ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, May 4, 1996 TAG: 9605060118
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B4 EDITION: METRO
COLUMN: ON THE AIR
SOURCE: JACK BOGACZYK
It will be a rare afternoon Sunday at Salem Memorial Baseball Stadium.
WDBJ (Channel 7) will air the first televised game from the 6,000-seat ballpark. The Avalanche also is expecting a large crowd for the 3 p.m. date with Lynchburg. The club doesn't often draw well for day games.
The Avalanche already has an advance ticket sale approaching 4,000. Salem has dressed up the diamond, too, with a city logo painted behind home plate. That will remain there through the NCAA Division III World Series at the end of this month.
The game is also the first live regular-season telecast in a Salem pro baseball history that pre-dates TV. The Carolina League All-Star Game was aired on Home Team Sports and other cable outlets from Municipal field in 1992.
Carolina League president John Hopkins said the Avalanche-Hillcats game is the Class A league's first regular-season game on over-the-air TV in two years, since the Durham Bulls' last telecast on Raleigh's WRAL. Hopkins said the only other Carolina League teams televising this season are Lynchburg and Frederick, but only on local cable systems access channels.
``It's a big day for us,'' said WDBJ programming director Mike Bell of Sunday's game, which also is WDBJ Family Day at the ballpark. ``We've televised [auto] racing and basketball, but the hardest thing to do is baseball, because of the [limited] action time in a 2 1/2-hour period, and visually, it's the most difficult.''
Channel 7 has televised five races from New River Valley Speedway in the past two years and last November originated the telecast of the first regular-season basketball meeting between VMI and Washington and Lee. WDBJ will do another race July 27 from the New River track, and plans more hoops next season, including perhaps a Radford University game.
WDBJ will have between 35 and 40 staffers working on the baseball telecast, and Bell said the production costs are in the $5,000-6,000 range.
``Logistically, this one [Sunday's game] is closer to home than those others,'' Bell said. ``So, it's easier to set up, but we're still eight miles from the station, so it's going to take a satellite truck to get [the signal] back. We're really looking forward to this, because all of us involved really like baseball.''
It helps that the new ballpark is TV friendly, with its camera boxes at the end of both dugouts. WDBJ will use seven cameras on the game - that's more than ESPN uses on one of its Wednesday telecasts - and three tape replay machines.
Sports director Mike Stevens will do the play-by-play, with meteorologist Robin Reed doing the color and Patrick Evans as reporter. While they're at the ballpark, sportscaster Steve Mason will be in downtown Roanoke doing live news cut-ins to the finish of Stage 5 of the Tour DuPont.
RECYCLING: WSLS (Channel 10) returns as the station with the most comprehensive coverage of the Tour DuPont. The station-sponsored ``Spirit of Virginia'' Stage 5 pedals from Mount Airy, N.C., to downtown Roanoke on Sunday, and Channel 10 will air a live, 2 1/2-hour show.
The cycling will pre-empt the middle game - Game 5 of the Portland-Utah series - of the NBA playoff tripleheader from NBC. The game will move to Danville's WDRG (Channel 24) at 3 p.m. The Tour coverage begins at that time on Channel 10, which will rejoin basketball about 5:30 p.m., or at the start of Game 1 of the New York-Chicago NBA Eastern Conference semifinal series.
WSLS news anchor and managing editor John Carlin will host the Tour coverage from the Jefferson Street finish line. WSLS will produce the show, incorporating video from the Medalist Sports-produced event, including shots from a helicopter camera. Sports director Greg Roberts will do interviews and news anchor Lee Ann Necessary and meteorologist Chuck Bell will provide stories among the crowds.
Channel 10 also will do cut-ins and live coverage of the finish of Monday's Stage 6 from Salem to Blacksburg. The cut-ins begin with the start at the Salem Civic Center, then will air twice and hour beginning at noon. The live show of the finish on the Virginia Tech Mall is expected to begin approximately 4:30 p.m., and run into the 5 p.m. newscast.
WSLS also is airing a nightly five-minute highlights show on each stage at 11:30 p.m. Sportscaster Justin Ditmore, on the road with the cycling event through May 12, reports on that show.
WHO WINS? There is another piece of intrigue on Sunday's big telecast sports day from the Roanoke Valley. Since stations are in a ratings ``sweeps'' period, head-to-head viewership numbers for the Avalanche game on WDBJ and the Tour DuPont on WSLS will be available for comparison sake.
While the two stations have local sports programming, Lynchburg's WSET (Channel 13) will air women's volleyball and Houston Open golf from ABC. WJPR/WFXR (Channels 21/27) will have the New York Rangers-Pittsburgh game from Fox's NHL playoff package at 3 p.m.
AIRINGS: Virginia Tech's games in the Atlantic 10 Conference baseball tournament in Boyertown, Pa., next weekend will be broadcast on WNNI (1260 AM) in the New River Valley, with Bill Roth handling play-by-play. The Hokies' first game in the double-elimination event is scheduled at 7:30 p.m. Friday against Temple. ... ESPN and ESPN2 are combining for 150 hours of auto racing in May, starting with today's opening Indianapolis 500 practice at 2 p.m. More than 95 of those hours, mostly from Indy practices and time trials, will be live. ... Home Box Office has an intriguing three-fight card Friday at 9 p.m. - all heavyweights - with Tim Witherspoon against Jorge Luis Gonzalez, Lennox Lewis against Ray Mercer and Evander Holyfield against Bobby Czyz. ... With the NHL playoffs having moved into the quarterfinals, ESPN analyst Barry Melrose is picking Philadelphia and Detroit to meet in the Stanley Cup Finals. tripleheader, with the Southeastern, Big 12 and WAC championship games.
LENGTH: Long : 101 linesby CNB