Cardinals Return To KMOX in St. Louis

Radio broadcast of St. Louis Cardinals games, after a five year hiatus, will once again be able to be heard from Canada to Cuba and 44 states in between as the team has returned to the "Voice of St. Louis", KMOX.

The 50,000- watt blow torch, which was the radio originator of Cardinals games when they first reached the airways in 1935, reaches nearly half a million listeners weekly in metropolitan St. Louis alone. The impact has been nothing short of sensational since KMOX won the broadcasting rights back from KTRS. KTRS had been broadcasting the games since 2006, but with only 5,000 watts had difficulty reaching the fringes of the city with a clear signal.

"We're really exited," program director Steve Moore told MLBnewsonline.com. "There's been an enormous reaction, all positives."

The station will broadcast the entire 162 game schedule, plus 18 spring training games, Moore said.

Veteran play-by-play-man John Rooney and color man Mike Shannon, who played for the team in championship seasons during the 1960s, will continue to team up to the broadcast, while KMOX's own Kevin Wheeler will follow the Cardinals on locally generated sports programming, Moore said.

The Cardinals are expected to be highly competitive in the National League Central Division with slugging superstars Albert Pujols and Matt Holliday anchoring a potent lineup top to bottom.

Once home to late Hall-of-Fame broadcasters Harry Caray and Jack Buck, the storied radio station is widely credited for helping to build bastions of Cardinals followers from the Rockies to the Smokies, and especially in the deep south.