NO MORE CHIRP TRICKS CBS HAS BIRDS LIVE IN CONCERT AT MASTERS

THE memory of certain sins dies harder than others.

For all the good public deeds Aaron Burr may have performed – he was the third Vice President of the United States and he was known to curb his dog before there were curbs – he still shot and killed Alexander Hamilton, this newspaper’s founder, in a duel. The rat.

By late Friday afternoon, with the second round of CBS/USA Network’s Masters coverage nearly completed, we’d already received three calls from readers who asked if we could contact CBS to verify whether the sounds of the birds occasionally heard chirping during play are geographically correct.

Normally, such questions would be evidence of a growing lunatic fringe. But in this case, because sports television folks are conditioned to deceive viewers in every possible way, the questions were legit and historically relevant.

Perhaps the most comical and revealing TV sports story of last year found ornithologists – boid-watchers, to us – exposing CBS for an absurd and most purposeful deception.

CBS’s PGA Championship telecast from Louisville last summer was heard to contain the plausibly live sounds of birds that were not before known to be indigenous to the Louisville area. In fact, the sounds these birds were making, according to experts, aren’t the kind made by birds that reside anywhere close to Kentucky.

Cornered, CBS was forced to sing like a canary. The network admitted to its crime: It piped in recorded bird sounds to embellish the audio and enhance the bucolic veneer of golf.

Seriously. If you missed the story, CBS, during last summer’s PGA Championship, got caught tanking bird sounds. One can almost hear CBS golf producer Lance Barrow in the production meeting:

“Chet, let’s take it easy on the blue-throated barn warbler, this time around. Let’s get more of that snow goose audio in there.”

“The snow goose,” Chet, “more snow goose!”

Thus, CBS, during this Masters, begged relevant questions that should’ve been too absurd to ask: What’s the story with the birds? Are they the taped, imported kind that we’d been hearing, or are they live, Augusta National homeboys?

“The birds you hear,” a CBS spokesperson said with mock indignation but all-business clarity, “are live and they are indigenous to Augusta.”

THE rumors out of CBS and USA Network remain strong that the Masters folks next year will finally allow 18-hole live TV coverage of the final round.

For all the out-of-context statistical exaggerations attached by the sports media to modern accomplishments – “Jim Thome has now surpassed Mickey Mantle for postseason whatevers” – there are times when a freshly established record, as it relates to context, is underplayed.

Last week, Roger Clemens broke Walter Johnson’s AL record for strikeouts. Clemens’ record becomes more remarkable when we take into account that Johnson, throughout his career, pitched to opposing pitchers, normally the easiest batters to strike out.

Clemens, on the other hand, throughout his career pitched to designated hitters – guys in the batting lineup because of their ability to hit – instead of pitchers.

ABC producer Curt Gowdy Jr. sure knows how to get people excited. While preparing for April 29’s two-hour “Wide World of Sports” 40th anniversary show, Gowdy leaked word that the show’s “Where Are They Now?” segment will include an update on Vinko Bogataj.

You don’t know Vinko Bogataj? Oh yes you do. Bogataj is the Yugoslav ski-jumper who for the last 30 years has crash-landed in Wide World’s open. Oh, that Vinko Bogataj.

It happened, incidentally, in Oberstdorf, West Germany, 1970.

Jim Spence, 16 years removed from ABC, was its Senior VP of Sports during Wide World’s heyday. He was also a production assistant on the very first Wide World, April 29, 1961, when the Drake Relays from Des Moines and the Penn Relays from Philadelphia were both televised – live.

“In 1981,” Spence recalled, ” we threw a 20th anniversary dinner for “Wide World” at the Waldorf. When they introduced Vinko, he got the biggest ovation of the night, greater than even Muhammad Ali’s. Until then, he had no idea how popular he’d become here.”

“Vinko,” said Gowdy, “now has a ‘Wide World of Sports’ banner hanging in his home.”

Perfect. It might come in handy as a bandage.

MEL Stottlemyre will be honored at the Multiple Myeloma Research Foundation annual awards dinner, April 23 at the Cipriani Restaurant in Midtown. Stottlemyre, in remission from Multiple Myeloma, a cancer of the plasma cells, will be presented by Joe Torre with the Public Awareness Award.

For ticket info 203-972-1250. Many current and former Yanks, especially those who pitch or have pitched for Stottlemyre, are expected to attend.

Phil Mushnick’s column returns April 20.