Air Clippers Can’t Have Enough Depth

With Mike Fratello on NBC assignments, Bob Weiss, coach of the Atlanta Hawks, joins an ever-increasing list of Clipper commentators. He will be paired with Ralph Lawler on Channel 13 tonight and Sunday for the first two games of the playoff series with the Utah Jazz.

Weiss was a member of the last Clipper team to make the playoffs, in 1976 when they were the Buffalo Braves.

SportsChannel’s Clipper commentator, Jerry Tarkanian, despite being hired as the San Antonio Spurs’ coach, said he will work next Tuesday’s game at the Sports Arena.

As a public-relations gesture, SportsChannel will put that game on basic cable, thus making it available to all customers of SportsChannel’s cable affiliates.

SportsChannel could use the goodwill. Hockey fans are upset because some cable companies have not begun offering SportsChannel’s NHL playoff telecasts on basic cable, as promised.

Also, because the NHL strike threw off the playoff schedule, there have been some conflicts with Dodger and Angel telecasts. Like it or not, the local baseball telecasts get priority. Those schedules were set last November.

Channel 13’s Clipper commentator last Sunday was TNT’s Hubie Brown, who, from his home in New Jersey, said he would be interested in a more permanent position.

“We’d love to have him, too,” said Rick Feldman, Channel 13 station manager. “The problem is his TNT commitments. The question is, do we take a commentator of Brown’s stature and share him, as we do with Fratello, or do we look for someone we’ll have full time?”

Brown, who did 22 games for TNT during the regular season, has an in at Channel 13. Dave Goetz, the producer-director of Clipper telecasts, broke in Brown as a broadcaster with the Philadelphia 76ers.

Brown’s choice for coach of the year is Mike Dunleavy. “Just think about what he did. He performed a miracle,” Brown said. “The Lakers won 43 games, and they would have placed sixth in the East.

“Imagine taking Michael Jordan away from the Chicago Bulls, then have Bill Cartwright miss 46 games, Scottie Pippen 28 and Horace Grant 19. Well, that’s what happened to the Lakers when they lost Magic Johnson, then had Vlade Divac, James Worthy and Sam Perkins sidelined by injuries.”

KMPC update: The station switches to its all-sports format on Monday, although it gets sort of a head start by offering continual coverage of the NFL draft Sunday morning.

San Diego’s XTRA also is covering the draft. ESPN will have television coverage.

KMPC could be in for a rough start. “Don’t judge us off the first couple of weeks,” program director Len Weiner said. “We’ll no doubt have some kinks to work out.”

KMPC has hired Todd Christensen, reportedly giving him a $100,000 salary. He will be on the air Monday but won’t be a permanent fixture until he moves back to Los Angeles from Alpine, Utah.

Christensen will be paired with Joe McDonnell on a mid-day show, a position Long Beach Press-Telegram columnist Doug Krikorian believed was his as late as last weekend.

Weiner said Krikorian will be a part of the new format, working a couple of nights a week with Bob Rowe and former Dodger Steve Yeager and also having a weekend show.

Rowe, a KMPC veteran whose “Angeltalk” programs are a fixture, will, at least for the time being, also serve as the host of the nighttime show that will either wrap around Angel broadcasts or run from 6 to midnight on weeknights when the Angels are off.

Paola Boivin of the Los Angeles Daily News also will be on with Rowe and Yeager a couple of nights a week, and other cast members are expected to be added.

Add KMPC: Chris Roberts, formerly of KFI, has been hired as the host of a weekend show, and he also will do weekday sports reports periodically from 11 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.

Jim Lampley is the marquee name. His show will run weekdays from 1:30 p.m. until Jim Healy’s 5:30 show.

Fred Wallin was named as host of a midnight-to-5 a.m. show.

The mornings belong to Robert W. Morgan, whose new partner, Scott St. James, joined him this week. Their show will have a sprinkling of sports but will retain its open-ended format.

Other developments are also forthcoming, Weiner said.

Weiner also announced that the first of five Angel broadcasts Ernie Harwell will work for KMPC will be May 4 from Detroit, which is fitting because he spent 32 seasons with the Tigers.

Add radio: Gabe Kaplan, the host of KLAC’s “Sportsnut” program for the past two years, will soon do his last show, probably May 8.

The show will continue, but without Kaplan, who says he is burned out on sports.

“When I was 12 and 13 years old, my life revolved around sports,” he said. “I’m too old for that now.”

Kaplan, a member at Riviera Country Club, said he plans to play a lot of golf.

TV-Radio Notes

Magic Johnson, who worked with another commentator during the regular season, will go it alone on Sunday’s Miami-Chicago NBA playoff telecast on NBC. His play-by-play partner will be Dick Enberg. . . . Rather than have Johnson work another Laker game, NBC decided to put him on this game because, a spokeswoman said, it will give him a chance to talk about the Bulls and last year’s NBA finals. . . . Steve Jones drew Game 2 of the Laker-Portland series Saturday, which makes things easy for him, since he is the Trail Blazers’ TV commentator. . . . Marv Albert and Mike Fratello will do double duty this weekend, announcing Indiana-Boston on Saturday and Detroit-New York on Sunday. . . . Johnson will appear on ABC’s “Good Morning America” on Monday, talking about Arthur Ashe and AIDS.

TNT shuffles its NBA crews during the playoffs. Hubie Brown started Thursday night working the Indian-Boston game with play-by-play man Bob Neal, producer Rohan Backfish and director Sandy Grossman, who is still employed by CBS but working for TNT as a free-lancer. But later, Brown will be working with other people. The crews also bounce from series to series. . . . The other TNT play-by-play men are Pete Van Wieren, Ron Thulin and Jim Durham. The other commentators are Doug Collins, Dick Versace and Jack Givens. . . . TNT telecasts of Laker and Clipper games are subject to blackout only when the teams are at home. A plus for TNT is that it has the ability to switch off one game and pick up the local telecast of another if it is going down to the wire.

In an interview by Prime Ticket’s Randi Hall with James and Angela Worthy at their home, Angela talks about dealing with her husband’s arrest last year in Houston for soliciting a prostitute. She says: “I have to be honest, it was hard. There were times when I just wanted to pack up and leave.” But, she says, they worked through it. Also in the interview, which will be shown on “Press Box” Monday night, Worthy talks as if there is little doubt that he will be traded.

With the recent release of “The Babe,” starring John Goodman, Premier Magazine had a panel--Bob Costas, Harry Caray, Burt Reynolds, Goodman, swimmer Nancy Hogshead, writer Roger Angell and actor D.B. Sweeney--pick the 10 best sports movies of all time. The list: (1) “Raging Bull,” (2) Bull Durham,” (3) “Knute Rockne: All American,” (4) “Chariots of Fire,” (5) “Rocky,” (6) “Champion,” with Kirk Douglas, (7) “The Natural,” (8) “Olympia,” a German-made documentary, (9) “16 Days of Glory,” Bud Greenspan’s documentary about the 1984 Olympics, and (10) “It Happens Every Spring.”

“The Babe” may not make any top 10 list--it has been getting ripped by critics--but the feeling here is that it is entertaining, even though it may not be factually accurate. . . . Jim Healy, in disputing Ruth’s mythical called shot in the 1932 World Series, said on the air the other night that he asked Ruth first-hand about it during a press conference at the Ambassador Hotel in 1947. Healy, who was Kid Healy back then, said Ruth told him someone in the Chicago Cubs’ dugout rolled a lemon out toward him, and he simply waved his arm at the Cubs in anger. He told Kid Healy that calling a homer, much less a homer to any particular field, never crossed his mind.