News Items Have Him Tossing and Turning

Winners, losers and coin tosses:

Coin toss: Angels.

As popular as Chuck Finley has been and as unpopular as Disney’s reign over the Angels has been, it’s still difficult to find fault with the decision to pass on the 37-year-old free-agent pitcher.

His asking price, reportedly $25 million for three years, makes more sense for teams such as the Cleveland Indians or Boston Red Sox, who are one pitcher short of contending, than for the Angels, who are now one starting rotation short.

But letting Finley go doesn’t make sense unless the Angels have a plan to a) replace him with an equally effective No. 1 and b) upgrade the rest of the pitching staff.

I’m not saying anything that Angel General Manager Bill Stoneman doesn’t know. He said a couple of weeks ago that it’s imperative for the team to improve its starting pitching “even if it means weakening ourselves in other areas.”

That, however, is not as easy as it sounds.

For one thing, there’s not much quality starting pitching available, either for trade or on the free-agent market. If there were, pitchers such as Finley and David Cone wouldn’t be able to demand so much money.

For another, the Angel who would command the most in an exchange would be first baseman Mo Vaughn, who has a no-trade clause and probably wouldn’t agree to go just anywhere.

But if another team is willing to sacrifice starting pitching for him and he’s agreeable, Mo must go.

Winner: Adrian Beltre.

Even before the bidding war has begun, one team is already marshaling its financial forces for the potential free-agent third baseman.

The New York Mets’ loss of free agent John Olerud on Tuesday to Seattle leaves an opening at first base. But if Bud Selig declares Beltre a free agent, the Mets will pursue him with the thought of moving Robin Ventura to first. In that case, the Mets also will probably play Mike Piazza some at first, which could extend his career.

Winner: Dick Vermeil.

Jokes about the 63-year-old coach in his first two seasons with the St. Louis Rams, in which they won nine of 32 games, bordered on ageism. Now Vermeil, who took the Philadelphia Eagles to the Super Bowl in a past life, might be going back again.

With age has come wisdom. He quit the Eagles after the 1982 season, blaming burnout after too many nights of sleeping on the couch in his office during the season. Now Vermeil goes home and offensive coordinator Mike Martz sleeps on the couch in his office.

Losers: Cincinnati Bengals.

I suppose that’s redundant. With the Rams’ victory Sunday over Carolina, the Bengals claimed the crown as the worst team of the ‘90s. With three games remaining, their record is 51-106. The Rams are 55-101.

More bad news for the Bengals is the recent performance of quarterback Jeff Blake, who has been so effective that he’s playing himself out of the Bengals’ price range when he becomes an unrestricted free agent at the end of the season. The 49ers, who need a quarterback, surely noticed when Blake threw for 334 yards and four touchdowns against them in Cincinnati’s 44-30 victory Sunday.

Losers: California NFL teams.

For the first time since 1966, it appears as if there will be no teams from California in the playoffs.

Winner: UCLA.

The Bruins won their 99th national collegiate championship, the 79th sanctioned by the NCAA, with their men’s water polo title last weekend. They go for No. 100 in the men’s soccer final four this weekend at Charlotte, N.C. If they don’t get it then, perhaps they will in women’s volleyball. They’re in the central regional this week at Penn State.

Coin Toss: Bowl championship series.

Virginia Tech Coach Frank Beamer refused to get upset when his Hokies appeared to be at a disadvantage to reach the championship game because of their computer-unfriendly schedule, predicting that the two best teams would emerge in the end. He was correct. Virginia Tech and Florida State should be playing for the championship. Two years in a row, in fact, the BCS rankings appear to have identified the appropriate teams. Perhaps BCS officials have discovered the perfect formula.

My guess, however, is that there will be a season in which the rankings prove otherwise and some team will be cheated out of a chance to win the championship, as in the more subjective, and obviously imperfect, days when voting by coaches and sportswriters determined No. 1. The only solution remains a playoff system involving at least eight teams.

Winner: Laffit Pincay Jr.

Not only is he proving during his chase for Bill Shoemaker’s victory record that he is one of history’s best jockeys, he’s proving that he’s one of the best jockeys today.

There obviously were some owners and trainers who believed otherwise because, about the time Pincay turned 50, he no longer was getting calls to ride the better horses. He was so discouraged at one point that he considered moving to Northern California, where the competition is less rugged.

But when it became apparent that Pincay was about to pass Shoemaker, owners and trainers started offering him better mounts to help him out. He has not let them down.

Far from it, Pincay, who will turn 53 this month, is in contention to win his first riding title in eight years during the current meeting at Hollywood Park. Even after he breaks the record, perhaps as soon as today, don’t look for his phone to stop ringing.

Winners: Needy horsemen.

After Pincay ties the record, look for all but the longest shots he rides until he breaks it to be favored because bettors will want to have the historic winning ticket as a souvenir. But you can’t have your ticket and cash it too.

If, say, 10,000 fans buy a $2 ticket on a Pincay horse that wins, then choose not to cash out, the unclaimed money, at least $21,000 on a $2.10 payout, will be split, half going to the California Horse Racing Board, the other half to a welfare fund for needy horsemen.

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Randy Harvey can be reached at his e-mail address: randy.harvey@latimes.com.