IT’S MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL--AGAIN

This is the day Major League Baseball officially starts for anyone who’s owned a TV set the last three decades. That’s because the two go together: Saturdays and baseball, an institution that will continue again over the next 26 weeks.

In the early 1950s, baseball fans here got their first live look at a game on Saturday from the East Coast via the new microwave hookup.

“Hello, everybody, from coast to coast, it’s the Major League Game of the Week!” Mel Allen and Red Barber used to exclaim, the sound of their voices sending chills up your spine. And then followed that great “Cavalcade of Sports” music.

While CBS had the baseball telecasts, Bud Blattner and Dizzy Dean reported the games--Dean with his marvelous fractured English (“Boy, I garrantee ya, he really slud into third base”).

In the 20 years NBC’s had the games, it was Curt Gowdy and Joe Garagiola most of the way, and now Vin Scully is in Red Barber’s “catbird seat,” ironically succeeding the man who first helped that red-headed, freckle-faced kid learn the ropes of broadcasting baseball back in Ebbets Field, Brooklyn.

Today’s game for West Coast viewers is the San Diego Padres at the Atlanta Braves, 10 a.m., over Channels 4, 36 and 39. Youthful Bob Costas, whose face belongs on one of those “Send your boy to camp” ads, and Tony Kubek are teamed again in the booth.

A behind-the-scenes journey into the world of sports, with profiles of sports personalities such as jockey Angel Cordero, baseball pitcher Jim (Catfish) Hunter and basketball star Nancy Lieberman, among others, will be offered on “The Sporting Life,” a new series debuting next week on PBS (KCET Channel 28, next Saturday at 6:30 p.m.).

Jim Palmer, the ex-Baltimore Orioles pitcher, now a baseball analyst for ABC and a jockey shorts salesman, hosts the 10-week series, a co-production of WNET in New York and Foxwood Productions.

On paper, it sounds like the standard format for these kinds of shows. But don’t tell that to the show’s two sharp producers, Roberta London and Phyllis Behar.

These two go-getters, who laugh at anyone who says it can’t be done, created, produced and got the series on PBS single-handed. They got funding by selling the idea to General Foods Corp., which had never been on PBS before.

“There are a couple of things that set us apart from the rest,” comments Behar, a one-time teacher and former soap-opera actress (“One Life to Live”). “I don’t think you’ve seen the kind of in-depth stories we do. We devote a full half-hour to a single athlete, compared to the stuff the networks and syndicators do.

“We shoot in documentary style, and make no commitments ahead of time. It’s all on location at this particular point in time. We capture exactly what the athletes are doing to prepare, so you see the on-going dedication and you get a sense of why it is so tough and why they are doing it.”

The producers work with a small unit using hand-held cameras, which allows them to do close, intimate shots. “Another aspect,” Behar adds, “is that we let Jim and the athletes get to know each other and talk over a long period of time. Some of our interviews ran four or five hours, enabling us to cut from that footage what we thought was the real truth behind each athlete’s choice in life.”

In future shows, Palmer visits an umpire school, and interviews Washington Redskin George Starke, ice dancers Judy Blumberg and Michael Seibert, rodeo performer Dr. James Allen and others, not necessarily big names.

ROUNDUP: Today, Tennis, WCT Tourney, 11 a.m. (2)(8) . . . Baseball, Expos vs. Cubs, 12:15 p.m. WGN . . . Golf, The Masters, 12:30 p.m. (2)(8) . . . Baseball, Angels vs. A’s, 1 p.m. (5) . . . Women’s tennis tourney at Hilton Head, S.C., 1 p.m. (4)(36)(39) . . . Pro Bowlers Tour, 3 p.m. (7)(3)(10)(42) . . . Wide World of Sports, 4:30 p.m. (7)(3)(42); 5:30 (10) . . . NHL Hockey Playoffs, Washington vs. N.Y. Islanders, 4:30 p.m. USA . . . USFL Football, Oakland vs. Birmingham, 5 p.m. ESPN . . . NBA Basketball, Knicks vs. Bucks, 6 p.m. WOR.

SUNDAY: Tennis, WCT Tourney, 9 a.m. (2)(8) . . . Baseball, Reds vs. Mets, 10:30 a.m. WOR . . . Baseball, Padres vs. Braves, 11 a.m. (39) WTBS . . . Baseball, Expos vs. Cubs, 11:15 a.m. WGN . . . USFL Football, Portland vs. New Jersey, 11:30 a.m. (7)(3)(10)(42) . . . Golf, The Masters, noon (2)(8) . . . NBA Basketball, Lakers vs. Kings, noon (9) . . . Boxing, London card, 12:30 p.m. (4) . . . Baseball, Angels vs. A’s, 1 p.m. (5) . . . SportsWorld, Boxing, Aintree Steeplechase, 3:30 (4)(36)(39) . . . NHL Hockey Playoffs, 4:30 p.m. USA.