WIN WITH BASEBALL COMMISSIONER VIN.

Byline: TOM HOFFARTH

The annual October ritual - mute the World Series on TV and dial in Vin Scully on the radio - is a no-brainer. Bob Costas would do it, too, if he wasn't busy directing traffic in NBC's three-ego booth.

But what happened this week in the area of network/game relations has made us brainstorm even more. And now's the time to ask Scully to expand his duties.

He should be the commissioner.

That way, the voice of baseball would also be its voice of reason.

His first order of business would be simple: Tell the folks with the NBC parkas to shut up. Scully could find the appropriate words for this.

Anyone who has read the quotes coming from some network employees in the last week might think NBC and baseball are headed for divorce court instead of forming this partnership that cost the peacocks $400 million in rights fees.

What NBC entertainment exec and former sports producer Don Ohlmeyer blurted out last Friday only got the snowball rolling. He claimed NBC's ``Must See Thursday'' prime-time hunk of skit-coms would be have to be scraped off the network's shoes if the Series went more than four games.

He apologized, even though he was telling the truth. NBC usually does about a 20 rating with ``Friends'' and friends of ``Friends'' on that day. Then the ratings for Game 1 came in - an all-time low of 11.3, bottoming the previous Series low by almost three full ratings points.

If the ratings are the network's spreadsheets, than NBC is lying two sheets to the wind. And that's a really cold wind coming off Lake Erie this time of year.

(That thumping you kept hearing Thursday night wasn't O.J. at the back of Kato's room. It was O.J. apologist Ohlmeyer banging his head against the wall while Game 5 droned on.)

Then NBC Sports chief Dick Ebersol, who two years ago claimed baseball wouldn't be on his network through the end of this century, opened wide and inserted his loafer.

Someone asked why, if Fox's regular-season coverage seemed to get more kids interested, NBC's postseason games started so late on the East Coast.

Said Ebersol: ``Rights fees demand prime-time ratings and prime-time ads. The bottom line is that this is not a sport that gets a lot of kids.''

No kidding?

Then someone asked why the Series games dragged on so long. The theory advanced by Florida manager Jim Leyland was it had to do with network needing two minutes and 25 seconds between innings to cram in more commercials.

Ebersol, saying he was ``sick of hearing'' that as excuse, added: ``Someone's got to take the umpires by the scruff of the neck and tell them to call the strike zone the way they used to. . . . There's no reason for all this walking around and doing nothing between pitches.''

To which came this response by veteran ump Bruce Froemming, sitting at home in Wisconsin watching the Series: ``If Dick Ebersol wants a two-hour, 15-minute (broadcast), we would have to play it in an hour-and-a-half. . . I can go to any sandlot in Milwaukee and I'll find a dozen 15-year-old kids who know more about baseball than Dick Ebersol. If he was smart, he would be hiding in an NBC truck.''

And he might take Costas with him.

Costas, who loves the attention he receives turning down requests that he step into those big empty commissioner shoes, has kept his ``baseball is a mess'' soliloquies to himself so far during his play-by-play duties. But when put on Keith Olbermann's MSNBC ``Big Show'' Monday to fill time, Costas came up with his latest state-of-the-game gem:

``The divisional playoffs have been a television bust. They get very low ratings by network-television standards. And I would contend they diminish the ratings of the League Championship Series and maybe even the first few games of the World Series, because the World Series is beginning to feel like the baseball finals - like the end of a protracted process instead of something special that stood alone and unique in American sports.''

Enough.

Enough Ohlmeyer.

Enough Ebersol.

Enough Costas.

Not enough Scully.

Were he convinced to pull up a chair in the commissioner's vacant office, Scully wouldn't put up with this unnecessary yakking.

Expansion, interleague play, the designated hitter - Scully wouldn't have to deal with that. He's used to delegating authority. Give him the issues he wants to deal with. Let Ross Porter and Rick Monday cover the other stuff.

First, Scully could deliver something to the fans that has amazingly been lacking for three years - a sincere apology on behalf of baseball for the strike of '94 that canceled that year's World Series. If Scully said it, who wouldn't believe it?

Next, he could remind Ohlmeyer, Ebersol and Costas that, if done properly, a World Series broadcast wouldn't have to be a ratings washout. The slow pace might not fit into today's fast-food mentality, but it can be entertaining. Children might even like to learn a little history if taught correctly. And the extra playoffs can add to the equation instead of take away.

Finally, Scully could be back doing the World Series for NBC. Invoke the ``integrity of the game'' statute.

What was so terrible about his call of the Kirk Gibson home run in '88?

At the very least, baseball and NBC should have made Scully's radio broadcast this year available on an alternate audio feed.

Heck, we'd even take Scully in the bottom left corner doing the game in sign language. Since NBC doesn't want the score graphic cluttering things up, Scully could just hold up fingers for the score. It would provide a better service.

If NBC wants to keep reminding us that it started World Series telecasts 50 years ago, it can't act as if it would rather be showing the movie ``Major League'' each night this week. They've got the real Bob Uecker, the real Cleveland Indians and the real World Series. And no Corbin Bernsen. That's a plus.

Instead, this Series has been almost as painful to watch as Bobby Bonilla and Darren Daulton on a double steal.

Commissioner Scully might not change the ugliness on the field. He can't fix the weather, prevent errors or make the umpires human again. He's not God.

But if Scully were to clap his hands, what kind of thunder would he deliver for baseball?

Now that's a must-see event.