Missing the first quarter of Lakers games, and other TV atrocities

If TNT broadcast every Lakers game against Western Conference opponents, chances are I would never see the team in the first six minutes of a game. I'd never get to see Kobe Bryant's first mid-range jumper or Derek Fisher's first missed layup and I'd certainly never see the gangly, graceful, bearded Pau Gasol jumping center on the opening tip. That's because anytime the Lakers play the late game on a TNT doubleheader, the early game always, inevitably, runs late. This bothered me when I watched Lakers games at Saint John's in 1997 and it bothers me today. Literally, today.

Tonight the Celtics defeated the Heat - again - in the opening game of TNT's Thursday doubleheader. The Lakers, unless they're on an East Coast road trip or playing in the Midwest, almost always play the second game. It's the overexposure of the Lakers. So be it. Yet tonight, like always, the first game went later than 10:30. And then past the 10:45 mark. Finally, at 11:04, the game mercifully ended and Kevin Harlan sent it to the "voice of the NBA" Marv Albert and to the Lakers game in Denver.

The game finally appeared on the screen with 4:56 left in the first quarter. Damn it. Denver led 13-12 at the time. Who cares, right? Forty-one minutes remain. Nothing happens in the NBA until the fourth quarter anyway. The NBA's boring, etc., etc., etc., etc. I care. Laker fans draped in Bob McAdoo throwback jerseys care. Laker bandwagon fans who think Earvin Johnson was a journeyman center who once played for the Timberwolves care. And TNT executives should care, because it's now been like this for decades and still no one has figured out what seems to be a rather simple solution for these situations: schedule the games for 11 EST. TNT does give a grace period. A 10:30 game usually doesn't start until 10:50 or so. But it often doesn't help, as, like tonight, the early game drags on through a series of LeBron James free throws and timeouts. Meanwhile, Ernie Johnson provides helpful updates about the happenings halfway across the country, but will they give us a split screen? No.

At least tonight's early game was sort of close. The worst is when the early game is a blowout, yet it somehow drags out longer than a Yankees-Red Sox game. As the 20-point contest concludes, they show the score of the late game on the bottom: Lakers 8, Thunder 4. Then it cuts to a commercial before finally popping in on the late game. Show us the game that now matters! Well, that's not actually the worst. There's always overtime.

It doesn't take until 10:30 for me to realize I don't have a chance of seeing the opening of the Lakers game. If halftime of the first game isn't over by 9:40, there's no hope. I'll listen to Charles and Kenny crack their jokes and know that TNT will again lie when they say it's a doubleheader. We're not getting a complete doubleheader. We're being robbed. By 10 p.m., when there are still 8 minutes left in the third quarter, I'll start loudly sighing to myself, a pleasant personal trait. I curse the East Coast, and its basketball teams. I curse the invention of the 20-second timeout.

The same thing happens on ESPN. But at least if they carry a doubleheader, they'll switch it over to one of their other 14 networks, usually ESPN Classic, so instead of seeing the 2002 World Series of Poker, we actually get to watch the first six minutes of a live NBA game.

It's always been like this, of course, and it's not like TNT invented this problem.

As I wrote about before, CBS missed the first four-and-a-half minutes of Game 1 of the 1983 NBA Finals. The Finals! For a golf tournament not named The Masters.



At least during basketball games fans get to see all of the on-court action. Directors don't cut away as Carmelo Anthony rises up for a jump shot to show an overweight, bespectacled man chewing his fingernails in the upper deck, only to return just as the ball's being released from his hands. Yet that's what fans witness on pretty much every baseball telecast, but especially during playoff games. My friends have heard me complain about this a dozen times. I sound like a bitter old man talking about the good ol' days. But still...

The overuse of crowd shots during a game has done more damage to baseball than steroids.*

* I'm sort of in a Skip Bayless-type mood tonight so hyperbole, moralizing and overreaction will fill this post.

