Q 13

PLAYBOY: Are you going to tell us that sportscasting is a tough job but somebody has to do it?

Chris Berman: I'm telling you there's a lot of pressure--but it beats work. I am amazed at how many people tell me, "Boy, we watch you and you're always so upbeat." About a year ago Harry Caray said to me, "I really enjoy your enthusiasm." That a guy who's done this for 50 years would introduce himself to a young guy like me. Harry is enthusiasm. That's the highest compliment you can get. It doesn't mean that it colors what you see. I'm doing a lot of commercials now, and I hope people don't think I'm selling out. The first check we cashed at ESPN was from Anheuser-Busch. So there's a little connection there. But I'm having fun doing the Bud Bowl ads. We had some shots in which I wore a helmet camera, and I took a lot of crap for it: "You're sitting at an anchor desk. You're blowing your credibility." Really? Blowing my credibility? Lawrence Taylor isn't going to talk to me because I don't have credibility? Come on. Tell me to get a real job and get a grip? You get a grip. It's funny. It's no big deal. I just did a rock-and-roll video, by the way. George Thorogood and the Destroyers' Get a Haircut. I hope it's a hit.

Q 14

PLAYBOY: Say it ain't so, Chris, but don't sportscasters let players, coaches and owners duck tough questions? Or they don't even ask them in the first place?

Chris Berman: Being an investigative sports reporter is not my gig. That's the allure of sports to some. I have reporter's instinct in a different way. I love getting inside information on ball clubs and players. And I have a lot of contacts. Coaches and players. They trust me and I don't say where confidences come from. But I'm not driven by the improprieties of a college football program or the investigations of Pete Rose. I don't need the thrill of saying I've uncovered stuff no one's uncovered. I will just say something, and if viewers really know me, they can tell when I'm throwing out a scoop. I just don't say it's a scoop. I don't believe you should say it's a scoop. Some would want to call me a Milquetoast. I don't think that makes me one. But I'm just not that interested in breaking the scandal at the University of Washington.

Q 15

PLAYBOY: Once and for all, should Pete Rose be admitted to the Hall of Fame?

Chris Berman: Pete Rose should be in the Hall of Fame. I don't know that the romance of sports means you have to glorify those who play. If they booted all the guys with bad characters from the Hall of Fame, it would be pretty empty. Everyone in the Hall of Fame was a carouser. That's why they're in the Hall of Fame--because they could go out and play and still be great. Babe Ruth was a legend off the field. Because it didn't nail him, he's in the Hall of Fame. Maybe he was even better because of it. Bobby Layne, quarterback for the Lions, was legendary. The guy was out all night. He would just take a nap and go in and play. And they would still win. Hack Wilson holds the record for the most RBIs in a season, 190, and that's one record I don't think will ever get broken. He'd put down the bottle and go play three hours and pick up the bottle again. He has the National League single-season record for home runs. He's in the Hall of Fame because he could keep up that pace. I haven't made the analogy before. It's kind of funny. They are true Hall of Famers.

Q 16

PLAYBOY: Does Chris Berman ever switch off a game?

Chris Berman: I'm not big at all on college football. Probably because I grew up here in the Northeast and went to an Ivy League school. Crowds of 90,000 didn't come to Brown Stadium. I never caught that flavor, not growing up in the entrapment of the South or the Midwest. Who knows? Had I grown up in Michigan or Nebraska or Ohio, college football might be my favorite.

Q 17

PLAYBOY: You're a connoisseur of sports talk and you're known to sip a brew. Can you recommend a congenial sports bar?

Chris Berman: Here on Sundays from one to four: We could sell tickets to it. We do NFL Gameday, and then we do what we do best. We watch football. Man, I look forward to it. I'm fired up. We watch the eight one o'clock games during the regular season. Now you can't watch all eight at once. Anyone who tells you they watch eight games at once is lying. But you can watch about four at once after some practice. And the other ones are on, so someone in the room will say, "Oh, look at the Tampa Bay game." All right. You look at that for ten seconds. Fine, you get it. Then you're back to your four games over there. That's when we talk sports. Those three hours. They're ours. No phone calls. And someone usually makes a snack run in the third quarter. We go get plates of food, sodas and corn chips and pretzels. It's come to the point where we have a little seating chart, almost. Tommy Jackson is always next to me.

Q 18

PLAYBOY: You have worked at ESPN since 1979. Overall, are you ahead or behind in the network's weekly football pool?

Chris Berman: It's a camaraderie thing. It's not for the money. I still get a rush out of making my three swami picks on Friday evenings. I don't bet them. I always used to. I kicked that a long time ago, when I started writing mortgage checks. I'm into rotisserie golf. I'm serious about that. We have a good league here. We all gambled at college, but not for big amounts of money. I used to enjoy my time at the track. I was a trotters guy because the race took longer. It was twice around. You could yell at the guy after once around, you know, "Get moving, you asshole."

Q 19

PLAYBOY: More than a few of us have taken grief from wives of girlfriends about the number of hours we spend watching sports on TV. Would you say that some women just don't get it about guys and sports, and other women get it wrong?

Chris Berman: Fair question. I want to give it the right answer, not the politically correct answer. Women bond in ways that you and I don't understand. They probably had high-level intellectual conversations at younger ages than we did. But there is something intrinsic about sports. My playing catch or shooting hoops with my dad when I was nine doesn't necessarily make me any smarter about sports than a woman. But you sit around with the fellas and watch a ball game. There is a certain bonding, and maybe sports is a huge reason for it. Most women aren't going to hang around with five other women and watch games on a regular basis. There are some women who have the same intrinsic feeling about sports, but it's a real small number who grew up exactly like I did. With the fervor. There's a very unjust bias against women sportscasters because some male viewers won't allow themselves to think that the women get it. They mispronounce a name and immediately it's--"They don't know what they're talking about." Robin Roberts here at ESPN. She gets it. Gail Gardner who worked with me and is now at NBC. She gets it. Lesley Visser at CBS. She gets it. But it's a tough nut for them to crack. And it's not fair. I play catch with both my girl and my boy, but she will probably lose interest in a while. If she wants to get it, she'll get it. I'm not going to judge.

Q 20

PLAYBOY: What kind of fashion statement are sportscasters trying to make with blazers?

Chris Berman: Nurses wear white. I wear a blue blazer. I need to wear it. It's my uniform. I have about seven or eight. Two regular blazers. A lighter-weight, double-breasted blazer. One that's a little heavier weight. I have a heavier-weight, double-breasted blazer. And a cobalt-blue blazer and the champagne blazer I never wear except to locker rooms when a team might win a World Series. Because there it's going to get ruined. I don't believe a sportscaster should wear a suit. I own one suit. One. The only time I ever wore it on the air was when I interviewed Pete Rozelle the week before he retired as commissioner of the NFL. I wore it out of respect. It's a dark suit. And I looked good in it.