Questionable Reception

"KMOX was the New York Times of St. Louis," Costas said. "KMOX had more prestige in St. Louis than the television stations and the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Something was not official until KMOX said so. The consensus of opinion in St. Louis was always summed up by KMOX."

There are many who say that upon Hyland's death in 1992, the great station began a long march toward normalcy. They point to its new owners, Infinity Broadcasting, which operates out of New York, but in doing so fail to mention that in Hyland's day the station was owned by CBS, also based in New York.

They decry the addition of Limbaugh's show in the 1990s, not because of Limbaugh's political tilt but because it was the first time the station took on a show that was not generated in-house. "It was the first indication that duty wasn't as important as ratings," Absher said. "It was indicative of the homogenization where everyone has the same voices, same jingles and personalities."

The 25 share of the 1970s has dropped to 10.6, which sounds like a precipitous decline until you realize that no other station in a top-40 market has a rating this high. Even in its new incarnation, in a different media universe, it remains No. 1.

Looking back, it was almost inevitable that the Cardinals and KMOX would part ways. While the news came as a jolt, the two institutions had slowly been moving away from the world that kept them together. Were it not for the tradition that had been their bond, the break might have come sooner.

Changing Times

From his temporary office in the top of a building just across the street from Busch Stadium, Lamping, the Cardinals' president, is armed with statistics that point to the realities of a small market team trying to put a big market team on the field. He points out that St. Louis had the sixth-biggest payroll in baseball while playing in the seventh-smallest media market in the game. If salaries continue to increase, he said, he worries the Cardinals won't be able to keep up.

"Given the steadfast commitment to having a competitive team and realizing we don't have the level of media revenue to compete with the best teams in baseball we need to be creative," he said. "We need to maximize revenue streams."

Hence the new stadium with luxury boxes down low and a two-tiered wall of suites that stare at the players from just feet above the field. The new park will also have a baseball village and it will feature stores and restaurants and rides, and these will all fill the Cardinals' coffers as does a Class AA baseball team the Cardinals bought in El Paso, then moved to Springfield, Mo.

Lamping grew up on KMOX and somehow he figured the Cardinals would be on KMOX forever. "I went into [the latest negotiation] thinking we would work something out with KMOX," he said.

But as talks crystallized earlier this year, it seemed they both were coming from different worlds. The station, worried about the influx of satellite radio and live Internet broadcasts controlled by Major League Baseball, proposed a revenue sharing plan in which the team would take a little less guaranteed money -- $4.5 million instead of about $6 million -- but could more than make up the difference in advertising sales. And while the Cardinals eventually agreed to the basic idea, the two sides got tangled up in the details.

Then when KTRS came offering more in guarantees and agreed to let the team buy half the station as well and make the station a permanent tenant in the baseball village, neither the Cardinals nor KMOX could disagree that times had probably changed.

"It was difficult for them to pass up," said Les Hollander, the Infinity vice president who handled the negotiations. "You need to remove the emotion and look at the economics of the situation. [The Cardinals] removed the emotion out of it too."