Can TV producers and directors please stop showing the crowd and dugout after every single pitch. Stop with the reaction shots. Stop zooming in on the pitcher's face between every pitch, followed by a close-up of the hitter, followed by a shot of a nervous fan in an ill-fitting jersey stained with mustard holding a sign that reads "FOX AND THE RANGERS RULE!" Then a quick shot of the do-nothing manager sitting motionless in the dugout, doing his best impersonation of a human statue in a Times Square subway station. What has a manager ever done on the bench that needed to be shown live? At best we see him touching his cap, at worst we see him picking his nose. Occasionally, though not always, and only when really emotional, he blinks.

By the time the cameras scan back to the center field view, the pitcher's already in motion and they've missed the start of his windup. Stay with the center field camera, I implore you. Stop showing the crowd in the third inning. No one is nervous, no one is that excited. No one is doing something so outrageous that we have to see them. They're sitting, taking their left hand and slamming it into their right in a clapping motion. Show the game. Of course, when a fan actually does do something that is newsworthy - like, say, run on the field nude - the stations refuse to show it. I wish networks would take the same policy to every crowd shot. Show the masses at the end of the game or in the final inning when the home heroes are down to their final shot.

I get anxious, waiting for the cameras to get back in time. I'm convinced they'll actually miss the pitch, and occasionally they do miss the ball coming out of the guy's hand. If Luis Tiant pitched today, no one who watched him only on television would ever know about his bizarre deliveries, but they would know that Red Sox fans like to wear Wade Boggs jerseys and backward baseball caps.

I know, nothing on a baseball broadcast outside of a 20-minute lecture by Tim McCarver on the beauty of the infield fly rule should bother someone this much.

And I know it will never change, so I should resign myself to this TV reality. Each year brings more crowd shots, more dugout shots, more up-close shots that force viewers to miss the big picture. So what's more maddening: Not being able to see any of the game you want to watch because the network refuses to air it, or not being able to see any of the action you want to watch even when the network is airing it? I suppose most fans would say the latter. But since it's the Lakers, I'll have to say the former.

Gilligan and the Globetrotters

A few months ago I wrote about basketball on television. Fake basketball. The type played by the Fresh Prince, the guys from Porky's, and the gang from One Tree Hill.

Somehow I missed Gilligan.

Long before the Lost crew became lost, then found, then returned, then finally disappeared from the airwaves, the passengers aboard the doomed S.S. Minnow became stranded on an uncharted island. If it's been awhile since you've watched tapes from your Gilligan's library - do you file yours chronologically or thematically? - the poor souls eventually escaped the island, only to return in made-for-TV specials that did little but damage the Gilligan brand.

One of those shows was called, basically enough, The Harlem Globetrotters on Gilligan's Island.

The plot: The island's now a resort. A corporate raider wants to take over the island (yes, Gilligan's Island foreshadowed our current times, when businessmen are routinely portrayed as villains). The Globetrotters land on the island. They play a basketball game against a team the corporate guy has assembled. A team of robots called The New Invincibles. Those are the basics and, really, has anyone ever done an advanced breakdown of a Gilligan's plot?



That is a different actress playing Ginger. And the Howells now have a son, even though during the run of the show they were childless. Perhaps they adopted someone during their time off the island. David Ruprecht - who later became famous to shut-ins and bargain-lovers worldwide as the handsome and overly energetic host of Supermarket Sweep - played the son.

To the game. Accustomed to beating up on the Washington Generals, the Globetrotters struggled early against The New Invincibles, who dominate action with their advanced strategy and great length. It seems like the Invincibles would be weak against the running game, but the Trotters make the mistake of trying to attack too much in the halfcourt.

The Lakers' legendary announcer Chick Hearn broadcast the game. Chick actually had a decent film career. Much better than Johnny Most's, anyway. Chick appeared in everything from Hardcastle and McCormick to Matlock. Most famously, he appeared with Chevy Chase in Fletch - 6-5, with an afro, 6-9. In real life, Chick dominated the airwaves during Lakers game. His analysts - Pat Riley was once one - rarely had a chance to say much beyond "That's right, Chick." His bearded analyst for the Globetrotters-Invincibles game doesn't even get to say that.

