New Job Fits Lampley to a Tee

As if he doesn’t already have enough to do, Jim Lampley this week was named NBC’s main announcer on golf.

He will be paired with Johnny Miller in the 18th-hole tower for NBC’s 12 golf events next year.

Jim Lampley on golf?

It’s not quite as far out as it may sound. It’s not the same as when NBC put Bryant Gumbel on golf.

Lampley, as a youngster in Hendersonville, N.C., did a lot of caddying at nearby country clubs. And after his parents moved to Miami, he was the No. 1 player on the Southwest Miami High golf team.

He might have played golf as a freshman at the University of North Carolina, but Lampley, a bit of a free spirit in those days, didn’t have good enough grades.

“When I was 17, if you had told me I would someday be a network golf announcer, I would have said there could be no better job,” Lampley said.

The downside of NBC’s latest move is that veteran Charlie Jones--a loyal NBC employee for 28 years, a team player, hard working, liked by everyone--gets knocked around again.

Before the Barcelona Olympics, NBC took Jones off track and field, the marquee event, and put him on swimming.

Now this.

Lampley doesn’t foresee a problem.

“Charlie Jones is one of the all-time classiest guys,” he said.

Jones never complains, at least not publicly.

Quipped Jones, “My comment is, ‘I said all the right things.’ ”

Jones said he was called to New York to get the news.

“I’d never been called to New York before,” he said. “I got all excited. I thought they had some good news. Shows you how dumb I am.”

It wasn’t all bad news for Jones, though. NBC has promised him a new contract to continue announcing NFL football, something he has been doing on a network level for 33 years.

Jones was asked if he received a more lucrative contract.

“No,” he said. “Just a new contract.”

Lampley has already done one golf assignment for NBC. He recently taped something called “The Skills Challenge” at Orlando, Fla.

He told his KMPC radio audience he was on a secret assignment. Now the secret is out.

“The Skills Challenge,” to be shown in January, will kick off NBC’s golf season, which is highlighted by the Ryder Cup in September.

It’s pretty tough keeping track of Lampley, the busiest guy in sports broadcasting.

When he’s not doing his morning show on KMPC, he’s either working for NBC or HBO.

HBO assignments get precedence. The pecking order is HBO, NBC, KMPC.

This weekend, Lampley will be London, joining Larry Merchant and George Foreman at ringside to call an HBO fight card.

It’s a good one. Heavyweights Razor Ruddock and Lennox Lewis meet in the main event. On the undercard is a welterweight title fight between World Boxing Assn. champion Meldrick Taylor and undefeated top contender Crisanto Espana.

In London, the Taylor-Espana fight will be shown first, at 11:30 p.m., with the Ruddock-Lewis fight to follow at 12:30 a.m. But on HBO, through the magic of tape, Ruddock-Lewis is first.

Ruddock-Lewis will be shown live in the East at 7:30 p.m., then in the West also at 7:30, a delay of three hours.

NBC won’t have Lampley at the Breeders’ Cup at Gulfstream Park Saturday, but the network will have its usual cast of a thousand or so.

The coverage will begin at 10:30 a.m. and run until 3 p.m.

Tom Hammond returns for his ninth Breeders’ Cup and second as host. New York-based Tom Durkin will again call the races, and Southern California’s Trevor Denman is among the contributing analysts.

Having Denman on your team and not using him to call races is like having Michael Jordan on your team and not letting him play.

Halloween is a time for superstitions. Asked if he has any, Hammond says that when he worked his first Breeders’ Cup for NBC in 1984, he got two half-dollars back in change when he bought a Daily Racing Form.

At the time, Hammond was working in local television in Lexington, Ky. He has since become one of NBC’s top sports announcers. He was the one NBC tabbed to replace Jones on track and field at the Olympics.

Hammond kept those two half-dollars and has brought them back to every Breeders’ Cup since.

