Whfs

Where to watch or hear tomorrow's induction: TV ESPN Classic, 1:30 p.m. (highlights show on ESPN2 Monday at 8 p.m.) Ch. 13, Celebrating Cal special, about 4:30 p.m. (after Orioles game) RADIO ESPN 1300 AM, 1:30 p.m. (replayed after Orioles game on WHFS [105.7 FM]) ONLINE For a multimedia presentation, go to baltimoresun.com/ripken -- video of Ripken's speech should appear by 9 p.m.

Radio station WHFS-FM (99.1) yesterday announced a powerhouse lineup for its annual HFStival, which is coming to Baltimore's PSINet Stadium on May 29.Among the alterna-rock headliners at the 10th annual fest are the Red Hot Chili Peppers, the Goo Goo Dolls and Sugar Ray.Other acts include the Offspring, Silverchair, Orgy, Live, Lit, Beth Orton, Mighty Mighty Bosstones, Citizen King, Buckcherry, 2 Skinnee J's, the Freestylers, Blink 182, Ozomatli, Sev and...

For the last month or so, fans of local radio station WHFS have been listening to something they've probably never heard before -- "Dundalk" in a song lyric.And they love it.The single "Blue Skies Over Dundalk," by an Annapolis cowpunk singer/songwriter who calls herself Mary Prankster, hit the airwaves in early June, and the reaction was "tremendous," says WHFS morning-show host Lou Brutus.Prankster's label, Fowl Records, rushed out 1,000 copies of the CD, also titled "Blue Skies Over Dundalk," and almost immediately they sold out. The album is now in its second printing, and the relatively unknown Prankster is "overjoyed."

Gooooooooooooooood morning, Baltimore!Four hours a morning, five mornings a week, their voices splash through shower radios, command beltway commutes and perk up offices around town with music and musings. At night, they ease our loneliness and coo us to sleep.Disc jockeys -- the aristocracy of the airwaves -- determine what, when and how we listen to music (not to mention the number of times we are subjected to Natalie Imbruglia's pop-whine about being "Torn").But like everyone else, DJs fiddle with their own radios in their off time.

JAKE EINSTEIN, the 79-year-old hippie who has long enjoyed the status of radio cult god for creating progressive, free-form rock stations in Maryland, sold his WRNR-FM (103.1) in Annapolis Friday. Einstein says the sale was finalized in 15 minutes at his kitchen table. Empire Broadcasting, which bought WRNR along with Einstein's WYRE-AM for $2 million, is headed by Steve Kingston, program director at K-ROCK in New York City. He's Howard Stern's boss! (If there is such a thing.)In a sense, it's the end of an era.Back in 1967, Jake Einstein won over discerning rock lovers by turning a Bethesda easy-listening station into ""that hippie station," WHFS.

Next time you gripe about the hassle of going to work, think for a moment about the men and women of war-torn Sarajevo, who spent years traveling on streets where they were almost as likely to get shot as they were to make it to work on time.Rob Timm, news director at WHFS-FM (99.1), has. And his appreciation for the sort of effort it takes (and continues to take, even though a fragile peace seems to be holding) to operate a radio station under those conditions helps explain why WHFS has been trying to help its sister station in the Bosnian capital.

FOR A SMALL TOWN, Annapolis has had some of the nation's most interesting radio stations. Credit two men: Morris H. Blum, 87, whose WANN is still controlled by the same family that started it in 1946, and Jake Einstein, who may be 79 but has been a trailblazer in rock programming.Mr. Einstein has now signed off, selling his two Annapolis stations, WRNR-FM and WYRE-AM. The buyer of the former -- for $2 million -- is Empire Broadcasting, a firm headed by the boss of shock-jock Howard Stern.

When managers at the McDonald's in Edgewater decreed that their teen-age workers couldn't listen to WHFS as they slapped together Big Macs, the response was predictable -- unhappy burger flippers.Young people across the county swear by the station with a reputation for nonconformity and attitude. The alternative rock station has built a mystique out of eccentric disc jockeys who play local artists and unusual records.In the words of one of those McDonald's workers, Eric Wenzler, 18, who said management banned the station because the workers weren't working hard enough: "HFS was chill; it was the best."

Patricia Ebbert would like nothing better than to squeeze the sound out of WHFS.For five years, she has asked the courts and other agencies to punish her former employer -- one of the region's most popular radio stations -- for transgressions she claims range from poor management to rigged contests.Now, Ms. Ebbert is asking the Federal Communications Commission to block the Annapolis station's license renewal and give her the 99.1 frequency for a new station. Even as the federal government moves to make such challenges tougher to file in new telecommunications reforms signed into law Thursday, Ms. Ebbert continues her fight.

Just announcedThe Red Hot Chili Peppers concert at the USAir Arena for Dec. 10 has been postponed. The concert should be rescheduled. We'll keep you posted.Tickets for WHFS's Holiday Nutcracker concert go on sale Saturday at 9 a.m. Performing at the Patriot Center on Dec. 7 will be Oasis, Jewel, the Goo Goo Dolls, the Toadies, Porno for Pyros, Garbage and more acts to be announced. Tickets are available through TicketMaster. Call (410) 481-SEAT. For more information call (703) 993-3000.

