ABC Set to Present a Familiar Face in a Few Different Places

ABC introduced one of its new sportscasters the other night, a fellow named Brent Musburger.

He had a small role, barely more than a cameo, on a prime-time show called “The All-Pro Sports Awards.”

At least Musburger showed up at the Universal Amphitheatre, where the event was held. Seven of the 11 winners were no-shows.

Bill Shoemaker called in sick. The others simply chose the easy way out--appearing on tape or live via satellite. Even some of the presenters appeared via satellite.

Technically, the show was well produced. But something needs to be done about how the winners are selected. Bo Jackson was named the baseball player of the year, Andre Agassi the men’s tennis player of the year. Really.

Oh well, it was the first time this event has been held. Maybe things will improve.

As for Musburger, he soon moves on to bigger and better things. Well, at least a little bigger and better.

Next is a harness race, the Hambletonian, on Aug. 4, then the Little League World Series on Aug. 25.

Then there’s college football and basketball, and next spring comes minor league football, something called the World League of American Football.

Going from the real World Series to the Little League World Series doesn’t seem to bother Musburger.

Oh, maybe a little. “I would have liked to have had the opportunity to show America I wasn’t going to destroy baseball,” he said.

But Musburger was smiling, joking, enthusiastic and personable during an interview the other day before a World League of American Football news conference at a Beverly Hills hotel.

“I couldn’t be happier the way things worked out,” he said. “Now I’m with somebody who wanted me.

“Say I had signed for another five years with CBS. Knowing what I know now, it might not have been a happy five years.”

Musburger, you may recall, was fired by CBS on April 1, the eve of the NCAA basketball championship game.

He said the firing isn’t what bothered him.

“Hey, if two guys that run a network decide they don’t want me, I can live with that,” he said.

What got to Musburger were stories in the New York Daily News and the New York Post after his firing that said, among other things, Musburger was difficult to work with. The accusations were attributed to unnamed sources.

Musburger, during an earlier telephone interview, said that’s when he decided to go on ABC and NBC to speak his mind.

“That was one way to put an end to the anonymous sources,” he said.

Musburger replaced Howard Cosell as the sportscaster some people love to hate.

But there’s a big difference between Cosell and Musburger. Cosell may be even more obnoxious in person than he is on the air. Musburger is, all things considered, a decent person.

He may rub a few people the wrong way, but from this vantage point, Musburger is easy to work with.

He has been criticized here on a number of occasions, but that doesn’t keep him from being civil, or even sitting down for lunch from time to time.

“I’ve never had a problem with the media,” he said during the phone interview. “You guys have a job to do. I understand that. I used to be a sportswriter. You’re not going to create much interest if you always say just nice things.

“I’ve been aware of it when you, or someone else, takes a shot at me. But I’ve got more important things to worry about--my family, my business.

“I’m a grown boy. I just don’t get that upset.”

Musburger said he’s also aware that the criticism directed at him doesn’t come just from the media.

“I know there are people out there who hate me. I’m not one of those guys who stay in the middle. I’m not vanilla. I have opinions and I express them. And sometimes I get criticized for it.”

Musburger, before the news conference the other day, said he has enjoyed his time off. “It’s been the most time I’ve spent with my family in 27 years of marriage,” he said.

The Musburgers have a home in Weston, Conn., near New York, but these days spend most of their time at a relatively new home in Savannah, Ga.

Musburger, 51, has two sons--Blake, a junior at Miami of Ohio, and Scott, a junior at a prep school in Connecticut.

Blake suffers from spina bifida, a congenital disorder of the vertebral column. He wears a lift on his left foot, but Musburger said, “It’s not a severe case at all.”

Musburger comes from Billings, Mont., where his father owned appliance stores. Musburger attended a boarding school in Faribault, Minn., during his high school years. He said it was his mother’s idea, but he enjoyed it.

He went on to Northwestern but was expelled in his freshman year. “There was a rule against a freshman owning and operating a car on campus, and I broke it,” Musburger said.

He went to umpiring school and spent one season, 1959, in the minors, earning $250 a month.

“I could have made $325 a month my second year, but my father talked me into going back to Northwestern,” Musburger said.

Not bad advice. He got a degree in journalism, worked for a while as a sportswriter in Chicago and then got into broadcasting.

TV-Radio Notes

Sports packager Warren Williamson has made a deal for KIEV to carry Loyola Marymount basketball, beginning next season. Randy Rosenbloom and Williamson will be the game announcers, and Jim Rome, who has a Santa Barbara radio talk show, will serve as host. The campus station, KXLU-FM, which can be heard throughout the western part of Southern California, will continue to broadcast the Lions’ games, as well.

Vic (the Brick) Jacobs, recently told by Channel 13 that his contract will not be renewed, became a part of Rick Dees’ popular KIIS-FM morning show, and on Sunday, he’ll work with Rosenbloom on SportsChannel’s delayed coverage of the L.A. Games basketball championship. The game is at 3 p.m., the TV coverage at 8:30 p.m. . . . Also, Jacobs and Mad Dog Russo of New York’s WFAN, have a pilot called “Greatest Sports Headlines” that will be televised on Channel 2 Sunday at 3 p.m. “Hey, I’m on Tony Hernandez’s old station,” Jacobs said. Hernandez is Jacobs’ replacement at Channel 13.

Now that Jacobs has gone from television to radio, he may have to find a new nickname since he can’t be seen throwing bricks on radio. Jacobs said he has what he calls a “magic twanger.” He used to throw his brick when he was angry, but he said he’ll use his twanger only for positive things.

The CBS baseball game Saturday, the Oakland Athletics at the Toronto Blue Jays, is a national telecast, so Los Angeles viewers will finally get the No. 1 announcing team of Jack Buck and Tim McCarver. . . . CBS radio has named Vin Scully as its World Series play-by-play announcer. He’ll work with Johnny Bench and CBS Radio regular John Rooney.

CBS has picked up another major sporting event, taking the PGA Championship away from ABC, beginning in 1991. It was also announced that Turner Broadcasting will cover the first two rounds. . . . Earlier this week, CBS announced it has acquired the rights to Big Ten basketball games, beginning in the 1991-92 season.

Channel 34 is attracting about five times as many viewers for its World Cup coverage as TNT. One big plus for the Spanish-language coverage is the lack of commercial interruptions. . . . Another reason the World Cup ratings on TNT have been poor is that a lot of soccer followers, particularly English fans, go to pubs to watch the games.

ABC’s coverage of the 23-day Tour de France begins this weekend with a preview on Saturday’s “Wide World of Sports,” and delayed Sunday at 3 p.m. . . . Another season of “American Gladiators” is being filmed at the Universal Studios for later showing. Mike Adamle is back as one of the hosts, and Larry Csonka has replaced Todd Christensen as the other.

In a recent item in this column about a dispute over whether Keith Olbermann of Channel 2 or Joe McDonnell of KFI radio had the first report on developments in the Pat Riley story, two clarifications should be made: (1) Olbermann’s report was similar in subject matter to McDonnell’s, but more extensive, and (2) Olbermann’s report during the 1988 Olympics did not “accuse” Florence Griffith Joyner of taking steroids, but rather “implied” that that was the case when he ran side-by-side pictures of her in 1984 and 1988.