NFL HOPES: Sure, the Walt Disney Co....

NFL HOPES: Sure, the Walt Disney Co. bought mega-giant Capital Cities/ABC. But CNN interviewer Larry King also wanted to know this week from Disney chairman Michael Eisner: When will Disney come up with a pro football team? Eisner’s answer might give some encouragement to Orange County fans: “We have talked to several people about it. If the Disney Co. would be involved, it would be in Anaheim, Orange County. . . . We would only be involved if it was Orange County.”

CHILI DIPPED: Angel star Chili Davis poking a finger at a Milwaukee fan Sunday was too good for TV’s David Letterman to pass up. Letterman’s trademark Top Ten Monday: Top Ten Chili Davis complaints about fans. Such as: “They think only New York players can be jerks.” “After you finish bloodying their nose, they almost never share their nachos with you.” And No. 1: “They can’t take a punch.”

ATHALIE III: Latest twist to the wobbliest branch of the Irvine family tree: a new heir, Antoinette Athalie Smith, 5 pounds, 15 ounces. She was born Tuesday at Long Beach Memorial Hospital, where Mom Marianne Campbell Smith is a nurse. Dad Morton Smith says both are great. . . . Family problems surfaced last year when his mother, philanthropist Joan Irvine Smith, cut off his inheritance, thinking he’d married beneath him. . . . The baby’s first name comes from Marianne’s mother. The middle name, Athalie, happens to be Joan’s first name. But uh-uh, says Morton: “The baby is named after her grandmother”--longtime family matriarch Athalie Irvine Clarke, who died in 1993.

SURFER BLUES? Local surfers are hoping August has better waves than July. Not that it would make lifeguards happy. July showed a dramatic drop in necessary rescues--beaches in Laguna Beach, for example, showed 131 rescues for the month, a third of the total in July, 1994. . . . Says Aliso Beach lifeguard Api Weinert: “The Pacific Ocean was Pacific Lake.”