Channel 2's Scott Garceau sounded glad to be getting out of the nightly sports anchoring biz when we spoke Friday night. Garceau, 56, who has been on the air in Baltimore since September 1980, will be shifting to select assignments for WMAR -- college lacrosse, the Turkey Bowl, Orioles Opening Day, Ravens coverage -- after his last spin at the anchor desk Thursday.

Beyond his on-air work -- and he has always seemed like a solid pro to me -- Garceau apparently has been a nice guy as he has gone about his business. I don't ever remember hearing a cross word about him from any of the local media types I've spoken to over the years. He said he plans to keep living in the Baltimore area.

Here's some of what else he had to say Friday night:

*"It's a good thing. My original plan was probably to do this in a year or two, but they offered me a chance to stay and do the events I like to do." (Garceau's contract expired earlier this month.)

*"I'm not retiring, but I'm really happy to be out of the grind. ... I want to be able to pick and choose what I can do."

*(On finding another regular on-air job) "I haven't got out knocking on doors."

*(On WMAR's plans, whether Rob Carlin just steps in) "They haven't told me who's my replacement."

*(On feeling lucky to be in his profession) "My dad was an iron miner and worked underground."

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Was it all the layups we've been missing?

The Sun Friday pickup basketball crew discovered that its home court soon will be no more, converted into a skate park by Howard County.

In the meantime, a gang of eight braved the heat yesterday for four cross-court games. One of Z's tall progeny appeared. Let's call him J-Z. And let's watch him drive to the basket with abandon.

Shutterbug's long-range shooting cooled -- it was about the only thing that did Friday -- possibly because there were no three-point lines drawn on the court as being played. He showed J-Z some of his inside game instead.

Dead Man Walking kept trying to be the last of the 5-9 post men and committed several turnovers for his troubles. The Big Redhead kept launching that Jerry Lucas-esque outside shot and talking about how much his beloved Trail Blazers had helped themselves on draft day. Z continued to prove you can't coach height. Pesky Andy proved once again how pesky hustle can be. He might have been inspired by annoyance that no one wanted to wear the pinnies he brought.

And overall, it was a lesson that mad dogs and Englishmen aren't the only ones who go out in the midday sun.

Posted by Ray Frager at 12:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)
                       

Fox's Joe Buck appeared with David Letterman last night for an entertaining segment. Buck talked about joining his father, the wonderful Jack Buck, when his dad went on the road to call Cardinals games. After he told a story about asking his father why one of the Cardinals was in a hotel bar with two women, neither of whom was the player's wife, Letterman asked Buck if he had wanted to be an athlete when he was growing up. Buck replied that after seeing that player with the women, he sure did. But it wasn't to be. "I found out that I sucked," Buck said, "so I became part of the media."

His best line came during a discussion of performance-enhancing drugs, in which he related how some athletes reportedly now use Viagra to help in the manner of steroids or human growth hormone. The upside of this trend, Buck said, "is that they should be easy to spot." Here's a piece of Buck's appearance.

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You probably were wondering about last week's ratings for the U.S. Open playoff on Monday and Game 6 of the NBA Finals Tuesday. Wonder no more. NBC's portion of the Open playoff drew a 7.6 rating among the top 55 markets, and it received 8.1 percent of the Baltimore audience on Channel 11. The last NBA Finals game got a 10.7 national rating and 8.5 here on Channel 2. Aren't you glad I'm back?

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And now a belated Friday basketball update: The most recent gathering was notable for a few things, chief among them the uncanny three-point shooting by Shutterbug (which just seems unfair for one of our taller players), the first appearance of the year by Z and a truncated appearance by 'Frodo. Z has a couple of inches but also more than a couple of years on Shutterbug, so he wasn't chasing him out to the arc. 'Frodo -- who arrived at the court in his typically understated way with car stereo blasting something that sounded like David Bowie to Dead Man Walking but turned out to be the Hives -- was forced into an early departure upon receiving a call from his girlfriend, who apparently wanted to know why he was playing basketball instead of being with her. DMW and Z, who have had five wives between them, could only shake their heads sadly at what was in store for the young man.

Getty Images North America

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After taking a week's vacation -- surely you noted the absence of a column in Friday's newspaper -- I'm back. Unfortunately for me, I didn't visit a tropical clime like my colleague. However, there was much yard work and an overnight visit to a town to the north for a concert.

But enough about me.

ESPN has announced its anchor lineup for the switch to the live morning SportsCenter weekday rotation in August. From 6 to 9, it's Linda Cohn and Steve Berthiaume, then Hannah Storm and Josh Elliott until noon, followed by Chris McKendry and Robert Flores up to 3 p.m. Former local fave Sage Steele will pop up every 20 minutes from 6 a.m. to noon with some kind of updates. As much as I'm glad to be seeing Steele, I'm not quite clear why these SportsCenter shows need updates. Aren't they supposed to be live?

Oh, well, that's not much to quibble about, considering the promise of daily Linda Cohn. 

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Photos by Getty Images

Baltimore's ratings for the U.S. Open were pretty much in line with the numbers for the top TV markets in the country. NBC's coverage on Channel 11 Sunday got an overall 8.2 percent of the audience and 10.9 during the prime-time portion from 7 to 9 p.m. Among the 55 metered markets, the Open rated 8.5 overall and 11.4 in prime time.

Sunday night's NBA Finals Game 5, however, drew a 12.1 on ABC for the 55 markets, but here on Channel 2, Lakers-Celtics got 7.4.

Maybe if Kobe wore red, it might help. 

