Not-ready-for-prime-time media notes

==For those who still claim there was something fishy going on during the Lakers-Sacramento 2002 Western Conference finals, the New York Times' Richard Sandomir reviews the NBC coverage of that game again, and asks Bill Walton for his 20/20 hindsight view of it.
"You can look at any play or any game and say the referees did a good job here or a bad job there," said Walton, who called the game with Marv Albert and Steve Jones. "You're talking about some of the best referees ever in Delaney and Bavetta. I have never questioned their integrity."

==We've got more than a feeling that the NBA fans in Boston aren't sleeping well lately, even with a 3-1 Celtics lead in the series.
When the NBA Finals are out in these parts, late tipoffs are hardly the issue. So before NBA commissioner David Stern left from Boston to L.A. to continue the series, he had to address the fact that the 9 p.m. tipoffs on the East Coast were, well, quite bothersome. Especially a Game 2 on a Sunday.
Stern did his best to appease those who complain the loudest, including a sports talk guy on a Boston radio show who Stern said "excoriated" him, but he really didn't offer any kind of alternative. Because there really is none that makes financial sense.
"We wrestle with it, because if the idea is to let the largest audience see the game -- including youngsters -- there's no doubt that at 11:30 Eastern, that's when the largest audience is gathered," Stern said before Game 2. "It wouldn't be a terrible thing to have a Sunday night game at 7 o'clock, but our network partners tell us that your ratings will be lower ... and why would you want to have a lower audience count? So that's the dilemma we face."
Or, a conspiracy they face. But let's not even go there, eh?
Why not put the Sunday games on in the afternoon, like those 12:30 p.m. PDT/3:30 p.m. EST starts during the regular season and earlier in the playoffs ... wouldn't that work? Talk to us after Game 5 and its 6 p.m. tipoff.

==FSN West's updated schedule on Sunday leading to the Lakers' Game 5 coverage and before the Bill Macdonald/Rick Fox/Norm Nixon hosted post-game show at 9 p.m.:
-Noon: "Before the Bigs" with Sasha Vujacic
-12:30 p.m. "In My Own Words" with Magic Johnson
-1 p.m.: "Magic vs. Bird: The Game that Changed the Game"
-2 p.m.: "In Focus" - Lakers vs. Celtics
-2:30 p.m.: "In Focus" - Kobe Bryant Scores 81 Points

==TNT's NBA team -- Ernie Johnson, Kenny Smith and Charles Barkley -- will be guests on the "Tonight Show with Jay Leno" on Tuesday (11:35 p.m., Channel 4), the first time that the three have appeared together on a talk show other than their own.

==More on ABC's plan do to a Father's Day piece on Bill and Luke Walton during its Game 5 coverage of the NBA Finals, a story in today's USA Today.

==Saturday's "NBA Access with Ahmad Rashad" (Channel 7, 3:30 p.m.) goes to Kobe Bryant's home to show his family-man side with daughters Natalia and Gianna. Oh, and his wife ... Vanessa, that's her name, right?

**GOLF

==Still a little queezy hearing Chris Berman welcome you to the U.S. Open on Thursday morn? In an interview with the San Diego Union Tribune's Jay Posner last week -- a must-read for those Berman bashers -- the ESPN 800-pound gorilla tries to defend his every-man existence on a golf telecast.
"First of all," he said, "it's unfair because if you're on the air for six hours and heaven forbid I say, 'Ground control to David Toms,' you're writing it like I said it 500 times. Not the case."
Even more surprising, the June 13 issue of Golf World -- which advertises that it's in partnership with ESPN -- "Angry Golfer" columnist Andy Hawkins blasts the network's choice of Berman, and having the tournament coverage "anchored by a rumblin', bumblin', stumblin' earsore whose knowledge of pro golf is either severely impaired or on extended vacation. The nicknames. The clichés. The thousands of words spoken without a gram of true insight."

