This Anniversary Tinged With Silver and Black

You might like to know which USC baseball team was former coach Rod Dedeaux’s favorite. Don’t waste your breath asking him.

“I’ll never pick one,” said Dedeaux, who in 45 seasons with the Trojans won 11 NCAA and 28 conference championships and coached players such as Mark McGwire, Randy Johnson, Tom Seaver, Fred Lynn and Dave Kingman.

But Dedeaux acknowledged that “a lot of people” are partial to his 1959 team, which held its 40th reunion Saturday at, appropriately, Dedeaux Field.

“All my teams have been fiercely loyal, but that one is even more so because the NCAA gave them the shaft,” he said.

The ’59 Trojans had a 29-6-1 record and won the Pacific Coast Conference championship by sweeping Washington, 17-3 and 9-0, in a best-of-three playoff series.

Everyone on the Trojans’ 25-man roster ultimately played professionally. Among them were future major leaguers Bill Heath, Don Buford, John Werhas, Len Gabrielson, Rex Johnston and Ron Stillwell.

Yet, Dedeaux’s son, Justin, calls it “the team that history forgot.”

The Trojans were prohibited from advancing to the NCAA tournament because of a recruiting violation by the USC football program.

The assistant coach charged with the violation: Al Davis.

Dedeaux said it wasn’t Davis’ fault.

Besides, Dedeaux got over it.

“When the season ended, we were ranked No. 1 by the coaches, Collegiate Baseball and the Sporting News--ahead of the team [Oklahoma State] that won the NCAA tournament,” he said. “I’ve always considered it our 12th national championship.”

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It’s not too early to call the Dodgers’ underachievers. . . .

A team with that talent--and payroll--should not be trailing the Barry Bonds-less San Francisco Giants even in May. . . .

Maybe it’s because Rupert Murdoch is getting so little return on his investment that Ted Turner has dropped their feud. . . .

“I’m not gonna hate anybody,” Turner said in a speech before the United Nations. “I won’t even hate Rupert Murdoch. I’m not gonna hate him from this moment on. And that’s a pretty difficult thing to do.” . . .

The only thing the Angels lead the league in besides injuries is frequent-flier miles. . . .

Fresh off an East Coast trip, the Angels are back on the East Coast for six games. . . .

“The only redeeming thing is that the players weren’t at home long enough to adjust to West Coast time,” said Tim Mead, Angel vice president of communications. “They didn’t even have long enough to get their dry cleaning done.” . . .

You no doubt soon will start hearing that Charismatic, as with Real Quiet last year, isn’t a deserving Triple Crown candidate. . . .

Don’t pay attention to it. . . .

It’s true that he has won only five of 16 races. But he ran most of those before trainer Wayne Lukas realized that Charismatic, who is to horses what Charles Barkley is to basketball players, is sharper with frequent work. . . .

Since his fourth-place finish in the Santa Anita Derby on April 3, he has run three times and won all three. . . .

What Say You, who finished ahead of Charismatic in that now-famous claiming race Feb. 11 at Santa Anita only to be disqualified, was fourth in an allowance race Sunday at Hollywood Park. . . .

Dave Taylor has taken the Kings’ coaching search to Ottawa, where he’s interviewing candidates during this week’s Memorial Cup. . . .

Dave Lewis, an assistant to Scotty Bowman in Detroit, may be available sooner rather than later. . . .

The Kings didn’t merely acquire an American Hockey League franchise in Massachusetts last week. They acquired one of the best nicknames in sports--the Lowell Loch Monsters. . . .

With the closing of the U.S. Embassy in Beijing, Chinese runners who’d planned to enter Sunday’s Suzuki Rock ‘n’ Roll Marathon in San Diego won’t receive visas enabling them to enter the country. . . .

It’s their bad luck. They’ll miss the Hootie & the Blowfish concert. . . .

UCLA’s Seilala Sua will try to become the first athlete to win all four throwing events--shot, discus, hammer and javelin--in the Pacific 10 championships this week at Arizona State. . . .

When’s the last time a fighter could say he was stepping up in class to fight Peter McNeeley? . . .

Butterbean can say it without fear of contradiction as he prepares for their bout June 26 in Las Vegas on the undercard for Johnny Tapia and Paulie Ayala. . . .

As part of a Wrestlemania card, Butterbean scored a one-punch knockout over the WWF’s Bart Gunn. . . .

“I hit him harder than I’ve ever hit any human,” Butterbean said. . . .

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While wondering who could have guessed that Kurt Rambis would take a team farther in the playoffs than Pat Riley, I was thinking: The best compliment I can pay Michael Jordan is to say the NBA playoffs are better without him, any team still playing can win, except the Hawks and 76ers.

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