RESISTANCE TO GRAVITY FUTILE.

Byline: TOM HOFFARTH Media

As little interest as you think you may have watching NBC's version of a packaged extreme sports show called the Gravity Games, producer David Michaels had even less interest in working on it when he was approached a while back by NBC Sports chief Dick Ebersol.

``When Ebersol asked me to `dust off my skateboard' and do this, I really didn't want to,'' admits Michaels, taking a break from a special editing facility set up for him in Santa Monica. ``I didn't think any of it was legit.''

Then he watched tapes of the X Games produced over the last few years by ESPN and ``I was bored to tears,'' he said.

Which hardly explains why the 49-year-old, better known at the network for his award-winning efforts on Olympic gymnastics and figure skating, was so pumped up this week while watching the final edits on NBC's first of five two-hour shows that airs Sunday (1-3 p.m.) and will run amok for five straight weeks by the network devoid of NFL programming.

``I'm as fired up about this as anything else I've ever done because, even though ESPN tried to do this, it's really unchartered territory,'' Michaels says now after working on the project for the past seven months.

``Yes, it's been ESPN's franchise for awhile, but what they've done is old school. They did it when it was a novelty. Now it's gone to another level. I think we've brought some dignity to the sport. We tapped into the essence of it.''

It helped that Michaels could tap into his two sons who attend Agoura High - namely Andrew, a 17-year-old junior who went with his dad to the recent X Games in San Francisco to do some scouting, and Jake, a 14-year-old freshman who helped select the music to use in the shows.

David Michaels' Olympic expertise, and the fact he began professional career by coordinating light shows for rock concerts in the late '60s and producing John Tesh concerts for PBS, also converged here.

``What we ended up doing was taking our Olympic production teams and saying, `Let's cover this as if it's the Olympics of these extreme sports,' '' he said.

So with that rail cam that kept up with Michael Johnson during the last 200 meters of his Olympic race in Atlanta three years ago, you'll see dirt bikes. And cameras on cables that swooped across the slopes with the downhill skiiers will follow the street lugers.

The Gravity Games took place Sept. 5-12 in Providence, R.I., so for NBC, they'll already have that Olympic feel since it'll all be on tape. ESPN has staged its extreme games since 1995, but aired its shows on tape within hours of it taking place.

Sunday's first NBC installment focuses on downhill skateboarding, which started as a Southern California event in the 1960s and '70s, and includes a feature on the youngest Games competitor, 14-year-old Andre Ellison from Riverside who's trying to make the top 10 in the dirt bike competition.

Spraying to all channels: This year, it won't be any easier to keep track of which network has what first-round, best-of-five baseball playoff games. Today, NBC and Fox make known their picks of the games they want for prime-time Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. ESPN gets the leftovers.

``We're the caboose, unfortunately, but a very formidable caboose each night,'' said ESPN's Chris Berman, one of three play-by-play men on call. ``The first year of this, I did three games from three series and thought my head exploded.''

For analyst Joe Morgan, it's even more complicated since he dances between ESPN (with Jon Miller) and NBC (with Bob Costas). Forgive him if he momentarily lapses during a broadcast and forgets not only where he is but who he's stepping on.

``Sure, I'd rather have one series at a time - I only know where I'll be Tuesday but not Wednesday, Thursday or Friday,'' said Morgan. ``But for me, it's a fun time of year doing the best games and watching the best teams. I think I could do a better job if I knew my schedule, but I'll watch all the games I'm not doing and read up on the plane rides about what's going on.''

Since ESPN's coordinating baseball producer Tim Scanlan has enough potential problems trying to get production trucks to destinations throughout the country that can do a ``Sunday Night Baseball''-quality broadcast, he said at least the network can always rely on the quality of the broadcasters.

``We are a success in division play coverage because of those guys, who we really lean on,'' said Scanlan. ``They have to be up on all the teams all season and it pays dividends this time of year.

``We respect what Fox and NBC does, and we're all friends despite what others may have you think. All this (jumping around) is done for the baseball fan.''

Fox's Keith Olbermann, who will host his network's studio show the first week before going to the American League Championships Series site as a reporter, doesn't think channel-hopping for the playoffs is all that difficult.

``I don't mean to belittle the inconvenience, but what are the options? It's either channels 4 or 11 or ESPN. Even most baseball executives can handle that number of choices. It's not the NBA playoffs.''

To mop up the regular season, FX has claimed tonight's Cubs-Cardinals clubfest at 4:30 p.m., Fox Channel 11 takes Saturday's Dodgers-Astros game at 1 p.m. (with KTLA Channel 5 showing L.A. that series finale and possibly the last game at the Astrodome Sunday at 11:30 a.m.), while ESPN2 hasn't anything that means anything Sunday. In the event of a one-game playoff (from the NL Central), that'll land at ESPN on Monday night.