For those who always dreamed of seeing Mary Ann and Ginger in cheerleader's outfits, this show is for you. And for those who always feared seeing Mrs. Howell in a cheerleader's outfit, this show is not for you.

Remarkably, given that the special effects budget for this episode was probably in the mid-three figures, the court looks halfway decent, much different than the average TV show basketball court, which is often about 20 feet long and five feet wide. It's got a nice hoop, glass backboard, solid net. I'm sure the tropical heat and wind gusts affected everyone's game, but the professor and the grounds crew did the best they could.

The Globetrotters trail at halftime 95-3. Read it again. 95-3.

The professor eventually figures out the Trotters have to use their tricks and chicanery to confuse the robots. They've learned every possible basketball play in existence so are prepared for any offense, except a wacky one that may or may not involve throwing a bucket of water on a referee. The Globetrotters go on a 96-3 run to take their first lead of the game, 99-98. Martin Landau - or someone who stole Martin Landau's identity and look and agreed to appear in the film as the leader of the New Invincibles - apparently didn't believe in calling timeouts to stem the other team's momentum. I'd like to think even Phil Jackson would burn through his 20-second timeouts if an opponent outscored the Lakers by 93 points in less than two quarters.

Eventually, several Globetrotter players foul out, forcing Gilligan and the Skipper to enter the game. A pair of free throws give the Invincibles a lead in the closing seconds. As the clock ticks down on the game and the show, Gilligan finds himself standing with the ball, scared, shocked, frozen. It's a familiar plot, the worst player on the court saving the game in the final seconds. It was also used in the Porky's movies when Pee Wee won a state title by throwing in a shot backward. Later, Hoosiers used a similar twist with Ollie, minus the robots and backward shot. Here, a pair of Globetrotters pick up Gilligan and fire him through the net for the winning basket. It counts, even though it seems likely this would be considered offensive goaltending. If a player can't touch the ball while it's on the rim, can he really fall through the rim for a field goal? Perhaps the teams played under international rules.



The lesson? Never bet against the Globetrotters, no matter the deficit. Also? TV has come a long way since 1981.

A day without Law & Order is a bad day

It starts with the voice-over, of course. Coolly delivered, serious. If the narrator earns royalties each time it's played, he must be pulling in eight figures.

"In the criminal justice system, the people are represented by two separate yet equally important groups..."

Then the sound. Two loud knocks, sparking a near Pavlovian response in viewers. Cut to Central Park, or Times Square, or a pizza delivery man entering a house. Random chatter between two people, followed by a gasp. A dead body. Now we see two detectives, perhaps smirking, always world-weary, annoyed with the beat cops and confused by the witness. After a quick joke about the body or the crime or the circumstances surrounding the discovery of the stiff, we're off.

When I first moved to New York, I didn't have a job and the only cable channels we got were TNT and TBS, meaning Ted Turner's empire held me hostage every weekday as I lived to hear the phrase "Up next: A Law & Order marathon." Today we have countless channels and I'm gainfully employed, but those words still spark excitement. Nothing beats hitting the menu on the TV and seeing a four-hour block of Law & Order. Occasionally, often on holidays, TNT breaks out a 12-hour marathon, an orgy of crime and punishment that I only wish lasted 20 hours.

Over the years I've also become a huge fan of Law & Order: Criminal Intent. I'll watch an occasional SVU episode. But it's the mothership, one of the longest-running shows in TV history, that remains my favorite. Nearly every episode is like Game 4 of the 1987 Finals to me: no matter how many times I've seen it, and no matter when I tune in, whether it's 10 minutes into it or five minutes from the ending, I'll stop channel surfing and watch the rest of the way.

So here are some random thoughts and memories from the most persistent and omnipresent show on television, if not the finest.

