Where Angels Are Concerned, Talk Isn’t Cheap

Throughout major league baseball, players are compensated for doing pregame and postgame interviews on flagship radio and television stations.

The Dodgers, for example, give players $50 gift certificates for appearances on radio and $100 gift certificates for appearances on TV. Other clubs give less, and some give items such as pen-and-pencil sets.

From 1970 until this season, the Angels had probably the sweetest radio deal. KMPC gave $600 worth of gift certificates annually for every player, coach and trainer--36 shares in all for a total value of $21,600. Even those who never appeared on radio still got their $600 worth of merchandise.

With things tight in broadcasting everywhere, and particularly in AM radio, KMPC this summer decided to cut back and, like the Dodgers, give guests $50 certificates.

The Angel players didn’t find out about this until the middle of May, when pitcher Mike Witt was named player representative, replacing pitcher Ron Romanick, who had resigned from that job during spring training.

A few players didn’t like KMPC’s new setup and refused to be interviewed by the station. Others went along with the new situation and did interviews.

Then, after a team meeting last Friday, the players decided not to do any more interviews on KMPC. Essentially, they went on strike--coincidentally, on the day that Gene Autry, owner of both the team and the radio station, was undergoing hip-replacement surgery.

On Monday, Angel General Manager Mike Port met with the players, and the following day a settlement was reached. According to a KMPC executive who asked not to be named, the radio station will now contribute a $100 gift certificate per game. That will go into a pool, to be split up any way the players want to do it at the end of the season.

Under the new system, the value of the merchandise given away per year by KMPC will be $16,200, down from $21,600.

Why, one wonders, should players be compensated at all for doing interviews on their team’s flagship radio and TV stations? They don’t get anything for doing interviews with other radio and television stations, or with newspapers. Promoting the team and the sport is part of the job.

And why should players, most of whom are well paid in the first place, even concern themselves with such petty things?

Witt said that the money aspect was not the issue. “It was the principle of the thing,” he said. “We wanted an explanation of what was going on and why, which we hadn’t gotten. That’s why we held a team meeting.

“Every team compensates its players. It’s common practice.”

The thinking is that since the stations make money by selling commercial time for pregame and postgame shows, the guests are entitled to something.

“The majority of the players in the room (at the team meeting) would do the interviews for nothing,” Witt said. “But we decided to stick together.”

One source said that only a few veteran players, principally Doug DeCinces and Bob Boone, took a hard-line stand. On the other hand, Reggie Jackson, the source said, was more than willing to do the interviews for nothing.

Add Angels: Tonight’s game against Boston, with Roger Clemens pitching for the Red Sox against John Candelaria, is being offered to cable subscribers at a cost of $5.95 on Angelsvision.

Angelsvision is available on about one-third of the cable systems in Southern California, including most Group W systems except those in Santa Monica, Beverly Hills and the San Fernando Valley. Rogers, Sammons, Storer, and Valley Cable are among the other systems offering Angelsvision.

Harmon Cove Productions, a division of Fox Television, formerly Metromedia, is the producer of both Dodgervision and Angelsvision.

Tonight’s game is the first of four on Angelsvision. The four-game package is being sold for $17.95, and a combination package of the four Angel games and the eight remaining games on Dodgervision is being offered for $47.95.

Bob Starr and Ron Fairly will be the Angelsvision announcers. Joel Meyers will fill in for Fairly and work with Al Conin on radio.

The Angels are the first American League team to try pay per view. The Dodgers are in the second year of their pay-per-view experiment, and the San Diego Padres are in the third year of pay per view.

Notes ABC will offer an attractive boxing doubleheader on “Wide World of Sports” Saturday at 4:30 p.m. on Channel 7. Scheduled first is same-day coverage of the Mike Tyson-Marvis Frazier 10-rounder, followed by taped coverage of the June 23 fight between Stevie Cruz and Barry McGuigan. . . . CBS will show the finish of the Tour de France bicycle race at 9 a.m. Sunday. . . . The Angels will appear on ABC’s “Monday Night Baseball” next week. Their 5 p.m. game at Oakland will be shown at 6 p.m. by Channel 7. . . . Channel 4 has launched a major promotional campaign featuring sportscaster Fred Roggin. Roggin is being featured on 500 billboards, in newspaper ads and radio and TV commercials. . . . Would you pay $320 to get 30-minute cassettes of all 16 games your favorite NFL team plays in a season? NFL Films is counting on enough die-hard football fans doing so to make marketing such a package profitable. NFL Films will experiment with a Dallas Cowboy package this season. Subscribers will receive a tape each week in the mail. Dean Coleman, coordinator of the project, said 500 sales are needed to break even. . . . Channel 9 has hired Roy Firestone as host for its Laker pregame shows next season. He replaces Scott St. James, the host last season. . . . “Sports Column,” with Tommy Hawkins, Renaldo Nehemiah and Valerie Brisco-Hooks, will make its debut on Channel 9 Saturday at 10:30 a.m. The half-hour weekly show, with an “Entertainment Tonight” type of format, will offer sports news and features. . . . Sunday’s FIFA World All-Star soccer game at the Rose Bowl is being televised worldwide by the Spanish International Network but is being blacked out in Los Angeles. Channel 34 will show the game next Saturday at 1 p.m. . . . Sunday feature races at Del Mar will be televised live at 5:30 p.m. on the Financial News Network’s “SCORE” program.