Feeling puckish: The new ESPN/ABC five-year deal for the NHL begins tonight with the cable giant carrying Wayne Gretzky's number retirement ceremony from Edmonton (4:30 p.m.) followed by the championship banner raising in Dallas before the Stars face Pittsburgh (5 p.m.). . . .

The Kings' opener Saturday in Nashville is caught in a Fox trap of college football, meaning it's not only been moved from its usual Fox Sports West home to Fox Sports West 2, but it's delayed two hours to 7 p.m. The live 5 p.m. start is fine for the team's KRLA-AM (1110) flagship radio station along with its eight affiliates that include KHJJ-AM (1380) in Palmdale/Lancaster, KBET-AM (1220) in Santa Clarita and KTRO-AM (1400) in Ventura. Nick Nickson starts his 19th season with the team, working with Daryl Evans going fulltime as the analyst. He replaces Cammi Granato, who's back to fulltime training with the U.S. women's hockey team. On the tube, Bob Miller begins his 27th season on play-by-play. Jim Fox, in his 10th season, will now have been a TV analyst longer than he was a player with the Kings. . . .

The Ducks start over on the radio side with XTRA-690 as the flagship, using someone named Steve Carroll on play-by-play. Mike Greenlay, whose NHL experience consists of playing two games with Edmonton in 1990, is the analyst. The Ducks' opener Saturday at Dallas (5:05 p.m.) has been farmed out to San Diego station KOGO-AM (600) because XTRA has USC football. On TV, it's back to Channel 9 (for the opener) and FSW2 with Chris Madsen and Brian Hayward.

SOUND BYTES

WHAT SMOKES

The education of Derrick Hall. AM-1150's morning man, who came over to radio after eight years in the Dodgers organization, interviewed fired Dodgers president Bob Graziano Wednesday morning. But there was a history between them - Graziano used to be Hall's boss not long ago, and Graziano had been talking about hiring him back. In the interview, Hall said he didn't want to get Graziano into bashing the Fox hierarchy or asking if he was set up for a fall - but Hall, to his credit, eventually did ask that, showing he has separated himself enough to do the proper interview. ``There's a story there and I know most of it,'' Hall admitted Thursday. ``If the Lakers fire their president, then maybe my questions are more generic. But knowing so much about promises made to him and his goals, we got below the surface. Over time, it's been easier (to ask these questions to Dodgers officials). At first, I think I was careful not to put down the team. But I have a responsibility to the listeners. I realized I'm not hurting (the Dodgers), I'm telling the story.''

Not to get obnoxious about it, but NBC has proclaimed unbelievable Ryder Cup ratings victories. Sunday's finale (6.3 overnight rating and a 15 share) and Saturday's second day (4.9/14) were the two highest-rated Ryder telecasts ever despite going on for nearly 17-1/2 hours combined. The Sunday rating is a 62 percent jump from '97.

WHAT CHOKES

Last call for loitering mall rats at the Glendale Galleria because after today, ESPN The Store is no more. To clear space, a final 75-percent-off-everything-left sale will probably only net you a decent price on a lovely ESPN logo twill sweater that for some reason never left the rack at $78. We offered 50 cents for the Charley Steiner cutout from the huge wall display, but the exasperated register clerk (by the way, wearing a Disney Store nametag) wouldn't bite.

ESPN2's four-hour block of fitness shows will move back three hours beginning Monday. Which means, to see Kiana Tom and friends in the pacifying Pacific Time Zone, you'll have to tune in from 3 to 7 a.m. Seems the easy way would be just to stay up late the night before - and have something nice to watch before nite-nite.

NBC airs an NBA Entertainment production of the Basketball Hall of Fame induction ceremonies Saturday from Springfield, Mass., which, coincidentally, will include Bob Costas receiving the Curt Gowdy Media Award. So you're telling us Costas and Chick Hearn are on the national wall of recognition (that's all it really is, by the way) for bringing basketball to the masses?

WHAT SMOKED ON LOCAL TV

The top 10 Nielsen-rated sports events (with their share numbers) on L.A. television from Sept. 23-29:

Event Date Station Rt/Sh. x

NFL: San Francisco at St. Louis 9/27 KABC  13.8/23

NFL: Minnesota at Green Bay 9/26 KTTV 10.7/26

NFL: Washington at N.Y. Jets 9/26 KTTV 7.8/20

Golf: Ryder Cup final round 9/26 KNBC  6.9/19

NFL: N.Y. Giants at New England 9/26 ESPN 6.5/12

NFL: Indianapolis at San Diego 9/26 KCBS  4.7/11

Golf: Ryder Cup 2nd round 9/25 KNBC 4.5/16

NCAA: Colorado at Washington 9/25 KABC 3.6/10

NCAA: USC at Oregon 9/25 FSW 3.1/10

Boxing 9/25 KCAL  2.6/5

x One rating point equals 50,092 TV homes in Los Angeles; a share is the percentage of all the TV sets in use at that time.

CAPTION(S):

2 Boxes

Box: (1) SOUND BYTES (See text)

(2) WHAT SMOKED ON LOCAL TV (See text)