ESPN Barely Gets Ruth Footage in Door

ESPN got quite a surprise gift this week.

The final four of its “SportsCentury” series will be unwrapped this weekend, and included will be never-before-seen footage of Babe Ruth’s alleged called shot in Game 3 of the 1932 World Series at Chicago’s Wrigley Field.

The footage will all but definitively answer the long-asked question: Did Ruth call his home run by pointing to center field, or was he pointing at the Cubs’ dugout because he was angry about their heckling? Series producer Mark Shapiro, who saw the footage for the first time on Thursday, said it is clear Ruth was pointing at the dugout.

How ESPN acquired the footage is truly a Christmas-time story.

“God was watching out for us,” Shapiro said.

ESPN will lead off the Ruth show with the new footage, but it is not known when that show will be televised. ESPN isn’t saying in which order its four finalists for North American athlete of the century finished. The others are Jim Brown, Michael Jordan and Muhammad Ali.

Nos. 4 and 3 will be profiled on ESPN tonight at 7 and 7:30, and Nos. 2 and 1 in a one-hour special on sister network ABC Sunday at 4 p.m. Also, there will be a 90-minute special on ABC Sunday at 12:30 p.m. that looks at the century’s great moments in sports, with Dick Schapp as host.

The Ruth footage was shot by Harold Warp of Chicago. Game 3 of the 1932 Series between the New York Yankees and the Cubs was the only baseball game he ever attended. He passed it along with other 16mm film to his son, Harold Warp Jr., who put it all in storage.

James Jacobs of Cheyenne, Wyo., a cousin of Harold Warp Jr., saw the Ruth footage for the first time in 1994. He saw it again in 1996 when he put together a video for the funeral of his grandfather, Warp Sr.’s uncle. It was then he realized this might be something of value, but did nothing about it at the time.

Last Friday, Jacobs noticed on ESPN’s Web site that the cable network was looking for rare footage. He sent an e-mail, but it apparently went unnoticed.

On Monday, Jacobs, who works in the satellite dish pay-per-view business, used his contacts to reach ESPN. He talked with Shapiro on Tuesday, a courier picked up his copy of the footage on Wednesday, and by Thursday it reached Shapiro, who flipped.

Shapiro said the only other footage of Ruth’s famous home run was shot by Kirk Kandle of St. Louis. But because a fan stood up and got in the way, that footage doesn’t show the ball going out or anything of Ruth after he rounded first. The Warp footage shows the ball going out, and Ruth rounding third and scoring.

“He pounded the ball,” Shapiro said. “He must have been really mad.

“This is unbelievable, a fitting way to finish off this project,” he said. “And they didn’t even want any money.”

ESPN will pay a one-time licensing fee of $1,000.

Said Jacobs: “My cousin still has the original footage, and we’re not sure what we’re going to do with it. At least now there will be an awareness of its existence.”

Jacobs said he tried to find out where Ruth finished among the four finalists, but to no avail.

Secrecy is so important to ESPN that not even Dan Patrick, the series host, knows who is No. 1. “For each show, we taped him four times, saying, ‘And the winner is Jim Brown,’ and so on.”

There will be an afterlife of the series. Profiles of athletes ranked from No. 18 to No. 5 will be on ESPN Classic Sunday, beginning at 9 a.m. All 50 will be on ESPN2, beginning Dec. 30 at 4:30 p.m. with a couple of breaks. And all 50 will be on ESPN Classic successively, beginning

Jan. 1 at 4 a.m. and ending Jan. 2 at 5 a.m. In July, ESPN Classic plans to launch a nightly one-hour biography series formatted after the “SportsCentury” series.

RADIO DAZE

KXTA (1150) will announce on Monday that it will begin carrying an Indianapolis syndicated non-sports show, “Bob and Tom,” on Jan. 4. Arnie Spanier, formerly of One on One, will take over the 3-7 p.m. slot, with “the Dog Pound” (Newy Scruggs and Dave Denholm), preceding Spanier. Ben Maller and Dave Smith will move to 7-10 p.m., with Lee Klein doing late-nights and weekends. . . . Irv Kaze came up with a good idea for his Saturday, 6-7 p.m. show on KIEV (870). He taped segments with various guests all year, more than 60 in all, asking them to look into the future. The result is a two-part show that will be aired the next two Saturdays. . . . Ron Shelton, writer-director of “Play It to the Bone,” will be Johnny Ortiz’s guest during his “Ringside” segment on Peter Vent’s 9-midnight show Saturday night on KRLA (1110). Shelton will be on with Ortiz about 9:30. The movie will open on a limited run Christmas Day at the United Artists Theater in Westwood and around the country on Jan. 12.

