ESPN Gets Serious for 9/11

ESPN is observing another anniversary, only this time it has nothing to do with anything frivolous.

On the third anniversary of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, ESPN will salute U.S. military men and women overseas by televising two nightly editions of “SportsCenter” from the Camp Arifjan Army base in Kuwait on Saturday through Friday.

Stuart Scott, Steve Levy and Kenny Mayne, along with reporters Lisa Salters and Sean Salisbury, will be in Kuwait for the 10 and 11 p.m. editions of “SportsCenter.”

Salters, who reported from Qatar for six weeks last year at the start of the war, said, “What an incredible and culturally enriching experience it will be. Too many of our world’s problems are because people just don’t understand each other.”

Maj. Larry Crowl, who is coordinating ESPN’s visit to Kuwait, said on the phone Thursday, “It’s not often we get media who want to give back, who give us entertainment and highlight what we do....

“Usually, I have a tough time getting volunteers. But not for this. In about 2 1/2 weeks, we’ve turned an old, sandy warehouse into a television studio for ‘SportsCenter.’

“I keep hearing two questions. One, what can I do to help? And two, is Stuart Scott coming? This is huge for us.”

There will be a live studio audience, and Crowl said there would be a standing-room-only crowd of about 400.

Emotional Documentary

ESPN isn’t the only network marking the anniversary of Sept. 11. Tuesday at 10 p.m., HBO will show “Nine Innings From Ground Zero.”

The one-hour documentary tells how baseball helped heal New Yorkers.

There is a look at the first sporting event after the attacks, a game at Shea Stadium between the Mets and Atlanta Braves on Sept. 21 with a crowd of 41,000.

But most of the show deals with the Yankees and their playoff run to the World Series that year. Players and relatives of victims of the attack talk about their experiences.

Among those interviewed are Rudy Giuliani; President Bush, Joe Torre, Bobby Valentine, Bob Brenly, Derek Jeter, Scott Brosius, Paul O’Neill, Mark Grace and Curt Schilling.

Most moving, however, are comments from Kieran Lynch, who lost two brothers in the attack, and Ellen and Brielle Saracini, the wife and daughter of United Flight 175 pilot Victor Saracini.

Lynch says, “Stepping into Yankee Stadium for the first time was a connection to my brothers.”

Ellen Saracini tells of her daughter writing a letter to Jeter and how his subsequent phone call lifted her spirits.

“After that call, Brielle ran up to her room and I heard her sing,” Ellen Saracini says. “And that was the first time that she started singing since Sept. 11. And gosh, the feeling that I got, just to know that something was making her happy, something was giving her pleasure, something was making her forget.”

Says Brielle Saracini, “Baseball just made 9/11 a little better for us.”

Valentine, the former Met manager, says of Mike Piazza’s game-winning home run in that game on Sept. 21: “People did not know how to react at the ballgame. There was all this hidden anxiety of ‘Let’s continue to mourn, and let’s continue not to show any emotion other than mourning.’

“And with that crack of the bat, spontaneously, people stopped mourning and stood and cheered.”

The rest of the season, however, belonged to the Yankees.

Former Yankee infielder Brosius says, “It was amazing to see the transformation, because for the rest of that year, anyway, we weren’t the hated Yankees. It was kind of like we were the symbol for these people in New York going through this.”

Dodger Doings

The first stage of the Dodger experiment of using former players as guest commentators on radio broadcasts ended Thursday night with Tommy Davis in the booth. Eric Davis and Eric Karros had preceded him, and Steve Garvey, Ron Cey and Al Downing get their turns, beginning Sept. 27.

Lon Rosen, Dodger executive vice president, said he was pleased with how the first stage went but added that the Dodgers weren’t considering replacing Ross Porter or Rick Monday, whose contracts expire at the end of the season.

“The only change we’re considering is possibly adding a commentator to work with Ross and Rick,” Rosen said.

And what about Vin Scully, who has always preferred the Dodgers’ one-announcer-at-a-time format?

“Vin will always work alone,” Rosen said.

Short Waves

Today’s Basketball Hall of Fame enshrinement ceremony, featuring inductees Bill Sharman and Clyde Drexler, will be televised live at 4:30 p.m. by ESPN Classic and repeated at 6:30.... “NBA Inside Stuff” makes its season debut on Channel 7 on Sunday at 11:30 a.m. with what executive producer and host Ahmad Rashad calls a new “reality show” look.

One of the big events of the weekend is the NASCAR race at Richmond, Va., on TNT Saturday at 4:30 p.m. This is the race that will determine the 10 participants in the 10-race chase to the season championship.

These are good times for ABC’s Al Michaels. He and partner John Madden were voted the most popular NFL announcing team in a recent TV Guide poll, beating out Fox’s Joe Buck, Cris Collinsworth and Troy Aikman, 47% to 24%. This week ESPN named the Miracle on Ice, which was announced by Michaels, as the No. 1 headline story of the last 25 years. And Michaels will receive a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on Oct. 13.

HBO’s “Inside the NFL,” featuring Bob Costas, Collinsworth, Cris Carter and Dan Marino, begins its 28th season Wednesday at 10 p.m.... ESPN has signed Tony Kornheiser and Michael Wilbon to five-year contracts to continue with “Pardon the Interruption”.... Pete Sampras, who retired from tennis last year, looks back at his career in a special one-hour edition of “Center Court With Chris Myers” on the Tennis Channel on Sunday at 4 p.m..... Dick Enberg will be presented with a Humanitarian Award by the Multiple Sclerosis Society on Tuesday night in La Jolla, where he now lives.