Sunday night. Bears-Jets. National cable exposure on TNT. Just what Erik Kramer needs at this point of the season, right, Pat Haden?
“He’s a pretty solid quarterback,” says Haden, in his fifth year as a game analyst for TNT. “He’s an efficient, solid kind of player. (But) this is the first year he’s `the guy.’ He doesn’t have Barry Sanders to make things easier for him. That’s a big difference. So a lot more is being asked of him than was asked in Detroit.”
Haden, who quarterbacked in the NFL for seven years before getting his law degree in 1982, knows there are pressures in that position. And then there are pressures.
“There have been quarterbacks around the league who wake up every Sunday morning knowing they have to win the game,” says Haden. “For example, (the Broncos’) John Elway has played that way for 12 years. That’s a tough thing to do. Elway’s got unique abilities, and he’s been able to pull it off most of the time. But for most of the quarterbacks in the league, and Erik’s one of them, that’s a tough deal.”
But before the Bears can score points, the defense has to stop opponents from running all over them, says Haden. “In the National Football League, if you don’t stop the run, you lose,” he says. “That’s a surprise, because I thought the Bears were going to be an improved team this year. (Coach) Dave Wannstedt must be frustrated with his defense. That’s his baby.”
– Haden also has more than a passing interest in the O.J. Simpson case-and not just because they’re both USC alums, fellow broadcasters and have known each other (but not well, says Haden) for 15 years. Haden, the Rhodes scholar, spent a season with the the Rams rooming with Al Cowlings, of white Ford Bronco fame. “He was always a wonderful, wonderful guy,” says Haden of Cowlings. “I see him maybe once or twice a year now. He was always upbeat, always had a smile on his face, always good to people. I think he was just helping a friend out here.”
Networking: ABC beat CBS to the punch by retaining its rights to the Triple Crown horse races Thursday through a multiyear agreement. “We are pleased to keep these blue-chip properties on ABC during this time of competition for major sports programming vehicles,” said ABC Sports President Dennis Swanson. The deal, which covers the Kentucky Derby, Preakness and Belmont Stakes, also includes marketing and promotional rights. . . . CBS announced a new series Thursday called “Eye on Skating” that will feature six taped figure-skating events over nine dates starting with the Oct. 8 U.S. Ladies Outdoor Challenge at Sun Valley, Idaho, that will air Thanksgiving Day. The network has commitments for the series from Olympic gold medalists Oksana Baiul, Kristi Yamaguchi, Brian Boitano, Viktor Petrenko and the pairs team of Yekaterina Gordeyeva and Sergei Grinkov. Can hardly wait.
Step right up: Ken Burns, who has turned TV documentaries into a cottage industry, will be selling mementos from his current PBS “Baseball” series on the QVC home-shopping cable network at 4 p.m. Sunday. Among the items available are a “Baseball” trading-card set, video, soundtrack, book and a baseball autographed by Mickey Mantle. Proceeds will go to Florentine Film Foundation Inc., a non-profit organization that supports The Negro League Museum, and RBI, which promotes inner-city baseball programs.
Personnel moves: John Wildhack has been promoted to ESPN senior vice president of programming, replacing Loren Matthews, now executive vice president of Creative Sports, an ESPN-owned syndication, production and marketing company. Also, Steve Anderson, ESPN managing editor since 1990, has been promoted to Wildhack’s previous post of senior vice president for remote production. Under Matthews’ direction, ESPN and ESPN2 have more than 7,000 hours of origiinal programming. . . . Sports anchor Joby Smith, who just joined CLTV in February, is leaving to join soon-to-be-ABC affiliate KDNL-TV in St. Louis as sports director/anchor. . . . Susan Kerr, at CBS Sports since 1984 and most recently its director of communications, has been named director of programming. . . . David Wills, play-by-play man for the Kane County Cougars, replaces Judd Sirott as analyst on Illinois-Chicago hockey broadcasts on WAUR-AM 930. Les Grobstein begins his 13th consecutive season as Flames play-by-play man.
Programming notes: Ex-Bear Gale Sayers is featured on “This is the NFL” at 10 a.m. Sunday on WFLD-Ch. 32 as the league’s greatest punt returner. . . . CNN sports anchor Fred Hickman hosts the NBA Players Association Awards Dinner, which benefits the Little City Foundation, Sunday night at the Chicago Hilton and Towers. Dick Versace, an NBA analyst for WMAQ-Ch. 5 and WMVP-AM 1000, is one of the presenters. . . . “Bears Sunday Live” will cover the team’s walk-through in preparation for that night’s game against the Jets at Giants Stadium at 10:30 a.m. Sunday on WFLD-Ch. 32.