Cover-Up on Wright Worse Than Quotes

When CBS came to town for the PGA Championship in August, we went out to Riviera Country Club, hoping to get a chance to talk to commentator Ben Wright.

It had been three months since a story in the News Journal of Wilmington, Del., had quoted Wright as saying that lesbians in women’s golf hurt the sport, and that “boobs” get in the way of a woman’s swing.

We had met Wright before and found the man with the delightful British accent to be an affable gent. We wanted to learn how a man who exudes sophistication and class could be quoted as saying things so crass and politically incorrect.

But Wright’s bosses said no. Commentator Mary Bryan was offered instead.

As we chatted with Bryan in a production trailer, Wright stuck his head in to say hello.

“I love that man,” Bryan said after Wright walked away. “We all do.”

Maybe so, but now we know why CBS didn’t want Wright talking to a reporter. He seems to have a knack for saying the wrong thing.

His quotes in the News Journal story in May by feature reporter Valerie Helmbreck were bad enough. But the cover-up exposed by Sports Illustrated this week was much worse.

Michael Bamberger’s investigative piece, available in the magazine’s Golf Plus edition, exposes Wright not only as a boob, but a liar.

Golf reporters and sports television columnists across the country, mostly males, bought Wright’s explanation that he had been misquoted by a reporter who was a stranger to golf, and sports in general, and had an agenda besides.

Shame on all of us.

Now, Helmbreck has been vindicated.

“I wrote the truth,” she said. “None of this is news to me.”

*

Two things stand out in the Sports Illustrated story.

Wright had accused Helmbreck of using quotes he had given her off the record. But the magazine, citing an internal memo from the News Journal, indicates that was not the case.

According to the memo, one thing Wright said that Helmbreck could use but not attribute to him was the “fingernail test.” The memo said that players with short fingernails are gay, players with long fingernails are not. Helmbreck made no reference to the fingernail test in her story.

The other thing is, Wright characterized Helmbreck as being divorced, in the middle of a custody battle and possibly a lesbian. But she has been married--happily, she says--for nearly 16 years and is the mother of three children.

If Jimmy the Greek could be fired by CBS in 1988 for saying blacks were physically better suited for sports than whites, then Wright must go too. Not so much for what he said to Helmbreck in the first place, but for the lies he told afterward.

*

Appliance Department: With the Lakers leading the Phoenix Suns by nine points and only 54 seconds left last Saturday, Chick Hearn put the game in the refrigerator. But the Lakers lost by one.

Hearn believes it is the first time in at least 13 years that he put the game in the refrigerator too soon, although others say it has happened since then.

Whatever, someone hung a banner in front of Hearn’s perch at the Forum on Wednesday night that read: “FOR SALE: USED REFRIGERATOR.”

Thursday, Hearn and wife Marge took a 7 a.m. flight to New York, where Hearn was inducted in the Sports Broadcasting Hall of Fame. He planned to fly back to Los Angeles in time for tonight’s game.

*

Remembrance: Behind every good sportscaster is a good producer, and Steve Bailey was a good producer during his 37 years at KMPC.

Bailey, 70, who died of complications of stomach cancer last Sunday, will be remembered in an invitation-only memorial service at Lakeside Country Club at 7 p.m. Tuesday.

Dick Enberg, who worked with Bailey and was a close friend, will deliver one of the eulogies.

“Steve was a producer before there were producers,” Enberg said. “He worked behind the scenes, but he was a real giant in the business.”

TV-Radio Notes

Terry Donahue will have to decide soon whether he will stay at UCLA or go to CBS, if that’s the change he is contemplating. The hot new rumor is that he will replace Buddy Ryan as coach of the Arizona Cardinals. CBS announced this week that Tim Ryan and Doug Flutie will be the announcers for the Cotton Bowl and wants to complete its lineup of bowl announcers next week. CBS also has the Sun, Orange and Fiesta bowls. Jim Nantz will do the play-by-play on the Sun and Fiesta, with Sean McDonough handling the Orange. Still to be named are the commentators, one of whom will be Donahue if he wants to go the television route.

Fox, out in front with the score and time-remaining graphic it puts in the upper left corner of the screen, may be out in front with its idea of using graphics to do the job of the play-by-play announcer on the national telecast of the Cardinal-San Diego Charger game Dec. 9. Terry Bradshaw and Jimmy Johnson will chat about the game, with graphics providing the essentials. . . . An old idea that is working is the revival of “Shell’s Wonderful World of Golf.” The series was brought back last year by Jack Nicklaus Productions, and it’s back again. Jack Nicklaus playing Tom Watson at Pebble Beach, in the first of four weekly taped shows, will be on ABC Sunday at 1:30 p.m.

All-sports radio station KMAX-FM (107.1) has been sold by Douglas Broadcasting to Odyssey Communications of New York. Program Director Keith James said Odyssey plans to keep the all-sports format. “The sale is a positive thing,” he said. . . . Another positive thing is KMAX finally dumping the “Sports Gods,” Dave Smith and Joey Hiam, who seemed to think they could say anything on the radio. “Maybe their act would be OK if they were on with Howard Stern, but not at our station,” James said.

XTRA has made a deal with CBS radio to carry its NCAA basketball tournament coverage and its baseball and NFL packages, beginning next year. Here’s hoping the station will have rectified its signal problems by then. There are pockets, particularly in the San Fernando Valley, where XTRA can’t be picked up at night. Program Director Howard Freedman said the station is “tweaking” its new 77,000-watt antenna to eliminate those pockets. . . . Dave Van de Walker, the producer of Dodger radio broadcasts from 1968 until 1994, died Thursday in Glendale. Van de Walker, 73, had undergone surgery for a brain tumor.