Lineup as Confusing as Infield Fly Rule

It’s a time of confusion for the baseball viewer. For instance, the Texas Rangers and New York Yankees were on Fox Tuesday night, NBC Wednesday night and will be back on NBC tonight. If there is a fourth game, they’ll be on ESPN Saturday. Four series and three television carriers create quite a jigsaw puzzle, and it’s difficult to solve without a daily newspaper. . . .

It’s even more difficult to know what games are on radio, particularly when stations such as XTRA 690 and XTRA 1150 are lax about informing newspapers. XTRA 1150’s new operations manager, Mike Thompson, promised Thursday to be more diligent. . . .

Things get easier after the first round. Fox has the American League championship series, NBC the National League and Fox the World Series. And XTRA 1150 will broadcast every game. . . .

ESPN missed a Greg Vaughn single in the fourth inning of Game 1 of the San Diego-Houston series Tuesday because of a commercial break. When ESPN came back, Vaughn was on first. Vaughn is the one Padre you don’t want to miss. . . .

NBC messed up Wednesday night when it didn’t get back in time from showing a graphic to pick up the home run by the Yankees’ Shane Spencer. . . .

A bigger mistake for NBC is not showing the score graphic continuously in the upper left-hand corner the way Fox and ESPN do. NBC, claiming it is seeking to reduce clutter, puts up the graphic in the lower right about every other pitch, but just leaving it in the upper left corner is less distracting. Also, NBC believes that if the score is shown all the time, viewers will tune in and immediately tune out if it is a lopsided game, which is a lame excuse. . . .

The announcers have generally been good, and the best have been NBC’s Bob Costas, Fox’s Tim McCarver, and Joe Morgan, who works for both ESPN and NBC. Fox’s Joe Buck and ESPN’s Kevin Kennedy also deserve praise. Kennedy, despite being new to broadcasting, handled a difficult and controversial first inning of the Cleveland-Boston game Wednesday in a professional manner. He could have easily gone off on umpire Joe Brinkman, but he got his points across without going nuts. . . .

Costas is a little wordy at times, but his style is more conducive to baseball than basketball. . . .

Look for Costas to do one more NBA season, if there is one, then recommend to his bosses that they bring back his friend Marv Albert.

SHORT WAVES

ABC offers an attractive college football tripleheader Saturday, starting at 9 a.m. First up is No. 7 Penn State at No. 1 Ohio State, followed by Washington State- UCLA at 12:30 p.m. and Arizona State-USC at 4. ABC’s No. 2 announcing team of Brad Nessler and Gary Danielson draws UCLA; Rich Waltz and Rodney Gilmore get USC. . . . CBS counters with No. 3 Tennessee at Auburn, with Sean McDonough and Terry Donahue reporting. . . . For fans of the more minor sports, KIEV (870) tonight at 8 opens a schedule of 25 UCLA events with UCLA-USC women’s volleyball at USC. Lou Riggs, UCLA associate athletic director Mike Sondheimer and Paul Nihipali call the action.

High definition television is coming to the NFL. CBS announced it will use the technology on three regular-season games, beginning with a Buffalo-New York Jet game Nov. 8, plus the AFC championship game. . . . San Diego Charger quarterback Ryan Leaf was supposed to be a guest of Jay Leno Tuesday, but as his agent, Leigh Steinberg, told XTRA 690’s John Fricke and Julie Broman Thursday morning, the timing wasn’t good. No kidding. Leno instead booked Monica Lewinsky--no, not the Monica Lewinsky but a New Yorker with the same name. . . . Former Charger quarterback Stan Humphries, a regular on Channel 2’s “Sports Central,” was among those who criticized Leaf for his behavior last week. And Fox’s Terry Bradshaw said: “One of the biggest reasons why Peyton Manning was drafted ahead of Ryan Leaf was because Manning is much more mature.” . . . Channel 2 changed its Sunday NFL lineup in midweek, dropping the 10 a.m. Miami-New York Jet game in favor of Oakland- Arizona at 1 p.m. . . . One place to see every NFL game via the NFL’s “Sunday Ticket” satellite package is Santa Anita.

Century cable systems in Orange County began carrying Fox Sports West 2 on Thursday, leaving Comcast as the lone major holdout. However, in the Lake Arrowhead-Big Bear area, Falcon cable does not carry either Fox Sports West or West 2. . . . ESPN Classic will show part one of Norman Baer’s award-winning documentary, “The Golden Decade of Baseball,” Sunday at 3 p.m. . . . Producer Tom Reilly, who helped launch “SportsCenter” on ESPN in 1979 and was working on “Fox Sports News” until recently, is returning to ESPN as a coordinating producer.

