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Now pitching... Coming Clean: An Example for Us AllBy Rick Horowitz It's the kind of mistake anybody could have made. What grabbed all the attention was the particular anybody who made the mistake: Bill Richardson. Bill Richardson, the governor of New Mexico and a possible Democratic presidential candidate in 2008. Bill Richardson, the former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. Bill Richardson, the former long-time member of Congress. Bill Richardson, the even-longer-ago young baseball prospect who was so good a pitcher he was drafted by a major league baseball team. Except that he wasn't. Drafted, that is. Which is just a bit different from what Richardson had once claimed in a campaign bio -- a claim he apparently never disputed as it was repeated over the years by various news organizations, and even by the Clinton White House when Richardson was picked for the U.N. job. But then the Albuquerque Journal decided to look into the story, and couldn't find any record of it. Nothing showing that Richardson had been drafted by the Kansas City A's (the A's were still in Kansas City back then), or by anyone else. When the newspaper told Richardson what they'd found -- or rather, what they hadn't found -- he admitted that his claim wasn't true. "After being notified of the situation and after researching the matter" -- this is Richardson, in an article in the Journal last week -- he "came to the conclusion that I was not drafted by the A's." Scouted by major-league teams, yes. But drafted? No. And the reason for his conclusion confusion? Seems that back in the day, playing summer baseball for the Cotuit Kettleers of the Cape Cod League, he'd once seen, next to his name on a Kettleers program, the words "Drafted by K.C." "When I saw that program in 1967," Richardson said, "I was convinced I was drafted. And it stayed with me all these years." It stayed with him so well, evidently, that it grew sprouts; by the time he filled out a bio sheet as a junior at Tufts, he was writing, "Drafted by Kansas City (1966), LA (1968)." As I said, it's the kind of mistake anybody could have made. Which is why I figure it's time I came clean. There are one or two details about my own past that might have gotten muddied over the years as they made their way to the public, and now is as good a time as any to clear them up. For instance, when you've read that I was the valedictorian of my high-school class, this was not totally accurate. I've gone back and researched the matter, and I've discovered that I wasn't actually valedictorian -- or anywhere close to valedictorian. What must have confused me, according to my research, is when somebody wrote in my high-school yearbook, "You have as much class as a valedictorian." And it stayed with me all these years. For that matter, when it said in my bio that, while I was in college, I was the "founding member of an award-winning trapeze team," I now find that there are some details that need correcting: specifically, the part about the "award-winning," and the part about the "trapeze team." I was definitely in college. Likewise, it's probably more precise to say that I've "read" about the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio, than that I'm "enshrined" there. What I now believe must have happened is that I saw my name on the Sports Illustrated subscription label, and somehow got the two stories confused. An honest mistake. At this point, I'm not able to confirm my claim that I piloted a single-engine aircraft solo across the Pacific Ocean in 1987. My "Week-At-A-Glance" calendar for that year has several pages missing, and while I might have done it during one of those missing days, I can't be certain, so it's probably better if we just forgot about that. Also, I've never been "romantically linked" with Madonna, or "engaged" to Jessica Simpson. My "Hollywood debut" apparently did not occur in "There's Something About Mary." And it turns out that I'm not -- technically speaking -- "heir to the King of Norway." All of this comes as a complete surprise to me. Posted 11/29/05.
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Rick Horowitz
