Willie Morris, in his autobiography North Toward Home, tells of a sportscaster called the Dutchman who was Yazoo City, Mississippi's only link with professional sports. The Dutchman verbally embellished his radio accounts of baseball games and was immensely popular.

The punch line was, though, that every time the Dutchman put a lot of English on a bounding ball, he was doing it four hours after it happened. The delay gave the Dutchman time to polish up his account.

The Dutchman was truly indigenous to radio, and it is only with the acceptance of television that he becomes supernumerary. Maybe I'm old fashioned, but I find television's effect on baseball lamentable.

The Baltimore Orioles' Chuck Thompson was the radio phantom of my boyhood, and even Chuck would delay his account sometimes. In the hiatus between crack of bat and disappearing home run, Chuck was ruminating. Only when he was ready would he ejaculate, "Go to war, Miss Agnes." (While my point is correct, this is an exaggeration. Thompson reserved that homespun judgement for only the most momentous occasions, like back-to-back homeruns by the Robinson boys.)

But radio is also a more tactful vehicle for baseball than television is. All the announcers I've heard-and I haven't heard Chicago's Harry Caray-were god-fearing men and respected gray institutions of the grand old game. Like umpires.

Television and its instant replay have little reverence for those hulking black buzzard judges of the basepaths. Two egregious cases in point are two plays at the plate in the first games of the 1970 and 1973 Series. In 1970 Ken Burkhardt called the Reds' Bernie Carbo out when, as an instant replay showed, Baltimore catcher Elrod Hendricks missed the tag and Carbo the plate.

Last Sunday, films showed equally clearly that Ray Fosse missed a tag or sliding Met Bud Harrelson, but Augie Donatelli made the Mets wait another two innings to win.

Whether an umpire calls a play correctly or not, he is right, and no amount of technology will make him into a fool-proof play-caller without ruining the spontaneity of the game. Chuck Thompson knew that, and the most he would allow is that it was a "bang-bang" play. It's about time we smash the instant slow-mo replay and the tube along with it, and switch the radio back on.