Imus Prepares Nantz for Augusta

Please excuse CBS Sports’s Jim Nantz if he sounded a bit reserved this morning. Between calling tonight’s NCAA men’s basketball championship game and the Masters Golf Tournament at Augusta later in the week, he’s trying to pace himself. 

“I’ll be very high tonight,” he promised Imus. “I’m building.”

This year’s NCAA tournament, in Nantz’s view, has “reaffirmed a lot of people’s love for the event” because the story has so often been about the underdog, as it will be tonight when fifth-seeded Butler takes on top-seeded Duke for the title.

“It’s what gives the tournament its soul,” Nantz continued. “If Butler wins, it’ll be one of the epic wins in the history of college basketball.”

Maybe. But Nantz’s flowery use of language was disturbing for Imus, who can see how one would like the event, but not necessarily love it. To make the I-Man feel more at ease, Nantz explained that the love he feels for college basketball is similar to the love Imus feels for country music.

“I love music, it’s not just country music,” Imus pointed out. “Or, maybe I’m just looking to pick on you.”

If that’s the case, Imus didn’t stop there, calling his friend Nantz “a politically correct pansy” who is unlikely to say “anything wacky” when calling the Masters this weekend.

“This is such an extraordinary event, wouldn’t you agree Jim, because Tiger Woods is coming back after this ordeal of his?” Imus asked, pressing his guest to address Woods’s very public personal downfall during the broadcast.

Nantz didn’t exactly demur, but insisted he is merely a “storyteller,” a “paid observer” who tells people what he sees. “We’ll have to see what happens,” Nantz concluded.

Sensing hostility (no, really?), Imus backed off a bit, saying, he expects Nantz will be a gentleman. Besides, he’s not going to talk to Woods anyway; unless, of course, Woods wins the Masters, in which case Nantz would interview him inside Butler Cabin.

“Now we’re talking!” said Imus, who wants Nantz to ask Woods why he saw an unlicensed Canadian doctor known for dealing human growth hormone to other athletes. Nantz suggested Imus e-mail him all those wonderful interview ideas.

Nantz does not think Woods will be heckled at Augusta, which Imus agreed with because Woods’s fans would have sex with porn stars too, given the opportunity.

“You would if you could, wouldn’t you Nantz?” Imus asked, doing some heckling of his own this morning. When no answer came, Imus took that as a hint to get back to golf, and so he surmised that “it ruins everything for everybody” if Woods doesn’t make the cut, because, in case Nantz didn’t know, “the tournament starts on the back nine, Sunday.”

“Can I use that term?” asked Nantz, who probably coined it. “You know, that sound like, ‘A tradition unlike any other.’”

-Julie Kanfer