Late October is arguably the best period of the year in terms of the sports calendar: Baseball is actually exciting thanks to the playoffs, pro and college football are in full swing, and basketball is just about to begin. It's that one window where the U.S.' major sports are all in action.

So add to that overflowing menu of viewing options ESPN's "30 for 30" documentary series, or at least two of the upcoming offerings: "The Band That Wouldn't Die," director Barry Levinson's deeply personal look at the Balitmore Colts' departure from his beloved town, on Oct. 13; and "Muhammad and Larry," Albert Maysles and Bradley Kaplan's piece on the Muhammad Ali-Larry Holmes fight and its aftermath, on Oct. 27.

Fans of "Diner" and Levinson's other Baltimore-centric films (remember the Colts quiz to which an aspiring bride was subjected?) will get an extra kick out of his examination of the town's relationship with the team and how people reacted when then-owner Robert Irsay essentially packed up and moved for Indianapolis in the middle of the night. The best moment involves a press conference that an apparently drunk Irsay held on live TV, where he railed against the local press for reporting what turned out to be the truth.

"Muhammad and Larry," meanwhile, goes back to the 1980 fight where an out-of-shape Ali was pummeled by the much younger Holmes. The filmmakers use a treasure trove of footage shot at the time, as well as current interviews with Holmes and others, with many discussing the tragedy of the neurological condition that has left Ali a shell of his former self.

ESPN is on something of a roll -- witness its recent record-setting "Monday Night Football" rating -- but the channel is often more of an irritant than a haven for this sports fan, from the unrelenting bombast on "SportsCenter" (do those guys have to yell all the time?) to the hyperventilating analysis that characterizes its pregame shows and forums for sportswriters.

Credit "30 for 30" with commemorating the cable network's three-decade anniversary with an inordinate (if welcome) degree of class. In fact, I'll break down and praise the channel in terms to which we have unfortunately grown accustomed.

Booya.

Somebody at ABC has a real fascination with Shaquille O'Neal. If only the well-traveled NBA center actually translated to reality TV.

After a previous stab at primetime stardom with "Shaq's Big Challenge," a feel-good concept in which the sometimes-out-of-shape big man tried to help kids lose weight, he's back with "Shaq Vs.," in which the basketball star faces off against other athletes in their sports. Pittsburgh Steeler QB Ben Roethlisberger is featured in the premiere, with Olympic volleyball stars Kerri Walsh (pictured) and Misty May-Treanor, baseball slugger Albert Pujols, tennis' Serena Williams, swimmer Michael Phelps and boxer Oscar de la Hoya  in subsequent episodes.

It's actually a really cool, interesting idea -- the notion of seeing athletes compete across disciplines. If only it wasn't being done with O'Neal.

The full pilot wasn't available for review, but the clips posted by ABC reinforce the perceptions that while O'Neal is (literally) a larger-than-life figure, he's also a somewhat boorish one who has an untelegenic propensity for mumbling and isn't nearly as funny as he seems to think he is. Whatever his future after basketball -- which he and his reps obviously seem to be planning for with gusto -- becoming a TV personality seems like a bit of a reach.

ABC didn't fare particularly well with a recent "Superstars" revival, but I like the basic template of doing reality shows with actual athletes engaging in genuine competitions. They have a sense of reality that's often lacking in manufactured competition series. So let's hope if "Shaq Vs." goes the same route as "Shaq's Big Challenge" that it doesn't scuttle a promising concept.

See ya in Cleveland, big guy. Oh yeah, and just between us: Anybody who plays basketball for a living ought to be able to hit more than 50% of their free throws.

Update: Watched the show, and it's what I feared -- a good idea but terribly executed. The final "game" pitting Shaq against the QB was so undemanding that I could have stood back there lobbing balls to receivers. And O'Neal's antics got old very, very quickly.

Finally, O'Neal simply isn't in the kind of shape to make this interesting. Doing it with another basketball player -- or even O'Neal in his prime -- might have been more compelling, but the concerns about a player getting hurt in this sort of silly competition limit what the producers can do. All I know is I'm really glad I wasn't one of the fans sitting in the stands to watch the lame finale.

