Fumbles, Errors and Turnovers

If Osama bin Laden is captured, as punishment for his evil he should be forced to sit in front of a television set and watch “The Best Damn Sports Show Period.”

This is no time for mercy. Period.

Airing on cable’s Fox Sports Net, this weeknight show targets a distinctive audience. Not sports zealots who stand and applaud their favorites, but fans who stand and scratch.

Fox has been heavily promoting its 90 minutes of raunchy beer-bellydom that it calls “guy talk.” So as a guy sports fiend myself, I cracked a few brewskies and watched some episodes last week to see what the fuss was about.

Operating from a living room set are host Chris Rose with couch-blob regulars who are billed as the “Fabulous Foursome.”

One is comic Tom Arnold. Still best known as Roseanne’s former husband, he appears to be the show’s main man, diving in here with the sweaty urgency of someone who realizes this gig may be all that’s separating him from oblivion. Arnold has three decibels of sound--loud, louder and ear-splitting--and two decibels of taste.

Crude and cruder.

Another regular is former Philadelphia Phillies star John Kruk, who functions on this show more or less as a prop--he just looks like he should be here--but did complain bitterly Thursday about “idiot sportswriters who have never played the game.” And Rose and Arnold have?

The third is D’Marco Farr, a Pro Bowl defensive lineman for the St. Louis Rams who isn’t playing this season after undergoing knee surgery. Or talking much either, if last week was an example.

The last, and by far most thoughtful, articulate and witty member of this group, is former NBA player John Salley, who is probably hemorrhaging I.Q. points just by being on the set. Salley is the designated savant of these lampshades as they sit and try mightily to be insulting and outrageous while schmoozing about headlines and interviewing sports figures in front of a hooting studio audience that appears to have been stampeded there from a bar.

Forget Nol Coward. You haven’t heard witty repartee until you’ve heard Arnold and Kruk verbally joust over body fat.

There are also sports news segments here and regular ho-ho comedy bits. They include lame blackout sketches and news updates inspired by “Saturday Night Live.”

Here was one: “The Arizona Cardinals face the Detroit Excrements ... “ Another drew smirky inferences from a picture of Arizona Diamondback pitching stars Randy Johnson and Curt Schilling embracing exuberantly after their team’s recent World Series triumph over the New York Yankees.

This show is nothing if not vigilant, its manliness cops led by Kruk, whose guy discourse most recently called American League hitters “pansies” in the heat of an argument. He didn’t mean the kind you plant.

The bits also include rattled-off wisecracks coming under the banner of “Things you’d never say to ... “ As in oft-injured St. Louis Cardinals slugger Mark McGwire, who is retiring, getting the business from Arnold: “Hey, Mr. McGwire, I know why they call you Big Mac. Because the cartilage in your knee is special sauce.”

There’s more such comedy from those “Tell Dr. Tom” segments, with Arnold answering questions said to be from viewers. He did it once last week while resting his head on the chest of a blond in a nurse’s uniform snuggling up to him.

Viewer’s question: “Why don’t you cover more hockey?”

Arnold: “I’m too busy trying to uncover more nurses.”

And his critics say he’s not a wit.

Not counting the “nurse,” guests range from Mr. Funny Hair himself, Don King--a master of media who was treated here typically as the comic figure he isn’t--to star Kansas City Chiefs tight end Tony Gonzalez, a versatile jock who also played college basketball.

Arnold: “I, too, was a two-sport athlete--eating and touching myself.”

There are specialists in comedy as there are in sports, and Arnold is obviously one of this elite group. One of his main functions here, when not spewing really funny (not) Anna Kournikova jokes, is to make references to the male anatomy, a challenge he takes on with astounding zeal.

It’s apparent, also, that the crux of this show is meant to be the Fab Four’s “guy talk.”

As in settling once and for all whether gentleman Duke basketball coach Mike Krzyzewski or hot-headed Texas Tech coach Bobby Knight, who was ousted at Indiana, is better suited to manage young hoopsters. Which was like choosing between Dr. Seuss and Dr. Mengele.

Another highlight was a vigorous debate on the pressing issue of whether returning star Drew Bledsoe or Tom Brady should be the New England Patriots’ starting quarterback.

Arnold voted for Brady. After beginning his own perfunctory analysis, Salley apparently thought better and halted abruptly. “It doesn’t make any difference,” he said. “I don’t care.”

He doesn’t care? Where are his priorities? Kick the bum off.

In fact, kick them all off.

Of course, I may have caught these guys on a few off nights that were not typical of their usual boffo talk. Yes, I’m sure that’s it. Surely they’re better than this.

If you agree, stand and scratch.

*

Howard Rosenberg’s column appears Mondays and Fridays. He can be contacted via e-mail at howard.rosenberg@latimes.com.