* First, a complaint to TNT. The show premiered in 1990. It has been running ever since, with 22 to 24 episodes per season. Yet the past few years, nearly every rerun is from the past seven or eight seasons, meaning Chris Noth, Michael Moriarty, Jill Hennessy and even the venerable Steven Hill are almost nowhere to be seen. I like Fred Thompson's acting much more than his politics and I think he did a decent job portraying the Manhattan DA. But the show's glory years were in the 1990s. Go back to the roots, give us the best.

* Nearly every episode has a flaw that practically slaps viewers in the face, but I was somehow not sharp enough to pick up on. Only after my friend Cheri pointed it out did I realize that the following exchange, with just a few different nouns and adjectives being alternated, nearly always takes place in the first half-hour:

Detective: You didn't see anything? Around 2 p.m., at 82nd and Broadway?

Deli owner/hot dog vendor/hipster/homeless person: No, man. I told you.

Detective: A woman. Five-foot-eight, blond, maybe 130 pounds.

Deli owner/hot dog vendor/hipster/homeless person: Oh, wait a minute. There was this blond woman running past with a large gun in her hand.

These interactions nearly ruined the show for Cheri. She could barely stand to watch it for fear of the No-I-don't-know-what-you're-talking-about-oh-wait-yes-I-do conversations.

* Favorite detectives: Lennie Briscoe and Mike Logan. One of the more jolting reruns that occasionally pops up is the episode where Jerry Orbach played a defense attorney. Watching that episode, nothing seems right with the world. He seemed ill-suited to the role and thankfully found a permanent home as Lennie, where he could complain about "scumbag defense attorneys" instead of portraying one. Logan returned to Criminal Intent, but he'd lost his machismo. Blame Sex and the City.

* Detective Curtis, played by Benjamin Bratt, delivered the most overused and emptiest threat. Inevitably, if a hard-scrabbled crook refused to talk, or passed on a plea bargain, Curtis would lean in real close and whisper, "You know what they do to child killers? They strap you down, stick a needle in you arm. Lethal injection, buddy." Curtis must have threatened a dozen criminals with the threat of capital punishment. The only problem is New York State hasn't executed anyone since 1963! In 2004, the New York Court of Appeals declared the death penalty unconstitutional in the state. Even before then, though, no one ever received the ultimate punishment, at least not since three months before the Kennedy assassination. A smart suspect would have called Curtis's bluff. Most, apparently unaware of recent state history, usually folded. He might as well have threatened them with a trip to the stockades.

* Creator Dick Wolf was notorious for having little problem replacing old, sometimes beloved characters. It was always entertaining seeing how he ousted the characters. Would they be killed, or perhaps disbarred for an ethics violation? Would they punch a politician, like Logan did? Did the actors have any say in how they were disposed? Probably not. The strangest exit belonged to Elisabeth Rohm's character, assistant DA Serena Southerlyn. DA Arthur Branch fires Southerlyn, supposedly because she's too sympathetic toward defendants. She asks, "Is this because I'm a lesbian?" "No. Of course not. No," Branch responds.

Fade to black, roll credits.

The moment would have made more sense and carried a greater emotional punch if, oh, her sexuality had been mentioned at any previous point in the series. It hadn't been. Meaning the first time we heard she was a lesbian was when she uttered her character's final word.

At least she didn't end up like her successor, Alexandra Borgia, who is murdered, beaten and discovered in the back of an abandoned car.

* I've seen perhaps two or three references to Inwood on the show, and I've only seen their cameras filming once in the neighborhood. Even scripted TV shows don't really think Inwood is a crucial part of Manhattan.

* Thankfully, little attention is paid to the personal lives of the characters, although that does make it more jarring when morsels of information come out, re: Serena's lesbianism.

We know Jack McCoy enjoys an occasional drink at his desk after a tough case and his "old man" was a Chicago cop, an abusive hard-ass who probably cracked some hippie skulls at the 1968 Democratic National Convention. Detective Curtis's wife suffers from MS, although it only seems to come up when he's thinking of cheating on her.

