WORLD SERIES / CINCINNATI REDS VS. OAKLAND ATHLETICS : The Lack of Babble Is Quite Refreshing, the Spitting Is Not

It took a long time for those in charge of baseball to dissuade players from scratching themselves while games were on television.

And some who didn’t scratch would reach down gingerly, apparently needing assurance everything was still there.

It was explained to the players: “Hey, you seem to forget you are being watched by zillions of people.”

So, for the most part, players stopped scratching and reaching down. All they do now is chew tobacco and dispense juice about the acreage.

Some spit the stuff on the ground. Others in the dugout are seen spitting into a cup. Then you get a close-up of Bob Welch out at the mound, chewing industriously, a corner of his mouth soiled by tobacco liquid.

And Eric Davis? His chomping is the cultural low spot of the World Series, further vulgarized by TV, which captures his face in such detail you can see tobacco churning within his teeth.

It is a happy statistic that the majority of those who watch television don’t chew tobacco. Looking at Davis, this species asks plaintively, “Where do we go to get sick?”

You complain to TV and it shrugs, responding, “You want the story and we are giving it to you.”

Reconsidering, you aren’t sure how you want the story.

Another unique feature of the current World Series has been the appearances on the field at Cincinnati of owner Marge Schott and her faithful dog, Schottzie.

The way the two have worked, Marge has done the talking while Schottzie has reclined on the turf.

If the Series returns to Cincinnati, though, you are looking for the roles to be reversed.

Marge didn’t introduce four-legged creatures to the World Series. Eighteen years ago, Charlie Finley, then owner of Oakland, brought his mule, Charlie O., to the event.

Charlie O. was a fine mule, of whom Finley was so proud that he brought him into the press room, where authors were at work.

“I want you guys to meet Charlie O.,” announced Finley, at which point Charlie O. commits a nuisance on the floor.

“Get him the hell outta here!” someone yells.

Finley laughs. “What he has done is appropriate for what is being written,” he answers.

The presence of Jack Buck in the TV booth at this year’s World Series is a pleasure to those who appreciate a calm environment at major sporting events.

At 65, Jack isn’t impressed by his assignment. Nor with the power it embodies. He doesn’t bombard you with language or with anecdotes. His account is quiet.

But what Jack does is keep you in the game. Many announcers in baseball and football today have fallen to talking so much that they stray from what’s happening on the field.

And it gets especially bad when two or three occupying the booth engage in interplay, gabbing, laughing, spinning stories.

At times, they wander so far from focus that you plead with them to shut up.

Buck doesn’t invite an excessive amount of comment from his colleague, Tim McCarver, inspiring a broadcast that is businesslike and clear.

Nor are the two fracturing each other with extravagant wit.

Buck isn’t the oldest guy to broadcast a major sports event, but he may be the most relaxed. Jack needs the work as he needs a hamstring pull, and he does it mainly because he owes it to his Muse.

We can’t picture another broadcaster on television who would have had the innards to wish all the best to Pete Rose, watching the Series in the jailhouse.

For most people in the baseball business, including the Cincinnati ownership, Rose got too hot to handle. Saying something nice about a guy nailed on a felony seemed a political indiscretion not many cared to tackle.

But Jack not only said hello to Pete on the air, but told him he tried unsuccessfully to reach him by telephone.

Unwittingly, on the part of Buck, this was a stroke of comedy. Did the slammer where Pete was watching the Series have a telephone jack where calls could be plugged in?

Was it not like the celebrity table at Chasen’s?

But Rose was a pal of Buck’s before Pete went afoul of the law and, in this incredible circumstance--Cincinnati in the World Series and Rose in jail--it seemed fitting, in Jack’s judgment, to say hello.

We kind of liked that.

Next year, we are looking for Jack to say “Hi” to Leona Helmsley.