Don’t Forget to Stretch Clicker Fingers

Warm up the remote control. There’s a logjam of college football on television Saturday.

Florida-Tennessee, possibly the game of the year, will be televised by CBS at 12:30 p.m.

At the same time, Arizona-Washington, an attractive Pacific 10 Conference matchup, will be on ABC, and USC-Houston on Prime Sports. Because the Trojan game is a national telecast, the announcers will be Don Russell and former Trojan Anthony Munoz.

Making matters worse is that the Dodgers and San Diego Padres will begin at 1 p.m. on Fox.

Nice planning, huh?

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Guess it would be asking too much for Channel 5 to have preempted such shows as “Blossom” and “Bugs ‘n’ Daffy” and shown Thursday’s Dodger-Padre game.

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Prime Sports has possibly its best college game of the year on Saturday at 7:15 p.m., Nebraska at Arizona

State. The commentator will be Danny White, a former Arizona State quarterback.

Saturday night’s Oklahoma-San Diego State game, which ABC wanted to televise if it could have been moved to the afternoon, was never scheduled to be shown in Los Angeles anyway. Arizona-Washington would have been shown here, no matter what.

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On Sunday, Los Angeles again gets a Raider game on NBC. But at least San Diego-Oakland is better than Jacksonville-Oakland, which we got last Sunday.

And there’s no letup in sight. An NBC spokesman said ratings indicate L.A. viewers want the Raiders.

Could be, but maybe Oakland doesn’t. The Raiders aren’t coming close to selling out, thus their games are being blacked out in the Bay Area.

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Attention golfers: This week’s PGA tournament, the B.C. Open featuring Tiger Woods, is only on the Golf Channel.

At least more cable companies are beginning to carry it.

Too bad more aren’t also picking up the highly acclaimed Classic Sports Network, which offers such classic programming as the Buster Douglas-Mike Tyson fight. It will be on Monday at 7 p.m.

Continental Cablevision, an investor in the Golf Channel, Outdoor Life and Speedvision, carries those channels but not Classic Sports.

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New gig: Sportscaster Fred Roggin will team up with former “Extra” co-host Arthel Neville to do a daily one-hour, nationally syndicated talk show that is scheduled to go on the air in the fall of 1997 and be carried by Channel 4 locally.

But Roggin said he will continue doing sports for Channel 4 as well.

“I talked it over with my wife, Richel, and she thought I could handle both,” Roggin said. “And her vote is the one that counts.”

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If KABC radio is about to dump the Dodgers, as reported by Daily Variety, then what were all those Dodger sponsors doing partying with Tom Lasorda at the KABC studios on Wednesday?

Maureen Lesourd, the station’s new general manager, called any report of KABC and the Dodgers parting company simply a rumor, although she didn’t totally dismiss the possibility.

As for Lesourd not being a sports fan, she said, “I’m a football nut. I also like basketball and I’m beginning to appreciate baseball.”

A successful postseason for the Dodgers might increase that appreciation.

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Prime shake-up: The first casualty of Fox’s remake of Prime Sports’ “Press Box” is Larry Burnett. When “Press Box” goes off the air for about two weeks next month to return as “Fox Sports News” on Nov. 1, Burnett’s six years at Prime will be over.

“I’m painfully disappointed,” said Burnett, who came to Prime from ESPN to help start Prime’s half-hour news show. “On the other hand, I understand if a company pays millions of dollars to take over a company, as Fox did with us, they can do what they want and use the people they want.”

Martin Mandel, Burnett’s agent, said, “We’re looking at some other possibilities.”

One thing Burnett has already picked up is Brett Lewis’ former segments with Del Harris on Laker pregame shows on KLAC radio.

Of the other anchors currently on “Press Box,” reportedly only Tom Kirkland and Alan Massengale are safe, although some may be offered lesser roles.

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They’re back: Radio talk-show hosts Dave Smith and Joey Haim, an obnoxious pair who billed themselves as “the sports gods,” went off the air when KMAX-FM was sold. But now they’ve found enough sponsor support to make it back. Their new show, which begins Tuesday on KWNK (670), will be on weekdays 10 a.m.-1 p.m.

They have promised KWNK General Manager Bill Cabranes and packager Keith James that they’ll behave themselves. We’ll believe it when we hear it.

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Personal note: When I wrote my first story as a Los Angeles sportswriter in 1969, for the defunct Herald Examiner, Allan Malamud went over it with me and explained such things as word economy and readability, something he always preached and practiced.

Over the years, Malamud and I talked a lot about writing, as well as many other things. Malamud, who was buried Thursday, and I were sports editor and assistant sports editor of the Herald Examiner from 1974-78.

Our friendship continued after that, and we were reunited as colleagues when he joined The Times in 1989. He had many friends in sportscasting--Al Michaels, Stu Nahan, Vin Scully, Bob Miller and ESPN’s Charley Steiner to name a few--and was always making worthwhile suggestions for this column.

I learned a lot about this business from Allan Malamud, and I regret that I never really thanked him.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

What Los Angeles Is Watching

A sampling of L.A. Nielsen ratings for sports programs Sept. 14-16.

SATURDAY

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Event Ch. Rating Share College football: BYU-Washington 7 3.9 11 College football: Purdue-Notre Dame 4 3.5 10 Baseball: Cincinnati-San Diego 11 2.5 7 Golf: Presidents Cup 2 1.7 5

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SUNDAY

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Event Ch. Rating Share NFL: Jacksonville-Oakland 4 13.3 33 NFL: San Diego-Green Bay 4 12.3 30 NFL: Detroit-Philadelphia 11 4.6 12 Golf: Presidents Cup 2 1.8 5 Soccer: N.Y./New Jersey-Columbus 34 1.7 4 Auto racing: IRL Las Vegas 500K 7 1.1 3 Auto racing: IROC series 7 .7 2

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MONDAY

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Event Ch. Rating Share NFL: Buffalo-Pittsburgh 7 17.3 27

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