The play-by-play announcer's main job, in TV sports, isn't to tell you exactly what's happening on the field. You don't need him (in the biggest sports, at least in the U.S., it's always a him) for that. That's what the cameras and editors are for. The play-by-play guy's job is about storytelling and continuity and -- this last one is especially important if he happens to be trapped in a booth with HOWARD COSELL and DANDY DON MEREDITH -- sanity. He is the show to their sideshow, the science to their theology, and hardly anyone was better at that job than the great FRANK GIFFORD, the warm, even-keeled bedrock of the greatest football show on TV for the better part of two decades. Not a bad second career for a guy who previously had been a bedrock of the great NEW YORK GIANTS teams of the 1950s and early '60s, an MVP and HALL OF FAMER. If you want to trace the rise of pro football to the top of AMERICAN sports culture, you could do worse than to draw a line straight through the life of FRANK GIFFORD. RIP... REQUIEM FOR A BIRD, aka the story of RANDY JOHNSON's most infamous pitch... RIP LOUISE SUGGS.