"All right, act conflicted here, Benjamin. Your wife has MS. She's suffering. You're with a beautiful woman, a woman who loves brooding, Catholic cops. Bring out the emotions."

A drug dealer kills Lennie's daughter, another jolting plot twist that sort of came out of nowhere. Detective Green is probably a gambling addict. They provide decent background to the characters, but the show is about the stories and the cases, living little space for personal development.

* The best Assistant DA? My favorite was Jamie Ross, played by Carey Lowell. Angie Harmon's Abbie was a bit too intense and blood-thirsty, a conservative prosecutor who seemed like she'd be more at home in Texas railroading minority criminals into death sentences.

* Numerous actors have appeared in a variety of roles over several seasons, popping up as a defendant or lawyer. One of the best was actor Denis O'Hare. In one episode, he's a schizophrenic who kills several people with a sword. It turns out he's a brilliant man who defends himself in court. He's fine when medicated, an able adversary to McCoy. But after his sister testifies against him, he stops taking his meds and is convicted. His other memorable role is as the member of a small-town militia, who manages to hang the jury - not literally - through the strategic use of anti-government rants in the courtroom. He brilliantly portrays a madman and a guy who's just maddening. Several big-name stars appeared on the show when they were still starving actors, or at least little-known. Grey's Anatomy's Ellen Pompeo creepily played a woman who participated in her own sister's rape and murder. Early in the show's run, Cynthia Nixon portrayed a female Bernie Goetz who takes out some thugs on the subway with her gun.

* The ripped from the headlines theme gets to be a bit much. It's practically gotten to the point where I can read a story in the Post or Daily News - stripper killed by boyfriend, Sunday school teacher kills wife - and accurately predict the week it'll be co-opted as a Law & Order episode. Granted, the show always puts a different twist on the final outcome. But let the writers come up with some completely original themes and plots. That said, some of my favorite episodes are the three-part story centered around a Hollywood director who kills his wife, a plot that was so blatantly an O.J. Simpson ripoff that the only thing missing was a dim-bulb houseguest named Pato. Rip off the headlines. Maybe just not every week, for every episode.

Law & Order episodes will live forever, even if the original series doesn't. After a nuclear war, the only things that will survive will be cockroaches, plastic and Jack McCoy. I'd write more. But I think I just heard a familiar sound:

The Heidi Game Part 2

On November 17, 1968, the famous Heidi Game took place between the Jets and Raiders, when their AFL clash was interrupted before its conclusion by NBC's airing of the movie Heidi. The network broke into the game with 65 seconds left and the Jets leading 32-29. Oakland rallied for a 43-32 victory, and the game - and the outrage that followed from fans who were unable to see the dramatic ending - changed the way networks cover sports. That change was networks finally understood that sports rule America and TV and we don't care if 60 Minutes has to start at midnight, do not interrupt the late football games.

The game was such a fiasco that its Wikipedia page contains about 5,500 words. There are some one-term U.S. presidents - or at least some treasury secretaries - who don't have that many words devoted to them.

I wasn't alive for that game. Fortunately, CBS recreated the experience today.

The Vikings and Ravens played at 1 p.m. on the East Coast. I taped the game as I was with my parents at the Metropolitan Museum of Art for most of the afternoon. When we returned, I set the tape to the beginning. We settled in, avoiding the Internet and the late games so the outcome remained a mystery. Such an old-school feeling; it felt like 1990 all over again.

Vikings struck first. Then again. The game looked like a rout as I fast-forwarded through inane commercials, punts, kickoff returns and at least some of Dan Dierdorf's weighty pontifications, the best of which came after two failed running plays near the goal-line for the Vikings.

"If the offensive linemen could vote, they would vote for another running play, I'm telling you." If true, we should begin to immediately disenfranchise the hogs. Strip them of their right to vote, whether it's for a city council race or a play in the Red Zone. Dierdorf - a former lineman who knows how the big guys up front think, and that's the problem - wanted the Vikings to give the guys who had just failed twice another chance. Fortunately they didn't and Favre threw a touchdown pass on the next play.