Right before the game ended on Sunday night, Laker players and coach Phil Jackson appeared in public-service announcements asking fans to "celebrate with dignity" and be safe. Well, so much for that.

Instead, TV viewers were treated to the by-now predictable spectacle of "fans" lighting fires, shaking moving cars and looting in response to the NBA franchise's 15th championship. It looked a little like the video coming out of Iran, only the issue wasn't about Democracy, other than the freedom to drive around with flags hanging out of your car windows.

Of course, local stations covered these unseemly events but didn't want to let them detract from the celebration. Sports guys made no mention of the unrest, leaving that to the news anchors -- who busily exulted over the big win themselves. Meanwhile, it was all "How does it feel, Kobe?" and the usual post-game blather. KCBS-TV's Jim Hill is always utterly vacuous in his interviews -- I can't remember the last time he actually articulated a question -- but the rest of the gang at competing stations gave him a run for his money.

What nobody mentioned -- and the NBA and Lakers certainly have no interest in identifying -- is the weird disconnect that exists between pro sports and the fan base in terms of economics. Los Angeles is suffering through double-digit unemployment rates, and the area surrounding Staples Center -- where the Lakers play their home games -- is economically depressed. Yet the team charges hundreds of dollars per ticket for those playoff seats -- and thousands for the celebrities and agents that line the court to rub elbows with Jack Nicholson. Pro sports isn't a family excursion anymore, but a trip behind the velvet ropes of a very exclusive club.

As a consequence, most fans will never experience actually being inside the arena for a game, which is just fine with the league, since owners derive much of their revenue from television rights. The result is a modern-day electronic Roman Colosseum, with the peasants relegated to the cheapest of cheap seats -- in this case, on the couch.

They watch the games on TV, some of them get liquored up, and then a bunch of yahoos take to the streets. The expected news outlets express disgust -- "Hey, we won! Let's have a riot!" chortled Fox News' Jon Scott on Monday morning -- but the dynamics are unlikely to change, and no one has the slightest interest in addressing or exploring them. Indeed, a passion for the Lakers and Dodgers is about the only civic glue that L.A. possesses, traditionally cutting across class and ethnic divisions.

Meanwhile, the acts of what L.A.'s police chief dubbed a few "knuckleheads" are quickly forgotten. It's simply rinse, repeat. And for some lucky city, see you after the World Series in October.

No one will admit it, of course, but the NBA and ABC are really, really hating the Orlando Magic right now.

Any hopes that the league and network have for a high-rated NBA Finals rest largely on a Lakers-Cleveland/Kobe Bryant-LeBron James showdown. Can you imagine the sound of air whishing out of the ball if the faceoff ends up being between Orlando -- which has taken a 3-1 lead over Cleveland in their series -- and Denver, which is currently tied 2-2 with the Lakers?

Granted, the best cure for ratings, even with a non-marquee matchup, is a close, seven-game series. And this year's playoffs have been inordinately entertaining (see the earlier Boston-Chicago series), which has boosted tune-in for ESPN and TNT.

Still, it's pretty obvious that the NBA has been salivating for LeBron-Kobe, along with all those sponsors pushing the two all-stars. If Orlando (a humid hell-hole in June, by the way) spoils those plans, then the home of Disney World will absolutely not be the happiest place on earth for ABC.

The NCAA Final Four will be played on April 4, with the title game two days later. So after two weeks of enjoyable basketball and ear-straining bluster, here are five final thoughts on the event so far:

-- Producers love to find feel-good stories around the tournament, but this year, they should probably keep the focus strictly on basketball. For starters, the games are being played in Detroit, where any allusions to Motown or the auto industry will only depress people and bring to mind the hideous economy. Connecticut, meanwhile, enters the weekend under a cloud because of alleged recruiting violations -- a reminder that college sports are a big business that occasionally leads to bending of the mostly preposterous rules designed to protect its "amateur" image.

-- Attention, sportswriters: The Final Four will consist of two No. 1 seeds (Connecticut, North Carolina) playing against a No. 2 and No. 3 (Michigan St. and Villanova, respectively). All four are solid basketball programs that have won championships before. And guess what? The tournament has been just fine without more of the Cinderella stories that you keep whining about. CBS could certainly hope for a little better geographic diversity, but in terms of marquee matchups, the network should be smiling.

