Thursday, September 10, 1992

 BY MIKE KERN

 From the "It could only happen in the Major Indoor Lacrosse League" files . . .

 Twins Paul and Gary Gait, the Wayne Gretzky and Mario Lemieux of the sport, have been assigned by the league to the Philadelphia Wings from the Detroit Turbos. An agreement was reached by the MILL and the Gaits so the brothers could continue playing together.

 In turn, the Wings had to forfeit all of their picks in yesterday's annual draft.

 In just two seasons, Paul Gait is the MILL's all-time leading scorer with 88 goals. Gary Gait is fifth on the career assist list with 61.

 The brothers are employed as sales representatives for STX, a Baltimore- based lacrosse equipment company, and will live there during the season. The Wings, who won the MILL championship in 1988 and '89 and finished second last season, will open the season Jan. 15 against the Baltimore Thunder at the Spectrum.

Tuesday, December 22, 1992

 By Clark DeLeon

 That was some nail-biter of a game down at Broad and Pattison over the weekend, wasn't it?

 Whew!

 All the Philadelphia fans thought we had this one wrapped up but then - boom! - on came the bad guys in the final minutes and then . . . well, do we have to have our hearts in our throats every time we watch these guys play?

 Then again, I guess it goes with the territory. Especially in a game like this with everything on the line. After all, only one team can emerge victorious, and this time it was Philadelphia thanks to that all-pro move by Gary Gait in the final seconds.

 Gary Gait?

 You know, he's half of the Gait brothers (Paul's the other half) and they're members of the Philadelphia Wings of the Major Indoor Lacrosse League, which happens to be the last professional sports team in this city to have actually won a league championship.

 That was in 1990 when the Wings whacked the New England Blazers at the Centrum in Worcester, Mass., to repeat as MILL champs during a season in which upward of 16,000 fans packed the Spectrum every time the Wings played at home.

 On Saturday night a more modest crowd of 7,000 showed up to watch the Wings play the Pittsburgh Bulls in an exhibition game that was meaningless except for the fact that it mattered a lot. That is, it mattered if bragging rights in the state of Pennsylvania mean anything.

 The Wings emerged as the rightful owners of the Governor's Cup in the first annual competition between the two pro lacrosse teams representing the two metropolises in the commonwealth. The Wings led comfortably until the third period, when the Bulls mounted a six-goal comeback that tied the score at 12 with a minute-thirty-nine remaining. It took another 36 seconds for Gary Gait to score what would be the winning Wings goal, but Spectrum fans were sweating the outcome until the final seconds as much as Eagles fans did the next day.

 One difference between the two sporting events was that the professional athletes competing on the north side of Pattison Avenue were being paid tens of thousands of dollars for that day's performance, while the Wings were being paid tens of tens. MILL players pull in three, maybe four hundred dollars per game.

 Another difference was that the first annual Governor's Cup game was played without the governor or any other Pennsylvania state official in attendance. (Imagine who'd be there if the Eagles and Steelers were playing a pre- season game for the state title.)

 No matter, Wings general manager Mike French gamely took the Spectrum floor after the national anthem to read the Official Proclamation from Gov. Casey. ''I knew it was going to involve me getting booed," said French of his official reading of the official proclamation. "It didn't take long. First of all, as soon as you mention a political figure, that's good for a boo. Then, I'm part of management: that's good for a boo. And finally, I was the guy holding up the action."

 In Philadelphia, that's like hitting the boobird trifecta.

 Just imagine if the Wings had lost.

Sunday, January 24, 1993

 Brothers Paul and Gary Gait each scored six goals against their former team last night as the Philadelphia Wings smoked the visiting Detroit Turbos, 22-15, before 16,068 fans at the Spectrum.

 Paul Gait, the Major Indoor Lacrosse League's leading scorer, also had five assists and was named the game's most valuable player.

 "I knew once the two (Gait brothers) clicked, it was all over," Wings head coach Dave Evans said. "The two hadn't been as strong in the same game until (last night)."

 Forward Paul Deniken scored four goals and Rob Shek added three for the Wings (3-0). 

The Wings will visit Baltimore on Saturday to play the Thunder.

Sunday, February 7, 1993

 Paul Gait scored six goals, including the 100th of his career, to lead the Philadelphia Wings to a 13-8 victory last night over the New York Saints.

