Radio world ready to first pitch

Jim Williams, The Examiner
Feb 21, 2007 3:00 AM (4 hrs ago)
Current rank: # 3 of 15,066 articles
BALTIMORE - WHFS-FM, the new flagship radio station of the Orioles, has announced its spring training schedule, with a total of 12 games to air starting on March 1 when Baltimore faces the Florida Marlins at 1 p.m.

The Orioles broadcast crew of Jim Hunter, Fred Manfra and Joe Angel will handle all 12 spring training games, plus the entire 162 regular season games. All games will be in FM stereo, and there will be plenty of new, interactive communications between the dugout and the booth.

How many MASNs?

Recently, I have received a lot of questions about the number of Mid-Atlantic Sports Networks — MASN and MASN2.

There is only one MASN. Each cable company that carries the new home of the Orioles and the Nationals will offer an overflow channel when both teams play at the same time.

That channel could be a shopping channel all day long, and when the Orioles are on channel 62 and 64 in the city or the county, then channel 75, for instance, would carry the Nationals. Once the game is over, regular programming resumes.

MASN2 is simply an overflow channel so that both games can be seen in all markets in the mid-Atlantic region. That’s more than 300 games for fans to follow on the network.

Let the kvetching begin …

At 8:30 a.m. Tuesday, Tony Kornheiser returned to radio on WTWP 1500-AM and 107.7 FM, which was great news to his many fans in the Washington/Baltimore area. The show airs from 8:30 to 10:30 a.m. and repeats from 10:30 to 12:30 p.m. to cover the entire morning shift.

Tony, funny as always, thanked many of his former WTEM gang. He and his new gang hit the ground running.

He is joined by Nigel, Jean McManus, Joe Barber, David Aldridge, Brennan Haselton and an ensemble company of stars, sidekicks and provocateurs still being assembled. The show is produced by Marc Sterne, a former WTEM staffer and a talented broadcaster in his own right.

With TK back, all seems right with the world.

WHFS-FM’s Orioles spring training lineup

March 1 1:05 p.m. vs. Florida Marlins

March 4 1:05 p.m. vs. New York Mets

March 10 1:05 p.m. vs. St. Louis Cardinals

March 11 1:05 p.m. vs. Boston Red Sox

March 17 1:05 p.m. vs. New York Mets

March 18 1:05 p.m. vs. Boston Red Sox

March 20 7:10 p.m. vs. New York Mets

March 24 1:05 p.m. vs. Los Angeles Dodgers

March 25 1:05 p.m. vs. St. Louis Cardinals

March 29 4:05 p.m. vs. Washington Nationals (in Columbus, Ohio)

March 30 2:05 p.m. vs. Washington Nationals (in Norfolk, Va.)

March 31 1:05 p.m. vs. Washington Nationals (at RFK Stadium)

Jim Williams is a seven-time Emmy Award-winning TV producer, director and writer. E-mail him at jwilliamsexaminer@gmail.com.
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