SHORT WAVES

Christmas isn’t usually associated with football, but Fox has an NFL game today and CBS has one Saturday. ABC also has the Blue-Gray game and the Aloha Bowl on Christmas Day. One player of note in the Blue-Gray game is UCLA defensive back Ryan Roques, a member of the Blue team. . . . NBC opens its NBA season with a doubleheader Christmas Day. It’s the New York Knicks at Indiana at 4 p.m., followed by San Antonio and the Lakers at Staples Center at 6:30 p.m. With Bob Costas getting the day off, Marv Albert and Doug Collins will announce the Laker game. . . . Albert was a guest on David Letterman Wednesday night. Letterman avoided any touchy subjects. . . . Shaquille O’Neal, who was on with Jay Leno Wednesday night, will serve as co-host with Ahmad Rashad of “NBA Inside Stuff” Saturday at 10:30 a.m. on Channel 4.

Attention, Jim Rome fans: A retrospective of “The Last Word” called “Newsmakers of ‘99” will be on Fox Sports Net Saturday at 6 p.m. . . . For what it’s worth, Keith Olbermann offers his 50 greatest athletes of the century on Fox Sports Net Saturday at 7 p.m. . . . There is the All-Madden Team, and now CBS’ Phil Simms has the All-Iron Team. The first one will be presented in a half-hour CBS special Saturday at 11:30 a.m. . . . On Thursday, CBS will have a prime-time special, 8-9 p.m., in which it looks back at its greatest sports moments. Jim Nantz and Greg Gumbel host. . . . Lifetime looks at the progress of women’s sports in a special, “Breaking Through: 25 Years of the Women’s Sports Foundation,” Sunday, 10-11 a.m. The host is Maura Driscoll, a former UCLA gymnast. . . . The Golf Channel offers “24 Hours of Tiger,” beginning at 3 a.m. Thursday, which is Tiger Woods’ 24th birthday.

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What Los Angeles Is Watching

A sampling of L.A. Nielsen ratings for Dec. 18-19.

SATURDAY

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Over-the-air Channel Rating Share Pro football: San Francisco at Carolina 11 9.3 25 Pro football: Pittsburgh at Kansas City 2 6.7 21 Golf: Wendy’s Three-Tour Challenge 7 2.3 5 Skiing: Ford downhill series 4 1.6 5 College basketball: Louisville at Kentucky 2 0.9 3 College football: Heritage Bowl, Hampton-Southern 4 0.7 5

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Cable Network Rating Share College basketball: Cincinnati at Xavier ESPN 1.1 2 College basketball: Kansas at Illinois ESPN 0.7 2 Hockey: Chicago at Kings FSN 0.7 1 College basketball: DePaul at UCLA FSN 0.6 1 College basketball: North Carolina at Miami ESPN 0.5 1 College basketball: Minnesota at Oregon FSN 0.5 1 College football: Division I-AA title game ESPN 0.3 1 College football: Las Vegas Bowl, Fresno State-Utah ESPN2 0.2 1 College football: Division III title game ESPN2 0.0 0

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SUNDAY

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Over-the-air Channel Rating Share Pro football: New York Jets at Dallas 2 10.9 26 Pro football: Washington at Indianapolis 11 9.0 24 Pro football: San Diego at Miami 2 6.3 17 Pro basketball: Lakers at Toronto 9 3.7 9 Figure skating: ISU Cup of Russia 7 3.2 8 Figure skating: Equal World Pro 4 2.2 5 Figure skating: Grand Slam Tour 11 2.0 5 Golf: Wendy’s Three-Tour Challenge 7 2.0 5 Basketball: Hoop-It-Up competition 4 1.4 4 Soccer: Mexican League championship 34 1.2 3 Hockey: Detroit at Mighty Ducks 9 1.0 2

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Cable Network Rating Share Pro football: Buffalo at Arizona ESPN 6.6 12 Golf: V Foundation Celebrity Classic ESPN 0.7 2 Boxing: Hector Camacho Jr. vs. Simon Gonzalez FSN 0.3 1

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WEEKDAY RATINGS: MONDAY--Pro football, Green Bay-Minnesota, Ch. 7, 14.1/24; Pro basketball, Lakers at Boston, Ch. 9, 5.3/9.

Note: Each rating point represents 51,350 L.A. households. Cable ratings reflect the entire market, even though cable is in only 63% of L.A. households.