 John Nostrandt, Bill Miller, Rob Shek, Gary Gait, Kevin Finneran, John Conley and Paul Deniken also scored for the Wings, who ran their record to 5-0 with the victory, before 16,731 at the Spectrum.

 Paul Gait is the first player in the seven-year history of the Major Indoor Lacrosse League to score 100 goals.

Monday, March 1, 1993

 John Tavares scored four goals to lead the defending league champion Buffalo Bandits to a 13-12 Major Indoor Lacrosse League victory over the Philadelphia Wings on Saturday night before 16,325 at the Auditorium.

 The loss was the first of the season for the Wings (6-1), who were led by forward Rob Shek's four goals. Six other Wings scored for the American Division champions, including Gary Gait and John Conley, who each had two goals.

 Dating to last season, the Bandits (7-0) have won 15 consecutive games, including an 11-10, sudden-death overtime victory over the Wings in last season's league title game.

 The Wings will play the Pittsburgh Bulls at the Spectrum on March 14.

Sunday, March 14, 1993

 By Jay Searcy, INQUIRER STAFF WRITER

 They will be playing Canada's national game at the Spectrum tonight. You know, the game with the sticks and pads and gloves and helmets and goalies and body checks and penalty boxes and sneakers.

 Sneakers?

 Yeah, sneakers. You thought they used skates to play Canada's national game, eh? You thought hockey was Canada's national game?

 It isn't now and never has been. It's lacrosse, the old Indian game that was played on the fields of Canada long before there were ice rinks.

 True, lacrosse was overshadowed early this century by ice hockey, but as popular as hockey is now in Canada, Parliament has never bothered to change the books, so officially the national game is lacrosse and has been since 1867.

 "Today," said Dave Evans, coach of the Philadelphia Wings, "lacrosse in Canada is like soccer in the United States. Everybody grows up playing it, but nobody watches it."

 Well, almost nobody. They are expecting a near sellout crowd of more than 17,000 tonight when the 6-1 Wings of the Major Indoor Lacrosse League close out their regular season against the Pittsburgh Bulls. And a strange mix that crowd will be.

 Because lacrosse is a rough-and-tumble sport, it attracts a blue-collar following. Because it is played mostly at private schools in the East and by Ivy Leaguers, it attracts the preppies. And because it is a relativly cheap night out - $12 to $17 a ticket - it attracts the young set.

 The crowds at the Spectrum for three home games this season have averaged 16,358, and in six years, the Wings have had only one crowd under 10,000. All that with virtually no publicity. 

There's a Wings fan club with more than 700 members, and if Philadelphia and undefeated, top-seeded Buffalo make it to the playoff finals on April 3, about five busloads of fans will likely follow the Wings to Buffalo.

 "The appeal," said Evans, 43, a native of Vancouver, British Columbia, who has been the Wings coach for six of the seven MILL seasons, "is that it is nonstop action - no offsides to stop play, no icing. Virtually no fighting, because in field lacrosse fighting is taboo."

 But players break an armload of stick handles every game, flailing and whacking one another and whipping a hard rubber ball toward a net at blinding speeds. It's like a pickup basketball game with sticks. If an opposing player is in your path, don't go around him. Put a stick on him and shove him out of the way.

 "Actually," said Evans, "it's not as bad as it looks. The heads of the sticks are plastic, and the handles are hollow aluminum, so you can't really do a lot of damage. You chop a guy on the gloves or arms and the shock is absorbed mostly by the head of the stick. It may sting but . . . " But not many broken arms?

 "Right," he said, "The arms, the back and kidneys are protected by pads. The worst injuries we have are rug burns. In six years we've never had a serious injury."

 The Wings have two attractions that other MILL teams don't have - Paul and Gary Gait, 25-year-old identical twins from Victoria, British Columbia, who may be the best the game has ever seen. They were three-time all-Americans at Syracuse and led the Orangemen to three staight NCAA championships. They are to indoor lacrosse what Julius Erving was to basketball.

 "They are probably the most skilled ever to play the game," said Evans. ''A few others have done some of the things they've done, but they were probably 5-8, 160 pounds. No one with their skill and size has ever done what they do. They're like two tight ends, 6-2, 215 pounds. They pass behind their backs, between their legs, reverse backhand. If they don't go around you, they go over you."

 So the Gait twins are attracting large crowds and parlaying their skills into fortunes in pro lacrosse?

