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SI View The Week in TV Sports
Highlights
SATURDAY 4/28
NBA Playoffs, Conference Quarterfinals
NBC SUNDAY 12:30 PM A wise man once said, "You miss 100 percent
of the shots you don't take," a maxim Sixers guard Allen Iverson
heeds as if it were tattooed on his shooting arm. Instead, that
limb bears the inscription HOLD MY OWN, which is what Pacers
guard Travis Best will attempt to do against the Answer in
today's Game 3 of the best-of-five Indiana-Philadelphia series.
The third games of the Jazz-Mavericks and Spurs-Timberwolves
series follow.
Cubs at Giants
WGN 4 PM This matchup between division leaders (as of Sunday)
could spark memories of the 1989 National League Championship
Series, when Will Clark singled off Mitch Williams with the bases
loaded to propel San Francisco into the World Series. This year's
drama could include Giants slugger Barry Bonds, the newest member
of the 500-homer club, launching a bomb off the Cubs' newly
minted closer (and who'd-a-thunk-it Rotisserie star) Jeff
Fassero, propelling fans into the waters of McCovey Cove in
pursuit of the ball.
Penn Relays
ESPN2 5:30 PM The three-day Penn Relay Carnival, as it's
officially known, is the Mardi Gras of track and field. More than
22,000 athletes descend on Philadelphia's Franklin Field to chug
insane amounts of Gatorade, strip down to their Lycra bodysuits
and get as nutty as, say, pole vaulters can get. The showcase
will be the U.S.A. versus the world relays, in which Maurice
Greene, Michael Johnson and Marion Jones are scheduled to appear.
Expect winners to raise their arms in response to chants of "Show
your pits! Show your pits!"
Don't Miss
SATURDAY 4/28, SUNDAY 4/29
61* and The Life and Times of Hank Greenberg
HBO SATURDAY 9 PM; CINEMAX SUNDAY 7:30 PM
A Bronx-themed twin bill: Yankees fans will wallow in 61* and its
melodramatic look at Mickey Mantle's and Roger Maris's runs at
Babe Ruth's home run record in 1961. For the rest of us, the
two-hour TV movie is worth watching for the tightly wound Maris
portrayed by Barry Pepper (above) and Thomas Jane's amusingly
dead-on Mantle. Jane inhabits the Mick, due no doubt in part to
director Billy Crystal's friendship with the late Mantle. Less
schmaltzy is Aviva Kempner's enthralling 90-minute 1998
documentary on the Bronx-born slugger Greenberg, who as
baseball's first Jewish star battled the prejudice of fans and
other players.
ALL TIMES EASTERN. SCHEDULES ARE SUBJECT TO CHANGE.
COLOR PHOTO: KEN REGAN/CAMERA 5
THE ZAPPER
Was that ESPN or CNBC covering the NFL draft last weekend? There
were three information tickers, a sidebar that listed past picks
and results of an espn.com fan poll, plus talking heads Chris
Berman, Mel Kiper Jr. and Joe Theismann discussing every nuance
of the proceedings. Such overload might work on a website, but on
TV it's headache-inducing.
