For you see my baseball knowledge starts in 1957. That was the year Lew Burdette beat the Yanks in game seven and it was the first time ever a pitcher had won three games in a World Series.  In fact, Burdette wasn't the ace of the staff that honour belonged to Warren Spahn who went on to win 363 games.

But it was Lew who got the call for game seven and pitched a masterful game. I was in grade six and it was the first of many times I tried to listen to a World Series game while attending class.  The method of choice was to wear a sports jacket, take the transistor radio and store it on the inside of the sports jacket, run the earpiece through the sleeve and have your hand on your ear, while you are listening to the game.

So, from 57 for decades and decades I felt I could match baseball with most.  Harry wasn't most. He had a 14-15 year advantage on me and that was a big deal. My baseball wisdom started in 1957, his started in 1940. It was that simple.

One of my all time trivia questions is, when the Yanks lost in seven games to the Pittsburgh Pirates (the Maz homer) in 1960, they used all of five left fielders in that World Series, who are they?  Most get one, some two, very few three.  Harry got four right off the top of his head and had I given him time (he had all of 10 seconds) he would have probably got it.  That was the first of many discussions we had on baseball.

12 years ago I picked up a book in the USA called the toughest baseball questions of all time.  It had 1000 questions and your score was measured like a batting average.  If you scored 200 correct answers then your average was .200.  Harry got an astounding .396 and that almost puts him in the Ted Williams league.  

Over the last few years I saw him once or twice. He came down to the Ice Cream Shop three years ago and we chatted a bit.  He invited me to his apartment on Brunswick Street to view either a book on Joe DiMaggio or a painting and I thought of it every time I passed his building and regret that I didn't do it.

In recent years he didn’t follow baseball as much saying there were too many guys with the names of Hernandez, Martinez or Rodriguez and he wondered what happened to Smith and Jones and Greenberg.

When I owned and operated ABI (Atlantic Broadcasting Institute) and AMI (Atlantic Media Institute) I tried to get him in as a guest speaker but was met with "There is nothing that I can teach new journalist" and I let it go at that.  He was wrong as there is so much he could have taught them, the first being, don't be afraid to have an opinion and never shy from asking a tough question.

I wished I had spent more time with him. He was truly unique.

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The Daily News is gone and as the commercial says, 'pity'. I feel bad for those who lost their jobs as media positions are no longer plentiful.  Some had been with the company for over a decade and for others it was their first and only job they have had in his business.

I wish everyone well but I hope some will stay in the business although it may mean moving to another city, or province.  I would love to see the Herald hire David Rodenheiser as I believe he is the best reporter/columnists in the business around here.  In my world it's not what you cover that counts, it's what you "uncover" and from the horrible taxi situation to concerts and Celine, he has been a joy to read.

But every paper is a voice and we in HRM were one of the few cities in this country to have two voices. In fact, we were the smallest market for two papers. Hamilton only has the Spectator, cities like Windsor (ON), London and Regina only has one.  Halifax had two and it made for better journalism.

Be it an extra editorial opinion, an extra sports voice or simply another letter to the editor section, the public was better served.  I loved Jane Purves's comment on the Jim Nunn Show (It is Jimmy's show and not the 6pm News) when she gave two examples of how the Daily made the Herald better.   Front page colour and a Sunday edition were two of many ways.

The Daily started in 1974 and grew.  I hear they made money during the Conrad years but a cut back in national car advertising and nearly 100 employees on board makes for a lot of salaries to pay when newspapers are suffering a decrease in readership.

They say 92 people were all of a sudden out of work.  I wonder if they even looked at cutting the staff in half. One would like to think that with 45 people a decent product could have been put out.

  I picked up the replacement Metro paper and will wait for a few weeks before making comment.

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Just when we get two reasonable open line radio shows, it seems that we will lose one.  News 95.7 had a reasonable increase in the last rating period and has finally started to show a marked improvement in their morning talk show period. I noticed the change last summer when host Andrew Krystal and his new producer started to take an HRM approach first.

Forget this Maritime Morning bit, the show is aimed at Halifax and rightly so.  HRM is the big fish with nearly 400,000 in population while Moncton, Fredericton and Saint John don't come close to that figure so the topics are Halifax or Nova Scotia centered.

Since late August I have noticed HRM topics by King Krystal.  Fred MacGillivray of the WTCC, HRM Mayor Peter Kelly, HRM councilors, HRM deputy police chief MacNeil, etc, etc.

In fact on several occasions I would hear a guest with Krystal between 9-10am and then that guest would head over to the CJCH Hotline as done by Rick Howe.  Brett Hart comes to mind.

But I noticed a more general approach with the News 95.7 and some say that it is a result of a change of producers. Whatever it is, the show is more palatable.  I really enjoyed the Elvis show (August) when Krystal had the likes of Warren Cosford and Doug Thompson on.  These guys were radio producers and spent many days in their radio careers doing shows on the King.  It was well done.

I also caught the Phil Edmonston visit and his knowledge on cars is out of this world. I also think Krystal is slowly realizing that we are in the Maritimes and a ‘Toronto type’ (in your face show) doesn’t work done here.

At this stage of the game both shows have each their own audience.  Krystal is more geared to the 30-50 crowd and should, by the nature of the stations that carry the show, (Saint John, Moncton, Halifax and the signal comes into Fredericton) have very big numbers or have the potential to get them.

Howe has the dedicated audience that want local, local and more local. In fact while Krystal has increased his audience Howe still has a lead and is by far the strongest show on the CJCH station but the question is for how long.  Rumour has it that the Howe Hotline will be dropped when the station flips to the FM band.

I for one don't like the idea of a station throwing away over 10,000 listeners. Years ago the show went from CJCH to CFDR, maybe that could happen again, if the Hotline is not carried to FM programming.

 

CBC INFO MORNING VS NEWS 95.7

I was driving from Halifax to the south shore last week, a 90 minute drive, and I caught both News 95.7 and CBC Info Morning on the Karissa Boudreau murder.  News 95.7  broke in around 7:15 with ‘breaking news’ on the story and asked us to stay tuned.

I tried to stay tuned but at 7:30 News 95.7 led with the story. The trouble with with their news format you have to wait, and wait and wait for the story and being the impatient person that I am, I didn’t feel like waiting and I’m sure many other listeners shared by disposition.

We have to wait for the other stories, there’s a sports promo, there’s the weather and traffic ‘on the 1’s, and probably an agricultural and ocean and tide forecast thrown in for good measure.

So, I headed to CBC and got Ryan Pearce breaking the story and flipping the dial around between these two stations as I am travelling on Highway 103, I again realized why CBC Info morning is so strong.

Hey, I like News 95.7 on the normal days but if there’s a breaking story, even the ‘team coverage (that could be back to back stories last 1:30 mintues) doesn’t come close.  It didn’t when Glen Race was being tracked down in New York state a few months ago and it didn’t last week.

CBC had Pearce with some news and a clip of a police constable. Then following sports with John Hancock, info morning gave you, ‘All Karrisa all the time’. From 7:45 to 8 am it was report after report including several pieces by Dawn MacPhee who had gone down to Bridgewater the day before.

She stayed down, spent the night and did her homework.  She had  talked to some of the residents of the area,  went into the mall, walked the streets and came back with a bevy of information that she shared with Connolly and the vast audience that listens to Info Morning.  To get 10-13 minutes of airtime is very rare.  Nice job by M’s MacPhee.

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