By Michael Hiestand, USA TODAYLike disfigured guys with chainsaws and precinct captains infuriated by rule-breaking maverick cops, sportscasters in movies are usually stock characters.

Usually, real sportscasters are cast to sort of sound like themselves. Or harmless parodies of themselves, as they treat Kevin Costner almost winning golf's U.S. Open or Drew Barrymore running across Fenway Park or field goal-kicking donkeys as things they might cover.

"It was really a kick," says Lampley, contrasting Blades with his "playing it straight" calling geriatric boxing in the recent Rocky Balboa. "It was the first time I was invited to be funny. They encourage high jinks to run free."

Blades was last weekend's top movie draw, grossing $33 million. Lampley says he and Hamilton had a simple role: "Do every bad gay figure skating joke ever conceived by man."

Lampley says he got the "highest compliment" by having his improvisation included in the final cut. It involved "Euro porn," he says, "and I'm not proud of it — but it's in there." The best improv, he says, came from U.S. skating star Sasha Cohen — who came up with her character sniffing an athletic supporter. Says Lampley: "I said, 'Go Sasha!' My opinion of her went way up."

High-minded stuff. But skating icons such as , , and are in the comedy, which centers on two males teaming up for figure skating's pairs competition.

In the real world, International Skating Union rules state pairs must be a man and a woman, not same-sex couples. The Champions on Ice exhibition tour, however, already has an all-male team — Ukrainians Vladimir Besedin and Oleksiy Polishchuk.

Skating legend , who was supposed to be in Blades — "Unfortunately, it didn't jell for me" — says the film is good for the sport: "I don't care what they say about us if they spell our name right. It's s-k-a-t-i-n-g."

Ripken, who played a record-setting 2,632 consecutive Major League Baseball games, will be a studio analyst when TBS picks up all first-round baseball playoff action as well as the National League Championship Series. TBS also announced that Tony Gwynn, who along with Ripken will be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in July, will be a game analyst paired with Chip Caray on its lead announcing team.

Gwynn, who coaches San Diego State's baseball team and whose son, Tony Jr., is a Milwaukee Brewer, says playoff work "fits perfectly" with his schedule. Ripken, teaming in the studio with Ernie Johnson, says the job is appealing since it won't take him "back on the road."

Ripken says he's willing to criticize players but also remembers playing and being "bothered" by players-turned-analysts "who forgot how hard it was."

Both say they're fans of TNT's freewheeling NBA studio show. Says Gwynn on whether he'd like Charles Barkley to pop up on TBS' baseball: "Somehow, some way — he cracks me up!"

Saturday, Fox keeps up its weekly MLB coverage — expanded to 26 weeks this year, up from 18 last year — with new analysts Eric Karros, Joe Girardi and Mark Grace. Grace, an ex-Chicago Cub, sounds like he'll be soft on his former team as he categorizes its past: "Anybody can have a bad century."

When ABC/ESPN kicks off this season's Major League Soccer coverage with D.C. United-Colorado Rapids, they'll see elements meant to make soccer look like typical sports on TV in the USA, such as on-screen graphics aimed at fantasy league players.

For 11 seasons, MLS produced game coverage and bought the TV time on ABC/ESPN. Now ABC/ESPN is in charge on games — mainly on Thursday prime time on ESPN2 — aimed at viewers who just happened to tune in.

Says ESPN producer Tim Scanlan, "It's directed at fans who regularly tune in to ESPN, to check out the sports world, to get them to at least sample this."

This season, Scanlan says, coverage will "try to make connections to other sports" — like somehow working mentions of John Elway into Saturday's game in Denver — and will have the only Sky-Cam TV shots of soccer in the world. Elsewhere, there's been skittishness about balls hitting overhead cameras.

ESPN will add a superimposed graphic showing the offside line — like TV football's virtual first-and-10 line — and replays showing the speed of kicks. Off-air, the radar gun was tested during a recent game and found a Landon Donovan goal reached 92 mph.

ESPN asked to mike refs and goalies but didn't get the go-ahead for now. But it has the green light to ask permission for in-game talks on the sidelines, including with coaches.

Also, on Saturday Julie Foudy will replace analyst Eric Wynalda, who was suspended for one game for using obscene language about ESPN's Jim Rome on the blog Fulham USA.

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