ABC Hopes to Have Moments of Silence During World Series

A complaint frequently heard during the baseball playoffs was that NBC’s two-man announcing teams talked too much.

With ABC using three announcers--Al Michaels, Jim Palmer and Tim McCarver--will there be even more chatter during the World Series?

Maybe not.

“It’s something that concerns us,” Michaels said. “It’s something we talk about. We are aware people need a break, that they need some dead air time.

“The key is to be fully prepared, to have a backlog of material, yet refrain from using it all.”

NBC made a good move by first talking with the San Francisco Giants’ Jeffrey (Don’t Call Me Jeff) Leonard, one of the losing team’s players, after the playoff games Tuesday and Wednesday nights. Leonard was the player viewers wanted to hear from, and interviewer Marv Albert got good comments on both nights.

NBC made a bad move Monday when it didn’t stick with the Minnesota Twins’ celebration longer, instead choosing to show Sparky Anderson and his dejected Tigers in predictable shots. The jubilation shown by the young Twins was something special. That was the story.

It was suggested in this space last week that Vin Scully and newcomer Don Drysdale might occasionally work together next season in a departure from the Dodgers’ normal one-announcer-at-a-time format. The suggestion drew considerable adverse reaction.

Some examples:

Henrietta Jordan of Studio City wrote: “When sportscasters talk to each other in the broadcasting of any game, they are not talking to me, us, the audience. . . . Scully’s style of broadcasting is a delight. . . . The main problem with the format described is too much talk from people with voices not meant for broadcasting. I hope the Dodgers’ format stays as is.”

From Virginia D. Ludwig of Tustin: “Please use any influence you have to save one of baseball’s great pleasures--listening to Vin Scully alone. “

From Charles Miller of Camarillo: “Vin talks to us. We are not like eavesdroppers. When he is with Joe Garagiola on NBC, he and Joe talk together, and I feel as if I’m on the outside.”

Boxing beat: The big fight this weekend pits Mike Tyson against Tyrell Biggs on HBO tonight at 7. On Oct. 29, there will be another big fight, Thomas Hearns against Juan Roldan for the World Boxing Council’s vacant middleweight title, and it will be televised on cable as a pay-per-view event.

The current price being charged by most cable companies is $25, and it will go up to $30 on Oct. 26. A ticket to a closed-circuit showing at the Country Club in Reseda costs $20.

The Southern California distributor of the fight is Choice Entertainment of Torrance, formerly Choice Channel. Rick Kulis, the president of Choice Entertainment, said the selling point for Hearns-Roldan is Hearns’ seeking a record fourth title.

He already has won titles in the welterweight, super-welterweight and light-heavyweight divisions. If he beats Roldan, he will win the WBC middleweight title vacated by Sugar Ray Leonard.

Roberto Duran, Henry Armstrong, Alexis Arguello and, most recently, Leonard have held three titles. But no one has ever held four.

Roldan presents a formidable hurdle for Hearns. Roldan has won 12 straight fights since flooring, then losing to Marvelous Marvin Hagler in March 1984.

On the Hearns-Roldan card are a couple of other attractive fights: International Boxing Federation champion Bobby Czyz against No. 1 contender Charles Williams, and undefeated middleweight Michael Nunn of the Ten Goose stable in North Hollywood against Darnell Knox of Detroit.

Hagler will work the telecast as a commentator.

Add boxing: Choice Entertainment’s Kulis said the next pay-per-view match probably will be Hearns vs. Hagler in February, if Hearns beats Roldan. “If Roldan wins, an outside possibility is Roldan and Sugar Ray Leonard,” Kulis said.

Kulis said another pay-per-view possibility on the horizon is Ray (Boom Boom) Mancini vs. Hector (Macho) Camacho.

“We let one true pay-per-view fight slip away from us, that being (Larry) Holmes and Tyson,” Kulis said. HBO will televise that fight in January.

Tyson-Michael Spinks, the fight most boxing fans are waiting for, probably would be held in November 1988, Kulis said.

In college football, ABC is televising USC and Washington, who each have a conference loss, Saturday. Meanwhile, there will be no live television of UCLA and Oregon, who are both 2-0 in the Pacific 10.

USC-Washington was scheduled before the season, and that’s unfortunate. Oregon, after beating Washington and USC on successive weekends, is worthy of national television exposure.

Oregon Coach Rich Brooks said: “It’s just another situation where the haves get more, and the have-nots don’t get anything. Some people don’t want to see us get anything. It would be a big shot in the arm for a program like ours.”

ABC contacted the Pacific 10 office and asked if it could get out of its commitment to show USC and Washington, but the network’s request was denied.

Donn Bernstein, a spokesman for ABC, said: “We made the commitment, we made the mistake. We did not need to make the commitment at the time that we did. The moral of this story is, don’t commit early if you don’t have to.”

CBS and ESPN can’t televise UCLA-Oregon because they aligned with the College Football Assn., and the Pac-10 is not a member of the CFA.

In Los Angeles, the UCLA-Oregon game will be shown delayed, at 11:30 p.m. Saturday, then again at 7:30 p.m. Sunday by Prime Ticket.

USC radio announcer Tom (I Bleed Trojan Red) Kelly barely gave Oregon any credit for its impressive victory over the Trojans last Saturday. At least, Kelly’s sidekick, Fred Gallagher, had some nice things to say about the Ducks.

Channel 5’s Keith Olbermann has reached a new high in arrogance, refusing to show highlights from NFL games.

Monday night, after the Raiders’ 30-14 loss to Denver, he showed some old footage of swashbucklers firing cannons and engaging in swordplay, instead of showing highlights from the game. It wasn’t funny.

It’s one thing to voice disapproval of the strike games, it’s another to manipulate the news to flaunt one’s own views. As TV ratings have indicated, people are interested in the NFL, no matter who’s playing.

TV-Radio Notes The networks, by televising NFL strike games, give the appearance they are behind the owners. But network executives say it’s simply a case of the games getting decent ratings, better than any substitute programming would get. . . . Ann Meyers, the former UCLA basketball star who is married to Don Drysdale, apparently came close to landing a job with the Clippers as their TV commentator. But the job, according to KMPC’s Jim Healy, will go to Junior Bridgeman. The Clippers, meanwhile, are saying that a decision has not been made. Ralph Lawler will handle the play-by-play on both radio and TV, with Pete Arbogast filling in for 20 games on radio when Lawler is on television.

ABC will televise either California-UCLA or Oregon-Stanford in the West Oct. 24 at 4 p.m. . . . CBS announced earlier this week it will televise USC-Notre Dame Oct. 24. . . . On Oct. 31, a likely ABC doubleheader will be Ohio State-Michigan State and UCLA-Arizona State. . . . It hasn’t been announced, but ABC will televise USC-UCLA Nov. 21. . . . CBS radio announcers for the World Series will be Jack Buck, Bill White and John Rooney.