The umps must not have seen it:In...

The umps must not have seen it:

In the midst of the county health system’s financial crisis, a vendor at Dodger Stadium was spotted wearing a back brace that said, “Property of King/Drew Medical Center.”

DOES MARCIA CLARK KNOW THIS?We apologize for not warning vacationers earlier that they couldn’t escape the O.J. Simpson murder trial by going to England. Sky Television, a sort of British equivalent of CNN, has been offering live coverage all along. Oh, yes--guess who has been broadcasting the Simpson trial promos for Sky? None other than Johnnie Cochran.

JUST BALONEY: It was the tale of a man lost in the Adirondack Mountains, forced to eat squirrels roasted with an eyeglass lens--and then being prosecuted after protests by animal rights activists.

Too crazy to be true? Yes, as a matter of fact. But when the fictional yarn was published in the newsletter of an L.A. group that pokes fun at political correctness, some people took it seriously.

The Associated Press says it was mentioned on ABC’s “This Week with David Brinkley” as well as Paul Harvey’s radio show, drew letters to several newspapers and caused a flood of phone calls to the New York state Department of Environmental Conservation.

John Herr, a spokesman for the group, the Center for the Study of Popular Culture, was unrepentant.

The fact that the squirrel tale was widely believed, he said, shows that political correctness has “gotten so out of control.”

BAH HAH CALIFORNIA: Claudio Boltiansky of L.A. points out that, according to a map in Cunard’s 1996 brochure, an undetected earthquake apparently has moved Ensenada several hundred miles north (see excerpt). You can bet Santa Barbara’s tourist office is worried.

GUESS WHO WANTS TO COME BACK: Daryl Gates told radio station KFI (AM-640) over the weekend that his beleaguered successor, Willie Williams, should resign as Los Angeles police chief. And when asked whether he would be willing to come back as Police Department boss, Gates told talk show host Bill Press that he would--for awhile.

“I truly would not mind coming back for six months,” Gates said, “only to get the department regenerated and turned around, get morale back, get them feeling proud of themselves and get the mayor straightened out in his approach to the department, then leave.”

It was Gates who initially ignored several calls to leave the same office after the L.A. riots in 1992. One takeout restaurant even parodied his stubbornness with a billboard that showed Gates’ likeness with the caption:

“When you can’t leave the office. Or won’t.”

miscelLAny It was 75 years ago that radio station 6ADZ began broadcasting in the Southland. It’s better known today as KNX (AM-1070). Incidentally, because of an editing error, this column mistakenly said that rival all-news station KFWB was at 1270 on the dial. Of course, it’s at 980. We understand that our editor has an old non-digital radio--you know the kind, with a dial so tiny that it’s difficult to discern the precise frequency to which the radio is tuned.