Walton Enjoys 30-30 Vision

Bill Walton was on a bus headed for Game 2 of the Boston-New Jersey series when he called on his cell phone. He didn’t sound like someone who had been on the road for more than a month.

His 30-games-in-30-days NBA “Love It Live” tour was in overtime.

“I think this is Day 32,” Walton said. “We just kept going, the band kept playing.”

Walton, filing daily reports for NBA.com as he traveled more than 40,000 miles around the country attending playoff games, made his final entry from Sacramento on Monday, titling it, “The Luckiest Guy in the World Says Goodbye.”

On his cell phone, he said, “I thought this would be cool, but it far surpassed my most wildest dreams.”

He extended the tour to one more trip to New York. He was joined by his youngest son, Chris, another son, Nathan, a recent Princeton graduate who works on Wall Street, and his nephew Kam, brother Bruce’s son who is a sophomore at Harvard.

“We’re all here on this bus, which is fully stocked, headed to another NBA playoff game,” he said. “How do you beat this?”

You may not like everything Walton says as a broadcaster, but it’s hard to knock his enthusiasm for life and basketball. That enthusiasm is one reason the networks love him. There was a report this week that he’s in line to become the No. 1 analyst for ABC and ESPN when those networks take over NBA coverage next season.

“I’ve heard nothing, I know nothing,” Walton said. “I’ve been all involved with this tour.”

Walton returned to his home in San Diego on Wednesday, finally getting a good night’s sleep. He’ll be at Staples Center tonight for Game 3 of the Laker-Sacramento series, joining his partners on NBC’s No. 1 announcing team, Marv Albert, Steve “Snapper” Jones and reporter Jim Gray.

There are no more local or cable telecasts during the rest of the NBA postseason. Everything from here on out is on NBC, meaning if you want to hear Chick Hearn and Stu Lantz, you’ll have to tune into Laker flagship radio station KLAC (570).

Walton says he’ll spend the weekend in Los Angeles and visit an old friend, John Wooden, at his home in Encino on Saturday. Then he’ll be back at Staples Center on Sunday afternoon for Game 4.

Walton came up with the idea for the tour last summer while recuperating from an operation, his 31st. This time he had his left ankle fused by Clipper team doctor Tony Daly at Daniel Freeman Marina Hospital in Marina del Rey, and then went home to recover. He was bedridden with a cast from toe to hip.

“Nathan came to visit and as he sat on the edge of the bed he asked me what I was going to do after I recovered,” Walton said. “I told him that I was never going to sit down again.”

From that conversation, Walton said, came the idea for the tour, and he sold the NBA on it.

While son Luke missed the entire tour because he is touring in Australia with the Arizona basketball team, wife Lori came along for a while.

“After six cross-country flights in four days, she was done,” Walton said.

As for Walton, he’d keep going forever if he could, talking to fans and passing out tie-dyed shirts with his rookie picture on it. You may have noticed he gave one to TNT’s Charles Barkley on Tuesday night.

Walton said he has never had so much fun, and the three hours of sleep a night and bouncing from one hotel to another didn’t bother him. One of the things he did as part of his daily reports was rate the hotels.

“We cited a hotel in Boston, of all places, for worst service,” he said. “I know it sounds unusual, but I like to drink hot water first thing in the morning. I always order two thermoses of hot water sent to the room, and quite a few hotels messed up the order. But this one hotel sent two thermoses of hot milk. Now what was I going to do with hot milk?”

Oh well, at least he never got food poisoning.

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Get the H Out

It was announced this week that Cris Carter was retiring from the NFL and would be joining HBO’s “Inside the NFL.” The cast for that show includes Cris Collinsworth.

It may seem odd that both spell their first name in an unconventional way, without an H. Well, there is an explanation.

When Carter, 36, was in high school near Cincinnati, one of his heroes was Collinsworth, 43, a wide receiver for the Bengals. Carter thought it was cool the way Collinsworth spelled his first name. So Carter began spelling it the same way. On Carter’s passport and driver’s license, his first name is spelled Chris.

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Football in May

NFL Europe, carried on Fox Sports Net on Saturdays and the Fox network on Sundays, is now in full swing. NFL Europe is a developmental league not only for players and referees but broadcasters as well. There are 14 NFL announcers and commentators who started out in NFL Europe, most notably Fox’s Troy Aikman and Daryl Johnston. Carter also did some NFL Europe games for Fox before being hired by HBO.

Saturday night, football returns to NBC. Only it isn’t the XFL.

In a one-hour special at 8 p.m., the network will show highlights of last Sunday’s game between the New York City police and the New York City firemen at Giants Stadium. The game is called “The Bravest vs. the Finest.”

This show will be about a lot more than football. There will be stories about many of those who lost their lives on Sept. 11.

The fire department team lost eight former players and seven active players, including starting quarterback Pat Lyons. His widow Irene, who gave birth to the couple’s son, Patrick, three weeks before the terrorist attacks, is among those featured on the show.

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Indy Tidbits

Paul Page, who was calling CART races for ABC the last three years, returns to call Sunday’s Indy 500, now that CART has moved to Fox. Page began calling the Indy 500 on radio in 1977 and switched to TV after Sid Collins’ death in 1988.... Bob Jenkins will serve as the host of the ABC coverage, Scott Goodyear will provide commentary and Jack Arute, Gary Gerould and Vince Welch will report from the pit area. Dr. Jerry Punch will serve as roving reporter.... Counting the cameras the Indianapolis Motor Speedway uses for international coverage, race-cams and ABC cameras in the pit area, there will be 54 cameras used to cover the race. There will be race-cams mounted on eight cars and ABC will have radio contact with two drivers, Scott Sharp and Arie Luyendyk.... If the race is rained out Sunday, ABC will show it live Monday.

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Short Waves

Kevin Frazier, one of the best sports anchors in the business, is close to signing with ESPN and leaving Fox Sports Net. At ESPN, he is expected to be a “SportsCenter” anchor and an NBA host.... CBS and HBO have revamped their NFL studio shows, and Fox Sports Net is said to be revamping “NFL This Morning.” Host Chris Myers will return, but with a new cast, expected to be Tony Siragusa, Michael Irvin and D’Marco Farr. That means Marv Levy, Deacon Jones and Billy Ray Smith probably will not be back.

Bill Weir has said he will be leaving Channel 7, and it could be fairly soon. He has taped two pilots for a half-hour show, “The Late Game,” which is produced by a company owned by “Saturday Night Live” creator Lorne Michaels. Weir says he expects to find out June 1 if USA wants the show for its 11 p.m. time slot. If USA says OK, Weir is gone.

A winning note: KLAC marketing director Bill Lewis sent an e-mail Wednesday noting that his station had broadcast eight Laker games since April 25 and 23 Angel games since April 26. The two teams combined were 26-5, a winning percentage of .839. ... Did you happen to notice the Channel 2 promos on during the Laker game on Channel 9 Monday night? That’s because Viacom, which owns CBS, also owns Channel 9. ... TNT and TBS averaged a 2.5 rating for their 36 NBA playoff games, up from 2.3 last year.

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In Closing

The Kentucky Derby is supposed to be the most exciting two minutes in sports, and after last weekend we know the most boring 15 minutes in sports. It’s the NBA draft lottery. How brutal was that?