-- It's always a relief when color guy Bill Raftery (he of the exclamation "With the kiss!") has called his last game of the season. Dick Vitale has made a fine living hyperventilating and coining nonsensical phrases; the pretenders/imitators like Raftery -- who also feel compelled to create their own languages, sort of like that character in "Nell" -- have grown pretty tiresome.

-- Play-by-play man Jim Nantz sounds like he's having a religious experience (or an orgasmic one) during those promos for CBS' Masters Coverage. "The celebration at 18. Where dreams ... come true," he oozed in one. Dude, it's friggin' golf, for crissakes.

-- "60 Minutes" always looks a little bit silly when it tries to be a good network team player by offering a sports-themed piece to tie in with CBS sports coverage -- in the case of Sunday's episode, Steve Kroft's profile of LeBron James. Kroft did elicit a few interesting tidbits about James having surrounded himself business-wise with childhood friends, but for the most part the Cleveland Cavaliers star didn't have much to say, and Kroft couldn't think of much to ask him.

Plus a free, completely gratuitous bonus sports-related observation:

-- It's interesting that there would be so much hand-wringing over whether Notre Dame should have invited President Obama to speak at its commencement ceremonies, inasmuch as Notre Dame gets invited every year somewhere where it doesn't truly belong. It's called a "bowl game."

Although I love college football as much as the next guy (actually, probably more than most next guys), I still haven't become accustomed to scattering bowl games across multiple days that linger well past New Year's Day. This year, a mind-boggling seven bowls are scheduled after New Year's Day, dribbling out until Florida and Oklahoma face off on Jan. 8.

Then again, why expect more? The Bowl Championship Series remains one of the most mismanaged franchises in all of television, thwarting the best attempts of networks -- first ABC, then Fox -- to impose some semblance of order.

The blame lies primarily with university presidents by way of the NCAA, who love the money that flows from the bowl system and have deluded themselves into thinking all the griping about its inadequacies and unfairness is actually a good thing for college football. So they unconvincingly argue that establishing a playoff would impose too heavy a burden on student-athletes, without noting that their greed has already allowed the season to balloon to an NFL-like 13 or 14 games for elite teams.

Personally, I still favor a simpler solution that would maintain a modicum of integrity for the bowls while simultaneously making more than one of them (that currently being the BCS championship game) count for something -- namely, a "bowls plus one" format. Under that approach, the bowls would play out as usual, and then the top two teams as voted by the polls would play a week later. It's far from perfect and still leaves ample room for second-guessing, but at least it would avoid the scenario of two teams with a clear claim to being No. 1 not getting the chance to settle matters on the field.

The latest aggrieved party is USC, which clobbered another hapless Big 10 team in the Rose Bowl and would likely beat Florida or Oklahoma. (Let the record show that I say this as a UCLA grad who hates the Trojans and would root for Lord Voldemort and his minions of darkness against them.) Undefeated Utah has a pretty legitimate beef, too.

President-elect Obama has been among those to express his mystification about the current formula (he's advocated an eight-team playoff), but inasmuch as he has a few more pressing matters on his plate, the odds of any improvement are slim to nil. Besides, ESPN stepped up to ink a new big-money contract that will move the major bowls off broadcast television in a few years when Fox's deal lapses, meaning the universities still cash in, no playoff required. (Incidentally, ESPN dismissed any concerns about viewers in featured markets lacking access to games on over-the-air TV, but just wait until a team like Texas Tech makes it into one of the big bowls and fans in Lubbock -- where cable penetration is below the national average -- must find a generous neighbor or sports bar in order to watch.

While nothing on college football's side of the ledger could match the glory of the NCAA basketball tournament (still by far TV's best annual sporting event), the NCAA's decision to ignore legitimate criticism and stick with the BCS reflects arrogance that has trumped the interests of both networks and fans. By that measure, ESPN qualifies as their latest network enabler -- only rivaled, perhaps, by those of us saps who keep tuning in for more bowl buffoonery starting every December and lasting well into January.