Greg Gumbel has been paging through winter clothing catalogs lately. Not for Christmas gifts. He's bulking up his winter warbrobe for February 1994.
CBS Sports yesterday named Gumbel, host of "The NFL Today," as the prime- time host for its Winter Olympics coverage from Lillehammer, Norway.
Before Gumbel begins focusing on skiing, skating and the luge, baseball will be on his mind. He also will be replacing Dick Stockton as the play-by- play man on CBS baseball broadcasts next season.
Gumbel, 46, will work with former Phillies pitcher Jim Kaat. The No. 1 baseball announcing team of Sean McDonough-Tim McCarver will stay together. CBS has one year remaining on its major league baseball contract.
Rick Gentile, CBS Sports senior vice president, said the Gumbel-Stockton change was not made out of dissatisfaction with Stockton's baseball work during the last three seasons. Stockton will continue to do play-by-play on NFL games and NCAA basketball for CBS.
"This was an opportunity for us to take advantage of Greg's versatility," Gentile said.
Never mind that Gumbel's baseball play-by-play work has been limited to one season with the New York Yankees on the Madison Square Garden Network, a few Seattle Mariners games two years ago and the College World Series.
Baseball always has been Gumbel's favorite sport.
"Baseball is the first sport I was introduced to," Gumbel said. "We lived five blocks away from Griffith Stadium in Washington, D.C., when my dad was going to law school. I think I'll bring a fan's enthusiasm (to the broadcasts)."
Mike Pearl, the CBS coordinating producer for the Winter Olympics, said the switch to Gumbel in Lillehammer isn't a reflection on the much-criticized work of McCarver and co-host Paula Zahn in Albertville last February. In Lillehammer, McCarver will serve as a correspondent at-large and Zahn, co-host of "The CBS Morning News," will have what network officials describe as "a prominent role."
Referring to McCarver and Zahn, Pearl said, "We were very satisfied with the job they did and felt, as the Games went on, they got better. We just felt that this time, it was better to go with a single-host concept."
McCarver yesterday agreed with Gentile's assessment that the former major league catcher is "excited" about his correspondent at-large role.
"I'm going to have a chance to see the Olympics from an athlete's point of view," McCarver said. "I'm very happy I had the opportunity to do what I did last year, but this is what I want to do.
"I never had any studio experience before, but it's not brain surgery. The stronger segments in which I was involved last February were when I was interacting with the athletes or the analysts."
Gumbel's happy, McCarver's happy. No word from Stockton.
CHANNEL CLICKING
* Comcast subscribers were surprised to see Tuesday night's Penn-Villanova men's basketball game, carried by PRISM, instead of SportsChannel Philadelphia's Flyers-Pittsburgh telecast. Blame it on a Comcast technician's error. A Comcast spokesman said yesterday that the company will do everything possible to be sure such an error doesn't happen again.
* With Bob Costas leaving NBC's "The NFL Live" after this season, tomorrow's show (Channel 3, noon) will include the "Costas Chronicles." Highlights from his 10 years on the show include an interview with "Mr. T." The show precedes the Kansas City-New York Quitters, er, Giants.
