“I do watch sports. How could I not? Just for self-preservation,” Buck told the Times.

And he loves baseball.

“To me, baseball is, in some ways, other than my family and wife, my life, and it always will be,” he said.

With the month just ended, the six games of the NBA Finals finished as the top six highest-rated shows overall on TV for June, drawing from 13.4 million to 17.4 million viewers. In fact, eight of the top 10 shows for June were sports, with the Belmont Stakes coming in seventh and the Sunday  fourth round of the U.S. Open ninth. All but the golf were on ABC. NBC had the U.S. Open, as well as the two episodes of America's Got Talent that finished eighth and 10th.

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.

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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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

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. 

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. 

                                                                                                      Los Angeles Times

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."

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. 

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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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.