A popular memory game making the rounds on social media goes like this: Name a dozen prominent people you met in your life or jobs you held.

But there’s a twist: One is not to be believed.

A former Associated Press colleague of mine, Cincinnati-based Daniel Sewell, challenged me to come up with a celebrity list.

Here’s mine:

—Pete Rose. Slapped me at a table at N9NE Steakhouse inside the Palms after I included him among cheap tippers.
—Baseball commissioner Peter Ueberroth. Also slapped me, after I asked him to address a report that MLB owners did not find Denver billionaire Marvin Davis suitable for ownership.
—Prince Andrew. Grabbed my tuxedo lapel and ordered me out of a Los Angeles Summer Olympics reception in his honor.
—Interviewed Eva Longoria in a closet, to get away from the noisy opening-night crowd on the opening night of her restaurant. There was a knock on the door. It was my wife-to-be.
— Hall of Fame slugger Duke Snider. Took a round-trip Denver-Greeley limo ride with him. Just me and LaNee Clarke, my niece.
— Illusionist Criss Angel. Miffed that I reported he “staged” a make-out session with Pamela Anderson at Elton John’s concert, he warned that I would need two eyepatches if I wrote another word about him.
— University of Colorado sports great John “Bad Dude” Stearns threatened to punch me out in Mile High Stadium in Denver for reporting he contributed to a bench-clearing incident in the minors. A player was injured. Stearns was his team’s manager and third base coach. At the time he was hoping to land a coaching job with the Colorado Rockies.
— Hall of Fame pitcher Tom Seaver, then with the Reds. Ran over me while “accidentally” driving a small motorcycle into a group of sportswriters in the Reds’ clubhouse.
— At an after-party at the Wynn on opening night of “Spamalot,” a familiar-looking older man tapped me on the shoulder. “How did you like the show?” It was “Monty Python” legend, Eric Idle, who wrote the hilarious spoof.
—Baseball firebrand Billy Martin. Met him at the Pink Pony steakhouse in Scottsdale. He had just arrived from Montana, where he smoked a peace pipe on the grassy bluff overlooking the Custer Battlefield. The smoke rings he created came from marijuana.
— The fiction: Seaver’s “accident."

PLAYING THE FAME GAME: MY LIST