Braves on the Bull

In the slight chance that there is an Atlantan reading this blog right this second that doesn't already know, The Braves - Astros Spring Training came is on 94.9 the Bull right now. Pete Van Wieren just reported a Chipper Jones single to get home Yunel Escobar. Chip Carey is paired up with Pete which is a little disappointing since Mark Lemke was doing the game last week. Nothing against Chip, I lust (should be just, but the Freudian slip is too telling to change it) love the Lemmer.

We got Braves on the radio both days this weekend and I'm loving it. I like listening to the games better then watching sometimes, especially when Skip Carey is on the job. Skip seems to get extra mischievous while on the airwaves and some of his funniest quips happen while on radio. I'm not that thrilled about the choice of radio stations though. Clear channel wrested the rights away from WSB 750 AM (aka "the blowtorch") and stuck the games on crappy 640. The signal on 750 is insane, I have actually listened to a Braves game in Nashville, St. Louis and even Chicago on that station. 640, not so much. To make up for the weak AM signal, Clear Channel put the games on 96 Rock FM. 96 rock was a decent classic rock/new rock station which was already a frequent choice on my car radio so I didn't mind all that much. Unfortunately, Clear Channel murdered the longtime station, turned it into Project 9-6-1 featuring new hard and alternative rock and decided baseball was too frumpy so they moved the Braves off that station. This is Clear Channel though so they had a bunch of other stations to choose from. Since we're talking about Clear Channel you the story I'm about to tell is going to be bad.

There was a channel, 94.9, Lite FM that played boring sludgy banal lite rock. The stuff the "You have a case of the Mondays" secretary from Office Space would listen to. It was nothing I normally listened to but every Christmas they played non stop Christmas music. And I mean NON stop. From Thanksgiving to New Years nothing but the Jingle Bells. This was pretty cool, at least when you were in a holiday mood you could turn on some Xmas pop songs. Well, the year before the Braves switched stations, Clear Channel decided that the LiteFM/Xmas station wasn't bringing in the bucks so they switched formats. To all Country Pop Sludge. A WEEK BEFORE CHRISTMAS. You turned on the radio expecting Winter Wonderland and got a song about some dude whose girlfriend wrecked his truck, shot his dog and ran off with a Jeff Gordon fan. But dangit, he still loves her. One of the competing Lite FM stations picked up the Jingle Bell banner, Clear Channel got another PR hit and the Braves broadcasts moved to The Bull.

This was pretty awful, I don't listen to country, but I like stuff like Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson and some weird underground stuff like Unknown Hinson. This wasn't any of that though, this was overproduced Nashville pop crap. So now I have a bad country station programmed into my radio so I can listen to the Braves. And oh, I shall listen. Just hearing Pete right now has made my day, month, week and year. When Skip comes back I will likely die of bliss. I guess I can deal with the country music. But when the game's over I'd still rather listen to this: