Lampley Faces Fight of His Own

By LARRY STEWART

June 22, 2001 12 AM PT

Jim Lampley will be talking in pain Saturday night when he calls the TVKO pay-per-view fight between Oscar De La Hoya and Javier Castillejo.

Lampley is scheduled for hip-replacement surgery Tuesday at the Grossmont Orthopedic Hospital in San Diego. It’s a redo of surgery he had one year ago.

Lampley, 52, is among an estimated 2,000 people who received a faulty hip implant manufactured by Sulzer Inter-Op. That number could grow. More than 17,500 received a Sulzer hip device from 1997 until the middle of last year.

“Each time I stand up, the pain is agonizing,” he said. “Every facet of my life has been disrupted.”

Lampley this week filed a lawsuit in Los Angeles Superior Court against Sulzer.

“I know my pain and suffering compared to others may be minor league,” he said, “but I want to speak out for the thousands of people who have been victimized by Sulzer.”

In December 2000, Sulzer, a Swiss company, recalled the failed implant and promised to cover the cost of removing and replacing the hip part and related damages. Lampley says Sulzer recently admitted that its American subsidiary probably lacks adequate insurance to compensate victims.

“First, Sulzer sells us a bad hip and then deceives us with false promises and international legal loopholes,” he said. “The parent company, with its vast resources, has to step up and take responsibility.”

Lampley said he understands that people who have had Sulzer knee implants could be facing problems as well.

Bumping Heads

The TVKO card at the MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas, which includes four undercard bouts, starts at 6 p.m. Saturday.

Showtime will televise a boxing show from Uncasville, Conn., delayed, at 10 p.m.

The two fight cards will go virtually head to head in the East.

It wasn’t planned that way, though. Initially, both cards were scheduled for June 9. Then Showtime moved its fights to Saturday. Then TVKO unknowingly did the same thing after the De La Hoya camp requested some extra time to train.

Another Vegas Show

The 35th Victor Awards will be televised live 5-7 p.m. Saturday from the Las Vegas Hilton by Fox Sports Net.

The Victor Awards, created and produced by David Marmel of Pacific Palisades, is the longest running sports award show on TV.

“Our show is the prototype from which all other sports awards shows have patterned themselves,” Marmel said. “While most of the others have fallen by the wayside, we’re still here.”

With the backing of Barron Hilton and the Hilton Hotel Corp., Marmel started the Victor Awards in 1967 as a means for raising money for the City of Hope in Duarte and cancer research. The first show was televised from the Beverly Hilton Hotel.

Marmel has lost track of exactly how much money the show has raised. “It’s in the tens of millions,” he said. “The most important thing is, we are saving lives.”

Marmel learned what cancer can do when he was 16. In 1953, his 15-year-old brother, Lionel, died of a brain tumor.

“My parents took him to the hospital on a Friday because he was having headaches,” Marmel said. “We lost him two days later.”

On Saturday’s show, celebrity presenters will give out the awards, which are selected by a panel of sports editors, writers and broadcasters. Special awards will go to Tom Lasorda, Olympic swimming stars Dara Torres and Lenny Krayzelburg, softball pitcher Lori Harrigan, Meadowlark Lemon and the 1980 Olympic hockey team.

Masters Expansion

The Augusta National Golf Club announced Thursday that for the first time next year the final round of the Masters will have 18-hole television coverage.

“We know that many fans of the Masters want 18-hole coverage,” Augusta Chairman Hootie Johnson said, “and we expect the expanded broadcast to be consistent with the quality we have had in the past.”

The Masters, typically golf’s highest-rated tournament, has been limited to 5 1/2 hours of coverage on Saturday and Sunday.

Changeover

Fox covers its last NASCAR race of the season Sunday from Sears Point in Sonoma, Calif. NBC and TNT take over July 7.

Fox analyst Darrell Waltrip said, “I’ll watch with a great deal of interest. We’re all covering the same sport and we all have the same goals: to grow the sport and to take it to the fans in a way it hasn’t been taken to them before.”

Chris Myers, host of Fox’s NASCAR prerace show, said the sport has won him over. “Besides the NFL, no other sport I have covered matches the excitement and buildup,” he said.

Short Waves

Fox Sports Net 2 will televise the high school all-star football game that features players from California and Florida on Saturday at 1 p.m. from Santa Barbara. Jim Watson, John Jackson and Mike Lamb are the announcers for the game that benefits the Ronald McDonald House. . . . Double duty: Martina Navratilova will be busy at Wimbledon again, announcing for TNT--which starts its coverage Monday at 8 a.m.--and playing doubles. She and Arantxa Sanchez Vicario are seeded 16th. . . . On Sunday at 4 p.m., ESPN Classic will replay the 1995 game in which Cal Ripken broke Lou Gehrig’s record by playing in his 2,131st consecutive game. He also homered in Baltimore’s 4-2 victory over the Angels.

