If This TV Show Was a Movie, They Might Give It an R Rating

Pittsburgh Steeler quarterback Bubby Brister is one marketable guy, according to Larry Magen, executive producer of the proposed “Bubby Brister Show.”

Magen has been trying to hire former ESPN announcer Karie Ross as co-host of the show, which would be televised live on WPTT from a sports bar just before “Monday Night Football.” WPTT is the lowest-rated of Pittsburgh’s five on-air stations.

“We wanted a format that was right with Bubby,” Magen said. “We want sparks to fly. Bubby has a reputation as a ladies’ man and she’s hot-looking. There will be an undertone of sexual nuances that will happen naturally on this show.”

Add Bubby: Sports News Network, Karie Ross’ employer, has denied her permission to appear on the “Bubby Brister Show.”

Trivia time: In 1989, which team led the NFL in home paid attendance?

Jinxed: From Nick Peters of the Sacramento Bee: “(San Francisco Giant pitcher Trevor) Wilson has difficulty with players nicknamed Pags. Mike Pagliarulo broke up his no-hit bid with a leadoff single in the ninth inning at San Diego on June 13. Tom Pagnozzi did it with a two-out single in the seventh Saturday (July 14).”

Fenway monster II: In the July 16 issue of The New Yorker, Roger Angell wrote about first baseman Bill Buckner’s release from the Boston Red Sox, “but not before making one more vivid streak across the sky.”

Angell added: “Early on, in a game against the Angels at the Fens, he scored an inside-the-park home run--a TKO over the laws of probability that can only be appreciated if we recall that Buckner’s legs, after repeated demolishments and retinkerings down the years, now resemble the appendages of Max Schreck, the black-and-white vampire of ‘Nosferatu.’ ”

Today’s special: Chicago Sun-Times boxing columnist Terry Boers gives George Foreman better than “a puncher’s chance” to beat Mike Tyson if the two meet in the ring.

Wrote Boers: “You have to doubt that the sight of Tyson across the ring would panic Foreman as it has panicked so many others during Tyson’s three-year reign of terror. Foreman probably would be imagining what Tyson would look like in a souffle or in a lovely brown gravy.”

Mad Met: Terry Bross, a 6-foot-9 reliever with the Mets’ double-A team in Jackson, Miss., leads the Texas League with 23 saves, thanks to a personality transplant by Manager Clint Hurdle.

“Sometimes, I’d see a major league fastball, and sometimes, when I gave him the ball, I wasn’t certain he wanted it. . . . He needed something,” Hurdle told Marty Noble of Newsday.

So Hurdle recast Bross as a growling, glowering glove-pounder in the mold of Al (the Mad Hungarian) Hrabosky. Hurdle even suspended a club rule, allowing Bross to grow a Fu Manchu mustache.

Said Bross: “I was a little bit reluctant to start this, but I’m glad Clint got me to do it.”

Said Hurdle: “I feel a little like Colonel Parker with Elvis.”

Trivia answer: The Buffalo Bills, with 626,399.

Quotebook: Political columnist, author and baseball fan George Will: “Football combines the two worst things about American life. It is violence punctuated by committee meetings.”