Garrett

I was struck by the short article on the history of gas masks (Part A, Feb. 7). However, I was saddened by the obvious omission that the inventor, Garrett A. Morgan, was black. The Times had an opportunity to highlight an additional fact. Perhaps the fact that a black man is responsible for saving countless numbers of lives with his inventions (the traffic light and gas mask) would have been too much for the public to grasp in one item of trivia. NANNETTE MARCHAND Rowland Heights

In normal circumstances, it's the bullpen that comes to the aid of a starting pitcher. But there's nothing normal about the circumstances surrounding the Angels' pitching staff these days. So Manager Mike Scioscia said Friday he'll try to right the staff with the second-highest earned-run average in baseball by using one of his starters to bail out his ailing relief corps, moving right-hander Garrett Richards from the rotation to the back of the bullpen. Right-handed Jerome Williams will start in Richards' place Sunday.

Siedah who? Superstar Michael Jackson could have probably convinced any singer in the world to sing with him on his long-awaited new single, "I Just Can't Stop Loving You," so why did he choose Siedah (pronounced sigh-EE-da) Garrett, a relatively unknown 25-year-old session singer and songwriter?

If this keeps up - and the Angels certainly hope it will - they might have to explain to their fans why they yanked their most effective pitcher out of their starting rotation. Garrett Richards dominated the Detroit Tigers on Saturday, pitching seven innings without giving up a run or a walk. The Angels scored nine runs in the first inning - highlighted by Mike Trout's first grand slam - and rolled to a 10-0 rout at Angel Stadium. The Angels scored more runs in the first inning Saturday than they had totaled in any of their first 15 games this season.

Athletic Director Mike Garrett, former football coach Pete Carroll and running backs coach Todd McNair were among the members of a USC contingent that was on the hot seat Thursday in Tempe before the NCAA's Committee on Infractions. Meantime, former USC tailback Reggie Bush, the focus of many of the allegations that landed USC in the desert for its long-awaited hearing, was at the Winter Olympics in Canada, preparing to take in a hockey game and some ski races. "There are attorneys, there are lawsuits, there are all those things that keep you from being able to talk," Bush, the 2005 Heisman Trophy winner, said during a promotional stop at a sponsor's office in Vancouver, adding, "I've tried to do everything I can, on my part, to help USC out."

What was Mike Garrett thinking? This question, of course, is based on the large and dangerous assumption that he was actually thinking. On the contrary, in handing his heavyweight USC football team to lightweight Lane Kiffin on Tuesday, Garrett has seemingly lost his mind. The USC athletic director's few remaining defenders have always deflected criticism toward Garrett by claiming he is a true Trojan. This is who a true Trojan hires? A program that defines itself by victories over UCLA just signed a guy who was out coached by UCLA's Rick Neuheisel just four months ago, Kiffin's Tennessee team losing to the Bruins in Knoxville.

Roy H. Ekrom, 57, has been named president and chief executive of Garrett Corp., Los Angeles. He succeeds John A. Teske, 60, who is taking early retirement as of Oct. 1. Teske, a 31-year employee of the aerospace firm, had been chairman and chief executive since January, 1985. Ekrom had been president and chief executive of Ampex Corp., like Garrett a unit of Allied-Signal Inc.

Thoughts triggered by Brett Garrett's April 22 letter complaining about CD plastic cases: Garrett showed a total lack of appreciation for the best packaging design the music industry has ever created. The transparent album of the CD is elegantly functional, simple, compact and durable; and best of all, it's uniform from label to label all over the world, a joy to stack, file and find. It doesn't take a genius to make a product cheaper, if no one cares about quality. The object, which has been the genius of the Japanese, is to reduce costs without reducing the quality of the product or its packaging.

The struggle between two insider investor groups at the Stater Bros. grocery chain grew more heated Wednesday, when Stater Chairman Bernard R. Garrett announced the suspension of a second high-level executive affiliated with the opposing stockholder faction. Joseph E. Davis was suspended as vice president of Stater Bros. Inc. and as vice president and chief financial officer of its Stater Bros. Markets subsidiary pending a review of the parent's financial statements.

The point is that Garrett Greedy would never hurt anyone, so don't bother mentioning what he did to that coach's ribs. People are bound to bend a bit when a guy 6-feet 3-inches tall and 220 pounds, playing with a mine-field intensity, starts doing the full-body bump. The key here is he would never mean to hurt anyone. So altering the skeletal structure of Leo Hand, then the coach at Servite who was playing option quarterback during a drill, was not a premeditated act.

It's not uncommon to hear a a spouse rant that they can't stand the sight of their partner. Brad Garrett and Elizabeth Perkins, the said parents in ABC's "How to Live With Your Parents (For the Rest of Your Life)," have found that to be true in a different manner. "I can't even look at him half the time because just looking at him makes me laugh," Perkins said of her  6-foot, 8-inch comedian co-star, best known for playing Robert Barone in "Everybody Loves Raymond. "  It's a sentiment, that when relayed to Garrett, naturally elicited a good ol' comedic comeback.