“Fire in Ice,” a review of the Kings’ season, makes its debut on Fox Sports Net tonight at 8. Bill Macdonald and Jim Fox are the co-hosts. . . . An interview Barry Bonds did with Roy Firestone will serve as the “Sunday Conversation” segment of ESPN’s “SportsCenter” Sunday night at 8. . . . The NHL draft will be televised by ESPN2 Saturday at 9 a.m., and the NBA draft will be on TNT Wednesday at 4:30 p.m. . . . On XTRA (690), Lee Hamilton will have a special NHL draft show Saturday, beginning at 9 a.m., and will devote his regular Wednesday show to the NBA draft. . . . KSPN (1110) will broadcast a Mighty Ducks draft party Saturday at the ESPN Zone in Anaheim from 9-10:30 a.m. KSPN’s “Thoroughbred Los Angeles” show, with Mike Willman and Kurt Hoover, will move to 10:30.

Boxing beat: Sugar Ray Leonard and ESPN have entered into an agreement in which Leonard will promote monthly fight cards for ESPN2, beginning Aug. 3. . . . KSPN dispatched boxing expert Johnny Ortiz to the MGM Grand to provide prefight coverage on the “McDonnell-Douglas” show. . . . Rich Marotta’s “Neutral Corner” boxing show on KXTA (1150) tonight after postgame “Dodgertalk” will originate from the MGM Grand.

In Closing

ESPN begins a new reality-based series, “The Season,” Tuesday at 5 p.m. with a look at Tiger Woods at the U.S. Open. The second show July 5 will follow the Philadelphia 76ers through the NBA Finals. Eventually, one of the shows will feature a winner.

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What Los Angeles Is Watching

A sampling of L.A. Nielsen ratings for June 16-17:

SATURDAY

*--*

Over-the-air Channel Rating Share Golf: U.S. Open 4 6.1 17 Baseball: Dodgers at Angels 9 2.6 6 Horse racing: Stephen Foster Handicap 2 1.2 3 Soccer: World Cup qualifying, U.S. vs. Jamaica 7 1.1 3 College World Series: Miami vs. Stanford 2 1.0 3 Baseball: Oakland at San Francisco 11 0.8 2

*--*

Cable Network Rating Share Baseball: Boston at Atlanta TBS 1.3 3 Horse racing: Hollywood Park Today FSN2 0.7 2 Drag racing: NHRA qualifying at Columbus, Ohio ESPN2 0.5 1 Auto racing: NASCAR Busch Grand National 300 FX 0.3 1 NFL Europe: Frankfurt vs. Rhein FSN 0.3 1 Soccer: Galaxy at Miami ESPN2 0.3 1

*--*

SUNDAY

*--*

Over-the-air Channel Rating Share Golf: U.S. Open 4 7.0 19 Auto racing: NASCAR Winston Cup Pocono 500 11 2.4 7 Auto racing: CART Grand Prix of Detroit 7 0.6 4 Auto racing: Trans-Am Motor City 100 (tape) 2 0.6 2 Auto racing: IRL Radisson Indy 200 7 0.4 1

*--*

Cable Network Rating Share Baseball: Dodgers at Angels FSN 1.4 4 Horse racing: Hollywood Park Today FSN2 1.1 3 Baseball: Boston at Atlanta ESPN 1.0 2 Drag racing: NHRA Nationals at Columbus, Ohio ESPN2 0.7 2 Golf: U.S. Open highlights ESPN2 0.6 1 WNBA basketball: Utah at Houston ESPN2 0.3 1

*--*

Weekday ratings: THURSDAY, June 14: U.S. Open, Ch. 4, 2.7/9. FRIDAY, June 15: Lakers at Philadelphia, Ch. 4, 26.1/41; U.S. Open, Ch. 4, 3.9/12. MONDAY: U.S. Open, Ch. 4, 3.2/11.

Note: Each rating point represents 53,542 L.A. households. Cable ratings reflect the entire market, even though cable is in only 63% of L.A. households.

Look Who’s Talking

Sports figures to be featured on TV and radio, today through Thursday:

Lisa Leslie--”Player’s Journal,” today, 5 p.m., Lifetime

Larry Bird--”SportsCentury,” today, 5 and 8 p.m., ESPN Classic

Sugar Ray Leonard, Oscar De La Hoya--”Southern California Sports Report,” today, 10 p.m., Fox Sports Net

Sammy Sosa--”Page One,” 9:30 a.m., CNN; 10:30 a.m, 12:30 and 6:30 p.m., CNN/SI

Sigi Schmid, New York Post columnist and author Tom Keegan--”Irv Kaze Show,” Saturday, 6-7 p.m., KRLA (870)

Ryan Klesko--”Southern California Sports Report,” Saturday, 10 p.m., Fox Sports Net

Ricky Rudd--”NASCAR This Morning,” Sunday, 7:30 a.m., Fox Sports Net

Buddy McGirt, Aaron Pryor--”Ringside With Johnny Ortiz,” Sunday, 8-11 p.m., KSPN (1110)

Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens--”Up Close Special With Roy Firestone, Monday, 4 p.m., ESPN

Martina Navratilova--”SportsCentury,” Monday