Columnist Ron Kantowski: ESPN: Tough to turn on, tune in and figure out

Thursday, May 20, 1999 | 11:14 a.m.

Ron Kantowski's notes column appears Tuesday and Thursday. Reach him at ron@lasvegassun.com or 259-4088.

Hopefully, it's gotten to the point where the TV sports listings you find every day on Page 2 of the Sun sports section are at least 98 percent accurate.

The 2-percent margin of error can be attributed to the following transcript, which is what you get when you call ESPN to determine which Wednesday night baseball game we are scheduled to receive:

"Following is the Major League Baseball schedule for ESPN. All times given are Eastern. On Wednesday, May 19, the primary lineup will be: New York Yankees at Boston, 7:30 p.m., and Houston at Los Angeles, 10:30 p.m.

"These games are subject to blackout in local markets. Viewers in the following areas will receive alternate programming:

"Viewers in New York City and its (unintelligible) suburbs, northern New Jersey, the eastern half of Connecticut, northeastern Pennsylvania and wherever MSG (Madison Square Garden network) is available to cable subscribers in: New York, Connecticut, northern New Jersey and the Wilkes-Barre, Pa., areas, and viewers within a 100-air-mile radius of Boston and wherever NESN (New England Sports Network) is available to cable subscribers in Massachusetts, Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Rhode Island, Connecticut and the Fairfield area (short breath) and ...

"Viewers within a 100-air-mile radius of Houston, or where Fox Sports Southwest is available to cable subscribers in: Texas, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Southeast New Mexico and viewers in the southern half of California, -- except the San Diego area, and viewers in Hawaii, the Las Vegas, Nev., area and the Phoenix area -- will receive an alternate lineup consisting of the Chicago Cubs at Florida at 7:30 and St. Louis at San Diego at 10:30."

WH-A-A-A-T?

In the time it took to figure out which game we were getting, the sports desk split an atom and lined up the colors on a Rubik's Cube. Twice.

While it's still a good idea to check your local listings for the time and game in your area, perhaps now you understand why we state that both are always subject to change.

* FIRST THINGS LAST: Boxing has to be the only sport where nobody takes them one at a time.

In basketball, it would be heresy for anybody associated with the Jazz and Lakers to talk about playing each other before they first dispatched the Blazers and Spurs, who currently stand in front of them. Likewise, if Ken Hitchock even mentions his Dallas Stars and the Stanley Cup finals in the same sentence, his words will be tacked up in the Colorado Avalanche dressing room for all to see.

Yet, just 48 hours before he will put his welterweight championship on the line against Oba Carr at Mandalay Bay Saturday night, the big story in town is who Oscar De La Hoya is going to fight the next time out.

Overlooking Carr for a potential mega-fight against Felix Trinidad certainly is not the politically correct thing to do. But in boxing, everybody is always looking ahead.

Given the sport's tawdry past, can you blame them?

* 400-1 SHOT: Here it is the middle of May, and former Valley High standout Tyler Houston is flirting with the .400 mark. But he better consummate his brief relationship with one of the game's most intoxicating statistical plateaus posthaste.

Houston's .442 batting average dropped to .404 following an 0-for-5 night at Florida Tuesday, and then to .397 after a pinch-hitting assignment Wednesday.

Ted Williams, he ain't. But Houston's lusty average should get him some additional at-bats, especially with Cubs regular catcher Benito Santiago (.210) and third baseman Gary Gaetti (.174) wielding a rolled-up Sun instead of a Louisville Slugger.

Houston started at the hot corner in the Cubs' 4-1 extra-inning win over the Marlins on Tuesday night.

* YOUR LINES HERE: My invitation to UNLV basketball fans to crack wise about the Rebels' pitiful home schedule and have their responses listed here already has generated some feedback. Here's a sampling:

From reader L.X. Cole: "Robert Stack has already signed on for an episode of Unsolved Mysteries: Where is the Rebels' real non-conference schedule?

"The UNLV schedule is as soft as Channel 8's investigative coverage of UNLV."

From reader James Bell: "U.S. Civil War battles or schools on UNLV's 1999-2000 schedule: A) Shiloh B) High Point C) Fredericksburg 4) Fairfield

"Austin Peay: The Team Who Shagged Me."

From reader Gino Pucine: "With a cupcake schedule like this, you'd think John Thompson was the coach." (The former Georgetown boss was notorious for playing a weak schedule, which included more parishes -- remember St. Leo? -- than Division I universities.)

Again, the invitation stands. If you believe a non-conference home schedule comprised of Mississippi Valley State, Fairfield, Nevada-Reno, Georgetown, Austin Peay, Oklahoma State, Cal Poly, Eastern Kentucky and High Point is an insult to your season ticket-buying intelligence, let me hear about it.

* PARTING SHOT: Boxing promoter Dan Duva on Mike Tyson hooking up again with promoter Don King upon Tyson's release from prison: "Why would anyone expect Tyson to come out smarter? He went to prison for three years, not Princeton."