Michaels Scuffs Credibility in Promoting His New Show

All right, Dwight Gooden, Dave Stieb, Chuck Finley, Erik Hanson, Mike Boddicker, Scott Sanderson, Bobby Witt, Greg Maddux, Tom Browning, Jack Morris and Tom Candiotti.

Hands up against the wall, feet spread apart. You have the right to remain silent. If you give up that right, anything you say can and will be used against you. . . .

Mr. Al Michaels, the ABC sportscaster who is the host of that network’s new info-tainment vehicle, “America’s Best-Kept Secrets,” was hyping Monday’s premiere on “Entertainment Tonight.”

Discussing a segment of the show that covered major league pitchers’ illegal tricks (emery boards, doctoring the ball with a belt buckle, etc.) Michaels said:

“That’s why you’ve got guys who should be winning 10 or 12 games a year winning closer to 20.”

Add accused guys: In 1990, Gooden, Stieb et al are the 11 major league pitchers who won between 15 and 19 games.

If you want to split hairs, 16 games should be the cutoff point between “10 or 12” and “closer to 20.” But keep an eye on 15-game winners Maddux, Browning, Morris and Candiotti just the same.

So there you have them. Al Michaels’ suspect dirty dozen minus one . . . not to mention the six guys who won 20 or more: Bob Welch, Dave Stewart, Doug Drabek, Roger Clemens, Ramon Martinez and Frank Viola.

Trivia time: Name the major league pitchers who won 16 games in 1990.

Answers soon: Bob Hertzel of the Pittsburgh Press recently lofted his annual list of 25 fungoes into the spring training sky. A selection:

--”How come ‘the greenhouse effect’ has warmed the earth everywhere but Candlestick Park?”

--”Before the women’s movement, was Mike Sharperson known as Mike Sharman?”

--”How can there be a recession in America when Rafael Belliard earns $450,000 a year?”

At least two: The College Football Historical Society quotes an Associated Press dispatch after Notre Dame’s 32-0 victory over Drake in 1927:

“Knute Rockne believes that the success of the Notre Dame gridders, in part, is due to the absence of co-eds from campus. ‘How can the boys get along if they have a girl around?’ he asks. ‘Football takes two hours, study takes two-three hours, and if they have a girl, she must have at least two hours a day. That means that sleep or football or study must suffer. A girl might be a good thing, but the boys are better off without any girls to play for.’ ”

What goes around: Floyd Smith, general manager of the Toronto Maple Leafs, last in the NHL’s Norris Division, recently received one of those good-luck chain letters.

He forwarded it to five Toronto sportswriters, with a cover letter attached that read: “If I’m about to get all this luck, I want to share it with those who have such an influence on my life.”

Trivia answer: There were none.

Quotebook: Coach Sam Wyche of the Cincinnati Bengals, on how Dave Shula, the Bengals’ new receivers coach, will affect Wyche’s play-calling: “I think I’ll make everyone a co-coordinator so we won’t have any problems with it. We’ve always done it that way. But I’m the emperor.”