NL West Race Covered Like a Glove

What you need to know about the final weekend of baseball’s regular season:

--The Dodgers’ game against the Giants in San Francisco tonight will be televised by Channel 11 at 7:30.

--Saturday’s game will be on CBS at noon.

--If there is still a race--and it figures there will be--Sunday’s game will be on Channel 11 at 1 p.m.

--If there is a playoff Monday night at Dodger Stadium, both Channel 11 and ESPN will televise it at 7:30 p.m.

--Today’s 4:30 p.m. game between the Braves and the Houston Astros in Atlanta will be televised by TBS, and provided the race is still going, Sunday’s game will be on both ESPN and TBS at 11 a.m.

That’s the good news. Also:

--Saturday’s game between the Braves and the Astros, for the most part, won’t be shown in Los Angeles. It originally was scheduled to be televised by TBS at 4 p.m., but CBS took it away and will show it as a split-national game along with the Dodger-Giant game. However, if CBS does things right--and that’s always a big question with CBS when it comes to baseball--there will be cut-ins to the Brave-Astro game.

Channel 11 already has televised three “bonus” Dodger telecasts, with two more scheduled for this weekend.

But Dodger fans want them all. There have been complaints that the home games against the San Diego Padres Monday and Tuesday weren’t also added to the television schedule.

In a perfect world for fans, everything might be televised.

One problem the Dodgers face when adding telecasts is getting sponsors to pick up the tab. These days, that isn’t easy.

A reader in Huntington Beach complained that his cable company, Paragon, picked up the wrong ESPN feed last Friday, depriving him of seeing the sold-out Dodger game that night.

This is fairly common occurrence. In 99.9% of the cases, it’s the cable company’s fault, no matter what its representatives tell you.

Tonight, Los Angeles cable companies are supposed to show ESPN’s “B” doubleheader--Milwaukee vs. Boston followed by Cincinnati vs. San Diego, which is more like an “F” doubleheader.

The “A” doubleheader is Astros vs. Braves and Dodgers vs. Giants.

ESPN can’t show the Dodger game here because Channel 11 has priority. The Brave game could be shown here, but apparently for cable companies to switch feeds between games is too much to ask.

That’s unfortunate for subscribers of cable companies that don’t offer TBS.

Former Giant pitcher Dave Dravecky, who will be honored at Candlestick Park Saturday, is interviewed by Barbara Walters tonight on ABC’s “20/20.”

In the taped interview, Dravecky talks about the day after his left arm and shoulder were amputated because of cancer.

“I got up and walked into the bathroom with my gown on, and I didn’t want to look in the mirror,” he says. “But I knew I had to. And when I did, it was a shock what I saw.

“It looked as though the entire left side of my body was gone. As I stood there and stared at it, I just said to God, ‘OK, this is what you’ve given me to deal with; this is what you’ve given me to live with; now let me go forward from here.”

Dravecky, a born-again Christian, says: “I can tell you that through this whole situation there has been a peace that surpasses all understanding.”

But there are also frustration and pain, sometimes phantom pain.

“I can still feel my hand, and that’s all I feel of the arm,” he says. “And it’s cramped. As a matter of fact, it’s cramped right now and it just plays with fingernails. It feels like someone’s trying to pry them off.”

It took until opening day, but the NHL finally has a television contract. And it’s sure nothing to brag about.

SportsChannel America announced Thursday that it will pay only $5.5 million for a one-year contract extension.

SportsChannel, under its old three-year contract, was paying $17 million a year.

This is the first real indication that sports television rights are coming down.

The NHL also had hoped to have ESPN involved, either exclusively or with SportsChannel, but failed to make a deal.

Sources said ESPN wanted a long-term deal for only about $6 million a year and also wanted no blackout restrictions, plus exclusive rights to playoff games.

More and more, sportswriters are crossing into radio and television.

The latest to make the move are Doug Krikorian of the Long Beach Press-Telegram and Paola Boivin of the Daily News.

Beginning next week, they will be paired on KMPC’s “Scott St. James Show” on Mondays and Tuesdays.

Boivin, the Daily News’ media columnist who also covers UCLA, will give up the media column to avoid a perception of conflict of interest.

Krikorian is also a regular contributor to KNBR in San Francisco.

KMPC also announced this week that Joe McDonnell, formerly of KFI, will be the co-host Wednesday through Friday on St. James’ show, which is broadcast from 5 to 8 p.m., with a half-hour out for Jim Healy at 5:30.

McDonnell will continue his Bruin and Ram postgame talk shows and is expected to have a general sports talk show on Saturday and Sunday nights after the football season.

Even though the baseball season is ending, Ross Newhan of The Times will continue his Wednesday baseball reports, and Bob Rowe will have weekly Angel reports on Fridays.

TV-Radio Notes

The Rams have a bye, but the Raiders are at home, so Los Angeles is limited to two network NFL telecasts Sunday. The early game is Denver at Houston on NBC, with Charlie Jones and Todd Christensen reporting. The 1 p.m. game on CBS is the New York Giants at Phoenix, with Verne Lundquist and Dan Fouts reporting. . . . The TNT game Sunday night isn’t much: Pittsburgh at Indianapolis.

What would have happened last Sunday if both the Raiders and the Rams had sold out, with both home games on CBS? An NFL spokesman said the league assumed that would not happen. But what if . . . ? “We’d then deal with it,” the spokesman said. . . . For what it’s worth: The New York Daily News reported this week that the Rams are interested in Bill Parcells to replace John Robinson as coach after this season, but that Parcells is enjoying TV work and is no lock to return to coaching. . . . John Facenda, the NFL Films’ “Voice of God” who died seven years ago this month, will be the focal point on “This Week in the NFL” on Channel 2 Saturday at 4 p.m.

The California-UCLA game Saturday at the Rose Bowl is one of four ABC regional telecasts and will be shown only in the West, with Gary Bender and Lynn Swann as announcers. . . . The best game of the day, Syracuse vs. Florida State, will be on ABC in the East and South but not here. . . . With Stanford coming off an upset of Colorado, ESPN’s 8 p.m. game--Notre Dame at Stanford--has become more attractive. . . . ABC will have a doubleheader Saturday, Oct. 12, beginning with a national game at 9 a.m., Penn State at Miami. The second game in this area will be either Arizona at UCLA or Oregon at Cal. It probably depends on the outcome of Saturday’s Bear-Bruin game. . . . SportsChannel has dropped its tape-delayed coverage of Saturday’s Florida-LSU game at 10:30 p.m. and will instead show Chicago-Minnesota hockey. That is guaranteed to decrease viewership.

Kudos to NBC for staying with the Ryder Cup golf coverage last Saturday even though it ran 1 hour 20 minutes long. And NBC’s extended coverage had no commercials. Think CBS would have done that? . . . Sunday’s Ryder Cup coverage was about as exciting as golf can get, and NBC, to its credit, stayed with the postmatch excitement until 12:40 p.m., even though it meant cutting into “NFL Live.” And announcers Charlie Jones and Johnny Miller smartly didn’t over-announce. One flaw, though: NBC was fooled when a fan threw a golf ball on the 17th green as Hale Irwin was hitting to the green. A spokesman said no one was aware of what happened until after NBC went off the air.