Autry Always Owned Up to Any Angel Difficulties

There were many reasons to admire Gene Autry as a baseball owner. Among them is that he wasn’t Disney.

Autry wasn’t faceless like the corporation that assumed control of the Angels from him two years ago. If the team disappointed its fans, he was accountable. That’s how he wanted it.

No one outside the organization knows who’s accountable now.

When the Angels didn’t acquire Mark McGwire last year, was that because General Manager Bill Bavasi couldn’t get the deal he preferred from Oakland? That’s what Bavasi says.

Or was it, as others close to the negotiations still contend, because Tony Tavares or Michael Eisner didn’t want to pay McGwire?

If the Angels aren’t serious contenders for free agents such as Mo Vaughn and Mike Piazza this winter, will that be because Bavasi couldn’t close a deal? Or will it be because Tavares meant it when he said no player is worth $10 million a year?

Autry also was different in that no one ever doubted that winning was his first priority. The speculation that Disney is more interested in the bottom line than the final standings might be unfair, but it will persist until Tavares and Eisner prove otherwise.

Unfortunately, Autry never won a World Series championship, never even reached the Series. It wasn’t for lack of trying.

He had some of the best talent available in the late ‘70s and ‘80s, players such as Reggie Jackson, Rod Carew, Nolan Ryan, Fred Lynn, Bobby Grich, Don Baylor, Doug DeCinces and Bob Boone. I’d rather see some of those teams than this year’s Yankees.

Angel fans, who will come when given a team they believe in, believed in those years, when attendance routinely reached 2.5 million and went over 2.8 million in 1982.

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Bobby Rahal donated a driver’s fire suit from the current CART season to the Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles on Tuesday. . . .

Fortunately, it doesn’t have a burn mark on it. . . .

Unfortunately, it was never worn on Victory Lane. . . .

Rahal, who hasn’t won since 1992, has two more chances before retiring--in Gold Coast, Australia, on Oct. 18 and at Fontana’s California Speedway in the Nov. 1 Marlboro 500. . . .

The co-owner of Team Rahal, David Letterman, will be in the pits at Fontana. . . .

Asked if he gets driving advice from his partner, Rahal said, “No, and I don’t give him jokes.” . . .

I haven’t heard a real good excuse yet for UCLA not agreeing to reschedule its game at Miami for Dec. 5. . . .

Some players apparently are ambivalent, which isn’t exactly the attitude you want to see in a team trying to win a national championship. . . .

Unless the Bruins finished as the only unbeaten team, I wouldn’t vote for them No. 1 if they didn’t play the game. . . .

On the other hand, if they look eager to go to Miami when they don’t really have to, then remain unbeaten by winning convincingly, it will be hard to keep them out of the Fiesta Bowl game that will determine the national champion. . . .

Chan Ho Park has two more seasons before his 27th birthday, when, according to South Korean law, he must fulfill his military obligation. . . .

His agent, Steve Kim, said Tuesday that the government probably would make an exception for Park because it recognizes the good he’s doing for the country by pitching for the Dodgers. . . .

But, to avoid the inevitable charges of favoritism, Kim said it would be better if Park earned a military exemption. . . .

He, like all South Korean athletes, can do that by winning a gold medal in December’s Asian Games in Bangkok, Thailand. . . .

Park will pitch for a South Korean team expected to contend for the baseball gold, along with Japan and Taiwan. . . .

Fred Claire is writing sports again during the baseball playoffs. In his first column for Bloomberg News, he predicted the Braves will win the National League championship series because of their pitching. . . .

Fred, as one columnist to another, you have to provide more insight than that if you expect to be read. . . .

Precocious jockey Ariel Smith, 16, makes his debut today aboard Denigar in the fifth race at Santa Anita. . . .

“He’s as good as any guy who’s never ridden a race as I’ve ever seen,” trainer Bob Hess says of Smith, whose father, Alfredo Smith Jr., won 2,000 races in a 16-year career. . . .

The Braves will win the NL championship series because of their pitching.

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While wondering if a new baseball stadium in San Diego would be known as the House That Leyritz Built, I was thinking: Bring back Fran Tarkenton so he can get a ring, David Stern doesn’t look like such a great commissioner anymore, it’s only fair that Jorge Campos deserted Chicago because he was so seldom there for the Galaxy when needed.