 They wish. Actually, they get $200 a game, like every other third-year player in the league, superstars or not, and if they're lucky in the playoffs, they may get another $400 in bonuses. Salaries are earned by seniority, no player makes more than $400 a game, and there are only eight regular season games a year. So no fortunes are being made in the MILL.  

Evans, who makes $450 a game like all MILL coaches, actually loses money each season when he takes a two-month break from his job as greenskeeper at a private golf club in Vancouver. 

But if you think players don't make much in the MILL, consider what they do when the season is over.

 "They play field lacrosse for nothing," said Evans, "before crowds of maybe 50." 

Monday, March 22, 1993

 Gary Gait scored his second goal of the game with 19.1 seconds left in overtime, lifting the Philadelphia Wings to a 9-8 victory over the Pittsburgh Bulls yesterday in a Major Indoor Lacrosse League game before 16,182 spectators at the Spectrum.

 The Wings controlled the five-minute overtime, limiting the Bulls to two shots. The score remained tied until Gait picked up a loose ball and beat goalie Kevin Bilger. Gait also had an assist in the game, and his brother, Paul Gait, scored twice.

 Dallas Eliuk had 38 saves for the Wings (7-1), who have won the American Division. The Bulls, third in the National Division, fell to 1-7.

 The Wings will have a first-round bye in the playoffs, and will face the winner of Sunday's Baltimore-New York game on April 3 at the Spectrum.

Sunday, April 4, 1993

 By Matt Toll, INQUIRER CORRESPONDENT

 Just after the conclusion of the Philadelphia Wings' 17-9 victory over the New York Saints in the Major Indoor Lacrosse League's American Division title game last night at the Spectrum, the Wings' Gary Gait was announced as the game MVP.

 But the real MVP, however, never stepped on the floor. It was . . . Jeff Waibel of Newtown.

 An hour before game time, Gait discovered that his game jersey, No. 22, was missing. The Wings staff scoured the Spectrum stands, searching the 13,380 fans in attendance for someone, anyone, wearing a jersey with Gait's number.

 Eventually, Waibel was located. He had won the shirt - an actual game jersey worn earlier in the season by Gait - in a Wings promotion, and offered it back to its original owner. For the length of the game, anyway.

 And Gait - who scored four goals and added four assists - acknowledged what everyone in the victorious locker room already knew.

 "It had to be the jersey, right?" he said with a wide grin. "I don't know what happened to mine - I'm not in charge of that stuff. But I'm glad they found something."

 The Wings (8-1) have also found the league championship game for the fourth time in the MILL's seven-year history. Saturday, Philadelphia will face the defending champion Buffalo Bandits for the title game at 8 p.m. at The Aud in Buffalo.

 The Bandits - who beat the Wings here for the MILL championship last year, 11-10, in overtime - are the only team to defeat the Wings this season, a 13-12 win Feb. 27 in Buffalo.

 In last night's game, the Wings put together their best first half of the season, leaping out to a 10-1 lead over New York by halftime. Gait's twin brother, Paul, who finished with three goals and three assists, had his hat trick early in the second quarter to spur the initial Philadelphia drive.

 But as spectacular as any offensive play was the performance of Wings goaltender Dallas Eliuk - like both Gaits, a member of the league's first-team All-Pro squad. 

Eliuk was a wall, stopping 18 of the Saints' 19 shots and stoning three attempts from point-blank range. He was injured on New York's very first shot of the second half - struck on the collar bone - and was removed from the game, and backup Dwight Maetche, though initially shaky, held up to maintain the win.

 Wings coach Dave Evans - who recently announced his retirement, effective at the end of this season - coached his final home game for Philadelphia, but said any farewell addresses would be held off for one more week.

 "I told them, 'No farewell speeches until next Saturday,' " he said. ''We've just got to put two halves together next week like we played in the first half tonight."

 The Wings will be going for their third MILL championship, having won consecutive titles in 1989 and 1990.

 Reversing the last two outcomes with the Bandits will require more elbow grease, Gary Gait said.

 "We've just got to go after ground balls, keep hustling, and get physical when we can," he said. "They're a bigger team than us, so we've just got to work harder."

 That, and make sure Gary Gait has a jersey. Who knows whether Waibel will make the trip to Buffalo.

