It’s Been A Big Year For Ebersol

As 1995 ends, here are some reconstituted highlights from my notebooks:

The happy monopolist: Dick Ebersol, NBC Sports president, snares TV rights to five consecutive Olympics, from 2000 to 2008, by using years of Olympic connections and $3.5 billion from General Electric’s petty-cash drawer.

My best pal, Bud Selig: Ebersol stomped out of The Baseball Network in June, trashed Selig, the acting commissioner, then bought baseball’s TV rights for five years at $400 million in November. “Abashed? Me?” said Ebersol.

Calling Peter Drucker: The CBS, ABC and Fox sports divisions need all of the management guru’s seminal texts to figure out how to compete with NBC, which is trampling its competition at the speed of a zooming Zamboni.

Holding on: CBS committed $1.7 billion to keep the National Collegiate Athletic Association men’s hoops tournament, “March Madness,” through 2002. Luckily, NBC had no room for it.

Next up, Olbermann Ovaltine: When Walt Disney bought Capital Cities/ABC, ESPN was the big prize identified by Michael Eisner, Disney’s Mouse King.

Tupid League trick: Baseball said it had scrambled the satellite signals of regionalized playoff games, but dish owners got them anyway. Who’s running the place, Pauly Shore?

Most underrated sportscasters: 1. ESPN’s Bob Ley: “Outside the Lines” gets ever better. 2. ESPN’s Gary Thorne. 3. MSG Network’s Al Trautwig, the prince of versatility. 4. ESPN reporter Andrea Kremer.

Most overrated sportscasters: 1. Fox’s Terry Bradshaw: His analytical skills remain high, but his celebrity is being indulged without restraint. 2. ESPN/ ABC’s Dick Vitale: Is it a good thing to make yourself unlistenable?

Costas’ best work: Bob Costas’ classy eulogy to Mickey Mantle exceeded the high level of his work. (Now about those wild-card playoffs, Bob.)

Why was he there? Like the mystery of why Pauly Shore gets cast in major films, ABC miscast Brent Musburger as a baseball announcer during the baseball playoffs. Jim Kaat, whom Musburger verbally mugged, should have hogtied him.

On the other hand: ABC elevated Robin Roberts to be host of “Wide World of Sports,” replacing (finally) Julie Moran, and produced the wonderful series of documentaries, “A Passion to Play,” about women in sports.

Worst commercials: Anything starring Deion Sanders and Jerry Jones, the human cash registers. Both make Gordon Gekko look like Desmond Tutu.

False praise award: To those who lauded ESPN’s Chris Berman for saying nothing during Cal Ripken Jr.’s celebratory lap around the field after playing in his 2,131st consecutive game. Saying nothing at that point was Boomer’s job.

One lucky Bentley: Ben Wright is quoted as saying intemperate things about women and lesbians on the LPGA tour; three months later, he is awarded with a four-year contract to remain at CBS. Not even a sensitivity class?

Don’t blame Don King: How can anyone excoriate the Mistrialed One for charging pay-per-viewers up to $55 for the 89-second Mike Tyson-Peter McNeeley bout if 1.5 million suckers bought it?

Definitely missed: Howard Cosell’s death generated a surfeit of appreciative and angry memories; one person cruelly suggested that he lived too long. I will never forget him as Ed Grimley’s pointy-haired dad on “Saturday Night Live.”

Ethical shame: Anyone who accepts awards from the American Sportscasters Association, which has no credibility, no mission and no hall of fame.

Lousy news for slackers: ESPN2 cancels hip and funky “SportsNight” news/feature/leather program; former hosts appear on ESPN wearing ties.

We loved him madly: Phil Rizzuto calls his last nun’s birthday; somehow, someway, he must be summoned back. Or the cows shall weep.

Intelligent Life: Turner Sports. Now, it looks professional, with greatly enhanced productions, especially on football. Its Sunday night pregame show needs more energy, especially from Mark May. Get rid of Warren Moon.

Mr. Boring: Joe Montana sleepwalks in cameos on NBC’s National Football League studio show.

Shut uuuuuupppp!: HBO’s George Foreman, the cable network’s semiretired untitled champ, thinks he’s Dr. Michael Debakey, screaming for an end to the Evander Holyfield-Riddick Bowe bout. He’s not a doctor, but he plays one on TV.

Crumbled deity: Nebraska coach Tom Osborne’s image eroded, from next-to-carve-into Mount Rushmore adoration by NBC before the Orange Bowl to a devastating portrayal by CBS’s “48 Hours” after the Lawrence Phillips case.

The following fields overflowed: SUPCAT = COLUMN, YEAR-END ROUNDUP - TV view