Your clear two favourite sports behind T&F?...

[Halfmiler2]

Loose Ball is absolutely great. Dr Jay actually told me about it about 10 years ago when we had dinner in Durham when he was visiting with his kids. Loved the book - highly recommended. It’s hilarious.

Durham was a great place to learn about the book because it tells the story of how the ABA had several “regional” franchises of which the Carolina Cougars was the most successful. Instead of one home court, a regional team had multiple home courts. I think the Cougars played at least in Greensboro, Raleigh, and Charlotte. Other regional teams included the Floridians, Virginia Squires, and Texas Chaparrals who I think eventually became the San Antonio Spurs.

[aaronk]

baseball (Mariners)
Women's college basketball & softball (tie)
Pro basketball (NBA)---stats only, via Basketball Reference

[NotDutra5]

You are correct. WJRZ (970) with only 5,000 watts was located in Hackensack, NJ and a young Spencer Ross announced the games. The Americans/Nets had no television for a couple years until they started to have TV weekend games with Marty Glickman announcing.

WJRZ also broadcast Mets games in 1969 before moving on to a bigger station after winning the World Series. Bob Brown did the pre-game and post-game show. He later became famous as the NY Lotto spokesman who coined the phrase “You gotta be in it to win it!”

I remember the Mets games being on WJRZ. Is that the station where Art Rust Jr. had what had to be one of the first sports call-in shows?

[TN1965]

Women's college basketball & softball (tie)

Do you follow any teams in particular? UW has nice programs in both sports. I think it would have been fun to follow Kelsey Plum's college career at UW.

WWU is a D2 powerhouse in both sports as well as volleyball and soccer.

[Halfmiler2]

I remember the Mets games being on WJRZ. Is that the station where Art Rust Jr. had what had to be one of the first sports call-in shows?

I heard Art Rust Jr on WABC (770 with 50,000 watts) after it converted from Top 40 to all-talk in the 1980s. I do not know if he did anything before that but do not recall him on WJRZ which I think was music except for the Americans and Mets back in the 1960s and early 1970s. They changed their call letters to WWDJ if I recall correctly. Today, they are a talk channel (“The Answer”) that has Joe Piscopo doing their morning show but I do not know what their call letters are.

[Halfmiler2]

I checked and the call letters for 970 AM these days is WNYM -appropriate given the station’s history!

[TN1965]

With USFSA and Euros happening in the same week, plus the second week of the Aussie Open, it is a very busy week for me. And yet I managed to see more than half of UConn-Tennessee last night. And these are the two teams I love to root against...

[TWalsh]

1. College Football
2. College Basketball

[NotDutra5]

I checked and the call letters for 970 AM these days is WNYM -appropriate given the station’s history!

While Art Rust Jr. did host a sports talk show, as you mentioned it was in the early 1980's and not the show I was thinking of which turns out to be....Jack Spector on WMCA. He hosted a very early sports talk show and was succeeded by none-other than John Sterling for a few years.

[Halfmiler2]

You are correct. WMCA (570) is a 5,000 watt station. It was a rival Top 40 station to WABC (770) in the 1960s but converted to Talk in the late 1960s or early 1970s - although not all at once. For a while, they did Top 40 in the daytime and talk at night. Anyway, their DJs were the “Good Guys” and included Jack Spector (Jake). When they went to all talk, Jack switched to an afternoon sports show.

[Halfmiler2]

We should mention that WNBC (660) was 50,000 watts and mostly talk at the time and had Bill Mazer doing a sports show - I think in the afternoon. Later in the 1970s, they had Marv Albert doing a call-in show sometimes. I recall when the Rangers were eliminated by the expansion Islanders in the first round in 1975 (?) and a frustrated Rangers fan called in saying that he bet the freaking Islanders would win a Stanley Cup before the Rangers would. Little did he know.

[TN1965]

Sabalenka vs. Rybakina was "Big Babe Tennis" (as Mary Carillo called it) at its best. I had never seen two women going at each other like those two. It was one "scary" match in the most positive way. I normally prefer finesse games, but that was highly entertaining.