Garrett Richards didn't care whether he pitched out of the rotation or bullpen; he just hoped the Angels would commit to one or the other so he wouldn't have to go back and forth like he did last season, transitions that can tax the arm as well as the psyche. Richards, the organization's top starting pitching prospect, opened this season in the bullpen and emerged as a primary setup man, giving up one earned run and three hits in 41/3 innings in his first four appearances. But when Jered Weaver was put on the disabled list Tuesday because of a broken bone in his left elbow, an injury that will sideline the Angels ace for four to six weeks, the right-handed Richards was moved to the rotation and tabbed to start Saturday against the Houston Astros.

It will take less than 110 seconds to decide the winner of Saturday's $750,000 Santa Anita Derby, but if you pay attention to the bettors, they are almost certain to place their trust in the combination of Hall of Fame trainer Bob Baffert and two-time Eclipse Award-winning jockey Garrett Gomez. Flashback, trained by Baffert and to be ridden by Gomez, is the 6-5 morning-line favorite for the 1 1/8-mile race that is a final prep for the May 4 Kentucky Derby. Flashback's primary competition was expected to come from Hear The Ghost, who ran down Flashback to win the San Felipe Stakes by a half-length on March 9. But Hear The Ghost suffered an injury this week and will be scratched from Saturday's race.

Some fine actors have contracted to appear in "How to Live With Your Parents (For the Rest of Your Life)," a multi-generational family comedy premiering Wednesday night on ABC. It should do their careers no lasting harm. It is the sort of neither-here-nor-there sitcom that can make me feel faintly sad for the form, and by extension for the health of the nation, and yet it is no worse than so many others that come and go and sometimes, to my surprise, come and stay. If it can only stop pawing at your leg and licking your face for a moment, it may settle down into something you would allow in the house.

TEMPE, Ariz. - One day after Angels Manager Mike Scioscia said he was "concerned" about his rotation's shoddy work, right-hander Garrett Richards delivered the team's best start of the spring Saturday, one that will probably thrust the right-hander into a role on the big league club. What that role is, though, is difficult to discern. Richards, his fastball firm and breaking ball sharp, gave up one run and three hits in 6 1/3 innings of a 5-1 exhibition win over Milwaukee in Tempe Diablo Stadium, striking out five and walking one. He threw 77 pitches in the game and 13 in the bullpen afterward.

John Kerr Actor won Tony Award for 'Tea and Sympathy' John Kerr, 81, a stage, film and TV actor who won a Tony Award for his performance in Elia Kazan's 1953 Broadway production of "Tea and Sympathy" and went on to reprise his role in the 1956 film version, died Saturday of heart failure at Huntington Hospital in Pasadena, his son Michael said. Kerr's other film roles included the youthful Lt. Cable in the 1958 film version of Rodgers and Hammerstein's musical "South Pacific" and the young man investigating his sister's murder in Roger Corman's 1961 cult classic "The Pit and the Pendulum," starring Vincent Price.

In response to J. C. Garrett's letter "Truck Accidents and Traffic Jams" (March 3), I am really sorry that Garrett cannot ride some day with my husband when he drives his rig on our local freeways. After just one day of putting up with inconsiderate and sloppy drivers, I'm sure Garrett would have a different opinion about most truckers. For some reason, most auto drivers think it is a disgrace the way truckers drive, when most of the time truck drivers are only driving in self-defense.

Garrett is correct in pointing out the self-censorship that so many in our ranks (I include myself with the writers) practice everyday. While writing on the series "Benson," my partner Rob Dames and I faced every one of her examples more than once. We did an entire show based on Benson's disagreement with the Administration's cost cutting for social programs, despite nervous meetings with network people. We spent four years arguing the case for a show we finally made that dealt with the human cost of the Bomb.

There are as many visions of "On the Road," novelist Jack Kerouac's vivid anthem to the romance of youthful freedom and the getting of experience as there are readers. It's a book so influential yet so personal that each succeeding generation since its 1957 publication has picked it up and simply said, as one of its protagonists does, "Oh yes, oh yes, that's the way it goes. " Director Walter Salles has been one of those enthusiasts since he was an 18-year-old growing up in Brazil under a stifling military dictatorship.

The Indian-made "Delhi Safari," being shown stateside in an English-language version, proves a painless, if only mildly inventive, animated comedy. While it's passable, eco-friendly entertainment for young children, even they will likely spot the low-budget film's creative limitations. It may also be tough for even the most global-minded viewers to square the clearly non-Bollywood voices employed here amid "Delhi's" many localized names, references and visuals. The script, written by director Nikhil Advani with Suresh Nair and Girish Dhamija, finds a mix of jungle animals - a wary mother leopard (voiced by Vanessa Williams)