ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, October 12, 1996 TAG: 9610150013
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B5 EDITION: METRO
COLUMN: ON THE AIR
SOURCE: JACK BOGACZYK
Baseball's best team already is out of the postseason.
I'm not talking about the Cleveland Indians, but ESPN's duo of wisdom and wit, Jon Miller and Joe Morgan. In cable's first opportunity at postseason play, ESPN aired eight Division Series telecasts and displayed why its regular ``Sunday Night Baseball'' series is so popular with fans of the national pastime.
Miller and Morgan have been together on ESPN for eight seasons, and while they've developed a great chemistry, their knowledge and experience make them a special team. With the postseason analyst chairs filled by ex-catchers - Tim McCarver, Bob Uecker, Bob Brenly and Buck Martinez - Morgan, a Hall of Fame second baseman, is an exception and exceptional.
With ESPN finished with its first baseball October, Morgan's addition to the NBC team with Bob Costas and Uecker have produced enjoyment and astute commentary to go with the early excitement in the American League Championship Series.
The difference between the hilarious Uecker and studious Morgan is striking. And Costas is obviously just so thrilled to be calling his love, baseball, the combination makes for a great call. Although they haven't worked together much, the mix already is bubbling.
The Fox Network, in its first baseball season, gets the World Series. Joe Buck, McCarver and Brenly will get that assignment after the Atlanta-St. Louis series for the National League pennant. The youthful Buck gets a bit too exuberant and loud at times, but, compared to Fox baselines studio host Chip Caray, Buck is whispering.
As his grandfather might say: Holy cow, Chip! Settle down.
No question, however, Morgan is the star of this viewer's postseason play.
LOW BALL: Fox has set and tied the record for the lowest national Nielsen ratings for a League Championship Series game for both games of the Atlanta-St. Louis series. The 8.7 ratings for Games 1 and 2 on Wednesday and Thursday are below the previous nadir, a 9.0 for Game 4 of the Minnesota-Toronto ALCS in 1991. Those numbers date to the start of the playoff round in 1969.
GAME CALLED: Bob Clark, sports director at WFIR (960 AM), said the station has fielded more than a few complaints about the absence of some baseball playoff games from CBS Radio. The Roanoke station has not carried afternoon games during the playoffs and also has pre-empted a few night games.
WFIR lost two baseball games because of its contract with the Roanoke Express to carry two of the hockey club's three preseason games, Wednesday and Friday night. It cannot air Sunday's hockey exhibition game because of the Washington Redskins' game. It also has a contract to air the Sunday night NFL game, meaning Game 4 of the National League Championship Series won't be on the air.
Clark said that besides contractual commitments, WFIR has not pre-empted its weekday afternoon talk format because of local advertising sales in those shows, which, if not aired, would mean a financial loss to the station.
``The baseball was on 11-12 hours some of these days [during the Division Series],'' Clark said. ``That's a tremendous amount. There's no way we can commit that kind of time, with what we have to get on the air.''
Clark said WFIR will air all of the World Series games from CBS Radio, starting next Saturday night.
RECOVERING: Longtime West Virginia football voice Jack Fleming still hopes to return to the Mountaineers' radio network before the end of the season. Fleming, who suffered a series of strokes in late August, left the air after working the first two games of his 47th season for the WVU network, which includes Roanoke's WFIR.
``It's Jack's intention to come back as soon as possible,'' said WVU sports information director Shelley Poe. ``He's at our games, and he wants to return. He's just not quite up to it yet.''
NICE PICK: Mike Aresco was just doing his job, and he did it well. Aresco was ESPN's programming chief for college sports when CBS and ESPN sat down to make their preseason selections for the network's college football packages with the Big East and Southeastern Conference.
In what works like a draft, Aresco chose the Oct. 26 Miami-West Virginia for a 7 p.m. slot on ESPN as one of the network's locked-in games. It has developed into one of the biggest games of the season. CBS, at noon, will have the ho-hum Syracuse-Boston College game.
Then, not long after those choices, Aresco moved to the same job at CBS, while former CBS college sports programmer Len DeLuca moved to ESPN. Too bad Aresco couldn't take his Miami-WVU pick with him.
LATER: The Amos Alonzo Stagg Bowl starts another hour later on Dec.14 at Salem Stadium, with a 2p.m. kickoff this year after 1 last year and noon the two previous years. The game does move from ESPN2 to a live telecast on ESPN, delivering the potential for almost twice as many viewing homes.
The reason the game has been moved back has a Roanoke Valley connection, too. ESPN has a college basketball game that Saturday at noon, with Temple meeting Tulsa, coached by Roanoke native and former William Fleming High School, Ferrum and Radford star Steve Robinson.
AROUND THE DIAL: It's that time, already. ESPN and ESPN2 will begin college basketball season, as usual, with ``Midnight Madness'' shows Monday night (actually Tuesday morning). Saint Louis, Texas and Tulane will appear at 1a.m. on ESPN, with Wake Forest, Cincinnati and Providence on ESPN2 at midnight. Nielsen ratings for baseball's Division Series were down 36 percent from last year's Baseball Network regionalization with fewer time slots, but the separate start times for each game brought more baseball to more viewers. ``Furthermore, each day we had an after-school game scheduled,'' said baseball's marketing chief, Greg Murphy. ``That's progress.'' Virginia graduate Melissa Stark, a Baltimore native, has moved from Home Team Sports to ESPN as the new host of ``Scholastic Sports America.'' Stark previously worked on production of the UVa coaches' TV shows.
LENGTH: Long : 105 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: ESPN ESPN baseball announcers Jon Miller (left) andby CNBJoe Morgan are the best team to not make the playoffs.