Sunday, April 4, 1993

I'll be in Buffalo next weekend, if they make it. By hook or by crook, but probably by bus, I'll be in Buffalo for the Major Indoor Lacrosse League championship game between the Philadelphia Wings and the Buffalo Bandits. The only glitch in that scenario would be if the Wings were upset by the New York Saints in last night's semifinal game at the Spectrum, where the Wings haven't lost all year.

 Making a Wings loss even more unlikely is the Gipper factor, or perhaps the Gipper, Eh? factor, since the Gipper in question is Canadian. Last night's game was the final home game for Wings coach Dave Evans, who is retiring at the end of the season after six years and two MILL championships.

 Each year during indoor lacrosse season, Evans, 43, has had to commute to Philadelphia from Vancouver, British Columbia, where he works full time as a greenskeeper at a golf club. Because of the difference between the cost of air fare and his modest $7,000 salary as coach, he lost money each year. "It's not supposed to work that way," he said after the Wings' final regular season game. "It's not supposed to cost you money to be coach."

 But Evans was never in it for the money. Neither are the players, who are paid between $200 and $400 per game. They're all in it for the game. It's a lacrosse thing - you WIP sports radio listeners wouldn't understand. But Wings fans understand. The 16,000-plus fanatics who fill the Spectrum for each home game know what drives this team.

 That's why there's no way the Wings could lose last night. Everybody in the building, except for the other team of course, wants Dave Evans to end his Wings career on a hat trick, his third league championship.

Tuesday, April 6, 1993

 Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.

 But what if twins are involved?

 It's hard to say, especially when the twins involved are Canadians who play for the Philadelphia Wings of the Major Indoor Lacrosse League.

 For the second game in a row, a Gait brother had to borrow a game jersey before a game from a fan walking in the Spectrum concourse wearing a Wings jersey bearing that particular Gait brother's name and number. It happened Saturday night.

 Last time it was Paul Gait who forgot his jersey before the Pittsburgh Bulls game on March 21. This time it was Gary Gait whose jersey turned up AWOL before Saturday's American Division championship final between the Wings and the New York Saints.

 Last time it was a 16-year-old fan, Craig Smith of Churchville, Bucks County, who just "happened" to be wearing a Wings Jersey with the number 19 and the name P. Gait. This time is was Jeff Waibel, 20, of Newtown, Bucks County, who "happened" to be wearing a number 22 Wings jersey with the name G. Gait on back when he was accosted in the concourse and told, "We need that jersey."

 Both times the Wings won, the first game when Gary Gait scored the game- winning goal in overtime, and more comfortably on Saturday when the two Gaits combined for seven goals in a 17-9 rout.

 Now you might conclude that perhaps the Gait brothers are forgetting their jerseys on purpose for good luck, a sort of strange Canadian surperstition from their native British Columbia. If so, some one should remind them that the league championship Saturday night against the Buffalo Bandits is not a home game, eh?

 It will be a lot tougher to find a Wings jersey on a fan in War Memorial Stadium.

Sunday, April 11, 1993

 By Clark DeLeon, INQUIRER STAFF WRITER

 The morning newspaper compared last night's Major Indoor Lacrose League championship game between the Buffalo Bandits and the Philadelphia Wings to the third Ali-Frazier fight, and afterward, "The Thrill of the MILL" proved worthy of its epic billing.

 Like two hungry, gifted heavyweights on a mission, the Bandits and the Wings traded punches, both figurative and literal, in a nerve-racking game that fans for both teams could hardly bear to watch.

 And in the end, it was the defending champion Bandits who scored the last and most important goal with less than 29.9 seconds remaining to emerge with a 13-12 victory and the Major Indoor Lacrosse League championship before 16,325 at Buffalo's Memorial Auditorium.

 A goal by Buffalo's Rich Kilgour ended the agony that started 20 seconds earlier when the Wings' Chris Flynn entered the penalty box in tears after being given a two-minute penalty for tripping.

 The game was tied at 12-12 and both teams had battled back from two-goal deficits to take the lead, only to lose it again. Screams from the Bandits fans in the sold-out Buffalo Auditorium drowned out everything, but managed to get even louder when Kilgour delivered the knockout from the left side about 20 feet from the goal.

 Dave Evans, who coached his final game for the Wings, said a power-play goal was a terrible way to decide a championship game.

 "Referees shouldn't be making calls like that in the final minutes of a game like this," he said of the penalty to Flynn. "(Flynn) played his heart out, and to see him get nailed with the game on the line.... It wasn't one- sided. I think (the Bandits) got more bad calls against them than we did."

