The Media Learning Curve: E6, F5, 3-2-3 ... hike

In the forward to Paul Dickson book, "The Joy Of Keeping Score," ESPN's Tim Kurkjian writes that when Tim McCarver went from the field to the broadcast booth in 1980, "his first move was to ask a baseball writer, 'How do you keep score?'"

Why should that be surprising? What, the McCarver asked someone to explain something to him instead of the other way around? Just because McCarver is now a broadcaster longer than he was a player didn't automatically mean he knew what all those scribbles meant on the scoresheet.

Many don't.

After what we covered in today's column (linked here) about TBS' insistance in using the scorebook graphic on their games -- which has come in handy in trying to review a game in progress -- we have a few more chicken scratches to decipher:

== Santa Anita's Lady's Secret Handicap -- which includes an appearance from Zenyatta, defending her title -- is part of a five-race, two-hour presentation that ESPN Classic will have Saturday from 2 to 4 p.m., along with the track's Goodwill Stakes and Oak Tree Mile. Joe Tessitore hosts with Randy Moss and Jerry Bailey, plus handicapper Hank Goldberg and Jay Privman at Santa Anita. The card also includes the Shadwell Turf Mile Handicap and Breeders' Futurity from Keeneland. On Sunday at 2 p.m., ESPN also has the Juddmonte Spinster Stakes and the Keeneland Turf. This all funnels into the Breeders' Cup World Championships set for Nov. 6-7 at Santa Anita (on ABC and ESPN).

== TNT sends Marv Albert, Mike Fratello, Reggie Miller and Cheryl Miller to Indian Wells near Palm Springs for the second outdoor NBA exhibition game, this time played between Phoenix and Golden State from the Indian Wells Tennis Garden, Saturday at 6:30 p.m.

== After Golf Channel's coverage (with NBC's production team) of the Presidents Cup four-ball matches today (11 a.m. to 5 p.m.), NBC has the foursomes and four-ball matches Saturday (8 a.m. to 6 p.m.) and singles matches Sunday (9 a.m. to 3 p.m.) Dan Hicks and Johnny Miller are the main voices, with Gary Koch, Roger Maltbie, Mark Rolfing and Dottie Pepper, and Jimmy Roberts tagging along.

== The WNBA Finals, which hits Game 5 tonight, has averaged 521,000 viewers through the first four games on ESPN2, which is up 65 percent from last year's 316,000. Terry Gannon, Carolyn Peck and reporters Heather Cox and Rebecca Lobo do tonight's game from Phoenix.

== Promised to air during Sunday's ESPN NFL pregame show, Kenny Mayne's "Mayne Event" goes this way, according to the media department: Kenny goes to Los Angeles to report an NFL story, only to find out there is no team in the city. But as Mayne finds out, the absence of an NFL team in the city is not for the lack of effort by loyal Los Angeles residents.
This, we gotta see. Or not.

== The Pasadena Public Library offers a free program tonight co-sponsored by the Baseball Reliquary called "Touching All Bases: A Baseball Celebration" that includes another screening of the movie "5:04 p.m.: A First Person Account of the 1989 World Series Earthquake Game," which airs at 9 p.m. (right after a 1961 episode of "The Dinah Shore Show" featuring many baseball greats, at 8 p.m.)
Also, ESPN's "Outside the Lines" (Sunday, 6 a.m.; ESPNEWS, 9 a.m.) revisits the Earthquake Series, focusing on how it covered the event with Bob Ley on hand as a reporter. Guests on the show will be Don Robinson, the Giants' scheduled Game 3 starter, and A's catcher Terry Steinbach. "By the time I was halfway through a Hail Mary, the shaking stopped," said Ley. "There was a split second of stunned silence in the park, and then a mighty roar from more than 60,000 people. Rather than electrical power, our truck was powered by a diesel generator. That was a huge stroke of fortune -- we had power, and we had two phone lines. In the frantic minutes afterwards, there were few answers. The quake hit at 5:04 p.m. (local time). We were able to get on the air within 18 minutes. The San Francisco Police Department command trailer, near our truck, had no working phones. We gave the police one of our lines, and used the other to coordinate with our headquarters in Bristol."

== AND FINALLY:

From Onion Sports, first the fake headline:

ESPN Completely Misses Brett Favre Vs. Green Bay Packers Storyline

Then the fake story (linked here), which ends with this paragraph:

Though employees continue to express regret over ESPN's lack of coverage, football fans across the nation generally seemed to enjoy the broadcast of Monday night's game.

"I think ESPN showed a lot of restraint," New York resident Dan Jeffery, 43, said. "I didn't need anyone to tell me Brett Favre was playing against his old team. Everyone and their mother knew that. I actually appreciated that they let the drama play out on the field."

That could be a real quote. Be careful, ESPN.