Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, April 9, 1994 TAG: 9404090033
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Jack Bogaczyk
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Summerall makes his 27th - and probably last - appearance in the No. 18 tower for CBS Sports at Augusta National on Sunday. The final two rounds of the 58th Masters (3:30 p.m. today, 4 p.m. Sunday, WDBJ) will end Summerall's 33-year association with CBS, as he moves to the Fox Network to continue calling NFL telecasts.
"I obviously hate to leave," Summerall said Thursday in a media conference call. "I've been at this a long time. I was thinking; the only people who have ever signed a paycheck are the New York Giants and CBS. Oh, I forgot the Chicago Cardinals. As for the shock and heartbreak, I'm over that."
When Summerall first agreed to move to Fox and stay with his longtime NFL partner, John Madden, he had been told he could Summerall keep doing CBS golf. Then, management decided differently. Now, management has changed, with CBS Sports president Neal Pilson out and who-knows-who in.
Summerall said he hadn't considered going back to CBS. He has talked with other networks - he declined to name them - about doing golf. He loves the game. He's an 8 handicap. In the years he's played Augusta National around his work, his best round is an 80.
When he first saw the esteemed course, he wasn't broadcasting or playing. He came to Augusta National in 1945 as a caddy for a druggist from his hometown of Lake City, Fla.
"I was during World War II and most of the Augusta caddies were off in the service," said Summerall, 62, then a junior high student. "The man had an invitation to play, and he asked me to come with him because he knew I liked the game.
"I remember I had to get out of school to go. He paid me 50 cents a day for two days, plus some food and a room and transportation. It sounded like a good deal to me."
When Summerall first worked the Masters for CBS, veteran producer-director Frank Chirkinian was ordered to put him in the 18th tower by then-CBS Sports president Bill MacPhail. Chirkinian, now one of Summerall's closest friends, wasn't thrilled.
That was 1968, one of the most memorable Masters, as Roberto DeVicenzo signed an incorrect scorecard, giving himself a par 4 at the 17th - and 71st - hole instead of the birdie 3 he had. Tommy Aaron witnessed and signed DeVicenzo's incorrect card. So, Bob Goalby won the Masters by one stroke.
"They sent me this football player," Chirkinian said. "The idea that a football announcer could do golf . . . Here was this interloper. I resented that anyone could do such a thing. I thought the people in New York had lost their minds. Well, I was wrong.
"Pat is completely devoid of ego. He is a premier broadcaster and he would be in just about any sport, because of his lack of ego and his ability and willingness to lay out and let the experts be experts . . . He's just the consummate broadcaster."
Summerall was moved off the finishing hole and didn't return to the anchoring job until 1983, after Vin Scully left CBS Sports. Since then, Summerall has become the commanding presence of CBS Sports. And for the second time in eight days, the network that already lost baseball, NFL games and Madden will lose one of its signature faces and voices.
What Charles Kuralt has been to CBS News, Summerall has been with CBS Sports. If others are planning a special tribute for the end of his CBS days Sunday, well, he isn't.
"If it happens, it happens," said Summerall, who bid adieu to CBS football with Madden at the end of the NFC championship game in January. "I think the least difficult we can make it, the better off we'll be."
Although this is supposed to be his CBS farewell, he may be back next weekend - one last time - at the Heritage Classic on Hilton Head Island. Jim Nantz will replace Summerall as CBS' 18th-tower anchor, and Nantz's wife, Lorrie, is due to deliver a baby early next week. If the Nantz baby is a few days late, Summerall has told Chirkinian to call.
Augusta National had a farewell brunch for Summerall on Tuesday, but he'll be back. He's been invited as a guest any time he wants to walk the wisteria-lined fairways. Amazingly, in all his years of visiting Augusta, he's driven up Magnolia Lane into the club's main entrance only once.
"It was Monday night. I was invited over to watch the NCAA championship game," said Summerall, an Arkansas graduate. "I've always gone in the workers' gate before."
\ NCAA FALLS: The ratings for college basketball continued to slip this season. The punctuation mark came in CBS Sports' coverage of the NCAA Tournament.
The men's tournament Nielsen national rating was 8.3 (percentage of TV homes), off 12 percent from 1993 and 8 percent lower than the 1992 event. The 8.3 matches the '91 rating - which was the lowest tournament Nielsen since CBS took the event from NBC starting in 1982.
The Arkansas-Duke final attracted a 21.6 rating, down 3 percent from the 22.2 from last year's North Carolina-Michigan finale. The NCAA women's title game last Sunday, with North Carolina beating Louisiana Tech, had a 3.3 rating, down 13 percent from 1993.
\ AARON TALKS: On ABC's "Day One" on Monday (8 p.m., WSET), major-league home run king Hank Aaron discusses his breaking of Babe Ruth's venerated record 20 years ago with anchor Forrest Sawyer. The piece also includes interviews with some of Aaron's former teammates about the emotional moment tinged with bitterness and racial venom:
From Darrell Evans on the hatred Aaron encountered during the Ruth chase: "It was like he was assassinating somebody. It was like he was going to take somebody and throw somebody in jail. It was like he was going to take Babe Ruth's name, cross it out, and paint Hank Aaron's name on it. It was crazy and it's still crazy now."
\ ESPN CHANGES: Regular viewers of ESPN's SportsCenter should note the schedule change that begins Monday, when the weekday 7 p.m. half-hour show expands to one hour with a 6:30 start.
That joins the former 11:30 p.m. show, which lengthened to one hour with an 11 p.m. start last Monday. The 2:30 a.m. show, which is repeated several times starting at 7 a.m. each day, remains a half-hour.
Roy Firestone's "Up Close" moves from 6:30 p.m. to 12:30 and 3 a.m.
The 6:30 SportsCenter will use a three-anchor format, with Robin Roberts joining Bob Ley and Charley Steiner as regulars.
"Baseball Tonight" has found more stable timeslots this season with ESPN cutting back on its weekly game schedule. Baseball Tonight airs at 10:30 p.m. and midnight on Monday, Tuesday and Thursday through Saturday, with a 40-minute show at 7:20 before the Sunday night game. There is no scheduled Baseball Tonight on Wednesday, when ESPN airs a doubleheader.
by CNB