No matter what happens, Brian Wilson can't seem to stay away from Baltimore for long. From 1984 to 1988, he was among the most popular radio personalities in town. Tomorrow, seemingly a dozen jobs and just as many addresses later, he returns to Charm City's airwaves, as the afternoon voice of WHFS-FM. "It's like this elasticized umbilical cord," he says from the WSPD studios in Toledo, Ohio, where he'll continue to hold down the afternoon drive-time slot he's had since 2005. "I got out of town after '88, then snapped back in the early '90s, then left for New York, then boom, back to Baltimore.

Throwing some sports media notes on the fire to stay warm after shivering through the NFC championship game in Green Bay: You might think Baltimore fans have grown indifferent to the Orioles, their interest diminished by a decade of losing baseball. But people clearly still care a lot. At The Sun, we can see how any shred of Orioles news piles up page views at baltimoresun.com, often outpacing Ravens news. And listening to sports talk shows Tuesday night, I could hear that passion. Callers were lined up to talk baseball on Amber Theoharis' WHFS (105.

Contemplating the sports media landscape while recalling that Bruce Springsteen's "57 Channels (And Nothin' On)" was written before the days of Versus and Fox Soccer Channel: So maybe if my column ran in the back of The Sun sports section I'd get a big salary? Rick Reilly, whose back-page column has long been a staple of Sports Illustrated, is leaving the magazine for ESPN, it was announced earlier this week. He will write for ESPN The Magazine and espn.com and appear on various ESPN programs, starting in June.

Where to watch or hear tomorrow's induction: TV ESPN Classic, 1:30 p.m. (highlights show on ESPN2 Monday at 8 p.m.) Ch. 13, Celebrating Cal special, about 4:30 p.m. (after Orioles game) RADIO ESPN 1300 AM, 1:30 p.m. (replayed after Orioles game on WHFS [105.7 FM]) ONLINE For a multimedia presentation, go to baltimoresun.com/ripken -- video of Ripken's speech should appear by 9 p.m.

Johnny Miller owns one of the most famous rounds in the history of golf's major championships - the 63 he shot at Oakmont on the last day to win the 1973 U.S. Open. With the Open back at Oakmont this week and NBC there to chronicle it, the topic of Miller's performance 34 years ago was bound to come up. But, in typical Miller fashion, the network's No. 1 golf commentator won't say that marks him as a player to rank with Tiger Woods. "If anybody studied my career, I was like Jekyll and Hyde," Miller said, according to highlights of a conference call this week.

You want some good statistics about the Orioles? I can't pass along anything that shows improvements in RBIs, ERA or WHIP. Then again, I'd have to know what WHIP is. (You, in the back, with your hand up. Yes? Walks and hits per inning pitched. Thank you.) The happy numbers in this case have to do with Orioles television and radio broadcasts in their new homes. Comparing this April with April 2006, Orioles games on Mid-Atlantic Sports Network drew an average 3.8 cable rating as opposed to the 3.0 Comcast SportsNet got. That means 3.8 percent of the Baltimore audience with cable TV was tuning in, an increase of 27 percent.

Orioles broadcaster Jim Hunter has arrived in Fort Lauderdale and will debut his new Hot Stove Baseball Show with new partner Amber Theoharis tonight on WHFS (105.7 FM). Never mind that the temperature here reached a record 90 degrees over the weekend. Theoharis replaces Hunter's longtime former Hot Stove partner, Peter Schmuck, who - according to Orioles officials - will not be missed.

Staying up late with Conan. Sleeping in past sunrise. And still collecting those morning radio host paychecks. Kirk McEwen and Mark Ondayko have been on easy street since 98 Rock (97.9 FM) yanked the popular team from its lineup in October. That'll all be over tomorrow, when their contract with their old station is officially up, and they can start work as the new morning crew at WHFS (105.7 FM). The alarm clock will go off at 4:30 a.m. again. "Over the course of this break, I've been getting up about 8:30 or 9," said Ondayko, who developed an appetite for daytime talk shows.

Sage Steele has been one of the faces of Comcast SportsNet since the channel began, but she's going nationwide. Steele will be leaving after Feb. 2 to join ESPNews as an anchor. Her first day on the air at the new job is Feb. 20, she said. ESPN, which made the announcement yesterday, said she also will get some anchoring spots on SportsCenter. "There's so many opportunities there," said Steele, a fixture on Comcast SportsNet's SportsRise and SportsNite. At CSN, which she joined the day it went on the air in April 2001, "I've grown tremendously, but I don't know what else I can do here."

If all the trades and free-agent signings don't improve how the Orioles look in 2007, maybe the games at least will sound better. The Orioles confirmed a long-standing rumor yesterday and announced that the team is leaving its radio home of 19 years, WBAL (1090 AM), for CBS Radio's WHFS-FM (105.7). According to a release issued by the club, WHFS will become the flagship station for the 16-station Orioles Radio Network, which will carry all 162 regular-season games, as well as some exhibitions beginning in March.