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What: “Real Sports With Bryant Gumbel”

Where: HBO, Tuesday, 10 p.m.

A couple of times a year, Gumbel, the show’s host, goes out to do a story. It has to be a good one, and his interview with Denny McLain, the lead story in this edition of “Real Sports,” is certainly that. And McLain is the perfect subject for Gumbel to show off his interviewing skills. McLain is argumentative, emotional, manipulative--a con man going up against someone not easily conned.

McLain, interviewed at a federal prison in Bradford, Pa., where he is serving an eight-year prison term for embezzling the pension fund of a Michigan meat packing company he owned, tells Gumbel: “I didn’t do this. I had nothing to do with this. Not one damn thing. I’m here for no reason.”

Gumbel: “So, Denny had nothing to do with this?”

McLain: “Not a . . . thing.”

Gumbel also sat down with McLain’s ex-wife, Sharyn, and daughter Michelle.

McLain, who in 1968 went 31-6 for the Detroit Tigers--he is baseball’s last 30-game winner--gets emotional when he talks about his daughter Christine, who was killed in an auto accident in 1992, and he cries when he talks about not seeing his grandchildren since October 1997.

Michelle says she can’t pull herself to take her children to see her father in a correctional facility.

The portrait of McLain is one of a pathetic individual who has destroyed himself and his family--and to this day refuses to accept blame. “I’m not Al Capone,” he says. “If there was a way to make a little money, I would certainly take it.”

On the other end of the spectrum, “Real Sports” also offers a report by James Brown about Tim Duncan and all the good things he does.

There is also a story on cockfighting. Why this topic? It is pointed out that boxer Roy Jones Jr., who also works as a commentator for HBO, owns fighting fowl and is a supporter of this repulsive activity, although HBO certainly doesn’t support it. The fourth story is about Title IX and its adverse affect on college athletics.