==It was a mutual decision more than a year ago between the USGA and NBC to do more prime-time coverage (in the East) for this weekend's U.S. Open., and some of that was predicated on the fact that the best-rated U.S. Open (9.3) came in 2002 when a weather delay pushed things back to a finish that went past 8:30 p.m. ET -- as well as a Tiger Woods-Phil Mickelson finish. Before that, the 2000 U.S. Open from Pebble Beach, with more weather problems, pushed the end of the Saturday third round to nearly 10:30 p.m. ET with Woods in the lead.
"They're pretty forward thinking," NBC Sports executive Jon Miller said of USGA executive David Fay agreeing to the plan. "Much like the Super Bowl and World Series, the biggest events should be played on the biggest stages," Miller said.

**COLLEGE BASEBALL:

==Despite the fact there are no teams of Southern California interest in the College World Series, viewership interest remains constant in these parts because of area players competing on various teams. Take Stanford pitcher Austin Yount -- the nephew of Hall of Famer Robin Yount (Taft High) and son of Larry Yount (also of Taft) and a 12th round draft pick by the Dodgers last week.
ESPN and ESPN2 begins coverage of the eight-team finals starting Saturday, with ESPN360.com simulcasting. For the first time, the three-game final series is in East Coast prime time from June 23-25. It's the sixth year the ESPN networks have done every game of the CWS, and the 29th year in a row ESPN has been part of the coverage. The broadcast teams include Mike Patrick, Sean McDonough and Karl Ravech on play-by-play and Orel Hershier (an All-MAC pitcher with Bowling Green), Barry Larkin, Robin Ventura and Kyle Peterson as analysts, with Erin Andrews flitting about as a reporter.
As usual, the umpires wear microphones for live and taped audio.
This weekend's schedule:
Saturday:
ESPN, 11 a.m.: Stanford vs. Florida State (McDonough, Ventura, Peterson)
ESPN, 4 p.m.: Georgia vs. Miami (Patrick, Hershiser, Andrews)
Sunday:
ESPN, noon: Fresno State vs. Rice (Ravech, Ventura, Andrews)
ESPN2, 4 p.m.: LSU vs. North Carolina (McDonough, Larkin, Peterson)
ESPNU has coaches' press conferences today at noon and Sunday, June 22 at 9 a.m.
Sirius Satellite Radio has every game as well on Channel 119.

**BASEBALL:

==Texas Rangers DH Milton Bradley said Thursday that all he wanted to "introduce" himself to Kansas City Royals television analyst Ryan Lefebvre after some negative comments made about him on the air during Wednesday's broadcast. Security stopped Bradley just short of the broadcast booth after he stormed up stormed up four flights of Kauffman Stadium stairs looking for Lefebvre after
the Rangers' 11-5 victory Wednesday night. "I came in to watch my at-bat on the video and all of a sudden I heard my name," Bradley said Thursday. "It was a spiel like five minutes out of the blue about me. I didn't think anything he was saying was anything positive. I never met him and I heard him talking about me on TV. I was upset and was going to introduce myself. ... All I wanted to do was introduce myself and tell him the stuff you're talking about is uncalled for." The former Dodger Bradley was also intercepted by Rangers GM Jon Daniels and manager Ron Washington before he made it to talk to Lefebvre, the son of former Dodger Jim Lefebvre. Ryan Lefebvre said he met with Daniels and Washington about his on-the-air comments, but did not talk to Bradley. Lefebvre said the comments were "about how (the Rangers') Josh Hamilton has turned his life around and has been accountable for his mistakes. Right now, it seems like the baseball world and fans are rooting for him. ... It doesn't seem like Milton Bradley has done the same thing in his life." Bradley continued: "I get tired of people only choose to talk about negativity. People would automatically assume that if I went to meet that guy that we were going to start fighting. That would be completely out of my character. I never had a fight in my life."
Do we need to rehash Bradley's problems on, or off, the field? This attempt to go after a member of the media is hardly new -- ask former L.A. Times reporter Jason Reid, who Bradley called "an Uncle Tom" in the locker room before a Dodgers' playoff game in 2004.
"I've done some things that have been construed as violent or temperamental," Bradley said Thursday. "But I've never physically harmed anyone."
More on the original story on MLB.com, posted on the Rangers' site and the Dallas Morning News.

