Friday, June 30, 2006 | 7:39 a.m.
Alan Boston was driving from Las Vegas to his home in Old Orchard Beach, Maine, one night in the mid-1980s when he heard the Stardust Line radio show for the first time.
Looking back, Boston described himself as a cross between a young, aspiring professional gambler and a "lost soul" who found some nourishment in a program devoted to sports betting.
"I was just starting a wild sojourn from here across the country, and it was like they were brethren spirits in a way," Boston said. "Here were people who just wanted to talk about point spreads, rather than pick-and-rolls or some missed call in some game."
They held a requiem for the Stardust Line on Sunday night, and Boston - who later became a frequent guest and a co-host of the program - was among those sharing his recollections.
After 25 years, the Stardust Line is signing off. Sunday night marked the final two-hour weekend evening program, and the last half-hour weekday show is scheduled for 8:30 this morning on KDWN 720-AM.
It will be remembered not only for influencing professional sports bettors such as Boston but also for capturing the imagination of countless sports fans and gamblers in Las Vegas and throughout the West on KDWN's powerful late-night signal.
"It's a bittersweet night," Stardust marketing vice president Jim Seagrave said. "This show has been so much a part of the Stardust for all these years. We would regularly hear from listeners in many of the Western states, and as far away as British Columbia, Mexico and islands in the Pacific. It's been a very rewarding experience."
John Kelly, who has hosted the Sunday night version of the show for the past several years with Dave Cokin and Ron Frazier, tried to keep the proceedings from becoming too funereal.
"I wanted to use the term 'cease operations' because I didn't want to say 'die,' " Kelly said.
The end of the Line comes as the Stardust, which opened in 1958, is scheduled to close later this year. It will be razed to make way for a state-of-the-art gaming, hotel and entertainment complex called Echelon Place, which is scheduled to open in 2010.
Donnie Bader, a fixture in the Las Vegas sports betting scene since 1964, hosted the Stardust Line with Lee Pete from 1982 to 1986. On Sunday, he recalled Michael Jordan and Joe Namath appearing as guests on the show, then sticking around at the Stardust until the early-morning hours to sign autographs.
Among other handicappers and hosts on the show over the years were Andy Iskoe, Arne Lang, Dave Malinsky, Stephen Nover, Seat Williams and Jim Brown. Yes, that Jim Brown, of Cleveland Browns and "The Dirty Dozen" fame.
My favorite part of the show might have been the legal disclaimer at the program's conclusion. After two hours of gamblers dissecting point spreads, a deep, professional-sounding voice-over would solemnly intone that it was all just for entertainment, and "not meant to encourage wagering."
If you looked carefully, you could almost see the sarcasm and irony dripping out of your radio speakers.
Boston, who went on to become a highly successful professional sports gambler, was critical of the city's big gaming corporations for failing to devote any resources to a possible replacement for the Stardust Line. Even so, he predicted the program will one day "reappear in some way, shape, form or manner."
For his part, Kelly disagreed somewhat with Seagrave's assessment of Sunday as a bittersweet night.
"There's nothing sweet about it," Kelly said.
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