Spence’s Book Has a Few Things to Say About Arledge, Too

It may not rank up there with Donald Regan’s book in the kiss-and-tell department, but Jim Spence, former No. 2 man at ABC Sports, has written a book in which he takes some pretty good shots at former colleagues, including Howard Cosell and Roone Arledge.

What Spence wrote about Cosell and his drinking habits has made national news. Spence says Cosell once threw up on Don Meredith’s new boots during a telecast.

But maybe more intriguing is a chapter titled, “Mr. Sports Television--Fact and Fable.” The subhead reads, “Roone Arledge Demystified.”

Spence was the No. 2 man at ABC Sports behind Arledge from 1978 to early 1986, when he quit after he was passed over to replace Arledge as the department president. That job went to Dennis Swanson.

Spence admits in the book that he thought Arledge should have backed him for the promotion, so there may be some bitterness. But still what Spence has to say about Arledge is revealing.

“Working on a day-to-day basis with Roone was exasperating,” he writes. “As smart and effective as he was as a programmer, he was always an inefficient administrator.

“He detested making decisions and would procrastinate whenever possible and for as long as possible, often allowing a problem to go unsolved in the hope it would eventually go away.

“His reputation for not returning phone calls is one of the odd legends of the television industry, and I’m convinced he gained some sort of strange psychic kick out of living up to it.

“When he became president of ABC News as well as ABC Sports in 1977, Beano Cook, the network’s one-time publicity man and now a college football commentator for ESPN, cracked: ‘Now Arledge has two offices where he can’t be reached.’ ”

Add Arledge: “Roone had secretaries at both his news and sports offices,” Spence writes. “Some sports secretaries didn’t see him for months.

“One day, Charlie Lavery approached one of them and, tongue in cheek, asked if Mr. Arledge was in. ‘No,’ she replied. ‘Are you sure,’ asked Charlie. ‘Yes,’ said the secretary.

“ ‘Have you ever met Mr. Arledge?’ asked Charlie. ‘No,’ replied the young lady. ‘Have you ever seen Mr. Arledge?’ ‘No,’ she replied.”

More Arledge: “Roone frequently would fall behind in filing his expense accounts,” Spence writes. “His practice was to keep getting advances from the accounting department, then do the paper work only after repeated urgings from the keepers of the books.

“This seemed to me, and others, yet another of his endless ways of demonstrating power.”

And: “He seemed to have little or no consideration for employees’ family needs, and also very little for his own. Roone was married twice and divorced twice. He is the father of four children by his first wife, Joan, and later married ‘Miss Alabama’ of 1969, Ann Fowler.”

Last add Arledge: “Arledge’s contract called for him to get an executive producer’s credit for every show put on the air by ABC Sports.

“The person who legitimately takes that sort of credit has overall responsibility for the content of the show, the formatting of the program and the supervision of the production, but it was rare for Arledge to perform these functions.

“Maybe a guy with six zeroes in his annual paycheck simply doesn’t have time for things like that--Roone’s salary of recent times has been $2 million a year.”

Ten years ago, May 14, 1978, the Dodgers and the Chicago Cubs played a 15-inning game. It was a hot Sunday afternoon, and the game went on for 5 hours 2 minutes.

The Cubs won, 10-7, and Dave Kingman had three home runs and eight RBIs. His three-run homer in the 15th was the difference.

After the game, Paul Olden, a young news assistant for radio station KLAC and now a Cleveland Indians broadcaster, set his tape recorder on Manager Tom Lasorda’s desk and asked that now famous question:

“What’s your opinion of Kingman’s performance?”

The next day, an edited version of a bleep-filled 1-minute 35-second response was played on Jim Healy’s KLAC show.

Healy, now at KMPC, will play the tape in its entirety once again Monday in honor of its 10th anniversary.

It takes all kinds: Speaking of bleeps, NFL Films’ Steve Sabol recently got an unusual letter. A fan wrote: “What really puzzles me, Mr. Sabol, is why are you censoring your home-viewing videocassettes? I know of no other company putting videotapes up for sale with those disconcerting ‘bleeps’ included. Furthermore, it insults the buyer to be confronted with such infantile treatment. If there is a way to have my tapes ‘uncensored,’ I like to know about it.”

Sabol’s response: “Don’t you realize that many of our videotapes are bought by children and rented by church groups, schools and youth clubs?”

TV-Radio Notes

Steve Garvey will make his debut as a network baseball commentator Saturday. He’ll work an NBC backup game, Chicago at Houston, with Jay Randolph, but that game will not be shown in Los Angeles. L.A. will get the Angels against the Yankees at New York at 10:15 a.m., with Bob Costas and Tony Kubek, followed at 1 p.m. by the New York Mets at San Francisco, with Vin Scully and Joe Garagiola. . . . CBS offers two National Basketball Assn. playoff doubleheaders this weekend. Saturday, beginning at 10 a.m., it’s Detroit- Chicago, with Verne Lundquist and Hubie Brown, followed at 12:30 p.m. by Denver-Dallas, with Tim Brant and Billy Packer. Sunday, beginning at 10 a.m., it’s Boston-Atlanta, with Brent Musburger and Tom Heinsohn, followed at 12:30 p.m., by the Lakers at Utah, with Dick Stockton and Billy Cunningham.

The sister of NBC tennis commentator Bud Collins, Dr. Elvira Love and her husband, Dr. Malcolm Love, who together ran a drug and alcohol rehabilitation clinic in Girard, Pa., were shot and killed in their home last week. A former resident at the clinic, whose girlfriend was staying with the Loves, has been charged with the crime. . . . Channel 13 has reached an agreement to televise the next three Los Angeles Marathons. . . . This weekend’s Indy 500 time trials will be on ABC Saturday at 1 p.m. and on ESPN Sunday at 2 p.m. Next weekend’s trials will all be on ESPN. . . . How is Bo Jackson as a basketball player? You can get an idea by watching highlights of the Foot Locker Slam Dunk contest on ESPN Tuesday at 6 p.m. Jackson is one of the contestants. Others include high jumper Dwight Stones, the Angels’ Devon White, volleyball’s Karch Kiraly, triple jumper Mike Conley, boxer Thomas Hearns, and football players Carl Banks, Ricky Sanders and Keith Jackson.

Keith Erickson is now doing NBA wrap-up segments for the nightly 4-to-5 “Sports Time” talk show on KFOX-FM. Other new features on the show are Bud Furillo’s “Lighter Side of Sports,” Furillo’s “Steam Room,” and Lou D’Amico’s reports from the Caesars Palace sports book. . . . The Dodgers’ Jesse Orosco will be the guest on “It’s Your Call” on Prime Ticket Monday at 7 p.m. . . . In this space last week, KABC radio’s Stu Nahan was chided for not noticing in the tape that umpire Dave Pallone nicked Pete Rose in the cheek while pointing at him during their recent spat. Answered Nahan: “You said I’m aging. Aren’t we all aging? You said I need glasses. I already wear glasses. You said I would defend Tom Lasorda if it was him instead of Rose. I could never defend Lasorda if he laid a hand on an umpire. In fact, I criticized Lasorda on the air for his remarks about Rose’s 30-day suspension.” Lasorda had said: “What are umpires, sacred cows or something?”