By Charles Bricker
What ARE the ESPN honchos going to do with Pam Shriver?
They thought they had the perfect spot for her, shipping her out as a sideline or roving reporter, looking for quirky interviews around the grounds. But even that isn’t working out after Shriver and James Blake got into an embarrassing on-court tete-a-tete Tuesday at Wimbledon.
Blake called Shriver “an ass” and Shriver, whose booming voice can easily be heard over crowd noise, remarked, loud enough for Blake to hear, that he has “rabbit ears.”
It’s a fair guess that sometime today they’re going to apologize to each other, but the damage is done and it’s ultimately going to be worse for Shriver than for Blake, who can be partially excused for his boorish outburst because he’s going through a particularly difficult time in his career right now.
His knee hurts. His ranking has dropped into the hundreds. And as gracious and eloquent as he often is in interviews, he can be extremely moody. As for Shriver, she doesn’t live in a cocoon. She undoubtedly knows how poorly things are going for Blake right now and there was no need to mock him.
In case you missed it, the exchange is at youtube.com. Here’s the brief on it: Blake was down a set and a break to Robin Haase on an outside court, where Shriver checked in during the opening set to add some commentary. She was not in an enclosed booth and, since the crowd hasn’t had much to cheer about, her voice was becoming an irritant to Blake.
James could have looked up at Shriver and, without saying a word, put his finger to his lips, as if to say, “Shhhh, please.” Instead, he cracked that Shriver should know better, having played the game for years.
Shriver didn’t let it slide. She then commentated that Blake had just told her to shut up. Now Blake wants to get in the last word. He turned around again and called Shriver “an ass.”
Some time after Blake went down in straight sets, he gave a sullen interview to reporters about how difficult his tennis life has become with the pain in his knee while Shriver was summoned to the central ESPN booth, where Hannah Storm, perhaps on orders from above, laid the story out for viewers who might have missed the on-court exchange. (Watch Storm, Cahill and Shriver discuss it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eDU8J6fxRNw)
Shriver looked appropriately contrite, though she tried to excuse her loud voice by pointing to her earpiece. Yeah, yeah. We’ve all had that experience of talking too loudly to someone while listening to earphones, but Shriver has been doing this for years. She should have known better.
The aftermath: High marks to ESPN management, to Storm and to sidekick Darren Cahill for not burying the story. Low marks to Shriver for violating one of the prime rules of journalism, which is that the story is about what you’re reporting, not about you. Low marks to Blake for losing his cool, though I’m a lot more sympathetic with James than Pam.
Who knows what the executives at ESPN are thinking about Shriver after this set-to. She doesn’t seem to have much of a portfolio at the Grand Slams. On Day 1, she was out on Henman Hill, the little grassy rise near the practice courts where they’ve set up a giant TV screen so that customers without Centre Court tickets can watch key matches.
Up on the screen, Roger Federer looked as if he was going down to a shock loss to Alejandro Falla and Shriver had just corraled U.S. teenager Melanie Oudin, who was headed back to the locker room from the practice courts. Shriver began asking Oudin to analyze what Federer had to do to get back on top. It was one of the head-scratching moments of the 2010 Wimbledon.
Melanie Oudin, 18 years old, was supposed to give an on-air assessment of how Roger Federer could pull out this win? The kid looked slightly stunned.
On balance, Shriver has certainly not been awful over the years with a microphone in her hand, though she’s had some questionable moments.
On court after Caroline Wozniacki’s quarterfinal win at the U.S. Open, she informed the young Dane that she would be an “overwhelming favorite” against “Wickmayer of Belgium,” and she said it with a toss of her head that seemed to dismiss Yanina Wickmayer as lucky to be in the semis. Boos cascaded down from the Arthur Ashe Stadium audience, leaving Shriver to ask, “What did I say?”
It will be a long time before she has difficulty recalling what she said to James Blake.
Charles Bricker can be reached at nflwriterr@aol.com