Even into the fourth quarter the outcome seemed certain. Then the Vikings defense began its collapse and Baltimore scored with ease on three straight possessions. Shockingly, the Ravens now led. The Metrodome hadn't been that quiet in, well, a week. Fans were probably wondering, what was worse: the Vikings defense or Nick Punto's baserunning?

I was tempted to turn to one of the late games to see what the outcome was, but we'd already gone this far. Favre led them down for another score - another field goal - and we went into commercial with the Vikings leading 33-31 with less than two minutes remaining.

Seconds before that field goal, some of the late games started showing up on the CBS scroll at the bottom of the screen. A thought occurred.

"You know, the Jets are the late game on CBS. They might have cut away from this game if it ran late. We might not see the end of it."

My parents didn't even have time to process the information.

Thirty seconds after I said that, CBS broke away from the game. Instead of an adorable little Swiss girl appearing on the screen, it was a car commercial. My prediction had come true. Seconds later, the Jets and Bills game started their fiasco of a game as I sat with my parents, staring in stunned silence at our television. I fast-forwarded through the soothing voice of Dick Enberg and read the scores on the scroll. Finally the Vikings-Ravens game appeared.

Minnesota 33, Baltimore 31. :02.

Two seconds left. If the game stopped at two seconds, that probably meant the Ravens were going to try a field goal.

Good lord, the Vikings had again allowed Baltimore to march down the field? All we could do was speculate. I could already picture Joe Flacco sprinting up to the line to spike the ball as Dierdorf brags about poise and unflappability and the voting records of left guards. Oblivious to what was going on, we sat at the mercy of whatever underpaid office drone CBS placed in charge of updating its scroll.

We waited for the scores to cycle through again. Steelers-Browns. Redskins-Chiefs...Giants-Saints.

Minnesota 33, Baltimore 31. Final.

Final. They somehow held on.

A minute later, Dick Enberg sent it back to JB in the studio for the highlight and, indeed, the Ravens missed a field goal.

Here's what we didn't see live or on tape but did see as a highlight of a taped event, three hours after it actually happened.



The ending didn't lack for drama, even if it was one of the strangest endings any of us had seen. Or, in this case, not seen. It somehow added even more excitement.

The most frustrating experience I had with following a game without access to a television came about ten years ago. Stuck in my car on a long road trip, I picked up ESPN Radio's NFL show, where the hosts throw the games to various correspondents around the league. Or they introduce a score with bold, end-of-the-world announcements like, "Ladies and gentlemen. You will not believe what happened in the Browns-Chiefs game just moments ago."

What? What? Someone completed a pass? Eric Mangini smiled? The middle linebacker tackled a drunk streaker?

That announcement's usually followed by the reporter at the game saying, "Tim, Cleveland kicks a 24-yard field goal and leads 3-0 with 10:25 remaining in the first quarter. Back to you."

Thanks.

But on this day, I was trying to find the Cowboys score as they played the Eagles. Dallas led all the way. Then the hosts updated the game in the fourth quarter by saying Philadelphia had managed to cut into the lead and it was now a one-possession game.

I drove for 10 more miles with no more updates. The hosts bantered back and forth in that grating way that only talk-radio hosts can do, refusing to give their listeners what they really wanted.

"Whoa!" one suddenly said.

"I don't believe it," added the other.

"Folks...wow."

"Wow."

What in the hell? Were they watching the Hindenburg go down? Or had something happened in the Cowboys game?

"What a game in Philly. The Eagles...the Eagles have...wow."

SPIT IT OUT!

The host took us to Philly. The local reporter breathlessly provided an update over the screaming crowd in the background. The Eagles rallied from 10 points down in the fourth quarter and defeated the hated Cowboys.

