Theismann, Simms Show They Would Be Entertaining Team

TNT had its run with Sunday night football. Now it’s ESPN’s turn, starting Sunday with the Raiders against the Kansas City Chiefs at Kansas City.

ESPN will unveil a new opening and will use a score-and-time graphic similar to Fox’s.

What ESPN should also do sometime is put Phil Simms in the booth with Joe Theismann and play-by-play man Mike Patrick.

Simms and Theismann entertained reporters on a conference call this week, showing they click pretty well together.

The first question was about quarterbacks--Troy Aikman in particular--and concussions, and whether the coach or the player should determine if he plays.

Theismann said, “Troy knows how he’s feeling and how he will do. As a quarterback, or any player, you have to be the ultimate judge.”

Simms disagreed, saying, “With my experiences, and fortunately I had only one concussion, players and especially quarterbacks, we never want to leave the field. (Aikman is) never going to pull himself out of the game, no matter what.

“Sometimes the best thing for me to do was sit out a game, but we quarterbacks can’t determine that. It’s not in our personality.”

Theismann stuck to his guns. “I totally disagree,” he said.

*

With the Raiders on ESPN Sunday, the next question, naturally, had to do with Art Shell and Jeff Hostetler.

Simms, who played ahead of Hostetler with the New York Giants, said he believes the feud between Shell and Hostetler will linger.

“I’ve never known of a player (before Hostetler) who ever talked back to Art Shell,” he said. “Some coaches you just don’t talk back to, and Shell is one of those. He does not strike me as a coach who encourages a player to speak up.”

Said Theismann: “Joe Gibbs was like that. I would have never confronted him because I would have been fearful of my job. I would have been benched.

“Players today don’t fear for their jobs. There is an authority problem today. You never know who is in charge.”

Simms said, “With the teams doing well, the coach is in charge.”

Regarding his outbursts with former Giant coach Bills Parcells, Simms said, “He almost encouraged that because he wanted to know he was reaching you. But whenever we had one of those confrontations or arguments, I never lost sight of who was in charge. And (the arguments) weren’t 50-50, more like 90-10, Parcells.”

*

Now warmed up, Theismann and Simms jumped all over the next topic--officiating.

“It’s getting worse,” Theismann said. “And it hasn’t been a subtle change. The officiating this season has become horrible.”

Theismann referred to a key play in the Giants’ overtime loss to Detroit last Sunday. Lion receiver Herman Moore’s knee was down at the 34 but he was allowed to continue on to the seven, setting up the winning field goal.

“The TV cameras caught the official right there missing it,” Theismann said. “This is the kind of stuff they’ve been blowing all season.

“We’d have been better off using replacement officials and letting this group go on strike.”

Theismann referred to another play in the Lion-Giant game, on which one official ruled that a touchdown catch by Moore had not been a touchdown because Moore was out of bounds when he made the catch. That official was overruled and the score was allowed.

“If I had been that official and seen it, I would not have let anyone talk me out of it,” Theismann said.

He also pointed back to two weeks ago, when the Rams’ Robert Bailey scored on a 103-yard punt return when the Saints thought the play was dead.

“There had to be 40 guys on the field (but the play was allowed),” Theismann said.

Theismann said he is not advocating hiring full-time officials.

“The officials we have must start making the right decisions,” he said. “As players, you blow a few plays and you don’t have a job. It should be that way for officials, too.”

Simms advocated bringing back instant replay.

Said Theismann: “No, don’t bring it back. It slows up the game too much. And replay officials make mistakes too. Officials just have to do a better job.”

*

What job security? The Angels greased the revolving door in their broadcasting booth, then fired Billy Sample and hired Mario Impemba, a Michigan State graduate who was the voice of the Tucson Toros of the Pacific Coast League the last four seasons.

Continuity--in the booth and front office--has not been an Angel attribute.

Vin Scully has been with the Dodgers since 1950 and Ross Porter since 1977.

The list of Angel broadcasters has included:

Bob Kelly, Don Wells, Buddy Blattner, Dick Enberg, Don Drysdale, Dave Niehaus, Al Wisk, Bob Starr, Steve Shannon, Ron Fairly, Al Conin, Steve Bailey, Ken Brett, Bob Jamison, Ken Wilson . . . well you get the picture.

