How Statistics Can Go to Announcers’ Heads

There may be a lesson for Dodger announcer Ross (Stats) Porter in this story about Tom Gallery, former NBC sports boss.

Sportscaster Lindsey Nelson, in his recently published autobiography, writes of Gallery: “He thought that an announcer in love with statistics could drive the average fan nuts in the course of one figure-laden afternoon.

“It was at the (1957) World Series, in a game involving the Yankees and Milwaukee Braves, that Gallery decided Mel Allen (the Yankee announcer working the telecasts for NBC) had used just about enough statistics. . . . So he said to Mel, ‘No more of those damned statistics. We’ve had enough of that. Just do the game.’ ”

But Allen couldn’t resist picking up “The Little Red Book,” which contains almost every baseball statistic imaginable, and thumbing through it. Writes Nelson: “When Gallery saw what Mel was doing, he saw red. He was furious. The closest thing that wasn’t nailed down was a headset that lay near the mike. Gallery grabbed the headset and started whacking Allen over the head, saying, ‘Didn’t I tell you to leave the statistics alone.’

“We had fewer statistics for the remainder of that World Series.”

Oops dept.: During Game 1 of the Dodger-St. Louis series Wednesday night, the Dodgers’ Enos Cabell, after nabbing a hot grounder to first by Darrell Porter, tagged the base with his bare hand.

Watching the replay, NBC announcers Vin Scully and Joe Garagiola chided the umpires for not calling Porter safe. Their thinking was that Cabell had to make the tag with the gloved hand. That would have been the case had he been tagging a runner instead of a base, but a base can be tagged with either foot or either hand.

Someone in the network’s truck must have set Scully and Garagiola straight. “We were only kidding about that play at first,” Garagiola said on the air a little later.

Some deal: Howard Lee of Oklahoma City traded a house for eight tickets to Saturday’s Oklahoma-Texas football game at Dallas.

“I’m probably giving it away, but what the heck,” he said.

Lee put an advertisement in an Oklahoma City newspaper saying that anyone who gives him the eight tickets can have his rental house by paying the closing costs and taking over the payments. He admitted that the property is “in rough shape.” Monthly mortgage payments on the two-bedroom house near Oklahoma City run $340.

He found a buyer.

“I get to go to the game, and this fellow gets a house,” Lee said. “It’s the good old American barter system. It’s the American way. I love it.”

Minnesota Vikings wide receiver Buster Rhymes didn’t show up for practice Thursday, and Coach Bud Grant said he had no idea why.

Asked if Rhymes will be fined, Grant said: “Once we find out he’s all right, we’ll go from there. It’s like with kids who are supposed to be home by 11. You find out if they’re OK. Once you know they’re OK, you take out the stick.”

Quotebook

NBC baseball commentator Tony Kubek, talking about how announcers at times should keep quiet and let the scene tell the story: “Sometimes egos get the best of you, and announcers talk too much. I call it the Cosell syndrome. Jerkocracy, if you will.”