Antics Not Suitable for Younger, if Any, Viewers

Within a five-day span last week, sports viewing included an actress losing her towel and jumping into the arms of a wide receiver and an NBA player losing his mind and jumping into the stands.

The taped “Monday Night Football” skit with Nicollette Sheridan and Terrell Owens was generally deemed inappropriate for family viewing.

Ron Artest’s stunt last Friday was more than just inappropriate, it might have been criminal. So might have been the acts of Indiana Pacer teammates Stephen Jackson and Jermaine O’Neal.

Commentator Bill Walton, for one, says NBA Commissioner David Stern’s suspensions were “inappropriately lenient.”

“Suspensions?” Walton said in an ESPN.com column he forwarded via e-mail. “How about termination! Like what would happen in any real-world scenario.”

Walton and his ESPN play-by-play partner, Mike Breen, saw last Friday’s melee up close because they were announcing the game.

“There will always be excusers and enablers who will say, ‘Well, when somebody throws a beer at you or yells at you, you’re supposed to respond,’ ” said Walton, who with Breen will be at Staples Center tonight to call the Lakers’ game against Sacramento for ESPN.

“I do not understand that mentality. People have been yelling and screaming at me my entire life.”

What Were They Thinking?

ESPN studio analysts John Saunders, Stephen A. Smith, Tim Legler and Greg Anthony were off base after Friday’s melee. While game announcers Breen and Walton were balanced in their comments, the studio guys placed the majority of blame on the Detroit fans.

Saunders angrily called them punks, Smith said they “acted cowardly and disgracefully,” and Legler said the fans “crossed a line that can’t be crossed.”

Not that the fans were blameless, but the whole mess could have been avoided if, as ESPN’s Mark Jackson pointed out later, Artest had simply found someone in authority and pointed out the guilty fan.

The other four ESPN studio analysts heard from their boss, Mark Shapiro, who told them that he wished they hadn’t solely blamed the fans. Shapiro said, “We unfortunately fell victim to the instant-opinion culture.”

By the way, the ESPN four weren’t the only TV commentators completely missing the point. FSN’s Jack Haley also implied Artest had a right to go into the stands to “defend himself.”

The ESPN four, to their credit, have since recanted and said they were wrong. Anthony, the least offensive of the four, said because he was part of the team, he must also take some blame.

Recommended Viewing

ABC offers a halftime feature during today’s Colorado-Nebraska game on Notre Dame sophomore offensive tackle Ryan Harris. It’s an uplifting story, and not just because last season Harris became only the third freshman in Notre Dame history to be a starter on the offensive line.

Harris is a Muslim at a Catholic university. He says that Muslims do not endorse terrorists and don’t practice hatred.

Short Waves

FSN West will televise 10 Laker games in high-definition, beginning with tonight’s game against Sacramento and Sunday night’s game against New Orleans.... FSN West’s rivalry coverage next week will include the debut of a weekly show, “The Lexus Gauntlet,” Wednesday at 6:30 p.m. The first show includes a feature by host Bill Macdonald, who attended UCLA and USC. Sean Farnham and John Jackson also will take part.

For the second time this season, ESPN’s “College GameDay” program will originate from the Coliseum on Saturday. ESPN is counting on a big crowd for the show at 7:30 a.m., even though the USC-Notre Dame game doesn’t begin until 5 p.m. When “College GameDay” was televised from the Coliseum when USC played California, the show drew a 1.7 national cable rating. The was the highest of the season until last Saturday’s show from Salt Lake City got a 1.8.

ABC will televise the Merrill Lynch Skins Game on Saturday and Sunday at 12:30 and 1:30 p.m. from the Trilogy Golf Club in La Quinta. Competing will be Tiger Woods, Fred Couples, Adam Scott and Annika Sorenstam. Last year, Sorenstam holed out a 39-yard bunker shot for an eagle on the ninth hole to win four skins and $175,000. And she won another $50,000 skin the next day.

TVG offers live coverage of Hollywood Park’s Turf Festival today and Saturday, but only Saturday’s races will be simulcast on FSN West 2.... The third meeting between Erik Morales and Marco Antonio Barrera on Saturday night at 6 on HBO Pay-Per-View should be worth the $44.95 asking price.

NASCAR finished its season with a bang, getting a 6.2 national rating for Sunday’s finale, a 38% increase over last year’s finale and the best-ever rating for a NASCAR race on a football Sunday.... CSTV will televise UCLA at Ohio State in an NCAA women’s soccer quarterfinal Saturday at 9 a.m.

In Closing

Remember the good old days before raunchy skits and heavy-metal rock acts, back when Howard Cosell did halftime highlights on “Monday Night Football”? ABC will revisit those days during Monday night’s game between the St. Louis Rams and Green Bay Packers with a halftime feature on Cosell’s highlight segments. It’s guaranteed to bring back fond memories.