Jim Murray

This article was originally published Feb. 15, 1998 and is part of the new book "Los Angeles Lakers: 50 Amazing Years in the City of Angels" by the Los Angeles Times sports staff. You can purchase the book online here. You hear about Kobe Bryant, the Lakers' 19-year-old basketball whiz, and your first reaction is, the last time anyone this good appeared there was a star in the East. I mean, you want to say, "Come on, what are you trying to hand me? Nobody's this good!" Oh, they don't claim he can heal the sick, raise the dead or make water into wine.

Trainer Mike Mitchell kept telling the six owners of On The Acorn that the 7-year-old gelding was doing super. "Better than last year," Mitchell said. "We weren't buying it," said Jack Disney, who heads the six-person syndicate that owns On The Acorn. "But we are now." The owners had good reason for their doubts.

The Jim Murray Memorial Handicap, named in honor of the late Pulitzer Prize-winning Times columnist, will be run for the 19th time today at Hollywood Park. Murray died in 1998. Heading up the field in today's Grade II, $250,000 Jim Murray 'Cap will be Great Britain-bred Champs Elysees, who will carry high weight of 119 pounds, and On The Acorn, the race's defending champion.

No one will ever confuse Jim Murray with a teenager. His tall frame, broad shoulders and clipped, gray hair give him away for the grandfather he is. But the 69-year-old retired police chief of this small Missouri farm town cuts a credible figure as a 13-year-old girl surfing the Web, looking for friends. He knows all the instant-messaging shorthand, the emoticons. Murray's retirement job from a rural home office has netted 20 arrests since he started in 2002.

Those waiting for Church Service's second victory, especially Jump Sucker Stable, the five-member partnership that owns the gelding, and trainer Lisa Lewis, finally were rewarded April 7. Successful in his debut on the Saratoga turf in the summer of 2005, Church Service raced a dozen times more before he won again, running the best race of his life and ending the drought with a decisive victory in an optional claimer on the Santa Anita grass.

It is on days like this that we miss him the most. There were blue skies, soft winds and temperatures in the high-60s most of the day Thursday at the Nissan Open golf tournament. Jim Murray's Nissan Open. Many legends have played in this venerable tournament. But none the caliber of Murray, The Times' Pulitzer Prize winner who died in 1998, have written about it. Super Bowls came and went.

Bill Plaschke's story in last Sunday's Times ["Floored"] about the anonymous tycoon donating $5 million to USC so he could immortalize his dear friend, a regular decent guy, was very touching. I kept rereading the article, hoping to glean a specific reason for such an over-the-top donation. Then it hit me. From their relationship, the tycoon got a real down-to-earth friend who enabled the tycoon to keep both of his feet on the ground. The very decent Jim Sterkel achieved lasting fame.

I enjoyed Amy Scattergood's article "Oh, Get Past the Garnish" [May 10]. A very enjoyable read, it was fresh in subject matter and writing. I will never think about mint jelly again without imagining its "wobbly sweetness," and I'll remember "a garnish is what the IRS can do to your wages" next time I see a lonely sprig of parsley sitting on my dinner plate. SUSAN BECKMAN Venice I really enjoyed reading the last few articles by Amy Scattergood and last week's piece regarding parsley, cilantro, et al. Scattergood has a very engaging writing style that is atypical of most of the food writers I am familiar with.

Although he almost certainly would have traded the victories for one a week earlier with Brother Derek in the Kentucky Derby, jockey Alex Solis swept all three graded stakes on Saturday at Hollywood Park. The future hall of fame rider did the expected by winning the $150,000 Mervyn LeRoy with Surf Cat and the $250,000 Jim Murray Memorial Handicap with Grey Swallow, then pulled a 5-1 surprise with Siren Lure in the $100,000 Los Angeles Handicap.