The Bell Curve:

I got a double helping of the California Angels last Tuesday — as the centerpiece of a lunch sponsored by the Orange County Forum at noon and a terrific win over the Cleveland Indians in the evening.

The Angels could have made it a sweep by announcing the acquisition of Roy Halladay or Cliff Lee as dessert at lunch, but you can’t win ‘em all. Anyway, the chicken was good and so were the four Angel players — pitchers Shane Loux, Matt Palmer and Kevin Jepsen and outfielder Reggie Willits — who entertained us under questioning by Angel play-by-play announcer Steve Physioc.

No city boys here. All of them came out of what we like to call America’s heartland. If any of these guys get sent back to the minors when the Angel’s wounded stars return to active duty they might want to consider a career in stand-up comedy instead. Ring Lardner would have loved them.

The venue for all this jollity was the dining area behind home plate in an empty ball park that always hits me as high-level art.

But the people who put the program together are members of a local organization called the Orange County Forum, which has been doing this same sort of thing for two decades, modeled on the Town Hall concept by which early Americans governed.

And which has been embraced by such organizations as the Commonwealth Club of California and the Town Hall of Los Angeles. Local members of those organizations peeled off to create the Orange County Forum when, as the Forum’s current president, Jim Leach, put it “we had a large enough community to speak for ourselves.” Which, 20 years later, led us to Tuesday with Angel baseball.

Although Forum activities include a number of byproducts, the major event is a monthly lunch that explores insights into current issues by highly qualified speakers, followed by lively questions and challenges.

For example, Leach pointed out that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has faced this audience three times — once as a candidate, twice as governor. And at the other end of the spectrum, the next luncheon speaker — on Sept. 18 — will be U.S. Rep. Loretta Sanchez.

All of the Forum’s meetings are open to the public. Attending will cost you $45 for lunch, which was pretty good last Tuesday. If you have further questions, check out the Forum’s website at www.ocforum.org.