Scorecard

The Fall Lineup
It's almost autumn, the time for football, the World Series (woops!) and, of course, the new television season. We are proud to present a slate of prime-time shows we would like to see, all of which have a distinctly sports flavor.
	8:00	8:30	9:00	9:30	10:00	10:3 0
Monday	Tampa Bay Watch Backfields are always in motion in this sand-and-sun drama of hard-hick, hard-bodied Florida footballers.		Chicago Hopeless New, heart-wrenching drama follows the fortunes of the Second City's National League baseball team.	Hangin'with Henry Cooper This BBC import chronicles the feelgood frolics of an aging, lantern-jawed heavyweight bleeder.	Law and Oerter Former Pittsburgh P iratehurler Vern Law and four-lime Olympic discus champ Al Oerter prove to be an unlikely crime-fighting duo.
Tuesday	Dome Improvement The adventures of a Seattle -based baseball team in its ramshackle domicile.	The Lanny A ribald romp through the PGA Tour with a profane, polyester-drenched player.	Harried with Children Scarlet-sweatered coach at a Midwestern niversity molds Young men with hack-to-basics disciplinary techniques such as swearing, head-butting and chair-tossing.		PeteRose Place The eternally boyish Hall of Lame wannabe chats about batting lips and the weekly line with a rotating cast of Big Red Machinists.
Wednesday	The Deion Sanders Show Guess what's topic Numero Uno on the new talk show hosted by the self-promoting, two-sport superstar? "I can promise you this-there 'II be plenty of talk about Deion Sanders , " says the host. Hew now!		Blunder Alley The weekly misadventures of a pro basketball team, set in a row of offices owned by the Los Angeles Clippers .	My So-called Team A weekly call-in show hosted by Cincinnati Bengal general manager Mike Brown .	The Sampsons Long-tressed, barrel-chested Biblical figure and his irritating hairdresser girlfriend move in with 7'4" basketball center in this cutting-edge, Full House-esque animated sitcom.
Thursday	20 Minutes A documentary detailing the weekly training regimen of heavyweight George Foreman .	Frazier NBA icon trots out Superfly fashions under baleful gaze of fuddy-duddy brother and old- fashioned dad.	Grace under Mirer Sparks fly when an NFL quarterback takes charge of the Chicago Cubs and attempts to "manage" their star first baseman.		Southern Exposure From the true-life files of David Berst : A bungling band of, NCAA investigators doggedly tries to uncover shenanigans in die Sunshine Slate.
Friday	Canseco, Texas Ranger A heavily muscled cleanup hitter enforces the peace with a Louisville Slugger.		M.A.N.T.L.E. Baseball legend gone partially to seed tries to reclaim past glories that once left spectators bug-eyed.	Empty Vest A behind-the-scenes peck into the comic world of the baseball commissioner's office.	Tales from the Gypped Grisly vignettes from the empty lives of jilted pro hockey fans in a North Country city that strongly resembles Minneapolis .

Priorities on Ice

One has to wonder if the NHL knows how to deal with prosperity.

After an outstanding 1993-94 season and postseason, during which pro sports' "other" league at last seemed to gain mainstream appeal, the hockey poohbahs sat down to negotiate a network TV contract, settling last week on a five-year, $155 million deal with Fox. The big question is why the NHL spent so much of the off-season talking to TV people and so little time talking to its own players.

The collective bargaining agreement between the NHL and its players' union ended in September 1993 (the 1993-94 season was played without one), and the two sides have had little communication. The league has talked about both a "redistribution of revenue" and a "rookie salary structure," both of which amount to a salary cap, and the players want nothing to do with that. It's a given that the owners are planning to lock out the players right before the season begins on Oct. 1.

So, what the NHL has right now is a nice new network contract...and maybe no games to show.

Still the One

Last Friday night the Birmingham Barons ' best-known outfielder took a final curtain call on his old stage before the house comes down. Michael Jordan played basketball in public for the first time since walking away from the Chicago Bulls last fall, joining a group of NBA guards and forwards in the Scottie Pippen Ameritech All-Star Classic, a charity game at doomed Chicago Stadium. Had the man who batted .202 in spikes and stirrups forgotten how to play in shorts and Air Jordans ? Does a shark forget how to eat? "I think I showed you guys that if I want to play, I can play," Jordan said.

That was after he had scored a game-high 52 points, run hard and dribbled well, made long jumpers and soft bank shots and gone at the man guarding him, Pippen—perhaps the best man-on-man defensive player in the NBA—with smiling ferocity. Astoundingly yet predictably, the 32-year-old Jordan was the best player on the floor by a wide margin. The youngsters in the game—Anfernee Hardaway, Jason Kidd , Isaiah Rider—got to see firsthand what everyone had been talking about for years.

Jordan came back to pay his respects to the stadium before the 65-year-old Big Barn on Madison Street is plowed under to provide parking for the Bulls ' new arena, the United Center , across the street. He did not come back, he insisted, to feed rumors that he'll soon return to the NBA instead of heading, as scheduled, to the Arizona Instructional League. He will play basketball anytime he wants, just not on anyone else's clock, just not for money, just not because he is still the best in the world. "That's a rare freedom," he said.

The freedom he showed in midair—his first dunk was a sudden and vicious display of living grace that had the sellout crowd of 18,671 laughing with joy—made his continued absence from the NBA almost painful to contemplate. Is there anyone else on the planet who is the best there is at something wonderful and will not perform that something? What if Yo Yo Ma decided to play the cello only behind closed doors or Pavarotti to sing only in the shower? When Jordan walked to center court as the game was ending and knelt and kissed the raging hardwood bull goodbye, those who love basketball could only hope it was just a good-night peck, not a final adieu.