Saturday, May 8, 2010

Phillies on WARM

I hold in my hand...  THE LAST BUMPER STICKER.

Bumper Sticker Saturday comes to an end with this WARM 590 entry.

The date of issue is uncertain, and it was after my time at the station.  It was a good looking sticker, apparently from the days when WARM called itself "NewsRadio."

Please.

By the time this sticker came out, the station was little more than syndicated, satellite talk shows and a couple local news readers, who stole their material out of the newspapers.  Sorry.  It had to be said.  NewsRadio was a joke.

WARM's first year with the Phillies was my first year with the station, 1981.  I hated "running the board" for the games.  The network was amateurish.  The pre-game show never started at the time the network sheet said it would.  Commercial breaks were never the right length.  The format called for two local station identification slots per hour.  They never hit the breaks on time.  There was many a night when I gave up on waiting.  I'd be in the bathroom, or at the soda machine at the far end of the building when I'd hear Harry, Richie, or Andy say "We now pause ten seconds for station identification on the Phillies Radio Network."  It was too late to race back to the control room to hit the tape, so listeners got ten seconds of silence, where the ID should have been.

Oh, the joys of radio.

And, we've reached the end of the line.  I started with WARM way back in October, and I end with WARM.  I know Bumper Sticker Saturday was really no big deal to the vast majority of the people who punch up this blog every day, but it was great fun for me, a chance to re-live some old memories.

Thanks for being part of the ride.