Television No Hits but Plenty of Bobbles

By Richard Zoglin

Let us sit upon the mound and tell sad stories of the death of NETWORK BASEBALL. CBS, the tale begins, spent a whopping $1 billion for the right to telecast major league games for four years. Now, after sustaining huge losses from last year's abbreviated postseason, the network seems to wish the sport would just go away. Regular-season telecasts have been reduced to a meager handful. Pregame shows during the league championship series were entirely eliminated, to minimize the ratings damage. The games themselves have featured such distractions as Andrea Joyce and Lesley Visser roaming the stands for human-interest angles (and a few extra female viewers). The camerawork has been solid, but the announcing just adequate. Play-by-play veteran Jack Buck bobbles too many easy chances. (Was it a strike or a checked swing? Watch the ump, not Jack.) Tim McCarver, his partner in the booth, knows his stuff but tends to babble. And ratings, for all but the final two games, were down once again. Somewhere Red Barber is weeping. R.Z.