Berman Is Back, Back, Back …

Chris Berman stood in the Yankees dugout, cane in hand, cast on knee, tongue in cheek. New York coach Don Zimmer was on the bench.

“How’d that happen?” Zimmer asked.

It had been a month since Berman had major surgery to repair a torn tendon in front of his left knee, and he’d just come off ESPN’s injured reserve list. He wore a removable cast to keep his left leg straight.

“Jet skiing,” Berman said. “Did it on a jet ski.”

“No kidding,” Zimmer said.

Yes, kidding. Berman did it on vacation in Florida, and he did go jet skiing. But this was just from a bad step.

“Yep, ripped a quad. Did it jet skiing,” Berman said. “Told one paper I did it jet skiing and it came out water skiing. Hell, I can’t water ski. Only place big enough for me to water ski is the Pacific Ocean.”

Paul O’Neill joined the growing circle around Berman, then came Wade Boggs.

“Alpine skiing accident?” Boggs asked.

“Boggsie, you stick with me,” Berman said. “You can help me write the release. Did it going head-to-head with Alberto Tomba. I just can’t cut it anymore.”

Yep. Berman is back back back back back back back back back!

“I was in old Yankee Stadium about 40 times. This is still the Yankees. I love it here,” said Berman, who was preparing to do a game with partner Buck Martinez. “This is like a breath of fresh air to me.”

He stepped gingerly down the steel stairway to the broadcast booth.

“I feel like Charlie Chaplin,” Berman said. “This feels like putting on an old shoe except the foot’s got gangrene. You know, 90 percent of knee surgery today is arthroscopic. I’m the 10 percent that wasn’t.

“It makes you appreciate a lot of things. I have to think about what I’m going to bring downstairs with me in the morning.”

Berman said he actually played nine holes of golf with the injury before he decided it was too serious to ignore. The doctor who did the surgery is a friend of Berman’s, “and the X-ray man has a daughter in my daughter’s fourth-grade class. I wanted a home game.”

A week later, he dragged himself out of bed to go to dinner at the White House at the invitation of President Clinton. The last time they’d visited, Clinton came to Berman’s house - the broadcast booth at Camden Yard for the Cal Ripken game.

At the time, Clinton was disappointed because Berman didn’t have a nickname ready for him. This time he did - Bill “Of Rights” Clinton.

Now everybody’s happy.

Out takes

One young fan wants Ken Griffey Jr. to teach him how to hit, another wants Todd Hundley’s autograph because “he is very cute,” and yet another would like Greg Maddux to pitch batting practice to his Little League team.

Fox Sports is soliciting baseball wishes from its young viewers over the Internet, and plans to try to fulfill a few of them this season for the kids’ half of its hour-long baseball pregame show, “In the Zone.”

Response to the Fox homepage promotion has been brisk.

“More than anything in the world, I love baseball,” writes one cruiser of the Internet. “The Braves are my team. I’ve been rooting for them since 1990. I would consider the rest of my life a success if I could only meet a great professional baseball player.”

Then, he admits, although he loves the Braves, maybe Griffey would be the man.

An Orioles fan writes that he wishes “Cal Ripken Jr. and Billy Ripken could come to my c-ball practice,” and a Texas fan wants “to throw the first pitch at one of the Rangers’ games.” A 12-year-old from San Diego would like to take batting practice with Tony Gwynn “and sit on the Padres bench for a game,” and a 15-year-old from Philadelphia wants to challenge Lenny Dykstra to a game of Wiffle ball.

And then there’s the misguided soul from Washington state who says, “I wish I could meet Edgar Martinez and get cool stuff from him.”

Let me clue you in, kid. Edgar Martinez doesn’t have any cool stuff.