 and picked up WRKO, but it was almost like listening in another language (except that I could understand everything they were saying.) There was something beautifully unreal about it.

I suppose this just underlines what kind of fan I am: I follow the Sox through the year, but more on a weekly than a daily basis, and I don’t actually start watching the games until well into the postseason. But I am pretty old-school; I’d rather listen on the radio than watch on TV, though I suppose I’d prefer to be at the game. I think it’s because I associate the radio broadcasts with my grandmother, who used to sit in her dining room with the Sox on during the summer, listening to WBZ clear up the coast. So I may not be a fanatic… but I’ve been at this a good long time.

Now Playing: BOS vs. CLE, ALCS Game 7, bottom of the 7th, two run homer for Pedroia!

Technorati Tags: baseball, Boston, cleveland, radio, red sox