==The Detroit Free Press reports that efforts by former Tigers Hall of Fame broadcaster Ernie Harwell to save old Tigers Stadium from demolition have been heard, and the mayor has given him and his group until Aug. 1 to come up with the money needed for their plan to have some of it restored.

==The Dodgers' game at Detroit goes to only 17 percent of the Fox viewing audience on Saturday (12:55 p.m., Channel 11) with Dick Stockton and Eric Karros. More than half the Fox audience gets Boston at Cincinnati (56 percent) and the rest get the only NL game of the day, Philadelphia at St. Louis. TBS will also do Boston-Cincinnati on Sunday at 10 a.m. with Skip Caray and Buck Martinez.

==In addition to FSN West's coverage of the Angels' game Monday (7 p.m.) against the New York Mets, FSN Prime will have a "Dugout View" with Bill Macdonald that goes to the field-level prespective with hand-held cameras in the front row of the field level seats and without the broadcasters' audio.

==The Angels' game Sunday from the Big A against Atlanta makes the ESPN schedule (5 p.m.) with Jon Miller and Joe Morgan, plus Peter Gammons. On that note, we rewind to last Sunday's Dodgers-Cubs game, where Awfulannouncing.com had posted the transcript of an eighth-inning exchange between Morgan and Miller that's somewhat confounding. It focuses on Morgan telling a story about former Mets outfielder Matt Franco (Westlake High) asked him a "trivia" question that, according to Morgan, had only one answer. But Miller rightfully argued that there was no right answer. Then somehow Kurt Russell got into the conversation and ... all Morgan broke loose.
It almost makes you long for the days when Morgan would simply stick to the script of an Aqua Velva commercial 30 years ago:

==From OnionSports.com:

Player To Be Named Later From 1992 Trade Finally Named: 'It Was Lenny Dykstra,' Says Phillies GM

PHILADELPHIA--The July 2, 1992 trade which sent Dodgers outfielder Stan Javier to the Phillies for Steve Searcy and a player to be named later was formally completed Sunday, when it was announced that the unnamed player was Lenny Dykstra. "Yup, it was Lenny Dykstra," said former Phillies GM Lee Thomas, who orchestrated the trade 16 years ago. "Probably should have mentioned that sooner." When informed about the trade Monday, Dykstra said he would do his best to help the Dodgers win in 1992 through 1996.

**HIGH SCHOOL

==As part of ESPN's desire to buy up content to improve its high school sports coverage, the company has announced the purchase of Torrance-based Student Sports Inc., founded by Andy Bark and a top-notch business for 22 years. The Student Sports company includes two websites -- StudentSports.com and DyeStat.com -- as well as more than 160 events, such as Elite 11, Area Code Baseball and Nike Combines/Nike SPARQ Mini Camps. "Andy Bark has been an innovator and leader in high school content for more than 20 years," said John Kosner, senior vice president and general manager, ESPN Digital Media. "Adding Andy and the Student Sports team will enable ESPNRISE.com to offer rich coverage to fans and athletes across high school sports -- a great complement to the assets we have in Scouts, Inc., RISEMag.com and Hoopgurlz.com." Said Bark: "We have served millions of students who play sports - as well as their parents, coaches and fans - for many years, and to continue to do so as a part of ESPN and its authentic and integrated platforms is a dream come true."