Bad news somehow gets worse depending on the way it's delivered. If I have to watch a favorite team lose in the comfort of my own home, where couch cushions, pillows and non-fluffy items can be thrown whenever I see fit, I can deal with it a bit better. Having to listen to Edward Murrow wannabes breathlessly spit out the results while studio hosts crack wise about their co-host's lack of dieting skills makes the entire experience about a hundred times more frustrating.

I turned the station in disgust. If I had a cell phone on me I would have called Delilah and asked for a special song to make everything right, something about loss and love or recovery.

There was no such ultimate frustration tonight. Technology lost, but the Vikings won.

Best sports theme songs - no, not Hank Williams Jr.

I rarely watch NFL pregame shows, but I caught parts of the CBS one and the FOX yukfest today. I guess they get fans in the mood for bone-crushing football. But they don't really inspire, do they? It might be the music's fault.

CBS should give a nod to fans stuck in the past, ahem, and bring back the old NFL Today theme song. And while I know he now works for ABC, Brent Musburger needs to return and just announce four simple words at the start of every show: "You are looking live." Derek Jeter has long said he wants the recorded voice of legendary Yankees PA man Bob Sheppard to announce his name when he comes to the plate. I want my Sundays to start with Brent, and, more importantly, with this song:



The old NFL Today theme song is one of the great ones in sports television history, but I wouldn't consider it the best. Here are the other candidates.

Another football, the classic Monday Night theme. It's hard not to listen to this without picturing Tony Dorsett running 99 yards against the Vikings, the fat Fridge running over the Packers in 1985 and...OJ Simpson being part of the broadcast booth.



It's almost impossible to choose the best NBA intro song ever. John Tesh's beloved - the only time the word beloved is usually used in relation to John Tesh - NBA on NBC song is generally regarded as the superior version. But the CBS version from the 1980s, while not written by a former TV reporter with great hair, is just as memorable. I actually prefer the CBS song, although it has little to do with musical appreciation and more to do with the fact it was played before five Lakers titles while Tesh's song dominated the 90s, when the Lakers sputtered before regaining their spot at the top of the league toward the end of the decade.

Here's Tesh's song, with a classic Marv Albert intro during the Bulls-Knicks series in 1993. Tesh's music kicks in at the one-minute mark:


And now CBS, narrated by...Musburger, who was the announcer on 99 percent of all CBS broadcasts during the '80s. This was before Game 4 of the 1987 Finals, the game famous for Magic Johnson's hook shot with two seconds left to win it:



Wimbledon is known for the white outfits the players wear, the grass courts, and great music from NBC. There are actually two songs that NBC trots out for the classic tournament. This one opens the broadcasts, as Americans wake up at 8 a.m. to watch Martina vs. Chrissy or McEnroe vs. Connors.



And once the championship match is over, and Pete Sampras is holding up the trophy while his vanquished foe looks on and Dick Enberg wraps up the action with a solid essay, they'd play this. The most famous part begins at 30 seconds.




Like Wimbledon, This Week in Baseball utilized a couple of different songs, each made better by the presence of Mel Allen. I miss TWIB notes.



And here's the more inspirational song, the one used to close the show. Imagine Ozzie Smith doing his flips or hitting a homer off of Tom Niedenfuer in the 1985 NLCS.



For the patriotic set, it's tough to beat the Olympic song. As great as this one is, it only appears every four years so doesn't quite measure up to the weekly offerings. Although this is inspirational; hearing this, I want to compete in the heptathlon, climb a pommel horse and boo a Russian.



ABC's Wide World of Sports has a great song, but is made much better because of Jim McKay's narration and one of the more famous highlights in sports history: the ski jumper who tumbles before his jump and suffers "the agony of defeat."



Before listening to all of these again, I would have listed the NBA on CBS song as my personal favorite. But now I'm going with the closing of This Week in Baseball.

The worst? So many to choose from, from ABC's recent NBA presentations to, yes, Hank Williams Jr. But as much credit ABC used to get for its Monday Night Football opening, it should get just as much scorn for its old Major League Baseball on Monday nights introduction. Not even Brent Musburger could have saved this one.