Today’s viewers take TV options for granted

When it comes to sports on television, sometimes we forget how good we have it.

Spring is supposed to be the down time for sports, but you wouldn’t know it by glancing at the television schedule; just check out the lineup for this weekend.

Not only can we watch NASCAR’s two races from Darlington, but we can check out the practice sessions and qualifying on SPEED (cable channel 151). The Nationwide Series Diamond Hill Plywood 200 airs at 7:30 p.m. today on ESPN2 (cable channel 27, high-definition channel 951). The Sprint Cup Dodge Challenger 500 begins at 7 p.m. Saturday on FOX, WACH-57 (cable channel 6, HD channel 820).

OK, so maybe you’re not into NASCAR. No problem. There are plenty of other events to choose from, such as Major League Baseball, college baseball, the NBA playoffs, the Stanley Cup playoffs, boxing, golf, college softball and tennis.

And if that isn’t enough, there is always the NCAA lacrosse championship, which begins with first-round action at noon Saturday on ESPNU (cable channel 160) as Denver visits Maryland in the first of four games to be televised. ESPNU will have four more first-round games on Sunday.

Some might laugh at college lacrosse taking up so much air time, but it illustrates the wide variety of sports offered on television these days.

Enjoy having so many choices. It’s a far cry from the slim pickings available 50 years ago in the spring of 1958.

NASCAR was in its infancy, with Darlington being the only superspeedway. Most races were run on dirt tracks in the South in such places as Columbia and Hillsboro, N.C. Stock-car racing on television? Forget it.

Even the Indianapolis 500, then considered the premiere race in America, wasn’t televised. That wouldn’t happen until 1965.

The NBA and NHL playoffs? Maybe they were televised in the teams’ local markets, but they weren’t on national television in 1958. You also can be sure no one had thought of televising college baseball and softball.

Golf? Let’s see, there were the few hours of Masters coverage in April. “Shell’s Wonderful World of Golf,” a filmed program that featured challenge matches between two pros each week was still four years away.

So what did sports fans get on television in the spring of 1958? CBS telecast the Kentucky Derby, which was won by Tim Tam. The sport that most consistently was on TV was Major League Baseball. CBS had its “Game of the Week” on Saturday and Sunday afternoons with announcers Dizzy Dean and Pee Wee Reese, and NBC had its “Saturday Game of the Week” with Chuck Thompson and Bill Veeck.

What other sports could you watch on the weekends? None, except baseball pregame shows and the “Wheaties Sports Page,” a 15-minute show that preceded the baseball game on NBC. There wasn’t much in the way of sports on radio, either.

Sports fans have little to complain about these days considering the massive amount of television coverage of sports. Still, some people moan that there still isn’t enough. When I hear that, I laugh to myself.

They should have been around in 1958. We would have loved to have had a few more choices. Heck, we might have even watched lacrosse.