 The Wings held a 12-11 lead with 1:58 remaining before Buffalo rallied for the title.

 It was a finish that duplicated the result of last year's championship game between the two teams at the Spectrum, which Buffalo won by a 12-11 score.

 Last night's contest did not begin well for the Wings.

 The game's first goal was disallowed after a Buffalo protest of Paul Gait, whom the Bandits contended was wielding an illegal stick. "That's the cheapest call I've seen in seven years," fumed Wings general manager Mike French. "They all have illegal sticks out there."

 The Bandits poured pine tar on the two-minute penalty by immediately scoring on the power play. Paul Gait responded on his first shift after emerging from the penalty box by almost scoring a one-punch TKO over the Bandits' John Tavares, who happens to be the league's leading scorer. Paul Gait is second.

 Tavares led the Bandits with four goals and was named MVP.

 The Wings were ahead on bodies bruised, but Buffalo's revenge was on the scoreboard. The Bandits led, 2-0, before Paul Deniken put Philadelphia on the scoreboard on a power-play goal with a little over five minutes remaining in the first.

 Gary Gait tied it less than two minutes later, and the Wings were beginning to look in control, especially when Buffalo's Paul Meagher was given a two- minute penalty for holding that handed the Wings a power play that would cover the remainder of the period.

 Instead, Buffalo used the time wisely and spectacularly by scoring two short-handed goals within a minute, the second of the pair by Tavares.

Tuesday, April 13, 1993

By Clark DeLeon

 Nine days ago in this space I made a promise: "By hook or by crook, but probably by bus, I'll be in Buffalo next Saturday for the Major Indoor Lacrosse League championship game between the Buffalo Bandits and the Philadelphia Wings."

 I'm afraid I broke that promise.

 I took an airplane.

 "Awwww, Clark, we had a seat for you and everything," said Lou Orr, transportation superintendent of the Official Philadelphia Wings Fan Club, who called last week to offer a ride on one of two chartered buses that made the 16-hour round trip from Philadelphia to Buffalo followed by several private cars.

 All told there were about 200 Wings fans crammed into a pie-shaped section in the upper crust of Buffalo's Spectrum equivalent, the Aud, where they out- lunged the Bandits fans, who held a 16,175-throat advantage.

 You've gotta be a little crazy to be a serious Wings fan, which is fine, because crazy is a fairly common mental condition in the franchise from the general manager on down. "You know why we're going to win the game?" a pumped up Wings general manager Mike French said in the press box before the game. "Because we have better athletes than they do. And because I can kick the crap out of that little general manager of theirs."

 In the weeks building up to the championship showdown between the two best teams in the league, French had fueled the rivalry between the two teams by announcing that there was no way the Wings could lose to the Bandits, who were ''the ugliest team in the league."

 "I mean, have you seen those guys with their helmets off?" French said last week. "I walked into their locker room after one game and I looked around the room. I'm talking mirror-breaking ugly!"

 I thought French was only kidding until I saw some of the Bandits with their helmets off. I'm no expert in such matters, but if championships were decided in a team-to-team face-to-face off, the Bandits wouldn't make the playoffs. Maybe ugly is too strong a word. The Bandits faces I saw had recognizable character. And the characters I recognized were Yosemite Sam and Cheech of Cheech and Chong.

 In fact it was Cheech, 37-year-old Bandits forward Kevin Alexander, who stuck it to the Wings both early and late during the championship game. Not only did he score the goal that tied the game at 12-12 with 1:58 remaining, but he made a Cheech move early in the first period that may have cost the Wings the championship.

 The AP wire photo that accompanies today's column shows Wings No. 19 Paul Gait congratulating No. 3 Paul Deniken after the Wings' first goal Saturday night, which cut the Bandits' lead to 2-1. Actually, it was Gait who scored the Wings' first goal just 1 minute and 30 seconds into the game. But that goal was disallowed after Alexander protested to the referees that Gait was using an illegal lacrosse stick, the same stick he had been using all season.

 Instead of being awarded a goal, Gait was awarded two minutes in the penalty box and his stick was confiscated. One minute later the Bandits scored. So Alexander's protest resulted in a two-goal turnaround in a game the Wings would lose by one.

