Talk About Long Shots: Del Mar Tipster <i> Is </i> One

So what is a 28-year-old San Diego State recreation graduate and former day care center and YMCA worker doing at the Del Mar Race Track?

Trying to make a living in a most unforgiving business: handicapping horse races. A long shot selling tips about other long shots.

Bruce Andrews Jr., who learned horses from his father, Bruce Sr., a San Diego bus driver, is the brains behind Deuce Bruce, the latest handicapping “card” for sale at the track.

A new daily card is accepted for sale at Del Mar about as often as a 75-to-1 shot winning a stakes race. The other three cards date from the days of Bing Crosby and Pat O’Brien.

This is the second Del Mar meet for Deuce Bruce, aside from a year selling to patrons of the track’s satellite wagering. To win the right to sell at Del Mar, Andrews had to demonstrate his acumen to the Del Mar Thoroughbred Club, which loosely supervises the handicappers.

So why do people buy tip sheets anyway? Aren’t the odds posted before every race?

Yeah, but historically at Del Mar, only about 37% of odds-on favorites actually win. The prowl for a guy with secret formulas and well-honed hunches is never-ending.

Andrews says he looks for “price” horses with long odds but stout hearts. So far, Deuce Bruce is within a winner or two of the best of the newspaper handicappers.

Andrews wants to expand to Santa Anita and Hollywood Park. “The track is where the action is,” he said. “It’s a grind, but I love it.”

On his best day, he sold 155 Deuce Bruces at $2 each (hence the deuce). More established cards can sell up to 500.

Devoted gamblers are slow to change. Pete Rose looked at Deuce Bruce during last fall’s satellite season but didn’t buy, Andrews said.

Smoke Rings

The San Diego County Medical Society sent a letter asking that the city, as an anti-smoking gesture, get rid of the huge Marlboro Man sign at San Diego Jack Murphy Stadium.

The mayor sent the letter to the city manager. The city manager sent the letter to the stadium manager. The stadium manager sent the letter to the Padres.

The Padres’ answer: No.

In exchange for building the new scoreboard, the Padres got the advertising rights and now have a contract with Marlboro. The contract runs through 1993.

Rail-Riding Mice

Mice are still vexing Amtrak travelers on the San Diego-Los Angeles line. Attracted by food crumbs, the stowaway rodents just keep coming.

Lynn Kelly, a sales intern with The Times’ advertising staff, asked a conductor about the mice on a recent 5:25 a.m. train to L.A. The conductor offered a shrug and a startling explanation.

“We’ve stopped trying to get rid of them,” he said. “We used to fumigate, but we stopped that after we fatally gassed a transient.”

Not quite, said an Amtrak spokesman from San Francisco.

Yes, a transient hiding in an Amtrak car was mistakenly overdosed during fumigation. But it was in a sleeping car in Los Angeles, not a car used on the San Diego-L.A. line.

“It was listed as a trespasser fatality, an inadvertent eradication,” said spokesman Arthur Lloyd.

The San Diego-L.A. cars, all non-sleepers, continue to get sprayed periodically, he said.

Wit for Managers

If dealing with bureaucracy reminds you of a Monty Python sketch, this one’s for you.

The National Management Assn. is showing training films to mid-level managers at San Diego City Hall starring Monty Python regular (and star of “A Fish Named Wanda”) John Cleese.

Last week’s film dealt with interviewing job applicants. “Nobody admits to being a bad driver, a bad lover or a bad interviewer,” said the narrator.

Cleese played very bad interviewers named Ethelred the Unready, William the Silent and Ivan the Terrible.

A previous film, “Meetings, Bloody Meetings,” had Cleese sleeping and bluffing his way through a staff meeting. Next in the series: “The Importance of Making Mistakes.”