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During last night's post-game news conference, Kobe Bryant was asked about talk radio's criticism of his Lakers after they went down 2-0 in the NBA Finals. Bryant's good-natured response, delivered live and unbleeped on ESPN, included his saying how talk shows have to "throw s--- at the window." Oops. Well, it was late.

                                                                                                      Los Angeles Times

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MASN has gone 2-0 in North Carolina in its effort to get Time Warner to carry the network on cable systems in the state's biggest markets. Yesterday, a second arbitrator appointed by the Federal Communications Commission ruled in MASN's favor, saying Time Warner Cable had discriminated against MASN in favor of other regional sports networks in which Time Warner had an interest.

A previous arbitrator had come to the same conclusion in January, but Time Warner claimed that arbitrator was biased, so a second one considered the matter. Still, MASN won again. So the cable customers of Charlotte and Raleigh soon can thrill to the mellifluous tones of Gary Thorne, right?

Maybe not. Time Warner apparently will appeal to the FCC, possibly dragging this out until the end of the baseball season.

"We're confident that neither the FCC nor the courts will employ the erroneous legal standard adopted by the arbitrator," Time Warner spokeswoman Melissa Buscher told The (Raleigh) News & Observer. "We believe the FCC will be wary of using government authority to require carriage of a distant, high-priced, niche service that doesn't necessarily interest most of our customers."

Time Warner -- contending the Orioles and Nationals are distant teams that most of its subscribers don't care to watch -- wants to put MASN on a digital sports tier that would require customers to pay extra, The News & Observer reports.

MASN's attorney, David C. Frederick, told the newspaper: "You know, it's the classic thing. If you can't pound the facts, you pound the law; and if you can't pound the law or the facts, you pound the table. And Time Warner's pounding the table right now."

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Jim McKay never had a catch phrase. He never needed one.

Yes, that was his voice introducing Wide World of Sports every Saturday with "spanning the globe ..." But that's a long way from a catch phrase. In fact, there was no "catch" with McKay. As we recall his broadcasting career upon his death today, what stands out is just how decent and honest a presence he was on the air.

You can be inclined to think McKay never would have become such a big part of the national sports scene had he come along today, when so much of sports programming is about a "look at me, Mom!" delivery and who can shout his opinions the loudest. But I like to believe McKay's broadcasting talents -- particularly the way it was always the story and not the storyteller -- still haven't gone completely out of style.

Long before the days of 24-hour TV news, his marathon performance during the Munich Olympic massacre became his signature moment -- calm, reasoned, unflappable and ultimately understatedly moving with a final "They're all gone" about the murdered Israeli Olympians.

I interviewed him in person only once -- at the U.S. Women's Open at Baltimore Country Club 20 years ago. I can't recall many details of the interview, other than I came away thinking, "What a gentleman."

We live in the days of hyperbole, so maybe "legendary" doesn't have the same impact it once did. But the word truly applies to Jim McKay. 

Posted by Ray Frager at 1:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (8)
                       

Just in case there wasn't enough ratings stuff in today's column: Entertainment Weekly recently published the rankings for all prime-time shows during the 2007-08 season, and NBC's Sunday Night Football came in at No. 10, down five places from past season and down 4 percent in average audience. The next sports show -- and, no, I'm not counting Dancing With the Stars (which occupied three spots in the top five) just because it had so many sports figures on it -- was ABC's Saturday Night Football at No. 116.

By the way, NBC's Friday Night Lights, which is sort of about football, finished 107th.

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Friday hoops update: Only six showed today, which is too bad, because so few got to witness Stevie B.'s best shooting performance ever. We could say his jumper was working, except what the diminutive Stevie B. takes is really more of a push shot. With no Scranton Flash in attendance, it fell to B-Hop and Mr. Jones to try keeping Shutterbug in check, no easy task. Dead Man Walking and Maryland Matt staged a spirited match-up, which included many blocked shots by the latter and a few old-school scoops by the former. DMW also inadvertently hit MdM in the mouth, momentarily worrying DMW that he had damaged the straightened teeth he had paid for.  

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Inside the NFL, dropped by HBO after 31 seasons, has found a new home -- Showtime. CBS and NFL Films will combine to produce the program, an in-depth highlights show that lost its cachet over the years as ever more NFL programming and highlights turned up elsewhere, particularly ESPN and the NFL Network.

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Ravens Mike Flynn, Derrick Mason and Daniel Wilcox are among the players who will attend NFL Broadcast Boot Camp at NFL Films in Mount Laurel, N.J., this month. The program introduces and instructs players with an interest in broadcasting. The NFL says 12 of the 20 players who participated in the first Boot Camp last year have landed broadcasting jobs.

The lineup of NFL play-by-play men/hosts/analysts includes Kenny Albert, James Brown and Ian Eagle, Ron Jaworski and Dick Vermeil. Gus Johnson also will work with the campers, perhaps instructing them how not to get sick to your stomach when a guy's ear explodes on live TV.

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How can I keep up? One of our bloggers shows you how to tie a bow tie. Another exposes himself to the world in a Speedo while getting a swimming lesson. OK, here I am rapping and singing. Yeah, it was a while ago, so I looked a little different.

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Perhaps that is overstating the case, however, ratings for CBS' debut mixed martial arts telecast Saturday night, featuring the much-hyped Mr. Slice, drew the 14th-highest ratings among the nation's 54 metered TV markets. During the 9-to-11 portion of the show -- ratings aren't yet available for the part of the program after 11, which included the Slice of life -- 4.4 percent of the Baltimore audience was watching, compared with a 2.7 national average. 

                                                                                                            Associated Press

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