If there were a trading card for sportscaster Chris Berman, the stats would read: 6 feet 5 inches, 250 pounds, Brown University; covers several positions for cable sports network ESPN; hosts NFL Gameday, an Emmy-winning Sunday morning pregame football show, and NFL Primetime, a Sunday evening highlight show; during the baseball season broadcasts play-by-play and wraps up the week's diamond action with Sunday's Baseball Tonight.

The hulking sportscaster has emerged as the star of the ESPN team. He's a recognizable celebrity among the big names of major-league baseball and the NFL. And like every successful player in the sportscasting game, he has developed a distinctive style: hyper-enthusiasm punctuated by shouts of "Back! Back! Back! Back!" when a baseball heads over the fence, and "Bermanisms," a lexicon of player nicknames (often plays on rock-and-roll song titles) that he sprinkles liberally throughout highlight and play-by-play broadcasts. His personal favorites include Bert "Be Home" Blyleven, Jim "Two Silhouettes On" Deshaies and Von "Purple" Hayes.

Berman is one of the lucky ones who grew up to excel in the field he dreamed about as a little boy. He reportedly shouted play-by-plays of games in his own front yard--while he was part of the action. His career success parallels the explosive growth in America's appetite for televised sports programming. The 15-year veteran is also a rarity in the sports world, a free agent who's spent nearly his entire career with a single organization. During Berman's rookie season at ESPN, he earned $16,500 a year as night-shift announcer.

Contributing Editor Warren Kalbacker talked with Berman at his home field, ESPN's headquarters in Bristol, Connecticut. The complex is a fantasy camp for sports junkies, surrounded by satellite dishes that beam the action 24 hours a day.

"An evening of conversation about sports is a tough assignment," recalls Kalbacker in a slightly unconvincing tone. "But Berman made it easy. He clearly relishes his favorite subject. In fact, after our two long sessions, he left to meet fellow ESPN staffers for some late-night sports talk."

Q 1

PLAYBOY: We'll have to lower the volume in order to transcribe this interview tape. Have we stumbled on the reason the producers, directors and everyone else around here calls you Boomer?

Chris Berman: Oh, hell, I've boomed from the start. That nickname has been around for a long time. I was always loud in class. I can't help it, Mom. I'm loud. In high school we had a little radio station that could be heard just on the campus. I broadcast the football games on Saturday afternoons. Maybe I thought the signal would go about a quarter mile farther if I yelled loud enough. Joe Theismann calls me the Boomer of You on the air--to distinguish me from Boomer Esiason.

Q 2

PLAYBOY: You attended prep school and graduated from an Ivy League university. Did sportscasting offer an escape from the inevitable career in law, medicine or finance?

Chris Berman: No. I never wanted to do any of that stuff. I've wanted to be a sportscaster ever since I was 12, once I realized I would not set an Olympic record in the 100 meters, wouldn't dunk a basketball with great regularity, hit a baseball 450 feet or throw 80-yard touch-down passes. I was very dedicated to this. Doing this job, I'm staving off reality for a long time. Maybe forever, if I'm fortunate enough. Sports and rock and roll both stave off reality. I was never quite a normal-path guy. I worked at small radio stations--the Bee Gees' Stayin' Alive was the big hit the year I was on radio--and hoped for my break. ESPN gave me a job when it was just three weeks old and needed a couple of young guys who could speak in complete sentences. It never would have hired me if it had already been in business.

Q 3

PLAYBOY: Did Chris Berman, high school sportscaster, ever don a jock-strap and mix it up on the field?

Chris Berman: I'm not a natural athlete. But I'm a jock, so that was enough to make me all right on the field. I was tall. I wasn't this big. I had long legs and long arms. I once had good reflexes. I was never any star, but I was not the weak link in a team. I played high school varsity soccer and basketball. I wouldn't say I was a great thinking man's player, but I had a decent understanding of team strategies. Actually, I was pretty good at soccer. At least I was doing it. But I didn't play football.

Q 4

PLAYBOY: Are the liberal arts a good background for a sportscaster who has no personal claim to jock fame?

Chris Berman: I majored in history. It's a great background for what I do. I advise youngsters that they don't have to study communications. They must be able to communicate. Study political science or English or history, subjects in which you need to express yourself verbally and in writing. What you need to do is get into the best school you can, one that has an excellent radio station. Today I guess you'd look for both radio and cable TV on campus. On my fourth day at Brown I got involved at the radio station. I eventually became the voice of the Brown University Bruins. I was not on the dean's list. I'm not going to lie about that. On a Thursday or Friday night before a Saturday game I would probably be more up on the depth chart of Princeton and all the Dartmouth numbers than on Roman history dates for the big exam Monday morning.

Q 5

PLAYBOY: Player nicknames, usually plays on rock-and-roll song titles, have become your on-air signature. Discuss Bermanisms in the context of American popular culture.

Chris Berman: Some stick out like sore thumbs. Some zing right by. They're not all necessarily brilliant. There has been debate as to whether any of them are. There are some football, hockey and a few golf nicknames out there, but, by and large, I limit them to baseball. The reason they work in baseball is historical. There were newspaper and radio names for people who never saw these players. Ty Cobb was the Georgia Peach. The Say Hey Kid--Willie Mays. Always happy. There were rhymes: Stan "the Man" Musial. Mine are more plays on words. And it's a game anybody can play. Your sense of humor may be different from mine. You may not think rock and roll, you may think food: George "Taco" Bell. You may not think what I say is funny. Cut out the crap, Chris. But in some way, by twisting the rules, I've revived a lost art. I get letters from retired people saying, "I don't understand Von 'Purple' Hayes. What is that?" But they also say that when they were young, all the players had nicknames, and it's fun and OK when I do it, even if they don't understand a lot of them. A young kid once told me that his favorite nickname of mine was Babe Ruth. I said, "You know, I can't take credit for that." I call him George H.