TV-Radio Notes

With the Raiders off and the Rams at Atlanta Sunday, Los Angeles gets a rare NFL doubleheader. The Rams’ game at Atlanta will be on CBS at 10 a.m., followed by Philadelphia at Dallas. Calling the Ram game will be Dick Stockton and Randy Cross. Pat Summerall and John Madden work the nightcap. . . . The lone NBC game is a dud--Cleveland at Cincinnati at 1 p.m.--so that means viewers can pretty much stick with CBS, beginning with Channel 2’s “L.A. Football Company” at 9 a.m. The show, for a local production, has become first rate. Bill Fagerbakke of ABC’s “Coach” filled in last Sunday for Long Beach Press-Telegram columnist Doug Krikorian, who was at the World Series, and came off looking pretty good. He picked three of four games correctly and predicted that the Cowboys would beat the Raiders, 24-13. The Cowboys won, 28-13.

Terry Bradshaw, who has been on a hot streak on CBS’ “NFL Today,” hit again last Sunday when he went to the chalkboard to show how the Phoenix Cardinals were going to shut down Philadelphia. And they did, losing, but only by 7-3. . . . Oops Department: Greg Gumbel had an embarrassing slip of the tongue on “NFL Today.” Lesley Visser did a piece on Minnesota guard Randall McDaniel, who is also a champion arm-wrestler. After Visser was shown trying to arm-wrestle McDaniel, Gumbel and Bradshaw squared off and Gumbel said, “And the winner gets Lesley.” What Gumbel meant to say, according to producer Eric Mann, was: “And the winner gets to challenge Lesley.”

Channel 56 will preview the Breeders’ Cup in a one-hour special tonight at 8:30, after the Santa Anita replays. Co-hosts of the one-hour special are Jeff Siegel and Mandy McKaughan. . . . Magic Johnson, who is making the rounds, gets half an hour on Channel 4 Saturday night at 7, when an interview with Fred Roggin, taped in Hawaii, will be shown. It will be repeated Sunday at 12:30 p.m.

KMPC has made another lineup change. Fred Wallin has been taken off the graveyard shift and is being tried in the 7-to-midnight slot until January. And then what? “We’ll see,” program director Len Weiner said. Tony Semino of KMEN in San Bernardino has replaced Wallin on the overnight shift. . . . KMPC has extended Jim Healy’s contract two more years. “He’s the youngest, hippest guy at our station,” Weiner said. . . . KMPC General Manager Bill Ward says it looks as if there will be no decision until the end of November on who will be paired with Bob Starr on the Angels next season. . . . Ken Brett, who came close to going to the Colorado Rockies, will be back as the Angels’ television commentator. . . . Former UCLA All-American Marques Johnson will do the commentary on Bruin basketball broacasts on KMPC this season. Chris Roberts will handle the play-by-play.

Ward said he’s not about to push the panic button, even though KMPC’s ratings are dropping. In Arbitron’s summer rating book, KMPC, which switched to an all-sports format in April, averaged a 1.0 share, down from a 2.6 last summer. San Diego-based XTRA’s summer rating in Los Angeles was a .6, up from a .3 last summer. “We expected a drop,” Ward said. “WFAN in New York had a drop before the ratings started back up. We’re committed to this format.”

Award-winning sports producer Bud Greenspan has been named the recipient of the American Sportscasters Assn.’s Graham McNamee Award, which goes to former sportscasters who have gone on to bigger and better things. Past recipients include Ronald Reagan, Bryant Gumbel, Walter Cronkite, National League President Bill White, ABC Sports President Dennis Swanson and Larry King. Greenspan began his career as a sportscaster for WHN in New York. . . . Add Greenspan: His company, Cappy Productions, in association with a Norwegian company, will produce the official film of the 1994 Winter Olympics at Lillehammer, Norway.

Video beat: The Raiders don’t seem to be losing their national appeal. According to Billboard magazine, the NFL Films’ “Los Angeles Raiders: The Team for All Decades,” which was released Sept. 22, is No. 20 among sports videos.