Michaels Took the Wind Out of NBC’s Sails

Al Michaels last week turned down an offer from NBC to do play-by-play on “Sunday Night Football” beginning in 2006. He instead signed with ESPN to continue doing “Monday Night Football.”

A few hours before ESPN announced the hiring of Michaels, NBC Sports Chairman Dick Ebersol, in a conference call with reporters, announced that Bob Costas would be the studio host of “Sunday Night Football.”

Ebersol told reporters that at the time he was sitting waterside in Martha’s Vineyard, watching Walter Cronkite pull away from his dock on a sailboat.

Costas, who was also on the call, said to Ebersol, “Now that Al is apparently not coming to NBC, I suggest you grab a canoe and paddle out to Walter and see what he’d like you to do about the play-by-play job.”

As for letting Michaels slip away, some critics believe NBC may have missed the boat.

Trivia time: When Costas was hired by NBC in December 1979, what was the first sport he covered?

More Costas: He was a guest on Jon Stewart’s “The Daily Show” on Comedy Central last week, and Stewart asked Costas what was different about his HBO show, which underwent a name change from “Costas On the Record” to “Costas Now.”

Costas explained that it was formerly a 12-week series, but is now on once a month.

Said Stewart: “Why don’t they call it ‘Costas Periodically’ or ‘Costas Sometimes’? Or ‘Costas When He Feels Like It’?”

Lacking clairvoyance: When Costas taped an interview with Larry Brown on June 8 in San Antonio, he asked Brown if there was any chance the Detroit Pistons might say, “You know what, we’ve reached a fork in the road. You may want to continue, you may have a reasonably clean bill of health and think you can continue, but now we say no”?

Said Brown: “There’s no way they’re going to let me go.”

Plane tired: John Daly flew on a private plane from Germany to San Diego overnight so that he could team with Tiger Woods in last week’s Battle at the Bridges. After he and Woods lost to Retief Goosen and Phil Mickelson, Daly said he has a tough time sleeping on a plane.

Daly, citing another reason he doesn’t like to fly, said: “You can’t pull over to get any food.”

Just say no: Comedian Argus Hamilton, claiming that the Dallas Cowboys, who are training in Oxnard, want no distractions this year, says: “Jerry Jones went around to local grade schools and asked the kids to come out to the training camp and talk to the players about the dangers of drugs.”

Looking back: On this day in 1945, Mel Ott of the New York Giants hit his 500th home run against the Boston Braves at the Polo Grounds. He became the third player to reach 500, joining Babe Ruth and Jimmie Foxx.

Trivia answer: Power lifting, for the show “Sportsworld.”

And finally: Of his first NBC assignment, Costas said, “It pretty much set the mold for my career at NBC, because when people think of Bob Costas they think power lifting.”

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Larry Stewart can be reached at larry.stewart@latimes.com.