"I have a chance now to learn something I can do until I am 60 years old," Bacsik said Friday morning about an hour before Hitzges' 10 a.m. show.

At 31, Bacsik, who has five major league seasons on his resume, has begun the rest of his life. His current goal? Hosting a Monday-Friday sports talk show.

Bacsik comes to sports talk radio from the other side of the phone. A Duncanville High graduate, he made his first call to The Ticket in late December 1996 when the Mavericks traded Jason Kidd to the Phoenix Suns.

Earlier that year, he was drafted in the 18th round by the Cleveland Indians. And so began his baseball odyssey. Near the end of his sixth minor league season, Bacsik finally made it to the Indians. He also pitched for the New York Mets, Rangers and Washington Nationals. In each of those cities, as well as the minor league stops in between, Bacsik was an avid listener to sports talk radio.

In clubhouses from coast to coast, he befriended reporters who carried notepads and microphones. While most teammates shied away, Bacsik embraced them.

"I was a spare part on all the teams I played on," Bacsik said. "But I was in the fraternity of players and in the community of writers and sports talk."

At this point, we dutifully note Bacsik's place in major league history. He was the pitcher who gave up Barry Bonds' record-breaking 756th home run.

Pitching for the Nationals on Aug. 7, 2007, the left-handed Bacsik threw a 3-2 fastball to the left-handed hitting Bonds. The pitch was supposed to go down and away. Instead, it drifted over the plate, and Bonds promptly drove it into the right-center field stands of San Francisco's AT&T Park.

Broadcasting basics

It was after spending the 2005 season with the Philadelphia Phillies' Triple-A team, the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre Red Barons, that Bacsik called The Ticket looking for work. He landed a job as a 27-year-old unpaid intern on the Bob and Dan Show and continued to work at the station during baseball's off-season.

He has co-hosted weekend shows and been part of the station's Mavericks and Rangers postgame shows. When Hitzges' long-time producer Mark Friedman jumped to ESPN 103.3 FM in January, Bacsik was offered the gig. He asked his agent to see any teams had interest in him as a major leaguer. None did.

Ticket brass liked Bacsik's passion for sports, his work ethic and insight on baseball. This week, Bacsik offered Hitzges and listeners a primer on Scott Feldman and how pitchers like Rick Honeycutt and Gaylord Perry cheated on the mound. Some of the information he learned from his father, Mike Bacsik, who pitched in the majors.

"I try my best not to cross the line with former colleagues where I would be outing them on the air," Bacsik said. "But I don't want to be known as just another ex-player who is in the business of protecting his former teammates. My job is to inform listeners and give them the information they want to hear."

Radio daze

The April sports talk radio ratings have The Ticket again leading the pack, followed by ESPN 103.3 and 105.3 The Fan.

The Ticket was No. 1 across the entire radio dial among men 25-54, the prime demographic for sports talk radio. The Ticket scored a 6.0 share for Monday-Friday from 6 a.m. to midnight.

ESPN earned a 3.8 share, good for eighth place. The Fan averaged a 2.2 share, good for 21st place.

From 6 a.m. to 7 p.m., the meat of the sports talk day, The Ticket finished first every hour.

At 5 p.m., however, the Hardline was tied by ESPN's Galloway and Company. Both scored a 6.1 percent share. ESPN was No. 2 during all the remaining hours.

At 1 p.m., however, ESPN's Michael Irvin Show was tied by The Fan's Scruggs and Salisbury at 2.6. Both trailed The Ticket's Bob and Dan Show, which came in at 5.0.

Playoffs update

The conference finals have been getting along very nicely without your Mavericks . In fact, the Kobe-Carmelo, LeBron-Dwight Howard affairs have done boffo cable ratings.

Monday's Lakers-Nuggets Game 4 of the Western Conference finals averaged 9.883 million viewers for ESPN, the most ever for the NBA on cable.

Then along came Magic-Cavaliers Game 4 of the Eastern finals. The game on TNT averaged 10.075 million viewers to break the day-old record.

Meanwhile, the Stars-less NHL Stanley Cup Final begins tonight at 7 p.m. on NBC. The Pittsburgh Penguins-Detroit Red Wings series could have as many as five games on NBC if the series goes the best-of-7 distance. Two games, however, belong to cable's Versus - Games 3 and 4 on Tuesday and Thursday. You can be sure the NHL is rooting against a sweep, which would end the season on cable.

The original game plan had the Finals starting June 5. But the relative ease with which Pittsburgh and Detroit advanced to the Cup round made that wait silly.

Sunday's Game 2 starts at ... well, it's to be determined. The NHL and NBC didn't want to go up against a potential Nuggets-Lakers Game 7.

Around the Horn

NFL Network's Top 10 Countdown show Friday offered a Cowboys list. Here's how it went from 10th to first: Drew Pearson, Don Meredith, Randy White, Tony Dorsett, Troy Aikman, Emmitt Smith, Bob Lilly, Michael Irvin, Roger Staubach and Tom Landry. The 60-minute show offered plenty of highlights and memorable radio calls by Frank Glieber, Verne Lundquist and Brad Sham. Knowing NFLN, the show is sure to be replayed many times in the coming weeks. ... The Rangers will have 25 Friday night games televised over the air next season on KTXA (Ch. 21). Apparently, the Rangers were not happy that Fox allocated 133 games this season to cable's Fox Sports Southwest and only 24 to KDFI (Ch. 27). No word yet on the rest of the 2010 schedule. ... Michael Irvin's 4th and Long show on Spike TV reached two million homes nationally for the debut show May 18 but dropped to 1.15 million Monday. It didn't help that it went up against ESPN's Lakers-Nuggets juggernaut.

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