On the face of it, the flap from Albert Belle's clubhouse eruption and subsequent decision to shut himself off from the media, and the mess that flowed from Saturday night's heavyweight fight at Madison Square Garden don't appear to be related.
But, upon closer inspection, the two situations are quite tied together in that no one should be surprised that either happened.
Let's start with Belle. Common sense dictated -- despite the new Orioles outfielder's desire to be kinder and gentler toward all, including the media -- that at some point, given his track record, he would shut off the faucet. It happened a lot sooner than some might have expected, but it seemed inevitable.
That's a shame because, for a while, it seemed as though Baltimore -- where the press corps is challenging, but not belligerent -- might be the place where Belle could find some common ground with reporters, and by extension, the public. Maybe he still can.
It's likewise sad that new Orioles general manager Frank Wren has picked up the familiar refrain of blaming the messenger for doing its job.
Wren's complaints are that the story was given far more significance than it deserved and that a double standard was being applied to Belle, with his problems drawing more visibility than those of others.
To refresh the general manager's memory, the original story ran as the second note in a notebook in this section the next day, not on Page A1 and not even on the front of the section. Wren may have a bone to pick with how national outlets portrayed the story, but given Belle's past outbursts, how could the matter be ignored?
As for Saturday's Evander Holyfield-Lennox Lewis fight follies, let's say that never has the phrase "let the buyer beware" had more meaning than when applied to pay-per-view boxing slates.
You don't read very much, if any, advance pay-per-view coverage in this column as a rule. Saturday night's fiasco only reinforced this writer's long-held belief that people who plunk down hard-earned money, on top of already exorbitant cable television prices, would be better served by simply tossing cash out a window.
Understand that the complaint is not with the sport of boxing, but with the people who run it and with the organizations that televise it. That these kinds of shenanigans should have happened to TVKO, the normally classy pay-per-view wing of Time-Warner, is uncharacteristic.
But then, after avoiding him like the plague for years, TVKO officials got back into bed with promoter Don King, who gives blood- sucking, money-grubbing leeches a bad name.
King, whose very boxing survival proves that P. T. Barnum was right, was seen and heard braying for a rematch just after the draw was announced, cynically calculating that a significant segment of the population would pony up dough for another Holyfield-Lewis fight.
And if you buy that next fight or any bout carrying King's imprimatur, then you only have yourself to blame for the putrid mess that boxing has become.
By the way, HBO will re-air last Saturday's fight this Friday at 10 p.m., with both of the combatants in a studio to discuss what happened.
Tournament thoughts
A few notes from the NCAA television scorecard:
Unlike NBC, which bailed out of the Miami-New Jersey game when it got out of hand Sunday, CBS didn't do the home audience or the ratings any favors by scheduling just one national game for the noon window on both Saturday and Sunday. Viewers inevitably tuned out once St. John's and Duke asserted their authority.
On the subject of ratings, they are down 4 percent from the first two rounds of both last year and 1997, but up 2 percent from 1996.
For next year, among its second team of analysts, CBS ought to keep James Worthy and the splendid Jon Sundvold. Rolando Blackman could be a good find if he got a little more work, and there wasn't enough Jim Spanarkel heard here to make a judgment.
Like everybody else, I thought I loved "Raymond." But after so many promos, I've decided to kick our relationship back to maybe a bemused indifference. And, to be honest, I'm not sure I want to like Craig Kilborn.
Despite the best efforts of CBS directors, we got to see empty seats at tournament venues. Lots of empty seats. It makes you think that this tournament may not be the big deal we've all been led to believe it is.
Of course, with games starting before 11 a.m., as the first game from Denver on Thursday did, it's hard to get a full house.
Speaking of stupid tournament scheduling tricks, Sunday night's Connecticut-Xavier women's game was terrific, as the eighth-seeded Musketeers took the top-seeded Huskies to the game's final possession before losing by two.
But for some unearthly reason, ESPN had the game scheduled for a 9 p.m. local tip-off in the Eastern time zone, after airing a game from the Central time zone that tipped off at 6 p.m. local time.
Couldn't the games have been flipped, if for nothing else to show concern for local fans?
Gaining perspective
One of the most ludicrous things to come from the lips of local NASCAR fans angry with Channel 2 for choosing to air lacrosse games over racing is that the station should take national programming over Baltimore-based shows.
That's akin to saying that a station should carry more news of the New York mayoral race than the one in Baltimore. A television station is obligated to produce locally oriented programming that serves a community need, one of the factors that determines whether its license is renewed.
As it turns out, NASCAR fans got their race Sunday when the snow postponed the Maryland-Towson game, but there are potential conflicts coming on April 25 and May 2.
Pub Date: 3/16/99