SI View The Week in TV Sports

DON'T MISS

Monday 8/23

Reds at Braves
TBS MONDAY AND TUESDAY 7:35 PM

Reds that we love: Cross, even though it refuses to appropriate
funds for my bathroom, a disaster area; Buttons, who killed on
his Aug. 6 Dennis Miller Live appearance ("Old is when your wife
says, 'Come upstairs and make love to me,' and you say, 'I can't
do both.'"); and overachieving Cincinnati. At week's end these
Reds, who were leading the National League Central, boasted
first baseman Sean Casey (right), who was batting .344, and a
major league best 38-17 road record. Three of those losses,
however, came in the spring at Turner Field. Atlanta, the
reigning National League East champion, was 21-9 against its
five strongest intraleague rivals and the American
League-powerhouse Yankees.

HIGHLIGHTS

Sunday 8/22

Track & Field
World Championships
NBC NOON AND 3:30 PM (TAPE-DELAY)

It just got easier being Greene. Maurice Greene, the 100-meter
world-record holder, was looking forward to dueling with 1996
Olympic 100 gold medalist Donovan Bailey and Ato Boldon, the
defending world champ in the 200 and Greene's training partner.
Alas, Bailey, who's recovering from a torn right Achilles
tendon, and Boldon, who recently pulled his right hamstring,
will be missing from today's final in Seville, Spain. Greene
might face stiffer competition by entering the women's final,
which is scheduled 15 minutes earlier, and racing fellow
American Marion Jones.

Monday 8/23

Real Sports
HBO 10:15 PM

"Andro is a steroid," Dr. Gary Wadler tells correspondent
Bernard Goldberg. "It's not like a steroid; it is a steroid!"
Ever since Cardinals slugger Mark McGwire admitted taking it
last season, the little pill with the big
name--androstenedione--has seen its sales leap 1,000%. This
segment examines the drug's rampant use among teenage athletes,
including one whose father, a Louisiana high school strength
coach, obtains it for him.

Tuesday 8/24

WNBA Playoffs
ESPN 7 PM

Two weeks after singer Carnie Wilson's stomach-staple surgery,
it's once again gut-check time for California girls. The
previously underachieving Los Angeles Sparks, making their
postseason debut behind seasoned post player Lisa Leslie, meet
the Sacramento Monarchs in the Western Conference half of
tonight's first-round, single-elimination doubleheader.
Sacramento, which all season had leaned on center Yolanda
Griffith, lost the MVP candidate to a cartilage tear in her
right knee last Friday the 13th. In her stead Tangela Smith,
showing no signs of Monarch butterflies, had 28 points and nine
rebounds the following evening in a loss to the Utah Starzz.

Friday 8/27

Falcons at Titans
ESPN 8:15 PM

No color wars? No snipe hunts? No bunk inspection? You call this
summer camp? Atlanta's All-Pro running back Jamal Anderson, for
one, is not a gung ho camper. After holding out for the first
two weeks of Falcons training sessions, Anderson said upon
reporting, "No one needs five or six weeks of camp to get
ready." Tonight the defending NFC champions get a treat--an
overnighter!--and visit the renamed Tennessee Titans (ne Oilers)
in their new home, Nashville's Adelphia Coliseum, for a
preseason game. To invoke the words of counselor Bill Murray in
Meatballs, "It just doesn't matter."

ALL TIMES EASTERN. SCHEDULES ARE SUBJECT TO CHANGE.
SOURCE: NIELSEN SPORTS MARKETING SERVICE.

COLOR PHOTO: JOHN BIEVER

THE RATING

10.1

Rating for the Aug. 9 Hall of Fame Game (Browns versus Cowboys)
on ABC. It was the game's best rating ever and beat 1998
(Buccaneers versus Steelers) by 130%.

THE ZAPPER

On ABC's Sports Night last season, anchor Dan Rydell facetiously
remarked that one of his network's fitness-show starlets had a
thing for him. In real life, ESPN GameDay host Chris Fowler
recently became engaged to ESPN2 BodyShaping sweatress Jennifer
Dempster. (Now that's sister-network synergy.) Fowler proposed
in Paris. Fortunately for him, in replying Dempster chose not to
invoke the mantra of GameDay analyst Lee Corso: "Not so fast, my
friend."