Decision to Change Lineup for Series Delights Michaels

Al Michaels seemed to be in a good mood Thursday. “I’m delighted with ABC’s decision to use Tim McCarver with Jim Palmer and me on the World Series, instead of Howard,” he said. “Now, we’ll only have to worry about what is happening on the field.”

It’s no secret that Michaels and Howard Cosell are not the best of friends. That became obvious during a playoff telecast last year involving Detroit and Kansas City. Cosell continually interrupted and chastised Michaels.

“I was thoroughly embarrassed,” Michaels said. “I never felt so terrible about a telecast. Howard wasn’t only interrupting me, but Palmer, too. I don’t think I made it to a period all night.”

Add Cosell: The American public won’t be seeing much more of Cosell now that he has turned down ABC’s offer to work on World Series pregame shows. Reportedly, his contract, which runs through 1986, calls for him to work only next year’s Kentucky Derby, Preakness and the Tournament of Champions tennis at Forest Hills in May.

But Cosell may refuse to work those events, and his “Sportsbeat,” which has been getting poor ratings, is expected to be canceled at the end of this year.

Last add Cosell: Speaking to the North Carolina Assn. of Broadcasters meeting at Winston-Salem, N.C., this week, he said TV Guide used only the most sensational quotes from his book, “I Never Played the Game.” Cosell said: “The book is hardly about my former colleagues on ‘Monday Night Football.’ It has 380 pages and has to do with far more important material than that.”

ESPN has pulled the plug on Chris Berman’s baseball player nicknames.

No more Ron (Born In the U.S.) Cey. No more Frank Tanana Daiquiri, Dave Righetti and Meatballs or Glen (Mother) Hubbard. No more John (Tonight, Let It Be) Lowenstein or Rick (Innocent) Lysander.

Berman, one of the anchors on ESPN’s “SportsCenter” show, has used more than 200 nicknames on the air since 1979.

Deciding that they must go was Jack Gallivan, who became executive producer of “SportsCenter” a few months ago. He told Berman last week.

Said Berman: “What can I say? It wasn’t my decision. But I work for ESPN and I owe it to them to do whatever they ask.

“It’s kind of hard getting used to. Jose Cruz hit a homer on the last day of the season. To me, it’s Jose (Can You See) Cruz. When I said his name, there was like a three-second break between Jose and Cruz. I really had to catch myself.

Said Gallivan: “We’re only asking Chris to moderate his use of nicknames. We want to establish ‘SportsCenter’ as a show of record, and we don’t think nicknames fit in with hard, Page 1 sports news. We’re not censoring Chris. We’ll still let him do nicknames in special feature pieces.

“We realize that the entertainment element of our show is important, and we don’t want to lose that. Nicknames are fine if they’re done in the right place. We also think there is a lot more to Chris Berman than just his nicknames, and we want to play to his strengths.”

Add Berman: He first used a nickname on the air in 1979 while working the overnight shift as a 24-year-old rookie for ESPN. “It was either Frank Tanana Daiquiri or John Mayberry, RFD. It just sort of slipped out. Everyone on the set started cracking up. I remember saying, ‘Oops.’

“From then on, it just grew.”

Corny? Sure. But it was a gimmick that worked. Eventually, viewers began writing in suggestions. “The majority of the ones I use, but not all, are mine,” Berman said.

Greg Langlois, a San Francisco viewer who is a major contributor, came up with Ron (Born In the U.S.) Cey. “That one made it on the air only once,” Berman said. An ESPN colleague, Chris LaPlaca, offered another gem, Manny (Kingston) Trillo.

From a list compiled by Dave (Do or) Dye of the Detroit News, here are some others:

Don’t Walk Away Rene Lachemann, Chet (Bitter) Lemon, Doug (Running) Bair, Britt (Third Degree) Burns, Bud (Paint It) Black, Von (Purple) Hays, Todd (Caribbean) Cruz, Jeff (Romancing the) Stone, Jerry (Ike and Tina) Turner, Ross (I Never Promised You a) Baumgarten, Bob (Intentional) Walk, Steve (Beach) Comer, Bill (Hello) Dawley, and Tom (Leave It to) Seaver.

Berman, by the way, is no relation to NBC’s Len Berman.

The right direction: When it comes to directing a baseball telecast, NBC’s Harry Coyle is generally regarded as the best. He’s been at it since 1947.

He was busy directing the Dodgers-St. Louis Cardinals telecasts the last two nights, but Tuesday night, when he was off, he sat with a reporter during the telecast of the first Kansas City-Toronto game.

Coyle pulled out a map showing the 10 camera positions, which are essentially the same for both playoff series. There are cameras in left, center and right field, two behind first base, high and low; two behind third, high and low, and two behind home, high and low. And there is an additional, relatively new camera position in the seats down the first-base line. From there, the runner on first and the pitcher can be shown at the same time.

Coyle pointed out which camera is used in which situations. As the director, that’s his call. The basic, behind-the-pitcher shot, of course, comes from the center-field camera. The center-field camera stays with the play only if the ball is hit directly back up the middle. If it is hit in any other direction, a quick switch is made to the high camera behind home plate. That’s basic procedure, done often during a game.

Then if there is a play at first, another quick switch is made to the high camera behind first. “The high angle always provides a better picture on a close play,” Coyle said. The other cameras are usually used to pick up baserunners, and for replays.

Notes With ABC choosing to televise the Alabama-Penn State game Saturday, the Oklahoma-Texas game will not be on national television. The game will be televised only in the southwest part of the country, on a pay-per-view basis. But it will carried on radio by West Covina sister stations KGRB (900) and KBOB-fm (98.3). . . . Saturday’s Michigan-Michigan State game is being televised to most of the nation by CBS, but the West Coast will get UCLA at Stanford.

Here is some of the college football coming up a week from Saturday, Oct. 19: CBS--Purdue at Ohio State at 9:30 a.m., followed by Michigan at Iowa; ABC--Texas at Arkansas or Miami (Fla.) at Oklahoma at 12:30 p.m., and Channel 4--UCLA at Washington State at 1 p.m., which is a Lorimar Productions telecast with announcers Barry Tompkins and Kermit Alexander. The USA network game will be Army at Notre Dame at 9:30 a.m., and the ESPN game will be Kentucky at LSU at 4:30 p.m. WTBS and Channel 13 will televise Tennessee at Alabama at 9:30 a.m. A decision on WTBS’ 5 p.m. game on Oct. 19 will be made Saturday night.

Los Angeles viewers are deprived of seeing Sunday’s Chicago Bears-San Francisco 49ers game because CBS is required to televise the Rams’ game at Tampa Bay and is restricted from televising a second game with the Raiders at home. . . . The Monday night football game will be Miami vs. the New York Jets at East Rutherford, N.J. . . . A one-hour special, “Olympic Challenge,” on Channel 28 Monday at 9 p.m., will take a behind-the-scenes look at how Tommy Walker put together the Opening Ceremony for the 1984 Summer Olympics.

The announcers for Clipper telecasts on Channel 5 this season will be Phil Stone and Tommy Hawkins. . . . Sportscaster Fred Wallin, after spending a four-month stint at radio station KEX in Portland, is back at KFOX-fm. . . . Prime Ticket Network will televise the Rainbow college basketball tournament from Honolulu Dec. 28-30. . . . Update on former Channel 7 sportscaster and convicted defrauder Walter (Fast Eddie) Alexander: He reportedly is making $400-a-month payments to investors he defrauded.