ABC’s Al Michaels Is Well-Schooled in Horse Racing

As usual, Jim McKay, Jack Whitaker and Bill Hartack will be on hand for ABC’s Kentucky Derby coverage Saturday. They’ll be joined by newcomers Charlsie Cantey, Lynn Swann and Al Michaels.

Cantey was a horse racing commentator for CBS from 1977 until signing with ABC recently. And she has also worked races for ESPN.

Swann, former football wide receiver for USC and the Pittsburgh Steelers, happens to own a race horse, but he’ll be at Churchill Downs to conduct interviews, not offer expert analysis.

Michaels, who will be paired with Hartack during Saturday’s telecast, is better known for announcing other sports, but he has followed the ponies since he was a teen-ager.

“I started going to Hollywood Park and Santa Anita back when I was a 10th grader at Hamilton High School,” Michaels said. “And in those days you had to be 21 to get in, so it took some doing.”

Michaels even skipped school to go to the track. “About three or four times a year, my mother would write a note that I had an afternoon dentist’s appointment when my only appointment was at the track. Now if that doesn’t qualify my mother for the mothers’ hall of fame, I don’t know what does.”

When Michaels went away to college at Arizona State, his interest in horse racing grew, thanks mainly to a journalism professor, Gordon Jones, who later taught journalism at USC and then became a handicapper for the Herald Examiner, where he was known as the Professor.

“My journalism class ran from 11:40 until 12:30,” Michaels said. “I’d show up early to go over that day’s races at Turf Paradise in the Racing Form with the Professor. If we spotted something we liked in the first race, the Professor would dismiss class early so we could make the 45-minute drive to Turf Paradise in time for first post.

“Gordon Jones was my all-time favorite professor.”

Add Derby: Swann, whose racehorse, Choir Sister, is stabled at Hollywood Park, said: “My involvement in horse racing is not something I talk about a lot,” he said. “I’m just sort of casually involved.” Swann said he has been claiming and selling horses for several years.

“Because I own a horse is not the reason I’m here,” he said from his hotel in Louisville. “I’m trying to branch out as a broadcaster.

“I believe if you limit yourself to being only a football commentator, you’re really putting yourself in the hot seat. It’s like starting the Indy 500 in position No. 33. It’s a tough spot. There’s always new retirees coming out of football each year, just waiting to take your job. Being versatile is one way to survive in this business.”

Complaint department: Last Friday night, the Atlanta Hawks and Detroit Pistons were one minute into the first of two overtimes when WTBS’ coverage was suddenly cut off by some cable companies, including usually reliable Falcon cable. Viewers were deprived of seeing the finish of the Hawks’ exciting, series-clinching 114-113 victory.

The problem was that the Braves were playing at Dodger Stadium in a game that was to be blacked out in Los Angeles. Unfortunately, some cable companies blacked out WTBS before the basketball game was over.

You’d think cable companies would at least keep someone around to remedy such mistakes. But the bottom line, it seems, is that some companies, after being awarded an exclusive franchise and thus having no competition, care little about customer service.

Star search: Channel 13 sportscaster Mike Chamberlain realizes that highlights alone don’t cut it and is willing to try different things. A month ago he started what he calls the “Sports Star of the Week,” asking viewers for suggestions. He has since received more than 1,000 letters.

Chamberlain features a winner every Monday night on the 10 o’clock news. The winners so far have included a woman who in one year made 14 holes-in-one, a feat that got her in the Guinness Book of World Records, and a man who does a one-handed handstand--on top of a basketball. Really.

Chamberlain said he received a letter from a man who swam to Catalina and is now planning to swim the English Channel. What sets this man apart is he is paralyzed from the waist down.

Double vision: Harmon Cove Productions, the company that brings you Dodgervision, scored a coup recently when it made a deal with the Angels to televise four home games on pay-per-view.

Prime Ticket, which will be in need of programming this summer, had been hopeful of making a deal with the Angels, offering games as part of its basic service to cable subscribers. But the Angels decided to experiment with pay-per-view. They’re calling the new service Angelsvision.

The four games it will televise are on Friday, July 25, against Boston; Monday, Aug. 11, against Minnesota; Saturday, Aug. 30, against Detroit, and Friday, Sept. 5, against New York.

The announcers will be Bob Starr and Ron Fairly.

Angelsvision will be available on the same systems that now offer Dodgervision. The Angel telecasts are being sold at $5.95 a game or $17.95 for all four. Also being offered is a package of the four Angel games plus eight Dodger games for $47.95. The eight Dodger games alone are $35.95.

Harmon Cove is a division of Fox Television, formerly Metromedia.

Notes Channel 9 is televising tonight’s Laker-Maverick NBA playoff game from Dallas at 5:30 p.m., PDT. . . . Game 4 Sunday at 12:30 p.m. will be televised by CBS, with Brent Musburger and Billy Cunningham reporting. . . . Sunday’s Laker game will follow CBS’ coverage of Game 4 of the Boston-Atlanta series. . . . During halftime of the Celtic game, CBS will offer a feature on Danny Ainge. It includes this comment from the Lakers’ Kurt Rambis: “Ainge is such a wimp.” . . . ABC’s 1 1/2 hours of Kentucky Derby coverage will begin at 1:30 p.m., PDT, on Saturday, with post time about 2:38. ABC will use 20 cameras to cover the race, including four micro-miniature cameras. Two of the micro-miniature cameras will be mounted on the starting gate, one will be put inside the rail past the finish line to provide a ground-level replay of the finish, and the other will be mounted on a racing helmet worn by Charlsie Cantey, who will be atop a horse on the track before and after the race. The plan is for her to interview the winner immediately after the finish. . . . Also, ABC mounted a micro-miniature camera on a jockey during a simulated race run especially for the network earlier this week at Churchill Downs. A tape of that race, with a field of six, will be shown shortly after the start of Saturday’s coverage. . . . ABC is televising all three Triple Crown races this year. The network picked up the Belmont when CBS and the New York Racing Assn. failed to reach a new agreement. CBS executives said the rights fee was too high.

ABC is televising Sunday’s St. Louis-Dodger game at Dodger Stadium to most of the nation, but Los Angeles will get Houston at Montreal. ABC’s contract with major league baseball does not permit the network to televise the Dodger game in L.A. unless the network chooses to use one of its three exception dates. But ABC would rather save those. . . . NBC’s baseball contract is more attractive because it gives the network a three-hour exclusive time period on Saturdays and has few blackout requirements. That helps explain why NBC’s baseball ratings so far are more than double ABC’s. . . . Joe Buttitta, who started his broadcasting career 10 years ago at radio station KGIL, is back at the Van Nuys station doing two trivia shows every weekday. The two-minute shows are broadcast at 6:32 a.m. and 5:32 p.m. Buttitta recently filled in for vacationing Mike Chamberlain at Channel 13, and management there was pleased with his work. . . . The Shearson Lehman Brothers Tournament of Champions tennis at Forest Hills, N.Y., will be televised by ABC May 10-11. This Saturday, the tournament will be previewed in a half-hour special on Channel 7 at 3 p.m. The special, with host Arthur Ashe, will also include features on Ivan Lendl and John McEnroe. . . . Good news for soccer fans: ESPN will televise 15 World Cup games, beginning with a June 2 match between the Soviet Union and Hungary and including the June 25 semifinals. Fourteen of the telecasts will be live. . . . NBC, with seven telecasts scheduled, will carry the championship match live on June 29. . . . If Gerry Cooney makes it into the ring against Eddie Gregg on May 31, as scheduled, ABC will televise the fight.