Boxing beat: A new boxing series makes its debut today from 5 to 7:30 p.m. on ESPN2, featuring two fights from two sites plus clips of old fights. Missing will be longtime boxing commentator Al Bernstein, who has been replaced by Teddy Atlas. Bill Cayton, who sold his Big Fights library to ESPN and ESPN Classic for a reported $80 million and is said to be getting a $1-million annual consulting fee from ESPN, is the promoter and said was seeking a new look. ESPN, meanwhile, denies Cayton made the decision to replace Bernstein. Only in boxing. . . . Part of the new series is a studio show featuring 24-year-old analyst Max Kellerman, who was recommended to ESPN by a Cayton associate. Kellerman began doing boxing commentary on public access cable in New York when he was 16 and is a recent graduate of Columbia University . . . HBO’s Saturday night boxing show featuring Genaro Hernandez and Floyd Mayweather will include taped coverage of the Sept. 18 pay-per-view fight between Oscar De La Hoya and Julio Cesar Chavez.

IN CLOSING

Where does Magic Johnson stand on the NBA lockout? Johnson, who owns 5% of the Lakers, has this to say on CNN’s “Page One With Nick Charles” Saturday at 8 a.m.: “The owners are doing their part, that is one thing I have to say. We’re doing our part because we’re the ones paying these salaries, we’re the ones flying them on private planes all over the place. When I played, we had to get up at 4 or 5 in the morning to catch a 6:30 or 7 a.m. flight.”

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What Los Angeles Is Watching

A sampling of L.A. Nielsen ratings for Sept. 26-27, including sports on cable networks:

SATURDAY

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Over-the-air Channel Rating Share College football: USC at Florida State 7 6.4 16 College football: Washington St. at California 7 5.2 11 Baseball: Chicago Cubs at Houston 11 4.4 11 College football: Purdue at Notre Dame 4 4.3 11 Boxing: Marco Antonio Barrera vs. Pedro Torres 9 3.2 6 College football: Kentucky at Florida 2 1.6 4

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Cable Network Rating Share Boxing: Lennox Lewis vs. Zeljko Mavrovic HBO 2.0 3 Baseball: Montreal at St. Louis FX 1.2 3 College football: Northwestern at Wisconsin ESPN 0.9 2 College football: Baylor at Colorado FSW 0.9 2 College football: Georgia Tech at North Carolina ESPN 0.7 1 College football: Pittsburgh at Virginia Tech ESPN2 0.6 2 Golf: Senior Boone Valley Classic ESPN 0.4 1 College football: Texas Tech at Iowa State FSW2 0.3 1 College football: Rice at Texas FSW 0.2 0 College football: Alabama at Arkansas ESPN2 0.1 0 Tennis: Davis Cup, Italy vs. U.S. ESPN2 0.1 0

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SUNDAY

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Over-the-air Channel Rating Share Pro football: Atlanta at San Francisco 11 11.3 25 Pro football: Green Bay at Carolina 11 8.3 19 Pro football: Oakland at Dallas 2 8.2 19 Special: Jim Murray memorial service 2 2.3 5 Baseball: Angels at Oakland 9 1.0 2

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Cable Network Rating Share Pro football: Cincinnati at Baltimore ESPN 4.6 8 Auto racing: NASCAR NAPA Autocar 500 ESPN 1.2 3 Baseball: Multiple game coverage ESPN2 1.7 4 Baseball: Chicago Cubs at Houston WGN 1.4 3 Soccer: Chicago at Galaxy ESPN2 1.4 1 Tennis: Davis Cup, Italy vs. U.S. ESPN2 0.1 0

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WEEKDAY RATINGS: Monday--Pro football: Tampa Bay at Detroit, Ch. 7, 12.2, 20; Baseball: San Francisco at Chicago Cubs, ESPN, 5.8, 10, WGN, 0.4, 1. Tuesday--Baseball: Texas at New York Yankees, Ch. 11, 9.8, 17, San Diego at Houston, ESPN, 2.1, 7, Boston at Cleveland, ESPN, 1.1, 4. Wednesday--Baseball: Texas at New York Yankees, Ch. 4, 10.1, 18 (cable ratings not available).

Note: Each rating point represents 50,092 L.A. households. Cable ratings reflect the entire market, even though cable is in only 63% of L.A. households.