**COLLEGE FOOTBALL:

==A breakdown of the 31 games that'll show up on FSN's Pac-10 (13) and Big 12 (18) schedule this fall include:
Thursday, August 28: Wake Forest at Baylor, 5 p.m.
Sat., Aug. 30: Oklahoma St. vs. Washington St. in Seattle, 12:30 p.m.; Washington at Oregon, 7 p.m.
Sunday, Aug. 31: Colorado St. vs. Colorado in Denver, 4:30 p.m.
Sat., Sept. 6: BYU at Washington, noon; Louisiana Tech at Kansas, 4 p.m.
Sat., Sept. 13: Washington St. at Baylor, 9:30 a.m.
Sat. Sept. 20: Arizona at UCLA, noon
Sat. Oct. 18: USC at Washington, 12:30 p.m
Sat. Oct. 25: USC at Arizona, 7:15 p.m.
Sat. Nov. 1: Arizona State at Oregon State, 7:15 p.m.
Sat. Nov. 22: Washington at Washington State, noon
Sat. Nov. 29: Kansas vs. Missouri at K.C., 9:30 a.m. or noon.

**HORSE RACING

==Big Brown -- is that the horse's name; we've pretty much forgotten him by now -- finishing last in Saturday's Belmont Stakes helped ABC do a 9.0 rating (14.6 million viewers) between 3:15 and 4:11 p.m. (PDT). Imagine if the thing had won. It's a long stretch from the 13.1 that NBC had in 2004 when Smarty Jones was threatening to win the Triple Crown.

*MISC.

==ESPN ombudsman Lee Anne Schreiber writes in her latest critique of the network notes that the decision to end morning replays of "SportsCenter" will bring an end to the "Sports Center Specials," which she says have been "an unwieldy, artificially bloated, overused mechanism for handling major and not-so-major breaking news. When criticized as such by me or others, the bottom-line defense has been that a live-if-overblown Special is better than re-airs ... ESPN will lose its best excuse for asking its on-air talent to fill five gallons of airtime with a half-pint of breaking news."

==A new DirecTV lineup of sports channels starting Wednesday will move FSN West from Channel 652 to 692, and FSN Prime Ticket from Channel 653 to 694. An alternate channel for FSN West will be on Channel 693.
One other notable adjustment: Fox Soccer Channel will shift from Channel 613 to 619.
A DirecTV spokesman said the change in the 600-channel range where all the regional sports networks fall is due to the addition of several new networks over the last five years, plus the addition of channels to accomodate "overflow" games from the networks. The realignment will start next week and continue through into Septemeber.

==The latest "In My Own Words" featuring the Sparks' Candace Parker launched on FSN West after the Lakers' postgame show Thursday, but replays include tonight (10:30 p.m., FSN Prime Ticket), Wednesday (9:30 pm., FSNPT) and Saturday, June 21 (9:30 p.m., FSNPT).

==HBO replays its 2003 documentary "Jim McKay: My World In My Words," which the ABC sportscaster wrote and narrated himself, Sunday at 11:30 a.m. (on HBO) and Monday at 11:55 p.m. (on HBO2)

==The NFL Network, which has already taken possession of several college bowl games, has infiltrated high school pigskin as well -- it's doing three all-star games this month, staring with the 2008 Bayou Bowl on Saturday (5 p.m.), which takes graduated players from Texas and Louisiana. The network is also doing the New York/New Jersey All-Star Classic (June 21, 5 p.m.) and the PNC Big 33 All-Star Game, which highlights players from Pennsylvania and Ohio (June 28, 5 p.m.).

==Those uninterested in FSN West's NBA Finals postgame show after Sunday's Game 5 can head over to FSN Prime Ticket for a flashback to the 1996 Summer Olympics. More specifically, the beach volleyball venue. The 9 p.m. special, hosted by Chris McGee and including Karch Kiraly, Singin Smith and Carl Henkel, relive the action from Atlanta when the sport made its Olympic debut. The show comes after FSN PT's airing of last week's men's and women's final of the AVP's Hermosa Beach Open. In related news, FSN West/Prime VP/GM Steve Simpson was recently named to the USA Volleyball board of directors, where he'll focus on advancing the sport of beach volleyball after the Beijing Games.

