In 2006, a station with a 5,000-watt signal won the radio rights to Cardinals games for five years, during which many people complained that their reception was lost, so the team returned to KMOX in 2011.

I pass into Mississippi, the fifth state on the journey, as the game enters the ninth. There is a wider variety of establishments to perhaps watch the end of the game and meet a Cardinals fan in a far-flung land, someone whose roots to the team connect to the ubiquitous KMOX signal. The Hooters on Route 302 in Horn Lake, Miss., 310 miles from St. Louis, is the closest.

Inside is Tony Davis, a Mississippi resident, watching the game. Is he a KMOX listener? Is that how he became a Cards fan? Or perhaps it was his father or grandfather who had listened to Buck and Caray way back when.

“I’m a Yankee fan,” he says.

With that, and payment for a club soda, it’s back to the car to hear the final outs of the game. The reception could not be better. It is crystal clear, as if the station were transmitting from the parking lot. Shannon wonders why the Red Sox are even bothering to hold Kolten Wong on first base in a two-run game. Then, bang, to Shannon’s astonishment, Wong is picked off first. Game over. At 10:51 p.m. Central.

I could not outrun the signal, even leaving two and a half hours before the game.

KMOX wins in a blowout.

In fact, the reception is so clear, I probably could have driven straight into the Gulf of Mexico and still heard the sad postgame show. Instead, I listen to the hissing report — the content of the show is hissing, not the signal reception — as I head toward Memphis and the Blues City Cafe for a well-deserved plate of ribs, full rack, and a last pit stop at a West Memphis gas station.

And that’s it, except for one thing: a 300-mile drive back to St. Louis for Game 5 the same day. Perhaps I’ll listen to some music on the way.