Cardinals’ Herzog Balks at Talking to Anyone at NBC

Whitey Herzog, the St. Louis Cardinals’ manager, is refusing to be interviewed by NBC during the National League playoffs, and it has nothing to do with the technicians’ strike against the network.

During a pregame show last season, announcer Marv Albert asked Herzog if he was in the running to become National League president before A. Bartlett Giamatti left his position as the president of Yale to take the baseball job.

Herzog snapped back that he wasn’t and that he’d never want to live in New York, anyway.

Albert then told Herzog that the presidency at Yale was available.

Herzog took Albert’s sarcasm as an insult and has said he’s not talking to Albert or anyone else at NBC until Albert apologizes.

Albert says he’s not apologizing.

Add Albert: He’s adding a lot of miles to his frequent-flyer card. He was in St. Louis Tuesday, Minneapolis Wednesday, San Francisco Thursday and today, and he’ll be in Las Vegas Saturday to call the Michael Olajide-Frank Tate fight. He’s scheduled to be in Detroit Sunday and St. Louis Monday.

Add fight: It was a longshot at the time, but when Albert and Ferdie Pacheco called a doubleheader May 10 in which Olajide and Tate were in separate fights, they predicted that the two would eventually meet for the vacant International Boxing Federation middleweight title. That’s what they’re doing Saturday at Las Vegas.

Vin Scully apologized on the air for a mistake he made during Game 1 of the National League playoffs, but his wasn’t as bad as the one made last Friday night by Ted Dawson, former Channel 7 sportscaster.

Scully only miscalled a play in which he thought a fan had interfered with a live ball.

Dawson, who now works for a Dallas television station, made more than just a miscall. Upset because he didn’t have a local high school football score, Dawson told viewers to call the athletic directors of the two schools to complain that the score had not been called in.

One problem. The game was scheduled for the next night. Oops.

Prediction: The networks have said they will televise this weekend’s National Football League strike-replacement games, including the Raiders’ game at Denver Monday night, but don’t expect the ratings to continue to hold up.

The ratings last Sunday dropped as the day wore on, indicating people were willing to watch for a while but didn’t stick with the games.

Another thing that may hurt NFL strikeball Sunday is the presence of the baseball playoffs on NBC.

Bad timing: Century Cable, formerly Group W, which serves many of the communities in the western part of Southern California, has dropped Prime Ticket.

The timing couldn’t be much worse because the hockey season began Thursday night, and Prime Ticket is the only local carrier of King telecasts.

Also, the basketball season is just around the corner, with the Lakers opening the season Friday, Nov. 6, and Prime Ticket offering its first Laker telecast Sunday, Nov. 9.

Subscribers are being told by the cable company that a rate increase is the reason Prime Ticket was dropped. Tony Acone, president of Prime Ticket, said the rate increase was spelled out in the original contract. “It didn’t come as a surprise,” Acone said.

Calls to Century’s general manager, Frank Staley, were not returned.

TV-Radio Notes

During their 32 years together, Vin Scully and Jerry Doggett actually worked separately. It was either one or the other at the mike, and even after Ross Porter joined the team in 1976, the Dodgers maintained their one-at-a-time format. But last Sunday, in observance of Doggett’s last game, Scully and Doggett chatted throughout on both radio and television, and it was a delight. Too bad they didn’t do that more often. Maybe Scully and newcomer Don Drysdale will. . . . Kudos to Dick Stockton and Johnny Bench for the job they’ve been doing for CBS Radio on the National League playoffs. . . . Longtime Detroit Tigers announcer Ernie Harwell was scheduled to work the American League series for CBS radio with Brent Musburger, but since the Tigers came back to win the American League East, Harwell had to bow out to work for the Tiger radio network. So the Yankees’ Bill White replaced Harwell, who isn’t complaining.

Fox Broadcasting was considering televising a game at New York’s Shea Stadium Monday night between striking Giants and Jets, but at last report Fox’s lawyers hadn’t cleared it. . . . Hank Stram, working last Monday night’s NFL game for CBS Radio, was impressed with San Francisco’s wishbone offense. “I think there’s a place for it in the NFL but not on a regular basis,” he said. “One thing, though, would be teams would have to carry three quarterbacks, with the third quarterback being able to run the option.” . . . NBC has assigned Fred Roggin to do the play-by-play of Sunday’s Ram game with Pittsburgh at Anaheim. . . . NFL Films put a microphone on Pittsburgh Steelers Coach Chuck Noll for last Sunday’s strike-replacement game at Three Rivers Stadium against the Atlanta Falcons, and his troubles started early. He had to tell the players how to line up for the national anthem and point to where the flag was.

During the third quarter of last Sunday’s blacked-out Raider game at the Coliseum, NBC’s Charlie Jones was asked by partner Jimmy Cefalo what he thought the attendance was. “Let’s see, 1, 2, 3, 4 . . . ,” Jones said. . . . Jim Lampley, criticized in this space last week for comparing striking NFL players to slaves, phoned to say there had been a misunderstanding. Lampley called the players slaves during a point-counterpoint segment with Pat O’Brien. “You must have been watching the 11 o’clock segment,” Lampley said. “During the 5 o’clock news, we ran a disclaimer explaining that the opinions expressed weren’t necessarily those of the announcers. There wasn’t time to run the disclaimer again during the 11 o’clock news.”

ESPN’s Gayle Gardner, hired by NBC this week, begins her new job Jan. 1. She will be the studio hostess of the network’s bowl coverage that day. She will also be one of NBC’s seven hosts/hostesses during its 1988 Olympic Games coverage. Only two others, Bryant Gumbel, prime time, and Dick Enberg, venue host, have been announced. Gardner, a native of Brooklyn, said one thing that attracted her to NBC was the opportunity to move back to New York. “As a single person, there isn’t much to do in Bristol, Conn. (where ESPN is located),” Gardner said. . . . Speaking of women in sports, Kim Whitelaw will become the first woman to produce a college football game for ESPN when she works the Cal State Long Beach-University of the Pacific game, which will be televised Saturday night at 7:30. . . . That game will be one of three college games televised by ESPN Saturday. The others are LSU-Georgia at 1 p.m. and Notre Dame-Pittsburgh at 4 p.m. CBS offers Oklahoma-Texas at 11:30 a.m., and ABC has Arizona State-Washington at 12:25 p.m. . . . ABC announced it will televise the Washington D.C. International horse race Oct. 31.