Friday, April 02, 1999
SPORTS ON TV-RADIO
Wire-to-wire baseball begins Sunday on ESPN
BY JOHN FAY
The Cincinnati Enquirer
ESPN opens the baseball broadcasting season Sunday night, and by Wednesday or so we will have reached the saturation point.
Among ESPN, WGN, TBS and Fox, there will be games on pretty much every night from now until October.
ESPN opening night — Colorado vs. San Diego from Monterrey, Mexico, 8 p.m., Sunday — isn't any great shakes.
But the leadoff game opening day telecast — Arizona at Los Angeles, 4 p.m., Monday — is the best ESPN could have hoped for, with Arizona's Randy Johnson facing LA's Kevin Brown.
The Reds' opener with San Francisco (2:15 p.m., Fox Sports Ohio) should end about the timeJohnson and Brown crank it up.
REAL REDS: Jeff Piecoro, host of the Real Reds preview show, which debuts Monday at 1 p.m., says they'll try to keep it lively.
“It's not going to be a typical interview show,” he said. “The producer, Doug Yalacki, wants to keep it fast-paced, MTV-style. We're going to try to do off-the-field stuff.”
HOMER COVERAGE: WCKY-AM (“Homer,” 1360-AM) is carrying the ESPN Radio package this year, including three games this weekend that also are televised on ESPN.
CHANNEL 9 PREVIEW: Channel 9 will air a half-hour Reds review show Saturday at 7 p.m. Kathrine Nero did the bulk of the work on the show.
APRIL FOOLS: The problem with doing April Fool's jokes on the radio is in the end the station just looks foolish. That was the case with the hoax at WBOB about Pete Rose being reinstated by baseball. The only thing less funny was BOB's offer to donate $1 million to the cystic fibrosis research if Boomer Esiason re-signed with the Bengals.
WALLY ALERT: Miami's Wally Szczerbiak is one of five finalists in Los Angeles for presentation of the Wooden Award. The show will be carried live at 7 p.m. on Fox Sports Ohio. Channel 19 alum Kevin Frazier is the host.
KOUFAX NO. 42: Sandy Koufax, who ranked No.42, will be featured in ESPN's Top 50 Greatest Athletes of the Century tonight at 10:30 p.m. Koufax is the only pitcher in the Top 50.
MARV'S BACK: Marv Albert makes his network return tonight when he calls the 8 p.m. Los Angeles Lakers at Phoenix Suns game for TNT. (Great, a rare chance to catch the Lakers).
Albert's personal and legal problems aside — and that's a large aside — he is a top-shelf play-by-play guy.
BLAST FROM THE PAST: CBS will revive the old Superstars competition, a stable of 1970s TV. The show airs at 5 p.m. Sunday.
PATRICK AT PIT: ESPN's Dan Patrick will the featured speaker at the Elder Sports Stag April 28.
John Fay covers TV/radio sports for The Enquirer. He can be reached at 768-8445
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