TV-Radio Notes

NBC’s 4 1/2 hours of Breeders’ Cup coverage Saturday will begin at 10 a.m. Tom Hammond returns for a fifth time as the host. . . . New York race caller Tom Durkin returns for his 11th season. The contributing analysts will be Trevor Denman, working his sixth; Gregg McCarron, Bob Neumeier, John Veitch and newcomers Elfi Schlegel and Mary Ann Grabavoy. Schlegel is a gymnastics announcer--but does she know anything about horse racing?--and Grabavoy was hired away from ABC. . . . The feature race on opening day at Hollywood Park on Wednesday will be the Jim Hill Stakes.

Marques Johnson has been hired as the Seattle SuperSonics’ television commentator, but he will continue to work UCLA radio broadcasts as well, although he will not travel with the Bruins. . . . The NBA season begins tonight, with the Lakers on Channel 9 from Detroit, delayed at 6 p.m., and the Clippers and Portland Trail Blazers from Yokohama, Japan, on TNT at 8 p.m. . . . TNT and TBS begin a new four-year contract with the NBA that calls for TNT to televise 45 games on Tuesday and Friday nights and TBS to show 20 on Thursday nights. The best aspect, says Don Maguire, executive producer of Turner Sports, is “the bonus coverage, knowing as a fan sitting in your living room that if there’s an exciting game, we’re going to it.”

Channel 9 will televise a Laker special entitled “A New Beginning” Saturday at 5 p.m., preceding that night’s 5:30 game at Milwaukee. Chick Hearn is the host of the special and Susan Stratton the lead producer. The Lakers’ new coach, Del Harris, will be featured. . . . KLAC tonight will introduce a new Laker pregame segment, “Laker Legends,” with assistant coach Bill Bertka. The segments will feature interviews with former Laker and NBA stars. . . . This weekend’s edition of “NBA Inside Stuff” will be on NBC Saturday at 9:30 a.m. because of the Breeders’ Cup. In one of the segments, former Clipper Danny Manning is interviewed by Willow Bay. . . . Another NBA special, “Opening Weekend,” with players serving as the hosts, will be on NBC after the Breeders’ Cup.

Recommended viewing: NFL Films’ “This Week in the NFL” on Channel 11 Sunday at 8:30 a.m. salutes the rise and success of the black athlete in the NFL. Art Shell recalls what Al Davis told him after making him the NFL’s first black coach: “I’m not hiring you because you’re black. I’m hiring you because you are a Raider.” Deacon Jones on humiliation: “Humiliation is going to a segregated school, walking past five upscale white schools. They made you believe you were less than a man.” He said when he got to the NFL he found it was no different.

Reader Jim Karlock of Hawthorne points out that the Philadelphia Eagles have been on ABC twice and on Fox four times, and their game with Arizona Sunday will make it five times for Fox. “Has (Fox President) David Hill gone the Leonard Tose route?” asks Karlock. . . . Memo to NBC: Forget the halftime and postgame news breaks. Football fans want football news during and immediately after games. Those who want general news can get it elsewhere. . . . A 30-second animated feature, “The Leatherheads,” makes its debut on “Monday Night Football” next week.

USC-Washington State is ABC’s Pacific 10 Conference game of the week, and deservedly so, but Arizona State-Oregon would have been better than Washington-Stanford as the Prime Network game of the week. . . . It’s apparently a done deal that ESPN’s versatile Chris Myers will take over “Up Close” from Roy Firestone, starting in February. . . . Charlie Tuna, former morning-show host at all-sports KMPC, began doing the morning show at country station KIK-FM (94.3) on Thursday. . . . One good thing about Saturday night’s George Foreman-Michael Moorer heavyweight title fight is that it is not on pay-per-view. It will be shown by HBO. . . . For the record: The name of the three brothers who own Cirivello’s, a sports bar in Long Beach, is Picarelli, not Cirivello.

La Cadena Deportiva, Prime Ticket’s fast-growing, year-old Spanish-language network that now reaches 250,000 homes, this week announced agreements that call for it to televise more than 1,400 soccer games over the next five years. . . . The Golf Channel, based in Orlando, announced it will launch as a 24-hour service Jan. 17 and named Gary Stevenson, a PGA Tour vice president, as its executive vice president. Commentators will include Donna Caponi and former UCLA golfer Kay Cockerill. Ann Liguori, whose syndicated interview show is carried by Prime Ticket, will also be a part of the new channel.