Angels Add Some Spark to Prime Team

Prime Sports has scored a coup, landing Sparky Anderson as its Angel commentator.

Last week, Channel 9 named Jerry Reuss as the commentator for its 50 Angel telecasts.

The thinking was that Prime and Channel 9 would share the same announcing team, but Prime, seeking its own identity, went after Anderson, who lives in Thousand Oaks, and got him for its 31 Angel telecasts.

Steve Physioc will be the play-by-play announcer for both Channel 9 and Prime.

“Steve will be the main guy,” Anderson said. “I’m not going to kid myself and think I’m going to be a tremendous broadcaster.”

Anderson, whose previous broadcasting experience consists of seven World Series for CBS Radio, said he has no immediate goal to return to managing.

He said the fact that he would be doing only home games for Prime was particularly appealing.

Ken Wilson and Ken Brett did not have their contracts renewed. Wilson was recently hired as the television voice of the Oakland Athletics, and Brett, a finalist for several openings, plans to move his family out of Southern California, buy some land and get into the wine business.

“But that doesn’t mean I won’t be back broadcasting baseball next season,” Brett said.

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CBS radio announced Thursday that Jack Buck, 72, and his longtime partner, Hank Stram, have been taken off NFL broadcasts and replaced by Howard David and Matt Millen. Millen will also continue to work for Fox TV.

CBS radio offered both Buck and Stram other roles with the network. Stram accepted a lesser job; Buck declined.

Buck and Stram had been together since 1978.

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The ratings for the NCAA tournament on CBS are up slightly, averaging 5.8 so far compared to 5.7 at this juncture last year.

But CBS faced some tough competition Thursday night, going up against figure skating’s world championships on ABC and NBC’s prime-time lineup.

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UCLA may not be going to the Final Four, but Jim Harrick is. CBS has hired him as a studio commentator for the games in East Rutherford, N.J. Pete Carril’s stint ends tonight, with Mike Krzyzewski joining Pat O’Brien and George Raveling in the studio for this weekend’s games.

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Reaction to new CBS play-by-play announcer Gus Johnson has been mixed, but he made the cut and worked Thursday night’s East Regional games at Atlanta with Quinn Buckner.

This Gus Johnson is not the former Baltimore Bullet. He is a 1990 graduate of Howard University in Washington and has worked for ESPN, the Madison Square Garden network and the Big East network.

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Talk radio: KMAX-FM’s Joey Haim and Dave Smith seem to have conveniently forgotten that Haim, on the air, accused Smith of incest with his 6-year-old daughter. They tried to deny it ever happened. Well, it did. Check the tape for Jan. 15 between 9-10 p.m. It was an all-time low for sports-talk radio, which is saying something. . . . Here may be a close second: Three Denver disc jockeys were suspended without pay this week after walking into a mosque and loudly playing the national anthem Tuesday morning, in response to Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf’s protest against the anthem. One of the disc jockeys wore a turban and a T-shirt with Abdul-Rauf’s picture on it. The incident was reported to the FCC and religious leaders were calling for prosecution of the three.

XTRA has a new $500,000, 77,000-watt antenna, but night-time reception in Los Angeles has still been dreadful, and last Saturday XTRA went off the air for 13 hours. . . . Success story: J.T. Brick, who is a San Diego stockbroker named John Tournour, won Jim Rome’s smack-off last April. He later began hosting a Sunday night show for KMAX, now does a Sunday 7-9 p.m. show for KFMB in San Diego and last Saturday did his first show for the Sportsfan Radio Network.

TV-Radio Notes

Showtime executive Jay Larkin reports last Saturday’s Mike Tyson-Frank Bruno fight had about 1.4 million pay-per-view buys, putting it second all-time to the 1.56 million for Tyson-Peter McNeeley and ahead of Evander Holyfield-George Foreman, which had 1.36 million. . . . The replay of Tyson-Bruno will be on Showtime on Saturday at 8 p.m. and Monday at 9:30 p.m. The entire six-round Christy Martin bout will be included in the replay. . . . Besides the Tyson-Bruno replay on Saturday, “Fight Night” returns to Channel 9 with an attractive 8 p.m. card from Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, Fox has a delayed show on Channel 11 at 11 p.m. and HBO also has a delayed 11 p.m. show.

Featured on “Thoroughbred World” on Prime Sports on Sunday at 3 p.m. will be Johnny Longden’s last ride, when his mount, Royal George, came from far back to nip Plaque and jockey Bobby Ussery in the $125,000 San Juan Capistrano at Santa Anita on March 12, 1966. Veteran sportscaster Gil Stratton, interviewed for the piece, says of all the sporting events he has seen, “Nothing gave me the thrill of Johnny Longden’s last ride.” Longden is now 89. . . . “Thoroughbred World” serves as a nice lead-in for Prime’s coverage of the San Luis Rey Stakes at 3:30 p.m. Sunday. . . . ESPN’s “Racehorse Digest” Wednesday at 1 p.m. will offer delayed coverage of the Dubai World Cup from the United Arab Emirates. The race is expected to feature 1995 horse of the year Cigar.

ABC, which is televising an Indy Racing League event from Phoenix on Sunday, reports that even though CART officials may be pooh-poohing the new IRL, sponsors aren’t. “It’s a bullish market,” a spokesman said. . . . The Liberty Mutual Legends of Golf, the tournament that launched the senior tour, will be televised from PGA West in La Quinta by ABC this weekend.

Tony Verna, the former CBS sports director who came up with instant replay at the 1963 Army-Navy game, was recently presented the Directors Guild of America’s Life Achievement Award. Verna showed a replay of a seven-yard touchdown run by Army’s Rollie Stichweh, prompting play-by-play announcer Lindsay Nelson to tell viewers, “No, Army has not scored again, what you’re seeing is on videotape.” . . . Channel 9, averaging a 4.3 rating for Laker telecasts before Magic Johnson returned, is averaging a 6.8 since.

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Tuning In

A sampling of Los Angeles ratings for sports programs March 16 -1 7 , according to the A.C. Nielsen Co.

SATURDAY

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Event Ch. Rating NCAA: Princeton-Mississippi State 2 4.0 Olympic trials:swimming 4 3.7 Wide World of Sports 7 3.5 NCAA: Massachusetts-Stanford 2 2.3 NCAA: Kentucky-Virginia Tech. 2 3.2 NCAA: Marquette-Arkansas 2 1.6 Golf: PGA at Bay Hill 4 2.1 Bowling: Showboat Invitational 7 2.0

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SUNDAY

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Event Ch. Rating NCAA: Santa Clara-Kansas 2 5.5 NCAA: Arizona-Iowa 2 5.1 NBA: Phoenix-Charlotte 4 4.0 NCAA: Georgetown-New Mexico 2 3.9 Baseball: Dodgers-Atlanta 5 3.1 Hockey: Ducks-St. Louis 9 2.8 Golf: PGA at Bay Hill 4 2.8 Auto racing: Indy car race 7 1.7

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