Stars in Their Eyes Blinded TV Crews to the Bigger Story

As anyone in the journalism business knows, there are as many ways to cover a story as there are reporters.

This is as true in TV as it is in newspapers. Remember Baby Jessica, the infant who fell down the well in Texas? Think what would have happened if the first reporter on the scene had been Geraldo (“OK, Knock It Down Boys!”) Rivera.

That’s what came to mind during an advance screening of the third annual “AT&T; Baseball Challenge,” one of those perennial spring sports specials--translation: non-events--that will show up on the ESPN cable network at the end of this month.

The 90-minute show was filmed last October on a blustery, rainy day at UC Irvine, where a couple of dozen top major leaguers turned out to play in the mud.

I know. I was there with a baseball fanatic friend, and if I had been calling the camera shots, I would have turned in something very different from the program that viewers will be able to catch on March 31 and again on April 1, 4 and 6.

In putting together highlights of the daylong contest--which generously benefits the Special Olympics to the tune of $100,000--the camera crews from Orange County-based Century National Sports and Donny Osmond Entertainment Corp. foolishly focused on what happened on the baseball field that day so damp and drear.

Thus missing the better story: Not the jocks, who were vying for a top prize of $50,000, but the fans. These several hundred hardy souls sat through an afternoon storm that would have forced Noah indoors, all to demonstrate their unflagging commitment to baseball. Or to mugging for the cameras, I’m not sure which.

But that’s TV for you. Just take the easy way out by pointing the cameras at media-created stars tossing baseballs in from left field at a home plate target, spanking home runs, sprinting 90 feet (whew!), chasing fly balls and exhibiting their bunting prowess.

Hey, there’s some excitement: watching powerhouse slugger Pete Incaviglia bunt is as enthralling as watching drag racer Don (The Snake) Prudhomme parallel park.

I have nothing against baseball. In fact, I love the game. If I drew up a list of moments that make life worth living--like Woody Allen did in “Manhattan”--somewhere near the top would be that first Dodger spring training game each March when Vin Scully’s resonant baritone brings us out of the long, cold, baseball-less winter with a resounding: “Hello everyone, and a very pleasant day to you, wherever you may be.”

And how can anyone dislike a game as gentle as this, as George Carlin pointed out in his brilliant routine contrasting baseball’s inherent niceness with football’s basic aggressiveness. (“Baseball is played on a diamond, in a park. Football is played on a gridiron, in a stadium--War Memorial Stadium. Football is based on downs : ‘What DOWN is it?’ Baseball is based on ups : ‘Who’s UP? I’m not UP. Are you UP?’ ”)

But I submit that TV should devote less attention to multimillionaire superstars and turn the cameras more often on the “die-hard fans,” as emcee Don Drysdale referred to the crowd more than once.

It is all too convenient to send on-the-field interviewer Doug DeCinces to ask the Cleveland Indians’ Joe Carter for a post-mortem on his bunting. (“It was a little bit tough--there was a bad lip out there,” Carter answered with the grave demeanor of a Democratic presidential contender.)

I would have dispatched DeCinces into the stands to find out why people were risking soggy hot dogs just to be part of a program that will rank in TV sports history somewhere between “NFL Defensive Linemen Go Figure Skating” and “Merlin Olson’s All-Stars of Synchronized Swimming.”

Really, anyone who likes baseball that intensely is in need of a good self-help book, something on the order of “Baseball Fans Who Love Too Much.” We are even nuttier than the wackos who stay home and watch cable specials like this.

In fairness, the ESPN program does include a couple of passing references to what was going on behind the scenes. Before the competition starts, we get to see one fan dive over a fence in pursuit of an errant ball. Then there is the spot when Drysdale describes how the fans are initiating The Wave. A wave? Heck, with the bad weather there were hardly enough of us around to stir up a good ripple.

But, as Howard Cosell might have said if he had been there: “The plucky minions who endured and persevered through this deluge of precipitation have once again demonstrated the perspicacity of the metaphor for life that is our national pastime.”

And in one reporter’s opinion, that’s the way it was.