At Least for Now, Diamond Game Is CBS’ Best Friend

CBS no longer is the Cursed Broadcasting System. The spell on the network’s baseball contract has been broken.

Nothing much had gone right for CBS in its first two years of baseball, beginning with overpaying for the rights by a few hundred million dollars.

But things are looking up. CBS may even get a seven-game World Series.

And most of the games have provided high drama. Before the Atlanta Braves’ 14-5 victory in Game 5 Thursday night, nine of 16 postseason games had been decided by one run, including the previous three.

Also, as might be expected, the ratings have been good. Game 4 got a 22.9, which wasn’t as good as the 23.4 for Game 3, but the four-game average of 21.5 is a slight increase over last year.

The big difference this year is there are more games--and more big numbers--still to come.

The bad part for CBS is the coverage.

It hasn’t been terrible. The pregame shows with Pat O’Brien and Tom Lasorda have been well-produced and informative.

But game coverage has its share of flaws.

For one thing, there has been too much jumping from one camera to another. And when the Braves’ Mark Lemke scored the winning run Wednesday night, CBS went to the wrong camera.

It was left for the replays to show why Lemke was safe.

Speaking of replays, there generally have been too many, often destroying the continuity and spontaneity of live action.

Richard Sandomir of the New York Times, after counting 133 replays during Game 6 of the National League playoffs, also kept track during the first three games of the Series. There were 108 in Game 1 and 106 in Game 2, including 13 of Kent Hrbek’s takedown of Ron Gant at first base. In Game 3, which went 12 innings, there were 112.

CBS seems to be cutting back. Wednesday night, there initially were five replays of Lonnie Smith’s fifth-inning collision with Twin catcher Brian Harper, and one more at the top of the next inning. That was about right.

And there probably wasn’t enough of Terry Pendleton being tagged by Harper in the same inning. There were only two.

Sorry, but Jack Buck just isn’t Vin Scully. It’s a waste to have Scully on radio instead of television.

Buck’s penchant for calling plays before they happen is getting irritating. It might work on radio, but not television.

Wednesday night, when Jerry Willard’s game-winning sacrifice fly was still in the air, Buck blurted out: “That’s going to be a winner for Atlanta.”

But it turned out to be a very close play at the plate, so close that at first Buck miscalled it. “Here’s Lemke. He’s ouuu . . . safe, safe, safe!” Buck said.

Tim McCarver makes many good observations but continues to stretch for one-liners.

Of Game 4’s fifth inning, in which Harper tagged out Smith and Pendleton, McCarver said: “If you were going to caption this inning, you’d call it ‘Harper’s Bizarre.’ ”

Of the ninth, he said: “More moves than a Swiss watch in this inning.”

Does Notre Dame get enough television exposure, or what?

The USC-Notre Dame game Saturday will be televised on three channels--live at 10:30 a.m. on NBC and tape-delayed Sunday evening on both SportsChannel America and Prime Ticket.

John McKay and Ara Parseghian will be interviewed on NBC’s pregame show Saturday at 10 a.m., along with O.J. Simpson.

Originally, the plan was for Simpson to interview the two former coaches, but he took himself off the assignment.

“When you’re an interviewer, you’ve got to be unbiased,” he said. “I wouldn’t have been.”

Simpson’s memories of the Notre Dame rivalry are still vivid.

Now that Simpson has gone from interviewer to interviewee, Ahmad Rashad will conduct the interviews.

During the game, Simpson will work the USC sideline as a reporter.

He will have Sunday off.

As usual, Dick Enberg and Bill Walsh will be in South Bend, Ind., Saturday.

Wednesday, they were at USC, watching the Trojans.

Walsh said he was impressed. “They seem to have the same kind of athletes they always have,” he said. Walsh particularly liked USC’s receivers and the defensive line.

“I think USC is going to have to be able to pass the ball, and it has got to stop Notre Dame from running up the middle,” Walsh said.

Walsh is quite concerned about Cincinnati Coach Sam Wyche, a close friend whom Walsh coached when he was an assistant with the Bengals and later hired as an assistant coach for the San Francisco 49ers.

It was unnerving to watch Wyche come apart on national television Monday night, fighting with officials, opponents and even one of his own coaches.

It was also odd for him to go down the bench shaking his players’ hands, although he later said he was simply congratulating them for having played well enough to win.

He blamed the 35-16 loss to the Buffalo Bills on the officiating.

But as KMPC’s Jim Healy would say, it seems Wyche “has gone the Leonard Tose route.”

“Sam is a wonderful, wonderful man,” Walsh said. “But he is very emotional, along the lines of a Dick Vermeil. Those two are different, but both are very emotional.”

When Vermeil retired as coach of the Philadelphia Eagles, he cited emotional burnout.

“If I were 0-7, I’m not sure what my emotional state would be,” Walsh said. “Of course, I probably would have been fired before that.”

Walsh said he planned to call Wyche.

TV-Radio Notes

With the Rams playing the Falcons in Atlanta Sunday (CBS, 10 a.m.) and the Raiders meeting the Chiefs in Kansas City Monday night, Los Angeles will get a full schedule of NFL games Sunday. That means there will be an NBC doubleheader. Cincinnati plays at Houston at 10 a.m. in a game which, if nothing else, offers the continuing saga of Sam Wyche. The 1 p.m. game is Denver at New England. . . . ESPN opens its NFL schedule Sunday at 4:30 p.m. with Washington at the New York Giants. This will be ESPN’s only 4:30 start--the rest are at 5. The idea is to get a head start on CBS’ World Series, assuming there’s a Game 7.

The Raiders are 29-6-1 on “Monday Night Football.” . . . This will be the last game for a while for the Raiders’ outstanding radio announcer, Bill King, who will undergo hip surgery. Commentator Rich Marotta will switch to play-by-play, with Jim Plunkett becoming the commentator. . . . Someone should tell Plunkett to refrain from using we when talking about the Raiders on the air. It is not very professional.

Recommended viewing: “Monday Night Magazine” on ESPN at 4:30 p.m. Monday. The show will include an excellent piece on Tom Flores, the former Raider quarterback and coach. Raider receiver Mervyn Fernandez also will be profiled, as will Joe Delaney, the Kansas City Chief running back who drowned in 1983 while trying to save some children. . . . The San Gabriel/Pomona Valleys Unit of the American Cancer Society will stage a “Monday Night Football” benefit barbecue and tailgate party at Santa Anita Monday. Former Raider receiver Bob Chandler, the Raiderettes and other celebrities will be on hand at 4:30 p.m. Tickets are $50. Details: (818) 795-7774. . . . Chandler’s “Amazing Games” series on ESPN will spotlight Mexico on next Tuesday’s show at 7 p.m.

Rory Markus has been doing a nice job for Channel 2 as the on-site reporter at the baseball playoffs and World Series. . . . Tom Lasorda, CBS’ guest analyst during the World Series, missed Tuesday night’s game because he was committed to a speaking engagement in Los Angeles. Lasorda is a busy man. Marc Reede, who lines up Lasorda’s corporate speaking engagements through his Beverly Hills-based Promotional Sports Stars, said Lasorda also had a speaking engagement in Cincinnati Monday night.