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A Giant omission: S.F. is off the air By GREG STILES The San Francisco Giants were a staple of Rogue Valley radio fare throughout the 1990s. But Giants games, featuring the smooth cadence of John Miller and Ted Robinson, have been dropped by all-sports KTMT (580-AM) in favor of the Oakland A's. Bret Fox, general manager for Marathon Media's six radio stations on Rossanley Lane, says he wanted to carry both the A's and Giants. Fox hoped to give the A's top-billing on KTMT and place selected Giants games on KCMX (880-AM), Marathon's news and talk station. But San Francisco's KNBR (680-AM), owner of the Giants' broadcast rights, wasn't about to play second fiddle to the A's. "I hate to be arrogant," KNBR General Manager Bob Agnew says. "We offer for free the best produced program in baseball. A station can't do a hodge-podge of Giants and the A's and call itself a Giants' affiliate." KTMT's defection leaves KUIK of Hillsboro as the state's lone Giants' affiliate. Southern Oregonians will either have to wait for sundown to tune in KNBR, or catch Giants games via the Internet at knbr.com. Fox says contracts with Rush Limbaugh, Dr. Laura Schlessinger and Michael Reagan -- not to mention their followers' response -- makes it difficult to pre-empt talk shows for baseball on KCMX. The radio GM's choice to go with the A's was pragmatic. The A's made available more than 600 tickets, plus other promotional materials, for the station to distribute to advertisers. Agnew says KNBR doesn't provide tickets or many freebies to any of its affiliates, ranging all the way to Hawaii. "The Giants had three sellouts at Candlestick Park last year and this year (with a new stadium, Pacific Bell Park) they're sold out," Agnew says. "They are not a lot of tickets available. We're just not going to do things willy-nilly." Die-had Giants fan Rob Werfel, numbered among the thousands of former Californians living in the Rogue Valley, is upset by Marathon's switch. "The stations promotional ads all winter said they will be bringing us the Giants again this year," Werfel says. Werfel contacted several local businesses that advertised on Giants' broadcasts and wonders if there is sufficient advertising support for the A's. "There have got to be a lot of angry Giants fans here in the Rogue Valley, who either don't have the time to do what I'm doing or don't know how to get Fox to change his mind," Werfel says. Fox acknowledges 16 calls. "I've called the two-thirds that left numbers so I could give them the whole story," Fox says. "The rest just told me off and hung up. The deal is that there are more talk radio fans than baseball fans, so we can't just use both AM stations." Fox says he can't understand why KNBR won't allow for less than the whole loaf. "I've worked in Colorado Springs and Salt Lake City where we had these kinds of issues," he says. "Really, the bottom line is that KNBR doesn't care about the fan base in Southern Oregon." Fox says KTMT will be carrying more than 30 ESPN broadcasts beginning with the Cubs and Cardinals at 12:37 p.m. next Monday. He's also hoping KNBR might change its stance, but at the same time he's checking into adding the Seattle Mariners into the mix. "If the team with the most fans won't work with us," Fox says, "we'll have to go with what we can. If we can't carry No. 1, we'll have to go with two and three." Today's Edition : News | Sports | Business | Weather | Tempo | Classifieds Mail Tribune Copyright � The Mail Tribune 2000, Medford, Oregon USA