NBC made a huge mistake in letting Bud Collins go

	Bud Collins had been a respected and well-informed voice for NBC's Wimbledon coverage for 35 years. Al Messerschmidt/WireImage.com
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So NBC has let Bud Collins go after 35 years at Wimbledon. It won't, I'm sure, make an iota of difference in the ratings. Nobody who wants to watch Wimbledon next summer is going to skip it because Collins isn't on -- especially since NBC had cut back his role to the bare minimum anyhow.

But then, has anybody in the entire recorded history of television sports ever decided to watch an event because of the announcer?

I think I'll turn on Sunday Night Football tonight because Al Michaels is on.

I don't think so.

So primarily it is just so narrow and petty of NBC to cut Collins loose. Talk about penny-wise and pound-foolish. The guy is utterly unique. There isn't another American journalist so identified with his sport as Bud is with tennis. He is the very soul of the game -- as historian, as authority, as devotee, as enthusiast. He has been at the heart of tennis for half a century, and he holds the respect and the affection of everyone in the game. What's the point of abandoning such a rare resource?

Collins doesn't just love the sport, either. He remains a terrific journalist, who never lets his fondness for tennis -- however great -- get in the way of his reporting. I remember him joking to me once about how the British writers tended to be overwrought when it came to Wimbledon, prattling on about tragic double faults and brave returns of service.

"I don't ever deal with 'tragic' double faults and 'brave' returns," Bud said. "I never forget that it's just a game."

Collins is an ambulatory reference library, Encyclopedia Tennisianna on the hoof. He's never just kissed up to the stars or the American heroes. He's always made it a point of also getting to know the poor unseeded devils from Inner Mongolia that nobody else paid any attention to.

Likewise, he is forever recognized in our journalistic fraternity as the most generous of insiders. Whenever any new reporter would show up at a tennis tournament, like Wimbledon, it would be Collins, the very paterfamilias of the press box, who would be the one to take the time to be a Welcome Wagon, showing the newcomer about. At another, better time we called such a person a "gentleman."

Okay, maybe you don't like his garish pants, but they're fun, aren't they? -- especially in the more homogenized world of today's sports announcers, who are all cut from the same off-the-rack pattern. Can any of these other golden throats dare laugh at themselves?

The even greater shame of it all is that NBC has never properly understood what a rare property it had in Collins. It's my belief that the more technology available in sports television, the less we learn about the people playing the games. Golf is the worst. Somebody like Zach Johnson or Angel Cabrera suddenly appears on the scene, and except for a couple tidbits gleaned from the PGA guidebook, we are told nothing about them. Just what club they've chosen.

Tennis is only marginally better. Now it's all backhands and forehands and never anything about who is actually hitting the backhands and forehands. A few chosen words from someone like Collins, who actually knows about these human beings, would tremendously enhance our appreciation of these matches.

But put up another statistical graphic instead. It's strange how NBC in particular is so good about providing us with little vignettes for its Olympic athletes, but in other sports utterly ignores personalizing the players.

There are also two other ironies about letting Collins go. First of all, at a time of the diminishing presence of Americans in tennis, Bud gave NBC a constant in the sport. It was comforting to see him there, even as all the players seemed so, well, foreign. We need a familiar presence more than ever -- especially one that connects us to the sweep and tradition of the game.

Secondly, the prime tennis announcers, John McEnroe and Mary Carillo, appear to appear on every tennis telecast available to humankind, whatever network it may be on. They're both awfully good, but that's not the point here. They're as ubiquitous as your average baseline -- and, as a consequence, they have no institutional identity.

At least in Collins, NBC had someone who was the face -- or the trousers, if you will -- of the network. NBC fire Bud Collins? It might as well axe the peacock.

Oh well, maybe CBS will be smart enough to hire him for the U.S. Open.