 The illegal-stick violation, by the way, was not of the corked-bat variety in baseball. It was on a technicality more like the famous George Brett pine- tar bat incident a few years back. But the significance was of a critical difference. Imagine if Brett's home run had been disallowed first in the first inning of the seventh game of the World Series.

 In the locker room after the Wings' last-minute 13-12 loss, Gait deadpanned his reaction to Alexander's protest. "It was no big deal," he said. "Just a goal and a penalty and a goal."

 "That's the cheapest call I've seen in seven years," French said.

 "I'd never call something like that in a million years," said coach Dave Evans, who retired Saturday night after six years and four championship game appearances as the Wings' coach. "I wouldn't want to win a championship that way."

 I've been around Evans long enough to know he means that.

 And how's this for irony? During the postgame party, Alexander made another Cheech move. He approached the Wings' GM about filling the coaching position Evans was vacating.

 "Aren't you the one who made that illegal-stick protest?" French replied. ''I don't think I could work with someone who'd make a call like that."

Wednesday, July 28, 1993

By Clark DeLeon

 Are you ready to read the dirtiest word in Philadelphia talk radio?

 Five letters. Starts with W.

 It got bleeped from the air Friday afternoon on WIP Sportsradio host Jody McDonald's show when a caller asked if McDonald knew which professional sports team Philadelphia Magazine had picked in its Best of Philly issue. McDonald said he hadn't heard and asked the caller to tell him, but that answer never made it to listeners who instead heard McDonald say, "There are some things we don't talk about on the air, and that's one of them."

 Five letters. Starts with W.

 What could it be?

 "I was just playing by the rules," McDonald said yesterday, explaining why the profanity button was hit at the very mention of the W-word. "It's well known around here that the Wings are something we don't talk about on WIP because it's a small interest sport that only the 16 or 17 thousand people who come to the Spectrum to watch are interested in."

 Wings is the dirty word? He's joking, right?

 On page 109 of Philadelphia Magazine is a photo of five members of the Philadelphia Wings (Billy Miller, Tony Resch, Kevin Finneran, Scott Gabrielsen, Chris Flynn) posing in their indoor lacrosse gear. The caption said they were named Best Team "for the wins beneath their Wings." The Wings were only pro team in Philadelphia to make it to the league championship game last season.

 McDonald admits to being a fan of the team, but the decision to keep the Wings from flying on 'IP came from the top, station manager Tom Bigby. "I understand why Mr. Bigby does that," McDonald said. "I'm an employee, I do what I'm told."

 So let's ask Mr. Big himself? I called him, identified myself and asked him what's the deal about the Wings?

 "It's a matter of air time and a matter of entertaining the most people all the time," Bigby said over the phone yesterday afternoon. "The Wings have a very small, very intense, very vocal group of fans. I have nothing against indoor soccer, or whatever it is, box lacrosse."

 OK, OK, but isn't it a little extreme to hit the seven-second delay button at the very mention of the word?

 Boss Bigby got rolling. "It's our radio station," he said. "There's no freedom of speech in public radio."

 Bigby said it was one particular Wings fan who kept calling the station. ''There's a way he can talk about the Wings on the radio," Bigby said. ''He can pay Ed Snider $17 million and buy the station."

 The station manager went on to say, "Of course, everything I'm saying is off the record."

 To which I responded, "What do you mean, off the record? I'm a reporter who called you for a comment and I've been writing down your answers. You can hear me typing them so I can quote you."

 Thus informed, Mr. Bigby continued. "It's really not a sports talk station, it's entertainment radio that just happens to talk about sports. We like to play the hits. We've got the highest market share of any sports talk station in the country and it's not because we do sports. Do you ever listen to the morning show? Do you think that's about sports?

 "We consider the morning show to be a clean alternative to Howard Stern," Bigby said. "That's our competition.

 "We're not journalists here. Do you think of Angelo Cataldi as a journalist?"

 "No," I said, "but how about Al Morganti?"

 "Al's a very funny guy," Bigby said. "We're going to make a personality out of him yet."

 But what kind of listeners are you going after?

 "I want thugs and thugettes," he said. "That's what made this city great. Go to Fishtown, go to Port Richmond, go to any of those neighborhoods."

 "Oh, you're after the 700 level," I said.

 "Any one of them as a listener is worth 20 yuppies from the suburbs to advertisers," Bigby said. "Ask the beer companies."

 So there's your answer, sports fans. It's about demographics, stoopid.