Things to Do in 1999

In 1999, the year of a Freeway World Series, an Inglewood title game, an Anaheim Stanley Cup and a Los Angeles professional football team, I hereby resolve:

* To stop taking androstenedione before writing these leads.

* To inform the NBA fools that for all of baseball’s labor problems, it never really hurt itself until it canceled the playoffs and World Series.

* To remind the NBA fools that as long as they finish with a champion, even a short season is better than no season.

* To tell Alonzo Mourning to stop wearing those silly glasses.

* To meet Lindsay Davenport, the coolest professional athlete in town.

* To continue to avoid even the most chance meeting with Marcelo Rios.

* To miss the ESPYs.

* To see the puck.

* To remember, no matter how far he falls or invisible he becomes, Casey Martin.

* To forget John Daly.

* To learn to work the VCR.

* To actually sit down and watch ABC’s “Sports Night.”

* To walk out on any televised anything featuring Rebecca Lobo, whom I’ve seen everywhere except the basketball court, where she continually disappears.

* To work on writing longer, more detailed paragraphs to satisfy the poor readers who complain that my habit of writing short, sometimes two-word, sometimes-shorter paragraphs is annoying and distracting and not in the true spirit of the English language or the basics of journalism or even the written word.

* Not.

* To figure out what the “T.J.” stands for in the first name of my buddy T.J. Simers. (All of you kind letter writers out there, feel free to guess.)

* To learn to work the remote control.

* To ask Kevin Brown if his family’s seat belts still have to be fastened with tray tables in their folded and locked positions?

* To not ask Mo Vaughn, under any conditions, about Mr. Clean.

* To write a story explaining how Teemu Selanne can be a great guy and great player at the same time.

* To explain to Ryan Leaf that, no matter what his pandering bosses say, he is neither.

* To tell Randy Moss that it is not too late to become both.

* To thank Mark McGwire; I don’t want any more interviews or stories or anything, I just want to say thanks.

* To say muchas gracias to Sammy Sosa. It’s the least I can do, considering he learned another language to communicate with us.

* To find out exactly which NHL players trashed those Olympic village rooms last winter.

* To find out why the powerful captains of a billion-dollar industry couldn’t find out first.

* To make the offending players play for the Kings.

* To convince my fourth-grade daughter to enter the science fair with a project involving a Chia Pet.

* To party with David Wells.

* To work out with Picabo Street.

* To get my hair cut with Ricky Williams.

* To shave with Joe Torre.

* To shop for sunglasses with Jeff Gordon.

* To recruit in the hollers of Kentucky with Tubby Smith.

* To have dinner with Phil Luckett. But only if we decide upon the restaurant by flipping a coin.

* To play hooky with Cal Ripken.

* To spy on Dominique Moceanu’s dad.

* To learn to work more than two of the 55 buttons on the car stereo.

* To give one more standing ovation to Joe DiMaggio.

* To go somewhere they’re not afraid to boo Mike Tyson.

* To write my 17th comeback story about Darryl Strawberry. This one, I’m guessing, would be real.

* To end a traditional night of bedside reading and television watching by turning off the lights with a clap.

* To keep voting for Tony Perez for the baseball Hall of Fame.

* To offer to sell my vote to anyone for the price of a college education at a university near a mountain where I can have unlimited free skiing.

* To take out an ad in the San Diego newspapers with the words: “The Padre owner persuades taxpayers to build him a new stadium with the implied promise of a competitive team . . . then immediately allows his best players to leave town because he refuses to pay them market value. And it’s the Dodgers who are bad for baseball?”

* To check Hale Irwin for a pulse.

* To check Albert Belle for a conscience.

* To check Lawrence Taylor for just about everything.

* To write not one more word about the WNBA until its officials agree to take the best players from the now-defunct ABL, even if it means half of the WNBA’s current players lose their jobs. Wasn’t it just a couple of years ago that the WNBA billed itself as champions of inclusion? Now it must walk the walk.

* To remind R. Jay Soward that wide receivers have won the Heisman Trophy.

* To not let Chris Claiborne know that linebackers have not.

* To coach the Clippers (Do you have any better ideas? Do they?)

* To fly to south Florida, track down a University of Miami football player on the street or in the dorms, and tackle the living hell out of him.

* To dress more dolls, play more catch, putt more purple balls, give more hugs.

* To keep reading Jim Murray.