White Makes Right at Toronto : Baseball: Angels gave up on center fielder in 1990, and now he has two World Series rings.

Once, they said the young center fielder couldn’t hit his weight. They said he couldn’t be a leadoff hitter, wasn’t patient enough, didn’t hit for average.

They were wrong.

Devon White still runs like Carl Lewis, patrolling center field with long, blazing strides.

In time, he has also become an exceptional leadoff hitter as he showed once again Friday night at Anaheim Stadium.

The Angels gave up on White after the 1990 season, trading him to Toronto along with Willie Fraser and Marcus Moore in exchange for Junior Felix, Luis Sojo and Ken Rivers.

They got fleeced.

Among the hard-hitting Blue Jays, who went into Friday with a .291 team batting average and 19 home runs, White tends to get lost in the shuffle.

John Olerud won the American League batting title last season with a .363 average. Paul Molitor was second at .332 and Roberto Alomar was third at .326.

White hit .273, 10 points better than in any of his six seasons as an Angel.

Even Friday, when White delivered three hits, one RBI and one run scored, he was almost overshadowed.

Almost.

Heading into extra innings, Olerud had three hits and three RBIs and Molitor had two hits.

Certainly, he proved to be more valuable than the current Angel center fielder, Chad Curtis, however.

It wasn’t White’s run-scoring single in the third inning. Or the long sprint to catch up with Curtis’ certain double in the gap in left-center. Or the eighth-inning double. Or the ninth-inning single.

All of those things stood out as White improved his average to .380 Friday. Each was remarkable in its own way.

His counterpart, Curtis, was struggling at the plate, hitting .171 going into the game.

The Angels hope it’s a temporary funk and that he’ll snap out of it soon.

After all, Curtis led the Angels in 1993 in average (.285), at-bats (583), runs (94) and hits (166). He was second to Luis Polonia in stolen bases with 48.

How does that stack up to White?

Fact is, Curtis fared well, most notably holding a higher average and stealing more bases.

But with White, an All-Star for the second time in his career last season, leading them, the Blue Jays won 95 games and their second consecutive World Championship.

And it’s no coincidence that the aforementioned they are no longer employed at Anaheim Stadium.

The manager, Doug Rader, is long gone and so are former general managers Mike Port and Dan O’Brien.

Meanwhile, White keeps running strong.