Riley Lends a Hand and His Face, Puts Tongue in Cheek

Has Pat Riley cracked up? First, he guarantees that the Lakers will repeat as champions next season. Then he is pictured in a newspaper ad and quoted as saying, “Sure, winning the championship was great, but what I’m really excited about is Stu on ‘Sportstalk.’ ”

Surely, Riley has heard of truth-in-advertising laws.

Of course, Riley, in both cases, is being facetious.

Still, the ad, which refers to Stu Nahan replacing Bud Furillo on the KABC radio talk show, is an eye-catcher.

Riley agreed to let the station use his name as a favor to Nahan, whom he considers a friend.

“I thought he (Riley) was my friend too,” Furillo said.

Some people thought the ad was the work of agent Ed Hookstratten, who represents both Riley and Nahan. It obviously isn’t. Riley isn’t getting paid. Hookstratten would never permit that.

Add ad: KABC is planning other, similar ads. The Rams’ Dennis Harrah has agreed to do one, in which he says something like, “Playing for the Rams for 15 years has been great, but what I’m really excited about is Stu on ‘Sportstalk.’ ”

The station also wanted to use a Raider such as Marcus Allen. But the Raiders, who consider Furillo an important ally, said no.

Add KABC: Station General Manager George Green was quoted in this space last week as saying that Lisa Bowman, hired to work part time on the “Dodgertalk” segments, might eventually be a regular on the main “Sportstalk” show.

That bit of news caught Nahan and others at the station by surprise, to say the least.

Nahan, probably only half kidding, told Green: “I haven’t been the host for a full week yet and already you’re hiring a co-host.”

It may not be a legitimate sport, but ESPN’s first Arena Football League telecast, pitting the Denver Dynamite against the Chicago Bruisers last Saturday night, drew a 2.6 Nielsen rating, which is better than most of ESPN’s college basketball ratings.

The Dynamite won, 52-44, in overtime. You may have missed the final score since the game ended amid confusion, and nothing about it, not even the score, appeared in The Times the following day.

Said the editor of the “The Day in Sports” pages: “It’s nothing more than gym class with pads. Why should we run the scores?”

Add arena: The game ended four minutes into the overtime when the Chicago quarterback was tackled for a safety. According to official Arena Football League rules, an overtime period ends either after 7 1/2 minutes or after one team scores and then keeps the other team from scoring on the next possession.

But for some reason ESPN commentator Lee Corso was under the impression that one team had to score nine straight points in order for the overtime to end early.

Even Tim Marcum, the colorful Denver coach, who wore a microphone throughout the game, was confused. “It ain’t over yet,” he screamed at his players as they walked off.

The fun continues this Saturday at 6 p.m. when ESPN televises the Dynamite against the Washington Commandos.

Last add arena: Corso, former Louisville, Indiana and United States Football League coach, was out of control.

According to John McGrath of the Denver Post, at one point in the frenzied fourth quarter, Corso said: “You are now watching arena football at its finest.”

Later, he called the overtime “the first in the history of the Arena Football League.”

History, in this case, dated back to the previous night, when Washington edged the Pittsburgh Gladiators, 48-46, in the first game of the Arena Football League’s first season.

Corso also said of the overtime: “It will be more exciting than anything you’ve ever seen!”

Confusing is what it was.

Golf returns to CBS this weekend when the network covers the Greater Hartford Open, and that’s good news.

ABC took a bogey with its U.S. Open coverage last weekend.

While concentrating on Scott Simpson and Tom Watson Sunday, the network virtually forgot about everyone else.

For example, Keith Clearwater, who had a 64 on Saturday, shot a 79 Sunday. That’s a difference of 15 strokes. Didn’t ABC think that was a story?

On Saturday, ABC focused on a teen-ager climbing a tree to look for a ball hit by Tommy Nakajima, but the purpose of the climb was never explained. What were Nakajima’s options if the ball had been found? Viewers had to wait for the morning paper to find out.

Sound-alikes: Jack Nicklaus and Angel announcer Ken Brett.

The June 15 fight between Michael Spinks and Gerry Cooney at Atlantic City, N.J, was billed as the “War at the Shore.” Others dubbed it “Bore at the Shore.”

Actually, it turned out to be a decent fight. ABC will show it tonight during a 90-minute sports special that begins at 9:30.

ABC paid $1.3 million for the rights and is trying to recoup its investment by showing the fight in prime time. NBC and CBS each offered $200,000, intending to show it on a weekend afternoon, where it belongs.

Tonight, ABC will also show the May 30 Mike Tyson-Pinklon Thomas fight, which was televised by HBO, and will examine the state of the heavyweight division.

Changing stations: Apparently, radio station KMPC has lost interest in the Clippers. Next season, all Clipper games will be heard on KRTH.

TV-Radio Notes

CBS will televise Saturday’s Frankie Duarte-Albert Davila fight at the Forum as part of its “Sports Saturday” show, which begins at 3 p.m. The Forum fight card starts at noon. . . . ABC also offers a tape-delayed fight Saturday at 3 p.m., Buster Drayton vs. Matthew Hilton from Montreal. . . . Donald Curry’s handlers reportedly are opposed to HBO’s planned use of Sugar Ray Leonard as a commentator when their fighter meets Mike McCallum in Las Vegas July 18. HBO is looking into the situation. . . . Can you believe it? The Dodgers will not appear on NBC’s “Game of the Week” Saturday. Instead, it will be Houston vs. San Francisco at 12:15 p.m. NBC has already shown the struggling Dodgers six times.

ABC will televise Sunday’s North Carolina-UCLA alumni game at Pauley Pavilion. The game starts at 1 p.m., the telecast at 3. James Worthy and Michael Jordan will lead a formidable Tar Heel team. The game is a tribute to John Wooden. The announcers will be Keith Jackson, Dick Vitale and Cheryl Miller. . . . Former Bruin Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, who will not play in the alumni game, will be in New York next week making a soup commercial. According to press agent Lee Solters, Abdul-Jabbar’s line is: “I look for only two things when I walk into a kitchen--Campbell soup and a high ceiling.”

FNN/SCORE, the nightly sports segment of the Financial News Network, offers an unusual event tonight at 6. It’s the Ruf ‘N Tuf Guy competition at Redding, Calif., in which amateur heavyweights square off in eight separate bouts. . . . FNN/SCORE, which is a little over two years old and reaches 19.8 million homes, has acquired the U.S. rights to the Canada Cup ’87 hockey tournament, to be held later this summer. FNN/SCORE also has lined up five major fights for July, beginning next Wednesday with a junior welterweight title bout at London between Terry Marsh and Akio Kameda. The July schedule also includes Mark Breland vs. Juan Rondon at Sardinia July 10, and Trevor Berbick vs. Joe Bugner July 24 from Australia.

Channel 2’s Jim Hill is leaving for Japan next week to talk to Japanese youngsters about sports in America and the dangers of drugs. He will return July 13. . . . Channel 7’s Ted Dawson has purchased 100 tickets to the Shrine All-Star high school football game at the Rose Bowl Aug. 1. The game benefits the Shriners Hospital for Crippled Children, but that is only one reason for Dawson’s generosity. Dawson son, Ted Jr., a linebacker from La Canada St. Francis who is headed for BYU, will play in the game.