==Versus extended its deal with the organizers of the Tour de France as the exclusive U.S. TV home through 2013. This year's event starts July 5 live at 5:30 a.m.

==Ian Eagle, Dwight Stones, Carol Lewis and Ato Boldon are on both CBS' and CBS College Sports Network coverage of the NCAA track and field championships from Drake Stadium in Des Moines, Iowa this weekend -- that is, if local flooding hasn't impacted the event. CBS has live coverage Saturday (1 to 3 p.m., Channel 2). CBS College Sports has three hours today (5 to 8 p.m.).

==An update on how The Sporting News plans to reinvent itself, from this story in the New York Times, indicates that new owner, American City Business Journals, is willing to venture into unknown waters. Starting July 23, TSN will come out as a daily digital newsletter called Sporting News Today for subscribers. By September, the printed edition will come out twice a month with "more color, better paper and a slew of name columnists" -- including Deadspin.com's Will Leitch -- at $3.99 an issue. The story says that American City Business Journals' research shows nearly 60 percent use the Internet to track the scores of games in real time and 62 percent use mobile phones for scores.

==The third USA Rock Paper Scissors championship tournament, taking place June 20-22 in Las Vegas, has secured a spot on FSN's "Best Dam Sports Show Period" to air Oct. 6. The winner will be flown to Bejing this summer as the U.S. representative in an international competition during the Summer Olympics that involves a competitor from Ireland, Canada, Guam and Hong Kong.

==Bob Fitzgerald and Wolf Wigo will call MSNBC's coverage Sunday (9 a.m.) of the U.S. 8-5 victory over Croatia in an exhibition men's water polo match that took place May 31 at the Oaks Christian pool in Westlake Village. Also on the telecast is the BMX Olympic trails that took place recently in Chula Vista.

==In what seems to be a backward progression, Showtime reairs the May 31 CBS "EliteXC Saturday Night Fights" mixed martial arts show tonight at 11 p.m., leading into its coverage of a five-fight show Saturday at 10 p.m. that does not include Kimbo Slice.

==Sunday's ESPN "Outside the Lines" (6:30 a.m.) examines the problems that Becky Hammon has run into by agreeing to play for the Russian National basketball team during this summer's Olympics. The Rapid City, South Dakota native wanted to play for the U.S. team, but she wasn't included on the roster. When the 2007 WNBA MVP runner-up signed a four-yeat deal to play for a Russian club this off season, she also agreed to be on their team, prompting U.S. coach Anne Donovan to question her patriotism. Mark Schwarz is the reporter.

==A nicely written remembrance of former San Diego Union Tribune sports editor and columnist Barry Lorge, who died of cancer last week, by Hank Wesch should not go overlooked.

==For those who love to gnash their teeth over the Chicago Sun Times' Jay Mariotti, the ESPN "Around The Horn" fixture and a target of plenty of Internet bloggers, read up on how he's managed to irk the columnists at his own paper who can't retailiate with these recent pieces on Deadspin.com and AwfulAnnouncing.com, who picked up the story from Chicago Tribune media writer Teddy Greenstein. Or don't read it and save yourself five minutes of time you could do something more useful.

**AND FINALLY:

==Compliments of a reader of Don Barrett's LARadio.com, this taxi cab topper is an ad we've seen while driving on the 405 recently but never had the camera ready to capture it. The "Roggin & Simers Squared" show has only been off the air for, what is it, at least six months now? Replaced by the syndicated Dan Patrick show on KLAC-570 AM, but not replaced on the ad campaign, these are still seen around town:

**AND ONE MORE PLUG FOR THE ROAD:
==It was only on the screen for maybe a flash, but the Daily News got some subliminal TV time during Fox's coverage of the Dodgers' game against the Chicago Cubs last Saturday afternoon: