JOHN TAMMARO III, of Cooksville, trainer of the horse Concerto, which was expected to do much better in the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness, had no long-winded excuse after the horse lost.
''He ran great; he's just not good enough. No excuses.''
In a world of elegant elaboration, the admission was a winner.
Like beer bottles and swizzle sticks, excuses -- both false and true -- can be collectibles. Newsmakers create them daily.
Garry Kasparov, the confident world's human chess champion, predicted no computers would beat human champions for years. He had a ready explanation when Deep Blue smacked him upside the head last month: ''I was not in the mood of playing at all.''
Some explanations get so involved, they recall Shakespeare's Juliet telling a maid ''The excuse that thou dost make in this delay is longer than the tale thou dost excuse.''
Blessed peace-makers
The New York Knicks general manager Ernie Grunfeld went on and on defending the actions of his players who left the bench against well-known league rules during a free-swinging brawl and got one-day suspensions: ''All of our players served as peacekeepers. . . . The reason they came out was to protect one of their own. . . . I felt the crowd control was extremely inadequate in the arena.''
When the suspensions ultimately cost the Knicks the series, Patrick Ewing, one of the suspended five, was all set: ''They robbed me of a great opportunity.''
Newspaper people joke about their own ready excuses when subjects complain about inaccurate stories or headlines.
Reporters to abused sources: ''I didn't write it that way.'' Editors: ''I'll have to talk with that reporter.'' Reporters and editors: ''Copy editors do the headlines.'' Copy editors: ''We used the reporter's facts.'' Photographers: ''The editors used the wrong picture.''
Examples get grotesque. In the Oklahoma City terrorist trial, Michael J. Fortier excused his old friend Timothy J. McVeigh from all criticism, except for the federal-building blast that killed 168 people: ''I'd known Tim for quite a while. If you don't consider what happened in Oklahoma, Tim is a good person.''
Then there's Jeff Tarango. He's a tennis player who was a sensation at the 1995 Wimbledon match and an interpreter of his wife's supportive behavior. Mr. Tarango had complained bitterly about an umpire's call, told the crowd to ''shut up,'' called the umpire ''the most corrupt official in the game,'' accused a fellow player of getting preferential treatment, walked off the court and forfeited the most important match of his life.
Then he heard that his wife had slapped the umpire. His comment: ''Women are emotional.''
In Hollywood, actor Eddie Murphy is suing the National Enquirer over alleged lies in a story about his sexual tastes, after police stopped him with a transvestite prostitute in his car. The Enquirer said it will fight back. Mr. Murphy said he was a Good Samaritan reforming people of the street.
Celebrities do come clean. Actor Hugh Grant, nabbed buying sex in Hollywood, said: ''Last night I did something completely insane. I have hurt people I love and embarrassed people I work with. For both things I am more sorry than I can ever possibly say.''
Some people speak from a different culture. The Japanese ambassador to Peru, Morihisa Aoki, resigned May 13 before the Japanese Parliament. He had been criticized for lax security and praised for boosting morale of 70 hostages during the four-month residence takeover by rebels in Peru. His words:
''I feel very sorry that the incident, which occurred during a reception I had hosted, caused massive pain to a number of people, including those from the private sector. I am painfully aware of my responsibility for causing anxiety.''
Good collectibles improve with age. A favorite dates to 1938.
Douglas ''Wrong Way'' Corrigan blamed his instruments when he flew his monoplane from New York to Dublin rather than to California. Skeptics questioned his faith in the factual, but the 31-year-old Californian insisted it was indeed a big mistake.
''My compass went bad'' he said. ''The first thing I saw near land were some fishing smacks, but even then I thought I was off the Pacific Coast.''
And would he attend the Cleveland Air Races. ''No, sir. I might aim at the Equator and hit the Pole.'' He didn't say which Pole.
Ernest F. Imhoff, a Sun reporter, began writing this 10 years ago but editors kept interrupting him.
Pub Date: 6/02/97
