Keeping Score: A Columnist’s List of Errors

My office mailbox is usually a lonely place. Press releases are its best friend. A work schedule sometimes finds its way under my name, as does the monthly memo concerning the new dental plan. Otherwise, Dullsville. The place where correspondence goes to die.

But lately things have been perking up. Just the other day I got a note that began, “Dear Moron . . .”

But these things happen. Once, the editors at Time magazine published a story about Frank Sinatra. Sinatra fired back a telegram that read, “As usual, your information stinks!”

I think that pretty much sums up how readers occasionally feel about the printed word: It stinks. So I offer a rare, one-time deal: remorse, better yet, retractions. Someone calls me a moron? I say they’re right--sort of. Someone accuses me of knee-jerk commentary? I say, probably. Someone says that apologies are in order? I say don’t push your luck.

Instead, I propose a game of show-and-tell. I’ll show you what I wrote way back when and then tell you why--and this hurts to say--I was wrong.

Ready? Begin.

Feb. 11, 1989. The Angels won’t finish any higher than fifth in the ultra-competitive AL West.

Did I say fifth? Darn editors . . . always tinkering with your copy. What I’m sure I meant to say is that the Angels are a fine team, competitive enough to mount a legitimate challenge for the division title. And I’ll bet you a fifth of 11-year-old scotch that I’m right.

There. Much better.

May 27, 1989. The Rams could care less about the contract holdout of running back Greg Bell, who finished the National Football League season fourth in rushing, first in touchdowns and points scored .

I’ve reconsidered. The Rams don’t actually care less about Bell’s signature missing from a 1989-90 contract. They care less than less. Negative integer less. Put it this way: if the Rams have to choose between keeping Gaston Green happy or Bell happy, Green wins. Meanwhile, Bell gets peppered.

Nov. 12, 1988. UC Irvine needs a Division III football program about as much as Wade Boggs needs a subscription to Penthouse.

So what if the start-up costs for a new team would have been about $300,000? I mean, it wasn’t coming out of my pocket.

Had I been thinking I would have suggested a three-year trial run for Zot football. See how it works. Take a look at the attendance. Consider the student support. Consider the fun of low-pressure college football. So I goofed. Sue me.

March 4, 1989. Marcus Lawton, Dave Concepcion, Stewart Cliburn and Sherman Corbett almost certainly will be on the Angel opening day roster.

Put yourself in my place. Manager Doug Rader says he’d love to keep Dante Bichette on the roster, but “as a developing player, you don’t want to place him in a platoon mode at this point in his career. He needs to start.”

So I figure that Bichette is back in Edmonton at season’s beginning and Lawton is in an Angel uniform. I fell for the oldest trick in the book: the supposed truth.

I don’t know what I was thinking with Concepcion. He looked overweight and old at the start of spring training; he looked overweight and old at the end of it.

Cliburn? I guessed. Corbett? At the time, Bob McClure was experimenting with knuckleballs or some new pitch and it wasn’t working. So I guessed again--and missed.

March 4, 1989. (I had a bad day, OK?) Wally Joyner is the second most important player on the Angel roster and reliever Bryan Harvey is the first. I believe the sentence was, “Take away Harvey and you finish last. Simple as that.”

Yes, well, Joyner is hitting a robust .249, has one home run and is sixth on the team in runs batted in. Meanwhile, Harvey has only five saves, which ties him with set-up man Greg Minton for the team lead. And yet, the Angels have the best record in the major leagues.

Go figure--I couldn’t.

March 13, 1988. The Pacific Coast Athletic Assn.--the PCAA--should resist any name change.

I’ve come to love the new name, Big West Conference. It’s a fair name. An honest name. A name to be proud of.

Dec. 7, 1988. A day that will live in infamy. I wrote that absolutely, positively the Atlanta Falcons would beat the Rams and spoil the Ram playoff drive.

The Rams won, 22-7.

Dec. 10, 1988. The Angels are doomed. Owner Gene Autry and vice president Mike Port fail to sign Nolan Ryan or Bruce Hurst at the winter meetings. Strange how the best deals are the ones you never sign. I eat crow on this one. But so do a lot of other people. Tiny portions also are reserved for Autry and Port, who must have wondered what they’d do without Ryan or Hurst.

Nov. 5, 1988. This isn’t expected to be a banner year for the Cal State Fullerton basketball team.

Oops. The Titans survived the surprise resignation of their coach just weeks before the start of the season. In fact, they did better than survive; they prospered. All thanks to a clever coach named John Sneed.

Sept. 24, 1988. The Angels showed no class when they fired Manager Cookie Rojas with eight games remaining in the season. If nothing else, they should have allowed him to complete the full 162-game schedule.

Sorry. No can do on this one. If anyone should apologize, it should be the Angels.

Well, that about does it for public penance. But you know what they say: Keep those cards and letters coming.