Take Me Out To The Ballgame!

 I have been a Yankee fan ever since
my Dad took me to the old Yankee
Stadium when I was just a little kid.
 Those were the grand days of Mickey
Mantle, Bobby Richardson, Yogi Berra,
and Billy Martin before he began his
string of managerial stints with the
team.
  Back then you could catch most of
the games on WPIX TV out of New York
City.
  Of course you had to have cable to
do that or be close enough to the
"Big Apple" to pick up the signal.
  When it came to the World Series
the games were carried on NBC.
  Back then they were played in the
afternoon and, since it was October,
we had to count on the kindness of
teachers who moved their class to
the auditorium where a screen was
set up on the stage and tuned to
the 'Fall Classic."
   I think we had a lot of teachers
who were baseball fans because I
can't remember missing many innings!
   Time went by. TV added color to
the games, literally, and baseball
went under the lights.
   I still got WPIX while they had
the Yankee franchise and you could
always catch the game on some area
radio station.
   In fact that caused me a bit of
trouble when I got into the
business.
   My station,WTHT in Hazleton,
carried the Yankee games. But WTHT
was a 'daytime' station. We were
forced to go off the air at
sundown. Unfortunately nobody
told the players we had a time limit.
   On more then just one occasion
I had to turn off the transmitter
long before the final out of the
9th inning.
   We did get a lot of phone calls!
   I heard a lot of new words but
was never able to use any of them
on the air.
   As a fan I shared their
displeasure.
   All these years later I still do!
   These days I can only catch my
team on radio thanks to my XM
satellite receiver.
   I had thought I could watch
all the games on TV by tuning to
YES, the Yankee's own television
network.
   But some of those games have
been sold off to stations like
'My9' which isn't carried on my
Direct TV.
   On this evening I found that
the YES Network and three other
stations carrying the Yankee game
are blacked out in my area.
   I have found that I can 'watch'
(and I use that term loosely) the
game by tuning to my Direct TV
sports Mix which has eighth screens
showing on one. You can move a
sort of cursor over the screen
you want and one of them does have
the Yankee game on.
  Of course I'm ten feet away from
the TV trying to capture all the
action on a screen that I have
just measured at 6 inches.
  You tend to miss a lot!
  I guess, in a sense, I'm ahead
of the game.
  When we use to camp close
enough to New York to get WPIX
I had a black and while portable
with only a 5 inch screen!
  Tonight I've got a color picture
that's a whole inch bigger!
  I love this 'High Tech' stuff!
   Hope you catch all your games
and that all your NEWS is good!